All right.
Now it is recording.
actual recording is higher quality, it says.
Audio in recording may be larger than it appears.
Yeah.
And it's, it's, it's uploading as we go.
Okay.
Here we go.
I'm going to start pushing buttons.
Here we go.
Boom boom three two one go
here on the very rim of known space justice is
Hello my friends and welcome.
Oh, I can kind of hear myself a little bit.
That was weird.
Hello my friends and welcome to the Space Game Junkie podcast.
I as always am your cohost Brian and joining me as always is your cohost Spaz.
Here for the long haul.
and your co-host Julie.
Pressing the wrong buttons.
Hello, how you doing?
and your co-host Thorsten.
Lo and Lo.
and your cohost, Jacob.
Happy Maggi-Thatcher Day to all who celebrate!
is today the day she passed?
Well, ah, good.
Yes.
So friends, um we are trying something a little bit different today.
um Usually for the last several years, we have been using um Discord to record our podcast, which fine, you know, Discord is a fine platform, but lately there's been some,
you know,
problems with discord.
um Some worrying trends that made us question whether we're going to be using discord for a lot longer in the future.
And so someone on the Retro Dogfight Discord um recommended a platform called Riverside to record our podcasts.
Riverside is a platform specifically for recording podcasts.
um
Kind of a zoom type thing, but it's more for it again recording podcasts It's also recording for recording video podcasts, but we don't obviously do that um So if we sound a
little different um That's why we're using this it's a web-based tool they also have Android and Apple apps, I believe but we're using the web-based tool and So it's a little
different.
So it might sound a little different um the ah actual
podcast mp3 will probably sound different because What Riverside does is before I would record the wave file locally on my machine convert it to an mp3 and then upload that What
Riverside does is records audio from each of our machines individually Uploads that to their server and then I edit it and then I download the wave file Or I think I can
download the mp3, but I'm not sure if it's the same quality.
So I'm have to check that
But I could also download a wave file directly from Riverside and then convert that in audacity like I used to.
So it might sound better.
We're going to figure we're going to get, we're going to, we're going to find out.
Um, so there's a lot I like.
One thing I really like about this thing is because it's web-based, if my computer crashes or a voice meter starts to sound robotic, the whole recording is lost because again, it's
decentralized.
have five different recordings going instead of just one.
There's a lot to like here.
Another nice thing, which I'm very excited about is Riverside is a hand raise function.
So hopefully we'll have less people interrupting each other.
I'm disgustingly excited about that.
You guys actually really, really excited about the hand raise functionality.
my God.
I'm really, really excited about that.
So my friends, we have a topic today that was, who chose this one?
I don't remember who chose this.
down who chose this one.
Okay.
I think it was David and Chris.
Maybe campaigns versus sandboxes and which we prefer.
This is a big one.
This is a big one because it's a big topic and we'll probably have a lot of varied opinions about this.
Now it's, we should probably define what these mean.
So a campaign ah is more of a linear
Thing like Wing Commander free space um You know that kind of thing In terms of flight sims like the nova logic games are much more linear campaign things um Scripted that sort
of thing and when you think of a sandbox I I've put I put elite dangers on the screen here because that's more sandbox II um
I mean, it has missions, but there's nothing like you basically choose where you want to go.
You decide your own, you set your own goals basically in a sandbox like Elite Dangerous or No Man's Sky or things like that.
And there are things that mix the two like X4 for example, can be a sandbox, but it also has kind of story based
Kind of mini campaigns that you can follow, you know, so there are games that kind of skirt the line between the two.
Um, and some people prefer one, some people prefer the other.
Um, I'm going to start with saying that I don't do well with sandboxes.
I don't.
I, uh, that's why I don't play games like mountain blade.
For example, I, I don't do well with pure sandboxes at all.
I, I need goals.
I need.
I need a to-do list.
need a thing.
I need a place to go and a thing to do.
Uh, but let's talk about what
funny to me, honestly, because you really like Spaceborne 2.
And that's very much a sandbox.
