So About Marvel Rival's........ | House Of Wolves Podcast

Episode 149. In this episode we discuss Marvel Rival's, Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, Stellar Blade Final Thoughts, 2024 Xbox Year In Review and much more!

Intro: 00:00

Marvel Rival's Impression :22:09

Indiana Jones The Great Circle Impressions : 41:30

2024 Xbox Year In Review: 54:33

Stellar Blade Final Thoughts: 01:06:55

2024 Game Awards 01:24:45

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Let them come.

(00:03):
This is their fate.
All right.
Let me get my bird man hands in there.
All right.
All right.
Welcome back to the House of Wolves podcast.
I am your host Deontay.
Here are my near and dear friends, Jalen and Josh for another electric installment of the

(00:27):
House of Wolves podcast.
Jalen, Josh, I'm glad you're here.
Glad you could be with me.
We got a lot to talk about.
Got a lot of things to go over.
But before we get started, for usual, tell the people how you've been, what you've been
up to, how's life going, what you've been playing, what you've been doing.

(00:50):
Talk to the people.
What's up people?
Yeah, we got another podcast on time this week because you know how we do, we'll come
in for two weeks and then take a month off.
But yeah, I've been doing pretty good.
This week is not as busy as the last few weeks.

(01:12):
Work is still a lot going on, but at home, we had a couple days we could just hang out
with the family, go out and see some friends, meet some other people with kids as well so
that the little one can make friends and stuff like that.
So yeah, it's been a pretty good week as far as activities or entertainment.

(01:37):
So I wanted to talk about Arcane this week, but unfortunately, I only watched the first
episode because I was going to watch everything, but I just didn't have the time because mostly
I've been playing the game a lot more this week.
I played two games.
The first one and the big one for me was Marvel Rivals.

(02:00):
I was already looking forward to it when it was announced, I guess like a couple months
ago.
And I know, well, we debated on it, like what's going to be its impact because it was just
looking like our Overwatch clone.
And yeah, from what I've played, it is basically just Overwatch clone, but it is really fun.

(02:21):
I guess the Marvel characters for me do make a big difference.
And then like it being third person, you know, a new.
So I feel like I'm enjoying the experience.
So I don't know, we might talk about it later if you all got any impressions, but I played
that a lot.
I think I got like you enjoy in the shark too.

(02:44):
I mean, when Jeff is on my team, he's not that bad, but like he is the one of those
characters that's like, it's not that he's even strong.
He's a good healer and I guess he does decent damage.
It's just.
He can be impressive sometimes.
Yeah, he can.
He can pick everybody up in his vortex and the thing is, yeah, he pick you up in it and

(03:08):
switch off the map and get a team kill.
It does pick up teammates.
I know.
So anybody in the circle can get hit.
It's just, you know, most of the time, everybody not clumped up in one way, but you know, it
is I guess that downside is not strong enough for it to be so big.
And I was looking at the hit box online and the hit box is too big as well.

(03:31):
But other than Jeff, like he's not he's not that too big of a problem.
It is like more unbalanced overwatch.
But so far it's fun because of that.
Like I don't feel like, oh, they, you know, they nursed my damage like they do all the
time in Overwatch.
You feel ineffective.
Everybody feels effective to me, at least.
We'll talk about it.

(03:53):
I know Jalen got.
Other game was Witchfire.
I know.
I heard of that game.
Is that like a isn't it like first person spells or no?
Yes.
So when it was announced, it looked like doom, except you're fighting like skeletons with

(04:13):
swords and shields like when it was announced like a couple of years ago.
But it I guess has been in development for a while.
So what it is, it's a.
Is described as a first person extraction shooter.
And when I heard that I was turned off because like the original trailer looked fun, but
I don't care about the structure shooters.

(04:35):
But what it actually is is destiny strikes with destiny guns and magic, except you're
it's like.
I don't want to say old timey, but like, you know, it looks like swords and shield type
time and there are some guns and stuff like that.
Yeah, it's it launched in early access on Steam not too long ago, but it is it is actually

(05:01):
really fun.
So the setup is like they do put you in like a destiny style strike.
You go in, you fight the enemies and when you get the loot and you do have to extract
for like the mission in.
But the weapons are pretty much literally copies of destiny weapons like they have the
Hawk Moon.

(05:21):
They have stuff like the I don't know all the new guns, but like the the famous destiny
weapons, their animations are the same.
Their weapon effects are the same, like you get a headshot and then, you know, boost your
next headshot damage.
Was that like the Ace of Spades or something like that?
And then the ability, since it's called like witch fire, you do have spells and it's basically

(05:46):
just like destiny abilities.
You throw out your soul, not so some flare grenade and stuff like that.
So overall, it is really fun.
I only played about an hour because it was like early access and I didn't want to like
commit to the game because I'm not going to play it until they actually fully releases.

(06:07):
But from what I played from that one hour, it is really fun.
They do have different classes and the weapons and the abilities, I would say, are the best
part where it does feel like you're playing destiny just in a different like time period.
It is on P.V.E. only right now, I think, but it is co-op, but it's P.V.P.

(06:29):
I'm sorry, P.V.E. only right now.
OK, yeah, that seems cool and interesting.
I probably don't I probably don't like the aesthetic for P.V.P. to be honest, but I do
like that it is a clone because I said I like the gunplay of a destiny.

(06:51):
I'm looking at it right now.
And yeah, if you know what's right now, but yeah, just to try to try it.
But I understand what you're saying as well.
Like it got some of those cool those elements that we like.
And I'm seeing there they got like a saint got your prayers, basically these different
classes.

(07:11):
So OK, seems cool.
For show, for show, for show, for show.
Anything else going on?
How's the fam?
No, as far as us, we're doing good.
It's winter out here.
We ain't got no snow yet, but it's getting cold.

(07:32):
Probably not as cold as y'all.
And then, you know, Christmas coming up, so we looking at our our bills, Christmas bills,
like how these toys about to hit, how these new clothes, new shoes, winter coats and,
you know, all that stuff.
But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

(07:53):
It's a crazy time.
What a time to be alive.
I bet y'all kind of happy for the winter, though, because it's been super hot over there
for a while, hasn't it?
Well, yeah, it was really hot in Friday up until October, like middle of October.
OK, so it's pretty cool.
Not that bad.
OK.
Oh, yeah.
OK, OK, OK.

(08:14):
What about you, Jalen?
See you on mute, so I don't know if you're available or not, but what you been up to?
Shoot, just getting ready to do this 8K, that's in Dallas.
So I'm going to go ahead and get that little run out the way.
Let me see how it go.
I ain't really had much opportunity around because it's been cold outside.

(08:37):
I'm tired of this cold, bro.
It's so warm, yo.
Yeah, it is.
I'm tired of it.
Especially in Chicago, it get worse.
Yeah, and it's just windy and stuff.
I'm like, I don't even want to go outside.
I'm not going outside.
Boy, bro, that's it, bro.
No more outside for me today.
Remember when we was over there, when we was doing that transfer?
It was freezing out there.

(08:58):
We were just trying to get from the airport to the car, bro.
That job was crazy.
How that wind was killing us.
I was like, bro.
Wait, where were we?
What the?
From New York?
I believe so.
Yeah.
I believe it was during the New York day and we was coming back and we was getting to your
car at your part to get back to Kalamazoo.
I think that's how it went.

(09:21):
I think I remember that because I feel like every time I see Jalen and you, at least,
but every time I see Jalen, there's always some sort of flight delay.
Like, all right, I'm going to drop Jalen off.
It's like, leave at 9 p.m.
He should be home by the morning.
And then I get up in the morning like I'm at the airport.

(09:42):
So are we are we just left like 10 minutes ago?
That's when Kingdom Hearts dropped.
That man was riding through that blizzard like he tried to play.
I got through that.
I was going to walk to 90 foot mile, like 40 miles per hour.
I said, I'm going to play the game.

(10:04):
OK, he said it in my car.
I'm ready to die.
It's not in my car.
I play.
It's funny.
That time for King of Hearts three.
I think I had a reason to stand up, but I can assure you, I got some way on it.
But King of Hearts come first and foremost.

(10:26):
I'm waiting on you when you go.
I think Jaleel had it or something.
I forget what happened, but it was the whole situation.
That's funny.
I was ready by the time I got to the crib.
I have enough energy to play out sleepy.
Oh, yeah, I cut that.

