State of Gaming - "The First AAAA Game"

00:00:00Okay, let's say hello and welcome to State of Gaming. It's February. The winter is slowly turning into spring and we have some exciting news or summary for this month. We have, or we hope so anyway, because if not, then this will be a very short episode for you guys. To be fair, it has been a short month. But longer. Longer than usual, yeah. We have the gap year for anyone who is missing out on the obvious here. Strange invention. One extra day. It feels like a, I don't know, half-assed solution to fix a problem that shouldn't be a problem in the first place or something like that. Yeah, yeah. I can see that. But, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. Even though I don't really know what that is. But, yes.

00:00:54Short recap, this is the state of gaming. So that's our recap of what happened in the gaming space in the month of February. And if you are missing something on the list, that's probably because it's not on the list. Because this is our own. And we are the dictators of this little gaming paradise. So what is happening on the drinking list then? Yeah. Let's see if anything is happening. Oh, I heard it. A little something. Really? Yeah. Wow, okay. But as always, more before you actually open it. Yeah, it's so weird. Oh, but it was a little something. Is that an anti-hero? Yeah, it's an anti-hero. So it's a soldier with... What's that handle? Is it a barley man? Yeah, it's a... It's a barley man. Exactly. That sounds scary. And everyone knows who has been into the Lord of the Rings lore that barley man, butter, butterfly or whatever his name was, was the innkeeper that they ran into. The really friendly one as well. It was a good guy. But that can actually look pretty awesome. Yes. It's green. It's green. And it has a military looking man on it.

00:02:18Yeah, he doesn't look like a nice military guy, though. I'm not sure he's a guy. Oh, no. And here is food for thought. Can you be outgoing if you're an innkeeper? You mean then you would be an outkeeper? Yeah. Or an ingoer. Yeah. Outspoken innkeeper. Or incoming outkeeper. Goatkeeper. No. Now that's a whole nother game. Whole nother game. So, Oskar, what are you rocking up with? It's a bit hectic days. It's just cola with extra stuff, whatever that is. Yeah, I have the same. Cheerio. You guys. Yeah. All samey. No imagination. No. But that's not why you come to this show. One of those days. Yeah. So. This time we focused on the games that have been released during the month of February because there's actually been more than I thought that there would be. I thought it would be a slow month, but we have some sizzlers and one really, really big. Not a sizzler, more of a bomb drop or a bombshell or whatever. But we'll start with...

00:03:42The surprise hit of February, I think. And that has to be Helldivers 2 from Arrowhead Game Studios. And a thing has now been known in gaming. It's basically democracy. It's called the democracy game. Almost as much as it's called Helldivers 2. And, well, it has to do with the in-game lingo. Basically, you're spreading freedom to the galaxy by shooting everything. Or your thoughts of democracy, at least. No, I think they're actually trying to say that it's just democracy. So it took about two seconds before people started doing comparisons to Starship Troopers, because it's the same over-the-top, super-military speech, but rolled into democracy strappings, things like that. So that definitely became a thing.

00:04:39A little bit of StarCraft also in there, at least with the Zerg and Centurion thingy. Yeah, so basically you are... I think you can play it solo, even though it's super hard. But you can be up to four people. And you descend on a planet. And you either face hordes of insects or hordes of robots. I'm not sure if you can face a mixed horde. I'm not sure. And it's basically an extraction shooter. Which would be the worst thing? A horde of insects? I'll take the robots, the robots. Me too. Because they're not as yucky. Exactly. But yeah, this is hectic action fun. And it's always friendly fire on, which a lot of people didn't know. But it has led to a lot of fun gaming moments, that's for sure. And yeah, a lot of nukes going off at the wrong time.

00:05:33Teams getting wiped. As far as I can tell, though, you can get back into the action pretty quick because you have a pool of collective lives. And as long as you have lives, you can just re-suit up and go back in. Yes, yes. Another day at the office. Yeah, pretty much. And I have looked at this game on quite a few streams, but I haven't tested it myself. But it looks like stupid fun. And you have to have games that are just stupid fun. And it seems to be... a pretty smooth experience online as well. So I can see why it got popular, for sure. What do you think the bigots likes and dislikes if you compare it to Outriders? I think this hasn't really a story. I think it's just, you know, stupid action and nothing else. So I think it's more of a 15 minutes of fun action type of game. Like Borderlands.

