Hey everybody, It's Tuesday, November twenty first, twenty twenty three. Welcome
to the Giant BombCast powered by NZXT. I am your host this week,
jan Oh shoah furly reminder, go defrost the turkeys now. Definitely defrost the
turkeys. Now. If you haven't bought the turkeys, it's not too late.
They selled sliced turkey. Just make a bunch of sandwiches for Thanksgiving.
You'll be fine because then you could get some ham, get some good old
ham, or you know what. You know what, just put some mayonnaise
in between two slices of bread. You'll be fine. Co Captain of the
Ship Sandwich Officionado himself Jeff Grubb wants a sandwich artist. Always a sandwich artist.
Yeah, absolutely, man. I'm leaning back for this episode. Jan
It is a holiday week here in the United States, so I'm straight up
laying back. He's bicking back, being bull. You know, he's always
cool. He's on the soundboard making making sure that we're never bored with our
ear holes. It's more who's saying Jesus Christ. Uh, that's you know,
I'm never gonna I'm never gonna not hear that sound and not think of
Tam. Forget Dick Wolf. It's all Tam Tam. How are you?
I'm good? How are you? I'm excited to be half of this giant
bump cost. We got a lot to talk about, a lot of serious
things, a lot of un serious things. Garol of Rivia is coming to
destiny too, according to my email. So you know, exciting things are
happening in the world. A lot of wholesome content. And mister wholesome him
He's always wearing cardigans, He's always wearing warm fall colors, fall tones.
He's always welcoming people onto his lawn, passing out warm cups asider to the
neighborhood. Jeff Becklar, Oh, it was a very very charitable description of
what I do during this time of year. I'll take it. Listen.
I used to like Thanksgiving. I used to look forward to it. I
used to find a lot of joy in rekindling relationships of years gone by.
And I've noticed, as I've talked to out with my therapist, that it's
not the happiest time anymore for me. I do have to see a lot
of my family. Okay, And hey, Beckard, you want to say
the energy you bring to this podcast to kid us off on the right foot.
It's immaculate. It's a maculate Listen, you guys, you that was
in yard stare you're doing right now of emotions. I just couldn't. I'm
so happy joked around that you wear cardigans. I'm sorry, this is hey,
this is your fault, Jan, the three of you. Sorry.
You're exactly from the audience, from the from the live chats, from everyone.
This you are my therapy. You helped me get through this holiday,
this fucking holiday, in a way that I'm eternally grateful for. So that's
what I was getting at. That was the build up, is that this
is a great time of year and I'm so happy to be a part of
it. And listen, we have an amazing month coming up, amazing,
you know, it's very it's a very exciting time of year. So I'm
feeling around right. Yes, Jeff Backlar, Jeff Backler is pulling the strings,
y'all's He's the pupping master, he is the geppetto of this whole dang
operation. Because folks, if you missed the original ticket sales to the Moroccan
Lounge, have no fear because we've switched venues to accommodate. We are now
going to be at the Terogram Teogram Ballroom. Tickets are still available. Tickets
are now available again because we sold that pitch out showtime. Uh exactly,
tam, So Ticketmaster will drop the link in the chat here, will make
We've tweeted it out. We're going to continue to tweet it out. Let's
sell that bitch out again. Let's do it. Do it your faces again,
just keep setting them on and they keep having to big arenas somehow,
I'm Madison Square, goten Madison Square Garden. No, it's no, all
you dumbasses in l A your crypto dot com theater by Yeah, that's next,
that's next. Exactly, very exciting, very very thankful that all y'all
are coming out. But hey, we we switched venues because there was a
high demand, and I'm incredibly happy and so so thankful that there is a
demand. So I'd love to see your lovely faces. Let me be clear,
this will be the last venue once these stands are gone. They are
gone. We're not doing this again. I Am not doing this again.
Fucking buy the tickets now, don't wait, Please buy the tickets. Please,
thank you, thank you for your patronage. Hey, I don't know
if if you want to like collectively make a giant bomb commune and like get
an Airbnb together, join the Giant Bob Discord. There's a bunch of cool
folks, maybe like go find it sound like together? That does make it
sound like the bomb worshiping people who live underneath the earth and beneath the planet
of the Apes, which is completely accurate. Hell ya, I'm hell yeah,
that's what our discord is like. So and it's it's pretty hot,
pretty You know, we're not only God's favorite podcast, but we are the
Taylor Swift of podcasts as well. You know, we all know this.
This was in our bones. We feel this. You know, we're shaking
it up. We dated a football player. That football player would finally become
popular. Yeah, exactly, that that football player would now be a spokesperson
for flu shots and COVID vaccines. Is that true? Is this person not?
Did no one care about this person until this was pretty popular? But
he is ascended because of of Taylor Swift. What's gonna happen when she dumbs
him? He's going to be killed? Like that's what happens Taylor Swift,
you get executed by her friends. No one's seeing Harry Styles in like three
years. She's gone. Yeah, I don't know if she ever dated Harry
Styles. Okay, that sounds right. I don't know. Okay, thank
you. Remember remember no one does does that but dead exactly? I think
I just I thought him in Super Mario RP. Is that a real person?
