Transcript

[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome and thank you for checking out our first ever episode of the Gaming Backlog Book Club podcast. My name is Andrew and I’m Alex.

[00:00:09] Speaker B: We’ve been playing games since the 90s and have known each other for 13 years and have tons of similar tastes and things with some minor differences here and there.

[00:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah, so many people these days have a video game backlog and considering how much longer games have gotten and how little free time adults tend to have to sit down and then actually enjoy them, we decided it was time to unite like minded folks and bring some focus to the backlog. We really fondly remember the times before the Internet ruled every waking moment of our lives, when we would go back to school in the morning and share things that we discovered in the game the night before. Whether that’s tips for how to find something, beat a tricky boss, or just continue on and make progress.

[00:00:47] Speaker B: Yeah, so what we want to do here is we want to have you join us week to week as we discuss the progress everyone makes. Similar to a traditional book club, we’ll have a goal for everybody to reach by the time the next episode rolls around so we can discuss as freely as possible.

[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yeah, and isn’t it more fun to actually play a game you’re interested in? I mean, yes, let’s plays have their place. If you’re interested in someone’s commentary or don’t want to spend the money on a particular game but want to still experience a story. But at the end of the day, video games are an interactive medium because it makes them more entertaining and forming your own opinion first can make playing a video game and unraveling its story or mysteries much more enjoyable.

So just to give you an idea of the types of games we both like and you can see how our taste might align with yours. Alex, would you kindly give us a run through of your top five games of all time and a bit about why? Obviously today’s version of your list, since it’s only top five, is pretty tough to narrow down, but let’s see what we get.

[00:01:42] Speaker B: Yeah, it was tough to narrow down to top five, but I will say my number one game, and it’s number one by quite a bit, is the Last of us. This is my number one game of all time and I feel bad saying this, but it took me a while to get to this game. I didn’t play it when it came out on PS3.

My first playthrough of it actually came on the PS4 on the remastered edition.

I loved it.

[00:02:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I did have the chance to play it on PS3. I picked it up at Best Buy not knowing too much about it. Having just been a big fan of the Uncharted series, I do remember this very first trailer.

[00:02:20] Speaker B: But.

[00:02:21] Speaker A: But, yeah, the Last of Us was absolutely unique. And for whatever reason, it was the game that I got halfway through. And then life took over and I stopped playing games completely for two years. But then I came back and finished it and man, it was a great finish.

[00:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, for me, yeah, for it being number one. I mean, the story, the story I just. I found incredible. Doing the Cordyceps virus, a fungi that gets into your system and infects you and takes you over. I remember the first time seeing a clicker in the game and being scared out of my mind. Like, how do I take these down without probably dying? A ton. But overall, just again, as I said, the story of it all, it first starts as a.

You take this little girl and she’s basically cargo to you. And you have to take her across the US and in the end, it kind of becomes a sort of love story in the apocalypse of her. Now I’m becoming like a daughter to you. And it’s, it’s. It’s incredible. And I loved every part of it. It’s brutal, it’s beautiful. It was definitely my number one game. And it’s a game that I will try and play at least once a year, if not every couple years. Second on my list. And I know this is, I think, first on your list, BioShock. I mean, what a game.

Incredible.

I think I’ll let you speak on it. But the whole atmosphere of Rapture was incredible. The gameplay overall is the game with your plasmids and just the unique enemies.

[00:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah.

While the rest of my list is in no particular order, BioShock is number one. The underwater city of Rapture. The 40s style everywhere. The story itself, the voice acting, really bringing life to the story. I think when voice acting was really kind of kicking off in the PS3, Xbox 360 era, the big daddies, the save or sacrifice to get more power type decisions, the magic powers combined with gunplay at the same time for some unique combat, it all captured my attention and never let go. I played the demo and even then I was waiting for a month or so to actually get my hands on the full game. So play the demo a couple of times.

Don’t do that too often today because of the backlog. And yes, it is absolutely antiquated by today’s standards, considering you have to click A trigger twice to swap between your left hand plasmids and your right hand weapons. Weapons which they fortunately fixed by BioShock 2. And then there’s also the big glaring flashing arrow taking up half the screen, telling you where you need to go to continue the story and totally breaking the immersion. But usually that just served me as an indicator to go in the exact opposite direction to find more voice notes to gather items and reveal more of the world. And that was when voice notes were actually interesting and not just way too much content like they are now. But even with those issues viewed from a modern perspective, my time with that game from the demo on the PS3 and the release date purchase of that port all the way through to the end was just never ending fun.

[00:05:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s number two for me. It was incredible. I mean one of my one memory I always have of it and anytime I hear someone do an interesting or ugly laugh in like a TV show or like the ha ha ha. I always, always in my head I go Ha ha ha. Welcome to the circus of value.

It’s like every, every time just like that from that game. Like the vending machines just stuck in my head.

[00:05:47] Speaker A: Damn clown.

[00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that damn clown. And I have heard there is potentially a movie in the works and I, I hope it’s, I hope they make it more of a horror style movie because it is, yeah, it is a bit dark. It is dark and has a horror out like outlay there.

[00:06:07] Speaker A: The combination of some horror, some action and the, you know, the immersive sim type stuff really makes a difference. I, I personally think a BioShock movie would be best if it was in the pre downfall of Rapture rather than recreating the game.

