Amanda and I were watching a show together and then I had to pause it
for tomorrow, and then I came in here and now I can hear Whose
Line Is It? Anyway? Which they added all of the show to Netflix
recently. I don't know if you guys were aware. So we've been rewatching
whose Line? And I'm convinced Ryan's styles. I think his name is is
the funniest person who's ever walked the earth? Okay? Is it? Is
this a cold open? Is that what you're doing here? Or oh?
Yeah, we can we can build off this if you want. I was
just have you when's the last time you watch Whose Line? Is It?
Anyway? Like? Really? Get that young ago? Yeah? Same here?
So it's on Netflix now and you can watch it. Go have fun
with it? All right? I was like fun with myself while having fun
with the show. I don't know what that means. It's episode fifty nine.
We're back with a firescate cast. Mom and Dad are away, so
Jake and Mike invited Uncle Vinny to hang out. Kids. You like Whose
Line is It? Anyway? Oh? I got some other shows you're gonna
love. Colin's my favorite one. The shows are like Colin shows are like
Colin tho's the Elevator, pitch to CBS, Vinny, how's it going,
Vidy Caravella from next Lander. For most of you probably know, but for
those of you don't, um, you're second time on fire Escape, I
believe, so I was, Oh, first time on the show together.
Oh that's fantastic, that's okay. Yeah, so so far, it's it's
great. I didn't even know we started until about like ten seconds ago.
So this is I'm I'm glad to talk about Whose line is it? Anyway?
That's why I'm here. They added I think it's Netflix. They added
the entire show to Netflix. I will tell you much of it is not
aged well, but if you can get past that, those guys are geniuses,
funny stuff. Yeah, it's really good that there are certain episodes where
you could tell that they were not in a great mood and just didn't want
to be on the show. But then like you get farther into it,
like season four or five, and you're like, oh, now it has
blown up in whatever year that would have been ninety seven, I don't remember,
really, but the show has blown up their big deals. They realize
how many people are watching and they're like, we gotta bring our a game,
and it gets really good. It's goin to think. The last time
I saw it was probably decades ago. Yeah, a long time ago.
I don't remember really. I remember at the time thinking this is a really
amateur production, and I was probably twelve next Slanders are response to whose line
is it anyway? That's what I've been saying, Yeah, that's right.
Hyeah No. But like I think now looking back on it, it's like,
no, that's not amateur. That's just like loose, you know.
It's just like they were ahead of their time. They were just like fucking
we were just gonna go We're gonna go silly here? Uh and and loose.
Have either of you been to a genuinely good improv show? No?
Yeah, you have? Was it here? Was it? I just I
don't know, Like I guess what's genuinely good? Barfing? Um. I
think at its worst, improv, the entire crowd is uncomfortable experiencing second hand
embarrassment. At its best, you're like, oh cool, they got like
four solid laughs out of me. And I joke like, improv is hard
as shit. I'm sure I would bomb if I tried it in a second.
No, you don't know. That's not what you think. You're thinking.
You could get up there and kill Okay, let me clarify. I
think I would be the funniest improv actor. But I would get up there
and I would absolutely bomb and vomit and then not even be good enough to
turn the vomiting into a joke. What was was your was the good show
in New York? Or where was I? So? I recently saw a
pretty good show here in Jersey? Uh? And it was? It was.
It's a good troop. It was funny, it was I brought the
kids to it, and um, it was like appropriate for them as well.
So they were able to do funny and appropriate without without just like a
ton of swearing, which it is pretty hard. Uh. And we elected
so much that we invited them that troop to host my son's birthday party and
do an improv lesson for like my son and a bunch of his friends.
Oh, that's awesome. It was pretty good. It was, Hey,
look a lot of yes and ending do you find any uh find any stars
in the in your son's friend group? Sound good? I love him very
much. He's he's good at a lot of things. Yeah, Um,
you know it's you know, he gets it, he gets what you're supposed
to be doing. Yeah, like you know, there's a lot of um,
I'm gonna say for a bunch of like eight eight nine year olds,
the idea of giving in an in an improv situation is tough. You want
to be is a lot of taking, right, like I want to do
the thing. There's not a lot of giving. And that was good because
that's what the that's what the lesson was about. It was about you know,
sharing and giving and teamwork. So yeah, there's a bigger picture to
it all. Imagine that would have been helpful for me when I was young.
I think I've always been fairly generous. But again, I'd also think
I would be awesome on stage in improv, and we know that's probably not
true. I've seen a lot of friends do improv and it's been and it's
been it's been good too. Oh we saw it. We we talked a
few weeks ago. We saw Abbey's and actually that's one of the few improv
shows I've been to that I say would and I'm not. Again, I'm
not trying to get here. We saw Abby Russells. I think it was
five years ago at this point, and I remember going into the like going
into the theater like I did with many improv shows, and I've been I
don't know why I've been so much improv. I clearly always just don't love
it. But Abbey's was funny, and I think Her Troops was funny because
it started on a very bizarre note and they kept feeding off that right away.
I was like, Okay, get the cobwebs out, immediately, get
the awkwardness out of the air. It was fun. I like a good
improv where it's like seventy percent of the people that are really good and like
thirty well, and then like twenty five percent are okay, and then there's
like a five percent or at least one person who's terrible, and you can
tell that person. Everybody's bummed when that person gets called on and they come
on and they're like, oh God, here comes, here comes you know,
Bill gonna do his fucking thing, And then everybody's like, good,
it's time we tossed it. Dan on fire Escape, the listeners tell us
that all the time, he's just what is this guy doing here? I
respect hypothetical Bill though, for still going up on stage going through it.
Bill's a little man because they won't do they won't let him leave, they
won't do his material. Like he's got some he's got some really good ideas.
But Bill is real bummed out that there keep shooting it down. He's
gonna start his own troop and it's gonna be fucking awesome. I saw a
stand up once in New York where I couldn't tell if the person was legitimately
joking or not, but he was screaming at the audience to stop clapping for
him. He was doing so he was doing so terribly, he was doing
so poorly um that at some point it was like a real bad set.
It seemed like I couldn't talk. This was real or it was real bad
set. And then he's like, this fucking sucks. I fucking hate this.
Why didn't even come up here? To everybody's like and they're like,
yeah, don't fucking clap for that, And everybody's like, yeah, yeah,
so you hate all of you. Hey, All the harder he tries,
the harder they laughing cheer. Pretty much like as he was like,
this is the worst night of my life, and They're like, yeah,
that's pretty funny, that's that's pretty good. There's no way out of that.
No, and they just kind of started spiraling. And then I think
Steve Zond got up this way, Steve zon I think so. I think
that's what happened. Sahara say, that's about the timing. That's one of
my desert island movies. Why why, I don't know. Yeah, there's
a desert involved, okay with I watched The Hara. What a what a
weird thing I've never told anybody before is that I watched The Hara quite a
lot. Oh still to this day, maybe yearly, maybe twice a year.
Twice a year is kind of a lot. Yeah, Dwights in it,
Rain Wilson, It's not a terrible movie. I saw in the theater.
It's like I thought it was one of those It's one of those movies
I saw with my girlfriend now wife at the time and was like okay,
and then only years and years later, would you say, Saharah, is
it used as like a punchline, right, like, oh fuck a movie.
Yeah, It's like, heyverybody's fine. I don't get it. It's
an uncharted DLC story. It's I always appreciate what they're going for with it.
But my uh, my dad was really into Clive Cussler books, reading
them, so anytime it got adapted the what eight times they got adapted into
movies of varying degrees of quality, my dad was hyped. I did not
know that was a Clive Custler. Oh yeah, that was so Sahara.
I may be confusing it with other movies. Sahara was kind of like the
lost work of Clive Custler that got made into a movie. My dad was
just amped as hell. It's like they're making like his second book into a
movie. Nobody appreciates how good it is. My dad is one of the
few action book connoisseurs. He really likes Nelson DeMille. If you're by the
rivers of Babylon Cathedral, like like the books, reading the books are like
screenplays for action movies. Very fun weekend reads. I highly recommend Cathedral Ira
Terrorists takeover Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York on Saint Patrick's Day as part of
a terror operation as terrorists. That sounds like a good book for the fire
Escape book Club. You Got You Got Gone, That's a good idea.
Of Vinny. We uh, we've recently talked about. I forget how it
came up. Maybe it was a reader email and Dan and Mary, I
think, had asked me for a recommendation of something short to read. I'm
probably butchering this, but we had started thinking brainstorming Novella's short stories to read
for like a bonus episode kind of reading club. And I told them I
like reading. It's separate from work, separate from fire Escape. I don't
want it to be part of anything. But but yeah, Cathedral could be
good. By the Rivers of Babylon was good, if I if I remember
correctly, Wait, how did you go? Wait? There was like a
missing like scene missing there where you said I like reading. I don't want
him to be part of Dan warming down. Oh okay, okay, Dan
got up there. You know, Bill and Dan was like idea for a
show, and it's anything you're doing, I'm gonna start my own thing.
I had to relent just to move to move on in the episode, otherwise
we would just be quagmired. Um, you should do the entire you know,
you should just do the entire Clive Custler catalog, like just a book,
a book a week. He's no Stephen King, but Clive Custler was
prolific. He like he. I think they had to shut down some wings
of airports because of the weight of his books. At some point, we're
just kind of like having it fall into loose soil or something. I like
Clive Custler is one of those authors that is like, I'm walking through the
airport and it's just giant Clive Custler next on a blue background with like a
flag or something, or maybe a horse, and it's just like, Clive's
got a new book. Is he dead? I have no idea he actually,
I think so. And I'm I think he's got a son who took
over the business. Oh what's the son's name? Please please be Clive Carl
Now I'm curious. I'll look it up over the break or something. But
we um and I might be misremembering again. I might be confusing Sahara with
something else. But Clive Cussler, Nelson DeMille, who's the author who wrote
Um Dennis Lahane. I don't know why he's in that same camp as them.
He shouldn't be. He wrote Mystic River and also Shutter Island, which
okay, I remember I was a junior in high school when I heard that
Scorsese's next movie is going to be called Shutter Island. It's based off this
book, so of course we all run out by Shutter Island, read it,
and then consume everything else. Dennis Lehane has written damn. Different group
of has been meats always just like heady, Like I don't think I always
prepared every books heavy. These are the same friends as like let's go shotgun
and a handle of vodka tomorrow as well that we weren't all um brains of
the organization. Uh sure, but I don't know why I associate like anytime
an author writes more than ten books, I assume he's just commercial, which
is not true at all, because even Shakespeare wrote like forty five works whatever
you call them. Now we're into Shakespeare anyway. Oh man, it's great,
you know it's uh we got on the mic who we've fart for like
an hour and a half, and uh, you know, talk about how
Hi Mario jumps, not about Lahane versus Shakespeare. Uh, a handle of
vodka versus five Cussler, you'd win in a fight. It's a different group.
I'm just classing up the joint in Dan and Mary's absence. Yeah,
Dan's at a Hollow Night convention. Mary is very bad at Miss pac Man.
So she went to this like crash Cars, Miss Pacman boot Camp.
Yeah, is that for real? Yeah, that's amazing. Mary's terrible at
Miss pac Man. Next time you see her, say, I heard you
suck a Miss pac Man. Okay, Dan's much better than you. Okay,
I will say those is And is she okay at pac Man? Yes,
surprisingly enough, she's phenomenal at pac Man, but Miss pac Man she's
very bad. Okay, just don't transfer over, you know, Yeah,
yeah, I know. I mean listen, I've been there. It's it's
tough. And you see Dan asked him how the Hollow Knight convention went.
Hollow Night convention. Yeah, okay, huge Hollow Knight fan. He loves
Hollow Night. Oh my gosh. Somebody just dropped the body upstairs in my
in my room here they heard Hollow Night. Yeah that was Dan. Actually
just bust through my wall upstairs. He's dressed up as the Hollow Knight.
You would not believe it. He's just kool aid man three wall. Yeah,
which is a shame because that wall is expensive it's my most expensive wall.
That's better than coming through the concrete foundation behind you. No, that
would be bad because that would make the house fall on that. So yeah,
but that would also be a damn thing. I had no idea about
those things. But either of those things. How'd you get off from the
you guys are uncovering Hollow Night convention? Cheek you just got I will well,
okay, So I want to ask you this in two parts, because
you went to Belgium to see Bald's Gate three, their final preview before the
release, which they people missed. They bumped up the PC release of Bald's
Gate three from October twenty or sorry Jesus August twenty eighth to August third,
full month based August thirty first, etc. And then they bump PS five
back a week. I want to talk about that in a video game section.
But you also just got back from and I'm not making this up,
a castle in Belgium with Dan Reicher. What was How have you recovered yet?
I mean sleepwise? Yeah? Surprisingly, I was okay because we're only
there for like three days, so I didn't even have time to adjust to
the time change. And then I came back and after not sleeping in bell
right asleep. But yeah, it was. It was interesting. I've never
been on a trip with Dan before. It's been a while since i've been
on a work trip anyway, But we went to Ghent, Belgium. The
preview was like in a crypt, I guess. But more interestingly, we
went to a castle that was very close by that had a full on torture
chamber that Dan just kept looking at and be like, I think they killed
people with these things, And I was like, yeah, I think that
was the That was the gist of these torture chambers. Back in the day.
It was like an iron maiden chokey, there's no iron main ironin.
Iron Maidens weren't actually real. Really, yeah, they I think, God,
I forgot how, but I think they were made up. I'm pretty
sure they were made up. I don't know why they were made up,
but yeah, apparently they didn't actually kill people with iron maidens. Wait,
but like you think somebody after they were made up? Do you think somebody
made one? Was like that, if they don't exist, I should make
one, because that's I bet you someone's died by one. But I think
for Middle Ages yet I don't. I don't think they actually used Iron Maid.
I think the band Iron Maiden is like, do not let anybody know
this, like rolling in their graves, like what our whole yeah, our
whole premise. Roll Dal put one in Matilda basically the chokey. Remember missus
trunch Bull would throw kids in the chokey. I don't think I've ever said
this anybody. I think he might read too many books. But you know,
okay, well, no, I saw the movie because I was a
big Danny DeVito mark when I was younger, Like Danny DeVito and his wife
were a permanent in this movie. I gotta watch. No, I'm still
a Danny DeVito mark. But yeah, they throw kids in this chokey and
the spikes were like just narrow enough Maiden. Yeah, it was horrible.
It was like Jumanji. It was actually going back to watch that movie.
