Proper Indie Gems, Fortnite Duos And Mega Microsoft Reward Points Value

GTA Online still pulling in absurd money more than a decade on should make every gamer pause, because it shapes everything from game budgets to subscription pricing. We start lighter though, jumping back into Fortnite duos for the first time in ages and immediately turning into two blokes chasing quests, rivals points, and a laugh while getting shot at from every angle. It’s chaotic, nostalgic, and a good reminder that gaming feels better when you’re not doing it alone.

Then we get properly nerdy with a full Microsoft Rewards points update. We walk through the daily routine, the weekly bonuses, how the points translate into real GBP value, and what it takes to realistically save towards the next Xbox console. If you’ve ever wondered whether Xbox points are worth the effort, or how people are effectively funding games and hardware, we put the numbers on the table and talk about what happens when Microsoft tweaks the system.

After that we swap recommendations and quick reviews, from the bizarre brilliance of Thank Goodness You’re Here to early thoughts on Replaced, plus a shout for Mini Shot Adventures as a seriously moreish little Game Pass gem. We close with the week’s gaming news: rumours around Game Pass pricing and future tiers, BAFTA Games Awards 2026 winners, Metro 2039’s reveal, new Xbox Series X|S update features, and what PlayStation Plus is offering this month.

If you enjoy the show, subscribe, share it with a mate, and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or a comment on YouTube so more people can find Gamers Of The Lost Spark Podcast.

Watch our Previous Episodes on YouTube - https://linkly.link/2dG8W

Support the Podcast by using our Affiliated links:

Earn Microsoft Points to spend on Games - https://linkly.link/2gVsi

Support the podcast by shopping on Amazon - https://geni.us/npUEx 

An award-winning VPN deal from Surfshark - https://linkly.link/2cM3B

Start your own podcast and receive $20 - https://linkly.link/2acMf

Transcript

Welcome Back And Weekend Plans

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello and welcome to episode 180 of Gamers of the Lost Spark Podcast. I'm your host, Stuart Burgess, and joining me as always is the other Spark on the Pod, Mr. Stephen Carter. Hello, mate. How are we doing, you okay? I am good after taking about 17 goes that started this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

It's always the hardest part, mate. It's the hardest part. Once you're over that, it's it's plain sailing from there though. Hopefully, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Well, it's always one of those funny things, isn't it? Because you've got it in front of you, and I always maintain that it's it's a mouthful, gamers of the Lost Spark podcast. So I've never wanted to change it because it's sort of like taking over from Darren, take it over from Anthony, and it's sort of like it's a bit nostalgic. So I didn't want to I didn't want to I don't want to change the name, but it is always a bit of a put your teeth in type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, and it's always I feel like when you've got the pressure when you read it from a script, especially you think in your head, don't mess it up, don't mess it up, don't mess it up. And then that it inevitably just makes you mess it up even more. So but we're here, mate. We got through it. We got through it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

We got through it. We're a few days later because I couldn't get back on time on Wednesday. So uh this I'm hoping this this is Saturday night as we record, so I'm hoping that I'm gonna edit this tomorrow, someday, and then get it up Sunday. So uh if it's the pot a couple of days late, sorry Anthony, I'm sorry you missed your Saturday podcast or even your Sunday podcast whilst doing your Sunday roast. I apologise for that, but blame my work, I didn't get home in time.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah, you've been a busy boy this week, so hopefully he'll forgive us. Hopefully he'll forgive us.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Yeah, no, he'll he'll he'll get over it. He'll get over it.

Fortnite Duos And Old Memories

SPEAKER_01 1:45

So what have you what have you been playing? Obviously, we played something the other night together, but let's actually no, let's do that first. So we jumped on Fortnite duos the other day for the first time. And that was that was a right good laugh that was.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yeah, it was really good fun actually, and it kind of took me back to the the time with like I said when we used to play during COVID or some pals and what have you. So yeah, that that was a real bit of fun. So I had a a bit of unexpected time off. So I said to you, if you're about, we'll jump on and you're working from home, which worked out quite nicely. And I think probably the best part of what two two and a half hours, maybe. Yeah, it was quite a while.

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Yeah, I think we jumped on I think we jumped on at about 1.45. And then yeah, it was it was it was a good sort of nearly four o'clock when you had to go off and do your father duties. And uh, yeah, but no, it was good. That just it I was laughing and chuckling to myself for the whole night afterwards where the first thing that we did when we landed at the fortress or wherever we landed was jump on each other's shoulders because there was uh there was an achievement or uh there was some points for jumping on shoulders and duo. So it's like there's like Steve in the corner going, quick, jump on mine, jump on mine, and then I jump on and then I turn around and go, jump on mine, jump on mine.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

All the while surrounded by people shooting and firing on us. But yeah, it's it's quite good though, because I've I've still slowly got into it, but I had a quick blast before we recorded tonight as well. But I feel like I'm definitely back in on a hype now, but yeah, because there's quite a few quests that I hadn't done up until that point. I was racing through levels. I think I'm about level 44 now, and I think I was at lowly 20s when we jumped on yesterday, so I'm absolutely flying, but yeah, just ticking quests off, trying to find the cubes, do the little bits and pieces, just having a laugh. And most importantly, Stu, getting those rivalries up. That's what we need to work on.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Well, yeah, definitely. I mean, I looked, I mean, I haven't looked to see what the the list list is. Um I'll try, I might bring it up in a second whilst you're doing your part. But I think I'm at something like 220, 230 now. I've I've been quite busy, so I've jumped in and played a couple, but I've not been cading it like I was. But yeah, it's good to see you're headed in the right direction. But even like not looking at the leaderboard on on the internet, I was looking at people that were coming up in my group because last time I really sort of played it was probably about a week, it was probably last weekend actually, and I was pretty much top. I was always the top person in the group of rivals. And I noticed today I had a look, and there are just what I would call normal players in there who are three, four, five hundred, and I'm still at sort of two thirty. But I don't know, it's it's the rivals I enjoy it, but it has lost its little bit of its edge for me. The only the only way I'm still enjoying it is I'd get the rivals, it's a good laugh, and I was doing like I did the last time we podded, which is you know, land in New Sanctuary, you know, and then literally spend the first five minutes or ten minutes just caning anybody who lands there and getting some points before I have to dissipate. And then, of course, that unlocks the better gut gun. So you've got better guns, or some better guns. We found the one yesterday wasn't that good, but uh, but that's sort of what I've been up to.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Yeah. Yeah, the the um I think it's like the one of the mythic assault rifle of some some capacity, which I I did I picked them both up today actually on my little game that I had. I picked that up on the the boom boom sniper, so I picked those both up. But it seemed to do alright, but it's not the most accurate thing for a mythic level weapon. But yeah, it we it was just it was just a good laugh, do you know what I mean? And it would it were nice just to do that again because I think when you're playing on your own, it can be quite a bit of a lonely thing to do, unless you're playing in duos, trios, squads, that sort of thing, and actually talking amongst who you're playing with. But yeah, it was quite nice to go back to that actually, just having a good laugh, you know, whittling time. Well obviously we wanted to win, we didn't win. I think the second week was the best, wasn't it, in the end. So we we came quite high in quite a few of them. But yeah, it was just nice to just lose time, lose track of time, do you know what I mean? Like say we we had to just I had to hurry off to go do the the nursery run, but it was just nice to jump in and yeah, just forget about it, you know what I mean? Just jump in, have a good time.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

It was good because to say, like you you know, I don't I mean I think last time I probably played online properly with other people was when the sparks jumped into Forza, you know, which we're hoping to do again with six coming out, but when when the Sparks jumped into Forza, but it was quite nice to just have uh have a chat. What you know, what are you up to, what you what's your week been like, you know, plus actually just you know having a having a giggle, really. That was what was fun. It was just two hours of just like having a laugh. Oh, he's over there, he's over there, you know, two o'clock, three o'clock, whatever. It was just it was just a good good giggle.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Yeah, it was and it's just it's just a nice, like you say, right, albeit you're not together, but it feels like you're almost in the same room just having a having a nice catch up with people like over a over a drink or two or what have you, and we we have said that it'd be good to include that as you know as an addition to the show at some point, you know, just have a bit of either a streaming or a recording of us playing and gaming together to watch how how bad we both are at some stuff, but yeah, it's just nice, just like it's just nice. It'll be good to play some other stuff as well that we if there's all that's co-op or like Forza, like you say, when that comes out, other bits and pieces that are coming up as well. But yeah, for now I think if we can just duo up on Fortnite every now and again, it'll be just nice to team up and just see what havoc we can cause, basically.

Rivals Points And Early Drop Chaos

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Well, I just brought up uh the showdown.fortnight.com. Would you like to hasten a guess based on the leaderboard? I have 206. Based on the leaderboard, who who what how many do you how many kills do you think first position has got?

SPEAKER_00 7:25

Well, it's just worldwide, it's global, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:27

This is well this is worldwide, so this is the leaderboard as in global on yeah, on the uh Fortnite website.

SPEAKER_00 7:34

I can't even remember how many we said last time. 15,000.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Uh close. I mean, to be honest, I'm I I'm gonna say I'm I'm actually surprised it's not more because we haven't podted for what's it about two and a half weeks, I think it is. And I think back then it was 10-ish thousand. But the the uh the the top person in the world has got twenty thousand eight hundred and two rivals, with second place being nine hundred behind them at nineteen thousand nine hundred, and then third place onwards, it's minimal, really, really minimal to how it's jumping up at hundreds if if less. So, and they've all got some of them have got a little cup symbol next to them. So I don't know whether that's uh the top ten or the top twenty or something like that. So uh, but yeah, so twenty so let's just say twenty-one thousand if you were trying to get if you were trying to win, which we're knowing here.

SPEAKER_00 8:32

I'd I'd have to work that out. Like, how how many is that a day, how many is that a game? You know what I mean? It's just like again, you say these are normal people, like if if they are that is if they're just uh you know, not a streamer, not a YouTuber, not a competitive player. That's somebody who's like must be minted that somewhere just literally just sat in the bedroom or the basement also played all day.

