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I loved the second interview with the dev for Sea of Stars. He was quite eloquent and had great insights into dev that most of us consumers don’t get. I’m so glad y’all continue to interview devs. Please continue to have them on!

I think the major difference in starfield is that exploration is quest driven as opposed to world driven. Usually, in old bethesda, you want to explore because the world is just so cool and filled and leads you around every corner. In starfield, you have to go to city hubs and settlements, pick up quests, and explore the world through the questline. This is the most similar to oblivion, which had the weakest worldspace of old bethesda, and is why comparisons are being drawn.

For the record, I enjoy Ralph's long review videos because ever since I first watched in MHW review video, he was the only one to convey exactly how I felt about MHW when I first played it. I had never played a MH title ever, and after watching Ralph's review gave me an enlightened perspective to any video game I played since. His videos gave my perspective a voice that I did not know how to convey in the past. Mind you, I don't agree with some of his reviews for games that I've played, and that's ok, but when we see eye to eye on an IP, his videos just give so much detail and context to why we love the games we love.

Was playing Starfield, dabbling in photo mode, and yeah, it totally loads up your photos during the loading screens. Such a cool feature, I'd love to see more of it.

Photo mode in Starfeild: I take photos of the bugs and now my loading screens are a hilarious record of the best bugs.

If they weren't going to implement vehicles or cargo-carrying robots then resources needed to just have 0 weight like ammo. That change alone would make basebuilding feel way, way better. Also, *_Sea Of Stars_* has been a real treat so far. Absolutely magical game if you're a fan of retro-styled JRPGs.

When Lucy talks about being in menus during the ship part. I didn't realize it either, but if you go into your scanner, you can do most of your jumps and plan it observation directly for your ship without going into the menu.

He described the Sea of Stars experience so eloquently. It really does feel like I'm taking a vacation within my gaming hobby. Some games feel like a chore while Sea of Stars feels so easy to just pick up and play.

Hands down my favorite gaming podcast. Felt like I was waiting forever for this one to post.

I really like Starfield after about 50 hours, but I totally get that there's problems in the game that some people don't jive with. Great episode and good, nuanced conversation

Loving Lucy talking about Shooting Stars! That show was incredible.

So good to see Sabotage Studio in such a healthy spot, and being able to achieve what they have. Wishing the best and looking forward to the next project!

As an Australian, "jimmy barnes at rooty hill rsl" had me dying

Was already super interested in Thank Goodness You're Here but hearing that it's Shooting Stars-esque has maybe made it my most anticipated game.

Straight up, I’m buying Sea of Stars off the strength of that interview. Such passion and clear love for the genre.

Dude, the way Thierry described Chrono Trigger with a series of metaphors is the best quick CT review I've ever heard. It spoke to me on a deeply human level. No wonder this man is a brilliant game designer holy shit 😅

Hour long BG3 review! Yes, please.

'I'm not here to say anyone is wrong about loving the story, ya know maybe it's their first' wow that was underhanded lmao.

Mhm... I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the Starfield main quest myself, but saying that this game gives you not enough lore or "world-building" (or in this case... "universe building") is... weird. I mean, of course TES5 and FO4 have a more elaborated, further developed game world, because... well, they are game five and four in a series, but as a staring point, there is plenty explained in Starfield about what happened why, when and for what reason. There are tons of things getting "teased" without playing much of a role in the game itself, but are important to the universe. From that point, I would argue that it “dumps” even more lore on you than ME (1) did back then. It may be less interesting than the Mass Effect universe, yeah, probably because its more "human-centric" (something that is also explained in the game), but it's certainly not build badly in any way.

It is never too long video Skill Up. Longer the better

As a theater kid and actor in a former life shout out to Jirard and his show! That’s the dream man, taking every part of what makes you YOU and exposing it to the world onstage through your talent! You need to come to Chicago dangit!❤🙏🏾

This interview made me download sea of stars. Seeing this behind the scenes makes me so excited to see this vision.

