Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the fire Skate Cast. It is episode
sixty nine. Eh, we could have skipped this, you know, like
hotels, they won't have like a thirteenth floor, a room two three seven,
Like I think we should skip sixty nine. We're the opposite. We
have like the next three episodes, we'll all be sixty nine. It really
hard to like find the actual next episode we'll have. All the levels are
sixty nine. I agree. I would like to linger on sixty nine as
long as possible, just degenerates. If there's one thing I like, and
there's one thing I know, it's sixty nine and host of the podcast,
What have you guys been up to? Wait before I even give a shit
what you've been up to? We have our Game of the Year annual live
stream. You guys have all seen it. It's our fourth annual. We
try to figure this out every time and I always get it wrong. Fourth
annual live stream December fifteenth, straight out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Saturday.
The next episode right, episode seventy. Wow. Yeah, if you're listen
to the audio feed, the next one after sixty nine. If you want
to skip this, filthy one will be a Game of the year. Yep,
it's gonna be fun. Jake's coming out. All of us are descending
on Minneapolis. A very exciting, interesting famous person will be in attendance.
No, they won't famous person. Then you don't we had one, we
wouldn't say it and we would surprise everyone. You're saying it and no one's
gonna be here. Man, I know you don't have much experience in promo
ing stuff, but direct here's how you do it. You get them all
whipped up into a frenzy, and then like a few days before the show,
you say, oh, the famous person got injured on a freak like
the poster says card subject to change, you know, like we didn't lie.
His plane hit a lightning bowlt He's fine, but he just didn't make
it to Minneapolis. He's still shaking up him. No, it's gonna be
us and Jake. That's it. Yeah, I can bring dogs into the
frame. Bunk will be in the house. Yeah, Buck will be in
the house. Dogs will be in the frame at times, but mostly just
us four. Maybe this famous person is so surprising that not even Dan knows
about it. No, in this surprise famous yues, that's a surprise he's
not even basing this on anything we tried to make happen. We didn't even
try to get a guest. Oh, well, he sort of. You're
basically off something very stupid that no one knows. Yeah, let's just say
you'll be surprised at who's an attendance. They won't. I don't know about
that. Dan's probably the most famous person that will be there, or is
he Gizmo Episode seventy You might want to be there, might be missing.
I bet they'll be able to fly in. Oh, we got to dig
him up first, making it clear that this is not happening. I got
a buddy who's a grave digger. He can get the body. I've got
another friend who's got some of those defibrillator he can awaken him. That corpses.
Yeah, we know that. We know a few doctors. They can
keep him alive. It'll be fun. Polygons Game of the I'm not like
not to plug something super early Polygons Game of the Year. We've been working
on a Polygon we're getting ready for hours here. Game Awards if you're listening
to this, Game Awards are in a few days from when this episode goes
up. It's Game of the Year season for sure, and I am more
excited than usual. I think I usually take the jaded approach. I'm like,
all right, I'll get polygons done. That's fun. I'll care about
fire escapes. I don't give a shit. I give a shit. That
sounds bad. It's more like, Okay, I'm sure people will pick this
in that there's a few things that could pop up in number one spots this
year. Yes, I agree. I'm excited if we're plugging stuff. Also,
a few days after this goes up Giant Bomb Game of the Year.
We're doing four days, four days Game of the Year streams. Three of
them will be up remotely, and one of them will be live in person
in Los Angeles if you're in the area. Yeah, it'll be Saturday the
eighth. I want to say, does that makes sense? That might be
the day? Exciting Saturday the night, Saturday the night. Yes, yes,
it's a loss of stream it. So you guys sold out. We
sold out and moved to a bigger venue. So yeah, yeah, so
it's going to be a big, big show. It'll be great. I'm
happy for you. It's so exciting to do stuff in person and yeah,
there's going to be a bunch of that with all the stuff you're planning.
I haven't been on a video game stage in I guess since packs in like
twenty nineteen, so it's been a while for me. Mary. I know
you that's you do that a lot. Now, what the stage? Video
game? Yeah? Yeah, well, you know it's interesting though, because
Twitch is so much broader than games. Obviously it's hyper focused in games,
but like sometimes we're on that stage. And there was a great anime debate
at twitch Con this last year, and I thought that was cool, but
it was like where's the games. It was all about, you know,
whether Goku would win in a fight. It was interesting against too, like
me, Yeah, yeah, you were in, you came up, you
were You didn't make the top twenty Oh damn it. I was hoping I'd
be Goku. But no, they didn't think you could swing it, not
with the fact that a box of nerds can take you down. No.
I literally today, while I was coming down here, I dropped this ice
bucket while I was filling with ice, and I went to go grab it
and I tweaked my lower back. So yeah, hot, going great.
I think I can pay Goku. I think so. Probably Oh he got
they got the first Uh Nacy's Thanksgiving a parade had a Goku float? Was
that Goku or you guys didn't see it? I guess this you're uh,
you're probably thinking of Garfield. Oh right, easy, the Yellow Bird.
No, it was the first anime base yellow Bird. I believe it was
the first. It was either the first Dragon ball Z float. I think
it was just the first anime float at the Macy's Thanksgiving a parade. I
think it was Goku. Wait, they've had Pikachu. That doesn't count.
Doesn't count. It's an anime. It's anime now. But I don't it's
like first. Maybe it's just first Dragon ball Z. I don't know.
I don't like. Keep in mind this is the comments like, uh,
who what's his name? Not Karl Rove, he's the politician l Roker him
and balloon at the Macy's Thanksgiving Donald Rumsfeld comes right, But I think he
could take Goku like the John ashcro balloon. Yeah, we watched Vice recently.
That's the only reason I remember all these names. No, but no,
I think it was the first. Like if they're considering Pikachu more of
like a icon like Mickey Mouse or Mario. Then maybe that's what they were
saying with the first like anime anime character. I'm not sure because like you
wouldn't call Mickey Mouse a I guess you would call Mickey Mouse a cartoon character.
Yes he's trans now, no, he's just a dumb cartoon mouse.
I guess I can see how, like Pikachu is on just traditional Disney or
whatever, he's like on all like cartoon channels, like I could Mario character
founded and Pikachu. Yeah, it was an anime, was an anime first
and then a video game if it was trade it was video game then trading
cards than anime, or was it trading cards then video game? Well?
Fuck now I'm too old to Pokemon. I don't even want to look up.
I rather not know. I must be too young, it must be
too cool fucking Pokemon. An actual impression of me in nineteen ninety eight Pokemon
Kiddie Ship. Yeah, try to meddle Gear Solid Nerds literally, Yes,
that was exactly the argument. I think Pikachu would win against Metal Gear Solid
likes it like the robot, the nuclear robot, all of them. Oh
my god. At the same time Rex Rex Rex Ray, Uh, shagow
hodanthrop I had a bit ready for it just sounds like an Italian family living
in Jersey. Then you get to shagow Hod, I'm like, well that
ruins it. The rex Tray remember Rock you had that, uncle shagow Hod.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't. I really don't know where
you started. Uh. And the Macy Thanksgiving a para, it's bullshit.
Compared to the dog show, I watched the Westminster Yeah yeah, I saw
the Cavalier. Cavalier some sort of terrier won this year show. I'm just
glad that the year of the because when the French he won. All these
people were like, this is going to like Skyrock at their sales, and
after my experience, I really don't recommend them. The resale value on Simon
would go up already, the trade and value this is not a depreciating asset.
My dog only goes up, but he also costs me an arm and
a leg every time he goes into the emergency that which is like once or
twice a year, it's like two thousand dollars. I'm dying here. Thank
god he's insured. But like I really, every time someone's like they're so
cute, we're going to get one. I'm always like, don't I would
be careful, Like they're so difficult. He's tough dogs. He has you're
talking resale value. What's his third similarity to a vehicle? They're so fast
all the force gas mileage, it's really high. That's a better one,
fas. No, he's got like a limp. He's got so many various
like congenital issues, but like one of them is because he has scoliosis.
He doesn't run very good. He runs with like a little bit of a
limp. And the other day we were getting bagels and a lady at the
bagel shop was like, look at him run with that, you know that?
What do you call it? Like canter? Like an athlete? Was
like, yeah, like an athlete, right, he's an athlete in the
way that like baseball players in the thirties were athletes. Are you saying,
like Babe Ruth wasn't an athlete. I mean he was an athlete, but
he was exercising his drinking arm if you know what I mean exactly. Yeah,
the Babe Ruth of modern day dogs. All right, I'll buy it.
I think Simon could take Babe Ruth in a fight. Yeah, Babe
Ruth would be passed out for a while. Yeah him, mung on him
because he's got no teeth left. Who's the last person you had to like
look up whether they were dead? No, we did on this podcast and
then quickly died or they tore their achilles handon. Oh you didn't die,
or we're just carved. No, Bob Barker and Terry Funk died after the
last one. Oh yeah, m hm, and well because I saw Terry
Funk in uh Roadhouse, Roadhouse, Roadhouse, Yeah, which is the best
movie ever made. Cursed. Speaking of which, I we're rewatching Breaking Bad
for the first time since it ended. This is my I want to say
third. It might actually only be my second time I'm watched my first time.
I'm watching it since it ended. Interesting. I'm today I was watching
Better Call Saul, so I'm working on that and i've been I'm on Phenomenal.
Wait, so you you you're you've seen Breaking Bad three times? You
haven't seen Better Called Saul. My No, this is the first time,
I'm I'm this is either the third, well, yeah, this is even
the third time. I'm rewatching second time I'm watching it after it ended,
or the first after I watched it all when it was live. That's too
many words. If you are at that level of Breaking Bad, you should
be watching Better Call Saul because it's the same phenomenal like writing and experience,
but it's new characters. And I actually think this is like a hot take,
but I think it has some elements that are better because Breaking Bad was
always so goddamn serious, and Better Call Sault is serious at times, but
it's very joky and silly. I just laugh more. I was very stressed
watching Breaking Bad. I laugh all the time when I watch Better Call Saw.
It's a better ride for me. Breaking Bad is so much just bigger
and explosive and kind of Hollywood feeling in terms of, like, you know,
people are just exploding and dying in crazy ways every season, Like,
yeah, big things happen in Better Call Saul, but it's more of a
slow burn like character study type show. And Odin Kirk is just incredible in
it. So all the new characters they introduce are all great. The way
they tie. I thought it was going to be trying to, like,
you know, shoehorn in a bunch of characters from Breaking Bad. But everyone
they bring in, they actually tie it together in a meaningful way. The
whole thing with like the Solomonka family and all that is really well done.
It's yeah, it's very very good. I guess it's it's not just surprise
cameos. It's very well executed reasoning for why everybody is still kind of around
in the same universe. It makes, it makes a lot of sense.
But it's funny. It's it's really really funny. The characters, like Saul
in the way he's constantly bringing back the video crew. It's so funny.
I just yeah stuff. Yeah, anyway, I think it's a very good
show. Yeah, you mentioned the like surprise cameo thing. That's why I
stopped watching it when it aired, because I was like, oh, hell
yeah, I love Breaking Bad. Here's another taste that universe. And in
the first two episodes that aired that first night, it was like, Okay,
oh so Mike works at the tollbooth. Okay, what how convenient?
No great Tuco shows up at the end. It's like I was like,
I see, it's just gonna keep shit warning guys in. But yeah,
it's prequel, but it it meaningfully does that but I I initiated Coel because
that guy looks older like Milow, much older. Yeah, he looks a
lot older, and you have to kind of give it some grace with that
one. But other than that, I think it works. It's worth it
though. I mean, he's a very important character in that show, such
a good actor too. Yeah, I'm a big fan. I think he
should go with that. Oh, I will, We will watch it for
sure. I after watching it's not at all Amanda just has not rewatched it
since it finished either. So and also I will say I am finding it
way funnier this time around. Like it's definitely tense, especially early on when
it was still finding its footing. It's like not sure I know exactly or
they knew exactly what it wants to be. But I am laughing pretty hard.
Especially Hank cracks me up like so fucking much this time around watching it
because I know how much like put On all his masculinity is. He has
so many dudes I know, and currently no new and no in Kansas,
you know, like just that type of dude that's every dad and uncle ever.
Yeah, where are you? There was a big controversy about Skyler White
and I'm curious your take on her. Everyone on the internet made a list
of like the evilest worst characters ever to Grease Television, and Skyler White is
on it, and she's up there. She's like in the top ten,
which I find like really interesting because she's not a fucking villain. No no,
no, no, in at the point we're in now like there are
I think it's season four. Every single character in that show gets hard to
watch. Aman and I were talking about this, like Walter more than anybody.
I will actually say, as much as I prefer the Sopranos to Breaking
Bad, I don't think I ever stopped liking Tony. I think Breaking Bad
did a better job of getting me to actually like oh Man. Question why
I ever liked Walter, But that's the whole gimmick of the show. I
mean, that's the show. No, not not like that he's evil.
I knew he shows signs really early on. He's got some issues deep down.
I never stopped like being charmed by Tony Soprano, and Breaking Bad would
not exist without Tony Soprano being the anti hero first. But I remember last
time I rewatched Breaking Bad, there was a part where I actually stopped liking
Walter like Tony does the most fucked up shit, and I'm still like he's
still James Gandalfini is playing the most lovable character. I'm sure people will find
problem with that that I just said, but I don't care. They named
the highway after him, Yes, true, but no, Skyler such a
murderer. I know. Skyler definitely got like again, I think that well
a. I mean, she's all these anti heroes, aside from like several
shows are dudes. So I think when there's a woman opposite them, like
calling them out on their shit, they're gonna get. People are gonna definitely
it's not gonna be a level playing field when people are judging these characters.
From my recollection, most of the show, Skyler was reacting to Walton's ship
like a normal wife and mother would I definitely a met dealer, yes,
And I think early in the first season, or at least in the first
half of the first season, we're at the point now where she knows about
the cancer. Walter has just killed Crazy eight, the dude in the basement
that was time chained. I forgot how tense that scene was too. When
he puts the plate together and sees the jagged part missing the bike lock or
something that Jesse got the bike lock. Yeah, yeah, and then but
then he chokes him with it because he's like, so you're not gonna stick
me with that plate? And then yeah, he and then he's already saying
he's sorry as before the guy dies. It's it's such good writing, but
Skyler is pissing me off, only in the sense now that the whole family
is pissing me off. It's that Walter is the one with supposedly terminal lung
cancer and they're giving him. Everybody in his life is giving him so much
shit for like taking time to figure out how he wants to handle it.
