Hey everybody, It's Tuesday, February thirteenth, twenty twenty four. Welcome to
the Giant BombCast, Episode eight one hundred and twenty seven. I'm your host
this week, and I am also powered by NZXT. Jim Shoa writing the
Lightning of news and in other stuff that rhymes with news shoes. Jeff Grubb.
I've never been electrocuted by lightning. I have been electrocuted in multiple times
by a garage door. The most electric, the most electrifying man in all
of games entertainment, Dan Ryker. If you smell la la la, that's
all I got. Really, I don't don't really have a nickname or anything.
I just want to It's not like rolling a tongue. You just say
la la la a lot. It's not really that. It's not as impressive
when you like break it down into sure. Yeah, it's just based like
la la a lot into a mic. Yeah. The most musical man on
this website and on this podcast. He's singing la la la, la la
la constantly while he's visualizing apples and theorizing whether or not Dan got struck by
lightning. Jeff Becklar, that's all correct. Hello friends, how goes it.
How are we doing on this Tuesday? Lovely Tuesday? Yo, Yo,
everyone listening right now. It's February thirteenth. If you haven't made plans
or done stuff for Valentine's Day, if you have a significant other, keep
listening to this podcast and go do those things right now, leave work,
but keeps who knows. Yeah, I get a PC for your significant other.
That come like a couple of weeks later. I did get something off
the TikTok shop. Apparently like they're gonna I got something for my wife,
thank you, and my two kids, and apparently they're gonna open and there's
like a little cake inside, but a bunch of like paper butterflies. Those
are legit, Okay, so I think, yes, Jane, you might
know better than me, so so Dan, how they are? It's God,
they're like rubber banded, so you twist them right and then like you
hold them in place, the box will hold them in place, and once
you open it, it'll release that pressure so like it'll just keep spinning and
spin away you search for If you want to get a bunch of those,
God, I will send it to you, and I like fun. It'll
be like an event and I'm like, Okay, that's that's Valentine's Day covered
for me. That's awesome. Whenever it's uh, Mike Manatti's turn for Blake
Club again, we need to somehow pack the box with those butterflies just to
scare him. Oh that'd be cute. Yeah, definitely he's talk about him.
Yeah, very modest levels or just zero on that guy. Yeah,
yeah, his ego is a is a complete zero, just like yeah,
absolutely know he's the Adam Driver of Giant Bomby. We'll never watch or listen
to himself in anything. Yeah, you know after a net. Uh,
after y'all watched a NET, I think so I would say that he is
the Adam Driver. I think at that movie every day. Yeah really yeah,
every day. Yea, yeah, I'm a good bother. I didn't
know Adam Driver is like that. I didn't know he doesn't he promot like
that. He was on that Terry Gross show on n p R and they
like played a clip of him. It's like, yeah, thank you,
fresh Air. It's like not even a video clip, it's just like an
audio clip and he has to take off his headphones and like wait until it's
done before you can put him back on because he just cannot stand it.
Do you do you think he he thinks he's a good actor though, if
he can't watch, imagine, I imagine by this point he's he's convinced that
helps. You know, people, he's a desirable actor. Let's get one.
Let's get it out of a driver on the dump truck. You know,
oh for sure that he's played games. How old is he? He's
around our age. Yeah, he's forty years old. He's like my age.
Yeah. Yeah, he was in the Marines. He was definitely in
the military of some sort. Yeah, they let you like bring game advances
or anything. Isn't there a game boy in the Nintendo store in New York
that was in a desert storm and they're yeah, still it's melted and still
works. They took it, they took it down, but they did have
that for a while. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so yeah apparently.
Okay, Uh, the super Bowl was this past weekend. I don't know
if you have any feelings about it. I'm still devastrating and broken inside.
Sorry, Bud's all right, I'm in Kansas City, but I won't rub
it in. So it's okay, Dan, I completely understand it's not like
the Niners have been there multiple times in the past decade and uh, you
know, just not capture the gold. I don't think we're ever going to
finish your story. I'm sorry, Kyle Shanahan. Yeah, I feel bad
about that. Jane. To get to get to the final, the sup
the Final super Bolt Top and just to lose. You know, I missed
that story. Patrick Mahomes pull your leg down from the ladder and then just
climb over you and get the belt. You know, it's weird. I
was watching the Super Bowl and the people I was there with were like,
oh at halftime after Usher, everyone was like, Oh, She's just gonna
win this game, like easily, And I was like, what do you
want? Why do you know that? Because Patrick, that's what they do.
They were down by they lose and then win, which is cool.
I guess it's just if the game's not over, Patrick Mahomes is gonna win.
That's just how incredible. Yeah, it's incredible. Yeah. He does
sound like Kenny Powers too. Someone pointed that out to me. Yeah,
Kenny Powers and Kermit the Frog. Yeah, insane, absolutely insane how much
he sounds like Kenny Power. And someone actually did it that that video of
like they had a Kenny Powers uh like clip playing and they like somehow like
matched it up so it looked like Patrick Mahomes was talking and I was like,
that's just what he's saying. And then they showed that it was actually
Kenny Powers, Like, oh my god, they sound exactly alike. Do
you guys have a favorite commercial? I mean it sucked. I've realized that,
Like I watched the Super Bowl every year, but like, when did
it turn into every commercial just being like, here's eight celebrities and they're doing
something weird. Well, it wasn't Dad sadury, Like there were like clever
ideas and it wasn't all filled with like here's Jason Momoa, here's you know.
It was definitely in the last two years it's been every commercial is a
celebrity thing. I will say the Michael Sarah one, Oh yeah, pretty
good. That Eric Warheim Eric Wareheim director directed that. So it's like,
Okay, Eric Wareham directing a super Bowl commercial. That's incredible. You know.
I don't know the commercials are more entertaining than the game for sure.
From my position to I think, like I just think there's more value there
yo some some drama that got started within this household. Was you know the
half Bowl or the halftime performance by Usher Great? I love Usher Er Baby.
Yeah. As soon as that man busted out the skates, I'm like,
look at this guy. That was awesome. That was very exciting.
That was so cool. My partner lost her ship as soon as Alicia Keys
made the surprise run in. And then you know, Alicia Keys has been
married for an extended period of time to rapper producer Swiss Beats. I think
they have children together. And then Urscha Raymond gets a little a little too
close for around there and then like the caddle and then like you know,
both like my partner and I were like, they're enjoying this too much.
They've been transported back to two thousand and four where they did this song together.
And then, man, Sweet Beats is like crushing us soda can somewhere
upset Swiss Speeds from the NBA Street soundtrack, of course, exactly, of
course, of course they both seemed like they were enjoying themselves, right,
That doesn't seem to be the issue for Swiss Beats apparently. I mean,
well, I mean I'll say that Usher seems like a sexual force of nature,
like you kind of just you gotta put people on on stage with them.
It's just gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because my partner
I went to Vegas and we saw his residency and that whole show was basically
just a strip club performance. And then like God blessed the older elderly woman
behind me. But as soon as like Usher like ripped his shirt off and
was like body rolling, she was like, oh my lord, Usher Raymond,
your mother is in attendance tonight, literal pearl clutching. It was great.
I did pop very hard when Ludacris yea, they were to do the
montage thing where they do like thirty seconds of each song, and I thought
they were gonna do yeah before Ludacros came in, but they had him and
Little John, so that was good. It was really good. Yeah,
a little good too. He ramped up in a real satisfying way, I
thought. Ye post Malone of course, saying the national anthem I believe with
the guitar with a guitar. Yeah yeah, I feel like I had to
explain him to people. Part Okay, what's the TLDR for post Malone?
How would you do that? I just said he's a gamer. He likes
wrestling, and I was like, he's just a gamer with face tattoos.
He's pretty talented, leave malone. Is he a SoundCloud guy? Is he
one of these guys with I assume anyone that is musically popular today that has
face tattoos first got started on SoundCloud. I'm sure he did. Yeah.
His early internet presence that I'm aware of is that he was a Minecraft YouTuber
for a while. Damn Okay, Yeah, oh yeah, it was like
did basically basically like just like you know, like he did Xbox Controller mind.
Yeah. Hey, I saw Wonka over the weekend and it's the best
movie of twenty twenty three. We all wanka on it. Wonka is phenomenal.
Okay, several times I cannot believe the task at hand that was laid
out in front of a film's aspirations to attempt to tackle Willy Wonka, and
this fucking movie stuck the landing in such an unbelievably incredible way. Hats off
to everyone and anyone indirectly and directly related to that film. Well done.
It is sucking great. It's a Paul King joint. You trust the dude
that has made Paddington one and two to make my life now, I trust
this person. Wonka was spectacular, the music and it is actually it's pretty
decent as well. Dude, everything about it. You're just sort of like,
how did how did they fucking do so good? You're just you know,
you're just like man, you think like anything, anyone who tries to
do Wonka now is is sort of dead on arrival. But no, Hugh
Grant. Hugh Grant's performance of that movie fucking fantastic as well. Yeah,
it's great, everything's great, right, yes, yeah, yeah, Keeth
and Michael, Oh my god, he was hilarious, like everything is perfect.
Was that Olivia Coleman in that movie? Yes? Oh god, well,
I mean you know coalmeister coal miner, she's great. I love her.
You know it's Do you think you would be more excited about Avatar three
if it was directed by the Paddington two guy. I think that's to come
around on it. I'll tell you that. What if all the Navi started
wearing like red hats, like like red bucket hats and they were all played
by Hugh Grant, Maybe look what if they they What if instead of wanting
to connect with a, they wanted to connect with marmalade. Yeah, I
mean that's a that's a better ambition. It was made up nerd ship.
Yeah, exactly. These guys are eating chocolate that's making them fly. Okay,
we're not just like tail fucking all right? Was there t fucking too?
I don't think there was? Was there? No? Yeah, I
was all in one. Yeah, was applied because they had like fifty kids.
But yeah, I mean, you know what happened, but it's not
on screen. That's right, it's not on screen. Yeah. I also
saw the Iron Claw. Yeah, back, I didn't need to know that
story, but I didn't like it. No, I didn't say that.
I said I didn't read it. I said I did not need to know
that story. This story is a goddamn nightmare. You don't think there's a
place to tell stories of tragedies and movies? I just didn't. I just
didn't want that. I didn't want to know this story. I do not
the worst story they left a whole brother suicide even cooler, even cooler.
I mean, look, I guess was like, I'm not saying this story
should be buried, and none of us should know about it. I'm just
saying I did not want to sit down watch a movie about the most fucked
up, terribly cursed family in the history of sports. I guess it didn't
surprise me as much as because, like, I knew what to expect going
in, But if you go in, I did. What did you know
going in about that? Zach Effron looked like he man, wait, you
didn't know it was like a tragic story. No, I mean I assume
he had hit me over the like I mean I assumed, you know,
the dad in the beginning who's just like his family's cursed. I'm like,
oh, cool, Well that's that's foreboding. Like you know, I'd like,
that's like starting that like United ninety three movie and be like, oh
cool Airplane movie that okay, into analogy a song of silence and expecting a
musical and it's just like, here's how you hurted all these people. It's
like, oh my god, sure we're starting Titanic and being like, look,
can't wait to see this thing. No, I think, yeah,
this is worse than all of those things. Yeah. Bad, yeah bad.
The version of good Player is also just bad. Bad. Oh that
was the biggest tragedy of the entire film. That person should be arrested.
Okay, you did the best. I mean, look, it wasn't a
good impression, but hey, you got hired to do a role. He's
he wasn't the right guy for it. A lot of mistakes for me,
A lot of mistakes for me, don't Yeah, I don't know what to
say. Like I we watched it. We had to watch this in like
three sittings, just how deeply uncomfortable it was. I kept looking over Stacey
and I'm just like I can't believe this is this also is happening now,
Like like what is actually what a what a feel good set that must have
been? What an awesome shoot this all must have been for everyone involved?
My god, not good. And then and then on top of that,
I told you, I'm trying having to explain to her that like, no,
it's all fake, like there's not even like no, everything is arranged,
everything is pre arranged. She kept trying to find little hints in the
movie that it was somehow still real. They they do that sometimes in like
wrestling movies and depends on TV where that's the movie. Yeah, it's like
no, they're just they're working. It's the movie. They're trying to make
movie magic. They're like double kfa in there, because when you're acting as
a wrestler, who's in the ring, that's a double brother. Yeah,
I mean that guy Frond was pretty good. I'll get everybody is good.
I love zachar Yeah, except the Rick Flair guy. But yeah, fuck
man, that's that was dark. How to watch Wanka cleanse the palate?
Sure? I spent the Super Bowl being called the notorious b HG by my
father. He said that over and over and over again because now follow the
logic here the fall righter's logic. O, wait, just just clarify the
notorious b HG. That's correct because of the logic. Early on the logic,
he kept putting his mountain dew major melon on this thing on the couch
that like like goes in when you were climbed, and so it was like
clearly going to spill on my carpet, and the mountain dew was and so
I was just nicely saying, oh hey, please, can you can you
put it on the coaster on the thing here, and he goes, ooh
me, fancy pinch per carpet. I didn't want to spin out my carpet.
I remember when you used to eat cheese dogs out of a shoe box,
and now you're fancy mans. You're mister Better Homes and Gardens Notorious BHG
here. And so for like four hours he's calling me the notorious BHG because
I asked him to not spill mountain dew on my carpet. I've talked a
lot of shit about Paul reichert Okay, I'm walking it all back. Oh,
in god forbid, I made a cocktail and oh, he's like,
oh, mister cocktail, mister cock drink a real man beer. I got
to get my little pregnancy strip in this, and I was like, what
are you talking about? Pregnancy strip? It's like, oh, the stupid
thing with all the lines on. I was like the measuring cup. So
yeah, that was a weekend full of getting shit for making a cocktail.