No, it's not a real personat say it them, but you know
I I personally it's it's a great deal, uh that that We we get
to see y'all soon at the Teogram Ballroom once again. That date is December
ninth of twenty twenty three. You know, if you are listening, a
lot of people are gonna be listening this when they're out there trampling people on
Black Friday. And first of all, stay safe. Thanks for listening to
us while you do your do your dirty, dark deeds on that day.
Say stay trampling, Stay safe trampling. Instead of spending your money on goods
that are perishable, get an experience, buy tickets to our show, come
see that instead. And look, there's another thing. It's entirely possible that
Friday. We also have new stuff in the store. Now. Look now,
look, I wasn't planning on saying something, but it does seem like
the stars are lining up. People. So you've got a lot of money,
Oh Mercurytrojaz money gotta you gotta spend money on the store. There's new
store things that we've never stored before. Okay, get excited about that.
It's not just a new fucking T shirt. We're not gonna this is things
you've never been able to buy ever, ever ever. Okay, really fucking
excited. And then there's really been busy this year. What the hell you
got? You've gotta make a lot of stuff happened in the last few weeks.
You know, look, I'm backloading my twenty twenty three vacation. Come
back, You're like, I guess I'll do some work. And shit happened,
all right, all right? And uh it's not a hockey puck out
of someone to sell it. Although yeah, although I would take a GB
brand and hockey puck any day of the week. Yeah. So there is,
there's there's cool stuff. Those posters are well on their way, they're
going to be available very soon. And of course those limited edition ones that
are super sick that that I'm getting for us personally this weekend, so don't
worry. Yeah, those for us, but yeah, everything's gonna be great.
Stay tuned, follow us on the social platforms and the discords, and
you'll be the first to know. Baby Hell yeah. But Bechler, what
else can people look forward to this Friday? I'm not done. He's not
done. I'm not done. Our wonderful friends over at NZXT have a Black
Friday for the ages. If you go to nzxt dot co slash Giant Bomb
BF, the BF is for Black Friday. There's deals, there's deals to
be had. We're very appreciative of nzxt for hooking us up with all these
player three but heemoth rigs that we've been rocking all year and there's plenty of
deals to be had that they will be launching i think now through Black Friday
and some more stuff on the actual day of Black Friday. Like you can
get fifty percent off I'm sorry, you can get one hundred and fifty dollars
off any custom build over two thousand dollars. They're gonna give you four hundred.
Yep, they're gonna give you four hundred dollars off that base player three
rig that they sell five hundred dollars off the player three prime. That's the
ones we have. Uh, we love that. We love these machines allan
Week two is just a phenomenal experience on that sweet sweet forty ninety anyway.
That's that's what's popping off this Friday from our friends at NZXT. And we're
also working on maybe something at the live show that we'll tell you more about
when we get to LA. That's Los Angeles people traveling in for that.
People bought their flights to Louisiana on accident when they went to LA on accident.
Look, I'm flying LA for it. Whatever, there you go,
whatever, no big deal, I guess Hey, tam here here's an open,
open declaration. Uh one year, maybe next year, maybe the following
year during key three, you me, Lucy, whoever else wants to join,
get in a van and drive to l A. That sounds that sounds
amazing. I'm down for that, all right, fantastic. I love I
love driving. That's how it's how I pretend to be a father. Anyway.
That's all the plugs, guys, that's all the plugs. How about
we talk about some video games a Backlar, Do you have issues with that
link? The fuck is going on? What's wrong? On a chat?
I posted a link and it gave me all this fucking HTML bullshit. Remember
when the internet used to just work with booma posting your Booma posting right now?
If post right there? God, I just don't have patience anymore,
folks, I don't. Okay, got a little bit of senior itis.
This week? Is Jeff Beckler, the stephen A. Smith of video games?
Oh? Yes, yes, I know who Stephen A. Smith is,
and I think I'm supposed to not like him. No, he's fine.
I like disrespect haii in like a truly unforgiving way. Yes, I
I dislike. Well, fuck him, I'm I'm a I'm a Charles Charles
Buckley shack guy, Charlie clearly better. Yeah. Yeah, he's also a
big hockey fan, Charles. He does, he does enjoy hockey. I've
heard him talk about it at length on an NBA show, Steve Bay Smith
says, the only thing that's black and hockey is the puck. That's pretty
fun. That's a decent joke. Forty years ago, Steven, Hey,
Jeff Grebb, you've been playing Super Mario RPG Yo. That game still is
really great. I kind of can't stop playing it. It's stunk when I
got sick of dance House because I'm like, well, at least I'll be
able to play in bed since I want, I don't want to get everyone
else six, i'mna stay away from everyone. I got sick of dance House.
In case people don't know, wait, you gotta can you talk more
about that? Man? Yeah, grub grub, let's rewind rewind the tape.
Yeah, we to do the voice effect. Do the voice effect.
Okay, so you look great now? Yeah, going on. It lasted
like twenty four hours, maybe a little bit longer than that. I've had
some like up and down with the stomach since then, but it's mostly been
fine. I flew out to dance house in a different state to do Extra
life and I got there and I hung out and it was great. Wind
Bag was on my plane when we connected in Chicago. He tapped me on
the shoulder. I looked up. I'm like, oh my god, there's
a celebrity on this plane. Uh. And we got dance House. We
hung out that night. We had a great time. We watched like four
hours of norm McDonald clips. It was a really good time. And then
I go to bed and I'm like, eh, don't feel great, but
a good a good poopy is gonna make me feel better. And so I
sat down the toilet. Nothing really happened there, so I'm like, uh
oh, I'm gonna just go get in bed and see if something happens.
