Save Scumming is OK Actually

TINA AMINI: Games in this podcast range from E to M. Hi, everybody. Happy new, year happy 2024. Welcome back to the official Xbox podcast. First one of the year, and I'm joined by my friends, which I'm really excited about. Everyone knows, of course, Jeff Rubenstein who's been.

- I'm a friend. I've moved up to friend.

- Been upgraded.

TINA AMINI: Exactly.

- 10 episodes.

TINA AMINI: Fellow podcast host and friend, and Josh Stein as well from our social team who's here to join us today in initiating the first podcast episode of the year. How exciting.

- Thank you, yeah. It's exciting to ring in the new year with friends. I'm not eight weeks-- 10 episodes in, but you know. I'll get there.

- That's fine. You'll there.

- Number two, you're a repeat guest.

- Thank you.

- Yeah.

- Thank you.

- We'll have you out more often so you can talk about Hell Let Loose a little more which we're going to talk about in a little bit, because there's been a bunch of games that released while we were all on holiday, and then games that are coming out soon that we want to talk about. But let's talk about our holidays first. Because I'm sure we all played lots of video games over the break.

- A lot of video games. But a lot of family time. This year I was telling you earlier, this year-- last year my wife was like, we were too lazy. We did nothing.

- Is that a thing? Can you be too lazy?

- I don't think so. But apparently.

- Not over a holiday break. That doesn't count.

- I was outvoted. So this year she intentionally set up like the 12 Days of Stein, with the 12 Days of Christmas. So we had like something every day to do.

- A human advent calendar. Did you like unwrap like the door every day.

- And just Stein in there every time.

- A lot more like teenagers being angsty, the toddler not wanting to do anything, me being tired. No, it was a lot of fun. We went to this Bavarian village, Leavenworth, during Christmas time. So basically looks like the North Pole. It was gorgeous. We went and saw movies. We went to dinners. We went to karaoke with our in-laws.

- Oh!

- Sang my heart out. Yeah.

- I could go with-- depends on which, my in-laws maybe that could be very interesting.

- I was pretty 50/50 until I hit Tenacious D, and then I had a great time.

- Yes.

- There's always one person in the group who's excellent at singing.

JOSH STEIN: Exactly, that's my wife.

- Puts everyone to shame. There you go. Yeah.

- Never go after her. I always say.

- They have to go last.

- Correct.

- Yeah, that should be the rule.

- But and then just had a great time with the kids. So that's great.

- I love it.

- You went on an adventure, though.

- Yeah, so I went to Kamurocho.

- Wow.

- So I was in Japan.

- I went to karaoke, you went to Japan.

- Where I did not do karaoke, actually, which was maybe a miss on my part. So yeah, as a family we were in Asia for a little while. And as part of that my daughter was like, is it possible for us to go to Tokyo? And we did, I was like, yeah, actually we could fly home from Tokyo. It's closer than you think, actually, believe it or not.

And I was like, well, I've been to Tokyo before, usually for work. But I've never been-- since I got into the Yakuza Series, like in 2020. And so we picked a hotel that was very close to that whole area, which if you look, it's crazy because if we were staying in Shinjuku, which is like the busiest train station in the world.

If you look at a map on Google Maps or Bing Maps or whatever map you use, if you just look up and to the right, you're like, wait a second. That is the in-game map for the came.

- I didn't know it was based on a real area.

- Oh, yeah, it's called Kabukicho. Kabukicho.

- It's technically fictional but very heavily influenced.

- Heavily influenced.

- Very real. Yeah. So the first night we got there, we're walking through, there was like there was a big group of us, and they were like, have you been here before? Like how do you-- I was like, oh, we'll go to the arcade here, and then we can go over here we can get some takoyaki. And they were like, have you been here? And I'm like, no.

- I played way too many games.

- It is reproduced that well. So maybe we'll throw a picture in, there's the arches there, the one where Kiryu always starts every game like on this street. And I mean, it's to the point where so in these Yakuza games in Kamurocho there's like an Italian place called Cafe Alps that you just sometimes you charge up there, you get your health there.

- Rest and relaxation.

- There's really an Italian place there. It's called Miami Gardens. You know Miami, well known for its fine Italian cuisine. But it is in the right place. And the amount of things that were right, the arcade where we did the crane machines. Like I just felt like I was at home. And I did not get in any fights. It seemed rather safe.

- Nothing dramatic.

- Nothing dramatic, granted I kept my eyes on the ground most of the time. But I was like on the lookout for people.

- Just fleeing the random encounters.

- And everything, like, exactly. I was, like, looking, is there a cone if I need to grab a cone or a bite

- Be prepared.

- Beat somebody with it. And fortunately none of those things happened.

- They knew you knew all the cafe spots, and you just like up your HP every time. It wasn't worth it.

- That or I finally confirmed I'm an NPC.

- Oh no. Existential crisis.

- Yeah, I look like I drop common loot.

- Well, you would have had a very different perspective, being actually on the streets than you do in that third person view in the games.

- Yes. Yeah, that's true. It was, I will say, it was really cool. And so if you happen to ever make your way to Tokyo, and you love those games.

- You're in for a thrill.

- Yeah, you just, it's just a feeling. Like I know that, I know that, I've seen that, and it's a testament to the folks at RGG who, and I'll be talking a little bit about their next game here later in the show. But they really reproduce and capture the feel. Which something to be said for that.

- Makes me wonder. I'm guessing the studio isn't right around the corner. But it makes me wonder, like, are they like right there, or is that where they maybe just hang out?

- That's a good question. It's a pretty popular-- it's known as the entertainment district.

- Oh, OK.

- So, there was constantly this kind of like Time Square vibe.

- It very much a Time Square vibe.

- Can be very touristy.

- Even after midnight there was, like.

- Clearly never been.

- So many people. Yeah. All right, well, put it on your space.

- I hope you make it.

- Amazing.

- Definitely, definitely worth your while.

