Single Malt Strategy - Most Anticipated Games of 2025 - Episode 90 - Single Malt Strategy

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, it's the historical Gamer here, and I just
wanted to have a quick preface on today's single Moult
Strategy episode. This is our most anticipated episode for twenty
twenty five. Now you may be looking at your clock
and saying, hey, this isn't coming out until mid March,
I mean early May, because my son decided to come
three weeks early and derail all of this editing. But hey,

(00:23):
you know, we recorded this episode at the end of January.
I had a bunch of crazy, hectic work stuff, some
family stuff. I won't go into the litany of excuses,
but the delay on this editing of this episode was unacceptable.
I will work to not have that happen again. I
debated not airing the episode, but frankly, I think it
was a really fun back and forth between Tortuga and

(00:45):
Wolf and myself. Most of the games that we talk
about here haven't come out yet, so it still felt topical,
still felt timely. But I just wanted to explain that
delay between when this was recorded and when this came out.
If anything seems a little bit off, that's because this
was was recorded back on January twentieth, so you know
a bit of time has passed. Still, I hope you

(01:06):
guys enjoyed the episode. And that's enough of that. Let's
jump in. Hello everybody, it's the Historical Gamer once again,
but you can call me Matt, and today we're returning
to the Single Malt Strategy Podcast, a momentous episode, episode
number ninety. In today's episode, we're going to be talking
about twenty twenty five in the year ahead and our

(01:28):
varying degrees of excitement.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Very you can put gun you please put those applause
in there like a big crowd live audience is very
excited about our.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Ninetieth doesn't sound fake enough. It sounds too it sounds
too real. It needs to be it needs to be
more fake. I've got this. If we need fake applause,
excuse me.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Well, nobody's supposed to know you're here until you're introduced.
How are we.

Speaker 1 (01:53):
Supposed to know anyone is here? Is life real? Is
the universe? Reel? Sorry?

Speaker 3 (01:58):
Today used to the Jimmy Cay Show where they get
straight to the point and introduce me.

Speaker 1 (02:02):
You know you've been on this podcast at least ten
times now, and you know better than that.

Speaker 3 (02:07):
Ten times you think so, I guess I've been on
the podcast for over a year now, huh like relatively frequently.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Yeah, I mean you've been You've been here quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
Nobody's saying it, but more than you should. But nobody's
saying it.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
No, I enjoy it some people. Some people might be saying.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
I know, I see the I see the hate comments.
You know, I've been dodging hate all my life.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So there's comments. It's usually positive, at least regarding you anyway.
So I'm Matt. Yeah, I've already introduced myself that that
lovely voice over there is wolf Pack or.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Are you serious? Wolf before me at two brutus.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I mean, this is already a mess. And then I've
also got my co host for now uh Tortuga Power
as well. How you guys doing pretty good.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
I'm not going to talk for the rest you know.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Ringing in the New Year had a lot of snow here,
which is fun for Texas, the Texas area.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
How much snow you guys get it?

Speaker 3 (03:04):
It was almost a foot. Yeah, it was a foot
in some areas. It was quite exciting.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
I'm jealous. I live in freaking Chicago and we haven't
gotten more than like four inch. It's been cold don't
get me wrong. So like last year, it was forty
almost all winter, and it was a bizarre world. It's
like there is no winter, but we haven't had any
real big snowstorms. You've gotten like two inches a couple
of times, one three four ish snowstorm, but we haven't
gotten like any real storms yet, and it's really bothering.

(03:32):
I like winter. I like a lot of snow. I
don't need, uh, I don't need just bitter cold with
grass all over those So a little bit been a
little bit frustrated.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Just be careful, guys, and don't docks yourselves. People now
know that Wolf lives in Texas and narrows it down
quite a bit.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I just wanna, I just want you all to know
Texas is just where I winter. I'm I'm not here
year around.

Speaker 1 (03:56):
Gosh, if you happen to stumble across one of thirty
million people in the state of Texas during the winter months,
only you might run into into Wolf.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
I mean, if Finish knew that he lived in Houston,
he'd probably kill him.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
I don't know what I'm gonna do with any of
this contest A lot of cutting. So five, I'd.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
Say this is cutting commentary.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
It's the year we're in, and you know, every year,
we we typically talk about games that are slated to
come out in the in this year, and we like
to talk about games we're excited about it, and usually
we're wrong. Usually those games come out five years later.
But you know, I'm doing my best to make sure
my list is plausibly games that will come out this year.

(04:44):
But we want to talk about, you know, what games
are we excited about that are supposed to come out
this year. I guess we can just jump straight into it.
Why don't we start with you, Towar two. I think
we each I mean, I've got more than five games
I want to talk about, but probably just limited to
three at least on my end that I want to
talk a bit about more. But why don't we start

(05:04):
with you, Tortuo Goo? What's what's a game that you're
excited about coming out in twenty twenty five or is
there nothing you're excited about? Is this a bummer year?

Speaker 2 (05:14):
It's a good question. I did a little bit of
research to try to see what's coming out this next year.
I tried to eliminate things that are obviously not going
to come out this year. I also don't like to
repeat things that were just on the twenty twenty four podcasts,
but I'm going to I just won't talk about them
as much. I think that the elephant in the room
here is obviously as the hooded Horset local representative. I

(05:35):
need to mention Spiocracy to not make its twenty twenty
four release, so it's still on there. I can start
with that game. I guess that's one that we were
all excited about last year, and I have to say
I've mentioned it in private, but I may have mentioned
it on the podcast too, but I've actually become kind
of increasingly less excited about that game.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
I want to hear why. But before we do that,
just for those of you who are unfamiliar with Spiocracy,
what is it the general concept behind that game? As
you're running an intelligence agency during the Cold War, And yeah,
I mean that's essentially it kind of has some paradox
vibes to at least the screenshots that they've shared, and again,
it takes place during the Cold War. You're in charge

(06:13):
of an intelligence agency and everything that that entails, right,
running running missions and objectives and gaining you know, doing
whatever you know the CIA and KHB might do. That's
about all I know. Like I know, they really haven't
shared a ton, or at least I haven't been paying
super close attention to it. So I'm curious why you're
less high on it now than maybe you were a

(06:33):
year ago.

Speaker 2 (06:34):
I would say it's mostly that the initial hype I
thought that was a very cool concept. I still think
it's a cool concept. A little bit of the initial
like wow, that's cool has faded. And also I think
that because I can't visualize the gameplay loop when I
try to, when I basically fill in the gaps myself,
I cannot come up with a formula that is very interesting.

(06:55):
How do I explain that better? I mean, I guess
there must be some kind of like card or roll
the dice event system where you like send your spies
on missions.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
I'm not sure how much depth there will be to it.
I just I can't visualize it, So it might be
just my own lack of imagination.

Speaker 3 (07:13):
I was thinking the same thing. I am interested in it,
but it's like, how do you make that engaging? Because
a lot of what spies do is not the flashy
cool stuff that we see in movies. I mean, that's
pretty rare. It's just a lot of sitting around, and
how do you make that engaging besides just being like
a bunch of Hearts of Iron pop ups? Yeah, yeah, exactly,
But maybe that's why it got pushed back. Did it

(07:35):
get pushed back properly or was it just Have they
said anything about this?

Speaker 2 (07:39):
I don't know if there's any official announcement, but I
know that they were at some point they were trying
to do a twenty twenty four release, but that's now
becoming twenty twenty five, and I don't even know if
it's a hard twenty twenty five. I don't know where
they're at, if they're trying to make that firm, or
if we could even see this slip to twenty twenty six. Yeah,
So I'm basically I just want to mention that that's
a game that I'm interested in, and I'm really interested

(08:00):
to see how how it plays out. I'm not sure
how them make it interesting, because especially we mentioned this
when we first talked about it last year, that espionage
I think is like the most poorly implemented mechanic or
the most boring mechanic in my opinion when it's just
kind of tacked onto a lot of systems. So having
it at the forefront, I'm very curious to see how
they do that and if it's just like almost like

(08:21):
an RPG where you're sending people on missions and like,
you know, I could see it almost like Xcom where
you're managing operatives, you're hiring them. That would be cool,
but the tactical part of it would be non existent,
so it would just be like the management aspect of Xcom.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
And then everything is just dice rolls in the background,
which I still think could be engaging.

Speaker 2 (08:40):
Yep, lots of vice rolls. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (08:42):
I am looking forward to it because it is a
unique concept instead of just you know, flat out another
war game where you're painting the map, this one, you know,
different topic that hasn't been done so and like you said,
in other games that's done poorly or side side show.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
And maybe they could have some inner office drama, right,
you got to root out a mole. Maybe you've got
to deal with politics within your within your administration.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Yeah, I mean there's a lot you could do within it.
I mean you could have you know, double agents, inside
your organization that you gotta find again. I think last
time I said I was very excited to play as Dostagi,
which is kind of grim.

Speaker 2 (09:18):
I'm get more excited thinking about it, so damn it.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yeah, I no more we talk about it, the cooler
it sounds.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
That's why I was hyped.

Speaker 1 (09:27):
I do agree with you Tortuga in that I think,
and I think this is a common trend, but it
felt like I feel like everything nowadays, outside of mayor
major publisher and you like major games, it feels like
everything gets announced two years too early, and so like
they announced as Biocracy it was supposed to come out

(09:50):
last year, but I don't really like I I casually
kept a look at the you know, the the Steam
chat if you will or whatever the Steam form. It
never really seemed like it was ever close. Like it didn't.
You didn't get a lot from the developer diaries or
comments to be like, yep, it's right around the corner. Nothing,

(10:10):
no new assets were really shared in the screenshots, and
I mean this has been my criticism of some of
the MicroPro stuff. It just feels like stuff gets announced
way early. So a Spireocracy got announced, but you guys
remember last year when we were talking about it, we're
basically just reading off the Steam page, which was also
not really saying a whole lot of anything, And it's

(10:30):
kind of like, well, how do you get a sense
of what this game is gonna look like? Like, I'm
excited about the concept, but so much of what that
could be is based on in my mind versus anything
that's been shown, and I think that's just hard. It's
hard to get a vibe for those And I do
think when you announce games that early, I don't know,
maybe you're doing it because you need to get funding

(10:51):
from some investors somewhere, but like when you when you
announce games that early, it just leads to this atrophy
of the mind of like, you're cool you and then
you forget about it and you get less excited over time.
And maybe that excitement will come back when they get
closer to launch. But I have no confidence that it's
going to be a twenty twenty five release now, like

