Mixtape Made Us Cry, Fortnite Droid Tycoon Made Us Angry

Send us a question - https://linkly.link/2j1aK

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

Sound effects have entered the chat, and we are dangerously excited about it. Stuart upgrades the whole recording setup with a Shure SM7B and a Rodecaster Duo, which means cleaner audio, live mixing, and a slightly worrying number of buttons we want to press mid-sentence.

From there, we dig into one of the most underrated “gaming budget” tools around: Microsoft Rewards. We share our current points totals, what they convert to in pounds, and the simple daily routine that turns Game Pass playtime and Bing tasks into Xbox gift cards. It is not life-changing money, but it is real money, and it can absolutely take the edge off a new game, a DLC upgrade, or that purchase you would otherwise talk yourself out of.

On the games front, we get properly stuck in. Steve finishes Mouse PI For Hire and explains why he loves the world and story but feels the loop drags late on, then jumps into Trepang 2  for a short, intense run-and-gun blast. The big unanimous winner is Mixtape, a tight narrative Game Pass experience packed with music, nostalgia, and that specific heartbreak of friends splitting up as life moves forward. We also vent about Droid Tycoon’s BB-8 event: the hype is real, the teaser is great, and the payoff leaves us asking what live events should actually reward. Stuart also shares early impressions of Ghost of Yotai, plus we answer a listener email with standout PlayStation and Nintendo picks to balance out the Xbox-heavy run.

We round things off with news: Steam Machine rumours and pricing, new Xbox Insider features like boot-up visuals and gamer score badges, Discord Nitro bundling a starter Game Pass trial, the Forza Horizon 6 leak crackdown, GTA 6 platform messaging, and GameStop’s wildly rejected eBay bid. Subscribe to the next show, share this with a mate who loves Game Pass, and please leave us a review so more people can find the podcast.

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

Support the Podcast by using our Affiliated links it costs you no extra:

Buy a Shure SM7B - https://amzn.to/4nynrQp

Buy a RodeCaster Duo - https://amzn.to/4tFNczO

Buy a RodeCaster Pro II - https://amzn.to/4dh0spE

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 And Holiday Plans

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello and welcome to episode 182 of Gamers of the Lost Spark Podcast. I'm your host, Stuart Burgess, and joining me as always is Mr. Stephen Carter. How are you, Steve? Very good, mate. Thank you. How are you doing? I am very good, my friend. I'm very good. Had a had a good day, a busy day yesterday. So having a bit of R and R at home today, but uh jumped into a game that we'll be getting on to in a mo. But uh yeah, sort of work's busy. We're going away for half term, I think it is. We're going away to France in half term, so we sort of started thinking about that as well. So uh what about yourself? Have you guys been busy?

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah, so we're busy. I see you're almost on holiday window. I'm pretty much there. I've got a very small shift to do tomorrow at work before going to Carmel on Friday. So yeah, so uh I'm pretty much there. I'm pretty much there. But I'm same as you. I'm hopefully gonna receive one of the games that you've been playing. So I might be able to play it remotely on the portal while we're on holiday, but we will see if it arrives in time. Hoping so, but if not, I might just have a week of little to no gaming. Uh so I'll have to do a week of catching up before we uh before we pod again.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Well, actually, getting on to that, we are we are getting the legendary Anthony Cheson on for the next podcast. So just to put it out there that two weeks today as we record, we're I'm gonna be away, and I think you're still away. So it's not we're not gonna record in two weeks, so there will be about a three-week gap before the next podcast, but we're gonna have the the old the old man, we're gonna have the old host on, and we're gonna try a three-way podcast and do some Xbox showcase prediction. So I think Nat's recording, I think it's the third of June, and then I've booked the next day off as well. Uh I say booked, it's not really hard speaking to my boss because I just look in the mirror. So I'm I'm working from home. Yeah, yes. Listen to me, I'm working from home. So uh, yes, I'm hoping we were gonna pod on the Wednesday evening, and then I'm gonna edit it and get it up on the Thursday, stroke Friday, so people can listen to it before the showcase on Sunday, I think it is. So uh yeah, so there will be about a three-week gap between the when you listen to this one, if you'll listen to it when it goes live, and then when you get the next one. So apologies for that, but we're going off on some hollybobs. We're allowed a holiday, every now and again. Not too many, but you know, every now and again. And uh, Steve, guess what? Go on. What? Hey. We have sound effects. We're going up in the world. Yep, we have sound effects. We are we are getting we are getting down with the podcast screw. We've been business now. We've been business. So

New Podcast Gear And Soundboard

SPEAKER_01 3:00

I've I've I've not been really happy with the old setup I had because when I exported the recorded into DaVinci IUs, I was getting a little bit of clipping, I believe, on my mic, my end. So I decided to get rid of those ones and I have bought myself a Sure SM7B, which all professional podcasters use. So, you know, all the gear, no idea. And then I've uh I've also bought a uh Rode uh Rodecaster Duo, so the smaller one of the Pro, which I use at the office. So what that allows me to do is basically take the XLR from the mic straight into that. It also allows me to take the audio from the PC straight into that, and then obviously it also allows me to take all the all the sound effects. Let's stop that one, it goes on for bloody ages.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

I'm not gonna say how long is that one for?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

So yeah, so it means that we can we can mix it up a little bit and uh bring a being a bring a bit of uh joy into the podcast uh rather than just us two waffling for about an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Yeah, we'll get some jingles for some some regular occurring segments, maybe. But yeah, it'll be just we might get some more messages saying just give up with the sound effects. Just leave them alone. Stop doing it, stop it.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Stop overdoing the sound effects. It's like it's like a new toy, isn't it? It's like it's like a kid who's got this new truck for Christmas. Must include every sound effect we can. Definitely, and I've got I think it's I've got like I think I've got four or five pages of six buttons, so we could be here a while. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

We just need a show just dedicated to the sound effects.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Yeah, it's the the Lost Spark sound effects show.

Microsoft Rewards Points Breakdown

SPEAKER_01 4:42

So um, so yeah, so just a quick points update. Ready? There we go. There we go. So professional we are here. So yeah, just a quick points update, a very quick one. So previous total for my Microsoft Bing points was I'm gonna round it down, it's just easier. 726,000, and my current total is 743,000, meaning my current points value is 592 pounds. So gone up about seven pounds since the last time we podded, which is actually only about a week and a half because we podded last time on the Saturday, and we're now doing it on the Wednesday. I think it's Wednesday, but yeah, so and I actually looked the other day on Bing, and uh it says on there, you know, like level one, level two, and it says that I on average earn about seven and a half thousand points a month, which equates to about a five pound Xbox voucher every month, just by basically playing games on Xbox, you know, and using Bing in the morning for searching and doing my daily. So, you know, it if well, I mean, if you do anything like me, which is you know, I'm not an avid gamer, you know, I've got businesses to run, so I only really play at the weekends and sometimes in the morning, but you know, quite easily in six months you can get easily a minimum probably of a you know 30 quid voucher, which is you know, an indie game or or an upgrade or something like that in in for free.

SPEAKER_02 6:14

Yeah, well I I um in in the short time that we've sort of revived the podcast, I've I've nearly got my second £10 voucher. So I think I'm about 92% of the way through getting another £10 voucher. So what we've been going a couple of months now, maybe something like that. So in in that time since we've sort of kicked kick started and really got back into a game pass and playing and blah blah blah, I've got 20 quids worth out of my points, which is nowhere near what you've got, but still, just from just doing this again, I put my last £10 towards thank goodness you're here, and then the games that we've got coming up this month, I could quite easily put that towards like you say, upgrade for Forza, Lego Batman, 007, whatever it is, and it doesn't sound like a lot, but knocking a tenor off just for basically playing the games I've I've got already or through a game pass, it's free money, isn't it? It's like, well, why wouldn't you do that?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Yeah, and I mean uh just just scrolling back because obviously we had a chat on the the group earlier. I mean, Anthony just put he's just put a post up saying that his reward points value is four thousand and ten points. Uh but but the the message was ah man, I've just gone from 160,000 to 4,000 at Stuart Burgess. Prepare yourself for the loss if you ever spend them. On the plus side, I've paid for early access of four to Horizon 6 and bought Batman with them. So, you know, arguably he's got two games there. Yes, one of those is an upgrade, but that's still a 60 quid upgrade. You know, it's not a cheap upgrade this year.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Well, it's not to be sniffed at, and Batman will be at least 50, won't it? So it's you know, two like you say, the upgrade gets him early access as well, which obviously gets a jump start on everybody else. But you know I'm I'm definitely wanting Batman as well. So again, I'm happy with the tenor off, but when he's got it for quote unquote free, you know, you've you've you've got to be pleased with that. You have to be.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yeah, I mean just for just for playing games and just as I say, you know, in the mornings I go down and let the dog out, make myself a cup of coffee, sit on the sofa, and then I just turn the Xbox on to a Game Pass game for 15 minutes just to get the points, and then open up Bing on the phone and just do my dailies on Bing, and that's it. It takes, you know, all of five or six minutes, maybe ten minutes if you're trying to get some of the other achievements or some of the other stuff in Bing. But yeah, and I mean I bought I can't think what it was now. I bought something the other day and I got two. I think it's because it was my birthday, they gave me double points.

SPEAKER_02 8:40

Yeah, I saw something like that. There were an update on it, it popped up for me. My my birthday's not till September, but I'm hoping it's still there. But yeah, you get some sort of bonus for your birthday, don't you? So again, you get a little boost there for nothing again.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

I think it's double. You get double points for the your birthday week, basically. So I can't think what I bought now, but I basically bought Yeah, I'm trying to think because I I think I bought um the Star Wars racing game. I can't think what's called now, what's coming out in September. So I bought I bought that and I bought Stein Light, I bought Bond, because I really want to play Bond. Yeah. So I bought Bond as well. So I think I ended up getting something like about 5,000 bonus points just from those two games. Yeah. So do you know what that is, don't you? More money towards the helix, free Xbox time. Hopefully, anyway. Yeah, although, although if it does come out at eight or nine hundred quid, it's my the the YouTube video is gonna be I got a free-ish Xbox Project Helix. It's better than what I'm gonna get, mate. Let's put it that way. Definitely. That's taking me six years, though.

