We’ve Been Busy

NARRATOR: Games in this podcast range from E to M.

[XBOX SOUND]

- What is going on, everybody? Welcome back to the Official Xbox Podcast. This is your source for all your Xbox news. If this is your first time watching, you know what to do-- hit the Subscribe button, and the Follow button. Basically, whatever button lets when we put out an episode.

And if this is your first time watching, you joined at a perfect time because we look absolutely ridiculous. It is this very special, very spooky-- although you wouldn't be able to tell by our costumes-- Halloween edition of the Official Xbox Podcast. And so I might as well introduce you to my amazing co-hosts, who are in Halloween spirit.

We look ridiculous. Let's be very clear.

- What are you talking about?

- Some of us more spooky than others.

- Yeah, definitely more spooky-- for those who are not watching, find the YouTube, and get to YouTube to see how ridiculous we look. But we're going to go through, and tell you who we are. Although if you want to guess who we are by what we say, that's great, too. Actually, we're just going to say it.

We're going to go straight to Tina, who is in a very-- I guess you're like the star of the year, if we're being honest.

- Yeah, a little bit.

- Hi, Barbie.

- Yeah, I'm Barbie. Aren't we all Barbie? But truly, when we were coming up with the concepts of dressing up for Halloween because we wanted to have fun on the podcast, you two officially abandoned me because it was supposed to be Barbie and the Kens.

- That's right.

- I'm Belle Époque Ken.

- And I'm Nerd Ken.

- That is true.

- You're '90s Chicago Nerd Ken?

- Yeah, exactly.

- I feel like I'm kind of channeling '70s Barbie. It's really like the pink neon glasses look.

- The heart-shaped glasses?

- Exactly. But that's kind of the point-- everybody's a Barbie, everybody's a Ken.

- Just for a full reference-- we are taping this before Halloween, obviously-- how many-- I feel like Barbie's going to be the most popular.

- Oh, yeah. That's my one regret. Well, first it was guys abandoning me, and then my second regret is the fact that it's probably a very popular costume.

- But it's OK. It's popular because it's cool.

- Because it's good. Yeah.

- There's so many different takes on Barbie.

- Yes.

- That's true.

- So I feel like you could walk out of the studio, and just go into work, and people would be like, hi, Barbie.

- She's just like really appreciating pink today.

- We might not be able to do that.

- We. Might not be able to, but let me head over to Jeff now. Now, Jeff, we didn't know what Jeff was going to be. We talked about what we were going to be, but--

- We talked about Ken.

- We talked about Ken, but we didn't say exactly who we would-- like Tina mentioned, we decided we were going to take liberties. And so Jeff walked in here in regular clothes, and we thought Jeff was not going to be anything. And he was like--

- Really?

- --hold on, let me change. Yeah, I don't know why we thought--

- It's a whole wardrobe change. Yeah.

- If you're watching YouTube., you see it already.

- --in our goofy costumes, we were worried that we'd be the only, one and look ridiculous next to a normal Jeff.

MALIK PRINCE: 100%, but he changed. And Jeff, please tell us who you are.

- The fact that I should even have to tell you-- actually, both of you got it, which is good. So last week, we had Phil on, and we were talking about the clown in Lies of P, and I got home, and then I beat that clown. And then I was inspired, and so I tried to reproduce my Lies of P-- the outfit that my particular P-- I guess P is his name-- was wearing.

Yeah, and I also-- so, as I put this together-- and by the way, the types of things you have to find on Amazon-- this is vampire gear, apparently. So--

- I can see that.

- All right, audio person's going to be mad. I'm messing with my mic. He's yelling at me. I had no idea what he sounds like because he never talks. He's a silent protagonist. He could be like, (IN SOUTHERN ACCOUNT) I'm a puppet, y'all, and then you'd be like, OK--

- That's what I assume from the cartoons.

- That is what would make the most sense.

- And he does specifically say y'all all the time.

- All the time. So he was in better shape, and I think more clean shaven for the game. But that's Hollywood post-production. This is more like everyday P--

- 100%--

- --I feel like.

- --it's more relatable. Now, I don't know if you said it, but did you buy the individual pieces, or did that come together as a--

- This was not a Spirit Halloween line. Maybe next year they will have that. But yes, I had to buy a fluffy shirt. I typed in Amazon, Belle Epoque men's waistcoat. And actually, this was not far off. And then he actually wears gray jeans in this outfit. Couldn't find riding jeans, but anyway.

- I think it works. We could tell. We could tell who you were.

- We're going to get a cease and desist from the good folks who made this game.

- Well, I got to say, the wig also just brings it all together. I feel like maybe--

- This is not a wig. What are you talking about?

- Let his hair out for this episode.

- Oh, I'm so sorry. I am so sorry.

- It's a giant man bun. You just didn't see it from the camera angle.

- Exactly. And then me, as Jeff alluded, to I am--

TINA AMINI: Nerdy Ken.

- --straight out of-- Nerdy Ken, as Tina mentioned-- straight out of Chicago '90s sitcom superstar Jaleel White, who played Steve Urkel. I have the glasses here. They didn't sell the big glasses. If you've seen Family Matters, he wore massive glasses. So I had to get what I could.

I got the suspenders, I got the shirt, and I got the really not actually high enough pants, if we're being honest. There we go.

TINA AMINI: It's good, though. It brought it all together.

- Thank you, thank you. I tried. I've never actually dressed up for Halloween outside of like getting a Spirit Halloween costume, I guess.

TINA AMINI: OK.

- So this is my first time putting it together.

TINA AMINI: This is your first time cosplaying, is what you're saying?

- There you go. Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: You're Urkel on the outside. Are you Urkel on the inside? Say the line.

- What a tee-up. Well, not only am I going to say the line, Jeff, for all of you out there., I'm going to profess the love to the love of my life, Laura Winslow, in a poem that I wrote-- AKA Bing AI wrote last night. So, it's a very short poem, so here it is. Roses are re-- oh, sorry, I got to get voice.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Do the voice, man.

- (DOING URKEL IMPRESSION) This is for the love of my life, Laura Winslow. Roses are red, violets are blue. In Forza's fast lane, I speed towards you. Halo's fierce battles with Covenant crew, yet it's Starfield's stars that remind me of you. With suspenders so tight--

[SNAPPING]

--ow-- my love never flat, Laura my dear, what do you think of that? If my words make you blush where you're sat, giggle and say, (DOING URKEL IMPRESSION) did I do that.

[APPLAUSE]

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Very good.

- Thank you. Thank you.

- Excellent.

- Thank you. I should have just taken credit for it, instead of giving it to Bing AI.