And then I woke up with some reflux and then I realized, Okay,
my kids had been sick. It is happening to me. I need to
go fine, you know, like when an animal is sick and they go
hide away. I did that. I went to go find the most remote
bathroom in his house, and I would I just unloaded both ends, both
ends. I yes, stereo from Yeah, just absolutely crushed that thing.
Uh. I did a good job cleaning up. So there's like almost no
evidence. Uh, I would say no evidence, but I just like it
was like five am. I'm like, oh, all right, so I'm
not gonna be able to do anything here. I woke up that morning like
maybe it's out of my system, Like nah, like an hour before things
were getting ready to start. Actually this, I woke up in the morning,
I'm like sleeping. I'm like okay, thinking about how I'm gonna tell
everybody I'm not gonna be able to do anything. So everyone was still sleeping,
and then Dan wakes me, was like, the computer's broken. I'm
okay, so we need on top of your bed here. Computers broken.
Suit. He's like, because they don't even know I'm sick, because I
had an chance. Yeah, because they were all sleeping. Uh so as
you basically hover and over my computers broken, to my god, I'm like,
So I went down, I fixed the computer, and then I got
done. I'm like, I don't I'm not going to be able to do
this and I don't want to get you guys sick. And so they just
they played games all day and I slept NonStop and not I didn't even have
enough energy to play games, which was stinky. I'm sorry that happened,
man, you know, it's most I feel back like I brought like the
flu or maybe the neuro virus is what I think. It probably was very
similar to when I've had the neuro virus before. I'm like, oh,
I just brought that to someone's house as a gift and then left and that's
all I did. So yeah, but I got better, like almost right
like the next day, I I didn't eat that whole time and I just
got back. He's like, I'll go better, suspiciously quickly off exactly,
almost like it's my thing, Like I'm just like some pervert who likes to
go to people's house and throw up and their toilets and leave. Does Dan
still have the same amount of TVs as he did before you came? I
mean, listen, who's question question? I got to know the suspect here,
right, Yeah. I mean I was too I was too sick to
do anything about it. Yeah, but I was. I was just really
worried about being good enough to get back on the plane for my flight on
Sunday. And by that morning, I was like, you know what I
am, I'm good to go. So it was like relieved that I didn't
have to like, hey, Dan, can I either stay your house or
find some hotel or something. So that worked out fine. But I did
get on the plane and I booted up Super Mario RPG and it's a game
that I found like, Okay, hey, I always love this game.
I've played it a million times now. As a kid, I rented it
a bunch of times and I was looking forward to this even as I was
hearing the reviews, so it's like it's pretty much a one to one remake,
and and it is, and that means it's still that very playable game
where I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna start it up, and suddenly i
am kind of pretty deep into it. I'm getting a bunch of the characters.
It just it just goes. It has such a fun rapid pace where
like one scene after another happens, and the scenes are pretty small, and
yeah, you'll do some fights, maybe you'll like ten of the these encounters,
but they go by so fast. And the game has done a lot
of streamlining to make it go even a little bit quicker, which I think
is to its benefit. But the upgraded visuals kind of do change the context
a little bit of the way that they present the stuff. So on the
Super Nintendo, it was like the storytelling was done a lot of times where
like Mario is a silent protagonist and they'll have these characters mime what is happening
to each other so they can explain the story because a lot of times Mario
can't speak, and it's like on the Super Nintendo it's like, oh,
these little sprites bounce bouncing around, showing each other like what's happening in the
story, and it's like that makes sense here. It's like, oh,
well, I mean, they have the power to do all this other stuff,
so it's it's a creative choice. But it's not even really a creative
choice. It's just they're doing it because the Super Nintendo game did it,
and so in that context it feels a little bit stranger, and I understand
why some people are like, kind of wish they would have done more with
some of these things. But as someone who loves this game, that purity
is not bothering me all that much. And I'm not like I had Shuttle
of the Clauses was like a one to one remike that got a big visual
upgrade, and I thought it lost some of its luster in that change,
where it was more ethereal before and less ethereal afterwards, and Links Awakening almost
the same thing. Although I ended up really liking the way links Awakening looks
on the Switch, I had a similar concern. I love links Awakening on
the Game Boy. It has this dreamlike ethereal quality where it just feels like,
oh, is this real? Or not, and it lost some of
that, but it changed into something different here. It's like they're trying to
mimic the Silicon graphics look of that Super Mario RPG game, and I think
they do a good enough job of that, and a lot of times it
looks stunning. So I've enjoying that side of things, and then when it
comes to the combat and actual playing of the game, I'm I'm happy with
the streamlining. The big thing for me was Super Mario RPG was always this
is the game that introduced me, and maybe some other game did it before,
but it was the turn based combat game that had the timing of the
attacks. So when you jump on an enemy's head, you hit A and
that does more damage, and when you get attacked, you hit B and
that does the defense. And you can block. And now if you time
the blocks and time the attacks. Maybe Super MARIOPG did this before, but
it did not give you this much information. But if you time it better
now it's like you actually do even more damage. And if you time it
perfectly when you do your attack, you can do a damage to everyone on
the screen, and when you're getting attacked, if you perfectly time it,
you'll actually one percent get zero damage and you'll see a little shield come up,
and that stuff is cool. It adds even more depth to that whole
thing, and then it also makes the battles go by faster, so I'm
really happy with it. I just wonder, like this is a game that
people, when they tell me they haven't played it, like you're gonna love
Super MARIORPG, And I hope that's still true. I think it is,
but I'm curious to hear if, like anyone else ends up playing it here
ever, if they haven't played it before, if they do end up liking
it. So I've never checked it out before, but everything I've seen,
from the up visuals to everything I've seen of the game before, have made
me want to check out Super Mario RPG. The way you're talking about this
Grub, it's like you want to recommend it, but you also don't,
And I feel like it's an odd because this is such an odd time of
the year where time is precious and we want to check out as many games.
