A Hi, folks, I'm Dan. You're used to hearing Mike Maharty's voice
right now, but this is Dan's and I have Mary here. Mary,
Hi, Hi. It's so weird. How do we do this without him?
Yeah? This is weird because we've had Mike gone before, but I
feel like you were also gone. So I just had Ben Hanson over and
I just recorded my own like kind of bespoke set up here. It's something
weird by yourself, but this is like you and me together. Yeah,
And so we had to figure out. We learned exactly the stuff that we
don't know and that Mike does. He knows how to log into Zoom.
He probably knows if we have a paid Zoom account or if we're gonna get
kicked off. In like twenty minutes. I feel like there were like six
things We're like, oh, emails, Like two minutes before we got on
the Zoom call. It was like, oh shit, these are the old
emails, and I said, like copy and paste really quick. Yeah.
But we're here, right, I mean, we exist, I understand.
I feel like this these are the moments where you realize how valuable Mike is.
I mean, obviously always he talks and stuff, and he's got like
a good knowledge of wine and fine cheese, but the understanding that he's actually
paying attention to the accounts that we're supposed to use the emails. I don't
look at that stuff. I didn't realize this guy's important. Yeah, we
do. Uh, it's a little fly by night around here, but we
did. We do need an adult. We need an adult here on this
podcast. Everyone in a while, we need to weird to think that Maharty
would have been the adult. But I guess, I guess kind of in
this since as we've got an even more adult, we've got the most adult
here. We've got someone I know well from the shoot gig ladies and gentlemen.
Oh god, I just realized, Mary, this is the first time
you've had two out of three wrestling folks on this podcast. We got Joff
Crab, I got a wife and kids. I'm an adult. You are
Jeff Grubb. That you start off by saying you're used to se hearing Michael
Macharty. Do you ever get used to hearing Mike Mharty. He's always so
he's keeping you on your toes. I don't think you get used to it.
I think we might be used to it. It's been a long lit
to it. Very rare that he like shocks me anymore. And neither of
you, Greb. I gotta be on my toes for you this time.
So I don't know. I don't know what you're capable of. You,
I'm sleepy. You don't have to worry about anything. You're good. I
didn't give the kids a math, and that was a whole handful, so
they decided it was time to break down. So no, I'm worn out.
What does that look like? What is that like when you say breakdown?
What does a kid do like? And also addendum to that, I
think I used that word right. Why can't you just tell the kid like,
hey, just chill out. This is going to take ten minutes and
they're going to go to bed. Yeah, So tonight it was they recently
got gifts for Valentine's Day. They each have got the same exact gift,
so it was fair and it was like stuff for the bath, and they
both had bubble bath and the last time the kid got ahold of her bubble
bath and used all of it. So this time when the other kid was
like, can eye my bubble Beth. I'm like, yeah, here's something,
and I gave a little bit to the other kid, but she's like,
I didn't get the same amount, so it's not fair. And I
had to explain, no, that's not yours. And she's like, well,
she should share, and I'm like, that's not what sharing is telling
someone else you want their stuff. It's not sharing. It's when you give
other things to other people. And she was not having any of those explanations
Tights, so she started but just like wailing and pretend crying for the most
part, but it was like genuine anguish. But I mean, I do
try to explain it. It doesn't see again, but I do find if
I kind of mimic Fred Rogers, mister Rogers, if I mimic his tamber
and he's like slow talking and never getting upset and trying to like soothe,
like even though when they're very upset, that does actually kind of unwind them
a little bit. It doesn't completely undo it. But she would be in
a much better mood than if I got frustrated or something like that. But
there is no explaining it to them. They're just going to lose their mind.
Do they know who mister Rogers is and do they know you're emulating him?
No, they don't know that I'm emulating him, but they're a little
bit aware. Mister Rogers. The more aware of Daniel Tiger, which is
a show that is based on the characters. For mister Rogers. It's a
cartoon that's more modern than mister Rodgers these days. He's been dead for a
few years, so the Tiger, mister Rogers, the Tiger might be dead.
I have n't checked in on him in a while. Okay, Mary,
what what Grub is explaining here is? I didn't realize how familiar this
was going to sound, but I realized Grubs also describing what he does when
uh, I guess usually me and yeah, I'm like, when you're being
a bit about taking a bath. We got a GM at night tonight,
we got important people coming over. I've gotten fine with baths and showers.
Yeah, I'll do I'll do my a as I get enough bubbs. Yeah.
I think that's really cool that you have that that background and that information
to be able to do that. I've always been assigned to the idea of
just lying. So someone's like where time, I'm like, oh, the
bubble fairy just ran out, but I was talking to him back in the
back room and he's gonna come back with double the bubbs and I time,
so just like no bubbs this time, more bubs next time. Agree and
then they agree and they think there's a bubble fairy. And that has worked
up until a point. Yeah, that works. The line has been a
big tool in the toolbox for years. She is now seven, and lying
is being is less effective, or she expects you actually to follow up on
the lies, and it's like, oh no, you used to forget thirty
minutes later. Now you're not forgetting. And I got to like actually come
up with something here. Or is you're gonna think you can't trust anyone in
your life for the rest of your life, and you're gonna need, you
know, therapy and all this stuff, and I don't need that on my
conscience. No, you want to be careful with like those rules. I
had a friend who had a baby when they were still really young. They
didn't have a lot of money, and so for the first few Christmases when
this is like a very young child, they just wrapped up stuff in the
house. Oh yeah, good, and then they opened it and then they
went and the kid. The kid got excited. Of course she had the
kids and they didn't know, and then they put it back on the counter.
I thought that was I think that was it. What do you call
those white lies? Those are like sweet little baby lies, like nobody worries
about that. You're still still getting in, You'll still see the gates of
heaven. Yeah, oh yeah. I had some pretty bulletproof white lies when
I would baby sit my sisters because I was eight years older than them,
the twins, and so my big one was I was always eating skittles,
never not eating skittles, and they always wanted them, and I'd say,
no, no, no, no, this is my medicine. You can't
this is my medicine. This will hurt you, but it helps me.
And that worked for years, and anytime they were being little shits, you
just pick up the phone and you're like, I'm calling Santa. I'm calling
Santa right now. Okay, I got three more buttons of the press.
Are you gonna stop freaking out? Are you gonna get wine? One?
Two? Santa? I did call a one once just to see what would
happen. When I was at my dad's house, when i'd probably look like
five or six. Yeah, and like you hear by nine one one on
the TV and it's like, that's an interesting You just type in a magic
number and then people show up and help you or whatever. I'm gonna try
that and see what happens. I'm gonna bly and uh yeah. My dad
was home. I think he was like watching Beavis and Buttheaders something, and
I picked up the phone. I called nine one one. I'm just I'm
talking to them, and my dad's like, who are you talking to?
He was like, I'm talking to the cops. Dad, He's like,
what are you doing. He got on and he's like, hey, I'm
sorry, my son is being an asshole. Sorry hung up and he's like,
you cannot do that. Did they Did they come out? Because that's
what I always hear like these days, if you call nine one one,
no matter what, they have to come to check it out. No.
I feel like I remember that. I remember my dad just getting Kansas,
a small town that was so you call nine one, they got to come
out. They're gonna they gotta come out. They got to bring all their
guns, so don't there probably are a couple of lies. I was told
as a kid that I still believe, like I would have to like I
would have to actually like re examine them and be like, oh my god,
they lied to me. Yeah, that definitely happens. Yeah, the
Ohio contingent here is strong. Yeah. I went to Westerville South. She
was not too far away. I also went to Westerville for like one year
or two. Oh really, yes, I did. I forget what the
name of it was, but I lived there was South and North back then.
So I went to this is not what it sounds like. It wasn't
like a little private school. It was a school for like science. I
only had like twenty four students or something like that. And it was a
lottery. And I got into this like little Westerville lottery. And so I
did that for like first through fifth and then I moved to Hilliard for the
rest of it. But I lived. I lived in Westerville for like five
years a Hilliard. There's a Hilliard restaurant that's reopening that someone and night my
super chats on my podcast keeps talking about like Nancy's Home kitchen or something like
that. Are you familiar with this restaurant, because that's all right? Yeah,
Okay, Yeah, I've never I've never been there. I've never heard
of it, So I'm like, why is the one bringing up? But
I'm like, is it is because Mary is it? Would she know or
something? But are you a fair enough I don't know. There's a couple
mom and pop. I always actually love any mom and pop restaurants, so
I shouldn't be such a g it, But yeah, I think there's a
couple real good ones there. I'm just always grateful when there's any mom and
pop restaurants that aren't just these like chain monsters that are making their way through
the Midwest. So it's always lovely to have something that's like a bit more
local. Yeah, there was a gian Carlos or Giodorno's. There was something
like that right down the street from us. That we would go to,
an Italian restaurant in Westernville. We hit that up all the time. What
movie complex did you go to when you went to go see movies in Columbus?
We went to Marcus pretty frequently on twenty three and two seventy, right
off the highway there. Yeah, I don't I need a second. I
wish I could remember this off of the cuff. And I can't, right,
But I went to a really small movie theater that had like only two
theaters in it, and it was in what was that little fucking place called
in Columbus. I'm gonna google it. Yeah, go ahead. It's amazing
how quickly with movie theaters getting better in recent years, especially like since the
pandemic, that when you go back to one that like we saw Done Too
last night and like a nice movie theater, it was fine, but the
seats didn't recline, and like AMC like all has those like awesome AMC recliners
now, especially like Dune two, like almost three hour movie, Like you
want to be back there reclient? Yeah yeah, and these were like cuffy
seats, but we want to put our peede up. Yeah I do.
I You're right. It's very interesting how little it takes me to be like,
well, I can't go back to just normal seats sitting down. That's
for schmucks. I need to be laying down and watching a movie. Yeah,
that's the problem with SO. Like SO, I was just saying how
much I really like mom and pop restaurants because I think there's more, there's
more TLC. There's just like more appreciation movie theaters. It's the opposite.
You want big theater, you want Corporo seat Master three thousand because they have
all the innovations in popcorn, technol laser projectors. Yeah, all that's not
all that shit in a theater. So it's like the opposite. The place
where I used to always go, which I can't find now is like I
hope it didn't maybe it shut down. Uh it it like had only two
theaters and the audio was not very good, and I just remember being like,
you know, it's not a great theater, but it's ours. Yeah,
crappy theater we like in Ohio. Do you have B and B theaters?
What's that? Okay? I had never heard of this either until I
stayed in Kansas for like a month last summer. I was waiting for my
house to close, and apparently B and B is like a big chain.
Now. I didn't know if it was like all the Midwest or just Kansas,
but it was. It was fine where we saw Barbie and Oppenheimer.
But yeah, it starts with this like really earnest thing of the family talking
about how important it is that you went to a B and B theater,
And it's like from our own family and there's like nine hundred kids. I
don't know if it's like this giant. It's like a very giant, very
like Christian looking family from Kansas, I imagine. But they're from Liberty,
Missouri. That checks out. Oh yeah, yes, yes, all right,
yes, where you have to have eighteen kids. Yeah, but I
guess those are like big. Now I didn't have to stretch all the way
out to Ohio, but it was fine. Yeah. I never saw one
in Ohio before I moved in. Now coming back, it's like, now,
it's all it's a MC and Regal. That's about all I see.
So, yeah, that's all I see too. It's it's the big it's
the big dogs they've taken. Uh huh. I don't know if I've seen
Regal. I amc has been everywhere. I mean, I worked there for
years. Uh, there's I saw Lows I think in New York. I
don't remember what San Francisco is. Cinemark is that one of them. We
had a Cinemark growing mark. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Cinemark was all
right. I don't know if they're still around. Dick and Sign. I
got addicted to the Alamo Draft House in Denver. That's stuff, but you
got to get addicted to the Alamo. It was awesome. I I was
just think, it's like, you know, since having kids, you know
that whole thing about it's not your life anymore, it's your kids' lives and
you're like there to be there for them. And I fully subscribe to that.
So I'm like and I like have no resentment towards that at all.
But I was like, Okay, So then before I had kids, like,
what was the greatest like time in my life? And it was when
we were going to Alamo Draft House like once a week for a whole year.
They would have those beer dinners and they'd be like, Okay, now
tonight, we're doing Rocky four and we're going to make a dinner for you
that is like, you know, inspired by the movie, and we're going
to pair up with a draft beer company from Denver and they're gonna have three
beers come out all night and you just pay for it all up front and
it just comes to you. And we we did literally like forty five of
those in one year, and it was it was just the best. It
was so good. I really enjoyed that. And then you know, eventually
we moved him. Like, I started going to MC's and they have the
reclient seats and they didn't have that at Alamo at the time. So I'm
like, well this is nice too, but I still I missed. I
miss the Alamo Draft House quite a bit. Well, Alamo's definitely company now,
because the only time I've gone in the last like ten years was when
I fell asleep in the front row got Zilla minus one right after our Right,
Yeah, they did have the recliners at that, that's right. Yeah,
it's company enough to fall asleep, which I never fucking do in theaters.
But I guess the key is just you know what, I can't sleep
on planes either, So maybe before I fly now, maybe we just need
to put on a live show and then and then immediately get on a plane.
Yeah, completely wiped. Yeah. I knew I was going to fall
asleep in that movie. So I was like, jan, when you hear
me snoring, I poke me, and like halfway through me alone, I
fell. I knew, I knew it was. I was dead tired.
I was so tired, and so about halfway through, I'm like, I
don't feel like I'm asleep, but I can. I know my eyes are
closing. I can feel that, but I don't feel like I'm asleep.
And then Jan's just like, you know, elbow to my elbow and I'm
like, oh, was I snoring? He's like yeah, dude, cool,
cool, thank you. And then I stayed up for the rest of
it. It was a good movie. I enjoyed it. I'm like some
people, I might as well have not seen it. The little bit opinion
I have of it. It's such a good film too, but you get
to enjoy it for the first time again because really good. Yeah, but
I can also see how you would fall asleep in it though, because it's
very kind of I don't know, it's muted, the black and white kind
of lens itself. No whit be able to like, uh well, okay,
either way, it's muted. It's not very saturated. You know what
the difference between Godzilla minus one and Godzilla minus Color or whatever. It's like
about the same. It's a very desaturated film. I've heard it's very good.
Maybe I'll go back to it at some point. I feel ashamed of
it. I recommend it at gub It was Grand View Theater. This is
oh sure, Yeah, it was like that like smaller indie independent theater it
used to go to and you could have beer in it, and I remember
thinking that was really cool. Yes, that's becoming standard. I think you're
in the theater. Yeah, so awesome. Even AMC has the like mcguffins
thing now mcguffins. Yeah, the AMC at Easton would have mcguffins. That's
the first time I saw like a bar in a theater and being like,
oh, yeah, that's cool. One day I'll be able to drink and
enjoy that. Yeah, I remember. Yeah, we went to Universal to
do we did the Mario movie thing when we're out there for Summer Games vest
you know, grab me, you and Manati and jam what to see it
and uh yeah, I remember they had a bunch of like Jurassic World gimmick
drinks and stuff and got to buy those and bring them to Mario and that's
a good time, Like yeah, oh yeah, absolutely. Then that was
fun. That was cool, cool seeing the movie like they're at Universal and
all that stuff. At that time. Mary, I feel like whenever you're
talking to Grub, it's always under the high pressure interrogation lights, you know,
really drilling down into the heart of the industry and your day job and
the hard questions and everything, and she's the best at like just smacking them
away too, so that's always fun. I try to stay frosty with those
hard hitting grub questions, like I don't know some bullshit that happened to Twitch,
I didn't do that shit. Bit leave me alone. I can't.
I'm usually running around during those things all the time, so i don't even
like get to see a lot of them, So like, are there any
like grub are you going after her with like twitch questions or is it just
I would just like I'm like I'll just bring it up, and then when
she slaps away, it's like, yeah, cool, that's completely fair,
Like that's just like I don't want to be like, oh, they're ignoring
it, And if she wants to talk about she has the opportunity, and
if she doesn't want to talk about it, then that's good too, Like
yeah, that's the way it kind of go. That's the process in my
brain where I'm like, it's at least worth bringing up, and then if
we don't talk about it, that's fine too. It is relevant. It's
what the people are talking about. But usually and this is what I would
do for anyone who asked me that. I would always be like, oh,
that's definitely a CEO question. Do you want me to go get him?
And then I'll go get him and bring him in and then he can
answer the hard hitting questions, because right, and that's what and I figure
most of the time that's what's going to happen. And it's like I think
that that's you know, writing news for a very long time, it was
like, well, did you ask for a comment? It's for my editor
and so they're not going to respond. But the point is you still need
to go ask. So they say they didn't respond, So you did your
part, You did your due diligence. And I think it's that part of
my brain that's like firing there. Your journalistic integrity kicks it on this in
Google alert, Yeah, exactly going on. I saw someone mad about this
on the internet and I didn't look any further. So why don't you tell
me about it? Mary? Yeah, what are you seeing? What's everyone
pissed about? Grumb what is it? Everyone's mad about everything right now?
Don't you worry about that. It's been a stressful week. Actually, I
would just say, like, this is one of those like what a tough
year in games where like every time when there's something trending, when gaming is
trending, I'm like, ah, what the shit is up now? And
I know it's bad. I know some shit went down in the industry and
we're all gonna have to like deal with it. It's just been that year.
People are just people are on edge, and everyone I think is kind
of at each other's throats because of that a little bit in like the community,
it seems like so it's like I I don't want to feed it,
like that's usually where I'm at, Like I don't want to like fan those
flames at all, Like hopefully it just dies down. I mean, do
you think like everyone that's like Madden on edge, do you think they just
stopped paying attention to video games entirely and just like really took up like bird
watching or something that it would just like instantly fix. Like Oh, they'd
be fucking really pissed about birds. No one blue jays, and we think
it's the mayor's fault and we're going over to his house right now to throw
rocks at his window, like the old bird watching drama. There's drama every
scene groups of bird watching with the internal drama. Yeah, you too many
crows, Like there's always like some problem that the bird community is. Really
if there's people involved and birds, then there's going to be drama. Absolutely.
