The Gamerheads Podcast
The Gameheads Podcast - the podcast where gaming enthusiasts come to discuss the latest news, trends, and reviews in the gaming world.
Join the Gamerheads crew every Tuesday and Friday as they discuss games they're playing and interview creators in the industry.
The Gamerheads Podcast
Halloween Hangover: Nostalgia, November Releases, and Spooky Reviews | The Gamerheads Podcast
Welcome to The Gamerheads Podcast! Mike and Phil kick off with a Halloween recap, sharing quirky trick-or-treating memories and Roger’s fictional cross-country "trick-or-treating world record" attempt. They also revisit Halloween classics like It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown and The Simpsons’ Treehouse of Horror, capturing the cozy nostalgia of Halloween night.
November Game Releases: Is the Big Season Back?
The hosts turn their attention to November’s releases, wondering if the month is reclaiming its former status as a top season for new games. They discuss Tetris Forever, Lego Horizon, Dragon Quest 3 HD Remake, and Metal Slug Tactics, noting a wide variety of titles but a lack of major holiday blockbusters.
Game Review Spotlight: Retro Realms
Mike reviews Retro Realms, a horror-themed indie game featuring classic characters like Michael Myers and Ash from Evil Dead. Though he enjoys the retro style and collectibles, he finds input lag disrupts gameplay. Despite this, the horror atmosphere and unique arcade setting provide a fun experience.
Creepy Card Games: Inscryption
The crew dive into Inscryption, a card-based horror game blending escape-room puzzles with roguelike mechanics. Trapped in a mysterious cabin, players face off against a sinister figure, building eerie tension through unsettling visuals and atmospheric storytelling. While the game’s tough, both enjoy the unique mix of horror and strategy.
Wrapping Up the Halloween Season: Farewell, Retro Game Frankenstein
With Halloween over, Mike and Phil bid farewell to their seasonal segment “Retro Game Frankenstein,” until next year.
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Music:
Jeff Dasler - Recused
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This episode of the GameHeads Podcast is brought to you by Seven Bridges Premium Gourmet Yum Yum Sauce. Enhance every bite with our savory blends of flavors, perfect for meats, vegetables and crispy treats. Whether you're dipping, drizzling, marinating, grilling, roasting or snacking, seven Bridges Yum Yum Sauce takes your culinary experience to the next level. Get yours today and make every meal a gourmet delight. Hi, I'm Celia Schilling from Yacht Club Games.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is James from Mega Cat Studios. Hey, folks, this is Matt aka Stormageddon from Reignite and the Fun and Games podcast.
Speaker 1:This is Stephanie from the Boss Rush podcast and the Boss Rush Network. Hey, this is Mark and Kion from Bonta Affont. Hey, this is Sebastian with thepronerdreportcom and the Single Player Experience Podcast. Hi, this is Chris.
Speaker 2:Mike.
Speaker 1:And Garrett from Daylight Basement Studio. Hey, this is BaronJ67 from Level One Gaming. Hi, I'm Jacob McCourt from the Left Behind Game Club Crossplay Conversations and.
Speaker 3:Video Game Trivia hey, this is Todd Mitchell from Code Right Play.
Speaker 1:Salutations. This is Mike Carroll from Stroll Art. Hey, this is Jeff Moonen from Fun and Games Podcast. What's good y'all? This is Adam from Respawn Aimfire.
Speaker 3:Hey, this is Patrick from the. Backlog Odyssey.
Speaker 1:Hey, this is Rune from Runic Codes. Hi, this is Andrew from Spalladabirds.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone. Jill Grote here from the indie informer. Hello, this is the crypt master and you're listening to roger richie. You're listening to roger on the gamer heads podcast. And welcome to another episode of the Gamer Heads Podcast. How's everybody doing? I am Mike. With me, as always, is Mr Phil Phil. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm super glad to be here. It's a beautiful, whatever night it is. Tonight I've got the World Series on in the background, so if I make weird noises, that's what's happening.
Speaker 3:It's not technically the background, though. It's like the foreground, foreground right, because I can't see it on your camera oh, it's like I got it muted still right yeah, but I can't see it. You said it was on in the background, but all I see in the background are some various posters and flags and scarves here does this help there we go. That's better. Yeah, all right, so we're going to be doing play by plays for the for the world series.
Speaker 3:Welcome to game four of the world series. Roger is not here with us once again. We'll just let you know when he comes back, but right now he is actually out trying to set the world's record for trick or treating. He actually started on Monday afternoon afternoon. So he's doing you know how, like forrest gump ran across the country, he's doing that, but trick-or-treating I would pay good money for this video just to watch roger going door-to-door across the country.
Speaker 2:I'd even like, just like, to watch him do it with la county, like start at the top of la county to the south of la county, because it's all connected in one giant city, and just watch Roger trick-or-treat his way through LA County.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what he's doing. It's just trick-or-treating across America.
Speaker 2:Well, truthfully, Cook County would also work for that too.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I told him stay away from Cook County.
Speaker 2:That's fair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, 90% of Cook County, 10% and actually probably the other 10% too. You should stay away from that. But basically just get all of Illinois and just like avoid it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just hit those Northern burbs and that'll be good enough, and the Southern burbs, but stay away from proper.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so, yeah, so that's what he's doing. So good luck, roger. We hope you get all sorts of candy. We're what he's doing, um. So good luck, roger, we hope you get all sorts of candy we're excited to see what you get. Save those all for me. We're passing out um pokemon cards this year are you really? Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, they sell. Well, they sell them in like halloween packs, so it's not like I'm not. I'm not giving these. I don't like kids enough to give them five bucks worth of cards.
