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0:00:23 Hardware Sales Down
0:07:45 PC Handheld Sales Pathetic
0:19:08 WB Closes Studios
0:24:21 Late Shift Impressions
0:30:12 Nice Boss Story
0:31:28 Gex Trilogy News
0:32:20 Spiritfarer Impressions
0:45:33 E-mails
Transcript:
Phil: Hello, and welcome to The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: I am your host, Phil Fogg.
Phil: Our co-host, Tom Towers, is on assignment, our foreign correspondent, so he won't be joining us this week.
Phil: He'll be back next time, and letting us know everything that he's been up to.
Phil: So for today, though, we're just gonna go straight into the news.
Phil: Video game news, that is.
Phil: The first story is video game hardware sales are way down, and credit for this one goes to Brett Bill, or Brett Bile.
Phil: Video game hardware sales have dropped by %, hitting the lowest January total since years.
Phil: Digital game sales, of course, continue to beat physical sales, and potential for sales turn around this year.
Phil: Everyone's got their hopes pinned on Nintendo Nintendo Switch and of course Grand Theft Auto
Phil: It's gonna be a big year for those two companies.
Phil: Of course, Grand Theft Auto will be a console exclusive, it won't be coming to PC, so there's only gonna be one way to get it, and that's gonna make Sony very happy, and of course Microsoft as well.
Phil: Matt Piscatella, the executive director of NPD, shared that video game hardware sales are slowing down by nearly half their usual rate.
Phil: These sales may reflect changing attitudes about gaming consoles overall, but NPD's numbers could also be indicative of the state of the games market, and a potential lack of interesting new software releases to drive hardware sales.
Phil: With the Nintendo Switch serving up beefier hardware than its predecessor, it will be interesting to see how Nintendo handles third-party games.
Phil: Matt Piscatella reports that video game hardware sales have been experiencing a staggering drop all around, with total sales of major console platforms falling by %.
Phil: He elaborated on the news, stating that the total hardware sales in January are $million, which compared to this same month last year was $million.
Phil: So this year, $million, last year $million.
Phil: The Xbox has dropped by %, PlayStation has dropped by %, and the Nintendo Switch has dropped by %.
Phil: So some have shared that the sentiment is that as long as the hobby remains too expensive for their comfort, sales will continue to fall.
Phil: So, yeah, so what's my take on that?
Phil: Well, you know, you look at the drops in sales there, % overall.
Phil: Sony did better with a drop of only %, but still, that's still % drop.
Phil: Microsoft dropped off by half, and Nintendo Switch went down by half as well.
Phil: So that may be less surprising since there's a new system coming on its way, but I'm pretty confident that most consumers don't know, most general consumers don't know that a Switch is on the way.
Phil: I recently sold a Switch game on an online marketplace, and the person was like, I'm really looking forward to getting this game because I've just got a Switch.
Phil: And to me, obviously, and to you, listener of a video game podcast, you're going, ah, you know, and I was just like, I'll just let that lie.
Phil: I'm not going to be like, hey, you know, a Switch is coming out in about six months, right?
Phil: So yeah, I don't think Switch's drop in sales is due necessarily to a new one coming out, though, of course, informed shoppers are going to be holding off.
Phil: I think there is a degree of market saturation there.
Phil: The Nintendo Switch has been extremely successful over multiple iterations over many years.
Phil: Xbox's sales dropping off by %.
Phil: Well, that's what their marketing is.
Phil: I mean, their marketing is saying, why buy an Xbox?
Phil: Phil Spencer, I don't have the story this week, but Phil Spencer was on a podcast about a week and a half ago and said, I'm not in the business of trying to drive gamers to Xbox console anymore.
Phil: And a couple of days prior to that, he said that there basically will be no more Xbox exclusives as they're continuing to promote Game Pass as the way to play.
Phil: So that's not really a surprise because they're actively telling people that they don't have to buy an Xbox console.
Phil: What does this mean overall for console sales?
Phil: You know, there's another story that I didn't carry this week that talked about how % of online play last month was in games.
Phil: And most of those games were more than six years old.
Phil: And the commentator on that basically said, it's hard to beat free if it's good.
Phil: And I think that's what's hitting these consoles is more than anything, people playing these forever games, Fortnite, Minecraft, you name it.
Phil: You all know the games I'm talking about.
Phil: So there's no real compelling reason to get a new console.
Phil: The reason to get a new console in the past was because there was a hot new game on it that you couldn't play anywhere else.
Phil: You bought a PlayStation so you could play Grand Theft Auto
Phil: You bought an Xbox because it had Halo.
Phil: You bought Nintendo for the same reason you buy Nintendo today.
Phil: They've got fantastic quality exclusives.
Phil: And with Microsoft and Sony not having significant exclusives to drive their console sales, you can see why the sales are off.
Phil: I think, yeah, the other thing I read was that basically Microsoft will have more first-party exclusives on PlayStation this year than Sony will, which is shocking.
