Ep. 18: Why the Steam Machine is a Game Changer, AC Black Flag Resented, Halo Campaign Evolved & Marvel Tokon

Welcome back to Gaming with Grown Folks! In Episode 18, Jahdie cuts through the internet's noise to deliver a hands-on-review of the highly debated Steam Machine. Instead of pitting Valve's new hardware against the PS5 or a high-end desktop PC, we explore the console's true focus: creating the ultimate, frictionless PC gaming experience for your living room and serving as the perfect big-screen companion to the Steam Deck.

This week's episode also features in-depth reviews of the summer's biggest blockbuster releases and heavy-hitting remakes:

• Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resented: How Ubisoft's Singapore's modern UE5 remake overhauls the stealth mechanics and pushes the overarching modern-day narrative forward.
• Halo Campaign Evolved: A breakdown of Halo Studio's stunning visual overhaul and the flawless 4-player cross-platform co-op experience.
• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls: Unpacking Arc System Works' innovative shared "Vital Gauge" mechanics in this buttery-smooth 2.5 D tag-team fighter.
• Beast of Reincarnation: Exploring Game Freak's beautiful, grim, and parry-heavy action RPG.

Finally, we round up the latest industry news, celebrating Palword's official 1.0 drop and looking ahead to August's stacked release calendar, featuring The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, Grounded 2: Into the Abyss, and Star Wars: Zero Company.

If you enjoy the show, please subscribe, share, and leave us a review on Apple Podcast to help grow our community of gamers who just want to talk video games without the necessary drama!

Original intro music produced by Jeremiah Daniel

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Welcome back to Gaming with Grown Folks, the podcast where we cut through the noise and talk about gaming from the mature perspective. We're officially on episode 18 and I'm thrilled to have you here with me today. Before we get into the meat and potatoes of the episode, I've got to give a massive shout out to my guy Jeremiah Daniel. Jeremiah, the intro music you created for the show is absolutely phenomenal. It sets the exact right vibe every single time. So thank you for that. To everyone tuning in, if you enjoyed the show, please remember to like, share, and subscribe wherever you're listening. And if you have a minute, head over to Apple Podcasts and leave us a review. Those reviews legitimately help grow this community and get the podcast in front of more grown folks who just want to have talk about video games without unnecessary drama. We have a pack show for you today. We're going to cover some major news from June and August, run through the heavy hitters releasing this month, and dive into some in-depth reviews of Marvel Tokon, Beast of Incarnation, Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync, and Halo Campaign Evolved. But our main focus today, I finally pulled the trigger. I bought the new Steam Machine, and I have some very different thoughts on it compared to what the rest of the internet is saying. So let's get into it. July was actually a pretty wild month for the industry, setting the stage for an explosive rest of the year. One of the biggest milestones was Pow World finally leaving early access and dropping its official 1.0 update. But moving into August, the momentum hasn't slowed down at all. This month is absolutely stacked with major releases. We just had the Pacopia DLC expansion drop. Looking straight strictly ahead, August 11th is bringing us the Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion Remastered, launching alongside Grounded 2 into the Abyss across all major platforms. And for my tactical strategy fans, Star Wars Zero Company is closing out the month on August 27th. It's a fantastic time to be a gamer, but my wallet is definitely filling the heat. Before we talk about hardware, let's talk about software. I've been spending a lot of time evaluating some massive releases for the past few weeks, starting with two massive remakes that have dominated July. Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resync, released on July 9th. If you thought this was just a simple resolution pump, you were greatly mistaken. Ubisoft Singapore built this from the ground up in a modern Anvil engine, meaning it contains zero code from the original 2013 game. They completely overhauled the stealth and movement, finally adding the manual crouch, side ejects, and back ejects. The combat also shifted focused on much more precise parries, but what really caught me off guard is the narrative. While it is a remake, it acts like the 15th main installment, actively continuing the modern day story arc that began with Assassin's Creed Shadows. It's a brilliant way to breathe new life into Edward Kennedy's story while pushing the overarching franchise forward. Then, on July 18th, we got Halo Campaign Evolved. The newly rebranded Halo Studios moved away from their old propriety SlipSpace engine and completely remade the original Combat Evolved into in using Unreal Engine 5. Visually it's stunning. They made a bold choice to strip out the