- This is why AI was created.

- For these Halloween costume nights.

- I was literally cooking dinner last night. I was like, I got to write a poem. And I was like, oh, I could just put it in AI. So I said, make a PG poem that's really short that has Halo, Forza, and Starfield references, and end what did I do that. [SNAPS] Two seconds, I got the poem.

- Love it.

- Amazing.

- Boom.

- That was beautiful

- Power of AI.

- And you know what? It was a creative collaboration between you and that AI, so it worked out.

MALIK PRINCE: I appreciate that, Tina. I appreciate that.

- You gave it the right direction.

- Well, we are super excited for Halloween, as you can tell, and we are excited to see what you are going to-- we would love to see what you're going to dress up as for Halloween. And we'll talk a little bit about that later on, but we're going to get to some news because it's been a very busy week.

As we mentioned last week, we had the very big episode by Phil. He's really the reason why we got so many views. He just happened to be on the episode.

- It's just a random episode.

- It was very coincidental.

- He was walking by the studio.

- It wasn't his face in the thumbnail that drew everyone in, but that was huge news last week. But even since then, we've gone a lot of places. Most specifically, Jeff, you've been roaming around Vegas, TwitchCon, Power Your Dreams. Let's start with TwitchCon. How was that?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, so this was the first time TwitchCon was in Las Vegas. I've been in San Francisco, in San Jose, a few of them in San Diego. I'm getting old. So this was-- Vegas, we were like, wow, how do you stand out in Vegas?

And what we like to do is, some of our favorite people come to TwitchCon, and so we like to put together a little something where they all come together. But we had an amazing opportunity this year where some of the folks that work at Xbox marketing told us, hey, we're bringing back Power Your Dreams, and we're doing it in the biggest way possible-- like, literally, the biggest way possible.

So I don't know if you all have seen, like on TikTok or Instagram, The Sphere in Vegas. It is--

- Or Jeff's Twitter/X, whatever.

MALIK PRINCE: He's famous now.

- All I did was stand on the shoulders of someone else. And they were like, we want to take over The Sphere. And I was like, we have the perfect timing. So what we ended up doing is bringing all the folks that we typically meet up with onto this ferris wheel that-- calling it a ferris wheel is a way understatement. It's like if the London Eye was in Las Vegas. I mean, they have a Statue of Liberty, and they've got an Eiffel Tower. Why wouldn't they have a London Eye?

It's called the High Roller. So we brought folks on there, and we timed it out so right as they hit the top, The Sphere turned into an Xbox orb. And--

TINA AMINI: Had you teased any of this with the group in advance, or was it a complete surprise?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It was a surprise. We just let them know that we were doing something fun, and that-- I mean, who wouldn't want to go up in a giant ferris wheel?

- That's already a cool--

- Actually, a couple of people.

- Yeah, I'm not I'm not a fan of heights.

- But when you're up there, it goes slow enough that you just completely forgot where you're at. If you don't think about it, heights aren't bad. So and it wasn't like--

- If you don't look below.

- If you don't do that. And we were just looking out at The Sphere, and it changed over. And everyone found something really interesting, one element, because Forza's in there, and Hellblade is in there, Starfield is in there, Johnny Silverhand is on there, and there's these 3D controllers. And everyone found-- it was, I think, the first time The Sphere had like those 3D elements. I don't know if you've ever seen those Japanese billboards where there's a cat that's--

MALIK PRINCE: It fools me every time.

TINA AMINI: Mm-hmm.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I still don't know how they do it, but it was-- what I love-- so I just stood as steadily as I could, and recorded it, and put it on Twitter. And later, I did the typical thing of I thought of the perfect headline later, and I didn't--

MALIK PRINCE: It happens every time.

- It's the typical thing.

- What was the perfect headline?

- So I put on there something like, "The X Sphere is here," because X Sphere, Xbox. And then and then later on-- oh my god, I completely forgot.

[LAUGHTER]

- It was so good you can't capture it in a bottle.

- I'll look it up. I put it on Instagram.

- The Spherience.

- Yeah. That's a good one.

- That's pretty good.

- All right, now I've oversold it, and I have to go look it up. But I was literally in the car, and I was like, wait, I should have posted this instead. And so I was like, well, oh, Xbox Spheries X.

- Oh.

- That's--

- Thank you.

- I get why you were a little bit--

- Genius is fleeting. Even within my own brain, it comes, and it goes. And, of course, it was too late. I should have said it the first time. But anyway--

- You're a celebrity now. The tweet blew up. Everyone's been posting it. And so what are you what are you planning to do with your newfound fame?

- I linked to my SoundCloud, where you can--

- Yeah.

[CHUCKLING]

- Not the podcast?

- I should have done that. But I just thought it--

- --too big for us soon.

- It was its own reward, I think.

- Indeed.

- I love that. And the Vegas Sphere has been something that people have flocked to. And I think when the sphere first was-- completed construction, and they turned it on for the first time, almost the entire community was like, Xbox needs to be on that thing. And believe me, everyone is watching here at Xbox, and they're thinking about new ways to showcase what we're going to talk about here in just a second, which is Power Your Dreams.

And this is one of the best ways, lined up perfectly, as Jeff mentioned, with TwitchCon, and all the creators and the community being out there in Vegas. And so we did it, and it was a spectacle. It was cool. I'm jealous. I wasn't there. But it was--

- Me too.

- --awesome to see. But speaking of Power Your Dreams, this is kind of really a continuation, though, of the Series X and S launch. Can you talk a little bit about the philosophy that we've been thinking about with Power Your Dreams?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN; Yeah, I mean it's something that appeals, I think, to both like new fans, and fans that have been around for quite a while. As you recall back in the Game Awards-- it was 2019. Sorry, four years ago, it's where we first saw Power Your Dreams. And it really did, I think, capture the imagination.

And when the Xbox Series X and S were launched, we had Hollywood power behind that. So it's really about how it's not about the box itself, it's what it means to people, and what the games, and the things that you experience-- it turns dreams into reality, and the things that you can play, which is really cool. And I think putting it on The Sphere, which is something that came out of, I think, people's dreams-- and also you can see it from half the hotel rooms in Vegas. So it literally is in your dreams there. I thought it was a perfect start to that.

- A perfect-- and we're just getting started with that. So go ahead and Power Your Dreams. Power up your console, Power Your Dreams, and play all the games that are coming out that we've been talking about. Our backlogs are out of this--

- Mighty.

- --world. Are mighty, yeah.

- They're nightmares, actually.

- They are.

- To go with the metaphor.

- But we actually-- even more news-- and again, we're taping this right before the show went live. But this week, a broadcast came out, which is the Xbox Partner Preview led by one Tina Amini. Round of applause, round of applause.

