.png)
The Wait For It Podcast
Hosted by MrEricAlmighty and PhilTheFilipino, the guys discuss all things in Pop Culture from movies, gaming, anime and anything in between. New episodes every Wednesday, all you have to do is...WAIT FOR IT!
The Wait For It Podcast
The Game Room Where It Happens - Days Gone
Ever wondered why "Days Gone" has stirred such mixed emotions among gamers? Join us as we unpack our personal experiences with this game that seems to be more popular now than when it was released. We explore how the game's cinematic ambitions and Oregon's breathtaking landscapes try to create an immersive environment while recognizing that we're not the primary audience. While we acknowledge the game's passionate fanbase, we're unafraid to question its cult status.
Our episode offers a candid evaluation of "Days Gone's" storytelling and gameplay mechanics. We reflect on the challenges of its slow start and excessive cut scenes, drawing comparisons to the narrative brilliance of games like "The Last of Us." Despite the fleeting thrill of horde mechanics, we express our desire for a more compelling version of this game. As we ponder the possibilities of a sequel, we weigh the impact of accessing games through subscription services like PlayStation Plus on our engagement levels. Whether you're a fan of "Days Gone" or just tuning in for our candid banter, we promise an engaging and insightful journey.
Interested in watching us play games? Follow us on Twitch! 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🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
Prod. Riddiman: optimistic
🔺
Enjoyed the episode? Have something to tell us? Text us here!
Learn more about NakamaCon here.
Purchase your NakamaCon tickets here.
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 Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino, and joining me, as always, is your other co-host, mr Eric. Almighty and Eric. We are here with the October edition of the Game Room, where it Happens, and we talked about this a little bit in our pre-show and even the pre-pre-show. That wasn't part of Patreon. Sorry, guys, you didn't see that part.
Speaker 2:Patrons, you know there's been a lot of discourse online and it's kind of a meme at this point where it's like not everybody needs to do a podcast, and we understand that and we believe that celebrities, if you have a job outside of podcasting that pays lucratively, you don't need a podcast. I'm just gonna put that out there. Anyway, listen, this game. I wanted to cover this game and I chose this game. I will own that. We wanted to cover this game, or I wanted to cover this game, because it has a very, very large fan base.
Speaker 2:It sold very well, which we will talk about, and there's been a lot of people clamoring and a lot of rumors out there stating that maybe this franchise is going to get new life soon, whether it be on consoles, pc, wherever it may be, and I think Eric and I, as we have this conversation, you guys will understand that we do agree that it should have, that it should live on because there are so many people that enjoy this game. But keep in mind, mind, not every game is for everybody. I know andrew from friendly neighborhood gamers is a big fan of this game I'm fairly certain, if I recall correctly. So we're gonna hear from him. I'm sure we'll have to bring him back on like well, actually he'll probably never do the podcast again, so maybe we won't hear from him it's honestly never great to hear like a formal apology at the beginning of the episode whenever I feel like, whenever, that's whenever a statement excuses yeah, whenever a statement has been drawn to kick off the episode.
Speaker 1:Um, never a good thing and honestly, I think phil is protecting me in this situation because I feel like I'm I'm going to, I'm going to make things worse here. So I appreciate that and it is very true, um, games are subjective, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So we're going to talk about days gone here today and we'll talk a little bit about the history of the game. A lot of people have covered that. I mean, if you type in Days Gone into YouTube, there is no shortage of people who are very passionate about this game. Like I said, the fan base for this is very dedicated and you know what? We'll probably repeat this at the end of the episode. I hope you get a sequel someday. Will we be seated for that? Probably not, as you guys will hear after we have this discussion. But, eric, we're going to tread through this conversation, I don't want to say lightly. We will kick down the door and storm our way through the Days Gone fandom and somebody will find a 35 to 40, 50, 60 second clip on TikTok or Instagram and tear us to shreds and tell us to stop podcasting and to sell our equipment. Hey, listen, if you want to buy the equipment for a nice price, we'll sell. So that's what's going to happen here today. So Eric already kind of inserted himself in. So I'm just going to tell you welcome to the WayForward podcast and welcome to the Spooktober month of the podcast as well.
Speaker 2:For the most part it's been going pretty solid. First week, we had Tucker and Dale versus Evil A lot of fun. Second week, we had 28 Days Later Not fun, but an entertaining episode. We certainly had a lot to talk about. And today, of course, as you see in the title, the game room where it happens we'll be discussing Day is Gone. Eric, you said 2024 has been a rough year for us. Okay, there's just nothing to escape that, and maybe we've covered a game that you really like. I promise there are games in this catalog If you want to talk about, if you want to hear us talk about video gaming that we have positive experiences with. So follow the podcast, make sure you check out the library for all the rest of our content. We'll tell you where all that is, where all that can be easily found in at the end of the episode.