SPEAKER_01 8:53

Well, that's there is a creator tab, and the creator tab, which I think I've closed it now, I think it was 19 and a half thousand. Yeah, 19 and a half thousand. So so if they're the creators are not up there, so yeah, that's either someone who hasn't got a job and who's played a lot of Fortnite, or as you say, is a streamer or or a passionate, you know, let's work for five hours and let's stream for 19 and not sleep for about.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Yeah, no, I'd I'd dread to even think what that equates to, but that's just nuts. But yeah, I think I'm up to I think 39, I think it is now after I've finished my game just before we came on. So rookie, rookie, very rookie numbers still. But uh, but yeah, it's just nice, like you say, just to jump in, get some early kills on board later in the game. It it can obviously help but hinder you because it shows you location. So when it's getting to the end game, it can be a bit tricky because you can't really hide anymore, um, or but it just gives you a rough area, but still, somebody knowing that you're in that general area gives them a hint of where you are. So, yeah, it's just a nice addition. It is nice, and I think this is it's like there's different stages over the season, isn't there?

SPEAKER_01 9:55

So there's different yeah, I think it's just gone into sort of like the second act, so there's a new rivalry now. And I mean, I'll be honest with you, I've not paid a huge amount of attention to it apart from there's new challenges and some new characters. But but no, I mean I've enjoyed it. You know, I I enjoyed the rivals because you know you can uh worst case you can go to the board, you can select a rival, and then you can get some you can get some uh revitalizing sprays or you know, glunks or things like that. So even if you're going for a a win, then you can go to the rivals board, do your do your dailies for rivals, get more achievements, but also pick up some uh first aid equipment for when you sort of do get towards the you know the last five, the last ten. But as I say, when I was playing earlier, because I've now unlocked Bugs Bunny, so I've my my life is now complete. I have unlocked Bugs Bunny. Uh I've just got to go and unlock Bugs Bunny in his Space Jam outfit, I think, is the next one. So um yeah, my life is complete. I decided tonight I would jump in and play as Bugs Bunny, but uh I went in to do my dailies, and and and you know when you do your dailies, it can be sometimes be really, really quick, and you basically do it like within five minutes of landing. Tonight, I think it took me seven games to get my dailies done because it was just giving me really weird things, and I just must have hit it when other people were playing, and some good people were playing as well. So uh I was getting a bit annoyed, and then I just got the points, not rage quitted, but got the points right that's it, back I'll be back tomorrow. So, what else have you been playing then? Have you you've been playing anything else?

SPEAKER_00 11:32

Yeah, so we've got a couple of games. So I played and finished Thank Goodness You Here the other week. I've finished, I've finally played it, so I actually which actually Stu, I was gonna make a point here. I used my Microsoft Points to buy Thank Goodness You Here. Yep, and we said we were gonna do a little a little tally for you, didn't we? So we were gonna have a little catch

Microsoft Rewards Points Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 11:52

up. So should we just briefly segue to your points update?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

I decided to do a Microsoft Points update because I'd had a few questions from people about the Microsoft Points and how you earn them and things like that. So so fundamentally the reward points I earn in two ways. So I've got the big app on my phone, so every morning when I get up, it's it's become like it's become get up, you know, let the dog in the garden, let myself in the toilet, you know, put the coffee on, sit down on the sofa, switch the Xbox on, put it on a game for 15 minutes. You know, I just let literally sit it on a game for 15 minutes, then I get that point that way. If I'm thinking about it, I'll also switch the rock on and put that on again for 15 minutes. Then I'll go on to the big app and then I'll you know check in on the big app, do the daily questions and things like that. And it basically builds up and builds up over time. So, I mean, I I I'll get on it to it into a minute, but I bought another game this week or a couple of games this week. Of course, you do earn a few points on that as well, that we're gonna talk about story later that I bought the old version of, and I got like I think it was three, four, five hundred points. But as of well, as of now, because I worked it out about an hour before we come on pod, so Stuart's Points update. My current total is uh 718,704. So that equates to 579 pounds and sixty-nine pence. I'm hoping, I'm hoping and praying that the price of the Helix, the Xbox Helix, is gonna be, let's say, around about £700. I know I'm probably, you know, shooting in the wind to say whatever. I think it's gonna be an extra two or three more on that. But let's say, let's say, based on good, good knowledge, that it's gonna be £700. So I need to get £867,000. Well, just round it up, so £868,000 points. So I've got re I've got 718, I need 617-ish. So that means that I need to get just under, or just over, sorry, 149,000 points. Based on if it's gonna come out holiday 2027, I need which is 637 days away, I need to hurt 234 power points a day. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Quite a simple equation when you work it out, really. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, well, and and to be honest, that's actually quite achievable. I mean, if it's if it's gonna be if it's gonna be three uh six hundred and six hundred and thirty-seven days to December, I think it was the first of December 2027, okay. 237 points a day if you're just doing big and Microsoft is not that achievable. It's not achievable-ish. But if you then counter in the you get your you get your bonuses. So if you play a game pass game every day of the week, you get a bonus at the end of the week. So when I get towards the end of the week on a Saturday or Sunday, or across the Saturday and Sunday, I could easily unlock a thousand points.

SPEAKER_03 15:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:06

And also I have put a link in the description. So there is a little referral code. So two things. If you want to help me buy my next project, then basically if you if you sign up for big and you use it for two days, I get 500 points. Thank you very much. Please support the podcast. But I will also, I will also, if I have any points spent left over, so let's say let's say it does come out at 700 pounds and I end up getting 800 pounds, for instance, what I will do is I will spend the rest of the points on some Xbox vouchers, and then we'll give those away on the pod. So if anybody's listening to this and wants to give it a go, use the link in the description and sign up to Bing, go onto the Xbox, do your awards on your Xbox. I think you need to be at certain levels of Game Pass, but but yeah, but help me help you win some vouchers.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Cynically, could we not just set up a load of new email addresses and use your referral code?

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Uh well yeah, you could you could potentially and with a VPN, yeah, you could. You could you could basically go in and set up you know Steve 1 at email, Steve 2 at email, Steve 3 at email. I haven't got time to do that, so so feel free to do it if you want.

SPEAKER_00 16:23

500 points a pop, mate.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

I'm I'll be back in a minute. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

But yeah, it's yeah, it it's I mean it's it's a hell of our points. Do you know what I mean? I'm looking at mine. I I spent my points on a voucher, which I spent to use on um thank goodness you here, which is where we segued from. Um but yeah, I'm looking at looking at mine at the moment, where is it? Let me just get the app up here. I just had it open. So I'm at a lowly 6,120. So a £10 gift card is $12,400. So I'm a little bit of ways away from that getting that again. But yeah, looking at it, you get if you open the app, you get 10 points for playing dual, 20 for playing a PC game, 20 for playing a console game, 50 points using the app, there's your weekly PC bonus, there's your weekly console bonus, there's a player game pass game, there's your weekly streak, there's a monthly four pack and monthly eight pack. So between all that a lot, you can, you know, there is earning potential plus like the Bing searches and other bits and pieces like that. So yeah, it's a possibility, mate. You know, it it it we'll we'll see this at the next year, we'll soon find out.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

Honestly, joke joking aside, they do build up quite quickly because I can't remember when it was, but I remember messaging you guys. I'll have a look. If I can find it, I'll put it on the screen now. If you're watching this on YouTube, like and subscribe. Um, but I remember I remember messaging you guys and saying I phone finally broke 700,000 and now I'm at 700, well, nearly 719,000. So they you know that's 19,000 points in I wanna I want to say ma maximum amount.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

It really doesn't seem that far away, you know, i e even in sort of the just the short maybe pre-discussion of starting the pod, which is you know, start of this year, you know, and then February, March time. It doesn't seem like a long, a long time ago, to be fair. So but yeah, I mean it'll be really interesting to see what they do with the points, you know, between then and now, the worth, the accruing of them, how you accrue them. Obviously, they reduced the value or the amount that you can redeem or you can earn recently, didn't they? So it'll be interesting to see what they do with that again.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

They are nerfing it a little bit, which is which is a bit annoying. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

So we will see, we will see. But circling back to what we've been playing, so I think I feel like we need a little jingle for your um like Stuart's points updates. We might might need a little bit of music or something in the future. But yeah, we'll be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

I'll make something up, I'll go on to epidemic sounds and see if I can find a little like like news jingle or something like that.

Thank Goodness You’re Here Review

SPEAKER_00 18:51

But yeah, we go back to what we've been playing, so yes, thank goodness you're here, which I picked up with said Xbox points. So it's been out, I want to say a couple of years now, maybe. It's been out a little while, hasn't it? But it was on was it just on PlayStation, I think, and it's just come to Xbox recently. Yeah, I think so. Um obviously it's on the on the store. Honestly, one of the most bizarre video games I've played in a long time, yet also the most accurate yet satirical at the same time. Like it's it's a very tongue-in-cheek satirical take on fictional town called Barnsworth, which is Barnsley in South Yorkshire, which is it's it's on Yorkshire, isn't it? Basically, yes, it is it's 20-30 minutes from where I am. Like I I'm like I are part of our postcard neighbours to South Yorkshire to Barnsley, so it's not far away at all. And and I would play it, I've played it on sofa and anarchists. What is this nonsense that you're playing? Like, what what what is this? Like, it's just ridiculous. It's madness. It is mental. You know, fundamentally, it's a news reporter that's come to report on this little town called Barnsworth, and he ends up going around seeing different people, different parts of life, helping people out. Honestly, you you walk around punching pigeons in the face, you know, you're helping somebody repair a fryer for a fish shop, you're flying down chimneys covering people's living rooms in soot. You're trying to get something from a guy in a vegetable shop that's gone mental because he's got the shape of an egg, yeah, head shape like an egg, honestly. It's just it's hilarious. You can tell that it's like it must be written by people that are local. I haven't looked into it, but it must be written by people that are A from the area or B know the area very, very well. Because it's like it's whilst it's satirical, it's one of those things it's like, I can believe this happening. Like somebody starts. Yeah, I can believe people saying this. Like you just listen to the dialogue, there's people arguing about wheelie bins. It's like that literally happens. Like, there's people have you touched my wheelie bin? I've not touched your wheelie bin. That's touched my wheelie, but you know what I mean? It's like this this is a genuine conversation that would happen somewhere in that area. So yeah, but it's just it's it only lasts about three, four hours, maybe five at the most, maybe if you're doing all the exploration. I finished it once, and I think I came away with maybe four or five hundred gamer points, right? You know, game score. So there's I'm about halfway through. So if you go back, there's probably a lot of Easter eggs or other bits and pieces that I've missed because there are little things that you miss, like if you kick bins, like rats start coming out and singing, and you have to find so many of them. The one for doing like knock-a door run if you're knocking every door in game, and it's like I just try to work now punching everything because the guy's literally just walking out punching stuff like say punching pigeons, you're pinching m punching moles, just other people. It it's bonkers, it's absolutely bonkers, and it's one of them that I I can't. I mean, I think I paid four or five pounds after my voucher, so I think it's 15 quid. Yeah, it's not an expensive game, but it's not a long game. Like if it was mobile, you know, this could quite easily be a mobile game because it's not it's not very long. It wouldn't be very taxing either. So it'd be perfect for like the Rogue or a handheld, you know what I mean? Just something to play on the on the move. Uh I'd strongly recommend it, even if you're not like From Yorkshire, like I am. You know, it's just utter nonsense. Like it is absolute nonsense, but it is hilarious at the same time. And I think everyone pretty much in our podcast group will say it's like I think it was Manny, I think he said it's one of the it's like the funniest games it's played a long time. And I was l I was creasing at some point. So I was like, this is just bonkers. It's hilarious. Loved it. And I will go play it again. I would I would 100% go back and play it again.