competitive multiplayer entirely, focusing primarily on the story and cooperative play, and they nailed the co-op. It features four-player online co-op with full cross-platform play and cross-projection, cross-progression across PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S. They even added the brand new mission called Operation Meteorite. But you can now use the weapons from the latter games, like the battle rifle and the energy sword, in the original combat campaign. It's a definitive way to play the experience from a classic. Moving on to PC, I checked out two brand new titles for August. First up is Marvel Tokon, Fighting Souls. Developed by Arc Systems Works. This is a 2.5D tag team fighter built on Unreal Engine 5. Instead of managing health bars for three different characters, your whole team uses a single vital gauge. This extends as you unlock more of your roster during the match. You start with one fighter and an assist, and as you accumulate damage and trigger crazy mid-match wall breaks at different stages, you eventually unlock your full 4v4 lineup. Playing this on a PC is buttery smooth and is a must-play for fighting game fans. Next is Beast of Incarnation. This is action adventure souls like RPG from Game Freak, the ones who've made uh Pokemon, and it's phenomenal. It's set in a post-ocaltic Japan, and you should play an 18-year-old woman named Emma alongside her stray dog Ko. The combat loop revolves around whittling down an enemy's down gauge with perfect parties and utilizing Emma's plant manipulation abilities. Visually, the game playing the game on a high-end PC feels like you're walking through a grim, blighted Studio Ghibli film. Coordinating attacks with your dog Co. adds a real unique layer to the strategy. You know, one thing that is unique about this game is they did stick to the native language. So there is no way to change the language to English. It it just defaults to Japan Japanese. So it means you have to read the subtitles. So in cutscenes, you know, that's a little easier because you're not actively doing anything and you're just watching the cutscene. However, you know, when you are moving and walking and the characters are speaking to each other, it's sometimes tough to keep up with the story because you're actually trying to navigate the environment or fight an enemy. So that part, you know, is a little challenging. So I'm probably missing out on some plot points because my attention's focused elsewhere. So I do kind of wish there was an option to do like an English dub of the game. However, you know, hearing it in its native language definitely sounds more authentic. So, you know, I do applaud the developer for sticking to the guns. But it's a it's a great game, you know, it's one of those that you can play in nice, you know, chunks, so you don't necessarily have to sit on the couch for hours on end before you hit a save point. And you know, they I like the way that they take a different twist on post-apocalyptic instead of everything being you know, drab and gray or brown, you know, it's got a lot of uh fauna in it. So you've got a lot of you know, uh branches and trees and green leaves and colorful flowers, and what happens, I guess, the plants and trees are actually a part of the characters, so as you're fighting enemies, they also have you know plants and trees that are growing out of them. So it gives it a really unique design aesthetic. It doesn't look like the average game. And I was curious when they did uh announce that you know a few months ago because I was thinking, okay, well, you know, if Game Freaks makes uh Pokemon games, you know, how's that translate into an RPG like this one? But you know, you can kind of see some of those traits coming through. I mean, they are imaginative with some of the enemies that you're fighting. And you know, it's it's a it's a fun, it's a fun game. I've only played it a couple of hours, so I'm not too too deep into it. But it's got kind of a similar hook where you know you're in a it looks kind of like from Star Wars the Skywalker type. I forgot the name of the thing that the you would walk, but it was you know one of those machines that had legs, so it was bipedal, and that was kind of serving as your base, and that's where you would go to sleep or take a shower or you know, have a chance to bond, you know, with your your dog co. And then you also had the person that pilots the ship, and so you're talking to them back and forth, you know, as you're doing your adventures, you can return back to the ship, you know, when you get to to save points. So it's got some similar mechanics that you've seen in other games, but it's it's still a fun time to play. And if you hadn't had a chance to try it, it's on Game Pass, so that's how I'm playing it uh on the PC through through Game Pass. And so that's one nice thing about Game Pass is you know it does give you a chance to try some games that you may not have tried before, but you know, you don't have to bite the bullet and pay the full price. So yeah, check it out on Game Pass if you have that. But it's called Beasts of Reincarnation. Now, you know, for the main topic, we're gonna talk a little bit about the uh the Steam