Ever found yourself reminiscing about the good old days of co-op gaming? Phil & Eric take a nostalgia-packed journey through the wild terrains of "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands." We crack open our gaming diaries to share the laughter, the camaraderie, and even the technical hiccups that made Wildlands the digital playground we couldn't get enough of. Strap in for a podcast that's part trip down memory lane and part love letter to the game that brought us together across state lines.
Diving into the heart of Wildlands, we couldn't help but marvel at the beautiful chaos only a game like this can provide. We reminisce about those heart-pounding, stealthy missions, the joy of a perfectly executed plan, and the sheer absurdity when it all goes to hell. There might have been some narrative and aging flaws in this gem, but we argue that the spirit of co-op play still makes it shine bright. Plus, we certainly didn't shy away from musing over the what-ifs surrounding the Splinter Cell and Predator crossovers.
Our gaming gabfest doesn't just stop with Wildlands, though. We poke around in Ubisoft's sandbox, comparing the game to the likes of the Far Cry series, and dissect the studio's recipe for open-world enchantment. While shaking our heads at the missteps of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, we can't help but wonder about Ubisoft's magic touch—or sometimes lack thereof. Join us, and let's celebrate the games that turn our friends into comrades-in-arms, and the pixels into unforgettable stories.
Want to hear more about how we got into gaming? Listen to the interview we did with Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers!
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Prod. Riddiman: optimistic
🔺
Ever found yourself reminiscing about the good old days of co-op gaming? Phil & Eric take a nostalgia-packed journey through the wild terrains of "Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon: Wildlands." We crack open our gaming diaries to share the laughter, the camaraderie, and even the technical hiccups that made Wildlands the digital playground we couldn't get enough of. Strap in for a podcast that's part trip down memory lane and part love letter to the game that brought us together across state lines.
Diving into the heart of Wildlands, we couldn't help but marvel at the beautiful chaos only a game like this can provide. We reminisce about those heart-pounding, stealthy missions, the joy of a perfectly executed plan, and the sheer absurdity when it all goes to hell. There might have been some narrative and aging flaws in this gem, but we argue that the spirit of co-op play still makes it shine bright. Plus, we certainly didn't shy away from musing over the what-ifs surrounding the Splinter Cell and Predator crossovers.
Our gaming gabfest doesn't just stop with Wildlands, though. We poke around in Ubisoft's sandbox, comparing the game to the likes of the Far Cry series, and dissect the studio's recipe for open-world enchantment. While shaking our heads at the missteps of Ghost Recon Breakpoint, we can't help but wonder about Ubisoft's magic touch—or sometimes lack thereof. Join us, and let's celebrate the games that turn our friends into comrades-in-arms, and the pixels into unforgettable stories.
Want to hear more about how we got into gaming? Listen to the interview we did with Your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers!
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast (which includes our brand new Patreon site!)🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Prod. Riddiman: optimistic
🔺
Welcome to your go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it.
Speaker 2:Gaming. Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 1:Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they've got you covered and all you gotta do is wait for it. This is the Wait For it Podcast. Hey, everyone, welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast. I am your co-host, phil Smith, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty.
Speaker 2:And Eric, we are here with the April edition of the Game Room when it Happens, and this is a game that we have been sitting on for a while now. It is a game that I think you can argue along with Titanfall 2, reignited our passion for multiplayer gaming, because you know I had moved away. You were very sad. Eric cried four weeks, just so you guys know, sobbing, I had to move back to Jacksonville just to start this podcast, just so you guys know.
Speaker 2:There definitely weren't any other circumstances to take into account, but this game came out and gave us a great reason to hang out and play a fun game. Does it have its downfalls? Absolutely, and we'll talk about those here throughout the episode. But, eric, we will be talking about Ghost Recon Wildlands, which you had mentioned before we started. You know this game holds a special place in a lot of people's heart because of how fun it was, because of the cooperative play, and we're going to deep dive into all of that, and I'm excited to take a trip down memory lane, eric, and talk about this game that we love so much.
