Don’t Buy The Steam Frame

Wed, Oct 7, 2026 Year 3, Winter 14

Al and Vincent have a discussion about Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Timings

00:00:00: Theme Tune
00:00:30: Intro
00:02:20: What Have We Been Up To
00:16:35: Wolverine Spoilers
00:33:55: I Know What You Released Last Month
00:37:04: Game News
00:58:17: New Games
01:10:39: AR/VR Discussion
01:50:24: Outro

Contact

Al on Mastodon: https://mastodon.scot/@TheScotBot
Email Us: https://harvestseason.club/contact/

Transcript

Theme Tune

(0s) Theme Tune:

Music

Intro

(30s) Al:

hello farmers and welcome to another episode of the harvest season my name is al and we’re here

(35s) Vincent:

And my name is Vincent.

(37s) Al:

today to talk about vr woo cottagecore games but we’re going to talk about vr because

(39s) Vincent:

Woo!

(43s)

In VR.

(45s) Al:

vincent just got a Steam Frame

(48s)

and I also just got a Steam Frame woo

(48s) Vincent:

Yes, I did.

(50s)

And somebody else got that Steam Frame as well.

(54s) Al:

because we are suckers spending a thousand quid

(1m)

on this device well yeah well no I guess not really because valve have done two other handhelds

(1m 3s) Vincent:

Yeah, on a first-generation device.

(1m 8s)

Well, actually, no.

(1m 12s) Al:

before it’s just that this is the first standalone handheld they’ve done so

(1m 17s) Vincent:

Yeah. So technically not. Yes. Okay. You’re right. Yes. Not first generation.

(1m 17s) Al:

not not for it depends how you think about it I can see why you could argue that it’s first

(1m 25s)

generation because it’s their first standalone one but yeah they have it’s not completely

(1m 30s)

new anyway we’re going to talk about that we’re going to talk about that both on its own because

(1m 31s) Vincent:

Yes, yeah, yeah.

(1m 35s) Al:

it’s just an interesting conversation and we both want to talk about our nice fancy toys that we just

(1m 39s)

bought um but also I think we should talk about cottagecore games farming etc because I just

(1m 47s)

played a new uh vr farming game um and spoiler alert I felt sick playing it so that was a great

(1m 57s)

start. But I think we can just talk about these things in

(2m)

general, because I’ve this is, I think, the second one I’ve done and the third one I’ve

(2m 5s)

talked about. So we can probably kind of come to some sort of interesting discussion, I

(2m 11s)

think. But we will come to that later. Before that, we have the game news. We also have because

(2m 17s)

it’s a new month. We’ve got I know what you released last month. First of all, Vincent,

What Have We Been Up To

(2m 23s) Vincent:

Well, gaming-wise, aside from, you know, Steam Frame-related items, I have been playing quite a bit of Final Fantasy XIV recently, so, yes.

(2m 30s) Al:

ah this game a game i’ve heard other people talk about

(2m 37s) Vincent:

Yes, I’m sure there’s going to be some listeners that will be glad that this is a topic.

(2m 43s)

But yeah, I’ve been playing quite a bit.

(2m 43s) Al:

You’ve played this for quite a while, haven’t you?

(2m 46s)

You’re not new to it.

(2m 46s) Vincent:

Not really.

(2m 48s)

Well, so I’ve played a little bit, what was it, maybe like a few years ago now?

(2m 53s)

When Hannah first started, I started at the same time as well, or when our mutual friend Hannah first started.

(2m 59s)

But I fell off of it.

(3m 1s)

You know, it’s one of those things where I took a break and I came back and I don’t remember what I was doing.

(3m 6s)

And in an MMO, it’s a much larger scale, much larger world.

(3m 11s)

So I fell off a bit, a little bit.

(3m 15s)

But then recently, once, you know, when it had the Dawntrail release and a lot more people tried it out, I jumped out.

(3m 23s)

I jumped back on, and this time I was able to stick to it.

(3m 25s)

And actually, just very recently, I finished the first, you know, I guess you can call it the first part of the story.

(3m 32s) Al:

Fair enough. So other than, right, try, I want you to try something. Sell me on the game without saying it has farming. Because that’s all anybody ever says about this game. I want you to sell me on the game without just saying it has farming in it.

(3m 48s) Vincent:

so I i know well I know you’re a fan of rpgs um it is so I think of like a good way to to put it so

(3m 58s)

there’s a lot of things to do activities to do in the game it’s not just purely you know obviously

(4m 5s)

there’s the main storyline uh which if you want to follow that you can but otherwise I think what’s

(4m 11s)

neat about this game is that you know once you get to a certain point uh you know you can start

(4m 16s)

watering off at the very

(4m 18s)

beginning but probably you know you’re going to be locked out

(4m 19s)

to a lot of things so you probably have to do

(4m 22s)

the storyline a

(4m 24s)

little bit until you get to a certain point

(4m 25s)

but once you get to a certain point it really

(4m 27s)

opens up in terms of all the things you

(4m 29s)

can do you know you can continue

(4m 31s)

on the storyline you can

(4m 33s)

get other jobs

(4m 35s)

in there so there’s

(4m 37s)

your classic

(4m 39s)

I guess you know I’m not

(4m 41s)

an expert on terminology I’m trying to remember to make sure

(4m 43s)

we use the right terminology

(4m 45s)

for this but you know there’s your basic jobs

(4m 48s)

right your paladin

(4m 49s)

your archer and you know healer

(4m 51s)

and all that but this game

(4m 53s)

also has a lot of side

(4m 55s)

side

(4m 57s)

jobs that you can get

(4m 59s)

so like a miner

(5m)

fisher sort of the

(5m 3s)

gathering jobs and also crafting

(5m 5s)

jobs so you know you can pair it up

(5m 7s)

so you can say okay I’m going to be a

(5m 10s)

paladin as my main

(5m 12s)

you know

(5m 13s)

job

(5m 14s)

but then I can also pick up the miner

(5m 18s)

and level that up as well

(5m 19s)

aspect

(5m 19s)

well and then

(5m 20s)

once you mine enough ores and stuff

(5m 23s)

then you can use that to

(5m 24s)

do the crafting

(5m 25s)

part of it

(5m 26s)

so you know build armors

(5m 28s)

or build weapons and whatnot

(5m 29s)

so

(5m 30s)

that would be my

(5m 32s)

my

(5m 32s)

my

(5m 33s)

I guess my

(5m 34s)

not very good

(5m 36s)

but kind of my sales pitch

(5m 37s)

so that’s another piece I liked of it

(5m 38s) Al:

Interesting. How prevalent is the MMO part of it?

(5m 43s) Vincent:

it’s not that prevalent

(5m 45s)

at least you know

(5m 46s)

where I’m at

(5m 48s)

it’s been very you know

(5m 49s)

the first part

(5m 51s)

the first few

(5m 52s)

dungeons that you had

(5m 54s)

to do

(5m 54s)

was very doable

(5m 56s)

with just NPCs

(5m 57s)

so you don’t have to

(5m 58s)

queue up with other people

(5m 59s)

if you don’t want to

(5m 59s)

I’m now at the point

(6m 1s)

of the game where I

(6m 2s)

you know

(6m 2s)

you have to queue up

(6m 3s)

with other people

(6m 4s)

but even then

(6m 5s)

it’s

(6m 5s)

you know

(6m 6s)

there’s a built-in system

(6m 8s)

in there that you can

(6m 9s)

easily queue up

(6m 10s)

with other people

(6m 11s)

you don’t have to

(6m 12s)

interact with

(6m 13s)

you know

(6m 13s)

others if you don’t want to

(6m 14s)

So you can treat us like a single player game with just,

(6m 18s)

that there’s other people around it playing.

(6m 20s)

So it’s not,

(6m 21s)

it doesn’t require a lot of MMO coordination or whatnot,

(6m 26s) Al:

okay yeah I i suspect yeah I suspect that’s not a huge issue I i think if I ever got to the point

(6m 26s) Vincent:

if you don’t want to.

(6m 28s)

But again,

(6m 28s)

I’m also not at the end game part of it where you may need to get with more

(6m 40s) Al:

where I was playing this game and I got to like end game I think i’m probably enjoying it enough

(6m 45s)

that I can just deal with whatever they need me I need to deal with right um the issue with all

(6m 50s)

these things is like it’s a game i’ve never played it’s a massive game it is

(6m 56s)

you know where to start you know I kind of I guess I feel the way same way towards that as

(7m 2s)

some people too towards stars you where you’re just like there’s so much to do and it’s like where do

(7m 7s)

you start and how do you start and my my issue with new games is always that it’s the if i’m starting a

(7m 16s)

game i’m almost committing to play this for like you know at least 10 hours that’s a big commitment for

(7m 25s) Vincent:

Oh yeah, definitely. And if you’re not careful, you can easily get lost and overwhelm yourself

(7m 33s)

in the beginning. Luckily, we have a lot of mutual friends that play this game. So I was able to ask

(7m 34s) Al:

Yeah, yeah.

(7m 40s) Vincent:

advice in terms of, hey, should I be just focusing on one thing or should I just try to do everything?

(7m 46s)

And I got that advice that they told me, just focus on the main story quest until you get to

(7m 52s)

a certain point

(7m 53s)

because otherwise

(7m 53s)

he’s just going

(7m 54s) Al:

OK. Well, I don’t talk about too much more about it because maybe I might be talking about it in a future episode.

(7m 55s) Vincent:

much to handle.

(8m 3s) Al:

No promises. We’ll see. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anything else you’ve been up to?

(8m 6s) Vincent:

hint hint ah so that’s mainly the other thing that i’ve been uh playing a lot recently um is

(8m 13s)

the witcher 3 uh remastered or I guess re uh yeah the remastered version just came out

(8m 15s) Al:

Mm-hmm.

(8m 17s)

Mm-hmm.

(8m 20s) Vincent:

um you know it’s been a game that’s has interested me for a while i’ve i’ve dabbled in it a little

(8m 27s)

bit but i’ve never stuck with it um so when the remaster came out I i already had it in my library

(8m 32s)

So I booted up and I think now I’m finally…

(8m 38s) Al:

Fair enough.

(8m 39s)

I don’t think I’ve ever played any of their games.

(8m 43s) Vincent:

I don’t think that’s probably not in your genre wheelhouse. I would say the remaster is pretty good, though. My main complaint initially when I first played it was that the combat felt very floaty. It doesn’t feel good. I wouldn’t say that they’ve completely fixed that, but it’s much better.

(9m 8s)

now

(9m 8s)

I don’t know

(9m 9s)

if it’s like

(9m 10s)

you know

(9m 11s)

I can’t quantify it

(9m 13s)

it’s placebo

(9m 13s)

but it does feel

(9m 14s)

better for me

(9m 15s) Al:

Mm-hmm okay all right well I yeah no if you were going to say something say

(9m 15s) Vincent:

so

(9m 18s)

oh no

(9m 20s)

go ahead

(9m 21s)

oh no no

(9m 22s) Al:

that’s fine uh I well I suspect you’ve also been playing Beat Saber is that true to say

(9m 23s) Vincent:

go ahead

(9m 24s)

oh yes

(9m 29s)

yes

(9m 29s) Al:

well tell me because this this will be your first time playing

(9m 30s) Vincent:

that’s

(9m 30s)

that’s

(9m 30s)

that’s

(9m 31s)

as well

(9m 31s)

it’s been

(9m 31s)

taking up

(9m 32s)

a lot of

(9m 32s)

my time

(9m 33s)

yeah so

(9m 35s) Al:

playing Beat Saber since you got the Steam Frame presumably

(9m 37s)

okay yeah

(9m 38s) Vincent:

it’s my

(9m 38s)

first time

(9m 39s)

playing

(9m 39s)

well I’ve

(9m 40s)

I’ve played

(9m 40s)

Beat Saber

(9m 41s)

you know

(9m 41s)

at friend’s

(9m 43s)

it’s the first

(9m 43s)

time I’ve

(9m 43s)

actually

(9m 43s)

played it

(9m 45s)

for an

(9m 45s)

extended period

(9m 46s)

of time

(9m 46s)

so

(9m 47s)

so

(9m 47s)

it’s

(9m 48s)

it’s

(9m 48s)

it is much

(9m 50s)

more difficult

(9m 50s)

than I

(9m 51s)

than I

(9m 52s)

thought

(9m 52s) Al:

Yeah.

(9m 53s) Vincent:

because

(9m 53s)

aside from

(9m 54s)

you know

(9m 54s)

when you’re

(9m 55s)

just playing

(9m 55s)

like one-off

(9m 56s)

easy songs

(9m 57s)

it feels

(9m 57s)

easy

(9m 58s)

but then

(9m 58s)

when you

(9m 58s)

start trying

(9m 59s)

to

(9m 59s)

you know

(10m)

oh I

(10m 1s)

want to

(10m 1s)

try to

(10m 1s)

rap

(10m 2s)

difficulty

(10m 2s)

or try

(10m 2s)

other songs

(10m 3s)

then it’s

(10m 4s)

it’s much

(10m 4s)

more difficult

(10m 5s)

than what

(10m 5s)

I when I

(10m 6s)

expected

(10m 6s)

I’ve had

(10m 7s) Al:

I think that’s a standard that’s a standard rhythm game thing, because I did the same with Guitar Hero the first time I played it.

(10m 11s)

I was like, oh, this is going to be easy. You’re just pressing buttons at the right time.

(10m 13s)

And then you’re like, oh, no, this is this is a skill that you need to learn.

(10m 18s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah, yeah, I had to turn off the game over, you know, or it doesn’t fail you after, you know, if you miss a certain number of beats, I had to turn that off.

(10m 24s) Al:

yeah can I also I would also suggest there is a setting I can’t remember what it is but there’s a

(10m 33s)

setting um I think it might be like a more detailed hud or something and it shows you the length of

(10m 39s)

the song and how far through the song you are for some reason that is not on by default but it is on

(10m 44s)

it is a setting there um which it just changed how I view the game entirely because I hate when

(10m 51s)

you’re like part of the way through something like I don’t know am I nearly done

(10m 54s)

like i’m really struggling now do I like because I i don’t do the um continue like no failure I i i

(11m 1s)

want to be able to get through it without failure but obviously i’ve been playing it for a lot longer

(11m 4s)

than you um and so I was I i when you get to a point where you’re like i’m almost like i’m really

(11m 11s)

struggling am I nearly there do I push through to the end or do I just like take a break and come

(11m 16s)

back later and if i’m like 30 seconds away i’m like I want to finish this whereas if you look

(11m 20s)

through and you’re not even halfway through you’re like I need I need a break from this um

(11m 24s)

and having that timer it was a massive

(11m 26s) Vincent:

Oh, okay. I’m going to try that. Yeah, I’ve been, especially when I play like someone from some of the song packs, like, you know, the pop songs that I would just have to remember like, okay, is this like the second chorus? It’s like the bridge, you know, how far along are we?

(11m 33s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah I really don’t know why it’s not default on it feels like

(11m 43s)

yeah I don’t know it’s it’s like it’s not an accessibility thing it’s just seeing the time

(11m 49s)

through the song like I just I want to see how far through the song we are so yeah that is a

(11m 51s) Vincent:

Yeah, no way.

(11m 55s) Al:

setting get it enabled the other one I have on is uh restart on failure so you don’t have to like

(11m 56s) Vincent:

Okay, perfect.

(11m 56s)

I’ll need to try that out.

(12m 3s) Al:

it just automatically restarts I i enjoy that because i’m pushing through into to the

(12m 7s) Vincent:

Oh, okay. I may try it out too. Yeah, because one of the things that annoyed me is that you have to, you know, click and try to, it’s a lot of clicks to go back to where you were when you’re starting.

(12m 15s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah whereas if you have that on it literally just it’s like a two or three

(12m 21s)

seconds and then it restarts the song um which is is great the other one the other thing that is

(12m 28s)

useful is you can play the songs in practice mode um which means you can either you could you like

(12m 35s)

it’s the same as like not no failure um but it allows you to like change the speed if you want

(12m 41s)

to practice certain sections. And it allows you to say, I want to start the song at this

(12m 45s)

point. So if there’s a part like two thirds, quite common is like there’s a bridge two thirds of

(12m 50s)

the way through the song, which is like the hardest bit of the song. And you’re like, I don’t

(12m 54s)

want to have to keep playing through the song to get back to practice that bit. You can start the

(12m 58s)

practice at an exact second, which is very handy for practicing bits like that.

(13m 3s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting. Okay. I’m going to try that out. So yeah, there’s certain, I’m getting used to it now, but there’s certain things that come up that I always struggle with. Like if it’s like two, you know, at the same time, it’s going different directions or like the one that’s usually on the left suddenly appears on the right.

(13m 14s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so if you’re finding the specific bits of songs

(13m 22s)

that you’re struggling with go go in and try the practice mode it’s very handy

(13m 26s)

so obviously I have also been playing beat saber um I started replaying it when when vincent got

(13m 26s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting. All right. I’m going to try it out too.

(13m 35s) Al:

his steam frame I was like oh i’ve not played beat saber in ages um because I played it like

(13m 40s)

every day for months

(13m 41s)

a couple years ago

(13m 42s)

and then just

(13m 44s)

fall off these things right

(13m 45s)

and I was like

(13m 46s)

I don’t want to wait

(13m 46s)

for my Steam frame

(13m 47s)

and also I’m going

(13m 48s)

to be keeping

(13m 48s)

because I have a

(13m 49s)

MetaQuest 3

(13m 51s)

I’m going to have

(13m 52s)

I’m going to keep that

(13m 53s)

because I have

(13m 54s)

almost all the

(13m 55s)

packs of songs

(13m 56s)

and I’m like

(13m 57s)

I don’t want to rebuy

(13m 58s)

all of them again

(13m 59s)

on Steam

(14m)

so what I think

(14m 1s)

I’m going to do

(14m 2s)

is probably

(14m 2s)

buy new packs

(14m 3s)

on Steam

(14m 4s)

but keep my quest

(14m 6s)

for the old packs

(14m 7s)

if I want to go back

(14m 8s)

and play them

(14m 9s)

so obviously

(14m 11s)

I’ve rebuy the game

(14m 12s)

on Steam

(14m 12s)

but

(14m 14s)

game itself is not stupidly expensive

(14m 16s)

but it’s like if you want to buy

(14m 18s)

all of the packs that is a lot of money

(14m 20s)

yep yep

(14m 21s) Vincent:

The packs are where they get you.