Speaker 2:So let's just jump into Days Gone, right, let's talk. Let's start at the very, very beginning, right, because my first experience with this game was back in gosh. What was it? It must have been like 2018, that original. No, it had to be earlier than that. I think it was like 2016, 2017. That first trailer comes out at like an E3 or whatever it was, and it's the huge gameplay video, you know, with the horde, and we see this character, this biker, running around and fighting these hundreds of what we thought were zombies at the time. In what looks this really intriguing gameplay, right, eric? Do you remember that time when that trailer had come out?
Speaker 1:I do. It's one of the things that even now, with playing the first game for the first time, I thought of that trailer specifically like okay, this is going to be a lot of fun and so many people praise this game. I think that that trailer, even today, sets a little bit of a false pretense into what you're getting in the early hours of gameplay. Early hours of gameplay and, for context it should be noted, we played a lot of this game, probably up to 15 hours each of this game. That was not something we really got to experience, so that is something to kind of keep in mind with some of the feedback that we have. But, phil, that's what I was hoping to be getting out of. It was some of that intense gameplay, maybe some of those like cinematic isn't the word, but some of those really intense scenes that play itself out and you have a really good time with. And again, not what we necessarily got through our gameplay, but it was kind of the standard I was holding the game to, maybe unintentionally.
Speaker 2:So I mean, 15 hours is a lot of gameplay. Now I know again there are going to be people that are very upset about this. I have always been in the camp like in terms of like a show, watch a few episodes, see how you feel. I mean, I'm famously I've watched 17 episodes of jujutsu kaisen and and wasn't into it. 15 hours of a game where we could have been spending that time elsewhere. I played 25 hours of TCG Card Stop Simulator in the last week. That's a lot of time and I feel like that is a fair amount of time.
Speaker 2:Now, if you say that it's not, if you say that we quit the game too early because we didn't even get to the first horde, fine, that is totally fine. But you can't sit here and say that we didn't give this a fair amount of time when we wanted to do other things. So we're going to talk about our experience with the game. That's what's going to happen here today. Now you can scream at the wall and type on your keyboard and do whatever you want. We're not going to revisit this, most likely if there's a severe amount of free time that I have and I'm scrolling through my library and I want to go and re-download. Days gone maybe, and I played this on pc, eric played this on the ps5. Ran really really really well, so we didn't have any of those issues in terms of like bugs from the original game. I did run into a few bugs here and there. It's not the perfect game in terms of how it runs, but it looks great at 60 frames per second.
Speaker 2:I really did like let's, let's throw out some positives here. Eric, I don't know how you felt, but I really did like the landscaping of Oregon. Like when we're you know talking about, when we juxtapose these against some of the other PlayStation exclusive games, you know, when you're talking about your Uncharted, you're talking about your Horizons, the Last of Us. One thing that's really great about those games atmosphere. Atmosphere I thought was really really cool when you're driving around at night and you hear like the freakers and like that, a little bit of step up in terms of danger. I thought sound design is really good. All of that, I think, is there. There's just something missing from what I think is an okay packaging. It just falls short in some places and I'm sure we'll talk about those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we will, but there are Phil, you kind of said it a little bit like this is not a bad game by any means. There are positives to take out of this. So one of the things that I appreciated about the game was it was very easy to get into. Uh, there's not like any crazy type of controls or anything to figure out. Again it to its detriment. The game doesn't really reinvent the wheel on very much, but it does do some fun things that you can enjoy and you can quickly pick it up. I will say that one of the things I did like was the wheel inventory that you were able to kind of quickly craft things and immediately do those things on the spot. Those were nice elements to be able to enjoy.
Speaker 1:But I think that would probably be one of my biggest takeaways if it wasn't the visuals, which are not bad by any means. I mean, we're talking facial visuals as well. When it comes to the characters, nothing that's like off-putting, which is really nice to see from a game. Again, 2019 wasn't that long ago, but for a game with its reputation at launch, I was expecting to see a lot more issues pop up that weren't just necessarily bugs, and they either fixed that or those weren't really issues to begin with. And, phil, I think this game is very much the game that came out, minus the bugs and maybe a couple of patches here and there. So the history behind this game is probably the most interesting thing to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and just kind of for reference, the weapon wheel. If you haven't played this, it's very similar to the Horizon games, so you can also craft on the fly with Horizon One of my favorite things about it in terms of just like thinking on the fly in the middle of combat. So that's a lot of fun. Yeah, the history behind this is it's very strange, eric, because the game did sell well. I don't have the exact numbers out here in front of me, I don't know if you want to look those up or not, but it did sell very well. Here we go.