Phil: I mean, when you look at Sony's studio situation, they went from having studios to essentially not having any output whatsoever.
Phil: And of course, it didn't help that they went around great closing, fantastic studios like Sony Tokyo, or Tokyo Studio, London Studio, shut down Psygnosis and I'm probably only remembering a few of them here.
Phil: So yeah, I think that the drop in hardware consoles, the drop is also attributable to people not particularly wanting to own stuff anymore.
Phil: And that's not a consumerist perspective, that's just a Spotify generation, that's a Netflix generation.
Phil: You know, why would I have a piece of consumer appliance that's limited to one physical space in my house that I have to be with to play a game, when many of these games that you can play online, you can play on your mobile.
Phil: So, and I know that's an anathema to some of us older gamers, but that's just the reality of it.
Phil: And you can whale about it all you want, but the fact that digital game sales have risen as physical sales decline, that's just indicative of the changing trends, not only in gaming, but in media ownership.
Phil: So, on to the next story.
Phil: Credit for this one goes to metro.co.uk, which I can't recall getting many stories from recently.
Phil: Don't have a strong vivid memory of metro.co.uk.
Phil: I do have a strong vivid memory that every time I've been on their website today for this story, a notification, a thing pops up every two seconds saying, we're about to turn notifications on for this website, okay?
Phil: And of course you go, no thanks.
Phil: And then you scroll down and it'll do it again.
Phil: It's like, what are they doing?
Phil: What do they, okay, I know what they're doing.
Phil: You don't have to tell me what they're doing.
Phil: Story number two, Steam Deck has barely outsold Engage as sales cast out on Xbox's handheld plans.
Phil: What?
Phil: So, for those of you that don't know what the Engage was, Nokia launched a piece of hardware, would have been in the early s.
Phil: It was basically a mobile phone, but it was shaped sort of like a Game Boy Advance, and it had a horrible button layout.
Phil: It had basically, you could use it as a phone and hold it up to your head.
Phil: And there's obviously, there was tons of memes at the time because it basically looks like you're holding a taco up to your head.
Phil: That's what it looks like.
Phil: So the whole thing was, you can have a phone, but it's a gaming device.
Phil: So anyway, all that to say this, the N-Gage was a huge flop.
Phil: So I was surprised to read that Valve Steam Deck has barely outsold the N-Gage.
Phil: Here's a story, new data has revealed sales figures from PC gaming handhelds across the board, which even collectively haven't surpassed Sony's failed PS Vita.
Phil: In the conversation around gaming handhelds, people usually highlight the Nintendo Switch and Valve Steam Deck as the big success stories in the market.
Phil: The success of the Switch is undisputed with the console having surpassed million units sold, trailing only the Nintendo DS and PlayStation as the best selling console ever.
Phil: Valve meanwhile has always been vague about sales for the Steam Deck, claiming it had sold many millions back in
Phil: But now a new report has shed light on exactly how much of the market the Steam Deck and other PC gaming handhelds occupy.
Phil: And it's a mere drop in the ocean by comparison.
Phil: According to data from market research firm IDC, which uses supply chains to estimate how many handheld gaming systems have shipped worldwide, PC gaming handhelds, namely the Steam Deck, the Asus Rogue Ally, Lenovo Legion Go, and the MSI Claw, have collectively shipped just under million units since
Phil: According to estimates from The Verge, the Steam Deck makes up the lion's share of this with about almost million units shipped in the three years since it launched in February
Phil: Although since these are only estimates, it may have crossed the million mark by this point.
Phil: Notably, the IDC doesn't expect the PC handheld market to grow in any significant way this year, with the research firm forecasting just under million shipments in which is an improvement over where only million sold.
Phil: So these numbers are amazing, because in one sense, they're good because years ago, this is a market sector that did not exist.
Phil: PC handhelds, that is.
Phil: Of course, the switch has been around a lot longer than years.
Phil: So for it to have that sort of growth, it's done well.
Phil: I'd be interested to see where this reflects against VR headsets, for example.
Phil: I would have believed that they would have sold many more than million units.
Phil: But if you ask me today, how many Steam decks had sold before this story, I would have probably guessed around to million, and have sold about
Phil: And get this, the Steam decks' numbers are comparable to the PlayStation Portal.
Phil: So now the Portal has sold about million units, and the N-Gage sold million units.
Phil: So when I say that it's comparable, I'm saying compared to, say, the Switch.
Phil: Now, Xbox boss again Phil Spencer was keen on the idea, and has hinted multiple times that Microsoft hopes to enter the handheld space.
Phil: And Sony's also been rumored with very little evidence to be considering a new handheld console in light of the Switch's success.
Phil: But both companies will need to do something beyond just technical power to rival Nintendo's grip over the handheld space.
Phil: And I'd say entry point, so what does Phil Fogg think?
Phil: Why are people reluctant to buy these things?
Phil: Like, look, the Switch was not the first handheld game.
