What's up everybody? I'm the hook and I'm the blade and together we're you know Welcome to the axe blade axe cast a show about all things ax sassans creed Valhalla hashtag like a Viking edition I'm your host Lawson joined as always by your host Timothy and And Tim we've we've we've made it. We're here. We're here. We have reached We've reached Valhalla. We've entered Odin's Hall of Heroes today We've been envisioning this moment since the podcast was merely but a twinkle in our eyeball since the dawn of the first This is what it's all been for it's what it's all been about It's just been building up to this moment. It is it is Valhalla time as they say the first new Assassin's Creed game since origins came out in 2017 Today we are going to be giving our spoiler free impressions of Assassin's Creed Valhalla. It's been out for a few days We spent some time playing it and we're gonna give you our thoughts on things that are not Strictly story-related or spoilery at all so you can listen while you play So Tim about how many hours have you logged in the world of Valhalla? I was playing some of it this morning before we got going here. I am about I just broke nine hours Just broke nine hours. Okay. I'm somewhere between I want to say I'm about 65 to 70 hours in so pretty close to me So we're pretty close For context people I did I was lucky enough to get an early Access review copy from Ubisoft to play Assassin's Creed Valhalla. I got it on November 2nd So I've been playing for about a week now Which has been really cool. I have to give a shout out to Some of the people who helped make that happen and by the way Tim didn't get shafted It wasn't like they picked their favorite host of hookplay This was something that they decided to do for the moderators of the subreddit because they basically realized We're gonna have to deal with all of the assholes who try to spoil things on the subreddit And you know as devoted fans doing essentially a volunteer service for them They saw fit to give us some early copies, which was super cool I know to rule our friend to rule also known as Dylan helped that happen There was also uh, there is there is a chance that there may have been And there may have been some uh, are you good? Also known as Dylan Like it's true, it's accurate. It's just anyway Our friend Travizo also known as Finn big Also known as yeah big big friend big old big old buddy friend of the show Travizo sort of tweeted about how hey, wouldn't it be cool if the mods of the subreddit had early access? And then I don't know if I'm allowed to say this but pretty much within the day We got hooked up. So I'm not saying he he did it, but he might have been He kind of like wished it into existence. You know, I think so. I think it was willed It was willed into being you know, it's it's nice for the mods to to to get shown some love And so I'm glad yeah that they got some early or some early ass copies dude. It was it's great Well, but I also have to shout out um, uh, hug warts hug warts is a an intern at I think ubisoft pr department and Was at one point uh with us a moderator of the subreddit and I think she was involved as well So thank you to hug warts. You have a great username Thank you. How do you do the thing where you spell the w as two v's like the vvich which but I still appreciate it the vvich The hug vvorts As they say Look, I don't know exactly who had to pull what strings where but if you were involved in hooking up the mods and all the Influencers and assassins creed community people with early access copies. Uh, I I humbly thank the Anyway, it's been it's been really cool. So I've gotten I've gotten to play a little bit more than you but since we're not getting into spoilers Uh, hopefully that means we can kind of juxtapose our perspectives you as kind of coming into the game. I've had I Mostly through the main story.  Well, well, there's two things right like it's pretty interesting about it in general is I'm nine hours in Which is basically the equivalent of pressing start in ac one There's so much to do. Uh, I feel like I haven't even gotten started But but another interesting thing. Yeah, that's kind of gonna juxtapose our positions on it is this is my first ac game Since 2015 Yeah, this is your first one since syndicate. So you're not you haven't played origins in odyssey You you don't have those games to compare it to yeah out of protest I have abstained from from those two, but I bullied you into playing vahala. Well, there was just there was there was no There was no avoiding it really Once you agreed to host an assassin's creed podcast you kind of pretty much I sealed my fate I sealed my fate. Yeah, and honestly I think it's really interesting because here here you've actually set up my first My first take if you will on vahala Which is not to the same degree as these two games, but if you think back to ac three and ac four, okay Something that's really notable about those two games is that they have the same engine underneath They have the same design principles as far as their core pillars of gameplay go And that's also true for odyssey and vahala But clearly one is a lot better than the other in I think both cases Because I think the teams on black flag and vahala just were much better at getting compelling And interesting gameplay out of those systems I mean, yeah, there's definitely something to be said for how black flag took very already present AC three systems and just made them better. So a lot more cohesive a lot more focused Yeah, just like like I completely like I'll take your complete word on it that You know this has is taking a more iterative approach But it's doing better than odyssey did with with the origins formula and and better than origins did with it too Honestly, right. There are some big changes that Go a really really long way to making this game feel distinct and feel More wholly realized I I think probably the best way to sum it up Would be if you look at the game that all three of these games are trying to be They're trying to be these open worlds, you know, huge rpgs with sprawling dense rural country side to explore and And billions upon billions of collectibles and things to do, right? If you look at the game, these are all trying to be Valhalla has succeeded at trying to be that game Far more than either other games have right, but I want to know more about what you think now Just nine hours into it. You've gotten through a lot of early stuff You pretty much you you've had enough of time with the game that you pretty much know how it works You know the yeah, I'm pretty much beyond like the whole tutorial eyes sections and whatnot and you know Look, I've been thinking about this a lot like when we first started The podcast I was I was uh, I was pretty excited.  I mean lost and sometimes you have to Kind of own up and like admit where you were wrong and this just isn't one of those times I Was waiting for it. This is just Uh, I I gotta say like as my excitement started to turn a little sour. I definitely think it was Indicative of how I actually am enjoying the game. So Gotcha, I mean Yeah, I think I I can echo that sentiment to the extent that With Valhalla, I got exactly what I expected from their sales pitch from what they marketed I'm not particularly surprised by anything so far, right? Oh, I I also just want to preface my thoughts and like for the people that have played origins in odyssey I will completely take your word on it that those games did things that this game does better or Or just more accessible and whatnot. So if I if I say that I don't like something in Valhalla I'm not saying that like the previous two games did it better because I have no idea Yeah, and so I'm just basing this off of like Valhalla compared to the other ones that I've played which is Syndicate and before so yeah, I guess I don't really know where quite to start. I guess to I guess to Uh Okay, well, I suppose pretty much the first thing I wrote down while I was playing and I guess it's a good place to start I don't know what it is. It's just it feels awkward to play It just kind of feels yeah like half baked it feels like as iterative as it is It feels almost too ambitious for even the time that they got and I'm honestly surprised about that because I expected Because it seemed from what I from like origins in odyssey both kind of just worked at launch. There wasn't I I heard I didn't hear any problems like that And I I figured Valhalla being as iterative as it is with the technology that's available I figured it it wouldn't have those issues either but for whatever reason I just It doesn't feel like it's a synced experience. It just kind of feels Like I said, it feels awkward to play All the systems don't just sing to each other harmoniously. They all it just There seems to be like a lot of unnecessary layering to a lot of the gameplay elements Are you talking about jank or or lack of polish at all or are you talking about more like conceptually? What I feel like it's more conceptual because I okay I don't think there's a whole lot of jank like I don't think I've ran into things like well Wow, that doesn't that clearly is broken or whatever like because when you when you talk about awkwardness I definitely feel the sense of floatiness to the controls into the navigation And I have to suspect even though quite a bit of that was present in origins in odyssey It does feel worse in this game and my only theory on that Which I'll get across real quickly and then I'll let you get back to your point My only theory on that is that they spent the last several months both without their original game director and working from home due to covid And got the release moved up by like one or two weeks As we've seen with like cyberpunk sometimes a matter of days is all that it takes to get a little bit more polished So I feel like in an alternate world where covid didn't happen Uh an ash raft ismail wasn't a scumbag Maybe the game comes out a lot more polished and and less floaty feeling But I can only speculate on those things. So anyway back to what you're saying I mean that that is a good point that I'm sure that had something to do with it I also think they're like there. Yeah, there is just a floatiness to it And I and I don't and like like I said, I don't want to say that that's not present in the previous two games But like even compared to syndicate things just feel floaty and things just like I feel like in all of these three games Something that I I notice with the way that they work mechanically and the way that they feel Is like I can point my thumb stick in any direction and just wait and I'll get there You know what I mean, which is what I've been doing in my time with the game I've just been getting on a horse or Now that uh, thank you, uh troll aka dylan. I was able to utilize your controls and now I can just tap Um rt on the xbox controller and I just go and I don't have to do anything and I just end up where I'm going eventually And I guess that also just I completely respect like I know And you'll get into it, but I know that you enjoy the world especially compared to odyssey's I just think this