Episode 132 - Halfway Through 2023

Somehow we're already halfway through the year 2023, so Jason looks back at the first half, recaps the bonkers month of June, then previews the rest of the year to come. Hide your wallets!

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
Hello, and welcome to episode numberone hundred and thirty two of the Chief
Steaks and Controllers podcast presented by FoxPHL The Gambler one or two point five
FM, fourteen eighty AM, iHeartRadio, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Where you're here in this right now. My name is Jason Finelli. It
has been a while. I understandthat I said we were coming out of

(00:48):
hiatus, just to go right backinto hiatus again. We tried a live
episode of Cheese, Steaks and Controllersover Twitch, which worked to an extent.
I still have to work out thekinks and the bugs in all of
that, but so far, I'mfeeling pretty good about the year. And
that's what we are going to talkabout. Is why I wanted to come

(01:10):
back and record this episode because theyear twenty twenty three is about half over.
July the first is Saturday. Thisis going live on June thirtieth,
which is Friday, and that isthe halfway point of the year, if
you would believe it. We arealready halfway through the twenty twenty three and

(01:30):
there has been a lot to talkabout in video games, and not so
much esports because esports is becoming increasinglyirrelevant if you ask me. But that's
a whole other episode. But there'splenty of talk about. So we'll start
things off by going through the firsthalf of the year. We'll devote the
entire second segment to June because Junehas been nuts, and then we will

(01:53):
end with a look forward for therest of the year because all of the
sudden, the second hand of theyear is loaded with games to play.
Yeah, we thought the first halfwas loaded, and it is to an
extent, but the second half ofthe year, oh boy, they really

(02:14):
want us to play every single videogame we can get our hands on and
our wallets Ken's support. So let'sget right into it by talking about the
first half of the year. Andhonestly, there are a lot of games
here that I forgot even launched inthis particular year. There were some indie
gyms like Pizza Tower. If youhaven't played Pizza Tower yet, that came

(02:38):
out back in h I want tosay January is when Pizza Tower hit.
Maybe it was the beginning it wasthe end of last year, but it
started to pick up steam in thefirst in the beginning of this year.
But that it's a very very fun. Like some people are calling it warrior
Land for essentially the warrior Land wenever got, which is really really cool.

(03:00):
Also as a banging soundtrack. Ifyou haven't heard that, you're hearing
it right now underneath me. Avery very cool game. Had a great
run at Summer Games Done Quick earlierthis month, if you want to check
out how to play it really fast, but a very interesting sort of retro
platformer slash Metroid Vanya. It's alot going on there, and one that

(03:22):
took a lot of people, includingmyself, by a surprise. As far
as the other side of the coin, there's four Spoken, which came out
to huge fanfare and kind of didnot deliver as it was supposed to.
That I would say this is oneof the more contentious games of the year
even now, even going into July. Four Spoken has its supporters, has

(03:45):
its detractors. It did not reviewterribly well if I remember correctly, It's
sitting at about a sixty three orsixty four on Metacritic, which is not
ideal but also not terrible. It'sit sounds like it's very much in the
eye of the beholder, which youknow happens from time to time. But

(04:06):
that was really cool. Also,let's not forget the year started with an
absolute bomb of a shadow drop atHigh Fire Rush game. And I use
bomb in the terms of not itbombed bomb in a you know, magic
the gathering because I play that nowsense of like it came out of nowhere
and completely changed things and everybody lovedit, or came out of nowhere with

(04:29):
no expectations and everybody now loves it. High Fire Rush definitely one of the
best surprises of the year. Thatgame is so much fun, rhythm based
hacking slash, great storyline behind it, great character is great everything. A
great surprise to start the year anddefinitely a game that I would recommend if
you haven't checked that out yet.Dead Space Remake another big year for remakes.

(04:51):
Dead Space started the year off withsome spooky fun we'll get into one
that happened a little later on inthe year, which continues to be one
of the the best games of theyear. And then in February we had
another big remake in Metroid Prime Remastered. Shadow dropped out of nowhere at the
end of a Nintendo Direct and Iwant to say February the twentieth, maybe

(05:14):
the eighteenth. Somewhere in there inthat second year, a second week of
the month is when that dropped outof nowhere, like it was a shadow
dropped on digital. The physical versioncame out a couple of weeks later,
but Metroid Prime remastered, something thatpeople have wanted forever, is now available
to play on your switch, whichis super cool. Not the only remake

(05:35):
we'll be talking about from Nintendo onthis episode, but that will have to
wait until later on. Also inFebruary, we had a bit of a
slower of February the eighth is whenthat Nintendo direct was. It was not
the twentieth Sorry about that. HogwartsLegacy February the tenth, and all of

(05:58):
the controversy do controversy of course,um that came with it. I have
not played it. I just don't. I just have no interest in it.
Part half because of the controversy surroundingit and the creator of Harry Potter
and all of the uh DO criticismand deserved criticism that she gets, and
that's putting it very very lightly.And half because Harry Potter was just never

(06:23):
my thing to begin with. I'vewatched some movies. I understand that it's
a big cultural thing. Just wasn'tfor me. But I would actually,
I wouldn't say fifty fifty. I'dsay it's probably more seventy five twenty five.
In them, the creator sucks,the creator sucks favor. That's a
that's a word. That's a word, that's a sense. Can you tell.