Phil: I remember that the Nvidia Shield, which I think the Switch has an Nvidia chip in it, the Nvidia Shield was the progenitor of this, and it was particularly clumsy, as I recall, and not very compelling.
Phil: And the problem that a lot of these systems had was that they'd have a clunky, if not cheap, Chinese type, you know, a graphical user interface to them, and a cheap feel to them.
Phil: The other way they'd go is basically run Windows on a handheld, and Windows is not made for a handheld, and nor is Linux for that matter, because in Steam Deck, you can go into a desktop mode and basically use Linux as if you are, you know, sitting at a computer, except of course, you're not.
Phil: You're using controller sticks as a mouse and touch pads and all the rest of it, and it doesn't work.
Phil: It just doesn't work.
Phil: And look, adherence will say, of course it works, it's fantastic, but yeah, but it's not an ideal way to navigate.
Phil: What Nintendo brought to it was, one, a lower price point.
Phil: And I think price point is the number one barrier to entry for most people when it comes to handheld PC gaming.
Phil: Most people cannot justify paying the cost of a console or an entry level PC, not even a gaming PC, but just an entry level middle of the road PC, for something that they're going to carry around.
Phil: People see things, they perceive possibly that handhelds are small, that they're toy-like.
Phil: Why would I do that?
Phil: And so what Nintendo changed with that was a price point that was accessible.
Phil: Now, Nintendo's audience traditionally has been family-based, and I think that that's not a derogatory thing to say.
Phil: I don't think anyone would argue that Nintendo's basis is being a family-facing company.
Phil: So this had to be something that people were comfortable giving a child and a child having in their hands.
Phil: You give a kid a DS, they smash it, okay, you're out bucks.
Phil: You know, you give them a Steam Deck, they smash it, you're out a thousand bucks, you know, when you put all the bits and pieces together, right?
Phil: And with a Nintendo Switch, yeah, okay, you might be out three or four hundred bucks, but it's still not like the end of the world.
Phil: And you add a few compelling things, like the joy pads coming off and the dockable solution, so that, you know, everyone can play around it.
Phil: It's not perfect, of course, because for multi-children or multi-gamer homes, instead of just buying one console and then buying a controller for each player, you now obviously have to buy a Switch for everyone.
Phil: Yeah, and I know, yes, for multiplayer games, you can just buy other controllers and sync them up.
Phil: But for in a kid's mindset, someone's got the control of the Switch, right?
Phil: And if they're in the car, where you're not going to be using a dock, then you've got to buy a second Switch or a third Switch.
Phil: Okay, so it does start to add up, but that's how Nintendo gets you.
Phil: It's like the frog in the teapot.
Phil: They heat you up slowly over time so that you don't really mind.
Phil: And then before you know it, you've spent bucks on the Switch, and then you get the better screen one and all the rest of it.
Phil: So Entry Point was another one.
Phil: And with Nintendo, they added an especially good gimmick with the dock.
Phil: It's more than a gimmick, it's an innovation.
Phil: And they made the price point attractive enough that you weren't afraid to give it to a child.
Phil: The other thing that both Valve's Steam Deck and the Nintendo Switch did was provide a unified user interface that is intuitive and easy to understand and easy to use.
Phil: So you didn't have an operating system layer there getting in the way of you and you playing your game.
Phil: So Nintendo and Valve have both done those things to make their systems more approachable, but apparently on the PC side of things not enough.
Phil: And I think it really does come down to price point.
Phil: It would be helpful if the dock came with every Steam handheld.
Phil: I think people would understand that a bit better.
Phil: When I've talked to people about it and saying, oh, which dock should I get?
Phil: They're like, you can dock that thing?
Phil: So I think, but Valve's never been fantastic about marketing.
Phil: They've been very good at the things that they do, but if you look at the Steam machines, and that drive to have a Steam interface for PC, dedicated type PC, it never really worked.
Phil: And I think in the PC section, there's no one you look at.
Phil: There's no market leader where you go, yeah, look at them, they're leading the way.
Phil: And I'm talking about Yodel, Lenovo, et cetera, et cetera.
Phil: So there's not really a compelling consumer adherence to a particular PC hardware brand, because most, well, on the hardcore side of things, most gamers like myself like to build, or have built, bespoke PCs for gaming.
Phil: And in regular consumers, just like we finished talking about with consoles, they don't particularly want to own a PC.
Phil: They've got a phone, they've got a tablet, they don't want a third device.
Phil: That's going to significantly, unless there's a significant value to it.
Phil: And so, yeah, it's funny because you see Microsoft, I honestly thought that Microsoft's next console has to be a handheld.
Phil: I don't know why Microsoft's even making another console at this point.
Phil: And I don't take that in the wrong way, but they're basically saying, look, we want to want to sell game pass.
Phil: We don't want to sell consoles.
Phil: That's what they're saying.
Phil: That's not me interpreting it.
Phil: That's what they're saying.
Phil: So they say our next console will be the biggest technological leap ever seen for video game consoles.