is this is so bland and uninteresting to to navigate Like I've found so far in my nine hours I've found maybe one location that like I actually stopped and like looked at for a second Otherwise nothing catches my eye And I'm not sure if it's the color palette or like the art direction I've also noticed things just kind of blend in with each other Everything kind of just looks the same For instance an example I can give is I was battling some people with an ally And I heard the sword clanking and I heard the shields and I and I And I was like right on top of them pretty much And I realized once I hit odyssey they were like pretty much right to my right And I didn't couldn't even see them because they were blending into the environment I don't know if you've interacted with that at all, but just it's a very bland and like stark coloring and See here's why I'm a little surprised by what you're saying Go ahead because I feel like one of the victories of Valhalla's world is that it does have that grimmer atmosphere That I feel like you've been clamoring for since ochre in ac1. I feel like this whole world. Yeah kind of has that that vibe That said and and I do appreciate that about it like there is like a darker You know moodier feel to the atmosphere of the world than in the last two games for sure I do think that like you I see what you're saying like already at the time that I've clocked into the game There are locations. I remember being in that are pretty nearly indistinguishable from each other But I have different feelings about the world and exploration that I'll get to later Right that's the thing too is yeah, like I do kind of like how moody it is But at the end of the day like so far I have not entered a single city Like I've just been in like little fortresses But when all you're seeing is grass and forests and trees and wheat and mud it all kind of just Blends together. There's just a lot of like green and brown. I don't know I also think like the compass isn't wonderful like I I Appreciate the compass much more than a mini map for for sure I guess I guess just so I don't go into many directions My main complaint here is just that I feel like it's either the color or the art direction something is Making things blend together Where it's different from like ac1 Or even even like unity did a similar landscape in the helix riff better like because unity has better art direction probably Interesting just something about it is just really drab and not interesting to look at to give you sort of my I mean I tweeted sort of a blurb review And I think that pretty accurately sums up my thoughts where it's like right There's a lot for me to appreciate and enjoy about this game I think the story is a lot better than the last few assassin's creed games so far I think that the the world and the environment is Honestly, I found it pretty interesting to explore for reasons. I'll get into There are a lot of these pluses, but at the end of the day I think that the lack of satisfying parkour and stealth Just they make it not really qualified for me is what I look for in an assassin's creed game and To be clear on these things right parkour Exists just like in the last two games. You pretty much will never really need to use it Well, while you can still climb something every once in a while There's not the gameplay of I'm in a city and I'm hopping from rooftop to rooftop That just doesn't exist. It can't really in this time period. I guess To that end the parkour system is really half-baked and I thought the parkour was really bad in origins and odyssey. I feel like in Valhalla. It's worse I've had so much more issues with jank I've had so much more issues with avor just not going where I want them to go Like those chasable collectibles that exist in this game where you can chase tattoos around just like in the Kenway era games They really highlight how fucked the parkour is because I get knocked off of something and then I lose track of the collectible Which is kind of hard to see and I have to restart like two or three times I might just be uniquely bad at using this parkour system But I also think this parkour system is uniquely bad I would like to never see this again I want the next game to be like a complete reimagining of how parkour should feel in assassin's creed because this shit Sucks and the only reason I'm okay with this system at on any level Is because I hardly ever have to use it because there are horses and there are very few things to climb so Yeah, keeping in mind that parkour is a core identity facet of what assassin's creed Is supposed to let you do that is a huge disappointment for me though Honestly, I can't even really describe as a disappointment I never got any indication that I should expect anything better from this game pretty much from the beginning I knew it was going to be dribble on that extent So I guess it is what it is And then stealth here's the thing with stealth I've gotten to a point in the game where I feel like I understand the gameplay pretty well I can use stealth to my advantage as as I need to But even if all the stealth mechanics in this game work together perfectly, which They don't but they work together pretty well. I can occasionally have a pretty satisfying stealth experience The fact will remain That the activities you're going to do in the game through the story through the world are pretty much 10 to 1 stacked in favor of combat You are going to be doing combat most of the time in the last game Last couple of games It was the fact that you could not guarantee to assassinate any given enemy If they were higher level than you you might not be able to that would force you into combat oftentimes You go into a fort in odyssey you try to stealth for as long as you can You reach a captain that you have to kill to clear the fort. You try to kill him He smells you and now the entire fort is on your ass in Valhalla, this is not the case but Pretty much it finds every other way that it can to force you into combat and more than more so than most other games of recent I have moments with stealth where I definitely feel like I get caught for reasons that were not my fault More often than I get caught for reasons that are my fault So Can't really give them any points for the stealth the distressed areas are cool To the extent that they work I've I've still yet to find an example where blending into a group of monks either works the way I would think it does In any way I would think it does or is useful in the slightest I think it's like a complete waste of time to blend with monks because I don't think you can control the direction they walk in and If you can I don't know how to do it And if you can't they're never going in the direction I need them to go. So it's a whole waste of time But that's like my long version of my short review Yeah, I mean I have nothing that in my nine hours that contradicts that at all like I like I There's definitely it's very combat forward and while I like the combat better than the last two I don't love it.  I want realistic motion.  Yeah, I don't be too negative about it.  It just doesn't work I don't know. I know you haven't played it But it reminds me of dragon age inquisition combat minus magic stuff. I've played dragon age inquisition Oh, I had no idea But it's no, I totally get what you're saying.   That's what I want for this kind of game I was expecting some like for honor type shit and what we get is this just you know flamboyant just cartoonish combat and Because it's so combat forward I've contemplated multiple times just turning the combat difficulty down to the easiest setting and just not dealing with it because it's not fun Yeah, like also speaking of not speaking of but I was saying earlier like about poor communication to the player I Maybe I'm just a big stupid pants, but I don't know I I never ever I can hardly ever parry successfully in this game I never know when so yeah, so okay. Here's the thing about that And this is this is fun. I think the game I'm not sure there's any tutorial that tells you how to parry at all I don't think that tells you ever but I did kind of get the hang of it once I It literally took me like reading a message on like the moderator group chat where to rule aka dylan was like Why can't I parry for shit? I suck at parrying and I was literally in my head like you can parry in this I like check the the database for the instructions on it and I practiced it and I've gotten pretty like I can usually parry and I find that the parrying sound and vibration and animation is very satisfying so I actually am now a fan of the way parrying works, but It's not very intuitive or well communicated. You're absolutely right and that's the thing is I feel like that's a lot of this My experience of this game so far is We talk about all the time about how some of these games have really really on the nose and shitty tutorial sections AC 3 AC 1 But like unity I feel like this game just throws me out into the wilderness It doesn't have me figure things out and in in like a rewarding way to me in my opinion It just kind of like throws you out there and it has you figure everything out There's just there doesn't seem to be that guiding hand I'm not saying that I want tutorials or tooltips everywhere, but I don't know I kind of felt like I was like thrust it into everything a little too soon Let me let me validate what you're saying real quick. Okay, go ahead Even having played the last two games, which are mechanically very similar I felt like I had a rougher time getting started with this game than anyone in a long time Like it is rough.  