Navigated to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 Review And Xbox Layoffs (Feat. Ash Parrish) - Transcript

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 + 4 Review And Xbox Layoffs (Feat. Ash Parrish)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1

Hey, everybody.

Welcome to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering the video game industry.

Join us every Thursday for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, in exclusive reveals, alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from around the industry.

I'm one of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken, joined by Marcus Stewart Heyding Marcus.

Speaker 2

I'm feeling great.

I have new headphones.

I feel like a million bucks.

I got those Sony Elite headphones.

I had the old ones before.

They were battered and looked like they'd been thrown down some stairs and then run over multiple times.

But not anymore.

And it's wireless.

It's like every wild does and walk away and still hear you.

Speaker 1

Guys, Yeah, you look like you should be in The Minority Report, which I recently watched on a flight back home from a work trip.

Speaker 2

Okay, I mean that's what gets filled out when I get pulled over usually?

Speaker 1

Are are you getting pulled over by pre crime officers?

A lot?

Speaker 2

I don't know if we want to get into that.

Speaker 1

Complicated subjects.

Shout out to the Minority Report.

Speaker 2

Still holds up, great movie, fantastic Tom Cruise.

I would say, Tom Cruise Top three.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think so too.

It had been a while and I didn't previously think that anymore, but haven't rewatched it.

I'm like, yeah, one hundred percent movie is gas.

Speaker 2

You think we'll ever get to those weird cars?

Because even back then, I was like, this seems like a terrible idea for cars.

I don't know how we would.

Speaker 1

Get well, I know, Uh, California has said that for when they're hosting the next Olympics, they planned to have flying cars transporting Olympians waiting winter venues.

Speaker 2

When are they hosting?

Announce the date?

Let me look, is it thirty years from now?

Speaker 1

Los Angeles Olympics twenty twenty eight.

Speaker 2

That seems ambitious.

Speaker 1

Wesley LeBlanc, how you doing.

Welcome to the.

Speaker 3

Show, sir, doing good.

Speaker 4

Thanks for having me.

It's funy.

This is first episode since our return.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we've we've been trying to get you on.

Speaker 4

It's just yeah, well, we we came back and then we did a lot of behind the scenes work, and then I went on a paternity leave because I'm now a father.

Speaker 2

Who say, you're too busy having a kid.

Speaker 4

Yeah, I'm playing real life death stranding.

Now it's yeah, it's actually sick.

Speaker 2

Have you has it?

Has playing dust Stranding made you a better as Sam Porter Bridges inspired.

Speaker 1

A better father specific tactic.

Speaker 4

It's taught me how to soothe my baby, which you just kind of a lot of that.

Yeah exactly, Yeah exactly, and looks kind of freaky in a weird little tube that I carry around while I'm working.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Uh, it's it's pretty spot on.

It's a lot more spot on that I would have thought.

But you know, that's Kojima.

He's a he's a genius for a reason or something like that.

Speaker 2

Wait, real quick, have you guys you guys are both playing desk randing too?

Or have started right?

Speaker 4

Yeah?

Speaker 1

I have not started.

I have no time.

Speaker 2

Wes have you done the thing where you have you upset?

Uh, your baby and then looked at it like when you fall and it's you know, she's crying fall.

Speaker 4

Oh, I don't follow in these games.

I'm a master porter.

Speaker 2

My friends, Well, I recommend going out of your way just maybe go eat it at some point and then pick up baby and do this after the sec the first episode.

Okay, I will do that.

Speaker 4

I've I'm done, I mean, I've I've fallen for sure, but I've not noticed anything different with uh might bb but I will try that today, Okay.

Speaker 1

Also bummer news, I conflated air taxi service with flying cars.

Very very two different things.

Speaker 2

Taxis are like drones like that carry like Amazon boxes, right, Well.

Speaker 1

These are for people, like think about like a giant like yeah, think about like a drone, like a Dji drone, but big enough to carry multiple people at a time, like the ones that were over New Jersey a while back, and nobody knew what was going on.

I don't know.

Maybe I know, I know it was a big thing out.

Speaker 4

I remember every week, and there's a lot of things going on.

Speaker 2

It's wild how that has been pushed so far down be like or like noteworthy ladder.

I don't know.

Yeah, I even had to like dig it out my memories, like remember when that was like the big thing where it was like, what is going on with these drones?

Are we being invaded?

Speaker 1

A lot of inform It's a lot of information happening in our in our world.

I missed I missed the Jersey drones.

I heard about them.

I just chalked it up to people being drunk and seeing the drone.

I didn't.

I never looked into it.

Speaker 2

It was at least it was a little bit more into fun, weird a little bit.

Even though it was it was probably if you were living there, probably wasn't very fun, but it was fascinating if nothing else, Like aliens, what's happening here?

Speaker 1

Well, speaking of aliens, you can play an alien, well a demon and the new Tony Hawk's pro Skater three plus four, which Wesley reviewed for Game and for One, where you gave it an eight out of ten.

Once you're here today to talk to us about the game.

Before we get into that, I do want to say, please, if you can consider getting a game Former subscription, whether print or digital.

Our magazine is full of awesome stuff every month.

Please go over to Gaminformer dot com slash subscribe.

Consider getting a subscription.

You'll get ten issues a year.

We have better paper quality.

Oh, I have them in person.

Speaker 2

Hold on, oh on, Oh audio listeners and Alex's has rushed from the camera.

He left like a smoke cloud behind.

That's how fast he left to get these magazines.

Oh he's back.

He's holding up our brandy Oh nice Borderlands for issue.

Alex is holding it up right now.

He's opening up the pages.

You can literally see how glossy the cover is because the paper quality has been improved.

Hey, that's my Wu Tang preview and look he's flipping through our preview round up.

But yes, you can see.

Like I implore you all, if you have not seen the magazine yet, if you're listening on audio, to go to the YouTube version just for this bit and get a good look at how much better the paper quality is.

I know we've touted it before, but you can see it literally visually how much better it is.

Now.

We have not gotten ours yet at the time that we're recording, so.

Speaker 1

Especially only one.

Speaker 2

Yeah, well you live there too, Wesley and I are both here in Florida holding it down, so we got to wait for ours coming to mail, which should come within the next week or so, I believe.

But yeah, that looked beautiful.

I love how how much the red seemed potlorms.

Speaker 1

That reads very vibrant, pops.

Speaker 4

It's nice.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, So please consider getting that print subscription if you're in the US.

If you're not in the US, you can get a digital subscription and read all of the stories that are inside of the physical version.

When the magazine launches just with just like everybody else can with a subscription.

We do hear you.

We we hear that you want us to bring the magazine to other territories and countries, and I will say, we are bringing it up all the time.

Speaker 2

We would like nothing more.

Speaker 1

Yeah, trust So thank you for the enthusiasm.

If you are in a place that you can get the magazine, it's a huge help to us.

And you're also getting like a really high quality magazine with a lot of like really great developer profiles, interesting reporting about some of your favorite games, and also recommendations for games maybe you haven't heard about.

You know, there's a certain era of like being taste makers that we definitely love to kind of interject into inject into the magazine.

So please consider getting a subscription today.

Gamingformer dot Com slash subscribe.

It seems like we've been running some pretty pretty frequent discounts, so I'm gonna hold off from saying whatever price it might be right now, but there's a chance it might be on sale right now and you can go and get one.

But even our our full price I think is really very quite reasonable, and like I said, ten issues a year fantastic paper quality, much better than it used to be.

And uh, yeah, you're getting digital access, exclusive articles online, uh, magazine archive access, a whole bunch of stuff.

So it's the best way to support the show, uh and to support us.

So we appreciate that, but not further ado, Wes.

Let's get into your Tony Hawk review.

Later on the show.

Ash Paris is going to join us, uh, and we're gonna have a great, a great podcast once West leaves.

But I feel like this is the big game of the week.

West.

We wanted to have you on.

Wow, we could get you, And.

Speaker 2

I like the implication he said the podcast gets great.

When Wes, I was about to say the same thing.

Speaker 1

We haven't just haven't recorded that part yet, so I don't know, just talk about just get through this West stuff.

Speaker 2

And it's tough.

Speaker 4

It's tough listeners.

I hate hearing my own voice too.

Yeah, Tony Hawk pro Skater three and four.

I gave it an eight out of ten, which is a really good score.

This is a I just want to get it out there because I'm probably going to talk more about my negatives than my positives, just because of the way this game, these games are packaged together.

But I do think it's a great remake package.

This is essentially more Tony Hawk's pro Skater if you played the one and two remake package, this is going to feel extremely extremely familiar.

Kind of makes you wonder why they got rid of Vicarious and gave this to another developer.

But that's like another op ed that I'm thinking about writing, because yeah, it's a shame that happens with Vicacy.

Yes, yeah, this is Chicago based Iron Galax.

They did a great job, but like it's this is just built on the bones, not even the bones, like the meat, the bones that everything that Vicarious did, and it just sucks that like that studio is no more.

I mean, they got merg into Activision Blizzard, so I hope all of them have jobs still.

But yeah, weird situation and with all that, and wanted to get that out of the way.

But that said, Iron Galaxy did a really good job taking the mantle that Vicaria started with one and two and bringing three to three and four to modern platforms.

This is probably one of the most challenging reviews I've had to write, which is really weird because I went into this game and this review process thinking it was going to be like piece of cake because I know what I was getting into.

I know what these games are, I'm very intimately familiar with them, and it didn't seem like it was going to be doing all that much different from one and two.

But for whatever reason, it was really challenging.

And even Brian, our reviews editor, me and him were going back and forth with edits and stuff, and he really helped shape this piece.

