Thoughts on Monster Hunter Wilds

Jaime gives his thoughts on Monster Hunter Wilds.

Transcript

00:00:00.00
Jaime G
fun of the three games that's on the disc was on sale for 13 bucks one and it it's literally right now on sitting on psn for 42 bucks and i kid you not i just bought a physical copy of it today for 20 bucks so it's like I mean, it it's the math is just like crazy. If you're if you're somebody that's buying digital games, you'rere you're you're losing out on deals and paying significantly more over and over again.

00:00:40.58
Tony Sisk
Right. Yeah, there's there's just not... There's no discount. Unless the game is just bad. Bad, bad, bad.

00:00:49.08
Jaime G
ah Yeah, then like like ah a Suicide Squad, then it ends up on PlayStation Plus.

00:00:55.70
Tony Sisk
Right. Yeah, that's its that's the bark the mark of underachievement is landing on PlayStation Plus ah within like a year of your release.

00:00:57.18
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:01:09.82
Jaime G
ah Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Suicide Squad was over a year. By Dragon Age, the Velgard was like not even a quarter, I think.

00:01:21.87
Tony Sisk
October.

00:01:22.16
Jaime G
Maybe.

00:01:22.39
Tony Sisk
I think it came out in October. And then...

00:01:24.95
Jaime G
So November, December, January, for four months, dude. Five months. Okay, okay.

00:01:31.35
Tony Sisk
Right, I wish I had just, you know, i should have just...

00:01:31.96
Jaime G
wasn't It wasn't a quarter.

00:01:34.34
Tony Sisk
I bought that game on disc, and now it's sitting at you know on PlayStation Plus. I'm like, come on.

00:01:41.10
Jaime G
I know. i hate that feeling too. Whenever I've picked up a game that eventually drops on PS Plus, I'm like, say what?

00:01:50.07
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:01:50.61
Jaime G
I hate that feeling, man. I mean, sometimes it's like,

00:01:53.58
Tony Sisk
Well, you know, with PlayStation, you don't get the third-party new releases, right? So Xbox you do sometimes because they want to boost their lineup every once in a while, but PlayStation don't doesn't doesn't typically put, you know, third-party, you know, releases that are kind of big titles on their service until they've, you know, a year or so later.

00:01:58.86
Jaime G
yeah

00:02:19.36
Jaime G
so So tell me what you know about this like God of War, like what is it, 25th anniversary or something, 20th anniversary thing that dropped?

00:02:31.33
Jaime G
I have no clue what it is, but I've seen like marketing ads pop up here and there about it.

00:02:38.00
Tony Sisk
Oh, I don't know. Don't know anything about it. Haven't heard about it.

00:02:42.88
Jaime G
Oh, come on, man. i was I was hoping to get it straight from you instead of having to Google it up.

00:02:48.32
Tony Sisk
No clue. I'm like, ah it's another remaster. i don't know. it ah

00:02:55.06
Jaime G
I don't know either.

00:02:58.46
Jaime G
But apparently

00:02:58.59
Tony Sisk
I don't know I'm still waiting. i'm I'm waiting for like a first party game to drop from Sony. They've decided that they're just going to take their time since Xbox is so generous putting their first party titles on PlayStation.

00:03:10.08
Jaime G
yeah you're you're probably going to end up waiting.

00:03:15.93
Tony Sisk
I saw like Doom Eternal, the Doom Dark Ages ah popping up in the PlayStation catalog pre-order I'm like nice because I like I like uh doom and that's a place that's a xbox uh a title that's going to be coming to playstation on may 17th or something like that I'm excited for that so and then I saw that they had uh was it forza forza is coming to playstation

00:03:25.52
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:03:43.22
Jaime G
ah you Are you excited?

00:03:47.06
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah, Forza, come on, man.

00:03:48.52
Tony Sisk
I'm like, I guess PlayStation is like, look, we'll just let Xbox put all their titles on our stuff and then we'll release stuff.

00:03:49.14
Jaime G
that's

00:03:56.40
Jaime G
Man, I can't believe Forza's coming. Wait, wait, wait. I don't know if I've ever asked you this. Have you ever seen the Monster Hunter movie?

00:04:08.53
Tony Sisk
The Monster Hunter movie? Is that like a live action movie or animated? Either way, I haven't seen it, but...

00:04:15.68
Jaime G
i I was going to be like, does it make a difference? and I don't think it's going to...

00:04:21.79
Tony Sisk
I mean, it's it going to be a Japanese movie with bad you know English.

00:04:28.38
Jaime G
No. It was an American movie made by the awful director Paul W.S. Anderson who did like the first Suicide Squad movie too and Mila Jobovich was in it.

00:04:41.85
Tony Sisk
Oh, that that was awful.

00:04:46.30
Tony Sisk
Wait, did I see that?

00:04:46.66
Jaime G
Let me

00:04:50.04
Tony Sisk
Maybe not.

00:04:51.28
Jaime G
It came out in 2020 so five years ago people say

00:04:51.45
Tony Sisk
I don't recall.

00:04:54.45
Tony Sisk
um month? Oh, yes, I did see that. actually went to the theater to see that.

00:05:00.70
Jaime G
So, dude, yeah, that's it.

00:05:01.67
Tony Sisk
I did see that.

00:05:06.95
Tony Sisk
It wasn't that bad, actually.

00:05:07.57
Jaime G
That's it.

00:05:10.13
Jaime G
OK, but I will say this. Paul W.S. Anderson has made some flops. And Monster Hunter was technically considered a flop. All right.

00:05:20.40
Tony Sisk
I mean, yeah, I mean, it it was no, like, Academy Award winning movie or anything. i mean, it was a cheesy action.

00:05:30.58
Jaime G
Yes.

00:05:31.18
Tony Sisk
ah you know, Army unit gets zapped to another world. All them all of them pretty much die except for her.

00:05:36.06
Jaime G
Magically, yeah.

00:05:39.92
Tony Sisk
And then there's, like, a huge giant dragon monster or something.

00:05:44.82
Jaime G
I can't remember if it was a Diabolos or a Rathalos.

00:05:46.30
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:05:47.66
Jaime G
I think it was a Rathalos.

00:05:49.48
Tony Sisk
Yeah, that she fights And it goes through like the portal And comes back comes back to Earth And and like she fights in the desert Kills it Sorry, spoiler alert I mean, it's a like a sea action movie like It's one of those like ah Movies you're going to like

00:05:55.26
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah.

00:05:59.32
Jaime G
Yes.

00:06:04.92
Jaime G
i dont

00:06:11.13
Tony Sisk
you you're tired of all the murder dramas, you know, romance stuff.

00:06:11.48
Jaime G
well

00:06:16.06
Tony Sisk
You just want some action. The that's entertaining. And, uh, I don't know. Is it entertaining? I mean, at a certain level, yes. ah

00:06:26.52
Jaime G
Well, do you know you know that it got in in like so much hot water over a joke in the movie?

00:06:26.53
Tony Sisk
Monsters and bazookas and stuff like that. So.

00:06:33.08
Tony Sisk
What was the joke?

00:06:34.62
Jaime G
OK, so ah a lot of movies go and make their money off of China now.

00:06:41.20
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:06:42.03
Jaime G
Like the Avengers and all those Marvel movies, like the first Venom movie was like such a hit in China that it kind actually made it be like you know more profitable than they expected. But there's a scene where they're riding in like the the military vehicle.

00:06:58.54
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:06:58.95
Jaime G
And and somebody is like saying something like along the lines of, man, it's a tight fit back here whatever. And you know how they've got like that that Asian looking dude who's who's like from the Monster.

00:07:11.25
Tony Sisk
Uh-huh.

00:07:11.59
Jaime G
he He looks down at his knees and says like, hey man, or something like Chinese, like knees. And ah apparently though that was so offensive.

00:07:25.73
Jaime G
in certain markets that they edited the movie to remove that one joke from the movie. But there was still like a lot of people saying, like let's boycott this movie.

00:07:36.48
Jaime G
This is still in it. you know but Blah, bla blah,

00:07:40.54
Tony Sisk
That's funny. I mean, I guess it wasn't funny, but you know, cultural sensitivity. Come on, let's get over it.

00:07:50.09
Jaime G
It depends on who you ask whether it was funny or not.

00:07:54.71
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:07:55.27
Jaime G
I don't think it was funny, but I don't think it was offensive.

00:07:59.24
Tony Sisk
ah I mean, even in the, even the English version of it is not funny.

00:08:04.48
Jaime G
i mean, it's it's a dad joke.

00:08:04.62
Tony Sisk
It's like, right.

00:08:09.54
Jaime G
Somebody told me today, you know what the difference between a dad joke and a bad joke is?

00:08:16.34
Tony Sisk
What's that?

00:08:17.63
Jaime G
A single letter.

00:08:22.77
Tony Sisk
Right. I mean, truthfully, most dad jokes are pretty dumb.

00:08:24.90
Jaime G
Everything else is the same.

00:08:28.59
Jaime G
yeah right?

00:08:29.05
Tony Sisk
In their simplicity.

00:08:30.81
Jaime G
and unless Unless you're the the robot from the Alien Covenant movie, then then they were solid.