Like for instance, I was expecting all the time to be able to assassinate people in the early parts of the game and Spoiler alert. I mean, this is a very minor spoiler. You cannot assassinate in the beginning of the game You have to learn how to assassinate before you can do it, right? Which is an interesting choice But not an expected one coming off of odyssey where Assassins don't exist yet But you can still assassinate and leap of faith and do everything an assassin can do for a minute one of the game Or in unity when you can park around Versailles with no issue at all Like this is the first Assassin's Creed game To my knowledge where you cannot perform any form of sneaky takedown For the for the beginning of the game Like usually you can at least choke someone out before you have the hidden blade in this game They they they they they hold that back For story purposes and it's just jarring when It's playing by rules that none of the other games have necessarily played by Even if I kind of I respect the choice like I respect the idea of tying it to the story But it it really ruins the idea of like Exploring the game at the beginning when you start to realize that you're going to have a shit-ass time exploring Until you get to the part where you can assassinate people I guess if my biggest scribe can you know, it can pretty much be hung upon But I feel like this game doesn't have very great communication to the player about many things Yeah, and it's like this game seems to be emulating breath of the wild a lot to the point like where people are like This reminds me of breath of the wild in the best ways and you know and then derby Excuse me derby can celebrate But I like I keep thinking back to that to the intro of that game where you're literally naked And like you run around and like it's kind of this kind of has this rubber banding effect Where you can only really interact with things that like tutorialize the game for you in a way of like, okay I know how weapons are now. I know how they work. I could pick them up. I know that weapons have a durability Let me chop down this tree to get over this Revene. Oh, I can chop down trees and get what from them and get apples Let me go fight these enemies. I now know how combat works. Yeah, you have to learn by doing It's very handcrafted that way and and it's very guided and it's very meticulous Whereas this game the whole norway section I felt like I was completely alone and while I appreciate that kind of like respect of the player Especially coming like, you know, even you had a hard time with it I'm coming off of just playing rogue to the point where like I changed my controls up off of truel aka dylan suggestion And I'm having a better time of it. They're yeah, there just seems to be a lot of layers Like to the point where like there's just so many different controls and things to do It doesn't seem very hyper focused It's it's combat forward But I don't feel like the combat system even Is developed in a way that's satisfying and that you can have fun for ages in like they seem to think I watched you play ghost asushima for like five ten minutes Which I have to say I was gonna say earlier ghost asushima Has my favorite combat system in an open world third person action game And I would like to see assassin's creed just do exactly what ghost asushima does with combat anyway Yeah, but I was going to mention the combat or just in general Like and I took the controller for like a couple seconds And it just seems like that game with that game does particularly well and you can confirm or deny this It's very hyper focused very coherent gameplay systems that all work together in harmony 100 percent Whereas this game I feel like there's just like so many different things at once and it's weird, right? Because it's like a staple of the series now for for the combat to change every time But it also seems like a hindrance though because if they just stuck with one combat system or not, you know Not not obviously not for the whole for the whole series But because this combat system seems similar to odyssey but different it seems very different from origin So it's just like yeah, it just kind of seems like they can't decide on something They're all quite different. You know, it's true.  Yes, and then origins is like combat's the whole thing now So it's all dark soulsy and then odyssey is like what if we made that even more arcadey and we had all these abilities And then the howl says well, what if we did that? We give it a little bit of meta gameplay with the adrenaline management and Uh things like that but but ultimately it's it's mostly odyssey's combat But it's been spruced up in it in the feedback territory to be a bit more as they would say brutal and It's still just as frustrating of a of a mechanic as it was in those last two games But it'd be less frustrating if I didn't feel like the game was shoving it down my throat Here's an early game thing Not really a spoiler, but if you if you've watched anything to do with the game, you know that there are raids There are viking raids now one of the core mechanics of the raid is that You're with your group and Most of the doors and chests you need to loot I think all of the chests that you need to loot in a raid have to be open by two people So not all of them. Well all the ones that count towards completing. Yeah Yeah, there is some loot that you can get by yourself But yeah, yeah the ones that have like the raw materials and stuff Yeah, obviously you need to be in a raid. You need to have all of your group to get into those chests But interestingly enough all of the raids also take place in a distrust area as opposed to a restricted area So if you're walking around with your cloak, you won't necessarily get Fucked up on site But here's another example of where the game really miscommunicates what it wants you to do I've been trained at that point as I think is reasonable that any distrust area You know these are places with blending options with with cloaks with limited or more limited detection I'm trained to recognize a distrust area as a stealth opportunity So I'm looking at these raids that are happening. I'm going how can I do this stealthily? So first you try to go into the raid area and you don't actually start the raid and you try to get around Oh, well, I can't get through this door. Maybe I'll look around for an entrance Oh, I found an entrance, but now I can't open this chest without my friends So you figure out you can't do it without starting a raid then you start the raid and you think maybe while all my friends are Fighting people I can stealth around. Well, not really because even though it's a distrust area once combat has started Enemies can pretty much smell you and they won't even have a detection meter fill up So what it comes down to is there is no stealthy way to do a raid Nor is there really a stealthy way to do much of the game's activities You saw that mission the roued mission in the first gameplay demo where they were really proud to show off You can be a little stealthy You can walk along a tightrope above the bad guy and you can do an assassination that'll clear him of half his health Of course any time i'm doing a siege I'm going to look for the opportunity to do that And I'm willing to admit that part of this may just be me being bad at the game But outside of the roued mission specifically I have not been able to do that once either because Getting into the vicinity of the enemy triggers a cutscene that triggers a you know cordoned off dual Or there's just no way to get to them stealthily or I will stealth up to the enemy Completely flawlessly and go to press r1 to assassinate And I won't be able to do it So it feels like the game completely misled me on what I would be able to do in these sieges I'm constantly frustrated by not being able to do that.  There's no real excuse for that I was experiencing the same exact thing I was doing a main quest. I guess I guess there's no main or side quest in this game But I was doing a quest And it led me to this monastery that I was to raid and I was already having to infiltrate the place So I was like, well, why can't I just take some of the loot with me? And it was like, oh wait, I got to bring my friends to get the stuff back to the ship. Oh Okay, so I have to do it this way then Thanks like yeah, and and it's it's fine for there to be an activity where you have to play a certain way I mean odyssey had those like Yeah, those big battle things that were kind of bullshit But with the distrust area and with the fact that there is stealth in the game It really doesn't feel like raids have to be all combat, but yet they are Yeah, and and also but like I feel like black flag like simulated like a raid better than this game does like I have had no fun with raids at all yet. I've done multiple and I have had no fun I I find the sieges are more effective because the sieges give you a little bit more flexibility of stuff I think I just did my first siege officially and yeah Yeah, but that's that's the thing is I just I feel like I just I feel like I just happen upon things Maybe someone can Leave a comment and see what like see if they agree be like I just feel like I happen upon opportunities You know like I don't feel like I ever In communicated about them. I feel like I just happen upon things like that's I think that's one of the strengths I like that I just happen upon opportunities And they don't have to follow like an opportunity marker to go But there's nothing wrong with like unity's black box missions of being like Hey, bud if you go to this part of the of the area, there's something for you there Like there's nothing wrong with that. Well, actually though, can I disagree with you? Yeah, disagree because I think that I think that Valhalla one of the strengths I was going to get to Is that the way it handles opportunities exactly as you're describing I feel much more satisfied if I just come across an opportunity and take advantage of it on my own And if they point out here's where your opportunity is it's more like I'm crossing things off a checklist And I find that as far as their design approach goes it extends through a lot of the game This sense that if I just look around and I explore things and I interact with things I can find ways to create an advantage for myself. I can free prisoners that will cause Distractions I can sneak around to a door that I'm trying to batter down and I can You know shoot off the bars that are making it hard to batter down And that's just something I do because I found out I could do that and Even in the mission design when you sometimes have to investigate something or learn about something Reading letters and exploring the environments can give you clues about things That it's not necessarily always just saying go here to find a clue Those are things that that really excite me because I've had many moments while playing the game Both in the context you're describing of sieging or what have you and also just in general missions Where I found something of on my own and it it helped me it gave me more information or it expanded the story in an interesting way That's emergent gameplay. That's that's a good thing That's what all of these games have been aiming for and this is the first one in my opinion to hit So I would take that over a unity black box mission any day of the week frankly I do hear you and I do agree that like I I obviously like I do enjoy Oh, and let me be clear if you disagree with me you are wrong I I do I do um, I do like I respect for the player But it seems to me that because there's some there's so much layering and there's not There's not hyper focused systems that gel and that work well for me personally I find it difficult to even see those opportunities with my eyeballs And because the UI is so atrociously bad It's just hard for me to keep track of like what like, you know what I mean like, uh, it's just The UI is is kind of terrible. Is it not? I don't necessarily think so. No, I don't have a problem with the UI. I think Tim Here's my prediction. Okay all of the issues you're describing not being able to discriminate things Uh visually or having trouble finding the opportunities I think the more you play the game and the more you get used to the controls and the and the design of things You will Get better at that. Right. I I think I think you will I I should say and then it may not be as big a complaint for you Right. I and I and I should say if I if I haven't alluded to that already like I definitely You know, I'm not I'm not writing a lot of this off. I am I want to keep playing and I'm open to these These first, you know, kind of annoyances. They might go away. They might get worse Yeah, I feel like Valhalla has a kind of a perfect storm of like Not hyper focused systems and just weird UI choices and and things that get like to kind of just confuse me personally and make me seek the easiest possible way to finish something because I'm just so frustrated with them.  