(14m 24s) Al:

so uh yeah

(14m 26s)

I will be keeping that for those songs

(14m 28s)

but uh yeah so I went

(14m 30s)

I was like I need to get back into playing it and i

(14m 32s)

realized how out

(14m 34s)

of practice I got

(14m 35s)

it’s the muscles

(14m 37s)

in your arms they’re not muscles you use for

(14m 40s)

a lot of things so you they become

(14m 42s)

achy very quickly

(14m 44s)

yeah

(14m 44s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah. Oh, I’ve had to, my first few times had to take breaks, not because of, you know, the battery or the VR, but because my arms were tired.

(14m 49s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah

(14m 54s)

all right so we’ll talk more

(14m 56s)

about vr later um i’ve also

(14m 58s)

well speaking oh no we’ve got

(15m)

another vr thing isle of food that was the vr

(15m 2s)

game vr farming game that I was playing

(15m 4s)

uh we’ll talk about that later but

(15m 6s)

that’s the thing i’ve been playing but the other thing

(15m 8s)

is i’ve finished marvel’s wolverine

(15m 10s)

I finished the story I decided

(15m 12s)

not

(15m 14s)

to 100 percent it uh I can talk about that in a minute why but

(15m 17s)

overall I would say this game is

(15m 20s)

fine

(15m 21s)

I i think so I think I enjoyed the story it’s it’s hard to talk about the story

(15m 23s) Vincent:

Okay, from an overall standpoint or from a story or gameplay standpoint?

(15m 31s) Al:

without spoilering things um

(15m 33s)

I mean if you’re interested in in what the story is maybe I can do a spoiler

(15m 36s)

section at the very end of the podcast but

(15m 38s)

I i enjoyed the story it’s it’s you know it’s not kind of your I i’m not a

(15m 44s)

aware of it being uh an adapted x-men story of any kind um there are bits and pieces that

(15m 51s)

obviously feel similar to lots of stories like from the trailers you might have seen

(15m 56s)

that the morlocks are in it so there’s there’s obviously stuff related to them that can have

(16m)

happened in all that all of them um but yeah it’s I don’t know I i don’t I can’t remember

(16m 7s)

how much was public are you aware of who wolverine is working with at the beginning

(16m 13s) Vincent:

Uh, no.

(16m 16s)

Well, but also, this is probably a game I’m never going to play because I don’t have a PS5, so…

(16m 20s) Al:

yeah all right maybe maybe let’s talk about it now i’ll i’ll this is the end of the what we’ve

(16m 25s)

been up to section and talked about everything else so i’ll put in a chapter here of spoilers

(16m 28s)

if you don’t want to hear the spoilers for marvel’s wolverine click the the next chapter

(16m 33s)

and you can go to I know what you released last month um so the game starts off with you

Wolverine Spoilers

(16m 38s) Al:

as wolverine waking up in a forest and uh you see there’s a there’s someone who’s come and they’ve

(16m 44s)

said like oh I can help you I have a place for people and you’re like oh interesting is this

(16m 49s)

Professor X as he comes

(16m 50s)

to no it’s not Professor X

(16m 52s)

it’s Nathaniel Essex

(16m 53s)

and so

(16m 54s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting.

(16m 56s) Al:

immediately you’re like okay so I know

(16m 58s)

who the end game baddie is then

(16m 59s)

obviously we’re coming to Mr. Sinister

(17m) Vincent:

Hmm.

(17m 2s) Al:

and

(17m 4s)

obviously that is true that is

(17m 5s)

who the final boss is Mr. Sinister

(17m 8s)

but it’s interesting

(17m 10s)

because

(17m 10s)

Essex has created

(17m 13s)

Team X which is

(17m 16s)

Wolverine, Sabretooth

(17m 18s)

and Mystique

(17m 20s)

was there anyone else

(17m 22s)

I feel like there was someone else but maybe they weren’t

(17m 24s)

there very much

(17m 25s)

anyway so he’s created this

(17m 28s)

team and you’re you know like a black

(17m 30s)

ops mutant team taking out

(17m 32s)

Trask is kind of your first

(17m 34s)

baddie of the game

(17m 36s)

and he’s building a

(17m 38s)

sentinel and you

(17m 40s)

fight the hand at one point

(17m 42s)

and then near the end of the game

(17m 44s)

after you’ve defeated

(17m 46s)

Trask and you’ve defeated the hand

(17m 48s)

Essex

(17m 50s)

takes over Trask’s

(17m 53s)

facility

(17m 54s)

and rebuilds

(17m 56s)

the sentinels

(17m 57s)

but rebuilds them

(17m 59s)

not to hunt down

(18m)

and kill mutants

(18m 1s)

but to hunt down

(18m 2s)

mutants whose powers

(18m 5s)

haven’t come out

(18m 6s)

and take them

(18m 7s)

and then they have

(18m 9s)

the

(18m 9s)

I’m sure this is

(18m 12s)

something in the comics

(18m 13s)

but there’s like a

(18m 14s)

I can’t remember

(18m 15s)

what it’s called

(18m 16s)

there’s a machine

(18m 16s)

that brings out

(18m 18s)

latent mutant abilities

(18m 20s)

and so he’s

(18m 21s)

he’s got that

(18m 22s)

so he’s got the sentinels

(18m 23s)

going out and grabbing

(18m 24s)

people who are

(18m 25s)

who are dormant mutants

(18m 27s)

and bringing them

(18m 27s)

and giving them

(18m 29s)

their powers

(18m 29s)

obviously that’s not great

(18m 31s)

so that’s that’s

(18m 34s)

that whole thing

(18m 35s)

but yeah it just

(18m 36s)

it’s interesting

(18m 37s)

how it starts off

(18m 38s)

clearly trying to do

(18m 39s)

the misdirect of like

(18m 40s)

oh it’s Professor X

(18m 41s)

no no it’s not

(18m 42s)

it’s Nathaniel Essex

(18m 43s)

and you’re working

(18m 45s)

with Sabretooth

(18m 46s)

at least at the start

(18m 47s)

obviously that does

(18m 49s)

not last

(18m 50s)

surprise surprise

(18m 51s)

but the most

(18m 53s)

interesting point

(18m 54s)

to me is

(18m 55s)

you’ll probably

(18m 56s)

have no scene

(18m 57s)

in some of the stuff

(18m 58s)

that Jean

(18m 59s)

Jean Grey is in

(19m)

in the game

(19m 1s)

and so she’s been

(19m 3s)

working with

(19m 4s)

she’s been

(19m 4s)

protecting the Morlocks

(19m 5s)

so when you go

(19m 6s)

and try and help them

(19m 7s)

you come across Jean

(19m 9s)

and you get to know her

(19m 10s)

and there’s

(19m 11s)

you kind of

(19m 13s)

she

(19m 13s)

she doesn’t really

(19m 15s)

join Team X

(19m 15s)

but you kind of

(19m 16s)

both of you

(19m 16s)

start working together

(19m 17s)

and kind of clearly used

(19m 20s)

you’re starting to do things

(19m 21s)

that Essex doesn’t want you to do

(19m 24s)

and he starts getting a bit weird

(19m 25s)

and there’s issues with Sabretooth

(19m 27s)

and blah, blah, blah.

(19m 29s)

And then at some point you end up,

(19m 33s)

so a big part of it,

(19m 34s)

which is a standard Wolverine thing,

(19m 36s)

is like you don’t have

(19m 36s)

a bunch of your memories, right?

(19m 38s)

And so you’re uncovering memories as you go.

(19m 41s)

And there’s a point where you’re uncovering

(19m 43s)

quite a big memory

(19m 43s)

and it turns out that you knew Jean before,

(19m 48s)

But you…

(19m 50s)

Essex essentially kind of broke you, your mind, and brainwashed you to kill Jean.

(19m 59s)

But then, and we don’t know how this…

(20m 1s)

So this one thing is I’m not 100% sure which way this is.

(20m 6s)

But either she was resurrected because of the phoenix.

(20m 10s)

Or it’s not technically the same person, but she’s like…

(20m 16s)

The phoenix has inhabited another person who ends up becoming Jean.

(20m 20s)

It’s not quite clear what the deal is.

(20m 22s)

But she doesn’t have her memories of your time together.

(20m 25s)

But then she regains them.

(20m 27s)

And you regain them.

(20m 29s)

So now you both have the memories of you being together before.

(20m 32s)

But you having killed Jean.

(20m 35s)

But then, and this is where it’s really weird.

(20m 37s)

Right at the end, Jean wipes your memory.

(20m 42s) Vincent:

Oh, okay.

(20m 43s) Al:

And so you no longer have the memory of being with Jean.

(20m 47s)

And I don’t know whether I missed something as to whether there’s a reason

(20m 50s)

does this, but she then tells you about those memories, but you don’t have those memories.

(20m 56s)

So you’re like, Wolverine’s like reacting to those memories, being like,

(20m 59s)

I believe what you’re saying, but I don’t have those feelings sort of thing.

(21m 2s)

And then he goes off into the world.

(21m 3s)

It’s all a bit weird.

(21m 7s)

But I thought that they’re like, oh, you had a life before, but then neither of you have

(21m 11s)

memories of that as a reveal was quite an interesting thing.

(21m 15s)

And I did like the Logan and Jean relationship building in that way.

(21m 20s)

I think quite often in X-Men stuff,

(21m 22s)

you see some Logan and Jean stuff

(21m 24s)

and you see some Scott and Jean stuff,

(21m 29s)

but there’s always like that tension.

(21m 30s)

I thought it was interesting to see

(21m 32s)

Jean and Logan developing a relationship

(21m 34s)

without that tension there with Scott,

(21m 37s)

which was, I thought that was quite interesting.

(21m 40s) Vincent:

oh yeah are there other x-men that show up or is it just or the other cast of x-men or

(21m 43s) Al:

There, I don’t, I’m trying to remember if there was,

(21m 48s)

I think that was, that’s…

(21m 50s)

There’s obviously quite a lot of Morlocks, including Leech, who dies.

(21m 57s)

But I don’t think there were any…

(21m 59s)

There’s a couple of kind of hints at other characters.

(22m 4s)

Like, there’s a file of one that could have been rogue, but not quite sure.

(22m 9s)

But there’s kind of, like, hints that it might have been rogue, but you don’t see her.

(22m 14s)

I don’t think there was any, like, other actual X-Men characters that you encountered.

(22m 20s)

But the one other thing is that throughout the story, you get these voices in your head that’s, like, telling you stuff.

(22m 29s)

And if you don’t have the subtitles on, it’s a mystery as to who this character is until the end.

(22m 34s)

If you do have subtitles on, it gives it away the first time you hear it, as it subtitles it as Apocalypse.

(22m 39s) Vincent:

oh my god oh

(22m 42s) Al:

And you’re like, oh, apparently Apocalypse is talking to me.

(22m 45s)

I don’t know how I would know that.

(22m 46s)

But, like, right at the end, there’s, like, a post-credits scene with Sabretooth.

(22m 50s)

Being taken over by Apocalypse, basically.

(22m 55s)

And clearly setting up for a future story.

(22m 58s)

But it’s just so funny how they’re, like, they put in, like, they should have just…

(23m 1s)

It’s not an unusual thing in subtitles where you’ve got a character who’s not named at this point.

(23m 6s)

And they say, like, unknown voice or question marks or something like that.

(23m 11s)

But for some reason, they decided to spoil the fact that it was Apocalypse.

(23m 14s)

And I think subtitles are on by default.

(23m 16s)

It’s not like I just turned them on.

(23m 18s)

I would have

(23m 18s)

turned them on

(23m 18s)

because I like

(23m 19s)

subtitles, but I’m

(23m 20s)

pretty sure they’re

(23m 21s)

on by default.

(23m 23s) Vincent:

Oh, OK, that’s what I was going to ask,

(23m 24s)

because I know things being on by default has been–

(23m 27s) Al:

Right, okay.

(23m 28s)

I think this game

(23m 30s)

does make some

(23m 31s)

stupid decisions,

(23m 32s)

and I also think

(23m 33s)

that people are

(23m 34s)

complaining about

(23m 34s)

things pointlessly

(23m 35s)

in some cases.

(23m 36s)

I think

(23m 38s)

I will agree that the

(23m 39s)

quick time events

(23m 40s)

in this game are

(23m 41s)

weird and

(23m 42s)

pointless, but

(23m 44s)

personally, I think

(23m 45s)

quick time events are

(23m 46s)

pointless full stop,

(23m 47s)

right?

(23m 48s)

I don’t find them

(23m 50s)

and I think

(23m 52s)

it just feels like

(23m 54s)

a way to kind of

(23m 54s)

like keep people

(23m 56s)

engaged in the

(23m 57s)

cut scene or

(23m 58s)

something.

(23m 59s)

Like, I don’t

(24m)

really get why

(24m 1s)

people continue to

(24m 2s)

use quick time

(24m 3s)

events, and

(24m 4s)

Wolverine has taken

(24m 5s)

it to the extreme

(24m 6s)

where you can’t

(24m 7s)

fail them, which

(24m 9s)

is true.

(24m 10s)

There’s no setting

(24m 10s)

to allow you to

(24m 11s)

fail quick time

(24m 12s)

events.

(24m 13s)

There is a setting

(24m 15s)

that is automatically

(24m 17s)

press the buttons,

(24m 19s)

but if you don’t

(24m 20s)

have that turned on

(24m 21s)

it’s just that the quick time event

(24m 23s)

doesn’t do anything until you click it

(24m 24s)

you can’t fail them

(24m 25s)

which I really don’t care about

(24m 29s)

but then I wouldn’t want them

(24m 30s)

as a quick time event anyway

(24m 31s)

right

(24m 32s)

I do understand why they don’t fail

(24m 35s)

because this is Wolverine

(24m 36s)

right

(24m 37s)

like Wolverine

(24m 39s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(24m 39s) Al:

immortal being basically

(24m 41s)

right

(24m 42s)

like he can’t really die

(24m 44s)

and so the idea of having failure

(24m 47s)

in quick time events for Wolverine

(24m 50s)

I don’t understand why they didn’t do them

(24m 51s)

but what I don’t understand is

(24m 53s)

why they did the quick time events at all

(24m 56s) Vincent:

Yeah, that’s a good question. Yeah, I do agree. I’m not a big fan of quick time events in these type of games because, at least for me, if I played like a game like this, it’s usually for the story, right? You know, if I want a quote unquote hard game, I’ll go play like an Elden Ring or something. But then on the flip side, if I want to do quick time events, I’ll play a rhythm game instead.

(25m 7s) Al:

yeah yes

(25m 18s)

yeah yeah that’s a really good way of putting it yeah um so that the other things are um

(25m 25s)

it the I mean the difficulty settings I don’t really care like I felt like the default difficulty

(25m 30s)

felt like a good difficulty I think people can people will complain about that no matter what

(25m 34s)

And there were people clearly just lying about

(25m 37s)

what their settings were

(25m 38s)

and showing stuff that only happens

(25m 40s)

on the easiest settings, right?

(25m 42s)

The motorbike chase is the classic one

(25m 44s)

that someone was showing.

(25m 45s)

Oh, you can’t die.

(25m 46s)

You can.

(25m 46s)

You absolutely can.

(25m 48s)

On the default setting, you can die, right?

(25m 51s)

Like it’s just people just out there lying.

(25m 53s)

I don’t care.

(25m 55s)

And if you care about it being super, super difficult,

(25m 57s)

you can do that.

(25m 58s)

That’s a thing.

(26m)

The other thing though was the smell trails.

(26m 7s)

One of Wolverine’s powers is that he’s got

(26m 9s)

a very good sense of smell and can sniff out people.

(26m 12s)

And what they decided to do in the game with that

(26m 14s)

is physically show you like a trail

(26m 18s)

to what you’re trying to find.

(26m 21s)

And some people have been complaining about that

(26m 23s)

because they’re like, oh, it’s babying me.

(26m 25s)

It’s holding my hand too much.

(26m 27s)

I don’t really care about that, right?

(26m 29s)

Because this is not an exploration game.

(26m 33s)

I’m not in this game to find things

(26m 37s)

and again, this is probably similar to my feeling

(26m 40s)

on quick time events.

(26m 42s)

When I’m in a game and I’m playing Wolverine,

(26m 44s)

I’m there to stab people.

(26m 47s)

I’m there to create mayhem.

(26m 50s)

And walking around linear levels,

(26m 55s)

following someone,

(26m 57s)

yeah, I don’t care about exploring

(27m)

and trying to find them.

(27m 1s)

I’m absolutely fine with it

(27m 2s)

just telling me where people are.

(27m 5s) Vincent:

Yeah, I agree. Like, you know, you don’t want to be like, you know, you don’t want players to give up because they get stuck, like, you know, or some players might get stuck, like, for, I don’t know, trying to look for the next thing, but…

(27m 12s) Al:

yeah and he I yeah and I just like is it over the top yeah probably is over the top I don’t I don’t

(27m 23s)

I don’t care and I do think that is actually something you can turn off in the settings so

(27m 27s)

if you do care okay you you can you can care you can turn it off great I i I don’t get the moaning

(27m 34s)

about things that are settings right I get the moaning about the quick if you really want quick

(27m 39s)

time events to be failable?

(27m 42s)

Moan about all you want.

(27m 43s)

I don’t get the moaning about, oh, it gives me this thing that I can turn off.

(27m 48s)

Okay, turn it off then.