SPEAKER_01 22:25

I'll have to jump, I'll have to jump in. I'm just thinking, well, I've got this, you know, when they say like with the the um the Forza, where they get they basically get playground, they go visit a country, like they go to Australia or they go to Japan and they spend months out there filling the clouds. And like I wonder if it's not a local company in Yorkshire that did this, whether the development team came over to Yorkshire for like two months and experience what life in Yorkshire is like. Because it's like to get the the voices and the how the pigeons are, you know, pixel perfect. But it's you would have heard it on the news going, we went this crazy place and we got these crazy people and we've now we've made this crazy game.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

Yeah. Well, it's a there's even like some old school footage included part way through of like from um it must be Barnsley, but again, just like old, you know, like newsreels, video footage, you know, from you know, from back in day, as you'd say. But yeah, it it was great. It is a it's like I say it's uh steeped completely in satire, but it's almost like that little peak behind the curtain of this is actually what life uh is, was, can be like up here because we we do get a rap, you know, you always do that get that rap of there's somebody on a TV, oh they always speak to that thick northern idiot. And yeah, yeah, they are, yeah, you know they'll have that token idiot, and they will be from up north somewhere because they usually are and they always are, but yeah, it it was just yeah, I loved it. Like I say, don't don't take there's not a lot going on in terms of uh requiring your attention, you're just going from point to point and doing bits and pieces. It's like pretty much side scrolling and moving, and and the idea is that you walk into a way and go, Oh, thank goodness you're here, and you have to help them solve like the the friars broken in the chip shop, or you know, they had to I can't remember what it was now, but you had to go to that vegetable shop and try and get you calm him down because he's gone mental, you know. But meat, you know, there's a lot of meat references and food and drinking, yeah, all sorts, so yeah, it's thoroughly recommended, thoroughly recommended, especially if you're just like random nonsense. Yeah, I I haven't laughed at a video game like that in a long, long time.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Yeah, I'm just trying to find out. I can't see who the developer are. Oh. Colestopper? Uh developer.

SPEAKER_00 24:37

Yeah, it's yeah, it says it on the way in, but is that even the title screen?

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Yeah, no, no, here you go. Cul Coldstopper, we're we're Coldstopper at Creative Studios from Yorkshire, UK. We made the Good Times garden, and then we made thank goodness you're here. So, yes, they are very much Yorkshire based.

SPEAKER_00 24:54

Yeah, I we'll have to get in touch and see if see whereabouts they are, see if we can go uh arrange a visit, maybe and have a look. But yeah, it's it's even the title screen just reminded me, it's like, is like, is that from round here? And it's like there's one that answers like round corner, and one of them's like, What? Like it's just like that, it's just it's just that's how people talk. You know, there are people like if I'm around other people that have got a strong Yorkshire accent, I just feel myself sliding more and more and more broad Yorkshire as I as I go along. So yeah, it it's good fun. It was good fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

It looks like it looks like a game, thank goodness you'll hear, is one of those ones where you can just pick it up, play it, like you know, when one of your boys is not particularly happy, you can just card on and hold it, you know, you know, hold the controller type thing, or you could just play a little bit of it, and you're not you're not having to. I mean, you're gonna get onto another game in a minute, which I've just started playing as well. But I I feel that I need to give it some time to get into it, and it's not something I feel like I could just dip in and out of for you know 20 minutes when I'm on my lunch break, or I've got the rock in the car whilst I'm at work, type of thing.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, this is it, and and we were chatting about this when we were playing yesterday, is that obviously it's the beauty of Game Pass is that you can flip through games that otherwise you might not play, and you spend 20 minutes playing it. If it's not for you, it's not for you. You know, I I did a few this month where a couple that we mentioned in the one of the last pods, I did I had a brief dabbling Super Meat Boy 3D, played that for about 15 minutes, instantly turned it off. Like, say advantaged as well, I think. Yeah, that was a resounding.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

Was so looking for so looking forward to it, and unfortunately so disappointed with it. It was like, oh, this is good, oh I like this, and then the the the hardest just elevates so quickly after about three or four levels that I'm just like, nope, not for me, not for me, don't delete, get rid of.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Yeah, and that's the and and then you know, thankfully, you you've not wasted anyone, and it sounds awful that, but you've not wasted like even if it's 10-15 quid, you know, it's not money that you've wasted. Oh god, I didn't really enjoy that, especially with the digital as well. But I did that, Rider's Republic, which was a Ubisoft one, like no, didn't really enjoy that either.

Replaced Impressions And Pixel Noir

SPEAKER_00 27:00

But yeah, then replaced, which Anthony put on our collective radars, he put in the chat that that only went live a couple of days ago with a couple of the titles. So he he recommended it. So we said, Oh, we'll both try and play a bit, give us something to talk about. I'm a lot further in than what you are.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

I think I've played maybe about three and a half hours, something like that. So I don't know how long the game is in total, but yeah, I've been playing it streaming pretty much whilst I've been at work. Right. On the iPad yeah, in my downtime, and then just embedding other bits and pieces. So yeah, but it it's I don't really understand what's going on if I'm being completely honest. It's one of these games, it's a little side-scrolling adventure game, setting some sort of dystopian future, some sort of evil corporations clearly working on like cybernetics, human experimentation, that sort of thing. Premises that you're one of the people that's working in there, you're in this almost like augmented reality VR thing, and then it overloads and fries. And I think it's the AI that basically breaks you out and you escape and you're running away, and then you find this underground movement, and so on and so forth, and then you're trying then to take down the establishment, the company, the corporation that you once worked for. It's a very old school aesthetic, which again, this is a perfect game for the Rogue for portable gaming. It looks really, really good. You know, it's got really nice neon colouring and lighting, and it's got really good, you know, environmental detail, it's got a great feel to it, albeit it's got that old school pixelated appearance. So it it's if you pick this up and plonked it, you know, back in the what's it, Mega Drive days, something like that, it wouldn't look amiss because it's that sort of pixelated square blasphemy.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

It's just got it's got hints, hasn't it? It's just got hints of like every now and again, like when I was playing it right at the beginning, your character sort of fell over, or it part of the cutscene was it fell down, and then the camera went out of focus and then it sort of focused on you. And so it's got sort of hints of sort of modern era type games consoles, but and it's sort of like very shiny around the edges. But uh, but no, I'm just looking on courtesy of the GamesRamps website, they're saying it is main story is about five to ten hours to do just the main story to sort of steam through it sort of short sweet on if you play easy, difficult level one, if you want to get to a hundred percent completion, which is play all nine chapters by the looks of it. It's about ten to fifteen hours. So, yeah, you know, it's a good length game. You say about the rock, I had to I played it on the rock and I had my glasses on and I was struggling to read the text. So much so that when I when I when I went back and played it about a day later or something on the Xbox, it hadn't done. I think it's because I was in the in the car when I played it at work, it hadn't backed itself up to the cloud. So I sort of lost the 40 minutes or whatever I played. So it started right at the point again at the beginning, and and I'm like, ah, cool, I can read the text now because I'm on my 77-inch TV and not my rock with my glasses on. But but no, I mean I'm I'm probably about an hour into it. I've sort of I've got out, I've done the jumping over logs, fighting a few people, and I'm enjoying it. I am really, really enjoying it, and I'm looking forward to getting back into it. So uh, yeah, no, it is a good little game.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, it is, and it's one of them, I think I said to you yesterday, I think it's one of them. I'm enjoying it, I'm not gonna rave about it. You know, it's a nice little game. I think I said in the the group, it's almost like a combination of old school games like Flashback, Streets of Age, Golak, Beast Drider, you know, that sort of thing. Because you you move in and out of you know it's almost two and a half D, I think they call it. You know, it's like it you can move in and out of the foreground, the background, you've got a bit of combat, puzzle solving, bit of platforming to do. I think it's one of those games actually, when you look at it, I I love how it like the camera sway between sections. So when you're off the screen, the camera like pans between sections. I really quite like that. And when you look at the like the depth of some of the levels, it almost looks like one of them games that would have worked very nice in like that brief 3D era that we had. So if you if you played this in 3D, I think it would have looked quite nice in that because it's almost like them old school, you know, like I can't remember what they call them now, where the scenes like the staggered, but it looked 3D. It's almost like the it's been layered.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Um, yeah, there's a few there's a few bits where I was sort of walking along and there was a a relic or whatever to pick up, and I'm like, oh, I need to go up to get that, but it's not, you just you automatically detect it's there because you've walked past it, and then it picks it up on its uh is it a walkman? He has a walkman, doesn't he, with all the tunes on and all the the bits and pieces on. But but no, I mean it it's it's a lovely looking game, perfect for handheld, perfect for you know iPad if you're uh streaming it, and then obviously on the TV it it's a lot bigger if you've got bad eyesight like me.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah, that's it. And it's one of them that you do need to read it and watch what's going on because there isn't any dialogue, it's all text, it's all scrolling text, so anything that happens as part of the story, you don't get any voice acting or anything like that. So you do need to pay attention to it. So yeah, like you say, if you if you struggle to see on a small screen, play it on a bigger screen so you can read the subtitles and see what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

And if you don't like watching for movies where you have to read the subtitles, you might not like it as well. Yeah, but no, it's not for you. But to say that, it's a game, it's probably one of those games that you could you could easily put a well, I'd say you could put the podcast on whilst watching it, and you could listen to us two idiots talk about gaming whilst you're playing replaced. It's that type of game, it's the type of game that when we did the podcast before, Anthony said to us, I need to listen to more games, because he would he would play a certain game and then listen to podcasts and then realize that he's missing the text or missing the uh audio. So so no, definitely a good one. I've been I've been playing, so uh I kept my streak of buying games that I really don't like and then asking for a refund. So uh which which I thought was uh so obviously the first one was um satisfactory, which was very unsatisfactory for me. But I'm I am gonna go back and try it because they didn't give me a refund for it because I think I've made it too much. But I people are scoring it like nine out of ten and and all of that. So I think I might just go in and delete my save and start a game. I might do that.