Yes, but the it is well again you can You know, that's true, but at the same time you can build a to-do list in a game like that That's true.
You can build a very lengthy to-do list in a game like that So I guess in a way I'm making my own God, this is a strange topic, isn't it?
Because
It's nuanced, is how I would put it.
It is nuanced.
Julie, what do you want?
I like it.
We have a queue.
Wait, we have a queue.
Wait, there's a queue?
Oh my God, there's a queue.
We can, honest to God, make an orderly queue.
my god, I'm in love
have I jumped the line in the queue?
No, no, no, you are the Q right now.
You are.
okay.
want to say, forgive me if you remember my talking about this in the past, but ah it has a bearing on it.
The first online video game I played, ah MMO, was Ultima Online.
And as far as being a sandbox is concerned, the problem is when I walked into Britannia for the first time,
All I did was stand there and I said, do I do now?
I actually typed it in and behind me, somebody type, what do you want to do?
Thank God somebody took me in hand and said, here's how the game worked.
I would have been lost entirely without that.
That said, when you get to a complex game like X4 foundations, which I absolutely love.
without the campaign to lead me there and help me figure out how it works.
Even with all the little, oh, here's flight school, to learn all the nuances because there's a definite storyline in there, a campaign.
I never started out with a human, so I don't know how it works, but I've started out with the other races and.
And there's different storylines.
There's a pirate storyline.
And if you want to become a trader, here's a tip.
Start out with the pirate storyline.
When they send you to steal the huge trading ship, steal it for yourself.
That's how I got started.
But the thing is, without that campaign, I wouldn't ever have been able to figure out how the sandbox part worked.
And after it guided me on how to figure out how the sandbox part worked, that's what allowed me to enjoy it.
Similarly, on our Sunday night group, when we dabble in different games and, uh you know, like Helldivers and whatnot, but somebody wanted to start playing No Man's Sky.
And without someone...
There is a kind of a storyline there, right?
But without someone showing you how to work the parts in the sandbox, it's really difficult to grasp.
And so when two of us are there, one helps out by saying, okay, do this, do this, do this, do this, because without a guide there through the sandbox, it gets really tough to enjoy
it.
And this is why when I
I tried to play Total War, I bought it on the strength that it was Warhammer and on the other podcast, that's one of the things we started out for this online gaming radio place
as a Warhammer podcast.
And I just was totally lost, absolutely lost.
And I needed more of a guiding hand.
That's my thing is this is why I enjoy things like X4 foundations because I can go through the campaign and then enjoy the sandbox because you know, when you get to something like
Minecraft, which I play, there's no, there's, there's nobody to guide you.
And the first time I logged on to Minecraft, said, well, now what?
So that's what I want.
I need both.
So that's I've had my say.
I think in terms of uh campaign here, I think our distinction should not be whether there is or isn't a campaign.
I think the distinction should be whether or not that campaign is story focused and or linear because take a game like Rebel Galaxy Outlaw.
It has a campaign.
It has a big sandbox and that campaign
is not linear.
You can take much of it in whatever order you want to with all the side missions that are available.
But you could skip it and just jump right into the sandbox if you really want to.
So I think in terms of how we define whether or not it's campaign versus sandbox, it should be on the focus of whether that campaign has a story focus.
that you go through entirely separate of the sandbox.
Yeah, I guess what we should be talking about here is, um, isn't an open world game that has like a story based, like tutorial style campaign that eases you into the world versus
something like wing commander, which is completely linear, know, completely linear and God, I love both.
Like if we're looking at it that way, I love both, you know, it is really nuanced.
like my favorite game starfleet 2 does not like That doesn't have linear.
That's that that's both because you have you know A set of missions in an order but each mission is like a little mini sandbox that you can do what you want But the next two
favorite the next like next several games on my favorites list are linear space dogfighters But then you get the star flight which is this giant open
And then you get taxi not which this giant open thing but has a store though and then you have spaceborn 2 and then you have Yeah, so So yeah, which one would I guess I guess we
could talk about which one maybe we've spent more time in like have we spent more time in an open world kind of sandboxy game like spaceborn 2 or
No Man's Sky or Elite or whatever or if we spent more time in linear world like um like X-Wing or TIE Fighter or whatever.
