 Hello everyone and welcome back to beta males, the show where we play a bunch of beta games to let you know if they're worth checking out. If you guys would stop dicking around, this time we played hypercharged unbox, which actually isn't a beta. We're probably not always going to play beta games that just I could not pass up that wordplay for the title of this, this little series, but there is a free demo on steam. So you can download this and play it for free if you want to just dip your toes in it and try it out. This is I mean, in modern gaming is a beta anyway, right, but I don't know. It's a really fun game. It's either first or third person tower defense slash wave survival type of game that's it's not PVP, but it is a lot of fun anyway. And jelly, you're looking at me all weird and it's throwing me off. You guys are throwing me off today, but we're going to we're going to talk about hypercharged unbox. We're talking about if it's worth downloading and playing if it's actually worth buying the pros cons. And if we think this game will last for a for a good long while. So without further ado, my name is the man goose joining me as always is the Viking Jedi and jelly knees, who is definitely a 100% not a part of the sorry jelly sense, but he is not a part of this program. He just happens to be here every time is jelly knees. So let's get started with the question of the day. Is this worth game worth trying out? Let's say let's let's make a two part. Is it worth just playing the demo, which I think we'll just agree to that. And is it worth buying after you play that demo? So Viking Jedi, get us started out. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I agree. The demo for sure. It's definitely worth downloading it's a it's free. You know, the only thing is the time that it takes to download in your bandwidth. If you have to pay for that, then maybe it's not for you. Watch a few videos like this one, you know, and see if it's for you. No, I think that the demo 100% and I'm going to say like, like a 75% that you should buy the game, but we'll go into some of that stuff later on. But I think the overall game is worth playing, but there are some frustrating aspects of the game that I think might turn some people off. All three of us bought the game. So and I think we had fun overall, but we'll we'll see as we dive into the deeper weeds of it all. But yeah, overall, pretty good. Johnny's, yeah, I would say definitely play the demo, right? That's I mean, it's for lack of a put in a free trial, right? You can try before you buy as for the full game itself. I think for me, it comes down to if you have friends that are all going to buy it with you, I think the game is way more enjoyable. And even not even from a game, gameplay perspective necessarily, but just like being in a garage, right? The to the trial there, the demo level is inside a garage and you're like running around underneath a car, right? And having friends to like experience that with and be like, dude, there's a thing over here, like what is kind of a cool experience by itself, play the game and I think makes the game more enjoyable as well. So yeah, if you have friends that are willing to buy it as well, I think that's for sure. And you like these tower defense wave survival type games. I think for sure it's worth a buy. Yeah, demo, definitely try it out for yourself. It's free and jelly kind of took the words right out of my mouth. If you have friends that are also interested in this 100 percent buy it and have a blast. If you're just going in solo, you might not have nearly as much fun. And that it's not PVP. I mean, yeah, it's not PVP, but you can still kind of compete with your friends to get the highest score, the most headshots, all that all that crap. So it's kind of fun in that aspect, but there is there is no PVP environment, which I think a lot of our audience is more attractive to the PVP style games. But this one is definitely more. I mean, it's on its own steam and switch. And it's by a group called Digital Cyber Cherries. I don't know if I said that yet. Just a group of friends that were like, you know, fuck all this pay to win DLC, micro transaction nonsense. Let's just make a game that people could buy and play. And that's exactly that's exactly what they did. There's I mean, there's there's no micro transactions whatsoever. You just unlock everything through playing the game, which I think is really cool. So if you want to support that kind of business plan, I would say just pick up the game and and have fun. But again, if definitely way more fun if you have friends to play with. So let's be there is also with the talk about the friends, because I completely agree, there is a matchmaking so you can get matched into like we actually on accident had a random person joined into our thing. So if you're like a little bit more outgoing and you don't mind matching with other people and playing with them, because you don't have to play the game by yourself. You can still play with other people who are queuing into to matchmaking and stuff like that and get teamed up with randoms and, you know, and that might be fun into itself because you could use the VoIP or whatever and make friends that way and and play it. I will caution people