Splitgate 2 Review

In this episode of Game Pass Grab Bag, the hosts discuss Splitgate 2, a first-person shooter that incorporates unique portal mechanics. They explore the gameplay mechanics, class system, various game modes including battle royale, and the impact of microtransactions on the player experience. The audio and visual design are critiqued, with a consensus that while the game is fun, it has room for improvement. The hosts share their final thoughts and ratings, emphasizing the game's potential and the importance of community engagement.

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Episode Transcript

(00:05):
Hello again everyone, welcome tothe episode of Game Pass Grab
Bag, your weekly podcast view games for the Game Pass
collection and bring you 3 unique perspective varying skill
range. I am the portal master of this
episode. Andrew with me, the one coming
straight from the portal potty, Keith.
Hello. OK.
Go ahead with us, our portal combat, Aaron.

(00:26):
Hey did I do something wrong? You were just.
Really delighted. Yeah.
I don't know what sounded intentional.
I was, I was trying to like a like a poop joke or something.
And and so then I just I just went with hello.
Really classy all around. Good job guys.
All right, and this week we played Split Gate 2 by 1047

(00:49):
games. Before we get into it, I just
want to quickly remind everyone please make sure you go to
gamepassgrabbag.com. Check out our new website.
You'll also find the link to ourlink tree.
Come join our Discord and our Reddit and all of our things.
We always love having people join us.
But anyway, Split Gate 2 broughtto you by 1047 games.
I know what some of you were probably saying and yes,

(01:09):
technically it's not quite a game Pass game because it is a
free to play game, but it was onthe Game Pass list.
And usually our rule of thumb isif it's on the Game Pass list,
it's free game. Do we, do we know why that
happens? Because this isn't the first
time that. Is going to be one of my gripes
in just a little bit as we get into gamer pass the.
Only thing that I can think and this is and this is just kind of

(01:32):
a guess and this is kind of judging off of what they've done
in the past as well. I think it ends up on game pass
if they offer a perk so if you go and they.
Don't. Yes, they do.
They offer a skin. There's a skin in there right
now. So if yeah.
So if you go into Game Pass right now and you look at the
perk, you get a specific Game Pass green skin.

(01:55):
I think it's for arrows. Irving.
Ronan set. You're right.
I don't think it was there originally.
I think it took a few days for it to show up, but I think
that's how these free to play games end up in Game Pass is if
something is offered. So that's my guess.
But all right, so hopefully no. No, that's that is usually
right. I mean, I figured there was some

(02:16):
correlation there. I figured it was either that
that it was on Game Pass becausethey were offering something or
they were offering something because it was on the Game Pass
list. Yeah, but either way, it's
probably because of it's a free to play and Xbox has made some
deal to promote it basically. So they said, yeah, we'll just
throw it in the game. Pass list.
So the question is who paid who for this?

(02:38):
Do you think 1047 paid to have it in Game Pass or do you think
Game Pass paid to have it there?I think 1047 paid.
That would be my guess because it's free to play.
I would guess they put a promo in there hoping to just get more
eyes on it. Especially on the Xbox platform,
most people are seeing their games by loading up game pass,
so I would guess I almost wonderas well.

(03:00):
I almost wonder that or if it's a like a handshake deal, a
little bit like a, hey, we'll, we'll do this, but you have to
make a special Xbox only skin they, you know, so you can.
But what's the benefit of Game Pass?
That's my. Because then it it bloats the
list, it's just more games that they can put in the list.
I, I I. Mean I and I mean I don't and I

(03:23):
don't say that with like a oh, there's not enough to play on
Game Pass. There is obviously six years in
on this. There's always something new.
This year has been fantastic. It's not that there's a shortage
of games, but why not add more games to the list if you can and
and put good names on there? Absolutely.
I guess just seems odd, but go ahead and continue.

(03:43):
I mean I guess a complete list of perks is the Urban Ronin set
which includes a weapon, skin and emote, a gun charm, and
bonus XP. But yeah.
Split Gate 2 by 1047 games is a first person shooter, arena
shooter, and also a battle Royale.
We are playing one of three currently.
I got to say this is season 1 currently one of three classes

(04:04):
with their own different equipment and guns that they can
have. But you are essentially it's a
first person shooter with different obviously map
objectives. But the big difference with this
one is that you have portals very much like the game portal.
You have one entry way and one exit way.
You can kind of shoot through the portal, teleport through it,
do a bunch of different things with it.
But going around of whether or not this is a gamer pass, I will

(04:28):
start with this for me. So good thing we were actually
going to record this last week and I was going to give this a
pass because this was season 1 and I was like, there is not a
lot here at the moment. There wasn't a battle Royale,
the shop was very limited, but give it another week.
There's now currently a ranked mode and the shop has a little

(04:51):
more things in it, but I still have a good amount of issues
with this game. I'm giving it a game, but
honestly just barely. I was honestly huge fan of Split
Gate one. All three of us, we played a lot
of the first Split Gate. This one really did not hook me
as much, but yeah. So I'll give it a game, but it's
barely one. I didn't I actually didn't play
a ton of the first split gate. I did play it and I played it at

(05:15):
least a fair amount I will say, but I wasn't huge on it.
If I remember, I thought it was fun, but I like many competitive
first person shooters, just bad at them and adding portals into
the mix of kind of wonky movement.
Just I get cleaned up on. Now that's not to say that I

(05:39):
don't like split gate 2, even though it is much of the same in
that regards, because I do like it and I will and I I think I'm
kind of with Andrew where it's I'm not like excited about it,
but it is a game and and it's definitely more so I think a
game I would pick up and play with friends.
I don't know how much time I would go back and spend jumping

(05:59):
in solo. There's probably other online
competitive experiences. I'd I'd rather multiplayer
experiences. I'd rather play if I'm going on
solo. This is a game, and it's kind of
a bummer that I'm saying that because this probably had the
makings of being a definite gamefor me.

(06:21):
And there's not wrong it it kindof misses the mark of where it
probably should have hit. And when you say what do you
mean by probably should have hit?
Well I have to give you a littlebit of historical context.
The guys that created this game,it was 2 roommates.
They created this game in college, which the basic idea

(06:41):
was a Halo style game with portals was the idea.
And it ends up taking off. So they kind of on a shoestring
budget, put together split gate 1.
Split gate one becomes a massivehit, but for like a year.
They then turn around and shut down the game.

(07:03):
They basically tell everybody, hey guys, thank you so much for
everything you do. We're working on the next game.
They secure $100 million to create Split Gate 2.
Now, does Split Gate 2 feel like$100 million game to you?
No, no, no, it doesn't. So the problem is, is when you

(07:26):
hear that, and now they have a full studio, they've got a ton
of people behind it now your thought process is that this
game is going to take everythingfrom the first one and just
enhance it. I don't think this game plays
worse than the first one, but I don't see the improvements to
where I say that's where they put their money because they've

(07:47):
been gone for a few years now. They've been gone I think for
three years before this one launched.
So this is kind of a bummer. I like this game.
I'm having a lot of fun with this game.
This is kind of right up my alley, but man what a missed
opportunity to come out and really knock this out of the
park. So kind of a kind of a crazy set

(08:07):
up for it. But but yes, this is a good
game. It just miss being a definite
game, at least for now. Of course it's live service so
who knows what this looks like 6months from now.
Yeah, I mean, I I kind of wantedto add the quick caveat as to
why. Also, this really disappointed
me. So this is a free to play game,
but boy howdy does this game hate to give away things for
free man where when we get to the transaction portion of the

