87: Pikemen Wanted

0:00Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. Victory Lane? Yeah, it's even better with Chamba by my side. Race to ChambaCasino.com. Let's Chamba. No purchase necessary, BTW Group, void work prohibited by law, CTNCs, 21 Plus, sponsored by ChambaCasino. Right, it is time to play the sexy startup noise, where the titles show up on the screen. Then we navigate to the menu of our favorite gaming podcast. That one is called Press X to continue. By listening, you will know a member of the continue club or you can call yourself an exy beast if you want to. Let's sit down and chat games. Shall we? My name is Stefan Powell. Usually I have my co-host, my right arm, my friend, the actor, gamer, Inel, Thomson. But he's too busy taking over the UK on tour, which is amazing to see. He's going to be back with us very shortly. But we do have a voice note, a diary entry, if you will, from Inel on the podcast very soon, which is exciting.

1:01But we've got an orgy, exy beast, Chey Thomson to fill the Inel-sized gap in the podcast this week again. Chey, lovely to have you back. I could only hope to fill those size 9s. I don't actually don't know how many sizing works. He's probably going to be really annoyed about it. He's going to be furious. That's all I'm going to leave it there. I'm not going to correct it. It's just great. It's just good. And, O'Shea, we've started a new sort of ethos supposed with the podcast this year, a new ritual, which is getting going with an unsung hero game. Last week, I spoke passionately, if I may say so myself, about Cricket Captain, which is a sports simulation management sim, which is a franchise that I don't, I think, is an unsung hero. What are you going to tell us about this week? A game that is new or old, something that you don't think gets the credit it deserves. Take it away. I am cheating a little bit with this one, because I feel like in the fighting games community, this game is sung, the appropriate amount.

2:05But I think outside of that, I think, in the general kind of gaming population, I think it was massively overlooked. So Mortal Kombat 9. Okay. Yeah, it's a bit of a rogue choice, but I feel like it came out right after the 3D era for Mortal Kombat, which was a bit, it was a bit maligned, it was a bit of a rough period. I'm not even going to lie. And then it was sort of before the, I guess the prestige Mortal Kombat era that we know now, so Mortal Kombat 10, 11 and 1. Why they went back to number 1? Don't know why. Does it make any sense to me? It doesn't make any sense to me. Hey, so it's, yeah, it kind of sits as a sort of bridge between those two time periods. And it kind of gave birth to a lot of the conventions we know and love from Mortal Kombat nowadays that kind of really aggressive, like really fast, like rush down type of gameplay. And yeah, I kind of went back to it recently because I don't know, I just had like a real big fight

3:06in games feeling. There are some really cool fighting games coming out this year. And so I just kind of wanted to like relearn the language of the genre. And yeah, it's brilliant. I think it has like a really cool, it's got like a really cool retelling of the first three more combat games. So it was kind of upgraded for those, for that time periods, like graphics. So the story is, we've seen previously, but just in the sort of the graphical for the time. Exactly, exactly that. So it's like characters you'd be very familiar with, like Shao Khan. So it's not like, it's not the new timeline. It's very, very old timeline. So it feels like nostalgia can away, but still feels kind of new. It's a nice way to kind of condense the story as well and make it a bit more succinct. I mean, yeah, just it's really, really, really fun and like fast pace, fast pace to play. Yeah, I think it's a very, very overlooked by a lot of non-fighting games people. Yeah, because I suppose they think of Mortal Kombat. Are you think of the new versions?

4:07Like you said, they sort of started that look and feel from 10 onwards. So this is sort of interesting. You've described it as a bridge between what we had and then what people expect Mortal Kombat to be known. Exactly that. I also like it because it has a bunch of like, random guest characters. So Freddie Krueger is in it, randomly. And there is a bit more kind of familiar as creators from. Yeah, I'm just having a quick look on the internet. Now yeah, creators is in there. It's like, oh yeah, okay, that's cool. Yeah, the old version of creators, I suppose, the OG creators is in there with the Gauti. Okay, well look, Mortal Kombat 9 then is Shae's unsung hero. Are you a fighting game fan? Do you think the Mortal Kombat 9 doesn't get the plot? It deserves in the broader gaming space and let us know, you know, to do get in the discord, find us on social media and be part of the conversation. We would love to hear from you. So Mortal Kombat 9 is our unsung hero for this week. Right, let's get into the trivia then