00:08:35.64
Tony Sisk
Right. There's a guy in our Discord I work with and all day long it's nothing but dad jokes. One after the other. So I invited him to the Discord, right?

00:08:46.29
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:08:48.72
Tony Sisk
And where the he comes in, the very first thing he does is drop a dad joke.

00:08:55.54
Jaime G
but i'm but

00:08:55.72
Tony Sisk
This was like a month ago. i don't think anybody else responded to it, but it was just like, oh, yeah.

00:09:02.66
Jaime G
you you You got it. You were like, oh, I know where this is going. and

00:09:08.45
Tony Sisk
Right? Ah, you know.

00:09:09.90
Jaime G
Well, well I have completed my playthrough of Monster Hunter Wild.

00:09:19.33
Tony Sisk
Oh, we get a few are we getting a review of Monster Hunter? The campaign?

00:09:23.00
Jaime G
Let's do that. Just do that. But But I don't know. and i mean, we we kind of recorded a bit of an episode which never aired and probably it'll fade into obscurity because it was like ah a show about nothing much like Seinfeld.

00:09:39.66
Jaime G
um But now I've completed the playthrough. and i have And I have some thoughts about this.

00:09:48.02
Tony Sisk
Okay.

00:09:48.12
Jaime G
Tony, this game, you are not going to play it for the plot because there is no plot. It doesn't, the plot is basically go kill the monster. Talk to some people. Don't even pay attention to the audio.

00:10:02.63
Jaime G
Go kill the next monster. And the game just guides you.

00:10:04.11
Tony Sisk
Does it tease a plot? Does it tease a story at all?

00:10:09.39
Jaime G
Well, I mean, it claims it has a plot. But for some reason, I remember that Monster Hunter World, i was more engaged in the plot.

00:10:21.40
Jaime G
It was like, hey, monsters are traveling this path. We have to figure out why. um Then after you figure out why, it's like, OK, let's go clear out these you know elder dragons or whatever. So it kind of goes in one ear, out the other. But there was something, right?

00:10:42.66
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:10:44.26
Jaime G
On this one, I could like i could care less. And like certain plot elements that get introduced early in the game, like all of a sudden, they they they just like don't matter anymore. and and And it's like there's this this one element in the game that drives me crazy. like Sometimes you'll you'll encounter a a monster, and your character's like, whoa, there's a monster.

00:11:09.93
Jaime G
Do I engage? And you have a handler that's always traveling with you. And she's like, the guild does not give you authority to hunt that monster. And you're like, but you will, right?

00:11:24.76
Jaime G
and And then, you know, plotline, plotline, some dialogue, some dialogue monster appears again. Your character looks at the handler and the handler's like, by by authority of the guild, you are authorized to go and hunt this monster.

00:11:42.26
Jaime G
And you're like, finally. which Which to me makes no sense. To me, that's like so that's like lazy storytelling and lazy plot point insertions. ah Ah, dude.

00:11:55.64
Tony Sisk
So does it feel like they had that like they wanted to put a story in, but they couldn't really come up with anything, so they just decided to scrap it?

00:11:55.88
Jaime G
I don't know if you see.

00:12:03.99
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:12:04.13
Tony Sisk
And then, you know...

00:12:05.55
Jaime G
look Look, this whole game starts off when somehow you pick up this kid. who was like running around on top of like a chocobo-looking thing. And the chocobos are called the sacreds.

00:12:18.83
Jaime G
OK, Discord challenged me on how you pronounce that because I call it a sacred. Some people say

00:12:28.76
Tony Sisk
Mm-hmm.

00:12:40.98
Jaime G
The whole plot revolves around taking this kid back to his village, right? And you go into like a new area. and Everyone's like, we don't know this tribe. let's but Okay, let's go find our way to the next one.

00:12:54.46
Jaime G
And eventually, after three full chapters in many monster battles, you find the village. You deliver the kid to the village. The kid all of a sudden, like out of nowhere says...

00:13:09.12
Jaime G
look at this monster, this monster, this monster's just like me. he is This is the first time he can make choices and think for himself. But yet, the guild gave you authority to hunt that monster now.

00:13:22.85
Jaime G
So you kill the monster, and the kid who like all, like half through the campaign, you've been taking him to all these places to finally have some relevance and figure out kind of what what his whole deal is.

00:13:36.77
Jaime G
He basically becomes a delivery boy. And you can talk to him and be like, hey, i'll I want to trade with this other village over there. Go take these things and get me these things.

00:13:47.76
Jaime G
It's like, I'm like, this whole kid was the plot point of a non-existent plot.

00:13:56.39
Jaime G
and and And this is like what it ultimately boils down to. I was like, yo, yo, I feel so robbed. And then, so so get this. There's six chapters to this game.

00:14:09.32
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:14:09.46
Jaime G
At the end of chapter three, I kid you not, Tony, you get the the credits, the the B-roll, the whatever, the game's done. Insert some non-relevant plot of like, hey, the the guild is here. They want to see you.

00:14:29.25
Jaime G
What do they want? Go explore some more. Go kill some more monsters. Insert some random monsters here and there or monsters that don't appear that suddenly start appearing in other maps.

00:14:40.89
Jaime G
Oh, let's go and milk another three chapters out of this.

00:14:46.71
Jaime G
It's like, what?

00:14:49.13
Tony Sisk
Okay.

00:14:49.36
Jaime G
Anyway, so I was engaging with the Discord community over the weekend. i You might have seen it or not, but I was just asking people, OK, what what did you guys think about the sacred? Because it.

00:15:01.40
Jaime G
It basically, to me, becomes this mechanic that is so totally abused, where it's like, you know you need to go hunt monster A, B, or C. Get on your chocobo, press up on the D-pad, and he'll take you exactly to where that monster is.

00:15:21.18
Jaime G
That's it.

00:15:22.45
Tony Sisk
Wow.

00:15:23.48
Jaime G
Go back, report out to the village, get us on a new hunt, get on your bird, press up, boom.

00:15:27.72
Tony Sisk
Not much of a hunt. Yeah.

00:15:30.48
Jaime G
And to me, that was a thing that was really cool in Monster Hunter World. You had to be roaming around. You were like finding scratch marks for carcasses, things that are still in this game, okay?

00:15:47.09
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:15:47.17
Jaime G
I'm not saying they're not. But you would have to like roam the maps to find where the monsters were. And like, I remember like I had like a pretty excellent... Lay of the land in the other one where you could just be like, oh, I need to go to where the pond is. Let me go over here. This is the fastest path.

00:16:05.30
Jaime G
In this one, I can't do that because everything has been and automatic for me. right And so people are like, yeah, you you could ab abuse it But I still like to explore.

00:16:17.07
Jaime G
Everyone's abusing this, Tony. There's some parts in the maps that you can't even get to unless you're riding that bird. Because you can like traverse over like odd terrain, so you can't do it walking.

00:16:25.34
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:16:26.89
Jaime G
So everyone's doing this. And then, oh dude. Twice in this game, the game does this. You end up with fighting a group of three three monsters.

00:16:43.12
Jaime G
And the game says, oh grab this this thing that's that's like lying right here, right right here, right next to you. Grab it. Shoot it at these monsters, and they're going to disperse.

00:16:55.63
Jaime G
And I'm thinking, OK, let me go ahead and do this. This happened twice. And it's like, I go pick up the thing, and it says, your pouch is full. I'm like, OK, let me get rid of something on my pouch. I couldn't.

00:17:12.16
Jaime G
So guess what?

00:17:12.15
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:17:13.27
Jaime G
i ended up having to kill one monster out of that pack which took me like 15 minutes only to realize he was it was the wrong monster not the one that you should have killed i i mean there's like some elements that you just can't back out of it at a certain point that were just like so frustrating man um

00:17:34.89
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:17:40.33
Jaime G
And also now the ability to call like SOS flares is like so, I guess the network speed and the servers, you pull out of SOS, get on your chocoboo, arrive at a monster. As soon as you're arriving at the monster, people are logging into your server and you know they're helping you kill it. so the The challenge factor that I remember having in the back in the day, which I never used SOS, now it's just like, yeah, let me kill this guy. Five minutes, boom. I've got the resources I need. Move on to the next.

00:18:11.21
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:18:11.68
Jaime G
oh Oh, oh ah okay. And the last thing I was going to say, once you do get into the latter half of the game, after like the B-roll comes up that I said, the the game basically becomes a bunch of hey, go talk to this person, go fish, go do this. Like a lot of little random activities that I was just like, is this what the second half of this game is? I mean, the monsters are becoming stronger. Yes, whatever. But it's still it's still like like they ran out of ideas. And it's like, how do i pro how do I prolong this for much more than it really needs to be prolonged?

00:18:49.47
Jaime G
game's beautiful. The monsters look great. The gameplay good. The variety of weapons is good. There's just certain elements that I'm like, ugh. I am...

00:19:00.44
Tony Sisk
It's like it presents itself as kind of like a game that has a narrative that and apparently under delivers or doesn't deliver at all.

00:19:15.08
Tony Sisk
So

00:19:15.91
Jaime G
yeah

00:19:18.38
Tony Sisk
since it doesn't deliver in that department that you were obviously expecting to have some sort of, you know, story satisfaction from, ah it obviously you doesn't live up to the two what you imagined it was going to be.