Speaker 2:It's like 15 packs yeah.
Speaker 3:Actually, those were pretty cool. I remember when I was a kid I don't know if I told you this before. When I was a kid, the most exciting thing I ever got when I went trick or treating was a can of Pepsi. Huh, and I, I was like it was so unique. I was like that's a perfect. Why aren't more people giving me cans of pepsi?
Speaker 2:and then I drank it and when coke is better you know, I go back personal preference I go back and forth, I go back and forth.
Speaker 3:sometimes I like coke better, sometimes I and forth. I go back and forth. Sometimes I like Coke better, sometimes I'm a Pepsi guy. Right now I'm in my Pepsi phase.
Speaker 2:I was about to say, I also drink approximately 20 ounces of soda per year.
Speaker 3:So I'm not the soda connoisseur yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm not the expert on this one, gotcha. And usually six of those are in a root beer float.
Speaker 3:Root beer floats are nice. Anyway, anything you wrote, did you ever go trick-or-treating as a kid Did?
Speaker 2:you ever get anything really interesting? No, I think my most fond Halloween memory as far as actual Halloween memory goes and I've probably told this story on the podcast before I don't really remember Rigos and I've probably told the story on the podcast before. I don't really remember um, but in 1991 here in Minnesota we had something called the, the great Halloween blizzard of 91, where it came and dropped like three feet of snow on it or on us. Um, I at the time did not live in Minnesota, I was living in Minot, north Dakota, on the Air Force Base and was fortunate enough to get chickenpox approximately five days before halloween happened. So we got the snowstorm on either the 29th or the 30th.
Speaker 2:So we were trick-or-treating through three feet four feet worth of snow drifts and I was told I was not allowed to go trick-or-treating because I had chicken pox. And lo and behold, this crafty 13 year old with chicken pox snuck out of his window and went door-to-door with his friends and went trick-or-treating. When I would get people's houses they would be like what are you dressed as for halloween? I'd be like kid with chicken pox. Duh, wow, that's such realistic looking makeup.
Speaker 2:And I'm like, yeah, it certainly is, as I'm just itching the hell out of myself scratching everything, yeah so I don't know how many kids I gave chicken pox to that year by going door-to- door and trick-or-treating but you know, I was, I was the conduit of an outbreak, I'm sure yeah, well, you know, that's always for the best, you know.
Speaker 3:They say you know, do they even do that anymore?
Speaker 2:I wonder if parents even do that anymore no, because now there's a vaccine against it, so they don't do chickenpox parties anymore that was always fun, though.
Speaker 3:you stay home and you got your seven up and your price is right, oh, well.
Speaker 2:Well, when you get them when you're 13, they're a lot different from what I understand, because I only have the 13-year-old experience. They were very atrocious and just super itchy. I distinctly recall asking my mom and dad to kill me. Oh.
Speaker 3:Which at least you got candy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did. Didn't get killed, though, so I didn't get my Halloween wish.
Speaker 3:You can make Halloween wishes. Well, you can make any day of the week or any day of your wishes.
Speaker 2:It's just you know, a Halloween wish is extra special on Halloween.
Speaker 3:That's when the veil between the living and the dead is the thinnest. So your opportunity to be killed on Halloween increases exponentially. It's far higher. To be killed on Halloween increases exponentially it's far higher.
Speaker 2:I mean, and especially well, I mean the satanic panic wasn't quite happening at that point, it was a little bit over. But I mean I even recall, wow, do we? Get into this in the podcast. Sure, why not? What the hell? It's Halloween, it's Tuesday and it's Halloween.
Speaker 2:But I recall being in, I'm going to say, 10th grade, which would have been obviously after I was 13, because I'm not smart, I was probably 25 at the time. I was in 10th grade, one of our teachers warning us not to go to a certain city and it's called Tagus and it still exists in the middle of North Dakota and it was quote unquote famous for its satanic cults and satanic worshiping because, like all the buildings and shit were abandoned many, many years ago and there was like one church and four houses in town, oh, and he claimed that he'd went hunting with a bunch of his friends and he'd found, uh like a deer strung up in like a sacrificial type of a pose, with all of its insides ripped out on the floor and things like all over the place.
Speaker 2:He's just like you, gotta stay away from tegas, take us to where all the satanists are. And we were just like okay, mister, I don't remember what his name was, but yeah.
Speaker 3:So did you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've been to Tegus multiple times of course.
Speaker 3:Dude, if anything that guy would have been like. I mean not that I would want to get involved in that you know other parties and stuff but just to check things out.
Speaker 2:Definitely did not break into the church because that would have been illegal, because there was rumors that inside of the church the cross had been turned upside down and it was all covered in 666 graffiti and stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, you don't want to get anywhere near any of that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So of course did not break into the church to go see if any of it was factual and from what I was told, none of it was factual. The church was still upright, but the church had clearly not been used in many, many years. But the legend of Tega still it lived on throughout us as teenage kids in the 90s and we all went I shouldn't say we all, but a small handful of us went and checked it out.
Speaker 3:That's cool. I'm trying to think if I had any other Halloween, interesting Halloween memories, the one thing I remember, one thing I remember the most about Halloween I remember the very first Simpsons Treehouse of Horror. Watching that after trick-or-treating and actually getting a little bit scared during the Raven short.