I have not even tried I I like I I've done one where like I knocked a thing down and I Well, no, okay. Actually, here's one I'm sure everyone has who has played For any amount of time has come across this particular one But I went into a house.  I don't know it's well, okay But let me let me just say like for most of the collectibles in the game like especially the wealth ones You have to find them and they're often Sort of create like they've built puzzles around How to get to them that I've found are pretty different every time Where you have to actually interact with the environment like shooting off the bars on a bar door Or lowering a ladder or finding like parts of the wall that you can shoot through or attack through And that has been really really well done in my experience. I've gotten a lot of collectibles I've done a lot of these puzzles and typically when I see something that I can't get to immediately It's like an exciting challenge. I have to use the bird. I have to scout around I have to use odin site I have to actually explore and use the environment To my advantage to actually get those collectibles And that's that's level design, right?  I just I prefer that Like rogue's wilderness and areas not once was I ever like wow, I'm confused about where I am It's always like community. It was always communicated to me. Well Coming off of rogue like to have that experience and to be able to explore forever you know like for without even noticing and That's what valhalla. I feel like is trying to get me to do and then just there's something about the gameplay loop That I don't like there's just something about it that I don't enjoy I don't appreciate And it's just like I'm open for this to change But it might I there's just something off about everything Like just the way that you move around in the world is so weird the camera angle to me Everything just feels strange and I know it's going to be more strange to me coming off of A game like rogue or or even or syndicate than it is Having come off of odyssey and playing odyssey, so I'm completely aware of that But it's just really it's been a very jarring experience so far for me. Yeah, I think I think that's exactly the case I think your your opinions might change the more of it you play Because I also think from where I'm standing right now with how far I've gotten into it The story is pretty good. The story is pretty fun.  Some of them have been pretty bad, but a lot of them have been great and I'm definitely hooked on some of the mysteries powering the story the things that you want to see happen The arc that the character is on I'm I'm pretty much on board for all of that And I haven't felt that way about an assassin's creed game in a very long time Think of a very long to probably sense black flag Because unity's story was shit syndicate story was you know functional, but not particularly interesting Origin story was straight up garbage odyssey story was functional, but not super interesting Here's finally a story that is functional and interesting that has Threads that I actually am invested in seeing them pay off and a real sense of wonder for the You know lore and mystery of the assassin's creed universe that again, I haven't really felt since 2013 I I have to give him credit for that that that could be I mean, you know me What do I care about more than anything else story? I was gonna say pancakes, but that is also true I love pancakes with with little with little stories in between each pancake And like like I said, you know about every assassin's creed game pretty much that I've ever played It's like I'm willing to forgive a lot of gameplay sins if the story gives me a really powerful experience There's a lot I'm willing to overlook if the story is phenomenal and I can't quite say I'm I'm probably 75 to 80 through the game right now and I I can't fully say with certainty like Oh, it's a good one. It's the best one ever. It's great. So good I can't say it's bad. I can definitely say I'm along for the ride more so than I have been in the past There is definitely uh within my nine hours There is nothing about the story that has gripped me You know made me I am so uninterested in this time period too. That's not helping At all.  Like I know he's intended to be like the charming lovable Like miscreant.   It's just it's I'm not a fan I am not a fan. I've are I've are kind of grew on me. I've are kind of it's definitely like not I always felt like he was somewhere on the annoying spectrum. No doubt I also just don't like the flow of the game. I don't I'm not used to there not being sequences And you know like I'm just not used to a lot of this stuff either No, it's just like oh get back get back to go time travel back to 2015 you old man sequences are gone We're doing we're doing like television arcs. So we're gonna have like 16 different arcs in this game It's just I like it a lot better than like the weird Chapters that you had in the last two were nothing really. Yeah, this is a big improvement over that I know you don't know that I'm just saying I like the sense of You go to a territory you do a thing for a few hours and then you come back to the settlement I like that loop I like the pacing of it because there are things that I'll do at my settlement pretty much every time I go back there I'll talk to certain characters. I will you know upgrade my gear. I'll change my tattoos Just I have a routine of things that I like to do And those are things that I will often look forward to doing while I'm out and about on my quest I'll get new gear. I start using I go can't wait to upgrade that I'll collect a new tattoo that looks cool. I'll go can't wait to put that on And then I go back and I you know do any quests that are there I upgrade whatever I can with the things that I've looted and For me that that works So it's kind of getting that sense that I was hoping for with like montereggione Where you look forward to going back and upgrading things and you want to make it a better and more useful place This settlement certainly has a lot more to do in it and care about in it Then montereggione did With montereggione, you just kind of wanted to make the buildings look prettier This this has a little bit more depth to it for me. So I'm on board with it. I do have I so far Completely preferred montereggione not even close so far.  You've been you've been making me so sad And I want and I want to ask I want to ask you if it like I have some thoughts about where it might go later on And that's why I just want to get your I want to get your season opinion So I know that it's evidently It's very reminiscent of like the cultist system and an odyssey But I really really enjoy so far.  But okay, so what I Okay What I like about it.  That's it. That's all I want that that sounds amazing And so I love that I can like work my way up the ladder And so I know some of it has has kind of overlapped with with with the main quest line a little bit Yeah, but it seems like a lot of it is optional Yeah, is that the case like is most of it still optional? That's pretty much it It's it's a lot like the cultist system in odyssey, which I thought was one of the better parts of that game Yes, there are targets that are that are weaved into the story and Yeah, a lot of them are people that you just have to hunt down on your own You read the clues it gives you you find where they are on the map You investigate whatever it tells you to investigate and you kind of have to do it on your on your own And I feel like that's a really smart way of carrying over the fantasy of the assassin identity Of I have to collect information and track down my targets and I definitely appreciate that You can kind of do it yourself and feel like it's emerging naturally in the world And it's not a bunch of scripted cutscenes that you're crossing off items on a checklist to get to It does seem though the only like okay for instance I'm going to keep playing after we are done recording here And so I have a clue and it says hey go to this town and go talk to these people Yeah So if I can go to this town and I could talk to some people and get some clues and stuff then Maybe we've got something cooking It seems to me I think it'd be it'd be dope if you just gave me like I like I'm an assassin You put me in this big old map.  Well, right Yeah, right like because ac1 with the way that you gather information And that's what I was getting at is there doesn't seem to be that in this game You can't eavesdrop you can't pick pocket letters It seems very much like go here talk to this person But it would be cool if I could just like walk into a tavern sit down and over here a conversation and now I know where to go I mean, yes and no. I think those things do exist, but they are Genuinely more emergent. I have overheard things And that led me to an opportunity or a clue. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. Yeah I think the more you play the more you'll get in touch with how that system is is meant to work And I think you'll appreciate it What's much better about this time around than with odyssey is that usually if it told you to go investigate somewhere It was kind of just leading you to a side quest line that you then had to carry out and that that would Then lead you to the cultist there There were some you would find out and about But you don't quite have the same sense of discovery when you find, you know Letters that lead you to them or when you find like, you know When you overhear a conversation that leads you to the the target There's a lot to be said for in general in this game as I've talked about before How opportunities and information are treated A great example is there's a mission early in the game This isn't this shouldn't be a spoiler that requires you to Investigate a few people you're trying to identify who might be a traitor And I don't know if you notice this tim, but if you just go exploring the world And you're just like collecting things and you're in the area at any point in time before that, you know Around that quest all that stuff is there. It's in the world. You can find it. You can investigate it You can read it. You might not understand its significance when you do so, but it's still just there It's not a scripted investigation sequence where you in you know an odyssey You have like five clues to interact with and you kneel next to it and you say something about it And then that part of the mission is done move on It's part of the world and you can learn things that you might not otherwise learn by going to certain places There are pieces of evidence all over the place that you might never find and that might be okay because you have enough to make a decision anyway and I want to see more of that because this game did it really really well I saw something that was part of that quest that i'm talking about And I thought it was part of a world event that was happening nearby I investigated it during that world event and I thought this is interesting I wonder what this has to do with the world event When I solved the world event it had nothing to do with that clue and I was like that's really interesting And then later on I discovered something else that then brings my attention to my mind back to that clue and I go Oh, and now I know something and I felt like I was doing that I was making that deduction the game wasn't making it for me as it often does in these murder mystery situations That's brilliant.  