(06:44):
I've been on hiatus for a whileand I forgot how to talk.
Um, It's yeah, it's beena minute, but I hope you missed
me. I missed you, guys. Underrated gem in February would be Theorhythm
Final bar line. I say underratedeven though it I think it scored like
an eighty seven or an eighty eighton Metacritic at Open Critic. But if
you love rhythm based games, HiFi Rush if you like something like that
but not quite the hack and slashypart, more like a DDR or a

(07:08):
guitar Hero where you have to matchthe notes. You're not playing an instrument,
you're not dancing, you're using thecontroller. But it takes you through
the entire history essentially of Final Fantasythrough its music, which is you know,
nothing to shake a stick at.Final Fantasy music is incredible and always
has been so Final bar Line seemingto be like the big celebration of that

(07:29):
franchise until it can, you know, rebuild the stocks a little bit more,
because I don't know that there's aSquare Enix RPG that that game doesn't
touch. Now with all the dlcout it's added Zeno Gears, it's at
a kroto trigger. I believe there'ssome Octopath in there as well, so
I don't know how much more ofthe rhythm can really do. But it's
a very very cool game. Ihighly recommend that you check that out.

(07:53):
Another big release in February that Ikeep tending to forget about just because you
know, it hasn't really made thatmuch of an impact, PSVR two PlayStation
VR two exists and I just keepforgetting about it. I don't want to
forget about it. I love thePSVR one, but PSVR two, I
guess it came out too expensive,the games that came out for it were

(08:15):
not as groundbreaking as people as somany would have hoped, and it's just
kind of there. I don't knowif they expect late adopters like with PSVR
one. I didn't adopt it,I think until two years after it had
launched, and it was at aheavily discounted rate and came with like three
games or something like that. IfPSVR two is in my future, it's
not until something like that happens.But Horizon Call the Mountain, the flagship

(08:39):
launch title, apparently, is prettygood. Nothing to write home about,
but pretty good not to mention.You know, Horizon Forbidden West was still
pretty fresh, and then Burning Shoreshas come out since then, so there's
been plenty of Horizon content to goaround. So I'm not sure what to
think about PSVR two where I sitright now. I hope it can pick
up. I hope I can getmore users into it, but until it

(09:01):
does that, I don't see theprognosis improving for it anytime soon. A
couple other interesting titles that launched inFebruary, which was a surprisingly loaded month,
Atomic Heart, the weird first personshooter. For that, I also
had a bit of controversy surrounding itwith a Russian developer, Wild Hearts,

(09:22):
which was EA's take on EA andI think Ninja theories take not Ninja theory
EA, and who was the otherdeveloper on Wild Hearts why? And Omega
Force. That's it? Sorry,I get those two mixed up all the
time. Omega Force's take on MonsterHunter, which apparently is very good,
like a dragon Eshan Blood Bowl three, Kirby's Returned to Dreamland Deluxe, I

(09:43):
feel like returned to Dreamland that wasgot a switchport this year. Octopath Traveler
too, Destiny two. Fans werehappy with Lightfall as far as I understand
it. February it was a bigmonth, lot going on in that month
as far as new games to play. We're concerned kind of set the tone
for the rest of year, butthe biggest month was still to come and
is still to come, and that'llmake sense as we go on. Moving

(10:07):
on into March, Woe Long FallenDynasty came out to some a Plome did
not review, I don't think aswell as they wanted it to, but
still considered to be a decent enoughsort of action RPG hacket slash short of
thing going on there. I thinkit's more going for like a Nio than
a Dark Souls, but still apparentlya pretty cool game after that, kind

(10:31):
of had a bit of a darknot a dark a light spell until w
W two K twenty three in Marchseventeenth, which came out and improved on
the already improved two K twenty two. So that's trending upward. You love
to see it. Let's hope thatkeeps happening somewhere in here up there.
It is March twenty fourth, wehad ourselves Resident Evil four remake, probably

(10:58):
one of the most popular games ofall time, completely remade for the new
consoles, and apparently I haven't finishedit yet, but from what I've played
so far, I can't attest tothis the most what's the word I'm looking
for, the most faithful to itsoriginal out of the Resident EVO remakes so
far, And what I mean bythat is Resident Evil two had a lot

(11:20):
of tweaks to it. Resideval threehad some tweaks to it, not many,
but some. Residental four basically sticksby the book of how the original
game went. One of those ifit doesn't if it's not broken, don't
fix it sort of things. Itis updated, of course, combat is
updated. All those things are updated. But as far as storyline is concerned,
it is very faithful. It doesn'tdeviate too far. It doesn't add

(11:43):
too much to the original tale,which I thought was an interesting approach,
especially when Village had just come out, and Village and Resideval four seemed to
have this connected tissue, right.They're very similar and esthetic and setting and
stuff like that. So I waswondering if there would be some sort of
overlap between four and eight, Butyou did not see that Them Will Be

(12:07):
the Show twenty three. Baseball alwaysalways a big, big mover here.
I love this version. I loveThem Will Be the Show this year.
I thought it was a very verygood version of the only authentic simulation baseball
game that there is. Not theonly baseball game that came out this year.
There is one out now that isgood for the arcade types, but

(12:28):
as far as simulation goes can't beatit. Another underrated gym that might have
gone underneath your radar but should nothave, and that's Dredge. So you're
on this like little boat and you'refishing, but there's also some psychological horror
going on. I don't want toget into it too much, but it
is a very interesting game to haveon your radar. Also, Packs East

(12:50):
happened around this time. Got togo back to Boston for the first time
in a decade. For Packs Eastwent with John Jansen. We talked about
that earlier in the year. Ihad a lot of fun. I gotta
get John back on to talk aboutwhat he's playing and where we are and
what he's looking forward to in thesecond half of the year. Maybe next
week before all the cool interviews start. What a tease for the rest of

