Sacred Symbols, Episode 247 | Do You Remember Swinging Around in September?

No offense to Dustin but he is dead wrong about physical game for preservation. Fact is it’s used in a exploit retro market where the only beneficiaries are the ones who have the games and hardware. Emulation and ROMs allow for everyone to play and experience a game for a fair price regardless of hardware. Only personal value and access are gained from physical media…

Jason Harris

Guys, we must stop critiquing Sony’s statements and motivations regarding Microsoft purchasing publishers. The fact is this is a shitty, despicable act and it should be stopped. Microsoft is a great American company and I prefer they provide healthy competition for Sony. This merger is not healthy though. There are clear pathways to reduced quality in games in general.

Greg Hommel

I think I understand where Colin is coming from in AAA games’ quality. Yes the new Zelda is AAA just by definition. But when you compare the money being put in compared to other AAA games the quality difference is laughable. So yeah TotK is a AAA game but the bar is so low compared to anything being put out on other platforms.

Bobby Woods

Aiyaaaah! Swingin' in September, Aiyaaaah! Venom's gonna eat ya, aiyaaaah! Kraven's coming for your heaaad! Doooo doo doo doooo doo...

Sam Lee

Oh I should add, I’m not saying that SOCOM shouldn’t be revived. I was a huge fan of the franchise, especially in the S1-S:CA days. I only meant that it’s not really the answer for a big, fast, action oriented answer to COD. SOCOM 4 did try to dial up the speed and bombastic aspect a little bit and I believe that was a misstep. A part of why it wasn’t given the warmest welcome too and in a way showed why the series is still a place to fill that other tactical shooter niche and run concurrently with something else. It’s fundamental gameplay format still has a lot of fans and even some allure with people who missed out on it. I could see huge esports potential with it too. SOCOM being a big Sony tent pole again, going more toe-to-toe with Rainbow Six, CS, etc is something I find tantalizing.

Stray_Bullets

I think that they can do both, SOCOM can fill a void that even the Tom Clancy games aren't filling at the moment. I missed the days of SOCOM 2 and Confrontation. 4 was a lot closer to what COD is today, very fast paced frantic shooter but had a short lifespan due to the outage on PS3. I don't think the answer will be with one title but with a collection of titles that can help recoup the lost revenue from COD. Bungie is working on 2 titles, Deviation is working on a shooter, as well as Firewalk so there is a bunch on content coming.

SOCOM is not a cute, unique title for the series. It means “Special Operations Command”. It’s a real thing and is the unified organizational structure of US special forces across all branches of the military. The smaller scale tactile combat nature was very much baked into it for that reason. It is not applicable as an hyper-action oriented modern warfare style/ themed game ala COD. Colin is correct in his notion that, if it was to return, it would serve that slower, tactical style of gameplay (Rainbow Six). If Sony is going to compete and make a modern combat action FPS, I believe a new IP would be in order. Resurrecting an old IP that doesn’t make sense for it just because it exists wouldn’t work.

Stray_Bullets

IMO, obviously TotK is AAA. Dustin said all that needed to be said with his original answer lol

Luke Trewarne

Great episode. I always find it humorous whenever people complain about the "lack of variety" in Sony 1st party games but then still buy the new Call of Duty modern. The most played games are always a new iteration of the same game, CoD, Battlefield, GTA, and whatever season Fortnite is on. I'll never understand how people can log thousands of hours into the same type of game with no need for trying out something different.

Brannon H

I like the idea of just "Killzone" reboot but roll back the clock on the lore timeline to before they left earth. Have a earlier modern military version along the lines of bf 2042.

Pace

It really does!

Stephen King

Salamander has some of the most badass cover art of all time.

Jeremy Seal

The AAA argument should be based solely on the games budget. The term is based on how much money is at risk, like the credit industry with bond ratings

Reon Williams

Thumbnail gonna give me nightmares

Reon Williams

I think there's a good reason people aren't gushing about Horizon... As someone who was really looking forward to it, by the end of the game, I'd basically sworn off the franchise (yay me, because we'll likely get 6x more of them). Being rewarded with eyeballs and wristwatches for my exploration was pretty bad, but the starwing going about as fast as a handglider was the final nail in the coffin. Even the combat got really stale for me over time, and I'm not sure why. Maybe it was coloured by my experience with the rest of the game, because I remember liking the first game's combat.

hugplx

Very Setsuna-like.

Colin Moriarty

It’s impossible for a new social media company to come along? I must have just imagined TikTok taking over our society.