(27m 50s)

Like, if you really care about that, there’s a huge list of settings in this game, which

(27m 54s)

I went through.

(27m 55s)

Are people not going through settings to see what there are right at the beginning of games?

(27m 59s)

That’s what I do every time I play a game, is I look through the settings and see what

(28m 3s) Vincent:

Yeah, that’s what confused me as well when I learned that, oh, those are all just settings. I mostly play on PC, so that is what I have to do. I have to do that. I go into settings, I adjust the graphics and everything, and I look through all the accessibility stuff too.

(28m 13s) Al:

yeah but this game also this game also when you click start a game it shows you the settings

(28m 21s)

so it’s not even like it’s hidden it’s right there you can click on gameplay and see what

(28m 26s)

the settings are and change your difficulty and for all these things

(28m 29s) Vincent:

Okay, that was my other thing.

(28m 30s)

It’s like, oh, is it one of those games

(28m 31s) Al:

nope nope nope nope nope before the first cut scene it shows you the settings

(28m 31s) Vincent:

that just throws you into the action

(28m 33s)

and you don’t have a chance to change the settings?

(28m 38s)

Oh.

(28m 39s) Al:

so I just

(28m 41s)

I get the

(28m 43s)

the quick time events

(28m 44s)

I think it’s stupid

(28m 45s)

but I get why people

(28m 46s)

would

(28m 46s)

complain about that

(28m 48s)

but everything else

(28m 49s)

just

(28m 49s)

look at the

(28m 50s)

like

(28m 51s)

you’re

(28m 51s)

if you’re a gamer

(28m 53s)

you’re looking at the settings

(28m 55s)

right

(28m 55s)

we’re not just random

(28m 56s)

you know

(28m 57s)

it’s not like

(28m 58s)

random people off the street

(28m 59s)

like you know what you’re doing

(29m)

if you know how to play a game

(29m 1s)

you probably know how to look at settings

(29m 3s)

I’m sure you can cope with that

(29m 5s) Vincent:

Yeah, you want to adjust the experience to suit what you prefer.

(29m 5s) Al:

exactly

(29m 10s)

and it’s not like

(29m 11s)

all of the easy access

(29m 13s)

settings are all on like some of them are not so it’s like it’s it’s a balance of things they’ve

(29m 18s)

decided to turn on at the start and I don’t think that the default setting should be the hardest

(29m 24s)

option and so they’ve tried to create a balance of these are the things that we think should be on

(29m 28s)

and these are the things that we should think should be off to give the best balance of gameplay

(29m 31s)

and you can change that if you want sounds like a good experience to me anyway whatever people will

(29m 38s) Vincent:

well

(29m 40s) Al:

complain about it no matter what. I think the biggest

(29m 43s)

I think the biggest

(29m 45s)

mistake

(29m 46s)

that they made

(29m 47s)

was saying that this was

(29m 50s)

an Insomniac game

(29m 51s)

because people have expectations of

(29m 54s)

Insomniac and actually

(29m 56s) Vincent:

Yes.

(29m 56s) Al:

I think that

(29m 58s)

this goes back, I think this is why

(30m)

Nintendo don’t really focus

(30m 2s)

on the developers, they just tell you it’s a Nintendo

(30m 4s)

game because if you’re told it’s a

(30m 6s)

game by this developer you have certain

(30m 8s)

expectations going in whereas if you’re

(30m 10s)

just told this is a game and here’s the game

(30m 13s)

then you have the expectations

(30m 15s)

of that game, right? Like you can’t have

(30m 17s)

Nintendo expectations because they make

(30m 19s)

so many games and similarly you can’t have

(30m 21s)

Sony expectations because they have so many

(30m 23s)

different games but you can have an Insomniac

(30m 25s)

expectation because they just released Spider-Man

(30m 27s)

2 and it’s such

(30m 30s) Vincent:

yeah I mean it definitely does happen with nintendo right you you hear like you know

(30m 34s)

once like rumors pop out that like oh this game is being developed by so and so or this npd

(30m 40s)

this group and yeah they people start forming that you know expectations but

(30m 45s)

well hopefully this will at this you know worst cases hopefully this expands what people

(30m 50s)

expect of insomniac games hopefully well as i

(30m 51s) Al:

yeah maybe I mean that’s not necessarily a good thing because because obviously it’s not been the

(30m 57s)

most great experience for a lot of people and so they’ll maybe be less positive about insomniac

(31m 2s)

games going forwards but um the I think the other thing mistake they made was announcing this game

(31m 4s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s fair.

(31m 7s) Al:

and then not telling us anything about it for five years because all yeah yeah they went here

(31m 10s) Vincent:

That is, yeah, it just builds,

(31m 12s)

the hype gets built up.

(31m 16s) Al:

we’re releasing a wolverine game and we’re like what does that mean and I i’ve said this multiple

(31m 20s)

times when I

(31m 21s)

was like I’m a

(31m 22s)

little bit worried

(31m 22s)

about this because

(31m 23s)

the traversal can’t

(31m 25s)

be as good as

(31m 25s)

Spider-Man because

(31m 26s)

it’s Wolverine

(31m 27s)

that’s not how he

(31m 28s)

works and I was

(31m 30s)

I was right it’s

(31m 31s)

I mean it’s it’s

(31m 32s)

fine I don’t

(31m 33s)

dislike the

(31m 34s)

traversal but I

(31m 35s)

don’t think it

(31m 36s)

would have worked

(31m 36s)

in a big open

(31m 37s)

world which is why

(31m 38s)

I think that

(31m 38s)

actually that

(31m 39s)

level-based design

(31m 40s)

worked really well

(31m 41s)

because the it

(31m 43s)

feels less

(31m 44s)

restrictive right

(31m 45s)

if you’re in a if

(31m 46s)

you were in the

(31m 46s)

the New York that

(31m 48s)

you were in in

(31m 49s)

Spider-Man as

(31m 50s)

Wolverine it would

(31m 51s)

dreadful you

(31m 52s)

you would not be

(31m 53s)

having fun because

(31m 53s)

you’re so you’re

(31m 55s)

just you’re just a

(31m 55s)

person running

(31m 56s)

around and jumping

(31m 57s)

it’s it’s

(31m 58s) Vincent:

Yeah, you’re going to have to like, I don’t know, like Grand Theft Auto it or something.

(32m 1s)

So that is just going to become, you know, GTA but melee.

(32m 4s)

But, you know, we’re a guy with claws.

(32m 5s) Al:

Yeah, and that’s not what I’m looking for.

(32m 7s)

That’s nothing like Spider-Man.

(32m 9s)

Anyway, that’s enough about Wolverine.

(32m 10s) Vincent:

Yeah, well, one last thing about Wolverine that I’m curious about.

(32m 11s) Al:

I enjoyed it.

(32m 12s)

It’s not, it’s, yes.

(32m 17s) Vincent:

Did they allude to or did they just, did they allude to whether this is in the same universe as the Marvel Spider-Man?

(32m 25s) Al:

there’s there’s no indication in there’s no indication in the game not nothing that I saw

(32m 30s)

I think outside of the game they have said that it is in the same universe but they said that

(32m 35s)

spider-man wouldn’t be turning up in this game and he did he did not but that doesn’t mean that

(32m 39s)

he that there won’t be crossovers in the future I do think there is obviously a problem if you try

(32m 44s)

and do that because this game is so bloody um you can’t cross them over in a game and not have it be

(32m 52s)

the same…

(32m 53s)

Like, if Spider-Man 3…

(32m 55s)

If Spider-Man 3 comes out and Wolverine turns up in it, that immediately changes the age rating of that game, right? Or it just dumbs down the character.

(33m 1s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s fair. Well, you know, they successfully got the Punisher in a Spider-Man movie.

(33m 8s) Al:

Yeah, and they did that by putting the Hulk in his way so there’s no blood.

(33m 12s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s true. That’s true.

(33m 15s) Al:

So, yeah, I don’t… I would be surprised if they did that, but it clearly sounds like they want to set up a whole X-Men line of games, right?

(33m 25s)

You know, with Apocalypse and stuff like that.

(33m 27s)

I don’t know what that means going forwards, but they want something.

(33m 27s) Vincent:

Okay, yeah, that’s what I was wondering

(33m 29s)

‘cause it does sound like there’s gonna be a sequel.

(33m 31s) Al:

Oh, yeah, I guess it depends on how much they’ve actually sold and whether they continue on that sequel.

(33m 36s)

But they’ve obviously been creating a sequel.

(33m 38s)

Like, they would have started that already.

(33m 40s) Vincent:

Yeah, they would have been way deep in development already.

(33m 42s)

Or not deep, but they would have started already.

(33m 44s) Al:

But it’s fine. We’ll get the Venom game next and that’ll be fun.

(33m 48s)

Assuming they haven’t cancelled it.

(33m 51s)

All right. That’s what we’ve been up to.

I Know What You Released Last Month

(33m 55s) Al:

Next up, we have…

(33m 57s)

I know what you released last month.

(33m 58s)

We had a very small number of releases in September.

(34m 1s)

We had Tiny Eden, we had Dragon Shelter, and we had Farming Camp.

(34m 5s)

One interesting thing about Dragon Shelter, this is the game where I played the demo and I’m pretty convinced that there was AI-generated art in it.

(34m 11s)

They have been doubling down online saying they don’t have AI-generated art.

(34m 14s)

So, I don’t know whether to believe them or not, because that, like, there was…

(34m 18s)

Most of it was like, okay, I could believe that this is just, like, pretty boring kind of…

(34m 25s)

But there was one piece in particular that, if it wasn’t AI-generated, the artist was an idiot.

(34m 31s)

And so, I don’t know…

(34m 32s) Vincent:

Oh, but isn’t it–

(34m 34s) Al:

I don’t believe them.

(34m 35s)

But I can’t prove otherwise.

(34m 39s) Vincent:

don’t you have to disclose on Steam now

(34m 41s)

if there’s AI-generated things?

(34m 41s) Al:

Yes, exactly.

(34m 43s)

That’s the thing.

(34m 44s)

But if you can’t prove that they’re wrong, then you…

(34m 48s)

If they just say they’re not, then what can you do?

(34m 51s)

And I suspect they have changed that piece of art since the…

(34m 55s)

In the real game.

(34m 55s)

I think it was only in the demo.

(34m 57s)

But I just…

(34m 58s)

I don’t believe them that it wasn’t AI-generated.

(35m 1s)

It was so clearly not…

(35m 5s)

Like, if a human made that, they made some really stupid decisions.

(35m 9s)

Like, physically impossible decisions that are clearly obvious if you actually look at the piece of art.

(35m 13s)

I don’t know why anybody would make those decisions.

(35m 15s) Vincent:

So they denied that it was a generator.

(35m 18s)

They didn’t do the whole, oh, it’s just a placeholder.

(35m 18s) Al:

Yeah.

(35m 20s)

No, they didn’t even go…

(35m 21s)

Which, if they’d said it was a placeholder, that would be one thing.

(35m 25s)

Disclose that, but I reckon that’s what it is.

(35m 27s)

I do think it was a placeholder.

(35m 29s)

They are not admitting it, but that’s what I think.

(35m 31s)

I believe that was a placeholder, AI-generated art.

(35m 35s)

And they have…

(35m 35s)

I haven’t bought the game, so I cannot confirm that they’ve changed it.

(35m 40s)

But I would be very surprised if it was the same piece of art now.

(35m 42s)

And they’ve done this whole, like, series of…

(35m 45s)

This is how we designed all these things.

(35m 47s)

Which very much feels like, oh, people are accusing us of AI-generated art.

(35m 52s)

We have to prove that we’ve not done it.

(35m 55s)

And it’s like, I’m not saying your final game has AI-generated art.

(35m 58s)

I’m saying that piece of art in that demo, I’m convinced, was AI-generated.

(36m 2s)

That’s what I’m saying.

(36m 3s)

And none of the stuff that they’re talking about, of this is how we designed all this art,

(36m 6s)

none of that had that piece of art that I think was AI-generated.

(36m 9s) Vincent:

It’s always funny to me why you would–

(36m 11s)

if it’s meant to be a placeholder, why even use AI?

(36m 14s)

Why not just use like a MS Paint drawing?

(36m 15s) Al:

well yes I actually think I think that’s the thing if you if you don’t use ai generated art

(36m 21s)

for placeholders and you use terrible looking placeholders it’s much more obvious when you

(36m 25s)

still have a placeholder and so you don’t miss it the problem is that when you have

(36m 29s)

ai generated art as placeholders it’s much easier to miss because it looks closer to the real thing

(36m 34s) Vincent:

Yeah, and if it comes out in a, you know, if it accidentally slips by in a early access game, then I think people will be a lot more forgiving. Like, oh, yeah, it’s a, you know, it’s a beta or it’s an early access.

(36m 34s) Al:

mm-hmm yep

(36m 44s)

yes yes the the problem is

(36m 45s)

people have isn’t that there was placeholders the problem is that their placeholders were ai

(36m 49s)

generated that’s the problem that people had anyway I haven’t played any of these games i

(36m 50s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(36m 54s) Al:

do want to play farming camp at some point um I like the look of that game who knows when i’ll get to it

(36m 59s) Vincent:

Oh, Farming Camp does look interesting.

(37m 1s)

Yeah, but I also have not played any.

Game News

(37m 4s) Al:

all right let’s talk about some news first up a game you have played Vincent, PokéWilds

Pokopia

(37m 9s) Vincent:

Yes, I have, although I have not played this update

(37m 13s)

or since the update yet.

(37m 16s) Al:

that’s that’s fair I i think most people should probably unless you’re like kevin you should

(37m 21s)

probably wait until the three dlcs are out before playing them I don’t think there’s enough content

(37m 25s)

in in any individual one to to satisfy people but this here however if you really love the game

(37m 32s)

we’ve got a a new event in pocopia gather pumpkin candy for pump kaboo in Pokémon PokéWilds this time

(37m 41s)

of year, you might be asked an all-important question,

(37m 43s)

trick or treat. But in

(37m 46s)

PokéWilds, you can have the best of both

(37m 48s)

worlds. The game’s next event,

(37m 50s)

Pumpkaboo’s Sweet Surprises, will take

(37m 51s)

place from October the 17th to

(37m 53s)

November the 1st, local time.

(37m 56s)

Pumpkaboo is coming to town,

(37m 57s)

ready to help you create a

(37m 59s)

spectacularly spooky vibe.

(38m 1s)

During the event period, Pumpkaboo will be waiting

(38m 3s)

for you near rebuilt Pokemon centres,

(38m 5s)

and you can befriend them to start

(38m 7s)

collecting pumpkin candy. That’s a hard

(38m 10s)

thing to say, pumpkin candy.

(38m 11s)

Make sure you’ve learned the move camouflage from

(38m 13s)

Zorua at Bleak Beach, because to collect

(38m 16s)

spoiler alert for PokéWilds,

(38m 17s)

because to collect any tasty treats,

(38m 20s)

you’ll need to camouflage yourself as objects

(38m 22s)

and surprise unsuspecting Pokemon.

(38m 24s)

They’ll give you pumpkin candy

(38m 26s)

as a reward for pulling off

(38m 27s)

such mischievous tricks.

(38m 29s)

This is fun.

(38m 31s) Vincent:

Oh, so you’re disguised as an object and you try to sneak up on Pokemon?

(38m 37s) Al:

Yep.

(38m 37s)

And then if you surprise them, they will give you candy.

(38m 40s)

And then you get the candy as all the other events you give the candy to Bumkibu to buy the items.

(38m 49s)

Of which some of them are fine.

(38m 52s)

And one of them is particularly good, which is the ghost hologram.

(38m 58s) Vincent:

Oh, okay, oh, yeah, oh, same pictures of it now.

(39m 4s) Al:

the other ones are fine there’s like a jack-o’-lantern there’s some uh halloween inspired

(39m 8s)

balloons there’s a cough agrigus i’m guessing it’s a coffin I don’t know is there a coffin in

(39m 13s) Vincent:

Okay.

(39m 15s) Al:

this game now um uh there’s a trevenant statue of some kind and a dusk noir dusclops uh duscal

(39m 26s)

statue um and uh most importantly that uh ghost hologram the ghost from gen one

(39m 37s) Vincent:

Oh, I might actually do this event now.

(39m 39s)

This is for a ghost hologram.

(39m 40s)

It looks like a very–

(39m 43s)

or it looks like a piece of decoration

(39m 45s)

that you can actually use for other stuff.

(39m 47s) Al:

yeah yeah I think this I can’t maybe my second favorite event thing second to the sudowoodoo

(39m 55s)

thing for uh april fools the wacky waving sudowoodoo that one was good as well but yeah

(40m) Vincent:

Oh, yes, that was a good one.

(40m 4s) Al:

this is this is fun fun little thing speaking of halloween events hallow kitty island adventure

Hello Kitty Island Adventure

(40m 11s) Al:

have their spooky celebration or month month of mischief kuromi takes

(40m 17s)

over spooky season with trick-or-treating new potions kurumi fied friends and a cafe makeover

(40m 23s)

so we’ve also got a fun little halloween event for hello kitty island adventure

(40m 28s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting.

(40m 29s)

I have to admit, this is one game where I do have it.

(40m 32s)

I picked it up on sale, but I have not started this yet.

(40m 36s) Al:

can’t believe you own a game and you’ve not played it shocking you’d never find me having hundreds of

(40m 40s)

them uh next the ever expanding never ending backlog next up we have a release date for

(40m 41s) Vincent:

It’s on the old backlog.

(40m 47s)

Yes.

Keep Watering

(40m 50s) Al:

keep watering that is coming out on the 8th of october which is the day after this episode comes

(40m 59s)

over the top and stressful

(41m) Vincent:

well this one does look pretty interesting looks very you know like a not um yeah not yeah

(41m 6s) Al:

they say it’s cozy I really want to know how they think this game is going to be cozy

(41m 12s)

but i’m gonna have to play it before I make a

(41m 15s) Vincent:

The only way this could be cozy is if it’s slow-paced enough.

