GameSpot's The Lobby: Summer's hottest games

[MUSIC] We are here today because we are about half way through the summer would you say that? Say it aint so. Yeah July 26th Tuesday July 26th The day after the 25th continues going forward these days. Yeah July's a weird one where the days go in order. [LAUGH] So I don't know we're coming up on August there are a few big profile games I guess. In that month but we kind of wanted to talk about what to play the rest of the summer. There's always a lull, I think a couple weeks ago Danny talked about games that you missed this year that you should play that we're probably gonna be talking about for game of the year consideration. Like I had said XCOM 2, The Witness, play those if you haven't yet We want to talk about what's coming out the rest of the summer, there are a few, I want to go chronologically, but first I just want to get it out of the way because it's all anyone's talking about is No Man's Sky. Seems like if it works out, it's an ideal summer game, right, because you can kill time, you can just, theoretically you could just be exploring for weeks and weeks and weeks until September. When you're done exploring the real world in Pokemon Go, you go back into your living room, turn off the lights And just avoid the sunlight in No Man's Sky. Yeah, exactly, but like we talked enough about No Man's Sky on the lobby, we covered it, you know, it's gone gold, it's ready, we don't have code for the review yet, who knows when we'll get it So we'll just get that out of the way. Yeah, that's the big profile one. But I mean, there are a few more in August, and then going into September, which [INAUDIBLE]. September's pretty light before the Fall release schedule starts. October is just a utter **** show, in a good way. [LAUGH]. Remember-. October's not Summer No, I know I'm saying like before we get into the fall of schedule I don't know. So first, August 2nd, there's a couple of games, there's Abzu. Yeah. What are you guys think of that? Are you excited for that at all? I'm looking forward to it. Tell me- It's like major abs. [LAUGH] Yeah, Abzu. You don't Abzu. No, it's a- [LAUGH] Enclosure of Wild abs running around. God. But I played it recently at E3 and it's underwater, E3's an underwater, the underwater expedition. Ecological entomology exam, which if you passed you could be an entomologist. No I played it so it's very much like a, not a narrative navy but it's this very surrealistic underwater exploring for the sake of exploring. Sounds like Journey Mike. Man I think that's the thing they are going for flower.>> I think we designer or we the artist or something because people on that It's the kind of water color scheme I guess almost the scheme. They're trying to scheme. No, but last time I played it they kinda revealed this super natural stuff. You're going to the lake within a lake and air lake within the ocean underneath it. You know it's weird. Alternate dimension, I don't know, it controls pretty well like swimming is you know historically pretty bad in video games. Think they finally figured it out about five years ago, but up until 2011 man swimming was the worst. Up until Rayman Origins swimming was awful. Rayman Origins just nailed it you just tap a button. Remember another game that did that? Mario. I was gonna say. Yeah. [LAUGH] Nothing new, they figured it out day one, and then just continued to **** it up with Majora's Mask, which is one of my favorite games, but swimming is bad in that. Yeah, the water temple, ew. Yeah, anyway, August 2nd, that's Abzu. We're also gonna have Batman the Telltale Series Episode One, Realm of Shadows. I don't know. I'm not much of a TellTale Games fan. I recognize the pedigree that they have because they're really good narratives. I love Walking Dead season one. I started the Wolf Among Us. I'm interested to see what they're gonna To do with Batman, because there are a lot of interesting stories to tell. They just said yesterday they're going to have multiplayer for the first time. Yeah I'm not sure how that works exactly. I don't either. I didn't even click into it. Because I don't I don't believe this Yeah, I don't know. This isn't true. This is not true. Telltale's got good writers. They're stories are always- they are well written. I think the characters are well developed. So I'm interested to see their take on Bruce Wayne. I just get bored with those games. Yeah. I don't know, I can't, if I'm playing a game I'd rather watch a movie like with those, you know it's not a games can't tell a great story at all