I can't Stop Buying Bethesda Games - Elder Scrolls VI Sentinel, Final Fantasy Rebirth, Sam & Max Freelance Police

Hey there, my name is Timulick and welcome to the Examine Game. I cannot stop buying Bethesda games and I do not intend to anytime soon. I just watched the Elder Scrolls VI title release trailer and when that music kicks in I just can't help but get excited. There's something about that score where it's like this idea of call to adventure and you don't know what's around the next corner and you better prepare yourself and here we go. And I'm afraid it doesn't matter you know what my feelings might be around certain parts of Bethesda and their games. I just get excited and I just have all the optimism and all the hope that I'm gonna have a brilliant experience of Elder Elder Scrolls 6. And yeah, I can't I can't stop buying these games. Uh but a little fact for you, I've never completed an Elder Scrolls game, even though I've been playing them since Morrowind, and I've poured hundreds and hundreds of hours into them. Uh I just I never finished them. That might be a testament to how good the sort of side quests and and the worlds are that I usually kind of get fizzled out and a bit bored of the main quest, and I just never complete the damn thing. But yeah, I just wanted to share my feelings about like I what I've found doing this channel is Bethesda fans are very, very, very passionate and they're kind of a lot of them are angry and annoyed. Um they feel let down by this company. Um, I I've never quite related to that. I think um I enjoyed Starfield, um, but even and I loved Fallout 4. I think there's just something about a studio that can just tap into that childlike wonder and excitement that that's always gonna have a special place in my heart. You know, when I think about the first time I played Fallout 3 and I had that vault moment, is that what Todd calls it? Like the stepping out thing, and all the potential, all the promise, and and it and it was there as well. It bloody paid off. But honestly, I would let's say when Elder Scrolls 6 comes out, I feel like whatever the the fear is gonna be for that game, in some ways I'll be paying like an after-the-fact fee for all the excitement, all the anticipation, the anxiety, the fear, the joy, the frustration, the annoyance, um, the optimism, all of these feelings that Bethesda has been able to draw out from me uh over over the years. And maybe there's an argument to be made that that's the game, you know. That's especially as you get into the your older years where you know the chances of of feeling what you once felt around video games, I I think it diminishes um a lot over time. I was speaking of Rafael Colentonio, who is the uh creator of Dishonored Prey, uh the former uh founder, president of Arcane Studios, now at Wolfey's Wolfs, Wolfeye Studios. Um, and he spoke he spoke about playing Baldur's Gate 3 and said he hasn't had a game make him feel that way since like Fallout New Vegas. And he was saying that's kind of a sad thing, right? That it can take that long to tap into a game that makes you feel like that. Um but I get it, and I think I think these are that's that's a once in a decade feeling at best. I think when we're younger, we go through this. I mean, and maybe I'm always reluctant to get into this idea that games just were better back in the day, except I do wonder if games just were better back in the day, um, or if that's just me. But I'm curious about younger audiences. If you know, my audience skew's a little bit younger than than than I am, so there's like a lot of 25 to like 35 watching stuff, and so you know that yeah, they're discovering the same games that I was playing uh when I was younger. Maybe the age difference isn't that big, but say for a 25-year-old, that's a 15-year age gap, and I'm just curious. I guess they're finding games like New Vegas and even games like Dishonored, which to my mind feels like a new game, but it's obviously not, it's been out for years now. Um, but yeah, all of that promise. Uh, what was I saying? So, yeah, I don't know if games were actually better, but I know that the way that I was responding to and engaging with games, uh, they just they just held this really beautiful place in my heart. And I think a lot of why this channel works is I think we want to dive back into those good old days, right? And I hopefully it's not about like escaping into the past and denying reality and all of this stuff. Um, but I think usually the games that we're looking at from the past, there's something forward-facing to look forward to as well. And I would hate for us to lose that kind of childlike optimism that it's like, you know what, I think this is gonna be the one. I mean, obviously, we're all getting to feel that way about Grand Theft Auto 6, or at least I feel that way about Grand Theft Auto 6. I'm like, there's no way this game's gonna let me down, and I would actually be really surprised if it does. But as we found uh with studios like Bioware, and obviously, you know, for some people, like they're they're feeling with Bethesda, um, these games don't always pay off the way that you want them to. I