But yeah, teach their own.

[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be, that would be cool to get like a prequel.

[00:06:28] Speaker A: Hollywood does what it wants to do.

[00:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, but that’d be great. So moving on. So number three for me, this might be a shock to some people.

Number three for me is Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. I know how new it is, it just came out last December.

But I’m telling you, it is probably the fourth best Indiana Jones story out there.

Obviously behind the three original movies.

It took me less than a month to beat it and I completed all the achievements for Xbox basically from the opening sequence of the game to the end. I was hooked. I enjoyed every minute of it all the way to the credits.

The game basically feels like a 20 hour Indiana Jones movie with everything that you would expect from an Indiana Jones film, from fighting to puzzles to typical indie quips. Troy Baker as Indiana Jones. I mean, you have the face likenesses of Harrison Ford, but Troy Baker does a phenomenal Harrison Ford impression. At first I was a little bit, okay, I can’t see and hear the difference. But after playing for a while, kind of got used to like, wow, this guy. There are times where I really can’t tell that this isn’t Harrison Ford.

He was. I mean, he’s one of the best, if not the best in the business. He did a phenomenal job. The. The other allies you get in the game, like Gina, who’s one of your allies in it.

[00:07:47] Speaker A: She was great portrayed by an Italian actress that was in season two of Master of None with Aziz Ansari, which I was a thought. She did a great job in that show. Was very funny.

[00:07:59] Speaker B: Yeah, she was. She was great in this. And she had again, like Amy and Jones, she had her little quips back and forth with Indiana Jones and it was. It was great. The enemies, obviously you’re fighting a bunch of Nazis.

[00:08:10] Speaker A: It’s a typical Indiana Jones, surprise, surprise.

[00:08:13] Speaker B: But the. The guy who is like the main.

The. The main villain who’s great, he has a very unique accent and unique voice. And every time I was getting like, I just like, have a smile and like, kind of laugh because he sounded a little funny. But he was also still like, really diabolical and great. And another one I love about the game is the weapons. You can use anything for a weapon. Like I was beating people down with brooms, with bricks, with.

What else do you have? You have just sticks on the ground. I rarely ever use. You have Indy’s pistol. I don’t think I really ever used it. I may use it like once or twice. I just. Whatever I could find on the ground, from like hammers to everything I would just use and just beat down people or just your fists. It was such a fun game and the story, there were just all these twists and turns and I was just so engrossed.

[00:09:09] Speaker A: And that kind of experience with the weapons reminds me a lot of the most recent Hitman trilogy where you can literally smack someone to death with a fish or use a remote control. Rubber duck.

Always a good time when you got something unique and different. I have not played Indiana Jones yet as I only have PlayStation and Switch. I’m not an Xbox person, but I know it has recently released on PlayStation.

Thanks to Alex’s recommendation. I’ll probably get to it sometime soon, but it’s in the backlog.

[00:09:41] Speaker B: I mean, there was a point where I was Tempted to just buy it on PlayStation again and replay it on PlayStation so I can get a platinum and I might in the future. I won’t right now. I was very tempted sooner to do it, but I’m not going to now.

But I probably will in the future because yeah, it is.

It was a great game. I enjoyed every minute of it. And it definitely has a replay replay value, which I enjoyed. Fourth on my list. Old school game, Harvest Moon 64.

I put so many hours into this game when I was. When I was younger, when I was a kid.

[00:10:13] Speaker A: Same here.

[00:10:14] Speaker B: So much fun with it.

[00:10:15] Speaker A: Oh yeah, yeah.

[00:10:16] Speaker B: The simplicity of it. It’s just you’re owning your farm. You get a. You get a farm from your grandfather that’s been abandoned. You have to restore it.

Growing your vegetables, growing all the different crops.

The number of other little side quests where you can. You get a horse and you can train and then you can race your horse. You can participate in all the little town festivals. And then the best part is you can fall in love and get married. You get to woo. Woo who was. I think there are four different options for girls in the town that you get to woo. And if I remember rightly, I chose the girl who is the daughter of the librarian. The girl who walked in the library is who I wooed and ended up marrying.

[00:10:56] Speaker A: I know that I learned the word woo from that game.

[00:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah, it was just.

[00:11:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it’s a blast from the past. I know I spent at least a ton of hours in that as well. Have you, out of curiosity, played Stardew Valley at all? I know I gave it a shot, you know, being the nostalgia from Harvest Moon 64 and.

And got a little into it, but the backlog takes over. But at the same time I can see why people now would absolutely love it. And it’s still getting supported even today. But it just didn’t grab me the same way. Maybe it has to do with being an adult with less time.

[00:11:32] Speaker B: But yeah, I did try. I tried Stardew Valley. This was a few years ago now and I put about five, six hours into it, but I couldn’t. I didn’t get the nostalgia from it as like I did like thinking I would have harvest moon 64. I know now they’ve added harvest moon 64, I believe to switch online.

[00:11:54] Speaker A: You’re right. Yep.

[00:11:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I might try and go back to that again at some point in the future just to see. I would love though if they. I’ve tried also a couple of the story or one of the Story of Seasons Games, who was the developer because they moved over from what it was back from Natsu. It’s not the same people anymore. I’ve tried those again. It wasn’t. It just didn’t give me. It gave me some of it, but not quite as much of the nostalgia as the harvest moon 64.