the demo is locked to first person. So my wife tried it because I thought this might be a fun game for her. She didn't like it because it made her feel a little sick being in first person versus being able to zoom out and play it in third person. So that's just a small cautionary tale for you that you will be locked into first person during the demo. But outside of that, the demo basically shows you everything you can do in the game. And he's kind of the unofficial force for the parade of males. Yeah. True. Yeah. So let's let's talk about what we enjoyed about the game. I've already kind of hit on a few of these points. But what did what did you like about hypercharge in box? So what initially was almost a dislike for me, I think turned into a like is the difficulty scaling of the levels. Initially, and we were playing on normal difficulty. So it wasn't the easiest, but it wasn't the hardest for our entire play through. And initially, the levels were kind of like, like that was fun, but it wasn't hard. Like it was just kind of like, yeah, you know, they it was a wave shooter. No problem. But then, like the really the last two or three levels, the difficulty, like it's kind of hard. That didn't. So then it then you're sitting there going like, oh, like, OK, no, now I really got to like focus in, put the right towers, the right positions, the right places, the fine batteries, do all the things. Right. So initially, I was upset about how easy it was. I granted on the normal difficulty. But then when it ramped up, it was like, oh, OK, OK. Like I could this is like I could see myself going back to those levels and grinding them out to get a perfect score because they were way more difficult and and almost I was a more fun in that difficulty. But I am a Dark Souls gamer. So I difficulties my bread and butter. I mean, we should say that that we were playing. It was meant for four people and we were only allowing three because we just wanted to play with the three of us. So and it does. That does automatically give you a lot to fill out the other slots. Oh, that's true. If you're playing just you and one friend, it will give you two bots to fill out those slots. But because I'm a Dark Souls gamer, I turned off the bots and said three of us can do this. Yeah, I would say to with the bots, like they're they're not like great, but they're not bad either. Like they play, they do spend their money. They they will use their stuff to fill out the because I mean, the the towers are a crucial part. But I would say and maybe you guys can agree or disagree. I would say it's way more about you and your shooting and near that. Like it's not like a normal tower defense in the sense that like you want to build like this impenetrable defensive base that does all the work and you just stand there and watch your minions kill things. Like you you have to be very, very proactive. And I would say the bots were still proactive in that regard. Like they were out there doing stuff, the one that we had on accident. Like I thought it fit the niche well as far as being a bot and getting stuff done. So if you're still like a solo player and don't really want to you can play with the bots and they will help you win. They're not going to just be a nuisance in my opinion. And there was a there was a huge variety of enemies. Like you start off like small and then it just keeps ramping up and ramping up and ramping up. And it's not like the first enemies go away and you're fighting new enemies. No, they just add more shit to to it, which I think is probably one of the bigger draws for this. And I'll let Jed, I really speak to this. It was the nostalgia factor, because that's something he just kept saying over and over again. It's all toys that you're fighting against. Like and you're an actual action figure and you can like interchange your skins and like, oh, it's it's it's so fricking like when you go to a shop, it's like an empty box with like the little guns are wrapped in like the little plastic things that you need to cut to get them off. And this game is unrealistic. This game is unrealistic because I didn't have to spend 45 minutes trying to find scissors to cut those little tabs off in the back of the box so I could use the extra guns. Yeah, but yeah, Jed, I'll let you speak to that because that was like your that was your jam in. Oh, dude. Yeah. So I mean, it hit the nostalgia factor for me 100 percent. Like, I mean, the the enemies were like anywhere from ninjas to armymen to Beyblades to I mean, they all had their own names. But or maybe actually, I don't even know if they actually named the enemies and now that I think about it, but it's just wild. Like you definitely get like for me, a nostalgic feeling of like sitting down playing with my toys back in the day and like having these full on battles of, you know, epic proportions, but it was using my imagination. And like this game takes that and like fully immerses you into being your favorite G.I. Joe toy or whatever it was back then. And now you're living that experience of setting up a base and defending against these hordes of enemies. And, you know, and the weapons are silly and fun. And I don't know, man, just like I think the first level really set the tone. Like when you're running