Hello, over one, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. I don't
know what episode it is, probably fifty nine, fifty eight fifteen. Producer
would know, but he's not here. That's Mary Hi, and that's Dan
episode fifty eight. No, that's do Dan quick. There's no way you
could do is episode fifty eight? Is episode fifty eight? I can't do
you think? You know? I don't think so. Well, maybe when
he yells, I don't know, that's Jake. He's such a unique voice.
It's it's not you can't you can't replicate it. No, that's Jake,
our producer. You've seen him before on our Game of the Year stuff.
Dan is Jake. Dan's at a convention for what is Dan at a
convention for? He does like cheese? We have seen a lot of each
other since what last episode two. Some say that the reason Dan isn't on
this podcast is because he's sick of us. Yeah, he said, he's
I don't want anything to do with you. After our Wine for It trip,
we got quite a few guesses on what the name of the street was.
I guess I could say the name of the street. Now let me
read the guesses. Well, yeah, the owner is gonna be like,
why these people swarming my house? Let me look at the guesses if people,
if you weren't here, Um, last episode, I had talked about
how in our group chat for my groom groomsman, party and officiant, whatever
you want to say, I told people the address of the street Airbnb to
look for when we went to our bachelor bachelorette combined thing and Dan responded like,
this is like the most self parody ever, and I asked people to
guess what it was, so we got I think a lot of tree fucking
stuff. Drive. Yeah, there was a street name. Guess this is
from Henry, said a longtime listener, first time emailer. It has to
be Arbor Drive. Mike has to bring his two loves together, and nothing
gets him more randy and horny than trees. So he's going out to wine
country and upstate New York. That's a good guess love wine and fuck trees
that he'd probably never go to reveal where you went. I hope you do
in a future episode, but I definitely leave. It has to be Arbor
Drive. We did not upstate New York. Wine Arbery sounds good. Yeah,
that's we went to North Fork Long Island Wine Country. Um, let's
see another one. There's a few. It's so funny to like hear guesses
of what people would assume. Yeah, a perfect Mikey Street would be if
it's like you know, I would expect someone to say like Merlow Drive or
or something like that. What do you what other ones? This is from
Rebar it said, first thing it came to mind as Scott Lane, as
Scot Lane, that's just about your fancy style. Yeah, there's a few
more. Someone said. Another one, thirty fourth Arbor Amore Street. That
was from Abe So close Mary Kill Drive. I'll show you at some point.
Here's another one. Here's one from Rachel high On. Congrats to Mike
and Amanda. Thank you very much, Rachel my guest for the wine for
it. I'm the lacrosse field is Haven on Hyatt or somewhere around Kiyuka Lake.
I'm very curious if this is correct or in the correct area. It
looks beautiful up there, and this has given me ideas for our tenth anniversary
coming up in November. You and a man will be celebrating your ten year
anniversary. In the blink of an eye. I'm sure we will. Um
no, but I know where Kiyuka Lake is. I'm from not too far
from there. Wine Fort address from Chris said, gotta be quote unquote tree
fucker Lane, rightee. I think after this last weekend they might want to
change the name the tree fucker Lane. They might as well. Yeah,
I won't say a lot a lot of those trees are not standing anymore,
okay. Thomas Thomas one two three eight East. Mike began his career as
a Jedi, but the mental toll of the job for too much for our
great adventurers. YadA YadA, YadA, YadA. Dan off the Grave even
claimed we've seen Mike somewhere in the rooms of Foreign Ast or the haunted Bardowns,
but you can't remember his memories and what he used to be Avenue No,
thank you, my God? Would long address that would be every time
you had to fill something out. Art says it's fop Doodle Street. Is
that offensive? I don't know what that means, um if it is,
well, Jake cut that cut that okay, And I think that's okay.
But we can I guess we can tell people now we were on this is
not a joke. Chardonnay Lane a real place called Chardonnay Lane. Damn thought
I was joking. It was It was fun. It was very fun.
I forgot to tell you. The Airbnb guy gave us a very stellar review,
but he did talk shit about the fact that no one beat his Miss
pac Man score. We leave our scores on the tape, he texted me
saying he's impressed someone got like half of his score. For the record,
it is a very difficult game. I think that the top score that he
left for us to beat was eighty five thousand, and we were all pretty
addicted to playing it, and I six of us, five of us.
It was mainly you three, and we wouldn't stop. Bonk was into it
every once in a while. I felt like Calie played it, but like,
yeah, we were the only ones who were like straight up into it.
But I do want to like clear the air. It's unfortunate Dan isn't
here to defend himself. But what really ensued was it started out with a
nice, you know, jolly back and forth of scores. Immediately I got
a score that I thought was really good. I think it was like,
you know, ten twelve thousand, and Dan beat it, and Dan as
everyone knows is quite a heel and started just basically being like, oh,
it looks like you don't have the top score anymore. And I was like,
well, you know, the weekend is young, I'm going to beat
you again, and he was like scoreboard, and he just kind of kept
poking me a lot. Later on that day, I scored maybe like sixteen
thousand, which was pretty good, and I was proud of that, and
I put my name. We started writing our names on tape and putting it
to the left of the board. I took photos of them and shared.
It was like a fun Yeah, we should clarify. It was not full
on cabinet. It was like those those tabletop like novelty ones that you can
get, and it was specifically fully functional and the same game that I used
to play as a kid. I know it's the same game because when I
was a child, I used to play Missus pac Man all the time and
the Frogger game. They they redid them for maybe Sega. It doesn't really
I don't know if I can remember if it was Sega or PlayStation one.
But the point is is like, that's a huge leap. But the point
is is I played this game a lot as like a revert, like a
redou as a child, and I remember like being like, if anyone should
win this, it should be me. And then Dan got twenty eight thousand,
which is insane and nobody could beat it. And as I would get
to the machine to play, he would start to kind of look at me
and question the moves I was making, like, oh, I wouldn't go
left there, or I wouldn't go down that way, and if I died,
he'd be like, well, how are you going to beat my score
if you die? And I got progressively more pissed at him. He was
egging me on. I don't think people are aware of how competitive we both
are and how bad it is for us to be in the same room like
that. You two are competitive and can be heels. Why is what I
got? Fucking mad? Got you guys almost ruined the bachelor party. I
was like for hours, and then we look over and Mary's just over there
trying. Yeah. I love I love how you're telling all of like this
whole story, as if any of it's surprising. But I thought at some
point he wouldn't take a fucking break, but he was so he was still
consistently irritat, irritating. I called my sister called me and I was showing
her the cabinet and Dan was walking by. This was like on FaceTime,
and my sister was like, hey, just you know Dan, Mary used
to plays game every day as a child. It's her favorite game. And
Dan goes, what happened because she's losing. Yeah, your sister walked you
right into that. I love your sister is trying to be nice and you're
like, no, no, no, don't say anything, Please don't.
Yeah. I couldn't look at him without him getting his smug face in that
score. And then one I think it was like maybe the second day in
the afternoon, Dan was egging me on while I was playing, and I
warned him and I said, if you come up to me while I plays
game today, I'm gonna punch you. And I think we all thought I
was joking. And Dan came up to me when I died, and I
socked him really hard in the shoulder and I punched Dan, and I think
it kind of jolted both of us that I struck him. You were physical,
no way, and he kind of like chilled out for a bit.
And then later on. He came up to me and said, I think
I think we've gone too far, and I said, yeah, I think
we need to chill out the worst parts of it about it I was there,
Oh wait, no, but tell people who had aside from our owner,
who had the top score and what was it by the end of the
weekend. Eventually, at the end of the weekend, after a lot of
back and forth, I was victorious with forty nine thousand. Dan hit forty
seven thousand really late and almost beat me, but he died and I'm the
winner. Yeah, if you're listening to this episode, please go tweet at
Dan saying I heard Mary kick your ass and missus pac man. He had
everybody. He has lied about it consistently online. Do you know what he
did the very end of the day. He took the tape and ripped my
name and his name and switched them so it looks like his name is forty
nine thousand and mine is forty seven. He switched the name so it looks
like he won. Likes petty, petty little fucker, wait so much,
No, but I have I have proof of you getting so you didn't you
have two scores that beat his high score I did at the very very end.
He got he got like forty set. He got something really high and
beat my second highest score. I had two highest scores at some point during
the week, and it went back and forth a lot. This is a
heated, angry experience. Like Jake knows, what we were doing was we
were getting so addicted. If I, if anybody died in the first three
levels, you just restart, as We're just like restart restart, restart restart,
only like twelve thousand per level, Like you had to make it at
least three levels before you you had a good run. We were obsessed.
Yeah, Mary officially one. If Dan's talking shit, I have fifteen other
people there who will corroborate Mary's story. I have photos of my score,
and I remember because I flicked off the camera to be like, oh fuck
yourself, Dan, when I finally did it Dan, Dan got the third
highest score. Mary had the two highest. So Dan's not only lying once,
he's lying twice. And here's the other like thing that Dan doesn't know
is I woke up at seven am on Saturday and played it for two hours
before breakfast to beat him. I remember getting up. I was yeah,
like I didn't want him around me because he like he his face. I
was usually one of the other people up and I noticed you were up,
Dan, Dan got who solid? No Dan hours of Miss pac Man play
time to beat him and say you had longer than two hours? Fuck you
Dan. I made breakfast, Oh true, Yeah, I made breakfast both
days. I'm a big breakfast head. I noticed it was good. We
uh, it was very fun. It was um my first time out there
actually believe it or not. And then yeah, we went to went to
a vineyard. It was it was a pretty light, lovely party vibes vineyard.
We needed a place where we could be like big groups and also a
huge thank you and shout to Dylan at Bays Liquor. Bays Liquors. Yeah
uh. When, of course, when a few of us showed up Dylan,
I recognized Dan and then Dan told him we're here for my bachelor bachelorette
thing. And then no matter which group went in to get Seltzer's and booze,
he gave us a big discount. So Dylan at Bays Liquor like basically
lubricated the entire party. Is what you can say if you look at our
Instagram updates and stories. You saw that you fueled a lot of flip cup.
You fueled drunken bike rides and hot tubs shenanigans and the heated punch that
landed in Dan's bright shoulder blade. It was quite unlike the spectrum of like
borderline hillbilly party and like very elegant winery. We kind of ran the whole
the gamut, so to speak. It was it was a it was a
fun time. I had it. We had a great time. I'm still
sad it's over. Yeah, he too, it's a good time. And
Mike, you fucked a lot of trees too, were we all saw it.
Yeah, it was a weird thing to witness, but you know,
what are you gonna do? It's it's it's your it's your party. Yeah.
I was like if you were, if you were really my best man,
you'd you'd you'd slip into one too, And you did. No although
you're although like a rookie, you went for a you went for an oak
for your first time. Oh is that a little rougher? You tell me
you would know? Um, I would say, we uh definitely got a
lot of booze at h at that at that liquor store, so we definitely
got our took advantage of that that discount. So yeah, shout out to
Dylan because it was we could barely carry all of the booze out that first
day. Yeah, and if Dylan's boss is listening, he is so good
at his job and he deserves a raise, unless Dylan owns the liquor store,
in which case, congratulations Dylan. Yeah, maybe that's why he was
able to give us a discount. Good for he didn't or he didn't even
work there. He just popped in and was like I got a friends and
family. He killed the owner and was like standing in his place when we
arrived it did I did notice Dylan had like two layers of face. Maybe
that's maybe that has something to do with it. He didn't look like he
was wearing a mask made out of someone else's face. When you had peoples
where judge that, when you had people guess where it was going to be,
he knew immediately that it was Chardonnay lane and found the nearest liquor store
and took someone's face. Yeah, I can see it. It was fun.
Yeah, you you you both you had you didn't have the best airport
experience. But you definitely didn't have Dan's delta like a couple weeks ago that
he had to deal with. You beat the thunderstorms. I think, yeah,
just barely. We got there. I think our flight was supposed to
be a nine. We got there at I don't know, six thirty seven
or so, probably seven, and the pilot was like, got stuck in
traffic. Meanwhile there's a thunderstorm rolling in. So I'm nervous because I'm like,
well, there's no thunderstorm, now, let's get the hell out of
here. But the pilot's late. I was nervous because I don't want you
too in my house one more night. I mean I didn't want to.