Phil: And of course, we all thought that was going to be power, but it probably means it's going to be either an innovation in a different way.
Phil: I don't think that's going to be limited to handheld, but their innovation may be that you're going to be streaming all of your games and it's going to be dirt cheap, and therefore, you're going to have eight of these scattered around your house so the gaming is more accessible.
Phil: But yes, interesting times.
Phil: Story number three.
Phil: Another bummer story, and this one has been discussed several times by several people, so I won't belabor it.
Phil: But Warner Brothers, of course, this week canceled Wonder Woman, but more importantly, they closed down some studios, including one that I have a lot of appreciation for.
Phil: Credit to this one goes to Eurogamer.
Phil: Warner Brothers has closed down three of its studios, Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and Warner Brothers Games San Diego.
Phil: So Player First Games, I think they acquired them last year, which is really a dud.
Phil: But it doesn't really matter the story.
Phil: There's no point in me reading this here, but I'll just say that the official press release basically said that they were closing these studios.
Phil: Warner Brothers, head of games and streaming, JB Parrott went into a more candid detail, however, about the closures and cancellations in a staff memo that's been seen by Bloomberg.
Phil: Quote, the quality of too many of our new releases has really missed the mark.
Phil: We need to make some substantial changes to our portfolio and team structure if we are to commit to the necessary resources to get back to a fewer but bigger franchises strategy.
Phil: Now, of the three studios that were closed down, Monolith Productions was the longest running of them.
Phil: And this was a studio founded in and it developed an impressive portfolio of acclaimed titles over the years, including No One Lives Forever, which was a James Bond type game with a female protagonist.
Phil: So it's been trapped on PC forever and hard to get a hold of because of licensing.
Phil: FEAR, capital F-E-A-R, the initialism, was a game that a lot of people loved.
Phil: I don't recall playing it, but then I played a lot of games.
Phil: A game that I particularly remember, however, was Condemned, which was a launch game or close to it for the Xbox and its sequel.
Phil: Now, for long time listeners, you know that we've been doing this for like years or something like that, you know that I don't like scary games.
Phil: I do, but they just freak me out too much.
Phil: I don't like gore, particularly.
Phil: And I, yeah, I just, something in my head snapped at some point where I just went from being able to enjoy it to just completely not.
Phil: And Contemned is a really gruesome, physically violent game.
Phil: I absolutely loved it.
Phil: And I loved the sequel, Condemned as well.
Phil: I think it was fantastic.
Phil: I don't know how they'd stand up today, but at the time, they were very impressive.
Phil: So what else did they do?
Phil: They did Shogo.
Phil: I don't really know much about that one.
Phil: That was in
Phil: Aliens vs.
Phil: Predator
Phil: Yeah, I can't say I remember that one.
Phil: They did No One Lives Forever Tron in
Phil: I don't remember that being particularly good.
Phil: Yeah, and here I go.
Phil: I'm saying how great these guys are, and I'm running down all their games.
Phil: They did a sequel to Fear.
Phil: They did Gotham City Impostors.
Phil: Yes, I know that now you're just, okay, I get it.
Phil: You're saying good riddance to these people, but no, they did great work.
Phil: Look, they did No One Lives Forever, Aliens vs.
Phil: Predator The Condemned Games, Fear Games, and they did Middle Earth, Shadow of Mordor.
Phil: They did Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, which were fantastic experiences.
Phil: I completed Shadow of Mordor.
Phil: It was a really fun game.
Phil: It basically took the Batman type mechanics and applied it to Batman Arkham Asylum combat and applied it to an open world setting set in the Lord of the Rings story.
Phil: I'm not a fan, and I'm not a fan of Lord of the Rings.
Phil: I'm completely ignorant of Lord of the Rings, right?
Phil: So that's not by design.
Phil: There's a lot of things that I just haven't gotten to.
Phil: And that was one of them.
Phil: Maybe one day I'll get into it and I'll love it.
Phil: Anyway, Shadow of Mordor was, in my first introduction to the whole Lord of the Rings thing.
Phil: And the game was fantastic.
Phil: And of course it had the Nemesis system, which is basically where you, as you knocked out an enemy, another person would get promoted, and this other person would like you because you took them out, and the other person would not like you because they took them out.
Phil: Or maybe you hurt someone, but you didn't kill them, and they're now gunning for you to come and get you.
Phil: It was a really fun system.
Phil: So yeah, I'm sad to see Monolith go away.
Phil: Now since they started in that's a long time.
Phil: That's like years.
Phil: That's years, actually.
Phil: I'm sure a lot of the people who were responsible for a lot of these great things have come and gone and all the rest of it.
Phil: But it is terrible, terrible to see a workman-like studio like that or any type of studio.
Phil: Yeah, well, that pretty much covers the news for this week.
Phil: So now we'll get into we.