mean, Starfield wasn't, you know, I I enjoyed Starfield, it got a it got a good few hours of my life, but not a ton. I kind of just divided off and lost interest, and it doesn't have a lot of spark to it. It doesn't feel like a game that has kept up big conversation or is still front and center for a lot of people, um, as as games tend to do these days. I mean, I also think that's something really interesting about the industry. Like games have really long tails, and we're talking about them and talking about them, and by the time our interest starts to fizzle out, they then remaster it or they remake it, and then it starts all over again. And I do feel like I mean, look at look at Oblivion as an example of a really, really well put together uh remake. At least, at least that was the case for me. I absolutely loved diving back into that game, and playing it like I played it when it came out and I didn't quite get into it, and then I came back to it a couple of weeks ago, and I was like, oh my god, I get it. Like, I remember exactly what was beautiful about this game, and it really, really ignited an excitement for all the potential that comes from uh that damn Elder Scrolls series. So I'm afraid I'm gonna keep on buying these uh Bethesda games, you can't stop me. And if I seem a little overly optimistic, I think it's just the way that I am around this stuff. Um, I'm they're always gonna have a really special place in my heart, Todd, you know. And that's the other thing. Like, I think there's just something so much fun about having this personality at the front of these games, you know. Um, I you know, again, I ebb and flow with my frustration or whatever, but for the most part, it's still got this beautiful kind of north star as yeah, there's all that potential. So I'm actually speaking with Bruce Naismith today, uh, who was the uh lead designer for Skyrim. And has if you look at his CV, he just has what it's on every brilliant Bethesda game under the sun over the past few years. Now retired, but um, it's kind of weird timing that I'm gonna be speaking today, which is the day after the Elder Scrolls 6 announcement. So I'm gonna pick his brains about that and see what information I can uh get from him because I would be curious to see what he thinks. And I think a lot about what did they want to achieve having done Skyrim? I feel I'm curious about when you're making a game like that and you're getting to the tail end of it and you can't really make any more changes. Are you thinking about the next game? Are you thinking about what's going to go into the next project? So it'll be interesting to I always love hearing the insights of of uh former employees of places because they usually have pretty uh pretty interesting takes on things, and uh I get the feeling. I suppose the other thing is I want to see what this feeling is about Bethesda, you know. Um, I have been playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and I am having an absolute whale of a time of it. I completed the first one, what was called Retrograde, and I couldn't believe I put so many hours into a JRPG. Uh, I haven't been able to do that in a long, long time, and the game just caught me. And this one is no exception. Uh, it is absolutely stunning. Obviously, I'm talking about a game that's been out for a few years now, and they're already lining up the third one, but that's how long it takes me to get around to these things. I'm playing on the Steam Deck as well. And I don't know, I feel like maybe I'm missing something or I've been missing this in games, but I'm kind of like, oh my god, this like it's really nice to play a game, even on the Steam Deck. I'm like, oh my god, there's so much detail in this game, it looks so good. Like, I can't believe the uh attention to detail, the amount of mini games, the way that the open world map works. Um, it's even got me climbing towers and unlocking regions joyfully. I don't remember the last time I experienced that. Maybe like Far Cry 3. Uh, it's been a long time since I climbed a tower with glee. Um, maybe I should do a whole video just on the uh tower syndrome, that tower conundrum. What is what is that about? Obviously, Ubisoft had built like an entire billion-dollar industry about getting us to climb towers. And I'm trying to think, obviously, my first experience of that would have been with Assassin's Creed one. Am I remembering that correctly? Do you do you actually climb the tower and then you get a better vision of the land around you? Did they do that in the first one? Because then they did it again and again and again, and they obviously added so many more um well, just so much more because the maps got bigger, so there was more towers to climb. But I really remember the satisfaction of doing that with Far Cry 3. Um, because again, there was all that that hope and optimism. It's like, what am I gonna find this time? It's like, oh my god, there's another base, I'm gonna go down there and do this, this, and this. And then it I mean, I'm not telling you anything you don't know, but yeah, and then it started to get a little bit tedious, and I sort of got aged out of it, and I tried to