I turned thirty two in three days. Wow, that's a big deal.
It's my golden birthday. I didn't know that was a thing until like two
years ago. What's a golden birthday? Thank you? We've started. That's
the beginning of the episode. Let's talk about birthday. I think people made
this up recently. Now. The first bit. The joke is that you
can't have a golden birthday on your thirty second birthday. So I got both
of you. Why what's the gimmick? What's a golden birthday? I to
the gmick, I guess I should explain it. Your golden birthday is when
you turn the age that your birthday falls on in the month. So mine
my birthday September twenty second. Mine was when I turned twenty two. It's
dumb, I don't know, and many people to take it seriously. But
the joke was that turning thirty two will be my golden birthday. There's not
because there's no soda. I think this is a just June. I'm sixteen,
so when you turned you had that wasn't the thing. No one talked
about this in two thousand, made up a special birthday? This is people,
This is one of those birthday month people things. Yeah, oh,
it's International Macaroni and Cheese Day, it's internationals you know, Pizza pocket Day.
It's like, no, it's just bullshit stuff. This is this is
made up for set. Sometimes people see things as an opportunity to talk about
themselves in this like extra cur like way. The idea of a golden birthday,
Yeah, this damn the fuck. Christopher Columbus, Uh, this idea
have a golden birthday, just wanting to have an extra special birthday. Christ
soups in his whole thing. God, let it go. God have your
birthday, and then settled down Jesus President Halloween. Uh, yeah, no,
I don't. I didn't really do much twice twenty second birthday I was
in college. I wasn't like I think my mom told me about it.
It was just something sweet, she said, all of us when we had
it. But I don't think we got like extra gifts or anything. I
feel really fine with there being like six holidays. That's fine. We don't
need. We don't need more than that. You don't. But I think
I thought when you said golden birthday, my instinct was that it meant that
it was a special day. Maybe based on your parents, so it would
be the day, the age your parents were when they had you. Just
like oh yeah, so like this is a specific age where my parents gave
birth to me, but here I am like live in my life. That
makes more senses, Like that's really interesting, right my parents had me at
this age. But or like when you go into your golden years where it's
like, oh I turned I'm turning a you know, fifty five or sixty
or whatever you want to go. I would also make sense because right like
a forty is known as like an over the hill thing. You might have
ghosts. Dan, you outside? Are you not noticing it's you? What
are you talking about? It was Dan? All right, this is you
clearly use some twitch effect. That was horrifying. I hate that. What
did you creep? That would make it? See the great scaring us?
That was horrifying. But you're wearing what you're wearing now, this is creeping
me. I don't know where you're talking. You're a fire. This is
not a good radio. But basically what Mary and I just saw it was
Dan's got an out like a sliding door behind and it leads outside, and
there was a person in the background looking in with a large light that they
were flashing. However, it was Dan wearing the outfit he's wearing now in
his chair doing it again. The scariest shit I've ever seen in my life.
That's terrifying. I hate it so much. I also hate that you're
so committed that you okay talking up that it's for shoot or whatever. I
don't know what the phrases are. I always assume Golden Birthday had something similar
to do with like golden anniversary, just moving on. I've known him long
enough to not encourage him beyond a certain point. That was trying to make
a podcast about video games that was creepy crime. Now you people people do
like the paper and gold and silver anniversaries, I always assum have had something
to do with that. Do either of you do that? We did the
wood one was five right to the woods every anniversary for me, Oh my
god, yeah, because first his paper, I think second is what is
five? I think gold is fifty five? Would my parents are coming up
on their fiftieth anniversary in like three years? That's crazy, big deal.
Yeah, good for these good for that. I don't understand the difference between
paper, wood and gold like, is it based on value because paper is
cheap and what is more expensive and gold is really expensive. Who makes these
hierarchies. Oh, it's just another way to get people to buy things.
But you know silver is twenty fifth I can't deal with him. Wait,
so wait when when you're just sitting there, you're sliding door is green screened
to look like outside at night or it just wasn't. It's weird, like
it's just the woods back there in a pond. Yeah, you're so annoying.
I think that he doesn't even live in the woods. He probably lives
in the middle of a desert and he uses green screen to just pull Oh
my god, you piece of shit. He just puts up random images to
make himself feel like he's traveling. It's an Eiffel Tower. Now, I
don't know whether there's a sliding door there. It goes, it goes out
to nothing. We'll never know. Oh this is entertaining. Yeah, I
don't know. I'm My paper anniversary will be in a year. I'm sure
I'll do something with that. Get a cool paper gift. It's supposed to
be a gift made out of paper. Yeah, fucking money is paper.
But just giving money to your significant other is really weird to me. I'm
not actually going to do that for the record of Okay, Okay, I
wonder if people do that. There's a Cracker Barrel gift card. Good,
happy anniversary, honey. I know that it's our Golden fifty. So I
got you five hundred dollars in Cracker Barrel gift cards. Oh for the golden
you do the golden nugget gift card? Yeah, golden. Yeah. Here's
six boxes worth of olive garden breadsticks for the anniversary for the dipping sauce though
for eating or sex stuff. Yeah, we're gonna eat as much as we
wanted Rby's and then we're doing it twice. I'll do some some cool anniversary
stuff. I'm sure be fun. Yeah, we do. We always do,
like a dinner for anniversary and then yeah, for the fifth it was
the only time we did the like the gimmick, the you know, the
wood thing. I didn't even know that was an thin ye ruby diamond.
Wait, that might be the test your might levels. I don't think there's
a mix up test your might and anniversary. Okay, talking about like your
DODA levels. We're just talking about prestige with my wife. That's like people,
I'd be willing to bet. Oh, certainly. Do you think it's
had a day's gone wedding? Do you think what anyone's had a day's gone
wedding? Like remember a day's gone when promise you're gonna fuck me like your
bike? Probably? Yeah, there's that game has its fans. I'd say
it spoke to someone on that level, maybe one guy. Just freak show
weddings are really appealing to me because it's your day. So I don't have
a problem with anyone making their wedding about something very personal and very weird for
them. If you want to have like a weirdo wedding where everybody's dressed as
a frog because you guys are really into swampshit, like live your life,
that's fine. But it's so amazing to me that people are so committed on
this very particular day that they want everybody to do the thing their way,
and they get really intense. I don't know, freak weddings are fun.
I wish I was invited to more of them. Mike, you should have
had a weirder wedding. Okay, Well, I didn't have a wedding yet,
so tradition is important. Traditions important. I don't think you make a
joke out of your You don't make like a gimmick out of your wedding day.
You know, Yeah, I agree, unless it means a lot to
both of you or whatever. But it's gonna be really funny. Mary,
speaking of freak weddings. When you look at the seating chart and it's just
like table twelve, Mary Kish, and then it's just like knife and then
knife and then knife for the ceremony time in the pendulum situation above this table
and only this table saw twelve. It's just a grenade launcher, like nine
grenade launchers pointed at you. And then you have nine glasses of wine in
front of you, and only or ten glass of wine. Only one of
them won't pull a string connected to a grenade launcher trigger, and that will
blow you up a little roulette for the wedding chosen fun And then if you
do get the one that doesn't blow up, I'm gonna come over with my
own grenade launcher. Blake Pike cheers. Everyone cheers. It's pretty good wedding.
I feel like it would be memorable for sure, I think like I
would rather have a weird wedding that a wedding that's so traditional and boring that
no one would remember it. Like Dan, your wedding face off on the
wall. Yeah, it also got married at Taco Bell several months before that.
Yeah, we had a two fur of weird weddings. The second one
was pretty traditional, I would say, with outside of the face off thing.
Yeah, it had a face off being on the wall. Yeah it
was, but no, it's that the Taco Bell thing. I mean,
look, we both knew what it was going in. The other option was
you know, she was talking about doing it at a courthouse or something.
It's like, let's see, if we were gonna do a courthouse thing,
let's you know, go for something weird. And it's a thing that every
time people like, if people aren't into games or wrestling or the typical things
that we talk about and are into, that's always the things. Oh there's
a Taco Bell couple, there's a Taco bellt wedding couples. Good icebreaker.
Yeah, yeah, comes up a lot. It's a good fun fact.
But I also think it's just something that is interesting and I've been to a
lot of boring weddings sometimes, in my opinion is like mine alone is it's
tradition is so boring. We have these expect patients that you have to do
things the way you do them. I think it's fun to shake it up
and say, we're not going to do any of that stuff. We're having
brunch and we're you'll be home by three pm. Like whatever. I'm gonna
get married on an airplane. Yeah, Mile High Club. Everybody's in,
get in their grandma, like, you know, let's let's see what happens
wedding in the pool. You're gonna consecrate the marriage right in front of all
of you. Would you join the bride and groom of the dance floor for
the orgy? That'd be sick. I'm gonna resend my ordination certificate. This
is the type of wedding I'm walking into. Oh no, not at ours.
I just like I'm saying, go to a wedding after. I hope
that's what they do. I hope that there's an orgy at the wedding.
No it's not, Mike, No, it's not the orgy at the wedding.
It is an orgy wedding. It's the same what is the thing when
I'm officiating your wedding, Mike that if I said, it wouldn't raise any
flags in like the crowd, like nobody would think. It's not I'm you
know, farting or anything crazy, but like that something I could say that
would cause you to break. Yeah, yeah, an Amanda or just me,
just you like something only you would know there anything that like I could
slip in there, just try to make you break your most important day.
I love that you're asking me to tell you I wanted to be special.
Yeah, not that I know of Off the bat, I think i'd be
in a pretty serene mood. I'd like to think, I think so.
Yeah, I think I'm very excited. A lot of people say that.
I don't know. I'm not nervous in any way. I'm more excited.
I'm very excited and it's gonna be fun. But I don't we have some
inside jokes, but not like inside jokes don't really make me laugh that hard,
like there was incident, but I don't. Probably just default to farting.
That's fine. That would make me would I would laugh quite hard,
and then I'd bring the mic down to my aims. I just sombrely remove
my pants and fart into the micro and now a word from our sponsor.
I would beat, I would laugh for a bit, and then I'd be
pissed later on. Man, it would be upset, right, I think
so? Yeah, yeah, I mean I think understandably. I think your
parents would not enjoy it. Oh No, there's like a ninety percent chance
I don't do that, so don't worry about it. Ninety percent chance you
don't. I don't fart, okay, I would No, No, actually,
I take it. There's a good chance you make a good chance that
you fart. It's just a matter of whether or not you put your mic
down. You know, I'm going to be an adult about it. I'm
not gonna like, you know, oh hey, look at my part,
Like, I'm just gonna do it and move on with the speech. I
thought it was gonna be silent anyway, do you or don't you. I'm
at the age where it's like I'm starting to get less confident with parts like
holding them in. No, like, you know, I used to be
really, really liberal, which is letting him loose. Yeah and some yea
for the record, For the record, it wasn't like a catastrophe that made
me reconsider this. Nothing has happened yet, but there's been enough where I
was like, I should excuse myself and check something real quick. And I've
been like oooh okay, but it's been enough to rattle me. The way
you just talked about a potential disaster in the future is like how people talk
about quitting drinking. They're like, or got hit rock bottom? Like yeah,
no, it's like no. A lot of people are like no,
I didn't. Nothing like crazy happened that got me to stop doing this drug.
I just knew that if I kept going down this road with you or
had you have the wherewithal to stop farting while you can before it it takes
over. Yeah yeah, I think that's a normal thing with age for whenever
it takes So, yeah, dukie. At wedding is what is your rock
bottom? Please look into your bride's eyes. Keep looking. Don't do not
look over here. You look at each other there, don't look away.
It pops him up a little bit, like off the ground really quick.
It just sends me into the harbor. That would that would be uh,
that'd be rough. I don't think i'd like that. I mean I mean
it'd be really I'd laugh really hard at first, but then it would like
reality with Dawn on me. You show me at times, I'll be I'll
put on the big boy pants for that, all right, sick. Yeah,
is that just like a nice word for diaper? Yes, my custom
made suit hasn't installed a fark couch. It nullifies noise and absorbs gases later.
Diaperson theory sound nice, but I just think in practice it would be
just a terrible Like I don't remember what diapers felt like, but the convenience
factor I don't think would override the gross factor with a diaper, like if
we wore them now, well, I mean you might need him in like
fifty years. Yeah, nobody gets, honestly the most attractive the fast of
being elderly that I'm looking forward shitting your pants whenever I want, Yeah,
wherever I am. That's the thing, though, It's not when you want.
It's the fact that you don't no longer get to decide. We're assuming
you're assuming I'm waiting until it's medically necessary. I'm saying I'm going to start
wearing diapers when I'm sort of old, like I'm gonna be sixty and be
like I'm I'm rocking diapers New York Times or in New York New Year's Eve
at Times Square. Oh my god. Speaking of concerts and getting old,
I went to a concert on Sunday as Queen's the stone Age, and like,
you guys, don't me. I don't know a ton about like modern
music or anything. I grew up listening to stuff like bands that were dead
before I was born. It's a lot of Zaplin Stones, Beetles, blah
blah blah. But anyway, Queen's the stone Age are like my favorite band,
and they're like the one band that like I always thought like, oh
see, I'm not just old man music. I like this hip, young
modern band, Queens of the Stone Age, And I like, well,
that's the thing. I went to the concert on Sunday. I'm looking around
them, like, man, there's a lot of people like in their forties
here, like, yeah, probably in his fifties. Yeah, man,
I guess a bunch of older people got into Queens of the stone Age all
of a sudden. Then I was like, oh no, I see what's
happening here. Yeah, you are old now. I went to I also
went to a concert this week I went to a Modest Mouse concert and the
same thing. Everybody who was there was older, probably like our age ish,
and there were babies, and I was like, why are these babies
at a concert? Who brings a baby to like literal babies? Yes,
And they realize it's parents bringing their babies so they can go see Modest Mouse
because they're our age and where everybody's having babies. Now let's put our feet
down, like people shouldn't bring baby. First of all, I don't think
the babies should be at movies ever, but concerts are ridiculed anywhere really the
sixteen and then they can drive and let them do whatever. They put on
their little earphones on them so that they don't hear you're anything, which I
think defeats the purpose. But I think the point is as they need to
think, it's because they're like ears, would be more sensitive and liable to
people. You're doing nothing for the baby. The baby's not going to remember
anything. You're only causing the people around you to deal with it crying or
shitting its pants or smelling or something like that. Is ah that I am
firmly against taking babies too. Then you should be firmly against taking Mike because
that dude's gonna shitting his pants and like the next five years anytime he wants.
But he might usually looking for babies everywhere we go. I went to
the zoo recently and their baby's there too, and it's like, okay,
I no, I don't get it. I was about to say, I
get it, but I don't want The zoo is one thousand percent different than
a constant. You are fucking in a stroller. You are under two years
old. If you're under four years old, you're not going to know shit
of what you're looking at. You don't know what a monkey is. You're
gonna look at that forget everything, shit your pants. Kids they're friends showing
a book, show them a book, like they're not gonna is doing nothing
for anyone they want. I'm walking around trying to enjoy the monkeys, and
there's fucking kids everywhere. The zoos are made for kids. There were a
lot of kids there, and I was the zoo. Of course, there
are a lot of kids. Gift shop. Like I just I think,
like, if you're five, sure that's fine. If five, world might
be like, oh look it's the elephant and remember it and stuff. But
anything under four, I think it is just like just keep them out of
polite society. But Jem's already smell anti children they're just four or five,
they're not allowed to leave the house because they're still incubating. They're not people,
and like Win Win are people people. Like at five, they get
two, they get consciousness. It's the consciousness though, it's like the part
where like you're like you're a toddler and you're like, uh, chewing something
with your friends, and all of a sudden you're like, oh my god,
I knew who I am. Oh my god. Suddenly, oh my
god, I'm I'm a boy. And that's not how it happens. They
find out very young, but I don't I bet it can't happen before too,
Like there's no way that you have enough sense to understand. I don't
remember anything until like playing Mario one at four or five years old. That's
my first memory. But your personality started before you're you're what you can remember,
probably, but it's not doing anything for anyone. There are some I
have, like some pretty cool nieces and nephews that when they were two are
really funny, and that's I didn't have to take I didn't have to change
their pants, and I wasn't taking them to concerts. I just like that
you're contributing to zook society. Like he probably was just observing and then crying.