Speaker 1:It's going to be exciting. I think that it's funny that this is right around that time. Phil, we definitely overcompensated with the podcast by being away so long. We were like what could we do that we're just going to do too much of, and then we proceeded to release two episodes a week for like four years. So again, don't know how we did it, but this game is, ironically enough, there's a couple of these games that we bring up, so I know it sounds like a broken record, but it's one of the games that likely helped us think of the idea of this series was just getting to casually talk about games that we love, and phil wildlands is a hundred percent up there for us, enough that we've played it at two different time periods, two different consoles, and now we're revisiting it right here today. So I think this is going to be a good conversation and, like you mentioned, a game that a lot of people love, so something in it for them as well yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 2:it's definitely a game that we've come across where we will mention it to people and they'll be like, oh, I loved wildlands, you know, which would have been nice to maybe fill out a four-person party back in 2017, but it's okay, because we again, we went back again and and played it a little bit later down the road with some, uh, some other friends and that went to, you know, varying levels of success, but, again, all stuff we will talk about throughout this entire episode. So, before we get started, I want to welcome in any brand new as well as all of you returning listeners to the WayForward podcast. I want to thank you guys so much for all the support we've gotten throughout the month of April. It's been a lot of fun and we still have a couple more episodes to go after this one before the month ends, so make sure you stick around to the very end of the episode. We'll let you know where you can find all the rest of our content, as well as our social media pages the game room, where it happens pretty self-explanatory.
Speaker 2:We talk about games that are either relatively new to our library or games that we are reminiscing about, which is the case here today for Ghost Recon Wildlands. So let's go ahead and jump into this thing here, eric, I guess I'll do a synopsis, even though you could tell me somebody could give me a fake synopsis for ghost recon wildlands. I'd be like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember. Like, like you, when you talk about game of thrones, I would just be like, yes, absolutely, I totally remember when that happened in ghost recon wildlands.
Speaker 1:I could probably come up with a with one right now.
Speaker 2:I I guarantee you I could come up with a synopsis you could probably pull up chat GPT to pull up to like create a fake Ghost Recon Wildlands synopsis and I'd be like yep, there it is, that was it. You know what I'll?
Speaker 1:actually do it. After rising through the ranks of her male dominated profession, fbi agent Kate Masur receives a top assignment. Recruited by mysterious government official, kate joins a task force for the escalating war against drugs. Led by the intense and shadowy Alejandro, the team travels back and forth across the US and Mexican border, using one cartel boss to flush out a bigger one. So, phil, there you go, ghost Recon right.
Speaker 2:Actually, I don't think that's the case, because it didn't mention the four playable characters whatsoever. Did you do that from chat GPT?
Speaker 1:No, that was the synopsis of Sicario. I did not watch that movie, but I've always wanted to, and it's the one I think of when I think of the series.
Speaker 2:I was going to say that sounded way more interesting than the story to Ghost Recon. It's interesting that we are starting off shitting on this game, but it is the weakest part of the game, so I will mention this. Just far as Wildlands, it is a open world and a minor role playing game set in the Ghost Recon franchise developed by Ubisoft Paris, focusing on a conflict between Santa Blanca, the Santa Blanca drug cartel and a small team of Ghost Recon operators sent to destabilize the cartel's operation in a fictionalized Bolivia in 2019. It released on March 7th 2017 for PC, ps4 and Xbox One, and Eric, we actually this is back in the day. I mean, they do this now, which is nice a little bit as far as some games do this, and I think more should take advantage of it.
Speaker 2:We bought this game because we played the beta and I don't know if it was like a free, open beta or we had, like it was, when we did go to gamestop pre-order games. You got a beta code and then you would come back and play it, but we were like, are we gonna buy this? I think at the time, we were really only playing titanfall. I would have to look back at, like the timeline, but we were looking for, obviously, you know, more things to jump into, and we found ourselves having a great time with Wildlands. So I'll throw it to you. Take us back to that time Again. Our library is very small. We're basically playing Madden every year, titanfall 2, and that's about it. This was pre-Fortnite. Fortnite did not exist at this time, in the iteration that it is now the Battle Royale edition, and we took a flyer on a game.
