Scout, I swear to God. Hey everybody, it's December twelfth, twenty
twenty three. How did we get this far so fast? Welcome to the
Giant BombCast powered by n z XT. I am your host, jan Oh
Choa, joining me co captain of the ship. He's on a sub slowly
heading towards you, slowly but steady. He can stay underwater for months at
a time thanks to nuclear power. Jeff grub Welcome everybody. It's time for
Pandora Watch twenty twenty three. The avatars are here. Get out your Jake
Sully's number one foam hands. Put him in here. I want to see
him. We got our own beautiful blue person. He's he's blue. He's
beautiful. Abud Abu day. We got Mike Manavi in the house. I'm
Mike Manavi. I won't sing the entire song this time, just because you
brought it up. Thank you, Mike, Thank you Mike. And of
course still still some say he's still sleeping right now, still standing up our
own sleeping beauty, the Aurora of the Giant Bomb Team. Jeff Backlar,
that's true. People say that about me. I bet you sleep really nice.
I bet so. Sometimes I'll wake up. And my wife says,
I took pictures of you again? What what I can tell you exactly how
much? How well I sleep? Well? Yeah, I got a picture.
I got a picture of This is not meant to be creepy, even
though the potential for creepy is there. Uh uh. We were at the
fandom LA office for hour whittling down and there were some production hiccups that we
had iron out, and Lucy goes, I'm gonna go to sleep on that
couch and I'm like, you can't fall asleep on that couch and she's like,
watch me. And not thirty five seconds later was this person zonked out
on a couch in the middle of an open area office. I could not
believe it. I believe it. And I took a photo. Eat your
hand if you took a picture of someone sleeping or in bed this past week.
Yeah, most she took a picture of me sleeping, because you know
what, I took a picture. I took a selfie of us in bed.
I'm counting that's fine. I took a picture of Jeff grubbsleep. Huh.
I woke up on Oh yeah, look at that, there's me doing
the business. Now. I almost took a picture of a Dan sleeping while
we were watching Godzilla Minus one, but you know, we were in the
middle of a moony everyone. If you want to like save your sanity,
don't ask Dan about Godzilla mouse one. Just just save yourself. Yeah,
it's as a Remember he did not like the Batman, so it's par for
the course he did. He did not realize that the main character of Godzilla
minas one was a Kamakazi pilot. So that's that's where we're at with Dan.
Just you watch the well, you watch most of the seplace. I
don't know, I mean yourself. He definitely deserves ship. Like we're not
saying. We're not saying, don't make fun of him for falling asleep in
a movie, Like yeah, yeah, hey, well I'm asleep too.
But I was very, very sleepy, Jane, I told you, And
hey, if I start storing, wake me up, and I'm halfway through,
I feel an elbow. I'm like, oh it happened, Okay,
and then I woke up and I was good. Why would you have all
fallen asleep? There's no reason. It makes no sense. Hey, we're
all back from Los Angeles. How do you. How does everyone feel.
We did the Game of the Year, we did the live show, we
did GB at night. I feel good. That's fine. Anyways, I
can never fall asleep during movie. This guy just can't do it. It's
like a no end and it's great. It's like, yeah, yes,
but what about or know what about Mike Manatti. That's exactly what I we
go. That's a new improv thing. Yeah, no, no, but
Mike. But but yeah, let's start an improv comedy troupe and not explain
who Mike Manatti is. Uh huh. I feel very good. I had
a great It was a great week. It was a lot of fun.
By the end of the week, I couldn't speak anymore, but that was
fine. It was still a good time. I felt so bad trying to
talk to Jeff as we were like in the airport getting on our flight back
home. He dropped two things during breakfast and voice was nothing. He was
he's so sleepy. He ordered a double express so and I was almost gonna
be like, how are you gonna fall asleep on the plane, And then
I was like, he's gonna have no problem. I had no problem.
I fell asleep right away. Yeah, yeah, instant teleportation on that plane
right back, it was the best. Literally long asleep before takeoff being woken
up by the landing. Beautiful, Or you did sleep on this plane right?
Wait a second, I yeah, I do want to circle back on
that. But you fell asleep before takeoff. I have like some vague memories
of like this story for a second, be like, oh, we must
be in the air now, and then going back to bed. Yeah beautiful.
Yeah. So I wound up taking a red eye on Saturday night because
there was a storm coming into the New York City area that I was worried
was gonna like, yeah that I was worried that like it was somehow going
to keep me in LA. And let me tell you, I can only
be in Los Angeles for a finite amount. Okay, we had expired our
due date in Los Angeles for sure. Yeah, the expiration date depended on
my site on my side was rapidly approaching and I had to get at a
dodge. I moved up my flight and by the way, this was also
the fastest I've ever made it through an airport. I left you guys at
what like like ten thirty I think, Yeah, I was sitting at the
gate at so it takes Jeff. Oh, oh, what happened? Is
it just me? Wait? What's going on? Oh? No? Oh?
Is it everyone? Oh? Oh, oh my god, what happened?
Hello? Everybody? Oh god, I'm wrong everyone again for a second,
it happened to everybody? Right? Does that just discord? My internet
was still working? Was working? You guys? Throw all of you froze
for me at the same time. I think that's a discord if you can
talk on. Is this the big one? Well, I'm glad it could
be with you guys. Come on, let's bring it in. Yeah,
all right, all right? Where was I? Where was you were?
Yeah? You got to the gate ro early. I got it. Yeah,
it was. It was incredible. Again, have you ever have you
ever gone to the TSA and and you see nothing like? It was like
that for Jeff and I because we got we had a very early flight,
so it was, oh my god, oh, so completely empty. I
I pre checked and I went through and I'm like, I'm like, oh,
I got through so fast. Like I just joked like you'll probably get
through before me. But no, I'm like, no, I got pre
check. And I turned around. He's like right there. So I like,
did you guys have to separate? That's pretty we had different classes,
sucker, Yeah it was. It was amazing. I had the whole road
to myself on this flight, and you know, I did fall asleep for
like good chunks out of time. It wasn't like a straightaway because it was
also a pretty turbulent flight, and I was just sort of like rock back
and forth in my own little Yeah. It was fine, Like that doesn't
turbulence doesn't bother me. It's very normal. But I just I just like
couldn't. I obviously it's a cliche. I realized, like it's impossible to
get comfortable in one of those seats, but like I was deeply uncomfortable.
I like, I don't know what to do with my arms. I'm gont
know what to do with my plans for you guys. You guys, everyone
on like seven thirty seven was on the Airbus. Air Bus. Was it
like one of the bigger airbuses because those are super comfortable. So like in
terms of like the atmosphere and stuff, I mean, the plane's fine,
it's just the seat. Like I you know, I got spoiled last year
getting to go on the whatever the United first classes, I forget what's called
right, yeah, and that was unbelievable with the lay flat seat and you
just you just go to bed. Like if I had that, I would
have been well, of course I would have got out. Yeah, I
get my one of those like neck pillows, and if you get I get
a window seats. I can lean against the side of the plane and that's
usually enough. Okay, okay, I need advice. This is this already
happened to me. But on the way down to Los Angeles, I put
all my stuff in the trays. They made me take out all the electronics,
and then on one of my trays is a neck pillow that I didn't
bring. It's not mine, It's suddenly there and then I like hold it
up and I'm looking around like is this yours? Is yours? Is it
yours? The TSI TSA guy goes like, well, serious, now,
man, like you don't have a lost and found, I just should take
it. Anyways, I don't think it should be. I think that that
fellow is officially suspicious, like right, and that like I what I asked
about a lost and found, he just went and then he like lumbered away
I'm like, Okay, we're gonna put this in the middle here so everyone
can see, and then I'm gonna walk away, should take it or thrown
it in the trash the loss of founds only for the guns and knives.
I guess maybe that's right. Yeah. I think I've left something on the
plane once and then they like went and got it for me. Uh wow,
they wouldn't let me go back in. That was a long time ago.
Uh but yeah, I can't imagine it's worth anyone's time to have like
a real lost and found that plane's going places. Just yeah, that's that's
someone else's responsibility now. I don't know about you guys, but I do
have a lot of anxiety when I go through like TSA stuff, mostly like
oh, did I forget an electronic in my bag? Sure are they're gonna
find something on me because they always swabbed me every single time. They didn't
do that to me. Yeah. The one the other time they did that
to me is when I like, I actually did forget a knife in my
bag and they're like check it real quick, and then they almost gave it
back to me, and someone's like, uh no, trustworthy that this seems
like a swell guy like they did the family guy thing of like look at
the shade of light trustworthy. Yeah, I do have my bag still and
have for the last few times. I've flown a little multi tool like credit
card thing. Sure, and it's got like ridges and on the extra I
could see it. It always looks like it's got serrated edges, so it
looks like and they're like always like, and I like look, and I'm
like, you could just look at it real quick. And as soon as
I see that, they're like, oh, whatever, okay, just let
it through and yeah, but uh, I have not been stopped in quite
some time. But I had the most anxiety this time going back home because
John Luke and I were in the same flight, so we just roll together.
But John Luke took the Ichi bond and crry you cardboard cutouts and then
the whole time I'm looking at them, I'm like, are you nervous at
all? Like what if they make us throw it away? Like we loved
it all here and the whole time, bless John Luke. John Luke is
the calmest person in the world. They were like, no, it's fine,
it's cool. I'm like, do you want to check it in?
Nah? It's fine. I'm like, okay, do you want to check
in one of your bags so you can just hold on to the cardboard cutouts?
Nah? So we get through security at that, like you know,
like here I am throwing out all of my stuff onto the trays. I'm
looking at John Luke. You're gonna try and stick it onto the tray?
Nah? John Luke just heads it to the person at the TSA. And
then we watched TSA like gently swab Ichi Bun's face and then curious face and
then like gives us the green light. The fuck are they swabbing? What
the fuck are they doing? I don't know? In organized crime? Yeah,
he's a part of the yakuza. But like it's paper cardboard. What
if it's like lethal cardboard? What do you mean you ever get a nasty
paper cut from opening a box? I guess yeah? And then what and
you laid it off to Okay in the airplane, if we have a HULO
incident, Yeah, what if John Luke decides to home alone? Us huh,
I got a called Grandma and a come home cote home alone. That's
pretty good. And then you know, so we have Southwest and we have
like the last possible boarding group. So we already think like, oh,
we're fucking screwed. We we hobble onto the play and John I'm holding John
Luke's bag. Uh. There they have the cardboard cutouts, and of course
there's like one window seat that we think, oh, we'll stick them over
there, but we have to like go forward and go back to put our
bags up. And then John Lucas tried to throw Echi bud over like two
rows of seats to get to the window, and then the poor flight attendant
is just looking at us idiots. It was like here, just just give
give them to me. That's the move. And and then like thankfully they
put each EVN and carry you next to the beverage cards safely they tuck them
away, and we had to be the last people off the plane because we
were sitting close to the middle because those are the only seats left. And
then we had to like hobble back to get each bone and carry you and
they're safe. That's worth it, though, right, Like it's totally worth
and I first off, we should tell everyone like there was an attempt to
ship these back and someone came back with a quote of like was it fours?
They got four hundred dollars? There's no way that's how much that costs.
But yeah, I guess it doesn't help. No, that definitely,
but like that's the move, right, and you guys were maybe even more
casual about it. I feel like, get on that plane and you just
like find what appears to be the nicest flight attendant and you're like, hey,
can you help me out here? I'll tell you are how do you
find the nicest slight attendant? Oh, you judge them, judge them by
it. No, you judge them by the greeting you get when you walk
on the plane, and then you find your mark. Rights are actually like
angels. Have you ever had one that saved your life? Like I had
a bad throat thing coming back from icelings. I drink too much PEPSI Max,
and I was like, we don't listen, never mind ahead the truth.
I would never lie to you guys. I and I was like,
I don't think I could swallow anymore. I need water so bad. And
it was like that was not happening yet. So I walked up to the
she like looked like an angel, Please She's like, just give it a
second, we'll get it. And like she comes to hands with me like
five minutes later a full giant bottle of Icelandic water, and it saved my
life. It was the best one flight attendant saved my life once because you
know, my debilitating addiction to coffee. I needed a cup on the plane.
And then she puts her hand on my shoulder and says, looks me
in the eyes, says, honey, you do not ever want airplane coffee.
Oh yeah, And that put enough fear in me to wake me up.
Here you go. Yeah, that was That was a fun week.
That was a fun week. Yeah. Yeah. Apparently everyone does, like
in Los Angeles, they like leave town throughout all of December because no one's
from Los Angeles, so they'll go home. I guess I did kind of
notice that by the end of the weekend, and I guess that's why LAX
was a little bit slower, because most people had already left, they'd already
been on for for a week. I imagine why you want to be leaving,
You want to be leave in Los Angeles. I feel like, uh,
for the most part, as much as you can, that's as much
as it's Christmas in Los Angeles. Yeah, your Shane Black moves. Unless
you're heard delusional asshole, it can't exist in that very warm city, that's
right. So I feel like Dan, I feel like Dan Riker is like
a troublemaker person. I just want to get this out there and explain how
much of a troublemaker he is. And he he did turn into like an
antsy toddler at some point. It's like, oh, someone get a tablet
for him and sit him down, Like that's what it felt like. You're
one hundred percent right. We should have totally brought him like some kind of
etch a sketch or like Fisher Price baby first tablet, right, because yes,
I just laid there happen. Yeah you weren't. Yeah, Grub wasn't
innocent in all this. There is some blood on his hands as well.
But Dan was a straight up fucking toddler for multiple moments during this trip,
and I just want everyone to know with him not being here able to defend
himself, because he would totally be like, well, you're a you know,
this is what happens when you're restless, and he would come up with
something and believe that he himself had gotten away with these crimes. But no,
he is a little baby idiot sometimes and the major problem he had pulling
up his mess. Yeah, oh I felt so bad. Yeah, he
got in trouble. Yeah they couldn't. Yeah, Dan got restless because the
uber is taking so long, so he tried tying grabs shoes together for the
second time. The grub finally like, no, don't. They just took
the shoe and went outside with it, but then couldn't get back in,
so there was like a hostage negotiation. But Dan went and filled the shoe
with a bunch of tiny pebbles that were nearby from like the garden of the
building where the fandom offices are. But then like so, like when Jeffake
gets a chance to grab the shoe, he grubs it violently so that the
pebbles went flying everywhere. They went all over the place. It sounded like
the glass broke when these pebbles went everywhere, bearing the white at us as
we're doing this. It was mortifying. What I would just say it it
was mortifying, And then it was it was terrible. And there I am
and I saw these two guys, They're like, what's going on over there.
I said, Oh, don't worry, I'm just friends with fucking idiots.
And then on top of that, a stranger lady tried talking to us
for a while. Oh yeah, that was a clearly like weird, like
medical surgical thing in that office. And this lady came downstairs high as fuck
on something that I've never done, and she was like, these are my
new friends. Weird. Ten minutes, I gotta talk to Dan also about
another charge on my room that I don't know what's going on, some sort
of cleaning fee that i' the stuff he put in my pillows are your pillows?
So he well, yeah, so like the night the last night,
we had to get up at like five am grub and eye to get to
uh lax, and yeah, Backler left early so he let me use his
room. But the whole week, uh Dan found out I never watched face
officer. We're watching face off. We're watching face off. He had all
these grand plans. Eventually everyone else was like, no, we're tired,
but he just wouldn't leave this room. He's like twenty minutes or twenty minutes
of face off, twenty minutes of face off, and I'm like grub.
You had to tell him it's unreasonable. Jeff hop Asleep's like, oh yeah,
twenty minutes is fun. So he does it. And of course,
because I've never seen face Off, I want to see the rest of it.
So now I'm just up with him watching face Off. Had we finished
it two hours of sound, but he's such a point. I left the
room for like ten minutes, and when I came back. What's funny is
at first there's like a sugar in the raw on the sheets, and it
was like, that's weird. I was like, that's weird. He's like,
oh yeah, what do I backward did that? There was like paper
utensils in the pillowcase and tea bags. I was like, oh, clearly
Dan did this a right, Okay, well he's a master, what genius,
it's not all of it? Back I'm sorry, well yeah, what
a prankster elite pros to that man is like literally just looks around the room
and his toddler band is like, how can I how can I just mess
with him in the most borderline inconvenient way. How tea bags? They're like
tea bags about heroes of diversity, and they had like like yeah, Martinuther
King one, and that's they were. Were they still closed or were they
used? I gotta send down a dry cleaning bill, is what's gonna happen?
Yeah, boy? Also a dog bit me, Yes, I remember.
I remember when like you came back to the Jade Tuf we were in
a remedy after party, which we don't know how we got there and then
back ours like a dog bit me. I'm trying to get him to explain
it, and I'm like, I still don't really understand what happened. Eventally
that night he didn show me his leg and I thought he was wearing a
sock, a white sock, but it was just how white his leg is.