Been loving every minute of Sea of Stars. Playing on PS Plus, but I'm 100% gonna buy a physical copy when they're out. Maybe for switch

Starfield has a lot of content. I'm 25 hours in and the only major Star systems I've been to are Alpha Centauri and Sol. I'm currently following the UC vanguard questline and I've reached the point where it splits into 2 tracts. One major thing Starfield is trying to convey is the concept of humanity spread across a galaxy, that's probably why they chose to have so many planets in the game. This is a very hard concept to convey convincingly in a narrative even for books or TV. So far, I've found that Bethesda were somewhat successful at this, different religions and cultures have sprung up around the fact that space travel exists, UC is a very good example of human bureaucracy spread across different star systems and their conflict with Freestar Collective is interesting. However, the biggest flaw I've found with the game is how disjointed everything is. Usually exploration in a BGS game is intrinsically rewarding with meaningful narrative discoveries that can start whole questlines, here you'll just find points of interest that are randomly placed on massive maps separated. It's frustrating to trek a bunch of kilometers just to find some abandoned mining facility or a meaningless cave. The best way to experience the narrative is by doing missions. I think Starfield has some of the best mission structuring in a BGS game since you get to learn a lot about the world, but there's also an issue here because some mission are complete duds only handing you XP and credits. The world building in this game, character progression and features like spaceship & base building, weapon and spacesuit modding make me feel like it's a great game despite the issues I'm facing. If Bethesda had managed to cohesively connect the world together in something like No Man's Sky we'd be talking about something that's truly special.

Ralph's line about Jimmy Barnes playing at the Rooty Hill RSL again is so fucking funny if you know what he's talking about. Classic Australia

Ralph. I just wanted to let you know that I love your linger reviews. They give an incredible amount of effort, insight, and critical thought that not many channels offer with the same amount of polish and prestige

Loved the Thierry Boulanger interview! It went perfectly with me just finishing Sea of Stars. I'm really looking forward to seeing what kind of game Sabotage will work on next! :D

I love this pod cast

Michael is one of the most interesting guest show in a while. Good job guys.

This is such a great podcast. I love watching a quad of venerated professionals with different industry specializations all come together and discuss their views on video games. Keep going, homies, we love you.

Yay! We've got the whole gang back together! Thanks guys, and gal!

Terry is a legend, embodies such infectious energy and creativity that cannot be bound by anyone or anything. Just awesome.

Just a heads up you don't have to go to the menu to jump to another planet. If the mission is already selected you just have to point your ship to the way point then target it, after that you can hold X to jump to it. No menus needed.

2:29:00 Jake’s “Mamma mia” in the background is probably one of the most Jake Baldino’s moments in history. Loved the episode, the interviews and everything. Great as always!!!

love the guests. thierry was awesome and so articulate

i love that dredge-types are starting to take off, pacific drive sounds incredible.

I have a 3.5hr drive today. Perfect timing. 🔊

Love this podcast and all your other content! Appreciate your hard work to keep us informed and entertained. You get me through my day to day work days. Thank you all! Wish you all the best.

Sea of Stars wasn’t really on my radar with how packed this year has been. Listening to Thierry Boulangers interview single handedly convinced me to make time for it

Really appreicated the Starfield conversation here. The Gamespot reviewer clearly really really liked certain aspects of the game and really really disliked certain aspects. And he didn't seem to come into the game with "expectations" that colored how he reviewed the game. This was the best critical dicussion I've seen. IGN podcasts were dumpster fires compared to this. I do think some of the criticisms is because the game doesn't hold you hand-like, you can travel to missions with minimal use of menus but the game doesn't connect all those dots for you and the loading screens are replaced by canned animations. Thta's what everyone complains about. But you can actually do that with minimal use of menus.We loved that Elden Ring didn't hold our hands and didn't explain everything or lead us by the hand everywhere. There wasn't a "useful" map in that open world either. After Elden Ring, everyone wanted games to be less 'Ubisoft'. Well Starfield has a bajillion quests but has a much subtler guiding hand. And some people don't seem to like that here. Fair enough-everything in gaming is always a moving target. Me, I love finding out, "What, you can do that!?!" or "Wow, that's so much better than how I figured it out" That can be a frustratingly realistic addon to an RPG like Starfield. But for others it can be part of the fun of the experience.