- Thank you.

- Congrats on the show. We got a chance to check it out. But if you could just tell us a little bit about the thinking behind building this show?

- Absolutely. I mean, for one thing, just even thinking about Power Your Dreams, and the types of things that the whole Xbox team is doing right now, we're just having fun communicating, and being with the audience, and doing fun things for you, truly. So I wanted to do another show. My team is responsible for the Showcase, for Showcase Extended, for Gamescom, TGS, for Minecraft Live, which we just had recently, and talked about on the show, too.

So we do a lot of these mainstay yearly shows, but we wanted to introduce something a little different that I've heard the community talking about since before I even joined Xbox. And that's something I like to do because, for those of you that don't know, I come from a media background. So my life has pretty much been like paying attention to the community, and thinking about the audience, and delivering entertainment, and information that you both want and need.

So when I joined Xbox, I was really thinking about what people were talking about when it came to our shows, and it's something that I saw people talking about, where it was like, just give us the games. Like, that's what it always has been. We just want to see gameplay. We just want to see new reveals, and updates on games that we know are coming, and see new trailers for them.

So my team came up with the Xbox Partner Preview, that we just launched. For us, it's tomorrow, but for you all, it would have been yesterday. Hopefully, you really enjoyed it. I'm going to be glued to the screen. I really like constructive feedback and criticism, so feel free to bring it on because I'm definitely going to be paying attention, and trying to make this show increasingly something that the audience wants to see.

But essentially what it is, it's a really short-form show. So Showcase is usually a little bit over an hour, perhaps. Gamescom, we've done for like six-hours long content. It's just we take very different approaches.

And for this one, we wanted something just short and sweet that was essentially back-to-back trailers, and gameplay trailers, and a couple reveals. There were actually two reveals in the show, as well. And we came at it from the group of the team that put the show together.

We're all people with different tastes in games, and I really liked that we had this structure around the Xbox Partner Preview, where we were thinking about what games do we think should be in this lineup. And it came from a diverse staff with diverse gaming tastes, and hopefully that's reflective of the audience to where, hopefully, there's something for everybody that you see in the show. And we tried to really think about what is the community excited about, what do they want to know about, and bring that to you all, and as sweet and succinct a way as possible.

- There had to be something for everyone here because you had stuff that was absolutely horrifying. You had stuff that was ridiculous. You had things that were very gameplay-forward, and very action-heavy. And I just think that it would be impossible for someone to watch that, what, 28, 29 minutes, and not find at least something where you're like, oh, yeah, I want to play that.

- And that was exactly the goal when we were thinking about it. Just there are a lot of games on there that we have such a huge community behind them. I mean, Ark Survival Ascended, people have been going wild.

So, again, for us, the show hasn't aired yet. So I'm only going off of what I've seen to people's reactions to what we've teased is going to be in the show, and Ark was one of them. And people were like, oh my god, gameplay, finally! So it feels so great to be able to bring that to the community and the audience, and then tease things like Spirit of the North 2. That has a really dedicated community out there, that they've been wondering, when is the sequel going to come out?

So it was really cool to be able to debut the little cute fox, and have that balance of, yeah, there's really creepy creatures in Alan Wake, and then you have a cute little fox moving around. So what isn't there to like?

MALIK PRINCE: Just a little bit.

- We were watching through-- I was showing my kid something. I think she likes the idea of horror, and I was showing her Alan Wake. And that Alan Wake sequence that is after the trailer, where it's that just pure gameplay-- which it was horrifying-- of that-- I don't even know how to describe that head stand--

TINA AMINI: Like, mirrored enemy? Yeah.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah, watch it if you haven't. I've been thinking about it entirely too much. It makes me want to play the game more, but also, being horrified. But then going back-- and I was like, it might have been a little bit too much for her. And then we went and watched the DonDoko Island--

TINA AMINI: Yeah. Such a different pace, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: It couldn't have been more cheerful and happy. I'd like to think that I influenced you with--

TINA AMINI: Always, of course.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: --talking about--

TINA AMINI: Anything Like a Dragon, I'm like, where's Jeff?

MALIK PRINCE: Yeah.

- Yes.

MALIK PRINCE: Where's Jeff?

- And leading off with that was just like, ah, perfect. And that is, of the things that you did, it was like, well, what is DonDoko Island is you worked with a lot of folks on my team-- Joe Skrebels and Mike Nelson, who put together a blog post for just about every game in there-- and thank you for linking out to it.

So anything that you saw, and you're wondering more about it, you can go over to Xbox Wire. Probably would have seen those QR codes. You can scan that, or just go to news.xbox.com. And it's like OK, DonDoko Island is actually-- it's something that appears in chapter 6 of that game. And I'm like, OK, if you've played these games before, it's probably a third of the way, half of the way, somewhere through the game. And it just seemed like there was so much to do there.

And anyway, highlighting it-- that part of the game-- I think, really, we've seen so much, and yet there's so much more to see.

TINA AMINI: Absolutely.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: And I think you can probably say that about a lot of the games that were shown.

- And that's why I was so excited to do the like Wire complimentary like breakout content. And Joe Skrebels and I have worked together for a long time. We both came from IGN. We both were really excited about the concept of-- we know that some of the audience members like to read, and some of the audience members only want to watch trailers. There's something for everyone, also in how you consume content, too.

So we partnered really, really closely, and I was really excited to kind of make-- because a lot of different studios and publishers do these short-form trailer, back-to-back thing. That's not the most groundbreaking. It's just something I knew that people enjoyed. So we tried to make it our own, and that was one thing that we thought about. I would love to hear how people think about the QR codes.

We also even think about things like timing on the screen. Like, how long do we put it up there? We don't want it to overstay its welcome, but we want people to be able to read it, and scan it, and understand it, too. So feel free to let me know what you thought of all of that, and hopefully you got a lot of insights.

And there were so many different articles, too. It wasn't even just necessarily additional information that doesn't quite fit into a trailer. Occasionally, it's the team themselves, like with Still Wakes the Deep, talking about what their influences were, and kind of having a reading list of materials. So I just-- I love that we took different approaches with it.

- One thing about that game that I thought was so funny is-- because that game is not funny. It looks horrifying. But there was some significantly awesome Scottish cursing in that game that just made me-- wait, I'm like, did he just say-- I don't know--

TINA AMINI: I do love that. His reactions in the trailer are just so genuine where you're like, oh my god, why am I still pushing forward?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes.