Oh man, what did you make more about cheese dogs out of a shoe
box? What? What was that? I want to know what cocktail he
made? Oh? I I got one called the Exam that I like to
make. It's it's a shamboord, it's a Grand Marnier. It's some vodka
and it's uh yeah, a little splash Fraanngelico on there. That's a good
one. I'm getting into cocktail stuff. It's fun and you know what,
God damn it. It is a nice thing to do. And oh,
against everything, it goes against everything. Ball raes, Oh, just drink
a real man bear and shut up, you know, just drink, just
drink, of course, just drink a butt. But yeah, I mean,
how do you have time for this? When he was busy telling actors
what their job is? That was really did you did you, Jane or
Backlard? Did you happen to see this? Uh? I heard about it?
You told I think you told us yesterday? Yeah, he genuinely.
We were watching this like weird Broadway performance on lettering because I wanted to see
his reaction on stream. And he's like, what do these people put on
their WUT two forums? What do they put in their tax forums? And
I was like, probably actor and Alex Foniolo had been in the chat like
ten minutes earlier, and he's like, well, they're not actors. I
was like, wait, you don't think Broadway performers or actors? No,
they're Badway performers. They're like singing guys, right, but you don't think
that's technically acting. It's like, well, no, they're not being filmed.
You have to be filmed to be an actor. Okay, so you're
saying acting didn't exist before movie cameras. He's like, yeah, yeah,
So I fucking voicemailed or not voicemailed. I speaker phone called Boniello this is
on Instagram and had them talk it out, and Boniello rightfully said it was
a fucking crazy thing to say, and then eventually hung up on him so
that I can't hang up with my father. Turns out I just have to
live with my entire life. Sure you can't, but yeah, no he
And that's the thing is people in the chat were saying, like, oh,
you realize how much of him you summon, like when you're on podcasts
and stuff like that. I'm like, God, damn it, you're probably
right. I probably am, because, like I know, whatever reaction gets
out of me when he's being super Paul record, I'm probably tapping into that
when I'm like trying to get a rise out of people and stuff. But
he's shooting he actually doesn't think Broadway performers are actors. That's fucking insane,
Like holy shit. Well, you know again, every time you do open
up your mouth on a podcast, you do, you do need to also
remember the feeling that you have. I know, I know what you do
with your father. Decade plus my life is trying to excize all the Paul
record from my veins, and I think I just learning these lessons saying that
the you know, the feeling is sometimes your conversation Paul and have it like
just do your arguments back at you. I think that would get me since
in terms of being like, oh you have the court Mario from Paul Riker
would be like a central crisis. Yes, you would probably explode a little
bit. It would be dangerous. All of this sounds like several side quests
that you can embark on in like a dragon infinite. Well, here's the
game music. I forget that island all right. I feel like Paul would
enjoy his time on Dan Doco Island. No, he was talking about going
to islands before and he fucking hates it. Okay, yeah, he actually
hates it. I just know what his reasons are. You know, you've
been spending more time on with like a dragon infinite wealth. Have you been
enjoying it? Where are you at right now? Yeah, I'm at a
point where you take over as Cure you back in Japan, and it's like,
now you're like running a whole different crew, separate from the Kasuga Ichuban
Kasuga clan or you know crew, and it's I'm like, oh my god,
now I'm like this whole other game I'm playing over here now. And
it does the thing of like, oh, it's it's keeping things interesting,
and I'm finding myself like, yeah, okay, the objective's over there,
but I do kind of want to clear out the map a little bit.
There's all these interesting icons. It's going to tell me stuff about these characters,
and they're gonna have conversations, and they're relatively easy to find and get
to. And you get there and it's like you just you could kind of
button through it and read it really quick, and then it like expands your
friendship Bingo and I'm like really enjoying filling out those cards. I want to
start doing that in real life, like have a friendship Bingo cards with you
guys. Do that. We should definitely do that. And then and then
it's like there's all these like kick the bucket list stuff that Kurriu was doing,
and it's like, I'm because it's like clearly like they're trying to like
wrap up history in some way. It seems like they were like preparing to
move on for him. I can't really tell someone who doesn't played a lot,
but there's like a huge history this character has in the series, and
it's like all these moments of him going around this town that has been part
of the game franchise from the beginning, and him remembering all these moments,
and it's like I did not experience almost any of these. I've missed out
on almost all that stuff. And yet it's like, man, it's just
nice to know that this game has so much reverence for its history and for
the fans that love this character, and it makes me like the character more
because I know that there's all this fondness from the people playing the game and
from the people making the game. It is it's it's like it's something kind
of something kind of special, even though it's like not really necessarily influencing my
own history there because again I don't have that overall. The game just continue
continues to be fun the you know when I as I do those like friendship
bingo list, of course, that increases my social links with characters and on
my squad, and that means we can do even more in combat and the
combat becomes even better. Unlocked a new ability for cureou in combat where it
just becomes the old games again in the middle of a turn based combat fight,
and that completely rules school Man. That's awesome. Yes, oh that
is a different fighting system completely. Yes, it's really really great. So
I'm like, I'm at a point where, hey, I'm having so much
fun with this game. I'm enjoying taking my time, and I do start
to feel some anxiety about all these other things that are coming out that I
want to get to. Yeah, so I'm like, okay, time to
get back on the you know, just bullet train through these missions. And
then when I do that, I'm also having a ton of fun. So
it's just it's a game that really is fitting me with me really well.
A lot of that does come down to it nailing the humor, nailing the
tone, having a lot of irreverence for what kind of game it is,
just like, hey, yeah, this is a an RPG and and it's
an RBG that has the entire history and understands what those were and is very
sort of tongue in cheek about it. And I really appreciate that as someone
who's like watched many of those games from a distance, not really been able
to get into many of them, but understands like what they are this game,
understanding what they are, deconstructing them, having fun with that. I
can get completely get on board with that. And I have, Yeah,
I love the reminiscing stuff back in Japan. It is awesome and it makes
me happy for like long time Yahkaza fans because you know, I'm like you
grub, you know, I've dabbled with the only one I beat was Zero.
I've dabbled with the other one. But like you know, I'm getting
like maybe fifteen percent of these reminiscing references and stuff. But I think it's
so cool because like it reminds me of like when I was playing through Middle
Year Solid four and it was kind of a similar thing where it's like a
snake's old and this is maybe his last, you know, hurrah, this
is the you know, and then when you go back to Shadow Moses at
one point and I was like, oh man, this is such a just
like catnip for like a long time Meddle Year, solid fan. And in
the way that game also like brought in all these old characters and was very
you know, referential towards the series past, like and I remember how much
I love that as a Medal Year fan, Like, I'm sure yahka is
the fans are just like, oh this is this is so fun. Yeah.
From the BCR episode we did on Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, Lexi
Imron and Jesse Vittelli were were sharing that it was a It felt a little
bit weird at first to bust carry you out and it kind of felt like,
all right, well we got to bring curry you out. So because
Kirius popular with everyone, right, but by the end of Infinite Wealth,
uh. I don't want to put words in any of their mouths, but
it did feel like the consensus was this was a better and more proper passing
of the torch of the series from kure You to Ichibon, and I feel
like I didn't quite get that in the original like a Dragon, but here
it's they are definitely setting Ichiban up to take on the mantle of like the
protagonist moving forward for like a Dragon or whatever we're going to call the franchise
in a couple of years. Yeah, but Jesus Christ, the writing of
the game, even even the main quest, where I thought like it would
just drag on a little bit too much much, you know, they keep
it interesting and everything pays off. It's not like it's a bunch of loose
threads that they forget about. It's like, no, everything sort of builds
to something and and they take it seriously but not too seriously most of the
time. And when they do, it's usually well earned. But it's like,
you know, for me, it's like, yeah, I'm I'm going
from these story moments to story moment, and I'm sometimes I'm half engaged and
sometimes I'm fully engaged. And then I get back to the combat and I'm
in the job system and one of the characters is just a dominatrix now who's
like what kind a special move where she like just steps on your junket electrocutes
and it's like, this is just a phenomenal video game. Yeah, this
is just incredible that they're just doing it. And she's like she's like well,
knock you down and like Spaky on the button, it does all kinds
of damage. It's great. It's what a cool thing, speak of everything
paying off. It's the funniest thing in the world in me that Dondoco Island.
The reward for like spending seven hours catching bugs and like building porno stores
is that they give you a golden eye. Laser is a fucking combat everyone.
It cuts the space and shows a satellite shooting a laser down and killing
a PRIs And it's not explained even a little bit, like why would you
get that because of this? It's like, no, you of course you
got that because you island. Yeah, it's of course us. It's it's
very poor timing for me personally to to try and continue to uh progress forward
in Persona three Reload, which is a very serious story, and some of
the you know I got, I think I have to concede that this is
like a remake remaster of the original game where they didn't have just too many
things. But some of the social links and Persona three I can't fucking stand
them. I think you guys may have seen this circling around the internet by
now, but one of these social links, and PERSONA three reload is you
have to really hype up your classmate because he wants to start a relationship with
a teacher, and it's like, yeah, man, I get yeah,
that'd be cool. Everyone seems to hate this too. Everyone seems to like
everyone I see online that talks about at least in my social circles. I'm
sure there's probably freaks online, but most people would be like, I hate
that I have to do this to maximize my game time in here. And
you know, again, you don't have to maximize that social link, but
it's just an aspect of that game where yea, so we do have to
personas of that specific arcana. You would just get more bonuses if you max
that social ink out. So it's a little bit of a bummer hoping PERSONA
six is not asking me to romanticize my teachers. But I think that's why
I just enjoy about like a dragon infinite wealth so much. Is like,
yes, there are the super serious moments, but then everything else is so
stupid, and they're aware that it's stupid and not taking itself too seriously.
I was a baby when this came out, but was the expectation of Shenmu
supposed to be like anything like how Yakuza has been. Shen MoU wasn't as
a humorous It wasn't going for humor. It was going just this been no
sale. It was it is kind of funny going back to but I think
mostly in like unintentional ways. It uh, it was pretty dry and serious.
I would say Yakuza is more like kind of that Metal Year thing of
mixing the like super serious with like this is a bad shit silly video game,
you know, right. Shimu was definitely them like feeling it out,
like do you guys want to open drawers? Yes? Is that? Like
said? Is this fun? I think, well, no, definitely not.
I love Shinmu. I was fascinated by it just because it did have
those gimmicks that you didn't see back then. You had the day night cycle,
you had the real time element, like happened to go back to your
house by a certain time. The fact that you could go through drawers and
go into all these places and go into shops like that wasn't something you really
saw back then. And I was fascinated by that, And I think fondly
on shin Mu. But I think objectively, I look at what like the
ACAS series has done, and it's like, does everything Shinmu did, but
like a billion times better and it adds a bunch of stuff that Shinmu wasn't
even trying to do. You know. Okay, yep, okay, grab
your on the train to try and finish Infinite Wealth. Yeah, I mean,
especially like I'm like mentioned that like my anxiety about like, well,
what if I can't get through this. I really am enjoying it. And
then like I said that to Mike, Mike's like, no, finish shit,
Like I think, like and like Lexi's a huge fan, people are
like rooting for me to beat this game, and I'm like, you know
what I want to I want to get through it, so I'm gonna try.
But boy, like there's you know a bullet I started playing Bilotro earlier
today, Jen and They're like I could see that just taking my over my
entire life, and of Fantasy is out later this month, and that demo
was really, really, really good. So it's like, God, there
is a lot of stuff that could derail me. But like again, I
go back to the good news with games like this is every time I pick
up my Steam deck to play video game, even if it's like, oh
what am I gonna play? And I turn it on and it just wakes
from sleep and I'm right back into like a dragon because I just never turned
the game off. It makes it very easy to keep that momentum going forward.
So I'm hoping that I can. I can see it through. Uh,
something I'd like to see through after I also wade through the mess of
games coming out. Jeff Beckler, You've been taking a peek at this Ultros.
This is a a goofy looking game. Oh, this is the wettest,
gupiest gelatinous most like it's are you playing on the same deck o led
Grub I played? I did play it on the team deck when I had
the preview building. I don't have this version. I haven't asked for a
code yet. Those colors are just extremely vivid on there, like it's a
really deck. It looks really good. This is definitely like an Aahuasca trip,
uh sort of machine els game. It's like, uh, there's an
artist I think they did a cover of like a Mastodon album a couple of
years ago, and like it's exactly it looks like Spencer's Gifts Black light posters.
It looks like what you think. Peyote probably feels like, like,
yeah, it's got a lot cool. I one of the ways I actually
did play it was Peote and in the the VR headset the Quest three a
stream on a big screen in front of me Amal and it was like a
moment and I was having a Colorado night. It was like it was doing
that to me. Yeah, I'd need to sit down for something like that.
I can't decide if I like the atmosphere of this game better or the
gameplay itself, because I do think the atmosphere and the sort of like stylistic
choices of this thing are really something to behold, like truly one of the
most unique looking things you'll ever see. And I will say the same thing
about the other game I'm going to talk about too. What're you gonna say,
jen question, is Ultra more of like a metroid Vaney or is it
like Roguelike? Okay, it's a metro van. Yeah, so go ahead,
dan oh No, I was just gonna say, I played like thirty
minutes and like, I do love the look of it, but it's like
there's so much going on on screen that's sometimes it's so dense it's kind of
hard to tell sometimes like discerning interactive elements or enemies from the background, you
know exactly. And that's the thing that's working against this game and making me
like sort of it's just it's what's sort of like giving me this like push
and pull with this game, right, because the foreground and the background overlap
in a way that is a bit jarring and confusing, and you can't and
what basically what you do is you get through, you acquire a weapon,
and then you start to kill these alien enemies, and out of these enemies
comes these organs, and you got to eat these organs. These organs.
