The Game Awards & Upcoming Video Games | Game Junction Podcast

Ever wondered if a long-dormant game series could make a triumphant return? This episode is bursting with surprises as we unpack the latest announcements from beloved franchises like Onimusha, Ninja Gaiden, and Turok. With a sprinkle of humor and a dash of skepticism, we navigate the gaming awards show maze, share our thoughts on the unexpected twists, and openly critique the decisions that left us scratching our heads. Plus, our personal shoutouts and recent pickups, including some sweet audio gear and cinematic treasures, keep the excitement rolling.

Shifting gears, we tackle the intriguing rumors of a resurgence in SteamOS-driven handhelds. Could the Asus ROG Ally and Lenovo Legion Go be redefining portable gaming? We explore the potential of these devices and ponder Valve's possible return to the console scene with a new Steam Machine. The discussion heats up as we dissect the enduring allure of live service games like Fortnite and Apex Legends, and marvel at the unexpected success of Marvel Rivals. Our insights don't stop there; the buzz around Switch 2 leaks fuels a spirited debate on the legitimacy and implications for accessory makers.

Finally, we wade through the complex waters of PC building, GPU mining, and industry trends, offering our candid takes on what it all means for gamers today. We share our excitement and concerns for upcoming titles, including the HD re-release of Okami and the next chapter in the Borderlands saga. Along the way, we reflect on the broade

Stone Age Gamer
Stone Age Gamer continues to add exclusive retro gaming products at low prices.

PWRUP Grip 2
Use code "GameJunction" for 10% off.

NYXI Gaming
- NYXI Wizard GameCube Wireless Joy-pad for Nintendo Switch. Use code "gamejunction" for 10% off!

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Chapters

• 0:00 Post-Game Awards Podcast and Pickups
• 16:17 SteamOS and New Console Discussions
• 24:07 Switch 2 Accessory Leak Discussion
• 31:08 PC Building and Crypto Mining Discussion
• 37:26 Discussion on Naughty Dog's New Game
• 48:44 Upcoming Sequel Discussions and Borderlands 4
• 56:11 New Co-Op Game Announcements and Discussions
• 1:08:46 Exciting Game Announcements and Updates
• 1:17:42 Remakes, New IPs and Ani Musia
• 1:28:18 Game Awards Critiques and Discussions
• 1:41:49 Awards Results and Industry News
• 1:47:59 Game Industry Layoffs and Cancellations

Transcript

Brandon Hurles: 0:00

Yeah. So I guess what we're going to do kind of because Mark was able to get the recording put into the driver stuff like that, so that we could get everything worked out for the audio podcast stuff so what we're going to do is we're going to upload that to YouTube as a bonus episode and then to the audio as a bonus episode and then just run with the straight numbers. So we're just kind of not counting last week as a number. This is basically going to be a post-game awards podcast, pretty much. But there was a lot more than we thought at the end of the show that actually did happen and get announced. And there was a lot, man, there was a lot more than I thought. I actually had the thought today. I was kind of like oh, I don't like some of the decision making with, yeah, we're jumping right into it, but I don't like some of the decision making with the way that Jeff Keighley is running certain things as far as the ad stuff and getting the ad revenue and things like that and in the actors and actresses and stuff like that. But overall, like like I've got to say I think like this is the most successful like game industry game awards show there's been, because there's been there were so many announcements for a completely dead series, for you know, onimusha, ninja Gaiden, turok, these series that haven't been around for a long time. So, but yeah, I guess we'll ensure the podcast.

Brandon Hurles: 1:40

Yeah, some might say good, good, some might say yeah For sure. Yeah, yeah for sure. Get those little shout outs and stuff. Shout out to kyle robinson, uh, subscribing 11 hours ago. Shout out. I also saw the junction network got some new subscribers, uh, since yesterday. So cool, cool.

Brandon Hurles: 3:11

But yeah, I guess we would talk about the game awards. Um, I'll talk a little bit about Indiana Jones, cause I played it. Um, and then Mark pretty much covered the base for most of the news, uh, last week. So really just going to be a post-game awards thing. You know, I guess, kind of what's up with me and Mark this week and you know everything going on there Any news on your end, mark, any cool stuff happening, or you know, did you get any pickups this week? Cool, we can hit it now. We never hit it at the beginning of the show, why not? Game Ward's going to take up most of it.

Brandon Hurles: 4:05

So, yeah, he's like oh, I forgot as soon as we were done. Yeah, I know you're a big Sega fan too. Sega does a lot of figures, a lot of figures. Is it from Funbox the company? Because I have? Yeah, I think that's Funbox. Yeah, I used to have some figures from them. They got cool stuff that's like limited run games. Man, I'll be like oh, I completely forgot, I pre-ordered that. Yeah, yeah, right, no better than the VHS days. Yeah, I've been wanting to watch that Because of DVD and Blu-ray. I've been wanting to watch that for a long time. Is it based on a Super Sentai character? Not a Super Sentai character, more like Not Kamen Rider, but Some weird, because it was called Gargantua man or something. What the source material was called. I don't know, it might not be it, but Jet Jaguar is still a little cooler.

Brandon Hurles: 6:27

Gotcha gotcha, are this two of the same movies? You bought two of them. Oh, they're different. Okay, thank you. Oh, so she's like a what's the word for it here? A scribe, all right, sucks. That's kind of dope. You find something heart-wrenching. That's shocking. I, I am shocked that you feel anything at all. You had a black solo.

Brandon Hurles: 8:57

I was trying to see what I, oh, I remember. Yeah, oh, nice, how is it so? They do a lot of that. Let's combine the first couple episodes of the show into a movie. Yeah, yeah, hey, thanks for following from our short video. Appreciate that? Yeah for sure, sounds cool.

Brandon Hurles: 10:43

It's hard for me to show anything because I just dropped a pickups video that showed everything off pretty much there, and then I'm filming another video with stuff that you sent out, so I just grabbed a couple of things to show. I can't sit here and show everything like I want to do a video on it. I think it would do better justice. It would be cool to be able to spend some time to talk about everything. Okay, yeah, no worries.

Brandon Hurles: 11:13

The first thing was I showed my pickup studio, which was the big thing. This was the big boy purchase was the Rode Wireless Go microphones. So it comes with, uh, two mics and then a receiver. So this was the big boy purchase. Um, I, I've been needing these for videos for a while and uh, look at my talking to himself there, he's laughing. Oh man, I see you laughing. Uh man, I see you laughing, yeah. So we just picked that up. And then a couple of things that came in the mail from Mark was I was just going to show a couple of Blu-rays. I love Blu-rays, I love 4K Blu-rays. So I know I saw you laughing back at me rays. So I, yeah, I know I saw you laughing back at me, uh, no, I see I got my big boy purchase with the road wireless go microphones for regular videos. Finally, um, and then I was going to show a couple of the blu-rays, but, uh, press princess mononoke, a classic Studio Ghibli film, one that everybody should watch.

Brandon Hurles: 12:27

I would say it's one of the essentials. It's an amazing film, freezing, which I had never seen. This one, so this one I have to check out. Okay, it doesn't scream ecchi, besides the boobs, I guess, but I mean every anime is like that. Now Then the other really cool one. I love all the Studio Ghibli stuff, so I wanted the two packs for Ponyo and my Neighbor Totoro. So now I'm probably it's either I'm going to go after all the Steelbooks or I'm going to go after all the double packs and then buy the rest singles, because unfortunately not all the Studio Ghibli movies come in these double packs. There's only like seven sets. There's six or seven, yeah, but for some reason not all of them come in these double packs that come with, like, the special cover and everything like that, which is really weird. Um, but I might grab those. I might grab steelbooks I don't know yet.

Brandon Hurles: 13:35

And then one that was super exciting because it's not out on 4k blu-ray. I don't know why it's not, but it is on blu-ray, which is good, is one of my favorites, obviously you hockey show. So I'm really excited. I said I wanted to revisit that. It was one. I said it's not, but it is on Blu-ray, which is good. It's one of my favorites, obviously, uu Hockey Show. So I'm really excited. I said I wanted to revisit that. It was one I said I wanted to talk about. So we're definitely going to be talking about it. I'm going to be revisiting it and excited about that.

Brandon Hurles: 13:56

So there's just a couple of things. Keep an eye out for another video coming up on mostly anime and manga, with a couple of games and a couple of other things thrown in there, like Pokemon cards and stuff like that. So, yeah, I absolutely loved it. It is one of my favorite things. I was really excited about that. That's what I said. Now I have even more reason to be able to do it.

Brandon Hurles: 14:28

I don't stream it anywhere. I'll tell you what streaming anime kind of sucks, especially when you go to the illegal websites, because the quality is all over the place. You might watch like one of them sub 720p, like some of them. They're so bad, it's like so bad. But meanwhile Disney plus you can stream 4k like it is. It's just like it's kind of a bummer that they're like all over the place, like some are really good and then others are like really bad. I'm like you, you hawk show being one where cause I went back and watched episode one and two a few weeks ago, I was revisiting it a little bit and then I was watching it on a website and it was really bad, really, really bad. This looks like about 10 times worse than it looked like when it aired on Tanami on a CRT, but I like watching anime on VHS. Man, that's what they say.

Brandon Hurles: 15:31

So I guess we'll go ahead and jump into the Game Awards stuff. Yeah, we got Nagaswife over here on TikTok and then Spacelove just joined in. So what's up, guys? Yeah, so I guess before we like get into like all the announcements, kind of, we said a little bit before but what did you think if you had to rate it? We don't really like the rating skill, but if you had to rate it, what would you rate it? Yeah, yeah, that was really annoying. Yeah, I'm at an 8-2.

Brandon Hurles: 16:17

That was the first number to come to my head, because the I will say they there was. And then, like the other thing that brought it down to me for me was there were too many live service games, like PVP live service games. There was like 6 announcements for those type of games. They're not. I mean, that's the thing. Why are we still getting so many of these? It's like one out of ten actually survives. All I can think of is Fortnite and Apex Legends. I guess Warframe sort of does. All I can think of is Fortnite and Apex Legends. Well, I guess Warframe sort of does, but not the same way that Fortnite and Marvel Rivals is a huge success, huge success and it's actually not that bad.

Brandon Hurles: 17:20

Like we didn't hate it and I played it again. I tried it again. I didn't hate it. I don't like those type of games like in general, but I did't hate it and I played it again. I tried it again. I I didn't. I didn't hate it. I don't like those type of games like in general, but I did not hate it and it's got like over. I think I think they reached like 25 million players already, which is crazy, like hit some crazy crazy number. So it's like, uh, it's charting everywhere and people are playing it and loving it.

Brandon Hurles: 17:45

I went back to it and I don't even play those type of games. Yeah, it's an Overwatch clone, but it's a good Overwatch clone. I don't like Overwatch Marvel Rivals. I was like I get playing this with friends. I get it. Yeah, for sure. Oh, yeah, that's a good grab. Yeah, scarlet Nexus. Don't grab that one, though. Don't recommend Scarlet Nexus. You like that game? Is that the game that like flopped right away? That's a lot of time for a game that flopped. Yeah, steam sales are nice.

Brandon Hurles: 19:25

Did you see the rumor that popped up today? It actually came out today that the next Asus ROG ally is actually going to be a SteamOS machine. Yeah, we should probably bring that up. I didn't think about that before the Game Awards. One of the rumors that came out was Steam is making a console again, and there's more behind it than that. It's basically that. I'll type in to verify what the Okay, so SteamOS is here.

Brandon Hurles: 19:57

It's a public release of their Linux-based operating system. Basically, articles are saying that the, the new lenovo legion go, may be the first steam os handheld not made by valve. Uh, so it wasn't asus wrong ally, but uh, lenovo legion go. People love that handheld as well, and so it says. What's interesting is, if you look closely at the black variant, there's a dedicated Steam button near the left joystick. This suggests that Lenovo could be one of the third-party manufacturers to launch a handheld gaming console based on SteamOS, and obviously SteamOS works way better than running Windows 11 on.

Brandon Hurles: 20:39

That's the problem with the one downfall, because I played one. The one downfall to no, not Lenovo the Asus ROG Ally, which I would say is the best. The one downfall is that you're running native Windows 11. So you're not running. There's no over-the-top OS, there's no operating system. It's a copy-paste Windows 11. Yeah, yeah, so that's the one downfall, but you can still play steam, you can play game pass, you can play gog, you can play you know, all that stuff on there. So all that makes it really good. It's just that overall you're running windows 11 and in general, most people hate windows 11 to begin with. What's up, melvin Roach? You're still running 10? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what do you?