Would you consider this something to check out or noteworthy enough to check out
for Game of the Year, because I feel like it is. I feel
like there's been enough done to it. Yeah, here's I want people to
love this game, and I wanted to be like, on when we get
a bunch of like guest top ten lists, I want to see it on
there. I think that that would make me really happy, and I think
a lot of people will end up loving it if they come to it through
this game. But it's like, at a certain point, I'm like,
ah, it's still that super Nintendo game and so it's not like necessary for
most people to play for this year, if that's how you're thinking about it.
That said, it's like if you get a time where you're like,
I have a little bit of time and I'm looking for a game that I
know is going to be fun and is going to have a lot of cool
characters that this one million percent is worth playing. Like, I do fully
recommend playing it, it's just you don't try to fit in right now for
us that are that's trying to play a bunch of other games, that's not
necessary, you know. The the the headline here of this game has always
been this is an RPG story that does make it feel like there is more
going on in the Mushroom Kingdom than than the previous mother Mario games. Before
this, uh, you know, Bowser is doing his own thing, and
eventually you know you can it's well known at this point you team up with
him, and it's kind of like reading up to that. There's so many
cool little instances of him, like figuring out his place in this world with
this new enemy threat and that that's really cool, cool and charming, and
Princess Peach has her own agency here and she does her own thing and that's
cool. And so being able to play with these characters that are so familiar
and having them have like really good writing and have it be really funny,
and it was always funny and they maintained most of them. That stuff has
always been great and it's it's worth experiencing. So if you've never played it,
I do recommend this game. Okay, I might have to check it
out. I did not play. I mean, you play it with dab
together, especially because I'm like, my four year old's been interested in it
and she's she tried to play it. I'm like, boy, if you
could read English, you would have a really good time with this. But
she's having a good time, like either way, So yeah, sixty dollars,
see yeah, I mean, like, what makes you think that,
right, cause it's like, does it look like a game should be less
than sixty? No? I think I was just doing like a Larry David
thing. I guess yeah. I don't know. It's just like okay,
sure, yeah, that's I don't know why. That was a very organical
I think that's where I'm coming from too. It's like I love this game,
and I do recommend it, but there's something about it where it's like,
ah, they just took that Super Nintendo game and put a new paint,
Cocoata paint on it, and I'm happy about that, but it does
feel like, oh, that's you know, that's like a forty dollars remaster.
It's like, well, no, this is what we used to call
remix before Resident Evils screwed the whole thing up for everybody. Yeah really,
I mean that was my point, like, this is not that. So
you know, where's like the less money I'm spending is I guess yeah.
I mean, now, not to be fair, when this game came out
on the Super Nintendo, it was eighty dollars. It was like eighty or
ninety dollars. Yeah, deal, Now it's a deal. Yes, honestly.
And then the game is like if you try to buy that Super Nintendo
cartridge today, it's I think it's more expensive than that. So this is
the cheapest this has ever been. Technically, what was games were? What
was like the average N sixty four game cost back then? Wasn't it something
insane? It was always down between In the UK, you could pay like
ninety pounds, which is like close to one hundred dollars real money. Like
a lot of them are like, yes, seventy dollars was like a sixty
to seventy in the nineties, yes, which is basically one hundred and thirty
dollars now not quite that much, but yeah, right, I don't remember,
dude. Yeah maybe in the last year. And yeah, with the
like the twenty five percent inflation, yeah uh yeah. I mean this if
you are someone that like played Links Awakening and you had a great The Switch
remake and you had a great time, this is right in line with that.
And and even like the little improvements that they did make, it's like,
yeah, that goes a long way. Now. I'll say the I
was hopeful that during the combat animations this and I was speaking this a little
bit where it's like, oh okay, it's hard to tell the timing of
when to do the attacks, and the Super Nintendo version it's they say,
hey, do that, and they explain it like right up. The very
first thing they tell you in the game is if you time these attacks,
you'll do more damage. And then you go through the game and it's like
you'll get to some of these enemies and you're like, did I I do
it right? When? Am I supposed to do this? There's no feedback
and there was no like telegraphing from the enemy animations of like when was the
perfect time. Occasionally there would be a sound queue. Sometimes it would be
like the sound que would be like a red herring would be a distraction.
You're supposed to do it on a different queue. This game, if you
get into a battle with a new enemy for the first time, when they
when you go to attack them, it will give you a exclamation point about
when when when to do that button press and when they attack you, it'll
give you an exclamation point. Now, if you get the timing right enough
times, the exclamation point will go away. But overall, like's they's still
not quite as reactive and they're not telegraphing at quite as much as I thought
they were going to. So it's improved, but it's not like some drastic
change where you're you feel like you're gonna have all the information you need to
play the game as best as you possibly can. Okay, Okay, Well,
I chose to go on the other side of the rpgfence last week,
and I, you know, because I have a certain loyalty to Tiles Grub.