Right, Like, I've got nephews and they're they're really cute, and
they do You're right, they do have personalities, like one of them loves
balloons, the other one loves race cars, and it's really it's a whole
personality. Balloon guy. Yeah, oh yeah, that's the whole deal on
the Internet today, the things they decide to like and then make their entire
personality the things they like. I'm into balloons. Fucking love balloons. Watch
out if you blow one up, I will be there. I'm gonna be
there, and I'm gonna be weird about it. Even if they're cute and
at personalities and stuff like that, is like, even when it's family,
it's like there's like ten minutes of like, oh, that's cutey, he's
hitting that balloon, and then it's just kind of like all right, then
they're crying, and then it's just a whole hast Like I don't think even
a cool three year old should be at the zoo. I'd say they're fine
at the zoo. The problem is it's the tool factor. You there's absolutely
so you know, like when there's a roller coaster, it's really easy to
be like, sorry, Timmy, you're not tall enough. But there's no
cool detector that lets us know that the kid is actually gonna say something funny
about those monkeys. I think a zero tolerance policy on crying or whining.
I think the second a kid's like lift me up or whatever, it's like,
all right, get the fuck out of here. Like I think maybe
maybe let them in if they're just gonna walk around and be like, oh
wow, look at that monkey. But the second they're freaking out, you
get the fuck out of the park. M I think the zoo is good
for a lot of parents because if people are having a problem the kid,
they can there's a lot of space to work with the bring them to or
you could potentially go somewhere else for a bit and if your kid really sucks,
you could drop them in the lions Den and just be like, oh
sorry, that is true. That is I think that's legal. Actually,
yeah, good drop off location. But yeah, like Mike said of a
concerts. It's not like we're going anywhere. But again, we've talked about
this. It sucks. Huh. No, they should make like kids only
planes that dull deal for sure. But no. But like the person that
is getting the brunt of the kid crying in the plane is their parent.
That's what I remind myself. So I'm like, all right, but their
problem, it should not be my problem. Like they chose to have a
kid, I should not be brother for that. We don't know that they
chose to have a kid, right, Okay, well they had a kid.
Yeah, but they if you have to fly somewhere, maybe they're going
to a funeral for one of their parents. Well then then mom and dad
get on one flight and then send the kid on Delta Junior or whatever.
You should have paid for first class over overhead storage check a baby. That'd
be awesome. There's like a playpen down on the bottom, in the bottom
of the plane, yeah, across from like the dogs and stuff. Yeah,
or they could, as everybody knows, there's a secret hatch that lets
you travel freely throughout an aircraft, as Passenger fifty seven taught us or air
Force one or Excisions or Executive decisions. Yeah, babies need to babies need
to learn the ins and outs of cool movies. Yes, kids watch Executive
Decision. That's you know what movie I rewatched recently, And I'm not saying
it's age completely well, but it's still fucking sick. It's clear and present
danger. Well air Force one, yes, but clear in present danger.
I could never do those like they always the trailers always looked really interesting.
Anytime you just show me like a rocket launcher and a trailer as a kid,
and I'm like, I'm there, and I went there thinking it was
gonna be like Michael Bay or The Rock or something, But there was always
this political stuff that I was just like, yeah, there is a lot
of talking in between the rocket launchers. Yeah it's Tom Clancy. I mean,
that's it's. The books he wrote were despite the Ubisoft identity he's gotten
since he died or since before he died, his books were always had the
political like half of them, if if half were the actual like special ops
stuff. But then towards the end of that movie, it's just Harrison Ford
shooting a bunch of dudes at a drug factory because he found out that this
one dude was pretending to be another guy's advisor, but he was actually pitting
all the cartels against each other. And then Harrison Ford had to go help
will him Dafoe get all the Secret Rainbow six guys back because most of them
got massacred in this river. And then at the end, Harrison Ford learns
that the President was the one who signed off on all of it, and
the President's like, you're not gonna tell on me because that'd be stupid.
You're climbing the political ladder. That's political capital. He's like, it's the
old Potomac two step. And then Harrison Ford stops in the doorway, turns
around. He's like, I'm sorry, mister President, I don't dance,
and then he leaves the Oval office like that's the coolest my life. It's
pretty cool. But yeah, Patriot Games. That's also Jack Ryan before John
Krasinski some of all Peers Hunt for the Red October. I was just watching,
uh, is it Jack Ryan whatever show the same character, but it's
John Krasinski. I'm watching that show right now, and I did it unprompted.
I just wanted something like Brainless to watch on a Saturday night, and
I watched like eight episodes of Jack Ryan. He's the cool character, becomes
president at one point. What's a spoiler? I didn't know that version.
Sorry, it's this. It's like I'm trying to think of another character Bond
where it's like there's different Jack Ian Fleming. Ian Fleming created James Bond.
However, they have rebooted James Bond twelve times. Tom Clancy created Jack Ryan,
but they've rebooted him twice, maybe three times. But yeah, Hunt
for the October and then Patriot Games and then Clear and Present Danger were a
trilogy. In the Jack Ryan I'm watching, he's an analyst, and then
they're like you should really be on the field, and he's like, I
don't want to be on the field, but they're making me. And then
he almost gets killed, but he kills the bad guys instead, and then
everyone's like, you are the best Jack Ryan. Now you're in it,
and now he has to like travel to all these destinations and try and stop
I don't know, terror terrorists. Yes, Homeland, I'll watch a couple
of seasons at Homeland. That was all right, Okay. I feel like
none of these things are truly appealing to me, and a lot of them
have just really obvious through lines where there'll be one girl in the entire episode
and it's just like, oh, this is going to be your love interest.
Like most of the time in these types of series, if you're like
a girl in it, it's like, well, we're gonna flirt because there's
nothing. There's no other reason for me to be here. There's no other
purpose for my character. Twenty four Have you ever seen twenty four? The
first season spoilers for twenty four, there's like three female characters. One of
them is Alicia Cuthbert, who just gets kidnapped and makes every bad decision ever.
The other one is Jack Bower's pregnant wife who gets murdered. And the
third one is Nina Myers, who is the turncoat working for the terrorists who
murders his wife. Son of a bitch. Yeah, that's actually, that's
good. Those are good dynamics. Actually, I like the idea of like,
my pregnant wife is dead and I killed her. She said, you
call these twists and turns and everybody's a woman. I'm into it. He
kills season three. It's fine. I feel like the John Wicks, We're
just watching all of those very sexist shows, and we're like, what if
we replaced the pregnant woman with a dog, and that's what sets him off
and goes on they killing John Wick. Yeah, yeah, it's not sexist
if it's a dock. Yeah, the whole new truck. Yeah different,
A new trope is the old kill the dog, so that everybody's upset.
U is and I think that's universal. We can all agree that if you
kill the dog, that will will fucking come for your head. It is
amazing looking back at old movies, movies that I love from back then that
like, and seeing it through different lens where it's like The Rock I fucking
love The Rocks so much. I can think of one female character in that
entire movie, and it's just Nicolas Gage's Beyonce that he has sex with on
a rooftop. And that's pretty much our only scenes from Queen. Oh yeah,
Queen the Golden Years. Diehard has just his x or separated wife,
right yeah. Face Off has his real wife and then his face swap girlfriend
Ji and Gershwan. No, did you see what John Wu said the other
day? What he's like, That's the whole thing about Face Off. It
could have all been women. You don't know, it's just guys. Now
we see the guys get their faces taken off. There's a scene if their
faces getting sought off. You don't know that they weren't women before the movie
started. Okay, makes sense. No, I don't know what he was
talking about. They very much showed the operation. John Woo didn't say that.
That is something you would say. You can't just make up quotes for
famous people. Somebody would have brought that to my attention by now if he
said, did you see I continued the curse of us killing people on the
show and naming people? Was it? It was a football guy, right,
Aaron Rodgers, like fucking torres Achilles Tenant four plays into the show or
the games. Yeah he's fine. I mean he's not fine, but he's
not dead. So don't say the names of anyone as three have you said
any celebrity names, we'll shit John wu Fuck, he's old. We got
talking about old people. It's like a chain reaction. I saw two.
Some people in our emails were calling it the Maharty curse. It's like the
new Madden curse. Marty's just killing people die. It doesn't even matter if
it's you. If Dan does it, they die. But it's because you
were in the vicinity, because your curs. It's the Maharty curve. Dan
mentioned the King of England and the party's falled. Hey if you want,
hey, people, ven mom me five hundred bucks for me to mention your
enemies on the show, and no problem. We'll see how it goes.
It's like death note, but it's this weirdo comes to your house. That
should be our new Patreon tier. I'm just saying their name and then these
people die. Introduced a fifteen dollar Patreon tier that's just naming. You can
name one enemy a week. We will try to kill your enemies. I
am willing to bet, and we're not going to do it. But if
I did, if we did announce a new Patreon tier that Mike curses your
enemies and it's just a list of people's names. I read at the end
of the episode over with music, we would get takers? Would we got
can we get? Is that illegal what we'd be doing if we did that?
If we did that, would that be illegal? They can't prove it's
any correlation between the names and the deaths. No, we're just reading names.
Yeah, so, I mean, nothing's stopping us from making money off
possibly killing people potential debts. But if they do die, we could end
up being witnesses in the murder trial because they'll be like, did you read
this name to do harm to this person? We'll be like, yeah,
we did accept that fifteen dollars. Yeah, And they'll play clips from the
podcast like in the court and everything. But that might get people to sign
up for the video version. Now, Michael Hardy, you are under oath.
Did you or did you not say that you would poop into a diaper
at the earliest chance. You can not subject Foghorn Leghorns the crosses anders like,
sir, that's clearly not his accent. I don't know what he's doing.
This is a sham. Hop Focorn Leghorn doesn't die now. If Harrison
Ford dies before this episode airs, I'm never saying another name on the show
again. I will hold you in contempt if you kill Harrison Ford for no
reason. I'm not worried about him. He survived like four plane crashes.
He'll be fine for a while. Aaron Rodgers, though, I'm whatever his
achilles tendon, I found his weak spot whatever. Last thing. I'll say.
I also watched did we talk about me finally watching Pig? No?
Watch? What do you think? I told Jake I liked it a lot.
It was not at all what I expected, exactly right. You thought
it was gonna be like a John Wick thing. I thought it was gonna
be John Wick. And then the spoilers potentially here, folks. I also
very much get why you all said I, of all people, would like
it for the dinner scene at the end, just the whole thing. The
whole not just the dinner scene at the end, the scene where he's talking
to that chef, that the chef, yeah, yeah, yeah, what
was the whole deal? It was just like, oh, you know,
you used to have all this promise and now you're at this Like what was
he He's really making the guy I feel like a piece of ship. He
said he wanted his dream was to like he kept telling him when he didn't
think. Nicholas Cage, who was formerly famous chef, remembered him when he
worked in his kitchen and he's like, I remember you. You said your
dream was to open up an authentic pub and have fish and chips and burgers
and dark and light beer. What happened to that. He's like, I'm
famous. I'm getting written up in every newspaper. He's like, you became
a chef for them. I'm asking why you stopped doing it for yourself,
and I was, yeah, it was incredible. He's like, it's like
an all timer Nicholas Cage performance. Honestly, like he's been good and everything
he's been in it, but this is, yeah, this role specifically is
so good for him. Yeah, it was awesome. I liked it a
lot. It's also like just pretty concise. It was only like an hour
forty I think tops time to work in a weird waiter fight club. Yeah,
I mean I think I get the general gist of it. I took
it as he signed, like, I mean, yeah, in general,
it's a like service industry fight club. But he himself put his name up
on the wall so they would know who he is. And then I think
it was him his way of like letting people he abused in the past in
the kitchens like beat the shit out of him. Oh interesting, Okay,
because like the dude who put them on, like a bunch of people put
money down to fight him. But then the dude who went up to hit
him like clearly looked like he remembered him and was pissed. Oh okay,
that was my reading. I could be way off because that part was odd,
but half the movie was. The service industry is kind of known that
the person in charge is usually yelling at people and a bit of a dick,
So that seems reasonable, Like, that's a good guess. It seems
reasonable that that's what happened in the movie. You're not saying it seems reasonable
that they abuse people in the kitchen. I mean, maybe just getting ahead
of that. People like to misinterpret us. I don't think there is a
single maybe there's something like the service industry. As far as a job that
so many people go into, I can't imagine a world I would be worse
at, like bartending service, Like I just stress, the NonStop stress,
and you know, the carrying of stuff, and like I would just be
like, I'm clumsy, I'm stubbing my toe on everything. I can't carry
shit, Like I would be so overwhelmed. Every time I've been to the
bar and there's that time where it's like, you know, there's twenty people
leaning over the bar holding out money or something like the guy ask to keep
track of who got their win and everything, and people are yelling at him
like, you could pay me five hundred thousan dollars a year and I wouldn't
do it. I just couldn't do it like I have. And that's I
have respect. My mom was a waitress the whole time I was growing up.
I have nothing with respect for people who can do it. I would
suck so fucking bad at it. I sometimes still miss it as much like
when I was working as like a server. I don't want to go back
to like being a server in like where I was, but I talk sometimes
I miss it. I can see myself sometimes going back to do certain jobs.
But yeah, as hard as fuck. Yeah, and they get they
often get like the shit end of like the bad day that the customers are
having. Yes, I think it's the people management that was really tough.
I actually like And there's lots of video games that replicate the service industry,
right, so Diner Dash and the like. It's fun to be like,
Okay, two orders of spaghetti marbles, two vodka cooks, one kid's meal,
chicken fingers, and you're putting all these things in your brain and putting
them down that is fun. Actually enjoyed min maxing it and being like,
if I go into the kitchen, we had a rule, full hands in,
full hands out. You should never go into the kitchen empty handed.
You should be bringing in dishes from some are you going to bring in the
dirty dishes to the back? Always right, full hands in, full hands
out, and then full hands out right like who's whose appetizer are you bringing
out? Like are you getting someone's drink order? How are you helping?
Essentially, it's fun to me. There's a bit of Dan Darian it Dan
where you're essentially yes, it's it's a it's a lot about maximizing, and
that does increase your profits because if you're really smart and you're able to get
people to order more and you're able to turn tables quickly, you should be
making more money than the other waiter waitresses. So I think that part is
cool. The part that really sucks is, like Mike said, when you
get someone who's having a bad day and they just want to take it out
on you. And that's the stuff that I will never miss and I would
go back to it for that reason, which is like talking to someone and
having them say something nasty to you. I remember, like when I worked
at Texas Roadhouse having a guy be like, I want my vegetables cooked on
a skillet. How do you cook your vegetables? And I was like,
well, truthfully, we microwave them and a little plastic baggy. And he
was like, take them out of the baggy, kind of like set it
demeaning, you know, take them out of the baggie and put them on
a skillet and have them pan fry my vegetables. And I was like,
okay, okay. He clearly doesn't understand that those vegetables in the steam bag
are not just going to be go okay, that's a whole other thing.
It's just they're not going to be like magically cooked well in a skillet.
They've been freeze fried for like or freeze flash for They're not just going to
go into a skillet well in transition. No, I mean, he's a
dick. I'm just saying he's also stupid. There's nothing that will make me
judge a person faster than like, you know, let's say you're you're having
a dinner or something, and you know, I got a couple of friends,
but they brought a couple of friends, or it's like an industry thing
and people you don't know as well. If you see them being shitty to
service like you know, people like a waiter or a bartender or anything like
that, I instantly like, I don't know if there's coming back from that.
You know, if someone's just being an asshole to like a service person,
it's just like, dude, they are busting their ass or very little
pay, there's no even if you thought your ship was so terrible or whatever,
just you know, pay the bill, give him to get out of
there, like sure, maybe don't go crazy with the tip or something like
that, but don't be an asshole to that, like right, or don't
go back, you know, like your location next time, you don't return
if you're unhappy. But yeah, I'm the same way. It's like such
a sign of pure evil. When someone treats a service industry worker poorly,
it's the same. It's the same thing universally. I feel. If you
see someone kick a dog or hurt an animal, you're like, this person's
a piece of shit. If you see someone talk down to a service industry
worker, it's like we lost persons. A miserable fuck there's no amount of
bad day that justifies that. I don't think it's why they say people should
at some point work in some aspect of the service industry. Not that you
need to do that to get the basic human empathy of not treating them like
shit. But I'm glad I worked in the service industry. I'll tell you.
Picking up those peanuts at Texas Roadhouse makes me not want to throw peanuts
on the fucking floor anymore. You pick up enough nasty, spitty peanuts,
I'm telling you you want to think that well about But it's that kind of
stuff will change you. Working in sanitary department will be like, stop throwing
fucking trash on the ground. Humans pick that up. It's not it's uncool
what you're doing. I think working the job, we'll give you appreciation for
it. I think I've said this before, but a long time ago,
I worked at Hollister night shift, which is not the same as the cool
people who are there during the day shift spraying perfume. The night shift are
the people that fold the clothes perfectly from midnight to six am, so that
when the store opens at eight am, the store looks brand new. Every
shirt is perfectly folded. They're board folded, so you're folding them like on
a pet, like a board, and then you remove the boards so they
have this perfect lines. And then every morning a bunch of kids would come
in and they'll take all the shirts and throw them everywhere looking for their size.