And uh, Skyler's at the point now where she just told Elliot, his
old business partner, like, hey, could you potentially help us out and
pay for all this without telling him she was going to ask him again though
it's not in no way is it ever evil. It's her saying, like,
I love my husband. He's also the father to my kid now who
has is it Bell's cerebral palsy, and then my unborn daughter, So she's
just showing normal human concern. She still hasn't had the second baby yet.
So yes, I remember all that stuff with Anna Gunn getting Anna Gunn was
saying it like her life sucked for a while really because people hated Skyler so
much. In public, she would get like mean shit and death threats.
I have a feeling it's probably from the type of dude who, like,
you know, even through that whole story, was like, oh yeah,
Walter, that's what a bad ass, same type of guy that has like
scarpace and like posters anything's don Draper is super cool. It's like, No,
the point is these are her both fucking people. They're not aspirational like
fucking scarface. Yes, exactly. So yes, I remember that stuff with
Anna gun though. And it's also funny watching Seinfeld. She's a oh yeah,
she man hands. No, she's the one that George confuses with the
police. He thinks that she's making out with Jerry's cousin because he sees a
police officer kissing her horse with his glasses off. Yeah. I think that
was the only two episodes or the only episode she's in he takes in that
dead Wood. Yes, she came in and she was a bull's wife.
Yeah, but she came in like later on, when he was already kind
of having a fling with honor Almagarrettartt which was she was played by uh the
woman from the West Wing. Mm Amanda would know that better. But yeah,
which is all to say, turns out Breaking That is still I would
much rather rewatch mad Men or Sopranos. I find those shows more like moment
to moment enjoyable. But then again, Breaking Bad is just pretty like bleak
most of the way through, but it is really like much funnier than I
remember. Yeah, as soon as I'm done with Saul, I'm moving on
to Sopranos as my like workout show. Yeah, I think I will say.
I think watching Barry since the last time I watched Breaking Bad, has
made me appreciate the dark humor even more. I've always liked dark humor,
but Barry just goes so far into it, and Bill Hater is so good
with that kind of humor that I think it highlights it a lot more.
In Breaking Bad, he said, like he met Vince Gilligan and said,
like, thank you so much. Like Barry is just Breaking Bad. It
wouldn't take shore Us without Breaking Bad. But yeah, it's a show's good.
I gotta watch better calls. I still have to watch Fargo. I
didn't realize it's still going. I thought it was done. I saw that
I dropped off. Yeah, not because it wasn't good. I just think
I got distracted and then forgot about it. And there are so few good
TV shows. Well, no, Mary, remember you said that you stopped
watching Fargo because Chris Rock was in that one season and you were just a
really big like you were on Will Smith's side and very strongly with that thing,
right, someone Smirch and Nixon. That's such an interesting feud to take
sides on. That's why I thought it was weird that you were so strongly
defending Will Smith said this. Yeah, I've heard you say it a lot.
Yeah, that I'm on Will Smith's side. What's that I'm on Will
Smith's side, right, that's strongly on Will Smith's side. Yes, ye,
beat up comedians your platform, go get them? Can we talk the
talk? But I bet you they couldn't beat Goku and fight, you know,
go Coo versus Dane Cook. Yeah, let's do it, Madison Square
Garden, let's go. That would be amazing. Creator. I tell jokes
and then just get absolutely like killed. Dane Cook vaporized. He's trying to
like squeak out one before he gets completely ruined. What's Dane Cook fighting?
Goku? What would he sound like? Do Dane Cook fighting? I'm glad
I haven't heard Dane Cook's voice since like two thousand and four. I have
no idea what he sounds like anymore. I don't either. Goku comes at
me right, he got He's got a five finger death punch ready for me.
Right. I don't know what's going on. I just know I'm about
to get punched. And he punches me. He punches me right here?
Right? Did you guys hear that? Did you over here? Hear that?
Right here? I don't know that. Can't do Dane Cook. That
had just as good of a punch line as any Dane Cook joke. He
just yelled at the Yeah, I can find him there. That's probably not
that surprising. Like many are you gonna say you used to be a big
Dan Cook fan? Not a big Dang Cook fan. But I found him
funny for like a year in my life. I mean that Dan Cook fifteen
minutes, let's go get in the man. It was probably middle school though,
if that, But again that tracks because not apologizing for anything I said.
I mean, guys my age in college loved Dane Cook, and I
used to give them a lot of shit because we thought he sucked ass.
And you would have been much younger, and so I could totally see if
dipshits my age liked him back then, you as a younger smart person,
but you're still young, so you're probably stupid. Yeah no, I did
not like him in college. Yeah no, I was already into Oh.
Not to add another wrinkle to this, we watched Mike birbiglia A's new special
on Netflix, really really good, The Old Man in the Pool, so
like comedians everywhere love him specifically, and they talk about how hard it is
to do clean comedy. That's that good. And obviously I'm not super into
clean comedy, but Mike burbiglia just can now it. I love that show.
I don't know. I think they can can get punched. They can
all they can all take a couple of hits, you know what I mean.
Wear a shirt that just says beat up comedians on the subway into the
West Village and then go to the ho Many sellers sit front row with Will
Smith storm the stage comedians around tell them not to tell the joke. They
were just saying, we need to shirt this as beat up comedians. I
don't like it. Who are you trying to make me, you know,
think about stuff? Yeah, I don't know you anything that would probably not
challenge me in many parts of the world. Dan, you look like you've
been going through a process, because I can see it. I can see
it on your face. It's supposed to be invisible. Well it's in the
name, but it gives you away. I know, notice a list it's
it's supposed to go away pretty quick. I noticed it myself because I talk
as myself frequently, and so I noticed, you're gonna know. So that's
that was the first thing I said after they I'm super self conscious. As
soon as they were done, I started talking and I was like, oh,
wait, is my voice going to stay like this? Because I should
have mentioned I do podcasts for a living and have to talk all the time,
and that's gonna be weird if my voice is totally different. Now,
I still have a little bit of it. It's not. It was much
more defined in the first like two or three days. So it's been like
three weeks now. Still in my first tray getting it changed out tomorrow.
It sucks. I don't I don't like it is the hurt and the taking
it off the first few days hurts a lot, just because I don't know,
like taking on They've put these attachments on your teeth. They're slowly rearranging
your teeth. Like I guess that it's going to hurt a bit, but
I just didn't know. I was like consistently uncomfortable. Yeah, I mean
the gums are really tender. I mean I always had sensitive teeth and they're
super sensitive now. So yeah, it's, uh, it's very uncomfortable.
It's I think six to nine months is what I'm looking at, and yeah,
I'm getting swapped out tomorrow, but I don't know. Like I talk
to my sister, she had for like eighteen months, so everything I've heard
is that I'm on the like lower end of it. Was just it's too
uh, it's just my bite the only teeth that connect or my back molars,
so that's like led to them getting fucked up by just clank clank clank
my whole life. So this is supposed to like spread it out like like
a snowshoe. You know, and it's spread the weight distribution. When I
bite down, all the teeth are supposed to hit, So we're trying to
fix that there so you'll be happier in the long run. But I've had
them done twice. I had them when I was twenty three, and I
first got like a little bit of extra change. I think I was still
living with my mom at the time, and so when I had paychecks,
I was like, ooh, I could spend this and sure fix my teeth
for the first time, and so I did. I never had braces growing
up, and so I got in visile line and I vividly remembered the pain
because just like you, they put like I think they're like little nubs of
concrete on your teeth, and that's how they rotate your teeth. So it's
one thing to move them. If you move them, the tray just slowly
moves your teeth forward or backward as much as they need. But to rotate,
they put a little piece of concrete on your teeth, and then the
tray like pivots that concrete around your tooth to turn it. And it's freaking
painful. It's actually it's not a shooting pain. Anyone who's ever had a
toothache can tell you it's just a consistent, continuous discomfort in your mouth,
which sucks because that's really close to your head, which means you're probably it
can cause headaches or just make you feel you put stuff in there. It's
not great. You put your stuff in where mouth? Oh yeah, get
ready to anytime you want to eat anything, if you have it, you
have to take them out, brush your teeth through this whole rigamarole, clean
out the basis line. So like sacking just kind of goes out the window.
It's like, all right, I'm taking these things out three times a
day. I'm getting all my shit in and I'm putting them back in.
You know, there's like a little Infizzil lined diet that you basically go on
because you're only allowed to drink water with them, and you're not even supposed
to like so drink soda and stuff. So here's I looked that up a
lot and talking to my dentists, and also, don't fucking email. I
don't give a ship. I'm going to listen to my dentist. I'm not
listening to Yahoo podcast person. You don't why I don't drink wine line,
I asked my dentist. I said, like, okay, so let's say
I go out the bar, like I'm a social person. I like to
go out a lot and hang out and that's like, you know, hours
long. Can I drink beer with it in? And he goes, yeah,
you can, just like have a water next to you as well,
and so like whenever you have beer, switch it around, make sure the
sugar is not getting caught between the step, and at the end of the
night, just make sure you're taking them out pressure teeth, you know,
clean, cleaning things out. He said, You'll be totally fine there.
So I have been drinking with him and it has been fine. But yeah,
my sister said she was drinking like red wine, all sorts of ship
with it, like coffee. It was all fine. So I went and
put your sister on the pedestal of how to envizzle line because you should not
be drinking fine yeah, the dentist. The dentist said, I could.
That is the person who had heared these things to my teeth said yeah,
you'll be fine. So that's what I'm going with. When I first got
them done when I was twenty three, in my first two weeks a friend
of mine had a birthday party and I went and they served cake, and
I remember thinking to myself, I don't know my trays, Like, I
can't eat this delicious cake I have in vizil line in And then I thought
to myself, Well, you can't chew it because you'll get in there,
but you can probably like suck a piece of cake. And so I kind
of cake put it in my mouth. It's kind of kind of just sucked
it. Suck cake beat up comedians. Wait, and so were you just
like putting it on your tongue and just like like when you have like a
lick of ice cream. Yeah, And I kind of like switched it around
with my tongue and tasted it and then shoved it in the back and then
yeah, and it definitely still got a drink blind trays drinking cake. Put
it in a blender, Uh, you'd beat better off. I didn't myself
that I could. I could get it without getting it in my invisil line,
but that was not the case. It did get into my vizsil line
and I had to like scrub my vizzile line retainers to get all the cake
goo out of there. So I I promise you can't drink cake no matter
what your dentis says, is that the last time you tried to eat with
them in, No, I was. I always tried to skirt the rules
and see what I could get away with. You know, like you're really
not supposed to have candy or anything, but like same thing, if you
could suck it, I was, like, you can get away with it,
so you can have like a like a lollipop spaghetti spaghetti if you don't
have to chew it. I would try and get away with it, but
it always ends up getting in there. So no, you really shouldn't have
any of that stuff. And the real one that I warn you about is
hot drinks because you're invisile line is plastic. If you have like a hot
toddy or a hot tea, you can actually bend the plastic. So don't
don't drink warm stuff coffee this morning with them in. But I'm getting a
new trade tomorrow, so I'm playing fast and lose. Her are pushing it,
so I went through the same This is something that happens the first time
you get in visiline, which is like I'm gonna see if I can push
these boundaries. And I learned in my first week you cannot have cake.
So you know, to take take that advice. With what you will.
You're gonna try to get away with certain things and certain things you you can't.
So it's the last day. I'm going to switch out. Tomorrow,
I'm chewing on hammers. I'm just going to town. Yeah, I get
them sucking on trees. You can get away with it. I might be
starting it soon. This is a line I have the os pro there.
My molars don't connect, just my front everything do I also have like that
hurt? Well? They also they're like, this will double as a way
to stop you from grinding your teeth at night, which I very much do
you TMJ from that? Yeah, that's why I I thought I was getting
ear infections. That means my ears were hurting a lot. And I kept
going to the ear and nos and throat and they would look in there and
be like, your ears look fine, and go talk toor Dennis and see
if you have TMJ. And I went and sure enough, it's a TMJ
thing. And so that's that's how this came about. Was the TMJ pain.
Oh yeah, Like I would say three mornings a week. I wake
up, my jaw muscles are sore. I could tell I was grinding them,
and but also like there's a decent I was grinding them before. I
like, I was grinding my baby teeth like baby teeth when I was younger.
So it actually messed up the way that if you were just gonna glance
at me, my teeth don't look that bad. But there are some pretty
decent sized gaps between like my canine and my whatever the one by cuspid,
I don't know. That's what I learned. It's not all about just like
crooked teeth, Like I kind of always assumed braces where I've had several people
be like, why do you get in missline? Your teeth aren't crooked,
And I was like, yeah, it's it's to bite thing thing. It
doesn't have to be like fucked up teeth. Yeah, so mine supposed it's
gonna be six to eight months. Okay, that's about same as mine.