(13:11):
the month. But yeah, Dredge, go back, go check out Dredge.
That's definitely my underrated gem. FromMarch April started to slow a little
bit. We still had ever Spacetwo finally launch on PC's if you like
vast Space exploration with a little bitof you know, customization on your ships

(13:35):
and stuff like that. It's avery very cool game, dog Fighting in
Space, full three hundred and sixtymovement, super super awesome game. EA
Sports PGA Tours, so we havea golf game for the first time in
a couple of years from EA Sports. Finally coming out this year, Tron
Identity and very underrated, I wouldsay, or perhaps passed over visual novel

(13:58):
by the team behind Volume Bithel Games. Bithel really seems to understand Tron.
I really like the way that theywent with this, and I hope that
we see more of that soon.I know that it does sound like it's
chapter based. There's going to bemore to it. They're gonna build more
to it. I'm looking forward tothat. So whatever they decided to do

(14:20):
after this, I like where thisstory ended up. I think it could
have been a little longer. Ididn't last as long as I wouldn't have
wanted it too, but I didenjoy playing it. I think I gave
it a seven out of ten ongame Spot. I'll go back and check
my score, but that's a verycool game that I highly recommend. If
you have like an afternoon and you'relike Tron or he's just like a good
visual novel, that is a goodone. MegaMan fans got MegaMan Battle Work

(14:43):
Battle Network Legacy Collection. I knowmy friend Ron was very happy with that.
Two one here and one later onin the year two big time League
of Legends stories, those side storiesthat Riot Forge has been creating. The
Major Seeker was the first one ina role developed by the team at Digital
Sun, which was awesome. Ilove that game very much. The second

(15:07):
half it takes a while to getmoving, but once it's moving, man
game is great. Mage Seeker issuper cool, and then Convergence in May
also very good, but that's lessa action RPG and more for the Metroidvania
players who like games like that.But both are very good, and I
continue to say this. I lovewhat Riot is doing with their world building.
I absolutely love it. You builda franchise for ten years, you

(15:30):
give yourself hundreds of characters literally tocheck out. Now it's time to build
on that lore with Arcane and othergames. And this is so far.
I think they're three. I wouldsay they're three for three in games with
Ruined King, Mage Seeker, andConvergence. Minecraft Legends also came out.
That one has been off my radar, just haven't had a chance to play
it or a desire to play it, but it sounds like it was pretty

(15:54):
good. Advance Wars one and tworeboot Camp finally launching after a year most
of its original release date held forthat long due to the conflict in Ukraine
and Russia. Nintendo wanted to berespectful of that, which I completely understand.
Also, very very good game thatcame out to much. Definitely represents

(16:14):
the Advanced Wars games very well.The second of three remakes we'll talk about
from Nintendo coming up. Can youtell them excited? About the one we're
going to talk about the second segment, Can you tell Anyway? Dead Island
two also launched Love the demo atPaxy's. Haven't been able to sit down
with the full version yet, butapparently that impressed people more than it it's
predecessors did, which is always agood sign. After so long of being

(16:37):
in development hell, for it tocome out and do pretty good is makes
me happy, So I hope thatkeeps up. End of April's not really
much happening, but I do havea Star Wars Jedi Survivor was a big
one. Sorry I did miss that. One that's April twenty eighth snuck into
April. I thought it was May, but it was April twenty eighth.

(17:00):
We have two under the radar gamesyou might not have heard of before that
have been huge. One I personallyplayed and one i've heard nothing but good
things about that I have to sitdown with. The one I haven't played
is Cassette Beasts role playing game.People are saying it's fantastic stuff from Bitten
Studio and ral Fury. I gottaget on that. And Omega Strikers,
which is like a League of Legendsmeets Wind the heck is it wind Jammers?

(17:26):
Excuse me? Three on three witheveryone having different powers and stuff like
that. Interesting start of Amalgamation playeda little bit of about Steam. Want
to check it out on iOS seehow that works on my iPad, But
like what I played so far.Also Hanki star Rail, the follow up
to Sorry Again should impact from theteam at llio verse that came out in

(17:49):
April as well. Don't want toforget that. And then we're into May.
May started out unfortunately with a bigdisappointment in Redfall, probably going to
go down as one of the mostdisappointing games of the year, just considering
the pedigree of the studio that madeit versus the product that came out.
There have been things that have comeout since that have talked about, you

(18:11):
know, some tumultuous times behind thescenes and stuff like that, so there's
definitely a reason for it. Doesn'tmake it any less disappointing. And then
made the twelfth May the twelfth everythingstopped, the world stopped, every nothing
happened anymore because the legend of ZeldaTears of the Kingdom came out. And
if you thought elden Ring was popularlast year, Tears of the Kingdom has

(18:33):
exploded across social media thanks to itsability to build things. If you're not
a builder, if you don't likeMinecraft or things like that, there are
ways to get around that. Thereis a hidden power somewhere in the game
where you can make templates where insteadof actually having to build everything, you
build it once you save it,and then you just you know, have
it auto build whenever you want itto. But aside you know, opinions

(18:56):
on building or not. The gameis phenomenal. The story is really well
told. Gannendorff is a badass.I still have to beat the fourth dungeon
and the game I'm not even atthe end yet, but my goodness,
am I having a good time.And I'm told that the ending ending set
piece is completely exhilarating. So Istill have a lot to go and I'm

(19:18):
having a good time. So ifyou're if you're haven't played that yet,
I suggest you get on that assoon as possible. If you don't own
a switch it's a good reason topick up a switch light and pick up
Tears of the Kingdom, pick upa Breath of the Wild while you're at
it. But I don't want tomake it. It seem like that's where
the game releases ended in May,because there's not Humanity, a very interesting
puzzle game from Thha and Enhanced.Enhanced made Tetris effect and Tetris effect connected,

(19:41):
so that's a really cool game.Lego two K Drive a good racing
game for children because it's you know, build your own cars and raise some
stuff like that convergence League of Legendsstory, which I talked about earlier.
Was May the twenty third, aWarhammer forty K retro shooter like an old
style doom first person shooter came outcalled bolt Gun. That completely shocked me.