Yes, So like Grub, you've been doing the news thing for like
did you did you like want to go into news when you wanted to go
in dow. Yeah. I think when I was like like coming up,
I would uh yeah, I would read Quarterman and the news stuff first,
like the EGM, and then I would read the reviews, and then I
think I would read the previews things like that. And the previews were always
like, you know, nebulous about like, well, what is this actually
gonna matter? It's this game actually gonna be good? No one could tell
you yet, So I'm only a little interested in that. But and then
when I would start listening to video game podcast, I enjoyed the news conversations
the most, like it's like, uh, people talk about what's actually happening,
and then you know, the video game conversations were definitely up there as
well. But yeah, I think part of me has always been attracted to
that. Yes, when do you think news got like because you know,
we both grew up in the age of you know, EGM and Game and
Former in like very nineties games magazine that we're not saying anything important and not
trying to When was that shoe? I mean, what do you say?
It was around like the Joystick Kataku kind of like late twentys, early twenty
tens like that from my head goes I think where it started getting a little
more like, hey, take us seriously. Yeah, I mean I think
it was it was EA spouses, right, That's when it was when the
spouses of EA employees were saying, hey, we never see the people that
were married to that are making all your video games. And then I think
a lot of people were like, wait, why aren't we talking about this
like they're human beings responsible for all these things. We need to like,
yeah, we could keep talking about how excited we are for a game and
how many guns and how many levels are in each thing, but that seems
kind of stupid compared to real human lives. And I think something clicked at
that point, And then ever since, people have been like re examining exactly
what their role is inside the video game industry apparatus and all that stuff.
Was that around at the same time as I didn't you know, San Diego
with Red Dead there was like a wives of Rockstar thing? Was that That
was a few years later, Yeah, but yes, it was definitely part
of that lineage. Yeah, okay, yeah. It's like I feel like
for all the similarities you and I have grub I think the way we were
getting the same magazines and reading the same stuff, and we're roughly around the
same age I was. You know, I would read the Quarterman stuff and
I would read this stuff about like the business stuff. It didn't really I
went straight to the review crew. That was my thing. And I remember
when I all I did was review before Game Informer, and I think it
was my first week at Game Informer. Disney bought Marble, and I never
once written a new story in my life, never thought about writing a new
story. I was a reviews. I've written six hundred reviews, zero news
stories. And I remember Reiner, my boss Game Informer, came up and
he's like, hey, can you write up a new story about Disney buying
Marble, which, first of all topic I know nothing about either of those
companies, no interest in either of those companies, and I don't know how
to write a news story, but I just started my dream job and I
was just kind of like I didn't want to suck it up, and so
I was like, how many stars do I give it? Out of five?
It was a ten point system. It was a fun factor on this
acquisition, off the charts. But I was like trying to figure out how
to ask without seeming like a complete dumbass. And I was like, yeah,
so, like, you know, with a story like this, you
know, what would you know, like step one, what do you think?
You know, what's the usual you know thing here? And he's like,
oh, you know, uh, call him up. I was like,
I'm sorry, what, Yeah, call him up? And or Marvel,
what are you fucking talking about? Like I think the article is.
I think I found it on the internet archive or something. It's whatever week
that happened and would have been on the old ass game and former site.
And I'm sure it's just a riveting riveting Uh, I'm sure. I talked
to everyone. I talked to Walt. He had a lot to say.
God, But yeah, that was my first one, and I spent the
rest of my career trying to never have to do news. Yeah, it
was It's dimple. You're right, Like, it's like I would go to
it and I would do one thing you do that I think, which is
kind of different interest in that stuff. But when I was learning to write
about news, though, it was still a pretty similar process where I'm like,
I actually don't know how this sausage is made. So when I went
from like writing a blog on one up to being and then realizing like around
two thousand and eight that that all that stuff was going to blow up,
so trying to start my own thing and then doing a little bit of stuff
here on the side. But then when Dan Shue left one up and started
bitmob and I went to go volunteer for him, part of that was like
They're like, we'll edit you well, and I'm like, okay, that
sounds pretty cool. I wonder I wish I could make that happen. And
eventually someone got me in there and they started editing me and teaching me the
basics, and it was, you know, learn on the job. Basically,
do the volunteer work, write a news thing every other day or something
like that, and we are going to edit the hell out of you.
And they were a tough edit, but I really didn't know what I was
doing. I could not have just gone from reading it to them producing the
news without having that guidance. So yeah, it was a process for me.
It Texas specific type, because I do find that, I would say,
the majority of people, at least in the time that I was kind
of coming up and everything. It might it's probably different now, but like
I think most people wanted to get free games and play games at work and
review games and so like it was so rare, Like we had eighteen editors
when I started the Game Informer, and nobody wanted to do news, so
we would have a rotating news lead day and so it would just be like,
all right, Dan, it's you today, Tim, it's you today,
you know, And it was always just like, you know, try
to do one story an hour. So it was always oh, new box
Art announced for saying throw three or whatever. It's like, okay, great,
here's the box Art news story or whatever, because none of us want
to do it. And then enough of us complained all the time and tried
to get out of our news duties that like, I think they got the
message that, like we need to have a dedicated news guy, and so
they brought on Jim Riley from from IGN. Then they brought in Mike Futter,
and then after I left, it was Emern Kahan and so they actually
started like bringing in news people and like as soon as we started doing that,
like everyone else was like, oh my god, we can pretty easy
and yeah, not have to do this thing that we are not. It's
it's not doing anyone any favors. We weren't doing good newswork by any means.
I mean, I don't want to speak for everyone, but like me
and others that didn't want to do news, we're get it. You're bad
at your job. I think, yes, job, it's a special,
unique role that I think some people gravitate towards. And I also think that
it's something that in my observing because I am also not a news person,
I was features. So we're kind of a three headed hydra. Right now,
we have news and we have features. Right somebody's calling up rock Star
because they said that they're going to be delayed. Somebody's reviewing GTA five,
and somebody asked to make that feature about how you get all the sick cars,
And that was me. I would never probably touch news very often.
What my experience was was Eddie M McHugh, who did news for Game Spot,
that dude was always on and it was like something about this like always
on personality where it didn't as far as I'm aware, Maybe it did,
but like, as far as I was aware, it didn't seem to bother
him that like if some crazy news dropped at like nine pm, story was
out, story was out, fifteen minutes later it was it was published,
and it was ready to go, And I was like, was he doing
right now? And he's probably like at dinner, you know, like hanging
out with his mom, not listening to her like on his phone. He's
getting it out. And that was He was good at it. He was
fucking good at it. But he probably like was able to take time off
in other ways. But my instinct was you're kind of always aware and ready
to go at any given moment on call, like you're a doctor. Like
I've seen it with like when when Fletter started a game Informer. He was
in town because he lived in New York and we went to watch Monday Night
Raw at my buddy Brian's place, and in the middle of Raw, like
John Ricotello like said something stupid and he's like he's like, oh shit,
I got to write this up. I've been literally message yeah writing it up.
Yeah. I've been at poker games at Jason Schreyer's place, and in
the middle of the poker game I can't remember, there was some like bombshell
fucking news story just hit in the middle of this poker game, and Jason
Schreyer's like, well, I should probably do something about always see Shryer's tweets.
He's like one of the number one like always on. Like it's really
cool to see someone who's good, like just an ace at what they do.
And a part of that I think and like grub correct me, but
it's like a part of that to me is like you're gonna be first,
second, or third. Like at some point if it's like six hours later.
I've seen news people apologize, like they'll tweet, they'll be like,
sorry, this is five hours late. My dog just died, you know.
It's just like you're like an embarrassment to have a news story that's five
hours delayed. Yeah, And it's that just the stuff doesn't always come down
from like an external pressure. It's like an internal thing I think we do
to ourselves where it's uh, like we value being there and to explain what's
happening to people because it's like, oh, that's important, someone should be
doing that, And I think we just talk ourselves into that position somehow.
So yeah, I've definitely felt that, But I never really had too many
people be like you got to be first, you got to be out there.
If anything. It was always like we want to be take our time,
make sure we get things right, and like that's always a huge part
of it too. But yeah, it was just this sense of responsibility of
like, hey, people are coming to these stories looking for information or they
are going to base ideas about the industry on this stuff. We want to
make sure that they have the full pitcher right away. And yeah, I
don't know, it's like a sense of not justice, but there's a sense
of like a responsibility to what is happening and the people coming to this industry
and trying to figure out what's going on. Well, Greb, let's break
this down because first of all, let's plug your stuff here, because I
want to go into all the stuff you do in a given week, So
go ahead and plug where the folks can find you. Well, yeah,
I'm with the shoot job with you over a giant bomb. Of course,
there was a great Blake Club today everyone should watch, of course. But
I also have a game Mess, which is the podcasts I Guess Company,
me and Mike do where we do Less than the Ten Dogs on Tuesday,
our Nintendo podcast in our general podcast on Thursday, game Mess decides which used
to be games Beat besides back when when I work there, but I always
like did everything with that, so I owned it the entire time. So
when I left there, I'm like, it's gonna take this with me.
And then we do some special stuff for a like Patreon members. I got
a Jeopardy game I'm gonna be doing this weekend with John Lenneman from Digital found
Read things like that, so yeah, we're doing something. I'll do the
occasional like YouTube video on the side or whatever that I still enjoy doing.
What's the bread and butter. I really do like doing game as Mornings every
weekday that it's really nice. It's like I wake up and I get to
talk about video games with people who want to talk about video games with me,
and it feels like when I'm done with that each day, I'm like,
if I did nothing else, I would feel okay because we got that
get a job. I did job and we had a conversation. It was
and it's like I accomplished the thing I set out to do, which is
let's get out there and have the conversation about what's actually happening. So do
you get up, like, because you do the show in the morning every
day, when do you get up? Are you getting are you seeing the
news before you go to bed and getting it prep for the next day.
Are you wake up the morning seeing what's happening and getting everything together? Like
how does that break down? The always on this is like you know,
I am on like social media and things like that's all I see when things
are happening. But I'm not like these days, I'm not immediately like okay,
I gotta do something with this. I'm like just kind of fining that
away, like okay, I am going to probably talk about that. What
is the angle? Like what's the take? That was something that was you
know, Shoe like talked about and that's something that my other editors will talk
about, like let's have an angle for whatever story we talk about. So
it's not just regurgitating what's happening for game this morning, is I am like
reading other people's news stories. Do that in part to remind people there's a
lot of great reporting happening out there. But it's also like, okay,
let's jump off from there so and have the real conversation about what this means.
And I'm thinking about, like what I'm going to be talking about when
I first hear the story many times. But really what happens is I get
up, get the kids ready for school, taking the school, I go
for a walk in the woods two boy five miles, and then I listened
to usually some podcast or whatever while I'm doing that most of the time,
or I read the news, and then I come home and I put the
show together at about like nine am, and then the show happens at eleven
AM. Like I feel like I'm always in awe of this because, like
Mary, Mike and I talk a lot about, you know, just because
we all have day jobs, we all have this, we all have side
things that we're doing and try to keep up with the social life and you
know, other interests that aren't just video games and everything, and that can
be overwhelming. Like I constantly feel overwhelmed of like god, damn, I
just there's not just a couple hours where I can just sit on a couch
and do nothing. But we don't even have kids. You have two kids,
and you're doing more than any of us. I feel between all these
different shows, I think you've got the craziest schedule on Giant Bomb, I
think you've got You've got the stuff at night too with Manati, Like I
just I it's like a Maharty thing where it's like I don't know how we
can be this like smaller and super literature bowl at and travels the world and
learns and sales across the ocean, Like I don't know, Like where are
you finding these reserves of time? I mean, yeah, I'm not finding
it in most of the time. It's like it's coming away from other things.
Part of it is like I like doing it. That's a big part
of it. And I'm not doing anything I don't want to be doing.
But I do feel overwhelmed all the time. And I think the reality is
even if I wasn't doing a lot of this stuff, I would still feel
overwhelmed because I would just be you know the ADHD. I would be procrastinating
or I would be, you know, one of the things with ADHD is
you no matter what you're doing, you always feel like you're doing the wrong
thing. I should be doing this instead, and that is that's really frustrating.
And one of the ways to fight that is kind of like just always
be doing something. So uh, it does feel like burning the candle at
both ends a lot of the time, and sometimes that gets to me.
But I'm like, uh, taking a queue from you, Dan, I
started meditating recently and that has helped a ton. I haven't heard you mentioned
that. Let's Seeah, it's only it's been a recent thing. I've been
having really bad brain fog for like the last like three months, sure,
and I was like, this is a health thing. I'm not sleeping.
I went to go see a doctor who just did nothing to help whatsoever.
It was a really frustrating experience. Yeah, right, for real. The
fucking always like super anti vaccines. I don't get her say I know that.
I don't want to touchy subject here. I know you guys always argue
about that. Where was she on January sixth, is what I'm wondering.
So I so I was like, I have this bad brain fog and I
was feeling discombobulated all the time, and I'm like, part of this is
probably, you know, the kid's always giving me a cold or whatever.
I think I probably have an ear infection. I've had had time to go
do something about that, but I was like, it's something else. I
feel like I'm probably stressed and not dealing with it. So I'm like I
am during my morning walks. Now, I will do the breathing exercises.
I will try to let the thoughts go for at least like half of the
walk and feel that, you know, the foot hit the ground and stuff
like that, and focus on that instead and being a little bit more mindful.
It was almost an immediate difference. It was almost coming out of it
being like, man, any who cares if it's placebo effect, I don't
care whatever it is. I felt immediately better, and it's like, Okay,
this is something that is working. So yeah, that has made a
huge difference with Mike dealing with all these things happening all the time. It's
been made it a lot easier. I'm so glad to hear that because I
feel like, you know, I'm always talking about how great meditation has been
for me, but I feel like a lot of people, you know,
think like, oh, that sounds great, I should try it. And
I do get the sense a lot of people try it, and I'm not
saying they're doing it wrong or anything, but some people will sit and they'll
sit for ten minutes, and you know, I don't get this sense when
I talk to them later that they're trying that they're just kind of like sitting
and waiting for it to be over and just going through their normal thought process.
But like, meditation isn't about just like clearing your mind out and not
thinking or just waiting for ten minutes while not doing something. It is a
very active thing, like or you were talking about when you're doing a walking
meditation, it is about as you're walking, you're not up in your head
thinking about other step. You were thinking about your foot hitting the ground,
you're smelling the leaves, you are focusing on the bread. You sound as
far away as possible. Yeah, yeah, yeah, It's not about just
like nothing happening in your brain. No, you're giving like intense focus too
specific things basically, So like I feel like it's I was like you are
doing it, you were properly meditating and seeing the results, which is awesome
to hear. Well, you know, it was cool. It was you
know, having a real job. I like looked in our thing or whatever,
our sequoia and it's like, I bet we have like one of those
apps of pre meditation, and we had we had called we now have Headspace.
So I was like, I was, oh, I'll just download Headspace
and I signed up. Like on my walk, I'm like doing this.
I'm like okay, and I've been listening to a few of those. But
even when I'm like just doing it on my own, it is good.
It feels like good practice to be listening and actively doing these things with like
with what my body is doing with breathing or with sounds or with feel and
then when the thoughts occur, like giving myself permission to let them go.
That's like that is just not something we do naturally, Like you have to
practice that and like be like and then that makes you more aware of like,
oh, I am having a thought and that is a thought, not
something that is actively coming for me, and that is that's huge. It's
been huge for me. Well. And something people don't get I think is
that like they will get those thoughts coming in their head while they're trying to
meet Tate and they'll think, Oh, I'm doing it wrong. Oh I'm
failing, I'm bad at this. No, that is the practice I've meditated
for over twenty years, and that happens to NonStop with me. The practice
is acknowledging when the thought comes in, acknowledging it and letting it move.
That's the hard thing. That's the part that you're supposed to just be like,
it's okay to let it go. That's what you're practicing here actually,
So yeah, identify with it. Yeah I did that today because, like,
you know, there was a lot of like tech stuff going into Blake
Club where it's like, you know, like we're Jan's Internet was out and
so this video came in like while we were on the air, and you
know, I don't do a lot of streaming gameplay specifically, and like sometimes
like my stuff wasn't fucking up. We were gonna basically, there's a lot
of pre show stuff that was like coming in super hot, and I was
stressing about it, and then we did the show. It's two hours or
whatever of me playing fucking Superman sixty four, which is the least relaxing thing
you could imagine, and then doing all this work to play Superman sixty four.
Yeah. Yeah, and then it's like I was really hungry afterwards,
and it's like, ah, I got like ten minutes before the next meeting,
and I got to do all my invisiitline ships. I'm trying to shove
a peanut butter sandwich in my face and clean my fucking bisiline I get in
the meeting. I'm sitting in the meeting for like forty minutes. I know
my brain is just fried. Too many foods that would have worked better.
I like peanut butter sandwiches, so I'm going straight for my delicious peanut butter
sandwich so I can clean and everything. Get in the meeting. My brain's
just fried. During the meeting, it's you know, thirty minutes or whatever
it was. And then it's over and I'm like, Okay, there's still
like like an hour and a half sunlight. Now we'll go to do fire
skip later. I'll go on a walk. It's nice outside, I'll you
know, So I go outside going the walk. I brought my headphones and
my first thought was like, oh, I'm going to listen to the new
Deadlock podcast. That I like, and then I was like, wait,
hang on, no, there have been things I have I have had to
be on for several hours being whether in meetings or on the show or hearing
things, and might like I want to just listen to some fucking birds as
I walk down the neighborhood or maybe it's twenty five minutes, but I'm just
going to focus on these birds, and it gives me so much. Like
when I come back and eat dinner and do this show, I'm like,
I'm just kind of recentered there. Yeah. Actually, like being able to
hear a tree rustling that is like one hundred feet away and recognizing that is
somehow restorative. I don't know what's happening there. I don't care. Again,
whatever it is, it makes me feel way better. I I don't
think that you have to be You don't need like a doctor to explain that
finding yourself in the present time is good for you. And you're always lost
in your thoughts that you don't realize what time it is, what day it
is, where you're at in your life right now, how old you are
in the span of how old you ever will be, the things that bring
you joy and not like those are just like there's so many conflicting ping pong
balls that are bouncing around in our brains. Being able to acknowledge that it's
slightly cool outside and that that feels good on your skin is important for us,
like we are existing in this space, and I also think like it
kind of takes us back to just a bit of our animalistic instincts. We're
so high and mighty with all of our important documents and job stuff. Sometimes
it's important to just realize that you're a breathing being on this rock, and
it's very cool and humbling to say like, hey, it's just a regular
day and I'm alive, and that's that's not too shabby, and that I
think lets everything else fall by the wayside a bit. Yeah, it's good
to get in the habit of, you know, noticing when you're kind of
getting up in your head with that stuff and you're not paying attention to what's
going on moment to moment. Like I can't tell you how many times I've
been like running between like Okay, I got five minutes in this meeting,
I'm gonna go up do this thing or whatever, and then I'll like I'll
see like gizmo sitting on the couch, and I'll I'll run upstairs and he'll
look at me and he'll start wagging his tail because he's excited to see me.