Speaker 2:Days Gone was the best-selling physical game in the UK in the week of release. It went on to be the best-selling software release in all format sales charts for three consecutive weeks. In Japan, it actually outsold two other exclusives PlayStation exclusives, god of War, the Last Guardian and, oh yeah, the God of War and the Last Guardian. In its first three days after launch, it had sold approximately 115,000 copies In North America. It was the second best-selling video game of 2019, right behind mortal kombat 11. In january 2022, the director had claimed on twitter the game had sold over 8 million units. That is kind of disputed by a lot of gaming outlets in 2022, february 2022, after an insomniac games leak. Um, it showed that the game had sold 7.32 million units. So this game sold very, very well and it sold enough copies, eric, to the point that there should be a sequel. I am going to stand here and say that, in the era that we are in, where we get copy and paste Far Cry games and copy and paste Ubisoft games and all this stuff and games that get sequels that don't deserve sequels Days Gone deserves a sequel.
Speaker 2:It ends on a massive cliffhanger. I've actually known the ending for a few years. I watched the Rad Brad play through it initially when it came out, and I was one of those people who, upon seeing reviews, I was like, oh, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna get that. You know, this is around the time I had really like just gotten back into PS4 gaming. So, you know, I was playing, I'm sure, horizon, god of War, as when you know those a couple games we just mentioned and I was like I'm just gonna watch the Rad Brad playthrough and I was pretty happy with that and it was a story that at least intrigued me a little bit, but it was not something that in the time, I was like well, I'm kind of glad I didn't pay $60 for that back when it had originally come out. So it is strange, eric, when we talk about the history of this, as to why, after seeing those numbers and seeing the fan reception, sony was like no, we're good.
Speaker 1:It is interesting and that backstory of the game is, again, probably that most interesting thing to me, because when it comes to and I don't know if we have any more positives we want to express phil, uh, but when it comes to the story, not as interesting to me when it comes to the characters, and while the world is good, it feels empty because of a lot of other different elements. So there, there are definitely some things I've also thoughtfully written down, like I actually wrote down some of the complaints that I have With the gameplay, with the structure and things of that nature. So we're not just two dudes shitting on this game for no reason. There are actual things that I want to call out that were pain points for me.
Speaker 1:I can see the appeal of this game, though I just don't think again. It really offers much that's original and if you think about the timeframe of those games, phil, between 2018 and 2020, there are a lot of games that came out that are considered masterpieces, like fantastic games. So when putting it up with the likes of, like a red dev, redemption 2 or the last of us, part 2, it's a little hard to kind of sandwich this game in the middle of it. To be completely honest, that's maybe not fair criticism, but it is a criticism I have that this game in the sam, in the sandwich of those two years in gaming, doesn't really stand out today very much to me.
Speaker 2:I think it is fair criticism just because of what PlayStation has done in the past. I mean, look right above me here for those of you that are watching. If you're not watching. I mean, look at these characters here. We got Jin Sakai, kratos, we have Joel and Ellie and we have Nathan Drake. And I didn't mind Deacon as a character. It kind of sounds like you hated him. My gripe was all the rest of the characters are totally forgettable. I think Deacon is actually pretty good Again, comparing him to some of the other cookie cutter protagonists we've gotten over the last few years, you can add the Spider-Man, you know, to the Sony property now to the Sony genre library, I should say out to the Sony genre library, I should say so.
Speaker 2:The problem is in a landscape where they put out, I would say, an okay game. Like you said, sony is also dropping these games that are masterpieces. I mean, there's four Uncharted, there's two Last of Us there's going to be more Last of Us games and there's four Uncharted. And we didn't even mention, like, there's also spinoffs that are on, like the PSP and the Vita. God of War is still going very, very strong. Horizons not slowing down anytime soon. So I do think it is fair criticism just because of its own like rogues gallery that it's part of when it comes to Sony games and Sony properties. So, I mean, uncharted 4 came out in the same year it came out. I'm sorry it came out in May of 2016, which is the year that the trailer came out, and I would still. I would go back and play and have gone back and played Uncharted 4, thief's End, in the time that this has been out.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I definitely don't think Deacon is necessarily a bad character. I was intrigued enough in him and Sam Witwer, I think, does a very good job as well when it comes to the voice acting. It's just all the rest of it. I was just I was kind of bored and that's definitely why I didn't. I wanted to at least hit, like bare minimum, the 15 hour mark in this, which I did, and I'm happy I did. But, yeah, other than that, like we just weren't the audience for this and it, it, it's kind of baffling that it does have the huge following that it does, because there are better options out there. So I, we would definitely love to hear from you guys that are big fans, like, what is this? Is it about this that you know makes you clamor for more.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like Andrew, if we haven't like uh, again immediately turned you off on this episode, because we talked right at the beginning about how much we weren't looking forward to this, we would love to hear your thoughts, maybe like a paragraph or three explaining this game. I think, phil, before we get into the negatives, because again that's where my bread and butter is going to be Again, I do not wish to tear apart this game. I just have extremely major gripes and one of those things is that I think people really like this game more because of the early struggle. So with that bad reception, the bad reviews, some people think that it's unwarranted and that they weren't fair or they weren't legit concerns that were being raised in like Metacritic and your IGNs, et cetera. I understand that, but I think that's almost like raising the value of this particular game.