SPEAKER_02 9:44

I mean, I was collect I started collecting it when we did the other podcast. It's it's nice that it's continued though, isn't it? That you started it then and it's still going now. Yeah. It's like a nice little continuation, isn't it? Obsessive

The Bing Rewards Sign-Up Pitch

SPEAKER_02 9:55

me never.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Uh so actually say that there is there is, I will put a QR QR code up on the screen and I'll put a link in the description down below. Because if you didn't listen to one of the old podcasts, I think a couple of weeks ago or a couple of podcasts ago, I did say that if you go in the link and you sign up for big rewards, you can earn big rewards and you can uh start earning vouchers towards your next game. But for everybody who signs up, I think I get about 500 points or something like that. So what I sort of said was a couple of podcasts ago was that if we get to the point of getting the helix, which I will even if I have to pay money towards it, if there is any money left after I buy the project helix, what I'll do is I'll buy some Xbox gift cards and then we'll give them away on the show to you know supporters or something like that. We'll work a way of doing it. So so if you want to start earning some points or you want to get some free games like Anthony's got today, or we'll be getting within the next few weeks, then uh use the link in the description, sign up and start earning points. And yeah, you know, it's not hard to earn a five pound voucher every month and uh, you know, and pretty much get a free game every year.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

No, no, like saying, and from what I've earned already in the space of a couple of months, just for the even even be it a tenor, it's still a tenor for just doing what you enjoy. You know, it's not much work. You know, I've not done the whole bing searches, that's just from me playing, getting the eight pack, the four pack, and the daily um the daily bonuses, but still, yeah, it's it's it's definitely worth it.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, no, one hundred percent.

Mouse PI For Hire Finished

SPEAKER_01 11:20

So uh right, so getting on, well, we're talking about gaming, so getting on to gaming, what have you been playing, Steve? Yeah, so we touched upon it. Hold on a second, hold on a second. Just gotta chuck enough on in that I haven't used them all yet. So carry on.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

I was gonna say what's a sad trumpet for, but there we go. So I played and completed Mouse PI for hire. Uh so I mentioned it in the last show, and so I played and finished that. I really, really enjoyed it, too. I I I really liked that game, I must admit. I think it went on a little bit long, and I know that sounds like a bit of a weird criticism to make, but it it was it got quite repetitive towards the end. I mean that not in a very overly harsh way, but like the world was great, the story was great, and like the design and everything, but it didn't necessarily do anything different all the way through. Like you got a couple of different mechanics, so part way through you got double jump and he could wall jump and he could spin your tail and glide and hover and things, but beyond a couple of times and instances where that was first introduced, it didn't really feel like it was carried on throughout. So, yeah, so I really enjoyed it. Like I say, I think it went on a little bit too long towards the end. The final boss sequence, I almost gave up on it though. Like I'd like I I nearly had to put it down because I just Oh really? Yeah, it just it just frustrated me so much. Like it it really, really got to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Well, Anthony didn't Anthony, I don't know if he carried on with it, but he got stuck on you two were having a conversation because he got stuck on a level and you were like, right now, what you have to do is you have to do this, this, and this. And I think I remember with I think it was high on life one or the first Han Life, still not starting to second one, but the first Han Life, there was a couple of bits in there where I uh sort of rage quit because I just couldn't get past a certain boss or something like that. And I think that's why I always avoid the Final Fantasies and those type of games because I know I'm just gonna get really annoyed with it and I'm no not doing this anymore.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Yeah, and I must admit the the second part of the Final Fantasy VII remake, I got right to the end and I couldn't do the final Separoth battle and I gave up on it, so I I like completed it up until that point because I I got his health I got his health bear down to about that much, and then he killed me. Oh no, I'm not doing it, I'm not starting because it was like one of these where it's like multiple sections to the one boss fight. I was like, I'm not doing it again.

SPEAKER_01 13:46

I think that was I think that was the same with me for the game I couldn't remember after playing Dead Space and really enjoying the Dead Space rematch was uh Project Callisto, and that was the same. I got all the way to the end with Project Callisto, and the final boss was really annoying me, but I managed to beat him, and then they had a DLC, so I I got the DLC because this was the game was cheap, so I got the DLC, was really, really enjoying the DLC, and then I got to the final boss and I was two or three hours in it, and I'm like, even down at the easiest level, and I'm just like, do you know what? This is actually ruining the game now for me, and I just turned it off and I've not been back since. So um no, I mean, how long, how long were you playing the game for, would you think? How long roughly was it? It's hard to say.

SPEAKER_02 14:32

I mean, I want to say maybe with a bit of extra bibs bitting and bobbing, maybe about 20 hours or something, maybe I've clocked in. And it like, and that's not an overly long time, I get that, but it's just I feel like it's because it doesn't necessarily do anything to change up, it is it's pretty rinse to repeat in terms of you go find, you know, you different parts of your investigation, you go to these different areas, you have to find the clues, go back and pin them on your board, then you go to the next bit and da-da-da, and so on and so forth. And you get, like, say, the other bits of mechanics. I don't think the variety of guns really did anything for it either. Like it it almost played a bit like Bioshock in some ways, because obviously you get this whole menagerie of guns to choose from, but I pretty much stuck to the same gun all the way through. Like I got the Tommy gun, which is called the James gun in this game.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

It must be a legal site. I'm guessing it's a trade back thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah, and I upgraded it, so I upgraded it to the more so it had more ammo, it more accurate, and blah blah blah. But once I'd done that, I didn't really use anything apart from the D Varnisher, which was like the acid gun that melted opponents. Right you got a big cannon, you got two different versions of a shotgun, you had your starter pistol, you had a ice an ice ray gun. I'm trying to think of what else you got now, but like the the the Tommy gun basically did it for me. Like in terms of once I upgrade it, I had a big clip, you could fire a load of bullets continuously, wipe a load of people out, its secondary function did a good job as well. So, yeah, so again, I don't really think the weapons really changed it up that much either, which again that would have helped maybe make it feel a bit different. The different enemies in different towns or different places were again they looked different, but they're pretty much played out the same way. And a lot of them, much like the boss battles, it felt like it just tried to overwhelm you rather than like you failed because you didn't understand it or you hadn't got the pattern, you know, you had you hadn't figured it out. It felt more like we'll just chuck a shed load of enemies at you in the hope that it just overwhelms you. And again, I played it on the easiest setting, as I do with pretty much every game these days. But yeah, it just felt like you got swamped with enemies rather than your choices were poor. So yeah, I I enjoyed it. This is not like this is just me sort of nitpicking, I guess, in some ways, because I overall enjoyed it and I really I'm really glad that I bought it. I I questioned its value at the start when I went to pick it up, because again, I'm I'm that sort of tight Yorkshireman as I am, and it was 25. If again, if I was being really critical, I'd say at 20 quid, I'd be probably like, yeah, worth it. I know it's a fiver, but I don't know if it's psychological or what, but that 25 quid just made it feel a bit is it is it worth getting it for 25? But on a tangent that we haven't got this as a news story, but I shared it the other day. The the guys who developed it, it sold so well that they've already got their investment that they they put into it back, so it's clearly sold very, very well.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah, I think they've put funnily enough, up we both think of the same thing because I just went back to the story and uh yeah, it was Euro Gamer on Instagram where it says, you know, uh vintage Disney style a mouse PI for hire has been a big success selling nearly three-quarters of a million copy and recouping recouping the money they spent on the game, which is which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 17:44

Yeah, it's great news. You know, in in in a you know, in a time in an industry, I guess, where there's a lot of negative news that we see around, it's nice that that has happened that they've managed to recoup their you know recoup their investment. So it'll be interesting to see if we see a second game, if we see any you know, add-ons, expansions, DLC for it. I'd like to think there'd be another one. Yeah, I'd like to think so. I think it's quite an open ending in some respects that it could quite easily carry on. You know, the story's not really rigid, it could quite easily carry on. So again, I'd like to see another one in the future. Whether it comes to Game Pass, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

But yeah, I'd I think it will. But then there's been a few games like that, I think, that I've looked at buying or looked at getting, and I'm like, no, I'll wait for it to come to Game Pass, I'll wait for it to come to Game Pass, and I've waited for so long it never came to Game Pass, and I'm like, oh look, I'm gonna have to buy it. So um, but your other game you played is a Game Pass game, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yes, it is, yeah. So the next two to be fair, and the third one we'll call we'll talk about together, which is a Game Pass game. But yeah, I played um Chapang 2 after that one, which again it it's it didn't. I saw a couple of reviews about this one, so this has been out two, three years now, I think, before it's finally come to Game Pass. So I checked it out a little bit before I played it. So yeah, it's a bit my vibe. So it's a first-person shooter, very much my wheelhouse. I love shooting games. Uh albeit again it's uh very frustrating in many ways. So it sets you out. So you're subject 106, so you you're an experimental super soldier that's been created by this company called Horizon. They're trying to make super soldiers, loading experimentation, blah blah blah. You get rescued by this other company to obviously prevent this from happening, they don't like it, and then they set you against this Horizon company. Oh, okay. So you break out from them at the start, so you break out from this Horizons centre lab, whatever it might be, and it starts off sort of like really sneaky, really tactical. So you're like stealthing, you're grabbing people from behind, you're taking them stealth down stealthily. You got two abilities, so you can go invisible for a short period of time, so you can sneak around people and change positions and things, and you get a slow uh uh slow-mo option or a ability to slow down time. Oh, like a bullet time, yeah, that sort of thing. So, yeah, so again, when you're in firefights, you can slow down time and again try and take multiple enemies at one time. So it kind of feeds it like it's gonna be this tactical shooter, and I was playing it like that to start with until I realised that you can't actually aim down the sights of any weapon that you've got. So you're basically firing from the hip at every single gun. Oh, right. And it took me ages to realise it, but I'm like, it doesn't want me to play this stealthily or tactically at all, it just wants me to run into every single room, shoot everybody in the face, and just run like run around like a maniac, like shooting and blowing everything up as quickly as possible.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

It sounds like my type of game. It really does. It really that sounds like my type of game. We'll get onto the one I'm playing at the moment, but uh sometimes I just like a game which I just pick up. I suppose that's why I quite like Fortnite, or I haven't played so much of it lately, but that's why I quite like Fortnite because I know you aim down the spikes, you could do it, but you could just run into it, pick up a gun, and just start shooting, and you don't have to be overly tactical.

