Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It's episode fifty
one. We're officially in the back half of our first hundred, as they
say, the double the quad centennial. Are you middle aged the podcast fifty
one? Middle aged these days? I think so? Yeah, I think
it's still what does it start? Middle age? Yeah? I don't know
the hill? Forty? Shit? Is it forty forty? Over the hill?
I want to be middle aged. I'd rather be middle aged than Actually,
no, I'm enjoying my thirties quite a lot. It's all good pretty
much. That age is special. Didn't get old and like everything breaks need
to die? How we started the podcast here? Hey, folks, how's
it going. Welcome to the world's most positive video game pod cast. I'm
Mike. That's Dan Hi, that's Mary Hi. Episode fifty one. Last
week, well two weeks ago. Last episode, we decided the best video
game remake of all time. Will at least have some more to say about
that argument. It's instantly out of date, but we'll get to that.
I disagreed, whoa respectfully whoa? Okay, we will get to that in
the game six. I'm conflicted about it. This is the first you told
me that, all right, is the earliest we've talked about video games.
Which remember last time when I tried to bring up video games and Mike was
bottle and he shoved it up my ass. He did it again, do
it with a weird voice. That was a weird voice. So he took
it and he shoved it up my ass. What his character? It's like
Christopher walk in light I think, okay, he took a solf and yawn.
I said, I'm I'm not oh guy, but I'll try anything once.
I don't do voices. I stopped doing voices a long time ago.
Anyway, I don't do characters. Don't do that. Yeah, what you
guys been up to? What's new? The old Christopher walking wine butt sugar
is a good character, though, Like, yeah, oh, I thought
I thought it would be a closed bottle of wine. I didn't think he
was chugging in. Okay, if there's a bottle of wine being inserted into
my ass, you better believe it's uncorked. I guess. And then I'm
like Marin Monroe died, is it? I don't think that. I think
I'm just complained. That's no, no, no, no no no.
I think I'm complaining that she died of drug stuff and also was known to
put drugs in her ass. I don't think she died of putting a wine
bottle of her ass. Yeah, I say, drugs in your ass is
very different than wine bottles in your ass. She didn't do that. I
think I'm right about that. The drugs in their ass. Yeah, I
don't. I can't see that happening, Sure I don't. But you can't
just assume that that's wine. That's a leap of faith. And I can't
get that her overdose death was from a butt drug thing. It might have
just been a normal round of the middle drug time like mouth or nose or
whatever. People don't do drugs. I drink. You're just you're just on
the tip of all the different ways that you can ingest. You got your
mouth, you got your nose, all that you can do, the arms,
the syringes, I don't think. But it's all up for grabs.
But again, I don't think a lot of people put drugs like in there
like dick or vagina? Did they do? But like if you got a
hole, so there's drunk got a hole? But what my powders pole.
You can't you can't inhale through your No, I'm saying you can't inhale through
your butt hole either, But people do it. Speak for yourself, buddy,
it's it's a Kurby mouth. Yeah, what is it? Big mode?
What? What was it? The most reason one? Oh, when
he can become like a car fu mode? What was it? I don't
know. I just walk into a car dealership, start sucking all the corvettes
up my ass I have, and you walk out and then drive off the
lot with my wheel arms. Let him wait, Gold's amazing, two legs
through the sunroof. The cops are like, he's good, just just let
him go. Comes up to give me a ticket, and I suck him
into my ass, and I become the sheriff. The sheriff and no law
specifically against that, I guess. Yeah, if you suck the cop up
your ass, you would like smash brother style, get the police hate show
me the law. Yeah, it's the Mario thing infiltrate the cops from within
the kids, cappy, But it's the hat is on your butt, right,
Yeah, that's I guess that's right. Yeah. Then and then when
the DA comes to my office, I just suck her up my ass too,
And then I'm the DA for New York. Where does it end?
The president? The president? Oh my god, you suck Joe Biden up
your asshole coming up, Mike, Joe, all the candidate. You're gonna
miss the president being at the debate and just sucking up every person in my
ass. You're just like you do like a dog butt scoot thing going up
on stage, just sucking up all the candidate. Mister president. No,
then there's no like, there's no Winders of Cooper, all the moderators.
There's a Cooper's like, well, I guess this one is also for the
the DA from New York. Mister Mhardy, what are you? What are
your thoughts on the questions? Now? Yeah, I don't I don't know.
I don't have a good answer, So I just suck Anderson Cooper up
my ass too. You got gray hair, you got white hair? Ye?
Yeah, everyone's upset, but then you like sucking. Putting an end
to war and everyone's like, we love him. He's doing it. He's
ending wars, starting peace, yea Mary. At some point it's just gonna
be galaxies and clouds and stuff soon. I think this is how Lincoln took
office. I think you have similar story is yeah, you just did that
to like Rutherford B. Hayes or whoever he was up against. What's the
what's the weird coincidental thing? It's like John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in a
theater, then Rando a warehouse, and then Lee Harvey Oswald sucked JK into
his ass. That's right, Yeah, from Jack Ruby sucked Oswald into his
ass. And then yeah, that's why the FBI couldn't find anybody. Uh,
Hoover himself was sucked into someone's ass at some point. We don't know
who. That's what I call a grassy null. You know what I mean?
Yeah, No, I don't, Yeah, I'm I get you.
Don't worry. We're on the same wave length enhanced the area fifty one was
all just ass sucking roswell, Well, I think we don't talk about it.
It's a dark part in America's past. This was all American history we
talked about. Well, no, not putin no, no, Well it's
I'm learned. And Alexander wept for them. There were no more people left
to suck into his ass. Remember when Reagan sucked the Berlin wall into his
asshole, and then Neil Armstrong sucked the moon into his ass Yes, I
was going, what a hero the Delaware River. I can't believe he faked
the moon's sucking. We fucked up in Vietnam because we just couldn't suck anything
up our asses there right working? Yeah? Yeah, ah, So what's
up? So what's up? Yeah? Yeah? What are we? What
are we up to? What's going on? I don't think I have any
news since last episode, life news or anything life news. I've got a
what what have I been doing? Seeing how much? Got fitted for a
mobility aid. He's got a little he's got a little wheelchair. He's killing
it. Wait but like permanently. Yeah, it's gonna be definitely something he
uses on walks. His back left legs are just like not lifting very well.
It's a dog thing. It happens m like hip displacia. It is
basically scoliosis. So he's like has some back issues. It's causing his like
back left legs to not be able to like have a lot of feeling.
And so we're putting him in a little mobility aid and he's scouting all around
the house. It's so it's so wild, like he's gone from like I
guess I'll just sit my whole life too. I'm a puppy. I'm everybody,
watch out, I'm moving stuff over the house. Let's go on a
walk. I mean, it's like it's like breathe new life into him.
I'm stoked. So his energy is not affected. It's just like now you
can actually just move around the way it's affected. It's up. It's all
the way to the moon. He's crazy. He's having a great time with
it. It's been like a really wild experience just to see him be excited
again because now he can run and sprint and zoomi all over again. Um,
watching a dog have zoomis is so important. And I know you like
know that feeling Dan like when your dogs are Zumi. You know they're happy.
You know that they're oh yeah, living life undeniable. The tails are
just going nuts and everything. Yeah. Yeah. Getting him back out there
has been like super fun. So the only problem is is they fitted him
and it's too narrow because he's such a potato. They had to buy an
extender for his wheelchair, so we had to widen it and we fitted him
for it, and it's still not wide enough, so we have to get
a mixture extender. Well it's a good thing. He's a dog, so
he's dumb, so he can't like, you know, get offended by that
or anything. He does not know. He doesn't give a shit. He
can just move. He is a wide boy. He no idea. He
cruises by by the howlds Hey, yeah he's seven. Um yeah, he
cruises by the shuffleboard court. He's like, yeah, ladies, I got
an extender and that peels out so wide and then all the girls are like,
he's so wide? Is that wide? Boys? That wide boys?
We call him? Do you have to like, uh, so do you
take him out every once in a while when he's home or now? Uh
you mean like he wouldn't he obviously when he sleeps, he you would take
him out of them totally. Yeah, it's only like when he goes on
extended uh walks. So like even around the house, he kind of just
uh kind of just kind of just functions like he like he stands, but
they're like dragging a little bit. So he's fine around the house. Yeah,
but outside with like sidewalks and like you probably see it, like everyone
a while someone's like there's like glass or like somebody's like dropped something like you
just don't want his legs scraping across the ground. So it's walks now.
But he's totally functional in the house. So yeah, it's an interesting adaptation
for him and for me. And like you said, he has no mental
he has no stigma, he does not understand. He's stoked to run,
he's thrilled. And for me, it's like more of a learning opportunity where
I'm like, oh, he's having a great time. This is good for
everybody. So it's been a really like positive experience genuine as far as he
knows he can move around again, so like that's that's great, And I'm
sure he's having a blast with it as far as he's aware. He's getting
more attention because we're putting his body in a sling and he's like everyone's focused
on me. It's been nothing. Yeah, I mean, he loves it.
And to make sure it fits properly, we're doing all these tests.
He's in physical therapy too, which is hilarious for a dog because we put
a lot of time and energy into this pup because he's ours and we care
about him a lot. But it's just really funny to have a physical therapist
come to my house with cones and sticks and all these things and a bag
of treats, and then she guides him through this labyrinth of things to get
him to lift his back legs because he needs to try and increase those muscles.
And the whole time he's just like this, amazing. I'm getting a
shit tone of treats and all you're asking me to do is like zigzag around
these coness. He couldn't be happier. That's awesome. Yeah, it's been
going really well for him. Do you ever have to bring him in for
like hydrotherapy or is it all at home? It's been all at home.
I think that's actually why I really like this system is that I don't have
to bring him into a vet, which I don't know how your pets are,
but when I take my dog anywhere near the vicinity of a vet,
he starts shaking and freaking out. He hates the vet because she comes to
us. He doesn't associate her with a vet. He associates her with a
bag of treats and like getting food in his house. Yeah, yeah,
he loves it. He's like when she comes, he's like, oh,
I'm getting stuff. I mean, if somebody came to my house every once,
Moms gave me a bunch of star Wars, I'd probably like that person
too. Starburst or the dogs in an obstacle course in your living room,
that'd be awesome. I'd be having a blast of that. That'd be great.
Dog you're all MOPy right around. Oh yeah, yeah, I said
all the time. I wouldn't even do an enough to tell me yeah,
okay, yeah, just opened my mouth and throws Starburst at me. It
would be Starburst. Uh yeah, that's the number one thing to eat.
You know. It's we're coming up on Easter. So our grocery store check
out, you know how they trap you while you're waiting in line the Cagary
eggs. Yes, so not like a typical bigger grocery store where it's like
the different conveyor belt aisles where they stack them. Um, it's like it's
about relatively small or at least tightly packed grocery store. But yeah, there's
a whole shelf like the length of where you wait in line, and yeah,
Cadberry eggs, there's the Little Reese's peanut butter cups in the shape of
eggs, and they come in bags and they're individually wrapped in foil. And
I sat down with one a bag the other night, and like, I
was, like, I have like twenty the ones with the shells. I
haven't really thought about this, but Easter, I you know, look as
a kid or now, getting a big ass basket of assorted candies and stuff
like that is undeniably a positive. But in terms of Easter candies and the
varieties, I think, like, clearly Halloween's gotta be just in terms of
sheer variety, and because like or the ones that are that are specific to
the holidays, Let's let's do it that way, because maybe that's more fair.
I was just gonna say, I feel like there are more specific east
like I think Halloween as anything goes an maybe that's why I like it,
because Easter is specific. Like this is not opinion, Dan. One of
these is like inspired by religion and you get like some candy in a basket,
and the other one is like dress up as a freak and run around
to get candy from strangers and you can get as much as you want as
you can fill into the pillowcase, like Halloween being the best, right,
Halloween's the best? Not up for debate. Halloween as a holiday, I
like more? Is that what we're saying? Are we talking about the candy?
Let this narrowed down universally? Okay, the let's say, okay,
okay, obviously universally, Halloween wins. It's the more fun holiday, It's
got the wider variety of candies. But let's just put the Easter specific candies
and stables to the Halloween specifics, because like, what are the hallows?
What we like? Candy corn, which is kind of like I don't mind
candy corn, but a fan, but that you don't put that in a
bag that's offensive bag like my case, my pillowcase or whatever. Yeah,
you don't put candy corn in this. Someone pour loose candy corn in your
pillowcase when you're a kid. That's wrong. Didn't wait no, did they
do that? Not me? Then? Why you complaining about it? Because
he brought it up as a candy problem. It doesn't come up. It
comes in little prepackaged bags or a big bag that you put into a ball
in your house. Nobody likes into my suitcase, my suitcase, money right,
why they do? Okay, never mind, let's move past it.
Okay, a classic chicken and egg it doesn't come up, which means it
shouldn't be associated with Halloween. I associate Halloween with fun sized Snickers and milky
Ways, but those are but those are universal. Could be Easter too,
that's those are universal. Candy A specific candies that like you know, candy
corner I think is one, what is another? Like I don't think I've
ever bottle caps outside of Halloween, Like I know they exist, just like
Wonka candy. You could consider those staples of Halloween though true, true,
I don't know for having the right. Reese's pumpkins, yeah, but they
have rest but but they have Rec's uh like bunnies, so they do literally
the same a weird ratio because a bun is a weird shape. But pump
can you at least get that big center, which is they got the most
the peanut butter, and they got the eggs as are good. But like
outside of candy corn, I'm probably blanking and Amanda's probably about to like she's
rolling or not integrate Carmel, those caramel apple pops. I hate those candy
apples. Your teeth hurt. Those are more like a I'm thinking candy,
specifically packaged candy, candy car You've got the little eggs, little chocolate eggs.
You've also got Cadberry cream eggs. Cadbury cream eggs are wildly good.
Marsmaal. Peeps sucks shit. Oh you got to put them in the freezer.
Then they get really good texture. They're chewy as hell. Okay,
that's the that's my hack with peeps. What do I think you used to?
I always thinking the big ass hollow bunnies, the chocolate bunnies. Those
are just way too big and just flavorless chocolate or just like such like they're
like cheapy chocolate. When you're a kid, it's really cool to get a
big bunny in your basket. But as your age, as you mature,
yes, I find I would like a smaller bunny of good chocolate caliber solid
put a bag of skittles over all that just god pillows into my mouth.
Yeah, I am having the most. I have not used this wrinkle in
my brain in a long time. What are these called the skeleton hard candy?
That there are different parts of their like here's the arm and it's like
it's a sweet teart type of texture. Right, they're hard. I haven't
thought of those. You can kind of together and wiggly. Yeah, oh
jesus, oh shit, sweethearts, Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. I associate
Smarties with Halloween. They're not a Halloween candy, but I just associate them
SweeTarts as well. Mister goodbar and Crackle. I don't think I've ever had
one of those outside of Halloween, but I've had a billion of them around
Halloween. The tiny ones. Yeah, um, there's like like kit cats
that they do, like special Halloween versions like witches brew and shit like that.
Oh fuck. I think there is more specific Easter candy, though there
is, because Halloween's anything goes It's true, true, But like is that
Halloween is that like a debate because I would still prefer all of like the
candy that I get with Halloween than the Easter candy, even though it's associated
Easter candy, like you can shape anything into a bunny. I still prefer
Starburst. Yeah, you know, would fucking blow my nips off if I
go If I went up to a house with a pillowcase. It's a trick
a treat and someone just pours cadburry cream eggs into my bag. Just awesome
caramel sauce. But on a second level, they're probably pretty stale April to
October. That's not that bad for candy chocolate, is it? How does
chocolate have a expiration? Is? Eventually it is chocolate. I don't want
to say it. You can just move on. I was gonna take chocolate
dairy. I was gonna say that if that's a dumb milk chocolate, move
right past it. I don't think so by the name milk chocolate as dairy
in it, but it's not like a part of the food group, and
most like, I don't think most chocolate outside of milk chocolate has dairy Okay,
I think you'd have to have a substantial amount of chocolate for it to
like fuck up your dairy people, because it's not a lot of milk in
chocolate. Does dark chocolate have milk in it? Less? I think dark
chocolate has a higher like cow. Have you guys had what's like the highest
percentage you've had? Oh god, I swear I was in the nineties ones
like a proof like ninety proof. Yeah, and it's a better percentage.
Oh dude, you get to like ninety, it's you might as well be
tasting like ash oh hero, It's it's more of like I're walking ever clear
of chocolate. It's just be like the brown power have you there was a
brown No, I don't want to eat brown m if you did, or
both of you, now what was this? I don't know now that you're
both in u or every once in a while having more wine dark chocolate high
person, excuse me, high percentage dark chocolate and like tannic full bodied wine
is a really good pairing. What is tannic? Mean? Just what's dumb
it down? Two sentences, Max? What is it? What is tannic?
Two sentences Max, yep Um. It's when you drink it and you
can kind of feel the wine itself. It's course, it's literally like really
fine. It's just dry, like your mouth is dry. After you drink,
you kind of feel it like tingle. It's like the opposite of sweet,
because by definition it's like or not the opposite of sweet, but yeah,
it's not tingling. Your mouth just feels more dry. It feels like
it's some moisture out of your tongue. Yeah, okay. Cabernet Savignon is
usually pretty dry. Um, a shara is pretty dry. Merlot it can
be tannic, Yeah, it can be it Usually it's lower. Sorry,
higher percentage wines tend to or can are more likely batanic. In a lot
of cases, it's fourteen point high. Pretty, I'd say, like the
average is twelve okay? Interesting? And then that's why your sweeter wines are
usually like dessert wines. The reason they're dessert or not, the reason they're
really sweet and high percentage because most of the uh, what do you want
to say? Or they can be high percentage because a lot of like the
sugar hasn't been burned off, because they can fuck you up. But I
guess so I'd be the opposite, now that I'm saying it out loud.
The less sugar, the more of it would gets converted down. The yeasts
would have converted all of a sudden. I just know the alcohol just created
when what yeast like basically like to be reductive each sugar? How did the
tannins affect your butthole when you butt chuck wine? You like to know?
Um, how did Marilyn Monroe die? Um? Actually, speaking of wine,
I'm having a h Actually here's a new thing. Amanda and my last
anniversary as unmarried and unmarried couple. What a word? What an arduous sentence?