But yeah, I would love if they did like something. They just did it. They did a remaster, just with some better graphics. I think it’d be a lot of fun. That’s number four on my list. And then number five. I believe this is on your list as well.

All right. It’s number five for me. I’ll say. One is one and two is two. Three, three, four and five on my list can interchange. But number five of mine is Ghost of Tsushima. Like from the trailer? Just from the trailer.

[00:12:49] Speaker A: From the E3 trailer.

[00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Open World Samurai.

I was like, yeah, okay, I’m done. That’s it. That’s all I need to know. I will play this. It looks.

[00:13:00] Speaker A: I just knew from the. From the moment I saw the first trailer that it would be phenomenal. It looked gorgeous. It was the Assassin’s Creed in Japan that everyone had been begging for for years, myself included, but without the crutches or requirements of that series weighing it down. And it absolutely delivered. Sure, it has some of the same open world fatigue that most open world games have, but it rarely detracted from the experience. And it is still a top game. I would call it an honorable mention if I have to define these top five, but it’s in the top ten without a question.

[00:13:34] Speaker B: Yeah, I think there’s another one like Last of Us and all these other ones on my list for me, where I started it and I don’t think it took me very long to beat fully through it. Just. I could sit there for hours and just play and just ride right on the horse through. Through everything. Following the wind. And it was. It was great. The combat is incredible.

The story overall of Jin Sakai was great.

I’m so excited for Ghost of Yotai later this year.

[00:14:07] Speaker A: Oh yeah.

And the expansion to Ghost of Tsushima was fun too. Even the Co Op, the Iki island and the Co op piece of it as well. Legends was. Was. Was good fun. You know, it wasn’t tons and tons of hours put into that as more of a single player fan myself, but I think it was. It was kind of cool that they added in a couple just skins based on other PlayStation franchises. So that was nice.

[00:14:35] Speaker B: So, yeah, so those are My. My top five games of all time.

What are. I mean, as I said, we have a couple that overlap, but what are, what are the rest of your top five games of all time?

[00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so you know, BioShock being number one. The rest of my list is probably no, no particular order, but I’d say Diablo 2 has to be one of the games I’ve put the most time into overall. Between the vanilla game and the Lord of Destruction expansion, it was just never a never ending great experience from top to bottom. The atmosphere, even the grind, the camaraderie with the friends on the chat system, the conversations about it at school in class, the unique character classes and build variety was so unique at that time. And damn, what a great game. I primarily ran a necromancer with probably 40 different skeletons tagging along, as well as a golem. Nothing better than that in my opinion. More recent Diablo games cap your total skeletons on a Necromancer, so I’ve shifted to other classes in D3 and D4.

And you know, even though I never truly saw the intro ending or between act cutscenes in Diablo 2 because they always crashed my computer, at least I was always able to play on Battle.net smoothly enough and have a great time. It’s also a sign of a great game when a kid barely goes outside all summer because they’re glued to their computer with their brother in the other room also connected and their friends all online slaying demons from sun up to sunset.

I don’t know if you played Diablo 2 at all Alex, but maybe you should go back. The resurrected version came out.

[00:16:06] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I played it. I did not play it now nearly as much as you. I think the other battle Battle Net game that I played was starcraft. Starcraft and Starcraft too. That was mine with with friends always online together battling each other.

[00:16:26] Speaker A: Nice. Yeah, my real time strategy game in that era was age of Empires 2.

Plenty of fun, but definitely didn’t get into Starcraft until a little bit later.

Another one for me is metal gear solid 4 and while number 4 may be an unpopular opinion for a top game in that franchise, I don’t mean to say it’s the best one because that honor belongs to others. But I will say it is my favorite.

So get a sleepover. In 1998 I watched some people playing MGS1 and loved how mature it was at a time when so many other games were anything but that.

I didn’t get a chance to play it myself and I never owned it. But then in 2008, on the day that MGS4 released, a friend brought his PS3 to my house and we both sat there watching old snake smoke about 50 cigarettes and throw them away in his little portable container while the main patch Day one patch and update downloaded for hours. And when it finally finished, I watched him play the first hour of the game. So it was many hours lost and only saw a little bit of it.

But I was already hooked with the adaptive camouflage and the weapon customization and was lucky enough to find the Metal Gear solid collection for PS2 at Best Buy a few weeks later. So I then proceeded to play one through three in the first half of that summer, and since I didn’t have a PS3 yet, that same friend let me play through the entirety of MGS4 on his PS3 at his house during the rest of the summer. Obviously the anticipation between play sessions was tough, so I bought a PS3 basically right after I finished that game.

So the next one is Hollow Knight. It has a really cool souls vibe and many little details like resting, also respawning enemies, tough, precise combat, cryptic lore and story at the same time. It’s got wonderful music, an expansive customizable skill set, and most importantly, just a general vibe that made me always want to venture into the next biome and explore, even though I probably should have gone to bed hours earlier.

There is a reason that Silksong, the second game, is on so many people’s most anticipated lists and everyone keeps bombarding Team Terry with requests for more information.

Hollow Knight is great. It’s really tough. It’s pretty long for a Metroidvania, but so worth your time.