It is the paleless like I've ever seen, Jeff. It was not
Barley for for all things, it was not. It was a feral dog,
La dog. It was a la dog who had clearly seen some ship
in its life. Okay, So I was. We left the remedy room,
which was one of a little more wilder and fun rooms we had been
in all of TGA. So we're getting back and you know, I went
by myself. I guess I was trying to Oh, I was trying to
meet you. Guys right, who I believe you guys were at like a
twitch thing or something right with Mary. Right. Yeah, there's a loping,
hopping back and forth between the FIG and the JW right, which you
know might be only a couple thousand feet, but might as well be a
river between them, okay, because it's a bit treacherous dogs. Yeah,
right. So, I, as a fast walker, was behind a group
of people that were just not moving quick enough for me. So I decided
to pass on the right, which you should never do. You should only
pass on the left when you're driving, but when you're walking, I guess
it's safe to pass on the right. So I pass on the right,
and I do see in the distance a couple hundred feet in front of me
as a yappie dog, and I'm like, oh, that's a little shit
dog, you know whatever, it's yeah, And it was on a leash,
and it was being sort of like tethered to someone sitting on a chair
in the middle of the street, and you know, I didn't really think
much of it. I was a little drunk. I was sort of just
like whatever. So I walked around this group that's taking too slow and this
dog, I can see out of the corner of my eye. I'm like,
I'm probably gonna pass pretty close to it, but it's on a leash
and I'm safe. I was wrong. This dog did not like the fact
that I was walking too fast. It was scared by me, I guess,
and it just leaped right at it, just like yeadd itself. What's
the protocol here? Do you just walk away? You know someone else is
dogging that bites you? Right? I mean It's like it was like you
could if you wanted to. Then it felt like a chihuahuah. It was
small as hell, like I knew it. Yeah, the one I had
had no more water left in it. I was I was shooting blanks.
I was shooting blanks. So this thing lunges at my jeans and it like
it definitely like nipped me, like I felt the teeth on my skin,
and I was like, oh, like this I did one of those like.
I didn't pick it. I didn't kick it, because even in that
moment of passion and fear, I did not choose to kick the dog.
You were stronger. I was stronger, I was better. I was the
better animal, and you were better slightly yes, And I fucking just like
lunged my foot away and it just broke its It broke its grip. But
there I am, and I'm like, what the fuck? Dog? Like,
what why'd you do that? And then I'm like, oh, this
dog's probably has like a terrible life, and I just I get it.
Fun. Did the owners say anything that even notice? Well, the owner,
I don't think the owner was very concerned about what his dog was doing.
Cool was not a favorable environment at all for anyone involved. Sure,
let's just leave it at that. Uh. And you know, the dog
was eating out of a styrofoam tray of some sort and then saw my leg
and thought that maybe that's tastier than what I got in front of me,
and so it so it's like, you know it it clenched on for a
second, and then for a second I'm like walking back and I'm like,
oh, man, that kind of hurts. I hope it didn't break skin.
I hope I'm not bleeding now from a wild street dog that I will
probably have to go to the hospital or at some point. So I got
back to the to the fig and I like lifted up my thing, and
sure enough, there was no broken skin. So we can laugh about this
instead of uh, morning morning, my rabin is dead water just doesn't sound
very good today. Yeah, but it was pretty fucked up. I was
pretty mad at the whole situation, but I did kind of shrug it off
in a way that, uh, it was very mature of you. Yeah.
Thanks. Anyway, I was almost dinner for a while. The fled.
It was a good time speaking about dinner Mike's birthday dinner. Man,
I still am sweating meat from it, but I feel bringing more meat.
We were at a Korean barbecue, and you know this is a lot when
I say, I think that's the most red meat I ever ate in wo
meal. It was great. It was great. I thought we were done
after like halfway through, and then I see there's still a giant steak on
the table that has yet to be cooked. Oh, it's fantastic. It
was. It was too much meat. My favorite part is knowing that myself,
knowing because because Bailey told me that it's one of those joints where they
will cook the meat for you. But she was running around a lot,
the kind woman helping us out. That grub turns over and goes, John,
can you help us out? And I'm like, no, I said,
we need an adult, we need an adult. So I go over
thinking like, yeah, I eat curry barbecue almost too much. I'll just
flip it for the boys. And then I wonder, it's because I'm the
Asian here, isn't it isn't that? Isn't that why? But then it
was great, closest and the Asian you were driving that chip in a weird
way. I feel like that's great. That's great, especially for Dan who
has never done anything outside of his own comfort zone, watching sesame oil for
the first time. Pure bliss, pure bliss. Oh, he had never
had okay, and he's delicious, so of course he's gonna like it.
And I'm not joking. He really truly, I don't know if you were
there for that conversation, but he really truly did not understand meat temperature,
Like you didn't know when when was that conversation because I was in front of
you guys the whole time. I heard him say burnt to a crisp,
which is something he says about someone that always orders meat, and that that's
Ben Hansen, Okay, Ben Hanson, right, yes, which is just
a psycho like if someone at my table orders meat burned to a crisp.
I now consider them like a serial killer, like a well done person,
he said, burned to a christ. They were like, you mean well
done? He's like no more than that. He Dan just thought meat gets
cooked and that's it. And I was like, no, you can.
You gotta wait, Like he make a medium rare and then you put it
back in the fridge and it goes back to rare. No, it turns
back into a cow. Could you open your fridge and there's a little tiny
cow there? Then it was insane to me. I don't know how you
missed the jan I have a bone to pick with Tam and Lucy. Oh
okay, Tam and Lucy have too many cool friends, right yeah, that
I need like a primer or a brief as to like for real, when
I walk up to them, I'm like, Okay, who are you hanging
out with right now? So I don't embarrass myself and look like an idiot?
Yeah, because that happens all the time. I see that happened to
be a little bit on the couch because they're like, we can get remedy
for the couch and Sam Lake, I'm like, oh cool, cool,
cool, and then like as like we're getting as we're walking to the couch,
Kyle Rowley, the director of Allan Wake two, so like hello,
I'm Kyle. I'm like, oh yeah, Kyle Rally. I just looked
up the name. I did not know he was the director of the game
until we started the conversation and I put two and two together, like that's
how that happened. So I just a cheat sheet would help. And it
was like very funny at dinner because like I like look up and I'm like,
wait, that's Michael Nai right in front of me, and right next
to him is the voice actor actor for Ashley and Resident Evil Force and he
loves residevil for it. Oh yeah, you talk to her. Were just
in the middle of like figuring out this. Meics like, oh look,
hey, Mike, that's the voice of as. Did you wait? So
you do you did know or you did not know during the dinner He knew
during the Okay, that's the best because if you Scott seated next to her
too, I feel like you would have been uncontrollable, very like you.
I feel like you would have Yeah, actually, you know what do you
you You're you're able to keep it. You're able to do cool Cucumber totally
A million questions like so like it's leon cool Like I remember in the game,
Uh yeah, I thought that was neat. Did they throw you in
a dumpster to hide while you're doing those lines? H Yeah. They know
a lot of cool people, and I agree Grub. There were many times
where I was like having you know, because I just I'll just introduce myself
to people, but I don't tell them what I do. So I'm just
like, oh, hey, I'm Jeff, and we just start talking about
everything but video games and everything but what we're doing. And most of those
I mean, obviously I know who Sam Lake is, but most of those
remedy guys, I just, you know, I didn't know. And I
feel like there was the first night we were talking for like an hour at
the pool and then we all left, and I was like, those are
nice dudes who were Every time after I hang out with it is it's Danna
Lucy's fault because they're too cool. They're too cool. Like they end up
having a very long conversation with Kyle Rally and now I'm like, you're my
friend. Yeah, Kyle, super cool, really really cool cats. He
like was like, oh yeah, Mike, you like the knife Perry and
Recible four Like it was like that, like, oh okay, you like
listen watch the content. Eh, it was very very nice. It was
very sweet. But you mean lots of good times. Yeah, really great
trip, uh fantastic uh segments on the couch grub like organized all that stuff.
Guys. Yeah, it was I mean a lot of fun. It
was like like always, it's everyone makes it super easy because they're just they
know what to do. Get on there, start talking, and they make
it very easy for me. But it was a good time. It's always
great to like get the into the in between segments and I'm like taking a
breather and make it sure I remember who's coming up next. I look at
the monitor of like what's happening on the party, and it was hopping at
that points that night, it was oh nuts out there. Yeah, very
about sup like the person at one point, but we don't need to get
into that, right. I cleared off a whole table, put thumbtacks and
barbed wire on it, but it never got used right tragically. Yeah,
can you imagine that happened? Yeah, the live show happened. Oh my
god, I think my cake. There's a cake in my face at some
point then stabbed it. I didn't. My children were scared of that thing.
Yeah, we will not keep uncle mikey. Can I just say,
like I knew, obviously knew about the cake. I knew what was going
on, but until I actually saw it get cut in half, prepared for
that, I was deeply upset by Its similar to the way where like you
see a lobster get thrown a lot of lopster get thrown to a pot,
Like I had that reaction where I like almost couldn't even look at it.
It's something like primordial in our guts. That's just like I should not be
whatever this is. It shouldn't be happening. Yeah, yeah, pretty good.
Bothered me. It bothered me a lot. Pretty good. I was
like, yeah, fun Fett, he's got to be the one cake that
Mike would be down with you. Yeah, that was a friend of Chef
Bob. Shouts out to Chef Bob for linking us up with fat lemon s.
D Yes, cool, pretty freaking cool. Like if you go to
the d N. Yeah, like the tension of detail and certain parts of
it were like like there was like weird shading on it to where you're like
the flesh color on the feet was the most messed up part. When no
one was looking, I got up like real nose to nose with it,
and I just wanted to make sure it wasn't alive like I was just I
just had to be like like that. And that turns out it was a
cake. But still one of the best parts is that they have had never
seen RoboCop until then either, so they watched RoboCop for research to fully know
robo mic They were like, what is awesome co robo Mitch? Sorry?
Sorry, I haven't been any called Mitch very much lately. Are you upset
about that little? Oh? Really? I miss it. I miss it
nostalgic period of his life. This is how Dan wins Mike. You can't
exactly he doesn't call me the least, calls me Mitch the least. Now,
Yeah, I guess it's played down or something. I don't know.
I do. I do want to thank everyone who came out to that show.
There were tons of people who flew, which just blows my actual mind.
So you are unbelievably special to us. Thank you to each and everyone
who was able to attend in person, who purchased a poster, who watched
the live stream, or even if you thought about us and you were like,
look at this. Oh, you know, shouts out to Marino.
It was so cool seeing Marino for the first time in person. Feels like
ears. Yeah, Marina was such a help. Thank you so much,
Marina. He'll downplay it, but it was really nice to have. Yeah,
it was a exactly for sure. Yeah, well, shouts always be
clothing. Who got us each? Oh that was amazing, so sweet,
so sweet of a person. Yeah, I got that video. I'll share
it with you. Always be clothing. We'll do a mail bag. Yeah
oh yeah sure, yeah but yeah, shouts out again. I don't think
you get enough flowers for this, Jeff, Jeff, backlar, ladies and
gentlemen. Yes for like spearheading all this shit? What what the adult in
the room? Right? Yeah? Yeah? Never what happened without him?
Thanks guys. I mean I can't take all the credit. A lot of
people helped, obviously, you all such a major part of this. It
was a lot. It's a lot of work. We need help, we
need help. Yeah, like totally uh so, you know, We're gonna
do this again for sure in what capacity, I'm not sure. Hopefully sooner
than later, definitely before the next TGAs. But yeah, it was great.
It was It was really awesome to see it be executed and all these
purposes everyone. I feel like it. I feel like it kinda kind of
really just went off without a hitch. If it's weird, So it's weird
that it did, right. The funny The funniest part was we got to
the venue of like eight am, and you know, you go in and
like there's people who work at the venue. They're starting to get set and
Jane and I are looking at the big open floor and we're like, we're
like, all right, so there are going to be chairs, right,
There are gonna be chairs here. Like chas was like a real thing up
until the last minute, because I feel like I wheeled it into reality,
where like two days prior, I'm just like, hey, guys, I'm
just gonna say this because it's on my mind. I don't think if it's
anything to worry about, but there's a part of me that's slightly worried that
there's not gonna be seats in this thing, and I forget you know,
I don't know what I'm basing it on. It's just a vibe, just
a little intuition, but it's enough where I want to say something out loud,
just so at the very least there's like a there's like evidence of me
caring about this thing. And then we get to the venue and we're backstage,
and I'm like, I think I like elbow, Jen, and I'm
like, look at all those fucking chairs. Yeah, yeah, no see.
But even then, like an hour later, Beckler comes to me like,
they're gonna put the chairs out right, like, well, what if
those aren't our chairs? Right? Like what if those chairs got someplace to
be right? Like what if what if it's not here? But then the
second we started seeing them moves, I go, what did I say?
Jen, I'm like, chairs a movement? Chaers moment, look at the
moot, look at them. Go. Man, I don't realize how many,
how quickly you can lay down almost three hundred chairs, but you would
do amazing that That venue staff was maybe like three people, but they made
everything happen so fast. There's like a mad dash to get out there when
it was done, because there's two more shows that night that say they were
booked. I noticed it in the green rooms after we left. They put
stuff like drinks and and loaves of bread. I'm like, what the fuck,
I didn't get no roof of bread? You know, I think if
we are locked and loaded a little earlier, Yeah, we had an emergency
rider. It was just like oxygen. Yeah. I put like a box
of all of our stuff in the lobby and I propped the door open with
it so we could get back in and out just in case we forgot anything.
And then the person working the front door just like slowly kicks it out
and closes the door. Here. Okay, yeah, they but like as
much as you know, under their breath, they they wanted us out there.
They were so accummodating. Yeah, super nice, and like that's the
vibe of a lot of those places. You know. I've been to tons
of venues around the country, and when you find the right people, like
everyone's super chill. You know. Yeah, I love that. That's the
right kind of scene for us, for sure. Yeah, fantastic. I'm
only asking because I've been as so often the vod is going up on YouTube.
So unfortunately, my number one enemy in the world, which is the
TriCaster poop the bed partially in the middle of the stream, so the stream
archive is a little bit broken. I'm waiting to get the full archive from
our zachar technical the local file the local file, so we can upload that
in full. But if you do want to seek it out, there is
a good ten minutes missing from the middle though, where we have another category
and the giveaway is cut out, and then the beginning of best momentar sequence
is also cut out. So hopefully that comes in soon and then that will
be up asap, folks. Yeah, hopefully hopefully. If not, I
will just do it like a recap of what had happened and reenactment. We'll
just a yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. That'll be easy,
actors to play us and stuff. Yeah, that's actually an email later.
Should we talk about games? Do what we want to? Okay,
I was gonna say, like, I'd be fine recapping the rest of the
week that was, but we could drop there we go games? Could I
play something? Oh? I did some like I don't know, I didn't
put this in the rundown or anything, but I did some like old school
game and I played some NHL hits two thousand and two. Wow, okay,
don't just speak about it, be about it. What happened? Man?
That game holds up in a way that like I was kind of surprised,
did you. I'm sure you played that grub right, I was talking
about kid? What game is it? Hits Hits two thousand and two.
Oh yeah, yeah, oh yeah absolutely. I played a ton of it
at the time. It was one of those ones where it was like in
the weird period where I was moving around a little bit, so I was
like, didn't have a dedicated friend to come play games with me like I
did in Michigan, where we would just play a ton of stuff. So
it's like I didn't play even as much of it as I wanted to.
But I really like that game. There is something about arcade hockey that works
so so well that it's insane. I get the addressable market whatever a jerk
off hand motion. But they should still make those games. They absolutely should.
They tried to do it, like maybe twelve years ago or something where
EA put out like a three on three hockey game that was like that was
probably like sixty percent of the way there, but not totally. Yeah,
that mode is okay, The craziest part of NHL Hits is that I think
the puck there's something real, more realistic about the way the puck reacts in
that game than like what Natel twenty four is doing. Oh boy, I
can't really describe it. It's more it's more like a deflection, like a
more organic kind of like deflection sort of response to it. Either way,
I thought I was going to fire this game up and be like, well,
this shit is aged, and like, yeah, it's dep I mean,
it's a twenty two year old game, right, So you're looking at
like character models that are just of that era, but you know, really
yeah, but they look fucking good, like like Scott Stevens looks like Scott
Stevens, and you're just there's no real illusion that you have to kind of
believe there. And the game plays great. I think the only thing that
I would criticize it from the position of contemporary gaming is just like there's just
not that many things you can do in your arsenal of moves, Like you
can only do so many things with like trick skating and playing. The bulk
of this game is like setting up the right one timers to score and that's
really it, and that's what that game kind of is. And obviously the
over the top checking and whatnot. If you made this game again now and
like gave everyone a whole laundry list of like abilities, it would be like
like, who, I realized no one plays hockey. I realized no one
buys NHL twenty four outside to Canada. I realized this well, like selfishly,
I don't know figure it out, Like I don't know how this it's
just not gonna get done right, Like from a strictly business point of view,
like a modern version of this is just never gonna happen, and there's
nothing we can do. Would you like like an arcadie indie hockey game backlar?
Would that scratch that? Yeah? I need like the current players?
