Weekly Update for Week of 5/12/2023

Welcome to discreet error. Weekly update. The week is.

All the chips at sea over here?

Yeah, May 12, we're working this out. You guys are getting an in depth look at the process.

This is the process right here of.

Two giants of the industry. That's us trying to fucking figure out trying to figure out this crazy podcasting world.

Yeah, that's us, I guess. Question.

But this is our weekly update for the week of May 12. I'm Derek Kicker.

I'm Ian Golding.

And yeah, thanks for showing up. Showing out, doing your thing. What games have you been playing this weekend?

Well, I'm going to start I didn't tease it by name last week, but I'm going to finally I think I'm ready to talk about I have been playing a lot of power wash simulator.

Oh, shit.

On the steam deck.

Is it that good?

It is that fucking good. Here's the thing. So you watch like a videos. You see oddly satisfying videos about people power washing shit. Imagine that. But you have control of the oddly satisfying. So like, you go to a level and the guy's like, hey, my shed is dirty. Do you want to take this job? And you're like, fuck you. I'm going to take this job. And you go out and you have control and you have different attachments and different degrees. Like a ten degree jet does this. And the 15 degree and the 25 and the 40. And you power wash shit. And you get the grime off there. And once you finish something, you get a very little dopamine hit little ding. The thing glows for a second. You're like, I can move on from that part of the shed. I can move to the door. I can go to the window and.

Then to the window to the walls.

To the window, to the walls. And so you go through the levels and it's just really fucking fun. I can't explain. There's also funny little email messages because you always get emails from clients. They're like, oh, I want Mudbugging this weekend. Blah, blah, blah. It's fun. It knows. Don't overdo it. The levels are like big, but they're each broken up. So it's like, oh, I'm going to do the lawnmower. Oh, I didn't get this little part. So you can lay down underneath it and hit it. It's just fucking fun, man. So fun. In fact, I bought a power washer and I used it this weekend on my grill.

I think power washing simulator is just a scam by big power wash industry to sell power washers.

Congrats to them because it fucking worked. It's a target audience.

It's a scam by Home Depot to.

Sell more power washers by Amazon. Because just so happened that the week that was on sale and Steam, the next week power washers were on Amazon. Like half price.

Put the Home Depot theme song right here. The boom boom damp, damp.

For the Lowe's. The gene Hackman, come to Lowe's, your home, your ideas, and the freedom to express them. At Lowe's, we make it easy.

Sick. Well, is that all you've been playing?

I've been playing the if we talked about the Resident Evil Four, I've been playing that a little bit.

Not as much as I should have.

And downloaded the new Xbox, the new Microsoft, I forget who it is. The studio that did some good games. They did a game called Red Fall which just came out.

Oh, yeah.

It is not it is not good. It is not good.

Like the game that is basically the entire reason that I have an Xbox Series X and really fucking awful.

It's trash, dude.

Yeah.

When it came the day it came out, I have game pass. I saw some streamers playing it. And this one, I forgot his name. It doesn't matter. He was like, playing it and people were like, is this game good? And he was like he kept saying I think it was a sponsored stream. Because he wouldn't say it was bad. He was like, it's perfectly mediocre. And I was like, that's an interesting review. And then I was reading all the reviews are bad. And I'm like, well, how bad is it? Within 5 seconds, I knew this game. I was not going to play this game. The time I was playing it, when I started it, I would never open the app again because it's that fucking bad.

Yikes. Yeah, it's a bethesda game. Arcane Austin.

Arcane Austin. Yeah, it's a Bethesda game, which is why it's an Xbox. But it is such a fucking swing in the miss. Especially with I guess it was hyped. I didn't know about the hype, but now I know about the hype.

I mean, I was fucking hyped about it.

Really?

Yeah. Because in my mind I was thinking, okay, this is kind of like overwatch, but like vampire shit. Or like a four or five V five kind of like kind of deal.

Every game that people thought it was supposed to be like, it's not. I have heard left for dead. It's supposed to be a little bit it's nothing like that. It's nothing like overweight. It's nothing like destiny. It's just a shitty fucking FPS that doesn't quite work right either. The controls are so janky. I've never changed default sensitivity so quickly in a game. I turned once and I go, this ain't going to work for me. I'm not a sensitivity guy. I'm not like pro gamer guy. I'm just like, this ain't going to work. It's too janky this fast.