Speaker 1:And here we are, seven years later, reminiscing about that time so phil, we talked about a game that I think kind of mirrors this a little bit as far as how we got into it, and that's hell divers, phil, hell divers. This is 2024 social media. I mean, there were clips, there were just fun things happening in the game and we were like that kind of catches my eye, that looks like a lot of fun. Uh, to a much lesser extent, wildlands kind of did that. For us, that's the first game, phil maybe not the first, but the biggest game I can remember where we were like influenced by social media and seeing all these clips and saying like wow, that looks like a lot of fun.
Speaker 1:And in the world of streaming and stuff especially, you know, it was still fairly new at that time or not. What it is today is what I should say. Wildlands was a big one, a big hit among streaming types. So I think it was inevitable for a lot of people to catch wind of this game. It was just a matter it was a matter of are we going catch wind of this game? It was just a matter it was a matter of are we going to pull the trigger, you know, for lack of better words for this game? And we did and it was a ton of fun. So much fun, phil. When we got into it, all I could think about is what is a Tom Clancy's game going to be like? I think, phil, the only game I cannot it was not a Rainbow Six game, or maybe it was. There is only like one Tom Clancy game we played, and damn, I Splinter Cell. No, phil, there was a multiplayer Tom.
Speaker 2:Clancy game. Oh, I played that with Brock, Conviction. I played with Brock. I'll try to find it A multiplayer Tom Clancy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we definitely played a Pre this Before this. Oh yeah, oh yeah, we definitely played a pre this before this.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh yeah I just cannot remember what it was. There was Advanced Warfighter and Future Soldier, but we didn't play those and they weren't very good. Are you thinking? Maybe Rainbow Six, possibly? I don't think we played those either. Like Vegas, rainbow Six, vegas was super popular.
Speaker 1:I think that is the one. It was Vegas. Yeah, because there was a lot of fun stuff in it and you know when we talk about Tom Clancy specifically, it was Rainbow Six Vegas. That's the only Tom Clancy experience we've had. Now Ghost Recon's a whole, nother thing, but just Tom Clancy games in general outside of Splinter Cell. That was really our only exposure was that game. So I wasn't sure how it was going to go, because we didn't take that one too seriously. We thought it was fun, but then, like any other game, it died down. This one stuck around a little bit longer. We played this for quite a bit of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll say this because and it's very prevalent here you know, in twenty, twenty four, I'll just go up, come on. So the game is not aged very gracefully and it was a little rough around the edges back then. Even some of the I think the movement like could have used a whole lot of work. But the appeal of playing with your friends and being able to cooperatively get into just absolute ridiculous situations I mean, you did it yesterday while I was like in the menu, jumping out of the helicopter sending me to my death, stuff like that that just happens like over and over again. Those moments are what made the game so incredibly fun. You know your buddy is in the menu and you run off and throw a grenade at them and then they come back to their, you know, from their pause screen and they're down and not knowing what happened. All that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:It trumped the part of the game that, again, was very, very rough around the edges and I think that's like an experience that we have actually been chasing since 2017. Yes, hell, divers is here, but this is again totally different type of experience as far as what wildlands offered and was the story like forgettable? Again, I couldn't tell you anything about it in 2017, let alone in 2024. But that is still something we are chasing to this day, and it really bums me out to again jump ahead a little bit that when they came out with the sequel which I can't even remember the name of it right now, we were just talking about it, but it's not important Breakpoint.
Speaker 2:When we got to Breakpoint, it was a totally different vibe and I was like how do you fumble this so bad? It was such a successful game, despite its flaws. How did you fumble that? So, again, again, the fact that we're still chasing that feeling now is a testament to how fun the game was yeah, not only fun, phil, but I think you're downplaying the actual fun and nature and experience of the actual gameplay.
Speaker 1:like no, is it reinventing the wheel? Absolutely not, but I would, even when we played yesterday now, mind you, your situation a little different than mine, but even when we played yesterday I really felt like it was so easy to pick back up, just like you're riding a bike, and the gameplay is not difficult to figure out. The gameplay loop leaves something to be desired, but the gameplay itself, from the shooting to the vehicle maneuvering and the driving and the flying nothing is special, but everything is somewhat smooth, again, in a very simplistic by the numbers but fun way. I like that smoothness and I think that's what made us continue to play the game then. And then we made a second come around to it a few years ago where we made Jordan buy it and we played it for like two hours. But we did play it again and that's what matters here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, like I said, because some of those mechanics are a little rough, especially in the 2020s, I think that might have been another reason why we didn't really keep up with it. Also, up until recently, fortnite just had a grip on our throat, so that's also another reason that I think we didn't go back and play it. But, yeah, like you said, it is very simplistic. You know, there is a little bit of. I think it does suffer from too many options when it comes to, like, the rpg stuff. You could strip that down, man. You know, give us a few different, really fun weapons, really fun abilities, like I do like that. It was punishing, even on normal difficulty. I like that. It encouraged you to be very tactical with your friends. All that was was very fun.