And that was hours and hours and hours of work. And so I
actually am very weird when I'm shopping. I'm always like, how do I
not disrupt the clothes and find my size? Because it's a lot of work
to deal with that ship and it's annoying when someone just throws all the crap
on the ground. Jesus. Ever, when I as a kid, my
dad and grandpa ran the grocery store and they were stick There's like a big
spool of stickers and here's one that says twenty five cents. This one says
a dollar. Yeah, And they were closing out and doing the numbers for
the end of the day and all that stuff, and I'm just being a
little shit aed six or seven year old. I'm running around and I took
a twenty five cent role and I just put it on like hopefull turkeys and
fucking every can boxes a cereal twenty five cents and they planned in the driveway.
Yes, I can't remember my dad or my grandpa, but one of
them sat me down. It's like, Danny, you can't ever do that,
Like that's creating help for us. What do you guys do? Like
I was thinking about this because I always try to be a good tipper,
and I went to the concert on Sunday, and there's so many things now
that have like, you know, the square payment thing or whatever, like
the screens that they whip around and almost everything has the like, oh what
do you want to give? You know, twenty twenty five thirty no tip
or whatever, And anytime I see that, I would feel so shitty about
hitting no tip, you know, Like I was at the State Fair not
too long ago, and it's like literally, like you know, if somebody
grabs a thing like a pretzel out of a spinning thing and gives it to
you and then whips it around, do you tip every time? Because like
I was at this concert paying whatever, like twelve thirteen dollars drinks and then
it's like I was hitting twenty every time just because I didn't want to hit
no tip. Do you have any rules that parameters. Everybody feels differently about
it. Generally, my stance, and this is like service industry stance.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but I do think it's aligned. Is if
they are mixing a cocktail, it's twenty percent. If they're opening a beer
or a wine, it's a dollar per drink because it's less manual labor,
if that makes sense. But a cocktail takes like three to five minutes,
right, that's effort and an energy that they're shaking stuff around, so whereas
like a beer, they can move you quickly. So that's my stance,
is a dollar per drink if it's easy. If it's more complicated than twenty
percent, okay, because I was doing beers and so I just didn't know,
Like I don't know if I'm this necessary or not, but I'm just
going to err on the side of caution and not being a dick. Yeah,
because right, yeah, you should always air on the side of caution,
but also understand that the markup is huge when you're going to an event
like that. I also I went to bonnie vera concert like a couple like
a month ago or something, and I want to say a beer was fourteen
dollars, I'll pay it. But if I'm buying two beers that's thirty dollars,
that would be a six dollars tip for I find that excessive. I've
taken the decision to drink at a concert, which is expensive, but I
think tipping six, sorry, twenty percent on thirty dollars for two beers is
a lot. So that's where I draw the line. You're already spending that
much. Yeah. I may have full you guys this before, but at
that time, I was in New York City and it was like when I
first time is there. I don't even think I lived there yet. I
went to a wrestling event, like a Summer Slam, and went to a
bar afterwards with some friends, and like, all through college and living in
the Midwest and everything, I was always dollar to drink all the time,
you know, all through the two thousands and stuff. And then I did
that one night at this bar and I don't I don't remember I was getting
cocktail or beers. I was probably just getting beers I usually do. And
I was waiting for my uber afterwards to go back to the hotel, and
the fucking bartender came out at like three in the morning or however it was
super late. Confronted me on the sidewalk. He's like, hey, fuck
her, and I turned, well, god, it's the bartender, and
he goes, hey, you know where you're at. You're in New York
City. You think you're a little dollar a drink, Shit is gonna fly
here. I'm sorry. I thought that was standard. He say, yeah,
wherever the fuck you're from. Yeah, I'm sure it's fucking dollar dram
Sure that's fine, and wherever the fuck you're from. But you're in New
York City. This is Manhattan. I'm not going to fucking pay my rent
on a dollar drink, asshole. And I was like, holy shit.
It's like, I mean, I know now I would tip more than that,
but like that was not the way to go about it, right,
Like that's weird, that's beyond the pail. For that happened to me.
I would have been like I would have had I would have pepper sprayed out,
would have been freaking out. I would have freaked out if someone came
up to me at three in the morning. It was very aggressive. Yeah,
no, thank you. I think they're there's value and understanding people should
tip more, but you can't accost people either. It's like, dude,
if you had come out and told me like, hey, I know you're
not in New York every weekend, that's you're really underpaid me, and be
like, oh shit, I didn't know. Man, here's another twenty bucks,
Like yeah, or don't don't come out and do it, like you
know, maybe when like the bills coming or something, or when you first
realize it, you know, just be like, hey, just so you
know, you probably didn't mean to do this, but you know, New
York's typically by Like, sure, i'd understand that a little more, but
fucking costing me in the street was insane. No, that's that crazy that
It is just ridiculous that we, like service industry workers still have to work
off tips places. More and more they're doing salaried stuff and it's like,
yeah, you should all do that. These are hard as fuck jobs.
Stop seeing that here for tips. We we went somewhere a couple of weekends
ago, this nice restaurant in Minnesota, and they just had a thing like
when you open up your bill, it's like, hey, here's how we
do things here. We pay you know, everyone like a really good wage
and stuff, So there's a space on the receipt for t Yeah, like
if you want to go about and beyond, you know, like, but
just know that it's second care of it's not expected. But here's the thing.
If you want to, you know, give them a huge tip or
something, but like I would happily every single time, just be like,
yep, all right, pay, not think about it, and then if
you want to give a huge tip. On topic, I like the auto
tip policy. We have a couple of pizza joints in Portland that do that
every check. It's just like, listen, we just put twenty percent gratuity
on there. It's what you should tip and it's standard. And then our
prices are what they are and a portion of the prices go to ensuring that
everybody's paid a fair wage. And the tips are all shared, so the
cook gets a portion of tips, right, everybody gets a portion. It's
all shared across the board. And I was like, that seems fair.
I like that system and I don't like stressing about math. So just just
tack it on my bill and we'll call it even. It's nice when you're
in like England or somewhere where it's just not part of it. It's like,
okay, I'm not gonna think about it, Like I like that.
I mean, you guys have been to some of the neighborhood bars where we
go here, it's like we tip really well, so then like the bartenders
remember that and then head heavy handed furs or sometimes don't charge you. And
then that's like how you become regulars. And then I and nice we still
tip when they don't charge because it's like, well we should give you something.
Oh yeah, yeah yeah. In a situation where somebody's been like,
oh yeah, come to the restaurant and give you a premial, you tip
like crazy on that. Yeah. But yeah. There's there's a few plays
in San Francisco as well that are doing more salered stuff. There's one here
in Jersey City that we love is or not here, but there's one right
in Jersey City we love that's also doing the like salaried workers and whatnot,
like you should do that everywhere, agreed, But or just raise the minimum
wage. The service industry, they're allowed to have your wage be less than
minimum wage if they suspect that your tips will get you to minimum wage,
which I find and really evil when I was waitressing, I made three dollars
in twenty nine since an hour because they were like, your tips will make
up for it. And if I didn't, let's say it was a really
slow day, then they would be like, all right, we'll give you
the six fifty an hour, another three dollars. You're working on like an
absurd, extremely volatile commission rate. Basically, yeah, because some people are
gonna tip your dollars, So people are gonna tip you fifteen dollars. But
yeah, it's just it gives you to work harder, and it sucks.
I mean, I was a kid my mom. I had a single mom
that was a chili's waitress when I was growing up, and like, I
think she was getting paid like two dollars an hour. It was something like
like I don't think I'm exaggerating, I swear she told me, like in
the late eighties, early nineties she was making two dollars an hour, and
that's why she was really hammering home the importance of tips and stuff like that.
And she bust her ass on like a twelve hour shifted chilies get home
late at night. People were assholes were and stuff. And you know,
let's say one big table or whatever, took up a big table, you
know, for a good chunk of the night, and then didn't at all
or whatever. It's just like, it's just, oh my gosh, you
did all that work for like fucking a tank of gas. Like that sucks.
But what's also fucked is that it was that low in the eighties.
In the two early two thousands or late nineteen nineties, they increased the minimum
wage slightly, and then since then they have not. So when I was
getting three dollars and fifty cents an hour as a waitress, they haven't raised
the minimum wage since I was doing it. So people who are waitresses now
are making the same I was making when I was in high school. Maybe
they raised the minimum wage a few years ago. It wasn't It wasn't great,
but it was they did raise. Are you talking about specifically the service
industry? The service industry is allowed to go under minimum wage because of that.
But oh yeah, they're definitely still doing that for sure. It sucks.
Oh you're paid for your first jobs. I was five fifteen at both
amc and Games. They're Funko Lands and McDonald's. I remember I was at
Regal Cinemas as a but I forget what it was. It was probably five
something, maybe six It had to have been five something at Subway, and
I know it was minimum wage. That was my first job, but I
only worked there like a couple of months before I got fired. Oh yeah,
what are you fired for? I told my boss to the fuck off.
We talked about this. She put com in the mayonnaise. I did
not put com in the mayonnaise. Crouched over all, she's spooning in the
mayonnaise again. Fired, man, Why are you such a dick? There's
like an episode six bit. This is a while ago. Yeah, never
did that. The mayonnaise is gross. It subway though it's not. I
mean, it's your faults gross doing that. Mary, You really consider stopping.
She still is just breaking into sways in the middle of the night within
a square all of a subway. I'm not actually legally not a square mile
of subway. Subway is a restraining work. That would be pretty funny.
Don't want me near that subway. You can't even go in the public transportation
Subway strict one sucks because they're uh, they're everywhere. So it's like I'm
always breaking the law travel I'm likely a mile away from a subway or I'm
always It would be very funny to hear you tube at a table with some
of my relatives in a month like Dan's like, oh yeah, I got
married at a taco bell. Mary's like I got fired a subway for coming
in the main aim. That's why I have to put you at your own
table. That's our next shirt. By the way, it's just married,
subway eat fresh. That's a disgusting I'm upset. I'm upset. Do you
guys want to talk about video games? Yes? Right, yeah, anything
else? It is officially fall. Fall is in full swing. The sun's
gonna start going down earlier. The days are getting longer and colder. I'm
putting on flannel. We are all going to be very busy in the fall.
Some what weather end up having its last gasp. I'm getting married.
You guys will be there, but we're all busy with work. So something
like factor will be super helpful because we can have healthy meals, easy to
cook meals, which are also just super convenient for when we are busy all
the time. Dan, you you have used factor for a while. What
is it like I have? And it is great, and you mentioned getting
colder. When it's cold, I don't want to leave the house. I
want my food to come to me, and that's what Factor does. So
it's convenient and it's delicious. I mean, this is like for a thing,
you put in the my mic career for like two and a half minutes
and you got a meal ready to go. Honestly, I love picking out
from the menu every week what I want and they're all just delicious. So
big Factor fan here, Head to Factor Meals dot com slash Fire Escape fifty
and use code fire Escape fifty to get fifty percent off. That's code Fire
Escape fifty, Factor Meals dot Com slash Fire Escape fifty. You get fifty
percent off. Do it? Fresh ball Fall, it's upon us and you
need to be in the festive. I keep one of my balls fresh.
What what is it again, fresh ball fall? The other one I'm just
dragging around in a bunch of thumb tacks and dirt. The other one fresh
as a day man escape. You know what you could use on that that
threshed unthreshed ball is manscape? Oh oh, like the lawnmower four point zero
trimmer. Yes, it's a technical masterpiece, the Mona Lisa of ball trimmers,
seven thousand rpm motor, a multi function on off switch that can engage
a travel lock, and a built in forty four thousand k led spotlight.
Except no less on my balls I need at least I didn't have a listen.
I forgot who said this, but somebody said recently to me that trimming
your balls, No, it's on a podcast heard trimming your balls is like
trying to trim like chewing gum, like chewed up gum. How the fuck
are you supposed to because like balls are like wrinkle and hurt. If you
anything you have, like a stiff breeze will hurt your nuts down there.
And so you got worrying blades going down there. It's a bad time for
everyone I have. I look, I'm not too proud to admit I have
nicked my scrotum before while trying to keep things, keep things nice and tidy
down there. And you know what doesn't do that the lawnmower four point zero.
I've tried to trim my balls, No, not tried, succeeded at
trimming my balls with the lawnmower four point zero. It's got a nice guard
up top there, so yeah, you can tell the actual blade is nowhere
near your actual scrotum. That's nice. Lord, Mine are frinkle. Mine
were crafted in the image of Michelangelo's David. They're like marble marbles down there,
but you should maintain them every once in a while. Mary, tell
people how they can get on this fresh Ball Fall action. Bring in the
Fall and get twenty percent off and free shipping with the code FE twenty at
manscape dot com. That's twenty percent off with free shipping at manscape dot com.
You just use the code FE twenty. As the leaves fall, make
sure you have it all with man escaped. Wow, this is this is
President Joe Biden. I've got I've got here Immortal Combat one code for you
lies of p It's Pinocchio retold. It's like blood Borne, but with Pinocchio
you kind of hear. I can hear it if I close my eyes upgrading
my pea organ you check song is real? Cool? Oh my god?
Well might as well talk about Moral Kombat one. Dan, you've been playing
Mortal Kombat one? Oh boy? Have I? It is a wonderful fucking
game. I don't know if you guys played it. At all, like
a couple of hours, and I really want to play more. I tried
Invasions. Oh, Invasions is super fun. Yeah, Marry if you tried
it, No, we are either. You like like Mortal Kombat as a
series as a concept? Are you into it? Yeah? Yes, I
like. I also just in general, I admire and appreciate many fighting games,
but another realm are usually the ones I stick with in the long term.
I think it's they're a bit slower mechanically than something like Street Fighter or
like the Arc System Works games. So I was really excited for this game
and it's not disappointing. Yeah, that's always how I've been because like I
even as a kid, I remember like Mortal Kombat versus Street Fighter in the
early nineties was such a big thing at like Recess, and I was always
I always liked Street Fighter two. I played it in my friends places,
but like the one I always bought and had at my place and obsessed over
with Mortal Kombat. It's just like, I don't know, the characters are
fun stories, fun, like there's a confidence in those games. As silly
as they are, they play him straight and they're just fucking cool and this
one. It is. This one does such a good job of giving you,
like longtime fans, so many just like little hat tips to you know,
serious history and stuff like that, but also introducing a lot of new
stuff versus like nine was kind of the reboot idea, but that was almost
like a retelling of one, two, and three with a modern fighting system.
This one feels like, Okay, we're going back. So it's these
characters from the older games, but now Luke Kang's this and that Riding is
just a dude at the beginning, like it's crazy scene riding like before he
gets his like electric amulet, and so like a lot of these origin stories
change where it's like Riding isn't a god with electric powers. He's a guy
who like got picked to represent Earth realm and was given an electric amulet or
whatever. Or here's how Kenschi got blind, Here's how Molina got all fucked
up and all this stuff, and right, a couple of those things are
kind of like remember like in a solo that Star Wars movie where I don't
know if you guys saw it, but there was a really like lame Heart
where we didn't need to know why his name was Han solo, you know,
like nobody was clamoring for that. And there's the part where he goes
by himself on the train or something and the guy at the station's like,
oh, so you're solo, huh and he writes solo in the name field.
It's like, right, that's how he got it. That's stupid as
fuck. Like there are a couple of things there where it's like Kung Lao
in the story mode, he like decide he has the idea to make his
hat sharp. It's just like, Okay, we didn't need that, the
guy with the sharp hat. They're being dumb about it. Yeah, Like
I don't, Yeah, nothing. Realm's not taking it seriously like Disney was,
yes, And that's why it doesn't bother me, because I feel like
everyone in another realm is in on the joke. I think the tone has
been so consistent throughout that series, thanks to Boon being at the helm for
all these fucking games. Uh. It's it's a lot of like best versions
of the characters I've seen like this. Sheng Sung is probably my favorite.
He's incredibly smarmy and they do some fun things with him throughout the story mode.