It was kind of fucked up. I feel like the only thing worse than
like dying in an Iron Maiden is maybe not dying in the Iron Maiden,
which is what Roll Dial dreamed for this children's novel Yea, which is also
creepy anyway, Sorry, Jake Um, Yeah, so you saw Chamber What
they did have was this like neck thing that they put on people's necks that
had spikes on the inside, so it would just sit there and if you
move too much, it would just pierce your neck. Is cool, Like
if you fall asleep, you can't fall asleep. If you fell asleep,
head just nod off and die. I don't like that, uh, not
one bit. But screws. What's that thumb? Screws? I feel like
those are like the one that they just like turn the knob and like little
things go into your thumbs. Okay, those are always a cloud crowd pleaser
like that, but for your neck and yeah, yeah, that'll get the
confessions out. But yeah, like I said, never never traveled with Dan
before. It was interesting. I appreciated being abroad with him because he isn't
afraid to look embarrassing. I suppose he isn't afraid to embarrass himselves. What
you're saying, you're the kindest person I know. I'd love you for you.
Well, he because an issue would present itself to us and I'd be
like trying to think my way through it and be like I'm just gonna ask
someone. And he'd go up and talk to people and just shout at them
for a little bit, and a lot of times they wouldn't know what he
was saying, or if they did. Like for example, we were having
trouble getting an ATM machine to work. I couldn't we couldn't neither us good
withdraw money. There was a bank nearby. Banks typically don't convert cash,
you know, like you can't bring us dollars in there and change but he
thought he'd try, and we walked in and he's just like, hey,
I got cash. What can we do something with this? And they're like
off guard and they're like, uh no, you gotta go some marls.
And he's like, we just want to exchange it, and they're like we
don't. We don't do that here, and he's like where should we go?
Like I don't know. I was like, okay, the airport you
came from wasn't much what they said. They were like airport and we're like,
oh, it's too far. How do you end up doing it?
Or I eventually got an ATM machine to work. We just went to a
different one and I withdrew euros. Is fine, but you know, if
it was just me, I wouldn't have gone in and asked, I would
have just spent I would have starved or just spent hours looking for ATM machine
that that would work, and you know, we found one eventually it worked
out. But what's what's Ghent like? Ghent is? I mean it is
like a smaller city in Belgium. I suppose it's it's he's easy to walk
around, it's way less crowded than something like Brussels. I've only been to
Brussels in Belgium, so I don't really have much else to compare it to.
Yeah, it's a small little town, easy to walk around, very
bike friendly, a lot of buses that you don't really hear d animals got
hit by like three or four buses while we were there. Trains, sorry,
not buses because they were on tracks, but they felt more like are
they like a trolley kind of Yeah? Okay, was could you compare?
I know this is the most American question ever? What would you compare a
Ghent to in America? If you can? Or like California, maybe to
hone in more. I don't think I really can't. I mean maybe like
San luc abyss Bo if you've ever been in California like that? Quiet,
Yeah, I guess like on the weekend things started getting a little crazier,
but even then it wasn't nearly as bad as something like Paris or yeah,
I don't know, even even like Brussels. When I was there. Yeah,
well, one thing we figured out is that they're not really a big
coffee They don't have much coffee culture. So at like seven am, eight
am or whatever, we were like, oh, let's go get some coffee.
We found this coffee shop that looked really cool, but we saw it
five pm and we're like, we probably shouldn't do that before bed. So
we went back there and it was closed, and we were like, all
right, we'll just go to Starbucks. Starbucks also closed. Found three more
coffee shops at eight am they're all closed. We eventually found one, and
of course Dan was like, what's the deal? All the coffee shops closed?
And the guy was like, well, we don't drink coffee all that
much here. I was like, okay, it was like we had we
drink our coffee at home. I'm like, okay, huh, yeah it
was. You've been to Amsterdam before, yes, several times. Is that
also true of Amsterdam? I feel like I remember Mary and Josh Shaw going
into or maybe it was a specific kind of like coffee concoction that they were
not aware of. I don't remember an Amsterdam, I think, I mean,
Amsterdam is much bigger, so I feel like it was easy to find
coffee anyway. But I also don't really drink coffee. So on we drink
coffee, and I haven't slept for twenty six hours of flight or something.
But I think the thing you're thinking of is when and I think it was
Mary and Josh got in a fight with the barista because they didn't do an
iced coffee or something like iced coffee might have. Yeah, oh it was
cold coffee was weird to them. Yeah, and yeah, like we called
yeah, the guy called Josh some like Starbucks loving American or oh, Josh
Shaw's pretty well traveled, I'd say, which is funny to fall people to
call him that. I want to know if I want to know if you
got a waffle or did you or Dan get a waffle? We got a
Belgian waffle. We got a Belgium waffle apparently not really a big thing for
locals, but they're there for tourists. But we did have a waffle.
Is very good. Um. I filmed Dan's reaction and he like just eyes
got really wide and mouth dropped open, and I'm like, all right,
this is it's good content, I guess, because yeah, yeah, that'll
be that'll be up. Is that gonna be a giant bomb thing or game
spot thing separate from Balder's Gate. Yeah, the travel Law will be a
giant bomb thing. That'll be probably in a couple of weeks. It's we
shot a lot um. Dan would like react to anything and everything, so
there's a lot to a lot to parse through there. But but but it
should be funny? Should it should be entertaining? Did you film in the
bank? Didn't film in the bank? I wish we did. Dan running
around waving twenty dollar bills and people Michael Man's heat too. I guess I'm
just grabbed to rob the place. It's all part of the plan. Which
did you Uh? Do you have good beers? Yeah? We had a
lot of good beer. And the thing is, so every time I go
to Europe and I drink a beer, usually it's like five percent four percent.
It's usually much lighter and it doesn't feel as lucy goosey with percentages there.
It feels very like on the mark, but in Belgium everything is eight
percent. Like I had trouble finding anything under eight percent. So I'd have
a couple of beers and I'd be I'd be feeling it. But we found
this cherry beer I think called La Shoof or something like that that we kept
going to. In fact, we found this. We found this uh gamer
bar kind of that had all these arcade machines and and all that sort of
stuff, and they had this cherry beer that we just kept going back to
to get this cherry beer over over and over again. But they also had
fucked up pong, which was pong that did not obey the laws of physics.
It was like magnetized or something. But you'd hit it, it would
count as a hit even if you missed it, and the bounce made no
sense. But of course Dan loved it and was like immediately shopping for how
he could get into his house. I don't know if you're gonna be able
to find this broken pong. Yeah, it was everybody's English amazing. Yeah,
everyone spoke pretty great English. Yeah, you know, they speak like
three languages there. I think they speak Dutch, English, Flemish and apparently
no one really speaks Flemish, but they learn it anyway, at least to
some extent, because it's more historic. I guess, I don't know,
sure, yeah, I mean it's always amazing how many languages other countries just
know. I'm trying to learn one other language, and I'm like I'm too
stupid for this, you know, Like I feel like I'm just too old.
My brain's not going to fit any of these words. It's like I
really should have learned as kid. Is it German? Well, I'm trying
to learn Dutch, but I guess it. Took a lot of Spanish classes
in high school and I can read Spanish, but I can't speak Spanish.
I'm terrible with languages as well, like just just hot mates, it's hard,
Like I don't know, Like due lingo is great to an extent,
right, Like I know you've been doing due lingo forever, Mike, and
like I'm like, get two hundred days or something now, and like I
feel like it's good at introducing you to the language, but then you get
to the point where it's like you're just throwing terms at me or words vocab
and it's not going to help because I don't know how to actually talk to
someone. Yeah, from what I've from what I've seen of dual lingo,
and I did nine years of Spanish before du a lingo, Like I was
actually trying to become fluent throughout my education, and then dual lingo is just
a good way to force myself and kind of help myself accountable to at least,
Yeah, keep up with it. But I agree, dual lingo seems
like it's very good at teaching someone the basic phrases, and if you're good
at a language, it's good for maintaining and you can do you can.
They've added more features for you to opt into a lot more speaking and listening
rather than just reading and writing. However, it's those intermediate lessons that form
the building blocks of a language that I don't and maybe they do. Maybe
I need to start a new language and try it out. Amanda's really good
with French, for instance, And we're debating kind of learning each other's preferred
language or preferred second language. I guess, yeah, we're debating learning English
and it's not going well for me at all. But it seems like you're
missing a lot of I can't imagine due lingo doing as good of a job
as teaching me how to conjugate certain pronouns in very basic conversation. It's one
of the hardest things for me in Spanish still is off the cuff when I'm
speaking to someone throwing in those pronouns, like to say. Just the other
day, across the street from me, the garden store where we buy most
of our house plants, one of the employees really does not speak much English
speak Spanish. So I was like, okay, I'll do my best not
look like an idiot. And of course, instead of saying like how much
son does this plant need? I say how much son do you need?
Which to me it's just literal, just cut that s at one point conversationally.
But to him it's like this guy needs to stick to English. I'll
understand the basics. But did he answer tell you what? He took a
pause, but then he's like, oh, Like I was like, uh,
what is it? But I said nessitas. So basically I was saying
how much sun do you need the plant? And to him he's like,
oh, like indirect kind of sunlight would be great. I was like okay,
and how many? And then I was like, well, It's a
very simple sentence to say how many times a week should I water it?
But it's the water it again, that is the toughest part of that sentence
if you're not speaking it often. Yeah, So basically I ended up saying
how many times a week does it need water? Instead of should I water
it? Because the latter is a bit harder, So you can I can
get around conversations fairly easily. Yeah, but I sound dumb when I'm doing
it, and they definitely know I'm American. But I get there. But
I can't imagine a lingo in its current form teaching me those very simple to
them as like, hey, here's why I'm addressing, or rather, here's
the subject of the sentence, here's the object. To me, it's like,
let me just get through the verbs and conjugate them correctly in conversation without
pausing too long and wasting their time. I don't know. Maybe due lingo
is better about that, And I've been doing it long enough where I am
very curious what it would be like to try to learn a new language from
scratch. Yeah. I mean that's what I did with Dutch, and like
I said, it gave me some Foundations. But then when I actually went
to Amsterdam, and even in Belgium where most people speak Dutch or English,
it was just like, I mean, I know what that word means,
but that's that's all I can do, and like I kind of know what
that verb means, but I can't. I can't have a conversation. I
can't even like I can say hello and thank you and goodbye, and like
that's about it, and can I have a beer? It's about it,
Yeah, the essentials exactly. I think. I feel like my humble opinion
is I think you just really need to be immersed at some point and spend
like two weeks just thinking in that lay. Like I've had friends who are
are native other language speakers and they've been in the States, and I've heard
multiple times it takes like anywhere from like a week or three weeks, and
then I've heard this a couple of times before they start dreaming in in that
language again, and like thinking in that language again, and like the their
brains switch over. Um, And I think immersion is just just My mother
in law was a Spanish teacher and she was a big proponent of just like
you just stop stop speaking in English. If you want to learn another language,
you just have to be surrounded by My wife is also kind of amazing
with languages in a really annoying way, like she just kind of picks them
up, and it sucks because it's embarrassing hum to go anywhere with her.
Like we went to Italy and I'm Italian, and like my grandparents are Italian
and her Italian. She would speak to people stop talking to me and just
speak to her, and she like learned or picked up Italian like a couple
of months before, and I would be like, stop speaking, Well,
okay, you order, Then you order the food, ask them where everything
is, you do it. And then as we're leaving, I'd just be
like, you know, she's really Jewish and then and they'd be like,
what yea the Italian she's Jewish, and it would be like what why are
you to be like shouting this. Then I would get arrested and it'd be
like this guy kicked out of the country. No, she's like amazing with
with like all languages, um specifically romance languages. But I think it's just
one of those things where people just have an ear for it, Like Mikey,
you might just have like a good ear for for like languages, and
you probably beat yourself up too much about your your Yeah, it's I found
it's funny because I actually people in my life. I associate the people in
my life who are good with languages with the people who are also good at
math. And I don't know that there's an actual correlation. Maybe it just
exists in my head. But now I'm thirty two, when I'm working on
Spanish, that's the closest to like the same kind of thinking I used to
do when I was actually taking math courses. Because the most math I do
nowadays very basic stuff like the stuff they taught us in journalism school to refresh
us before we needed to do very basic like financial stories, whatever. But
most people in my life that are good with languages, I also would say
generally are good with math. And I don't know if that's if there's any
correlation. Maybe there is, but in my head, I'm like, I
fucking suck at math, or I just I just don't practice it often,
Like I could do the very basic stuff, but when it comes to like
long division nowadays, I like, I don't know if I have room for
that. I've gotten more in my life, I've gotten more into like gardening,
I've gotten more into learning Spanish. There's there's only so much room for
things I can really try to get good at. And I don't know that
like deep math. I think long division is deep mathep. People are rolling.
People are just like wincing. Um. I promise I'm not completely stupid,
but there are there are some things that take up more headspace every day,
and I'm just like, I don't I've got a calculator on my phone.
I'll get through this. I know how to do basic I know how
to tip. Well, sure that's about it. That's like multiplication though,
right, you just take just moving a decimals too. Yeah, Pete Brown
taught me that actually, oddly enough really, which I think it's a fairly
common thing to know how to do. But before Pete Brown taught me,
if you and apologies if this is painfully obvious, but when you get the
check for the table at a restaurant, you get, say it's a twenty
five seventy twenty five dollars and seventy two cent check, just move the decimal
over once and then multiply whatever's left to the decimal. So that'd be four
dollars. It sounds obvious now because that, by definition, would be twenty
percent. Before that, I used to just like dread getting the check because
I'm like, fuck, great, twenty percent is a good tip. I'm
gonna do twenty percent. But like, oh, it's twenty five bucks,
so that's easy. It's you know, it's it's four bucks, but it's
a bit above twenty. Saw that another dollar. Then I just saw that
and I was like, just move that over and then round up. That
was I didn't learn that until I was twenty four. Public school education failed
me. We used to just double the tax in New York and then just
up to twenty percent. I don't know. I don't remember if the the
tax on food was ten percent, but um, I feel like tipping also
has had its own like escalation where it's like, oh man, it's twenty
percent, is that too low? Now twenty to tip higher? I mean
it's like all automated too, where it's like you just pay and they stick
the thing in your face and it's like eight used to be fifteen, twenty
twenty five, and now it's like it was like twenty twenty five, thirty
and now it's twenty five thirty thirty five, and I'm like, about,
how about you just just pay these employees a little bit more? Yes,
yes, but yes, right living wage. And also it's like that.