What's up, Julie?
Well, I just wanted to say in that regard is to answer the question.
Once I've been told how the game works, what I enjoy more about it is the sandbox.
The two examples I give the most is, and I'm sure everybody's seen the cartoon about learning curve with Eve Online where like off the cliff and straight down, which is very,
very true.
And, and this is why you like almost have to join.
a corporation in order to have somebody show you the ropes.
But after that, it's like, whether I was in NullSec or whether I was in HiSec, when I did both, was like, I was always the industrial type.
And I said, leave me alone.
Let me mine, take my product.
And that's why once I learned how the sandbox work or in no man's sky, the thing is I did the main storyline.
Now it's all about exploring and the latest thing is you can be a space-born Fred Sanford is the latest thing.
ah once I know how, I enjoy the sandbox the most.
That kind of answers my question that I was going to put to everyone.
What, what kind of game do you think you spent more time in over the years?
The open world kind of can pay sandbox that might have a campaign in it, you know, or, or the more linear, the more linear like wing commander, X wing, style game.
And for me, it's, it's going to be the more open, the more open
kind of sandbox game because this surprises me because my, game I've spent the most time in the world with is Jump Gate.
I've, I've got over 5,000 hours before the game shut down in Jump Gate.
And that is, that game's a sandbox.
That game is a pure sandbox, an MMO sandbox.
There's no campaign at all.
You just do mission after mission after mission after mission.
So, um
So yeah, I guess, wow, I'm actually surprised because I thought I don't do sandboxes.
But as we talk about more, it's like, crap.
A specific type of sandbox is my primary, is my primary jam is one of my primary jams.
ah boy.
I like when discussions can take a turn.
uh
Surprising.
no man's sky speaking of no man's sky they as of today they have Pokemon I gotta give uh
your finest f- What?
We'll get to that.
um But let's go through the, let's go through the raise.
Let's go through the hands and then we'll get, then we'll talk about that for a second.
We'll have a sidebar.
Thorsten, what'd you want to say?
Yeah, I mean, I'm completely in the sandbox side of things, because I really don't like if games hold my hand and I have to follow what...
what some designer thought of it.
That's why I don't like the Wing Commander series, be honest.
um It's too linear for me.
The first Wing Commander wasn't that bad, but uh already the second...
uh
There were too uh few uh exceptions, deflections from the storyline, you know?
And I never wrapped my head around it.
Seriously.
That's fun.
Uh, sugar.
What'd you want to
I'm gonna be entirely honest, I think I forgot.
But...
wait, no, the question was which one I spend more time in.
And that's a weird question because the games I play the most are MMOs and I don't know which category these technically count as.
That's a hmm.
Because there is a whole separate discussion in MMOs between theme park MMOs and sandbox MMOs.
And that is a whole thing.
That is an entire separate discussion from this that has quite literally had people up in arms about it for a better part of 40 years.
Or 30, sorry.
Since the MMO was more or less invented
And I'm not sure which ones the MMOs I played the most count as.
Now Eve Online I played a lot of.
That's an MMO.
That's definitely a big sandbox.
uh Final Fantasy XIV is kind of more on the theme park side.
Is that still a campaign based game?
I played the campaign.
I liked it.
I'm not sure...
I'm not sure if it constitutes a...
which is it constitutes in R-Division.
But taking it outside of MMOs, I do think I've played more campaign-based games entirely off the back of...
Well...
Entirely off the back of more games that I would consider...
Basically, I count dynamic campaigns more towards the linear side than the sandbox side.
I count something like XCOM.
more towards a sort of structured but randomized campaign rather than a free-form do-whatever game.
And so the large variety of games derived from that, the large variety of games like Jagged Alliance, games like basically any CRPG tends to be around a structured but sort of
randomized or branching campaign and those are the games I played the most of.
That's fair.