- That's a great time.

- Yeah, did play a bunch of games, though.

- Yes.

- So I brought my ROG ally, long flight as you would imagine, and I was like, OK, I'm going to a couple games I've been sitting on for a while. Thirsty Suitors, which was excellent. I played through that one. Didn't realize it took place in the Pacific Northwest, so that was kind of cool. Cocoon, though. Cocoon is one of the games of the year, and I think it won a game award. It might have won Best Indie. So this is a puzzle game. Had you played it?

- Only like an hour.

- OK, well then you were 1/4 the way through the game. Because it really is only about four hours. It is phenomenal.

- I love the platforming element. How it kind of like changed the degrees of like what plane you were playing on.

- You only, yeah, you only use one button, which is the A button, and all you mechanically do really is pick up these different spheres. But these different-- there's like four spheres in the game, but they each confer a different ability. But if you place the sphere on like this plinth, you can dive into it, and there's a separate world.

And so it sounds a little bit complicated. The reality is it starts off really simple, but then it teaches you a new thing. And at every puzzle I was constantly, like, I'm not going to be able to figure this out. The only thing that could possibly work would be if I did, oh wait, that worked.

- That's it.

- And I would always felt like.

- Portal feeling where it clicks, and you feel a genius, but really it was the game designers.

- It's a sign, I think you nailed it. It's like perfect game design, because you feel like it's pushing you right to the edge, but never to the point where I'm like, OK, I have to go to IGN, or go to YouTube and look this up. And so fantastic game, four hours, got lots of achievements, and so and it's in Game Pass. So played Cocoon.

- No excuses.

- None whatsoever.

- Me.

- No.

- I need to play it.

- You can beat it in a weekend.

- Which I love. I love having that kind of variety. I'm playing through Baldur's Gate Three which is the diametric opposite in terms of time spent.

- Not a short game.

- Yeah, just a little bit.

- Part time job.

- Yeah, exactly. We were talking to our producer behind the scenes just before the show about how he's about 50 hours, maybe more in and still only on act one. But I love having the variety and options for a tighter, more curated experience. And Cocoon is made by a developer who used to work at Playdead, who made Inside and Limbo, and those kind of like.

- Amazing games.

- Shorts.

- Yeah, these short, concise, kind of tactile experiences, like muted storytelling. Just kind of in the environment. So I need to check that out for sure.

- Very much do. All right, so tell us Baldur's Gate.

- Baldur's Gate Three.

- Where are you at in the game? As generically as possible.

- Who have you romance.

- Spoilers. Yeah, well, we've talked a little bit about this before the show too. Kind of attempted to romance everyone, and then colossally messed up in a few other areas where I locked out. Locked myself out of some other romances. So that was unfortunate. But I'm-- I hate to frame it this way, but I'm kind of stuck with Gale It kind of worked out that way. And only because everyone's so about Halcyon and Asterion and I feel like I haven't gotten down the path that everyone says is like the romance experience. Me and Gale.

- He's got a perfect beard, and you should be happy with what you have.

- You know what? He's very sweet.

- You shouldn't settle. Throw him in, let him die. Move on to a new person.

- Wizards, we can relate, you know? Like.

- We have things in common.

- Exactly, we have things in common.

- Goods.

- Yeah, and all the I mean, the interesting thing is like, all the characters including yourself are in dire straits, like that's not much of a spoiler, right at the top of the game. And then each of your companions has something that they're struggling with. And I like the realness of that. So certainly all of the characters are quite flawed in their own way, and all interesting in their own way.

JOSH STEIN: Bonding through the experience. That's cool.

- Exactly. But my joke to you guys was going to be, well, before the break, I was playing act one of Baldur's Gate 3, and I'm now playing a completely different game, which is I've just finished act two of Baldur's Gate 3. So it's just Baldur's Gate 3 for me all the way. I'm about 50 hours in, I'm just approaching the actual gates of Baldur's Gate.

- I was going to say.

- I didn't even know that was a thing.

- Yeah, it actually exists.

- It's actually a real thing in the game?

- A real thing, yeah. And it's developing in a really interesting way. We were all just kind of chatting about the different experiences that you can get, and all three of us at one moment were saying like, wait, I didn't know that could even happen. How did you manage that? And oh, I didn't realize that could happen.

- Like that person could die, or that person didn't have to die?

- Or there was a person entirely that you could have met, that leads to this whole other chapter. Or if you do these things out of this sequence, or in this sequence, and I love that, because it's not just the game that's the experience. It's the friends you made along the way, digitally. And also when you bond.

- True modern. Like choose your own adventure.

- Yeah, that's great.

- Yeah, exactly.

- How do you played a bunch of CRPGs as they're referred to? before?

- I'm a huge RPG fan, and also like long term BioWare player. So more so-- like not quite in this kind of category, but it's just, it's very easy to pick up on. And the storytelling is so incredible. And it really clicks with you, too, just the different kind of elements of the gameplay that you can really leverage.

Especially with Baldur's Gate 3, like historically with RPGs, I don't really use a ton of buffs and scrolls for that kind of strategy in battles. I'm like potions and my spells, like those are kind of my right and my left hands. But Baulder's Gate 3 has encouraged me to get a little bit more.

- I was going to say, what are you playing? What's your character.

- I am a sorcerer.

- OK.

- I'm an elf sorcerer.

- OK. So you are drinking potions, throwing fireballs.

- Yes.

- But you're also reading scrolls.

- Well, yeah. So the scrolls are kind of-- because they're scrolls and there's potions, so like potions which often overlap in a lot of ways. So there's like scrolls of invisibility versus potions of invisibility. So you have your options in that sense. But potions, I mean, mostly like not that you have this option in Baldur's Gate 3, but mana replenishing and health replenishing, your standard issue potions. But the more like buff centric, perk centric stuff I've never really dabbled with too much.