SPEAKER_00 33:34

Yeah, but go in with a fresh pair

Ready Or Not Refund Frustrations

SPEAKER_00 33:36

of eyes.

SPEAKER_01 33:36

Yeah, and there was another game, there was another game called Ready or Not, which was you're basically a member of a SWAT team. And I kept on looking at it, I think before Christmas, and I'm thinking, oh, this is quite good. You know, you're part of the SWAT team. I quite often watch the TV program SWAT, you know, because ironically it's on at about four o'clock in the morning. So quite often when I get up, have my cup of coffee, and I'm not watching the news and getting bored with what's going on in the world, I I put that on and I'm watching that. And so I went into it and I'm like, okay, this is good. It's almost so like you're a team leader, you know, you go in and and it's it's all tactical. So it's like there's a person in there, you've got to do this, you've got to do that. It's not like COD or Fortnite or Battlefield where you can almost just run a gun in it. So I thought, well, okay, let's do the tutorial. I think there was an achievement for doing the tutorial as well. So I thought, let's do it, let's do the tutorial. And oh my god, I got I got so fed up with the tutorial in respect of just like I've heard a lot of people say, I think it is Chris and Desert, which a lot of people are saying that the control system is just like weird. You know, you have to do you have to do this sequence to bring this thing up. And this was it. You sort of you go through a typical if you've ever played like the opening training uh segments to Call of Duty, you go through, you know, like uh a compound where you're running through, you know, predefined spaces and you're shooting, you know, fake people in your training course. But it was like, okay, so go over to the bench, pick up the gun. So pick up the gun. Now to now shoot this, shoot that, shoot this, shoot that. Okay, this is simple. Now press the right button on, press RB, hold the uh stick to the left, and then hold the stick to the right to select flashbag. And it just it wouldn't do it. And then I found out I got how to do it. Okay, it's fine, got how to do it. Then it's like go through it another bit. And it's like, now use this periscope. So you change your gun to a periscope, and you put the periscope up, you know, in a little crack above a door, and then you're surveying who's inside. So then the idea is you pick the door open and you tell them to freeze or you shoot them or whatever, like that. And I was playing this for about 45 minutes, and it says, Right, now we're gonna let you go alone. So you now you've got your team, tell your team what to do. And I say it says, We suggest you start with surveying the room first. So I put the periscope up, and I just could not find how to get back to the gun. I'm pressing every bloody button on the controller, going, How do I get a gun back up? And it's like, I've got the periscope, now I've got the lockpick. And then I'm just like, Do you know what? This really isn't for me. I'm just I can see myself getting really frustrated. So my character is still halfway through the uh arena, he's still halfway through his training. I turned the game off, I uninstalled it, and I got a refund from Microsoft. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 36:36

I was just I was just watching a YouTube video on this one because I I have I have seen this around and I was like, is it the game that I think it is? And in theory, this game like I it really interests me because like you say, it's it's almost like that it's that what they call those thinking man shooters almost. You know, it's it's not your run and gun nonsense, but you bit tactical, you know, a little bit more to it, that sort of thing. And and on paper, it does look like something that I'd really enjoy. But I remember watching this or like early reviews or something, this because I think it came from PC, and some of like the controls didn't translate very well over to controller and that sort of thing. So I might if it's a bit for nickety, do you know what I mean? If it's like if it's not that easy to play and it's quite troublesome, you know, and like like you say, you have to think about it. I don't mind the tactical element, but then if I haven't think, oh, I press this, this is you know, not just a simple switch, you know, flick of a button to change gun, reload, crouch prone, you know, flip flip between gadgets, that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

It was almost it was almost bordering on you know the special moves you used to get in Street Fighter and Tekken, you know, press right 14 times, press up 50 times, press down 75 times, and then you unlock the Ken, the superb finisher or something like that. But it was just like I you know, I potentially if I hadn't got a refund for it, I might have gone in and played the level, a couple of levels. You know, there were a few people with the reviews that were raving about it and they were they were enjoying it. Maybe they had played it on PC. I'm not sure whether the reviews on Xbox are both PC and console with the same review structure. But uh, yeah, no, not for me that one. But but yeah, but the other one that I played, which I have really enjoyed, I mean I've not played it since last weekend, but I really got I lost about four hours last Sunday, and I lost it in this

Mini Shot Adventures Steals Hours

SPEAKER_01 38:25

game. And it's a game called Mini Shot Adventures, and it's one of those ones, again, it's in Game Pass, it's one of those ones which sort of like came up, and I'm like, oh, do you know that looks really quite interesting? Um basically it's a top-down shooter, and you're a little sort of spaceship, and you basically fly through these zones, killing these, killing the bad people, unlocking areas, you know, and it's just it's uh it's satisfactory. It is it is basically just like it's one of those games where it drip feeds you just enough to keep you going. And you sort of come into the first level and it's relatively easy, you fight some bosses. Then you go, you get further and further and further, and then you open areas up, but you can't go into the area for some reason, you can't go into the area, you don't know why. So you're like, okay, I can't get past that wall or that block or something like that, or I can't get past that boss, it's really hard. But so you go back and then you find something, and you're like, oh, okay, so now if I've got this attachment, I can shoot those bricks out the way, for instance. So you almost go forward to then come back, and there are some crazy, crazy. I mean, I've I've taken some like screw recordings of it, and there are some crazy, crazy boss battles where um you're just like it's hard to explain, but I'll put it on the screen. But there was one where there's this big ship in the middle, and and it's just firing a succession of bullets, and there's a pattern to it, and you've just got to learn the pattern to dodge the bullets, but you can only sort of shoot the ship from behind. You know, you're basically shooting it's us. So you you've got to wait till it turns around and then you shoot it. But it was, yeah. I mean, I I think I jumped on it on Sunday. I think I think I've been playing it for about two hours, I think. And then on Sunday we had lunch as a family, we sat down and had lunch, and then everybody sort of dissipated and went off and did their own thing. And I just turned it on, and it must have been about I don't know, two o'clock, and then before I knew it, it was half past five. And and it was just giving me enough to keep me going, keep me going, and you're like, oh, oh, I stop after this, but then you get that little you get the next gun level, and you're like, oh okay, if I get the next gun level, or if I can shoot my guns quicker, or if I get that attachment which lets me do this, or I've unlocked that place on the map, and it just gets you going back and back and back. And it is a it is a brilliant little game that you know, like replace works fantastic on a big screen. I've not played it on the rock yet, but would work perfect on the rock. I'm actually going, I'm actually coming up your way-ish next week. I'm up in Manchester for a few days, so I've I've got it sitting downstairs with my camera equipment. So I'm gonna take take the rock with me to play in the premier in the evenings with my feet up. But no, it's a really, really good game. I recommend it.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah, it I just again I'm just watching a little clip of it here and someone playing it, and it does again a perfect game for, like you say, for the handheld market or at least just a cloud game into an iPad or something. But it it's yeah, it's like uh it's almost like old old school asteroid, but playing through levels and unlocking different areas, isn't it? By looking, and it's almost got that tilted Pokemon-E style camera angle, that Pokemon E style vibe to and you know, in terms of its appearance, a bit more bright colours, that sort of thing. But yeah, it just looks like some of the I imagine probably gets quite frustrating by looking at it just getting whacked out by by enemies. But yeah, just looking at this as that bits where oh I can't quite reach that enemy yet, and then there's ones that are firing millions of bullets out and trying to dodge, and like you say, just figuring the pattern out and moving and evading and dodging and you know that sort of thing. So yeah, it looks like something I'd definitely give a guess.

SPEAKER_01 42:14

I think that's what's good. It's like I you know, when I talk to Molly about gaming, whenever she gets into games, which she j as a you know, uh as a girl, she jumps in and out of quite a bit. But as I say to her, like with games like this, there's a pattern. You've just got to learn the pattern, you know, and the it will go over here and it will go over there, and it'll or move this way, and it will just do things in a certain pattern. And you may die five or six times, but on the seventh time you'll learn the pattern. And I think that's what's good. You sort of you you go into an area and you keep on going down this rabbit hole, literally, and then you get to one and you're like, Oh, I'm not sure if I can kill that. Ah, let's give it a go. And of course, you don't kill it, and it spawns you back at your base, and you're like, right, okay, I can't go there. So, you know, you hit the map and you say, Right, well, I've not been over there now, and there's one point I've got to which is just quite pivotal, where you you find a map fragment, and then what it will do is it will tell you where you've been and where you've not been, and also what you've where you've unlocked and where you've not unlocked. So you'll see that there's a little tunnel down here that's not got a tick on it, so you've not completed it. So you're like, right, let me go back down there, and then all of a sudden, you'll find a bush that you didn't realise that you can actually just you can drive straight through or fly straight through. But yeah, I mean, it's on Game Pass, it's a fantastic little game. And I say, it's the sort of game that you could play on the train on the way up to or the way down to London on the rock, or you can sit in front of your big ass TV and play it on your controller as well. It's it's a it's a great, great game.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, and like I said, this is the beauty, innit? This is the beauty. You get the keep we keep getting drip fed these little games that otherwise you'd miss. And you're gonna find some gems amongst the ones that you don't enjoy, and when you do find them, it's it's nice that you've got something that you can. You can just sit and you know while away the hours.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Yeah, yeah, excellent. So, right, so that's the the gaming wrapped up for this week.

Reviews, YouTube Comments, Surfshark

SPEAKER_01 44:08

So, before we get on to the news, if you like us two waffling on about gaming and not getting onto the news for 48 minutes, but if you like this podcast, please raise reviewers on Apple Podcasts or leave a comment on our YouTube channel. Um we again have our sponsor of Surfshark this week. So at the moment they are doing, I think it's about 86% of a VPN bundle for two years. So it's about £1.28 a month for two years, where you get industry leading VPN from Surfshark, meaning you get protected online, means you can game online protected, means you can watch Netflix from other countries and you can protect your ID and identity online. So getting into the news, Stephen.

Is Game Pass Now Too Pricey?