5:08for our episodes of this week. Me and Shae didn't do especially where last time we were together and it's, you know, this sound does bring people up to the cold sweat when they hear it. Now remember, you can get your ideas, your niche facts, your interesting game quirks into our trivia submissions, entry portal, which is in the discord. It's a secret channel. Only the producers see it. They then turn that into a question and they ask us here on the podcast. So let's have a look at the leaderboards. Yeah, Shae, you're in ninth and I am in fourth. Kezamak Donald leading the way. I mean, she should lead. She's the guardians games editor. She should be number one. It would be bad if she wasn't. So yeah, we're going to say that. That's the reason why I'm doing so badly. Almost scrap the top one. So we could all bump up a number actually anyway. Right. Okay, the question this week is this one. Which game was updated shortly after launch in 2016

6:11in order to combat safety concerns that players were gathering around police stations, fire stations and hospitals, stopping the emergency services from doing their jobs? I know this one. I actually know this one. I think I remember this. I feel like whoever was coming up with the questions had to give Thoros a bone because we were in the trenches. Or at least I was in the trenches. Yeah. No, we've all been in the trenches getting one's wrong for a long time. Shae, by the way, for those who just listened this not watching it on Spotify or YouTube or whatever, as Kimbo, in the biggest smile you know, when she heard this question, I said, yes, nailed it. You're right, I love it. I've got it. So the question is which game was updated shortly after launch in 2016 in order to combat safety concerns that players were gathering around police stations, fire stations and hospitals, stopping the emergency services from doing their job. So if we're going to save our answers to the end to create a degree of mistricks, I think we both know I am very confident. I'm very confident because I think I spoke about it

7:13at the time as part of my old job. So I'm not going to give any more hints away than that, but I think I'm confident. So we will give you the answer, of course, as we always do at the end of the podcast. Right then, like I was saying, I know he's busy taking over the world, touring the UK with his stage show and he's been busy trying to get as much gaming in as he can. And he sent us this little diary note, if you will, from Tales from the Tour and calling it. I've just come up with that. I think it works quite nicely. Tales from the Tour. It's I-Nell who was going to be chatting to us a little bit about, oh, he's getting on on his tour. Hey, what's happening in press X's is I-Nell here. Big up to all the continued clubbers out there and UX-y beasts. I am currently on tour. I'm in Darlington in the North of the UK, on tour for horrible histories, the concert, live and undead. Just breaking into say, don't say to me being an actor isn't sexy or glamourous.

8:15There he is, sending us a voice note from a hotel in Darlington. The height of glamour, I'm sure. It's good, it's good, right, back to I-Nell. It's going to be fun. We're going to be going all across the UK, but currently, I mean, Darlington, as I said, and let me tell you, when the rehearsal process at the moment, and he is, whoa, these are some long days. Let me tell you that. I've been, we're going in at like 10 a.m. in the morning and we don't finish you 10 p.m. So I'm getting, I'm not getting too much time to play games, but I have brought up my steam deck and my Nintendo Switch 2, and in a little bit of respite I get, I am playing a few games. At the moment on my steam deck, I'm playing Desperate. I think that's how you pronounce it. It's a game where you play a young kid growing up in Ecuador and it's about how football plays a huge part of his life and in the country as well. Really fun, played from a first person view and also it's got a really cool unique art style.

9:18So good. Let's check out some screenshots of it. Give it a little Google. Check out some videos, it's so good. Really fun indie title as you're playing as a kid. Loads of voice over. Don't worry subtitled as well if you can't understand the language, but yeah, super fun. It's got some really unique archive footage that and they implement it in a really cool way. It's, I don't want to spoil it. Go give it a play. I don't think I've quite played a video game like it, but the story it presents is so, so good and so engrossing as well. So yeah, one of my cool recommendations. And then also, before we get on to the old show, Desperate does sound really cool, isn't you are nodding along when he mentioned that? Yeah, I feel like it was one of my, one of my like unsung heroes from last year. I feel like not a lot of people like spoke about it, but it's, yeah, it's really, it's really cool. It's like such a heartwarming story. It's about like, I think it's the 2001 World Cup.