(11:11):
they that's the date they have on there, but they
haven't shared anything to give me a sense of like, oh, yeah,
they're making progress, Oh yeah, they're close. I still don't
really know what that how that game's gonna play and
I I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:22):
It's just it's an interesting thing because I guess I wonder.
I'm guessing the team's pretty small for this game, right,
maybe two three guys.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Oh for sure. I'm not like I realized, they're probably
working with limited resources. They might even be part time.
A lot of those kind of games are made by
teams that are not fully one hundred percent of their job.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
I know a lot of the games that we personally
are excited for are made by small teams, and I
wonder if these small teams get excited and show off
their product, probably too early, but maybe it's a way
to keep them motivated. I don't know the gauge interest
in their project. I guess there's prosing and to get
feedback on the posaicular on the game. So I can

(12:01):
see why small studios would do it. But it does
have the cons that you listed before.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
I don't know if this is true, and it's not
really the topic of this episode, but I think i've
heard like with Playway, I think I have heard that
like they use initial announcements of games that they clearly like.
It's a tech presentation. I wouldn't even call it a
demo when they announced games on Steam, and I've heard again,

(12:27):
I don't know that this is true, but I've heard
that they use wish list number to determine which one
of those games actually are going to get funded and made,
as opposed to just oh well, no one cared about that,
We're not going to do that.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
I believe this is true. I have heard this, and
I was looking at my wish list just to refresh
myself and see what was coming out this year. And
I have multiple games that are published by Playway or
one of its many other names that they have. It's
all play Away. It's a very weird publisher, maybe kind
of scummy in some ways. But there's like this game

(13:03):
Roman Empire of Wars, and they have a CGI trailer
and a bunch of you know, it looks like Total
War and it's like, Okay, this is cool. I added
it to my wish list. I don't know when this
was announced, but and it says it's planned releases September fourteenth,
twenty twenty five. I have heard nothing about this game.

Speaker 1 (13:23):
It's been on my wish list for like a year
and a half and I've never seen anything about it.
Other than like the initial exactly, you know. And the
other kind of suspicious thing is they'll run ads where
you'll see that on like you'll see ads for the
game which is very clearly years away when they run
those ads, and it's like, okay, so you're really just
trying to garner interest. This is almost like an ab

(13:43):
test for what are we going to fund and what
are we going to develop? And I don't know, maybe
that's the best way to get market research for some
of these companies, but I think it destroys a lot
of goodwill when people end up with half their games
on their wish list is just vaporware because not enough
people wish lists exactly.

Speaker 3 (13:59):
And you know what, I just found a perfect example.
So there was this game that was announced by I
guess one of their shell company I don't know is
their General's s A, which is also Playway if I'm
not mistaken.

Speaker 2 (14:12):
How do you know this stuff?

Speaker 3 (14:13):
Because when you go and you look at like Tank
Mechanics Simulator, for example, the developer is the Generals and
then the publisher's Playway and they're both s dot A.
I think it's all linked.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
You know.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
I got my tin full of hat on. I'm sure
someone knows.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
More about I think s dot A might actually be
something like a com like like ll SC in Poland.
Like I don't, I don't think that's all of their games.
I've seen that Stutta and Studios I know are not them.
But I do agree with you that they've got a
bunch of like different brands that they use. Yeah, and
I remember this has been years, some very vague on it,

(14:47):
but I remember digging a little bit into Playway because
they are a publicly traded company in Poland, right and
like you could you could find information about this some
of this. Again, I'm pretty sure s dot A is
like a corporate abbreviations. I don't. I wouldn't. I wouldn't
attribute every s DOTA to being Playway. Sure, but they
definitely have a lot of different a lot of different

(15:09):
names that they go by. And again, I think it
has something to do with the way the corporate the
corporation is set up. But it does feel very scummy
when it's like it's very smoke and mirrors to be like,
who's really this developer in this published er just wish
list their game and maybe yeah, five years from now,
something will come out just to.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Show it off. There's the Simrail game and its publisher
is Playway dot Essay, and then it's developer is Simrail
dot Essay. So I think, I don't know there's something
going on there. I think that they're all Polish companies.
And the same was with you Boat, Like Deepwater Studio
developed U Boat, but their publisher's Playway. Anyway, it's hard
to figure out because a lot of like unlike like

(15:52):
still Front, which is I've talked about the parent company
for game Labs. They're also publicly traded, not publicly in
the US, but publicly in Sweden. But at least most
of their stuff gets translated over into English. Yeah, Playway
is very difficult because they're they're on a Polish exchange
and they don't translate as far as I've found anything
into English. Yeah, it's a lot harder to find information.

(16:15):
And a lot of those a lot of stock exchanges
all over the world, Like if you're if you're an
investor and you're used to looking at stock exchanges, there
are very different levels of regulatory oversight depending on what
country you're registered out of and what stock exchange you're registered, Like,
each exchange has their own rules in terms of information
that has to be provided to to shareholders, and so

(16:38):
it's some of them are very transparent and very you know, clear,
and some of them are like, I don't I don't
know what's going on here, but someone's given them money
to you know, to list on this exchange and whatever. Yeah,
just after doing meeg or Google search, this is off
the general subreddit, which is the publisher of the game
I was just about to talk about. It's a development

(17:00):
studio from the Playway Group specializing in historical and military games.
They and then they talk about Tank Mechanic Simulator being
the biggest publishing success of Playway Group. But what Playway does,
like you said, has has these you know, CGI trailers.
They pump them out and probably just gauge wish list
interest because there's this one game on my wish list
called U Boat Commander. I don't know if you remember this.

(17:23):
This was a few years ago now, and it was
like you organize wolf packs.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
It didn't look very good. Admittedly, it's like that that
Silent Hunter campaigns game that never got off the ground. Sure, uh,
the song Hunter Online whatever there was a wasn't there
or was it a plug in, but there was like
some version of Silent Hunter. Maybe it was Silent Hunter
Online where they wanted to create like you could manage
you both like wolf Pack.

Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, that was kind of sound Hunter line. But this
it did not look good. But I was like, this
is on my wish list. I wonder if there's any
news about this, And then I go and it goes
notice U Boat Commander is no longer available on the
seams Steam Store and this is by the general So
this is an example of a game that they put up.
And then you know, realize there was minimal interest in
this particular idea, and I guess pulled it or something

(18:10):
else happened.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Then why does their release dates still say coming soon?

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (18:14):
I don't know, and I guess I can see I
added this game in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
That's gotta be in violation of like Steam tos. I
gotta imagine Steam was not okay with companies posting games
that are.

Speaker 3 (18:26):
Never Yeah, I don't know. And then like that Roman
Empire Awards I added in twenty twenty one. The B
seventeen Squadron game I added in twenty twenty one, and
this one doesn't have.

Speaker 1 (18:36):
A release state either. I don't believe it's interesting because
whenever you see those games, you can just kind of
get a sense like, all right, this is a like
this is a Playway game like this is you can
just kind of get that vibe from however they look,
however they feel. Maybe it is because it's just like
a CGI trailer. I mean, and I will say, they
have not to turn this episode into Playway in twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (18:55):
I don't know. Sorry, Can I ask a question? What
is CGI? I mean, every video game we play is CJ.
What do you mean by CGI?

Speaker 3 (19:02):
I guess just like it's a pre rendered trailer not
showing actual gameplay.

Speaker 2 (19:07):
Got it? But you will commander that is, are you
saying that the trailer that I just saw of it,
which actually looked interesting, I would have wishless of this too,
But now it's no longer to see. You're saying that
this was not this was all like fake.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
I don't want to say that particularly, but I if
it's not just fake, it's probably a very very early
access situation.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
The impression I get, Tortuga is these are games in
game in name only, they are a a animated portrayal
of what a game could look like, and that there
is no code, there is nothing behind this of what
the game will eventually, if it is ever made, built
off of.

Speaker 3 (19:48):
That's kind of my impression of it as well.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
And it is it is a concept video to garner
how much interest there is, and then if there is interest,
then they will build a game.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
It's pretty impressive. I mean, like they have a lot
of They have a lot of screenshots which look compelling
to me. They look like they are in game screenshots.

Speaker 3 (20:07):
Sure, yeah, I mean I don't, but all the all
the screenshots, I mean, the boat is the UI doesn't
change at all. I mean looking at it, you know, so.

Speaker 2 (20:18):
You're right they just slapped the UI on top of it.
Oh my god, it's fraud.

Speaker 3 (20:24):
That's kind of where I'm coming at with it. But
I will say not to completely just dump on PA.
They do publish some good stuff.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
You Boat, I mean, you Boat was very popular and
very successful. Like they make games that other people don't make.

Speaker 3 (20:36):
It's just some of the some of the ways they
try to garner attention for these games is less than ideal.
I wish they would. I wish they would publish games
that are you know, like the quality of U boat
instead of just throwing stuff and letting it stick.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
Okay, that what I would say is now that it
has been pointing out to me that there is a UI,
obviously an identical UI slapped on top of all of these,
I find that that is that to me is like fraudulent,
that it's definitely trying to portrays. It fooled me. Maybe
I'm just big dummy, but it fooled me. I was like, oh, yeah,

(21:11):
this is kinda guy and everything. Now I'm like, oh
my god, it's the same. It's exact same thing slapped
onto every picture just to give you the impression that
it's an in game shot. That is bullshit.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
And another game I am looking forward to that is
actually on my twenty twenty five list. We want to
go back into that.

Speaker 2 (21:29):
Yeah, let's hear it.

Speaker 3 (21:30):
My twenty twenty five list.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
This is really it.

Speaker 3 (21:31):
I'm just going to put it on the list because
it is an interesting game. I'm excited to see how
it shakes out. It is a game published by the
Generals s dot A which is associated with Playway, and
it is called Tank Squad. Yeah, and I played the
demo a while ago. The plan release date is twenty
twenty five, and we all know how well that holds up.
But I did play the demo and it needed a

(21:55):
lot of work. The demo was not very good in
my opinion, but they had the foundation of something that
I was like, this could be pretty interesting, in my opinion.
One of the best World War two tank experiences was
Ile two. Tank Crew had fully modeled interiors and all that.
And in this game you can walk around, get on
the tanks, hop in on, and you know, drive around

(22:15):
with like buddies in a tiger tank or whatever. And
it's set on the Eastern Front. I know they were
doing a live stream a couple of days ago showing
off some new features, and it looked like they had
polished up a good amount. So I'm I'm interested to
see how this one pans out. It's like four player
co op. You repair your tanks or replenish supplies and
all that. It looks pretty in depth, and it looks

(22:37):
visually appealing as well for the most part. A little
cartoony in some spots, but I can look over that.
The demo, again, it was not good and it was
really buggy, like they really shouldn't have done a demo
at that point, because it did give me a bad
impression of the game initially, besides just the core being
something I was pretty interested in, so excited to see

(22:58):
if the twenty twenty five I have plans go through.
But I'm interested in a co op tank experience. Not
everything needs to be PvP, you know, And that's kind
of what I'm excited for. Like GHPC, a game we
all are interested in, I think. I mean, have you
played Gunner Heat PC Tortigo.