I didn't want to be in your house one more night either, so we
were all ready to leave it. You know this really like every time there's
travel right now, it is so risky if you're going to make it to
your destination on time, if at all. This was one of the ones
where I was sitting in that airport plan plan must switch, and thank God
for the switch in an airport because three hours is quite honestly not so bad
when you have a switch to play. I had a lot of ground to
cover. Yeah, it wasn't that bad. It wasn't that bad. Um
Kentucky zero. Yeah, No, it's just the switch twenty twenty one,
twenty twenty Game of the Year. No, we no, we greed on
it for like judge Jake ruled it. I don't think he did. Judge,
can you read the transcripts? No, he's the judge, not the
stenographer. He does everything. Oh theraphers hearing me, he's our catchall the
it's not a court aproof stenographer. Sorry, Ira Blank and Ship Jake Decker.
Yes, Kentucky Root zero is the best game of twenty twenty. Michael
Mahardi. See I told you so, Mary Kish, that's bullshit, Ira
Blank and Ship. Mary's brandishing a knife. Mike says, finally, let's
do this shit. He pulls out two knives and goes at her do a
wielding. What do I do? You get stabbed myself? You try?
Yeah, I feel like at least windmill or get on my back and start
kicking upwards like kids do. I mean I would do something. You're gonna
lose a hand in two feet? You try those moves that those weren't ribs.
We were eating Saturday night. What does that even mean? Chopped up
a human? Fuck? That'd be really funny if I revealed at the bachelor
party that I was actually a cannibal and inducting you unwillingly. I mean,
if you're speaking of if we all ate human meat, I'd feel much closer
to everyone, you know, I mean especially the human you, especially the
human Ah. But you know that would have been a moment connection. Yeah,
bromanship. Yeah, why not? I don't know. Trying to make
light of it. I mean, the thing about it is like if you
told me like a week later, I've already digested it. There's nothing I
can do when have the shakes? Though? Is that a thing? Remembering
um Book of Eli, that's how they tell told that there they ate humans.
I think that's a movie thing, probably, yeah, because then the
road, you know, what's the road? The book is so creepy,
and they used they pulled several of the the exact just like the No Country
for Old Men movie, which is better than the Road movie, but the
Road is still good. The Road movie they pulled several lines out of the
book. And when he's talking about like hearing cannibals chanting in the distance that
always fucked with me. He's like by like by winter. There was deranged
chanting on the ridge, like ooh, Cormac could get you in one sentence,
two words. Even then, the book ends about salmon and a stream
up in the mountains. We still have not figure out a book for the
book club. Yeah, we need to do that, but we need Dan
to do it. We can't do it without Dan. Now, speaking of
the Nintendo Switch, something that I thought was kind of cute about the party
that you had. It always these types of parties because you're combining friendships and
family, you're merging your world your worlds are colliding, and you're hoping that
everybody gets along, and you never know, right, maybe personalities don't get
along or whatever, and we are all getting along really well. But something
I thought was very funny was during the day of Saturday, there was a
very stark contrast between all the people outside tanning and drinking wine and sitting by
the pool, and then if you went inside, there was six people playing
Nintendo's Switch inside watching I Think you should Leave on TV. And they had
no sun and the shades were drawn on the TV or on the windows so
that no light got in Yeah, and I talked to a man about this,
like we were I guess this is not the same thing, but we
were. I think we're glad we combined them. We knew we wanted to,
but we wanted everybody to know one another before the wedding, rather than
just like the guys, or and Mary knowing each other from the bachelor party,
and then Amanda's people knowing each other from I mean, they all I
think already knew each other. But it's kind of It was extremely fun weekend,
but it was also I don't know that stressful is the word. There
was definitely certain times when I had to navigate, Like you kind of become
a different person when you go between several groups. I've heard people talk about
weddings like this. They're like, yeah, you have to become a different
person. In every conversation you have, you're still the same person, but
like you go up and talk and you meet like your spouse's like cousin,
you're all of a sudden, like, I don't know, this person had
to be as somewhat You're not going to talk about fucking trees because they don't
know that side of you yet. And then you know, you gotta be
careful of talking to in laws and not make jokes about eating and feeding dead
bodies to your friends because that might not go over well. I mean,
I say it to the mass, to the general public, but not to
them because then you go up to the next cousin of like the cousin you
used to wrestle with, or like steal fireworks with or something. It was
just it was a nice preview of what the wedding will be like on a
smaller scale, like I still can't wait, but it's it was definitely like
by the end of the weekend, I was just dead. I was like,
that's the most I've I used to think I was an introvert. I
can actually be I'm fairly extroverted. But that drained me in a good way.
But I was like, oh my god, especially like when I'm cooking
in the kitchen with one of Amanda's friends and then I'm coming out to like
serve food and wine for like these friends, and then I'm going to talk
to like my brother and my hometown friends near the bonfire. It's like I
was just like three people in the span of ten seconds. It's a weird
thing that humans can do. Your jokes are still bad though, no matter
which group you're with. So there's some things that are the same. I
have a little cheat sheet, but like, I was sweating too much cooking
and I got barbecue saw in my hands, like and see the cheat sheet.
So I was telling tree fucking jokes to Amanda's friends, and then I
was telling architecture jokes to you guys. Nobody was laughing. Yeah. I
blame it entirely on the cheat sheet, but it was fun. What else
you guys don't do anything? Do you have any travel coming up? I
know you do. Do you want to talk about it? Can you talk
about it? Where you going? I don't know if I can talk about
it. I don't know. Oh, yeah, you do have travel up,
but it's secret travel. Yeah, I think it might be secret,
but it is? Is that the one that I know about? Yeah?
You know about it? Honestly, Maybe we can't talk about it, but
I have gotten almost no details about it except while we were there. Oh,
where it is and what it's Yeah, okay, I know that one.
I don't know if you could talk about that. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. So Mike, why don't you know whether or
not Jake can talk about his secret travel because I got invited to the same
thing, but I like I turned it down for several reasons. But Dan
and Jake are going to it. I didn't get any follow ups to say,
yes, you can tell people while you're doing this. Something tells me
you probably can't because then other press members. I think generally PR does not
like you to talk about it because then other press members can get offended that
they weren't invited to this. That makes sense. I'm offended that I'm not
allowed to go, and I don't even know what it is. I'm going
as you do. We talked about it. No I've forgotten. I don't
know. I'm not saying you're remembered, but we told you so many We
had a whole conversation. I have no memory of those you're at You were
admins, pac Man drooling. I leave for uh Paris in just a few
days, Sunshine State. That would be fun. I'm never asing no one.
I fucking love Paris. You know who should I What should I know?
Who? Have you been there with? Mike? Jakie over here?
Jakie has been to Paris. Make sure to get two giant beers and walk
along the river and hold them both four four. Yeah, you gotta give
two for you, two for someone else, um, because if you have
any less, it's just not the same. Yeah. The first time,
the things to know, I was worried that people would be dicks to us
as Americans. People are always nice to me in France. I don't know
why. I'm there's always like different advice. It's like, try to speak
French so they know you're trying, and then they'll just like be like we
could speak English. But in my experience in Paris, it's like, don't
even try. They'll that'll insult them more if you don't speak French. Well,
so I was just like, hey, I'm I'm. I don't speak
what you're speaking. I know the basic phrases in there. That's cool.
What do you what do you want? What are you up to? And
what do they say that in English? Oh yeah, I means like if
you're at a restaurant, they all speak English. It's take advantage of the
open container law on the river for sure, or the lack of an open
container law. Like Jake and I are we were there shooting it? What
were we shooting Rainbow six documentary thing. Our second night there, we just
needed a ton of like nighttime b roule of Paris. So I was like,
all right, I'll go get beers. And I went into this cafe
and one of their like basic beers that's everywhere is Cronenberg sixteen sixty six,
eighteen eighty six, something like that, and I was like, can I
have two Cronenberg's And he's like, sure, you were with someone else,
right, I was like, yeah, just two Cronenbergs please, and like
they took that as two each and the only contain It was a nice place,
and I was surprised because the only containers they had for to go drinks
were like big gulp size, Like they were big gulps the cups you get
at gas stations, and I don't know why this nice restaurant had only those.
So and keep mind, Jake had a fairly sizeable camera on him to
get all the b roll. So we're like strolling along the river and at
certain points I was like cradling three of these big gulps of beer as we
walked so Jake could get the b roll. But then once we were done,
it was very nice weather this time of year will be gorgeous, not
too hot. July gets hot there sometimes, I bet I will. I
have no real understanding of Paris because I'm not very world traveled. Every time
I've ever gone overseas it's been for work for game Spot. I was very
fortunate to be able to go to Tokyo Game Show than for Twitch I went
to Germany in Amsterdam. I really don't get to do these things on my
own, so I don't know a lot about the environment. And I'm also
not a very good travel planner. You know people who are like I have
an agenda and an itinerary and we're going to do this at nine am.
I don't do that shit. I get a plane and hope for the best.
And so this is really out of my element and I haven't done enough
research. So my plan is to get obviously, lots of food and you
know, croissants and things and chocolate. I heard chocolate's really good there.
That's it. I don't really have a lot of plan. Yeah, I
mean this is since you've never been. This is kind of cliche, but
I think it's worth going to the Eiffel Tower. But do it at night
and wait and there's like just people selling beer there. Usually especially during the
summer. They're just hanging out that you can just give them like two years
and they'll give you a beer. And it's kind of cool to just like
sit on the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower and drink a beer.
Drinking a beer, what's the tipping zitch for those beers. There's no tipping
the general they they treat their servers like people there. Interesting, yeah,
yeah, but I agree. I was actually gonna say, if you're gonna
do like one touristy thing, do the lawn in front of the Eiffel Tower
go at like eight thirty, because I think it's like I forget the times.
I think it's ten and eleven. There's it lights up with like the
light show. But yeah, people just carry these tin buckets around. Then
you can buy beers from them. I will say it is a very good
city to not have a plan in because you can just wander around, find
this random cafe, sit on the street, people watch, get really good
coffee. It's my favorite thing we did in Amsterdam was dink around and find
a cafe and be like, all right, we're ordering meat and cheese.
And bread and booze, and we're gonna look at humans one o one thing
as like a danger. The airport is set up such if you're taking a
taxi from the airport to wherever you're staying. Many of the many of the
taxi ports, like next to the arrivals section, you stand in a line
and wait for the next taxi. If someone comes up to you and on
the other side of these like glass panes or whatever and is trying to like
say, hey, come come in my car or whatever. Those are like
the black cabs they're called, and those they'll they won't tell you that they're
going to charge you like three hundred euro until you're in Paris. They're kind
of like they will prey on you. So no, just get in the
line, wait for the actual yellow taxis there fox. One time in San
Diego, I made a mistake. It was right after I had finished working
and I was going to a bar that I couldn't walk to. I needed
to travel quicker, and one of those rickshaw biker guys came by and was
like, you want to get in this in this easy device and I'll ride
you there real quick. And I was like yeah, and I just without
questioning it and without asking him how much it costs. I got in that
goddamn contraption, and I would say, like halfway there, I was like,
there's no meter and there's no way to determine how much you're charging me.
He arrived, he was like, that will be eighty dollars. It
was like ten blocks at that point. Oh my god. You could just
be like fuck you, here's twenty and they'll be like all right. So
vulnerable, I just gave him the money. I was a couple of months
ago and we had just been on the train for hours and hours and hours
and we're just trying to get to our airbnb. So we walked off the
train station is Rome. It was the Grand Central station whatever, the big
station in the center, and we walk out and we're waiting for these cabs
and just no one's helping us, Like everyone is just they have a schedule
and we're just not in the schedule. So we're just standing there and this
guy comes up and he's like he's like, hey, where are you getting?
And I was like, oh, right here. He didn't speak English,
he spoke he spoke Spanish, and I know a little bit Spanish.
And Callie, my partner, also knew some Spanish too, so we're able
to like tell him here's where we're going. He was like, he's like,
oh, I got a cab. Do you want to ride? We
were like, sure, let's do it. We're with a couple other people
and he takes us out to the parking lot and then pass the parking lot,
and then even further and even further, and we're carrying all this luggage
and I was like, oh my god, what the fuck have we done?
Keep going, keep going, And finally we get to this the shittiest
look in Toyota I think I've ever seen pops the trunk and he's like,
all throw your stuff in. And it was me, Kellie and two of
my friends, and we're just like, all right, we're here. Throw
all the stuff in so much that it weighed the car down that it couldn't
go over any of the bumps. It was just scratching on the bottom.
They're like, oh god, it's gonna be good, and he starts driving
us there. In the entire time, I'm like, what the fuck have
I done? Like this is so stupid. So I have the I have
the destination on my map up and I'm following every turn he makes, just
in case, and I'm texting my friend in the back, who's another tall
dude, and it's like, Okay, if he makes a wrong turn,
I'm gonna like knee him in the neck and then turn off the ignition.