I beat that recently, Luke Kang kicks Ass is like a fire guy
and because like the first one, he's just the dude that was so like
just generic. He didn't even have fatality. He did a cart wheel,
you know, and this one he's a literal fire god. And I loved
this Lukeang here. The cast is great, and I think it's really important
for someone like me that's never going to play competitively. I'm barely going to
touch online. I'm not going to fucking Evo, I'm not learning fucking juggle
combos and all that stuff. It is the best in the world in terms
of fighting at giving you shit to do if you're just a one person playing
between a beefy story mode that's super well done. This Invasions mode, which
is kind of huge, and it's gonna like refresh with the seasons, which
is amazing. You know, plenty of stuff to unlock and all the customization
stuff is great. That that was one of my favorite things. Is someone
who we've talked about this before. I've I've like weaned off live service games
a lot in the last few years, and yes, that's here in Mortal
Kombat one. However, I love that they literally aligned their in games,
like their seasonal content with the four seasons, so like all a lot of
the costumes right now are all like fall themed and Paul Spice colored. Yeah,
dude, white. It's kind of weird where it's like I don't seve
Zero with like brown and orange. It's like, okay, scorpion, sure,
but like sub Zero and Katana who like only ever wore blue, Like
that's kind of it looks weird. Yeah, but Mike mc that's that's why
it's funny because it's like they're really embracing like the Pumpkin Spice, Like Mike
McWhorter called him the Pumpkin Spice scorpios, like I need their scorpion, and
I was like, I need to see this, like I love I like
already I hate that. I'm already excited. I don't hate it. I
just like I'm kind of getting sick of a lot of live service models and
I'm already excited for like the winter theme ones that are gonna like, oh
Christmas, sub Zero is gonna kick ass. Yeah, oh, I didn't
think of that. That'll be great. It's overwatched. It's like it's overwatched
skins like seasonal stuff like Overwatch does Lunar New Year. Those ones are always
super cool looking. But I would love to be in the room when the
other realms, like what do we theme our seasons around? Someone's like the
seasons and brilliant yas did he das wertos subzero. He's one the premium ones,
which is the fucking face paint in the sombrero and it's awesome looking.
Like, yeah, there will be some cool ones. I haven't gotten any
like crazy looking. Are there like crazy looking Halloween ones but like obvious diadalos
martos? But are there more like like general internship. I mean they're really
cool ones where it's like, oh, here's dark Sindel that you can only
get with dragon crystals and stuff, which is the paid currency, and like
there are some that are like clearly more elaborate than others, but a lot
of them are kind of palance swap type stuff for a different pattern for this
or that. Yeah, but to your point, I like that I can
just keep playing invasions mode. It's not forcing me into multiplayer or like certain
like competitive modes. I don't want to play Street Fighter six as someone who
doesn't who's never really been a street Fighter person. I thought Street Fighter six
was giving me a decent number of avenues to travel down if I didn't want
to do multiplayer either. I feel like fighting games are getting very good at
that all the time. So yeah, I really want to keep playing Mortal
Komma one, just to see how more of the story shakes out. I
started the story, I didn't realize. Not that I'm opposed to like these
eight minute cut scenes where the craziest shit's happening. I'm into that, it's
just I didn't realize there would be an eight minute cut scene before I needed
to leave the house. I'm like, this is still going. It was
like talking to my mom when I was eight. It was like, nope,
Mom, the scene still going. I swear it's really long. The
trick is, if anyone's playing story mode and you want to know easily how
to get out, is anytime you end one of these fights, which is
pretty short, just wait until like hit certain hinting pause and as soon as
it gives you the option to go to chapter select or the main menu,
that means it has saved and it will pick up right at the end of
that fight. So, like, if I knew I was about to wrap
up. I'd be like, Okay, I'm gonna wait till this next fight,
do it real quick and then back out, and that always worked.
So but yeah, I love that they just took a invasion modes sort of
like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate did that mode, the All Stars mode where
you're you're going along these nodes on a board like a Mario party board,
and you're jumping into different fights and some mini games, et cetera. And
the most Emissary like, yeah, that's on a few of those like bigger
single player modes like Smash Brothers has. Yeah, yeah, I like that
game just feels so well crafted in every aspect. I like it a lot.
Even the payment system work to get all the exclusive items, do you
pay for those or do they just unlock? Okay, so there's one that
is a paid currency, which is dragon crystals, and that's the one for
like the like more elaborate like here's these like this crazy dark Sindell costume or
whatever, and there is some really cool stuff there that is, as far
as I can tell, just dragon crystals. I had like seventeen hundred when
I started, but I think that's because the code they gave me. It
was like a premium deal. So I don't know if you get it was
I I've seen it way Yeah, I haven't seen a way to earn them
in game. But like, there are a lot of currencies. So there's
like coins which you earn in Invasions mode, which you can only use to
buy items and talismans and stuff in Invasions. Then there's the seasonal currency,
which you can get done like there's daily quests, weekly quests, things like
that. These are these silver coins that you can only use to buy like
the fall color, you know, Scorpion or whatever. So yes, so
seasonal tokens, coins own crowns. Wait, what's the coins? I mean,
no, coins are were given to the shrine. You give a thousand
coins you're Dragon, and he barfs on it and you get a randomized unlock
for the collection there, and then the crowns are for buying stuffn So that's
something there are there's like four different currencies. It's not as bad as it
sounds. The Dragon crystals are the only ones you got to pay for.
And I find that there is a lot of customization and unlocks and stuff.
Even if you don't pay anything. It doesn't sound good. It's really it
sounds worse than it is. If you could play, if you could play
for X number of hours and get through a lot of ship without being like
that jam down your throat, I'm fine with it. I find that when
there's enough currencies, it feels like they're up. They're like complicating things on
purpose in order to get you to spend money. But I haven't played enough
to see whether that's the case. I have not at any point felt like
they were like, you got to buy these dragon crystals. I remember the
first time I wanted to go to the store, I was like, where
the fuck is it in the main menu? And I realized, Oh,
it's like down here in the corner. Like, but do you spend your
dragon crystals? No? Because they seem really valuable, and I don't want
to spend more money, so I'm wait until I see something that really inspires
me. It's got a rotating shop, so with your free dragon crystals that
you got automatically twenty into or earn, right, But I gotta be.
I gotta be, you know, But you think the game's really fair.
The game's fair, you said. The currency system is like super reasonable.
I mean, are you saying because I didn't pay for it? Yeah?
The game? Oh yeah, yeah yeah. That is the thing I can't
fucking talk about ever objectively, is like cost of stuff because I haven't had
to pay for games for twenty years, so like, I'm not like I
always think it's weird when people in the industry or like, oh man,
this is like this is really you know, it's like you got this for
free, Like this is like so like I try not to talk about that
stuff much because I am not. I'm not in tune with that. It
doesn't look sound very reasonable, but like I wonder what the conversion is,
how much it's to many crystal? How many Dragon Tales do I get for
twenty dollars? For twenty dollars, we get twenty seven hundred. It's again
that's where that's when live service games. And again I've only played two hours
this game. I'm not I'm probably gonna play a lot of it. But
it's twelve sorry, ten dollars for one thy two hundred fifty dragon crystals.
And they're priced like that in most games, so you will always have a
surplus after you buy anything. So then the next time you go to look
at the premium skin that you really want. You're like, oh, well,
now I have two hundred and fifty left, so now I'll buy another
twelve fifty. So the next time you have five hundred leftover, so you're
that much closer to buying the next one. So that's crazy. It's like,
again, it's all cosmetic, and it's like it's still at the end
of the day, design to hook you and blur you into paying for that
stuff. Foltely, that's why they did the fifty. That's one hundred percent
tricking your brain into saying, well, it's it's practically in this economy,
I can't afford not to buy another skin. It's every mobile game, it's
every It's Fortnite, It's yeah, that's how that's all op. But as
like as someone who I got we got the premium edition code too, it's
like, I don't like stuff like that. However, I also played a
ship ton of Injustice Too for I never spent any extra money. I'd love
the loot system, which you're basically building out the character's costumes piece by piece.
I'm still probably gonna play a lot of Moral Combat one into the winter,
and then I'll probably see something in the summer. It's like Luke Kang
looks real good and Jay Crew trunks. Look at these Look at this butt
in this fall coat. I gotta have it. It would be clear too.
I don't think I said it was fair. I think I said it's
not in your face about it. It's correct. Yeah, I was asking
if they're like dragon crystals, like pop up it's like twenty and no.
It's like it would suck if, like if I failed a tower in invasions
mode like three times in a row, and they're like, hey, if
you want to pay us five hundred dragon crystals, we'll give you a fifty
percent damage boos, Like, it's none of that shit at all, right,
it's not impacting the game at all. But you I would like to
challenge you to spend your dragon crystals. I got hold on to them.
I think you should spend them. I'm a saver. I'm conservative, but
conserving what you didn't do anything. You got them, so just I have
them, garrit of them and then gets fair. The next time you want
something, I do want to get them. The dear Dalis Morntos subzero is
really cool. Okay, you know what, Dan treat yourself. You deserve
it, Go buy it, and then let's check in and see the next
time you want something and you don't have dragon crystals, if you're like,
yeah, I mean I fell into that drab with Fortnite, and I spent
a good amount of money on Fortnite. So I think you spent on Fortnite,
you didn't pay. You didn't pay for Fortnite upfront, No one did.
It's free. Yeah, so it's like I'm a little bit more willing
to forgive that stuff there. It's like when Mortal Kombat's already won seventy bucks,
It's like, I still again to another ELM's credit. From everything I've
heard and seen, you're still getting quite a ship ton of content for that
seventy dollars. Oh yeah. It's the practice of like obfuscating the currencies and
making it worth just a little more. So next time you go to consider
buying something, it's people who Fortnite. Let's get back into it that she's
spent on Fortnite. I mean it's definitely the most I've ever spent on a
game, and I would say it's ever in your life. Oh yeah,
yeah, I mean I don't play I mean I bought, you know,
when I was a kid and a teenager, I bought a bunch of fifty
and sixty dollars games. But like, I don't play MMOs or I don't
do micro transactions. I don't. I'm not a mobile gamer. I don't
like you don't play that's not my games, not really that Yeah. So
it's like I was park between one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars.
Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. I don't. But it's more than
a game costs, right, Yeah, so you were willing to invest because
you enjoyed it. Yeah, And I don't feel like I got you know,
Hornswoggle or anything here. It's like, oh man, they got this
fucking they got a Becky Lemps skin and in Fortnite, I'll buy that.
Sure. I mean I've gotten hundreds of hours of enjoyment out of Fortnite.
Doesn't seem unfair to me. I don't think that you've been hoodwinked at all.
I think that's every penny worthwhile. I think I probably spent ballpark one
hundred dollars in Overwatch custom like pieces. I enjoyed it. One this was
your most spent. Yes, but this that's ages ago. It was when
Overwatch came out and was like hot, hot, Hot. I don't spend
money in there anymore, but at the time, every time it was like
a Halloween addition. I had to have it. I had to have the
Halloween updates, and I loved it and I really felt special rock in my
cool little outfits when I when I was playing those players. So I think
that was worth it. So I'm not saying that that's not a good investment
or that that's a problem. I just think it's fascinating because it is the
way the industry is going unless Unity gets their way. That free to play
and encouraging people to spend money in game is lucrative for the player, But
you feel really valuable for the money that you spent. You've enjoyed spending that
money, and you felt like you got good value out of it. Yeah,
especially if it's like the game, like if you're playing Overwatch all the
time with your friends and stuff and it's like, Okay, I'll spend a
little bit on this and really enjoy it, Like that's not crazy to me,
And like Fortnight, I was playing all the time at the time,
and you know, I use those skins and it was always fun to me
when it would rotate around, like, oh now the terminator skin or whatever
like that was fun. And think about Doda. They have a lot of
skins and stuff and it goes into TI into the prize for the winners.
So when you spend money on cosmetics, oh, I think a portion of
it or some of it goes into the international prize pool. At the end
of the year, somebody's winning like millions and millions of dollars and it changes
their life. But it's all based on like a lot of it is based
off of cosmetic sales, which is really interesting. So it's all benefiting the
economy. That's cool. Yeah, yeah, I actually money siege and war
frame and stuff. It's just like nowadays, like all right, I'll get
I'll get what I wanted to that and then yeah, sure, if I
come across like in the course of playing over the next several months, if
I come across like is Errol Black in this game? No, okay,
gotcha, he was the one I liked from a Black Right. If I
come across a ride in wearing like a fucking plan a costume, then I'll
probably buy that. Ye gotta have it. Yeah, I was just thinking
about it, and I actually think there was there was a mobile game that
Clash Royale that I got it. There was like a period of like maybe
three months or so that I got in because I had some wrestler friends that
were into it the I's going to join their plan, and I was like,
all right, this would be a fun way I can chat with and
give Gody roads or whatever. Like you know, it's a bunch of wrestlers.
So I was doing it strictly just to be part of this like oh
cool wrestler clan group or whatever. But I did find that was my only
kind of flirting with that type of money model and stuff where it's like you
get these four you know, treasure chests that unlock. Okay, this one
unlocks in four hours, so like you've got the notifications on your phone,
so it's like, oh, I can open up my gold chest. I
better play it right now so I can get the tim or going on the
next one, and then I probably spent close are the two hundred two they're
designed and forming Any kids start playing them and that's fucked up. Yeah,
the Smurf one never forget the Smurf one. There's a Smurf there's a Simpsons
one that was really popular that tapped out, Like the Smurf one, I
think was like pseudonymous because it was it was the one that caused the the
suit, like people's parents sued them and made Apple have restrictions that after a
certain price point you had to put in your pass code because it was like,
how can you use tapping and like why do I have two thousand dollars
charge of mine? That's right, and you know mobile games like that.
Anytime there is something to be purchased for two hundred and fifty real dollars,
that is predatory at that point, right, like very rarely, if ever,
I can't think of a reason that you need to spend two hundred fifty
dollars on any mobile game cosmetic. Ever, I can't think of a good
reason that That is the thing where you're hoping that the parents aren't around and
the kid is just like, well, I mean I want it. It's
blue and it is kind of scary. Like I remember during that first few
months of Clash Royale, like you would wake up the first thing in the
day and you realize, oh, all four of my chests are ready to
open, and so you open all of them and you're like, okay,
well now I gotta like earn four and get the time whe's going so like,
and those games weren't super short. They were at least, you know,
like five minutes each, I would say, so like every day for
like three months, I'm like laying in bed playing twenty thirty minutes of Clash
Royale before I get up for the day, and I'm doing it throughout the
day, and my day is like getting dictated by like when these fucking chests
are. And I did not like that feeling at all. I don't like
the feeling of like That's why I don't. I think addiction is too strong
of a word for what I experienced there. But I could see enough of
like oh, but it was enough to where I could see how this could
get bad, and it's like I it's I mean, I never wanted to
play WOW. Like That's why I never tried Wow is because the idea of
like, well, it's ten dollars a month, I can't like, what
if I really like this guy can't be It's just this this endless potential like
spending money thing, and even that it's just a set subscription amount. That
actually doesn't sound that crazy to me now, the class royale thing. Once
I caught myself, you know, spending all that time, spending all that
money, I was like, I don't like the way this makes me feel.
I don't want to play games to make me feel this way. I
totally get it. I remember when Wow was getting really big, or was
really big already. Guitar Hero came out, the original, and I remember
thinking, now, the game I might be wrong here, but let's say
the game was at least was probably like forty to sixty dollars, and then
the guitar was another forty to sixty dollars. So getting Guitar Hero was one
hundred dollars. It was one hundred dollar investment. The bundle thing, yeah,
yes, And all of my uh, all of the people who my
housemates in college, they all had Wow subscriptions, and I was like,
you guys are idiots. I'm not paying ten dollars a month forever. Anyway,
I spent one hundred dollars on this Guitar Hero game, let's all play
it, and justified Guitar Hero immediately because I was like, it's a one
time fee. I'm not spending ten dollars forever. But if you play Wow
obsessively for six months and then stop, that's actually a better deal. Like,
I there's something in my brain that was like endless money. You're crazy,
I'll never do it. Didn't Wow Wow? The Wow cost money you
had to buy the box for like fifty bucks, right, wo wow Wow?
Yes, I believe Yeah, because there was a product. Yeah,
that's right. It was additional cost. But I think it was Mansion's cost
additional money too. Yeah. For me, it was a subscription that freaked
me out. Yeah, the idea of paying forever for it to play a
game because they knew it, because they like design it to be the only
game you would ever want to play so they could get away with it.
And it's like, yeah, I don't think I've ever spent a dollar on
a subscription to a game like and I hope I never do. I think
they'll get there, we'll get you. I don't think I did either get
you. Speaking of spending money for games, I spent money on a game
last week. Was it on game Pass? It was not. I didn't
kish it. I feel really good about it my chat on Twitch. The
very first thing I do when I stream a game is they're all like,
did you chet game pass for this? And I'm always like, no,
I didn't. Uh. It's called chance of SNAr. Have you heard of
this? Like strange game or change? Uh? Chanting like chanting like,
oh okay, got it. You're language base. Yeah, it's a puzzle
game. And you very pretty and very simple looking visually. You're walking around
and you come across is it iconography? You come across like stuff language and
you don't know what it is, but there'll be images associated with it.
Let's say two hands like this, and then there'll be a like a little
symbol underneath it. And so now you're associating that symbol with with with what
you're seeing. And then it lets you type free type yourself on a keyboard
what you think this means. Now, there's many things that this could mean.
It could mean pray, it could mean touch, it could mean help.