around and you're just like finding these like these really niche spots and you're like, dude, there's this over here. And then there's like and they put little Easter eggs in around there. Like we have one where there's like this castle and inside the castle are these guys like praying and there's a battery in the middle that you need for and it's like they're singing a very like choir type song. I don't know. It sounded really funny. But like the whole time, at least for me, I just felt like I was constantly like like being rewarded for the nostalgic impact of the game. Like they just really, I don't know, man, they just took they took their time and really made you feel like you were a kid or that some kid had set up this whole thing and now you're playing in it. And it was, I don't know, it was great. But to Mingus's point to the the enemies themselves, the variety of enemies and how much like you start with like relatively small amount and then you ramp up to some crazies. I don't want to give too much away, but you ramp up to some really crazy almost overbearing type enemies that feels really fun and engaging. I think I think you kind of really hit on what makes this game great is that you can tell that the developers of this game loved making this game. Yeah, you could just tell. It's like that movie I watched recently, everything everywhere all at once. You could tell everybody had fun making that movie. And the movie came out fucking fantastic. And you guys haven't seen that movie. You see that movie, but I haven't seen it. This game is like that. You could tell that these guys had fun making this game. And it really it really shines through the product. Yeah, 100 percent. And the customization is also hilarious and great. And you we would exit the game to go and customize because we had on like as you play the game, you unlock more characters and more, you know, weapons, skins and all that stuff. And it's all just in the game. And I know. And this is speaking a lot to what Jelly was talking about. But one of my favorite things was the you have like 100 percent system like that you have in like a lot of other games where it's like, oh, you died once. And so because you died, you don't get to platinum this one. It's only going to be gold. And you're like, well, we got to go back and eat it to not be gold. We need platinum. And when you hit platinum, you get like an unlock for it. So you're rewarded for your skill and your playthroughs. And that to me speaks to being able to have multiple runs on various difficulties with a bunch of different friends. And I think that was that was a huge thumbs up for me. Just the in between, too, like it wasn't just all this fighting in between waves. You had to run around and collect coins and collect different packages of stuff. You go to shops. And there was all this like it was like a whole different experience just running around trying to find secrets. That that's another thing for replay ability that secrets hidden around the maps. So if you didn't find all of them, you wanted to go back and find those. And then that's where the tower defense part came in. You could start building. You could use that money that you bet that you found to build defenses around the various towers. It could be one to four towers on each map and batteries was a big thing. You had to find batteries to power up the towers because if you put like like a turret next to your tower, it wasn't going to fire if that if your tower didn't have enough battery power. So man, that was that was really cool. Like another interesting facet to the game that added a little bit of depth. And then just. Yeah, I think my favorite part that was just a crazy variety of enemies and just they really come at you. Hey, it's like there's these robots coming around this side. You got this got this huge map that you got to run around. That's always, you know, like a dining room or a garage or the out in the backyard or something. And they're just coming from fucking everywhere. And then there's top spinning in at you and then the zombies, which aren't that hard. But if but like they start you shoot them down and their legs go away and they start crawling at you. God damn, my little pony's flying around stealing your batteries and paratroopers. Oh, my God. It got pretty insane. It was great. Yeah, do you have anything else you want to talk about as far as what you liked about the game? I mean, I think you guys hit on all the things, right? Like it's a really fun thing. They also implemented like certain levels had boss battles that like a bigger giant mob would come out. And they all had like unique things about them that you had to work around to beat the boss. I think that's another cool thing, right, of implementing that. So all around the the TLC was definitely put into this game for everything that they wanted it to be. And I think that's great. And it shows the work that they put into it for sure. How about things that we disliked about the game? Because I actually there's not much that I did not like about hypercharge other than that was a PvP. And that's kind of my jam. If I'm playing like a third or first person game, usually for first person, I stick to the 2D platformers. But I don't know. I mean, so the only