SPEAKER_01 44:54

The first story is with you, and surprise, surprise, it's about Game Pass.

SPEAKER_00 44:59

Yes, exactly. It's more more Xbox news.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

So yeah, we've should I show you my Game Pass tattoo?

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Yeah. Ihat Microsoft. But yeah, we I haven't seen any follow-up of it actually. We we did we got this rounded up before we were due to record on Wednesday, so I haven't seen anything come out following that actually. But it's is Game Pass too expensive? Which it seems to suggest the new CEO, Asha Sharmer, does seemingly think that way, which a lot of people have come out and criticised the recent price increase, which we discussed on previous shows, and also this show briefly about you know the price includes like Fortnite Crew, that sort of thing now. Which, if you use it, it you know, great. You know, Fortnite Crew alone's a tenner, if you just get it through Epic Direct. Is it Epic, yeah, Epic yeah? So if if you play Fortnite, it's worth it for the VBOX and the battle pass and things. If not, we pay $22.99 here in the UK. It's quite expensive when you start thinking about it. You know, it's quite steep for a you know, you get a you do get a lot, you know, you get the cloud stream and you get the access to the catalogue, that sort of thing. So but considering where it was $14.99 probably about a year or so ago, maybe, or maybe a little bit more. You know, it has jumped a fair a fair bit recently. But yeah, this this internal memo that's leaked seems to suggest that um Charmer does think that the clear the the current game pass model isn't the final one, and she is concerned that that the price is too high, with the quote saying short term, game pass has become too expensive for players, so we need a better value equation. Long term, we will evolve Game Pass into a more flexible system which will take time to test and learn around. So, yeah, so again, this is clearly part of the big shakeup that she is going to instill in conducts as part of this sort of or not restructure, but obviously rebrand, refresh, whatever you want to call it of the Xbox division. So, again, somebody with a fresh set of eyes, you know, might not be a bad thing, you know, because whilst Xbox Game Pass does bring a lot, it's uh you know, it's premium, you know, it's called premium, but you it is premium, and I it's tricky into you know what what could they do differently? You know, I've some suggestions that maybe they would do a game pass that just includes the first party stuff, you know. So however much that would be, would you say, well, give us a you know 12 quid a month, you just purely get our first party titles, you don't get EA, Ubisoft, all that that would be quite you know an interesting model to go down, and you probably get a few people going for that. You know, if you you die hard, Forza fans, Halo fans, gears fans, you know, those those three alone, if you pay that a month, you've got a a a big catalogue of games there, you know, beyond the just the main three of their exclusives, I guess. But yeah, it's it's what I mean to, you know, what changes they'll bring about?

SPEAKER_01 47:48

I think it's I think there I think there was a few people that were sort of like suggesting that when the price went up recently, it was to compensate for the loss of sales or loss of revenue from cod. Because obviously, people like myself, people like Cheston, you know, we were always buying cod every year. So we were happily spend, you know, £70, you know, $80 or whatever it was on that every year. So obviously now we've got it as part of Game Pass. We're not spending that. Thankfully, for last year, we didn't have to buy it, because I would have really been annoyed if I bought it last year. Still haven't paid it, still can't figure out to bloody play it. But it is one of those ones which I think that I think that it's I think they're gonna have to I think there's a few room I'm hearing quite a few rumors going around, you know, one of which is a like everybody's doing, which is a an advertising revenue based one. I did hear one the other day which was that like for every two and a half hours you play, you'll be shown an advert, or the loading screens, loading screens at the front of the game will be replaced by an advert or something like that. So, you know, so for the people that you know, like me, I've just finished Fortnite on Amazon Prime. I happily pay $2.99 to stop the adverts. Soon as I finished watching Fort, soon as I finished watching not Fortnite, what was it? Fallout, it's a Fallout. As soon as I first watched in Fallout, I went off and council for my $2.99 because I don't use Prime that much, so I'm not worried about it. I think the other way a few people are saying that it could go is that it might be like a pick your own. So maybe you have a base price which includes one perk. So you pay $19.99 or $18.99 a month. Pounds that is obviously it's more expensive in dollars, and then you pick which perk you want. So do you want Fortnite crew or do you want EA or do you want Ubisoft or do you want Call of Duty? I suppose for me, I I I mean, I don't pay for my Game Pass anyway. Um and I think I've said on the pod before, if you've got a mobile phone contract out there and you're coming up for a new, have a look around. Because I know for me, my contract with EE, I get Game Pass for free. And I still get it for free. Well, no one's charging me for it, but I get it for free even at the new rate. So if do have a shop around, if you if you've got anything that's coming up for renewal, because I think I had it on where did I have it before? Oh, I think I had it, it was it was BT broadband. So when I had my home broadband, yeah, BT it was for free as well. So you know, if you've got anything coming up, do have a shop around, see if you can get some vouchers, you know, Amazon voucher and things like that. But yeah, I mean I I I'm happy. I'm happy paying my $22.99 a month. I use Game Pass more than I probably do any of my streaming services. Disney's just renewed at whatever it was, £99 a month, uh month, no, yeah, but but just uh £99 a month. I think I would definitely give it up. But even though Daredevil started a game, but £99 a year, but you know, I I find that hard to swallow because I'm not watching a massive amount on it, but you know, it's a great in my opinion, it's a great service. Please don't get rid of it. Please just just rearrange it so it's more affordable for people. And if people do want to just play COD tier or a Fortnite tier or an EA tier, then you know, or a non-first party tier, just try and come up with a simple way, but even saying that doesn't make it sound simple.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

No, and it it's it depends how they do it though, because I still look at the the PS Plus membership and I haven't got it, and I never have. And I was thought of, oh, do you know what I could really play I think it were Resistance, like the Resistance games from like PS3? They're not in the back catalogue for PS Plus. And it's like, well, with Xbox, you're getting a lot of back catalogue of like exclusives, which obviously is worth it. And it's like there's three tiers, I think, to PS Plus, all give you different things and different, you know, access to different parts, and then obviously if you've got the top one, the PS portal you can play without connecting to the console, you can stream directly to the the the unit. It just I think you've got to try to find line and a balance of don't make it too complicated because people will end up signing up for the wrong thing, you know, the kid at Christmas and oh I didn't want that one more, da da da you know, so it has to be clear of what they what they're getting. And I even for someone who knows games and and a lot about the industry, I used to look at PS Plus and go, I don't know what I'd have, and I still don't think it's worth it. You know, I think Game Pass is the better value one over PS Plus. It's subjective, of course it is, but I think like say adverts, everything's revenue stream, I get that, but it riles me that we're in a day and age where you pay to subscribe to an app, you have to pay some auto-dave adverts. Like Prime. I pay Prime tenor a month. Why am I getting adverts? Like, I'm not paying any more. Like, I I get a free Disney Plus membership with the adverts with my Sky subscription now. I accept that I'm getting it for free. I don't mind that. But when I'm paying for it, well, no, I'm paying you already. Like, and if it's like this now, well, I'm paying for Game Pass, well, payers a three or four pound more a month to get rid of adverts. I'm like, can it just get rid of it? Because games are more interactive. I think with TV, like, I think games are more interactive. Do you know what I mean? With if you put a plunking advert in somewhere, somewhere pivotal, especially, like, nah, nah, I'm alright, mate. I'll I'll jack it in. So like say if it's before, after, in between, something like that, fine. But don't put advert breaks in it. Don't put advert breaks in games after certain times. No, that'll just uh no, I couldn't, I couldn't abide that.

SPEAKER_01 53:46

There's there's there's two two things I'll say on that. One is I've got in front of me now, I've got one, two, three, four, I've got six tabs on open on Safari for the new stories we're doing. And this isn't the name of shame, because I understand what websites do to make money. So I've got Eurogamer, which has got a good amount of ads. It's got Pragmaster ads all over it, but it's it's banner advertising, things like that. That's not bad whatsoever. I then go to IGN. IGN again, not so bad, but I know IGN has got a paid membership or a paid tier. I then go to the Metro and there's bloody adverts and flashing pop-ups everywhere. I then go to GamesRant. GamesRant is exactly the same, not as bad as the Metro, but I've got adverts for a medical kit on here, and then something with Gemma Collins and Canva. I've then go to Eurogamer again, and I've got I think I've got five or six open windows flashing at me, and then I go to PlayStation and have not got one advert. But and I so I understand, but it's just this everything is just there's so many adverts flashing into your psyche that I think you're right, you you start to do something, it's like, yeah, no, it can't be bothered. I mean, and I think it gets more annoying when you do something when you're paying for it. The the the whole thing we're going into now, which is like, you know, I pay for discovery and I still have to watch adverts. I pay for X and I still uh you know, Prime and I still have to watch adverts. So I get it, everybody's got to make money, but yeah, I mean, please, I hope they don't bring an advertising tier in and they just basically bring in a low-level tier, which is just, you know, maybe the back catalogue and you know uh games like the one I'm playing at the moment, something like that. But we'll we'll see, we'll see.

SPEAKER_00 55:47

Yeah, yeah, time will tell, mate. Time will tell.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

Right. So, next story, getting onto something less ranting.

BAFTA Winners And Industry Recognition

SPEAKER_01 55:54

So, looking at the uh 2026 BAFTA Game Awards winners. So it turns out that uh the BAFTA awards, I think, were on last night, Friday night, as we record this. So the BAFTA Game Awards, this is from IGN's website with not very many adverts on it. So the BAFTA Gaming Awards saw a big win for dispatch, goes to Yotai, Kingdom Cup Deliverance 2, but there were some surprises in there too, in the true BAFTA style. Goes to Yote winning best music over Claire Obscure Expedition 33, for example, came as something of a shock. Devil star Charlie Cox didn't get a chance to big up the French motion captain performance behind the Clare Obscure's 33's game. But they did, Claire Obscure did win best game, so that's another collection for them to take back to France, only over the other side of the Channel Tunnel. So yeah, Claire Obscure took home the BAFTA Best Game. BAFTA Jenny English walked away with the BAFTA for performer in a leading role. The team behind Arc Raiders accepted Best Multiplayer Game, an incredible moment was the whole team behind Man, No Man's Sky on stage accepted the Evolving Game Awards. And now that was amazing considering that people were really angry with that game when it first came out. Was went to Blueprints, Atom Fall got um best British game, and there is a massive, massive long list of other winners. Scrolling down it, yeah. Music goes to Yotai, narrative Kingdom Club Deliverance. Oh, New Intellectual Property, South of Midnight, Compulsion Games. Now that, if you have got Game Pass, that was a bloody brilliant game. I love that game.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

Yeah, and it's nice that we have we have this for the industry, do you know what I mean? It's not unless a lot of people necessarily pay attention to it, I wouldn't expect, but it's nice that the devs and the publishers and whatever you're getting the the you know, time to shine, in it really. Do you know what I mean? There's some surprises like the No Man's Sky Evolving Game. I mean, how how long ago did that come out? That must have like 10 years, something like that. It must be. It must be around that time. You know, I mean I'm looking at the list of the category it was in, there's like Fallout 76 in there, Hitman was in there. So, you know, there's some you know, there's some long-term games in that category. Granted, it has to be for its obviously evolving game category, but No Man's Sky. That's that's a turnaround.