Speaker 2 (23:17):
Gosh, I don't know. I don't think so.

Speaker 1 (23:19):
You should.

Speaker 2 (23:19):
I've watched you play it though.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah you should. But they are I mean, I believe
this year they are planning on adding like multiplayer co op,
multiple crew positions, things like that. Twenty twenty five seems
like the year where I personally and more excited for
games getting updates that I've already played games in early
access that are going to have big features, and less

(23:44):
so about new games. But that's just me personally, and
I guess that's a different topic altogether.

Speaker 1 (23:48):
Twenty twenty five of the year we polish up those games.

Speaker 3 (23:51):
Exactly, Like Gunner Heat PC, for example, added infantry, which
has been awesome. A lot of fun, and I think
they'll do.

Speaker 1 (23:58):
They sir, that was only twenty four, so please keep
it on.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Oh twenty twenty four. I'm sorry, I apologize, but yeah,
I don't know. I'm just there's a lot of things
like that that I'm excited for in games I already play,
and then being like, okay, Tank Squad might come out.
I'm pretty confident some of these other things will happen.
Uh in comparison, but anyway.

Speaker 1 (24:18):
Can I I will say, like maybe I think because
it was a little bit Fantasy Carrier Deck didn't quite
grip me the same way. But I would say that
tank games almost feel like the perfect co op experience.
It doesn't require fifteen people to play together like it's perfect.
It's literally like a small group of friends operate a

(24:43):
tank together, right, You three or four people and you
operate a tank together. Perfect? Yeah, and you know that
like the perfect environment. Now, I don't want every game
to be a co op like I want a single
player option. For example, like if Gunner Heat PC was
just like we're going full co op, No they're not,
I'd be like fuck that, that's a game I want
to enjoy single player too. But the idea of a

(25:04):
co op game in the tank. It's so perfect.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
This is another idea for a podcast, the prevalence of
multiplayer in video games. In some ways it's more difficult
because you have to do net code and stuff, and
then in some ways it's easier because you don't have
to program an AI that's actually competent. I miss single
player and a lot of these games.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Wolf Pack like that. I would I would play wolf
Pack more often if there was an ability for there
to be a single player. And to be honest, the
fact that it's just like, all right, get a group
together and attack this convoy a little bit less immersive
and interesting because it's just like this one off.

Speaker 3 (25:37):
I gotta say, I've been playing some wolf Pack and
they added the whole boat and running the diesel engines
and the electric motors and all this stuff. It's actually,
it's awesome. It is legitimately one of the It is
probably the coolest multiplayer experience I've ever had, And we
should all do it again because we used to have
pretty dedicated Wolfpack group.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Oh we've had great times in that already.

Speaker 3 (25:57):
And I know the luckiest actually messaged me asking when
we were when we're going to do it again because
hell yeah, the new mechanics are phenomenal. Like the game,
the development's really slow, and yes, but it is incredibly detailed.

Speaker 1 (26:10):
It's a cool game. I'm not denying that. I just agree.
I feel like there's a prevalence of those kind of
co op games where it's like, all right, that's cool.
But I also don't want to forget single players. Agree.
You know, it depends on the game, and that's fine,
and there's a place for everything.

Speaker 3 (26:24):
But I'm I'm a single player guy. I like playing
with friends. I like playing with you guys, but it's
hard to get a group together committed all the time
for you know, two hour, three hour round of.

Speaker 2 (26:35):
Wolf Pack, for example.

Speaker 3 (26:36):
But speaking of multiplayer and just other games, I'm going
to quickly rattle off Squad forty four about games that
are being updated. A game's Getting the Pacific. That's a
multiplayer game and they have tanks and stuff.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
And first person shooter.

Speaker 3 (26:50):
Right, yeah, it is a first person shooter, but they
do have cooperative tanks in it as well, so it's
all PvP, but you do have you know, tanks, and
they're releasing their Okinawa map this year.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
Is Squad forty four, the reincarnation of Postscriptum.

Speaker 3 (27:04):
Yeah, Postscriptum kind of went the way of the Dodo.
I suppose it's uh, it was bought out, the team
was bought out, and then they renamed it Squad forty
four and have been updating it in a very good way.
And their first map is the Okinawa map. I did
the play test. It's it's great. It's great, And that's
just another example of games I've loved, because I do

(27:26):
love Postscriptum Slash Squad forty four. It's probably my all
time favorite first person shooter, and they're just pumping out,
like making great updates, improving the game, and I'm more
excited about that than a lot of stuff that might
again come out this year.

Speaker 2 (27:42):
I mean, I like the idea of what you're saying
because it does resonate with me, the fact that I'm
not that excited about a lot of releases coming out.
And I think that's just because I know the releases
are going to come out and they're going to be,
you know, not good when they could first come out.
They're gonna need a lot of time to continue improving them.
God some time. I'm just I know, I'm an old
man sitting on my porch throwing, you know, telling people

(28:04):
to get off my lawn. But I missed the days
when a game would be released in a condition where
it was I mean, it's basically done.

Speaker 3 (28:09):
When's the last game you played that was that way?

Speaker 2 (28:12):
I would like to be able to answer that. I can't.
It's been a long time.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
Yeah, it's pretty hard, and it's I'm not even thinking
about just small patches and improved things, like all games
had patches, but I mean just something that was released
and you know, fully fledged and complete.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I don't know that it'll be fully fledged and complete,
but I think that's what they're trying to do with
Broken Arrow, like they're not doing early access with Broken Oh.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Really good segue.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
That's one of the Well if that's on your list,
i'll let you talk about it, because it's not on mine.
But I am interested in Broken Arrow.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
Okay, perfect, Yeah, it's not on my list, but it's
one I wanted to mention, So you take it away.

Speaker 1 (28:48):
Tortugo.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
I don't have that much to say about it. It's well, okay,
how do we call this game? It's very similar to
like the War Game series, very similar to like ah,
what was that one that came out like ten years
ago in the hypothet cool Russian? Well, god o, they're
all hypothetical wars, aren't they. The one where you fought
in Seattle.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
Oh? Man, I don't even know.

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Uh is it? It's the one people talk about all
the time, that's similar to similar to Red Dragon.

Speaker 2 (29:15):
Yeah, the one that people talk about a total conflict,
not total conflict, but almost anyway, that one. So it's
one of those real time strategy games where you're controlling.
It's you know, supposed to be pretty quickly.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Is it World in Conflict?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
World in Conflict? Yes, that's it.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
I don't think they're trying for it to be a simulator.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
No, no, not simulator, but they want to give you
the It has the you know, you want the Hollywood
level of control.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Models, things like front Armor. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like
they're cinematic. It looks good. It's hypothetical US versus Russia.
I think the one thing that stood out is those
are the only two countries initially anyway, it is modern
days you've got f thirty fives and other things like that.

Speaker 2 (29:58):
This one's publish by Slytherin, So it's basically Lytherin's entry
into this field, which is actually broadened a lot lately
because besides Warno and the other Oigan regiments, exactly Regiments
which was micropros.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
Right, I think Regiments was solid. I will say that
it seems like Broken Arrow is getting a lot more attention.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Broken Arrow has multiplayer regiments, and the competitive Warno scene
is quite large, and I think that generates a lot
of hype compared to what Regiments was offering for that
particular crowd.

Speaker 1 (30:28):
Yeah, because I think they I think I saw they
had like four hundred thousand people participate in the open beta,
which that's insane, even if it's like two or three
hundred thousand people who buy that, like for Slytherin. Yeah,
they don't sell games that sell that many. Cop I
mean maybe they do, and they don't tell you sever
Rule the Waves, but like that most of their games
are a fraction of that in terms of sales.

Speaker 2 (30:49):
Yep, agree, true. So I don't have that much to
say about Broken Arrow. It's that type of you know,
it's that type of game. I have to say simply
because there's been so many of these games that have
come out lately. I'm like not as excited as I mean,
as you can imagine if there's like a game, okay,
like es Biocracy, A lot of the appeal in that
is there hasn't been a game like that now, you know,

(31:10):
switch to a Broken Arrow. I mean, I don't know.
It's a World in Conflict clone right to a degree
at least, so is Wargamer and Dragon and all that.

Speaker 1 (31:19):
Yeah, I mean they've got World in Conflict, You've got
Eugene Systems got like five games in this genre. You've
got Regiments. There was that like literal clone copy of
Warno or Eugene Systems games that got delisted on Steam
because of a lawsuit. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (31:38):
Yeah, I will say that.

Speaker 1 (31:39):
Like there's been there have been a lot of them.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Pure gameplay mechanics of these types of games don't really
excite me that much less. Honestly, why I haven't played
the open beta for Broken Era, but it has been
on my radar is something that would be fun to
play with friends and whatnot, and the modern equipment is
kind of different.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Yeah. I think I just think we already said it,
But I think the thing that stood out to me,
they're like, yeah, we're not doing early access, which is
kind of refreshing, Like yeah, some Triple A studios will
do that, right, but like it's refreshing to see a
smaller studio be like we realize that first impressions are important.
Like they haven't said that. I think their argument was,

(32:17):
we don't want to get bogged down and trying to
fix bugs for people if we go into early access,
and then that derails our whole roadmap, which like that
makes sense, right, You get stuck trying to fix the
immediate concerns and then it pushes out the rest of
your development by months. But I also think there's an
element of like I think maybe this goes to your

(32:37):
lack of excitement toward TUGA. When games get released that
are half baked, like it, it sucks the oxygen out
of the room because everybody's excited goes and plays the game,
and then if it's not really ready, you don't have
a great experience. It's almost like junk food, Like you
leave feeling unsatisfied. Right, you rush out, you grab the
you know, you grab the happy meal or whatever, and

(33:00):
you eat it and now you just feel like crap afterward.
I like that because it's like, well, this is kind
of an unsatisfying experience, like, yeah, I was excited. Yeah,
I was excited to have this burger, and I wish
I had gone to a nicer restaurant.

Speaker 2 (33:14):
Nobody wants to sit on the toilet for like two hours.
You just wait, all right? Anyway, the no I like
the Broken Arrow. A lot about Broken Arrow. That I'm
excited about, though, is what you already mentioned. It's the
only game I can think about of all these in
the field that has the very modern, the most modern
I mean Warno or whatever wargame we're dragon, but with

(33:34):
F twenty two's yes, like, I'm excited about that.