10:21It's a bit of like a kind of throwback period of time. And yeah, it's just told and like made very, very well. Football fans, me as a non sports enjoyer, loved it. I think football fans will get a lot more out of it as well. Yeah, like I know it was describing there, really unique art style. If you, and it's sort of like black and white, but with like sort of fuzzy 90s VHS footage with some sort of pencil drawing over the top in this first person perspective. So graphically, it's very unique, isn't it, Shay, which is really cool. And I like how games like this, or it hasn't happened loads of other thing gaming, but it might be happening more maybe as the industry grows and gets a bit more mature. How they're, how storytelling about a particular period in history that isn't always. And I love a medieval sim. And in fact, I'm gonna sort of talk about when I left it on in my review. But like a lot of games traditionally, if it does history, it's like, you know, total all the way back,

11:22you know, but it's like social history of like, you know, 60, 70s, 80s. There's so much to happen then. You could, you could set some really cool games around those periods on, and this one, you know, like a relatively recent World Cup. So yeah, despilote, big thumbs up for my nail, Shay, I like I was saying, the graphic, graphical take is super interesting. So yeah, have a look at that. Right, what else has he been playing there? Cause it's not just that. I've been playing Pipstrell and the Curst Yo-Yo. And I know, strange title, but one of the best games I've played of 2025, I'm still playing it, it's that good. How to describe this game though? If you were a fan of the Legend of Zelda, Link to the Pass on the Super Nintendo or Link's Awakening on the Game Boy, that kind of style of top down 2D action RPG adventure, then this is your game. I can't stress enough how good the dungeon design is in this, the puzzles, so creative,

12:22the movement mechanics, amazing. You only have one weapon in this game. It's a yo-yo button. There's so many different ways in which you can utilize the yo-yo and navigate around the world. It's incredible. Once you get past the first dungeon and the game starts opening up and you start to see the movement mechanics you have in the game, you realize how wall, even though this game, the style of game is based on like, I guess like how it used to be done in the 90s. It's so unique, it blows your mind to how there's not, there hasn't been any games quite like this, utilizing the kind of mechanics and the kind of puzzle designs that this game does. It's so good. Review scores for this are high, it's the indie title is also as well, just like just desperate, and I think you guys can really love it. As I said, it's my favorite game of last year. Anyway, I'll go get going. Rehearsals are calling me. Hopefully I will see you guys on tour. If not, I'll see you next time.

13:23And there we have it. Lovely I nail sending us this voice, not from his hotel in Darlington. It's just how glamorous the life of an actor is. You know, this is it. But the tour, by the way, especially if you've got kids of a certain age, go and check if there's still tickets available for some of those shows, go and check it out because he sent us some pictures of like him in rehearsals and stuff they're doing, so funny, so rewarding, and also like teacher's history as well. It's really cool. We are very proud of our friend Ainelle here, a press exit to continue. Pipstrell on the Curse Joe, by the way, I think he might have, he's thinking so little too, because I am looking for a new train game. I've just got a new job, which means I'm traveling up to Manchester once or twice a week, and it's a three, it's a four hour journey basically by the time you carve in. And I've been spending a lot of the time this year so far playing the game that I'm going to review in a moment. But I'm on the lookout for a new game, Shay, Pipstrell on the Curse Joe, you could be it. It looks like it's going to be this. I pride myself on like knowing a lot of indie games.

14:24When I tell you, I've literally never heard of this a day in my life. It came out in like May, and it's sitting at overwhelmingly positive on steam, and I'm just like, how do I not hear about this? It looks really good. So I think this will be the game that I add to my list of five for next month. Yes, you have a next month. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll do a list of five, yeah. Fine. Okay, so we will catch up with Ainelle again very, very soon. Right then. Let's chat about this because a big, well, yes, big news, but also not big news because sadly, sort of is, or not sadly, maybe let's, let's, let's chat about it. It happens a lot, games that die, that stop, that are closed down, that cease to be. Because in the middle of January, the servers for the game Anthem was switched off. No, you might not remember Anthem, but it was an online service game. I'm basically the servers have been shut down so you can't play the game anymore. No, when Anthem was being hyped up and in the lead up to it coming out,

15:25it was being big up to being like the next big thing. I know there's like loads of stories of this happening and we will talk about some of them no doubt now, but it was there to compete with your fortnights and your destinies and suppose what then became wars or your online sort of, online service games. It's been closed down, it is no more. It has, it has ceased to be. It's gone to meet its maker, all that stuff, right? Now, the National Video Game Museum in Sheffield is obviously on a mission to try and preserve games. How do you preserve an online service game? I don't know, that's a fascinating conversation to have another time, but so how do you feel and shame when a game like this stops and is normal? I have a couple of different, like very complicated feelings about it, like this is kind of the most unpopular part, so I'm kind of gonna get this out of the way. I think game creators and companies are allowed