Ultimately, I think my first draft of this review was like a review plus three opinion pieces I should write about Tony Hawk as a series, and we kind of trimmed it down to be more focused on what the product is rather than what I wanted.

But yeah, which is all to say, I'm really proud of this review, but it's a strange one.

So Tony Hawk pro Skater three is everything you know and love about Tony Hawk pro Skater three from back in two thousand and one.

It feels just as good as your rose tinted glasses thought it did.

It looks even better.

The NPC still look really ridiculous and have crazy, ragged off physics that are fun and charming to look at.

The levels are great.

They didn't really make any changes there.

So like, if you like Tony Hawk Pro Skater one and two, you're going to love three.

And if you're like a lot of people around our age, three might end up being your favorite.

For me, however, though, back in the day, four was my favorite, and that's because four was the first venture into what the series would later become.

So for context, my all time favorite Tony Hawk game is American Wasteland.

For me, yeah, for me, skate culture, skateboarding, and I used to be a huge skater.

I've broken both arms skateboarding.

I used to spend all my weekends skateboarding at local parks.

I'm in Jacksonville, we have Kona.

That's a level in Tony Hawk Pro Skater.

For like, I lived and breathed skateboarding growing up.

Speaker 2

And I'm sorry, did you break both arms at the same time?

No?

Speaker 4

No, two different times, two different times.

Speaker 2

If it was like what happened.

Speaker 4

Really lame stories.

It was basically just like, if you're going really fast on a skateboard, a tiny little pebble can ruin your day, And that's exactly what happened.

I screamed loud enough that my sister heard me from inside the house and came running out and I was like down the street.

It was a clean break bone coming out of the skin.

It was it was yeah, yeah, it was yeah.

Speaker 2

I forget.

Speaker 4

I forget about that part.

The actual act of falling was pretty lame, like it's not it wasn't a story I was excited to share at the skate park, like, yeah, I hit a pebble, but I guess it is kind of gnarly to to see bone anyway.

Speaker 1

Are you that kid on YouTube who on the pebble?

Speaker 4

Maybe you could say, but yeah.

So skateboarding for me was a big part of my life, and it also like coincided with like MTV and v H one.

I'd wake up every morning and watch like the countdown of music videos and and that's where I discovered my music.

Alongside these games, and the jackassification of Tony Hawk was something I like really liked because for me, skateboarding was so parallel and like intertwined with Jackass and Diva Labam and Nitro Circus and like that whole era of MTV.

And what I liked about four was like that's kind of where it began.

Like I don't think you get a thug or American Wasteland without four.

And that's because four dropped the formula of one, two and three, which is like, you know, the two minute timer, objective based runs and kind of just put you down the level and let you skate around, talk to to pros like Tony Hawk, and kind of just be like a hooligan.

And my favorite objectives were the ones where you're just pissing people off in the level, like it's fun to collect skating stuff.

But I liked jumping on top of like the policeman's hat, like in the London level in this four remake.

Those are the kind of objectives I like.

And so getting to four was like a real like it was a strange moment because they completely get rid of that.

Four is just one, two and three now in the sense that you compress start and immediately see all your objectives and all your goals and the default is a two minute timer and it feels just like three, which is great.

It feels great.

But and while I think it's the right call for four, because I don't think four nailed what it was trying to do.

I think that's where Thug really like, that's where Strong Suit was was doing what four wanted to do.

It's still kind of weird that this remake, which is, you know, the purpose of a remake is bringing the experience of four or to modern audiences, is twenty twenty five?

Speaker 1

Yeah, kind of preservation, right, exactly.

Speaker 4

Yeah, And it just completely shaves that away.

Like if you one of my favorite lines in my review is, this is not a modern way to play for.

It's a different way to play for because it is.

It's not like you will have no context, You'll have no understanding of what four was back in the day.

And if you're listening to me wax poetic about the jackassification of four, you're probably like, what is you talking about if this remake is your first time playing it, Because it's just essentially four's levels but put into the formula of one, two, and three.

So I was like at a crossroads where it's like, I four didn't necessarily nail it.

So I actually think this two minute timor thing that they're doing is smart.

It's a good call, and it feels right within this package.

But as a remake, is that is that good?

Is that bad?

Speaker 5

Yeah?

Speaker 3

I don't know.

Speaker 4

That's kind of something I wrestled with throughout my time playing for uh.

That said, it still feels great.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, I think so, And I.

Speaker 2

Think your review contextualized out of like from a pure gameplay perspective, this is probably objectively better.

So in terms of just like what a remake is supposed to be philosophically speaking, like you mentioned before alex preservation and stuff, it's like, this is not this is not the four that I played, you know, which is what I would imagine most of the audience that would pick this up is looking for, like, oh, I want the Tony Hawk pros get of four that I grew up with, but nicer, not this overhaul.

And it almost feels like, and I've played a bit of this too, it almost feels like there's two different remakes in this package, as opposed to what one and two felt.

Yeah, where it's like three is your faithful, Like we just made it look nicer, but other than that, we didn't really you know, try and reinvent the wheel, whereas four almost feels like the opposite of what you can do with a remake of like you know, this is an random example, I guess, but like like a Final Fantasy seven remake of like no, no, no, this is a completely different game.

It looks nicer, but it does not play the way that you remember that original version.

And whether or not that's good or bad for you, it's just gonna depend.

And I think that's where people are gonna land with four, just like well, I would be most cure to see for the people that disliked four because it was a little bit more open, because I think it's interesting hearing you say this is your favorite West because I know I'm a few years older than you.

I don't think the gap is like super big, but I think it might be big enough to where four was where I started falling off with the series, and I kind of they kind of lost me when it did veer the more Jackass direction, and you know, I also liked, love watching Jackass and that stuff, but I was like, I don't know if I want this in Tony Hawk necessarily.

So like one, two, or three are like my prime with the series, and then four I have like the least memory of I don't even think I ever owned four.

I think I just borrowed it, so my memory of it is little hazy to the point where I I'm a little less I don't know, offended, or that they changed it just because I just don't have the same nostalgia that I have with the first three games.

Yeah, I want to know, like if there's players like me that maybe just don't hold forward to the highest esteem or didn't play as much of it, so see like will they care as much or will they just be like, no, you made it more like those games that I like more than this one.

So this is great.

Speaker 4

You know, I think I feel like I'll probably be in the minority maybe, but I don't know, because I'm kind of like I got a wishwashy for lack of better term to criticize myself, where I'm like, I don't like it.

They homogenized for and they took away a lot of what made four different and special, and they took its like historical context away.

It was the bridge between Tony Hawk and Thug and you don't you don't get that anymore in this package.

But then I'm also like it's better this way perhaps, So it's like I don't know, I you can call me wishwashing, which it kind of is, but and maybe I'm wanting the best of both worlds.

But yeah, it's like it's a tricky situation to be and I'm curious to you.

I'm excited to see what other people think.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I think everybody on Game and four staff do generally regard you as wishy.

Speaker 4

Washy, so that that tracks I think the Pokemon right.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, the way wash wishy washy wes uh really well.

Speaker 2

I mean even even though I'm like I've always been less hot on four.

Uh, when I think of the first four games, I will say that even I would have preferred them to just leave it alone just for it would have been nice to have the opportunity to sort of reappraise it because I have not played for since it came out, so it would have been cool to go back and like maybe I'll like it more now, like just or just to see like like just like does my memory hold up of it that I was I too harsh on this back in the day because it was so different than the three games that I just love so much.

It would have been cool to get that chance to sort of reevaluate it instead of them sort of just saying like sort of painting over it with the with three basically yeah.

Speaker 4

Yeah, And they did a lot of work in four to make it fit within that formula, So it's almost like it's almost like Iron Galaxy specifically saying No.

Four was bad, We're going to put in work to like make it better or make it what we think it should have been.

Because as much work as they put into it to make it feel like three, they could have put that much work into the original Formula four to make it work better or feel better in twenty twenty five, but they didn't.

Like it's a deliberate choice to be like, No, the timer version is better.

Is the better way to experience these levels?

Speaker 1

Yeah, I it's weird because I'm playing on switch to which number one.

I just want to say, fantastic way to play this game.

It's lottery smooth.

I'm sure it's like I haven't really looked at other versions.

I mean I've seen like the marketing and stuff, but I myself haven't played like the PS five or PC version, and it's probably not quite as impressive.

But having these games on a switch, it's crispy smooth, It looks great, and it's a fantastic way to kind of, you know, replay those levels over and over and kind of you can be on the couch, you can be outside.

Oh, let me let me log in and you know, get get the secret tape on this level.

I haven't gotten it yet, Like I've really enjoyed doing that while playing it on the Switch.

I have only really focused on three because like with one and two, when that remake came out, I play them in order, so I haven't made it to four yet.

Three is historically my probably my favorite Tony Hawk game.

I love Canada, I love Suburbia, a lot of those a lot of those levels, and it's really from what I remember, Three is where you start to feel that the really I guess that's not true, Like two does it as well, where it's kind of like those extra like inner actions with with the levels, splashing the guy in the foundry.

Uh.

Three is where you see like, oh, I'm gonna grind on this switch and it's going to change the level.

It's gonna like raise this platform and now I can reach a new area and like or in the first level the Foundry, right, you eventually can if you yeah, you can eventually open like a secret like copsule chamber that you can grind up and and yeah, I'm really kind of enjoying that that whole process.

It feels great on Switch.

I'm trying to remember.

I feel like I'm like you, Marcus, I didn't play as much four as I did one through three, but then when Thug came out, that got me really back into it.

I feel like when four was out, I like dabbled in it.