(08:32):
since this is a free to play game, it's man that's it's kind
of very stingy. But the story of split gate 2,
obviously it's free to play gamefirst person shooter.
There isn't really one, but it looks like they were trying to
create lore. When you actually go to each
class, you kind of learn some things about them.
You find out that I forget the names of them, but one of them

(08:53):
are from Mars, so they kind of fight for the honor of Mars.
There was another one that's like the Meridians, the
Veridians, that's who was they're kind of spiritual.
They can heal people, but there's and some of these arenas
you're doing are kind of like, oh, this is a sporting event
kind of thing. So it looks like they were
trying to build up some lore, but even I tried Googling it and

(09:14):
there's really nothing here. So you're obviously not playing
this game for the story. So do you guys have anything to
add with the story or should I just get it right into the
gameplay? Well, I, I do, I'm a little bit
more invested in this game, so Imight have a little bit more
information that probably you guys do, at least generally
speaking, when the game did launch, they put out a launch

(09:37):
trailer for it, which really leaned into, oh, this looks like
there's like a story. Like it was like everyone
assumed a story mode was maybe coming because of that launch
trailer. Turns out, no, it was just a
battle Royale was coming. Instead.
There are some interesting tie insurance.
So chapter one of the first season gave us another map from

(09:59):
arrows and then we're now currently in chapter 2 of season
1 and that is Sabrasque related.So we will get another Sabrasque
map. You will notice the maps you are
on, there are some that are directly tied to the the group.
So you do, I'm assuming, play onsome of those planets.

(10:23):
So there are light tie insuranceto some type of, of bigger story
because it kind of looks like a competitive arena.
If you look at the, the launch trailer, it looks like a
competitive arena. But then they're like you said,
there's there's different classes from different planets
and stuff like that. So, but yeah, that's, that's it.
That's the story, the end. Yeah, I remember seeing the Just

(10:43):
trailer of this way when they first announced this and it was
like it looked like a straight up hero shooter.
And it's like, oh, this is kind of different.
And so it's like, all right, this, this could be interesting.
But yeah, like you said that it's just kind of all like, man,
no, there's nothing here. The the, so the hero shooter
element of it is this. This is the first area where
most of the fans of Split Gate one have now differed on this

(11:04):
game. The original Split Gate, there
were, it was it played much morelike an arena shooter.
There weren't classes, there weren't perks, there weren't
attachments to guns. So them doing that in this game,
I don't hate it. It doesn't bother me, it's not
overly intrusive. There aren't that many perks,
there aren't that many attachments.

(11:25):
It's all pretty simple. There's.
Like no, but the class bills arekind of annoying.
They can. They're not balanced.
They're definitely not balanced right now, and they're
especially not balanced now thatthey just launched ranked, which
is a problem. But outside of that, again, I
don't think I have major, major issues with them.
I think with some tweaking I it would be completely forgettable

(11:46):
for me. I wouldn't think much about it.
So when you when you're telling me that they're not balanced
like like there's like a meta ofa of like what I'm supposed to
be picking. Yeah.
So if you're playing ranked, yeah.
And you're playing hot zone, which is jump on the zone
longer. You want it, you you get it.
Everyone just goes to Brask and you do 4 walls and you sit in

(12:12):
the middle. So you can kind of just lock it
down just to Suprasque and the cool down.
I think that's probably what needs to change and they
probably just need to upgrade the cool down on that wall.
It's just a lot easier to go andjust toss that down there.
So yeah, yeah, there is a meta going on right now.
No, that about makes sense. And there's certain guns that

(12:34):
everybody's leaning towards as well.
But again, that happens in all of these games.
That's not new. Yeah, because I mean, well, so
we might as well talk about it getting into the gameplay.
So as Aaron's kind of saying, there's these three classes
which are kind of, I, I'm assuming they're like
corporations, but you have one that's kind of more specialized
in ballistic and explosives, onethat specializes in energy guns,
and one that kind of specializeskind of speed.

(12:57):
So each one of these classes have their own set of unique
items. So they all very much have like
machine gun, but you know, it obviously varies a little bit.
You know, obviously the the faster people are slower than
like like less damage but higherrate of fire.
The energy people maybe have like a little bit of a build up
before it can actually hit full speed.
So you can kind of understand a little bit of what these classes

(13:18):
are kind of representing and kind of what play style you want
to do. But essentially you are just
doing the map objective, whetherit be, you know, just death
match or it might be, as Aaron was saying, you know, a
domination game mode, a capture the flag game mode, split ball,
which is essentially A1 flag, capture the flag, but you're
trying to bring three of them toyour base and then you win the

(13:38):
round. So there's these very different
game mode. And then of course, there's a
battle Royale, which was kind offunny.
Everyone, this game got roasted because of the battle Royale.
I don't really want to talk about that story.
To me, it actually made me laugh.
But what's the story of it? I actually don't know it.
I'm not trying to be like well smart I so this.
Game, this game kind of as Aaronwas saying, there was this whole

(14:01):
secret revealed to this game that you know, people were
thinking it was a story or a campaign or something like that.
They kept talking about how big and bad, oh, this is this, this
thing is going to be awesome. One of the creators came out
during the Summer Game Fest during That's when the game.
Launched yeah, when the game. Launched.
Yes, he came out and all excited.
He wore a hat saying make first person shooters great again.

(14:23):
Of course, went out there and you know, oh, you know, we're
sick of Call of Duty and name ita bunch of other first person
shooters and how terrible they've gotten.
But we're here to change things up.
We have a battle Royale and everyone was just like, oh,
cool, The thing everyone else isdoing.
They got roasted pretty hard forthat, they added.
A battle Royale into a game thatdidn't have it.

(14:44):
So they did change things. So this is all mixed bag.
All right, so one people flippedout over the hat because it was
make FPS great again. So people flipped out over that.
Then people flipped out because the two lines he says are

(15:04):
actually genuinely true. He says I'm sick of playing the
same Call of Duty every year andthey should have made a
Titanfall three. Both of those are factually they
should have done that part wasn't wrong that the actual big
mistake they made, which it is super stupid.
It wasn't just the the battle Royale.

(15:24):
I think the battle Royale was fine.
I think people that like Split Gate are upset about that.
People that don't didn't care about Split Gate came and then
they looked at the shop. Now did you see what was in the
shop when it first launched an $80 bundle.

(15:45):
Now I will say this because they're like you can't take
shots at Call of Duty and then put an $80 bundle in your store.
Like you can't do that and fine,I'll say fair is fair.
I still will argue it's a free to play game.
I don't really care. And if you put an $80 bundle in
your shop, that's your own funeral.

(16:06):
You need to sell that to stay alive.
Call of Duty doesn't, but Split Gate does.
They need to sell things to keepthemselves alive.
If you want to price it that way, knock yourself out, see how
many people are going to buy it and you'll sink yourself.
It was a bad move and they kind of like they first, they didn't

(16:27):
double down on it, but they werejust kind of like hey, you know,
it's just a cosmetic. It's really up to you.
And then like 2 days later they come.
Back see, we didn't realize how expensive it was.
Yeah, then they kind of came back and said, whoops, a Daisy.
It's now $40. They.
Refund everyone who paid $80 at least.
Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah. They, they took everybody that

(16:48):
did pay for it. The all four people that bought
it, yeah. I saw one person actually had it
and I was like, I can't believe this person's bought that.
Well, I'll give. Them this like there's a $40
bundle right now and it actuallylooks cool.
It's the Spaceman 1, yes. Yes, it's actually.
Kind of a cool one. It's like, all right.
Is that the one for? This the fast guy?
It's. No, for Sebask.