SPEAKER_02 21:08

So well, that's it, and you there aren't times where it kind of played a bit tactically that you could use your abilities to do it, and it changed a little bit when you could um dual wield later on in the game, but again, that felt really weird because you you literally got an injection that was a dual wield injection, like to allow you to dual wield, and it's like I have to eject myself with this ability, like a dual like the injection was the dual wield injection, and it's like come on now, like let that that's a bit on the nose, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 21:34

Really? You can imagine them all sitting around the table going, right, guys, so how do we get this dual wield mechanic? I know. Why don't we just inject it into them? Because it's this sort of biohacking type thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:46

Well, that's it, and and it made it feel like that oh, you might get these, you know, you might get more abilities as it goes along. No, that that was it like maybe a halfway, three quarters of the way through. It's quite a short game, you know, maybe six, seven hours at the most. But yeah, it will Very much if you ever played time splitters back in the days. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:05

Or like old school Call of Duty games, gun is it gun game? Where you just basically ran around, you swap guns, and every time you killed somebody, you upgrade to the next one da. Because a lot of the it was a lot it was very set piecey. In terms of you ran into a room, enemies came in, there were certain bits where you had to like hack servers, and then again waves of enemies had come in, so you were just like running around, running around, running around, killing all these people. Few boss battles, which were pretty easy to take down, you know, use your abilities and what have you. But there again there were a couple of moments where you were just getting swarmed with enemies. He got a sniper rifle at one point, which you could aim through the scope, but again he was like, Well, what's the point? Like, what's the point of having a sniper rifle? Everything is close quarters. Like there was

Chapang 2 Run And Gun

SPEAKER_02 22:45

one one level that you could shoot people from afar, but everything happened inside enclosed rooms, enclosed corridors. So the sniper rifle just felt irrelevant, pointless. So yeah, so it were pretty short and sweet, like say, six or seven hours, just for a short run and gun, literally the epitome of like running and gunning, firing from the hip, very high intense, high octane, a bit like black again from PS2 Xbox era, where there's quite, you know, everything, you know, there was certain bits where you could like the environments sort of fell apart and were destructible. So just for a bit of no nonsense, no thought required, just shooting the hell out of everything. It works and it it it goes towards your tally and your game pass total.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

So well and I think and again it's one of those games that you you probably would not have played it if it wasn't on Game Pass, so it it it is perfect for that type of thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Yeah, definitely. And and I thought it would go more down the right the line of the fear games from the 360, because again, there were some sort of supernatural elements because obviously this company were messing about with you know genetics and so on and so forth, it'd throw these supernatural elements of you. There was this monster, one of the bosses was Mothman, so like an amalgamation of these people and experimentation. Outside of that, there was little to no sci-fi or supernatural elements to it. It's like, well, if it played more into that, then maybe again it'd have a bit more of a hook. But it were almost like there's this monster, you've escaped from this monster, you never see it again. It's like, right? Okay, like is is this gonna come back at any point? No, no, it doesn't. No, no, it'll come back. No, so again, if it had more of the supernatural element, a bit like Fear did, again, that might have boosted it a little bit. I'm glad I played it, but again, just to sort of switch your brain off, just shoot everything in sight, yeah, just a good bit of fun.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

No, I think that's that sometimes those are just like you know, just sit down and play a game and uh and then you just you just don't have to think about it and you don't have to watch lots of cutscenes, you just sort of get on with it. So uh so the other game that you've been playing, uh we've both been playing, and you can see the screen thingy around me uh right from the beginning. I went back after I completed it and grabbed the this this uh screen still because uh it was

Mixtape Hits Hard Emotionally

SPEAKER_01 25:00

such a good game. So you also jumped into mixtape.

SPEAKER_02 25:03

Yeah, and I think everyone's pretty much played it, you and me, Anthony, and I think everyone's just unanimously glowing about it, and the entire gaming world seems to be as well. And it it's rare that everyone seems so unanimously in favour or in love with the game. So again, going to Game Pass, it was just a no-brainer. Again, very short, three hours. I think I well, I completed it in one sitting.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

I played on Sunday in about three sittings, but yeah, it was it was about yeah, about two and a half to three and a half, depending on how achievement huntery you went during it. There's as I was getting towards the end, I was uh I was stopping and then looking at the achievements and then basically going back and going, okay, what's uh I don't know, there was one where you have to blow up all the stuff that's coming down as you're going down the hill, and and I'm like, oh, I think I remember seeing an achievement about this. I stopped it, went and found the achievement for it, and then went, okay, I've got to get everything. But but no, I it was just it was a coming of age, you know, American type, people are going off to university, they're all the three of them are splitting up, and but it as the name suggested, it was based around a mixtape, and it was like tracks from the 70s, the eighties, you know, the 90s, and and yeah, I mean I I want to go back and play it again because I want to do it this time with my headphones on rather than my TV speakers, but um, but it was just a game, as you said, it was just a really nice game, it just was a really good-looking game, and it just came up with some cool little ideas, like you know, that explosion level, as you're going down the hill on your skateboards, you're sticking your fingers up, you're flipping the bird, and that's what's blowing the things up. And then towards the end of the game, there's a scenario where you're making fireworks go off and you're you're doing this with your hands like an orchestra sort of thing, and it just came up with some really, really nice and in with the kissing scene, weird, really weird things.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, yeah, that was I'm like I'm glad there was no bar over them in there, but yeah, it it it's such a a really great story, you know, and I think it kind of not touches the nerve, but it kind of resonates with a lot of people in terms of everyone's been through that, you know. You as you grow up, you go your different ways, you you know, you fall out of touch of people, and you don't you don't want this sort of time of your life to finish, and and the soundtrack is is phenomenal, you know. It's it's so perfect. And again, if people think back of times of their lives, like the people that they listen to, the bands, the songs, you know, everyone will have a well, this was a soundtrack of my summer of X year or X time, and this was very much the same. And and I think if you went and listened to this soundtrack as a compilation, you know, retrospectively, there's so many great tracks in there, you know. And again, it's from probably an era of just a few years older than I am. You know, I I was born in the nights, I didn't necessarily grow up in the nineties, but again, maybe sort of five to ten years above where uh you know older than I am. But again, it's sort of that reminiscent of the times of when tapes were around, when CDs were around, you know, you didn't have smartphones, you know, you didn't have you know, the internet.

SPEAKER_01 28:07

And there's one bit in it which I absolutely loved, which was they took the pencil and put the pencil in the cassette tape and and rewound it. And I just I thought that was just like it was just touching on little things like that, which was absolutely brilliant. It was very like if you could think of like you know the 90s films like American Pie and things like that, it was it was almost like that coming of age type of thing. So I I didn't check actually, but I'll be amazed, I'd be absolutely amazed if you can't get if they don't do the soundtrack on Spotify or something like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:42

Yeah, I'd I I'll be very shocked if it wasn't, but like you say, just that that era, you know, it just makes me think how you know, I think how good life is now, but also retrospectively, or subjectively how bad it is. Like just that naivety of having this sort of limited technology, you know, Pete you're out on your skateboard, you're out playing, you were doing this, you were doing that, you had cassettes, you had CDs, you'd have this, you know, you weren't sat, you know, this ironic sitting talking about video.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

You weren't listening to a podcast, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

You weren't listening to a podcast, but yeah, it isn't it's just that you know, thinking, oh god, you know, you think you had it bad, but how sort of also just been disconnected, how great it was. But that look, you know, the the the aesthetic, the art style, how it plays, you know, it's got that Spider-Man multiverse, K-pop demon hunters, that sort of reduced frame aesthetic of you know, it's a bit stilted but works, it just looks absolutely beautiful, like you say, the different, you know, the different times of day, the fireworks, the night time, the lighting, you know, the sequences with through the camera that I love that camcorder sequence, you know, towards the end of the party, towards the end, when it was that first person looked through the camcorder.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

That was brilliant. I keep on forgetting to say this on the group, but when you go in and take the photographs of the dinosaur, yes, and you've got I can't think what they called it now, but it so reminded me of I can't it was a year or so ago that James put up a post on the group where he'd got the Game Boy camera working or something like that, and he took a picture of himself, and it was exactly the same. A pixelated, very like you could just about work out it was James. So, but again, it was again it was back in that era, it was that type of thing with this little machine Game Boy type thing. So uh no, it was such a good game. It's it's one of those classic games for me that I'm sad it's over because I could have easily played I could have easily played 10 hours of it, but then would you have got fed up with it after 10 hours? You don't know, sort of thing, because it was uh it was uh you know a sort of like walking simulator or skateboarding simulator at certain times and you're following a story, but uh but no, it's definitely up there with uh one of my games of the year without a shadow of a doubt.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

Yeah, 100%. Like you say, it again it necess it's it's such a powerful story, you know. It's one of them that the like you say, the the game itself is not it's interactive, but it's very much on rails, you you're on a set path. But because the story, the script, the acting, everything is so powerful, you know, it just uh encapsulates you in everything. You almost forget that you know you are just following a set path, like the skateboarding sequences, you you can't really fail anything, you know. It's just you just do you do it. But again, uh the story is just so good that it's just like I just want to be in this world, I just enjoy being in this time. And and Anthony picked up on it, the team that actually made this as Australian, which was amazing, which amazing, yeah. Which I mean, again, being English from an outside perspective, it just seems to nail that era of America. But again, from what other people have said, it absolutely does. This just encapsulates that time, that era perfectly, and it just makes you wonder how much time, how long they spent sort of researching this, thinking about it, thinking about the soundtrack. You know, how how long did they stress over the soundtrack thinking of what song is the perfect song? And I must admit, like the the David Gray song, the shine, again when they come to the the the hut, it's just one of those songs that just gets me every time, you know. Whatever situation I'm in, it's it's not a tear-jerk or such, but it's such an emotional song that it will anytime I hear that song, I'll just be like, I you know, I was that well enough, but it and again it got me here because again, it's just such a powerful story, you're so absorbed in it that it's like I just don't want this to be over, I just want it to keep going. I feel the emotion that these guys are going through that they don't want this last day because this it takes part in the final day, doesn't it? Before she moves away to New York. I don't want this last day to be over. I I love the story, but I don't want it to end.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

And without giving the ending away at the end, and it is quite poignant, I think Anthony ended and bought a tear to his eye.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

It's so powerful, like that. I said to him, it's so hard hitting, it like it gave me goosebumps at the end, and I'm like, wow, like just again, something so simple, just like, oh my god, like that's like one of the most like impactful endings of a video game I've seen in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

I'm just hoping that it it I mean, okay, so we are what are we? We are May, so I'm just hoping it it does get up for some awards because it is the type of game that annoyingly, you know, if I get on my high horse, some of the games that get win at the awards are good, yeah, very good, but they tend to fit that sort of bracket of games that should win. And this, in my opinion, is you know a fantastic game. And I know we've got GTA coming out, I know we've got Forza coming out, I know we've got some really high-level games that we know are gonna score nine or tens on uh Metacritic, but I just hope that somewhere down the line this picks up a couple