Right, there's like all these different assumptions that you can make. So
you type what you think it means, and then you'll come across people seeking
the language, and they will speak what you have interpreted those symbols to mean,
so they'll be like, yes, it is a wappy batt limit and
it's fucking crazy. I started making wild assumptions, and then at some point
when I got frustrated because I'm dumb, I started writing titty butt and like
pooh for the symbols. And then later on I would like talk to someone
and they'd be like me, want to pray titty boob butts gone, And
I'd be like, Okay, I have no idea what's going on because I
fucked up this game, Like, so is the idea that if you did,
if you did something that made sense with what the image was, that
you will encounter these conversations that make sense to some degree. Yes, I
also think that it's a bit of two halves of a puzzle. This isn't
enough for you to know if that symbol means pray or touch. You don't
know that yet. You're the context of the conversation. You could probably go
back and be like, oh, that means this is school. It's like
a fun logic puzzle. I love shit, Like yeah, but also you're
you're climbing. It's it's a like a retelling of the Tower of Babel,
so you're climbing the tower, and each there's a correct me if I'm wrong,
Mary, there's a different society living on each level who then interprets language
even differently. It's like if you're climbing a tower where the first tower people
are speaking Japanese. Japanese like kanji are very much more interpreted pictorially or at
least as I understand them, compared to English, where it's like, oh,
a letter will represent a sound phonetically. Imagine if you're climbing a tower
where you're not just trying to build in the language you just learned, you're
trying to teach and learn it from a completely new society that doesn't really interpret
language the same way. There's there's a complicated way to do it, which
is the way you just said it, and I would say the easier way
to say it is just like, yes, you're interpreting language as best you
can, and you're both absorbing the language and you're also teaching others the language
as you can see it. But it is it's at its simplest, it's
puzzle based learning. It's all logic based. I'll give you another really good
example. I went to as sign and it arrows going left, right,
and up with symbols obviously, and I went left and I got to a
place and it was so obviously a graveyard, and I was like, this
symbol has to mean graveyard. But then I was like, actually, it
could mean death, it could mean I don't know, mausoleum, and so
I like, it wasn't one hundred percent sure. Later I made these assumptions
of what it would mean. The way you solve it, and I find
this interesting. I like the way that they encourage you to solve it is
you have a notebook and you're drawing the things you're seeing, and so when
you draw, you're in your notebook. You'll draw the graveyard, and then
they'll have all these symbols that you've encountered since you started. If you can
associate the right symbols with the right pictures, it will fill in the blanks
for you and say you have correctly attributed the correct symbol to this location,
and yes it's grave you already, and it'll give you some pieces of the
puzzle. Some of them are so much harder to solve, but if you
could solve some by process of elimination, eventually you can get to the rest,
So even a dumb dumb like me was able to eventually be like,
I only have three symbols left in three pictures, so I'll just keep moving
them around and eventually it will tell me what the word for plant is.
Okay, so everything you're saying sounds awesome. Are enjoying this game? Okay?
I like it. I will say that it makes me feel dumb.
I will say that I love logic puzzles like this, like this is the
shit I did growing up all the time, and whenever that gets incorporated into
a game in a cool way, I'm all about. I'm literally requesting a
code right now. I'm on Switch. It runs well. I planned it
on the Steam and I think it was seventeen dollars when I bought it,
and it was really good. I mean, I've enjoyed it a lot.
I will say, you knew that game that came out, I think it
was last year with the ship and you had to like remember who killed Yeah,
yeah year. It reminds me of Oberdin in the sense that you're you're
collecting lots of different bits of information and then you'll use that to be like,
Okay, this guy sells pots, so this simple means pottery, this
simple means sell and things like that, and it does it in lots of
different ways. Sometimes it's obvious, sometimes it's not. And there's like sneaky
puzzles too, Like at some point you'll come across this machine and you'll be
like, I don't know how to operate it. I don't even know what
to do. And then like maybe an hour later, you'll be like I
found a magnifying glass and it does something to the machine, right, so
it's like all connected. You will go into a space and you'll be like
I have no idea what to do, and you'll you'll come back later.
You know what this really sounds like to me? And I always loved was
do you ever do those puzzles where it was like, okay, here's a
paragraph for several sentences, and but they're all it's like jumbled, and you're
trying to figure out like they've replaced like each of the letters with a different
letter, and you have to figure out like, okay, well X is
showing up all over the place, so that's probably an A or an E.
And then like it's showing up and like if there's a one letter word
it's like, well that has to be an A, so then I'll okay,
if X equals A, I'll fill in all the x's to be a's.
Do you know what I'm talking about? Like then you figure out like
what V is. It's like, okay, now I've got that figured out.
And in the picture just kind of like unfolds in front of you,
like that is such a satisfying thing, and like what you're describing it sounds
awesome to me, Like I really really want to TEK. I'm glad.
I hope you enjoy it. I've really enjoyed my time with the game,
but it took me a long time to get through it. This is not
a game that I have an instinct for or I am naturally attuned to being
able to be good at. But over time, I was patient and I
figured it out, and I got through a good chunk of this game in
like six hours. I felt really good with my time playing it. I
have not beat it. I think this game is too smart for me,
and it will probably, I believe, much like Oberdin, I will quit
because I will get stuck on a puzzle and I will call it. But
I have enjoyed every hour that I've spent with this game, and I do
think it's it's also pretty to look at, it's nice to listen to.
It's a it's a very well constructed game. It reminds me of a last
year had Cased the Golden Idol, which I recommended vehemently. I don't think
you guys ended up playing it, but you should because it got really good
delC this year as well. But it's like a similar thing. It's like
you're solving a murder mystery using to fill in the blanks in a paragraph.
But it's like a logic puzzle as well. But in the sense it reminds
me of Chance of Saynar, because you're like, if I'm getting if I'm
really stuck to what Mary said, I probably assumed something incorrectly. And it's
language based, so it's very easy to assume something based on your understanding of
these pictures or these words. So it's like it's same with what was it
called Baba? As you, I was like, I probably fucked up.
I've probably just like made an assumption somewhere and it bit me in the ass.
But yeah, Chance SNAr has been great so far. Dan, I'm
sorry I'm not playing Switch I played on steam Deck. Okay, well,
I've heard it runs well and Switch and looking at the art style, I
can imagine it does. Like I've got a good amount of flights coming up
in the rest of the year, and I think it's going to be a
great flight game. Awesome. Yeah, Mario Wonder and Chance of SNAr.
Now, I got some stuff I want to play on the go. Yeah,
I think I'm going to play it on my steam Deck. The only
thing I've been playing on my Switch is the Pickmen, which I keep playing
occasionally in my free time. I haven't been as committed as you, Dan,
I haven't one hundred percented. I've only one hundred percented one area,
but I'm getting through it. I think it's really nice to just to play
a day and Pick Men. It's a It's a great time spending game because
you don't feel stressed ever, Like I never wind down playing that game.
I mean maybe that, Like I've heard some people say they gets stressed by
the Dan Dori stuff, but I was more just like excited about it.
You know, I never felt stressed. It was Dandia doesn't freak me out.
I love trying to organize and do things properly. I don't like it
when I accidentally kill twenty pickmen. I get really stressed when I'm a murderer.
Yes, when I started sent fifty pickmen to their death, I feel
that in my core. But I do not get stressed if I'm organizing them
properly enough. It's so funny, like I wonder, like you know,
because it tells you the day, like you're on day twenty or whatever.
I have no idea if I am ahead, equal, or behind other people,
and I don't care. It doesn't it doesn't give you any guff of
whether or not you're doing good at it. Mike, are you enjoying Pickman?
I feel like it's just such a casual, enjoyable game. Yeah,
No, it's great. It's a it's definitely like cathartic therapeutic to play.
It's very simple. I've never had anything like super difficult. But that's not
really the point. I'm it's not thus far, but like I'm enjoying it
just from like a collected thon perspective of it's it's what do you want?
What's the word I'm looking for. I find it to be very meditative,
especially after some other things I'm playing. I want to playing it. It's
just it's also just a perfect game for the Switch. So yeah, I'm
enjoying it a lot now when I am very curious to hear, I feel
like I got a little taste of it last night tuning into a certain stream
Mary he played some Armored Core I did. Now, I want to preface
this with the understanding that Dan and I made a deal last episode, which
was I would play Armored Core if Dan played Sea of Stars. That's correct,
and I fulfilled my promise. I downloaded Armored Core. I read one
and a half pages of the booklet that they give you to help you.
Then I got bored and I streamed learning how to play it. This game
is very difficult and it has a seep learning curve, and I am forever
grateful to my chat on stream who just literally and very patiently told me what
to do to learn how to play Armored Corps. They were like, you're
on the ground too much. You need to hit what is it the right
stick in so that you can focus on an enemy and lock on. Then
don't ever move the right stick again. They were teaching me to use my
missiles more. They were encouraging me to get like up close and personal to
a boss so that I wasn't getting bopped so much. And because of that
experience, I actually had a wonderful time playing Armored Corps. And I fully,
like, I am, I understand why you guys are so stoked about
this game. It's really fun. I worry that without that experience, without
people guiding me and encouraging me and telling me like, it's okay, it's
very normal to die nine times at this boss, I probably would have gotten
frustrated and thought I was really bad at this game. But I had a
lot of encouragement. I had a lot of people who were like cheering me
on. And I burned that first boss, and after I think I got
him about seven tries. And then I started pimping my ride. I made
a buffalo Bills styled mech He's like blue and red. I gave him a
tramp stamp. He has sharks for eyes. He looks badass, give really
bulky arms and little bitty legs. I mean, I was having a great
time designing this guy. And then like sending that on missions, Dan,
you visited me on my stream, I found this, Uh, I did
this mission where you have to get this at At creature and just take it
down from the inside. And it's huge. It's like a building. Yeah,
it's like a Shadows creature. I was gonna say Shadow the Classes,
but actually the scale is way bigger than anything in Shadows Classes, bigger than
Shadow of the Casses, and you're way more powerful, Like I'm not I'm
not like trying to climb if it's fur I'm shooting up there. I'm like
shooting rockets out of my ass. I was four weapons on your shoulders and
your arms or weapons that you're attacking it from every angle. It's really fun.
But then I think what was really cool about that particular mission is that
once you kill it, and that is very difficult. I died a couple
of times trying to take it down, and when I finally did it,
they were like, you gotta get out of there. She's gonna blow.
And I was like, what's gonna blow? And everyone's like get away from
the thing, and I was like, but it's so big, how do
you get away from it? And they were like, jump off of it,
and I was like, what anywhere but here? Just get off this
exploding thing. Giant explosions everywhere, and so at the last minute, I
was like, Okay, I'll jump off, and as I jump off,
I moved the camera over and it just starts exploding behind me. It was
really cool. It felt like a movie. It felt like I was playing
Transformers. I was kind of overwhelmed from the quality experience I had. I
never felt like I couldn't do it or that it was too much for me.
And that was the stigma that I have associated with Armored Core. It's
entire existence, which is it's for a specific breed of person. It's extremely
difficult, and you're not gonna understand it. You're gonna have to, like
you make your mech every time you want to do a different boss fight,
which sounds miserable for someone like me. But it's not like that at all.
It's actually like a lot of up and then if you die a lot,
you're like, okay, maybe I should change out my legs. Wait.
I don't know if you've seen the like load out stuff, but like
you can save, like if you know, like this is my super fast
guy with a bunch of missiles and stuff, you can save that and then
you can experiment with other stuff. But it's my slow guy. He's got
more powerful equipment, but he's a tank. He doesn't need to fly around
much. He's just bazookas and like and that shit just gets better and better.
There's so much stuff that unlocks and your experience I think completely mirror is
mine so far where it's like when in not thinking it was for me.
I streamed it and I did have the chat help me with stuff. I'm
like, oh, okay, I see okay, so if I want to
do the multilock thing, I do it like that, Oh cool cool.
I found myself getting more and more into it, and then I got to
that level with the big building a tat thing had the exact same thing as
you, where it's like it's blowing up and I like flew away from it
and I turned the camera around and like my jaw dropped and I was like
this kicks ass. Like yeah, it's really exciting. And it's enigmatic to
do with chat because they're like rooting you on. These are very difficult,
larger than life enemies. When you finally do take them down, everyone was
super supportive of me. I think I think I've discovered another value of chat
that I didn't really understand before. I have a very strict no backseat gaming
rule when I stream, I don't want people to tell me how to game,
just like let me lose. It was like the first time where I
was like, tell me everything. Oh, well, all your tips,
I want tricks. I want to know how you take this sucker down.
They were giving me all the secrets and it was saving me, and I
was like, actually, you guys are my gurus, you are my mentors.
You are guiding me on this journey of Machtum, and I just kind
of felt like we all agreed simultaneously that this was a really cool journey for
me to go down, and I felt rallied, I felt supported. I
don't know, it's a dope experience. Those are the missions. You get
a lot of money. You get like one hundred thousand whatever dollars every time
you do a mission, and so it's very easy to buy stuff. And
I thought it was neat that there's no punishment for selling something, and you
sell it exact same money back, So if I buy something and I don't
like it, you could just refund it. It's not a big deal.
I thought that part was gonna suck. Like even once I started liking the
moment to moment action, as I started seeing things on lock and stuff like
that, Oh you got these new generator options, you got all this,
I was like, Oh, here's where I'm gonna fall off. It's fun
to play, but then I don't want to fucking tweak my mech and go
to the garage and all this. But kind of isn't that bad at all,
Like that's really really fun, you know, like finding like, okay,
I want to max out, like I don't know if you've got into
the full Like I'm trying to get the een load and the weight at the
right level where I'm maxing things out and all this like, but it never
gets overwhelming. It's always rewarding. And then you will find those builds and
then well when you start like color coding your builds, like you got your
your red and you know, you got your guy with the shark face and
everything. Once you save him as you know Stevie Mecman or you know whatever.
Now I'm gonna make you know tank Boy and giving him all of his
guns or goal old and then his head is you know green and this like
you can recognize them on site and you learn like, oh, this mission.
From the description, it sounds like it's going to be a real kind
of fast, aerial dog fight type thing. I know the guy for that.
I'm pulling this guy out of the closet like it's it's so fucking cool
and so rewarding, and you're right, it is. I maybe undersold the
the streaming aspect of it because it is that like, you know, everyone
around, everyone's around a craps table and everyone's winning and everyone's cheering. You
know, it's just like, yeah, yeah, we did it and we
made him. Like it's so fucking good. It feels very weak. It
doesn't feel very mea. It feels like we all rallied and I mean I
really had to push the buttons, but we actually we're all agreeing on tactics
together. So it's almost like I had like a general in my ear that
was like getting really close. You know, they can't shoot you if you're
under them the whole time. That was the advice I needed for that first
boss fight. And so for people who are listening who are like, I
don't know, that sounds like a lot and I'm not going to stream it
right, look up some guides and see what you can learn, because I
do think it would have been overwhelming for me, and I don't think I
would have had the glowing reaction that I have if I would have just suffered
through that boss fight for an hour because people were telling me tactics to getting
that boss done. I felt really vindicated and really valued with my time for
playing it and being able to just upgrade my machine and moving on to the
mission. So the boss fights are difficult. I actually think that game is
very difficult, but it's achievable if you know the strategies for how to execute
them and if you've designed your mech well. And I also just think even
when I was dying, I wasn't that frustrated. It's actually pretty fun.
You kind of like ice skate around like a crazy hockey player. You're just
on these like little ice knives, running around, sorting people and shooting someone
in rockets coming out of every hole. It's nuts. It's so much more
fast paced than I think I ever considered Armor Corps would be. And like,
like like you said, when you die, it's never like I never
got too frustrated. Like there's that falter fight at the end of chapter one,
and it's he whooped my ass several times, and then I was like,
okay, I'm I'm having trouble getting through a shield, Like he puts
that shield up and I'm having trouble, and it's like, okay, well,
let's put a much of fucking plasma miss. I'll buy those plasma miss
launchers because I think that's gonna be good against those shields. And you go
in there and you realize the next time, like, oh I died,
but holy shit, I got him like two thirds of the way down.
And the next time, you know, it is patterns better. You kind
of make some tweaks in your guy, and like it feels like you're making
progress even when you're dying. Baltis the first one. I was like,
maybe I should go against my instincts and get in his face with my sword
and ship. And then I started fucking up the sword like when you stagger
and I mean, like a tough boss whatever, and you get in you
just like give him the full payload and the sword and all that shit is.
It is one of the most satisfying games I think I've ever played.