No goofiness to Starfield is just wrong. There’s random encounters involving people contacting you about your ship’s extended warranty. You come across a guy in his ship cracking a stupid Uranus joke. You can find your Grandma flying around in space and board her ship. I had a random encounter involving a party ship that invited me aboard.

1:52:11 - I really enjoyed the interview with Thierry Boulanger! It was quite funny and incredibly insightful. I was already pretty interested in the game, but this interview made me even more pumped for the game. It's easily one of my favorite interviews you guys have done, so far (and I've enjoyed pretty much all of them). A big shoutout to Jirad and the FPS gang for inviting Thierry, and of course, huge thanks to Thierry himself for sharing his passion, excitement and general design philosophy behind their game, along with those fun and relatable anecdotes. 😁🙌

One of my favourite guest interviews yet. Gave me some great laughs.

Honestly the UC Vanguard Questline leans heavily into building that lore, I think all factions do, but UC Vanguard is the most extreme. They rly fighting with the remains of that big colony war, the Freestar Collective too. The Sidequestlines from both parties is how those factions have to deal with those reminders of that war. To avoid spoilers I rly try to tell as little as I can do :D I think they have rly interesting lore here. But you rly get into that lore by doing the factionquests

Regarding Starfield's photo mode, I can confirm that it uses your photos from photo mode as loading screen backgrounds. I don't normally engage with photo modes in games but have been enjoying Starfield and was in awe of some of the views. After taking a couple photos on the first planet I really ran around and explored, it showed up not long after on a loading screen. Very cool feature that rewards you for using it!

Is good to sit down for my lunch for work and see this has been uploaded. Good stuff!

The chat with Thierry Boulanger was really good and gives insight into how indie devs do what they do. I think it's so great they retained that creative control of their IP

This is such a good show. These four have such good chemistry I love it!! Nobody interrupting each other and still meaningfully contributing to each others talking points

Shout out to the incredible and inspiring interview with Thierry Boulanger. Huge congratulations on the game. I've already finished my first playthrough, and Sea of stars was truly special.

I literally thumbs upped this video as an honest reaction to Jake saying "I've never seen one of those before!", referring to Ralph being a tall person.

Lucy, I relearned I have social anxiety when I saw you and Tam walk past me coming out of the hot pot shop near the convention center at PAX. I didn't want to stop you both! Hope you had a great PAX! Jirard, I hope I catch you next time you're in Seattle! It was such a fun weekend.

In Starfield, I prefer to not use the instant travel options whenever possible, and I only use them when I have to, or need to go back and forth a lot for outposts. There is a lot of fun stuff to find when you actually travel with your ship, like an Irish man singing a space shanty, or a long lost NASA probe that gained sentience, but the tutorial really only teaches you how to open your menu and click on your objective, which I think is a mistake

When I got the notification that Sea of Stars was available on steam, I bought it immediately. I don't have time to play it for a long time due to parenting, work, school, baldur's gate, But I knew I would sink into it and love it eventually. Can't wait to play it

Did you know that there is a mode when flying your ship you can hold "spacebar" to "uncouple" and you can rotate freely while flying in a direction. Example your flying away from an enemy chasing you, you hold "spacebar" and rotate to point at the enemy and fire at him while still maintaining your forward momentum away from the enemy.

Ralph 1hr destiny vid was AWESOME! Need more of that stuff dude!!