Speaker 2:Eric, I know we haved talking about those stealth missions that we literally we would be like, all right, we can't do this tonight, let's go play titanfall. Like that's how frustrating it was for some of those moments. So I do like that. It wasn't super easy to play and I think a lot of those uh, you know, the tom clancy games were like that. Like warfighter was that way.
Speaker 2:Rainbow six certainly had a pretty steep learning curve, but I really enjoyed it. It was satisfying, even though we didn't care what was happening in the story. It was satisfying to get those harder missions done, as well as unlocking a new thing from the skill tree. You know, I remember there's one where you can, like, call in, you know, the rebels and they would help you out. You know all that stuff.
Speaker 2:Once we finally got that, I was like, oh great, we're spawning in a helicopter, life changing, because the map is massive. So traversing the world was, you know, not necessarily a chore, but like, once you're able to unlock the ability to get around, you know, with that helicopter and upgrading the helicopter Remember we could do that All that stuff works so well. So it baffles me. Ubisoft, all these years later, we got Skull and Bones and all the other mid-tier games that they're releasing, and you just give us Wildlands 2 and maybe strip it down and make it a little bit simpler and as accessible as it was, and you got my money. I will go pre-order the game in person. I will go do that if you. That's all it takes. We're simple.
Speaker 1:We're simple people I think we're going to talk about what happened afterwards. You know we think about breakpoint and the fact that this game feels like it's in a time capsule, phil, like this game just does not seem to have been replicated by ubisoft or others yet, uh, at least successfully. I think that's a testament to how strong this game was. And, phil, when we kind of look at a lot of the strong points before we kind of look at, you know, some of the the ball drops by ubisoft here, I think this game has such a great world. Uh, the world of bolivia is beautiful to look at. It is graphically, at that time was stunning. It was very, very nice to look at.
Speaker 1:I cannot recall issues with like frame rates or like a lack of immersion. Sure are there your glitches and stuff that can happen, absolutely, but I just don't recall that ever impeding my experience and this is very fun in the fact that you would have little pockets of the map to work through. But then, phil, there'd be times where we are like trying to tag a convoy and then we end up in like whatever that faction is, the Unidad base and there would just be attacking us. The only thing I can compare that to is like when you're getting stars in GTA and things start to become unhinged Nowhere near that level in both execution and actual gameplay. But that's the thing that makes me relate to it. It's like this is just some unhinged fun we're having here, but there are still those self-contained stealth missions and specific mission types that really do challenge you. So I like the mixture there. I thought it was a bit of fun and a bit of challenge, a nice merger of the two, which I don't think we see a lot anymore.
Speaker 2:It was easy to get distracted in a good way, because they're on your way to the mission, because, again, before you get, like you unlock those helicopters and stuff. You're driving a lot and it's easy to be like, oh, what's this over here, what's this icon? It does get a little bit repetitive, but again in the moment, because you are playing this with a friend Now, I think, maybe with yourself, like if you're playing solo it's definitely not going to be as fun, but like with friends and the ability to, you know, just cause a lot of chaos. I think some of those repetitive things don't become as daunting or, you know, as much of a slog when you are playing with other people. So that is definitely positive.
Speaker 2:We actually did like every once in a while, eric, we did have a third person with us, which was also very fun. You know they were friends that, like you know, jumped in and out. We didn't really play with them consistently, like it was just the two of us, but you know, I can only imagine how much fun it would have been to play through the whole game with four people, you know, with a cohesive unit, four people not necessarily paying attention to what's going on. I'm sure it would have been equal parts frustrating and equal parts fun. But as far you know, there and when you talk about the, the world and the immersion, you know going back and watching videos from 2017, there is some texture pop in and some stuff that's like not great. But again, you don't really care about any of that stuff because you are having a really, really good time.