We're just gonna get out and run. And he's like, yeah, I'll
strangle him from behind. And we're getting there and all of a sudden,
we haven't said anything. Then all of a sudden, he's just like,
hey, do you guys like music. I'm like sure, and then he
just turns on this album that he wrote himself entirely, and it is so
bad. Listen to it for like the twenty minute drive. And we get
there. We're like, come a shoot, and he's like, I just
fifteen euro and I was like, oh my god, this guy didn't kill
us. All we had to do is listen to his music. And and
so I was like, I'm gonna give him extra because fifteen seems pretty cheap
for this, and he didn't kill us, So I gave him. So
I gave him like thirty or forty or something like that, and he's like,
oh, here, I'll give you CDs too, and I was like,
no, no, no, I don't want the CDs. Just let
I'll pay you more if you don't give me CDs. But yeah, it
gave me faith in humanity a little bit, because every time I've traveled anywhere,
everyone, especially outside of the United States, everyone's like, only take
official cabs. You should still do that. I do not recommend taking non
official cabs. No, however, you were risky, very risky, very
lucky. But he turned out to just be a nice Italian man who wanted
He was clearly trying to hustle his soundtrack, which were trying to get people
to listen to it. We were American. He probably thought we were,
like, I don't know, had connections to Hollywood or something like that,
because they're from California. I was like, listen like it. I'm like,
no, you can't play guitar for ship, but damn can he drive
a mean taxi? Yeah? And we grinded every speed bump on the way.
He can't keep a tune, but his prices are reasonable. Did you
what do you think of Rome? I have a friend who went for the
first time, like recently on his honeymoon. It was beautiful a friend and
Rachel Hi, Rachel Hi, Rachel Hi Hi rouch Okay, Um, how
would you think of Room? It is great. I liked it a lot.
It is it is a big city, so it can be tough to
get around if you don't want to use public transit, and the public transit's
decent, but it's it can be kind of a pain to navigate, just
because there's so many fucking people and the streets are so tiny depending on where
you are in the city, and there's so many tourist attractions that like,
certain pockets of the city are just packed, but there's a lot of really
cool stuff. Like Mary, I know you're going for a couple of days
right to room. No, you are thinking of a list. So I'm
going home. So I have a strict one one to two weeks away from
my dog requirement and I just can't leave him for any more than that,
So I won't be going. I will be going to the Amalfi Coast,
which I don't know that much about that either, but apparently that is a
coast in Italy. Pretty um, Czechoslovakia, did you make a money gesture?
Okay, yeah, I don't think I'll be there for very long,
and then I go home, So that's it for me. I will probably
do a classic staycation, which is where I just sit in my house and
decompress after an enormous amount of work has been completed and just and just like
lay there with my dog, which is my favorite thing to do. Quite
frankly, if I could take my dog to the Amalfi Coast, I would
do it. He'd enjoy it. I'm sure wouldn't. I wouldn't. He
would spart it up. Yeah, he would have such a good time.
Mafis would not be a destination after Seaman comes so far. He'd be like
Laura, but he's just bark. He thinks that's what he's saying. But
he's just like wow, wow, he's just yelling at people. Got joint
bat, babe please, and then each woo like here's here's dog food.
He deserves to see the coast. He loves the beach. Most dogs love
the beach. They get to run with the sand between their paws. It's
so cute. Does he like the water, No, he won't touch the
water. But my favorite he plays his game where he runs to sniff Poseidon's
ass and then as the waves come in, he sprints back as suit as
quick as possible. He never lets the water even touch him, but come
wants to be in there, come back. Whatever it goes out and then
it comes back in. This is crazy, mom. So do you guys
prefer like a vacation that's like, go, go go seeing all this shit
or do you prefer a relaxing one where you're not doing a whole lot relaxing
us I usually try depending on how long I'm somewhere. I like like a
day of touristy stuff the rest, Like I've been in Paris, I already
said I've been three times. Like when we went to Osaka, I went
with two more and that was pretty fun because I actually really like work trips
because I feel like I've earned the vacation after I do those like two or
three days of work, and then the rest of the time I get to
hang out. But we did some touristy stuff we went to like Osaka Castle,
but there was another day where we just kind of wandered the alleys of
Osaka and the canals and whatnot, popped in a random places that looked like
that good food. Because yeah, I can't I can't do like if I
can't go places where someone's like, here's your here's our tinerary, and like,
yeah, this sucks. Like sure, if we have reservations somewhere on
X day and then we want to go to the Eiffel Tower lawn on why,
Like sure, let's do that. But by and large, I like
to just kind of wander and explore. I have a loose itinerary that you
can deviate from. Yeah, I agree, I'm with you. It's very
rare that I make any plans ever. And on top of that, my
favorite, most incredible memories traveling of all time are the things that happened that
I did not predict, that happened because I was walking the streets a little
drunk. And those are the memories that I treasure and keep in my heart.
When I went to TGS for the first time, Peter Brown was working
at Game Spot. We walked those streets for like four hours us one night
until like the crack of dawn, and we loved it and we just walked
around looking at like the streets, drinking. It was great. I'll never
forget it. It's a core memory for me. That's like literally last weekend
we the garage was decked out with like seven or eight really nice bikes,
like several of them were like brand new. And then one day while we
were like, some people were napping. I'm not a nap person, and
a lot of but a lot of people like need to get away and get
to their go to their bedroom that they had and then napped for a bit.
I'm like, all right, cool, now I'll swim for a bit.
Or I was like, oh, people are going on a bike ride,
let's go. And we weren't in a rural area, but it also
wasn't quite the suburbs. I mean it was we were fairly close to beaches.
It was more like this heavily wooded, very nice house area with like
acres for lawns, and you two were there. We went we randomly was
like, oh, that's one's bike ride. So like six of us on
this, like after this fog had descended for the night, went on this
bike ride and it was very Stranger Things esque. And then my two friends
who had done some exploring the day before, led us to this like murder
bike path, like the bare minimum of what it consists of a trail in
the woods, and then we come out and all of a sudden there's this
combination pharmacy, pizza parlor, Delhi bodega, and we all like that.
We all like, we all like, you know, like did the skid
break in the parking lot right next to a motorcycle because we were cool.
And Mary goes in and goes to buy beers and gets warm Modelos and he's
like, you can't really drink those in the park or she you were like,
do you have a bottle open or so you can't drink them in the
parking lot. Or here, here's some brown bags. There's like six of
us drinking Modelos out of brown bags on bicycles and so funny. One of
my most my favorite, that'll be like the one of the core memories of
the trip for sure. That was really lovely. We had a really good
time and it was good like how cool people were with doing doing things that
you can't plan and that didn't go exactly according to plan either, right,
like the fact that I ran in there hoping that he would have beer,
and as the door was closing, you were like, I'll drink a madello
And so I went to the fridge and grabbed Madelo's and immediately recognize that they
were not cold, but I was like, whatever, I'm here, I'm
not going to do anything about it. Uh, and then making sure that
we could legally drinks even fairly drunk at that point because they seemed pretty cold
when I had it. I didn't even think about it. I just it
might I just probably just put them in there. Yeah. It was fun
though, But yeah, I think I think you'll like Paris. It's an
easy city to just kind of wander in and find a really I mean,
you can find very bad restaurants for sure. Yeah. I think the worst
meal I've ever had was that place we went to on the North Bank,
which was just awful. It was the worst steak worst with me and oh
yeah, it was like because you were there a day before me, or
like a half day before me, so you weren't not jet lagged, but
you like I had just got there at eight in the morning, which California
time, that's midnight the night before depending on the time of year. So
I'm just an extremely jet lagged and I was like, yeah, let's just
go to this place. It looks good, get steak and eggs. It
was awful. We didn't realize we were at like the center of the shitty
tourists mecca. And then the next I think the next night I had like
one of the best meals in a long time. Oh was that the one
where we all went out in Paris? Oh? I thought it was your
bachelor party. I wasn't there. The food there was really good. Um.
Oh yeah? What was that bookstore that we were at, because that's
that's a pretty cool spot. Even if I don't know, you don't plan
on getting books that, it's still cool checking out. It's like what three
levels of books and there's a bunch of cats that live there and Shakespearean Company
Shakespeare comes. Yeah, there's a cat literally on a hot tin roof and
he's big, and there's a sign that says please don't pet him, he
doesn't like it, just enjoy him from a distance. That's that's like a
fun tourist the area though, because what's the Musee Dorsay is right next to
it, which is a very good museum. If you're not feeling the louver,
go see a lot of vango over at muz Dorsay. In the winery
that we went to, uh for your bachelor party, there were goats,
and there was lama. Sure, there was like eight signs on the fence
saying do not put your fingers in this fence. They will bite you.
And it said it in different ways. Don't pet them, they'll bite you.
Don't look at them, they'll bite you. Don't come over here.
God damn it. And it's just like how many Dunken winery people stuck their
fingies in that fence, probably a decent amount. I think the lama could
lama bite your finger off. I think they could do any damage. Yeah,
I know horses can't like if you feed them, like if you don't
feed them with a flat palm, they can like think it's a carrot and
bite your fingers off. Oh yeah, I could see horses wrecking your philanges,
see crocodiles wrecking everything. That's why I don't go near those things.
So I don't go to Florida. I've been to Florida. It was fun.
Florida. I hardly Noah, I know the last thing. Yeah,
well, you're in Paris, Mary. If there's if there are any museums
or anything you want to go to, book tickets now to go there,
because if you try to do it like two days before you won't be able
to pretty much all of Europe after COVID, like all that touristy stuff.
You have to get tickets beforehand. Um, like when I was in the
nether I don't know, maybe you guys experience in the Netherlands, but we
tried to go to the reichs Museum in the Netherlands, and like we just
couldn't because like we had to just pay out the ass for like under the
table tickets because you have to get them in advance and they sell it super
quick. So if you want to go to the Louver or like some other
museum that has a lot of people, I would get those in advance.
If you don't care, though, you'll be fine. I don't, but
I really appreciate your warning because maybe someone in my group will and I'll carry
that information forward. But like I am, I'm not anti museum. I
will go and I will observe those paintings with great interest. But I would
also just be happy sitting on some grass and recognizing the fact that I'm in
a place that I never thought I would be in my life. And I
think that really kind of the most exciting thing is just kind of reflecting and
thinking, Wow, I can't believe I'm sitting here so weird. How weird?
Got you? The left bank? You know me? It's the one
that has the locks on the um fence where all the lovers put their locks
so that they stay in love forever, or those are like everywhere. Yeah,
I think you're you're probably thinking of the little walking bridge over the Rhine.
The Rhine and co had like a lock thing going it probably does.
They might. They might have like a big famous one, but you can
find them everywhere. It turns out it doesn't work. There's some on the
waterfront here. My hobby is going to the waterfront and my partner just shotting
them down. Isn't real? Yes it is. Let's do it is the
only way I can get off if I'm cutting love, Yeah, ruining mementos,
Yeah, parents will be fun. Report back in three weeks, two
weeks, money back. Yeah. I'll tick the next episode off because I
won't be back in time, but I'll be back for the next episode.
Last question, do you guys have any big Independence Day? It will so
if you're The episode has gone up on July third, but so it's technically
the long weekend in America. Did you, guys, are you doing anything
fun? Do you have plans just hanging out, relaxing. I'll be on
a plane going to an undisclosed location, full circles. I yeah, I
definitely won't be in America, so it'll be weird. I think. Um,
I think I'll genuinely be in Disneyland. Well, I don't know what
it's called Disney Frans France, bonjeur, mickey, They're gonna kick me out.
I ever tell you, guys, when I was in Japan, I
was such a fucking idiot because I'm just a stupid kid, and I never
thought i'd travel internationally, so I don't deserve to be in these places.
And I just instinctively act regular in these places that I shouldn't. And I
remember being told, like, you never go first into a restaurant. You
go in first and like get us a table. And I was like,
fine, I'll go first. And I walk in and I pushed the door
like you would push any door in America. And it's those sliding doors,
and I pushed the door off of its track and it falls down and slams
on the ground. Wait, you actually like knocked a wall down. Basically
I knocked the door off the track and then down, and the lady like
the whole restaurant kind of like stops in Japan, just this white girl out,
go away if we turn around, and I was like, you guys
be first. That was my turn, go back in with a mustache.
