PixelRift: EP2

Two friends discuss their complaints about a dog purchase and a bad date. They then talk about the games they've been playing, including a tower defense and mining game called Drill Corps, and a mobile match-three game called Royal Match. They also mention playing UFC 4 and discuss the limitations of character creation. Lastly, they debate the merits of Halo and the Battlefield series as multiplayer first-person shooters. Hello, and welcome to Pixel Rift, where two best friends and video game enthusiasts battle it out to see which game is better in their own genres. I'm Alan Cruz, and here with my co-host, Jonathan Michael. And today we're going to be talking about two games that we both have very strong opinions about. It's going to be a nice, bright fight, and we're going to have a good time talking about it. But first of all, we're going to go into a little thing that we call the complaint corner, where we all have something we want to complain about. Jon, go ahead. What do you have to complain about? Okay, so this one's a bit of a mixed bag. It's half complaint, half awesome thing that happened to me. So I got a dog, which I've been wanting forever. But the lady who sold me the dog was supposed to be running a charity, but it was more like she was running some kind of, I don't know, crime ring or something. Everything she told me was a lie. She promised that the dog had been spayed, neutered, and all of it shot. And the day after I bought it, she texted me back and said, actually, none of that's true. She promised me on, like, Thursday, I would get the dog. It took until Sunday for her to show up. She promised me I would be able to choose out of a bunch of dogs. And she showed up with just one dog, and it was the most nervous, neurotic dog I've ever seen in my life. Which is good, because it's a lot like me. I'm a nervous, neurotic guy. But, I mean, it's hard. I needed a dog that could give me confidence. Sure, right? And I'm, like, having to tell her, like, we're going to make it through this. Stop freaking out. Every time I take her into the truck with me, she's, like, shaking and shivering. And, like, when I touch her, I can literally feel her nervous energy joining with mine. And we become, like, super nervous beings. And it's, like, the worst fucking superpower. But she's also the best, cutest little dog. Her name's Nala. Yeah, I just had the privilege of meeting her. She's really cute, really fun, very playful. But, yeah, you're right. She was nervous. I mean, you gave me a treat to get her out of the bag, and she didn't want nothing to do with it. It might be poison. Yeah, exactly. Come on now. I got a nice pepperoni here for you. And she's, like, nah, I'm good. And she booked it. Yeah, but she warmed up. She's nice and calm and relaxed now. She's a nice, good-looking dog. Nice brown, tannish color. Nala is a perfect name. She's got one mitt that I love. It's, like, one hand that's white. Yeah, Michael Jackson stuff. Yeah, totally. She's a good one. She's going to be a good one when she grows up, for sure. All right, what has you pissed off this week? You know what has me pissed off is, you know, I'm in the dating scene these days. And I've been doing the online dating. And I had got matched with this girl. She's a nice, thinner, taller black woman. Very nice, very slender, very beautiful is what was on her profile. And I had the privilege of meeting her. And let's just say that those pictures were probably about 20 years old. Wow. Because she looked nothing like she did. Because she was super old? I mean, 20 years old? No, she was bigger. Everything was just, like, you know. She even had, like, the darkness in her face from, like, being malnourished, kind of, you know what I mean? I don't know what that means. But it sounds rough. She also had a wig on. And you could totally tell it was a wig. And she didn't even get, like, brushed or nothing. Like, how are you going out on a date looking like this? Like, first of all, I can never go back to this coffee shop again. Because you're already tainting my reputation here. Oh, geez, it's rough. I'm feeling bad for her at this point. Well, that's her fault. She should have put a recent photo, one recent photo. Instead, you give me four old pictures of you? Yeah, it's not right. It's not fair. I mean, the whole thing just makes me miserable thinking about it. And even going as well as I can imagine it possibly going, it's still terrifying to me. Like I said, I'm a neurotic, nervous person. Sure, sure. I invite it. I like having the interaction. If you're just who you are, then the outcome should be better. But if you're just going to lie, you're automatically setting yourself up for failure. Maybe that's what she wanted. Maybe she just wanted to. Right. What would someone expect if they're not representing themselves as they actually are? You know? Like, I guess you would have to feel so bad that you don't mind that she's tricking you. And that's the only way it could work out. Yeah. And if she had a great personality, you know, maybe I would have overlooked it. I thought it was kind of a dull little date I went on. I had to fight for every little conversation. When was it? This was last Saturday. Yeah. It was a rough one. I haven't had too many rough dates, but that was definitely the roughest one I've been on. And these rough experiences, all these complaints, the solution, of course, is playing video games. Escapism. Exactly. So let's talk about what we've been playing recently. It's