I think it's very enjoyable. I'm I'm grateful for the experience, and I'm
glad that I was encouraged to play it, and so it was a really
nice exchange for me to agree to play Armored Core six for you to play
Sea of Stars. So what's your Sea of Stars experience been like? Dan,
Now, you are probably suspecting that I didn't play it at all because
I don't have it on the list here. No, it's not on the
list. I've noticed that I can't. I did it. Is not I
did not want to be disingenuous, but I did play it. Okay,
So maybe you're surprised there. I the reason I didn't put it on the
list is because I I do apologize. My experience is not as robust as
yours was with Armored Cores. It's not that I didn't like it. It
is not that I didn't like it. It's I was like, all right,
I finished one of the things. I finished Armored Cores. I was
like, I was, It's like, I'm ready for a new game.
Let's do it. Mary got me excited about to see Stars. I said
I was gonna play it. We're gonna do it. Went to Ben Hanson's
place one night. It's like Sunday night came back. It was like ten
o'clock. I was a little drunk, and I was like, all right,
now I'm gonna but the switch in there a little toasty and I start
playing. Were thinking like uh oh yeah this is uh yeah, this is
this is good. This is man. These graphics are really graphics are awesome.
Oh the sound. The sounds really got gotten some of the battle stuff
and everything, And it was like I was expecting it to be a little,
you know, like stories. It's an RBG. Any RBG is gonna
be a little heavy on story stuff early on. Yeah, I just think
I was not in the right spot as far as like many drinks deep at
that point, and I remember like liking it, and as far as I
remember, I went to bed after I played C Stars. Next time I
loaded up my switch, it was on the main menu from Mario Kart eight
Deluxe. So at some point while I was drunk, I was like,
oh, this seems pretty good. But I just randomly do a Grand Prix
of Mario Kart, which I ever do randomly, so I guess I did
it. Switched over to Mario Kart, and then the next day I woke
up and I had Moral Kombat one code, and that was just like,
okay, well I know what I'm doing now. I apologized. It was
an earnest effort. There were the first conspiring. You completed your end of
the bargain, which was playing it. And I also will agree that we
made this bet because we actually both knew they were both risks in the sense
that you were like, I don't know if you will like Armored Cores,
but I think you will. And I said the same thing, which is
you and I are both dewey and see us Stars is super talky, so
it is a huge risk that you'll like it, but I think you'll like
it, So it wouldn't hurt my feelings if you did play it and then
turned out it's too talky and you can't get into it. So I don't
know if that's the case yet, but I definitely could see that this is
not a game to play when you're feeling distracted. Yeah, And I think
that, like, you know, next time I have a gap and I'm
looking for someone to play. Like, I liked everything I played and saw.
I mean it might have been a half hour or forty five minutes maybe,
but like I remember thinking like, oh man, they really kind of
nailed to look at this like I like the isometric, you know, like
the it's very chrono trigger. But I prefer the perspective of this more than
the top down. It's very sharp looking, like everything. I think they
did a good quality of life for chrono trigger people. So, people who
are chrono trigger enthusiasts, this is a game you should try now, people
who are like thinking about playing a game. This game is not for everyone.
No, like JRPG of this style could possibly be. It's too heavy
on the story and it's very it has a very slow start, so that
seems reasonable. I will also admit to you that since we recorded that and
I told you how much I love See of Stars, I keep playing Pickman
instead. And I have an obvious choice where I could play See of Stars
or I could play Pickman. But Pickman doesn't require any brain juice. It
really does not. When I play See of Stars, I have to think
about my choices. I have to think about my characters. I care about
them. Oh my gosh. The timing of how you attack and stuff.
It's all you have to pay attention Pickman. Listen, I got like I
got like a hundred reds. I can burn through those bad boys and I
could just pluck more. They're free. Yeah, they really are. Like
the world. It's like a fucking old five flowers or whatever. I'll just
get some flowers like they are disposable. Sorry, and like that's just the
way the Pickman world is. So I like that I can play that not
stressed. So I've been playing a lot more Pickman. I'll say a couple
of things I did see that I do appreciate are It always kind of bugged
me, especially with the load times were involved in old JRPGs where it's like
you'd be walking around an overworld and like sh you know, it goes into
the battle and you gotta wait for a while for all the animations and the
music and all that stuff. I do like the just in the field nature
of Cstars where's like a guy jumped out from behind a bush and then you're
fighting him. You know, it's like there's not that transition and uh.
And you've mentioned that the paper Mario type combat. I always like that.
That gets me way more engaged in like a turn based system. So it
was holding up as you promised, and I wish I had more robust experience
with it, but it does seem it does seem very good. So I
hope you on a more sober evening can give it a shot. I do
think it's worth playing, but I agree it's it's not for any random night.
It just takes too much idea, It takes too much, too much
energy. It needs to be something like Thursday night, I got nothing going
on. It's like, all right, I'm just gonna sit down for a
few hours and try this. Yep, yep, what the old game?
What is it? Sunk? Oh? I started that too. Yeah,
so I haven't played any of the expansion yet Phantom Liberty that apparently triggers I
started that. So the expansion is launching alongside the game's like biggest patch yet,
Patch two point zero, which completely kind of rethinks the progression system,
the perks, the attributes, along with improved vehicle combat, better combat enemy
AI. If you can't tell, it's quite an array of changes they've made
to the game. I started a new game from the beginning, and I
already and I think I played. I forget how many hours I played the
other night, but I'm much more into the game than I was the first
time around. So I played like four hours the first time around twenty twenty.
Even apart from just the technical stuff or the bugs, I was just
I don't know. I was finding it a bit boring. The combat wasn't
doing much for me. I was getting hacked too much and didn't have enough
options to counter it. But the way that they've redone the progression systems,
it's just much more involved skill trees attached to each attribute and it's easier to
parse. I'm ranking up what feels like much more often. I'm ranking up
at like what feels like a Skyrim pace. Well, so if you started
a new one, like, do you because there's the new relic tree,
like do you have that from the beginning or do you need to go?
I can't remember that opened up? It's tied to a story mission, okay,
Because yeah, I did start with Phantom Liberty. I did the thing
because I played thirty hours of it back when it came out, and I
didn't have a lot of technical issues. I was one of the lucky ones,
I guess, but there was enough where it's like, yeah, the
combat wasn't super engaging whatever, So I fell off and when I went into
this, I started a new game, but it gives you the option where
it's like, Okay, do you want to start from the beginning beginning or
do you want to get past this like opening kind of high East and the
story stuff and start there, Like I don't know if you did you go
from very very beginning, Mike, Yeah, I did a new game,
Okay, I just I didn't give it the I wanted to give it like
the full shake down this time. And I'm loving it. Yeah. It's
like at the beginning Fantom Liberty, there are some like bigger combat sequences,
and I remember, like I was planning today and I was like, I
don't remember the original game, like felm, this good in terms of first
person shooting, Like it's uh, I'm definitely liking it a lot more.
I'm glad I did the skip thing. Like if you have played through that
stuff like that opening, you know, first few hours of the story stuff
of you know, stuff with Jackie and the Voodoo Boys and the heist and
all that stuff, then go ahead and skip ahead. I mean it gives
you, you know, it allocates some staff points and stuff like that and
kind of gets your right to the new stuff. But it also gives you
like you can go do all the main game stuff as well. That's all
there. Yeah, so I feel like I'm starting a new game without having
to go through like a bunch of story I've already seen. Yeah, because
it adds adds the new district Dogtown, which I believe is added in the
two point zero patch as well. I think it just you won't be interacting
with the actual Phantom Liberty. There's I mean, plot wise, I think
it's I don't think it's a spoiler to say it basically like the President's plane
has been brought down in Dogtown. It's a skate from New York, sort
if you're going into Hacked, and yeah, it's John Carpenter. It's cyberpunk
via John Carpenter. But Dogtown was on my map when I first loaded up
with patch two point zero, and I wasn't interacting with Phantom Liberty, so
it's there. I haven't tried going into it yet. But I'm also just
finding like Mutt far more approaches to combat and hacking feel viable now like I
wanted to originally in twenty twenty, make like a hacking samurai who used katanas
and pistols. I didn't feel like melee weapons were doing much. I was
getting killed way too often. The dudes who hack the netrunners who hack you
from far away were like just frustrating and annoying. Hacking didn't feel all that
responsive. But now, and you know, maybe it's just because so many
other things have changed around these systems. It feels so much more fluid.
They also have I don't know if these skilled progression is new. The Chinobe,
like when you do a certain type of thing, it adds perks in
a completely like third Tree. Yeah, it's like every five it's like,
okay, once you get to fifteen, then you have these extra bonuses and
things like like the Borderland's trilogy did those when you rank up all the way,
it's like, okay, kill one hundred people with a melee weapon,
you'll get a bonus that will help you do melee shit. It's again,
it's like Skyrim. They've kind of gone back to this more like almost arcady
progression, which suits this game because it's a shooter at heart. It's not
it's not a Balder's Gate, it's not a you know, it's not a
it's not even the Witcher is slow paced compared to Cyberpunk, which makes sense
it's extremely futuristic, but vehicles feel way better. I haven't really done much
with vehicle combat outside of like this intro scene, but yeah, it feels
great. It's performing well, like I'm getting I'm enjoying just kind of fucking
around the city. Like I still think Night City, or like the game
that CD Project Red wanted to make, just won't be possible for like another
decade. I just I just don't know how you make a city like Night
City and flesh it out believably. There's too many people. It's like did
they say they wanted to Like no, no, no, no, Like
just just a true cyberpunk game like Fantasy works because it's it's like wooden huts
and sure there's magic, but like, in order for a cyberpunk mega futuristic
game to feel true to the genre, I think it just needs to be
packed more full with shit to do. Like there's stuff to do in Cyberpunk,
but the game still feels relatively compared to how the city looks, it
still feels a bit empty. It's the basic like kind of RPG thing of
like okay, well, here's the market area. And here's the guy that
sells jackets, and here's the guy that sells from you know, like,
yeah, what you see in Starfield millions a lot of window dressing. Yeah,
And I get it. I'm just saying, like, I get why
fantasy to me feels like it works better than sci fi and video games because
it's easier to let people walk through every door in a fantasy village than it
is in this megalopolis from the future, which I get again, But I
was like, there could be a really cool fucking game in this vein in
like a decade or two. Yeah. If it's like a farmhouse in a
fantasy game or something, you walk in and it's like, I don't know
how many things could you actually do if it was a farmhouse versus like if
there's a cyber cafe and all these like crazy clubs and stuff like that.
It feels more limited because it feels like there should be more things. Yeah,
but this conversation can also extend to Starfield and you know, well,
which is like the reason everybody got so excited about previous games was, Man,
there could be anything in these woods, but in Starfield, it's like,
well, I'm off to another Planet. It's why. Yeah, it's
why Elder Scrolls worked a lot better than Starfield. It's interesting, though,
because you'd think there'd be more vast, expansive, interesting things to do in
space, like in real life. Yeah, in life, like you have
like medieval times versus space. I'm sure space is more interesting. Yeah,
I've said this to co workers. I'm like, I still there are there
are good sci fi video games. I don't need to say that. People
know that. I don't think like game development is truly at a place where
we can make like, uh, I think we'll see way more good sci
fi games in a while, and like it's something like No Man Sky is
incredible for what they've pulled off, and No Man Sky is awesome nowadays.
We've talked about this, but it's just funny. It's like, well,
there's a reason again fantasy works so well with the tech we have right now.
But you know, it's I'm I'm looking forward to seeing what people pull
off in the future because cyberpunk is impressing the hell out of me right now.
I do feel like I'm actually able to make the character combat wise that
I wanted to make In twenty twenty, I'm also just that's but because the
game feels so much better, it is encouraging me to role play a bit
more too. It's like, well, okay, I did a nomad background
this time instead of the corpo. She's super like fast and the I didn't
realize farther down the skree. How much of like a fucking ninja you could
make? Like you get air dashes, you get slides. You can extend
your slide to allow you to shoot while you're sliding across the whole room.
You can you can get I believe there's a perk to let you do several
air dashes before you hit the ground again. So that because I'm using melee
stuff enough, I'm ranking it up just by using it, but I'm also
ranking up and coming into these skill trees based on these attributes. It's just
so much more in your face about how it works. It's like, oh,
right, I'm going to keep trying to push this ninja aspect with who's
good with pistols and swords and hacking so I can hack enemies and fun with
them and set them on fire, and also like blind them for a bit
so I can get in close with my sword. It's way more intuitive to
me that I would keep putting points into reflexes, net technical proficiency for the
net, running the hacking, and small arms whatever skill dictates that. And
then that's again that's just feeding into when I'm having these conversations with characters.
I do think this game is well written. I think it's trying too hard
sometimes, but most cyberpunk does try too hard. Like the genre, the
writing is very like Eastern European, like the edginess, you know, like,
yeah, yeah, there's definitely that, and I'm kind of it's fun
to lean into it this time with my character choices and my dialogue ship.
I'm being the biggest dick. Yeah, she's a nomad, so I'm just
like, I feel like she would not be like super well adjusted socially and
get pissed off easily. And yeah, I'm liking it a bunch. It's
I do think there are some times where I'm like, am I going to
stick with this? Because right now I really do want to stick with it
and see Phantom Liberty because Dan the relics Guiltree, which the relics if you
played the Bass game are like these specific like neural implants if memory serves.
How does that add to the character building stuff? I mean, I am
not super far, but I think the one I've been kind of following this
path that's like optic camouflage, So it's really helpful. If I'm in the
middle of like just a shit storm firefight, I can hit RB like quick
access and just optic camouflage for just a few seconds and it's enough for me
to just sprint somewhere else duck behind a dumpster or something is something, and
they're like, oh, where the fuck did they go? You know,
so I have not done enough to It does look like a beefy like it's
the full part of the skill tree, so it seems like there's a lot
there, but I just haven't gotten far enough yet. Yeah, relics struck
me as more of the like real superpowers you could develop instead of just like
or just further superpowers to develop, because like optic camouflage seems more like an
actual power rather than this ability you're upgrading, which is super attractive. So
I want to keep trying to get there because my thinking about how my characters
performing now as opposed to potentially having like camouflage is enticing. Yeah, I'm
super impressed. It's just like it's further proof that most video games nowaday or
not gonna be, or rather many video games nowadays either should have been an
early access or are sort of kind of in this quasi early access. Anyway,
I was just thinking that because that scale, I should say not,
you know, like the indie studios can come out with a full fledged game
and kill it right away. Yeah, I was just thinking that where it's
like my experience in twenty twenty, it felt like I got like a really
beefy early access build of that game, and then a few years later it's
like, oh man, it's really out and oh shit, okay, it's
all polished up, ready to go. You know, it's the same thing
I'm having with No Man Sky. What else? This year, I replayed
some other older game that again felt like, oh it's fully well. I
mean Bather's Gate obviously, but they were like out they were outwardly saying it
was early access and the whole game wasn't available when it was released initially several
years ago. But yeah, it's just see if thieves just the amount they
fleshed that game out compared to what it was, and like what twenty seventeen.
I'm like, so much work, yeah, and it's it's a shame
that each of these games is designed to be like one of the only games
you play, because there's so many good games that have been fleshed out since
they felt like a demo at first, and like, I'm never going to
play them all, but I mean that's happening more and more now. I
remember, like Siege didn't Seege you have like a really underwhelmed launch, and
then then it came around see If Thieves No Man Sky was the Division one
of those that the first division for sure? Yes, that released a big
Yeah that released. Division released a big patch alongside an expansion, the same
way that Cyberpunk did. H I don't play it. I'm not going too
many time soon. I've heard very good things nowadays about Fallout seventy six after
their pretty disastrous launch or also just like miscommunicated launch, but people are liking
that a lot. They added that expansion that put way more single player content,
And I'm like, and all of these games truthfully sound right now like
something I would like to play after we're done recording, but just the reality
of it, as they're too long and there's too many of them, and
something like Moral Kombat is also here, and I want to keep playing Cyberpunk.
So I was like, I need that, we need that Hermione Granger
Hourglass just to be able to play all of these because there's stiff think about
like like Anthem, you know, bad launch. Now it's the biggest game
on the planet. Yeah, exactly really turned that around. Everyone's talking about
Anthem. Yeah, elicit's laughter that they turned it around? Did they even
try? Oh that's the thing, Like what went wrong there that they weren't
able to do what all these other games did? Like they must have.
I mean, well, we know, like a lot of talent left the
studio like right away and during development. But it's like if they had stuck
with it and kind of put out like a healthy roadmap for the future,
Like could people be ranting about raving about Anthem today if they had put a
better foundation there at the start. That's why it's hard now, like if
a game has a disastrous launch to like you can't just like say, well
dead and buried more because there have been enough of these examples, like Man
they really fucking turn Like No, Man Sky is a pretty extreme one.