Thorsten, what do want to add?
I think we also have to differentiate between dynamic, randomized and procedurally generated campaigns because that does change the narrative completely.
I've got a lot of problems in regards of campaigns when they are linear about the replayability part.
I often don't...
through another campaign if I played it through once.
While uh in my previous examples, I mentioned uh dynamic or procedurally generated campaigns, it's more likely that I pick up the game again at some time.
That's a really fair point.
Yeah.
I agree with you in terms of especially like flight sims.
Like I am an absolute randomization slash dynamic campaign snob.
Absolute dynamic campaign snob.
When it comes to things like flight sims, like like my favorite flight sims have either some type of dynamic campaign or some type of randomization or some type of like my
favorite World War II
Flight Sim, for example, is 1942 Pacific Air War, which has that Admiral mode in it, which is kind of a dynamic campaign because you're commanding the fleet and that never goes the
same way twice.
So that's kind of sandboxy.
But it does depend on the game.
It really does depend on the game.
Like I, he really does depend the game.
Like I love tie fighter and I love X-wing and I love, you know, free space, but I also love EF 2000, you know?
So, but you, you, but you, yeah, it really does work on a case by his basis and privateer, um, Chris brought up privateer, which is an interesting, which is an interesting thing
because privateer, like you had
You had two um very linear Wing Commander games, one and two.
There was some branching in those games, but they were still very linear.
And then you have privateer, which is this completely open.
mean, there is a story to it um that happens here and there.
But the privateer is basically do your own thing and make money.
Then you make enough money and then the story kind of happens to you kind of same thing with freelancer basically um Yeah, they're they're more sandbox II
But still, yeah, there are a lot more sandboxing than the other Wing Commander games, which may be why they're a little more beloved, which may why privateer is a little more
beloved, I think, at least for me, than uh more mainline linear games.
At least I think so.
I think one differentiation we can make is that a lot of these games that we've mentioned so far that have this linear campaign as well as a sandbox, gets treated, the campaign
gets treated like an extended tutorial.
You play through that and then you're in the sandbox and now you know how to have the fun you want to make out of it.
Yeah, lot of games do do that, especially space games and.
um And again, X4 is an excellent example of this.
It has several like kind of mini campaigns.
That kind of have their own little stories that kind of guides you to different parts of the universe.
um Like like the one that starts you off kind of exploring a little bit and then, suddenly, hey, start a factory.
Like, wait.
or Starpoint Gemini Warlords for that matter.
yeah, yeah, yeah.
I always forget about that one.
I'm sorry.
I always forget about that one.
It's such a great game.
If you all haven't played that one, by the way, that is such a great game.
Julie, what do you got?
Well, you know, I just want to say the thing about X4 foundations and why I appreciate more about their campaign, as I should say, is the fact that there's their main storyline,
but there are so many other ways to start that it gives me a whole different perspective on the game, depending on how I start.
If I just start the main storyline, that's one thing I ended up with some guy floating in a tank telling me how to recapture this whole station.
But I can start out with the start that's unworthy entrepreneur.
And it's like, here's an old beat up industrial station.
Here's a mining ship and see if you can build up your empire.
So I appreciate where there's a campaign, but you know, like branching parts of it that will.
give me different viewpoints on the sandbox once I get started.
Yeah, and I have to give a game like X4 and Spaceborne 2 credit for straddling the line between the two.
They're kind of Elder Scrolls-y in that regard.
In fact, in that they have larger storylines woven in there somewhere and you engage with them here and there, but you don't really have to.
But the sandbox takes up a much larger portion of the gameplay.
um
It's really mostly up to you when and where you engage with these more contained parts of the game That's gotta be a fine line to walk and I gotta say the X games do it.
Well Spaceborn does it well um You know, so it's it's really um It's really it's really great what to see a game kind of do kind of do both
Now I'll add with, go ahead.
no good.
Okay, I'll add that with Spaceborne 2.
Things are fairly linear at first, and then once you start getting into the Empire Building, once you unlock that, things open up in a wild way.