(41m 19s)

But looking at the screenshots where there’s timers,

(41m 21s)

I don’t see how it’s going to be cozy.

(41m 22s) Al:

yeah I i wonder if it’s one of these things where it’s just like nothing really dies so there’s no

(41m 30s)

like the only disadvantage to doing things slowly is that you just don’t get as much as you would

(41m 37s)

have but you you know you’re just continuing on and if you do things you do things I suspect that’s

(41m 44s)

what it will be but some people will just find that automatically stressful it’s like i’m not

(41m 49s)

doing this the most

(41m 49s)

efficient way possible

(41m 50s)

therefore it’s

(41m 52s)

stressful

(41m 52s)

yeah

(41m 53s) Vincent:

Yeah, it’s going to be like, oh, no, now I have to wait until a whole other year to get this crop.

(41m 57s) Al:

well yeah I don’t even

(41m 59s)

know if it’s going to be

(42m)

the case of like that i

(42m 1s)

don’t know whether it

(42m 2s)

will be that big I think

(42m 4s)

it might just be like i

(42m 5s)

don’t I don’t know

(42m 6s)

there’s lots of

(42m 6s)

different it’s it looks

(42m 8s)

to me like it’s you

(42m 9s)

build up something in a

(42m 10s)

short period of time as

(42m 12s)

a like a single run like

(42m 14s)

it feels like a roguelike

(42m 15s)

to me um but they call

(42m 18s)

it an incremental idler

(42m 20s)

they’re not calling it

(42m 22s)

it feels like that to

(42m 23s)

me where it’s like you

(42m 25s)

spend 10 minutes doing

(42m 26s)

this thing and then you

(42m 27s)

do it again in a

(42m 31s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah.

(42m 31s)

Yeah, faster farm.

(42m 32s)

Yeah, more– oh, you push your farm further.

(42m 34s)

OK, I see now.

(42m 35s) Al:

we shall see there’s also a massive skill tree

(42m 38s)

I think it starts up small so I don’t it looks like you’re not going to see the whole skill tree

(42m 39s) Vincent:

And just look– that skill tree does

(42m 41s)

look pretty intimidating.

(42m 47s) Al:

and you aren’t the it adds because I think part of the problem of skill trees and how they feel

(42m 53s)

intimidating is when you have the whole skill tree visible from the start whereas when I was

(42m 59s)

looking at the videos of this I saw things appearing when you unlocked something so it

(43m 5s)

don’t see the other things until you’ve unlocked the previous ones before them

(43m 9s)

which I think will make it a bit better

(43m 10s) Vincent:

OK, that’s fair.

(43m 12s)

You’re not starting to min max and plan out your build right away.

(43m 18s) Al:

yeah exactly next up luma island is coming to playstation and xbox don’t know when they

Luma Island

(43m 26s) Al:

haven’t said when but it’s coming there you go that’s the news that’s it

(43m 31s) Vincent:

That’s the other PlayStation box.

(43m 32s)

No Switch yet, or Switch 2, or no Nintendo console yet.

(43m 37s) Al:

I can’t remember whether it was or no it’s not on switch and they’ve not announced anything about

(43m 41s)

that so who knows it might just be that they are doing it they’ve just not announced it but I find

(43m 47s)

it weird when they’re like this is this this this game has been out for a while now and they’re only

(43m 52s)

now announcing that it’s coming out but they’re not doing it late enough to tell you when it’s

(43m 56s)

coming out but they’re not doing it early enough that it’s half if you wanted it on these but you

(44m 2s)

thought it might not come out in them you just buy it on steam like it feels like the worst time to an

(44m 7s)

ounce it is just randomly without giving you when it’s coming out

(44m 11s) Vincent:

yeah well at least I think this one at least you know I think I agree some of those other games that

(44m 16s)

do this is kind of strange but at least this one they have a good reason is because they have

(44m 20s)

cross-play across platforms so maybe they’re like oh yeah if you really like this game and

(44m 27s)

you have a friend that doesn’t have a pc but has a xbox or it has a playstation now you can

(44m 32s)

start warming them up to it but still you would probably just announce it

Grave Seasons

(44m 38s) Al:

well speaking of release dates grave seasons have made a grave error they’re delaying their game but

(44m 44s)

they have announced a new release date don’t do that don’t do that so it’s now coming out in march

(44m 50s)

march 9th 2027 and they say the truth of the matter is porting a game to consoles is tough

(44m 56s)

especially when it’s your first major title we’ve learned a lot about the process and we tackled

(45m)

some very important changes to our game that helped optimize it for controllers and consoles

(45m 5s)

such as a radio menu to give you ease of access and a button that you

(45m 8s)

can hold down to rotate on farming plots extra time has meant we’ve optimized the game so it

(45m 13s)

will run well on the switch yay and also on an even wider range of computer specs um yeah don’t

(45m 20s)

don’t announce a release date when you’re having like this is it’s a constant thing and I say this

(45m 25s)

all the time especially if you’re porting a game to consoles do not announce a release date unless

(45m 30s)

it’s ready unless you know you can release on that date unless you could release tomorrow do not tell

(45m 35s)

as when it’s coming out

(45m 36s)

because they’re just going to have to delay it again.

(45m 38s)

Like, it just, you know that there are problems.

(45m 41s)

You know it’s a difficult thing to do.

(45m 43s)

You know you’ve not managed it this time.

(45m 45s)

What makes you think you’re going to manage it

(45m 46s)

for your next arbitrary deadline?

(45m 48s)

It’s not going to happen.

(45m 49s)

And even if it does,

(45m 51s)

you’ll be the rare one that manages it, right?

(45m 53s)

Like, this is, don’t announce release dates.

(45m 57s)

Don’t do it.

(45m 58s) Vincent:

Yeah, also, it seems so it’s releasing multiple platforms, right?

(46m 3s)

And they said that they’re extra time for meant for running well to switch.

(46m 8s)

I think that makes sense.

(46m 9s)

It’s a different platform and even a wider range of computer specs.

(46m 12s)

But if you look at the system requirements, they just says it just requires a 64-bit processor.

(46m 18s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah I just I feel like you’d I get that I get that people are new to certain parts

(46m 18s) Vincent:

I was just kind of strange that they don’t even, like, list out the requirements.

(46m 33s) Al:

of game development right like not everybody knows all these things but it cannot be a surprise

(46m 39s)

the game development is hard it cannot be a surprise that things take longer than people

(46m 44s)

expect. Games are

(46m 46s)

Games are always delayed. People

(46m 48s)

seem to think that they are going to be the unique

(46m 50s)

one that’s special and they don’t

(46m 52s)

have delays.

(46m 54s)

It’s going to take longer than you expect.

(46m 56s)

It’s development.

(46m 58s)

Software development in general takes

(47m)

longer than you expect. And game

(47m 2s)

development in particular is

(47m 4s)

harder than other software development

(47m 6s)

because there’s so many different things

(47m 8s)

that can go wrong. I do web

(47m 10s)

development and even that’s hard and that’s just

(47m 12s)

buttons. Button does

(47m 14s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(47m 14s) Al:

things. I don’t have to deal with physics

(47m 15s) Vincent:

.

(47m 16s) Al:

and it’s already hard enough.

(47m 19s)

Just stop being optimistic.

(47m 20s)

You’re not going to be the ones that manage to do this

(47m 23s)

better than other people.

(47m 25s)

Just make the game.

(47m 27s)

And I get it’s hard because it’s hard to build up hype for games

(47m 31s)

when you don’t have a release date.

(47m 33s)

But the problem is that if you constantly delay,

(47m 35s)

that makes people frustrated as well.

(47m 37s) Vincent:

Yeah, and I guess at least they didn’t do the thing where they just release on one platform and delay the other, but I don’t even know if that’s going to be better or worse.

(47m 46s) Al:

yeah i’m i’m always mixed on that I get why people complain about that but also like maybe

(47m 51s)

it’s better you have the game out somewhere I don’t know they’re also it doesn’t sound like

(47m 55s)

they’re actually ready to release on steam either because they said we’re content uh finished but

(48m)

we’re polishing and fixing up bugs there’s going to be a big bug that takes them ages to fix right

(48m 5s)

like these things are not the best way is they called this this post grave seasons launch date

(48m 7s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah, just scrolling through the…

(48m 12s) Al:

final final V2 for real

(48m 14s)

that’s just asking for a

(48m 16s)

another delay right like

(48m 17s)

come on you’re tempting

(48m 20s)

fate stop it what is it

(48m 23s)

with developers and

(48m 23s)

stressing me out about

(48m 24s)

these things all right

(48m 26s)

next up speaking of

Lightyear Frontier

(48m 28s) Al:

release dates like your

(48m 30s)

frontier have announced

(48m 30s)

their 1.0 is coming out in

(48m 32s)

the 4th of November I

(48m 33s)

actually believe them

(48m 34s)

because that’s only a

(48m 35s)

month away I think if

(48m 37s)

you’re announcing if you’re

(48m 37s)

announcing a release date

(48m 38s)

about a month away I

(48m 40s)

think your game’s probably

(48m 42s)

ready to go you’re

(48m 43s)

probably just because I

(48m 44s)

think that is the ideal way

(48m 46s)

to do it is you get the

(48m 46s)

game ready and then you

(48m 48s)

give yourself about a

(48m 49s)

month of hype release hype

(48m 50s)

and then it means if

(48m 52s)

there’s any final last

(48m 54s)

minute things that you

(48m 55s)

notice then you can do

(48m 56s)

that but don’t go like

(48m 58s)

yeah don’t assume it’s

(49m)

going to be fine give

(49m)

yourself about a month

(49m 1s)

but be ready right your

(49m 3s)

game needs to be ready

(49m 4s)

when you announce the

(49m 5s)

release date

(49m 5s)

well that’s the thing

(49m 6s) Vincent:

It’s worked for Nintendo.

(49m 8s)

Recently, they’ve been just announcing their games.

(49m 12s) Al:

think about the amount

(49m 12s)

of negative press they

(49m 13s)

got on games they

(49m 14s)

announced and then

(49m 16s)

dates

(49m 16s)

well maybe I mean

(49m 16s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(49m 18s)

They learned their lesson.

(49m 21s) Al:

Pokemon

(49m 21s) Vincent:

Well, actually, they’ve learned for the most part,

(49m 21s) Al:

what are they doing

(49m 24s)

yeah yeah

(49m 26s) Vincent:

not every aspect.

(49m 29s) Al:

no I think you’re right

(49m 31s)

in general they are very

(49m 32s)

good at that now they

(49m 34s)

will just announce a game

(49m 35s)

when it’s ready and

(49m 35s)

they’ll tell you when it’s

(49m 36s)

coming out and then it’ll

(49m 37s)

come out on that game

(49m 38s)

let’s ignore Animal

(49m 39s)

Crossing’s New Horizons

(49m 40s)

I don’t know why I gave it

(49m 42s)

a plural there it’s not

(49m 43s)

Animal Crossing’s

(49m 44s)

Animal Crossing. She

(49m 46s)

should be Animals Crossing.

(49m 47s) Vincent:

Yeah, animals, animals.

(49m 48s) Al:

Which is that?

(49m 50s)

So, do you know about the…

(49m 52s)

I don’t know whether you know, I’m just, like,

(49m 54s)

it feels like you like different languages.

(49m 56s)

Any idea why it’s Animal Crossing?

(49m 58s)

Like, do we know what the translation…

(50m)

Is that the literal translation?

(50m 2s)

Let’s have a look.

(50m 2s) Vincent:

Um, I’m not sure actually. I don’t know. I’ve never never come across that theory yet

(50m 4s) Al:

Like, what is the Animal Crossing meant to be?

(50m 7s) Vincent:

I guess is it the well, what was the?

(50m 10s)

The first game was the n64 one, right? I

(50m 14s) Al:

So it looks like the literal translation of the Japanese name is Animal Forest.

(50m 19s)

That makes sense.

(50m 21s)

Why? Crossing.

(50m 24s)

So the English title signifies the interaction or crossing paths between a human player

(50m 29s)

and a community of anthropomorphic animal villagers.

(50m 33s)

No, I don’t like, I don’t, yeah, no, that’s very unsatisfying.

(50m 37s) Vincent:

Yeah, when I think of crossing, I think of like a very busy intersection, not the literal crossing of humans and animals.

(50m 42s) Al:

Yeah.

(50m 44s)

Someone online says crossing is often used in the names of villages, towns, forests in the US.

(50m 55s) Vincent:

never come across a town that’s

(50m 57s)

like crossing

(50m 58s)

I have seen like you know strip malls

(51m 1s)

or plazas that named crossing

(51m 3s)

but not like

(51m 4s)

a town or a village

(51m 6s) Al:

Well, Vincent, you are now American, so you have to speak for all Americans. That’s how it works, right?

(51m 6s) Vincent:

oh that’s true

(51m 11s)

it’s going to be definitive

(51m 12s)

there’s like one

(51m 14s)

nearby it’s called like

(51m 16s)

crossing in its name

(51m 18s)

and it’s like a shopping

(51m 20s)

center with like a movie theater

(51m 22s)

and a bunch of stores and what not

(51m 25s) Al:

and I guess that is kind of like a center of community there kind of like the idea behind

(51m 30s)

animal crossing all right I don’t I don’t like it but at least there’s something there

(51m 31s) Vincent:

Well, I guess I could see that.

(51m 33s) Al:

animal forest would have been good why not just that

(51m 33s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(51m 37s)

Yeah, it still conveys the same meaning,

(51m 37s) Al:

who let the americans decide on the name there come on that’s bad

(51m 40s) Vincent:

but I don’t know why they changed it.

(51m 42s)

Maybe– yeah.

(51m 46s) Al:

yeah probably uh yes that’s like your frontier coming on the fourth of them

(51m 46s) Vincent:

Yeah, I’m going to assume it’s the Nintendo of America

(51m 48s)

that did the translations there.

(51m 55s) Al:

november Meadgard having its their early access is coming out in november just november okay cool

Meadgard

(52m 1s) Al:

I i yeah well that’s the thing I don’t know why you would do this why you would do this whole big

(52m 2s) Vincent:

It’s a month away.

(52m 7s) Al:

thing of like oh it’s coming out in november but not give us a date like that sounds to me like

(52m 12s)

you’re not ready like november

(52m 15s) Vincent:

it’s yeah they’re very eerie where they’re like oh all right we’ll we’ll see um how um

(52m 22s)

how uh hype I don’t know I guess they want to say oh is zelda gonna take up a lot of space

(52m 27s)

we want to release in between yeah we might be busy yeah we have I think everything it’s gonna be

(52m 28s) Al:

yeah I think if you have to worry about that don’t release in november

(52m 33s)

right like that’s you know also we have dates for both of those games now so

(52m 40s)

so I don’t yeah what are you waiting for uh they originally weren’t going to be releasing

(52m 41s) Vincent:

everything big

(52m 42s)

in November

(52m 43s)

should have a

(52m 51s) Al:

in early access so what they say is we want to bring mead guards to its full potential and

(52m 58s)

for all our players early access gives us the opportunity to build upon what we’ve created

(53m 1s)

so far continue listening to your feedback and shape mead guard to do something we can

(53m 5s)

all be proud of hey you can do that without early access as well just just saying like

(53m 10s) Vincent:

Yeah, oh wait, so was it originally they were supposed to release, they were supposed to not do early access and now they’re saying, oh, it’s going to come sooner than expected, but it’s early access.

(53m 10s) Al:

yeah

(53m 19s)

they haven’t explicitly said it’s earlier because they don’t think they had a release date previously

(53m 24s)

but that is certainly the implication I suspect it’s more

(53m 29s)

I think what happens sometimes with games is as we’ve talked about development is slower than you

(53m 37s)

expect and so they get to the point where they’re like oh we kind of wanted to release this year but

(53m 42s)

we’re not ready oh you know what let’s do early access

(53m 45s)

yeah yeah it’s the break

(53m 45s) Vincent:

No, there’s always the early access button.

(53m 49s) Al:

break glass in case of early access I yeah it just okay we’ve talked about it we’ve talked about

(53m 56s)

early access we’ve we’ve heard opinions we’ve had opinions all right next pathless woods it’s been

Pathless Woods

(54m 2s) Al:

21 months since our last update on the default branch during that first of all that’s way too

(54m 9s)

inside baseball just say our last update right like nobody no most people don’t care about your beta

(54m 14s)

branches right go away during that time we tried every avenue we could to find a way to keep working

(54m 19s)

we’re sorry for the long wait and grateful that you’re still here uh yeah they’re releasing a

(54m 25s)

major update um which for some reason they decided to call 0.6.1.7 it’s very catchy

(54m 31s) Vincent:

Why not just come up with like if it’s such a major update, come up with a nice marketing name for it?

(54m 37s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

(54m 39s)

And, you know, 21 months with no updates on an early access game.

(54m 46s)

People definitely would have thought this was dead by now.

(54m 48s)

But 21 months is nearly two years.

(54m 49s) Vincent:

I mean, it kind of shows, you can see here that the all time peak was over 1800 players and the 24 hour peak is just 76.

(54m 51s) Al:

Two years is a long early access full stop.

(55m 6s)

all reviews is mostly positive recent reviews mostly negative

(55m 10s)

this has not gone down well this update I don’t think

(55m 10s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(55m 14s)

Well, what’s the recent reviews anyways?

(55m 18s)

Like, how recent are the recent reviews,

(55m 21s)

given there’s no updates?

(55m 22s) Al:

uh recent reviews it’s last 13

(55m 26s) Vincent:

Okay.

(55m 33s)

Hmm.

(55m 34s) Al:

a week and a bit ago.

(55m 39s) Vincent:

There’s a lot of reviews about technical issues

(55m 43s)

and complaints and glitches.

(55m 46s) Al:

yeah yeah there’s some people complaining about the flow in the game and some glitches and some

(55m 53s)

stuff like that but yeah it’s uh someone posted a year ago let this game cook for a few more years

(56m 1s) Vincent:

Oh, well, they’ve taken advice to heart.