[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ve I tried it a few years ago. I got about, I don’t know, five, six hours, maybe a little more into it.

I just, and I’m so bad at souls games.

I don’t have the patience I need to get my patience up for souls like games and I know we’ve downloaded, we have a couple that we want to play that I would like to do them co op. I think I’d be better at them co op and I’d have more patience.

But yeah, I have tried all and I might have to try again because I’ve seen other people like play it, talk about it and how highly they talk about it and yeah, it’s very unique and it’s really cool but I had a tough time but I might have to just get a grip, get some patience and try again at some point in the future.

[00:19:27] Speaker A: I think that’s True. And speaking of Souls likes and Soulsborne, rounding out my number five is Bloodborne. So funny story here. You were the one that first exposed me to Bloodborne.

[00:19:38] Speaker B: Yep.

[00:19:39] Speaker A: A friend of mine showed me a tiny bit of demon souls for PS3 back in college, describing how it was way tougher than most games and there was this weird mechanic where other real people would come in and attack you even though it was a regular single player game.

So cool. Yeah, I watched a few minutes and moved on. And then you and I were roommates when Bloodborne released and I remember you being super excited to show me this new game that was really tough and any normal enemy can kill you easily and you have to be methodical about the way you approach things and dodge and conserve stamina and I didn’t put two and two together about Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne being from the same dev until many years later.

And I also was just entering that couple year period in that moment where I stopped playing games completely for whatever reason and I just took a long extended break. Right. Anyway, when I saw you play the first bit of Bloodborne, I just kind of thought eh, cool. And moved on with my day. But then when I got back into games a couple years later and got myself a PS4, I spent a lot of time exploring everything available on the console and went through lists and videos and reviews and I found out about Bloodborne again, bought it on sale because I was dumb enough to not actually download it for free from PS + a couple months earlier and went on to become absolutely obsessed with its world, its weirdness, its combat. And of course now I’m a major Soulsborne and Soulslike fan. So. Thanks, Alex.

[00:20:58] Speaker B: You’re welcome. Yeah, I, yep, I did try it. That’s another one I need to go back to is Bloodborne. I, I did start it back then and it was a little too difficult for me, but it’s just such a unique story with unique characters and I, I, it’s definitely one of the souls ones out of a lot that are out there that I, I really want to focus and get myself through because I, I, I do think I’d really.

[00:21:25] Speaker A: Really enjoy it and, and may never actually come, but there obviously been rumors of a remake or remaster at some point. Hitting PlayStation, you’re really missing the opportunities here. Everyone will buy it, but it might be worth waiting for that because the 30fps is fine if you ask me, but it could be better.

[00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah, if they make that, that’ll be incredible and I will definitely. That’s one I would buy and I will. I will definitely play if they make a remastered version.

[00:21:55] Speaker A: So yeah, so that’s my top five but I’m going to go ahead and enter my cheat code here and throw out a couple more. So I would also say hovering in around that top five is Sekiro has a great atmosphere. The rhythmic combat that throws off Souls Combat veterans to learn the parry system almost feels like Guitar Hero in weird ways or rhythm games.

The stealth system that didn’t exist in previous Soulsborne games and finally being able to jump. That’s pretty cool.

But like most my first ever Souls Burnt holds a special place in my heart. So Bloodborne edges out Sekiro here and I’ll also throw out Red Dead Redemption one. Nothing like exploring the Wild west on horseback through a well written story inspired by the best western films. What’s not to love?

[00:22:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that was another Red Dead Redemption one was another one I got to very late as in I think I played it now either early last year or the end of 2023 for the first time ever and I loved it. It was great the. The story.

Yeah as you said, just riding on horseback everywhere, open world. It was great. Love the western themes. Loved everything. And I need to get to red Dead Redemption 2. That is one of the biggest games on my backlog.

[00:23:10] Speaker A: It’s a great one. It ties in amazingly to the first game story and definitely recommend albeit being a lot slower and maybe a little bit too over simulation style.

But hey, it’s all worth it at the end of the day.

[00:23:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, definitely that will be. That’s a. That’s a big one on my backlog.

[00:23:32] Speaker A: Okay Alex, what have you been playing recently or or right now and are.

[00:23:37] Speaker B: Really enjoying so recently as in like right now? I’m currently playing the Legend of Mana Remastered and about halfway through it. It’s the one that was originally on the PlayStation 1.

I did originally play it on the PS1 with a friend back in the day and now after replaying it now many many years later, probably about, I don’t know, 18 years later. No more than that. It’s bringing back a lot of those memories.

Also I’m actually playing it kind of a old school way where I found and bought the original physical strategy guide. Not using an online walkthrough. I found the original strategy guide on Makari and I bought it and I’m kind of using it to get through do the quest sort of in order that you have and it’s actually been kind of nostalgic and liberating really fun. Yeah.

[00:24:32] Speaker A: Nice way to actually experience something.

[00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Yeah. I’m not. It’s. It’s fun. I’m just like sitting there. I’m either playing it on my portal or on the tv, but I then have just the strategy guide in my lap and I’m just reading through the quests of like what to do, where to go and kind of. It’s. It’s been. It’s been really fun. And I will say the soundtrack is amazing. The music is great.