Speaker 2:Never bored.
Speaker 3:But there was always one thing I always remember. This was especially when I was a little kid. I always found this fascinating how this, like emotionally, this hit me, was the Charlie Brown Great Pumpkin Halloween special, good special, great special.
Speaker 2:This hit me was the uh, the charlie brown, you know great pumpkin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, halloween special, good special, great special. But what really hits me about that and watching it's like what? For me, watching that special after trick-or-treating late night on a vhs tape on halloween, like 10 o'clock, is not so much the first, what is like a 45 minute thing, so like the first 40 minutes, but it's the last five minutes that really hit me. But it's that build up to halloween everybody loves halloween to do this. And then at the very end, when linus falls asleep in the pumpkin patch, and at like two in the morning, three in the morning, um lucy, yeah, that's his sister.
Speaker 3:She goes out to bring him back in and then the next day, like you know, charlie brown and and and uh linus are talking um by the brick wall.
Speaker 3:Like they, like they do like they tended to do yeah, but it's just something about the peace and like the finality of halloween when it ends, and like the calm, I don't know. There's just something about that that puts me into like a real. Like a real, like it's. It's a cool feeling. It's a very like relaxed, um zenlike feeling is the ending of that show. I haven't watched that in years.
Speaker 2:Rachel would totally go for that. She's a big peanut spark. She would definitely be down for watching that this year. Don't you have a normal Halloween ritual of the show that you watch?
Speaker 3:The Garfield Halloween Adventure.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Have you watched it yet, or are you?
Speaker 2:saving it.
Speaker 3:I'm saving it. I haven't watched it yet. I got to watch that and I got to watch the Ernest Scared Stupid. That's my other Halloween movie, but see, the Garfield one is along the same lines because, again, the first 25 minutes is all on Halloween and then the end of it is the calm, relaxing post-Halloween depression or something like that almost a retrospective right, yeah, so I don't know watch.
Speaker 3:Watch that and let me know what you think, but like watch it, I guess. Watch it on halloween night as late as you can, yeah I'm done but you'd have to find it though, because I think it's only on apple tv oh yeah, so you'd have to like go to the library and get the bust out, the vhs there's got to be a plagiarized copy floating around oh, there's got to be two you yeah, somewhere on the I'm gonna it's not probably not the dark web, but more like the, you know, the gradient web, the gray web, yeah, all right.
Speaker 3:Well, let's get into video game talk. Okay, so what we're going to talk about? We just got a couple of things to go over, and our first, since we have finished our lovely month of October, let's talk about our games of November. So, phil, I was about to go off on another tangent. You know what, screw it, I'm going off on another tangent before.
Speaker 3:Yeah, do it content like content creative this is something that I haven't seen in a while. It's actually been probably about two or three years, at least in my memory. Tell me if I'm wrong, but for the longest time and I'm talking mid 90s through mid like 2015, 2016, something like that november was the month for games absolutely is when the best games ever came out.
Speaker 3:All your amazing games um, you know your zelda's and I'm not gonna get it, so just basically games. You know, uh, the, the heavy hitters always came out november, but then it shifted and a lot of the heavy hitters were coming out in january and february over the past few years and now, at least for me for these games of november, it looks like we're back to getting a lot of heavy hitters did so maybe I read this list wrong.
Speaker 2:I mean, I've had like three beers, but there's nothing so yeah, you tell me so, phil.
Speaker 3:Is there anything at all on that list that interests you?
Speaker 2:um truthfully yeah, truthfully read it again. There's nothing here that super tickles my fancy. Uh, tetris forever intrigues me, just because it's a tetris game and it's a game that you can play mindlessly to kill some time yep uh, that's their lego horizons on the list, just because I do typically enjoy Lego games. I'm assuming Lego Horizon is based off of Horizon Zero Dawn, so unfortunately I probably won't be able to play it. I did not hate the first Horizon Zero Dawn. Go ahead, okay no, no go ahead.
Speaker 2:Is that what it's based on or no?
Speaker 3:it is. It's based on horizon, zero dawn and it's on your favorite video game system, not just the playstation, but also on the switch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that means I can play it I don't know if I want to and then something called slitterhead. I know nothing about slitterhead, but it's a cool sounding title where it sounds like it might be something that I'd be into. So I've got that on my list as well. But when I look at this and I know that this list does contain a Mario Luigi brothership, which again I don't know what that is there's nothing here that stands out as that big ass triple a title that is going to be in everybody's stocking at Christmas.
Speaker 3:Yeah, triple a title that is gonna be in everybody's stocking at christmas.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's usually you know what the thing is? It's usually um call of duty.
Speaker 3:That's, yeah, which is already out, which just came out, yeah, so, uh, all right, well, tetris forever. I'll go off my, I'll go, uh, I'll give you what I've got. So, tetris forever. Yes, that's a collection of a whole bunch of different tetris games okay, that's cool so that'll be fun to add to the old collection. Uh, slitterhead, absolutely this looks like a. Uh like a, like a silent hill style game oh, yeah, totally so it's all sorts of messed up, so that one I'm looking forward to uh, stalker 2 comes out.
Speaker 2:Always love a horror-based first-person shooter I didn't play the first one so that one didn't make my list. It probably should have, and I should probably play the first one as well I wonder if that's on game pass.