Okay. So I'm looking at the history of this developer, right?

Yeah.

So Arcane, their first dishonored is what they're known for.

Yes, that's right.

So their first four games are Arcs Fatalis, which I don't know what the fuck. Dark messiah of mind magic, which is an ass Xbox 360 game. Fucking terrible. And Karma Star, which is an iOS game. And then Dishonored, which I think is good. It's fine. Whatever. But then they did Dishonored, too, and the developer looks like it. They split at this point. And there's Arcane. Austin and arcane. I think it's Leone. Did they go to France?

Sounds like it.

So, Dishonored Two, which is much better, in my opinion, than the first. Dishonored is developed by Arcane Leone, and then their next game would be Prey, which was developed by Arcane Austin, which Prey is fine, but there's a better game called Prey that came out before.

Yeah, I agree.

The Xbox 360 Prey is much better than this newer Prey. And then Arcane Leon would do dishonored. Death of the outsider. Then Arcane Leone, with the help of Machine Games, would do Wolfenstein Youngblood and Wolfenstein Cyberpilot.

Okay, that second one, I've never heard of Young. Yeah. I never heard of Cyberpunk, where what's his name's kids.

Yeah. But then Arcane Leone would also do Death Loop, which is a good game.

I like death loop. I like Death Loop a lot, which.

Is a good game. And then arcane. Austin would do red fall. So it's something wrong with Arcane Austin.

Yeah, something is very wrong with those guys because this game is ass. Just ass. Yeah.

The Xbox does not have enough goodwill to keep fucking up like this.

Not like this. No.

Because as it is, nobody wants an Xbox Series X. I don't know a single person that, given the option between a PS Five and an Xbox Series X, would pick the Series X.

No.

Okay.

I have both. I bought it because of game. Pass.

I traded a three Dsxl for my Xbox Series X. That's how easy it is to get one.

Yeah, they're not hard to get. I got it for Game Pass because I got, like, a super they had, like, a super good Black Friday deal where it was like Game Pass for, like, three years for, like, $4 or something. It was ridiculous. And I was like, well, that'll pay for the console. And I like forza. I like the forza games. I like driving games. I like the forza games. I like them, actually. I'm sorry, but more than grand tourismo, I just think they're more fun. Get out of here. They've kind of branched off in a different way, and I like what they're doing. It's just more fun. And there's more cars. So that's the only reason I don't think I've played anything. But forza. And once in a while, I'll find an old Xbox 360 or Xbox. Like, I played Crimson Skies on it the other day.

Hell yeah.

Fucking love that.

Hell, yeah.

Love that game.

Honestly. I mean, 360 is obviously the best era of Xbox, of course, but there's some banger OG Xbox games.

Fuck yeah. Like crimson skies Big fan fucking. How did that game not become a.

Fucking I think we need a critical reappraisal of Dino Crisis Three.

I think so, too. I agree.

Sweet. So red fall. Big old fucking goose egg.

Big goose egg.

Done. Well, this week I've been playing Resident Evil Four on the Switch, of course, which I fuck with. I like it on the Switch. I'm liking it more and more. Further I get I also been playing a little bit of the Resident Evil Three remake.

Okay.

Trying to do some achievement cleanup on that game.

Sure.

I've also been playing this is a fun one. I've been playing some armored core Two and three.

Okay. Getting ready for four.

Yeah. For six.

Six, rather.

Yeah. So we don't have any planned episodes for armored core games, but we should because that's a wild franchise. And goddamn, those games are hard, but also fun. I mean, they're from software games, so of course they're hard.

Of course.

But I've been watching some YouTube videos, and anyone who's, like, a big fan of the Souls games or the Souls Born games or from Soft in general probably follows, like, Iron Pineapple on YouTube or Voda Vidya on YouTube. And he just did a YouTube video about armored core six, fires of the Rubicon. And I am so hyped for that game.

You're hyped.

I am so hyped. And they just announced, like, a week ago, like, the release date, so I already have my preorder in. I am so hyped for armored core six. So hyped.

Nice. When's that?