I can't betray the Tiles. Talked about this briefly last week on BCR,
But holy smokes, y'all, did Atlas Have I ever felt more targeted
than I do in this moment. Continuing to play Persona five Tactics, you
know, I got over the initial hump of their not being snappiness to the
Tiles because the way that this game game's difficulty ramps up, or let's say,
complexity, ramps up in such an organic way versus other tactics games that
feel like they take forever to actually start to get interesting. Okay, I'm
listening because I really love the original Mario and Rabbids, and then the second
one fell off pretty quickly. I don't know, maybe just timing throughout the
year but those games specifically, you had a limited squad and it felt like
it took a while with a story and the gameplay for it to ramp up
in a good way. Same thing with Midnight Suns last year. I enjoyed
that to a fair amount, but I feel like it took forever to actually
get somewhere where it felt like the combat was satisfying. You were clicking off
on all cylinders. Here you get that satisfaction pretty quickly, and even after
the initial you get through the initial tutorialization process, which because it is an
RPG, it does take maybe like close two to three hours before you feel
like the training wheels are finally off. But man, this game is really
singing for a turn based RPG or a tactics based RPG. This really does
have the juice. And that's not just because of being tied to Persona and
I would have expected because it's a smaller title or not like a mainline title.
Kind of like a spinoff like Strikers, is that they lean back on
the story elements, but no, they're going all the way in, always
go all the way in, right, Like, is there a Persona spin
off that doesn't go all the way in with the story. I don't know
too much about the fighting games. Tam do h oh, No, they
go in, they go in. Still, Yeah, I feel like the
Atlas and everyone they partnered with realizes that, yeah, they get and the
story are like the most important part of one of the most important parts of
Persona. So they just do not mess around with our stuff. They're like,
it's not always high quality, but they at least give it a good
like swing at it. And most of the stuff is canon. I think
a few of the fighting games are canon, so usually they they've been building
that Persona five universe for crazy amount of time, and I think that it
helps with fans of that universe, but also it's going to set them up
real nicely for Persona six when that comes out, even though it will be
unrelated. People just have a nice awareness of that franchise. Yeah, and
I building off that. I think I'm more excited after being like really pleased
with this because I mentioned this UCR. But I was kind of put off
initially by the GiB Art style. Gotten over that hump fairly quickly because the
gameplay and the narrative works really well in tandem, and I guess the gbr
cell differentiates it enough from the mainline Persona five, but that just makes me
more excited about the prospect of what is in Atlas's back pocket with Persona six
and wondering like, okay, like, hopefully you all have learned the proper
lessons from what is singing with the audience what is not singing. It'd be
really great if you have proper representation of the LGBT community without punching down,
and not in the cool way that we punch down, but like, honestly,
like if you were a fan of Final Fantasy Tactics, Front Mission,
anything with tiles Project Triangle, then I definitely recommend checking out Persona five Tactica.
I'm playing it currently on the Switch and it runs fine. Low times
are a little bit long. If you think that this is like a scale
down, hampered side story that Atlas kind of just churned and put out there,
it's not that at all. It is a fully fledged Persona game minus
the like social links, right, but you still get a pretty good story
that I know that there are fans of metal Gear out there that where are
they that that that don't think metal gear is a political story? What the
hell is going on here. I know there are fans out there that think
Persona is not a political story, but hey, let me tell you this
one. It's right in your face, y'all. It's right in your face.
These kids want to dismantle everything, and I'm all for it. Uh.
It's also in game Pass, so if you have game Pass, it's
it's kind of a no brainer, y'all. Check that ship out. Check
them. So these kids are literal anti disestablishmentarianisms. Hell, yeah, that's
not Uh okay, wait, so I you saying this thing gets started quickly
is definitely ringing in my ears because I've I love these kinds of games and
are at least at one time I really did love strategy tactical RPGs, and
I've tried to go back in recent years to some of those Final Fantasy Tactics
games, and I'm like, oh, I wish just we get started fast.
You kind of want to get into it. I love So I love
that, But does it still have like if I'm playing through the story,
like enough of a story and like that you feel it's satisfying. So it's
like, oh, it does still fully qualify as an RPG? Yeah?
One hundred percent and if you managed to read faster, then the voice actors
can read out their lines. You can fast forward through majority of the dialogue.
And the neat thing about this is that it takes that into account and
it will just have like memos or like notes of just bullet point story beats
of like, hey, you found this out during that scene if just in
case you forgot, this is what you found out, This is about this
person, this is where we're at. Just so it's sums that up.