That was was last weekend? So is um second? Wait? What
here? Betrothed? No, this is our last dating anniversary before we get
married. So I met her on March nineteenth and twenty twenty one. Yes,
yes, fiance is correct. Um. We went to one of our
favorite neighborhoods in New York and found it's a neighborhood that's very like community oriented.
So we were at this place that's a fairly locally famous whiskey distillery,
and then the guy who worked there, it was like, what are you
guys doing next? And we were we rattled off our plans. He's like,
you should go to this place. It's a liquor store I used to
work at and they have based on what you like here, they have a
lot of this. So we got there. The dude who work there knew
the guy who recommended us from the last bar, and he recommended a few
wines to us. I got a Wild Red Ride Sharas from Australia. It's
got a roller coaster on the front and it's very good. It is very
tannic. So I'm drinking it. It's like, yeah, it's it's extremely
dry. I still think. And now I'm trying to rate wines and stuff
and everyone I've ever had, I give four stars, and I have no
idea how to describe it. But they're all four stars. They're all whiny.
I have no idea how to disturtin flavors or anything. Yet that's part
of the fun of like trying different ones. You're never right or wrong.
I mean technically, I guess you could technically be wrong if you try hard
enough, but like, yeah, also a lot of the ones you're if
you're like finding certain wines you like, you might be having similar wines from
time to time, so you might not be noticing as many different ones.
But oh maybe lately I've been into whites that all right, I guess classically
more like Chardonnay's that they have that like stone taste, mineral taste. Been
more into that tastes a lot of stones taste a lot of it. I
don't know even if this tasted really stony right now, I don't think it'd
be like, oh, stone, that wouldn't red woodn't really I mean maybe
you know what a stone taste like. It's more well, I mean,
like most stuff when you're tasting wine. It's not like I've sucked on tobacco.
Oh I guess I have sucked on tobacco before, But like when you
get a tobacco taste in your wine, it tastes like tobacco smells that I've
had tobacco. My st I'm trying to think now that you say it's it's
weird described because it tastes like like that the smell of wet stones when you're
near a stream. That's kind of how it tastes. Okay. Also,
I have sucked on a stone before when I was high, when I was
young. Why we're smoking, I'm getting there. We were smoking, and
someone's like, if you're trying to avoid eating too much, too many snacks
while you're high, avoiding the munchies, if you just suck on a rock,
like quench the same the same like because apparently when you get the munchies,
your mouth just wants texture rather than it's not your stomach wanting food,
it's your mouth wanting texture. I don't know why. So if you just
suck on a rocket can potentially satisfy. I try to just go out to
the seven eleven parking lot and just grab a fucking rock and shove it in
your mouth. I forgot where I got the rock. Some people pay good
money for the hut. Yeah, yeah, perfect to do that every day.
That's grossis yeah. Um? But yeah, dark chocolate, get like
suckers kid, get like seventy percent cacao dark chocolate and like a Cabernet sauvignon,
and it's a really good combo. I want to learn about. I
gotta be one of those cheese guys. I want to find out, like,
oh, what bears with pepper Jack? That is actually something I'd love
to see you become a Samolia and a cheesyle. That'd be great because that
might have a lifelong love of Guda all right my belly. Yeah. Oh,
I could take garbage cheeses and pair it with nice wines, like would
you know easy cheese and something fancy that I would watch that. That's a
YouTube channel right there, right now. Channel probably someone is probably actually there's
I'm searching a YouTube for easy cheese and wine. Oh shit, where did
I find it? There is actually a YouTube channel that talks about wine pairings.
But it's like down to earth wine pairings like this, Like they talk
about how a Salvinia Blanc pair as well with sour patch kids. Oh wow,
which it does white wine like Salvinion Blanc's dry white wines and like sour
gummy candies is incredible. It's up there with dark chocolate and dry red wines.
Man, I'm surprised. Dan as An asked, Alexei, yet remind
me to pair delicious cheese with wine? This? Uh, yeah, this
seems to be I'm tapped. I don't see anyone mixing easy cheese. I'm
tapped easy cheese with wine. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, easy cheese.
You know the good stuff, the yes, the bar we Oh have
we talked about my huge my gripe with Snyder's pretzels? No? You know
that you know the cheddar cut which ones Snyders. Okay, so you know
they have those flavored ones that are basically like there are pretzel rods baked with
Yeah, they've got the honey mustard buffalo, the cheddar ones. Since I
was I really I remember it. We picked my brother up from marine boot
camp in Paris, Island, South Carolina and I'm the eighteen hour drive back
to Syracuse. I had my first taste of the cheddar Snyder's pretzels. I
never looked back. And to be clear, these are not the cheddar dusted
regular pretzels. These are the ones that it looks like they were rods and
then soaked cheddar and then like bash to pieces. And they are delicious and
they are fun, except for when you eat them. They'll cut this it's
like chewing on like glass by the time you're done. So However, they
recently it says on the bag new flavor, new great taste, a play
on like new flavor, same great taste. It is not the same anymore.
It is completely different. Previously they tasted like real cheddar cheese. Dan,
you may be happy to know they now taste like they used easy cheese.
Okay, if I want to, it's Snyder's. It's the rod type
things with cheese. It's it's like those really metallic looking bags. There's the
honey mustard, there's a buffalo and the cheddar. And I'm not saying they're
bad a man, and I still eat a decent amount of them. However,
they are not nearly as good as they used to be, and I'm
pissed because those were like a pastime for me. That's something like that,
a very specific thing goes away and you can't get it back because it was
one. Like KFC's mac and cheese used to be the best mac and cheese
on the planet and then they like change the fucking No. Stover's is the
same way too. Stover's mac and cheese used to be so creamy and thick
and everything. I think across the board of the mac and cheese industry has
gotten soft. Kraft mac and cheese isn't nearly as good and buttery as I
remember it. I think it all got too healthy. They fucked with Kraft
mac and cheese. It was perfect, it was perfect. I think right
now Arby's, Arby's white cheddar mac and cheese that's got that. It needs
that thickness, that thick, thicky thing, and it's too just kind of
milky and wet now with like Craft and KFC, them changing the flavor of
those pretzels, feels like my favorite restaurant closed. Yeah, I can see
that. I hate it. You love and it's gone forever. What's your
favorite mac and cheese? Probably Arby's now Arbi's mac and cheese. Wait what
did I have had when I was telling Bonk, I don't know. I
think we're at a restaurant, Noe's a cheesecake factory. I don't know.
We were at some place recently and I had it and I was like,
this is some of the best mac and cheese I've ever had. It was
that thick, you know. And it can be shells, it can be
the elbows, it can be anything. It's all about the cheese though.
The thing. It needs to be like a paste and it needs to be
like Elmer's made mac and cheese. Yeah, I like it. I also
like a thing, and I like it with crispy stuff on top. You
can get okay, some bread crispies, maybe a little bit of like some
some bacon bits or something like that. But you got to be careful because
sometimes they'll do the crazy trouble stuff and just ruin everything. You don't like
truffles just garbage. You prefer easy cheese to truffles. Billion percent easy is
one of my favorite things. Truffles make me want to bar fall over.
I think he has a point, though, like truffle is often kind of
like shoved in as like, yeah, they're exquisite, fancy flavor, and
at the times it's misused. Truffle fries are good though, No, nothing
trouble is good truffle. You would probably find a niche on YouTube if you
just had shit food with wine and like this and but treat it completely deadpan.
I would know how to describe the shit food so much better than I
could describe the wine. That's the joke, Like, you clearly don't know.
You just know shit. It wouldn't be I know, but that you
don't know why you clearly have this like easy cheese based palet and your Panic
based palet, Like, yeah, I was just raised on food chemicals and
that's what brain sees as food. I get nauseas watching it, but I
watch it. I've set it beforewards. Like every Thanksgiving, I would always
get sick to my stomach because I would be eating real food. I'd eat
like green beans and feel sick to my stuf Like my stomach would just be
what the fuck is this anytime I eat real food because it's just so fast
food, And yeah, that's not a signed to eat more garbage. Yeah,
probably, Yeah, I though You're right, you're like one of those
fish that it's only ever lived in an underground cave. So it's just translucent
and going to the sun, and that's what is this UV thing. Yeah,
yeah, basically you don't need to see Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's good. It's good. You're you're a fish living in an underground cave.
Yeah. I've had to get better about the food stuff. I think,
I'm I'm I'm slowly, but still there is still something like when I
do eat fast food or something, it's just every time I eat some McDonald's
fries or a case of the air from Daco Bell, it's just like,
yes, this is what I know, this is what I love, this
is what I crave, and I'll have like a really fancies like I'm not
kidding, Like I've had plenty of like filetmenon and like nice restaurants and stuff.
I don't like it. Like it's good, it's undeniably good, but
it's not as good as a talk about case. Yeah, it's just not.
And I know it's subjective and that's my dumb brain, but like do
my brain, it's like same price, like last meal, prison death row
type situation. Absolutely doing taco about McDonald's, like you know platter. Yeah,
I guess it's the last meal. You can do whatever you want.
Yeah, it's like in signs chicken Terry hokey. I just slip in signs
references every once in a while. It's a like for Mary specifically, it's
the one thought wrong not to swing. It's not for death death row meals,
Like what are there, Like is there a cost limit? Is there
a a read like you can't just say like bringing a whole cow? Like
is it just a like they call it as they see it, you know?
Or is there like written dead rules like these are the parameters. I'm
not sure there's probably it's the it's government run, so there's probably a price
ceiling. Like I don't ever know what I want to death row no,
noah. And on death row, I feel like it's a prisoners Yeah,
but prisoners. I've known many prisoners. Yeah. I spent some of my
earliest years visiting prisoners when I was like a baby Wait what wo Yeah that
was a I thing A contention between my dad my mom is my mom used
to take little baby met to like prison prison to to meet people, and
my dad's like don't take our baby to prison. I'm sure there's some there's
a specific person that you're not talking about. But what you said was your
mom took you to prison to meet people that were like for recreation. She
just wanted you to get better at making friends, to exercise, all right,
and I'm gonna take him to find some friends right away. Where can
I find cool men? Jake just cut that out of Dan saying my mom
took me as a baby to prison to meet people. It was like a
mixer. She was already worried about you. She's like, no, no,
no, no, I'm nipping this in the bud. We're in as
scared straight as a baby. Yeah, I've got I got this guy named
Dozer. I know. Yeah, this explains this is your rose out of
stone. I completely get you. Now. My first girlfriend, her dad
worked at the levin Worth Maximum Security prison. That's really kept. Like Michael
Vick, I've heard of that. Oh that's a very famous one. Yeah,
it's a very very famous one in Kansas. Yeah, yeah, I've
heard of, like, I've heard of a lot of like prisons down south
in the Midwest from like true Detective because you mentioned yeah, but we had
a prison near us, like a forty five minutes. I don't think it
was maximum security, but it was up there. Yeah. Kind I kind
of like looking at like max security prisons just seeing like all the crazy razor
wire and like guard put it's just kind of cool looking. It just feels
like a video game level or something. You know. I've always found prisons
fucking fascinating. Watched all of odds anytime there was a show where it was
like, there was a show I think by the makers of Cops just called
Jail and it was just like a Las Vegas jail and it was a reality
show and it was fascinating any kind of like what was it a lockdown or
locked up or something. It's like an A and E type thing or something
like she watched The Walking Dead. No, that's fake zombie shit. It
is. But they have a season where they take over a jail and make
jail no humans. And what's cool about it is that it's the perfect fortress
because the zombies take get them out. Oh that's smart with the razor wire
and all that's right. They're not like they're not like arresting the zombie.
You're going people. They're in the jail and all the zombies are trying to
get in, but because of all the security, because it's a prison,
they can't get in. It's actually like a really interesting concept. And they
have all these like tower like lookout towers because it's a prison to see who's
coming in and out, so they have a really good view of all the
zombies. Plus they have cells. And I used always think to myself,
man, in a last case scenario, if like all the zombies get in,
you just put yourself in a cell. Yeah, but then that's right,
then you're in trouble. But like they can't get in. Yeah,
yeah, that's smart. Is that just like one season or something? I
think so. I like it was when I was still watching it, and
I remember being like, it's such a cool idea. Yeah, it was
like season two four two is the Farm. It's early because well these are
spoilers. I think I think it was like three or four or something because
two was the farm. That makes sense. That was when they Yeah,
I the first like five season that show, and I was like, this
is way too long and boring. I think, like many things that go
on for that long. And obviously it's based off of a comic. So
it's not like they wrecked it or anything. They're just following generally the comic
story. But I think or a time, I like things to end because
I get bored of people. Unless you're just shoving new concepts down my throat,
it doesn't feel like it works anymore. Like one of the things that
I'm in love with Succession about is the fact that, like right is it's
like, oh, my interest is so peaked. Every character is so interesting
and I don't know everything about them, but I know enough that I feel
like I get their decisions and they're fascinating to me, and they're like,
you know what, that's it. This is the last one. And I
think that's fucking brilliant. And I prefer that. Yeah, it's like Breaking
Bad was still going on, it would suck wait Succession last season? Yeah,
yeah, Okay, how are you guys watching um ted Lasso yet?
Do you watch ted Lasso? I gave up about halfway through the second season
too positive for here's the thing. While I was watching it, I hated
all those the arguments about like everyone be like, oh it's too sacarin,
it's too sweet, And the whole time I was saying like, no,
there's a place for something like this that's not cynical. It's not this negative
thing. It's not just making fun of everyone. Like I was really like
anti that that sentiment for the longest time. It was the one where there's
like a funeral and they all started singing Rick Astley together, and I was
like, all right, this is gonna be a lot And I already wasn't
like as into the last few episodes. I'm just kind of like bowed out
after that. That a part approach too much for me. It got I
still we're still watching it. I'm I'm excited. Well, I will have
watched episode two as of this recording now or as of this episode, but
I've only the season out now. It's episode two is tomorrow from this recording.
Yeah, okay, episode two, but it's the last season, season
three. They said they always wrote it to be a trilogy of seasons.
I feel like that's the right move for that show as well. I remember
thinking in season two, you cannot keep this up. This is a really
lovely story about a person who's overcoming a lot of odds with their positivity.
You can't keep this forever because characters have to grow, And the whole point
is that he's kind of like he's very not indestructible. Is he's able to
like withstand a lot of pressure and keep that momentum, but at some point
either has to grow or break. Maybe the season's about him breaking and freaking
out and fucking like, yeah two got to there. I'm on I finished
season two. I haven't started this because I quit Apple, so I have
to figure out what I'm gonna do now, because dude, I have so
many subscriptions. I can'tceled the Apple today. I didn't know what I was
still subscribing, but I found the iPhone thing where it showed subscription. I
was like, what the fuck I'm paying for Apple? Get out of here.
In a way, when I was watching it that they had that scene.
I can't remember pease at a club or what's going on, but he
has a panic attack, and I remember thinking that, like, you know,
panic attacks are always so people just don't understand him, and like people
misuse the phrase all the time. We're like, oh, I didn't I
didn't know what to order and I had a panic attack for a Second's like
no, no, a panic attack is a much more It feels like way
more of a crisis if you're experiencing one. And I remember the way they
depicted it in that Ted last episode was like, holy shit, that is
far and away the most accurate depiction of a panic attack I've ever seen in
meeting, like I remember being very very good. Yeah, the uh absolutely,
the show has gotten too points where I'm like, okay, like this
is too Yeah, the saccharin is a good word, but they got They've
gotten past that. I'm curious what they're going to do the rest of the
season three. The first episode was very much a piet or an intro episode,
so I'm excited for the rest of the season. And then I finally
finished the last of US. I muscled my way through it. Yeah,
yeah, it's I just found it. I don't know. Have you guys
watched it eisode? Okay, but it's tough because we know we talked about
the game last episode of the remake. It's like, it's weird watching this.
I'm like, oh man, there's there. There's so much. The
ending of that game worked so well because you had spent like sixteen hours with
these two characters, just them basically well not I mean, obviously there are
parts that subvert that, but it's just them. The show is nine episodes,
and much of the show it's not just about Ellie and Joel. So
by the time the inevitable end rolls around, you're like, oh man,
that to me, that felt very flat. Not that I didn't have moments
of the show I didn't like or I liked, but yeah, overall,
it was the bottle episodes of the show that I liked the most, or
the spinoff episodes that I like the most. Like most, I think,
I don't know. I wouldn't recommend it if you played the game already,
I don't think you're the end does it end? Were like the first game
ends? The first season was the first game basically, and then now they're
like, we're gonna split the second game into more than one season. Like
you should have done that with the first season. Definitely, you could have
gotten yea long story, you could have gotten a lot on the first season.
But I don't know, um they should. They should remake the show
in like three or four years and just have to be shot for shot the
same. But it just looks slightly better when it goes to a new subscription
service. Yes, yes, HBO Ultimate. Yeah. Um no, it
would need to be way more confusing than that. Yeah, told be three
of them. Anyway. Do you guys want to talk about video games?
You're but first I have finally gotten you guys into wine. We talked about
this. We have First Leaf subscriptions, Dan, Yeah, you think of
First Leaf, tell me I like it a lot. It is my way
of buying wines instead of just bumbling around and not know what I'm doing in
a store. I'm drinking an Earth's Draw twenty twenty, Sonoma County, m
or Low right now and enjoying it greatly. Thanks the First Leaf. Mary,
would have you been drinking? I've got a Rose because I'm that bitch,
and I've really enjoyed it. It's been great because, um, First
Leaf does not judge. It offers suggestions for all palettes. It's really interested
in basically giving me what I want. I like sweeter wines, I like
rose's. I like easy drinking, easy drinking wines, and that's my favorite
thing. And it comes right to your house every month. If you subscribe,
it comes right at your house every month. It could be six wines.
You could double it for twelve. Now there's also an option to get
twelve different wines, not just two of each, and also for you fire
Escape listeners. If you sign up today, you'll get your first six bottles
for thirty nine ninety five plus free shipping. Go to try first leaf dot
com slash fire Escape. That's try first leaf dot com slash fire Escape to
get your first six bottles for thirty nine ninety five plus free shipping. What
a first leaf dot com slash fire Escape. All right, we're about to
jump back into games. But Dan, as usual, something bizarre happened to
you break. No, we just did a quick break and box of GDC.