I can't wait. It comes out in August.

Okay.

And of course, I'm still hyped about Tears of the Kingdom. Kind of bummed that retailers didn't respect the street day. And now there's like, a bunch of copies.

There's a bunch of spoilers and shit out.

Fuck all that. It is on us to avoid them. Of course it is on us. And I don't blame I know there's a lot of people hating on Kotaku for posting some of that stuff, but you know what, Nintendo, as much as I love Nintendo, nintendo is very anti games press.

Very.

For anyone that would dare to be critical of them. Their whole thing with Kotaku is that Kotaku dared to report about the fact that Metroid Dread had already been pirated day one yeah. And was playable on PC.

Yeah.

And they didn't give a step by step instruction on how to pirate the game. So the idea that they did that is just factually false. That's news. That's news. What are they supposed to do? The games press should not collaborate with developers to form a narrative.

No, of course not.

Especially from a company like Nintendo, who more people should be critical of Nintendo. It's insane. That Breath of the Wild is still like a $60 game. Or Mario odyssey.

Yeah.

Like first party Nintendo games never dropping in price. It seems fucking wild.

It's fucking ridiculous.

And this is the first generation they've done that shit. They've had players choice or, like, Nintendo Select for basically everything since the original NES. Right. Yeah, the NES had the Nintendo classics and there weren't that many games for it. But then with Super Nintendo, they had players choice and it was like, yeah, of course.

Now that it's all digital, it seems really fucking cynical to not drop prices, especially in the eshop. It's really like, hang on a second here. This is just about maximizing.

Yeah, absolutely. And they get away with it because and I mean, don't get me wrong, they do have probably like some of the highest quality first party games.

Of course. Yeah.

But I don't know. I think it's silly to hold Kotaku. And that's not saying, like, Kotaku is great, but also Kotaku is not a monolith. They're not like one person. There's a bunch of individual game journalists that work for them and I think holding them to some weird standard because you're obsessed with meat writing Nintendo is right crazy. And where else are you going? Where else are you going for your game? News going to IGN fuck all that basically unusable website. I've been playing armor core.

Nice.

I did just get a copy. I haven't played it yet, but I did get a copy in a mystery stream. On whatnot? From shout out Tim Page. That narrator dude. On whatnot? I did get a copy of Shadow Tower from him, which is a PS One from Soft game. That is it looks so bad.

Nice.

I cannot wait. It looks like that fucking awful.

Fucking awesome.

And I love it. I love a good bad game.

I love a game.

It just, like, didn't age well. Also, it's a front. It's it's an older from Soft game. So, like, you, you know, it's unapologetic and how bad and hard it is.

Hard it is. Of course. Yeah. Super difficult. Fucking awesome.

Yeah. I've also been playing a little bit of Breath of the Wild, getting ready, trying to get my chops back up a little bit because once Tears of the Kingdom comes out, it's going to be games for the podcast and Tears of the Kingdom. And that's probably it.

100%. Yeah.

I'm going to be in a game coma game. Cocoon.

Cocoon.

Which is great because I go back to work like, two weeks after Tears of the Kingdom drops.

So you'll play that for two weeks? Well, you probably played a couple of times in two weeks and then back at fucking work. Yes.

Which is great. I love it.

Which is fantastic.

I've also been thinking of, like I've been trying to think of games that are like legendary game franchises that I haven't really played and that I should dive into those.

Okay. What do you got?

Like the PS three, like, final fantasies. Like, I haven't really played any of those. Or like the saga Frontier Games. Like the spin off Final Fantasy games. There's also been a couple, like, NES games I've been wanting to play. I've never played a boy in his Blob.

I think I remember that one. That's an old schooler.

Yeah, and they did, like, a remaster for Switch, which seems fun.

Yeah, seems it okay.

Other than that, we've been watching anything.

I watched that Silo show on Apple TV.

I have no idea what that is.

Yeah, it's not good. I guess it's based on a book. It's just like people live underground in a big silo.

Oh, yeah. They're like, told like, the outside is.

Like is poison, but maybe it's not.

That's like Sci-fi trope.

It's like 101 whatever with that story. You can do what you want. Anyone can do what they want. But I can't watch these shows and not ask the questions. And I know I'm nitpicky motherfucker, but.