But man, the combos that you can get to. And I'm high enough level now where I've got this wall of fire, and I love just like hitting a level four spell wall of fire, and trapping all of my enemies in one place, and then like laying down some other kind of glyph that they step on, in another section where there's some other enemies, and they explode themselves, essentially.

And it's a lot of interesting compounding that's going on. But we were also talking about what's your ideal party, because this is another part of the Baldur's Gate 3 experience. And I just don't have choices. I don't have options, because I either did not meet or messed up the side quest sequences to have them join my party, or maybe got some people killed.

- I got people just sitting in camp, and they're like, when are you going to call them. I'm like.

- What's that like?

- Be a little more polite.

- Next time say please and maybe.

- Yeah, there's certain characters that really are kind of gruff. And I'm like, you can be gruff here back at camp, because I'm moving on with the fun people.

- Yeah. But it switches up the dialogue sometimes. It's interesting.

- Yeah, we're just a nice group of people who like to bludgeon goblins.

- So who's your ideal party then? Not the gruff people, I assume.

- I'm in early act two, and I am a paladin, which I didn't realize kind of like locks you into a bit of a moral code, where it's like, so occasionally.

- Good.

- Like sort of a lawfully good person. So a lot of times you're obligated to, you can't look the other way. It's like, oh, this group is keeping these people hostage. I am obligated to free them. So I'm almost a little too good for my own good. But if not, you actually get-- if you do something that is off base, you're actually visited by a very angry something that's like, I'll see you tonight, buddy. You know? And then I'm like, OK, reload, reload.

- Like a higher power that comes down, a mom, and was like, we got to talk.

- Yeah, you're way off track here, buddy. So yeah, elfin. I've got kind of a pointy ears. So I'm embracing all of that. But so I'm with Karlach, who is.

- Fire lady, right?

- Fire lady. And she's the muscle and humorous Australian accent of the group. Shadowheart, who's the healer. And slowly I think I'm breaking the facade. Like we get it, you're a little Goth.

- Isn't she a little more emo?

- Yes, but she's coming out. I don't want to label people. But she's softening I think a little bit.

- I'm translating the social that I see about these characters.

- And then they all come in with their preconceived notions about right and wrong.

- And problems and issues.

- Exactly.

- Then over time I'm angry, and then some people.

- Like the cultural difference.

- Gale, who you're really taking for granted, is just like nice from the get go.

- I know.

- He's crying at home right now.

- Yeah, so I've got Gale, and I switched off with Wyll, who's another- Wyll, who's another pretty well-adjusted person considering the things that happen to him. So I'm still pretty early. I think there's lots of other characters that I'll be able to experience. But I am not-- I had never really played a CRPG or I had bounced off of them, and you're right. It clicks with you, and then it's like, I could play this game forever.

- Absolutely.

- It feels that way.

- But on the topic of saves coming, because you mentioned like you've got to reload save sometimes, I would just like to put out there that in some situations with some games, save scumming is totally OK. It's totally reasonable because I--

- Your journey.

- Yeah, well maybe for dialogue choices, if you really want to go down the path of, like, I'm role playing like these are the decisions I would have made. Let's just stick with them. OK, you don't have to reload in that instance, maybe you're cheating a little bit if you do. But everybody play how you want.

But for Baldur's Gate 3 I might be wandering around, and pretending to be one of the whatever camp I'm infiltrating at that point, and relying on my dialogue and my charisma and my persuasion rolls, and accidentally hit A in the wrong moment, and pick something up, and I've stolen things. And now they're attacking me. And that's totally OK.

- Yeah.

- Exactly. Yeah, or I'll start a battle knowing that I've got probably three more encounters in an area where you can't fast travel to your camp for a long rest. So inevitably I want the first few to go well enough to where I don't need to use any of my health potions, and I will reload on those moments too, if I feel like I've ended a battle with low health.

- No judgment for save--

- Yeah.

- Yes, and.

- Yes and.

- There's no judgment from me.

- Yeah, there's certain situations where I pick up the wrong thing, or I didn't really understand the rules of engagement. And I'm like, oh, that's how this works. OK, I will try this again, because I'm really bad. Where I think there's a line for me personally, and again, maybe I'm manifesting my inner paladin, I don't reload for bad rolls. Like if I roll a one and sometimes I'm just like, all right, that was the dice. I'm going to let the dice roll.

- The endgame feature lets you reroll though. If you have enough inspiration.

- I don't reload, because you can actually save. Like literally when you're on the dice menu.

- Yes, you can.

- Yes, I do love that save. Roll the dice, hate it, go back, load. Roll the dice again.

- You can save in the middle of a cutscene. Like you can save whenever, which is incredible. Yeah.

- So I thought this was just like maybe if you go down the right path, you cue the cutscene and you're like, oh, shit I need to go look down the left path.

- Yeah, oh, for sure. But you could reroll every-- and win every dice roll in the game if you really.

- OK.

- That's a bit much for me.

- Yeah, well there's also some rolls, not to get so, so deep into it, but there's some rolls where it's like.

- Baldur's Gate podcast.

- The official Baldur's Gate Xbox podcast studio. Sorry.

- Indeed, no, it was a good setup. Yeah, like there's some rolls where you got to hit 30, and I'm just like, OK, if I'm not some kind of expert in let's say it's persuasion and I've got my character specked out for that, I'm not even going to try. So it's not worth it. But occasionally it's a sorcerer moment, and I should be able to hit my character class, and I don't. And then I will use the in-game feature to reroll. But that's my--

- But you have to earn those.

- You do. Yes, you spend credits on them, essentially.

- Yeah. So that's fair.

- That's fair.

- It's all fair, I guess. It's just how much what you would tell somebody else that you save them on a roll.

- Yeah, it's true. But hey, there are scenarios where it makes sense. It's totally appropriate.

- So I want to ask you because your role, so to speak, in real life involves the developer direct, which was announced this week. And I want to talk about that, but let's make sure we come back to, because I want to come back and talk about Like a Dragon, because there were some news there. And I got to visit Sega last month.