And my you know, when I'm in that mode of like I got
to hurry, I do this thing. Sometimes I'll pass him right by and
I'll go grab a water from the bridge or whatever and go to run downstairs.
Got on the computer, but I realized, like, wait a minute,
no, hang on that that dog just looked at me and he was
a happy damn dog. Yeah, he was happy to see me. And
I can't just go downstairs. And so even if it's just for twenty seconds,
just going to get oh hey buddy, Oh you're such a good boy.
You know, it's just grounding yourself, just coming to the present moment.
I think all of our jobs, I think all of us are so
uh, those moments aren't built in, and I think we have to find
those or you could do what some people do and self medicate with just too
much wine. I know I'm not naming names or anything, but yeah,
just get on your favorite sailboat and your sailboat dock and yeah, yeah,
why do people just get on their sailboat. Just get it, go hunt
a whale with the bottle of s And they always have like that novelty glass
that's really big and they're just like, you know, one glass for me,
go go Dan No. No. I was just gonna ask on the
meditation thing if Mary ber I don't know, we've talked about this before,
like if you tried meditation for or what your thoughts are? Yeah, I
learned. Uh. I took a class with a certified she was a peer
of mine in work, and was like, oh, yeah, I meditate.
I have to. It's like the most important thing. And I did
a class with her just for fun, and I did find that it was
important. I don't similarly, like to Grub, I was like, I
don't care about the science. I don't care about the art. I don't
care about the rules. I don't want to know nothing. To me,
what grabbed me was the art of nothing. And because I have so much
stuff going on, it is of value to me at some point in my
day to have no audio and no video and for me to just exist.
And so I do. I do practice that now where it's funny. I
don't even I don't know if I use the word practice right like I'm not.
I never really labeled it meditation. What I do is I have quiet
time where I'm not supposed to be looking at four dozen open screens, and
I look at something that exists in the world, the sky. I love
looking at like water, if possible, something that feels organic and living,
and I will just enjoy that for like ten to fifteen minutes. I make
myself do it. I think it's it has made me better at my job,
quite frankly, because there are things where I'll read email and I'll be
like, that person's dumb is shit, and I kind of want to say
it, like I'll like start to reply, and the I'll be like,
I'm gonna look at the sky and I realize a lot of the things that
I get upset about don't fucking matter. A lot of the things that we
get upset about and like feel so important at the time are so fleeting,
and they're just emotions that we can totally control and let go of. So
me doing nothing looking at sky, all that stuff is very valuable. I
never really called it meditation, but I would consider it completely on par with
what you're talking about. What I was going to say, is I think,
yeah, you you were really good. It seems at doing things that
like are maybe not meditation in the traditional sense, but like you know,
also you're always posting, like you know, stuff on Instagram like you and
Simon, like hiking and being by a lake or hiking up a mountain or
something that's like that is not you know, meditation by definition, but you
are walking around. You're not just get a bunch of tabs open and text
and stuff. You're just like with a dog in nature, like that's that's
kind of the same effect. If I'm not working, I am probably at
a park with my dog. That is the place where I feel the most
sane and functional, and it's very important to me and even if I can't
have that. I recently uh very similar to Mike. We were very close
in proximity. Last week. I was also in the Netherlands, so I
had to fly like thirteen hours. I put on my big full ear coverage
headphones. But instead of watching something on the TV, I had nothing in
my headphones. And I looked out the window and I was like, now
I will just look at clouds for ten minutes with no Internet activities or anything.
Like that. No games, Oh my god, I could play games,
but I just like you look outside and you just process for ten minutes.
It's good for you, and tell you touch grass like that. Kind
Yeah it's a joke and stuff, but it's just serious, Like god,
dude, it I mean like you just need to be reminded sometimes that that,
like everything that's happening, our just organ's working. Like you got your
brain is an organ and it's and I think anytime you're getting in touch with
nature and stuff like that or being mindful, it is a really quicker reminder
of that, and then it helps you control or helps you be in peace
at peace with those things. I think a little bit more. I'm I'm
super tempted now because I've always loved the idea of doing the like long meditation
retreat. Like I've read enough books about meditation stuff, and a lot of
people are like, that's where you're really going to find out, like how
you're wired and you know what you need to work on is you do one
of these you know, three five ten day meditation retreats or whatever. Now
I've done it one day and it was very interesting and I liked it a
lot. It felt good. But I was looking for like a weekend meditation
retreat I could do around here, and there are ones. Apparently it's called
Vipinasa hypnosa. I'm sure I'm doing a great job pronouncing. But it's a
ten day and it's only ten day, and it's not far for me.
It's like an hour and a half and you are there for ten days.
They take your phone, they take your wallet, they lock it up,
they give you your meals, they give you a place to sleep, you
know, they got a big like kind of like place where you can walk
around and everything, and it's just you're meditating all fucking day for ten days.
And it's it's donation only too, so it's like it's not something where
it's like it's some ten thousand dollars thing. You know. You go there
and you donate what you want to donate, and I'm so fucking tempted by
it. But like, I don't take a ton of time off work,
and the idea of like ten days or days, I guess ten days,
it'd probably be like, what's seven days of work whatever? Use weekends yeah
around there, Yeah, And it's like, man, it's tough to justify
like, I feel like it would be. It's something I've wanted to do
for many, many years. But this hard to justify. Like I could
go to fucking Aruba for a week and a half, you know, Or
I can go meditate in a Aruba. Yeah, if you give me the
option, I'm not gonna meditate, you live, I'm meditate in Hawaii,
or I'm driving an hour and a half to Wisconsin and sitting on a phone.
I kind of want to, though, I kind of want to.
It's just why ten days? Why not seven? Is there? I wonder
if there's like some science and maybe you'd learn this if you went you actually
like took took the bait and went. But like there must be a science
behind the idea that it probably takes three days to actually let the fuck go.
I've always been told that about vacation, right, Like, if you
take a vacation, it could take a week to actually get into vacation mode
and be like, oh, right, I can relax, and then the
other week is like the one you actually relax at. Not that I've ever
done a two week vacation in my fucking life, but I've heard from healthy
people that that's the right way to go. I make the mistake with vacations
of like I find out where I'm going and then it's like a ton of
research and like, all right, day one is going to be dinner here
and lunch here, and then in between that we're gonna go ride horses here.
Then we're gonna go We're gonna parasital here. I don't think I've done
a good job ever. Never, I'd never agree to this. No,
I'm never vacation with that. So what do you do. Let's say you're
going to Aruba for four days? What's your plan going in? Nothing?
I know, I'm saying here and then for breakfast, I will leave my
hotel and look around and find something to eat, and then it will look
around and find something to do, and then I will have a nap.
Do you do any googling of like, oh, they've got this cool they've
got this amusing park, they got this horse riding thing, like any pre
vacation, Yeah, one activity. Okay, that's that's a good that's a
good rule of thumb. I'm like very in vain, like the van of
Mary where I'm where, It's like the planning ahead would just add to the
stress for me and being there and then having to stick to that plan,
it would add to the stress. For me. It's not like, oh,
we have a plan, what a relief. It's like, no,
now we got somewhere to be shit that I have to deal with on my
match. That's what I'm trying to get away from. Yeah, now I
get that for a lot of people that is beneficial, And the reality is
I'll go on vacation with Steph and she has done a lot of googling and
she has fun. Oh, the hotel is going to have breakfast every day
and we could just go downstairs and eat breakfast and say, okay, you
know what that owns. That's great. I'm glad you did this work to
make sure we have that. So there are some benefits to it, clearly,
but for me personally it is, Yeah, I would maybe make sure
I have one thing so I don't get there and you're like, oh man,
everything's sold out. Like all these fun things I did. I discovered,
well it's a tickety thing like you would to the Fargo Dan, And
it's like when I was watching that video, I'm like, it would have
been cool if we could have had like those things ready for him, so
he didn't have to like just do it, spread the moment and miss out
on a bunch of stuff. Yeah, I think there is value. Like
when I did Japan, I was like, I know, I want to
see the Ghibli Museum. I know it right, Yeah, you need those
in advance, so I booked that in advance. But a lot of the
days it was like, I'm in Kyoto today, what are we doing?
Well, let's yeah, figure it out. I think there's I heard there
was shrines from a guy on the subway, and you like, solve it.
You know, it's a mystery. It's like, now I'm this ding
dong in this amazing world and I get to figure out what is that makes
that play so cool? Any How, I play games where I'm like,
I don't I kind of want just wander on my own and find stuff.
It's why Breadth to the Wild Click movie so much. I was like,
just go, just go do it. I will say I do like having
a friend in the group that's like I'm the planner and I that is beneficial.
Find a five start and it's like, fine, you can do that.
But I like stumbling into things and figuring it out. And sometimes it
fails. That is true. I've had like vacations where I was like,
that was a why it's a really bad restaurant and that didn't work out.
But that's a part of my memory of that place, which was like that
I fucked up, Like I embraced that kind of chaos, right. But
the things I do remember, I think I have more ownership when I stumble
into things like the we went. Uh. Steph was living in Europe for
a couple of years early on when we were dating, and I would go
out there visitor and we did this like Eastern European trip or like you know,
Central European trip, and we were in I think brought a slava for
New Years and that was one of the places where she didn't do as much
planning, so it's like we didn't have dinner planned out or anything like that.
So I just went out and I found like a tiny little schwarma place
and we ate there a bunch of times because it was really good, and
I'm like, I stumbled in there, and I have memories so that because
like I like, oh, I did that process there, and I remember
like where it is and what it looked like and what it smelled like and
all that stuff. So yeah, I think it just builds stronger memories for
me. Yeah, you know what I feel like, next time I do
a like vacation vacation like not a work trip, I want to do just
the you are, Like, yeah, I feel like every vacation I do
there's a Google sheet involved, and like, I think that does help in
a way that like, you know, you do have to make some reservations,
you do, and like, yeah, and to be fair, I
think we do a good job. Like when we and Bonco somewhere, Like
you know, we went to New Orleans last spring and it's like, Okay,
we know we're doing lunch here, we know we're doing dinner here,
but we've got like a five hour block in between where we're just gonna walk
around the French Quarter, you know, and like that that helps to have
that, But like I kind of like the idea of going in and it's
been like the whole thing is going to be those blocks of time. Maybe
with like one reservation somewhere. With that kind of planning, you'd be good
at planning a Disney trip, ironically, because you do have to plan everything
ahead for those I think no second, are you Disney too, No,
No, he's a Minati sleep agent. I enjoyed it. He did not
have this conference. I like Disney as much as as the next person,
which is to say I like some of their movies every once in a while.
But I do really want to take my little children to Disney World,
Like, yeah, I want to do that, Like that's what the whole
idea is. I love the idea of like you taking your kids at Disney
World and being like, I didn't do any research, I don't know where
we're going kids, and they're like, oh what kids. You're fitting for
yourself tonight. You know, you talk about having a friend that knows their
ship. I met Mike Manatty at fucking Disneyland. You did talk about having
the best possible person just walking around be like here's this thing, here's this
thing. He got to start the fast pass to get on a bunch of
Star Wars stuff, like he was hand order. Exactly brilliant to go to
Disney with a Disney adult. I love that you min max the entire experience
and you're not in charge. And I actually think that that's very similar to
the idea of me of not planning things. If I'm around manners and it's
like cool, take the wheel, Jesus, you tell me where to go,
you tell me what to order, I'll do it and I can turn
off my brain. That's very relaxing for me. That's what That's what I'm
here for, to turn off the brain. Well, Mary, you can
do that in about a month if you with me. If you want to
go to Philadelphia for WrestleMania, I could. I could show you exactly where
all this stuff is. When did you start thinking that you could ever sell
me on wrestle bing Dan, I don't think it's WrestleMania. I don't think
I'll get tickets, but I might come out to uh do the what is
the grilling? The tailgating a good time? Yeah, because Jason Finelli's like
he's gonna be out there all day, and I'm like I could. It's
not like the worst drive in the world. I keep like, take the
train. That would be the worst thing in the world, and I'm got
there, eat with all y'all and then go watch it somewhere and have like
a really good experience. I don't know. I think I might do that.
I haven't tailgated since wrestlming at thirty two in Dallas. I would love
to tailgate with you. I love tailgate, it just has never really come
up with the wrestlemanas I've gone to. I would love to do that with
you. Yeah, And I'm like, I was like, I keep thinking
about him. Might do Jase. It sounds like he's and make some real
good food. So yeah, Philadelphia tailgates. Right, that's like we're like,
you jump in the fire and stuff. So I'm like, I'll let
them do that, but I want to watch that. I think we're shooting
video there, so I feel like we should probably be in that parking lot.
Yeah all right, awesome, Yeah, I think I might trying to
make that happen. Oh that sounds good to talk about. Let's talk about
some I did it you still, Mike Skimmick, Yeah all right. Video
game time is what Mike Maherty says, and I'm going to take his cat
phrase there. We've all been playing video games. Mary, I need to
ask you something. Yes, Look, this is a once a year thing.
I know my audience, I know who I'm on a podcast with.
I tend to have rules with not talking. There's a reason I don't talk
about wrestling much on this podcast. It's because I'm the only wrestling person on
the podcast. Typically, Mary, we have someone here that also watches wrestling,
and a wrestling game is out, and this is when the embargoes up.
Mary, should we just do you want to peel the band aid off?
Now? Yeah, you guys are probably going to talk about wrestling stuff,
so let's let's have at it. You've correctly diagnosed what's about to happen.
Mary, let me ask the questions. Yes, what was the game
WWE two K twenty four for what platform? I played it on the PlayStation
five, but it's also on the Xbox and the personal computer. How many
levels? Well, there's three new power ups, so let's talk about that
is the value add Yeah, Dene actually kind of works that way. You
can be like there's two new you got ambulance matches and you got oh cobbin
matches, you know, right, it's the big game made still from that
line of thinking where it's like we need to have new bullet points on the
back of the box, all kind of like sports simps are like that.
It's like, you know, yeah, it's everd the truth. Yeah,
it is, well, there's three covers. You've got You've got Cody Rhoads
on the main cover, you got Bianca Beell, Aaron Ray Ripley on the
Delexe edition, and you've got a bunch of guys that aren't Brock Lesner on
the forty Years which mary. One thing I was doing while I was playing
this game, the Showcase mode, which is the like forty years of WrestleMania
thing is uh I wo'king for criminals? Yeah? Yeah, I kept a
keen eye out on a couple fellas in particular that I was curious how much
they would be a part of this game. Are you familiar with the current
goings on with Vince McMahon and Brock Lesner. They are both men, this
is true? Yes, uh charge what else is going on? Here's the
very short version of a very long, very awful story. They're angry with
each other. No, they they were very close with each other. They
were arranging play dates with each other and n no, not for each other.
Yeah, Brock didn't show up for the play date and Vince role played
ass Brock. Look, it's there's a sixty eight or seventy two or something
paid lawsuit. I've read every word of it. They're suing each other for
not play No, no, let's be clear. It's very dark. They
sexual trafficking, human trafficking. It is not funny. It is funny,
fucking terrible. They are legit the worst kind of people. Yes, yeah,
right, okay, so criminals, criminals, sex traffickers, criminals.
It's a Vince McMahon is not a good person. I don't know about the
other guy, Lesnar. Incredibly talented wrestler, not a lot of evidence of
I don't know. Moral Uh, I don't. I don't think he's a
great guy. Right, Like what like vincemcman is part of like their contract
negotiaans setting up these play dates and setting up this this sexual trafficking for book
listen. Well, the short version again, basically, the lawsuit was from
a woman, Janelle Grant, who long story short, she lived in the
same building as him. She needed the job, her parents had passed away.
She was in a very very bad situation in her life financially. Again,
this is all allegedly. This is all in the lawsuit. He basically
took her in, groomed her, took her in a very vulnerable position,
and trafficked her out to different executives and exploited her. Lesner is the one
who is not mentioned by name in the lawsuit, but given the context,
it's the only guy it could have been. And so Vince is basically trying
to get Lesnard to sign a new deal and was like, hey, I'll
let you have sex with my girl here, and they arranged play dates and
stuff, and it's just it's a fucking awful story. I don't mean to
you know, it is. It's insane, but I don't want to make
light of it. But it's all to say. It is put Devide in
a very interesting situation as of late, because they are pretty like, like,
for instance, two K. The position they've been in here is they
were long in the works with his forty years of WrestleMania mode being the big
showcase mode, which is like, we're going to show all these matches from
you know, handly involved Brock Listener, who's been the major part of WrestleMania
for the last twenty years. Right, he's like their poster child and now
he's a big pervert and you can't possibly put him on the cover. Well,
they did take him off the cover. They took him off the cover
fucking hope So well is he still on the back? What's there? This
came in hot video game, This came in hard to take him out of
other things the law superspial just change the code, just wipe him out.
Well, I'll tell you what they did. The lawsuit happened in early January.