Does that matter at all? I'm not precious about that at all. Like
if you give me like a mutant league version of this, I don't care
what it is. I just want like good hockey action, Like I don't
care if it's Jack Hughes like I want it. I just you know,
uh, just just do it. Just give me that play. I don't
I don't care about the license. I don't care about the NHLPA, just
like, give me the action. I thought Tape to tape was gonna scratch
that itch and that game's that game's fun. I had a good time with
it, but I just think, like the hockey action, uh, the
chops are not necessarily there, and you know, it's fine, like it
was. It was a cool idea of that game, and haven't really gone
back to it too much, but but I want I want this. I
want strictly the hockey over the top arcade action. And the fact that the
best version of that is twenty one years old and in no way is ever
gonna get done again and for any foreseeable future is a bit of a bummer.
Yeah, it's the things we've lost is gaming has gotten more like higher
fidelity, where it's like we lived in a world once where Nintendo made hockey
games. Yeah, like in Japan they made ice hockey, and it's like
that was a pretty cool world to live in where anyone was just like,
yeah, it costs five dollars to make this game, of course we'll do
that. And now it's like, well, we can't do that unless it's
got a huge budget and we're gonna be competing against all this stuff, we
gotta go with the license. It's like, oh man, I I like
the ways gaming has grown in a lot of ways, but making it difficult
to just like shoot out a bunch of cool, interesting arcade sports games.
That's been one thing we've lost since been a bummer, and and a lot
of other genres. The indie game scene has filled in those voices. Yeah,
the vacuums that hasn't quite happened here. It's starting to and fits in
spurts, but not really. Yeah, I mean, you know, I
guess, you know, looking at it from a different sort of angle,
like this could be accomplished by an indie studio, and I do think there
has been enough entries that are adjacent. I mean, you know, you
look at like the time and effort spent on something like a roller drome right
where like that like that energy, I think you would not be wasted on
a capable arcade three on three hockey game. Like I definitely, I definitely
think there is enough nostalgia and enough desire for something like that in a contemporary
capacity to get made for by an indie outfit and be successful. But yeah,
you know, I don't know, Maybe I'll just have to put the
money together and figure it out and do it yourself, like robo Dunk,
right. I know Tam was really high on robo dunk. That's as close
to a modern and be Jam right because they just jumped a space. Yeah,
it's not impossible. It's not impossible. Uh. I blame these two
for the game that I wound up playing. As soon as I got home
yesterday and I thought I had my personal top ten all set in concrete,
I started to draft everything up, and then you know, thinking like okay,
cool, Like if there was time for a stupid jam monologue, this
would have been here, this would have been there. Maybe that I would
have taken the straps off for that game. But then, because these fuckers
plus Dan just just so passionate about these little freaks and these little dudes,
my own fucking the little freaks that I associate myself with, the Romen Goblins
plus Mike have have infested my brain with these little freaks. And you know,
like I had watched like a couple of YouTube I had done the demo
for Pickman four, liked it, and then I played a little bit of
it, liked it, And then I just watched YouTube videos and descriptions to
properly talk about best Pickman. And then I got into the little loop myself
and I'm like, oh, this is fun, this is cool, this
is great. And then five hours passed wow, and then I was like,
oh shit, I love these little freaks. I would die for them.
And holy shit, Greb, Like, when you mentioned like that the
loop of this game is near perfect, you were not over selling that in
the slightest because a game that ticked that loop of like all right, activity
here, break, activity break, activity break. I thought Dave the Diver
handled that really well and timing out the portions were diving under the sea and
then you have to manage the restaurant and then run the restaurant with Pigman four.
It feels criminal that it is not getting enough recognition that it should be
getting. And I'm sure it's gonna wind up on a lot of people's personal
top ten lists, But for like other major gaming outlets, I think that
speaks to the volume of amazing game releases this year, because in another year,
I think Pickman should be on like the top half of a lot of
outlets Oh yeah lists because of how mechanically perfect it is and I want folks
to know this is my first Pickman game other than like the Niantic Mobile one,
which is not the same at all. Right, I mean it was
my first Pickman game. Really. I like try the other ones in spurts
and was always like, I think it's just not really for me. But
you know, Jeff's talked about how liking Pickman so much, and I don't
know, it came out at a pretty good time where I was just like
I needed something to play on my switch, and now I'm gonna just really
get into this. I'm gonna give it a really good try. Even at
the beginning is a little boring. It takes a little bit for the loop
to get going. Once it gets going, it really Yeah. It really
was one of those I'm going to play this game like five hours every night
and so all the sudden oops one it is it? Yep, gentlemen,
is it foolish to try and get an O lead switch right now? Okay,
so last time we thought we talked about this on like the last bomb
cast that was real and and then Backar was like, hey that my friend
asked me about that, and I'm like, no, just wait till next
year and then in La Backlar saw an O Lead. It was m like
I could tell I could see him weakening before me and listen to Switch rules.
The screen is so good. It's so good. And if you have
like a crusty old switch, the getting the better battery, getting the O
Lead, having like joy cons that are functional and feel like not like again,
not crusty, that's a big that's a pretty big upgrade at this point.
Now, yeah, something will come out next year, but I don't
know. I'm still gonna like my switch. Yeah, I would, I
would get one. I would get one, see because like I really enjoyed
like these third party joy Con controllers that have like a little bit more grip
to them, kind of makes it feel like a steam deck more. But
then just playing it on the launch switch because my my original switch broke.
I have been using my partners and just like man, after seeing Let's switch
in person again, grub it messed me up. It really? Have you
have you played Super Mario RPG? I fired up an hour of it,
but I knew that I would play too much of it, right, So
I mean that's the one that you could like play get out, get a
lot of on the O led Classic games look good on the O lead,
So the tot to Switch online stuff works really well. Paper Mario will be
next year that Princess Peach game. There's still stuff happening on the Switch.
Yeah, and then the problem is then grub I want to revisit all the
old stuff like I want to I want to revisit My Boys and my Cat
People and Zeno Blade. Oh yeah, that Future Perfect was supposed to be
future people love that. Octopaths, Yes, Ocapath Traveler two would look fantastic
on there, would look very good on We're doing stop, I'm enabling myself,
okay. Man. By the way, like we're getting pretty close to
the end of the year, we do we think Switch two is getting announced
this year, So maybe no anymore. And what I mean it was always
like a maybe. It was always like they could have done stuff like that
in the past. Maybe they reference it and they like gently gently gestured towards
it in earnings report stuff, but that's it, and that that that didn't
even like rise to the level of what they've done before. So no,
they'll talk about it next year, release it next year. Probably, So
yeah, yeah, yeah, Mike, you were actually in Los Angeles before
all of us checking out a game that I was surprised you didn't have an
appearance at all during the Game of Wars. You checked out Yeah, we
can talk about this, right, yeah, yeah, yes, yes,
the bar goes up. Yep. You checked out Teken eight, Yes,
yeah, I was. I was in l A a couple of days earlier
because there was a Tech and eight preview event. Uh, so went in,
uh checked that out. It was a lot of fun. I'm not
I would like fighting games a lot, but I've never been a big tech
in person. I think just because I was such a Sega fanboy for a
while in my life that I saw Techan as an enemy to RICHI a fighter.
They don't make a lot of ritual fighters anymore, though they poured old
ones, but Tecans they'll just keep making those. For me. It was
an enemy of battle arena totionhind the real good game, right right. We
got to play quite a good chunk. We had time in the story mode,
playing like the first four chapters of that, which is interesting because from
what I could tell, at least up to the point I play, which
was a good chunk. You only play its gin. It's not like the
Mortal Kombat system where you're jumping between different characters. That's nice in a way
because the story can actually be a bit more focused. You can really learn
at least that one character there could be less of there's a misunderstanding. We
should fight about it, right still, so get flimsy reasons for why people
are at least a Tecnd, there is a tournament at some point, right,
and the tournament does come back and all that. No story spoilers.
Man tecan is so anime. I'm not an anime expert. Like back Teken
is more anime than anime. A lot of times you've got the cart the
story is like the most just like you know, angry person like talking about
the termination and like losing their power levels a bit. But like maybe they
could find their power levels if they, I don't know, look in their
heart or something. That kind of stuff. Uh. Production values incredible.
They do fun stuff where even not like not just between the fights, even
between the rounds, there's really cool like set piece animation moments. So that's
a lot of fun. There's also a separate story mode where you make your
little avatar person. Right, you've probably seen that in the trailers kind of
like what you do the Street Fighter, but a bit more I don't know,
like you're making your Microsoft Xbox Avatar style there. And then there's a
story mode there where you're like in the Logo arcade scene and you want to
like rise up to like the finals. So it's like go to different arcades
and kind of beat people and increase your rank. That's fun because you can't
just pick whoever you want to play there, but there is still a story
and it's funny. There's like the one guy who's like already a really serious
TECHND eight player. He's got an edgy haircut and he's like, cool,
I see no real competition here. You people are playing teching for fun.
Then your friends, Like, I think people should be able to play tech
and however they want to. You're not taking it seriously. And it's somebody
who plays smash bars without items and like stuff. I'm like, I kind
of agree with the edgy haircut. Oh my god, but that's fun.
They brought back some mode that I guess is another tech It's called techan Ball,
which is like volleyball with techan not like that or Alive, where they
just literally made a volleyball game. But you like a hit the ball and
the ball accumulates all the damage it takes and it gets transferred to a player
if it either hits them without them blocking or lands in their half of the
court. That's just a fun little thing that game. I remember that mode
or something like it from past games. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and
then you know, got to just mess around in training and stuff. The
training was really good, Like the move list wasn't just a move list.
It would be like, here's how you do this move, Here's why this
move is good. Like this move is good, I guess people who are
blocking down or this move is good to like, you know, initiate this
kind of combo. So it was useful there. I got to play some
people around there. Blessing was actually at this who helped out at our event,
but he was at the tech on things. I got to do someone
on ones with with best things some other people. Yeah, I was just
immediately feeling it. I was focusing on one of the new characters of Raina
who seems to have some kind of connection to Heyachi from the previous games,
and already was feeling comfortable enough with just that one character where I was having
a lot of fun. So yeah, it was a good time. I
got to talk to the producer and game director just a little bit. I
ask them like, hey, like, wow, how come why do you
guys think it's just you in this three D fighting space? What happened is
you know, Virtua Fighter and that are alive. Yeah, you know,
they don't really know, but they do say they miss them just as much
as anybody. They wish they had that competition. So especially with Sega bringing
back all these franchises and you know, even doing Virtua Fighter three another TV
release of that, boy, I hope that that actually does come back in
a meaningful way. Hey, you know, fighting games are going popular again.
They sure are. You know, if it's not there, maybe we'll
just build that world, just like Jeff Grubb has been playing Steam World.
Build. Yeah I can't. I don't think I talked. Hold on,
hold on, Jeff Grubb, please tell me you don't like this game and
that you hate it, so I don't also have to check this out.
You don't have to check it out. But it's very good. It is.
It's condensed, so it's like it is within the scope where it's reasonable
to be like, I'm gonna sit down and play through one campaign and just
kind of see what it's about. They have different scenarios. You can just
pick one of the scenarios and go. It is very well done in terms
of everything leads into another thing in a very clean way, and then sometimes
then it will lead into other things in a very big and messy way.
But it opens up all these possibilities where Okay, now I can build these
four buildings and they're all interconnected, but if I get them all together,
they will create one resource that now enables another building, like a good city
builder should. And the way that they sort of keep you on your toes
is you have multiple levels. There is the ground level game that is happening
where you're building a city and you're getting all these resources and you're magnitude people's
happiness, and you are taking residential buildings and then you're upgrading them a tier.
So now they could be engineers and you're upgrading them a tiers, so
now they could be like aristocrats and stuff, and if you have a certain
number of those people, you get other kinds of buildings. All that stuff's
really fun to manage and it keeps you on this really good macro loop as
well as these small little micro loops that I'm really happy with. But then
as you go down the subtraining levels, the game's a little bit different.
It's almost like it's you explore, expand and then you kind of have to
do tower defense stuff because you will, like on the second subtraining level,
you'll begin pushing up against enemy characters and they will attack your dudes down there,
so you have to build people to gather the resources, but then also
build people to defend those people. And it's say, okay, so you're
managing these two things, and it's just like a good balance of Okay,
I'm kind of at a wall here of what I could do up here,
or I'm waiting for something to happen. I'll just go back downstairs. We'll
see what's going on down there. I'll see if I can build a new
tool I need now to get through the new kind of rock that I haven't
been able to get through up to this point. Oh I can, Oh,
but that's leading me to this enemy zone, so now I need to
prepare. I could see them, so before I knock down that wall,
I should prepare, prepare, And like, let's get these bits and pieces
in place to make sure that we're going to be safe and make sure that
we have enough resources overall that we can withstand whatever they send at us.
And I find it super satisfying. It's very easy to understand, very easy
to parse. I think this is both a good, Hey, my first
city sim and also like a really deep one at the same time that has
a lot going on, and I just love the steam World aesthetic. There's
like story elements that you can easily ignore. I've mostly been ignoring them.
I don't care about them too much, I know, right, but they
do have a fun suggestion of, oh, you know, we're going to
be getting ourselves into space, and a lot of the other SteamWorld games do
take place in space, so it's almost like, oh, this is the
precursor civilization to that. So yeah, I just I like the game a
lot. It's really well done. Spoilers are SteamWorld dig too, But then
I go into space at the end of that one. Also, yeah,
probably. And then there's the steam World Tactics game. I can probably that's
like your favorite game. You don't remember what happened. I remember what happens.
I played it and it was fun. That's what happened to Mike.
Uh did you Were you ever like a Warcraft or StarCraft guy? Not huge
now, but I was definitely a sim city guy. Okay, Oh yeah,
I played some Command of Conquer, but I never played much StarCraft Warcraft.
I played a little bit of StarCraft, but not hear me out hear
me out here. I've always been StarCraft curious. What if we do a
T and T with StarCraft two? Oh well, yeah, let's go.
We have to just jump into sixty four. Let's go. There we go,
there we go. Uh. Like I remember watching Norm Norm from Tested
uh play and Brad play a lot of StarCraft two and thinking like just writing
notes of like, Okay, yeah, this is this is when we're gonna
do. I'm gonna be an expert at this. And then I realized I
didn't have a computer that could play StarCraft two. StarCraft Tour. There's like
a remaster of the first one on battle neet now, right, yeah,
we could we can suck around find out, we can try. We just
kind of see what we're feeling at the time. But I like the idea
of both. Yeah, yeah, I kind of want to do both.
Uh, Okay, man with Jeff talking about sounds like those Ono games.
That still makes and like I want us to all be real big Anno people.
But I do intend to find some time for Anno in my life and
I have been intending to do that for a while. But after the most
recent bout that you had with it, Mike, I was like, Okay,
he's having a good time. I know I'll enjoy these games, so
it's fun. Yes, I und yeah, I'll probably get into some Mono
here soon. Uh. Speaking about worlds, last game we have on the
list, here is a world that I desperately desperately want to go to.
Mike Grub, tell me about Avatar. Oh boy, Yeah, the prot
Here's of Pandora. The people they're blue and big, and boy is that
great. That actually is the best part about the game so far is moving
around as these big blue fuckers they are. They make them feel tall right
from the beginning, because you are a you're a NAV. You're not like
a person in an Avatar body. You are a NAV, but you were
raised by humans. And then like things go bad and they're like we're gonna
come because of Jake Sally, did you pop when they said Jake Sally's name
and the intro, Oh who's that? I don't know any of the characters
names. Yeah, I'm a human being with a pulse. Mike, of
course you know. No, it's no, it's just you. It's just
your guys. I've done and I've done a tremendously unscientific study. Okay,
I've come to find out anecdotally and unscientifically, you lot are the only people
I know. You are. Literally sat next to Jake Baldino at the Game
Awards, one of my fellow NAVI freaks, Like, he didn't bring it
up once, all Jake, the first thing we brought up on the night
show. Literally the first thing anyone said other than me on the night show
was I'm Jake Baldino and I want to talk about Avatar. All Jake didn't
even work. That's what happened that wait. No, when the old Godspaskar
came on, the two of us like wanted to stand, but like didn't
because no one else was. But we were was like, yo, this
is the part where we're ever going to stand at this show. It's going
to be right now. Then we had and then he he grabbed my leg
when the Sega remakes came out, and and then we bonded. I'm sorry,
we drifting that. Wait? What what do nab do with their ass
tails? What do they do? Connect? Spiritual? Man? We connect?
No, it's not spiritually. It's actually physically, yeah, viscerally.
They they kind of like touch tips a little bit. All right, but
that's what Jake and I did. Jake and I bonded. Yeah, it's
great, though. I don't feel like it doesn't even matter what other people
think. Although I don't know, I defend this film franchise or the two
movies in it aren't like the two most successful movies ever. No, no,
no, people like it the way they like a thing that is likely
pleasing, you know. They're just like, oh, yeah, I'll take
a snow cone. Yeah. Necessarily just like yeah, people enjoy it while
they're watching it. They don't think about it too much. I forget it.
Yeah, lot the second You wun't see the second movies, so you
can't talk about that. Get you even haven't seen Way of Water. People
feel like that about the first one. Way of Water is a masterpiece.