00:06:31Yeah, kind of like Borderlands or any other extraction shooter, really. The focus of the game is to shoot everything that moves and get out with as much. I'm not sure if you actually collect things, but I think you do have objectives on the map that gives you experience and stuff like that. So that is what you're going to tell the boys in school when you grow up are going to be an extractor shooter. Yeah. Pretty much, yeah. Could have been worse. You could have been an innkeeper. I wouldn't want to be an innkeeper on the planet that is overrun with insects or robots. Oh, definitely not. I don't think they pay well. They do not. For 20 years you have tried to convince the bugs to stay a while and listen. Stay a while and listen. Yeah, I'm not sure I wanted them to stay a while and listen. But, you know.

00:07:27One can try. One can try. But yeah, anyway, that's probably the surprise hit of February. Because a lot of people were not talking about it. But then it overnight became something of a small hit. So yeah, somewhere down the line, I might try it. But I'm not sure when. Next game on the list we actually saw on a couple of gaming shows. At least two of them, I think. And it was one of those games that feels like it could have or maybe should have been released like five years ago when Marvel and DC Comics were at an all-time high in popularity. But they decided to release it now instead. So we're obviously talking about Suicide Squad Kill the Justice League, which is... I'm not really into the DC lore, but the Justice League...

00:08:23Those are the good guys, right? Like Superman and Batman and The Flash. This is definitely not fighting for democracy or whatever. This is probably fighting for anarchy or something. Yeah, definitely. But if I understood it correctly, this is one of those games where you play as the Suicide Squad. If you've seen the movies, you kind of know who the characters are. But I think they have dead... Deadshot or something. The dude with the ninja mask that can fire guns like all giddy up. And obviously there's Harley Quinn. And they have the shark dude. Ooh, shark dude. He looks like a shark. That's basically it. And I think Lex Luthor is in on it as well in some capacity. So they have a couple of bad guys. And in this game, though, I think they've been...

00:09:19unwillingly trying to save the day because the Justice League has been corrupted. So now they are the evil guys. Oh, okay. Something like that. But because they're anti-heroes, they don't just go around and save the Justice League. They actually kill them dead. So I guess somewhere along the line, maybe you'll get a hold of some kryptonite because Superman ain't going down otherwise, that's for sure. No, that's going to be a... A hard fight. A bit of a problem. Yeah. All right. So maybe this is how they like revive the whole thing with... Yeah. Because now you're... If you're tired of the Justice League, now is your chance to kill. You're basically the bad guys forced to be the good guys or at least the decent guys killing the former good guys. Yeah. That shouldn't be cringe at all, but yeah. Actually, the story, as far as I can tell, surprised a lot of people.

00:10:17being somewhat good. And also the dialogue and the humor and stuff like that. The thing that brought the game down was that it was very repetitive after a couple of hours. So it was the same type of fights and the same type of action. Things like that. But the other parts of the game, apparently not that bad, which surprised a lot of people. But I still think that you need to be at least a little bit of a fan. Because otherwise... hardly recognize half of these guys on a good day. No, I mean, there are so many of them now that we have seen. And they also have the parallel universe things that everyone is rocking right now. And I'm a little over that. Yeah, it's kind of yesterday. Time for something new. It's a little bit 2018, you know what I'm saying? Back in the olden days. Back in the olden days when things used to be simple. And better. When Sweden was great at eSports. Well, that's even further back. That's depressingly far back.

00:11:27Even though we have had a resurgence, but that happened outside of February. But yes, honorable mention. Something's happening on that front again. We are much rejoiced. But yeah, anyway, Suicide Squad might be, I think, a good pickup for those of you who are, for reasons unknown, still a little bit into this heroes slash antihero space and you want some more of that shit, then just go get it. Next game, though. I was super hyped for this one. It's Persona 3 Reload. And it's the PS2 classic from 2006. So, yeah, that's been a while. And apparently this was the first really good game in the Persona series. When talking to fanboys and girls of that franchise. Okay. Yeah. And I wanted to get a copy of this game.

00:12:26So by chance, I looked into a store that had, I guess someone had canceled their deluxe edition or something. So I managed to get that, even though a lot of people had been in there bemoaning the fact that they couldn't get a copy. So I was high on, I don't know. I guess it's schadenfreude is the best description. But yeah. Sometimes that's the best fun you can have. So I am actually now the proud owner of the Deluxe Edition with a small statue. Nice. Of a character I have no idea who it is. I haven't really touched Persona ever. Yeah, me either. I just know that they are an iconic franchise. Also, they are quite lengthy. I mean, they are JRPGs. In on itself usually means like 40 to 80 hours. But I think these usually clock in at around like 100 to 150. So yeah, lengthy affairs for sure. And then also the thing that it feels like you should then play them from the start. And then you have like a massive quest of getting into Persona 5 or whatever it is, the latest entries. Yeah, Persona 5 is the latest one. I think that one is like 200.