I think my friend, maybe my friend had it, but I predominantly would just put time into three.

And but yeah, I'm enjoying it quite a lot.

I it's totally not like when one and two, when that remake came out, I remember just you know, the nostalgia just hitting, and that game faithfully recreates both of them.

And we previously hadn't seen a level of that level of quality shift in that series prior, whereas we kind of have precedent.

Now we've seen the first set of remakes that they published.

This is the second one doesn't really have as much weight behind it.

And you've also got those caveats, like the soundtracks different, which I know some folks really like.

Like a friend of the show, Jesse Vittelly, was posting online about how he's actually glad that there's a new soundtrack because it's giving other artists their flowers and from what I hear.

The soundtrack is just slamming.

Speaker 4

Yeah, the soundtrack is good but different.

There's yeah, it's basically a new soundtrack because I think there's ten returning songs of fifteen nine.

Speaker 2

I think it was weird firing it up, and the first song I heard in the main mini music was Lupe Fiasco's Kick Push Push Yeah, which yeah, hey, I love that song and I love him, but it was very like, oh this this was not around when these games.

Yeah.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

Speaker 4

There's also the downhill Tony Hawk to get that one in a game.

Speaker 1

Yeah, there's also the weird continuation of like all the skaters are their current age.

Speaker 2

I don't understand why that is why I do that.

I that button me with the last remake too, of just like if nothing else, make that like an unlockable skin.

But it's like, I want to skate as the Tony that I played as a kid, like young to and I don't want to play his old fifty something year old Tony no disrespect.

Speaker 4

But I've started with Chad Muska because he was always one of my favorites growing up, and I was like, why does.

Speaker 1

He look like that?

Speaker 4

And then I had to sleep and I'm like, Oh, this dude's like in his like late fifties.

I was like, that's all these people have.

Yeah, people people, Yeah, crazy.

Speaker 2

It's like I don't want to watch the I don't want to play the versions of them that I saw in that Tony Hawk documentary HBO did a couple of years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's like I I, yeah, I don't, like, I don't understand what that ads outside of reminding you that these people are old and you are old.

I guess too.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it's weird.

I and I for the record, I play as as the Goat Rodney Mullen.

But then I eventually just switched to a custom skater because I want to, you know, your unlocking outfits as you complete challenges, and the pre configured the kind of real skaters, you can't customize them fully, like you can't create a skater.

So yeah, eventually, I feel like the game kind of incentivizes you too if you want to.

You know, the main one of the main carrot carrot on the sticks for these challenges is cosmetics and new boards and that sort of thing and and and stat points.

Yeah, and of course if you can, you can upgrade the pre made skaters with stat points.

But if you want to indulge in like and like equip you know, uh, cosmetics, and really customize your character in that way, then you really have to do create a skater.

Speaker 2

But I've been playing the best skater of all time, which is Doom Slayer.

Oh hell yeah yeah yeah yeah, it's pretty much been exclusively Doom Slayer actually, just because it's so stupid.

Speaker 1

I mean, that was always those games, right, I didn't notice in the store.

I noticed you can unlock Michelangelo from Team and t Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, uh.

Speaker 4

I think, yeah, I believe that, And I didn't realize it was like the new Turtles like them Mutant.

Yeah, it threw me off because I was like, wait, what what Turtle is?

This isn't that.

Speaker 2

I believe it's just Michelangelo too, Yeah it is.

Speaker 1

And then there's it feels kind of random, like just the assortment of Doom Doom Slayer.

Then you've got the Demon from Doom.

Speaker 2

It's always been random, Alex.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but it feels especially random now that Microsoft owns Activision.

It's like, yeah, I don't know, it feels the secret skaters.

Speaker 3

Were way better back in the day.

Speaker 4

We had like Wolverine, Star Wars stuff like there was now it's now.

It just feels kind of very Microsoft, even though Michael Angelo is not I don't know, it's still kind of falls Michaelangelo, Doom guy and Bam Margera and Demon doesn't actually touch the ground and it kind of bugs me because he's just on a hoverboard.

Speaker 2

Well, they absolutely have Revenant from Doom.

He's in there too, Let's not disrespect Revenant.

Speaker 4

Is that the Demon things?

Speaker 3

I didn't know his name?

Speaker 2

Yeah, yeah, a little weird jet pack with the special movie.

Speaker 1

I will say, I'm really enjoying the Doom skateboard decks.

They have some great art and my creative skater is rocking.

I've got a Doom skate deck.

My skate grip is a Taco bell scape grip.

Speaker 4

Yeah, oh I know, that's the that's the bottom of the deck.

Speaker 1

No, no, no, no, it's it's just like a Taco bell because I'm like, yeah, after you eat Taco bell, you kind of feel like you're in a Doom game.

I've got like orange and black trucks and then glow in the dark orange wheels, and then I'm rocking a Taco bell jersey and then just some random clothes.

But yeah, that's my guy.

Yeah, that's my favorite.

That's awesome.

Speaker 4

Though it's a good deck.

Speaker 2

I say, my favorite thing about playing is Doom Guy is that it's by far the most I've ever heard him meet mote and I like him.

Whenever you do like a sick combo, he'll just be like, yeah, like why are you like Chuck.

He's like so proud of himself, and it's like the most happiness he's ever maybe expressed, even outside of killing demons, which is like his thing.

But yeah, I did like a few kickflips, grind landed.

He's like good stuff.

Speaker 1

Hell, yah, Wes, anything else you want to talk about with your review?

Speaker 4

No, I think if anyone's listening, they're like, wow, Wesley really is overthinking this game.

Maybe I am, Which is to say, if you liked one and two, I promise you will like three and four.

Like there's no you know, part of reviewing games is going a little deeper, and I kind of pushed myself with this because it's a remake to really analyze what that means.

But like, at the end of the day, it is the skateboarding, the combo fun, like your hands on the controller.

They Iron Galaxy nailed that.

This is as it's a masterful bringing the gameplay continued continually bringing the gameplay up to twenty twenty five.

So like, don't don't sweat three and four if you liked one and two, it's a really good time.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 1

I would love to eventually see Digital Eclipse do an anniversary treatment of this series.

Oh my god, the museum documentary piece in addition, Yeah, I think that would be cool, a different sort of remake than than than what this is.

Yeah, and then maybe it would celebrate more the history of four where instead of this game, you know what I.

Speaker 2

Mean, it'd be cool to get nothing else.

They would throw in those handheld games and nobody talks about.

Yeah, yeah, because this isn't the first, like Tony Hawk game Boy games must be like actually good.

Speaker 1

It's pretty good.

I played it as a kid.

Speaker 2

Yeah, Like I think it's everyone like dunks on it that haven't played it, but I people have it, Like no, it's actually it's solid.

Speaker 1

I have it.

I own it for sure.

Well cool, Wes I know, I know Kyle, he's snuck in a little uh uh impassioned diatribe about Tony Hawk pro Skater for and in their decision with this game.

So we're gonna kick it over to Kyle for his quick little rant, and then on the other side, Ash Parish from the Verge will be joining us.

Wes, thank you for joining us, my friend.

People want to follow you, is it?

Where's the best place to follow you these days?

Speaker 2

Blue Sky?

Speaker 4

Just at Wesley leablom and you can follow my Instagram too, But I don't post too much, just a lot of uh oh, what's the word without a cuss word?

I post a lot of memes on my story.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, and that's I.

I am the Wesley, Is that right?

Speaker 4

I it's really annoying.

I under underscore underscore, Wesley underscore.

Speaker 1

Okay, I am Wesley with underscores in between.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

But Blue Sky can find my thoughts and my work and that's my main platform for sure.

Speaker 1

Cool And of course you can find Wes's work daily at Gaminformer dot com.

All right, Wes, thanks so much man.

We will see you very soon.

Speaker 3

Hey, there, Kyle Hilliard here, not on the Game and Former show this week, but I did want to talk about Tony Hawk's pro Skater three plus four.

I maybe you guys have already talked about it.

Maybe Wes had talked about how he'd liked the change to Tony Hawk's pro Skater four.

I'd like to say that Wes is a fool, and I think that it's bad that they changed the structure of Tony Hawk's pro Skater four.

I've always kind of felt like the only fun thing to do in two minutes in Tony Hawk's pro Skater is go for the high score, right, get those three tiers of high score.

Everything else I don't like doing.

Speaker 1

In two minutes.

Speaker 3

I don't want to look for skate letters, I don't want to explore.

I don't like that limitation.

It's unnecessarily stressful.

I always felt that way about the Tony Hawk games.

Speaker 2

I love them.

Speaker 3

I played the first three in a weird order, and I like, I had a great time with them, but it always felt like an unnecessary restraint to have it be two minute chunks.

And then Tony Hawk's Prostkater four did away with that, and as a result, it was my favorite.

I loved being able to just like go and pick what I wanted to do and be able to do it.

And also you don't have to leave right, It's kind of like Super Mario sixty four where you get kicked out of the level for finding a star.

Let me stay in there and keep having fun and doing things.

And I felt like Tony Hawk's Prostkater four finally figured that out and it let you kind of take the game at your own pace.

And obviously there were still challenges like do this in a certain amount of time, which is still fun, but you could those without having to leave the level.

Like it actually made the locations feel more real and like places where you could mill about and skateboard, and it was it was fun to find new missions within that world.

So I'm I'm really frustrated that they changed the structure of Tony Hawk's pro Skater for and it really sours my excitement around the game.

I played a bunch of three last night and I had a good time, and then I played like I tried to do everything in the college level and I was just it was just frustrating.