It's also amazing because the difference would be probably if I paid in cash,
it would be like a dollar in that little jar, like you know,
like you know, it goes from Okay, I'm gonna pay like twenty five
percent of this thing, which could it be anywhere from like a dollar to
three dollars or something versus uh, well, if you I just paid in
cash, I'd probably just put the loose change or be a dollar in the
thing and be done. So it's another reason we should all go back to
cash, get rid of get rid of the penny, and get rid of
apple Bay. A nice thing about. Yeah, so it's really nice for
splitting checks at tables, getting those the handheld ones where you could just say
do you want to split this? How many ways? You could just say
six, and then it'll you'll pass it to the next person once you pay,
etc. Another nice byproduct of that the fact that you are presented,
or even if you're just getting coffee, the fact that you're presented with the
percentages, I think it's easier for them to assume you're going to tip something.
And it's funny. I was just watching the Seinfeld episode the other day
that still rings true when George has the hang up that he needs the employee
to see him put money in the jar. Yeah, which as like neurotic
as that is and chauvinistic as that is, I still sort of get it
because there's something about tipping in America unfortunately, where I'm like, Hey,
this sucks that you need to rely on this, but I'm there with you.
But then, like then I catch myself thinking I'm being a huge George
right now, Whereas like when they're you're presenting you with those percentages, and
in order to not tip someone, you'd have to press the other and then
zero dot zero zero, and they just give you so many more chances to
feel like a piece of shit. I've never done that for I've worked in
this, We've talked about this on fire Skip, I've worked in the service
industry for many years. I would never do that, but I appreciate,
at least in the American system, that it's that much harder for someone to
not tip somebody. And I would just caught myself thinking that earlier today,
even at the cafe across the street, and like that Castandra joke even has
even more weight now where I'm like that the screen is facing me. However,
in my head, I'm like, they know I'm tipping something because like
I'm not going to do the zero zero zero thing. But and then I
feel like a piece of shit. But I always I always dipped them.
Well, I never thought about that, like tipping while they can see you
until one time I was at a coffee shop and I was like, I
ordered something and they were they were they turned around to make the drink or
whatever, and I was about to put my money in the jar and just
someone grabbed my arm and was like no, you gotta wait wait really see
it. Yeah, just some some person who was standing next and he was
like, oh wait hold on and a stranger yeah. And I was like,
okay, is that a thing? And they were like, well,
they gotta see it. I was like okay. I felt like I was
in a Seinfeldts kit. Was it Larry David behind you? Like, you
gotta wait, this is Larry David. That's pretty good. I gotta wait,
you gotta wait what is this you gotta wait now, I don't know.
My cousin was a barista for many years, and ironically he would say
that he would often feel the reverse where he would feel uncomfortable if he saw
people do it, so he would turn around like very theatrically to fill the
cup in order to say like, here's your chance to tip. Hopefully you
get more like so then I'm thinking that just makes even funnier than I'm like
waiting for them to watch me put in a dollar or five, make eye
contact like, hey, got this putting right here? Have for the record.
I just that's the stuff that I watched Seinfeld and like, man,
some of these jokes are have not as well, but others are very timeless.
And Kramer trying to pay at the pizza stand to get his pants heated
in the oven with pennies has still rings true, still holds weight. That's
now the day goes by that I don't think about that episode. It was
a rainy day in the Bronx. Yeah, but I I think I think
the tipping stuff needs to be resolved with yes, like a better minimum wages.
But I think those like weird escalation on those Kiosks checkout are. It's
like a it's like a race of the bottom man. It's like at some
point it's just like you should you should be able to like do twenty five
or just vote for your next representative on that thing, you know, just
be like, look, I voted to make sure you can get a better
minimum wage. This is ridiculous. There are places in San Francisco. There
are places everywhere that are actually doing this radical thing where they pay their services
a salary and you don't need to tip. And I remember the first time
I encountered that. Well, it's widespread, but like in America and San
Francisco specifically, there's this place called Zazzi in Noi Valley, which is two
doors away from Padre Sitos, a Mexican brunch place which closed down, which
is a shame. Jake you pointed out to I feel like it wasn't who
have someone else said it? But you've told me, okay, and I
was bummed. Um, it was a very good brunch place down in Noi
Valley in San Francisco. But uh, next door there's a bar called Finnigan's
Wake, i old school Irish pub. Vinny, you said something that has
stuck with me ever since. When about my wife, I apologize, I
should I shouldn't have brought it up. You said two things to me.
This is the other thing. And you Dan and me were hanging out at
Desmond's on Park av that place that used to be near the office on the
Madison and twenty eighth Street, and you said, your favorite bars. When
you're inside them, you could be anywhere in the world and it would not
matter where you are, the bar would be the same. Yeah, And
that was a really good way to describe it. There's this bar called Finnegan's
Wake in Noe Valley. I assume it's still there, but I could be
wrong, and it was right. It's this just very generic Irish pub pool
tables. They poured guinness well, and it was between Padricitos, this place
that closed and Zazzy, this other brunch place with this lovely little back patio
that you can sit in and you didn't have to tip because they all got
paid salaries. Meals were a bit more expensive, but it was you know,
you weren't tipping, so it didn't matter. And the move used to
be you go to Finnegan's Wake after you put your aim and a zazzy and
you have a few guinnesses while you're playing pool, and then you go over
there and I remember thinking it's so weird to be in this very old school
Irish American pub playing pool, like putting quarters in to get the Q ball
after you scratch, and then going next door to a place where, of
anywhere in San Francisco, you don't have to tip because they're paid a salary.
It was a very Tale of two Bars kind of thing. Every time
we went. It was fun, but it was whiplash. Yeah, I
think, I think for me, Desmond's had this, But like it should
just be like a wooden table, like my perfect bar is like wooden table
in a booth, you know, and the table vaguely smells like a dirty
rag. You know, it's a little sticky. Maybe yeah, it's a
little it's a little sticky, right exactly. The bathroom. The only thing
I would say is like, hopefully the bathroom. Bathroom should probably be single
occupancy, but it's never like a big line for it, because a big
line at a bar. But I don't I don't know people, you guys,
but like I don't wait online. I'll look and waiting for there to
be no line, and then I've like when there's no line for the bathroom,
I will like try and walk quickly to it, and then somebody always
gets up and then goes in, and then I have to do the quick
mental math of like, all right, do I do they like turnaround and
like just kind of walk back to the table, or like, am I
gonna queue up for the bathroom now? And then when the person comes out,
look them and deaden the eye and be like, I'm gonna go into
this place. You just had a very personal moment in and I'm gonna go
breathe everything about you into myself that that's too intimate for me for a bar
room experience. I had a thing like that on the metro riding up to
Connecticut a couple of weeks ago. This person was probably just having an off
day. It happens to the best of us. I had been waiting a
bit outside the bathroom on a metro train. And if you've been on a
metro train, you know that the bathrooms are basically every other car, and
they're kind of in the center of the car. It's also like an area
where you can stand. It's near the doors that you exit onto the platform,
and I was waiting outside and of the bathroom, and I remember thinking,
I hope this person's okay. It's been like fifteen minutes. At a
certain point, I actually the red and green was kind of split in the
middle, so I was like, it's sort of occupied, but sort of
not. So I gave it like a harder yank to make sure. It
was like you weren't sure if there You didn't see the person go in.
No, I didn't so I earlier. I pulled it gently and it was
it felt locked, So I just sat down to the bench right across.
At a certain point, I'm like, okay, So now I'm faced with
a decision of do I go kind of yank and it hard to double check
because if someone else comes up behind me, yeah, I might just be
forming a line for no reason if there is no one in there. Did
you consider knocking? YEA, So it was. I think we were in
a tunnel at that point, so it was loud enough where I couldn't really
knock it. No. In my head, I'm like, it's too out
for me to knock. They're not going to hear that. So I did
eventually just knock and they're like hello. I was like, there we go.
What do you say? Hold on a second first? What do you
say when you get the like response my girlfriend and I don't have an answer
to yeah, yeah? Is that not sure? What to do? Almost
I'm here, that's right? What do you do? On both ends of
it when somebody knocks? Do you I think for me, it's just like
sorry, occupied right, Like is a is a gentle response? Right?
But on the other end of it, do you just not answer or do
you just like you like I'll be waiting watching you my my, uh my
instinctual response when I'm in there is beer right out. Oh that's my sibling.
I lived in a small ish house when I was young with many siblings,
so that was it was like beer it out, Like, give me
a fucking second. They're in there a bit. I think what I said
they said, uh hello, I think I just said sorry, and then
I went back to sit down and sorry and yeah. It's like because I
do feel bad that I disturbed them. I was like, I wouldn't want
someone annoying me when I'm okay, you know, do whatever and there but
uh, they left. They were very nice. They held the door for
me, you know, So I went in Finally, I will say,
it's probably the worst I walked into in in many years. And they knew
it. They knew that they were handing off there they I could sense it
on them, they knew they they felt a bit of shames, like,
hey, it happens to all of us. I'll brave it. Then,
once inside, though, I was faced with a dilemma because I what I
needed to do was not going to be that bad. However, whoever comes
next, I could experience what they had left behind and assume it's me,
and by and large, I don't care that much like what people think I
didn't there. However, it's a train. Who's to say that the guy
behind me is not like in the row next to me when we both sit
back down. So at that point I'm weighing my options. I'm like,
do I wait this out to stop being this bad? So that's exactly what
the person before you did thought, That's why they were in there. Maybe
it was a person before them, but like to that point, if I
left too early, the person behind them might have the same thing. That's
just where domino effect and it sucks doubly at a train because those aren't well
ventilated, so it's like double the way time. And also again going back
to the die bar thing, it's like I think of Columbus Cafe Jake in
North Beach in San Francisco. It's like one of those bathrooms. It's actually
the bathroom. It's for a dive bar bathroom. It's fairly clean, but
yeah it's graffiti. Did you go to there? If any they do?
They did the poker chip like buy one get one Wednesday, it was North
Beach problem. They it was a most of the time it was metal music
playing while we played pool, and these days was chip night or no sorry,
yeah, chip night. So you buy a drink, they give you
a poker chip. That's a free drink. Your next one is by one
get one. But the bar was always the bathroom rather was always clean for
a dive bar. But yeah, it was single occupancy. And then when
you leave the bathroom you are at the pool table. So I always remember
thinking I have to get back to my seat quickly because if there is a
line, I don't want them to really remember my face. And I also
but it's a small enough bar where they're going to and this is just these
are just the options I'm weighing in my head when I'm leaving a bathroom in
a die bar, And I remember Desmonds was always fairly nice because it actually
was kind of this tiny little cramp corridor you left into before you came into
the main bar. But a lot of times in die bars like Columbus Cafe,
it's just you're right in the thick of it when you open the door.
And it reminded me the train, and I'm always these are the little
these are the these are where my real stress comes from. Now, yes,
social situations, my life could be worse. These are the things that
trust me out. Does you practice in Spanish conjugating verbs on the toilet and
the train that you're like, man, maybe the play is to slide the
thing halfway between the red and green so that somebody has the yank on the
door, and then you can kind of like know somebody's waiting for you,
and then you can start having a kind of slightly too loud conversation to yourself
that's like, oh, man, I can't believe the person in here before
me left to such a stinker. Just woo man. And then when you
walk out, you have to sell it to Yeah, someone did a number
in that place. That's some business in there. I remember it. But
at certain points, like there's something noble in letting the next person think it
was you. Yeah, taking them fall for it, you know what,
give that other person a break for the day. Yeah, have fun person
front of them. Yeah, that's right, you're you absorb that. It's
like, that's right, it's very chivalrous. Just I farted in the elevator.
I did it. I was the one. Yeah, he's so he's
so bold. Yeah, there's been a few times when it's been bad enough
from like give it a bit. But even that, though, that sounds
like it's me saying, wait, you said that the strangers. Yes,
a couple times, give it a bit, yep, like like you I
can't let you in there. Yeah, not because the things I did.
Actually, yeah, you're right. I don't know why I do that.
I have done that before, though, and it was on it's always on
metro trains. Those things are it's entreatment. I uh, they just get
you in there. They want you to poop. I are you, uh,
what are you eating? I think it's like I don't know what a
lot of veggies. Okay, good because you're you're you're moving, you're moving
business. You're you're good baby. Yeah, yeah, that's right, all
the time. A lot of fiber. I love it. That's great.
I feel like I could my body recognizes when I'm in a public space and
it's like, got it understood, we are shutting down the transportation hub is
a clues. Oh, it's just this hula hoop of gases that goes into
my mouth, out my butt and then in front of me and my tours.
It's just continually cycling. Doesn't care if I'm at desmondser what are you
describing? Breathing in your own farts again? Yeah, that's what I'm describing.
That's not what I'm meant to describe, though, I don't know what
it is. It's just I'm always open for business and right, okay,
but it's always circulating. Yeah, Jake, you were saying, I was
gonna say, do you guys ever witness or pay attention to the state of
airplane bathroom over the course of a long flight where you get in assume it's
going to be bad, and then every time you get in there it's worse
and worse, and and then by the end, like trash is sticking out
of the trash can and like no one's cleaned the sink, even though there's
always a sign that says please wipe down the sink. And it's just it's
it's rough. I frontload my bathroom usage on long flights, and then I'm
like, I'm gonna hold this well. I feel like they keep the trash
can through that really strongly. That's that really really pushed it into what it
was. The hinge is like not greased at all. I feel like they
keep that small so you don't put bigger like cups you bring on. However,
to your point, over the course of eight hours, that's not enough
for all the toilet paper people or hand towels, etc. It's not fun.
It's a it's a it's a great little like uh you know, it's
a great little ecosystem or or u uh microcosm for humanity there like ken ken
on an eight hour flight, we figure this out as humanity, how would
you keep this one room? And it's like, no, I'm not optimistic.
Yeah yeah, I'm no, I'm gonna do my business. I'm gonna
destroy it. I don't care. I don't care what anybody has to deal
with after this, I'm done. To the next guy, I'm gonna be
like, oh, I'd wait a minute, and then do you think it'd
be weird if you put your hand up for a high five as you're coming
out? Would you? All right, Mike Dragon? Would you? Would
you? Would you slap it? No? I can't imagine a scenario where
no, I really wouldn't. But now I'm thinking about like leaving a bath
and being like, get after it, buddy, and then filing him and
then getting back to my seat. All right, fist bum I'd probably do
that, okay, just like who just like one of those Yeah, what's
the weirdest phrase? You could say them like beggars can't be choosers, you
know, Am I right? Buddy? You win, somebody lose them,
you know, like a mile low club? Am I right? I think
that would be my favorite. Is you're flying to Rome and you are getting
ready. They're like, please go to the bathroom one last time to be
before we get our descent, and you leave the bathroom and you whisper like
when in Rome, you know, and sit back down and then just vomit
into the sink and you're like, I heard that's what they do here.