So I'm on dog duty here, so I don't really want would take
them out and stuff, but I'm I'm being ant taking the dogs out to
be real quick. I've got It's ten twelve at night right now, in
the middle of the week as we record this. I'm out in the middle
of the yard. It's totally dark, and all of a sudden, I
started hearing Dan Dan, and I'm like, what the fuck is this?
And it's like Dan Dan. I'm like, is my foot? Did I
actually call someone? I'm hearing someone from like my speaker phone or what I
reach down no, and I just keep hearing it. I'm like, wait,
is that buk And then I realized she must have seen the thing triggered
on the like cameras camera through the camera. It was in the middle of
the law. I'm just hearing my names or what the Yeah you you don't
you live in an area where that would be creepy because you've got a decent
amount of land, like it's it's not super populated, so we don't know
any of the neighbors. So it's like, literally, the only person I
know anywhere woods behind your house. And she's in San Francisco. Yeah,
that would be scary. She's getting pizza with tim Urian ben Ansener right now.
I've seen people do that with pets where they'll um, They'll be like,
I'm going to check on my cat or my dog, and then they'll
be like, you know, Jimmy, Jimmy right here, and the dog
will like, perkets are its ears up? And I'll be like, this
is You're messing with this animal like it doesn't know what's going on, so
weird. Yeah, I don't know what the hell is going on. I've
seen ones that have treats connected to them, So not only can you talk
to them through the camera, but you can like throw a treat. I'll
try that. When we first had a Razor, when he was a puppy
and both Bonk and I were working in an office in New York City,
we would occasionally, You're like, you know, try that, but it
was just it didn't work half the time, and it was just weird.
And so yeah, we sold it. Mike, they're going to that box.
Probably had Tony the place. Yep, there are Tony's. That was
the place you recommended. I remember being very skeptical. Some of the best
pizza you've ever had in ye. Tim has been the biggest evangelical for that
or what's the word. Yeah, he's been the biggest evangelist for that place.
He uh, I showed it to him. He was also skeptical.
I mean, he believes me, but he was like, all right,
I'll see it for myself. And then ever since, I feel like every
time he goes back, I mean he lives close enough by, but every
time he goes up there he brings people. I'm sure he'll he'll take the
role that you always used to take and be like, all right, we're
ordering three, we're getting the grandmas we're getting. Didn't when there a time
I went with you and we kept accidentally getting like ninety three pizzas. Yeah,
why was that happening? Every It just they kept giving us free pizzas
and we're like, what are you doing? Like whole delicious pizzas. Look,
if you guys want this, like wait, no, we already wanting
to buy it. You just want it? Yeah, y of different flavors
for though, if we talked about it before, but if you're new to
the show or whatever, it's Tony's in North Beach. There's Tony's to go,
and then there's that sit down Tony's. And I think, still to
this day, the best pizza I've ever had in my wife is at Tony's
in San Francisco. Um might be there's places here that compete with it,
but um then New Papa John's Crispy parm Pizzas. Okay to blow past this,
but the menu's thick as fuck. They've got one page. They've got
two pages for coal fired, two pages for wood fired, two pages for
brick oven, two pages for gas oven. They've got Detroit style. If
you don't know what's De Troit style pizzas. Please look it up. It's
incredible. Yeah, I Amanda used to go to SF for work all the
time, and like many people who go to SF like briefly or don't like,
I don't know. I've said before. I think I had a pretty
lucky situation in San Francisco, so I do like San Francisco. Not my
favorite place, but I had a very good four years there, so I
want to show her around next time we go back. But yeah, Tony's
is always like one of the first stops. Columbus Cafe in North Beach,
best dive bar, metal music, pool tables you'll ever find. And then
on Wednesdays it's chip night. You buy a drink, they give you a
poker chip for your next drink. I still have two of them, and
I talked to Dan our former game spots Slash Giant Bomb. He said they're
still eligible the chips that I have. Oh really, you're taking back now
you're in soaked hell hole. But you know there's a one percent there that's
worth worth checking out. For sure. It's a fun place. You got
to know where you're going for sure. Yes, it's not New York.
You just wander and find your new favorite neighborhood. It's not a great sign
when one of the best parts of the city is visiting the prison. Yeah,
I guess pro Incarceration d the Island Prison is one of the best parts
of the city. Um Alcatraz. I've never done a great, such a
good tour. It's a lot of fun, especially if you're a big rock
mark like me. It's fucking awesome. Somehow still have never done it.
It's so good, and it's even good if you're not. It's one thing
that as a tourist doesn't matter. Locals do it and enjoy it. It
is a very educational experience that makes you feel like you were there at the
time and living it. It's amazing, and all the audio is done by
actual guard words and inmates at the time. Like people who are no longer
with us are like, yep, that's what it was like. I used
to toss the button and then try and find it in the dark. That's
how I fucking survived for two years. And it's just like I'm always like
the audio tour thing, because like my first instinct whenever I go to one
of those things is like I'll just walk around and looking stuff myself. I'll
read the plaques or whatever. But I just visited the Alamo like a few
weeks ago or a month ago or something there. Well, I doesinit thing.
I didn't know shit about the album. I just knew it was like
I don't know, it's like a building and I think there were cannons and
people. Their whole their whole thing is remember the Alamo. Well, I
never knew what to beginning with it. So it's not like I forgot the
Alamo. I never know what the was, and now it's like, shit,
you gotta know the Alamo in order to remember the Alamo. There's valid
point they have no idea issue. I had no idea Texas was even like
this whole thing where Texas wasn't part of the country for a while and it
was like part of Mexico, and like I had no idea. It's like
suddenly a lot of things about why do you think we were fighting with Mexicans
for a long? I didn't know we were. I had no idea.
So it's like suddenly, on that tour of the Alamo, a lot of
like Texans attitudes about Texas like made a lot of sense of just like,
don't mess with us, and we're Texas, we're independent, like I okay
a lot of like this picture is becoming clearer of Texans as I learn a
little bit about the history of Texas. I knew nothing before. They have
their origins somewhere for sure. Yes, um, speaking of islands and forts
and villages. Oh, I know what you're doing. Remember that game.
Remember in two thousand and five friends, even before there's a village, inn,
a castle than an island. Yeah, a knife fight and a jet
ski. Yeah, Mike, I need. I feel like we need to
talk here based on because we we legit have not talked off the air about
this game. I think even sort of. Really, when we first got
it early on, very early on, we talked, yeah to Marry,
you have not played it. We I don't wanna you and I are talking
potentially about maybe playing it together. Interesting. We don't have anything to say
concretely, but you have not played yet. Luckily, big picture wise,
there's not well, there's not much. Here's what I do with it with
my I reviewed it for Giant Bomb check it out, give five stars.
I said anything that happened in the original game I considered fair game, so
I structurally, you know, I talk about what happens like so if you
want to, if you want, if you've never played the first one and
you just want to hear no spoilers at all, maybe back out here.
But let's not spoil specific events and changes and stuff about the new one.
That's kind of how I approach Okay, all right, so sure, yeah,
I think our conversation might I might not have as much to talk about
my gen If you want to go full spoiler, we can. No,
no, let's not go full spoiler. Um, Okay, my general take,
I think it's I think it's very good. I don't think you've said
anything about it. I wholeheartedly disagree with It's one of my favorite games of
the year so far. That's I know it's only marks, but there have
been a lot of games this year. Um. I still don't think my
argument would have changed for last episode. I still think Resumel two and the
Resume four is not even out yet, so I shouldn't even be talking about
where it stands in the all time, like I need a few months before
I talk about that. But in the spirit of our last episode, I
still think Resuval to remake impresses me more. And that's say bigger jump.
I mean, we were changing. That's the tough thing, and that's why
the criteria was hard last episode, because it's like Resuval two needed a remake
way almost every game ever needed a remake more than Resuval four, which is
why I think that that's why it's impressive that this is so good. Yeah.
I even mentioned in the review that, like, you know, it's
natural to wonder, like where do they stop this? Because like people are
kind of iffy on five for variety of reasons. Six is kind of maligned,
Like do they even do four though? Because four is the one that
actually has aged the best, Like it's got these qts and products of its
time and stuff like that, but like it gameplay wise, it's still very
fucking fun. Yeah, So I was skeptical of whether it needed it,
and my big argument in the review was that, like, absolutely, it
enhances so many things from the original and makes it feel very, very modern,
even if you have no nostalgia for the original. It's incredible, and
it definitely would have been at least I would have pushed it to Final four
at least in that if not, I think, Yeah, it's just some
of the changes they made. I think a lot of the things they subtracted
from the original are awesome changes, like they that game. I don't know
when the last time people played Resume Be four was. It's still fantastic,
but I every time I talk about it, I'm like, I feel like
people are omitting a lot from that game, even in the second act,
the castle and the island in the third act kind of sewer part drags and
sucks, you know, like you know there's something the crowds or fight like
suck and yeah, and speaking as broadly as possible, By and large,
I think every change four made got rid of most blemishes from four. There
are a couple things which I won't spoil, that I think actively hurt the
pacing and the new one. There's one specific area Dan and I say area
intentionally that I feel like they expanded on that felt very like obligatory to twenty
twenty three Triple A game design that they didn't need to do. I'm trying
to figure out, like, I don't think this is a spoiler. The
lake is now this like mini open world. That's one of my favorite changes.
I didn't like that really. Yeah. I felt I like, how
you go to lake in the original you fight del Lago. Yeah, that's
that. Fights feels great in this game. I just felt like after that,
I was like, oh man, I'm gonna be I don't think it
feels bad. It's like pacing wise, It's like, man, everything was
ramping up to this, and then the fight, Oh now I can't like,
I'm now I'm gonna go back and do Eligante and the chance or the
Chaince sisters might have been before that, I can't remember, but I'm like,
I don't think it's bad. It just feels so out of place,
especially as you play more. It reminded you of Ragnarok. Yeah, that's
putting that together in my head. It's because I remember you hated that in
Ragnaro slit the sail around and yeah, it's not it's that's part of it
that I was like, oh man, this feels like they did it better
than Ragnarok, to be clear, because there's no one whining in your ear
the whole time. Oh yeah, it's incredible. Um, but I do
feel like I was like, man, the game has gained so much momentum
getting up to there, and then they had so much right after the lake
area. That's like a ton of momentum for that too, with boss fights
and stuff like leading up to the castle. I'm like, I wonder why
they added this, Like, I think it works on a certain level because
a lot of the changes that they've made. Mechanically, it's still very much
an action game. It's still very campy. That's not gone, but they've
actually made a lot of changes that make it feel more survival horror than the
original Ari four. It's scarier because that was one of scari It's about four
is that it was not scary. It was a tense action game, but
it wasn't scary like this one was scary like it is. It's got that
like that white knuckle intensity of the original, but like, you're way more
scared than this one. It's scary. But also the survival elements they brought
like um Resival two, Remak and three. They brought the crafting over from
seven and Now a Village, but seven was the one that kick started that
whole thing in the more modern residevals with gunpowder, materials, et cetera.
That works really well here because that just adds to the inventory management of the
original game, and you're they really want you to be spending your AMMO in
this game like all the time. So I mean also the tweaks they made
to the treasures and like like the color bonuses of the gems and all that
stuff. Like I love that they're really expanded on that, and the whole
I love the I don't even know if it's a whole system, like the
knife system in this game. I fucking love like a The perry is most
of the most satisfying things ever when you're when you're ducking under a garrodo garrodor
and then he swings at someone else and then you jump back up and someone
throws an axe and you parry it and then oh my god, it's great,
badass. What are the m jump scares? Like? Are there more?
Are there less? I'd say they're they are smart. Um, I
don't want to give too many. Wonder Okay, just mute the next like
forty five seconds if you're worried about him a specific moment here. There is
one where I was you know, the wind up toys. There were wind
up toys of the Little Lord Boy, and yeah, when you hear them,
you can shoot them they're like collectibles basically, And so I read a
note that was explaining that, and I was like. I started hearing a
sound afterwards, and I was like, is that one of the fucking toys?
What is it? Like, I'm walking around and it wasn't until like
thirty seconds later I realized it was chainsaw man fucking revving in the distance.
So they specifically had me listening for a sound. I was like, what
is that sound? Then the fucking chainsaw guy in an area that he's not
normally in, Yeah, or an area that wasn't even in the original game.
Yeah, I yell, like in the middle the night, just yelled
him my HEA's like, oh my god, holy shit. Like, yeah,
there are those moments for sure. I wouldn't even like classify many of
them as jump scares. It's just this intense dread and terror. Yes,
there is one. I mentioned the Garador already with the bells from the original
game. Yes, they've done some stuff with that enemy in this game that
are incredibly smart and good, like good design choices. Again, I don't
I really like this remake. I still think that I think they made a
lot of smart choices and what they subtracted. I think I just have slightly
more problems with what they added. Just not to say I dislike all the
additions, because a lot of the additions, like the nice system, more
survival, horror crafting elements, um, what they've done with other with specific
boss fights, I love, but like Resuval two remake. The things they
added just like blew my mind. I mean, mister X is a big
hug, is a huge thing. But like, but the perspective, the
amount of time between the games. Oh, speaking of something, Okay,
I have not brought this up peopleforehand. If I were to ask you both
which Resident Evil games featured tank controls? Which ones would you say tank controls?
One? Two three? Okay? U? Zero? No? No?
No? So zero did not zero had the updated Um what they did
with the resivale one two three. Now I'm trying to remember if Code Veronica
did. Mary, you played Code Veronica more recently than I did. Yeah,
I don't think it did. Well, you've proved, you've proved.
My point is that no one fucking says four has tank controls? Right?
Have you ever heard anyone say that? No? Okay, it's not tank
controls. They're called tank controls because you're controlling a tank from above it and
it's the direction the tank is facing, not where you're facing. And it
drove me nuts. And normally I don't give a immune to dumb comment.
Shit, I've just seen it so much and we just make fun of it
and like read it stuff or whatever here, but I saw it wasn't a
ton But I saw enough people because I made a mention in the review of
like, oh, you know, do we even need to remake you know,
because it's you know, the older ones had more to gain because they
had the clumsy tank controls and stuff. I saw all these comments being like,
actually, well this is a fantasy because it Resideval four is tank controls.
It's just the perspectives different, all right, motherfucker perspect that is the
no one calls Reside Eval four tank controls. Fucking no one. But don't
it's made you dumb ask work tank controls are. They're called as such because
it's you're looking at the character from the same angle. The controls are entirely
dependent on which direction the character is facing. That becomes completely moot when your
camera is always aligned with where the characters facing. So that's not shut the
fuck up. Yeah, oh my god, I'm sure there's some like developer
at some studio that's like technically based on the original definition this is, but
no one thinks of it like that. Yeah exactly, Like yeah, okay,
left is left, rights, right up is up character perspective, but
wouldn't that fixed camera? No one's those that's those are the same people that
like get pissed when you call something a roguelike when it's a rogue light And
I'm just shut up and just do anything else with your life. Yeah,
please do Yeah, no, it's not tank controls. Um, yes,
and shut up also and also shut up and also here's a bridge. No,
I'm just joking. Don't don't do that. Um, I don't.
I think it's games fantastic, it's phenomenal. Um I'm trying to think.
I still Also, any problems I have in the late game are still problems
our problems I have with the original. I just like, oh, they
ramp up like so many the dynamite throwing gun shooting zombies, and like,
sure, it's still there and it technically works in this game. This game
your roundhouse kicking people, it's camp be as fuck. You're saying things like
chill out, like when you freeze something like the Bengo line, and the
right level of camp would so it works. I just I still think,
like got that first third in the village and much of the castle. I
still fucking I wish they just kept building on that instead of like ramping up
up up um. But that's not the remake's fault. And that's the thing.
If you were turned off by how kind of actioning it gets on the
island, you know with these like you know, these not zombies, you
know, with assault rifles and stun guns and stuff, it's like, yeah,
that shit still there, Like that is absolutely still there. You're like
redirecting turrets and you're just having like gun battles with these things, and that
that's there. You can you can stealth now, so you can do like
kind of like Last of Us stealth and you know, take them out.
I do like kind of the breakable night thing and everything. Like I enjoyed
that. That was cool. Um. I thought I would hate it because
I didn't want to like manage that, like I don't like durability and stuff
on matters and stuff. But this worked well, I thought, and man
it was so great, Like every treasure I got, I just made sure
it's like I am not fucking selling this thing until I am getting the maximum
like color bonus. Yeah, like they made a ton of money. I'm
so excited. Mary. There's a whole um you can actually swap at.
Obviously there's the whole item management thing in the attache case, but you can
actually get different cases that give you different perks, and you can get different
charms that give you more perks to hang off the case. I got one
that made me run eight percent faster, yeah, which is that's how you
escape a chainsaw person ten times easier in this Yes, No, I love
the system because, like I didn't really fuck around with the shooting gallery that
much before because like I think that was just for like those bonus figures and
stuff like that didn't gameplay. If I remember writing the first one, I
believe, so yeah, in this one, it was just like, okay,
so you can get either like bronze or goal bronze. It is silver
or gold tokens depending on how you do in each one of these shooting gallery
things. It's like a gumball machine with three slots. Yeah, so if
you put three gold tokens in, you're probably gonna get like a really rare
charm. If you put three silvers in, it lowers the chances blah blah
blah. It's like when you go to slot machine, you can choose to
play every line or not, you know, and so yeah, you can
put up to three of them on your suitcase. And one of them was
just like the Striker Shotgun Legendary Edition or whatever that to run eight percent faster.
I got it fairly early in the game, and it's like, fuck,
that's gonna help me out the rest of this game. That's great.
Yeah. One that's like I get plus five percent on weapons sale values and
stuff like you got that first shooting range. No, I got early on
in my first play through. The eight percent move speed thing. I got
it on like the second or maybe the third shooting gallery, and there's only
like four or five, there's four, I think. Okay, I think
I got them on the second or third, so I had a lot of
time to enjoy it. Yeah, okay, in the Castle, gotcha.