00:19:38.39
Jaime G
No. and And the only thing that kind of differentiates your character from like somebody else's kind of character is what weapon are you playing? So I was asking the the Discord group, like, hey, what what are you playing?

00:19:54.00
Jaime G
Right? but Badia told me that he was playing, what was it? Let me see. I think he was playing the Switch Axe. um Mr. are really good friend, Mr. Poncho, he's he's thinking about trying out the lance.

00:20:11.53
Jaime G
And people are playing the longsword. I'm the only crazy dude that picked up the Kinsek Glaive. So I'd love to get a session going on with everyone, but and there's no there's no challenges after a while.

00:20:24.73
Jaime G
I mean, if

00:20:24.98
Tony Sisk
So is there not a, like, I don't know, like, once you've gotten to the point that you've gotten to, there's no, like, special, random, super hard monster that appears only, like, once a month that you go hunt and it's only available for, like, 12 hours?

00:20:44.14
Jaime G
So they give you timed, they're giving you timed events.

00:20:45.07
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:20:48.75
Jaime G
And these timed events are like, hey, between now and the next week, these three monsters are going to appear. And they're just a little bit harder than your normal.

00:21:00.39
Jaime G
And they drop like some good loot. ah But before you can actually, this is the catch. Before you can actually go and try to hunt them, you have to level up your hunter rank up to a certain point.

00:21:12.90
Jaime G
So it's like, grind, grind, grind, grind. Go kill monsters only to get the benefit of going and killing another monster. So it's just like the same.

00:21:22.70
Jaime G
But what I suspect, though, and here's my prediction. Capcom knows this. And they're banking on dropping like some type of DLC content to give you access to more monsters. Or they're going to just be playing the community like, hey, go hunt this monster this week. It's going to be super, super hard.

00:21:42.98
Jaime G
It's not that hard if you're playing it with multiplayer.

00:21:46.58
Tony Sisk
Is there a battle pass?

00:21:49.30
Jaime G
Not yet, but they're but it's I'm sure it's it's on the table somewhere being discussed.

00:21:56.76
Tony Sisk
So are there armored sets and stuff?

00:21:59.97
Jaime G
Yeah, totally, totally. And you can mix and match, combine. um All the armors that you do in the first half of the game, you get to do again once you fight the more leveled up monsters, they drop better armor pieces and you can make the same exact armor just with better stats.

00:22:20.46
Jaime G
Yeah, so it it might not be for everybody, but I gave it i gave it the old college try.

00:22:20.75
Tony Sisk
Okay. is there

00:22:26.80
Jaime G
I made that got through the campaign. I hunted so many things so many times and I'm burned down on it.

00:22:35.82
Tony Sisk
So if you were to give it a rating based on whatever rating system you want to give it, what would you give it?

00:22:43.26
Jaime G
OK, I probably rate this game somewhere between a 7 and an 8 out of 10. I

00:22:50.12
Tony Sisk
Okay, so, I mean, it's not a flop.

00:22:52.87
Jaime G
i mean, no, no, no.

00:22:54.92
Tony Sisk
Ha ha ha.

00:22:55.01
Jaime G
no no But I mean, it set out what it accomplished to do. It got me playing it. It got me playing it a lot, repeating a lot of things. But again, the things that don't let me score it higher are the fact that I feel like there is no plot to this.

00:23:12.50
Jaime G
And I feel like it's definitely holding back on what it can do because they're waiting for that eventual DLC cash grab.

00:23:22.24
Tony Sisk
Right, yeah. Okay.

00:23:27.73
Tony Sisk
Well, I don't know. I'll wait for a price drop.

00:23:33.41
Jaime G
It's already had a price drop from a $69.99 price. ninety nine full price tag, it's down for like 55 in one specific retailer.

00:23:44.46
Tony Sisk
Really?

00:23:45.80
Jaime G
Uh-huh.

00:23:45.84
Tony Sisk
That's pretty quick.

00:23:47.38
Jaime G
It is.

00:23:47.94
Tony Sisk
is it under Is it the sales below what and what they were forecasting?

00:23:52.37
Jaime G
I don't think so, because within the first two weeks, they were tout they were celebrating 8 million players ah connected on this. And again, for Monster Hunter Wild, it's not you know marble rival numbers, but it's a great number for them.

00:24:10.85
Tony Sisk
Let's see what the sales are for wilds. for wilds

00:24:17.24
Jaime G
I think it did pretty well.

00:24:23.66
Tony Sisk
It's the best selling game of the year so far. i don't know if that mean what that means, though.

00:24:32.87
Jaime G
it's We might have had some flops.

00:24:35.09
Tony Sisk
All right. In just four days, it sold 8 million copies. That's a pretty good number.

00:24:40.39
Jaime G
I know. That's what I'm saying. like In just a couple of days, they were like giving like some rewards.

00:24:44.30
Tony Sisk
For basically... Yeah, for a full for a full price game...

00:24:50.51
Jaime G
Uh-huh.

00:24:51.39
Tony Sisk
8 million in 4 days. so woo we thats That's good numbers. Okay, it's definitely not a flop financially.

00:24:56.35
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:25:01.77
Tony Sisk
Okay. Steam, we counted for more than half of Monster Hunter sales.

00:25:11.06
Jaime G
yeah

00:25:11.12
Tony Sisk
Well, okay. Well, definitely DLC or whatever That's definitely coming because there's definitely a base there to sell to you.

00:25:20.27
Jaime G
Oh, yeah. you can You can tell it's coming just because it feels like they intentionally held back on stuff.

00:25:31.99
Jaime G
And any know even worst case scenario, they just... Borrow monsters from the Monster Hunter Rise or the World franchise. Boom. Insert the character models and insert some AI.

00:25:43.86
Jaime G
you know Cash grab.

00:25:44.03
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Are there any monsters that are like, nobody can beat? You're impossible.

00:25:51.22
Jaime G
No. No.

00:25:52.51
Tony Sisk
like Like, you need, how many people can you have in a party?

00:25:56.39
Jaime G
Four.

00:25:58.05
Tony Sisk
Like, you would need all four people to be equipped with the best gear to take them down.

00:26:03.03
Jaime G
Okay. I have not come across this yet, but I do remember that in World, eventually there was like some special monsters that you would get to that unless you had like all the right materials in your pouch, you know, to counteract either the venom or the heat ah or the bleeding or whatever status elements that they would inflict, it was like super hard to beat them.

00:26:34.83
Jaime G
I never came across any one particular monster like this where I had to like have my whole pouch filled with the right mix of ingredients to get through them. There was only one monster in the game.

00:26:48.67
Jaime G
it's actually It's actually the last one in Chapter 3, which kanna is or I feel the game kind of concluded or should have concluded because the rest just was like, eh. um That has a wipe ability.

00:27:02.75
Jaime G
And if you mess it up, like you I got wiped. You can only attempt a monster hunt three times before having to completely redo it. And I wiped three times against it just because you didn't know how to avoid it.

00:27:12.45
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:27:19.86
Jaime G
But it was very much like Destiny, like the Taken King. One of the ah raid bosses had like the wipe ability that you had to hide behind a pillar.

00:27:31.42
Jaime G
So there's this one move that he starts charging up. And I didn't notice that you could aim your ah slinger at a rock that's on the ceiling, pull it.

00:27:45.02
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:27:46.06
Jaime G
When it drops, you need to get right behind it. And the rock will disintegrate, but your character lives. So if you don't know that or don't catch on that, because because what happened to me is that I used the rock to drop it on top of the monster, and I thought it was going to kill him, and it didn't.

00:28:06.88
Jaime G
But I used it up, and so then I just didn't have anywhere to hide.

00:28:13.28
Jaime G
So that monster was hard, yet not impossible. Not like you have to have a full party to get through or have to have all the right items to get through.

00:28:25.60
Tony Sisk
yeah

00:28:26.84
Jaime G
So I think that was different for me and this in this installment of the Monster Hunter franchise.

00:28:35.27
Tony Sisk
I just looked up that like Google says the hardest monster in Wilds is New Udra.

00:28:48.93
Tony Sisk
But I'm looking at a it's like a giant octopus.

00:28:49.33
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah.

00:28:54.08
Jaime G
yeah

00:28:55.02
Tony Sisk
But I'm looking at a different, like, a it's not Reddit, but something close. There was a poll taken. And these are results from two weeks ago. So maybe a lot of people haven't encountered this.

00:29:07.47
Tony Sisk
It could be the fact that a lot of people just haven't encountered the monster.

00:29:10.87
Jaime G
yeah.

00:29:11.14
Tony Sisk
But 63% of players said Gormagala is the hardest monster. Which, this is only, 357 votes out

00:29:23.57
Tony Sisk
They just, this is from two weeks ago. It could be just that most people hadn't encountered all the monsters yet. So had hard to say that that's accurate.

00:29:31.39
Jaime G
yeah

00:29:37.78
Jaime G
there's There's different challenges here and there, but it's, again, there's not one that you're just like, oh, this one was impossible.

00:29:37.91
Tony Sisk
Okay.