Droid Tycoon BB8 Event Frustration

SPEAKER_01 33:50

of awards. So uh unlike my first game, which I am gonna give it a big, ready? Insert sad trumpet noise here. Insert sad stewart noise here. Now look, don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time in Droid Tycoon and and in a in a very different way, a little bit like Trapang. It was just one of those things that I found myself jumping in and doing my dailies, and then started joining playing it, and then it sort of got me so after we last podded, I carried on playing it and and it started getting very easy to earn money, and I started unlocking all the droids and all this lot, and actually at one point I I thought I'd collected every single droid because you sort of go to a screen and there is you flick onto the screen and then there's a page of I think it's default gold diamond, default, gold, diamond, and rainbow. And I filled all of those in, and then all of a sudden I noticed at the top, I noticed that hold a second, I've not done all of them. Then I realised there was a next page. Actually, there's two more pages. So I think I ended up, I can't remember the number, but let's say there's 250 droids or 350 droids. I think I ended up at the moment about 20 or 30 short of them, which is you know good. So we went into last Saturday and there was the BB8 event. And as if you've listened to this pod last time we did it, I thought it'll be awesome if you get BB8 as a sidekick because they didn't do that in Star Wars Day in Fortnite, and it's a bit weird that they haven't put up, you know, a sidekick of being a Star Wars sidekick, especially when you know this year you had, you know, you had Darth Vader, you had Luke Skywalker, you had Anakin, you had Ray, and all that lot. So I thought, surely they're gonna have to do some sort of crossover. I couldn't find anything about it anyway, so this is completely my own assumptions. So three o'clock Saturday came around. I'd think I jumped on it before that. So I was on there about 22 or something like that, and I was physically doing some stuff here at desk. And yeah, I I think I post texted you and said, Right, my base is rolling, I've got four four billion credits in my wallet, and I'm ready for this. And then all of a sudden at three o'clock on the dot, this cut theme happens, and you've got some X-Wings flying in, and then the X-Wing lands, and then, or uh sorry, they put this crate down, and then sort of from around the side of the crate is BB8 sort of comes and looks at round the corner, and you're like, here we go, here we go. And then it goes, right, we need your help. We need you to collect any BB droids that you can get. So literally, I think there was probably six other people playing it. So you had to collect, I think it was like 10 to start with. So you went to the conveyor belt, you got off a you got off a BB droid. So that could be any of the type of droids that basically look like BB8. And she got them off, went back, you produced them or manufactured them, and then you then took them to the ship, and then they went, Well done, thank you very much. While I take these back to the base, um, could you hold on to this BB8 for me? So then all of a sudden, and I'm like, Oh, okay, where is he? Then I realise he's behind me, so I've got my BB8, so I'm like, okay, that's cool. He says, but also but we need some more BB droids, so can you find 25 more? And I'm like, okay, well, maybe they're gonna do this in three hits because it was a two-hour event. So I'm thinking, well, maybe they're gonna do like regular BB and then they're gonna do like a diamond or a rainbow or whatever like that. So I collected the 25 more and it said, Thank you very much. Here's your reward. What reward? I haven't got a reward. BB's still down there. I'm like, what's my actually? No, I put BB away because I was afraid I was gonna trade him in by mistake. I had I had noticed that in the last few days when you go to sell a droid now, they actually say, Do you want to sell this droid? Because I think people were selling droids by mistake. But yeah, so I thought, well, I haven't got another award. So I went and got some more, so I carried on sort of thing, and then I went back and he wouldn't take any more, wouldn't take any more droids. And so for the first time ever, I messaged the people playing and said, Okay, so I've done two hits of I've done two hits, I've got BB eight, and I've got another award, which I'm not sure what it is. Is that it? And a few people went, Yeah, they've upgraded your base, and then I turn around and look at my base, and I'll put a picture up now, and it's a BB livery, and there's a big sort of stone BB on the front of your base. Okay, is that it? And then there was nothing. There was no bloody BB8 crossover. I've not got a BB8 sidekick, and and yeah, I'm I'm really, really, really I think we need I think we need a bleep. I think we need a good stuff. Oh, that's it, I've got that. We are I really, really that's what I am.

SPEAKER_02 38:52

There we go. There we go. I think I think you sent a message to me on WhatsApp and I was like, is that it? Is that it? Like we've been building up to this all week, and then you've got a livery for your base. Is that it? Like they've built this thing up for days and days and days, and then you've not even got a little sidekick BB8.

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I mean, in fairness, BB8, he makes five percent of your base value if you then put him on a machine. So, I mean, he's knocking out the credits for me. So, I mean, I've not been in for about three or four days, but it's probably a good 30 billion waiting for me. But I've sort of like just gone, do you know what? I've I've I've done everything I need to do now, I'm not not that bothered anymore. There's no achievements done locked, I can't get any more points, so and there's no crossover, so so I'm done.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

If if it was a separate part of the game that you could uninstall, it'd have it'd have been gone. Like, nope, I'm sorry, I had a rage uninstalled.

SPEAKER_01 39:42

I can't be the only one. I mean, please, if you've played Droy Tycoon in any way, can you like leave us a comment in this description? Can you send us a voice memo of your you know view on it? Because I mean at one point there was I think on Saturday, even before after the event, there were sort of 70,000 people playing it. Um to put that in perspective, a lot of time there's about three to four hundred thousand people playing Fortnite. So there was more people playing Droid Tycoon than there was playing the other game, which was I think Galactic Siege or something like that. I noticed that, which surprised me. Well, I mean, to be honest, I I played Grat Galactic Siege a couple of times. I thought it was bloody dreadful. It wasn't it, it wasn't it wasn't a Battlefront 2.

SPEAKER_00 40:25

I mean, it definitely was a I mean it was just like I don't like this.

SPEAKER_01 40:33

And I that's that's I went back to me, I went back to me droid tycoon. But uh yeah, so there's got to be other people out there who who are a bit miffed like me and wanting me BB8.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Yeah, I'm I must admit, like it I kind of ran ran my course with it. I I got people just randomly shooting me and killing me in it, which I was like, Oh god, that was just so annoying. So there's no point. Like, there's no point. You don't got anything to achieve anything, you don't get anything for it apart from just being a a nuisance. A dick. Like, yeah, basically. Oh no, for being a there we go. That's it, yeah. We're we're PG again. Yeah, uh it just it just annoyed, but you stood there at the conveyor belt, and somebody'd shoot you, you'd lose all again, all your guns that you'd got on your items, which didn't really serve much purpose. You know, unless they expanded beyond that small section you had where you found some stormtroopers in a in a house and a building, and the you know, you could go do the astro Astrotech Droid with uh Astromet Droid with the the crash shape and then the hostile takeover. It just it were very finite, you know. Once you'd done it a few times, it were like, okay, I've done that now. Right, I'll just leave it for a few hours then, shall I? And then come back and do it again. Which yeah, it it I I liked it as just a bit of a spin-off. I think it could be like you say, it could have been more expansive, you know, and the whole build-up for the BB eight is the reward is you get a BB eight, you get a a whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_01 41:50

And do you want to know what another funny thing is, uh because the like my business brain kicked in, and I thought, well, because after the event finished, the the the X-Wing flew away, and and what was actually quite funny, I think I've got I mean, the game was really struggling. I mean, you know, the the Xbox 360 down here is a brand new one, so you know it's only literally a month old, but the the the pixelisation of the area around the conveyor belt because there were so many BB8 BB droids going around. So when the event finished, they this the X Wings took off, and then there was this little teaser, and then it said next event in 24 hours. So I'm like, okay, so it wasn't an event, it's a was a daily event, which is now going to happen on Sunday as well. But I was, I don't know what, I was doing something, and I thought, oh, do you know what? I might just jump in again and get another BBA. So I jumped in again. I think it'd been going for about 20 minutes or something like that. So I jumped in, got a couple of BB droids, went up to the guy, and he in and the message was thanks for your help. We've got the be all the BBs we need, and everybody else was running around getting the BBs, but because it remembered that I was there yesterday, it wasn't going to give me another one. So yeah. Thanks for that, pal. Cheers. Thanks for that. But I hung in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

But no, I mean I enjoyed it, so it was slightly but at the end of it, it was very much people are shouting at us now.

SPEAKER_02 43:24

Just leave it alone. Leave it alone. But we should have a a a sad trumpet game of the of the Fortnite or whatever it is, just every episode.

SPEAKER_01 43:32

Well, maybe we should actually do a rating system. So raise the ratings is so so what are you gonna give this game? I'm gonna give this game a because it's making loads of the developers money. But uh but no, I mean, so the other game that I I've I've briefly paid up played, I'm about I'll be honest with you, I had a bit of a session this afternoon because I was in London yesterday and I got back last night and I was bloody knackered. So I just did a few bits and pieces this morning. The wife's

Ghost Of Yotai First Impressions

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Car's got to go back tomorrow because the lease is up on it. So I went and put a couple of new tyres on it just in case they said it was too low. And then I got back and I jumped into Ghost of Yotai. I think I'd had a chat with Anthony on the group, and he said, you know, look, you can you could pretty much like forget about Ghost of Shima because it it's good, but it's not as good as Yotai. So yeah, I mean I'm enjoying it. It it it's Assassin's Creed fundamentally. It's Assassin's Creed made by Sucker Punch on the PS5. I mean, it looks stunning. I mean, Anthony Keatson going, whispering in my ear, going go and get a PS5 Pro, but that ain't happening. But I mean it on PS5 on my on the 77-inch OLED, it you know, it's it's a stunning game, and I am enjoying it, and I'm I am finding myself sort of like comparing it to Assassin's Creed in in a lot of ways I'm enjoying it, especially was it Shadows the last Assassin's Creed, wasn't it? Yeah, I mean, I think we both fell off of that one, so it's very similar to Shadows, but yeah, I mean, you're you're the child, you're the child or you're the young gal of a family that basically get brutally murdered by samurais, and you're trying to avenge their death, and it is really good, and there's some really nice little bits in it, like you know, you follow the wind uh rather than a you know a pointer. If you ride your horse through the flowers, the horse goes quicker. Again, it's stunning. There is a really annoying and and it's really really annoying me where you you're training and you're chopping through bamboo and you have to do like L1, L2, up, down, left, right, square. And as a non-always PlayStation person, I keep on having to look at the recontroller and go, alright, which one's that again? Uh which one no, which one's R1 and R2? Because I've just But uh no, I mean I can't really give it an opinion yet. I am enjoying it, and you know, no, I jumped back on it after taking the dog for a walk tonight for about 45 minutes. I do feel that you know I'm following a story, there's a few too many, there's a few too many cutscenes for me, you know, like you bump into people randomly in the middle of a field and then they start a fight with you, but there's a whole cutscene before the fight starts, and you're like oh can I and I and I can't even skip the cutscene. Um so I am enjoying it, it's a stunning game, and I and I think Anthony had about 35 hours on the clock when I looked on PlayStation told me how many he had. So definitely worth it, but it I mean it still cost me 60 quid, even though it's quite a few a few years old now, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 46:43

Yeah, well this is it, and I and I played Ghost of Shoshima and Assassin's Creed Shadows, and I must admit Shadows I ditched quite quickly, I think. I didn't really get the vibe of Shadows, I must admit, of all the Assassin's Creed games that I've loved in the past. Really looking forward to the black flag remaster, I must admit, on a side tangent. But Shadows, I didn't enjoy Sushima. Did I finish it? I can't remember if I finished it, but I played a good chunk of it. I enjoyed it, but I didn't necessarily get into it as much as what everyone said. But then Anthony said, just like as you said, forget about Sushima and just play this one instead. A superior version of it. I've got it on the way, I've got it coming from Boomerang, my rental subscription that service that I've got. So I'm hoping, I'm hoping that lands tomorrow. They've sent it today, so I'm hoping the Royal Mail do the magic and it arrives tomorrow, so then I can install it, get it ready, and I can take the portal away with me so I can play it a little bit while I'm away. Um that takes 35 hours to complete, maybe I need to be chipping away at that like pretty much every day. You know, I don't get sessions where I can play for several hours at a time very often, so I need to be doing a couple of hours a day on that one. So I'm hoping to play a decent chunk before we pod next because it'd be nice to get back on the PlayStation and play something on there. So yeah, so I'm hoping that it is that jump from Tsushima and the improvement of it. Like I know it got a lot of praise critically and from gamers and other podcasts as well, did Sashima like say I enjoyed it, I didn't necessarily rave about it, but controversially I say that about a lot of games that are really well received, and I'm just like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Well, and again, I think the end of the day, you know, I'm uh I think if you're it I understand that people read reviews because they don't potentially have the income just to willingly buy a game, uh, which you know I'm certainly not in the camp where I'll willingly buy a game. There's a very small part of me which is you know might not even get GTA when it comes out. The only reason I will is because I know it won't go down in get a price and we do this podcast, but but if it wasn't for the fact of us doing this podcast, I may not take it on straight away or wouldn't have taken it on straight away. That's it, I've lost about half the viewers now.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