Yeah, at the risk of mentioning, so something that might dan I know,
you're not gonna teat stuff. Oh have you ever heard of there is
a thing. I don't know if it's through in visile line or certain dentists
do it, or maybe it's not even a dentist thing. Maybe it's the
like an orthodontist thing, but you can expedite an invisile line process by and
don't take my word for it, look this up. Google it. I
dated someone who did something, paid enough money at the beginning of it to
like accelerate what their teeth would be doing with the invisi line, and they
did it the way they described it. I'm I don't know, I'd never
verified this, but I know they were in a lot of pain in the
first couple of days. You screw into like the jaw below the teeth to
supposedly like kickstarts the teet's healing. If we have any dentists, actually,
I would invite people to email me about this to explain what she was talking
about, because the way she described it, I was like, there's no
way that could be like done in a medical setting. This sounds like a
Mary will get this. It sounds like a doctor nick thing. This doesn't
sound like a real thing. Yes, or if someone has like insight as
to what actually it really was, please tell me. But it took her
like half the time to do in envision line because she did this acceleration process
to be I don't want to do that. Jesus, did you have to
do a thing? They have to do a thing tomorrow? Mary, I
don't know if you had this where they have to take I think like three
different gaps they have to like cheve a spacer in there. Currently did that
hurt? I don't know how much she expected to hurt. No, I
never felt that there was pain going to the dentist. There was pain when
I left because every time they move your teeth, even like you know,
half a quarter of a millenie or whatever it is, when you're walking out,
you'll feel this pain. And I don't know if they told you this,
but I've got quite adjusted that. On New Retainer Day, I have
like to advil. I strongly recommend it, like just they told me not
to because they said they you want the inflammation, like that's part of like
that'll help healing. Did doctor Nick tell you that too? I'm telling you
it's painful, Like I understand what they're saying. Take ibuprofen if you are
feeling pain, because they would keep me up at night. On New New
Retainer Day, New Retainer Day, I associate with like bad things. It's
like when a I don't know, like a cat when you get a spray
bottle out. I like WinCE at new retainer day. And I've had them
twice. I was telling you this before we started recording, so I didn't
wear my retainer forever. I thought that, you know, I wore my
retainer from twenty three. They were fixed by twenty four, and I probably
stopped wearing my retainer around twenty seven because I was like, I've had this
retainer. I've been putting these in for like four years. My teeth are
done, They're fixed, and sure is shit. By the time I was
like thirty three or whatever, they had started shifting and they were almost like
back to where they were. So I got them a second time, and
I've I have had them twice now and the second time I only needed them
for like six months, but I had to pay for it again and I
had to go through the pain again. And so like cheap, No,
keep your retainer and just wear it every night until you die. And the
only time I forget is if I've been drinking or something like that. Sometime
or one time I went on a work trip and just totally forgot it,
not really sucked, but uh, you know, I'm dedicated. I'll wear
these. You'll have to bury me with my diseline. I guess that part
of the retainer doesn't sound too bad to me. Yeah, sleep with a
retainer actually sounds nice. I like. Sometimes I've told you before, I
either have lucid dreams or I have waking dreams. There's nothing in between for
me. In these dreams where I'm grinding my teeth in real life, I
can in the dream I'm doing something like that, Like I'm biting down so
hard in the dream that my teeth ended up cracking and shattering. It goes
into the dream. Yeah, it's you know, the two things are like
I used to be so fascinated with dreams and lucid dreams and all that stuff.
One of the most common ones is looking into the mirror and seeing all
your teeth fall out. And the things psychologists think is that that is tied
to like for people who are very caught up on like their own personal appearance,
like aesthetics and everything, like, that's the thing that people like that
tend to get a lot. Yeah, mine doesn't. They don't just fall
out. It's from when I like I'm shattering them by biting too hard,
like while I'm on a roller coaster in my dream. Yeah that sounds,
but then I like it sucks too. I don't know what it is.
It's almost like I get restless legs syndrome, but it's in my jaw.
Sure, Yeah, that's kind of also apparently part of TMJ. Sometimes I
need to like clench my jaw, which, again, visit what I will
help with, But apparently some insurance can cover it if it's a medical issue.
I now, I want to write a letter to my insurance and see
if I can get them to give me fucking five thousand dollars. That'd be
great. Yeah, mine's very much like if I keep grinding my teeth like
this by the time I'm I don't know, middle aged, it could be
like even worse. Basically just getting ahead of things. Yeah you should.
I I really do endorse like getting them fixed if it ever bothers you or
if it'll medically benefit you. I'm glad I got them, but I learned
a lot of lessons along the way, and it's that you have to keep
that retainer forever. It's painful, so you have to be able to handle
that, and you can't. You can't eat cake. I'm not a big
cake guy. Pile, I'm fine with that. Not a big pie.
I'm less of a pie guy. I'm not a cake I've had two pies
in my life, maybe like apple and pumpkin. I think on the same
page there for a second, Dude, I love pie. If I if
I've only had like apple and pumpkin, what's like a go to what's like
the actually, wait, key lime. I've had key lime flavored like jelly
bellies and stuff, and they taste really good and it makes me think I
should eat more key lime pie. Key lime pie is such good pie.
Here Steve's key lime Pie in Red Hook, Brooklyn. If you're in the
city, it's worth the trip. But key lime pie is not like when
I think pies, I think of Thanksgiving flavors like pumpkin app Dutch ass,
Dutch apple christ It's a Dutch ass Dutch apples apple with the crumbs position like
sugar and cinnamon, Dutch ass. For everyone's carry on item when you come
out to Minnesota, just bring your favorite pie from where you're from and we
can all eat it during game of I love just like a good like BlackBerry
pie or any when you can get like a strusle or a crumble on top
sounds good. I love like coffee cake type stuff. Yes, they have
that pie. Pie is coffee cake like, basically the stuff on top of
coffee cake sprinkled over the apples instead of crust. Oh, I want that
a thick layer of it. Yeah, that's really good by Keelan. Pie
is on real too. Nice. Anything else going on with you, guys?
Seeing you in a few short weeks after the game Awards close to I've
been holding. I kind of just have to take things like one day or
two at a time, just because I have so much going on right now.
And so as soon as Giant bombs Game of the ear Zone and I'm
back from LA, I'm gonna go full force on getting things set up for
us here and setting up the table. We got a new area. Yeah,
we'll have a jake here that the judge will be back. So yeah,
looking forward to getting that all set up and it'll be ready when you
guys show up. Have you used this the set that we're going to be
using before. I've not used this room for any story stuff. No,
I want to use a different room. Yeah, yeah, I got like
a bar that I think would be fitting for fire Escape, So we'll use
the bar. I'll bring my fire Escape in space sweat shirt, Bring dorky
Christmas, Bring all the good merch excellent, sick. Do you guys want
to talk about video games? Yeah? Sure thing. Hey you guys like
trends, right? Yes? My favorite cool? Well if you search trends.
Learning a new language is only increasing over time, and there's always a
spike in full because it's the perfect time to pick up a new hobby,
like learning a new language. Mike, you like hobbies learning languages. I
love tracking languages. I've been learning languages for many years. Turns out,
studies from Yale, Michigan State University others continue to prove Babel is better.
For instance, one study found that using Babbel for fifteen hours is equivalent to
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Speaking Spanish much better would help me navigate Argentina of course, and Chile if
I wanted to go across the border. They're doing some good wines there too,
which is all to say, this would all be super helpful for me
to know Spanish better. Dan, tell them how they can get in on
this action. It's crazy, Mike, I have the exact same dream.
And here is a special limited time deal for our listeners to get you started
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Slash Fire Rules and restrictions may apply. Okay, Dan right away, because
you you said minutes hours ago you just beat Alan Wake two eat two hours
ago. Thank you. Yeah, it's boy, it's been a ride with
that game. I like a lot of that game a lot. I think
it's going to be it's definitely gonna be my top ten of the year.
But there were points during playing it where I was like, this might be
number two, this could be number three. Now I think it's gonna go
a little lower. I'll be honest. I fell off a bit by the
end or like higher, like it's dropped. Yeah, yeah, it's I
kept thinking of Lost while I was playing it, and that my relationship with
that show was like, I think this is so interesting, this is so
fascinating. Oh my god, I can't wait to see where all this stuff
goes. And then as it gets closer to the end, I was kind
of like, Uh, they're never gonna this stuff up, or it's just
gonna be confusing or whatever, and then I just kind of fell off Lost.
By the end. It was as I knew I was getting closer to
the end of Allen Wake. It's not that it doesn't make sense. I
don't want to like it's better than Lost. I'll say that it's a very
different thing. But yeah, it's just got that going. No, it's
it is a great game. I think it is a great video game.
I love it. I love the ideas, I love the tone. I
just think the gameplay kind of keeps getting in the way. But before I
get to that, I was talking about the story stuff, and I do
think by the end, it's just so much of that. Like, no,
I'm going to talk to the general this third week talking about it,
But you know, so we're not still not going to straight up I want
to beat it. Yeah, so I don't. I'll tread lightly. Yeah,
it's it's just by the end, it's just a lot of like,
Okay, I'm sure if I wanted to read a big explainer or watch some
you know, YouTube breakdown of what was happening and what's singing or whatever,
I totally understand. But it is a lot of like, what's happening in
the dark place, or is this is this this guy? Or is this
the evil version of that guy? Or is it It's it's all over the
place, and I don't feel like it has it doesn't have a nice ah
how do I say this? It's similar to the first one in which the
ending was kind of ambiguous and at the end I was kind of like didn't
really know what happened. You know. I beat this a couple hours ago,
and I was like, a bunch of stuff happened. It's the production
was incredible, Like I loved the ride, but I don't really know what
the fuck happened in the end, you know, And I don't really feel
I'm not someone who beats a game and has to like watch a million explainers
and figure it out, Like I want the game. If I'm playing a
game or watch a movie, I want to be able to ascertain what happened
by the end of it. Try maybe I was a dumb ass or something.
I don't know, but things that I thought in the beginning, I
was so enamored with the idea of the mind place and the plot board and
the stuff like that, Like you know these places you could go to as
Saga and Alan and kind of piece things together. But then as you go
further in the game, you realize that's not really this fun metagame that I
thought it was. Like I thought I was gonna be like piecing together this
mystery and solving this stuff, and Okay, that goes to that, and
that goes that. In reality, by the end you realize that, like
the plot border, the mind Place thing is just like, Okay, I'm
going to get to a spot in the story. It's going to add three
pictures that go to a determined spot that I already know because Saga already knows
it, and I'm I'm just checking things off. I'm just putting it in
the one place it goes. It's not a puzzle, it's not a mystery.
It's not problem solving, it's just kind of busy work it gives you.
I think it's presented in a cool way. It's better than just like
a journal in a Bethesda game or something like that. But I think I
thought it was going to be this fun thing where I was like solving these
mysteries and putting it together myself. Where you're just kind of like checking off
along with the story. You know, it's more in a choice than a
functional thing. Yeah, it feels it's more of a gimmick than I wanted
it to be, I think. And then yeah, the gameplay getting in
the way. I just you know, the I think there are cool things
like the mechanic of like burning off the darkness and shooting the weeks. I
mean that was in the original one, but it still feels really good in
this one. But I never got excited about combat encounters. I feel like
the boss fights some of them were like interesting from a story perspective, but
rarely from a gameplay perspective. There's there's a boss for two that I thought
was like kind of cool or clever gameplay wise, but ultimately it's it's like
I have felt with other remedy games in the past where it's like the style
and the presentation and the production and the tone are all ten out of ten
and then the gameplay is an eight, you know, which is not bad
by any means, but you know, it's it's not a short game,
you know. I didn't do it nearly as much as you, Mike.
I know, Mike, you like one hundred percent of it and spent what
forty fifty hour or something like that right now, like closer to thirty oh
thirty Okay, Yeah, I finished it. I think around eighteen or something
like that, because especially by the end, like I was at the beginning,
like every time an area would open up, I'd be like, I
am going to scour every cult stash, I'm going to do every lunch box,
every doll puzzle, all that, and then even that, like the
puzzle quality and stuff, it was all kind of the same thing where it's
just like, Okay, I got to figure out what three symbols are here,
I'm going to look around for these symbols on t or oh, Okay,
I get it. It's a little number puzzle thing like I didn't find
them particularly clever. And also you open it up, and here's like a
flare and some AMMO and stuff that, like, you know, I can't
take two of them because I don't have enough inventory space. And it's just
I never felt like it was worth it in the end. Even the charms,
like all the charms you get from the doll puzzles. I found like
three that I thought were decent ish and I kept them on and then I
kept like solving these puzzles and getting every new charm, being like, okay,
well I'm never using that, put it right in the shoe box.
So I don't know, I just felt like the rewards weren't there, and
the story didn't really go into a place that I liked or frankly understood.
Yeah, and like the light stuff with Alan, I didn't like that at
all. It's just like there's a lot like with Alan in particular in his
sections, It's like, Okay, I don't really understand what's going on the
light thing. I know, I like hold this into like suck light out
of a thing into my lamp, and then the place is a little bit
different, but I don't quite know how to keep track of what's what or
what changed, or it's not reflected on the map. I found that more
confusing than it was interesting. And then the plot board stuff with Alan two.
I feel like those areas were pretty poor, I thought, because it's
just like you walk into a room and it's like, okay, here's the
lobby, and I'll walk around and talk to people and look at things until
it gives me a different, like narrative thing, and like, all right,
let's press that button. All right, Now there's a staircase there there
wasn't before. Okay, press it. Now. There's enemies there there wasn't
before. And I don't know, I just feel like it's a lot of
just like, Okay, what's that, what's that do? What's that do?
Is that the right one? Is that the right one? Okay?
Now I can do that? And like these sections where it's like a hotel
or another area where you're just doing like four of these scene changes and you're
just pressing buttons until it's the right one. I just don't like that type
of puzzle solving. I don't know what why, how I keyed in on
it, but every time I was doing that, yes you want to do
all of them, but I don't think, yes, there's a right one
that will actually get you to the next part of the mission. But each
of them, most of the time I found to have substantial and I'm I
was all for the actual environmental storytelling in that game, So each of those
scenes I had some cool little like thing to clue me in on what's going
on in that room. But yeah, I definitely think there are parts where
and saying this is someone who did every puzzle in the game possible. Some
of them were really good and clever, others were definitely wrote and I the
most obvious ones if you're not going out of your way, I think are
the weakest ones. Unfortunately, so I don't I'm not surprised to hear you
say all that either, because I don't wholeheartedly disagree with you at all.
That game very much. I went back to I played through the entirety of
Control after that Ultimate edition. I just wanted to try it on PS five.
I also wanted to play the Alan Wake and the Foundation DLCs, so
I did all that, and I think a problem I have with both of
those games. And I love Alan Wake too. It is very high up
my personal game of the Year list. You've all heard me ramble about that
game enough I don't need to go into that. But for both that and
Control, I will say I agree with the gameplay in the sense I liked
Alan Wake two's gameplay pretty straight through, but when survival horror games, I
enjoy the scavenging and scrounging more than the combat usually resume before Remake was an
outlier in that sense, But I think in both that and Control, they
just did not exactly know how to end, not story wise, like story
wise Alan Wake two. I don't know if I just kind of gave up
trying to figure it out early enough where I could just kind of let it
wash over me and not think about A to B two C plot stuff.
But I enjoyed all of that in the sense that it was just more about
the vibes of each location and like certain characters, and like the how I
don't know they say in the interview in his first interview with mister Door,
Mister Door's like, I'm sure fans want to know what is It's not a
lake, it's an ocean. Mean, that felt to me like the team
saying like, maybe don't worry about figuring this out as much. Sure,
But again Control, I was like, oh my god, I forgot.