but like this kind of game, I just get bored at the mechanics and [CROSSTALK] Never hearing it. [LAUGH] Yeah, yeah. I'm not- But there's gonna be so many good [LAUGH]. That novel style of game, something like that Phoenix Wright game coming out, like I am still excited for that narrative experience. Because we don't really get that a lot, especially with western games, where you're basically just enjoying the story and it's not as much focused on the game play, it's just here's a cool story. Read it. Yeah, or kind of listen to it, I guess. And you know those choices, they say it's like, that gives you the illusion of choice, right? But then, there aren't that many, the ending's going to be the same in Tell Tale games, right? That's the thing with There are very few Branches out and then comes back. Yeah. There are very few endings, or maybe there's two endings. What do you think, you guys going take the time over the summer to play this? I've got too many games to play. I'm not a big Batman guy. I think that's my hangup here. The Batman [UNKNOWN] I'm excited about, I mean a lot of people and everybody, most people aside from like cynical Peter Brown like Batman nowadays. So you're a DVM [LAUGH] But you know, yeah, it's also- Most of us are Marvel. There's gonna be a Telltale Marvel game as well. I'm a little A little bit more excited for that. Yeah. Marvel. Yeah, see if they can capitalize on this [CROSSTALK]. Tell tale anime? Yeah just all anime. Of what properties, anything? All of them. Just make up your own. Yeah. Give me [UNKNOWN], give me [UNKNOWN], give me [UNKNOWN], give me one punch man. Is that the name of it, one punch man? That is the name of the anime. What's that about? It's about a guy, I haven't seen much of it. It's about a guy who's pretty expressionless who doesn't really care about much but he can defeat anyone with one punch. Nice. It sounds like Brad Pitt. I went to a entire podcast talking with you talking about anime. Man, maybe we should make one. That just sounds like Brad Pitt from ****. [LAUGH] I remember when candidates [INAUDIBLE] used the subtitles and do question marks at one point because you don't know what he said. This has become a movie podcast all of a sudden. Yeah, sorry anyway. So those are both August 2nd. Batman and [UNKNOWN]. [INAUDIBLE] August 9th, we already talked about that. We had talked about extensively. And then probably the other big one for the month is [INAUDIBLE] which I am personally excited for, curious about because I love human revolution. Mankind Divided looks like it's gonna be the same vein that, kinda like a System Shock. A Dishonored kinda vein of, you can play through areas. Like it's a shooter, but it can be a stealth game, it can be this narrative game where you're finding little tidbits in the environment to kinda flesh out the world. Scott Butterworth has been covering it. He seems pretty positive about it so far. That's later this month. They've taken a lot of criticisms as well, to hear, that it is not going to be locking you into, or it is, especially with the bosses was one of the big problems with- They punish you for going stealthily. Yeah. Yeah. If you wanted to do anything other than combat, it is not going to be that much fun when you get to a boss. And hopefully they do solve that this time. I wonder if Adam Jenson has the same voice actor? And tell me how you feel about that, Pete. I'm not a fan. You know? Of Adam Jensen? It's funny we transition from batman. I'm just a voice actor. It doesn't sound convincing. His intonation, everything, I can't...>>You could put like the cowl on him and you'd just think he's Bruce Wayne. Kind of, but like a poor man's Bruce Wayne. Just raspy, over the top, like, we've been drinking heroin or something. It would be a better Adam Jensen. I don't know, but they gameplay clips that I saw from Scott's preview of that thing. The NPCs had more convincing voices than the lead character, which just totally threw me off. I'm very curious about the game at large. I'll just have to turn down the voice over volume or something. Yeah. I just read it all in Keanu Reeves's His voice. Yeah. Awe perfect. That's a good impression. But like every video game that has subtitles in my head, I turn off the voices and I just Keanu Reves in my head. That's prefect because he is almost as monotone as, I don't know pretty monotone. Yeah. Take, take, take the red pill. [CROSSTALK] That's a good story. Let's keep going. Give the government back their. jobs [LAUGHS]. What movie that was. Yeah so that Deus Ex Mankind