actually a very special week for super nerdy PC gamers because it's Steam Next Fest. Ooh. Which is kind of like E3. You know E3? Oh, yeah. It was the entertainment expo for all games. This is just, it's moved online, moved onto the Steam platform, and you can play all the newest games in demo form for free. Like, tons of new games, tons of new demos. I've been playing all kinds of stuff. I'm just going to mention just one, probably, because it's, honestly, it's the best. I had a few duds, but Drill Corps is a great game. It's a little bit like a tower defense game mixed with a mining game. You're mining down and you're trying to, there's kind of a deadline because each night, like in Minecraft even, the enemies come out and attack. So you have to build up your base and your characters and build towers, weapon towers, over the course of the day. You're mining, you're getting resources, and you're putting that towards towers that will defend your base at night. Oh, okay. You know, mining games are very fun. There's a ton of them out there, but mixed with, there's actually a few games similar to this. It's just really well done because not only do you build towers that defend, but you also kind of have a real-time strategy element where you build up an army of individuals that will also defend. Yeah. And they're also your miners. Yeah. So it's a really cool game. I recommend it. It's available for free right now on Steam. It's a small game and it's probably going to come out later this year, but I definitely recommend it. Nice. It's awesome. The game I've been playing this week, I've been playing two games this week. First was a mobile game, very free mobile game. It's called the Royal Match Game. A dating game? No, it's like a match three kind of game. Oh, I've seen your ads for this. Yeah. I hate this game already because it interrupts every other game. It does, for sure. Although it looks great. It's fun. It looks too good to be true. There's like water physics in it? There's a little bit of water physics in it. Or is that just in the advertisement? No, that part of the game does exist, but it's a rare part of the game. You get to finish like 20 levels for it. They're called King's Nightmare Games. Most of it's kind of just like a bejeweled- Yeah, for sure. I like it because you don't need Wi-Fi to play it. In a situation where I'm at work and I've got to wait for somebody to do something, I can put it on no matter where I'm at and play it. Just a couple of here's and there's. Are there lots of ads in between each game? There's no ads. You didn't pay for it at all? I didn't pay for it at all, yeah. It's pretty good. Just to come on and play just while you're waiting, it's worth it. Free, no ads. Yeah, I know, right? I'm sold on that. It looks fun enough. When a game interrupts you that often, I start to not trust that it's even a real game. It seems like they're all about the advertising. Oh, for sure. I don't know who's backing that game, but they're going full force. Everything they said on the advertisement has been true. I played in that game and I played a little UFC 4. I'm playing that. I'm going to get my butt kicked by Jon Jones. I'm going to try to beat him on the hardest difficulty with my character. I'll tell you, UFC 4's creative characters, that needs some redoing, man. What's wrong with it? You can't build up your own guy. You're given a set list of attacks depending on how you want to play. You're kind of good in all the areas, but you're not expert in any of them. It's like you're playing with a loaded deck because Jon Jones is good in everything, but my guy is kind of just whatever. Right. You can't just do whatever you want straight from the jump and make whoever you want to make. You can, but you can't build up his attributes to how you want to play. Okay. They give you a set of attributes. It's for balancing online. I see. But whatever. Right. They should let you do it in single player. Let you do whatever you want. That's what I'm saying. Give us the cheat codes. That's what I'm saying. Right off the jump. Of course, in the games we're going to be talking about, cheat codes, we don't want them at all. We want all the anti-cheat software in tip-top condition. Exactly. Because these games are about pixel precision shooting. Exactly. First-person shooter, multiplayer games. That's what we're talking about. And one of us is right, and one of us is wrong. One of us has a great game, the greatest game, the greatest multiplayer team-based first-person shooter in the world, and one of us is talking about, I don't need, I mean, okay, let me just clear the air here. I'm talking Halo. He's talking Battlefield 19. Well, I'm not sure. The Battlefield series. Yes. Do you have a game in particular that you want to try to defend here, or are we just doing all of Halo? We're just doing all of Halo, all of Battlefield. Okay. I mean, there's a big difference. Okay. I'm down to do it, buddy. Okay. Here we go. So I'm going to start it off here. I'm going to talk about Halo a little bit. So everybody's played Halo. It's one of the biggest selling games in the world, and rightfully so because this game is incredible. The physics of the movement of the vehicles, of the weapons, they all interact perfectly. It kind of reminds me of a game like Smash Brothers where everything is so precise that you can learn the feel of it in an incredible way, like the feel of how this gun is going to work, this feel of how, you know, a bullet will fly, where it will