Speaker 3 (33:38):
There's nukes too.

Speaker 1 (33:39):
They're all over in the trailers. They really want you
to know that there are nukes.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
Yeah, and it's like, you know, you have all these
contemporary weapons, like you know, some MLRS system and they're like, oh,
you can take it with nukes too, if you'd like.
And it's just like, yeah, that's that's different.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
I feel like, Yeah, the game that's much more my pace.
I'm not very good at like the quick trigger reaction.
But guess what doesn't care about that? A nuke?

Speaker 3 (34:04):
A nuke, Yeah, that's the dumb man's weapon. Yeah, watch
me win.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
Well, I guess if do you have anything else you
want to say about this other.

Speaker 2 (34:16):
Wi no, no, as we go on to the next one.

Speaker 1 (34:18):
All right, So one of my games on this list
is Burden of Command, which is a repeat but it's
been like six years since I've had it on my list.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Which by itself says something, doesn't it.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
I think it says that they're a first time game
studio that really didn't have any clue how far along
they were in the process of making a game, but
a Burden of Command sort of a mix between tactical
you know. I did my top five lists today for
war games, specifically on a YouTube channel, and some folks
were commenting on Burden of Command. They're like, this looks

(34:50):
like the old Talentsoft game Divided Ground or other things
like that in terms of the tactical the way it
looks anyway, And I definitely see that. I didn't at
the time, but I do see that, like the tactical
side of things reminds me a lot of the old
Talentsoft games, which is actually I think it's that that's
something going in their favor. They're trying to mix it
in with Hey, this is going to be a game

(35:11):
about leadership and about making hard choices and so sort
of mixing in elements of like visual novel storytelling stuff.
I love the concept. The demo was very limited when
I played it last year in terms of content tied
with it, so it was hard to get a true
sense of how much do they lean into the narrative

(35:33):
during the battles and is this going to be disruptive
to the experience. I had some reservations about that to say, like, okay, well,
like I know you're trying to show everything off from
the demo, but I walked away thinking this felt a
little disruptive in the tactical combat. It felt a little
bit like the narrative was getting in the way of
really feeling like, you know, not just not taking me

(35:57):
out of it, which is ironic because the intent of
that stuff those events is to be more immersive. So
we will see again. That was the demo, and I
think I'm curious to see what the final version of
the game.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Do we say what that one's like. By the way,
it's I mean you mentioned it. I mean to me,
it reminds.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
Me of like it's a turn based tactical combat game.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
It reminds me of Advanced Squad Leader.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, there's definitely elements of that. Again, I didn't play
Advanced Squad Leader a ton. I played the Divided Ground
Talent Soft game, which is like Middle East turn based
X based warfare, which this looks a lot like that.
I think the tactical stuff that I played in the game.
When I was playing the game, the tactical combat felt good. Like,
I love the way that they're really focusing in on suppression.

(36:42):
Casualties are generally pretty light at range until but like
suppression breaking morale of units is more important really than
other aspects of it, and so like I like what
they're doing with the tactical combat in this game. I
hope that they find the right balance between these narrative
elements they're trying to mix in and the tactical combat,

(37:05):
because to me, it felt like the tactical combat, again
based on a very limited demo, was very well executed.
I think it's just a matter of how they mix
that balance of Okay, but we really want this also
to be a storytelling RPG game, and I guess we'll see.
But it looks like after many years of being in
one of those perpetual development games. It does look like

(37:25):
it's coming out supposed to be coming out, I think
in February or at least Q one. I wouldn't be
shocked if it's delayed a little bit, but you know,
I would assume it's coming out this year.

Speaker 3 (37:36):
Wow, I did not know it was that soon.

Speaker 2 (37:38):
I would also say that if nothing else, it's cool
that it's innovative, right, that somebody's trying something new, And
if it doesn't work, I would still like to at
least applaud the effort that somebody's willing to, you know,
travel the roadless traveled, or yeah, take the roadless traveled.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
I mean, it's a question on Most war games do
a really shitty job of asking of like what is
it like to lead people in combat? Right? Like they
all lean into the god's eye view of top down
you see everything, and the guys are just a chit
you don't really you know. And even the fps's that
try to be like, oh wars hell like tend to like,

(38:13):
all right, well, now here's your next care package and
let's drop a nuke out of the.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
Wars go slaughter fifty thousand and a combatants in an afternoon.

Speaker 1 (38:23):
So I'm excited. I think it's to your point, it's different.
It warrants somebody looking at it. I will definitely be
looking at it. I hope it does well.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
Yeah, I mean, I hope it's good, but I'm not.
I'm not sure if it will be, but I do. Yeah,
I would just say that, but I think that people
who want to kind of like support these more indie
projects that are exploring territory that hasn't been traveled a
whole bunch might be worth for them to invest in it,
just as a sign that the wargame community is, you know,

(38:54):
interested in seeing different things being done.

Speaker 3 (38:56):
I'm like you, just talking about it makes me excited.

Speaker 1 (38:59):
And who knows what comes, right, Like, if the game
is great, great, If it's not, it's still a cool idea.
It's good that the idea is out there in the ether.
Maybe you know, maybe someone else takes something from that
and does something with it also, right, Like.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah, I have one game that is actually my probably
the game I'm most excited about. It's I put it up.
I technically put a number two behindes Biocracy, but and
that's unfortunately for my reputation. Another Hooded Horse title Falling Frontier,
and I think it actually might have more of a
chance of coming out than es Biocracy, just my gut
feeling on it. If this comes out, I think it'll

(39:32):
be the coolest game of the year. Probably. I'm predicting
that this will be my game of the year if
things go according to play in it's a space game,
it's very it's kind of got this. I mean, it's
like tactical space game, but it has an element of
managing combat throughout a system, so it has that strategic
and tactical type field to it. I mean actually reminds

(39:53):
me a little bit of what's the Warhammer game that
recently Battlefleet Gothic. Yes, exactly. It has a little bit
of that aspect of it where you're managing the tactical
weaponarchs and such of that. You can actually design your
own ships in this. I know that in Battlefield Gothic
Armada too. Yeah, battle Fleet Gothic Armada too. Yeah, that's

(40:14):
the one that one. You didn't design your own ships,
you just picked from a preset list. So this is
cool that you can actually design your own ships. There's
supposed to be a four X aspect to it, which
I didn't really understand how that how that tight end
maybe or the battles are you know, I think that
the tactical combat is the focus, but maybe there's like
a system where you're I feel.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Like the big picture stuff is more like an Empire
at war the Star Wars game with the tactical fleet combat.

Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. That's why. I mean, that's the
same thing as in battle Fleet Gothic Armada too. It's
the same thing where you just it's not really the focus,
but it's enough for people who have that strategic hitch,
which I very much do to satisfy them, so long
as the tactical battles bring you back in all these things,
to me, they all boil down to like X, where
you're managing the tactical battle. But if there's an interesting

(41:03):
management side of it when you go back from the
tactical battle, I love that. It gives me like it's cohesive.
It brings to me a strong incentive to keep playing
the next tactical mission because I know that's impacting the
bigger strategic picture.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Yeah. It's just like with total war campaigns, it's they
generally give you exactly reason to fight this tactical battle.
It's not just they give you a background and whatnot.

Speaker 2 (41:29):
There's motivation, yeah, exactly, And that's why where Rule the
Waves totally drops the ball where the tactical battles and
that can have sometimes unfortunately absolutely no bearing on how
you do in this strategic side. It's very unrewarding, which
may be realistic, but it's not fun.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
Yep, makes sense.

Speaker 2 (41:44):
I'm sure you've played a lot of Rule the Waves Wolfs.
I know that you get that one.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
No, but that seems complete and you know, it seems
the complete opposite of what actual naval battles were in
that era. Is you have like Jutlin, incredibly consequential battle
and it's just I guess roll a ways it's just
endless meat grinding.

Speaker 2 (42:04):
Well, I mean, in Rual Waves you can have situations
where you win every battle and then lose the war,
or you get a white piece just because there's some
eye rolls under the hood. You're not always rewarded for
victory points. And I think that they improve the system
over the years. But so anyway, so what do you
get anybody did anybody have this one on their list
or hear about it.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
I've heard about it. I've known about it. I didn't
know it was a hooded Horse game, but it has
been something I'm like, that'll be fun when it comes
out and I might play that. It's one of those
games where it'll get added to my you know, wish listen,
eventually I'll get around to it.

Speaker 2 (42:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
I think it looks really good the game itself, Like
the graphics look awesome, it looks really cool.

Speaker 2 (42:43):
And the fact that you can design your own ship,
that's just I mean, talk about that's something that I love.
You put a ship designer in a game. Yeah, and
like I'm all over it.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Used to be a big Aurora four X player, didn't you.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, I loved for Aurora four X and
Distant Worlds. We don't talk about this Worlds two, but
Distant World's one very good.

Speaker 3 (43:00):
I thought you played Distant Worlds too.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
They still haven't added the mother fn ability to queue orders.
Come on, Slytherin, come on, come on, Matrix. Oh man,
it's just that they I mean, we can talk about
this another time perhaps, but Distant Worlds two has they've
wanted to go lean into the automation, so they actually
prevent you from being able to queue up like multiple orders.

(43:24):
You can't shift click multiple times, you can't. You have
to give an order, and if you give any other order,
it overrides the existing order. I can can I tell
you how unfun that is in tactical combat if you
want to actually control some SIPs.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Well, especially in a game that is as massive.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
Yeah, they're just basically saying anybody who wants to do
the thing which I want to do, which is like
control my individual ships and the battles and stuff like that,
like screw you. And to be fair, they put it
on their roadmap to do and it's only been on
the roadmap for two years, so we'll see. I'm pretty
sure they're almost finished with it. Fingers crossed.

Speaker 3 (43:59):
Another thing to be excited about in twenty twenty five, Baby.

Speaker 2 (44:03):
That's right. If that no, I'm not shit, shit you not.
If they implement manual queueing of orders, I will put
up a fucking series of that on my channel. I
can't wait for them to have that.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Distant Worlds Too felt like another one of those games
that launched and I don't know that it was technically
early Axis, but it felt like it launched and it
wasn't really ready.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
Yeah, well there's bugs.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
And I like was excited to play it, and I
played it a bunch and then I was kind of like, okay, well,
and I've never I've never felt the urge to go back.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
The thing is, we have to remember that Distant World's
One was like that too, and then Distant World's won
with after DLC and everything, eventually it became Distant World's Universe,
which is essentially the gold version of it, and that
game was phenomenal. So it's really I think that we
have to imagine the same development path will occur for
this the same developer. Maybe in like two or three
more years we'll have a really good Distant Worlds too.