Like there's that mission where you you have to skitch on the back of the Principal's car, and like, if you're playing you know, the original version of the game, you find the principle and then the car is looping around the level the whole time, and you can try to do it if you want.

If you fail, you just you know, wait for the car to come back around and do it again.

But now with this new structure, you start the level, you have to make your way to the principle, which you know takes I don't know, it doesn't take a lot of time, but it takes like twenty thirty seconds.

So then there's all that time lost and the you to watch the cut scene of the car running away, and then you have to sketch on the car.

And if you fail, because it is a challenging mission, then you just have to start over.

You just have to leave the level, go back in, go find the principle.

It's dumb.

I wish.

I really am bombed that they didn't just maintain the structure of Tony Hawk's pro Skater four.

But you know, on the things that are really important, the way the game feels, the way it looks, the way it sounds, those things are good.

But yeah, I really want them to look at that again.

I honestly, I don't know.

I'm assuming it would be too much for an update to do that, but man, I wish they would add a mode where you could play Tony Hawk four and the way it was designed to be played.

You know, those levels are generally larger than the games that came before because they were designed that way to let you explore them.

So I don't like that it's structured this way.

I don't like it.

And if they do decide to remake Tony Hawks Underground one and two, which you know, borrowed more from the structure of four, you know, I hope, I hope that they recognize that that's an important part of it, and then it should stay that way.

Anyway, I'm still enjoying it.

I'm still going to play more of it, but it makes me really sad that it doesn't have the for structure.

Speaker 1

Okay, goodbye, Welcome back everybody to the Game Informer Show.

We are joined by a very special guest, video game reporter at the Verge, ash Parish.

How are you welcome to the show.

Speaker 5

Hey, thanks for having me.

Speaker 1

Yeah, thanks for thanks for coming on.

You know, if people aren't familiar with your work, can you tell us a little bit about what you do in your coverage of the games industry.

Speaker 5

So I am a video game reporter at the verge.

I cover basically everything that you guys cover a Game Informer, all the business, all the news, all the horny stuff that goes on in video games.

That's that's what I do.

Speaker 3

There's a lot of it that's a blind spot for game and four.

Speaker 2

Likely to tap for that on the website.

Speaker 3

We're working on.

Speaker 1

Yeah, Yeah, we'll get caught up the speed here soon.

Well, thanks are joining us, Ash.

I think they're ever going to be taking a look at talking through some of the Microsoft's layoffs and studio closures, game cancelations, really big, big news this week.

We'll cover that for listeners.

I think you're gonna kind of mention some summer games done quick news.

I'm excited to talk about that because I don't know what listeners are aware that takes place in Minneapolis, at least the summer version.

So very cool.

I think I'm probably going to try to go down to the event tomorrow night maybe, but also going to be talking about some Peak and Missile Command Delta with Marcus.

But actually speaking to you, Marcus, do you want to kind of kick off this this Microsoft news and kind of like guide us through what's been going on with Microsoft and people are out of the loop.

Speaker 3

And by the way, real quick, by the way, just real quick, I'm here too, because I wasn't in the first segment.

Speaker 1

Right, Oh my god, you learned.

I'm so sorry, Kyle Hilliards.

Yeah, well, actually, I think the way the edit's gonna go is you interrupt the last segment so it'll work.

Speaker 3

I shouldn't have introduced myself.

I shouldn't have interrupted.

Speaker 1

The maybe jumps.

Speaker 3

Faces as this is not how it usually goes.

We're usually way smoothly.

Speaker 1

Sure, yeah, that is Kyle Hilliard, executive editor, Game Informer, joining us.

Marcus, you want to kind of kick kick this conversation off for us.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so I'll do sort of a as succinctly as I can sort of the the rundown of everything that happened.

This was have been last week Wednesday, I should say, I think we had already recorded.

Speaker 1

The g I Show when this was we had Yeah.

Speaker 2

So yeah, basically, Microsoft laid off a little over a nine thousand people globally, and a significant number of those people were from the Xbox division, and just sort of the to run down the list of all the casualties, maybe the biggest one is the shutdown of the Initiative, which was their internal studio that they opened in twenty eighteen, and we're working on that Perfect Dark reboot.

That studio was no more and that game has been canceled even after that big showcase they did for it last year at the Xbox.

Speaker 5

That game may or may not have actually existed based on some of the things that I've heard from other reporters that too.

Speaker 2

Yes, another big one was Rare.

We're hit with a lot of layoffs and ever Wild, which had been in development since I mean it was announced in twenty nineteen.

I think it's been in development much longer than that.

That game is now gone, and I believe amongst all of the layoffs there, it was reported that Greg Males, who had been there over thirty five years, kind of goes back to the studio's origin.

He has departed the company apparently.

And also this was announced today that they're doing a Sea of Thieves direct of some sort tomorrow to sort of discuss the future of that game, which I can't imagine will be a positive one.

Uh So, yeah, keep an eye out for that.

Speaker 3

Well, I mean they've probably been planning this for a while, right, The Sea of Thieves thing right.

It's not like they decided to do it this week or anything.

Speaker 2

This sounds like this was sudden.

The wording in that announcement was sort of like we would like to give an update about the future.

It was very It wasn't like celebratory, like hey, we got some sea of thieves up there.

It was more like we need to have.

Speaker 1

A we should talk.

Speaker 3

Okay, all right, So I have a question.

Speaker 5

Yes, if Xbox keeps firing all the people who make the games, how does Xbox make games?

Speaker 2

Well, I don't know if you heard ash, but Matt Booty says Xbox still has over forty games still in active development.

Speaker 3

It's just all on Double Fine, just Double Fine, every single one.

Speaker 2

I would say.

Speaker 1

The very damning clip of Matt Booty at Double Fine telling all of the wonderful creatives there that they now own all of their prototypes.

I don't know if you all have seen that clipfo from the Double Find documentary, and you see the look on the folks faces of just it's it's absurdity.

And you know, Microsoft does a fantastic job of just suffocating the creative juice out of their workforce.

I know many people who have who work currently at a Microsoft you know, recently acquired studio that are the vibes have just totally shifted internally.

I have heard on multiple fronts and it's it's sad to see.

Speaker 5

Can we talk a little bit ab about how you know, during this announcement, Phil Spencer was like praising to the sun, like Xbox has never been as strong as it's been before.

Now we've got all these good things going on, and hey, all of you responsible for that no longer have jobs.

Like what is going on here?

This seems like a death spiral honestly, like it's going to create this continue knock on effect where these games either are getting canceled, these studios are closing, games are getting delayed, where you just push this out further and further and further, and it's like, what do you have to show for it?

Like you can't put anything on game Pass if you've got no damn games that you're developing, right, Like what is happening?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Yes, I was gonna say I wish I could say I was done.

But quite a list that go through.

I know.

Another big one that was very surprising to me is Tern ten, which is the studio that makes the fors of Motorsport Games, which has always been kind of positioned as one of the po.

Speaker 1

They've announced is going to have another entry next year as part of it is part of their twenty twenty six is it issue a Horizon, it's a Motorsport.

But I imagine those teams still even though they are separate.

I think they probably help out with each other more than you would think.

Speaker 2

I mean, I need to look at it that because it was reported initially that they had lost about seventy people, which apparently accounted for about fifty percent of the staff.

But then it came out later that at least some of the employees there that were affected were saying that the studio was being closed, like apparently the lay really were larger than they thought, and that there was wording that the Motorsports series is more or less dead and that the Horizon series is kind of the big like focus now because that last Force of Motorsport that came out, what was that last year?

Speaker 3

I was like it was twenty twenty three was when the last one came out, which was just called for is the Motorsport No?

Yeah, And that had and that had been in development for like ever if you guys remember, yeah, because there was like two Horizon games that came out in the span between that and the last one.

So I think we're still waiting on like confirmation about like if that is actually true.

But that was sort of like the most most recent update I saw was the uh some of the someone there was saying like no, no, no, it's worse here than than you think we're We're more or less done.

Halo Studios got hit.

I think the number seems to be five people, but the vibes they're apparently not super great either, for more than one reason.

On the Xenomax side, they had an unannounced MMO called Project Blackbird that was canceled.

On the Act Division side, King which, if you may remember, King was sort of cited as the reason that Microsoft bought Activision Blizzard of like no, no, no, we really want these guys.

You know, Call of Duty is cool, but we really want cash Cow.

Speaker 5

They wanted the mobile money yeah, mobile money printer.

Speaker 2

Well, they're losing ten percent of their staff, which is apparently about two hundred jobs, as well as some of or several of the Call of Duty support studios like Raven Sledgehammer Games, High Moon have been impacted, Blizzard was impacted.

Probably one of the weirder ones is the Romero Games stuff, you know.

Speaker 3

The statment, Yeah.

Speaker 2

Yeah, so it's a studio and by John and Brenda Romero.

He might know formerly a bit Software John Romero one of the creators of Doom.

Apparently they were working on a new first person shooter that was being funded by Microsoft, and that funding has since been pulled.

Kind of the initial reporting that went around was that the studio was getting shut down and everyone was laid off.

But then they came out about a day later with a statement saying, no, no, no, we're still alive and we are actively or we have other publishers actively like interested in funding this project that you know, we have not announced yet.

So that still hasn't really clarified how many or if anyone has been let go.

They just sort of said they were reassessing their staffing situation.

Speaker 1

They also mentioned that in that statement that they were addressing the team that day.

Yeah, and kind of I took it to mean that those folks had not yet been let go.

They were kind of assessing their their options.

Speaker 3

Also, is that studio owned by Microsoft?

I mean, what fund.

Speaker 2

Right no, no, no, no, they were just being funded.