Those old JRPG, the old school RPGs. The soundtracks back then were amazing and they have all the original and it’s. Yeah, yeah. Really enjoying it.

[00:25:07] Speaker A: Can’t go wrong with that. And you bring up something that. That’s interesting to me. As a kid, I always thought it was pronounced mana, but I guess people call it mana too. It’s a tomato. Tomato thing.

[00:25:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s Legend of Mana. Legend of Mana. Yeah, it was.

Either way.

Either way, it’s right. And it’s a great game. The remaster, they’ve done a great job actually. It looks really nice especially I will say it looks really good on the portal.

[00:25:34] Speaker A: Another thing to add to the backlog.

[00:25:36] Speaker B: It looks really nice on the portal. Another one I’m actually playing and I’m playing right now. So I’m playing with my wife. I’m playing through for the second time and it’s her first time is the Last of Us Part two. We’ve been watching the TV show together. She knew nothing of the Last of Us except from like what I told her until the show came out. She watched season one, adored season one, Loved it. Watching season two. She’s loving it so far.

But before season two came out, we started playing. She wanted to know more of the story of it. So we’ve been playing the Last of Us Part two. I think now the show is up to where we are in the game, but we’ll continue the game. And she’s enjoying the game so far. She’s. She gets a little bit bored of the me searching around for trading cards or. Or materials to. To upgrade my weapons or.

Or like the medical pills to upgrade.

[00:26:29] Speaker A: Yeah.

Sounds like my wife walking to see me reading either voice notes or written notes or item descriptions in most semi open world games that happens to be every moment that she walks up is. That’s when I. When I’m reading something.

[00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah. She just. My wife is really just into. She’s like, I just want to see the story parts and everything. I was like, trust me, we’ll get there. It’s a long story. It’s a long game. Y but it is well worth it. And just again, replaying it right now for my second time through, I forgot like the game graphically is incredible. It’s one of the best looking games in a while.

[00:27:08] Speaker A: And you’re playing the upgraded PS5 version of it, aren’t you?

[00:27:11] Speaker B: Yeah, I’m playing the upgrade PS5. The. Yeah, the Last of Us Part 21 version.

Is it the Part 2 remaster? Yeah, it’s great. It looks incredible. And the gameplay is so smooth. The movements of Ellie like they feel so realistic. I mean just jumping, moving around, dodging everything just feels great. Naughty Dogs did such a phenomenal job with it and to be honest, it’s definitely an honorable mention for a top five game of all time for me. But I think it’s just outside.

But it, I, I, from my first playthrough of it, I loved and I know it was very decisive. A lot of people I loved the whole story.

Yeah, it was great and I’m very excited to see. Yeah, very dark, very brutal and I’m very excited to see the show continue on and play out the rest of the story.

So that was another one that I’m playing right now and another one that I actually just beat recently which, which helped me with some little sort of nostalgia vibe and not nostalgia vibe, but just some feelings I had. I’ve been really wanting to play a Pokemon game and I recently just beat Pokemon Violet and I actually had a lot of fun with it. I’ve got all the badges. I did what was the elite four.

I played the DLCs.

It’d been a while since I had beaten a Pokemon game fully and I felt quite accomplished when I finished this. Basically. I’ve basically completed the whole Pokedex of it, except for the ones that you’d have to trade for that are only in certain versions. Since I don’t really have other people who are playing it, it’s not as easy to trade. I know it was a public way of doing it, but I, I’ve tried a couple times and I haven’t got it to work. But yeah, I recently beat Pokemon Violet and it was actually, it’s a really fun open world Pokemon. It was, yeah, a lot of fun. Really enjoyed the new. I think it’s gen 7, so, so that was one I’ve just recently beat.

[00:29:03] Speaker A: 11 year old Alex enters the chat Mm.

[00:29:07] Speaker B: Yeah, I just, I hadn’t, I don’t. Yeah, I hadn’t played it. I hadn’t beaten a Pokemon game and I don’t even know. I want to say maybe since Heart Gold, Soul Silver around then. Yeah. So this one I like. I went in and I was like, I want to play this and beat this.

Like I’ve started all the other ones like Legends Arceus and I need to go back to that one. I never beat it. I need to go back to that. That one’s a bit hard to beat. That one’s different because it’s completing just a Pokedex. There’s no gym leaders in Legends Arceus, but yeah, but just beat Pokemon Violet and had a lot of fun. So that’s. That’s what I’ve. What I’m playing right now and what I’ve been playing.

[00:29:47] Speaker A: Nice for me. What comes to top of mind is Tunic, which looks like isometric Zelda on the surface. It plays like a souls like game in combat and wows you with a ridiculously delicious onion to keep peeling back and uncovering endless layers of really unique old school puzzles to solve. Like an old Zelda or something even more complex. Let me tell you, if you play this one, you’re going to be pulling out a piece of paper and a pen at some point. There’s no getting around it.

It’s great. I’m also a bit into Persona 5 Royal right now, the second dungeon. So really not too far along, but having a good time with it.

I’ve also been playing Split Fiction with my wife after we both very much enjoyed It Takes Two a couple years ago. Much like that one, Split Fiction consistently throws new gameplay elements at you and discards the old ones just as soon as you’ve mastered them.

