GWJ Conference Call Episode 660

Void Bastards, Outer Wilds, BATTLETECH Urban Warfare, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Stallaris Ancient Relics, City of Brass, Castlevania Collection, Resident Evil 4 Switch, Baba is You, Mortal Kombat 11, Hearthstone Rise of Shadows, Your Emails and More!

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This week Julian, Sean Sands and Shawn are joined by returning guest Shareef Jackson! We have so many games this week we had to skip the topic!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind.

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00:07:51 Void Bastards
00:16:58 City of Brass
00:23:18 Mortal Kombat 11
00:30:00 Outer Wilds
00:40:00 BATTLETECH: Urban Warfare
00:43:30 Resident Evil 4
00:49:49 Stellaris: Ancient Relics
00:58:12 Total War: Three Kingdoms
01:12:22 Baba is You
01:16:18 Castlevania Anniversary Collection
01:20:40 Hearthstone: Rise of Shadows
01:28:20 Your Emails

Speaking of quick time events (that you briefly touched on) I'm so glad they seem to be on the way out especially the 'mash button X' variety that I always have a problem with.

Recently I fired up the God of War 3 remaster, as I'd played non of the games before the latest one. In the very first area I was given a brief, obligatory combat tutorial showing me how to perform various styles of attack. Once all the enemies were dispatched a tree fell across the only path forward. I approached it and saw a 'Mash button B' symbol. Mashing the button as hard as I could I was horrified to see that Kratos, stooping to lift the tree, was barely moving. After a set time he abandoned the idea of moving the tree and stepped away. I tried a few more times, button mashing as if my life depended on it, but the tree rarely moved and when it did Kratos couldn't get it up past his knees before dropping. The prospect of my never getting out of that very first area loomed large.

Eventually after experimenting with different ways to support the controller and different speeds and pressures of button tapping, one configuration, that felt neither easy or natural, saw Kratos win the slow and arduous battle to lift the tree over his head and throw it aside.

It's probably just as well that the rage and fury of that last gen version of Kratos doesn't appeal to me because I'd hate to have to go through that exercise many more times.

The rise to indie darling publisher stardom of Annapurna Interactive is really remarkable

2017

  • What Remains of Edith Finch
  • Flower
  • Gorogoa

2018

  • Florence
  • Donut County
  • Gone Home (Nintendo Switch and iOS ports)
  • Ashen

2019 Mostly Upcoming Titles

  • Sayonara Wild Hearts (a Switch and iOS game that has Allen Cook or Amanda written all over it) Self described as "A Pop Album Video Game". Best consumed with your favourite conscious altering substance
  • The Pathless - JUST WOW from the creators of ABZU
  • Wattam - I am buying this for all my friends now because it looks adorable and fun
  • The Outer Wilds - Gone Home X Kerbal Space Program X Super Mario Galaxy
  • Journey (Windows port of the PS4 classic)
  • Telling Lies - Sam Barlow's (of Her Story fame) follow up game

That's a list most publishers could only dream of publishing in a decade, and they've done it in 3 years. I'm super impressed.

Yeah but I still want to call them AnnaPurina, like the pet food company.

Re: Sean talking about Stellaris...

I haven't touched it in a while, and I have no interest in getting on the endless DLC train, so my question is, if I were to revisit the base vanilla game, is that going to be "a whole new game" like Sean said?

The last few years I have purposefully bought books for games I've enjoyed. It is often strategy guides, but also art books, or in depth analysis. For me, seeing the book on the shelf gives as much joy as I imagine statutes or other "stuff" does for others.

staygold wrote:

The rise to indie darling publisher stardom of Annapurna Interactive is really remarkable

The only I haven't played is Ashen. Need to get on that ASAP, thanks Staygolfd!

And thanks GWJCC for giving the Adventure Game club thread a shoutout!! It's been a blast running it, we have such a great group going, so jump right in, folks.
Also, Shawn... *stage whisper* you got it right! :)

Thanks Elysium for mentioning the new Hearthstone adventure and comparing it to Slay the Spire. I haven't played Hearthstone in many months but this got me to jump back in and try it out, and it is pretty fun so far.

I’m glad Total War: Three Kingdoms was brought up. 3MA had 2 podcasts on this and I went from “probably not” to “I need to get this game.” Now hearing Shawn it has moved up to “I need it now!”

Jonman wrote:

Re: Sean talking about Stellaris...

I haven't touched it in a while, and I have no interest in getting on the endless DLC train, so my question is, if I were to revisit the base vanilla game, is that going to be "a whole new game" like Sean said?

Yep. If the last time you played Stellaris was 1.0, playing it now even without any expansion would feel like a totally different (and also more complex) game.