Hey everybody, it's Tuesday. Welcome to the Giant BombCast, Episode eight hundred
and fifty. I'm your host, Jan Shoah, powered by NZXT. That's
right, I'm powered by NZXT. I'm plugged into the mainframe. Nothing is
going to fail about this operating system. No planes are going to be grounded
today. Joining me co captain of the ship World Warrior himself, Jeff Grepp.
I'm drinking dirt and dirt don't hurt. Let's go right. I'm glad
you're back. Jan. I'm glad I am back as well. Dirt don't
hurt. A master of the dirt, constantly bearing people with a shovel,
Dan Record, I come from the dirt. It's Kansas. There's a lot
of dirt, you know, the dirts red in Oklahoma. I went to
Oklahoma recently, and that's like their claim to fame is like red dirt.
That's how exciting Oklahoma is that. That's actually fairly interesting. It wasn't red.
I saw it speaking about Red. He's he's red because he's he's brimming
with rage today. He's so angry, he has heat with everyone. He's
so upset. Ay, Hey, everybody is this is this blue screen gimmick
so funny. Oh no, it's too hot. That's why I'm describing it.
I listen audio listeners. I tried to turn on the Windows blue screen
of death, but it came in really tiny and embarrassing, so I had
to slowly make it bigger. Right. And if you're wondering what he means
by turn on the blue screen of death, don't worry about it. He's
an old man. He's losing it. Yeah, And everybody in chat was
like, that's very funny, Mike, thank you, Live Chat. You're
very Yeah, we're all very proud of you. Yeah, yep, yep,
yep. And coming back from the hell hole of America or Paradise,
depending on who you're talking to. A hell se Vegas EBO champion, Sean
Turbo, Sean McDowell, and these zero games that I played in. It
didn't lose, did you not wrongfeated undefeated this year, defeated. That's how
we choose to look at it this year. That's what we're going to start
calling you instead of Turbo Sewan, We're just going to start calling you undefeated,
Sean undefeated. Yes, you had nice Vegas when I was there was
one hundred and eighteen. I checked when you were there, and it was
like one hundred and eight. That was nothing. I mean you got up
to one hundred and fourteen one night. Good. It's not good your words
side, and it's just like you feel like you are getting cooked, Like
you feel like you are a piece of meat on a grill. Yeah,
it's awful. No, what is what is the lowest temperature at which like
food cooks, like any food, It probably is like some food that cooks
at like one hundred and twenty five, right, sure, yeah, probably
like ninety eight six. Yeah, I've never heard of packing anything below leodi
two hundred, right, Like sure, that's pretty wacky. Under two hundred,
bet you could. I bet one eighty will do it? Sure,
I mean yeah, yeah, one eighties should do it. Like if it's
a very slow like, what's a slow cooker going at? What's the lowest
temperature there? That's what I'm saying. I like smoking things, like some
people will do things at two hundred or early to like really get smoke on
the if you're going really long, but like generally to fifty even to twenty
five is I think more of a normal slow smoking temperature, like a SOUV
goes down pretty low, right, Yeah, but SOUV yeah for a very
long time. That's the whole idea, I guess. But yeah, I
guess, Like, yeah, I guess you could cook something in suv if
you want to like literally get it to like one sixty, you just put
that water at one sixty and it actually gets there, so one sixties,
like where like you can get your tap water to one sixty if you set
your your like water heater high enough. Yeah, my go to is always
three seventy five because the main but the only time I'm really setting temperatures is
on the air fry to like reheat pizza or taco bell or something, and
I generally do like three seventy five for like three or four minutes. That's
usually good for reheating. I'm h'm I've adopted an air frar at this point
because everyone has. But I'm still kind of scared about, uh, you
know, how quickly air friars took over the kitchen appliance industry. Good reasons
are something there. Maybe it's because it's actually fantastic, yeah, yeah,
and it's just like a connection of them. I don't know. I don't
know. Something still rubs me the wrong way. It's because it is just
a toaster of and just rebranded so and I know everyone will sit out,
but it's just the same kind of heating process. Do you haven't just made
him very convenient? Do you have it a version to trends? Jan?
Is that what it is? It's just a cool guy obviously, Like,
yeah, as the cool hipster one here sipping my coffee on the sides of
Peerie with my dirt jazz cigarettes, he holds the key to your breaking news.
I've just been verified as the number two worldwide beater of Larry Coopa.
Yeah, that's right, Larry Coopa in nine seconds and third three six a
milliseconds. Uh, only one person on the planet has me beat for Larry
Coopa beating Shakir mea moto just there with a stop watch time and how fast
you can beat Larry. All right, I'll put the link in the chat.
It's verified. Hell yeah, someone please write beat Larry on the document.
All right? Uh, Sean, you came back from Las Vegas.
I came back from Japan. Before we get to the Games, I came
back from Kansas. Is that exciting? Yeah? Okay, well it was
Kansas actually, I guess it was Missouri. I was on the Casey side
the whole side it. He was good. I went to the Extra Life
the Night conference, so I was in a hotel in Kansas City for the
first time ever, which is really weird because I'm like walking around downtown Kansas
City and I'm like, it felt like I was seeing a city for the
first time, because that's I never I grew up fifteen minutes from there,
but like no one ever went downtown. If I went to wrestling, it
was at Kemper, which was like a little ways and the royals and the
chiefs were a ways. So it's like I realized, like I don't think
I've ever really been to Kansas City before, so it just a walking around
discovering Kansas City. It was weird. What like what reason would people have
to going to downtown just work. There's a convention center there, I mean,
that's why the Extra Life was there. I mean there's barbecue, but
like barbecuess also like mostly spread out. It's not like all the Power Light
District is like their thing that came around the last ten or fifteen years was
like the part of the bar district. But that's Newish. But yeah,
it's not like a big tourist destination. I would say, yeah, okay,
Sean Jan, you did something not gaming related. How about how are
you do that? And then I'll do okay, all right, all right,
that's that's that's bance related. I came back from Japan. Let me
tell y'all, it was fun as fuck. I'm sorry for the cussing.
I'm sorry for the cussing. I made it past the first minute of the
show what's the best kit Cat you had? So I'm not like a sea
KitKat type of guy. Guys, but my partner did go in and like
yo yo yo, the tales that people have of don Quixote the store don't
do it justice until you actually go there and witness the mailstrom of a mall
store that it is, and just seeing wall to wall. One side you
get made costumes, the other side you get car air fresheners, and then
you see people go behind a sketchy curtain and then you follow them and now
they're suddenly embarrassed that they had a bunch of blow up dolls in their cart,
and then you realize, well, you know what, it's really hot
outside. I gotta go buy some sunscreen, and then you see these gentlemen
that are also buying a blow up doll now also getting sunscreen and other various
lotions. I'm going to assume it was to properly deal with the heat,
because it was very humid and hot in Japan. I would not recommend traveling
to Japan during the summer because I was sweating out of places I didn't know
I could sweat from your blow up though, yes, yes, yes,
yes that being set to I also get one and go in the tax freeline,
so they had to put it in like the plastic baggie, so I
couldn't touch it until I got back home. Who's the sick? But y'ah,
real talk. I don't think I loved going to Japan. Five days
was definitely not enough because I lost two days to travel and everything. Yeah,
and Tokyo is so goddamn big that there is no way that I could
have done everything that I wanted to do. Also, my partner and I
were traveling with one of her high school friends and her fiance, and they
had been to Japan before, so we were kind of relying on them for
a bit that. We eventually split off and did our own thing and ran
into Alex Bunyello out there and Alex and Bunyello is doing rent out there,
and we had some lovely coffee. He's a landlord's yeah exactly, he's he's
uh no, he's one of the renters. Yeah, that's right, he's
rent too. And we went to Glitch Coffee in Ginza, and let me
tell you, that was like going to like a fancy whiskey bar because of
the gentlemen up there. They were like, hey, smell these beans.
And I'm like, yes, I'll spell these beans for you, guys.
I kind of want to stranger to tell me this smells beans. But these
were very polite gentlemen. What about that, Mike? But if I was
very polite and rolled up to you with a canister and like, Mike,
smell these beans. So someone did try to hand Mike beans once and Mike
said no, so, yeah, Jeff Gordon is a can of baked beans.
I was like, I don't want to see Jeff Gordon had a race
car driver. No jezz jezz jezz. Oh you said, oh, like
you know, I'm pretty sure you don't know. I don't know, but
it makes more sense than the NASCAR driver offered Mike Manatti beans. He's not
one of the ones that died, right, is Jeff Gordon alive? Jeff
Gordon's I've heard. I've heard of like four NASCAR guys, and I think
most of the crash, Yeah, did he die in a crash? One
died, but there's another daleer and hurt than Yeah, he del aar and
hurt too. I think it's still going strong cars. I think those juniors
and yeah, but I think they were referencing deal or Earnhardt one in the
movie as well. So Dominic Toretto's dad died in Fast nine. That's NASCAR
adjacent, but that was like an indie scrub league. Please, do you
think Pepsi was ever as popular as when Jeff Gordon was like always wearing the
Pepsi jackets, Sandy Crawford, Michael Jackson, that's its height, alright,
Yeah, yeah, but Yo, the thing I love the most in Japan,
guys, I loved taking all of the trades. I loved riding the
subway. It'd be like, oh, we could completely get to that other
part of the city in a reasonable time. So scenic, and you get
to like, look at what you just are like almost a dad. You're
like, this is a ficient travel our destination. I feel real good about
it because Jane lives in a city that hypothetically has trains that you can take
around. But I've lived in that city and it ain't that easy. No,
no, it's not. It's this is like if a city was like,
Yo, you want to get to a place in the city, Let's
make a train that goes there, yeah, instead of sandy, cheap and
safe and get you there on time. Yeah. There's the other thing.
No one's whacking off. Well, I mean the point don Quixote would have
you question otherwise, But they're whacking off privately. Oh right right yeah,
but like yeah, I don't know. Just like I've been to New York
and like the trains run very they run in New York. New York's train
system is better in San Francisco's for sure, just because it covers more of
the city. I mean, like the buses in San Francisco are pretty okay.
But anyway, like the trains in Japan, and just like Yo,
not only could I go to a vetting machine to get a fun apple juice
or a coffee or a chocolate milk spewear, Pacari sweat. If I needed
to pee, there was a clean bathroom in all of these train stations.
There were full on restaurants that were like better than some of the food I
have here. If I was like get into sweat, I'm like, God,
damn, I could use a new T shirt. There was a Uniclo
right in this train station. Man, if I needed a book that I
couldn't read because everything was a Japanese right to the Unico. If you're to
help with something, somebody will nice will just come up and help you and
also speak your language, you know, exactly crazy. Yeah. But the
other thing for folks out there that want to travel to Japan but have some
type of travel anxiety because they don't speak the language, they can't read the
language, throw that fear out the window. It doesn't fucking matter. You
can get around not speaking to anyone and just staring at your phone. Like
Google Maps will guide you through the trains. It'll tell you exactly which platform
to get on, what exit to get out of, and then like the
train systems like they'll flash like they'll be in Japanese and then they'll flash to
like Korean, but they'll eventually flash to English and you'll be able to see
of like, okay, I'm going the right way, and it'll tell you
where the nearest stairs or escalator are. Oh my god, imagine being that
works. It's great. We should all go to Japan. It's sure.
The best meal I had was like eleven o'clock at night. We were tired.
We got out of the train station that we was near our hotel.
We were looking for food and we got lost, and then we wound up
going to like like a food mall or whatever, and the restaurant we were
gonna go get yakatori, but then the line was too long, so we
turn around and behind us was like this local mom and pop joint with just
selling curry, Japanese curry, and there was no way to order it from
a person. The kind lady who just pointed at the vending machine looking thing,
she was like, just press bundons and load up your yen. I
got the best plate of curry in my god, that's what I'm really chilling
Dan, real Japanese curriage. The thing is like normally you travel some place
and you're looking up you know, reviews and stuff. If you're like me,
you know constantly looking like Google Maps, reviews and all that stuff.
In Japan. I can't tell you the amount of times that like you just
walk into like a random alley and like this place looks like it as ramen
or curry or something like, oh, that's the best ramen or curry I've
ever had in my life, just random place I walked in. Well,
I mean that is like what the Japan is really known for these days.
It's like the best food in the world period, Like they really are doing
it better than everyone else. But boys, I had like a Hamburger steak
curry with some cheese on it six bucks. Oh. Like that part hurt
me the most because my partner and I were having withdrawals from Japan, so
we decided to get curry here in SF. Shit was forty dollars for two
people. Yeah, uh huh yeah, Jan try forty dollars for one person,
which is why get used to over the past week oh Vegas. Yeah
yeah. And then like you know, the thing was we we would be
very tired at the end of the day, so uh, sometimes we didn't
get a chance to go out for dinner, dinner, like sit down properly.
So we would just go to the seven to eleven in our hotel and
guys, seven eleven I had like legit food. You heard the good news
other than all that here. Yeah, they were like, hey, we
want the seven eleven America to be more like seven eleven in Japan. They've
said that in like the last two weeks or something like that, and I'm
like, you couldn't. You are speaking my love language. That is the
most amazing thing I've ever heard. I'm so excited, but it's not gonna
work. It's not gonna be as good. Well, okay, then why
is the San Francisco we want our trains to be trains in Japan? Yes,
because that's a public service and we hate like we're terrible people in America's
that's different. This is capitalism. This is very different. Like sheets is
becoming more and more popular everywhere. Stuff like that, Like the BUCkies.
People fucking love that fucking gopher whatever he is, but BUCkies go for I
think punkies go for people buy that BUCkies merch. I've had like six different
people in my life evangelize that fucking gas station. To me, it's like,
okay, wow, yeah, I want that for me. Yeah yeah,
I want that for all of us guys, people like mascots, Mike
me like these in these seven eleven's, like everything was so goddamn cheap.
I could get a high ball and I just learned that a highball is just
like whiskey and soda water, and that's my favorite thing in the world.
Just like fifty cents, what the fuck I can have it now, mash
Well, the low yin is the problem for Japan. We're sorry about all
that, but it'll bounce back. Thanks for being so cheap Japan. Japan.
Now instead of waiting, you know what you do if you're not going
to go to Japan. I thought about this the other day. Everyone said,
it's actually a decent idea is to convert some of your cash right now
into yen. Now did you ever go to Japan? You have the enn
ready to go, and then if it goes up in value like what you
already have it. But Mike, mikey, the part of my trip that
I was excited to tell you about. Yeah, this is what I've been
waiting for patiently, like a good play, all right. I went my
partner and I and her her friends. We went to Disney C and we
also went to Disney Tokyo O. Mike Minatti, The Frozen ride almost brought
me to tears. It was so fucking good. It's bran spankin new I've
watched the ride throughs. It's insane how good it is. Oh my gosh,
Like it's top of the line special effects and animatronics. Just the part
where Elsa Elsa's icicles come out of the ground jem right, oh you know
what. And it just makes me so sad that I have to go back
to disney Land and just deal with the poor old antiquated animatronics on the on
the Ariel's Grotto ride where she's just like broken at the hip, just shaking.
Yeah. But Fantasy Springs is both parks Disney C and Disney Tokyo much
smaller, yet they have a lot of space for just in between. And
it was just weird going to Disneyland and the main street being so teensy and
seeing the castle and it being so teensy in comparison to what I'm used to.
That being said, the second best ride Mike Manati, The Beauty and
the Beast Ride. Yeah, I've watched those ride throughs. It is insane.
It It is similar technology to what they're using in Rise of the Resistance.
So there's like no rails, You're just moving on like a track that
is underground. I'm assuming it's magnets. Who the hell knows. It's just
computers. It's just computers. Oh, it's just computers. Okay, cool,
It's it's insane, how great it is. The other thing, my
my, my qualms though, they have too many nice popcorn buckets. It's
like a whole thing in Disney japan culture. If we might, I understand,
it's like popcorn over there is way more important than like pop like park
popcorn is popular in the state, sure, but it's a way of life
in Japan. Uh. They had Macho white chocolate popcorn, soy sauce and
butter popcorn, Sea salt popcorn, whatevers. Jeff Grubb, they had curry
popcorn. Oh baby, oh shit, baby waffing those smells. So I
got some instant curry upstairs. I'm have to mix them today, Delicio.
Uh. But if you are a Disney freak like Mike Manatti and I,
and you want to go to either of those Parks. You absolutely need to
get there way before that shit opens. Uh. We we got there at
like five thirty six o'clock in the morning, and that still wasn't enough time.
Our standby for the Frozen ride was way way way later in the evening
than we WoT. Yeah, that's still yeah, all that stuff over there
with the Frozen stuff. Oh but Mike, the facade of like the rock
face as you enter Fantasy Springs where they have on an elsa carved into the
rock Peter Pan and then Rapunzel. Oh my god, it was so beautiful.
I wanted to cry. He was got Mike, We're forty one members
away for me being obligated to take you to Disney. Everybody joined that patron
just said if we got to a certain number, he take me to Tokyo
Disneyland. Game mess start saving. I'll go and heilmet. Yeah, don't
worry compensated to me. I'll just go and hang out. Chance I make
to everybody, Okay, I don't want to just like go through a list
of rides to ask you did it, but I'm gonna allow myself to do
that for like thirty seconds, and it just if you did, just say
what you thought. The Winnie the Pooh ride fantastic, Okay, the sam
Bad ride with the song closed who journing the Center of the Earth, Oh
my god. Too scary for Mike easy think or Mike Mikey, Mikey.