(10:47):
I think something happened in a download or something.
I forgot. Yeah, I was like, I had to wait till the next morning to play.
I mean, I slept for a couple hours after that.
But yeah, it's always some type of weather.
Yes, well, more so I was going about that Chicago wind breeze.
That's what was killing me.
Oh, yeah, that went crazy.

(11:10):
My ready to scream at it.
Like, bro, why are you going so hard?
I just think about it.
What's the point?
Didn't mean to derail the conversation, but continue.
Yeah, so the AK tired of this land killing me.
But other than that, everything's been smooth.

(11:33):
It's taken a day by day.
And yeah, I mean, I've been a little more consistent in the gym.
I've been waking up.
It's funny because I was talking about working out.
My cousin, he's saying something about it because I'm going to link up with him.
He's going to do the AK.
What's the group of us that's going to do it?
And he might do the fire counter.

(11:54):
I don't really know which one he's doing.
But anyway, we're going to link up because he's staying in Dallas or whatever.
And we talked about working out, getting ready for the fire.
Okay.
He was like, he's seen my Apple music.
He's seen Koran or he like, who is this dude?
I'm going to go listen to him, bro.
So he hit me back.
Like, hey, I was getting that workout in and preparing for the AK.

(12:17):
I banged bro whole album.
I'm like, man, he straight decent, bro.
I'm like, for real?
He like, yeah.
He like, why you say it like that?
I was like, I mean, I always say I got, I ain't going to say I got trash music taste.
I got particular music taste.
People might not always agree with me with it, but I'm like, you know, I'm like,
man, that's so many songs be hitting.

(12:39):
I ain't going to say I all going to be hitting stuff like that.
But I'm like, man, your songs got a lot of pain in them songs.
Probably feeling it.
So, but yeah.
So I mean, basically I would say all that to say I had listened to a new album.
I was like, somebody's song.
I had to call him.
Hey, hey, hey, somebody's song kind of hard on here.

(13:01):
So I was listening to that.
And I finally listened to Kendrick album too.
So, but game wise, still playing metaphor.
I'm enjoying that game.
I do like the little not school simulator aspect of it.
Like I didn't realize how much I appreciate that.
We not in school, bro.
I really appreciate it.

(13:22):
Like I can't so far.
I can't emphasize enough.
I'm like, man, I can actually just go to different areas and just check, go to a dungeon real quick.
I can just go into the desert.
Like I ain't saying it's a whole super expensive thing, but I'm like, man, I can do that.
You know, persona, where you going to go?
Well, if you ain't going to go to Tartarus, where you going to go?
You feel me?

(13:43):
If you ain't going to go to your school or go to the water plaza, where you going to go?
So that's on persona, persona, persona, if you ain't going to go to mementos, I don't think you're going back to one of them dungeons.
That mug shut down.
So, you know, I ain't saying some of those things still like there is just cool that it feels like a actual open adventure and stuff like that versus personas heavily influenced by the simulator.

(14:06):
And I feel like when they made those games, they like, hey, this game is simulator.
I like it was that RPG aspect to it.
They say, yeah, we should.
And then they put that on and it felt like it was added on the back end.
You would integrate it really well, whereas like, I'm not going to say it's like 10% of the game.
It's for sure.
Like, I ain't gonna say it's half the game.
I give it a small 45%.

(14:28):
Like, you know, everything else important, but, you know, I get a actual RPG aspect of the game to smooth like 45 or 40 to 45%.
So metaphor, I don't feel like that.
I feel like it's a lot more of that.
And it actually makes me want to go grind and things like that persona.
I really feel that urge to I feel like I can just walk through persona didn't really need to grind.

(14:49):
And if I just make the dudes right, the little personas and stuff, I can just beat the game without actually training or anything like that.
So, but metaphor, I've been playing that and then I play some of Marvel rivals.
We talked a little bit about that.
I'm sure we talked about it a little bit more.
But yeah, so but that's pretty much it with me.
That was long one day.
And we'll be waiting to see what you have to say.

(15:10):
Listen to some of the quarter songs because he asked me, man, listen to the man best songs real quick.
I'm gonna go see.
Yeah, I'm gonna check it out.
I'm gonna check it out and come back and let you know you did give me a list.
So I'm gonna check I'm gonna check them out for sure.
Because he's a he's a you know, one of those artists that you probably don't hear a lot or I've never heard of them.

(15:33):
So, you know, just want to see if there's anything worth checking into or tapping into or maybe you just have that unique style of, you know, music.
And that's all I wasn't trying to figure it out.
Yeah, I get it.
You got one song with me, but I can't listen to skip that delete that out.

(15:54):
Philly rappers are very young and you don't need help.
Just get rid of it.
Get rid of it.
Okay.
Well, what did I do?
I mean, we play Marvel rivals together.
We I was playing a little bit at Indiana Jones and.

(16:15):
Really just been trying to keep up with the news, making sure I'm understanding a lot of the PlayStation stuff.
You know, the Xbox year review popped out, so we got some we're going to talk about that a little bit, too.
But overall, man, I've just been chilling.
I mean, I did finish arcane.
And once we kind of get on the same page, we can kind of get a good discussion around that going.

(16:42):
But outside of that, man. Oh, I saw watching that one show.
It's like Danda Dan.
What is it called?
The Don Don or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Extra pervy. I didn't know it was that pervy of a show.
But yeah, I haven't watched it, but I heard like that's the first thing my co-worker said about it.

(17:03):
It's like this all is not all it's about, but like that's a big portion of the jokes.
Yeah, big portion, big portion.
Like, I want your banana type stuff. I'm like, what?
So I was watching that and I was like, I was like, let me check it out because I saw it.
I was watching Pantheon on Netflix and then it popped up and I was like, oh, let me check this out.

(17:27):
I don't know what this is. And it was new. And they said you would love it.
I said, you know, we like that. But I do like it.
It was pretty it's a pretty decent show.
It is it is one of those things where they do heavy on the jokes about about that.
But I still like it. I mean, it's kind of it reminds me it's so funny.
Yeah, it's still around me. I kill like you a little bit in regards to like they're not.

(17:54):
I wouldn't say it's animation style, but there's jokes.
The animation is kind of there, too. It kind of gets really, really wonky at times when they're getting into their actions and stuff like that.
But overall, I'm enjoying it. I'm like six episodes in.
I'm not I'm not turning it off. So it's cool. It's cool.
It's not something I watch. Is there action?

(18:15):
Because I thought it was just like a school dating like thing.
No, no, no, no. They're they're not.
It's action because the girl and the guy are ones really into aliens.
The other ones are really into the mediums and like ghosts.
So they both dare each other to go do something.

(18:37):
One boy, the boy get possessed by a ghost and a girl get abducted by aliens.
And they were kind of like not even on these adventures to fight different things basically and like stuff that pop up.
So they they do have action in the show.
It is about them going out and fighting stuff, but it's kind of like more so just quirky because all the ghosts and the aliens talk about is sexual stuff or sex stuff.

(19:06):
And then and then outside of that is kind of like the jokes that they have together and stuff like that, too.
So it's just it's kind of like their relationship, but they're also talking about all the other stuff as well.
So it's a good it's a good mix. Like I said, I just find it enjoyable.
It's definitely not like a top show or anything, but it's just enjoyable show to watch.

(19:29):
I think they think a lot of people were because I looked it up afterwards.
A lot of people were liking the how close it was to the animations.
I mean, to the mangas and whatever manga. Yeah.
So it's cool. If you if you're into like I would say kill like kill if you're into like what's that one more prison school.

(19:55):
I think that's what it's called. Stuff like that. If you're into that type of shows, bro, you'll like it.
I think those are the ones that they get on my radar, but I don't necessarily see them.
This one was cool. I ain't tripping on it.
But what else? What else? What else?

(20:18):
That's about it. I do that.
I mean, they're playing the games. That's what that's what really was that we hear about. Kids are great.
A lot of Christmas shopping has been complete and everything like that.
So we're good on that front. I have been buying a few more games.
I finally got the twenty dollar Gran Turismo that Wal-Mart put on sale and they never sent me.

(20:41):
I finally got that. And then I bought.
I don't know why I bought this, but I bought for spoken.
It was like ten dollars and I was like, why not?
I bought it on PS4. So now what? Yes, I bought for spoken.
I just said, I'll let you slide this. I said it twice.

(21:03):
It was cheap. Ten dollars.
I like the parkour in it. Geez.
I'm not going in there for the great. It's worth ten dollars.
It's worth it. You're going to finish it.
I probably don't. Is he going to play it?
Yeah, I'm going to play it. Is he going to boot it?
Is he going to open it? I still ain't opened up Strangers in Paradise.