This game is less varied, I suppose, since it mostly bounces between sci fi and fantasy. But the co op element and the fact you rarely have the same skill set makes it engaging all the way through. And I know you wanted to play that with me, Alex, but I’m sorry you’ve been edged out.

[00:30:52] Speaker B: That’s okay. I’m trying to get my wife into because I haven’t played It Takes Two yet and I know that was the game of the year a few years ago.

I’m trying to get her to play that with me because she’s not as big into games. She mainly likes to watch me play some games, but I’m trying to get her into playing because I know It Takes Two is the co op element. It’s not too difficult. I don’t believe so.

[00:31:14] Speaker A: It’s a perfect one for us, to be honest.

[00:31:17] Speaker B: Yeah.

[00:31:18] Speaker A: And then there’s also been in the past year or so. I played Sekiro. Loved it. Disco Elysium, which is wild and weird and a lot of fun. The Resident Evil 2 remake, which I enjoyed enough and it’s short enough to not delay the backlog too much that I actually ran through both A and B sides and Also Divinity, Original Sin 2. And yes, I know I need to play Baldur’s Gate 3 and I really want to, but hey, this isn’t a show about backlogs for nothing.

[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah, another one actually just quickly that I remembered I just played and beat recently was Star Wars Jedi Survivor, the sequel to Jedi Fallen Order.

It was great. I, yeah, Fallen Order was phenomenal. And I will say with this one first, I don’t know, maybe eight hours or so, maybe, I don’t know, it was a little slow to start, I felt. But by the end of it, I’m not gonna lie, my mind was blown. I, I, the story went in ways I, I don’t want to spoil too much because I know you haven’t played it like it just went in ways that I was like, I didn’t think it would go and it was so much fun.

They did a really good job with the sequel and I’m kind of hoping they keep going with the Calcasta story because I love the Cal Kesta’s character. I’m hoping they bring him in real life into the Star wars shows at some point.

[00:32:39] Speaker A: I’d love to see the BD1 or a version of a BD droid has showed up in one of the shows at some point.

So hopefully they do bring him in because he’s also a live performance actor as well. So yeah, he’s, you never know.

[00:32:53] Speaker B: Yeah, that, that was just another one quickly that I have just played and beat recently and it was a lot of fun. It is actually quite difficult, I will say there and there is like a single like it’s souls light. Yeah. But there then they have those, there are little things in there like I can never, I’m never gonna beat fully like little time trials or little trials that you to get full trophies. And I’m like, I did a few of them and then some of them were too hard and I was like, no, I was like, I just, I beat the story. The story was phenomenal.

It’s definitely worth it. So great, great, great sequel.

[00:33:28] Speaker A: All right, now what are your most anticipated unreleased games? And I’m just going to jump ahead of you and spit out Ghostly and the fact that it’s one of those drop whatever I’m playing and start it on the release date games for me. But curious what’s on your list?

[00:33:39] Speaker B: Same. Same for me. It goes to Yote.

Yeah, same. That is one. When that comes out, that’ll be like God of War Ragnarok was when that came out, that’ll be a drop whatever I’m playing. And I will be putting and playing that until I beat it. Some other most anticipated games for me. I know we’re similar on this. Judas is one since it’s made by the people who made BioShock.

[00:34:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Ken Levine and his new team. Yeah. Considering BioShock is my number one ever, you know. Enough said.

[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean from just the quick little trailers we’ve seen.

Looks great. Looks incredible. Can’t wait to hopefully see more about it and then delve deeper into it.

The new Pokemon Legends Za game that’s coming to switch to later this year. I am excited to play again after beating Violet. Still really enjoying playing Pokemon games, so I will probably dive into that later this year. Another one I think we both have as well is Kronos, which looks great.

[00:34:36] Speaker A: Yeah, Kronos the new dawn. Looks wild.

Don’t know much about it besides that, but it gives me a hint of, you know, dead space mixed with some other stuff. I’m. I’m intrigued.

[00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah, so am I. It’s. I think that’s going to be a lot of fun. Quite.

Yeah. As you said, dead space, like quite scary. Quite great action, great gameplay. Another one I’m really big for getting another Naughty Dog intergalactic. Probably not coming here. Yeah, probably not coming till 2027. But I. From what I’ve heard about it and what I’ve heard Neil Druckmann say and everything, it’s gonna be their biggest game yet.

Insane gameplay. Like they’re upping gameplay. They’re upping everything. And from just the trailer we saw at the game awards, it looks incredible and I’m very excited to see see that and play that when that comes out.

So yeah, those are definitely my most anticipated games coming.

[00:35:34] Speaker A: Nice. Those are mostly on my list too.

On my end. I mentioned Hollow Knight Silksong before. Yes. What little we’ve seen of it looks fantastic and I can’t wait to get my hands on it either. Kronos Judas. And while I know it has already released as of a couple weeks ago and been talked about like crazy, I’ll just throw in Claire Obscure Expedition 33 here too. Still on the backlog. Not going to get to it soon.

[00:35:56] Speaker B: Looks good it does. I’ve seen some gameplay. Yeah, it looks really beautiful. Looks really good from a small team.