The game is probably it came out recently as of this posting of the
podcast. And as much as Brock has been a part of WrestleMania, WrestleMania
is Vince McMahon's thing. It is the thing that saved wree. We would
not have a w do Now without it. It was Vince's brainchild. And
like anytime the history of WrestleMania is brought up, it is inextricable with Vince
McMahon. And so that's very interesting to see how they manage this. And
I was surprised there's more of them than I expected. They made Brock lessener
where you can't pick him from the main roster, like you can't go play
online and b Brock Lesner and you can't be Vince McMahon. But when you
play the showcase mode, there are several several things where this Wrestmania x seven
main event where its Stone Cold versus The Rock, and Vince was heavily involved
with the finish, the storyline all that stuff. So like you're in the
middle of the match and Vince that like they have the Vin's character model come
down and he gets involved the way he did and and you know, like
it's they're recreating these classic moments and stuff. So he's like fully fully there,
character model and all during that match. But then later on they do
a quick like two second clip of him introducing Charlotte Flair and they blur his
face, so such a weird thing that like you were seeing put it to
him earlier, you were seeing his character model as part of the match and
everything. I mean, there are people speculating like, oh, did they
blur him in this one because he's standing next to a woman? Is it?
You know, he's integral to the match with the restaurant lured him like
he's like like he's a tit, Like he's like yes, like he's like
trying to erase him from history the way they've done in the past, notably
a murderer. He's he's there, but he's his face has a censor blur
on it. Yes, I don't know if I heard his voice in the
game, but he is all over that Wrestling X seven match and they blur
his face briefly later on, so he is present in the game. They've
clearly so weird. It's very, very weird. And then they have a
history and ww has a history of having to do this with several other criminal
wrestlers who have done terrible things of like minimizing their presence or if they if
it's impossible not to show their stuff, to blur them and you know,
they had the WWE network and you couldn't search for these wrestlers by name and
stuff like that. It's it's weird. I think going forward it's gonna get
even weirder because we've seen their advertisements of them them using like deep fakes for
like Haul Cogan and Steve Steve Austin and these commercials. I think they're going
to start doing that with these things and like putting a generic face over and
McMahon in the future and make them look like something else. Yeah, it's
gonna be fucking weird. Ghost faces nobody. But it's like his body very
y, yeah, and Mary. The added wrinkle to this is the company
just sold, So it's an Endeavor is this company that owns UFC as well,
So you have C and Debitory wrote owned by Endeavor now and so now
you've got these people that just spent billions of dollars to get debitor E and
all this shit comes out about Vents like the same week they announced the sale,
and like the rock is at the stock exchange with Vince McMahon ringing the
bell and stuff, and then like two days later the lawsuit hits. So
you got TKO. Now that is like, fuck this, get this guy
out of here. We don't want anything to do with this guy, even
though they, you know, were pretty fond of it earlier it been in
front of them, but it's like this is that this is like the fourth
round with Vents in this stuff. This is like the worst of it.
But he's definitely been through the ringer on sexually harassing people for years now and
he's left the company previously. Yeah, why can't he just be wiped from
existence? Like so what so what he made? What? It seems like
they're in the process of maybe trying to do exactly that. But it's a
video game and it's it was kind of hard to get the stuff done,
I think. And it's to the extent they can because and the thing is
to the the industry or that company specifically, has always leaned so heavily on
nostalgia. You know. They own these ips for you know, Hogan to
match a man in Austin and rock and all these big stars from the past.
And they're very big on doing that. They're not fucking like right right'
shit. But because Vince was also oh yeah I drink this shit. Yeah,
Vince wasn't just the guy in charge. Got the bar is so unbelievably
low. You name damn near anyone. How about that? Vince is Vince
is uh the worst you get in wrestling outside of the several actually actual murderers.
Yes, so, because he was such an on screen character throughout all
of it, you know, from the time he was an announcer and everything
from the eighties to being a big antagonist during the nineties to being just omnipresent
throughout the two thousands. It is not that easy if you want to show
anything from the past and act like de Wite wasn't just like born from the
womb. In February twenty twenty four, it's hard to get around Vince.
He is all over everything, so everything. That is why I was so
interested to see how this is handled here. And so yeah, that's all
you see Evince. He's not playable or anything. Brock is playable. You
play as Brock listener in the Wrestlmingia thirty match against the Undertaker, and in
the Triple Threat match at thirty one erecepth Rollins Cash is in, So yeah,
you're playing as Brock. He's in the game. You see him in
video packages with Eddie Guerrero and Curd Angle and stuff. So Brock is less
nuked from the game. But I guess you could also say he's not actually
named in the lawsuit and it's way more about Vince and the executives. But
like, does that look good for Brock. I don't think you will see
him back in debit you. So it's just it's a very weird mode,
weirdly timed that they could not have done anything about this is not like I
think they did what they could, but it's still curio like. And the
reason we know that is because there's been several times over the last decame where
the roster will change with like eight months before the game comes out, and
then we get to the game and those characters are still in the game because
they they it would just take it be too much work to get rid of
them. Yeah, decide your characters. You can't change it up three months
before the game, Yes, exactly. And that's that's the situation they were
in here and more frequently known that Vince McMahon was a piece of shit for
years, Right, everyone's known it forever pretty much. It's just becoming extremely
evident how bad it was. And but he'd be owned the company until a
couple months ago, so it's like, he's not going to do that to
himself. And then that changed. Right, I've taken this issue up with
my boss and I've decided not to fire myself. Mean exactly. I was
working there while Vince smcmahon was the boss, and I heard people say several
times a phrase that was we have to protect the chairman, like cool,
but you never like it was never said in the context of like how horrendous
all this shit was. It was all in like, oh, somebody said
something on a podcast that they said, oh, fuck vincacman. You know,
he used the wrestlers and chew him up and spit him out, and
you would. Here we have to protect the chairman outside of a very close
inner circle of his dudes. I can't imagine many people knew how fucking bad
it was, because I was fucking shocked when I read the lawsuit. Yeah,
so that's where that's at. I mean, that's you know, that's
a small part of the game. It's just oh, that's yeah, it's
this is a nightmare. You should burn this this game. This sounds awful.
I think this is like one of the better versions of this game in
a long time. Huh. It's honestly, it's probably the best I've played
since at least uh w E fourteen. It's a good it's a good wrestling
game. It's not perfect. Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to go
to like super super serious stuff into like, yeah, what are the controls
like? But that's that's where wrestling is going to be for the next several
years. Every time this conversation comes up, especially when you're doing the whole
thing, but hey, we're gonna talk about wrestling. You don't like it,
it's like, well, okay, we got to tell you all this
ship first. Morally, it's dog shit. So the only thing you have
left is like whether or not you like the button practice I had. I
had my friend John over and we did a ECW hardcore rules match at the
Hammer Sign bar room between Rob Van Dam and Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Ali put
RBD through a table and he a flaming table and he kipt up right away,
and yeah, we fought backstage and then I, uh Mahmad Ali there's
a sleeper hole and put him to sleep and I won. So it's a
real fun time that sounds fantastic. It's it's good. The showcase mode.
It is annoying to me because they will it's this historical stuff, but it's
like you would assume they would want you to like play the fun parts of
these classic matches, but then they also entersperse all this real footage and so
then it's like a lot of times the real footage since you played the big
move is like literally like two minutes of like Hogan and the Ultimate Warrior,
like laying on the ground or like a bear hug or something like that.
It's no. The pacing is is really really weird in it, and it's
all these like you know you'll get like fifteens, hyper specific historical things you
have to do, like here is where you put them in. You know,
three different of these. You blocked three things in a row, and
then you whiped them against the ropes from the left side, and it just
really kills the pacing of the match. Like the game is at its best
when it's like you and a friend, or you just playing a mode,
or you're just doing a wrestling match. There's way too much start stop,
weird, shitty pacing stuff going on in the Showcase mode. I appreciate the
history, but also I've seen all those bajillion times. I could see how
would be a little more fun if you're like, oh, I never saw
Matchaman versus Randy Tavage and you get to play it but then see some footage,
but like, I don't know, to me, it just feels like
weirdly paced wrestling matches. The gameplay itself, I think is the best it
has been in a long time in terms of like all these different systems that
we're always just kind of confusing before. There's just too many bars on the
screen, There's too many what is this doing? What is this boosting?
What is this? Why can't I do this now, it feels a little
whittled down. Now two things you can understand a little easier, just between
the finishers and the signatures and your stamina, like you know, it's the
ballpoints on the back of the box. Now you can do super finishers if
you have stuck up three finishers, you can do Randy Orton's punt kick,
or you can do you know, Undertaker's Hell's Gate thing or whatever. So
it doesn't come up that often naturally, but that's one of the bullet points.
Ambulance matches, casket matches, they're fine. They're normal, like hardcore
matches where you go to a specific spot and then do a little mini game
to try to throw someone into a thing, right, Yeah, yeah,
I mean that's the kind of thing that these games are where it's like they
have to make a big deal out of things that are relatively minor because they
have to be the same thing every year. It is the reality. So
yeah, and people as hard as people go in the creation stuff, they
want to be able to recreate everything. They want every match type that's ever
been in any wrestling event ever has to be in the game. So yeah,
they're very very particular about that stuff and they've got it, So I
think I still have issues with the core gameplay, as improved as it is
now, I do feel like a lot of times I'm pressing a button and
then waiting for an animation to finish, like sometimes kind of a long one.
It kind of brings me back to like a thing that annoys me about
even like really great fighting games now like teen an eight or three pi er
six, where I feel like, in the last five ten years, the
super move type thing where it's like, all right, this looks cool the
first two or three times you see it, and now it's just like,
h just watching this, you know, like it's a smaller scale version of
that where it's like, Okay, I did this biancabell air move where now
I got to watch her knock the person back and then she does the flip
and she does but like at the same time, fans want her to have
that move, so like, how else you going to do that other than
a can And then they want it to look right and they don't want it
to be like they don't want that to be a skill check right. There
is a world where I think of like ten eighty snowboarding where it's like very
difficult to do a ten eighty. And then people are like, yeah,
but I like in SSX, where I could do like a twelve sixty,
like in my sleep, and that's the game I actually like, and most
people do prefer that, So I think when they come to this game,
they don't want to be like, Okay, I have all control over every
motion here so that I can screw up doing but Bianca bell Air is awesome.
Move No, I want to hit a button and it happens, and
it's like, yep, I get that, but that is a little bit
less interesting to me. Yeah, yeah, And they're still trying to ride
that line between like is this a simular or do we want people to be
able to kind of pick up and play at arcade style? And I still
don't think we're really at a like pick up and play level with this.
I think you really got to spend the time to go through the tutorial.
And they're not in a world where it's like did this game for as frequently
as they put it out? And what it feels like, you know,
it's these annual sports titles like how much can that really cost? They still
don't have the money or opportunity to go make a separate arcade game to stand
alongside this, and that stinks. It sticks can't have both two key cattle
grounds, and it was not good. They tried to write All Stars and
it didn't sell. So, like somebody there has listened at certain points,
they just haven't gotten the right people on the game basically. Yeah, and
I still feel like a lot of times the game boils down to watching your
character's head to see a triangle pop up ahead of it. On top of
it, it's a No Winter reverse and I don't really know how you get
around that. I just think wrestling is kind of a tough thing to translate
to video games, and I think the time it worked best is universally pretty
much the sixty four is what people say, and I agree with It was
simpler, it was arcadier. I think the more you go into simulation more
it's just not it's it doesn't translate that well. I mean, that's why
these games work best as creative sandboxes where people are making their own stuff and
telling their own stories, and it's like they have all these tools to do
that. That's where this game actually shines. Yep. And yeah, I
don't mean to be too negative on it, because I really do think the
actual gameplay is the best it's been in a long time. But I still
just have my normal like, hmm, I feel like I should like this
more. It's like my two favorite things. I feel like, you put
them together, I should like it more than I like them. But like,
you know, the Metacritic on this is like a low eighties, and
I feel like, yeah, that's that's about right, and I do think
that's that's actually that's surprisingly high. Well, I did not think it was
that high. It's pretty good, and I heard I was streaming it once
and somebody described it really well as like it's a great toy. It's not
a great video game. It's like, you know, if you want to
download six different versions of Shadow the Hedgehog and make them fight in the ladder
match, you know that's funny. But yeah, as an actual like fighting
game or sports game or however you want to categorize it, it still of
them feel quite right. But it feels pretty fun honestly. So yeah,
I'd say overall positive. Got my usual misgivings though, so that you know,
sex trafficking is a bit of a downer, But yeah, we didn't
even tell Mary that he shipped on her. I was wondering if we were
going to mention that, yeah, that's in a lawsuit. He pooped.
Definite thought about saying it, and then I didn't. He pooped on her
and then made her keep servicing his friend and honestly, not even the weirdest
thing, not even the weirdest thing. Yeah, you shouldn't even be This
shouldn't even be allowed on the shelves. Like as punishment, all of these
men should have to eat liquid dog shit and not have their video game come
out. You're not wrong, ripped from their stupid fingers. We're moving on,
involved with terrible people money. I wish nothing but ill of them.
And that's why I'm glad that Kasaga Cure You exists us, because he's like
the best person in the world. Do you know about in the hardy at
this? I think I heard vaguely that he doesn't like Cosaga, which is
the red flag. I'm sorry, Mike Mahardy, this is the Yeah,
this is the best you replacing Maharty. The best possible outcome here is on
Atchiban. Yeah. Yes, it's an insane take because bon rules. I
cried at the end because he just was like he just he's like it literally
is like Jesus, he takes it all on. He carries the world on
his shoulder, and he he turns the other cheek and when he turns back
around, he's still smiling at you, even though you just betrayed him,
even though you just did everything terrible to him and you left him to fucking
die in a taxi and he and it's like there's characters that do worse things
to him later, and he's not friends with him throughout the whole thing.
And at the end of the game, he's like, no, of course
we're friends, So what are you talking about. And the guy's like,
don't say that, you're making me feel terrible, and it's just like,
no, that's who Kaska is and it rules. It is so awesome to
play a game with a character that is that nice, and especially like in
a world that's so cold so much of the time, to feel like this
like cozy little home with this character. And they nail it. They go
through that story, and you know, I think it dragged a little bit
at the end. I was frustrated the last boss fight when I was under
leveled and there was no easy way to go out in the world and level
up again. But if you, you know, do all the things they
give to you to a grind, if you go do like the dungeons,
so the dungeon crawler thing, and you do every level on there, you'll
be fine. That is a little bit of a grind though, and it
does take a few hours, and so it's like addings this padding. But
outside of that frustration, once I got past that final boss and got to
the end of these stories with these characters. First it's like I don't have
a lot of history with Kiriu. I thought that was really well done.
And then just having ichibond be Ichiban and charm everybody and just be this beloved
dumbass. I cannot feel more of a connection with a character than I feel
with him. He is incredible. Yeah, and you mentioned the Curu stuff
too, like I think grub you and I both have respected Yeah, because
I'm from Afar and dabs from here and there. I think the way,
like I know enough of that character and his general arc and everything to the
way they present it in this game. When you're doing the cure U stuff
in Japan, where you're kind of there's a big focus on like reminiscing,
like, oh, I remember this place, that's where I met with this
guy and I had this meal and we talked about this thing, or that's
where I got in a fight with this guy. Like it's not it doesn't
lean into like you have to Like I guess the opposite would be like a
Medal Year Solid four, where it's like, imagine going into that and not
knowing a bunch of shit about Metal Year and right, what are they trying?
What is fucking happening? I feel like you don't need that level of
knowledge for this game to appreciate what they're doing with Crry. You right,
you're gonna get a lot. You'll get enough through osmosis if you will hang
out with any other people who do talk about these games. But even if
you don't, it's like they are just giving you these little vignettes that are
memories, and they tell you the story of what happened there, so you
get the beginning in the middle of the end very quickly and it's a nice
little moment. And a lot of that stuff's optional too, but I found
myself doing a ton of it because it's like, no This is nice.
This is well done, and I have a funness for Cure You, even
though I have not played a lot of those games and only dabbled. So
yeah, they just really handle that stuff very well. And I'm like really
glad that this is now a franchise that I am fully on board with.
Not so much that I'm like I'm feeling an obligation to go back and play
all the previous games or something like that, but I might give Yakuza zero
another chance. That's the one I played the most. I'm like, I
should go back and beat that game. That would be fun, and I'm
very happy that that's the case. Nice. Yes, I definitely want to
go back to that. I was about forty hours. I think it was
like halfway through when I bounced off for Final Fantasy. Yes, very based
on the converse, because you were like doing some of the early stuff in
Japan with Cure You. Right, Yeah, you're a little bit more than
halfway through. Okay, speaking of that, real quick, I bounced off
for Final Fantasy. Uh, Mary, have you played it at this point?
Final Fantasy? No, I'm not a Final Fantasy person. Okay,
so you you probably won't care about spoilers I have. I have more history
than I do for WWE, but I understand, I understand the concept.
Wow, also a huge piece of shit Cloud the Cloud lawsuits bad. Yeah.
Yeah, I don't want to know about what he does with his poop,
but can tell me about we learned a lot of stuff against our well
shared it with the rest of the class. So okay, grub you do
you care about Final Fantasy spoilers? Not even a little bit ahead? And
Mary good? Okay, And so listeners, I do want to spoil a
thing about Final Fantasy or so if you're worried about story spoilers for Rebirth,
pass forward a little bit here, but not too long. Uh the show
this is seven parts bright. Yes, yeah, this is important because this
did happen. So if people are worried about spoilers, that means that maybe
something's different about seven right. So well, okay, so well, So
that's where it's confusing. I everyone knows about Aris dying in the last one.
I never even got to that point in the last one. I you
know, I talked last week a lot, or the last episode a lot
about how like I'm loving this game a ton despite not really being a big
Final Fantasy guy not playing a lot of seven that holds true love. I
think this is a great video game, but I kind of had the exact
same thing happen that happened with remake for me, where I played a fucking
lot of it the large majority of the game, and I, you know,
the game came out, I started hearing kind of reactions of it and
everything, and people talking about like, oh, yeah, the last while
of this game, like hours and hours, goes on and on and on
with story stuff that makes no fucking sense even to like hardcore Final Fantasy people,
right, And that's the point I've heard most. Yeah, And so
I was like, you know what, I got forty five hours of a
lot of enjoyment out of this game. I really really liked my time with
it. And if you know, I've heard it can be a seventy eighty
hour game. And it's like, man, do I want to spend another
twenty five thirty thirty five hours with this game where a lot of it is
gonna be nonsense story stuff that I don't really know anything about it, or
do I want to move on to something else? So I decided, all
right, I had my time. I have positive thoughts on this game.