(17:10):
Sebask the the Shieldwell guy. And so it's cool.
And his name's Yuri, which is like the the first man in space.
And I was like, oh, that's kind of cool.
I like that one. It actually looks good.
And I'm like, all right, but am I going to pay $40.00 for it?
Of course not. But somebody will.
Somebody will. But yeah, that was really the
initial controversy. Is that what you did is you
alienated the audience that already loves your game because

(17:32):
now they're like, I didn't want a battle Royale and now you're
going to split your resources between the game mode I love in
a battle Royale. And then everybody on the
outside looked at it and said, who are these clowns saying Call
of Duty sucks? And then they're putting out $80
bundles in their store. So they immediately made
everyone hate them as introduction.

(17:56):
So yeah, not a good look. Was it overblown 100%?
It was 100% overblown, I think on both sides.
But that's how gaming works today.
Like, you have to get it right. You get one chance to nail it
and that's it, I guess there. Like, I'm going to take Claire
Obscure out of the conversation for this one because I think

(18:17):
it's been almost two weeks sincewe've mentioned it, but it's
like, is there truly a game now?Anymore.
That just gets it right. Like eventually they they do for
the most part. But it feels like there's
always. Something that they come out
when a game drops. It's almost like the Internet
just has to get mad about something, at least initially.

(18:38):
I think there's there it is possible.
I think there's one a year. I think 1A year gets it.
Lately I feel like those have been RPGs like Baldur's.
Game three? Yeah, Baldur's game three
thought out. University, everyone.
Loved it. Claire Obscure came out
universally, everybody loves it.I think especially when it comes

(18:58):
to the free to play realm. And I know I, I think it is
impossible because especially infree to play, they have to make
money somewhere. So usually everyone's going to
go and and and and argue over those details, but yeah, I feel
like there's one a year and it'sa single player game, yeah.

(19:19):
That's because that's that's youknow, you have the lowest chance
of screwing that up the single player game.
No, I don't know, because again,you can still hate on single
player games. There's plenty of that going on.
I don't want to sit there and say that there's a way, people.
Don't hate things. Are you kidding me?
Once you know. Truthfully, this is part of what

(19:40):
I think sucks about gaming, modern gaming.
Part of it is on the developers.I don't want to sit there and
say the developers are all off the hook on this stuff.
Developers, they kind of suck a lot right now too.
But I think what's now happened is gamers are now so hyper
sensitive to a game not being 100% perfect all of the time

(20:00):
that they turn these small elements into massive elements
and then they turn them into campaigns about downvoting them
everywhere to just destroy. Yeah.
Review bombing is like now this like epidemic on Steam, Yeah.
People. Have never touched these games
and they'll find ways to review bomb these things so it's just

(20:20):
it's becoming a it's becoming a massive issue I think just in
the culture as a whole so good question Keith yeah I I this
game was never supposed to be perfect but it it's now it's now
got itself into a bit of a hole right now this yeah but I mean
that's. What stinks too of like because
a lot of these games have such massive budgets they gotta

(20:42):
recoup like start making that money right away because from
this studio I think I've alreadyhad a significant amount of job
layoffs they because. They laid off on the second week
they were laying off employees. That's the same.
And they announced that the two CE OS of the two college
roommates would not be taking a salary until they could get

(21:03):
everything kind of in line. And their big issue right now is
they're trying to fix the problems before they're pushing
out new content. So they're really in a struggle
situation. And you you it's hard to ignore
this just because again, this ismodern gaming.
How long is this is this going to be around for?

(21:26):
I don't like you know me in Steam charts.
You know me in Steam charts, butSteam charts did fall below 1000
for the first time. So I think on a.
Full free to play game Steam charts are fairly, I mean, and
obviously in any context, you know, everything can have some
some value to it, but I, I thinkin particular, I would say with

(21:48):
a free to play game that across all platforms, it's a pretty
telling number. Yeah, it's doing pretty good on
console if you go into the top played on Xbox and on
PlayStation, at least for a while, it was sitting in like
the top 25 on both of those, which isn't great.
It's not bad if you go to your top free to play games.
I think it was #6 on Xbox for downloads.

(22:12):
So I think it's done OK on console.
And you don't have a hard time finding a, a match.
I don't want to sit there and make it sound like you're really
struggling to find people. No, I can't get any match.
It's not instant. There is a bug in the search, so
sometimes you do get locked. You would have to X out and then
go back in. But I do want to talk a little
bit, Andrew though, about the game modes because I know that

(22:33):
you kind of made it sound like it's it's pretty bare bones.
I actually think what's offered here isn't all that bad, no.
I I I don't but I have some issues with it.
One of the the main ones I've most issue with is football.
At first I was playing I'm like this is cool I like this.
The reason I don't like it it's every game mode is round based

(22:54):
so except for AI. Think team deathmatch like team
deathmatch. Is an 8.
It wasn't a beta. It's not anymore OK.
Because football just took too long.
It's it's the first person to have three balls in their goal,
but one ball spawns about like every 40 seconds or so and it
just took you long. And then it's, it's first of
three rounds, first person to win three rounds, then it needs

(23:14):
2. So it just took too long.
No, it's. Best It's best of three, so you
only have to win two. It's best of.
Three. OK, so then.
They changed it because I remember before it was, I'm 90%
sure it was like first of three rounds, but I, I was like, this
is taking I definitely. Have had rounds, I think the
longest one I I had was like 5 1/2 minutes or so.
But it's it gets to a point where there's I think there's

(23:35):
like 2, each team needs 3 and they'll be like four or five
active balls and just keeps. Spawning so like.
There gets to a point where you kind of have to and unless
everyone's just really, you know, almost Call of Duty ING it
and just saying, you know, I'm not going to pick up the the
tags and kill confirmed or whatever and just go for the
kills. You're bound to to end around
eventually. Yeah, I, I didn't think it went

(23:59):
too long. I think the fact that that I
think a smart idea was instead of it just being one single
capture, like a capture the flag, it keeps spawning new
ones. So you you can score pretty
quick and win it pretty quick because it's also easy to steal
from the other team. But I like that mode a lot.

(24:20):
There's a search and destroy mode, which I know that's like a
Call of Duty staple. Yeah.
Which is it's fireworks. As though it's fireworks instead
of a bomb. There's.
Capture the flag, there's domination, all those are good.
Team deathmatch, all that stuff is good.
I think if I have an issue, it'sthe fact that you can't single

(24:40):
load into some of those those objective game modes.
You have to go into like a a random arena playlist, a grab.
Bag you can. Go into just team deathmatch but
the secretly like the secret really fun mode is the 8V8V8
game. Oh yeah, that looks pretty cool.
I have a lot of fun with that one.

(25:01):
So that one is, I think it's always just domination.
Oh, it's domination. It's king of the hill.
I think those are the only two modes of plan there.
There isn't like a large, you know, big team, what portal
ball, what what is it called? Football?
That would be fun. It would be hectic, but it kind

(25:21):
of reminded me of old school Halo big team battles.
Like it just kind of gives you that feeling.
But I like that it's 8V8V8. There's three different teams.
I think it's actually a lot of fun.
I think that's actually sneakilythe best game mode in all of
this. Well, it feels.
Like a mode you don't see, like I'm not not like literally, you

(25:44):
know, the exact one, but in general, like having more than
two teams, like that's not a super common game mode and and
shooters and it and it really changes the dynamic of things.
It it works in arena shooters, and I know there aren't a lot of
arena shooters right now. That's kind of a dead breed.