one that I can immediately think of and it's such a like small thing is that for us. So they implemented a naming system that basically made everyone anonymous. So if you're playing online, you don't have to worry about like what this person's steam name is for any reason. It just makes them miss teapot explosion, whatever it is, right? And that's that's fine from like a moderating online play perspective. Totally understand that. No big deal. Fall Guys did that. That was fine. But when it's just the three of us and we've intentionally grouped up together, then we're sitting there going like, Miss teapot explosion. I don't know which one of us you are. Like there's a health thing you need, right? Like it may it was also like one of the entertaining things about at the same time, right? Because that's the only call out you had Miss teapot explosion, right? That there's health or whatever it was. But at the same time, there was a little like a bit of frustration of like, I don't know who this is in front of me. Right, right. Trying to figure it all out. I would agree with that one. I that was it did make for some hilarious call outs, but I think it was just as much the other part where it was frustrating because you couldn't figure out who it was that you needed to do something or whatever. I think my big complaint was the sometimes the enemies were almost like really difficult to see, especially like the spinning tops and or the Beyblades, whatever you want to call them, the bouncy balls. Like some of those were really, really difficult to to be able to spot. And so like your base or wherever might start getting attacked just because you couldn't see it without like, you know, and so that from at least for me, I don't know if you guys had that problem. But it was sometimes difficult to catch an outline of what it was that was, you know, attacking or being somewhere. Like I remember a one I died because I just was surrounded and I didn't even notice by a bunch of things underneath me basically. So the Beyblades were hitting me and I couldn't even see them because I'm in first person and I'm up here not looking down at my feet that are being hit. And I just was like, oh, I guess I'm dead now because six Beyblades had stacked on top of me and I didn't notice. So like that that part I also wish and this is maybe again, not what they really wanted, but I kind of wish that there was a little bit more intelligence with the the base that you're building. Like the towers are kind of dumb. You know, they don't they work not on a 360 you have to point them in a specific direction. I didn't realize that until like halfway through the maps that we have played. So I think some of mine were pointing in the bad direction so they weren't doing anything. Their damage is kind of meh. So sometimes it just felt like you were managing to put up a base because if you didn't have anything there, then if things snuck by you, your your tower or whatever it was would start taking damage and then you don't you can't platinum the game or platinum the map. So I kind of wish that some of those things were a little bit more similar to a lot of other games that are have the tower defense where they feel a little bit more intelligent. They feel like they're going to be more beneficial. Sometimes I just felt like they really weren't like they just kind of just like we're okay. You know what I mean? Like I don't know if that you guys felt the same way, but they didn't always feel engaging or and they're expensive too. Like the money in the game is also kind of hard to manage and again, that might be intentional. Again, they want you to focus more on killing it yourself rather than relying on the towers. But I feel like there's still some room for improvement in that regard. You know, I think there could have been more levels to we capped out and I was like, wait, what? That was the end that was all like that's plenty of replayability in the game. But I expected there to be more to it than that. I think there's 12 levels total. Yeah, which is I guess pretty good. And I think that they plan to add more stuff and it's not going to be it's not going to come out of your wallet to download and play it again. Yeah, I think that wraps up the cons. We're sort of reaching for the cons right now. Yeah. I mean, the game was what for 15 dollars, I think maybe around there. I think so. Yeah. It might be cheaper now because this theme summer sale. Oh, that's true too. Yeah, I don't think it was that expensive. And I think again, considering it's a very small dev team working on this, like the amount of levels that they have, I guess would leave some room for desire for sure. But like the levels themselves were really well designed. Like I think that they were fun. And I know for me and jelly, like we were like the collection guys. So not finding all the collectors on like every map was. I know it was driving him nuts because it was driving me nuts and he's way worse about it than I am. So like there's there's definitely some opportunities for finding and exploring and there's so much stuff that you probably we didn't even know that is was sitting right in front of us that we somehow missed. And so from like that perspective, I'm really excited to play it some more. But