16:28to kind of dictate the direction with which they take their game. That doesn't mean completely kill it and take it offline, especially if people have paid money up front, like that is, that's a lot to just kind of remove something from existence, like that's insane. It's especially heartbreaking with Anthem though, because I am a bio-air girly, like when they announced that their new game was gonna be this kind of online, you know, game as a service, I was very disappointed, but I was still like, okay, let's see what they do. It was very ambitious, and I think with a bit more time and like resources dedicated to it, they could have like turned it around, but it didn't end up happening that way. I think that game companies have a degree of responsibility to ensure that like, the game can live on in a way that, I guess, can't be edited by the fans, but they don't necessarily make money off of. I think there's, I mean, people who know more about like modding and stuff will know more about this,

17:28but there is a way to kind of keep the, I guess the software out there for, and like people will run the servers themselves, like that's something that's happened with like other games, that should be allowed, and that I think that should be the norm with these sorts of games. The fact that it isn't, is terrible, but yeah, that should be with it. I imagine there's some sort of IP thing, because there's probably a bit of sort, there's a bit of code in there somewhere that they're now using for another time. And if it becomes open source and anybody can get hold of it, and then make something using whatever they've spent millions on developing whatever. So yeah, it's interesting, isn't it like, with online only games, I wonder where the answer is, if you're gonna, I mean, can't force anybody to do this stuff, but a good practice might be that you turn it into an offline thing so that it can be preserved, so people can go and play it and use to come. So I see what they were doing with it, so that was cool. I might actually, this might inspire me to go and create this, because we're all in, you know, people create stories, whether it's books, movies,

18:29TV's games, when they're inspired by the stuff. There was some really cool imagery and ideas in Anthem. I can remember going to an early play test of it before it came out. At this point, it was gonna still be the next big thing. And so many games companies at the time were doing these sorts of projects. And I think what is interesting is now you've seen that the games industry, they thought, all right, online service games are gonna be the way we make money from now on, that is gonna be it. And everybody pivoted. Even Naughty Dog was working on something similar in the last of us, right? Remember, then they just said, you know, actually, when you start seeing ones like this fail, and I was such an expensive failure as well, they thought, actually, I think you get a bit more sense in this, you know, saying like, this is such a skill that we should leave people who are good at doing this, do this, and we're gonna focus on the thing that we do well, actually, because you can't make this make money. Anthem is a good example of like, the skills in that company were about games like Mass Effect and games like Dragon Age Inquisition, and they're not necessarily about online service games

19:29that have got a very specific way of appealing to audiences. I remember there, they made a live action trailer for this, directed by the guy, Neil, or what's his surname? Is it Broncos? Oh, is it Broncos? You talk about the district nine guy? Yeah, Neil Broncos, I interviewed him at the time, actually, so I shouldn't remember that. So that long ago, they made a live action trailer about this game, right? I'm trying to set up the law and stuff, but ultimately, the gameplay loop wasn't satisfying, you could see in the background, the flying was really cool, the mechs were really cool, the seats were cool, the environments were really cool. I think you could just see in the background, game execs trying to make money, like just blurting out of you, this is how we're gonna make money, and they're like, oh, and I think people turned off it, and now it is sad that it's no longer all the only creativity, all the ideas. There was some really good stuff in there, but I just think it is sad when something like this comes to an end.

20:30It's a shame, and it's, and the thing is it's so bad for gamers, like you spend money on this, and then you're told, actually, no, you can't play this anymore, like that's really bad presence. I'm actually surprised or that it lasted as long as it did, that they kept it going as long as they did. I'm not gonna lie, when I saw the news that it was being taken off line, I was like, it's not already, I thought it was like the way it was. I thought it was already gone, so yeah, you know, when did it release again? I want to say 2019, because I think I was still streaming for Xbox full time. Yeah, it was February 22, 2019. Yeah, and so like, so to be fair, they've managed to keep it going, to keep it longer than I thought. Yeah, and you are seeing some people managing to keep it running on different servers and bits and pieces, which, you know, it might be legal and whatever, so we won't condone that, but, you know, it's a shame that it has come to an end. It's always sad when you see those moments, big MMOs that come to an end, and everybody who used to play loads, they log back on for one last time