(26:04):
You know, existed a lot in like the early 2000s when you had
Quakes, Duke Nukem's Doom, when you had all of that.
Those arena shooters were reallypopular back then.
They're a little bit more niche now than they've ever been
before. And I think it really works in
there because there's a lot of speed going on.
I don't think it would work and like a Call of Duty style game,

(26:26):
I don't know, maybe. I'm sure Call of Duty's probably
done something like that. But I like it.
Like I think it does add a a funlittle dynamic to it.
It's a little bit more chaotic, but it's it's a lot of fun,
yeah. I mean, last week that a pretty
fun limited time mode. Did you guys play the graffiti?
Yeah. That.
Was actually pretty cool. That was a.
Good idea, Yeah, so. The way graffiti worked was, you
know, as we've been saying, it'sthe first person shooter with

(26:47):
portals, but you and you had a so the objective was to paint
walls, your team color. In order to do that, you had to
create a portal on 2 walls and then go through your portal.
So you literally just see peoplejumping around ever on the map
trying to cover it. And then obviously you want to
kill a person to slow them down.But it was actually kind of an
interesting game mode, yeah. Yeah, I had a lot of fun with
that. And that again gives me hope

(27:08):
that these guys might actually maybe have some decent ideas,
kind of. They just need to stick around
long enough to see some of thosethings actually happen.
One of the things. That's kind of driving me a
little nuts though, just because, and I guess it kind of
depends on how you guys all feel.
Do you guys hate the portals? I don't.

(27:30):
Honestly, I I use them less thanthis one I never.
I use them in detail. Because.
I'm I'm just not good at using them.
I use them for traversal. I don't use them for like
shooting when I know you. Oh, I.
Almost always uses them for flanking and I almost never for
I was I. The the one, the one good use I
found was on Splitball in particular is there was there

(27:53):
was one of the maps that there was a portal right behind each
one. So obviously you had to get a
little lucky, make sure no one would close your portal or
whatever, but throw them behind my, my, my goal and their goal,
steal a ball and run. So yeah, no, I wasn't good at
using them for shooting. I like, I like the portals.
I am shocked how many people arerequesting a no no portal mode.

(28:16):
And I mean, maybe I shouldn't be.
The movement in this game is outstanding.
Yeah. It's very, it's very close to
like original Titanfall, yeah. I think the jet packs are really
good. I think the sliding is really
good. It's not overly excessive.
It's not like people are doing G.
Slides like Call of Duty, Yeah. Yeah, we're not really using it.

(28:38):
Yeah, it doesn't feel like they're cheesing it.
Like it's actually pretty good, but you can see where a skill
level could make you that much better.
I've definitely done some rankedmodes where like guys were doing
stuff that I was like, that's kind of unbelievable.
There's a guy I watch on YouTubeand he really likes this game.

(28:58):
He will almost do what keep us like traversal with portals.
And he's doing it so fast that I'm like, my brain is having a
hard time registering what he's doing because he'll pretty much
boom, boom, peek through, boom, step back into the portal up to
where he just put the new portal.
And I'm like, whoa, I thought mybrains transferring what just

(29:20):
happened because I'm like, wait,if he step back, he went
backwards. Oh, wait, no, he said a new
portal. Oh, that's what just happened.
And he'll just do that. Just looking for people.
So he's just going around the map, just hitting these perfect
portals. I think there were more portals
portal spots in the first game. That's what I felt like, yeah.
I. Kind of remember that, but I

(29:41):
also I don't I don't feel like there isn't that many in this
game. I do find my moments where I'm
like thinking I should have a portal here.
This would be really useful for you at this point point.
I I the reason I can almost guarantee that there was more
portals than the first one because I don't remember in the
first one, they had time runs. So you literally could play the
map and you had to collect thesetokens.

(30:02):
And once you collect all the tokens, you did it because we
had a listener that would challenge me and me and him are
actually going back and forth trying to beat each other's
times. He got way too good though, and
he had a, I'll, I'll admit defeat on him.
But yeah, there was maps where he's literally all just based on
literally throwing portals like you're saying with that YouTube
and just able to traverse the whole map and collect all these
points. Yeah.
Why do they not have that? Because they don't have as many

(30:22):
portal spots. That's that was a good mode,
though it wasn't cool. Why does that mode just not
exist? I don't know because.
It was a good tutorial. I taught how to do portals in
angles I forgot. About that, that was fun like
that was kind of a a unique way of taking an their core element
of the game and creating a wholeanother thing for it, which was
challenges in which like. I said it, it worked too, as a,

(30:42):
a tutorial kind of thing. Yeah, it was very unfortunate
because I that's the other thingtoo.
I don't know, I don't think I'm crazy about these map designs.
Like there's a couple that I'm like, all right, there's there's
a a returning one with the one that's shaped like obviously
looks like a football arena. It's a kind of three story.
If you play the first one, you would definitely know it.
But yeah, there wasn't a lot of returning and I don't I wasn't

(31:05):
too crazy about this map designs.
I don't think I hate any of them.
Truthfully. I don't think if if there is one
that would fall lower on the preference scale.
I think it was the newer map which it's the library.
Yeah, I. Didn't.
That was probably my least favorite I.
Don't love that one, but I don'thate it either.
Like when it comes up, I'm not like, oh gosh, this map, you

(31:27):
know, but it sure I I find the battles to be a little funky
because of how it's laid out. It just doesn't fall where I
naturally want to have fights, but it that's it.
Everything else I I like. I don't have an issue with any
of the maps. No, I think I have to say it's
kind of the same. There's none that stood out to
me as like bad maps but none of so Ander was.

(31:50):
Wrong, Yeah. I mean, no, no.
I'm not saying any are bad, but none of them really like I could
I there's a couple in my mind ofthe first one that I really
liked and I remember playing them and I'm like, that was a
fun map. Granted, there was some awful
maps on the first one. I remember there's one that's
just super tall and it's a lot of cliffs.
It's a lot of like there was a lot of vines.

(32:11):
It was very kind of ancient. I don't know, like like Aztec
kind of designed to it. I did not like that.
Way too big. Yes, way too.
Vertical, yes, and it was. Way it was so hard to keep track
of people hated that map but yeah so I will say there wasn't
any map yes that I hated so I will say that did you.

(32:32):
Guys play much of the Is it takedown?
Is that the mode? The one where it's like it's the
four V4 and it's like every timesomeone dies, like the death
timer goes up and the whole point is to like wipe out the
team. No so so.
It was a deathmatch mode, that kind.
Of sounds like what the battle Royale is like though.

(32:52):
It is. It, I mean, honestly, it is, but
it's in, it's in an arena. And that one would.
That one was in the first game, too, if I recall.
So it's like, yeah. So it's like, I don't know if
I've played. That I think I.
Want to say it's called takedown, Maybe take out
something I think you're. Right.
I think I've seen takedown, but yeah.
That one's a lot of fun. That one's it's, it's like a
very small quarters arena. And if I recall, it's like 2

(33:13):
stories and, and there's like a bunch of like points you can
like fall off to like kind of like gaps across and whatnot.
And yeah, it's it's kind of justchaotic because you'll get down
to like the last man standing and then you'll have the timer
will be up to like 15 seconds. So if you're good, you can kind
of clutch it that not me, and you can like survive it out or

(33:35):
whatever. But yeah, it's a it's a really
interesting mode. And to that point, I actually
kind of liked the battle Royale.I didn't love it.
I wasn't like, man, this is awesome, I want to play this all
the time. But it was actually kind of a
refreshing mode for a battle Royale.
It felt like it was very quick. I liked the way that the zones
played as far as like it almost felt like it was like a square

(33:58):
if I if I could figure out the map because it like would
teleport from area to area, but they all connected.
But I what that takedown mode and what Aaron was saying is
exactly what I liked about is instead of having the respawn
points of like, all right, I gotto go pick up my friend's flag,
their chip, whatever it is, get to this thing.
It was just about getting the death timer to get down to zero

(34:19):
and be in safety. It would just automatically
respond you and it just felt like a better flow to the game.
Yeah, I mean, while we're on thetopic, we probably should talk
about the battle Royale because it's kind of like the arena is
1/2 of the game, the battle Royale is the whole other half.
I'm with Keith. Yeah, I don't.