Speaker 1 (44:54):
Maybe it's the curse of being a content creator. I
played too many games too early in their development, don't
come to games later, and it ruins the experience.

Speaker 2 (45:04):
Yeah, I've felt that way sometimes, like when people are
asking you to play the new demo and then you're like, well,
you know, if I play this and it's good, I'll
be able to broadcast it to others. But then you
always perpetually playing things too early.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Yeah, I got another game I want to talk about
because I haven't I've only talked about one. Any of
you guys paid any attention to a game called liege Craft, I.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Can't say I have.

Speaker 2 (45:24):
Uh No, I don't even know if I've heard of this.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
It's being developed by a company called from Chaos, which
it looks like this is their first game. It is
a four x sort of medieval era game, but they're
billing it as a four x real time RPG. Mmm
with xes, yeah kind of.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
No, it says turn based strategy here.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
Well, so it says real time RPG, So I don't know.
This might be a game where the strategic map is
turn based and then there's real time role playing elements
to it. Because it looks like the game looks intriguing
of like, okay, you move. It's a four x game,
looks a little it looks a little sievy but like medieval,

(46:12):
like the tech trees and the map and like it
kind of has a SIV vibe. But then but in
the mid Middle Ages. But then when you like, there's
also screens here where it's like you're at court walking
around and what I presume is real time you know,
and you've got like you don't want to challenge someone
at your table to a duel or talk to them.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
What the heck?

Speaker 1 (46:35):
It just looks different, Like I don't I don't know
how excited to be or not about it, but it
looks it looks different. It looks intriguing, and I'm intrigued.
I want to play it. Like I played a little
bit of Great Houses of Caldera or Calederrhea or whatever,
which is like a fictional world that tried to be
like c k ish, but the execution was I played

(47:00):
that a bit last year, and this looks like maybe
a further iteration on that, where instead of just everything
occurring on screens where you read about someone's opinion, like
maybe there's an element of three D avatars moving across
the screen. I don't know that that moves the needle
to it being a great game, but it's definitely something
that caught my eye, and I'm intrigued to play it,

(47:22):
you know. Yeah, I mean that's kind of all I
have to say about it. They've got two dev diaries,
they're saying it's releasing this year, So yeah, I'm intrigued
by it, but I don't know that I have much
else to say.

Speaker 3 (47:39):
Well, if you have anything else, you want to talk
about Yeah, I guess something coming out this year. It
was confirmed to release this year, so we'll see. And
they've been pretty good at keeping their promises. Is ILE
two Korea. This is a new iteration of the ILE
two Great Battles Engine, which is a flight simulator that
was set during the World War, and now they are

(48:01):
going to Korea. So we have MiG fifteen's, sabers, yak nines,
all that good stuff. It has seems to have a
pretty good mix of piston engine aircraft and jet fighters,
no carrier ops or anything. But the Korean Air War
is always something that I have found quite fascinating, as
you know, old old weaponry using you know, still fifty
cal machine guns, twenty seven millimeters cannons and the like

(48:24):
with you know.

Speaker 1 (48:25):
Did they start to use sidewinders toward the end of
the war.

Speaker 3 (48:28):
I don't want to say I don't believe so, but
someone can correct me if I am wrong. But like
B fifty twos, for example, I don't believe we're used
in Korea. It was all B twenty nines. And that's
another thing that looks cool is there's actually four engine bombers.

(48:48):
There are B twenty nines in the game. They will
be AI, but I mean that's what people have been
asking for in the ile two Great Battles series for Ages,
so it looks like a good stepping stone for the
engine for the you know game series in general. I
know they want to go to the Pacific afterward, so yeah,
that's kind of what I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
It just googled it. The first air to air kill
with a sidewinder was with an F eighty six against
the Make fifteen, but it was Taiwan versus China in
nineteen fifty eight.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
Okay, yeah, I was like, it seems really early, but
you know, right hardware wrong years. Yeah, Yeah, that's that's
actually pretty funny, and that's pretty cool. That would be
another very interesting, even more niche than Korea, because I personally,
I think Korea the Korean Air War, which is awesome,
it's fascinating, it's really cool. It has the same you know,

(49:40):
nights of the sky sort of mythology that World War
One has, but you know, wood jets.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Yeah, I mean, I think especially after China's counter attack
and then the front kind of settles down, so like
the last two years of the war basically, Yeah, and
a lot of that that, you know, it becomes the
air war, is what it is, like interesting to your point,
like those that's where the standout press stuff can happen,
because it's just, yeah, the reporters needed something to report on,

(50:08):
and you had these guys going up battling the MiGs,
and I mean you had some good news, some interesting
news compared to the rest of the front being a stalemate,
kind of similar to World War One in a lot
of ways. And you know, those pilots became legends, and
like I'm personally I love the Saber. It is my
favorite jet by a country mile. But they're also adding

(50:31):
the P eighty, which I'm very excited for, the Coursair
and then the Soviet aircraft. Of course, like the Asle
ten excuse me, the Isle ten and the Act nine
seem very fun to utilize in this sort of environment.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to it, looking forward to it.

Speaker 3 (50:46):
I love Ile two great battles, and this seems like
an interesting step, a good direction. There's been a lot
of drama with the Ile two series. Their lead developer
or lead producer excuse me, left and started up his
own student, which is another thing I'm excited for that
pretty much leads me to number one, and that is well.

Speaker 1 (51:04):
I will say, I'm also excited about the Korea Ile
two Korea. I've maybe it's the time I'll actually spend
time jumping into flight sims more. Seriously, it's one of
those things I've always wanted to do. And I this
guy just for the audience at home. Me and Tortuga
Power flew asle two quite a bit. We get THHG

(51:26):
to join, DG takes off, flies in the opposite direction,
gets uppity that we left him behind when he's just
what are you talking about? This is a very vivid
memory I have of a dream. It's a memory in
your allucinogenic mind, like.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
The front's east, buddy, and he's flying west, Like where
is everything?

Speaker 1 (51:47):
You know? Just because you listen, I need those fancy
gizmos to tell me where to go. I'm not reading
the fucking map. Give me a goddamn garment up there.
We know where to go.

Speaker 3 (51:56):
Yeah, Korea?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Was this on your list to Youchi one that I'm
the list for the because I knew you were going
to talk about it, but it is definitely on, Like
if I was to say ten games, I'm most excited
about this year. Ile two is is definitely up there
or Ile whatever the hell Korea is. Yeah, it's like
they're go. They're changing the naming scheme kind of like
what Total War did. So it's Korea Ile two series.
Oh that bodes well.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
I have a question, is this some they're a Russian company?

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Right?

Speaker 3 (52:21):
That is correct? Yeah, they are based in Russia.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
How does that work with like the sanctions and all
that are we like, there's no, there's no problems there.

Speaker 3 (52:30):
So the devs are Russian. They're like a lot of
Russian companies, they're based in like Cypress, like their HQs
in Cyprus or something for some like tax reasons.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
I don't know, and that is something that I think
a lot of people are having problems with with Ile
two and on all these flight sim companies they are Russian,
Like did DCS developers, A bulk of them are Russian. Again,
they're like they're hq is in Switzerland or something. They
kind of get around. So yeah, that's that's a problem.

(53:02):
And that's why just briefly, this is not a game
that is going to come out, but it's something I
want to bring to the attention if you are interested
in flight simulators, there is a new thing on the
horizon called Combat Pilot. It is by the lead producer
is Jason Williams, who did the Great Battle series. He
left at.

Speaker 1 (53:21):
Shortly doesn't sound very Russian of a name.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
Yeah, well, he was the producer in America, a managing
Russian developers. He left after the invasion of Ukraine and
he ended up starting his own kickstarting his own you
know game with the development team in the Pacific. It's
called Combat Pilot. Their first things focused on midway cool
and they already have a playable alpha, so that is

(53:44):
something to keep your eye on in the future. Definitely,
probably not something that's going to have much playable this year,
but something I'm looking forward to.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
So side note. Speaking of Korea, The Hunters good book.
Read that book if you haven't al read it, real
good book about written by a pilot in Korea, about
a pilot in Korea. Fictional novel, but like written by
an actual guy who flew sabers. Indeed, the movie's kind
of fun too. Oh they turned into a movie, didn't they. Okay,

(54:13):
I've I've heard multiple people, including one pilot who's like
from a psychological point of view. It's like one of
the best books about being a pilot. Huh.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
Interesting.

Speaker 1 (54:23):
That's good to know. I may need to reread it again.
It's interesting to like, especially like the whole, Like I
guess maybe maybe less relevant in modern combat, but like
the whole, he spends a lot of time looking and
stressing over being able to see as well as like
younger pilots, And I think that's kind of interesting when
you think about especially Korea, where you're starting to get

(54:44):
jets and everything's moving a lot faster, but just like
how important your eyes are as a pilot in that
in that era.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
Yeah, I mean Korea is where the whole ODA loop
came in. It's like observe, orient oh, yeah, decide and act.
I think BOYD yeah, so yep it is BOYD Yeah
yeah again Korea fascinating age four air combat and something
that doesn't get nearly enough attention in my opinion. Yeah,
excited and like which there was a book called meg

(55:14):
Alley and it really touched on this strategic bombing campaign
of Korea, and I found that very fascinating. So that's
kind of why I'm excited to see actually be twenty
nine in the game.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
I used to play a lot of Chuck Yeager air
Combat growing up.

Speaker 3 (55:27):
I've seen footage of that and such.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
It's so blocky and bad like by modern standards, but
my favorite scenarios because it was sort of like, hey,
Jaeger was in the Air Force from World War Two,
although even I think he was still he was obviously
not flying in Vietnam, but he was still in the
military in that time, and so like it had missions
from World War Two, missions from Korea and missions that's awesome,

(55:52):
And the Korean missions were always my favorite because a
lot of it was like you're in a P fifty one.
Oh shit, there's Meg fifteen's good luck. Oh yeah, yeah.
But like it was, it was always a lot of
fun playing that game. And I love the idea of
a modern a modern Korea scenario just because there's so
many more options of how you I don't know, it's

(56:13):
just you don't get a lot. It's it's that it's
a transition period in air combat where you were going
from piston to jet, and so there's a lot of
interesting things I think you can do with that that
you can't do when it's everything's all the same and
in World War Two, especially by the end, like outside
of the handful of jet stuff, it's really like the

(56:34):
difference in performance, as much as folks want to say,
the difference in performance between most of the high end
piston aircraft at the end of World War Two, pretty
marginal in terms.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
Of compared to like a MiG fifteen and an F
fifty one. Yeah, exactly, Yeah, that's I can definitely see that.