Brandon Hurles: 21:48

What do you think about SteamOS being used in other non-Valve hardware? And then also, what do you think about Valve making another Steam machine, basically a Steam machine too? We knew they were making a new Steam Deck, but we didn't know that they were going to make a dedicated console. But it's like just get a PC. That's kind of how I feel about it. No, not the Steam Deck, but I not the Steam Deck, but I meant the Steam. When I say dedicated console, I mean a dedicated, like a PS5 and a Series X. That's what I'm saying. What's the point? They've done it before the Steam Machine. I owned it. I owned that device. A steam deck makes total sense. But the other thing I bought that steam machine and it was terrible. I had one of the worst controllers of all time.

Brandon Hurles: 23:01

It just seems like it just seems like it doesn't feel like there would be a market there for that, but the Steam Deck obviously is a huge market for Are you? Yeah, yeah, it could. Yeah, it could be, I don't know. Yeah, that's yeah, that's yeah, let me look here. Good, keep talking. Yeah, hopefully we get some audio. We did something. I don't see the sound coming through the we're do. We did something different before the stream. We're using a new beta thing. So give me just a second. Yeah, maybe try. I think I figured it out. Give me just a second, guys. I apologize, it's a little embarrassing there.

Brandon Hurles: 24:31

Go ahead and talk, mark yeah, you're coming in oh, man, it's going to be fun for the audio part explaining that to everybody. Alright, we got that. At least we got that fixed and at least it was early on that we found out. But, uh, should should be getting sound coming through, because you're coming through my board and you're coming through my mark mark can speak can you, mark, speak?

Mark Trobough: 24:57

you can't hear me.

Brandon Hurles: 24:58

Now it's not just me talking and nothing's coming through um, but yeah, I mean I just, uh, the steam os. I like the idea of that and other handhelds and other coming through. But yeah, I mean I just the Steam OS. I like the idea of that and other handhelds and other devices. I think that's kind of cool. Have you played a Steam Deck? I? Haven't the OS itself the operating system is pretty good.

Mark Trobough: 25:18

It works good. The problem is I already have a if I'm going to be on the go. I usually that's what my switch is for, so I'll play Nintendo games more often than not on the go, so it's just like a good little steam OS and how it kind of controls, cause it like it's just like it works like a console basically.

Brandon Hurles: 25:32

So I mean, like it it does its job and so them using steam OS and other handhelds makes sense. Um yeah, I don yeah, I don't know, I think it'd be. Uh, I think it'd be pretty, pretty cool. I 100% agree with that. But we do have one other huge, huge, huge thing to talk about before we get into the game awards, because it's also like breaking news for today. So apparently we got an official accessory manufacturer came out with some images for the Switch 2. Some renders of their Basically their protectors came out with it. They marked it as Switch 2. They said they're not answering any questions right now. That was it. I'm trying to pull it up real quick where I retweeted it.

Mark Trobough: 26:24

I'm trying to figure out. You tagged me with so much stuff on me. I'm trying to pull it up real quick where I retweeted it. I figured out. I retweeted something. You tagged me. It's so much stuff on me. I was trying to figure out. Uh, oh, there it is yeah yeah, I, I, I saw this, but this was kind of confusing that they, that they came out like you, can't tell me they're not like potentially breaking some kind of they have to be breaking something legal liability or some kind of ND.

Brandon Hurles: 26:43

What company is it again? What's it? Called PNP dbrandcom was the link you shared with me.

Mark Trobough: 26:51

So yeah, dbrand, if this is true, you can't tell me they're not putting themselves in trouble for this.

Brandon Hurles: 26:58

You can't just release this.

Mark Trobough: 27:00

Unless this just works for just the Switch itself, or it could potentially work for both, but it specifically says Switch 2. That doesn't make sense.

Brandon Hurles: 27:10

Switch 2.

Mark Trobough: 27:12

First of all, I can't imagine Nintendo willing to work with them, but you can't tell me they're not breaking. Some kind of this wouldn't open them up to legal litigation. What's interesting is we give you access to this, but you're not allowed to announce it.

Brandon Hurles: 27:25

What I think people are ignoring. What I think people are ignoring Is the actual device. The device covers the front Of the console.

Mark Trobough: 27:34

Yeah, but the console Based on the actual dbrand website. It just looks like a regular switch on the inside, to be fair.

Brandon Hurles: 27:41

So they call it the switch 2, not the curves, not at all, no, not the actual case, but the switch to the curves?

Mark Trobough: 27:45

not at all. To me it doesn't. No, not the actual case, but the the. The render inside the case looks like a regular switch um so it could be one of those to me, because, if you look, at the joy cons.

Brandon Hurles: 27:58

The joy cons don't have a hump on them. The joy cons are a flat back. If you look at the joy cons on the back of the switch too, there's this weird hump and like where your fingers would go in between the trigger buttons.

Mark Trobough: 28:11

Based off the render, you can't really see a whole lot dude, I could see the entire.

Brandon Hurles: 28:15

You can see the entire back of the joy con. It's got that whole hump on it and joy cons are flat. Unfortunately, I don't use joy con, so I don't have it on my switch. I gotta there's no way this is.

Mark Trobough: 28:28

This is not some like just mock-up for it regardless.

Brandon Hurles: 28:33

How are they not going to get in trouble? For this is what I want to know that's the problem.

Mark Trobough: 28:38

You can't tell me they're not first of all nintendo, they're gonna have to do their own thing, like third market or aftermarket moving forward, but you can't tell me nintendo's not going to have to do their own thing, like third market or after market moving forward, but you can't tell me Nintendo's not going to go after them for this. If this is like an actual design of the Switch 2, not just some mock-up that they've made on their own for what they think it's going to look like crazy you can't just release this and not expect to get legal liability like cease and Desist and some other stuff would 100% come out.

Mark Trobough: 29:08

You would think so, yeah, that's why I'm super skeptical on this being legit.

Brandon Hurles: 29:16

The thing is that dbrand is a legit company that I legit own accessories from and they're a verified account, not gold verified, so a and their verified account like not gold verified, so like a verified, verified account.

Mark Trobough: 29:28

Yeah, that's why this is a problem, like they can't just come out and do this. This is, this isn't a mistake, this is intentional.

Brandon Hurles: 29:35

This can't be like oh, whoopsie, Someone was stupid.

Mark Trobough: 29:38

You can't tell me that you know this. This isn't going to be problem because 100% Nintendo doesn't want anybody to know about this until they release it themselves yeah the announcement yeah, yeah, give me.

Brandon Hurles: 29:51

I don't want to get.

Mark Trobough: 29:52

I don't want to get spoiled on it before it comes out. I think it takes away from the fun of the actual announcement. That's that's why I've always, and like a lot of people, hate a lot of these leaks and stuff like that, because, like you want, the whole purpose of the announcement is to be surprised and to find out, then not being like oh well, we already saw this, so it's not as exciting, just because some random company decided, oh, we're going to release something early.

Brandon Hurles: 30:25

I did want to show off one more thing as well.

Mark Trobough: 30:36

As he goes in, walks away and grabs it. It's okay, we'll laugh at Brandon. Brandon's such a joker. He can't hear me right now make fun of him. Hey, welcome back. I didn't say anything bad at all. Yeah right, I heard you say anything bad at all. What are you talking about?

Brandon Hurles: 30:49

I heard you say something about when he comes back. No, I just Crazy, man, about the dbrand stuff. Wild it really is. I just wanted to show off in case you haven't watched the video. You guys definitely should watch the video that I dropped with the pickups. But I wanted to explain last week why I was having problems. I've never built a PC before, Don't know anything about it. I'm learning as I go. First I put a CPU in, Then I put a GPU in, but I picked up a 4090, a very fairly undervalued 4090. Like under market value Quite90. Under market value A lot.

Mark Trobough: 31:32

The thing they didn't tell them about it was they used it for crypto mining.

Brandon Hurles: 31:36

Nah, it's legit, it's good. I ran all the tests on it and everything. Everything's good. Why would it matter if it was used for crypto mining?

Mark Trobough: 31:46

Because its lifespan would be drastically shortened. You're talking about just the wear and tear on the actual hardware itself.

Brandon Hurles: 31:54

He said he had it for three months and he had it received, that's why usually overclocking is such a big thing for some people. Do people even overclock like that now, like they used to, because I mean, what's advertised now is basically like the Overclocking is not what it used to be.

Mark Trobough: 32:18

No, the advertising says this is the base level and this is what it can do. Overclocked They'll advertise overclocking. You can still technically do it, but it's still technically extra wear and tear on the hardware.

Brandon Hurles: 32:29

Right, you're wearing down your system Extra 10% performance or 15% performance.

Mark Trobough: 32:34

But most people that overclock already probably have the money for the high-end gear, so they're trying to get the most out of the hardware. Most of those people probably get new hardware every year anyways from the new 5090s, 6090s, so it comes out, and stuff like that. They're just selling what they had for a year and then buying the new thing. They don't really care because they're not going to have it to where the wear and tear is going to be possible.

Brandon Hurles: 32:55

The guy seemed legit and everything like that. He actually went back to. He was showing me everything he said, the fun that he has. He doesn't really have fun playing games anymore. He has fun building PCs. But he went back to a 4070 Ti because he doesn't have time to play games, so he had no use for a 4090 anymore.

Mark Trobough: 33:15

It's just sitting there. It's just sitting there.

Brandon Hurles: 33:19

The price he sold it for essentially paid for the 4070 Ti it was under MSRP which, if you know anything, these are going for about 3-4 times MSRP which, if you know anything, these are going for about three to four times MSRP right now the 4090?

Mark Trobough: 33:30

Yeah, you can find it for $3,000 to $4,000 all day. But it's normally $1,500. Yeah, it's normally $1,500. What is the cost of my whole rig right now with the 4070?

Brandon Hurles: 33:43

So I paid under that. I'll just say that I paid under the MSRP, which is very hard to do for a used one on eBay. I mean you're looking at like three grand right now.

Mark Trobough: 33:55

I appreciate it, mr Coffee. He said hey, kid want to hop in my van and look at my GPU? Sure, mister.

Brandon Hurles: 34:03

Those are run hot. Those are crypto machines to be on for days. Yeah, that makes sense, I guess.

Mark Trobough: 34:08

Well, they essentially run 24-7.

Brandon Hurles: 34:10

Yeah, crypto mining is just stupid, I'm sorry. That's the problem For any crypto bros that we have following, I'm sorry. Crypto mining sucks.

Mark Trobough: 34:19

It makes sense. The problem is they didn't sell those GPUs. The problem is they might last three months before they go dead on you.

Brandon Hurles: 34:27

The problem is they might last three months before they go dead on you.

Mark Trobough: 34:30

That's the problem, which is a problem? Yeah, because they're running. They're essentially running at max.

Brandon Hurles: 34:35

They're running maxed out for months on it. I know a guy that bought three 4090s when they first came out. What in 2021? He bought three of them, and all for crypto mining. He got nowhere with it. He still works at his local retail store.

Mark Trobough: 34:53

The problem is when did Bitcoin come out? Like 2012 or something like that?

Brandon Hurles: 34:58

Yeah it's been around for a long time.

Mark Trobough: 35:00

The problem is if you really wanted to get into it and you immediately get into it immediately, then the problem is now if you want to make any money, you essentially need a warehouse of just nothing but crypto.

Mark Trobough: 35:11

Mine at this point, yeah, to really make money just because of the they all run minecraft and everything, yeah it gets harder to to do the calculations and to get more out of a bitcoin is more time goes on because there's there's just less of there's like a. I guess, if you think of it, this is not wrong. But for example, at its start, say Bitcoin, it only has, say, 100 Bitcoins and you can only mine that for so long until it's all been mined. And once all the crypto has been mined, that's it, there's no more. So there is a hard cap on what you can have.

Brandon Hurles: 35:45

Yeah, I just I don't necessarily get it. I don't understand the mining. How can you just build something and it digs up Bitcoin.

Mark Trobough: 35:55

It's doing mathematical equations, that's all it's doing. Essentially, it sounds like robbing a bank. It's essentially just it's doing a lot of it's doing a lot of equations to find the the new bitcoin essentially for whatever it does. I haven't dug into it since like probably 2021, 2022, uh, because I knew, I knew a guy that knew about it. He didn't mind bitcoin but he in, he traded in bitcoin, in bitcoin stock essentially yeah, one bitcoin is worth like fourteen thousand dollars now, which is crazy.

Mark Trobough: 36:27

No it's close, it's like it's above. It worth like fourteen thousand dollars now, which is crazy. No, it's close, it's like it's above. It's above ninety thousand right now whoa I can pull it up right now bitcoin. The bitcoin price right now is a hundred two thousand one hundred and five dollars right crazy. It's spiked in the last, like I think it's. It's spiked back in.