You could deal with the matterhorn, right Oh yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Oh you're fine. There's no like big drop, right, that's what
that's usually what it's big drop, but it's projected like well ahead of time.
Yeah, I think I think I can handle it. What's their space
mountain? Like, actually, I'm not even sure. We didn't get the
chance to because I hate space Mountain. I hate Space Mountain. I forgot
that's right. Okay, well that's fine then ah yeah that Winnie the Pooh.
It's funny because that Winnie the Pooh ride because that was the first of
that trackless ride technology they think that we ever had. Yeah so when so
when Ben Hansen was on Rise of Resistance, he's like, this is like
that Woody the Poo ride. Yes, it is God and the Food in
Disney, Tokyo, Disney, see great, all they I had the alien
Mochi looking do dads. They were cute as hell cold, Oh my god,
there's just so many opportunities at both of those Disney parks to spend too
much money. And it was also crazy to not see the Star warsification of
a park because if you go to Disneyland and Socow, so much Star Wars
everywhere, and obviously because we have that one land, but there's like lightsabers
in almost every store or at least some Star Wars related memorabilia. Here.
It's just like, oh, this is just Disney. That's crazy. And
Mickey Mouse's little Teddy Bear friend, the love Duffy. They love Duffy.
They love Duffy and all his weirdo friends Elec Duffy. Uh no, no,
no, it's just think Duffy. There's like a couple of characters that
they especially love a Japan that we do not care about here, like the
one little girl Cat from Aristo Cats and Stitches girlfriends girlfriend and the girl Chipmunk
from Chi Girl Chipmunk. Yes. So for the first time at the Disney
World Christmas Parade even I was like, who's that in Disney? Uh see
she was carrying a cigarette. I was like, this is so whoa She
was like a fancy like French cigarette, Like she was like, yeah,
exactly, vous French Chipett. That's it, Sean, I should have taken
a picture. Uh yeah. Also, guys, the worst fucking thing is
that there's gotcha machines everywhere, like everywhere. How did you come home?
I thought you would have lost all your money? Oh no, I got
I got two of these. I got two of these. Would the gimmicks
want these? Yes? I wanted love that the game it to me.
No, you know what, they just just saw this. I'll put it
in the chat. Speaking of the gotcha machines, this right here, there's
new Nintendo. I think there are official Nintendo things, these key chains that
are like the face buttons, and yeah, oh my god, where do
we get these? Japan? Really send that to Fianca and said, next
time you're out there, please hunt these down because you found all the piman
ones. I don't know if you've seen all the Pickman terrarium things in the
got She got me a full set of that last time she was in Japan,
so I got around the hunt for that. Next time. I would
pay like fifty bucks for that game cube face button. Really Jesus Christ,
Wait, okay, wait, which one does everyone want the most sixty four
analog stick I want. I want the sixty four buttons. Definitely the GameCube
BUTSAK buttons. That's real good too, just being able to press that a
button like on the go, a little fidget button on your I like the
way the GameCube buttons feel. I'm aesthetically I don't know if I love looking
at it. I like looking at a third were alchemies, Yeah, dare
you? I would say the lowest of the six is the Super Nintendo face
buttons. I like the Super Famicom ones with the colors. Now we are
also enemies. I don't like the dance button. Dance you know. The
colors that's better. That's better because we're adults in America and we need something
mature looking cool. I want to know when I'm playing games, like the
Super famic Com buttons look like freaking like preschool kid colors to me, I
don't know. I'm sorry, they look like the future. What town?
It looks like they look like spreezee. Try to forget about awesome, but
yeah, gotcha's for virtually any and everything. It was hilarious. I saw
one that was just camping equipment, not shoot camping equipment, but like mini
versions of it. The Disney stores also had their fair share of Gotcha Gotcha
ponds, airports did, every train station did. It was so great just
because like Japanese currency still relies on a bunch of coins, and I had
a bunch of coins, so I thought, why not just burn through these
and just spin to win. Speaking about spin to win, one of the
most heated gamer moments I witnessed was Alex Bunyellow at a crane game and he's
so toxic. Yeah, he really is. The boy, the renter he
got he got a snoopy bag and I witnessed it. He was glorious and
it was It wasn't one of those like crane games where you had to like
lift lift up and drop it in the thing. It was the kind where
you have to use the crane to push something down into the pit. First
try Alex Bunyellow one. There's a pushed down crane game, so you it's
the same mechanics as the crane, but like you know how sometimes like the
arm is super limp. Yeah yeah, instead of like lifting an item up,
there is one item precariously positioned in the machine and you have to you
use the crane to move them the item down into the pit. That sounds
to me like remember the gimmick that it's just like a billion gold tokens in
the thing, and you gotta hope that somehow you make the wall pull this
website. No one want to I want so many coins. You're talking?
You got word? No, no, I I had a little bucket.
They weren't real, you know. It sounds like American Gladiator crane game where
it's like a guy on the platform and you to them down. Yeah,
yeah, the best one. Yeah, I'll ask Alex if he's cool with
me posting that video. But the hilarious thing was we went into this arcade
because we're killing time for my jeans to get hemmed, and I'm getting That's
the last thing I'll talk about. And then the first to first two floors
just like crane games, very pure, very light hearted. We go up
the third floor. They have rhythm games. They have the tycho uh drum
machine, the beat Mania Maniasani, and then they had the washing machine one.
It's like a circle controller. I forget what that one is. Yeah,
I played that Commo breaker, I forget what's called that. And then
they had like a a physical card Uh the machine where you had to put
shoot cards down and they projected onto the actual arcade machine. That was super
cool. Judgment. Yeah you can tell you tell the age difference here.
I was gonna say, like you you right, Jan, we're all generation
to fighting video games. That was that might just come out, oh boy.
Uh. And then we go up the next floor and uh, it
was pachinko machines and I thought like, oh, okay, if my partner
and Alex weren't here, I could spend some time here. And then we
decided like let's keep exploring. We go up a floor. It's just straight
up horse betting, like virtual horse betting. And then like one dude is
just curled up like fetal position, like in his chair, his sandals kicked
off, just like smoking a cigarette, drinking a can of coke and just
like pressing buns and bedding, and I'm like, that guy's living the dream.
I want to be like him when I grow up. And then we
go up another floor and it was like sketchy or gambling, I don't even
know what it was, Okay, oh, but it was great and it
was so hilarious. And then we picked up my jeans, and I just
want to give a special shout out to my best friend Rio Ryo at Hanoya
One in Ginza. If you're looking for salvage denim at the best customer service
you've ever had, go to Hanoya one. Homeboy hooked it up because I
was like, yo, I want jeans of this specification. I wear boots,
I have very thick thighs that up against each other, and I generally
tend to have holes in my pants after a while, and he was like,
bro, I got you. And then he he he went to a
a stack of jeans, pulled one out. It was my same exact size,
and then he looks at me up and down and then he like,
uh, cuffs them for me at the perfect height I tried. After I
tried them on, I was like, oh my god, how did you
know? And then he had done the same thing with my partner. My
partner picked up a pair of jeans and then he did the same thing with
Alex. It was great, It was fantastic, and that was Alex.
Alex is like maybe an inch or too taller than me. Okay, that's
ass. He's just eyeballing it and he does. Dude, it's just eyeballing
it. He did it for my partner too. My partner's like five to
two perfect cuff and then and then hold on, hold on, Okay,
fan sounds fun, It's cool. Yeah the hell? What am I doing
here? Right? Ohio sucks? I'm gonna yeah, get Ohio. It's
the same thing. Basically. We all know. I like the Bear,
right, Yes, the show, Yes, the show, the show.
Yes, the show is the Key and the Mighty. That was like they
they were selling the shirts from the Bear, these Whitesville shirts there over in
the States. These it's a two pack of white Tea's in the States,
this goes for one hundred dollars. Uh, it was not one hundred dollars
there, So no, I think I joked that you went to Japan to
get the shirts from the Bear. Well I should have done better. No,
No, of course I did, of course, Like I bought raw
Denham. I don't need Rod Denham. I have too much already. Please
describe your arms right now for the audio listeners, like the stone washed and
raw Denim. The two where come from? Salvage Denim. It's raw Denham
specific No, no Budgs. I don't know either. Oh no, yeah.
Wait, wait man, we're on the same page here, right,
amazing a Business Wars episode about like uh Levi versus the other one and they
like said where denhim came from? And I don't remember any Okay, Mike,
no one help us. Let's guess where Denham comes from. I bet
it's a plant. Yeah, it's gotta be some kind of fiber tree,
a certain tree product or leaf. Man. I'm like, I'm like,
it's gonna be almost completely you think wheat wheat. No, I don't think
it's a wheat. We do a lot of things. And I don't know.
Jeff Jeff left. Jeff couldn't handle his shot. He's going, it's
got it's I bet it's a bark By product. I wonder if a bug's
involved. Somebody said the word I don't think bugs are involved. That what
is happening here? We're trying to figure out where you like, what probably
comes from cotton, and that's a plant. There you go. Damn.
I figured that out pretty quick. I was about to ask, I don't
know where any clothes comfirms like, wait, cotton just a plant. It's
the label poly that's sure. I don't know what the fuck that is?
Uh so, Mitch, Mitch, what do you think bugs? Nah?
Bugs, I throw that out there. No, I think it's a plant.
I think it's some sort of cotton or cotton adjacent. Okay, so
we're both saying roughly trees, roughly where it's at the tree family. Okay,
Christ, it's just con you knuckle answer, denim is cotton, Well,
it's it's They do a lot of the processes. Yeah, like stuff
happened, process is carried. Did we need more words? Because like you
know, if I eat cheese, it's people be like, oh, that's
his process cheese, it's processed. You can't say the same thing goes into
cheese as making cotton jeans. There's gonna be a different word for that,
right. There is a process. It's a bespoke different process, but like
a food word for process and also like a pants food processing food processing,
it's phrase. I suppose it feels like we could use distinction like it's it's
inherent that Yeah you would, okay, not just the process. It's not
descriptive. When I the amount of fact, it would be like, oh
you like all this processed food? Okay, what does that mean? Give
me a descriptor. Okay, well, the reason we're saying process is because
we don't know the fucking process. That's not my job. Well, somebody
needs to describe it accurately. Wait, Dan, if you have the heat
from the sun not not from the la, and you have heat from your
oven, is that not just both heat? Well, there's major changes in
severity there, but is it not just heat? Yeah? So when we
say the word process, it's the same thing. You're it's usually an adjective,
your verb. You're something is processed or you're processing it. I think
the best way to describe how anything happens is just show the sped up footage
with a don't like turk tank tank, turk tank like assembly line something.
Then that would explain everything. I mean, you're not wrong, right,
we should do that more. Uh So, is just denim that hasn't been
like stonewashed or something? Right? Yes, yes, it is blue?
What makes it blue? No, there's black. Then I bought jeans and
they were black, and then it's still don them. They can be not
blue. I really enjoy that's true. Yes, you are congratulation what colors
in Japan? It's still blue. It's still dye diet, what's natural jean
color? Cotton blue? Okay color? Okay, okay, google what color
is denim? Naturally? That's I think it's a gray. I think it's
like because of the progress, it's like a washed out gray. I don't
know if whoever first decided to everyone's saying indigo, which I think it's funny
that you all said indigo specifically. But I think of end glow way more
than I think of indigo. Remember remember they all watch watch see it in
the movie Theater o the World. Yeah, yeah, I want one so
bad. Dan he goes the die check, doesn't know what they're talking about.
God, But that's how I think of it. My head hurts now.
The other takeaway from Japan is that everyone had like these little hand towels
with them all the time. They're very cute, very useful, especially when
you're sweating in the sun. Uh. I forget what they're called in Japanese.
But I did find a bunch of pinker, not quite a handkerchief,
just like that towel material terry cloth, terry cloth, yes, little terry
but he's going to get it. But I got everyone's little hand towels expect
them in the mail, Sean, I need your mailing address. Sure they're
all Nintendo related. Yeah, cool, thank you. I saw them in
the Nintendo Star. I was like, I gotta get these for my hooligans.
That's awesome, thank you. They're all cute. It's it's just like
a little small towel. So it's like, nothing too crazy. Uh that's
too big, Mike, is that blood? What is he? Mike just
held the towel the camera and had a bunch of coming. It just looks
like yeah, He's like, yeah, this is I got from the jet
blood. That's pon your little fishy. She's the little fishy with the around
to me like meat adjacent creatures, you know. Yeah, Addie is our
little ponyo we call her because no, no, it's a GIBBLI. Oh
yeah, they're They're just like one by one squares like this. Uh,
don't worry, I got I got them to what I think everyone would like.
Uh, I'll send them your way here deeply about towel size. I'm
also just gonna try and get the company to let me nail them so I
don't have to deal yea, yes, yes, yes, yes, I
had a lovely, lovely time in Japan. I already want to go back.
We should all go together. Yeah, that'd be great. Must be
something I can't believe I've ever been in Japan. I've been this industry now
for like twelve years. I thought something would have come up by now,
some red. Yeah, it just hasn't happened. Oh but also like yo,
it's go to Henoya in Ginza, and like they will take care of
you if you want to drop some some hard cash on some denim, like
tell them your boy Jan sent you and they won't know who the fuck you're
talking about. I got some questions for them too about denim I kept putting
in jail. You're not allowed back. Oh, like the funny thing,
what very do you take it away? What color is? Tell me?
The cute thing was. I came back a second time because I was very
tempted to buy more jeans. I just wanted buying Hawaiian shirts instead. God,
they're the best Hawaii shirts I've ever had. Hawaiian shirts are so back,
baby, and I thought I was over it, but now now we're
all the way back. Now I only need to buy the specific brand of
Hawaiian shirts. DM me if you want the deats anyway, I go back.
My main man, Rio is there and he's like, oh, like,
welcome back. Man. He drops what he was doing. He was
helping someone else. He came to help me instead, and then he's like
he's helping me on and everything. And then he's helping me try stuff on.
He's pulling sizes and he was like, oh, where's your friend.
I'm like, oh, the white guy and then he says yes, yes,
yes, and then like we go. I go on to tell him
like, I guess he's at work, and then he proceeds to ask like
about Org, and I'm like, I guess it's rehearsal. He's doing Rent.
Do you know Rent? And then he was like, oh, Rent
the musical And then he proceeds to get super excited. He talks to his
coworkers in Japanese and then the only word I'm picking up is rent, Rent
Rent, and then I'm like yeah, cool, uh and then he proceeds
to tell me, yeah, man, in uh in middle school, I
tap danced. I gotta make time and try and see Rent. I hope
your friend comes back. Just such a pure thing. Did they start singing
anything from rent. No, okay, all right, they starts saying the
number. No they did not, But anyway, God fucking love Japan.
I want to go. You had a good time, jan she was,
I know you wish you got got like a little bit longer there. But
uh no, it seems like he had a good trip. It was just
way too hot, guys, way too hot, Like uh next time,
A ten minute walk from the subway station back to my hotel in like two
pm in the afternoon, just drenched and sweat drenched. And it didn't help
that I started wearing like my new denim jeans and that was also dressed.
So I got I gotta go put those in the freezer to watch them.
What short culture like in Japan? Are they pro shorts? Oh? Okay,
I thought you meant like height. I would never Most of the locals
aren't wearing shorts, but like they don't care about the tourists wearing shorts.
I think what America's greatest accomplishments is normalizing shorts. Like we did it.
We did the right thing there. Yeah, look at that. Let them
see this, some five meat look at that. Hell yeah, that's like
in Mexico's so hot and They're like, we would never wear shorts. That's
for boys. Yeah yeah, But I wasn't the only one traveling. Dan.
You you went to Kansas City, but Sean, you went to Sin
City. I sure did. Oh my god, you want to talk about
hot, Holy moly, Las Vegas was hot this weekend. Uh yeah.
I traveled out there for EVO, my second EVO. Now, first one
was last year. It was an interesting comparison between the two because last year
was at the Mandalay Bay Convention Hall that they have over there at the Resort,
which is where they were for several years now, and now they are
back to a previous venue in the Las Vegas Convention Center. So first of
all, I gotta tell y'all about my trip. I gotta tell y'all about
what it was like getting out there, because, like I mentioned, game
as mornings that morning I went out, the plan was take a bus down
to Milwaukee and then fly out cheap O airlines to Vegas from Milwaukee Easy Plan,
Allegiant Southwest, Sun Country Spirit. Okay, I would have been spirited
out Allegiant back. So I was like, eh, whatever, but the
flights were so much cheaper, you know. So again on this bus after
it's been delayed by an hour and a half, and they finally picked me
up, and I'll the way down. My flight keeps getting bumped, It
keeps getting bumped, and then eventually canceled. While I'm on the freaking buss
down to Milwaukee. Yeah, I'm wondering if maybe, yeah, the whole
crowd strike thing maybe affected that starting affecting things on Thursday night. I don't
know when it started like messing everything up, but yeah, so I went.
I'm on the bus down to Milwaukee trying to figure out, Okay,
my flight's been canceled. I have work stuff lined up in the morning,
I need to get out to Vegas. What the hell am I gonna do?
And so I concocted this plan where, Okay, we get to Milwaukee,
I'm gonna take an Amtrak train down to Chicago. I'm gonna fly out
of Chicago because they got late night. But Amtrak's at seven thirty five.