I just like I do. You're the only people talking about it even at
uh do you talk to back? Even Pandora, Even when I was in
Pandora at Disney, no one was just like, oh, I really love
that, you know, I really love all this. You're like, no,
it's no, just I just don't think there's like a lot of people
anyway. The game is fun, it's it's far Cry. It's far cry
ass far Cry. They do some stuff to sort of avatar it up,
where like, oh, you got to get this resource from a tree,
So instead of you just pressing X to like break the tree, you need
to break it in a loving way. Like, yes, you could just
break this ship and take it, but you'll get more resources and it'll be
more carrying towards this planet if you sort of tenderly break it, mister action,
so that it will grow back faster. And well they're trying to be
like environmental, so the nature that you steal from. Yeah, you gotta
get it right, you gotta get it first person jumping. I'm gonna game
a good jumping. Did you did you get through the part where you you
get your your flying dragon. That's what I'm about to get. That's what
I'm doing right, I forgot that. Gonna say please sorry, I'm sorry.
I don't even back knows about the fake avatar fan. I think something
is just wrong with my computer because this game, like also just isn't running
the way it should be. Out the way too, wasn't running. I
was like, maybe that gives us not trying to think of a good game
to do a test a benchmark. Yeah, maybe like the Division two or
something like that. I don't know. You probably have something in stalled that
has a good benchmark in that. Do that and we'll see what the results
are. And if it's not where it should be for you, system may
will take a look. And yeah, I think I'm geting under the hood
there. I'm just I'm just over it. This isn't working like it should.
Apparently I should have a separate computer to run obs on anyways. And
I shouldn't like do the tail. I should like avatars. I should like
connect their tails. Yeah, the tail set the cables. Dude, do
the Final Fantasy fourteen bitchmark and let me know what happens with that. Yes,
listen, if you get a good enough computer these days, you don't
need two computers, but that what you're running, you probably could still use
it. Like, yeah, I feel like, like, what with my
thirty seventy t I at two K low settings that should be a very steady
sixty fps and it just isn't. Yeah, there's just isn't. There's something
wrong. Yeah, maybe did you you got to restart your computer? We
started with that? Like, no, never mind, thank you, Beck,
I'll try that. Try that, Mike, are you gonna stick with
avatars? I'm playing it, and I'm like, I am. I do
like the jumping around and running around as a as a Novi so much that
I'm like, this is like the kind of game I'm going for right now.
It is. It is definitely in that seven in the eighth zone.
It's like really mediately in that seven to eight zone where but it's like,
I'm okay with that because I just like running around in this space. I
think if you got I think getting the ecron is gonna bump it up a
bit. I actually the PC problems are starting to upset me so much that
I don't know if I can play until I get this fixed. It's okay,
yeah, and try it without streaming let me know what happens too.
Yeah, streaming, It's maybe that was a problem. I don't know.
But yeah, it's true. I gotta I'm not gonna have you all do
my tech support on a podcast. No, no, no, let's do
it. Let's do it. Run it. Are you running nvidio coder or
you doing on the CPU to play on right now? I like it a
lot actually, so it you know, it was weird. It was running
okay on the Lenovo Legion Go for like the first day, and then every
time I try to play it after that, it like was really unplayable.
Twelve frames per second and that software and that thing does not make it easy
to figure out like what's going wrong or if I have like the full performance
mode selected or whatever. So and when I did get the performance about don't
want time, it was like the fan was so loud, the loud jams
just like pretty loud. Yep, that's pretty loud. Jeff, Yeah,
I'm sorry. Tried to make it stop. It was. It was so
funny because like, yeah, when you booted up the game first, it
was completely fine, it looked great, and then like every subsequent time it's
just like it sounded like the Lenova Legion Go was trying to off itself.
Yes, it was trying to die and not believe how big that thing was
in real life. Up, it was just like what were you carrying around
like a universal power supply with? Do you think Keely still has those?
Did any of those go away? I'm sure, I'm sure he still has
one hundred of them. Now. Yeah, I like the Lenovo Legia go
in a way, but it's it is big and bulky and weird. I
like how weird it is. That's it's like carrying a drone around, like
it's that big of an incan? Yeah, how big is the carrying case
for that? Because it has to be huge luggage. It's a little bit
bigger than the original steam Gut case, which was big and bulky on its
own. So yes, it's it's wild. It did fit in my bag,
but awkwardly it was definitely like like bulging out of the sides. Oh
boy, I really thought every time we take one of these trips, I
bring too many things. I need to scale back. Like I finned it
out this year. I only brought the switch and used it zero times.
Even that, like, you just want to be close to it. I
want to. I do need to at least have that as a security blanket.
But I mean, you know, we're so busy that by the time
I go back, there is no downtime, and when I get to the
room or me, there's a little downtime. I just want to go to
sleep. Yeah, I'm glad, Jeff, if only we could all be
so lucky. Yeah, I wanted to bring the Mediquest three while I was
there, but like when you're crazy, Oh my god, I did think
about that too. We are and you know this, you're one of us,
You're you're foos. I was gonna watch I was gonna watch what's that
Outside the Ring or Beyond the Ring or tells me the territories that Hulu show,
the Vice show about wrestling. I watched an episode of that or I
wanted to watch an episode of that in my Meta Quest three last night and
I couldn't get it because Hulu's not supported on there. I was like,
I want to sit and just watch that in bed last night, and then
yeah, it didn't work out. Yeah, bad thing. Well, folks,
I think that's it for games this week. It's been a long last
week, flew By. I did still love to continue talking about that.
Maybe we'll talk about it some more on the dump Truck or BCR this week.
But yeah, I gotta go take another quick breaking break, and so
does the show, and we'll be back with some news because hey, the
news did not stop. Yeah, week, the news goes on. But
I think we'd be remiss if we didn't talk about this actual breaking news topic
that happened last week and that nice topic. Sorry, Jeff grep to hijake
your segment. No, do what you gotta do. Here's the news music.
Cool, now it's gone. Uh, Jeff backlar. What was your
impressions and feelings upon meeting Michael Minatti for the first time. Oh? Oh,
good question, good question. You know, I put a lot of
uh, put a lot of stock into it. I was. I was
really he was disappointed. You let me finish gonna be a religious experience and
didn't quite meet this. Did somebody recorded? Didn't somebody record it? I
think? Did maybe Tam do it? I can't remember. You know,
I saw him from Afar. I was like, what's gonna happen now here?
There's no avoiding it now. And you know, you got that he's
got that like he got those like sort of high up shoulders and the kind
of like you know, his posture is unmistakable. He's always dancing there.
He is far and like I assumed, he was going to be taller than
I thought. And even though I was expecting the taller person, it's still
didn't believe it till I saw it. I'm gonna be sure. And the
embrace was hearty and heart felt and warm, and I just kind of wanted
to stay there in that moment for for a while. It was great.
Yeah, I've had better, I know, believe me, I'm a massive
disappointment. Listen, there were multiple people throughout this trip. First they did
the whole like did you lose weight thing, which has now become a terrible
joke with me. Uh. And then they also did the someone actually did
say to me like, wow, you look drastically different in real life than
you do on zoom. Yet I won't blow up this person's spot. But
and I couldn't tell if it was like good or bad. I was assuming
good and I'll just believe it to be good. But but yeah, that's
what it was. So it was bad for you. I'm sorry, Mike,
No, I was very Yeah. Actually Jack collected the mall. Now
if I met everybody at Giebomb in person, very nice you can for Sewan.
Actually he's been like a mod for Jeff and I met him. Yet
that'll happen at some point. All right, we'll make it that make it
happen, Jeff Grub you ready for me. I'm ready for you, Bud.
All right, let's see this first one real quick. Exc I didn't
write it down, Disney says Indiana Jones X Xbox exclusive exclusivity deal. Excuse
me, made financial and strategic sense. They've basically confirmed that that is,
for real deal going to be an Xbox exclusive exclusive. We yeah, shoot
exclusive. We knew that was going to happen because of some of the FTC
filings, but now they're con permanent publicly, so there you go. It's
a three C Xbox. Yeah, it's in one of those Xbox sclusies.
Yeah, you know they they're uh. It got announced around the time of
the acquisition from the Pathesta side of things, the X side of things over
for machine games. And then when the acquisition happened, there was like some
like well they make that exclusive. Probably not, and it's like, well,
no, they just paid up to have to like sew up that deal
and make it expensive. Did they say it? The play games in exclusive.
I mean I would as so many. I think they're being pretty coy
about it, uh because I don't know why. But yeah, by all
measures, it seems like it's going to be exclusive. That's what I've heard,
but I can't confirm. I think it's exclusive. Yes, we are
just fully back on the making IP games train now and oh yeah, yeah
that's that. I mean that was going to be the thing. Like if
we had more time to talk before the Game Awards, I was gonna be
like, my prediction is we'll see a lot of IP games because that's the
trend. And here we are. It's going to be a big thing for
the next couple of years because publishers are scared of any other kind of risk
right now, uh speaking, being scared and dying. E three is officially
dead again. I mean, I don't know how many times it's been this
time I've been now, but yeah, they have confirmed that E three is
not coming back. The ESA has decided to end it officially after more than
two decades. Of course, the event started in the nineties, went every
year until twenty nineteen, and then they missed some mears because of pandemic,
but also basically missed those years because they were bad at it. When they
did bring it back. Throughout those years, they tried to partner up with
other entities to make it happen, and one group was Jeff Keeley and I
am eight bit and IM a bit and Jeff Q like they don't seem serious
about this. We're gonna dip and guess what, we also are doing our
own things. So Summer Game Fest has almost completely usurped them, and there's
kind of no need for you three now, and the ESA just does not
have the competency to make it happen anyhow. So here we are. E
three is dead. How are we feeling? I love that? I was
gonna say, I love that the fact that, like the only E three
news that anyone has cared about in the last five years is like basically it
being on life support, Like that's been the news. The news hasn't been
like about what it does, like what could it come back? It's basically
just like teasing its death for half a decade. So that should tell you
that everything the only thing they're really capable of doing over there where we gonna
die. It's just you know, it was already on a downward trajectory,
with people like Sony dropping out around twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. Then you have
the pandemic. You know, once it's gone for a bit, it's hard
to ever come back. I think that's what they realized when they tried to
bring it back with freed Pop, because all these companies, the marketing money
that used to go to E three, it's already going elsewhere. They already
kind of realized that they don't need it. It's hard to get them back
now. Yeah, we've found a lot of E three is dead before this
one is. It's it's almost weird how much like E three is, like,
no, we are dead. Yeah time. I still kind of don't
necessarily believe we're never gonna have it ether again. Who knows that that name
still has some value, but certainly not anytime soon, if ever. Yeah,
I think if read pop couldn't make it make sense, it's gonna be
hard for anyone to make it make sense. But you're right, E three's
got a ton of cachet still, and I don't know, I think that
could actually wane pretty quickly now that I think about it. If we get
a couple of years out people like, what, what do we need E
three for Summer Game Fest. It's just exactly that, as far as I
concern, where I sit home and watch game announcements. So we'll see there's
three e'se. If you look at Summer Game Fest, we're pretty close.
Gents, there it is there, there's three eyes in my name. Hey
uh, I failed the last two days of connections. I feel like an
idiot. I failed the really easy one the other day that you guys all
did at the restaurant, and then sense that be okay. I've always wanted
a couple of boo boos. I'll miss it. I'll miss E three.
I actually, I mean I got into this initially. My big dream was
to just go to E three. I thought it was the coolest thing ever
when I was growing up and going to E three a bunch of times really
did mean a lot to me. It was always a lot of work.
It can be a lot. I get like some people in our position get
over it, but I always appreciate it. I always thought that there was
something special about that. I'm glad that, you know, like we solve
Nintendo right with their kind of thing that they didn't see out around packs.
That is basically just them taking what would be their E three booth and making
it bigger. I hope they could do more that. I know they had
to cancel the one they were going to do in Japan because of threats of
violence or something, but I hoping that's just a hiccup, and hopefully we
see Sony, Microsoft and other companies just do more of their own things like
that so that more people get to have something like an E three experience.
Anyways, Yeah, I mean the part of E three I sorry, Greb,
no, go ahead. The part of E three I was enjoyed was
seeing online friends for the first time, sometimes in some cases for the first
very first time. Like I met Baklar a couple of years ago at in
the back of a hotel somewhere in a shady, dimly lit room, and
it was great. Suh back, Are you more excited to me? Janeerm
me? So the next story that we're going to cover, What the fuck?
Why is there? Even? The ESA is an organization that Randy three,
but they also lobby the government of the United States on behalf of the
video game industry. That side of its business has also sort of been waning,
though where a lot of companies don't really pay their dues anymore. They
don't, they're not involved with the ESA. Some still are. Microsoft still
is, Nintendo still is. But these companies just kind of do their lobbying
on their own now and for a lot of reasons, and the days of
hey, video games are gonna get banned from stores unless we get less we
create the ESRB. Mostly beyond that, the video video games have won a
number of First Amendment battles over time, and so they're in a strong position
when it comes to that stuff and regulation, you know, loopbox regulation comes
along every once in a while. But the ESA was not great at helping
the industry deal with slash battle that so it's value overall seems pretty limited,
and I wouldn't be surprised in a couple of years we just the essay is
maybe just a name on a letterhead and that's it, and doesn't really do
anything real, maybe even shut down entirely. I don't know. It's like
the nWay. It's gonna come back around exactly just as popular too, really
huge merch sales for the ESSA, all right. Insomniac has reportedly been hacked.
Insomniac Games. The developer behind Spider Man has reportedly faced a cyber attack
from the ransomware group Resida. The attack threatens to expose sensitive data about the
studio, its employees, and upcoming games. The hackers have already published proof
of the breach, including images from Insomniac's upcoming Wolverine and potentially revealing artwork of
other Marvel characters. In the PS five title, The stolen data compromises employee
passports, passport scans, personal documents related to Spider Man voice actor Uri Lowenthal,
internal emails, and confidential documents. That's fucked up that they are both
like saying, hey, us money and we'll pull this down. And they're
putting it up for auction right now, starting at fifty bitcoins, which is
about two months two million dollars. Sony has not commented at least since the
time of this this note taking here, Yes for that, okay, pay
two million dollars for some random people's personal information into like I don't know,
discover that they're making a new Ratchet and Clank in five years. Well,
if they have the source code for these video games, there are some entities.
I said it again. This has happened before where somebodies in China have
purchased source code so they could make copies of games, you know, not
to put too fine then anyways, yeah, I mean right, but for
some reason they still want to buy the source code. Sometimes this has happened
before. I wish I could remember the case, but that that's happened before.
I still doubt that someone's going to pay two million dollars for it,
but you know they might, someone might. I don't know. Hey,
all those when all those casinos in Vegas got hacked, like some of them
actually paid up. Yeah right, yeah, I mean there you get one
of the hats onto it for sure, you were saying, ask going to
pay up or I doubt it, just kind of let it go. I
mean, I imagine the personal information is probably almost more painful than again,
like releasing their slate for the next few years, right, uh, righting.
As Michael R. O'Leary points out in chat, the passport scans and
stuff like that, there's a lot of personal data you could do more with,
uh than just the source code. But I think I think the source
code is probably the most valuable thing in there. If it's if it is
in there. It seems like it probably would be if they have as much
data as they're saying they do. The day before, you guys, you
guys follow this at all. Happened while we were traveling, Yeah, a
little bit. It seems like absolute joy. Huh yeah. So it's a
bit of a kerfuffle. But these are my notes because for me, I
put this game immediately the second we saw anything about it. This immediately went
in the well, that's not real, Like, that's nothing. I don't
have to worry about that. That's just a bad game. I'm not going
to give them out my money. Turns out a lot of people did give
them their money though the development and that happened over this past week when it
launched in early access as a extraction shooter, something the game never the developers
never said it was going to be. It's like a live service, you
know, a living multiplayer live service extraction shooter, not a very good one.
Almost nothing happens in the game. Uh, they just took a lot
of assets from the store. Whatever, it's a bad game. Fantastic to
developer is shutting down though. About four days after launching the game, they
said, hey, we're shutting down and we're going to use the money we
got to pay off our debts. Hey, we're going to refund everybody.
So that's where people are like, oh, they're taking the money and running
and maybe they are, but hey, if you bought this game one,
I don't get why you did that, but if you did, you're allowed
to do what you were with your money, what you want. So if
you did buy it and you played more than the two hours where Steam automatically
gives you refund, just open ticket. Steam will refund you. I guarantee
you they're going to refund. You, Go get your money, and then
sort of problem solved. My overall take of this, though, is that
this is kind of the what makes gaming fun is that someone can do something
as wild as this and put the game out on Steam and people are like,
I'll check this out, like this is one of the best years in
gaming history, and people are still like, maybe I want to play the
day before here, take forty dollars or whatever the fuck it was. Serta
point, you got to be on the line a little bit yourself. You
gotta make good decisions here. Yeah, and so I kind of like like
people are like, oh, the Steam should police this. I'm like,
I think we could have told could we could tell from a distance what this
game was, and then if you still want to try and like maybe there's
something there, I think that's it's on you. But also I think I
get that because every once in a while a game does you know, there's
a diamond in the rough or whatever. But like, I also think it's
a little bit inspirational because if someone could look at like, look at these
people who don't know what they're doing. They did put out a game that's
basically a scam. What if like and it looks at like it was easy
for them. They just went on the asset store put a bunch of packs
together. What if I started doing that? And what's gonna happen is it's
like those bad mobile games where you see someone playing a mobile game poorly and
it makes you want to go, like, I could do better than that.