Yeah, puke like the Romans do. I don't have a good transition.
But do you guys want to talk about video games? Now? Sure?
Yeah? It cool? Yeah, Dan, I have firmly convinced you to
start trying out more wines, and I think First Leaf, which we've both
been loving as well as Mary, who's not here right now, has helped
a lot. Yes, I am a wine man now, but when I
started, I was but a t ball player. You set the ball on
the stand for me to become a wine man. But you know who gave
me a bat and taught me how to hit it out of the park and
make it to the major leagues of winemen is First Leave. They've taught me
so much, Mike, far more than you ever could. What kind of
wines you been trying with them? Well, Cabernet, sauvignons, no noirs,
a selection of fine wines. They've all been fine in my opinion.
If I'm too opined on these fine wines, I look, they're all very
good. I don't have the vocabulary you do yet, but I taste them
all. I drink them all. First Leaf does a great job of sending
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Try first leaf dot com slash fire Escape. Mike Mahrdy, Hi, you
know what I've always said, right, of course, does have to do
with the babel. Yes it is. I've always said the best way to
learn a language is through immersion, living where the language is spoken natively and
using it every day. But that's not possible for everyone, is it.
Mike You can't just move to whatever country if you want to learn a language.
Correct. No, not at all. I think most of the time
that we use these language apps, it's often feels more like a daily quiz.
However, it does not really prepare you for the I guess improv that
is just speaking to someone in a language. There's actually a spot right across
the street my favorite garden store where I was talking to the person at the
desk. They had a ton of stuff to tell me about the plant,
how much sun it needed, how much water it needed, and they didn't
speak great English, so I was able to actually use my Spanish to get
the basics and talk to them about how to take care of the plant.
And Babel helps me quite a bit because it actually prepares you for the fluidity,
as it were, of the conversation. And I think it does that
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That's right. This summer, you like Mike, can start speaking a
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if Annie, normally I would give our guest carte blanche to kick off the
video game section. However, you and I were talking earlier today. I
think both you and I are excited to hear what Jake saw of Balder's Gate
three in Belgium. Obviously, Jake, you're not going to spoil anything.
However, just to set the scene quick for those who don't know, Larian
Studios started releasing Balder's Gate three in early access I think two years ago at
this point, which was twenty one, I think an anomaly for them,
but coming off of Divinity Original Sin two, they're very you know, kind
of note I don't know if traditionals right word, but old school, like,
we're going to release these CRPGs in full, You're gonna have them,
you can dive in for like two months straight, get to know every aspect
of this game, etc. So early access was a bit of a departure
for them, but also the fact that they were doing Balder's Gate three,
a match made in Heaven in my opinion and a lot of people's opinion,
but it was still like, oh, Larion's taking on this other ip.
So now, from what I understand, when you went to Belgium, you
played like their final hands on preview before they release. And their release again,
I mentioned this earlier was gonna be late August. They bumped it up
to August third on PC, bumped it back to Starfield's release date on PS
five. So I'm particularly excited because I think perennially, August is a dead
month just in general, even outside of video games, So it strikes me
as the perfect time to release a game that I think is I would hope
is best when you can just kind of immerse yourself in it, get absorbed
in it. But I'm curious what you saw because I'm can't wait to play
that game. I'm looking forward to it. So what are your thoughts so
far? Yeah, I mean so, I guess just to set the stage,
so I played one point note, but I still only played the first
act, which is currently available, so a lot of the story beats and
stuff I think people have already seen. However, there's they added a new
race, the drift Or. They added two new race, is Half Working
dragon Born, and they added new origin stories which actually don't even think you
could play the origin stories quite yet, which are basically pre made characters that
you can play through the story in, but they added a couple of those.
So the game, despite being the first act, still felt very fresh
to me because I played most of Act one back in twenty twenty one and
enjoyed it a lot. But I got to a point where I was like,
I just want to wait for the full release because I know this is
going to be good, and I don't want to just get to a cliffhanger
and have to wait a couple of years for the final release. But yeah,
I mean we mentioned we didn't want to spoil anything, but I honestly
think that it would be hard to spoil anyway, even if I played beyond
that, because the amount of narrative permutations that can happen as you are playing
through this game seem absurd. It seems like it seems like they thought of
everything in a way like some of the scenes they were describing that they recorded
would probably won't people probably won't even see, but they need to be there
in order to fulfill that sort of D and D fantasy where anything could potentially
happen. But yeah, I mean high level. I walked away super impressed.
I'm very excited. I think the thing that Dan and I talked about
that we were both pretty excited for is that this game seems really funny,
and that's something that I think is pretty key to D and D. You
know, whether you whether it's on purpose or not, like D and D
tends to be pretty funny, and it seems to really capture that spirit.
And Danny even mentioned, you know, he was like, I don't really
think games are that funny, but I think this is funny, and I
think a lot of it is just because they've really thought of everything and all
of the funny situations that you find yourself in. It's not because the game
told you you have to do this. It's because you made some really bad
decision and you ended up in a dumb spot. Like one thing they were
showing off there. They were showing off some of the areas in Balder's Gate,
which is the city obviously. Um and I won't say too much because
I don't want to spoil the situation, but basically it ended with the character
turning into a wheel of cheese, and hypothetically you could play through the rest
of the game as a wheel of cheese and your only ability is to fart
cheese smells or something like that. So yeah, I'm super optimistic. It
seems very big, and yeah there's a lot to unpack, but I'm very
positive on it, very excited to play more. I think one point zero
is looking pretty solid too. I mean I played, like I said,
I played twenty twenty one release and it was buggies all hell. I didn't
see a lot of bugs when I was playing. They were like, you
know, little a little like I don't even want to say polish things because
the game is so massive, but like obviously you know the cut scenes don't
look as good or polished is something you know, uncharted or whatever. But
that's just because there's like a million different outcomes that can happen depending on your
choices. Did you is it? I also played the twenty twenty one early
access Act one. I'm struggling to remember whether is it like Divinity two where
you can create a character or run with a preset protagonist. Yeah, so
there's I think there's like eight or nine preset protagonist. All of those characters,
I believe, except for one, you can also meet in the game
and they can be part of your party. But you can just create a
character, and I think there's like there's like thirteen races, twelve classes.
There's uh like character backgrounds, you can choose, your stats, choose.
I think there's like forty seven subclasses too. So it's it's it's ridiculous.
It seems like an endless RPG. I mean, Divinity was kind of in
that same vein too, right, where it was like you've got all these
origin stories, these classes, but it really seems like they've doubled down on
that to the point of almost absurdity, Like I could see myself playing this
game with multiple characters a bunch, just because the possibilities are endless. Like
I'm excited for Starfield in many ways, but I think narratively what Larryan is
doing is probably going to be a lot more interesting because they have co op
as well, and you could do I loved Original Sin too. I loved
even more once I played four player co op with people and we were all
kind of bouncing up. It was improv and it was the amount of leeway
that Larryon gave you to make these rash decisions and then to allow that second
person to kind of reel that person back in that third person to make things
even wilder was pretty staggering. Like you're sure you bump up against the boundaries
every once in a while because they can only do so much. But that's
kind of the fun, and that's what I'm excited for Balder's Gate three is
finding those boundaries and poking at the seams. Yeah, well, I mean
kind of point um. Before we had time to sit down and play,
it's then the game director did a walk through that and he's like, Okay,
here's what we're gonna try to do. We're gonna do this question,
and this question and this quest. He fucked up every step of the way.
He messed up all the roles, He put characters in the wrong places,
some people died, like it was a disaster, but it was impressive
because he navigated out of every single one of those situations. And it was
just as if not more entertaining, just watching him react to all these like
he was trying to do a bank heist at one point and just absolutely like
fuck or no, she's gonna break out of prison, and just every step
of the way kept messing up, and like it still worked just because he
was able to, uh, like you saying, push it those boundaries and
figure out cracks in the wall where he's able to fit through. It was
like, like I said, I think that's more impressive than like, you
know, a curated thirty minute demo where everything happens is it's supposed to.
We were we were playing the Early Access very recently, like two weeks ago
co op on a stream, and I think my favorite part of it was
I was talking to an MPC and the person I was playing with. You
know, when you're talking to an MPC, you kind of you get this
back and forth camera and the whole thing, and it's showing the person talking
and I just see the person playing co op with jump into frame with an
ass and just it started attacking them. And then that NPC died. It
was one of the player characters that you or one of the characters you could
meet companion characters. Yeah, yeah, and that player. I think they
said they actually changed this recently, but that character died and his spirit came
out and it was like the narratively it was like this. It's like,
oh, you've triggered this uh I must be dead. You've triggered this alarm.
I'm gonna give you a chance to bring me back because I'm important for
reasons you really don't know right now. And like here's this whole mechanic of
how you could bring me back. You've got to take this book out and
it's got three pieces of yarn. You've got to take the blue one and
unwind it this way. Then you're gonna summon a demon. And we like
it was it was hilarious because it was like, Okay, clearly this was
an important NBC. They're not just gonna be like reload your save, but
it's a fun mechanic and we eventually we just walked away and we're like yeah,
yeah. But it was like, you know, that's the kind of
humor I like. That is a little knowing to the player too, It's
like, um, okay, you know what you're doing, like you know
how you got here, you and we know what you want. We want
to make the dumb decisions too. We want to see the game. We
know you want to see the game break, and we're gonna try and account
for as many you know, I think, like you said, break the
seams of this thing that's possible, which is which is very fun. Like,
um, I think I think that game will come down to a lot
of for me from what I've seen before, how it wraps up in the
end, because your boy, you're gonna have a lot of threads going and
a lot of ways. And I love that stuff. But I feel like
I've been burned enough in the past with cards like just don't give me the
slide show of like this character went on to college, this character you know
did this. I really hope it wraps up in a meaningful way with the
choices you made along the way and not just funneling you back in towards the
end into one or two story beats, but lets you kind of branch out.
So so far what I've seen seems amazing. I think they've been pretty
good about their communication. You know, they just had that not press conference.
They were all just sat there like Q and A, Yeah, who
what do you play as? So I played as one of the origin characters
because they recommended, if you had already played balls Gate, should play as
the Dark Urge or something. Yeah, And basically because at the start of
ball is getting no matter who you pick, your character forgets everything, as
is every jar or every RPG ever made, so your characters don't know anything.
But with a Dark Urge, you are like, I guess, kind
of Dexter from the show Dexter, where you just have the urge to kill
things and it's kind of unexplainable, but it seems it's because you are a
serial killer before all of this happened. But you can either fight that urge
or give into that urge. I didn't get to this point, but they
like sent over some b roll that I was looking through, and like there's
a scene where you just fucking kick a squirrel because you're dark Urge is like,
yeah, you gotta kill that thing, and just so much blood flies
out and you kick the squirrel and it hits a tree and it's just like
and and that your companion is like, wow, you really showed that squirrel
whose boss. But it seems cruelty animals, right, yeah, so it
is. The dark Urge is also kind of like a cipher where you can
put any other class into it, right, yeah, so I believe.
So I picked the dragon born class. I think you can pick any class
or race for that. But I picked the dragon Barn because that was also
new. And then I think cool and they look cool. I don't remember
what class I did. I think I did. I think I did,
like a sourcer or something like that. But but that was cool because it
just added that extra layer of context where everything I did, almost everything I
did, that voice would show up every now and then and be like,
hey, do this, and then sometimes I do it and sometimes I wouldn't.
And they say like it's got its own story that you know develops as
you play, and like there are answer to answers to those questions, which
I think is pretty interesting. I was talking to one of the developers.
I believe his name is Adam Smith. He's the lead writer, and he
was saying that, or I was saying that, Like that has been done
in video games so much, where there's that voice in your head that's telling
you to do things like Batman did that with the Joker. I don't remember
which Batman game, Arkham City or something like that, Disco, Elysium,
disco handling, that kind of stuff. Yeah, it had that to some
extent. But it's interesting in this situation because you can just say fuck off
and ignore it and do what you want. And I think that'll make for
some really interesting situations. I also imagine it's a nightmare to write, Like
I don't know, I mean this game in general, I imagine as a
nightmare to right. I'm curious to see, like how it holds up over
the course of the game, and like to your point, like I wonder,
I wonder how those threads tie together or don't tie together at the end.
Yeah, that'll be really curious. Like, you know, will it
matter will you get resolution on your companions because there are a lot of them
quests you did or did not do right, How influential will those be in
the grand story. I don't know. I feel like that's a little TBD,
because I feel like we've seen a lot of the early stuff from from
the early access, and we've seen a lot of the promise of the exploration
of your character, and you know, like, hey, here's the choices
you can make, and here's how we're adapting five fifth Edition rules into the
game, and you know, we want to give player agency and all of
those things. So very curious though, like it's it's also up there with
me. I think I share the sentiment of I'm excited for Starfield, but
I think I think Starfield feels a little bit more of a known quantity to
me now and boulders Gate three feels like, I don't know a big box
of potential a little bit more than Starfield does, which is kind of odd
to say, because I feel like they're they're literally pitching the writing big box
of potential on Starfield. But something about boulders Gate three, I love a
strong narrative, like I love, you know, really densely populated worlds,
and you know, I feel like Balder's Gate three seems to have that,
and Larion has my trust in fleshing out some of that. They've proven themselves
enough, and it's been a long time since we had a proper D and
D game. Yeah, license D and D game. Yeah, it's funny.
I mean, even like speaking of CRPGs, if that's the catch all
term I should be using, it's the more games I'm playing throughout twenty twenty
three, even last year of just hopping between games to try out as many
as I could, the games I continually wanted to really dive into, you
know, excluding the Zelda's. I'm trying to remember what else. Earlier this
year of the world, I was like, I really want to be playing
something like Wasteland three again, or Pathfinder Kingmaker or Pillars of Eternity, Dead
Fire, like something about those bird's eye perspective over a bunch of these characters
that party. I talked up waste Land three on our Game of the Year
chats two years ago. Those are continually the ones where I think it is
that really delicate balance of them telling the structured narrative but also allowing room for
that those emergent moments of turning into a cheese wheel or in Original Sin too,
it's like, oh cool, I can make my character a skeleton,
let's you know, let's let's roll with that. And then everyone of a
sudden, everybody's like, what the fuck man? I was like, oh,
right, of course they're creeped out, so you find a bucket.
