Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

241 What we did in the Summer Holidays

• Gaming The System - The Feminist Gaming Podcast

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We took a month off over the summer, so thought we'd catch up with each other and see what we've been playing!

From epic samurai adventures in Ghost of Tsushima and the fluid, meditative landscapes of Sword of the Sea, to the punishing but rewarding battles of Expedition 33 (Clair Obscur). 

Jem headed to the beach with Dave the Diver and Coral Island, and enjoyed some quality family time with Split Fiction. Matt headed out on a Fallout road trip, hitting New Vegas, Fallout 3, and Fallout 4.  Alex found herself in Japan, with Ghost of Tsushima, following the trail of an avenging Samurai. 

The discussion ranges from quirky dungeon crawlers on the Switch to the frustrations of difficulty settings, and the strange joys of Death Stranding 2.

Looking ahead, the trio share what’s on their gaming horizons — sequels like Ghost of Yōtei, returning classics like Professor Layton, Tears of the Kingdom, and ambitious projects such as Final Fantasy XVI, Black Myth: Wukong, Outer Wilds 2, Metal Gear Solid Delta, and Dead Take featuring some of the biggest names in voice acting today.

It’s a wide-ranging, funny, and thoughtful conversation about how gaming fits into everyday life, whether you’re immersing yourself in a sprawling story or dipping into something light and quirky for a few minutes of escape.

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Jem:

I went in and just royally got my ass kicked repeatedly. I was like, no, it's fine. I just need to get better. To get good practice a bit more. And no. No, this is not happening.

Matt:

And so I put it on, and then you go down the thing and your brain's going, what's happening? I was stood on the ground a minute ago, and now I'm flying through the air so it's astonishing the impact it has.

Alex:

Immersing myself in the world of Gin Zaka as a super powerful, super awesome samurai, on a quest to save his uncle from the Mongol invasion. Very much been enjoying that for the last month.

Matt:

Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. Today I am your host, Matt, and I'm joined by my friends Alex and Gem. Before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gaming system for some exclusive content. Or you can send us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address. We are gaming the system@gmail.com. Hello everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System Today. The three of us are back from our lovely month long break, and we're gonna take this opportunity to catch up with the games that we've all been playing over the period and what games we are looking forward to. It struck me as I was looking through the games that I'm looking forward to playing later this year. That there are actually more old games that I'm looking forward to playing than there are new games due to be released. So it doesn't have to be just new releases that you are looking forward to playing.

Jem:

Welcome to the Dark Side,

Matt:

Yeah, it's scary. I want to know what you're currently playing and then we'll look at what you have been playing. So, Alex, what are you currently playing?

Alex:

So I am currently playing, an older game, Ghost of Tsushima, which I picked up, in the middle of last month. I'm very, very much enjoying. I've got to the stage where, waiting for a blacksmith to craft me at all to climb the walls of Castle Canada. So very early on, still in, in the first act, but, very much enjoying playing. The game has a particular way of making you feel very powerful right from the start, which I really enjoy feeling OP in a game. And in, in combat especially'cause that I don't tend to do too well in combat normally. But I also really enjoy the exploration, how beautiful the island of Tsushima is, the weather. Just everything about, it's so cool. All of the collectibles. I think we could probably have an in depth episode on it, Matt, if you fancy it, i'm very much enjoying that. Today, for those of you that listened to our episode on Day of the Devs, you may remember that Sword of the Sea came out today and I bought that a couple of hours ago and have been enjoying it in the lead up to recording the pod today. I'm really enjoying it so far. It is like the love child of Jenny and Abso essentially created by the same people and with one of my favorite video game composers. Austin Wintory in charge of the music as well. It's quite an interesting, format in that it's essentially a skateboarding or snowboarding game, but you're on a sword instead of one of those. It combines the environments of Journey and Abzu. There's also an interesting element that's not been in any of the other previous games, little, rooms where you get to set high scores with tricks and stuff. So that's very much in the skateboarding game mold, which doesn't necessarily fit with the previous. Games in the series. Another one that listeners and watchers might be familiar with is, the Pathless, which came out. It was a PS five launch title. And again, that was by the same developers with the same composer. I haven't actually finished that one. So I'll go back and do it after I've done this one.

Matt:

The gameplay is very smooth on It

Alex:

It is definitely,

Matt:

they do a good job with a very minimalist approach to things.