I think that's what happens here, where someone's like, I could make
that game, do it better, and maybe they like stumble across the idea
and you know, you could put it out on Steam because that crappy game
got out on Steam. So if you do a decent job, you might
have a much better chance. I think it's like the dynamic market working a
little bit. And yeah, I mean sometimes someone's gonna get away with something,
I suppose, But again, go get your refunds. There's no reason
to be like this is a scam and they're the brilliant criminals who got away
with it. No, just go get your money back. Valve will be
able to back charge them or whatever. It's all gonna work out in the
end, as long as you go get your money back. I don't really
know what else to feel about this beyond that the people who are buying this
are like probably a crossover of the people who like put money down on a
Calleco vision, right, Like, I think whatever that group of people,
whatever demographic that is, like, I just want to I just want to
interview a lot of people in that group. I just want to talk to
them. Yeah, it's a great chutes. I'm not thinking of the kids.
What kids are on Steam buying this game. That's not how are buying
stuff with credit card with when you're a kid without parents of supervision whatever.
I'm sure that does happen. But go get your refunds. Go keep your
dumb They can't. They can't. They can't like suus out bullshit and help
you, right if that that can happen, But I don't think that rises
to level off. We need Steam to protect us from ourselves. We can
probably let these things through for the most part. And what's going to happen
here is is what's happened. This game is now as a black mark on
it. It was going to crash and burn anyhow, whether or not the
studio like was going to make another game. The studio is trying to like
rebrand, they like say hey, we're closing the studio and then they change
their name on the back end on Steam. But people are tracking this stuff
and keeping and the reporting on it, and it's like gamers are so engaged
that it like you can't actually pull this thing twice. This is the studio
is not going to be able to get away with this again. So I
think it's most most of these systems working the way they should be. So
yeah, I'm just I'm like, ah, if you don't how'd you know
not to not buy this game or how do you not know that just don't
buy it? I don't get it, all right. A Zelda producer wants
to keep working on more open games, and everyone is mad at him.
Legend of Zelda series producer ag Altinuma believes that traditional the linear series entries are
games of the past. He calls requests from some fans to return to that
to that style a sort of nostalgia play switch. Zelda Entri's Breath of the
Wild and Teers of the Kingdom revolutionize the series' long standing formula with a shift
to open world gameplay and systems which empower players to tackle the game in a
huge number of ways. The injries have proved incredibly successful and selling combined fifty
million units. Previously, the best selling Zelda game was Wee's Twilight Princess at
nine million in sales. Anuma said he believed the games where you need to
follow a specific set path or complete tasks and a very set order were kind
of games of the past, and people were like, oh, but we
like those old things for other reasons, and there could be more fun in
that in that style. And I don't necessarily think he's saying that they'll never
make one of those again. He's just saying, like, though, that
that is not the future of the series, which I think is fair and
true and probably correct. Right yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's hard.
I mean, it is just so crazy this. You know, we
tak that Zelda has always been this big deal, right, but yeah,
like right, what these open world games have been so much bigger like a
link between worlds, which is so acclaim, right, it is so much
more that traditional style. It's a bit more open you can do that.
This is in any order, so like a bit less than five million copies
I think right on a three D S which was a pretty popular system.
So it's not like there was a problem there. There's still ways that you
know, there are more ways to do an open world Zoda, Like it
doesn't have to be a breath of the wild uh clone necessarily. Right.
We saw here's the keydom kind of making things that were a bit more like
traditional dungeons. They could still really throw in different school dungeons into these games.
There's still a lot they can do to add a little bit more of
that Okerina of Time style flavor if they want to, and I imagine some
of that stuff will creep in there. Yeah, and they're probably gonna have
their like partner studios that they work with do stuff like like Grezo is probably
going to make another Zelda or something like that, a two D top down
Zelda that could be in the Nostalgic series. But igion Numa and his team,
they're looking, they're gonna be looking to the future, and I think
they're right. I think after Akerena of Time, I think they gotten a
rut of Oh, Zelda is linked to the past with a new with a
new spin, a new gimmick, and it's like, actually, it could
just be the original legend of Zelda but opened up in different ways. And
they took them a while to get back to that with Breath of the Wild,
but people just assume, no, no, it's always got to be
linked to the past with a new gimmick. And it's like they did that
a bunch of times. I don't mess why. I think we need to
run back to that right away. Yeah, we got we have like ten
games thing that we're basically linked to the passing. You know, some of
them definitely straight from the formula more than others, like George Mask and that
was appreciated. But we had two of these open world style games. I
think there's definitely more juice to squeeze there yep, and uh again, they're
gonna they will have other offshoot games that probably will do that. And also
like, this is a genre where I think indies will fill in the space
a little bit. Chances of Sinnar if you were like, man, I
wish someone to make like old style Zelda puzzle games and you haven't played Chances
of Sinnar like that. The the spin there is it's about languages, but
otherwise it's about these or even a cocoon Cozelda like in its puzzles. They
should make a new three D dot game Heroes whatever that was called, at
least reported. I think that game's actually still just stuck on Plazation three,
which is insane. Yeah. Yeah, I'd also recommend checking out Ana Dyne
or Ana Dyne two very good, what I assume is Zelda likes as well,
and cross code cross Code that came out Oscar ex very much. Is
that game. That game fried my brain. I was like thirty hours into
it and it seemed like I was only halfway through the story and the puzzles
were pretty intense, and I was I was able to do them, but
at a certain point I don't usually stop playing games that I invest that much
time into but I was like, Okay, I get a cross code very
well may game though, and hey, isn't a Are we gonna get Beyond
Good and Evil? Uh? Remaster? That shit basically Operate of Time Like
yep, so it's happening. There are still going to be games like that,
and Nintendo will probably even make some of them. I want them to
give Link an airplane. Oh yeah, like pilots, like give them give
them a yeah. Like if you told me, oh, we're gonna do
ze but with trains, that would have sounded like the Gracing ever. And
that's one of the worst entries in this series, was it. I thought
people like Spirit Tracks. No, there like a winterized Zelda. I know
there's like winter Lands that Zelda. There's something like Skyrim, but yeah,
I think I want like Winter Winter Sports Link like I think I want you
get still more to Breath of the Wild, End Tiers of the Kingdom Sol.
Yeah. Oh, and there's that big snowy temple and Trili Princess that
was like one of the best dungeons ever like that. It was like that
Yeti's House or whatever. Remember it's great. Epic Games defeats Google in anti
trust legal trial. Google has lost its anti trust trial to Epic Games.
The jury found that Google had created a monopoly with its Google Play Store on
Android devices, and that it had violated anti trust loss by by taking a
thirty percent revenue share from apps and requiring them to use Google Plays billing system.
Atic called the decision a win for all app developers and consumers around the
world. It is not yet clear what changes the verdict will bring to the
way the app stores are run in the future. I imagine what this is
going to look like is kind of what Microsoft is doing with its store already
without having to be asked by regulators, which is, you could put stuff
on our store and you can use whatever payment billing system you want, or
you can put your own stores in Google Play. So on Android, I've
always been able to install outside stores, right, we can sideload whatever we
want on there. I've had I put the Amazon App Store on my Android
device eleven years ago, forever ago. It was forever going that launch,
and you could just put that on there, and then I stopped doing that
because it was kind of a hassle and I didn't care anymore. But you
could always do that. What the problem here is that most people don't go
that side loading route and take the long way. If it's not in the
Google Play Store itself, they don't take it exists. And what this is
saying is like using that cudgel, Google was doing something here that was anti
competitive and so they're going to have to open it up a little bit.
And a lot of this stuff people knew this was coming. This is why
Microsoft has been like, we're gonna make our own bubble store and have it
ready to go because we think regulation is about to change. Well, guess
what. Regulation has just changed basically, So this is a good But this
is a good thing. I think in the long run, more competition in
these spaces should help create a different variety of app store that maybe can enable
different kinds of games to thrive. Because right now it's just Candy Crush,
Saga and a few other things Pokemon Go and nothing else has a chance to
really get any oxygen on those platforms. So refresh my memory here. Epic
and Apple who fought over the same exact thing. There was a little different.
Yeah, that's the one where they made that cartoon to advertise the lawsuit.
Hey, Apple, you've become the thing you hated. But Apple did
win most of that lawsuit, right, So meaning now does that mean like
they are still allowed to take the percentage? Right? Yeah? I mean
yeah, But that's like a big thing here is that Epic had a much
better legal team on this one. But also, like I see three points
out, Google paid phone manufacturers not to include Fortnite on new phones since they
paid money to quash Epic and became a problem, Like it was beyond even
what Apple did, so and that was a very specific thing, but like
that the ramifications that were further reaching than just don't do that anymore. It's
that the way you run your store is wrong and you cannot do it anymore.
So that and that will come for Apple eventually. Apple will likely just
change it here on their own to avoid this so they can have some control
over it. But otherwise that this will come for them eventually, and they're
going to have to change their store as well, all right, And then
Epic says Fortnite's new Lego, racing and festival modes are here to stay.
Epic has confirmed that Fortnite's three new game modes are permanent additions to the free
to play title the new modes, which they refer to as just games,
not as modes here they are, Yes, Lego Fortnite, which is kind
of like Minecraft, Rocket Racing, which is a supersonic arcade racer that uses
the Rocket League cars, and Fortnite Festival, a music game where players can
perform in a band with friends. It's rock band with controllers. You know,
I've heard mixed things on Rocket Racing and Fortnite Festival, but people seem
really hot on that Lego Fortnite thing. And I forgot to say, but
I was playing that last night for a couple of hours with my brothers.
Racing one. No, the Lego one, which it's funny like Lego Fortnite,
there's very little Fortnite in that. It's really just like one of those
survival games. People in my chat weer saying it was very Valheim like,
right, A little for sure, but yeah, I mean, you know,
we had a little camp and we were like going out on expeditions to
get resources we can come back and build up the camp more. And that
was basically your loop there. Like the Lego ness of it was basically just
you know, building your buildings a bit stuff like that it's not even like
Minecraft in terms of the freedom you get there, or at least from what
I was seeing. Yeah, it's it's it is weird because it is.
It's just a different game. Again, very little to do with Fortnite.
I tried a little bit of the racing game and it didn't quite enjoy how
it felt. Yeah, that's what I've been People are thinks I had high
high hope streams. Yeah, yeah, that's why. So I'm like,
oh, I love the way those cars fill in Rocket League, so you
could apply that to a race scame pretty easily. But people are like,
it's kind of boring actually, especially compared to something Mario Kart. It just
doesn't stand up to that to other entries in that genre. Yeah. Yeah.
Modern Warfare three sales in the UK are down thirty eight percent compared to
last year's Modern Warfare two. Modern Warfare three top the UK software sales chart
in November, but it fell significantly short of the launch enjoyed by last year's
Call of Duty game. Modern Warfare three sales during the game's first three weeks
of available availability were thirty eight percent lower than Modern Warfare two's following it's released
last October. Activisions Shooter managed to hold off competition for me a Sports of
Football Club twenty four and the rest of the games released. But yeah,
that's not too surprising. I think most people are like, yeah, I'll
still show up for a a new Call of Duty. But a certain chunk
of the audience was like, this does feel like DLC, and maybe I
don't need to pick it up, but I don't know. Whatever I play
it, I have a good time with this one. It's good. I
am. It's fucking like the obviously the campaign is dogshit, but like the
multiplayer is good, like they did a really good job with those map remakes
or whatever, but obviously, like it's not I could have totally sympathize with
someone not wanting to pay full price for like whatever it is you do get
for that money. To me, it's like, oh, just if you
just give me the opportunity to play Modern Warfare three multiplayer and not spend full
price, Like can we close that gap? Like that to me seems like
something I'm sure they are considering, right, Like, yeah, you know,
if I thirty dollars to just like get up to speed, I think
that's what they wanted to avoid, though, is putting out something that felt
reduced They want that seventy dollars hit. Yeah, and they took what was
probably going to be a forty dollars expansion of some sort, sure, and
instead releases a seventy dollars by shitting out a pretty poor campaign. So yeah,
they clearly considered it and then they backtracked on it. I wonder if
the reception. I wonder they're like, hey, if it was like the
best selling DLC ever, as compared to like a pretty poor selling Call of
Duty, I wonder if they would feel different about that, like, yeah,
maybe we should have done the DLC thing. I don't know, Yeah,
I think in the grossest way possible. Maybe the strategy was like,
well, let's just see what we can do with this, and then maybe
later on, right, we can charge less if like, let's see what
we can get away with, like let's see where the bottom is. And
they're definitely approaching the bottom with something like this where people like won't accept it
anymore. They'll know next year if the sentiment carries over which Call of Duty
is kind of a little bit inoculated against that because they'll be well, this
next one is not from Infinity Ward or whatever. Right, it's a different
team, and I have different feelings about this one than I do about Modern
Warfare, and it sort of resets the counter in terms of how people are
feeling about Call of Duty, Like, yeah, I didn't like the last
one, but this is from that team. Maybe they have some new ideas
or this is my favorite team, So it's kind of they're kind of protected
from that a little bit. They're gonna have to start to distance themselves from
like showing a trailer of the campaign, Like that's just not tickling anyone's like
wetting anyone's appetite anymore, don't. I don't think they are focusing in on
the things that really matter for the audience that continually comes back to this game.
I just feel like there is a bit of incongruency between that point,
that side of marketing it and the audience, Right, I just think there's
there They're a bit disconnected in that capacity. But yes, I would be
lying if I said that the multiplayer is boring. It is not. It
is very good. There's so many maps they play really well, and I'm
still fucking Nicki Minaj. I'm still playing Yeah, I'm playing because it's great.
Yep, I'm doing all that. I'm doing all that and it's awesome
and I love that. Like I'm upsetting someone when I kill them as her.
That's definitely happening in that. It feels very good. Keep doing that.
But now I would like you to put the entire cast of Cheers.
Yeah, yeah, if you could just allow me to be Norm or perhaps
Woody Harrelson's character or even Ted Danson, if I could play give me the
dancing pack Pearl Frazer. That counts still, Like, why are we not
doing this? What? Like, I'm sorry you put in fucking old school
Shredder, you put in spawn. The next logical person is a member of
the gang. Mac for you about the current cultural relevance of Tears, even
though there is technically Cheers ask content these days with that Fraser reboot. Yeah,
I don't care what happening. I'm sorry the Fraser reboot was bad.
What's it bad? I don't know, I just never saw apparently. Yeah,
I'll stand by a back Lar. I want my USA characters are welcome
pack with They'll get around to that eventually, right, Yeah, give me
suits, give me Monky shouts out to my cych hoose and burn, where's
my white collar? Come on? Okay, how should I forget? How
could you forget? I would also like to play as like Logan Roy in
your Call of Duty. I think that like Fortnite's quickly exhausting, like the
ground it can cover, and it's going to have to start getting into stuff
like that, Like nostalgic television characters, seems like one that's gonna make a
lot of sense. Huh, let's go, I can finally learn about what
that is. Oh ass Flames, you're right playing as Balki from Perfect Strangers
in Fortnite or or Call of Duty like I do. It's just sorry about
how the theme song to Kirby and the Forgotten Land made both me and my
wife think of the theme song from Perfect Strangers and like why are we singing
that? And we both look at the TV and my kids playing and we're
like what, Oh, it's that song. It just sounds exactly like that.
There's something happening there. Apparently apparently a lot of people had that.
Give me the Golden Girls. I want to be Bland. Yeah, a
four person squad of the Golden Girls. Yes, let's go. I think
Golden Girls is more relevant than Cheers these days going on kind of It's like
me though, you know, there's not enough Cheers means is the problem?
We haven't. Yeah, you're right, there's almost none, or at least
that I've seen, we don't. Yeah, dude, give me the growing
Pains family. You mean Michael, Michael? Yeah? Remember? Oh yeah,
Leo's character and Boner there was right, no Boner own that thinks something
like bad happen. I think he had a bad end, all right,
Boner. I don't want to I don't want to know. I guess that
was what's the face some star treks like Sun or something while they're culling or
something. Yeah, sorry, I'm sorry I brought the moody. Well,
hey, no, thanks for doing that because that helps us lead into this
next Downer story. And estimated nine thousand people have lost their jobs in the
games industry this year. We're approaching ten thousand. The you know, the
guiltiest companies in terms of cutting job the jobs this year Unity, Byte,
Dance, which is TikTok, which is Marvel, Snap, Embracer Group,
Epic, and Amazon. But you know, if you're looking for companies that
didn't cut jobs. That's a smaller list. There's like including the list of
cutting jobs obviously, Xbox, Sony, CD, Project Red, Ubisoft,
Ride Games, Blizzard, Let's see Crystal Dynamics, Electronic Arts, Take to
Buy, Aware, Striking Distance, Team Seventeen, Frontier Developments, Telltale Games,
Digital Extreames, and Digital Bros. And we could probably expect there's more.