But yeah, even if you're trying to like speed through the story to get
to the specific gameplay, they're sprinkling in story within those story missions or the
combat missions, right and important if you if I tack someone in the back,
do I get a bonus? There are bonuses from full Side, and
there's more bonuses for like positioning characters in Okay, So like it's basically replicating
the all out attack from PERSONA where once you'd weaken them down, you could
like rush them and there's like a fun new animation. So they have variants
of that that is more catered towards a tactics game. So you do have
that satisfying like positioning. Yeah, yeah, yeah, the for me in
a Tiles Tactics game. I that's really important to me, So I'm glad
to hear that. I feel like in some Tiles Tactics games that have come
out recently, there isn't a lot of differentiating between your characters in the beginning
and further you get down with them. Here, it definitely you are picking
your load out of characters of like, Okay, well this character is good
at AoE, this character is better at attacking from a distance. So you
wind up really having to cater your party for the specific mission. And the
maps are short as well or small. I think that's like one of my
bigger problems with Fire Emblem is that the maps get too big that you wind
up just spending turns just traveling throughout the whole map. Here, they're more
condensed, and like I said, it's just much more snappier because of that.
It's like you can play in short bursts. It's Final Fantasy Tactics,
but snack size fan fantasy snacks. And that's what we're all about here,
Snacktica. There you go hungry. Uh, Jeff Grubb, you have been
chanting. It looks like, oh, you and I have been chanting.
Yeah, you mentioned I can't remember where hey you would like like this,
and I think you think Lucy and Tamy. Also, if you're talking about
chance Son, that's one. I've been evangelizing that one for a while now.
Holy Moley is that Mike right? So good? What the heck it
is? Okay, So just I mean, we talked about it before,
but I'll just lay it out again real quick. At least what I played
so far, I'm pretty early. It's a game where you got to figure
out what them symbols mean. Uh. There's you walk around as a little
guy, like like the little guy you play as, he's like a little
he's got this little grimlin walk kind of hunched forward with a hood on,
and we and we identify with that. Uh, I don't I don't know
who Ramen is Goblin. He's like a Romen goblin. Yeah, he walks
around the world, Uh as a Ramen Goblin. Uh And yeah. So
I'm like so I'm like already very excited. And then I walk up and
it's like, oh, hey, with the symbol, we don't know what
it means. I'm like, okay, well, I'm sure the game will
just tell me it's like, oh, you got to figure out. I'm
like, it's a cool game. It's one of these games where I anytime
a game is hey, remember this thing, I'm like, first of all,
if you're asking me to do five other things, that's not gonna happen.
I don't have the memory for that. But if that is the core
focus, let's let's go. Let's fucking go. I can handle that to
a certain point. Now, I do still have a pretty bad memory,
so it's like, oh, man, what was that symbol I was literally
looking at two seconds ago. The game does a good job of putting you
in situations where, uh they if you can't figure out what the symbol means,
it will It's like, okay, no, just keep going and eventually
we're gonna give you a series of symbols and gestures from a character and NPC
and this is where you're gonna get the most information and you could probably figure
it out here and maybe even still you won't figure it out, but just
go a little bit further and more context and more context will come and then
you can figure it out. And when I say like, actually, like
it's up to you to figure out what these words mean. They do give
you the chance to just type in what you think it means. Now,
once you have a certain number of symbols that are in a certain grouping,
you can then move those symbols over to the page, and if you get
it correct, the game will be like, yes, that is what this
means, and we'll just kind of fill in their contextual differences as they come
up. For example, I say, oh, this one's clearly greeting a
greeting. This person's greeting me, and then it's like, well, when
someone uses that to say goodbye, the game will say they're saying bye,
They're not saying greetings anymore. So like, okay, very cool. I
still feel great about figuring this out, and the game is not going to
be silly about it. It's going to be now, let's keep it clear
so you don't get confused, and so it's just got everything going for it
where it's really thought out. It is not a one to one example,
but it reminds me a lot of a Return of the Oberden in terms of
the parts of your brain. It's trying to get you to get that discovery,
and anytime I'm thinking about Return of the Oberden, I am happy.
So boy, just really cool, fantastic experience. It is like the way
I describe it to people is it requires knowing the reference point of duo lingo.
Like you know when you're doing dio lingo and you're starting off and you're
like shit, shit shit learning the words, and then that one time where
the word pops up and you immediately know what it is and you're like,
I know this word in a different language. The satisfaction you get from that
moment is what this game is entirely about. I'm like, I'm obsessed with
languages or like to learn about languages and trying to learn languages as well.
So this like scratches that very particular itch for me, but it's something that
anyone can really get a satisfaction out of. There might be an initial phase
where you feel a bit confused and frustrated, but that's by design. You
are learning a brand new fictional language. But once you start getting it,
you're like, oh, I can now read this language with that's made up
of symbols that are completely made up. It is quite satisfying. Well,
it does the thing that they say you should do with when you're learning a
language, which is get immersed, right, you were immersed in this world.
And I'm someone who who is not obsessed with languages but would very much
like to be. And I'm kind of terrified because I wouldn't be good at
that, and not being able to know my way around a place and not
be able to communicate I find to be very uh isolating and uh not just
like embarrassing to a point where like I am wasting this person's time. So
the idea of going to a place, getting immersed in a place in a
language that I don't know so that I can learn it is something that's like
I might be too afraid to try that. This game replicates that experience in
a safe space, and it feels like it's working the exact way you it
should work, like you said, where you know, these people are just
going to speak their language in their symbols, and you're gonna get hit that
symbol over and over again, and eventually, because of so much context,
you are gonna be like, Okay, now I know exactly what that means.
Uh, And having that experience gamified is very impressive. So just really
joining myself this this game kind of in the same light Grub acts as exposure
therapy for me because I share a similar fear and anxiety of I kind of
don't I really want to go to this place? Why don't speak the language?