I was gonna say, if you you've got that before the Castle, that
would help with like the catapult section. Yeah, I had twenty nine times
on it. Um, there was not easy. There was one sequence where
I was like, oh this, and I talked to other people. I
don't think other people had this experience in this sequence, but um, there's
like a chase sequence basically that was not in the first game, or at
least in the same format. And that's the one time where I'm like,
this reminds me of the Boulder. This isn't QTE base. But I've like
failed enough times without feeling like I deserved it. Then I was like,
oh, this is kind of I think I know what you're part. You're
talking about. You're running away, Yeah, you're running up the hill.
And I talked to other people. I didn't have problems with it, but
like some some approach I was taking I did. There was like, yeah,
I think I pucked up once or twice on that. Yeah. The
actually changes, I don't mind. I remember like in the original for the
uh water ski the jet ski scene, getting like irritated, Oh that sucked.
In the original the originally did. But this one I think they just
made it like the way it should have been work. This is a fun
ride to end the game. This isn't fun ride to end the game's you
did all this stuff and now you get the big we at the end.
That's what it is here. You're totally just like boosting through explosions and stuff
in this one where I didn't feel like I was gonna die. Yeah,
all right, well that's like the main thing I wanted them to fix.
There's there's just way less bullshit overall. Like all the changes are super smart
and like a lot of them are small changes, but a lot of them
are just like you'll be in an area that you know very well and then
something will happen where you're like, whoa, this did not at all.
Like Mike, there's a thing in a very famous area of the game,
and like there's a thing that changes like how you get around that area and
an environmental thing that when it happened, I was like, oh shit,
what the fuck is that? Like I didn't expect that at all. So
even the first cottage you come across usually, I mean, it's pretty iconic.
There's a guy Stoke in the flames at the fireplace in the original and
then Leon's like, hey, excuse me, sir, and he turns around
and he's got the Ganado side. And this one that's completely different. The
cabin is different, heat, that dude is different. It's the basement and
stuff which you didn't do in the original. The signal to you right away
that like, hey, we this is a complete like reinterpretation in a lot
of spots. Um, I like it a lot. It's between Dead Space
remake, Last of Us being on HBO and Resume four remake. I'm very
much back into that very specific kind of third person adventure survival horror with crafting
and exploration and combat and puzzles. I'm back in. I want to play
Last of Us Part one I got. I think I got to Pittsburgh when
I played it last year when it came out, but I want to replay
that. I'm just very playing it right now. Actually, I think the
Last of Us watching the show got me into playing the game, and it's
really fun to replay and see like all the just like little touches, the
quality of life touches that they've added to it. Since I played the original
Last of Us, which was a years ago, I've forgotten how long ago
it was, but it's it's a delight to play again. Do you remember
where you are in the game, like geographically in the States. I am
at uh when they meet the brother in the Wyoming, but I don't know
what state that is, Like Tommy's from the Middle Yeah, yeah, Wyoming's
there in the Middle States. The damn Yeah. Yeah. I want to
replay that really bad. Like playing resum before and dead Space makes me want
to replay Last Us. I love that. I mean, it's it's like
the subgenre of survival horror that Resuval four started, Like dead Space wouldn't exist
about it, and either with the Last of Us. It's that it's that
like flow between crafting and expiration and kind of linear um linear adventure game,
but also like based around inventory management and just third like Over the Shoulder survival
horror. There's something about it that it feels a bit more earned than later
games that I think are also really relying on crafting is a way to let
you play the game the way you want, not to like harp on God
of War too much, but I feel like a lot of it is like,
hey, you're getting all these items that you can upgrade your weapon,
but it feels sometimes like quite meaningless. In the God of War games,
it's meant to give you some kind of autonomy and ability to make you feel
like you have a lot of agency in that game, but I never really
felt that, whereas in the Last of Us man opening up a drawer and
finding alcohol is really really nice because I get to choose later on if that
is going to be a multiv which I really love, or if it's going
to be a bandage, which I also really love at need so having the
ability to craft those different components and decide at the moment when I really need
them what's best for me at that given time felt really special. CUSTOMI my
gun, which they never give you nearly enough components to make what you want,
and it's very calculated to be like, no, seriously, do you
want to upgrade your sniper or do you want to upgrade your bow because you
just don't have enough to do both, And making that calculated choice felt really
meaningful to me and encouraged me to play the game that I wanted to.
I'm actually I didn't actually put it on my list, but now I realize
it. I have been playing The Last of Us and I've I've really enjoyed
my experience replaying it. I think of a bit of a glutton for punishment,
because I'm playing it alongside watching season one, and it's been it's been
a real journey playing through what I've been watching in the game again and reliving
it a third time. I played the game originally, like what like eight
years ago? When did the original come out? It was ages ago,
thirteen the end ten years ago? Yeah, fuck world, I played that.
Now I'm watched it, and now I'm replaying the game to like re
remember that experience again, and it's been an absolute joy. And for anyone
who has played the game and was thinking about playing it again, I absolutely
encourage playing like the Last of Us Part one. It's just a phenomenal ride
and it's so well done. I also appreciate the characters more. I appreciate
the girlfriend character so much more playing this game though that I've watched the show
Tess. Yes, oh yeah, yeah. I think the first time I
played this game, I was like, Oh, she's helping guide us through
the area because she knows everybody. But after watching the show and playing it
again in part one, I'm like, Oh, this is a badass character
that you are so lucky to know, Like, you're so lucky that she
like dates you and likes you because she knows everyone is extremely well ingrained in
the entire community, and respect did among all of her peers, and they
built this like monolith character And I never picked up on that the first time
I played this game, Like Test is a badass the entire first the entire
first game, and we just yeah, you don't really, I guess I
just like never considered it until playing it again. Yeah. We had an
op ed on Polygon about how the show really did her dirty, just in
terms of not really respecting the game's character. It's though, because I didn't
appreciate the character until I saw the show, and then I realized, holy
shit, in the game, she's a fucking like like everyone. When you
walk into a room, everyone's like, oh, hey, Tess, like
so glad you were able to come by, Like I want to show you
these things, and she's like I don't have time for that right now,
dude. Yeah, like you, as Joel gets, you get no respect
walking into spaces. Everybody gives a shit about Tests when you walk into that
game. And I don't think I ever really processed that the first time I
played this game. Did Naughty Dog have input or any kind of creative stuff
on the show, like Neil Druckman is. He's involved. He's a director,
writer, co executive producer. Him and Craig. He was working on
the actual scripture the show. Yeah, yeah, he wrote, he directed.
I think it's the Which episode did he direct the second episode? I
believe. I guess I would explain why it seems more, you know,
like accurate to the actual game. Yeah, because he also, I mean
he and Craig Mazin, who did a Chernobyl? Did you aust Chernobyl?
Nah, it's not slow, it's if you don't do you know much.
I just can't imagine something about a nuclear thing Milton down being action packed.
I don't blame you. I mean it's not sentence, it's not it's not
like blow up. It's like it melds from the right now. It's not
show. No, it was like tragedy, but like the show. Yeah,
especially if you don't know much about it. The show isn't know anything
about you should watch Chernobyl. I think it's it's enthralling. Like that's different
Free Mile Island, right, Yes, Okay, same concept of nuclear like
straight up to Homer Simpson esque, like fucking power plant, Blue Upper melted
down or something. Right, they go into why at all and like it's
crazy. I'm sure caused a lot of bad stuff. Yeah, it's quite
it's I mean it's not. It's it's a mini series. I think it's
eight one hour episodes. It's phenomenally executed. Each component of it, especially
episode one. Like if anyone's like, I don't know, I'm worried it's
gonna have a slow start, just watch episode one. Episode one is a
fucking ride. It is all like all the people that are like, you
need to do something and they're like, it's not that big of a deal.
Dan. If you like the Annihilation recently, Chernobyl is very similarly toned.
Yeah, Like Annihilation is not action packed most of the time. There
are some scenes that are like oh this monster attacking them. Sure, but
it's similarly like I guess entrancing. It sounds boring to me because it's based
on a real thing that happened, and I feel that, like fiction is
always more interesting than reality, you know, I get that perspective. It's
this chernibl I think does a lot more. It digs into a lot of
the context surrounding it and the character they honed in on specific people, and
they are really compelling characters, for better or worse, in the show,
I think I think it's even more impressive because it's not well, a lot
of it is parts of it are fictionalized, but by and large it follows
what happened. They're like a bad guy. There are everybody's a bad guy.
It's it's it's a basic it's a it's basically an indictment of like Soviet
Soviet flavor of communism. We'll see like Inglorious Batchards. Maastards is fun because
it's like based on real stuff, but then at the end you got like
the big bad like Wolfenstein anying, where it's like, let's shot Hitler in
the face a billion times, Like that's fun. Yeah, No, it's
not like that. This is this is more like, uh, I'm trying
to think of what you could compare it to. I don't know. I
think if you liked Annihilation, it's I mean totally, it's it's the same.
It's not action packed, but uh, okay, did you watch um?
Trying to think of other there are a lot of good non fiction or
like based on real events like Saman for Ryan, a lot that's really fictionalized
of what happened now from what I no, Oh, Muti's really good.
I'm trying to think of that. I've never thought of it that way,
Like, what is a movie based on like a real serious thing that I
really liked? Like I saw Dune Kirk and they're like, oh, that
seems well made, but it didn't really make me feel anything. Um brothers
Argo, I never saw it. Um the fuck? I just avoid that
across the board. I've never thought of that. A lot of most a
lot of most sports movies are based on real things too. Remember the Titans
Miracle Ready to Rumble wasn't um Um? Maybe I don't walk in? What
was it? Pain and Gain? What didn't kicked? As? It was
awesome? That was based on a real I think it was. I think
it was. Yeah, that'st and Furious isn't um? You should can I
I want to look at my letter box and see if I have any five
stars based in real stories. Dark Night wasn't. There's probably a bunch of
obvious ones we're not thinking of right now. Two thousand and one wasn't.
Yeah, hell, I never thought of that. I saw the Three Gun.
The three Gun was really good. Do you see that? No,
not yet, the Megan the Robot thing. Yeah, oh I saw that.
I saw it in theaters. It's awesome. It's pretty good, way
better than I expected. Oh, we just watched Freddy got fingered. What
the fuck? Why are you jumping around like this? I can't possibly like
react. There's too many things happening. Moneyball stop, okay, My Five
Stars Shining didn't happen. Godfather didn't happen, Matrix didn't happen, Blade Runner
didn't happen. Didn't happen, Jurassic Park, Clockwork, Orange Blade Runner,
Jaws didn't happen. There were Blood that wasn't based on a real story,
Yeah happen. It was based on all right, he's just he's not even
letting us responding now. It's based it's set in US. Setting is Cucker's
nest. It's based on a fictional terminator didn't happen. Prod of the didn't
happen, Creed didn't happen, Mission Possibill followed didn't happen. Rocky didn't happen,
Point Break didn't happen, Big Trouble, Little China didn't happen. The
Rock didn't happen, Gremlins too, didn't happen, Highlander didn't happen, not
oh the Jinks. But that's a documentary, um chop. Chernobyl is like
a cross between nonfiction and documentary. I've gone through all my five stars now,
which I realized it is a weird phrase. But yes, there is
a difference between documentary and nonfiction. Fuckers, go ahead and comment I specially
literally. Chernobyl is tank controls. Um. But yeah, but anyway,
Um. I another game I played in the meanwhile that I think both of
you would like quite a bit. It's called patch Quest. What is this,
yeah, tell us I mentioned in Discord last week. It is let
me let me throw a bunch of words at you. It combines aspects of
rugelikes, bullet hells, um, Pokemon sort of but like Pokemon light,
animal collecting, plant documenting. Um. What is What's what it's like?
Enter the gungeon, binding of Isaac. These are all words I like.
I just have to say I almost downloaded this game and I didn't because,
like before, you talked about this like on my own and I didn't because
the art style I don't like it in screenshots. In action, I think
it's actually I like it more. Yeah, patch Quests by um Leechy Game
Labs. It looks like one person. Yes, it's it. Uh,
it's supposed so it's supposed it's called it's you're literally like putting the tiles on
the map are like pieces of a quilt, and you're traveling through different biomes.
Um, And it's supposed to be like I I think it supposed to
be overly cute. But then you start looking pretty mobile game looking. Yeah,
I can see that necessarily, but it looks mobile emotion though on my
Steam deck, I it so much is going on that I don't notice.
Sure, um, it feels great basically the gist of it. You're setting
out on these expeditions and it's obviously randomly generated tiles. I'll up quilt,
patch, et cetera. Umo that uh, and then you're you're last sewing
different monsters and riding them around. Stop doing that? What's the cash?
Actually, I think it's less suing, less suing. I think it's less
suing. Is it? No last sue? I last sued it, I
last owed it. Maybe that's the Kansas thing. Oh yeah, we last
sued it. No lasso, I know lasso is the noun it's it is.
Did it change? Oh I last sued that thing. I don't know.
Maybe maybe I don't. I don't know. I'm not I never used
one. But you're you're capturing different months. Some are like an armadillo with
a hat on. Some are like a moth, some are Some are a
tortoise that shoots water at people, and you're adding them to your bciary,
and then you are fighting random minibosses. You're getting upgrades to like six stats.
It's a roguelike you're getting. The permanent upgrades are largely the animals you're
collecting and the plans you're documenting. You're getting different animal for your blaster based
on fruit. It's like overly cute. It's like the grapes are the rapid
fire AMMO. The pumpkins are the explosives. The bananas are homing. But
it feels great. They say bullet hell and it can get challenging, but
you'll get The tortoise, for instance, is basically blast toys. You unlock
three different abilities with each animal. If you beat minibosses, and the tortoise
might have this like shell, you can use that deflects projectiles, but then
you can also shoot water off out of his back upwards at enemies, or
you could shoot stuff in front of him out of his mouth, and then
you also have your blaster. So I guess the overall flow is very much
like you venture out to capture an animal, whichever one seems like it's going
to be the most helpful for you. You're unlocking new biomes like the hills,
the grasslands. You're documenting new plants that are also give you new perks.
By and large, it's it feels like Binding of Isaac. Definitely some
enter the gunge in aspects and Pokemon light aspects. And I'm playing my steam
Deck. I'm liking it quite a bit. It's a good playing game because
I have some long flights coming up, I think. So, I mean,
I've been playing my steam Deck on the couch. I've only played.
I've died three times, so I haven't played enough to like have a complete
understanding of the overall roguelike loop. But just from what I understand, yeah,
I'm unlocking new animals that are going to help me. It's like Pokemon
if there were also guns and it was a roguelike and all right. There
are metroidvaniy aspects too, like you are unlocking. While most the map is
mostly procedurally generated, there are also these hard gates into new biomes that you
need to go the long way around through a previously unlocked biome and then fight
a boss and unlock this gate. So next time after you die, you
can leave your hut and go straight into the new biome you unlocked if you
want to, if there are animals there you didn't collect, etc. Um.
I like it quite a bit. It was made by like one person
over like seven years or I don't know. I'm in those cases often like
they had people who did the music and whatnot, but largely credited to one
person. Starts music was them too. Yeah, yeah, man, everything
you say like it's it sounds like something I should like. I just I
really have a hard time getting over that style. I find it hard on
the eyes. It's not it's not appealing to me. Yeah, I don't
disagree with you. And I saw screenshots. I'm like that, this doesn't
look good. But then I don't know, I started playing. I'm like,
so much was happening that I wasn't really paying attention. But um,
yeah, I'm trying to. I also felt that about Wildermith, but then
I started playing Wildermith, Like, I get why they're doing this even if
I don't particularly like it. Um, but I don't think the game is
going to do if if that's your opinion after playing for like a few minutes,
I don't think the game's going to change your mind, right, It
doesn't. It's not like a flash game, look like like Hollow Night or
anything. So so you can get past and yeah, sorry sounding black and
white. Yeah, it's not just color. Yeah, it's got like some
dark browns, different shades, gray browns, yellow and gold. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know. Try it out. It's Uh. I like
patch Quest quite a bit. Um Mary, what else you've been playing?
Um? I got back into Destiny. WHOA, Yeah, I was expected
with light Fall. What a surprise. I heard there was a new campaign
Lightfall, and I haven't played this genuinely since Destiny one. I don't think
i've played Destiny Too, which is I don't think we've ever talked about Destiny
on this podcast. I liked Destiny one, and I had a lot of
friends that played the absolute ever living shit at a Destiny Too this is a
game that makes people addicted and you like play for hours and hours and hours,
and I just didn't get into Destiny too. But then when the light
Fall campaign happened, I think I wanted to like have a night, a
chill night where I like didn't want to play. I didn't want to do
anything else besides play an online game with friendos. And I actually is where
Destiny shines, right, Like you get three to six people together to either
raid or do some of the campaign, and so I thought I'd give it
a whirl and get back in. Um. It is still extraordinarily fun to
play the campaign in Destiny with other people. It is still so fun to
run through the areas shooting things and leveling up your character. That campaigns are
fun, That is the good news. The onboarding for people who have not
been in in a while is a trip hole account, lots of icons floating
on your screen when you jump in, or at least when I did with
Shadow Keep the previous expansion. I meant, like forty people but I've never
talked to that had a lot to say. I didn't know anything about them.
The UI didn't make any sense, Like every time I talked to someone.
They would be like, this guy doesn't have anything for you right now,
and it's like, why are you telling me this? You told me
to talk to this asshole. I'm only talking to him because you told me
to. And then it's like, this guy doesn't have anything for you right
now, and probably because I'm one of those weird newbies. This late into
Destiny Too where the game doesn't cater to me anymore. So it's like,
hey, this guy doesn't have anything for you because you're too low level.
But if I was high level, then he would have something for me.
But like then made sure that I talk to him, because these are all
very important characters in the universe of Destiny Too speak just catering to hardcoes at
this point because like, I think Destiny's Destiny is incredible, like you know,
but I will just play like the Bass Game basically, like I played
like fifty or sixty hours of the Bass Game, played it with friends,
did raids, all that stuff. It's an excellent game. But then you
just kind of hear about it as like you know, oh, let's say
a couple of years go by and you don't play it and you hear friends
be like Oh, yeah, this new expansion or whatever is great. But
then you also hear what you're describing right now, Mary, and it's like
that instantly, when I hear that, I'm like, well, fuck that,
I'm not doing that. I'll wait till the new game comes out,
you know, Like, I'm just not gonna fucking get thrown into a thing
and have to read eight billion tutorial screens about weird systems. I've had this
experience before where I felt like I was left out, and I don't want
to be that person that's constantly asking people like to chip in and get me
through the level and guide me there. I'm not ashamed of it, it's
just I don't want to do it all the time. Destiny to At this
level, you're going to have to ask a lot of people for help,
especially through the raid. I don't think you could get through the raid without
an experienced person to assist you. All of that aside, I would say
that I have thoroughly enjoyed the first half of the Lifeball campaign I'm in.