They aren't even listening to here. Oh yes, so we don't know
like how things a net out, but clearly what does that matter to the
people who are having their jobs cut in the moment, like that this is
disruptive to their lives, and it just continues to show how volatile the gaming
industry is. Everyone. Some people are like, man, we Jeff Keey
needs to say something about this, boy, was that not gonna happen?
Yeah, Like we weren't even close to like the games getting like the love
they need, let alone any sort of fuck critique about the overall industry.
I think by the end of that show, everybody it's like, well,
we were silly forever thinking that. It's yeah, I guess we're real quick.
Before we move on, like, how how did you guys feel about
the Game Awards, So that's been a big ongoing conversation this whole weekend.
I finished it and I was like, yeah, this is what these shows
are, and even the stuff that's worth criticizing, it's like that's almost like
kind of fun because it's like stuff we can all complain about, but people
are right to point out. It feels a little embarrassing how much attention games
got compare to several Hollywood stars who've got minutes to speak. But that's like,
again, all those things are valid, and criticizing the show for all
the things that we have been criticizing it for the last couple of years,
like that's what I don't understand. I feel like this year more than ever,
and obviously it's in the wake of like horrific amounts of layoffs in the
industry and in a very good year for games, where I think people are
like totally, you don't need to rely on Hollywood the comedy good games right
to talk about. So you have that paradox dichotomy of like the inverse of
like amazing success, which you know as a byproduct having layoffs. What is
happening with this system where like you have an incredible successfully profitable year and then
you are laying off people at a abhorrent rate. I just don't understand.
I can't quite tell what's wrong here. Perhaps I need to go back to
economic class. But what I don't understand are the people who just sort of
think like this is the year where all this happened in terms of like the
show, right, Like the show has always been this, We've always been
upset by it. Last year, I remember coming back from the Game Awards
being like, I can't believe how much the awards themselves were just like packed
into a nice little interstitial, a little interlude. Right. He did.
He cranked him out like three or four award categories at a time. That's
what it is. It's a commercial. Uh It's always been a commercial.
It's been a more let's call it refined commercial and not the circus, right,
But I'm just saying, like it's not the circus that it was when
it was on Spike, right, Like it's not that, but it's still
it's still very much a uh, a commercial. It's a marketing arm.
It is arguably the year's largest marketing arm. And I feel like, you
know, there is also this desire that I think we kind of all just
gloss over and don't really speak about. But like that shows very very horn
to be buddied up with Hollywood. Yeah, it's not Anthony Maggie's not a
commercial. I suppose maybe for the Twisted and a little TV show, but
he wasn't like paid to go promote that. That's that's long over. So
it's like, that's just Jeff Keey being kind of a starfucker. Well,
that's what I'm thing like in it's in its a never ending desire to be
horny, and in Hollywood and inside Hollywood, certain things get sacrificed in the
name of that and in the and in the wake of that effort. So
like, uh, yeah, I don't know what to tell you. I
know you're right Backlar, but like in the past, I've definitely, you
know, have noticed it, but I was always like, yeah, no,
I get it. But whatever it felt, maybe this is just actually
feelings that maybe the stats will back it up. It felt especially egregious this
year. It was just insane how we were blasting off major categories like best
RPG, best score and having Kajima and they look, ay, Kojima,
he's great, He's imported industry. Boy, has he gotten enough flowers?
Right? Yeah? Yeah, let's let's talk about some other developers for a
change or just a bit. I think I think you had the perfect I
think the reason this year it's been more polarizing that than years past, even
though I think worth its weight, right, it's basically pound for pound,
the same kind of show. I think you. I think what we've talked
about before this created the perfect storm where you do where you do have,
like the layoffs you do have, like even the things like the Chris Josheph
where it's like people not being able to like to wrap it up. But
I think it was like overreacted from Chris just going forty over last year thirty
seconds seconds totally over corrected U in a way that like, oh my god,
you're on the fucking internet, Like, uh would the lease on the
Peacock Theater? Like at midnight we all turn into pumpkins, Like what's going
to happen if you go a little longer? Believe me? And this is
someone who does not want to spend another minute of their lives in that god
forsaken theater not being able to go again. Why did you go two years
in a row back, like I had thtimes listen and I go because I
think it's good to represent giant Bomb at the awards and elbows and and do
the thing and say hi to people, and and you know, I think
there's other things to talk about too, Like there's there's a weirdness with the
after show or like what happens in LA Live after that, because you do
get this like mix of people who were at the awards and then a mix
of people who are just going to kind of almost like pre and post tailgate.
That's me and yeah, and that's it. Just there's there's a lot
of interesting things that are going on there that are that are sort of perfect.
Line was more packed than I've ever seen it before, and the show
was more crowded than it was last year. But yeah, you know,
I don't know my my I made this point on Twitter, is that we
at a certain point do you have to expect or stopped expecting that Jeff Keeley
can change his nature. We are getting the show show that Jeff Keey makes,
because this is the show that Jeff Keeley makes, and we could keep
lobbing criticisms and I think we can maybe move him a little bit left and
right in terms of okay, i'll give you more than thirty seconds to accept
an award. But in terms of like Mike O'Leary said that it was eighteen
percent awards and the rest was commercials, we maybe get that up to twenty
twenty two percent awards. It's not going to be fifty to fifty ever,
from the Jeff Keey Show, and turns out there's a lot of other award
shows, like That's Saturday in LA, the Real Game of Awards got announced
a Game of the Awards a giant bomb exactly, so we can just be
like put Kelley in his box over there and be like, let's maybe reduce
our estimation of what these awards mean and instead focus over on like the DICE
Awards, where that's voted on by the industry, by the Academy of Interactive
Arts and Sciences, and that's maybe that's more valuable and we could pay more
attention to that. And they got great hosts over there, except for Greg
Miller. So yeah, they're mostly right, But I think I think Khey
could be shamed. Yeah, I think, like I said, be shamed
about five percent, I think yeah. But I also think there is.
And again I'm this is not an endorsement of anything. It's just the reality
of the situation. It's the game Wars is a product in a way that
the Oscars is not necessarily a product. And I spring up the Oscars because
I do feel like that is the north star of maybe the original spirit of
what this award show was sort of like meant to be. If you presented
this case to all right, how are we going to fucking pay for it?
And how do I like pay all the people? And that's what it
is. So and I feel like real money, it's really real money.
It's like big like for some slots in there. We're talking three hundred and
fifty four hundred thousand dollars for like a couple of seconds on the show.
That's big time money. So yeah, like it's at a certain point it's
going to be hard to change that because like, yeah, some people got
mad at me on the internet. On the other side, I bought a
Ferrari like it's yeah, it's here's what it is too, And I think
this is something and maybe someone's written this and maybe I am coming up with
this on the fly here, but I do think that we that there's two
people. There's two groups here. There's us in the media who don't necessarily
care as much about the advertisements. But I think everybody else watches that show,
especially for the the the trailers, right, and so that's what it
is. We're in the minority. Means that I still get excited for the
trailers like popping off for I thought, you know, Jurassic Park and all
that stuff shut and usually like sometimes it does get to be reported. I'm
like, I don't really care that much about the awards whatever. But again
this year even I was embarrassed. Yeah, So but that's what it is,
right, It's the BAFTAs, it's the other things that like, that's
what we again as as media people who cover this stuff. That's the real
attention makers, right, that that should be getting you know, their their
flowers as you put it. But like the Game Award Show is a trailer
show, the commercial show. When do you think it happens where he will
eventually stop calling it the Game Awards? Oh? Never, It's it's because
the brand. Yeah, I think that brand's been solidified now, especially with
next year going to be like the ten year anniversary, Like that's going to
be a giant there, right, I mean, he got people to call
it the Oscars of gaming and it it just is nothing close to that.
But he got people to do that. He's not going to give up that
momentum, no way, and and when, and it has been refined and
tailored, and now it's become like a fashion thing, like people get dressed
to the nines like it is. It is that it is LARPing as the
Oscars, right, and it's again golden globes maybe even sure, I want
them to emulate the Oscars properly then, right if someone is going to accept
an award again, give that's again, that's not what the product is.
The product is not that it's a different product the Oscars anymore, just for
the industry. I think commercials during it though, no there's commercials. There's
no commercials like for cars, show new trailers for movies there like paid during
the show itself. Like yeah, I just think like they're two very different
things kind of attempting to be the same thing. It feels like the VMA's
right, the MTV Video Music Awards. Yes, it's more aligned to the
VMAs than the askers. You know what really got me for some reason was
having like two of the musical performances be for games coming out next year,
Like well, okay, so now where those are for sale? Alsoleeve And
it's getting kind of crazy. I'm sure everyone gets a menu, right,
you get a menu of what to buy a rate card, and it's like,
you want to spend a fuck ton of money. I'll get you in
the first trailer when we go live on the lines of you know, you
don't pay anything, like you're still that, like yes, absolutely, you
know. So it scales up and down for me. I will be happy
if there's just like five fewer actors and celebrities and we just get like ten
shaped on the page a little bit. You don't need any of them.
I'm not gonna listen. I'm like, keep it in mind, Like up
again, Jeff Keey. We can't change his nature. He loves this stuff.
Clearly, he's not going to abandon it completely. If you find a
couple to bring on stage because they are related to a game, whatever,
I guess Matthew McConaughey is in that game that he showed I was really close
to math Matthew McConaughey, You guys, I was like, and it did
nothing for many, it did nothing for me. But but God, just
put actual game developers on the stage, please please, you can treat them
like rock stars. We were getting drinks and then that's the thing I don't.
I don't think mainstream American gaming culture treats game developers the rockstar status.
No, no, no, no, no, I know they don't.
But they didn't get anything out of Anthony Mackie shouting noises at them even no
of course. Oh I'm just saying, like that's the reality of it,
right, Like we don't. We don't treat them in that regard the way
that their cultures do. I know what you mean, but like I think
the stars of this show are the game trailers and so you don't need the
actors at all. Yeah, totally with you, Like God, I was
losing my mind, and not in a cool, fun way, just having
Semulu saying like cool if my ankle's broke in a pickup game of basketball,
Like shut the fuck up, yeah him. But it misses the mark in
such a big way, right, Like it like when you really think about
it, like what other platform has the ability to turn these developers into like
the celebrity coming less the budget will do it. Yeah. I mean,
look like there's certain people like a Sam Lake who like kind of transcends that.
Right, Joseph Ferris became like a star, and then they like bring
Joseph Ferriss back for all the game Awards. It's like he's done it before.
He's turned some of these people into relative stars at you know, household
names within the industry. I just I wish I don't know, I say,
I wish you would like take the responsibility. Seriously, I don't.
He's not going to. I gotta stop like imagining he's going to, because
I can't fantasy book these shows anymore. It gets kind of frustrated. And
then you see fucking Seamulu up there talking like an idiot. You know.
Look, at the same time, it gave us an opportunity to like do
a thing down there, and that was great to have like people congregating,
especially without an E three. Right, it's a video game industry prom I
think it's a pretty it works out pretty well. Yeah, Like it's short
and sweet. It's one day, you know, like it doesn't Yeah,
I mean we were there for a week. You were there for a week.
Like a psycho. But you know, I think in the in the
spirit of that and just being able to have a social gathering and also a
way to catch up and and and you know, knock out a couple other
things. Get bit by some dogs. Like it's definitely the place to be.
You're right about the selebtih of people like O. Yeah, clear,
Bey's eagle views in his mind. Okay, then just put a fucking game
developer next to the celebrity. Sure, just just shout at people in the
audience, except put the human back in the cater a little bit, please,
But like, yeah, let Tim Shaffer come out and like make some
jokes with some people, and then someone new and then someone is Sadwich.
They work together, they know each other. That's fine. I love that.
Pair everyone with the person. Do that pair them back. I know
you say that. I don't think there's a rock starification. Maybe possible with
like the thing, It's not possible. I'm just saying, like I find
that American culture, like game culture, does not do they they don't think
of it in that way. I'm saying I believe that they should. I
believe they should, ye should put these people in that position. But our
culture seems to not be interested in me. I feel like it could slowly
move there, because when we're having drinks with like the Remedy folks like that
Waiter walked up to Kyle Rowley and was like, oh, yeah, like,
I hope you guys win this weekend. I absolutely love your game and
that was fucking wild, you know, and like, I feel like that
if it can get that way. But you're right about the general audience.
The tragedy is you're right, the developers are more interesting than celebrities. Yeah,
are more interesting people. We hung out with them all week and they're
fucking fun as hell to hang out with and to talk to. And we
show that how do I become a Blazer person? Like Sam Blake? How
does he travel with all those Blazers? He must have a separate I'm sure
he's got like a steamer trunk that he just ships from Finmone want to Blazer
guy, help a brother out? All right, last couple of stories here,
Bald just k three players advice to manually update their Xbox to combat disappearing
saves. Uh, it's an Xbox update, Like if you need to update
the system itself. Uh. And then and to make sure your game is
up to date, yes, right exactly, to give you do not want
to have saves disappear from You're very frustrated. There's one more thing I thought
of that I just want to say, because I'll forget it and do sketches
with developers, like do the fun videos of people, like make fun things,
you know, like do that have some fun, make sure they're actually
funny. Yeah, you know, Like I feel like the closest thing we
got to that was like the Herald of Darkness performances at the highlight of the
show. Absolutely the best part of the show, hands down. Nothing came
close to that. But like, do sketches, do do fun things like
make these people, give them the platform and bring celebrities into that where game
devopers are also mingling. That works too. Like I saw Walton Goggins,
Okay, Walton Goggins, baby Billy, Baby Billy, Okay, he was
there, and I was very excited to see Walton Goggins because he's one of
my favorite celebrities. But at the end of the day, I'm like,
all right, cool, whatever. Neil Druckman was on stage, and like
I saw the two of them now Neil Truckman. I don't know. It's
probably transcended the developer, right, and he's very big time of course.
But like I saw them embrace and then when they were walking off, like
they had their arms around each other and they were talking and you could maybe
see like, well, it's like you gotta put me last of Us season
two man like something like that. But there is the capacity for this thing
to happen. Uh, we just have to get like the right people who
want to see you know, like, look, I'm sure this is not
a foreign concept to someone like Jeff Keeley, but you have to we have
to do that. It's just not gonna happen by itself. It had the
decision needs to be made to want to see that happen. I make sketches.
I'm sorry, my brain is poisoned right now. It feels like Jeff
Keeley is just Tony Kahn right now. I need him to expand it out.
You just need to stretch out that action figures together. And they're all
actors for some reason. And also Kadrima All right, there's a rumor that
the PS five pro specs are leaking. They do seem like they should leak
soon because reportedly def kits are going out and the deaf kits will probably have
pretty close to the final specs, but it might be a range of possibilities.
The refined specs that our league can include a four nanometer AMD z in
two CPU that is capable of four point four gigahertz run clock there, but
it's variable, it'll go up and down. The big thing there at four
nanimeter. The original Zen two chip inside of the PS five was I think
seven nanimeter. They might wow exactly They might have got it down to six
with the revision, but drop it down to four and animeter means this thing
is going to be very cool, very efficient. They probably might be able
to do a PS five pro that is even like way slimmer than the current
slim model, Like that would be extremely more efficient, so that's pretty cool.
Then the GPU will be a full on our DNA three custom GPU with
up to twenty nine terraflops. Potentially there's a range of fourteen to twenty nine
teraflops here. I think the PS five was somewhere like around ten eleven twelve,
so it's like it could be a small upgrade or it could be you
know, twice as powerful, and it's also gonna have like twice the power
for ray tracing. That's what they're saying. This is, hey cool.
I don't really still feel the need for a PS five Pro, but it
seems like they're going to do one, So here we are. This is
it's crazy because I definitely remember tangibly during PS four Pro time where we were
like, oh, this is the perfect time. This console feels like it
could use a shot in the arm, right this platform. I don't feel
that now, Like I haven't seen Alan Wake on PS five. I know,
Jan you were saying, it's like phenomenal to me. To me,
that's like the Fidelity Barometer game right now. Yeah, it just seems again
this is this is probably at least a year away, right, Like is
that a fair and reasonable estimation? Next holiday? By the earliest, right
right? Yeah, by the earliest, you know, yeah, probably holiday
though. Yeah, I just think, like, you know, from this
position in December of twenty three, like, uh no, I don't it
doesn't feel like a tangible need for this, but you know, we'll get
we'll get a game called GTA six, And if Sony could say, hey,
we're the only console you can run GK six to sixty frames per second.
Maybe that alone makes it worth it to them. Did you see that
Digital Foundry breakdown of the trailer when they were like counting pixels? It was
pretty well, it's pretty nuts. And yes, I think they I think
they think the game is going to be targeted at thirty but yeah, on
console it usually is, yeah for them, but but yeah, that would
be wild. Certainly if you could delivered, you could land this plane saying
some bold thing like that, that's probably what they're thinking. But it's like
beyond that, there's not very many games where you know, they have enough
money to even do fidelity like that. I'm sure developers would like to have
a little bit more scope, but you know, they're still going to be
aiming stuff all the way up and down from like a switch to low end
p so they're gonna disappointed. I've been disappointed enough in performance in places five
games. Maybe that's optimization, but like you know, Jedi Survivor was pretty
rough for a while. If I was sixteen, even, I was just
gonna as steady as sixty fps as I would have liked on performance mode.