Eating an organ fills up like one of four sort of like health meters and
those meters, right, these four categories that you raise as you eat these
organs decide how you can upgrade your skill set. So you're basically and you
can do that at anytime, and you're constantly sort of eating these organs.
They fill up your health as well, but they also fill up these meters
and you get access to like a cool dashes, not a double jump,
but you do get a double jump at some point because it is a Metrovenea,
but you get certain sort of traversial per if that makes sense, and
uh, yeah, that's how the that that's sort of the loop of the
game. The problem, like we said with Dan, is like you are
really confused sometimes of like where you are on screen, and there's a couple
uh platforming things that I just don't feel uh sort of stick to landing.
They just don't feel right. There's there's a bit feel different. It does
feel different. I'm wondering if I dislike it or if I just like need
to get used to it exactly. Like I'm not turned off by anything in
this game. Also because I think the the stylistic uh presentation of it just
is powerful enough and unique enough to kind of like make up for some of
the things where you're like that instead of like the well like the Prince of
Persia lost Crown Bar. What's like clearly that's just wanting to feel awesome all
the time, right, And I think some of the presentation in that game
suffered maybe because of it, or maybe they just didn't care as much.
And here it's like, well they win the other directions slightly, and that
doesn't mean that the game feels bad I just don't. It feels different to
me. Every room you enter, the background is so bizarre and strange,
and there's so much like goop and wetness and slime and like membrane everywhere.
Uh, It's wild and I'm playing it mostly for that. And I also
think they do some really interesting like filtering from a sort of like a visual
point of view. I really dig it. I really dig the uniqueness of
this presentation. I think, you know, I have gotten into a couple
moments already where I'm just like, oh, fuck with do I have to
like backtrack and go and try and just like get through this little little moment
here is where am I missing something there? And I do think it does
play with the dimensionality frustrations of it where that leads into some of the front
some of the sort of like unknown and kind of like trapping you in a
maybe in an unintended way. But I do think it is really good.
I haven't played it on my Steam deck yet, which I will now because
this is the game for that, right, especially like you said the old
ed, I mean this, this game pops. It is gorgeous. It
is absolutely phenomenally visualized. So yeah, I'm pretty into it. I you
know, maybe there's I'm about maybe like two hours in three hours in maybe
there's something that I'm gonna come across that really changes the game. But so
far I'm digging it. Hell yeah, hell yeah. Something that I have
been digging and now I think Jeff Grubb is also digging, and it seems
the internet is also digging. I'm gonna take credit for that. Is Bulatro,
it is. It is thanks to you, Grub. It's it's really
popping off. It's yeah, a lot of people or I think it's one
of the most wish listed games out of that Steam next Fest. Yeah,
it's really good. I started playing it, and once you realize it's like,
man, okay, I have these cards here and if I just save
them, I got three disc cards left. Basically, you know, Jan
explained it, but it's it's a poker deck building game where you get all
kinds of modifiers that change up how things work. You can add extra like
you know, deck cards to your deck. So it's like, oh,
I have actually have five kings in this in this deck, and I actually
upgraded one of them so they are a goal. It's a gold card.
So if I spend it. If I make a hand out of that,
it's gonna be worth even more. It's that and you're trying to make poker
hands. Uh, but like just the the structure of Okay, you have
so many hands to get so many points, and you have so many discards,
and it's like, okay, some risk a reward here, I've got.
You know, I got a straight shot through the middle fIF I just
get that one card. I'm gonna discard these and I have three discards.
I'm just gonna play the math and hope I get it. And you know
what, In fact, I have a tarot card that will turn three of
these cards. It's from whatever suit they are now to hearts, and that
fourth one is a heart. So now there's a chance it's going to be
a straight flush. So I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna go for
it. And when it hits and the like that last discard and you're like,
if it doesn't hit, now I'm going to loose this random my run
is going to be over. It's like the Russia dope I mean that you're
looking for from this game. It is a sweet, sweet game and it
is the yeah, go ahead, Dana is the ultimate carrot on the stick
where it is like the math clicks in such a good satisfying way, and
like Greb is saying, like, you know, you you're playing with a
chance to an extent because you start with fifty two cards and that's just like
your normal deck of cards. But as you progress through, you're adjusting those
cards of like, all right, you know what, now I want to
turn like these three heart cards into spades because I'm just going to go for
spades and when my jokers gives me a bonus if they're spades as well.
So yes, So at the core, it sounds like it is playing with
like you know, two through ace, you know, the pair two,
pair three of a kind of like the actual poker concept. It's not throwing
in, it's throwing in modifiers on the existing poker hands and cards, but
it's not that's what I've experienced. Here's a twenty card or something like that,
right, No, yeah, So it's like I had an option with
one of the tarot cards where it's like, okay, I bought this the
pack and it's like you have to pick one of these five and you have
to use it immediately. And the options were get a bonus, and it
gave me a variety of hands on each one of these cards. So one
of the cards would have been like, Okay, you're gonna get bonus every
time you get a full house, and this one's a bonus every time you
get three of a kind, and this is a bonus every time you get
a straight, and one of them was like you get a bonus every time
you get a pair. I'm like, okay, that one. I'm gonna
go with that one because just mathematically, I'm gonna get the most of those,
and it's gonna put me in a situation where I know I'm gonna be
able to take advantage of that bonus as frequently as possible. And of course,
right after that, I have a straight, and it's like, man,
it would have been nice to have that. But then I got a
lot of pairs and that's all I could play, and it was enough to
get me just over the blind, which is the goal that you're trying to
get to them. They call them blinds here, So it's like you got
to get thirty two hundred points and that's the blind and so and every hand
is worth so much, and you get multiplayers and all that stuff is working
together, and you're like, man, I'm right there. I just have
to actually get a couple of big hands or if I get a consistent amount
of points all throughout and I'm getting a decent amount of multipliers by using my
cards wisely, it's all gonna work out. And it's like when you when
you hit, it feels really good, and then when you miss, it's
time to go again. Let's go on another one right now. I can't
wait to get back in there. Uh. And Dan, one of the
best joker cards are like these modifier cards. You have up to five of
them. Is say you're trying your hardest to get a straight, Well there's
a joker uh, several joker modifiers where it's like, all right, you
know what, you can skip a number to complete your straight. So if
you have like five, six, seven, eight, nine, and but
you don't have the nine, but you have a ten card, you can
complete that straight. And that argument next time I have a poker night,
Yeah, trying to work these rules into actual poker. That's I'll be cool
with that. But but then the other like insane part is you combine that
joker with another one that says you only need four cards to complete a straight
or a flush. Oh, it's it gonna be like five, six,
eight nine and you've got a Yeah, but if you're if you're skipping one
five six eight, I'm gonna download this right now my Steam Deck. That
sounds like a good Steam Deck game. It is like an insane time waster
and like it's well, actually one of several games this year that has like
caused me to time travel where I'm looking at the clock, I'm like,
yeah, oh no, I've stayed up too late. You know, this
sounds like this sounds like a game like I've got Rawn for three hours and
then I'm playing this. That sounded really for that. The tutorial is is
pretty fast. It's done by one of the Joker cards calls himself Jimbo.
I think are all the Joker cards named a variation on Jim because I saw
another one that was like Jim Joker and it was like signing cursive. It
was either way. I'm a big fan of that guy. He's got he's
got inscription energy like the cards there. Yeah, he's like kind of talking
to you, and it seems like there's maybe more going on, but I
can't tell yet. I don't know. It's it's really well. The presentation
is fantastic. It also requires sixty sixty two megabyte download. Yeah. Yeah,
honestly, honestly, it looks like an HD game Boy Color game.
I think it's the best way I can explain it. And that's that's praise
there. Yeah, saying sounds incredible. Yeah, I cannot wait to play
this huge, I love. I just think it's so insane that this game
comes out at the height of Jan's poker not perfect like lined up the hammer
in all the like hands and everything too, Like that's gonna be good for
that. Yeah, right for that. Yeah, I've not really gotten into
this just yet, but I I know what's gonna happen. Like I know
that there is some video poker brain part of me that I've snuffed out.
What this Yeah, this reminds me sometimes the look not only of like a
nice g B A game, but like of a shitty video poker video poker
game that's a very very old school video. Yeah, that's the first thing.
Can when we're all in person next time, can we do like,
let's let's go to deck consider on the table and ye talks about this.
I would love to. I would love to present it in the way that
the World Series of Poker does, with like the card cams and everything I
could set. I feel like I could set that up. Do we have
why don't we do it? Like there's the online stuff. We could just
do here and we could like informally you know, you know, into a
pot or whatever and play for for real. We can use tams Endo scopy
camera for the card cam, right, yeah, we could just like you
know, set a delay so that we can't so that Dan can't cheat.
And then that's true. I do that. I am a man of honor.
I would not if actual money was on the line. There's no chance
in the hell I would cheat. That that's beyond the pale of course.
And also go ahead, Dan, oh, I was gonna say, speaking
of cheating, uh, At my first poker night over my place on Friday,
it's the poker table. The spot it had to go in the basement
is like all mirrors on the ceiling just in that spot. So it has
to be a house rule where it's like, all right, if you're looking
straight up, people are gonna yell at you because what the are you trying
to do. You know, you heard it. Mirrors on the ceiling.
You heard that they were here when I moved in, here, when I
here, when I bought the plays. Don't know why. I don't know
how. A lot of mirrors, a lot of mirrors. But Jeff,
you've yeah, you've checked out. You're you've been checking out another game that
I've been morbidly curious about, and I need to check it out. But
I have no fucking time. You've been thinking Harold Halibut. Yeah, I've
been thinking about Harold Halibut for like three years. You have, because I
think it reminded me of that Charlie Kaufman puppet movie. Sure, Amalise,
I think it was called wait no, wait, Charlie Coffin The Not Human
Nature, right, yeah, Tim Robbins, oh, adaptation, Yeah he
did adaptation ye cage and yeah, yeah, no, Melisa, that's what
it was called. I heard of that one. It's like it's a stop
motion movie. That's like really, it's really strange. It's it's I think
it's worth watching. I don't think it's like one of Apparently, his new
animated movie is very good. O'Ryan and the Dark. It's taken over Netflix,
Right, yeah, he wrote that. I think I like, yeah,
he's awesome. So I think this game is pretty much like the closest
thing we're gonna get to a a wes andersony kind of like storytelling experience.
I mean again, I've only played it for like ninety minutes, but I
have gotten the narrative dump that's sort of front loaded at the top there.
How does it play? So it's kind of like, uh, it's it's
basically like a controller point and click kind of thing. You're moving around,
but you're just sort of like going to items and like doing like The Walking
Dead like a Telltale game a little a little bit. It's about this underwater
like sort of city slash spaceship that is made up of like generations of a
society that left Earth and had to settle on some sort of like watery planet.
And the way they explain like how they got there was like the most
like I said, Wes Anderson, you know, narrative kind of thing.
Really like it. It felt so good and for me that is the thing
that's keeping me going. I don't think the gameplay here is really gonna be
what shines because I think it is the narrative, you know, task objective
based sort of thing that you're you're trying to figure out. You play this
this sort of like lab assistant kind of lackey person, and you seem like
you're very forgetful and you're just sort of like a bum on this spaceship thing,
and and your your task with completing a set of objectives, and you
just sort of are going around the ship in the early parts of this demo
and meeting people and understanding what's going on. Uh, And there's like this
whole sort of like world down there that's and you travel around through these like
water tubes to get the different portions of the of the ship. It's really
interesting. Now. The thing that I cannot wrap my head around is like
how unique this game looks. It looks like stop motion Puppets. Yeah,
it looks like Team America. Yeah, I mean that's that was live action
Puppets. But yeah, yeah, yeah, you're right. This has some
look to it that I just don't understand how they were able to make happen.
And it's fascinating. It's absolutely fascinating. It's very like diorama E in
the same way as like a fantastic mister Fox, or or there's just some
there's a certain look to it that is true phenomenal, and it is able
to convey this like really adorable and sort of twee you know set piecing that
you walk through and every environment is you know, they play with like depth
of field, and like everything just looks so cozy and interesting and very specifically
like thought out. It's very cool. It's very very cool. I want
to make a diorama now, Yeah, they're fun. You never did that
in school, only the shoebox stuff. We only ever did it once,
and then my teacher saw how bad everyone's dioramas were. I think she decided
never again. The whole the whole movie takes place, the whole game takes
place inside of a shoebox. Is basically the story here. Uh. And
so you know they are setting up this kind of like mystery, right,
you're sort of like why why this planet? You know, there's like this
sort of closed circuit like network TV that that sends out announcements and it's all
very like bespoke and hand painted, and everything just looks so fucking cool.