21:32and they have a party when the server goes dead. I think those moments are actually quite cool, but I know it's sad. No, I don't, I see, I don't think it's sad, and it makes me like, it's like one of the rare moments where it makes me proud to be a gaming, even though I don't play very many MMOs, I think it's like, there is no other feeling like it. You don't get that out of like watching a movie or like even like being at a concert, and there is that collective feeling, but something about like being able to jump on to a game with people that you would have been playing for like decades, and it's like sunsetting, like, oh, there's nothing like it, and yeah, it's a shame. I think just thinking of like all the different MMOs that sort of shut down their servers, I think there was, it was if there was a final fantasy one that had a good ending at a moment when everybody sort of log back on for the last time and things like that. Yeah, so many titles that have happened, you're like, the world is littered with MMOs, it don't last any more.

22:32Like Star Wars, galaxies, or the Matrix one, or the Warhammer one, or the superhero one, cities of Valenz and heroes. But I think what's interesting about Anthem is that it's sort of, it's the latest in the string of online service games that I've basically shown at that model that everybody thought was gonna dominate the industry and make everybody a ton of money, isn't it? Anthem's failed. Well, is it failure or whatever? It's no close down when it's supposed to be the next big thing, right? Marvel's Avengers. No, that's not a live service game at the school. Oh, wait, but are you thinking of maybe the, is it DCU online? I don't know if I've shut down it. Is that still going? No, but Marvel's Avengers, where they brought it out and never landed because they weren't the same likenesses as the Marvel's. And then they did suicide squad, then a little bit down the line. I mean, yes, yeah. What's the, was the full title of that Marvel game? Marvel Avengers game, it was,

23:34it was just called Marvel Avengers. And then it was, then they, they, if I remember rightly, they turned it into a linear game, as opposed to the online service game that it was supposed to be. Oh, I see. Suicide Squad Killer Justice League, same thing happened to that. Concorde, obviously, the epic fail of that shooter that lasted only 14 days. Remember Battleborn? When Overwatch came out, it was Battleborn Overwatch. I played the hell out of Battleborn. I like to look like, just allow me a moment. It was a good thing. Because you could do like online co-op, but like in the same like rooms, you could do it like split screen. And so I play it with my housemates. We spent so much time playing. And I was playing it alongside like OG Overwatch. And it just didn't, like, it was good, but it just didn't get the wider, I guess, like, notice that it deserved and then they, they killed it. I can believe it. So just, there's just so many examples of these. I just wanted to,

24:34should two games companies have like an obligation to keep a version of it available somewhere for people? Actually, you know, we've spent the money on this. We've spent the time in the creativity and the IP on this. We haven't got the energy or the, you know, the financials to do it anymore. We've got to stop that on us. You know, I don't know, what do you think? I, no, I 100% think so, because the thing that's really jarring about this is, especially like looking at Anthem, by where are a studio that's known for their single player narrative experiences, right? That's what we wanted out of them. Instead, they gave us this game as a service that we didn't want. So you've given us a pie that we didn't want. And then you're going to take the pie like later on. Like, I don't know why I've reached a pie as well. You're hungry, so we're going to record this about lunchtime to those fairs. Yeah, but I'm just like, okay, then you absolutely do have a duty of care to keep this game running in some capacity. You've given us something that we didn't want. And we've settled for it, right?

25:35So at least keep it active in some capacity. Like just completely cutting it off with no like real explanation outside of, yeah, this is happening. That sucks, that's terrible. But that's genuinely terrible. So let us know then, were you one of the few that played and enjoyed Anthem? I reckon there was an amazing single player experience in Anthem. And I think that is true of lots of these games that end up being games of service is that you've got an amazing idea, some really cool gameplay, and you're just trying to stretch it too thin. And then it realized then the loop is not satisfying as a result of that. I would just get a sense of it. But I do think there's studios are learning that actually so many failures out there now games that didn't quite make it, that they're stopping doing it because actually it's not worth it. But look, did you play Anthem? Did you play an MMO that shut down? Did you play a live service game that altered or came to an end or whatever? Maybe you're someone who also helps preserve games

26:36or something. Let us know, what share your thoughts on the end of Anthem, get involved in a discord, comment on this and social media. We would love to hear from you on your take on all this because it is fascinating and it's probably going to happen a lot more as well as things continue to get a bit tight in the games in the stream, people spend less money or whatever. Right, should we have a reveal shape? Oh yes, tell me about games. Okay, let's talk about games. Let's talk about a game. Have you heard of this one? Have you heard of a game called Becastle? No. Oh my god, put me on to a... Hello. Yeah, something else. So Becastle is a game that came out in October of 2025. It is the game that has been keeping me company on my new weekly commute to work. And essentially, if you like castles, if you like being in charge of a fantasy village, if you like an element of tower defense,