Now I'm fine. Um. It's it's that kind of blend between that,
those emergent moments where I think my favorite games. The more games I play
my favorite ones, it truly feels like, in a narrative and mechanical and
systemic sense, the developers are meeting me halfway. Like if I'm if I'm
just kind of buying in, and I'm like, cool, I'll play this
game, I'll I'll do what you want me to do. And then I
feel like they're also kind of opting into that agreement in a big way.
And that's when I get floored by games, and I'm hoping that's why I
feel a Baller's Gate three. And I already did a bit when I played
in twenty twenty one, but I played three hours of that and I was
like, Okay, I don't want to tell us out. Yeah, especially
the your save doesn't come over into one point. Oh yeah, I don't
even remember what happened. I remember did you see Kevin van Ord when you
were there, Jake or no. I think he was supposed to be there,
but he I don't know. I don't speak for him, but he
wasn't there. So yeah, so it kind of those for those who don't
know Kevin van Ord right before actually, like a few months overlap at Game
Spot with me was the reviews editor game Spot for a while. It was
an institution there, and then went over to Larryon. We moved to Belgium
to write for what we didn't know at the time was Ball's Gate three and
I remember, Oh, the character's name starts with a W. Willem.
There's a character. I think it's a W. Kevin's like wrote most of
his stuff. It's one of the first companions see the Necromancer. Does he
have the scar in his eye? Is that what you're thinking? I think
so. He's one of the earliest companion characters they showed. Okay, regardless,
it's just it's cool to see reading his reviews. Before I got the
Game Spot, I was always like, I knew those the kind of games
Kevin loved. So now seeing him write one for going on four years now,
five years, I'm curious too. I'm very excited to see how it
turns out, because I I've been eager to see the final work for a
while. And it's funny. I yeah, I thought that them releasing it
in early access would dampen my excitement for the release, but I kind of
had the adverse effect, where now I'm like, oh man, there's a
few things I missed in early access, but now it's fully coming out in
a month early, and yeah, I'm I'm excited for that because until Armcore
there's for me, there's not much in August that I'm really excited for before
armor Core six. Weird weirdly enough, a little sidebar a thing I did
not consider. I used my one like monthly tweet that I do nowadays to
say when they moved up to release date to August third, I'm like some
dumb joke about now I'm going to lock myself in a closet and play that
game. A bunch of people responded to me saying that they were a bit
peeved because they had taken PTO that's funny first or whatever, and I was
like, I really didn't consider that, Like, of course, look,
at least is not later. At least you'll have the game in at that
PTO time, you'll have the game. It's like, sure, you might
need to avoid social media for a month and like not talk to your friends
for a month. But I was like, I didn't consider that because by
and large, it's cool that they moved it up a month. Um,
they're like it's ready to go. We're gonna delay past five a bit.
I'm sure they want to get out of the way of Starfield a bit too,
get away from start. Yeah, yeah, for sure, because I
feel like so many games wanted to get behind Tears of the Kingdom and then
others wanted to get in front of Starfield. It was, it was it
made sense if it was ready to go, go for it. And it's
a full month, which kind of turnheads based on what we saw the readership
of that story. But um, it's funny. I mean, I don't
know. It would suck if I was like, oh, all my friends
and I took PTO to get excited for launch night or for Thursday night.
Whenever I was like, oh man, that does that's a bummer for those
like fifty people out of the thousand, nah a three hundred thousand, Um,
I get it. I'm gonna say, before you get a nasty mail,
I said necromance, I met Warlock played a lot of Yes, that
sounds more like it. He was one of the first people they revealed,
and then Kevin was saying like, oh, I'm I wrote most of his
stuff, Like oh, that's awesome, Like that's super cool to me.
I know different studios operate on you know, different systems, but like that,
they got to really get attached to one character, etc. I know
other studios are like, oh I wrote this one level or this one mission,
etc. I'm excited for that. I can't wait. Yeah. Same
here. I had to stop myself from continuing to play that game, because
you know I did. I wanted to keep pushing, and I was like,
man, I should stop because saves don't carry over and I want to.
It seems like even in one point of they've changed I don't know,
Jake, if you had remembered some of the beats from the early access,
but it even seems like they changed some early stuff too. They did.
I know for a fact, they changed a lot of I don't know about
a lot, but they changed a good amount of those interactions to Okay,
I think I think keep people on their toes and also just to just do
accommodate for all the different classes. I know they like. I don't know
if it actually it was in Early Access, but I know they rewrote a
lot of one character. Um. I think it was the warlock that we're
talking about, in order to better suit his warlock background. Um. I
think they mentioned that in one of the interviews I did, which which I
thought was kind of cool. Um. But yeah, I think even people
who have played Early Access in that Act one a couple of times, I
think they're still gonna be surprises for that. The character i'm thinking of,
um is the guy you meet in the Druid Enclave. I don't know if
you remember that part of the game. I don't think that was what you
played. Yeah, he was the person training the kids. Is the character
i'm thinking of. Okay, and I'm not sure if that's the right character.
I was thinking Will w y l L. I think that is that
human warlock noble by birth. Will made his name as hell Blade of Frontiers.
He keeps the pack of the Devil Wellhead. And yeah, I believe
if memory serves, Kevin Maynard has done a lot of work on him.
I could I could be completely misremembering, but I'm pretty sure that's the case.
The other thing, too, is the combat's really good, like it's
turn based, you know, tactical. But I prefer this style of combat
a lot more than Divinity Original Sin too. I really like Divinity Original Sin
too, but the combat I felt like took a very long time to get
through some of those battles, and particularly the elemental stuff, where like there'd
be holy fires that you couldn't put out or something unless you had a holy
spell. I don't know, I'm probably butchering it because I haven't played it
in a while, but I just remember battlefields being on fire all the time.
Uh and and this it feels a lot punch here. Um. It's
same in the early access, but it just it things get resolved very quickly
like they do in D and DUM and I think that works very well for
for this style of game. I had to I had to put on the
um or open up the kind of expanded narration or combat roles to some of
the stuff I couldn't, so a lot of stuff was popping off so fast,
kind of like you're saying, like it moves pretty quickly that I was
like whoa, whoa, wait what happened? Yeah? Yeah, what even
like what happened there? And go back and be like, oh, okay,
I failed this role and then you know this happened or you know,
because wild magic kicked off, this thing happened or whatever was and I had
to be like, oh okay, that makes sense. Um, it like
really does just move in a way, especially when it's like not your active
turn, when people are just doing other things, You're like, whoa,
Okay, stuff's popping off. But it's I also like it a lot.
You know, I think some of the changes they've made to the fifth edition
rule set to make it work, um, you know, to bend it
to their video game will see it seems to be still feels accurate, right.
It doesn't like or at least to my knowledge, just doesn't seem to
be breaking the systems in ways that are like I don't know, like is
it really D and D And it's like no, this feels pretty pretty accurate,
Like you've tried to incorporate a lot. I don't know if they talked
about it, but did they say it feels like the language I have heard
is like we're launching with these classes, and so I don't know what they're
planning on bringing on later. Yeah, when I was there, I didn't
really get a good picture of whether or not they'd be adding more eventually.
But it definitely doesn't seem like a game that they're going to, you know,
launch an abandon. I think they're going to they have more plans for
this, but to what that entails, I don't. I don't really know.
It's also interesting because Wizards of the Coast and I guess Hasbro they're launching
there or introducing their next D and D addition, whatever that winds up being,
or they're stumbling along trying to introduce their next D and D addition as
they're doing play testing and trying to figure how they keep the good will of
fifth edition, which is extremely popular. But also I think they want to
celebrate their anniversary coming up, and you know, they make a lot of
money by selling new books when when a new edition comes out, and so
I feel like there's been a lot of pushback of like, whoa fifth edition
is awesome, please don't change it, like we can stick around you for
another five years, and they seem to be you know, two steps forward,
one step back with a lot of this stuff. My point being though,
aside from the kind of stepping in it constantly with the audience with what
they announce over there is will any of that roll into boulders Gate three or
are they I wonder if they'll just stay locked into fifth edition? Even though
it sounds like Wizards, it's like everything coming after this is going to be
compatible with fifth edition. Don't worry about it. We're just changing some of
the way there's character classes work. I'll be curious to see in six months,
seven months, or whenever the next five point five edition. I don't
think they'll be six whatever they're calling it comes out, because it's you know,
rules changes can be big. I don't know if this will be we'll
see the character creation stuff seemed uh in the stream they did also nights,
the revised DUI and streamlined do I it seems like they're doing smart changes for
that, because do either of you guys play. I know, Jake you
said you don't play too much D and D, But are you guys familiar
with like character creation and the kind of you can get in the weeds?
Yeah, I filled out a character sheet or two before Okay, yeah,
it takes a while. It was like, I think the first time I
did it, someone was like, oh, yeah, you gotta do that
before we start, and I was like, right, yes, Sion session
zero, right play cyberpun red together for a bit before twenty seventy seven came
out, and I remember being like Jake came up to me, He's like,
all right, let's do a character sheet. I was like, okay,
cool. When we shooting the videos, like, I don't know,
sometime next week, just do the character sheet now. We spent like,
read three hours in a room. It was fun. I got it was
I was a salaried worker doing a character sheet for three hours in a meeting
room. I could not complained. But I was like, oh, this
is in depth. But even in the early accents, and it seems like
they've streamlined this even more in one point. Oh, the character career seems
like you could you flow through it fairly quickly, and they have some guardrails
on to make sure you're not blowing it. You know, like when you
pick your class, the dice rolls, they'll put the they'll put the arrays
in the numbers in the right spot for you. To be like, Okay,
you want to put your highest number in charisma, you know you want
to put that, and that's but you can change it. But it seems
like they are helping you along gently. Yeah. I kind of got that
impression when I was because I kind of created a character. I didn't change
much because I was just like, I gotta get going and play this thing.
M One thing though, that we talked about, and I don't know
how much this is in Act one, but the Paladin class has the oath
breaker stuff and that is part of the Paladin story, so I don't know
if you really touch on that and Act one, but that sounds really cool
because they were like, yeah, this is a story written for that specific
class, and in a way, it kind of makes it one of the
better role playing class because like, sorry, wait, as a lay person,
what about it? I mean, Vinnie might know better. Paladin takes
an oath and they have to uphold that oath. It's really severe news and
you can do that in the game and you can break it if you,
I don't know it kill people or whatever. And then apparently someone will come
and you'll break the oath and they'll be like an entire quest like around the
fact that you just broke your oath. Oh, so you're forced to either
stick to this role or deal with the consequences of not sticking. Yeah,
in an RPG sense. So like, well, for me personally, I'm
going to do that, Like I want to play Paladin immediately. I would
normally never would never would play Paladin. But after hearing that, I'm like,
Okay, that that's kind of interesting. If there's a story built into
the class I am picking, which I guess is pretty normal for D and
D but like for games not really, you know, that's just like your
classes gameplay modifiers, not story modifiers. Yeah, that's cool. I didn't
know that that they kind of I thought it would just be backstory stuff that
they didn't just weave it in. That's neat. Yeah, I'd love to
see more of that and what they do and how they flesh that out and
the attention to detail. Pretty excited for that. Paladin. Huh, Well,
I guess I don't know. Honestly, this will be like Divinity where
I'll make like thirty characters and get out of the tutorial area every time,
and I want sure get past that. So you know, the other thing
I heard Larry and say that was so you can multi class. That's a
D and D thing, and it seems like they have that in there,
but it said that you can respect like later on. Did they mention that
at all when you talk to them. I didn't hear anything about that.
Okay, maybe yeah, I mean if they said it, I think that's
what I heard them say, because they didn't want people to feel like they,
you know, went down the wrong path right and that you're committed into
this talent tree, or you put the you pick the wrong feet, or
you did something incorrectly that you can respect later on. I don't know all
the mechanics about it. I'm sure the hopefully there's some narrative bit to it,
and but I think that was one of the things that they were talking
about in that presentation they public when they did, which was like, hey,
don't worry, like you know, you're not going to goof up your
your character for the next seventy hours here by making one wrong choice that hour
or two. I've asked people to support Vinny when given the choice, what's
the general archetype you go for in an RPG? If you can create a
character sure. I usually will go boy scout first, and then the most
evil horrible person on a second play through. Okay, Jake, what about
you, I'm the fucking rogue who uses an arrow and Steve sneaks around every
time. I'm trying so hard for Balder's Gap not to be that. Yeah,
I'm I'm usually a rogue as well. I I don't know what it
is. And it's funny because I always have so much more fun when I'm
just this hunky slab of meat that's just like stumbling his way through crowds of
people, and I always have more fun with that. But I tell myself,
I'm gonna be a rogue every single time when I have the option.
Is like that, that's cool, though, you gotta go with the cool
one and I want to be all goth and sneak through the shadows and shit.
Yeah. Character gameplay wise, I will pick the pet class. Like
given an option, I will pick whatever it gets, like um the ranger
yeah, or like a druid or like a necromancer or whatever. Like you
know, if you have summons um, then I will usually pick that class.
Or if you can change into an animal like a druid or something,
I want. I want those. I just think those are cool options.
But Indean so far I have. I usually will try and go for some
kind of spellcaster, just because I think the magic opens up so many dumb
gameplay and narrative options, just you know, make people levitate, you know,
drop the tournament to animals. It just it's it's unlimited, right,
you know, like the nonsense, the chaos you can cause. Apparently,
um, when I was talking to one of the developers, they were saying,
I think it was the Warlock with chaos magic or wild magic or something.
It must be the Sourcerer class wild magic. Yeah, they were saying
that, like most of their bugs and issues that got sent to them was
because of that class, because you could kind of customize your spells and you
could just break the game in all these ways. And yeah, they were
like nine out of ten times when something broke it was because of that class.
So I want to play that class. You're not a bug class.
Yeah. The wild magic on the Sorcerer I just I tried out when I
went back into the early access. It's like one of those things where like
a random magical effect will pop off if you do a certain things. Usually
it's tides of chaos, like you change a role or you get advantage on
a role, and like in a physical setting, the DM gets to kind
of decide at their discretion when that wild magic kicks off, right, and
then you get to recharge your tides of Chaos. And I was like,
how are they going to do this in the game, and you know,
are they going to reference the table? And that's and it did kick off.