- Bunch of game news.

- But the news of the week is the developer direct, and you're the executive producer of this upcoming show. So like.

- Tell us all the secrets.

- I know, honestly I'm just like brimming and so excited for everyone to be able to see this on January 18 at 12 PM Pacific time. Please tune in. But yes, myself and Aaron Greenberg are co-eps on the show, and it's developer-- it's interesting because we have a lot of shows. Like we do like the June showcase, you see us at games.com, and Tokyo Game Show. Like we've got a slightly different approach for-- yeah, we've got a slightly different approach for some of these shows.

And Developer Direct is pretty new. We launched it last year, and it's meant to just be a very authentic, deep from inside the studios, literally filmed within the studios, presented by the developers themselves, just nerding out about their own games. And I personally love working on the show, because I get to travel out to the studios and meet the developers that are working on our games.

- That's pretty cool.

- And just hearing from them individually, and I come from a content background. So of course I'm going to be like, oh, maybe we can rephrase this, or do we move this sentence around for flow purposes. But ultimately it's a lot of just asking them like, well, what is cool about this feature? And how did you get there?

- And they've been living and breathing this for years, building and talking about these stories, these characters, these whatnots.

- And there's some really cute stories in there that I can't wait for people to hear. It's all very informative. But there's a couple, like there's just people's personalities coming out. And there's a couple of moments where I have watched the show so many times, because that's how production works. You're just watching the same segments over and over, and making sure everything's very polished.

So I've watched this thing so many times, and I will laugh every single time at one thing in particular. See if you can guess it, folks at home. OK, and then when we come back, I'll make sure to break that one out and mention it.

But if you haven't heard, Developer Direct next week, as of the time of watching this podcast, and we go deep with Indiana Jones from Machine Games, which I think is really exciting. Yeah.

- I'm going to marathon it this weekend, just to get excited.

- Oh, that's a good move, especially because it's been very rainy here. I love like rainy day.

- I love a good rainy movie. Yeah.

- Absolutely. And that's a good one to do. So Indiana Jones, finally going to get a reveal of what the game is, with 10 minutes of gameplay, which is just incredible. So that's going to be very exciting. We also chat with Obsidian developer. Obsidian developers over at Irvine. They're going to talk a little bit more about Avowed.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very popular on social. A lot of people are really excited to hear and see more about it.

TINA AMINI: Yeah there's some real like Pillars of Eternity fans out there, which is very cool. And it's a classic kind of Obsidian experience. Just like deep storytelling, gameplay that intersects with it, the same things that we were talking about with Baldur's Gate in terms of you're getting to kind of see people's different takes on things. Like it's that kind of experience. An Obsidian experience, essentially.

Oxide working ARA History Untold. Like I'm not even much of a strategy player myself, but wow, like I it's one of my favorite parts of the shows. Like I can't even say that because every part in its own way is my favorite, but I was just so delightfully surprised talking-- for someone who's not personally like proactively going out there seeking out these kinds of games, how enthralled I was just hearing what they have to say.

JOSH STEIN: Build these worlds, basically.

TINA AMINI: And what they think because they come from Civilization V background and expertise, so they've had a lot of time to think about the grand strategy genre, and how do you-- what features do they want to innovate on? So there's a lot of information in there about little things that they tweaked and made their own, so that it feels more living and breathing. But also more functional for the player. Give you some different options of how to play. So all that stuff's going to be.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I got to play it at games.com which is already half a year ago. Because we had it out for media, and I think they do have an insider program where they've got certain flights that people have been playing for quite some time. So they're listening to fans, but it is really cool to see the areas as people that have tremendous experience in those 4x games, like what are the things that they think are important.

JOSH STEIN: Build.

- Exactly, it's like if we could make the game we wanted to make, what would it be like and that's this game. So I'm very curious to see what they'll be showing next week.

- Yeah, me too. No.

- I love you playing coy, like can't wait. Seen it 50 times.

- Yeah, seen it 50 times. It's excellent. But it's so cool because they had such a great showing at games.com too at our booth, and I just I heard from a lot of my former press friends, current friends, former press co-workers. Anyway, that they just everybody like really loved the experience that they had there too, which was really fun. Because again like strategy genre can be like, you either like strategy games or you don't. But this felt so like much more accessible to people, from what I've heard, what I've personally seen.

And then of course, we also have Hellblade II, Senua's Saga diving back in with Senua's journey over at Ninja Theory and it's just such interesting shift in mood when you think about it, from all the different-- I love the diversity of the games that we work on. And with Hellblade it's this really well crafted. I mean, we've seen recently at the Game Awards also like it's just heavy. It's heavy in a really intriguing way.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Amazingly well at the Game Awards. I love the performance they did, the flame, the fire.

TINA AMINI: Incredible.

JOSH STEIN: Like there's throat yelling, it was really-- it was the first time I'd seen that. That was really cool. But then of course, the trailer, the footage that they showed, the gameplay, everyone loved. Is phenomenal to see in person. And so I can't wait to hear more.

- I know. That was the really, really incredible thing about being in person. Is just the high lung performance in particular. And you can tell like, wow, what a good fit for the game as well.

- Perfect.

- It's just the tone, the vibe, and there's a lot more that they'll explain as well about the craft of bringing Hellblade together. And so that's the moments where you get to nerd out with developers and just hear about why they made decisions that they do, like what their philosophy is as a team. So that's Developer Direct in a nutshell, both next week's, but also philosophically as a show.

Like that's just the opportunity for people to see trailers, a really well-made trailer with a great track against it. It's so memorable. I think about Madworld against Gears, those things that really stick with you. But then having this opportunity for developers to just talk about their trade themselves, and get a peek behind the curtain. So to speak.

- And a lot of this is coming off, if I'm wrong, the feedback from the first one. Because you were part of that. Weren't you part of helping put together the first one? Last year, wildly successful.