I'm not doing this again. This woman, this woman from Ohio, I
just barreled through our wall. And the worst part is is that was like
it happened again later in the Triphus in a while. I pushed it and
it didn't I didn't knock it fully off, but I it made that like
dong dongongo, because it was like it's on a slider. It's not supposed
to be pushed. And they yelled at me too and told me to get
out, so like, I don't like to be first. That's why somebody
else to go. I will watch what you do, and I will step
in your footsteps, and I will order what you order it. I will
be a learned creature in this land. I do not belong here. I
don't. I'm trying to think if I've like really embarrassed myself overseas um also
in Japan. Once I ordered a dish because I couldn't read the menu and
they didn't give me an English menu, and I ordered. I ordered a
skewer of cheese and I ate it and paid my bill and left, and
then I went to bed hungry. Just say it was just several pieces of
cheese on a secure It wasn't a lot of cheese either. Just points to
something on the menu and I thought it was some meal. Just point to
the thing on the menu. Not eating your cheese stick and going to bed
smelling of cheese and regrets. I actually he had some apples and I ate
an apple my first time flying overseas. Uh. The game Spot UK crew
knew I was terrified of snakes, so they convinced me that it's a thing
in London that there are just a lot of snakes in the underground, in
the tunnels. So they told me there were tunnel snakes. And I was
actually like, genuinely, when I was waiting for the train, I would
be kind of like away from the edge of the point about it. I
don't want snakes. And then uh to more and I think he'll remember this.
We were up at the like penthouse bar in this in our hotel in
Osaka, and at this point the trip, I was just so tired and
I was you both know that I'm desperately always trying to make the people around
me laugh, so this guy and it doesn't always work. But the host
comes up and give us to More and I hot towels each and then he
walks away. And so just to message to More, I leaned back on
the couch and just like drop the towel on my face. I know that's
not what you're supposed to do. But the host came back and looked at
me. He is like, what the fuck is this guy doing? Is
this guy from Syracuse get out of here. You're embarrassing us, But like
accidentally embarrassed. I don't. I don't know that I have. I am
a walking embarrassment. I would be embarrassed if I did it now maybe,
But when I was a kid, my dad's a teacher, and during summer
vacation, he'd always take students to Europe. So that's how I got to
like see a bunch of these places. But when I was a kid,
we went to the coliseum and I really really had to pee, and there's
not a lot of like public restrooms in Europe usually have to pay and they're
hard to find. So my dad walked up to a police officer and he's
like, hey, my son has to pee, where should he go?
And he just looked at the coliseum and he's like telling the pe on the
coliseum. So I pete on the call of seum as a kid. Oh
my god, I had thought nothing of it, but now I'd be like
terrified if I ever did something like that. You get a police officer.
Was the police police officer serious or just joking like telling you? I mean,
my dad at the conversation with him, he said, he said,
Dad, just go pee on the colliseum, go over there. And I
don't think you could do that now because they're like a bajillion people every day
who go to the coliseum and every single side of that is monitored. But
for a while, like I don't know, it'll just didn't care all that
much. Um, I want to go there. I want to go there.
Back then, yeah, well apparently the coliseum there used to be a
round about. There was like no tourist thing like in the eighties, like
not even that long ago. It was just a fucking roundabout that went around
the colosseum, and people would just it was just the middle of normal traffic
circuit and they and they got rid of that because they were like, oh
shit, we could probably make a lot of money off this, and it
might be important to our history. Maybe maybe what's the closest thing we have
to a colosseum in the middle of a round about? Honestly, you know
what we have is in New York. There's like certain taverns that were here
from like when George Washington was commanding the Revolutionary War. Have I taken you
guys there to Francis No, we've got stuff like that, and that's just
across from the office. But they've refurbished it after for like three hundred years.
Obviously Coliseum is much much, much older than that, But that's America.
I guess we're only we're not even three hundred years old. We'll be
alive for the tri centennial hopefully, will Yeah fifty you guys, fifty years.
I'll be eighty now I'll have died an explosion by then. Yeah.
I was gonna say, I'll have rigged your car with C four at that
point and you would have exploded sick. I do want to die in an
explosion. Yeah, I'm just helping you. You've said that, we'll make
it happen. Speaking of, do you guys want to talk about video games?
What kind of transition is that? I almost made a very importan taste
joke. Let's talk about video games instead. What is the joke? No,
I forgot it already. No you didn't, Yes, I did.
Don't do this. Every time you do this, I say something that No,
don't cut it. I forgot with the joke. Say this is a
bad radio. I'm not gonna say it. I'm not doing it. I'm
not doing it. Let's go. Let's talk about video games. Okay,
I was gonna say, I was gonna say, speaking of speaking of,
it's not even a funny joke. It's just like making light of a just
bringing up news of like oh good point. Yeah, yeah, okay,
Jake, it's your time to blow our minds with the games you've been playing,
because nobody, well that's not true. People probably know, but technically
you have not set on fire Escape before? What games you've been playing?
I haven't played a few things, all things I actually really like, but
I would say probably the big one that I don't think any of you have
played or have any interest in playing that. I imagine a good amount of
the listeners play is Final Fantasy sixteen. Yeah, I do want to play
it because the DMC lead designer moved over and I heard the stories actually kind
of like fun, if not good like dumb fun. It's very compelling.
I think it has moments that are very good. It's I like the tone.
The characters are, for the most part, very well fleshed out.
Obviously, it looks really good. There's a lot of production value in those
cut scenes. But then yeah, like you said, the combat itself is
also really flashy and fun, and it feels very fast and frenetic. I'm
also someone who has not played any Final Fantasy games apart from like a little
bit of fourteen. I played seven remake, which like I enjoyed, but
I never really got super invested in and this so, like, I don't
really have preconceived notions of what a Final Fantasy game is and isn't, which
I know is kind of the conversation right now. But I think it's great.
I think there's a lot to nitpick, but I think overall, I
think it's really impressive. Like I said, combat's great, but I'm super
into the story. It's not perfect it there's a lot of lulls. There's
a lot of weird pacing issues, particularly with side quests, but yeah,
it is. It is a roller coaster. I'm quite enjoying it. One
of the pacing issues with side quests, what do you mean? They're just
not good and the game like you'll do like a couple of yeah, you'll
do a couple of story missions, and the game would just be like,
Okay, now here's three side quests. All the side quests. I used
to think most of the side quests are timed and that if you don't finish
them in this window, they disappear. Some side quests unlock new features,
like you have to do a side quest to get a choke about to ride
or whatever, which I'd argue is pretty important, but the actual quest itself
is pretty dull. So there's this sort of I feel obligated to do all
these quests even though I know they're pretty dull, and like, sometimes you
want lock like new like accessories for your character, but the RPG systems are
pretty thin, so it's like, I don't really know why I need this
stuff. Maybe if I was playing on a harder difficulty, I could see
the use. But even then, like, and also just the production value
on these side quests drops a ton, Like, you know, you've got
these beautiful cut scenes where characters are like fully animated, and the lighting and
graphics and all this stuff looks great, and then you get to these very
stiff side quest cut scenes where the characters aren't moving except for their lips and
their eyes look dead, and it just feels super out of place. I
think it's mostly just there because it's a final fantasy game and people would be
pissed if there's no side quests. But to be honest, I would have
been totally fine if they were just like, yeah, chopping all these side
quests out. What are you thinking? What do you think about the Game
of Thrones comparisons, or like is the game trying way too hard? Yeah?
I heard about this, and I just want like, in case other
people haven't heard about this, I just heard about it from you guys talking
about it earlier. Which is is that like the main story is essentially a
character from Game of Thrones, and then it even has like tie ins to
the Red Wedding and other things and it feels very much like they ripped it.
Is that true or is that just people people chatting The director like openly
admitted openly said he made the entire staff like watch Game of Thrones before they
got they've gotten to the nitty gritty of development. I don't know if i'd
say that they ripped it. It is definitely heavily inspired and influenced by Game
of Thrones. There are scenes that are reminiscent of the Red Wedding. There
are characters that kind of seem like they could easily fit in Game of Thrones.
But I do think that the world itself that they've created feels pretty unique.
It doesn't feel like a rip off of Game of Thrones by any stretch.
For like, it is way more fantastical than Game of Thrones. Like
Game of Thrones, yeah, has like dragons and stuff, but this has
a bunch of final fantasy shit like summons or icons as they're called. In
this game. Everyone's casting spells, and there's giant crystals because of course there's
giant crystals. There's got to be giant crystals and stuff. Um. But
but I think like the way they've woven that fantastical stuff into this sort of
more grounded universe I think works really well. But but but yeah, I
definitely see the comparison. I think, once again, as someone who doesn't
really play Final Fantasy and I don't really have a whole lot to compare it
to other than seven and fourteen, I think there's gonna be people who aren't
gonna like this game, people who probably have no interest because tonally it is
pretty dark. It can be like brooding and at times to the point where
it's almost a little it's almost a little too much. But personally I'm super
invested. I'm going to finish it. But yeah, I don't know.
I would say this has inspired me to go back and play Final Fantasy games
more than seven did by any stretch. And I know people loved seven,
and I get it, but seven for me was a little like tonally,
it just kind of felt all over the place for me, where it was
just kind of like, oh, here we're gonna have like a awkward dating
scene, and then we're gonna have some comedy thrown in there, and now
there's going to be a melodramatic scene, and then like some of the writing
was super on the nose. I felt in remake, and this feels like
a a very talented writing team kind of like took this on. But like
I said, there are moments like there's a side quest where like you go
to this area where they really don't like bearers, which are the people who
cast spells essentially, and they're supposed to be like really quote unquote racist to
these bearers, And you do these side quests that are just so like brutally
evil on the nose, like almost cert that it's like, Okay, this
is just here to be like, yeah, this is a very serious dark
game, and it's like there's so many better ways that could have approached these
darker themes. At times, I would say, do you think you go
back to like six? I actually want to go back to six, I
think. In particular, so a friend of mine, John Luke, was
saying that who were the game spot was saying that I should try out nine,
And I tried out nine. I didn't like it because a little too
whimsical, but I was looking into it, and I was talking to you
this weekend, Mike, and you're saying six is really good, and I
think like coming from sixteen, it sounds like six might be a good stepping
stone potentially. Maybe I don't know. Yeah, I have not played it
in a while. I love the game, but it's funny. You could
see my seest classic right there. I'm playing Link to the Past for a
Zelda thing at work, but I like it quite a bit. I will
say it's did you play Corona Trigger? I did play Corona Trigger. Yeah.
Corona Trigger had those certain spots where you could really get stuck, yeah,
like not know exactly where to go. I think they kind of wanted
that to happen back then more often. Six definitely does that as well.
And I also don't know how well this combat and six holds up. I
think it all holds up fairly well. So yeah, i'd say try that
out, or twelve Zodiac Age if you have that. So it's also actually
started that because I was playing nine and I was like, I don't think
this is for me, and I switched to twelve because a lot of people
said. Bianca Bonk, who was at the Bachelor Bachhotut party, was saying,
oh, you might like twelve. So I installed that and was playing
on the plane. I'm definitely more interested in that. But the voice acting
in that game is pretty bad, at least the English voice acting. I
started that back when I was a game spot and I liked you could program
the characters to just play for you, And in my head, I'm like,
that's fucking stupid. I play game, want to be controlling the action,
but at a certain point, when you're grinding, it's actually kind of
rewarding to program them in a way that they're just like smowing through enemies,
Like it's you're basically setting up like what do you want to call it?
I t T kind of like very basic programming, which is fun. Which
one is? Well, I'm trying to think is it ten? I think
it's ten that I've never played, which is ironic because I really like The
Lord of the Rings the third age, which is kind of laughed at as
how much I want to look this up after it and when I'm done talking,
because I'm it's like just a clear Lord of the Rings rip off of
a Final Fantasy game, and I think it's ten. Like skills combat work
the exact same, like some of the attacks are like one to one,
and I want to play that at some point, but I forget which one
nine was, Like what is Who's what's going on there? Nine was the
last of like the PlayStation trilogy apparently, and it was like more of a
returned to form. I guess it was more like Fantasy focused, because I
know seven and eight were kind of weird. Um, but the main character
has like a tail, and he talks about like how he wants to date
girls all the time and stuff. I'm just like, all right, this
is the combat, okay, yeah this look. I've never played nine.
I think it's got to be Final Fantasy ten that I'm thinking of. It's
Final Fantasy ten. And I I love Lord of the Rings a third Age.
I don't know why, Like I really don't. It's it's it's a
bad Lord of the Rings game too, but I just have such a soft
spot in my heart for it. It was I didn't I never used to
like turn based games, which is funny knowing how my tasting games now.