But I agree with you. I completely agree with you I just don't think that this game I and so far I have no reason to believe that this game doesn't any better Than any of the other games that do similar things What get the name one like in terms of just like the emerging Opportunities and stuff. Yeah, but like for solving a mystery or figuring out like is there another game that does that For solving a mystery, I I guess I I guess I I don't I don't really have an example for a mystery I just I feel like finding things out in the world and seeing the consequence later and like things I just don't know if Valhalla is doing that better than Like, I don't know like other games out there like I can say I play a lot of games Most like big releases that come out and usually in an open world rpg like this Even in the Witcher 3, you're still pressing your hunter vision and and interacting with all the highlighted objects But that's what you're doing with Odin sight. That's still happening in this game But it's not tied to whether or not you are doing the mission that requires you to see that And if you explore and you go after collectibles and you interact with the world It's a lot more likely that you'll uncover those things naturally and that you won't be led there necessarily by the quest That's what I appreciate. Yeah, I I think that's true You know, it is like if you can just find some of the clues without having started that quest that is cool And even beyond mysteries and the setup that I'm talking about very specifically here I'll find letters in camps and in forts and in houses That directly reference other things. I've read or world events I've done or main quest that I've completed and it really does a good job of giving me the sense that like Yeah, things are interconnected here And and this is a like a living and breathing world that is reacting to The forces that play around it and I think I have to give that simple device that simple technique a lot of credit For creating the the idea in my mind as I'm traveling that when I come upon a town There that it's a town that's kind of alive that there are people that live and breathe and work there And that I can interact with things and that the choices I make will change something about that world maybe this is Naive and I'll understand at the end of the game when I'm done that like Actually, none of that really mattered and it was all very handcrafted But the fact that it's giving me that feeling Is worth something at least right now and I can see also how you could totally as a player Miss that completely if you're never taking the time to like Go for collectibles investigate your surroundings if you're just going from quest marker to quest marker You may not ever have that experience I I I just also I just don't think that the game does a great job of inviting you to do those things like I have I I I just have no interest in running around and getting collectibles like so far I I'm of I'm just like trying to get through it. There are a lot of different strategies people take now I know as a completionist with Assassin's Creed that I'm going to get all the collectibles anyway So for me, it's just a matter of you're eating all the collectibles. I yeah Yeah And if that's not your bag, I get it But I'll tell you this right now tim and you may not know this but you might you might know this There will be one or two kinds of collectible that you'll discover if you even try to That you will love that thing and you will want more of it And you will have to actually explore to find more of that thing Have you done and this is minor we won't talk about anything specifically But have you done an animus anomaly yet?  There are other things too. Sometimes you find a gear set gear piece You like the piece you like the gear But you don't have the rest of the set and you want it You have to explore you have to go to the wealth icons to find those pieces Yeah, that's just how it is a big thing about how I've been feeling about it as I as I try and separate I try and just think okay if I just pick this up Off the shelf and it was like, you know a medieval, you know fantasy RPG game what I enjoy it. Yeah, so far like I feel like I don't always want to be like I just I would just rather go play the Witcher 3 like You can't always just be like I'd rather go play that old game because things evolve and change There's enough in Witcher 3's world That incentivize me to keep going in it that I just don't know if is present in this game And I know they're not the same game. I don't want to keep comparing them But even my even like Breath of the Wild which I have plenty of issues with like it still kept me playing for a long time because of A lot of those things that I think this game is emulating Maybe not doing as well, but we'll see I'll say I couldn't finish either the Witcher 3 or Breath of the Wild But I will probably finish this Also because it's as well, maybe because of the Assassin's Creed game Also because it's an Assassin's Creed game and that's what I'm all about But if I feel like if I pulled this off the shelf and it was not Assassin's Creed branded I would probably Like it better I would like it even more because I wouldn't be comparing it to the expectations of what the Assassin's Creed brand represents And then it would just be a really good medieval game Well, maybe not really good, but a fairly good medieval game And if those mysteries and and and story threads were equally as effective to me in that context I would have to rate it even higher But I understand if this is just not your style. This is just not your bag That's totally fine. Like that's just how it is. You know what I mean?  I'm not even half. I'm not even 25 of the way through So a lot of this is just like my my just word Vomit about it so far. I'm not loving it But like I said completely open for those things to change And you and I are going to talk about here in a second about something that I think we both like Yeah about it. Uh, so far you've probably experienced more about of that than me, but soft spoiler warning here If you haven't reached the first modern day moment of the game Shouldn't be a spoiler that there is one. It was confirmed that Layla would be back Um, and she is So we're going to talk a little bit about the very first Thing uh in the open in the modern day if you haven't gotten there yet Just just turn this off come back later. We'll be waiting here for you patiently But all right spoilers are go now tim. Did you appreciate last week that I reintroduced the concept of those origins? voiceover things Yeah, because I when I saw him on the laptop.  Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah, dude, like I gotta say I was feeling pretty sour about the game and but then when that modern day thing hit I was like, all right Cool. So this this is my reason to beat the game now. This is it. This is the only reason. Yes Sean and rebecca are back. They look different. Sean's aged about 40 years Rebecca's had some plastic surgery Uh, but they're back. It's the year 2020. COVID exists for the first time in a video game And now there's an end of the world happening again. We're not sure even at the point where I'm at in the game I don't know a lot about it, but the mysteries have been unfolding and things have been playing out I do know more than I knew in that very first moment But in that moment I was pretty blown away Especially that they got Nolan north back for a bit of friendly fan service to come do a Maybe final performance as desmond miles for the audio files You know what's weird about those things though is it like given the time stamp on those They're like talking to desmond in a way that I don't feel like they would be talking to him in the events of ac3 Like yeah, the events of ac3 like like they're pretty close to each other But in those talks they're like as if they just met almost it's really strange I I didn't get that impression But I did get the impression that we were hearing a conversation that was taking place during downtime And the impression you get playing ac3 other than the fact that everyone's kind of dicking around in the cave Is it like Everyone's working on something so there's maybe not a lot of downtime I can allow for the possibility that those conversations happened But it did weird me out a little bit they talk about the isu because that was not a word I think that had been coined yet in the assassin's creed franchise They were still at that point precursors are the ones who came before right and what's also interesting is ac4's desmond dialogue Audio files are also take place during downtime in ac3 now So yeah, it seems like that's the only time that we have for everyone to be in the same room and talk But yeah that besides lucy I guess because revelation season at coma before that lucy would have to be around So ac3 is all I got for no lucy. Yeah, it is it really is But I can see there being a lot of downtime.  