The whole.

Silo is like hundreds of levels, and the only way to get anywhere is one spiral staircase in the center. And I was like, but it would take you a lifetime. These people's quads would be the size of fucking tree trunks, and they all.

Look like Tour de France cyclists, but they don't.

And then they just have questions like, so who decided that you walk on the right side and go down the left? Was that based on medieval England? Left shoulder to left shoulder because of horses? Because that's where that comes from. And they just didn't want to be like, France who's right shoulder to right. You know what I mean? Like, just shit that they just don't explain. I like the minutiae of shit. And this is just there's so much that I would have more questions about than they're willing to answer because they're trying to tell a very tired, boring story. However, the books on tape on Audible were I have a bunch of fucking credits, so I've got all those and I was like, well, maybe the book is better. The book is not better.

Speaking of audiobooks, I'm also an Audible fanatic. I just listened to a book called this Is the Way the World Ends, which I guess they're turning into a TV show. It's like a World War Z kind of book.

Okay.

And it's fucking awful trash. I mean, just reactionary politics disguised as hardcore mediocre Sci-Fi. And you know what if you like Sci-Fi or you like fantasy, mainly Sci-Fi, though, you've got to come to grips with the fact that a lot of Sci-Fi writers have terrible politics.

Very terrible.

I mean, what's his name? Starship Troopers. Guy.

Oh, fuck, yes, that guy.

Yeah, that guy. Just absolute dog shit politics. Orson Scott Card. Dog shit. But they at least have some sort of, like they put it in the subtext. And this book has all the subtlety of, like, a cinder block going through your windshield. Just absolutely, like, borderline racist, sinophobic just insane. The book is basically like, what if there's a zombie apocalypse and the stupidest fucking people, you know, were actually right about everything?

Oh, good.

That's basically what this thing is. The only people left are the dumbest people on the fucking planet. And this guy has clearly never left whatever, I'm assuming, Midwest state he's from. Because every time there's, like, a British person, the British person is like, oh, bloody hell. Cheerio. That's what the Yanks did.

A spot of tea.

Yeah. Like just like goofy riding. This dude's never met a person who this dude's never met a person that isn't intimately aware of what a Dairy Queen is.

Nice.

Just fucking insane. Insanely bad. I finished it just so I could feel justified in leaving a terrible review on. Goodreads.

There you go. Nice.

Yeah. But other than that, what have I been watching? Bob's Burgers. It's like brain candy.

Yeah.

You got to think you just watch it. Pop it on.

Watching that shit.

Yeah. I'm working my way through Tony Scott's filmography.

Okay.

Yeah. I did do a double feature the other day of Crimson Tide and Enemy of the State.

Crimson Tide is under fucking rated.

Crimson Tide is incredible. It's an amazing movie. Enemy of the state criminally underrated Gene Hackman. Just fucking going for it in both of those.

Both of them.

Tony Scott clearly had a fascination of the way Gene Hackman interacts with black people.

Yes, you sure did.

Which is hey. But I'm also simultaneously working my way through and I had a conversation with a film friend of mine about this. I'm working my way through Michael Mann's filmography at the same time because I think they have similar vibes.

They do.

But, like, aesthetically very different. So I did recently watch. I watched Manhunter and I watched Heat.

Heat is so fucking heat.

Heat is so fucking good. Manhunter is so fucking good.

Yeah, Manhunter is great, too.

But Heat yeah, there are some parts of Manhunter that are like, oh, no. Yeah, this is weird. Basically, the way I put it is Michael Mann is Tony Scott on Xanax.

Yeah.

If somehow you were able to contain Tony Scott right. You'd have Michael Mann.

Yeah.

He's like a much more restrained version of him. Because I don't know if you've ever seen man on Fire. That is an unhinged movie. That is fucking and I've seen that movie. I love it so much. That movie is off the rails.

Yes, it is. It's fucking insanity powder.

But that's been my week.

All right? It's been a good week.

Sweet. Well, give us a like on all the things. Subscribe to us on all the things. You can find us on instagram at discrete error pod. You can find me at funeral casual games.

I'm at ian Golden Games over here.

And we will see you next week.

Have a good weekend.