- Loved it.

- I'd say on behalf of the community, they absolutely loved it and were over the moon. And I'm sure you guys looked at that, read that feedback, and then when you went into production for this one, that kind of fed into it.

- Yeah, there was this theory that as people who enjoy games, like we like hearing about them and how they're made from those people. So it was a bit of a test of that theory. And yeah, Developer Direct last year I think went well. It was really fun to put that together. Yeah, selfishly, it's being able to work on this show. I'm glad. So we'll have to smashed that one now.

- So and then after that.

- There's a whole other stream after that, too. So our friends at ZeniMax are debuting the kind of global reveal event. So it's the Elder Scrolls Online 2024 global reveal event.

- The next chapter?

- And it'll be the next chapter. So this is they're-- this is kind of historic thing for them. Like they put together this stream to talk about the next big chapter in the Elder Scrolls online. So there's tons of here's this big update with all these features, like new parts of the storyline, diving into what the zone is going to be. What that experience is. So it's just going to be a big news day for us, which is really exciting. On that note, nothing from our friends at Activision, Blizzard, or King. Just as an FYI.

- More to come later this year.

- Yeah, of course. We've got we've got a whole-- it's only January. We've got a whole year.

- Transparency and hype.

- Yes, exactly. Yes, measured in both senses. But yeah, it's going to be a big day, a fun day. I'm looking forward to it, and hearing what everybody has to say, and what you guys think of all the segments too, and take notes every time.

- We don't have a show next week, because we normally are on Thursdays, and Developer Direct is on Thursday. And I think kind of--

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- To pause the show. Otherwise we'll just be sitting there going, like that. That thing.

TINA AMINI: Yeah, exactly. So we will talk about, though, the games that have come out last week. We'll touch on games that came out last week, games that are coming out next week, Game Pass games, just because we want to make sure you all get your fill of the news as well. So there's a bunch of games that came out last week that we can touch on. One is Stuffed. It's-- have you stop me if you guys have heard of these games, because I looked at all the games to make sure I got the highlights for everyone.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't know this game.

TINA AMINI: Stuffed is, it's a procedurally generated first person shooter. So you're basically playing as a little Teddy bear in a little girl's dream. It's funny because I was reading like. It's an FPS, yes.

- But it's an Xbox.

- Well, OK.

- So it is an FPS. You're not kidding.

- It literally is an FPS.

- You don't want to upset the snuggle bear.

- Oh my gosh.

- So I mean his weapons are like.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: This is like Cabbage Patch versus your like stuffies?

TINA AMINI: Kind of. So because you have little gnomes and little like evil looking rubber duckies come at you, and then you as the Teddy bear-- so it's round. It's wave after wave. Hence procedurally generated, and you're able to unlock like as you're killing wave after wave, you're getting money and unlocking like new weapons. There's an RPG equivalent of not an actual RPG, so your main weapon that you have a little twig, that you can hit things with, that's like your melee weapon.

- Nice.

- And then you have a Cola can that powers what looks a stapler gun with rubber bands, and then you can upgrade that to Comic book card.

- We have footage of this playing right.

- It's pretty ridiculous. Kind of like Toy Story esque, because there's these toys come alive. But you're using all these household weapon items, modified items. I've heard a lot of people online say, because people have been playing it. I've heard a lot of people say it's like Call of Duty Zombies but for kids. And I don't think you could describe it any better.

- Baby's first FPS.

- Baby's first FPS.

- Yes, so it's got that balance of very cute, very Toy Story, and then the evil rubber ducky eyes come at you, and you're like.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Great concept.

- It's a serious FPS actually. So that's Stuffed. And then we have the theme of the week seems to be a lot of roguelites and metroidvanias. So this is one it's called Trinity Fusion, it's set in a multiverse kind of sci-fi setting. So like the multiverse is kind of crumbling apart, and you have to unify them to make sure that the world does not end in on itself.

It's side scrolling action game. You've got like the part of that multiverse story is you've got two versions of yourself. And if you combine the two versions, you have more of those abilities, so it's like playing a lot with that sci-fi multiverse setting as part of the story, but also the gameplay.

- There was a game that Ubisoft had like maybe on the late 360 era, or early Xbox One that sounds really familiar.

- With the two and it was like blue and red? Like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

- A really cool game.

- Now I got to look it up. Yeah, remind me of the name because my memory is terrible. But it's interesting. It looks really fluid. There's some really cool action moments in some of the footage that I've seen. You can freeze enemies and use them as platforms.

JOSH STEIN: Oh, that's cool.

TINA AMINI: Which is cool. Yeah, and there's a bunch of traps. It just looks it all looks very--

- How humiliating is a bad guy to come charging in and then he's just you just look frozen. You're now a stepping ladder you are now.

- Yeah, exactly. You are now just the item that I use to get to the next platform and forget about you completely. And then final release from last week. I think it was, is Rail Break and the best way I can describe this, I've heard people describe it as like Oh it looks very House of the Dead. And I say this in a positive way, because I love horror, and I love all horror. But it's very like that cheesy B level horror kind of style. You know what I'm talking about, super campy, like the dialogue.

- I always called that '80s. Like that '80s movie vibe.

- Was the Ubisoft game.

- Outland!

- Outland! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

- So hopefully we have all long since put video in there. Outland was a great game. You should definitely try it out.

- Producers like, I got you. Yeah, OK, fine. It was made by Housemarque. Oh, OK. Cool. Yeah, it came out in 2011.

- Well, we also have some new Game Pass games as well. So I imagine.

- Today.

- Indeed. So a big, well, also from Ubisoft, like do you have 100 hours. Because if so, I have the game for you and that is Assassin's Creed Valhalla. We've really much very much enjoyed a shorter Assassin's Creed experience here in the past year with Mirage, but this really the apex of like their big full RPG where you take over A4 you're literally taking over all of England, and parts of Norway.