(56m 1s) Al:

yeah it’s it’s just interesting how 80 of overall reviews are positive but 38 of the last month’s

(56m 16s)

are positive now granted the last month has only had 13 reviews so maybe that’s just a but that that

(56m 23s)

sounds to me like there’s been an issue in the in the latest update with people talking about

(56m 30s) Vincent:

Yeah, or the ones that are playing are the hardcore ones that are like, okay, I’m going to use it as a way to give my feedback to the developers.

(56m 38s)

Well, hopefully this update fixes a lot of the issues.

(56m 43s)

It sounds like there’s also a lot of just like, you know, runs poorly type of reviews.

(56m 48s) Al:

Yeah. So it looks like, it looks like they stopped development in April of 2025 or slightly before

(56m 55s)

that. I’m trying to, and that was a year into early access. And then they were silent for a

(57m 1s)

year. Their studio ran out of funds at the end of 2024. And then April of this year, they announced

(57m 8s)

that they’re back, but this is their first big update since then. So yeah, I don’t know. It sounds

(57m 15s)

like people really like

(57m 16s)

the game

(57m 17s)

like what the game

(57m 18s)

could be

(57m 19s)

but most people are saying

(57m 20s)

maybe don’t play it

(57m 21s)

just now

(57m 22s)

maybe wait till 1.0

(57m 25s)

which is

(57m 25s)

is never great

(57m 26s)

well

(57m 27s)

game development’s hard

(57m 27s) Vincent:

Yeah, that’s the general vibe I’m getting to from just reading.

(57m 31s) Al:

I once heard someone say

(57m 33s)

they try

(57m 34s)

try to be positive

(57m 35s)

on on games

(57m 36s)

because what they say is

(57m 37s)

it’s a miracle

(57m 38s)

that any game

(57m 38s)

ever gets made

(57m 39s)

because of how hard

(57m 41s)

and this was a game developer

(57m 42s)

talking

(57m 42s)

because of just how

(57m 44s)

how complicated games are

(57m 45s)

and so I tried to be

(57m 46s)

a bit more positive

(57m 47s)

on these things

(57m 48s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(57m 48s) Al:

next up

Farm To Table

(57m 49s) Al:

oh farm to table

(57m 51s)

their major update

(57m 53s)

number one

(57m 53s)

uh

(57m 54s)

it adds a bunch of stuff

(57m 55s)

but there’s only one thing

(57m 56s)

I care about

(57m 57s)

and that’s controller support

(57m 58s)

woo

(57m 59s) Vincent:

Woo!

(57m 59s) Al:

finally

(58m)

there you go

(58m 1s)

should have been in

(58m 2s)

the first version

(58m 3s)

also they say

(58m 5s)

a better steam deck experience

(58m 7s)

yeah

(58m 7s)

controller support

(58m 8s)

will make it better

(58m 9s)

on the steam deck

(58m 10s)

and there’s a lot of other things

(58m 11s) Vincent:

Oh yeah.

(58m 14s) Al:

in the update as well

(58m 15s)

but they’re only really things

(58m 16s)

if you

(58m 16s)

you’d care about

(58m 17s)

if you played the game

New Games

(58m 18s) Al:

that’s the news

(58m 19s)

we’ve also got three new games

(58m 20s)

that we’re going to talk about

(58m 21s)

and just

(58m 22s)

I want to just say this

(58m 23s)

just now listeners

(58m 24s)

this

(58m 24s)

I cut out a lot of news

(58m 26s)

because there was so much news

(58m 27s)

so

(58m 28s)

I’m just warning you

(58m 30s)

we might also have

(58m 32s)

a lot of news next week

(58m 33s)

and if a lot of news

(58m 34s)

comes out this week

(58m 35s)

I might need to do

(58m 36s)

a news only episode

(58m 37s)

the week after

(58m 38s)

to catch up

(58m 39s)

because

(58m 39s)

for some reason

(58m 40s)

this is the time

(58m 41s)

for everybody to talk about games

(58m 42s)

I don’t know why

(58m 43s)

it’s October

(58m 44s)

it’s not June

(58m 46s)

right? June’s the time to talk

(58m 48s)

about all your games. Not October.

(58m 50s)

This is meant to be the quiet time.

(58m 52s) Vincent:

Well, I think now is the time where like a lot of the either get your games out now before the busy holiday season, or if you’re not going to make your release this year, announce it now that you’re pushing off.

(59m 5s)

There’s not much for 2026 left.

(59m 6s)

So all your 2026 release dates are going to get announced.

(59m 7s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, but most of these were not most of these were not delayed

(59m 13s) Vincent:

Oh, or I guess they want to get it out before the busy holiday or before November kicks off.

(59m 19s) Al:

yeah yeah that’s true that’s true all right our first new game is animo I think it’s meant to be

Aniimo

(59m 26s) Al:

pronounced uh any any because i’m guessing it’s meant to be like anime monsters animo

(59m 33s)

maybe I don’t know i’m gonna go with animo animo is a free-to-play next-gen creature-catching

(59m 34s) Vincent:

amiibo, but with N and M.

(59m 41s) Al:

open-world rpg please put more words in that description explore the vast continent of idol

(59m 49s)

twine with unique animo unlock new abilities travel to a sky-floating metropolis meet other

(59m 55s)

pathfinders and battle in exciting competitions choose your animo and begin your epic journey

(1h 2s)

this game has 23 000 reviews on steam how have I not heard of this before so this was sent in by

(1h 9s)

listener jack thank you for letting us know about this game I don’t know how this is so big and i

(1h 14s)

only just heard about it it came out in the middle of september had you heard of it

(1h 19s) Vincent:

I have not as well.

(1h 20s)

I’m looking through this.

(1h 21s)

There’s a lot of reviews and a lot of players for this game,

(1h 24s)

but I have not heard about this as well.

(1h 26s)

It has a very Palworld-y vibe.

(1h 30s) Al:

I was going to say it feels like a kid-friendly Palworld, right?

(1h 35s)

Like, it’s like, and this is going to sound so stupid,

(1h 36s)

but it feels like Palworld without the guns,

(1h 39s)

which is going to sound stupid to people who are like,

(1h 42s)

but isn’t Palworld just Pokemon with guns?

(1h 44s)

But it’s not.

(1h 45s)

We all know that it’s not.

(1h 46s)

It’s more than that.

(1h 47s)

It’s much more crafting and focused.

(1h 50s)

But this feels much more like the graphics definitely feel Palworld-y,

(1h 56s)

and it feels like that’s what they’re trying to do,

(1h 1m)

without the kind of gun, the violent.

(1h 1m 2s)

Well, it’s still violence.

(1h 1m 3s)

It’s creature collecting, so there’s battles,

(1h 1m 6s)

but it’s not the same thing as just giving your creature a gun.

(1h 1m 9s) Vincent:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s just like, okay, what if we make it more, yeah, take out the controversy of the guns? I mean, they have, like, they’re still, the design, I mean, I don’t want to say the design looks similar, I want to say it’s, you know, there’s only so many ways to design creatures, but, you know, you got your, what looks like evolutions, you got your types, you know.

(1h 1m 28s) Al:

it’s not even the creature designs right like I i find the creature design thing yeah tired i’m so

(1h 1m 33s)

bored of people like oh this this pal looks like a pokemon I don’t care right no they both look

(1h 1m 38s)

like whales shut up um it’s more like the the world and the the character design it just there’s

(1h 1m 45s)

I mean I guess it’s maybe the kind of like 3d anime style they’re doing maybe they’re both

(1h 1m 51s)

just similar because they’re both designing off the same sort of idea um but that’s exactly what

(1h 1m 57s)

I call it.

(1h 1m 58s)

Um, there is farming in this game, so there we go, but, uh, it’s free to play, so there’s

(1h 2m 5s)

that.

(1h 2m 6s) Vincent:

Is it an MMO or I guess, or is it like a gacha?

(1h 2m 10s) Al:

I think it, I think it is an MMO, because it’s tagged as multiplayer and open world, so maybe,

(1h 2m 17s)

maybe?

(1h 2m 18s)

They didn’t say that in the description, though, let me read the longer description.

(1h 2m 22s)

I’m enjoying the fact that they just throw this fluffy looking sheep and it turns into

(1h 2m 28s) Vincent:

Yeah. Oh, there are some, going down to the reviews, there are some mentions of, well, some mentions of AI use, but more concerningly, some security risks are being flagged in the reviews. I don’t know how legitimate these are, but.

(1h 2m 48s)

Let’s see, breaks GDPR by putting data collection on your PC that survives uninstall. They do not disclose anti-cheat, but they use kernel level anti-cheat.

(1h 2m 53s) Al:

Oh, fun.

(1h 2m 58s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(1h 2m 58s) Al:

Ah, so it won’t even work on my Steam Deck then.

(1h 3m 1s)

It does say, no, it says on Steam Deck,

(1h 3m 3s)

on the Steam page, it does say

(1h 3m 5s)

uses kernel level anti-cheat.

(1h 3m 7s) Vincent:

Oh, or maybe this is an old one.

(1h 3m 9s)

Maybe they just updated it.

(1h 3m 10s)

Oh, no, this is October 2nd.

(1h 3m 10s) Al:

Requires manual removal after game uninstall.

(1h 3m 14s)

Oh boy.

(1h 3m 16s)

It says it’s playable on the Steam Deck,

(1h 3m 17s)

but I thought there was no kernel level anti-cheat on there.

(1h 3m 20s) Vincent:

That’s what I thought, too.

(1h 3m 23s) Al:

Let’s see, their compatibility is playable.

(1h 3m 25s)

Some functionality is not accessible

(1h 3m 26s)

when using the default controller.

(1h 3m 28s)

It requires using the touchscreen or a virtual keyboard.

(1h 3m 32s)

Shows mouse, keyboard, or non-Steam Deck controller icons.

(1h 3m 36s)

Entering some text requires manually

(1h 3m 38s)

invoking the on-screen keyboard.

(1h 3m 40s)

Some in-game text is small.

(1h 3m 42s)

The game has minor graphics display issues on Steam Deck.

(1h 3m 45s)

All functionality is accessible

(1h 3m 46s)

when using the default controller configuration.

(1h 3m 48s) Vincent:

Yeah, and it has a platinum rating on ProtonDB, so.

(1h 3m 48s) Al:

This game’s default graphics performed well.

(1h 3m 54s) Vincent:

Well, that was an interesting thing.

(1h 3m 56s)

I was scrolling through the reviews.

(1h 3m 59s) Al:

Yeah. Okay. Interesting. I don’t know how I feel about this game in general.

(1h 4m 5s) Vincent:

Yeah, and also that I somehow slipped under my radar, which I think I feel like this would be within both of our radars.

(1h 4m 13s) Al:

Yeah, I’ll keep an eye on it for sure. And I guess we’ll see how it continues. If nothing else for the discourse. I will say I think it will be difficult to find the time to slot this into my world because, again, RPG difficult.

(1h 4m 33s) Vincent:

Oh, I’m not even going to pretend to, you know, be like, oh, I’m going to play this soon.

(1h 4m 36s)

This is a keep on my radar until it actually gets big enough that makes me want to play it.

(1h 4m 43s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah uh have you played Palworld yet

(1h 4m 46s)

yeah I i don’t think it’s going to get any bigger so I think what you mean is put it on a list of

(1h 4m 48s) Vincent:

That is also still on my backlog.

(1h 4m 52s)

Yeah.

(1h 4m 55s) Al:

games that you’ll probably never play um it’s definitely got the like throwing of capturing

(1h 4m 57s) Vincent:

Yes.

(1h 5m 2s) Al:

balls at the creatures as well it’s like there’s a lot similar I don’t know what they’re throwing at

(1h 5m 9s) Vincent:

Yeah, there’s the one GIF on its theme page where someone throws a ball of sheep looking and it just rolls around and just collects other sheep.

(1h 5m 18s) Al:

yeah yeah all right so that’s out now um next up we have another game that we’re going to have to

Nivalis Nights

(1h 5m 31s) Al:

debate the name the pronunciation nivalis nights nivalis nights nivalis I never think about

(1h 5m 37s) Vincent:

and Nivea

(1h 5m 41s) Al:

pronunciations until i’m actually recording I do a lot of looking into these games before the

(1h 5m 46s)

podcast recording and I never think to

(1h 5m 48s)

try a pronunciation

(1h 5m 50s)

grow your business

(1h 5m 52s)

manage restaurants and nightclubs make

(1h 5m 54s)

friends and enemies buy and decorate

(1h 5m 56s)

apartments go fishing and maybe even

(1h 5m 58s)

find love in a cyberpunk city

(1h 6m)

that stretches from the ocean to the clouds

(1h 6m 2s)

yeah it’s

(1h 6m 5s)

restaurant cyberpunk

(1h 6m 9s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting.

(1h 6m 10s)

I do like me some cyberpunk aesthetic,

(1h 6m 13s)

but interesting there’s fishing involved as well.

(1h 6m 15s)

Oh, I guess I see now there’s like water.

(1h 6m 19s) Al:

even dystopias have water most of the time except uh oh it’s idiocracy they didn’t have water

(1h 6m 27s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah, I guess.

(1h 6m 27s) Al:

well no I guess they did eventually have water it’s just they didn’t understand it

(1h 6m 33s)

because they did event because event yeah what’s the main character did eventually get them to

(1h 6m 39s)

switch from watering crops with water have you have you watched the film

(1h 6m 39s) Vincent:

Not sure.

(1h 6m 44s)

Yeah, yeah.

(1h 6m 45s)

Well, I just know what they call him.

(1h 6m 47s)

Not sure.

(1h 6m 47s)

I don’t remember his real name.

(1h 6m 49s) Al:

oh yes sorry yes sorry it’s been so long since i’ve watched it I didn’t even get your joke

(1h 6m 53s)

yes good point all right um I don’t think i’m particularly interested in this one

(1h 6m 53s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah.

(1h 7m) Al:

cyberpunk is fine as an aesthetic but i’ve never really been that interested

(1h 7m 6s) Vincent:

Yeah, I think the cyberpunk sounds like the cyberpunk aesthetic is probably the big

(1h 7m 10s)

differentiating factor of this between this and a lot of other games that are

Seikyu Let’s Go

(1h 7m 19s) Al:

all right our final new game is Seikyu Let’s Go why are all the new games words that we have to try

(1h 7m 25s)

and guess how to pronounce Seikyu so this is um a spin-off of Tales of Seikyu which is uh um oh what’s

(1h 7m 25s) Vincent:

Seq, Seq, Seq, Saqq?

(1h 7m 34s) Al:

the word uh give me two seconds I need to go up onto the game to remember the word that i’m looking

(1h 7m 38s)

for they don’t have the word that i’m looking for um what is the pokemon like that uh has the

(1h 7m 49s)

there’s like a japanese type of creature

(1h 7m 51s)

it’s a pokemon like that has this word in its name and it’s a name that is used in japanese for

(1h 7m 52s) Vincent:

The Pokemon game?

(1h 7m 59s) Al:

a specific type of creature that’s like a spirit

(1h 8m 2s)

yokai that’s yokai is what i’m looking for yeah so this is the game where you like transform into

(1h 8m 2s) Vincent:

Temtem, Yokai, watch.

(1h 8m 11s) Al:

different yokai um you shapeshift and that’s how you do your different things anyway that that this is

(1h 8m 17s)

not that game

(1h 8m 19s)

a spin-off of that game

(1h 8m 20s)

so this is

(1h 8m 21s)

Seikyu Let’s Go

(1h 8m 22s)

which is a spin-off of

(1h 8m 23s)

Tales of Seikyu

(1h 8m 25s)

so what they say is

(1h 8m 26s)

Let’s Go is set

(1h 8m 29s)

also Let’s Go

(1h 8m 30s)

come on this is

(1h 8m 31s)

why is this Pokemon

(1h 8m 32s)

Let’s Go is set in the same world

(1h 8m 34s)

you love and adore

(1h 8m 35s)

a one to four player co-op

(1h 8m 37s)

camper van trip

(1h 8m 38s)

through the yokai filled

(1h 8m 40s)

oh the word was in the description

(1h 8m 42s) Vincent:

Oh.

(1h 8m 42s) Al:

through the yokai filled wilderness

(1h 8m 45s)

snap photos of elusive creatures

(1h 8m 47s)

decorate your

(1h 8m 49s)

van together and

(1h 8m 49s)

help the locals you

(1h 8m 50s)

meet along the way

(1h 8m 51s)

camp cook and

(1h 8m 52s)

clamber across

(1h 8m 53s)

diverse biomes from

(1h 8m 55s)

misty swamps to

(1h 8m 55s)

snowy mountains

(1h 8m 57s)

adventure awaits so

(1h 8m 58s)

let’s go

(1h 8m 59s)

what I find really

(1h 9m 3s)

funny about this is

(1h 9m 3s)

the the graphics are

(1h 9m 5s)

just like completely

(1h 9m 6s)

different from tales of

(1h 9m 8s)

psyche like tales of

(1h 9m 9s)

psyche is like kind

(1h 9m 10s)

of kind of breath of

(1h 9m 12s)

the wildy kind of

(1h 9m 13s)

almost realistic type

(1h 9m 15s)

graphics and this is

(1h 9m 16s)

like cartoon

(1h 9m 19s)

silliness like i

(1h 9m 21s)

don’t I don’t

(1h 9m 22s)

understand how this

(1h 9m 23s)

is meant to be a

(1h 9m 24s)

spin-off it’s like

(1h 9m 25s)

completely it’s

(1h 9m 27s) Vincent:

I know it’s a bit of a very jarring to go back if you go back and forth between the two.

(1h 9m 33s) Al:

yeah

(1h 9m 33s) Vincent:

It reminds me of, have you played like Peak?