Alex:

Yeah, definitely. It's got the same sort of, artistic style as well in that it's almost like it's illustrated but not, and it really focuses on the gameplay being about. Movement and how you move through the world and explore, which is the kind of gameplay I really enjoy to help switch off, when feeling stressed, which has come in very handy lately. It's very much where you can reach a sort of zen mode and go into one of those, which is really nice. So very much just dipping my toe into the sea, but very much enjoying it so far, for sure.

Matt:

That sounds intriguing. The only one I've played of those series has been a bit of the pathless, I think it's a type of game that I'm not normally inclined to play. Pathless is more action based, whereas Journey and Abzu are much more, Ooh, isn't this a beautiful world that we're moving slowly through and some puzzles since it nice with nice music. So it's good to see that their success is continuing.

Alex:

mm.

Matt:

Jem, what are you playing right now? I know the answer to this, but.

Jem:

What I'm playing right now is, Claire, obscure, expedition 33. Matt knows all about that because we did a deep dive into our first impressions of the early game, which should be out before this episode is out. Really enjoying it, and, stepped into it because I was looking for a turn-based game that had a limited, world. And story so that I knew I could get to the end of it. I just needed something a bit contained. And. So it was suggested to me by, chat, GPT, your friend and mine. Yeah, really enjoying it. It's just really beautiful. It's quite complicated, gameplay. Quite complicated combat, but it's fun and because it's turn based, it gives you time to think about what you're doing and actually plan it. There's a little bit of, reaction stuff in there. I did, I did. You don't know this, Matt. I, I had, um, managed to kill one of the boss creatures and it was such an easy fight I'm running the game on story story mode, so I'd finished this Boss fight and I'd done quite, I'd done really well in it. It was like the first time I'd hit this bus. One of my characters was not optimized for this boss. So, I fully expected to die halfway through, but I didn't. I got to the end of it and thought, right. I think I'm ready to go up to. The standard level expedition mode. So I went in,'cause you can change the difficulty at any time. I went in and just royally got my ass kicked repeatedly. I was like, no, it's fine. I just need to get better. You know, I just need to get good and, I just need to practice a bit more. And no. I was like, no, this is not happening. So I've gone back to story mode, which is a little bit frustrating because I feel like there should be a level between the two what happened was when I went from story mode to expedition mode, they went from hitting me for double figures to suddenly whacking me for 500, 600, points of damage that's a massive jump. And I just really felt like I needed a middle ground between those two because I do want the challenge. I want to enjoy the fights. I want to be challenged by a boss fight. Certainly I want to have to do a boss fight a couple of times to get my head around it and do it, but I also don't want to be dying. Constantly on the little monsters that you come across as you're just wandering around the game. So, yeah, I just had to accept it. It was the parrying and the, dodging just absolutely impossible.

Alex:

Always bits I find super hard in any parrying and do,

Matt:

It's a disappointingly blunt form of difficulty changing. It literally just lowers the amount of damage you do, raises the amount of damage they do, and makes the, the window of parrying and dodging smaller. And so I started off on story mode and then, just'cause the, the parrying and dodging was too, too. Tiny. And then I got a mod that makes it, twice as easy. It doubles the amount of time that, that the parrying and dodging work. And that's been at the perfect difficulty for me in terms of that. And then I've moved the difficulties up to hard'cause then you get the real, it can, things can still kill you quickly. But you feel like you've got the tools to manage most things. The ones I find most satisfying is when I know that, if I miss twice, it can bring me right down to the lowest health. So it forces you to go, I need to pay really close attention at all times. Ping, ping, ping. Ping and them try to hit you eight times. I get an action point every time I do a parry and I get health every time I parry those satisfying build ups of elements. After like three turns, you can do a massive, massive built up attack. Very, very fun. And

Jem:

have to talk to you about that then, Matt.