That's I remember Control ended with that like meta thing where the credits roll and
then you come back as like the low least like intern at the office,
and then you're going through like delivering letters and then you have to like break
out of it after the ashtray mas is like, Man, I forgot how
bad the pacing is toward the end of Control. I think Allen Wake two
has a similar patient pacing issue gameplay wise toward the end. That being said,
I still adore that game. Again, I don't know why. Like
I had plenty of trouble with some of the puzzles, but I think I
don't know. That's the first game in a while I did not want to
end. That's not to say I haven't liked a lot of games. I
have another game I went back to that i'll talk about on this episode that
I am enjoying way more than I thought I would. But like, I
really was disappointed with that end when that ended, because I wanted more of
it, which doesn't often happen. As I think you two can probably relate
with how many games we play, And that's that's very much like a games
writer problem. It's not really a real problem, but like often I just
find myself satisfied and I'm like, okay, good, now I can get
to this other game that Dan and Mary have been talking about, so like
let's move on. But I was the opposite in that, Like by the
end, like the last couple hours, I was in full on, like
all right, I didn't come this far to not finish it, but I'm
kind of not enjoying it as much. So like I was full on,
just like I come upon a cult stash and I would just google like Sheriff
Station, cult stash whatever, you know, Like I did not care about,
you know, trying at that point. I just I was trying to
get through it to that point because if I was not doing it for a
living, I would probably have stopped playing it at a certain point. Is
this in your top ten? How that thing? I don't want to sound
negative here. Everything I said on the previous episodes I stand by, like
I except for me giving a lot of praise to the mind place the plot
board stuff, because like that was misplaced. I thought that was going to
be better than it was. But everything about the tone you know that we
sing thing, even as much as that was hyped up to me, I
really think that delivered and that's a very unique moment. I loved the tone
everything I said about it, like it is a very funny game, and
I think that's such a hard thing to pull off, Like there there are
great things this game is doing. If I if I was a game and
former, still I would give this a You know, this is a solid
eight. At least it's an eight, I would say. And yeah,
so like I'm trying to think, like top ten of the year. I'm
looking at my list right now. It was number three before I just moved
it. Give it like it might even go lower than whatever you have it
at now, but give it time. You just needed a few hours ago.
I don't have to tell you how to judge things, because that was
that. Several of my top five games I didn't really know would be in
my top five until I went back to them or I was just like they
they lingered in my memory more like ellen Wick two was just but like just
stuck around. It was only in October. Wasn't that long ago that I
played it? But yeah, no, I don't really wholeheardly disagree with anything
you're saying. I mean, come, game of the year conversations. I
might like push back on some of those, but none of them are out
of rest field. I want to make clear. I know that was all
negative that I just said, but I want to make it very clear.
And now, I did really enjoy this game, and I really appreciate the
things that's doing, and it is doing some things better than pretty much every
game out there. So I'm going to try again. I'm going to try
again trying stop or fall off completely. I just get so frustrated with it
because I get stuck. I had an incident. This was from before the
last time we played, but I think it's a good explanation, so I'll
tell you anyway. The derailed train area. Yeah, it's the one where
you have to go into your mind palace and visit the place and then apply
the right plot to the place in order to change it. Yeah, Cults
of the Tree or whatever. Yeah, the ritual and the yeah. Yeah
yeah. So I was at the derailed train and I didn't I I only
had the plot point of the detective and I kept applying it and unapplying it,
and I couldn't get passed. And then I was like I must have
missed something. I'll just check the guide, right, No shame in that
game, the guide helps you get through it. Do it. So I
checked the guide and the guide was like, apply the cult plot to the
train, and I was like, what cult plot? And it turns out
fifteen minutes earlier, I missed an area that would have given me a plot
point, and so I had to go all the way back. But what
I thought was frustrating about this is is that the game, if you hit
a button, it tells you what your goals are for that area. The
goal of the area was to solve the cult. Not helpful. And then
if you wait, the Alan tells you a hint. And so so I'm
walking around trying to figure out what to do and Alan goes, I think
I have to be in my mind area to solve this, and so I
was like, oh my god, I'm just doing it wrong. And so
I'm looking in my plot board and I'm applying the same goddamn thing and it's
not working. The game didn't understand to tell me that I had missed a
plot point that I needed, and so to me, although I am a
bit of a dummy and I understand that, like I probably should have looked
for those plot points harder. It frustrated me that the game knew enough to
tell me that I was trying to solve a cult, and it knew enough
to tell me that if I attributed a plot that it would change the scene
that would help me get through, it would open the door. And it
knew enough to tell me that I needed to be in the mind palace to
do it. It didn't know to tell me that it didn't have a crucial
piece that was fifteen minutes previous, and so I had to go back and
do it. There's this spot for that type of help, because like I
think this is on one end where it's like, okay, give me something
if I've just been walking in circles for ten minutes, fucking throw me a
bone here, And then on the other end it is like got exactly,
dad, what if you three year ash of that thing? It's like okay,
second exactly. Yeah, Like there's a sweet spot and sometimes really well
or or just give it to give it a you know, L three or
something will like point you what game was that that was? That actually kind
of where that like points you in the right direction if you like L three
or something, maybe that's like the visible thing. But I'd wait, which
one are you talking about? You you press in and you like look toward
where you're supposed to. I think, even though I give got a warship
for this, I think I want to say it was that that you could
either turn on or it is on by default if you hit like L three,
that it would just kind of like orient the camera in the general direction
of the next thing, And like that was kind of a nice like,
Okay, yeah, this level here, just tell the kid to shut the
fuck up, gotcha. I think it's just nice. I don't know if
I really enjoy when a third party is telling me what to do. I
find that to be an interesting trigger for me. When Alan does it,
I'm like, that's me. I'm allowed to do that. But in Zelda,
if I'm fighting a boss and I get hit and the person next to
me is like, you can't take any more of those, and I'm like,
bitch, shut the fuck up. I know I don't need you to
tell me that I shouldn't take hits from a boss. I don't like that.
Yeah, do you hate that more? What's worse a character telling you
that, or like a pop up like tooltip, being like, then they're
both miserable. But I honestly think there's something about a sidekick or an assistant
that is inadvertently belittling me by explaining basic mechanics that absolutely right pisses me off.
And it's it's interesting. I've seen it more. It's happening more and
more with games where you have like a little buddy with you, you have
a you have a friend. Anytime they tell me what to you and I
already knew it. I don't like that character anymore. They ruin that character,
don't tell me stuff. I need you at least it's like the developers
kind of Okay, you can hate me, I'll gonna I'm an ambiguous thing.
But if it's my it's my friend. That's it literally just happened to
me. I was just playing Zelda uh and and and taking down one of
the four bosses, and I remember someone being like, you're gonna have to
really watch out for that that next time, and it's just like, I
find hate you. I'm in the middle of a boss by it, I
don't need you here tell me what to do. If it paused and said
like, uh, you know, watch your health I'd be like, all
right, they know that you died and that's the tooltip. Yeah. Yes,
there's just something really irritating about my sidekick. It's a shame because sometimes
Alan Wait can actually do that well where it's like there was one time I
sawd one of those doll puzzles and I went to go walk away, and
Saga said to herself like, I shouldn't leave those dolls. I might need
them later, and it's like, oh, right, I totally left those.
They're like because that would have been a thing where I just fucked myself
over and it saved me that. But like, puzzle solutions are a different
thing, I think again though, Like yet, sometimes like when you talk
to yourself, who am I getting mad at? I am Alan right?
Like if Allan is like I need it for I probably should be doing this
in the plot board. That doesn't bother me. That's me sure, it's
a person. It's this is an interesting there's probably some kind of like psychoanalysis
here, like reminds me of like a little sister being like maybe you should
try not getting hit and it's like I fucking hate you, shut up,
fuck up. There is something irritating about a buddy doing it, whereas like
when it's my character or the game design telling me it doesn't, it doesn't
give me that level of rage. It's interesting, Yeah, it's interesting lay
down on a couch and talk about this. I don't want to transition to
another game, and yet I have a good transition because this actually applies to
a game I went back to from this year. But Mary, do you
have any other thoughts in ELM Wake two? Actually I do have a question.
We talked about this last time we spoke about ellen Wai two. But
were you streaming when you missed that plot thing? I was not. Oh,
I was streaming the first time. Yeah, yeah, said you're gonna
try it. I've tried it without and I would say I liked it better
without streaming because I didn't feel the pressure. But that part of getting stuck
on the derailed train was totally by myself, and I even had a guide,
and I like, I honestly know that what you're talking about an extra
punch to the gut that I couldn't with the that's like burnt with the burnt
bodies on it. Yes, yes, there's a part later when you're backtracking
through that section that I got hung up on for like ten minutes because one
of the doors on the subway train, I was supposed to walk in the
back door and then out of front door. Yep, the door was not
opened that wide. And like, based on everything I had learned about the
game and all the sense of like movement I had gotten the game, I
was like, that door does not look wide enough for me to go through.
But it was I was like, Oh, that was the door they
didn't like. That game is so good in other cases about lighting the right
areas to kind of like, you know, subtly nudge you. I was
like, oh man, they blew that. I got stuck there too.
I know that that was so cathartic because it's like, oh wait, but
how do I get back to the ritual scene in the first part if that
wall is there and I don't have the light to go back to the lamp.
So like again, in some ways, I was clicking with the game
for whatever reason, but other times I'm like, it's I don't know,
Like it was a door. After that, after the subway, there's a
door and there's no light on the door. Yeah, And I just thought
it was a wall and I went I didn't open the door. But yeah,
I don't know, Like if you don't, if you're not, if
you're bouncing off, but there's no nothing making you. I want to do
it. You guys both really like it. I want to. I want
to finish it. It's it's just a struggle for me. Every time I
play, I feel like it takes me three hours to do something that it
probably took you twenty minutes. It makes me feel really stupid. No,
I don't, I don't. There's games I don't like. I just don't
jibe with. I don't know Ellen wait two for I really don't. I
maybe if I replayed it, I would be able to tell you why.
I'm like, I feel like it's I'm it's on this like the right wavelength,
I guess might be the right phrase. But there's a lot of murder
in it. There's other games like Forbidden West, this game that was made
for a pretty wide audience. I'd say honestly, there are points where like
a looe actually helped me out by speaking out loud, which I did not
appreciate, but it still he took my right hand and then I'm going to
wrap the fingers around this hand hold and then I'm gonna put my left hand
up and grab this. Yeah, speaking of a game that I actually think
hits a good sweet spot with puzzle solving, I went back to Star Wars
Jedi Survivor. I actually think I I'm gonna kind of admit I. I
know I'm not gonna admit I'd have to go back and listen to the episode.
I'm not going to, but I would have to. I know the
conversations I was happening with Polygon people. I think on fire Escape, I
talked about doing the Coruscant intro and then really just bouncing off the game feeling
like the same thing. I went back and granted they have updated the game
quite a lot, it's actually not like broken on PIECE. I'm not playing
on PC, but several people at work have told me it runs really well
in PC. It's still not perfect on PS five where I'm playing it.
Uh if I find that if I don't close the like close the game when
I'm done with it, as opposed to I almost every time I'm i'm turning
my PS five off, I put it in rest mode, but I keep
the game up. Yeah, Star Wars, I find that it starts to
have random pop in on the edge of the screen. Sometimes, like after
I uh press pause to unpause the game, the world will not be loaded
for a half second, even though cal is there the main character. But
I find that if anybody's ha problems like that, I have found that actually
closing the app before I reloaded, as long as you're at a meditation,
say point, has helped me for what it's worth. But man, for
a game that on paper I should not like, I'm really digging this game.
It's way bigger than I thought it is. And that's not that that's
in and of itself a good thing. Also, and I say this having
edited many stories about Jedi Survivor. For some reason, no one has really
sold it to me. Is as a just full fledged, several open world
three D platformer. Obviously, he had wall running, he had Uncharted esque
climbing and Assassin's Creed climbing in the first game. But holy shit, Respawn
goes all out with just dumb Arcadie platforming in this game that I did not
really see in Coruscant. You go to Cobo, I say I shouldn't like
it on paper, because I get pretty exhausted and borderline overwhelmed with that.
I think Naughty Dog tried coining the term open linear with Uncharted four. You
know those such lust legacy with those like mini open worlds. Gears of War
did that right, yours had like those two worlds or the chapters? Yeah,
yeah, I oddly enough, And the first world you go to after
Corroussant is fucking massive. It's the size of like Jack and Dexter the first
game by itself. I don't know that for a fact, but like it
feels huge. I am really enjoying how they make use of these big mini
open worlds. The platforming gets really fucking good, Like, yeah, sure,
it's a lot of uncharted like finding the ledge to jump on, but
they vary it so much. By the time you're like three hours in,
I'm like, okay, I could wall run that, but then how do
I keep wall running if I don't? Oh, I could just jump off
and then he is the Jedi flip so I can go back to the wall.
It's like, I might as well be fucking Spider Man in some of
these not flying or gliding. Yet they could add that in in this game
and I would not be surprised. I don't think they do. But my
point being like they're evolving the platforming so often alongside the combat and the lightsaber
stances you get. They call them stances, but they're really just new lightsabers.
Those all feel different. There's a fucking he holds a lightsaber in one
hand and a blaster in the other. That's a fun stance. Then you
get the crossguard, like the Kylo Ren thing. I also will be the
first to say I have fallen off Star Wars hard in this mcu ification of
Star Wars. Well, you said that Last Jedi went too woke for you,
So yeah, I like those movies. I went back. I did
not like Rise of Skywalker. No, that one sounds I liked Last yet
me too. I did not like it first time, then I went back.
I got over the publicly you say that, but yeah, yeah,
yeah, but I kind of like that Jedi surrivors doing so much of its
own story. Like sure, Saga Era gets mentioned a lot. There are
certain Jedi that get nod like. You don't need to know that to enjoy
what this game is doing. But it's just fucking like, can I give
you the synopsis of the plot that I it's not a spoiler, but I
just I didn't read the Wikipedia article enough, And again I edited our review.