Phil: Now I will get into this while our foreign correspondent is probably poolside somewhere, I might suggest, probably somewhere poolside while I sit here, waiting for a cyclone to dissipate off the coast of my home, but you know, hey, it at least brings some entertaining weather.
Phil: Let's talk about a couple of games I've been playing.
Phil: I talked to a couple of shows ago about Pentament.
Phil: I really encourage everyone to go out and pick that up.
Phil: It is on Game Pass.
Phil: It's also available on Steam.
Phil: It's a fantastic game and I just cannot say enough about it.
Phil: Another game I played though that I haven't talked about is called Late Shift.
Phil: Now, this is a game that you will not have heard of.
Phil: Again, the name is Late Shift, two words.
Phil: And it's developed by a company you've never heard of either called Control Movie, CTRL Movie.
Phil: Pretty sure they've gone away.
Phil: And this is a branching narrative crime game.
Phil: And it's filmed.
Phil: Well, the branching narrative crime game, Pentament was one of those.
Phil: This one is actually filmed.
Phil: So, yeah, it's what we used to call FMV, full motion video.
Phil: Like, is there still motion video?
Phil: I don't know.
Phil: But anyway, this is it's completely filmed with real actors, real setting.
Phil: It's set in London from the look of it.
Phil: Though it could be in any metro area in the UK.
Phil: And so it's got British accents and all that.
Phil: It was not at all what I was expecting.
Phil: I was expecting like a Her Story type game.
Phil: But it wasn't at all.
Phil: This is a game where basically you're watching it just like you're watching a TV show or a movie.
Phil: And it's very high quality.
Phil: Like the sets are good.
Phil: The actors are good.
Phil: The filmography is good.
Phil: The directing is good.
Phil: Everything's good about it.
Phil: And I'm watching it and I'm going, okay, well, when the game starts, it's weird to start with full motion video.
Phil: Again, I'm going to use that stupid term.
Phil: But then I went, yeah, but that, thank goodness you're here, starts with full motion video and then goes into something else.
Phil: I was like, yeah, well, this must be a new thing.
Phil: It's kind of jarring, but in a good way.
Phil: But no, the whole game is in video format.
Phil: And basically, you are making narrative decisions throughout the whole game as to what you're supposed to be doing.
Phil: And you have a limited amount of time to make that decision.
Phil: And then, of course, with technology being what it is today, they cut in the next scene or reaction to what you've just said in real time.
Phil: And it just completely flows perfectly.
Phil: And it's a fun and interesting story as well.
Phil: It's a heist movie, basically.
Phil: And you're drawn into it.
Phil: You play the role of a sad, lonely shift worker who's in charge of a garage for where people are parking their expensive cars.
Phil: And people treat you like garbage because you're just there to take the keys and park the cars and make sure they don't get stolen.
Phil: You're studying, you're obviously a uni student and you're there studying.
Phil: And then, obviously, there's a change in events and a twist and a turn.
Phil: And you've got to decide whether you want to participate or not.
Phil: And from there, the heist goes on.
Phil: Absolutely fantastic game.
Phil: A very top-notch gaming experience and something that is something I'd recommend thoroughly.
Phil: I know for at least it's available on Steam, but yeah, just look around, see where you can find it.
Phil: Netflix had some of these games available as part of their service, most notably a game called Bandersnatch, where basically, again, it was a branching narrative and you got to make decisions, and depending on what you chose, the game would go a certain way.
Phil: And I really enjoyed those games while they were on Netflix.
Phil: Netflix has since closed that down, sadly.
Phil: And you know, it's not hard to see why.
Phil: I guess traditional gamers probably would never even access it or know about it.
Phil: I mean, it is a weird concept to try and get into.
Phil: And for consumers, though, like it would have broad, you know, a broad audience.
Phil: Like, and this is not to generalize.
Phil: This is something I've observed and something many other people have observed that women typically like True Crime.
Phil: That's why True Crime podcasts are the number one category.
Phil: It's why Serial, the podcast, rebooted the whole podcast popularity amongst broader sector.
Phil: People love watching, women love watching True Crime shows.
Phil: They love reading crime novels and watching crime movies on TV.
Phil: I personally cannot stand it.
Phil: I find them repulsive, which is weird for some people to try and figure out because I'm more than happy to sit here and play Serial Sam and kill a thousand monsters in five minutes, but I don't like watching a simple crime story if there's a little bit of human blood in it.
Phil: So I think that if, and you know, they're simple, they're easy to follow along and get into.
Phil: I think they're great couch co-op games, games like this and games like The Quarry.
Phil: Because you know, you can sit there with your friend, so partner and sort of make joint decisions as to which way you want the narrative to go.
Phil: But yeah, so again, the name of the game is Late Shift.
Phil: I got it for not very much money.
Phil: And I thoroughly, thoroughly recommend it.
Phil: Before we get into the other game I've been playing, I feel really bad about the news I gave you guys this week.
Phil: It was all a downer.
Phil: So I've got two more good pieces of news for you.
Phil: This one, the credit goes to Eurogamer.