I love this because it's just so fresh and it's just so unique and yeah,
you know, I think it's a pretty strong demo from what I've played
so far, and we'll kind of see where it goes. I don't,
I don't. I think it is this year, right, It's definitely this
year. Yes, it says twenty twenty four on Steam and that's all it
says. I say. I think I think it is a little rough around
the edges, just like glitchiness wise. I think there's a couple of things
that have to get sanded out, smoothed out and whatnot. But very intriguing,
very interesting, and I think I'm getting wrapped up in the mystery it
is it is attempting to present here. Yeah. Yeah. Trailer on Steam
says early twenty twenty four, so yeah, cool soon it's it's real,
it's real cool. I think it's fine. Oh sorry, I was going
through the mute button. It does, You're right, the Charlie Coffman animated
film. It does remind me a lot of that reminds me actually a lot
of when Will Smith, not that Will Smith. I was doing the Foo
Show. Yeah, the VR capture stuff that he tried to like they were
like trying to pitch to like Adult Swim for like animated shows. A lot
of the animation like looks so smooth and like life like that. There's something
like that going on as well. I don't know. It's really cool the
first time you get the controls handed over to you and you're seeing like Harold
move your sources, like, I can't believe this is how this is gonna
play. Yeah, maintaining the look that it that it was doing in the
cut scenes in the movies leading up to that. It's like a hyperreality.
It's it's yeah, big wow factor for sure. It's a hefty download as
well. It's a beefy one sixty gigs something like that. Damn close.
Yeah right, it's a big fish. It's a big big fish. Well,
gentleman, Unless anyone has any other games to talk about here, I
think it's time to get to the game of the week. The game of
the week is Hell Divers too. Holy shit. Yeah. I don't have
music for the game of the week, but there's a little bit of the
email there. Yeah, oh man, beautiful, there we go. I'll
get that sound sound effect outloaded. Holy smokes, y'all. I mean I
liked Hell Divers one decent enough. When we checked it out, I was
like, oh, this is fun, this has ideas cool. Yeah,
and then we played this Holy shit, Holy smokes, it is one of
the mostly hell divers. What's that? It is still mostly hell divers?
Like that, I think it's still mostly hell hell divers one. A lot
of the change is just like now that you're down in it, like the
visual effects and the volumetric fog and stuff and the lights of the explosions like
happening inside that fog really goes an extra mile to make you feel like you
are in it. Always. I think about the things I love about two,
and I didn't really play one, so I'm curious how much it matches
those feelings. But like when we call in, like I love when we
go to an outpost or something and like all four of us are throwing orbs,
orbital strike beacons and napalm, carpet bomb bullshit and everything, and then
you just wait for that moment where we when a hell bombs. You just
see this giant fucking explosion in the sky. Like, I'm sure it looks
cool top down, but there is something about being in it and seeing the
cape fly up in the wind, and yeah, God Greby, you said
it best. Yeah, exactly. It feels legitimately dangerous because hell divers won.
You can kind of like, oh, shoot, you threw this beacon
over there, I can avoid it here, or you can easily scope out
where enemies are coming from. But here, because like we're so in the
thick of it and we're so focused of like, all right, let's focus
down on get this lane of enemies coming in. We're gonna protect this sector,
and oh shit, there's an obscene amount of bugs behind us. It's
it's really because it is like anything is happening at any moment, and it's
like you are firing down the line of bugs, and you do see your
teammates throwing down. There are little strike so you're trying to keep that in
mind. And then you start to get overwhelmed and you turn around and there's
a bug there, and you shoot and you run on an AMMO and so
you're screwed. And then you're like, I'm gonna switch weapons, and then
you kind of look at the right and then a giant bug is charging you
and you can't there's no way you're gonna be able to kill it. So
all you do is dive out of the way, and then you're landing laying
on your back and you're shooting John Wu style because you switch to your other
weapon. And then your friends are like, okay, you just run,
We got you covered. All like that moment to moment, like hey,
you are in it and you're just trying to survive. And at every corner,
no matter where you turn, something else is bad is probably gonna happen.
And then you're probably gonna make a mistake, like you are gonna throw
down your carpet bomb and you don't really get much say and like the angle
of attack or whatever. It's just like, no, you throw it over
there, just destroy stuff over there. And I say, okay, we're
rolling the dice a little bit, but like, what choice do we have.
We're getting overrun. It's a really good idea and they nail it at
every Every choice is the right choice in terms of make it feel dangerous,
make it feel like the just the decisions are your own. Okay, we
feel completely responsible for everything that happens in the game. That's the really cool
part of it. Yeah, it feels really dangerous because at any point somebody
from the chat can join in and team kill you, sure, exactly.
I I assumed that Christian killed you because you, like Susie joined you killed
him because he didn't ge permission to join, of course, and the I'm
like, okay, well he got his revenge there, and like, no,
but no, it turns out that was just the spaceship killing you both.
Sound well, look then conclusive based on the videos. But I like
the freedom to just do kind of do whatever once you drop into a mission
of like, all right, here's like a small, openish world. Uh,
let's try and maximize our time here. And yesterday and that one mission
I was able to play with, y'all. I thought we had so much
time. I thought thirty minutes is gonna take forever. And then Dan looks
at the clock. I'm like, oh, we only have fifteen minutes left,
y'all. And we got to go from like all the way north to
all the way south. Yeah, you guys were fiddle fucking around back there,
trying to find something like I'm going off solo. I know this is
dangerous, but I got to go north and flip the switch over here We're
all gonna die. But I think it's really smart the way they do the
time stuff, because it's like we learned yesterday that when the timer runs out,
it's not a failure. It's just like okay, basically all your support,
like you can't call in orbital strikes or anything or anything. Any drops
any reinforcements, including your people, so if you die, it's like,
well, okay, the safety that's gone at that point. Like, I
think that's a really smart way to do it, right. It just increases
the drama, which is like, kind of what this game is doing at
every turn is what's a decision that can make everything feel like what the things
you're deciding matter and they're going to have an impact on how the game plays
out. And it's like that's just another good choice that the game makes about
making sure that like, no, we're not going to give you some weird
game over screen that's silly. You know, you're there and you're just on
your own and if you die then then it is actually over. But I
don't know. Owning every decision that you make as a player and having consequences
you have to deal with makes this game stand out in such a strong way
from almost every other game on the market right now, where they are afraid
to just be like, hey, yeah, you made that decision. We're
gonna punish you for it. It's like no, no, no, okay,
no, there's some safety, Like there's guardrails here. We're gonna keep
you on the straight and narrow. We're gonna take care of you. And
this gives like, wouldn't it be fun if we didn't? Yeah? What
if it rules? What if you threw that mind dispenser in the middle of
the place where you have to take these prisoners onto a ship safely? Say
well, fuck you, you threw it. Deal with that? Yeah,
okay, I guess, and then we'll drop another one. Yes, And
for as many opportunities as there is to grief your team members, I feel
like, because everything is so dangerous, you do just wind up working together
inadvertently, uh, whether or not you kind of want to like push each
other's buns or not? Right, right, it's like unspoken rules like pop
up really fast and that that's like becoming a thing in the community, Like
people are like, you know, if if you drop down supplies, everyone
just takes one box of supplies, because it's way better if everyone just has
at least a little bit of Ammo rather than you have all the ammos.
It's like, yeah, of course it lends itself to really good co op
because it's like there are real stakes and you actually do have to work together.
So it's like, I mean, look at when we played you know,
four Swords Adventures, a game where there's not really a lot of steakes,
and like, so that lends itself for like certain players will just fuck
around and control their friends and things like that. Yeah, monoon, damn
it. This one. It's like there is an objective and like everyone really
needs to work together and help each other out, and so like, yeah,
I do find that, like the four of us have played multiple co
op games, and this is the one where I think we're the most like
on it and helping each other, you know. Yep, yeah, definite.
And it's still like, you know, we all have different ideas about
like what is a good idea at any one time, And that means like
sometimes I am going to like drop the carpet bomb like right outside where we're
at, and it's gonna be a little dangerous, a little hairy, but
it's like, hey, it kills more enemies that kills us. That's a
victory. We're trying to survive. I love those moments, like yesterday when
they had the hell bombs next to the buildings we had to explode and so
like one of us, Like I think, there were sometimes grub where it's
like, you know, you punched in the thing to like activate the hell
bomb and like I'm just in there like looking for samples and stuff, and
I heard someone say you act. I was like, wait, what do
you activated the bomb? And it was like that mad dash to get the
fuck out of there, and there was there's one of the clips in there
is you like I'm trying to find my samples that I dropped, and I
was like just had my finger hovering over the last button for like a minute
straight, like counting down, like I'm gonna do it then, and that
that's also very fun. And it's like I'm not gonna leave a hell bomb
there. We didn't need that one anymore. We already blew up the objective
there, so it was a second unnecessary hell bomb. I'm not gonna help
bomb there. It's there, it's gotta get blown up. So yeah,
I was It's fun. I've also enjoyed some of the happy accidents, Like
I think in that same mission, I dropped a hell bomb and like the
angle of the terminal was weird whenever I accessed it because I couldn't see it
on my screen, so I had to have Grub look at the directions and
spell it out from squinting at the really tidy arrows. Like I'm like,
okay, this is like an eye test, and we got it. I
was worried how they how they would translate the stratagems to third person, and
it's completely like no problem at all. I love it. Yeah, in
in ways, I feel like games have taken the pinging system from Apex.
I hope. I don't know how any is gonna uh include stratagem stratagems,
but like I want them to now ye, I mean just dialing things in
making it feel like there's some analogue aspects to this world. All that stuff
makes games like this feel so much better. Yeah, I think you'll be
getting swarmed, like I'll have you know, all being near death, a
bunch of shit chasing me and stuff I need to find. I need to
fucking inject myself in the neck with this thing, but also to you just
died and like a bombing and so I'm trying to like hold ol one and
like I'm trying to get away from all these things and typing up up,
down, left, up. It's like they're like and they're like enemies,
like fifteen feet away. You're like, I have just enough time if I
get this dialed in perfectly. It was like, just put it on the
hot key, just put it on the deep end and hit left and and
we'll make it easy for you. And the games like, no, it
is more fun if it's not easy. If it's just a little bit annoying
somehow, that makes it better. And they're one hundred percent right, and
I people have been craving this kind of action, this kind of just slightly
challenging obstacle between you and like accomplishing something because the game is really really hitting
very hard right now, one hundred and fifty thousand concurrents and stuff like that.
On Steam alone, it is very popular. I've seen I was on
TikTok last night, every other video that was live with someone playing this game.
It's so very very popular right now. One of the great things though,
when you do get revived, when your teammate gets you, you have
like a little bit of wiggle room to like land a little bit slightly to
the left or right of where they set down the beacon, and you can
get an enemy down like that, you could destroy a building. Oh it's
so good. I was playing with Mike and his brothers last night and we
got up to a building that was gonna have a bunch of enemies and we
saw them all, so like, okay, just let's wait. We all
want to throw our stuff. Let's just get in a line and throw our
stuff. And so one of the brothers like got their thing out and threw
something down, and then we were all holding like various orbital strikes or a
carpet bombing things. And the one brother like accidentally dropped the thing on top
of himself and it killed or not to Mike over didn't kill Mike, but
in the action of Mike getting knocked down, he dropped his orbital strike,
which came down and hit and killed everyone else, killed killing me. Mike
is still alive still, but I was holding my carpet bomb, so I
dropped that, and Mike's like, oh, I'm still alive. And then
he stands up and looks and he just sees the red pylon. He's like,
oh, great, eagle strike and he just fucking dies. It's it
was like this chain reaction and it's only possible in a game like this.
It's like everything you decide to do is gonna have a consequence. If you're
holding something and you die, you're gonna drop it. What does that mean?
Sometimes it's like your gun, and sometimes it's gonna call down an orbital
strike because the dudes up there in the ship have no idea, they can't
tell what's happening. All they see is a big red beam and that means
fire you all your guns on that spot. So yeah, just love it.
Yeah, it's it's we're six weeks, We're not even six weeks end
of the year, and there are so many game nuts that I want I'm
noting to, Like, Hey, don't fucking forget about this and this and
this and this and this. It's nuts. Yeah. I thought last year
was a packed year, but Jesus Christ, like there's a lot of stuff
on this like spoon already. Yeah, and like there was an obscene amount
of games I missed from Steam Next Fest that I've heard, like the best
buzz around what was that game? Lucy was checking out that, Like you're
a sniper or something. I forget what was going I can't remember. She
did mention it and I was gonna check it out, but let me yeah,
check my steam. Yeah, Hell Divers too. We're probably going to
try and weasel our way to play more of it on this website. But
yes, absolutely, I don't call it weaseling perfect behavior. Yeah, you
know, it's like it's a packed week. It's a packed schedule. We
got to cover some other stuff, but like Hell Divers do is pretty dang
fun. I'm glad that the Children of the Sun is the Children of the
Sun. Okay, Yes, and a lot of people have been talking about
that. God these were okay anyway, well that is hell Divers too,
and that is the first segment of this podcast. G Suicide Squad's okay,
that's all I want to say. There we go. It's all right here.
We may or may not play it on this Thursday before the dump Truck.
Yeah, look out on the be on the website. We'll see what
we're gonna do. Baileyot asked like, oh, is there any room for
me to be on any GB stuff this week? I'm playing through Suicide Squad
and I just need a break. I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay,
just come by Thursday. One Teller, No One suicide Squad. I've
already I've already called Harley Quinn. All right. Anyway, we will be
back with the news after a quick breaking break. This is with the new
Jeff Crum Okay, okay, all right, got some news here for you.
I wrote it down even so I can just read it to you.
Starting with sounds, we know the first two Xbox games that will be coming
to at least PS five reports. A reports suggest Hi Fi Rush and Pentiment
will be the first Xbox games testined for non Xbox platforms. See if these
may see if theeves may get released wider in a more wide way later in
the year. Those are the two that we expect maybe to show up as
part of this Xbox Podcast Business Update event that's happening on Thursday, that got
announced last week as an event. Earlier this week they clarified it's going to
be a podcast. A lot of people are like, podcast, that's that's
weird. Why is this either not a press release or like a video presentation
or a YouTube presentation. Obviously it will be a video podcast as well.