00:29:47.55
Tony Sisk
Well, I should put up in the Discord, you know, asking everybody what their most difficult monster they've killed is. Let's see what where everybody's at.

00:29:56.24
Jaime G
Yeah, I bet you we're goingnna get we're going to get a response that says none.

00:30:05.39
Tony Sisk
I know ah quite a few guys that worked at work that are playing, and and when it first dropped, they played for like three days straight.

00:30:05.46
Jaime G
i bet you.

00:30:12.68
Tony Sisk
So they were putting a lot of time in.

00:30:15.18
Jaime G
yeah

00:30:15.77
Tony Sisk
some serious monster hunters out there.

00:30:20.11
Jaime G
Yeah, well, it's ah it's a good game. Again, it accomplished what it set out to do, so I can't really like say, like, oh, man, no. But it's not definitely like, oh, man, look at this. I'm going to be playing this game forever.

00:30:36.49
Tony Sisk
Right. Well, I obviously have not picked it up.

00:30:43.97
Tony Sisk
i picked up Assassin's Creed today. and I'm, I'm literally 30 minutes into the game. So now it's, it's opposite of what you're talking about. Like just right off the get go.

00:30:59.37
Tony Sisk
the game introduction to the game is mostly narrative, right? Like you're, you're just sitting there watching a story be told.

00:31:10.95
Tony Sisk
And I think there was like two options. I'm like literally options of like dialogue that I could choose.

00:31:17.58
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:31:19.87
Tony Sisk
And, and me kind of like walking behind a group of people and I could move a little bit to the right or move a little bit to the left. Um, because, you know, it's like, we'll let you straight off while they're trying to tell the story.

00:31:34.31
Tony Sisk
But, uh, like that was probably the first, yeah, I don't know, 20 minutes of the game. I had two dialogue options. That was it. It wasn't, it was probably 30 minutes before i could actually like,

00:31:49.49
Tony Sisk
you know, do any gameplay or tutorial, you know, how we talked about in like a suicide squad, like, Oh, the, our introduction to the story is, Oh, movement tutorial.

00:32:02.47
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:32:03.00
Tony Sisk
Yeah. I don't even get a tutorial. There's no tutorial until, you know, way, I mean, 30 minutes, at least 30 minutes. ah Before it starts taking you through some, you know, your basic combat and basic, you know, crouch and hide.

00:32:17.84
Tony Sisk
And it's weird. Like the developers almost like take it from like, they just assume that everybody has played some sort of stealth game, combat game, whatever, because there's not any direction on ah some basic stuff, you know, like crouching, like,

00:32:40.60
Tony Sisk
It wants you to like oh go assassinate these three guys along this trail. It doesn't say anything on how you crouch and how do you like stealth through the tall grass you know that's along the trail.

00:32:47.71
Jaime G
yeah.

00:32:51.82
Tony Sisk
and stuff like As an experienced Assassin's Creed player, that you know that's how it works. It doesn't say anything like that.

00:33:00.70
Jaime G
yeah

00:33:00.81
Tony Sisk
It just says push the R3 mark the target. r three to mark the target And then that's it.

00:33:13.05
Tony Sisk
And they're like, take him out. Okay. I just knowing how to play, I went and did, it wasn't until like, I almost got to the the first target that it finally says, Oh yeah, by the way, this is how you crouch.

00:33:29.51
Tony Sisk
So.

00:33:30.08
Jaime G
Oh, good to know.

00:33:31.66
Tony Sisk
Oh, good to know. I mean, so it's interesting. It's like, they,

00:33:37.74
Tony Sisk
They leave like out stuff in the tutorial, and but they go into detail and other stuff. that That's my first 45 minutes of Assassin's Creed.

00:33:48.32
Tony Sisk
There is a story. There's mystery about the story. There's references to the box and to this... this you know don't open it.

00:34:00.05
Tony Sisk
Don't, oh don't open the box. Right. Of course, somebody opens the box, but you don't see what's in the box because it's like, Oh, you get to see them react to what's in the box, but you don't actually get to see what's in the box.

00:34:11.97
Tony Sisk
And then the box is taken away. Disappears. And the story starts with, Oh, I got to go claim this box. But there's a mystery there. There's a story, right? It's like, okay, it's got to, it's got a little hook in you right there from the get go.

00:34:26.00
Tony Sisk
So,

00:34:28.73
Tony Sisk
ah I would say on the opposite spectrum of what you're talking about where Monster Hunter is okay maybe we try in narrative you know what yeah it's all about gameplay so let's just do the gameplay thing narrative we got to play voice actors too much and stuff like that people the right lines who wants to do that

00:34:49.64
Jaime G
Well, but it's it's the opposite because my Assassin's Creed always has had like some some like really complex elements of gameplay or like or or narration plotline.

00:35:04.87
Tony Sisk
Oh, yeah. I'm like, I'm already going like, ah, what's going on? I'm already lost because it's got that whole future memory thing where you who travel, you're experiencing these events through the DNA of your ancestors or something like that.

00:35:11.20
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:35:21.26
Jaime G
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:35:21.42
Tony Sisk
And so it's so come it's so convoluted as far as the tech jargon that they're throwing at you.

00:35:21.82
Jaime G
That...

00:35:27.20
Tony Sisk
I'm like, Not really sure, and not really catching on exactly what you're saying here, but I would just go with it.

00:35:36.39
Jaime G
Yeah, just just go with the flow, man. Yeah.

00:35:39.80
Tony Sisk
About the 85 hour mark, you know, it might become more clear. 100 hour mark, you know, in Valhalla, I was like 120 hours in before it's like, oh, okay, now I get what's going on.

00:35:55.35
Jaime G
but No way. see You're exaggerating that number, I'm hoping.

00:35:59.18
Tony Sisk
No, dude. My playthrough Valhalla was like 181 hours.

00:36:06.80
Tony Sisk
Of course, side stories were so good in Valhalla. I was like, I'm literally doing every little thing like on the side stories. and so I know how you that's how you like to play. You like to do the side stories.

00:36:18.65
Tony Sisk
Normally, I like to just charge to the campaign, but

00:36:18.84
Jaime G
I do.

00:36:23.21
Tony Sisk
There aren't a lot of games that do side stories very well, but Valhalla actually does them very well. So I was doing those side stories. And so that just adds to the campaign link because the side stories actually can affect how well you perform in the main campaign because those so side stories lead to either your ability to recruit people to help you fight because it's a huge battle at the end of the game.

00:36:50.91
Tony Sisk
And, you know, the more people that you help on the side or and or stories you influence on the side determines how many people are going to come to your aid in the end game.

00:37:05.50
Tony Sisk
So that's why I'm like, I'm not to have all these side stories and stuff because I won't, you know, want to have as much, you know, backing when we go to fight the final battle.

00:37:19.82
Tony Sisk
It's a very cool concept that's well done ah in that. so Yeah, it was like 180. I don't know what the average is, but for me, it was ah I didn't finish that game until 181 into that a huge game.

00:37:35.45
Tony Sisk
Oh yeah, it's massive.

00:37:35.52
Jaime G
I kind of want to say i remember you saying that you had to like spent like a lot of time to to get through everything.

00:37:44.14
Tony Sisk
oh yeah it's massive Massive. It's my favorite Assassin's Creed. So, and then, you know, obviously it was the last Assassin's Creed before this one, before this one. And it's, you know, varying degrees of controversy and stuff like that.

00:38:01.64
Tony Sisk
um And I don't know, I'm like not that far into the story, but it's like, yeah, it's not. For me, it's not a big deal, like, how it's being towed through these particular characters.

00:38:17.39
Jaime G
yeah

00:38:17.41
Tony Sisk
I mean, makes sense, actually. i'm like, okay, I can see that. Now, I mean, if you're a Japanese person, like, we don't have a main hero that's a tradition of just a dude samurai, right? Like,

00:38:32.14
Tony Sisk
there There are side characters, obviously, but like the two main characters um are that not one. one is Japanese, I think. It's a female.

00:38:44.00
Tony Sisk
And the other one is a male.

00:38:50.23
Tony Sisk
Portuguese? I don't even know what nationality, he's but but he's black.

00:38:52.49
Jaime G
I don't know, but that that male character is the one that ended up causing so much controversy.

00:38:53.60
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

00:38:58.12
Tony Sisk
Yeah, but I'm like... Actually, I mean, we've seen this story told before, like literally. So show like the Disney show, the Hulu show Shogun, you know, the remake of the original Shogun about the Englishman that washes up on shore and stuff, you know, with his ship and he's taking capture and he ends up being like a valuable asset to the Shogun.

00:39:22.14
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:39:23.74
Tony Sisk
It's the same story. It's the same thing. Literally the same thing. Except it's a black guy.

00:39:31.81
Tony Sisk
There's no different, like, i literally the same concept.

00:39:38.21
Tony Sisk
he's He's not, he does, yeah.

00:39:38.61
Jaime G
and now and And now that is like the most controversial thing.

00:39:44.71
Tony Sisk
Right. So, but I could see, I could see like the story that starts off with like, mean I mean, don't want to run too much. You know, it's like they see this, he's a big guy and like the Japanese are like, they're scared of him.