We just barely get hit at like seven point thirty. I'm renting down the
freaking the bus station to the train, just barely make it on like a
minute later they close the doors. So I'm on the train and I'm like
trying to figure out trying to book this flight, and as quickly as I
can get on get tickets for the flight. All right, So I get
out of the train station. When we get down there. By the way,
trains lovely, like we're talking about, especially when you come from like
a more suburban area like I do, and there's terrible public transportation. Trains
are just nice, yep. But we get down there, you know,
I have to uber over to the airport. I'm like rushing over there to
make sure I get there for checking time, and because I don't know what's
happening with like all the computer stuff, which I assume is what affected it.
I get there and everyone's kind of just saying around, like looking annoyed,
and I look and it's been delayed. And then I sit down.
I'm like, all right, whatever, Well, I guess I have extra
time to go grab some I eat. Oh So you did all this hustling
without really knowing what was going on, what was happening? Yeah, Oh,
because like I was so freaking freaking out because you know, my initial
flight was canceled and okay, I need to get on this plane. You
just thought it was just your flight. Okay, I thought I was having
the worst luck in the world, and it keeps getting bumped and bumped and
bumped, and this like ten thirty plane. We're sitting there at like twelve
forty five, like what is happening? Like what's going on? And they're
just like technical difficulties with the plane. And then yeah, finally we get
on and yeah, you're close to one am, and I get out there
safely. I do get out to Vegas safely, walk outside. It's blazing
hot. But yeah, that that the trip was absolutely insane. I don't
know if it's because of all the computer stuff messing up, but definitely was.
Yeah, it had to be, I assume at this point. Yeah,
once I actually got there, Vegas isn't at least the Vegas Strip,
because you know, everyone who lives in Vegas says like, oh no,
it's different off the strip, you know, like any like big city with
major attractions. But yeah, the Vegas Strip definitely is not my kind of
place. No, you like, get out and it's like, oh,
Ereyland's just the whole place reeks of smoke and booze and there's just like people
throwing up over on the side over there shiny lights. Yeah, but hey
there's pretty lights. And hey over there, the the Westgates sign is blue
screen. Huh. I wonder why that happened here this spearcreen. No,
they made retain that one. Have I heard that the strip has gotten like
worse recently or is that just something my sheltered parents told me. It's the
same, It's always the same. Yeah, yeah, i'd assume so at
least I know the difference between two years obviously. But yeah, stayed at
a relatively cheap hotel, so you know, check in and then uh,
that's one thing. Las Vegas is reliable for cheap hotels because you spend money
on everything else. Yeah. Well, I mean it's always funny because they
get you with the resort fee if they stay on the strip. But even
then, my hotel for the weekend was relatively cheap. It was like four
hundred all sent doge. That's for an entire four days in Vegas. That's
like very awesome. We got our resort fee waived because our first night there,
the AC wasn't working when it was one hundred and eighteen degrees. Ye,
noour bar and just just going to the casino. I guess Yeah,
that was a nice thing. It was a cheap hotel, but at least,
like, you know, the room was clean, it had ac Like.
I was like, I'm passing out. I'm getting up to do the
stuff I got in the morning. Yeah, actually getting out to EVO.
Uh, it is EVO as I remembered it from last year, just in
a different space. I believe the square footage of the convention Center is actually
a little bit bigger. But what they did this year is they did something
interesting because last year and previous years, Amandoally Bay has the michelob Ultra Arena,
you know, where like NBA stuff is held and everything. It's just
like actual big, awesome arena, and so that's where the finals were always
held. So what when I got into the convention Center, I got to
see that they have a very convention looking area for EVO proper, but then
over to the side they like partitioned off part of the hall. And this
is something the director Rick was talking up before the event. He was like,
we're gonna recreate the arena in the convention Center using the like because Formula
one you know, big in Vegas now in the past few years. So
now they have the infrastructure to set up like arena seating anywhere, like it's
portable, and so they set up basically a recreation of the Michelobultra arena within
the convention center. It was really cool like that, you know, the
crazy yeah, blackout currents on one side, so it's like nice and dark
in there, and they had the lights andnary thing. The problem is,
as Marino said, the jack is I know he was there. It was
not big enough because what they did was they were banking on people wanting to
do the live watch parties that streamers were doing. So Maximilian and his friends
and then I know Mighty Keith had one. I think a couple other people
did too. They had what they were calling live watch parties where they would
get one of the mini stages where like games were being shown throughout the weekend
and then those people were just doing their stream you know, like they would
do at home, but live from the EVO show floor. Yeah a lot.
Yeah, Yeah. It was a cool concept and Maxes went really well
and that was was packed. But because they were banking on a lot of
people wanting to do that wind up play casuals throughout the weekend, they made
the arena, uh An arena smaller than it should have been, and so
I think someone told me who got the numbers? It was like two thirds
the size of the arena from last year, despite being the biggest esports tournament
of all time. So yeah, and everyone seemed like they were there.
There were so many more people in my like on Twitter saying it I'm there
than I've ever seen before. It's it seems like it's huge now. Yeah,
over ten thousand unique entrants alone, just competitors were there. Yeah,
So not to skip ahead too much, but on Sunday, you know,
final Sunday, there was a line wrapping all the way around the conventions there.
It was two hours to get the arena. Yeah, security was cracking
down. You like could not get in if you left, so you need
to like stay in their seat, stay in the place where they also only
had two bathrooms. Oh no, no, I could never. I could
never. It was it was like two on either side, so you know,
one male and female on either side. Yeah, but like how many
like stalls per not super big, like there's you know, like at least
for the guys. You know, there was like probably five urinals and a
bunch of stalls, I will say, so like that we get people and
the line was moving, but it was like at least a twenty minute wait.
Just used my poor bladder. It was in convention bathroom is a war
zone, like even like a giant LA convention center. Like two of sounds
insane, right, Yeah, yeah, the streamer might like take your video
while you're in there too. Yeah about that like raw dogging g fuel on
the right set up on the counter they're playing or something. Yeah, I
was. I was so thankful this because this was my first year with the
media passed. Since I was working, I was able to like skip some
lines here and there, not the bathroom lin because oh yeah media on Sunday,
I was staying in the Bandy Namco press box because we needed like approval
for certain things, so like that was the easiest way to do it.
So also I got to like skip the line to get in, thankfully,
because I needed to for my job, of course, But like I yeah,
I felt awful that people are to weigh in line so much, and
like people I knew had to weigh in line. I know, say,
Jam was trying to get a competitor to the stage and he was having trouble
like getting him through security. Just he was like, dude, look at
his badge and everything, like he's playing on the stream for one hundred thousand
people and like a little bit like come on, get him up there.
It was that, Yeah, that was the downside of the whole weekend,
but that was like really the only negative. It seemed like a great time.
It's awesome. The production was fantastic. I do think they did a
good job recreating the arena for all the top six is how how did everything
else look to you guys, like anything else that you saw, like y'all
that it all looks good to me? I thought it looked amazing. I
thought I was like, man, this is They're doing a really good job
of presentation. Like you said, just the quality of the competition is what
it was kind of I was losing my mind during Third Strike. There was
a question because I've never seen any ebo stuff ever, and like I've always
been afraid of it. Not afraid of it, but you know what I
mean, Like I haven't seeked it out because I assume that you have to
like know deep, Like I like fighting games the way like Mortal Combat and
Street Fighter and stuff. But like I've seen clips, like I saw that
clip that was going around from this new one where everyone's freaking the fuck out,
and it's like if I don't know, like is it accessible to someone
who doesn't know like deep fighting, like the intricacies of because I didn't know
why everyone was freaking out so much when like, you know, the guy
jumped over the other guy and it's like I don't know what that means and
everyone's losing it. I'm like, man, it's just some people are having
a good time here, but I don't understand what's happening. You know,
Yeah he's I mean he had like no health left. He timed the jump
the dropkick to go over his last ultimate at like the perfect time so that
he could drop his and take the guy out, and uses me to it
was less. It's less about knowing the intricacies of the game and more just
like if you just pay attention to what's going on screen, like maybe maybe
you just don't find that stuff as hype, but something like you know,
both people being down to like very low health and like just really slugging it
out trying to get a last hit in and something like yeah, it was
HIGHO. People are calling it EVO Moment thirty eight because it was the close
most Yeah, it was most hype thing that happened over the weekend. Just
the fact that you know, we're like, oh, he's gonna die to
the super move and he does a drop kick that nobody ever does that move.
It's a useless move. It's justin long sound stream, and so he
used it with the biggest read in the world to jump over the super because
that's the only way that he could recover it. And then it's ice cold
blood. It's like, it's the coldest moment I've ever seen. For real,
it sounds awesome. You hear you describe it. That sounds fucking cool.
And seeing the crowd pop up, it was just like, oh my
god, Like I feel like I'm missing something because it's clearly very exciting,
but like without knowing that, I play a little third strike, like I'm
you know, I could beat Mike ad of course, but if but if,
Like when I'm watching, I am not thinking about any of those intricacies,
I am not thinking about any of the I'm just like I could see
he's got low health. I could see this other guy is about to do
something really crazy, I use his meat or whatever. Again, I'm like
barely thinking about that stuff. And I'm like, so he's screwed, and
in this situation, I would give up basically, and he is like,
no, I'm going to perfectly block everything up in the air drop down,
and the guy's like still got meter up, so you're still screwed. And
then then he does a drop kick, and like in that mode I'm see
him do that, I'm like, oh my god, he did that deliberately
to time it. And I don't know how I knew that other than like,
yeah, I'm just kind of paying attention a little bit watching health bars
and stuff. Yeah, and if you believed you understood what was going on,
you wouldn't know enough to be excited about it. When I went,
however, many years ago with Ben, like, I don't know much,
if anything, about fighting games, but when I was in the pit watching
some of the finals, it was the most hype I'd ever been watching,
like a live event happen. It felt like I was in Mania or at
Mania because of like how uh you just get caught up in like the swell
of the crowd walking or Yeah, it's less about what's happening on screen,
and more of the fact that you are among thousands of our people who are
all like loving the same thing and just seeing a situation where, oh wait,
these two people are down to basically one move will kill the other person.
One person does something that's almost guaranteed to kill and somehow the other person
avoids it and like swings back. That is just a hype moment. It's
undeniable. Seeing the crowd, Like I mean, I really do love seeing
a hyped up crowd, and like that is like up there with you know,
the most I've seen. We should go next year. We should all
go next year. Definitely. Yeah, no, like finals are reason enough
to go. But like EVO has expand out to just being a convention now,
there's so many things to do. I got I got a ton of
footage. That's why I'm gonna do on the giant bomb side of things.
I have all this foots I can put together on a video. I have
some interviews from some very cool people that I'm excited to put together. I
even got one from a mark Man, the Utter of Evo. Yeah,
so that's gonna be a fun one to put in there. A few are
fun faces. I think everyone all right. So there's booths like E three
booths like just everywhere for like Bandai Namco As one where the're swing off tech
In and the new Dragon Ball game Sparking zero. Uh, there was Fatal
Fury have booth and you know Capcom have one for mar Varsus Capcom Collection.
So all these fighting games are coming out that you'll be able to play soon.
You can demo them at the event with the again, like if you
can't go at E three or you know what was E three Summer Game Fest
whoever, Like this is where you can get that four fighting games, which
is really cool. There's the arcade section, Dan, you would just love
being in the arcade section. It's like they took if you've ever been to
Galloping Ghosts or you know about it, it's like, yeah, several rooms
that they basically like knocked down the walls to form this giant arcade in a
like a mini mall. They basically took a room from Galloping Ghosts and like
PLoP down the EVO shop floor. That's how big the arcade space is there.
And they have everything. They have rhythm games, they have racing games,
they have fighting games. They have beat them ups any it's free player.
Yeah, so if you just have nothing else going on, and like,
that's why I eventually ended up doing. I went over and played some
Crazy TAXI played some power Stone. Yes, it was great. There's the
oh God, the Artist Alley, where I spent a bunch of money,
as I always do. I had a homie over there, who I was
talking to a little bit as David. I was just I was amazed by
the presentation of it all, Like PlayStation is running the show now, so
they had PlayStation stuff that I could do. I played Astrobot. That awesome.
Yeah, just random to people in New York. That's awesome. They're
like taking around the country and email. You're right, PlayStation yeah, owns
the place, so why not. I was like, why is this here?
But by the way, Astrobot very good, Big Mario Galaxy favor Yeah
yeah that picture of jeffs No, yeah, I don't have to do that.
Maybe they had these Grand Tarismo like simulators where it was like a like
a big like the big machine with like you know, racing wheel and then
like a seed and everything that looked like that. It was really fun.
Yeah, I'm just trying to think of like everything that I saw, and
I'll put all in the video frame that I missed. But there's a huge
like art gallery, so not like artist sality where people are selling stuff,
but like uh art from fighting game history, like was all like framed and
put up in this like museum next to the fight stick Museum, which they
also have that's like a mark Man pet project, I believe, where like
just fight sticks from throughout the years. It was awesome. When it comes
to work stuff, I did a whole variety of things I did so first
of all, shouts to Tam for like cooking me up with the right people
and like helping me schedule a bunch of appointments. I got to interview and
I, I don't know if we're posting all these interviews on game Spot,
but at least one of them will go up as a text Q and A.
I got to interview Matsumoto from Capcom director on three Fire six, and
I specifically interviewed him about Marl Verus Capcom Fine Collection. I got to interview.
I thought it was gonna be Horada, then turned into Harada and Michael
Murray, and then when I got there it was the techan team on the
other side of a table from I sit down Herada is wearing literally it's a
shirt that's the cover of the Godfather, but it's him, and it's like,
you know, the Godfather. I'm teking, what a cool guy.
So I got to interview yeah, the tech and project crew, and I
got to interview Sean Rivera from Riot about two Xkale. So I got to
talk to a bunch of cool people about their games. I think that all
the interviews went really well. I said, I don't know if we're posting
all of them, but at least I believe the banda namco one should be
going up on Game Spot and Near Future. And I got to get hands
on with NVC collection MK one's new characters, so Takeda and then Pharahz the
cameo and I got to play a bunch of two xcal which, by the
way, uh Jeff and Mike No. I ran into one of our Argentinian
friends just randomly, like our press contact was like, hey, Sean,
do you want to work with like an other press person to get some footage?
Like he's here too, trying to get some footage. I'm like,
yeah, yeah, and they bring them over and you know, this dude
I've never met, and I'm like, oh, where you're from? I
believe it ares And I'm like, what outlet are you from? That just
happened to be Yeah, one Christians Homies. So yeah, that was fantastic.
Yeah, I saw they were there too. Yeah. Again, it
just seems like everyone was an EVO. Yeah, and that's what like the
the video I'm making for here is going to be. Like initially it was
going to be, you know, more traditional travelogue about like the trip itself
kind of and then also covering EVO and like intersportsing the interviews. I'm I
am just in it a little bit to be like I might even call it
what it's like to be at EVO yause I got so much footage of just
like first person stuff. I got a handful of interviews, and yeah,
I just want to put together something that shows people why if you weren't here,
you need to be here, like even just as a casual fan,
Like if you can make your work for you, go with some friends,
you know, split the bill on a bunch of stuff, and if you
make it work for you, it's just fun to go and be in that
environment around so many people. You know, if you've been listening for a
while now, you know when I talk about Combo Breaker, I say the
same thing. It's just cool be in that environment, be the around every
one, and EVO is it's Evo. It's that. But yeah, to
the highest degree, were you happy to be there in not competing or did
part of you miss that? You're like, you know, I would have
liked to practice and get in there and even if I got washed or whatever,
still that would have been great. Or what was it like time because
you weren't competing. I was initially a little bummed that I wasn't competing because,
like, you know, I'm not. I want to be very clear,
I'm not good at fighting games, like yeah, no, just like
in general, I'm a very like average player, Like I usually hover around
like platinum in a gameplaying. I'm not you know, so I'm all right
at whatever game I play. But it's like I'm not I'm probably not beating
anyone at these major tournaments. But even then, I just have fun hanging
out and like watching the matches live, getting to play games early, getting
to hang out with people, just you know, randomly chatting people up or
itsus like we don't know each other, but we have something in common,
so we just talk for like ten minutes because we're both watching Max's stream,
or we're both waiting in line at one of the booths or something like.
It's it's fun to just be there, thankfully for me, like working kind
of replaced competing for me, right, which is you know, that's something
more unique to me. But I think if you're just going as a spectator,
you absolutely can still have incredible time. You'll still be doing stuff too,
you know. There's like I said, you need even just spend all
day in the free play arcade, and that's something you could do. You
know. I've seeing all those clips, specifically in all the tweets about Street
Fighter three and Third Strike, I feel like high out just like in general,
just mugging the camera costantly on stage, like I can't wait to show
you guys the footage of the crowd erupting anytime. Hell yeah, okay.
It's like I feel like s F three was like one of the only times
nineties gaming magazines really let me down because like I love Street Fighter two,
I love Street Fighter four, but you know, when you're a kid,
you have to be really economical with what you're buying and stuff. I was
very much as reviews were the thing, and Street Fighter three came out,
I was so fucking excited for it, and every review was like, it's
not Street Fighter two, most of the characters aren't here, it's not as
good. And so my understanding until a few years ago was that Street Fighter
three sucked. And then like, now this happens, and I see,
like, you know, several people on this call be like, man,
Third Strike kicks ass. This is the perfect game. This is literally made
maybe the best thing ever made. This happened. Why ever, first of
all, the first like two versions of Street Far because you know street Fire
does multiple versions versions of Street Fire three. Uh Street Far three, and
then second impact. Second, we're just not great. They specifically were not
amazing games. They were missing some stuff that people want, just you know,
high level Street Far three. Third Strike is the one where it's like,
Okay, this feels like what we want. This feels like more of
like the natural successor. They tweaked some stuff with like the parrying the way
that worked and know everything like that, but people still didn't like it.