Yeah, what do you think I mean, I'm not too weirded by this,
but a lot of people were, what do you think back, I'm
not weirded out by it. I do think with podcasting comes a little bit
of flexibility with your messaging. And I do think it is malleable, right,
It's malleable enough where you can be like, it's not what I meant
you know this was, you know, like and I just think it is
a way more intangible uh uh you know press uh press release medium, right.
I think it's that That's that's what I think it could be. You
know, someone asking the questions, like the host of the podcast and Phil
Spencer's on there and Sarah Bond and Matt Booty whoever's actually going to be on
this podcast, and the host can frame the questions in such a way that
it speaks to those concerns without getting into like the every little detail that people
are worried about on the slippery slope arguments. But I think I think you're
right. And who knows where they got the idea for such a casual presentational
matter. I mean, who knows where they came up with the notion of
like what if we just like sat down and had some like real friendly face
interview us about all this, probably the four h four podcast. I think,
oh, you fucking shit, he was no, No, he wasn't,
So no, fuck you twice, Jeff Greg twice. Listen. There's
a lot of other games that have been mentioned in terms of, hey,
these might also come to PlayStation five or at least under consideration. That includes
Indiana Jones in the Great Circle. That one is a little strange though,
because when it was announced, that was before the Xbox acquisition or around the
time, and it was like confusing about like, oh, this deal had
happened long before because that was acquired by Microsoft, so maybe like PlayStation was
already baked into that understanding. It seems like that was the case. And
then later Microsoft created an exclusivity window and that, and so maybe this isn't
in that same exact conversation. However, Gears of Wars one that I've heard
repeatedly now that they at least being considered, And I think that one actually
makes quite a bit of sense when you like sit down and think about it.
Yeah, it's like a big name. It's like second only to Halo
in terms of like the games you associate with Xbox. But Gears of War
is not been around. We haven't had one since Gears five. It's pretty
old at this point. They are they put Gears aside to work on some
other games that I believe they have since canceled, and now they're going back
to work on Gears six and that is going to take quite a bit of
time. So in the meantime, one way you can keep Gears relevant is,
hey, let's put out a Gears collection, a Gears trilogy on PlayStation.
You kind of can't even really do that on Xbox because those games are
already playable with backward compatibility and just about the best state that you could ask
for. So one way to keep it relevant is put it out on PlayStation.
Now people might be weirded out by that. Maybe they're still not going
to actually end up going through with that, because this is just under consideration.
The other side of this is, Okay, people have been worried,
Okay, what about Xbox hardware down the line, If games like Gears of
War in Indiana Jones are available on PlayStation, even if it's like an exclusivity
window, people might want to stop buying Xboxes. And so we'll Microsoft stop
making Xbox hardware seems like it could be a death spiral. Well, Microsoft
said at the very least that they are committed to still making hardware. In
a town hall with employees at Microsoft last week, they're like, hey,
this is the reporting is a bit extreme. We're considering some games going to
other platforms. But this does not in any way signify that we are deprecating
our investments in hardware. They're going to keep doing that. And an interesting
aspect of this is that Phil Spencer in the last week or two has been
liking a lot of tweets if this is something you think you can read into
about handheld Xbox devices seems to be and there's been some rumors that Microsoft is
going to release one of those in the next several years. That's pretty believable.
Do you think that we hear anything about that. Do you think we
come out of this podcast and there with them saying and we are looking into
doing something with that, or we promise to have some news about that in
the next couple of years. Here's what they do. They're going to fade
in from like whatever graphic they have of the podcast from the wide shot,
and as they fade in, Phil Spencer will put a device down, face
down on the table, and then they'll start the podcast, and the whole
time is what Phil put down, what's Phill doing over there? What's the
thing in his hands? That's what it will be. I think I think
you mind not be too far off. I thought that. Yeah. I
think the thing he might show off though, will be a device that already
exists, and when he holds it up, it'll be a version of Windows
eleven that doesn't fucking suck for one of these devices. I think it'll be
a handheld version of Windows eleven, can we tell? I mean, honestly,
if it just looks like it makes sense on a hand handout device,
it'll look very different and much better than when what Windows eleven is like on
an Asis rock ally at the moment. Yeah, so this all happens on
Thursday, this this podcast. We will get some answers. We'll see from
there. But uh, Microsoft's gonna have to kind of get to a point
where instead of releasing a podcast, maybe they start releasing some video games that
people really are into. What damn, what kind of microphones do you think
they're gonna use? Are they gonna have like Mike Arms or are they just
gonna have of like stick mics or I think it's just gonna be one of
your ones. I think it's just gonna I don't think it's gonna be a
video podcast. I think it's just gonna be a podcast. I don't know,
like you wouldn't call it a podcast. I think these days podcast like
because of like Pat mcavie's shows a podcast and that's a video program, and
uh, a lot of podcasts arets just on YouTube like us, and that
like a lot of people absorb them that way. So I think the understanding
these days you say podcasts, that could just as easily mean that there's a
video presentation, sure from the new Ghostbusters movie. Does anybody listen? Is
so an official Xbox Nice it'll just be him. Does anyone listen to the
official Xbox podcast? Is that that's the thing? I mean, I'm sure
people in the world do. Yeah, But and I think that actually is
a video podcast too. Oh all right, well then we have our answer.
Yeah, that's that's pretty sure, that is. And Michael Michael O'Leary
in chat says, yes, it is a video podcast, So there you
go. Sony is reportedly canceling Rise of ronin launch in South Korea. The
game's been pulled from Korea's PlayStation store, promotional promotional videos removed from the PlayStation
YouTube channel as well. Sony didn't provide a reason for the cancelation, but
it's believed to be connected to comments by game director Fumuhiku Yo Yasuda about controversial
historical figure showing Yoshuda Yoshida's inclusion in games spark criticism and due to his evolvement
in Japan's occupation of Korea. Yoshida is a figure who is basically he's like
an early Japanese nationalist who like fought against the the shogunate, the the when
the samurai took over. He's like, we should go back to being an
empire and then maybe be more modern like a lot of other countries. That's
how he's remembered in Japan, and people like really think of him fondly in
Japan because of that, uh, and then people in South Korea are like,
yeah, but it is like you should expand into South Korea and take
us over, and like was a big reason that we got occupied by you,
and we fucking hate that guy. So it's a controversial figure figure to
say the least. So yeah, they're going to probably not release the game
in South Korea. That game, you guys have any interest in? This?
Rise of Ronan? Do you guys even remember it when I say it,
because we did see it in that state of play? The bird suit,
right, yes, that's right. That's a that actually is the thing
that probably sticks out the most about it, is like the samurai guy that
can fly in a bird suit that's like made of straw. Right yeah,
uh, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I like Samurais I like
JRD suits? Sure, let's go. A video game developer that worked on
Mortals of Avium said it was a truly awful idea to make a video game
like a Mortals of Avium. UH developers criticized the release of Immortals of Avim,
citing that it was a truly awful idea. The game released on PS
five, Xbox Series X, and SMPC with reasonable review scores but pro porous.
Ascendate Studios laid off nearly half its staff a month after release, and
the CEO attributed it to poor sales during a crowded release window. A former
employee claims the game cost around one hundred and twenty five million dollars to develop,
with eighty five million dollars in development costs and forty million dollars from EA
from marketing and distribution. They described the game as overscoped and bloated with a
repetitive campaign. Another developer to Sndate Studios limits poor sales despite positive reviews and
absence of common player a grievances like micro transactions and lengthy gameplay. Basically,
this came out of reporting from Wreck of Valentine over at IGN where she talked
about forty developers about Hey, what's happening in gaming right now? Why all
the layoffs, why some closures? Why is it seem so gloomy out there?
And there was a lot of different reasons. The biggest reason still seems
to be over hiring coming through the pandemic, but a lot of people spotted
a lot of other things happening, and they pointed out that games like Immortals
Aavium can still happen, and by happen it means they release. They are
big projects, projects that like when you start making it like maybe this can
work, and then they go out and they just fall completely flat and it's
like a big risk that just blows up in EA's face and in the studio's
face and they have to lay off a bunch of people. You know.
I think I would argue, hey, Mortals of Avium, you should make
a game that's more interesting that can like command attention, do something that like,
oh, people can't ignore. Maybe go on and get an IP.
But then you see, like, hey, Suicide Squad did all that,
and people feel the exact same way about that game. So there's not a
lot of like obvious answers that are just gonna work other than you make a
game that people can't ignore because it's so good. I suppose this game people
don't hate it, but that maybe people just felt like it was an easy
one to skip in a very busy time of the year. Did any of
you ever play Immortals of Avium Because I never touched it. I looked at
it for like ten seconds. I think I just like a video. Yeah,
yeah, I just saw that and that was about it. I think
it's remarkably unremarkable. Yeah, and that's just struble. I mean, like
the the like spell casting stuff and everything. It's like pretty snappy and it
looks pretty sharp, but the tone and the story are pretty off putting.
I would say this the developers from the studio who had previously worked there,
they've been laid off. They said, it's it was actually just a bad
idea to make a single player first person shooter that is a big Triple A
game these days. That was just a straight up bad idea and you shouldn't
do that anymore. Do you guys agree with that? Or do you guys
think that at the very least we could tell it's very risky. But can
a game like that still work today and make its money back and make a
splash if it's not like called Doom for example, And if it's not tied
to an IP, perhaps it's not tied to something well yeah, I mean
even if it is tied to an IP, like, is that what you
need to do to survive? I don't know, what do you think?
Do you count that like with the you know, there was that three sixty
era, like post BioShock, where you got all those like singularities and fracture
and all those different type of games like single player focus kind of like a
gimmick of power of some sort, like Immortal sad Are you're talking that type
of game. I mean sure, I mean yeah, those didn't really work
either though, right, No, yeah, like if it was BioShock,
it worked for that was BioShock, you know, that was the exception.
Those gives probably didn't cost one hundred and twenty five million dollars to make,
though. I think that's the difference is like it's getting way more expensive to
make one of those. I mean it is a wildly large marketing budget too,
which marketing budgets are these days, totally, But I don't know,
I do, yeah, I think the effectiveness of those things are like always
right up in the air and exactly. Yeah, I you know, I
hate to relate that. I think it's a tough thing to relate to BioShock.
I think obviously Boschak has like a a certain kind of like story that
a lot of things can't really compete with. And when you think about that,
the story part of you know, this one, it's it's it's sort
of forgettable and uninteresting in a lot of ways. Right, So right,
And I don't know, I think, Greb you said it again. I
think it's risky more than anything, because, right, these types of games
are so expensive to start with. If it HITSI can hit. But the
much likelier scenario is it's gonna miss. And when you miss these days with
a game like this, it seems to miss very, very hard. It's
like there is no in the middle. It just is either going to be
a really big thing that a lot of people are talking about and it takes
off on social media and word of mouth and a lot of people end up
buying it right away and it has some long legs and sells for a long
time. We see that happen over and over with a handful of games,
and then we also see pretty frequently the opposite happen. A game like Immortals
Vavian comes along and it misses and it just disappears basically immediately, and no
one wants to even talk about it. So, you know, maybe the
same thing something similar may be happening with Suicide Squad, but we'll see,
and maybe they could turn it around keep people interested in that. But that
game had like half the sales of Gotham Knights. I think they said,
so, yeah, oh no, it had to have the sales of Guardians
of the Galaxy, that's what. Yeah. I don't know if even tying
yourself to an ip is like a guaranteed success because of Suicide Squad. Even
Avatar, which is like a decent game and you know, shouts out to
our Avatar heads out out here, but it didn't blow up the world.
And then you have other like Triple A or I guess seemingly double a first
person shooter games like Atomic Heart, where there was like a lot of buzz
leading up to it and then it came out and then it's like, all
right, cool, that's okay, Like I don't remember a lot of buzz
after we got over Jeff Beckler making relations with that fridge. God, he
did fuck that fridge, didn't. Ok That's but like I see the first
person games, I see blowing up more so, or like the the indie
ones, like what is that in the horror game where you're like walking around
a subway or whatever, like, uh fuck, it was like a three
sixty right launch. No, this was an end condemned. No no no,
no, the exit eight, the exit eight. This was like a
gable last year. Well, I mean, I think that's the reality of
what's actually happening, is that people aren't deciding to look to other places,
other than these reliable third party publishers that have been around forever. It's like,
well, if they play on a game, maybe it'll be interesting,
and like, actually, it's going to be way more interesting if it's a
smaller team taking risks because they can actually whether they can afford to or not.
Those teams just seem to like feel like, oh, we could take
risks, because what does it matter. We're already making a risk by making
a video game in the first place. And when it comes to these bigger
studios, they like are like, the risk is either a new IP and
that requires a whole ton of investment and a ton of time to get people
to care about it, or they did spend a lot of money to acquire
an IP and then you hope that that is actually that's actually going to pay
off, and so then they don't even consider risks. And a lot of
other like gameplay mechanics and things like that, and the and the indie side
of things, it's like, well, these games keep getting better and bigger
and are starting to replace these games that were coming from big third party publishers,
and people are starting to pay attention to that, and that's just going
to keep happening more and more, and these bigger publishers are going to have
a harder and harder time kind of justifying why we've been waiting for their games
when there's a million other games we could be paying attention to. Sorry earlier,
Sorry to go off track here. Earlier reference something you referenced earlier.