Speaker 3:I'll have to take a look. Let's see why it wouldn't be. Oh well, uh, let's see next. Uh. Dragon quest 3 the hd 2d remake. I'm not a big rpg person, but I do like dragon quest games you like fighting slime? I do like the slime, I also. I like that the art is by toriyama okay so, uh, what else do I have?
Speaker 3:uh, so I've got mario and luigi brothership, which I'm looking forward to that. I have that game pre-ordered and that is that's, uh, the next game in the mario rpg mario and luigi rpg. So if you ever play like superstar saga, which is a good game, or bowser's inside story or anything like that, so it's, it's, it's a turn-based um, turn-based um rpg okay, um you know, I can see the appeal behind it, but it's it's probably not going to do much for me, unfortunately understand.
Speaker 3:The other one is also a turn-based RPG and that's Metal Slug Tactics. And man, do I love me some Metal Slug? I always love the animation on it, just the Contra-style gameplay. So this one is it's a Metal Slug game, but it plays like Final Fantasy Tactics. Like Final Fantasy Tactics exactly. I was going to say like Fire Emblem, but that's the same style of game.
Speaker 2:Or Wargroove game or wargroove or.
Speaker 3:But now that, um, now that I saw that metal slope tactics is coming out, I busted out out of the old uh backlog the uh alien tactics game that I got oh, I guess yeah, there's aliens and and it came out, it's. It's not, it's a series x game, so it's not like an xbox one game, right, but it's an.
Speaker 2:It's an aliens game, but it's all that like grid based, turn-based rpg when I was younger I really appreciated tactic styles games, but as I've gotten it's lost a little of his excuse me, of its luster, just, and I think it's due to the fact that they are kind of a time suck and they do take a lot of time to get into and get into the groove, and I don't necessarily have that kind of time lane around, unfortunately. Yep, yep, yep. So I've fallen off of that wagon a little bit falling off of that wagon a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yep, that's what happens. That's what happens. Yeah, I just look at my games and I'm like I don't wanna. I just like I don't have the strength to get into a new story I just want the comfort of what I know I just want the comfort of what I know.
Speaker 2:That's why I always default to fall guys and fortnite yep look at you I'll move this show in overwatch that's right, the show in overwatch exactly.
Speaker 3:Uh, let's see. The only other game that's on this list is actually a pc game.
Speaker 2:So I'm interested in a pc game and that's planet coaster 2 another game that, that style of game when I was younger I would really be into, but again, just don't have the patience for it right now, Maybe after I finally win a jillion dollars playing blackjack or something maybe I'll have that kind of time, there you go.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I. The only reason I would pick it up is because a buddy of mine well you know, kurt, he's gonna he's, he loves the Planet Coaster games and he goes full ham into those games.
Speaker 2:No kidding.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, and this one has a form of co-op. So basically how the way it works is you can share your save with somebody.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So it's like you're not playing at the same time, but whenever you the game, it saves what you've done onto both files, so it is.
Speaker 3:It is kind of like co-op, just not it's. It's like co-op with extra steps, split co-op, there you go, something like that. Yeah, so, yeah, so that's what's coming out in november. Uh, I almost picked up. I don't know we already talked about that how I was tempted to get a ps5. That I'm like no thanks, because it was on sale like two weeks ago, so I'm not gonna get into that. All right, anything else, anything else interesting news related or anything that we can go over before we go and get into what we played not that I'm aware of.
Speaker 2:I did download called the newest call of duty. I haven't played it. I debated deleting it almost automatically just because I'm tired of seeing the logo, but it's there, I hear it kind of gets horary at the end, so I'm kind of intrigued by that that's why I downloaded it.
Speaker 3:Okay, so I but I haven't played it. But yeah, I downloaded it because, yeah, I'm waiting for, looking forward to that. Um, it's, I heard the same thing yeah, we're on the same page.
Speaker 2:Then Call of Duty we're going to talk about all of next week Well, probably not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, all right. Well, let's get into what we played then. So, phil, what have you been playing over this last week-ish?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, unfortunately I have nothing new to add to that collection.
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to stop and think that if I did play anything else aside from Inscription, which I did spend a little bit of time with not a ton of time, but some time Outside of that, new season of Overwatch started two weeks ago, so that's consuming my time. Mlb the Show just started a Halloween program that's happening, where you unlock a bunch of 99 players, so I've spent some time with that. I stared at the casting of Frank, whatever, and tried to talk Rachel into it, but she was out, so we did not start that yet, unfortunately, and so I've just kind of been stuck in this weird gaming rut. It's also been very busy for me lately, so I mean unfortunately, I have not had more than probably about an hour, hour and a half a day to put into anything.
Speaker 3:Gotcha.
Speaker 2:And so I just knock out my daily types of missions and quests and I do that and then go to bed.
Speaker 3:All right.
Speaker 1:What about yourself, Mike?
Speaker 3:Well, myself, I actually was able to get a few games in. Normally, this time was all about scary movies, so like you know, the wife and I we did a double feature of Halloween 1 and 2. And we saw Smile 2 in the theater.
Speaker 2:You said that off-air.
Speaker 1:I think last week.
Speaker 3:Yeah, enjoyed that yeah week. Yeah, yeah, enjoyed that. Um, yeah, saw a movie called freaky with uh, what's that?
Speaker 1:guy's name vince vaughn think you know the movie freaky friday.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think. The same concept, only the two people that switch bodies are a teenage high school girl and a serial killer like jason oh, okay yeah, so, but uh, in terms of the game space, uh, wait was freaky good it was okay. It wasn't bad, it had it's. It's a horror comedy a comedy it's a.