(20:03):
I really want to play that alittle more. But what I've played
so far is awesome Star Trek Resurgence, which is notable because it's from Dramatic
Labs, which is a team madeup of old Telltale devs, and it
plays that sort of narrative storytelling butin a Star Trek theme. That's one
that's on my radar to play aswell. And then another disappointing game,
perhaps the second most disappointing game ofthe year, in Lord of the Rings

(20:26):
Gallum. Now technically this game scoredworse, so you may say that this
one is more disappointing than Red Fall, but I would argue that I don't
think many people expected Gallum to begood. It was still worse than expectation,
but I don't think anybody expected itto be actually good. No offense
to the developers. Red Fall atleast had some pedigree behind it, which

(20:47):
is what makes it more disappointing inmy opinion. But so we had Gollum
coming out at the end of themonth. System Shocks remake is now out
on PC, another very good stuff, and then we're into June. I'm
not going to get into June untilthe next segment. I will talk about
some of the releases right now thathave already come out. Just in the

(21:10):
first week of June. You hadStreet Fighter six, which was fantastic.
You had Supermaga Baseball four, whichis great arcade style baseball, Diablo four
which people are putting hundreds and hundredsof hours into, and then from there
we have more that we'll get intoin the next segment. June by itself,

(21:30):
between the games that launched and theannouncements that were made, was bonkers,
and that is where we're going togo in the next segment. So
that was the first couple months ofthe year. We'll talk about June next,
as I said, and then we'llget into the final half of the
year, or the second half ofthe year, which is just absolutely oh
man. There's a lot of videogames to play between now and we dropped

(21:53):
the ball on twenty twenty four.We'll talk about that later on in the
show. Stick around. All right, welcome back to Chief six and Controller's
episode number one thirty two. Weare trying to get into now the month
of June twenty twenty three, whichthis go go out on June thirtieth.
June, will be ending as oftomorrow when you're listening to this. But

(22:17):
as far as the game industry isconcerned for the rest of the year,
lots of things to like. InJune. It was a pretty pretty crazy
month for the industry. It's certainly, but set out announcements all over the

(22:42):
place. It started with, well, we'll get into the announcements first.
First, let's talk about the gamesthat launched this month. Already talked about
Street Fighter that first week. We'llreview that one more time for those that
are somehow just tuning. In thesecond segment, we had Street Fighter six
and Superman Baseball four. We hadDiablo four and that was just the first

(23:03):
week, and then getting into therest of June, we had Crash,
Team Rumble, we had Final Fantasysixteen, Sonic Origins, plus aw Fight
Forever, Story of Seasons of WonderfulLife. Just Everybody Want to Switch is
out today for those who like them, Ghost Trick, Phantom, Detective Master,

(23:26):
Detective Archives, Raincode. It's justan absolute loaded month. Dave the
Diver came out of nowhere with abunch of nines that it's a phishing adventure
for like a slash cooking Sabata.That's one I got to really sink my
teeth into. But the month wasloaded with releases. We had plenty to
play to begin our summer. Butthen the gaming gods decided to bestow upon

(23:51):
us a bunch of announcements too,most of which shaped the rest of the
year. And again in the finalsegment we'll get into why. The second
half the year was already loaded andall this did was just bloaded even more.
But um, let's start with SummerGames Fest twenty twenty three Jeff Kiely
Keiley festum went two play days thisyear and was in the in the arena

(24:12):
for the Summer Games Fest Live.Had a blast if I could speak on
that real quick. Summer Games Festplay Days was basically a two day block
party for video games. It wasin this place where they had a whole
They had a whole block basically ofdifferent buildings. They rented out all different
buildings, but they're in one uhlike social area. Almost kind of reminds

(24:37):
me of like the Filmore in Philadelphia, which is, you know, only
only Philadelphia people will know that.But the theater is like outside there's all
these little restaurants and walking areas thatyou can go to. It kind of
reminded me of that, but imagineall of them were filled with video games
to play. It was a bitof heaven not gonna lie. It was
very very cool. Um yeah,the main room with all the demos in
it. You had some side roomswith other you know, presentations and demos

(25:00):
and stuff like that. Just areally really cool thing he's got going there.
Pretty pretty happy with how that turnedout. But as far as the
theater presentation was concerned, the bigannouncements were Prince of Persia of the Lost
Crown, which started off the thingbrand new Metroid Vanni, a Prince of
Persia game, which sounds pretty cool. First gameplay of Mortal Kombat one,

(25:21):
which I got to play at playDays and then again during the stress test
over the weekend, and that gameis shaping up quite nicely. I love
the cameos system, love how they'regoing to be able to juxtapose putting classic
characters with classic moves into the modern, new, sort of rebooted era.
I love how the cameos can flowin and out of combos very quickly.