00:40:01.13
Tony Sisk
Right. It's like, Oh, you know, this guy's a giant, but the the military forces, they're like, this guy's pretty big. He might be an asset.

00:40:13.05
Tony Sisk
Right. It makes sense. You know? Makes sense. Let's get him on our side. He can work for us. Biggest dude on the battlefield. Gigantic man.

00:40:25.71
Tony Sisk
ah So, makes sense. It's like, you know, what would happen if, like, I mean, the Japanese people are, you know, not the the biggest people in the world.

00:40:37.69
Tony Sisk
Like, average age, average heights, what, probably 5'9", at five nine max I don't to know it was that high. Let's see.

00:40:48.25
Tony Sisk
What is the average height? Oh, my goodness. My Google.

00:40:54.50
Tony Sisk
What was the average height of Japanese in sixteenth century?

00:41:11.07
Tony Sisk
Five foot two.

00:41:11.25
Jaime G
Not too much.

00:41:13.41
Tony Sisk
Five foot two.

00:41:18.44
Tony Sisk
That's, yeah.

00:41:18.78
Jaime G
Five for two.

00:41:22.35
Tony Sisk
That, in 16th century Japan. That is pretty, pretty small. let's see Let's see what it was in, say, Europe.

00:41:38.95
Tony Sisk
European.

00:41:47.68
Tony Sisk
5'7". So the average European is 5 inches taller.

00:41:54.76
Tony Sisk
I mean, that's not a small amount. ah

00:41:59.95
Tony Sisk
So, yeah, I can say, hey, this guy can help us out in the battlefield, which is basically how the game starts.

00:42:08.52
Jaime G
Okay. but So what are you thinking? What's your thoughts? this Is this going to be like the best game ever?

00:42:17.31
Tony Sisk
I don't know. and don't I don't know. I don't think so. but I will say though, when I played Valhalla, I thought it was the ugliest game when we so when the game started.

00:42:32.20
Tony Sisk
it It was.

00:42:32.40
Jaime G
And then...

00:42:32.72
Tony Sisk
i was like, man, this game is ugly.

00:42:36.63
Tony Sisk
The landscapes are ugly. The characters are ugly. Combat stinks. Did not like it at all. ah 12 hours in, though, it was totally different because you you went from Norway to England.

00:42:57.73
Tony Sisk
Norway was in the wintertime. England was in like early the late spring or the summertime where everything's green and stuff like that. So it went we went from looking really ugly to looking really great.

00:43:12.82
Tony Sisk
So they really emphasize this contrast in why the Vikings would want to come to England. And the combat actually, once you got used to it, made sense and was good.

00:43:26.82
Jaime G
Nah.

00:43:26.85
Tony Sisk
um So

00:43:31.62
Tony Sisk
i don't know. I mean, I think this game is this, this new Assassin's Creed. It looks really, really, it looks really good. i mean, looks really good. Off the bat. So that probably means it's going to stink.

00:43:43.59
Tony Sisk
Right. just The opposite. Right. Oh, it's great. Now it's going stink.

00:43:49.35
Jaime G
nah

00:43:49.40
Tony Sisk
Yeah. I mean, it's like, it looks great. It's no ghost of Shishima though. and In the combat. Like, not that I can tell. So I can, I can see where they're trying to go for a similar feel.

00:44:04.15
Tony Sisk
um in the in the sony game ghost of tsushima there's no targeting like when you're when you're sword fighting with the uh with your uh with your character there's no lock-on system right so but what what what that does is allows you for more fluid movement once you get the hang of it more fluid movement between targets because in that game there's

00:44:12.58
Jaime G
there's There's like no lock-on system?

00:44:27.66
Tony Sisk
a lot of situations where you're taking on five guys at one time. Right. So you, and they're all equipped with different weapons like spears or uh, the, the katanas are just, they all have different weapons.

00:44:42.27
Tony Sisk
So you have to be able to flow between the different targets rapidly because usually you can't kill somebody in just one, uh, swipe of the sword.

00:44:52.95
Tony Sisk
it It takes several hits and, but too many hits for you to actually kill somebody before somebody else is actually hitting you. So you have to be able to go from from one target to the next, back to the original target, or go to a third target, or then roll away.

00:45:10.02
Tony Sisk
you know So there's a lot of ability of flexibility in your in your combat. And then you're switching stances. Man, it's a complex system. Works really well.

00:45:21.87
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:45:22.09
Tony Sisk
Now in this this new Assassin's Creed, there is no lock-on. So they are going right for the same kind of feel.

00:45:36.11
Tony Sisk
No lock-on, but it doesn't quite feel the same. i Maybe because it's been a while since I played Ghost of Tsushima and I don't really truly remember, but it doesn't feel the same. ah Doesn't seem...

00:45:51.15
Tony Sisk
like the combos. maybe I don't know if there's more combos I will open up. well you you unlock yeah you You added combos and stuff to your to your repertoire, basically.

00:46:02.98
Tony Sisk
um So I don't know if that's coming. Maybe. Maybe not. If it is, that's great. It feels good, though. I mean... it It's not bad.

00:46:14.56
Tony Sisk
So we'll see where it stands and you know 15 and 20 hours. could um

00:46:22.67
Jaime G
I'm curious to see where it where it ends up.

00:46:23.10
Tony Sisk
like it Yeah, I mean, there's adjustment because I think you're gonna be you're gonna going to be going back and forth between one character that is, you know, I can't remember what his name is, the Black Samurai guy, where his his moves are more power-based, and then you're going to go back to the other character, the the smallish female character, and hers is more

00:46:39.03
Jaime G
Oh, yeah, the Portuguese guy.

00:46:50.02
Tony Sisk
dodging right like you know running away diving away and stuff like that so uh but hers actually feels very good because like dive away and then she can come back in and do a swap i actually enjoyed her combat probably a little bit more than i did the other guys but i'm not that far in to either one's combat system so let's see

00:47:16.46
Tony Sisk
But, you know, i'm not giving a review yet.

00:47:16.55
Jaime G
OK.

00:47:18.63
Tony Sisk
I'm only 45 minutes in. Yep.

00:47:23.23
Jaime G
um I mean, I don't know. I've always liked Assassin's Creed games. um So I'm excited to see kind of how this this one survives the test of time because there's like all all types of delays and pushbacks on this.

00:47:41.62
Jaime G
And this is Ubisoft, right?

00:47:44.71
Tony Sisk
yep

00:47:46.37
Jaime G
they're ah They're on a slippery slope. They've not had any major hits in the last couple of years.

00:47:55.37
Tony Sisk
Right. Well, they they they do tend to experiment.

00:47:58.17
Jaime G
I think the pressure's on.

00:48:00.20
Tony Sisk
They do tend to kind of experiment with some different stuff that doesn't always work out. And they the

00:48:06.07
Jaime G
I've...

00:48:09.51
Jaime G
Man, I think that

00:48:09.72
Tony Sisk
they also are quick to abandon it. Like, you can't trust that they're going to stick around with their product when they, you know.

00:48:17.67
Jaime G
Dude, they have had a lot more flops than hits lately.

00:48:22.28
Tony Sisk
Yeah. they're They're living on the good graces of Valhalla.

00:48:26.79
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:48:28.33
Tony Sisk
You know, that's still carrying them for now. Though I think they were a target of ah Xbox acquisition. um I think Xbox is still on that hunt to become, you know, the to incorporate more studios so they can, you know be the world's biggest publisher if they're not already, I think.

00:48:35.10
Jaime G
Yes.

00:48:48.68
Jaime G
a

00:48:48.99
Tony Sisk
So.

00:48:50.23
Jaime G
Okay, but they just they're they're just forgetting that they need to put out some good games out there, man.

00:48:55.59
Tony Sisk
Well, they're putting out games. Whether or not they're good or not, it's telling a different story.

00:49:02.60
Jaime G
That's true.

00:49:02.60
Tony Sisk
Like, at the the the Avowed game, was Avowed one of my choices? Please tell me it wasn't one of my choices in the and the in the draft.

00:49:09.70
Jaime G
I don't think it was.

00:49:11.12
Tony Sisk
Okay.

00:49:11.48
Jaime G
I don't think it was.

00:49:12.48
Tony Sisk
So, that i think we talked about this. Like, Avowed having all this good preview hype. You know, oh, Avowed, yes, from Obsidian. It's great. It looks great.

00:49:24.13
Tony Sisk
you know we had all these reviewers playing it early access you know they got 12 hours to the game and they were like oh they're all beaming about oh it's great it just feels like you do all this stuff in a game and then the game drops and it's like those same people are like this game yeah no no

00:49:42.95
Jaime G
Oh, Avowed was one of your games.

00:49:45.38
Tony Sisk
oh no

00:49:48.43
Tony Sisk
ah

00:49:49.96
Jaime G
ah guess But get this. It wasn't one of the lowest rated ones.

00:49:54.23
Tony Sisk
Yeah, well, those reviewers had to put in those ah high scores on paper anyway.

00:50:00.78
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:50:01.43
Tony Sisk
I don't know. But that game was is is not is not received well at all. despite what I think I did look at the scores. the scores were like 8 out of 10 or something.