00:13:4950 to 300 hours or something like that. It's the biggest one. So the ones that are into this series are really into this series. We should probably mention that. But yeah, I now have it. And sometime I might try it. Or a couple of hours or 100. 10 minutes. Yeah. 10 minutes. That will easily turn into... I'll give it a solid 20. Yeah, next game on the list we actually mentioned on a couple of other shows because even though Squeenix tried to pass this off as a uniquely thing that they had invented, no one else was fooled. No one. No one and their hamsters. Because Foam Stars has a lot of similarities with Splatoon. Kind of copy. I'm wondering now, quite a few people started playing this when it came out, and it was February 6th. Would be interesting to know how many are still playing it, because two. Yeah, I mean, at least, I'm not sure two is enough to start a game. I think it's 4v4 or something, so you need to have at least eight. But yeah, I haven't heard much about it since launch day, so.

00:15:10Not sure how that game is doing. It feels like it's a very risky business to launch a game like this where you have to be like eight players at least. And then if it's not a good game, it will be very dissatisfying if you try to play it and no one else wants to. I mean, that's... It's said that on the 20th of February, Homestar drops 54% of its active players. So you better not like it too much, because no one else will play with you anymore. Or you have to start recruiting a lot of people. Exactly. We should not do shooters or other stuff. I mean, I can see why they wanted a little slice of the Splatoon cash, because those games have been wildly successful, but they just ripped them off. It was such a blatant copy of basically like 95% of the game. So a little humble pie wouldn't have gone amiss when people asked them why they were so alike. And they just kept saying like, this is mere coincidence. It just happened. How could it be? I mean, gaming is your...

00:16:24your business you should be aware of your surroundings I mean I don't know I just allocated like a couple hundred million dollars and five years later this little thing happened well yeah but if it was like if it's a better game than Splatoon then maybe because you'll have the same like base of players that will enjoy this game but then if it's the same or even worse than that game then this will go nowhere and they should have known that the problem is exactly as you say they have to be better yeah and there are so many of these characters not really the same game but for example the finals which was big when it launched and now maybe not so it's like i think the finals is doing okay uh you know

00:17:15Nothing more, nothing less, but okay. It's doing its thing. But yeah, weird. But this is one of those things we talked about briefly before as well. Square Enix's new CEO want to diversify the business. So this is one of those, might be one of those games that they hoped would diversify their portfolio. But as we also mentioned just a couple of years ago, they sold off all their other franchises. Yeah, they did a major cleanup. Yeah. So they used to have Tomb Raider and Deus Ex and franchises like that. And now they don't. So they need to invent some new ones. Now they have foam stars. Now they have foam stars. You got foamed. You got foamed? Is that a new thing? Yeah, I think they did get foamed. Or it should be, don't you guys have foam? Got foam?

00:18:12Yeah. Let's move on, shall we? Next game on the list is also a bit of a hot potato. Oh, yes. Our quadruple A game. The only quadruple game ever to hit the gaming shelves, according to CEO of Ubisoft. And he's obviously a madman. But, you know, even having said that, I think the only time I've ever heard. the quadruple A moniker at all. Yeah, I don't think that. Have you ever heard of another triple or a quadruple A game? No, but I have heard of a 6V game. Yeah. Can people just make up any number of A, A, A, A, A things? I guess, yeah, and I think if people can say this is 110% true, then we have no limits no more. So I could just say like this little indie game is the first, I don't know, hot dozen A game. Yes. And if no one challenges me, then that's true. I guess it doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't mean a lot. That's for sure. And I guess this is not made out of, he wasn't trying to be funny when he said this. No. The thing is that no one really knows what he was trying.

00:19:40it was not one of those like douglas adams moments where he wasn't it wasn't a straight up joke no i think he was kind of trying to say that we should have done some extremely amazing plunging in like 10 years of development and god know how much cash into this so it should be outstanding but yeah yeah on paper this should be a quadruple a game But it obviously isn't. Or a surplus game. So basically we should recap for those of you who are late to join this pirate part. But Skull & Bones was basically announced 10 years ago. And it was announced as the game that would take Assassin's Creed Black Flag, the pirate on the seas battle part of that game, and make a game just about that part. So basically you and your little boat were out on the seas and...