(1h 9m 33s) Al:

uh I haven’t played it but i’m aware of it

(1h 9m 40s)

yeah

(1h 9m 40s) Vincent:

Yeah, I guess the character design reminds me of that.

(1h 9m 45s) Al:

yeah

(1h 9m 46s) Vincent:

It’s like, you know, four players traveling and whatnot.

(1h 9m 49s) Al:

yeah it’s yeah I don’t it’s I when I saw that there was a spin-off of Tales of Seikyu I was not

(1h 9m 50s) Vincent:

I don’t know if it’s like, you know, it’s not exactly the same, but it gives me the same vibes.

(1h 10m 1s) Al:

expecting this.

(1h 10m 4s)

It’s very odd.

(1h 10m 5s) Vincent:

Well, and then this is also another one where it’s released at Q4 2026, which, you know, not much of it left.

(1h 10m 10s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 10m 14s)

True, true.

(1h 10m 16s)

All right.

(1h 10m 17s)

Yeah, weird.

(1h 10m 18s)

This is, again, the same thing as the November releases.

(1h 10m 21s)

Like, why are you saying it’s coming out in Q4?

(1h 10m 23s)

This is Q4.

(1h 10m 24s) Vincent:

Yeah, we’re in Q4 already.

(1h 10m 25s) Al:

This game’s not coming out this year, right?

(1h 10m 28s)

Like, that’s just asking to delay it till next year.

(1h 10m 32s)

All right.

(1h 10m 33s)

This is a long episode, and we’ve not even started talking about the main topic.

(1h 10m 37s) Vincent:

Oh, you’re right.

AR/VR Discussion

(1h 10m 39s) Al:

All right.

(1h 10m 40s)

We’re talking about augmented reality, virtual reality.

(1h 10m 45s)

Some people say mixed reality.

(1h 10m 47s)

I hate the term, but maybe that’s what we’re having to move to instead of augmented reality.

(1h 10m 52s)

People don’t like the word.

(1h 10m 53s)

I don’t know.

(1h 10m 54s)

Whatever.

(1h 10m 56s)

Let’s talk about the Steam frame first up, because we both got it.

(1h 10m 59s)

Like, you got it maybe a week and a half ago?

(1h 11m 2s) Vincent:

Yes, I think I was in the first batch of Steam Frames that were released.

(1h 11m 8s)

So I got lucky with the reservation queue.

(1h 11m 13s) Al:

Which is funny because I got the email saying I was in the reservation queue before you got yours, but you got the actual ability to purchase before I did.

(1h 11m 13s) Vincent:

What did I want to say?

(1h 11m 17s)

Yes.

(1h 11m 22s)

Yes, I got the…

(1h 11m 23s)

Yeah, so it’s probably a week and a half ago now.

(1h 11m 26s)

So yeah, I’ve been enjoying it a lot.

(1h 11m 28s)

You know, it’s my first venture into owning

(1h 11m 32s)

a VR system.

(1h 11m 33s)

And I would say, you know, so far, so good.

(1h 11m 35s) Al:

And this is your first headset that you’ve owned, but you’ve tried other ones?

(1h 11m 39s) Vincent:

Yes, I’ve tried other ones, you know, like I tried Oculus or MetaQuest.

(1h 11m 44s)

I don’t remember specifically which one, but I’ve tried before, you know, at, like,

(1h 11m 47s)

Friends House and whatnot and, you know, at other, like, activations or whatnot where,

(1h 11m 51s)

like, you do VR experiences.

(1h 11m 53s)

I’ve done those, but not owning a VR headset.

(1h 11m 56s) Al:

yeah yeah whereas I had the quest two and then I got the quest I upgraded to the quest three a

(1h 12m 3s)

couple of years ago um so I guess I can compare it a bit to that um in terms of one thing to bear

(1h 12m 11s)

in mind is I don’t have my I do have my ergonomic uh set but it only came yesterday so i’ve not set

(1h 12m 26s)

default headset is much nicer to than the quest’s default headset and it’ll be interesting to see

(1h 12m 33s)

how the ergonomic one is um because I got the the ergonomic one for the quest as well because

(1h 12m 39s)

the these headsets are heavy on your head let’s just put it that way and I i don’t they can move

(1h 12m 45s)

around with the default straps um but because the steam frame has like this pad on the back that has

(1h 12m 53s)

I think it has some of the battery in it.

(1h 12m 54s) Vincent:

Yeah, I think all the battery is actually back there.

(1h 12m 56s) Al:

Is it all of it? Okay.

(1h 12m 58s)

I thought it was just some of it.

(1h 12m 59s) Vincent:

Or maybe some, I’m not sure.

(1h 13m) Al:

But because of that, it’s much less front heavy.

(1h 13m 5s)

The Quest, both the two and the three, they’re entirely on the front.

(1h 13m 9s)

So it’s like pulls down your head.

(1h 13m 12s)

Interestingly, I found that you start off getting a really sore neck,

(1h 13m 16s)

but after a while, your muscles just kind of deal with it

(1h 13m 18s)

and you stop getting the sore neck.

(1h 13m 21s)

But I think this is a much better kind of distributed weight.

(1h 13m 26s)

However, I do want, I’ll be interested to see how the ergonomic strap is

(1h 13m 31s)

because I find it slips a little bit still with the default one.

(1h 13m 36s)

So hopefully the ergonomic,

(1h 13m 38s)

because the ergonomic one has the strip on the top of,

(1h 13m 41s) Vincent:

Yes, so I got the VR, I got the headset, and then my ergonomic kit also came like two days afterwards.

(1h 13m 50s)

And I would say when I first tried on just the headset itself, it felt fine for me.

(1h 13m 56s)

I was like, you know, oh, this works great.

(1h 13m 58s)

I don’t know why other people were complaining about this.

(1h 14m)

But then once I actually tried the ergonomic headset, I was like, okay, now I understand.

(1h 14m 6s) Al:

yeah it’s much better I say that I haven’t actually used it but in my experience of previous

(1h 14m 7s) Vincent:

Yes, it definitely helps a lot.

(1h 14m 9s)

Yeah, it doesn’t slip.

(1h 14m 11s)

Yeah.

(1h 14m 14s) Al:

headsets the ergonomic um strap has been better um I think it’s I don’t know how how i’m gonna

(1h 14m 20s)

like this compared to the quests one because the quests um ergonomic strap has this thing at the

(1h 14m 28s)

back which you twist to tighten it on your head which I really like um it’s like a really nice and

(1h 14m 33s)

easy, um, thing, um,

(1h 14m 36s)

and this one, this, just having a quick look

(1h 14m 38s)

at this, this does not have, um,

(1h 14m 40s)

in the same way, so I, I don’t know how I’m

(1h 14m 42s)

going to feel about it, but we’ll, I’ll need to try

(1h 14m 44s)

it out and see, um, but I

(1h 14m 46s)

will, I will say, though, the default

(1h 14m 47s)

strap, much easier for tightening than

(1h 14m 49s)

the Quest’s default strap, but

(1h 14m 51s)

not as good as the Quest’s ergonomic

(1h 14m 54s)

strap.

(1h 14m 56s) Vincent:

Yes. And then does the Quest Organic Restrap, is it just for the headset or does it have anything for the controllers as well?

(1h 15m 2s) Al:

no that’s just yeah it’s just the headset there’s nothing so it’ll be interesting to see how they

(1h 15m 6s)

feel because you’ve got a lot the extra hand straps for the thing I don’t personally find

(1h 15m 10s)

that i’ve had any issues with the controllers both on this and and the quest that need the

(1h 15m 15s)

straps but it might be like you with the the ergonomic strap where you’re like okay I see

(1h 15m 20s)

why this is good then um if I if I try it out so i’ll need to try that um

(1h 15m 25s) Vincent:

Yeah, I was not a believer in the hand strap as well. I got it. I got the ergonomic package just because, you know, people were saying, oh, it’s actually, you know, it makes a difference at least from the reviews that I watched. So I was like, okay, you know, it’s 60 bucks. I’m already down a grand on this. What’s another 60 bucks worth, right?

(1h 15m 42s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 15m 45s) Vincent:

But, you know, I’ve been converted on both the head strap and the hand straps in the ergonomic pack. I’d say those are major upgrades I was goes for.

(1h 15m 55s)

As far as to say that those should probably be included in the base package.

(1h 15m 59s) Al:

Oh, yeah, it’s 100% is just to reduce the price.

(1h 16m 2s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(1h 16m 4s) Al:

Which is probably the reason it doesn’t have a charger in it as well.

(1h 16m 9s) Vincent:

Yes.

(1h 16m 9s) Al:

But I don’t care because, I mean, who is buying a £1,000 Steam frame

(1h 16m 15s)

and doesn’t already have a charger?

(1h 16m 17s)

Especially the charger is identical to the Steam Deck charger.

(1h 16m 22s)

So it’s like, is anybody buying this and doesn’t have a Steam Deck?

(1h 16m 25s) Vincent:

Yeah, if you’re buying it, especially a niche product like this, you probably already have 10 of these lying around the house.

(1h 16m 29s) Al:

Yeah. Come on.

(1h 16m 32s)

I get when people are like, oh, yeah, but I’m spending £1,000, I want a charger.

(1h 16m 37s)

It’s like, okay, sure, but you wouldn’t be spending £1,000 if you get the charger as well.

(1h 16m 42s)

That’s not how this works.

(1h 16m 44s)

They’re making it cheaper by not including it.

(1h 16m 46s)

Now, maybe they’re not making it the whole amount cheaper.

(1h 16m 49s)

Maybe it wouldn’t be the price of the charger on top of it.

(1h 16m 54s)

But, you know, there are so many more things to complain about capitalism,

(1h 16m 59s)

complaining about your device not including a charger when you already have a million of them

(1h 17m 4s)

really doesn’t feel like the thing to complain about personally.

(1h 17m 6s)

I think complain about the other things that capitalism is ruining.

(1h 17m 11s) Vincent:

Yeah.

(1h 17m 11s) Al:

But you can complain about what you want.

(1h 17m 12s)

I’m not stopping you.

(1h 17m 13s)

Complain about what you want.

(1h 17m 14s)

I just think it’s a bit silly.

(1h 17m 15s)

In terms of controllers, they’re almost identical to the Quest’s ones.

(1h 17m 20s)

I was just grabbing them both so I can look at them next to each other.

(1h 17m 25s)

So on the…

(1h 17m 27s)

They’re not…

(1h 17m 29s)

I say they’re almost identical.

(1h 17m 30s)

They’re almost identical in kind of shape.

(1h 17m 32s)

So the Steam Deck one is slightly bigger.

(1h 17m 34s)

It also has a D-pad on the left, which the Quest one doesn’t.

(1h 17m 40s)

And it has extra triggers.

(1h 17m 42s)

So the Quest one just has two triggers.

(1h 17m 47s)

One on the front and one on the side.

(1h 17m 49s)

Whereas the Steam one has two on the front, one on the side.

(1h 17m 55s)

So it’s an extra trigger on each hand.

(1h 17m 59s)

Plus the D-pad.

(1h 18m)

I think two extra buttons on the right.

(1h 18m 4s)

So the Quest has just an A and a B.

(1h 18m 6s)

But on the left, it has X and Y.

(1h 18m 8s)

Whereas the Quest has all four of those on one side.

(1h 18m 12s)

So it’s…

(1h 18m 13s)

I think the only things extra this one has are the D-pad and the two extra triggers.

(1h 18m 19s)

But because of that, the layout is slightly different.

(1h 18m 23s)

But it makes it…

(1h 18m 24s)

It feels more natural to me because it’s like essentially the Steam Deck.

(1h 18m 29s)

Layout, but split.

(1h 18m 31s) Vincent:

Yeah, I think it sounds like really just the MetaQuest

(1h 18m 34s)

controllers is meant purely for VR,

(1h 18m 38s)

whereas this one is meant for, OK, you can use new VR,

(1h 18m 40s)

but you also use it in–

(1h 18m 42s) Al:

Yeah. Yeah. Maybe, maybe that’s why it is.

(1h 18m 43s) Vincent:

I haven’t tried it yet, but I would

(1h 18m 45s)

suspect you can use these as just regular controllers.

(1h 18m 48s) Al:

You can. Yeah. Yeah. If you, if you open up a game that isn’t a VR game, it just opens it up in a window and you, it switches to like game pad mode where you’re just, all of your inputs are affecting the game and you have to like aim outside of the box to come out.

(1h 19m 6s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

(1h 19m 6s)

Oh, no, if you want to pair this with a computer, for example, and just use this.

(1h 19m 10s) Al:

oh right I don’t know why you would do that

(1h 19m 12s)

yeah I don’t know it’s going to be interesting to me to see how the continues because I guess the

(1h 19m 12s) Vincent:

I don’t know either, but I’m assuming you can.

(1h 19m 25s) Al:

biggest drawback I find on the quest is the the vr software itself it’s quite limited in what you

(1h 19m 34s)

can do with different things um and like it doesn’t have any as far as I can see

(1h 19m 40s)

by default it doesn’t have any of like the the non-gaming stuff like you can go into desktop

(1h 19m 46s)

mode and do stuff there but like the sort of stuff is like oh let’s just open up netflix on the side

(1h 19m 54s)

or something like that you can’t really do that just now and I wonder if they’re going to lean into

(1h 19m 58s)

that because I think they might want to do that to expand the scope of who would want to buy one of

(1h 20m 8s)

these, kind of like your Apple Vision types

(1h 20m 10s)

stuff of mirroring

(1h 20m 12s)

your computer and or, you know, putting

(1h 20m 14s)

a video on the side or

(1h 20m 16s)

browsing photos, that sort of stuff

(1h 20m 18s)

and that sort of stuff they could do quite easily

(1h 20m 20s)

because

(1h 20m 21s)

it’s running on

(1h 20m 23s)

on SteamOS

(1h 20m 26s)

there’s a lot of, they’ve done the hard

(1h 20m 28s)

work of the virtual reality

(1h 20m 30s)

experience that runs Windows

(1h 20m 32s)

of applications

(1h 20m 33s)

they can then expand that a bit more

(1h 20m 36s)

quite easily with a lot of apps that will

(1h 20m 38s)

already exist on Linux

(1h 20m 40s)

yeah

(1h 20m 40s) Vincent:

Yes, and they have the translation layer, too, for, you know, the running Android apps on Linux.

(1h 20m 46s)

So, yeah, I’m hoping I haven’t dabbled too much into that yet.

(1h 20m 50s)

I went into desktop mode.

(1h 20m 53s)

I played around with it, but, you know, just because not having a keyboard makes things kind of difficult.

(1h 20m 59s) Al:

Although that’s changed now that you know you can SSH into it.

(1h 21m 2s) Vincent:

Yes, yes, definitely.

(1h 21m 3s) Al:

I also suspect you can probably connect a keyboard via Bluetooth.

(1h 21m 7s) Vincent:

Oh, you definitely can, but it’s more, you know…

(1h 21m 10s)

I mean, I can touch type, but it’s just like you’re going to have your hands on the controllers and hands on the keyboard makes it.

(1h 21m 14s) Al:

that’s true that’s true yeah yeah it’s all things like that that they don’t support that like things

(1h 21m 19s)

I mean the quest doesn’t either right the quest does some of those things like it supports

(1h 21m 23s)

browser web browser and it supports a few kind of like youtube and stuff like that

(1h 21m 28s)

um but it doesn’t do the things that say the apple vision plus does where you’ve got

(1h 21m 32s)

like it the apple vision plus is quite good in that it will can it can tell where your keyboard

(1h 21m 38s)

is and it will like show that even when you’re in vr and

(1h 21m 44s)

and stuff like that and obviously it’s designed around productivity so there’s a lot more features

(1h 21m 48s)

around the multi-window stuff and apps and stuff like that but I i just it’ll be interesting to see

(1h 21m 53s)

because when the steam deck came out it was very limited and there was a bunch of stuff that was

(1h 21m 57s)

missing but it has steadily improved and it improved very quickly to start with and then it slowed down

(1h 22m 5s)

a bit but that’s because like people kind of stopped needing new things or wanting new things

(1h 22m 10s)

And so it kind of just trundled along.

(1h 22m 12s)

And I wonder if this will do the same thing.

(1h 22m 14s)

Obviously, this is not their first VR headset.

(1h 22m 16s)

But because it’s the first standalone one, I think a lot of this stuff is new.

(1h 22m 21s)

Because previously, it was like you connected to your computer for the game.

(1h 22m 25s)

Like you weren’t sitting in your, I can’t remember what they were called.

(1h 22m 32s) Vincent:

Oh, was it the index?

(1h 22m 34s) Al:

Yeah, that’s right. The Valve Index. You weren’t popping on your index to, you know, play a game on a big screen.

(1h 22m 42s)

You were popping on to play the VR games and that was it.

(1h 22m 47s)

So I think all of this kind of SteamOS VR, I think, is all new to this headset.

(1h 22m 52s)

So there’s a lot of room for improvement and hopefully they will move quickly with that, as we have seen them do multiple times.

(1h 23m) Vincent:

Yes. And if not, I think the community is probably, since at the end of the day, it is just a computer in the form factor of a VR headset, I think the community could pick up a lot of slack as well, if not.