00:50:15.83
Tony Sisk
Like 80-something.

00:50:18.14
Jaime G
It is an 80.

00:50:18.43
Tony Sisk
But I don't think and don't think the score is actually reflective of how people feel about that game. I haven't played it though because I literally had just canceled my Xbox account like a week before that game dropped.

00:50:33.25
Tony Sisk
So just because I've been playing playing my Game Pass.

00:50:35.06
Jaime G
Man. Killing Floor. Okay. Speaking of the the draft, Killing Floor 3 releases tomorrow. And that will tell us all the games that to to that Spidey Dude has on his list.

00:50:53.28
Tony Sisk
Oh, really? That's his last game?

00:50:55.53
Jaime G
That's his last game, and he's been doing pretty well.

00:51:00.67
Jaime G
ah Vance had Assassin's Creed Shadows on his list. list

00:51:06.37
Jaime G
It's an 81. 81.

00:51:09.56
Tony Sisk
there you go. It's not as bad as everybody was making it out to be. But again, like, is it a real 81? Or is it, you know? We'll see.

00:51:21.97
Jaime G
we don't We can't tell, right?

00:51:23.52
Tony Sisk
I ah can't tell you. i will say i don't have like, you know, in the 45 minutes I played the game, there's nothing that stood out to me going, I'm worried about this game.

00:51:36.51
Tony Sisk
Right? It's like, okay, I'm buying what you're putting down here so far. So let's see where it takes me. So there's nothing immediately going, this is absurd.

00:51:54.37
Jaime G
Okay, well, you actually made me look at something. Vance's two games, Assassin's Creed Shadows and Xenoblade Chronicles dropped, and he had split fiction. Dude, Vance is doing okay.

00:52:14.40
Jaime G
But Spidey dude has got him by like Two points museum was rated as an 84 and Assassin's Creed shadows was an 81. That three point difference is putting Spidey dude right above Vance right now and the draft.

00:52:28.81
Tony Sisk
Two Point Museum. Dude, I want to play that game.

00:52:31.17
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:52:32.18
Tony Sisk
and like I didn't know anything about Two Point until...

00:52:35.06
Jaime G
What is it?

00:52:37.15
Tony Sisk
So, it's...

00:52:41.10
Tony Sisk
Two Point Museum is like you running your own museum. Right? Think Sims. um

00:52:49.03
Jaime G
Oh, it actually went up.

00:52:49.62
Tony Sisk
where you at sims and like a roller coaster tycoon combined or something like that like you're building out a museum with like exhibits and there's people like you know more people come and stuff like that and you're just trying to make something that people want to go see right so and that's just me look uh telling you based off of what i've

00:52:55.78
Jaime G
Uh-huh.

00:53:14.55
Tony Sisk
Little stuff I've read about it But I didn't notice i started going through like the PlayStation catalog and stuff They have two point hospital They have two point Like airport or whatever Like they have a bunch of stuff That falls in the same vein And it's not that Some of that stuff is pretty cheap Actually um'm I'm not even If one of them is not in the PlayStation Plus catalog That you can download for free I'm not sure

00:53:16.41
Jaime G
Uh-huh.

00:53:41.58
Jaime G
Also, so there's ah there's a chance that I can play this for free.

00:53:46.60
Tony Sisk
Oh, definitely. Yeah, probably. Or super cheap anyway. But definitely, I want to check it out because it seems the two-point system of games definitely seems like it would be something fun.

00:54:01.33
Tony Sisk
but Just simple fun.

00:54:01.47
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:54:03.31
Tony Sisk
um but in Speaking of simple fun, fun like you know we've been waiting for like all these games to drop and of course we don't want to drop $75 on every game and stuff like that. So I'm like,

00:54:15.70
Tony Sisk
And I was waiting for Assassin's Creed. so So I went and bought that today. Oh, props to GameStop, though. I will give them props. I have not bought a game from GameStop in forever.

00:54:27.64
Tony Sisk
Right.

00:54:28.65
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:54:29.33
Tony Sisk
I went in there. And yes, I had you have a copy of Assassin's Creed, guys. I got it. Sure. So he pulls it out and he's like, what's your phone number? I gave him a phone number. He's like, oh, you got a seven dollar credit.

00:54:41.82
Tony Sisk
It's like, do you want to apply it to your drink yeah purchase?

00:54:42.31
Jaime G
For what? or what

00:54:45.31
Tony Sisk
I'm like, of course. um might not be here again for another three years. Right? he gave He gives the $7 discount.

00:54:56.48
Tony Sisk
The fact that they kept my $7 discount ah in my that where I could use it. It's been forever since I've been in a GameStop and bought a game.

00:55:08.75
Tony Sisk
So, because I've been buying everything from Best Buy. Because Best Buy had their, you know, rewards program and stuff and where you're getting like certificates and stuff like that. ah They don't do that anymore.

00:55:19.72
Jaime G
Now they don't do it anymore.

00:55:19.75
Tony Sisk
that that not Yeah, which really stinks.

00:55:24.60
Tony Sisk
So, GameStop still had my, ah so I don't know why I had a $7 credit, but they gave it to me.

00:55:33.37
Jaime G
Quick question for you. but you go Did you go to the GameStop and Smyrna, the one that's over by the Target?

00:55:40.70
Tony Sisk
Yes.

00:55:41.93
Jaime G
Okay. Well, I don't know if you knew this, Tony, but they closed the one over by Walmart.

00:55:46.37
Tony Sisk
Did it really?

00:55:47.56
Jaime G
It's gone.

00:55:48.83
Tony Sisk
and Okay.

00:55:48.88
Jaime G
and And you know what? Thank you for reminding me this. I got to give a shout out to that specific location too. See these cards in my hand?

00:55:58.67
Tony Sisk
Little Connor cards.

00:56:00.04
Jaime G
Yes. So I had a coworker the last time I traveled for work up to New Jersey who plays cards. And he was like, dude, buy some Larkana cards and we'll play them here during our lunch break and whatever. And that was a big bust, by the way.

00:56:19.37
Jaime G
I bought them. I literally had this box full of Larkana cards.

00:56:23.55
Tony Sisk
Uh-huh.

00:56:24.70
Jaime G
But anyway, the the reason why this box is is I went to that same GameStop. And I was just like, you know the random guy that's just like, hey, you got some Larkana cards. and And the dude's like, yeah, I got some in the bag. Go check them out.

00:56:41.72
Jaime G
So I come up with a starter deck. The box, the sleeves that I have here in my hand, And he's asking, and he asks me, dude, it was like this this guy with like a little goatee. He's like, are you buying these for yourself?

00:56:57.24
Jaime G
I'm like, no, no, no, no. They're for my son. And he's like, how old is your son?

00:57:06.04
Jaime G
like, oh, he's eight. he's He's like, give me a sec. Goes in the back room, com like comes out with like two fistful of cards. That's why this box is like jam-packed full.

00:57:20.93
Jaime G
And he's like, hey, we're starting to sell ah single cards. ah Nobody's buying the Lurikana stuff. There might be some interesting stuff in there. you know Give it to your son. and i'm like, what? So shout out to that location, too, because they got they gave me a bunch of Lurikana cards.

00:57:32.19
Tony Sisk
ah

00:57:37.26
Jaime G
And they hit there's like some foils. And I mean, I don't know. i never i never once played it.

00:57:45.21
Tony Sisk
That's funny. um Lorcona, man. I've got Lorcona starter deck. And I bought it for myself.

00:57:53.05
Jaime G
yeah

00:57:54.18
Tony Sisk
Not for my nine-year-old.

00:57:56.16
Jaime G
Well, I bought this one for myself, but I didn't admit to it at the store.

00:57:58.60
Tony Sisk
ah

00:57:59.72
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:58:00.61
Tony Sisk
To play with the guy from work and you haven't played it yet?

00:58:04.14
Jaime G
Well, because he works in New Jersey.

00:58:07.17
Tony Sisk
oh Oh. Why did he tell you to buy Lorcona cards then? He's not even in the same office as you.

00:58:12.40
Jaime G
because just Because I travel to New Jersey every once in a while for meetings, like once a month.

00:58:18.27
Tony Sisk
Oh,

00:58:18.78
Jaime G
And he knows that I'm into cards, too. And And so he ended up showing up with like two starter decks for Dragon Ball. And he's like, dude, this is yours. This is mine. Let's play.

00:58:29.45
Jaime G
Dude, but it it it makes me wonder what would have happened if I would have told the GameStop guy that those cards were for me.

00:58:30.80
Tony Sisk
that's funny. Yeah.

00:58:38.75
Tony Sisk
ah He might not have given you the cards.

00:58:40.68
Jaime G
He might have not, but I was honestly, like, I felt like that guy, the old dude who's buying these kids,

00:58:50.73
Tony Sisk
Hey man, it's a thing. It's a thing. I, I, before I went to the GameStop today to buy Assassin's Creed, I was looking at their website and they were like, we buy cards and we sell cards. I'm like, huh?

00:59:08.11
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:59:08.31
Tony Sisk
What?

00:59:08.99
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

00:59:09.28
Tony Sisk
I'm like, so I look and like, oh, they've got Pokemon cards. They got sports cards. They got, I'm like, what going on? I'm like,

00:59:15.98
Jaime G
And depending on what you say, they might give you cards too.