Things would like you use their tides of chaos, which is this kind
of change the fabric of realities thing, and then a random spell would pop
off, you know, next time you cast a spell, and that's super
interesting and fun. And you know, those kind of things range from flower
pedals just appear around you too. You're transported to another realm, you know,
another plane of existence and you have you know, thirty seconds to get
back because there's no oxygen here. You know, like those things are you
know, I found boulders when I was playing in the early access. I
don't know if you had the same experience, Jake. It's like, you
know, you could die. You can turn a corner and die and reload
your save like it's not gonna give you an escape patch all the time.
You can get a bad role and be boned. Yeah, just get stuck
in a combat situation where it's like I can't win this and I'm I'm fucked.
But yeah, so I think they're adding difficulties in one point zero.
I think there's three. There's like Narrative and I imagine that's pretty easy,
and then there's the Standard, which I think is in one point zero,
and there's Tactician, which was also a difficulty in Divinity Original Sin too,
um, but that one's back. So yeah. I mean, like,
honestly, after playing a lot in the Standard difficulty, it's like, maybe
I'll do narrative first, just to like see this through because I'm not good
at this kind of shit. I enjoy it, but I'm not good at
it. So you know, vary and stuff gets tough. I mean,
they did, they did that spin off Tactics game. I think you're just
called Divinity Tactics. That would make sense, I'm sure, And that was
I remember getting my ass kicked in that, and I'm pretty good at those
kind of games, or at least I played enough of them to at least
have the wherewithal to know what's going on and I mean Original Sin two got
tough as well. I mean Original Sin two had the structure where you were
you could be in a conversation and then all of a sudden combat would break
out and you're standing where you were. If memory serves on the tiles that
were on the map, just how waist Land three is and like in Exiles
games. So I was used to that, but still I remember Sven was
doing a demo for Original Sin two back in the day when I was doing
a preview for game Spot, and I was, you know, pretty sure
of myself one going into that demo that I'd be fine in the comment and
then I got my ass kicked and half it's just sort of embracing the chaos.
But I was never super good at letting things it out of control in
my favor. The last thing I'll say about Bowlder's Game three is I'm super
excited about it. I'm really and sitting there and for the last month and
a half had been like I'm not gonna I have it already on PC.
I'm not buying this Collector's edition, Like I'm not buying I'm not buying this
like whatever it is, like two hundred and fifty dollars box of goodies and
then the release gate they gets moved up, and I'm like, all right,
but like what if I bought the PS five version of that, and
like you know, then i'd have it on both there is cross save stuff
and like, I'm probably gonna want to buy in the PS five version anyway.
And then I look and it's like the PS five version has been sold
out right of the of the collectors or the deluxe whatever, the superbox,
these other people are getting it. I gotta get it now. And then
I was like, okay, well that's sold out. Good because I'm not
gonna buy the PC. I own the PC version already. And by owning
the PC version in Early Acts is you get the Deluxe edition. Not the
collectors won't, but you get the deluxe one. I was like, that's
just one more get I'm gonna buy this thing twice. And then they do
their freaking uh presentation again and they're like, don't forget that, you can
go. You can go get the Collector's edition. I think they said,
like we found a bunch more. You're like, go get it, and
I was like, a go check it out, all right, I'll go
look one more time, and then the PC edition was was even sold out
too, and I was like, I miss it. And then once they're
both sold out, then I'm like, ah, I should have gotten it.
Why didn't I get it? I could have gotten one of them.
And all I really want, though, is that stupid map. That's like
the cloth map. That's it, and like that's really it, but like
you know, I'm like, that's I could probably just find somebody on Etsy
and pay them, uh not two hundred and seventy five dollars to just be
like, just draw a cool map on this piece of this cloth. But
I couldn't. I couldn't believe it. After they sold out the second time
on the PC edition, that was like there was definitely that horrible moment of
like I should have gotten and I'm like, I, I really shouldn't have
gotten it. I really don't what It's gonna stay in a box and I'm
just gonna look at it next to the four other boxes I have of like,
you know, a swag I got from something like you know, the
Cyberpunk Lady or the Deadbye Dad, Deady Day. It was just dumb,
dumb, right, And it's like and I know. I was literally going
myself like if I did this, I would have to buy two one that
I would never open, yea, and one that I would open and be
like Okay, I'm gonna go. And it's like I'm so glad this sold
out because it's it's I'm terrible like that and like I would never get rid
of it. I do that with Nintendo games. I'll buy one to open,
and then I'll buy one to keep sealed, because yeah, I had
all the Pokemon games lost that collection and tried to get them again and they
were like hundreds, hundreds of dollars, and I was like, oh my
gosh, I gotta yeah, it's bad. Wait did you you had them
sealed? All the Pokemon games. Some sealed yeah, yeah, some sealed,
um, some weren't, but they were all like in great condition because
I just didn't you. I mean, I played them for the most part,
but like I kept them in very good condition and kept them like organized
and everything, and and yeah, lost them in a long story short,
lost them in a fire. But then I was like, I'll get them
again, and like they were like six hundred dollars and I was like,
man, I'm sorry, Jake, that's a somebody who has a collection problem
that really hurts my heart. Um, vinny, can I assume, based
on what you said about your preferred classes, so many animals are you playing
at druid in Diable before? No I played a necromanswer? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, because you summoned a ton of dead bodies, skeletons,
corpses. Yeah. Yeah. Did you guys play a bunch of dobble
before a little bit? Okay, I've played like ten or fifteen hours or
so, Okay, I mean then I feel like three hours is enough to
pretty much know the loop in that game. Yeah, I finished up the
narrative in that the kind of base campaign, and that really feels like the
beginning of the game in a lot of ways. Like you you unlock so
many other activities once you were done with a campaign that it is probably no
surprise that once you beat the campaign, you can make a new character and
there's just a little button that says skip campaign, And they're like, okay,
so yeah, I will say, if you're asking, I don't know
you didn't, but I will say of my own accord that I was really
pushing myself to finish that at some point like it was. I I felt
like I was playing hours on end without getting any good loot and not changing
loot out. Um, I had hit the kind of level cap at fifty
on that because you can't you can't pump the world tier up again until you
finish the campaign into World Tier three. But you got Paragon points and so
it's not like useless. You kind of still get levels. But I feel
like the loot just wasn't hitting. And that's what that game is like.
If you're if you're spending time chewing through dungeons and not getting the loot,
you feel like you want to equip. Then then I hit a cut scene
towards the end of the game and I was like it was all worth it.
This cut scene is fucking rocks. This this like battle cut scene at
the end. Here, this is great. This is everything I want from
a Diablo game. All right, let's do this, Let's wrap this thing
up. And I did I do miss those days when I was getting to
an endgame cut scene. I was like, this is sweet. Yeah,
this is sick. This is what I'm here for. I played I think
about the same as you, Jake, like fifteen hours Diablo four and d
okay. I played with a friend and he was like, yeah, of
course you picked the road. I should say, if I have the option
to go like Ranger Wilderness Expert with animals, I go for that. Um.
I I got to a point in diabofore where I started to see as
someone who used to play a lot of live service games, I got to
the point where I started to see where they could put the live service stuff,
and I started to see where they were starting the long tail of certain
quest or certain activities, et cetera for long service. And then I've been
watching the Uh, if you're listening to this episode, this will be up
in the seventeenth On the twentieth, Season one for Diablo four starts, so
for those who don't know you, basically, much like Diablo three, you
have to restart each season and with a new character. However, the catch,
or rather the boon of completing the campaign now is that once you complete
the campaign the story in Diable four, you can restart with the new character
and then one season one starts, skip the campaign, so jump right into
season one. Immediately I started to see more and more how they had shaped
this as a live service game, and I have. Like I said,
I played back in the day, I played a lot of war Frame.
I used to play a lot of Destiny. I don't play those games anymore.
You don't play war Frame anymore, No, I haven't for the last
three years. In Diable four, I think at a certain point hit me
as the kind of game I could play a lot of, and I was
appreciating much of the foundation they laid with the initial release, like, okay,
cool, I think, by all accounts, this is a good game.
I do see where they could take this with season one and onward.
But at a certain point I was actually just like, Okay, you know
what, let's just enjoy the story. I think I don't even know where
I've gotten to in the story. I don't know that I'll go back and
finish it, but I do. I did catch myself saying, okay,
this, I'm actually enjoying this for what it is, this self contained campaign,
them playing as this Druid. These cut scenes are pretty badass. Anytime
I see any of them, I just I don't I'm like resisting going back
for a season one, etc. Or rather finishing this current campaign with the
Druid and going back for season one with a new character, but I still
think that game is well made. It's well crafted, it's it's it's punchy,
it's satisfying. I actually think the challenge level is better than Diablo three
was, and I've played a whole Like most people, I've played a fuck
ton of Diablo three on the twelve platforms it's been released on. But it's
it's I think it's the combat self that the character classes are compelling. I
did start a rogue as well after I tried the Druid. I still wanted
to push the Druid farther, but it was challenging me in a way Diable
three did not. After playing it for many years, I don't know I
was enjoying it, but I definitely once I started to watch Blizzards the live
stream they did like two days ago as of recording, It's like, uh,
I don't think I can do this anymore. Right now. I've got
co workers who are just like champing at the bit for season one, like
good for you, this, this this sounds awesome. This is like what
I used to feel when war frame and announce a new character or whatever.
It's just I don't know that I have that in me anymore. And also
like season one's two weeks before Balder's Gate. So I don't know, do
you guys think you'll be playing the Life Service going back to this game throughout
the years. I'm I'm in the same boat as you where like I played
a good amount of this game fifteen hours or so, and I've really enjoyed
it. But I I, I don't know, man, Like I'm kind
of tired of the loot game, like the loot grind in general, Like
I just those I don't know that dopamine that it used to fire off,
My brain just doesn't fire off. And I'm like, Okay, now I
just have to jump in a menu and figure out what I should use,
and I don't want to do that. But like you said, I think
it's a very well made game. I'm having fun when I play with friends,
like you know, like it's it. It's a good like mindless.
Mindless sounds bad, but it is just kind of like you know, I'm
just gonna get in with friends and we're gonna talk shit and kill skeletons or
zombies or whatever, and it's fun there. But like, I don't think
i'd played this by myself, you know, like I just just yeah,
my brain just isn't compatible with it anymore. I think for Jabla form,
my problem became the um too much loot. It was too much like the
amount of quality loot to like my bags would get full halfway through a dungeon
run and I just have to teleport back to the Blacksmith, break them all
down, teleport back into the dungeon, and just keep going. And I
just found myself coming out of a dungeon run with one thing. Maybe if
that that, I was like, great, that was you know, it
didn't. It didn't feel that And I think that's probably different in the post
game or we're in World Tier three once you know, I accelerated. It
really felt like the campaign, aside from getting your narrative fix, was an
on ramp to get you into the real game, you know, the real
Dibbo four starts here kind of thing. It's it was just too much like
if you picked up everything, your bags would just constantly be full, and
it was like a weird thing of doing this narrative run and you're like,
oh, hold on, hold on, I just gotta go back and sell.
I gotta sell some stuff. I'll be right back. Everybody, stay
right here. It's gonna run out. Like when we were playing, I
was playing with Alex and Brad on a stream would just like vatish out of
a dungeon and be like leave them in a battle because I'm like just unloading
loot back at the vendor and they'd be like, Hey, what'd you guys
get up to down here? We're like we're in this fight. Where the
hell did you go? It's like, my bag, befoll, Why am
I even playing this game if I can't pick up loot, you know,
Like it's not like I'm gonna keep marching forward and leaving stuff on the ground.
So I didn't like dislike my time, but I had to push myself
to finish it. It's and my We just had some time off. We
took a week off at an Excellander and I was like, what I want
to do is I want to finish the campaign and Diabla four and I want
to try and finish the main story in Tears of the Kingdom because I'm trying
to clear clear some ground for boulders Gate and Starfield coming up, right,
So I kind of want these narrative parts at least off my plate, and
so Diable four saw the narrative through on that was very happy with that.
I might go back in. I will go back in and check out season
one when it hits, just to see what's happening. And there are a
lot of events out there even once you finish the campaign, aside from the
Battle Pass or season and then Tears of the Kingdom. You know, I
didn't. I've got the objective on High Rule Castle and they're basically like,
go do your business, and I'm like, great for me. That feels
like I finished the story. Like do I run around the rest of High
Rule and go do a hundred shrines and everything else? Because I do enjoy
that stuff. But at this point where I'm at with Tears of the Kingdom,
have you guys finished Tears of the Kingdom? Okay, so I'm not
gonna get into spoilers, but I basically have found all the glyphs, I
have the Master Sword. Everybody's ready for me to stop evil, and I'm
like cool. That feels like I have seen a lot of the story.
And I said this. We just recorded our podcast for Next Leonard today too.
I genuinely have enjoyed the story. It beats in Tears of the Kingdom
same and I had to be like, I was almost like, you know,
for a Zelda game, like you no, not for a Zelda game.
I actually, I'm not gonna say I was overly moved, but it
is it is a kind of moving at least where I'm at. Maybe they
fumble it at the one yard line once I walked through that game, but
like, yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, that's that's pretty messed
up. That's like, that's like some some drama happening in this story we
have seen a million times before, right, and they added some some darker
twists in it, and I was like, that's that's all right, that's
okay. Yeah. I would actually say for me, the story, the
cut scene, the way the story wraps up when you get all the glyphs
specifically, that packed more of a punch than the actual main storyline. And
it's it's tough to say because they're actually pretty intertwined. With us pointing anything
like there are as in Breadth of the Wild, there are like five big
storylines that come together like on these big main or sorry, I'm the biggest
side quest that intertwined at the end, but finishing the glyphs, I remember
thinking it was oh cool, that was well told, Like I like that,
And I was like the way this existed in the world in a way
I wasn't aware of until I did this, Like, oh that that was
this the whole time. That's it was cool. Um, yeah, no,
I that story. Like, I think they understood in writing that the
way I've taken it, you're there to do the shrines, to go explore
this world, to just delve into every nook and cranny you can before you
give up in the game forever or as before you consign yourself to realizing you're
never going to see all of it. That's the game, that's the journey.
So I think they do. They did want to just wrap up these
individual stories really in a satisfying way without being too grandios about it, like
it gets pretty grandios. But I do feel like they understood. They're like,
hey, we could tie a tie a bow on certain things here and
there, because most of these people are just gonna keep coming back to get
the rest of these twelve hundred core ox seeds or however many there are in
this game. So let's be honest with ourselves. I will say the ending
knocks me on my ass. I thought the ending was was great, but
a lot of it was, honestly, was just the music, Like just
the music they used in the last couple hours of that game. We're just
incredible. Like it's Zelda music. It's always good, but in this situation,
like like almost to the point of sobbing just because of how how things
played out and the music they use, because god, it killed me.