Yeah, you're reminded me that's that's okay. I don't know if this is
a controversial take, but like I don't want to have to choose between performance
and Quality's we're gonna be over that. I don't know that. I hate
that so much. I was an ignorant, stupid little baby going this generation
like, yeah, the console is gonna be so powerful, we don't need
to make that choice anymore. Stupid. I mean to keep doing that because
even with this system here, getting a solid like sixty four K is gonna
be kind of rough in most things. Mostly they're not gonna run native four
K, and they're still gonna want to give you that option for native four
K. Yeah, yeah, okay. I mean look, so basically that
comes down to like ten ADP sixty and four K thirty. Is that like
the difference there is, you know we're choosing. Yeah, that's what it
is right now. But for now, this is will probably get like four
K forty, and the lower foot fidelity games might do like four K sixty
or like four K one twenty. If you're like a like an esports kind
of game. Yeah, I just you know, I think choosing between that
for me is not a good feeling. I understand why I compromised somebody in
that. Yeah. It is like before you start the game, it's like,
what which part do you want to be bad? Yeah, Like you
know, when you're firing up God of War, you're like, well,
this will look real fucking dope at sixty Uh. What I also want to
see, you know, I want to see cradles as freckles as well.
So one less story here. This is something that was going on there.
That's I think Steven Totila, who is very kind at the Game Awards,
Hi Steven. Yeah, he did an interview with the gaming guy over at
Disney, not John Drake, someone who's charge of Star Wars and basic guess
about Star Wars nets the Old Republic, and he says there's still a lot
of demand for it, but you can't talk about to be on that.
And I want to want to reiterate because I got, I got was it's
got brought your catch and it's like, boy, did I try to clarify
this in a number of times I know, and no one fucking listed.
They only listen to the first thing. There was no beyond that. Again,
someone's probably working on it at Saber in fact, I'm gonna say they
definitely are. Like I had Jason's Shryer story, Yeah, that's confirmed.
There's definitely people working on at Saber. But the thing that was announced as
a Sony published thing, that game that got announced is no longer the thing.
Saber is working on something that will have to get a new partner,
and so that original game is just dead basically, and Saber will have to
uh have it re emerge somewhere else unless Sony comes back and says, yeah,
we want it now, but right now, Sony wants nothing to do
with it. So yeah, if the if your question continues to be will
that game ever see the light of the light of day? The chances are
lower than ever. But that doesn't mean it's completely dead, and it doesn't
mean no one's working on it. Soone sabers working. So there you go.
It's exactly what we said that like that Monday and Tuesday after the story
broke and everyone was asking me about it. But hey, I'll reiterating.
I think, especially with bolters Gate three being this hit, just make a
new code tour now cool, Like literally, we had two old boater Gates
and then we made a new one like way later and there was a big
reboot and everyone got very excited. That seems like the formula to me that
we should be pursuing here to do a force shove. They do a force
shove, Force shove of the year, foreshove of the year. Oh okay,
best force shoving. Uh like it. I'm done with the news.
Back to you, Jan, I have a million dollar idea, that million
dollar keep it yourself tell us in the in the commercial and you're good.
Oh that's right, okay, okay, Hey, hey, you know how
sometimes they'll have post interviews after someone wins an award at an Auscars or Golden
Globes. Let us just give it to us, Just give it to us,
and then we'll have that touch segment. Yeah, we'll bring it couch.
We do, we do. We could do a Pope pre show.
We could do a red carpet show where we talk about everyonehere Dan is interviewing
everyone's passion, right, and we get a listener conte on on there to
like just talk magic about what everyone's wearing. Oh my god, if she
wasn't judging me too harshly, because I was at some Xbox mixer and I
just popped in before going to the Phantom offices, and everyone else there was
going to the game boards. Everyone dressed incredibly nicely, and I had some
graphic tea jeans and my Mickey Mouse backpack that had my laptop in it.
Yeah. I couldn't give how many people handed them their empty drinks. It
was awesome. Now I'm kidding. Listen, you looked great, Mike.
Don't you rock a blazer really well? Mike? When I didn't have the
Blazer then that's why I'm saying in general, yeah, up, real good.
You need to be a Blazer person for sure. I gotta get more.
Let's be want to be bebies together, Mike Blazer bros. Yeah we
can do that, can I? I like? Fully in did my I
wear horses on my shirts? Now? It was, yeah, like you
want it's It's great. It defines you a little bit. I think it's
very jeff Lebowski, like if we're it's Jeffrey Lebowski. Yeah yeah. And
if you're gonna do that like I think you do it very well. Okay,
someone I'm sticking with it. Just shine like a giant light at me
at all times. I really want to pull off that Ben Star look a
lot of you if you just turn around and but yeah, the light what
an absolute delightful person. Yes, it's your first time meeting Ben Huh.
Yeah, I you know. And it was funny like we were setting up
that sketch that we did that to Ope in the live show, which you
haven't seen. It'll be at the beginning of the live show. Uh.
And my first original idea was like Dan do this, and Dan hadn't met
been Star before, so it's like, I don't know. And then as
soon as he met Ben Star, he's like, man, that guy's really
nice. Like we had out with Ben more. You get it now?
Yeah, we should absolutely be those be the be the bookends to the Game
Awards. Everyone tell Kiley, we'll have people. Hopefully doesn't watch this,
but people will say that he is very good at taking criticism and he does
not ever like snap at people if he has I haven't seen it. He
does like you could tell he's defensive, because everyone gets defensive when they hear
criticism. Everyone does. But he does a pretty decent job of at least
like letting it air and having it set to his face, and he takes
it and he tries to internalize it. I think it's going to be hard
to change his nature, but I do want to like shout him out for
listening. Yeah, I will continue to praise him for this section of the
show, as we're all doing, because we want him to do a thing
we want to do. We're glazing Jeff, We're glazing healing No. One
of the more cooler heads in the entire industry, right, Like, yeah,
I think that is. Honestly, he can't deny what he's stilling to
do what he's doing. I don't know who else I would trust, right,
Yeah, yeah, I'll do it. Okay, sorry, never mind,
take it back. It's all yours. But like yo, keels Man,
think about it. It makes sense, baby, Just do what I
mean. Three jets rocking the name. Come on, come on, let's
go, come on, we have a podcast. It's Jeff Jeff right,
itsel itself. I'm really good at pressing buttons. I'm cold about it.
As long as it's not a fucking try caster that'll burn that ship to the
crowd. Use a trycaster for that show? God, God, I would
I know I do not something real big? Yeah, I'd rather use a
think pad or some ship anyway, we're gonna take a quick breaking break and
then we'll be back with your emails. Emails are what we're about to do.
We're gonna we're gonna read them. We're gonna say, what's happening with
your bottle? There? That's just catching this god race? Yeah? Are
you channeling in ben Star there right now? That's two X ray tracing there.
Don't eat it. It's it's bad for your tummy. Uh, but
you know it's good for your tummy. Emails from you the folks at home,
send your emails to bombcasta giant bomb dot com. I read all of
them. I appreciate them. I'm going to buy a whole set of magnets
now to properly display them on my refrigerator. The first email in question comes
from Paul uh Dear bombers, what is it about Tim Sweeney that makes seemingly
everyone mildly dislike him? Of course, he has overseen layhouse and other CEO
things, but as far as I know, he hasn't done anything particularly scummy.
Most of the big things he has done are arguably good. Ye people
constantly class on him. Epic makes a competitor Steam that's great. Steam could
use some competition. Epic stores try to attract users by constantly giving them giving
away free games. That's awesome. What do people think? They fucking hate
it? Epic launches a lawsuit against Google and Apple. Good those corporations have
way too much power already. What do they say? You shouldn't parody that
Big Brother commercial during these trying times, even though the original commercial was about
Apple itself taking on established monopolies. Epic launches a metaverse with the most equitable
revenue split. I've ever seen people still prefer roadblocks. I just don't get
it, cheers Paul. Yeah, he's It is a bit about the attitude.
You know, when you meet someone you're like, oh, this person
has a certain energy that immediately isn't my vibe. Tim Sam Sweeney has that
kind of on a big level. And it I mean it is stuff like,
oh, we are gonna be like trying to in it the energy of
the Fortnite Army to hashtag say Fortnite go attack these other companies on our behalf
and here we made a commercial about it. That is a commercial for our
lawsuit. They have worked for the lawsuit. It's cringey. Yeah, I'm
saying, but it's cringey. No, could there's nothing wrong with using the
word cringey, Like he not only okay, I mean cringing about it,
he's cringing about cringing. Yeah. Like he just seems like a deeply unlikable
person front to back. Also, you know it doesn't really matter, But
howcome Wikipedia doesn't know how old Tim Sweety is. It's like he's either fifty
two or fifty three. What is that even possible anymore? Like, it's
not my business. I should have just gets it though, But I've never
seen that with care exactly how old he is. Yeah. I also I
dislike the way he frames the arguments about how everything against him is unfair in
a scheme, Like he always says, like the thirty percent store cuts,
those are taxes. It's like, that's that's not a tax. That's not
what a tax is. It's a fee that you have to pay to use
someone else's services. Yes, but just because you don't like it doesn't make
it a tax. And he does that with everything. Every time he talks
about something doesn't like, it's always framed in those terms. And I find
that off putt Yeah, right, So the things that are against it,
are unethical, and it's like, I find this off putting. You can
have a winning argument without having to put up the straw man in every single
possible argument. It's very annoying to me. Look, it's great that,
like, yeah, Steam does need a competitor, and they're in this position
to make one, and he didn't make a great one. I wish they
did a better job there, right, And I again, I think it
was like trying to use the power of like people being like, oh,
we can get these free games, and even the people that were against Epic
at the time, it's like that there are arguments were a little bit misplaced.
They just I just want my stuff on Steam. But it's like I
could have told you, Tim Sweeney that this wasn't gonna work. And if
you would have taken all that money you spent trying to make the Epic Game
Store and instead used it to published games like you ended up doing with Allen
Wake two, that would have been a much better use of everyone's time and
money. But he holds beefs and they're so obvious in public that again,
that's something that rubs me the wrong way. I don't hate him, but
It's like it is the kind of guy I spotted a party and be like,
Oh, I'm going to avoid that side of the room because I know
if I end up over there, I'm just gonna get like a headache.
And that's that's how I feel about it. Was he the crypto guy too?
Yeah? I think he was. He was like metaverse guy. He
definitely was like we'll Oh, Steam's not gonna let crypto stuff beyond on Uh,
Steam will do it on Epic. He said that ship. He says
that kind of shit all the time. He's definitely the metaverse guy. But
I mean, in his defense, at least their make It Fortnite so and
is the closest thing we have to that, right, other than Roadblocks,
which is actually even more of a metal I mean, on top of Bruno,
at least he doesn't actively practice magic and you know illusion, You're right,
any pictures that sweet is at our games Beat event, he walked into
the green room, mouths in just some and be's like, Hi, I'm
Randy. It's like, Hi, I'm Mike. I hope you don't know
who I am, all right. Next email comes from Andrew in Central Illinois.
Hey, bomb cast, Why don't you call around the rooms and he
says something nice about Jeff Grub. Thanks Andrew Central Illinois. Oh easy,
Jeff Grub. We're glazing Grub right now. Is someone who will just get
it done and that's what you need. Yeah, doesn't ask questions, doesn't
say well how do I do this, just gets it fucking done. He's
the ultimate grease man. He will fucking rock it and you don't have to
worry about anything. The kid comes in. He has endless amounts of energy.
He has an endless, limitless tank, which I do not understand.
He is very much in many ways I think people should aspire to be when
it comes to interviewing people, because you know, having done a lot of
that work myself at snet, which was a technology website that from a while
back that no one knows about it anymore, but just the ability to like
Riff and yes, and especially when you are interviewing all different kinds of people
from all walks of life and juggling everyone's background. I know, we talk
about how awesome it is that he does, but we still we still do
not give him enough credit with how difficult that is to do. And yeah,
like who also doesn't love hugging a big old teddy bear, Like that's
that's cool too, and that's Jeff Grubb. Yeah power. Now I throw
miscellaneous questions into the universe, and I used to do that and now would
just throw them at Grub. I think Grub will at least humor me,
at least try to answer. I really will. Yeah, Granpa has no
problem being the big or the little spoon right. Admire that about him.
A man, Am I dying? Is that what's happening? I mean,
aren't we all? Are we? Aren't we all? You made that joke
to me pretty good after you got everybody at the JW to sing happy birthdays
at me. You're like, honestly, I could not I could not believe
that started to happen. Like I love that that it accepted someone and someone
took it too seriously. Yeah, I was over you guys, and you
guys it was like, oh, this is happening. Uh yeah, So
I can't believe. That's the thing I believe most is that that happened because
I just like, look at Micha. I'm like, yeah, this is
going to happen. As soon as the idea got out in the air,
it's like this whole room is going to be saying his birthdays, I think,
including Howard saying happy, including Pod Howard and Kyle Rowley. So several
game directors singing birthday to Mike naughty. Howard was right there. He was
like on the other side of our couch, so there was no way.
Yeah, he was just going to put his hands on it would be no
birthday. It was really funny. It was it was impacked room and everyone
was saying oh and it was yeah, it was. It was one of
the yeah I'm happy to be a part of those things. Guys. Yes,
it's true. It's true. We could go on forever. Also,
just to explain context, the children are now saying glaze. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I still think you're talking about semen. I gotta be honest.
No, gris and glazes are different. Wait, yeah glaze. They
are talking. Well, if you rizz someone up, aren't you also sort
of like it's like you see your your your your charisma, charisma. Okay,
yeah, yeah that's up. You're like you're you're slobbing on their gog.
Right, not necessarily go ahead, Jim, to glaze is like kissing
someone's butt, right, yes, okay, and like I don't like it
either way. All right, what a different word? You love donuts?
What do you mean don't you like a good glazed donut? It's like,
oh, like wow, this glaze is perfect, but not too much glaze
to clear your context? Was glazing? Somebody's asshole was saliva. We didn't
even I feel like, speaking of eating, we didn't even like go over
some of the things we all took part in. And there's some things that
I am not happy about. We ate one hundred nuggets, we ate a
hundred nuggets. I am so sad I missed out on that. I'm so
sad. We were red Ford and uh and Megan ever and it was just
three good jan jan you would have well that's when grug cosplayed as Bernie Lomax
from Bernie exactly. Dan and Nikki were there too, Minati and we just
even I had like I had five nuggets and it was fucked up. We
went down on those chicken nuggets. My guy, my guy. Hey,
Glazed shouts out to Nikki, what a fun time it is hanging out.
Yeah, it was great. You know a lot of cool fun people actually
turns out. Yeah, we're also very great and very cool hang out with
them. Yeah, yeah, like Ralph from Skill Up and Baldino. Getting
to see those guys again. Young yeah, young Due. I had never
met Stu is the Bee's knees Man and Stu and I Stu, you guys
like blonde hair. Oh I know it's from the rug Rats. Yeah that's
what we're talking about. Really. Yeah, Stu and I had a fun
time at the remedy at the Remedy party room. That was a good time.
Yeah, just joshing it up. I don't know how the Remedy party
room things still happened, but yeah, yeah, I was like just talking
to something. You're like, we're in the remedy room. I'm like,
I do not know what that it was. Ralph, to be honest,
like grabbed us and was just like, yeah, I don't want to give
you any but that night was that I and I'm sorry it was it was
It was cool. It was us. I drank that week. Yeah,
yeah, that was that was something else. But see, but you had
fun too, Jan you were you were you remember I don't shout out to
Chris. Shout out Chris. That's right. Yeah, I'm glad he escaped
just kind of him. Chris is back in the hole. Get glazed my
head? He did get anyway? Yeah, okay, all right, you
know what. We we would running a little long, but that's fine.
Let's do Oh we only have three more emails. Let's speak, can do
this, We could do this, all right. The next one comes from
anonymous Hey, bomb Arinos, long time, first time, But after the
discussion about Bethesda steamerview responses on the most recent BombCast, I wanted to chime
in with a take on the subject. For context, I mean community manager
in the games industry with close to a decade of experience working on many different
games across a variety of genres. Responding to Steam reviews isn't a new thing,
but best practices say to only respond in order to correct factual misinformation or
call out patches or bug fixes. In my experience, when canned responses like
the ones we've seen are employed to respond to reviews, orders have always come
from management or executive level. It's highly unlikely that this is a rogue customer
support person trying to fight for Starfield's good name. It's more likely that someone
on the executive level start saw Starfield's middling steam score in order the customer support
people to respond to reviews and attempt to flip them, or they had pressure
from stockholders who also panicked because of the Steam score. Thanks for letting me
share my take. Keep casting a fantastic pod, Anonymous. It's definitely got
to be from an executive, because only somebody who doesn't have a grasp on
reality would be like, well, if we fight back, we can.
We could make these steam reviews. But if we tell people that empty planets
aren't boring because real astronauts went to the moon and thought that it was pretty
cool, they'll see the lights. Yeah, yeah, I always said the
sense that this was from the top down. That's what it always felt like
to me. So I agree with this email. Hey what about that super
passive aggressive Starfield trailer that played during the game awards. That's three awards.