27:38stick all those together and this could be for you. It's basically it's a mix of cosy town building and survival sim, all mashed together. You essentially, you build up your town, your castle in the day, you fight to survive at night. That's the premise of the game. I was looking for something that was like, not mindless, but something that wasn't like tool in the air, something that I would have to sort of really focus my attention on the journey. I wanted something to make me feel warm and fuzzy and cosy. I like castles. I saw this on the Switch 2 and I thought, you know what, screw it, I'm just going to roll the dice, I'm just going to buy something. Because sometimes you, paralysis by analysis, isn't it? Where you read too much and you go, four more and you're like, oh, should I get this together? I said, you know what, sorry, I mean, I want to do this. I like castles. I like, I want to feel cosy and town building. I also like games like Bad North that we've talked about on the game before an old indie game. And this sort of, this sort of is a mix of both.

28:43Now, I love the mix that it gives you, right? I love the juxtaposition of emotions. This title gives you because the serenity of, oh, where am I going to put my, my loggers? Where am I going to put the farm? Where should I place the tavern to make sure there's enough houses around it to make my people happy, you know? Oh, I loved it. I'm just going to put my walls here and make them pretty. Oh, I might put some, I put my put a fountain in the middle of my, you know, all that sort of stuff and then spending your money to invest in better houses and, you know, oh, now I've got a treasury. No, I've got an iron ore mine. Do you know what I mean? That sort of stuff. I enjoy the closeness of that. And then at night, it becomes me like, oh no, wait, did I train enough pike men? Oh goodness, where am I going to put my arches? Right, that happens to you. And because the days go quite quick and then they sneak up and you're all of a sudden, these sort of zombie like things come in the night and attack you. And if you're not ready, they destroy all you've got

29:44your hard work and then you back down. So it's really fun. Look, I wouldn't say that I am, you know, a journalist that could write for tech foundry when it comes to games, but I will say that it's a little bit glitchy on the Switch 2. The controls work perfectly fine. I think it's designed for most keyboard. It works fine on the Switch 2, but just like I remember when playing Crusader's Kings on the Xbox as opposed to the most keyboard. Some games are just designed for the most key, but aren't they? Yeah. So it does fine. Yeah. It's a little bit glitchy. I don't know, like I've done about 20 hours with it now or think on different journeys. And I think that might be me saying, thank you very much. You've seen enough. You've done enough. But it's Dennis Job, it's been really fun. It costs you 18 quid on the Switch 2. It's a cheaper on Steam, it's about 17 quid on Steam. So that is becastled. Any questions for me on that, Shay? Yeah, I don't play a lot of city builders or like kind of tower defense strategy games.

30:47Would this be like a good entry into that sort of world, those genres? I think it's easy to pick up and play for sure. And I think because of that sort of cause, the value it's got nice and calm, I think therefore, it gently sees you in. And the attacks you get at night start quite low and as clearly they scale up, right? Right, okay. It reminds me of the fighting bits, reminds me of Bad North, because yes, it's tower defense, but you're actually moving your troops around. It's not strict mobile tower defense where you just place in your towers and that's all you can do. You are moving your troops around a little bit. So that's why it's a bit like Bad North. Okay. And then the town building stuff is like a cause, you're a version of, you're supposed you wouldn't have played a game called Stronghold in the 90s and the North and the early 2000s. I'm familiar with it though. Yeah. Or I wanted to play mana lords, but because that's not portable it,

31:47I don't have a steendeck, that's why I went for this. So it was a bit element of sim city. I would say it's fairly easy to easy entry point, yes. Okay. Okay. And it's good for like journeys, like you said. So, you know, something to do. I'm playing on the switch, because I'm finding on journeys, management sims are good to me. So I wanted to get the Donkey Kong game for the journey, but actually I don't, I can't. Platformers, you need to be a bit dexterous, a bit nimble and actually when you're like, on a tree and sometimes you don't like this. Sometimes you're like, you're like that. You're trying to eat a sandwich or whatever. It's not like, it's not for me. Whereas a game where I can pause it and nothing happens or like it doesn't really matter. If I place my, you know, my woodcutting cabin, I can't exactly remember the name, you know, slightly a bit to the left. It's not the end of the world, you know what I mean? If my wheat field isn't in the precise location, it's not gonna kill me. Whereas, you know, if I'm playing a platformer or a fighting game or a sports game and I, you need to be a bit more dexterous