hit, what it will do if it will push someone back, if an explosion will knock someone back, and how far. You can kind of develop a real skill base because everything is so realistically simulated using a physics system that's just incredible. That's – sorry, I'm getting into my argument. Get at it. Get at it. Okay. I'm just going to go all the way through here. So another great thing about Halo is the different modes there are. You know, there's – it has King of the Hill. It invented some of these – a lot of these game modes, although I'm forgetting some of them right now. But King of the Hill, Capture the Flag, was one of the first games that did Capture the Flag. And let me just explain one difference between Battlefield and Call of Duty and Halo. In Halo, Capture the Flag, when you die and you drop the flag, the flag is also – just everything is unified by this physics engine, so the flag can bounce, drop, hit off something, and, like, that's part of the gameplay, knowing where your flag is going to fly to, where it's going to bounce, how it's going to drop, and how you need to move to get to it. It's just really different from, I think, like Call of Duty. And I think Battlefield, the flag just kind of drops wherever you are. It just stops immediately. It's kind of spawned in at that point. There's no real physics controlling any of that. I was going to mention grenades, because it's a huge element of Halo's combat, and so is melee, actually, which is a little bit different, which makes it a little unique compared to Battlefield and Call of Duty. You can bash someone, knock them back into a grenade that you've bounced and ricocheted off a wall, knowing exactly how it's going to ricochet, and then that blows them up. Plus there's the shield system. There's a health system in Halo that's not in the other games, which, I don't know. I'm going to say it's better, because it feels better to me. I guess it's kind of a matter of opinion. I just love the way that you're trying to get down their shield, and then when their shield's down, then you've got to go for the perfect headshot, and it's kind of like it gives you a lot of feedback as to how you're doing. Rather than just shooting somebody, they're instantly dead with a headshot. It's like, oh, no, I've done 70% of the damage I need to. Time to do my bash and grenade combo to finish this off. I just love jumping. I love driving a Warthog. Who doesn't love the feeling of that? I think it's unmatched. It's pretty good. I'm going to stop there and let Alan. Well, you want to talk about driving a Warthog. How about driving a tank? How about flying a Harrier? How about getting yourself into a nice riot mobile, loading it up with five or six of your boys, driving across the map, getting out, and just literally blowing up a building? Because you can't blow up a building in Halo, my friend, but you can do it in a little game I like to call Battlefield. You want to talk about physics, bro? You want to talk about bullet drop, my friend? We're talking realistic combat on the battlefield. It's a war simulator, if you will. Let me just say right here, I will give you Battlefield over Call of Duty at least has some bullet physics. For sure, for sure. Call of Duty, we all know Call of Duty is the weakest one. It's just the most celebrity-endorsed. If anyone ever listens to this, we are screwed at this one. Because that, I think, actually is the number one seller. It is the number one seller because it has the biggest backing. Although maybe they're all just kind of self-hating people. Like I play Call of Duty, too, but I realize I'm terrible for doing it. Oh, sure, 100%. You can't deny it. The idea of getting together with your friends and merking everybody else is a fun concept in itself. No matter what game you're playing, whether it's Overwatch or ARK, whatever that one game. Survival of All? Yeah, you know what I mean? These games are designed for you and your boys to get together and to cause some havoc. But you can't cause as much havoc in any of these games outside of Battlefield. It's literally war. You've got planes flying over you. You've got tanks going toe-to-toe. You have different classes that help you gain different types of guns. All the guns are in there. Every single one of them. And the different types of bullets. Like, you know what? I'm a shotgun guy. And every game, I'm grabbing the shotgun and I'm building it up. But Battlefield is the only game that has shotgun slugs. And it's like, ugh. Which gives you range. You finally get range with a shotgun slug. And nobody else has it. And the amount of damage I put with that shotgun slug is pretty awesome. Shotgun slugs are great in any game. Just blast them through. Slugs are awesome. They can blast through a door or a person. It feels wrong actually shooting a person because it's so incredibly effective at destroying anything that you don't even want to imagine what it would actually do to a person. You know what I mean? Okay. You're talking a lot here about bullets. I've heard the term bullets used a lot. And I think that's because one of Battlefield's weaknesses is it's all just bullets here. Give me the stinger that's shooting some flying homing darts that if you get 10 in, then they explode into a pink dust. Come on. That's what Halo can bring you. You know, energy grenades, bizarre weapons, the plasma rifle, the plasma guns, you've got to charge up the plasma pistol. The plasma pistol, the dual-wielding plasma pistol charged up, it's probably my