Speaker 1:So because they got the gameplay looped down, I mean, it just goes to show you how much that can really mask until you sit down and take a look at it and in that, at that moment, you know it doesn't matter because I'm already playing the game and I'm already having a good time yeah, I'd be very curious, phil, if a lot of what you mentioned came into play when it came to review time, and I think this is a game that the more you soak yourself into the world, you spend time in this game, I think, the better it definitely ultimately turns out to be, despite a very repetitive gameplay loop. When we talk about that gameplay loop, I think that's where it really didn't hit with critics that were rating this game, because, phil, just looking at some of the meta critics back then some of the review scores by major publishers, you would think this is a very mid game, very average game. I'm here to tell you, I think this is one of those games you don't look at critic reviews. You go in and have a good time and if you can do it with friends, that amplifies the experience so much more. You mentioned a third person making the difference. Imagine if we had a squad of four. That's all I can think about.
Speaker 1:Is that missed opportunity? But again, you playing with randoms is not happening and that game I would not want to play with randoms. That is a party-based game, so I totally understand it, but definitely a missed opportunity and I'd be very curious if those things came into play because not only is the gameplay loop repetitive, but we're going to go back to it here. I'm sure the story Absolutely. You say you're kind of skirting around it. It was boring, absolutely boring. We would skip past those cut scenes immediately. Nothing was entertaining. And then we missed phil, all the stuff that might have been cool, all the different like dlcs and packs that were released.
Speaker 2:We completely missed that, because by the time we played the game and beat it, we were like I don't think we're going to come back to this, and we never did if I recall correctly I don't know if you remember this there is a splinter cell dlc and a predator dlc and those are things we just didn't go back into because one. I mean, like you said, the four players are the four characters that you play, as i't. They're all copy and paste versions of, like Chris Hemsworth in a war movie. They're all the same guy. It's guy A, guy B with a beard, guy C with a beard, guy D with a beard, and then you have the woman that gives you the missions. I can't remember her name whatsoever.
Speaker 2:And again, right before this, I went back and watched the ending and I was like I don't remember any of this. I remember the guy, the big bad, with all the tattoos. I think el sueño was his name. I think that was the, the name of the big, uh, the boss at the end. I also didn't know this, eric, until earlier today. Two endings did you know that there are two endings to this game?
Speaker 1:did not know, did not care, I did know about that dlc, though they also had Jon Berthenal appear, who was the antagonist for Breakpoint, so again why we thought we could just jump right into Breakpoint. I'll never know, but what a completely different game and I'm sure we'll hit on that in seconds here. But yeah, that was a missed opportunity, to say the least.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just not an interesting story whatsoever and I think outside of like the splinter cell series and then maybe rainbow six vegas, I mean a lot of them suffer from that and first person shooters like this in general kind of suffer from. How do I make this story, you know, not a generic action movie and you know we've seen that done Well very little times. You know you're talking about your Battlefield, bad Companies, ghosts, probably Black Ops. Like you're talking about a very small amount Modern Warfare one and two like the original. Like we're talking about a minute amount of games in this space that have pulled off stories that are very interesting. Homefront right, eric, your favorite game.
Speaker 1:Yes, I did a TikTok review of the A24 film Civil War and said this would be a great video game and Phil kindly reminded me. You know what? We kind of have that Video game Homefront which we were hype about. Man, if this series was about games we were excited about and got let down by.
Speaker 2:We could do a Homefront episode.
Speaker 1:We could do a whole episode. We have been talking about doing a grouping episode. We could talk about games like Homefront and there are so many others that fit under that little build of games that were like concept, ghost, recon, breakpoint. No many others that fit under that little build of games that were like concept, recon, break, concept, no, breakpoint. We actually had some expectations for home from. We were hyped for, like we were ready for that game to be everything and it you with watchdogs watchdogs is a good example of it.