I loved our review from our freelancer, Todd Harper. I loved a
lot of stories we put up about it. But again, if one of
you was speaking to me and trying to sell me on this game hypothetically,
I think you would know that, like, oh, it's in like a
really good three D platformer in a time when those are not those are few
and far between, I'd be like, oh cool. People always tell this
to me as these souls like Star Wars, I actually like how much they've
eased off the souls like stuff like, yes, you still respawn enemies when
you meditate. You're still spending skill points at these meditation points to like get
a new lightsaberability force ability, survival, like health increase, whatever. But
yeah, in terms of a three D platform or in which there are a
lot of collectibles, collectible might not even be the right word, because I
have I'm again I can't. The first planet I went to says I'm only
thirty six percent complete, and then the second one, Jetta the Desert Planet,
says I'm forty and all of those collectibles I'm getting are like increased life
stems like uh estesplasks. I'm getting new abilities from these, like the really
hard to reach meditation points that are like, oh, I really had to
think my way around this jungle gym of a three D platforming section. Those
are actually giving me cool new things, like oh, now I can mind
control giant animals to fight with me in certain fights. I'm it is just
so well paced, even which it's it strikes me as being even more difficult.
And it's more impressive to me that it's well paced considering the first world
you get to after Corroissant is the size of many video games. Like I
read something saying, hey, you'll probably enjoy the game more if you leave
that planet sooner rather than trying one hundred percent it, And I'm very much
a person that feels like I need one hundred percent that stuff. It's just
like it feels like they are Respawn had way more fun making this than they
did Fallen Order. Fallen Order felt too like serious and committed to the dark
souls bit. This is like Uncharted, and the plot itself is like Indiana
Jones. They found out about this mythical planet where they could potentially escape to
to get away from the Empire, and then it becomes a race, like
a quote unquote race you're not actually you could take your time in the game,
but like you know what I mean. Plot wise, it's a race
to reach this planet and you're finding like this one key that leads you to
what might as well be the Holy Grail, and that leads you to the
arc Atic Covenant. It's just like they lean way more into the uncharted in
space aspects than they did the Dark Souls like aspect. Like I'm not saying
you'll play it and you'll it'll be in your top ten, but I am
just like I'm hooked in a way that I think this game nails that God
of War Ragnarok, Last of Us Resonubal four, like third person action adventure
where you're going off the beaten path to get collectibles and upgrading your character pretty
consistently. Weirdly enough, the pacing here and the tone and the whole reason
I initially mentioned it, the way that they treat puzzles. If you take
like six or seven minutes in one spot, this option will come up this
thing say like do you want to hint from BEADI the droid on your back,
and it'll just be a quick thing. It's like hold left to basically
say fuck off, no, I'm gonna figure this out, or hold right,
and bed will be just be like he'll highlight something for you without telling
you that I appreciate because they're not talking down to me. It's not a
character annoy me. Bede can't fucking speak English or any human language for that
matter, because I think it's binary something more wise. But he's also cute
as hell. I will be the first to say, I just I'm getting
from this game what I wanted to get from Ragnarok in many ways. And
I know that's a weird comparison and may be unfair, but yeah, I
didn't bounce off this game back in May. I think I just either was
getting ready for Zelda or went back to Zelda. I'd have to look at
the timeline, but it wasn't that I just like super hated the intro section.
But once this game opens up, it is just if you find time
to maybe give it a few more hours and just see if you're like Dan,
I could especially see you liking the platforming because it just becomes platforming puzzles
left and right in these open worlds, and they're chalk full of them,
so like it's even on par with like you're finding collectibles consistently, like Mary,
not say you might not find some liking it, but like Dan,
you're platforming background. I feel like maybe that's the way to sell it to
you that no one has said, no, You've already sold me on it,
because I was just thinking about this whole time you were talking about it,
like why did I not really play that? And I think it's because
I played it on PC, and early on I think it was actually like
pre release, we were super fucking broken. I would just load it up
and it would just break the sound on my computer, and it's like,
okay, well I got to restart my computer, and I said, like
maybe I'll get back to this, you know, when they fixed it.
And then like a couple months later I thought about it and I was like,
ah, I was able to play kind of some of that very very
early stuff, and like this just seems like, you know, kind of
boilerplate, you know, Big Triple, a expensive game thing, and I
never really thought about it again. But now that you're like got a powerful
computer, I just beat Alan Wake, which was the last one where I
was like, I got to make sure I get this done before Game of
the Year talks. So now it's like, I don't really have an obvious
thing I'm jumping to. I might as well try to get some time in
that. I actually just looked up while we were talking if it runs well
on Steam deck, because I got the plate to LA and back. But
it seems like it's not quite there yet. So I think they just released
the patch to make it run well on PC like a few weeks ago or
in like October or something. So my plan is I will try to place
some of that at least at least a few hours a bit between now and
Game of the Year on my home PC. You will also, quick aside,
be happy to hear that I think I want to download Shadow gambit for
the flight. Yeah to l acause come up a few times. I think
I was hearing Tam talk about it today. Yeah, did Tam finally play
it? I want to to texted him before my wedding be like did you
play Shadow game yet? Because I need to talk to about it because TAM's
like the biggest dishonored geek ever, and this is just isometric dishonored with different
team members with Supernatural. Yeah, I think it was Hamley, and I
made a note to be like, all right, well ship, now that
I'm going to be done with Alan way becaus probably like whatever I can to
get some other stuff in before Game of the Year and then yeah, Stea
but no Steam Deck. People have said it's great on Steam Deck. I
haven't. I've just been playing my PC. But I would imagine like any
tactical action game would be great on there. But that's all to say.
Back to the Star Wars I I will download that after this podcast tonight,
downloaded overnight and here and there if I can find an hour or two,
I will try to play them, just so I can at least speak to
it, because I know it's tough when it's like, you know, when
you're you're feeling strong about a game and folks haven't really played a lot of
it, like like Mary for example. So let's say I just talked about
you know, Mike talked about a shadow game bit in Star Wars, and
I would like to get some time in that. Is there a game for
you that you feel like that you want to really go for a Game of
the Year that maybe we haven't played that much that we could download and get
ready. That's a really good question. I would probably want to like load
up our goaty categories and make sure we're all on the same page. I
think that the things that, without getting too spoilery in Game of the Year,
I feel like most of the things that I feel really strongly about I've
asked you to play, and so if you were if you did not play
them, there's a good reason, and I shouldn't push it anymore. I
should tell you which one is, just like you know, the ones that
would be like high like on your top five is. You don't have to
give order or anything, obviously, but I just want to make sure that
we played them. Yeah, there's definitely some indies, so you know,
I'm gonna I'm gonna be advocating hard for Cocoon, Dredge, Dave the Diver.
Probably. I'm trying to think of like other really strong ones where I
will like go out of my way to be like, you guys should be
playing this, but you played all of those you just mentioned. I'm like,
I love that, I love that. I love Yeah, yeah,
say trying to think of, Like there's anything else that I'll like be really
intense about like I was, I had like a Sea of Star's moment,
and then I think, I like, Uh, I don't know if I
feel as strongly after like getting further in it. I still really encourage people
to play it, uh if they really like that style of game. But
it's a huge time commitment like some of these games. It's like, I'm
not asking anyone to be a fifty hour, seventy hours our game in two
weeks before we had to go see each other. Well, yeah, I
wouldn't. I wouldn't ask you to like beat a game, but I definitely
at least like give you the chance to have AMMO against me or with me.
Well, I think let me, let me let me throw one out,
great example, Dan, you should be more prepared to talk about Balder's
Gate chance. I tried it again when it came out. I try,
Yeah, that has I don't want to like spoil too much of our game
of their conversation. I'm sure that you've got big balders Gate three fans that
are gonna be sitting in that room with you and I. Honestly, I
think I don't want to speak for him. Jake might be the biggest of
US three. I can't look. Did Jake go to Belgium? I don't
think so. So you shot your documentary or whatever you did, that was
jan right. I'm not gonna argue. I'm never gonna say there's anything wrong
with Balder's Gate. That's that's a work one thing. That's fine. I
wouldn't expect you to like that's also like I honestly you would probably yeah that
It's just I think we're getting into Gody territory. But I asked me a
question, and my answer is is you should play Balderskate three. And that's
all I'm gonna say about it. Can I beat it in if I have
like four three hours? And the okay you asked that's my answer. How
you deal with that answer is your people feel about it, and they like
it a lot. Have you guys done the thing yet when we're not recording.
Maybe when recording, when you're kind of like going through and trying to
figure out who each which, what each person on fire Escape staffs? Number
one is I've thought not as much, number one, but like I'll look
at the big games and I'll be like, oh, I think that's actually
going to do really well with the three of us. Or I'll look at
a game and be like, yeah, the two of us love this game,
and I think the third is not super hot on it. Like I
I've thought of it that way, I've I've like just done it. I
was talking I think I was talking to the other day because I was talking
about Polygons, which as of this episode, well if you're listening, the
polygons will be up on the the fifth Tuesday. I was just thinking about
ours, and I was telling Amanda my I it's a I officially gave Amanda
my guesses for each per each of your number ones. Okay, if we
don't even make a facial reaction, can you get can you give us your
guesses for each of us? Mary, we had a stone face. Don't
sell it honestly. Oh shit, mhm, Dan, I think you'll be
Tears of the Kingdom. Jake is tough because I know he really likes Allen
Wake two, but I think I would still go Balder's Gay three with Jake.
Mary, You're tough. I think squirrel shit candy Shop done. Do
you have to explain that? No, just keep talking about it. You
love it, he keeps, he keeps editing, So all right, now
we have to do this. Every time we do this show, we write
the games that we want to talk about down so I'll get it's our run
of show. And Dan keeps updating the games under me to games that I
didn't play. Last last games episode you put fart smelling simulator that act that
was not me four and then this one you put Frog with a lisp.
It's see I Poopsie the game and squirrel Ship Candy Shop that is. Those
aren't even They're great. They're bursting out of the Portland indie game scene.
All three play scrolls. They're big on whatever. It's not I out loud.
I've said it before in my youth. Mary, you're I from I
would also that's you. Mary. You're between I think Balder's Gate and Zelda.
None of this is gonna like if I guess right, you're not gonna
like move it to spite me, right. We discussed having and I yeah,
no, we're not gonna Zelda. I think there was a I think
I told Amana initially maybe like Dredge, because you really fucking like Dredge and
that's high up my list, and like I could see that being a very
merry ass number one in a good way. But I still think you'd either
go Balder's Gate or Zelda, and I would probably say you're Balder's Gate.
So we'll see. I will say this is going into it. I think
this is easily the most exciting game of the year, like that specific category,
like the number one thing that we've ever had because Haities we didn't even
talk about because we all knew elden Ring. I mean, come on,
it was gonna be olden Ring. I was going to push for Vampire Survivors,
but yeah, Returnal was what else was that year that That took a
bit of convincing, But like I think we all that was when we really
started to realize that where our tastes coalesce are like Action robelike aside from Vampire
Survivors, but that was so out of the will. We all liked that
game, but I think it was more elden Ring. Yeah, Returnal,
I think took a bit to get there. Looking at other ones that year
were uh Ari Village, Inscription, metrod Grig. The year before that,
oh that was launch year, so that would be Yeah, yeah, that
was the Playroom one. Yeah, that was Halo Infinite hit Me three,
Wilder Myth, Chickory and Death. That was when I was just banging the
Wilder Myth drum. Oh yeah, it could be a lot of different things.
Well, I feel like there's like three it could realistically be for us
and during since see where that goes. I think those three games will show
up on a lot of sites like top fives as well, if not their
top three. But like I will say, and I've talked to people at
work about this, this is okay. Yes, elder Ring last year was
absolutely incredible, Like in terms of like the Triple A game, especially the
shit they did that with that is incredible. However, in terms of the
number of games this year, where like Triple A, big budget studios did
something cool, fucking Nintendo made like the most revered series ever into an open
world immersive sim with like cheat codes built into it, Balder's Gate three,
Larry and just made the most in depth also just like wide RPG CRPG.
Ever, this old genre that like by all accounts, probably should not have
made nearly as much money, got as much popularity as it should, even
like say what you will about, like how how much you would gravitate towards
Spider Man two. I still think it's impressing what they did with two playable
characters and swapping between the Alla GTA five, what Gotham Knights was trying to
do sort of. There's a few other examples of stand and then Allen Wake
two, just a sequel that could not have been weirder. And again,
the more budget that Remedy gets, they're still maintaining that weird, like underground
feel to their games, which I love. Like this game, despite or
this year, despite a lot of I don't want to like. It's been
a rough period for games industry lately with layoffs and stuff that is that sucks
the way that they're rebounding after you know, over promising after COVID and whatnot.
But I will say design wise, I think a lot. It's like
heartening to see so many big Triple A, like these household names trying these
cool, bold things, which is Yeah. I'm also very excited for the
show this year. It should be very interesting. I'm looking at I think
I've got my top ten kind of locked in unless things kind of ship for
the next couple of weeks, but may shock you that five of them are
first party Nintendo so shocked. Yeah, I'm rooting for the little guy,
you know. Yeah yeah, Wait, Mike trying to I've got he's he's
doing his I know it always got. What are the three you got?
I'm not going to confirm or deny. Here's the Kingdom, super marboroughs wonder
Pickman fourick. Honestly, I wouldn't be Pickman four. I would not be
surprised, Like if you came to the show with that at your number one,
I would actually not be that surprised. It's up there. I would
be. I would be slightly surprised, but I would I would be like,
all right, sure, let's do it. Let's argue about it,
not let's put it at number one. The fuck else? There's two more.
First, what about my mind? Talk about soon on this show here
on fire Escape on this episode of fire Escape. Yes, oh like the
next game I talk about? Uh oh gotcha Super Mario RPG. Yes,
right, okay? And then what's the fifth one of my forgetting game where
you shake a bunch to shoot out an egg Warrio? Yeah that's your top
time? Did you like that? I love war so much, but we
you didn't talk about it at all on fire Escape. Oh shit, I
should add that. Wait, yeah, am I imagining things? Did I?
I don't think he talked about it. This is move It, right,
you know what? I probably didn't. I don't talking about it.
You talked about Warrior ware, but only this new one though, Move Move
It. I think he when did it come out? Like three weeks ago
ago? It's like you're doing pos and stuff. No, you never talked.