favorite thing in Halo. I mean, to go from a plasma alien gun and then busting out a pistol once you've got their shield down with this energy weapon, it just feels great. It's something that only Halo can deliver. Now, I will give you, Battlefield has some great destruction physics. Definitely. Halo doesn't necessarily have that, although there is some stuff you can drive into some barrels and they'll fly around, stuff like that. Sure. But for me, that's more of just a visual effect. There's not a lot of interactivity. It's kind of just, you know, smoke and mirrors. It's graphically great, but I want that unified gameplay that Halo is bringing me. Unified? We're talking about literally war. Nothing's more unifying than war itself. To me, it's a little distracting, honestly. It is. With Halo, you're playing, it's almost like a sport. You're playing a game where you can kind of read all aspects of what's happening in any given second. In Battlefield, it's like, oh, what the, a building just crumbled on the side of me. Is that an airplane flying into me? Yes, it is. In the ground, someone's doing a kamikaze as a tank drives over your corpse, and you just are like, what just happened? I mean, the noises are just like, they're great. Again, the sound design's great in pretty much any modern game, but you're just like, what's happened? It's a bunch of distraction at some point for me. You have to focus up when you're in war. You've got to keep your head on a swivel because everything can come at you at any time. Part of the gameplay is overcoming this overly designed, overly visualized. Let me tell you something, man. Once you get past the learning curve and you become that war hero in Battlefield, nothing feels better than that. You're taking out planes. I would disagree. You're taking out planes with stinger shots. You're taking out tanks with a torch. You know what I mean? The opposite of tanks. Right. Have you ever killed anybody with that torch? How about taking out one of the tanks in Halo with a grenade, a perfectly lobbed grenade across the map? I mean, you've just got to read the angles. You've got to be some kind of a map genius to pull this off. Or you can just be someone who's played Halo so much that it becomes second nature, which is what I love about it. It becomes second nature. When you get good at Halo, it is like, oh, I've become good at something real. I feel how my character feels. I have truly inhabited this character. That's kind of how I feel moving around. That might be a little high pollutant, but it is how I feel. If you want to talk real, let me tell you something. I've had some pretty spectacular kills in Battlefield, but ultimately my greatest kill, I'll never forget it, is I was sniping. And I'm not a sniper. I don't usually do it. But this one time I felt like trying to do it, and this guy was literally like several hundred yards away. And, you know, you can't just point at his head. There's bullet drop and there's movement. I literally went in front of the guy, up, and I shot, and I head shot at him, and I was nowhere even near where I was. So, like, the perfect shot of the marksman of the bullet meeting that guy's head, I remember it to this day. Okay, okay. Now, see, this is something like I'm sure there is bullet drop. I've experienced it in those types of games. I think that in Halo there's actually less bullet drop with a sniper. I don't think there's any, in fact. It is a straight shot. But I actually do believe that it is a physical object, the bullet, just flying so fast and so straight that it's actually happening. Whereas, I, okay, it's a little bit of a concession. I think that the bullet physics may be more realistic in Battlefield. It's not even a concept. But the way that the sniper rifle or any of the guns work in Halo is more designed around the actual gameplay experience. It's designed to be fun. It's designed to allow you to develop a great skill level with it. Definitely. I think every aspect of it, I just feel that it feels right. It feels good. You don't really need a bullet drop in Halo because you're in a five-by-five room with five other guys. Oh, that's huge, man. You're talking about the earlier stuff. Okay. You're talking about the newer games. I mean, Halo Infinite has a huge, oh, you destroyed it. Nala just stepped on the keyboard, and she may have stopped everything here. Let's see if we're still recording. No, we're still going. We're still going. She wants to be part of the show. Nala attempted sabotage. We weren't paying enough attention to her. She's the ops, huh? She knows it. Just look at her eyes. She's a devilish little thing. Okay. Okay, Nala. All right. But I will give you the Energy Sword and the War Hammer. Energy Sword. How about that? The way that the Energy Sword locks on, you have to know the exact distance. If you miscalculate, you're done. So it's a perfect balance because this sword, it's a one-hit kill. It just goes to the design of Halo that everything is designed this way where it works perfectly as a kind of rock, paper, scissors design element. They have the hammer, but you have the sword. But you miss with your strike. They can come down and land perfectly time-bashed with the hammer. Yeah. And it's like it's a battle between these two ultimate hand-to-hand weapons that truly feels fair. It feels like everybody's got a shot if you're good enough, whereas pretty much any other first-person shooter isn't designed so carefully to where, like, Battlefield has rocket