Speaker 2:We could do a whole episode of games that we thought were going to be big hits and were like the biggest blunders possible yeah, we need to do some of those again just stealing ideas from friendly neighborhood gamers hey, andrew and dylan, uh, but if you have not gone and played this game in, you know in the seven years that it has been out and you do have a group of friends, even if it's just two of you, we, I would, we would definitely recommend, like, if you can get past some of the again glaring technical issues in a seven-year-old game which is to be expected it is a blast. You can skip through all the cut scenes. There are a ton of missions. Obviously, like I said, there's there's the dlc. Now I don't know if it's free or not because for some reason the ubisoft or the, the dlc store is still open for this game. Like god, ubisoft is so, so frustrating. No shame in their game whatsoever.
Speaker 2:But I think what I like about the you know what I liked about this one in in relation to or in terms or in comparison to you know, the far cry games which jordan and I have been playing through and will be playing through again, um, through, uh, eventually on on stream is there is a level of like I know gamers always talk about. You know we love to have the freedom but, like I think, within ghost recon wild lands, there is a level of concentration that you don't have in far cry, because far cry, you know, tries to be so over the top intentionally, whereas Wildlands is over the top in ways that it's not necessarily supposed to because of the people you're playing with and having those funny moments. I think that makes for a better experience than some of the Far Cry games. I know you haven't really played one since what?
Speaker 2:Four or three and Blood Dragon, so you know what do you think it is about? Wanting to revisit a game like a Wildlands. Why did Wildlands succeed and hold your attention in a way that, like Far Cry 4 or 5, whatever we're on now made you say I don't think I'm going to play that?
Speaker 1:I think Wildlands had the good nature of having a good first impression for me and again, maybe the Ghost Recon games prior were very much like this. I don't believe it was based off of what we've understood about Wildlands. This felt like an anomaly in Ghost Recon. Even for future plans of the franchise Again inevitably breakpoint. Right afterwards you could tell they went a completely different direction. It felt like this game just had a lot of charm, it was a ton of fun and that, ultimately, is what made it work. Phil, far Cry three Great first impression for me going into the series.
Speaker 1:After that point, you know, blood Dragon was just absolute balls to the wall fun. But after that point the games just got a little bit too serious. And I do think, phil, when we're talking about multiple games and sticking with it, this would have absolutely suffered if that story doesn't improve. I can only play a game so much and not care about the story, especially when it's so integral to how you're playing the game. You're literally going through these repetitive missions for the purpose of the story. If I don't relate with the characters, then it just doesn't work. And I think maybe that's where Far Cry kind of lost me, because after far cry 3, far cry 4 had some appeal. But then after that I'm like what are we doing here? It's the same thing, and to a point you agree with that. I know there is some fun stuff that keeps you coming. But you know me, if it's not going to be something that really grips my attention, I just can't stick with it.
Speaker 2:and that's what happened with far cry and what would have happened if they kept just making the same wild lands game over yeah, with the far cry series, like the one that jordan and I were playing through, I think it's either six or seven, I don't even know at this point. Again, story not great, but they keep bringing in these antagonists. You know, obviously, for this one is Giancarlo Esposito where you're like, all right, maybe, maybe I'll check that out, but this is getting a little off track. But you know, the shadow of Vos looms so large that that's why they are continuing to do this. I will say Far Cry, I think it's five, that's the one that I want to play through next, like the apocalyptic one. I've played through some of that one and that antagonist is very good. It is not boss, but it is like I would say like maybe like a tier, a minus tier, villain. So you know the thing with Ubisoft, like they keep pumping out these games, you know that we don't necessarily want and you know they won't.
Speaker 2:They literally won't, like batista, give us what we want, give us what we want. So, eric, what we didn't want was to transition, was ghost recon break point, and that's a game we jumped in with with friends. I think we we brought boogie in and maybe another person at the time. I can't 100 recall, but I remember immediately jumping in that game, playing like the first mission or two and being like this is not the same thing and being immediately disappointed and heartbroken that that was the case.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ubisoft is fumbling the bag on a lot of franchises. It seems like Assassin's Creed really lost its luster. You've got everything with this here with Ghost Recon Phil ahead, skipping ahead Skull and Bones. You just can't help yourself.
Speaker 2:Let's play Skull and Bones.