[00:36:03] Speaker A: Moving along for this podcast, we’re likely to stick to games that have at least some degree of story to them, whether that’s blatantly obvious through cutscenes or something like environmental storytelling, or potentially even more cryptic like Souls Born item descriptions. I know that it’s a little bit harder to extrapolate without millions of lore videos and wikis and whatnot, but still interesting. We are likely leaning more heavily towards the former. So things that are somewhat overt in the story they are telling you between Steam sales, console subscriptions like PS plus and Game Pass all give access to a constantly growing library of games.

There is a seemingly endless list of options. Basically like when you’re looking at Netflix and you spend two hours there looking for the next thing you want to watch and by the time you find something it’s actually time to go to bed. Yeah, everyone does it, especially with new games, especially with all the Steam sales and everything else. So sometimes that gets the better of people when deciding which game to start next. And they may not start anytime soon. So the really true core concept of this podcast is let’s all just jump into one game together then and play through it and have conversations. It seems like a good way to.

[00:37:13] Speaker B: Bring some focus to the backlog and to start off. Our first game is going to be Death Stranding, Big game, one that neither of us have played and been on backlog for a while.

[00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah, so if you’re not familiar with Death Stranding, it was a rather polarizing game when it released in November of 2019 for PS4 before it got ported to PS sorry to PC the following year. It was the new brainchild of Hideo Kojima, who is the longtime creator of the Metal Gear Solid series. Over at Konami before they had a falling out and he went off to create Kojima Productions, where he is now, and start on actually building out Death Stranding. So Kojima is a game director with a long time desire to enter the film world. His games often do feel a lot like movies with long or extra long cutscenes. Metal gear solid 4 finale looking at you, you can feel the eccentric artsy side of everything he does, and this one seems even crazier. It can be felt in how things are shot, as if they’re in a true movie. And in the case of Death Stranding, he brought in a stacked cast too. The star its the protagonist is Norman Reedus of Walking Dead fame and Boondock Saints. Even before that. I think Alex, you at least watched that movie and quite enjoyed it too.

[00:38:24] Speaker B: Yes, I did. Yeah. Boondock Saints. Yeah. Never haven’t seen Walking Dead. Couldn’t. Never got into that show. But yeah, Boondock Saints.

[00:38:30] Speaker A: Yeah.

His character was one of my favorites in the first few seasons of Walking Dead before I fell off of it, but he’s just a solid actor all around. It also has Lea Seydoux from the most recent James Bond movies, Mads Mikkelsen, Troy Baker, renowned voice actor in the games world, Margaret Qualley, who was just a star in the substance and did very well, and Guillermo del Toro, the Mexican director as well, is in this as an actor. The basics of the story are that you play as Norman Reedus character who is a cross country package delivery guy in a post apocalyptic United States. It’s now called the United Cities of America where something called the Death Stranding. Oh hey look, they said the name of the game. In the game, Death Stranding happens and causes chaos. Something called Timefall exists, which appears from the trailers to be like rain that rapidly ages people, but is probably a lot more complex than that. Knowing Kojima, you have a scanner robot attached to your backpack and a baby in a liquid pod attached to your chest that supposedly makes it easier to see the invisible monsters that wander around outside of the cities. Yeah, it’s weird stuff all around.

[00:39:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it’s very weird. Very unique. Very, very Kojima.

[00:39:42] Speaker A: Very Kojima. And they, you know, they actually also use the Decima engine that was made by Guerrilla Games for the Horizon games because of just how gorgeous and realistic the natural landscapes looked in Horizon Zero Dawn. We’re both fans of that series. I’ve only played the first. You’ve played both Alyx and Horizon games?

Yes, Number two is in my backlog. We’re very excited to see how Kojima Productions makes use of the engine overall. So this one’s been on our backlog since it was originally announced, but neither of us have gotten around to it. What makes it something you want to start up now, specifically? Alex?

[00:40:16] Speaker B: For me, I want to start up now. We have the. The new one is releasing here June 26th and I saw a quick little. Not full trailer, but little snippets of the trailer of the new one.

I don’t think it’s spoiled really anything, but it looks very good again. Just looks incredible. It’s a game again that I don’t. Other than I know that your Norman Reedus, I think your name’s Sam Porter as the character’s name and you’re dropping off packages and other things I don’t know too much about.

Looks incredible. It looks beautiful as you said, because it’s using the Decima engine and it’s just. For me it’ll be I haven’t played too many Kojima games. I I’ve played. I played the original Metal Go Solid again with a friend way back in the day on the original PlayStation and other than that, I haven’t really played a Kojima game. Want to try again? Another Kojima game and it’s very unique, very different.

[00:41:06] Speaker A: So yeah, shame on you for not having at least played MGS 2 or 3. But Metal Gear Solid Delta is coming up real soon so you’re going to have a chance to play that that prequel.

[00:41:16] Speaker B: Yes, they have. They have.

[00:41:18] Speaker A: Keeps getting delayed. So at some point soon. Yeah, for me it’s all about Kojima. You know, as, as I mentioned, I’ve played all the mainline Metal Gear Solid games, not including the portables or Metal Gear 1 and 2, which run the NES.

But you know, as, as a fan of Kojima and as a fan of Norman Reedus and the other actors, I kind of just got to support the guy and the weirdness is refreshing once in a while with so many cookie cutter games out there. Interesting detail. Kojima also has his own podcast called Hideo Kojima Presents Brain Structure. It’s given it a little bit of a listen. It’s quite interesting. If you’re curious and want an inside look at his thought process and his approach to things, maybe best to listen to it after we get through Death Stranding because I’m sure there are some spoilers mixed in there.