Brandon Hurles: 36:45

November. I think that's wild. I got way too much of my mental learn from what I've been through.

Mark Trobough: 36:54

I finna do what I yeah it it it spiked, uh, around the 6th or 7th of November is when it spiked from 70,000 all the way to like 90,000 in Spain, like a week or two wild so from like early November to like Thanksgiving, it spiked about about $20,000 and it slowly on an up and up that's crazy man.

Brandon Hurles: 37:16

Yeah, it's wild uh M said why Snoop Dogg was in Game Awards, said Snoop's a G, I know, but Game Awards of all things, it's kind of weird. And he's like I want to be in a video game and I guarantee he'll's kind of weird. And he's like I want to be in a video game and I guarantee he'll be in a. I mean, he's already been in a video game.

Mark Trobough: 37:32

Anyway, I mean he's got money. That's the thing. He just chills now all day.

Brandon Hurles: 37:38

Can you blame him?

Mark Trobough: 37:41

Especially with all the royalties at this point. Yeah, dude.

Brandon Hurles: 37:44

Oh my gosh, he bought. Death Row Records and they have a game studio Called Death Row Games. Apparently it's crazy. I might have to look that up real quick. I don't know if that was a joke or if he was like being serious, but with it being him, I believe it's serious.

Mark Trobough: 38:01

I mean he's an actual gamer.

Brandon Hurles: 38:03

I know he loves the PS5.

Mark Trobough: 38:05

Ubisoft made a game called Death Row back in what, 2002?.

Brandon Hurles: 38:10

Yeah, Death Row Underground. Team Combat.

Mark Trobough: 38:14

Yeah, like 2002 Xbox games.

Brandon Hurles: 38:16

That is a horrible name. New Regency.

Mark Trobough: 38:20

Teams of Death Row Games.

Brandon Hurles: 38:22

Oh no, death Row Games is real Interesting. Yeah Well, snoop Dogg's in fortnight now, but you know so hey, that's how you know.

Mark Trobough: 38:33

Snoop dog now official. He's in fortnight. That means he made it. He's popular enough to be relevant everything's been in fortnight now.

Brandon Hurles: 38:40

I mean like fortnight's got like five modes. Now I just got guitar here. For God's sake yeah, it's now.

Mark Trobough: 38:46

It's got its own. Uh, what's that hero shooter? Now it's got its own hero shooter.

Brandon Hurles: 38:48

Yeah, now it's got an arena shooter. What the heck? I mean, it makes sense that they're jumping in the train, because everything else is, I guess. But what do you guys think of the Muppets? The Muppets was weird. They were kind of annoying, I like the Muppets, but I don't like those. Muppets.

Mark Trobough: 39:04

I like them riffing on Jeff Keighley.

Brandon Hurles: 39:06

Yeah, I like the ripping on Jeff in the show. But yeah, they were kind of annoying, To be honest with you.

Mark Trobough: 39:14

After a while I'm like, okay, that's like a lot of the awards I'm seeing. They're like aren't the commercials the game? Every time it's why do you need other BS commercials in this thing? Just keep it going. Come on, guys, if you need that extra money for Snoop Dogg, then you don't need Snoop Dogg, that's at the very least, that's how I feel about it.

Brandon Hurles: 39:35

I don't know if I should bring this up or we should save it for the save it for the other podcast, but the official lineup for the Crunchyrolls Winter anime lineup is up. Just went up today. Oh no, we're going to be talking about that tomorrow on the for the Crunchyrolls Winter anime lineup is up.

Mark Trobough: 39:49

Just went up today. Oh no, because we're going to be talking about that tomorrow.

Brandon Hurles: 39:52

Okay, we'll just save it for tomorrow. That's like the whole whole. Yeah, that's right, I forgot we're reacting and everything.

Mark Trobough: 39:58

But no, I want to say because I saw it on there, I think it was at Shiba the Waz over on X. He was like when white people at the Game Awards, when Snoop Dogg tells them to stand up and dance, it's just a weird meme with some dude going yeah, yeah, you saw that. Like those two girls, hot ass. I'm like oh, y'all are making fools of yourself.

Brandon Hurles: 40:21

It's a good meme. That was funny. That's funny. Did you see that Cyberpunk Edgerunner is getting a Blu-ray and a prequel?

Mark Trobough: 40:30

That didn't surprise me. I assume the second. From what we know the second series is going to have.

Brandon Hurles: 40:35

It's not supposed to involve it's getting a prequel manga sorry Prequel manga and then it's coming out on Blu-ray.

Mark Trobough: 40:41

That makes more sense. I thought they said if they were ever going to do a second season, it was going to do a second season. It was going to have to be a whole new story. Those characters or stories have already been told.

Brandon Hurles: 40:50

Blu-ray coming in 2025. I love that Edge Runners was so good.

Mark Trobough: 40:56

I got to go back and watch it suffer through Edge Runners for a second time. Not because it's bad, just because of how it ends.

Brandon Hurles: 41:01

It's depressing yeah, let's jump into the Game Awards. What do we got first that we want to talk about with the Game Awards?

Mark Trobough: 41:09

You want to get into the big one with new we can jump in and just go through the whole show. Yeah, I mean this is technically starting at the end, but a lot of the talk is with Naughty Dog's new game. What's it? Intergalactic, the Heretic Prophet. Yeah, I saw grums uh ripping on this one all around it's all around the main female character who, to be fair, has the butch shaved, buzz, androgynous look, which seemed to be like what she can have cancer.

Mark Trobough: 41:40

We don't know what's going on well, she's shaving her head at the very beginning, like you know that much. But people are talking about like, oh, this, this looks like. If this is in this trailer, this looks like it's going to be full of DEI, essentially just based off how they introduced New Deal.

Brandon Hurles: 41:54

I hope not, because Naughty Dog is a great studio. They put out great games. I hope not. It's hard to argue with it.

Mark Trobough: 42:06

This is Abby 2.0 with the. What's the meme? Neil Cuckman, people go after Neil Druckmann for.

Brandon Hurles: 42:14

Yeah, neil Cuckman.

Mark Trobough: 42:19

The main character looks androgynous.

Brandon Hurles: 42:21

She really does, which isn't always a bad thing. I mean, we just don't. Maybe there's a meaning behind it, maybe I don't know.

Mark Trobough: 42:31

No, that's just Western gaming, to be fair at this point, because then you look at what you get out of, like Japan and Korea and China and stuff like that, and your female characters actually look like female characters and in the West they're kind of like Well, they look like female characters that are a little exaggerated in certain areas of their body.

Mark Trobough: 42:49

But it's a video game. It's not real life. Nobody wants to play a game based off real life. You want that fantasy out of a game. You don't want to be thinking about reality. Let's be fair. How many times have you cared to see yourself in a male character? Never, I haven't. You want to play as that muscular dude. You like man. I need to go to the gym more to look like him. I need to put some effort into my. Stop eating this fast food and stop being lazy. Go to the gym, workout, eat some good food stuff like that yeah because it's a.

Mark Trobough: 43:18

It's a fantasy, like a lot of these games, like it's you. You don't want to play as like a weak nerd who just sits on his computer all day, like we already do. You, you want that power fantasy. That's, that's the whole. That's one of the reasons isekai is an anime are so popular. It's that. It's that fantasy of going from a nobody to a somebody yeah, going, looking going from a a skinny, weak little nerd to someone who's ripped and gets all the ladies like it's the same concept.

Brandon Hurles: 43:42

Like to be fair yeah, no, I get it. I get it. Um, I guess we'll just we'll have to see. We don't know enough about the game. We really didn't get to see anything besides the main character shaving her head, and that was it it's a space game.

Mark Trobough: 43:58

You're hunting some guy it was like a bounty hunter type game Metroid Star Wars vibes yeah, it was just a CGI trailer, so I mean, that's enough ammunition for people that don't agree with the whole DEI, or the perceived DEI, to go after it, but the game itself not dealing with that. There's a lot of people outside of Grumps that yeah, but you posted about it a lot today he's just the biggest, most well known feature or the most public feature to go after.

Mark Trobough: 44:28

But the actual game itself, story-wise, you get a glimpse of it and then gameplay you didn't see any gameplay. It's all CGI. I can't remember. Did we get a release date window for this or did they just say they're working?

Brandon Hurles: 44:41

on this. I can't even remember. I'm looking.

Mark Trobough: 44:44

Because I remember getting the title but they didn't.

Brandon Hurles: 44:47

I think it just said 2025, right, they've been working on it since 2020, apparently, so 2025 would make sense. Five years.

Mark Trobough: 44:57

Because we got I was pulling it back up.

Brandon Hurles: 44:59

Yeah, there's no actual dates, but they've been working on it since 2020. So I would say it's a safe bet that 2025 is probably the year.

Mark Trobough: 45:09

If we were coming 2025, you would have gotten the year on there, which means it's probably 2026 or later, to be fair maybe, yeah, it could be it could be like a star field where we get it announced way beforehand and know it's coming, and then get disappointed a lot of games that are coming out next year. Had a title of just 2025 for next year if it was coming out next year. Had a title of just 2025 for next year If it was coming out next year why not tell people?

Brandon Hurles: 45:32

Yeah, what do we got next?

Mark Trobough: 45:36

Let me pull it up. No, this is going back to the beginning of the show. We finally got well, we know they've been working on this for a while, but our first official look at the Witcher 4. Which? You get to join.

Mark Trobough: 45:48

That series is going to be your new main character, not Geralt. We do know Geralt's going to be in the game to some degree, but it looks like Ciri's now going to take over the new playable character, which kind of makes sense. Geralt's story was kind of wrapped up in Witcher 1 through 3, which is a great game, and I don't know CD Projekt Red has yet to really let us down, like they put a lot of work into fixing down but they they, they, but it's a good game yes, I'm still a really good game, especially with the phantom liberty dlc that came out last year yeah

Mark Trobough: 46:19

they've yet to actually put out a bad game, so I can still be somewhat hopeful in that aspect. Obviously, like like before, it's a cd trailer very reminiscent to the trailer we had for the Witcher 3, as far as the fighting, the creature, the whole introduction stuff. It's all CG. But this is just verification. They're working on it and we knew this game they were working on. I think this one was fairly similar. As far as I don't know if we got a release window for this.

Brandon Hurles: 46:48

Yeah, I don't remember getting a release window on this one.

Mark Trobough: 46:52

I was pulling it back up just to verify, but I think it was just they're working on it and it's just one of those, the trailer, which means it's coming eventually. I was just trying to verify Because realistically, I think this game's a few years out still. Yeah, they didn't give us a release window, but I think probably 2027 would be a realistic window at this point. I would say 2026, I think.

Mark Trobough: 47:21

Well, I mean either one At best. They've been working on this game for a year. Phantom of Liberty came out last year and that's a fairly large DLC for Cyberpunk after years of fixing Cyberpunk as well.

Brandon Hurles: 47:30

Yeah, but they got teams separated and stuff for them.

Mark Trobough: 47:33

Yeah, but you mean this game probably didn't kind of like with Witcher 3 to Cyberpunk. Until the previous game's DLC is fully done, there aren't 100% in full-on production, which means this game has at best a full year of full-on actual proper production going into it. So I think we've probably got another three years before this game comes out.

Brandon Hurles: 47:52

Yeah, you definitely can't get wrong with guessing that.

Mark Trobough: 47:57

I think 2027 is a good window, just because you'd rather them work on it longer than cut corners and have it come out sooner.

Brandon Hurles: 48:05

Yeah, no, I agree, I agree For sure. So we got, we get to look at the witcher 4, and then we got. You got a okami later okami sequel, which is a a big deal. It's literally called okami sequel. Um, finally, in the works at capcom, uh, under direct and the original director, which was Hideki Kamiya sorry, hideki Kamiya took 18 years. We did actually get another Okami game called Okami Den for the DS, which for some reason are like disregarding, which was a sequel to the game.

Mark Trobough: 48:44

I never had this on the I think it was the PS3 but I had the HD version they put out on the PS4 yeah, which was the PS three, but I had the HD version they put out on the PS four.

Brandon Hurles: 48:49

Yeah, which is really good too. Yeah, the we. I still prefer to play on the Wii, cause I have HD version too, but there's something about playing it with the Wii with the non-chuck controller and and the things that you do with the painting with the Wiimote.

Mark Trobough: 49:05

It's just crazy. This game originally came out. They re-released on the PS4. I don't know if it came out on the 5 as well. This was a Wii game. It came out in 2006. It took almost two decades to get a sequel for this game.

Brandon Hurles: 49:19

It's crazy. I mean what year did Okami Den come?