(25:45):
The fatalities, of course, they'realways good. So Mortal Kombat one definitely
one to circle on my calendar.Sonic Superstars a brand new side scrolling Sonic
where that brings the old format toa new age, which looks really really
cool. Lies of Pa is finallycoming out later this year. That's the
Pinocchio Bloodborn, Blood Born Pinocchio,which is two things I never thought would

(26:08):
go together. Saw a full blowouton Alan Wake two, which again coming
out this year. Are you seeinga theme here? Marvel spider Man two.
Got a little more gameplay of thatearlier at the PlayStation Showcase, which
I completely forgot to mention. We'llbacktrack, and then Spider Man two is
coming out later this year as well. Then we got Like a Dragon Guid

(26:29):
and the Man who Erased his name. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth was the big
announcement there, and a bunch ofother things too. I'm glossing over some
of the things that happened. Idon't want to forget them, but there's
so much that was announced between theend of the year, between the end
of May and the first couple ofweeks of June. I want to make
sure I get as much as Ican in in the small time that I've
allotted myself. So now we'll move, we'll backtrack a little bit, and

(26:53):
we'll go back to the PlayStation showcasethat I did end up forgetting, which
is pretty bad of me, becausethere was an announcement there that is probably
going to end up being one ofmy favorite announcements of the year, and
one that I don't know if orwhen it's ever coming out. I'm not

(27:17):
sure that it's It definitely seemed likeit was one of those announcements where we
just need people to come work onthis game. It's a bit of a
recruiting tool, but you know,if they need players consider me recruited,
and that, of course is theMetal Gear Solid remake. How could I
not be absolutely out of my gourdfor that one great trailer, Love the

(27:40):
trailer, love the announcement, everythingabout it is very cool. I just
need I just need more. Ijust need it to come out. I
would appreciate it if it would comeout for me. But also at the
PlayStation showcase we saw Spider Man twoagain. The release date was at Summer
Game Fest, but then we sawCraven the Hunter for the first time.
We saw some gameplay with Peter Parkerusing the symbiote, which was awesome,

(28:04):
and then switching between Miles Morales andPeter Parker wasn't clear on whether that's at
will, but definitely said, youknow, switched to Miles and to go
do stuff there, which was cool. Assassin's Creed Mirage is finally getting a
bit of a blowout. Between thisand UBI Saw Forward, which we'll talk
about that comes out later this yearsaw the first footage of a game from

(28:25):
Haven Studios, which is being runby Jade Raymond, who was a long
time industry veterman. Made an impactthat UBI Soft with a splinter Seal on,
Assassin's Creed and stuff like that.Hell Divers two was shown, ghost
Runners too, and then a coupleof other smaller games Alan Wake two that's
not a smaller one, but thatwas also there. Marathon is coming back

(28:47):
as a team based a team basedmultiplayer shooter does not have a single player
campaign, but still pretty cool.PlayStation showed off It's handheld where it's like
a cloud gaming device where you canstream from your PlayStation anywhere. Kind of
looks like a switch with a dualsense attached to it, which is not
a bad call if you ask me, but there it is. And that

(29:08):
was the PlayStation showcase kind of underwhelmed. Some people weren't entirely into it,
but I thought there were some goodthings there, especially when you look at
it with other expansions like now thatwe know the Spider Man release date,
the PlayStation showcase stuff was cool,right, so, and the Assassin's Creed
Mirage stuff at you be Soft PlayStationenhances the PlayStation Showcase a little bit in
my opinion too, So definitely coolstuff there, but I would say probably

(29:33):
one of the most underwhelming of thetime of this year. From May to
June, the summer announcement season.Let's call it probably one of the most
disappointing overall looking back at all ofthem, comparing them all to each other.
Microsoft then showed up on Sunday afterSummer games Fest and immediately started with

(29:56):
a new fable, which is youknow, the irreverent sort of humor that
we expect. Not sure how muchof that was gameplay versus actual you know
see or actual gameplay versus CGI footage, but it still looked awesome. South
of Midnight the next game from Compulsionwho made we happy few. I just
hope this game is better than thatone. No Offense. Star Wars Outlaws,

(30:17):
which is Ubisoft's open world Star Warsgame by the team that made the
Division following. You know, asthe name suggests, a group of outlaws.
You can be wanted, you canyou trans you wanted by the Imperial
Imperial Forces and then have to runaway from them. You transitioned from on
the ground to on air U basicallyyou know, flawlessly, it looked like,

(30:38):
but we'll see. We saw moreat Ubisoft Forward as well. Pay
Day three got a little bit ofa trailer at this thing. Persona three
is being remade as Persona three reload. In early twenty twenty four, a
Valed was shown after several years indevelopment to see Obsidians do RPG, which
looks like their take on sky Rim, which I am completely fine with.