Phil: The Japanese developer of PAL World, which is the Pokemon ripoff, gave all staff Monster Hunter Wild's release day off in case they, quote, feel unwell.
Phil: For reasons totally unrelated to the release of Monster Hunter Wild, PAL World developer Pocket Pear has given its team a special holiday on the th of February.
Phil: In a memo, staff were advised that as many employees hinted that they may be too unwell to work today, management has decided to give them the day off as a special holiday.
Phil: Quote, on the th of February, we received a series of puzzling reports from many employees that they might feel unwell the next day.
Phil: So we decided to institute a special holiday for the company, the memo said.
Phil: It then confirmed a special day's holiday had been awarded to most departments.
Phil: It's unclear what teams won't be eligible and stressed to players that the time off would not impact PAL World or Craftopia.
Phil: So yeah, that's a good news story.
Phil: I mean, you guys deserve that.
Phil: And you know, another thing you deserve is the Gex Trilogy.
Phil: Gex Trilogy will launch this summer for PlayStation Xbox Series and PC.
Phil: Limited runs announced that the Gex Trilogy will launch for PlayStation well, for those systems.
Phil: Yeah, so basically, I think the Geico Gecko is probably more popular than Gex, certainly better known and certainly more worthy of a game.
Phil: I think I'd rather pay a Geico insurance game than Gex.
Phil: I have Gex, the original on Sega Saturn, and it's not great.
Phil: So that's your good news.
Phil: You can thank me by going to gameunder.net and commenting on the front page there.
Phil: It doesn't require any registration whatsoever.
Phil: Now, the other game I've been playing, this is a game that I've sort of slept on, and I know a lot of you have already played this one, but maybe you can appreciate at least my view on it.
Phil: The game is Spiritfarer.
Phil: That's one word, Spiritfarer, not Spiritfurer.
Phil: I was surprised to see that this came out in
Phil: And you can play it on pretty much everything right now, but it was on PlayStation Windows.
Phil: You can play it on everything, because of course you can't.
Phil: It's a five-year-old game.
Phil: It's made by a company called Thunder Lotus.
Phil: Now, you know, with a lot of these games like Dave the Diver, you know, it looks like it's made by a small indie team, and then you find out that it's actually made by Tencent.
Phil: But this is actually, yeah, it's a small team, and just a little bit about Thunder Lotus.
Phil: All of their games are hand drawn and handcrafted, so they've got a distinctive style to them.
Phil: And certainly Spiritfarer has what most people would call a Saturday morning cartoon-like style to it in terms of its hand-drawn nature.
Phil: What is Spiritfarer?
Phil: It's described as a cozy game.
Phil: What does a cozy game mean?
Phil: I've never been asked to talk about that before.
Phil: I think of, like...
Phil: Oh, like it's a game of basically where you just sort of fiddle with it.
Phil: Like Animal Crossing, I'd consider to be a cozy game.
Phil: And this has certainly got something like it in Animal Crossing.
Phil: I'm just going to do my best here to describe it.
Phil: It did get great critical acclaim when it came out.
Phil: Got nines from IGN.
Phil: PC Gamer gave it an
Phil: And a lot of it has to do with the fact that it's a thought-provoking type game.
Phil: And it's certainly a very sweet game as well.
Phil: It is a game about dying.
Phil: And you might go, well, Phil, that's hardly novel.
Phil: Most games are about dying.
Phil: Serious Sam is about dying several, several times.
Phil: Call of Duty is a game about dying.
Phil: There's very few games that aren't about dying, actually.
Phil: And basically, you are in charge of this small ferry, right?
Phil: That takes people who are about to die on the final stage of their death and usher them into the afterlife, right?
Phil: So the Vikings, you know, they take your body and they push out the boat, they burn a boat, which to me has always been a waste of a good boat.
Phil: But yeah, so basically, what you play the role as a young looking female protagonist, I believe you're some sort of spirit creature because you have a belt buckle that can turn into a number of things.
Phil: It can turn into a hammer, it can turn into a whip, it can turn into a grappling line, a fishing line, I don't know that it can turn into a whip maybe later.
Phil: But it's basically you've got the ability to turn your belt buckle into this spiritual tool that's a contextual tool that as you go throughout the game, you get to open up different parts of the world.
Phil: So in that way, it's sort of a metroidvania as well.
Phil: There's a lot of elements in this game, so I'm going to be making a lot of references to a lot of other games.
Phil: Let's just stick to the story, huh Phil?
Phil: Okay, fine.
Phil: All right, so you see, I don't have a co-host to go talk to myself.
Phil: This is how pathetic it's become.
Phil: You start the game, and basically the dude that used to have your job is retiring, and now you're taking it over.
Phil: So basically you start out with a small boat and your first person, and I'm thinking, oh, this is okay, I'll just drive them over to the place and dump them off and then we'll go, right?
Phil: No, they live on your boat with you until they're ready to die.
Phil: So it's sort of like a real life hospice.