Mark Trobough: 49:28

out Okami. Den. Yeah, that's the game that came out after came out in 2010 2010, so it's been basically 15 years since then crazy that's more of like a side game, not an actual mainline game. So as far as like mainline, the original game is the mainline game, this is more of like a spin-off game. Yeah, so definitely super excited. Mainline the original game is the only mainline game.

Brandon Hurles: 49:47

This is more of a spin-off game. Yeah, definitely super excited that was one of my favorite announcements of the entire show.

Mark Trobough: 49:55

I wonder if they're going to stick with sequel, or that's just a placeholder for now.

Brandon Hurles: 49:58

I bet they stick with it. I bet they stick with it. It seemed like it was going around everywhere today that it was called Okami sequel and Jeff Keeley retweeted something again today confirming the title, because people were asking questions if that was the title he named it as the title Okami sequel, which isn't. It's weird, but it's not bad, it's kind of cool.

Mark Trobough: 50:24

I think it needs to be changed. Okami 2 would sound a lot better than the sequel. It just sounds more Japanese, I don't know. I mean, it's kind of cool, I think it needs to be changed.

Brandon Hurles: 50:29

Comic 2 would sound a lot better than the sequel. It just sounds more Japanese.

Mark Trobough: 50:33

I don't know If it was Japanese.

Brandon Hurles: 50:38

I'd give you the Japanese word for sequel. Look, mark, I can't do anything to make you happy, mr Coffee said I'd need something to complain about. Mr Coffee said no official release date. Websites are just saying no chance for 2025. 2026 has only recently entered full-scale production phase this year.

Mark Trobough: 50:59

Yeah, that's for the Witcher, yeah. I even think 2026 is too early. If it was coming out next year, they would have given you a 2025 release title. If not, it's a year or two at a minimum. But I think some of these other games are going to take a few years to come out well, I'll let you take this next one, since you're the the big dog for this series here oh, borderlands 4 yeah.

Mark Trobough: 51:23

I mean it just it looks like as far as the graphics go, it looks pretty much just like like. As far as the graphics go, it looks pretty much just like 3 as far as that goes. So it's not a 1 to 2, 2 to 3 as far as how the graphics look, it just looks a little bit more polished.

Brandon Hurles: 51:37

But graphically, it looks pretty much the similar as 3.

Mark Trobough: 51:39

Which you'd expect another 4 years. We gotta look at the main. Don't know a whole lot about the we were talking, so I probably missed some of it. So obviously we're getting a new villain I don't know if we kind of have an idea of who it might be, but might need to wait for a proper trailer. And we got to look at some of our new Vault Hunters, though I don't know as far as the actual abilities. Obviously, this is more just showing off what the game's gonna look like and a little bit more as far as what you're the villain's probably gonna be. But yeah, obviously we need to see more. I want to see more gameplay. It should play probably a lot like three, just refining the combat like they have with with you one, two, two to three.

Mark Trobough: 52:23

I'm mainly just interested in the story at this point because that's going to be a a maker to break it for me yeah because I thought the problem with three is it looks and it plays amazing it plays great, it's just the story is such a letdown, which is the main villains like it's?

Brandon Hurles: 52:38

not.

Mark Trobough: 52:38

And then two is like the story's great, but the gameplay isn't as good but I still I don't think two's got solid gameplay the problem is like, but it's not as good as three. I don't. I don't hate the story completely, but when the story bottoms out, it bottoms out bad, especially with how they treated Maya, and then how Ava is written is terrible, and then the, the main villains. I get it.

Brandon Hurles: 53:02

It's not the worst, but I thought they they got a little bit too meta with the with your villains and the life.

Mark Trobough: 53:10

Yeah, some of the it felt like I can't remember who, what video I was watching when they said it, but I kind of agree with the simon, but that it felt like they were trying to force jokes more often than they did with two or two. It felt, uh, it felt like to the, the, the, what they weren't writing just straight jokes. Sometimes things were just funny in the situation that they were in. But with three it just felt like they were just writing jokes out and forcing it to fit in. So hopefully they fix that aspect of it. Like it there wasn't a whole lot writing wise. They really need to fix, to fix with 3 to make it at least not bad. But that was the big problem I had with 3.

Mark Trobough: 53:52

And then obviously New Tales, just kind of shows New.

Brandon Hurles: 53:56

Tales is canon too, which sucks.

Mark Trobough: 53:58

That's the problem.

Brandon Hurles: 54:00

Because it's terribly written so bad.

Mark Trobough: 54:03

And if they did that after Borderlands 3, I have zero faith that they can actually fix the writing in Borderlands 4. Borderlands4 will probably play amazing, but you're going to want to play it on mute, because who wants to do a poorly written story?

Brandon Hurles: 54:16

Yeah, no doubt.

Mark Trobough: 54:18

That's. The only frustrating thing about this is the writing. At this point I'm hoping that they write the ship on that. I want this game to be good. I love the Borderlands series. I love Borderlands 1, 2, and the pre-sequel for the most part. I don't know where I'd put 3 in there. 3 is probably between 1 and the pre-sequel. As far as the writing enjoyment, I want the game to be good. I'm going to be critical of it, but I want to see more actual story and narrative. I'm going to be critical of it, but I want to see more actual story and narrative. I get the worlds that look great.

Mark Trobough: 54:51

The gameplay is going to be great.

Brandon Hurles: 54:57

Did you play Tiny Tina? Because it also looked a lot more like.

Mark Trobough: 55:00

Tiny Tina to me Wonderlands. I didn't actually play it.

Brandon Hurles: 55:03

You didn't play it Okay.

Mark Trobough: 55:05

I think I have it on my shelf.

Brandon Hurles: 55:08

I just haven't put it in. Some people like it, some people don't. I've heard from from both that they like it. That it's I've heard it's better than three.

Mark Trobough: 55:16

Fixes problems that like three, has and feels more like borderlands one and two but I've also heard people say that it was very repetitive, so I mean that's a lot of how these games play, that that game loop still needs to be fun. But it's also a game that didn't get a whole lot of support after launch. They kind of launched it and just kind of forgot about it from some people that I saw that actually do Borderlands content a whole lot.

Brandon Hurles: 55:38

Did you ever play Borderlands Legends either?

Mark Trobough: 55:41

No.

Brandon Hurles: 55:42

You never played it.

Mark Trobough: 55:44

I don't even know what it is.

Brandon Hurles: 55:46

It's like an RTS Borderlands game that sounds terrible.

Mark Trobough: 55:50

It's not an RTS, it's a looter shooter yeah, but you have Tales from the. Borderlands, that's not, you know but that's not a core game, it's a spin off and it's a really well done game so is Borderlands. Legends.

Brandon Hurles: 56:04

I can't believe you're saying you're a Borderlands fan, you've never heard of Borderlands Legends. You've never heard of Borderlands Legends.

Mark Trobough: 56:11

Mobile RTS probably is what it was have you played the Borderlands VR? Yeah, borderlands 2 VR and it was, god awful. I didn't have the PSVR one, so I never got to play it it's one of those things where they just forced VR on a game that wasn't designed around.

Brandon Hurles: 56:32

VR, kind of like Minecraft, right, minecraft? Yeah, you said, you tried that too, and I never played it.

Mark Trobough: 56:40

VR was never Games that were developed without VR in mind and they shoehorned in never really. It's just a more in-person, like a first person view, but you still it plays better with a controller than it does with any kind of VR controls. It's just, it's good. Vr games were built as a VR game from the ground up, not shoehorned in years after the yeah, nah, I'm with ya.

Brandon Hurles: 57:06

I'm with ya, alright, what do we got next on the announcement list?

Mark Trobough: 57:09

Oh my god. This mobile game came out in 2012.

Brandon Hurles: 57:11

Yeah, it's old, 100%. Why didn't you play it back then, the year we graduated?

Mark Trobough: 57:17

It was. I didn't play Borderlands. The first time I played Borderlands was 2015. So there's a 0% chance I would have played that mobile game.

Brandon Hurles: 57:24

But it was fun and I'm not even an RTS guy.

Mark Trobough: 57:31

I don't even like RTS. It was removed in August of 2016.

Brandon Hurles: 57:33

It lasted four years, it was probably a little sport.

Mark Trobough: 57:38

Yeah, at the peak of Borland's Peak.

Brandon Hurles: 57:42

You know what? I got a Glock in my Yori. Alright, well, we got Next, please. Oh yeah, so the new standalone Elden Ring game got announced, which is a three-player action-adventure game. It's not like Elden Ring, it's an entirely different game. It's basically a spin-off standalone game. It has nothing to do with Elden Ring. It's an entirely different game. It's basically a spin-off standalone game. It has nothing to do with Elden Ring or the DLC. But this, actually, me and Mark were slightly talking about this before the podcast, and because it's not a Souls game, we might be interested in playing it, both of us, because I like the lore and the story of all the Souls games. I don't like the combats. I don't like the combats. I don't like the combat because it's hard.

Mark Trobough: 58:33

To be fair, I went back and tried to play the first.

Brandon Hurles: 58:36

I bought Demon's Souls Remake on. Ps5. I bought that. It came out around launch of the PS5, so I bought it and tried it again. I played it on the PS3 and couldn't get anywhere with it. I was even worse with the remake for Demon's Souls so bad. I played every Soulsborne game Haven't beat any of them, but two. I beat Dark Souls 2 and that was it.

Mark Trobough: 59:04

I'll watch videos on it for the story, but from what I understand it's rumored that it's a supposed to be FromSoftware's take on the Monster Hunter type game.

Brandon Hurles: 59:13

Essentially, oh, I'd be in for that.

Brandon Hurles: 59:15

People are expecting it to play yeah, I mean it sounds like more of something that would be up our alley, like an action adventure game like this and I like the lore and the setting of Elden Ring and I like the lore and the setting of Elden Ring and I like the whole medieval monster aspect of Elden Ring, like I like all the stuff about Elden Ring and Elden Ring is the most playable of any Soulsborne game there is. So like this would be like the entry point for anybody to play. This is like a low level Souls game yeah.

Mark Trobough: 59:48

So this is kind of like uh, it's souls like games aren't rage inducing, but they are to me and I don't do, oh my god, they're rage inducing games, are you kidding me?

Brandon Hurles: 59:56

they?

Mark Trobough: 59:57

they break controllers and tvs all the time they break and hold tvs if you don't have like, uh, you know, self-control you you say I want to throw this, but this controller costs $60.

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:09

I'm not going to throw it.

Mark Trobough: 1:00:11

I can see you doing it before I could, though. I've never, I'll just rage, quit a game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:16

I've never rage anything with a game. I've rage quit, yeah, but I've never thrown something or gotten angry.

Mark Trobough: 1:00:25

Bro's never played Rocket League before. He doesn't know how ragey I get at a game which you're usually competitive games. That's the problem.

Brandon Hurles: 1:00:33

Yeah, that's the problem. Mr. Coffee say, just beat Demon's Souls this year on PS3. Nice, yeah, I couldn't beat the remake, couldn't beat the original. I kind of gave up. What do we got next, mark?

Mark Trobough: 1:00:51

I mean, well, technically, what's it? Helldivers 2 is getting an update. Yeah well, it was a whole expansion right. Yeah, which is not surprising, since it's a live service game, you'd expect them to bring new characters.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:06

All it really did was like, hey, maybe we should actually hop into this game and play it for a little bit yeah, I think, uh, yeah, we need to play that soon because I need a reason to pick it up and I've been wanting to play it anyway, so it works for our saturday streams an actual good co-op game.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:23

If you really want to talk about that one, was the split fiction game looked up? Yeah? That looks really cool that it very similar to like.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:31

It takes two style of game yeah, it's a co-op only game, so you have to play with somebody else, which is really cool.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:37

The question is is this? Is this co like couch co-op or can you? Can it be like online co-op?

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:42

yeah, I was like an online co-op. This would be great, great to play this would be be an awesome Saturday stream game, if that's the case.

Mark Trobough: 1:01:49

I wonder if it says anywhere here it comes out in March, so it's about three months away, essentially.

Brandon Hurles: 1:01:57

I feel like they've got to have online multiplayer in 2025. If they've got to, it's got to be. I feel like it can't be couch co-op only, because even it Takes 2 you can play online right.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:12

Yeah, I think it would have to.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:14

Yeah, that might be a fun one to do because it looked good. I'm watching the trailer right now.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:22

It's coming out on PS5, the Xbox Series X PC via Steam Epic Game Store and the EA app.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:30

Yeah, it'd be a good PS5 pickup if it gets physical.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:36

Yeah, it looks like a lot of fun. Yeah, so GamesRadar is reporting that, like with it Takes Two, there will be a Friends Pass available. This means that only one of you will need to buy the game in order to play it together online. So it looks like they'll have online. It's also saying the Friends Pass will also have cross-play between PlayStation, xbox and Steam.