Machine. Um, so alright, let's get into the main event. After watching several YouTube reviews over the last few weeks, I finally decided to purchase the Steam Machine. I did sign up for Valve's registration system. Really, I was surprised I wasn't anticipating receiving an email anytime soon because you know, by comparison, you know, I signed up for the reservation system for the steam controller when that launched earlier a couple of months ago, and I still didn't get a response from Valve yet that I can purchase that. So I was really, you know, surprised when it came to the inbox that I can move forward and purchase the steam machine. At first I, you know, had some reservations, but you know, having to go through a system like Valve setup, and I guess it's to prevent you know, scalpers from just running in and grabbing all of the uh items, I knew if I turned down the purchase, I'd have to wait a few more months again to get another opportunity. So I went ahead and pulled the trigger and got the steam machine. And it came pretty quickly, you know, once I purchased it, uh, with less than maybe three days or so, three to four, you know, it was mailed to me. So it's a pretty quick process. So what I did find interesting, you know, I in watching all the different reviewers, you know, they had either compared the Steam Machine directly to a base PlayStation 5, or they'd hit you with the classic PC enthusiast line, you know, you could build a more powerful desktop PC for the exact same price. But, you know, actually actually sitting down and playing a few games with the Steam Machine for a few days, I have a completely different thought. And I understand Valve's focus here. Instead of competing with the PlayStation 5 or trying to battle out with more powerful desktop PCs, the Steam Machine is a more powerful to me extension of the Steam Deck. You know, I recall a few years ago when I got the Steam Deck, and you know, you had other manufacturers that were more niche products, uh you know, expensive even at that time, like over a thousand dollars for handheld PCs. But I noticed Valve didn't go after that market because when they came to the Steam Deck, it was aggressively priced. It was under $500, about $400, and then on up depending on the amount of storage that you wanted. And when I finally got it, started playing games. Yeah, sure, it wasn't going to be that the same caliber as uh at that time a 3080 desktop PC would be. But again, because you're playing on a handheld, you don't necessarily have to have those high resolutions to make the games look great. And so I think with the Steam Deck, I think it was like maybe a 720p. It had an odd resolution because of the size of the screen, so maybe it was like 800p or something. But you know, the the games played great, you know, had a great time with it. However, you know, I didn't want to access you know my games on Game Pass, I did want to access the games that I also had through subscriptions on Ubisoft Connect Plus or you know, EA Play Pro. And so I I then eventually got an ROG Ally, the original white one, to play those games. But what I noticed, you know, looking at the Steam Deck to at that time, the ROG Ally, was just the amount of friction I had to go through, you know, with the R ROG Ally. You know, I would turn it on, maybe Windows had an update, you know, it was difficult trying to navigate using just the touch screen, you know, to click on the settings and do the updates, or have to if you had to enter any text, you know, using those small characters on the virtual keyboard to enter information. And so you had to check like you know, three places for updates. You had to check first to see if Windows had an update, then you had to check to see if ROG, you know, had an update. And then once you finally were into the launcher, maybe the Xbox Game Pass app needed an update, or you finally get a chance to play the game and then you find out the game has to be updated. And so, you know, when I look forward to an evening of playing a game on my handheld, you know, I wasted at least an hour or so just doing updates. And then the same, of course, with desktop, with the addition of also updating the drivers on your video game card, not video game, but your video card. And so I'd have to go to NVIDIA and see if there are any new drivers because normally when a new game launches, especially a big title, there's an update to the driver for that game, and so you'd have to go to NVIDIA and you know do that and get an update on the driver. You know, and so when I compared the experience I had in the ROG Ally, and even now the newer R Xbox ROG Ally X, it's the same thing. You still have to go through all these updates. Now, Xbox did make it a little easier so that instead of defaulting to the Windows screen as it would have on the ROG Ally, it defaults to the Xbox experience. So you're not going directly into the Windows environment, you would just uh go directly to Xbox, but still you may find that when you just go right into Xbox, maybe it doesn't work correctly or some of the games aren't operating correctly. And so you go through the cycle again and say, Well, let me go see if there's any updates. And sure