(21:25):
I bought it. I'm still waiting for you to beat Dead Space.
I beat Dead Space. I told you that. Stop playing on me, man.
Now you playing on my head. Now you playing on my head.
No, don't do that to me. I beat it.
But yeah, I bought that in Avatar.
So I told you I got like two games now that I'm probably never going to play or beat, but it was cheap.

(21:46):
So I'm like, whatever. But yeah, those are those are my recent purchase that probably didn't need to purchase.
I'm still mad. I'm still fuming over that Grand Blue.
I'm never going to play because I could have bought something else, but they don't give my money back now.
So it is what it is.

(22:08):
But yeah, let's talk about some game.
Let's talk about Marvel Rivals since something we recently played and kind of fresh in our minds.
I said my little bit. How y'all feel?
How to start this? You like to match this together, right?
We played some matches and I don't want to.

(22:34):
I don't want to. I mean, I know you don't like it.
No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that there's a lot of hype around it right now.
And I feel like the justification for the hype is it's strictly around the less restrictions.

(23:02):
But there has been over the last like four days like the gaming came out that long ago.
The last four days, I'm seeing a very interesting sentiment occur where basically.
Oh, we there is a reason why we test things a lot and make sure things work properly

(23:27):
and make sure things align to work together in harmony
because just cloning something doesn't make it necessarily good
or even to the point where it's balanced.
So I'm not saying that the game is bad or anything.

(23:48):
I like Marvel Rivals. I will play.
I literally told Jalen let's hop on Marvel Rivals because he was trying to give me a play at Black Ops.
I know. Thank you. I'd rather play Marvel Rivals.
So I do like the game. I just know that I know their paths at this point.
I'm looking into the future and I'm telling you that Marvel Rivals will be big because it's free,

(24:12):
but it won't be good because it copied something.
It has to find some. It has to define itself on its own.
And I don't think it has done that, to be honest.
Like I still would default to Overwatch simply because I know what that was defining them at this point.
I know that they have probably the most balanced and well, not say balanced.

(24:37):
I say the most thought out and at least like they thought out the communication.
They thought out the control. They thought out the damaging.
They thought this through and they make these decisions based off feedback.
But obviously somewhere in the middle of that, they got crossed.
I don't see them. I don't see Marvel's having the bandwidth nor the ability to meet the demand of the groups that's coming right now.

(25:08):
I just don't. I want to harp on it and say, like, oh, let me define what that means.
I'm just telling you that what I see right now is a great game that was that's only great because it copied something that was, you know, great.
But I don't see what that game is itself. I just feel like I don't know.
Same thing with, like I said with the last time, even though people didn't like Concord,

(25:35):
I can I can at least point to why they were they trade when they tried to be different.
I can't point to another Marvel's doing that, try to be different outside of just, you know,
making it free. But that's not that's not even defining yourself.
That's just something to do. And that's what is common now.
So I say all that to say I still have fun and I enjoyed it.

(26:00):
Am I worried about the future of the game? Absolutely.
Because I just don't think it's going to last long in regards to popularity, in regards to sentiment from the community.
I think that the community is going to turn on it and say four or five months.

(26:21):
I think it's going to be like a multiverses. But that's me.
What did you feel, Jaylen, when you were playing it?
I mean, I don't know. I just I guess like you ain't got to think about the future.

(26:44):
Just think about what you how you felt when you were playing it.
I am. So just going there blindly. I know we talked about it briefly.
I keep hearing, you know, just about Marvel rivals and things like that.
Apparently, that's the only game we could get him to go play.
So we played the game with him. I don't know.
But so I'm like, all right, man, you know, I'm looking at the characters and stuff.

(27:09):
I'm like, I'm not a fan of superheroes. I'm going to be honest with you.
I don't care for them. I think a lot of them corny.
I like the community like a major glory.
Yeah, you do. It's the same thing you like major glory.
Justice friends. I hate none of these people.
Spider is a great, great justice talking about his friends.
Oh, my goodness. Friends is cool.

(27:32):
And you play as well right now.
We got Sam R.I. major.
Where is these people from? I'll talk about extra laboratory literally has a knockoff Avengers
with major glory is Captain America and they literally the Avengers.
Wait, who has this false Dexter Laboratory? Oh, Dexter Laboratory.

(27:58):
OK, they got Sam R.I. in the speeding bullet.
The big B.I.G. I forgot what it is.
Anyways, what I'm getting at is I mean, I don't I don't care about heroes, but like a lot.
Yeah, you're not that into the heroes or Marvel.
Yeah, I don't like thought a backstories and it's a B.A.
drama field and people say, well, Splash can do this.

(28:21):
I just like, bro, I don't care about hearing that stuff, man. Stop.
Anyways, so I'm not a huge hero guy.
I'm just giving that as a preface.
But I did like some of the designs like I didn't realize it's like more futuristic.
Like, you know, the Wolverine, I'm like, it was almost getting like an anime feel to it, if that makes sense.
So I thought that was kind of unique and that it was it made it more appealing to me

(28:45):
because when I see Spider-Man and all these other people, I'm just like, all right.
I mean, I'm a see the realistic version. I'm a see the comic book version of,
you know, like what we see in the movies versus the comics.
But this one felt like a like an alternate universe or whatever.
So I'm like, all right, this has a little bit more appeal to it.
So, I mean, now it's like a team based game overwatch.
I bet I really give it a shot and stuff.

(29:07):
And then just seeing some of the characters
and then some of the Marvel characters that I didn't really know exist because these aren't the ones they really talk about.
You know, most commonly people talk about the Avengers and things like that.
And then some of the other people, you know, I'm saying so I decided to give it a shot overall.
I mean, the gameplay and stuff like that, I thought it was cool.
I think it's a little bit more interesting that like there's a lot of close quarters people.

(29:29):
I mean, some people are shooting stuff like that, but there's more close quarters things.
So I have to think about the game a little bit more differently than Overwatch because the overwatch, everybody shoots.
Everybody can overwatch. Everybody shoots.
In this game, people do shoot to some capacity.
But I was playing with one bro. I forgot his name, but he got he got Ultra Iron Fist.
I'm like, bro, he got hands of the decade.

(29:51):
You feel me? I, you know, I saw I got to think about almost like I'm playing like a what they call a MOBAs like League of League.
Like, like League because there's characters like that on League.
But obviously, when you play in those MOBAs, you're looking at like top down view.
But it's still kind of some of the same thing.
Obviously, you got the minions and things like that that comes into play.

(30:14):
But thinking how these characters fight, how they need to interact, how you need to close the distance in order to like combat some of these people.
I felt like when I was playing that game, I had to think a little bit differently outside the box when I was playing because I need to close distance with Iron Fist.
And because I can't just shoot people.
So, I mean, he got a MOBA that can kind of shoot him across the stage and using the jumping abilities and stuff like that.

(30:36):
But I felt like at times I was at a disadvantage and I need to be a little bit more tactful in my decision making on when I want to approach combat and stuff like that.
So I didn't like that spin because it was a little bit different.
And I noticed that, you know, like Spider-Man and stuff, it was some of those things coming into place.
The long jet. Yeah. So, I mean, that's my impressions of the game.
I mean, I enjoyed it. I downloaded it on my Xbox and stuff.

(30:57):
I even played it on my Steam Deck when I was supposed to be spending time with my mom.
You feel me? So, the game, it seemed like it's straight so far.
Again, these are like initial impressions. I haven't played a lot of it and stuff like that.
But I feel so high back on and, you know, play with Iron Fist and I just play it on the Steam Deck.
So, I mean, if it looks better and I'm running at 60 frames and all that type of stuff on the Death Box, I mean, that's all the more merrier.

(31:22):
You feel me? So, I'm going to give that a shot.
I mean, we could circle back. So, yeah.
I'm not going to say too much, but yeah, I enjoyed it.
But yeah, I think the future of it, I'm worried about it, but not for balance or like competitive reason.
Like, I don't think it's ever going to be the same like competitive level as Overwatch.
But I also, I don't want that anymore because like my part of my biggest issue with Overwatch is it's over tuning.

(31:50):
Where like they can't just like leave it in a place where it kind of can be fun.
Like, you know, where they're not that like I want Genji to be overpowered, but it's like, you know, give everybody like something that's just like,
oh, well, Genji using his super so we can either complain that he overpowered or we can just change how we play and like just back off because characters are meant to feel powerful.