Speaker 2:It's a yeah a core calmer, calmer calmer, that's how they say common boston yeah, boston, anyway, that's not.
Speaker 3:That's number three after new york and la, for me, anywho, uh, we don't want to get into that, so other so in terms of games I played. So I finished my halloween season for fall guys, uh, got unlocked. My um unlocked the count dracula, which was like the last one to unlock okay, nice job, so I mean good game yeah, gg, and I started playing a game called crano origins.
Speaker 3:Uh, it was on Switch. I think I got it on sale for like it was on my wish list. I got it on sale for like seven bucks. It's basically it's a Shovel Knight clone, but instead of a knight with a shovel, you are a skeleton with a, and I always mispronounce this Scythe, scythe, sith, scythe.
Speaker 3:I always go with scythe myself, but I barely speak english so, yes, so cranial origins fun game like they did, like I don't care that it's a, that it's a shovel knight ripoff and it plays a lot like shovel knight, looks like shovel knight it's. It's a fun ha-style game. In fact, I think our friend might recommend it for next year. Oh yeah, and not only that, but the developer, I think, just announced that they're working on a sequel, and the sequel is going to be a Metroidvania-style game.
Speaker 3:Oh interesting Yep. Sequel is going to be a metroidvania style game. Oh, interesting yep.
Speaker 2:So that's krano k-r-a-i-n-o origins. Check it out, it's a pretty good game.
Speaker 3:I might have to get that elixir. Yeah, I also see here yeah, see, uh, I also started up a new game plus of dead space. Oh yes, and I played it far enough that I could get to a, the bench or the shop or whatever, and then fully max out my um, my, my, uh, my armor and get the achievement for it.
Speaker 3:And then after that, and then I I then an enemy popped out and it tells you. It says, when you play new game plus, you will um come across new and more challenging enemies. So I'm like okay, and so I came across, uh, another necromorph, which is just your basic one. But this one was this one was dark, red and had glowing eyes and took about 15 shots to take down as opposed to the normal three. So then I'm like you know what? I think I'm good, I'm cool with that achievement. I got the achievement for the maxed out armor. I think that's good enough for me. That sounds ridiculously difficult.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that sounds ridiculously difficult. Yeah, the game is hard, even on medium difficulty.
Speaker 2:It really is a challenge. So then can I ask you, since obviously you completed New Game Regular, how was your entire playthrough of the remaster?
Speaker 3:I had a good time with it, except I think we talked about it on the last episode, where there was some stuff that got on my nerves. Like you know, enemies constantly showing up behind you.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 3:There are some parts where just oh yeah, it was like too much backtracking. The game was really dark at points and then I realized well, all I'm doing in this entire game, this entire game, all you're doing is fixing different parts of the ship. That's the whole thing. That's the whole game. Oh, you need to go here and the you know, the johnson rod is broke.
Speaker 3:You got to get a new johnson rod in there I hate it when the johnson rod's broken I gotta get a new johnson rod, then we to go over to storage and get a Johnson rod. You know, here's the guy I got to fight, so you know it's. But it's still still a fun game and I love the combat and everything. It's a horror based fetch quest game. It's well, that's basically what it is. Yeah, but you know, I liked it Good. And then the other game I played is a game called retro realms, and what that is. That is a collection of two 16 bit style side scrolling hack and slash games based on Halloween and evil dead.
Speaker 3:Oh okay, yep, you did. You got that then? Oh yeah, no, oh, I definitely picked it up yeah, so I picked it up. It came with actually when I opened up the xbox game at xbox, not the switch version um you're maturing mike yep, I know I'm trying to do better. Uh, it came with a pack of cards.
Speaker 1:So that was pretty cool.
Speaker 3:It's nice to see you get the extra stuff in there. So I opened up the pack of cards and it just had different characters from the game and quotes from the movies that they were in and stuff. But you can play as Michael Myers. You could play as Ash from Evil Dead and Army of Darkness. You can also play as laurie strode from the halloween movies, jamie lee curtis's character interesting and then you can also play as kelly. She was one of the main characters in ash versus evil dead the series okay yeah, so it's two.
Speaker 3:So it's basically it's those two games they're. The games aren't very deep, I think there's only like 10 levels in each, but you can. You can play that. What's what's cool is like all the extra bells and whistles. You can then play as Ash in the Halloween game or as Michael Myers in the evil dead game.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:Uh, and I think it unlocks different um, different scenes and things like that. But the game isn't set up Like. It's like, oh, press start and then, oh, choose your game. No, the game starts and you're in an, in an old, abandoned arcade almost, and so it shows, it shows the two games, and then you have to it's a first person view you walk up to the game and press the a button to select it.
Speaker 3:Well, when you're done with that, you can walk around this location, so you can go in, and there's a trophy room and there's a diorama room. So whenever you beat a level, I think like a diorama of the level will show up on a pedestal and there's a diorama room. So whenever you beat a level, I think like a diorama of the level will show up on a pedestal and it's pretty cool. So it's kind of like how a lot of those, um, acrylic things are being done where it's like it's like three, I don't know. It's really tough to to talk about it and not show you, but it's. It's like there's a background that's like an acrylic stand and then in front of it there's another acrylic piece and then in front of that there's another acrylic piece. So it gives you like a 3d ish view of a of a scene okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, so you can. You can get those. You can in the game you can collect tickets by, you know, killing it or finding hidden tickets, and then you can use the tickets to purchase things in the museum. So I purchased um michael myers's clown outfit from the very beginning of halloween and it doesn't really do anything.