That's the clickbait title for the pod there.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Stu will not buy GTA 6. There we go. I'm gonna buy Pokemon Pocket 5 and forget about GTA. No, unbelievable. That's crazy talk. But um, but no, I mean I've looked I've I'm enjoying it and it's definitely a game that I'm glad that I've picked up because I say it is a stunning game, and the more I get into it, when I'm sort of you know, the time we come back, I mean obviously I won't be taking it away with me because I can't take well I could take the PlayStation, but that one go down well. So I'm taking I'm gonna take the rock with me with uh Forza Horizon 6 on it.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

So jealous.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

Yeah, so that that's cut that's coming with me, but um, but no, so I look I am enjoying it. I mean I've I've downloaded a few other games on Game Pass which I've I've sort of gone, look, do you know what I'm not gonna play at the moment because I want to play this and I want to get deep into this, so so no, so it's good and I think you're enjoy it. And yeah, it's it's I hate to say it, it's it already it's much better than shadows. I just did not care for shadows at all, at all. So um, but right, so getting off of the games and onto the news.

Listener Email And PlayStation Picks

SPEAKER_01 50:10

But before we get on to the news, please don't forget that you can rate, review, subscribe, comment, all of those bits and pieces wherever you're listening to this podcast. As I mentioned in the last show, now we also have the ability for you to send us a voicemail. So you could basically record a voicemail and send it to us on the link in the video and on the podcast. And and Steve, we have actually had not a voicemail, we have actually had our first email from an avid, avid listener, viewer, probably listener, because he's he's back in the day one. Um so uh yeah, so Derek, thank you, Derek. Derek came through about a week ago, I think it was now, and he sent us he sent us the following message, which was brilliant, which was like, just wanted to drop you a note to say how great it is to have you back in my ears again. The energy, last, and deep dive into gaming I've really missed, and the new episodes have been fantastic. So we're obviously doing something right. One thing I've noticed is that it's been a lot of Xbox talk recently, uh, which I'm all for, but that's Tim saying it, not me. But to balance things out, I'd love to hear your thoughts on the other side of the fence where the grass isn't no. Over the last year or two, over the last year or two, what have been your standout games on Nintendo, Switch, and PlayStation? Anything that really surprises you, stuck with you, or you think listeners might have missed or shouldn't miss out on. Keep up the brilliant work. It's great having the Lost Sparks crew back again. All the best, Derek. So thank you, Derek, first of all, for that. That's uh really, really awesome. Thank you very much. You know, because we sit here chatting to ourselves, enjoying it. So it's good to hear that people are back from, especially the old days, you know, they're back and still listening.

SPEAKER_02 52:00

We've got at least one listener, which is great. So it'll write again next week, say pack it in with the sound effects. But yeah, it's great. Thank you, Derek. Appreciate that. But yeah, it's nice when you even just that little, you know, even just uh, you know, a like on whatever platform, just a comment like that or a message, it just makes you know that people are listening and enjoy what you're doing, because otherwise it sounds a bit like you're shouting into the void and never hear anything back. It's like, did they enjoy it? Did they not enjoy it? I don't know. Like, but yeah, it's great, it's really good. So and hopefully, hopefully to provide balance, we will be providing a bit more PlayStation talk once we've played a bit more Ghost of Your Tie and things. So I think it's just how it's fallen, isn't it? You know, with so much coming to Game Pass and getting back into it and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_01 52:39

And then there's the the the change in leadership and all that lot. So where you know Sony uh Sony have been really quiet and Nintendo have been Nintendo, really.

SPEAKER_02 52:49

Yeah, that's it, and hopefully we'll get back into it and you know, find a stride a bit more with a few more bits and pieces, but obviously we'll cover some more PlayStation bits and and we'll cover a couple of bits now in terms of what we've what we've played and enjoyed from the other side of the gaming world.

SPEAKER_01 53:03

So obviously, with yourself, what what's really been some standouts on PS5 and Switch for you?

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah, so PlayStation, I think I've got a bit more of a gauge on because I don't have a Switch anymore and I haven't got a Switch 2, but for me, the things that I've played recently on PlayStation was Spider-Man games. They're great, you know. I think it's you know my little boy, he's Seb, he's he's come his four next week. He absolutely loves Spidey and his amazing friends, and he's having a Spider-Man themed birthday. And I haven't played this, I didn't play this with him, he was a bit young at the time. But I think because Spider-Man's not had its real time in the sun when it comes to video games, you know. You've had the Batman games and so on and so forth. Spider-Man's had a bit of a rougher ride. It's nice that Spidey's had his time, you know, he's found found his he's got into his swing, shall we say.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

And both games, roll one. Oh no, not he's bottled it, he's bottled it.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Start again. That's it. Well we'll have to start against you.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

I can't find the right one now. So anyway, carry on.

SPEAKER_02 54:05

As we were, but yeah, like both games are just uh fantastic, you know, absolute coup for Sony and PlayStation to have these games exclusive for them. Loved it, brilliant. You know, that opening boss fight with Sandman in the second game, fantastic. Such a you know, a massive spectacle, you know, and just being able to swing through New York and practically be able to go through the entire city from the get-go and swing around and go and explore. It it's again not on a pro but on a normal PS5, just looks stunning. So, again, I can only imagine what it looks like on a PS5 Pro. But yeah, the combat's really slick, you know, it's really you know, really punchy, really hard hitting massive map for you to go and explore and do some other bits and pieces, find bits of story. I love the switch between Spidey and Miles Morales, you know, and the two different stories and how that merges and blends together, and then how they combine and your powers combine, and you can do different, you know, powers of Spidey and different ones for Miles and so on and so forth. Brilliant, absolutely love it. I think they're two absolutely you know, must-play games for the PlayStation, absolutely. And the other ones that I didn't put on the list, but I will mention the two Final Fantasy remakes. Absolutely Final Fantasy 7 was pretty much the game that got me into gaming, as you know, a lot of other people of my age. Absolutely loved it when they first said they were remaking it and it was going to be this open combat, open world style, like Final Fantasy's gone towards. I haven't played a Final Fantasy game probably since 11, really. Or was it 12 or 13 with was it Lightning, the female lead character on 360? You know, when it switched this open world, I've you know, open not the turn-based combat, I've not really played them, so I was very, very cynical, but I understand why it kind of had to be that way rather than the old school way. And it and it works, like the amount of love that's gone into the recreation of that game, you know, the fact that it's coming in three segments, the environment that they've brought to life, the story, the characters, the soundtrack, or the the sound again, absolute iconic soundtrack, Final Fantasy VII, like just going back to those parts of the game again, you know, the slums, you know, the golden saucer, that sort of thing. Oh, I could sit and listen to that soundtrack all day. Like it's again, it just such from our childhood that the fact that they've gone to such extremes to make one game that maybe back in the day could be completed in maybe 15-20 hours, could be easy 30, 40, 50 hours per section of this, you know, per part one, part two, part three. I I don't know if I've had a release date for part three. I'm not sure. I don't know if you've had that yet, but again, you know, absolute must must play for me if you've if you've enjoyed Final Fighter 7 at any point or played it during during your time. And the the one thing that I really really look at from buying a Nintendo Switch 2 if I could afford one is Donkey Kong Bonanza. Right. My my nephew, he's got a Switch 2, and he's got it, and I had a brief play on it. And again, you know, like you say, Nintendo just do Nintendo things, and it's very much seems that way, but they do such a good job of giving their sort of main characters, their you know, the the mascots as you were their own little time in the sun.

SPEAKER_01 57:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:15

You're like Yoshi's had his time, Mary has his time, Donkey Kong has his time, and so on and so forth. And I I it was great that you know, the sort of hour or so that I played on, I was like, oh my god, I really need to play this game, I really need a switch too. I can't afford one, but I really, really want one, you know, and just the how the the world adapted and he could do all the digging and it changed and so on and so forth, you know, and it it kind of you know obviously Super Mario Odyssey was such a good game on the the first switch that I think this is sort of up there with games again that you have to have this game if you if you buy a switch two, and I still look very enviously at it, and like I said, I don't own one, I don't have the game, but from what I played, that to me would be I'm buying a switch two, and we're getting it with Donkey Kong Bonanza over the Mario Kart. You get it with to me, it'd be that'd be what I'm getting it with from from the get-go. By the way, I found it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

There you go. There we go. There we go, I found it. We got there at the end. It was on page two. Can we cut that in? Can we clip that in in the edit? We'll sort it out. So for me, really, for me on uh yeah, Spider-Man and and that as well uh have been standouts, but I don't know. For me, I've what I've really really spent the time and really enjoyed with the PS5 has been Astrobot and Sack Boy. I don't know whether it's sort of like I quite like a platformer, you know, super lucky tale, that type of thing. I quite like that type of game, and actually, although I'm not a huge fan of the dual sense controller, I I think that it used that quite well in both those games, and you know, they were just again, they were just nice games you could jump into and play and were were very, very enjoyable. And I even took Astrobot right, right to the DLC towards some really, really you know, rage quit, smash your controller up type levels, which uh which the wife had a go at me about. The for the Switch, I mean I had uh Switch 2 for a while, but I ended up selling it just before Christmas, I think it was, just because I just really it didn't warrant, it was sitting there doing nothing. So for me, if I look back on the OG or the OLED, it was Animal Crossing, was Mario Odyssey, and then it was the you know the new Mario Kart. I mean, Animal Crossing, as I think I said on here on the first episode we did a of this uh sort of series two, that was the game that for me I can remember having a chat with Anthony and saying it's not for me, I'm not gonna play it, does not interest me at all. And maybe that was because it was COVID, maybe that was because my daughter was at what was she was about 10, I think she was then. So, and we just sort of played it together as dad and daughter, and we were trading our turnips and things like that. So that to me was really, really enjoyable. So for me, those Anthony did leave a message or sent us a message saying for him on the PS5 it was Ghost of Yotai, uh Sea Sword, and Astrobot, and on Nintendo it was Marie Kart, Pacopia, and Donkey Kong Bonanza. I think Sheep was Majora's Mark mask or something like that. He's playing a bit more. Yeah, he's just playing that yeah, yeah, if that counts. Well, it counts. It counts if you're playing it, yeah. So no, so I mean that fantastic. Thank you, Derek. That was that's a brilliant message, and that's uh more of what we want. You know, if you are listening to this, you know, just drop us an email. You don't have to leave us a voicemail, or you don't have to make it public, and you know, you don't have to have a big name on it. But questions like that are fantastic, and it sort of gets us to talk about a few, it gets all the sparks to talk about their games and their bits and pieces and what they're like and what they don't like. And and I say with the one we're gonna probably do the next time we do this pod with a bit a few predictions of you know the Xbox showcase and maybe uh some of Games Fest. So please, please send them in.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:14

Yeah, it's it's nice to have something else to chat about beyond uh opinions and perspective. It just adds another element and another dimension, doesn't it? So yeah, it's nice. Please, please do get involved, please.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:24

Otherwise, I'm gonna talk more about my Microsoft points. Yeah. And use more

News Round-Up Begins

SPEAKER_01 1:01:30

sound effects. Use more sound effects. Right. So do you know what it is? It's time for the news.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:39

We need like a like a news night intro or something, just like a breaking news intro or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:45

Do you know what? I have tried to find one of those. So if if anybody's got one, chuck it in the comments or or whatever. But I did I did try and find that. But I just for the limited amount of time that I had this afternoon to do it after playing Ghost of Yota, I haven't found one yet, but I promise you we will get another sound effect in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

Don't kinda fun don't kind of footy just make the noise of the mouths or something. They do something along that line.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:10

So they they've always made so Kevin, I think it is, they've all Kevin's always done the the duh du baker's duty.