00:59:19.04
Tony Sisk
like is GameStop selling cards for? So i went in there. I didn't bother looking for the cards. I'm like, as soon as I walked in the door, guys like, Hey, how can I help you? i'm like, Oh, Assassin's Creed.

00:59:29.98
Tony Sisk
Here it is. And like, I was, I was, it was like 45 seconds.

00:59:31.78
Jaime G
Yeah.

00:59:35.51
Tony Sisk
And so actually had thought about looking at some cards because, you know, um I've been, uh, I've gotten back into, uh, collecting.

00:59:44.98
Jaime G
Pokemon?

00:59:45.72
Tony Sisk
No, no. Uh,

00:59:48.95
Tony Sisk
ah football cards. Right. So I was like, Oh, do they have any football cards?

00:59:51.68
Jaime G
Oh. Uh-huh.

00:59:54.52
Tony Sisk
But i didn't get around. Okay. And they, there's their website says that they buy and sell graded cards. So I was, I don't have any graded cards and they tend to be a lot more expensive.

01:00:00.80
Jaime G
ahha

01:00:05.66
Tony Sisk
So I, ah

01:00:07.19
Jaime G
Yep.

01:00:09.27
Tony Sisk
i don't ah I didn't have it, but some of the money I used for buying the Assassin's Creed game was ah from me selling a football card for like 50 bucks. So I'm like, okay, I'll just use this money to buy this Assassin's Creed game.

01:00:29.27
Tony Sisk
So that's funny.

01:00:30.22
Jaime G
when when Well,

01:00:31.31
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Win-win. But yeah, I have a little kind of deck because some of my buddies play Lorcanum and one of them is one is actually like one, a tournament or something in Atlanta.

01:00:46.33
Tony Sisk
But so I bought a starter pack thinking maybe that if I ever, we ever got together with that, we would play, but I have not had a chance yet.

01:00:57.97
Jaime G
well well i have one

01:01:00.59
Tony Sisk
I don't know. We can play.

01:01:02.37
Jaime G
And and it I don't know how to play either because my my friend was supposed to explain it to me.

01:01:02.45
Tony Sisk
I don't know how to play, but like we can't play.

01:01:07.99
Jaime G
But we were just like so crazy busy. And he was like, oh, let's play Dragon Ball. It's easier to explain.

01:01:12.37
Tony Sisk
Yeah. If you're wondering, if you're listening to this and you're youre like, what is look what what are they talking about? Like, Lucana, if you've ever heard of Magic the Gathering, the card game, Lucana is basically Disney's version of a card game that's similar to that concept, right?

01:01:21.27
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:01:29.16
Tony Sisk
So it's like, Or Pokemon or... ah it's a TCG. It's a training card game.

01:01:34.73
Jaime G
yeah

01:01:35.21
Tony Sisk
So... You know, and then it's like any other training card game. Most of them anyway. They have like a varying levels of cards.

01:01:41.65
Jaime G
and And it's it's been on the market since 2023. Collecting. Yeah. Apparently.

01:01:45.70
Tony Sisk
Yeah, it's it's fairly new. So... is he good It's actually a good time if you're not necessarily interested in playing the cards. If you're interested into collecting the cards...

01:01:58.74
Jaime G
yeah

01:01:59.14
Tony Sisk
ah That would be a great time to get into it just because like it's kind of taking off

01:02:06.11
Tony Sisk
as far as the collectability of it. Obviously, it would be years before it gets to Pokemon level, but...

01:02:09.30
Jaime G
ah pan

01:02:12.72
Jaime G
Apparently, right now, I'm reading this off a website. Disney Larkana is currently one of the most successful trading card games in the market.

01:02:24.43
Jaime G
Just because it's got you know a lot of brand recognition with the characters that they're putting on the cards.

01:02:31.43
Tony Sisk
Right. It's just like when we were talking Marvel rivals as a shooter, right? It's like, oh, it's it's a fun game to play, but what kind of sets it apart is the fact that it's got those Marvel characters that everybody has and

01:02:36.28
Jaime G
Mm-hmm.

01:02:46.65
Tony Sisk
ah brand recognition and they can play as their favorite characters and stuff like that. the same thing with Locana. Oh, I want to play as Mickey. I want to play as Donald or whatever for the kids, you know particularly.

01:03:00.72
Jaime G
i don't know I don't know what starter deck you picked up, but I have the one that has Hercules and a little bit of ah the Little Mermaid.

01:03:12.38
Tony Sisk
I think I have a Moana deck, which is weird.

01:03:17.11
Tony Sisk
i did that i didn't pick it out. I asked i went into a ah ah board game store in Antioch, and I asked a guy, I'm like, hey, ah I see you have Locana hanging on the on the racks behind you.

01:03:33.51
Tony Sisk
I'm like, I'm interested in picking up a starter deck, but I don't know anything about the game. Which one should I pick? And the guy's like, oh, you should take this one. You know, so he gives me.

01:03:44.06
Jaime G
Yeah, the most expensive one for sure.

01:03:46.04
Tony Sisk
Well, they're all like the same, but.

01:03:49.48
Tony Sisk
So he gave me that one. So. like I haven't played it though. I opened it at the house and the cards are still pretty much in order and stuff.

01:03:59.76
Tony Sisk
I haven't even really read the rules because I was thinking that one of my buddies was going to show me just like you thought your buddy was going to show you.

01:04:02.04
Jaime G
No, no, I haven't.

01:04:05.69
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:04:06.87
Tony Sisk
I was thinking was saying the same thing. I'm like, okay, somebody is going to show me how to play. so But no nobody has.

01:04:12.06
Jaime G
ah well Well, to be fair, my coworker didn't ghost me on this. We just like literally, it was supposed to be like this whole team building event where everyone who was traveling was supposed to buy one of these.

01:04:26.00
Jaime G
Now, I had expressed that I'd like playing, you know, MTG or other stuff. And nobody showed up with the cards. So it was just him and me.

01:04:36.66
Tony Sisk
Right.

01:04:38.43
Jaime G
So he he he did spend some time explaining Dragon Ball to me, but but we never, like, the whole objective was Lorcanum because apparently you can do more like a team thing, like more than just two players at a time.

01:04:52.50
Tony Sisk
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:04:52.69
Jaime G
And so we were going to make this, like, big event with, like, six or seven people, which kind of fizzled out when when people forgot their decks. Because literally one person...

01:05:05.46
Jaime G
showed us pictures like when as she was buying these and she's like, Hey, I've got in my shopping cart. I'm ready to go. But when she arrived, she's like, I forgot my cars at home.

01:05:18.59
Tony Sisk
saying, well, you should take the reins and and drive that whole idea. Let me tell you something funny at at my work. and I work at South...

01:05:28.26
Jaime G
um

01:05:28.38
Tony Sisk
I won't say the rest of the name. I work at the airline.

01:05:29.72
Jaime G
And the airline industry.

01:05:32.18
Tony Sisk
I work in the airlines. and um I don't know when to start. It's probably been two years now. But

01:05:41.38
Tony Sisk
oh there was like ah somebody that was bringing in Pokemon cards. Right. And they were some, a stack them ended up on like the, one of the leaders desk and like what we call our command center.

01:05:57.36
Tony Sisk
And, uh, I don't know why or what they were what the idea was. whatever but They started giving the cards out to people. right so Everybody wears safety vests out there.

01:06:10.09
Tony Sisk
right so you know They don't get run over and stuff like that.

01:06:11.08
Jaime G
Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

01:06:13.13
Tony Sisk
With all the safety vests, that everybody has a breast pocket that's see-through where they can drop their badge or something like that. but Everybody wears orange badges. um but People started dropping Pokemon into that breast pocket.

01:06:29.77
Jaime G
hu

01:06:30.58
Tony Sisk
And um so they would walk around with just this Pokemon card showing in their safety vest. And I was like, what is the deal with the Pokemon card? It's like, oh, if somebody was doing did something good, we'd give them the Pokemon card.

01:06:46.93
Tony Sisk
And ah so now there's all these people walking around work with Pokemon cards and they're in the breast pocket of their safety vest.

01:06:54.39
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:06:55.00
Tony Sisk
It's kind of a funny idea, actually. It's like it's quirky. It makes no sense. But it's like... It's fun, right? it's like Yeah. I'm like... I still don't know how or why these things are in people's breasts pocket breast ah breast pockets, but they are.

01:07:12.78
Tony Sisk
you should do same thing your work. yes Make it a mystery.

01:07:16.68
Jaime G
yeah

01:07:17.44
Tony Sisk
Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha.

01:07:21.11
Jaime G
Although I think, i again, I enjoy these games, but I think people at my work other than this one coworker kind of look at this like, man, what are you doing? you

01:07:34.63
Tony Sisk
Yeah. So, yeah, you never know, you know, if people would jump in and say, Hey, I play.

01:07:43.14
Jaime G
ah they'll They'll be like, hey, my kid's got a starter deck too, hint, hint.

01:07:46.71
Tony Sisk
Hit. Yeah. Right. My kids got one home. I'll bring it in. All right, cool.