Speaker 2:It's just there in the museum, uh, you can't equip it, as you're playing with michael myers playing the halloween version of the game as far as I know, no, because it the the the clown costume looks realistic, whereas the game is 16-bit okay um, and then so they've got that for halloween and evil dead.
Speaker 3:Uh, another cool room that you can go into and this, this one is. This one is really cool and I'm really, I was really happy to see this. There's a room with a bookshelf with a bunch of vhs tapes and an old school tv and an old school vcr. As you play the game, you can find vhs tapes and then you can go into this room and then grab them and put them in the vcr and watch behind the scenes videos. Uh, you know a whole bunch of different stuff. You know cut scenes, history, so there's some really cool extra bonus features.
Speaker 3:Like I was just watching, like I watched the video of like you know how they came up with the idea and all that other jazz, but it was. It's really cool to see all that bonus stuff. You don't see a lot of that. Like I love looking at the behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that stuff's always just a good fun time to watch. Um, my question for you is do the two games play similarly, or are they pretty different, or?
Speaker 3:similar style style and that's the thing. The games are just okay. Uh, it's, it's, it's basic run-of-the-mill walk left to right. A guy comes up to you, you attack him, you you fight a boss, and then you collect uh candy corn, which is like currency, at least in the in the halloween, where I didn't play the evil dead one, I played the halloween one okay um, you collect candy corn, which is the currency which you could then use to upgrade michael myers, give him extra life, unlock some extra moves, things like that.
Speaker 3:Um, a few problems that I have with the game. First of all, the there's some input lag and it's and it's it really like like there's a down attack you can do. You can use a down attack which then, after you hit, hit him. Michael Myers will pogo off of them like a Scrooge, mcduck style.
Speaker 1:Yep.
Speaker 3:But there's just the slight and I don't know if it's a delay with the input or if it's because Michael Myers has like a wind-up animation before he swings the knife. It could be one of those, but I looked up on reddit and I'm not the only one. I thought it might have been my tv, but I'm not the only one that's having this problem. There's, there are people on reddit they're saying actually, was that it was bad enough that I actually they're not going to reply. I know they're not going to reply, but I sent them, I put, I tweeted out to the developer and I'm like, hey, there is some bad input lag on this game. Is there anything being done about it? And it's not like it doesn't break the game, but it's something you need to be cognizant of and work with.
Speaker 2:It tarnishes the experience.
Speaker 3:It does a little bit Like okay, here's a guy coming at me, Well, he's far enough away. I should probably press the attack button and then he'll just run into my knife when I swing.
Speaker 2:Oh, what is that bad that's pretty bad.
Speaker 3:So I've died quite a few times because of a missed attack due to some input lag.
Speaker 2:I might try go ahead, sorry, no, you do your thing I might try.
Speaker 3:I might try a wired controller and see if that makes a difference that's probably a good call.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, is all the bonus content exclusive to the physical copy or physical, yeah, physical copy. Or is it also on the digital version? It's on the digital, you mean like the videos and stuff yeah yeah, no, no, you unlock the videos throughout playing the game yeah, but I wasn't sure if that was one of those special add-ons that only happened because of of having the physical copy, nope, and I don't remember exactly, unfortunately, but how much was it to to buy the, the game it's?
Speaker 3:40 bucks. Right, it's a 50 game, so that's a full price game, which to me it may be about $10 too, too expensive.
Speaker 2:I was about to say, that makes the, the, the lag that much more. Just take the time, guys and gals.
Speaker 3:Well, here's the other thing and so so anyway, so, like I said, the games themselves they're not bad, they just could have been, they could be better. So I'm hoping that they and way forward worked on this too, and way forward was awesome with. They're usually really good. Yeah, a lot of fun achievements though really a lot of.
Speaker 2:Now you're speaking my language achievements.
Speaker 3:Yes, there's, um, like a lot of see, and that's what I like, what I liked about this like there's there's your achievements for beating the levels, but then there's like achievements for bounce on like four enemies without hitting the ground, you know, but then there's achievements in the first person arcade area. Oh, no kidding.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's one, you know watch your first video, purchase your first thing. But then there's like when I was uh looking at the diorama, I like flipped it over to the back and which was pretty cool because it showed michael myers in the um the sanitarium, but then when you flipped it around it was the same scene but a hellish like it looked like it was in hell instead, because in the game when you press the b button you flip between the real world and the demon world.
Speaker 3:So while you're playing, so there's like some hidden areas that you can only access by flipping into the demon world. So I just I spun the diorama around and then, when it did that, you know the achievement on the left, so you can get an achievement for that.
Speaker 3:There's an achievement for um trying to exit the, the, the arcade no kidding yeah, so I was like I was in the first person mode and I turned around and I went to the door and I pressed the A button and then the achievement popped up that said, well, at least you tried that reminds me of even I think it was the Simpsons hit and run game, where you got 10 points just for pressing start to start the game oh yeah, was that one called like worst achievement ever, or something like something like that yeah that's funny are there a 1,000 achievements per game or is it 1,000 between the two?
Speaker 3:Oh, it's 1,000 per. I like the fact that.
Speaker 2:Xbox is doing that.
Speaker 3:And there's 74 total.