Speaker 1:And just again, I was excited to jump into this game. It's not like I was dreading it, but even today I wasn't going to play this if I had to pay for it. So the fact that it was part of playstation plus, which I pay for, was nice, but I wasn't gonna go out of my way to pay for it. So I was again timid in the sense that I was looking forward to my gameplay, but this wasn't something I had to play, and when I finally got to it I was like, okay, I'm not invested to play more than I have to for this episode, and that's kind of the double-edged sword.
Speaker 1:When it comes to these games that are on like a playstation plus or an xbox game pass, is you have a little bit less leniency, because I didn't drop 60, 50, 40, 30 dollars for this game. It came with my subscription, so it had a little bit less to give for me before it finally broke. And that's kind of where I think the drawback is for these subscription games is you're only going to give it so much of a chance before you're ready to drop it and move on to the other. There's also a little bit of resentment. Phil talked about it. I just downloaded Sparking Zero. I've barely gotten to play it. Astrobot game of the year. I still have to beat that. So there were other titles that I also wanted to play instead of this. At a certain point and we'll kind of talk about that in the negatives of where I started to feel like, okay, am I not giving the game enough of a chance to yeah, I'm not having a good time and I'd rather play something else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I got this on a Steam sale, so I'm sure I didn't pay more than $15, $20 for it, and even that probably seems high in terms of what I actually did play for it. So it'll be a game that I uninstall and, once again, like I said, probably never revisit. I mean, I definitely have to uninstall it because stupid Black Ops 6 is about to come out and take up my entire hard drive. But that's beside the point, that's not their fault. But yeah, again, like we said, as far as being advocates for the game, there's enough here for Sony to warrant a sequel, and I saw a Gaming Bolt video earlier today about maybe a remaster or re-release would help that. But the game runs great now, so I don't know how much that would change it. Like there were, like I said, there were, a few bugs here and there, but honestly, there are bugs that you expect to see in a five year old video game. Other than that, though, it ran pretty well. I mean, one of the positives, I guess, eric I guess I will throw out to kind of prolong this a little bit is I did enjoy the aspect of the bike in terms of riding around. I thought it was a really unique way for traversal as far as an open world. You know. The only other thing really in comparison, like horizon, you can obviously override machines and in red dead, you know you have the horse and all that. So I think I probably could have gotten invested in that.
Speaker 2:There are also customization options and everything. I didn't mod it like a little bit, like my deacon was actually a member of the sons of anarchy, so you know, shout out to modders. But other than that, like I didn't really touch the game too much. The only thing I did do. That actually was a little. That was very helpful because I kept seeing it pop up, eric is I installed a mod where opening up car like the front hood of the car and the back and the trunk opens automatically. So I didn't have to wait very long and that was a life changer, that was a game changer. I'll say that. So those are the things that we want to. I mean we will highlight. But there is, we've been prolonging the negative part of this game for as long as we can and I'll just start with maybe one of my gripes here, eric, because I know you have a list, but there are just a lot of immersion breaking things in this game.
Speaker 1:It's 100% the immersion breaking.
Speaker 2:So there's a part of this where this, where you go to Copeland right, and he's able to use his radio station again, right, and those come up all the time, which is fine, I get world building and all that kind of shit. But then in a world where it's like you want to try and keep it down, if you're on your bike, deacon's like shut the fuck up, cope, what do you mean? I'm like shut up, we're trying to. We're trying to keep it down, keep a low profile, and he'll just start yelling. There was also the point in the game where boozer reached out to me, like not even exaggerating five or six times in a row and offered nothing new to the conversation at any point.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that was a stream.
Speaker 2:It happened when that happened it happened during the stream and it continued to happen with not only boozer but also other characters that you're running into copeland, um gosh, who was the name of the person, uh, tucker it also happened a lot with tucker, where they would just reach out to you over and over again and again. These are things that can be fine-tuned in a rem remaster and also like, maybe make more interactive. Like NPCs they see, all that is pretty cookie cutter and especially when you have you have games out right now. I mean Red Dead 2 is kind of unfair, but like that world is a lived in world, you know, I mean Horizon is a lived in world. All these, all these examples that have come out before and since then. So the immersion breaking stuff really takes you out of the game and it sounds, eric, you know you definitely had that issue as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's my biggest gripe. You're pretty much hitting like bullet points for me. So this is good that I don't feel this. I'm not the only one that feels this way and I would challenge anyone that has defense of these. I'd love to know if you've played this game recently or if this is off of your first playthrough years ago, because again this is fresh on our minds. Playing it this month for this episode.