JOSH STEIN: Liberator and everybody.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. Even going into the mythical Valhalla.

- I like the mythical side of it a lot. Kind of plays with some of the gods and the mythology.

- Yeah, quite a bit.

- There's nothing more satisfying than rolling up in your Viking boat with dual axes, jumping out, everyone's screaming, you're charging, you're pillaging.

- Battering the doors down.

- Yeah, kicking down the doors. And then when you pillage too, you like have checkpoints. Some of the bands I love, that you can take the beach, then once you take the beachhead, then you take over the civilian huts, and then you take over the church. So it sounds bad when I say it out loud, but in the video game context, it's a lot-- it's a hell a lot of fun.

- So very cool that, so that's waiting for you if you haven't gotten there yet. Also Figment, which is a game-- it's really it's got it's an action adventure game, but it's really musical related.

TINA AMINI: Step on some piano keys. Very surreal world.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah. So probably worth checking out there. On the sports side, Super Mega Baseball 4 is out today. Very much the if MLB The Show is the Sim, and it gets every little detail right, Super Mega Baseball 4 is like it's about having fun. Now it has real players, and there is actually a fair amount of that.

Yeah, like I grew up with RBI baseball, like that was my jam. And obviously games got much, much more serious and realistic since that point. But there's still that fun arcade experience, and well, anyway. That's here for you in Game Pass as well. And making a return We Happy Few taking place in a 1960s drug fueled Austin Powers went very wrong.

JOSH STEIN: And very dark.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very dark.

TINA AMINI: And World War II went very wrong and very dark.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes, from our friends at Compulsion Studios up in Quebec. And so that was in Game Pass for a long time, and then these things happen. It's back. That's the important thing. So if you didn't get a chance to play it or beat it, this is your chance to do it and then looking ahead to next week.

- One more. One more Game Pass game. Very important because Stein's been playing this game.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

JOSH STEIN: OK, so if you ever have watched Band of the Brothers, or if you're Roman Empire is watching World War II documentaries, or if you've ever enjoyed a Call of Duty, any kind of FPS like World War II game, I promise you Hell Let Loose is waiting for you and your squad.

Two advices, one, bring a group of friends. And if you don't have friends, open your mics up, and have fun. This is a Friday night, 9:00 PM, let your role playing flag fly in this one. It is so much fun because I-- so I've got like 100 hours in this between PC and just playing the hell out of this, because this no pun intended.

This has become a regular rotation for me and my friends. And literally, Friday, 9:00, my kids are going to bed, my wife's like reading on her Kindle in the other room, quietly. And then she just hears me screaming, medic! Medic! I'm like down, because you like go all comms, and it'll show you how close a medic is, and it'll be like 40 meters, 30 meters, 20 meters. And I'm like, mama! I don't want to go! I want to go home!

- Don't go into the light.

- And then he'll come up and he'll be like, I got you son. And he'll stick you with his like little adrenaline. They'll wrap you up, and he'll be like, some swearing, get on the front line. Get back up, bleep, bleep, bleep, and then you're like OK. And then like this barrage-- it's a theater of war. This barrage will come in, it's called a streak barrage, and this thing will like boom, boom, and I swear to God, your gums rattle when this thing goes off.

- How loud do you have your headphones up?

- So loud. I have the brand new A50s. I have them so loud, as this thing's going off, and then this commander's yelling at you, if you're like the-- because you have different roles. You can be a rifleman, you can be a medic. You can be an anti-tank.

So like their commander will call down and be like, we got an enemy Panzer on the point. I need an anti-tank. So I'll go in, I'll respond, I'll go anti-tank, I'll come in with this bazooka, it's only got like two shots. And he's like mowing people down. He's got a machine gunner. This whole squad spawns, they get wiped out as like the machine gunners raining fire, and your captain scream-- which my friend like Ethan screaming at me.

- Oh, I thought this was like an NPC.

- No, no, these are people.

- You're really role playing.

- Yeah. You just got to let yourself go. I promise it is so much fun. Be embarrassed, have some fun with it. Hell Let Loose of some of the most fun I've ever had, and just this is what it makes me excited to play games like Baldur's Gate, or have a D&D campaign.

Because it helps me get into character where I'm just like screaming on the front lines, and some guy's buried his head in this foxhole, and I'm like, get your head out of the dirt, and push, push! I'm like die and respawn, die and respawn! And we're just screaming at each other, and.

- You got to be streaming this, man.

- It is-- so I should. It's so much fun. Corinne, my wife, gets so mad at me, because I will scream at the top of my lungs as we're like, I'm a barrage is coming in! And I'm like running, and I'm like getting to the other side of the fence, and then Ethan will be blown up next to me. His arm will hit me in my face, and I'll be like no! And just screaming. Very animated.

- It sounds OK.

- I think it's the purest way to experience Hell Let Loose is just to let yourself go and have so much fun with it. Otherwise it's fun, it's tactical, you pick a role, and you could just pick a rifle man. You don't have to get way into it. I would say start with a rifleman, and then see where the adventure goes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It's on Game Pass, you should try it out.

JOSH STEIN: It's a lot of fun. Sorry to get really loud. Sorry about the sound guy.

- I think you woke up the kids upstairs.

- It's so much fun. And just yeah, I guarantee either turn your mic on so that way you can just have that all group chat, or just bring a couple of friends with you, and have one hell of a good time.

- Yeah, my understanding is this very high on the realism route.

- Oh yeah, oh yeah.

- 50v, 50.

- You get plinked in the head, you're done. Like it's not like, oh, let me get down and put a rub a patch on and get back into it. But you respawn pretty quickly. There's Garrison, there's capture points. As long as the team's kind of working together somewhat cohesively, you can have a pretty good show. I mean sometimes people just go rogue and everyone wants to be a sniper. It's like, yeah, that's not really.

- That's not bad.