I've gotten through four out of the eight are the missions. I'm having a
great time. I'm really enjoying it. I'm playing with other people, One
of the things that's a bit of a bumber is is that there's only two
difficulties that I'm aware of. There's normal and there's legendary Normal. If I
come sorrow from like another podcast, um, they said it was baby ass.
Baby mode is like normal because it's so easy. You can pop.
You can headshop people and just pop them from nowhere. That is like my
experience with normal mode when we changed it to Legendary. Sometimes I had to
do the mission eight to ten times to be able to get through it because
it's so difficult on legendary mode. The scale from those difficulties is insane.
Can you play with people that are like if you were on Normal and your
friends are on Legendary or vice versa, can you play together? I think
it's instance. Is it like, okay, we are playing a legendary survey?
I think only the director can do it? Or like, who is
it the leader? I'm the leader. I was a leader in this case,
and we thought it was too easy, so we upscaled it to a
legendary and we played through like a bunch of it on Legendary, and then
we got really stuck on a couple of bosses and it took hours to get
through it. I would prefer playing on Legendary because playing on Normal is a
bit too easy. You can get through it, but you're kind of just
burning through it. Legendary is like, all right, they start from the
left here, and then halfway through you're gonna want to go to the right
because then they flank from the right, and then you have to strategize.
You have to consider all these different aspects on Legendary mode that you didn't before,
and I prefer that. I enjoy that. The issue with Legendary is
it is a bit draining playing for four hours and questioning whether or not you're
gonna be able to get through it. So you need someone with that experience
to be able to get you through. But very very exciting to play through
these campaigns with friends and scream and laugh and cry and die and try and
get through these campaigns. Lightfall is fun. I heard it didn't get super
good reviews. It's probably from people who've been playing this game for ages and
didn't think that it was like justified maybe through the story or through the gameplay.
As a person coming back into Destiny, I loved the campaign. I
just think that the onboarding is dogshit for newcumbers because it's not it's not placating
to me. Doesn't care whether or not I'm having a good time, But
it was hard for me to know what to do a lot. Sure.
Every time I see every type with the new expansions, I always see like
some of the guns that are coming with it and the aesthetic, and I
see this one, and it's so tempting because it's got that like eighties neon
vibe. I know, the whole area is eighties neon. It's really sereal
and like some of the armor you can get now, it's just it just
looks like Miami Vice but Destiny, and like, oh god, this looks
awesome. I love that you brought that up, Mike, because it was
one of the things that really tripped me up about this new area, because
the whole concept of Destiny to me is sci fi fantasy, and I expect
it to look that way. I expect it to look that sci fi fantasy
style. To have these long stretches of environments that are eighties esque streets with
cars on the side of the roads was jarring to me. It didn't feel
like I was playing Destiny, but to me, someone who is just coming
back into the fray, I was okay with it. I bet to someone
who's been playing this game for a really long time, that might actually be
upsetting to them because it doesn't look like Destiny. It doesn't well because then
there was the last one. I played a lot at Destiny one. I
was reviewing something like the expansions for game Spot, and then two came out.
I was like, I played the bass game that I played the first
expansion, and if memory served, the first expansion was like Nordic Armor inspired
and that was super cool too, Like I love the idea that every expansion,
the like armor sets and weapons they're bringing with it have this thematic through
line. And I saw this and like, oh god, this looks super
cool. Like up my alley, I'd like the neon infused armor. But
I'm not going to do it that. I'm not going back to Warframe either,
even though Warframe is released some pretty cool looking new characters, I'm not
going to do it. It's hard to justify people getting back into it.
But I will say freely that I had to blast playing through the campaign and
I plan on returning this weekend. I will do it. And I'd like
to do that raid as well. I don't think it's easy for newcomers.
I think if you have a couple of friends that you just want to play
a game for the weekend, it's still good. It's still a good place
to like spend your night and enjoy playing games with friends. It's not perfect,
but god, it's still a joy to work together to try and burn
through a campaign. Well, here's a question, because like I am somewhat
curious about this, because I really do think Destiny is an incredibly well made
game and I've had a lot of fun with it. But for reasons I
already said, I'm intimidated about getting back in. Let's say there is a
night that I want, like me and some friends want to play online,
and that is rare. It is very rare. I do not play multiplayer
games for the most part, So if we're going to do that, it's
kind of a catch up, hangout type thing. And typically in recent months
it's been like Fortnite because you can go in and just mindlessly, you know,
just play and shoot and stuff like that and have a good time,
play a couple of hours, go to bed whatever. If I want to
have that hang out moment or hours or whatever. Is most of that going
to be like, Oh, if my friend plays Destiny, they're gonna have
to be explaining shit to me for like two hours and we don't actually get
to catch up talk Like is it like if it's just gonna be like a
one off night of playing games, is it too dense to just kind of
hop back in play some games together, Like you're on three hours? Fine,
yeah, okay. I would say that you're going to spend easily,
And this is what happened to me easily an hour being like where are we?
Who's this guy? Where's my gun? It takes you an hour to
get all the necessary google and understand your surroundings. But once we got into
the campaign, I was having a good time. I think I played for
six hours and I was really enjoying myself at the end of it. The
beginning was rough, but you'll get through it in about an hour. Yeah,
Because I jumped back in to play with my brother and my nephew after
the first expansion. I played with them for like a day. The problem
is not the amount of stuff that they throw at you. It's that,
like you said, Mary, you'll meet this character who will give you every
once in a while, like a story center quest, but he also has
these high level items that you get with a currency that you don't even know.
You don't even you haven't even unlocked the missions to earn that currency,
so you don't even understand what this vendor is for. And then later on
you realize, oh, these are like, these are tokens to install X
on this other weapon. It's if, Yeah, the game is very intricate.
I say this is someone who has played who played Destiny Too and its
first expansion and the first game a lot enough to know obviously they know what
they're doing when they're building these expansions on top of each other. But yeah,
new player onboarding is a problem that like war Frame has been grappling with
for five years as well. And I haven't played war Frame in like two
years. I'm sure as someone who has put over a thousand hours in a
war Frame, if I were to jump in today, I would be fucking
I don't I'm sure a lot of it would still make sense. But that's
the problem of these kind of games. It's like their lifestyle games quote unquote,
if they haven't been your lifestyle for two years. Then how do you
make it your lifestyle again? It's a hard thing to justify how ridiculous it
is to get into it, But I can't deny how I felt it kind
of yeah, I mean art direction, and I think Destiny is the best
feeling shooter of all time. I could say it's, or at least it's
it's top four whatever's like bad Titan Fall, like as far as like fps,
like just the feel like, oh yeah, it's it's incredible. So
like, I absolutely get how it hooks people. It's just I can't I
did that enough. Like Total War is probably my new obsession game. I
can't add anything else, but like Destiny, I saw Lightfile and I was
tempted. It's just that it's good looking. Yeah, I mean, I
just can't deny the way it makes makes you want to play, right.
It kind of reminds me of like when Dan had this change of heart and
decided that Fortnite was something that he enjoyed, and you had this realization where
you, I swear, even on this podcast, you said, shouldn't feel
like I should like it. I don't know if I'm supposed to like it,
but I can't help the way that I want to keep playing it.
I can't help that I want to keep playing Destiny, even though it's done
a lot to make me not want to, but man, I kind of
want to play more Destiny. And the more you play, the more you'll
just kind of learn through osmosis, whether it's from a friend that you're playing
with or just like, oh, I see how this vendor fit into that
quest line fits into this currency. It's like the games are designed to be.
They have to be intricate for or they have to be layered for people
to stick around, So naturally it's going to be I don't know, it's
like learning a new coding language for a couple of weeks. And forgive me
because I don't know if this is already introduced in previous updates to Destiny too,
because I haven't played it. But there are these skill upgrades in Lightfall
that I think are reminiscent of almost being like Spider Man. There is the
weave. Weave that's that's new for Life Fall. Yeah. Oh, it's
actually so fun. You video get to attach to other people and then it
kind of zip zaps you to them or sticks you to them, and you
can do it to an enemy, and you can also do it to your
friends and kind of just zap to them really quickly and it feels great.
And whoever created that piece of life all did a phenomenal job because it's very
fun. It could be its own component of a completely different game, and
you could have a whole game having fun with that. It's extremely fun to
sticky yourself to someone and run to them or bring them to you, or
doing that with your with your mates. Yeah, it's very very fun to
do that. Cool. I'm glad you're back into it. Thank you.
I'm enjoying it. I didn't think I would, but here we are.
Damn what You've been playing a bunch of games. Okay, Actually, what
I'm curious about as an Arcane Studio's nerd, you played Red Fall for a
bit. What was I think we did the same preview, But I think
we did the same preview. I'm curious what you thought of it. Um.
I was curious about the game before I no longer really have any interest
in playing. Yeah, so okay. My take is that it is Arcanes
take on like a far Christ style word worlds in like a Salem, Massachusetts
style halloween ish kind of place. Am I anywhere close? I kept thinking
more of Borderlands with some of the tone and writing and just skill tree attempts
and stuff like that. But I think it's a it is a bad attempt
at a I don't say bad, it's not out yet, but like it
is a uninspiring Borderlands, like I would say. The whole time was playing
it, it felt very like late three sixty era or maybe like Xbox one
Launch game. The gun play is just the most rote like this is like
it is very generic gunplay, the abilities and everything, like they started us
with characters. We played for ninety minutes at an event in New York City,
and you know, each character of the four selectable characters have these different
things and there's novel stuff where like this one has a thing where like,
oh, your vampire ex boyfriend you can summon and he'll fight for or whatever,
and like I had a little robot that could like you know, distract
enemies and stuff like that, but none of it even felt as good as
in the first Borderlands, like the abilities and stuff there, and and that
I feel like whenever I whenever I look at a skill tree, I look
at every single little thing, and I try to decide, like in Borderlands
it would have three different columns, be like, oh, this one gets
fucking nuts by the end of this path of the skill tree. I gotta
go for that. So one of the first things I did is they gave
us a handful of skill points. I went to the skill tree hovered over
every single icon. It's like, okay, now my little robot guy will
have like an area of effect health recharge, and no, here the seaport
explosion will have a slightly bigger radius of effect or whatever. There wasn't any
kind of like whoa, they're getting crazy here, like you know, I
gotta see what that's like. Like. It was just like, okay,
making like incremental upgrades or tiny little ability changes, and yeah, I didn't
think there were the abilities were that interesting to begin with. Yeah, Borderlines,
for all of its faults in its scripting, is like, now your
summonable bird will fire a salvo of electrified missile that create a swamp of electricity.
I was like, Okay, you wanted to get ridiculous. You want
to break it in ways, you know, you want to be able to
make builds that are just fucking wacky. And out feel that you've broken up
exactly, and like, I don't know, we played ninety minutes, so
maybe if you do your character a certain way or whatever. Like it's not
the full game. I don't want to fully cast judgment on it here,
but it didn't feel like it had that freedom and the gun play itself,
like you know, borderlines. I keep thinking of that is like it would
have that random element of like, oh man, this is this craziest weapon.
It's a sniper rifle that shoots electricity and also blah blah blah this one.
It's like they're different types, or it's here's a flare gun, here's
a steak launcher or whatever. But the only variation I saw was like just
numbers where it's like, okay, so the gray one does forty damage and
the blue one does sixty damage. Is great. It feels the exact same
way. And as you wander around the world because you can do it two
different ways, they said like, okay, we have a story mission for
you to do. If you want to do that, go to this area,
But if you want to spend your ninety minutes just exploring, do that.
And like, I'm very much the type that likes open world games and
getting into trouble, you know, setting a waypoint on the map, heading
that way, and then getting distracted by five or six things on the way.
There was nothing in the open world that I found like distracting in a
fun way. It's just like here's a cluster of like three or four enemies,
and like AI problems, Like a lot of them would just be like
facing walls and not even reacting to me, like walking right past them,
or running into walls and not stopping. Like and this game's about to come
out, so I think there's a little more like five weeks away. Yeah,
there's there's some concerns there. But like even if it was all working
properly in everything, like I don't know if those three guys got into a
gunfight with me, they don't feel that great the gun. And there was
also a time where they all like sank into the ground and like all of
their shots were no clipping through the ground and hitting me, but I couldn't
see or hit them. So again, not a finished game, but we're
pretty fucking close. And there were like in the ninety minutes I've played,
there were a lot of problems and but but again, even if everything was
working properly, the open world seemed like not a lot going on there.
I did the same type of like you know, destroy these like hearts or
closing these heartness or whatever, like three or four times, and it felt
the exact same every single time. Skill Tree seemed uninspired, didn't like the
writing, characters didn't do anything for me. It's a yeah. I went
in completely open minded. I hadn't really followed anything. I was like,
oh, Arcane does some cool shit. I like, you know, like
Borderlands types. I didn't know if it was more of a Borderlands or a
Left for Dead or what it was, but I was I went in completely
open minded. You know, I could have walked down and been like,
holy shit, I'm excited for that game now, but it was the complete
opposite. I walked out. I was like, probably not gonna play that,
so damn yammer. That's where I'm at with it, because I mean,
I actually when they first announced the game, I thought it was gonna
be more of a live service game with these four character classes, a lot
of destiny in this world and like your Vampire Hunters or whatever you want to
say. But then I think it was a state of play a few months
ago, or was it the Game Awards they showed more of it, and
I was actually pretty intrigued because I didn't realize they were setting it in like
a what I took to be this like hocus Pocus esque Salem area with like
vampires, werewolves, Halloween themed almost. I was like, Okay, that
seems kind of cool and like I wouldn't mind seeing Arcane's take on a far
Cry formula. But I don't know. Sometimes what you're describing sounds like something
with a lot more personality than this world had. Um, there's not there's
like cultists, there's vampires. Uh, there's you know, there are some
cool things. There's like like this looks like an asteroid land and like a
dock and all this water is like frozen in time and like these boats that
like there. I saw that. It was like, oh, that actually
looks really cool. But other than that, it's like a lot of sami
looking houses with not a lot of details or interesting things to explore. Um,
there's not a lot of personality to this open world at all. Yeah,
because this would have been the first game from this studio since damn Prey.
Oh, this is the Prey team. I believe. So this is
Austin, right, I have no idea this is Arcane Austin. I believe
the Prey t Death Loop was Arcane Leon And let me double check this.
I'm pretty sure this is Is this the Dishonored team? Um leone worked on
Dishonored. Okay, yeah, I like Dishonored. I think that had a
lot of like those abilities of the team. Okay, man and Pray was
bold and cool and stuff. Yeah prays cool, Yeah, yeah, yeah
yeah, Pray. It was incredible. Um yeah, I liked parts of
Death Loop. We talked a lot about it last year. I feel like
a lot of people fucking loved it. I don't know Arcane. I'm I'm
the more and more I play Arcane games, the more I realize I'm fascinated
by their games, and more I'm in like a design theory level, then
I actually am at playing them. Pray as an exception, I like Dishonored,
but like sometimes even Dishonored had as much as we talk about. Dishonored
two is fantastic, but it's still has a lot of hiccups. And uh,
the more and more I appreciate that Arcane tries new thing was a lot
or pretty often, but I just I'm I'm more fascinated with their games from
a distance, I think. And that's coming out four days after Jedi Survivor
and wow, like two weeks before Tears of the Kingdom. Oh man.
Yeah, yeah, it's uh, not super interesting to me, not a
good first impression and not a train wreck. It's it's just one of those
things. It's just kind of there, and I think it's going to be
forgotten. I think I could be wrong. Maybe it's just me, but
I didn't I didn't talk to anyone of that event that I was like,
holy shit, did you see this part? It's like in Backlar was there
and we did a whole thing on John Bond where we talked about it,
like I think he's a little more positive on it than I am, but
his was mainly just from the like, oh, I like spooky stuff in
this game had spooky stuff, and uh, I don't dislike spooky stuff,
but it's I'm curious. I'm gonna play it just because I play all their
games. Maybe I'll play it too. But it's a shame to hear.
Yeah. Yeah, I was hoping for like more, this is actually cooler
to like come enough from under the radar thing, Uma, Dan, talk
about the other games you're playing, because I want to ask Mary about Webbed.
When I get back, I gotta go to the kids Webbed that she's
been playing some game called webb that I'm curious about. Oh okay, yes,
I can do that. Mary. I'm gonna give you a choice here,
Okay, okay, all right, do you want to hear me talk
about WWE two K twenty three to Chia uh Chia because I've played that and
I know a little bit about it, so tell me about it. Okay,
Well, you've played it, you know it's beautiful. It is like
it's beautiful talk about a game with fucking heart like this from the moment you
said before you start it. And it's just like we wanted to make this
nice game about New Caledonia. Our founders grew up here, and like we
honored the spirit of the island, but we also like you know, fictionalize
and stuff because we didn't want to like this respect anything, and like we
hope you enter our game, but it's just like you can't start like that
and then like go in with any kind of semicism. It's just like,
oh man, this is what a nice labor of love and like, but
that comes through in the game. It feels like a labor of love.
It feels like like that heart is not put on you know it. Uh,
it feels very earned and real and just I don't know everything about it.