Brandon Hurles: 1:02:57

That's cool.

Mark Trobough: 1:02:59

So one could be on PC, one might be on a console, Because I know you prefer console. I prefer PC if it's multi-platform.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:05

Well, now I'm starting to prefer pc, but it's just like if I'm going to buy a game and there's a physical of it, I'll get the physical before I buy it digitally oh, that's one of those.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:14

I'll buy it digital and then I'll wait for a sale or buy used physical.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:19

It doesn't look like a uh, it doesn't look like it's pushing the limits um on pc anyway so fair.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:27

Though, like I don't like to buy, I won't buy spaces like a premium. I won't buy anything physical. I'll buy games. I absolutely like physical I.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:36

If it's one or the other, I just gotta go physical uh well I just don't like, I just don't like digital.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:45

so I'll buy digital on pc, on steam, and then maybe down the road a little while later I'll buy it physical, just to have it physical, but I mean. Pc's my preferred platform, but if it's like a.

Brandon Hurles: 1:03:55

Steam sale or something like yeah, but at a full price.

Mark Trobough: 1:03:59

At launch.

Brandon Hurles: 1:04:00

I'm going to buy a physical copy of this because if I end up not liking it, at least I can sell it or get rid of it or something and get a different game Stuff like that or GameStop. Now you can straight up return your game, you can open up your game. You got 30 days to return it.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:19

If you have under 2 hours played, you can refund it on Steam. But, you have to be under 2 hours for it to be a guaranteed thing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:04:27

Yeah, I feel like two hours isn't enough, but I'm 100% looking forward to that.

Mark Trobough: 1:04:31

Yeah, for sure, be a fun game, because we haven't been able to play a game like this before.

Brandon Hurles: 1:04:35

So yeah, we haven't, uh, and there's a. There's a couple games out there like that. There's that a way out game where you're two guys breaking out of prison. It's the same thing play with the other person. We also got the director of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. We got their next game, which doesn't have a title. It just shows a mech floating head in it. We just really don't know anything about it at all. It was just kind of didn't mean anything to us. We don't know anything about the at all. It was just kind of didn't mean anything to us because we don't know anything about the game. But it looks visually, looks very, very good If it's anything like Ico or Shadow of the Colossus or any of those games that he did 100%.

Brandon Hurles: 1:05:19

it's going to be Then it's probably going to be like a 10 out of 10 game, Because those are.

Mark Trobough: 1:05:26

I'll say this what I would say. I thought about it, yeah, looking at the, the trailer after the fact, where he's standing on the robot and got that weird black looking creatures or income at him yeah hundred-percent.

Mark Trobough: 1:05:38

You know what that reminds me of what the dream sequence from the Final Fantasy movie. They came out like 20 years ago. You don't talking about it. Children that know the spirits within oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that came out like 20 years ago. You know what I'm talking about? Advent Children. No, the Spirits Within. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that that is like Final Fantasy and name over 100%. It looks like it's drawn inspiration from that movie. It might just be me, but that's what I thought of.

Brandon Hurles: 1:06:00

I mean, it could be as much as I know. Final.

Mark Trobough: 1:06:02

Fantasy fans hate that movie but I like that movie as a kid. I like Advent.

Brandon Hurles: 1:06:07

Children a lot. Did you ever watch that one?

Mark Trobough: 1:06:10

No. I didn't.

Brandon Hurles: 1:06:14

That one's really good. I do have a movie. I think I don't know. All right, mark's looking for something, so we got uh shinmu, lead you. Suzuki has a new game coming out next year with anime vibes cranked all the way up brandon, you're lame.

Mark Trobough: 1:06:38

No, and it's. Uh, I did have one. It's a final fantasy. Was it 15 king's claves?

Brandon Hurles: 1:06:44

oh, yeah, kingsclaves yeah, I watched that one too. I forgot about that one. I don't like that movie though. I also don't like Final Fantasy 15 at all not a fan. But yeah, this is cool. I love Shenmue. Definitely does have anime vibes. He also created Virtual Fighter, which I found funny. I didn't know he created Virtual Fighter and Shenmue, but the thing is it's a mobile game.

Mark Trobough: 1:07:12

So you know, and he's going to lose a few points there.

Brandon Hurles: 1:07:16

Lost a few points with me there, but it says and we don't know much about this game at this moment, but the trailer shows Game Awards has an adorable art style and cranks anime vibes up to 11, featuring a purple-haired girl in what seems to be sort of a miniature mech suit matching the cast of Robot Buddies actually called Buddy Robots. So that's what we know on that one.

Mark Trobough: 1:07:40

Yeah, as well as another smaller game that I didn't care for, but it's another PvP. What's that? Thickest Thieves game? Didn't leave a whole lot. Yeah, thickest Thieves, thickest Thieves. Oh sorry. I didn't care for it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:03

It didn't interest me much.

Mark Trobough: 1:08:08

I mean, it kind of looks like Under Legend 5 slop really it kind of does.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:15

It doesn't look interesting at all, but yeah, figured I'd mention that one.

Mark Trobough: 1:08:22

I might change my mind later on, but initially I didn't care for it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:25

But the next one I'm very excited about we got a new Ninja Gaiden announcement. So this is the first 2D Ninja Gaiden game in 29 years and it's a Metroidvania which is crazy, crazy, 100% so excited. I saw a whole bunch today. It's called Ninja Gaiden Ragebound. I saw a whole bunch today. It's called Ninja Gaiden Ragebound.

Brandon Hurles: 1:08:46

I saw a whole bunch of tweets about this game today, people that were working on it and were like, hey, I can announce that I've been working on this game and I actually know one of the people that are working in the art department for this game. So they're one of the lead art directors and it makes total sense because emu is involved, involved with this and they do a lot of um, you'd have to look them up. But they do a lot of like almost indie-esque games that are in this metroidvania vein. So it makes sense. They've kind of got metroidvania down to like a perfect science, um, essentially, and this it just it has a really cool anime, um, like opening. Basically, I'm assuming this is like the opening for the, the game, but it's got like a whole anime for it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:09:31

Um, I'm just really excited to play this game. I can't wait. Uh, it's been it's been a long time since we had ninja gaiden like this and, uh, it looks really good. And I love metroidvanias and I love that they actually like put the time into making an anime opening story to it stuff going on throughout it. I'm just watching it back here and it just looks really really good.

Mark Trobough: 1:09:58

I mean the fact that you should get another Ninja Gaiden game and IP, especially on the 2D side. You thought was just forgotten for all of time.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:05

Yeah, I mean EMU and Koei Tecmo obviously are collabs in this one, so it's coming out on PS5, nintendo Switch, steam and Xbox. So summer 2025, so just around the corner.

Mark Trobough: 1:10:22

Yeah and talk about a game that came out like what this past summer Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is finally coming to PC January 23rd.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:30

I still haven't beat it on PS5. I'm still actively playing it.

Mark Trobough: 1:10:36

But hey, now you can get it on Steam. Hopefully it's not going to be another one of those crappy ports that we seem to get from Sony.

Brandon Hurles: 1:10:46

I know that's what I'm worried about, because it's such a good game and the Sony ports are just so hit or miss whether they're good or not. You just don't know. A game like this I would want to play on PS5. I already have it on PS5, so I'm not going to rebuy it. I'm halfway through the game. I'm actually going to rebuy it and I haven't even. I'm halfway through the game, like I'm actually through the halfway point, um, so I'm not going to rebuy it. But a game like this I would have liked to have played on pc rather than ps5, because you know 120 frames, stuff like that, um, even on the ps5 pro you do have pro enhancements and it does look way better. It runs better, um, it just performs better all around. But still, on pc you have more options, like if you got a 4090 or a 4070 ti and up, basically, um, you know it, it run pretty dang good on the pc.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:38

So good, I'm trying to see what they had on steam.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:41

They had a what's it crisis core reunion, yeah that was the one I told you you needed to play. I was telling you about that last night.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:48

They've got Remake Integrate but I didn't see the original 7 remake, unless it's one of those games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:53

Remake Integrate is the original.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:56

It's the.

Brandon Hurles: 1:11:57

PS5 version of it.

Mark Trobough: 1:11:59

So they just made it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:00

They remastered it and added content to it.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:03

The titling is confusing. That's the problem with some of these games Now.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:07

Integrate. Essentially what they did is they remastered the game, but they added an additional story on at the end of the game that ties into Rebirth and then Crisis Core Reunion.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:19

Yeah, and apparently you can get Ever Crisis as well. It's free, but it's got mixed.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:24

Ever Crisis?

Mark Trobough: 1:12:25

well, it's free, but it's got mixed Ever.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:27

Crisis. What's that?

Mark Trobough: 1:12:30

Is that the?

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:31

PVP game who knows. There was a weird.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:37

Final Fantasy, all the other games have made their way.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:40

Oh yeah, it's that weird PVP game.

Mark Trobough: 1:12:44

It's for phones. Yeah, let me pull this up real quick. So it comes out January 23rd. Through January 23rd, if you buy it on Steam, you can get it 30% off. So it's $48.99 instead of the full $70.

Brandon Hurles: 1:12:58

Not bad.

Mark Trobough: 1:13:00

It's still a $70 game on.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:01

PS5. There were a bunch of sales for Black Friday, though, where it's still a $70 game on PS5.

Mark Trobough: 1:13:07

There were a bunch of sales for Black Friday, though, where it dropped down to $30. Yeah, it's still 30% off. If you got the Rebirth Digital Deluxe Edition upgrade, it's 30% off from that $90, so it's like $63 if you wanted that extra little upgrade.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:18

Yeah, yeah, for sure. But I definitely recommend checking out Intergrade and then Crisis Core Reunion, for sure. But I definitely recommend checking out Intergrade and then Crisis Core Reunion, for sure 100%, 100.

Mark Trobough: 1:13:30

$100. $100. Money, money, money.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:36

Alright, what do we got next?

Mark Trobough: 1:13:40

Oh, we got a Pal World update which looks really good. I'm glad this is more like what you'd want Pokemon to evolve into. But Game Freak just says, no, here's my broken middle effort game. Give me money.

Brandon Hurles: 1:13:55

Anyone remember? Ps4 or Final Fantasy Type-0 HG. Yeah, I have that.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:00

Oh, that was the first Final Fantasy game you ever played. Yeah, you were telling me that. Yeah, it was horrible. I don't even have it anymore. It's not good, it's a terrible game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:07

It does not represent Final Fantasy very well.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:10

I got less than two hours into that game, but no, power World's main update, bay Break, is coming out December 23rd.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:20

I got way too much in my mental Learn from what I've been through.

Mark Trobough: 1:14:23

I got way too much in my mental Learn from what I've been through. You could say that all afternoon. But I mean, regardless of everything else going on, it's glad to see that game is continuing to get you know updating content, especially since the, what, the, the legal cost was like what, $63,000, something like that. It was like negligible. It's like okay, Okay, and um can't remember if he was and um came to figure out saying lame, no, buy, buy on ps5 for what?

Mark Trobough: 1:14:48

uh, final fantasy 7 yeah, buy final fantasy on ps5 but then I can't play it modded like you can on pc.

Brandon Hurles: 1:14:58

Yeah, that's like the one benefit. You gotta wait for the mods, cause you're not gonna mod it yourself.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:02

You're talking about stellar blade. Stellar blade will be so much better once it's modded. It'll be interesting to check that out on PC. If you know why, I will buy that on.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:10

PC again when there's a sale for sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:15:13

Oh, I'm going to buy that on PC and then, oh yeah, it's going to be modded 100%. You already know what I mean. I don't need have more to end up oh boy, amen. You know there's other other good stuff. People make their own content, other cool stuff you can bring to the game. But I mean just saying there's a reason people love to play games modded.

Brandon Hurles: 1:15:39

Uh, two reasons former uh payday devs, uh, new co-op heist game. Den of Wolves got its first gameplay trailer. This was the game I was mixing up earlier with the Thieves game. I was getting them mixed up but it says as a strong reminder. This year has been a strong reminder of how popular co-op games can be, like Helldivers 2 and Power World. It looks like the developers, gtfo, a team of veterans from Payday the Heist and Payday 2 announced Den of Wolves, a new sci-fi take on the co-op heist genre.

Mark Trobough: 1:16:15

They say sci-fi, it's more of a cyberpunk style game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:16:19

I will say this Payday 2 launched crap. It launched with less content than the first game, had made no sense like way less content, less effort, it was like it was like they hit the reset on payday one. It's like, okay, you can play payday 2 with no content on it. I was like so, mad man, I, I like, I used to like to play payday.