(32:15):
Like that's kind of like what Destiny was doing for a while where it's like we got builds that we like.
They're kind of maybe cheesy in some ways, but they're not OP because they're easily counterable if you know what's going on.
But then Bungie is like, oh, well, we don't like that.
So we're going to remove special ammo. We're going to remove heavy ammo and no fun for the game.

(32:36):
So just use your primary weapon and like that's not fun.
So that's where I'm at with this game right now where it feels like, yeah, they copied a lot from Overwatch, but it feels different enough because it's third person and it's fun that I don't feel like I'm choosing this over Overwatch.
But I think the micro transactions are expensive.

(32:59):
And I think that the game could always go down the route where they just mess up the game as far as like monetization or updates or stuff like that, because it is next on.
And I don't know much about next time other than it's a mobile game company.
Oh, they already have no cross progression.
Like literally if I buy a scan on this PC, I'm not going to get on my Xbox. That is already messed up.

(33:22):
That's that Apex stuff. So I'm already I'm already there.
Like that's yeah, I feel like scummy.
Their their choices like that will be what makes the community drop the game, whereas like it's fun to play with for casual people. But if they mess up just like, yeah, anti consumer stuff is going to kill the game faster than like balance or competitiveness.

(33:49):
I think because people are enjoying it so heavily and I think that most people are playing it on their like, I mean, this community is their silos at this point.
Now, there's nothing you can you can say you can play with your friends.
People. Yeah. But you can you can decide where you want to play.
You can play with your friends. That helps to the point where you're not siloed off to like your own PS PlayStation group or Xbox group or PC group.

(34:17):
Everybody can play together. It's just that cross progression tells me that that signals something else.
That doesn't signal that they can't do it signals that they want. They don't want to do it.
It just signals that that a different type of, you know, why we do certain things.
And I understand that, you know, everybody got to make money. Everybody get the licensing back.

(34:38):
You got Marvel. You got Marvel characters in your game. That's that's expensive, bro.
So I understand what they're trying to do. I just know that can pick attached to, you know, this level of I don't even know.
The biggest thing that we have is destruction and destructible, you know, maps.

(34:59):
And I went out when I kind of asked you about the maps, I was like, how do you feel about them?
It wasn't as if they were a standout moment for me in the game.
I felt like this type of mechanic really should feel a little bit more powerful, like I should be wanting to knock stuff down,
especially when I'm seeing people trying to take lanes or whatever.
And I just didn't I felt like kind of fell to the backside while I was playing.

(35:21):
I'm not saying that it won't get better over time and things like that.
But I was looking for that it factor and I didn't feel it.
So overall package felt good. It felt good to play. It felt like it was quick.
Matches were great to get into quickly. So those are all positives.
I'm looking for it factor and I'm looking for them to actually put the put the foundation down.

(35:45):
That makes me say this is the game, you know, that is going to to overtake or even even stand aside.
Overwatch, I just don't see that happen. I see that.
I see it being a little concerning right now.
And if they don't write ship soon and start to do stuff that I see that is going to give me a little bit more comfort,

(36:09):
I do feel like, yeah, your number is up.
I think it's going to be either a sparking zero situation where it's dead in a month
or it's going to be one of those multiverses situations where they have to take it offline or they have to just re-imagine it and on the fly.
Either one. I mean, I think X defined it the same thing where it had a great beta.

(36:34):
And then when it came out, they start to see, OK, why you do this? Why you do that?
Doesn't make sense. All this stuff is messing it up and now they shutting down.
So I don't want that to happen because I think that we do.
As you said, we need to lean into fun and just having an enjoying a good time because I agree.
I don't want you to go into the regular play and change stuff or even slot limit stuff.

(36:59):
You got to have a healer. You got to have is I don't want to do none of that.
Go do that at all in the ranked. Go do a different mode. This mode.
Let it be crazy. Let it be chaotic. Let me play around in the sandbox.
I just want the foundation to be solidified that it makes sense to give it time.
And right now it doesn't make sense. So that's what I'm that's where I want to get at.

(37:21):
And hopefully they are.
Hopefully a lot of this stuff can be fixed quickly because that is really where it's going to live or die.
So. Yeah, that's all I got for that.
Anything y'all want to add to Marvel Rivals, anything I saw thought was cool, felt like it should be highlighted.

(37:45):
I did see one thing online about Dr. Strange can kill his own team to get his super up.
And I was like, that's crazy. They got to fix that.
But he can like put the portal. So as you come out the thing, make the portal kill everybody.
You have his super. He go into the match and immediately has super.
So it's just one of those things where some of that stuff is like not that strong anyway.

(38:08):
I don't think his super is that strong, but it's like they could probably put some put some work into making sure that that's not the case.
So, yeah, it depends. I think that they're like the team killing stuff is something that is probably easily fixable.
But they just got to put the time in to fix it.
But I also saw what Dr. Strange where I don't personally play as them.

(38:31):
But people because, you know, Wanda, she can like go out to the field and she'll do like a big explosion.
But it's once you already know about it, it's super telegraph kind of like diva like explosion.
But Dr. Strange can use his super from somewhere else on the map activated.
She used her super before getting in teleporter, wait till the explosion about to go off and get in and right next to the people and then blow up.

(38:58):
And he was using that combo to basically get a new cough that you can't see it coming.
Gotcha. Yeah.
I mean, like I said, I think there's a lot of that stuff where I'm seeing like there's going to be some strategies that pop out.
I think the sandbox that that all these strategies are coming up in needs to stay.

(39:20):
But I think there's one thing I would say is that, oh, my bad.
You're saying about strategies. Yeah, just that's the stuff should stay like they should be able to kind of work through a strategy,
whether they want to or not in like in a play area that that's fun and welcoming for all players.
And then there is the space where you go to be competitive.

(39:42):
So I don't know if they should be differentiating stuff, but they can definitely just lock down stuff, not be able to have multiple characters of the same type or whatever.
You know, so.
No, I was going to say I was I think the good thing that I see a lot of people praise is just the art, the art style where the characters look good, the environments.

(40:03):
And I mean, personally, I like the menus.
Like, I think everything feels it doesn't because, you know, sometimes stuff feels like a mobile game or it's like it's a menu.
We got JPEG.
But this menu is kind of like so.
Anyways, I feel like the user experience of like the menus and stuff is good and our style is good.
And it makes me think back to Concord personally, where if people really just like the art style, they kind of would forgive a lot of stuff.

(40:33):
I think a lot of forgiveness for my rivals comes from it looks good and as characters that people like.
So whatever, I'll just play it via and Concord, unfortunately, had none of that goodwill.
Even if it was a better or more balanced game, I will never know.
Yeah, it's unfortunate.
But yeah, that's kind of the case that they made the right decision when you try to bring in a new IP to probably make the characters want to be like people want to see themselves as them and not some, you know, quirkiness to it.

(41:07):
The quirkiness doesn't land well when they are not established as a character.
And it's hard to kind of break those types of games anyway.
So it was a tough call.
And, you know, they live and learn.
But yeah, that's pretty much all I had on rivals.
Let's kind of move on to our next topic here.

(41:31):
And that's going to be Indiana Jones, the great circle.
I know you say you downloaded it, Jalen.
I know you I'm not sure.
Maybe I'm gonna let you say it.
Have you got anything else outside of downloading Indiana?
No, I didn't.
I have to.
It didn't finish download or you didn't finish download about it.

(41:55):
You have downloaded it.
So how you feel about it?
You have downloaded at least the download speeds were pretty, pretty, pretty top.
Nice.
I don't know.
But what about you, Josh?
Did you did you download it or booted?
No.
OK.

(42:17):
Not in my wheelhouse.
Sorry.
No. So it's on me.
Got it. Got it.
Perfect.
Well, so I did some before I played it, I did go back and watch the three Indy fields.
I mean, I've seen some of it before, but I just didn't remember anything.
So I wanted to go back to the source material and everybody kept saying they were a great time anyway.

(42:41):
So I was like, what's the point?
I got a little time on my hands when I watched the first three or the only three, as most people say.
And as I was watching them, I kind of got the point of the Indy films and I got the point of what he was and what his what his staple was at the time in 1980s.
And and beyond is it's kind of like this individual that kind of gets itself into crazy, crazy situations.

(43:10):
And I've seen the influence that pretty much a lot of the games and other games, even like Halo.
Yeah. Raider. Yeah.
Evil like these these one man armies that kind of take on everything to kind of get to what he's taken on, you know, the Nazi regime or whatever.
And it was kind of like I said, it's cool.