01:07:55.08
Jaime G
Who?

01:07:55.17
Tony Sisk
Oh, there is one other game I've been playing though. I started playing it last week. And it's been on like PlayStation Plus for a while. Is Slay the Spire.

01:08:06.36
Tony Sisk
Since we're talking about card games. Have you heard of Slay the Spire right?

01:08:08.72
Jaime G
Yeah. I have.

01:08:11.51
Tony Sisk
Right? Yeah. it's It's kind of a famous little game. And I have always wanted to play it. I just never did. um Because it was a card game.

01:08:23.81
Tony Sisk
It's a card based game. ah So I finally started playing it the other day. And let me... Man, I'm like, why haven't I played this sooner? It's super fun. Like, I've been playing on PS5.

01:08:38.89
Tony Sisk
um And then I went and immediately bought it on my Steam Deck and play at work on my Steam Deck. And it's so, the concept is so simple. It's a roguelite card builder.

01:08:53.56
Jaime G
Uh-huh.

01:08:54.28
Tony Sisk
And it's just fun. There's no narrative to it. There's nothing. It's just the mechanics of, you know, having starting off with a deck of like 12 cards and trying to make your way through this dungeon light tower fighting random ah different monsters and stuff.

01:09:16.77
Tony Sisk
and they get progressively harder so you have to have better cards so you just have all these encounters and you have different ways of upgrading cards and adding cards and you know you just learn ah to learn your your deck you try to make it as far as possible ah with the cards that you've acquired and then when you die when when you absolutely can't make any further you die like There'll be like a new card available to your base set, basically.

01:09:46.58
Jaime G
yeah

01:09:47.10
Tony Sisk
Then you start back over.

01:09:47.27
Jaime G
yeah

01:09:48.88
Tony Sisk
and But now you have a slightly more powerful card available to you. And that just continues.

01:09:53.82
Jaime G
OK, I was just giggling over here because as I was like looking for details on Slay the Spire, I saw somebody make like a sticker.

01:10:05.25
Jaime G
And they're selling this on NetSea that says, Slay the Spire. It's not a cult. What?

01:10:13.62
Tony Sisk
Right?

01:10:14.07
Jaime G
Should I be worried about you, Tony?

01:10:16.59
Tony Sisk
It's not a cult. It's really an ugly game. like like it's It's got really crude artwork. and it's just But there's not a whole lot to the game. like There's not a bunch of fancy movements happening.

01:10:33.98
Tony Sisk
like All this incredible music in the background. no It's just a basic game.

01:10:37.83
Jaime G
you You are sounding so much like me whenever i was talking about Volatro.

01:10:43.73
Tony Sisk
ah Right.

01:10:45.70
Jaime G
I mean, like, I'm hearing myself right now.

01:10:50.10
Tony Sisk
Yeah, I mean, if you haven't played, you should try Especially if you can find it PS Plus. If it's still available in there.

01:10:56.41
Jaime G
If it was ever, like, a free game to download, it's in my library. All right.

01:11:02.01
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Oh, okay, yeah. Then it's probably in there.

01:11:06.26
Jaime G
I'll find it.

01:11:08.46
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Oh, and you remember how we were talking the last time. i don't think this episode aired.

01:11:14.60
Jaime G
Yeah, this this is the one that it's going to be faded into obscurity.

01:11:17.85
Tony Sisk
Yeah, it's it's going to be the... That was the one that was broken into two pieces.

01:11:23.46
Jaime G
Oh, yeah.

01:11:24.04
Tony Sisk
Technical difficulties and stuff.

01:11:28.78
Tony Sisk
Maybe it shows up in the the Lost Archives and you can you could purchase it as a separate recording.

01:11:34.23
Jaime G
Yeah.

01:11:34.80
Tony Sisk
But...

01:11:35.28
Jaime G
Whenever they do like a documentary about good to game radio, the lost audios.

01:11:37.95
Tony Sisk
Right.

01:11:41.14
Tony Sisk
Right. the The lost files. um So we had talked about, I think that was an episode. We had talked about coding with Claude. Remember? Did you ever try that?

01:11:51.28
Jaime G
Yeah. Yeah, no I didn't. But we were talking about like you made your own video game with this.

01:11:55.87
Tony Sisk
Right. So dude, no, there was an article. I can't remember what magazine it was, what publication it was that talked about this.

01:12:06.81
Tony Sisk
ah And they used Claude. ah For those who don't know, Claude is a AI, web-based AI, right? And there's a term for what we what we were talking about where ah you don't have to have technical expertise in programming.

01:12:27.14
Tony Sisk
You just sit down in front of the AI and say, hey, I want to make a game about this. And it needs to do this and this and this, right?

01:12:31.64
Jaime G
about this or that. I remember.

01:12:33.80
Tony Sisk
And then The thing would give you the code and you drop it into a compiler and you run it and see if it works. Right.

01:12:39.50
Jaime G
but

01:12:40.51
Tony Sisk
They actually have come up with a term for this.

01:12:43.64
Jaime G
ah As it being poor.

01:12:46.33
Tony Sisk
No, no, no, no. It's called vibe. It's vibing, vibing with the AI. And it doesn't necessarily have to be about but doing a game. It could be about any program that you're wanting to make where, where the development process is just you saying, I want this.

01:13:06.79
Tony Sisk
The thing gives you ah a crude starting point. And then you say, okay, that works. Now add this. Okay, adds this.

01:13:14.15
Jaime G
Oh, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I've done that.

01:13:15.33
Tony Sisk
And then I say, okay, that works. Let's change this. Let's do this. Right? So that whole interaction of back and forth and trying to make something from scratch without any expertise in the programming side of things, the term is called vibing.

01:13:33.62
Jaime G
Yeah, I recently did a simulator for something at work. And i there was like some pieces of code that I started just like writing, writing, writing. and And I got so far.

01:13:47.79
Jaime G
And there was like something that I was just like, I don't know how to fix this. And so I put it into like ah whatever AI system we're allowed to use at work.

01:13:59.54
Jaime G
and It said, oh, yeah, I can read i can rewrite this. And it told me, like hey, you have an error. And then it like simplified it like so crazy much. I was like, whoa And it worked.

01:14:13.79
Tony Sisk
Yeah, that's the most important part.

01:14:14.31
Jaime G
It still worked.

01:14:15.28
Tony Sisk
Does it work?

01:14:15.91
Jaime G
yeah It did. it it Yeah, but then then I realized it worked on Windows. But then if I tried to run it on Linux, like something wasn't working. And I was like, all right, I'm just going to run this on Windows.

01:14:28.70
Tony Sisk
Yeah. Yeah, I mean... I mean, I don't know how to, like, incorporate, like, and I think it's because... I mean, you kind of need all the different types of programs, but it's like, oh, how do I incorporate the graphics?

01:14:40.01
Jaime G
and

01:14:42.74
Tony Sisk
yeah If I wanted add graphical images and make those that work and stuff like that, I mean, that's probably a little bit more complicated. But don't know. um I don't think we're that far off from being able to do those sort of things. like

01:14:55.42
Jaime G
I think you're right.

01:14:58.00
Tony Sisk
Yeah, sorry to all the programmers out there.

01:15:01.60
Jaime G
Well, I mean...

01:15:02.27
Tony Sisk
Learn how to vibe.

01:15:03.53
Jaime G
I think and in the future, whoever is able to like, see, here's here's a discussion I've been having with my, with my wife. um We think that her line of work is going to disappear in the future. Like in, I say future, like two years from now.

01:15:20.99
Jaime G
ah And the people who are going to be like still in this market that, that she kind of freelances in, are going to be the people who are able to leverage AI to do very specific things that they might not know how to do, but they can you know go through the process of learning how to customize it for for their application.

01:15:45.25
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

01:15:45.72
Jaime G
And I think the same can be true about so many industries.

01:15:50.50
Tony Sisk
Oh yeah. Yeah. We're going we're going to experience a big change and a lots of different industries as far as how things are done and can be done.

01:16:00.13
Jaime G
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

01:16:02.71
Tony Sisk
So, yep. All right. Well, that's all I got for tonight. And you got anything else?

01:16:08.72
Jaime G
No, man. I'm going to and rest up and catch up on some TV before the the day is over.

01:16:09.92
Tony Sisk
Yeah.

01:16:15.37
Jaime G
But this was a good conversation. and like I like the different topics we talked about. And I i want to hear later. When you come back to play some more Assassin's Creed, tell me if your initial impressions have changed after putting in 100 hours into it.

01:16:31.63
Tony Sisk
All right. Definitely.

01:16:33.08
Jaime G
All right.

01:16:33.30
Tony Sisk
All right. Well, thanks for joining me and ah everybody else. Thanks for joining us tonight. Be sure to check out the the discord invite link. It's usually in the show notes. If you want to join our discord and join the conversation there and the different play groups that are going on in there and be sure to like us on your, your favorite podcasting app or subscribe to us.

01:16:55.59
Tony Sisk
Wherever you're listening to the show app and help support the show. And we'll catch you guys on the next episode. so

01:17:02.89
Jaime G
Man, thanks for everything.

01:17:02.98
Tony Sisk
See ya.