Mark Trobough: 1:16:45

I would be mad, but I didn't waste my money on the game, so you don't even play games, mark, oh, okay, okay, okay, what we got next? Let me pull it up. I mean, I guess we I wanted to gloss over it yes, the Last of Us, part 2 this game that came out like three years ago is getting a remaster as well as it's coming to PC.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:13

So it's like there's like no news it is getting a remaster or remake like part one it's getting a remaster for part two and it's coming to PC. I knew about the pc, but I didn't know that it actually got announced for the remaster part.

Mark Trobough: 1:17:30

You know they can't help until they release the same guy, same game, three times in under five years yeah, I know upgrades each time. It's so frustrating. It is like such a frustrating.

Brandon Hurles: 1:17:40

It is very frustrating, I will say. The last of us part one was the first game I tested on the PS5 Pro and it looked amazing. It ran, performed very well. But it got a remaster a year after release yeah, I mean it came out on the PS3, got a remaster on the PS4, and then a remake on the PS5. It makes no sense. It's a cash grab.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:04

It's a cop layer of paint.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:08

You know the worst part of this. You know the worst part of this whole thing. There was a Firefly edition of Last of Us Part 1, the remake. They came out and I wanted this, this collector's piece it was called Firefly Edition Only on the PlayStation Store. Sold out immediately Right away. H out immediately Right away hits eBay $500, $600, $700. For a copy of this game. That was $100 MSRP. All it did was come with a book inside of a basically like a little package.

Mark Trobough: 1:18:38

That just means Scalper is just artificially jacking up the price online.

Brandon Hurles: 1:18:41

I was so mad. You still can't get it unless you want to pay like $200, $300. I'm like no. Absolutely not. Absolutely not Made me so mad. I wanted to get that. I liked the Last of Us, especially the first game, but it's like that was totally unnecessary. Now, if they had, if they had skipped the remaster on PS4 and then remade on PS5, that would have made sense, but they remastered it and remade it, so it didn't make sense you know two systems.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:12

Later to remake it is not. There's nothing wrong with that, but when you can still play the remaster on the current system and then you remake it too, there's problems it didn't need it. I can literally pop that remaster in there and play it just fine, but nope, let's remake it too and it's sold.

Mark Trobough: 1:19:33

Minimal effort for more money. That's the problem. Another old game is coming back with Drifter.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:41

Yeah, the initial V.

Mark Trobough: 1:19:44

It's Screamer. Essentially an anime-style racing game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:19:50

Kind of like Initial D, which is pretty interesting.

Mark Trobough: 1:19:54

I mean they brought up Initial D in name only. Initial D has its own games, if you actually care for that. But I mean it's interesting. Didn't actually see any gameplay. This game doesn't come out until sometime in 2026.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:05

So this is basically Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:08

What it looks like.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:10

It kind of does, doesn't it? Looks like a future Fast and Furious game, I mean movie.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:15

Japanese anime racing game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:17

Interesting. We didn't hear anything new about Sony's Affair games Competitive heist live service game. I didn't even know about that.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:27

Did games competitive heist live service game. I didn't even know about that, did you? Yeah, I never heard of it before. Huh.

Brandon Hurles: 1:20:32

I have to look that one up. What's up? Playstation shabby they're in the tiktok and user 2081012625698. Literally, how's it going, guys? What do we got next after screamer, so we got the oh, it's another like co-op game, stage, stage fright.

Mark Trobough: 1:20:59

Yeah, I was less this was like this one.

Brandon Hurles: 1:21:02

Yeah, more kids ask game, yeah it seemed like a more targeted kids co-op style game in the vein of like a way out and and stuff like that, like that sort of thing. Um, it didn't look bad. Definitely I like the animation style. Just it looked like it was maybe more targeted kids. Well, who knows, maybe it'll be good.

Mark Trobough: 1:21:27

But yeah, I didn't. I was like that's a game, I didn't care for it too much. I don't have a whole lot to say about it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:21:34

And then we got Project Century. I got World Premiere. This is from the LEGO Dragon Studio RGG Reels, its first new IP in six years. It doesn't look like Yakuza and it's set in 1915 Japan, which that right there made me interested. I like. Japan period pieces.

Mark Trobough: 1:21:56

This studio only does the Like a Dragon slash Yakuza games, so it's going to fall within that game series.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:04

That says it's a new IP, so it's going to fall within that game series. It says it's a new IP, so I don't know.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:11

I don't know. I still think it's going to tie into the whole Like a Dragon series, slash Yakuza, whatever you want to call it by. I don't think they've ever made a non-game that's in that series, though it says Ryu.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:22

It looks in place like it. It says it says Ryu it looks in place. Toku has revealed a brand new IP which, for the first time in a long time, doesn't look a whole lot like Yakuza at all.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:37

I disagree with their take. It looks like a more refined combat style. It looks and plays a lot like Yakuza.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:43

I don't think it's going to tie into Yakuza, but yeah, I can see where you can see some Yakuza in it.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:48

The gameplay 100% looks like those games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:22:51

It does.

Mark Trobough: 1:22:52

It's not a one-for-one, but you can still tell that it looks like it when you make a style of game for so long, even if you do something new, it's still going to have its roots in the, the way the, uh, your other games have played in the past that was the game, where they work in teams robbing a bank and they all wear were wearing weird masks, I think.

Brandon Hurles: 1:23:11

Are you talking about a way out, or that he brought up the oh, yeah, probably the fair game then we got another big one that I was excited about.

Brandon Hurles: 1:23:22

This was one, one of my top I had like a top five announcements. Ani Musia is coming back after 18 years on the PS2. Um, finally getting a new game in the series. It says uh, despite the legendary status Capcom's Ani Musia earned back at the PS2 days, series never got its due in later consoles. Now series is coming back in the form of animus. Show way of the sword. Would you believe it? A modern third person action game without about a japanese warrior slaying demons, looks a little more like sekiro. Uh.

Brandon Hurles: 1:23:56

Whether capcom's taking any direct inspiration from from software remains to be seen. Um, I did kind of see that too, because at first I said is this? I kept saying, is this a from software game, like what? I I thought it was a sekiro uh sequel. But um, yeah, no, it makes sense. Animusha, really, really cool. I? I got confused a couple times in the trailer because, like, what is this? I thought I thought it was a few different things. Before the wording came up I was like oh, that's a really good announcement If you have not played the Onimusha games. They are so good, so why they never? Capcom never continued, just like they ignore Mega man, they ignore everything. Man. If it's not Monster Hunter, they ignore it and Resident Evil Pretty much.

Mark Trobough: 1:24:43

Yeah, because those are their money makers.

Brandon Hurles: 1:24:45

So that's what they're going to pay for. I mean, and I love both of those series, but it's like Mega man is one of my favorite series of all time and it's what they're most notorious for, I would say. And we don't get any Mega man stuff at all. Mega man 11 came out like five years ago, six years ago, something like that.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:03

I just have to bring it up, because Mr Coffee brought it up the Ryu Ga Gotoku studio. They've worked on Like a Dragon since 2012. They also worked on Binary Domain Judgment. From 2019 to present, they've worked on Super Monkey Ball and then, from 2021 until now, they've also worked on Virtua Fighter. So technically they've worked on other games, but the bulk the the bulk of what they put into is like a dragon series yeah, yeah, I didn't know they worked on uh and it's and it still looks like they.

Mark Trobough: 1:25:34

It looks and plays like the like a dragon games more often I don't know about judgment because I've not played it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:25:39

So makes sense because it's a studio. So we also got a new gameplay trailer for Splitgate 2, which looked really good. Did you have any thoughts on this one, Mark?

Mark Trobough: 1:25:54

I never played the first one. It didn't jump out. Like some people, I wasn't a fan of the series because I never played it before, so I didn't know what to think about it. It kind of looks like another take on the whole studio or the the arena fighter, the whole like 5v5 type thing or the free for all it's more of halo and portal put together.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:14

It's more it's more of a halo game than it is like a arena shooter. It's more the maps are more like halo. The gameplay is more like halo. It's just you're mixing in the whole Portal stuff, which is where that's what separates it from, say, halo, but it plays like Halo does. It actually plays like that. It also plays kind of like Half-Life, kind of like Team Fortress 2, and gameplay.

Mark Trobough: 1:26:42

But I mean after a while. A lot of the shooters tend to start playing the exact same way, though after a while. With modern shooters. They all kind of play the same. The whole teleportation is going to be the real gimmick. That's probably going to make or break this game compared to something like Marvel Rivals.

Brandon Hurles: 1:26:58

The first one did very well and I liked it. I normally don't like those type of multiplayer games, but it captured me when it came. And I normally don't like those type of multiplayer games, but it captured me when it came out and I really liked it.

Mark Trobough: 1:27:08

It's just a really competitive market with those shooter games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:27:12

What else we got?

Mark Trobough: 1:27:15

I think the last one. Oh yeah, we did get a new trailer for the Outer Worlds 2, finally, yeah, what did you think about that one?

Mark Trobough: 1:27:24

Hopefully it's going to be good. I mean didn't get a whole lot. I mean it's more of like a teaser trailer is what it felt like. I feel like this is what the game's essentially going to look like in kind of play. It wasn't really a whole lot of story, but I assume it's going to take place after the end of the first one, because that's just narratively where the game ended off. But I mean I like the first game. It wasn't like a super long game, didn't overstay its welcome, but it's still an enjoyable, quasi comedic game to play. So as long as it's more of the first game just continuing on the story, I think it'll be a good game. But I mean I'll wait and see all right.

Brandon Hurles: 1:27:59

So there, we got a lot of the the announcements. I guess we should get to some of the awards. Um, get to start off. Get to some of the awards. Um, good Start off with with some of those. I guess we'll start off with the the big one, Astro bot, one game of the year. Um to much contention with Mark.

Mark Trobough: 1:28:17

I thought it there's. I thought there were only three games that that should have won either metaphor rebirth or Wukong. The shoot up one either Metaphor Rebirth or Wukong. The other three games one Eldritch is a DLC, astro Bot is a platformer you know living off of nostalgia.

Brandon Hurles: 1:28:31

I still don't understand your take on it. I don't understand your take on. Why does it matter if Astro Bot is a platformer? I don't understand the take on it.

Mark Trobough: 1:28:41

Because I just don't think it's a good game. You don't think it's a good, it's just it falls short. You don't think it's a good game it's a good game, but not it's not better than Wukong or Metaphor, two games I actually have played.

Brandon Hurles: 1:28:52

Metaphor is amazing, but it's, like Astro Bot's also a fantastic game, so I don't know.

Mark Trobough: 1:28:58

I mean, what's the narrative in Astro Bot?

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:03

what's the narrative? You play as Astro Bot and you get through the game. It's a 3D platformer.

Mark Trobough: 1:29:08

Exactly, it's just a platformer. There's no story to the game. It's just living on nostalgia. It's a good game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:14

You're living on prayer dog.

Mark Trobough: 1:29:17

All these other games, except for Bellator, are better games than that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:20

See, I don't know, because you told me during the live you're like a 3D Mario, should never win another game of the year, you told me that it shouldn't? I'm like, are you?

Mark Trobough: 1:29:29

kidding me? The narrative doesn't exist in those games, it's just a platformer.

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:34

Which was nominated for Game of the Year that year and deserved to win. It deserved to win. That's a 10 out of 10 game.

Mark Trobough: 1:29:44

You need more than game mechanics. Like you need narrative story, something that does something else, like it's not a rounded game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:29:53

I don't think that it's wrong in winning. I just think personally, for me, what it would have been is would have been Rebirth first, would have been Metaphor. Second, astrobot. Third, black Myth. Fourth I haven't played Black Myth, but I have enough faith in you. Would have been Rebirth first, would have been Metaphor. Second, astro Bot. Third, black Myth. Fourth I haven't played Black Myth, but I have enough faith in you and other people I talk to. I want to play it. You don't need friends anymore. Hey, shut up.

Mark Trobough: 1:30:17

I said I'm going to play it because it came out on PS5 with a physical, so I'm going to get it. Then again, I still stand by it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:23

I would not have put Elden Ring's DLC Bellatro or Astro.

Mark Trobough: 1:30:24

Bot, I wouldn't have put either of those three games in Game of the Year Contention to begin with.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:29

Bellatro and Elden Ring. Elden Ring was ridiculous. Elden Ring is on a whole other level of being ridiculous because it's a DLC of a game that requires you to own the base game to play. This is not a new game. This is DLC to an old game.

Mark Trobough: 1:30:44

Which is why I'm surprised it didn't win. To be fair, yeah, because they're pushing this other.

Brandon Hurles: 1:30:49

I'm like, oh, this is why this is Game of the Year Contender, because they're pushing this new Elden Ring game Didn't need to Elden Ring alone the name sells.