I thought you were making a joke about the four h four podcast because I
thought that was the thing Backlar used to be on, and then I referenced
that. I was like, wait, let me google. Was that the
name of the Backlar? What was your seene that gimmick? Backlar? What
the fuck are we talking about? Now? I realized I looked it up,
and I think I didn't understand the reference and the joke I was making,
So I wanted to correct myself. What was your You did a podcast
for like ninety years foreign in in internet years. Yeah, I guess that's
right. It was called the four or four Show. Yeah, Oh wait,
was that what you were referencing earlier? Yes? Wait, I just
googled it and I see the four or four media podcast and it was something
else. I was like, oh, I hope, I didn't think I
was joking about something that trademark oyals lawyers on that ship. Yeah, so
it looks like this is a big thing. They got the four or four
media podcast. This is not your thing. This is a vice thing.
This is people that quit vice. Oh shit, oh god, orbital strike.
Oh no, I was gonna say, I thought that was the back
lark thing. Okay, that is not We got it. We were correct
all along. Dan, Okay, get on it. You guys got it.
You guys got it. Okay, cool, good, all right,
all right. Got some rumors about the switch to have been popping up kind
of NonStop. This is from last week. Switch to will probably be backward
compatible. A reliable leak or suggests Nintendo switch to we'll have backwards compatibility with
og switch games both physical and digital. Nintendo's rumored to be working on a
successor of the switch blah blah blah. The rumor came from Universo Nintendo by
way, or came from pH Brazil by way Universal Nintendo. Both seem to
have a pretty decent track record of this. And then we saw nath the
Hate, who has also a very good track record of Nintendo rumors, back
this up. He went on reset Era and said that the dev kits have
backward compatibility, and this is something that is now going around pretty widely that
hey, this thing's going to actually have backward compatibility. If you're listening to
that and you're like, duh, everything needs backward compatibility these days, I'm
one hundred percent with you. But Nintendo is switching up the kind of chip
that they're using that the Nvidia chip is going to be a whole new generation.
There is no guarantee that the switch games would have worked. This is
this required effort from probably both Nvidia and Nintendo at the same time. Though
they needed to just do that because of course you need to have backward compatibility,
right. I mean, I never assume that anything is going to be
that simple or just work the way it should with Nintendo. As much as
I love Nintendo stuff, It's like, Okay, I bought a billion virtual
console games on the Wii, and then to play them on the Wiu,
I had to pay an extra dollar fifty to get the like WU game pad
version, and then none of that carried over to the switch. I'm certainly
not going to just assume it's gonna work, because like it's never just worked
or just been simple in the past with Nintendo's so hearing them might actually be
backwards compatible this time is definitely good news, right, and you combine that
with this actually probably was pretty challenging. This probably was pretty hard to pull
off. But Nvidia likely developed a compatibility layer similar to what happens when you
run up Windows games on the Steam Deck through the Proton layer. Something similar
is probably happening here. But Nvidia has very good software engineers, good hardware
engineers. They probably came up with a solution for Nintendo so they can implement
it here. But that just that the difficulty of that, combined with Nintendo's
history, there was reason to really be skeptical about backward compatibility. With the
switch to sounds like this should work. What do you guys think it actually
ends up looking like? Though? Do you think it's going to be just
full backward compatibility for every game and they won't run any better because there is
some rumors that some of the games are actually seeing performance enhancements. I don't
think it's gonna run any better. You're probably right, but I mean I
think you get the the basic benefits of just like things that have to happen,
right, like well, yeah, if it's out putting at four K,
like, yeah, sure it'll stuff. Yeah. Outside of that,
I wouldn't be surprised if there's no tangible benefit or things like are there some
games on switch that will run slightly better, like Doc Versus undocked? Like
I wonder if this will kind of like you know, even that playing field.
Yeah, it's and there's been a lot of people who have upclocked the
CPU and GPU inside the switch and have made games just run better that way
by hacking their their switches. Maybe Nintendo would be more willing to tap into
that with new hardware. Well, we'll see what's up clock. I don't
know what's up clock with you, man, Oh my god, Jan,
let's see here. Oh yeah. There's also rumors that the switch to could
get revealed in March. That's like going around from some reliable leakers as well.
Mario Day, Hey, that's a really good pull. And one of
the things that might like lean into this is the rumor direct that might still
be happening this week. Who knows, Microsoft's got that thing could like derail
things. That's that there's not a zero percent chance of that happens, but
it's probably probably could still happen Thursday. The rumor is that's going to be
a partner direct, which means no first party announcements at that direct, which
means that they won't really have any Like they're not gonna have Metro Prime four
probably for this first half of this year. So why not at that point
go into March start talking about the new hardware. You can launch that six
months later in the beginning of the holiday season and just go from there.
God, if it's Mario Day March tenth and we get announcement, well the
March tenth week, still they might do something with that. Yeah, two
for that all the all the conventional thinking and wisdom, right, is like
another Odyssey, right, or just the ball the next mainline one. Like,
I don't think it's gonna be Odyssey two with its point because like the
one time they didn't, okay, the one time they did, like a
straight up like Galaxy two. Galaxy two was like very quickly after it.
It was like two years after Galaxy At this point, I think it's gonna
be the next step in like the mainline series. It's gonna be Super Mario
blank something else anyone now. And that Mario team did a Bowser's fury.
But since Odysseas that they've already been like messing around with other stuff. Yes,
seems like they're going off in another direction. Although I always got the
sense that they were gonna do Mario Odyssey, like maybe DLC, and then
they turned that into a sequel. We'll see, but it probably is going
to be a whole new game at this point. Cool uh. GJA six
meanwhile, may not come out until much later in twenty twenty five. We
know that the game is scheduled for twenty twenty five, after that launched or
that revealed trailer said hey, twenty twenty five, that's the year it's coming
out. But up until recently, the assumption was that would mean early twenty
twenty five, because Take two said they were going to make about eight billion
dollars in revenue, which is way more than they were they've ever made before.
Next year, they did in the most recent earnings report were advised that
down by about a billion dollars to seven billion dollars, and you know what,
would probably make about a billion dollars in its first couple of weeks GTA
six. So the assumption now is the game has moved into later in twenty
twenty five, which is not too shocking, right, A big game like
this getting delayed these days is par for the course. No, not at
all. I can't say that a care Also, though he's pushed into twenty
six. Absolutely it's a big game on of course. Uh. Helldiver's Students
Helldiver's two Studio is promising to make good. Sony's largest PC game launch has
faced log in issues in reward tracking problems. It's also faced those on PS
five despite positive player reception. They had a recent patch that aimed at addressing
log in issues, but they had to roll that back because it caused performance
issues. So what they're gonna do is a compensation has been promised for loss
rewards via increased reward events to mitigate progression setbacks. So basically they're gonna have
like a double XP event to make up for it and maybe let that last
for a little while. I will say, progression in that game pretty slow,
pretty slow. That makes I feel like they want you to spend some
money some of that currency, because even like like the green currency, the
samples like those take a while to get. I haven't been able to buy
any of those actual things yet. But then there's two other types of currency
I haven't even seen yet that are listed, and I'm like, I don't
even know how the fuck you get that? Is it like super samples?
We started collecting some, so the super stuff is like also the paid currency,
and you can find that out in the field. So that's the stuff,
right, like the rotating item shot. But there's like a purple and
like an orange currency that I have not even seen yet. Have you guys
upgraded your ship at all? I've got fifty, like you need sixty to
upgrade that. So that's about where I'm at. Yeah, yeah, it's
it's it's slow going, but hey, a double XP event, I'll take
advantage of that. The game is very popular, though it has really caught
on. It is by far Sony's most popular PC release. Prom The got
A War launch on PC had about eighty thousand concurrent players. This had one
hundred and fifty thousand concurrent players at its peace So gad it does seem to
have cross play, but I downloaded it on PC. Uh and progression cross
progression. Bummer, Yeah, it is a bummer. Yeah, I was
wondering you were you were thinking about switching to PC. But you were going
to do now? Yeah, does this count as one of like PlayStation's games
as a service games that they've been talking about in their lineup? A lot
of people are assuming it has hit two hundred dozen concurrent. Ham out of
Texas says, real quick, thank you, Hammond. I think a lot
of people assume it's it is one of those. It probably is, But
I wonder if if they think it's like not exactly because it's not from a
studio that they necessarily own. I don't think they own Arrowhead, even though
they published this game. This is a first party game. It definitely was
one hundred percent of first party game. But I think they might not necessarily
consider it part of that does in games that they're working on. Maybe I
actually I would. I'd be interested to see what they say if you were
to ask them that Ubisoft CEO is defending Skull and Bones full tyst tag and
calls it a quad true a game. Skull and Bones yousop. Some multiplayer
pirate naval battleship title faces player doubts due to delays and production reboots. Despite
concerns, the game launches in a week with eight an eighty pound or eighty
euro excuse me, price tag. I think it's seventy dollars and a game
as a service format. The free beata has been available, people have been
trying it, and because of these concerns, Ubisoft CEO Yeves Gimmol came out
to defend the game, saying players will see that Skull and Bones is a
complete game. It's a really big game, and we think people will see
we'll really see how vast and complete it is. It's a really complete triple.
And then he stops and says quadruple a game that will deliver it in
the long run. And I can't help but think of that John Lovett's like
pathological liar character because I'm forty years old. That's the ticket. It's a
triple, No quadruple. Ay, Yeah, that's it. I mean yeah,
the extra A is the is it's that joke. It's the spinal dab
joke. This this one's on four a's, then those up to eleven.
It's also the more a's you add, the more it's a. It's like
a scream for the amount of time that goes into making these games. Yeah,
this is an insane thing to say. It's just like a really wild
bank. I don't think it's going to convince many people that it actually is
worth seventy dollars, but we'll see. Maybe this game is also secretly kind
of okay, like Suicide Squad. I have not actually played Skull and Bones
yet, So I did an E three twenty seventeen. Oh god shit,
that's right or eighteen? Yeah? Was that the behind closed doors one?
I think so? Yeah. It definitely was in a hot room. You
remember that I tried to get you. Remember you should write a book of
the temperature of rooms you've been in. Dude. E three is just one
big hot room, right, I mean what like every once while you get
in an air conditioned room and then you fall asleep because it's way too comfortable.
So that's who but those are very infrequent. I feel like it was.
That's why everyone would always get sick too. I feel like because you
just put people in these small rooms and they would like Jerry rig this like
you know mcgui ver esque h VAC situation that like who knows how that was
moving air around? The boy quade is not a nude term. I remember
Visceral used to say that they I was in Canada checking out Army of Two
Devil's Cartel for game and former Yeah, and all the Visceral people were big
on calling it a quad A game, and uh the yeah, Visceral as
a studio always said that to the point where Dead Space three, if you
go in, like there's like a gift shop in one of the ships or
something, and their shirts that say Quad A on them, so they,
uh, yeah, playing to a perfect arcists the first quad A game.
It's like nope, nope. Visceral had been saying that term Army of Two,
the Devil's Cartel is the first quad A game. Too big, too
big. Sega reported sluggish holiday sales. Sega's Q three fiscal year twenty twenty
four financial results revealed sluggish sales for premium titles, including Sonic Superstars. They
did a notice of a revision of operating results forecast and basically they're just like
Sonic Superstars, Endless Dungeon, Total War, Pharaoh, I think like a
Dragon guid In, the man who had a name and forgot it, and
a couple of others. Yeah, and I think called Love. Uh,
They're like these none of these really sold like we were hoping throughout the holiday
season. Sonic Superstars is one they seem to call out specifically as having some
trouble selling. I would argue they should have made it a better get a
better video game. It kind of stinks. It's not that they at one
point had a good direction for two D Sonic that people were paying into.
Yeah, and it like they was like a really appealed to those Sonic maniacs
out there. Yeah. Yeah, and they all and everyone universally loved it.
And they just made another one of those that would have been a good
idea with that had a good ulternate history. Yeah, clearly that was never
on the table. They're probably doing a lot better Sega Oh, Slash Atlas
just released Persona three Reload and Like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. Both of those
games we know are doing very well. I think we got confirmation that both
have sold over a million copies each, so they're doing pretty good in this
first quarter. I think a lot of people were just like, I'm gonna
wait for those games. I really want to play, and you should have
made a better Sonic game. Finally, Disney, Not finally, there's one
more after this that Jan added Disney invests one point five billion dollars in Epic
Games and announced some major Fortnite partnership. Basically, Disney now has an equity
stake worth one point five billion dollars in Epic. Tim Sweeney still the majority
owner of that company, so it's not like this is a new ownership over
there. As part of this deal, though, Epic has promised back to
Disney that they are going to make them a connected, persistent universe that is
based on all of Disney's properties, not just where you can play games based
on Lila, Lelo and Stitch or whatever, but also where you can like
consume content and watch things and shop. It's a metaverse, is what they're
saying. Bob Iger was quoted as saying, when I saw gen Z and
jen Alpha and millennials, the amount of time they were spending in terms of
total media screen time on video games, it was stunning, equal to what
they spent on TVs and movies. The conclusion I reached, we have to
be there, So just a real brain genius over there. Katzenberg was he
the quibbi guy who's like, could the idea of this? When I noticed
all these kids are on their phones a lot way like videos. This is
quib level here, it is Quibbi level. Oh my god. Bob Iger
also said that this thing is probably a couple of years away. Uh,
so we'll see what it ends up looking like over time. I don't know.