(34:40):
Well, at this point, Warzone is Call of Duty and the multiplayer
is just this little little thingthat gets ignored.
I'm with you, though. I actually don't hate this
battle Royale. I don't like battle Royale
games. Like I think that whole shtick
is just not really for me, but this takes the core element of
what's fun about the arena. It takes the big team battle

(35:03):
maps and meshes them, but with portals connecting them.
I think that's a clever thought.I don't know if it changes much.
It still feels like what a traditional battle Royale.
But what I think is kind of coolabout it is they can close down
so that you can only go out one portal and stuff like that.

(35:24):
So there is some interesting things happening there.
The only difficulty on it, it's not very long, like it's a
pretty short game because what is there, 60 I think players.
It might be I thought it was 40 but either right 4060.
It moves pretty quick and but it's teams of.
Four, it's teams of four. There are no other.

(35:47):
No, it's it's four. OK, Yeah.
So there are no, there are no other setups.
You can't go solo or do 24 players.
OK, it's 24. I thought it was more than that,
but that might score to the website.
But what's kind of killer about that though is absolutely need

(36:08):
decent coordination. Like this is not an instance
where one guy can pretty much carry the team.
It just isn't like that. Hold on.
No. Sorry, it's 15 teams of four to
six. That's where you're.
Yeah, that's that's weird writing on their website, so.
All right, so I was, I was writing, I was like, man, 24
doesn't seem like much at all. But yeah, I think it's I think

(36:32):
it's decent. I like that.
It just doesn't. It moves so that the the
movement in there is there and then the battles are happening
all pretty quickly. The boxes.
Naturally open up, so it's actually pretty quick.
Nothing. They they level up or they
upgrade, Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't hate it
like I don't hate the battle Royale.

(36:52):
So it's kind of a bummer that they came in and it it stumbles
right out of the gate. It does have, there is an
overarching issue though that I think is holding it back and
it's really holding the whole game back.
There is practically, I say practically because they did
change some things, but there's practically no meta progression.

(37:13):
Yeah. That was my big issue, you.
Can go play a battle Royale, youcan win it and yeah, get
literally nothing. It's not even really XP to your
overall account. You do not have XP for an
account. So you could upgrade some of the
weapons you used, you can upgrade your class, but once you
hit 25 on there, you're done. You capped it.

(37:35):
They did just add 3 camo challenges for the guns so you
did have that ad, but that's it.I think that's actually the
biggest overarching issue right now.
Yes, I I because if you go play the battle Royale, you're just
doing it for the fun and that's literally it.
There's no rank mode for it yet Yeah, and it's.
I wouldn't say it's so fun that you're like, boy, I'm going to

(37:55):
go play, Yeah. It's it's not unique enough.
It's it's. Something that if you're already
online playing with a group of your friends, it's like, hey,
maybe let's fire up, you know, around of that just to mix it in
type of thing. But you're not.
You're not playing Split gate for the battle Royale by any
means. Yeah, and kind of like what I
was saying at the beginning of my wires thinking about giving

(38:17):
this a pass, I, I think this game is way too stingy.
It's a free to play game and youare barely getting anything for
free. So there is 3 battle passes for
this first season, as I'm saying, chapter 1-2 and three,
each one's kind of based off of each one of the three classes.
So each one of these battle passes has 40 items.

(38:38):
You get 8 for free, that's it. The rest is only is locked down
the premium and the stuff you get for free is a spray, a
banner, a new banner sign, a newbanner phrase and like that's
it. Oh and pro Liam coins, OK, so
all again the the transactions here, the microtransactions.
So you have 3 currencies battle pass, you have premium currency

(39:02):
and then there's pro Liam coins.I have no idea what the pro Liam
coins are for. I do.
Where I kept looking everywhere I couldn't find what to do with
it the thing. Is I have so many prolium coins
the the only place that I've seen where you can use them is
if you go there are certain weapon skins where you can
change the color on them. Oh.

(39:24):
Alternate skin various. Yeah.
So like. If your default skin is silver,
you can use prolium to make it the default red.
That's. Really stupid, I mean.
It's not I don't have an issue with it.
I don't have an issue with it. My problem is that I I one I
have so many skins now I don't need the prolium.

(39:46):
So now it's like, well, what else can I use prolium for?
So now I'm collecting all this stuff in a battle pass.
Oh. You bought the battle pass?
Of course I did. Of course you did.
If I'm going. To play a game in a game
especially that doesn't have anyprogression, I'm going to give
myself progression here. I'm going to give myself
something to go and unlock. And what, it's like 5 bucks or

(40:06):
10 bucks, I don't really care. It's no big deal.
I'll go buy it. They need to make up their $100
million but a deficit right now.So I helped them out by 10
bucks. I I.
Mean I will say like the like atleast the battle pass is cheap,
it is nicely priced. It's smart how they did it.
If you want to buy one of the chapters, you will make that
premium currency back if you buyall three of the chapters like

(40:28):
so basically pre-order the entire season 1 battle passes,
you actually will gain a little extra premium currency.
That's pretty smart. But once again, though, what was
offered in the battle passes didnot impress me.
I wasn't like I didn't care for the weapon skins.
I didn't care for the character skin.
So I was like, I don't I didn't like this.
And then as Aaron was saying, they had the legendary skin

(40:50):
starting off of it's $80.00, butof course, Oh no, it's 50% off
now it's only $40. It's out of the three classes,
it's only skin for one of the classes.
And then you get color variationand the skin for each of the
guns that they have. So it's honestly was that's not
a big bundle for $40. And the very first one was a
lady who kind of looked like a cultist.

(41:11):
This new one, as Aaron said, waskind of cool.
It's a space suit. And the weapons actually kind of
NASA space inspired. It's like, oh, these are
actually kind of cool skins, $40cool.
No, I would not spend $40 on that.
What? What?
Price would you pay for that? 10 I'd I'd usually do 10.
OK, I was kind of wonder like what the average person because

(41:32):
I haven't seen anyone with it. I saw someone on Reddit with it
so I saw one. Person here with the first one,
the cultist lady. Oh really?
This was the the Yuri skin and which to me looks just it's the
coolest looking one. I think it's the it's a mythic,
which I didn't even know they had mythic skins.
That was like the first one thatI saw.
I was like, did they just make that up?

(41:53):
To justify the. The $40, I mean, yeah,
technically, I guess anything, everything.
'S made-up. But yeah, I've only seen one guy
on Reddit who bought it and thenwas getting roasted for buying
it so expensive. Yeah.
Everyone was like, are you serious?
Did you really bother? He's just like, I'm rich and
they're like all right, I guess that's a good off answer, but I

(42:17):
don't know. To me, I again, I know I've made
this argument before and I understand in the gaming realm,
you're just supposed to hate free to play games, you're
supposed to hate on their shops and stuff like that.
My general rule of thumb is if I'm playing a game enough that I
kind of like it, I will usually go and buy something every once
in a while from there. As a I do like this game, I

(42:38):
would like to see it stick around, and this is one of them.
I do want to see these guys succeed, but we do not have
really arena shooters existing anymore.
I want to continue. I hope these guys make it, I
truly do. It's not a great state right
now, but it's fun enough that I can get on there and have a
pretty decent time playing it. I don't mind paying a few bucks

(43:00):
for it. It's got to be a balance.
Though because obviously you need players playing your game
to have people in there. Like yes, the most average
person probably will not spend money in a free to play game,
but if you're getting something,if you're getting something for
your time, it's going to make people stick around.
That's how all free to play games work.
I I play Fortnite a little bit here and there and it's like I'm
not buying the battle passes butheck I still have a boatload of

(43:22):
skins in that game from like just playing it.
Same with Apex Legends. I spent $10 on Apex Legends and
I have a ton of skins. Like, you need to have a balance
of being able to keep players inyour game to keep the people
that are willing to spend money there, too, yeah.
I you know what's actually a really good comparison right
now? Another free to play game, frag

(43:43):
punk. So because this is exactly what
they should, they should take a model just like this.
You've got those classes in FragPunk right now.
When you are playing a character, there is a
progression tree for that character.
It is free. So the more you play them, you
unlock different things for thatcharacter.