32:49than I don't enjoy that on a journey. Like I've tried playing Mario Kart on the journey and I can, but I'd rather say like this. It's not the same. It's not the same. So look, that's my, any last thoughts before we move on. Cause it does look very cozy. It does look very cute. And does it, like there's the sort of monsters that you're attacked by. As you said, it kind of scales up and gets a bit harder. How hard are we talking? Cause like, sometimes I, if something is too hard on the train, I will get annoyed and then everyone's gonna have a bad time. I mean, I'm not glad. I might have read, I've started from the start a couple of times, maybe. That's okay. I never, I never train enough. Pike met. That's my problem. So yeah, basically you just need to remember cause you do get swept in. I got drawn into the cozy castle building and trying to, oh, where do I put this fountain? As opposed to, I haven't got enough arches and I think there's, and it does tell you how many, how many enemies are coming in the night. So you are, you do have a sense of,

33:50and they tell you, so give you a sense of where they're gonna come from. But on a couple of playthroughs, now a bit more savvy. So now a bit more like, okay, cause I haven't quite got to this place when I'm building really impressive castles yet. I'm still sort of at fort level. So yeah, it's, I've enjoyed, for me, it's done exactly what I needed to do, whether it's something you wanna, if you look at what I'm just thinking, tens and tens and tens of hours into, I don't know, I don't know. And like I said, it is a little bit jankier times on the Switch 2, although I think there's some patches that have come that have improved that a little bit, but it's still not as small as you maybe would want. I was gonna say, cause you mentioned keyboard and mouse. Does it not have, does it not, is it not supported by the sort of mouse functionality on the Switch 2? I tell you what, I'm not, I'm playing on the train, not even, not even fight about it. Oh, you have, oh yeah. I'm playing a handheld. To be fair, the buttons are quite intuitive, actually. And I think, I think console games have got much better

34:51using controllers for game strategy, essentially games like that. So I've been happy with that side of it, but yeah, I think, I think like, if you're looking for a game that runs super clean and gets all your frames per second and all that stuff, then this probably in for you, especially when there's a big horde coming in the night. Yes. There's a couple of glitches that have popped up here and they're like, oh, funny one though, was one of the enemies had fired an arrow, and for some reason the arrow was massive and it was the size of my entire castle. It was like, oh, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to, I'm going to have to quit and then lord back in. Oh, then come back in. Yeah. I've been going on. But, but so, you know, it is pretty cheap. I think my recommendation would be to wait, maybe, if you don't need a game right now, I would wait until it's on sale. But if you are after, if you're after the game that does blend, cosy castle building with a bit of action, then it is a really unique blend in that sense. Because you know, you've got something like Townscape, which is really cool, but iPhone and getting a little bit boring after a while. Like, once you've made one pretty village,

35:52or one pretty bridge. Can I be done at all? Yeah. I've done it now. You know, I've done it. Whereas this, the action and the like, does keep you going. So, yeah, big castle is my review for this episode. Oh, yeah, like I said, it doesn't have a Metacritic review, by the way, cos it hasn't been reviewed by many people. It's just quite small sort of release out there. So it doesn't got enough, not enough scores on Metacritic as of yet. And I don't think this counts as a score for Metacritic, so. Sadly not. When are they going to finally pay attention? Come around, switch up. And it's sitting at a mostly positive on Steam, though. Yeah. So that's good. That could be one of your five shape for this next month. Yeah. And it's the different game for me, which was kind of the point of the five. So. Yeah, and if you look at that, you know, the games you tend to talk about, we talked about fighting games earlier on. Your games you're looking forward to in 2026, the last time we were chatting, we're all pretty bleak and darkened. Yeah. You know, is this.