SPEAKER_01 58:25

Ten years ago.

SPEAKER_00 58:26

Yeah, I've got to say it had to be. It had to be something, but I remember like how much that got panned when it first came out.

SPEAKER_01 58:32

August 12th, 2016. Uh uh uh worldwide, North America was the 9th of August 2016 that came out. So yeah, ten years.

SPEAKER_00 58:41

I bet they didn't invent it taking ten years to win uh an award of that nature. I bet they thought they were on with something. I I haven't gone back and touched it, I must admit, but you know, it's it's nice that they're still getting recognised though. You know, criticism and cynicism aside, it's nice that it's still getting recognised, you know, that they there is still something there for them. So yeah, it's it's good. It's good to see that uh it's still still going on, you know, some unsurprising winners in there as well. But yeah, it's just a nice little thing for the industry to have.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

Well, as I say, I I go to I go to one main award ceremony every year, and it's always I love award ceremonies. They're you know, this is one for our industry, and it's sort of where people are awarded, you know, best cinema, best smart home, best this, you know, you know, most recognisable achievements, charity stuff, and and it's always a good night for people. You always, you know, always see people have a chat. You know, one of my good friend owing one best cinema under 50,000, I think it was last year. Uh it's always a great. So actually, you know, I can imagine there's a lot of stress and there's a lot of late nights and there's a lot of anxiety when it comes to games dev game devs. So actually, to then start to win stuff, especially for like No Man's Sky, which obviously has probably had a lot of sleepless nights. So, yeah, it it's great. It's uh it's great to see people winning, and it's great to see people enjoy themselves. Yeah, definitely. Excellent.

Metro 2039 Reveal And Ukraine Dev Story

SPEAKER_01 1:00:06

So, next story is uh a new Metro, Metro 2039 was announced, and on Thursday, I think it was, there was a a little first look of about 20 minutes into it, Steve, wasn't there?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

Yeah, it's a series that I quite like actually. I read the first novel, which accompanies the the first book. The first book is based on the first novel. Um I haven't read the other ones. I think the I think there's two or three that have been translated now into English. So yeah, so it takes part in obviously fictional Russia Metro System post-nuclear apocalypse. Very much a survival horror game. There's you know, very like factions, different bits and pieces which we know about, and then some supernatural elements as well, you know, some sort of demons, some monsters, that sort of thing. So we've in the territory now where the first three games have been re-released and remastered now, so you can go back and play them in better quality, uh better condition when they first came out. But Metro 2039 will be the fourth game in the series, which looks set to be the sort of the grittiest, darkest, I think, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:10

They sort of say it's a very dark, sort of scary game.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:13

Yeah, and it it's yeah, it it it's quite a dark game anyway. Inevitably, in a sort of a you know, post-apocalypse survival universe, it does cover some sort of challenging themes at times, you know, and what it is to be human and obviously being alone, venturing through these tunnels and the supernatural things that are going on. I think in some ways from what I saw not that it's been inspired by it, but I think it's you know, from the what's been going on in the you know, in Eastern Europe and what have you, I think that's kind of been taken into consideration a little bit of, well, you know, we're we're treading the waters of this kind of happening at the moment, you know, it's probably very unlikely, but again, it's it could be quite real, you know, in the in this uh in this kind of way. Yeah. But yeah, it's there's there's gonna be uh you know, a bit more above ground in this as well as in the tunnels, you know, you get you're gonna get a lot of the tunnel stuff, which is the bread and butter and obviously the very atmospheric bits and pieces, but you're gonna get obviously some more uh some more time above ground as well to explore and and and see what life is like above above on the surface uh following the apocalypse. So yeah, so this is scheduled to come out in winter, quotation marks this year. So that could be obviously you know anywhere from what sort of October time-ish holiday season, I imagine, is probably when they're gonna be uh looking at releasing this one. The early look from what we've seen, it looks really good actually, it's really, really nice.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:31

Oh, it's one of those one of those games I wish they dropped because I was watching it going, oh I mean, let's put it this way. I I can't remember the last metro game I played. So I the first one I watched it, I'm like, oh yeah, I can't wait for this to come out. And I saw a few people reading the YouTube comments going, do you know what? You know, okay, some of the comments were a bit baity, but like I'm looking forward to GTA, but I'm actually probably looking forward to this more. The few comments I say, and and this for me is right up my streak, so much so that I actually went off and downloaded Metro Extrus. I actually bought on Xbox at the moment, you could buy the last three, I think it is, I think they were remastered, but you could basically buy the last three Metro games for five pounds and 99 pence.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Which is an absolute steal.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

Yeah, so I've I've downloaded Exodus and I'm gonna go back and uh uh have a play of that when I've got a bit of time because I'm just like, do you know what? Actually, this type of game is sort of something that you know, Dead Space, the one that Josh Travel was in, I can't remember the name of it now, but like that type of game where you're walking for a spaceship or you're walking for a dark environment or something like that. That's just sort of like, yeah. I mean, if anybody's what listening to this or watching us, do flick over to Xbox and have a watch of it because it is coming to PlayStation, it is coming to Steam, and it does look like a really, really interesting game. Also, you know, hats off, it's it's pretty much all made in Ukraine, and it's been continued to be made throughout the war. Okay, and uh and they are very, very passionate about that and very, very passionate about the game. So uh, you know, hats off to them, and I will certainly be uh playing this on day one, without a shadow of a doubt.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:17

Wow, 100%. Yeah, it's like you say, it's one of those few games that's like, oh yeah, I will buy that. You know, because there admitted there aren't probably many games that wouldn't make me do that, but having played the previous ones and enjoying the world and the universe so much, but yeah, that that's gotta be on the on the buy list, the wish list.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

Definitely, definitely. So uh hopefully, yeah, winter this year. I mean, winter this year, li me, we're gonna be uh we're gonna be GTA in, we're gonna be gearing, we're gonna be codding, and uh we're gonna be metro in, and probably some others that I've forgotten about. So uh I might need to take rather than taking my usual three weeks off at Christmas, though I need to might need to try and take three months off. Oh yeah, tell me about it. Well, it it's almost it's as as we joked with Anthony after doing the first one, it's almost like the next day after doing the podcast, you're like, oh bugger, that we that that news, and we're gonna see it, probably not tomorrow because it's Sunday here tomorrow, but we're gonna see that on Monday when there's something news is gonna come out, but we're not podding till the week after or something like that. It's uh you can see why kind of funny and platforms like that do do, you know, and yes, like kind of funny that and uh giant bomb do a daily show because you you can get away with doing a daily show sometimes with so much going on in gaming. There is also so much going on gaming, uh, again with Xbox, in respect of new Xbox console updates is rolling

Xbox Update And Better Quick Resume

SPEAKER_01 1:05:36

out now. So I signed well, I've always been an insider, but I sort of forget I'm an insider. So every now and again I jump in and download something and participate and do a survey. And what they have been doing recently is um updating some of the stuff within the Xbox to the different levels of insiders. But it seems to be that this new sort of like Rollout, this new sort of dashboard rollout is actually coming out sooner. So this story is from Games Rad with too many adverts. We're going to keep this going now. A lot of my points is going to become a weekly trick. I can imagine on the iPad. I mean, I've I've got I've got six adverts now as I scroll down from Fiverr to hospitality to something else. Oh, to Luna as well. Well, maybe it's listening to me. Okay, so let's get on to the news. Uh, Microsoft's latest update to its Xbox consoles is finally rolling out uh to all Xbox Series X and S's users after previously being offered to Xbox insiders. Whilst Xbox released the consoles that updates every month, many have been smaller patches recently and heavy focused on PC and cloud functions, with a few notable overhauls to the console experience. The last update brings several noteworthic changes to Sirius S and X consoles, particularly improvements to the interface and how players interact. So a month after the features were offered to Insiders, Xbox newest S and X updates have been slowly rolled out to users across both consoles. This update offers customizable guide colours, increased numbers of groups from 10 up to 10, which used to be a two-group maximum. It adds new profile badges to celebrate different milestones and compliments by Xbox players. Most notably, the update also adds new quick to resume features, allowing players to disable certain titles. A few handy features not previously outlined to Xbox insiders in the past month were also introduced. As part of the cloud system interface, Xbox has added more ways to gauge streaming quality. Specifically, users select resolution and quality indicators. And the new My Games tab now features a play history, allowing players to view their history without returning to the home screen. I've also noticed that they are doing things with quick resume. So for instance, I'm not sure I can't see it not being something that is built into it, but you can't quick well, I can't quick resume Fortnite. Maybe because it's left a session. So if I play Fortnite and then I don't go back to the home screen and then go quick game, when I then go back into Fortnite, let's say a day later or whatever, it would never let me join again. So I have to make sure I come out. So one thing they're letting you do now is saying, right, do not do quick resume on Fortnite. And then the other thing I saw the other day was about the achievements rollout, which was they're now allowing you to highlight games that you've got, like, you know, a thousand gamers score in, but they're also allowing you to hide games that maybe you played Bluey for three or four hours to unlock a half thousand achievements, and you don't want people seeing that you've played Bluey. I don't know who I would be talking about then.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:58