(44:04):
A different skin though. Different gun skin In this, no,
not. When you level it up, there's
it's only you only will get a skin at the Max level of what,
25? Yeah.
There's a skin and. You get a little bit of premium
currency at level 24 with each class, but there's only three
classes. So you literally, why don't you
hit all three of them? It's like you're done, all
right. Congratulations.

(44:24):
And and Frank Punk, it's like 15, it's like 15 different
things you can get per and to me, that's the stuff right?
You you need to have some overall progression systems.
I think them adding the the weapon challenges to get the
weapon skins smart. You should do that.
But you should have that for theclasses as well.

(44:47):
You should have an overall I should be able to see my
records. So you should be able to give me
how many headshots I have. Cuz that's driving me nuts right
now cuz those are what the achievements all are.
And I'm trying to track that stuff but I have no way of
tracking it. But give me stats and give me
unlockables. I agree with you Andrew.
I think that's that's smart. Give me things to go hunt for.

(45:10):
That's how these games work. The fact that that is missing
day one is a critical error on their side.
Yeah, they're like. Daily challenges and stuff are
boring. It's like an arena match playing
three arena matches. Yeah, 1.
They're busted, Yeah, they're still busted.
They they're like 5050 on if they're tracking properly.

(45:31):
They've had those issues since basically the beta and they're
they're they said that's one of the main things on their list of
we need to fix this right now kind of stuff.
But the challenge is, yeah, theykind of suck and they're not
tracking properly. So not great.
It's kind of. Surprising how many issues
you're having because this game had a beta and an alpha from
what I remember. So from I will give again, the

(45:55):
developers do deserve their flowers.
They've been very transparent, they've been very open.
They have talked everything through.
If everything's broken, they have gotten on camera and
they've talked about it. Probably to a detriment,
honestly. They've probably said things
they probably shouldn't have said, but they they basically
what I think the core issue is right now is they had circled on

(46:19):
their calendar Summer Games Fest.
That's when we're going to launch.
We're going to launch at Summer Game Fest.
And as they got closer and closer, they were not ready.
So what they did is they baited leading up to summer's Game
fest. I was in that beta.
And it launches and it adds a few things, but you're like, oh,

(46:39):
there are some things they needed to address that they just
did not get to in time. So they basically already
admitted, yeah, that was kind ofwhat we did.
We had it circled. This is when we want to launch.
It'll be a great way to launch the game.
We'll be out there in front of everybody.
And it wasn't ready wasn't readyfor prime time.

(47:00):
OK, I say all this to say I do enjoy this game and I think a
lot of people would like this game.
I I don't think you have to be great at the portals to enjoy
it. So I don't want to sound like
I'm super negative and you shouldn't touch this game.
I actually do think this is a fun game and we're, I mean, I.
Agree too, the shooting in this game is is is a ton of fun.
Top notch. Top notch.

(47:20):
I actually really, really love the gun play in this game.
Love it. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm bad at it, but that was definitely one of the things
I liked about it. Yeah, like all the guns feel
really good. I didn't have any issues with
any of them. The shotguns.
Kind of suck, I don't know. How shot like I was getting
destroyed by shotguns. I think, I think the Sabrasque

(47:41):
1, I think that one's getting nerfed because that one, that
one I think is a little beefy. The one that charges up I think
the meridians use that wasn't great.
But another thing that I like too that we miss in arena
shooters. I used to get this in in Halo is
power weapons. Yeah, love power.

(48:03):
Weapons I. I have a little issue with the
power weapons. I don't know what they are like
they appear on the map, but I'm picking up a gun and I have no
idea what it is because everything is futuristic
looking. So I'm looking at it and I'm
like, I think this is a rifle and it's like, no, I think it's
a shotgun. But there's like, I was hoping
to go to the locker room where you can kind of customize your

(48:24):
characters, customize your guns,but there's no section for the
power weapons because I wanted to look this up.
I'm like, I would love if I had a list of these power weapons
and kind of learned what they did.
Like the gravitas gun. I'm like, OK, I'm like, I think
I think this is a shotgun. And then you get the slipstream
and then it's like, oh, it's it's dual wielding.
How does this work? That's.
Awesome, you have no. Idea what's like That's my
issue. You just got to play and learn.

(48:48):
I mean, a couple of them I but Ithought they were all pretty
straightforward. So like Alex in the chat just
mentioned the rocket launcher. I mean, that's.
Obviously something I know that's.
Not one you're you're arguing, Andrew, but.
Immediately like the. Slipstream.
It was like, OK, it's dual wield, it's going to be fast and
it's going to be like like you just kind of knew SMG adjacent

(49:11):
was was kind of what you're getting.
I think there was only like the rifles and the shotgun that
might have maybe thrown me off even because then there's the
bat. The bat's easy, obviously the
sniper rifle immediately very easy.
Oh, hey, Aaron. Sorry, my camera just zoomed in

(49:32):
on me like picking your nose. And it was like, got to see
that. But like my nose, the.
Slipstream when it came to dual wielding so naturally I get in
the head of Halo so I constantlykept hitting the left trigger to
shoot the second gun and it likethat would what do you like your
equipment and it just kept screwing me up every time.
This is a it's a minor gripe. I just wish I had a codex of way

(49:54):
to look at the weapons and kind of read what they did and
understand a little bit their functions.
I think it's totally fair because like you said, when
you're talking to me now after, I don't know, I've probably put
like 2426 hours into this game. I obviously know what all the
power weapons are. So I'm like, how do you not
know? But you are right, I only know

(50:14):
that by trial and error that I go and pick him up and I go
shoot him a bit. You pick.
Up a gun called a borealis. What does that tell so?
Nothing so. Most of them are a version of a
sniper. Like there's a bolt action and
then there's a Borealis. Like they're both rifles.
The Gravitas is actually a lot of fun.
It's a shotgun, a really powerful shotgun.
It has secondary fire, though. I think the only one that has a

(50:37):
secondary fire that pulls them at you Didn't know.
That it looks. Like it looks like one of the
photon guns from Ghostbusters and you can pull them back into
you and blast them. So that that's kind of cool.
Obviously the bat is awesome. The slipstream is kind of
gimmicky. You're, you're obviously holding
an SMG and a pistol, which does damage when you're hip firing

(51:03):
and if you aim down site, you just combine it into one.
But really it's doing the same amount of damage.
It doesn't really matter. It's just the gimmick is that it
connects, but it does kind of a crazy amount of of of of damage.
But what I like about it, again,as it's, it kind of changes of
the dynamic of a map. You can see people run to when

(51:27):
they see a rocket and good gollyis it's not satisfying to run
around with that bat and just ifyou get behind people just start
bashing them over the head man, that feels good because it.
Because it's an easy hit and it's quiet.
So yeah, you can just wipe a teeth.
It's the. It's the.
Grave Hammer from Halo. Yeah, that's what it is.