(43:34):
It's cool to see.
And it's cool that they was able to kind of put those movies together and some of those action shots, even a very first Indy like that.
Those action sequences and those those movie shots. I was not expecting that to be from a 1980s movie.
Maybe I'm just one is Spielberg. Yeah.
So he was he was cooking for show for show.

(43:57):
And I was like, it's Dan. This has a time. That's kind of cool.
So when I went into playing the game, I'm coming in with that whole premise and everybody gave it away.
But at the beginning tutorial area, you it's a shot for shot moments of the first film and opening sequence so that you can kind of get that.

(44:19):
We can play it in first person. Yeah. Yeah.
You can kind of experience that moments, the moments and kind of get action shot for shot for that.
I thought that was really, really cool. Great way to open it up and kind of bring the nostalgia back.
And also you do a nod to the dedicated fans that kind of knew what that was anyway.
I thought that it was the game was really, really polished outside of like having like a and this is my new because I was playing around my settings.

(44:50):
I'm moving my PC to my TV and I'm having HDR issues.
And I was like, that was just me because basically I'm trying to work through windows to get the HDR right. But just the way I want it.
And I tweak all that stuff. So anyways, after I got all that set up pretty much smooth selling, didn't have any issues.

(45:13):
And I got through that moment to moment action and then kind of got introduced to the gameplay.
To me, it felt like this honored a little bit, but it also feel like it's just like sneak tactics.
It's like you're basically sneaking around. You can get into physical fights, but it feel like I don't know.

(45:35):
Maybe I haven't played enough, but it feel like you kind of want to do a mixture of it all.
I think the biggest thing that I kept coming back is I rather just sneak around.
But to me, the combat at least felt fun and engaging to play with.
Like there was it felt like I if I got into a fist a cuff with somebody, somebody might be coming right behind a corner.

(45:58):
It felt like I had some suspense to my fights. I bet I don't know if it was, you know, imaginary in my head.
Oh, shoot, I'm punching this guy and now this other guy for the cum or something like that.
Or if it was really that just that creating a level of tense, tensity or intense in the scene.
But I felt like it was I was enjoying it.
I was sitting around there really thinking like, oh, shoot, he might see me.

(46:21):
So maybe I should approach it a different way. And it had a bunch of different ways.
Like the first opening part is a bunch of different ways to go about doing something.
So it really did feel like dishonored and gangs I played before that kind of give you a bunch of different ways to tackle one scenario.
Which I thought was really, really cool because I ended up going around and then find another pathway that I could took went up the freaking like another scale, the wall to kind of get into sneak into this Vatican place and or the Vatican, the Vatican place to sneak into there and everything.

(46:59):
And I thought that was just really cool.
I was more impressed by the polish of the game than anything.
I didn't I don't expect that much from both as the but I know that that was I know that that's a different type of company.
They do the they do the Wolfenstein's and all that stuff and they do pretty, pretty polished and then they had the ID tech.

(47:24):
So it ran like a dream play like a dream and it's smooth.
Right.
And then they had this very good looking game like the jungle looked really good.
The the Vatican looks really nice.
The lighting is really nice because it is ray tracing and it all runs really, really well on my PC, of course.
So I wasn't really having any issues.

(47:47):
I think the biggest thing that I saw was that on the Xbox version, the global illumination and like how it works.
It does seem brighter on everything versus how I was playing it, because I like the ray tracing implementation on the PC.
That's why I'm literally playing on the PC simply for that.
So that would be one thing if you can choose between PC or Xbox.
I would choose the PC simply because of the better global illumination.

(48:11):
But so far, so good, man.
I like the conversations that's happening.
I like the cut scenes.
They really seem high definition, like really well done.
The character models, I didn't.
It's like you can't tell how good the character models are on these on YouTube.
Like like when I was literally playing it at 4K, they really look really good.

(48:34):
But on YouTube, it just I don't know, man.
Ain't got that Sony lens.
Sony got a better lens than that, bro.
I don't know what they do.
But whenever I play it on, I see us only game I can tell.
Maybe they just over exaggerating people's pores and all that crap.
But when I was playing it, I was like, they look a lot better than I expected.
I thought it was going to be like a little glossy and like not super high realistic, but they look really good.

(48:59):
So I was surprised by how well the game looked.
So all that to say, I think the overall package is going to be decent.
A lot of people have been saying that that this is really surprised them and has become like winter game of the year.
A lot of people are saying that it's just really been great to it embodies the Indiana Jones experience.

(49:26):
I haven't felt that moment yet that it like embodied the Indiana Jones experience.
I just feel like it's a really good game at this point where like maybe I'm not.
I haven't gotten to the points yet where I'm feeling like, oh, this is real Indy or this is really what he'll be doing right now.
Or this feels like I'm I'm in.

(49:47):
It just feel like a really good game.
So that's where I'm at with it right now.
I'll let you know once I beat it, which I'm going to try to get some more time in over the weekend and things like that.
But for now, I believe it at that unless you got something to add.
How do you how do you I guess have you seen a reception at least or anything about Indiana or is it just is it just me out here on my loan?

(50:15):
So basically. Yeah, I seen like some real basic impressions.
Digital Foundry said like it looked good.
And then like I saw some of the gameplay like the intro stuff.
So overall, I think it looks looks pretty like authentic to my Indiana Jones experience.
And that's good for me.

(50:37):
I just wasn't interested because I didn't want to play first person Indiana Jones games like I know the Wolfman sign games get raised, but I never played them.
Yeah. And they're more well, like, doom.
You know, it's like it's shotguns and snipers and stuff.
Whereas like those games, they're they're a little more creative, I guess, with their weapons, like using the whip or like a pickaxe or like other stuff like that.

(51:03):
So just it was harder for me to like just wrap my head around like, yeah, I can't wait to hit Nazis with my whip.
Like concept wise, well, I actually like how the game feels to play.
But that being said, like, I do like Indiana Jones, like I watched the old movies like when I was younger and like I know, like it inspired a lot of stuff.

(51:28):
It's like I like Tomb Raider. I like Uncharted.
So there's no reason to say I wouldn't like the story of Indiana Jones.
It's just, yeah, like it's not on my priority list for right now, at least.
Yeah, that makes sense.
I think that I'm glad that it's it's it's happening like it's a day.
I think that it's it's a one thing I did because I did end up watching skill ups and what he kind of said resonated with me in regards to

(52:00):
a different type of action adventure because I'm so used to third person.
I feel like when somebody doesn't do that, I'm like, you're kind of doing yourself a disservice.
But I don't know this experience and how good it will be at first person, because most of the games that I used to play in this type of mode, they didn't have strong stories.

(52:24):
I don't feel like Doom had a strong story. I don't feel like Dishonored to me didn't have a strong story.
I don't know. I mean, everybody probably said as Blasphemy.
I don't think it was a strong story.
I felt like it was a decent enough story, but it was kind of like one of those things where it was more shooting guns and stuff like that.
So I do kind of want to see a good action adventure story wise in this format grounded in a real world setting.

(52:52):
So I'm just engaged with it now like that. That's all.
I'm not saying that it's going to be great. I'm not saying it's going to be perfect.
I'm saying I'm engaged with it because I haven't had a real world setting in the first person in a very long time.
And it hasn't ever been in this level, like heavy of a budget.
So I'm interested in seeing what they do to make this unique.

(53:13):
He spoke to a little bit of that, but you guys can definitely go check out his video.
But overall, I think for me, those were the two things.
Those are the key things that I took away from it as I was watching it was like, OK, that that that gives me the buy in.
Because I mean, I was going to play it anyway, because I thought that, you know, this is what Xbox is presenting us for the fall season.

(53:38):
We need to play it anyway.
These are one of those things where you want to talk about it, because if you haven't played, you ain't got no reason to be talking about it anyway.
Just like we never talked about Spider-Man because nobody played.
So I'm trying to go play it back now and we can talk about the backlog, which I kind of finished stellar blade, which I'm probably can give my impressions.

(54:01):
So we can have a discussion about that today, too.
But, yeah, it's just one of those things where, you know, want to play it, want to make sure it has some some value that makes me want to play it.
And I think it has at least hit that mark.
So let's see what it does after that.
OK. Was there something else?

(54:23):
Let me double check my notes because I want to make sure I'm missing something before I go into the other stuff.
Um. Did you all do your 2024 year review rap yet?
Did you look at it for Xbox?
Yeah, I have not looked at it, but I probably could log in and look at it.

(54:46):
What about you, Jay Bezey?
What you do is you take out your 2024 year rap.
No, sir.
Ski. I'm going to put it in.
No, there you go.
Right there.
I said I'm about to put in the what's the name for you so you can go straight to it.
Straight no chaser.
I just put it in this school.