I gotta get back into it because I'm sorry to interrupt.
I gotta get back into it because goddamn I've not gotten much into that.
I got distracted with other games.
Like I think Taxi Knock came out and just took my focus completely away from it.
I gotta get back into it.
too.
That's fair.
But the thing with that, that sandbox, the, the campaign, uh, as you, as you try to build up an empire, there are so many things that unlock along that way that it's still kind of
leads you by the hand at first as you get into it.
And then as you do more things within the empire building, like
planter landings and taking castles that
They ease you into that at first and then it's all you.
You have to figure it out how you're going to tackle these problems because you've already been shown how to do it.
You just have to figure out how to do it.
Yeah, I got to jump back into that game, folks.
If you haven't played Spaceborne 2, it's a absolutely terrific game.
It can be as sandbox here as just take missions as you want.
and it's the missions are fun.
Like they're all basically generated, but they're always a good time.
Even if they're in space or on the ground, they're almost always a good time.
Sometimes they can get a little frustrating here and there, but like.
98 % of the time they're fun, you know And like it's it's a it's I don't know how they did it But like they they out star sis and star sis and just like no man's sky is doing which
uh side note again They just added Pokemon today Shogun they did they added Pokemon today as we're recording this you could you can find Excuse me, you can find creatures in the
wild and you can see their stats
And you can capture these creatures and use them in the arena.
And I'm not making any of this up and.
not?
speak on this a bit.
you can already tame monsters uh or fauna that you find in the world.
Some are robotic, some are organic, some are uh extremely alien bug-like.
uh That was already a thing that's been a thing for years.
The thing that was added with today's update is that it's an arena that you can...
holographic arenas that you can take those creatures that you've tamed and have them fight.
There are uh NPCs in a story campaign that goes along with it, a mini campaign that is tied into that where you can have your uh tamed creatures fighting against the NPCs.
You can also do PvP with them in these arenas on stations.
and in the Nexus.
It's a thing.
It is absolutely a thing.
I have not played with it yet.
I've seen video.
It looks really cool.
Apparently there are daily challenges.
Apparently there are super rare creatures you can find that give you all kinds of buffs and bonuses.
There are rewards, like in-game rewards you can get for doing these challenges and winning these fights.
It's a whole nother, they've added a whole nother layer to this game that Elite and Star Citizen can't even touch.
It just...
I fully expect the next expedition is going to uh use this mechanic heavily.
The what?
I fully expect that the next expedition in the game is going to use this, yeah, it's going to use this mechanic very heavily.
It's going to be focused on it.
It's what I'm, I'm 98 % sure.
was going to use a video of no man's sky as the background, but then they added the trailer for this thing and I'm like, I don't want to make this too timely.
That's why I switched it to a elite dangerous, which is another space sandbox, but nowhere near as good as good a space sandbox as I mean, it's okay.
It's not terrible, I guess, but it's not as good as.
ah I'm still I'm still disappointed like I guess we can talk about a problem with sandboxes like elite dangerous and whatnot is that they can get a little stagnant You
know, like how do you keep a sandbox fresh?
You know, how do you keep a sandbox like elite fresh and I think with elites case, I don't think they've succeeded in that regard like Yeah, I think they have failed in keeping it
fresh and wanting me to go back to it
Like, I don't know how they did it, but Jumpgate kept me playing for over 10 years, you know, until they shut it down.
Um, I think it's was partially a good community.
Partially the progression felt great.
the ships felt great.
The flight model felt great.
the economy was really meaningful.
That sort of thing.
It never really felt that good in Elite.
Wait, they just added the ability to colonize your own systems in Elite?
Oh.
Huh.
That might make the game feel more meaningful.
Maybe.
Has everyone played a lead recently?
wait, sorry.
Thorsten, you had your hand up.
Sorry.
Go ahead.
Yeah, the problem with Elite Dangerous, I guess, is a bit different.
They introduced gameplay mechanics that are, from my perspective, completely nonsense.
That's the problem I've got with Elite Dangerous.