Speaker 1:Phil, the game constantly makes you go from point A to point B just to have like a 10 second cut scene, and then in that cut scene you also have to break the immersion because the game doesn't want you to be in daytime, it wants you to be in night or vice versa. So you have to wait for the weather to change or the time of day to change, and then you have to sit through a quick cut scene and then you're done. And then you just have to fast travel to the next point, get gas, fast travel to the next point. There's a lot of things like that little quality of life, things that are missing, like fast traveling to a camp. You start off in a motorcycle. You want to fast travel somewhere and then you get to the camp and you're off the motorcycle but you want to bring the motorcycle in to the camp, like for the main camp with boozer, who we'll get to in a minute. The gas is inside the fences, so little quality of life, things where it was just really frustrating, like I know it's little but these, but these things really add up.
Speaker 1:Then we jump into the dialogue in this game and the dialogue is so bad. It is so bad because it is so overdone. The comm system that you were referencing Phil one of the worst in a game that I can remember. It was so distracting. Characters would be talking to each other and then there would be somebody on the ground screaming to be let go and you'd have to get away from them so you can hear the dialogue. It's like they told sam whitworth to record everything possible and then they just ended up using it all and they told him as well to say it in different volume. So the sound mixing in this game is such an issue.
Speaker 1:I think what makes me not like deacon specifically is those type of things. It's nothing against the voice actor, because I love sam we're in the force unleashed and his other work as well, but deacon also like repeats the obvious. So after a scene plays out again this game loves cut scenes he'll say, wow, point a happened in point b and point c. I wonder what's going to happen when we get to location a and then location b and location c? And all of those things were discussed in the cut scene, so he'll just recap it constantly.
Speaker 1:It was those little things, man, that really pissed me off. Uh, boozer, the worst, absolute worst pointless character in up to 15 hours of gameplay and literally is just nagging, nagging, nagging. If I have to hear Deacon out one more time, I might slit my wrists, I might actually do it. Um and again, those are just like literally a bunch of bullets related to what you just said, and I'm not even done. So that's, that's where we're at right now. That's got to be some of the most frustrating stuff I've experienced in the game.
Speaker 2:To add on as well about the cut scene thing. There is one part where you first get to Tucker's camp and you have a cutscene when you drive in introducing the new settlement, and then you walk to where Tucker and um gosh I can't remember the name of the other character that's with her you walk to, to Tucker and then there's another cutscene. You could have just made that one big cutscene Like there there was no point, because the only thing that happened between the gate and Tucker was I walked Like there's no piece of dialogue there that you need to like overhear, or something happening in the camp that like oh, this is story building. You're like remember in the Last of Us, where when you're first with Tess and you first get to Boston and you're walking from like their apartment to the checkpoint and there is a cut scene and then you walk to the checkpoint but then throughout the streets you're seeing like FEMA, like executing people on the street. That is world building, that is letting you know what kind of like environment you're living in. Right, that's the kind of thing that we're looking for and, once again, I don't think it's unfair to compare this to the Last of Us or any other property, because that's what we're dealing with here when it comes to Days Gone and Sony and their library, so like that's just part of that thing, where it's like immersion breaking, like that was a huge waste of time and yeah, and some of the dialogue is just really bad, despite, I think, pretty solid performances from from Sam and also I think whoever voiced Sarah was pretty solid as well. That is Courtney Draper.
Speaker 2:Now, as I didn't really get unfortunately not really a lot of time with Sarah, I do know what happens and her story is definitely much more fleshed out and I think that maybe if they had focused more on that, eric, maybe that would have helped out a little bit, as opposed to Boozer, who again is just whining. Correct me if I'm wrong. Did we not see the opening cut scene with her in the helicopter twice? We did, okay, yes, okay, yes, we did. I thought I was going crazy. I was like nope, we saw this already.
Speaker 1:Right, beat beat for beat, word for word. Bar for bar right.
Speaker 2:No, they did you shoot the guy he shoots the guy in the second one right, and that's the only thing that's different but literally it's.
Speaker 1:So. Imagine watching a movie and then you realized you, you didn't get to see the prologue to that movie. There's like a prologue piece or like a 15 minute like uh. Imagine, like, uh, the jurassic world movie. Like you didn't get that five minute. Uh, behind like clip, that never made it into the movie phil, but it changed the context of the movie. Yeah, that's what that was like.
Speaker 2:Four days gone, there was a little snippet showed it like 20 minutes in they did this little thing that you don't even get to do.
Speaker 1:It's a cut scene. You don't even get to like fight and nothing, you're just watching it, and then they just repeat the same exact scene later on. The things that they're doing with these cut scenes are like the flashbacks too, phil, like the flashbacks with Sarah are annoying. The first flashback you literally go cutscene, throw two punches oh, you got your ass beat. Cutscene again. Then, at the point of my uninstall of the game, cutscene walk and talk about flowers. Cutscene more walking.