I think it could be cool. I could also see this thing fizzling
out very quickly, just based on like these other Fortnite games that we've seen
recently, where there was some excitement around them, and now at the very
least. I know people like that Lego game, but no one really talks
about the rocket racing or the ro the rock band one so epic putting their
best efforts into this. This doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to turn into
a major thing, but it does make some sense for Disney. I just
also, I think I prefer Disney was like, what if we just kept
making, you know, big, real bespoke video games instead of having to
have our own online internet video gaming hub. Any interest from you? Jan
are resident Disney adult? Not really? Not really at all? What's comforting
to hear? Yeah? I mean like I like Disney, but I like
the different parts of Disney that are being presented here. Like I don't see
Sora joining Goofy or Donald in a Fortnite world. You know, I also
prefer the parks, And I guess you were talking about this last week on
game mess But I guess you could do like a one for one recreation of
Disneyland, Disney World, some of the other parks across the world and throw
yourself into that and then shoot people. I guess. I don't know if
that's stuff like that paintballs, I don't know. I have my hand on
the mouse ready to kick Manadi out if you jump. Thank you. Yeah,
right, your diligences is much appreciation, just gonna destroy things for Sean.
Just keep that in mind. Yeah, I don't really see an interest
in it because I don't currently have the need to pull my friends into a
virtual social hub to converse and talk and just like hang out. That's what
like discorder, just hanging out in person is four. But I can kind
of see a world where there's Disney freaks out there that are into this.
Yeah. I always think of these big companies, and a company like Disney
feels like it should have the capacity to sort of direct traffic and say you
care about all these things, come over here and play in our thing that
we're setting up for you, and then it's like, well, the reality
is you're gonna have a lot better luck if you just went and made a
Disney thing inside of roadblocks where the kids already are. Now a lot of
kids are already playing Fortnite, But this is not talking about like, oh,
we're gonna have a Disney event event inside Fortnite. They've done that and
that's worked a bunch of times, and that's already been very six for them.
This is going to be something separate, Disney's own thing that is attached
to Fortnite in many ways, but it doesn't necessarily mean it will have the
same foot traffic that Fortnite has. Sure, So I just it reminds me
of like a Club Penguin or something that will be You could be popular for
a little bit and then one day it's just going to go away and disappear,
and probably not that long after it hits the market, it'll probably be
like five years later the thing could get shut down because no one's using it
anymore. So, hey, I get why they feel they need to do
this, But Disney's efforts and video games have been have come in waves before
and they always seem to fizzle out. I expect this one probably to be
pretty similar. You know. Ah, we're saying this, and I completely
agree and I feel the same way. But Disney also chose Fortnite to be
the method of revealing that somehow Palpatine returned for their big numbered Star Wars movies.
Yes, it is, so, I don't know. They're weird over
there, huh. They make weird decisions, a lot of weird decisions,
absolutely all right. And then finally there's a headline here. I'll read it.
San Francisco will host Pokemon World Championship for the first time since twenty sixteen.
Jan You're gonna be okay, no, no, no. I have
to get back in the gym now, oh okay, I have to be.
I have to somehow relearn get into competitive Pokemon, and then within the
time span of the next Pokemon World Championships, I need to hit the circuits,
y'all. You'll be fine. No no, no, no, no,
no no no. I need to legitimately to compete in worlds, need
to compete in small tournaments and absolutely smoke the competition. I got faith in
you. Now. The good news is we do have someone who plays a
lot of competitive in game Pokemon. His name's Turbo Sean, and he could
he would probably be willing to like partner up with you on this and make
it happen. So here's what we have to do. I have to call
upon the like an event your style of Pokemon like training courses. I have
to get. I have to get Turbo Sean. I have to get Jake
Decker from the game spot Homies, and then I have to get Cali.
I have to get Cali to help guide me and land the plane. And
like, all right, don't go with Shawn's advice of putting nothing but low
Pnei's on the team. Okay, cool, Yeah that was that was a
weird, freaky thing that he likes. I need get I can't I can't
buy into worlds. I can't use the games journalism to be like, well,
I think you should put me on the bracket or whatever. Wait,
Filth Theobald works at Pokemon Company, and he uh, he wrote a top
tend list for us this year, So there you go. I need I
need to wheezing my way in. I need to take I need to somehow
take like a big name down. This could me like a karate kid thing.
The Giant bomb Jim has to open back up. I thought I was
out and they pulled me back in. I just be neat for some reason.
Just keep thinking of the dodgeball scene where the guys like, if you
could dodge a wrench, you could dodge a ball. And now I just
want to throw a wrench at ya. Let's get ripped torn on Team Giant.
Let's get he's not dead, he's probably super dead. Yeah. I
need to get championship points. I forget how many you need to get to
get into the bracket to actually compete. Fuck this pains to be inside.
I might need to travel next year, guys, just so I can compete
in my hometown. God, all right, Uh that does it for the
news. Jan This show's back over to you, buddy, as long as
you can handle it. I can't. I can't. I need to.
This is how we get. Oh no, you gotta start drinking raw eggs,
like seven or eight raw eggs and have a big cup. Why back
would you ever drink raw eggs? Like? Is there like any situation like
can we like dare you would you do it? Or what I guess I
would do? It for like a good amount of money. But oh,
isn't it But isn't it? Like is it dangerous? I mean, technically
it's a little dangerous. Actually, it turns out Okay, I heard this.
This could be wrong, so feel free to correct me. I heard
that, like the actually the eggshell has more salmonilla on it than the actual
egg itself inside, So you should wash your hands if your handle eggs,
no matter what. But the actual egg content inside it doesn't usually contain too
much salmonilla. But hey, I would still probably be careful drinking raw eggs.
Yeah, I like, I really like eggs, but mostly when they're
cooked. What if I really like rocky, well, then well then you
should be drinking it every every morning. You have to do this. Yeah,
he looked really cool doing this. I don't think it looks cool at
all. Drinking a glass of slime is not awesome. I mean, that's
the coolest of anyone's ever looked drinking slime, though, So top to your
clime drinker. I mean, I guess that doesn't say much. Yeah,
I'm not like completely adverse to it. I also think, like, uh,
you know, it's a lot of cholesterol and Okay, that's cholesterol.
That's what I say whenever some says something that has cholesterol in that, I
don't know what I mean. Got your HDLs? Yeah? Sure, yeah.
Do you drink glisser right the right, that's where they get. That's
where they yet on the for the road to Pokemon Worlds. Do we do
we frame this journey for me that I have to do now, I have
to do this. I have to get rid of every other possible side hobby
now because of this. Do we go for a rocky story where like Sean
could be like a Mickey Or do we go for like a karate Kid type
of thing where Rickey was famously old. Yeah, Sean's old, he was
getting young. We could always afford a little old person make up though,
like Pepper and his hair. Yeah, all of a sudden he's eighty.
Yeah. Or do we go for like a karate Kid type of deal where
he's mister again, another old person. Can you do a one arm push
up? Yeah? Okay, Rocky. Then what's the difference between Mickey and
and mister Miyagi in your head? Jam, what's the different fair One's Asian?
Yeah, they're very different. One one is like Hispanic I think so.
Yeah, Okay, it's neither of those. Still they and they train
very differently, do they not. Micky is way angrier. Mickey yells all
the time like drunk man. Right, yeah, very chill. What we
do, mister Mackie is just sad. I have to complete the poker arc
where I either lose an obscene amount of money, uh playing poker by developed
the skills of not showing any tells in poker, right, and like I
get a cool, cool cool head on my shoulders where we defeat everyone in
Pokemon because they think I'm playing I'm going against the rules, all right,
I'm doing nothing but bluffs perfectly. This this should be is you abandoned this
halfway through and we just go to the World Series of Poker instead. Like,
I love that me too. What if they combined Poker and Pokemon?
Would you just why would you say that to me? Why? That's great?
It's it's Pokermont there, Yeah, the structure of of of this greater
company. Why me as your employee, Why would you wish upon me like
that? They gave pokmon ideas they gave him. Yeah yeah, like let
Pokemon loosen a casino. Oh, god, and then I will try to
catch them all as a problem. Yeah, well hold them, hold them
all, Becker. I got mad at you again during the Super Bowl.
Why because they kept showing pictures of the sphere and I'm like that, look
how cool that thing is? How damn how dare he not think this is
amazing? There was such a good Onion post where they were like I forget
that. Oh I think they were like in honor of Super Bowls, the
sphere like posted like CT damaged brains or something, because really good. I
feel like the developing a CT. But thinking about Poker and Pokemon and then
just combine them together. Oh my god, oh god, I have to
start and now finish the story. All right. I just think it would
be really cool to like combine those two games. I think, like during
Pokemon on cards would be awesome. Well, I mean they have Pokemon cards,
so oh no, we can't get into that. Because if I don't
make it into competitive VGC two v two Pokemon, I could always default and
go back to the cards. I thought the cards. That's not a kind.
You didn't kick the cards. I think the cards were with you all
along. Yeah, now you take the boy out of the cards. You
can't take the cards out of the boy Worlds. And we have a posse
Sean as my cut man, and then we have garborg Jan right behind me
as my heightman. Can it be your uncle, Polly. I'll just give
you access to like a meat freezer for you to play in. Please you
awkward during Thanksgiving? But yeah, yeah, let's do that. Let's do
that, proud man. All right, let's go take a break so I
can go about my life decisions. Then we'll read emails. Okay, okay.
Thanks to the homie Caam, we've identified that all I gotta do is
win a regional tournament and I'm automatically invited to enter into Worlds. Alternatively,
I have to get six hundred championship points, which is a lot. Are
the regional ones that are in like Wyoming, and there's like two idiot kids
in there, and you can just kick their ass. That's why I'm saying,
man, what about Fargo. I've seen the gamers in Fargo based off
of there's a lot. Yeah, stay out of there, stay clear.
Oh god, we got we got them. It's like it's like Glee all
over again. We got to make it to regionals, shouts out to my
glee heads out there. No, that's a problematic show when you look at
it. Yeah. Yeah. Also worth noting, almost every regional championship this
year has been the largest pokemon. Okay, great, great, Okay,
that's cool. Emails I believe in you, Jan emails, Bombast. They
were called gleeks, not gleeheads. They were called gleeks. Oh that's like
the thing you could do with your mouth, like spitting out a little water.
Maybe you can. I never could. I could. I could never
do it reliably. I'd only do it by accident. I can do it.
I don't like the word gleaks anyway, so it's it's a rough word.
Bombcassage on bomb dot com is the email address to send your emails too.
I read virtually everything that comes in. Thank you for the coupons,
No, thank you for the weird mailing magazines that we've been subscribed to.
Now, don't subscribe us from those weirdos. Also, the funny thing is,
I don't a lot of them say hey, chef, and I don't
know if they're talking about Jeff Curseman or Jeff Backlar or Jeff Crupp. At
a point or its just like a Jeff. Yeah, the nebulous Jeff,
the nebulous Jeff. When we don't talk about the nebulous Jeff. No,
we can too much for our brains to handle. None of us have rites,
object, Yeah exactly. First email comes from Phil. Phil writes in
Morning Bombers, looking for some advice on finding easier short games, since I'm
finding it harder and harder to find time to play games these days. I'm
about to turn thirty eight, have two kids, one who hates sleep,
and about to have a third, so I'm looking for some something nice and
easy to enjoy while i'm home after the new edition arrives. Thanks, guys,
really appreciate all the hours of entertainment I get from the show. Cheers
Phil. Thanks, So A short hike is the one that comes to mind
first. You if you haven't played that, you should. It really is
like forty five minutes, but you can have a lot of fun just exploring
it and it feels really it's like a satisfying like Arc forty five minutes.
A lot of people recommend a Little Gator game. I've only played that a
little bit, but I guess it's pretty similar. Yeah, yeah, another
one. I'm looking at how long to beat dot com right now? If
you want main story five hours main plus sides, it's only seven and a
half. It's Mortal Kombat Mythologies sub zero for the PlayStation in one. Yeah,
that's a breezy, a breezy one a quick way. Yeah yeah,
yeah, yeah, you're not gonna you're not gonna get frustrated with that at
all. Also, you don't have to paint yourself like kwan Chi if you
played at home. Yeah, but it's more fun if you just wanted to
really bad. Yeah right, yeah, this point, he really does.
I don't know, game like Blattro coming out, I feel like would be
good in those short bursts, something like Slay the Spire even Yeah, pick
up a hobby game. Yeah, Vambire Survivors is excellent for that. Oh
yeah right, totally Hades if you've missed Hades. One of Mary Kisher is
just telling me about that I really want to start is a go mecha ball
that sounds extremely I have it download. I checked that out for like a
good two hours. It's pretty decent. Uh. It kind of has like
the fast paced nature of Haightes, but you're in a ball, all right.
Knowing about beating games, just just play them until you're until you're done,
and then move on to something else. It's fine, You're good man.
If you have Steam, you know that Steam refund policy is pretty generous.
If you've only played like one two hours, you know, try the
three kids thing, mistake, they outnumber you. Now you're screwed. Man,
would you said that you would? I would die if I had a
third kid. I would literally melt in front of you guys. You guys
don't see me disintegrate on this podcast. What is the multiplier? Because I
have heard that two is someone harder than one. So if like if two
times multiplier would be like when you have the second kid, it was just
twice as hard because it's twice as many kids. Is it like a two
point five? Is it a three? Like? What would you say?
Like? I think it's like if you go to from two to three,
My guess is it's like, wait, what do you do from one to
two? What would you say? One at you? It's like two and
a half times cause it's like, dude, like you were already tired and
now you're dead. It's not like the twins on the old, like the
first kid is I suppose, but if it's like two three years older,
it's like, well, I still got to deal with this thing trying to
kill itself constantly. So for me it was especially rough because I worked from
home. Steph went to work, and I watched the kids and got them
to where they were going every day for like five years. Yeah, so
you did that. It really did. Like just like just I think I
have brain damage from it back. I think I really knew. So I
remember I was in the hospital room with my mom when they broke the news.