I think it's a great game, but I'm gonna throw in the towel when
we move on to something else. And so I just googled. I was,
like, the one thing I was curious about was I was, you
know, famously aris Airis back then died and uh sep roth Kilder, And
so I just googled does Erith die? Final Fantasy seven Rebirth and like the
shortest explanation I could find was like a fifteen minute video that's like, Okay,
that seems like a simple question, but it's actually very confusing, and
yeah, I'm here right choice, it's gonna be a bunch of anime shit
that I would not have understood. I would have hated it. It would
have soured me on this game. I fucking backed away from the table while
I was having a good time, and I have good memories of it,
and I saw some videos of it, and the fact that it's like not
even like it said, well, yes, she does die, but also
she does exist in Cloud's head, and inside Cloud's head is one of the
worlds where you see Zach is still alive. And so in that timeline where
the white materia faded, so Ereth is alive there, but and the timeline
that you're playing, Erith is dead, so she is that doesn't we don't
know if she'll be dead. And the next one it's like, oh my
god. If that is not a yes or no question, then something is
getting more confusing than it needs to be. I mean, the thing that
happened is I mean, I know this is an answer that people don't like,
but it's Namurah. It's the Kingdom Hearts guy who was also a Final
Fantasy seven guy, so he's like always been involved in this stuff. But
that just sounds like some Kingdom Hearts convoluted bullshit from the bottom of the ocean.
It is like they just unearthed it. It's an ancient evil and they
just put it in their new Final Fantasy game. I don't know, man,
Jim Cloud will wake up and it was a dream. I don't sounds
like that's what you're playing. Basically, she'd google it and be like is
it a dream? And it would be a video essay of like, well,
let's talk about the different ways we can answer that question, and there'd
be no satisfying answer, and I don't know, No more. I don't
know Kingdom Heart stories or anything. I just know anytime somebody describes them,
it sounds nonsensical. But not like a fun metal year way. No,
it's like an eight year old on a sugar rush telling you like the latest
movie they saw in the you know, the Puppy Pals movie series. It's
like, okay, what, Yeah, you're talking too fast. I don't
understand. Yeah. So so I feel I feel very very happy with my
decision because I had my good time. I didn't because I could picture myself
sitting there if I had gone for another thirty plus hours and then I'm just
sitting through this shit and I'm like, oh my god, fucking let me
play the game. None of this makes sense. I hate this. I
hate this, but I didn't have that experience. I just had the fun
experience and I got out. Mike says he likes some of the bosses at
the end, and he would be clear he did. He had no real
complaints about about the convoluted ending, but he had been hearned. I guess
he is a Kingdom Hearts guy. Yeah. Yeah, I think you would
have been very frustrated by the ending, and you might have liked some of
those bosses, and that would have been the best case scenario. I believe
that the play was great. I love the game, playing the game,
and the boss fights for fun. Yeah that's so. Then that's my other
question. So the main complaint I hear is the ending is you know,
WA could do or whatever. The other complaint is some people are frustrated by
what they call padding and side quests that you're forced to do. I've not
gotten to a lot of that. I still have only done the four hours
I played on stream on UPF last week, and I enjoyed what I played
a bit, But people keep like people are having this conversation back and forth.
We talked to Russ on BombCast and he's like, I was not enjoying
most of these things I was forced to do by the game. And then
I hear you, You're like, no, I love it. Enjoyed the
Yeah, Pirate Shooting Gallery. I'll do every level of that and I'll a
sit at the best level. Like all the minigame shit, I returned every
scooter, I did every fucking thing like. I really like those mini games
were a lot of fun. I did all the Chadley shit. I was
one hundred percent of areas before I moved on to the next open area.
I thought that stuff was a lot of fun. Okay, I'm very curious
to see how'm gonna fall on this. Yeah, so done with that?
Cool? Mm hm, let's got to free up for some other stuff that
you know, Like, are you gonna go back to like a dragon that's
I do? I do intend to do that, yes, okay, all
right, so maybe you could do that before we get to like some other
stuff. I think Dragon's Dog but two is gonna pop off and everyone's gonna
be playing that. I'm gonna play it for sure. Yeah, me too,
absolutely. M M Mary, what else are you playing? I regret
to inform you all that since our last podcast, I still have only played
Billatro and hell Divers Hell. Yeah. Look, that's why I quit Vile
Pantacies because it's like, man, I could be playing this. Yeah,
I'm fucking addicted. Hell Divers is so much fun. When I'm like,
I'm sitting there and I actually do have like a good backlog of games where
I'm like, oh, I really should play this. There was some good
like indie games I was really interested in, like checking out in this last
week But every time I'm at my computer, someone will ping me and be
like, Oh, the boys are playing Hell Divers. That's where that That's
where I want to be. I don't want to be anywhere else. I
want to kill fucking bugs. And it's just so repetitive. It's so good.
Every time I play it, it's amazing. I love the repetitive nature
of this game. You go down, you kill bugs, you solve whatever
it is the fuck they want you to do, shoot eggs whatever, Who
carest whistles. So much fun with my buds playing this game. I like,
don't want to play anything. Hell Divers is fucking genius. They've done
everything that I've ever asked of this sequel, and I just think it's brilliant
and it just it brings me so much joy. Marry your performance when me,
you and Boniello played a couple of weekends ago was pretty incredible. What
happened my dad? I forgot about this. We were playing in the middle
of it. I don't remember. We're in the middle of a game,
and I was like, ah, shit, you guys, my dad's calling.
And my dad would never call because it's it was like seven pm my
time, which means it was like ten pm your guys this time. Yeah,
And it was like it was like late on a weekend. And it's
like we're also we played a bunch and we're like, let's try like a
harder robot level, and so we do like a hard robot level. And
then the way Mary said that, it's like, oh god, yeah,
it sounds like I never calls my dad shouldn't call me. I gotta take
it. But I'll still play, but I gotta take it. And so
I take one year off the head and I answer the call, and I
mute Mike obviously, and I start talking to my dad. It's it's honestly
nothing. My dad was just like, I, you know, I just
wanted to hear your voice and talk to you. So I start talking to
my dad. But then well then it's like I don't There wasn't even one
thing. It's just like we had to extract and we're all trying to get
back and we had like very very few reinforcements, and just hell is raining
down upon us the entire landing area. We're screaming. Me and Bone Yellow
are on like just like screaming at each other, freaking out. Bon yellows
into hysterics, and like we just keep wondering, it's Mary. It's very
odd. Is she playing? And we would see you moving around, like
we would turn to you and you're just like blasting a bunch of buns.
Yeah, she's odd. She's what We just kind of we're like both died
once at the same time sometime my dad. I was like, yeah,
I agree, Dad, Like I just don't understand why everybody even tries the
Rosea's pizza, not even more, and I'm like trying to hit the box
to so that I can call back my friends. Everyone's dying, I'm prone
shooting backwards. Like a casual conversation with my father. It was so funny.
So we're me and Boniella are like simultaneously like freaking out about like this
incredibly intense mission going on as we're trying to extract and also like worrying about
like, God, okay, is she is she okay? And like we
would literally turn and like she's throwing down an orbital strike. And at no
point was she just like standing there or idle. She wasn't dying. Me
and Boniella were constantly dying, and they like, was there or strikes,
even like grazing you guys, was like everything. She was reviving us.
She was not killing any of us. She was just like pro she was
completely on. She was incredible while on this like meandering call with her dad
and we're like, yeah, she must be fine. She's kicking ass.
This is great at rules. You were the first one on the ship.
I then Boniello got on, and I'm just like sprinting through all these explosions
I get. I was like the most intense ending to a hell Diver's match
I've had while you're just having a casual conversation with you. It's awesome.
Video games are cool. Yeah, Boniello texted me the next day, He's
like, I'm just walking around New Orleans right now, just thinking, like
laughing out loud, thinking about Mary and that mat Helltiggers very talking to her
dad. It was a great moment and I and it's so funny that like
I was able to do that and have that incredible experience with you while I
was like also like, shoot, I should talk to my father. It's
been like a week. Uh. It's just like so funny that you can
have these incredible epic moments. How many times have you ever played Helldivers.
You're like shooting at something in front of you and it's taking all your focus,
and you turn around and there's vast rugs behind you. Stuff up.
Shit, everybody's gonna fucking die. It's it's amazing the way that they have
brought this together to have this incredible health fire. As you're waiting for your
ship to come down and it says it, you know, like all everything
that's just so perfectly tuned to to make you feel good when it's just like
ship arriving in thirty seconds and you're like, I don't have thirty seconds.
I living. Oh god, it's genius. I was just playing again last
night, and every night it is a absolute joy. When I get a
text or when I get like a DM and someone's like we're all on it
in it's just I can't wait. It's just it's like, I don't know.
It's like being in high school and like having like a person you like
be like, hey, you want to like call me on the phone or
something like that, or being invited to a really cool party with your best
friends. I'm telling you this makes you feel like a million dollars when you
guys were dying, and I was like, I can revive you. I
fucking handle this. Im down left, left, left, right, I
can do this. It's just like it makes me so happy, and I
don't think I've been happier playing a game in a really long time. Like
obviously Hell Divers is good. I could talk about it forever, but I
think what I'm saying is like this isn't just like for me, like the
game of the year so far. This is like the best game I've played
in several years. It's the way you're describing it reminds me of how you
describe playing like a Rocket League with coworkers back in the day. You know
that type of vibe, doesn't it, You know, where you like can't
wait until the until the buds get on, you know. It's just like
hey, like I don't know we're all gonna be available, but usually like
Peter can come on around like eight pm, so like that's when I like,
I gotta eat dinner before then because he's gonna he's gonna come on.
Like it's so good to like know that this four the four person is like
really clutch as well. It's yeah, it's so nice to have a group
of four to to rally and to go on these missions with, and everybody
succeeds. It's and absolute joy to like get your friends together. And yes,
I have connections to Rocket League with this game that I don't know if
I've felt this like we all have to play tonight since Rocket League. You
know, like when one of your friends can't come on because they have like
life and you're like, I'm gonna bully this person. Get on. We're
all here. This game will do that to you. It will make you
yell at your friends to get on. I've I feel like I'm in high
school, you guys. I feel like I am a kid again. I
feel like I'm in college and I am absolutely ignoring my finals because the bulls
are coming and we got it. We gotta. We have to solve this.
It brings out all the feels of your childhood gaming days. And it's
not a chore, you guys, Like, this is not something that you
gotta finish before you go to bed. This is like one more game.
I am sick. I think it's probably very obvious to you that I am
sick. I sound like a little congested. I was up until two in
the morning. I couldn't fucking stop. I can't fucking stop, and you
need to say too, Yeah, I need to get my sleep right now,
and I couldn't because this game's so fucking fun. Are you finding I
haven't played in about a week. It has it gotten better as far as
the you know, the issues that we're plaguing it early. You can still
get kicked out. You definitely still have problems. I would like to think
that it's less than it was, but absolutely, yesterday we were having problems
for like the first thirty minutes and then we were good for glorious hours.
And it's worth it to me, Like, yes, it's it's it's a
pain, it's worth it. It's worth every like problem that I've had with
it. Like my god, like everybody get this game, Like go find
your best friends and go play. Jesus gee, I cannot talk about this
game good enough. It's so funny with like covering all these games we were
talking about like WWE and like Final Fantasy, and we're like, well,
there's like actual crimes, like war crimes, like you know, this game's
whole arts associations, but you know you can probably finish it, you know,
in like forty hours. It's like, what the fuck are you doing?
Where are you not playing Hell Divers? Like this game is so much
better boy, nobody was. No, there's no monsters. As far as
I'm aware, that made it Mary. I feel like this is going to
come up a lot during our game of year stuff. I think he's I'm
going tooth and nail and it's in its fucking march. It's so early,
and I'm I could write a book about how much I love this game.
I think the bar for best game with buds is going to be pretty high.
I mean, it's just there's no question. I don't know what else
to say about it. It makes my heart light up when I know that
it's there's no more work time, and it's like, someone better text me
and tell me that they're they're playing. I loved it when you when you
messaged me, you were like, hey, I got like and you know
what I got time? I got time for Hell Divers. I could have
been reading. I could have been like, you know, thinking about what
I was gonna wear tomorrow. There's all sorts of ship I could have done.
The second you text me and say, hey, you want to get
into Hell Divers. I'm like a fuck yes, like, let's go.
It's such a joy. Okay, you describing that makes me want to play
this really bad again, and I will be texting you. You can do
what we do the podcast. I can. I can do it. I
just said like we were that the meeting earlier, and chance like, well,
we can't do w W because you know, things happen tomorrow, so
which we stream on. Like now it's decided. I'm doing Hell Divers to
tomorrow. Dry workshow it's so perfect. It brings people joy, brings me
joy, Invite me. I'm still invite you, and I'm gonna see what
happens. I'm gonna see how how bad the addiction really is. Quit your
job for Hell Divers, yeah, you know, because like, join the
forces, you know, do something better in the world of bugs. Salute
you're gonna join the real military. It's gonna go to that. Sorry guys,
And then they're like, well I was kind of toxic. Actually yeah,
it's recruitment tool. Yeah. Man, three hundred and thirty four thousand
people playing this right now. Oh man, it's just good for them.
That is an absolutely fucking ahead. That's awesome. It's the right game for
the right time. It's it's the newest Animal crossing where it's like it just
hit when we needed it. Sure, Yeah, they're like early Pandemic.
Yeah, New Horizons. Yeah it did scratch an itch for sure. And
it is interesting to think like what would have happened if this released at the
same time as like, uh, like a Bloodborne style game right where it's
like everyone's divided, but there wasn't anything giving worktime and we're coming off like
years of people being like, Okay, yeah, we played a lot of
Fortnite. We've played a lot of these games, and you know, Apex
Legends, like we had a time, We're not really going to go back
to that, like you know, Halo's down, Battlefields down, And so
a new multiplayer came coming along and filling in and filling that gap for people
and being like the new hobby game is welcome. Speaking of new multiplayer games
that I was not aware of until a few days ago, but this is
very much a local multiplayer game versus online. I don't don't quote me.
I don't know PAS online, but I played locally because Ben Hansen, who
has introduced me to many many great things over the years. I had him
and a bunch of people over for Sting's last match on Sunday, grabbing.
I an't watch that, yep, and Hanson not a wrestling person, but
I think I saw his opportunity to be like, hey, afterwards, can
we play there's this local multiplayer game that I really want to play with a
group locally. Do you think people would stick around for that and know?
Yeah, yeah, bring it over. I don't you know what they said?
It's Astro Duel too, and I had never heard of it, never
heard of the first one. I can tell by your faces you probably have
not heard of it either. Yeah, it's I would describe it, or
he described it to me actually as Asteroids meets TowerFall. Okay, so this
game, this game doesn't come out till tomorrow, right right, Yeah,
the embargoes up as you know, as today as we're recording it. But
basically, so it's got the tower Fall type stuff where you are like Samurai
Gun, where you are little character with a sword and melee weapons and you
can pick up guns and get quick kills on people. But then once you
leave the confines of like these like it'll be like it'll look like a like
an asteroid with like rooms inside of it, and once you go outside that
you turn into a ship. So you turn into like an asteroid ship and
you're flying around and it's very deliberate. You can't just like mash on fire.
You'll have like three shots you can do and then it has to kind
of reload each one, and you can pick up homing missiles, you can
pick up lasers, and there's cool things too where it's like that breach that
barrier, Like you can't shoot from inside to outside, so you can't be
a person shooting something at a ship outside and vice versa. But some can.
So if you get a laser as your ship form, that laser can
burst through the barrier and kill the human forms or just the you know whatever,
the non ship forms running around inside. So there's a lot of kind
of push and pull and weird strategy you can do. But there's also the
moments where it's like, oh, this map is just inside, so it's
just straight up Samurai gun TowerFall style where we're just scrambling to get the power
ups kill each other. And I want to say it was like you could
do at least I think six players locally on the switch, and it's a
very easy game to play with like the joy Con attachments, so you know,
it's easy to get a bunch of controllers together and play with a good
sized group. But super fun. We played on a ton of the different
maps. There's a good variety there. It is definitely one of those things
where you want to see the replay and do the slowmoversion and see like,
oh what happened there? It's like, oh shit, you dodged that and
then you reflected that shot. And it's really really fun. It doesn't take
long to learn. Great with the group. Great locally. It really does
look like Samurai Gun, like it has that quick slice action if you get
too close to somebody. I'm always ready for one of those two, Like
I'm always like in the mood like I'm glad there's always like one of those
around and this is going to be the new one of those, Like yeah,
absolutely, I welcome that. And it winds me up, like packs,
isn't it like just going to seeing a bunch of people and being like,
well, we're going to play something and kill each other or a game.
You know, one's heard up at the Endie Megabooth and all of a
sudden, everyone's crowding around it and yelling like, Yeah, it's got that
vibe to it for sure, so definitely check it out. I played it
on Switch and that seems to be a good system to have it for because
it's you know, bring it with you, bring a much joy. Cons
seems like probably the easiest way to play it with a group of people,
especially on the go. But yeah, yeah, really really solid. So
thanks the answer for the recommendation. Yeah it looks really it looks really cool.
Yeah yeah, same. It says here it's got a Steam remote play
together, so it doesn't seem like it has online multiplayer, but I bet
it would work fine with steamrote remote plays. So crub does seems to began
for like a UPF segment. Yeah, well we'll see if we can get
it up and running and very you know, if we have to, we'll
do PARSEC, but I bet we can get this work in. Yeah.
Yeah, but a big recommendation from what I played. I spent some time
this week after I beat Like a Dragon playing Expeditions, a mud Runner game
mud Runners and snow Runners of franchise. I'm a huge fan of snow Runner.
Was my game of the Year the year it came out, and it's
just about you know, trucks moving big stuff from one place to another,
and there is mud and you're going to get stuck in it, or there's
snow and your tires are going to spin, and using a combination of other
big trucks and a winch on a tree and lowering the air pressure in your
tires and turning on all wheel drive and then turning on a differential luck all
these like tools that you have at your disposal to get the most traction while
also reserving as much fuel in your tank as possible so you don't run out
a fuel before you accomplish your goal. And if you do, then you
can drive another truck there that has some backup fuel and fill it up.
All these things of like you have a goal and you make decisions on your
way to accomplishing that goal, and then you have to live with those consequences.
