Chamberlain and Chance

2024 is promptly forgotten as Assassin's Creed Shadows has been delayed and, more importantly, Ghost of Yotei has been announced. In the present, undefined time, Chamberlain is still working his way through Dungeons of Hinterland, which has moved far beyond mediocre dungeon crawling into political intrigue and the failings of a tourism based economy. No really. Alex shrinks down to Grounded because he wasn't scared enough of spiders. And Chance stopped playing Star Wars Outlaws just long enough to download Ghost of Tsushima and remember what good combat feels like.

In the rarest of occurrences, Chamberlain, Chance and Alex have all played the same game. This time it is Star Wars Outlaws. Unlike modern classics like Spider-Man, however, there is some disagreement on its quality. In other words, Chamberlain hated it and cannot be dissuaded. He brings Nobody Wants To Die and Dungeons of Hinterburg to the table, but makes no progress. Chance is still playing sabacc on Tatooine and Alex has gotten back together with an old girlfriend named X-Com 2, having forgotten how abusive that relationship really was.

Yes, two thirds of the people on the podcast are not fans of the PS5 Pro's price. Two thirds will also end up buying it, but is that the same two thirds? Also this week, Chamberlain was right to be concerned about Vision of Mana's writing. They are either bad at their job or cowards. Chance wishes Star Wars Outlaws had a new game plus and Alex continues to enjoy an incredibly deep, complicated game that few other people understand.

In a moment that no one saw coming, Chance heartily endorses a Ubisoft game for the first time since Far Cry 3. Star Wars Outlaws is his new love and he swears that history will eventually see it as right up there with Knights of the Old Republic. Chamberlain is plenty happy with a easy, breezy, beautiful JRPG that isn't trying to kill him in every encounter: Visons of Mana. And Alex tries to play Metal Gear Solid 5, finds the conspicuous absence of cards and Deadpool to much to bare, then returns to Midnight Suns. Again.

There will be no 420 jokes in this episode. Drugs are to be taken seriously, with intent, as they can lead to extended conversations on Kojima's skewed view of women and why Metal Gear Solid 5 needs a current gen remaster anyway. Drugs certainly had nothing to do with Chamberlain tapping out on the last boss on SMT V and Alex getting lost in Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. Chance didn't really play anything this week, so there may be a 420 joke there.

It's been two weeks and Chance still has not finished a play through of Baldur's Gate 3. He has started over, twice, and then gone back to punching zombies in Dead Island 2. Alex has emerged from his cruise unscathed, or at least well enough to get started on the Persona 3 remake and Prince of Persia The Lost crown. And Chamberlain, who has never played a Pokémon game, has put a ton of hours into Shin Megami Tensei V Vengeance, which is literally a Pokémon game, just with heavy religious imagery.

This week, Chamberlain finishes up Tevi and then gives Shin Megami Tensei 5 a second chance, now that he can play it on a real console at more than a handful of frames per second. Alex spends far too much time trying to get Rayman 3 running on his Steam Deck. And Chance plays a just enough of Thank Goodness You're Here to realize that he is not British enough to get the humor, then returns to his power run of Baldur's Gate III, which he swears he will finish this time.

No, it was not the Crowdstrike debacle that took us down last week. Chalk that up to a simple internet outage. But we did use that time to double down on our efforts of playing new and exciting things. And by that I mean that Alex got all of the Bioware games he cares about running on the Steam deck, Chance hates Overwatch again and Chamberlain is playing a magical bunny girl metroidvania that he swears is not actually about a magical bunny girl, it's just a regular girl in a hat with ears, because that somehow makes it better.

Chance and Alex admit, with no prodding, that the final boss of the Erdtree expansion is not fun or good. This does not mean that they have stopped playing Elden Ring, only that they are not bothering with that boss again. It did drive Alex back to the original Dark Souls titles and Chance to high level comp success in Overwatch 2, so win/win? And Chamberlain finished Cookie Cutter without understanding what, if anything, the title meant, then gave up on life and reinstalled Diablo IV.

Everyone in the whole world is playing Shadow of the Erdtree. Alex is stuck on the final boss, which he admits is on the less fair side or things, and Chance is taking his sweet time, backstroking through the world, stumbling headlong into areas that he didn't know he needed to do. They love it, but the praise is not without some complaints. Chamberlain hates things that everyone else like she he his playing Cookie Cutter, a hand drawn, hyper violent metroidvania featuring a late 80's punk look and a talking vagina. You heard me.