enough, you go to the Windows, there's an update required. You go to ROG, there's an update required, or in this case, you know, Armory Crate, when I'm saying RG, there's an X uh an update, you know, required. You know, when you get to the launcher, you know, there's an update required, and again, when you get to the game, there's an update required. In comparison to the uh Steam machine, um, really simple. I mean, I and the great thing is, you know, Valve didn't use proprietary, you know, parts. I mean, it came really really simple packaging, and they only had two cords. You had the power cord and you had an HDMI cord. And instead of taking in those and using those, I just used, you know, the cords from the Xbox that was right in front of it, and I didn't have to fumble around and you know, trying to put in and install, you know, another HDMI connection to my TV or find an uh, you know, a vacant slot on my surge protector for another plug-in. I just switched those cords, and then when I turned on the Steam Machine, pretty straightforward. You know, I did an update on the Steam Machine itself, it did an update on the controller, and in the box it does. I got the one that was a two-terabyte that included the controller and the swappable uh face plates, as I would call them. And so, yeah, you had to just update the controller using the puck. And you know, once you've done the update, you only need to use the puck now for charging because the steam machine itself actually also has the connection for the controller internally, so it has kind of like if you would, the internal puck versus an external puck that you would use if you just had a desktop PC. So, you know, long story short, that was all easy to do. You know, the funny thing over the holidays, because I hadn't used my Steam machine in so long because I was using the ROG Ally and the Xbox ROG Ally X, you know, I gave my Steam Deck to my niece. You know, uh she came over with her boyfriend for the holidays. You know, she'd mentioned that she was into gaming, he really wanted to get a Steam Deck, and so I just gave gifted that to her as a present. But now that the Steam Machine is out, I have a little bit of remorse. I got the original Steam Deck that was the LCD model, so I didn't get the OLED model. But yeah, but it was great because again, it was so simple to use. You turn on, you're right into the Steam OS. I loved the play pause nature of it. So, you know, after sitting down and playing with a few days, I definitely have you know some differing thoughts of the connection, you know, and I think what now even when Malve is marketing, you know, the Steam controller and the Steam machine and the upcoming you know VR headset, uh Steam frame, they market them as a group, as three products that interact together. And so, yeah, after playing spending some time with it, I think from Val's perspective, they're looking at this as an extension, you know, of the Steam Deck. And what was brilliant with their marketing, you know, it does continue to reference the the cross-operability of the three products. You know, so again, had I kept my Steam Deck, I could have just taken the micro SD card out of the Steam Deck, put it into the Steam Machine, and all my games would have been there. I wouldn't have to download anything. Now, I mean the great thing with Steam Machine and Steam Deck is in the Steam frame when it comes out, is you will have access to Valve's uh library of games, you know, and then you know, with all the hype with the new Spider-Man brand new day movie coming out, and I hadn't seen that one yet, but definitely looking forward to it. I said, Well, let me go ahead and revisit Spider-Man 2 because I had it on the PlayStation 5, and I still do, but I didn't have it on the on the PC. And so that's one great thing about Valve. I mean, when I looked uh on Steam, I said, Well, let me see if it's on sale, and sure enough, it was like 40% off. So, yeah, I went ahead and got it, it was like 40 bucks versus but the original game was like $70, maybe $60 a PC. So, yeah, that's the other great thing about having the Steam Machine or Steam Deck, is that you know, Valve constantly has games on sale, and you don't get that with PlayStation or or Xbox, especially their main titles, very seldom do they sell those on sale. They may have some discounts on older third-party games, but very rarely do you see first-party games for sale on either system. So, you know, that's one of the nice pluses about having the Steam Machine is as games go on sale, you can definitely build up a nice library, and it's going to be across all products, so it's not that you have to repurchase it if you get a Steam Deck or a Steam frame. It works on all the products. So that's another great thing about the Steam Machine. And so when you think about traditional PC gaming in the living room, as I said before, it has friction. You have to deal with Windows updates, driver crashes, weird controller handshakes, and background apps pulling focus. The Steam Machine removes the friction by playing games on a window PC, from playing games on a window PC. It provides the exact same complicity of the Steam Deck, just scaled up for your for your television. And