Speaker 1

Oh okay, yeah, I believe it'd be technically like second party.

Speaker 2

I believe.

Speaker 1

Yeah, we'll have to look into that to see if get me.

Speaker 3

That's why that's why they can be cut off and also still be open, because it's like, it's not Microsoft's decision ultimately about what happened to the studio, just what happens to the money they're giving the studio.

Speaker 2

I think, yeah, that sounds about right.

And yeah, you to your point earlier ash about phil statement about everything's good.

This all comes after you know, Microsoft bosted a revenue of over two hundred and forty five billion last year, which was a sixteen percent increase over the twenty twenty three revenue.

So when you see that, you're like, oh, that's good, right, we're doing all right.

And yeah, not even.

Speaker 5

Just that, like revenue is just like the money you come in that that comes in, that's like, that's not the same as profit, like the money you have made after you've paid all of your expenses.

Even with two hundred plus billion dollars in revenue, they still have I think what it was is like maybe twenty six billion dollars in pure profit, and think about how much six billion dollars could like fund or keep going.

Even if you just took like a fraction of a fraction of that revenue or that profit pie, you could probably still have all those people keep their jobs.

But that means that that profit is that profit number isn't as big as it could be, which is not a good thing.

So unfortunately, nine thousand people have to lose their jobs.

You made twenty six billion dollars in pure profit, but nine thousand people still lose their jobs.

What the hell are we doing?

Speaker 3

That's frustrating.

Speaker 1

It's nonsense.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I guess it's like the big question is sort of like what do you guys see as sort of the future of the Xbox brands.

We know they they've already come out and straight up said like, yes, we were making another home console.

We're not getting out of the console business, not yet, partner at least not yet.

We got that like whether the rg ally thing that they're they're handheld that they're working with with asis on that's coming out some time this year.

It's because this is probably one of the stronger software launch years that they've had in a little while between.

Speaker 5

Which is damning with faint praise in terms of Xbox.

Speaker 2

Like, yeah, they've had eight, Yeah, they've had at Valve, they've had South of Midnight, they've got Ground too, Like this is pretty much a city and kind of running with the ball this year, honestly because that out of World's Two, it's coming out later this year as well.

And then there's other projects that are I was sort of waiting for the dust to settle to see if we would hear like, oh, this game's canceled too, because there was stuff like State of the K three where it's like that seems like that would be on the chopping block if those other games got cut, because that's been in the works forever.

But as far as we know, nothing has happened to that studio under the lapse.

And then of course Fable, which the Force of Horizon studio is working on, that was delayed earlier this year to last year or to next year, I should say, and I and what else is happening?

I mean, I know a double Finance Keeper that they're working on it that's supposed to count this year.

Also, I'm scared to death for that studio.

Speaker 5

I mean you scared to death or every of one of those studios, Like it's it's not good to be an owned studio anywhere for the most part.

It's not good to be an indie studio that's unowned for the most part either.

I just like wonder like and it goes back to my original question, like, if you are in the business of making games and you fire all the people who make the games, how do you how do you put out games like just Square?

Speaker 3

That fundamental circle for me mic you purchase games to put on game Pass from smaller developers exclusively, right, Which is that the business model?

Speaker 5

Now?

That seems to be the business model.

And then even then on top of that, you've got like Larrying coming out and other developers saying like Xbox game Pass is a waste of time, it's a waste of money, it's a bad value prop and you shouldn't do it.

So it's like, what are we doing here at Xbox.

Speaker 3

Like, well, it's a good question.

I don't I don't know.

It is interesting, Like Larryan, I completely understand why they would be against game Pass because because Balder's Gate was like such a huge hit.

But you know, for a smaller studio, I do wonder if it's still there, if there's still value there, and to take money to be on game Pass that you know, maybe they wouldn't have gotten if they just released on their own, Like it's it's kind of a gamble, right, It's like you you either publish it yourself and hopefully it's a huge hit and you make a ton of money, or Microsoft will pay you enough to keep your studio going for a year or two so you can work on the next thing.

Like I don't know, it's it's it's discoverability.

Speaker 5

And even then that discoverability is like it's it's a gamble on whether or not that game Pass can surface your game to other people.

You you, it's word of mouth.

It's all word of mouth and luck, which is why we're all talking about Umamasume and not you know, something else, because that had the word of mouth and hit the right moment, hit the right kind of freaks on the social media that can't stop talking about it.

It's really hard and it you know, indie devs and any kind of developer are in the unenviable position of discoverability and there is no magic bullet for that.

Like at the end and end of the day, we are still fighting against you know, an attention economy, and attention is so fractured.

You know how people hear about games, how they you know, discover them.

It's all word of mouth.

Like, I don't know what the solution is.

I just know that firing everybody that makes the games for you is probably not one of them.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I guess.

It just feels like Xbox and they felt like this for a while and maybe more than every day.

It just feel very aimless.

It's it's like, you know, they're in there, like everything's in Xbox kind of like phase which they've been in for a while, but they've kind of like rocketed at and overdriven the last year of bringing their exclusives over to other platforms like PlayStations, so it there's less of a real argument to exclusively own an Xbox outside of real I guess preference, but I don't understand how like what the cell is there if it's not being reciprocated from the other side, because at that point, it's not like they're suddenly getting a bunch of Sony exclusives.

So it's like on paper, if I'm just in the average game, right, may as will buy a PlayStation.

I was like, oh, I know, I'm gonna get all the Xbox stuff apparently, but I'm still going to get all the Sony stuff that doesn't really go anywhere else except for PC.

Speaker 5

Xbox wants you on their ecosystem.

They want you hooked into the cloud, and they don't care how they do it.

And we are seeing, especially with the Everything Is an Xbox campaign that you know, cloud gaming is their new push, like take your games everywhere, play everything on them.

This is where we're going because this is like the best way that we've seen.

Sony can keep doing what they do.

They've got the cons, they won that console war.

Nintendo.

Please don't kick my ass for saying that Nintendo is off in fucking La La Land, printing money and doing whatever the fuck it is they do.

Speaker 3

And they're always playing a different game than everybody else, you know.

Speaker 1

And they are playing are they playing the game?

They're just there playing chess.

Speaker 5

Everybody else is playing pickleball, and they're still kicking everybody's ass playing pick a ball while playing chess.

Like there's just no other way to explain that.

Speaker 2

I bet, yeah, yeah, nice, it must be nic that's a very that's a great position to be.

Speaker 5

Because it's Nintendo is focused like they have.

They are locked in on what it is that they do and they have not deviated from that, and they have set themselves up to support that like ethos.

Like one of the things, I don't know when this comes out.

When does this come out.

Speaker 1

It's gonna come out on Thursday, So tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow.

Speaker 5

Okay, then I can say this, Uh, you know, I'm talking with the developers of Donkey Kong Bonanza for an interview that will be published tomorrow.

And one of the things that stood out to me as I was going through all my notes is the fact that one of the guys that I talked to had only been with Nintendo for five years and only worked on the one game.

Like that's an outlier for Nintendo.

Yeah, Like that's an outlier because Nintendo makes this big thing about training up talent and using talents that came in like twenty years ago, retaining them, training them up so they can lead the next generation.

And that's why they've part of the reason anyway that they've been able to like have this like steady stream of hits the way that they have because they don't get rid of people at the trump of a hat.

They keep them and they let them give them the space to grow and develop and bring new ideas to the table.

Like the way that this works is just to do that.

You can do that that is not against the rules, And it's worked so well for Nintendo at least, and I just have no idea why that other developers don't like work some kind of similar thing out for it.

Speaker 1

Yeah, you see something similar from Capcom as in terms of you know, Capcom increasing the salaries of all of their staff by five percent across the board.

I think it was over twenty five percent.

I don't remember the exact percentage.

I know it is over twenty five percent for new graduate hires.

You see them kind of investing into their people, and you see people when we went on the cover story for street Fighter six, you know meeting you know Knackamarasan who took us to an arcade in Osaka where he was brought on as a as a fledgling graduate and his job was to deliver hard drives to that arcade.

And now many many years later he is one of the leads on street Fighter six.

You see these like companies who are kind of investing in in their staff and it paying dividends, you know, and then here, especially in the States, it's just number go up, number go up.

Yeah, number go up.

I mean I think their corporate corporate greed and mismanagement.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Someone that is cultural too, like Japanese companies.

That's just less.

Speaker 5

Labor laws over there.

Man, they can't fire people without costs.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Yeah, well you're kind of like if you work somewhere, you're kind of expected to just stay there forever basically, Like it's it's you don't really hear about people leaving or getting fired the same way you do and in the West.

Yeah, but yeah, it's uh, it's weird.

I it's just a weird time for Xbox and upsetting time.

It's I don't I I don't understand what the end game is exactly, Like I don't understand what the charts they're looking at that what like the arrows pointing us to this is where we want to get to of like we want to be number one at blank, Like I don't I don't know what that is for them.

Is it is it just cloud technology?

Yeah?

Speaker 1

Is it just the Xbox app on every smartphone?

Speaker 2

Yeah?

Is it software is it?

Is it?

Hardware?

Is it?

Is it?

Are they trying to do everything at once and none at all?

I don't know.

Speaker 1

And the weird thing is, I mean you mentioned the rock ally X, the Xbox Alley X rather, which I got to go hands on with.

There's folks want to hear our thoughts on it.

Go to our first episode back, but or a Summer game Fest episode rather.

But they've got that where they're kind of like stamping that with the Xbox brand, right, it's a little more integrated into the ecosystem.

Xbox just sent me for consideration coverage consideration the other day, the like an Xbox branded meta Quest headset and it works great.