Matt:

I'll send you a list of some of the mods that I use. As you've probably gathered, I've been playing Expedition 33 as well. Been having a marvelous time with it. Came completely out of nowhere to the extent that Jem and I talked for an hour about it. And we'd only finished the first act, and I have no idea how far from the end I am now. And I've been playing it fairly solidly. And yeah, it just keeps on expanding it gives me tremendous hope for game design in the future, considering what an average team can put together and build. Wonderful. And if you want to know more about what we think, then you can watch or listen to the episode that Jem and I have done. And once we've finished it, no doubt we will have a deep dive of some form also, an honorable mention to Fallout four, the last Fallout game in the, the series that I've been playing. I played Fallout New Vegas for the first time. Awesome masterpiece. Then played Fallout three and was really disappointed in it. I was very surprised at that.'cause I thought that was meant, that was, I always thought that Fallout three was the, the Skyrim of sci-fi games. But New Vegas is the template for these big sci-fi games. And I went, holy shit. And that just shows how awesome New Vegas is. And I'm so glad I finally got to play it. And now I'm towards the end of Fallout four, just going through enjoying all the writing and the, the environmental storytelling. So that's just sort of chipping on in the background. Good stuff. Now what have you been playing recently over the last month since we last spoke, or have you been playing the same game since we went on break?

Alex:

Pretty much, for me it would be Ghost of Tsushima. I picked up, in, I wanna say the sort of mid July, so probably about a month ago. And before that it was to a t which we had an episode on. So go and check that out if you are curious about what that game is like. For me, I've just been. Immersing myself in the world of Gin Zaka as a super powerful, super awesome samurai, on a quest to save his uncle from the Mongol invasion. Very much been enjoying that for the last month. Beyond that, we have acquired. A Nintendo Switch. The first type, not the second type. A friend of ours was looking to get a Nintendo Switch 2, and we said, if you don't need your Nintendo switch anymore, could we have it? We have purchased it. I'm sure I'll be looking into some switch games. For the future, which might be a separate part of this episode, we have also been dabbling in a game that Tom had on his switch mini, which is all about a robot where the fish inside the top part of its body who looks after elderly. Veterans in an old people's robot home, and, some young upstarts come along and steal the energy source that helps run the home you have to go out with a sword and go through dungeons to try and get the, energy source back. And it's basically a, a dungeon scroller. But that's quite quirky and fun and it's all sort of medieval themed as well. There's lots of like Bard core type music all the menus are medieval themed, I've forgotten what it's called but it's quite an odd mix of things and it that's quite fun to kind of, spend five, 10 minutes just doing a little bit on Yeah.

Matt:

You've just reminded me of an esoteric thing that I experienced yesterday for the first time, talking of game experiences we're not used to. Have any of you ever tried a VR headset?

Alex:

I haven't yet.

Matt:

Next door. My sister's been house sitting for them. They're on holiday and I got a text from her the other day saying, oh, Matt, you've gotta come over and try this VR headset. They've got a meta quest i've never tried vr. It's never appealed to me at all.

Jem:

Oh, it's so much fun.

Matt:

And then put it on and it's utterly unbelievable. What this thing is capable of. I was absolutely shocked by it and me and my sister are thinking about splitting the cost of one of those as well. Just'cause it's so amazing. I took some surreptitious videos of her when she had it on. It was very funny. I'll show you a few clips of that

Alex:

How was it like comfort wise? Was it comfortable to wear

Matt:

just get used to the weight. Eventually,

Alex:

And you didn't feel motion sick or anything?

Matt:

I felt very strange'cause there was a, rollercoaster game on it. And so I put it on, and then you go down the thing and your brain's going, what's happening? I was stood on the ground a minute ago, and now I'm flying through the air so it's astonishing the impact it has. That's a really interesting thing for the future. Exciting.

Jem:

much fun. I don't think you're the only one who's thinking about that. We played, beat Saber,

Alex:

heard that's good.

Jem:

of family thing on the vr. Headset and that was awesome. You look crazy'cause everyone's watching you and you've got the headset on and stuff in your hands and you're trying to do all of this. But it was so much fun we bought one of the early ones for the, PlayStation I tried to do, Skyrim via Skyrim, which I thought was gonna be amazing, but. I got so emotion sick in the

Alex:

no.

Jem:

10 minutes that I couldn't play. I couldn't do it. Different games have different effects, and apparently you can. Do stuff so you can slowly build up a sort of immunity to the motion sickness I didn't feel motion sick at all with Beat Saber, but, but I had with the Sky Rim game and, yeah. So it's something that we're, we are also looking into Matt, so I'll be interested to see what you decide.

Matt:

Yeah. One of the most awesome things was you can watch YouTube in it and you can pin a YouTube screen, when you watch a video, it makes you feel like you're in a cinema and it's being projected onto a massive screen. It's wild. Jen, what have you been playing recently?