Back in the day, Strike was not a popular game back in the day
because it was people saw it as very technical, as you know my understanding,
I wasn't necessarily not capcom. Well even people don't like that. I
mean, this is back when like Mortal Kombat was the biggest thing and that
was very accessible. There was a lot of people wanting technical showcases. They
want games to look like Moral co. They wanted like, you know,
techan was the hot new thing around. The Fire was still doing well,
especially in Japan. So they look at Street Fire and they're like, Okay,
it's a little old school. It's kind of hard to get into the
Perry system. I can't quite wrap my head around it because like, well
I do something to someone, they just parry it. What's the point?
But that made a very very good competitive game. And what happens with games
over time, the casuals drop off, the competitive scene sticks around, and
that's how we get moments like Evil Moment thirty seven and so we have,
you know, twenty years of pixel art slowly being deprecated by these met Like,
yeah, pixelarts still exists, but it's made by small teams, not
by like the biggest teams with the biggest budgets that can spend all this time
on making the best animation you've ever seen. So it's like, now this
feels precious. It feels like a special thing that we don't get anymore.
You will tell you put work into it like that. You know, they
literally like rotoscopes. Some I forget the scene is, but some dancer like
someone in animation. Yeah, just it looks so as they alert copy you
know, someone's like dance moves or whatever like it. It's just an immaculately
made game and took the competitive scene lashing onto it for us to realize that
it's a broken game. It's hilariously imbalanced, but thanks to the Perry system,
like allowing you to just you know, toss anything off your shoulder,
like, oh yeah, you're using a high level move. If I can
predict it, I'll parry it and I take no damage. And that alone
has caused the game to just develop even now, even to his day,
and you see stuff like what there was like one of the players was like
a young person who was like twenty one years old. He's younger than Third
Strike and he's like playing in Top six. Like that's how good that game
is. This sounds like like an other mediums. It's like you always hear
about like oh, when Predator came out, critics hated it, or like
let Zeppe you know, yeah a group it's fine. Yeah, it just
gets better over time. Okay, cool Sean. I was like haavy this.
I was like, man, I like the Third Strike up was awesome.
But yeah, like that game has been kind of figured out in terms
of the meta for a while now, Like you know, it's a lot
of chun Lee's and kens and yunes. I was, you know, we
always want Third Strike to be there. Gotta be awesome. If we got
like a new rebalance of that game, maybe do things like let you use
the backgrounds from st from New Generation and Double Impact. Yeah, it would
be cool if there was a Street Far three or like a Hyper three Far
three, like the different SF two where you see different versions of the characters
and then like we could maybe ban certain versions because they're way too popular or
whatever. But yeah, I think I think laying Third Strike rock as is
is fine. Sure, it's kind of boring to just see a lot of
chun Lee and Union top eights, top sixes, but you know that's the
game, Like a lot of fighting games have that problem. I do think
Techan has a bit of that issue right now, with a lot of dragon
offs and tops sold. Dragon off did not win the Yeah, well,
tracking off on principal like who beat the dragon olls Arcel and Ash the best
teching player of all time? Like at this point, I don't think there's
any debate. Uh, five time EVO champion just plays basically perfectly every time
he plays the game. That's why I tried to take him out. Yeah,
I don't know Lily Peachu beat, so she might be up there now.
Maybe maybe I asked Harada about that a little bit. Hell yeah,
yeah, oh yeah. I met Jason Finelli while I was there, too.
I met a whole bunch of people. I met a blessing from kind
of yeah great, Yeah that was by the way. Oh yeah, yeah,
trying to make it jell us there a little bit, yep, I
was. Yeah, I met a whole bunch of people, and uh,
it was a really fun time. I know, Dan was asking good questions.
Anybody got any other questions about EVO? I guess I'm just I know
last year we said, you know, I gotta get out there next year.
This year, I really, I hope. I mean that I would
love to be at EVA just looks like so much fun. I mean the
Street Fighter six finals also were super fun. That yeah, those are god.
Cap COM's so back, dude. Like street Fire six was a good
top six where like all the other ones have their issues, especially with like
character mirror matches at people playing kind of busted characters. The street Fire six
is doing really well. It looks so yeah, it's yeah, it looks
so good. How like, how was like that Mars's Capcomb booth. Was
it kind of pop in? Was there a lot of excitement there? I
mean the booth itself was a bit basic. It was basically just you know
how Capcom has those like arcade machines that they built themselves for new games or
like they commissioned out where kind of just looks like, uh, you know,
it kind of just looks like a large like letter a made of of
like white PC or what or whatever it is, and they just have like
a PS five underneath. Like they just had a bunch of those and not
much else at the booth itself. So people, you know, if you
want to play NBC in line, play a check out like Marvel two or
what by the way, collection, it's fantastic, like it just it is
what you expect. It's i will say, almost a little boring because it
just works right. Yeah, it's like, oh that one's kind of like
that too, but yeah, functional, but maybe not quite as spicy as
you. Yeah, this is just how we're going to play NBC two unless
you know, Spiel really want to play on our caboards. But it's like
otherwise, this is how most people are just going to play MBC too.
Now, I was pretty I was a little disappointedly to get an actual release
date for that collection at some point during Evo, but yep, and I
didn't get one either. I asked some fun questions I asked about why is
it not Xbox for example, Like, I asked a few questions about that.
Uh, maybe I'll say that for the those interviews do go up,
you have to check you out. Can you throw them on that? Why
is it this patch version of X Men versus Street Fighter without the wall combos
or whatever? It is? Okay, damn. Now. One thing I
did learn, and this was a learning experience for me, like interviewing people
for the first time professionally is especially if you're working with a Japanese company,
I like learn this ofwfly translation can take a while. Yeah, and when
you have a limited amount of time, you got sort of like, okay,
suddenly I need to pick and choose my questions very specifically. That's true.
Yeah, I definitely done interviews like that. I was like, I'm
gonna maybe get two or three questions in. Yeah, so I gotta be
pretty specific here. You know, something real stupid. A lot of my
question for you, Sean, Yeah, you eat anything fun out there?
I went to Tacos El Gordo, which is like, uh, basically they
Taco Bell two. It's like Taco Bell two, the sequel Electric Boogloo.
So it's like the the home Cell Mexican that I get here where I live.
But it's like it's like fast food style, you know, like you
go up to a line and they just order what you want. But they
do make everything fresh because do literally had like you know, specual Yeah,
strips of steak that is grilling on the grills, Like what you want.
I'm like a you know, you know, three State Tacos, took a
slab, chopped it all up, you know, put it on some fresh
tortillas p on the cilantro and onion and whatever else I want. And yeah,
it's just fresh tacos where I go right down the street from the strip.
Unfortunately, because I was so busy, I didn't get to go as
many places I want. Anyone whoever does, go to Evo Jaolong Dumplings a
little off the strip, spicy soup dumplings that are no shit, maybe the
greatest hand of our tasted. They're so good. All right, we should
the talk about where Dan got married a couple of weeks ago. Also to
a place there called the Blackout, where it's literally a pitch black room,
so the waiters have night vision goggles. What the it's awesome. It's a
seven course meal where it's like you're in a lobby and you sit down and
they bring you into like a red room for your eyes to start adjusting,
and then they're like you have to do the like okay, putting your hands
on shoulders the person in front of you, and they walk you in and
it's I knew it was gonna be dark, but it's literally it's like you
have a blindfold on and so you're eating it's glasses. It's seven courses.
The first one, he's like, all right, you've got a here's we
put a bowl in front of you. It is a little bit wet.
There is a spoon to your right. And I'm like, okay. When
they said it was a little bit wet, I thought it was gonna be
like a buffalo wing. And I was like, I'll just grab this and
I reached my hand in. It was a bowl of carrot soup. I
put my hand in a bowl of carrot soup. But it's a good gimmick.
It works. It's just so much. I would be so anxious.
I'd be miserable. I wanted too. I ate stuff that like it was
like very male based and stuff that I probably would not have if I could
have seen it. When I was asking people more familiar, like one of
the good eats in Vegas, they kept recommending stuff like that. I'm like,
no, I'm not that kind of guy. I I got. I
got tacos and drink for twenty bucks in Vegas. I'm happy give me gimmicks
I wanted. I'm wanted the problem tourists. So I just went to good
to all the celebrity chef restaurants, which good. Yeah, there's nothing wrong
with that. It used to be I'll be flay one in this somewhere.
It was he's better than other people. Very good, very good, Well,
Sean, I'm I'm happy to hear that your trip was very fun and
successful. We're going to take a quick bricky break, actually, and then
we're just going to combine the games and the news quick Seggie. Right after
this bricky break, I want to go to the face so bad. This
apparently is a podcast about video games and not miscellaneous vacations, So I guess
we're legally obligated to now talk about video games. I'm steering the ship so
I can talk about where the funk I want to talk about. Sorry for
the cussing today, I'm feeling very spicy. I'm a little I was telling
my partner that, like Yo, I have to find japan Jam here because
I found Jam and then there's like Barber Jam, there's me Jam. Now
I have to find Japan Jam. It was not successful. Five days isn't
enough anyway. The one game that I played was the New York Times Mini
Crosswords. Yeah, look, you took a flight that long and you didn't
have more games than Crosswords. Dan you were in that meeting where I said
the flight back, I just raw dogged the flight. Wait you did the
thing where you just looked at the map. I just looked at the map
and I just stared in front of me the whole time. Nine hours wait
for Japan. Yeah you what you really did? Yeah? Yeah? Way
work stronger man than me. This is the thing now, is what all
the strong silent types are doing. How Like I was bored out of my
mind and I fell asleep because I was sleep deprived. Like how it was
a four hour flight? What hang on? I want I want this big
you're painted here, Jane. Did you have earbuds in? No, so
you weren't listen to anything. Did you have anything in your hands? I
had my phone occasionally looking at the time. Okay, did you have the
trade down? No? Did you eat anything they had? We we bought
a meal? Yeah, okay, Okay. How long was the middle seat?
Oh? Okay, it could be bad. But is it like was
it a Dreamliner or like a was a eighth No. Seven eighty seven or
something. I don't know the model of the plane. It was an older
plane because we flew zip Air, which is a cheaper Uh, probably sixty
seven. You were describing a legitimate nightmare for me. Well, okay,
my partner had the window seat so I could lean if I needed to.
But then there was a quite tall, hairy gentleman to the right of me
that kept leaning on me as I had to like push them over. Sure,
And yeah, just stared in front of me, just thought about everything
the whole time. Did you pee? Yeah, I got up in peede
like once or twice. Did you poop? No, Okay, I don't
like an airplane, not a lot, but I've yeah, I have,
Like if the flight like to Narita, Yeah, yeah, I don't think
I can. I don't. I think my body's like no, no,
we're shutting here down. For sure. That's normally what happens. Yes,
that normally my body shuts that stuff down. This is like reactively like meditating
or you is there anything. That's why people say that Brad Dogg in the
flight is it's like they're staring at the map and it becomes meditative. That's
a lot. I meditate every day. That's a long time to meditate.
I would just like go through like periods of my life and just try and
track like all the mistakes you mad, yeah or grub I was. I
was being nice to myself all the winds I've had. Hell yeah, that's
it. I was like good shober yeah, And I thought like, oh
yeah, I like where I'm at in like this is great, it's cool.
It's played the many once a day. Were you talking? No,
my partner fell asleep, so that would be me. I'm the person if
I sleep on the window seat, that's my move every time I cannot fall
asleep. But like I I've got overseas flights, a couple of them coming
up in the next month, and like I highly do I'm trying to,
like Red Eye, I'm trying to figure out how to sleep, but I
just don't. Even even with the like pull reclient thing, I can't do
it. A drama mean and you know whatever else I am drunk. Yeah,
don't get d I did. Uh. I did a xan X on
the flight, just like a small little one, and it's like, oh,
this actually works, this is actually I didn't sleep, but I like
was not having a panic attack for the entire duration of flight. So take
a next and a drama me and I feel like, look, I'm not
making any promises. But you'll be pretty sleepy feel out. Okay, Okay,
I guess I don't know why I did it. I had stuff downloaded
on my phone, I had my headphones charged. I just yeah, an
I don't get on a plane without a switch, a steam deck and an
analog, you know, all loaded up on like six different new games and
plans for like, Okay, I win to wake her over here. I
got this over here. I haven't like I have to have a full plan
for like a fucking hour of flight to Kansas City. I was loaded up
with like a million games. I cannot imagine what you did. I respected
I wouldn't I enjoy that stuff. I'm excited to have the time to do
that, but I don't like, I don't need it. Sometimes I do
just like zone out for a while. Anyway. Yeah, I play that
the New York Times Mini and it hurts me inside that my coworkers are better
than me. Yeah, I'm I'm almost always the worst, and I'm I'm
gonna tru me to ADHD processing issues. I got some more excuses. Let
me think it's you and me grub at the at the bottom of the leader
board all the time. We're usually better than back Allard, though I'll take
that. I also have unreasonable competition in Lucy, who is just a god,
literal god. I don't understand it. Can you do this in a
browser? Yes? What do? I go to Google New York Times NYT
games and it's the mini I did today's and then I'll get Yeah, yes,
you're gonna have to like share a link to like get friends added to
your leaderboard and stuff. I'll can I just play without an account right now
and see how fast it is? Yep? I think so? Yeah,
and everyone has the same one every day? Yeh, yes, Okay,
here we go. Uh food that fills both blanks of uh what piece of
cake? P I E? Pie? Okay? Why display five letters?
I don't know, quintessentially boring color beige? Beige? Yeah, if it's
paint? Is that good founder of Amazon Bezos? This is gonna type of
beer hail? Maybe game show contestants hope a prize? Oh? This is
fun? Othello, I don't know, they're never opened. Twenty four seven
Shakespeare play help me, Mama me? A group is abba? Film school
is real? Four across wide display? You got it? What is it?
Air? A are are whye display air row you have all those letters?
You got it? Come on right there, right display air wide.
Don't tell me our you got a roses rice and Spanish? What what the
fuck is a r R? Okay, I don't know that two down is
a fellow vision villain. I don't know what the fuck othellow is it's I
blank geo? Three down? Is there? Never opened? Twenty four seven?
E blank E s. I'm stumped. G Dan add us on the
leaderboard immediately, So I have to break on a New York Times accounts.
Probably if you're on your phone, you probably just have one. Right,
Oh, okay, what's what's the wide display? Iago is the fellow villain?
That's they're never they're never opened twenty four seven playing music eyes? Is
that? Then? Is Iago the one that he has to do the pound
of flesh at the end? Or is that he's the one that you could
kill early and if you don't then he can help you with bail the dread?
Yeah? Wow, okay, I need to add all of you on
this, Okay, I like, just post the link it gives you,
post it in the in the slack. Don't add Lucy and don't don't have
really don't let her. Yes, because so the thing is, I added
Bailey Bailey and Lucy's times they're like neck and neck. Yes, I've never
felt dumber. Yeah, I think I don't think women should be allowed to
play games crowd with certain people. Anyway. That's that's the only game I've
played, The New York Times City, I suggest every I'm in an account.
No World Championship City. Yes, that is pretty good. Issues,
yes, okay, well yeah, I okay. Well, first of all,
you've you've submitted some scores. I've got three seconds in the worlds in
one person in the world. I think most of those are ties, but
that's what I've got. How are you doing on speed run dot Com?
There? Yeah, I I got a cup I haven't like done all of
those that like have a kind of a gridlock at number one. I'll get
in there. I'll try those. But I got a couple that are pretty
I'm pretty happy with their number twos and number threes and things like that.
The reason we're using speed run dot Com. Yes, there is no real
in game leaderboard. I know. We say that, and then then I
posted the screenshot of leaderboard. That's the week leader leaderboard for individual challenges in
the World Championship mode, even those suck well they okay they are, but
even those suckers, I can't scroll, can you? And you can't scroll?
There is no friends leaderboard. There is just global and it shows you
where you rank with like ten people, although to be fair, I did
see Mike four behind me on one of them, which is pretty funny.
And then there's your birth year leaderboard, which, hey, it's fun that
I was number one in a couple for my birth year, but that is
it's still not I want to I want my friends. I just want to
see what my friends are doing. That's a matter like that. We assumed
it would be on Why would we assume this it's Nintendo, But like I
think we assume, oh, it's a speed Run focus. It's gonna be
like, you know, every levels gonna have a little leader board, and
then then we'll probably have a thing where all of the matter together, the
cumulative thing that Astro did, which is so smart. No, none of
that ship so Speedrun dot Com to the Rescue. I mean, it's not
It sucks in a way because like what a fraction of a fraction of a
percent of people that play this game are going to actually have an account and
upload. I think we can rely on whoever really is the fastest probably will
be uploading the speed run. But beyond that, who knows, Yes,
so you gotta rely on that, which I do like that site. I
mean they're really good at like punch Out and Quackshot and stuff that They're fantastic.
It's cool to have an account with, Like now I have multiple runs
across push Out in this and stuff. Yeah yeah, And it's it's interesting
because like there is one person that's submitted a full game run of the game,
which I guess is just playing all of the ones. Yeah, it's
took like an hour or something, but yeah, they're technically level runs.
So it's right here in game timer, right, Okay, I'm like figured
that out, all right, yeah, which is why I like punch Out
would do that where it's like you just see the timer of the fight and
add that up instead of a real time attack, which is like stop Watch.