Right now. That guy is the ultimate example. Because it had all this
hype, it had a disastrous release, and then the devs worked really hard
to kind of regain audiences trust and actually became beloved from the players of their
game because they've put so much time and work into it. I mean,
now it's like prolific. It's insane that that game is. I played a
lot over the summer, and of the twenty five hours I put into it,
I saw all the ship they've been adding the ship to ship, freighter,
battles, and frigates, and like, you can have your own fleet
of merchant trading ships on which you can build like a do a Stardo Valley
esque farming simulator with which you'll give you resources to then trade. And then
you can also go to planets and build a house anywhere you want. And
the house there's no real size limit, it's just about the supply as you
have. You can do. You can become a smuggler and do these smuggling
runs much like a cyberpunk does at the beginning. You can do They just
added a whole new robot race with its own storyline. You can make your
own robot companions now it's and all of it like is good and is seamless,
and that game still feels incredible. Just take off a planet, land
anywhere you want on it. Yeah, yeah, which makes you think of
something like Starfields, which like, you know, not a disaster launch like
obviously tons of people playing, and obvious seen as a success, I would
imagine, but like a lot of complaints. Yeah, you know, all
three of us have our complaints with it for sure. But maybe in a
few years between the mod scene and but does they're working on it, Like
it might be a thing where it's like, oh man, they really kind
of turned that ship. Once they rerelease it on PS six in that generation
and it starts coming to new consoles, I'm like, oh, maybe i'll,
you know, give it more of a go. This is a long
call game. They're gonna put so many more years of work into it,
assuming that the current player base does stay, which I've actually had several people
say they're a dick did. So it's not like not everybody is like us,
you know, like there's people who are like playing this game pretty relentlessly
right now, even us who aren't super hot on it. Like I don't
think any of us think that this is one of those like disaster launches,
like the ones we were talking about before. Like it's like, no,
it's just it was kind of underwhelming or didn't really grab us, you know,
like I think it's a good game. M just I don't. There's
a lot of other stuff I'd rather play right now. Yeah, but yeah,
I mean, if if people are I would probably be quicker to do
these amazing games coming out. We're just like, oh my god, I
really could play another day in picking right now. God, yeah, because
I'm looking forward to trying. I think Jake and I talked about finding someone
else a few other people who played pay Day three with us. I'm curious.
I'm would episode I would. I was thinking that to day I was
going to bring it up. Yes, I think the four of us playing
it's on game Pass, he's gonna do like I think Scapes Heat. Yeah,
we just it's because I mean I played a little bit of too and
it was rad. But then I tried that. I think Jake recommended I
try it out along when we were in our like Deep Rainbow six Siege days
Because similar both games, you're you're communicating a lot. There are certain different
character classes and whatnot that are interacting. There's team synergy, but it's also
like, you know, there's there's that high skill ceiling involved, But I
want to try that out. That'd be fun bonus episode for us four to
go do a heist. Yes, we should do that, And then I
want to play Cocoon, another puzzle game that Polygon people are ranting about or
at least excited for. I should say what other games have we started?
Is there anything else on our games that we have played that we haven't talked
about yet? Let me here, I'll do it. I'll do a rapid
fire lightning around. Oh wait, so I do have one more, one
more big one. I don't think we talked about it on last episode?
Did I talk about high played like four or three hours of Assassin's Creed Mirage
as someone who really likes Assassin Creed games, and I've been tapering off.
I didn't like Valhella, but I liked Odyssey and I loved Origins. It
feels like they're going for the throwback vibe of a more digestible, twenty hour
Assassin's Creed in one city and a few surrounding problems when they were shorter boring
games. Oh right, yeah, the golden age of Assassin's Creed. Yeah,
it feel they were. They're like trying to go back to social stealth
and more like you're a detective. You're talking to different sources around the city
trying to find the location of this target. I appreciate all that thematically in
execution, though it also feels like they digressed in many other ways. I'm
jumping to ledges I did not want to go to at all. I'm getting
magnetized to certain wooden posts like that, the Parkers. It feels annoying again
in a way that largely the last three games I think circumvented by widening things
and making Parkor not the focus. But even like for all of its shit,
Assassin's Creed Unity still I think nailed the parkour and the descending and the
ascending. I just I don't know. Granted, this was a month before
release, that's pretty close. This was like a week ago, so that's
not much time for them to fix a ton of these problems. I don't
know exactly how Ubisoft Bordeaux is working or works, but I'm I came away
with lower expectations than I had originally because I was. I was excited to
try out like a digestible Assassin's creed for the first time in a while.
But yeah, I'm I guess we'll see more when that comes out in full
interesting October fifth, I think, Yeah, we're like in, we're well
into the Fall Games Rush already. Yeah, there's still a decent amount.
Well, I mean it's only September, Like no, I know, but
like we're like in it already. It's my point. Is there a colored
Duty this here? Yeah, called Duty? Modern Warfare three is November,
I believe. Oh yeah, they did the macro of Trallier. Who's making
this one? Is this Infinity m No, they condensed a lot of it
was trac Infinity working. Yeah, they they know. They brought in sledge
Hammer, I believe. I don't know. I forgot how that all works.
Now. It's it was basically there's been there were reports that I believe
have been kind of corroborated across several sites that it started more as like a
modern Warfare two point Modern Warfare two two point zero, and then they're just
like, oh, this is actually a decent amount of stuff, so let's
make it Modern Warfare three. So I don't know how fully fleshed out.
It'll be okay. It'll still get to do really well though, and people
play the ship out of it Call of Duty mark for a long time,
and I feel like last year was the first time I was like, I
don't even really feel like that reboot. Modern Warfare was awesome. We played
a lot of that. Oh yeah, I no, that would get ask.
That was great, But like I used to be a huge mark for
like the campaigns every year or even if I didn't play much multiplayer, And
then I started, like I did like one mission to Modern Warfare two reboot,
and it was just like, oh, it's just the shooting gallery thing
finally got boring to me. It took a long time, but it finally
was like, ah, I get it all right. Yeah. Because other
than that, we got supermar Brow's Wonder, which sounds awesome. Yes,
that comes out the day before I have a flight for Canada, and I'm
gonna play the shit out Alan Wake two, which also sounds rad. They're
doing the resume for Format Survival Horror now Spider Man two. I'm sure that'll
be fun. I'm expecting to be uh not Spider Man two. That's a
game. Yeah, you're expecting to be to not be what did you know,
be really taken by the people have played it at this point and everyone
I'm hearing and everything I've seen is just kind of like, yeah, right,
I don't I don't know if I'm going to start that. I might,
I mean between the first one and Miles Moralis and kind of short order,
like they're very well made, expensive games. Yeah, weren't you Like
it's the first one though, I love them both great, just I just
think I want to be more of the same or have people said they don't
love it from what they played. I've heard people say that they were just
like I've never heard anyone that played it be like oh fuck yeah, Like
everyone's like, yeah, that's exactly what it looks like. So it's like,
I don't know, from the trailers and the early impercetions, I've been
here and I'm not, uh not really on my radar here. Yeah,
because then aside from that, yeah, there's Assassin Creedmarrage, There's there's a
bunch of stuff in October I'm missing, I'm sure, but oh and then
Warhammer forty k rope Trader now has a released date December seventh. Basically,
I'm wondering if Balder's Gate three momentum will carry into that game because people are
varying theo CRPGs when they get a good one. Yeah, Balder's Gate is
like so monumental though, now everybody's going to compare it. People. Yeah,
that game a lot yep. Yes, every time, all the all
the sexy clips I've been seeing, people are loving it. It's crazy.
Uh remember when the Witcher came out and everyone was like, he has sex
in this game. Balder's Gate is like, screw that. These people are
sixty nine yng they're eating but everything crazy is happening in this game. It's
horny as hell. I don't think I've ever understood what Like's throne. Like,
no, no fault of anyone if they if they like it, But
like I've never been like I need to fucking my games like I've never ever
in my life. You're gonna go on and eating ass tangent. No,
I just really like sex and video games just hockey by very different parts of
the play dark Watch dark Watch. You've played dark Watch the PS two games
I did, Yeah, we talked about it was the PS two Wild West
Vampire game with the guns with the blades. One. Yeah, dark Watch
you told me you just okay Verse you could see dan Mouth. I gat
it. Okay, that's I mean, we're all used to playing like really
hot characters in games and liking that, right, Like, there's an element
of your games you want to see like sexy people in your games. So
sexy games have always been connected. But when you actually see the deed and
it goes into like, oh, I'm just watching people bang. Now did
they show full on like boning in Balder's game? Oh, like dot they
don't show full penetration. Softcore it is. It is naked people on top
of each other. Okay, I guess I'm just it's not a judgmental thing.
People are like, go to town, jack off to whatever you want
to jack off to or whatever. I've just never look I like jacking off,
jacking off fun. But I when I'm playing a nice video game over
here on my television screen and what I'm masturbating my pains, it's two very
different things going on. I'm not looking at the combine these things. It's
like when I play wrestle Quest and it's like I like saying, I like
video games. I don't need wrestling to be in my video games like this,
It's just it's two different things. I like a peanut butter sandwich,
like, I don't need What does that have to do with messing jelly thing?
And he couldn't get it together. I think he at the very end
anyone for what they're into. I'm just saying I personally don't get wanting to
fuck in a video game. I laugh when I when I experienced sandwich.
Yeah, ever fucked a peanut butter jelly? Oh, you're missing out.
Every when I was thirteen and I was a pew passing thirteen year old and
Laura Croft and stuff, and every EGM had a bunch of you know,
hot godgeplayer ladies doing Lara Croft stuff. Sure of course that was at a
thirteen year old. Hell yeah, But like I just I don't I don't
need that. Well, there's a lot of I think, uncomfortable humor that
comes from seeing it. I remember in The Witcher and the Witcher's hot as
shit, and every time he had sex in that game, I remember I
kind of couldn't help but laugh, Like I was laughing during the sequences and
I think it was maybe what you're talking about was just like my brain was
in like I'm playing, I'm this cool witcher, I'm having fun, I'm
learning the mechanics, and I was like, oh my god, I'm I'm
banging this lady and I couldn't stop laughing. I wasn't actually like really into
the scene. I have yet to kind of experience like a sex scene in
a game where I'm like, oh, yeah, like this is so hot.
Like most of the time, I'm like, oh my god, they're
doing it. So that's the question. Do you think when people are making
like a big thing out of like the Baldersgate sex or the tall lady in
Mesi and Evil. Do you think it is mostly like, oh, this
is a funny thing, that this is like a oh sexy thing in a
video game, or do you think it's like fuck you tall vampire, like
dude, like what do you what is that look? I genuinely don't know.
It's a death blend. So we'll talk about this in a little bit.
But like Hades is is like synonymous with like, I want to bang
everyone in this game. I am forty for that game because I played that
game and I was. I played a lot of that game. I'm loving
it. Then I see online everyone was talking about sex stuff and thing.
I's like, what, Haiti, are we playing the same game? It's
hot, A game is hot. I get the character models are hot,
but that's not why I was playing a game because it's a good game.
But I am saying they're hot ass and it's really enjoyable looking at them.
I would say the only game that's found this death blend for Better or Worse
is Overwatched. Wait, is death Blend a good thing or a bad thing?
I've never heard that dame before Death Blend like a really good mash where
it seems like it works like the sex and the game works well together.
What about Overwatches a sex thing? Well, I heard about the fucking Elon
musk Amber heard thing, which is fucking weird. But that's unfortunate that I
think that's connected to what I'm referring to, which is that all the characters
in Overwatch are so hot that essentially they all have porn associated with the for
better or for Worse. Yeah, but that porn is different. They're taking
it's not it's not, but but is it not a part of the game.
Yeah, uh, metaverse the extended world like the game. Don't look
for that though, because as someone who just played Overwatch, like they didn't
even enter my mind that like people would be like horny about this game.
I thought like it was a fun multiplayer shooter. I don't know, I
like not a sexual. I get horny, but like, you don't me.
Apparently, Apparently fucking is jelly and playing video games is peanut butter and
never the Twain shall meet. Wait, fuck humans house, It's not in
this house. We do not. No, this is not I'm a cool
guy thing or I'm judging by I was fucking thirteen, I would draw a
sea and a reverse sea with circles in the middle of and get a horny
because they kind of looked like boobs, Like I understand, like that everything
has to be a naked lady right in front of to get a horny like,
I just don't understand playing like Overwatch and being like yeah sex, Like
what where do how do we jump to sex from these people rollerskating around and
shooting each other. I'm more fascinating. I'm not judging it. I just
don't get a long time since you've been thirteen. If you're willing to be
horny over lines and dots, imagine seeing like really really hot characters in games.
Character all of them. Well, what they're like? Guy that runs
around the first tires? Or who? Especially all the women? Huh?
The sniper a widow maker, widower? Thank you. It's been so long
since I've played this game, and it shows the runny lady. She runs
really fast. No, yeah, she's got the shoes reaper. No,
it's it's sombra. Trust me, Mike, you're gonna get kicked out of
subway. Listen, this is a video is a video game podcast. We
are not jaying it on video game podcast because these are different. We will
have separation of sex and games, Church and state separated. So are video
games and sex, and so are our mayo and jizz. We promise I
didn't do that. I want to try funny. You got fired? What
else? Do people get fired for a lot of things? Range specific.
I've ever been fired. I know for a fact that you were jizzen somewhere
at your place of work. Well, I've never been fired, so you
know I've never done that. It's because you don't do it, because you're
ace. You can't handle it as a sexual Yeah, okay, I feel
like if this comes across as judging people for what they're doing, it's not.
There's also no judgment for like, first of all, there's no judgment
for having having all the horniness. There's also no judgment for not having all
the horns. Don't care, that's fine. I just you know, I
don't know when when I occasionally see like I'm not a super online, but
when I see this stuff on Twitter and stuff of people being horny about things
that I just I don't know if it's ironic or genuine. I'll send you
the clip. There's a really crazy twitch clip of a balder's gate, and
I feel like it'll change your mum. We will be like, I can't
believe this scene is so long. I'm not saying you'll jay it to it.
I'm just saying you might be like, oh, I could see why
people would would. Does that make sense? Mike's nodding, No, I'll
hand check the whole time. We're good. Yeah, I'd like to see
both of your hands. I know the kind of apparatus you got hooked up
under your desks down there, hands free Jay and modified into JA it's a
little fucking flesh light duct tape to the bottom of your desk, the Steve
Brule sketch or the Steve Bruled video where he uses the thing that's designed to
get come out of horses really quick. Do you know Steve Brule is no,
I missed the whole adult swim. I didn't know it as an adult
swim. It's just I think so. And he goes into this doctor's officer,
like this veterinarian where they have this thing that they can hook horses up
to that's designed to just get horse seamen really quick. Gets hooked up to
it, and it takes like four seconds turn this thing off. I'm dry.
That's vile, Dan. What are these quick fire games you want to
talk about? Right? The Impossible Pivot? Okay, lines of p These
are all games I've played, Like an hour of Lies of Pe. I
was mostly just taken by like, you know, people described it as like
blood born with Pinocchio. Holy shit. I didn't realize how seriously they meant
that, because like it is just straight up blood born as it doesn't read
to me as Pinocchio because I don't know when I hear Pinocchio, I just
picture of the cartoon and this doesn't look like that, So I didn't realize
it was a larger story. I thought it was just the Disney cartoons,
So that was weird to me. But the actual gameplay and just the whole
like, I mean, it's just like, oh, okay, instead of
the not the fucking bonfire, what wasn't Blood Born, it was the blood
Sipper, what was the fucking thing? The bond planters, whatever, the
yeah, whatever you activate, there's just there's an analog for everything. Here's
that thing, here's that thing. The controls are they feel like one to
one the UI on your little extra pouch and stuff like. It is just
it is like legally distinct sound alike of Blood Born. You close to the
point where like it's kind of I don't know, shameless. I mean,
uh, that's hard to say. It is. It is pretty extreme in
terms of how much it's taping it, but like it's also good from what
I've played, and so to the point where it's like, you know,
I texted my sister Kayla, who like Blood Born a lot, and she
hadn't heard of this, and I was like, oh, you should check
this out. I think you'd like it, like it's good, but it
is just straight up blood born. I didn't play enough to see the whole
like level up system and all that to know if that apes that, but
like on the surface, very blood born umbrella. It was a Devolver game
planning on the switch kind of side scrolling, but like there's some dialogue stuff
in different quests and everything going on there. It's the main hook is the
gun umbrella, where it's like a shotgun attached to an umbrella. So when
you hit like the R shoulder whatever direction you're pointing with the left stick,
you kind of it shoots like into the umbrella and you kind of like dash
in that way. But since it's an umbrella, you can like shoot yourself
up into the air and float down. You could like wall jump and after
the wall jump, shoot the gun umbrella up and then float. But like
there's just a fun a lot of fun platforming and action stuff that comes out
of this one cool idea. I was like, Oh, it's a gunnbrella
like I've never really seen in all the two D platforms I've played, like
a mechanic exactly like that, So that seems pretty cool from what I've played.