Yeah, and she's doing some some wack shit and uh, you know honestly like They did the best they could they they acknowledged that like, okay, she was she was being controlled by the staff and Sean and rebecca treat her very specifically like You're not like in the clear for having done that but hey, we have some experience with working with somebody who Yeah, uh Who killed someone while being controlled by a precursor artifact So we're we're no strangers to that we understand and it kind of explains why they're together because There's an implication by shon and in his dialogue. It's like the old team She was with doesn't want to work with her anymore. So now she's being paired with these people who she didn't know super well before and The reason that they're more forgiving and understanding of what she did is because they experience it with desmond I would have never expected there to be a good reason for shon and rebecca to work with leila Just that it would happen because darby or whomever wanted it to happen But they actually thought of a good reason. Good on him for sure. Yeah, I I agree and I think uh, I gotta say two There's two things one This modern day little cut scene has like better cinematography better direction and acting Then like anything that's present in vahala up into that point. So that's nice to see sure and yeah I mean like the shot of like the cigarette falling into the Is she's been standing there staring at the staff for probably at least like Two minutes because her cigarette's completely burned away and it's falling into the sink now So yeah, that's pretty dope. I like that. Yeah And there's just this this feeling this atmosphere that what we're in right now in this moment Is we're in the beginning of the ending like this is the conclusion They're talking about the aurora borealis. That should happen at the end of ac3. Yes, they're talking about Oh, there's another apocalypse that we now have to avert Suddenly because of course of our king and lord and savior darby. There are stakes There is a mystery. There are characters we care about and There's like a driving like I am so motivated by the modern day when I play this game like Even though I haven't gotten any notifications like you have new emails. You should leave the animus to check it out I will constantly just leave the animus and Just see if there's anything different and I just love existing in that Like moment and I can't wait to to see more of What the modern day has in store. I'm starting to get Some inklings of like what the situations are what the mysteries are and I'm just I'm desperate for more Yeah, I really got to say too is You and I both thought that once we saw Sean that there had been like a time gem I thought yeah, it'd been extreme like 20 plus years and that the staff has been keeping her youthful Yeah, I thought that was what was going on and I I'm kind of disappointed. That's not what happened I agree like Sean especially for whatever reason he looks like an old man I don't know what the fuck's going on. Rebecca just looks different, but she sounds older. She's talking in a much more restrained Older sort of tone of voice. I guess the idea is just supposed to be that they're stressed out Yeah, like they've been through two different like they've been pretty much now This is their second apocalypse about the hit earth Yeah, so I guess that's what that's what's implying as Sean is graying Well, let me make a very declarative statement right now if this game does not wrap this up in an interesting way I'm gonna be pissed because I do not want to be waiting on the hook for another foretold apocalypse event I don't want to be anxiously looking forward to the next Assassin's Creed game to answer any questions from this one because Time and time again, they've shown I can have no faith in them to resolve any questions That one game leaves unanswered because the developers of ac 2021 or 22 They're gonna say oh, fuck that shit. I don't I don't even know who Darby is. What is this? I don't want to do this. What's a do-know. It's and they'll just have a whole different thing dude, yeah, I mean That's that's so accurate too because Like the only thing keeping me going in this game right now is finding out what the fuck's going on modern day And if they don't wrap it up and this is gonna go at the bottom of my list real fast so that he's yep, but The tone and atmosphere that is present in the historical setting I actually think is much more complimentary of the modern day sections in this game Because I instantly felt the tone. I instantly felt the mood and I think it works so much better Because it brought me back to like, you know, ac1 ac2 days and it's like things are this things are serious And the stakes are high and they have the cute little mirror device of the aurora borealis being part of the apocalyptic event But also a big part of the nor psychonography. Yeah, and I was able like I I was just kind of running around I was actually interested in exploring actually.  This is what we should have gotten the year after assassins creed 3 This is what we should have got desmond should be in layless place It should be the same people in the same situation because ac3 unleashed juno on the world And this setup feels like it could be the resolution of that I don't know if or think juno is necessarily involved in this plot But for all intents and purposes with what I know now it might as well could have been at the time So like this feels like the long long long overdue conclusion to In some form what the modern day story was supposed to be and I really couldn't be happier about it I was not sure we'd ever see a good modern day again Even if this completely crashed and burned It would still have to be up there with some of the best modern days in the game Just for the fact that it like made me really feel things and got me invested and I believed in the mystery For at least the 60 or 70 hours that I've already played I have to give credit for that. I really do and I'm I I'm just I'm still right now Just itching to go back and play more primarily so I can get more of that shit Yeah, I completely I completely agree with you This this this does feel like the long-awaited follow-up to ac3 because ac4 was like Where are you be soft and then like, you know and and syndicate actually did we we both love syndicate But that was like such a little sliver of things. It was like a taste It was like an appetizer that was immediately shat upon by origins and yeah And that's the thing is like this is like this is darby This is darby respecting the modern day because yo, this is straight up darby I completely agree with you. It feels very long overdue It feels in line with those classic modern day Classic ac modern day stuff and I can't wait to see more that's it's keeping me going Here's how I knew they were taking modern day more seriously this time There's a story austin wintry the composer on syndicate told Where he asked the producers what kind of music he should make for the modern day of syndicate Because he was a fan of the games and he knew modern day was a big part and the producers at the time literally were like, yeah People don't really care about the modern day stuff. We're not gonna do a whole lot Don't worry about music too much for it And he didn't there's no music in any of the cut scenes of syndicate other than at the end where they play austin wintry's You know underground So on and so forth when I heard like this striking sci-fi arpeggio soundtrack in the modern day portion I knew I was like they got jesper kai in a room. They've got sarah schachtner. They've got you know These composers who are brilliant and who have made some of the best music ever in an ac game in vahala And they're like, you know what? Yeah do some music for the modern day We actually care about it right now. So just go ahead and make us some music Every time I like every time I hear it if because Minor spoiler you're gonna hear that music if you're ever in an animus anomaly uh Anytime I I'm hearing that modern day like Just um synthy futuristic Score I'm like pausing the podcast.  Yeah, that's a really small thing, but that's what I really appreciate Yeah, I mean, it's it's it's it's both what we're here for like, you know, it's Yeah, so it is very validating to have it and I Yeah, I'm really impressed with it so far.  That's what modern day does well assassin's creed, baby so Yeah, so we kind of we kind of edited on we kind of ended it on a good note tim you hate this game and that's okay But there are parts of it you like I like this game, but there are parts of it that I hate and Together when you when you when you put both of us in a pot and you stir it up That's that's one love and one hate, baby. That's that's pretty balanced We're pretty fair and balanced here on the hook played podcast And uh, yeah, I'm excited to see where it goes. I just am itching to play more I'm gonna see how I can edit this podcast around the fact that I want to play more assassin's creed vahala And hopefully in the coming weeks, I don't know if it'll be one week or two weeks Uh, we'll get to a point where we've played the whole thing. We will do an in-depth Spoilerful discussion of it for your ear balls, but we appreciate you listening to this and we hope we see you Next week, I have been the blade.


Hey, this is Brett, and this 2020 Ford F-250 Crew Cab Short Box Lariat FX4 is stock number 14166Z. I am here at Summit Automotive in Final Act, Wisconsin, you're new and used. Heavy-duty truck headquarters, this 2020 Ford F-250 has the 6.2-liter V8 gas engine. It's paired up with a six-speed automatic transmission. This truck has been fully-safetyed and inspected by our service shop per the state of Wisconsin inspection process. It has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, and this truck is 100% ready to go. Might be one of the cleanest F-250s on our lot right now, so that's what I'm going to do right now is go all the way around on this truck, inside, underneath, start it up, and just give you the most accurate representation that I can of the vehicle. This red is the color, I shoot all my videos in 4K. If you like the video, you can subscribe to my YouTube channel, which is youtube.com slash Summit Auto. Click the bell notifications, get updates on the videos I do each and every day, as well as having access to one of the largest catalogs vehicle and heavy-duty truck walk rounds on YouTube. This one comes with the 20-inch painted and polished aluminum wheels, really good looking wheels on this truck. Michelin LTX-AT tires, these are LT275 65-hour 20s, and I would say they have probably about 60% of the tread left. Frame and underbody is exceptionally clean on this truck. I did not see where this one was previously owned, I can check that out just a little bit, but I do know that it is extremely clean all the way around. Coming around the front bumper here, no dents, no dings, lower valance, looks really good. You get the factory fog lights and the chrome-trimmed grille. The hood is in fantastic condition as well, I didn't see any dents or dings on there, and the passenger side front fender, no major dents or imperfections there either. Passenger side front wheel, no scuffs or scrapes, and as you go down this side of this 2020 Ford F-250, take note of how clean that body is, how reflective and mirror-like that paint is. I take these HD videos, so if you're far away or even if you're close by and you just cannot make the trip down, but you're still interested in purchasing the vehicle, you can see the truck, hear the truck, and have confidence in the vehicle that you're looking at before you even get here, so when you do get here there's absolutely no surprises, and you can make a smart and informed buying decision from wherever you're at. Very nice down that side, I didn't see a single dent or ding. Back wheel is in excellent shape as well, and the back tires have just as much tread as the front tires, maybe even a hair bit more. Frame and underbody is in really nice shape, looks like it has all the remaining factory exhaust, floor rockers and cab corners all look really good, and it comes with a really nice wheel-to-wheel side steps, so you get the step by the box, so you can get back there. FX4 off-road suspension package, so you get the skid plates and the shocks, chrome-tipped exhaust, rear bumper is in excellent condition as well, no major dents or dings on there. Full towing package, which includes a receiver hitch four pin and seven pin wiring, and the tailgate is in excellent shape as well, didn't see any dents or dings on