launchers. Sure. Battlefield has vehicles that shoot and kill you in a big area. Oh, yeah. With, I mean, just no skill really required. No way to stop it. No, there's a lot of skill. If you're in a small room and a guy shoots a rocket in there, you're going to die. Yeah. Whereas in Halo, if you hear a rocket coming, there's a way to move to just barely avoid it. It's like everything is designed within an inch of its life. Honestly, all games are attempting this level of design. I just think Halo accomplishes perfection. It's good. But, unfortunately, you want to talk about melee. What about the melee attacks in Battlefield? Are there? Oh, you mean coming up behind a guy, slicing the guy's throat, snagging his dog tags so that he's forever your trophy? Yeah, bro. All day. Call of Duty and that game, to me, it's poorly designed melee. It's not really interactive. You go there. If you're in the right position at the right time, it basically plays an animation. It's not even an actual part of the game. To me, it's like watching a little video. It just totally takes me out of the game. Watching a little video of you being an ultimate badass. It's an ultimate badass video. To me, it's poor design. It's not poor design. It's the best part of the game. It's not part of the game. It's the best part of the game. We both just agreed it's not part of the game. It is part of the game. It's a video. It's watching a little video. That's not game. But the act itself is part of the game. I mean, getting up to it and then you take a little pause and that's the cool part. The cool part isn't even part of the game. It's an animation where you're completely out of control for a second. You're not even playing. You're watching a cool death animation. Great. Yeah. Give me a break. Yeah. What's wrong with that? You can have time to nap at that point. Because the game has stopped for those three seconds. And you're going to literally snag that guy's dog tag that are forever on your wall. Whereas, like, in Halo, it's like, is it the perfect distance? I think I have a chance to nail this bash. And if you do, there's rear damage in that, too. If you're in the right position, you do extra damage from behind. It just doesn't stop the game entirely to play a cool little animation. Because it is focused on providing the best gameplay experience possible. That is what Halo is. That's why it is superior. No way, man. Dude, if you were going to slice somebody's throat, you're going to go to the animation yourself. Like, that's what it is. I'm not just swinging a knife. No, no, no. I'm grabbing your head, putting it back, and running that right through your jugular, bro. And, yeah, you're going to need that. Because that's real. In reality, I don't think it would go that way. Someone who's doing a stealth attack, I mean, who knows? But my guess is you're going to try to be as quick as possible. You're going to, like, I've seen, like, some John Wick-style moves where it's, like, they grab the person. They just, like, ten stabs in a half second to all the vital organs. And that's what you're going to do. It doesn't look cool. It looks like a guy having spasms, pretty much. That's the thing. These are all precision-based guys. Every one of these guys is a solid snake kind of guy who gets a little joy out of snagging a tag. Honestly, you've managed to stick to one part of those games that I truly hate. I hate seeing it happen to me. I hate it any time it happens. It's like, oh, great. And there's people who just play the game just to do this. Yeah. It's, what's it called? They're pretty much trolling people because they just want to watch this. It's like, play the game. You're literally not playing the game at this point. I imagine they're playing the game even more with those. I'm sure they're getting off on it because they're fucking weirdos. They're weirdos, but it's awesome. It's awesome. Like, you just mount this wall of your trophies. Each one is a trophy. Not just the name that came across because you obliterated them or you murdered them. I would never give these. I would never give these. Honestly, I instantly hate people who do it. And I just think that they're actually, like, okay, I won't say that. But does Halo have a system where you're gaining, they're called ribbons in Battlefield. No, because it's focused on the game. It doesn't have all that Battle Pass bullshit from all those games. Not Battle Pass, but like, if I get 10 kills in a row, it's like, oh. It doesn't need all that fluff. That's war, bro. Oh, that's war. What do you think is on the shoulder lapels of all these soldiers? Where doing a cool move instantly gets you some kind of cool thing that you can make your character look great. 