yeah, it would have been cool if there was more levels, but that's just because we liked playing it so much. I think that was really what it came down to is we're greedy for more. But yeah, I don't really have that much to complain about. It was other than again, like I said, some oh, and some of the weapons weren't that great. What was the one that you guys needed the ice one? Yeah, you feel like there's some. Yeah, some of them just didn't really like the shotgun sucked. Yeah, basically the only ones were good were like the auto rifles or the minigun. The minigun was hilarious. Yeah, that's all that's I guess as far as negatives. Well, let's talk about if we think this game is going to last if we think that it's going to be big enough to where you could just queue in and find a match if you if you're queuing it alone in like two years from now. Jellies, what do you think? I think there's definitely the potential for it. I mean, it's releasing on more platforms as time goes on. So right now it's only available on PC and Switch. But I know they have an Xbox release very soon. I just got announced like a couple days ago. So Xbox and then I assume they'll go to PlayStation then they're after. And if there's cross play enabled, you could probably find people to online for a while in the future because this is the kind of game that you can turn on. I mean, back in the day, Dungeon Defenders was another one very similar to this in that you are playing and you have tower defense at the same time and it's a good just like chill and zone out into the work day. You just come home and you shoot some toys, right? Like that's right. I mean, I was telling people of some of my friends and be like, I'm going home and I'm playing Toy Story the game, right? Like that kind of feeling. And so it's I think that there's definitely some staying power with that in terms of like a very casual sense of just like go home, veg out on the couch and just shoot some toys. Yeah. I agree. I think this is like it's like one of those niche kind not niche niche, but like kind of like a phasmophobia type game where it's as long as because the devs are active and participating and there's enough money going into the game from players finding it that I think that they'll be able to keep it around and operating. So because the game is fun. Like if we find out, right? We've already beaten it and if we don't, you know, as time goes on, we kind of go back 100% and maybe a couple levels and then like, you know, like it's definitely one of those games. I feel like you could be either on a stream or getting drunk with your friends and not on a Friday night. Not sure what you want to play or you're not a gaming wall or whatever. This kind of game would really like, no, none of you guys would have to convince me to be like, hey, let's just play some random games of hyper charge. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's do it. And if they come out with like a new map, like, oh, hey, we just added three new maps and all of us would probably be like, oh dude, hyper charge. You know, I think that we would all jump on. So I feel like it's going to fall guys is a good representation of it. Like where it's kind of one of those games like me and wife actually, we just started playing fall guys because it was on Xbox and it's free to play now. So we're just like, let's play for some fall guys. They added a bunch of new maps that I hadn't played yet. It was super fun. Am I going to play it every single day all the time? No, but it's definitely one of those games. It's fun to pick up and play and laugh and joke around with especially if you've been drinking. I think it, it's a cool nostalgic shooter. And I think actually there are plans to make a PvP mode. I think that I remember them talking about that on TikTok because that's where I think this game kind of blew up because it's not new. It's been out for a little while, but somehow randomly TikTok found it. I think it's in and it just went, it did like the among us explosion where randomly it just got found and now it's and so yeah, they're taking all the money that everybody's been throwing into it and definitely reinvesting into making the game even better than it already is. So I think it has staying power. I know the Mingus asks us the two years thing. I think this one actually has a two years aspect. Again, falling into like the fall guys, Phasmophobia and you kind of go back to whenever something new comes out or if you're bored and just feeling like playing a fun game. Yeah, one thing you kind of touched on, Jenna, I'm pretty sure I was drunk every time we played this. That was a good time. I'll eat you. Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know it was the worst one of this as I have it all the games, but I mean, I will say I kind of I'm going to I'm going to go roll in here and really put kind of stick my neck out there. I definitely think this was going to be around in two years out of all the games that we played, especially if it's getting released on more consoles. Like if it was just on switch, I think this would be around in a couple of years. Like people are going to find out about this game, get into it, play it. I guarantee we're going to see like a hyper charge speed runs in the future and stuff like that. Yeah, this is just one of those games that I think is going to is going to resonate with people because it does have that nostalgic feeling of playing with Army guys and stuff. And it's just a well designed fun game that they put a lot of love into. And I think for those reasons, this was going to be around in two years. So, um, yeah, give that demo a try. And if you like it, pick it up. Yeah. And I think if they do come out with a PVP mode, you could do like a free to play PVP mode and then have the full game be purchased still. And it could still pull from on both ends for people. I don't think they would do that though with their philosophies. That's true. Probably not, but it's you'd have to have some way to monetize that PVP mode, which would be more than likely micro transactions. You get the cosmetics PVP mode. You get only the base skin. You look like the blue guy in splitgate. Um, but if you want cosmetics, you have to buy the full game and then you just unlock them by playing the story mode. Yeah. So basically, I mean, Halo did that. Yeah, I was gonna say that exact concept actually. Yeah. I mean, an old Call of Duty, like, I mean, just because like, I feel like that's something that I think devs that are in the non triple A space can bring back. Like all of these games that we talk about, like, you know, how are we going to monetize it? How are we going to, it's like, because they, they feel like they, they, they have to have the staying power built into it through taking more money from their consumer. And, and I just, I remember buying a Call of Duty game and the skins you got were the skins you by earned by playing the game over a long period of time. And that was what kept you coming back. But I think the, the run, the issue we're running into with these businesses that have turned into publicly traded companies, you know, is that they have to appease shareholders and, and grow profits and all that's the only way they can do that is through monetizations that are aggressive. So you don't get skins just by playing their game anymore. You have to buy a battle pass or buy through premium currencies or whatever. And, and again, I get that if it was just to maintain, you know, the game in a sense, like, you know, games are expensive to make. I'm not trying to like downplay that at all, but I'm way more willing to help a small dev team that is trying to just keep the game moving forward. And, you know, they're not necessarily appeasing to, you know, shareholders and trying to maximize profit margins. That's fine with me. I don't have a problem with that. It's when it starts to become predatory that I'll I'll get turned off by it. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, it's it's just how I am. That's the problem with the mobile gaming industry affecting. Well, that's true. The regular gaming industry, like mobile games put games into the hands of the masses and let's face it, most people are fucking stupid. True. So I think that's a good way to sign off this week. Let's close things out. Jellies has a YouTube and a Twitch, even though he doesn't really use either of many more jelly. What about that marvellous Mondays? Let's bring it back, buddy. I too. So go ahead and subscribe and follow him on the Twitch in YouTube. Viking Jedi will have his Twitter listed down below. You can follow his Twitter. See what the hell he's thinking about talking about and he'll post about probably the show too. So probably. Yeah. Actually, one thing I just want to point out real quick before we fully sign off is there apparently is PVP already in the game up to eight people. We just didn't play it. So really might be something worth exploring. Yeah, it says it's already there. So maybe it's either something that came out and since we've played. Yeah, it must have come out since we played. Holy shit or whatever. Yeah. And they do have some DLC packages. I think those are just adding in more cosmetics. I don't think that there's anything as far as like more maps or anything in those, but I would have to double check. But either way, yeah. So eight to eight people PVP is already in the game. So there you go. Cool means and it is on sale. So much dollars. $17 right now. So normally it's 20. It's up. It's 17 right now. 15% for 15% off. So there you go guys. So you can get the DLC basically all the DLC for the price of the normal game right now with the summer sale if you care, not sponsored by the way. I'm just letting you know. Right on. Well, that's what I do want to sponsor us. Yeah. Digital charities reach out to us. Yeah, let us know. Let's go to wrap it up for this week. Guys, if you're watching the premiere, I appreciate you coming out and watching, um, watching this in the video, then I appreciate that too. If you guys have a beta game that you want us to play, um, hit us up in the comments. Let us know what you want us to play. That's how we found out about veiled experts. I think split gate a couple of the ones. So, um, yeah, hit us up. We'll definitely give them a try. But for now, this is the beta male signing off you guys and have a good one. Man goes special shout out to channel members. I blood hunter jelly knees. Meow mix for men's stunt. Raven and Blastoise King.