Speaker 1:Holy hell.
Speaker 3:I'm just looking at the achievements right now. View a diorama. Beat the world, watch a video. Oh yeah, there's an achievement for pressing start. Okay, beat the world, watch a video. Oh yeah, there's an achievement for pressing start.
Speaker 2:Okay, here's the downside you ready?
Speaker 3:yeah, maybe my gamer score right now 81 154 uh, you don't like that that uneven number no, there's achievements that are worth one, there's achievements that are worth eight. You know which. You know. That's all right.
Speaker 2:It is what it is, but um that was a tick of mine for a long time, and then I was just finally like you know what. I can't do anything about this at this point. It's just gonna be what it is yep, so, yeah, so 74 achievements, 2000,.
Speaker 3:But you know, let's see, play a game 10 times, watch all the videos, buy more souvenirs, you know. So there's some fun ones. Use only the sub weapon to beat a level. Yeah, beat the game with no health upgrades purchased. Oh, wow, they got achievements for pacifist runs. That's pretty cool, but anywho. So again, it's interesting. I hope they can make the controls a lot more responsive, like immediate responsive, because then, yeah, that would make it a lot easier. There's also some parts that are kind of hard because, like, not due to it being challenging, just like they're, just like throwing too much at you yeah, well, that's not a game tends to do that at a certain point as well, unfortunately just to kind of create long jet, long jet.
Speaker 2:Longevity, there it is uh within, within the course of the game. Um, if they tighten up those controls and you see anything that's posted about it, you happen to notice it, let me know and I will gladly buy that game.
Speaker 3:But with that kind of a lag, it's just, it's, it's, it's a huge turnoff, unfortunately, just here it is yeah, because I mean, if you're having you, if you have like a hack and slash side scrolling game like that it's got to be tight it has to be tight, it has to be perfect, like there's no room for error. Yeah so, but I I'd say I'd probably give it like a six out of ten.
Speaker 3:That's not terrible that's not terrible, it's, it's doable, it's it'sable, especially if you like those horror movies. But yeah, I don't know, it's just okay, all right. Well, let's get into our last segment of the night, and that is oh, phil, we need to say goodbye to our friend, our good buddy, Retro Game Frankenstein.
Speaker 2:I'm going to miss him. I, I'm going to miss him. I mean, he's already hit the road. He's you know, he's peeled that pavement away in his motorcycle.
Speaker 3:That's right, he's driving off into the sunset.
Speaker 2:Leaving a trail of memory cards behind him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, memory cards that don't work anymore With Lara Croft on them. With Lara Croft on them, alright. So last week, the game that was assigned to us by retro game, frankenstein, was a game called inscription, and actually you know what I do it's. I haven't done this in a while, but let me pull up the uh, official description of description. A description, inscription, description an inscription description.
Speaker 2:It's like an inception deception okay, so here we go.
Speaker 3:From the creator of Pony Island and the Hex comes the latest mind-melting, self-destructing love letter to video games. Inscription is an inky black card-based odyssey that blends the deck-building, roguelike, escape room style puzzles and psychological horror into a blood-laced smoothie. Darker still are the secrets inscribed upon the cards an inscription you will acquire a deck of woodland creature cards by draft surgery and self-mutilation. Unlock the secrets lurking behind the walls of lushy's cabin and embark on an unexpected and deeply disturbing odyssey. So the game is actually oh well, it'll. It's currently on sale. Actually it's on. It's on sale on xbox for eight dollars, but it's also on game pass, which is how we came across it. So inscription it is. It's a card game and it's um. You're playing um this game against a mysterious, really creepy stranger. And basically, the way and help me out, phil, the way the game works is you have cards that are different animals.
Speaker 3:You have to sacrifice animals in order to get better animals. Yes, and to activate other animals like. So, for example, you've got squirrel cards. Squirrel cards are your basic ones, so, like you have to, and you can only put, I think, four or five cards down in front of you at a time, it's four as far as I played that's four.
Speaker 3:Okay, so you put down a squirrel card and then, let's say, you have a wolf card. Well, the wolf card needs a sacrifice of two drops of blood. However, a squirrel only has one drop of blood, so you need to put two squirrels down before you can put the wolf card down. So you kill the squirrels, you drop the wolf and then every turn the wolf will attack whatever's in front of it, and if there's nothing in front of it, it attacks the other person you're playing against. And if it hits them, then there's some uh, gold or something trinkets that drop onto a scale, and once the scale goes all the way down, then you win. So every time the other person attacks you, it drops onto your side of the scale. So it's you know, it's like back and forth with who can get the scale to drop all the way down first.
Speaker 3:Some of the creatures have different um, I guess uh buffs or abilities yeah, abilities, buffs, both work yeah, so like if you have a flying one, it'll fly over whatever's in front of it and attack the person, or the other person there's also. There's also. You can also collect items and use them, kind of like what was it? The goats or something like that. The goat?
Speaker 2:in the bottle, the goat, there's also the tweezers or the pliers. Um, there's different creatures you can get throughout the course of the bottle. Uh god, what else did I see? What like the different creatures or the different items no, the different items, because there was a small handful. There was like a fan as well, or something like that that would give a buff to something that you played.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Or could attach to Yep, so while you're playing this game, the person you're playing against is like dropping hints as to why you're there, things like that. And then they roll out a scroll and right before each round of the game you play, you have a little character that looks like a monopoly piece or something like that. That and that bounces on a path and you can do things like get extra cards, you can sacrifice one card to make another card more powerful, and that's in between, like the different matches um one thing I'll say yeah.