(1h 23m 11s) Al:

yeah yeah I hope so and things it feels like it’s a lot easier to kind of do custom things than the

(1h 23m 19s)

meta quest was because the meta quest was very much locked down it was like your traditional

(1h 23m 23s)

console whereas this is very much like the steam deck but on your face right which as we’ve discussed

(1h 23m 30s)

before I personally think there’s okay let me go back a bit there’s a big problem in consoles versus

(1h 23m 39s)

PC, where console

(1h 23m 41s)

are generally good

(1h 23m 43s)

because they’re locked down

(1h 23m 45s)

and I know that sounds silly but

(1h 23m 47s)

the reason why I think that

(1h 23m 49s)

generally makes consoles good is because they have

(1h 23m 51s)

very limited experiences which

(1h 23m 53s)

means that they put all the focus on how

(1h 23m 55s)

those experiences feel and everything

(1h 23m 57s)

you do on it then is quite good

(1h 23m 59s)

on PC because

(1h 24m 1s)

you have everything that’s possible,

(1h 24m 3s)

everything is more difficult

(1h 24m 4s)

but what I’ve found is that

(1h 24m 7s)

SteamOS has done a really

(1h 24m 9s)

good job of managing

(1h 24m 11s)

to do both where

(1h 24m 13s)

if you don’t want to do complex

(1h 24m 15s)

things you don’t have to and almost everything

(1h 24m 17s)

that you need to do on it is

(1h 24m 19s)

a really nice experience

(1h 24m 20s)

but you can also then go

(1h 24m 23s)

into I want to do

(1h 24m 25s)

crazy stuff mode and

(1h 24m 27s)

then you can do whatever you want and it’s

(1h 24m 29s)

more awkward and more complicated but

(1h 24m 31s)

you can do it and it doesn’t make the simple stuff

(1h 24m 33s)

more difficult

(1h 24m 35s) Vincent:

Yes, I agree.

(1h 24m 35s) Al:

whereas when

(1h 24m 37s)

I forget what is your

(1h 24m 39s)

handheld situations

(1h 24m 41s) Vincent:

Well, right now it’s mainly just I have a Steam Deck and then I have a few other, you know, emulation devices that I don’t use as much, but no, no, no, it’s just a Steam Deck.

(1h 24m 48s) Al:

right okay you don’t have a windows handheld then because I i have the the ally the ROG Ally X

(1h 24m 57s)

specifically um which is the one with windows on it although I dual boot it with steam os and

(1h 25m 1s)

steam os is what I play most of the time and and and windows whatever this version of windows is i

(1h 25m 8s)

can’t remember what they call it it is it’s it’s really bad right because it’s still windows and

(1h 25m 14s)

they haven’t created

(1h 25m 16s)

like they’ve created this

(1h 25m 18s)

visual experience over the top of windows whereas steam os is like yes it’s a visual experience over

(1h 25m 25s)

linux but it’s not it’s it’s an entire it’s the entire thing you have to like switch into desktop

(1h 25m 33s)

mode which is your traditional linux desktop whereas windows is like windows is running

(1h 25m 41s)

including the entire ui in the background and then it has this ui on top of it

(1h 25m 47s)

and that means

(1h 25m 48s)

that because they’re relying

(1h 25m 50s)

on that there’s a lot of stuff

(1h 25m 52s)

that ends up being it just

(1h 25m 54s)

pops up a Windows window

(1h 25m 55s)

and you’re like I’m not on a

(1h 25m 58s)

computer why are you showing me a window

(1h 26m)

with like

(1h 26m 1s)

minimize maximize close

(1h 26m 4s)

controls this is not what I should be seeing

(1h 26m 6s)

on a handheld gaming console

(1h 26m 8s)

whereas SteamOS doesn’t

(1h 26m 10s)

do that sort of stuff it is

(1h 26m 12s)

very rare unless you’re

(1h 26m 14s)

specifically trying to do complicated stuff

(1h 26m 16s)

in desktop mode

(1h 26m 17s)

it is very rare

(1h 26m 18s)

that you would see anything

(1h 26m 19s)

like some games

(1h 26m 20s)

will load up

(1h 26m 21s)

in a windowed mode

(1h 26m 22s)

but there’s very few

(1h 26m 25s)

of them I’ve found like that

(1h 26m 26s)

and I think this is

(1h 26m 28s)

the same sort of thing

(1h 26m 29s)

with SteamOS VR

(1h 26m 30s)

where it feels like

(1h 26m 32s)

they’ve put the same

(1h 26m 34s)

amount of thought

(1h 26m 35s)

into how the experience works

(1h 26m 37s)

I haven’t encountered

(1h 26m 38s)

a oh that’s a weird

(1h 26m 39s)

looking window

(1h 26m 41s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah. Yeah, it is very shocking that, yeah, definitely, Valve has locked in that UX, UI, like separation of, you know, okay, if you really want to just game, you don’t want to worry about any of the Linux stuff and whatnot, you can go an entire, you can use a Steam Deck or a Steam Frame or SteamOS in general without even realizing that there’s a whole, you know, Linux operating system behind it.

(1h 27m 7s)

You can just install the games and that’s it, which…

(1h 27m 10s) Al:

And the key point and the key point is that’s the default that should be the default it has to be the default if you want it to be good, whereas Windows doesn’t have that.

(1h 27m 18s) Vincent:

Yes, yeah, it is shocking how Microsoft hasn’t locked that down yet.

(1h 27m 25s) Al:

I think it’s because there’s they don’t want to the way that valve did it was there are just some

(1h 27m 31s)

features you’re just not going to have in that experience until we get them implemented whereas

(1h 27m 37s)

what microsoft have clearly done is if we don’t specifically make it a feature it’s going to be a

(1h 27m 42s)

windows feature and it’s just going to show you the windows thing and maybe we’ll replace it at

(1h 27m 47s)

some point they did the same thing with when they switched from um xp to vista when they started chain

(1h 27m 55s)

how the ui looked you would sometimes have like control panel would just look like it was windows

(1h 28m)

xp and it would look completely out of place and obviously when they’re doing that you can’t just go

(1h 28m 7s)

oh you’re not going to have that feature and they didn’t want to rewrite everything before they

(1h 28m 13s)

released the version and that was the decision they made but it meant it felt not good whereas because

(1h 28m 18s)

handheld gaming consoles are a relatively new thing you don’t have to have all those features

(1h 28m 25s)

to start with you can implement them as you go and especially because you have desktop mode

(1h 28m 29s)

if there’s something that isn’t in there you can just go into desktop mode and do it if you really

(1h 28m 34s)

care about it but the key things are there the features are there when you need them and I think

(1h 28m 39s)

the problem is that microsoft just aren’t willing to do that they aren’t willing to go this feature

(1h 28m 43s)

doesn’t exist unless you know where to get it and so that’s why they have that so many situations

(1h 28m 49s)

where it’s like we’ve not created this version in this ui therefore you just get the windows ui

(1h 28m 55s)

but it just feels bad

(1h 28m 56s) Vincent:

Yeah, I’ve never, I haven’t had the opportunity to use a Windows handheld yet. But yeah, just from what I’ve seen online, it’s like where like a random pop up will just come on and or you have to go into Windows to do some certain settings and whatnot. It just does not sound like a good experience.

(1h 29m 11s) Al:

it would just open up control panel again.

(1h 29m 14s)

And you’re like, why am I?

(1h 29m 15s)

Like, the worst thing about the Windows handheld experience

(1h 29m 18s)

is settings, trying to figure out where settings are

(1h 29m 20s)

because there’s like five different places

(1h 29m 22s)

where you can get settings.

(1h 29m 23s)

And one of them is just Windows control panel.

(1h 29m 23s) Vincent:

Oh, my God.

(1h 29m 27s)

Yeah, I think that’s just the Windows experience in general.

(1h 29m 30s) Al:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(1h 29m 30s) Vincent:

We’re like, okay, so in settings, it’s in control panel, where is it?

(1h 29m 34s) Al:

Whereas if you want the settings on SteamOS,

(1h 29m 38s)

you go to the settings and they’re all there.

(1h 29m 41s)

You have to figure out where the settings are

(1h 29m 43s)

unless you’re running like Bazzite or something,

(1h 29m 45s)

but that’s your own problem.

(1h 29m 46s)

If you’re being complicated like that,

(1h 29m 48s)

then you’re asking for trouble.

(1h 29m 49s) Vincent:

Well, at that point, if you’re running on an operating system

(1h 29m 54s)

that you installed yourself, you probably

(1h 29m 55s)

know what you’re doing already, so yeah.

(1h 29m 56s) Al:

exactly exactly exactly but I do think they should do that better

(1h 29m 59s)

and they had Bazzite changed from I can’t even remember what they have like an underlying

(1h 30m 7s)

controller mapping layer and they changed which one they were using and it broke how my controllers

(1h 30m 17s)

worked on my on my ally because I was using bazite because obviously it’s it came with windows so i

(1h 30m 24s)

I had to install SteamOS in the easiest

(1h 30m 26s)

way was just installing Bazzite

(1h 30m 27s)

because SteamOS isn’t officially supported

(1h 30m 30s)

on my controller, on my

(1h 30m 31s)

console yet

(1h 30m 32s)

but yeah, they just decided to change how it

(1h 30m 35s)

worked and it broke my controller mapping

(1h 30m 37s)

so I had to fix that and that is

(1h 30m 38s) Vincent:

Oh no!

(1h 30m 39s) Al:

the worst thing and it’s like no

(1h 30m 41s)

this is like being back on running

(1h 30m 43s)

Arch on my computer when you just

(1h 30m 45s)

things just break underneath you and this

(1h 30m 47s)

is why SteamOS is just so good

(1h 30m 49s)

because they only do things when it’s

(1h 30m 51s)

actually working, they don’t just like randomly

(1h 30m 54s)

change these things from underneath you

(1h 30m 56s)

yeah

(1h 30m 56s) Vincent:

Yeah, and they take their time with us, especially with a stable branch where they don’t push out updates.

(1h 31m) Al:

oh yeah, almost

(1h 31m 2s)

almost too slow

(1h 31m 3s)

but no, no, no, definitely

(1h 31m 4s) Vincent:

Yeah, oh yeah.

(1h 31m 6s) Al:

definitely, I think they’re doing things

(1h 31m 8s)

very well, so my point

(1h 31m 10s)

is I hope that they do that

(1h 31m 12s)

for the frame as well

(1h 31m 14s)

and that we see a good amount of

(1h 31m 16s)

feature updates over the next

(1h 31m 18s)

you know, six months to a year

(1h 31m 20s)

and I hope that they focus on

(1h 31m 22s)

some of these more

(1h 31m 23s)

kind of productivity-based

(1h 31m 26s)

things because I would really love to be able to like stick on the headset and have my game

(1h 31m 29s)

and also be what like have some youtube videos on the side or something or like you know what i

(1h 31m 36s)

really one thing that I love for these headsets is being able to watch videos in like imax mode

(1h 31m 44s)

um because that’s not something you can do normally and just being able to have this

(1h 31m 45s) Vincent:

Oh, yes.

(1h 31m 47s) Al:

massive screen watch a film that you weren’t able to watch at the cinema or whatever so I really hope

(1h 31m 53s)

do that sort of thing.

(1h 31m 57s) Vincent:

I do think they will try to do that, and the reason why I say that is because the main difference I’ve noticed between this and, you know, SteamOS on, like, if you install it on a PC or on a Steam Deck is that they made it much easier to switch to the desktop mode, or to the desktop, where it’s just a shortcut.

(1h 32m 15s)

You don’t have to, you know, power off and do, like, kind of like a semi-reboot. It is just there. So that makes me think that they could potentially lean into more, you know, non-gaming side of things.

(1h 32m 28s) Al:

yeah yeah we’ll just have to see um I think most people probably shouldn’t buy this yet

(1h 32m 33s)

not just because it’s a thousand quid but because there’s a lot they’ve they’ve they’ve not proven

(1h 32m 34s) Vincent:

Oh, definitely not. It’s…

(1h 32m 38s) Al:

themselves yet um I think they have proven themselves with the steam deck um but I don’t

(1h 32m 43s)

think they’ve proven themselves with with with vr with uh steam os vr yet but hopefully they will

(1h 32m 49s)

and uh I am willing to be that game changer

(1h 32m 52s) Vincent:

Yeah, overall, I would say the experience has been great, you know, especially just running games right on the, or directly on the frame.

(1h 33m 1s)

You know, I’ve, aside from Beat Saber, I’ve ran the gamut of, you know, your quote-unquote popular, easy-to-run indie games, like your Hades, Dave the Diver, Stardew Valley, those all seem to work great.

(1h 33m 13s) Al:

I have not and I i don’t know how well i’ll be able to do that because I don’t have a decent

(1h 33m 14s) Vincent:

But have you tried streaming from a PC yet?

(1h 33m 23s) Al:

windows pc um I just have my mac which as far as i’m aware it doesn’t support yet I haven’t tried

(1h 33m 30s)

yet but the internet says it doesn’t support it as of yet um but I don’t know whether that’s

(1h 33m 35s)

because the games just aren’t supported on mac or whether it’s because the dongle itself doesn’t

(1h 33m 40s)

work, but I haven’t tried that yet.

(1h 33m 43s)

I literally got this arrived four days ago.

(1h 33m 43s) Vincent:

I have tried streaming from a PC and I will say, from what I’ve seen, generally people

(1h 33m 58s)

have had success streaming from the PC, but I’ve ran into some issues. I think it’s

(1h 34m 4s) Al:

so from what from what I can see if you don’t use a usb 3.2 port that’s when people seem to have

(1h 34m 11s)

issues so anything 3.1 3.0 that’s where people are having issues but if you have 3.2

(1h 34m 19s) Vincent:

Yes, I think that’s where I’ve run into the issue as well.

(1h 34m 22s)

I don’t know if it’s like, you know, I think it is the USB issue because whenever I plug

(1h 34m 29s)

it in, if I don’t have it connected to the device, it just keeps, I keep getting a pop-up

(1h 34m 36s)

that like it’s, you know, restarting itself, which I think is like a firmware issue.

(1h 34m 41s)

But also I’m not, I don’t know if this is the thing, but I’m also, I’m not using a Windows

(1h 34m 46s)

machine and that may be it as well.

(1h 34m 49s)

Because I do know that they did say that, you know, it does not officially support or

(1h 34m 53s)

the Steam machine is not officially supported yet.

(1h 34m 56s) Al:

yeah I think yeah yeah but I think they’ll they’ll definitely get there with that whether

(1h 34m 57s) Vincent:

And I think it may be like a, you know, Linux firmware issue.

(1h 35m 3s) Al:

they get there with mac or not I don’t know they’ll definitely get there with with uh with

(1h 35m 7s)

linux even if it even if you have to it has to be steam os though there’s no way they won’t get to

(1h 35m 12s)

with that like it’s it’s a bit silly that it’s released without steam machine support but

(1h 35m 18s)

I don’t think it’s a big issue but it is of it is a bit silly that that’s ended up how it is

(1h 35m 25s) Vincent:

Yeah, I found some workarounds online, but the list of instructions is a little bit too big. I’m just going to wait for them to update.

(1h 35m 26s) Al:

even if there are legitimate reasons but

(1h 35m 36s)

yeah yeah fair enough um all right uh I had beat saber on our list but we kind of talked about that

(1h 35m 41s)

I don’t know if there’s anything else you want to talk about

(1h 35m 44s) Vincent:

No, I think we went through all this.

(1h 35m 45s)

I just want to say I’ve been skeptical of Beat Saber before, but now I’m a certified Beat Saber fan.

(1h 35m 53s) Al:

good good I feel like beat saber has uh single-handedly pushed people’s perception of

(1h 35m 59s)

vr forward um because it just the number of people are like oh I don’t get vr and then they

(1h 36m 5s)

see beat saber and like I get vr you know um it’s it is the reason I actually I know I remembered

(1h 36m 12s)

you you already know this vincent i’ve already said this to you but I remembered this week that

(1h 36m 17s)

this is actually the third time i’ve bought beat saber because I originally bought

(1h 36m 23s)

it for psvr on the ps4 uh I got a psvr headset and I bought beat saber for it didn’t buy any packs

(1h 36m 33s)

but I bought it and I i loved it but I hated the cables I just like it was just not fun having to

(1h 36m 40s)

be in like a specific orientation in a specific place I did not enjoy that and so I bought a quest

(1h 36m 47s)

two and bought it for that and then obviously bought the quest three and continued using it and now i

(1h 36m 53s)

as well so I have bought beat saber three times not not many games

(1h 36m 56s) Vincent:

I will say they did a good, I would say they did a good job of, I don’t know, I’m sure they timed this perfectly, but they did do the, you know, they reduced the price, the base price, like, a few months before the Steam frame came out, and then they ran a discount, like, right when the Steam frame came out, because they probably knew people are going to buy this.

(1h 37m 18s) Al:

yep and they’ve there’s no it’s not a coincidence that they’ve just announced their uh their update

(1h 37m 24s)

coming next year as well yeah I don’t know if it’s that or not because I feel like it’s a long

(1h 37m 26s) Vincent:

They’ve been sitting on that probably, like, all right, I’m going to wait for a new VR headset to come out.

(1h 37m 35s) Al:

time in the future because it’s spring next year so it’s quite you know we’re talking six months

(1h 37m 39s)

until the game until the update comes out so I feel like it’s almost like they announced it

(1h 37m 44s)

earlier than they would have otherwise because of the steam frame coming out now but

(1h 37m 48s)

i’m excited for the update the the new mode the hand tracking mode um oh that’s the other thing

(1h 37m 54s)

i’ve not figured out hand tracking on the the steam frame I believe it does have hand tracking

(1h 37m 59s)

but I can’t figure out how to do it I haven’t spent a huge amount of time trying but on the quest

(1h 38m 4s)

it just has hand tracking if you don’t if you don’t turn on the controllers it defaults to hand

(1h 38m 9s)

tracking and I can’t figure out it doesn’t seem to do that on the steam frame so I don’t know

(1h 38m 15s) Vincent:

Oh, I haven’t done either, but in the, you know, like I said, I’ve been having some issues

(1h 38m 22s)

with the streaming, but just because the USB dongle keeps resetting itself, so, you know,

(1h 38m 27s)

the stream is a little finicky, but in the other game, in some of the games that I’ve

(1h 38m 31s)

tried, there is some, it doesn’t track your hand, but it does track your hand based off

(1h 38m 38s)

which buttons you’re pressing or which you’re on the controller, but not, yeah, not full

(1h 38m 39s) Al:

yeah yeah yeah yeah that’s oh it looks like it just doesn’t have hand tracking at all

(1h 38m 42s) Vincent:

hand tracking.

(1h 38m 45s)

Oh.