[00:42:01] Speaker B: Death Stranding 2 is releasing June 26th and we have to imagine that a lot of you out there just like this, just like us are have a renewed interest in the first game since the second. Looks like it’s going to definitely be more action packed than the first one based on the trailer. No promises though, there will be any less weird as it’s a Kojima game. It also has been announced that they are going to make a movie adaptation, which I’m hopefully, I’m hoping Norman Reedus is going to continue to play Sam Porter in that and also they’re going to make.

Yeah, and also just recently they announced they’re going to make an anime series adaptation as well of it. So yeah, so we thought there’s no better time right now than to be a desktraining fan and try out the game, play it. So we’re there. That Will be our first game. We’re excited to. Excited to play.

[00:42:47] Speaker A: Yeah, sure.

[00:42:48] Speaker B: Sure.

[00:42:48] Speaker A: Seems like a good time to be a fan, huh?

The the movie will be produced with Day 24 and has Michael Sarnoski on board to write and direct it. He is best known for the movie Pig, starring Nicholas Cage in a unique role. I thought was very well done. More of an indie cult type movie. And also the more recent A Quiet Place Day One, which I haven’t seen yet. Have you seen it, Alex?

[00:43:09] Speaker B: I haven’t seen that one. I haven’t seen Pig either. I’ve heard Pig was quite good with Nicholas Cage. But yeah, I haven’t seen either of Pig or Quiet Place Day One. So those are on the back list of movies to watch.

[00:43:21] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Yeah. Who’s got the time? Kojima said he doesn’t want to just directly translate from game to film and wants the film to be for anyone who loves cinema. Which all kind of tracks with his general direction of things. Okay. What do you know, Alex, about death stranding? Going into it, Are you going in completely blind?

[00:43:41] Speaker B: I’m going in other than like what you said earlier with, you know, like your Sam Porter plays character Sam Porter. You’re trying to, I think, at the cities together again emerge them with bridges.

You have the baby hunting on your front. On your chest, you have a little robot thing on your back that’s telling you when enemies are nearby. To be honest, other than that, I don’t know too much other than it looks really nice and I’m just excited to see how unique and how crazy the story gets and goes and yeah, I’m very excited for this, this playthrough.

[00:44:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I’ve definitely. I think we’ve both heard that it can be described as a walking simulator. And that’s one of the main arguments that detractors of the game seem to put out there. But, you know, we’ll just see how it goes. I’m also kind of curious if there’s ever an explanation as to why the United States looks like Iceland. But anyway, yeah, I’ve also covered all my curiosities.

[00:44:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I’ve also heard the game actually picks up really more around the 8 to 10 hour mark.

It’s a little slow to start, but then around that 8 to 10 hours people say it really picks up and they got really engrossed and just feel like, okay, let’s just keep going, let’s do this.

[00:44:54] Speaker A: There also seem to be a lot of people that go into it thinking this doesn’t look that interesting. And by the time they’re finished with it, it’s a relatory experience and they hit their top five. So I guess we’ll see what happens.

[00:45:09] Speaker B: Very well.

[00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I know that the supposedly the director’s cut made things more accessible and there’s an online support for it which I think connects you to other people’s edits, to the world. There’s like an actual social media style like, like system involved.

So I don’t know if that means you can like see other people’s bridges in your own version, but we’ll figure it out.

[00:45:32] Speaker B: That’s going to be. Yeah, that’ll be interesting. Maybe people have. I assume that with that maybe people have made it easier for you to get across certain, certain ways to get to your destination and everything that’ll be interesting to see.

[00:45:46] Speaker A: It might have made it more backlog friendly for people that don’t have the time to calculate every step, but although that’s supposedly part of the game itself. So take your experience as you see fit. So if you want to follow along with us, we are shooting for approximately a chapter of the game a week. It’s seems to be formatted in chapters, which by our understanding is maybe somewhere from two to five hours. I’m sure there’s some variance in there and we’ll give some adjustments as we go along. And obviously video games tend to have much varying play times. There’s a number of side quests to our understanding in Death Stranding, so I think we’re calculating times based on mainlining the primary story with a bit of divergence into some side quests as you see fit, depending on how much free time you have as well. And we can all convene at the end of each chapter to chat about it.

[00:46:37] Speaker B: We are both starting the game today, so we’ll get back together in one week from today to chat about Chapter one, our first impressions of where we think it’s going to go.

[00:46:45] Speaker A: We will be going into story details though, to an extent. So if you don’t quite finish the chapter in time, give our next episode a listen when you do and jump right into chapter two.

We are getting our Discord set up at the Gaming Backlog Book Club, but it is currently not discoverable publicly. We’re working on figuring that out for the moment. Message us on Instagram at the gamingbacklogbookclub, ask for an invite to our Discord so we can add you in. We’re definitely happy to chat and want to make this a larger conversation.

[00:47:14] Speaker B: If you want to follow along with our playthrough of Death Stranding. Please don’t forget to subscribe to the Gaming Backlog Book Club.

[00:47:20] Speaker A: Stay tuned and see you in a week.