there, it does have the tailgate step assist and it also comes with a backflip fold-up tonneau cover, has a shock down assist, very nice spray and bed liner, fifth wheel and gooseneck prep package, four pin and seven pin wiring back here as well as your LED bed lights, and those turn on and off like so with the button, so that's really nice. And that spray and bed liner goes on to the tailgate and the tailgate step assist is right there, shuts nice and solidly, and as we go down this side of the truck, just as clean as that passenger side, no major dents or dings over here, back wheel is in excellent shape as well, no scuffs or scrapes, and down the rest of the side of the truck, doors and cab all look really good, you do get the power scope mirrors, they power telescope out, and the door folds in, LED side lights, blind spot monitoring as well, I'll show you how those work in just a second, you also have the door code entry, we do have the code for this truck, if you ever want to figure out what your code is for your 17-22 Super Duty in the upper right-hand part of the screen, got a video showing you how to find that. Latch child safety system on the back seats, back seats are in fantastic condition, no rips or tears back here, those have the power sliding rear window with the built-in root across, these seats do fold you do get a gooseneck ball for this truck and that's in the box there, also side box tie downs, there's a collapsible storage area right there, factory all-weather floor mat, carpeting is, or the floor is nice and flat, the carpeting is nice and clean, back here you get a USB-C and a USB and a 110 volt, 400 watt plug-in as well as a 12 volt power point, very nice and clean back here, side curtain airbags on the front seats and you do get child safety locks on the back doors inside and bottoms of the doors all look fantastic on this truck. Show you the VIN sticker here, no Canadian trucks here, and the tire and loading information sticker as well. So this truck was previously owned in Tennessee and Florida, so that's good to know. Inside the Lariat package gives you the black leather bucket seats in the front, both these front seats are heated and cooled, no rips, no tears, smells very clean inside this truck, factory all-weather floor mats, power pedals, power drop-down tailgate, auto headlamps, LED side lights for those mirrors, the telescopic and tilt steering wheel, that works nicely, power windows locks and mirrors and memory driver's seat, a little bit of wood grain trim on the door there. These mirrors do power fold in, I always like showing both sides, so you know that both sides are working properly and then they do power telescope out and in and out and in. Hop inside, check out the miles, the radio and everything that's truck has to offer on the interior. You can see this one has 50,824 miles on it, you do get a digital speedometer on there, instrument cluster is very nice and clean on that digital display and you also get a compass display as well. Comes with the leather-wrapped multifunction steering wheel, on the right we got volume and bluetooth controls, on the left you get cruise and information center controls. There's your shifter for that six-speed automatic transmission, this one does have the sync eight inch radio, you can see it does have the factory navigation system, there is highway 41 so that is working nicely. You have your different sources, AM, FM, Sirius and Bluetooth capabilities, there are your climate controls including your dual climate controls. You also have all your different settings on here, this one does have the Ford Pass Connect, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. So a lot of great stuff you can do with this radio, this is also where your backup camera and cargo cam are, there's your cargo cam that's working nicely, this one does have lane departure warning as well, downhill assist control, stability control, hazard lights and it does have the premium sound system on here. Turned-off four-wheel drive factory brake controller, down here your more tactile volume tune and climate controls, you get your wireless cell phone charge pad, USB USB-C, your keyless entry with the remote start power drop-down tailgate there as well and then here is my magic trick, Alakazam four cup holders and now two cup holders so that's my magic trick. LED lighting in the bottom of the cup holders, the ambient lighting can change those colors too, 12 volt power point and 110 volt 400 watt max plug-in right here dual gloveboxes, passenger side floor mats and seats are in excellent condition, no tears on there, the headliner is in great condition as well, you do get six auxiliary update switches as well as your power sign where your window button have map lights right there. Start it up and take a look under the hood, starts right up, no check engine lights or anything like that other than that my hood's open, I'm just going to turn all the lights on so you can see they're all working nicely. I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video you've been able to verify the quality condition options and of course cleanliness of this truck all the way around. There are those LED side lights, work really hard to give you the best representation that I can. This video is helpful, leave me a like, subscribe and comment in the description below. All the lights working nicely under the hood we have the 6.2 liter V8 gas engine, I believe it's 385 horsepower engine base, very clean runs, very smooth, once again this truck has been fully safe and inspected by our service shop, has a fresh oil and filter change, all the fluids have been checked and topped off, looks like the air filter is new too.  And I would highly recommend this truck from a quality and condition standpoint, I would have no problems shipping this one anywhere, California, Texas, New York, Florida, Wyoming, Idaho, you name it, whoever is going to get this truck is going to absolutely love it, I didn't see a single denser ding on it, I'd buy it myself, I'd sell it to a family member, it's really a nice truck. And to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 550 new and used cars, trucks, SUVs, minivans, ringlers, halftones, three quarter tons, one tons, you name it, we got to go to the website right there, summitauto.com, full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle, all at summitauto.com. If you'd like to check out more HD videos, you can go to youtube.com slash summitauto, click the bell notifications, get updates on the videos I do each and every day as well as having access to one of the largest catalogs of vehicle and heavy duty truck walk-arounds on YouTube. In fact, in a second you will see a link to subscribe to my YouTube channel in the upper left, a link to all the F-250 videos I've ever done in the upper right, link to this vehicle on our website in the lower left, and a link to one of our latest YouTube videos in the lower right, click those, check us out, we're super excited to help you with this Ultra Clean 2020 Ford F-250, Crew Cab Short Box, Lariat FX4 in Race Red Clear Coat. Thanks again for checking out the video, remember to like, subscribe, and share on the YouTube channel, I really appreciate it. Thanks again.


According to the pillager area fire and rescue, Swedes auto shop located along highway 210 and pillager was fully engulfed in flames when fire crews arrived at the scene. Firefighters remained there until four Thursday morning. Because the structure was a tin building, the flames were battled from the exterior of the building as opposed to the interior. There was no one inside the building at the time and no injuries were reported. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.


Hello and welcome back to the live coverage here at Cisco Live, this is theCUBE. John and Dave hosts, bringing you day two coverage. Dave, great to be here. We've been covering Cisco for 13 years, day two keynotes, keynote analysis. Last night we had the analyst reception where we met all the execs, saw the CEO and staff, had a chance to meet Chuck and Robbins and talk with them, as well as the leadership team of Cisco. And we got a little taste of what is going to come today in the keynote with the generative AI, workplace of the future, surprise comedian guest at the end, which I thought was great. But also the CSO, chief security officer of the NFL was on stage, G2 Patel, Jonathan Davidson. We didn't see Liz, Tony on there, but we saw the other two execs. Keynote review, what's your take? Well, so we mused yesterday as to whether or not Cisco had the potential to 5x its valuation over the next, you know, end number of years, call it 10 years. And whether or not AI and generative AI and large language models could be the opportunity for them to do that. We got a little glimpse today of what they're doing with AI, with hybrid work. And I saw some very cool things. I don't think I saw the next big thing. And my takeaway from today was that Cisco was going to continue to execute, they're going to continue to grow, they're going to continue to do well, and they're going to make solid bets that will lead to good, and I don't mean this as a pejorative, incremental improvements. I don't see anything radical in there. Now, again, I think they're trying to figure that out. I feel like the leadership team believes that they have an opportunity that is unique in the industry because of their presence. And they just haven't sort of unveiled, or even for themselves, figured out, okay, what is that thing? And it could come from anywhere. It could come from somebody in the front lines, somebody overseas out of the Liz's division that we can't figure out. We can't remember the name, the out shift division, right? The out shift, which is the incubation engine of Cisco, could come out of that. I love that area. Yeah, absolutely. And then, I mean, the highlight for me was Gaffigan. Jim Gaffigan, he was hilarious.  He's just really good. He aligned with a demographic for sure. Oh yeah. Mostly male network operators.  And it was pretty true. Now, given that the keynote, I thought a couple themes jumped out. I mean, Jonathan Davidson laid out unified experiences, build bridges. Clearly, they're going for this simplicity theme as we reported yesterday, but this idea of unification, not new to Cisco. They used to have unified as part of their compute model. Remember that unified compute? They tried to bring hyperconverge all that together under a unified umbrella. Here, they're thinking bigger. Unified platforms. So that was a big part of it. And they also brought execs up on stage. Thousand Eye founder was still with the company. And that's a real tell sign when you have the founder of Thousand Eye still with Cisco. Normally founders, when they sell to companies, they quit. Yep, they go start another company. They start another company. To compete with the last company. Thousand Eye is one of the best acquisition Cisco's done. Meraki as well. Founders still around. Always a great sign of health. Yeah. Yeah, so, and then, you know, again, big team was hybrid work. Gigi Patel talked about four key vectors. Audio, where they're using AI. Audio intelligence. And basically, their premise, which is I think the right one is, if you don't have good sound, you don't have any kind of interaction. We know this from theCUBE.  