TINA AMINI: Like, just somebody save me, please. So I really like that, those kind of reactions, and some of the other little details in the trailer, too, where you're going through water at a point of time, and he probably feels gross, and you can see him-- you can hear him kind of groaning through it. And there's gloves popping up, and you're like, oh, whose glove was that, and what happened there?

So I love the little subtle mental storytelling, too. I mean, it's a horror game. So I do love that there's a couple horror games because it's spooky season, and I love Halloween, and I love horror. So I was really glad to squeeze in a few of those in there, but it's a great different kind of horror experience, where it's not jump scares. It's that creeping-- I mean, there are, even in the trailer, but there's that kind of creeping environmental tension, essentially.

- That audio design is just crazy.

- And audio is so important. But I think a lot of what you said at the top is so important. This is not all just making a show just to make it. It's part of a bigger-- you all really thought about what-- like, hey, we have our tentpole shows. But in between that, community wants to know what games are coming out.

And it just helps our creator partners, who are making these games, for them to-- help them get more exposure. And I thought that the-- I am going to look into my future, my crystal ball that Steve Urkel doesn't actually have. I know that people are going to love it because there's just so much variety, as we've been talking about, in the types of games that were in it.

- What jumped out for you, Malik?

- Oh, let me make sure I get the title right because-- and the reason why I jumped out to me is because I'm a big fan of Battlefield. And Battlefield is great, by the way. But one of the best things about Battlefield has always been the destructible environment in that multiplayer environment. And so I've been waiting for a game to bring that back. And so when I saw The Finals--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I knew you were going to say that, The Finals.

MALIK PRINCE: It looks so-- [CLEARING THROAT] excuse me. I'm getting choked up even talking.

[LAUGHTER]

But no, the finals, it looks so great. It was, again, that destructible environment in the multiplayer environment that really changes the game as you play it, where you're just like, I could take this person out, or I could take this entire floor out, and bring them down from under that. And I just--

TINA AMINI: And so many tools by which to do so. Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: And I saw at the end, I was like, oh, we're going to have to wait a little bit longer. But, you know what? It's fine.

- But open beta today.

- The open beta is out? Oh, the open beta is out?

- Not our today, but for you all are watching and listening--

- Important today.

- Yeah, the real today. I don't know. Now we're in a time existential crisis.

- I'm excited for that. But then I was also surprised to see Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater. Like, come on.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's my favorite of the MGS's, and I'm looking forward to playing that again.

MALIK PRINCE: That was the first--

TINA AMINI: --incredible.

MALIK PRINCE: Was that the first time anyone seen an engine-- huge.

TINA AMINI: Yes. So that's something that people have been really anticipating. And so you got to see what it looks like in Unreal Engine 5. Unreal Engine five had a real moment in the show.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Yeah, for sure.

TINA AMINI: Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: There's just so many things. And then even, yes, Like a Dragon. I actually have not beaten Yakuza, Like a Dragon, which is before they change it Like A Dragon. The funny part is, I actually have it in my quick resume. It's been in my quick resume for about eight months, and it hasn't left it. Best feature on the console, let me be very clear.

- Hands down.

- So I have until January to beat Yakuza, Like A Dragon. But when I saw-- we talked about how much-- and we'll talk about it in a second, Cities Skylines-- how much I love like building out towns, and stuff like that. And that trailer really showcased how you're going to be able to build things out. And I love Ichiban Kasuga so much. It's going to be so good.

- And I love that the narrator, too, is like, oh, here's this delightful island, and then sometimes you run into these people, and you need to beat some sense into them, just like in a really-- yeah, was like in a really delightful narrator voice. That makes me crack up.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I think it was mascots running. I mean, it seems like it's like just Yakuza's zaniness to its n-th degree, and--

- And for those who haven't played Yakuza-- and again, Jeff is the one who put me on-- I did not think this game was for me, and then it went in Game Pass-- Yakuza, Like A Dragon, and I played it. And it is so wacky, and there are surprising gameplay mechanics at every single turn. It's like you're not playing the same game throughout. And so I cannot wait, and I just need to be Like A Dragon-- Yakuza, Like A Dragon. I feel like I have to clarify because now it's called Like A Dragon.

- Yes--

- Anyway--

- --we get you.

- --amazing show, Tina--

- Thank you.

- --to you and the team out there.

- I have to call out one more game, too. First off, I'm a massive Remedy fan, in general a massive Alan Wake fan, so I've been really anticipating the sequel.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: That's this week, by the way.

TINA AMINI: I know. It's wild. So we had the launch trailer because, yeah, this comes out this week.

MALIK PRINCE: Tomorrow for you all.

TINA AMINI: Yes, for all of everyone watching and listening. And we have that little surprise like, oh, you thought we were done, but actually there's more gameplay moment. But what I loved in the launch trailer specifically was the music. I actually wrote to them while we were reviewing the asset for the show, and I wrote to them, like, what's that song? Because SoundCloud isn't pulling up.

Oh, actually, that's part of our completely bespoke custom soundtrack. They worked with a local Helsinki band to create music that actually expands on the lore, which I think is really cool. It's not even just for the kind of vibe of things. It's genuinely tied into the lore of the game.

And speaking of poetry, Sam Lake, who heads up Remedy, and has worked on Alan Wake, obviously, since its inception as creative director, he wrote poetry that they then collaborated on with that Helsinki band to build into the music, too. So I think that's an incredible.

- He's everywhere in that game.

- He's everywhere. I mean, he's literally everywhere-- like, he, himself-- his motion capture.

- He, himself, a character that is scanned that's based on him--

- Exactly.

- --you're going to see a lot of Lake.

- Yeah, you're going to see, and feel, and experience a lot of Sam Lake.

- He has the most iconic face. I mean, go back to Max Payne. And, oh, man, like I love-- I'm excited for Alan Wake. And again, it is that spooky season. So this weekend is going to be the best weekend ever. It's just going to be the best weekend. It's Halloween weekend.

So like Tina mentioned, let us know what you thought of the show. We're excited to hear. And again, congrats.

- Thank you so much.

- We're excited to hear what you thought, and get your feedback. But let's move a little bit into-- I guess we can move into new releases-- or I guess that's one thing that we could do because--

- Fortunately, we've hit a lot of them.

- Yeah, I know. It's like, do we go with that, or what we're playing? Let's do new releases because I'm excited for what's coming out. We talked about Alan Wake. We talked about the beta for the game coming out. I keep forgetting the finals. There you go.

Also, Cities Skylines 2 came out. And I am a big fan, as I've mentioned. I have not played it yet, though. I have not played it. It's on PC Game Pass, by the way-- out now. So give it a shot.

0 I have played it.

- Oh, have you?