00:20:34plundering other ships and that was it looked pretty simple and i think they said at the time that would take like a couple of years or like two or three years and then it's basically been in development hell for 10 years and it's been restarted and yeah reworked and restarted at least three or four times uh and hundreds and hundreds of people have worked on this it's one of those weird studios i think it's ubisoft singapore so it's like a sub studio and even though they haven't said this or in any official capacity word on the street is that they actually had a contract with the government of singapore and that they had poured a lot of money into this and and they had in that contract the hooks in them that basically they had to release the game so yeah uh so they were basically in it to win it i was about to say but in it no matter if there was a win

00:21:31at the end of that tunnel so they had to release something strange stuff yeah but it's out now and um you can all go enjoy it yeah well you can try i guess for most of the people said it's okay it's not fantastic but it's not bad either really i think what people because the the beta and the open alpha sucked people were concerned to put it mildly but The actual game, a lot of people have lesser issues with the game than we thought, at least when it comes to the sailing combat thing. They've done that pretty well. Everything else is garbage, but we kind of knew that. So when you put all of those into the bag and weigh it on that gaming scale, it evens out at like, yeah, this is okay, I guess. But it's probably the most expensive, it's okay, I guess, game.

00:22:30It is not worth the money. If it had been a little less expensive, then maybe yes. If it had been a tenth of the price, it would probably have been okay. Yeah, maybe then they'd have a lot of players who would be okay because they haven't paid like $70 or $80 or whatever for this game. Then you'd be fine with it. Yeah, it's good that you mentioned that because it's a $70 game as well. It's a 4A game. Yeah, it's a quadruple A game, and of course you want to pay $70 and have a season pass. Yeah. That makes sense. It does make sense. In this economy, it makes sense. Yeah, and there are pirates, so they obviously aren't ashamed. No, they are there to rob you. It's in their job title, their job description. Oh, for sure. Also, we should mention that one of the things that people are a little bit upset about is that it's super grindy. Like, really.

00:23:27Really, really grindy. I wonder if it's made us to be longer. I think so. I think we're talking some sea padding here. Definitely. But still, though, is there any other pirate game aside from Rares that you can actually play right now that isn't super... Simulated. Like a simulation game or something. Wolfs of Sea. Or something like that. There is the indie game. Because otherwise. I think you kind of stuck with. Sea of Thieves or Skull and Bones. There aren't that many others. They have that going still. And also Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Obviously. Which I still haven't played. And I think I would rather play that. The funny thing or the sad thing was that they said that this would be the spiritual successor of Black Flag. And now they're saying that we should probably do a remaster of Black Flag. Yeah, it's under the radar. It's almost been confirmed that they will do a remake. So yeah, that's a little sad. Well, it's actually more than a little sad. Their loss, I guess, because then they'll have to pour even more.

00:24:49Sweet millions into that project. Imagine being the developer and you spend 10 years doing this pirate thing and then, well, let's say we could do another pirate game. You know how to work these boats, right? Is that the definition of being crazy? Doing the same thing over and over again? Expecting different results? Yeah. I think someone defined that as being insane. Clinically insane. Not insane, though, would be to try out the next game on our list. It's Mario vs. Donkey Kong. It's-a-me Mario. They are both insane, though. Or it's-a-him Mario. It's-a-me Mario. So, I looked into this game because I thought it sounded like a cheap cash grab, but it actually looks pretty fun. I mean, they are two... I mean, Mario and Donkey Kong, who doesn't like those? I mean, they are great. Isn't it a little...

00:25:45I mean, Donkey Kong, hasn't he had a redemption arc? Isn't he like a good guy these days? Yeah. Yeah. But in this game, he reverted to his old ways. Oh, no. So the plot basically is that Donkey Kong hit Mario's toy factory and stole all the small toys. And they are basically in like those balls that you can get in machines. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So. He grabbed all of those, put them in a bag, and then he ran out. And Mari said, like, hey, what are you doing? And yeah, that's basically the game. Because then you are hunting Donkey Kong down trying to get your stuff back. That is kind of cute. But yeah, I guess he wants revenge because somebody stole his bananas in the Donkey Kong country. But this is a puzzle platformer. I like that. It looked pretty fun, actually.