Bryant

Yay Colin in on Octopath! 🙌 The music alone is just Grade A quality

James Pies

Julia Styles should play Abby 😂

The Devmeister

Wake me up, when September ends.

Michael

Let’s say the Activision deal goes through and Sony has to make a competitor to CoD. Would Sony have the ability to turn down CoD being published on their platform? If they are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into an IP to compete, would the savvy business decision be to cut off the competition and let it die on the vine?

Oliver Johnson

Shannon Berry is the front runner to play Abby. Although who knows with this live-action version. Remember at one point it was Mahershala Ali who was supposed to play Joel.

NeO JD

Ronda Rousey for Abby

Christian Larsen

Horizon is great, and yes in some way that is hard to really put a finger on, it’s somehow under appreciated.

Zack E

A moment of silence for Sylens

B

Sony could not make a better multiplayer FPS than an Infinity Ward Call of Duty. They've never even come close (nor has anyone else for that matter in the console space). They could make a better single player FPS, but that's not Call of Duty's core appeal. They could make a multiplayer FPS with more niche appeal, but popular opinion is what is relevant to the question of whether or not Sony could replace Call of Duty, and they could not make a better multiplayer FPS than Call of Duty in the eyes of popular opinion.

George

Ayo lmao, is this some sort of devil's triangle going on in that thumbnail?

Asique Alam

I appreciate that you guys are covering it because you absolutely should, but man, I am so sick of the Microsoft/Activision stuff. Please wake me up when it’s either blocked or goes through 😭

TheDunghill

I really love Ground Zeroes, such a dense and detailed locale that Phantom Pain itself failed to provide more of.

Noah Friscopp

Abby's physique in TLOU2 is definitely a steroid physique, for a woman, and they should've probably incorporated that into the story. It makes total sense, from a survivalist perspective. She doesn't need to be *so* jacked, then, but I'm curious to see who they're gonna go with.

Max Stahl

Colin since i know you’ve been avoiding all coverage on RE4, I just wanna let you know there’s a visual bug on the ps5 version, and you need to turn off chromatic aberration in display settings or else it’ll look like a blurry mess.

Bogey Zero

Yeah, the main reason my grandma had any consoles in the first place is because my aunt was only 4 years older than me (my dad was 18 or 19 when she was born), but she just absolutely embraced it whenever she could, and used it as an opportunity to bond with the grandkids. I know she slowed down quite a bit over the last decade or so, relegating her gaming to more casual games on Facebook…but at one point probably about 8-10 years ago she called me on the phone out of the blue to ask for help on a part she was stuck on in Link to the Past since she KNEW I would know what to do, so I know she was still playing at least occasionally into her early to mid 70s.

Stephen King

I don't know if it was just to connect with me and my uncle (my mom was 17 when I was born fwiw) when we were kids but my grandma used to play a ton of Super Mario 3 when I was a kid. Grandparents are the fucking best.

Josh Gamez

Side note for Colin: twitter has not been affected on the main site with the staff losses but it has affected all the running process on safe guarding, child porn, violent messaging and abusive trolling of just about anyone has increased exponentially. ( Evidence from a BBC panorama report)

Hozi

Thanks for the condolences, Brent. Really cool that you have a very similar memory with your grandfather!

Stephen King

Condolences to Steven (Stephen?) for the passing of his grandmother. I have a weirdly similar memory of watching my grandfather playing through Life Force in its entirety, no continues! How I long for the days of going to grandma and grandpa’s after church to play Duck Hunt (stand behind the tape on the floor so you don’t force the Light Gun through the TV screen!). Thanks for the show guys!

Brent Lindquist

I do remember swinging in September but what if it snowed in San Francisco?

Trapgunner

Thanks for the episode 💙

Namistai25

Still hopeful for the “yeah, no. No, yeah.” merch lol. Enjoy resident evil this weekend everyone

Michael Limauro

Colin it’s time for a laser jet printer

SnipaMasta

Ba-dee-ya! Say, do you remember? Ba-dee-ya! Swingin’ in September!

Aric Peña (@AricJP)

This September 21st is a Thursday... 👀

Dennis Johnson

Not with the EWF reference 😂🤣

Dennis Johnson

A1 episode title guys

Deemac

One minute in and I can’t believe Colin doesn’t recognize Patrick Star 😜

Conor Wilson

Meat wagon has arrived y’all. Time to feast! 🔥🐐💪

Nicholas Hardacre