Mark Trobough: 1:31:01

You didn't need to be Game of the Year to get people to watch. I disagree with that whole concept. But Astro Bot's just a platformer. There's no story to the game, it's just ooh, this is cute. Oh, remember these other games, oh yeah. I'm a journalist who knows nothing about games. I'm just going to vote on something.

Brandon Hurles: 1:31:16

The one good thing about Astro Bot winning is that it was actually a Japanese developed PlayStation game, which never happens. We don't get any Japanese developed PlayStation games anymore.

Mark Trobough: 1:31:28

They moved their headquarters over to the US Aren't all of these games other than Bellatro, non-western games, master of War, wukong, elden Ring, final Fantasy, metaphor. Aren't these all Eastern developers?

Brandon Hurles: 1:31:40

essentially Bellatro's, not even a game in here.

Mark Trobough: 1:31:44

But it's not. It's not a not from an Eastern developer, it's the only like it's from a like Indian developer or something. So I don't think based out of the U. I thought it was based on like the U? S or Canada or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:31:55

Let me look up Blatro but I didn't. I'm pretty sure every other game was developed by Eastern whether it was chinese for wukong uh or like japanese or something like that regardless.

Mark Trobough: 1:32:07

Yeah, I mean yeah, so that doesn't mean anything to me. I just I didn't think it was game of the year contention and it just felt like because I mean, you saw it in the gamer's choice canadian, canadian developed game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:32:16

So yeah, yeah, I don't know player's choice, which went.

Mark Trobough: 1:32:21

I mean I didn't agree with everything that made the final final cut, but essentially player's choice which went. I mean I didn't agree with everything that made the final cut, but essentially player's choice came down to Shadow of the Earth Tree or Wukong and Wukong beat it. And then just media, who doesn't know anything about games, just picked the safest, non-controversial one to pick because it's the only one that they probably it was easy enough for them to beat because we know game journals suck at playing games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:32:42

This was a terrible one, I thought. As far as game direction, Astro Bot won Best Game Direction 2, which I think Metaphor should have won that Game Direction. That game is so unique.

Mark Trobough: 1:32:56

There's no story to direct the game with Astro Bot. It's just living off nostalgia and other Sony IPs.

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:03

And then Best Narrative Metaphor metaphor, one which it should have won that, I think, out of the games there. Best art direction I metaphor, again which I agree with, has a very unique art direction with it.

Mark Trobough: 1:33:15

Um, best score and you notice, there's one thing like astrobots, not I mean like every single thing here yeah, I know even in stuff it probably shouldn't be in.

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:25

Oh, I'm sorry. Playstation probably has some sort of backing behind the game wards that we don't know about.

Mark Trobough: 1:33:31

What game won score music, do you know?

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:34

Final Fantasy Rebirth.

Mark Trobough: 1:33:36

Yeah, I'm sorry. I thought this is Stella. Blade got shafted on one of the two wards it was nominated for.

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:42

It had really good music. There's actually a vinyl coming out for Stellar Blade.

Mark Trobough: 1:33:47

I can't remember the last time I listened to video game music and Stellar Blade blew it out of the water.

Brandon Hurles: 1:33:52

Dude Rebirth I've been listening to Rebirth's music and it's really good. It's not often there's a game where I listen to the music outside of the game. That doesn't happen often.

Mark Trobough: 1:34:03

It's one of the only other ones outside of the game of the year that I've. I kind of vehemently disagree with the way they went. Not as much for this, but I was like mmm Stubble Blade had some fantastic, because a lot of its music is also vocal, has vocals with it as well. It's not just score, yeah, score and vocals as well, and it fits the theme of what you're playing.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:22

So best audio design was Senua's saga Hellblade two, which is a ninja theory game. Best performance Senua's saga Hellblade two.

Mark Trobough: 1:34:33

I thought it should have gone to the the Brianna White for rebirth for this one.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:37

Yeah, for sure, I did so good. I was actually.

Mark Trobough: 1:34:40

I was so afraid that Outlaws was going to win this game and I'm like, no, the game's just trash.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:45

Absolutely not. Innovation and Accessibility was Prince of Persia Lost Crown? What does that even mean, accessibility?

Mark Trobough: 1:34:55

For people with disabilities or something. That's what.

Brandon Hurles: 1:34:57

I thought, but how?

Mark Trobough: 1:34:59

did that win? They just voted for a game. Let's be fair, they weren't looking into anything like that. It's just a. I don't pick which one you want to pick games for was Neva another another like math game award, like doesn't really matter best ongoing game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:19

Held Ivers to best.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:21

This is where this is, where probably the shadow the earth DLC should have been in.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:27

What best ongoing game. It wasn't even nominated, yeah that's what I'm saying.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:33

This is where that DLC would have made more sense.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:35

Yeah, for sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:37

But ongoing. I didn't really care for any of those games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:38

To be fair, Well, you just said you want to play Helldivers 2.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:42

No, yeah, but the award is kind of pointless. Yeah, that's subjective to whatever MMO or live service game that you play.

Brandon Hurles: 1:35:53

I got to pull up something while you're talking. I got to pull up something while you're talking.

Mark Trobough: 1:35:56

Or like four of those live service games, one's technically an MMO, I believe.

Brandon Hurles: 1:36:01

Final Fantasy XIV is an MMO. Okay. So Elon Musk tweeted today he's playing Path of Exiles 2. Oh my god, he has so many tweets it's so hard to get through. He tweets a lot and retweets a lot about video games, a lot Like. I just scrolled through like four that were about games just today, trying to find the exact one. Hold on, oh right here. He tweeted, he took a picture and said Path of Exile 2 wasn't even using a macro, lol, and it says disconnected. You have been kicked for performing too many actions too fast. He's hilarious Dude like it's funny.

Brandon Hurles: 1:36:45

I actually kind of wanted to add that to the list to play because everybody keeps talking about it and it's not my type of normal game. But neither was Age of Empires or some of the other stuff like Helldivers 2 isn't really my type of game either, but I still want to play it and check it out. That'd be interesting to check out. Multiplayer game Check it out. That'd be interesting. Check out. Multiplayer game Dead silence.

Mark Trobough: 1:37:12

Sorry, I wasn't prepared. I was trying to pull something else up, oh, you're good, did you care? For about what's that community independent game? I think Bellatro won that one. Bellatro won, yeah, not surprisingly, same thing with the debut indie game, bellatro again Best mobilecher won.

Brandon Hurles: 1:37:25

Yeah, same thing with the debut indie game, blotcher. Again, best mobile game Blotcher. Best VR game which this should have won was Batman Arkham Shadow. I heard nothing but fantastic things about that game. That is actually couldn't potentially be a system seller from the MetaQuest 3 for me, because I love the Arkham games. Apparently, this game is really good, built from the ground up for VR. So it's not a VR thrown in mode, it's an actual full-on VR action adventure game.

Mark Trobough: 1:37:54

Yeah, those are the best games because it's a whole separate way of playing a game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:37:59

I probably could have gone without getting the MetaQuest 3 at all. But when they announced that, I was like, oh, I actually want to play this. It's from Oculus Studios, it's from the studio that developed the headset. So, like they know their way around the hardware and like you talked about, you said you were going to pick one up. A while ago you were talking to somebody at GameStop or something and it kind of put it in my head. I was like you know, I kind of do want to have one of those. I'd like to have a headset where I don't have to be hooked up to something, because right now, with the PSVR 2, I have to be hooked up to the PS5, which is really annoying and I get it allows.

Mark Trobough: 1:38:37

it gives you more fidelity with the screen, with it being plugged in, but not having that cord.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:42

And if I want to, I can plug it in my PC for more power. Right, like you get more horsepower, so now I can do that I'm not sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:38:50

I have to double check.

Brandon Hurles: 1:38:51

Because I've got the PC adapter for the PSVR 2, but I still haven't used it yet because I don't know what games. I don't have any VR PC games.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:01

No, fair enough. Yeah, anyway, so no, fair enough yeah anyway, I just don't know what to pick up. Which game won best action game, do you know?

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:09

Black Mith Wukong okay yeah, elon did a whole post saying his hardcore character died and he was sad about it. Yeah right, best action adventure game Astro Bot. Best RPG metaphor it's the only thing. It was like nominated wild Best action adventure game Astro Bot, Best RPG metaphor.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:29

It's the only thing it was nominated for and it lost.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:31

Wait, what is it?

Mark Trobough: 1:39:34

The Zelda game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:35

Yeah, I feel like that.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:41

For that one.

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:42

I think I would have picked Echoes of Wisdom For best action adventure game. Astro Bot, to me, does not scream adventure.

Mark Trobough: 1:39:52

Yes, it's an adventure 3D platformer, but action it's in here like why is this even nominated in a category?

Brandon Hurles: 1:39:58

it's not even doesn't fit in, really and it would have been nice to see that Zelda take home something, because it is a very good game.

Mark Trobough: 1:40:10

Because on a mainline Zelda game the industry doesn't care for it. That's the other problem with this 90% of what won these awards was journalists that aren't even primarily game journalists.

Brandon Hurles: 1:40:22

Yeah, you look back, I can pull up the list. I can pull up the whole list of everybody backing the game awards. Npr is one of them.

Mark Trobough: 1:40:30

What? Yeah, that's the problem. These votes should, at the very least, be 50-50 between the fans and the industry. I think the industry should have less than 50% to see on these awards personally, but I don't get to make those decisions. If I had made those decisions, I don't get to make those decisions. If I had made those decisions, this would be purely off fan vote and fan vote alone.

Brandon Hurles: 1:40:46

Tell me that this is bull crap. There's actually an article that came out today that said why the 2024 game awards dial back. It's Hollywood element. Why did it feel like there was more crap in the it?

Mark Trobough: 1:40:59

didn't? It felt like there was more.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:02

Felt like there was more crap in it.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:04

You're being you're being gaslit by.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:07

Jules, that comes from Varietycom too.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:10

Shocker. Here's why you should watch it again and give them more money, so we can profit off of it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:17

And there's another article why they dialed back Hollywood promotion. It didn't to me feel like they dialed back Hollywood promotion. We kept complaining about it during it. It's in LA promotion. I, I didn't. It didn't to me feel like they dialed back hollywood promotion.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:25

We kept complaining about it during it it's in la, why would they dial it back? I mean, they had snoop dog there. For christ's sake yeah, that's not.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:33

Andy performed his new song and everything so yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like that's the epitome of of celebrity endorsements yeah, yeah, I definitely didn't, definitely didn't dial it back.

Mark Trobough: 1:41:47

Nope, not at all.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:49

So what do we got next for the awards?

Mark Trobough: 1:41:53

Best RPG.

Brandon Hurles: 1:41:55

Best RPG. What won Metaphor?

Mark Trobough: 1:42:00

I don't know. The site that I have isn't telling me. Oh, let's see I don't have the actual winners in front of me.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:08

Best RPG was Metaphor. Best fighting game was Tekken 8. Let's see.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:15

We got best family game was Astro Bot. Sorry, Sparking Zero got shafted. I was supposed to say that. Yeah it definitely got shafted.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:24

It got shafted. I thought for sure. Say that yeah, it definitely got shafted. It got shafted, I thought for sure. Either Dragon Ball or Mario vs Capcom Fighting Collection One of those two should have won for sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:32

But 100% Jamboree should have won Best Family Game.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:36

Yeah, that game is so good, man, we played it multiple times. I want to play it again.

Mark Trobough: 1:42:42

I'm sorry. It's the only multiplayer family game on here.

Brandon Hurles: 1:42:45

that makes actually sense that the family would sit down and play, like I thought Jamper was like I thought it was the best Mario Party to come out and I said it was the best since 2, and I own all the ones on the Switch. I own the Wii U the two that came out on Wii U. I own Mario Party 8 on Wii.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:08

Yeah, I thought Unicorn Overlord got shafted on Best Sim because it went to Frostpunk 2. But I mean, that's probably just me being biased.

Brandon Hurles: 1:43:21

No, I think it should have won. I think it should have won.

Mark Trobough: 1:43:23

Yeah, I didn't care for the sports racing, I don't even know should have won. I think it should have won. I didn't care for the sports racing, I don't even know which one won Probably F1 or something like that.

Brandon Hurles: 1:43:31

Which one won that one? I have to keep going back and forth between articles here. Best esports game was League of Legends. Best esports FC25. Best, no, it's best sports oh, eSports FC 25. Best multiplayer game Helldivers 2. Best adaptation oh my God, Was Fallout. Are you kidding me?