(55:08):
What's that man?
What you mean? What that mean?
I mean, we on a broadcast, you click the link and you tell me I mean the hours.
What's your highlight game?
I'm pretty sure it's the same for everybody on Xbox at least.
They saw I'm almost I'm almost 100% sure you'll see when you go there.

(55:31):
Probably multi versus.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah, it was a big zero hours at a game in 2024.
That's because you actively avoided it, sir.
My schedule change. That's the main reason.
But yeah, I ain't trying to fall asleep.

(55:52):
Oh, my God.
I call it the sleepy souls.
You're just sleepy, sleepy bros.
That's Jalen favorite.
No, he top, you know, he top.
I guess if you don't want to spoil the top one, did you have any other highlights on yours, Deontay?
Well, I'm trying to log into this highlights.

(56:14):
Nah, like it was really bad for my Xbox versions.
I ain't gonna lie to you.
I mean, I had I've had I had one hundred and forty seven hours.
That is not a lot of hours, to be honest.
That's like less than an hour a day.
I think if you if you can't know, it's like less than I don't know, like 40 minutes a day.

(56:41):
So like, it's it's not that great.
It's not that big.
And most of it was on PC.
It was 83 hours on PC.
Oh, so it counts your your PC hours.
PC, Xbox. Yeah.
So if you're on the Xbox app, it count that too.
But yeah, it wasn't great.

(57:04):
Cloud only had like 45 minutes because I don't use that cloud that often.
And Call of Duty was up there and.
Overwatch, because those were the ones where I play sometimes.
But number one should be on everybody.

(57:27):
JB's. All right.
I mean, my.
You said what?
What you say, Jay?
I was wondering what Josh's number one was.
Oh, what's yeah.
I mean, I guess you can go first because I'm pretty sure I'm almost positive everybody got the same number one.

(57:52):
It's the only game we played together that we know of that was like a long game.
Oh, no. Oh, Xbox.
No.
What's OK to say?
What's yours?
So my number three is Hellblade 2.

(58:14):
Oh, wow.
How many hours?
That's nine hours.
I know. I was talking about how many hours total time.
Yeah, get there.
My number two.
Expose my number two is Call of Duty.

(58:36):
OK.
Model Warfare 3, but they counted as Call of Duty.
Yeah, they do count as Call of Duty.
My number one is Minecraft.
Minecraft. Oh, my God.
You mean Blind Eye Graham?
That's his wife.
I do teach a class and we play Minecraft in class.

(58:58):
So I got 60 hours from work for playing Minecraft.
Oh, that might be on there.
Minecraft.
OK.
But my cloud is like two hours mobile, which I don't even know what that would be.
It's three hours.
PC 71 and console 20.

(59:20):
Oh, wow.
Because you might not remember I sold my Xbox in March.
I forgot.
I got the most hours on Xbox this year.
So my total is 97.
Stop it.
What was your total, Deontay?
147.

(59:41):
I'm at 97.
What's your total, Jalen?
It's a 84.
That's because you was playing multi-racket.
New on Xbox.
Remember that podcast some time ago?
We were talking about who put the most time on the Xbox, who stayed true to Xbox, who
went down and sold the Xbox.

(01:00:02):
We'll be playing that mug.
That's me.
That's me.
I was really hoping you would be the highest.
I was really hoping you would.
All right.
Because you.
Y'all wanted me to get an Xbox and I played it, didn't I?
I played it more than y'all.
And I kept it.
I kept my Xbox.
I kept mine on every day.

(01:00:24):
I probably got more hours on the Xbox than I do on my PS5.
So did we.
Definitely.
I ain't even won it.
You ain't definitely got to say what.
What's your number one game?
I don't even think Josh played Persona if that's what you're getting at.
Yeah.
Well, my Persona is at number four.
But no, I haven't finished it because I beat that game like five times already.

(01:00:48):
Yeah.
Yeah.
My multiverses.
I got 192 hours on that mug.
Jesus.
My.
Oh my God.
That man cook it.
He got a hundred and twenty-two on that one game beating us.
I got a hundred and forty-seven total.
I'm going to beat my 100th fan in the world.
Oh my God.
Yeah.
Well, I thought it was going to be Persona three for all of us because I didn't think

(01:01:11):
you played that multiverses on your death bug.
I thought you played on the PlayStation.
So it's not a play X mark, bro.
You know, it's the best place to play.
Oh my God.
Oh, yeah.
I don't force me to get it and I feel like my home.
Like home.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Anyway, well, well, that that backfired a little bit, but it's still funny because

(01:01:37):
persona three was mine.
I had 50 hours on that and then I had Call of Duty and then Overwatch.
But most of the time, you know, I'm playing that on like I was playing on stuff on
Overwatch.
Mostly it was on PC anyway.

(01:01:58):
So wait for the steam rap and we're going to do the PlayStation rap.
But I thought it was funny to kind of get the first year in review that we got and that
was Xbox and probably the least played console of mine for sure.
So, you know, I'm not that far behind.

(01:02:20):
Total time with your hours.
I'm not that far behind.
Yeah, more forty seven.
I mean, to to be fair, I was looking at the other day looking at it again.
The series S because I was still playing my Xbox.
It's just what I didn't need the series X.

(01:02:42):
I need Xbox.
You did need the Xbox.
You explain Call of Duty with us.
You play what's name with us.
It was a few games we were playing together.
What you talking about?
You need that.
I need Xbox for that.
I'm playing all my my third game is for Jedi for an order with 16 hours.

(01:03:04):
Well, what you want me to say?
I'll be playing more overwatch than any of that.
So I'll watch and call it doing on my PS5.
So I know.
So we're going to see when that rap.
We're going to see how many true hours and where you were your real, real loyalty really reside.
Because I know it ain't always.
Man, we're going to see about it is I played my Xbox two times.

(01:03:31):
The moment you play you and Johnson combined actually.
You're not you're lying.
Now, who was your total hours?
You said one ninety two.
Now you saying it's going to be nice and something crazy.
No, it's two eighty four.
OK, yeah, it is double.
Yeah, I can join forces.

(01:03:53):
I still got more hours.
I don't know, bro.
I got a hundred ninety two hours.
He's sitting on the screen.
You know, I play some of your in-game hours.
How awesome top one hundred fan in the world.
Bro, you just you just sit there.

(01:04:15):
You just be sitting on the screen.
Stop it.
Stop.
Why don't you?
How I check in game time is anywhere to do it.
I don't know.
It's probably your stats somewhere.
You know, stats somewhere.
They don't stats.
So where I mean, you got three hundred hours in the game.
You don't know where that is.
What I said, you know, I'd be in there playing with me in our screen.

(01:04:36):
You know, they put you in matches that breakneck speeds.
You ain't you ain't got a time to go to the bathroom before you're in a match.
You you finish one match, you run to the bathroom.
You you got Seahorn screaming on where you at, man.
My bad.
I have to go to the bathroom.
I was gone for 30 seconds, 50 seconds.

(01:04:57):
I'm in another game already.
Then die twice.
I'm like dying.
What are you going to do?
This is a game trash.
But you know, you put you in a game fashion, be boxing with people.
It'd be funny.
Maybe this is a funny game, man.
Funny game, funny times.

(01:05:21):
Yeah, it's quite crazy, actually.
But OK, well, I mean, we'll get to the next one.
Unfortunately, Jalen wins this round.
We will be I'm going to look at the look at the steam one because I know I'll probably go in that.
And then there's going to be the I don't know if I'm winning that one.

(01:05:42):
It might be Josh.
OK, I think the the other place is one.
I think Jalen Miami on ours, too.
It might be pretty bad out here.
But anyways, I know.
Oh, yeah, you can move on.
I was going to say minus most likely Final Fantasy because the game was unfortunately a million hours.

(01:06:06):
Yeah, I just started that not to yesterday when I finished celebrating.
Oh, Jalen gave us an update on that in a good minute.
You know, he ain't playing that.
Man, I ain't played that game.
Oh, my God. Yeah.

(01:06:29):
Was it not captivating or was it just like it's too long?
I mean, at this point, it's time it's time too much time or what?
I mean, it was cool. I just ain't play it since May.
I'm going to go back and play it.
But I just think it take it take a lot of time.
The movements flow just off like change.

(01:06:51):
Yeah. OK.
Well, let's talk about Stellar Blade then, because that's what I wanted to kind of.
Get in there as well, because I finished that and.
I wanted to kind of give my updated thoughts on Stellar Blade after finally beating it.