(51:48):
That just just infinitely satisfying to smack people with.
Yep. Because.
It's got just that little bit oflike snap to it too on like the
the like charge of the swing. So it just, it just feels good.
Yeah, they should do an all bat mode.
Well, you can. Do custom modes.
I wonder if you could do something like that.
Yes you can. That's also another thing.

(52:08):
Oh, great, Keith, you just keep leading this thing I've seen
online I'm. Just in here, quietly leading
things. Yeah, but he always brings up
something and I'm like, Oh yeah,we should, we should probably
talk about that. The custom stuff is actually
really good in this. I've again, I've seen online
some of the stuff that people have created.

(52:29):
It's kind of sucks though that it like hasn't exploded into
something, you know? Like when Halo released Forge it
was a thing like. People got into.
Forge as its thing. I feel like this game should be
kind of promoting this as well. I forget what they call their
custom. Builder Labs.

(52:53):
But that seems like a really smart idea.
They really should lean into well because they.
Could go right into what Andrew had already said with having
like these speed trials, you could have people building their
own custom speed trials because it's one of the wildest things.
And this is what I've always loved about custom maps and
going back to, you know, the Warcraft StarCraft days.

(53:13):
We've we've talked about it before.
Is good of developers are that create these games, the fans and
the gamers themselves almost always do it better when there's
a custom game mode in there. Like they will create custom
game modes that are better than anything these $1,000,000 for,
you know, production companies will ever come up with.

(53:33):
So like embrace it and and some games do obviously.
And and so I'm with you. I think Split Gate should
absolutely take that because it would, it would be just a way to
really bring the community of the game in a game that clearly
needs the support, or it's just going to do what it did last
time. Yeah, yeah.
But she's going to start moving along here.

(53:54):
I I want to talk about the graphics.
Overall, the graphics look good.I don't care for the designs.
Everything looks like generic spaceman, like something chat
like a, you know, ChatGPT would make make me generic spaceman
shooty guys and like and so that's why I was disappointed
with the skin. Like I said, at least with the
spaceman skin, I'm like, OK, here's an actual cool design.

(54:17):
I like this. I didn't care for the skins in
the battle pass. I don't think the skins are bad.
I I don't like and I generally don't like this in all sci-fi.
Like this kind of even bothers me a little bit in Star Wars
where everything's got that justsmooth, glossy look.
It's all just kind of flat gloss.

(54:38):
And some maps on there do have some vegetation.
They do have some stuff built into it.
You know, what was their best looking map was the graffiti
version of that map. Yeah, that looks great.
It was colorful. It popped, it looked different.
I I was like, do that, do more of that, add some variation here

(54:58):
to make these levels really pop again.
Graphically, I think it looks fine.
I think it looks pretty good. But design wise, they're going
for just this real flat look to the levels of just gloss.
It has plenty of color. It's more colorful than the
first one. It's not dark by any means.
It's it's definitely bright, butI, I, I will kind of agree with

(55:22):
you. I will push back a little bit on
the skins. I do think some of the skins
look pretty good. I think you're being a little
too harsh on that. Apologize, Andrew.
Apologize to the skins. Sorry, didn't mean to offend
space space shooting men, thank.You no stop it.
But also too the audio, the audio.
OK, so gunplay sounds good, but I think another thing that makes

(55:45):
a break in arena shooter is a good announcer.
And boy howdy is this announcer very generic.
He's a very once again kind of ChatGPT of boy.
I was going to ask. Is it the?
Same is the same guy who does the voice over for all of these
because I swear it's the same same voice.
It reminds me of Halo. Like, I don't know how you can.
The Halo one's deep. OK, fantastic.

(56:09):
Like, oh, it hits you, it hits you.
I I this. Is just.
Like the same guy, I thought it was the same.
Guy, as you remember Monday night combat that guy.
Yeah, it's. Yeah, exactly.
It's like a generic like it's itsame guys like the The Finals.
If you listen to a game show esque video game where it's
supposed to be some sort of sports arena, it's like the same

(56:31):
announcer kind of generic. I don't know.
To me it's just I felt like I heard that guy 1000 Times Now.
Halos is classic. And that's what I mean, even
with like Quake, like Quake had one that was really good.
Like when you have someone who really has like a very unique,
usually a deeper voice, it hits you up more.
I think we need we need to do a full deep dive side quest

(56:51):
episode on this on arena shooterannouncer voices and all of the
different people who voiced them.
I I do want to hello Alex in thechat here though, because he
mentioned the hat at the Summer Game Fest, which we did talk
about earlier. Alex I do.
I do want to push back against people on this thing because the

(57:12):
hat is all over the place and nobody said anything to Kojima,
who wore a stinking Make Something Great Again hat when
he was going around promoting games.
Nobody said a Dang word about it, but they all seem to go
after this guy for doing a Make FPS Great again.
It's just double standards all over.
I realized. Kochima.
Had a hat. Yeah, Kochima.

(57:33):
I, I forget what it was, but he had a black version of that hat
just like the one he had, but itwasn't an FPS one.
I forget what it said that hat. It's just a a thing that exists
all over the place for a multitude of different items.
Make TV great. Again is what he had.
What do you have? I think he had make TV great
again. Yeah.

(57:54):
You should go after that guy, that Kojima guy.
That's that's The thing is thesehats exist all over the place
and everyone kept focusing on the Dang hat.
I was like, I don't freaking care about that.
Is the game any good or not is the question.
So I just wanted to push back onthat because that thing has been
running all over the place. Is the stupid hat.
And I'm like, why are we talkingabout the hat?

(58:15):
Who cares about the hat? It's the least the least
interesting thing about this story.
So. Yeah, I I know Kojima gets away
with everything. I get it.
I get it. It doesn't matter.
Kojima could go murder someone and they'd still think he's
brilliant. But anyway, keep.
Keep, keep going. Sorry.
No. You're fine.
I don't know. Do you guys have anything else
to say about the audio? I think doesn't sound great.

(58:38):
I think the music I don't like Jasmine a little crazy.
I don't really love the the menumusic, Yeah.
It's it's very much arena Poppy,kind of, I don't know, it was
you needed. Something there, You needed
something there. Yeah, it's pretty forgettable,
but yeah, the achievements are actually pretty solid.

(58:59):
It's a lot of, you know, well, there's one that kind of is
frustrating, but a lot of it is just like, oh, you get 10 double
kills, 20 double kills, 50 double kills.
Like it's it's progressive, but so there isn't anything too
ridiculous you're not doing like, oh, get a get a double
kill. Well, only being in the air and
getting headshots, so nothing egregious.
They're the only achievement that's kind of annoying was
getting portal kills, which is weird.

(59:21):
I think portal kills from what it sounds like is because it
sounds like it's like supposed to be like you trick somebody,
but you place a portal and they jump through your portal and
they fall off the map. I literally could not find a
place to do that. So it's like where is this?
Like how do you get this achievement?
I almost. Wonder because there's not.
A lot of portal areas take. The takedown map might have some

(59:42):
spots because I know there's some fall spots, but I don't
know if there's any you can actually do that.
Yeah, I I can't think of it the only way that is maybe one where
because they have the the portals that are kind of angled.
So you couldn't launch someone out like I guess you could get

(01:00:03):
them to follow you. I'm not really sure.
I thought it was you set up a portal and shoot through the
portal. But it's not because I've done
that. I've done 1000 times and I
haven't gotten the achievement yet.
So yeah, that's just an achievement.
I agree. I probably will never get that
one because I don't know. I just thought of another thing
real quick I wanted to talk about.
So I remember the they did this the first blitz gate and I
remember Aaron when we were playing it.
You're like, I am so good at this game.