Steam Machine Pricing And Scarcity

SPEAKER_01 1:02:21

Right, so on to the news. So the first news story, which actually the first two news stories are from me. So but the very, very first news story, if I bring it down, uh is about Steam. So Valve is released in four, yes, four different Steam machines. So taking this story off of geekygads.com, why Valve is released in four different uh Steam machine variants. Valve is set to introduce four distinct configurations. So this is all speculation at the moment. Four distinct configurations of the Steam Machine, a compact PC designed to merge flexibility of PC with the simplicity of game consoles. As highlight as highlighted by DeckReady, these configurations cater to a range of gaming preferences, both at 512 gigabytes and two terabytes storage options, which which are with or without a bundled controller. This lineup ensures gamers can choose the model tailored to their needs, whether prioritizes storage for extensive gaming libraries or opting for a controller-inclusive package for the for media or a bit of both. They are also stating that exploring how Valve's reservation system aims to address stock shortages and scalping, making sure there's a fair access to the limited 20,000 units available at launch, gain insight into pricing adjustments influenced by rising component costs with models starting at £700, which I'll get onto in a minute, but I didn't think was actually that bad. Because people were saying about sorry, that's dollars. People were saying about $1,000, they were thinking, and considering how these changes might impact the Steam machine's appeal. So basically, the they've done actually quite like this. They've done sort of like a TLDR takeaway comments. So Valvey's launch is four configuration Steam Deck options from 512 to 2TB with all wear out without controller. A reservation system will ensure fair access to the 20,000 units at launch with a one per customer limit to prevent scalping. Price adjustments due to rising component costs placed on Steam Machine at the premium. The 512 gigabyte model style at 700. And a big surprise for me, especially with the price of storage going up at the moment. So 512 at $700 and a two terabyte at $750, so $50 more. The Steam Machine combines versatility. Yeah, we've already talked about that. So yeah, so what they're looking at is the steam machine will be offered in four configurations. So you've got a $512 gigabyte, and this is a terabyte, then that'd be a lot more expensive. Model with a controller, the same memory with a with a sorry, without a controller and with a controller, and then a two-terabyte model without a controller and with a controller. So it seems to me that I mean our link to this because they've also got a video. I'm quite surprised. I'm not surprised because I've got a fit I've got a feeling that you know Gabe and the team at Steam might be sorry, Valve might be trying to think that they might be sort of like thinking, well, okay, look, you're gonna buy our game, so we're we're gonna offset the cost of the console. But I'm actually pleasantly surprised with it being seven fifty dollars for a two terabyte. What's your thoughts?

SPEAKER_02 1:05:49

I mean, yeah, I mean it it almost seems that apart from obviously the availability of the machine, but to me, for the fifty dollars or whatever that equates to with pounds and pence, you you just get the big version. Like Surely most people will be hankering for that because you you are getting what four four times the storage for an extra fifty fifty dollars. So it seems like you'd do that. And obviously, the I'm I'm assuming it'll come with the new Steam controller that's just launched.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

Yeah, I believe so.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:13

Which obviously that again, I'm guessing that's without the Steam controller. I'm guessing that's going to be an increased price with the controller. But again, bundled with that, with the unanimous feedback on it that it's received. I don't know what other controllers or whatever device you'd be able to use with it. To me, it makes sense to buy it with the controller and the the extra storage. The price seems reasonable to me, you know, in in considering that everything's going up. Obviously, PlayStation just announced it's increasing the price of the PS5. Nintendo have done the same with the Switch 2. You know, what what's the pro now, the PS5 pros north of that or about that now, isn't it? Around that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

Yeah. I mean money is nine, is it nine hundred dollars now, I think?

SPEAKER_02 1:06:59

So is you know, considering if you look at that, have have we I can't remember, have we had actual specs, either speculative or confirmed specs for this year, in terms of what it's actually gonna run out, what it's what it contains.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:12

I don't think so. No, I think this is for me, this is all I've seen on it is that I mean I did hear a report the other day that apparently a container of a load of stuff had come into the country, and uh they'd used the wording console on it, but they were saying that the Steam Deck has the word console on the import documents, but they were like, that's a lot of Steam decks of something that has been around for a while. The only thing what I'm just like I mean, obviously a lot of the stuff that we are surrounded about is is American is in dollars and that it does seem concerning the I mean if it's 20,000 units for America I can see that, but if it's 20,000 units globally, or let's say America and UK, that's gonna be as rare as you know, rocking horse. I'm saying to get a hold of.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:13

Yeah, that that was the only thing I was gonna say is that what where's that spread? You know, how how is that distributed and like say yeah, I I can't see it being a mega seller. I imagine it's gonna be a popular, it'd certainly be an entry for me to jump onto PC gaming in the living room. For me, like the the little unit that it's gonna be, the little cube, yeah, that'd be perfect to me have on the desk just as an option, you know, and especially with like Steam sales and stuff with how notorious they are for cheap games. Again, just to pick up some cheap games and play as an option on there. It's definitely how I would play a PC, you know, or get into PC gaming, you know, rather than having to build it yourself or upgrade it and blah blah blah. I can see a lot of people jumping on board from that perspective, especially if it's cheaper, which it seems it's gonna be than the next generation of consoles. You know, again, whatever specs it's got and whatever capabilities it's got, I'm not sure. But that seems quite reasonable by today's pricing, certainly. So it'd be enough to intrigue me whether I'd buy it instead of or as well as the next console, that is subject to whatever comes out, like I said, the next the cost of the next consoles will be the big deciding factor of that, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:23

I mean I think if if the thing is if Helix for me, if Helix comes out obviously a a year later, I mean more than a year in front of us now, and it's got Steam capabilities on it, then the Steam machine for me is uh is an as not as an on-goer. There are some games like I I've seen a few streams of them a few people playing is it video game simulator? No, not video game, video store simulators, so like running a blockbuster. That really intrigues me. I quite like the idea of that type of game, and you just you know, I think I was watching Mike and Andy on kinda funny play it, and I'm like, oh that's quite good. And then, of course, I looked on Switch, I looked on Xbox or PlayStation, it wasn't there. So there are a few games like that, especially when you have the Steam sales, that I'm like, oh, I really miss out on those. But even for me, who could be very whimsical with his money at times, uh £700, let's say, if it is that, or £750, that's a lot of bloody money for something that I'm gonna play an indie game on that's gonna cost me four or five ninety-nine or ten ninety-nine. So I yeah, I don't know. I mean, I might buy it just for the for the sake of the podcast, of course. That's what I tell the wife. But uh, but I at the moment I think it could well be that I'll wait and see what happens with Helix, and a little bit like Apple Vision Pro, I'm quite intrigued with the Apple Vision Pro because I do a lot of editing, you know, I've got two apps, two Apple Macs in front of me here. But because it's Gen 1 and because it's bloody expensive, I'm like, no, do you know what? I'll wait till Gen 2 comes out if it comes out. So it could well be, uh, I may well miss this first gen and then go in to see what Helix is like, and then pick up a second gen if Helix doesn't do what I want it to do. But but it's certainly you know the form factor, the countertop type of stuff with the controller. I think it's gonna be a good little seller for them. So and the next story is is with me, taking this whole podcast up with my with my jingles

New Xbox Boot And Score Badges

SPEAKER_01 1:11:35

and my stories. So this one is uh actually courtesy of Mr. Jess, and we literally just threw this one up on the group before we went live. So fresh off the press from Xbox Wire. Available for Xbox Insiders. New Xbox console updates bring updated boot up gamer score badges and more. Uh started today, selected Xbox insiders can start testing the latest updates coming to the Xbox console, bringing even more ways to personalise and shape your experience. The latest updates bring the newly introduced boot-up experience, tiered gamer score badges, and the expanded game library filter. These features will roll out to more inside overs time with a broader availability coming up to players later, which actually is a side side post. If later is as quick as they've been doing the other stuff, it will be about a month's time. It's not gonna be very long, is it? No, because I I noticed playing I noticed playing Mixtape that the new achievements was coming up with the little sort of frilly sort of bit at the bottom. Yeah. So new boot-up experience. We've updated the console boot-up experience with a new animation sound which looks dunny. Featuring the new Xbox logo with a sign with the signature green players know well. You'll see and hear the update when you power your console, bring in the refreshed look and feel for the moment you jump in. Earn new tiered gamer score badges. Players will now earn tiered badges that reflect their lifetime gamer score, giving you the fresh way to showcase your journey on Xbox with the badges, which look stunning, uh, and very Xbox. The badges appear to be appear on your profile and in the guide, making it easy for people to see your achievements, a history at glance. As your total gamer score grows, your badge evolves with you, reflecting every milestone in the way. So, what am I gonna get? Oh, I'm gonna get the entry-level sort of slightly greeny, pale green one, but not one with all the flowery things around it. Uh, I'll put a picture up now so you can see what it looks like. Understanding your game library at a glance, quickly see what you can play and why new filters make it easy to separate games you own from those shared with you and identify installed titles with no longer you no longer have access to how to get Xbox or inside support and share your feedback. That's on the actual device itself. Um, but if you're not an insider, do go along and have a look. Just just press Y search insider because you don't have to get involved in everything like beta and alpha software updates, but as an insider, you do get your bonuses and you do get access to some of the early stuff. So uh and again, I think it's what we've said on multiple podcasts, it heading heading in the right direction, they are.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:35