- Yes. I played a little bit at Gamescom, and I loaded it up over the weekend. I got a hold of the review copy. And the thing that I love about it is that it gets you off the ground with a great tutorial. So there's a lot of details, if you played the first one. And I played the first one in 20-- I don't, 2015 or 2016, and I was like, oh, I'm going to be bad at this. I don't remember how to do these types of things.

Every time I play a city builder game, going back to the original Sim City, I overbuild, and then I'm broke, and then I'm in debt. And then I end up-- it just falls apart. And in this, it takes you step-by-step from everything from building roads, which is like the most important thing to start, to zoning, to power hookups, and water, and all the other things that you need. And at the end of it, you graduate to being a village, or something like that.

And then they give you some more money, and it unlocks a few other things like roundabouts, and other cool stuff. But at the end of that part, I felt like, OK, I'm off to a good start. I have not a beautiful city, per se, but at least I have something. And that allows me to-- now I can build from here.

And so you don't have to run the tutorial once you build-- in fact, it even says, do you to keep building this one, or now that what you're doing, do you want to start over again? And I've kept building on from there. So I really think that that part is great.

What I will say is I'm running a 2080. That that's my graphics card. I bought it like three or four years ago, and this makes me want to get a 40-something because you can zoom in on all the det-- it ran fine on medium settings. I want to see what this looks like on ultra. You ain't running it on ultra on a 2080. So time to beef up my rig.

- Very demanding game, but I love it, and I'm excited to tackle the traffic, make sure-- I'm going to build only roundabouts.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Only roundabout.

- Only roundabouts. But I'm excited to make sure everyone--

TINA AMINI: I hate your city already.

- I know. Nobody in America knows how to use it.

- Well, you know what you're doing. It saves you time.

- That's true. And there's one on the way here, by the way, which is the only regular roundabout that I drive to this studio, and I'm like, all right. When I get ready in the morning, I'm like, you're going to encounter--

- We mentally prepare for the roundabout.

- Wait for them to go, and then you can go. Yeah, so it's a whole thing. But I'm excited to jump into Cities Skylines again on PC Game Pass, out right now-- and Steam, as well.

Metal Gear Solid, we talked about it a little bit ago. The Master Collection Volume 1 released on the 24th, which is when we're filming it, today. And so if you need a little bit extra Metal Gear Solid in your life, now's the time. And Ghostrunner 2, and UFC 5. I'm just going to list them out, and we can talk about it. But yeah, anything you all are excited to play from that list outside, of course, Cities Skylines, which we've talked about?

- Of course. I mean, I think it's so great when games are put back into collections, or remade, remastered. I have a lot of gaps in my gaming knowledge, as much as I've tried to keep up with the pace of the community, mostly because of how I was brought up-- a very no-screen kind of a household. So I had a lot of instances where people grew up with certain games that I only got access to for a few hours-- at my cousin's house, stuff like that.

So I'm excited about the Master Collection for Metal Gear because I think it's-- kind of puts everything in one space, and gives you an opportunity to catch up, if there's one or any of them you've missed out on. So I love that kind of always consistently happens in the industry.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I don't know if the first MGS has ever been on Xbox previously, either. So I think this is the first time. And I never finished the first MGS.

TINA AMINI: There you go. See? There's always something.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Terrible gamer. But, yes.

MALIK PRINCE: I used to watch my brother play Sons of Liberty on his PS2. And I was a big Splinter Cell fan, of course. And then watching the difference between those two stealth games, it was always so exciting. And I always said, who would win, Sam Fisher or Snake? But again, watching those games, and getting a chance to go back and play it, that's exciting.

I will say I'm excited for UFC 5. Now, I don't know if Urkel strikes you as an MMA kind of guy, but I have always wanted to do MMA in real life. And so the idea of just-- I don't know what it is I think. I just like if I need to get in a fight, I'll be able to do it.

TINA AMINI: You have fewer injuries when it's within a video game. A little safer, I would say.

MALIK PRINCE: Slightly fewer. Less trips to the hospital. But no, so I'm excited to jump in. That is actually early access released today, as I mentioned, and releasing for everyone tomorrow, if you're watching this on the release date of the podcast. I'm going to jump in, get in the octagon, you know, throw a few punches, maybe a few kicks--

TINA AMINI: There you go.

- --as they do.

TINA AMINI: And Ghostrunner looks incredible, too.

MALIK PRINCE: Yes.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Good review on-- 9 on IGN, I want to say.

TINA AMINI: Oh, there you go. Yeah, it's got a really particular style. Anytime you saw a trailer kind of pop up-- anytime you watch these shows, if you're like me, you like to try to guess what the game is before it gets keyed anywhere. And Ghostrunner in general just has that very specific kind of cyberpunk-y, frenetic kind of style that I love.

- One other thing I just want to call out real quickly for Halloween is that Dead Space-- if you're a Game Pass Ultimate member, EA Play is part of that. And so Dead Space is in-- I don't know if they still call it The Vault, but the Dead Space remakes, which people really loved at the beginning of this year, I want to say-- it's been a long year, and a short year at the same time.

TINA AMINI: Yeah, right?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: So a perfect horrifying-- I know they have that the director is sort of the AI in the game that's like, hmm, you've been down this hallway three or four times, and it was quiet. We're going to make something pop out this time, and scare the crap out of you. So also another perfect horror game to play.

- Perfect horror.

- Yeah, I need to I need to get into a horror games because I never played them, because I always am afraid that I'm not going to be afraid, if that makes any sense. And so maybe I'll just turn off the lights, throw on some Dead Space, and have a good old time. But there's also Mineko's-- I think I'm saying that right-- Mineko's--

TINA AMINI: Mineko's Night Market.

MALIK PRINCE: --Night Market, and Frog Detective, The Entire Mystery for our newest wave of Game Pass titles. And so, again, a game for everyone.

- And we are here to destroy your backlog-- not in the positive way, in the negative way.

- Exactly, exactly. And then, again, we've been talking-- this is a Halloween-themed episode. We have a Halloween Game Pass games roundup.

- I wrote part of this, I want to say.

- You did. I read it, and your name was on it. And you are a great writer, Jeff.

- Well, Jeff, which one did you write about?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I wrote Ghostwire Tokyo, which is a game I enjoyed over the summer. It's not so much like jumpscare horror, it's more psychological, and--

TINA AMINI: Kind of like folklore, not--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Yeah.

TINA AMINI: Like, horror is so expansive.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Exactly. It's almost a scenic tour of supernatural Japanese lore, and there's a lot of stuff in there that I knew nothing about. I've heard the term yokai before, I think, because of like Yo-kai Watch, or something. But I was like, oh, no, these are the different things. And some spirits are friendly, and some very much not.