You know, right, what was I seeing that? Grub You're the
best forty one year old? Yeah, so okay, so there, so
there, here's how the game is set up. It is World champ Ship
and that they're like focusing on it. There's a party mode, but when
you're playing single player, there is a speed run mode, which is essentially
a practice mode, so much so that you have a little window on the
left side that is your current run that you're doing, and on the right
side it shows your personal best time, so you could compare and contrast while
you're playing, which I've done a little bit. Most of the time.
It's just kind of over there and I'm ignoring it. Then there is the
World Championship mode, which is each week they are going to pick five of
those speed run events and then everyone in the world's supposed to compete in those,
and you don't see a leaderboard while you're competing. You just keep trying
to get your best time. And then at Monday at five am, which
maybe I played until the other night with Mike Manatti on Twitch might have cost
a rough Monday for both of us. At that time, the games to
shut down. They have new games and they're like tabulating results. In an
hour later, they post leaderboards for your global time in each of those events,
and then your birth year of ranking, so everyone that was born that
year will be put up against one another's and that's those are the only leaderboards,
and they're like Dan said, there's no cumulative one where it's like here's
how you did it, Like for the entire World Championship, it's just those
five events. So it's I'm glad those are at least there, but it's
that side of this game is still a disappointment. Everything else is kind of
really well done. I think they really have nailed like people were seeing this
and not playing it and seeing a damn leaderboards. Like Nintendo doesn't understand speed
running. No, they understand all. They got everything right about it.
Like the input map button so you can see what people are doing on the
controller is basically like wholesale stolen from speed running software. They are very key
in on this stuff, and they they just make choices to scale it back
for whatever reason and showing the ghost image of like your your best run.
So it's like with something like some of them, if it's like a four
second one, you're not looking over there. You just can't in that amount
of time. But some of them are longer, so it's like okay,
the Zelda two one where I have to run across a bridge, I can
kind of glance over and see like, oh, okay, I got past
the power up brag on this one, so I'm actually tracking ahead of myself
right now, Like that's kind of helpful. Yeah, I was doing it,
and I was trying to figure out the quick start on Super Mario Brothers
one. Oh gosh, one, I look that up. That's wacky.
What is that? So you have to like look the other way and jump
back or something. I think you're trying to get like a little left like
sort of hook and then you would immediately start going right. But someone was
able to do it like where they they're looking left and then they're jumping right,
and then they do another longer backwards facing like back jump, and that
gets them so much more speed than they have the world record. I can't
figure it out, but I was watching. I'm like trying to figure out.
I did it a couple times, and I could tell because I did
go to the speed run mode and I could see that when I got to
the one or the pipe that you can go down into, I was falling
off of that one a fraction of a second faster than the other one.
And I can kind of keep that in the side of my eye. It
would still be better if there was a ghost in the level itself or have
the option for that. But still they have these things in the game and
it's pretty good. It is fascinating because like a lot of these games.
Look, I am the right age to have played a ton of these games,
and you know, feel like I kind of know them in and out.
But then it's like, you know, all of a sudden talking about
metroids platforming in a way that I have never thought of before, where it's
like and then I'm watching videos like wait, why is he aiming his gun
up when he falls? Does that change the ball speed or something? Or
Mario two where we were talking it's like, how did he keep his speed
coming out of that pipe? Is like, oh, if you hold jump
coming out of a pipe, you'll keep your run speed and just oh fall
slower. And it's like I like watching these videos and real and then I'm
like going to play the game and I'm like, oh my god, and
I played Supermarde Brothers do so much, so much to the point where it's
like this is how I would play the game to entertain myself when as a
kid, I would like play as Luigi trying to jump on the buzzos or
whatever those enemies are called, trying to like kind of just have fun little
challenges. So the idea that that's one of the first challenges in the game,
I'm like, it's made for me. They nailed this up, and
they fully understand what these games are and know how to make good challenges.
But then then to have those moments where I'm playing so much and putting two
and two together and realizing new things about these games, it's pretty magical.
It's pretty amazing. Youre's the beauty of speed running is like, you know,
when I played Mike Tyson's fund Out a billion times before I started with
speed running it and then you learn all these things about how the game actually
functions and everything, and just fundamentally changes the way you approach fights and the
way you play the game. You know, like quack Shot and stuff.
Play that a whole bunch growing up, and like now it's like, if
I play now, I'm going to shoot a plunger every time I jump because
I know X and Y or whatever because I've speed run the game. It
really does give so much new life to these games you've played a million times,
which again I don't need to play Mario three or Zelda again. You
know, I probably will for the rest of my life. But like it's
fun to do it with like a different purpose for it, you know,
and to have it like presented in this way where it is here is a
five second challenge, Yes, do that as fast as you can, and
then it builds. It sort of goes up and down and like here's like
a thirty second challenge, here's another five to one, here's one that's like
literally two seconds, and then maybe the legendary challenge will be beat the entirety
of Super Mario Brothers One. And I'm like, hell yeah, I've been
doing all these things, building up all these these skills, and now I
can use it to actually just straight up speed run Super Mario Brothers One in
Nintendo World Championships and it was great. I'm like, I want to do
more of that, so I just it was done. It was great,
like getting really into the weeds, like like that Metroid one was the one
I spent the most time grinding, where it is just one of those like
vertical corridors and you're just jumping up it. I saw a video where somebody
got like the one Crawler Enemy that crawls around the whole platform. He was
going, yeah, like normally does it counterclockwise, so he's kind of in
your way. You kind of have to like wait a bit to jump around
him. Then I saw like somebody has a really good time. Wait why
is it going clockwise? So he has a much cleaner jump there, and
I was like, how is this happening? Yeah? If finally like people
are like, oh, like you have to make one enemy scroll off the
screen when he's facing to the right instead of the left, And I'm like
why is that? What the term is that? But it is and just
like learning all these weird little like behind the codes, like it's the neo
and the matrix moment, you're like seeing the code and manipulating it. It's
incredible. And that's what's good about speed running now. It's it's also the
right speed of like you can there is a quick reset. You just hit
to ZR and ZL and it very quickly goes back. You get a three
timer and it's like just long enough to kind of get your bearings again and
then get started, so like it never feels like it's like I got len
R for the quick restart. People are because there's the z r N.
We'll take you back to the menu. I learned that very long. I'm
sorry, what wait, there's one that you don't have to do the menu
part? Yeah? Oh really, just put right now, push the shoulder,
let me coop a hang on. I thought this three hundred times in
the last twelve hours. It just restarts. That's what you were saying.
No, I was saying this one. Yeah, I didn't know about this
one. Oh that changes. I've been laying in the hotel bad the entire
weekend doing the slow way, and you know what that does. It does
kind of make it kind of crack cocaine at that point, because you could
just mainline, oh, this is gonna be potent. Oh, Jeff and
I literally could not stop. We like, you know that we're streaming like
at the same time, and Jeff came, I was like, we'll do
this for half an hour. Wed like three or four hours, because I
streamed from one to five am so much of what's just betroit Nes And it's
like, you think that would be maddening. I'm like that just like the
way metroid feelings. Yeah, well that's the thing. Like I'm like,
I never cared about Balloon Fight. I just got through all the Balloon Fight
challenges, s ranked all of them, and the last one again is like
beat these three stages back to back and they show that they do a really
cool thing. For the last, the Legendary challenge, where it is these
longer ones, has a classified information button that has like a strategy guy that
shows you some like really key things that you need to know, and it's
so well presented. I love that. But I'm like, I got good
at Balloon Fight. That's something I never thought I would do or care about.
So let's talk about that, because I feel like the lens of like,
you know, we all the old guys here, we grew up with
the nes and I feel like you see certain games like, oh, these
are all classics, and then when you play them again, it's like,
oh, maybe not as much. So let's it's a short list. I
wish I was hoping they'd be punch Out and make a Man and all this
stuff they didn't really go with. Third any hope in your heart that they
might update this game with new games like that, It would make me very
happy. I would be ecstatic. Yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not getting
my hopes up. All right, so there's like twelve or thirty whatever.
Let's let's see just real quick if we feel these are underrated or overrated or
correctly rated based on playing now Balloon Fight. I've always like Balloon Fight.
I think it's a little underrated. I think it's underrated now after getting it's
like, and it's a challenging input mechanic of you only can really move if
you are flapping your arms, but if you're flapping your arms, you're going
up and getting height and you have to sort of predict it, and it's
it's got to be infuriating to anyone picking up the controllers immediately. But now
I'm like, kind of it might be their most with it derivative game because
it is just joust, right, It's just yeah, yeah, it's fine,
okay, donkey Kong. I feel like it's still really fucking good.
Yeah, yeah, still great. That a lot of this game actually yeah,
yes, I'm always excited with because there's somewhere I feel like, I'm
just like, I got to play another fucking Ice Climber level. Like I
don't like Ice Climber. I never, I didn't like it as a kid.
I don't like it now, Yeah, you're right, balle fights are
I think the marios are all exactly where they should be. They're all everyone
knows, they're unders incredible. The one I've never fucking understood Kirby. I've
never heard about the Kirby platformers. Good. I don't Kirby. I don't.
It's weird hitting up to float like it's just like just this one and
some of them are jumped to float. But yeah, I like the character
of Kirby. I like that he exists. I like him in other games.
But the actual platformers, I feel like they're all just very slow and
clunky. And now I inhale and now that button. Yeah, you're hitting
the dash. It's like a whole beach to run. I want to a
mechanic that I like. Whenever I get that, I'm very excited. You
can never tell Mike and I that game that he likes to slow and clunky.
You can never you are talking one. Yeah, uh no, maybe
me and you could play uh Kirby Superstars someday co op and maybe I'll win
you over at it. I just it's also one I never played as a
kid, and none of my friends had it. It's like there were the
games that everyone had like excite bikes on here, every fucking person I knew,
including myself, excite bike playing it. Now, I don't think excite
bikes that good. Oh I think that one's underrated now because that was Yeah,
I might be dan on that because I was like, I was getting
the hang of, like of landing perfectly on these jumps and it's like,
oh, this is really skill intensive, and I was. I was vibing
with that. It is the big jumps around those are fun, but then
they're the ones where was like, here's six in a row and you're like
it's very annoying. Yeah, I was just yeah, I was getting in
the flow of it, and so yeah, I was like, oh,
I think I like it more time. I thought you spend more time with
stupping. But even as a kid, like I had excited, but I
don't ever really quite got it. Say I would like make a course and
be like I didn't really why why did I do this? And we all
agree, kidd Chris has always sucked. Yeah, I'm kind of like because
like that's the big harder challenge for this week's thing is like, yeah,
I play a lot of kids, I'm like, rather, would it rather?
Yeah, it's slippery, it's I don't know. The jump is like
there is no half jump, so you always you always hit your head on
one of those parts, and I'm like, this sucks. I hate down
hearts, but the hearts aren't health and only Castlevania can get away with that
that you can't stand where he stood? Yeah, kids like I always like,
because that's one where I never really played as a kid. So I
went back to it like way later and I'm like, I don't know about
this one. Actually I would play at friend's house and be like this,
I never liked. That. Sounds like a BCR segment rated overrated, properly
rated, underrated. Yeah, I like that. So have you done all
the challenges this week for the Oh yeah yeah, I thought them all once
at least underrated by one twenty two point zero eight in Kittris thing, Okay,
I'm not. I have not grinded that one out yet. There's that
one once this week. I did that one because kittic Ris is one of
the first ones I cleared out because I'm kind of doing the thing where it's
like I want to finish my vegetables first, So I'm like, beaten the
ones I don't love so much first, and so I practiced that one a
lot. Then it's when I got to hear I'm like, I'll just do
it while it's still mostly fresh. Well, have Donkey Kong twenty one point
three to one? I got twenty one point five. Okay, I think
I gotta go until I get some good rng G in that one. Have
you guys been kind of fantasy booking like some of the games that aren't in
here, Like I've been thinking like what would the Mega Man two challenges be?
What the Pennsylvania one Challenges be? That's the thing on the setting thing
you can fucking change. Like there's this giant list of games and it's like
what's your favorite NS game? And it's got like all of them things.
It's like, I was surprised to see Mike Tyson's name one I thought wouldn't
be in there. I'm like, they won't put Mike Tyson's name ww F
is on this first art game. Just even seeing it is weird, Like
we're looking of this list is like Ointstones games are on there, like Mega
Man. That's the first thing I think of too. It's like three Super
dodge Ball, a number of great as games. That was I like tripping
out. Could you like change some of the in game assets and some of
the stuff, because I thought I saw people having cheap cheaps and Super Mario
Brothers two in that thing and instead of the things. But maybe it was
a weird nightmare. I had nightmares in Colorado night Okay, that makes more
sense. It's more like, oh my god, I can't believe that quick
researt thing. I'm seriously thousands thousands of research over the last several days.
I did not know you could quick restart and stronger. Yeah, I know,
but they said z L and ZR to to restart and I did that,
and I immediate was like, let me just try this, and I
did it right away. And then I'm like, oh, okay, fantastic.
But then you never say it anywhere. It's kind of messed up.
Also, I bought the special edition of this, and it's a pretty solid
one. It's got it's got the gold cartridge. Did you open it or
do you keep it in that? I opened it. I got my gold
cartridge. I shift here, it's gotta go stand for it with the Nintendo
logo. So it's a sharp good pens cover arts. Yeah, it's good.
It's good. I like, yeah the pen said is good. Yeah,
I like pens. Yeah, big pin guy. Did you get the
Mario ones from the Mario thirty fifth anniversary which was like those are awesome.
Yeah. There's a local multiplayer mode in this yeah. Yes, at some
point Dan, Jeff and I might be together and we might be able to
try that out. We hope soon. Yes, it does seem more like
a party mode party. Yeah. Yeah, I found that there's a survival
mode you can do online. That's the right exactly. Yeah, that's right.
Which kind of online? I mean it's a synchronous. It's people's ghosts,
so it's like, okay, so people and so it's really frustrated.
What they do is in the the easy mode. There's two modes like Silver
and gold or whatever they're called. Yeah, Silver division, Gold division.
Silver division is always the easier challenges from this week's World Championship, and I
think they give you easier ghost data. Then the Gold division is the harder
challenges and you get more difficult ghost data because you'll get people who are s
ranking every single time, and that is I've beaten that mode once and I
don't know if I'll play it again. Okay, that fucking explains it.
Because I was on some of the longer challenges. It's like oh, eight
people and it's like a battle Royal style or whatever, and I would finish
it and I would let's say I got furst and I would hit a to
do the next one. It would take me right there. Wait, they're
still playing. We gotta wait for them. But yeah, I mean you
know why they did that, right, if you had active multiplayer if that
requires net code, but if you just did ghost data, that's just a
replay. Yeah, and then it's like implement right. They had the you
know, simultaneous multiplayer in Super Mario Maker two and stuff like that, and
it didn't work great, But it's like I do it better, Just do
that, but better. That's what it's so frustrating, because like there is
I love playing this game, I really do, and you know, it's
just it's obviously scratching such an itch for me, and just like this,
the small little things, and it's things that I keep assuming that they were
just going to do, like the leader boards or every single challenge. Why
not or like the weekly challenge having an accumulative score. Again, why not?
It's it's fine that I could see my personal best on a separate screen,
but even that, it's like, why isn't that not just actual ghost
data? And why can't I get anybody's ghost data? Why can't I see
the first place ghost data in all happen with Xbox Live Arcade game since like
two thousand and seven. Well, question, did you guys buy it?
Yeah? Look, okay, that's why it is the problem. No,
I'm saying I'm again, like we talked about Game as Mornings, Jeff,
I'm a Pokemon fan. I'm a sucker too. Yeah, but that's why
they're not doing it, because it's a low budget thing that they're putting out
that everyone's gonna buy. Anyways, who wanted to buy it? I could
see like the difference in like millions of dollars between making Scarlet and Violet like
a better game than it was. But this it's like leaderboards. Come on,
you have leaderboard technology in the games. Yeah, that's the one weird
one because they clearly have the data already and you're you actually got to something
in the speed run mode that doesn't seem to have any actual online features whatsoever.
So what is that connecting to. I bet they're keeping your your your
speed run times. I'm hoping they just update this up up comes and they'll
be like, hey, now we're adding leaderboards to everything. I'm seeing the
leaderboard thing as a specific design decision because they might be the Nintendo World Championships.
They want to be you submitting your score at the end of the tournament
like you do back in the day. That I think was a design to
clearly, I just yeah, just don't agree with I think everything else was.
We're cutting corners, yep, yeah, only six challenges for ice clamoring.
Must do that, that's all you need. I'm glad they know the
ones where it's like, okay, here's a billion Mario three one, okay,
thank you. Yes, yeah, I had no idea what ice Comors
even was until they put those characters in Melee and I remember you, like,
wow, there's a Nintendo and yes, can I even know about I
can't wait to go to Funk, go in and buy it. And then
I did and got home like, eh, sounds like you guys are having
a good time in this and you're going to continue to have a good time.
Perhaps we'll place some on the website. Yeah, you guys want to
play some tomorrow, maybe after game this morning. Well, yeah, I
think it'd be fun to try to see that one to one legendary challenge.
But we could try a bunch of other stuff anytime these three get into speed
running, you know, like the Neon white stuff and everything like that.