Audio is everything. Right. And then the second was video intelligence, which I thought was very interesting. They showed a demo. And it's so true. When you're in an hour and a half or a two hour meeting, and you got the same exact pains that people may be getting up, you know, leaving the room, coming back, getting a drink or whatever. But the same static pains, it gets really boring. So what he showed is a demo where the people in the room, the camera would follow them. You were saying it was RoboCam. So we, I'd like to ask Gigi how many cams they were actually using in that demo. But it was a really interactive experience, almost like you were watching a movie. So audio intelligence, video intelligence. Third was natural language understanding. So NLP, presumably to do real time translations, which is pretty powerful. And I've seen that go really well actually.  And then the last one was analytics and insight. So basically it's the telepresence and he also talked about the Apple deal. And they're not being really... He basically blew right over that. Yeah, they're not really saying much about it, but we think they're inside that mask, right? Inside the eyeglass. I have sources that tell me that Apple has done a deal with Cisco. Again, not fully confirmed. A little bit. So put that out there. It's not a rumor, but it's pretty much good source. That Cisco's technology, not WebEx, the telepresence, they got some deep technology, wave form technology, all kinds of cool shit, is going to be embedded in the display of Apple vision. Okay, now we know Apple. I know Apple really well. They're tight on messaging. They don't let people do testimonials. So J2 kind of fumbled by just mentioning it. He didn't fumble, but I'd say that he mentioned it, but he couched it almost like a lawyer. But he didn't want to screw it up. He didn't want to screw a wording. And he just said, Apple vision, we're going to be working with him. We really love the products. And then next, WebEx. He didn't really, he kind of announced it, but he didn't do anything. Yeah, well, so let's talk about that a little bit. So a couple of things too, I want to add to that. One is NVIDIA. He said they have NVIDIA in all their devices. And I'd like to understand where they're using them. For instance, Apple uses a GPUs inside of the iPhone, but my understanding is from my sources that it's just for the screen, for the screen interactions to make that as real time as possible. They're not using it for other purposes yet anyway. And so similarly, I wonder exactly which technologies are inside that Apple headset, those goggles. And so, but the fact that it's Cisco says a lot in terms of, you know, their ability to deal with, you know, things like latency and just, you know, good user experiences. So, but he's probably not going to talk about it because he can't. You know, the other thing I liked about the product description was he did a lot of product stuff, but also he had a business model innovation. That was that they're building natively on teams in Office 365s. And what they're doing is they're building the native team's functionality inside WebEx. So rather than trying to compete with teams, they're going to go compatible with teams and be follower. So, and they also point out the business model. So for teams, you got to pick extra for calling, extra async video, extra for webinars, extra for events, extra for polling. And the team's paper cuts. And they're right about that. And so that, and that's going to increase the cost of 64 bucks as high as $64 per user where WebEx is 11, you get all that same cost. So I thought that was notable. The true cost of hybrid work, he called it. I think the other thing, John, that I would point out is sort of doubling down on something that you said yesterday, like why is G2 Patel heading up both collaboration and security? And I think your answer was right on. It's because he's a platform guy. He knows platforms. And Cisco's in the process of moving from a product culture to a platform culture, from push the next feature to let the ecosystem and the customers guide us as to what features we want to enable on the platform. That's a different mindset, different thinking. And it really, I mean, the mindset can't be understated, right? It's like culture. You know, when you've been so successful, a company like Cisco with a sort of selling boxes, selling ports for years, and I know they're beyond that, but still at the end of the day, they make 50% of their revenues from networking gear. So to get the whole company thinking about platforms is a challenge. Antonio Neary has this challenge at HPE. Michael Dell and Jeff Clark and Chuck Whitten at Dell Technologies have this challenge. You know, it's easier for software companies. I mean, Oracle went through that and obviously has been pretty successful. Snowflake is another example. Databricks is doing it as well. These are platform, the Mongo. They're not ISVs, they're platform companies. And the platform trend is going to continue to happen with tools building on top, but the platforms is an enabling technology. They have to enable on top of it. And what I saw today from Jade Tupetel was the fact that they have things like a generative AI working. They're getting things going. So you're starting to see more and more of that. And of course, my favorite point of the keynote was the NFL CSO, she said, quote, physical and cyber security is converged. That's the way they look at it. And I think that's a new normal. That is going to be absolutely a thing. So no point solutions. Security market's not there. And that's the way it is. Yeah, yeah, speaking of security, I mean, it's a little kerfuffle on Twitter with key towns and if you're out there, you know, Cisco unquestionably is a player in security. It's a, you know, multi-billion, four billion dollar business, let's call it. But in fairness, you know, it's not growing that fast, growing to 2% last quarter. And that should grow faster. And that's why I think G2 brought in Tom Gillis to really help drive that business. But to your point, they got to bring security and networking together and that's going to give them a significant advantage. All right, day two of theCUBE, more action here at theCUBE. Pop-UpCube, that's what we do when we can't get space. We will do whatever it takes to get the story. Pop-UpCube, the big full set, one-on-ones. We want to get the data and share that with you. Go to siliconangle.com, cube.net. That's where the action is. We'll be back with more after this short break from Las Vegas.


Hi guys, it's Shalva from Life is No Yoke. We just got the new Explorian Vitamix E310. I had to look at the box. It's the Explorian 310. We're going to unbox it on video here. We're going to give you an up close look so you can see exactly what it looks like and what it comes with. And then we're going to have some more videos hopefully using it and messing around in our kitchen. Yay! Alright, so we've got Vitamix E310 Explorian Series. Looks like they're making like a delicious vegetable soup of some kind in here. Then you've got some details about it. We've got a five-year warranty, laser cut blades, metal drive system, and the 48 ounce container which to me is the most exciting part of this what's in this box is the 48 ounce narrow bodied. It's narrow bodied, right? The narrow bodied container. Built to last in three languages so you know it's got to be real. Go beyond blending and it explains that you can do all the things. Soups, smoothies, all that kind of stuff in this new Explorian E310 and this particular model comes in black. So let's open it. Let's get this thing open. Wait, you took my knife away and now how am I supposed to open it? That wasn't that hard actually. Alright, so we've got a bright colorful box. We've got trouble opening it because I can't ever open boxes appropriately. Okay, so what's really cool is that Vitamix has been packing stuff without using what's it called? Styrofoam lately. So it's all cardboard which is really cool. Alright, so first thing that comes out is that narrow bodied 48 ounce container. I'm super excited about this. I love making small batches but the 48 is big enough for like two people smoothie, two people soup. Love it. We've got first blends. Looks like a cookbook and also your, what's it called? You know. Getting started guide. Getting started guide. Sure, start your adventure. So that's in there. Tamper that fits the 48 ounce. You don't want to use a 64 ounce tamper because you'll have an explosion. So 48 ounce tamper, rolling. Don't open this box from a seated position. You'll be too excited to open it from a seated position anyway. It's very well packed to the point where like Lenny might have to come help me. Literally. Oh no, I just was pulling it the wrong side. Okay, so then here is the base at the bottom here and I believe just to make the picture pretty. So here is the Explorian machine itself.  I like that. Looks fancy. All right, so we've got this new Explorian model. It looks like it has the manual switches which I really love. It feels like you have like more control over it when you have switches like this and then you've got your variable speed control from one to 10. So it doesn't have the presets. It doesn't say smoothie. It doesn't say cleaning cycle but it still does all the things that a preset machine can do just with a simpler front, simpler model. We've got the coil roll behind or underneath which I really like because then if you have an outlet really close you can coil the rest. You don't have like a super long cord just sticking out which is great. So this one comes with a five-year warranty and the motor is a little bit different than the motors on the new Ascent series. So this is a 2.0 horsepower, right? And the Ascent comes with 2.2. The only difference is that the 2.2 is built to run the four-inch blade in the 64 ounce container and this isn't a four-inch blade. It's a three-inch blade and so it doesn't need as high of horsepower. It still creates the same creamy, thick smoothies, soups, nut butters. What I love about this machine is that it comes with this smaller container as it's like main container which means you can make smaller batches of things like nut butters and frozen desserts where you don't have to make such a large minimum batch size to meet the minimum minimum requirement. So this is the Explorian 310. We're going to take some close-up pictures so you can really see it and then we'll mess around with it a little bit and show you what you can make. So guys, if you appreciate this video, if you like these unboxing videos, if you like reading our reviews, please like and subscribe. I think there's a subscribe button up here. Subscribe to our channel, visit our website Life is No Yoke. You'll get all the details you could possibly want about this machine and all the others to compare. So thanks so much for watching, guys. Bye!