The god. One of the one of the like best like musical cues in
any game ever is in Tears the Kingdom the first time you dive to the
depth, when you're another guy diving too, you're about to dive, and
or when you're maybe you're just doing the actual quote unquote dive with R one
and you're plummeting toward the bottom, not knowing that there's a whole other world.
And it happens every once in a while when you're diving to the depths.
But the first time it happened, like bassoon and trumpets kick ins like
born when you like this whole other layer to the world reveals like I got
chills there. I was pretty cool on that game when UM when I first
started playing, because it felt very much like a retread, like I was
like when it when it kicked off, and even the first UM, the
first dungeon, the first main dungeon, was like, this seems exactly like
Breadth of the Wild and you are doing all the same beats and it diverges
and and it's and I think it picks up after that and very it's very
Nintendo. I said the same exact thing on our podcast too. It's like
what you could do, it's one click, Nintendo will do it five.
You know, it's like everything takes a little longer than it should or you
know, it's like this shouldn't have to be this long, or why did
you get this thing behind? So much other nonsense, but I will give
it to them. On the fusion stuff winds up working out, like I
really do enjoy it, because I really didn't like the durability on weapons in
Breadth of the Wild, but I think the fusion mitigates some of that where
you're like, Okay, yeah, I hope this thing breaks soon because I
want to try something else. I want to I want a new weapon here.
And then the really motivating factor were those glyphs. I was just I
was like, I could not wait to find the next glyph is be like,
you know they I guess maybe depending on what order you find them in.
You know what's going to happen. You know it's telegraphed, but you
still want to see it. You know, you still want to be like,
no, I need to see it. I need to see what happened.
And I think it's the only thing that is silly to me, is
um the silent link at that point in some of those bigger story moments where
you're like, dude, this is a big deal, and you're just you're
just you're You're just doing your ship and jumping away like this is this is
kind of huge. Here nothing, No, you're not even gonna tell anybody
about this. No, okay, let's just go let's just go back.
So some of it does feel a little like, okay, very link is
just an idiot link. I hit on the head one too many times.
I did buy a house, uh, and you know his absence, Yeah,
uh, I bought my little modular house and I'm doing all that stuff
and I don't know how how far away am I if I just got the
thing finished all the dungeons and they said go into the castle. Is it
like a pretty quick wrap up or is it like a red herring where you
actually have half the game to go? You did all? When you say
all the dungeons, what do you mean? Oh? I figured with the
temples, I did all the did all four. Yeah, you're you're,
You've still got a ways there there. That's a bit of a red herring
right now. Okay, yeah, okay, I figured it might be storywise,
another six hours, six to eight hours really of like mainline narrative.
There's more, yeah, mainline, um, dungeons and main quest stuff.
Okay, so I'm not just marching into the castle and finished. You're you're
the majority of the way in, but you've got a ways to go.
The Majority's mask, got it? Yep, yep, nice, thank you,
Michael, Majority's mask. The game. Um okay, But I I
will say I think I agree. Like after getting the glyphs, I felt
very satisfied with the story. I felt like, oh, okay, I
can put this down for a little bit. Yeah, for a series that's
dealt with sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say, I think
you'll enjoy the next section quite a bit, because yeah, okay, it
is unpredictable to say the least. Okay, I'm I was debating whether or
not I was gonna go do like a shrine tear and just be like,
should I just go mop up shrines? I had like one of these sages
Will things. I was like, I don't even know where I got this
thing, and like, what do I even do with it. I've spent
like no time in the sky Islands. I've been mostly underground and on the
mainland. I just figured out how, after dozens of hours in it,
figured out how to increase the size of my battery, which was like,
I know you can do this. It's about I'm just gonna look this up.
I know you can do this somehow. I'm just gonna look And I
looked it up and was like, okay, that's more complicated than it needs
to be. But they did not explain it that well either, because there's
the foundries and there's the uh the smiths. Yeah, two total different things,
and they're also in very different locations. Yeah, it's like use this
currency to buy this other to go upgrade this thing, and it's like,
yeah, okay, this is way more complicated than it needs to be.
And I do that so much more elegantly in other areas of the game because
and I've talked about this d nauseum. It's like it's so good at saying
okay, cool. To light up the darkness underground, you need bright bloom
seeds. Those are all in caves on the surface. And then once you
illuminate the depths with bright bloom seeds, you'll start finding zonite zonite largely to
upgrade your battery, you take it up to the sky islands, and then
in the sky islands you find um the sunflowers whatever the sun plant is that
sundelions or some sundelions eradicates the gloom. It's like they so many areas.
They do a great job I think of facilitating travel between the layers pretty organically.
But yeah, to your point of video, it's like, all right,
why did you they did overcomplicate the battery things like there's smiths, there's
boundaries, there's small charges, large charges charges. The battery itself is not
actually called battery, even though it looks like a battery. It's energy,
but it's not plural. I don't know. Uh yeah, so like that
that stuff was you know, it's just one of those things that's like this.
I'm I'm sad, I got I just forgot out how to do this
this late in the game, because I would have loved to have cruised in
my little hot rod. Uh you know, a couple of pips longer.
Um the shrines. I love the shrines where you get to mess around with
the construction stuff and have infinite battery. Those are always super fun. Maybe
my favorite parts. Sure, you guys have talked a lot about Tears of
the Kingdom, but uh, I'm I. I think it's cool in some
parts and a little drawn out in other parts that it kind of gets in
the way of itself in some places, but uh yeah, I enjoy it.
Like when I'm stuck on the ground, just just hauling ass, waiting
from watching my stamina bar drop down, I feel like I'm playing wrong,
Like I feel I should be like I should just build a car. I
should build a car right now, or I should just teleport back to a
sky tower and just fly away because this doesn't feel like this is not fun
now I'm just waiting for stamina bars to come back. Yeah, yeah,
cool game, Like I can't eight more hours on. All right, I
will I will charge into that close. Yeah. Eight might be overexaggerating if
you mainline, If you just you know what, I'm just going to finish
this game, you can probably do it in four or five. The biggest
chunk is not far in front of you. There's a there's a part in
that story quest where like, oh, this is gonna take a while.
Once you're past that, it's smooth sailing. Do they this is not a
spoiler, or if it is, feel free to say, like, no
comment, But do they dump you back into the world where you can go
and do everything else? There's like you load your previous say before the last
baddle or something. Yead Okay, okay, somebody, I'll just go and
just go ahead, because you know, I don't want to get to a
state where I can't go back and check that stuff out, So I'll just
keep going until I get to the point of no return and see where it
goes from there. That they are pretty if memory serves, they're pretty vocal
about when you're at that point. Okay, watch out link. Yeah,
take care of all your business here before you move forward. Um, well
cool, do you guys want to talk do some emails. Yeah, hell
yeah, okay. As usually, you can ride into fire Escape past at
gmail dot com. Questions, comments, concerns, corrections, ladder of which
I toss right in the trash. Oh nice, that's firescapecast at gmail dot
com. Um, all right, we've got a couple for the night.
I'll read both of them. Um. First one is from Matt from Connecticut.
A bit of a setup here, so bear with me, but uh,
it's a fun one. Hi, Mary, Mike and Dan okay,
Hey, Hi Jake, Mike and Vinnie. Okay. What is your favorite
genre of your favorite thing? I was recently asked this question by a friend,
and it seemed like such a simple question at first, but it ended
up being a lot more interesting. My first thought was, well, I
like video games and platformer, so I guess platforming games is my favorite genre
my favorite thing. Then my friend said, my favorite thing is meeting new
people, and my favorite genre of that is meeting new people at a friend's
house around a bonfire. Another friend chimed in and said their favorite thing was
drinking wine and favorite genre of that was drinking wine at the Long Island wineries
on their annual summer trip with family so then I realized that the question is
not necessarily what is your favorite quote unquote art and favorite genre of said art,
but what does your actual favorite things do and favorite genre of said thing
to do? Okay, yeah, I still stick with video games is my
favorite thing. My actual favorite genres of that was playing co op games on
Friday nights with my wife while drinking some bezos together. He said beer as
I said bezos. So what is your favorite genre of your favorite thing?
Love the podcast and everything you guys do. That's Matt from Connecticut. Anything
come to mind right away, So it's like what it's like a kind of
umbrella, what's my favorite thing? And then hyper specific, like like dream
version of that. Yeah, okay, the the perhaps a stereotypical thing,
I would say. He mentioned drinking wine in the email. I would say,
I very much like trying new wines. I'd say my hyper specific version
of that lately has been Thursdays are date nights for Amanda and I and we've
been trying new wine bars around the city and they're all very fun, especially
in the heat in the summer. Get some good white wines. I think
my favorite hyper specific thing is trying out new Shennon blancs around New York City.
The hell is that? Wow? You too? Yeah, thats gonna
be fine. Yeah, oh my god, you're hard pressed to come up
with a new one. But you're on the spot now. Oh my gosh,
man, shennon blanks. You said, right, Okay, so pick
another grape. They're also great. South African I usually go. It depends
on It depends on the humidity of the of the day. Yeah. Yeah.
So if it's a if it's a dry, I will go South African.
If it's if it's kind of humid out, I will go with more
of a French. Gotcha, it's a good that's a good move. Yeah,
unless I studied. Yeah, uh. I love eating junk food.
Nice, I like I like garbage food. Um. My favorite like hyper
specific thing is probably U like I got some alone time and it's like a
Saturday and it's the afternoon, and it's just full of potential to make bad
mistakes, and so it's like I haven't made them yet, So I'm I'm
the I'm on the I'm still hungry, and I'm on this side of it
because after I'm on the other side of it, it's just depression. And
regret. But I'm on this side of it. It's full of potential.
I've put the order in. I've got a movie or a new Okay,
if we're doing our favorite fantasy booking here, a new game has just pop
dropped, Like let's just say Boulders Skate three. I've got I'm alone,
I've got a carved out whole night ahead of me when nobody's gonna bother me.
Junk food it's on its way. I know at the end of the
night, I'm gonna be like splayed out on a couch, groaning, uh
and in pain, but like for that euphoric moment before it all happens.
That's that's my ideal. Like what is Yeah, yeah, I was gonna
say it's a fast food. It sounds like because you're door dashing it,
et cetera, or it's not candy or you know, no, well,
so it's like in the again in the fantasy booking, it's probably involved some
kind of bag of chip, maybe like a really like a red hot um
those fiery Cheetos, maybe some of those like the ones that you're really only
supposed to have, Like yeah, um, like a massive amount of chips
it's in the fantasy version, it's probably multiple fast food joints. Like it's
probably like, okay, you've got you've got like a trifecta of like some
Wendy's, Burger King and some McDonald's may be mixed in here or something like
that. Or it's like you just threw it all on a bad Domino's pizza
and uh in that cheesy bread or some somehow made its way in the door,
and that's a mistake. Once that guy's in there, it's it's gonna
be a bad time. So yeah, that all happens and you're and it's
like right before you dig in, it's probably the best moment because from then
on, like I said, you know, you've just made a cascading series
of mistakes. You're just trying to keep your hands clean. Now you're are
you actually even playing the game? How are you eating and playing? You
probably just eat the whole thing during a cut scene and then you're like okay,
and it's just a mess. It's just a mess. But yeah,
that's it. The world is has unfurled before you before you eat. Yeah,
or many paths you could take, but this is the path I've chosen.
For the name. I know a path I'm gonna take, and it's
it's it's the darkest one. That's that's the Robert Frost poem. Right,
Yeah, it's a rogue came upon two paths. The rogue it took the
dominoes and the darkest path. I chose the quarter pi winner, and that's
what matters up. That's right, That's right, Yeah, Jake, what's
your hyper specific So I guess like genre wise, hanging out with friends,
I imagine no one would really argue with that, but genre wise are specific
wise. I love hanging out with friends in other countries. There is just
something about that that is just the adrenaline kicks in. Everyone's excited. We're
gonna do dumb shit, We're gonna drink a lot of alcohol, We're gonna
just we're gonna be up to no good. Um, just menaces abroad.
Yeah, I mean, like you know, when we went to Paris and
for siege stuff. I mean, even when I went to Belgium with Dan.
But like for my birthday, I went to Amsterdam invited a bunch of
friends for my thirtieth and a good amount of them showed up. And it's
just like Oh, we hang out a lot, but now we're hanging out
in Amsterdam, so we're gonna get rowdy and it's probably it for me.
That's awesome. So it's like being out of your comfort zone with your friends,
like kind of and a new experience. There's like that adrenaline that kicks
in where it's like we don't really know how to get back, and we're
drunk, so we're we definitely don't how to go back get back, but
we'll figure it out, and you know, every love that's that's right so
far a knock on wood, it's funny. I'm actually, if I was
to go again in a non pretentious way, it's my my real one.
I think is also especially nowadays now that Amanda and my friend groups have really
assimilated, I really enjoy hanging out with both of them. But I think
the specific one is and this probably will not surprise you, Jake, but
I like planning, like being the one to plan stuff. I enjoy that
surprises you really. Yeah, I'm like we did the we did the Bachelor
thing recently, and I actually really enjoy planning stuff. All of course,
it always goes off the rails, and that's half the fun of it.
That's like the emergent stuff that friends but like that's right, yeah, um,
I I do enjoy like I loved planning our Amanda and I both like
to plan stuff. She's a project manager in the architecture world. Um.
I think that carries over into our social life as well, where we are
often the ones who plan out like weekends or nights, and then when it
goes off the course, like when it goes off the beaten path, like
sure, whatever, But um, I really enjoy like theory crafting this night
with friends in my head and being the one to figure out the general roadmap.
And if we stick to it and it's fun, then great, all
the more credit to me. If we don't, then cool. At least
I laid the groundwork and then we just branched off after a while, like
uh is it? Matt who wrote in yeah um, Matt mentioned bonfires.
Bonfires were a huge part of my growing up hanging out with friends. But
like pool parties are always a great subset of hanging up friends for me.
Subgenre um, dive bars. I'd say my favorite bars of friends are always
die bars. Um, and then you start talking about my favorite die bars
like American Trash in the Upper east Side in New York is great. Columbus
Cafe in San Francisco is great. Um, the Gathering Lounge in Liverpool,
New York, where I'm from, is great. You can just keep going
even deeper. Then it's like, what is your favorite thing at dive bars?