(01:07:14):
I mean, here's what I'll say about this stellar blade.
It was stellar.
It was.
I didn't I didn't hate it as I played it.
You know, I just felt like I could I could have had a better experience playing something else.
I'm not saying that Stellar Blade is a bad game.
I just felt like, man, if I'm if I'm choosing what to play,

(01:07:38):
I wouldn't have played Stellar Blade if I knew if I knew exactly where I was going to end up with the game.
I mean, I thought the ending the last like four hours was the best hours in the game in total.
I felt like the writing was really like poor.
I understood where it was going.
So even though intuition like my intuition was basically to pick the right end in any way,

(01:08:04):
because I knew where they were trying to get me to go or at least the true end.
And I don't know what they you know, I did enough for the details.
I didn't have to go back and play it again.
I didn't have to go watch nothing else.
I got the true ending based off my actions and what I wanted to do.
And I was like, OK, cool.
So I just kind of cut the game off and I'm probably not going to put her back on again.

(01:08:25):
But what what at least I can say is conceptually, I understood what they were trying to go with the game.
I don't know if I would play to, to be honest, like I kind of judge the base off that would I play another game like this or would I play the sequel?

(01:08:47):
I the only thing I truly liked was the cosplay and outfits and the last couple of fights.
I thought that was hard.
I was like, bro, you're taxing me now on these difficult on the difficulty of these couple of end fights.
So I'm sitting there and I'm actually having to sit up and like, you know, watch for stuff and make sure I got all their time and down.

(01:09:15):
None of the other stuff had me doing any of it.
Like I wasn't I didn't care.
I was just sitting there.
Shoo shoo shoo.
But shoo shoo shoo.
But I wasn't even paying attention most of the time.
And I had enough potions or whatever to always survive whatever was happening.
If I mess up, I mess up 20 times.
Nobody cared.
You mess up one or two times on the last fights.

(01:09:37):
I'm like, OK, this is more, you know, Dark Souls.
I feel like they're going to take that and kind of run with it.
I don't know what they'll do, to be honest, on the next game.
But I feel like it had some value.
I'm not going to harp.
I'm not going to just downplay like I didn't.
I had the worst time.

(01:09:58):
So I wouldn't have played it.
I would have cut it off immediately.
It was more so.
Yes.
Not the greatest of time.
It was like this could have been better in so many different ways that I feel like y'all should take another stab at it and I'll be OK with tagging along.
That's how I felt about it.
Yeah, I think that's what I said when I finished it, too, is I would play.

(01:10:22):
I think they did good enough that I think that they deserve or they earned a sequel or at least I'll be I'll look at the sequel.
Check it out.
Because I didn't really like the story, but graphically, it looked good.
It ran well.
I thought the bigger budget cut scenes all looked good.
The game visually was appealing.

(01:10:44):
And then those last few fights I felt were very interesting.
So if you could give me more of that, like that type of combat and less of the open world stuff, less of the city building and all that type of stuff, I'll be happy because those were your strengths.
So yeah, I'd say they played their strengths in the sequel.

(01:11:08):
I would enjoy it.
I think the story will still be trash.
But who knows?
Maybe they actually get a better writer.
And the sequel has a good story.
You know, sometimes it happens with series.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This when I was playing a story like I felt like I don't know if this is like a translation thing, but I feel like it's still it would be bad in Korean.

(01:11:32):
Like, is this a chat to PT story?
Because it's kind of like, bro, they were also not good.
Yeah, it was super predictable.
And it was also really poorly delivered.
Like, there is bad delivery.
And then there's what was Stella Blay was doing.
Like, literally, I couldn't tell if they were angry, sad, upset.

(01:11:57):
I just thought they were always just normal.
Like, even when they are telling a joke, I didn't know it was a joke until after, like, the joke was ended because it does not even.
None of the way they deliver those lines and send you a that anything was play play.
It felt like everything was monotone throughout the entire sitting of their voice acting.

(01:12:20):
Like, I felt like I don't get any emotion from any of this.
I can't pick.
Yeah, I remember it was a joke in translation.
It was a joke about her outfit is like, why you dress like a stripper or something?
And then she's like, oh, that's how it was built.
And then it's kind of like dead silent.
Like, that was supposed to be a joke.
But OK, I'd be like, bro, I don't get it.

(01:12:43):
I don't get it.
So so that was kind of one of my biggest problems.
I did end up playing a little bit more of the the the open world stuff and like Finnish and stuff, honestly, because I was just sitting on.
I was I would that was the game that I can go run and do all the random stuff because I just felt like, OK, maybe they give me an outfit.

(01:13:08):
Right. And I'm just chilling.
And I'm I'm not I'm like halfway not paying attention, watching something else.
And I'm just kind of like getting their little chores done because I thought the difficulty was low.
And the amount of stuff that steps in most of these quests were very miniscule.
So I'm like, OK, if they give me a cool outfit or something, I'm cool with that.

(01:13:32):
And I go play it. Right.
So that was the only reason I did more than what I wanted to.
Obviously, none of it felt like it was beneficial by the end of it.
The only thing that you kind of the only reason to do is to get the true ending.
After you do so many of those quests, you get like a bar on the top right.

(01:13:53):
And if you know, you know that, you know, yeah, even the training is like it didn't feel worth it because you had to like the information.
So I just want to get to the end of it. And I know it's going to be like extra two minute cut scene.
I think the training is better because it gives more, I guess, more context and like there's an end on like a stupid cliffhanger.

(01:14:14):
But yeah, I am worth the hours.
I would say I did to get it. I mean, to be fair, I hit the requirement without noticing it.
Yeah. Like it's pretty easy to get to.
It's just like, oh, well, now I got to go out of my way to do these extra quests.
And I kind of just want to go to the end. Yeah.

(01:14:36):
Because I don't care about these side characters. Yeah.
I'm assuming that that whole sector nine thing wouldn't have happened if you didn't do it right. Yeah.
You know, you don't go there if you don't do it, which was a very long part of the game.
And I thought, OK, if I didn't if I knew if I didn't if I knew what I knew before that, I probably wouldn't have done it.

(01:15:00):
I didn't think that it was that intriguing. I liked it.
The whole glasshouse thing we got there. I thought it was really cool.
Like, OK, they got some they got a little different type of scenery.
I thought the roller coaster stuff was cool.
So, I mean, like I said, they kept having like these very high, very lows like throughout the whole thing.
And I was like, yeah, I can't hit us.
Yeah, I can't hit a pulse to save your life.

(01:15:23):
Like a steady pulse. Like they just kept going up, down, up, down, up, down.
And it felt like I was just like, OK, by the end of it, they kept hitting that up for me.
And that's where I was like, I give you another shot, bro.
But you got to change this. You got to do this better.
I got to see it in the trailer because I don't see it in the trailer.
I'm not buying this game yet because there was.

(01:15:44):
Yeah, they they need more of what they kind of hinted at it with like you seeing like the the government or the god or whatever.
But writing more of those Android girls will be more interesting because like I was saying is that the one fight.
Like you can get Perry, she has all the same moves as you that really turned up the difficulty and made me made it more interesting.

(01:16:11):
It's like I got the Perry. I got the move where I can dodge behind her.
I got it. So instead of just hitting her a bunch of times and using my like charge abilities, she don't Perry.
I got to pay attention and think like to her moves like when is she open?
When she can't can she pair me? Is it a good idea to actually dash behind her or she's just going to me as soon as I do it.

(01:16:35):
Right. So that was yeah, that was definitely the most interesting fight.
And as long as they can give more of that, I'll be happy because like most of the monster fights I've finished like in my first life, whatever, you know, they weren't too hard.
They kind of just big monsters watch their telegraphs and stuff like that.
But actual like challenging enemies made it. It's not like Sekiro, but it was aiming for that.

(01:17:00):
And I feel like combat system was it felt good. What was there?
And if they can polish that, make it better.
I think the sequel would be interesting, at least for the gameplay, like combat.
Yeah, for sure. I think that they have a lot of good things going forward enough to make me feel like.
Especially for their first like console game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

(01:17:29):
What was I going to say?
I don't know if I'm giving Eva a pass because she is nice to look at, but I really did like hate her a lot.
And I was like, I was like, I know it's not that she was a bad character per se. I just felt like, man, I kept comparing a Bayonetta somebody.