But when I was young, I was genuinely bummed out I got Third the
Third Age with for Christmas. My grandpa would give us money to go get
whatever we wanted, and like he gave me like fifty bucks, So I
was like, okay, that's that's back then. That was a Deo game,
so rich, nice Grandpa, you got there? Can I get one
of those? I got a book every year, But I would have liked
that too, But I got Um. I got the Third Age, and
I remember like that was my first brush with what do you want to call
it? Um buyers Justification or what is it called? Like I like forced
myself to like it because I had spent money on it. Something like that.
Yeah, there's probably a phrase I'm for calling. It's called cognitive dissonance.
Yeah that too. But I had no idea the game was turn based.
I was coming from Return of the King, the the PS two UM
the EA game that they made that was actually really good. I was like,
oh, Third Age just looks sick. New characters they're following, the
Fellowship is sick. I was like, oh, fuck me, it's turn
based. I hate this ship. And then years later it became it's funny.
It's like one of the I haven't played in a while. Maybe it
is good, but I don't think it is. I want to play it
again. I've been meaning to battle. Middle two is the best Lord of
the Rings game. Actually, I think Gallum's the best Lord of the Rings
game. Everybody's talking about it. I have been playing some weird games.
I've done a few like preview kind of hands on demos for work that I'll
be able to publish next week and talk more about next week. But I
a like I mentioned, I've been playing Link to the Past again. Games
still real good. I'm playing on this Nest Classic. I was like,
I could have played it on the Switch with Nintendo Switch Online, but I
wanted to bust out my UK version, the better looking Super Nintendo in my
opinion, I have that one too. Yeah, thanks to Tamore who got
it for me when there was a shortage. Linked to the Past is still
really good. I don't know if you guys know this. You have you
heard Linked the Past is a good game. I don't have much to say
yet that I haven't said before. I will say that, as I was
first playing during the review period, Tears the Kingdom, the first time you
get kind of the feeling that there's a big world beneath you, and then
you dive into the depths. The depths, to me, are kind of
making good on the promise of a dark world that Linked the Past introduced like
Linked to the Past did the dark World obviously Ocarine of Time did the Adult
World. It's not the first time anybody's done it, but the fact that
like it actually is organically layered beneath the world that you're in the whole time
feels to me like the culmination of the idea they started with linked to the
Past back in fucking nineteen ninety one. So it's funny playing that because I
just got to the Dark World this morning, And the more I'm playing that,
the more I'm like, it's so funny to see how many ideas they
explored in previous Zelda games that they then used, I would argue more organically.
And Tears of the Kingdom, it's like Tiers the Kingdom is side quest,
the game that's kind of ma Jora's Mask obviously sands the whole time loop
mechanic. Then you got like this dark world element. You've got Skyward Sword
for obvious reasons, above the surface. U I the more, and like
I played, what else did I play? I was playing Minish cap on
my What the hell is it called? The pocket? Not the pocket?
A log pocket? And is it analot pocket? I don't know, is
that what you're playing it on? Yeah? God, dude, I'm so
tired today. It's the Yeah, Analot Pocket and I was playing the Minish
cap on that because I owned the cartridge, so I busted out my cartridge
to legally play Minish Cap on my Analot Pocket and same thing there. Like,
the more I'm playing these other Zelda games again for these stories were writing
for Polygon, We're doing retrospectives on all of them, the more I'm like,
God's Here's the Kingdom? Really they like it feels like they look back
at the rest of the series and like, what can we poach steal from
all those and just do really really well here? Um so, which is
just making me appreciate Tears the Kingdom all the more even when I'm not playing
it. But I hate to ask this, but where would you say Tears
of the Kingdom ranks for you? Because I know you're a big zell,
the guy you've played all of them, Like, is this like top ten,
top five? And let's keep in mind that this guy put Major's Mask
first. Yeah, my favorite. Yeah, that's correct. I don't know
if I put it first, but top five for sure. Tears the Kingdoms
definitely. I don't know because it's funny. I've been saying this, I
think, coming off it recently. I think Tears the Kingdom is a better
game than Breath of the Wild in like ten years. I don't know that
that's going to hold up. If I go back to them, I already
will confidently say it's no near as important as Breath of the Wild. We've
talked about that before on fire Escape. Now that I've gotten some distance from
Tears of the Kingdom, I still think it's a better game than Breath of
the Wild. And I think Breath of the Wild still very much was this
overture kind of introduction to Tears the Kingdom. In retrospect, I do think
there might be a point in my life in the future where, like Breath
of the Wild's reservations, I might appreciate them more when they didn't just go
fucking all out with all these things. But Tears of the Kingdom's frob definitely
top five for me. It's majora ocarina linked to the past surprises all around.
I know, I really really like like the underrated Zella game to me,
and I don't know that it's underrated. I'd say overlooked as minished cap
and I really like they're one game, but I really like Capcom's Oracle games.
I like Oracle of Ages. Okay, give us your top five.
Oh, God, Linked to the Past is probably number one. I feel
like it changes, but I always go back to that number one. Uh
probably Offering enough Time would be number two. Maybe Tears of the Kingdom three,
Uh likest top three? Oh yeah, Win win Waker, Win Waker's
top five. For me, it wouldn't go past three because I think it's
got problems, but it's good. It's probably four for me, um and
five Win Waker for me. I've always appreciated the hell out of and I
like it something and I again, and I haven't played this in like four
years. Something about its tone always was a bit off putting to me.
It felt I just never found it like And to be clear, I didn't
really like Twilight Princess at first either, So I'm not like, oh,
it was too whimsical, Like I was all on board for them to do
that. I think it's just to me it felt a bit uncanny and like,
I feel as if they're going for this kind of more cartoonish vibe,
but it's also gets pretty grim at points, not that you can't do both.
Maybe I go back to them like, oh, they actually bounce it
really well, But at the time I remember, I'm like, okay,
cool, I'm on board. They're doing this cartoonish Zelda, which is really
ambitious, open world wise, and the WIU port definitely did what the three
DS port for Rocarina did, and it simplified a few of the overwrought mechanics
in the original game. But other times I'm like, man, this game
gets pretty grim with some of those side quests it does, and even how
it ends not to spoil it a fucking fifteen twenty year old game. I
will say Windwakers got the best Gannendorf though, like, oh fucking you can
spoil that sticks a sword through Gannendorff's head. I've blown away that that was
of what in an I rated game back then. But I think the Gannendorf
in that game is so good, especially because when you get to the end
and he basically says like I just I grew up in the desert and it
was miserable my entire life. I just wanted to feel the breeze, and
then you just fucking stick a sword in his head. Here's a breeze and
that you put it between his eyes. Uh yeah. But I also another
another game that I think is not over underrated. People love it, but
Link between world is fucking incredible. Oh yeah, Link between the Golds is
great. That game just felt off to me. I think, like as
a Zelda game, which is weird because you mean tonally not tonally. Just
like, I don't know, it really just confused me. I guess when
I was playing it where it was like you rent items, you don't actually
acquire items until later you can kind of like pick which dungeon and it may
sense that that was kind of a stepping stone towards the Breath of Wild Tears
of the Kingdom, But like at the time, I just don't think I
was ready for that, which is a game that I actually want to replay
now that I have done, you know, But Zelda, I feel like
it's like linked to the past. Link between Worlds was like kind of this
spiritual successor to Link to the past, except yeah, you could go in
any order, and then Breath of the Wild came along. But wait,
Mary, what are your top five? Um? I don't know if I'm
gonna have a good one, probably linked to the past. I have a
really good childhood connection too, so that's hard to pass up. Breath of
the Wild was that modern version of making me feel like a kid again.
Windwaker was very powerful for me. I had some weird ones I don't know
if, like Akarina's pretty important as well, and the one with the wolf,
Twilight Twilight Princess. I like Twilight Princess. That one's controversial. That's
why I would put it a fund like that one, so like it's fun.
Oh yeah, once you could freely transform, that was awesome. It's
super fun. And the Dungeons Twilight Princess or some of the best Dungeons series.
That was the first game I played a lot as a kid, though,
so I don't have that many childhood connections, like like you guys do.
Like I played most of them as an adult, you probably honestly have
a better outlook on them, more accurate than we do, or more less.
Although I've replayed most of them recently, but Twilight Princess to me replaying
it two years ago when I was young, it felt lonely and somber in
a good way, like, oh, this is what they're kind of going
for. As a reaction to Win Waker. Then I've replayed it recently and
I think the Wei I actually do not prefer the wiiuport. I would rather
play it on Well, I wouldn't rather take the Wii for it, but
I think I'd rather play it on GameCube. Something about upressing those environments made
them feel just empty. After I went back to play it, like they
looked so much better. But then I met like the four people that lived
in the village, and I was like, Okay, this feels this feels
off. But a game that I used to count among my top five is
one of my favorites was Links Awakening when I used to play it on game
Boy Color. Replaying it on Switch the obviously it's not just a port like
the remaster that they did in the like that Fisher Price looking style, which
I has kind of grown on me, that style, I don't. I
didn't realize how much I disliked almost every dungeon in that game. Like I
think people people like with those dungeons because they can get pretty brutal. Eagles
Tower stands out as one that people either love or hate. It's the one
where you're transporting those giant metal balls from floor to floor to put them on
the big switches, but you have to throw them through holes in the floor
on one and then go back down. And it's combining that. There's also
the switches that link to the past introduced where you're stepping on you're stepping on
a switch and it will raise those like traffic block things, but lower other
ones, the blue and red ones, that dungeon. I don't like those
switches and that dungeon just like those were it's bread and butter. And I
don't know, man, I couldn't do. And I love Links Awakening like
it's whole. It's based around gathering these instruments and the music is incredible.
But and I love how weird and dream. I mean it's literally a dream.
It's they Actually we had a thing that Grayson Morley, one of our
freelancers road it's like this game that we this story. We kind of Revere
or maybe some of us. Revere did the whole fucking it was all a
dream and it just got away with it because it was kind of good.
Twice they've done that twice. What was the second one? Is it was?
It? Spirit Tracks was one of the DS ones where like link falls
off a boat and hallucinates an entire game. I believe, Oh, it's
got to be Spirit Tracks. Yeah, because the Phantom Hourglass. He I
believe Phantom Hourglass was actually like a sequel ish to win Waker, one of
them, no, no, no, So I think this one was the
sequel to wind Waker, and then that would have been Phantom Hourglass. I
could be wrong. I thought for sure, there's like one ds is all
the game where link falls off. I think it's after um wind Waker,
and then it they like try to find land, link falls off a boat
and then hallucinates an entire thing, and then their Spirit Tracks, which takes
place like a hundred years in the future in that land that they found or
some Yeah. You might could be wrong, but I could have sworn they
they at least have done it twice. But I think it works much better
than Links Awakening, yeah, because it is just the surreal like magical realism
kind of Is that a fucking chain chomp or that's a goomba I see?
And then you go into these two d areas where it's just the dungeon or
the underground areas caverns from Super Mario Bros. And Capcom no less, but
I because, yeah, Links Awakening would have come out in ninety three,
so two years after the Japanese release of Linked to the Past or the Fam
or the super Famicom release rather. But I like those games quite a bit,
and the more I play them, the more I'm appreciating Tears of the
Kingdom from a distance, because I'm kind of I need distance from Tears of
the Kingdom for a while. I'm still actively playing it. I think everybody
at the bachelor party was playing it, which was pretty funny. We were
all kind of collectively enjoying Zelda and talking about where we were in this space.
And true to my form, I had done some of the dungeons backwards,
so I'm on the wind one where you're in the sky, which I
think a lot of people do first, and God did I get stuck.
I could not understand how to get in that building. I circled it like
six times. I finally figured it out, but holy shit, that dungeon
made me feel dumb. But the d it's once you solve it, it's
neat. But I didn't understand it, and I'm proud of myself for not
cheating and looking up like a guide or anything. I just suffered for like
forty minutes as I walked around trying to find everything. Something that I think
is interesting though, about like all these Zelda's is how how experimental they are,
And it just kind of feels like Zelda is to Nintendo what Half Life
is to Valve, where Valve would always say like, we make these games
so we can do weird shit and get away with it. We are trying
to push game design, and we do within this game because we can,
and people tend to enjoy it and want to see what's going on in this
space. And every Zelda game they are pushing something extraordinarily different and allowing their
users to push the boundaries of these games, and I'm extraordinarily impressed that they
keep consistently doing it. Every time they are making a new game, they
are trying something wildly unique the rental system, and you're talking about Jake like
that's it didn't carry on, But holy shit, they tried something I've never
heard of before and got away with it for that game. In particular,
What is is Zelda anymore is like significantly changing because at this point it's just
a big old experiment to them because the franchise will always do well and they
always make a polished product. So just trying out weird shit now. Yeah,
Seeing like some of the responses that Tears of the king like obviously it
was mostly positive, but like seeing a lot of people complaining about here is
the Kingdom and Breath Wild I always thought was kind of strange because the crux
the argument was always this isn't a Zelda game because there's not dungeons and you're
not getting key items, and it's like, well, I mean, part
of Zelda's DNA is the fact that it is changing, and I think the
fact that they changed this much, especially when it came to Breath of Wild
tis the Kingdom, I think is like almost the defining thing about Zelda games
now. And like you know, like even Tears of the Kingdom, like
I thought that game was going to be safe because it was like same location.