Yeah, it's it's nice that they're still doing these, you know, little tweaks and improvements. And like you say, Fortnite's intermittent for me, like you can, but then it has to go back. So it depends. Again, I guess it depends if there's been an update, and obviously because it's external servers for Fortnite. That that might have something to do with it. But yeah, it is nice that they still tweak things, you know, because there are improvements that obviously could be made. And as we know historically from when the Xbox first launched, Microsoft didn't think of a lot of things that probably should have been there. So again, evolving over time, adapting over time, just making things look cleaner, fresher, give people you know more customisation options, you know, just make their Xbox the home screen their own, make it easier to access. Yeah, it's you know, I'm all for it. You know, it's it's not a major overhaul, you know, but again, it's just giving some nice little quality improvements that will make a difference to some people, you know. Like you say, the online stuff, especially with the quick resume, well don't do it. You know, it's just a thing that it's on or off, whereas this now to be able to choose between which games doesn't do it, uh that's quite handy. You know, so again it's someone's thought of that somewhere or listen to feedback of well, actually it doesn't really work for this game. Can we can we just choose to turn it off? Well, yeah, you can. Great, excellent. You know, just little things like that. It's this again, just if they listen, taking feedback on board, constantly looking at small ways they can improve, then well, yeah, fair enough. Let them let them do it. It's just nice that there's they're still thinking about it, albeit that we know the next Xbox is coming, they are still focused in some capacity of making the current experience as as good as they possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:29

Well, I think I think it's sort of like I would like to see, and I and I heard this uh from a few other people, I'd like to see something along the line of a platinum. So I would like to see a I think it might have been Jess Corden or someone uh said that you know when you've got that, when you look at your profile page on Xbox, and like I mean, I think you've got it as well, you've got like your 20-year badge and you've got the the badges on your profile page. It would just be really cool if like if you got you know unlocked every achievement in you know Call of Duty or something like that, or every achievement in Gears of War, you've got a Gears of War designed sort of like motif, you know, like a little sticker that was maybe the cog of Gears of War, and that showed you that if someone hovered over it, it said that you you know you've completed the last Gears of War and got you know 100% on it. You know, and just it would be nice to just sort of celebrate that a little bit because I quite like hearing the rare achievements pop on some of the games, but it would just be quite nice for especially those people who really focus on achievements. I'm not so much bothered about them now I've turned 200,000. But but uh there are some simple games in there, I must say, which will get deleted. But um, but there was I did go through one Christmas, I think went from wrong Christmas, I think me and Anthony were having a competition of who could unlock the most achievements. I think I had 16 and a half thousand gamer points in the Christmas break or something like that. So uh but yeah. I've got an addiction problem to collecting things. Luckily it's not alcohol drugs. It's just it's just yeah, it's just addicted to buying technology, camera equipment, and saving up Microsoft points that, as James says, I will never spend because they're my babies. Right, so even when you can comprise them off of you. Well, exactly, because the the I'm looking at the upgrade to Forza, which is like I think £50, something like that, £50, £50, £60, £70, $80. And I'm like, do I pay cold hard cash for that, or do I take the hit on the rewards? And I know I'm gonna pay cold hard cash for it because I don't want to hit my rewards now. I'm definitely going for the next console with it. So uh, but the next story talking about earning loads of money is about GTA online, and it's with you.

GTA Online Money And Microtransactions

SPEAKER_00 1:12:52

Yeah, so there were some hackers that got some information from Rockstar in relation to like GTA, Red Devedemption, that sort of thing, and they released it. Now, whilst there wasn't a lot in there for anything about GTA 6, anything really, not really dished any dirt, it did release a lot of financial information, which is shocking. Like, not like it's just the numbers in this are just ridiculous. So uh GTA Online allegedly from this report is still earning Rockstar around $1.3 million every day. Every single day. Nearly 500 million in microtransactions alone. Yeah, which is just uh nuts. 1.3 million dollars a day. Like I know people are still playing GT online a lot, but but to that extent, that is just bonkers. Like, that is just like silly money. Now, Red Dead Redemption is still earning them money, it's not earning them as much, needless to say, but it's still chipping in. I've lost where it was now. I I think they were still chipping in with maybe like four or five hundred thousand a year or something, somewhat like that. So a nominal amount in comparison to GTA Online, but that is just ridiculous money, you know. And granted, GTA costs a lot to produce, to publish, to develop, to maintain, you know, online, and to even create it, you know, GTA 6. I dread to think what the create you know the the development costs of that are going to be. But when you're making $1.3 million a day, it doesn't really matter, does it? It's just like it doesn't really matter. It's just mental.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:31

26.4 million a year red dead online makes compared to GTA's online just shy of half a billion, so 500 million. Yeah, it's it's nuts. And the majority of those transactions I thought was quite interesting, was the majority of those transactions are coming from PlayStation.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I forgot to say that, yeah. Which again shows the big sway towards PlayStation and Sony, which I think we briefly touched on this last time, didn't we? Of who who's gonna get the uh more rights for GTA when it comes out, which obviously it went to PlayStation, it came out on PlayStation first, didn't it? So you'd think it would be with them with Sony. But yeah, it for a game that's what well, what's that now? That's been on PS that we're on 360 PS3, it were on PS4, Xbox One, it's on PS5 and Series X. Again, that must be about 13, 14 years old, something now, I want to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:29

You're making me do a lot of searching tonight. So Grand Theft Auto was originally released, sorry, Grand Theft Auto 5 was originally released on September 17th, 2013 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:44

13 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:46

It then it then went on to let's see if I go down. So it then so key release dates for the platform, PS3, Xbox 360 was 2023, sorry, not 2020, 2013. PS4, Xbox One was the year later, so only just sort of brushed on the PS3, Xbox 363. PC was actually in 2015, and then with PS5, Xbox, Series S and X in March 2022. So that's interesting. I didn't realise that. So it didn't come out on the next gen or current gen consoles till two years after they were launched.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:21

Yeah. It's just for a game that has been now on every uh recent console, been going for so long, to still be earning that money, like 1.3 I just I can't even get my head around it. Like, that's just insane amounts, you know. I I've never really dabbled with GTA online, I must admit. Uh but yeah, that yeah, I mean obviously this is information that was obviously supposed to be private that they've dug up, but it gives a great indication, a bit of an insight, doesn't it, in terms of like the scale. If you get onto something like successful, like with GTA that Rockstar have, like, obviously it could come crashing down, obviously it could do, but the that must be just uh there must be some serious money floating around in that company for A development costs and B recurrent revenue.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:11

So uh to keep Anthony happy, I'm gonna take this back to Fortnite. So daily revenue details for Fortnite. This is according to well, Gemini probably. So daily revenue details Fortnite allegedly makes 2.74 million a day. With uh events like the Travis Travis Scott event made that made allegedly 2.5 million in 24 hours. This equates to $1,900 per minute.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:44

And they're and they're still and they're actually cut back recently.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:48

That's a f get rid of a thousand people because they weren't making three million a day, they were only making two point seven.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:55

Which, like, see, just when you think of again, it's a big beast. The servers, the maintenance, the development, and the licenses. Obviously, the licenses are gonna cost them a lot of money, but if you're earning just shy of three million dollars a day and you're still not making money having to make redundances and cutbacks, like that's nuts. Like it's it's scary in some respects when you think about it where gaming's going, you know, the cost of things, development costs, maintenance costs, that sort of thing. It it it's a bit of a glimpse into the future that I'm like how much longer do we have before people like it's too expensive, you know. We just we just can't we can't make games on that scale anymore. It's getting there, but it's getting there, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:35

I there there's certain things that I'm looking at at the moment where there's certain games I would like to buy at the moment, and I just I just can't justify it to myself of going, do you know what? I'm just not gonna buy it. And and I hate to say it, but you know, Anthony's loving, is it mouse PI or something at the moment? And I looked at that the other day, and and I'll be and I'll be the first to hold my hands up and go, it's stupid. But I looked at it and went, oh, it's not a game pass, it's £25. Oh, okay. Well, maybe I'll wait for it to cover Game Pass. And I know how bad that sounds because I want to spend £25 on it because I want to support the developer and all of that lot, but just there is just a small part of me which is like, well, if I wait till Christmas or whatever like that, it might cover Game Pass. And I know that's wrong, but that's how sometimes my brain works with it.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:23

Yeah, 100%. You're right. And like I said, I don't have PlayStation Plus, but I've got Game Pass and I've got Boomerang, the rental subscription where you get disks in the post. It's not it's not a physical game as far as I'm aware, it's just digital. So again, I can't rent it, I can't get it on Game Pass, and yeah, it it's like you know, again, it sounds incredibly tight and harsh. It's like, well, I didn't really want to spend that money on it. Do you know what I mean? Which is why I rent games why I've got Game Pass. It it's in that bundle. I I understand that some games or some months I'll pay my subscription, I won't rent a game. But because games cost 60-70 pounds, well, as as long as I've rented something in six or seven months, I've not lost any money. And the months where I'd send it back and get a couple a month, well, again, I've got my money back in you know from there. So yeah, I I understand what you mean, and it is it does sound tight and it is harsh on the guys that are making these games because there's probably a lot of other people that also think that way that otherwise would have just sank however many notes on it and even battered an eyelid once upon a time.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:21

But on the flip side, there is also the benefit to it going on Game Pass where you know people will try it and buy it, and there's been many, many, many games that I've purchased which well, sorry, I've purchased DLC for, which has been a Game Pass game, which I never would have played, but I'd played it on Game Pass, I've loved it so much. I've got all there's some DLC for it, and I've instantly got a book with DLC for it. So uh so talking about Game Pass, but the blue version, so PlayStation Plus premium games for

PS Plus Line-Up And Console Upgrade Reality

SPEAKER_01 1:20:51

April. So we're getting some PlayStation news in there, and I'm gonna have a notable mention about PlayStation in a minute because there was a video I watched the other day which I discussed after this, which I think that any PlayStation fan should go watch. It was really interesting. So this is on Sony's website, which has got no adverts on it. Oh, actually, hold on second, let's just go back to the last one. So last one we were on Eurogamer's website, and uh, whilst you were talking, uh, there was uh seven adverts on that website, all flipping and flopping at me. So we're going to the PlayStation blog. Uh so this month's game, so this month's Burn Rubber Across Hawaii in Motorfest. Uh sorry, the Crew Motorfest, step into future far worlds of machines and mystery in Zero Door Remastered, and lead your club to victory in Football Manager 2026. So we've got PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium Games catalogue. So the Crew Motorfest is on PS5 and PS4, Horizon Zero Door Remastered on the same platforms, Football Manager 26 console edition on the PS5, Warrior's Abyss is on PS5 and PS4, Skrull with a Gun, which I've heard of before and I really want to go play, which is PS5. One, it's okay, this is a classic game which I played because of Game Pass, which was the casting of Frank Stone from the world of Dead by Daylight. So that's PS5. So that's a that was a sort of like a horror, sort of like I'm trying to think of uh how I could it was sort of like a story-based game where you're walking around, but it sort of did one little story, then would jump into another little story, but it was it was sort of like in the the sort of like story of the the Frank Stone character from the Dead by Daylight, but that was a really, really good game. I've not finished it, but that was just because somebody else came out. Monster Trade is the next one on PS5, PS5 Platinum is Wild Arms 4 on PS5 and PS4. That's it. So yeah, I mean there's some there's some interesting games there. Football manager games I'll never go into because I know I'll lose my life in it. Horizon, I've played, I've played those. Motor, the crew motorfest, I hate to say it's not Forza, and so it would just be Forza. But definitely the casting of Frank Stow, that was that I really enjoyed that. That was one of those surprising ones that I quite enjoyed.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:18