Is so like there's a lot of little vinettes and stuff where you're just
like hanging out of the village and you're just playing, like you got some
leaves and you're playing a little like music game thing. But if you don't
want to play the music game stuff, you just want to see the fun
little thing, just hit the button. You just watch people kind of jam
out and time and you know it is a cozy game. It is a
cozy game. You are the Queen of cozy games. This this is a
certified Mary Stamp cozy game. Right. There's no question. I've seen on
CBS Sunday Morning News, Yes, yeah, I think I can't wrap my
mind around is why can't you wire people watching you play? It's like the
most common question that I get with what I do for a living is why
would you watch someone play a video game? So he went to twitch dot
tv and he watched to play a cozy game watching You're on an airplane ride
in coach in coach. That dude is like, inadvertently, yeah, that
guy's inadvertently my new favorite reporter ever, because you know Mary has said these
answers a billion times and you just know you're in TV and you have to
be like, yeah, well, sometimes these people are charismatic and some people
just like to see the streamers something. Yeah. I mean I've been programmed
and I've been trained to be like that is such a thoughtful question, Like
let me tell you where it's like deep down inside when I'm going to the
bathroom afterwards, I'm like, these motherfuckers like they're always saying the same questions,
which is like, why would I do that? I genuinely understand why
because my parents still kind of have trouble with those connections, so I make
the connection a lot. But it is very funny to hear the same question
over and over again. But it's an honest question, which is why watch
what a strange thing that these youths do? And it's like, well,
we love it. It is very much that generation. I would say,
like forty five to sixty five just cannot wrap their heads around. Much like
holes in pants, These aren't going anywhere, so you should just get really
adjusted to seeing it. I listened to basically the only podcast I listened to
nowadays is this It's Always Sunny podcast, and Glenn Howarton cannot he plays Dennis
in the show. He cannot wrap his head around why his kid watches people
play a video like Fortnite and stuff. Yeah, like that's a consistent thing.
He comes back to still like you're can't you get it? Like forty
six, It doesn't appeal to me at all, But I understand why people
like to watch people play Before I pretend to be this degenerate bar owner,
why do we watch anyone play pretend you know, it's not a real robot
from the future. He's not a real terminator. Yeah, it's a silly
uh, it's it's it's a modern thing that we're still getting adjusted to,
but it is. It is funny. It's a consistent thing that comes up.
But talking about Sheia, I actually had the exact same feedback when I
played this game. I talked about it on our podcasts. It was a
while ago, a couple episodes ago, because I played a pre episode,
like before it was out, Like I played a little preview of it,
and I said, it's so wild that it allows you to play music and
then you can just not play music and be bad at it. And that's
okay, Mike, what is it? I would just remember how I remember
when you first brought up the fact that her power comes out of her green
eye. Yeah, and then that's when I said it comes out of my
dick, or my soul tries to escape through my dick. And now I'm
putting it together because now people are talking pretty reverently about Chia, and that's
your legacy. I have had a very unfortunate thing happened with that words like
I am loving everything that game is doing, but I started playing it on
PS five pre release, and there were a lot of problems with it in
terms of like I had frame rate issues. I had stuff like coming out
of a cut scene where the whole thing would be black ECCEP for the UI
and I had to restart. I was saying those things where I couldn't progress,
So I asked for epicode. I got that ran a billion times smoother,
but I was still running into things I heard certain things we're supposed to
be fixed later on. And then I went to go try it, and
there's a common thing you have to do, Mary. Have you gotten to
the stuff you have, like carved the stone tote or the the wooden totem
and then put it in the thing, And that's an important thing. Had
to do that upgrades and everything, and every single one of those I came
up against. I would do the carving like fifteen times exactly how it told
me to, and then it wouldn't unlock the door, and so I had
to utilize that thing where you can just skip any gameplay segment, so if
you're getting stuck on something, you can hit start and go skip. And
the first couple of times that happened, I was like, Okay, I
guess I hope it just skipped the part where I had to carve the totem
because I don't want to skip this game because I'm really enjoying it. And
then I got to a new area. I don't know how far you are
married, but I got to a totally new area and the same thing happened.
I couldn't get into the door, and I had to skip the gameplay
segment and then it cuts to a cut scene where I'm like leaving that area
and like characters I haven't met or waving I have not met them yet,
they're waving goodbye to me, and I'm like, holy shit, I think
I missed. I don't know how many did I lose an hour of this
relatively short game, and so just that type of stuff was happening enough to
me that I don't know if I just need to come back to this game
another time. But it has some issues, But that said, if it
gets to a point where everything is working fine, It's very like everybody compared
it to Windwaker, because you know, the early stuff showed some sailing and
stuff like that, and that is a part of the game. I would
definitely think that this is more of a Breath of the Wild like than anything.
It's very kind of like physics the sandbox, Like the first time I
climbed a tree and realize you could make it whip around and jump off it
and then activate the glider and go around like okay, in the stamina,
the climbing up mountains and stuff like, I was thinking of a simpler Breath
of the Wild the whole time, where you can like inhabit any living things,
like I can I can be a bird and fly to the top of
this mountain, or I can I can take over a rock, I can
take over a lantern, you can take over inanimate objects even. There's a
lot of fun things here. A lot of them are Zelda like, like
playing you know, songs to change the time of day and things like that,
but a lot of it is very much its own and I think a
lot of physics base that is. It all works really well. The character
is great, the unlockable is all the cute little like oh I got this
frog backpack and this little straw hat thing and everything. It's just it's absolutely
delightful. There's a lot of heart to it, I agree, and it's
very authentic. It's genuine. The world as sweet as pie, and it's
very thoughtful and considerate of the environment, the people, the characters and the
player. It wants you to have as much fun as you want, and
I think that that is all very lovely. I also had a couple technical
issues when I played it, and hopefully those things will be ironed out in
the next few months. I think that's a shame when a game is released,
when it has game breaking issues like the one that you experienced, and
it's hard to ignore, especially in a game we're you supposed to be like
comfortable and having fun. So I'm hoping that that's something that can be solved
because it's such a lovely game. It's a shame that that is something that
we had. We talk about when when you want to enjoy it. Yeah,
as when it was working, I was loving every second of it.
I love just like just doing fun stuff that isn't even tied to any mission
or anything. It's like I took over a bird and flew over the ocean,
and I hopped out a bird in the air, and then I did
this thing where you can like do all these like flips and stuff in the
air and it's just so funny, like I'm gonna go up as high as
I can. Then you just a billion flips into the ocean. Yeah,
Underwater looks beautiful and lots of fun collectibles and clams and it's a It really
is a delightful game. And I would be done with the game by now
and probably raving about it if I had not run in some issues, for
sure, but very very small team from what I've heard. I hope they
get it to a good spot and I can come back to it and start
it again, because I really loved everything I saw outside of those issues.
I agree, so she is recommended. Just hopefully they can fix those issues.
But doesn't really take away from the heart of that game and how much
fun it is to pretend to like to put your body into other pieces as
an experience, experience the environment from them. So I think it's a ternary
crab and it's like, oh, it always tells you every time you take
over something like RT is penned, Sure do this? Yeah? Can I
do it? Is the deer? What can I do? Is this?
There's a poop button, you know, as an inanimate object, you know,
you get to be all these different pieces. That's very fun. Yeah,
there's a lot to this game. There's a poop button. Come onto
press press f h. It's very good. Um what else? Uh,
Mike's back. We were also we we talked on Chia, but we didn't
get on any of the other ones. There was also WWE twenty two,
twenty twenty three. I will give the Sparks Notes version of it because I
did a literally feature length quick look on Giant Bomb about it where I went
into every mode and showed off my very I made myself in the game.
I mapped my own face the photo of it onto myself, and I made
a very accurate myself, also a very accurate Jeff Grub I had the I
face each other for the Giant Bomb Championship. It's I would highly recommend that
quick look if you haven't seen it. So that's an hour and a half.
I will give you the short version here, also the heavily full disclosured
one. Because my wife Bianca you will see in the credits as the senior
director of Operations at w WE for their gaming division. That's awesome. Yeah,
she's in the credits TLDR of WWE two K two three. It is
very improved in a lot of ways. It is still very flawed. It
is bloated as hell. There are a lot of modes. There are modes
that are similar to each other that you feel like they could consolidate. There
are modes that make no fucking sense even being in there and just feel like
weird, Like, oh, these other sports games are doing these like card
based things or whatever, and we got to have like an ultimate team thing,
and it's just not fun to do. The gameplay itself is still very
floaty, and everything just feels like kind of wet slaps, like there's not
a real a lot of impact to anything. There's just a lot of things
someone who loves video games and someone who loves wrestling, there are if I
could just go in there and just be like, scrap all this shit,
do this. I feel like there's a million things you could do. But
at its core, there are a lot of things that are really good.
The gameplay is better than it's been in a long time. I would say,
still very flawed. Showcase modus fun. We're playing through John Stone's career,
you're playing with the people that beat him, and it still has the
craziest fucking like creation options I think I've ever seen in the game, as
far as what you can upload and what you can make and damning your photorealistic
versions of wrestlers that aren't in this company, or you can upload to a
picture of your own fucking tattoo and a picture of your face and make yourself
however you want to. It's the creation stuff's insane. Your own title belts
not like that stuff's been in there for a long time, but they've only
like, you know, built and built and built and built on that,
and it is really impressive the dumb shit you can do in that. And
again I would say, look at the Quick Look. I made my own
my Universe mode and created wrestlers, created divisions and belts and everything, and
it's it shows how wild you can get with it. That stub is really
cool. And I will say for the first time, and this is not
just because my wife worked on the game, first time since two K fourteen,
so almost ten years, I can see myself playing this post coverage,
because every year since two K fourteen, I've just been like, Okay,
this is getting worse, this is getting worse. I'll do the quick Look,
I'll review it or whatever, and then I'm done with it. This
one, I put a lot of time into the quick Look and creating stuff,
and like I still like, well, okay, I know I'm done
covering it, but like, I still want to like. I like them
Universe mode and this is very silly and fun. It's it's deeply flawed,
but it's much improved, I would say, so I would say it is
the best it's been since K fourteen. I would say so, yep.
I mean that is a condensed version of an hour and a half. That
makes sense. I think I'm glad that it's improved, but not there yet.
It's still very It's it's boring and safe. I said that on the
quick look. Debit Or as a company is a boring and safe company.
As long as they're making money with something, they're not going to change anything.
For for as weird and whacking over the top as wrestling is. As
a corporation, they are fucking boring and they are risk averse, and uh,
it's a kind of shows in the product here. It's it's just kind
of it's kind of a mess with all the bloat and everything, and there's
a lot more fun to be had in the world of wrestling that this is
not tapping into. Yeah. Yeah, so there's still a lot of things
that would definitely change, but I am having fun with it. So that's
two K twenty three cool, Norry. What's webbed? Um? Webbed is
a game that I stumbled across looking for a game to stream last week.
Every once in a while I try and play like games that just came out.
This game did not just come out. This game came out on I
was playing it on Steam, and I think it came out lash year.
I came out to very little fanfare twenty twenty one, so even longer two
years ago. But it ticked all the boxes of games that I like,
and it was twenty five percent off, so I gave it a whirl.
Weird. You are a spidy and it has two different types of webs that
you can sling. One is essentially like a hook shot, so you are
swinging from your web, but the other one is a pick two destinations and
it makes a walking wire for you. You automatically, when touching a web,
start to walk on it, which is really fun. So you get
to decide and play your way of how to solve these physics based puzzles,
essentially how to get items to a destination, how to lift something, how
to drop something based on your web design, and it's entirely up to you.
What I wasn't prepared for was all of the really fascinating and adorable different
ways that it encourages you to play. There was an area almost immediately where
it allowed me to play with a skateboard, and a spider on a skateboard
is super fun, and I'm doing kick flips and trying to get these different
letters, just like you would in Tony Hawk's pro Skater, and it's very
cute. There's elements where you're fixing up a giant mech ant and it needs
you to get a certain part, so you're collecting all these parts of a
mech ant to be able to do it. Your spider character can trap bugs
in your web. There's just so many different elements that it really thought about.
It seems like a very simple indie game when you look at it,
and it is, but as you play through it, I think you'd be
absolutely delighted with all the thought that came into this cute little game that allows
you to be a spider. And essentially, I think your partner is being
taken away from you by a bird. We hate birds in this game,
and so you're trying to get to save your partner. To do that,
you have to be friend bees and you have to be friend ants. So
I spent the entire first part of this game befriending the ants by helping the
ants out building their tunnels, re fixing their pipe system so they could have
water and heat and all these different things you meet a lot of characters.
There's a lot of fun in this game. I think the real main hook
though, that I find very fascinating is utilizing your webs to solve these puzzles
in very different ways. The way Dan you would solve these web puzzles is
very different the way I would solve them. They're entirely up to you,
and it's quite fun to be, like, how do I solve getting this
heavy metal object up and to the right with nothing but my own web slinging
fun? And damn, I had a really good time playing Webbed. If
this is like a physics based puzzle game is up your alley. It's also
wholesome. This game is it's a slam dunk, as they say, as
as the kids say, did you play on game Pass? No, it
better not be on game Pass. I bought it on Steam. I looking
at it right now, Are you serious? No? I'm kidding, God
bought it Steam. Is one of the things where it's like they're like a
bunch of you said I would play differently than you, like, where there's
not one clear intended solution, where it's like you can kind of fuck around
with it and make some weird Frankenstein way of making it. Yeah, I
think you could make an absolutely like bullshit web to get these things through.
A lot of it is using the physics of the web and being like,
okay, if I if I hang this heavy object vertically, I could swing
it to the left. Um, you're also The other aspect of your spider
that it didn't mention before is that you also have a laser. So you
do you have a laser pointer, like like a laser that you can shoot
out of your body. I don't know where that comes from. This is
probably not a spider for the PlayStation one. It's a ridiculous guns on his
hands and there's no gun. You just can shoot lasers for some reason.
But the point is is, like you can make beautiful webs, just like
an actual spider would. You could also make ridiculous webs that you feel like
only you could create. You can design and put names, or you could
make art with your webs if you want to. It's really up to you.
You could make it look like a dick, okay, like just solemnly
nodding. He's downloading it right now. Oh my god, he's playing it.
It's so quick, Like god, he's playing the Dick Bass video game
where that Dick is the controller. Last time of you doing the painting and
the PSBR the horizon. Okay, yeah, that's just amazing. The exact
same spot we did, the exact same thing. Oh yeah, I did
not know Amanda was here like that. I was playing that when she got
home and I was obviously immersed, and uh she came in and saw me
drawing that. Have you Have you put on the headset once since you Uh,
we kind of like covered it. Uh yes, but only because um
No Man's Sky. Grand Trismo seven and Resumeal Village. Resumeal Village both quite
good. No Man Sky is too, but here's the thing, they are
both good. When I played him, I was like, fuck yeah,
Like even Grand Trismo was thinking about, like I need to get a PlayStation
wheel and Village. I was like, holy shit, they nailed it.
And I still, I still it's just too much of a fucking assle to
put on a headset and find the space, and it's just I don't know,
maybe it's just me, but it's too much pain in the ass.
It's nice to just sit in a chair, turn something on and still be
in the room and can talk to someone, can see things, and yeah,
it's just yeah, I want to go back to village at some point
and play more of it. I saw Lady D just to see how tall
she was. Sure, you know, cream my jeans a bit. No,
I don't have a thing for Lady D. Like as the kids say,
ladies, fine, um everything, can we talk right? I want
I'm gonna say I want uppies. What Yeah, that's what we say to
lady Dupes. Think like uppers popping pills, pills up person downers. You
don't want no part of the meadows. Yeah. When he's like, I
don't know, I don't have much money, it's probably drug there is doesn't
give you a hangover. That movie is so underrated. It is fucking I'm
cutting half pretty bad due before every time due, Oh god, I don't
mean Favorite Parson. That old fuck movie is fucking Do we cox just watching
Bob Dylan up there, just doing Bob Dylan stuff with like fake Bob Dylan
lyrics that sound a lot like real Bob dyling do Yeah, we just be
like, what the fuck is this guy talking about? You're gonna watch that
again soon? He's great? Jack White? Is that one yeah, Oh,
guy's such a funny film. Like the jokes per minute in that film
are probably off the charts. It's probably like up there with Airplane. Yeah,
mcgroup risk for my Bachelor, for our bachelor thing. I'm just gonna
be looping wet, hot American summer the whole time. But you've seen now
it's good. It's good. I get it, it's good. Yeah.
Um, do you guys want to do emails? Sure, I'll just sorry.
Resoneval six is shitty and weird and probably the worst resoneaval that I'm kind
of unintentionally growing in appreciation for it, as we know that is everyone's opinion.
Ever. Yeah, fuck, it's just so fucking ridiculous that I can't
help but be kind of in awe of it at times so bad, but
like sometimes you're in awe of it. I am. It's two thousand and
twelve. That sounds about right. Yeah, I think it was that.
Um, all right, now you want to do emails? Yes, okay,
we're gonna jump over to our emails, but first, something else happened
on this break. You guys got to stop having interesting breaks. Not really.
Mary mentioned to me that she actually finally did watch Annihilation, and Dan
and I had talked about it because Dan and Bianca came around and after rewatching
it recently and really come around, we just appreciated the more we liked it
when we first saw it, and we love it. Oh okay, sorry,
so okay, gotcha. Um, and I'm going to show Amanda soon.
We're gonna last weekend. But it's not really I was just telling you
too. It's not really a date night movie universal book. It's it's totally
it's it's a romantic I haven't seen a notebook, assumed, but it's like,
what's the uh, the Christmas everybody loves the rom com Christmas? You
love? Actually, it's like love actually Okay, yes, it's like blue
actual color actually date night movie. What did you think of Annihilation? I
so this is similar to what Dan said. I had seen it many many
moons ago, and I don't. I didn't like it, and you told
me to watch it again, and um, after your hype, I watched
it again and I have a new found respect for the film. I still
think that the movie has pacing issues, and I think it's fast based by
any means, no, but it's also like it goes from zero to one
hundred real quick. It's just a bunch of nothing, and then it's a
gata, and that's fine. I think it's interesting. But the idea of
which I'm supposed to be really intrigued by sci fi and then scared because of
monsters and then intrigued because of sci fi goes back and forth pretty quickly for
me. I also would have liked to see more fantastical shit besides two creatures
that are anamorphed together and a bunch of flowers. I felt like a flower,
I know, but I think there was turns into flowers. I felt
like it could have been more. I would have liked to see other creatures
that were halflings of other things. I think there was an opportunity for weird
lizards that have hooves or birds that have bees in their mouths. I think
there could have been other things going on, But I think if the sparseness
that makes those moments stand out, where it's like, because it's not constantly
throwing that stuff at you, there is this mystery of like, yeah,
you're seeing the flowers and it's like, what the fuck is going on here?