(31:02):
See if Thieves got a legend ofMonkey Island expansion, which makes a lot
of sense. Hell Blade two continuesto be one of my most anticipated games
of the year. That trailer wasawesome and all it was was her talking
to herself and hearing all the differentvoices in my headphones. That was super
cool. Like a Dragon eight wasshown and it was our poor guy Itchy
bon you know, naked on thebeach. Sorry buddy, hope you hope,

(31:25):
hope that works out for you.Starfield, though Starfield was the big
anchor of their show. They gaveit like forty five minutes of what you're
gonna do, how you can customizeyourself, thousand planets to go through,
base building, skill trees, stufflike that. Just a huge amount of
information on Starfield, which made itone of the most anticipated games of the

(31:47):
year for me because that I likeElder Scrolls, I like Fallout, but
space I'm learning is my jam.So if I can go out in space
and do stuff like that that thatlooks that sounds really good to me.
Will it challenge Zelda for Game ofthe Year or the favorite for Game of
the Year. It could, Itcould. I wouldn't be surprised if we

(32:07):
got to December and there was aheated argument between the two. But we'll
see right now. It looks reallyreally cool. But Beth as the game
studio Todd Howard, games do tendto come out with some glitches and some
issues right out of the box,so if they can avoid those, then
they're golden. The next up,we had Ubi Soft Forward. We had

(32:29):
Avatar Frontiers of Pandora gameplay shown forthe first time. That's coming out in
December. X Defiant, which isthe squad based shooter with characters based on
different Ubi Soft franchises, which isa pretty cool idea. Prince of Persia
Lost Crown. We saw more ofDivision Resurgence, which is their mobile game,

(32:51):
a new closed beta for Skull ofBones, which was supposed to come
out earlier this year or even lastyear if you recall Assassin's Creed Nexus,
which is a VR Assassin's Creed,and then we saw a mirage. We
saw Jade, which is a mobilegame, and then it ended with the
gameplay for Star Wars Outlaw. Soa decent showing from Ubisoft, building on

(33:13):
things that they had shown at otherconferences Barrage at PlayStation, Star Wars at
Xbox, essentially what they did atE three time, very similar in fact
to what they used to do atE three time, but you know,
also having their own sort of showcaseto show everything off as they wanted to.
Definitely liked what I saw from them. Outlaws sticks out to me.

(33:35):
I was getting far criprimal vibes fromAvatar, which is a good comparison,
and I'm very much looking forward towhat's going on there. And then we
have the Nintendo Direct, came outof nowhere, surprised this on the twenty
first of June. We knew wecould expect some cool stuff Nintendo usually delivers

(33:55):
in that regard, but we didn'tknow exactly what to expect, and it
started out with things we already knew, like Pokemon Scarlet and Violet. Hidden
Treasure of Area Zero, which isthe DLC, did not have a release
date attached to it, which Ifound odd saw some more Sonic Superstars did
get a new game in Palaea,which is a free to play life farming

(34:16):
simulator build your own village. Personafive Tactica was announced at or It was
announced at the Xbox Conference, sowe had already seen that a week a
week prior. Detective Pikachu Returns wascool. The new game with Detective Pikachu,
a new, brand new adventure buildingon the original what DS and three

(34:37):
DS release. That's a good idea. I think that's its certainly fits well
on the switch itself, but itwas sort of underwhelming in the first like
ten fifteen minutes or so, thingswe had already seen before. And then
it got to the checkpoint right rightafter Detective Cheek Detective Pikachu. It gets
to the checkpoint with Koizumisan and theother I want to say Takiyama, but

(35:01):
I always get his name wrong.And they're there talking about you know what's
coming, and they do for now, please look at this, and they
snap their fingers. Now, Iam watching this trying to write up the
Detective Pikachu news because I'm covering itfor Game Spot. We're all working on
it together, so I'm you know, typing furiously away Detective Pikachu. I'm

(35:22):
like half listening, half and halfout. They say, take a look
at this, and they snap theirfingers and I'm like, all right,
here comes something else, and thenthis music plays and I lost my mind.
I absolutely lost my mind. Icannot believe that we are going to

(35:52):
be playing a remade version of SuperMario RPG in the year twenty twenty three,
twenty seven years after the original gamecame out almost thirty years ago.
It's still just boggles my mind thatwe're finally getting this after what many perceived

(36:15):
to be, you know, issuesbetween Square and Nintendo. It's why Geno
was never in Smash Brothers or evenreferenced in Smash Brothers. Same with Mallow
and all the other RPG characters.And they're coming back. They're finally coming
back in a brand new remake thatlooks beautiful. I cried, I'm not

(36:37):
gonna lie. I shed a tieror two about how excited I was about
this game. My managing editor calledme and justifiably called me a nerd in
the slack chat. But I can't. I play this game every year.
I can't say enough about It's myfavorite games of all time, maybe my

(36:58):
favorite game. Of all time,considering I play it so much, and
now I'm gonna this year. I'mjust gonna wait. I mean, I've
already played a little bit this yearbefore an upcoming podcast wink. But I
may just wait now and wait forthis remake to come out and just get
lost in this game all over again. I'm so excited to see Blom and

(37:19):
Booster and you know, Gino andMalow, like we said, Frog,
Feushish, Todofki, all of thesecharacters, Raz and Rainey and Mary Moore.
Oh, man, I can't wait. Jonathan Joe. Oh, It's
just it's gonna be great. Ican't wait. Anyway, let's move on
from Super Mario RPG. That's notwhat you're listening to. This is the
Super Mario RPG podcast. It' cheeseasand controllers. I got to move on.
So I talked about the Techni Pikachu, Princess Peaches getting your own game

(37:42):
in twenty twenty four. I cantell you one seven year old it was
very happy about that. Um Luigi'sMansion Dark Moon also coming to Nintendo Switch,
which is a good idea. TheBatman Arkham trilogy. Love that never
did play night. Now this willbe my chance to do that. Pickman
four on its way next or thismonth or next month. Twenty first saw
some of the Mario and Rabbit Sparksof Hope DLC, and then it ended

(38:05):
with a brand new two D platformingMario game called Super Mario Brothers Wonder,
with a version of Mario where heturns into an elephant and the Internet lost
its mind. Besides Elephant Mario,the game looks very cool. Looks to
add a little weirdness to the formulawhere it's like going between dark and light