It's real good. I guess I haven't talked. I'm not surprised you
liked it. I was just like, yeah, you haven't talked about move
It. Was there another warrior this year? Yeah? Like three? Well
wireware, Well there was Get It Together on Switch which was not great,
but Move It came out a few weeks ago, and that one is top
three for sure. There's also one like what two years ago? Yeah,
that was get It Together, and that one was not I mean it was.
It made me laugh a few times, but it's not. You're you're
controlling the one character going around doing stuff and that wasn't really the best way
to do it. But now Move It. You have not talked about Oh
okay, i'll briefly, yeah, completarly why they're not on the podcast.
No, you know what, you know what I think it was. I
did like a two hour upf stream on Giant Bomb where I played it for
the first time and I played through the entire game in one stream for the
first time, and I loved it, and then I didn't talk about it
off that stream. It's great. And when Kayla was here, my sister
was here a couple of weeks ago, and we played a bunch of the
co op stuff, and like there's a bunch of weird multiplayer modes and stuff
that I really love and really clever things for like one person can't look at
the screen and one person can see what the minigame is and you're trying to
like kind of give signals to the other person who can't see the screen what
they have to do and they're holding the joy Cons. There's like many like
party game modes with like even more bullshit stuff than Mario Party. Uh,
it's all the good stuff of like Warrior wor smooth moves where you're doing like
very ridiculous physical things in everything. It's just great, great party game stuff.
God, yeah, I guess I. I have not talked about it
yet, but I played through it all in that one stream. I did
one session with Kayla where we did a bunch of the co op stuff,
which is really good. I haven't played much past that, but everything I
play it is like totally the spirit of Warrior wor that I love. Okay,
I got maybe i'll play something if we have time Minneapolis, because that's
gonna be a hard one to shove in. Oh, I don't know if
we're Oh yeah, as far as like playing it per game there, I
mean, I'm not going to stumping for that game. No, no,
no, I just yeah. I just meant you're going to be fighting for
it, and I need to be prepared. No, I'm a big mark
for WORRI. You're good. But okay, So did you beat Super Mario
RPG? Yes? So I just got back from Kansas for Thanksgiving, and
I you know, I've been mainly playing, like David Diver has been my
playing game and it's great. But that's actually like a pretty fucking long game.
And well then you'd think, I know, expanding too, Like every
time they're like, hey, you can make rice, So I'm like,
why I didn't know this. Yeah, now I'm like breeding fish. Like
there's just so much going on here, so much going on. So that's
the thing is like I was, I was flying the Kansas, and I
was like, Okay, well I could do you know, Dave the Diver
while I'm there. But then I was like, well, I played like
fifteen hours that I have a real good idea of what Dave the Diver is.
I feel I could be better served at least putting like an hour into
Mario RPG and just seeing like, oh, how's the update, you know,
how does it looked? Is they add anything gameplay wise or anything?
Because I don't have a super strong that. I never played Mario RPG back
in the day because I had RBG in the title and I didn't play RPGs.
The only time I'd ever played the original was when I did my Mario
a Guinness Record thing and I was like, oh, what a great excuse
to like play through this entire Mario game I've never played before. And I
did did it once and once fell Swoop don't really remember anything. I was
like, all right, fuck it, let's try it. I thought I'd
play an hour so I could speak to it, But god damn if I
didn't like get charmed by that game and love it. And during that trip
home, I was only home for like four days, and when I just
needed some fucking time away from the family or just sitting in a bed or
something, or obviously the playing stuff and everything, I played the whole game
pretty much like handheld Mode. I absolutely loved it. It's so goddamn charming.
I think the thing is it is the exact right amount of storytelling and
talking in an RPG, because every fucking Final Fantasy I've tried to play,
it's like, here's five hours of learning about some fucking kingdom I don't care
about and a bunch of dorks, and I just don't I don't care.
Here. It's like I know Mario, I know Bowser. Okay, here's
an evil sword. Great. You go into a town, they run the
end, they're mad that this person took over the town or whatever. Okay,
great, let's go jump on them and do some like fun timing based
RBG battles. And I fucking never got annoyed by the combat. I always
like the new abilities you unlocked. There's so much charm and humor to it.
Visually, it looks fantastic, looks looks really really great, great handheld
game for the Switch. God damn you can. You can turn on the
old music, so if you like that, that was a nice bonus.
But it's like eleven hours long. It's not talking at all for an RPG,
and it just keeps things moving. You're constantly getting new stuff, meeting
new people for the party, going to a new fun area, and it's
I feel like there's a reason the Mario RPGs, whether it's paper Mario,
Mario and Luigi or this, have been the only like turn based RPGs I've
really really gravitated towards and this is just a good, breezy, fun eleven
hours or so. It's on my list. I loved it. I loved
it, loved it, loved yep. I was very big on it.
So that'll be ah, it'll be a kind of mid list for me.
I bet, Mary, are these real games? Or did Dan write these?
I wrote some small guess which ones are real? Well? I squirrel
shit, candy shop, frog with a lisp, and Oopsie POOPSI are all
definitely not real. Karma Zoo what is Karma Zoo? Okay? So I'm
just going to burn through these because I played them not for very long.
I had friends over for friends Giving and I needed some couch co op games.
There's another one that didn't come out this year, but we ended up
playing Overcooked because it's just such a classic four person couch co op. But
the ones that came out this year that I wanted to touch on were Karma
Zoo, which is a game where four people can play different well actually lots
of people. I played with ten people before, and you each can play
a different animal, and each animal has a different benefit to them. So,
for example, the wolf howls really loudly, or an elephant can crash
through things. There's a light that has a light shocking, and each of
those different benefits can help you get through an obstacle. Course that's like mostly
platforming. It's kind of a cute game that really encourages selflessness and helping each
other out. Because of this, it's actually not very funny, and we
moved on kind of quick. Even though I think it's a good game,
I'd like to try and do my best to sell it, and the fact
that I think it's a cool concept. So you're getting through these platforming together.
Maybe maybe Dan, your character has a triple jump, so you can
jump higher than me. But because I sing, I can help move a
puzzle forward and you couldn't, and we have to work together in order to
get through. There's a bubble effect, and the bubble around me if I'm
alone, will actually shrink and all die. So we have to be in
the same vicinity together so that there's at least two people in our large bubble
to keep us alive, and then we just try and get through puzzles together.
Another good example of the selflessness is when you die. If you die
on spikes, it creates a like a banister for me to jump on,
so it actually might the game encourages you to die so that I can be
safer when I get through, and you'll just re spawn so it can player
like it seems like the Role Crux is multi I don't think you can play
it alone. There is online multiplayer, and so if you're alone, it
pairs you with people on the internet and they can talk to you with kind
of like emoji based you know, like they'll use fingers to be like go
forward or go backwards. You can give each other karma if you feel like
they did a good job. Everyone seems like they work together. There's no
aggression in this game. It's very pure and sweet, and so I think
it's a really nice game if you want something smooth and easy and makes you
feel good about society. Now, if you're like us, we were like,
but how do we yell each other and be like total bastards, That's
actually not the game for you. We ended up switching to Mario wonder four
couch co op. That game is like exactly what you want if you want
four people who are like laughing and being silly, that game is absolutely ridiculous.
It's super great to play on a couch together with four people. Being
an elephant is hilarious. And when you get the Star, I was amazed
that some of these these things that when you get them, it converts the
level. It really does not work well for four people playing together on all
the wonder Stone. I'm telling you, there are level designs where I was
like, there's no way you expected us to do this as four people.
Is it the stuff where it's like, oh, here's like a bunch of
like you know, elephints, or it was like the Rhinos or hippos or
something. They're all the stampede level. That one's extremely difficult. Also,
when you die and there's four people all you lose four lives, that's brutal.
It's brutal. We were burning through lives as four people because it's so
easy for someone to die. Another good example is one of those fruits.
When you get them, you jump really high like you skyrocket, But because
the camera only follows one person, if I jump in the other three,
don't they all die? And oh wow, you can easily like kill each
other. But is it fun. Absolutely, and it's a joy to play.
But there are certain levels that were just really rude to for people trying
to stay in the same area together. And it's weird that it would be
harder locally than like cause like that stuff. When you play online, it's
just like ghosts and they're just in a different part of the level. But
if you're playing locally, it's just like, okay, that's you're almost at
a detriment. He who has the crown have the power in Mario Wonder that
was insane how much we were fighting over who gets the crown, because if
you don't have the crown, you could just easily die if you're not in
the same area. Very fun though, so we ended up playing that,
and then the very final game of the night, we just ended up playing
Overcooked because it's like such a fun couch co op game. I mean,
it's like one of the best couch co op games that's ever been made.
We had a really good time with those games, so I just wanted to
mention those. That was Karma Zoo and Mario Wonder. And then in my
free time last week I played a cute little game called Spirit Tea. This
game is absolutely adorable. The pitch for this game is it is Stardew Valley,
but you are making a bath house for the spirits for dead people.
You have to make sure the bath water is warm by stoking the fire.
You have to clean the towels and steam them and fold them and put them
away, and then the ghosts get their towel and you put them in the
bath together. The interesting thing is that ghosts are like I don't know,
they're like batter They hate each other, and certain ghosts don't like being next
to other spirits. You have to make sure that you don't put spirits that
dislike each other next to each other, or they have a bad experience,
you don't make as much money. Spirit. Yes, yes, you have
to put the right people next to each other. They explain it early on
that which ghosts don't like each other. And you're meeting new ghosts throughout the
town and they're kind of it's interesting, like you'll meet someone and they'll be
like, my boat, somebody keeps spray painting my boat. I don't know
why this happens. I cleaned it at four thirty yesterday, but then I
came back and it was, you know, it was all ruined again.
It's like, all right, here's a fucking ghost there. So if you
go back to the boat at five pm and you change your view, you
can change your view into ghost mode, you'll see a ghost and if you
catch him, then he'll go to your bath house for the rest of the
game. So you're making money with your bath house and you're spending it upgrading
your bath house or upgrading your life. And that's how becomes kind of stardewey
because you're running around the town, maybe like buying gifts or befriending the townspeople,
which is a very stardeu esque thing to do. Or buying stuff to
up, you know, to make your house look nice. It's wholesome as
heck. It's super cute, and I loved the loop of having a bath
house. That was addictive. The one negative I will say about this game
that really, I really did not like this. The entire first hour of
this game is a tutorial no bath house, and I'm not kidding you.
I don't know who thought this up and thought it was a good idea.
The first thing you do when you get to this town is before you can
enjoy anything. It's like, meet every character in town, and then it's
twenty seven people. I have to say hello to twenty seven characters before the
game will progress. It was awesome. I don't know why they thought that.
I hope they update it. It was such a bad decision because it's
a bad first impression. It's a terrible first impression. I would have quit,
but I was streaming it and I had at that point, I had
already like started playing it, and it was like, now I just need
to commit and get through it. But I couldn't believe it was spoiling local,
you know, exciting. It is the first time you like go north
and Stardo and you're like, oh my god, there's like a shop up
here, and there's like, oh my gosh, there's a guy with that.
There's like a houseless guy up here and he lives in a tent,
but he's really nice. Like there's all these cool stuff you get to discover.
Oh, there's a beach with like a super hotty down here and a
bunch of shells. It's all ruined in the first ten minutes of this game
because they're like, you have to find twenty seven people here, go get
them. Ugh, Mary, you should never, in case you were considering
it, you should never work in pro wrestling because the first thing you're supposed
to do when you enter the venue every fucking time is you have to shake
everyone's hand, And so you have to go around every bucking wrestler, every
crew person, everybody there. You gotta go, hey, how's it going.
Just handshake, handshake, handshake, and you'll be like you could be
blackball, depending on you know who you're there with if you don't shake their
hands. So basically twenty seventh on the low end of a wrestling locker room.
Yeah, I hated that part of this game, and I hope they
fix it. I hope they update it, because it's a stupid It's a
stupid intro, and it kind of like I would have quit, I think,
generally, but I kept going. And I will say that the spirit
tea bath house loop is really fun. It's fun being like, oh no,
I'm out of towels, you know, like you're like putting all these
people in the bath and you run out of towels. You got to stoke
the fire. And you're making all this money to get more bath houses,
which means more ghosts. And some of the ghosts are huge. They like
take up four spots, so you're like, how am I gonna slot this
ghost in? He's too big. It's very cute. That aspect is great
terrible beginning for a game. So it's like an hour at the beginning.
I would say my first hour, I was like I was pushing to get
through it, but I was in the bath house by a hour two and
loved it. So take that what you will. I won't probably talk about
it again, but I think if someone is there's probably many of us out
there that are like always looking to scratch the stardew itch. I think this
has the potential to do that. So if you or someone you know was
like addicted to Stardo and wants that next experience, this had those moments for
me, and I really liked it. I am like I was so obsessed
with Stardoo and that was like the end of the year, and like it's
honestly like probably one of my top fifty games full time. But just knowing
that, like that guy's working on that, like Willy Walker game or whatever,
like I'll just like chocolate, chocolate ear, that's the one. Yes,
I'm gonna wait is that? Does that have a release date? No?
No, Okay, it's just like it's so rare. I've done like
a farming game or something like that, and so it's like, I know
it's such a hot thing now ever since Stardo, but like if they're like,
eh, the started guys making one, it's probably wait for that one.
Still. Like it's one of those games where like flying to Minneapolis,
for example, like I would I will get more use out of the flight
if I'm playing something that you guys recommend, I'd like Armored Corps is something
that's on my list I gotta play more of. But in my heart of
hearts, I would just rather spend the four hours playing Like Stardo, Pickman
was such a tremendous plane game, and I would say Dave the Diver is
also a really good playing game. It's it's just got a nice loop,
like uh if you're basically like, oh my god, yeah, the idea
of like getting fish and then making sushi as a day cycle amazing loop.