Jem:

Before I picked up Expedition 33, I was playing, Dave the diver, which is, such a cute little game. You play Dave who is, you guessed it, a diver. His job is to dive around in the ocean catch fish and explore the ocean. And that he's basically discovered this special, underwater. Magic thing where it changes every day. So they, so his friend sets up this sushi bar on the, beach near it, and he's sent out every day to go fishing. And then in the evenings it's kind of like overcooked and you're running around helping to serve customers and pouring drinks and delivering food then there's a whole manaJement thing going on about menu manaJement and what level you are on social media and getting enough votes and you know, so it's like, it's a very multi-layered In our chat, when we were talking about Expedition 33, we were talking about how it's a sort of mashup of a lot of different. Types of games. And I think Dave the diver is also one of those kind of mashups, but of a very different set of games. So that was lots of fun. And and I was also playing, coral Island, which is, a sort. F 3D version of Stardew Valley. I mean, it's, it's a almost 100% ripoff, direct ripoff of Stardew Valley, but I dunno how they managed to be allowed to do it. So for me it was lots of little games that I could dip into, just spend a little bit of time on and dip out of again, just because the weather's been so nice and I've been quite busy. Those were really good. But I think it's clear why I then had this hankering for something with a bit more depth and immersion and story and. Intensity. I've also been playing split fiction with, my daughter and we're plodding our way through that. When she can take time away from. Overwatch and roadblocks and all of her other important things that she's got to do. So, yeah, so it's so as usual, I'm flitting around. Somebody asked me the other day what, crafts I do.

Alex:

Oh.

Jem:

My mum who was nearby when they asked was like, she's like a grasshopper. She just jumps from thing to thing. And That's true. And I'm the same with games.

Matt:

A craft implies you're building something. Games are wonderful because you don't, you're not building eternal things for the most part. There's a finish point and you go. Onto the next thing, at least we've been packing in a fair bit of gaming and some variety, which is nice. For me, the big two were death Stranding two came out, played that like mad for two weeks. Awesome. Game play, miserable story, awful storytelling, really just abysmal. It's quite stunning how bad the writing was but the gameplay was enough that I could just tune it out and, build roads and monorail systems, hunt monsters and deliver packages, it's awesome. And then I finally, after watching the final episode of Attack on Titan. That I'd been putting off for ages'cause I was scared how awesome it was gonna be. I got back into playing the second video game of it and it's just unbelievable how awesome it feels slinging through things. One of those games that perfectly captures the original source material somehow games that are coming up that we're looking forward to playing. As I said at the start, it doesn't need to be games that are new releases, but they're things that you're thinking of playing in the near future. I'll start, we'll go the other way around this time, Jem.

Jem:

I dunno, I hadn't got that far. I definitely going to be looking into some VR stuff. I think that's gonna be high on the Christmas list this year. And I think once I get to the end of Expedition 33, I am gonna be seeking out other similar games. There is definitely a need in me for playing. Games with story games that you can lose yourself in. I'm sure that people can lose themselves in Dave the diver and Coral Island and things like that, but they don't suck me in enough. My day to day job is very much, seasonal. So as we come up to the autumn. And into the winter months, that will get a lot quieter. So I will have more gaming time and I hope I will be able to invest in some more of these kind of involved games, but, which I don't know, there was quite a few that I liked the look of on the day of the devs list. So I think, we'll be looking out for whichever ones of those are coming out and, exploring that I'm a grasshopper, so who knows. I'll be playing about 20 different games between now and Christmas.

Alex:

so for me, I was really struggling with future games, to be honest, but one that I have picked out is very much a result of my recent gaming. Habits, and that's the sequel to Ghost of Tsushima. Ghost of vte. Which I think is coming out in the autumn. But I might do what I've done with Ghost of Tsushima and leave it for, maybe a year or so. I know ghost of. Tsushima came up like five years ago. It does help, soften the blow in terms of spending on gaming.'cause that's gonna be at least 70 pounds, if not more, for a, special edition or one with extra DLC. But the, premise of that one, obviously the character. The main character is female this time for the sequel, motivated by a big revenge quest. Hunt down and kill this set of people. So that is gonna give me much more Assassin's Creed vibes. You get that from Ghost of Tsushima anyway, but this is very much like the XiO part of Assassin's Creed where he's deliberately going after X set of people because they murdered his family. And having that motivation behind a character, I think just adds more to the story than, hunting a mysterious cult Because someone told you to, so that one I'm quite looking forward to. I feel like the characters in sushi are really rich and well written. So I'm very much looking forward to that. Continuing in this sequel. In terms of other games that I'm looking forward to playing in the future that aren't necessarily new. I mentioned the switch earlier. I'm going to see if I can find. The Professor Laton games and play them again on the switch. I absolutely loved Professor Laton on Nintendo DS and once it had moved to Nintendo three Ds, they produced, I think one or two that you couldn't play on. The original Nintendo DS, so we never played them. I'm gonna try and seek out the ones that I never got to play and replay the classics like Curious Village. I just love, I love ate and it's so fun. Very much puzzle games if you're not familiar. Essentially point and click, but with very charming, Japanese animation and, storytelling. It's very lovely. In fact there is a Professor Layton movie, if you wanted to dive deep into Professor Layton's backstory, which is very fun. And then the other game on the switch that got. Gifted to us is legend of so tears of the kingdom, which of course everyone has raved about over the years and says, I must play because I'll absolutely love it. But never had access to a switch until now. So definitely going to try that one as well in the future.

Matt:

It's lovely that there's always either a brand new game or an old game

Alex:

Hmm.

Matt:

that is the right next game for us. For me, it is interesting. I think I might be on the cusp of a turn based combat. Binge, but I have somehow turned to my wishlist being Blacksmith Wang Kaza, the first Berserker, which is a similar kind of game and final fantasy 16, and mainly led by the feel of the combat in Claire obscure that I get to punch straight away. So I get that the feeling of parrying and dodging is incredibly satisfying, but I just want to immediately be able to get stuck in Kazan and Final Fantasy 16, both have. Ben Starr as the main character and he's the sexiest voice in voice acting at the moment. I just want to hear his performance through them'cause it's, it's marvelous. And then black myth being just an exciting, challenging thing. And then in terms of new stuff, there's the outer world, world two coming out soon that should be exciting. Metal gear, solid snake eater Delta. Which is a remake of the third one in the original series, I think, and that just looks incredible as well mel Five and One Game. That could be fabulous or it could be rubbish. Is everything you heard of Dead Take?

Alex:

I've heard of it briefly. I've seen videos pop up on my Instagram of Ben Star and Neil Newborn, who of course we know Neil from Boulders Gate three playing Sterian. And also Abbu, Rebecca Ali, who's the voice of Baek from Assassin's Creed. Origins tagged himself. And shared those videos as well. So I suspect he has something to do with it too. But beyond that, I dunno anything about

Matt:

Two massively awesome actors. But the only problem is I think it's set in Boston, in America, and they have a famously awful accent. To listen to.

Alex:

yeah.

Matt:

I'm worried that they're going to spoil their wonderful voices with an awful accent.

Jem:

Oh, I don't think that's possible. I was actually going to say that you just reminded me before you mentioned Dead take, you just reminded me that Dead take is on my list because I think, Matt, you shared a clip of, Ben and, Neil having a conversation. They were doing a dead take, take your shot where they had to answer questions and drink shots. They were supposed to drink a shot if they didn't answer the question, but they're both so happy to. Just talk about everything that they haven't, that they're just having the shuts after they've answered the questions. And Neil keeps getting all the, like, the hardcore drinks and he's like, oh, great. This is started with red wine and now I'm on the vodka. And and Ben was like, and, but at the start of that conversation, Neil. Says that he thinks Ben's got this really, like a really sexy voice. A really cool voice. And and Ben's like, oh yeah, but people like lu after to your voice to, to kneel

Matt:

So they want to drink your voice. Drink your voice with cream.

Jem:

Cream them. Yeah. Listening to that and hearing and it just, yeah. I mean, they're both cool and so yeah, I want to explore that, but it's scary.

Matt:

So

Jem:

I'm brave

Matt:

exciting stuff on the horizons for gaming, hopefully. And if it's not on the horizon, then it's on the. Whatever the opposite of the horizon is, and, we will find our next game and we will keep you up to date what it is. That being said, thank you very much for watching and listening. You know, it's a find us, you know where our Patreon, PayPal is and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.

Jem:

Bye.

Alex:

Bye.