Speaker 1 (56:51):
Also, you get a lot of like lesser known aircraft,
like you know, the Navy's what the F nine or
whatever it was, P eight's. I love p eights.

Speaker 3 (56:59):
I love a lot of those early jets with like
the wingtip tanks their ugliest sin but you know, that's
kind of why I like them. Frankly, I'd love to
have carrier ops in it as well, but that does
not look like it is happening unfortunately.

Speaker 1 (57:16):
Well. The one thing I will say about ILE two
is they usould like that game is going to be well,
I guess, assuming it sells well. But if it sells anything,
you know, if it sells well, that game is going
to be in development for a decade. I mean, Ile
two Great Battles was they were adding content to that forever. Honestly,
I'm surprised they moved off of it.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Yeah, it's at the end.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
Just a touch on that.

Speaker 3 (57:38):
Ile two. Great Battles is still receiving updates. They're adding
like an Odessa map. There's a Winter War map, so
like Finland area, and they're adding a handful of new planes.
So they aren't kind of updating it in the background,
but it looks like they will be shifting to the
new engine with.

Speaker 1 (57:55):
Korea and stuff, so like this is their tech upgrade, right,
Like because Great batter Flying Circus and Great Battles use
the same that's right, And it's all an evolution of
the rise of Flight engine, which is what two thousand
and seven I think is when that game first took off.
So all right, so my I guess this is my
number one sort of. I didn't really rank him in

(58:17):
any order, but I did want to talk about never
Second in Rome, which is being made by Alessandro Roberti.
He made a Legionaries Life. It is like one of
those roguelike narrative based games that's trying to tell a story.
But what's different with like a Legionary's Life was, Hey,

(58:38):
you're a Roman soldier, in the Punic Wars, and you
go through you know, the campaigns against Carthage, and you
get these different scenarios that occur, and then you've got
to fight these battles, which is kind of like, you know,
similar to Heads Will Roll, although obviously came out before,
where it's like, all right, you're a soldier. You've got
a certain amount of stam and a certain amount of energy.

(59:00):
That's the same thing, but you know, a certain amount
of points. You get these different situations where you've got
to like block and then choose how you want to attack,
and a lot of die rolls, a lot of RNG
all like around this neat little narrative wrapper of like
what's going on with your soldier or what's he experiencing
and what points are you going to invest to make
your character better? And again similar to Heads Will Roll

(59:21):
on how that works, but never second in Rome is
taking that concept and saying, okay, well you're not a soldier,
not an ordinary soldier anymore. Now you're in charge of
a century. So you have eighty to one hundred men
that you are commanding, and so it has all those
individual combat and narrative elements, but now it's putting you

(59:42):
in the shoes of someone who's also like a field
commander of a certain decent number of soldiers. It takes
place during the campaigns of Caesar in Gaul, and it
has very war gamy elements in terms of how you
command your soldiers as well, So you still got all
that individual soldier combat stuff when you are met in

(01:00:02):
a challenge against you know, one on one combat, but
then you've also got to manage your troops, their frontage,
their fatigue, how you want them to move forward and attack,
do you want them to fall back? And I think
that is a really nice twist on this type of
game that I haven't seen before. So I think that's

(01:00:23):
an interesting twist with a new narrative around Caesar. You've
got to manage your favor with Caesar, which is again
not dissimilar to how heads will roll with like trying
to manage your relationship with the lord in that game,
but at least in terms of the managing of your
legion or your century. That is a very a very

(01:00:44):
different set of challenges and very different game mechanics that
are getting brought into this sort of formula, and I'm excited.
I played the demo a bit, I was like, wow,
I don't I didn't. I didn't play it a ton,
but I didn't want to totally spoil it. But I
you know, when I was leading my Century in combat,
I was like, this is different, Like, this is very
different and feels a little bit war gamy compared to

(01:01:06):
the way these other games feel. And I'm definitely excited
to see the full release. I think it's I think
it's coming pretty soon here, but it's it's early twenty
twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:01:16):
I think our other friend who's freaking on the podcast
Finish Jeger was talking about that one a little while
ago as well. I'm looking forward to that.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Yeah, this is definitely one that I'll be playing. I mean,
I as we know, I liked the Legionarire's Life and
I liked Tedzwell Roll, so that I will not miss
this one.

Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Looks like February.

Speaker 2 (01:01:36):
Yeah, it's coming out pretty quickly. I really didn't know
much about it for a game that's being released in
like a month.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
I mean, it's one of those you know, the curse
of being the individual developer, right, Like I think he
made a Legionnaire's Life by himself. Maybe he has help
on this. I'm not sure. I remember it was announced
last year at some point and I'll be like, oh,
that's cool, but I didn't really pay super close attention
to it. I guess Legionnaire's Life came back in twenty nineteen,
so it's been about five years. But but yeah, I mean,

(01:02:03):
I'm intrigued to see see what comes of us. I thought,
I know, you guys are a little bit higher on
Headswell Role relative to Legionaries Life in terms of some
of the mechanics. I thought the narrative, storytelling and Legionaries
Life was very well done, felt appropriate for a game
like that was trying to be more serious, where I

(01:02:24):
think if the if the boobies don't give it away,
I think Headswell Role was not trying to be very serious.
So I liked that about Elegionaries Life. And I'm i
from what I could tell from the storytelling, I think
Never Second in Rome does a good job of that
as well. But that's that's the last of the three
I was I guess most excited about, well, just a

(01:02:45):
touch on you know.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
I guess I got two and I'll just quickly rattle
them off. Modern Naval Warfare might see something about that
this year. Maybe I don't know, pus, you know, a
command of a virgin.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Let's let's at least say what this is, because this
is exciting.

Speaker 3 (01:02:59):
This is essentially the new Dangerous Waters.

Speaker 2 (01:03:02):
Yes, thank you? Then how do I not know these games?

Speaker 1 (01:03:04):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (01:03:05):
Yeah, it looks to be a spiritual successor to Dangerous Waters.
It puts you in command of a Virginia class submarine
in the South China Sea and fully three D, fully interactive.
It looks awesome. I played an incredibly early demo. The
game has changed a lot. I played an incredibly early
demo on my channel. You can go check that out
if you're interested. But yeah, it looks like they're they're

(01:03:26):
making cost It will be multiplayer, and I know one
thing that has distracted them as they actually got contracts
from the US Navy.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Oh so are they gonna be able to model Can
I fly an anti submarine warfare helicopter against you and
a submarine?

Speaker 3 (01:03:43):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Not.

Speaker 2 (01:03:43):
Initially we did that and that was a ton of fun.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
That was fun.

Speaker 3 (01:03:47):
I think they want so initially it will be only
a Virginia class. I think they're doing multiple blocks. They
are doing multiple blocks I will say that confidently. But
they do want to add other submarines and platforms as DLC.
This is the plans I roughly know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I find I saw in a stute in the trailer.

Speaker 3 (01:04:06):
Yeah, so the Stude is something they want to add,
I know, like in Akula is something they'd like to do,
and a Type two one two things like that a Kilo,
but those are all pretty far in the future.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
The multiplayers just co op right, like you're going to
be multiple stations within the same sub I assume.

Speaker 3 (01:04:25):
I believe, and I may be wrong, don't quote me
on this, but I do believe there will be PvP
as well, so you could have multiple boats out there.
But I may be just like in Dangerous Waters, So
in Dangerous Waters.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Multiple Virginia, right, America Civil War coming to modern naval warfare.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
But eventually it'll be they'll have you know, you just
red vessel. Yeah, yeah, like Kilo's or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Yeah, it'll be I just want to be Jonesy, you
can be the captains. Let me lead you on a
wild gucchip.

Speaker 2 (01:04:55):
Look, what people really want to know is that when
we were playing Dangerous Waters and I was a helicopter,
Wolf was a submarine. He never destroyed me once, and
I'm pretty sure I destroyed him a few times.

Speaker 3 (01:05:05):
That's factual.

Speaker 1 (01:05:06):
You were the helicopter, sure was. What did you want
him to do? Surface and drop a stinger off? Exactly?

Speaker 3 (01:05:12):
That's exactly what you can't. You can't do that in
dangerous water. You can surface, get up with a man
that's stupid and blast them.

Speaker 1 (01:05:19):
Yeah, that seems like I can. I can imagine a
sub skipper is really like, all right, boys, we're gonna
get this new boat up on this surface. That's where
we're gonna be money to see dangerous water. Man, I
mean doing the helicopters not easy stuff. You had like
eight eighteen different types of sono booies. They all did
different things, had different settings for finding the subs.

Speaker 3 (01:05:40):
It's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (01:05:41):
That's the third time I've heard you mentioned how many
types of sonar booies, like you see every time this
game comes up you were obsessed about, like when you're
talking about cold Water, about Seapower, I know Seapower. You're like,
I want all the sonar booies, all.

Speaker 3 (01:05:56):
The different types of son booes and Seapower, Yes, I do.
I want that bottom bar that shows all your weapons.
I want to have to have a little arrow that
scoots over or something to see all the crap that
I can deploy.

Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
This is one of four two though for sure, I
mean modern ele warfare. I might that might be like
the number two game I'm most excited about this year.
Oh maybe number three behind Hooded Horse titles.

Speaker 3 (01:06:19):
But yeah, I mean, I think it has a pretty
good shot of us seeing something. I know they were
going into beta Q four of last year, so you know,
like a close beta situation.

Speaker 2 (01:06:30):
So good. Let them keep developing it behind the scenes.
I don't I would love for that game to be
released in a place where it's not a disappointment. Nothing
would like punt me away from the game quicker than
playing it and then just being turned off. It'd be
hard to have me come back good experiences and like
dangerous waters.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
All right, what's your number one game?

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
I mean I kind of listed the three already. I'm
just listening. I'm doing the Tortuga thing, and now I
got like thirty other games I want to talk about.

Speaker 3 (01:06:56):
Okay, so we got to do an honorable mention for
a task Force Admiral.

Speaker 1 (01:07:00):
I would put Anno seventeen or one seventeen on there
Pax Romana, which one Anno one seventeen, Pax Romana. There's
a new Ano coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
Oh yeah yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:07:09):
Rome city Builders apparently are a big thing now between
like Caesar five.

Speaker 3 (01:07:13):
Baby, that's what I want that one company redid uh
the Pharaoh City Builder, which I played and had a
lot of fun doing. I want them to reduce Caesar.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Well. Citadelum, which came out toward the end of last year,
was basically like SIV three. It felt like SIV three
maybe easier, not SIV Caesar.

Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
I should look at that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
It was was pretty good. I mean the general criticisms
are like this is too easy, like once you figure
this out, and they've got like some gods like Mechanic,
which is a little bit different.

Speaker 3 (01:07:42):
But like that was in Caesar.

Speaker 1 (01:07:43):
I don't know, it seems like it seems like Rome
city Builders and like Ancient city Builders are seeing a
little bit of a revival. Cool. I like that. Yeah,
an One's seventeen, the next and the Anno series. I
really wanted to play the eighteen hundreds game because like
that's my jam for like Era.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
They ruined that one though, i' mean in my opinion,
Like it's just I hate the DLC drop bloat man,
there's like, what twenty DLC for that game? Like, I
just can't. I get very disinterested in the game that
has more than let's say five DLC if it's a
collect them all type situation. I just I'm the kind
of person who doesn't want to play a game that's incomplete.
So I definitely have that completion. ISS want to get

(01:08:19):
all the DLC just so I play the game in
its fullest capacity. So I'm very I'm like, so.

Speaker 1 (01:08:24):
You definitely would bankrupt yourself if you played DCS.

Speaker 2 (01:08:27):
Well, I don't know. I mean DCS is a little
special because it's not really about like the game mechanics
don't change one to another. You just get to fly
different aircraft. Whereas like if you let's see, in some
of these games like.

Speaker 3 (01:08:39):
Man the Guns for Hearts of Iron four overhauls Navy stuff,
like there's a completely new game.

Speaker 2 (01:08:44):
Yeah, exactly, Like if you can't, that's that's the exactly
the perfect example. When you have a game which you're
playing at slightly less than the full mount, the options
available to me if I'm playing as the United States
are limited by the DLC I have in Hearts Iron
four and the same is true in Anno et right.
Some of the items that you can have access to
are limited by whether you have bought DLC. That's a

(01:09:05):
big turn off to me. If you then have like
twenty DLC, the onnus is then on me to go
and research. Okay, which ones I actually need? And I
just find that. Look if you if you only have
three or four delC, I will buy the complete package.
I'll pay the extra money. Don't be a douche about
it and have like thirty Like the entire revenue of
their product is from DLC EU four.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Okay, we should do a DLC episode.

Speaker 3 (01:09:27):
We need a DLC episode, We need an early access episode.
We could just rant. This should just be the most
negative podcast in history.

Speaker 1 (01:09:36):
Name it State of Gaming in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:09:39):
And one seventeen. Let's see, let's see how it comes out.
Let's see. I mean, are they already do they already
have DLC plan for it? I don't know, but yeah,
that one's SIB seven, as you were saying, will be
interesting because I basically think the CIB series is pretty
much dead at this point, that after five there has
been basically no innovation. So I don't even know why
people are playing six or seven, but good luck to you.

(01:09:59):
This is my who is hot takes.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
In Civ's defense, I think that is true of many
series at this point. I don't think SIV is unique
to that. I think a big part of the lack
of innovation is I think probably around when CIVI four
came out, I think was maybe the last time there
was a meaningful change in the computational powers of computers.

(01:10:24):
Not like I mean, obviously computers are way better than
they were twenty years ago, but I would say like
in the last ten to fifteen years, to me, at
least for strategy games, I don't think we've seen a
major leap forward in tech. There's modest improvements and gains,
and there's definitely been huge investments in graphical fidelity and
a lot of things I don't like. You can look

(01:10:47):
at some games that are well done from a decade
ago though that still hold up well.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Nobody's playing SIVI seven for the graphics at least, I
don't think so. No, But I think like when you
look at CIV WONIV seven is about gameplay, right, sure,
But SIV one's game play was very limited by the
tech available at the time, Like you could not do
you could not do things in CIV one that you
can do in CIVI seven, And that was from a
technical design perspective. They had to make compromises based on

(01:11:14):
the systems of the time. And I think that was
still true like with CIV three, like when CIV two
and SIV three came out, like they were doing things
you couldn't do before. And I think when CIV four
came out, that was kind of the cip forour is
probably the modern version of CIV right, Like, I think
that's when the game became ish what it is now,
you know. So I don't know how much you could.

(01:11:36):
I can see that in SIV one, right, SIV one
to SID two, I think there were technical limitations. We've
read about it right in Sid Meier's biography thing. But
I don't think that that even existed in SIF three.
I think that in CIV three it was. There was
probably some hurdles, more hurdles because of processing power whatever.
But yeah, I don't really I don't. I would say
that look at IF if you're willing to already concede

(01:11:57):
that Ciffour was in the modern era. Look at the
difference between SIV four and CIV five and realize that
that was the game willing to take chances and willing
to mix things up. And I mean basically, they were
willing to take chance, to take a risk, to evolve
the gameplay. And that shit never happened between five and
six or six and seven as far as I mean,

(01:12:19):
from what I can see, you can look at CIV
five and you can look at SIB seven and can
you even tell that they're different games?

Speaker 1 (01:12:27):
So it was four Soren Johnson or was that five?

Speaker 2 (01:12:30):
Yeah, that was Soren Johnson, And it was the notable difference.
The huge difference was that when from tiles and four
squares grids to hex grids in five, and also only
one military unit could occupy hex at a time in
five versus you know the death stack that you had
where all your units were stacked together in four.

Speaker 1 (01:12:51):
I didn't really play, frankly, a lot of five or six,
And most of what I played in four was the
Colonization remake that they built off of SIB four.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Good games, I mean, so it has had a lot
of good games, but boy, I say it's it's not interesting.
I have one game that I kind of want to
update on a little bit, Alliance of the Sacred Suns.
I think I mentioned this last year. This is basically
c K Crusider Kanes in Space. This game was for
a time going to be published by Hooded Horse, and
they have parted ways since. I even have an anonymous

(01:13:24):
source that I talk about this who gave me some
inside information. I'm not sure if it was really inside information,
but just about how I'm not even sure the game
will be released in twenty twenty five, essentially because I
think that they the opinion, the scuttle butt is that
the game wasn't being developed quickly enough. I mean, this

(01:13:44):
is a game that's been in development for forever, like
eight years. I think I don't know, I at least
remember it being something that people were interested in back
in twenty nineteen, there was already like footage of it,
so's it's been for a long while. So that's just
a quick update on Alliance of the Sacred So I'll
probably talk about that back in twenty twenty six if
I can, especially if I can get a hold of
the developer, it'd be nice. Another one we didn't mention

(01:14:06):
just to rattle them off. Radio Commander Pacific Campaign the
original Radio Commander and what was the other one? Radio
Commander and Radio Radio General Radio General there are two.
Both had very similar concepts where you're just communicating your
strategy via radio, so you kind of have to use
a map and figure out things. It's trying to be
a little bit realistic.

Speaker 1 (01:14:27):
I liked Radio General more. Radio Commander was a little
bit too like, we're gonna make a Vietnam game based
on we watched a bunch of Vietnam movies and we
don't know anything about the actual war, and now we're
gonna make some melodrama about like different characters within your unit.
Radio General was much more of just like, yeah, you're

(01:14:49):
a division or brigade commander and you've got issuers via radio,
and you don't know who these fuckers. Who cares if
Jim's wife is cheating on them? Because who's Jim? And
then you get fraed. I just like I thought, Radio
General is a better war game. I thought Radio Commander
tried to be a little too They tried to be

(01:15:10):
a little too cute with what they were doing, and
I didn't really I wasn't there for that. So well,
it'll be interesting to see what Radio Commander Pacific is like,
because if there was a week, the weakest element, the
strongest element was the concept for Radio Commander. The weakest
element was the was the way they chose to execute
the extras. Hey, anybody paying attention to kaiser Punk coming

(01:15:33):
out in a couple of weeks.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
Oh my gosh, I was looking at the wrong list.
I was looking at the wrong I've been talking about
the wrong list.

Speaker 1 (01:15:41):
You didn't notice till now.

Speaker 2 (01:15:42):
Well, there are some similarities. We didn't mention Menace, which
is the Battle Brothers New Battle Brothers game from the
Battle Butters Battel Brothers developers. They're doing Menace. It's a
modern game instead of the ancient fantasy world that they
had for Battle Brothers. It's kind of interesting. Oh my god,
hear it is fragile existence. I knew I missed one. God,
what the fuck is wrong with me? Got to redo

(01:16:04):
this whole episode.

Speaker 1 (01:16:05):
You can go talk to yourself and ship me the audio.

Speaker 2 (01:16:08):
No, man, I'm not gonna do that. Just I'm just kidding.
That can be a bit, you know, whatever. I have
for some reason, Dune Awakening, and I mean we didn't
talk about Kingdom Come Deliverance too.

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
Yeah, I'm looking forward to that. It's not really a
strategy game, but yeah, but something to look forward to. Apparently,
the studio that makes Kingdom Come Deliverance Warhorse since the
first game, they were acquired by Embracer Group, which has
gone through all sorts of fucking chaos. They were like
buying everybody up because like they were owned by this

(01:16:40):
rich guy who just wanted to own all the IP
of all the games out there, because he was like
a big nerd and just wanted to collect it all.
And then he drove them into the ground and they
went bankrupt as fuck and like sold a bunch of
those studios back off, spun some of them off independently.
But I guess I guess Kingdom Comes still owned buying
Bracer Group. I don't know. It's a weird situation with them.

(01:17:02):
Be interesting to see what happens post launch and what
kind of support.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
I can't believe I was looking the wrong list. I
cannot believe this. I mean, have you guys heard of
four hundred catapults? No?

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
That sounds face that man, This fucking I'm an.

Speaker 2 (01:17:15):
Idiot, man, this is actually a pretty cool game. It's
it's it's like their Billions and it's like diplomacy is
not an option. But it's like a more realistic, maybe
evil tower defense type game. It looks pretty cool. I
mean it's it's a little bit city builder and a
little bit survival. Oh my god, I'm in the wrong
I was in the wrong list. I cannot believe I
was in the wrong list again.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
No, how the hell were you in the wrong list
for an hour and a half?

Speaker 3 (01:17:39):
Ye, that's actually getting crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:42):
So do I need to like say you don't actually
you're not excited about any of the games. You were
just feigning excitement about.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
Well, the thing is Wolf was like kaiser Punk. I mean, sorry,
you said kiser Punk. But then Wolve's like and I
was like, wait a second, I thought that was on
my list, and that was what triggered it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Oh my god, what about has anybody looked at Yield
Fall of Rome? It's another game that I noticed is
coming out.

Speaker 2 (01:18:06):
No, No, that one's not on here.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
What was that about the Byzantine Empire or something?