00:26:42I'm not sure how hard it is, but, you know, I'm not sure. What I'm trying to say is I don't know if this is a children's game or, you know, everybody can play this game game. Yeah. I hope it's not a children's game, like really stupidly easy. No, no. I thought it looked more like a retro kind of Game Watch feeling of it. Yeah. Yeah, I hope so. I'm not sure if I will play this, but I can see why people would play this. Because it had everything that makes a Nintendo game a Nintendo game, to put it like that. If I had a way to play new Nintendo games, I should add, I would play this, definitely. No one has any means to play new Nintendo games. Oh, well. You know. True. Jab, jab. But anyway, it looked pretty good.

00:27:38And before, I think we should end off with the big ones. I'll jump ahead and grab the next in line, which is the Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered. Have anyone waited for this? I have not waited for it, but although I must say that I am a little excited because I really love the first Tomb Raider game. But which one was it where you could hang out in the mansion? That was the first one. was that the first okay then i mean yeah because i really love that i think that's especially what i do remember is is uh getting to hang out in her house doing her she had like this training thing in her backyard where you could jump around and do all the tricks that was the best thing i know I think I played that more than I played the rest of the game. Oh, me too. Definitely. This mansion is pretty cool. It's like, you want to go out and hit the tombs? Nah. I was like, later. Let's do that later. And I kind of... I don't want to shoot the dogs. I know. And I kind of play that game just to get it over with so that I could focus on staying at her house. Yeah. So anyway, I think this collection box actually got pretty good reviews.

00:28:53And I never played Tomb Raider 3, so I might grab this on a Steam sale down the line at some point. Well, they're reasonably good games. Yeah, well, depending on the price. Oh, definitely. For a lot of people, we should definitely say, for a lot of people, these will be nostalgia games. Oh, yeah. Going back to your childhood. Especially people in somewhere our generation. when it comes to the age. And I think a lot of people might play these games for the first time as well, because it's been quite a while now since the original trilogy was released. So there might be a bit of a mix. And also, we should remember that we have new Tomb Raider games from, is it Crystal Dynamics that have them now, I think? Yeah. And the franchise. So we have that in the pipeline as well. So in a few years, we'll have the clash of the old games versus the new games, and then we'll see.

00:29:52which is winning. Yeah, last on the list is the biggest on the list, and that is Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. It's out. People are loving it. It was rebirthed on the day that it doesn't really exist. Yeah, 29. I think that was fully intended. Yeah, I bet it was. And yeah, people are... All over this one. And they're loving it. And it has a card game that I'm already loving. I'm going to be stuck in this game for hundreds of hours when I start up. I know that already. I'm not sure what to say. But I don't want to spoil it for people that haven't played it. I guess the biggest controversy has been except not spoiling it. But the ending is one thing. And the other thing is the Moogle design. Yeah. Moogles. I love them. So they're...

00:30:43Also, as far as I can tell, you get to ride around on a lot of chocobos in this one. Oh, yes. That's nice. Also, they can climb on rock faces now. Have they ever done that in any other game, Oskar? The brown one could just go right over the mountains or whatever. Yeah, but that was on the world map, right? Yeah, yeah. But now they can climb, you know, on the actual map. They can climb... No, I... Maybe some... Kind of weird spin-off somewhere, maybe. Yeah, because I haven't looked at this too much, because I don't want to spoil it. But when I jumped in, someone was vertically climbing up a rock site on Chocobos. I was like, that's new. Yeah, that's new. So yeah, the only thing I would imagine that could be a little bit annoying is that it's a console exclusive for a while.

00:31:39But they said that there was a really good choice because then they could make a really good game for one hardware. I'm not saying it's bad down the line, but people that haven't got a PS5 might be a little sour at the moment. But that's it. I am super happy that I got myself a copy. Oh, yeah. But I'm currently replaying the first one so that I'm up to speed. Oh, yeah. So how far are you? Like two hours? You have some time left. I have like 50 hours to go, but you know what? It's going to be good. The first one was really good as well. Do you have anything else you want to add? Because if not, then I'm going to push this... What's the little dude with the dagger? Tonberry, right? Tonberry, yes. Yeah, I'm going to push this Tonberry over to you then, if we don't have anything else to add. Dagger first? Yeah, dagger first with a sharp edge. Oh, very sharp. We're saying that we will follow up with at least a sharp episode next time, so take care of that. We'll be back, or will we? You have to show up to find out. Anyway, have a good one. Bye-bye.