It's it's a meta Quest three s I think, and it's purely just like a reskin, but it looks like an Xbox.

It's got on the on the controllers, it's got the Xbox iconography.

And the main thing that they're pushing is if you open the box up, it comes with an Xbox controller and three months of game pass.

Speaker 2

Did they send you the new Xbox console?

Speaker 5

Like you can't play that on Xbox right?

Like?

Speaker 1

Yeah, they they they have an app, an Xbox app on the meta Quest store for you to go and use the cloud.

Speaker 5

Gaming Okay, so you can cloudify games that are not natively supposed to be VR.

Speaker 1

Yeah, and also who has a metaquest?

Who has a metaquest that doesn't have a smartphone or a desktop or any one of these other avenues for using the Xbox Cloud.

It's just really strange.

Speaker 3

Do you guys remember when this was like they've been partnered with back when it was Oculus right for Oculus for a while, and they had the first rift they partnered with them to let you play Xbox games and they showed it on stage and everyone literally laughed, yeah, because it was just like it was like it was like, yeah, you can play Xbox games on your VR headset, and it was just like showing you NVR playing it on a flat screen, and everyone literally laughed, and Phil Spencer had to walk out on stage and kind of be like, oh, I guess you guys didn't love that.

I don't remember exactly what he said, but it is.

Speaker 5

Just you guys don't have phone.

Speaker 3

It's it's just even it's not it was even on that.

It was just like I don't want to play like a flat screen.

I don't want to play a pancake game in VR, like you know what I mean, It's like it's like you're playing a lower resolution version of it.

You know, I don't know, but at the time that was it was kind of treated as a joke.

And I mean, the Quest three has a better screen, but like it's still like pales in comparison to probably just any standard, even a ten ay peach.

Speaker 1

And the one they the one they picked was the three S, which has worse resolution than the three.

Speaker 3

That's actually that actually reminded me I need to plug it in and charge it for a preview.

Speaker 1

So thanks, yeah, yeah, uh yeah, just very strange behavior across the board, and yeah, it's it's kind of mind boggling.

But I do just want to say, like, if you're listening, uh you know where Game Informer is certainly sending our condolences to folks affected.

It's it's not your fault.

It's it's the fault of this mismanaged corporate behemoth that we might be able to ask too much money for its own good.

Yeah, we would be able to relate, you know, just a little bit.

Speaker 3

Who knows.

Speaker 1

And yeah, you all are doing great work, and I hope you land on your feet.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I think sports noting Spencer did say that they were working to try to like replace people within them.

Speaker 1

People are free to reapply for other positions that may or may not be open.

Speaker 2

Hopefully enough people are able to sort of just transition to another role and and keep employment of some form.

You know.

Speaker 1

Yeah, y'all y'all got nine thousand job openings, right, God, yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.

I do remember them saying that, So hopefully some people can can can find uh you know, can be bullied by that, but regardless, yeah, it's it's it's not good.

Speaker 5

I think one of the things that is like responsible for precipitating this like decline of Xbox is I think I saw it on social media is that Xbox is like the budget for Xbox is a rounding error for the overall Microsoft business in a way that is, it's not the same for Sony.

So PlayStation is like a very important, concerted part of their business that Sony focuses on.

They don't often get it right, but it is something that they are actively paying attention to, and it seems like with everything that Microsoft is trying to do, that is not the same position that Xbox holds within that company, which is why they're just like, what the okay, you just you know, everything's an Xbox now.

I don't give a shit, so to tell you, Nadella is like, I don't give shit.

Is Microsoft copiled a part of it?

Yes?

Okay, keep going, I don't give shit.

God, yeah, I hate away.

Speaker 1

I I have to the way our emails are set up right now, I have to log into like office dot com to get to my outlook in every time.

Microsoft Copilot is there to slow my computer down.

Speaker 2

I hate at least I have to work there because apparently it's becoming more and more of like a mandatory initiative to use AI as part of your job there, which that's its own hell.

It sounds like.

Speaker 5

Yeah, because wasn't there a story that, like Phil Spencer came out after you know, the Xbox layoffs thing is like use AI to develop your games like Read the Room Phil.

Speaker 1

Yeah, there's a lot of that going around.

It's it's embarrassing behavior in my my opinion.

But on a lighter note, let's uh, let's transition to uh summer Games Done Quick, which is currently happening in Minneapolis.

This is of course benefiting Doctors Without Borders.

That's like the main charity that the event supports.

But Ash, you're you're are you like big into speed running?

I know you wanted to talk about this.

I think it's I think it's super interesting.

Speaker 5

I'm not big into speed running, per say, I'm just big into Games Done Quick because I yeah, I love that event so freaking much, dude, Like gamers quote unquote capital g gamers have such a very much earned bad rap for the way that they behave, but then you see something like Games Done Quick, which has been going on for more than a decade, has raised so much money for all different kinds of like aspects beyond like prevent Cancer which is HDQ, and then Medicine Sans Frontier, which is like their summer Games Done Quick.

You've got like their different offshoots, uh, supporting different causes like their Frame Fatales, which is their like women and non binary folks that they do like you know, women focused charities and all sorts of It's just so beautiful the way that they can come together.

These different people raise this kinds of money using the power of video games, and they are about their business like they're not doing any kind of mealy mouthed, like both sides, like you know, trying not to court you know, controversy or whatever.

Those people get up on that stage every day and say trans motherfucking Rice and everybody cheers.

There was a run of Wolfenstein.

I think the New Colosses like a couple of nights ago, and like the whole thing was like stamp out fascism, like we are not playing.

We mean what we say.

And it is so refreshing to have something like that because you know, Jeff Keeley will get up not to bag on Jeff Keeley, but like Jeff Keey will get up and on the Game Awards and like make some kind of equivocating statement where he doesn't like name the aggressor, like with the whole thing with the me two stuff came out.

Yeah it's all vague, like yeah, you did the thing, but you didn't like specifically state like the problem.

These the people at GDQ will be like, no, we are standing on business and we will name names and we will celebrate like explicitly, and I love that.

I love that attitude about it is so refreshing and it only better every year.

Speaker 1

Yeah, if people are interested in checking it out it's going until Sunday morning.

Speaker 2

I believe.

Speaker 1

I'm double checking on the schedule right now.

Usually wraps up like in the early hours of Sunday.

Yeah, they always like end up a little late because you know, there's just so much cool stuff happening at the event.

But it's twitch dot tv slash Games Done Quick if people want to tune in and watch or or donate.

Even I know a friend of the show, Jesse Vittelli's coming.

He's flying into Minneapolis today.

He's staying with me for the next couple of days to go to Games Done Quick.

And and I know like they're doing like a Mario I think they open the show with a Mario Kart Knockout Tour, which is like it's just it's not a speed run necessarily, but it was very fun to watch.

Uh, They've got a celest run that seems really cool.

I mean really, if if there's a game that you're interested in, you can probably find something like it that is is on the run of show.

There's a lot of old Nintendo games.

Obviously, Maria Maker is always really fun to watch, but even like newer stuff, you know, Doom the Dark Ages.

I know that's going on at some point this week.

But it's just a fantastic way to kind of see a different subculture of gaming.

It's it's really, i mean, like Ash said, very cool people that are behind all of this, and you're seeing games played in a way that is unlike anything you'd likely have seen before.

If you have never watched a games done quick, I mean, it's it's it's fascinating, it's funny and and and it's for a great cause.

Marcus Kyle, Kyle, have you ever been to games some quick?

I know you've lived in Minneapolis much longer than I have.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I've went.

I think I've only been once.

It was a couple of years ago, and I watched them play I think it was Twilight Princess for a while.

And it is it is, Uh, it's a cool gaming event that is like it's it's odd isn't the right word, but it's like trusting to be in the crowd for that, you know.

It's like, yeah, it's watching like a live stream in person where people are applauding like the most sort of what seemingly like inane like minor things like yeah, often you don't even really know why everyone's getting excited.

They're like, oh no, you don't get it.

He like slip through that wall, and that doesn't always happen.

There's like a twenty percent and you're like, oh great, okay, cool, that's yeah, it's fun.

Speaker 5

If you've never been before, I've been once.

There was one in Pittsburgh, I think either last year the year before.

The energy when you're in the room is very infectious, Like you can have no idea what's going on, but like people will be cheering, and the commentators do a really good job of like getting you involved in the action of like what's going on and why this matters and things like that.

So they they've done a really good job of making sure that people who aren't in the know can get caught up to speed.

The energy in the room is infectious.

One of the things that I always tell people whenever I write about GDQ, which is every time it happens, because it's like game or Christmas room, is to just keep it on all day and look for things that look interesting but aren't necessarily like on your beaten path, games that I would never have played for myself, or games that I have no idea what this is.

Like, they are so fascinating to me, and I find things that I want to play.

Like even just today there was a run of like a game called Evo World that I had never heard of before, and I saw it played, I'm like, this is actually a really interesting mechanic where you start off and it looks like a like a regular game Boy game, and then you open chess, and every time you open Chess it changes the game itself.

So you go from game Boy graphics with the black and white color screen and then you get like game Boy Advanced or game Boy Color graphics where they add color.

Yeah, like it's like that, and then you slowly go from two D to like two point five D to like full three D.

Every chest you open as another element of the game, like where you didn't have a UI before you opened a chess that gave you like hearts.

Really interesting.

I never heard of this game before.

It's a great tool for discovery, and it's also a great tool for community, like you can find.

I love that they have like these different offshoots of GDQ that cater to like specific audiences.

So they've got like a Black speed running event which is called Black and a Flash which is really fucking cool, like a great naming convention.