I think a lot of people just aren't connecting with the NASA punk aesthetic because, although some of the characters are a little bland, due to the game taking itself more seriously, I still find a lot of personality in the trinkets and environmental design. It feels like the first Bethesda game. I'm actually going to play further than the initial 20 hours or so that burned me out because I'm already nearly passed that and still figuring out what I can do and starting to explore some deeper systems.

two different guests in a single show! What an episode

Love the Sea of Stars interview. Always nice to hear about how smaller teams approach development and release.

What Ralph asks about minimizing your fast travel abuse is 100% accurate. If you want to have more fun do not abuse the "Press X to Land" level of fast travel. Warp to planets and then bring up the map to land or you will 100% miss all of the random events in space. I'm not defending the choice cause I too think it is kind of dumb but it did make my game a lot more fun. I also appreciate that for once being a Sneak character isn't the optimal path; I did a stealth char as my second playthrough and had way more fun on my first character who was basically Rambo so I abandoned stealth after a while to become John Wick instead going full pistols.

That British cartoon game reminds me of stuff like The Beano, Monty Python, Viz. I love it.

It's not just hanging out in space people are talking about, I don't think. You can also do things that let you travel around without going into your menus sometimes. For example, you can point to your mission objective when you're in your ship and target it in order to grav jump straight from your cockpit without having to use the menus. Or you can turn on your scanner view in your cockpit to land at your objective on a planet without opening the planet view. It's still functionally fast travel, but it is so in-universe and less game-y.

Love you guys. Always waiting with baited breath for the next group hangout. ❤❤❤

The screenshot on loading screen was done in Fallout76 and they brought it over. good feature

Congrats on BG3 credits!

Full lineup!! Love it. Great energy.

I'm personally really loving Starfield so far. It's right up my alley. I love the aesthetic, I'm really enjoying learning about the world. I'm really enjoying its various systems. I'm doing lots of exploration on the planets to survey and find the landmarks, derelict buildings, pirate outposts, settlements and so on. That's very similar to classic Bethesda. There is so much to do and so much to see in the game. It's amazing too when you land in different places on the planets that they've even made an attempt to demonstrate different conditions, geography and biomes on each planet. And I'm really enjoying the characters. Some of the companion quests I've done a fantastic, and the relationships I have with the characters have been really interesting for me. I've also found some really interesting incidental quests, especially while navigating the planets and surveying. I've really enjoyed some of the conversations and some of the emotional and thoughtful aspects of the story of really taking me by surprise. Also space traversal is not as bad I feel, as it's being portrayed. It's not just being in menus. You don't need to use the menus travel between blue waypoints, for example. Just highlight select them with the crosshairs, and you'll get the choice to travel there. And yes, you do have to auto travel or walk between far distances, but manually flying everywhere was my least favourite part of No Man's Sky. It was cool for a while to role play sitting on your ass and bruising your tailbone flying to places, but ultimately, it wasn't my favourite thing. That being said, I'm really enjoying the slower pace of the story. It's giving me more time to absorb the things around me, engage with NPCs, explore and to reflect on the experience. And to be honest, while I really loved Oblivion and Fall Out 3, I completely bounced off Skyrim every time I've tried to play it. I just never got into it and didn't find the world itself to be particularly inspiring or interesting. I don't know. Each to their own, I guess. So anyway, I'm really loving the game and it's grabbed me like no Bethesda game has grabbed me since Fallout 3.

I agree with the game throwing you right into the setting and not giving much back story but it’s definitely there, take a walk around Akila or Neon and you get side quests pop up and these give a good idea of how society operates in those areas. World building is definitely there but the game expects you to play to find out more

Great Sea of Stars interview

Both interviews were great this ep, loved hearing the passion of Thierry I could've listened to him talk for hours. Happy there's so much news and games to fill up this time of year, I sure wish we could hear some talk about armoured core though. Hopefully they get around to playing it eventually but it's an amazing game

Sea of Stars interview was absolutely fascinating. Great, insightful answers all around. Really cool guy.