Maybe it makes me think maybe we should finally do a certain feature where you
guys learn how to speed run a certain game. Awesome, Oh, Mary,
I do. I very much want to do that. But also we
got Astro coming up soon, we got Yeah, but Sean, you also
talked about your time in Las Vegas, and I want to hear a little
bit more about two x KO. Yeah. Two x Ko a name that
just rolls right off the tongue. Still, so everything I played at EVA,
Like, you know, I talked about the NVC collection. You know,
it's kind of what you expect. It is a nice package they got,
you know, some cool artwork in there and everything, but otherwise it's
what you expect with Mortal Kombat. I'm not an m K one kind of
guy, so I'm maybe not the best person I talked to you about why
I did play of Taketa and Faarah other than Takeda feels to me like he
did an MKX, so I had fun with him because that's the last time
I played him. But two x yo. This is a game that people
don't know a ton about, so I thought it would be interesting to talk
about, especially after Dan mentioned sort of not being necessarily huge into the competitive
side of fine games, playing them a little more casually. So I got
to play to x Kale for a decent amount of time. I got a
hands on with Brahm, the new champion that they're adding from Legual Legends,
Big Burley Dude, Giant Shield, ice themed. He's really interesting, like
you can at the end of some of his combos you can apply this like
ice buff to him that gives him armor on his moves. He's a really
fun character. And just I got to play to x Kale for the first
time. Let me see, was he yeah evo last year when it was
project out, So I played, then, I played at Combo Breaker.
I play it now and I do think the game is like slowly progressing along
in a positive way. I'm enjoying every time I play the characters. So
I'm curious how much you guys know. I kind of want to, like
quizz you guys a little bit about how much you know about, say,
the input system in the game, and if that's appealing to you at all.
How much do you guys know? I know it's simplified because I played
that weird fighting game that the company that Robot fighters Thunder. Yes, I
remember playing Rising Thunder for games Beat way back when and even interviewing what's his
name? Can you still play that? Because it was only ever. I
think they may have done a community version. They may have. I don't
remember, Yeah, but so you know, I yeah, and I remember
that. That was the whole point. It's like, oh no, these
uh you know, a lot of people can't do corper circle punch input things.
We're going to simplify, and we're seeing a lot of other fighting games
basically implement similar systems in one way or another. It's interesting to have a
game that's entirely built yah sef killing and if it's Seth killing about that because
it was his company. Then Riot acquired it and they've been working on this
since then. It's been a while. Yeah, So yeah, if anyone
doesn't know. You basically do smash style inputs for all the inputs in the
game, so it's you know, uh, a move will just be like
forward plus special and that'll be a move, or they'll just do down plus
punch. It won't be like a core circle or the emotion or anything.
And the more I play it, the more it's interesting. There's a balance
of there does seem to be a lot of surface level flashy stuff that they're
putting into get people into the game, Like you can just always do auto
combos combos and you'll get like a prety basic combo, but then you know
they're trying to reach out to the hardcore audience by having you do manual combos
where they can do you know, live, medium, heavy, special and
then maybe end with something else. I think it feels really good to play.
It's looking good. They do small tweaks every time I play it,
and they keep adding new characters like that I got to play Brahm and other
Thing's coming together really well. I think something that talked to to Sean about
in our interview was that one of the design processes on this is that it
being a League of Legends Fighter sort of a riots theory on a lot of
their games apparently is that they just want people playing together, and that was
part of the inspiration for bringing to XKO from a one v one to a
two v two tag team because they do it where you can play duos in
a fighting game. You can play you and your friend versus you know,
one other person or against two other people. And the way he was describing
is just like in Legal Legends, where you can have like, you know,
your buddy's the tank and then you are doing damage. They want to
have similar situations to that in two XKO. Yeah, so like when we
were playing, I was playing with Jeremias, I was playing Brahms, so
I was like the tank and I was trying to like back him up while
he was doing damage with like say Ari or someone. And so once I
realized that's what they were going for, and they want like that synergy between
you and your friend or even if it's you on your own and you're just
calling in the R person manually, I think that's going to lead to some
very interesting situations and I'm excited to see, like if EVO gets say,
I don't know how they're gonna handle that is, it just can be open
bracket and like anyone can enter either as a solo or duo, or they
gonna do duos only in a separate bracket. I don't know how they're gonna
handle it. I assume I would love to see it if, like you
know, Evil Grand Finals is like one person who's really good at the game,
and then two people who maybe aren't quite as good but work really well
as a team, and they go head to head. I think that would
be amazing. Yeah, I think that would be a really awesome thing to
see on stage, and they should have a tag belt for that though.
Yeah. Yeah, game continues to feel really good, and I'm feeling good
about two XG. I was a little worried that, like with the auto
combos, not as much simple inputs. I think simple inputs are fine,
but playing controls, yeah, well controls. The emphasis on bun matching a
little bit may have gotten a little tiring. But no, I do see
that there are stronger combo pads. One of the developers did come over and
help us with a lot of that stuff, and they were showing us,
oh yeah, yeah, like the autoc combo gets union like four solid hits
decent amount damage, but let me show you a manual combo and was basically
doing a Marvel style combo that went on for a good while and did a
solid chunk of damage. I'm like, okay, there there is depth here.
I have confidence that they are balancing these two things well. And yeah,
to scale it continues to feel really good. I think, well,
going from something that feels good to something that feels kind of questionable. We
chatted last Friday or two fridays ago about our feelings on Concord. Mike Minati,
you play a lot of Overwatch. How do you feel about Concord?
Yeah, so, I because the open beta happened this last week, and
I did want to go in there and try it out because I did like
Overwatch a lot. I kind of fell off a bit into Overwatch too,
Like I imagine a lot of people, it seems like, you know,
the first impression is just kind of like, I don't find these characters quite
as appealing, right. It's you know, I do think that Guardians of
the Galaxy comparison is apt up because it is that more it is that sci
fi, but you know, it's like the realistic face Madels right where it's
like Overwatches doing things like everyone has kind of bigger eyes so that they look
like a little bit more like babies. So you kind of find them.
You know, you're your your your natural instincts kicks and you're like, I
must protect these people, right, especially right especially, Yeah, Reaper's got
the biggest baby eyes of the mall for sure. But you know there is
there's a style there, and here it is. You know, it's obviously
very fanciful and it's sci fi, uh, but you know it's it.
You look at a person's face like it's just kind of a real person's face
and they put some tendrils on it, that kind of thing. So you
know, the characters. I wasn't doing a lot for me, but I
was playing the game like, okay, this is fun, especially when I
got to a point where I unlocked basically the counter strike mode. Because even
though like every character has abilities and that's very Overwatch, ye, the time
to kill is there's ultimate there's no ultimates, which I I kind of I'm
not like, yes, I think that's fine. I know people are like
it feels like you're not building towards something, but it changes things. So
all I'm saying, but yeah, keep going. Yeah, I think over
I think ultimately kind of became a problem. And Overwatch eventually, like ault
economy is such a big important part of that game that eventually, when you
play that game a lot, it does get a little bit boring, like,
oh, I guess we lose this push because that team had three ultimates
and they use them. Okay, great, like any comeback mechanic. It
just got to be too much. It got to be a little much like
I would like it if Overwatch couldn't emphasize them in some ways. It's hard
because it's such a important part of the DNA. But if I was making
a new game like that, I think I wouldn't have It's also I think
I'd be like, no, I think that those are kind of problem or
maybe if I did, they'd be way less powerful or you know, not
something that is a team wipe if you use it correctly. I get it.
It's like a hype moment all stuff. So that's fine, But I
like the kind of longer time to kill people said, you know, it's
like you have Overwatch felt a little bit more like a Halo or a Destiny
kind of thing. And I do get that reasoning. The kind of counter
Strike that I eventually unlocked was actually my favorite, and it is like it
was basically like plant the bomb, kind of like Encounter Strike, except the
bomb was in the middle and either team could take it and it doesn't when
you die yet to wait for the next round. But also, if you
win a round it's like a best to get three or something like that,
you then can't play as the hero you won that round with next time.
It's like, oh, okay, so this is like a neat way to
kind of make me bounce around, and I need to have at least like
four heroes or whatever. That the squad builder mechanic, which I don't know
if you messed around with, you can build your own You can build your
own roster of characters and your reserves, and you can have like different variants
of each of the characters that might have different passive abilities, and if you
want to go from one of them to the next, you can play as
the same character, but you have to have them as one of the slots
or something like that. Okay, So I didn't really mess around with that
because I was like, what is that? That's scary? I'm just y
playing exactly and it's like that's good. That's the kind of stuff that will
matter a few, like a month into the game, not so much when
people are first just like taste testing it, right, but you know,
you know, like there was a lot a lot of characters and not everything
clipped with me. Like at first, I wanted to play the big robot
because it's fun and his whole thing is like, oh, he has kind
of like the Luigi's mentioned vacuum and you can kind of vacuum up bullets.
But the feedback on it wasn't great. It kind of feel good. I
was like, I'm like, this is working, is it? Maybe?
I guess they're just shooting my feet like it doesn't like this sucks. Yeah,
it's weird. It's kind of like how Zario works in Overwatch, but
it feels odd that the visual indicator is sucktion. I don't know something right.
So there's like a few things like that where things just going a requit
as well as it could. But you know, like I was having enough
fun. I was enjoying it enough. I will say that, like right
afterwards, I did like pop into Overwatch shoo because they have a new character
called Juno, and again it's like what I'm talking about. I'm like,
oh, this character looks so awesome. It's like this eighties like like sci
fi like cartoon anime aesthetic. I was at me, like, I must
protect her. She supports, So I went in there and just was immediately
playing some games of hers. She has like little jet pack things you can
kind of hover around, and she she shoots her friends to heal them,
which is always a fun mechanic. And I was just like, oh,
even with like all the complaining I do about Overwatch these days, this is
still better. I still like this more more appealing and stuff like that.
And maybe it's just as a comfy, cozy factor there too, So you
know, it's like I I liked Concord more than I thought I would,
and it's still is just a tough, uphill battle for that game. Yep.
Yeah, yeah, I really wanted to like it because I've been craving
an Overwatch. Like, but maybe he'll just go download Overwatch too, Maybe
we'll play some more Overwatch again. Yeah that I am excited though about the
Marvel Rivals beta. Uh yeah we should try that. Yeah, I will
say like that's like that one is funny because every time I watched people play,
like, oh this is really overwatched that they have the same UI,
they have the same art style. I'm like, okay, yeah, I'm
I'm curious for Mike though. The conclusion we came to when we talked about
in those initial impressions, which you know, we were hot off of some
like issues with the game and every thing. So we're writing levels of I'm
mostly overall negative on the game, I'm curious what you think of just sort
of why do this now, like because like it, I know people want
like competition in various spaces, and sure there's room for different things in different
genres. But this made me think a little bit about like how the term
moba. People are like, yeah, Moba is a genre. I'm like,
is it really though? Or is it mostly legal legits and Dota and
everyone tried to copy them. I kind of feel that about Hero Shooter right
now, and like Concords like we're a Hero Shooter. It's like, or
are you going to be for very long? No one's really asking for this
game based on the Steam numbers, where almost yeah, it seems like the
numbers aren't quite there. I'm curious if you think, like it is it
worth it when Overwatch is right there? I mean I could tell you why
same mappen. Because if you're Sony and you're you have this shotgun wide net
approach to live service games, of course one of those is going to be
an Overwatch, like right and and here it is. No, it's it's
difficult the forty dollars to get in things. It's gonna be hard for a
lot of people, like for me, Like, to me, that's always
a selling point, like oh I liked what Overwatch was like that actually,
but most people can be like, no, I'm not gonna pay to try
this game. I mean people could have tried it for free this last weekend,
and like I said, the seams so Steam numbers didn't seem very good.
You know, I'm certainly far from rooting against this game. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, Like we never want games to fail, Like obviously,
it would be awesome if this has some kind of comeback story where it's like,
you know, they do turn around, they listen to people's complaints about
the beta, and it does turn it into a really good game. That
would be sick. I'm just a little worried about it. I will say
it is weird to me that their marketing, at least initially was so much
more about the characters and like this story stuff, when again that's like I
think that's maybe your weakest aspect here, and some of them like kind of
won me over, like that guy who's like looks like yon du who I
thought looked super at first. He was probably the one that dear to me
the most. Eventually the there's like the big guy who was just so literally
drags that it's kind of pathetic, like yo oh man, right, and
you never want to, like I think if you had are designing characters and
people come inay with like, that's kind of sad, Like that's like maybe
the lowest form you can actually end up hitting. You. Guys talked about
this briefly yesterday and Game mess Mornings, but it seems like an odd move
to have so much story and character investment on people were just meeting for the
first time, and uh, we just immediately draw the comparison to Guardians of
the Galaxy when you know they completely scraped the Last of Us multiplayer project,
where I feel like the Last of Us probably has the most and that was
gonna be the plan for that game too, I think was well, there
was gonna be a lot of storytelling in that however they were gonna do that.
I don't know if that was gonna be with cut scenes, but they
definitely had a lot of narrative development planned for that game, and to me
makes a lot more sense than what they're doing here. Yeah, because like
there you have the buy in from folks that have only ever watched the show
and now have played the games or like checked out the remasters that came out.
Check the quick look for that for the Last of Us Part one remaster
is very good. And I was like what they present, like, what's
the story, Like, Oh, you got accepted into a group? Cool,
great, fantastic. You gotta shoot the other groups? All right?
That group looks like me? All right? All right, Well that's that's
Concord. And now this is the news. The news. Jeff Grubb,
I hear you have news. I have news for you. Everybody. Let's
get right into it. Nintendo's teaser leads to new Famicom Detective Club game.
Nintendo announcedom excuse me, the Smiling Man, Famicom Detective Club Forintendo Switch and
it's coming excuse me. August twenty ninth, the first new famic Con Detective
Club game in over thirty five years, or I should say first new story,
because we did have those new releases of the Famicom Remix on Switch recently.
This is one it's M rated, that got a lot of attention because
Nintendo teased it with a sort of saying what IsMEO who iso it's man with
a bag on its head? Uh, And it's M rated, and they
didn't say anything else about it. So when it did get announced, some
people were definitely disappointed. They don't have interest in visual novel games, but
this, you know, it's a detective story about a serial killer. Nintendo's
making it. I'm I'm curious still, so I'm gonna check this out in
any any interest in Neo from any of you. I like the Detective Club
games? You do? Yeah, I didn't know anybody here played it?
Like? What? What? What is it actually like? Is it mostly
visual novel? Is there some puzzle solving? Mostly visual novels? Adventure?
Is you know it's got some of those? More or less than a Phoenix
right game? Less than a Phoenix right game? Okay, I don't think
you'd like it if like you like Phoenix Right for Detective ish games. I
mean, I like the story stuff and PhiX right, But I think if
a game was like even as much as I love Phoenix Right, even that,
sometimes I'm like, I wish like maybe we sped up the talking a
little bit. Everybody. It's a little the Detective Club games are a little
too chatty. Sometimes I understand that people might not work for me. Then
maybe that's why poison. Yeah, let's talk about some real games. Like
what I just put in their grub the news sections. Hey grub, look
at this, uh and it says here the wait what oh what? Wait?
Wait? Wait? Which one? Which one? Hey grub? Look
at this? No? No? No? Which oh that one? I
thought you went the last news story? No. I just had that one
to help and I was gonna scream at x I a debs form New Studio
to develop a spiritual successor to NBA Street on Unreal Engine five Shots and everything.
Yes the run Colan got next which okay, yeah, I got that
is a three v three online basketball game with a twist. I'll just read
here from Cat Bailey at IgM. Several former EA developers including former Visceral Games
GMS, Scott Probst, have formed a new studio to make a spiritual successor
to NBA Street the beloved three v three street basketball series titled The Run Got
Next. The new project, developed by Play by Play Studios, is a
character driven full court three v three hoops game that celebrates the attitude, style,
and skills of streetball culture, and it will be developed in Unreal Engine
five, with players stringing together an extended winning streak against opponents, either solo
or with friends online. Discussions are ongoing about whether it will include a complete
offline mode similar to Rogue Lights. Like Balatro, players will be able to
visit a shot between games to acquire items, sponsors, abilities, kicks,
and more. That's not a bad idea, having run based NBA Street Rogue,
NBA Streets Round. Who Okay, look, I'm interested too. There's
been a lot of these spiritual successes. Yeah, what's I'm living if you
can't get your hopes up? And then because n B a two K playgrounds,
Jeff, that's that's why again, sports, you don't know what we
went through, hurt. We need the Midway Sports Asylum back next. All
right, all right, all right, okay, yeah, so yeah,
that's exciting. I hope that comes through an next sounds pretty solid. Yeah
yeah, listen, there's no reason it can't be good. If it still
might not be, but it can't be good. It could be good,
like, yes we can. We can't be good, not this episode,
but we've done it before. EVO happened and there was some headlines from here.
S and K has re released its classic fighting crossover S and K versus
Capcom Colon SVC Chaos, Right and well Classic is in. It's just old.
Uh, it's it's getting released for PC as well as switching PS four.
It was originally on Xbox. Is that original one backward compatible? I
don't know. I don't think it's out now you can download the game now.
This was a shadow drop. People mostly don't like this game. I
like looked into a little bit and like it looks interesting in a weird way,
although I could tell it is mostly bad. It's a neat artifact.
Yes, that's because you have odd design decisions, like they put Zero from
Mega Man Zero in as one of the Capcom characters. Oh yeah, it's
wild, it's wacky, but it's I think the big problem is that pales
in comparison to CBS. On the writer side, it definitely felt like a
scrambling move of Hey, we have this deal with Capcom where we can use
their IP. We should do that, all right, how were we gonna
do that? We can make it for the Neo geo still and oh that's
all what are you talking about? Partly they support the Neodo because of where
it was popular in the countries it was popular. Sure, yeah, it
just it just felt like they were making a move to like uc I P.