We don't need any guys so much. I was like, that's like me
telling my friends going to the prom that I hope they have fun. I
made a video for you guys about having fun tonight. All right, here
you go. I think it was also like that script font at the end
too, that felt very much like generic wedding invitation fund. Yeah, it
was just like from SNL. Yeah, this thing right, this feels icky?
All right, last two emails here high BombCast. Before the rest of
this email is read back, Laar needs to take a couple of deep breaths.
This email might upset him, though not in a way he can anticipate.
I'm already starting off real poorly, doing bad. Okay, let's hear
it now. Dan Reichert is seen as a culinary visionary and genius Jeff Backlar
as Rekert's disciple. What have you learned under records tutelage, remember deep breaths.
Have you learned any culinary hacks or just important life lessons from Kert?
Have you recently have you recently talked about your dislike of watermelons? Have you
become less of a piggy eater while working with Dan Reichert. With the best
of regards, Danny C, Dan rec Sorry, i I'm just not wait,
okay, okay, with the best level of regards Dan ree C Kirtfinn,
I just don't understand what I'm supposed to do with this email. What
is this saying? What is this positing? Is this saying? Is this
is this one does this want me to like, yeah, imagining a world
in which this is true. Because you ever learned anything, especially if it's
food related, great, But just anything, I guess from Dan. Have
I learned anything from Dan? I don't know. I think what I've learned
from Dan is that you should never assume that anyone is You should never assume
that anyone is in like uh, you should never assume that someone is the
way you expect them to be. I think from like a social interactive sort
of point of view. And I don't know if I can even give Dan
all the credit for that, but I just look, there's a look I
find myself, even at the dinner the other night, just sort of like
talking to Dan about things that I assumed that he knew about. You know,
I remember the conversation. Maybe not that conversation specifically, but you know,
yeah, I guess I guess what I've learned from Dan is to just
not take anything too seriously. And that's maybe something we could all do better.
Even I was a little surprised I should have known better that he did
it, like got zero bitus would. I was like, He's not gonna
be that bothered because it's in subtitles, and because like you know, there's
dialogue scenes right, and because there's characters that have like no emotions. Well,
I nailed it, I said, Dan, it's just because you had
to read subtitles, is what you'd have been. Yeah, that's definitely what
happened. I'm reading. I'm reading this email now. If the first sentence
of the second paraca says now common Dan Recherd is seen as a culinary vision
and genius, there's no one who's read it's written by who's written by?
Again? Dan, I get? I see Dan? Okay? Great?
I think we were just worked. Yeah it works? Is that? I
I think Okay has Dan's like versions, Like when you see Dan like act
in a way that we're like, oh my god, he's being such a
baby. Does that make you want to be better about things? We're like,
I don't want to be perceived as being Dan like oh yeah, Like
he's certainly the canary in the coal mine in a lot of ways where you're
just like, oh, that's the worst way to handle that. That's not
going to do that. Memories of last week are now flooding back because I
remember when when Dan showed the table at Mike's dinner a picture of his dad.
Bailey just chied me in like, oh no, was your dad hot?
Right? That did happen? It was very funny because then you guys
turned over us and you go Dan's parents were hot, and there's a beat
and Mike goes, well, what happened to him? Mean? He was
so bad When I'm like, bet to David beat to me all the time?
It to him? Yeah, like Dan in at every moment, he's
just looking to mess with people, like you know, and and sometimes uncomfortably
so, but he as someone who does get very uncomfortable as well, Like
I don't know if he can take it as much as he can dish it
out, you know. Yeah, Hey, here's a little thought experiment for
for my friends. Here. Did did Dan technically tea bag Jeff Backler's bed?
Yeah? Yes, sounds like he back my pillow? Mm hmm.
He's gonna be too bag in a security deposit real soon, that's what he's
gonna be doing. Here went to that everyone here went to that eighties bar
that Bailey oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fantastic,
that's fine. That was great that place to go. Maybe just because of
my birthday, and I had alreadyen drinking. I got very excited that the
place was called break Room eighty six and I was born in nineteen eighty six.
Birthday. You were very excited to tell everyone that I thought it was
no one. No one else seemed to care. Well, we didn't care,
because you know, h thirty seven is just an insignificant number for that,
like eighty six, what a queak? You think? What's not?
We went there because of that. It's masterfully planned. You had a one
out of ten shot for an eighties bar. I guess you know, I
guess I got that picture of you in the phone booth there. Oh yeah,
yeah, I got that too. It's a good it's a good photo.
Yeah. That place was fun, a lot of like video screenshooting random
eighties things. I started asking everybody what their favorite eighties movie was. Yeah,
why are you asking me this? Like we're in an eighties bar.
I was fun as to why you were asking me that? Me too.
It seems like you had read like the post page. I feel exactly why
you were asking me. You's gonna make it clear. It was very obvious
why you were asking because we were at an eighties themed bar was your answer
again, Mike, I can't. I can't remember the future Empire Back.
Empire Strikes Back is like such an obvious one that I almost feel bad saying
it, so I get say it's probably Empire Back to the Future Part two.
Uh. Maybe Star Trek four the one with whales. Yeah, I
love Star Trek four. Ron is defly the most Eighties movie that I like
a lot. I panicked and said, Top Guy. I don't know if
Top Gun is my favorite eighties movie. It's very good, though, I
mean, the eighties are so long ago and I wasn't even born yet,
so I don't know. A yeah, and comments, what's your favorite eighties
movie this show? I said, Trading Places right like Fielder Dreams a lot?
Sure, Okay, okay, Sorry to this emailer. I didn't write
your name down. I didn't copy it over, but they wrote in Hi,
folks. The Coen Brothers have approved the remake of The Big Lebowski,
and they believe Giant Bam to be prime candidates for helming the project. As
their agent, I've been asked to provide the following casting suggestions. Jeff Beckler
as the Dude, Dan Reichert as Walter Sabchak, Jeff Grubb as Donnie,
Mike Minatti as is it Jesus or Jesus Jesus Jesus Yeah, Jana Sho as
Sam Elliott. Please offer feedback or further suggestions. It feel free to include
auditions for parts of your podcast. I will relate them to Ethan and Joel
as soon as possible. Yeah, I'm sorry for that. I think.
No, I know I'm about to say it. Let me, let me
do it. I was happy. I'm happy to to hand off what should
clearly be Jeff Grubbs role as much as I want to play. I think
you're you're Walter, but yeah, I think you're gonna be as aggressive,
but you can get up there a little bit. I do think Dan looks
more like Walter some ject, but yeah, I could ease. I think
I could do that. Dan gived me Jackie tree Horn. He could be
a weird pervert. Don't I have Donny energy? Do I have Donny energy?
I love that you're the pedophile. You could be Donny. Yeah,
I love it. But not he's the pedophile. Okay, don't click that,
don't clickophile. No, he is most certainly a sex criminal. In
this movie, Jesus is right. Yeah he has to. Yeah yeah,
yeah, but then you have an unfortunate situation where he dies. We're making
up movie. I think it was just movie mad that was not real.
So Dan, okay, Dan Reichert is Jackie Treehorn Okay. Yeah, he
treats objects like women. Man, I learned about justifying over the past week.
That's wild. It's the I think Jan's the real Lebowski. Yes,
that's a tough role. Actually, I think Dan should be the big Lebowski.
Yeah. I can definitely see him screaming about people not having jobs and
stuff like oh yeah, yeah, he's definitely said ship like that before.
Yeah, Philip Seymour Hoffman like, uh, I think you could do it
or or Tam Maybe I'm fine being Sam Elliott. That's very flattering. I
appreciate it, very good. Yeah yeah. In the bag man, there
we go, There we go. Lest you use so many cuss words,
dude, I love saying who's gonna be Peter Stammott, Peter Stamar just getting
back. Only he could do it, Only he could do it? What
about Bunny Lebowski. It's it's inappropriate to say any of our female poll yeah
themselves, jop skirting around. I wanted to make it weird, but also
was curious if anyone genuinely had an idea Greg Bailler could be. It could
be Bunny Labowski. There you Greg Miller presenting a toe and saying blow on
it. I was thinking about that a lot when I ate my toe at
the game. Right, your cake toe, your caketoe, please please?
All right? That does it for emails. You can send your emails to
BombCast giant bomb dot com. We got two more things to do before we
get out of here, folks, and one of those things is the shout
out. Shouts out too, Jesse Young, Elmo Vitelli, John Luke,
Cool Judge, Jake Decker, Michael Heim, Blessing Marino, Zach and Company,
Emma, I put Michael him again and in quotation Marks Chris, everyone
who helped behind the scenes at the live show. Shouts out to Paolo On,
Sue and Toshi and Chuck and Corgi Royalty. Y'all. You know who
loves you? I do, yes, you, I'm talking to you.
You are loved and you look at fabulous Superman Smash Brothers Brawl one of the
best games all time, Mike Minatti, Destroyer of worlds who bashit? Thank
you? The muppets are Disney and Gonzo fuckx, slash a Love's Chickens.
Would he be into Daisy put Nicki Minaj in the Game Awards you cowards and
on the BombCast, Hey open seat for Nicki Minaj. The time Chris got
creampighted on stage getting glazed in front of everyone. Cyberpunk winning an award for
finally releasing their game out of open beta and being darlings of the industry again
Parentheses Thanks CDPR Upper Management and Marketing Team. Slash Kappa jan as the resident
Power Rangers in Tokusatsu. In general, person you ever get a chance to
see the shin common Rider or common writer Black Sun since they hit Amazon.
Shouts out to Armden Rangers, Slash Armed and Riters, Matt Shipman, I
miss you. I'm just bummed that there will be no group. No group.
The day before Blake Club excited for the incoming midnight mass for the Babinka
and no I'm not a vampire. Hey, Hey, Hey, can fuck
to Google. I'm Janichoa and this is my favorite podcast on the Internet where
the freaky frick is the man of the myth legend John Falcon at the Live
show. All you need is grub. All you need is grub. Grub,
grub is all who need. Walt on my goggins. This is me
Janechoa officially announcing the Giant Bomb Entertainment Expo at the Peacock Theater June twenty seventh,
twenty twenty four. Fuire tickets now. By the way, I didn't
know that it is the Peacock Theater now and maybe kind of sad that those
stupid little tiles with the big X box like achievements wear in La Live anymore.
I was like, I thought those were forever. Those were cemented into
La Live. You can jackhammer that ship. So Henos is up, Hey,
Noos, fuck you, The pr Team and Epic Games apparently in parentheses
in the Goo Goomba Dumper Cadence, Mike Manadi Feet Ermanati feet or Tasty,
Mikey Cake Tasty, Mikey Swiggety Swoogety, I'm a coming for Kiele's boozy In
Eddie Vader's voice, I don't know this one. Ooh, I'm spinning,
I'm spinning, I'm sprinting, I'm spinning. I'm spin Thank you for giving
me the context jets. There you go in this world covered by endless water,
legends, feel the hearts of many, pulling the trigger to dive into
mystery and myth, braving the depths to explore what was left behind by the
old world. Yes, let us remember them, those brave hearts with spirits
of steel as we recount there dig outers, adventure stories and halcyon days.
May they rock on forever in our hearts and big shots out. I don't
know, I just read, like, what are you on? Okay,
I just read on the raid. Thanks man, max Shots, Minimis Maximus.
Then a big shouts out to all the GB crew for pulling off a
great Game of the Year show. To everyone involved. A big kiss on
the cheek and a big kiss on the mouth from me. Uh hey,
hey, Jeff Beckler, Jeff Becklaugh, Jeff Beckler. There's one more thing
to announce. Oh oh my gosh. Yes, uh this was created and
inspired during the chaos of the game Award Slash Game of the Year for sale.
Now you can have your very own Flashlight game T shirt. That's right,
no one's ever done this before, so we're gonna do it. Uh,
you can have your very own Flashlight game. Uh, designed by the
one the only does this man ever stop working, Jerem. My gosh,
what would Game of the Year be without Jerem's help. I cannot begin to
explain just how crucial pivotabal, pivotal and invaluable. Having him be at our
side throughout this whole process was so such a big thank you, and uh,
you know, the latest fruits of his laborers right here in this video
game called Flashlight Game, which you have to you know, can I get
one in a Luigi's Mansion style? Uh? No, it wouldn't be as
good as this one. It wouldn't be Go check out Flashlight Game. The
T shirt. I feel like it's like Spaceballs the djer that's on the store
dot Giant bomb dot com. You can buy that right now. And on
the back there's a little uh there's a little GB logo too, so wow,
GB logo just like it. Sweet, You're gonna be the little spoon
or the big spoon there m. I feel like we do need a thermis
now to complete the package. It took all of my willpower to not steal
that from the La set. I know I saw you. Yeah, I
got mine over here, you son of a bitch. Mike. Yeah,
I won't give it to you, even though you like that game more than
because it's okay, Mike, I understand. What do we got going on
for the rest of the week. We got games mornings popping off Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday, right, Jeff. Yes, we'll do a Blake club
on Wednesday. Uh, tune in tomorrow. That's tomorrow. I feel like
I'm supposed to do something else. Oh, I have a doctor's appointment.
That's what it is. It's first and stuff. Thursday, we'll have voicemail
dumb truck, right, Jam, We've got a crew for that, yes,
sir. And then uh, Friday, we are gonna do a upf
I think it's time we check out this Lethal Company. Yeah, yeah,
it's our Lethal Company. We'll also have the final category of Giant Bomb's Game
of the Year twenty twenty three. That's right, music bonus category. Yes,
we're gonna do the Music of the Year. We're gonna make that a
segment on BCR so we can let it breathe a little bit, give it
some extra time. Yes, yes, Also, Turbo Sean will be joining
us for that one. As if you want to like suggest some songs hit
me, but hit Sean Turbo Shwan on Twitter, make some recommendations to him.
Send some linkys over to Sean and grubs way please, Yeah, timestamps
help. There will be a Jeff Jeff's Bizarre Adventure. We recorded it yesterday.
That should be up tomorrow. And then I believe the plan because we're
pretty close to the end of Cowboy Bebop, so I think we're going to
I think what we're gonna do is there's three episodes left until like the movie,
right, so apparently there's like a good Cowboy BeBot movie that we should
all be watching as well, So we're gonna do three. We're gonna do
the last three. Oh, and then there's a two parter, so we
might play around with like how we do that last two parter that finishes the
series. We might like record it as we're actually watching it. Have you
watched me as Zaki movies like what like what like Princess Monono? Yeah,
I've seen the Delivery Service, right, just magical the fish one uh of
the value, the first one the fish and then one Yeah, dib loves
all that ship, so we we blew through a lot of that during COVID.
Okay, then I'm assuming if it's because of you haven't seen Princess Monda,
ok because he needs the wait a little bit before. Oh yeah,
we we haven't seen like some of that dark stuff, right, yeah,
Okay, I mean Princes Vinoki fucking rips, but so spirited away, spired
away, so good. Yeah, those they're they're they're phenomenal. But I
don't I don't know, uh like, so we're gonna go back to JoJo's
after this, of course, because it's been like a very long time getting
through Cowboy Bebop. I just don't know, like if like when we when
we finished season four, I guess it is. I don't know where we'll
go from there, presumably back to five. We'll see. But yeah,
that's uh, you know, eat JoJo's while watching JoJo's. I'm sorry,
what is that eat JoJo's? What? What's Jojo? Those big fries is?
I don't Ohio thing? It might be an Ohio thing, buddy,
Yeah, they're called potato wedges. I think it's not an Ohio thing.
I know potato Ohio. Never seen anything called Jojo? Yeah, I know
what potato wedges are. Yeah, they're like real long potato wedges. They
call them Jojo Mike, you go down on JoJo's now. They're kind of
great, like rather they were cut smaller and they're like real French fries because
they get you know, sometimes agat in the middle of the Joe. Joe's
like, oh, this part's not cooked as much as it should be.
It's too big. Well, there we go. Pape Tree's got JoJo's in
the Northwest. They know, fantastic thing. I'm glad JoJo's could be a
thing. I had a friend that tried making Joe a thing for me because
of my initials, and then we stopped being friends. Wait wait real quick,
what a gas should sometimes have suggestion suggestive names like come and go or
like in your head okay, and jugs and loaf. Oh but I like
chicken loaf? Can we turn chicken loaf? And I'm sorry, Jane,
you can get us out of here now. Well, that's been another episode
of the Giant BombCast. I've had a fantastic time talking to Jeff beck Lar,
Mike Manatti, Jef Grub and having uh you folks at home. I'm
listening on the side there. You're all looking lovely. Thank you once again
for coming to the live show. If you're able to make it, we
assure you the archive will be coming very very very soon. I've been janned.
He's been Jeff, he's been Jeff, he's been Mike. You have
been rocking that shirt that you've been wearing. Mighty fine. We'll see you
next week for another episode of Giant BombCast. Best movie Crawl Ever splashed?
No, oh yeah, yeah, oh water World. Water World's the best
ninety nineties. But that's okay, Yes, that too, Okay, all
right, all right, all right, Ben