And there's spirits in trees, and there's all kinds of stuff. And I just really enjoyed exploring Shibuya. And there's definitely some freaky parts of that game, but not overly scary, if you like. And look, if you get nervous, you can go into one of the combinis, effectively a Lawson or a 7-Eleven, and there's a cat that will wait on you there that's just like sitting there, floating. And anyway, I enjoyed that.

- It's a big year for cats in games, I feel like.

- Stray. Yeah, for sure.

- Very much so. But I do love that-- I love horror very much so, and I think it's incredible that it's so expansive. There's literally death metal horror, there's comedy horror, body horror, psychological horror. Like, just a lot of range in movies and TV shows, and it's the same in games.

If you're in this kind of mood, here's this kind of game. The games run the gamut, and there's so many more. I'll let you--

MALIK PRINCE: Well, yeah, we have Dead by Daylight, a game that I know a lot of people have been playing. It's like one of the most popular games that people have been playing. Scorn, which is one that I wanted to jump in-- and I'm not sure why I wanted to jump in.

TINA AMINI: It's good. It's clever.

MALIK PRINCE: It's well it's also very like-- I don't even know how to describe it.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Disturbing?

TINA AMINI: Yes.

MALIK PRINCE: Disturbing.

TINA AMINI: It's a body horror, a little bit--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I can't deal with that.

TINA AMINI: --with puzzles. Yeah, but it's very calm and quiet in a lot of ways, too, for a lot of the game.

MALIK PRINCE: I like I've only seen videos of people playing it, and have been disturbed by it in an interesting, intriguing way. And so maybe I'll give that a shot. We have Soma, the Dead Space Trilogy, Prey and the Amnesia Collection. And so if you're looking for a good scare this weekend, we've got you covered with the games you should try out that are in Game Pass now.

TINA AMINI: I have to shout out Incryption because it's an indie game. I don't know if everyone's played it, but it was one of my games of the year, because I can't pick just one. I forget when it came out, but that year, it was one of my games of the year.

But it's a card game, effectively, but there's a story around it. And when you fail, you see some of the narration come through, and then some of the secret, hidden puzzles. So I do recommend a game help resource, if you do play that one, just so you can unlock all of its pleasantries.

But it's quite clever. The game mechanics itself are really fun to play through, and just the horror setting, and the character that's talking to you, and all these other things. Just explore it yourself, but I highly recommend it-- Inscryption. It's not spelled the way you think it's spelled.

- There's a Y in there somewhere.

- There's a Y in there. Yeah.

- There you go. Well, another Tina recommendation. Going to have to check that out. And then we have upcoming releases. We'll go through these real quick.

As we talked about, Alan Wake II releases tomorrow, Friday, October 27. Jusant is-- I think I'm saying that right.

TINA AMINI: Jusant.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Jusant. There you go. Thank you.

MALIK PRINCE: Come on. I'm a French puppy here, man. You're going to call it Jusant?

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: But made by Dontnod, who made one of my favorite series of all time. Interesting departure for them-- that's Life is Strange. I played all of the Life is Strange games. If you want a good cry this weekend, if you're maybe not into horror, play Life is Strange games. But this is their new game, and it is a traversal game.

So it's coming out next week. So give it a shot, and check it out. I think we'll be able to talk about it next week. RoboCop Rogue City and The Talos Principle 2 all releasing within the next week. And so, tons of games coming out for you to try out.

- RoboCop was also in the Xbox Partner Preview this week. Hopefully you enjoyed the surprise appearance from ED-209 from-- if you're a RoboCop fan, you'll know-- (IN DEEPER VOICE) you have five seconds to comply-- you will know that reference from the trailer.

- Yes.

- The funny thing is, when I was watching it in the show, I was like, when did the first RoboCop come out? And I said--

- It was like '87.

- 1987, yeah. I was like, I was not even born. So I was like, maybe this is my way of experiencing RoboCop.

TINA AMINI: Exactly.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: I saw that movie way too young, and it definitely ruined me.

- The '80s were a wild time.

- Yeah. Yeah, R in the '80s is a lot different than rated R now, I'll say that much.

- Well, I have to check that out, as well, again, next week on the 2nd of November. All right, so let's talk about-- we've been talking about what we're looking forward to this entire episode, and tons of games that we're going to be playing for Halloween. But Tina, I'm going to start with you, what we've been playing.

TINA AMINI: So I've talked about Assassin's Creed Mirage before, but I did officially finally finish it. And I finished--

MALIK PRINCE: Congrats.

- Thank you so much. It feels great, actually, especially because I get to-- I have a list of movies, games, TV shows from across the year because I consume so much stuff. So I have to keep a list of it, and I like to move things. I have a what I've already consumed, and then what I'm in the process of consuming, and then what's to come next. So I love moving from the middle slot up to the done slot.

- You are a checklist type of person?

- I'm definitely a checklist type of person. Yeah--

- Learning about you. Good.

- --keep organized. Yeah, so it felt great. And it's interesting, they save a lot of the good stuff of the story until the end.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: OK.

TINA AMINI: I mean, there's definitely a lot that you're exploring, just within the bounds of like Baghdad in general. But you're understanding other things about, maybe-- I'm trying not to spoil it--

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Please don't.

TINA AMINI: --about wider elements of the assassins' culture, I'll say.

MALIK PRINCE: Fair enough.

TINA AMINI: I feel like that keeps it pretty safe. But it really, at the end, is this sudden overwhelming amount of information as you're like-- which feels good, because you're kind of coming to the consensus of the story.

- He tweeted that, too, and it was good. So you're saying the right things here.

- Perfect. I'm glad.

- Question for you, because you inspired me to go back-- I think I'm getting there. I'm maybe 12 hours in, and so maybe-- it feels a corner of the map. Like, maybe 75% of the way through the game. Is there any specific collectibles that have-- that really messed with your mind, or unlock really cool stuff?

I remember AC2 did. Some of them did, where it peels the curtain back a little bit further, if you get them all-- like the shards--

- I'm sure, but I didn't get them all. So I almost like 100%'d this game in the sense of, I have three contracts left over, which are the side missions that you can take to kind of take breathers also, and challenge yourself in very specific ways. But yeah, everything else that you can kind of-- through these other NPCs in the world, I got near it, but-- and so, you unlock weapons with one.

And so that's obviously got a real, tangible, in-real-time kind of impact. But I don't know. I'm sure there are, though.

- So if the game was good and you didn't collect everything, OK, that tells me that's good because there's books you can collect, and there's--

- There's all the discovery elements, which just tell you more about--

- Which is actually super interesting. I love the history a lot. They've woven it directly into the game.