At the last moment they were probably about I think you're dead on about
that. I think I have heard a story where that's literally what happened.
I kind of slap it together at the last moment. It looks like that,
And part of me is like, okay, I stole interested in that,
So I'm glad that this is widely available now. This is like S
and K at the kind of end of their first run when they you know,
are about to go bankrupt or whatever exactly is when they like got together
with playmore right, That's like when their first merger. It's it's just it's
funny now though, because like I'm probably more just than this now than when
it came out, just because like, well, we don't get like these
two D pixel games very much at least, so you know, there's weirdness
that the vibe of the game is bizarre. It's not like those awesome two
D backgrounds where everybody's watching its cheering. It looks like everything takes place in
hell almost right again, they're all in heaven or something like that worry and
they're trying to fight, like get out or something. That's a mistake.
It's some weird Yeah, it's some weird decisions with this one. But I
think look, as someone who has plumbers don't wear ties Defendive Edition on his
shelf, I think all games deserve to be preserved. Yeah, even which
I heard so exactly gets it. I just redeemed the game. I'm going
to check it out soon. Okay. Uh Heyshama, who is a known
teching character, will join Tech and eight as the third DLC character this autumn.
A volcano though he's fine, right, he's immune to a volcano.
He's built it out. Well, guys, guys, it was cliffs,
you know the the they love cliffs, and then there's yeah, every Cliff's
funny. He's really tough. I guess I do want to ask the panel
because like, I'm being a little bit of a fuddy uddy about this.
I want to know how much of a fuddy did he am. I'm rolling
my Isaac. You're being a puddy duddy. That's fuddy duddy. You're being
a funny duddy. So we all hate it when Papa Tine returns somehow,
and that's a big story in Fortnite. Yeah we dimbered you would be eating
it up. Yeah yeah, different. Now hey Hachi would be doing the
Wu Tang thing. It'd be great because, hey, Hachie should come back
in a fighting game where story is secondary when you're telling the story, doing
a bad story is bad. Lu Can got his next nap and turned into
his zombie and now he's fine and now he's a god and that rules.
So okay. So so I can put an end to this because in my
interview with the tech and team here we Go, I actually asked him about
this after guys, I saw this because I need to be brief. I
was like, you motherfuckers, you're ringing them back. Huh. So I
asked him about He was not originally planned to be in this game. This
is a pivot that they made. He was gone. It wasn't Herrada who
said that, it was someone else. So like the plan was like,
no, they wanted that ending to be the ending, and they want to
move on to the next phase of the Mishmas, especially if you know how
teching a story ends. No, they were just simply moving on to the
next generation of the same conference. And then it became cowards well, and
then they were like the feels wrong with that sheet The wind Taker came back
after at This is literally my argument, Mike is Tekan is just the wrestling
of fighting. This is just wrestling. Mike. Were you mad when Han
came back in fast and furious? I mean I thought it was kind of
pathetic. Yeah, I mean I guess I was happy he was there,
but it was stupid and Mike, Yeah, Mike, you have a giant
robot man fighting bear in this game. You're like, this is stupid.
I respect your fuddy duddy about this. I don't want you to I don't
want to convince you. I don't want to change your mind. I'm glad
that you Yeah, somebody we can't be positive, okay, uh Gil Guilty
Gear Striveal add Lucy from Cyberpunk Edge Runners. That's Wild, which is the
that's the Netflix show, right, Yeah, that's the Studio Trigger animated anime.
Yeah. Yeah, and that will she'll join that in season past four
in twenty twenty five. This will be the first guest character in series history.
Yeah, and it's weird because like me and I also met some the
score of sports people. By the way, Danielle and Matt were very nice.
I was talking to Danielle and we were trying to make the connection why,
like how did wait, how did a character from the cyberpunk anime make
it into Guilty Gear because like CD Project, you know, trying to put
their characters in everything, but why this game for this character? And we
sort of like realized, oh wait a second arc System works. Did that
kill a Kill game? Kill a kill a Trigger animated show? Like maybe
there's just a business thing that sort of went down the chain there, but
still a wild I always assume it's someone who is influential on the team,
watched the show and liked the character. I think that I always just assume
it's a Kojima situation where he's like I watched the TV show. Now I
like this actor and someone to work with them, but the connection there is
probably a big part of it. I know. For some reason, it's
it seems like a better fit for me than like, I don't know anything
else. Cyberpunk characters could show up in better fit. But that's the thing
where I was like this. She would have been a perfect Blaze Blue character.
Except there's no new Blaze Blue right now. So all right, let's
keep going here. Let's see Valorant console release date in Modern Warfare three game
Pass launch detail seemingly leak, although I think we've gotten moderl one for three
is official. It's coming to Xbox game Pass tomorrow, thank you. And
then Valerie also could be coming to console very soon. It's rumored to launch
on July twenty sixth. This information comes from Extasists, who has a history
of accurately revealing upcoming game Pass titles. Valerie, of course would be free
to play, but there's been a lot of extra stuff in game Pass for
Riot games in the past, so that could be what's happening for VAL's the
Riot one, right, I'm not yet having a brain fart for seconds.
That's the Riot hero based counter strike. That's pretty fine. I'm really glad
that MW three is going to game Pass because, like I said this in
my Gamely year list last year, it ranked in my top ten and the
thing I started with was, do not buy this because it's insanely fun,
but it's a seventy dollars DLC. Yeah, it's the one that didn't have
a real campaign, right, Yeah, I think that's why I never played
this one. Is like, that's kind of my main thing. But the
cool thing is he brought back like all of m W two, like classics
maps, maps, but with the gunplay of the current game. So it's
still a game that me and my friends play all the time. So this
is a great way for people to get in. And all I'm hearing is
is exeous to bring back Oops all nickys No, speaking of Nicky's, I
just my phone buzz and I checked it and I opened it and it went
right to the mini leaderboard, and Nikki, who I believe was in chat,
did it in twelve seconds. Twelve let's wait, which you can't type
that listening to the answer, says Dan did the crossword. But let's keep
that to ourselves, all right, Trust Nikky. I trust Nicky. If
I was a nick I would do it. Let's see here. Xbox is
reportedly exploring more new game pass tiers. Microsoft is considering a clouded tier that
would be relative, relatively cheap and accessible. That's for Mike, allowing users
to play games without owning a console. We've said it every time this has
come up. Xboxes cloud stuff is just not up to snuff. It's bad
these days, there's all. They're also maybe considering still an AD based tier.
That's one that's been rumored for a while. They have a McDonald's connect
exactly. I will do that. I will downgrade just so I can yell
McDonald's. I love how much you like that? Is so your thing that
you're everyone like, even like tangently comes up. You bring that up,
and it makes me happy every time I would look forward to it. I
could be in the middle of a speed run and if it said, hey,
yell McDonald's, Oh yeah, let's do it. There's gotta be something
like Sketchrea can make where you do that. Yeah, hey, okay,
I'm I'm sort of like at a point where I'm like over thinking about game
pass all that much. If they want to do this. Fine, wouldn't
We wouldn't be surprised, But it does feel like we are over the hump
with game Pass and now they're like, just like, hey, what is
any way we can get more people in here so we can make any more
money whatsoever? And it feels it feels less special than it once did.
Kind of where I'm at with game Pass. It gave me the Fortnite Club
feeling. When I saw it auto renew, I'm like, oh I still
have this I stuff that at the seon point? How much? How much
was it? Jan? I was like, fourteen ninety nine. Okay,
well yeah, no, no, no, no, no game Pass.
Oh they have console. Yeah, it's probably gonna go up to twenty here
pretty soon. Jan, So keep an eye on that. Okay, okay,
all right, next story, But does the workers vote to become the
first Microsoft Games to you that is fully unionized, Well done, good work
over there they have, but as the Game Studios has unionized under the Communication
Workers of America, over two hundred and forty developers, including artists, engineers,
programmers, and designers, signed union authorization cards or indicated their desire for
union representation online. Microsoft has already recognized the union. They just said the
general stuff. They're trying to improve working conditions, advocate for job security,
compensation, transparency and flexibility, and set a new standard for the industry,
which this almost certainly does. This is the biggest studio to unionize like this.
This does accomplish exactly that. If they can do it, it feels
like anyone can do it now. They have an advantage in that Microsoft as
publicly stated on the record to politicians that they would recognize unions going forward.
Other developers won't have that advantage, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't try.
They probably can get that to happen if they were to go for it,
and this sort of paves the way. So, yeah, it feels like
a sea change, feels like things are very different than they once were when
stuff like this is very important because did you see the breaking news that's coming
out right now about Humble Games. Yeah, yeah, so the Humble Games
has It was a QA person saying that my team was laid off, but
then I think they also said everyone at Humble Games was laid off. Yeah,
I'm saying the entirety of Humble Games is laid off, right either,
way, Humble Games is having layoffs right now, and they seem significant.
I don't know if this means Humble Games is going away. Humble Games is
an ign thing now, right, it's entirety right, So that's new layoffs
for IgM, which had layoffs relatively recently as well. Yeah, that's that's
rough, and yeah that this would help in those situations. It's not going
to stop layoffs, but it can like improve packages or make it a little
bit more difficult to do layoffs, or have that transparency so you could see
how much money is being spent on bullshit as opposed to paying people to do
jobs, So that could be beneficial going forward. There's a new PS five
update that mostly like there's like new stuff in there overall. But this one
new thing that I think is handy is you can now get a URL to
send to somebody that they can use to join your online session. So I
think the way it would work is you can get this URL, you can
like text it to your friend, they can click on it, and then
it will open up in the PlayStation app, which will then connect their to
their PlayStation and turn it on and send them right into that mode. So
oh wait, how is this any easier than a game invite? Well,
it's I think it's only easier for dealing with like very casual friends, because
you know, the asking someone to get on Skype versus sending them a zoom
link? Is that? Is that like a good metaphor there, nine year
old I know, when you're incorporating other devices into the chain versus just like
hey, turn on your PlayStation. And I think maybe the hang up is
if you have to be in the PlayStation Apple on your phone, in which
case it's like, well, at that point, what does that matter?
But it's I don't casual, are you? Do you have the PlayStation Apple?
That's right? Probably not right? So if if that's required, that
does break down at that point, I think. But I don't know.
If it is as as easy as a zoom link. I do see a
benefit to it. It's not probably almost never going to use it and who
knows, But I don't know. It's it's putting it into slack, right,
having a zoom having the link put in a slack like just click this.
That's the thing I'm thinking about is because if we're just all friends on
a platform, it's easier for me to just like press the home bun,
select you on my list and joint game. Sure. But if but if
I'm like, get my PlayStation set up and you're like, there's the r
L and I just click on it, and by the time they get over
there, the PlayStation set up and ready for me to go. If it
works that way and that's the way it works, I I guess I don't
know. Does this analogy work. When I was producing remote podcasts for WWUE
and I had to get a wrestler on the call, if I said,
hey, Undertaker, download zoom, it would not work that way. But
if you text the link and you're like, click this, it'll be fine.
Just give a permission for your camera, then wrestlers could typically be like,
okay, I get it. The situation I'm thinking of thinking about,
Like, the one instance I can think of is if you're playing a tournament
for anything, like being able to create a session for the tournament and not
have to deal with like adding someone that could be useful. Yeah, I
think it's neat, but yeah, definitely pretty each I could see this being
like a passive way to get the homies onto a game, like maybe people
aren't online quite yet. But it's like, yo, like join my game,
just just tap the link and then, like you know, people will
get online when they get home exactly. So I'm who knows how the official
this will actually be. I just thought it was kind of neat last couple
of stories here. Despite ninety percent of its sales now being digital, Capcom
claims it won't stop producing physical games. Capcom has no plans to discontinue producing
physical games despite the increasing popularity of digital titles. The company recognizes that many
end users still prefer physical games. While major Capcom titles are released in both
physical and digital formats, some smaller games are released digital only. Digital sales
dominate the video game industry, with a growing preference for digital titles each year.
In the UK, physical software sales declined last year, while digital console,
PC and mobile game sales all experienced increases. This is the way it's
going, and yet I think this is also always the right move if you're
a company like Capcom. Even though I'm someone who doesn't really buying physical games,
I would hate the idea of they stopped making physical games across the board.
That would be a terrible move on this. This is one of things
I talked to matsumotoves On in my Maral Versus Capcom interview where he said one
of the reasons that he personally at least wanted to do this was, you
know, NBC has sort of disappeared into the ether because of licensing and everything
like that, and like part of this was, Okay, now you can
have a physical copy of these Marvel versus Capcom games that will never go away.
And he said, you know, as like a collector of physical media
and everything like, that's one of things he wanted the fans to be able
to have for the future. I felt taunted and ridiculed and made to look
like a fool when I went to the Capcom store in Japan that was next
to the Nintendo store, because these motherfuckers had nothing but Mega Man Battle Network
merchant everywhere. And then I'm like, what do you what are you guys
telling me? Did I miss news or something? I'll bring ales back?
And I was just like, oh god, I just want to check in
so bad, really well. They did very well, so good games,
dude. You know there's all these like angry like gaming YouTubers where that's their
whole gimmick is like every news to rider, I'm so angry about him.
Can you do you think there are any videos where somebody's just really pissed off
about a company saying they're going to keep doing physical games? Like what is?
Is there an angle rock to believe? Like? Does that video exist?
It's it's often gaslighting about the environment. Yeah, I guess yeah,
it's bad for the environment. Okay, yeah, okay, sure, it's
your fault. It's not the corporation. It's fault. Everybody's yours now,
Okay, but yes, sorry, Mega Man they're not going to do that.
It meg Man's done anyway. Next story, Capcom says it's considering how
to make Mega Man games on a regular basis. What the hell Capcom is
considering creating new Mega Man games more regularly. Capcom recently shared a survey and
asking fans which class at Capcom Francis they want to see a new entries in.
In the past fifteen years, only three major Mega Man games have been
released, Mega Man Wow, Mega Man ten, and Mega Man eleven.
That's in twenty eight, twenty ten, and twenty eighteen, respectively. The
Mega Man series has sold over thirty eight million units throughout its thirty six Your
History. Nintendo recently added all five Game Boy Mega Man games the Nintendo Switch
online service, so they they remember it exists, but not much else going
on there. But I think we've gotten the sense recently because of that that
survey that they're like, what can we do next? After like all these
ws, can we get another one with maybe something else? And Mega Man
feels like the one they should try to get a dub with next. Yes,
Mega Man was in a bit of a weird spot because you know,
some of those franchises had gone along in the two regular Mega Man exit,
even the kind of Battle Network and It's star Fors spin off there and then
in a fune left right. He was kind of shepherd that series for a
good while, and I think like meg Man eleven, even though it was
the best selling Megama game, I think they had some high expectations for it
and that scared them off a bit. I think, gosh, enough time
has passed from that. There are so many ways, so many directions you
can take Mega Man, and even as somebody who does like classic Mega Man
the most, I don't think that's maybe the smartest thing to do next.
You either bring back x either bring back Battle Network even or you know there's
there's there's other collections we can still do here, especially Yeah, you know
what you do, you do Doom Doom twenty sixteen, where where it is
like it is a new Mega Man but then occasionally he has to hack into
a system and then you play a couple of levels that are like any s
Mega Man. Yeah, yeah, I thought where you going with that?
Did you hear about the canceled Mega Man X like FPS Maverick Connor, Yeah,
I've heard about it. Yes, they should do that too. What
they really should do is, yeah, it could be like that, but
you know, we had Mega Man, we had megmn X and zero.
It should be the next one of those like Mega Man blank and it will
probably still be a two D action platformer, you know, with all of
that familiar stuff, but it can serve as more of a new entry point
for a lot of people. But right, you know, I love MEGMANA
so much. I just want to see something and I'm not I'm honestly not
even worried about it. It's going to happen, and yes, yes,
because he is still their mascot and you know, like I like to remind
people. You look at these numbers over thirty eight million units, but then
you think about how many Mega Man games there are millions. It says a
lot about their sales numbers. I think that's just why they're hesitant every time.
It's like, okay, so how do we sell this one? Because
we got to sell it, I think CAP becomes a little more open to
having smaller games in general. You know, we saw like ghosts and goblins
and ever thing. I think it's just maybe it's almost like a little embarrassing
that their mascot never sells well. So they're trying to like, come on,
let's let's get Mega Man a win. This what a fun mascot.
Though it's not gonna be like Chris Redfield, you know. No, they're
they're better off sticking with Megan trying to replace them with someone else. Honestly,
I forget where it happened. But people are asking like, is a
Mega Man really still the mascot or is it like maybe reuint it's that dog
from Resident Force. Definitely play on a command guy hot Dog, because they
still, like, you know, megment does still show up a lot of
things, and the merchandise for Mega Man has always been very robust, right,
And I mean at certain point, maybe you need to make a new
game just to keep supporting that, right, so you can keep making this
maybe smaller but very diehard group of people. The people who like Mega Man
like money, really like Mega Man, right, we like him a lot.
And you're talking about physical copies, you know how you get people to
buy physical copies, Like how we just bought a physical copy of the Tender
World Championship, like us a couple knick knacks, right to make a Mega
Man, maybe you're only going to sell one or two million of them,
It doesn't matter. Give me a helmet for like two hundred dollars, I'll
buy it. I'm not a plush stuffed toy person, but like I got
very close to buying several Mega Man Battle Network plushes because I'm a fan.
So I'm excited. I'm uh, you know yeah, and you're rapping.