You know, let's tackle it from another side.
The universe of the previous games
didn't change, or the previous Elite games didn't change much.
And uh here, now you've got crazy things like uh ships that are completely unbeatable.
gameplay mechanics that let you shoot things with much smaller ships, it doesn't work for me personally.
That's the problem I've got with this game.
It feels a lot like War Thunder in space to me.
And I didn't touch it for years, at least five years.
I've not touched it in a long time either.
um Julie, what'd you want to say?
Well, just as an example of a game that's pure sandbox and I'll bet dollars to don't that I'm the only one that's played all, spend a lot of time early on in Minecraft.
Maybe not, who knows?
I haven't played that in long time, but the thing is, it's an example of a game where there isn't.
Any, you know, random quest or anything really to keep you going once you've killed the end dragon.
It's like, well, what the hell am I doing now?
This is why you have games that have a lot of, and I feel like me, I've only seen videos if it put copia or something like that.
There's a new Pokemon game that is like Pokemon set in Minecraft.
And so it's a lot like, well, Minecraft was something to do in it.
And if a game is entirely sandbox and it can becomes like Ultima Online, it's like, unless you can make your own goals, ultimately I can get bored to tears.
And that's kind of what happened with Ultima Online with me.
I
Yeah, I I tried playing minecraft um For a little bit and again, that's I guess that's one of those sandboxes with no goals at all, which I guess maybe where the topic idea came
from is One of those kind of sandboxes with no goals at all like like minecraft and some other ones and those are the kind of sandboxes where Yeah, those don't even have quests or
missions or anything
like a pure like sandbox.
those are the kind, those are the kinds that I can't, I can't gel with.
Thorsten, what's up?
Speaking of that, we've got actually a pretty good example in space games.
that's Space Engineers, was actually, which was completely, I don't get how they managed to fuck that one up.
Sorry for my language now.
I really don't like how it turned out.
I don't think you're alone there.
Spaz, what's up?
This is going to be a bit of a deep cut, but hey, Brian, play Minecraft.
Ha ha.
I forgot about that.
completely forgot.
Okay, so friends, if you don't know what we're talking about, there was a time, God, it feels like a million years ago now.
It feels like so long ago now.
I lost my last job and for a year, my wife and I agreed I would try for a year to become a full-time streamer.
Obviously it didn't work out sadly, but I tried for a year to become a full-time streamer.
And then COVID happened and everybody tried.
It was bad timing.
Plus probably other things.
um And ah we're not doing, we're not streaming to YouTube again.
fudge rockets.
um
Dang it all to heck.
Sorry.
um So I was trying to stream full time.
So I would stream for hours, five times a week, every day.
And for weeks, this kid, I'm guessing a kid, months, months, would come on and just say, stream Minecraft, play Minecraft.
And I would just say, thank you.
I started off very polite, like, no, thank you.
It's not my thing.
No, thank you.
It's not my thing.
It bores me.
I started out very polite.
for a while.
And this kid kept coming for literally months.
It's all this person would ever say was play Minecraft.
And they had their, their sound muted.
So they never heard the reply from Brian and they ignored chat.
So they never saw anything from me when I would say, no, that's not going to happen.
Or why would you suggest it and then never elaborate?
Yeah, it was, um, was very frustrating.
So we, think we eventually banned them.
I think, I think, um, yeah, because, yeah, because, uh, that was, it's like, it was very weird.
It was, it was very weird.
It's like, why, why are you doing this?
Why are you wasting, why are you wasting everyone's time?
Yours, ours.
Are you that bored?
Um, yeah.
So I guess we should start because I'm running out of ideas on what to talk about.
So let's talk about favorites, I guess.
First, we'll talk about everyone's favorite kind of campaign kind of kind of sandboxing.
Let's talk about everyone's favorite sandbox and a game.
I have to think about it like the first one that comes to my head.
At least we'll just go around the around the room in order you don't have to raise your hand.
If I have to think about at least
Currently, my favorite sandbox is probably going to be probably taxi knot.