They showed the sky stuff and I was like, okay, cool,
and then when the pup that's great, yeah exactly, they just stretched it
out. And then when the previous go I was like, okay, this
seems different, and then actually playing it was like, oh, this game
is this game is completely not not completely, but it is like it does
so much different for something that looks so similar, and it's exciting. I'm
excited to see like whatever that team does, you know, And twelve years
whenever the next eld the game comes out, I did misspeak. By the
way, Links Awakening was not capcom minished CAP in the Oracle games were got
fucking stupid, Mike got fucking idiot. M Yeah, I'm I mean,
my fucking my favorite. It's funny because I had I did that interview I
talked about with A Numa and Fujibayashi, and I asked them, I was
like, do you think the comparisons to Majora's Mask? Had I played?
I had played hands on the game, so I knew like I had played
it. I was like, okay, do you think the comparisons to Majora's
Mask hold weight? And they were like in the sense that it's this follow
up to one of the most like gargantuanely popular games ever, and they're like,
no, not really. Alnuma, because he worked on Majora's Mask,
He's like, no, not really. Um. In fact, they're kind
of polar opposites. This is the game we had wanted to make some of
these ideas we had wanted to do with Breath of the Wild, we couldn't
just fit in, so now we had more time budget. Majora's Mask,
on the other hand, was like, we have a year to make a
game the most constraints possible. We need to figure out how to ring as
much as we can out of Acarina and maybe, sure, let's do something
weird with it. The time loop. We look at it's like that game
is just so for how weird and dreamlike and side quest laden and daring it
is. It's also just like one of the most genius things that's ever come
And whether you like it or not, it's still the fact that they like
implemented this never before done time loop mechanic in order to make more with such
a little space. Because you look at it, you can go across Majora's
Mask and like to get from the decou Swamp over to Great Bay. That's
not far. You've clockdowns the center. Obviously it's some stuff in between,
but it's really not big, but it feels big because you get the Hitman
clockwork sense of things progressing on the other side of the world, so it
actually feels as if people are going about their lives while you're racing against time
to finish this dungeon. My point being, I really love looking at those
Zelda games that were the weird little like they're almost bottle episodes for the series,
Like these economic constraints forced them to do something weird with lower budget in
a smaller setting, and that's my favorite games have come out of that.
I've soured on Links Awakening and recently, but I still appreciate the hell out
of it for it anybody else doesn't playing anything besides, Yeah, Jake,
you're playing something that I'm really curious about because one of the scariest games I've
ever played my entire life is Amnesia, and I downloaded the Bunker and chose
to not play it. I don't know why. I think I got anxiety
because it's very scary for me. It's a legit terrifying game, and I
heard you were playing it, so it's curious what you think about it so
far. Yeah, so I actually just started. I haven't played a whole
lot of it, but what I've played so far, I'm quite impressed.
So it is. It takes place during World War One. Basically you're a
French soldier, you get injured, you get put into a bunker to as
a doctor looks at you. But while you're knocked unconscious or whatever, the
bunker itself caves in and you wake up and everyone in the bunker is dead.
So basically you're exploring this World War One bunker that's closed off to the
outside world essentially, and there is something in there stalking you and trying to
kill you. So it definitely leans on that sort of like cat and Mouse
style horror that kind of became big over the last I mean because of Ama,
you know, like kind of kicked off that sort of genre of horror
games. But the thing that's most interesting about it from what I've played so
far is that it's kind of an immersive sim hidden under that um. Probably
not to the extent I mean definitely not to the extent of something like Dishonored
or a Thief or something like that, because it is it is very narrow
because it takes place in a bunker. But like you know, after you
complete the Tori, you wake up, you go into this room and you
pick up a note and it's like, we need to get the generators started
here, and we need to get the fuse there and the dynamite there.
And you look at a map and it's like, here's where you go.
You're not going to tell you how to get there. You're gonna have to
follow signs. Some doors are locked, you have to figure out how to
open those doors while also trying to avoid this creature. Did you get to
see it? Look like? Is it gross? I haven't seen it yet.
It's killed me a couple of times. Usually it gets me from behind.
How come you don't know? She just it's from behind because it's from
behind usually. But is it dark? It is very dark? So the
like I said, I haven't played a whole lot, but the place I'm
at there is a generator that I can fuel with gasoline. Obviously, obviously
you have a stopwatch, and when that stopwatch runs out, the generator dies.
So basically you're just kind of like tracking how long the generator has and
that lights the area. So eventually the the it's going to get dark and
you're going to have to crank your little flashlight in order to see. But
the flashlight makes noise, so the thing's gonna stock you. It seems really
cool so far. I think the thing that I actually like about it most
is that it's very tactile, I guess, and how it plays like you
have a gun, but you don't just hit a button to reload. Instead
you hold X and then you flip open the revolver chamber or the cylinder and
then you can see how much AMMO you've got in there, and then you
have the tap X to load and a bullet individually, and then when you're
done, you know, you flip it back up and that's how you have
to reload. If there's like a cabinet, you can't just press a button
to open it, like you have to like undo the latch and then open
it. If the monster's chasing you and you want to lock the door behind
you, you run in turn close the door and you have to like lock
it like using the stick. So it's kind of interesting how it plays with
like how you interact with things. I think it would be a really cool
VR game, But I imagine they're not turning this into a VR game anytime
soon. I mean maybe they are. I haven't looked at it. Can
you kill the monster with the gun or just slows it down? It slows
it down. I was just curious, like what the point of the gun
is, because what the most interesting thing of the original game is is that
you just don't attack. So I mean, yeah, you can shoot,
you can't shoot the monster with the gun, apparently I haven't done it,
and it slows it down. But what I found myself doing more is I
say, of the gun in order to like shoot open locks, or if
there's a bunch of rubble in the way, I'll drag an explosive barrel over
there and shoot the barrel. Um. I'm still seeing like how deep that
immersive sim goes. I don't think it's, like I said, I don't
think it's quite as deep as something you'd see from Arcane or I mean,
it might be deeper than Red Fall, but um yeah, there's a low
blow. Yeah, but it it it seems pretty good. Um. I
think the one issue I've had so far is that the the save systems pretty
rough. Okay, there's no auto save, uh, and like I'll be
sneaking around for like twenty minutes and die and then go back twenty minutes and
it's like, Okay, now I just got to run through these How do
you save? Pick everything up? So you go to rooms. There's certain
rooms are you save and there's like a lantern that you just light in like
Resident old Resident Evil style. You're very similar to Residon Evil. I mean
even down to like there's a there's an item box or a storage box that
you interact with and put items in and stuff. But it's also aren't there
also maps in the safe room that you can look at to see the bunker?
Yeah, there are maps in the safe room. You can't take them
with you, but you can kind of go to those safe rooms and plan
out, like, Okay, I'm here. I got to get to hear
and hear and try not to get alerted, and hope that the generator will
last long enough because if the generator goes out, you have to use your
flashlight. They have to hand crank, and to crank it you have to
like mash why And if it runs out, I mean, it just makes
a lot of noise. So then that will attract the creature and he will
stalk you and eventually kill you. But yeah, I haven't seen it yet,
but I'm enjoying it so far. It definitely kind of falls into that
trap of like notes that are super on the nose, Like I picked up
one note that was like, gasoline is flammable, don't smoke near it,
otherwise you'll set things on fire. And it's like, yeah, okay,
I think I think everyone knows that we're we're at the front lines in World
War One, Like, yeah, that's what gasoline does. Yeah, I
want to play that game. I like. I like the parallels or I've
heard parallels comparisons to alien isolation and that's I can see that persistent threat monster
hunting you with noise, and apparently there are events that only the monster can
use in the bunker. That's how I died from behind, because I'll be
like I'm safe here and then it'll just fucking jump out behind me and pull
me into its little hole and I won't see it and I'll just die.
Pulls you into its hole. Yeah, gotta pay the monster hole, the
monster hole. Gotta pay the monster toll to get in. If you want
the baby monsters Hole soul, you gotta pay the whole one toll to get
in. I want to play that. That's on my list. I think
you playing on I am playing it on Xbox on game Pass. I got
a code a while ago and I just haven't tried it until recently, so
I don't know. It might be think I have a code as well.
I'm just asking for Mary's sakes so she doesn't buy an accidentally and catch it.
I got your back. Don't worry. Game pass baby, I want
to play the game. Um, anything else? You guys playing nothing?
I mean Kingdom two Crowns Mary, What is that? Um? It's an
old, older game. It's not new. I think in the age of
all these really cool games, this is a weird outlier. But briefly,
Kingdom two Crowns is um. I think it's the sequel to Kingdom, which
is a very simplified indie game. It is a side scroller where you are
building your kingdom, and they have probably like the coolest currency system I've ever
seen, which is it is one coin to take a person who is homeless
essentially and bring them into your kingdom where they will work for you. It
is one dollar to give them a job. It could be that they are
a shooter, like a boat hunter probably that's the word, and they shoot
deer and rabbits, and every deer and rabbit they kill gives you one dollar
in return, so you're investing right dollar to convert them a dollar to give
them a job, and then they give you money. But you need several
jobs to keep your kingdom running. One is a hunter. They also defend
you because at night you get attacked. You need builders. They get a
little mallet, and then they build buildings, which also cost money, but
they defend you. You need walls to protect you at night, which I'll
get to. Is this like a side scroller. It's a side scroller,
and it looks really simple visually, but I think that's a part of its
charm is that this game's the game mechanically has been broken down into everything you
really need to be able to build a full kingdom, and it's incredible how
robust it gets and how deep it gets. I encourage you, if you're
interested in this, to not look fully at the trailers because they spoil so
many the exciting things that happen. When you play this game and figure it
out and you realize, like at night, how many monsters and things happen
in this game, it gets pretty intense. But at the beginning, all
you're trying to do is survive the night, because at night the monsters come
out and they bash your walls. And your hunters become your little protectors and
they take down the monsters if a monster touches you. I find this neat.
You'll want to explore because there's lots of interesting things in the forest.
The builders will knock down trees. You also get a dollar per tree,
so again it's like a very simple currency thing. Everything's a dollar, which
is really but when you are exploring in the forest, you come across like
really interesting stuff. I don't want to spoil it. You'll just come across
like weird fallen beings or portals, or like a strange house with an old
woman who's just like really curious about you. And so you're trying to solve
all these things while keep it growing your kingdom, making it bigger, making
it stronger, and expanding. Essentially, now kingdom to crowns is the same
thing, but it's coop. One of the really cool things about this game
is being able to share it with another person and basically do tower defense with
another individual. That's the key loop that you will love is, Hey,
you work on expanding, I'm gonna get a bunch of hunters and go hunting,
and then we'll invest in me back at night, and so it's really
fun. Maybe your person will take the left and you'll take the right and
expand both ways at the same time. But maybe very careful, who has
more money, who needs to borrow some money because you need to up a
new building, or you desperately need more hunters because at night your walls are
being crushed by the monsters. It's really, really fun. The last thing
I'll say about the money is that it's in a little pouch. You actually
don't know how much money you have in this game. When you pick up
coins, it goes into your little pouch, which is in the upper right
of your screen, and when you're really rich, your pouch is full of
coins. Again, it never says you have twenty or thirty or forty coins,
it's just full. And then if it overflows, the coins fall out
of your pouch and you lose them. So the game is telling you don't
hoard in that way. You need to spend it. And you never really
know how many coins you have, so at some point you might be running
around being like I'm buying buildings, I'm giving people jobs, I'm you know,
upgrading this wall, and all of a sudden you'll be out of money
because you really didn't know exactly how much money you had to be able to
pay for all these things. It feels very much probably like what it was
like to construct a city builder back then, which is like, I don't
know, I'm winging it as I go. I hope the monsters don't kill
us tonight. It's really brutal fun tower defense and when you can play with
another person, you get a horse. You can run around on your little
horsey. It's it's an absolute delight. I think it's a gem of a
game. It's been out for a really long time. This is not a
new game, but I redownloaded it on my steam deck the other day and
I find myself playing it all the time. It is just super addictive to
play with another person or by yourself for an hour or two. Kingdom and
Kingdom two Crowns. It's they're fucking phenomenal games. I probably got a Norse
expansion recently. Ah, the expansions are so good. You can go like,
what's so exciting is like all the creepy, crazy shit they hide in
there. It's nuts. You'll be like running around in the woods. You
really shouldn't travel too far by yourself because it's risky. If the monsters attack
you, they start pulling dollars out of your pouch, and when you run
out of dollars, they grab the crown from the top of your head,
and if they if they get the crown from you, the game is over.