Like I'm a big fan of good loops. This didn't come out this year,
but Grindstone is one of my favorite playing games of all time. It's
just such a nice loop and you never have to like stress that your plane
is landing. It's like whatever, It's just a loop, like you can
get through it in five or ten minutes and then move on. So I'm
a big looper anyway. I don't think this will scratch your itch, and
I'll tell you why. I think my fear is that if you compare it
too much to Stardo, you will recognize all the ways that this game doesn't
kind of live up to the same expectations of Stardo had such intricate world building,
and it was really delicate with the way that it fed you pieces of
the story that made it really interesting. This game has rougher edges. This
is definitely a smaller team spirit tea. You can like feel the game design
in it. Fact when it wasn't it smaller team. But that guy was
a freak of nature. This guy like made a perfect game. I don't
believe that this is like a normal person. Is it shorter than the starter
guy? Yeah, smaller, smaller team. It's a smaller team. You're
not wrong. It just you know, condensed these people. This is also
a small time team. But I guess you can you can see the edges
of this game. You would tell what they were trying to do. It
doesn't always carry itself in the same way, but I will say, uh,
who I think this is good for is like someone who's like, I'm
looking for a wholesome, cute experience. I love start and I like I'm
willing to get through some of those rough edges. That is like who this
person is for. It's probably like a person who likes indie games and understands
that if they come across like a weird dialogue option, they're like, all
right, that person's still working through the audio of this game, if that
makes sense, Like I I am very forgiving with games when I think that
they have an issue generally speaking, because I'm always like, oh, they're
working on it, or that wasn't fully fleshed out when they gave it to
me. I look past a lot of issues like that to enjoy, like
the concept of a game. It's just that meeting twenty seven characters before you
get to the main point of the game was hard to get by. That's
a lot so annoying. And then you have a dog, and they're like,
if you can't find the characters, just ask your dog, and so
then your dog goes there and runs in the direction of the character, and
so then you follow the dog to meet every the last five people. I
was like, dog, just tell me where to fucking go. Just tell
me where to go. I don't care. It's probably I feel like I'm
not selling it, he said. Stardom started, Who's awesome. It is
awesome, and I've enjoyed the loop. So anyway, I think that's it.
I think those were all the games. All right, you guys,
I do emails, sure, all right? As usually you can write into
Firescape Past at gmail dot com questions comments, it earns thoughts, et cetera.
That's Firescape Past. At gmail dot com the questions that we potentually read
on the show. In this third section we do every episode, all right,
First one Darien from Toronto, who has written in several times. Uh,
Mary, do you want to read this one? Yes, dear firestarters.
Earlier this year, I had a four hour layover in Minneapolis, something
I typically loathe. I'm the type of guy who will spend a few bucks
extra just to fly direct. I am the same. Yes, a break
from this email, I'll absolutely go out of my way to fly direct.
I hate layovers, but this time, for the first time in my life,
I had a grand old time. My airport gate was easy to navigate
and surprisingly pleasant. I bought some small Chinese food for lunch, sat in
a company harbors hair, sat in a comfy armchair, watching videos on my
laptop, and had a local beer and a strawberry shortcake before an entirely painless
boarding. Have you had a good experience somewhere where you shouldn't You usually wouldn't,
cheers Darien from Toronto. Well that's Darien enjoying MSP Airport. It's a
fantastic airport right here in Minnesota. Mike, you've been there, Mary,
have you been to MSP I not intentionally. It's a real good airport.
I think it might be my favorite one. Yeah, it's good place that's
been a layover like Minneapolis, trying to think. I mean, I think
now Kansas City, if you've ever flown there, had the shittiest airport ever.
It was the most like seventies thing. It was like three terminals that
were all super tiny and shitty and there's nothing to do once you went to
the past security. But they built a brand new terminal and I was just
there going home for Thanksgiving for the first time, and it is it's like
a real city's airport. Now it's nice. There's like stuff there. There's
nice barbecue restaurants and everything. So like, yeah, MCI or kCi really
up its game there. I want to see Denvers Dens. They've got all
that weird haunting shit. I want to see. It's a good layover airport
that used to be my like layover whenever I went to the West coast back
at Game Informer, and like, it's it's solid. It's a good one.
It's big. If you're really far from your gate, it'll take a
long time to walk. But it's it's pretty good. Portland has consistently gets
one of the best airports in America every year. I remember it, it's
very like log cabiny on the way way out, at least through the terminal,
I went out like oddly enough as like I think it was carpeted with
like with like a log cabin looking gift shop. It was very like it
felt like we were in Portland immediately. Yeah, it's got it's kind of
boasts that it's got food carts, It's got things that are very Portland in
it. It's got uh, live music. It always has a live musician
playing something really really nice and comfortable. The carpet is really interesting because I
think it has uh, it has something really interesting about the carpet. I
think it's it was designed by architects and for most people. And yeah,
it's like showing the actual like, uh, what do you call it?
Like the layout of the airport is in the carpet. You know, there's
a ninety nine percent invisible episode the podcast, I like about how airport floors
are often designed to guide you without you really knowing it, like the patterns
on the floors and whatnot. It's paint yellow everywhere. It's just arrows saying
go here, fuck face. I think it's like stuff like that in terms
of other places I would not expect to have fun that I have had fun.
I don't know, Like my answer is actually like directly compared to his
heroes. In an airport And it was like three weeks ago. I went
to Canada to do commentary at People Who Knows show and on the way back,
my hotel was right next to the airport, so there wasn't really anything
to like sightsee or anything right around there, and I had to check out
at eleven and my flight wasn't until like seven pm, and I was like,
holy shit, I'm just been eight hours in a fucking airport in Canada.
And but it was just days after Mario Wender came out and the only
time I'd gotten to play it was just the flight out there. So it's
like, okay, it's great. I had my credit. It has like
access to those lounges like the oh you can, you know, open bar
lounges and stuff, and they had a great one there, so I had
this whole open bar to myself for eight hours with a fucking Mario game.
That just came out. I just set my oleed down on the thing.
I brought my Super Nintendo controller and I'm just drinking open bar wine and whiskey
and stuff for seven hours playing this New Mario game. Like my whole time
with it was like sitting in the Ottawa airport at this lounge and I was
like, well, this is this is great, Like I don't even want
to stand. Yeah, that sounds a good, good, good layover.
I've like it's a good flight. Yeah, I've done the similar thing with
uh this this is minor and it's very cliche. But when I was flying
to London, I had a layover in Dublin and I still have not visited
Ireland yet aside from this one layover. And I was at Dublin airport and
I was like, all right, I promised my grandpa at some point I'll
get a proper Guinness board a lot of places in New York for them,
well, and in San Francisco too, but I was like, all right,
I'll get a Guinness at this Guinness itself had a bar at the airport.
So I sat down at the bar and it had like this view of
just a green field outside, very Dublin, and it was one of the
most serene moments in my life because I had like a perfect time. It
wasn't so long that I would be killing time by like having four drinks or
something or being tempted to work at the bar. It was like two hours,
so it was perfect. And I was already at my gate and the
Guinness bar was right near it, so I sat there. It was a
relative from what I understand from I told people, it was a quiet day
at Dublin Airport. It was right before a week in London and then games
calm. When I was at GameSpot, it was a very nice, like
calm before the storm, and I remember I have very fond memories of that
Guinness. I got a layover in Detroit, and Detroit is a beautiful airport
actually, and I remember it was one of my very first flights as a
professional, you know, like my very first was when I lived in Ohio
and getting a flight from Ohio to Detroit, from Detroit to San Francisco,
which was really scary for me to have that type. I have never been
to San Francisco before, and Detroit was really calming. It has a really
nice walkway breezeway in between the gates, and I remember it just being like
a really cathartic experience. And you know, people crack on Detroit a lot.
Their airports O beautiful and it's such a good hub for traveling to and
from the Midwest. So a big fan of the Detroit Airport. It's funny
we all ended up talking about airport stories. If you didn't have I think
it's just like you're not supposed to enjoy airports, but or like no,
sorry, but like they try so hard to get you to enjoy them that
like sometimes it actually works. It's like once I'm there, we talked about
sport. Once I'm there and I'm settled, I'm fine. I can kill
time with the best of them. Once you checked in, you're through security.
Yeah, you find a good place to post up for a little bit.
I still hate flying, like the smell of airplanes that like I don't
know what it is, the vents, the vents. I'm used to it
by now. I was way more used to it back when I was traveling
much more for work. But like once I'm on the plane, I'm like,
all right, let's you know, open day, the diver or whatever,
but airports, I'm there's nothing else to do but like relax when you're
when everything else is done. So like I've kind of embraced it and enjoy
them now. Airports are my favorite place to relax and wonder if I'm going
to have a panic attack on a five hour flight. That's for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I always like to have a couple of drinks
before I get on a flight, just to try and prep myself, especially
doing the Japan trips or anything where you're on a flight for like over ten
hours or you're sleeping, just to prepare yourself mentally to be in a tube
for that long. Yeah. Last week, Dan texted me last week being
like, I'm raw dogging it right now. I did have that realization this
year where it's like I've flown more this year than I think any year ever.
And it was that Belgium trip where I was like, god damn,
there was a long flight out there and a long flight back and I drank
like the whole time and before on both those and it just wrecked me.
And it's like, if I'm going to travel this much, I can't just
make that the default every fucking time I fly, So that raw dog and
has been my new thing for a lot of flights, especially going out to
a place, because like I don't want to go out to the Game Awards
and have a hangover my first day. You know, it's like the whole
thing's fucking done. I got a night flight or whatever coming back whatever,
that's one thing, but like I just can't do that every fucking flight,
and there's no way. Yeah. Actually, oddly enough, maybe if they're
the trend is travel, I actually because I had procrastinated so much two Christmases
coming back from New York. I think it was because I was still like
transitioning from GameSpot to Quibi. No, that would have been COVID year.
For whatever reason, two Christmases, I rode a bus from New York City
to Syracuse, which if you've ever done that trip, you know it's not
that short, despite their both in New York State. It's like a it
can be like a I usually do the drive in like three forty five four
hours. A bus that was like five and a half hours. And buses
get a bad rap for good reason because they're uncomfortable. Both of these were
like not overnight but late night buses. The first one was miserable. They
drove us into Jersey and we had to transfer to another bus in a random
like empty lot, not a parking lot, like an empty lot in the
meadowlands between swamps. It was the weirdest thing, and everybody on that bus
sucked. The people next to me were either snoring or talking way too loudly
at eleven PM. The next time, however, I made the same mistake
of waiting too long to get back, like by transportation back to Syracuse,
because I didn't learn anything. I did the same thing, and I actually
like was just sitting around cool people. We ended up I forget what were
we doing. I end up playing like pitch. Like someone had a deck
of playing cards and they're like, oh, we're like and some people are
busting out like beers and stuff that they had brought, like it was they
were going home for Christmas to Syracuse. Some of them were stopping in like
Albany or whatever. But we bust out beers. We just played cards like
the whole way back. There these cool people who like we we you know,
we all did the thing. We're like, let's stay in touch,
it'll be fun. We never did, but like it was a fun like
it was a nice It wasn't. It was a late night bus ride.
No, the bus was not comfortable. They never are, but at least
I was with cool people, which I'd take any day over a comfortable seat.
My fucking bus experience was from Minneapolis to Kansas City like fifteen years ago,
and we stopped by No, it's like no, no, no,
it's like a well it's six and a half by car. It's you know,
like ten twelve by bus was stopped. Yes, we stopped. We
stopped at a prison and picked up some people who had just been let out
of prison. And one of them sat right next to me this fight and
they're being many open seats on the bus. He just wanted to talk to
people, and uh, I would have been cool with that if he was
cool, but no. The first thing he did was as I had my
headphones on and was playing one of the like PSP Gotta Wars had just come
out, and he was like, hey, hey, bro, my buddy,
you know he made he made those got of war games, and like
do you know he's selling the next one to Xbox And like I'm working for
game Inform, where it's just like I'm I don't want to be the like
actually but like cool, cool, curious time dude. Yeah. I was
in the clink for four years, just shifting people. Yeah, so dude
trying to convince me got a Wars come to Xbox. And then we stop
at a college town in Iowa, and he was really adamantly trying to get
me to get off the bus and the be like come on, man,
come on, we get out tonight. Bars aren't closed. We'll get us
some college strange and IM like, oh god, that's a phrase no cool
person has ever seen. No, no, no, no, absolutely.
Granted, before you went into the specifics, I'm like, well, yeah,
sure someone's not going to be normally socially adjusted after spending time in prison.
But right this was it was like, yeah, okay, they were
cool. I would totally talk about like it was your time, Like I
don't know anybody. They'll get out of prison and be like, hey,
man, you ever ever think about like the Newton's their law of the physics.
It's crazy, right, I think about war in college strange? Yeah
goddamn I hate that. Yeah, good with uh ex convicts. I was
with a bunch of cool people who I never talked to again, but I
had a fun night with I remember my first uh my first flight back from
E three two thousand and six. I was sitting next to Ivy's voice actor
from Soul Caliber and ever we're thinking like that was my first E three and
I was like, oh wow, rubbing shoulders with like gaming people, and
then it's like I was sitting next like, oh I got Soul Caliber is
one of my paper games. The voice actress. That's awesome. So Ivy,
that was a good one. Ivy, she sticks out memory? Is
Ivy? Am I confusing her of someone? No, there's nothing sexualized about
Ivy. No, I don't see why that would have stuck out in your
memory. Oh he's googling it. Whoa, Okay, yeah it was oh
right, yeah the boom physics whi Yeah, okay, anyway, save that
page for later. Oh my god, I'm just joke it one of my
role playing ideas watching me save it joking. But yeah, I feel like
sometimes travel is the absolute worst thing, but other times, for some reason,
it goes smoothly and it's fun. Then Italy, when I was this
summer because of my work trip, I was supposed to leave and I had
prepared myself mentally, like we were talking about, for my flight, and
as I was getting ready to get into my Uber to get to the airport,
I googled the flight, which I do just to make sure it's on
time because sometimes the apps aren't is up to date. And not only was
it canceled, but the airport was shut down due to the entire airport,
basically like not going to work as a what do you call it? Like
a mutiny they were as they were striking their ship. It's the same thing
people's mutiny. They were striking and they had decided to strike for the rest
of the week for better wages and treatment. And my Airbnb is up.
I have to leave my Airbnb. I'm not allowed to stay. I cannot
extend it, and I can't get a flight for five days. Oh and
an experience. This doesn't really answer this question, because this question was like
that you shouldn't this maybe like this place, I shouldn't. Everyone probably should
have a good experience in Italy. But that wrecked my ability to have a
good experience because I wanted to fucking leave. I was also out of clothes.