I mean, it's got some story elements to it, but God, it's just a big, giant universe of a thing where you just take taxi missions and do your own thing.
it's, I get, again, I feel like that sandbox was made for me personally.
And it's just such a massive sandbox where you're just burying people around and you don't have to worry about crafting.
You sometimes have to worry about combat, but I run away from that.
Or reload.
As the case may be.
I think as far as sandbox games go, that's probably my, at least current favorite.
Baz, do you have at least a current favorite sandbox?
Current favorite is probably still No Man's Sky.
Spaceborne 2 comes pretty close in terms of just how much it offers.
And I still need to get back to it.
I've been distracted by other games as I mentioned earlier, but...
uh On the other hand, when I do return to Spaceborne 2, there will be plenty more waiting for me because the dev is just so prolific with his updates.
Yes, he is a machine.
I feel like he's like the Tracy Brothers.
He's an Android and he just keeps...
He just keeps updating it.
Cranking out updates, yeah.
Amazing.
Thorsten, do you have a favorite, at least current favorite campaign game?
My favorites in general are the mountain blade games.
I ever come back to them now and then.
And I even play a warband from time to time.
Good call.
Bannerlord is still fun.
But yeah, I could see that.
Julie, what about you?
I can have a guess as to what it is, but what about you?
Do you have a favorite?
Let's guess and see if you're right.
I'm going to say X4.
Oh, I didn't even have to say it.
X4, yes.
That's it.
Yeah, you're right.
You must be able to read my mind.
I mean, it's I can't blame you.
I mean if it's it's such it's so good at what it does.
It really is just so good I mean if I was more if I could do more if my brain could handle more business stuff I would probably be in love as in love with it as you are but
the thing is the reason I like it so much is it's depending on what mode I'm in, it's the best of both worlds.
I can go back and do like a campaign thing, or I can build a, uh, do a sandbox thing.
And the closer I approached retirement, the more I'm willing to say, Hey, this is project management.
I'm a professional project manager.
Every now and then I'll set myself a goal.
like, let's see if I can destroy the human race.
And which I succeeded in doing at one point.
So that's why I like it the best.
Yes
as
You'll have to repeat the question, I'm afraid.
Apologies.
Do you, is there a campaign, a game with like a sandbox?
That's what you say either your current favorite or your overall favorite.
overall favorite four you said...
sandboxes.
a sandbox, yeah.
Um, haven't really played any recently.
The closest I can say is Elden Ring these days.
all right.
ah
definitely expanded out the scope dramatically.
But besides that, I don't really play many Samus games because I am very much the sort of person that gets into an open world game and sort of stares at things and goes, okay, what
do I do now?
Hello?
Can I get anything?
No?
Okay, I'm gonna go somewhere else, please, and thank you.
You
In fact, in sandbox games, I have this notorious tendency that what I do is I basically think of either a build or a specific thing I want to accomplish in a sandbox game.
In Elden Ring especially, I very often did exactly that.
Thought, okay, I'll make a character build that's this, this, and this, and this, and then I'm gonna put it together, and then I'm gonna finish it up, and then I'm not gonna be sure
what to do with it, and I'm gonna quit.
And then if I come up with another idea like that, I come back to the game, I do something else and I go and I do that and then I also give up the game for like another year.
I am unfortunately very goal oriented person when it comes to games.
So a game going, so a game going do whatever is basically a guarantee of me not being able to do anything.
No, I hear that.
All right.
I guess we'll wrap up with the last question.
Well, my last question.
Like, well, we'll turn it out its head.
Favorite linear campaign game then?
And mine's got to be Free Space 2.
I mean, best space dogfighter ever.
Best story based dogfighting campaign ever, I think.
um To me, for me, nothing beats Free Space 2.
um What about you, Spaz?
You know, I'm going to have to go with a unusual pick here, but I would say Symphony of War as mine because that strategy RPG campaign is very linear.