Mark Trobough: 1:44:00

I could believe that If realistically it came down to Arcane and Fallout of that, Of that whole list. It's one of those two games I heard nothing but bad things about it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:07

Knuckles, though, bro was really good.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:11

I didn't watch it.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:12

It was really good.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:13

I didn't watch or anything. The Tomb Raider one was I mean okay, I guess it's not that I'm not that shocked. Fallout was good, it's just I feel like I didn't care for it, but like this one really came down, it was either gonna be arcane or fallout, like to be fair. Yeah, especially we do with what the critically rated and you're dealing with critics that are deciding who wins this it's gonna be one of those two yeah, I guess, I guess either of those two would be fine.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:41

I'm to be honest, I'm really surprised I didn't go with Arcane.

Brandon Hurles: 1:44:47

Nah, I mean yeah.

Mark Trobough: 1:44:48

Not shockingly most anticipated game, which I think is a stupid award. Of course it was a GTA, but I think this is a stupid award. What game are you most hyped for? And then it was an abject failure. How many games have been like that? Oh, man, Okay. Content creator failure.

Brandon Hurles: 1:45:03

How many games have been like that?

Mark Trobough: 1:45:05

oh man, okay content creator I don't know a lot of people were like content with that. I got yeah, best eSport went to League of Legends. Not shocker there. It's also a super toxic game. What best e esport athlete, I think, went to Faker, which is not surprising. He's like the most popular, well-known esport player globally.

Brandon Hurles: 1:45:33

Yeah.

Mark Trobough: 1:45:34

He just won the League of Legends Worlds. This past year, I think for the first time in a while or something like that. Oh really, whether it was this year or the past year or something like that, he'd won their worlds recently. I don't know who won the esports team.

Brandon Hurles: 1:45:51

Yeah, I don't know either.

Mark Trobough: 1:45:52

There's three league I think T1 is what figures a part of for league. There's a Counter-Strike and then a Dota team. So I mean, which one is more popular? Yeah, and then obviously the player's choice went to Blackmuth Wukong, which I did think was funny because it's either going to be Wukong or Erdtree. But technically, genshin, impact, wuthering Waves and Xen'Lazone Zeros are all like mobile game gotcha games. Essentially. I mean you can play them on other platforms, but technically those three are gotcha games. That I mean you can play them on other platforms, but technically those three are gotcha games that 100% were voted for with the probably people from like.

Mark Trobough: 1:46:29

China and stuff like that. Yeah, essentially.

Brandon Hurles: 1:46:35

Wild. What else we got?

Mark Trobough: 1:46:41

I think that's all the awards at that point.

Brandon Hurles: 1:46:44

Okay, so we had some other news stuff trying to find that popped up today. Did you have anything that you had that pulled up from X?

Mark Trobough: 1:46:56

No, I didn't. That's like the bulk of all the news that people were talking about this week.

Brandon Hurles: 1:47:05

So well, I'll try to pull up. Try to pull up this stuff from today. I mean talk about big things from today, bring it up go ahead.

Mark Trobough: 1:47:23

Someone said it things from today, I'll go ahead and bring it up. No, I guess you can go, Go ahead. No, I was going to say someone said it. It's like Bilgar Bros, we won. Nude mods are finally here. It's like a meme. Like a meme of a meme Pretty much.

Brandon Hurles: 1:47:40

Meme of a meme of a meme. No, so one of the other big things was of no surprise at all. End of Suicide Squad of a meme. No, so one of the other big things was of no surprise at all. End of Suicide Squad means more layoffs at Warner Brothers. So Suicide Squad is getting shut down. Saw that coming a mile away, it says as predictably as night following the day.

Brandon Hurles: 1:47:59

The last gasp of Suicide Squad killed Justice League seemingly resulted in lost jobs. A CBC Radio Canada report says WB Games Montreal has eliminated 99 jobs, primarily among keywords subcontractors working on its QA team. One source told the site that employees were informed that there wasn't enough work to justify their continued employment during a video conference meeting on Monday. Employees impacted by the cuts were then given two options at a second meeting, except assistance in finding a new job or sign up for a recall list for when work becomes available. The report says roughly 240 keywords employees work as subcontractors of wb games montreal, while suicide squad kill the justice league was developed by rocksteady wb games montreal is also credited for additional work on the game. Actual layoffs are expected to occur in eight weeks, according to the report.

Brandon Hurles: 1:48:58

Some employees expressed frustration at the short notice of the cuts. There was apparently no talk of layoffs at the company's biannual meeting in late summer and sources said they were told there would be enough work to keep them on. So yeah, this is more people for 2024 losing their jobs in the game industry. But when a game like this does so terrible, you know, and is just an absolute piece of dog crap, unfortunately things happen, you know. So yeah.

Brandon Hurles: 1:49:32

What's your thoughts, Mark?

Mark Trobough: 1:49:35

I mean it's just uh, this point, it's just inevitable. I mean, if you don't want to get laid off, don't make bad games.

Brandon Hurles: 1:49:47

Now where.

Mark Trobough: 1:49:48

I stand on some of this stuff. Yeah, I mean, at this point we're just kind of like retreading stuff that we've kind of already hit a million times.

Brandon Hurles: 1:49:52

At this point, kind of feels like it just keeps happening. Um yeah.

Mark Trobough: 1:50:00

I mean I'm not going to feel empathetic for you. I mean, like you didn't give gamers what they wanted and you didn't sell. It's not that hard.

Brandon Hurles: 1:50:09

Yeah, yeah. So Well, did you have anything else you wanted to bring up?

Mark Trobough: 1:50:18

I mean nothing that I've seen, for the most part. Alright, I mean there's plenty of controversial stuff I could probably bring up, but I don't. I don't want to talk about it right now.

Brandon Hurles: 1:50:27

So what is it? Let's hear now. You already have my attention let me pull it back up I don't want to bring it up, but we're going to talk about it. If it has anything to do with the glock and your Rory, I'm going to be real angry and it has to do with comments. Mark's ignoring the Twitch chat. Jesus, that's so rude. I just saw. I just pulled it up. I was like geez.

Mark Trobough: 1:51:03

Dang Mark. No, so these were comments made by the new voice actor for the new intergalactic game. Essentially where it's like the whole, like you know, you can't reinforcing the whole um, how would you want to call it androgynous, non-binary stuff? Where it's like you can't just accept it, you must embrace and some other stuff that she said in an interview recently oh my gosh Interesting.

Brandon Hurles: 1:51:35

You must embrace it.

Mark Trobough: 1:51:36

I was sending him, like you're giving people that already had fuel to say, the DEI game, to be like oh, 100%, why would I ever want to buy or support this game? And we will not be buying this game. So I'm saying about that maybe you just need to not stop saying stupid things to give people ammunition to go after your game yeah, I mean, it seems yeah yeah that's all I'd say at this point yeah, yeah for sure.

Brandon Hurles: 1:52:12

And then, though, there was one other thing that I wanted to bring up, trying to find it here on X, real quick, maybe I can find it. Oh yeah, this is it not big news, but for series that I care about that are very niche series Hyperdimension Neptunia, rebirth Trilogy and Death End Request Code Z for Switch are cancelled for the West, so they will not be coming out here. And I love the Hyperdimension Neptunia games. I've been a big fan. Death End Request Code Z for Switch are cancelled for the West, so they will not be coming out here. And I love the hyperdimension that 2 New Games. I've been a big fan forever.

Mark Trobough: 1:52:52

Absolute crap what I'm just saying. It's absolute crap.

Brandon Hurles: 1:52:59

Yeah, and really frustrating. And it says the Switch versions of I'm not going to say the full titles because they're very long, but Rebirth 1, rebirth 2, rebirth 3, v-generation and Death End Request. Code Z will no longer be released in the West due to the contents not complying with Nintendo guidelines. Publisher Idea Factory International announced A Western release was originally planned for May 21st, but a death end request Code Z did launch for the PlayStation 5, playstation 4, and Switch on September 19th in Japan. Idea Factory International clarified the PlayStation 5 and 4 versions will still launch in the West, so just the Switch versions won't be coming out, which I would have been picking up for sure, because those are to me Nintendo titles, like I've always picked those up.

Mark Trobough: 1:53:49

That makes sense to me. It's on the Switch in Japan, but not in the US. Yeah, it makes no sense at all.

Brandon Hurles: 1:53:56

How does that? Make any damn sense at all More censorship stuff, more censorship.

Mark Trobough: 1:54:01

Because it just doesn't make. It's still on a nintendo platform.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:05

Yeah, it doesn't make any sense it's okay in japan, but it's not okay here, where, if you ask me, there's, you know, I, I don't know I have a lot of opinions because let's go to this, let's go to switch online store and see how many games how many hentai games there are on there right now, let's be real with the consistency of what Nintendo said.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:28

Yeah, it makes no sense. If you go on there right now on the Switch eShop, you will find at least a dozen hentai games right in your first hundred search, Like no doubt you can get Doom on your Switch as gory and as bloody and violent as he can get.

Mark Trobough: 1:54:43

Yeah, it makes sense we don't like anything. That's the hint of I don't know.

Brandon Hurles: 1:54:51

And then I guess I will mention a couple of other things. There was a couple of Godzilla things for today that I figured might as well just go ahead and throw in, because we love Godzilla. This is really cool to see. But Criterion Collection you're aware of Criterion Collection? You're aware of Criterion Collection, right, mark? They are releasing Godzilla vs Biollante. It will be released in 4K Ultra HD this March and will reportedly feature a new digital restoration. I will definitely be picking that up, for sure.

Mark Trobough: 1:55:23

I'm really excited about that In your 4k ultra hd yeah, I love, uh, I love criterion collection big fan a lot of good movies there yeah, there really is, and they always put out good stuff for for godzilla.

Brandon Hurles: 1:55:38

But also today is the anniversary of tokyo sos, so I wanted to bring that up as well. I love that movie nice with mecha, godzilla and uh, mothra and stuff. So, um, yeah, a couple things there. And also, last godzilla thing they did announce that um, king of the monsters is to take on marvel comics cross the eras in godzilla versus marvel in 2025, which was announced yesterday. So he'll be taking on various Marvel characters all throughout time, somehow and some way. So I will definitely be reading this run because I love Godzilla. I don't know how this is going to work, but Godzilla's fought Marvel before in the past, so it'll be interesting. But a couple Godzilla things for you Godzilla fans that watch and listen. How is it going to work? But Godzilla's fought Marvel before in the past, so, uh, yeah, it'd be interesting. But a couple of Godzilla things for you Godzilla fans that watch and listen. All right, mark, what do you got for us? Uh, you got anything for us? Uh, closing.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:35

No, I think we got everything.

Brandon Hurles: 1:56:37

All right, can we uh?

Mark Trobough: 1:56:49

can we find anywhere?

Brandon Hurles: 1:56:50

find us anywhere oh, you know, you know where they can find us where they find us.

Mark Trobough: 1:56:54

You find us over on the facebook do it, youtube, kick instagram, tiktok, twitter x, blue sky threads, everything. All these socials are down in the description below, where you can find us as well I mostly meant like update on the Anime Junction, cast stuff before to promote that. That's what I was saying.

Brandon Hurles: 1:57:13

Yeah, well, that too, of course, follow us on social media, which, like he, says everything down below, but wanted to promote the other stuff that we're doing.

Mark Trobough: 1:57:22

You need to not be so damn vague with it. Then Jesus Got an attitude tonight, just a bit. But no, obviously we got the anime junction cast and a little more anime content as well, coming on the junction network, so go check that out. That'll be out. Every sunday is when the anime junction cast comes out as well, as we have a publishing some clips for a little bit shorter, some more more digestible stuff, if you just want that as well.

Brandon Hurles: 1:57:45

Yeah, for sure, good stuff. So, yeah, we'll see you guys all later. Again. We'll be, uh, live. If you're watching live right now, we are live every Saturday, 8 PM Eastern standard time, playing new games. Tomorrow we are, of course, if you're watching live for this week, we're playing Warhammer Space Marine 2. And then what did we decide for community stream next week?

Mark Trobough: 1:58:10

So audio listeners know, I don't think we did.

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:15

We said we were going to decide today. Yeah, we didn't. We didn't bring it up, but I did want to at least announce it. So there's a week ahead, because tomorrow will be a week. So I don't know. But can we do Helldivers 2 as a community game, because we're already wanting?

Brandon Hurles: 1:58:37

to play probably okay, let's do Helldivers 2. So this week we'll do Warhammer and then we'll do Helldivers 2 next weekend. But then again, of course, Game Juncture Podcast for our audio listeners is live every Friday, 8 pm Eastern Standard Time on YouTube and Twitch, so you can catch us there. Definitely love to see some of our audio listeners watching live with us hanging out, having fun, getting shouted out in the comments and harassing Mark. So we'll see you all later. Have a good one everyone. We'll be back soon with more content. Peace.

Mark Trobough: 1:59:14

Peace everybody.