And I really really enjoy games like that. And then I just like
big machinery moving around in spaces, in a physical space and feeling like,
you know, you go around a corner and you if you're going too fast,
you're going to damage your engine, and it's not like the game deciding
like this is where people have their engine damage. It's like, no,
it's all physics simulation thing that's happening, and it's all because of the decisions
you made. This version of this franchise is new. It's expeditions, and
what it does is in snow Runner, you would be kind of in like
an open zone and it'd be like you need to like rebuild the world by
taking things from one place to the other, and you're going back and forth,
and this is kind of similar to that, but you are doing much
like smaller bite sized goals, and once you do that, you're like moving
on to the next one, and it's not like rebuilding the world. You're
like, oh, you got to go take a radio tower from one place
to another, and once that set up, you're good. You could just
you know, click to the next thing on the menu and start doing that,
and it's and so the result there is instead of always being like,
Okay, I need to have the big truck because I'm gonna have to carry
like six logs and I'm going to need the little crane thing that can like
get the logs off the ground and put it on the truck and stuff like
that, and so I'm gonna have to like get this thing across here no
matter what. You could spend more time in some of the smaller and more
exploratory vehicles, which is kind of a relief because so those are very fun
to drive, and you still have all the same physical reactions from the world
that you have to deal with, but it's like I have a little bit
more freedom and I can actually feel like, Okay, there's a tree up
there that's going to be able to pull me if I winch this truck up
there, I have the right tires on, I'm actually gonna be able to
get up that hill, as opposed to having like this you know, forty
ton truck that was like, no, no matter what I do there,
that's going to be impossible. And so far I've really, I really really
liking it. It's you know, snow Runners my game of the year that
year. It's maybe not quite exactly what I want from one of these games,
but it is a cool sort of sideways position for this for this franchise
to go in, and I think they did a pretty good job with like
keeping the missions interesting. The thing is, it feels a little underbaked.
I did an early mission where I'm like, Okay, you have your vehicle
and you could have like so many inventory slots, and for an early mission,
I'm like, Oh'm gona fill up all these inventory slots with like extra
fuel and all this stuff. And I got to where i was supposed to
be going, and at that point, I'm supposed to take something and put
it in my inventory, but all my inventory thoughts were full and there was
no way for me to get rid of it, and it did not give
me the option to like go back to the main menu or to restart the
mission. It was like, no, we're in the tutorial and it didn't
realize that I messed up and didn't give me a way to solve that.
So I just had to start the mission over by like fully quitting and coming
back in. So there's like some like rough edges here and there. But
as I've gotten past the tutorial and I'm now I'm just actually doing the game,
most of that stuff has sort of resolved itself, so I'm really happy
with it, and I'm kind I'm kind of hoping that it kind of maintains
this momentum all the way through are you playing with the wheel sometimes? But
I'm mostly playing on the steam deck where it runs great because it looks and
it looks and runs really great on there. I'm like fully at sixty frames
per second and that's really nice and and you know, being able to play
it anywhere it's great. But you know, we played some snow Runners and
playing that with the wheel and having the full force feedback and feeling like you're
fighting with it, that stuff is great as well. That's what I was
thinking, is like, since I moved here, it's like I do have
space in this room for like a permanent like like keep the wheel, like
like it was a pain in the ass at the last place because the room
was kind of crowded and like I had to like move the wheel and kind
of try to pull it up, and it's just it was very cumbersome.
Here I could kind of just leave it back there and pull it out whenever
I want to play something. I liked playing that with you. We did
a two or three episodes on Giant Bomb of it. So this game is
going to have co op. It's on the menu. It's just coming soon.
Interesting, I think as soon as soon as that drops, let me
know, you give me an excuse and all of a sudden back up in
air. For sure, it sounds great, All right, perfect, I'll
get wheel going and we'll do something with that. I mean, I think
this game is much better set up to be a multiplayer game than the previous
games. Yeah, so I think it'll work really well. I'm in now.
Some of the ratings on Steam are a bit mixed, and it sounds
like some of it is because of it. Is it in game like pricing
and things like that. What do you think is causing that. I've not
looked too too closely at those so far. I was like trying to like,
like craft my own opinion. Don't want to be influenced by other people.
Yeah, most of them. I saw anything that would get me right.
Most of the time, I don't care about that stuff, but here
I was like, yeah, it was definitely like this is one of my
favorite things. I want to see how I feel. But if I were
to guess, I would say that this is a franchise that has had a
lot of success selling packs of new vehicles and stuff like that, and I
think probably out of the gate having many of the cooler vehicles is locked behind
that is probably rubbing some people the wrong way. But I'm mostly playing with
the base vehicles. I think I have a couple of special edition versions of
the basic vehicles and I'm having a good time. It's you know, I'm
playing the mostly the basic version of the game, and I've gone to look
at the DLC all that much. I find that actually the best way to
play these games is with the vehicles they just give you, because then it's
more challenging and it's not like, oh, well, I have an awesome
truck that can just basically go over anything. That removes some of the fund
from the game for me. So from these of like your vehicle to other
people or is it just what you have, Like it's not like nobody else
is seeing what you drive. Yeah, I mean if if you're doing the
multiplayer mode a little bit, But I can't imagine because like you could also
like let people use your cool vehicle. Maybe that would be fun when you're
playing the four player mode, but it's not like some big online experience where
you're going to be showing stuff off. No, but yeah, I'm not
rolling Coal, But you know they have all us, they have all real
like vehicle brands, and you know there are people who are like like,
no, I'm I'm a Ford person, Like give me my Ford vehicle,
and it's like, well, no, all the Ford vehicles cost extra.
If it's something like that, I could see people being frustrated by that.
Nice I yes, let me know when that has co op. I'm in
yes right away. I was like, I was going to get it set
up, and I'm like, Okay, the co op's not turned on yet,
so as soon as it is, we'll make a big deal out of
that, and that'll be fun before we finish with I am curious where everyone's
at with their blato addictions. I'll just say very quickly, uh. I
played a little a penny big breakaway. I played the like first world of
it, and and I like it. That's where I'm a big mark for
three D platformers. This is a good one for sure. The thing I
immediately appreciated was the amount of mobility you have, Like that's that's my test
for the three D platformers, Like immediately upon moving the character and pressing buttons,
if you're instantly having fun and doing cool stuff and flips like Mario six
Sport is kind of like the benchmark for that. Well, I mean Mars
Sunshine's better, but you know that type of stuff. And I tried it,
and this passed the bar very quickly. There's a lot of air mobility.
There's a lot of that, Like Mario Odyssey, I jumped up here,
I threw my cap in a different direction, and then I moved the
mid air and dove on to the cap, and then that sprung me into
a different direction. And so like seeing like a thing that's really far away
or really high up or both, and being like, I bet I can
pull some bullshit and I can make that happen. You can usually do that
with this. You can you got like a yo yo that you can use
as kind of like a bionic Commandos swing. You can do you know,
spins and all sorts of different ways grapple type situations and everything. But it's
a lot of fun to play. The thing I don't like is they it
does this thing that I hope they stop doing where a bunch of fucking penguins
show up and they just mob you and like they chase you, and so
all of a sudden, it's very deliberate with that. Yeah, it's very
satisfying thing where it's like I feel like I'm in so much control over you
know, Penny's movements and jumps and platforming. All of a sudden, it's
like a like these fucking penguins and I'm jamming buttons and I just jump off
a clip or something. It's like, ah, man, Like I know
that they're trying to like kind of keep you moving through the level in a
way that's maybe not as on rails as like that kind of like Sonic Dreamcast,
that Sonic Adventure type of stuff, you know. But every time the
penguins show up in this game, I was like, I fuck this,
But the other stuff feels very good. I would like to keep playing it.
That's one of the games where I'm like, Okay, if I stop
Final Fantasy, now I can get more time to these games. So yeah,
that's where I'm with this at, with this series as well, or
this game as well. Like I started it, I want to get back
to spend more time with it. Sean mentioned that he there's a lot of
like Tony Hawk correlation where he's like, I played a level and basically never
stopped my combo. I'm like, what what are you talk about? So
I'm like, Okay, I need to get back in there and like really
explore the bounds of the of the mobility system, because apparently it's like,
yeah, you can really like just stitch everything together from beginning to end.
And I'm like, okay, I'm gonna check that out a whole level without
like stopping moves and como basically yes, yeah, you know, riding on
the yo yo and then I maybe grinding. I don't know, I don't
know what's possible later on in the game. Yeah. And also it's got
that like style of the Saturn game with like kind of the visual fidelity of
a Dreamcast game, which is pretty nice. Yeah, that's a nice combo.
So it's got a lot going forward. For sure. I do want
to play more of it. I definitely. I was like, yeah,
it's it's it's cute. I think it looks like a nineteen nineties, like
late nineteen nineties video game magazine to me, Like that color scheme, it's
just like something you would see in like ultra game players like and yeah,
that's awesome. Too many penguins. All right, where are we at?
When when was that? Okay, here, let's start with this. When
let's go around the room. When was the last time you played Bilatro All
Start? Probably last night for me Mary Monday, I streamed it, okay,
Jeff over the weekend, I'm sorry, peas me Breakway keeps shouting at
me from this window and steem, I gotta close that. Yeah. Over
the weekend on Sunday, I played way more than I intended to. Like,
that's where I'm at with that game, where it's like I need to
put it away so I can play some other stuff, and then suddenly I
find myself playing it again. Yeah. Yeah, it's it is like,
I know people say this about a ton of different games, where it's like,
oh I just picked it up for one thing and I fell down on
whatever hole. This is about the worst I've seen that because it's like,
okay, let me get at least like I'm doing one run and he sit
down, say you don't get a bunch of jokers that work together. You
get to like Annie three and it's like, okay, this isn't like these
jokers suck. I'm not gonna I'm barely getting past the required chips here.
Let me okay, I'll get it. Let me get a real run.
Yeah, one more real run. Yeah, then you and then it's five
hours later like it's addictive. Yeah, yep, it really is. I
mean it's just it's a pure design of just like you understand it. You
have good ideas in your head and you just want to like express that idea
and you're going to kee playing until you get a chance to do that.
And then once you do, it's like that felt so good and I didn't
win, Let's see if I can try again. So it's like everything is
pointing you back to play that one more turn. Yeah. I've been trying
to keep my mondays open because it's like, well it's wrestle my any of
season RAW, it's been pretty good. So it's like that's three hours long,
but I don't have to be paying attention every second of it, so
it's the perfect time. I'll get three hours of platro in on the couch
while I'm watching RAW, and then three hours is a long time. Raw
usually feels like three hours, and all of a sudden, it'll be ten
o'clock and I'm like, what the fuck am I feel like I just started
this. So I've had like a couple of runs here and then I'm up
till you know hours later, still playing I play it. I never play
games in bed. I'm very much in no screens in the bedroom person.
And this is the one game maybe ever that I've like bring the switch in
the bed and finish this run. You know. Yep. It's uh,
it really is that addictive. And it's I don't even use that word lightly.
It's just I did find myself, like like the weekend before last,
like, oh, this this is a problem, Like I am ignoring responsibilities
in life to play this game. And that was like I really had to
like actually actively force myself to put it down. It's one that like you
don't you don't start a run unless you really have you've done your ship for
the day, because it's like if I start this, I'm not gonna work
out, I'm not gonna meditate, I'm not going to do this thing or
that thing. Like let me get all that shit done and I can reward
myself by just like going into a blattro hole. It's also like really casual.
So like let's say we have a rule, which is we have something
called family fun time, which is like, hey, you're supposed to watch
TV hang out for least an hour spend time together. Right, Well,
I can play Blattro while I do that. I can, that's fun.
I can play Vlatro while I sit with somebody or watch TV or be on
a call with my dad. Like Blatro is like this perfect catch all where
like you can because there's there's no time limit, I can think about what
I want to do. I can casually just and it works perfectly on the
steam deck, Like this is such a great game. I was on that
thirteen hour flight to the Netherlands. What the fuck else do you think I
did? I played Blatra almost the entire time. I read like two chapters
of a book, and then I was like, I think I'll treat myself
to a little Blatra, and I played it the entire time. It's just
super fun and getting you're right to like the game can be quite punishing.
Sometimes your jokers are just ass and they're almost like toy with you a little
bit, where they're just like, we know this joker isn't any good,
but you need something a little bit, and you keep unlocking more and so
it's like you get ideas in your head and like, all right, I'm
gonna try to have that build and it's like, yeah, now that's like
even harder to get because there's like I have forty more jokers than I had
before and say, oh man, okay, our tolerance for good stuff has
gone up so much in this word. It's like in the beginning, it's
like you get like, ooh, this one for every spade I have,
but it'll give me thirty chips. It's like, oh, this killer and
polychrome my multifier with every fucking card under two I have, and every tarot
card I get like that horseshit, like no joker can eat my ass.
I'm not dealing with some stupid, weak ass joker. And you have like
really miserable jokers. Will be like this joker gives you zero point five multiplayer
for every joker you delete, and it's just like all right, I'm just
gonna nuke my entire force and then I'm towing it all the way for this
sweet ass joker. Like I have done that. I have, I've burned
my entire build halfway through to be like this is worth it. And you
know what it is. It's all fucking gambling. It's all like the gambling
mentality, which is just like I'm this far in the blind is going up.
You can't you can't stay on these piss ass jokers forever. Mary.
You know, you have to find a better joker. And so I'm just
I'm throwing it all away. I have like four dollars to my name,
and I'm like, someone give me a fucking good joker. It's it's amazing
what takes me do. Once I know I'm at like death's door, That's
when I'm like, Okay, this isn't gonna work. Now I need to
just unlock step with the collection. So I'm gonna buy that horse shit thing
to not discovered joker because I never wanted to buy it, but I'll get
it just the market ops. Now I've got like one hundred and thirty nine
of one hundred and fifty jokers. The thing I'm trying to do now is
beat it a green Steaks one, because you start with the white steaks and
the red steaks and the green steaks. I don't know if you've how far
you guys are with that stuff. I've I've only beaten it once actually,
so yeah, and that was It's been pretty frustrating. So I'm now I'm
like, Okay, well I beat it with that. I think I beat
it with the Red deck, the standard one, and so now I'm going
through and I'm going to try to beat with the other decks. But I
did. I did put it way way so I could beat like a dragon,
and I'm like proud of myself for actually being able to do that.
Good. I think I've beaten it seventy eight times now. Red deck is
the easiest for me to beat it on. I have the four other Well
done, Mary, Sorry say that again? Did you say you do?
Oh? I like Green, the one that's like you get a dollar for
every discard as well, because like then with Green, I build all my
decks around like give me shit. They're like, okay, I'll do the
egg that gives me three dollars cell value every round and one that adds up
the cell value of everything and adds up to molt and like that those are
my like money runs is the Green deck ones. I'm sorry, I got
to interrupt. Damn would you mind going to twitch dot tv slash Tolkoto right
now and see what he's doing. Oh, don't do this to me.
Don't do this to me. Okay, I'm just gonna I'm gonna guess it
involves me, it involved Disney, right, it does not. It might
be the last thing you would guess that a person like him would do.
All right, super ad. Oh I just saw the title of the stream.
It says Mortal Kombat Mythologies Again. What's wrong with him? I don't
know. He's hang on, Let's get in this chat right now. Hang
on, okay, hang on all right, Mike. It's so distracted.
I am currently recording fire Escape with Mary and Grub. What the fuck are
you doing? Okay, Mary's yeah, I'm never not on Twitch. He's
gonna speed he says, yeah, he's like you got in. He said
he's gonna speed rund because he you know, he does play through in one
city and he's gonna be on the board. Look, I hate to say
this, but I do respect this When I play this a little bit.
It's kind of fun in a really weird way. Oh he just noticed.
Yeah, oh what a nightmare. Well he's saying this is great audio.
Yep. Oh no, yes, you might have messed up here. So
okay, So he's saying, my why, Dan replies, I just said
I have to leave it and I closed the window, right Okay, So
Dan is playing Superman sixty four for Blake Club. Yeah, yes, uh.
And in Superman sixty four on the normal difficulty, you actually don't really
beat the game. Why not? I didn't. It's it's a it is
a little bit different, but I understand what you're getting at there. Uh,
So you to beat on Superman difficulty, but the rules of Blake Club
is you play on the normal difficulty. So I think where we were about
ready to like let this one go. But Dan did say that if Mike
beats Shinnock, which is an optional thing in Mortal Koma mythologies, and it's
like very difficult. You have to have like five healing urns or else it's
impossible. But if he does that, then Dan says he will play Superman
sixty four again on Superman difficulty to get to the end and actually see credits.
Mike cheat, though, I don't think. I don't think. So
are you gonna watch this fucking archive of him playing this goddamn game again?
I need No, he's not doing some horse shit, because he's not gonna
do horseshit. But after today it was Superman to watch the vod I don't
do that. I here's I don't think he's actually gonna do this and beat
shanockcause it's like other games are gonna come out here pretty soon and he's gonna
have to do his real job and he's not gonna have time to do this
because it's not like some trivial thing to get to Shock and do that.
But he's right. I heard him there say that, like, oh,
Dan, I know you're a man of your word, and like I did
say that, Oh you would do it. Yes, I do whatever cowardly
heel should. I can do like get out of stuff and do a little
finger stuff. But like if he beats Shanak, legit, I'm gonna have
to fucking do that, and I will do that all right. That Jesus
okay, did not expect that. Yep, we have the people people in
chatter Root and for him to beat Shanock now they want this, are you
damn fucking maniac? I mean for him, I mean I have so much
respect for Like, look it says like when Grub and I were like speed
running astros playroom and stuff, there was a simultaneous dread and excitement when he
would tweet at me and be like, hey, check it out. Did
this thing, It's like I'd be a fuck and then all right, load
it up, let's do it like. It's like I got work to do.
And I like that feeling because then you get the like once you're done,
then the balls back in his court and you get that fun sit back
watch them struggle thing. So no, I got nothing more respect for what
he's doing. He's he's right to do it. Very thank you. I'm
a big boy who dressed up like Superman today and played my Nintendo games.