- You can't really win a game. The thing I would also say is it's like real theaters of war. So it's pretty like there's a D-day one where you rush a beach, and you defend a beach. There's a Stalingrad one where I think it's Stalingrad, the average like lifespan of a soldier was 24 hours. And it feels that way when you play.

- Enemy at the Gates.

- Yeah.

- That was any of those movies, it's basically that. But you got to let yourself have that experience.

- And we've been getting a lot of requests for Hell Let Loose on Game Pass.

- So we've been seeing a lot of people really excited today about it. Start to talk about it. I think the Hell Let Loose developers were talking about players are up. Experiencing it. So that's what I love, not to pander, but I do love the thing about Game Pass, is literally it'll just breathe life into a game that has a great experience. You just got to introduce it to more people so they can just jump in and play with it. And so I'm really excited it came over to Game Pass.

- Very cool.

- Amazing.

- So it's not just the games that are directly into Game Pass this week, there's actually as part of the benefits that you get as a Game Pass member something called free play days. You may be aware of this. And that's a game just available from like Thursday night through Sunday night, something like that. Something for you to try out. And usually those games are also on sale. This week is a really big one it is EA Sports week. And so almost all of their EA Sports games are part of free play days. I'm just going to read them out.

EA Sports FC 24. That's the soccer one. EA Sports F1 23, EA Sports PGA Tour, and NHL as well. There's quite a few of them, and then I want to say that EA Sports FC 24, you don't even have to be a Game Pass member, and you'll be able to play that one.

Basically if you have an Xbox, you'll be able to just download it and play it. And I mean we're right in the middle of the European soccer season so there's so much MLS is getting ramped back up pretty soon here. So good time to jump back in there.

Something else going on this week that's completely unrelated. Is it CES this week, and a lot of stuff comes out of CES. It used to be a big gaming show like way back in the day, but there's still some gaming stuff, usually around PC gaming. There were a couple of really fun announcements this week.

One is, and I love my handheld gaming devices. I'm a big fan of Ally owner. Yeah I've gotten to spend a lot of time with the Lenovo Legion go something that's caught my eye is the MSI claw, which seems to have taken-- it just seems each one that comes out looks at the one that came out before and goes, well, what if we tweak this? What if we tweak this? So I've definitely got my mind on-- it's living up here rent free especially because it has more battery, more milliamps of battery power inside it than any of the existing systems.

JOSH STEIN: I think also the screen was a little different to.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Screen, I think the screen is very similar to the ROG Ally. It's a 1080p. I want to say goes up to 120hz. I think it's relatively similar. And it's 16 gigs of RAM, so I think relatively similar. It does have an Intel chip. So the first one of these most of them have had AMD chips. So obviously people will do all the benchmarking and all of that stuff.

JOSH STEIN: Pick your poison, pick your preference.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. But looking at the battery life, it's like that could be really good. So I'll be keeping an eye on that one and maybe we even get to try one out. The other thing that was really interesting. Hyperkin, if that name is familiar to you. They brought back the Duke several years ago, back in 2018 give or take. Well, they're going back to the well, and the Xbox OG Xbox controller S, which is what replaced the Duke in that original OG.

JOSH STEIN: First diet. This is the one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly, shrunk down. Moved some of the buttons around a little bit. Well, they just announced they're going to be remaking that. Date, pricing, all those stuff still yet to be announced, but they had some pictures. I saw it on Polygon. Look really cool. So.

- I think enough people love the OG Duke launching that clearly they had a good vibe there from the community to tap into like, well, let's go deeper into this.

- Exactly. So we'll try that out.

- It looks great. Yeah. But Yeah that was my first Xbox controller. So it has a spot my heart here for me.

- Well, on that note, we have a couple other games to talk about as well. Because we're actually not going to have a podcast next week, as Jeff mentioned earlier. So why not talk about the games that are coming out next week? There's two on our list that we've been looking at. Prince of Persia, the Lost Crown, that was announced in June of last year. I have to remember that 2023 was last year. It's interesting. It's Prince of Persia as a 2D platformer, essentially. You're not playing as the Prince, you're playing as Sargon, who's this immortal.

You're actually trying to go and save-- go rescue the Prince of Persia, who's been stuck between time and dimensions because of course time and dimensions are always a feature. Another kind of metroidvania ish like experience. But they have a really interesting new feature, which I think is very cool, that all future games should probably look at adopting.

As you're going back and forth on the map, which is that classic experience, and you're running into roadblocks because you don't have the abilities or what might-- or whatever it might be that allows you to progress in that one particular area, you can take a screenshot of it and attach it onto the map, which for someone who can be so forgetful as I've progressed into a whole other area, and now I'm like in this mentality, and this level, with these enemies, just being able to go back and get that visual reference is so, so, so helpful. Or I imagine it will be. I haven't played it yet.

A bunch of people out there on the press side have played it. It's been getting really great early impressions too. So seems like one to keep an eye on, especially when you consider the developers of Rayman Legends are working on this.

- A good feature. How many times have you like taken your phone out and taken a picture of the screen.

- Yes, absolutely, done that when it's a combination lock code.

- Oh, yeah.

- And I was like, OK, hold on I gotta doing that.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- This a fox.

- Or a wolf, the code stashes. Like is it triangle left, triangle right?

- Yep, pictures.

- That was absolutely the last game I was taking tons of pictures of. Yep, it's my camera roll. We all did that.

- Great insight.

- But now you got it in the game. How nice. How convenient.

- That's great.

- Yeah. Cult of the Lamb.

TINA AMINI: Another one.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Also has a pretty cool update. Sins of the Flesh, which is a great-- I love that.

JOSH STEIN: Sounds right on right on it's brand.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Right on brand for what it is. You get to love some of your followers, your loyal followers. They also worked on like exp grind for it, so like when you had to do things like clean up people's barf and poop and kind of the area, you now get a little bit more exp for it.

JOSH STEIN: You should get all the exp for that.