I can't wait to see it. You're right about it's it's you shouldn't be
worried because they will do another one, and it's you know it, it's
not it's not even the long guess it's been since one right between twenty ten's
Mega Man ten and Mega Men eleven and twenty eighteen. That was the years.
So yeah, that was probably that was as long as it got.
I mean there's some smaller games that aren't on like that, you know,
like that you hit that Mega Man X Dive Happen, which you know it's
small, but it isn't game, right, you're right, even Street Fighter
Cross Mega Man, which was a fan game that Capcom Dana did like officially
published, right, so yeah, but basically three games. And it is
wild because it used to be like it was a joke how many Mega Man
games they released, right, and now it's like man, we were eating
good, give me just the Battle Network but like Slay the Spire. Oh
wow, have you ever? I mean, there's so many easy things they
can do, especially with indie companies, so many people, so many indie
just make Mega Man games. Get just get the people who made thirty x
X, which is Mega Man X roguelike and it rules with gorgeous like two
d art. Just give them the Mega Man license. Yes, right,
yeah, there you go. Christian, why had get on it? Uh
yeah, just so we can eventually get a Mega Man movie starring Chris Pratt
of course, yeah, he looks like the cover of the first game.
That would be fantastic. Actually, yes, all right, that does it
for the news. I'm handing the show back over to Jan. Oh gosh,
now I'm just thinking of Chris Pratt as Doctor Light and it's making me
upset. That's not quickly Mega manwe wowee Uh, I'm I realized the show
needs a quick brickie break and we'll be back with some emails, just a
baby's handful of them. Stay tuned, folks, We'll see you right after
this. We emails. BombCast a giant bomb dot com is the email address
to send your emails to. You can send emails about virtually and in everything.
Whether you've got a quiz you want to send our way uh fan casting
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happening in video games, send them our way at BombCast at giant bomb dot
ah. First email comes from Spencer. Spencer writes in about a hot topic.
That hot topic being Avril Levine. After y'all brought up the crime against
mankind, Miss Avril Levine, Hello, Kitty Song. I had to go
watch the video and listen to it for myself. While looking through the comments,
I found out that apparently she's massively popular in Japan. She has clothing
lines there, has sang songs for anime openings, and is the first Westerner
to have three albums in a row sell over a million copies in Japan.
DLDR Japanese people love Apae Spencer. It's no one's felt this way about a
foreigner since David Hasseloff in Germany. It's almost matching those levels. Yes,
yes, it's exactly that. Gwen Stefani was not right because Gwen Stefani exploited
the right. She had Japanese people as pets. They weren't appreciative of that.
Turns out that's not cool. That's not so cool. I wonder how
you say she said see you later boy in Japanese, just like that.
I feel like that would hit really hard though. Yeah, all right.
Next email comes from Lauren Hey Bomb crew listening to the recent discussions of Shadow
of the Nerd Tree and how Dan, Jeff and Mike never really played much
of the older Souls games got me thinking as to what elden Ring has that
provides a stronger draw than previous entries In this quote unquote series, all the
games play fundamentally the same way. I have the same kind of exploration in
similar openness and level design. I would even go so far as to say
that elden Ring is the most impenetrable, being not only substantially longer, but
considerably more difficult than any of the other others, with many enemies having long
attack strings if you're punished opportunities and awkward delay attack timings. So what do
you think elden Ring's secret sauce is that makes it engaging then more engaging than
previous entries? Is that the horse the jump button mimic Tier Georgia Railroad Martin
self cessed. I do think it's a great game, though I would personally
consider it to be lower on the list, so I'm very curious to hear
everyone else's thoughts. A piece Lauren from Melbourne, you could run away.
You get something challenging the idea of having an open world where you have options,
so that you're like, well, I'm not having fun because I'm getting
beat by this boss. Well, there's a million other things to go do
and have fun with now I know, and that leads to leveling up,
which makes those things easier. You just see the pathway to conquering the game
much easier. It's easier to visualize in Elder Ring than these other ones.
And so I think that was a gateway for a lot of people. I
mean, I was I played some of these games before, but I was
mo was excited because of that reason. I'm actually doing my first Dark Souls
one play through right now. Yeah. Yeah, so uh, and I've
been enjoying that a lot. And it is kind of funny, like,
why didn't I care about Dark Souls when that was coming out? Really?
And I don't really have a great reason for that. I don't really think
there's gonna be an answer that to satisfy the emailer here. But yeah,
I think what you're saying about Older Ring, a part of it is just
the zeitgeist, right. It was bigger than it ever was for even any
of those other from software games, and they all had kind of, you
know, these these big moments, but Outer Ring did feel like this big,
you can't miss thing. But I do think something about that open world
formula made it more approachable, because exploring in the Dark Soul games can be
a bit more daunting. I think the walk backs when you die and go
to a boss line you have, those are a lot longer, and those
could be more frustrating. Older Ring is usually way more generous with just kind
of putting those right before. Boss fights are generally even having more of them
anyways, and you can do things like fast travel, right and it's pretty
easy to go around and just I'm gonna piss off here and go somewhere else.
You could do some of that in Dark Souls, right, like,
Okay, maybe this area is difficult. There's probably a few other ones I
could go explore right now. But again, even going to those areas as
it can be a bit more daunting than an out and Ring uh ps f
Lauren has a The correct ranking of these games is as follows one Dark Souls
three, two blood Borne, maybe three Dark Souls four, Elder Ring,
five Dark Souls two, and six Demon Souls. They add I don't think
Sokkoro really fits in this list, as it is pretty different at its core,
but it is the best from soft game uh best from soft games ever
made. Yeah, and it is one of the greatest games of all time.
Heart Yeah, yeah, of course six actually goes above that though correct
Secer is great. Love that game. Yes, rules uh. Next email
comes from Hill sent from my iPhone here BombCast crew as a fighting game fan
whose favorite series of all time is Marvel versus Capcom. Announcement of the collection
at the Nintendo Direct was a dream come true. It was totally convinced we'd
never see any sort of re release or new installment because of the legal issues
and the fact that the last game, NBC Infinite was a dud. But
now it seriously looks like there's hope. Are there any series or franchises you
totally thought were dead but unexpectedly returned to your delight? I'm mostly thinking games.
It could also honestly apply to TV shows, movies, books, anything
Sending love from Chicago, will send from iPhone. Yeah, Marvel versus Capcom
Man Hello, spoiler for my GB sixteen moment here. But that's that's my
favorite, just because that's one of my favorite memories, is being on a
call with these guys and me and Mike popping the hell off, freaking out
of there was like no chance. There was no shot of that coming back.
And to see it like in a Nintendo directs right here. Literally it's
never been a win Nintendo. Yeah, that was wild. That's apparently something
that they thought was like very fun was announcing it during the Nintendo direct.
They were like, yeah, get out to a different audience, you know,
like if you you guys. It's weird with like TV shows and movies
because it seems like everything comes back now to the point where it's not exciting.
Like there was a time in my life where you were like there's a
new quantum leap. I would be like, that is the most exciting thing
ever. It's still happening, right, Yeah. I think that show came
out. I don't know I came out. It definitely came out. It
was on Network TV. It has like twenty four episodes of season. I
think it's I think it was on long enough that's actually like finished. Yeah,
I think it's done. Like you know, you know, Jeff,
you know how much of National Treasure was kind of like an early meme with
me. For a while they had a show on Disney Plus. I didn't
watch that like you watch and it's always kind of mediocre, usually mediocre.
Then everybody talks about it, so I will know, and then I'll go
see Tough Gun Maverick and cry to the Lady Gaga song in my car afterwards.
I listened to it on repeat because it's the most beautiful fucking thing ever.
My kids love that song. Yeah, it's good. Hold my head.
Uh. By the way, oh man, I was, I'm like
Skyle, hoping we could all see it together. Maybe I'll I'll make you
go see it with me again before you have nothing else to do one of
those nights. I'm Glenn Powell is gonna save this country. Oh yeah,
he's already doing it. Yeah, well that is the one I'm kind of
saying, because there's a rumor like he's gonna also be in a new backdraft.
I'm like, hell yeah, now that you got my attention, Mike's
right. Mike has the correct take on this, where it's like, yeah,
most there's so much stuff coming back that it doesn't feel special anymore.
But the one that got me was Dark Crystal, the Netflix show is actually
surprisingly good, and like, I like the idea of Dark Crystal the movie
more than I like watching Dark Crystal. Uh. And so when the show
came out and it kind of like actually got all of that stuff right.
And I think Mark Hamill does one of the characters and he's just fucking killing
it. It's a it's a a good show. I like it quite a
bit. I just thought of a perfect one from this weekend, because like,
I never just like watch TV. You know, it's like, Okay,
I'm gonna go to Hulu, I'm gonna watch the show I want to
watch. I'm never flipping through channels unless I'm in a hotel. And I
was in a hotel and I was just playing an e S and I just
want to put something on the background, and I saw in Comedy Central it's
like Beavis and butt heead and I was like, oh, I love Beavis
and Butudhead. Let me put that on. I did not realize that it
came back and it was, Yeah, they were like old the episode I
saw they were like older. They were like in their forties or fifty or
something, and they were watching like influencer like YouTube videos instead of music videos,
which is such an interesting take on it, and like what they would
do, and it's still Mike Judge, It's still the voices and like I
was like laughing throughout, was like, what the fuck? How is it
good? Busy? But have a new show and it's good, Like it
makes me you want to find it and watch more of it. Yeah,
that new piece of that is actually pretty great. Yeah, I was shocked.
I think it's on Comedy Central as a new they're doing a new season
on Comedy Central now I think it was. It's also on Paramount. I
think it's all on Paramount Plus. Also, yea, yea, that's probably
why didn't because I've never had Paramount Plus. There's a new movie too that
was part of that also, right, the new movie was pretty good as
well. This guy wasn't surprised. It wasn't quite do America good, but
the movie is good to America. We had a meeting in fourth Ground,
went to a Catholic school and MISSIONI pulled us all into a we had like
a rally with all the teachers and all that whatever, and they're like,
there is a show on television right now that is very popular and it would
be inappropriate to even say the name of it, but talk to your parents
about it and make sure. Yeah, because but was in the word.
It was a Catholicy or school, and yeah, talk to your parents about
it and make sure you never watch it. At one point. It's incredible
the fake problems we had to imagine. Oh yeah, the moral what it
was called scare Mongerine. Yeah, that's the most moral panics. Yeah.
There's a scene in Do America where an old lady says slots and Beavis thinks
she's saying sluts and they both get very excited, but for different reasons.
So it's a good movie. Yeah, so that new show seemed good.
Also, mcgrueber came back, which is good. Right of course, superb
show back and was supposed to be good. That's what American Summer first season
is one of the most incredible things that has ever been made. It is
the best prequel ever made because there's so many weird jokes and what in American
Summer. And then they explain the origins in this TV show, which you
know they never had any explanation when they're making it, but you find out
how like John Benjamin becomes a can right like the Can, Yeah, because
it starts out as a man. It's incredible. Show me the Thief,
Yes, and the where that song comes from? They should explained where the
song comes from everything, and it's so fucking funny. They do another there's
another season that's like that, the Last Day Camp or ten years later or
something like that. It's not as good, but it's still pretty decent.
Bite everything else. Someone in the Chagos X Men ninety seven, You're dead
right, Oh yeah, God damn show rule. You all heard about how
good X Men ninety seven. It is like, you know, when these
things are good and then it's okay, now I'll pay attention. Games wise,
I was very happy that after Twist the Medal got lost to nine and
nine Studios for a few years there, that like and Cog started up in
Jaffey and that team made Twist Metal Black. Like I know it was only
a few years, but it kind of felt like, oh Twist Metals,
like this really good one comes back. Yeah yep. I can't think of
too many With games. I guess it was It's neat seeing Dead Rising.
Yeah yeah, pac Man Championship Edition, so that sort of thing I think
about where it's like these old arcade games, they're not gonn update him anymore.
It's like, oh my god, this is genius the gaming one the
big gaming one Streets of Rage four craps. We should we should do that?
Uh survival mode too? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that'd be great.
Oh key dope key, let's see uh. Last email of the show
comes from Allen in Virginia. Hey, bomb Bastic crew. All the talk
about PS two games on BombCast eight forty eight reminded me of a fun story
from college freshman year. Like a lot of people, a bunch of us
would get together and play games on a console in one of the common rooms.
I had a bunch of wacky friends back in college, and we tended
to come up with weird waste to play games during these hangout sessions. One
night we hit the best idea for playing a fighting game. We went around
and borrowed two DDR pads for the PS two and proceeded to run a Soule
Caliber two tournament using just the DDR pads. Unfortunately, one DDR pad only
had two face buns block and kick, and the other had a broken right
era, but it was some of the most fun I ever had playing any
game. To this day, every time I hear someone mentioned DDR or PS
two, I get the urge to shop for a DDR pad. And try
to figure out what games I'm currently playing which I could play on a DDR
pad instead of a controller. Do you any of you have any stories of
attempting to use a weird controller or peripheral to play a game? It wasn't
meant for Alan bet then and I play all of Mary Kannon Ashley Sweet Steam
Licen to Drive with the resident Eve before chainsaw controller? Did you did?
For many hours? You're the one who's losing your goddamn mind. There was
a lot. I played a little of Ari one on PS one with a
steering with a Threstmaster steering wheel. Yeah, with like accelerate being walk forward
and then take control. Yeah, oh I see a speed around that.
Someone I believe Froud does that with Alien Isolation. Well, folks tuned into
the GB Sweet sixteen stream yesterday, we saw a fond memory where uh,
Dan, you were playing Deep or you were playing punch Out with John Drake's
face ye and gloves. Yes, yes, thanks to trek Hey Shreker,
who also had me play Soul Caliber with a Dreamcast fishing controller once. Hell
yeah yeah that yes, speaking of so like at EVO, obviously, I
saw all kinds of wacky controllers that people love bringing their weird stuff to fighting
game tournaments. I saw what someone had clouds uh sword, but it was
a hip box and so it just had buns on for like you know,
you had Materia but it was like cool, wait you play you're playing uh
or guy's god Bless the Rings. I didn't play that there. I did
play that galloping ghost last time I was there, but yeah, I don't
know what the hell he was using that for. I also saw oh god,
oh the classic is because you know the already four chainsaw controller that is
just a controller. It's just shaped weird. It's just weird shaped. People
using a guitar hero controller to play a fighting game. That's talent right there.
When people do that, you're trying to diminish my accomplishments with I saw
what oh someone, I don't know who they are. They love bringing it
to combo breakers, specifically the World's Biggest fight stick, where they had to
like use it as a backpack because it's just this giant cardboard contraption they made
like the uh this uh this top, the ball top for the and for
the stick is like the size of your head and he has to like you
know, use it like this and then like hit the giant buns with his
whole palm. And then of course my favorite story is people playing soul Caliber
with the fishing controller, like in a mini tournament that popped up at like
one am one time. That's the FGC loves their wild controls. Playing games
with the Dreamcast fishing control is just actually a delight. That's such a good
control. Some games are made for it, Like soul Caliber actually has that
programmed in a little bit, which is hilarious. They're good And that about
does it for emails this week. Speaking about this week, we got a
bunch of stuff popping off. This week is always super busy. Blight Club
popping off tomorrow, Yes, yeah, so guarantee this time. Well,
we figured out we figured out an issue, like Jeff couldn't save and like
we just kind of realized, wait a second, you could just walk back
through that one load screen and the game should save for him without a safe
gym. So it seems like cheating to figure things out. Pret to think
about me. I think so Games Mornings for the rest of the week,
we'll have a voicemail dump Truck Sean. Yes, I was gonna say we're
gonna play nintendor World Championship tomorrow too. In between, yes, after after
games mornings tomorrow we'll get on. We'll do some Nintended World Championship and Friday
Anime Mario party. Yes, yeah, I guess sweep the board, me
grub, Baclar and Minati. I think is the plan. We got switch
God for us Mario party. Remember when we did Garfield Mario or Mario party
for my birthday? He was like, right, yeah, that's right,
Yes, we had to have the computer play for you or something. Yeah,
switch coach. Yes, oh yeah, yeah, you're totally what's your
face? You would be. She's the only character I know for some knows
anime about it? Yeah, exactly, yeah, b CR. Perhaps this
week Sewan is working on an EVO video, and then I will be joining
Tim and Lucy and Emma down in San Diego. God, I don't know
what to expect. Boys, I heard I can buy things there, cons
find some broad denim. I will every city. I go to True Color
and you know, finally, what do we learn today? Oh? We
learned that there are pleasant bean men out there that'll offer you canisters and beans
to smell from We learned that Shawn went undefeated this year. In EVO,
we learned that Street Fighter third Strike is hella fucking cool. It may have
been a mistake to start streaming Nintendo World Championships at one am. Grub is
the best forty one year old out there. Eleanor is a quick restart in
Nintendo World Championship. God, that's the most important thing we learned. And
we also learned that the true power that healed us throughout this week was proper
planning and a speed running game. Who knew that, folks? Is what
we learned this week. We'll see you next week for another episode of the
Giant BombCast. I've been channing, he's been Jeff, he's been Dan,
he's been Mike. He's been undefeated Sean. And we'll see you next week
for a beautiful episode of Giant BombCast. Under said the blue. Oh oh
they just said that. Okay, cool, that's an answer. Oh.
If you're going to Comic Con, we have a panel, go to the
panel and then we'll see you there. Giant BombCast is brought to you by
your beautiful face and dirt Water and dirt Water