- Which I really liked, yeah. Yeah, it made it really organic. I'm glad you're playing it. How are you-- what do you think about it so far?

- Oh, I'm very into it. It reminded me, I think, of what I really enjoyed about those earlier Assassin's Creed games. They've definitely smoothed out the traversal. And so there were parts in, I want to say, AC 3 or AC 4 that-- where you had to chase a blowing piece of paper. And inevitably, I would get so close, and just like, I didn't want to go there, and I fell off.

And there was a couple of those. And there was a mission where I had to do that, and I was like, oh, here we go. And I was like, oh, you, Basim went exactly where I wanted it to go. And I caught the thing, and it was great. So I think just a real refinement of all of these elements.

And so I'm really enjoying it. I love that. I feel like I've done pretty good with the battle system, but I'm still doing my best to never be discovered.

- And they do encourage that.

- Yes.

- They absolutely say-- and it is so interesting because Assassin's Creed has such a long history, and they've gone back and forth between, let's take a different action approach to this one, and fine-tune things in this way, and then look at what the reception is. And I think there is so much love for the original, like, stealth-stealth, true stealth game experiences. So they tell you, even in the tip screens-- like for the loading screens, for instance-- the key is he's fast, and he's great, and he can wield a sword, but he can't really take on more than a couple of enemies at once.

And there are points at which-- because I started unlocking all my tools, and I have most of the skill tree unlocked. So just, I have almost fully-powered Basim, and it gets better with the combat.

- That's good.

- It gets more like you have more of those options. Although I always prefer stealth personally, it's nice sometimes when you get caught to just like, you know what? I'm just going to kill you all. What's going to happen now? Yeah.

- None of your business.

- You wanted to mess with Basim? Here's what happens.

[LAUGHTER]

- Something that worked out really well for me-- and I don't know if this is a pro tip, because I haven't tried it again, but I ended up getting discovered by a big-- one of the armored ones that you cannot attack from the front. And I panicked, and I ended up shooting a blow dart into its knee. And it just went-- and it just fell over. And I came over, and just went--

- Yep, just slowly. Yep. Shouldn't have--

- So maybe that's a pro tip.

- Yeah, there you go.

- Use the blow dart.

- Yeah, while in a panicking rage, just put them to sleep, and kill them slowly afterwards.

- Yeah, that's-- when you say it out loud, it doesn't sound great.

[LAUGHTER]

- It does not.

- Sinister.

- It's the horror episode. This is Halloween vibes happening.

- Exactly. Exactly, it's all about the theme. Well, Jeff, in addition to Assassin's Creed-- and you mentioned Cities Skylines-- what else are you playing?

- Yeah. So--

- Because that's not enough.

- That's true. I'm trying to chuck out everything. I know what you feel about the backlog. Yeah, I played Endless Dungeon, which is a spiritual successor/sequel to Dungeon of the Endless, which came out early in the Xbox One generation. That was more of a strategy game, I would say, with roguelike elements, back when roguelike was more of a new thing.

The way this works, it's a twin-stick shooter where you are exploring these areas with a co-op partner, if you choose to, or an AI, and basically, you're trying to find your way through this maze. And every time you open up a door, you don't know what's going to happen. You get these resources that allow you to make yourself stronger, to build these turrets.

Ultimately, the goal is to find the exit door, and then you have to-- and then it becomes an escort mission where you have to-- this spider robot with a crystal on top makes its way to the door because that's the only thing that can open-- it's a living key, if you will, but it's very fragile. So as you're exploring, there's a risk-reward of like, well, the more I explore, I might find better weapons. I'm going to get more currency to make myself stronger, or set up these turrets.

So at that point, when these waves of enemies come in, it ends up becoming a tower defense, except that you're directly controlling a character. So you want to keep your crystal alive. You also want to keep yourself alive. If either of those go, then that's it. You have to reset.

It's a roguelike, so you do keep the things that you earned, and you try again, and it'll be random. So I guess a combination twin-stick shooter and RTS, but with interesting story elements that were not there in the original game because there's a hub world with characters that you're meeting, and really good music, actually.

So it was very surprising. So, yeah, it's called Endless Dungeon, and it is out now.

- There we go. There we go. And for me, I actually-- late last night, I threw on a Halo for the first time. And honestly, Halo 5 is my most-played game of all time, by the way. And it's been a few months since I played Halo Infinite, and the team is doing so-- the work that the team is doing on providing new content to the community, it is so impressive, and the game feels amazing.

I almost felt bad that I started-- I hit my mic-- I almost felt bad that I started playing the game again because I'm not going to be able to stop. Once I start playing Halo, it's a wrap. So that's kind of been the focus of mine. I've been playing the 24/7 playlist, checking out the new maps. And so if you're playing Halo Infinite, watch out because--

- He's training.

- --I'm training.

- The consensus is Halo is back-- Halo Infinite is back. And one of just the best quality-of-life things that I'm looking forward to, I'm going to be going all-in when King of the Hill Firefight comes out. I don't think they've announced a time, but when it does, we'll be talking about it here because it's really fun.

And it's that the Battle Pass from-- that I never finished from season 3 is waiting for me. And I really wish every game did this. So I'll be able to go back and complete that Battle Pass. There's obviously limited-time ones, as well, that come and go. But, man, they're hitting a lot of the right notes right now.

- Man, it is so much fun. So if you haven't played Halo in a while, give it a shot. I did, and now I'm not going to be able to stop, unfortunately. Or maybe fortunately, honestly. Unfortunately for my sleep schedule.

- -- wind down after work. True.

- It's actually the worst way.

[LAUGHTER]

I play multiplayer games before I sleep. It is the worst decision I make every single night. My heart rate is-- I check my watch, and I'm like over 100 every time.

- You can calm down with Alan Wake, maybe.

- There you go. Yeah, it was definitely coming down off of the high-energy multiplayer--

- That's right.

- --in a way.

- In some ways. And so we want to hear what you are playing, so let us know. But speaking of what you are talking about, we actually ask you a question at the end of every show. And it's really cool-- been really cool going back, and looking at the comments, and seeing what everyone's been talking about. And last week, specifically-- shout out to all our Spotify listeners who are highlighting today-- we asked you what your favorite ABK game is.

And again, this is one of those things we're coming off last week. We wanted to hear what you're excited about, what you've been playing, what you're excited about from ABK. And I'm going to read a few of them, starting with Ben Evans, not related to Bob Evans-- or maybe related to Bob Evans, which is a restaurant in the mid-Atlantic, which maybe none of you know.