(38:27):
worlds and the dark world the pipesare moving around like inchworms. It was
an interesting presentation, but it definitelylooks cool. Super Mario Brothers Wonder definitely
looks cool, and I'm excited tosee what they have going on there.
October the twentieth, I want tosay again, we'll get into that in
the second half of this show.The third segment of this show. Excuse
me, So there you go.I packed June between games that came out

(38:52):
and announcements that were made. Tellme your favorites. I'm at big Man
Finellio on Twitter. Clearly you nowknow mine. There was a lot of
good stuff to be very excited aboutboth new ips, new takes on old
ips or sequels or what have you. We're eating good in twenty twenty three
so far, and we're going toeat even better in the second half of

(39:14):
the year because following this segment,we'll get into the last segment shortly.
Yeah, the rest of the yearis absolutely loaded, and I am excited
to walk you through what that means. Stick around, all right, Welcome
back to Chief Stakes A Controllers episodenumber one thirty two, rapping things up
at our twenty twenty three year inReview and preview, which is a year

(39:38):
in review and preview. That's athat's a podcast title, right there,
folks. We're going to talk aboutthe end of the year and specifically everything
that's coming out. I had theopportunity to write a feature just after Summer
Games Fest and everything that happened calledthe second half of twenty twenty three is
jam packed with games all of asudden. That was the name of the

(39:59):
feature, and that was before theNintendo Direct happened, which that I had
to update said feature with Nintendo Directsstuff. So I want to take from
that. In this final segment,you can read the entire thing at GameSpot
dot com if you want to gofind it there. But let's talk about
the rest of the year, shallwe. It's a big one. There's
a lot happening and a lot goingon, and a lot of that if

(40:22):
you'd believe it was shaped or tookplace from Summer Games Fest on. A
lot of the things that have filledout the rest of this year got dates
in the month of June or inthe PlayStation showcase right before it. So

(40:43):
if we if we take a secondand we go through, let's talk about
first autumn. Let's talk about Septemberand October. And I'm gonna I said,
I'm gonna go. I want touse my article as a basis for
this argument, so you might Imight take some lines right from it.
You'll know when I'm eating obviously.But let's start with autumn, which I
call it autumn abundance in this articleand specifically, as things rolled in and

(41:07):
we began to take stock of everythingbeing announced to us, there's a ten
day period in October that now containsfive of the most anticipated launches of the
year. Fours of motor Sports kickthings off on October tenth, Assassin's Creed
Mirage is two days later on thetwelfth, Alan Wake two is five days

(41:30):
later on the seventeenth, and thentwo days three days after that we have
Marvel Spider Man two and Super MarioBrothers Wonder. All five of those games
in a five sorry, in aten day window. And that's not including
Lords of the Fall In which hasa bit of a following an endless Dungeon,

(41:52):
which are October thirteenth and October nineteenthspecifically, which also fall in that
ten days. And then if youexpand, if you go through October,
like either way, if you makethe lists the arrange the entire month of
October, you have the sky Aseven on October third, you have City
Skyline Cities Skylines two on October twentyfourth, and the Alone in the Dark

(42:15):
reboot on October twenty fifth. That'sa lot right already starting. That's a
ton, and like we're just gettingstarted here, and October is already looking
like a wallet killer before you know, any before we even have a chance

(42:37):
to look at the next month,July, we're looking at October and we're
like, oh no, what's happening? Why? Why is this month doing
this to me? How am isupposed to save enough money to be able
to play these games. But definitelycool that all these games are coming out.

(43:00):
It's just that there are too manyto speak of. But then if
we go into September, things arenot getting much better because Starfield is September
the sixth, and then eight dayslater we have another small gauntlet of games

(43:21):
where within a week we get TheCrew Motorfest, we get Lies of P,
we get Mortal Kombat one, andwe get E Turnits, which is
like a hack and slash slash datingSam. It's a weird game. I
previewed it for MMRPG. It's aninteresting one, and they all are within
the fourteenth motor Fest and then Liesof P Mortal Kombat are both the nineteenth,

(43:42):
and then it turns the twenty first, and then there's two games in
there that have a vague September window, and Monster Hunter now from Niantic and
RoboCop Rogue City that could launch itany time in the month. Now.
RoboCop does have a closed beta comingup, and I think Monster Hunter has
a test coming up too, somaybe they get pushed back after testing happens.
But right now a lot of stuffhappening November and December not as busy,

(44:06):
so the year may eventually slow downas we get into the holiday.
But like a Dryden Guiden, theman who erased his name, is still
there. PERCENTA five Tactica is thereon November seventeenth, like a Dragon Guidan
is November ninth. Excuse me,Avatar Frontiers of Pandora is the seventh,
and then Super Mario RPG is alsoNovember seventeenth, the same day as Tactica.