There are a few branching paths where you can do some side missions, but it's very linear.
the same time, it's extremely compelling.
with one of the DLCs, with the DLC, you get
uh new game plus so you can not only recruit your characters again you can recruit clones of them into your army put them into your squads and as you go new game plus new game plus
new game plus plus plus you can build a squad that is entirely of one character you've cloned multiple times over multiple games and it can be as broken as it sounds it's very
fun but
You have to be into that kind of game to really go through that many new game plus iterations.
That sounds pretty great.
think that one, yeah, that one really takes it for me.
Awesome.
Julie, what about you?
Do you have a favorite linear campaign game?
Well, I do but can I sort of Step to the side a little bit and use my favorite RPG campaign and that is fallout new Vegas and I want to just say how disappointed I am in
that when I Went into the latest fallout new Vegas this didn't happen.
But the first time I played fallout new Vegas
And I stepped into the strip area and heard Dean Martin saying, ain't that a kick in the head?
That was like, wow.
was like I was really back in Las Vegas again, which I've went to before.
And I think of all the Fallout games, that is probably the most fun I played.
as far as a campaign and more than once I have blown up.
blown up the nuke just to see how Bethesda was going to do a nuke.
And so that is my favorite game with an RPG campaign in it.
Awesome.
Thorsten, you got one?
Yeah, of course.
uh My favorite campaign game is definitely Wild Busters.
Without any doubt.
Yeah, I know that game did pop up very often when I say something, but uh I mean the original campaign is already pretty good and I've played it through several times.
And also the option of having a procedurally generated campaign is also great in my opinion in this game.
It's very good executed.
I think I started playing it and then I wasn't very good at it.
Maybe I need to give it another shot.
Jacob, what about you?
So, what you're asking of me there is essentially my favorite game period, which...
I cannot give an appropriate answer to that.
Like...
I don't know, like...
I could maybe list my favorite, like, story-based campaign period.
Which would be Metal Gear Rising, because it's funny.
is it?
It is!
But I genuinely...
Again, you're basically asking me to pick my favorite game and I can't reliably do that.
That's fair.
That's completely fair.
That's absolutely fine.
um We can't always pick a favorite amongst our beloved games.
That's totally fine.
All right, my friends, it is time to spin the wheel and talk about and look at our next topic.
Let see if I can do this properly.
There's the wheel.
Right.
Spin it.
And it is resurrected MMOs.
All right.
Yeah.
I already have at least two in mind.
That's two spacey ones.
There are a lot of others that aren't spacey ones.
are many resurrected MMOs.
um Yeah, there are many resurrected MMOs.
So that's what we're going to talk about next time.
That'll be fun.
That'll be a good one.
There's a good chunk of them.
There's a good chunk of them, including my favorite jump gate.
um Friends, that's going to do it.
ah So just quick, just a quick question around the table.
How do we feel about Riverside the first time using it?
My friend, my my lovely co-host, how do we feel about the first time using this thing?
Great.
It's great.
I really like it.
I feel like I don't step on other people as much.
Yes, yes.
Yeah, I like it too.
It's out of the same reason.
Yes.
Yeah, there's.
the experience has been positive.
Yeah, I'm I am very happy with it the raise hand thing alone might make it worth the money But I think I think from an editing standpoint for me.
It's gonna be a lot better um But friends um who listen to this later after I upload it, please uh Write if you have any comments about the sound quality, please.
Let me know if it sounds better or worse to you I would love to hear back um
uh Yeah, so please let me know um But thank you so much for listening and Have a you know, lovely day.
Everyone be safe.
Be well take care of each other ah Please get all your shots.
Please wear your masks Thank you as always to our patrons who not only help pay for things like restream better now probably gonna help pay for things like this This is not this
Riverside thing is not free It will cost money.
I'm on a free trial right now, but I think I'm keep it
Don't forget to check out retro dogfight um Which is where this idea came from in the first place one of the community members over at retro dogfight came up with this idea and
I I got to give it to him I think it's a good one and Don't forget to wear your helmet.
We'll see you back here tomorrow with junkyard universe.
Everyone.
Have a great day.
See you tomorrow.
Bye
and stopping recording.