Again, I know you get this smattering with with Xbox, and you get some bits that you think, mm, yes, no, sort of thing. Yeah, play that. And there's nothing in there that make me subscribe. Do you know what I mean? That's the one that I'd say. And you could say that there's probably months with Game Pass that are the same, but like you say, football manager. I I played it back in down the PC. I won't touch it on a console. I just I've no interest in it on a console. Horizon played it, liked it. But again, that it it might that should have been there anyway. It's it's a it's a Sony game, it's a PlayStation game, it should just be included in the back catalogue. You know, I'll I'll I'll I'll I'll die on this hill.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:53

Is it not just there? I thought it would just be there, but yeah, obviously not.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:57

Exactly. Yeah, like I say, I I'll I'll pin my pin my clothes to best. I'll die on this hill. Like like the resistance games that I talked about before. Yeah, it's an it's an exclusive, it's first by a title. If you're subscribing to it, it should just be in the back catalogue. Yeah, it should be there. There's no excuses, like the Xbox stuff, it it it should be. And that that's it. You know, like you say, Crew Motorfest, yeah, I play it, but not really that interested, you know, apart from that. Screw with a gun, again, it's just somewhat that you probably somewhat ridiculous, a bit like goat simulator or something that is there.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:25

Chop it, have a laugh, put it down, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:28

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And and and I and I don't want to tell that it's the criticize Sony, and obviously we don't do any, you know. Again, it it's it's hard to have the big hitters, and I don't know how these other games are tied up with exclusive rights via Game Pass and blah de blah de blah. If Microsoft have got a bit of a you know, an exclusivity thing with a lot of games out there, so they've hoovered up a lot of the other bits and pieces. But yeah, it's you know, if you've got it great, you'll play them, but there's nothing that I'd be like, okay, should I play it? Should I subscribe to it? Probably leave it for now. You know, it it takes it'd take a lot for me to get rid of Game Pass to go, right, I'm gonna jump on PS Plus Premium instead.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:05

Well I think I think you you know your Forza is out, you know, actually it's out in about a month as we record this, I think. Imminently, yeah, yeah. So it's um you know, that's day and date on uh Game Pass. Obviously, we've got Gears later, which is day and date. Card should be that unless it changes. But but yeah, I I think I I've got no interest in joining PlayStation Plus or Premium. I mean, PlayStation is my exclusive console, and as I think I said on the last pod, if I wasn't if it wasn't for the fact that we were doing the pod, I probably would sell my PlayStation because I just I just don't play enough on it. But luckily you didn't because you had to go to your PlayStation yesterday for us to play Fortnite because your headphone wasn't working. Yeah, so you know, and and but then I go back to driving somewhere, I can't remember what there was this whole you know conversation about will Sony ever let cross-platform games and it's never gonna happen, blah blah blah. And of course, now I can play on the Xbox, you can play on the PS, and Anthony could play on a PC, and we could all play Fortnite together. That'll never happen. But yeah, we can we can all play games together. No, my noticeable mention actually was I watched a Linus Tech Tips video this week, and they were I think the video was called something along the lines of we bought every PlayStation. And it was a video basically of them going through every PlayStation that's ever been made within reason, but like not like limited edition, sort of like one-off things, but but basically from the OG, you know, OG PS1 all the way up to the PS PS5 Pro. And it it was a very, very interesting video. What I found really, really interesting was they compared a PS4 Pro, I think it was a PS4 Pro, it was either a PS4 or a PS4 Pro to a PS5 Pro, and they were both games, they were playing Horizon, I think it was. And although there was a notable difference between the PS4 and the PS5, the difference wasn't as much as you think it is in your mind. It was it was quite like we had we, you know, we as gamers, we have this oh, new shiny, got this new console coming out. Excellent, excellent, excellent. It's gonna be so much better, it's gonna be so much this. But you actually looked at the iterations from the PS4 to the PS5 Pro, I think it was, and and you looked at it and gone, do you know what? I can see why so many people have still got a PS4, because it's better, but it it's like it's like watching football, or it's like watching you know, sports in H D compared to 4K. I I like my sports, but I don't like them enough to stop and watch them sometimes. So I subscribe to Sky Sports, but I won't pay for the 4K package or the HDR package, I think it is, or whatever. So I just I just watched them basically in standard. And yeah, when I then watch Amazon Prime or HBO Max and it's in 4K Ultra HD, it looks great. But it's not enough for me to spend that money on that additional upgrade. And it's just was a very, very interesting video, a bit of nostalgia there, but a very interesting video on just like, yeah, you can see why there's so many PS4s in the wells field, and people are just not upgrading to PS5s because it's a jump, but it's not a significant jump.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:32

No, and and this this kind of does make me think about PS6 and Helix, whatever it, whatever they might look like, and how much better can it get? You know, the the the last sort of big jump that we had was from standard definitions here to HD. You know, the the jump, like you say, from HD to 4K is not as big. You know, going back from standard definitions, even just a 720p was a huge jump. You know, the the clarity that that gave was significant, and even the power from between uh original Xbox or 360 and even 360 to this you know current generation of Xbox and there was quite a big big jump there. But as we get to, you know, like it's an ATP, 60 frames, 4K, 30 frames, then 60 frames, you know, people aren't even mastering, like say, PS4 Pro, PS5, PS5 Pro. We can't even get games to run 100% of the time at the highest level of performance, you know. And again, I can't always tell the difference between something that's running at 30 frames to 60 frames. Yeah, you know, it you unless I'm paying attention, like driving games. I notice it more. Other games, I don't always notice it. I will I'll be the first to admit that. Again, you can sometimes see with 1080s 4K because you know the detail, it's a bit clear, it's a bit sharper, that sort of thing. But again, you have to look at it and concentrate on it to really tell a difference. HDR again, you can notice a bit more difference because the colours pop and things, so again, that's a bit more noticeable. But how yeah, how far how far can we push it? You know, they like you say it's all this photo realism and da-da-da. It's like people would probably forgo that. You know, the the graphics that we've got now are good enough, they have been for a while now. You know, I would not begrudged if we said, right, it's now like graphics aren't going to get any better, but performance will. You know, it'll be a bit sharper, it'll be smoother, your experience will be a bit better. Fine. I'm fine with that. You know what I mean? Again, we had this conversation about console and PC. If you want to do all that with PC and push it to the nth degree, that's fine. But with a console, at some point you just have to accept that this is as much as we can do with a console, and we are probably there.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:34

I think potentially where Microsoft are going maybe the answer. I I get I get the feeling it's almost like they're going back to the Xbox One in respect of trying to put more stuff on that console. So that you're gonna put Steam on it, you may be able to uh get into BattleMet and Epic and things like that on it. By maybe making it more PC-based, it means that they might get some of those customers back they lost. But is a PC gamer gonna buy an Xbox when they could buy an Xbox game?

SPEAKER_00 1:31:05

Steve would yeah, this is it, yeah, yeah. It's in it's an interesting thing that we'll we'll see how it how it plays out. But like you say, just it's this constant push and push and push and push. It's like, well, we're alright as we are, you know. Again, a new console, fine. You know, if you want to bring in a slimmer version or you know, upgrade a version, it's bigger hard drive, you know, newer processor, you know, chip for whatever bigger beverage, that's why I think storage, yeah. Yeah, that's it. You know, it always happens. Well, fine, do that, but yeah, I I don't see where it's going, like you say, with TVs and stuff. There's still TVs that are uh channels that are showing in standard definition, they're not even full HD. So the fact that you're going in 12k, 8k, it's just mental, isn't it? You know what I mean? So, yeah, but we will see. We will see.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:48

Well, we could go on about this for ages, so uh, but that is gonna be it for the

Final Thoughts And Where To Find Us

SPEAKER_01 1:31:53

pod. We are gonna wrap this one up one hour and 40 minutes as we are recording. I will try and trip it down. But uh, yeah, so that's this week's podcast. Thank you for listening uh and or watching. Again, if you've enjoyed what you've listened to or watched, please rate, review, like, and subscribe on the platform you are looking at us on. Don't forget you keep up to date with us on the website, which is gameers of losspark.com, and you keep up to date with us on YouTube and social medias at uh LostSpark Podcast, where you can go back and watch the last shows that me and Steve have done, plus loads before that that we did as the old sparks crew. Steve, we can find you on most platforms on the same gamer ID, which is great because I can remember it now when I was looking for you the other day. What is that ID, my friend?

SPEAKER_00 1:32:40

Yeah, so I'm pretty much SteCarter91 everywhere. So that's Xbox, PlayStation, YouTube, Instagram. I've just restarted Twitch again. So I've done some Twitch streaming, which is the same Steakhata 91. I've started a TikTok account, which I'll have to do some short form videos, and I've had to do that Steakata 1991, which is really annoying. Somebody are somebody'd already beaten me to it. So yeah, so either CARTA91, C Cata 1991, you'll find me somewhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:04

Is that your only fans as well, Steakhart 95?

SPEAKER_00 1:33:07

That's only fans, yeah, my feet account.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:08

Yeah, that's that's great as well, isn't it? Go to the sexy feet. Um exactly. So for me, um I am general letdown on Xbox and PlayStation, and on social media, I am at Mr. Stuart Burgess. If you have anything to send or any comments or questions, uh you can also email us at hello at gamers of the lost spark.com. But um thank you very much for this episode 180 of the podcast. I hope you've enjoyed it. And Steve, thanks for spending your evening chatting to me.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:43

No, you're very welcome. I might even see you shortly as we jump into Fortnite together again.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:47

I'm not sure it's quarter night now. I should be in bed in about 15 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:54

Maybe tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:55

Maybe tomorrow. Excellent, buddy. I will uh we'll catch up with you later.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:58

Yeah, yeah, mate. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:00

Bye.