Speaker 1:That's literally my last note that I have here from when I uninstalled the game and at that point it's like, well, none of this is engaging. And I'm going to be honest, phil, I don't know how much more interesting this story really gets, but it's not very interesting to start off with. So like I just don't even see the early appeal, which is maybe what made me disengage with deacon as well, because I do agree that deacon is the strongest character, but that is like by default, because he's the main character you're spending the most time with. That's the way I walked away from it anyway. And again, cut scene, cut scene, cut scene galore. This thing is just an absolute mess and it'd be. It'd be more forgiving if the gameplay felt inventive and new and fresh and maybe it gets there, but not in the first 15 hours of gameplay. Not for us anyway. And I did side missions because I was bored with the story.
Speaker 2:So I did try to go out there and do more stuff, just nothing getting me excited yeah, and I will tell you that in terms of when they started investigating, like how this all started, and when Sarah gets involved, and you don't care about spoilers at this point, right. And then the game has been out for five years, so I'm going to give you guys a spoiler warning.
Speaker 1:How much of the story do?
Speaker 2:you know? Do you know anything?
Speaker 1:that happens past the point of where you played Up until the point that I stopped.
Speaker 2:Okay, well, stopped. Okay, well, sarah is alive, which is oh well, that I know. Yeah, okay, sarah is alive and she does find out you know that she not she is involved, but like the company that she works for and you find out how this all happened. And, um, there's also a pretty good side story or main story where where boozer does, uh, get a little bit more character development and hopefully becomes most more annoying. I'm not sure about that. And then there's also a subsect of characters and like a um, kind of a um, what's the word that I'm looking for, another group that we have not gotten to meet yet. But again, because it's packaged so poorly in the beginning, that's what has drawn us away from it and I don't think it's fair for fans of the game and I'm just kind of predicting what's going to happen here, because it always happens for people to say, no, you got to get to hour 20. Why, why do I have to get to hour 20?
Speaker 2:What if, like, the beginning of the Last of Us was all a cut scene and you didn't get to play as Sarah? You know what I mean. Like that's such an important part of the game setting up again the heartbreak, even though you only spend what 15 minutes with sarah and joel in the very beginning, and it sets up the whole arc for the entire game. Like that's basically what's happening here is you're like you're telling it, you're you're showing and not letting us do it ourselves. So maybe it would have worked out better if, like that prologue and I'm sure they were probably trying to avoid as many comparisons to the last of us as possible, but again you chose this genre, so maybe they were trying to avoid that a little bit.
Speaker 2:But I think maybe getting to play as deacon and sarah, like in the beginning, in the early stages, through that initial outbreak, maybe that would have helped a little bit. But again, that's probably a little bit too on the nose. But yeah, it's, it's a real bummer because again this game is getting new life and has very, very strong supporters. But it just wasn't for us and it leaves us a little perplexed as to how it has gotten to this point, because once again, do a quick YouTube search Social media and content creators love this game and I was really hoping that we would too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, again, really disappointing experience overall. The one thing I will say again is that I think the sell of this game is the horde experience, which we did not get very much of. The only one I ran into was unintentionally, and that was probably the only fun that I had with this game, if I'm being completely honest, was like a quick five minute. I wasn't supposed to be there, it was like a side story. I didn't know. They were hiding in the train and they just started raining down on me and that was a lot of fun, like to figure out, well, how am I going to navigate them when I go back? And that was it. Other than that, I just don't think that's fun, honestly.
Speaker 1:Phil and I don't know if this is disrespectful to say world war z, I believe, came out the same exact year and if I just wanted to fight hordes, which we've played that game as well I would just go download that because I could just go do that right away.
Speaker 1:I think that for me not to really get much of an excitement about the combat, most of it is against humans, where at least half of the game you're fighting against humans if you're not running into a wolf or something randomly, so I felt like that part also dragged it down for me. But again, combat wise there just wasn't a lot to look forward to, and if the only thing I'm missing is a couple of more things that I can craft and getting hordes of zombies around, I feel like I could get that experience elsewhere. If I want a good story, I'm not coming to this game, at least from what I've played. I'm going to go play the Last of Us or something of that ilk Again. Every time I think about it and I try to think of something I loved about this game, I think of another game that's either done it better or at least comparable yeah, and we've already touched on this a little bit but 2019 was a stack year.