And then when something does happen like the bear or you know, like
that's the found footage with us Yes, puts his hands in her looks at
the cameras. It's like sliding over his hands and the guys gots. I
agree. It's a mature movie and it's for adults in that sense where it's
just like, we give you just enough. You don't need more than this.
I would like more, but I think it gave me everything I need.
What I found fascinating that I don't think I picked up on in the
original watch because perhaps in the original watch I thought that this was a horror
movie or a scary movie at least a thriller, and I actually don't think
that's what this movie is. It has elements of horror and thriller and it,
but that's really not what this is. This is a sci fi movie
that is talking about the human condition. And it wasn't until the second watch,
after talking to Mike, that I realize this is really about a discussion
of self destruction. That is very fascinating about it. So the idea that
we all self destruct in some way or another. Every character in that game
self game, and every character in that movie self destructs, and that I
think is what's fascinating about it. Yeah, they got they go into Area
X because they all have reasons to like basically kill themselves, or they're not
worried about killing themselves because they all have reasons. And then when it actually
happens, because they're fusing with like the biology of the environ I mean,
they don't really take pains to overly explain everything or maybe anything in that movie.
But yeah, that's how I always took it. It's like everybody who
goes in there is like kind of wanting. Yeah, it's a suicide mission,
but I think it's it's very self reflective of the human condition, right,
So everybody in there is relatable in some way because I think we all
self destruct. All human self destruct in some way. Um, some of
us drink, some of us smoke, some of us uh deny loved one
affection even though they secretly maybe wanted or something like that. We all harm
in some way self. That's just els. It's a human thing that we
do. That j r. D is down to tiny little ends. Nice
God, that's that's yeah, that's good. I don't that's the te some
people do. Some people do. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna show Man
at a couple days here, she thinks, I'm curious whether people think of
it. I I think it's a very fantastical film and it has without spoiling
it, because I think it does have like a really interesting ending. Yes,
I think it's saying a lot about what we teach other people that come
into our world. Right, we're constantly self destructing. The idea of another
being coming into play is just like, well, have you ever considered hating
yourself? That's like, yeah, that's what we incept in other crushing me.
Yeah, fun little factoid. Alex Garland, who directed it, also
wrote Sunshine. Have you guys seen Sunshine? No helped to inspire Dead Space
killing Murphy rose Burn. They go on a ship to bring a nuke to
the Sun to reignite it. It's a really Danny directed. Danny Boyle,
who directed Twenty eight Days Later, directed Sunshine, and Alex Garland, director
of Ex Machina and Annihilation, wrote Sunshine. Okay, however, the interesting
fact that figure at the end that is mimicking We said we wouldn't spoil it,
but it's been out long enough. Okay, you know what I'm talking
about based on what I said yes, yes, the that character is Corea
is Mo capped um the woman from X Machina Um oh, Lara Croft,
Uh no, no, no, that's it's it's his assistant, the Japanese
British woman Sonoya Mazzuno. Okay, she is am I saying that correctly.
Japanese British. Yeah, because she's from she's British, but she's devs Yes.
Alex Carlin directed, Yeah, yeah, because he was the lead,
and then she is also briefly at the beginning of Annihilation as well. She's
one of her students. That's right, Yes, yeah, she's his assistant
in UM X Machina And I remember watching X Mochina. I'm being like,
who's this hello? O h yes, oh oh, what's up this person's
new address? Oh oh okay, well hi, is everybody in the theaters
like, shut up out loud? Oh okay? Hey? Hello, hey,
hello? Can we pause the projector dude, can you pause for see?
I gotta I gotta do some stuff. Nobody, look, do some
stuff is a huge boner Emails as usual, you can write into fireskit cast
at gmail dot com any questions you want us to read, which we're gonna
get to a few tonight. Any concerns you have, any comments? I
ignore the latter two and just let us knows navel forrest tank controls or not.
Yeah, I'm sure people be coming out of the woodwork for that.
Um, it'll be great. Fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com. All
right, um, Mary, do you want to take this first one from
Sean? Okay high fire Escape Cast. I'm Sean from Chicago. First off,
I just want to say I love the show. Every episode is so
engaging. It never failed to make me laugh. So thanks for that.
You're welcome. Here's my question. Currently, I'm in college studying sound design
for games and music composition Dan. Mary's right, you should listen to more
game soundtracks. Hey, they play in the background. That's totally the same
thing. It's the music got them. But I've noticed that as I've gotten
closer to getting out into the world and starting my career, I've had less
and less time to actually play games. This is a this is a common
thing. This happens to all of us. Even though my major is game
dev I've still found this to be true with story driven single player games,
in particular, falling to the wayside in favor of things that are easier to
pick up and put down in shorter sessions. I know that some of that
is natural. I don't expect to spend my whole day's gaming like when I
was a kid, that other responsibilities are competing for my time. Yes,
totally get this, But I hear you talk each episode about all the games
you've been playing recently and think there's got to be a way to fit more
games into my schedule. So what are some ways you all make time for
games while also balancing work and relationships. Thanks, I hope you have a
great day, best Sean. This is a very good question. This is
and I guess he's asking a very specific group here because we've all kind of
made our careers here and with our current Like I don't know everyone's you know,
day to day schedule with work or whatever, but like, personally,
I know a big part of my job is playing games, and it has
been for like almost twenty years, so it's easy to just like, well,
I'm doing this during the day. If I had to work at a
gas station for eight hours then come home and also do other stuff, it'd
probably be harder. So she wents like kids coming to play, I see
that a lot with people. So boy, I balancing work in relationships.
I think the thing that really helps me is that Bonk is also extremely into
games, and so there are a lot of nights. Was like, you
know, there are nights where we're gonna be like, hey, do you
wanna do a movie night. We're gonna watch something. Okay, we watch
Freddie Got Fingered night? Great, okay, And then there's that's what we
did the last date night. Freddie Got Fingured is such a classic. That
was her request. She wanted to watch. It was like, yeah,
okay, I'm queen. I feel like we don't praise Bonk enough for wanting
to watch Freddy Got Fingered on an average like weekday, I can never praise.
If you ever drop her, I'm gonna see her. I'm scooping.
You better watch out, Dan. So we will have those nights where it's
like, oh, we're gonna do a movie last trying to steal someone's wife.
I love her, She's incredible. We like we'll do like full on
like date nights where it's like all right, let's go out, let's get
you know, dinner and drinks to this place and we'll come back we're gonna
watch this movie or whatever, or it's like a wrestling pay per view and
it's like, all right, we're just gonna like get high and watch Resting
all night or whatever. It's like, you know, just nights like that.
But then they're also like a lot of nights where it's like, you
know, the end of the workday will be coming up or whatever. It's
like, you know, five thirty six, and I'll ask Bunk, like,
ah, you're you're really an oxpath right now, right, And she'd
be like, oh, yeah, all right, do you just want to
an oxpath to night? And I'll play I'm working on the resume before,
so absolutely, And so like there's just a ton of times where it's like
tonight she's playing an oxopath, I'm playing this. We've established this, and
we're we'll check in on each other. You know, I'm gonna go get
a drink or whatever. I ask how our game's doing. You know,
She'll be back and forth, but like, yeah, you just gotta have
communication. It's just funny that she was playing the better game. You motherfucker.
Team is delightful. Sorry, teams like a very good game. It's
my favorite game of the year so far personally, so I guess I would
say that, like, yeah, even if you're you're a significant other,
isn't a gamer. I think you at least have to have that communication of
just like, hey, so tonight, Hey this new game came out.
I'm really into it. I'm just going to play this all fucking night.
All right, are you cool? And it's like oh, yeah, yeah,
y'all do this or whatever, so like yeah, I guess just have
a cool partner and talk about what you're gonna do and having a cool partner
and games. Just get a job where you get to play games during the
day and then yeah, someone, it's simple, all right, second,
am we answered it. That's that simple. I it's that simple, Amanda.
Amanda plays games that once a while. But um, I've talked before
about my relationship with war Frame, and I realized that really we talked about
I think it must have been like episode fifteen or something. I started to
really question and it sounds like the writer's Sean I believes already gotten past this
point where he realizes that there's more value for him personally to play games that
he can jump into and out of, like in short bursts, which that's
already half the battle is kind of like deciding what to prioritize. Not that
you can't dabble another stuff. But I had that thing where I was like,
I can't play war Frame anymore. I want to, and I mean,
you YouTube no more than anybody. I got really into like Games of
Service as like almost like a beat for work because people weren't only a few
people a game spot. We're covering them regularly. So I'm like, oh,
it's a cool little niche I can break into. Turns out it's not
a niche. It's pretty big. So then I got hooked on a bunch
of games, war Frame being chief among them. But I kind of play
games at very different times than I used to. It used to be a
very after work nighttime thing for me. Late into the night. I tend
to wake up much earlier than I used to, largely because my fiance is
an early riser and I like to try to get up around when she does
when I can. Then when she goes to the office what she does every
day. I play games in the morning before work, when it's quiet,
I have coffee. It's before works. I'm not like in work mode yet.
It's kind of my calm down before things get hectic in the bullpen,
so to speak. And then at lunch sometimes if I need to force myself
to take I mean, I take lunch or I'll eat at home, But
like it's harder when I'm at home and there's less more of a blurry line
between this room and the kitchen. So I'm like, all right, I'll
go play Total War for like half an hour for lunch instead of eating the
whole time, or just like watching TV or catching up on stuff because I'm
forcing myself. Long story short, I started to find that I actually was
getting more personal game time in when I switched up. When I play now,
I play most of my video game time. Maybe not most because for
work often it happens after work. If I'm trying to get through Resiuval,
for for instance, was all after hours. But by and large, I've
came to realize that as opposed to when I was young, like Sean mentioned,
switching out my habits, I was like, oh, I actually really
like playing games like from six thirty am to nine thirty with coffee and stuff,
and like, if you're not a morning person, that's not going to
work for you. Obviously, but like I don't know. My point being
that, like once I started considering maybe games don't just have to be an
after hours, and after hours can be like I'm cooking with Amanda, we're
eating, then we're watching a TV show together, and then if I have
energy, sure I'll still play it late at night, but like mornings have
become my time to like catch up on games. I'm having that shift right
now as well, because I mean, for a variety of reasons. Part
of it started with like when when Bok started working in wit or E and
it's like we have one car or so in the morning, I'll drive her
to the train station early and she's got to go all the way to Stamford
and everything, and I'll come back. It's like fucking eight o'clock eight thirty
or something. No, it's like more like nine. But it's like I
got an hour. We're like, all right, I'll make some coffee.
That's when I was doing like my punch out attempts and stuff like that,
way before my hand was sucked up. That's when I was doing my Fortnite
dailies and Fortnite it is just like, oh, you can do it all
on one match whatever it is in Fortnite before like you know ten o'clocks when
you're in work mode or whatever and all. So that's coincided with like,
I'm starting to really realize that, you know, I talked a long time
ago about reading that sleep book and stuff, so I've known sleep schedule is
very important. But I read that and I think I made no changes at
all, because it's like my sleep schedule is still like any given week,
several days I'll go to bed at like eleven thirty or twelve, and then
I'll have days where I go to bed at five in the morning, and
it's like that's every week. That's not an outlier. Like every Friday,
I'll stream late as fuck, and that has to be reaking hat, especially
as I get older, and I am very much noticing the effects more and
then I'm fatigued more often. I'm just like anxious more often and things like
that if if I'm up super late and drinking. So I am trying like
right now to make way more of a shift to get up early, get
up like seven forty five every morning, get my coffee, take bonk to
the station, play some games and everything, and by the time ten work
out ideally, by the time ten comes around and I'm like on the clock,
basically, it's like, Okay, I feel like I've already done some
shit, I've gotten some stuff done and go to bed at the normal time.
Like that. That's a big shift I'm trying to make right now,
and it's you. It feels really good so far. It feels way more
healthy. I hope you can keep it up. We struggle with that as
well, and I find that going to bed at a reasonable hour helps,
but I also struggle. I love being a night owl. My instinct is
to stay up late, squirreling away and playing video games, and I have
to really convince myself to go to sleep. Answering this question is tough because
I think if you, if you really want to continue playing games the way
we did when we were younger, it requires sacrifice. And I think that
is like we can make that a joke and be like, hey, you
gotta like get rid of your friends and stuff like that. But I think,
I think my honest answer is is that everything in life is a balance,
and I have genuinely reduced my friendships because I prefer playing video games on
a Friday night. It does mean that you're probably not going to like go
out to the bars and hang out with your buds or have these other in
person experiences. But if that is something you prioritize, and it's something I
prioritize for my mental health, it makes me happy. I'm thrilled to stay
home on a Saturday night playing Dead Cells in bed, watching TV on the
side. That's my perfect Saturday night. I'm not sad to do that.
So if that's how you feel, I encourage you to embrace that part of
yourself and say, I like playing video games on my weekend and I'm not
going to feel bad about it and go out and do a bunch of stuff
that I don't really want to do. If you if it makes you happy
to play video games in your free time, then prioritize it and do that
instead of instead of doing other things that a lot of a lot of other
people would do. We have the older and priorities change where it's like I
think we were all like in our twenties, you know, where it's like,
Okay, we want to go out all the time. We're prioritizing like
let's all go to where Friday night, Saturday. Now go to the bar
of st ankles, hang outlets socialize. But you know, we're all getting
older. I'm almost forty. You guys are what you know, early mid
thirties and stuff like that. So sometimes, like Friday night doesn't have to
be fucking party time USA where I'm out till three in the morning or whatever.
Like it's it isn't like Mary, you're talking about laying in bed playing
dead cells all night. That sounds fucking awesome. It's my favorite weekend activity
now. I actually look really forward to having nothing days. Nothing days um
is a sacred day in our home where we're not allowed to make plans.
You're not allowed to make friends, like you're not You're not allow you're allowed
to make friends. You're not allowed to guys like three you made three kinds
of pies where you get the start out your hair. It's no, you're
not you're not supposed to like make a movie plans or uh seeing friends for
coffee resurations. Nothing day where you're allowed to do whatever you want and there's
no plans and there's no rules, right, you don't have to do anything
by a certain time. And I think nothing days are very important to my
core. They're important to my soul. They fill my cup. As people
say, my nothing days are often filled with things like playing a video game
all day without being interrupted, and to do that, I make sacrifices.
That's just the reality of it. I probably have less friends than I would
have. Sometimes I order groceries or do other things that like I should just
be doing, and that means that I have less money to be doing other
things like vacations or things like that. I prioritize games because I just genuinely
think it brings me joy and I have found a lot of value in it,
and so that is what I do. But I do think it's a
given take, and you should all people should know that right there. It's
not like I have a magical amount of time for games. I sacrifice other
things for games. That's what I do. The other component of that that
I would say is that there's certain games that lend themselves towards shorter experiences.
Rogue lights are those. You can play a rogue light before you go to
sleep every night. I remember Chris Waters, dude's got a baby. He
played Spilunky every night before he went to bed. You know why, because
you can play one round to Spilunky before you go to sleep, and it's
not too invasive. You're probably not going to have a forty five minute Spilunky
run. I fucking guarantee you you're not. You're probably gonna die in five
minutes. But why not give yourself one to three runs and Spilunky and when
you die, that's it. You go to bed, that's it. But
that's a really cool way to get gaming into your system. Chris Waters taught
me that I like to play Dead Cells before I go to sleep now Webbed
that we just talked about earlier. That's a really short experience. You don't
need to play for eight hours to enjoy that game. So playing shorter games,
playing indie games, platformers, and Rogue lights are good ways to say
I got to play a game for thirty minutes and be very satisfied with that
experience. Yeah. When I hear that, when I hear a game is
like, oh this is you can finish it in six hours? Like hell
yeah, all right, that's dude, weekend, that'll be great. I
used to like, you know, I remember reading a review of Devil May
Cry when it came out and them saying it was like almost twenty hours long
and almost twenty hours. I don't know if I want to spend fifty dollars
for almost twenty hours. I need more than like more equal better back then.
Yeah, but like I do like things that respect my time more and
again. Fortnite thing I like is like there are three dailies every one game.
Yeah, I did one game this morning. I got all three my
dailies. That's good. Everyone smiled, like, oh, it's the new
weeklies popped up or new season thing popped up, and there's a bunch of
shit to do. But that's every once in a while. So like every
day I play Fortnite with a coffee for thirty to forty minutes and I love
that. I get my fill and I moved out my day and I feel
a little very satisfied by that. Yeah, that makes me happy to hear.
I love that rituals and little short bursts of loving a game is very
valuable and should not be underestimated, because playing a video game for like fifteen
twenty minutes is a joy. I love it. I love playing video games
on my lunch break if I can squeeze them in super good. Yeah,
Well, thank you for writing it. Oh sorry Dan, No, No,
I just really I like that question because that goes into a good question,
interesting things like I could talk about it, you can marry you touched
on it though. It's like especially Sean is saying he's in game to have
as a major. The reality is that if you super care about something then
and you are not finding enough time for it, you probably have to sacrifice
other things. Whatever that happens. Yeah, caught out that friend. You
don't need that many friends. Yeah, order canned goods instead of cooking.
You can eat beans out of a can and play games. Ses yeah sies.
Yeah, all right, thank you, Sean. The things I'm trying
to get smarter about two or like, you know, every fire escape we've
done, I think this year, probably this calendar year, I will end
it and like, like right now, it's past midnight. We'll usually in
these past midnight, and I will typically be like, ah, I'm a
bottle of wine in pretty good too. I don't need to get up for
another My first meeting is at ten thirty hour, right, I'll just okay,
I'll start streaming right after. I'll do some punch out runs or whatever,
and that turns into like a three hour stream, and then I just
feel like shit the next day and everything, and so like now it's like
I'm I've done the morning shift now and I'm also doing I'm trying to set
rules where it's all right, I will have a maximum of like a bottle
of wine. I'm not gonna have beers after the wine. When we're done
with the podcast, I'm going to bed. Before we started recording here,
I know, brush my teeth. I got my ship ready for bed.
So I literally I'm gonna shut down and go to bed instead of like do
a three hour stream after this. So it's uh, got to make shifts.
This is the latest time up during the week now. I used I
am at heart a night owl, but me too, I am a night
owl. It's hard. You have to convert, and I convert a lot.