That sticky table, PBRs, the six bucks for Tallboy, a PBR
and a shot of Jamo. Then below that, it's like not having to
drink the Jmo somehow sitting out of it. Yeah that's fair. Yeah,
yeah, you did it. But you now you got to figure out a
way to like you have it. You know you have it. I'm driving
tomorrow someday. Yeah. Well, since you guys are all talking about friends
stuff, I'm gonna change mine a little bit too. No you like no,
like I was going to add to my fantasy one. I have also
taken my phone and smash it with a sledgehammer and disconnected all of the internet
lines to my house so that nobody could reach me. I don't want to
talk to anybody at all. I wanted to be completely isolated. I've also
taken my house and I've launched it into low orbit. Um. On the
far side of the moon. You live in a lighthouse at the top and
you and you press the button and the lighthouse becomes a rocket ship and shoots
off into orbit. Or you don't talk to anybody or your moon right now.
I am I have just come back from the moon. The kids had
to go to swim meet. Yeah, thank you very much. I think
that's the problem. It's like there's always something going I've got two kids,
and there's always something going on, so it is a constant trying to bookend,
you know, get stuff in there. So the idea of just this
isolated time where you could you could yell as much as you want, I
can't hear you. I'm on the Moon's yeah, I can't even I love
it look like like a dive barum. Traveling with friends actually sounds super awesome.
That was actually really appealing, Like I think I everybody probably knows that
feeling of like if you have a good friend group, you can kind of
get out of anything, right, Like, like, no matter what happens,
even if you can't speak the same language the authority figures are speaking,
You're gonna be okay. Someone will figure a way out. Summer it will
figure o. That's all awesome. Yeah, these are good answers. Yeah,
thank you Matt from Connecticut. All right, Next and last one West
a constant emailer, We very much appreciate. Hello. So my partner and
I are have you a kid soon? Congratulations Wes. That's great to hear.
I'm already looking forward to introducing them to games in a few years.
But this had me thinking, what is your earliest video game memory? Mine
is sucking at Super Mario Bros. While my older brothers were very good at
it. But we specifically, and this is the weird part, we had
the Super Nintendo in my brother's bedroom, which and we all set into these
bean bags and then I had to sit on this weird lump on the bean
bag that my brother was not occupying. And the weirdest part was the rest
of my life until this day. My parents were always very against TVs and
bedrooms. They wanted it. They were like, hey, that's a place
to sleep, that's a place to study do homework. To this day,
I don't like having a TV in my bedroom. That has rubbed off on
me. So it's weird to me and I can't put myself in the headspace
where my parents maybe this nest was brand new, and they were like,
we don't want this in the living room because you guys will just be sitting
all over the floor something playing it. So I can't wrap my head around
why it would have been my brother's room. But my early this memory is
just sucking at Super Mario Bros. And while my brothers had to keep taking
the controller to progress about me losing all the lives? It's do you still
suck at I'm so bad at two D Super Mario games? Okay, like
very bad. Um. I also remember my brothers. I remember getting our
n sixty four and being terrified of going into Jabu Jabu's belly, the third
Spiritual Stone. I always had my brother Joe do it for me. And
then the parallel was that, like, oh, it's this coming of age
story at that point, and then my fucking stupid, dumb coming of age
is like I could do Jabujabo by myself. And then of course I got
to the Water Temple when I was like eight, like Joe, can you
do the Water Temple for me? It's like sure, just learn to do
it yourself. It's like all right, and then uh, I finally did
Acarina by myself for the first time, and now I've played it like I
don't know how many times. So yeah, I was Joe. I still
have to text him, Hey can you come? Can you drive up from
Virginia? I got, I'm at the Water Temple. It's like, all
right, coming the Pentagon. I'll come see you in a few kind an
emergency, Jake. I. So my parents were very much like, no
video games for you. Not allowed to play video games. We don't want
you to turn into a videot, which is what they would say often,
and that seemed like a bad word to me. I was like, oh,
I don't want to be that. But then my cousin lived with us
for a bit and he played a lot of Warcraft three or something or Warcraft
two, I don't know, one of the Warcraft games. I was like,
this looks cool, and my parents were like, you can't turn into
your cousin. No video games. And then I went to a friend's house
and I watched him play Pokemon Blue and I was like, I want that,
and I tried to get him into my parents. I like, no
video games, no video games, no video games. And eventually I guess
I warmed down, and for one of my birthday, I was coming home
from school and there was a game Boy Color with Pokemon Red like all sealed
in the back seat, and I was like, this is for me,
and they were like, yeah, happy birthday. And then that was it,
and I just played Pokemon Red for months, I imagine, and then
from there convince him to get a Nintendo sixty four and then play a lot
of Smash. And now to this day, the two games I play the
most or Pokemon games and Super Smash Bros. Games. So not much has
changed. I've gotten better at both of those games, but yeah, it's
it's what I always come back to, still playing Pokemon Scarlet and Violet even
though it's buggy as hell, and I still play Super Smash Bros. Even
though I break controllers because of that fucking game. You're still rebelling against your
parents. Did they ever explain the one eight with Red and the so with
the game Boy in particular, It was because we were traveling. We're doing
a lot of traveling and they were like, kid, right, what's that
You were in Europe a lot when you're younger. Yeah. My dad was
a teacher, so he would take students there during the summer, and I'd
always go because I don't know. They didn't know what else to do with
me, so they got me a game Boy for that and I played the
entire plane rides, all the train rides. Was just absorbed in that.
That's cool. I did your parents regret it? Do you think? I
for a while, probably, But I think now that I have a career
in it, they're like, okay, paid off any high school and I
wanted to play games and they were like, you got to socialize with people
or At one point I remember getting very kind of related, but getting very
into magically Gathering, a game, but you know, not not a video
game necessarily. And I remember coming home and my mom was like, do
you think you'll ever meet like girls by playing magic? And I was like
I don't know, and she's like, oh, you should probably do something
else. And then you're like, you better believe it. Meet Sity.
She is a blue player. A blue player, Yeah exactly is how you
say it. In Magic Gathering. How'd you build like a blue deck?
Blue? Yeah? Yeah, I guess you could do mono. She's mono
blue. Mom. We're getting married. But yeah, it was travel I
think that eventually convinced them. But you know, rest with history, I
suppose. But now, like your favorite thing to do would be traveling with
your friends, and it's like, you know, that's I feel like,
you know what I do on the flight, play Pokemon and Smash nice very
good. Who's your favorite Smash player in the in the latest one? Wait
it's not Kirby No. So I love all the sword characters, I love
the fireroom characters. But I think I'm best with Yoshi Yoshi. Oh wow,
Sammis Maine. No, no, it's always been right. Yeah,
you're a Samma's Made. Yeah. No, I'm bringing this up because I
thought we did that happy hour at game Spot and you played Sammis. I
thought you gave me ship because you were a Sam's Made too, zero Suit.
I played zero Suit. Oh yeah, I'm good with Sammas. Okay,
you're okay. That's just my way of bringing it up. It's just
my way to brag. So I think my earliest earliest is probably um my
dad taking a picture of the Pitfall because you got like a really good score
and you like, I wanted to take a picture of the TV. And
then when we got the picture back it was just the reflection of the flash
off the TV. And we got the picture back a week later. No,
No, you had to go get it developed, you know. You
go, and you go, you bring it to the place, and you
get the picture back days later, and you get it back and it's just
the reflection of the flash off of it. So it's just nothing. It's
picture what you know. I think we did for a while. I always
found it hilarious to be like, oh my gosh, I get this thing
and then it's like there's no proof of it at all. Um. I
have two other ones that are I have three other ones that are kind of
mushed together. One is going to the video store in my neighborhood and being
the first person to rent a Nintendo game. Uh. They had just started.
They put the they gave me the entire Super Mario Brothers game in the
box with the instruction manual and just put it in a manilla envelope and like,
uh, just like with for two dollars. Like they didn't really had
no idea what they were doing. Uh, And I just took the entire
box in the game and stuff in the sleeve and um, and then brought
back to them obviously, but uh and that was interesting because they were like,
oh, you're the first first person. We don't know what we were
doing here this uh yeah yeah right, that's a long island accent. Uh.
And the one that is ridiculous to me is we rented Ryegar my older
brother and I and we were trying to get through it and we were pretty
far in it and it was really frustrating and my older brother Um took the
NES controller and it was like, oh, he just died. And he
took the NES controller and he like took it, he like wrapped it around
his neck. Was like ah, and he yanked the Nintendo off of the
shelf it was on and it smashed into the ground and the tape the cartridge
popped up and just the screen just started blinking U. And that was the
end of Raygar of our Ryegar run because though you did not get you know,
checkpoints back then. But my favorite one is renting Final Fantasy And this
goes back to my genre moment renting Final Fantasy and sitting downstairs during summer break
I think it was, and with a giant bowl of popcorn and a hot
chocolate and this must have been the summer. I don't know why I was
having hot chocolate, but hot chocolate in the summer, like you know,
one of those hot chocolates you put two packets in it, like get a
giant mug and a giant bowl of popcorn. Work in the morning, No,
right, exactly, and just playing Final Fantasy like forever, like just
just enjoying, not having any responsibility, end of metabolism and just enjoying that.
Have been three or six or I think it was one? M it
was. I think it was. I think it was Final Fantasy one.
They a Nintendo one get or yeah like that, technically, whatever you wanna
call it. Looking back, I think it's one. I think I think
it's three. Three in Japan? Was oh so one American three Japanese.
I listen, you're on another a Final Fantasy. I know what you're talking
about, but I don't know the math. It was one. It was
one, Yeah, it was Final Fantasy one. However, in Japan there
had been two already, so it was their three, is that right?
Yeah? Okay, the first one that we got was there three technically the
Nintendo Final Fantasy one with Garland. I'm being such a big I just moved
forward. This is you've you've ruined my memory. I take that one back.
I uh, it was a yeah, it was my first final fantasy.
It was the final fantasy. It was the last one. Um,
yeah, that one was great. Whichever one, whichever, never it was.
Yeah, it was awesome. I uh, have you played sixteen much?
No? I played through the demo. Okay, Brad, Brad's playing
it. He's actually really enjoying it. Yeah, I want to take more
into it. I like that the lead designer from Devil May Cry came over,
so I want to play more of it, just because I like the
actual character action combat. But I'm not played much of it. Um,
it's very good, but it is never ending. I'm eighty hours in and
it has not ended yet, and I am sick and tired of it.
Oh my gosh, are you doing the side quest? Because I've heard there's
so many I'm doing side quests. You get to a point where it's like,
all right, the big emotional final battle is about to happen. Talk
to this character and it'll get going. And then it's like, but how
about you do fifteen side quests first? And I've done them all so far,
so I'm like, fuck it, I'll do them. And it is
eternal. It is You're doing all the side quests because I'm this far into
it, might as well. Yeah okay, but and some of the side
quests are really good and they pay off and some don't. Most of them
don't. But yeah, it's good. It's just very Okay, eighty hours,
that's a lot. Yeah, it's a lot of hours. I know.
Are you playing the first Final Fantasy sixteen? Who are you playing in
Japan? That's Final Fantasy thirty three sixteen two? Okay, second, let's
talk first, let me Blanc before we talk French or French or so South
Africa. Okay, I'm on the avant garde cutting edge of Shennon Blanc.
I don't know what pairs of the Final Fantasy Shannon Blanc. Oh, yeah,
clearly, clearly. Well, in Japan it's more Bordeaux. Okay,
yeah, I think it's more French. Yeah, Bordeos French. Um.
Well cool. Thank you West from Baltimore. As always, we appreciate your
emails. All right, that's basically our show. If you guys want to
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this current episode. If you're missing out, go do that Vinny. Next
Slander. What do you guys have going on what do you want to plug
for the people listening to Firescape. I would love to tell people that we
have reached a point in our watch cast, the movie podcast we do over
at next Lander where we are celebrating the works of David Lynch and we are
watching Twin Peaks for me the first time, for Brad Shoemaker for the first
time, but Alex has seen it before. He's taking us on a journey
through Twin Peaks and that's very exciting. We episode, the pilots and the
first episode are up. It's the watch cast is where we have watched a
movie beforehand and then we or the show and then talk about it afterward.
We don't talk over while it's playing like some other, let's say podcasts we
used to do with movies. Um, and it's great, it's fun.
We just I just watched the second and third episodes and I'm have you guys
seen Twin Peaks first season? Okay, the first and second and I stopped
the second season because okay, but I want to see the third at some
point. Ah, there you go. I'm having a lot of like,
oh my gosh moments with for Deadly Premonition. Now, um oh, my
gosh, this is so that's a lot of fun and you can check that
out over at patreon dot com slash next Lander. Um, that's what I'm
going to pitch along with our podcasts and all the other fun stuff if you
want. We talked about boulders Gate three um, Dave Snyder and I played
boulders Gate U two weeks ago, so you can check that out over at
our YouTube channel, Next Lander's YouTube channel. Cool. Yeah, we are
all huge fans and next Lander here at well. Thank you. We've tell
you guys all the time, even if we're telling people that we're going to
show up at their houses if they rate you any less than five stars.
We love next Lander. Vinnie, thanks so much for coming on and James
for having me. Jake, thanks for sharing all those beautiful stories with me.
That that traveling with friends makes me want to go book a trip like
yeah, it's fine, Yeah, I love it. Maybe to a castle
somewhere again with Dan. We'll exchange the money first. Yeah, screaming to
bank Jake, game spot, you have anything going on? Game Spot?
That's where do you want to plug? Yeah? So we just put up
a Boulder's Gate. Uh, Dev's breakdown all the classes, So if you
want to hear them talk about all the different classes, you should do that.
And then of course on Giant Bomb, we're doing a travelogue. So
if you want to see Dan navigate Belgium, I do. Yeah, it's
ancestral homeland. Yeah, we met one of his so called relatives who clearly
wasn't a relative, and we interviewed him. He hates taco bell and that
was a big It's not Dan's relative, that's that was my first thought,
was not Dan's relative. But yeah, um, that'll that'll be up probably
a week from now, um from when this podcast goes up. So yeah,
if you want to check that out, do awesome. Well thanks so
much Vinnie for joining us. We appreciate it. You got it. We'll
be on the lookout for all the cool next liner stuff that you're doing.
We will be back on the next episode, which will be last day of
July, July thirty. First, it's Harry Potter's birthday. It's also my
brother's birthday. Weird little factoid. He'll be like forty three. We'll be
back then in two weeks. Thank you everybody for joining You could have been
anywhere in the world tonight, but you chose to hang out here with us.
We love you all. We'll see then, Benny, thanks so much
for joining. Jake. I'll see us soon, I'm sure. Have a
good night. See you guys later