I REFUSE to play Crimson Desert...

Let's go. I absolutely refuse to play Crimson Desert. back to the stage of history. No, I refuse. People are saying, "Why is he playing it?" No, no, no. Listen, I refuse to play Crimson Desert after that terrible demo, after the bad reviews, after all the weirdness. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm not going to play it. So, I don't know you. I don't know you either. So yeah, a game so bad it's good. A game so good it's bad. Here's the funny thing. I established based on like an hour play session of this game um last summer that controls were bad, the campaign lacked focus, the mechanics lacked focus. It just wasn't very fun. But that was also a really specific demo that they had us play, you know, and it was like hard to get a grasp of what the hell is this [ __ ] Long story short, game comes out and pretty much gets the exact kind of reviews I was expecting. Like this might be for some people like Dragons Dogma fans. But here's the problem. Even I wasn't really a Dragons Dogma fan. I didn't I I played the first one and I enjoyed it to a degree. The second one was just not it for me. I felt like maybe those just open world sandboxy games like I need reasons and mechanics and mechanics to tie into those reasons and all that kind of stuff. I pretty much was held steady. Yeah, this is just not for me. And then I started seeing people playing it, streamers that I know, and they're all laughing and stuff and it's like, okay. I see them also bewildered and confused the exact same ways that I was bewildered and confused when I was playing it. Things just don't make any sense. You know, what the hell's going on? There's no enemy variety. There's no this. There's no that. Like, yeah, yeah. We fire it up with your video games. And believe it or not, end up having a lot of fun. What the Oh, you're confusing him. You kick him. And then you shine a light in his face. He's like, "What is this? What the [ __ ] is this? I don't know what's happening right now." Shine a light in his face. He's never seen a guy with FREE WILL BEFORE. WHAT IS THIS? I'VE NEVER SEEN SOMEBODY with free will. [ __ ] SORCERY DEVILRY. Which leads us to today. I am wondering if this game can still captivate me in a one-on-one situation and not a local friend group situation. You know what I mean? I'm kind of morbidly curious because story is balls. The characters suck. We were kind of addicted to learning these, right? We were sort of addicted to learning all of this stuff and getting all of these things because what's in here is actually pretty crazy. Like all these I think these moves um all this stuff that they're setting up over here is pretty crazy, man. Even the lead marketing of the game in the west was like, don't think of it like a story game. Think of it like an open action sandbox game. And I'm like, that is very smart, right? Instead of trying to convince us that Cliff is an endearing character with a heartfelt story that you should give a [ __ ] about and his adventure will rend you a sunder by the end. The lead marketing guy is like, "Nah, it's a goofy game with a lot of wacky [ __ ] you can do in it. Go have fun." And I feel like from that perspective, maybe it is, maybe it is pretty fun because to be real, the last two things we did when we were with friends was fun. It was stupid. It was goofy. It was kind of engaging. More importantly, it was funny. Like a Just Cause game, right? And even I haven't even played many Just Cause games, but it's kind of like that where it's just like the world is at your fingertips. Here's all this wacky [ __ ] You know, the moral of the story here is that I like being wrong sometimes. I think it's more surprising that way. I feel like the majority of people, and it's almost held as a character assassination, if your mind can be changed now, where it's like, oh, they said this person said one thing and then they flipped their story later on, like your convictions can never be changed or altered. And to me, that's weird that like you can't put yourself in the shoes of somebody else that may be having fun with something or be in their situation and kind of see it from their perspective. I tried I I definitely approached this from the perspective of obviously myself based on what I played and not having a great time with it to the point where, you know, I wonder did this with Pragmata. Admittedly, if the sum of this game's parts is that all these other things in it suck and it lacks cohesion, but somehow it just ends up being fun, that's kind of cool. I think that's actually sort of neat that it's a goofy ass game with a goofy ass experience that doesn't really feel like it ties anything together in meaningful ways. Sure, it sort of feels that way so far, but if you play it and then it's fun, then it's fun. I don't know what to tell you. 2026 Max is wrong, dude. I've been I've been doing this for years just historically. How has my mind been changed in the past? I hated Dragon Ball. Could not stand Dragon Ball Fighters after the first month, dude. It bugged the hell out of me. It was so basic and I was like, "This game was really enjoyable for a bit and then it fell off hard and then that greatly changes a couple years later when they really start to make adjustments to the game. They had a character that I like or a couple characters that I really get into, the mechanics change and also the net code changes. A lot of the things that were making me not really vibe with this, I suddenly vibe with it. Damn, this is really cool." Also, Ultimate Marvel 3 was a game I kind of hated in the 2013 2014 era. This game bugged me. X Factor really pissed me off. The top tier characters really upset me. However, I come back to it later with better net code options. And what happens? Oh, it's fun because I realize that my [ __ ] ass has barely ever played this game without its terrible delaybased net code. And when I actually get to play it in a situation where that isn't really compromised, it's actually a lot of fun. And I'm like, "Huh, something was compromising my ability to find the fun." You know, you have to go back and beat Wukong. No, no, no. I gave the game three chances. I'm good. I don't know. Wukong is the example of it going the other way where it's like I really tried to lean in. Like I wanted to stop after two streams, but I'm like, maybe this gets a lot