H and then F zero ninety nine. I was never a big F
zero guy. That was the one like first party Nintendo series and never really
messed with too much, But this is a like I love the idea that
they keep taking these series. And here's the ninety nine version of it between
Tetris pac Man F zero. It ried with Mario that wasn't as good,
but like, I think it's such a fun concept of that like Battle Royale
slapped onto like an old Nintendo game. Uh and and this seems like a
really good version of that. So yeah, I'd like to see more of
those. That's that's my lightning round cool. I want to play a gun
umbrella. I think that's cool. I let you know, I like Devolver.
I think that sounds like a game I would like so interested developers done
an incredible job at like with their brand or just their whole company of Like
when I see that logo, I instantly think like, Okay, well,
this isn't going to be just like a shitty game. Like there seems to
be a curation with the games they publish, and they all kind of have
like fun gimmicks and as far as like indie games like that is they label
I look at and I feel like, oh yeah, okay, I feel
like I know what I'm going into and I'm probably gonna like it, or
at least like really respect what they're going for. This strike me as like
an A twenty four. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds still good.
All right? Yeah? Cool? Do you want to do emails? Yeah?
All right. As usually, you can run into firescape cast at gmail
dot com for questions, comments, concerns, corrections, which go in my
special filing folder called the Trash Not all the time. We've actually read a
few recently that were productive, constructive, but then we banned them from the
feed and the patroon. Yep, yeah you're not if well, you're not
listening to it now. If it was you, you wouldn't be able to
listen to it. But sorry, yeah, don't do it? All right?
Cool? Mary? Do you want to read this first one from our
old friend West. Yes? Hello. If you were an asshole rich person
with buttloads of potentially ill begotten money, and you didn't care about the stupid
environment, poor people, or fake government, where would you build your summer
house and your winter house? Thanks West from Baltimore, PS, Baby chud
fuggers loves the podcast and also hates Starfield. All right, build my summer
house in winter House. I feel like as a kid whenever I was playing
Sonic and I would like, you get to the last area or the area
before the last, and it's always like doctor Robotnick had like an air fortress.
I'd be like, damn, he's like he's evil. But that guy
made it talking about it was an ass if like what would your like,
Yeah, We've talked about this several times on the show. It's like,
what would your if money wasn't an object and like anything was possible, what
would your like ultimate castle look like Doctor Wiley castle like I want it like
in or an air fortress like I want it like in the clouds like Doctor's
giant skull front and you know, just it seems like a labyrinth giant mansion
in the sky. Like there's something cool about that, right, an island,
a sky island, skyland. Kink Kink role lives in his like head
in Donkey Kong sixty four, I would live in a giant head of myself.
Yeah, And the ideal I would like to live when my summer house
would be hmm. So there's like the two schools of thought. It's like,
do you want to take advantage of the winter with your winter house and
go somewhere with skiing or snowboarding or somewhere picturesque, or do you want to
avoid the coal. It's interesting that they give you summer and winter options.
I think the idea here is that you're so rich that you have chalets in
the winter, But like, what's like a serene environment that you no longer
have to worry? I would say it would probably be maybe it would be
like in a public park. Like if I'm an asshole, I would say
that maybe I would put it in a gorgeous park that should be for the
public, but I would put my personal house there and then not allow people
to turrets to keep people out. Yeah, you're such a New Yorker.
I was thinking like up like a national park like the Grand Canion, or
think like I'm thinking big, And then I would essentially, because I'm taking
the asshole part of this email really seriously, like what's the meanest thing you
could do? Oh my god, I know what it is. My summer
house would be a house in Disney's Castle, and then I wouldn't let children
near it. I would sense it off. I'm with you on that.
I don't like Disney, but like I respect what you're going for. Oh,
this is very full circle. I'm talking about how children aren't allowed and
I would have like clear signage that's like twenty one and up. And I
would allow people to like have debauchery and parties in my summer house because it's
my fucking summer house. Like I can do whatever I want. But it's
in Disney the Park. So there's all these families nearby, and all my
friends are puking and dumping out their tits and stuff, and all these kids
have to avert their eyes. Yeah, band kids from parties? Do you
have, Mike, I would have a dump dump your tits? What does
that mean? It's just a fun phrase, dump them out right, you're
right? Yeah, you're pulling them out or dumping now, don't them out
Let's see it dicks up? Am I right? Boys, That's that's what
we say at my Disney summer So it's fine. No, it's not for
freaks. It's not like it's not that type of debauchery. Children aren't literally
allowed to be in the park because I'm having my party and it's Mary.
Mary does often. No, that's not a good joke. No, no,
Mike, No, Mike, you should do it. Jake, what
Jake? The technology we can beep you. What's the same the joke,
Mike, I mean when we record the time, Sam before I tell you
write it down? Boy, a free timestamp. That's an unprecedented alright.
And then and then Mary, you decide for beeping or not. Okay,
I was gonna make a bit about how and pretend that Mary has has always
been talking about Jesus. I know that was the angle. I do the
same thing with me and a certain comedian who has fallen from grace. So
true, that's true. Though, Okay, Well, I wrote the time
said we should definitely beat that. And the more the more of the sentence
I said, the more I'm like, oh god, this is ill,
this is in bad taste. I do like the running thing of just beeps
that we never explained. We get comments on Patreon and they're like, what
did Mike say? I need to know. No, that's not gonna.
I didn't say anything. I just made a beep noise like watch, I
just did it again, put two beeps and sound. Though, yeah,
I would buy a castle in Ireland and then booby trap it and then invite
just describing skyfall, Tell yeah, tell people that they can. If they
can come and ring the bell in the tower of the castle, I'll give
them a billion dollars, but I booby trap it in like the most Wait
is it Ireland dollars or whatever money, whatever currency flies in your home country?
You can come from all over the world. Are these cheeky home alone
booby traps or are these a million dollars have to work? So are they
land mine? Oh? Yeah, I'm thinking, like I don't even want
you really getting close to the door, like automatic laser turrets that fry you.
So do you want to be killing people? That's the whole point of
being rich, is being able to kill people in the with no consequence.
Yeah, yeah, of course that's part of my fantasy. Mary. I
think about it right now, and I'm not rich. You think you think
getting you think getting billions of dollars would subdue my murder murderous intend it wouldn't
foster it and nurture it. I would kill so many people if I was
rich, I plan a new murder. Good night. It's like a dog
that runs in his dream, but Mike Stabbing care in the world. There
he goes, He's free. God, there will be a documentary about me
on Netflix someday. That's such an ominous thing. Castled the Michael Hardy Sorry,
that would be my summer house. My winter house would be would my
winterhouse be? What's something good that I didn't have to care about people for?
Oh? I got it. I would make a house boat. But
it's also extremely fast, and it's got a giant like medieval style javelin or
like lance on the front, and just drive around the oceans and lakes and
beaches and just spear other ships and come up. And then it has wheels,
so I can come up on the beach and then drive around with my
javelin boat just tear people up. This question, just to reiterate, is
really more of a location based question, not so much of like what kind
of device would you construct to murder as many people as possible? Amphibious murder
machine, amphibious murder jousting thing. If I have enough money, you don't
need your house to be stationary. I understand what the question question is.
Location Okay, okay, I would get a murder amphibious jousting boat on lock
nests and kill people searching for I've got one. It would be underwater,
and I'd find the world's best scientists and best thinkers and best philosophers and best
engineers, and I'd create this utopia for them, and I'd bring them down
into a bubble city underwater and we'd live there apart they have superpowers based on
these out of my hands. Yeah, go wrong. And then I'll build
a city in the sky and they'll be based around the same idea. Oh
okay, and then the lighthouse or something in picturesque be some cool lighthouses.
I really would live in the lighthouse though. Lighthouse is a cool concept for
a summer home. Yeah, that really is. Yeah, be good.
That's a good question. Thank you us. All right, I'll read this
one. We went to the whole thing. Phil from Calgary wrote in High
Fire Escape and listen to this week. Read last week's podcast, and I'm
thoroughly enjoying the talk about pairing Bogealat with crun traps. Since Mike is such
a pro with this, Thank you, I appreciate it. I was hoping
he'd give me some advice for an upcoming dot dot dot dot thing dot dot
dot dot. I need a pairing for some contexts. I'm turning forty in
October of this year, and I'm heading up to Whitehorse, Yukon with some
friends for a Northern Lights adventure. One of the things we'll be doing is
driving to Dawson City, Yukon, which is the home of the Sour Doughs
Saloon. I would like to know which type of booze you would recommend I
order for their world famous sour Toe cocktail. It consists of your choice of
spirit and a severed and mummified human toe. No, would whiskey be the
best to compliment the toe notes? How about covering it up with the botanical
flavors and gin? What's the best strategy here? My best friend is hell
been on returning home and they certificate to prove he drank one of these cocktails,
and I can't let them upstage me. There's a description on their website,
he says, he knows. We're curious. We're gonna look this up.
Is I'm looking it up right now? Where do they get into the
outside looks amazing. The building itself looks awesome. Ye looks like I would
like, like immediately it looks like a dead Oh my god, if you
search sour dough saloon toe. Oh my god, they can't do that.
How's that legal? Wait? Former marine donates his frost bitten toe to hotel
to be served and shot. Oh it's the same toe. Every time I
thought they had like a stash the same toe. Wait, he says man
males amputated toes plural to saloon and use for their sour toe cocktail. No,
no, no, they use and reuse. It's numerous different ones.
So yes, they do get reused. You're not eating the toe. They've
done it for forty years. But they have like a growing collection of toes
that they use. That's so fucked up. I guess for like frostbite shit
in that part of the world, in the Yukon, they're probably not in
a shortage of toes that they could people to chip there. Oh my god,
says The beverage consists of a mummified a human toe floating in a whiskey
shot. Patrons must let the did or it's blackened nail touched their lips in
order to receive a certificate and qualify for admittance to this Sour Dough cocktail club.
But you don't have to do whiskey. According to what Joe Phil is
telling us, I'm not gonna lie. If I was there with you two
and it was the thing where we all decided to do it, I would
do it. I would do it. I'm not gonna go to the Yukon
and not do this. I took a show with a live fish in it,
like two months ago. Like. Have you read the origin of the
toe? No? Okay. The toe is said to have belonged to a
minor and run rummer named Louis Lichn who had his frost bitten appendage amputated in
the nineteen twenties. He preserved it in a jar of alcohol in the cabin
for memories. But fifty years later, in nineteen seventy three, Yukon local
captain Dick Stevenson what a fucking name found found the jar containing the toe.
A cleaning captain, Dick brought the toe down to the Sour Dough Salute and
started plunking it into the drinks of those who were brave enough drinks. Do
you think you're a man? Drink this toe, you little bitch. I'm
Captain Dick, I would do it, and this is the worst Disneyland experience
you will ever have to answer. To answer Phil's question, I would liquor
what I shot with that in it? Honestly, probably vodka neutralize as much
of the taste of the toe as possible, and something so neutral. I
think I would want something with flavor, like do some fucking rumblements thing or
something. I want something it's gonna burn and distract me from the toe.
I want something very flavorful to fireball whiskey. Yeah, yeah, something intense
that will quell the toe. Someone's like, I'll do a lemon drop shot
please, with the toe in it. I think I would do the hole
tequila gimmick with the like licking the salt. Take this thing and then no,
no, no, a certificate would you get? Yeah? Yeah,
no, you you take, you lick the salt, you squirt the their
weight, you like the salt, You take the shot, and then you
bite the lime and then you fucking don't swallow the toe. Do you think
anyone's done that. I'm sure that would be so rude, because they reuse
the toes. I know I'm not yet well, I don't want to put
them out of business. Otherwise I would they only have so many toes,
Mike. Every toe you take, they you they you have to get either
your own or you have to replace out. Yeah, they're like, oh
you also tone? Now. I was like, you never ask and that
like no, I so are we in agreeing? We would? We would
all do it the we're all found ourselves there. Ever, up in Yukon,
which is very far north. Hey, gam with you're next her.
I would have fun in Yukon. I think I was come to Minnesota.
It's cold here. No, Mary, you have to travel that far to
eat a toe? Yeah, you eat tones all the time. The funny
fair that like we're all take like little mini shots at us. But at
the end of this episode, I'm a fucking no, no, don't don't
make him beat anything else toe, fucking little freak. That's all for the
record, that that's what happened. That's all, Mike. That's all,
Mike. I've accused you of nothing. I've been I've been paraded around is
the freakiest one of this group, and that's outrageous. You make bits about
me liking terrible people all the time. You fuck trees Dan apparently doesn't suck
anything. And I'm sitting here I should be the neutral party should be.
I'm somewhere in the middle of Fine. We'll leave you to your Nixon.
Oh right, that's your thing. Yeah, I would go with I would
go with vodka. But if you want something flavorful of maybe, I don't
know the maybe. In honor of Louis Lichn, the original toe donator,
drink it with rum. He was a rum runner. Pay him some respect
with some rum. I love that. Do it for Lin. All right,
Thank you Phil from Calgary. That's our show. We do have to
reiterate you now. I wrote this down. You have where'd it go?
This is a great radio Oh you have until Saturday, September third, not
too long from now to buy our fire Escape in Space shirt. It's a
limited run shirt, so you've got several more days to buy it if you
haven't already. We got a bunch of people who are going to be sporting
that in their hometowns and maybe at trade shows and we see them. You
can go to fireskatecast dot com, which is our Patreon and'll bring you there.
It's just it's posted there. It's also on our Instagram. Mary has
put it up on our social channels. It's the easiest way to get it,
or if you want to go slightly more roundabout way, just go to
bonfire dot com. Most of our merch is on Fireskate merch dot com.
This limited run shirt is through a different company called Bonfire, so it's over
there. Go grab it while it's still available for several more days. Mary,
I took your merch thing, so you can do my normal. I
love doing podcasts, but I don't really know how to read, so I
hope everybody else can help me do it. Dan, what do we do
next? Oh geez, well, I thought you were going to toss to
Marry for something. It has been mic set talking all the time signing off.
This is the podcast. So go to go work out? Oh wow,
yeah, what kind of one? My bench press can't bench bark very
much because I don't have any core. But like I, all these muscles
do little caps off with my dead lips. Mike, that's it. That's
my impression of myself. Mike, Wait, what why am I? This
is really getting deep into the impressions. That's what you sound like. That's
what they've always said, Dan, what do you Dan? What are you
have going on? Oh? What are you doing? An impression of her
doing a prench. She was really accurate. What are you going on?
Giant Bom dot com, Twitch dot tv, slash Dan Reichord I'm going to
Canada next month and I'm doing commentary on a pro wrestling show with Evil Uno
of AW. It'll be live stream on Twitch, Twitch dot tv, slash
Evil Know Mystery Wresting for October twenty second. I'll see you in Quebec or
I'll see you on Twitch there. It'll be a fun time. It's gonna
be a weird show. I've been talking to you know a lot about it.
Got some good, good ideas going on here? What part of Quebec?
I'm looking at him thing now centrally, dude, get Quebec. I'm
flying into Ottawa. Leave it's the nation's capital. You're flying into Ottawa to
go up to Quebec. Yeah? Is that weird? No? I guess
I mean it. No, I guess that can make sense. I think
that's from flying. I don't know. I book my flight. They're not
super far. I mean Ottawa itself is right there. I'm just saying I
don't know what part of Quebec. You're on now? Yeah, flying to
Ottawa. Yep, Sweet Mary? What do you have going on? Mostly
Twitch related things? Because twitch Con is coming up in October. I was
so lucky. It just so happens that it's like six days after your wedding,
so I can. I was really threaded that needle this year in Paris
from New York. I'm so the second Twitch Con is in Vegas, so
I will go from New York to Vegas, probably directly, but that'll be
fun. So doing that looking forward to your wedding. And that's it.
Sick. I'm over at Polygon. Got some stuff up over there. Go
check it out. Uh, that's our show. That's episode sixty four.
Woo, it's been good. We gotta we might gotta figure out some recording
around wedding stuff. I might be missing an episode before you guys get here.
It's on a few months. I think we probably all got a lot
going on, five, are we. Yeah, we'll talk, we'll figure
out. If we're all going to the Game Awards, we'll probably have one.
I don't I'm not going to. I don't think I'll probably we'll have
an episode up like right before the wedding again. We can always sub end
if somebody can't make it, so we will continue. We haven't missed a
Sunday yet, have we? No? No a Monday up? Oh yeah
for embargo stuff and every every any given Mondays, any given Monday back.
Thank you everybody for joining. Go get that merch, Go to our fires,
go to our patriots, get that much. This is me Mike signing
off. We got lots of merch here. You're gonna want to get your
cups. You want to get them, the ones that say that I was
a Jedi. Those are my favorite ones. Be sure to get them.
I won't kill you if you do it. Ha ha, maybe I will.
You never know. Anyway, I gotta go so I'm tired and stupid. Bye