Yeah it is.

You've got frame fatals, which is there like female and non binary thing.

I love it so much.

Like last year they had a dog doing a speed run, Peanut Butter.

He was a sheep.

Speaker 1

I remember that.

Speaker 5

Yeah, Like, I'm watching this speed run of this dog play kank Gerfy Junior Baseball and like he's, you know, stepping on this custom controller.

I'm bawling because it's an adorable little dog like playing a video game, and everybody, like the room lit up when he hit a home run and won the game.

Like last year, if you've never seen it, just put it on and just like watch it, and I guarantee you will find something about it that you love.

Speaker 1

Yeah, it reminds me like back in the day of like watching like in the way, like my household will always have like the Food Network on, and you kind of just like Lance, you see something that that that kind of catches you off guard and you watch it and you kind of go back to what you're doing.

SGDQ is great for that.

I'm really looking forward to this week.

I think it's Friday morning.

They're playing the Splunky series, which is really it's a really fun watch.

There's so much chaos and splunky, and SGQ is just kind of like a great frame and shell for all of that nonsense to happen in.

I know, folks get really excited about the Pokemon speed runs.

There's some some wacky stuff that happens in there.

Speaker 5

But there's a Pokemon run going on, I believe right now.

Speaker 1

Really Okay, yeah, yeah, so highly recommend I if you have.

I had.

I've only been watching SGDQ for only a few years.

I was kind of a late comer to it.

And it's, like Ash said, it's certainly worth worth kind of bookmarking every year.

It's it's it's awesome.

Let's get into a little bit of what we've been playing.

I will say real quick.

I talked about Peak last week.

People are unfamiliar.

It is that co op adventure climbing game, very reliant on like physical comedy in game voice chat with with proximity and and all sorts of sound design effects.

You know, if you're in a cave, there's a lot of re rub on your voice, that kind of thing.

It's it's very grounding in a way.

It like really places you in that space and these The whole point is to get to the top of this mountain that is procedurally generated, and it is a new mountain kind of gets generated I think once every day or every two days, and so you know, if you beat the level, you can kind of come back the next time and kind of have a fresh a fresh set of eyes on it.

But I finally, I finally peaked in the game.

I made it to the top.

Holy hell was it hard.

At the very end you kind of get to I don't I don't really think it's a spoiler.

This game has been out for a month.

Clips everywhere there's like a fire area, right, and it just feels like you are like Frodo and Sam going into Mount Doom, going into Mordor, And it felt so fun to get over that final hurdle of like climbing up this volcano and get into the top.

And at the very end of the game, I mean, you are really full sending it as as they say, you know, like full this could be full send.

Yeah, you got a full send it.

Man.

No, like like I'm gonna I'm gonna go one hundred percent.

I'm like it's like all gat noo breaks, you know.

Speaker 2

That's all you have to say.

Speaker 5

One that knows what full like.

Speaker 1

Okay, I'm a dad.

I mean I don't say full sin.

That's not part of my vocal.

Speaker 3

But I thought it was like or something.

I don't know myself.

Speaker 2

Ill.

Speaker 1

Yeah, but I'm if you will, yeah exactly, there you go.

There you go, great, great getting Yeah, yeah you are.

I'm just having such a blast of the game.

And now that I've beaten it, I'm I'm having fun like helping my friends and has been going too well.

Like I even though I've beaten Marcus, we did horrible.

Marcus.

I actively was a little frustrated by our experience.

You did great, you did fantastic.

Speaker 2

I mean I think.

Speaker 1

You did do that.

I didn't love that.

But but with the game being procedural, sometimes you get a seed that is just brutal, and sometimes we had pretty bad one.

Speaker 2

Marcus.

Yeah, you know, it's not our fault.

Speaker 1

Yeah, But I've just been having so much fun.

I mean, there's so much clip farming you can do, like if you're I get why it's a content creator game for sure.

It's so funny.

Like I was playing last night and on one hand, half of the Discord call is talking about like Trader Joe's grocery items, and then if you're watching the game, you know that another person is like hitting somebody that's climbing the mountain with a blow dart and like watching them fall off the map, and it's it's it's a ton of fun.

And I think especially you know, especially with everything going on, like it's it's nice to have a game that is just playful and it kind of gives you the tools and and and it's sort of like a sandbox, I guess, but it's nice to have a game that's not so self serious, and you know, it's just a great game to kind of sit down and not think about things, like just have fun climbing.

And I've been playing it kind of nightly becau of that reason, like it's a great way to unwind, have some chats with some friends.

And I still I think it's probably moved up to like it's probably my favorite game I've played this year, or is it.

Speaker 4

Is?

Speaker 1

It is you can play a single player.

It is also I think it's more intended for a multiplayer, but I've played the game by myself many times and made some good progress.

Speaker 2

It can definitely up to four players.

Speaker 1

Up to four players, Yeah, definitely meant to.

There's a lot of fun and like collaborating with I'm going to carry you know, this rope gun and you carry the bandages in case we fall and get hurt, and like kind of a lot of that like item delegation.

But you can totally if you want to do it yourself.

It's probably a little more challenging, but it can totally be done.

And I think if if somebody who's listening is interested in the game but doesn't like multiplayer games, I think it's cheap enough.

I would definitely recommend for full transparency.

I would I didn't get a code for this game.

I did get a code.

I didn't realize it until after I bought it.

I spent the eight bucks or whatever it is, and I really felt like I've gotten my money's worth out of it.

It's it's a ton of fun and yeah, I can't say enough good things.

Speaker 5

I think I heard somewhere that like proximity chat, like the kind that you get in Peak and what you will get in like Big Walk from Househouse is like the new extraction shooter, Like that's the that's the thing.

People are focusing on right now.

Speaker 3

Yeah, like content warning and then what's the other There's there's.

Speaker 5

Lethal yeah, like Lethal Company and those kinds of games.

Speaker 3

Lethal Company, Lethal Company.

Yeah, it's like that's a new genre, which Peak in that genre.

Speaker 5

Nice, good for that.

Speaker 1

Yeah, yeah, it's agro Crab and Landfall, right or Yeah, it was like a partnership, right, Yeah, I know they're they're like joint studio venture.

They're calling it land Crab and it's a development development team of seven people I believe from both those studios, which.

Speaker 3

Is cool because Agrocrab actually publicly, like they shared, I believe that they like lost funding or something.

Speaker 2

A couple they did.

Speaker 1

It was for it was for going Under two.

Speaker 3

This was now which like this has become like a big hit for that.

Speaker 1

They were making it.

H Actually I actually saw a build of it when I visited them for a side project, and it was Yeah, it was sad to see that they lost funding for that, but love and in its place Peak is.

Yeah, going Under is great and it seemed like it was doing some really cool things.

But yeah, they shared like a devlog about it, probably like a month ago now, But but yeah, I really like Peak.

It's it's great.

I think it's definitely like one of those games that were kind of that adage of like I want worse games where people are paid better, like that that adage that rings true from peak.

I mean, and it's not a bad game.

It's I think it's really great.

I'm currently writing the review for it.

I think I'll probably land somewhere like at like a nine.

I really really enjoy it.

But but yeah, go check it out.

Marcus.

You've also been playing a smaller new game right from Atari, Missile Command Delta.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

This is kind of like the next of like what they they kind of been doing recently is just doing these sort of modernized reimaginings of their classic catalogs.

They did like Yrs, what was the Yards Revenge METROVANEA.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I played a couple hours in that one.

Yeah.

Speaker 1

You talked about on a recent episode the was it Adventure of Samsara or something like that.

Yeah, they're like that year yeah, yeah, kind of all plays on the old adventure game Yeah and now yeah.

Speaker 2

So now and I had a Yes, I played there too, Yep.

It was so yeah.

It's it's like it's like, hey, let's just remake all of our old stuff into completely new things.

And so with this one, I had the epiphany that I don't think I've ever played Missile Command.

Speaker 1

I haven't either.

I haven't either.

Speaker 2

Yeah, I could not remember, like I must have maybe touched it for a like an Atari collection, but yeah, when I got in there, I was like, actually, I have no familiarity with this.

But the idea is that you play It's a narrative driven game, which is interesting, and you play as one of a group of teenagers who decide to spend a weekend in this army bunker, this abandoned army bunker, and while they're there, they get trapped inside with an old, like potentially insane man who thinks that they're a new recruits to the military.

And you are completing a bunch of missile defense trials to try to unlock the door and get out.

And so the game itself is first person, and you are exploring this bunker, which in itself has a bunch of environmental puzzles that are not Missile Command in a way that reminds me of something like Escape Academy a little bit, where it's like I'm listening, Yeah, you're finding like key cards and doing just like bespoke puzzles to open new doors and to open up hidden passages and then to find more like missiles to use in the Missile Command.

But the actual Missile Command game itself is from what I can tell, it's in the same vein as the original version, but it's a lot more turn based strategy, like one of the games that the developer sighting is into the Breach in terms of like the type of strategy where so you have a limited number of missiles that you can bring into a game, and you sort of pick you get the pick which ones you want to bring in.

Sometimes they give you an assigned set of them.

But the differences between them is their range and their explosion radius.

And you're taking turns trying to deflect or destroy incoming missiles, and they can't reach your base at the bottom, and so you see the missiles coming each turn, like you can kind of see their trajectory, and you can alsoe to turn order that they move in.

And so every missile you pretty much just plot it on the map, you fire it, and then some missiles explode immediately or on impact if you happen to have a collide with another missile, and then some of them you have to wait a turn before they'll explode, and then some of the explosions will sort of sit there full full turn and they sort of serve as like a fiery wall so that any incoming missiles that happen to pass through it will get destroyed.