Speaker 1:It's such low-hanging fruit and you continue to just fucking wail on it, dude, you're just ridiculous, leave it alone. But Breakpoint was one example. But even the next game in the series, frontline, was supposed to come out at some point. It was announced like in 2021, and I think it was kind of like a battle royale inspired game, because of course it was, of course it was. And then it got canceled because it just had such negative reviews from the alpha test and the first trailer, which I don't even remember hearing about this game. But I bring that up to go back to breakpoint, like it had the good graces of thinking like, oh well, if it just improves upon, and it never seems like ubisoft just wants to improve upon, they just want to take what we have and what we like and they just want to fuck it all up. That's why I'm so afraid of Star Wars Outlaws, because I do think a first game, despite how it looks, because God, that first trailer, I think it could be fun. But can they do that consistently across games, across sequels?
Speaker 2:Talking about 40 to 60 hours of a story.
Speaker 1:I don't trust them to do that I don't know that I do. I don't know that I do. I don't know that I do. So, yeah, ubisoft as a company is absolutely starting to lose. I'm starting to lose faith in it and I think that's inevitable with a lot of these companies. When we're just not, you know, we have games that we want to play. I'm playing Baldur's Gate 3. Love that game. I'm playing Helldivers. We're getting introduced to so many games. Hogwarts Legacy surprised us last year, Like there's these games from these other studios that are out there and that we can go have fun with. I don't want to just stick with the same big studios because of name, value and recognition. It's just not that world anymore.
Speaker 2:Well, warner Brothers saw the success of Hogwarts Legacy and we're like we're not going to do any more of those. Uh, would you play? Can I interest you in suicide squad?
Speaker 1:what I will say about that again, not to venture too off topic. We did kind of briefly talk about that on what did I miss, I believe last month, but I don't exactly hate the idea of that hogwarts legacy in some type of live service environment. I might I might play that game longer. So I don't hate it, it just depends on a nike cloak for your wizard.
Speaker 2:Is that what you want?
Speaker 1:I'm just saying if I could trade stuff with people you know trade animals, I think that's probably illegal, but you know whatever.
Speaker 2:Well, no, because I loved capturing animals and immediately selling them in the black market in that town.
Speaker 1:Uh oh yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:It is illegal, so yeah so no, I I, that was my favorite part.
Speaker 1:I think we could do that, you know, I think I think we could do that. But, phil, again, this game, in particular, you know, break aside which was just such a disappointing experience. We really didn't know what we were getting ourselves into when we got into it. And then, when we did, we were like, oh, this is not fun, like we knew from the moment we touched that game. Phil, I'm confident, and for those of you listening, if you have not played Wildlands, give it a shot, especially if you have a group of friends and you're in that Fortnite train that we're on. That. We were on Because, phil, we God. When's the last time we played Fortnite together? Oh, my God, I don't know this year, which is crazy to say.
Speaker 1:If you're in that same train where you're just like playing the same games or you're not getting on, get a group together and go play wildlands, because even now I still think it's worth the experience of it and I think there's still gameplay to be left there. And that's kind of proven to fill by the fact that there is an official reddit unofficial, I should say subreddit of wildlands and it's completely fan run and from what I'm seeing, it's got over 50 000 members and it's actively being posted within now. So there you go. I mean, people are talking about this game still to this day. Give it a shot. I mean, there's definitely worse games you could play. In my opinion, phil, I think you agree, this is one of the better multiplayer experiences we've had ever and also around this time and now.
Speaker 2:You didn't get into this, but I got very into the division. So there are like one-off instances where ubisoft puts out a game that I'll sink a lot of time into. You know, ghostwork on wildlands, the division what was it? Watchdogs 2 is the best of the series and they completely fumbled. Watchdog legion we're talking about the first original assassin's creed, like you said when. Youdog legion we're talking about the first original assassin's creed, like you said when. You know I know we're joking about, about, uh, skull and bones, but like they could have just given us a black flag universe game and not tied it to assassin's creed. That would not have been difficult. And and look where we are and listen.
Speaker 1:You know, people, people, shit on black flag, but I'm gonna going to be honest, black. Flag is excellent. Assassin's Creed 1, we've talked about this numerous times Not great, not great.
Speaker 2:The first one was yeah, not great.
Speaker 1:2 is when they hit their stride 3 had elements but I don't think it quite hit the highs of 2. I loved Black Flag. That was me personally.