Phil: Now, these people aren't notably sick.
Phil: You know, they're just normal animal creatures, actually.
Phil: They're not people.
Phil: They will take on the form of an animal figure.
Phil: So you've got a frog and an owl and a deer and a lion and a wolf and all these sorts of critters, right?
Phil: Snakes, and you've got to take care of them on the ship.
Phil: And so that means initially you've got to talk to them, hug them, support them.
Phil: Eventually, you've got to feed them.
Phil: So then you'll get a kitchen and then they'll say, they'll all have their own dietary restrictions or personal picadillos.
Phil: So, okay, that's sort of annoying.
Phil: This guy doesn't eat meat.
Phil: This person doesn't eat fish.
Phil: This one won't eat fruit.
Phil: This one doesn't want fancy stuff.
Phil: He wants simple stuff.
Phil: So, okay, that's fine.
Phil: Eventually, you're also exploring a world.
Phil: So you're navigating in a ship from a side view.
Phil: You're going to a little navigation area where you can plot out on a map where to go next and all of that.
Phil: But you're seeing the game in a side scrolling type way.
Phil: The whole thing is side scrolling.
Phil: And you're exploring all of these islands.
Phil: You're finding resources and animals.
Phil: So ultimately, you'll be able to upgrade your ship.
Phil: And so on that, that means that you'll have a kitchen.
Phil: You'll have a way to grow vegetables, to grow grain.
Phil: You'll learn how to spin the grain, some grains like wool and things like that.
Phil: Is wool a grain?
Phil: No, it's not.
Phil: It's still a plant.
Phil: So you'll get, you'll learn how to...
Phil: No, wool is off a sheep.
Phil: Cotton is off a plant.
Phil: Okay.
Phil: So you're basically gonna learn how to make linens and threads.
Phil: You'll get a forge.
Phil: So as you find rocks and stuff, you can forge them and turn them into other things.
Phil: You can get sheep, chickens, cows, all on the sheep, on the ship.
Phil: So it's a real sheep show, this one.
Phil: And there's other...
Phil: So there's a proliferation of mini games that you can do in this game to keep you busy.
Phil: So it's basically a...
Phil: Yeah, it's a work simulator in a way.
Phil: It's a management game.
Phil: You're unlocking abilities.
Phil: You're doing side quests for these people and also the people that you visit on the island.
Phil: And it's the first time I've had to use a notebook for years to play a game because it will be like, well, go find this person.
Phil: They're on this island.
Phil: Okay, fine.
Phil: So you got to find this island.
Phil: Then you get to the island and maybe you don't get to the island because maybe there's a iceberg in front of it.
Phil: So now you've got to upgrade your ship to get the thing that goes on the front of the boat to smash through ice.
Phil: Icebreaker, I guess.
Phil: And, but you can't just go and buy an icebreaker.
Phil: You're going to need this, this, this, this and this.
Phil: So now you've got to go around and you've got to find all these things to upgrade your ship so you can go to the island.
Phil: You go to the island, you talk to the guy.
Phil: The guy says, yeah, I can do this, but I'm going to need that.
Phil: You know, so you go do that and then, but to get that, you've got to do something else.
Phil: So it is a lot of convoluted side quests.
Phil: They do keep track of them for you, but you really do need to keep notes as to what you've got going on.
Phil: Otherwise you will, as I did, aimlessly float around in the ocean for days and days on end, not really just chasing your tail.
Phil: It's a very mellow game.
Phil: There's no voice acting.
Phil: No, there's just noises that they come out and say, is as close as it gets.
Phil: Eventually you'll get to take one of your characters to the next world, which is, yeah, I mean, by the time you've spent all this time with them, you've become annoyed by them because they ask you to do all this stuff, you have to cater to their special needs, literally.
Phil: And by the time you get to the end of the game, end of their life, you've learned about them, and you've gone on a journey with them in your boat.
Phil: And they hammered up a fair bit, making it pretty sad at the end.
Phil: And if you've lost someone significant in your life recently, it might not, I don't know if I'd recommend it or not, you know, because it might be just a little bit too raw.
Phil: But, you know, who knows?
Phil: Everyone's different.
Phil: It might even be, you know, play a part in your healing as well.
Phil: You know, for me, I think it played a part in the healing.
Phil: But you know, your results may vary.
Phil: Ultimately though, it's a little saccharine.
Phil: You know, those moments are a little saccharine.
Phil: And they do crank it up in that, you know, you may not be emotionally tied to this customer or this character that's on your ship, but then they'll sort of crank it up.
Phil: They'll crank up the story over the last, you know, minutes sort of thing.
Phil: And then the person will go, hey, I'm ready.
Phil: Can you take me?
Phil: So, oh, and your ship, of course, you keep expanding the ship.
Phil: So you get to move around all the apartments because you're building apartments for these people.
Phil: You're building, you know, sawmills, all that other stuff I talked to you about earlier.
Phil: Crushing machines, forages, gardens, pens for animals.