(44:29):
So still some heavy hitters going into, like right into Black Friday.
I believe if memory serves, Novemberseventeenth is the Friday before Black Friday?
Is it not? Yes, itis. That is exactly right this year.
I fairly certain Thanksgiving is the twentythird. I will check that right

(44:51):
now while we are on this littlepodcast, and it is so the week
before Black Friday percent of five Tacticaand Super Mario RPG drop. That's brutal.
Fall is brutal, friends. Ifyou're a video gamer, save your
money. So now we have totalk about the months before that. Like

(45:14):
there, we have July and Augustto go before we get to September,
and they are not slowing down either. So I wrote this article originally on
June fifteenth, right after the dustsettled from all of the Summer Games Fest
Sanandians. I had said that betweenthe end of the month and when I

(45:35):
was publishing the article, there weremultiple games that had come out f one
twenty three, Park Beyond Crash,Team Rumble, Final Fantasy sixteen, aw
Fight Forever, Ghost Trick, andMaster Detective, things I had talked about
in the last segment. But thenJuly while starts off a little slow,
there's nothing in the first week orso of July, but then that picks
up with Oxen Free two, LostSignals Exo Primal July fourteen, Last Signals

(46:00):
Action Free two is two days beforethat, July twelfth, and then there's
another eight day another multiple release inone small bit of time situation with Immortals
of Avum on July twentieth, althoughthat might have just gotten delayed a bit.
I'll check that Pickman four July twentyfirst, remnant to July twenty fifth,

(46:21):
and Disney Illusion Island on July twentyeighth. That's crazy, that's crazy.
There's so many things coming out inJuly, and then that doesn't even
talk about August. I have tendifferent names for games in August. In
this article that I wrote Stray Godsthe role playing Musical on August third,
Wrestle Quest on August eighth, thirtyx Acts on August ninth, Atlas Fallen

(46:44):
on August tenth, Bomb Rush Cyberfunkon August eighteenth, Blasphemous two August twenty
fourth, Goodbye Volcane OHI August twentyninth, See if Stars August twenty ninth.
That is a heape been helping ofindies in the month of August,
but also Armor Coords six on Augusttwenty fifth, and Balder's Gate three on
August third. For PC in Septembersixth four ps five. It's too many

(47:09):
games. There are too many gamescoming and I just can't keep track of
them all. But then the Nintendodirect I mentioned Super Mario Brothers Wonder on
the twentieth. I mentioned RPG onNovember seventeenth, but Detective Pikachu was October
sixth. Warrior Ware Move it isNovember third, a new warrior Ware game,
Star Ocean the second Story Are,which is a remake of a PlayStation

(47:30):
ra RPG that's November two, andthen Metal Gear Solid Master collection, which
is Metal Gear Solids one, two, three, Metal Gear, Metal Gear
two, Solid Snake, and perhapssomething else that's October twenty fourth. I
don't hate the fact that we havetoo many choices to play, but my

(47:52):
wallet does, like I don't evenknow how to map this out, like
if I don't know what I'm reviewingeither. Obviously I don't know until the
codes are available, but if Ihad to guess what I am going to
play between now and the end ofthe year, I want to make room
for Final Fantasy sixteen, but that'sgoing to be a big chunk of time.

(48:14):
I want to play Oxen Free two. I want to play Disney Illusion
Island with the family. I wantto play Wrestle Quest. I want to
play Straight Gods. I want toplay See If Stars. I want to
play Armored Core six. I wantto play Baders Gay, but that's going
to be a huge chunk of time. I want to play I want to
play Starfield, but that's going totake my whole life. I'm Mortal Kombat

(48:36):
one is one I'm probably going toplay at launch, Alan Wake two,
Assassin's Creed, Spider Man, andSuper Mario. I'm not really a racing
guy. So four of those fivein that big October ten day period don't
really apply to me. But thatjust means I have four in an eight
day period. It doesn't end.There's so many games to play, and
the only way I'm going to beable to play to all these is to

(48:58):
clone myself, and technology doesn't exist. So what do I suggest that you
do. You set priorities, andyou set a budget for yourself. You're
not going to be able to playall these games. There's just not enough
time in the world. We're talkingabout a Starfield, which will require probably
one hundred hours at minimum, andthen Balder's Gate, which will probably ask

(49:19):
that much of you as well.Not to mention the other adventure games or
RPG games that are here. It'sgonna be It's gonna be a big year.
It's gonna be a big year forsoftware. All the consoles are firing
on all cylinders. Part of mefeels like this is also the industry catching
up with itself after a couple ofyears of pandemic related delays and things like

(49:42):
that. We might start getting onmore footing again and see regular releases like
this. But man, oh man, if you say you're bored with the
industry anytime between now and the endof the year. You're just not looking
hard enough, my friends, You'rejust not looking hard enough. This is
we eaten. Good as the gamersas as as the kids say gamers are

(50:06):
eaten, we are. We arehaving a good time. The only challenge
is finding the games that you wantto play more than others and budgeting your
time in a way that makes senseto you. But that is a problem
for another day. Right now,we are at the end of episode number
one and thirty two of the ChiefStakes Controllers podcast presented by Fox PHL The

(50:27):
Gambler one or two point five FFMfourteen eighty AM. iHeartRadio. Wherever you
get your podcasts is where you canhear this. As I say at the
end of every episode, if youare listening to this these words right now,
it means you're at the end,and I appreciate you forgetting here.
There's always an honor to me thateveryone who listens to this does so,
especially when I know, take amonth off and don't tell anybody. I

(50:49):
do promise to be regular. InJuly, I have couple of interviews cooking
in the Pipeline, including one justbefore San Diego Comic Con that I am
very very excited about talking about thisfor months with the people that I'll be
interviewing. It is a return interview, so there's a hint it is people
who have been here before, butit's going to be a much bigger,
more expanded version of that, andI'm so very much looking forward to it.

(51:13):
I can't wait to share it withyou, and I can't wait to
have the conversation with them. SoI'll leave you with that little tease,
but for now, thank you somuch for listening. I hope you have
a fantastic weekend, a great weekright behind it, including a happy Fourth
of July, and we will beback next week with the latest and greatest
in video games here on cheaf Steaksand Controllers. Bye bye,