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
No, Byzantium isn't Rome. I mean I guess it depends
a lot of people consider it Rome, but it's actually
been published by Diadelic Entertainment, the guys who published the
Destroyer Commander game.

Speaker 3 (01:18:23):
They do a lot of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:18:24):
What's the name of it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:25):
Yield.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
Fall of Rome comes out in a couple of weeks,
actually actually next week. Yield like Yield like stop halt
the I don't really know that. UI looks weird.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
I've never heard of this game.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
It looks actually looking at this, it reminds me of
that when we were talking about Sarren Johnson a little
while ago. Remember that game he kickstarted that like kickstarted
that like failed miserably.

Speaker 2 (01:18:46):
No, that was not Soorren Johnson, you big dummy.

Speaker 1 (01:18:48):
That was Enemy at the Gates.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
That was not Sorren Johnson. That was John Oh that
was John Shaff, John Shaffer.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
Yeah, okay, Which I don't even think that game is
on Steam anymore. Shouldn't be. Don't see it.

Speaker 3 (01:19:01):
I'm gonna be honest. When you were saying y old
Fall of Rome, I thought you were saying.

Speaker 1 (01:19:05):
Ye old Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:19:06):
I couldn't make it out either.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
That's still on Steam just mostly negative threety two thirty percent.
That's no. Uh, that's now what was it super Power three?
I can't believe you didn't notice you were talking about something.

Speaker 2 (01:19:20):
Well, all of the items that were on my list
that I the real the one that I talked about
are on my full list. They're just I don't know
where this second list even was made. It was like
a drunken stupor.

Speaker 1 (01:19:32):
Were you just hallucinating this whole episode? You were talking
about drinking beer with no fuzz full in there.

Speaker 2 (01:19:39):
Man has some serious stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:19:42):
Dude tripping. He's just like he's just drinking, you know,
beer from last decade? Quickly?

Speaker 3 (01:19:47):
Is the Dune game? Is that the Is that the
survival game by the guys that did like the Conan game?

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Yes, that's the one.

Speaker 3 (01:19:54):
Isn't there a Dune like RTS game?

Speaker 2 (01:19:57):
Yeah? That one was already released like two years ago.

Speaker 3 (01:20:00):
Okay, okay, got it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:02):
That was by the people who did North Guard, and
I thought that game was was pretty good.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
But this new one, I am looking forward to the
Awakening game, the survival Yeah, it looks fun, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:20:13):
I will say one. I think for me, gaming this
year is going to be a lot of going back
to games that have been improved. I've been watching you
play Gunner heat PC Wolf and like, I haven't played
it in a long time, but that look, it looks
like it's in. It's made so much progress. I'm just
not sure when, like, is there another is there another update?
I want to wait till and then jump back in,

(01:20:35):
but then like also even like Victoria three, I'm curious
to see how some of the updates have have changed
or improved that, especially Crusader King's the most recent DLC
for that where they added like Byzantium Mechanics, I've heard
good things about that. I'm just there's a lot of
games that were released in maybe substandard states, and I'm

(01:20:55):
curious to go back to a lot of stuff. Hopefully
this year I will. I am always bad about game
releases into early access. I played for a bit, get
frustrated and never come back. And a lot of times
games improve a lot. You know, I'm sure Superpower three
isn't deserving of a ten percent score on Steam?

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
What you don't think it's worthy that?

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:21:16):
I would hope no, it's dead.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
That might that one might have been tongue in cheek,
but yeah, I just it feels like games get released
into early access and then we'd get upset about them
and then we never come back. And you know, maybe
there are games out there that are worth a second.

Speaker 3 (01:21:32):
Yeah, I'm sure there are plenty of games that are.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Okay, take a look at this game. Just bring it
up on your browsers. Heart of the Machine, hood Horse title.
It's pretty interesting you play. It's it's very topical. I
mean it's you play as an AI gone rogue and
you're taking over a city, and I think there's elements
of like not trying to be discovered too quickly and
you launch little missions. But it's also a tactical battler

(01:21:57):
and that at some point you're discovered and you start fighting.
I'm I don't know. It's supposed to come out at
the end of this month, probably before this podcasting moon
goes out, but I it has enough in it that
I am keeping an eye on it. I'm not like
super excited about it. I don't. I'm just gonna this
is one of those weight and see titles, but it

(01:22:18):
has some potential.

Speaker 1 (01:22:20):
Have either of you played every Day We Fight?

Speaker 2 (01:22:22):
No? No, but I've heard of it.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
That's another Hooded Horse title. I think they sent me
a bunch of email and they haven't emailed me.

Speaker 3 (01:22:28):
I'm on this podcast where we shall Hooded Horse.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
And looks like it's a tactical, real time tactical rogue
light looks like World War Two.

Speaker 2 (01:22:37):
I'm not as interested in that one.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
Oh wait, No, what the heck is going on there?
It looks fantasy ish.

Speaker 2 (01:22:44):
There's aliens, aliens.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
Okay, yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
I don't know. I don't know enough about it. But
it doesn't Yeah, we should just tell people. Look at
all the hood Horse titles coming out in twenty twenty five.
They have a ton of them. Can you believe what
manner Lords has done for Hooded Horse. They are just
pumping money everywhere.

Speaker 1 (01:23:00):
Maybe that's a bad thing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:01):
I mean, look at an injection of capital into the
gaming infrastructure can only be a good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:06):
Just reminds me of BlackBerry, where they were so successful,
almost by accident.

Speaker 3 (01:23:11):
You're comparing Hooded Horse to BlackBerry. That's what we're doing.

Speaker 2 (01:23:15):
Yeah, well, we also have Star Citizens, which is the
obvious counter example to investment of capital into the videos
game space is a good thing.

Speaker 1 (01:23:26):
I think they have done very good for them, well
for themselves.

Speaker 3 (01:23:30):
I've never been more tempted to get in the Star
Citizen than I was this year. Just as a side note,
what every year, it'll get better. But you know, I
know that that's exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
And if you just give them a little bit of money,
just send them fifty bucks, then it'll get even better.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
That's all they need to make it.

Speaker 1 (01:23:49):
Wolf.

Speaker 2 (01:23:50):
The reason they haven't finished that game is because you
haven't invested fifty bucks yet.

Speaker 3 (01:23:54):
I actually think the Squadron forty two or something something
Star Citizen related is supposed to come out this year.

Speaker 2 (01:24:00):
I mean their trailers are so sick. They're so good.

Speaker 1 (01:24:03):
I mean that's where all their money went.

Speaker 2 (01:24:05):
Yeah, Squadro for two. You're right, I am. Which I
was an early backer of this game before you even
reached a million dollars, which is like seven hundred million
dollars ago.

Speaker 3 (01:24:17):
Have you played it much?

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
I've probably played like ten hours of it when I
was playing it too. Like that's also a really bloated
stat because when I was playing it at some point,
it was early on enough that like you spent hours
just wandering through the station to figure out how to
get into your ship and stuff. It was really early on.
So I came back to it once and I played
it when it was there was actually meaningful dogfights you

(01:24:39):
could do. But I like that just fighting in space
without any context for it, without like having this person
who has money and you're buying ships and upgrading your
ship and you know, the whole like thing that it's
supposed to be. Just having standalone tactical battles in space
where you just fight dog fighting was not interesting. Did
not keep my attention at all. That's why I didn't
put much. We'll see where it goes, though. I'm excited

(01:25:01):
about Squad four two and having a narrative to like
frame that dog fighting would be fantastic. I mean, that's
what Win Commander was, and that's why people are excited
about Squad forty two. I think I got through all
of them. Did I mention fragile existence? I should actually
say this one because it was one of my top
hooded Horse titles. It's actually a little bit similar to

(01:25:22):
Falling Frontier, except for the planets. There's an emphasis more
on the planets, and you actually see the units on
the planet, so you basically zoom from space onto the
planet's surface. It's a little bit like Supreme Commander. I
guess the Supreme Commander. Did Supreme Commander have actual space ships?
Maybe not, but it's got that kind of feel to it.
Supreme Commander. That was the Total Annihilation revisit. Are you

(01:25:44):
guys following.

Speaker 1 (01:25:44):
Any of this?

Speaker 2 (01:25:45):
This is all just words.

Speaker 3 (01:25:47):
Those are okay?

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
Anyway. It's an RTS game that where you have the
surface of a planet that you can rotate. It's actually
a sphere, it's not just a flat terrain, and you
can zoom out enough where you're actually looking at space
and you rotate the world. You know you're actually going
to attack people like on the other side of the world.
But at the same time, it has space battles. I
don't know. I don't remember, but I think you can

(01:26:09):
construct ships on the planet and then send them into space.
I don't know. To me, it looks pretty cool. It's
got an interesting concept. It's at least one that again
I'm gonna wait and see more. I'm pretty excited about
this one. I would say that the only slightly behind
this is probably only slightly behind Falling Frontier. And that's
that's the last my forgotten list that I didn't mention.

Speaker 1 (01:26:26):
Oh there we go. Anyway, guys, thanks for coming on
to our episode of the most anticipated or maybe not
as anticipated, or maybe it's the wrong list episode of
twenty twenty five. Next time we talk. I don't know
what we'll talk about next.

Speaker 2 (01:26:41):
I know we've been we're not keeping that in there.
I can to tell people I got the wrong list.

Speaker 1 (01:26:46):
This is the twenty twenty five most Anticipated List episode.
We will see what we talk about next time. I
know we've been wanting to talk about our thoughts on
early Axis a lot. You've gotten little slivers of it
here and there over the last like five episode, So
we will. We will see what we talk about next time.
But until next time, this is the historical Gamer. You

(01:27:08):
can call me Matt. Thank you wolf Pack for coming
on yet again. Thank you Tortuga. Hope you guys had
a great start to new your New Year's and uh
you know, we'll talk to you again soon, hopefully.

Speaker 2 (01:27:21):
I check this one out too. Wild Tactics.

Speaker 1 (01:27:25):
Its just sending lists of games. It's like the Mitt
Romney list of Women.

Speaker 2 (01:27:31):
Wild Tactics. It's it's like xcom but a spy whoa.
This is got like furry type stuff. This guy doesn't
even put my channel on the description.

Speaker 1 (01:27:45):
That's not true. You're in there. Yeah track, Yeah, you're
got to scroll down, you're at the bottom.

Speaker 2 (01:27:53):
What I'm actually this is that I don't know if
this is better or worse than just being omitted. Oh no,
I added, you just intentionally put you where nobody will
ever see it.

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Single Malt Strategy - Most Anticipated Games of 2025 - Episode 90

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Single Malt Strategy - Most Anticipated Games of 2025 - Episode 90