But I think similar to Dan, I revert on the weekends. I
am up at eight am every every day Monday through Friday. On the weekends,
boy, I easily easily play video games until three to four in the
morning on the weekends. Why not? And then you sleep in. It's
amazing Saturday is I typically in the past here have slept until noon to two
is usually when I wake up on like a Saturday after a long Friday stream
and it's just like that's got a wreak havoc though, especially as you get
older, Like that's just I know, the the changing of that seems like
a healthy thing. Like the days I've done where I've gotten up at a
good time, I've gone to bed at the good time, Like it feels
objectively healthier. Maybe people shouldn't ask for our advice like we are not.
I'm into dropping friends for games like I have willingly done it. Sure,
No, your Friday night sounds fucking awesome. I just think it's honest.
I think that's the honest response. It's not like, oh, you know,
just like make a planner. It's like, no, you don't need
that many friends in your life. Stay home, You'll be all right.
Yeah, Like I can't even imagine being like in a relationship or like a
marriage where you felt guilty for we're playing games all night or like it's just
if games are importing to you, you gotta make it a central part of
your life. You gotta make sure that things involved in your life are they
work with your want to keep playing video games. You know. I feel
like it's the same thing as like me talking to that guy that was like,
why would you watch someone else play video games? I have the same
mentality to that that I do with someone who's like, video games are a
waste of time, which is everything that a human does is a waste of
time. Reading a book is a waste of your time. In the same
sense, watching cinema is a waste of your time. Getting coffee with a
friend is a waste of time. We are wasting our time, your entire
life, and wasting time is very good for you. It's so good for
your brain, it's good for your soul. It fills you, it fuels
you, it changes your perspective on life. Playing video games, sure,
it's a waste of your time, the same way that every other extracurricular in
the entire world waste your time. Time Like, that's the thing. I
never understood that I'd be the opposite. I don't think any of it.
That's that's a waste of time. I never once thought I was wasting It's
a perspective shift of whether or not like wasting time is good or bad.
Wasting time is important to humanity. It's important to spend your time not worrying
about where your time is being spent. When you're studying for school, you're
probably counting the hours how many times did you study like this year, whereas
like all the rest of it, it's not counted. It's not like as
important, but it is important. It is important to have time that you're
doing whatever, nothing, something that's all like intrinsic to you. It's subjective,
and that is valuable. So I think what I'm trying to say is
not that it's a waste of time, but it's the same amount of waste
of time is every other thing that you do for fun for yourself what I
would classify as a like I don't think I've ever once had the thought like
I'm just wasting time right now, Like, um, there's no doubt in
my mind that you've wasted time. I've never thought it consciously. I think
I just what is wasting time? Though? Like I'm playing Fortnite, Yeah
I'm not. Yeah, I'm not advancing my career playing Fortnite. I'm not
earning money playing Fortnite. But like I'm I don't know, I'm enjoying it.
I'm happy. Like is that you ever like time you just kind of
like, uh, play with your dogs for like thirty minutes. The definition
of a waste of forging a connection with a living animal that you love and
trust is different than playing this live service game first, But there's value to
both. I think there's value to both the same. That's what I'm saying,
is like I think they're one and the same. Um. I even
think that sitting around maybe like let's say you have like an hour before your
flight and you're like, it's not enough time to do anything, not even
play a game, and you kind of like sit maybe sometimes you like sit
on your bed and you think about stuff, are you wasting time? Should
be at the airport by then. But times I've had times like when I
would have my I used sleep with my phone next my bed, and like
I would wake up and just like before I stepped out of bed, I
would spend like thirty minutes, just like back when I was like checking Twitter
and stuff like that, I would just like just be doing that for a
while. What the fuck am I doing? I'm sorry, I'm sitting here
for thirty minutes looking at Twitter. What the fuck am I doing? I'm
sorry? I'm sorry. If this pisses people off. Oh here we go.
Take You can absolutely waste time, and that's scrolling through your phone the
way that these social media apps were designed to hook you to do. Yes,
that's a waste of time. You are not gus. All you're doing
is being served more ads that will try to get you to spend money on
stuff that they know you like and make one of yourself more agitated and pissed
off, socially anxious. Yeah, that's a waste of time. Ye.
Yes, Yes, there are certain things that's a waste of time. But
like I don't think it's a waste of time to be playing a game that
you find solacen or or it's meditative for you, or it's a break from
the career advancement and everything, because you'll just fucking burnout in a month if
all you're ever doing is worthwhile quote unquote times, I totally agree you should
allow yourself to waste time. Whether or not we define playing video games as
a waste of time is probably its own conversation. But what I'm saying is
is that there's nothing wrong with wasting time. You shouldn't feel guilty about wasting
time. Yeah, unless you're wasting time unless you're like a scientist who has
the cure for cancer, but like doesn't go you're hoarding it because you cannot
stop until you beat elder Ring. Yeah that's yes, so but yes,
Mike, that that was a great point though about the social media thing is
because that is a point where it's like that is why I kind of like
backed away from that in a big ways because like I did feel like this
is only making me feel worse and I'm not gaining the most of lizard brain.
Oh just absolutely just straight object, which I know, Mary, you
weren't talking about that at all, Like that's the most extreme example I can
think of in twenty Oh. No, No, I think it's fine.
And I also like I even say I don't think anyone I think I always
try to say be careful of addiction, but I even think that scrolling apps
and looking at a bunch of nothing can be cathartic. And so I root
for all people in all the all forms of like peace that you find I
am with the reason like I don't know, I feel like we all probably
know people that, like I've heard so many people just casually be like oh
yeah, I'll just be like scrolling through TikTok for three hours and like that
doesn't sound healthy at all. It doesn't sound good to do it consistently.
But having like a moment where you're like, hey, I'm gonna look at
TikTok while I watch movies is probably fine. I think if you're doing it
so intensely that you can't do if you can't relax without it. I was
a daily thing where I do it before bed every night, and I'm just
yeah, but like zone out if you want to try to get into it.
Yeah, anyway, thank you Sean for writing in this last one for
tonight. Dan, if you want to read this one from Matt from appleham
Hi fire Escape. I was wondering if Dan listens to Knowledge Fight because he
made an offhand reference to Saddam Hussain's Body Devils in episode forty nine. What
are there any non video game related podcasts y'all listen to or have listened to
in the past. I can recommend have a lot of time and do WoT
backlog div into no. I have to date never listened to a gaming podcast,
and I only listened to two podcasts for the last I guess since the
pandemic started. We watched Wrestling and Deadlock. Those are the two podcasts I
listened to. I have no idea what the fuck Knowledge Fight is. Knowledge
Fight is from what I understand it. Someone who is it basically like trash
spends like it's an entire show trashing Alex Jones. Yeah, so like,
Okay, I don't think Dan listens to this. No. Probably in the
description it's like, I'm obsessed with Alex Jones. Come on, like,
but like, listen to me trash him for an entire show. But I
do. I bring it up all the time, and I realize that It's
Always Sunny is like half of my personality. However, I think It's Always
Sunny podcast is absolutely incredible. It Obviously you're not going to enjoy it or
want to listen to it if you don't know the show. However, for
a show that has many episodes that are looked back on as like man,
that was kind of touchy for them to do for that episode, they are
if you want to hear a group of creators who have been making something for
going on fifteen years, looking back on their careers and their past history together
and the stuff they've made and being completely vulnerable and honest about it. They
will not shy away from saying like warts and all, I'd be like,
oh, this was yeah, and it's not to be clear, it's not
them like atoning for every time they were politically incorrect. It's them looking back
and being like, here's why at the time we think this worked. In
the writer's room, sure, this this character is being extremely racist, but
like the show itself, and we as the writers are making fun of these
characters for being racist and where they don't make out well in the end the
episode, etc. So like, But other times they'll be like, man,
let's talk about this one today, and they all are rewatching it and
like it's it is. It's not just about Sonny. It's about these creators,
these artists looking back on something and dissecting what they've made, which,
as anybody who has ever created anything knows, it could be pretty painful and
awkward to look back on something you've made in the past when you were younger.
These guys were I'm trying to think when Season one would have been.
They were like twenty two years younger when they made Season one, if memory
serves something like crazy like that. So to hear that. So they watch,
Yeah they early early two thousands. Yeah, So they watch the episode.
Then they come in the next day and the show has blown up and
they've done live shows. And it's also just hilarious because they themselves are really
fucking fun as people, not just characters, and they have an awesome relationship,
Like it honestly gives me fire Escape vibes. But they are they don't
shy away from talking about like when they fucked up or when they think they
got an unfair rap, or just in general. They're like they talk about
the creative process. It genuinely is if you watch Sonny and you saw this
podcast and you're like, oh, another recap show. Like everybody who's ever
been on a show like minor characters are doing recap shows. This is they
barely talk about the plots of the episodes themselves. It's as far from a
recap show as possible. In fact, it's sort of fire Escape like and
that they'll start talking about an episode and then go on this tangent and talk
about this fight Rob McIlhenny almost got in once and then why like and he'll
start talking about how he met Caitlyn Olson his wife d on the show and
they're married. Caitlin Olsen and Rob mclenny are worried, and then Charlie and
the waitress are married, and then Glenn and the girl from the dentist system
are married. He's a woman from the dentist system. But um, Danny
DeVito went on it recently. Caitlyn Olsen goes on it sometimes. I don't
know, it's it's just it's so as someone who we fucking we stumbled across
this awkward, weird, cool guy bio I wrote for a fucking indie gaming
website and I had to hear it read back to me. These guys do
like the equivalent of that every episode, and they're like class acts about it.
Not class acts that perspective though, also of them having been the actors
and the writers and stuff like that's got to be like, oh yeah,
I know. Like I didn't like Pam from the Office have one where she's
like she was just like a Jenni Fisher. She was just the yeah,
she's got it. Chris Michael Imperioli and Steve Shirippa from The Sopranos. Theirs
is really good too. I think the first one right, both of them.
Initially, Michael Imperioli did some directing. Yes, these these guys from
the get go were writers and actors. Yeah, that's I could see that
perspective being really interesting. It's great. Like I went into it thinking,
oh, it'll be funny here, and these guys reiterate the jokes from the
show. It was like, no, it's it's them, like, oh
man, we did the Gang turns Black for this this time. Here's the
reaction Like here, here's basically we came in thinking about this and also like,
yeah, this joke that was too much. We remember it being funnier
at the time, but like, I don't know, it's it's really good.
Um, it's very honest and but not not like overly making apologies for
everything. Sure when they need to, they it's they're never apologizing, but
they're like, we totally get y. This piss people off. Yeah,
it seems like the right approach to that. Yeah, that's basically the only
The only other podcast I listened to is fiction Welcome to Night bell M.
It's just a fictionalized like it's a serialized old school like nineteen fifties style radio
show podcasting, the style of a radio show about this weird town where supernatural
Twilight Zone shit happens. I have not caught up at all. I've watched.
I've listened to the first like three seasons. It's great. It's like
Twin Peaks, but a podcast nice anyway, that's it. Um. I
don't listen to any podcasts outside of video games, but my dad does,
and he will text me podcasts that he thinks that I will find interesting,
and every once in a while he is correct. Um. He let me
know about a podcast called off Leash, which is about dogs, and as
you all know, I'm like obsessed with dogs as much as I am games.
The host dogs what the host dogs? Yeah? Oh hello, Wow,
this is a good en. I want to hear this part. It's
about the science fine dogs. There's an episode all about smell, and I
learned a lot about how dogs sense of smell is so unbelievably long. It's
not just good, but it's the fact that, like, if they eat
a piece of kibble underneath the couch, they'll remember for months that there was
a piece of kibble underneath that couch, and they will continuously check that spot
because their sense of smell is so tied to their brains. So that was
awf Leash. That was a podcast series I started because of my dad,
and I think it's pretty good, so I think that's cool. He also
is always trying to give me money podcasts. Dude, my dad wants to
give me finance advice so bad, and I will never listen, so I
can't remember what they are because I I probably listened to them and was like,
that's good advice, and then probably didn't do anything about it. But
every once in a while, consistently to this day, my dad will send
me podcasts because he swears I will get some kind of information about it because
it has a story that reminded him of me. And I love that he
sends them to me, and I will listen to them, but I don't
consistently listen to the podcast. As a result, I constantly want to send
my dad stuff that I hear, like it's like, oh, here's this
Letterman interview or something, but it's a podcast. If it's like, oh
Letterman was on Mark Marin or something, he will not listen to it at
all, unless it's like, okay, I need a YouTube link that it's
just just follow This spot was a podcast. It was just televised. It's
a podcast in its own set. It's going to give his phone a virus
and YouTube's fine though, So yeah, I'm not virus. Um. I
think there's other podcasts out there that are probably worth it. Um. I
think there's NPR podcasts that that are worthwhileible I forgot I listen to that all
the time. That's incredible as well, just really good long form storytelling.
But also it's named as such because it digs into like one thing you'd never
think about there, well it started. It is like one thing you never
think about during the day, like how the fuck Wi fi came about?
But here's the real here's the interesting human interest story behind it. It's great.
Or like a lot of design stories, if you're into city planning or
graphic design, they dig into stuff like this, the stuff you justine percent
of which is invisible. They dig into the ninety nine percent of it.
Yeah, I would like to get into podcast moorkas Hansen, you know,
like Ben Hanson listens to a billion different podcasts week and I give them shit
for it, but like I wish I had no I have the two and
it's like one of them deadlocks, like you know, two hours long.
We watched Forrest things like an hour, hour and a half, and so
it's like Mondays and Wednesdays. I got the new episode, but I burned
through them immediately, and then I have nothing to listen to the rest of
the week. And like, have you ever listened to Shittown? No?
I think that would be a good one for you to start on, because
I kind of look at it as the great starter of podcasts. Shittown is
really interesting and it's got a good hook like it Like in the first episode,
you'll be like, oh, I want to know what happens x,
and so you'll get interested in it. Now. I don't want to tell
you too much about it, but it's it's often considered like this very addictive
podcast. It's a very well told story, and so maybe you'll find that
interesting. I've never heard of it. It's like a nonfiction thing, or
is it? It is a real story. It's a true story. Oh
okay. Also also was told about it by my dad, so yeah,
but it's kind of popular, so a lot of people know about it,
Like I would suspect a lot of our our listeners are familiar with it because
it's it's not a hidden gem. But if you are new to things that
are outside of games, then I think it is a good recommendation. So
there you go. Thank thank you, Matt. All right, those are
emails for the night. As usually, you've been right into fire skates.
It's called s town because it's shittown. Okay, Google star Star. I
think I think it's just to be politically Ask him, it's the same thing.
Go on, Mike. Sorry, sorry sorry, Gmail dot com Sorry
Mike. You can write in questions, comments, concerns, corrections. I
only read the first one though, Mary Fireskate Merge dot com. Tell them,
oh you get there? What kind of you get? Your T shirts?
Your sweaters, your hoodies, your mugs, you're I mean, you
name it except for pins, Yeah we have them. Uh, it's all
out there. We got that banana yellow. You tweeted me with your banana
yellow T shirt. I will retweet you. I don't care where you are,
I don't care who you are. I don't care if you're doing something
really uncool, I'll retweet it with that banana yellow T shirt. There's no
rules. Take jacobs on the account if someone's like pissing on the Vietnam War
Memorial in like a banana hoodie. I don't know you're going to retweet it?
Retweeted it banana yellow. Thank you Mary Dan. Yes, what can
people do on Spotify if they want to rate us for five well, I
guess you want to rate us five stars on the Spotify there. The Spotify
is the app where you get all your sound and audio and music and everything.
Just find the fire Escape on there at the five stars. And that's
good for us, and it really it's it's no, no sweat off your
back by any means. But what do people do if they want to get
four stars? What what is the name of our We We have other aliases
for the show if you want to get four or three stars, but what
are they? The Men Mac Show and the Besties. We have two different
uploads kind of funny things. Yes, oh we had it kind of funny
with three Yes, it were kind of funny. The game and former show
um Kataker has probably got one. Yeah, yeah, totally triple click.
Do you say grimple click? Nobody should have triple click? Yeah, triple
click. Yeah. Maddie Show for Camelton, Yeah, that's not a thing
anymore, is not no yeah, we don't do that. Okay, hasn't
been for a bit, but I appreciate the effort. Of course, Very
just sprinted into the darkness in the back of her house. She answered the
phone and then sprinted away. Yeah, there's a lot of screaming. Now,
well, now I guess they would hear screaming. Sound jokes don't work.
Oh what boy? Are we gonna solve this mystery by the time the
show goes up? Often I think there's something I say where I feel old.
And also it's on tape. Whoa is that food? She's got food?
What kind of food here? You just risky business? Fucking slid into
the fucking room. Yeah, it was sick. That was the cool.
Um, it's bowl, okay, chicken, rice, fahita, no beans,
tomato, corn, salsa. It's all fahita's baby. We'll be hearing
another hours. Means no beans. So why don't you Why don't you get
beans and dark? Yeah, fucking rip him might get him. Why don't
you get the bet? You sound like danthor Andy Kaufman character. Why did
you get the beat? Would you get the rip on the new one?
Get him? Cool? Got the beans in? Um, that's how you
talk. I guess go listen to yourself sometimes. Yeah, if I can
check yourself. Dan, okay, we'll talk to you. This was fine.
Episode fifty one. We'll be back with the Arthurs. Dan. What
you got going on in the meantime? This and them? Dan? Record
on the stuff? Mary? What's going on in your woods of the neck?
Nothing? I do nothing besides enjoy this podcast. Gaming and Jippotle should
sponsor this. We could probably get them. We'll look into it, Dan
ad Man, do it make it happen? Oh yeah, don't don't come
back until it's done. Okay, all right, we'll be back in two
weeks. Episode fifty two, that will be on. We'll be into uh,
we'll be into April. Then April tenth, I'm going to be I
might not be on that one. We might have some subs coming in.
I got a lot of fun. We'll have talk. Have we all?
Have we all missed an episode now? Dan, if you miss I missed
one, st I think Mary missed one as well. You guys got Vinnie
on when I was gone. When you were gone, Dan, and then
Mary when you were gone, we had handsOn on hands right. Yeah,
it's been fun, but Hey, well, we'll figure out there's gonna be
a sub, all right. We'll see you guys on the next one.
Jeebye st. Star