100%. You got to let everybody know who's taking your life, bro. And they can see it. I just want to make a correction that Halo Infinite actually has a huge Battle Pass system. So that was pure bullshit on my part. But it doesn't have the kind of Call of Duty, like, point system where you're gaining new perks and stuff like that. Which, to me, it's kind of like, that system admits to it not being a perfectly designed game. You know what else I don't like about Halo is the fact that you can't really upgrade your gun. You can't customize your gun. Again, that's part of this perfect design. It's like saying you have a perfectly designed sport. And it's like, oh, yeah, but I can't bring, like, a cool car into it or something. It's like, no, the sport is designed with as few extravagancies as possible to make it, you know, as refined as possible. You're adding in all this stuff. Now, I will admit that that can be fun. But in a multiplayer game, I want everyone to have the exact same potential, you know, so that it's a true measure of skill. Like, one of my favorite modes in Halo is a mode where everyone starts with the same weapon. And that's the only weapon in the game. I think it's called Fiesta. Or it might be a special type of Fiesta mode. Because I think Fiesta is just random guns. Everyone gets a random one. But there's modes like Rocket Mode where everyone has a rocket launcher. And you have the exact same potential as the person next to you. There's no buying a cooler gun that does a little bit more damage. There's no upgrading something so that if you've been playing longer, you have kind of a cheat where you're able to do better, you know. No, it's your gun. It's your gun that you've polished and worked on. You know, there's that scene in American Solid 3 where they give Solid Snake that gun, that .45. And, like, Ava's trying to be all, like, sexy about it. And he's just like, yeah, whatever. Look at this gun, though. Polished to a mere sheen. The higher grip. It's because soldiers know that their rifle is their rifle. It's theirs. And that's what Battlefield offers you is that complete customization that even though you're on a battlefield, you're not just completely just another drone on the battlefield. You are your own man. Okay, sorry. I got distracted there for a second because Nala has done her second attempt at sabotaging the podcast and destroyed all of my headphones. She ate a bunch of them. She wasn't happy, though, with the fact that we stopped her first plan and her second plan succeeded. I am $100 in the hole. No, I'm just kidding. It's an old one. It's an old one. But she really ate. What are you going to do now? You ate a whole headset. She's trying to get on the podcast. Right. She's jealous. But I'm telling you, man. Okay. The concept of Battlefield being able to create your own gun, do your own thing. And then, have you ever like ran out of bullets and you had to pick up somebody else's gun? And then you like start going to town on somebody else's gun? See, yeah, this is honestly why I prefer Halo. I like this where there's none of this kind of chance encounter stuff. It is a well-designed, well-balanced experience at all times. At all times, you know that it's your skill alone, not luck or chance, not finding a cool gun on the ground, that's going to determine how well you do. And so you want to get better? You better literally develop the skills to be the best. Yeah. It lets you cut your teeth in the game. Whereas, like, finding a gun on the ground, that's fun. I'll give you that. It can be fun. But it's not a measure of skill, it's a measure of luck. It is a measure of skill, because you still have to use that gun with its custom accessories. It's the difference between pure, refined skill test, like Halo, and something that has a little bit more luck involved. It's not even luck, because you've used all of these other sites. You know, it's the difference between using a dot site and a holographic site. You know what I mean? I prefer the holographic site. I don't really do well with a dot site. But if I pick up something that has a dot site, and I start going to town, it's like, yo, my skills are alone. You know, obviously they're peaking out right now. Again, to me, at this point, it's an argument between the skill test, this refinement, and this fun chance thing you're talking about. I like, just as much as anybody, finding a gun that you may be, it's not what you're used to, and so you are now having a new experience. Yeah. That's more fun. Definitely. Perhaps. Is that what we're here for? Not necessarily. Not in a multiplayer game. I have fun testing my skill. Oh, okay. In Halo. Basically, if you're great at video games, you're gonna love Halo more. So, I don't, you know, I'm not trying to be full of myself, but somebody's a kickass gamer over here. Let me alienate our podcast listeners and say, well, first of all, if you're a Halo guy, you're an Xbox guy. So, obviously, you don't prefer the finer arts in gaming if you're an Xbox guy. Someone's a Japanese sellout. Is this right? Maybe I shouldn't say that. I'm probably gonna edit that out for everybody but Chris if I ever release this. Okay, but, you know, Xbox is all American. How can you be against this? Xbox is the cool person system. No way. Because it's all these elites, these people who put their nose up, you know, snobs who are saying, oh, come on, it's all about that PlayStation. I'm not gonna switch over to Microsoft. Microsoft, they make computers. They're these nerds that make computers. Yes. We're the cool PlayStation crowd. That's exactly what I sound like. I'm hearing it. I'm trying to replicate it. And meanwhile, you're just bobbing on the knob of Bill Gates. How dare you? I'm saying, you release a great game, I'm there for it. I don't have pretense. I'm a truth teller. I'm a truth player. I'm looking to play the best. No, you're not. You're playing Xbox. What are you talking about? See? See? This is bigotry. This is bias. No, because I'll still play Nintendo. I'm a PlayStation guy. I'm biased against one system, but not another. It's only because it's trash. I honestly, what, is it the fact that they're from Japan? No, it's the fact that it's Bill Gates. Bill Gates, one of the all-time philanthropists in America. Great man, from what I can