I was like not prepared to stay that long. And I was luckily
with some friends that were like, well, we're going to Rome for our
next leg of the trip. And I was like, can I follow you?
Because I don't want to be stuck in Italy alone and I'm scared and
I don't know what to do. And they were like, all right,
it's a sinister country Rome, Italy. Oh I'm joking. Fine, but
I don't want to be there alone, and a lot of good reasons that
I wanted to continue. So Mussolini character, yeah, he was there.
So I booked a train to Rome last minute, and even though I couldn't
stay with my friends, I got a hotel near the airport in Rome and
last minute, and then I looked for flights out of Rome, and Rome's
airport wasn't striking, and I was able to get a flight out of Rome
the next day. So I got on a train, bumma lonesome, met
my buddies in Rome for dinner, and then stayed at a hotel in Rome
for like eight hours before my six am flight the next day. And I
remember thinking to myself, I should be fucking miserable, but I'm in Rome.
It's stupid, Go enjoy yourself. And so I spent like less than
twenty four hours looking at it, having a nice dinner, kind of sleeping,
and then getting my ass on a flight home. And it wasn't bad
when you get like a bonus little like vacation that you didn't expect to get,
like you got that time in Rome that you didn't plan on. I
not thought of this in forever, but I remember me and Ben Hansoon were
on the same flight once back from an army of two trip to Montreal.
So we're flying back and we were supposed to have a layover in Washington,
d C. But it turned into like a night there because there was some
weather thing, and so it's just me and Hanson, like you know,
twenty eleven or something. It's like, well, fuck, we're in Washington,
d C. And like we kind of had like some times. So
we went to we went by the White House, went to the Washington Mall,
we went to like a museum or two, and said, because this
is what I did not expect to be going through, like the White House
after my Canada trip, but here we are, especially an army of two
of all demos. That's my final army of the White House. I think
That's a really good attitude though, because that's what it takes, which is,
you know, unexpected, it's not what you wanted, but here you
are, you know, on this trip. This is a weird aside.
And I don't know if this is even interesting, but I'm going to say
it. When I was checking in at the Washington Hotel and I'm in Washington,
d C. I grew up in Kansas, I'm checking in and we
had to like talk to the manager about something because it was a whole layover
thing and the airport was going to set us up in the hotel or something
or other. So we get the manager of the hotel comes by. I'm
looking at this woman and I'm like, why do I recognize her? And
I saw her name tag and I said Erica. And I was like,
wait, I know an Erica. That's wait, hang on, why do
I know an Erica that looks like you? And I realized it was I'm
not going to say, you know, full government names or anything, but
there was a girl freshman New York College in Kansas that had like, like
I think she like had a like drug trip or something, and she just
was like, ah, I can't do this, and like dropped out of
college and I'd never seen before ever and uh or I'd never seen after at
all, and never I hadn't thought of her raw. I wasn't super close
to her, but I knew her enough. And it turns out she'd like
gone to Washington, d C. Become this manager of this big hotel and
everything. And I recognized it in the moment and brought it up to her,
and it's like, wait, what the fuck? Yeah, you're Dan.
You're like, holy shit, Like, what are the odds of that?
That's nice? Toy was boring side a decent aside. It's yeah,
yeah, yeah, I've never told boring stories, no, but yeah,
travel, travel can be fun. The next one, Thank you Darien,
Dan, we've learned that travel can be fun. Thank you for that summary.
The moral of the story today are a delicacy and travel can be fun.
Dan, you want to read this one from Pente Yes, hi you
all. First of all, love you guys. You make my training for
marathon that my wife force assigned me into runs that was all hyphenated so much
more pleasant. Smiley emoji. Dan mentioned something about Buggy Allen Wake two and
polished God of War Ragnarok. That hit me real good, and I decided
to write and ask you a question, what's the best quote most buggy game
you've ever played? So good you simply could not or did not care about
the bugs. I mean, this was the norm back in the day.
The bugs are part of the game for some maybe even the reason why we
love the game so much. The charm, love and passion just oozes through
from the game. Best regards, Pentee from Sweden. Hmm, it's tough
because Sony games are updated so quickly and lose the bugs. But yeah,
I'm trying to think of like like like PS two era or before, I
mean the quick one. Honestly, Jedi Survivor is still fairly buggy and I'm
having a blast with it. But yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think.
Well. Also Total war Warhammer there's a whole every time they update that
game, it affects I mean, this is game design, but like especially
Total war Warhammer three, every time they patch one thing, it makes bugs
out of something else. Right now, for instance, there is a one
of the leaders of one of the Ogre factions. His name is Greasus,
some buddy at Creative Assembly. The developer just added an next I'm being very
reductive here. I have no idea what happened, but it looks like someone
just added an extra zero to his speed stat and his whole thing is he's
in this like cart and Ogres are very indulgent and gluttonous in that game and
many lures, but there's these two like goblin dudes knoblars pushing him around in
it. He's supposed to be pretty slow and like lumbering, but he just
fucking flies around the map. Which it's very fun to see that stuff happen
because when I'm playing that game that often a patch makes that bug. It's
very fun. But anyway, that's definitely not like a PS two era example.
I think I would probably go with not super known as a buggy game.
But like GoldenEye had those things where it's like these characters like if a
door was shut, they would just be like sprinting against the door and like
their face would be clipping through and you could shoot just like the face part
that's shooting through. Like that's like it was a bug but it was just
kind of a fun thing where it's like, oh, look the city trying
to walk into the door. I'm still going to shoot him, you know,
like that type of stuffer, you know, just weird environmental stuff,
or the explosions looking janky, Like Golden Eye was not the most polished game,
but like all the bugs were endearing. I thought Order Lands was super
buggy and super fun to play. You could clip through the floor or something
would go wrong. And because that game was irreverent and silly and jokey in
the way that it was said, it lent itself to laughing about bugs or
issues and not stressing about it. Like if your gun was like broken or
busted, it was like, whatever, it's a feature. Now I just
get to use it more because it's stupid. Yeah, I'm trying to think
of anything. Like Dead Island had really bad bugs, but because they were
zombies you could get away with yeah, I guess like really shit, And
you were like, whatever, they're dead. They're allowed to like zip zap
around the island or be broken or just dumb as shit. Remember that whole
era of zombies being really cool and and game designers were like, this is
amazing because we don't have to worry about their AI being rising and yeah,
yeah, those games super valuable. The obvious one I was forgetting, was
Skyrim or any Elder Scrolls? Yeah, Fallout, all three New Vegas everything,
Yeah, touches a lot of I can't wait to talk about Starfield and
our deliberations. We will, we will, it's coming up. Is that
your pulling your collar voice? Yeah? Danger game of the year. You
sound like a banjo kazue character. Yeah, I would say, I would
say Elder Scrolls is probably the one that comes to comes to mind. But
yeah, Star Wars, Drass Survivor despite it being nothing's like game breaking or
hindering the gameplay too much. But like I walked into the cockpit this morning
in Grease and bowed the two characters that are currently my party were like t
posing in the cockpit, like go next to their seats, which is always
fun. Yeah, all right, thank you penty from Sweden. Uh,
well that's our episode. That's episode sixty nine. Why does this just say
pink gorilla at the end? Read? I mean that the store. That's
a good store. I heard make it one of the games that I had
played this week and put it in the wrong spot. No, that's that's
a video game retrostore. Kelsey Lewin DS Cooper. Did you write that.
Yeah that sounds right. Yes, yes, why did who wrote that?
Anyone? I mean I didn't I wanted to go check that out. I
don't know why I would than our run of show. Did you meet you?
Maybe you do like that? Ye? I meant to put that in
my personal notes to be like, oh shit, what I'm going to see
a ole go there? Yeah, that's probably killa at the end of the
front show. But anyway, Yes, our next episode, if you can't
catch it live, we'll be on December seventeenth, and that'll be our Game
of Nope, not at all, that'll be December eighteenth, and that'll be
our Game of the Year breakout. If you couldn't catch us live on the
sixteenth, I've been saying December fifteenth a lot. I gotta It's December sixteenth,
Saturday, Yes, in Minneapolis. If you're not already following Dan's twitch
channel, that's where we'll be doing it live. That's twitch dot tv slash
Dan Reikert. And then if you want to catch the breakout with the video
goes up, go to fire Escape cast YouTube channel, which is where we
also do Canevil and whatnot. But that's where we be putting the video for
that in addition to the normal platforms Spotify, Apple, et cetera. Yeah,
if you just want to listen to the audio, just you know,
you don't have to do anything, you'll see this pop up, just like
the weekly or bi weekly episode you get anyway, Yep, Mary, tell
them what they can get fire Escape cast merch dot com. There's so much
incredible merch that you can get. But what I really encourage you to do
is to get your loved one some fire Escape merch for the Xmas season.
It's not too late to get something for under the tree. We have lots
of really good things. We have coasters, we have mats, we have
t shirts, we have banana yellow t shirts. And we also have a
really silly and stupid, dorky Christmas sweater that I think to most people will
just look like a nice dumb sweater but has a secret, gross backstory that
you get you yes, and that is that's on fourth Wall. But the
handy, my goodness. The easiest way to find that, because that's not
on Bonfire. With the other merch that is on fourth Wall vice versa,
that's on Bonfire, just go to our patreon. That's fire Escape cast dot
com and then we are We have a post about the sweater. You can't
miss it. Scroll down we have the link to the page, or follow
us on Instagram. We also put a post up there. You too,
can raw dog your Christmas style this season by going to fire Escape dot com
raw dog to dorky Christmas. You can get it up for Christmas. I
can still get it up for Christmas. I have a question. That's a
good sweater too, still get it up for Christmas. But the picture is
like somebody putting a tree that clearly filthy good idea? Is Black Friday too
early to get a Christmas tree? Like to put it up or go?
Get it too early? Yeah? This year? No, it's the day
after. That's like the day it's supposed to go out. Thanksgiving people,
I've heard December first for Black Friday. No, and even Thanksgiving in many
families traditions, like in my family, we would eat Thanksgiving dinner and then
we would put ornaments on this. Yeah yeah, yeah, but I think
the reason we didn't do it the day after when I was growing up is
because traffic fucking sucked on Black Friday back when, back like when Black Friday
was still you had to leave your house to go shop. I loved it.
I used to do that every fucking time. I'd get up right,
stay up all night with my sisters. We'd go to we'd hit Walmart,
best Buy and we just Yeah, it was good memories. I think Daniel
Dwyer to one because it turns out they don't have a Thanksgiving in Ireland.
No, Yeah, they're heathens in Ireland. I would know. I'm the
most Irish person in games media. But yeah, outside of that, it's
uh, our tree is up, it's looking good. We got a balsam
this year. I think we went with a balsam last year as well.
We got like a foot shorter this year. We went it's like a real
tree. Yep, there's fire. There's several camp is too allergic to pinme.
Oh we go really well. No, So that's what I was talking
about. I guess that's a crucial differentiator. When I was growing up,
we had a fake tree when I was young. We would just go down
to the basement put that up on Black Friday. If we're getting a real
tree. We often would not on Black Friday because we would have to drive
to the tree lot and oh, I see, that's why I brought the
traffic. But in Hoboken on Black Friday, it's like it was no problem
to walk to the tree lot and then bring the tree back. It's a
few blocks away. There's several tree lots set up here. Oh, I
bought mine on Amazon in like September. Was it well? But it was
fake? Right? Yes? Today? Oh it's pre lit. Okay,
we light our tree, we we go. We got a bunch of ornaments.
I don't know why that was an important detail. Everybody has a bunch
of ornaments they put on the tree. I was curious, if you like
can order a real tree nowaday, there's probably some place you could get it
at Amazon. They have a million wonderful services. Amazon has a ton of
trees still. Mm hmm, oh, the the Amazon. That's our episode.
That's the best possible joke I could have told in that situation, Mary,
what are you going on? And you're like, yeah, you don't
know, you don't, Yeah you don't. Yeah, beat up comedians yet
you don't is such a weird three. This makes me want to beat up
a comedian real bad. I this a comedian right after this episode, I'm
I'm wrapping Christmas presents. You can actually see it behind me in the hallway.
I'm wrapping my family's Christmas presents and mailing them. Do you get me?
Did you get us anything for when you go to Minneapolis? I looked
up something, but I haven't. I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I
shouldn't do that. I expect to give you. Expect to giess okay,
and then I will be streaming on Mondays on Twitch and then going to the
Game Awards with Dan and Mike. I'm so excited to see you in person.
We'll be on our on our couch show. Yeah, the Game Awards.
We have this conversation. I can't wait at them for me. Oh
right, I get it. Goode Dan. Why do you have going on
in your life? Not much, right, sounds like you've been bored.
No, just a lot of sitting around. Yeah, you folks are coming
over in a couple of weeks. I think I'll have already done Hanson's Extra
life thing by that point. Next week, Uh, the ninth is our
Game of the Year show in l A. So if you can come,
come, but if you want to watch online Twitch dot tv Slash Giant Bomb
and then exactly one week to the day after the Giant Bomb. Game of
the Year will be fire Escapes here, so make sure you watch twitch dot
tv, slash Dan record or the fire Escape YouTube as we said earlier,
and we'll have a good time. We got a lot of categories. We
got to finesse it out, get everything locked in, but we already have
a lot of fun stuff there and we'll have a good old time with everyone
here in Minnesota. Jog my memory. How many games do we rank?
Is it twenty five? Ten? Right? We do our top ten?
But for some reason I thought we went we throw out a ton Like we
basically go around and everyone like adds games to the list that like we at
least want to be represented in that top ten conversation, and then we whittled
down. Okay, that makes sense. When you start doing like Polygon,
Giant bonm etcetera, it blurs together. I've never done Giant Bombs. I
don't know why I said that. Yeah, looking forward to it. It
would be very fun. That's a summer sixth thing. I look forward to
our our goaty discussion. It's going to be a good one this year.
I'm preparing all my final arguments, Twitch dot tv, slash Dan Rikert Firescape
cast on YouTube. Get those bookmarked for December sixteenth, or yes, if
the kids say bookmarket ye on your Internet browser of choice, your Netscape navigators
and so forth. Ask you or just ask jeeves us you'll find us.
But that's December sixteenth. It'll be fun. You can't wait. It's gonna
be a blast. Minnesota. You next episode at our show