We're both big boys. Just Adulton, I'm going to read you some emails
now, okay, all right, all right, I don't know how to
read yet. All right, Oh that was good. Jesus, What a
fucking maniac. Yeah, he's got the thing in his uh his channel points
where if you spend so many points, he will text me and you can
tell him what to text me. And that's where he's like, Adam Asleep
wants you to know that I'm streaming Mortal Combat mythologies, and I will thank
you, Adam Asleep. I did need to know that. Okay. Usually
this is where Mike tells you to write to us and tell us everything you
want to tell us. About the podcast, and it is my pleasure to
take that over and to tell you that you can email us at any time
at fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com and tell Mike all the things that
he's doing wrong. Specifically, Mike, he actually really does enjoy hearing your
feedback about him, specifically the way he talks, yes, you know,
his breathing patterns, the way he thinks about things, his opinions, and
the characters he does. And also don't feel confined to email. You can
also like he especially likes it, like dedicated to Reddit posts that he really
likes it. Shaman for his body Yeah, yeahs back bullying, that's Mike
mahrty. Uh. So you can message him directly or publicly. He will
love that. Now for this one. Uh, we got a couple of
emails and uh, if it's cool, I'm happy to read the first one.
Dan, Sure, it's really for you, Okay, but I think
you should listen. I will love you guys, love the podcast. Longtime
listener, longtime birder. I just wanted to say the large bird Dan described
was very likely a pollated woodpecker, which, while nowhere near the size of
a bald eagle, is a pretty big and insane looking especially up close.
I just google it. It's it looks like that. Yes, two cool
woodpecker things Dan might think are interesting. I love this interesting builder theory.
Woodpeckerffect one. They have extremely long tongues that wrap around their skulls. They
use them to get bugs out of holes they peck in the wood. So
not only are they pecking his house, they're also French kissing the shit out
of it. Yes, let's go, here, we go. That's a
good woodpecker fact. That's good, it is. It's good. Good is
the word I would use outside your house right now. I had to bang
on this wall today because yeah, anyway, good. So they're still there.
Well, i'll follow up after the email, all right. Woodpecker fact
two. There is an extremely rare woodpecker called the ivory build woodpecker that orthonologists
are mostly positive is extinct. It's kind of the Bigfoot of the birding world,
because every few years some one posts a shitty, blurry picture and tries
to say it's the real thing. It's a never ending discourse in birding.
The last confirmed sighting of the bird was nineteen forty four. I've heard of
those weird eye things. Mary talked about the work better than most other deterrens.
Oh cool. Brandon Z from New Jersey, Thank you Brandon for the
bird facts. Oh. Also, there's a ps here ps. Woodpeckers are
responsible for more than one hundred and sixty million violent home invasions every second in
the United States. Watch out, Dan, you say lots birds and might
hate woodpeckers. I love knowledge dropping some hot woodpecker facts, Dan, what's
going on with your house? Okay, few things here. First of all,
I dig at the balloons and during this whole process of saga since the
last episode, I was walking on the side of the house and I noticed
the neighbor's house. They've straight up broken through. They breached. There is
like large holes that a bird could get in. And this is my nightmare.
I'm going to fucking wake up and there's gonna be a nineteen inch tall
polated woodpecker poking my eyes out. Yeah, just fucking licking my ear,
just like yeah, we'll give you a wet willie. Yeah. So,
but no, they have not breached the wall yet on ours. At some
point I've heard we can get like Stuco sighting or something once it gets bad
and then they won't peck at that or whatever. But it seems like our
neighbors get one of these things, the gell shooter things and just go to
the I don't really know what I heard them like they suck ass. Yeah,
I think it was. It was just annoying them, like I'll do
this point like like, well, I also don't have like a direct line
of sight. Our house is like in a weird it's like on a hill
and I can't really like it's very steep where I can't get on that side
of the house very easily, and so I can't really see them that easily
unless they fly away. So it's like we bang on the wall or I
yell at him from the deck. I can see it fly away, so
I can't really see him for the most part. Pecking you get at it,
goddamn becker. I've shaken my fist at many woodpeckers, yes, hell
yeah, and so the balloons yes uh. And I've tried, you know,
the milar strips, I've tried the fake woodpecker. I've tried. And
then we also noticed the previous owners had a problem too, because there's a
big ass fake owl attached to the side of the house, and I didn't
realize they stuck a bunch of sticky eyes like eyeballs on the walls, because
like that's supposed to freak out the woodpeckers. But the balloons are are the
bigger version of that Mary you told me about. I bought them while we
were talking last time, and I got three big balloons and they come with
like tails, like milar tails, And so it's hard because again I can't
get back there. It's very high up. I couldn't get a ladder there,
so like I'm dangling out a window. Was half convinced I was going
to pull my death putting up fake eyes to scare woodpeckers. But I was
able to reach out, and there were some nails in the side of the
house that I was able to just kind of like wrap them around and make
happen. But then we had like a really And for the record, there
not been many woodpeckers. There have not been many. There's one today.
But the balloons. You're saying, since I put those, since the balloons,
yeah, so I mean it was like a pretty much daily, several
times a day occurrence. Since the balloons which was almost two weeks ago.
I'da a week and a half ago. I had one today that I had
to bang on this wall in the studio. But this is significantly lower than
where the balloons are. So the area, and that was the balloon area,
is where it was the worst. There have not been many. We
hear them on the neighbor's house, but we are not hearing it on ours
nearly as much. So I do your neighbors are doing nothing. They're just
like cool with these giant holes. I think she's extremely old, and I've
never seen her and maybe she could be a woodpecker herself. She could be
a woodpecker, or the woodpeckers could have gotten to her. So he has
swen her and the woodpecker in the same room. I've met all my other
neighbors, I have not met the woman right next to me that I've just
heard. It's extremely old, and her younger relatives come by, see them
coming to go, but I never see her, so I don't know if
she's in a position to scare off the birds. But so that was Mary.
The short version is, yes, I think I think we're good.
I think maybe it might still happen. But it's happening way less. The
other thing, though, is I'm starting to notice a concerning recurring thing tied
to you, Mary, which I think. I think this is you know
we call kishing. It is, you know, buying a game that you
don't have to buy. This is I had this thought in my head the
other day of the Mary Kish effect, which I think is I hope this
doesn't continue. But it's when you do something or suggest something that there is
no possible world where you could predict a negative outcome. The first one being
you filled my tap with macaroni and cheese. I broke my finger. There's
no I feel I feel like I could have predicted some bad outcomes from that.
Mary did nothing wrong. Yeah, I just filled it with cheese.
I man, I would offend you in court. Mary, you did the
right thing. You filled my tub in that. I want to make it
very clear you only had the best of intentions of everything. The fact remains
that there have now been a couple of times where you've done something and a
weird butterfly effects has happened, and I've gotten injured. It broke my finger,
which is growing back. Really fuck, I can't bend it. Straighter
than that. So I got to go to the doctor tomorrow. So not
like a lizard who lost his tail crooked. I guess that's probably better way.
I said, what's on it? Well, no, I did,
but it's that's a long story. It's going in tomorrow. I'm going in
tomorrow and I'm gonna see they might have to like rebreak it. So it
fucking healed straight. But this one, this is not nearly as bad,
but it definitely made me think of you. So we had a windy day
and one of the balloons flew off. One of the Woodpecker balloons flew off,
and I just saw it down there and I was like, I'm just
sitting out in the woods, and I was like, I'll go get it.
And it's the woods are it's very natural back there, like there's just
it's just woods and leaves, and you know, it's just crazy out there.
So no one ever goes back there. And so like I'm like navigating
this for the first time, trying to like go down these hills and step
over these rocks and all this shit to get to the Woodpecker balloon. And
I grab it. I was like, all right, got to grab a
couple of my large strips that I have come off to and I'm walking back
and then one of my feet gets caught in like a big stump or tree,
like a giant branch that had fallen, and like trying to like right
myself, my other foot got stuck in another thing or a longer part of
the same one, and so my feet are just completely tied up and I
eat shit hard. I fall face forward, wind knocked out of me and
left shoulder immediately as a form, and it's just like it felt. I
stood up and it was all tingly and weird and asleep, and I was
like, oh God, I hope I didn't fucking tear a rotator cup or
something like Jesus Christ. It felt a little funky for a few days.
I think I'm fine, full ran into motion. No pain right now or
anything. No need to go to the doctor, I don't think. But
I did definitely have that thought of like, I think there's I think Mary
has some magical ability to wear Mary what to do next? Yeah? Yeah,
what should I do? And I just yeah, give you advice and
my final destination. Yeah, I know, I think that Mary is strong.
I'm afraid because it it's so this Now, I'm afraid anything I say
will have that effect. But like I was always the one where you were
like, I don't like driving because I don't like the arm ramp, and
I'm like, you're gonna be fine, just keep practicing it. I'm just
like coaxing you into your darkest fears, just getting you ready for the worst
thing that will ever happen. But nine, if you filled the time with
macaroni cheese and told me to put up woodpecker, it's not the definition of
but nine. But you're dying. You could not have possibly predicted these things
keep falling and getting hurt because of things kind of associated with you. That's
a terrible superpower. Yeah, so we'll just say that's that's two. That's
two now. So well, I'm just gonna keep an eye on it.
Next time you give me advice. Yeah, let me know if you get
severely injured, and well yeah, no, let me know when you get
severely in Okay, next time, next time? Yes, yes, okay.
So if you if a doctor breaks your finger to fix it, Dan,
that doesn't invalidate your blake club. That's not my fault. That's just
a bad doctor. Yeah, also that it breaks again. But if you
if you consent to it even broken, that doesn't count. You still have
to play your game. That's what's needed for this thing to heal. And
look, it was hurting a little bit during Blake Love Today, Jesus Christ
a baby, it was hurt. I did have the thought. I didn't
even say it. I was being a big boy. I was like,
did you have tingles in your ease? No, it was just I can't
believe you almost died. I didn't. I fell in some leaves. That
sounds rough. They'll have a both feet caught. That sounds like I'm holding
batons in my lar strips. H ship, Why didn't you fly on the
balloon a clown's death. I probably should have fallen on the balloon, But
it turns out when you're falling, your brain isn't really working that well.
That's true, So thanks Brandy and die balloons in my lar and falling down
trying to fight with a woodpen, saying you can eat macaroni in aube.
You're like in the trees, like need to lick that guy as soon as
he dies. We're gonna get that tongue way up in there. I scared
that one way today and they just they just perch in the tree right the
cat corner from from where my house is, and I saw him and I'm
just looking at him. I just kind of want to be like, man,
come on, yeah, black at you. No, they just look
there and they wait for me to go inside, and then they start knocking
again. They want my eyes. Yeah, little juju bees right is probably
pretty tasty for woodpeckers. Yeah, that's where all the real good juices are,
the dam juices. Yeah. I just saw dune too. That's my
sandworm juice is in my eyes. We don't have too many animals we got
to fight off here at our place. We just like occasional mouse that I
have gotten rid of. We haven't seen once since, So we're doing good
over here. Who was under your deck that one time? A bunch of
bees that he tried to vacuum or something wasps And I did fight with him
all last summer and then we found a like basically an industrial grade toxin dust
that I put under there, and I haven't seen any ever since. It
worked really well night to day. It was night and day and it was
like immediate, Yeah it will I tried a whole bunch of shit Before that,
I spent about a whole weekend with a shop back duct taped to where
they would come out, and they would fly out and just go right in
the shop back. And I opened the thing up and there was probably about
fifteen hundred wasps in there. Oh and I would have waited two and a
half years before I throw that out because I want to make sure they're dead.
Oh yeah, yeah, I waited a very long time. I did,
yes, and I was like it was like nothing happened. It was
like then, like two days later, there was just as many wasps outside
as there ever was. It's like, man, there must be so many
down there. Yeah, so I think they're dead now though, So that's
something good for you. Yeah, I'm happy about it. It's like fine
when it's like they build like the nest that you could see and you can
get rid of. But when it's underground, which apparently is where most of
them are, yeah, it's like tremors. That's what I was thinking.
I like all the little creatures by my house. I have a thoroughway like
right by my window where all the squirrels run back and forth to different fonses.
I find it really cute, Like they don't bother me at all.
Today it was like sunny for the first time in days, and as I
walked past my window, one of the squirrels was like on its back,
belly up and I was like, hell, yeah, it's either dead or
it's sunbathing and it's cuter really bad. Ye see they're dead, or it's
having a really good time. Yeah, just delicately tap on the glass and
it was like the best day of his life. I love the little creatures
around my house. It's really fun. The tree next to where I keep
my trash can, the outdoor trash can, is completely destroying because that's where
the raccoons sit to get in my trash can. I'm like, I like
these guys. They're great. And I did see them in there once and
I just saw the eyes looking at me and they're like, please leave me
alone. I'm like, yeah, no problem. And then the other time
I saw him just like running on my fence. And that's the only two
times I've actually seen them in person, but there's lots of evidence of them
otherwise. My wife loves raccoons and she's mad because I've seen them, and
she's never seen them once. So I don't see raccoons around here, right,
I'm surprised, I don't. Yeah, you think and stuff with those
woods, yeah, and peanut butter outside. Woodpickers are going to look the
hell out of it. But I do enjoy. You got to stop making
those sounds. The dog doesn't eat a lot of bread, so all the
bread is just me whenever we get a loaf. But a loaf is like
a lot for one person to eat before it expires, and so I frequently,
like you know, we'll get to like half a loaf before I need
to, like you know's i'd expired a couple days ago, and I just
stand on the deck and I'll have like twelve pieces of bread and I'll just
throw them all out like frisbees, and I know all the like woodland creatures
and stuffal instance. I just it's a thing that's a stupid joy I have
every time, like enjoy enjoy half the bread a terror. It's like it's
a feast, yep, like Mike Tyson feeding the pigeons. Yes, that's
what I think of you. Yes, yep, it's a feast. Dan.
Do you want to read this next? Question. Sure, yes,
hi. What is the definition of pooping one's pants? Is it inherently different
than a shirt or trusting a fart as it were? Does it involve a
full log or an emptying of bowels? Or does the smallest butt clenching whoopsie
count. That's Jeff from Nashville. I always, as someone who has not
shipped his pants past the age of diapers, I have always assumed, and
that's a bragging point. I assumed it's a full evacuation. You are crazy.
You are absolutely out of your own. It's some ship came out of
you and is in your pants. And you're like, it's I didn't poop
my pants, Guys, I have so much more poop to go your pans.
It doesn't count, you, see your honor. I have not fully
evacuated all of my bow It tis but a teaspoonful. I rest my case.
So, Mary, are you saying if you like farted and I felt
weird and you check and it's just like the tiniest just the size of a
pee and just a little like brown, like no matter, no matter.
Is there nothing you could pick out and throw away. But it's just there's
a little bit of brown on there is that pooping your pants does matter?
Is of color? How many? How many grams is brown? Oh man?
I decided to still haven't figured that one out. Okay, listen,
there probably is a difference between skid marks and pooping your pants, but I
think that's like a cleanliness issue, that's a Paul Record issue. But I've
I've been sick enough where I'm like, it's like, you know, diarrhea
time, and I will be like in bed and I'll be like, I
must have like sneezed or something, and then I'm like, oh wait,
what happened? Oh I I have released enough that it now feels awful and
I need to go do something with that. And I count that as pooping
my pants. But it's definitely not anywhere close to a log or evacuating my
bowels. It's like, no, it's basically like an extreme shark and that
definitely count me to if you need a floor Listen, I don't know because
I don't shit my pants, so for I don't know how many works you
do shit your pants. You just have been like I still have some in
there, so I really haven't since I was a baby. You're just you've
just increased the bar. Probably shit your pants all the time. With that
definition, DM, we need to figure out the line. Is the line
enough to like change your underpants? But I would think even the smell at
dot would be changing your pants. I actually I would say a teaspoon.
If you have a teaspoon of ship in your pants, you've shipped your pants.
I think it's I think it's probably right, not tablespoon. Damn teaspoon
shit a lot, like a tiny little bit. Yeah, I'm okay,
even it was like half a teaspoon. I'm like, of course you're like
changing. But it's like, I think we're going for the definition of I
just ship my pants. I think a teaspoon is fair. I agree.
Otherwise, otherwise, I think you can't say no, it was just a
shark. Now I'm still gonna have to there's things to be done about that.
You still can deal with it. Yes, it is changing, yes
exactly, But I think you get away with saying I didn't shit my pants,
it was just a shark. I would, I guess I would.
I've always pictured when someone says I ship my pants. I've always pictured a
full evacuation. But if I shipped out half a teaspoon in my drawers.
I would say I shipped my pants, but I don't do this. I
full log in your pants and being like I have not shipped my pants,
there's like a little bit left to go. I get it together if I
don't think so this is just a shark. There is a There was a
movie I saw when I was a kid. I think it's called Hobgoblins two
or something whatever, whatever it was. Somebody came out to say it too
in the morning, right, yeah, and the monsters came out of the
toilet and it scared me so dad that I was what it was, goonies,
no gooes, it's a poster. Is a gooley coming out of the
toilet? Yes, yeah, yes, And so I saw this as a
kid, and it scared me enough that I was afraid to go to the
toilet. So I would like, I would like hover when I was going
pooh, And then I uh like, I got scared enough that I just
put I pulled my pants instead of going to the bathroom and stating I was
probably like nine eight or nine or something like that. Because yeah, because
the goolies, yeah for real, and killer clowns matter space the clown comes
out of the toilet and that scared me. You know, Yeah, it's
over it, but yeah, I ship my pants over lady freaks. The
spider comes out of the toilet and that freaks me out. You know.
Now I'm just like, I have something's coming out of toilet. All right,
fuck it, whatever, I gotta do my business. I'm getting on
there to fight this ship if you want, Yeah, exactly, yeah,
I just had Chipotlet deal with this. You're gonna turn off the water supply
now we're homeowners. All the woodpeckers in your toilet, Oh god, it's
like a nest of birds waiting to be fed. That's awful. That was
disgusting. Thank you. Jeff from Nashville. M h, Actually, real
quick before we move on past poping our pants. Huh. When you know,
it's like a recurry thing. It's a recurring thing where people talk about,
oh, they got really scared away, shit my pants, I pissed
my pants or whatever. Is that just the saying or is there a physiological
thing where people do actually shit or pisce their pants when they're scared pissed.