(01:00:25):
This game does a really good jobat hiding bots.
Well, this time around it's veryobvious it's a bot.
Like their names are very generic.
And I don't even think it says bot, but I remember the longest
time, Aaron, you're like, Oh my gosh, my kill death ratio 6.7.
And I think Keith was like, Aaron, you must be playing bots.
No, I eventually, I eventually figured it out.
It it was actually really cleverof them to do this.
And I think they do it a little bit in this game too, where your

(01:00:46):
first few games you're playing against bots, but they're not
obvious. They were actually really
cleverly masked, so I was going off and I'm like you.
Feel. What a genius way to sell your
game so good. Oh yeah, yeah.
I felt like I I was like, I'm going pro and split gate.
Like I'm going pro and split gate and it's happening.

(01:01:07):
I was getting like and like quadkills.
Like so. What happens is eventually you
start playing people and then you're like, wait, something's,
Yeah. And then you realize, oh, you
were slow feeding me bots until.Until, you know, as an

(01:01:27):
introduction. I think that's genius.
By the way, I think more games should do that.
Multiplayer. What a smart way to introduce
your game because make people feel like 1,000,000 bucks.
I'm trying all sorts of different things because I felt
like I was untouchable. Yeah, see.
That's what Fortnite does. It's it is, and it's smart.
Yeah. Like no matter what rank you
are, there's at least a sprinkleof a handful of bots.
Because then as soon as you dropin, you're like, no, I killed

(01:01:49):
that guy. And it makes you feel good.
You're like, I want to keep playing.
I'm killing people because obviously play something Call of
Duty or Apex, you land and you get instantly smoked.
You're like, this isn't fun. I don't want to do this anymore.
No it. Was it's very smart.
It was so great. I was, I mean, had to have been
one of my first handful measures.
My bot matches. There is this guy who was on the
mic and he was just going wild. He was just bananas because he

(01:02:14):
was like triple kills, double kills and he's like laughing,
screaming. End of the match.
It would. It warmed my heart, but also
just made me laugh. Same name, babe.
Babe. You got to get in here, babe.
Check out my this man him. Calling his family is like the

(01:02:34):
best part of that. Because.
That was me. Show his his girlfriend, his
wife, whoever it was his significant other how good he
was against killing bots and he had no idea.
I if I can totally if I had my mic on I still wouldn't have
told him. I just I wanted him to just
continue having the best. I was like, he wasn't doing

(01:02:55):
anything wrong, he was just laughing, having a great time
and I I knew that he was awesome.
He probably would like 0 and 8. Just that's his heart.
Screaming. And breaking his controller.
Bless his heart all. Right, let's get to our final
thoughts here. So split gate 2, as I said, you

(01:03:15):
know, it's it is a very fun time.
It's a it's a good game. It's a very fun first person
shooter. If you don't like the the
instant kill you're kind of getting and you know, a Rainbow
6 or Call of Duty, you want something that you know is a
little bit more slower time to kill, but really fast movement,
really twitchy reflexes. This is up your alley.
This is a very fun game. I like the portal aspect to it.

(01:03:35):
It's a nice just slight twist toit.
I wasn't too crazy about the different classes this time
around. And as I said, I think the
microtransactions are a little egregious.
There's not a lot you're gettinghere for free.
I'm sure they'll maybe fix it, maybe be a little bit more loose
with it, because that's the thing too.
There's limited time events. You have to play a lot of the
limited time events to earn the free stuff that that gives you

(01:03:57):
too. Like that was also too like, I
don't know, I don't know the time for that, but the game
modes are a ton of fun here and the shooting is really good.
So this is a very good time. I think this game needs a little
more time to cook, but in the question is will it be around
for it? I really hope so.
I'm with Aaron. I would love for this game to
succeed, but from what's here itwas a nice fun time.

(01:04:20):
But at the moment I can't. I would.
I would much rather play Rematchthan this, which is saying
something because I'm way more of a very special shooter guy
than a sports guy. But I was having more fun with
Rematch so should be right now lands at like a 75.
Yeah, I, I mean, I like split gate originally.
I like I've I enjoyed split gate.

(01:04:42):
Dude, was there actually classesin the first one?
I don't remember. There wasn't.
OK, so that's a nice twist, but I didn't really do much for me
and the battle Royale was again nice, but also nothing nothing
that really moved the needle. Yeah, I think it's it's got a

(01:05:04):
fun feel to it. I would I would probably really
only play it. I think again, I said this
earlier, I probably really only play it with some friends.
I don't think I'd spend a whole lot of time firing this up on my
own. But it it's good.
It's worth checking out, I thinkat least.
Yeah, Lance rated rated of 77. I think I think very average is

(01:05:27):
is I think it was Alex who just said that in the chat.
It's pretty aggressively, aggressively average.
Aggressively. That's that's pretty spot on.
Yeah, yeah. So again, I'm, I'm banging the
drum for this game. I want this game to survive.
I, I like arena shooters. I miss them.
It's it's maybe a nostalgia thing for me.

(01:05:48):
So it's just, it's fun to have agame like this and a game that
is good like it is. The shooting is good where it
matters the most. It is good.
You know, another reason why I think I like this game so much
is I kind of miss casual shooters because it just that
doesn't exist anymore where you can just kind of get on

(01:06:11):
mindlessly go shoot some things in in a multiplayer arena and it
not be a complete sweat fest andit not be people choosing
things. I know we talked about how there
there isn't a whole lot of cheesing elements to it and like
I think that that's good, but I there obviously needs more to it

(01:06:31):
than just that. There needs to be more to the
game than just that. I don't even know if there's
skill based matchmaking in this game but that's AI mean there's.
Ranks. So kind of there is.
Ranked, if you want it, it's there.
It's not great. It needs a lot of room to grow
as well. I'm going to give this a 79.
I'll get I hope to come back in a year from now and say, oh,

(01:06:53):
it's you know, it's an 89. It's it's gained 10 points over
a year, but we'll see. We'll see if it makes it.
I think it's, I think it's worthchecking out, but you know, time
will tell if these guys can can write the ship.
They fear if it's even here and here to come back to you.
I mean, that's, that'll be the question, $100 million game.

(01:07:14):
I can't. You're going to move the budget
back pretty quickly. Well, because the first one was
this weird explosive hit, but very bright.
Briefly, yeah. Remember they had they gave like
a skin and like an emote or something like that.
It said I survived the beta because literally their their
servers got cooked because they had so many people playing.
That I have it for this one too because the beta busted again.

(01:07:38):
Oh dude. But yeah, all.
Right. But that's gonna do it for us
this week. Thank you all so much for
joining us. Thank you all the people in chat
who joined us. If you would like to join us, we
usually record on Wednesdays around 8:30 EST.
Our link tree will be in the comments.
You'll find the link to all of our stuff, our Discord, you
know, our Facebook. We're actually a lot of people

(01:07:59):
usually watch this live recorders on Facebook, but our
YouTube and then of course go togamepassgrabout.com.
Check out our website, see the games were reviewed, but I've
been a hardcore gamer host danger.
You can find me on Xbox Live at Firebird 01952.
I've been Keith, I've done nothing interesting to say.
So that's all. And or hit the music.

(01:08:20):
Love it. Hold on.
No, I'm pausing music. You don't boss me around here.
OK, now I'm starting it. Did you start it?
With a ferment. No, that's just where I paused
it. Anyway, we love you all.
We'll see you good next week. See ya.