Divided, I'm excited for it, looks like yeah, if same thing with Dishonored two, if they can not punish you for going like the stealth route, which I like, which I love stealth games. I want to do that. I played through both these games like twice. Human Revolution and Dishonored one. I'm hoping they can kind of remedy those problems that I, as well as a lot of people, had Justin, you're kind of worried about this one on August 30th, World of Warcraft Legion. I'm worried, not because of the game. I'm worried because of what it will do to my productivity for the rest of my life. Every time a new expansion comes out, as much as I say I'm done with Warcraft, I don't need to play this anymore, but then the expansion comes, and you're like well, I could play for another 100 hours or so, just drop it in. Just Another hundred no big deal. They have closets the [UNKNOWN] 2.0 you can change your outfits on the fly and. Kind of like real life. Is that, so you're telling me closets is one of the main allures. It's an allure for me. Whats going on with Are we talking like a hinge? What kind of closets here? Closets that give you full access to your wardrobe. Even any quests that you've beat in the past you can suddenly go back, any of the choices that you've made for equipment in past, you get both choices. This is huge. [LAUGH] As someone with a passing interest in World of Warcraft and would never, never really addicted to it all, I've never sit down more than probably I don't know 30 hours on it. I know exactly-ish. Really? You played 30? Yeah. Wow. Was like 30- Stop there [CROSSTALK] O'Connor which I understand is kind of huge character. I know a hundred of ease to level up- And then it just- Don't just cough on me. [LAUGH] Depending on how long ago you did. If you spend 30 hours like You know, three or four years ago, you probably didn't get a very big experience. If you spent 30 hours in the last year, you probably level cap. Probably, yeah, just because Not really, that was a joke. I have no idea. I'm saying they've increased the leveling really basically. I'm trusting you with this because I'm just agreeing whole heartedly. Everything you say. This is how funny everything is in World of Warcraft. No it's not. It's not funny [UNKNOWN]. I can attest to that. But is there a story draw? I'm assuming there's always a lot of these side quests that [UNKNOWN]. There's another hero that you get to play as but the last hero we got was Death Knight and now you're gonna get to play as a demon hunter Which I'm interested in more. I haven't tried it on the public test realms, but it seems like an interesting new gimmick to throw in there, and of course, a little bit more story, increased level cap, all of that gives you more reason to grind away in the game But, yeah, it's something that always draws you in, and we've seen on subscriber numbers that it pulls you in for a limited amount of time and then the subscribers drop off again, and you're kind of left core audience of people who have not stopped playing Warcraft since it came out, which is still more people than I think any other. Paid MMO, but is down a lot from its prime of over 10 million, over, what, 12, 14 million back in the day? Yeah, like I said, I've never been huge into it, but I don't know. Every time This is the time to join [LAUGH] I got it, are you Horde or Alliance? Alliance, the Alliance. All my friends from high school used to laugh at Alliance. It's cuz they're wimps. They don't understand the allure of a real team. Must like Team Valor in Pokemon Go. You could have chosen a dumb team like Mystic or Instinct, but Team Valor, the Alliance, these are just natural choices. I haven't played much Pokemon GO, but I feel like if I do, I'm gonna join NSYNC just to troll everyone. As I like to tell everyone, I'm a Hufflepuff. And I like to say that if I'd play Pokemon Sun Moon, I'm gonna pick Popoyo. Is he the one that no one likes? Yeah, trolling people by choosing NSYNC I think the house chooses you as the Harry Potter fans might say. Just throw on the hat and see what happens. Alright last one in August. Same day as Legion, August 30th. This is a game I'm assuming all three of us has played and Many other people. It's a pretty seminal game in the third-person action shooter survival horror scene. Resident Evil 4 is coming to PS4 and Xbox One? They all coming to Xbox One, PS4, PC? Yeah, the remastered. What do you guys Do you wanna jump back into this game? I don't have time. [LAUGH] What do you want- [CROSSTALK] What do you do with your time? I used to