Yeah, definitely. And and even like you say, that new boot-up sequence, that new logo, oh, just going back to the original bright green Xbox. That's what Xbox is about. Do you know what I mean? It stood out, it was you know, it was bright green, it was a bit garish almost, but that was the point. It was it was this is Xbox, this is who we are, and it's going back to that you know, from the preview that we had, again, really happy, really like it, you know, and and it's it's these silly little things, isn't it, really, that people like in terms of the things for the gamer score, you know, how long you've been a Xbox Live member or Game Pass member, you know, just these little badges, the almost little badge of honour. I've been here since whatever, or I've clocked up this amount of whatever. It's just these little things that people like, do you know what I mean? That make it unique to you. It's not just a a rudimentary figure of X amount, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:21

You've got this little badge or it's nice when you go because quite often sometimes if it doesn't pop to say I've done my dailies, I will go into my profile and then I'll go into rewards, and it pops up like you know, you were you were uh like 20-year-plus gamer on Xbox, you know, you were in the Xbox arcade era, so to get more of these little badges and these little things, and and I know you know, and a lot of people will listen to this going, I don't really care about that, you know. I don't, you know, it's not not for me, I don't play on Xbox. Well, it's the same for me, really, with PlayStation. You know, I've got trophies popping up, and yeah, I quite like seeing the trophies pop up, and it's nice when you get when you get a bronze or uh a gold one pop up. But for me, as a more of an Xbox gamer, they don't bother me that much. But I think for Xbox, it's just you know, that boot-up screen is very Xbox, it's very OG, you know, you know, Trevor Nelson, Trevor Nelson, Major Nelson. What's Trevor Nelson doing there? Major Nelson back in the day, you know, hit the stories he was saying about when they was in the initial Xbox office, and it sort of takes you way back to the early days of Xbox. So, so no, I'm I'm really, really excited about that coming, and uh I'll jump on my console a little bit later in the morning to see if I have early access to it. But so, right, the next story, which is still about Xbox. Um sorry, Derek.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:50

We've probably got Xbox every Derek.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:52

We probably don't know we're not, we're not. We have done some PlayStation stuff, but effectively there's no PlayStation news. So, right, the next one is with you,

Discord Nitro Bundles Game Pass

SPEAKER_01 1:17:00

and it's about Xbo, Xbox and Discord.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:03

Yeah, and again, it's just like we hinted and alluded to it. So with so many changes coming to Xbox, there's a lot of Xbox news going on at the moment. So, this is again an update to Game Pass, which there's gonna be lots coming, as as again they've suggested and and demonstrated already. There's a starter edition of Game Pass that's now gonna be bundled with Discord Nitro memberships. Okay. So we talked about this briefly, didn't we, Stu, of like that Game Pass could be bundled with certain things or it comes with a certain perk, so it becomes more than just the gaming. So this is clearly the start of that. So as part of this, the partnership has officially begun, and now eligible members are given a new way to play and discover games. So this applies to the $9.99 Nitro sub, which I'm guessing that's the same in in the UK, $9.99. I don't have a subscription, but not the $2.99 basic one, it's just for the regular one. But this will basically allow you to discover and play certain Game Pass games. So this will give you this version of Game Pass will come with a 10-hour trial of cloud gaming games like Fallout 4, Stardew Valley, Day Z, Deep Rock Galactic, Overcut 2 Grounded, and in quotation marks and more. So there's obviously a limited catalogue of games that this will allow you to have access to as a trial, with obviously the intent that you either go get Game Pass a better version or either game. There's also a promise of more games being added periodically, but it's unclear at the moment how long they'll stay on the service for and how often these games will be updated. So, yeah, so you'll get other benefits. So you'll get 250 Discord orbs, which is the currency for a Discord store. What you can buy in Discord, I'm not entirely sure. And you get more orbs when completing quests, and then they're automatically applied. But this seems like an ongoing partnership that will evolve over time. But it certainly seems like so obviously there's Discord integration into Xbox already, and this certainly seems like the start of a more in-depth and integrated partnership. So again, just clear impetus of how to kick start and get Xbox back on track and more integration, more you know. Listen to people, I guess, in terms of making it more accessible, getting it in front of more people and so on. So yeah, it's I I don't use Discord really myself. I'm not a a a heavy Discord user, but for those people that are, it's nice to have the perk that can well, I can go jump on and have a 10-hour trial of these games. Some games you might even be able to complete in those ten hours, you know what I mean? I guess, you know, in some capacity. But yeah, you know, to maybe draw people in to subscribe, buy games, upgrade, you know, again it's just a way to get people in, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:42

Yeah, I mean it's um all I want to know is can I convert my Discord orbs into Microsoft points? Is there a conversion rate going on here? How many Discord orbs do I need to get for a project helix? It it might take me a few years, but uh no, I mean as I say, I I've jumped into Discord a few times because I think there's been a few groups on there that I've been part of. I think the I've jumped into XB2 group a few times and you know it's a bit for community and that. But no, I think this is a good start. I think for me, doing collaborations with this and maybe platforms like Netflix for a similar, maybe a similar thing is a much better route than going down, or you know, you could play Xbox on your LG or Samsung TV because you know, as someone who installs TVs quite a number of times, there's so many apps on there, and unless it's a paid app which is front and centre, and quite often on the outside of the box, people just don't think about it or know about it. So it's sort of a wasted thing. Where I think this actually going for the gamer, you know, the end of the day, Discord is used by gamers. So going for the gamer and saying, look, you know, you might be you might be a you know a Steam gamer, you might be a PlayStation person, but look, why don't you try this? It's included in your subscription. Look at Fortnite crew with us or with me. Never never really played Fortnite until it came to Game Pass. So I I only can see it's being very positive. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:15

And I didn't even think about that. You say Netflix, there's obviously the Netflix gaming side of it, and the same with Amazon. Do they see what they've dabbled with it? But again, if they could like come to some sort of agreement there, you know, well, we'll be a gaming partner or provider for your gaming side of it. Again, if you could merge or blend the two subscriptions together, again, you're targeting the gamers or the people on the existing platform that'll be interested and bothered about taking a subscription up at least.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:40

Well, I mean, let I mean Luna especially you know, in this country really isn't something people I don't even think in America people are really using it. Obviously, Stadia got canned by Goo by Google, so and Netflix have a little bit of gaming stuff, but it's more sort of like I think it's like Stranger Things, sort of like 8-bit type things. Mobile games, maybe. Yeah, so maybe it does open the door to do collaborations with those brands who may have or had a gaming platform to say, look, we just want to include this, it's a town hour free thing, it's not really gonna take anything away from you guys, so you know why not why not go for it, type of thing. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Uh right, so next story is with me, and let me just bring my screen down.

Forza Horizon 6 Leak Crackdown

SPEAKER_01 1:22:30

Uh, so fundamentally, it turns out that 4's Horizon 6 got uh leaked or hacked or not 100% sure, but the headline off of IGN's website is uh 4's horizon 6 dev banned pirate who leaked gameplay footage until the year 10,000.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:53

It's a long old time, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:55

It's a long old time. I think it's yeah, I think it's that was because they could just put 99999 in or something like that. But faces an uphill battle to plug the leak. So put a bit of context behind it. Forza Horizon 6 developer Playground Games is following through on its threat after the game was leaked online ahead of the official release date, what with one pirate reporting a hardware ban until the year 10,000. Overnight, the Microsoft owned studio threatened to ban anyone it found had access to leaking the build of the Forza Horizon 6, whilst 9 it emerged a result of a Steam preload issues. They stated, We are aware of reports that a build of Forza Horizon 6 has been obtained prior to its release and confirmed that it is not a result of a preloading issue. Playground said it in its statement, we are taking strict enforcement actions against any individuals found accessing this build, including franchise-wide and hardware banned, so bricking your Xbox. We encourage fans to sit tight and play it when it releases officially on the May the 19th. Reports first emerged over the weekend when 155 gigabytes of Fort Horizon 6 files were spotted on Steam DB four days ahead of its early access and nine days ahead before the full launch. This suggested that the files were made available unencrypted on Steam prior to the potential load error. There is a lot lot more to this article, so basically go on to uh IGN and have a read of it. But uh, but yeah, I mean they've just banned someone. I mean, uh rumours were that they that person just closed that account, YouTube account, and went on and did another YouTube account or another Xbox account, something like that. But at the end of the day, they will track and they will ban you for it. Um, it actually does make me question about playing it at 1 pm tomorrow because I think there is the there is the well-known trick of changing the time on your ex, which apparently Anthony didn't know, which I was quite surprised. But it comes out apparently, it comes out midnight everywhere geographically. So the first countries to get it will be New Zealand, will be Auckland and New Zealand, and they're gonna get it at midnight or a minute past midnight on between Thursday and Friday, which equates to one o'clock tomorrow afternoon in the UK as we record this. So I did put up and go, I'll just change the time on my Xbox to New Zealand and then I'll play it at 1 pm tomorrow. But after seeing this, I don't think I'm gonna do that. I'll just I just I'll just wait until Friday and do what I was planning on doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:36

Yeah, and I think I put in our group I was like, you'd have to be stupid to do this, wouldn't you really? Like, fair enough if you want to access it early, but to blazingly go on and stream it and play it online, like you you're just dicing, you're just asking for trouble, aren't you? And I've just read the article saying that I can just keep doing it again and again and again, they can't stop me, which I'm guessing is the potential the person who's downloaded it on PC. So if they've got the files installed, they could just play it on multiple different accounts, maybe. I'm guessing. But yeah, it's like I just wanna just wait. Just just wait. Like it's it's four days. Like, I just this is what like you can't not nothing's a secret anymore. Like nothing, like any everything always gets leaked, there's no secret announcements, you know, like the old expo or one more thing, you know. Every ever there's always someone that's leaked somewhat somewhere. It's like just there's very few surprises in life. Just let us have the moment, you know what I mean. It's like just I don't want to watch it, you know, because that that intro sequence of Forza is always like such a showcase. I don't want to see it, I'm not bothered. Like, I really don't want to see it because I know it's gonna be epic.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:36

Well, I was about I was literally about to say the same thing was that I've not watched, apart from the official trailers that went out when Xbox showed them to us, you know, the uh we have the first one hour of, you know, uh IGM might have put up something like we had the first one hour of gameplay, and I just just just doesn't bother me. I mean, it's like I really want to play it and experience it. I mean, we we spoke earlier because uh I've actually set up around me here, I've got an Algato four-game capture card. So I might actually stream the first sort of two hours of me playing it up here. I mean, I've kicked the wife out of the office, she already knows about that, so I might as well. But for me, I just want to experience it, and I know a lot of people want to watch it through other people's eyes, or they may not be in the position to be able to buy it, but it's just the amount of dross and the amount of just things like this that it is just like views and clicks, and they just they want to look at Instagram and see they've got 24 million views. It doesn't matter if it's a load of rubbish, or it doesn't matter if it's stolen content, they just want the views. If they make money out of it, I don't know, some some wouldn't, some wouldn't, but yeah, I mean it's like it's only it was a matter of days of this going out and then the early access coming. So I just I don't I don't get it. I'm looking forward to playing it and I just it doesn't interest me, but there's obviously a market for it, so that's why people do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:07