And you're pretty much just trying to use if you're mixing up these types, these different missile types, to just try to find the optimal way to survive two or three rounds of incoming missiles.

And yeah, and you also have like a more or less like a man of meter, because every missile has like an energy cost, and so if your energy cost is ten, that's like ideally you want to try to win a match without going over that meter, because it's called like acing it.

But you can win some matches by going on like you can just win.

Basically, it's it's pretty like, it works pretty well, and it's it's enjoyable enough, but I think that it's also presentation wise pretty bland, Like it's not the most exciting interface to stare at for what can be pretty long sessions of working your way through multiple waves, and it's got the sort of thing that I can get annoyed with is when you fail, which sometimes is not always clear when you're gonna fail, Like you might just miss a missile and like, oh, this one slipped through, and you know, if you get it once, you're dead.

Like none none of them can slip through at all.

You have to start the entire round over or in some cases multiple rounds over there some god, and so it's a lot like building a house of cars and having one card pulled and having to reassemble that house of cars because you have to carefully plot out like like everything kind of matters in terms of like where you put things and when.

So if you slip up once and you kind of have to remember, like, okay, I I steps one through three were good, but I messed up on stip four, So I have to remember which missiles I picked that got me to this point and then try and maybe pick a different missile to uh maybe correct what I did wrong or did wrong, and so that when you're sign of doing them back to back to back, it can get really frustrating, especially since for some reason the game asks you to ace all of the terminals more often than not, or it seemed like acing it like like doing it within the energy constrictions.

That seemed like that was like a bonus objective of like, oh you you did like s Rake.

You know, you don't have to to progress, but you can't if you want.

But at least I have not finished the game, but most of the objectives so far, I've been like, no, no, no, you have to ace this to to continue.

And it's like, so, why is it even an option to just go willing Nelly and just just win basically because I would rather just win and move on.

I have nothing to prove.

Sometimes, yeah, eventually you can get like shields too, which is kind of where I'm at.

You can get you can put down yield to sort of block your bases, which can also like like deflect missiles in there on their own, but it also gets frustrating waited tutorialized thing.

So there's no like straight up just like text or like spoken tutorial.

It's all diegetic in the environment, Like there's posters that you find it kind of have like pictures saying like oh, step one, this is what this missile does.

This is step two with this, which I wouldn't mind as much for the environmental puzzles, but for like, the main gameplay loop of the missile command stuff is I think a big problem because I have They don't always communicate exactly what you need to do or how to do it.

It just shows you a picture of like a missile exploding, and you're like, I don't know what missile that is, though, Like I've been stuck on a shield exercise for a long time because it showed me a function that I do not have, and I don't know if the game expects me to have this.

Yeah, because it's showing me a picture of something I've never seen before, and so it's like, can you just tell me what that is?

Because it also didn't toialize that there are op excuse me, additional sort of like modes that you can put the shields down.

Is like you can reposition the shields to go higher or lower than they are, but they never actually tell you that, and I only accidentally discovered it by hitting a dpad by mistake, and it's like, oh, I can move my shields.

I why would I think I could do that?

Yeah?

Speaker 1

Yeah, like this, when you're in the middle of these exercises, can you step away from the console.

You can go and look at those things that those like environmental.

Speaker 2

Not without quitting out like you would, you would have to redo it.

You can't quit any time.

But you can't just like pause it.

Speaker 1

So if there's a if there's a missile in this in this exercise that you don't recognize, you can't pause it and go and look at the board to see what kind of missile it is to then yeah, inform okay, huh.

Speaker 2

Yeah, you would have to be choice or start over or finish it and then you know, see what happens there.

So yeah, that's weird, honestly.

Like again, I think that the idea of the MISSI command stuff it's totally solid.

But I'm having more fun with just the exploration and just doing the like room puzzles more than anything.

Like there was a cool one where you have to like use a projector to line up like it was basically a bunch of circles with a bunch of arrows connecting them and a weird sort of pattern and you have to like project it on the walls of a room and try to line it up to where the circles are actually in pointing towards numbers that you had to then punch into a code that I thought was pretty clever.

And there's other like they haven't repeated themselves yet either, Like they're they're all really cool and spoke like that, like that stuff I'm like cool with, but the actual missile command stuff is like fine, but I'm the further I'm going and the more vague that sintialization gets, the less I look forward to them.

Speaker 1

Yeah.

So yeah, it seems like such an interesting wrapping for a game like this.

Like I think it's cool that it exists.

Sounds like the execution maybe not quite.

Speaker 3

Like I still like what Atari is doing with these old properties.

Yeah, you know, it's like because they've there's they're available everywhere, right, Like they've done tons of collections.

You know, it's nice that they're sort of like looking at these as like franchises, I guess you could say, or like like real properties and just like doing something something fun with them.

Speaker 2

You know.

Speaker 3

It's like I don't know, like taking the art for those old Atari boxes and like what if we actually like made that game, you know.

Yeah, Like I don't think it's a bad game so far by any means.

Speaker 2

It's it's enjoyable.

Yeah, And like you said, I think it's really creative what they're doing with something that was just a bunch of dots on a black screen.

Yeah, so I don't know, I say.

Speaker 5

Sorry.

All I was going to say is I don't know anything about Atari or Missile Command.

I just like the fact that they let Digital Eclipse do whatever the hell they want, which is good.

Speaker 2

I enjoyed it too.

I'm excited for that Mortal Combat let them.

Speaker 5

Lose, so am I?

That looks really good.

Speaker 1

Yes, we were talking about on the podcast earlier that we wish Digital Clips would get the chance to do their magic with like the Tony Hawk series, and how like that's something that's much more.

Speaker 5

I wonder if for them.

Speaker 1

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

Speaker 2

I mean those games are over twenty years old at this point.

Speaker 1

To go to maybe there's three, yeah.

Speaker 5

Which is so strange and upsetting to memory.

Speaker 1

I would much for hear that Tony Hawk.

Speaker 5

Came out, you know, five years ago.

What are you talking about?

Speaker 2

I mean, you know what made me feel old was watching that Tony Hawk documentary where it's just about how old and broken down he is.

Speaker 3

Oh god, yeah you are huh, opens with him trying to do the nine hundred again and just failing repeatedly.

Speaker 1

Oh God, that sounds rough.

I haven't watched that.

I actually got good.

Speaker 2

It's good, It's it's just sad sometimes.

Speaker 1

Yeah, that's fair.

Life's a little sad sometimes.

Well cool.

I think that does it for the bulk of the show this week.

Ash.

Thank you so much for joining us on this episode.

I know we've been trying to get you on here for for a little while.

Yeah, yeah, where can people follow you online?

If they want to keep up with you?

Speaker 5

You can follow my work at the Verge dot com.

If you are so inclined, toss us a few subscription dollars.

Because journalism costs money.

I know that we have been conditioned by game pass and other endeavors to not pay for things, but things cost, so if you've got the money in your wallet to spend, consider a subscription on the Verge.

If you want me for free, you can find me on Blue Sky at at astra dot bsky dot social, where I yell about all kinds of things, most especially things that are horny.

So yeah, that's where you can find me.

Speaker 1

Awesome Marcus, you can of course find him at Marcus Stewart seven on Blue Sky nowhere else.

That's his only social media of course, yeah, exactly, you got the exclusive Kyle.

You can follow at Kyle in Hilliard online or at Kyle Hilliard on Blue Sky, and you can find me at It's van ake in most place is and of course follow Game Informer at Game Informer magazine, on Instagram and at Game Informer pretty much everywhere else.

The best way you can support the show is sharing it with a friend.

Second best way you can support it is by getting a Game Informer magazine subscription, and that is the best way to support us as a whole.

Similar to what Ash said about the Verge journalism, you know, it's not free, it's not cheap.

We need the support from folks to stay alive.

So please consider supporting the Verge.

Consider supporting Game Informer.

Speaker 2

Yeah, first issues of the magazine should be arriving for subscribers this week.

Speaker 1

They should.

Yep, I've got it in hand.

It's awesome.

I think I should off a little.

Okay, fine, here I will say the second time we've.

Speaker 5

I was never allowed to have a video game magazine subscription when I was a kid, and one of the things that I did, I know, one of the things that I One of the first things on the first thing is one of the things that I did was get a Game and Former subscription.

When you guys are doing your Game and Former subscription push like when you were owned by the other guys.

Yeah, So now that I know that there's still like a print version of that coming out, now I will definitely subscribe so I can get more of that.

Speaker 2

Because I thank you.

Speaker 3

It's a better magazine now.

Speaker 5

He likes to chew on it though, because.

Speaker 2

I had on them.

Speaker 3

Disposable things.

Don't put them in your bathroom.

Keep them forever, don't get no, I.

Speaker 5

Do keep them forever, like I kept them at the bottom of my coffee table.

We're supposed to keep magazines and the veil.

Speaker 2

Dog quality.

The magazine paper is much in proved, so it might be a little bit more dog proof.

Speaker 3

We want if you get it in the mail, like like we're asking a favor, like send us pictures of the magazine, right and we'll probably share a bunch of them stuff like that.

But Ash, if you have a great picture of your dog going to town on an issue of Game Informer, like send us, because I.

Speaker 5

Definitely he has.

He has chewed the ship out of the Last of US episode issue and the Vailguard issue.

Speaker 1

Like it's that, it's funny, that's that's funny.

Well cool, that's gonna do it for the show this week.

Thank you all for listening once again, Ash, thanks for joining us, and we'll catch you next Thursday.

Everybody have a good week.

Uh, stay safe and we'll talk to you then.

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