Phil: It's installed on a D plane.
Phil: So it's sort of like a game I can't remember right now by the guy that did Ute Sido.
Phil: It had a game called, what was his sim?
Phil: It was sim apartments or something like that.
Phil: And basically, yeah, it was an apartment managing game where you had to put the elements together nicely.
Phil: This one's not as complicated as that.
Phil: It's a collectathon as well.
Phil: You can collect all sorts of stuff in this game.
Phil: Unlock recipes in, you know, this doesn't sound particularly compelling, but all of the elements tied together give you something to be doing all the time.
Phil: Like you're constantly doing something the whole time, and it's a pretty good game loop.
Phil: I feel that there could have been some things in there where maybe as an option, not certainly in the default game, but as an option, if it could have had, you know, turn on autopilot, or at least when you go into the map, instead of it just showing you the names of the place, if it could show you, hey, this is where you're supposed to go next.
Phil: Now it does pop up, you know, exclamation points, like, hey, you know, here's the thing, the next story element sort of thing.
Phil: So you can do that, but often you can't get to that point yet because you haven't got a rock breaker or an ice breaker or in my case right now, I don't have a coral breaker.
Phil: And, you know, some of the stuff that the people ask you for, hey, I'd really like this if you could put this in my apartment, you don't have the materials for.
Phil: So you've got to sort of put that mission on hold to go do something else.
Phil: And sometimes you just literally, you cannot advance the main story.
Phil: So you've got to do all this other busy work.
Phil: And I think perhaps in some of it, there's probably too much busy work, but also, I play these games horribly.
Phil: Not all games, but I play directionless games horribly.
Phil: I tend to just go in circles, like I said, chase my tail for hours and hours on end because I don't fully remember where I was from the last time I played.
Phil: If I were playing this on a TV or a PC, I'd never finish this game.
Phil: I would have walked away from it by now.
Phil: But because it's on a handheld, you can get it on Switch or Steam Deck.
Phil: It means you're able to pick up and play in little chunks.
Phil: And as long as I've got my notebook with me, then I can remember what I'm up to and what I'm doing.
Phil: So I'm very close to the end at this point.
Phil: The game on PC is I think about bucks Australian right now.
Phil: I'm sure you can get it cheaper elsewhere as well.
Phil: And yeah, it's a game.
Phil: Would I recommend you play it?
Phil: If you like Metroidvanias, I would say yes, because obviously as you're unlocking skills as well, that means you can go back to islands to get to other things.
Phil: But you've got to like crafting, you've got to like management games.
Phil: The story by itself is not enough to get you by, because ultimately you're dumping these people off.
Phil: You're spending a long time with them.
Phil: I've got this frog in my ship right now.
Phil: It's like, is this guy going to be here forever?
Phil: I thought this was a hospice.
Phil: And so the story in and of itself isn't good enough, but the hand-drawn artwork is fantastic and charming as is the game and the music and everything else.
Phil: So all the elements pulled together, I'd say it's an experience worth having.
Phil: But you've got to be a certain type of gamer that I'm probably honestly not to enjoy it.
Phil: And perhaps you are.
Phil: I'm sure many people are.
Phil: This game got huge kudos when it came out.
Phil: Name of the game, of course, is Spiritfarer.
Phil: That's one word.
Phil: We're gonna close out the podcast, but before we do this, I've got a question, and I will ask Tom this question next episode, but I'll give you a preview of what I think of it right now.
Phil: Danny writes, do you have any gaming turnoffs?
Phil: Not talking about genres, but more subject matter or themes.
Phil: Okay, well, if he was talking about genres, then that's very easy, because real-time strategies, as I've discussed at length, are too stressful.
Phil: I don't like horror games.
Phil: Up until recently, I haven't like rogue-like games.
Phil: So genres, it's easy to draw lines.
Phil: But in terms of subject matter or themes, well, I guess horror is one.
Phil: Themes, I don't particularly like underwater games.
Phil: I don't like games that are underwater.
Phil: Yeah, I'm not sure I can give a good answer to this one.
Phil: I certainly don't like loot box games, and I don't like what loot boxes have done to games like Horizon or any of the sports franchises.
Phil: Like, I find it absolutely impossible to play any K game anymore, even though I was a massive fan of them before the loot box era.
Phil: So yeah, I'd say that that's my turn-offs.
Phil: If you have any turn-offs, let us know.
Phil: Go over to our website, gameunder.net.
Phil: Like I said, if you want to submit a question, you can use the comment section from our homepage.
Phil: Just pick a story and comment on it.
Phil: It'll let me know.
Phil: Thanks for listening to Game Under Podcast.
Phil: We've been doing this since
Phil: So we've got a lot of resources covering games from that time to now on the website at gameunder.net.
Phil: So thanks again for listening to this solo podcast of The Game Under Podcast.
Phil: Thanks again for listening to episode
Phil: I'm Phil Fogg, and he's not Tom Towers.