I heard a lot about, you know, of course, you know, Valve kind of inadvertently shot themselves in the foot when it came out and said in their initial advertising that the Steam machine can do 4K gaming at 60 frames a second. But there's a caveat. I mean, there's certain games, of course, if you're playing less demanding games, they can easily do 4K, or maybe older games, they can do 4K. But if you're talking about the current AAA games, they don't do that as well, especially games that you know use ray tracing. You know, for some reason, Theme Machine is not able to do ray tracing very well, and so the games run at a very slow pace. So I did notice as I was playing games, it does recommend 1080p. Now, I did select after watching some of the reviewers 1440p and did upscaling, and and the games look great, you know. And I didn't really sense that they were less responsive. You know, I looked at some comparison videos and they had the frame uh counters on each of the comparisons as they showed like 1080p versus a 1440p versus 4K, and again, 4K had around 30 to 40, you know, probably around some 30 frames per second. You know, at the 1440p, you were hitting maybe like 50 frames per second, sometimes 60. So, you know, that that definitely seems to be the the sweet spot. And again, at 1080p, you're easily hitting, you know, sometimes 112 frames a second. And so it kind of depends on on what you're looking for. If you're looking to have more graphics and sharper resolution, you're gonna play at a lower uh frame rate versus you know, if you scale to what Valve says and only do ten eighty p, then you're gonna have a much more responsive game. And it seems that if it's you know ten eighty p, then you know, across the board you're gonna have that experience. And so going back again to Good comparison of uh Steam Deck to the Steam Machine, you know, I can also see that because again with the Steam Deck, you know, when you docked, I think it did go up to 1080p. And so, you know, for the Steam Machine, they set the default at 1080p because they would have thought, okay, well, a lot of our audience is transitioning from the Steam Deck to now the Steam machine, then you know, that does make it to the resolution they are accustomed to playing at at 1080p. So now I kind of understand it. So, you know, if you want the out-of-the-box experience without having to tinker anything, you don't have to do anything, it's already set to 1080p. Now, I'm not a tinkerer, I just like to play, I'm a console, you know, gamer, so I don't really like doing all that tinkering. I just like to play the experience as the whatever the default is. And so, you know, again, I had two games I tried initially, you know, Spider-Man 2, and I played, you know, maybe a few hours at the 1080p level, and it was fine. You know, you still had some good graphics, you know, it wasn't as sharp and crisp as it would be, of course, if as playing in 4K, but it was by no means, you know, a diminished graphical quality. I did uh try, you know, where I left off at Final Fantasy VII Remake Integrate at 1440p, and it looked great. You know, uh, it felt like I was playing it on a 3080 or 3060 from a couple of years ago, and because it's an older game, you know, oh, that still looked great because it was an upgrade from the original code using up PlayStation 4. So, you know, again, you know, it's it's like similar to like, you know, people that are using handheld PCs, they know that they're gonna make a compromise but in terms of the graphic fidelity of the game versus a desktop PC, but they like the the portability. And so it's the same thing, you know, with the Steam Deck. You do make a compromise if you're used to a stronger desktop PC, but it's the convenience, you know. Like when I go to play it, I don't have to worry about all the different updates. And even if it doesn't update, you know, it seemed to be very, very quick. So, you know, you know, again, when I as I recall using the Steam Deck when it first launched, it wasn't competing, it wasn't competing with expensive Ps and powerful handhelds. It was actually competing with the Nintendo Switch, aiming to bring that console-like ease with used to open platform. This is exactly what the Steam Machine is doing now. It's not the guy that wants to tweak BIOS settings, it's with a grown gamer who already owns a massive Steam library, loves the Steam Deck's interface, and wants the exact same frictionless experience on the couch. Well, this is what's going for uh episode 18. Uh, thank you all for spending part of your week with me. Remember to hit that subscribe button, drop a review on Apple Podcasts, and keep supporting community. Uh, you can also email us at gaminggrown books at gmail.com if you have suggestions for the show, or if there are some exciting titles that you're excited to talk about uh for fall that are coming out, definitely let us know. We can definitely research and check into those. And if you have any comments on the games that were featured today or the Steam Machine, you know, again you can email all those to gamingrunfolks at gmail.com. I'll catch you in the next episode in Gaming Pro Volks. I hope you guys have a great week. Keep on gaming,