But Ben says, has to be COD for me, having grown up with it. However, the great thing about Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is that when Diablo IV drops into the service, I have the chance to play this completely risk-free, and I can't wait. And yeah, I mean, I think we're all excited for whenever that may happen. I haven't actually played Diablo IV. I've never played a Diablo before-- ever. I used to watch my--

- Should this be like our podcast game?

- Just like movies, it's always shocking to people what I haven't played, or I haven't watched. And so, yeah, I think we should just do a segment where--

- Everybody's got blind spots. No judgment on blind spots.

- Exactly. But we should do a segment where I play games for the first time.

- For the first time? Yeah. We can talk you through it.

- As someone who's played like all the Diablo games, going back to the '90s, please play a Diablo game. They're super relaxing, and really fun. And, obviously, if you play-- you can play them on harder levels, and really get sweaty. But they're also games where you can put on a podcast. And story-- actually, I really enjoyed the story in IV, but there's times where you're just grinding your way through, or traversing, or whatever. And yeah, I just would put on a podcast, and play through. So please do that.

- Yeah.

- And it's great to play with friends, too. Very low impact, in that sense.

- Yes.

- So I can expect you all to play with me?

- Yeah.

- I'll play,

- 100%. I would love to show--

- Teach me the ropes of Diablo IV?

- There you go.

- And it resets every season-- well, you can make a new character every season, and it encourages you to try out the different builds, and other things like that.

- All right, all right. Well, I'm going to have to try out Diablo. And again, as Ben said, COD is one of those that a lot of you mentioned because I think it has a history. Everyone loves playing COD We see folks like Bubba from our Spotify comments, as well as-- I'm going to try these names-- apologies if I don't get these right-- mrsyullian14, Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Diablo III were their call outs.

- Or Misses Yullian.

- That's how I'm reading it.

- There you go. There you go.

- Let us know if we got it right.

- Exactly. And I guess there's some other games in there. Any of them from the comments that stick out to you? I know I see one that I want to mention, but I don't want to take all the games.

- Well, I love that Guitar Hero is just one of those universal games. I remember when I was in college, and had a-- I brought all my gear out with me, and I had a roommate that-- she and I would play together. And it's interesting, people who never would pick up a game before, and it becomes the thing that-- like a party experience. So I love that is the game that unifies us all, isn't it?

- Oh, one of the best social games of all time.

- Absolutely.

- I mean, I can't play an instrument, but I can hit the bass on Guitar Hero, doing not as much as the guitar, but hitting the notes relatively well.

- There used to be a Guitar Hero arcade game. And if you go to a Dave and Busters or something-- and I had my kid try it because, obviously, she was not around during the heyday of Guitar Hero-- and got very into it because they've got like all kinds of tracks that--

- Oh yeah.

- Yeah. A pretty good variety.

- Again, something for everyone.

- Yeah.

MALIK PRINCE: Speaking of which, Tony Hawk. I know everyone loves a good skating game, and Tony Hawk was one of those where I never got to play because I only had an Xbox, and I think the first few were only on PlayStation. But it was always great seeing people hit those tricks.

And so MythrilFox says, "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the Crash Bandicoot series are probably my highlights, though I do miss," as we've talked about, "Guitar Hero from back in the day." So Guitar Hero, Tony Hawk, COD, Diablo. Everyone has a favorite ABK game. It's so exciting to welcome them into team Xbox.

- Did you ever play DJ Hero?

- No, but I remember that.

- DJ Hero was really good.

- Was it hard? Because it looked hard.

JEFF RUBENSTEIN: Like any of those games, it depends on the level you play, and everything. But you had a turntable in front of you, and all the songs were mash-ups. And it got me into a lot of songs, and a lot of genres that I really never listened to before. But sometimes-- it wasn't all just scratching, but it was a lot of crossfading back and forth, and hitting these different-- anyway, you came out of that, and you're like, I could be DJ. I could do this.

- Oh, did you?

- No, I didn't. It didn't pan out.

- DJ--

- He could be an MMA fighter, or he could be a DJ. There you go.

- You can't be a DJ and have the name Jeff. That doesn't-- that's unfathomable.

- You can be the first Jeff. DJ Jeff. There you go.

- I liked Belle Époque Pinocchio.

- Belle-- OK. Belle Époque Pinocchio?

- Belle Époque Jeff?

- Yeah.

- What is your stretch-- like, you mentioned me, MMA, Jeff, DJ.

- Oh, I don't know. I guess now I have to go and bring the Barbie spirit to everybody. Do I have to go with the costume? Is that--

- I don't think so.

- I don't know what it would be. You guys are going to have to tell me.

- A producer Barbie is what you are.

- Producer Barbie, yeah.

- The whole show. You do the most--

- I need the actual headset.

- Speaking of comments, I will say I read the comments every single week. There is a strong Tina Amini army in the YouTube comments. There are so many comments like, oh, Tina, I loved you on IGN. It's good to see you, Tina--

- I'm sure the Game Scoop listeners-- thank you. Shout out to all of you guys out there.

- I wanted to make sure I called it out because I always see so many comments like giving you a shout out in--

- The Game Scoop fans are the best.

- They are.

- They know it.

- So, it's a question for next week. Again, we are dressed up-- again, me as Steve Urkel-- that darn Carl Winslow stopped me from Laura. We want to know what you're dressing up for as Halloween. We'd love to-- feel free to tweet at us. And if we find enough great pictures, we might even share it on the show.

But we definitely want to see what you-- and probably game-related, you know? Maybe a Master Chief in there, maybe a Marcus Fenix. Whatever you want to be, you can be, because it's Halloween. So send us those pictures, and we might just share it on the show next week.

But this has been fun. This has been our Halloween episode-- spooky. Excited to go into the weekend. Maybe play a little bit of Alan Wake 2. Maybe play a little bit of those games in Game Pass, if you want a nice little scare. Or maybe you take a chill, and play something a little bit more cozy. But any parting words for our Xbox podcast listeners?

- Incryption.

MALIK PRINCE: Incryption?

- I don't know how you with long hair deal with this. My neck is getting real hot. Like, this is a lot.

- The synthetic wig material doesn't help.

- It's not breathable.

- It's not.

- Only the finest for my Lies of P cosplay.

MALIK PRINCE: Got to get that man bun-- that form over there. But no, thank you so much for watching, everybody, and joining us again for the Xbox Podcast. Again, if this is your first time watching, you know what to do-- hit the Follow button, the Like button, the Subscribe button, whatever it is that lets when we put out a new episode. It's a pleasure joining you every single week, and we can't wait to do it again next week. From all of us to you, happy gaming.

- Happy Halloween.

[XBOX SOUND]