push through it. I think I spoke about the fact that I can't stop buying Assassin's Creed. I know I spoke about the fact I can't stop buying Assassin's Creed games because I always have this optimistic hope that the next one I play is going to take me back to my feelings when I played the first one. That's never been the case, but that's okay. Um, but yeah, the tower climbing mechanic is just like, oh my god, I can't be bothered to do another tower. But so yeah, so and they're not big towers in um Final Fantasy uh Rebirth, but you know, it's the same premise. You unlock the tower, and then it gives you a few hotspots to go to, but not too many, and each region is just the right size. And I gotta say, the thing that I'm blown away by is the music because that's the thing that really hijacks my brain and takes me back to being this like what whatever I what was I like 13-year-old kid who was like playing, sat on the uh living room floor, having rented Final Fantasy VII for like the seventh time, so I so I can finally get onto like disc 2. Um, that was the way that I got to play that game, and I did own it eventually. Um, but yeah, it's been a really lovely experience. So I was I was glad to share that with you. Oh, I've also dug back into Sam and Max Freelance Police from LucasArts uh games, Lucas Games, and I have played that game many, many a time. I always remember it's not as in-depth as a lot of their other games because there's not much of a dialogue trees, you know, your conversations with people is pretty short, um, and then you you get to the place, there's usually one or two puzzles to unlock, and then you're kind of done with it. And it's more of just like a really colourful, beautiful, interactive picture book is the way that I look at it, with some incredible, incredible lines, um, particularly from Max. And then, yeah, recently I had the absolute pleasure, I mentioned this earlier, of interviewing Rafael Colantonio, who is the creator of uh Dishonored and Prey, and the former president founder of Arcane Studios. That was such a great conversation. Um, I would really recommend checking out if you haven't already. He's got a brilliant uh list of games that his his top play games, um, and I've alluded to some of them in this conversation. You could probably have a good guess at what he what he's spent a lot of his time playing, and it was just such a beautiful deep dive into I mean, his games to my to my mind are literally flawless, and he has had such a good streak of incredible games that that is rare, that is very rare, and I'm very excited for what he has to come. He he I tried to sort of drill out of him a little bit of information about his new game, but he was uh he was too smart to let me get him. Um, so we're gonna have to wait a little bit longer. But it's been really cool as well seeing uh the response to that that video. I also had uh my interview with Outer World's creator Alex Beecham and his sister, the writer of Outer Worlds, uh Kelsey Beecham. And I got to have this opportunity to speak with them about their like childhood and all the play and creativity that was going on there that I saw as leading to Outer Wilds. And then I had one of the cool okay, so I'm gonna tell we're gonna tell you two anecdotes. Um the first one is with Raphael. Uh he'd be he's been playing mugenics um uh by Edmund McMillan um a lot recently, and I told him, Oh, I spoke with Edmund, and after the call, he uh emailed me and he was like, Hey, can you put me in touch with Edmund? I I want to offer myself as being a like French cat voice for him. I guess he's doing like a localization or something, and I was just uh thought this is this is like the most surreal moment of my life where like the creator of Dishonored is emailing me to ask me to introduce him to the creator of The Binding of Isaac and mugenics because he wants to voice a French cat in his game. Um, that was really cool, and then the other little behind-the-scenes anecdote, which I absolutely love this. So I did this interview with Alex and Kelsey Beecham from Outer Wilds, and I got a comment um in the video, and someone saying, Oh, I just sat down and watched this with my wife. I was like, that's really cool. And then I read it and it was it was from their dad, and he was saying, Um, you know, that they're gonna finish the game before they come home for Christmas this year, because uh Alex and Kelsey talked about the fact that their parents have haven't played the game, even though they do do game. Um, and they were just he was just saying how cool it was to get to listen to this interview with his kids and get a bit better insight into what their childhood was like, which is really interesting because obviously they were there for it, but maybe they don't hear this stuff. Um, it was just such a kind of wholesome thing to read, and it's just my absolute favorite type of comment. Um so yeah, I think that's what I've got for today. This is my funny little bite size video, uh little podcast episode, and I just want to thank you all for your support. Please do remember you can join me on Patreon for free or as a paying member. And thank you very much.