It was just me and my mom in the hospital when they said like,
oh, hey, it's twins that you're having. And I remember thinking,
I'm just like dumb kids, just like wow, that's awesome. You
got two, you got double. I thought it was just just positive and
I heard yeah, Like she like went to go break the news to her
husband at the time and him he was standing on a ladder at work and
she's like, hey, We're having twins and be like oh. Like it
was like it wasn't bad news, but you could tell it was just like
washing over for like, oh my, too much good news it is.
And Champagne bottle you know. Uh huh. Next email comes in from end
communication. I don't believe they wrote their actual name. That catch Me If
You Dan feature is great. Ps y'all are great too. In communication.
I am extremely jealous If You Dan. It was so fun, so fun
I had. It was twenty four hours and it was so much fun.
I would do that again anywhere. Just landing and trying to find your fun
is a great, great thing to do, and I want to do it
again. And I want to like have like a fixer waiting for you unbeknownst
to you and just tew you go there and have someone's like, Okay,
this is this person's going to get you to all the places, all the
things that you didn't know were happening so you didn't have tickets for now.
They already got it. You're already fun. I like that. Yeah,
yeah, I like I'll just keep doing it. The twist I started thinking
of halfway through yesterday is the part of Catch Me If You Can that we
didn't really lean into. Is that Leo is like a con man, right,
oh? The crimes? Yeah, crime is a crime, man.
I don't want to get tied up with anything on accident or whatever or on
Apparently that isn't that Frank Abigail story, like not real off person Frank Duke's.
It was just all it was just not like he wasn't even it's like
all great stories completely made up. No, that's not true. I saw
the Old Claw. What do you mean there was? I thought there was
something about, uh, the sort of like sensational Yeah, yeah, it's
it's sensationalized. You. Yeah. I like the idea the movie of doing
a lie. Catch me if you Dan Colin the con Man. We send
Dan to a city, but part of his time in that city is he's
attending a convention. He knows nothing about. You're describing a hitman. Jin
like you gotta you know what, sometimes you just gotta like keep that to
yourself and tell us offline. So you're going to like a pizza making convention,
I have to be a pizza I'm not doing No, you're the con
man. We're calling you the con man. You go around to different cons
Oh, so I'm not trying to pretend to be like no, no,
no, you're icy, but you are trying to assimilate in a weird way,
like you go to you know, I don't know the vacuum convention and
you like pretend to know your way around a vacuum or something like that.
I would like that. I feel like that, Like how too with John
Wilson's show, or he would just want to like a referee dinner or a
vacuum convention. Yeah, this is very different. First, I'm the third
person version of that. Yeah, you're you're in it, you're starring in
it. You know we're following you around. We're not just editing, you
know, in infinite hours of footage an anime convention once that was that was
someone Yeah, yeah, yeah, idea that was going on there. Just
imagine, like I don't know, we send Dan to like a music convention
where there's like, oh, here's all these effect pedals for your electric carp
you want to try it out, dude, and then Dan is trying to
play the harp for the first time in front of these experts. I'd give
it a shot. Great, Like oh god, sorry, I'm not sorry.
John from Greece writes in about some switch to cues High Bomb Crew.
First off, love the show. I'd have thought that I didn't see anyone
else talk about if I'm not mistaken. A bunch of switched physical copies didn't
have the entire game in the cart to cut costs and you had to download
it. A potential switch to will have better graphics and this will need even
bigger game files. So my question is do they charge more money for physical
games? Do they make all physical games require downloads? Do they change the
cartridge format and potentially Mickey model with or without the switch one port something else?
Entirely Thanks for your insight, John from Grease. I looked into this
and my memory is going to be pretty bad on it. But my understanding
was that there is a new flash storage technol that is capable of much larger
sizes. Whether or not Nintendo's able to use that in conjunction with having is
which one games be supported is up to be debated. Maybe they're more expensive
so that's why they wouldn't use them anyhow. The big problem is, like
the thirty two gigabyte cards are the biggest that they sell right now. They
do have a sixty four gigabyte card. They do have one. Sean.
This is a point in contention between me and him because he says that they
don't exist. In a jeopardy question once. They just haven't used them in
any of the games yet because it is prohibitively expensive. So any game that's
bigger on thirty two gigabytes has required a download. Honestly, the most likely
thing to happen here is they just keep basically doing that and requiring downloads.
I think they're going to be very like okay with kind of ushering people over
to digital only, and that'll be kind of part of that. I think,
how much are switch cards now for new games? Seventy? Yeah,
well seldom with seventy. Everything else is sixty. Okay, that was it.
The games will definitely be seventy on the switch to and that'll be that
could maybe help with a sixty four kickabyte card drop card. Next email comes
from Richard in the UK, not a state the United Kingdom. Thank you
for clarifying. I didn't know what state began with a U. I thought
i'd check out Bolattro after your recommendation last week, and now I can't stop
playing it. I played six hours of this demo in one night, and
now I feel like I have to buy multiple copies to justify it. Please
stop with the recommendations. You are making me poor. Love it, smooches
Richard from the UK, sent sent from proton Mail for iOS. Okay,
all right, I guess we just we're just gonna stop talking about things we
games we really really like. Uh yeah, I mean I think that's a
good problem, right, These are good problems. Embrace your good problems.
Yeah, because, let me tell you something, most of life bad problems,
right apparently bad? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think. But
I do enjoy the phrase good problem. Yeah, Like I whenever someone starts
off and says this is a good problem, and I'm like, yeah,
that's soften the blow. That's what I wanted to hear. It's a good
problem. And Richard, my friend, you only have to buy the one
copy, you know, and you you you. I guess you could gift
out copies if you want, but you just got to buy the one.
And hey, maybe you don't even have to buy the full game. Maybe
you're done, maybe you've been bolot rode out after who knows how much more
time you spent with it. But yeah, I recommend everyone to check it
out. I hate check That dam was probably gonna stop working today, So
I hate Jef Grubb for taking it in our fantasy Critic League. Yeah,
I got it for a dollar. I also got that Banisher's game, which
got like an eighty three or eighty four, and I got that for five
dollars, So I feel pretty good about that. All right, But another
email about checking out short games, you know, let's read it anyway.
Hey, guys, I've been struggling with finding time to play games like I
used to, partially because life has become busier and also partially because I get
tired quicker now. I was wondering how you guys decide which games to play,
and also how much time you put into them to decide whether you want
to continue them or not. It's not a conscious thing for me. I
just I just am like playing a game and suddenly one day I stopped.
You. Yeah, I just like when you're actually know Yeah, it's when
you're full, you know, that's all. Yep. Usually it's like up
the point where it's like, oh I get what this is, and then
not much long after that, I'm done for most games. Yeah, I
say, if you're like, you have a bunch of options in front of
you, just go with whichever your heart tells you. I feel like right
now, in twenty twenty four. If you pick one of these big games
that have come out, there's a lot on the spoon. You're not gonna
be You're not gonna be having a bad time, Like I still gotta circle
back. Can finish Prince of Persia? Did y all finish Prince of Persia?
Oh yeah, yeah? Oh yeah? Game of the year so far
from me? Still Jesus ahe Christ? Okay, last email the show comes
from Christian, not a Argentinian Christian. Hello, bomb basting bomb, Hello,
bombastic bomb of Deiers. On the last BombCast episode, the group posited
the idea of marveling at what kind of objects might decorate the house of the
oh tour Hideo Kajima. That brings me to the to this question for you,
folks, I'm gonna list off some strange, random objects. Please assign
them to the various BombCast hosts, co hosts and riff raff I mostly mean
Mike Manatti that frequent the show. Feel free to suggest some or skip over
the boring ones. And now they've listed a bunch of different objects. So
the goal is we'll list an object who that object belonged to as a decoration
of their house. Got it? First one, objects of power, if
you will, sure a shadow box of non disc size seventeen tennis shoes.
Backler, what no, why seventeen shadow box? Do you know what a
shadow boxes? How are these fitting in a shadow box? It's a big
box? Okay? Asked that answered fair enough? An empty urn knocked on
its size? That yeah, jeez? Why? Yeah? I think it's
Monognon. He's the one who's got like earn energy. He's got energy.
Maybe it's just like code Grandma has maybe able to think of that. Sure,
Oh, okay, is it is? Is he preparing it for himself
or yeah? He's just like that's he's like that. He looks at it
once a day and he goes, that's the destination. That's where this journey
ends. That's where this journey ends, right there? Uh? A pristine
birdcage, Dan Reichert, was that me, yells bird? I just feel
like you're someone who would use squaw Okay, like I like birds that,
I like all animals. I just feel like the way I'm understanding your your
new home to be, I just feel like there's just going to be a
room with a pristine bird cage in one of them. A Lah a resident
evil room, and I would try to teach her how to talk and do
funny things. Yeah so this track. Yeah, a signed copy of The
Hobbit, but the back cover is torn off, Lucy, Lucy. Well,
if the back covers torn off, I don't I think she would be
she ripped it out of someone else's hands. Okay, that makes sense.
Then tell a story. A replica of the Christmas Story lamp, but instead
of fishnets, it is one of those egir stockings with a silhouette of a
cat on them. Oh sean Ye. A number one Uncle mug with a
broken handle. That's Mike. You know he is an uncle, right,
Yes, I mean yeah, I think probably most of us are. Maybe
yeah, but yeah, number one Uncle Mike. A chandelier fixture that is
truly terrifying to perceive Maclar Halloween lamp or something exactly. Yeah, yeah,
leaves it up for Christmas. A life size wax statue of Johnny Depp.
But it looks like it was left on the porch for about two hours too
long when it got delivered grub. Yeah, you're right, Yah, yeah,
you got me. It's not even like a specific Johnny Depp from a
movie. It's just a Johnny Depp, just generic Johnny Depp, like if
you did commercial Strike prescription drugs. Yeah, a movie poster to a movie
no one has ever heard of. Damn Tam Tam. Yeah. I like
that. Sure, one of those little toys where it's like a bed of
nails, but it leaves an impression of whatever is pushed into it. Who
just brought that up? I think I love these. I've caught me so
it's you, So it's I probably have one in the house now that my
face has been chumped into a million times. Yeah. Uh. And then
the last one here, lightsaber is made out of silverware Nicki. Yeah,
okay, I don't I don't know if Nicki is a Star Wars person at
all. No. Yeah, but made out of silverware though. Sure that's
weird, ni Nicky, says silver person. Ah, of course, of
course. Thank you for your time, even if you don't read this on
air. I appreciate you reading these weird house decoration ideas. Kindly. Christian
sounds like Christian from Minati's Perfect City Orlando. I have no idea how to
spell his last name, and I don't care to look it up. Important
send from my iPhone from Hotel and Christian. Thank you and thank you everyone
for emailing into the show once again. Bomb cast A Giant Bomb dot com
is the email addressed to send your emails too. And I read all of
them. I read all of them. I pour them out sometimes I print
them out. And if you want to send like a special shout out to
the crew or whoever else, I always forward them to the pertinent parties.
Shouts out to you at home for listening to the Giant BombCast. That's all
we need to shout out. And hey, you know, tomorrow's Valentine's Day.
If you ain't got a Valentine's we'll be your Valentines. Go get us
flowers. Oh okay, not going to screw it up. I'm gonna screw
it up again. I know it doesn't have to be this way. No,
there's been figure it out these noises. Maybe get a cameo from Brian
Cox or something those area. That's too much money. The price has gone
up, I think because of club new interest. But what do we got
going on for the rest of the week, gentlemen, We have games mornings
popping off when day Thursday and Friday tomorrow another episode installment of Light Club.
What is it Mortal Kombat, Mortal Mike, Mitch Kwanchie Yes, yes,
and also, uh, I've got I'll be a lot more help for Mitch
this time. I've got I've got the official Prima Guide, I think,
just the premus secrets of the game. So I'm alsoly smokes, well,
we're secrets of the game? Is cheating? No, that's not cheating.
We're going to finish it tomorrow. Then, Yeah, I want to get
this frame. There's like an eight by ten of Kuwanchi here. If you
somehow scan that, Dan, can you send that to me because I just
want to put Mike's face on it. Yeah, of course, sure.
Fantastic, fantastic voicemail dumb truck popping off on Thursdays. Jeff, is there
a Jeff j just coming out this week? There most certainly is Jan.
Thank you for asking. Friends. If you are unaware of Diamond is Unbreakable,
let me tell you something. The train actually goes off the rails.
We're only on episode three of this season and it is phenomenal, so make
sure you tune in, subscribe it, listen to it. It seemingly seems
like we will have a classic PF. We'll bring a grab bag of games
this week, bunch of stuff, a variety show of sorts, BCR this
week. Forgot to schedule who's on the show, and forgot to schedule a
topic. But we'll go and do that at least by tomorrow. As we
said yesterday on the GB plays during Hell Divers too exciting, exciting plans planned
for Packs East. We will be headed there. We hope to see you
there, hope to shake some hands, kiss babies. My offer is still
open to kiss you on the mouth, but you have to claim it.
As Dan is shaking his head, no, and I think that's just yeah,
don't do that with Dan. It's gandaic. Yeah, it's God.
Why is that God? You walked into that? Dan? Why did I
think this hole and just continue to Y're like, I think I'll move into
this hole? Yeah. Oh this is like a little comfortable. There's cards
here, oh man, good internet. Oh there's like a slot to keep
putting my money in. It doesn't really do anything. I just lose the
money anyway. I've been janned, he's been chef. He's been chef,
he's been Dan, and you have been wonderful if you've got to know what
to give flowers to tomorrow, go and give them to yourself. You deserve
your flowers. Stop waiting for somebody to give you flowers. Go buy yourself,
even if it's just a pocket of dandelions or whatever. We'll see you
next week for another episode of the Giant BombCast. Love you, s.