better. And it's fine. It's just my mind. What I'm trying to say is that I'm glad when I'm wrong when I don't give something maybe enough time. I kind of really enjoy being surprised by things because we are people and sometimes we're just not going to vibe with something or things will just feel weird or off and it's just like, yeah, I'm just not into this. What I'm trying to say is that I don't want to be a person where that entirely can be a thing that establishes the way that is and that can't be changed. Like I like when my mind is changed about stuff. Alien Isolation, great example. That game sucked when it came out. I'm like this game's not good. I maybe some people like it. I don't like it. and I came back to it and I ended up loving it. It's like, wow. Okay, cool. I feel like that's where I'm at right now. But I don't know. I actually do not have a fullore conclusion. All I'm saying is that I like it when I'm wrong about something because that surprise of me having something in my head be one way and all of a sudden it's another is really neat. It's like fascinating that the game manages to grab you despite it all, you know, despite all of the weird [ __ ] I was telling people you could end up liking it. You got the hit the whole time. Yeah. If there's one thing that's funny, people will say that like, "Oh, this person will never like something." And then you end up liking it. And I'm not here to be unpredictable or contrarian. I don't want to be that. It's that sometimes things just don't hit and then all of a sudden it might. What I'm trying to say, chat, is that don't let specifically the opinions of others, even myself, tell you what you should feel. I can only represent myself. In fact, if you guys catch me doing this, I usually don't. I usually say things from my perspective most of the time unless we're specifically talking about a thing that that aims at like so what is the audience feeling regarding what's happening with this game. Are they happy? Are they sad? Like we try to get a vibe check on stuff like that. But when it comes to direct impressions that are coming from myself, I don't like my perspective to be my chat's perspective to be somebody else's perspective to convince you guys that it's changing. I don't like that. I don't like telling you how you should live. I don't like telling you what you should do. Sometimes I will tell you you should support this, but should you be buying it? Should you have to do this? Should you have to do that? Like, no. I don't do that. Even when it comes to sponsors, it's like I'll tell you where to go get it if you like it. But still, I feel like this game found its audience. It's doing well. Sold like 3 million copies. Found its audience. And a lot of people will line up with the things that I like, which is why I even have an audience. So, all I'm saying is that don't let that be the finality of it. It sort of taught me a character lesson about myself, too. Does this mean that what I feel about certain things like Max you could have given you could have played a Fire Emblem game. Why aren't you playing Fire Emblem? You will love it. And I was like h I don't know. I don't know if I'm down for everything. I think it also helps that we played it after patches where it was rough. Remember what I said at the end of that first session? I was like, you know what? The controls in this are a little funky, but they're like a 7 out of 10. I remember [ __ ] being much worse. And apparently that was one of the things that changed. things had gone through adjustment literally in the 24 hours leading up to us playing it the first time on stream and then a bunch of other quality of life things had gone through the game things that even I complained about like a year ago already changed so it's like oh am I full committing what I'm trying to say is that I am full committing to Crimson Desert like it's a life partner I am going to play it uh approximately 12 hours of the game your video games entirely will become dedicated Crimson Desert streamers we all plan on 100%ing the game every grasshopper every NPC, every blade of grass, every fly will be caught, every enemy will be killed. Here's what's funny. I say all this and at the end of this session, I can be like, "Yeah, let's fire up Neo3. I'm kind of bored." Right? It doesn't change the fact that in the span of time that we played it, like the 5 6 hours that we played it, legit fun. We had legit fun. I don't want to refund it because of that. Like, I wouldn't want to. I think this game is honestly a game that even if people love this [ __ ] even if they are in love with this game, I don't even think they would be able to put their full recommendation behind it. I really don't. Cuz there's so many things that are like wrong and bad and then some things that are like really funny and cool that some people will find super valuable. It's like me. Like I I can't recommend you buy Kazan, man, but holy [ __ ] that game's like a game of the year for me. Like I I use Kazan as an example because many parts of Kazan are just like average. They're fine and there's one part of it that's so good and I just love that [ __ ] It's like Assura's wrath, dude. So yeah, sometimes we just like sometimes certain things hit. Can't explain why. And I do think in this game at least, the fact that every area I've gone to in weird [ __ ] happens and I'm just engaging with a billion different gameplay mechanics and stuff like that, some good, some bad, fighting enemies in weird funky ways, has been fun. So, I want to do more of that and I want to unlock more of it to see what it more of it's like. I can't help but explain why we feel this way, dude. I can't help it. Number one, cuz I haven't beaten it yet. So either way, that's my like my spiel at the end of this Crimson Desert thing is that my mind was made up based on a year year long ago demo that I played and it was like I went from being a 9 out of 10 excited to a five out of 10 excited and I was like maybe it'll be a lot better by the time it comes out and by the time it came out and when I played it it it did get a bit better. But a lot of the things that were obviously very weird are still weird. Again, even if you love this [ __ ] you will not fully recommend this to anybody at like a full price. There's no way anybody can fully recommend this [ __ ] But I want to run around and find more.