Speaker 2:Uh, control, death Stranding, plague, tale, innocence, mortal Kombat 11, gears 5, devil May Cry 5, sekiro, so like there were a lot of Ghost Recon. Breakpoint obviously was a huge disappointment, but you know that whenever a Tom Clancy game and we obviously were interested in playing that game as well, but I'll say this once again, to go back to like, defending the game like if Death Stranding is getting a sequel, then Days Gone can get a sequel Now, granted, if Days Gone had Kojima's name attached to it, we'd be getting a sequel. So I do feel bad for the developers of this game as far as them obviously wanting to do it and people within Ben's studio wanting to have another shot at it, but it just doesn't seem like it's going to happen. Maybe that remake or remaster will do it, but I do know there are also I can't remember if they were confirmed or not, but there were rumors that there was actually either a movie or a tv show coming out. I don't know if it was going to be like a like shot for shot, adaptation or just within the same universe, but that's not something I'm particularly interested in seeing I think this was back in 2022 that there were reports that this was going to come out. But, yeah, I mean now that we especially since, since we have the Last of Us, like it just doesn't feel like there's a space for that, especially if we weren't particularly interested in the story.
Speaker 2:Now, the cliffhanger ending is something I would like an answer to. Would I play Days Gone 2? Probably not, but I would watch someone else play it Absolutely and find out what out what happens. But, yeah, let us know. I know you guys are going to let us know once again. Hopefully you've listened to the entire episode and understand where we're coming from. Eric, does you have anything else on that list that you want to discuss?
Speaker 1:Because that's just what we ran into within the 15 hours so I don't know how the rest of it would have played out, but you know we'll never know. No, I mean again like on this list, are just a little bit more nitpicky stuff, like whenever you're going to clear out nests it really does feel like a chore. Like it never really feels too scary, it feels like you're just kind of again marking something off of the checkbox. The map is not very like exciting. There's a couple of fast travel points, but otherwise you're on your bike and again, if the game is more interesting, I'm okay with having to refill my tank, repair my bike, having to go repair this, go get this, but like it.
Speaker 1:Just there's not enough to flesh out of this game to warrant me wanting to go from point A, point B, do task, go back to here. Go to this next place, help this camp that has completely uninteresting characters. Go to this other camp that has completely uninteresting characters and I just again don't think it's very dynamic with a lot of the things that it's doing. You know you can do things at these camps, but they also feel like chores. Turn in some of the zombie ears for your bounty collection. Give up some deer meat for some currency at the kitchen, go to the mechanic to upgrade your bike again, all mundane things that if it was tied to a great story or superb gameplay, wouldn't really be an issue.
Speaker 1:But they just stand out more because everything else, to me at least, is so subpar and phil has mentioned a sequel several times there's a reason why I'm not. I don't ever want to see this game again. I don't want to see nothing from this game again, unless they're going to do something interesting, new and fresh. But phil, we talked about this with 28 days later a movie enjoyed, but I think our zombie phase has kind of sailed. I definitely think that unless you're going to do something extremely new and interesting in that genre, I'd rather it just stay dead.
Speaker 2:Now they were throwing out in development the idea of this being a cooperative experience. Would you jump back in if it were a co-op game?
Speaker 1:Yeah, if it was also more interesting and had inventive combat, Like again doing bitching about Boozer calling us 20 million times and then Deacon yelling at random points when there's no call for him to yell and then having the combat be subpar. Are they going to increase the zombie count with co-op in that, like if it's the same exact game, increasing the zombie count might help, but I don't know Like it. Just it doesn't feel like there's a lot to offer as far as the gameplay. I don't know about adding another person in there, fixing that. I just I don't know that that's a fix. If they did more stuff Maybe I think we would have had a lot of laughs, that's for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, if anything, it would definitely be a fun experience. Um, in terms of just, uh, playing what would probably be a disastrous experience for the two of us together. But yeah, in terms of just like, if, if the only thing that they were to add was like yeah, now it's cooperative, still not enough really to intrigue me, um, or make me want to go back and finish this, because I am a stickler for wanting to make sure I can keep up with the story and everything like that.
Speaker 1:So I mean, I can see like in a cooperative world where you know and this is things I don't think they took enough advantage of was like in the tunnels when you're having to move your bike through and you're having to move the cars again. That wasn't really intense because there's not a lot of a threat happening there, but it'd be really cool to see like not necessarily the traps annoying yeah, after the first couple times I was like oh, that's inventive, like that's cool, but then it keeps happening also at the same spots.
Speaker 2:That's when I was like oh, there's no mixture.
Speaker 1:there was one time where I was riding my bike and there was just a like a line that caught me and I got attacked. That was cool. Never happened again, never happened.
Speaker 2:Oh, I ran across that a couple of times, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, never happened again. Did you ever get?
Speaker 2:sniped off your bike.
Speaker 1:No, but they also. Is that where they have the red dot on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, the second. I saw that red dot, I said nope, I don't want to.
Speaker 2:I don't want to fight anymore. Humans A couple of times.