Speaker 2:Personally, especially the ship might be other than some of the newer ones which I have not experienced not going to. I think black flag is amongst, like I would probably put in the top three for assassin's creed fans, between black flag and then, um, I think, uh, like jordan dray, and we're mentioning another one. But you know, again they have these one one off moments of greatness and Splinter Cell conviction. I know we didn't play that together, but we both have played that game so good. And where the hell has Splinter Cell been? You know so.
Speaker 2:I know there is one in development, but, like, who knows how that's going to turn out. So I mean, again, like Eric said, take a flyer in this game If you even if you, if you've never played it, because look at the runtime of this episode, we're approaching almost 40 minutes recording time, talking about a game that came out seven years ago and mechanically and story-wise is like okay, but we had so much fun with it and we've been chasing that high like a dog chases a car in the street for seven years now and haven't really come across anything similar. So that should really be everything you need to know.
Speaker 1:Hopefully the subreddit gets a hold of this episode and it becomes like our most downloaded episode ever yeah, that'll be great, and then they'll beg for us to stream it, and then you'll be stuck streaming wildlands.
Speaker 2:But luckily, george, oh god so well, I would have to rebuy it on the pc let's make it.
Speaker 1:Let's make it happen, god anyway I think it'll be good.
Speaker 1:But yeah, no, phil, you are right. I stopped saying in our patreon pre-show that this is going to be a short one. They are not short, we just have good dialogue. But I think the time is coming near to the end of this conversation, phil, anything else that you want to say about Wildlands? Otherwise, I think it's perfectly appropriate for us to start to wrap this up and, as people go play Wildlands, I'm going to go watch Fallout for the first time, so we need to hurry this baby up.
Speaker 2:You think Wildlands has mods'm going to go watch Fallout for the first time, so we need to hurry this baby up. You think Wildlands has mods? Hold on Ghost Recon Wildlands Mods. Phil Phil, please, oh Phil.
Speaker 1:Here we go.
Speaker 2:I've been actively Yo.
Speaker 1:Phil, we will reveal these mods. There's so many, please. We're so close. We're so close. Please don't do this. I've been trying to convince.
Speaker 2:I've been slowly trying to convince Eric to get this gaming PC over the course of the next 12 months and the first video I showed him yesterday was modded Left 4 Dead 2. And I think that went very well. So once that, now once I Ghost Recon Wildlands mods on his radar. We are in business, boys and girls, and whatever you identify as. So we'll leave it at that. Go play Ghost Recon Wildlands if you haven't already. Did you play Wildlands when it came out? Let us know if you feel the same way about this gem that just came out of nowhere and again we still think about to this day.
Speaker 2:But for any of you that are looking for the rest of the content, maybe you want to find all over the rest of our game room episodes. You can click the link tree link in the show notes and you can find all the rest of our content, not just the game room. We have a couple more episodes left here at the. Here in April we obviously have creator spotlight and what did I miss? And those are going to be a whole lot of fun, got some great guests lined up for you and hopefully Eric and I will have some really, really exciting news to share with you guys over on social media, so make sure you're following us on, most importantly, instagram, tiktok and joining our growing discord community.
Speaker 2:If you want to support the show, you can do a couple things. Head on over to Apple Spotify, leave us a five-star review, subscribe, follow the show, whatever it is. You can do All that helps when it comes to algorithm stuff, and you can also share our content. You know, let us know that you're listening, let other people know that you're listening. All that is super appreciated. But if you want to maybe go the extra mile and join a very exclusive club, eric will let you know how you can do that.
Speaker 1:So, of course, in addition to things like our Discord, which are completely free, you could go the extra mile and send us some funds at our Buzzsprout page, or you could take that and go to Patreon, where patrons like Stefan and Briar are helping support the show in exchange for things like early access and behind the scenes to episodes like this one. So if you feel like you're in the given nature, that support would be truly appreciated as we continue to grow that community and we continue to grow the show. However, all of those free things, the likes, the comments, the shares, even just the listens, we truly appreciate. And if you made it here to the end of the episode, make sure to play next on the next one and beyond. With all that being said, my name is Mr Eric Almighty. That is my co-host, phil the Filipino. And, please don't forget, we release new episodes for the podcast every Wednesday with bonus content on platforms like TikTok, and all you gotta do is wait for it.
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