play new games, not remasters. This is a new game. It's not even a remaster. It's a port. It's just a port, yeah. I misspoke with the remaster. It's not gonna look any better. There are like 12 versions of this game. I like this game a lot But I'm cool. You can get a That was not Resident Evil 4 by the way. No, you can get a physical case. You can get a physical case with this now on PS4, which as someone who likes Resident Evil a lot, and we talk about it in dead air podcast, I'm excited to play. I have six, five and four or six and five now on PS4. I don't know, I'll probably play it again. Someone told me that at the beginning in the Ganaz Village You know how like you have to keep fighting at the beginning, until the bell rings and they all go back to the church, I consider myself a huge fan of the series, but someone told me that if you shoot the bell yourself, you can just end it right there. Do you guys happen to know if that's true or not? I did not know that. I do not know. Maybe the [INAUDIBLE] chat can tell me, if it's on YouTube or something. I don't know, cuz that blows my mind. I've never, in the 10 times I played that game, [CROSSTALK] [INAUDIBLE] Puzzle solving, that's But- That's like that boss fight in Metal Gear Solid three, against the end. Where you can shoot him in his wheelchair at the very last second of the cut scene leading up to the boss fight and totally negate the whole fight. Yeah. Or you can turn off your Your console- Yeah, yeah, yeah. for awhile and come back. Yeah. But you would think the people immediately around you- That's so cool. That's the best boss fight in any game. But if they're waiting for the bell to ring and then they see you shoot the bell, wouldn't they just go, Dude I saw you, I'm not gonna leave just cuz you shot- Right. I'm waiting for the bell to ring, I'm still gonna attack you. Are they just that dumb? I don't know. I guess so. Well they're not in their right minds, are they? Are any of us? No, I guess not. I would not be surprised if you came lurching at me with a butcher knife one time. [LAUGH] I would say okay, that makes sense. My office is a scary place. One more thing I wanna throw in there, not to diminish it whatsoever but just because it's in September. It's right during the September lull. Which is not something you always say, I guess. Yeah because October is pretty crazy- We don't talk about September that often. No. I've never mentioned September in a sentence. No? No. It's my birthday month. Take a guess, quick. 16th. Number. No. First day of Fall, 22nd. Too slow. [LAUGH] ReCore is coming out September 15th, I believe. Yeah. You know, like, [UNKNOWN] is attached to it. And Timor Hussein wrote a good story about it, saying this might be like the real Mega Man successor you're looking for. After a game that didn't do so well lately that Pete reviewed. Mighty Number Nine. A lot of people liked it. So Recore like a 3D Metroid Prime, Mega Man. Is that accurate to say? No. No? Metroid Prime is a first person game. I get that. But like. Although I will say some of the environments. The environments are pretty similar. I actually don't know a whole lot about Recore. I was surprised to see the game was sort of more of a budget title in a way. It's selling for 40 bucks and seems to have an aesthetic that is maybe is befitting last gen rather than this gen. But in some ways I'm it makes me wonder if they're able to put more time into like weird mechanics and weird encounters if they're not wasting a lot of budget on visuals per se. I'm curious about it, I'm curious about it. Same here we'll see how that goes that'll be September before October hits as the year works. As September usually happens. September precedes October it comes after August what's the poem? I got halfway through it. 30 days hath October, but September is sometimes before October if you're counting a leap year. There you have it, Justin Haywald everyone. Alright so that is kinda our wrap up of the games left this summer. Things you can get into if you haven't already caught up on the enormous spring catalog that kinda bombarded us. A lot of good games there. I don't know. Let us know in the comments. What you're looking forward to playing, any recommendations you have for us. Besides from Pete. Because he'll probably be too busy playing other games. I'm just not into those games. Whatever you're going to recommend, No, Pete's a review editor. He knows what's hot. You don't have to tell him. Yeah, like I don't have time for Yeah [LAUGH] You should get up and walk away. [MUSIC]