And I feel like I'm gonna it's gonna offend everyone to just just make
a fool out of myself here there. No one is like throwing rocks that
you were, like attacking you. You're just solving some basic puzzles and figuring
out the language, and it helps me ease me in of like, Okay,
if I were to go to Japan, no one's gonna throw rocks at
me or make fun of me. Yeah, okay, Like it's like a
little bit of Paris. So I don't know for any reason though, just
like because you crossed the picket line you didn't know existed. Yeah, I'm
blown away. I always like at this point, we're like talking up a
game and people like, oh, I should check this out. We haven't
said the name in a while. Chance of Sinar s E N n A
A R. It's on Steam. I've been playing it on the Steam Deck
and the Lenovo Legion Go and it's been yea very good. I think that
it's also another game pass joint I want to say, oh, really fantastic,
yeah, or I'll double check that I am and asks if there's combat
in the game, not that I've experienced. I don't think so. I
played with the boy. Yeah, it's it's all basically, there's no combat
stuff. It's you just have conversations and you're figuring out puzzles on walls,
and it does escalate, but as far as like I'm not finished, but
no, at no point are you holding the sword and trying to swing it.
Right. There are antagonistic elements, but yes, I don't think it
ever rises to the level of combat. Sorry, not on game pass,
I stay correct. Okay, fair enough. We got an emails picking up,
We got an email. Grab real quick before we get to that email.
Anyone else playing any other things they want to chat about talk about?
I played a bunch of you finally got around to it. How do you
find it. I'm enjoying it quite a lot. Yeah, it's a very
chill game. Yes, it's fine. It's really nice climbing games by don't
nod. I feel I feel like it flew under the radar a bit.
I know, like jan you mentioned it last week. I think it was
or maybe during Revengeance one of those, but because on my list and I
just wanted to play as much of it as I can before the game that
you start stuff started happening. And yeah, I'm like maybe three hours into
it and it's like a four or five hour game, so I'm planning to
finish that hopefully today. So yeah, I've been really really enjoying that.
Highly recommend that it is just a really cool climbing game where yeah, it's
it's like it feels satisfying and quite kinectic to move around, but it doesn't
have the weird like jank of climbing games that they usually have. It's quite
forgiving in how like far you can reach and and how sticky you're you are
to like various climbing points. But the real kind of like conceit of it
is like you anchor yourself to points like at the beginning of a big climbing
point. There's a whole civilization that has made like climbing up and getting higher
towards the clouds their whole thing. So very well, yeah me and not
someone get someone getting higher, I don't know, wow, wow alarm.
Yeah, and and there as they kind of like there are these climbing points
where you attach yourself with the rope and then you start climbing and you remain
attached to that rope so that if you fall, you kind of are always
anchored and you can climb back up with that point you can't. Yeah,
and then you can also create manual points for yourself to like kind of it's
almost like save your progress along the way. But it's just like a really
nice mechanic that I feel provides an element of like freedom to that you can
just pull in control of your desk. Yeah, there's points where you're like,
I don't know where I'm supposed to go here, so I'm just gonna
let go, and you let go and you swing about a bit and you
can look around and be like, Okay, I know where I'm going,
reel myself back up, get to that point again, and start climbing again.
I feel like that's the one thing that it does differently from a lot
of other climbing games. It doesn't punish you for falling. It kind of
builds that into its own kind of like discovery and navigation mechanic. And also
it makes it a little more like exhilarating as well, because you're like,
oh, I'm just going to drop down here and see what happens. And
it's really really satisfying when you drop down and you're like, I can now
see where I'm supposed to be going. I'm supposed to swing the rope hair
there, or like you swing across, you come close to a wall and
you like stick one of those ledge points in there, and you're like,
oh, I made it further than I should have been able to because I
timed my jumps and did this kind of stuff. And there's also like a
you can you can do a self imposed risk reward situation where you're like,
I'm not going to use any of these like mid climb points. I'm just
gonna do it. I'm gonna raw dogs climbing and see how far you can
get. Now I'm interested, go on. I also enjoy the small details
because at any point during your climb, even if you're holding onto your rope,
you just press in one of the analog sticks and then your character will
just like shake out their hands and Yeah, the stamina by is like quite
big, but it does like like the max of it depletes over time as
you like get tired, but as it's draining, Like you can always just
press the button to like recover up to the max is draining and then get
actual use of the and you can regain back to the lowered max if you
rest your hand. Yeah, and then you could fully rebuild it if you
get to a breasting position, which is just still where you could stand.