tell. He wants to own all the water and all the... So that he can do what's right with it. This guy knows how to make video games, and he knows how to use our water. He knows how to get every drop out of that beautiful water. I have no idea. But like I said, I'm going to go for the good video games. And so I've always felt that people were kind of... It's not putting your nose up. What's the phrase? Yeah, it's putting your nose up. I don't think it's put. I think it's a different word. Turning your nose up. Turn your nose up. Yeah. Got it. I knew that the fucking knob was going to come off. They do it all the time. Exactly. I don't want the stench of the Xbox in my nostrils. Anyway, but I've always felt that way a little bit. Because I felt it too. It's like X... It's like you're trying to be cool. You know what I mean? It seems kind of like the nerdy console. I mean, they're trying to be cool so bad that they got the rock to... There's nothing elegant about it. The original controller was called the Duke. And it was too big to hold. They had to change it in an emergency meeting because the Duke was too big to use. But you know what it worked perfectly for? Halo. Because Halo is designed to do what it does perfectly. Okay. I'm not going to keep harping on that. You know, don't get me wrong. I've played Halo. I've played... Up until 4, I played them. I've beaten 3. I genuinely enjoyed it. Single player is great. Yeah. Co-op. Talk about that big old co-op. They've had co-op in Halo since way back. I'll give you that. Back in the day, Battlefield was multiplayer only. Actually, I have to constantly take everything back that I say. The original Battlefield actually had co-op where you could play against the enemies using AI. It's been only recently because they had campaign mode with Bad Company. Bad Company. Bad Company. You want to talk about cool games? I'll give you Bad Company. That game is cool as can be, man. I love that game. Bad Company is so good. With the destruction. Again, you know, it's not... It just doesn't have that beautiful, perfected combat. It just has beautiful, perfected... Everything else. And I'm almost willing to give you that. I'm here for that combat. It makes it something special. I love, honestly, all first person games. They're maybe not my favorite, but I enjoy pretty much any one I've ever played. Oh, for sure. I get that adrenaline, dopamine rush. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, that most everybody does. That's why they sell so well. But I just think that there's something unique about the level... I just keep saying it, and this will be the last time. Refinement in Halo. I get it. That makes it something more. It makes it this kind of pristine thing that I love. But when it comes down to first person shooters, all the ones I've played have not held a candle to Battlefield. It's the one that's kept me playing the first person shooter, because it is not my favorite genre. But when that new Battlefield update's coming out, I'm definitely playing it. I'm not as good as I used to be, which kind of is tough, but I'm definitely seeing what they're adding, the new maps and the new weapons. Okay, let's put this to the test here. Because I don't know. Have you played the most recent Battlefield, the one that's in the near future with the environmental disasters? Yeah, I've played it. Okay, I thought he hadn't. I thought I was going to call him out. No, no, I've played it. Okay, all righty. That's right. I got it for free. Oh, yeah? PlayStation Plus. I hear it wasn't too great. I hear it wasn't the best one. When it came out, it was. I'm not going to hold that against you. It was very bad, but from what I've played, it ran really well. It brought definitely back that old nostalgia dopamine shot that I was getting back in the day, let me tell you. Okay. Because my other boss, he was all into Call of Duty, and he wanted me to play. I was playing that, and I wasn't feeling it, so I ended up just getting back into Battlefield to see if it helped. Are you talking about Ryan? Yeah, I'm talking about Ryan. Okay. Ryan was both of our bosses. We worked together, and he forced me to, every night, play Battlefield with him. Or not Battlefield, sorry, Call of Duty. I would be like, oh, you know, it's really not my favorite game. He's like, oh, but you're a big-time gamer. Come on, I'll play tonight. It's like, oh, when your boss is telling you to play. So maybe I developed a little bit of a bias here to where I disliked the games more than perhaps I should. 100%, but it was like, while playing, it was like, this is all right. Nothing has changed in the Call of Duty world, you know? Yep. It's all kind of the same. But going back to playing Battlefield, it was a little different, and it felt a lot better to play. So at least Battlefield has some combat evolved. Okay, now it's time, everyone, for the concession minute. I don't know. I think we've been doing this a little bit all along, but I'm going to go ahead and real quick concede that Battlefield has incredible explosions, incredible immersion, everything. Like they said, it feels like you're in a real war zone. That is all true. No, you're right. And I will concede that Halo is more fun than Battlefield. Ooh, wow. It's more fun, for sure. It is. That sounds like a full concession over here. Well, no, Battlefield is very – you've got to be on your toes. You know, it's war. It's not fun. I was actually playing Halo last night for the first time in a while, and I was having