Yeah, that's it. But I'm glad that they are just hitting people hard with it and will continue to stamp it out, which people will only learn the hard way, won't they? So hopefully that'll continue to be the case.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:17

Okie dokie. So, right, the next

GTA 6 Date Signals And Rating

SPEAKER_01 1:28:20

story is about the game that I'm not buying. Yeah. That's the news article. Breaking news. Stuart's not buying GTA 6. GTA 6 release date release date confirmed question mark, but Stuart's not buying it.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:33

Yeah, it doesn't matter anyway. Yeah, so this is a bit well, I think this kind of leaks into Sony probably getting the marketing rights to GTA 6 as well. So PlayStation 4 runners are starting to get messages about upgrading to a PS5 to play GTA 6. So people that are clearly still playing either the campaign or online or whatever on the last gen of consoles, and they're starting to get a notification now telling them to upgrade to make sure they're ready for when GTA launches on the 19th of November. Now I think we've already had that date anyway, but I think this now more cements it because it's already been delayed once from earlier this year already.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:11

Yeah, because it was supposed to be about nowish, about Junish, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:14

Yeah, around now. I think this kind of cements it and puts it in place that's subject to some massive issue or whatever going wrong. Um this kind of seems to suggest that that is locked in now. So yeah, so obviously this isn't as far as I'm wearing launching on PS4. As far as you know, I'm I'm fairly certain it's not launching on there anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:34

I'm pretty sure no, because I mean, yes, I mean they've I've got the image up here, which is yeah, an email that was sent saying Grand Theft Auto 6 will be on is on your wish list. Get a PlayStation 5 today to be ready when GTA 6 launches on November the 19th, 2026. Shot PlayStation 5 console. So it is certainly looking that way, and I haven't heard anything about it going on to Xbox uh the Xbox not Xbox One but the last Xbox, but um but it which is which is fine. I mean I would be surprised if they tried to squeeze it on there, they did it last time, but uh but yeah, so uh it is literally gonna be PS5 and Xbox, no Switch, no PC.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:20

Yeah, which I'm I'm quite glad they're not trying to squeeze it on the last lot because again it's obviously it's just if it's gonna be such a big beast like it clearly is, just stick it on the consoles that it's gonna work on and run on, you know what I mean? And it's like it sounds harsh with previous generation owners and what have you, but if you want to play the best console, you know, the best games and the best graphics and so on and so forth, then if you have to upgrade, you get at some point you just have to say people just have to accept that that is the case, you know, especially for PS4 and stuff where Contales are now quite aged as well. Trying to squeeze some of that size onto an old console will be quite tricky. And needless to say, Stu, as well, we've got a rating by the US rating boards ESREB of 17 plus for mature shocker. Shocker.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:01

I literally was just reading that. I just was reading, and that's not all though. Over the weekend, we've also seen additional marketing materials confirming that again has a rating of 17 plus maturity by the US ratings board ESRB. This is due to blood, gore, intense violence, mature humour, nudity, strong language, sexual content, and a use of maybe I am actually gonna buy this. But um, but yeah, I mean, well, on a second, no Sherlock. You know, it's gonna be an 18-rated game, wasn't it? I don't think anybody was ever thinking it was gonna be anything different. Yeah. Oh, it's a 12 plus.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:39

Oh I mean, what a way to instantly like that. I can imagine then not buying it. But yeah, I mean, shocker. Has any GTA have been anything less than an 18 plus? Let's be fair. So but yeah, I I think that confirms that it's gonna be a November release, you know, and again it makes sense that it's gonna be that pre-Christmas, you know, holiday holiday period. So yeah, so for me, it's always gonna be a a day one. You know, I'm gonna have to play Grand Theft Auto, I'm definitely gonna have to be there. So, yeah, I think that pretty much confirms that come November everybody's gonna be playing Grand Theft Auto, except you.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:09

No, I I know I will be. I have I'll have serious FOMO, so I will be. The one what the one that still takes me is like analysts believe GTA's parent company Take Two is estimated to have spent between one and 1.5 billion on this game. Mad innit. I mean, and it will make that back in one day, probably.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:27

I know, it's crazy. And I mean the I mean there was I think I saw someone's episode they might not recoup that, and I'm like, well, come on. Even if that GTA Online's still gonna be keeping going, and what was that hundred million or five hundred million made annually a year? So it's like, well, two within two years of GT Online, you've made that back anyway. Obviously, this is gonna sell ridiculously well for whatever value it's gonna sell at whatever retail price it's gonna have. But again, the sales alone of this, I imagine, will make a decent dent in that with how many copies they're gonna sell of this.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:55

Yeah, no, definitely. I mean, I can't see them not recouping the money on this. I mean, it's no without so anyway, so right, then the next and the last story is with me, and it's uh it's going back to this bizarre, bizarre story

GameStop Bid For eBay Rejected

SPEAKER_01 1:33:10

from last pod, which was about GameStop buying eBay. So, neither credible nor attractive, eBay rejects GameStop's acquisition bid. I promise that's again let me act surprised. eBay has rejected an unsolicited $56 billion offer to purchase the company put forward by the retailer GameStop, calling the bid neither credible or attractive. GameStop's announced its intend to purchase 100% of eBay's stock at $125 per share on the 3rd of May 2026. This price is 46% above eBay's eBay's record share value on Friday, sorry, on February 4th, 2026. However, the bid is not taken seriously, blah, blah, blah, etc. etc. The one thing I'm just going to get to to not waffle on about this pointless story was uh the retailer saw a spike in its share price in 2020 when GameStop became the meme stock. Again, if you've not watched a Netflix documentary, watch it, it's brilliant. With thousands of individuals perching the stake in the company just as it was predicted to fold. Ryan Cohn was one of the key figures of the movement during the period, purchasing a 12.9% stake of GameStops before the end of the year. Known as the Meme King, he went on to become CEO in 2021, uh opting to not take a salary. Here we go, ready? Opting to not take a salary from his role, but instead receiving 9% stake in the company. Now, I've also heard that I can't find it on here now, but basically it was something along the lines of if he gets GameStop to a value of I think it was a hundred billion value, which hey, surprisingly, eBay's value was a hundred billion, or the combined value was a hundred billion, then he gets a bonus or he gets a reward of I don't know one, two, three, or four billion dollars or something like that. So so we're now starting to see that actually the reason for this whole thing going on is purely from a point probably to whack share price up to make it look attractive, get GameStop to be a hundred billion company with the acquisition of eBay, which then releases a nice fat juicy bonus for him.

SPEAKER_02 1:35:30

I mean, you make it sound so cynical, Stuart. I mean you try to do it for personal financial gain. I fail to believe that. Never I I won't have it said, but yeah, it just goes to show you, done it. That when you dig a little bit deeper to these things, there's clearly a reason behind it. I mean, to be fair, if someone said if you can get this and I'll give you five billion dollars, I'll be like, alright then, you know, let's give it a go. Who can we buy? Yeah, you've got to do it, aren't you? Like you've got to do it. Like five billion is not an amount to be sniffed at. So yeah, I mean, it's good that eBay is just like that not credible or attractive. Like basically just like go away. Like, no, this is not happening, which is is quite uh it's quite a decisive and uh surefire answer, that in it. So, yeah, it's like we said at the time, it just came out of nowhere, it made no sense, and it c keeps making no sense. So, yeah, I again I surprised that this hasn't happened.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:20

Yeah, no, well, I think it yeah, I mean, can't really say anything more than the fact of that I didn't think anybody thought this was a real proposition when we talked about it or when and when it started to break after we did the last pod. So uh but yeah, so well we'll we'll see in three weeks' time when we do the podcast with Anthony about the predictions. We may well skip the news and have a brief conversation about what we're playing and what we predict, just to not make the podcast seven hours long. So we'll catch up. Yeah, so we'll three parts. We'll catch up on the next one. I mean what look I mean today, as of recording, we're one hour and forty-two minutes, which is I think a record.

Where To Find Us Next

SPEAKER_01 1:37:00

Uh so gonna have to edit this down again. But um, but that is it. That is the podcast for this week. Thank you for taking your time to pod with me again, Steve. Uh, where can people find you on your social media platforms?

SPEAKER_02 1:37:17

So yeah, so I'm SteCarter921 pretty much everywhere, PlayStation, Xbox, YouTube, Instagram, SteCarter1991 on TikTok, albeit there's not a lot on there at the moment. But yeah, any version of SteCarter921 or 1991, you will find me somewhere on the internet.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:33

Excellent. You'll find Atlos Spark Podcast on most platforms, and my social media manager, Mr. Stephen Carter, uh, has been churning out the the reels and the the pods and the vimeos or whatever the hell they are. Things he's been doing things. I keep I keep on going into the my Instagram account, and it's like, you have been invited to participate. You have been invited to participate. Let's go to stop it, stop doing your job, stop it. So no, so Steve's been doing some like what's been quite nice is we've not just been clipping the pod, you've been doing some little reviews, little bits of feedback, you know, asking people some questions, and uh and they're quite nice because they sort of complement the podcast. So thank you very much for doing that. I I I appreciate that personally, um, because I haven't got time.

SPEAKER_02 1:38:20

Yeah, I know you you do a lot with the edit, so I think I think it's like this is the least I can do considering how long you spend editing the show down on a weekend. So no, it's the it's the least I can do, and I enjoy it. I like doing these things, so it's a bit of fun, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:38:31

Well, exactly. And and and obviously, as I forementioned, we have a Twitch channel. I'm not sure how much you'll see on the Twitch channel, because as I said to you earlier, I can I could do a podcast, I could do an interview with high high net worth individuals and executives of companies, I could get on the stage in front of 500 people at Le NEC in Birmingham and do a talk. But sitting in front of a camera in my home, in front of my Xbox, playing a game on Twitch is just bloody weird for me. So, but I'm gonna try and I'm gonna try and do my first Twitch stream on Friday with the with Force Horizon, which funnily enough would have probably gone up if you're listening to this because I probably might not get around to editing this until Saturday. But so, yeah, at LostSpot, at Lost Spark Podcast on all platforms to follow us. Me, myself, and I I am Mr. Stuart Burgess on social media. And as I say, if you've got any feedback for the show, drop us an email like Derek did on Halo at gamers of the LostSpark.com, and then there's loads of links in the footnotes for the video and the audio of ways you can get into contact with us, ask us your questions or yeah, or tell us we're using you know too many sound effects. Oh, I'll stop talking for nearly two hours. I just need loads of sound effects. So uh but no, thank you, Steve. Thanks for your time, thank you for the people who listen to this, and I'll see you on the next show.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:01

Yes, thank you for your time, mate, and thank you for listening. And uh I'm looking forward to the next show with Anthony. So, yeah, stay tuned for probably, like you say, the marathon show that is the next episode. Oh well, one more thing before I go.