TINA AMINI: Yes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, yeah clearly, yeah. But you also get they've got a mating tent in it now, which also, so you get an egg. And you can also just crack the egg and have a yolk. You don't have to let it grow up and do a follower, so it really leans in on like.

- Well, you need the followers.

- Well, if you have a lot of followers, but you need the eggs, you might want the eggs instead. So they really.

- What a quandary.

- Yeah, really lead you down the path of like dark choice one or dark choice two. But I believe that update going to be free for people.

- All right, all right. So one of the things we always like to do here. Oh, we can talk about real quickly Game Pass, of course, is more games coming out next week.

- Even more games. That's right.

JOSH STEIN: She won't be here.

TINA AMINI: Yeah. There's Resident Evil 2, which if you this is the remake from 2018. It's a must play, absolutely. So this is your chance, if you haven't yet, because it's on Game Pass.

- I'll be checking homework.

- Yeah.

- Make sure you finish it.

TINA AMINI: As well as Those Who Remain. Have either of you guys played Those Who Remain? No? I have not either. But now we now-- exactly now the three of us.

- Now we have homework. All right.

- Yes. But exciting things coming up next week and into the future. And on that note, I think we can talk about just into the future overall, 2024, what we're looking forward to.

- Yeah. So we'd like to-- we're getting into this is Thursday, in some little Friday. I've heard it referred to as such. Thursday nights always, it's effectively you're almost there. You're almost to the weekend, and we like to celebrate Friday with Free Code Friday. And we are always thinking like, well, what's that thing that's really top of mind that we can ask you out in the listening sphere. We all listen in a sphere. Don't look, I'm getting started. I'm just getting--

- We're just waking up. We're still in holiday brain mode.

- Here it is.

- Exactly.

- And just looking forward to 2024. Like 2023 coming off an amazing year for games to play. What are you looking forward to for 2024? And I'll just lead off, while you think a little bit.

TINA AMINI: Why is it a dragon.

- Well, it's 100%. So I was looking and I was listening to Cam Hawkins who was guesting on the Spawn On Me podcast, which is-- you should absolutely listen to the Spawn On Me podcast, because it's really good. Kahlief Adams, fantastic human, and Cam was talking about this is like an amazing year for like turn based RPGs, just that have been announced that are coming this year. And the first one that we'll be playing is Yakuza Like a Dragon, I actually went down to Sega, and I got to play it last month. An amazing reproduction of Hawaii.

Like, I was talking about going to the real life Kamurocho. Like, if you've been to Honolulu, you have been to the area that is featured in an Infinite Wealth. There was the point where I'm like, am I in the Alamo on a mall? And I was like, yeah, no, I am.

This is where I'm at. And it's really cool to this game has so much. I got to play a little bit of Honolulu, which really captures some great feeling of Hawaii, like even the ABC stores are in it. Like that's cool, you know where you oh, I ran out of suntan lotion and booze. Well, guess what there's one place that has both of those things for you. It's an ABC Store. And I need a hat, also got you covered.

But then we played other parts of it. We played-- we went to Dondoko Island, which is a whole like life Sim builder, like within.

TINA AMINI: A tonal shift from the rest of the game. I'm sure.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It was so much fun cleaning up the island, and capturing animals and everything. So little Animal Crossing, or maybe a lot of Animal Crossing in your Yakuza Like a Dragon experience. I got to enjoy that. And then something we haven't seen quite as much of, is going back to Yokohama where a group of folks was with Kiryu checking off his bucket list. So he's dying in this game.

And you realizing as you, like, how little you've done in life besides constantly fighting, you've actually done a lot of. You've boxed a Tiger. You've done a lot of stuff. But so you actually go to a batting cage, and you're like doing all these things that you can do and having a fun time with a group of characters as well.

So this game is going to have so much diversity to it. That's out in about two weeks. We'll be talking a heck of a lot more about it. But in early lead for like what I'm looking forward to in terms of game of the year, but there's just a ton of other RPGs that are coming like out in Chronicle, Hundred Heroes is coming out.

We've got actually just a week after Like a Dragon we're going to get to have Persona Three Reload, I've gotten to play a little bit of, and I'll be able to talk about next week. So just it's going to be an amazing like for RPG fans, yet another great year. So that's what I'm looking forward to. What about you, Stein?

- As you were talking there I had to think about what's coming out. What's discussed. The most immediate one probably on my Horizon. Horizon, and not to cop out but is going to be Hellblade. Like I feel like that's the next one I'm ready to play. I'm ready to experience. I'm ready to see where Senua goes on her journey. And so I really love the first one. I enjoyed it a lot that the combat was kind of fun. And now we got a bit of dabble of that from the Game Awards.

- And I'm with you. Like Hellblade is, of course, very top of mind, obviously so is Avowed. Both are in developer direct coming up soon, but also like games for this year. So we get to actually get our hands on the controllers soon.

- I'm ready.

- I have Like a Dragon, and Avowed and Hellblade on my list, but also Star Wars Outlaws. We debuted the trailer for that in showcase last year. Also Hades 2 is supposed to release this year as well. So I think that's probably on a lot of people's 2024 list, if I had to guess.

- Yeah, that's right up there.

- All, right well we want to know what's on your list, and that is the free code Friday question of the week. So when you see the tweet go up on twitter.com/xboxwire--

- That is TikTok.

- Yeah.

- Yeah we'll see about that.

- You take.

- When you see that go up there, let us know what you're looking forward to here in 2024. We will pick five winners and each of those five winners will win multiple of those EA Sports games, such as EA Sports FC 24, NHL 24. We've got a couple other ones. So you'll get a bevy of codes for those of you who answer this question correctly.

- Awesome. And that's everything we have for the very first episode of the year. Thanks for bearing with us in our cloudy, hazy, holiday foggy brain.

[OVERLAPPING SPEECH]

- Yeah exactly. Hopefully everyone else is on the same track as well, and other than that we will see you not next week, but the following week.

- See you then.