Speaker 3:So one thing I'll say this game is really creepy. It's not scary, but I love how like, dark and foreboding it is the vibe of it is outstanding.
Speaker 2:Just you being trapped in a cabin with a dude that wants to play cards with you. It's like if we were drunk in a cabin and I just want to play cribbage like no, you're not leaving until you beat me five times.
Speaker 3:Yep. So yeah it's, and the guy that you're playing against. You can't see his face, but you could definitely see his eyes.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the eyes are really creepy. And then when, when you, when you're playing each round which is like the scroll, you know when you get through, get to to the very end, you play against a boss and he puts on a mask of the boss and it's really creepy. And again, really creepy, really really creepy. Factor, um, and I guess there's a story involved, but I didn't get far enough because, man, this game is tough. Like I made it I, I made it to the angler and the second boss for me was the angler and his ability to use a hook to grab one of my creatures and then use them against me. That killed me. I'm like I couldn't do it. So I don't know, I've got to play the game a bit more to get better at it.
Speaker 2:I guess it's a game that I was super intrigued by by, and I love the hand-holding phase because it made me feel good about it. I am notorious, and I've said it on this show more than once, that like ccgs are just not my style. I'm not smart enough to play them. In my own words, nobody else's well, I'm sure plenty of other people have said it about me, but the vibe of this game and even like when you get past the prospector, as you're leading up the prospector, he's like go over to the candle or over to the candelabra on the wall, go, grab that, bring it back here, set it down. But you see, like I'm gonna say six other things that you can interact with, and then he says one of like your cards says something along the lines of there's a way out of this room. It's in the room, but you can't go and interact with him and stuff until you get to certain points in the story, right, which is where the escape room aspect of it comes into play, which is super intriguing to me.
Speaker 3:But it's tough yeah, it's a hard game but it's still fun, still enjoyable, like I really love the vibe on it. It's the vibe is outstanding.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just a matter of being able to put those pieces into play. That will get you in the right direction, and for people that are into CCGs or card games, they'll enjoy this a lot more than I did. Not saying that I hated it, but just my brain doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3:Yeah right, I'm not smart enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I still enjoyed the time I had with it.
Speaker 2:Most definitely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I still enjoyed the time I had with it. Most definitely Cool, all right, anything else. I got nothing else on the game. It's on Game Pass. If you're interested, intrigued and you have Game Pass, pick it up. I think it's on sale. Like I said, it's on sale. If you can get it for like $7, then I think it's worth it, especially if you like those types of card games or you like, you know, spooky games yeah, if you like spooky games or card games or a combination of both, go check it out.
Speaker 2:Go play through it a handful of times. Uh, I think you'll have a good time with it. I'd like I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, but I didn't enjoy it as much as I. In my brain I had bellatro in my head and it wasn't Bellatro.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yep, that's what I was thinking. Nice, alright. Well, so that does it for Retro Game Frankenstein's games for this year. So we'll see him again next year when he has a whole new set of games for us to play. And then that's all we got. So thank you everybody so much for hanging out with us today. Phil, if anyone wants to get a hold of you, where can they reach you?
Speaker 2:you can reach me on twitter be now 23. But more importantly than that, mike, aside from how they can reach you, is if they want to read all the reviews and all of the shenanigans that are happening on gamer heads podcast, as well as on the gamer headscom never mind, I just dropped the name of the website go to gamerheadscom and take a look at our reviews, take a look at our articles. We are working diligently to try to bring the best independent content on this side of jill, who is part of our patreon, to the internet yes, our patreon on the internet and that's and just I hate to interrupt you, but that's gamerheadspodcastcom.
Speaker 1:that's what I said you said gamerheadscom yeah you know, but you gotta but you gotta say like gamerheadspodcastcom
Speaker 3:gamerheadspodcastcom so yes, give us money on the patreon.
Speaker 2:So if you like what you hear and if you don't, we don't blame you yeah and if you don't, we don't blame you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, roger needs gas money to get back from uh walla walla washington I've been to walla walla.
Speaker 2:I was just there like a month ago. Hell yeah, dude, um man, yep, shout out to the walla walla weedery just because I'm gonna do that. It was a super nice dispensary that had very nice people that were working there that were very informed and very helpful as well. Like Walla, walla is a dope little city that I think everybody should go visit at least once in their life.
Speaker 3:I only know about it because of Bugs Bunny.
Speaker 2:That, and I think it was also in Oregon Trail.
Speaker 3:Oh nice.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry to have just disrupted that but I got excited over Walla, walla.
Speaker 3:Yeah, patreon, right, that's where we were yeah, patreon.
Speaker 2:If you like what you hear, go see a physician first and then second, give us some money and then third. Mike, how can people get in touch with you if they want to reach out to you on Twitter?
Speaker 3:They can get a hold of me at PezGuyMike Excellent. All they can get a hold of me at PezGuyMike Excellent. Yes, all right. Well, everybody, thank you for listening for this full 50-ish minutes. We hope you all have a fantastic rest of your evening or day or whatever time you're listening to this. Hope you had a happy Halloween and until next time, everybody stay safe and game on. We'll see you all later.
Speaker 2:Goodbye, take care, dot com and until next time everybody stay safe and game on.
Speaker 3:We'll see y'all later. Goodbye, take care, thank you.