Definitely, it's that's because that's all part of fight or flight Like yes,
like it's all interrelated, intermingling. So yeah, wait a minute, is
this something? Because I have inappropriate uh triggerings a fighter flight all the time
as someone with panic disorder, and so I get every fighter flight symptom,
but I've never pissed my pants like that. I wonder could that be tied
to like before I go and save you, like a pax or something,
and I'm super nervous, whatever I will need to pee like seven times?
Is that the fighter flight? And like, yes, telling me to a
bunch. The fighter flight response is a reaction that can cause people to urinate
more frequently. So even if it's not in my pants, if I just
had like I will literally pee and then go back till like getting ready to
go on stage again. Right, So the body is stressed, it releases
hormones that disrupt the hormones that keep the bladder relaxed. That would explain it,
because I've gone to doctors. I have big It's like I feel like
I have way over active platter. I've gotten checked and all that stuff,
and like that would kind of make su wouldn't it. Yep, Absolutely,
I think that's exactly what's happening. There. We just diagnosed something. Yeah,
oh man, I guess seems a better pissed doctor Dan. I think
I wonder I get a doctor Steff for that. For Superman, I'm gonna
piss my pants. He pee peace too much? What? No seeing some
Superman themed diapers basically wearing that anyway, I didn't. I didn't tend to
ask Dan talking about this suit. I don't have Superman. I don't know
about all your weird fetishes. I have no Actually, probably look you,
is the suit comfortable like I was? Like? I wanted it to be
a little uncomfortable, but not so much that like you're like, actually,
legit upset during the thing has to feel it's a little bit hotter than I
would like. Wow, it's hard to pee and I get uh. The
worst part is, honestly probably the wig with the headphones, because if I
try to tuck it all behind the headphones and just have bear headphones on barriers,
it looks all weird. And but if I put it over the hair
like I did today. I was telling Marry right before you hopped on the
call. If I'm wearing my cardigan and I have headphones on, and I
take it off and throw it on the thing like I just did before you
came in a bunch of fucking electric static, like Christy goes into my fucking
ears from my headphones. So I kind of had that with the hair,
like the hair and the headphones and stuff. I kind of feel like I'm
feeling a little shocked and just like an electricity that. I think it just
adds to the you know, it's the method acting part of it. Sure,
absolutely, Okay, Well, I'm glad. I was like trying to
figure out the size and said, you want to one with abs, so
I'm like, no way, you got to wear like the old style one.
And you did good. That's mostly okay, you did good, you
did good. Okay, I'm ahad. I'm glad it worked out great.
And again I was like a little uncomfortable, but not so uncomfortable, So
I'm glad we've struck balance. Yeah, yeah, good, good, good
good. We got one more email today from Mike and is this not just
any mic? Is this I think is just any Mike talking about our mic?
Okay, understood, all right? Cool. The thing Maharty has,
oh okay, the thing Maharty has that is like a Disney adult is that
he's short. Old World is like a theme park to the little guy.
Oh my god. He doesn't need to seek out anything to make him feel
like a child, because being a normal size adult is enough. I can't
wait to see how tall his hair is next to next time, Short Kings,
Long May they reign nothing but love Mike. That is dastardly. Okay,
is there like something he's not that he's short? Two three? Okay?
Well, okay, so pretty much average? Yeah? Yeah, I
don't think he's self conscious about his height, like I've never like, he's
always been very open with us, and I don't feel like I've ever heard
him concerned about his height or self conscious. But how dare you choose this
email when he's not here to defend himself? Literally, it was two minutes
before we started a thing, and I'm just looking for any I'm just copying
pastings. So that was the third one I saw. We should hold this
for Mike's return, and Mike deserves to retort to this. Okay, but
there is something different when like, you know, the fancy sailboat boy's short
though, right, that's like something yeah, yeah, horse shot, Yeah
exactly. It's like, let's just fits. Yeah, my tininess is a
value in that situation. You can't have, like, you know, a
big bulky guy on a horse, like he might be strong with the horses,
Like what the fuck? Like I can't run under these conditions. This
guy's two hundred and sixty pounds. I'm trying to I only met him once
and he was in a Donkey Kong costume, so I'm not sure if I'm
gonna be able to realize how tall he is. Great, and that's excellent,
that's her. Yep, that's what I re memory of them. Yep,
all right, hate him Me and a wolf packsting makeup in him right
next to me in a Donkey Kong costume. Beautiful, perfect yep. Okay,
then here we'll save that for Mike, and I'm gonna sub in.
I just looked here. We got a quick one from Wes. It is
hello, what is the first CD or album you purchase for yourself with your
own money? That's West from Baltimore. I do remember mine. It was
a garage inc by Metallica, which I really still enjoy actually Discovery. Yeah,
they turned the page and Tuesday's gone and good stuff whiskey and a jar
like actually one of my favorite versions, Whiskey in a Jar, Like they
did a really good job of those covers. It is it is yeah,
with your own ones. So you bought that with your own money, But
that was my own money. I was my not girlfriend, but a lady
who was a friend. We were in like middle score, high school or
something, that her mom took us to the mall and I had some money
and I bought that CD. I don't know, and I made him play
it on the way home that he truly has their own money at that age,
right, Like I think I got five dollars from my parents that I
could choose to do anything I wanted, and I still chose to buy Spice
Girls. Hell Yeahla World. Oh oh yeah? The single? Was it
like because you could buy the singles? Like, oh, singles were all
the rage back then. My friend, was it a single CD? Or
were you old not for cassettes? It was a single CD? Okay,
I was a CD. I had. The first ones I owned were cassettes.
I remember having Get a Grip the Aerosmith, which is like living on
the edge and crying and all that, And then I had a BC Boys
Intergalactic on cassette. Uh first CD. I remember buying. I got a
Segacy D and I remember being so excited about like, oh my god,
new CD technology. And I think I bought Jagged Little Pill by Alanis Morissett.
Oh wow, yeah that would have been the time. Jesus man,
that's the one. Yeah, most nineteen ninety three thing you could have done.
Yeah, I'm gonna come home with a Segacy D. W do you
have Rage in the Cage and Jagged Little Pill? Jesus time stamp? What
an era? What an era? That was? It was better? Oh
man, Yeah, that's a good one. All sweet nostalgia. Yes,
how are you all feeling about nostalgia these days? Because I'm like more and
more willing to be like the things that I liked this kid that I got
over for a very long time. I'm like listening to some of that music
again. I'm trying to think of a good example. But it's just like
in general, I'm being much easier on those things and not being like so
self critical anymore. I I saw, you know, I'm pretty good about
not comments or chat stuff, you know, getting to me or anything.
These days. I saw something and this was it got to me in an
interesting way. Nobody was trying to be shitty or anything. It was just
like a laser beam into like, oh, you nailed me with us.
It was piston hunta you may have seen in Giant Bomb chats persons in my
chats a lot. And I think I was just doing one of my late
night just you know, you know, talking playing games, and I was
talking about my dad and like, oh man, it's just been the same
thing for so long. The guy's such a routine, doesn't change, just
like it's just the exact same guy he was thirty years ago and refuses to
try anything new. But you know, it was just kind of like,
you know, going off that stuff. I just just said, like,
ah, yes, I can't believe my dad just keeps doing the same stuff
over and over again. Now let me stream this old Mario game for the
eight one hundred time and talk about wrestling from nineteen ninety six, Like,
oh, no, you're right, it's just it takes a different form,
but it's like, I am, we are the same. It is very
horrifying when when it manifests as I am having the exact same mannerisms as my
parents with my kids that's frustrating because that's like, oh man, that this
half the reason I remember this stuff is because it either was like bad or
I didn't like love it, or or it was like scary at the time
or something like that. I find myself doing I'm like, okay, okay,
take a breath. I got to stop doing that. So yeah,
that it's it really is true, like we are just those people again and
slightly different variations. I feel like there are certain things, like certain behaviors
and stuff that you would like, like like, you know, friends,
I've talked about my dad, like you know, any music past nineteen seventy
eight of Hey Dad, tell me does Rage against the Machine and smashing puplicing
seems great. It's like, well, it's technically music, but it's not
technically music but only played because they play guitars. They're not like real songs.
They're not musicians, they're not you know, like it's not real Mario,
Yeah, exactly. Oh fuck, you're right, Dan, No,
oh you're talking about a soldier. Yeah ever Electronic gaming Way, that was
a good magazine. I'm not trying to do you like that, Dan,
but yeah, but I'm working right, Yes, listen, I will say
that is Hey, no, this is true. The thing I like doing
stuff with you and I like doing something with Mike Madottie because you guys are
both guys that always seem like you're working on yourselves and try to make yourselves
better. And that's like I can these days. I can only be around
people who are like that. So yeah, no, for real, you're
working. It's good. I've meant working in the wrestling sense. Hey,
okay, well that's too. Yes, yeah, he's a really sweet thing.
And I was like, oh no, he didn't realize I was doing
should that should have been? It was wrestling, of course, it's always
wrestling. You are right, you are right. I am alway started to
work on myself and I feel like we all are. I feel yeah yeah,
yeah definitely. But nostalgia right, oh yeah that good stuff. Yeah,
cut it up and give it to me. Is there is there anything
bad? Bad's too strong of a word. But it's like I played Super
Mario World so many fucking times. I played all these old Superintendent in any
of its games a billion times on stream, offstream. You know, Oh
I get a new thing, I get a mister, I get whatever.
Oh I'll play Mario World on this, you know, and then it's like
like, now I did retro achievements for the first time. I made an
account and I tied it to my retro arc and it's just like, oh
man, now I can play Mario World with achievements, and now I just
have another excuse to play Mario World or Linked the Past or whatever. Is
this just forever? Is this just like whatevery excuse to just like play through
these things you played when you were nine years old? Forever? I mean,
what's what's the alternative that the things that once brought you joy no longer
bring you joy? That's great, so much worse. That is great,
so much worse. That's like the definition of depression, like for real it
is. It's like, it's so much better to be like, no,
I listen, if once brought me joy, I can find new ways for
it to bring me joy. That is me like having engaging with myself and
stuff. And obviously there is a line on each side where it's like it
becomes unhealthy, But I don't think in general this stuff is completely harmless.
It's interesting how how much that varies with people, though, because like you
know, I talked to Bianca about like, you know, she has such
funness for you know, you get her going on in Sky's Arcadia or Morowind
or any of these games she grew up playing, and she'll you know,
she clearly has a lot of nostalgia and love for it, but with few
exceptions, she doesn't really like go back and play them a bunch. She
is just always playing the next thing, you know, she is always like
she is all over every new game that comes out for the most part,
and I play the new stuff. But like I think nowadays, I'm more
prone to, like, if something doesn't seem like it's for me or something,
I'm not going to play it. And I will go back and I'll
play a link in the past again and I'll find the occasional hell divers or
something that grabs me and I will spend some time with that. But like
I do play the old stuff a ton still, So like I guess it's
just a matter of personal preference, right, Like definitely, yeah, yes,
And it's uh uh, you know, everybody need to you know,
takes different things that they need from these things in different ways. So yeah,
I think if again, as long as you're mostly doing it in a
healthy way, and it sounds like, you know, adding retro achievements to
it, like having a fun new way to experience these games sounds like only
a good thing, genuine fun. It's just like those games. I still
every time I load at Mario World, I'm like, fuck, yes,
Mario World, you know, yep. A load of the Arcy pro Am
yesterday and I was like, yes, Arci pro Am, like Arci pro
Am, yep. It's a lot of times it's like games I would like
think about more than that would play even back then, and then like to
go back with like new eyes and be like, oh, there's so much
cool stuff here, Like Arcy prom has a ton of cool stuff happening in
it. So yeah, yeah, I definitely enjoy that. So thumbs up
on nostalgia. Yes, we are pro nostalgia. Like give us a like
it, like a yeah, it's okay that you're like addicted to the same
games. It's all right. I still just find them all very fun.
That's fine. We're not your therapist. I feel really good about you enjoying
those childhood games and finding new ways to enjoy them. Oh, we did
a fucking punch out series recently, that's really fun. Yeah, punch out
real good. Yes. Yeah. I adored playing through any of my old
like Childhood, Lion King, Aladdin, Sega, Genesis games, and I
still do it from time to time as like a charity bonus or benefit.
Right, it's like, oh, these games, they are my joy as
a child. I will always play them. But what I've also find interesting
is like when I play games that is somebody else's joy when they played it
as a child, and then I get to watch it vicariously through their eyes.
Because I was not like super into Resident Evil growing up, but watching
Mike's reaction when I was playing them was like, oh, this is like
a really special moment. It's just like that's cool, Like it's different to
him than it is to me, but it's special to both of us.
Now there's something to that when when it clicks to where it's like, you
know, all these years later, when there's still something to that game.
I definitely had that with Rough Scanlan with Metal Year Solid and just like seeing
him like these revelations from Sons of Liberty that was twenty years old at the
time or whatever, you know, it's it's, uh, that is cool
to see old game pretty cool. Yeah, it's uh. And then having
the kids, it's a you know, I'm not not forcing anything on them.
Like the one kid like was into games no longer into games. Sometimes
she's like, oh, i'll play this here and there. That's fine.
But like, you know, when when one of them does like something I
like, it does feel good, and that have them have like similar revelations,
which is like, oh man, I'm figuring out how to get through
this boss and actually completing it, and it's it's really fantastic to watch.
Absolutely, it's it's I like it a lot. Yeah, you can tell
it's a good idea that I didn't have kids young. I mean I probably
don't. I shouldn't have kids at any age, but specifically when I was
young, because I bet if you would I know, if you asked me
when I was in college like early twenties, I probably told many friends this
that like whack, I thought I was gonna have kids, Like all right,
it's gonna be awesome my kids into video games. But like, I'm
gonna make sure once they're old enough to play, I'm gonna get them an
neys. You know, I'm gonna start out and once they beat the three
Marios and the Mega Man's and they beat this and that and Zelda and everything.
Then they get a Sega and then once they beat the Sonics and they'd
be this, then they get a super then they gotta beat this and they
gotta go to the PlayStation like they're gonna have an appreciation of all. And
then like I realized, as I always say, oh, that's my dad,
that's just like you know, yes, yeah, And the truth is
is like you know, the the kids are either gonna cary about that stuff
or not. And like Addie, she make them, Yeah, they might
be like super into outdoor stuff and not give a shit about you know,
games. Yeah, Adie likes games, and she'll she'll open up Nintendo Switch
online and look and play those old games all the time. That's awesome.
So I never prompt her. I never show it to her. She's just
like finding it on her own. She's like, when I'm working, that's
what she's doing over here, and she'll go through that stuff and then play
those old games and she kind of doesn't really see a difference between any of
them. Now she's she's five, but it's like, you know, that's
I think that's probably just because for her, it's like it is all video
games and I and then there are typically gonna be other kids like no,
that looks old. I hate it, and that's you can't change that.
Today I was streaming Superman and Backlar put his son on and the first thing
his son says, why does it look all pixel y? Yeah, granted
it's like Superman six forere I'm not going to depend it, but like you
know, wutch of shit as I give his kid deserve and shit, like
he has a right to be like to look, if you're a kid and
you see that, it's like, why is this called PIXELI I feel like
it's a totally normal reaction to have if you're a fucking nine year old seeing
an old ass game for the first time. Yeah, but if a grown
band says that about a game that just came out because it's like an indie
game, I do want to fight them now, to be fair. So
that's the stupid thing. Yeah, yeah, all right, that's an email
section. Yeah, well done. Yes, we've learned a lot here,
mostly that Dan doesn't know how much poop is pooping. Your pain Man set
full evacuation is insane. No, just go back real quick again, I
pictured full evacuation. But if you asked me if a teaspoon poop in your
pants is poop in your pants, I would agree. Okay, so we're
all in agreement. I think we're in agreement. A teaspoon is shipping your
pants. Yes, okay, there you go. Put it on the back
of the box. Next time I see a teaspoon, I'm going to be
thinking about this and that's not great, exactly the right amount making a grenadine
into something pants full of grie. Change my app to say that, what
does Mike do now? After the after the emails, we tells everybody to
buy our merch. You can go to fire Escape cast dot com and you
can also check out our socials and fire Escape Merch dot com. You can
go to our patreon. If you go to the patreon and you'll see lots
of really awesome tiers. One of the really good tiers is a video tier,
and it includes all of the bonus videos that we've made, including a
hell Diverse two bonus video that was pretty recent, so you can enjoy.
But there's a lot of content, including the Macaroni and Cheese bathtub, lots
of stuff on there, so it's worth it's worth it just to get all
that sick sick content. We also plug what everybody's up to. I got
to start with our incredible guest Grub. Thank you so much for taking the
time to be here. Please tell everybody where everyone can find you. Yeah.
First of we'll say, you guys did a great job, so you
don't need Daddy here to get you through it. You guys can handle this
podcast on your own. Okay, absolutely, yeah, John Bomb obviously,
game Mess if you want to hang out with us, we got Discord,
Discord dot gg slash. Game Mess will get you in there. Lots of
cool people hang out there all the time. It's free to join, Feel
free to hop in there. And then yeah, just to check out the
podcast thro wherever you listen to the podcast last and than the ten Dogs in
game mes aside, Hell yes, and yeah, check out that uh that
hell Divers video we put up on the Patreon. We got Mike Manatti on
that. He joined. Uh, Mary, I think you were out that
week. So it's me Manati Mahardi. Oh yeah, that was the one
who Manati Mahardi became like best friends and uh and Jake Decker so fun video.
Check it out on the Patreon Very funny the minds. Yes, yes,
that's my move. All right, Well that's it. That's our podcast.
I don't know how to end this without Mike. Without Mike here,
there's some kind of usual ending that he likes to do where he's always like
thanks for watching everybody, and you know, like we'll always love you.
I'm usually a bunch of drinks deep by that point, I don't and then
I can just like I said, my things, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He always carries it. He just bottoms up or something. Cheers quote
headline, isn't it Qualt Walt Whitman. Let me look up Walt Whitman.
Quote. Okay, flowers and I always say me, Mike Maharty, thank
you for watching the fire Escape Cast. And keep your face always toward the
sunshine and the shadows will fall behind you. That's what we say. You're
on the fire Escape Cast. Thanks for listening to us. Bottoms up,