(1h 38m 45s) Al:

just now so um I i can’t see them not adding it at some point because I think it’s it’s really

(1h 38m 52s)

handy especially for when you have like a keyboard up and on the quest i’ve quite often had the

(1h 38m 59s)

keyboard up and i’ve just i’m just tapping away with my fingers on it it’s not amazing it’s still

(1h 39m 3s)

a bit fussy but it’s easier than using the controllers to like you know your laser mouse

(1h 39m 9s)

it’s much easier to be like just tapping on it in the air so I i feel like yeah

(1h 39m 11s) Vincent:

Oh yeah, typing in my Wi-Fi password with that laser mouse was very painful.

(1h 39m 15s) Al:

yeah so I i feel like it i’d be surprised if they weren’t working on hand tracking it’s a

(1h 39m 23s)

great feature um okay two more questions about the headset before we talk about a couple of games

(1h 39m 28s)

but we’re probably not going to talk a lot about them because yeah well i’ll explain in a minute

(1h 39m 32s)

um are you have you bought lenses yet because you wear glasses don’t know

(1h 39m 37s) Vincent:

I have not.

(1h 39m 39s)

So this is another thing I’ve discovered with the Steam frame.

(1h 39m 45s)

I don’t know, this is maybe just with my eyes.

(1h 39m 47s)

But when I first put it on, I was like, oh, everything’s blurry.

(1h 39m 50s)

And OK, that makes sense, because I wear glasses.

(1h 39m 52s)

But I did find out that just through adjusting it,

(1h 39m 56s)

once I got the ergonomic frame or ergonomic add-on,

(1h 39m 58s) Al:

Yep.

(1h 40m) Vincent:

is that at a certain angle, it actually–

(1h 40m 4s)

everything becomes crystal clear without glasses.

(1h 40m 6s) Al:

Have you made sure that you’ve changed where the lenses are as well?

(1h 40m 7s) Vincent:

Yes, I’ve tried those as well.

(1h 40m 13s)

So there’s a certain angle for the headset that works for me

(1h 40m 18s)

that I can see clearly.

(1h 40m 19s)

The problem is that angle means that my nose

(1h 40m 25s)

isn’t touching the nose guard thing.

(1h 40m 27s) Al:

Yeah.

(1h 40m 29s) Vincent:

So it’s not bad, but there is some light that bleeds through.

(1h 40m 33s)

So I will still look into getting those…

(1h 40m 37s)

The prescription lens says.

(1h 40m 39s) Al:

I, I have ordered some lenses. I did that yesterday because the, the site I was looking,

(1h 40m 42s) Vincent:

Oh, okay.

(1h 40m 44s) Al:

what the site that, um, ships to the UK just put them up, um, yesterday. So it says it will be

(1h 40m 51s)

three to four weeks. So, but, uh, yeah, it will be, uh, I’m looking forward to, I never got it

(1h 40m 58s)

for my quest because I just dealt with it. Um, but I I’m like, if I’m, if I’m spending a grand

(1h 41m 5s)

on this new one

(1h 41m 6s)

I feel like the other advantages

(1h 41m 9s)

of having the prescription lenses

(1h 41m 11s)

is because they go over the lenses

(1h 41m 13s)

in the headset

(1h 41m 13s)

you’re giving it a bit more protection as well

(1h 41m 16s)

so that if anything gets broken

(1h 41m 17s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s– oh, that’s true.

(1h 41m 18s) Al:

it’s the replaceable lenses

(1h 41m 19s)

rather than the non-replaceable lenses

(1h 41m 24s) Vincent:

OK, I need to– once again, I need

(1h 41m 26s)

to hear about how easy it is to take it on and off

(1h 41m 30s)

so in case if I want to share this with other people.

(1h 41m 32s) Al:

Yeah, I believe they’re just magnetic, and they just pop on, pop off. But I will confirm to you when I get them. Yeah, for the faceplate and stuff like that, yeah, it’s really nicely designed, the magnets. Did you put the spacer on?

(1h 41m 34s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s another thing I love about this.

(1h 41m 37s)

It’s all magnets.

(1h 41m 45s)

Yes, yeah, I put the spacer on, and then, because you have to, well, there is a bit of disassembly you need to do to put on the ergonomic head strap, but other than that, yeah, everything’s just magnets.

(1h 41m 53s) Al:

right yeah yeah it’s really nice all right a few games to talk about first up isle of food

(1h 41m 59s)

this was the game that I i got a code for a couple weeks ago for my quest headset

(1h 42m 4s)

and I have tried it and it makes me incredibly motion sick this game um and I i think it might

(1h 42m 12s)

be because it’s so because it’s a vr game where you’re not walking around specifically yourself

(1h 42m 21s)

you are using the controller to move it

(1h 42m 23s)

but also

(1h 42m 24s)

the movement

(1h 42m 27s)

is fine, it’s just normal movement

(1h 42m 29s)

with the left analogue stick

(1h 42m 31s)

but to move the camera

(1h 42m 33s)

around with the right analogue

(1h 42m 35s)

stick, it moves in like

(1h 42m 37s)

20 to 30 degree

(1h 42m 39s)

slots, it’s not smooth

(1h 42m 41s)

movement, so you’re like

(1h 42m 43s)

jumping around when you

(1h 42m 45s)

want to look to the right

(1h 42m 47s)

you have to like tap, tap

(1h 42m 49s)

and then you’re like boop, boop

(1h 42m 51s)

And it’s utterly horrendous.

(1h 42m 53s)

Terrific. I can’t, like, it’s the point where I can’t really talk about this game much, because I put it on for five minutes, and I was like, no, I can’t, I can’t do that. It was just, because it was not smooth, my brain was fighting me, fighting for its life, any time I turned again.

(1h 43m 10s) Vincent:

So I had a similar experience.

(1h 43m 12s)

I did try No Man’s Sky VR.

(1h 43m 16s)

It’s the exact same thing where like,

(1h 43m 18s)

as soon as I, you know, everything was great.

(1h 43m 21s)

Sure, you know, access in the menus and whatnot

(1h 43m 24s)

is a little complicated

(1h 43m 24s)

because you have to point to your hand

(1h 43m 25s)

and press buttons.

(1h 43m 27s)

That’s fine.

(1h 43m 28s)

But as soon as I started, you know,

(1h 43m 30s)

needing to turn left and right,

(1h 43m 32s)

I was like, oh my God, this is…

(1h 43m 34s) Al:

and I think that the moving if if yeah I think the thing is that I could probably get used to

(1h 43m 34s) Vincent:

I mean, you can turn your head to look,

(1h 43m 36s)

but you want to look…

(1h 43m 41s) Al:

the movement without actually physically moving but it was those jumps in the camera and that’s

(1h 43m 47s)

not that’s not oh it just wasn’t processing quick that’s how the feature works it’s deliberately not

(1h 43m 53s)

smooth and I don’t know why they made that maybe it’s because they couldn’t make it work well

(1h 43m 59s)

with the resource resource intensive and smooth I don’t know it just it’s

(1h 44m 5s) Vincent:

Oh, I will once, I’m hoping once the either they update the dongle or I just, you know, bite the bullet and do the manual fixing myself, I’ll report back once I try because I do have other VR games in my library, you know, like Half-Life Alyx and whatnot that I want to try to see how they, is it, are all VR games like that? Or is it just these specific games?

(1h 44m 29s) Al:

yeah i’ll be interesting to see how that goes um the other one to talk about is your wonderful life

(1h 44m 36s)

so this is the new story of seasons ar game um and I think this is going to be interesting

(1h 44m 42s)

now generally social media says this looks terrible but also I think that’s just because

(1h 44m 48s)

like people aren’t looking for like most people aren’t looking for vr stuff or ar stuff right

(1h 44m 53s)

like most people don’t care about these things and so people are looking at going this isn’t for me

(1h 44m 58s)

therefore nobody wants

(1h 44m 59s)

this

(1h 44m 59s)

but what I find interesting

(1h 45m 1s)

about this is

(1h 45m 2s)

so it’s kind of like

(1h 45m 3s)

Living Room

(1h 45m 3s)

which is the game

(1h 45m 4s)

that I talked about

(1h 45m 5s)

on the podcast before

(1h 45m 6s)

where it’s

(1h 45m 7s)

you’re in your

(1h 45m 8s)

world

(1h 45m 9s)

your normal reality

(1h 45m 11s)

and you have this game

(1h 45m 13s)

island

(1h 45m 14s)

sitting in front of you

(1h 45m 15s)

and you’re doing stuff

(1h 45m 17s)

there

(1h 45m 17s)

on it

(1h 45m 18s)

and

(1h 45m 20s)

kind of

(1h 45m 21s)

almost like a kind of

(1h 45m 22s)

god-like figure

(1h 45m 23s)

kind of like

(1h 45m 24s)

SimCity type thing

(1h 45m 25s)

but it’s like

(1h 45m 26s)

physically

(1h 45m 27s)

feels like

(1h 45m 28s)

out in front of you

(1h 45m 29s)

shopping things

(1h 45m 29s)

and picking things up

(1h 45m 30s)

and stuff like that

(1h 45m 32s) Vincent:

Oh, interesting. This is the one, I don’t know, do we confirm it? This is meta only for now, right? Are this what’s announced?

(1h 45m 39s) Al:

yeah, that’s all they’ve

(1h 45m 41s)

announced is for meta, yeah

(1h 45m 43s)

they haven’t announced anything about whether it

(1h 45m 49s) Vincent:

Hmm.

(1h 45m 51s) Al:

another reason why i’m keeping my headset just in case it doesn’t come out on steam and I have

(1h 45m 56s)

because i’m i’m gonna have to cover this for the podcast obviously right like

(1h 46m)

um so yeah it just it’s interesting uh I i like I mean I loved living room living room was great i

(1h 46m 9s)

had I had a lot of fun playing that and being like oh i’m just gonna do my little farming

(1h 46m 14s)

on my headset and like got this little world what I find interesting is there do seem to be bits on

(1h 46m 19s)

this game where you’re almost

(1h 46m 21s)

you’re zooming into first person

(1h 46m 23s)

so like most of the game seems to be like

(1h 46m 25s)

this SimCity view

(1h 46m 27s)

and then you also seem to

(1h 46m 29s)

zoom in and do some like

(1h 46m 31s)

fishing and stuff like that

(1h 46m 33s)

and also maybe raise a family

(1h 46m 35s)

and I’m intrigued to see

(1h 46m 37s) Vincent:

yeah it does I do like that it’s it’s not the you know I guess a traditional like oh everything’s in

(1h 46m 37s) Al:

which parts are which kind

(1h 46m 39s)

of interface

(1h 46m 49s) Vincent:

in first person uh point of view right where like that because that seems to be where most

(1h 46m 56s)

vr games is I like I like this um the aspect of like okay you’re like a omnipotent being

(1h 47m 1s)

point of view and you’re managing your town that way uh which I do hope that

(1h 47m 7s)

comes to more or more when farming games come to vr I do hope they some of them go that aspect

(1h 47m 13s)

instead of like the first person point of view because you know yeah moving in moving in a first

(1h 47m 19s)

person point of view I feel like that’s just kind of you know even if you’re used to it

(1h 47m 22s)

a lot of people aren’t that just kind of limits the the reach

(1h 47m 30s) Al:

So I need to look at this update for Living Room and maybe try it out because, yeah, it seems to be very sheep focused.

(1h 47m 36s)

They have the sheep there and there seem to be aliens that abduct your sheep, maybe.

(1h 47m 42s)

And some alien animals.

(1h 47m 43s)

I’m very intrigued by this update.

(1h 47m 47s)

Maybe it’s time to play this game again.

(1h 47m 49s)

Again, this one is only meta.

(1h 47m 51s)

There’s nothing on Steam yet, but I think this is going to there’s going to be like a time period where people aren’t making their games for the Steam frame.

(1h 48m)

You know, they’ve been developing it with the quest in mind.

(1h 48m 4s)

And so that’s what they’re making it for.

(1h 48m 7s)

And hopefully in a year or two, we’ll be getting them on both or maybe just the Steam.

(1h 48m 14s)

I just, you know, it’s like when the Steam deck first came out.

(1h 48m 18s)

There were a lot people didn’t develop for it.

(1h 48m 22s)

And so it took a couple of years before every game worked on it.

(1h 48m 25s)

and even now we’re still at this

(1h 48m 27s)

position where sometimes games

(1h 48m 30s)

release without controller support and therefore you can’t use

(1h 48m 32s)

it but most games

(1h 48m 33s)

come with it now like it’s just

(1h 48m 35s)

it’s one of these things where it’s like it’s just changed

(1h 48m 39s) Vincent:

Oh, yeah. I think it’s created like a new, you know, before there was no like least common denominator for like PC. But now there’s like, okay, the Steam frame settings, at least for the most part, except like for, you know, your AAA games. But for the most part, there’s at least a nice baseline to shoot for in terms of performance as well.

(1h 49m) Al:

yeah yeah for sure um and the other farming vr game that I haven’t tried is garden of the sea

(1h 49m 7s)

um which is obviously a fishing focused game um but yeah I haven’t tried that one it looks much

(1h 49m 16s)

more first persony moving around so I maybe it’ll have the same issues as isle of food i’m not sure

(1h 49m 23s)

but um it is on steam

(1h 49m 24s) Vincent:

Yeah, oh, it looks like it’s a separate entry for the VR game, but there’s a bundle where if you get both for the price of one.

(1h 49m 31s) Al:

Yes. Yes, I believe so.

(1h 49m 36s)

Oh, yeah.

(1h 49m 38s)

Oh, that’s fun.

(1h 49m 39s)

In fact, it’s 1p cheaper to buy the bundle

(1h 49m 41s)

than it is to buy the game on its own on my screen.

(1h 49m 43s)

It’s £5.95 for the game or £5.94 for the two games.

(1h 49m 44s) Vincent:

Oh, that’s– oh, yeah, oh, yeah, same here.

(1h 49m 49s)

Oh, yeah, same here.

(1h 49m 50s)

Yeah, it’s $6.99 versus $6.98 for a remote.

(1h 49m 52s) Al:

And let’s see.

(1h 49m 54s)

It is not verified on Steam Frames.

(1h 50m 3s)

the promotion lasts until thursday

(1h 50m 6s)

all right I think that’s probably enough for now maybe we’ll do another episode when we’ve

(1h 50m 7s) Vincent:

Oh, I may try this out.

(1h 50m 15s) Al:

had more time on them and maybe played a few more games or or stuff but that’s probably enough for

(1h 50m 20s)

now two hours is long enough uh so thank you vincent for joining me um is there anything you

Outro

(1h 50m 29s) Al:

would like to share with the audience?

(1h 50m 30s) Vincent:

No, thank you for having me.

(1h 50m 34s)

Nothing really specific to share.

(1h 50m 35s)

I guess just if you want to get a Steam frame,

(1h 50m 40s)

I would say definitely.

(1h 50m 41s)

If you’re a tinkering type, then yes.

(1h 50m 44s)

If not, yeah, hold off on it a bit.

(1h 50m 47s) Al:

I think I would say just don’t get it.

(1h 50m 52s) Vincent:

Like I said, if you were the person

(1h 50m 54s)

who would want to get a Steam frame,

(1h 50m 56s)

you probably already know.

(1h 50m 57s)

You probably don’t need other people telling you

(1h 50m 58s) Al:

exactly exactly this is this is what I i it’s the same sort of thing when I talk about having kids i

(1h 51m 4s)

tell most people don’t have kids because the people who should have kids are the ones who say

(1h 51m 9s)

no I will have kids despite you telling me not to it’s the same thing I don’t think you should buy a

(1h 51m 10s) Vincent:

Okay.

(1h 51m 13s) Al:

steam frame and if you if you get offended by that and say no no I will buy one then that that’s fine

(1h 51m 19s)

you should all right uh well I don’t have my notes in front of me that was silly I closed the tab

(1h 51m 28s)

I did the outro and I forgot how much I need the notes for the outro you can find the podcast on

(1h 51m 36s)

tumblr and on blue sky at thspod you can send us feedback on our website harvestseason.club where

(1h 51m 43s)

you can also find links to everything to do with the podcast including a link to our patreon patreon.com

(1h 51m 47s)

slash thspod where you can support the podcast and in return get access to our slack vincent’s on the

(1h 51m 54s)

Slack. You can also get access to our

(1h 51m 58s)

bonus episodes of the podcast, which

(1h 52m)

has been slow just now, but we will get

(1h 52m 2s)

more out soon. I think that’s

(1h 52m 4s)

everything. Thank you, Vincent, again for

(1h 52m 6s)

joining me. Thank you, listeners, for

(1h 52m 6s) Vincent:

All right, thank you for having me.

(1h 52m 8s) Al:

listening, and until next time, have a

(1h 52m 10s) Vincent:

Have a good harvest.

(1h 52m 11s) Al:

good harvest.

(1h 52m 12s) Theme Tune:

the harvest season is created by al mckinley with support from our patrons including our

(1h 52m 21s)

pro farmers kevin stewart and elisa our art is done by micah the brave and our music is done by

(1h 52m 28s)

nick burgess feel free to visit our website harvestseason.club for show notes and links

(1h 52m 34s)

to things we discussed in this episode

(1h 52m 46s) Al:

Oh, my voice is dying by the end there.

(1h 52m 48s) Vincent:

[laughs]

(1h 52m 50s) Al:

That’s what happens when it’s late.

Made with Transcriptionist

The Harvest Season

Don’t Buy The Steam Frame

Timings

Links

Contact

Transcript

Theme Tune

Intro

What Have We Been Up To

Wolverine Spoilers

I Know What You Released Last Month

Game News

Pokopia

Hello Kitty Island Adventure

Keep Watering

Luma Island

Grave Seasons

Lightyear Frontier

Meadgard

Pathless Woods

Farm To Table

New Games

Aniimo

Nivalis Nights

Seikyu Let’s Go

AR/VR Discussion

Outro