It was amazing seeing Lucy & Jirard at Pax, and seeing Jirard’s show! I wish I had known Ben and the FF16 cast was at Jirard’s show! I would’ve tried to meet them! If you all get a chance to see his show, you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll be entertained!

Cant wait for the hour long baldur's gate 3 review skillup

I feel like Starfield is a great reminder once again that boiling a review down to a number out of 10 is worthless for an individual review. It causes people to skip what's being said, and they jump straight to the number and get mad when it's not 8 or more. At this point I actually prefer something like 'recommend, don't recommend' + a 'wait for a sale/wait for it to get fixed' - at least with Steam, if you want a QUICK look at where a game sits without digging into it, it generally gives a good feel based on how many people recommend or don't recommend it, and then you can glance at what people are saying to see the common complaints.

2:42:22 love the interview! Playing Sea of Stars while listening to the show

It’s so odd how many people don’t like this game. It hooked me from the start. Oh well.

If a game has a lot of weight behind it. It is also open to more criticism imo

First off: yay! Second: Ralph, we dooo need 1 hour + videos!

There is a great presentation (recreated on KZfaq somewhere) about Zelda's world building using 'triangles' so that you are always encouraged to keep exploring. Zelda's world is so captivating because of how it is beautifully and carefully crafted to encourage exploration. When you rely on procedural generation, it is hard to consistently provide the proverbial carrot on the stick for exploration.

"Ok.... ok... sure... ok... ok..."

This is my fave gaming podcast! I wish there was a new episode every week :)

Another fantastic podcast with absolutely amazing guests once again. Boys week was good but it's always the best when everyone's together ❤️ can't wait for the in person one next week!

Yes, take photos in Starfield. And they show up in the loading screens. Weird shit to say, but I’m excited to see loading screens in this game so I can see how my adventure unfolded and what I’ve seen. More devs, do this!!

It's weird hearing people say the game is too serious when I've ran into many moments of absolute goofiness (not just bugs but actual scripted events). A lot of it happens in space (random ships hailing you for silly conversations). I guess it depends on how you end up approaching the game.

I love this pod, and this cast.

the interview was amazing!! Thierry is so well spoken!

Great episode as always!

You don’t need a map for every planet, the landmarks you find are highlighted. We just need maps in cities to find shops, useful locations

Cant wait for Skillups starfield review.

Excellent interview on Sea of Stars. Great game.

2 Interviews!! I'm playing sea of stars right now, Im loving it.

“I want to find ammo, weapons, medpacks, etc.” Then look for them? The weapons are in bright yellow crates, the ammo is bright yellow and the health packs are in bright green wall mounts. I feel like the scanner point is a you problem.

@Michel obviously did not play full Game.. because He says there's no Magic.. but Yes Our Main Character Gains Special Powers as You Play Main Quest Along .

I hope you still do some long form content, it's really nice to see you talk about a game in depth!

Thiery Boulanger is SUCH a passionate guy, I don't even think Xbox or Playstation had a chance in saying "no" just watching him talk about videogames! They we're like "oh this guy knows, this guy's legit, let's get him on board" (I know it wasn't this easy but man)... I can see this guy winning a GOTY award for sure. More than one really! (and then be like "F THE OSCARS! lol - he's got that vibe). Loved him. Love the interview. Love you guys!

I have gotten to the sea of nightmares in sea of stars and honestly my only gripe with the game is not having a clear window of when to have the hit input for skills. Like hurl. Besides that excellent so far

Ralph’s transparent disappointment when Terry responded to his teaser-question with, “We’re going to make another game!” had me laughing lol. His “..okay” made it sound like he was waiting for the inside scoop or something 😂.

I already know that in few years time starfield wil be the most underrated game of the past years. I'm 30 hours in and I'm hooked

Thanks for doing the podcast.

Thanks for hyping up Smack Studio! You played a mean Mr. Beast 😤