a blast. Which one was it? Halo 3. Halo 3. And it was literally old school land. Like my cousin, he bought a couple of them. Split screens. That's a beautiful thing. No, there wasn't split screens. We all had our own screens. Ooh, even better. Four boxes, four TVs. That was the pinnacle of same house multiplayer back in the day. It was spectacular, you know, and it took me back to that old-time feeling. It was like, this is fun. I had a great time, you know. So, like, I'll concede that Halo is more fun, but Battlefield is a better game. Okay. Well, looks like we're to the point in the show where we are going to appreciate something in our lives, the weekly appreciation segment. And like I said at the beginning in my complaint, I got a new dog, and I am incredibly happy to have a dog finally. I've been wanting one forever. She's gorgeous. She's cute as can be. She's a great saboteur. She can mess up almost any podcast, and if she fails at that, she will destroy all your electronics. But even still, I'm not mad at her. Still, it's only been about a week, but I'm already loving this dog here. So, this episode goes out to Nala, my new family member. Nice. That's awesome. And she's chewing away at a bone now. You sure it's not headphones? I had to double-check one more time. You might have heard some banging around. I've been trying to chase her around the room during this record. Exactly. You know what I appreciate the most right now? I had a chance to watch a couple of movies back in the day. I saw Can't Hardly Wait, a movie that came out in the 90s, the end of the 90s, high school party movie. And then it holds up. What's the story? What's the story of that one? Can't Hardly Wait, it's about a party that happens at the end of the year. Oh, sorry. All my friends love that movie, and I just didn't like it. You didn't like it? It wasn't funny enough, and it was too much about being cool in this school party life that I didn't want any part of. I was a nerd, and I was like, I'm not going to be invited to these type of parties. This is not my place. It just wasn't funny enough. You should have taken some notes from Charlie Corsmo's character and really hit up a party and just have some fun. I went to parties later on. And you had fun. I rocked the party. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. It was just that old school, 90s, early 2000s cinema. Things are just like... I can't believe that's the one. I bet you liked it when it came out. Were you really into it? I loved it. I loved it when it came out. It was one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. I hated it. You hated it? We're going again? We're going again? What's going on? A bunch of my friends who were the ones who wanted to be cool were like, oh, this is it. This is the cool movie. And I was like, it's not that funny. Give me the year and I can tell you funnier movies. I was like, look, you're saying this is a better movie. Look at how much better written, I don't know, was it? Like Wayne's World? Wayne's World. Undeniable. That was way earlier. Yeah, sure, but it was really good. But I'm actually not even a character in that movie. I'm kind of a mix between the jock and the main character. I'm kind of an introspective guy, but I'm pretty good at sports. You're good at sports. I'm not really, well, I'm a league champion wrestler. But I'm actually not even in the movie. I can't even identify anybody in the movie. You're all the jocks in the movie. I'm not all the jocks. You're all the jocks. This guy thinks he's cool as hell. All the jocks in the movie have girlfriends. I've never had a girlfriend. This guy thinks he's cool as hell, folks. Well, I know I'm cool now. I was a nerd who was not even allowed in that movie. The movie was too cool for me. You were on the roof waiting to ambush some jocks. I'm not in that movie. It doesn't do nerds justice. The nerds were the ones making the right decisions. It would not have made a good movie. It would not have been entertaining. But the lines in the movie are undeniable, man. She's like, no thanks, no time. Hilarious. After the guy gets reamed by the girl he's been trying to talk to, he finally talks to her, and she just rips him up. Saying everything that was true about how his character was, and then some guy just comes up from behind him and is like, thanks, man. That was the funniest thing I've seen all night. Spectacular timing. The movie's great. Honestly, that movie is kind of like a cool piece of music. Yeah. It is musical. It feels cool. And there's no substance. That's how I felt about it back in the day. And it's not funny. Those post-season kids are not funny. They're cool. They're interesting. Oh, isn't this cool? Isn't it cool when this guy says this? Isn't it cool? No. I don't want to be cool. In the concept of the movie, both lines are legit hilarious. No, incredible. She came in with a TV remote perfectly perched in her mouth. I don't know where she got it. Nala, you cannot think that that's cool, to eat my remote. Oh, my gosh. She's like, no thanks, no time. Okay, well, let's see what we got here. That's all right. We'll add on to it later if we need to. Folks, I've got to take my dog outside. I've got to teach her what eating remotes will get you. Yeah. To the moon, Alex. To the moon. Just to be clear, I teach my dog through positive training only. I will not be hurting her in any way. I'm the one who hurts her. No. I'm just joking. All right. Thank you, and good night. This has been Pixel Riffs. Pixel Riffs.