(01:17:53):
And I was like, Bro, they got personality. They they they they they they're nice to look at, but they actually have something to say.
I just didn't have nothing to say. I was like, what is it?
I didn't have anything to say. And even when she was like, you know, trying to become more human, it felt really like not even like not even a good robot pretending to be human.

(01:18:16):
Because, you know, some shows is like it's a robot, but they got human emotions and it comes off good because they do a good job.
Like she she's a robot, but her emotions still feel fake. So I'm not going to give her a pass.
No, that's yeah, I guess like she's a robot and then she gets more human over time. And it's like you can you can kind of relate to her over time because she's getting better at it.

(01:18:38):
It's like Eve is just like, I guess day one to the end. But she's this the story is telling you now she's more emotional, but it doesn't feel like it, bro.
Come on, bro. You I felt like from day from from day one, I met you to the end of the thing, even when you got your whole transformation and all this stuff, you still showed little to no emotion.

(01:19:01):
And I felt like it was probably due to poor writing and delivery. Like, honestly, like if there was supposed to be some transformation and her really feel like, oh, I need to say these people, I need to do this.
I need to do that. Like, given her moments to showcase something different out of like, who the world like, honestly, she felt the same or talked the same throughout the entire freaking thing.

(01:19:23):
There was no transformation to me. So it felt like the only people Lily did a better job of portraying, you know, like coming out of the trends of the you know what they are and everything.
But more than her, and I just felt like, are you really just here to look pretty? That is ridiculous. That is sad that they did not do nothing for you.

(01:19:50):
So I don't like her, but I'm not going to say I probably won't say I hate her. I just felt like it was just really, really bad for the main character to be worse than Jen from Ghost of Tsushima.
And like, and you most saw you more so coming from a different like, you know, that Western that that non Western background, they usually animate their characters to try to make them be like more than more than anything like, like, give them tropes, but they just don't know, man.

(01:20:27):
That was crazy.
Like a lot of people is comparing it to near Tomitomo and it came out. One thing I will say is like I'm like, I don't like the game, but I feel like the acting like the characters and the voice actors were actually really good in the game for like an anime style game and comparing it directly to 2B.
Like, y'all probably don't remember, but like 2B is the same story arc. She's a robot. She works for the government of robots and then, you know, there's some sort of twists and there's some conspiracy and some people are evil, and then she switches sides and blah, blah, blah.

(01:21:00):
Anyways, like her voice acting and stuff like was way better and it came off more like authentic in there was like, I think the writing is so great. They want to tell that same type of story, but they don't know how to write it and they don't know how to direct it in the voice actress.
Maybe the voice actress is good, but she doesn't know how to deliver when the source material is not good enough.

(01:21:25):
Yeah, for sure, bro. I was like, I said, get this woman off my, I was like the outfits give you more personality than you could ever say out your dang mouth and that's crazy.
So I was just like, bro, that's, that's insane. So I just kept harping on that as I was playing it because I was just like, she ain't really saying nothing to me.
And I was, and that's why I was able to kind of play it without even like sound for a while because I was like, I'm just go do the missions. I can read the stuff because even if I read it, I'm probably gonna be able to perceive more emotion and she's gonna ever deliver.

(01:21:58):
So that was kind of one of those things where it's like, it got bad. And I really want to
Yeah, I like the, because I think you fight like two, I forget what they call like Eve, like robot girls. Oh yeah, you fight the one in, yeah, Raven and the one Taki, Taki. Yeah, Taki.

(01:22:19):
I think they have more character and emotion than even like they kind of more interesting characters than you. Yeah, especially when you like, I'm giving a little bit away, but you like, I mean, Eve was, she had moments where it felt like
there was something there, but it was really so far and in between that I give, I discredit all of it. But when she was fighting Raven and she made a decision to like, keep her alive to see everything. I thought that was like, okay, I see something here.

(01:22:52):
I just felt like the delivery in writing was not in her favor. That's all. And I feel like that really made me hate her. And I was like, well, hopefully next time out, y'all have better writers, y'all have better actors to portray what you're trying to get across, because she should have been on the earth for a while.

(01:23:18):
She should have went through some stuff. She's had been fighting, whatever. I feel like she's had a little bit more of a glow up in the sequel than where she was today. Yeah.
And I think emotionally she should be more invested in protecting because it was like their mission and then she had to come to reality that to choose the mission. So I'm just hoping that I'm hope I'm just hopeful, but I don't want to put my hopes up too high for the sell blade too. But that's where I kind of left it. That's where I'm at with it. Seven, seven, not 10. That's where I put it.

(01:23:56):
I think I gave it seven too. Yeah.
So, it really did. It was like a five until that last like sequence and like going to space, doing all that other stuff. I thought that was really like atmospheric and dope. So it kind of boosted it. But if that stuff never happened.
Yeah, I've been cooked.

(01:24:18):
That's it on there. Is there anything else that we wanted to cover off on? Oh, predictions for the game awards. That's the last thing I wanted to talk about.
Game Awards. Do y'all think there's anything that's going to surprise you? I mean, I've seen the borderland stuff.

(01:24:39):
And I can kind of go through with this polygon and we can discuss if y'all ain't got nothing. But anything y'all thinking will show up at the Game Awards that you're anticipating or interested in seeing.
Talk to me.
So, I'm a I'll go first because I'm at the ramp up and keep going. Okay.

(01:25:04):
So, there's always rumors, but the Switch rumors are out and about. Personally, I don't think they're going to reveal anything at the Game Awards. I think that Nintendo, they're kind of back in their bag where they want to do something their own.
I don't think we'll see anything from Nintendo really. From Xbox, they might have some. They should have a lot of stuff to tease. I don't know if it's anything coming out soon, but you know, maybe show off some fable.

(01:25:35):
Maybe more against the war. I think it's too soon for Halo. But Xbox, I think will have the most to tease for next year. Unfortunately, I don't think Sony will have anything to show off big unless they want to show off like Ghost of Tsushima, but I feel like that's still a ways away.

(01:25:56):
And as far as like smaller stuff. Yeah, like next season of more arrivals and all that type of stuff. But for me, I think it's going to be a pretty light as far as new announcements for like big first party deals.
We've probably see more from third party would be my, my guess.

(01:26:17):
Okay.
Yeah. Um, I know there's a lot of stuff out there currently as of today, and there was a lot of things that could be rumored. But to me, I feel like there's not much going on or in the gaming community right now I know that there's the mafia, the old country they already said they're going to be there, I think Borderlands 4 said they're going to be there.

(01:26:45):
And that's pretty much it. I really don't have any
anything else. Oh, Hazel Light Studio. These are the people that made it takes two and one game of the year.
So, that's, that's all I got. I mean they got they said something about a Warframe, Power Worlds, in a dying light.

(01:27:07):
But, honestly, I only play mafia three, and it was only semi enjoyable because it was like Louisiana.
But I didn't like that game at all.
I don't like the mafia series. Unfortunately, it's not.
It's not a good invitation of what I'm looking for anyway so I'd rather play GTA.

(01:27:35):
Yeah, I don't know what's coming, but I can say that Josh you on the right, you're right there in regards to
Xbox being the main focus to be for this night, and then probably coming in after that would probably be Gearbox and a bunch of third parties.

(01:28:00):
So, the Game Awards come out, what 730 Eastern Standard Time on December 12 so that will be the day after this uploads.
What about you, Jaylen?
Any predictions for the big game award show you watching it? We streaming it? Seven o'clock.

(01:28:26):
Seven o'clock, I'm not sure why not.
Well, that's 630 for you. 630 Eastern Standard Time on a Thursday.
But yeah, yeah, well I may or may not stream the show.
It depends on how I'm feeling, but the Game Awards is a very long show and yeah, I don't know about that.

(01:28:50):
We will see. Anything else to add there, Jaylen, before we get a body here?
Nah, I'd probably get to Spartanose version there. Check up with people, I don't know what the wide feed.
Yeah, pretty much.
I don't want to say I don't want to watch it, but at the same time it's a long show.

(01:29:11):
So, we'll see. I might just throw it on in the background, pay attention to it when I can.
But yeah, that's pretty much it. I want to thank you guys for watching as always.
If you enjoyed it, please don't forget to like, share and send it out to whomever you think will enjoy.

(01:29:35):
You can catch us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, you can catch us on Spotify, you can catch us on, I think, Google Podcasts and switch up to YouTube.
You can catch us where you find your podcast. I appreciate you as always.
And we will be back next week with more topics, more things to discuss and more ideas or basically what we've been doing over the week.

(01:30:00):
So, thanks again. See you next week.
Peace.