You lose. It's like one of the very few ways I think.
It's actually the only way you can lose the game is when you lose your
crown. The crowns are their dollars. The crowns are their dollars, so
the animals. But exploring the woods and finding the weird creatures or the monoliths
or you know, again, the discovery of what's out there, I think
is what makes the game really fun. It's an absolute gem, man,
it's a it's a gem. And the expansions are huge, so you could
easily throw forty hours in this game, like, and it's not that expensive.
When did this come out? Kingdom is old? Let me look it
up. Kingdom has been around for a while. Two crowns looks eighteen.
Oh wow, okay. Kingdom came out in twenty fifteen, and then they
had expansions called new Lands twenty sixteen two Crowns twenty eighteen, and yeah,
and they keep releasing expansions for it because it's popular and it's really good.
Uh yeah, I mean all the sounds different. It's such a good game.
I really can't say enough good things about it. I don't think it
I got nothing bad to say about this game. It's phenomenal. I think
it's a great gift. Buy it for your friends, buy it for your
mom. Oh it's the third game in the series. Yeah, I think
they had like a second one, but this is like the two. Uh.
You know, it's got like co op and that's such a benefit of
this game. Cool, I'm gonna try this. It's amazing, and it's
so simple, you know, like sometimes like tower defenses and stuff, they
can get too complicated and you're like, what am I doing? This game?
It builds insane and gets very complicated, but it starts so simple that
even the simplest mind can be like, oh, I need a dollar so
that I can pay this guy to construct this building. It's not that hard,
like you can figure it out. But then it gets crazy. I
like Kingdom milling stuff like Nino Cooney two too. We wanted to call it,
remember, uh, you know, Tuny, I'm to play that.
I played a little bit of steam Deck really or recently. I like Kingdom
Builders and I love tower Defense. I love like defending from monsters and dealing
with that shit at night. Remember like, remember like the first time you
were like playing Minecraft and someone was like watch out at Nike and you're like,
what is it night? They're like, well, the fucking monsters come
out, and it's just like get in the house. This gives you that
same rush where it's like you see the sunset and you're like, I better
get back to my kingdom because the monsters are coming. You know who else
is coming? Santa Claus. No, Mike, Yeah, Santa Claus is
get he gets off the monsters. And that was the night that Santa Claus
came to came to come. That's just he's coming. He's coming down the
chimney. You've ruined the childhood. Mary. Have you heard of this game,
Dave of the Diver? No, I haven't. I haven't played it,
so I probably shouldn't even bring it up. But it seems like it
might be up your alley, and I saw it's been getting some pretty good
reviews. Mike, you're nodding. I think we have a really good review
going up. But it came out in two early. Now it's coming out
full release like today, I think reporting tomorrow. Oh sick. And it's
only on Steam, it's not on game Path. I think it's. Yeah,
so it's like a management um management sim, but like with the kitchen
sink approach, like you like aliens show up at one point. I might
be making this up, like it's not a spoiler. You're just you're at
at the first it's like a fishing sim like Dredge or or whatever, and
then all of a sudden, you uh start like you get like a cooking
mini game. And someone showed me a screenshot of his phone and it was
like a phone screen. There were apps all over it. He's like,
each of those is like a separate management sim that all plays into this,
but it's all wrapped around these really goofy and dumb cut scenes. Um.
Yeah, people are really liking that game game. This looks great. I'm
going to download it. Thanks for the wreck. Yeah yeah, I'm excited
to check it out too. Yeah. Anything else or do you want to
do emails? Email? Ye? Okay? As usually you can write into
fire Escape Cast at gmail dot com, Questions, comments, concerns, corrections
which I throw in the trash, not kidding we have. We've actually been
reading corrections recently for Dan's vacuum confusion, for Mary's defense of esports. My
clarification that I think esports are entirely valid way to make a living and entertain
people. You know, that gets brushed aside because people want blood and they
want Dan and Mary to argue, and that's what that's what we do firescapecast
gmail dot com. And you can write in questions that we might read on
the air. Mary, do you want to read this first one from Emmy?
Yes, hi there. Mary's comment on episode fifty seven about punishing herself
doing things she doesn't enjoy doing during Zelda made me think about something I've been
exploring lately. I was recently diagnosed with OCD, and it caused me to
think more deeply about some of my behaviors, many of which I'm learning are
actually compulsions. For example, finally clicked why I like why. I felt
like I had to get every Pokemon in every box to the same base level
before moving on to the next area, even when it made the games miserable
and kept me from ever finishing one. Has there ever been a video game
that caused you to reflect on an aspect of your personality or behavior, good
or bad? Bonus points if the video game wasn't designed to prop that kind
of thinking. I really enjoy the show. Thanks for all the fun times,
Emmy. You, Emmy, appreciate this war Frame. I know.
I actually you just don't say anything else. You just say war Frame.
We've talked about this before. I don't play war Frame anymore. I I
tend to reserve the word addicting for video games for very rare cases when it's
actually addictive, And to me, war Frame was. It was getting to
a point where, like I could see being addicted to this. I think
it's a great game. I appreciate so much what it does. I love
it. If I'm looking back, Sure, it's one of my favorite games
I've ever played. It was getting to a point where I could see myself
playing it out of compulsion. Sometimes there's always like twelve more things to collect.
There's each of those, you can upgrade, each of those, you
can then mod. Oh, now there's new mods to get. But I
didn't really enjoy what I was doing to get it. It was just sure,
I'm describing a grind, which a lot of people feel see as rewarding,
and I know many people who play war Frame who see it as very
rewarding used to their time. To me, it was like I didn't really
think to myself, oh, I want to play war Frame. I just
kind of like woke up in the morning and played it and then realized,
fuck, now I have to play another two hours. Like I dropped it
at a certain point when I realized, yes, I definitely I think I
have an addictive personality sometimes with certain things war Frame, and war Frame is
not the first time I've learned that, but war as a video game,
that was the first time I've had to first time ever in my life I've
had to stop playing a game because I knew it was could get not bad,
not to the point you see on like not to the points you hear
where like people are in those like World of Warcraft cafes or Internet cafes and
just like don't eat for two days. And it wasn't that bad. But
I was like the thing that I realized Warframes like it's keeping me from doing
other things that I really value it's keeping me from learning a language, and
it's keeping me from writing, and it's keeping me from like who's keeping me
from doing other things I found more important in my life. So I was
like, Okay, it's good to know I can actually drop something though,
like I haven't played in two three years. Maybe good game, though,
I will say a lot a lot of good things about it, and then
really quick also other thing. I know that both of you, but probably
especially Jake, know that I have a deep inside. Well now it's deep
inside. It was not always deep inside. I have a control freak streak,
and strategy games I really enjoy because I think that's a healthy outlet to
get that out. I still play. They are billions often, like that
game is the ultimate turtling real time strategy. When to expand, Oh shit,
there's a little corner of my wall exposed. Let's go put someone there.
No, this workers not doing I want them to do. There's only
three people in that watchtower. There could be four strategy games for me total
World Warhammer three. I enjoy them and I think there's a lot of craft
that goes into them, and they're impressive when they're balanced. Well also for
me, personally. They help with anxiety and they help me get like extreme
control tendencies out in a healthy way because I'm not doing it to another fucking
person, which I have not done in years, thankfully. But like,
strategy games are always a good outlet for that, And that's less a case
where the game taught me that about myself and I realized that games could be
a healthy outlet for that, much like horror movies are a healthy outlet to
be like to scent, feel fear, I think strategy games are in a
way a healthy outlet for me to be like, all right, let's go
be a control freak and not affect someone negatively aside from these little digital tiny
zombies I'm killing. What about you, Jake. I'm not a very competitive
person unless it comes to Super Smash Bros. I have fun playing with people
in the room with me, but a lot of people I used to play
with got really into Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Online. And there's this thing
and Super Smash Bros. Ultimate Online called oh god, what's it called.
Basically, like, if you get a character to a high enough GSP,
you enter Elite Smash That's what it's called. And that character can play against
the best of the best, supposedly, but to get there is an incredibly
painful process that took so much out of me. I think I broke two
controllers, two WU Pro controllers. I damaged my desk playing this fucking game,
and a lot of it. Like I'm good enough at Smash Bros.
To know I'm bad at Smash Bros. Is the way I put it.
But when you play online that that online infrastructure is so bad. There's always
delay. So like a lot of times when I'd get mad, it wasn't
because of the game itself. Always it was because of the delay. But
anyway I put in, like good enough, or you know enough about the
game to know how little you know exactly? Yeah, yeah, But anyway,
over during the pandemic, I played a lot because I didn't have a
lot to do, and that's how my friends and I caught up. So
I got really into Super Smash Bros. Again, and I played a lot
of online to the point where, like like you were saying, Mike,
I'd wake up in the morning I had a whole spreadsheet of all the drills
I had to run through every single day to get good. Supposedly at Super
Smash Bros. And like, it just got to the point where I was
just I was just pissed off playing it. I hated playing it, but
I did it anyway, and I had to step away. Now I only
play Super Smash Bros. When someone is sitting next to me and we can
have a good time because I'm not as competitive. Then it's just fun.
But yeah, like, for some reason online in that game brings out the
competitive side to me and probably took too long, but at least I realized
it was unhealthy and was like, yeah, I can't. I can't play
this game anymore. What about you, Mary, I'd like to be cozy.
I feel similarly to Jake. I well, no, actually, you
said you're not usually competitive. I'm extremely competitive. Punched a guy this weekend
because I punched a guy this week over missus pac Man h our House.
Okay, sorry, sorry Mary. Mary. She does get she gets married
in the game. You know, she she retains the miss though, because
she doesn't want to be identified by her husband. She doesn't she doesn't want
the patriarchy to take over. Mary. Do you do you mean Jake to
explain how this works to you? Yeah, it's least man splain to me
Miss pac Man as like the first, like probably one of the very first
female protags in a game. The story is is that she meets pac Man,
falls in love, and has baby like just let me eat these dots
anyway, My toxic trait is that when we play time trial games, I
get addicted to beating my friend's scores, and even though my time can be
good, it's not satisfying to me if I can't beat my friend's scores.
And that happened in Devil Daggers, it happened in Neon White, it happened
in many games in the history of my existence. And anytime you're allowed to
compare your games to your score, your time to your friends, I end
up getting into a weird loop where I get addicted to beating my friends,
and when I don't kind of eats me up inside, and I spend way
too much time not having fun and just trying to beat their scores. And
this is intended by the game, so I don't get my bonus points.
But I will say that it is a vicious cycle to try and a game
that I'm not even having fun playing anymore because I have to beat someone's score.
That sucks, and I will do it because I can't lose to Dan
or Jeff grow I was gonna say, I feel like Dan is a toxic
friendship for you. Bonk told me that she like they like talked about it,
and he was like, do you think I went too far? And
she was like, I think he went too far. So I was like,
I was incensed. I was like, I'll fucking kill you if you
come up to me and talk to me about this game. I'm so mad
at you. And he wouldn't let it go. He knew he was kissing
me off and he kept prodding me. Yeah. I think that's why Dan
and I have always I mean, that's one of the reasons Dan and I
have always gotten along. Well. I think I can just drop something like
that and be like, I don't care. It really is not bothering me.
I have other things to care about besides having more points than you in
this game. Not that I look down upon it, just for some reason
my personality, I'm like, it's all I have. I gotta go.
I've got cocktails to make like this is I got more important stuff to do.
But he'll he'll sense when someone is like you and just like really pounce
on it and and then you'll punch him. He knew that it was bothering
me and he was succeeding, But what he wasn't aware of was that he
had to sleep sometime. And I beat that score at seven thirty in the
morning on a Saturday. My toxic game is miss pac Man. There.
It is that, that fucking, stupid fucking game. I saw you do
the first one that was later and they but the best score was in the
morning that Saturday. But I saw you do the one on Friday. The
first time you beat him, and the second time you beat him, I
did not see. I get more competitive with like lawn games and what do
you want to call them? I don't know, pool, foosball, darts,
I don't even know what you call those. Their a term billiard games.