Speaker 1:So definitely got sniped off my pick. I was like I don't. Anytime I saw a red sniper, I was like I don't want to fight humans anymore. I'm just not interested in that, in that gameplay. And again, maybe with another person that would have helped. But to that point, phil, I definitely think that having another person there would have been cool in like a tunnel scenario where you're having to fight off maybe not a horde, but a bunch of zombies and if you get overrun now we're in trouble in this tunnel. Like those type of things sound exciting to me. I just don't think this game as constructed has the capability to deliver that. Who?
Speaker 2:knows what the future of this game holds again, and as far as the fans of the game, I 100 percent hope that they revisit this at some point. We will just not be partaking. So that is. I think that's that, eric. Is there anything else that we we want to mention before? Again, people come and strip us of our podcast equipment Because we're not allowed to have our own opinion about something they love.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, and we're losing reliable podcasters in Andrew and probably Dylan by association. After this, I'm assuming it was fun guys. Yeah, it was a great, great time.
Speaker 1:I don't think we're going to get invited to the end of year holiday special for multiple reasons, yeah including this one too bad it's a shame, but um, yeah, no guys, uh, I I don't want to really rant on much more. I take no pleasure in doing this. Uh, if you know anything about me, I hate wasting my time, hate wasting my time, and I have not played a game this year that made me feel like I wasted more time than my playthrough of days gone.
Speaker 2:So I I genuinely I'm looking back at last year, stupid crab game, so another crab's treasure.
Speaker 1:I had a good time with. I had a good time with, even though I can also admit not something I would normally dive into playing we see of thieves.
Speaker 1:That was a pretty big waste of time too I would jump into sea of thieves right now if you told me I'd get the time back, that I played this game. I would. I would. I at least laughed and had some type of like enjoyment. There was frustrations, for sure, but no, I stand by that statement.
Speaker 1:I think in the last 12 months of this series this is the game I've liked the least, which is a shame and, again, I take no pleasure in. I wish I also put maybe another five or 10 hours into the game. I just genuinely chose not to Cause I just I really did run out of patience with this and I think again, had I paid for it maybe I would have, but it was easy to un, uninstall. It's easy to reinstall if I ever decide to again. But I'd rather move on to bigger and better things and we'll definitely keep this type of game in mind when we come up with games going into next year, because we have had a little bit of a rough patch. It feels like every episode since june we've been like, hey, we usually love video games, but one of us or both of us hate the game we're about to talk about. So we're very self-aware of that and, uh, just know, we're keeping that in mind we had fun with crime boss rocky city that's telling we don't play, that is nope, that's telling though
Speaker 1:we've played everything that we need I agree, but out of one episode since June it's been pretty much as described.
Speaker 2:Well, next month's episode of TCG Card Shop Simulator is going to be fantastic. Nope, nope, you know what it is, eric doesn't have, and is never going to have, a gaming PC. Yeah.
Speaker 1:The next episode, we should be having a lot more fun reminiscing about a game that we played and had a lot of fun with, so look forward to that.
Speaker 2:That is true. That is very true. Well, folks, we'll end it there before we make anybody else more upset, but if you would like to have a constructive conversation about, maybe, why we're wrong, there are a couple of places you can do that. All can be found in our link tree link. In the show notes of this episode. You can find all of our social media pages Instagram, tiktok, discord would probably be the best place for this conversation, so find us over there. We also stream every other Thursday on Twitch and we also have our YouTube page you can go check out as well. You can find all of our content on Am I missing something? Are you about to say something?
Speaker 1:No, Okay, I was like do you have?
Speaker 2:something to add. What the fuck are you doing? You can also find all of our content on Spotify, apple Podcasts, literally anywhere. You listen to your podcast, listen to your shows, you can support the show a couple ways. Head on over to those aforementioned podcast sites, leave us five stars and you can also go to YouTube Like share, subscribe, all that other stuff that helps with the algorithm. It is very, very helpful and we are so, so appreciative. But if you're looking for maybe some additional perks, you want to see what goes on behind the scenes and what goes into creating the Wait For it podcast. Eric will let you know a little bit more about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you're able to go directly to our Buzzsprout page and subscribe for support, or you can go to our Patreon and for that support, you're able to get behind the scenes and early access to episodes like this one, where patrons are currently supporting us. Thank you to Stefan T3, kato, corey and Briar. We truly appreciate all of you guys over on that platform and look to do some big things going into next year, but all the free stuff is very much appreciated, whether it's anywhere on social media or simply liking, commenting, engaging, subscribing or listening. All of that is truly, truly appreciated, especially after an episode like this one. With 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 Twitch and TikTok, and all you got to do is wait for it.
Speaker 2:So I heard you're looking for a go-to source for entertainment. Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime Plus Ultra. Mr Eric, Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 1:Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Yeah, they've got you covered, and all you gotta do is wait for it.
Speaker 2:This is the wait for it podcast.