36:53This is awesome. This is cozy. This is a vibe. So yeah. Yeah, as whole sim as you can get, but once you're being attacked by federal werewolves and zombies at night, it's also within that context. Yeah. I think it's on because the graphics are sort of like cosy. There's no faces on the bad days. They'd like to just like this blue sheen. Right. Okay. So the big question for today's show, this is where our producers listen to our conversation. And come up with a question from what we've been chatting about. And the question says, you've been told that your all-time favourite game will be playable for one last time. And your friends are getting together to play it before it is deleted from history. What's the game? Who's playing and where are you playing it? Unfortunately, this is a nightmare that has come true for me. With Overwatch 1, I was a very, very early adopter of the OG Overwatch and I had friends that I had in like Chicago because we met on like a Reddit, like a subreddit. It was specifically for women looking for people

37:55to play Overwatch with because you were tired of playing with Grossman. And yeah, we would, I would stay up until like ungodly hours in the morning, like real, real grimo video gaming. Like I was, I was at my nerdiness. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And OG Overwatch many, many hours in the comp. It was, it was a lot and it was great. I loved it. I think this is a game that I've spoken about a lot because it is a feeling that I'm still chasing that I've never got back and I wonder whether it will ever return because of the unique environment in which we found ourselves. And in fact, I was actually messaging Daniel Cooper who's been with us here on Press X many time before from our KG video about this the other day. We're like, we need to find a new one of this because he was one of the boys that I would, I would play this with. For me, it is war zone and it's lockdown.

38:58Yeah, and it's nine o'clock. And then WhatsApp is pinning like what time you want boys. And we get together one more time. I've got, I bought a special teapot that would keep my tea warm. So I didn't have to get up to go to the kitchen and a little flat wheelie of that at the time to make tea between rounds. And I had two groups. I'd play with Cooper, Joan and Simon on one night and the next night it would be James James and Sandy. The boys, we would be on and it was amazing because you know, it was for a lot of people and it was a real life. You know, you would talk about the world and show the connection you could get. But also the game was super fun. They'd really nailed it. Before they got too into its own stuff and too we need to update itself, or update the meta all the time to keep the grinders happy. It was perfect for casual gamers. And it was a fantastic moment in times.

39:58And I was messaging Cooper. We need to find that our creators as a part of the could be that game. Apparently, yeah, I think as you mentioned and sort of the common thread here is like early adopting of these games. Like when you get in at the very beginning before the meta is like properly established and you're there with the friends and it's just as it's such a specific feeling. So yeah, maybe our goal is the one because that's still like new and fresh. Yeah. Helen Davis too was brilliant as well in the in those early days when you were playing with people for the first time because it was sort of new and fresh. I just had very small children at the time. So I couldn't like invest in it every night. If I could play in hell Davis too with say you might my young guest in like a sling. Oh, sorry boys. They're to the east. They're to the corner. You whisper when I can't shout at you because I've got a sleeping child on my chest. So that was a missed out on that. So maybe it's a finding that next. I do like something that's a little bit competitive.

40:59Yes. For online play because I could just, you know, you could join a clan online MMO or something. Anyway, so I'm looking for that. And I'll never find it. So that's where we're going. Another great question this week from the producers. Let's finish off with our trivia. Then me and Shay are very confident. The question was which game was updated shortly after launch in 2016 in order to combat safety concerns. The players were gathering around police stations, fire stations and hospitals stopping the emergency services and doing their jobs. Because I think we both got the same answer after three. Let's say what we think. One, two, three. Pokemon go. Yes. Finally, I think it is. Yeah, I think I wrote about it for the, for the BBC website at the time. I remember that job. And the answer is Pokemon go. Yay. So originally police stations, fire stations. Yeah, they were poker stops and they were gyms. Yeah. I there was a moment where I was like, oh my god, oh, we actually wrong about this. And I was like slightly slightly scared.

42:00But you know, I remember that. And it was, yeah, like having the poker stops in those places was cool in theory. But I was like, oh, no, not the, not the emergencies. We need those. These guys. Yeah, no, players were lightening around the fire stations, the police stations and the hospitals to try and catch Pokemon and battling gyms. But it was safety concerns. It was going to clogger broads where the emergency services could be delayed getting to life threatening incidents. So they moved them. So yeah, there we are. So Shay, that means you're up to sixth. So you've jumped up three places there. A whole three algorithm is doing work for you. Very good. And I'm sticking solidly in fourth place. I just sometimes the. Our discord are so clever and how they've done the maths to make this work blows my mind. But it's all brilliant. And right, that is us then for another episode of press X to continue. Don't forget to get involved in messaging us in the discord of finding us on social media. We'll be back on Tuesday with more fun.

43:02Shay, thank you very much. You've been with us. We will see you again very soon. Take care. Bye.