I don't know get you know what I'm saying, Things that take a
little bit of even if it's only a little bit, but like a little
bit of movement. I'm harder on myself, used to be somewhat of an
athlete, so I think those feel like more of a failure. If I
don't win, I'm like, well, fuck, I could have done like
something better with my that throw where's video games? Like? Oh, I
just, I just I wasn't connecting with the character as much. But I
don't know, but yeah, thanks for writing in emmy. I'll read this
one from Darien Dear Escapees. I had a four hour layover in Minneapolis in
the way back to Kannada. As airports go, it was very nice.
Have you ever formed an impressional place based on its airport or other such transportation
terminal? Cheers Darien from Toronto, Newark. I was gonna say, you're
probably were looking down on Jersey when you first landed there. Yeah. We
went there and I was like, you know, Jerse doesn't seem too bad.
And then my flight got delayed and I was like, I don't like
this place. Yeah, the new Wing is actually really nice, though.
That's I feel like I always end up in that shitty wing that never has
enough spots for people. And like we were there like seven am and the
Starbucks was out of food in the in the heater didn't work and that was
the or the microwave didn't work and that was the only place to get breakfast.
I was like, can I get a bacon sandwich and they're like,
oh, we're out of those seven am Alaska. Oh, which the new
terminal is the United one, which is like there, it's a huge United
Hub. All right, I'm gonna fly United next time. I've also been
the JFK. The new parts of JFK are super nice as well. Coincidentally,
when we landed at Portland, Portland's airport at least I don't know how
many terminals it is, but wherever we landed when we got in, it
was like looked like a log cabin the terminal itself with like very colorful rugs
and patterns, like a rug that would be in a living room, just
stretched as far as the eye could see. And then the stores all looked
like at like storefronts in the Adirondacks, like wood wooden cabins. Will be
like, oh, Portland is kind of cozy already, and I'm only at
the airport, Like I don't know if cozy's the right word. Yeah,
Portland to me was cozy when we were there, but it felt very bucolic
as soon as we entered the terminal, and I liked it. What the
hell does bucolic mean? Pastoral? Kind of serene in a rural sense,
but it's not rural. Not rurals the wrong word, but like was in
touch with nature when I landed in Portland. Detroit. It's a fabulous airport.
Detroit must be great. It's probably one of the best airports I've ever
been to. I want to know, I've never been to. It's fucking
gorgeous and it's got everything you need, and man, it really really paints
the light for that city. I had some great airports. Have you ever
been? Have you been to the Denver Airport? I've laid over any once.
Yeah. I don't know if this counts because I guess I've been to
Denver and been there multiple times. But that airport is fucking weird. I
think when you enter, they have like one of the what are they the
horse of Death, one of the four horsemen outside and then there's this whole
theory that I think like aliens live underground and there and they have a bunch
of Satan rituals under it, and they like kind of lean into it a
little bit. Like a lot of the ads will reference it when you're in
there, and like some of the areas reference it. It's kind of strange.
It's a weird airport. But it's not that weird. It's still an
airport. But yeah, the statue is what gets a lot of people,
Like there's petitions to take that statue down because I guess the guy who made
it or who was working on it, it fell on him and killed him,
and then his son took over and I think it killed his son or
injured his son or something like that. But it's still there, at least.
This is what my friends who live in Denver tell me. They could
just be telling everything from the barbed wire fence along the perimeter facing inwards supposedly
to keep hypothetical prisoners within, to the dark subliminal messaging that could be extracted
from the murals paint on larger walls scattered throughout the terminals has been theorized.
The name of the blue Mustang statue is Blucifer. Yeah, that's what it
is. It unsuspectedly killed its maker. Yeah. The statue is originally commissioned
to be built by the city of Denver in the mid nineteen nineties. Airport
itself was unneeded. Yeah, they killed artist Luis Jimenez. Damn nine thousand
pounds. Oh my god, have you finished posthumous Leib's family friend and professional
low riders and race car painters. Geez, that is gruesome. Yeah,
it's a weird airport. People say it's haunted, but like, apart from
the ads that are just like kind of reference it, it's just like a
normal fucking airport. It's like any other airport. Denver Airport. Aliens aliens.
It may not be aliens, it may be a cult or something.
I think it's lizard men. Lizard men. Yeah, yeah, that's what
it is. Oh wait, there are grinning gargoyles statues protecting the baggage claim
areas weird. There are these weird, demonic looking gargoyles, like with long
tongues, sitting in open suitcases on these pedestals, like watching over baggage claim.
Weird. Now, I don't think I have laid over. I would
have remembered all this. I feel like the first time I ever had to
sleep on the floor of an airport, it was Washington Dulless. I had
already been to Washington, d C. By that point, though I still
hate dullas I refused to fly through there. But also when I laid over
in Dublin, I have never been to Ireland. Still have not. And
I laid over in Dublin in the way to London, and I was like,
I'm here, I might as well get a Guinness, even if it's
the airport. And they poured it extremely well at the airport bar, and
I had this huge window to look out over these green rolling fields. Yeah,
I think I'd like I'd like Ireland. Turns out I would like it.
I gotta go visit. Got family members all over it. Thank you.
My steam deck to Europe. No, I'm just kidding. Do it
every want? No? Like? Can I charge it? I mean,
if you have one of the adapter things. I have an adapter, but
it won't like blow up, will it? Yes? Because you know you
can't use like hair dryers and your implode. It should be fine. Do
you have a funny joke, like, oh, I don't have a joke.
Stop trying to force me make implosion jokes. I don't do poor taste
jokes anymore. I never did. All my jokes are in good taste.
You should do an implosion joke. But in one of your voices, people
love that. I'm just a whole baby be just recently won the difference between
I quoting and exploding. That's neutral, completely, completely, completely unrelated.
I was watching um James Cameron Deep Sea Challenge, like our long documentary that
too. I did too. I think a lot of people are turns out,
James Cameron is a I mean, everybody knows. Like the joke is
that he funds his He makes all his movies to fund his deep sea research.
That submarine he built, the deep Sea Challenger is fucking cool, fucking
torpedo down to the ocean floor. No challenge, not me, thank you.
He seems like a douche, but he seems like he knows it and
he just leans into it, and I respect the hell out of it.
Oh yeah. I don't know if you saw that story that was kind of
going around recently, but I guess like an avatar the Blue People shoot the
bone arrow is a certain way and an Olympic archer was like, no,
that's impossible, and he's like is it and then just did it and hit
the target and it's like, I think it's possible, and then made up
the blue people, the Navvy or whatever shoot that way, and I was
like, all right, I like that. Yeah, he's he seems like
some like a renaissance man like he He assembled a team to make a sub
of a well, put together a submarine, and it He was the second
third person ever technically second submersible ever to reach the bottom of He did not
go to the same spot in the Mariannas Trench Marianna Trench, but he went
to a different trough, the Challenger Deep. But he was trying to get
lower than the two dudes who did in nineteen sixty, but their spot was
also just about as low. His trip went well, all completely unrelated to
the joke I was telling, Are you sure? Completely unrelated to the joke
I told during our break, which we will cut. That's it, people,
joke. We should make a patron tier like fifty dollars a month that
like you can hear all the jokes we cut, and then for like two
thousand you have all of the ship we talk in between, you know,
two thousand dollars a month, you can listen to what we talk about on
breaks. You, however, do have to sign an NBA getting canceled for
two thousand? No, yeah, let's not do that. We don't get
canceled. Just we lose a lot of we burn a lot of bridges from
colleagues because I don't like most of my colleagues, the vast majority. If
if I like you, you know, and if you if you're not sure,
I probably don't like you. Alright, alright. Top Top five least
favorite coworkers Jake Beep beep this next like thirty seconds, Okay, number one.
And the funny thing is, I'm so open about it with you two
that or and Dan as well, but like you probably had a name in
your head when I just said number one already, and it might not be
the same person. I'm just pretty open with who I don't like, but
sometimes to their faces. I'm I'm no longer a confrontational person. Actually,
I'm still pretty confrontational, but in a healthy way. I don't punch people
because they're beating me. In his pac man, I was incensed by him.
He earned that punch. I don't condone punching, but he had it
coming. I am. I know. This is kind of a refrain about
Dan's path through life. I will say I'm surprised he has not been threatened
more often, or maybe he has and I just don't know it. I
mean, I threatened him good, Yeah, And I wonder if he's gotten
more Charlie horses like the one you gave him than he like has told us.
It was a legit punch. I did use all of my force.
I didn't you know. It wasn't like a little hah stop it, Bud.
I was mad and punched him, and I do think it shocked both
of us that I did it. But I don't think he expected it,
and I was. I felt bad almost instantly, but I'm I was mad.
You know the phrase cruising for a bruising like he is the most literal
his whole life, he's been Have you seen grease lightning? He's got to
have a bruise in his shoulder right now. I wonder, I wonder how
tendy he is. I should ask him don't apologize, though I feel like
I owe him, it's not the answer. I feel like I owe him
an apology. Do you feel like you'd implode if you didn't apologize? This
is no God, this is I was just using a different word than Do
you feel like you're bottling it all up? Just feel like I'm you censoring
yourself has created your own Disney villain, like you have become the person who
will use. I'm not referencing anything. I just used a word. This
is come on, trying to end the episode. Let me end it.
Stop laughing at inane words I'm using. I don't choose my words that deliberately.
Do you're psychotic? No? I don't. All right, Oh god,
okay, I'm not gonna say that one. Um. Subscribe to the
patreons here where you hear all my jokes. Um speaking of though, Yeah,
go to Patreon and look for fire Escape, or just go to firescape
cast dot com. You can become a patron. You can get ad free
episodes, you can get the video episodes. You can see the recordings.
You can see Jake's handsome face, you can see Mary's Pikachu in the background.
You can see Scarlett Cat made a brief appearance earlier, the beers that
were drinking the You can also just treat treat it like a tip jar if
you appreciate what we're doing. Who want to want to and you want to
give, you want to get, you gotta give, You don't have to,
um, but also Mary, tell them where people can get some hot
merch. Can people pay it forward? You got a kid fifty five tank
tops fifty five. You can go to fire Escape merch dot com to get
some sick merch. We got good merch ideas. We have ideas for future
merch. But right now we just have the fire Escape logo on some sick
banana yellow T shirts. Go get them. That's not that's one thousand percent
false only banana yello. You just said it all right now, we just
have the fire Escape logo and banana yellow T shirts. There's also mousepads and
mugs and water bottles you sell, so like just you're the anti salesperson during
the merch pitch, Dan, you keep asking me if you don't like the
way I do it, You're up person. You're there the CMO. We've
figured this out at the Vineyard. Mary's the CMO. I'm the CFO and
kind of the CEO. Dan is just creative director. See what would that
be. C's some guy c CCO. Everything financially on him, Jake CTO.
We don't have a CEO. Probably simon ce me no c Cimonio,
Simonio. Jake beat tell people to go give us five stars on every platform.
You're about to call me Dan before I know, Dan, tell people
what they can do on Spotify and iTunes and five stars only five stars.
If you want to give less than five stars, you should. You should
send that to like kind of funny giant bombs per second, friends per second.
That that's where we that's where we collate our our four star ratings.
So someone was talking about friends per second the other night and I over I
heard the phrase instead French prosecco, and I was like, that's not a
thing. Prosecco's Italian. It'll be soon French prosecco. Anyway, riveting we
will or no, wait, actually, Mary, what do you have going
on the meantime besides Resident Knevil, which we need to record soon. Yeah,
I am off to I'll have stories of Croissans and all the doors that
I smashed into like an absolute buffoon, motor boating down the Seine. That's
that's what I'll say, Yeah, motor boating people down the Seine. Jake,
what do you have going on beside your top secret James Bond trip?
You're going on nothing? That's it? Yeah? Nothing, sick. Well,
I'm gonna I'm gonna try to enjoy the long weekend and hang out and
maybe play video games. Maybe not it'll be good. I'm over at Polygon.
You read my stuff there or don't see if I care, I won't.
All right, Thank you everybody that was us. We will be back
after the holiday with July seventeenth, will be deep into that July, deep
in that July, be deep into July. We're getting into the summer,
getting closer to getting closer. Some more big games toward the end, be
Balder's Gate, three Armored Course, six Ports, Starfield, and then that
buttload of games in October, which I will be on vacation and not have
to fucking worry about. Fucking great. All right, everybody, thanks for
joining, Thank you. We will see you in a couple of weeks.
Bye Goo.