And then there's like as you go along, you have this like little buddy,
Like this game is full of like little freaks and that kind of stuff,
but like you ease, but like you have this buddy who like you
will who's able to like put this pulse that will make for example, vines
grow and that kind of stuff. So you have that kind of and then
it starts to get a little more complicated by introducing like if you're indirect sunlight,
your stamina drains quickly because it's hot. Tell brother, yeah. And
also like the plants that or like the ledge points that are like organic that
emerge, like they might like fade away quicker or dissolve because they're in dire
lyrics sunlight, So you need to think about am I in shade or am
I in sunlight? That kind of stuff. It sounds complicated, It sounds
complicated, but it is very, very very casual, Like it's very fun
and at the same time it has the depth for it to not feel like
a completely like pointless experience. It's one of the those perfect sweet spots of
like engaging and mechanically satisfying while not being overly demanding. It's in that short
hike sort of genre. Yeah, these smaller ascending platforming games, and it's
it's you know, it has its own take on platform obviously because it's a
climbing game. But I just I really like these experiences, and especially when
they focus in deeper and deeper on just doing that one thing and then kind
of just exploring that little nook of gameplay. And that's definitely what they're doing
when you saw. Yeah, I'm a big fan of it. There's also
like some some story beats and some little things to explore if that's if that
tickles your fancy. But if you do just want to stick to the critical
path and like I want to climb this mountain faster, you can just do
that. You can skip through such of that. It just like no,
the stores are little notes and there are like nice cute little things where it's
like someone who's been in this kind of like small isolated spot. It's something
like I've had enough of this. I'm gonna go out there and climb and
like adventure and find this kind of stuff. Those people who are like,
hey, I know it's really risky of this climb stuff, but I really
miss you whill you come and you know, make it to me or like,
And there's people like developing relationships and people trying to realize dreams and people
dealing with isolation and loneliness. And it's it's all told through text most of
the anyway, and and it's kind of accentuated and elevated by really nice music
and these kind of ambient moments where like you'll pick up a seashell and you'll
like hold it to your ear and like instead of just being like a wishywalker
sound, it starts playing this kind of like the ambience of what you used
to be like there. So if you're in like a you wore the cameras
around the wall, the camera will you walk into one room, for example,
and there's like cups and tables and that kind of stuff and it looks
like it's a cafe or something like that where people used to be that is
now empty, and you put it to your ear and it will like pan
over all that stuff and you can hear the hustle and bustle of like when
it was a thriving cafe. And it's a really smart, really nice way
to present a history of a location without kind of like doing flashbacks and stuff
like I really like those moments just yeah, just because they don't end until
you end it, so you can just let it like wash over these locations
while that sound is happening and you're like, oh, I really do feel
like this was a lived in space and it adds a lot of emotion to
a game that is mostly this this simple climbing game. This is also a
good game to play while you're just tell you definitely let me tell you.
Just like show games, you get into that flow state and then you start
crying about climbing a mountain. It's great. It's great. I beat Residua
belefour the remake. Cool. Yeah, it was. I kind of started
up again when I got the Steam deck o led Uh and it looks really
great on there, plays pretty good on there, and the HDR is just
popping. So it was it was a good reason to kind of get it
back and get back into that. And boy, that game is really really
fun. The shooting is just exquisite. It has really good pacing. Uh,
and I kind of couldn't put it down. I had other stuff to
play, and it was like, well, I'm just gonna play. Every
time I pick up the Steam deck, they would turn back on and be
resueable. I'm like, well, I'm just gonna play more with this.
This is gonna do what it tells me to do. I'm gonna do what
the sister's telling me to do. I'm gonna listen to the universe. And
it's just yeah, I really had a good time with it. I'm glad
that Mike stayed on my case to play it, are you? Oh yeah,
I got to do the deal. See. The funny thing about Ari
four remake is like, that's a game that I would like kind of go
back to, you know, like maybe once every other year or so.
And now that I played it again all the way through, I feel like
I'm now I'm good for another like decade. I don't have to do that
again. And I played the hell out of Resumeable for in GameCube when it
came out just NonStop. So it was like when I was playing this originally
the earlier this year, I'm like, oh, no, I've played this
game, and I'm it's like, no, it is like a full remade
thing. It's not quite as drastic as residuable to remake, but it's up
there. I feel like with the remake, it's mechanically a little more complicated,
and you know, if you see, yeah, the AI is better
and it feels more like a not a chure, but like feels more like
resistance when you play it, if you know what I mean. The old
ones like now reach the point where it's simply enough that you can like breeze
through it, and that makes it really conducive to repeat playthroughs, even if
you even if there's like an habitual kind of approach to it, this one
it feels like when you go into it, maybe if you play enough where
you've kind of like internalized it to the point where you did you know,
the original resonue before you could get there, But it feels like I'm gonna
get my ass kicked a little bit here, so I don't really want to
play it again, you know. The The update for Ari Ari four is
is less the like, well, it's definitely not the story, but it's
certainly the things that you don't see. It's the it's a it can blend
in with contemporary titles. I think yes, in a way that you know,
the original probably has a tougher time doing. And I think that is
like a really special achievement because that game you could fool someone being like,
yo, this is a twenty twenty three game. Yeah yeah, right right,
you know, and then uh, you know, and I think that's
you know, for me, like that's just as impressive as the other quality
of life improvements that have gone you know, throughout I wanted to I know
everyone was like we were talking Extra Life for a little bit. I know
you guys did was I'm sorry, Jan? Was there other things that you
wanted to Was there a game of the week? Was there something else?
Please? Okay, step on, step away, Okay, what with Okay,
I'll be gentle, I'll wear socks. Uh No. I think I
was going to say earlier about talking about Extra Life Grub that Dan and that
old crew did such a great job. I did a great job. You
did a great job. I saw you that you were in like jail for
a minute and quarantine and Mike went to jail too. I kind of felt
bad because you were like you had like a blanket wrapped around you, and
I was like, oh god, is he like shivering and they're fucking with
him, Like what's happening now. It was at that point I was like
I just wanted to get like let everyone know I was alive, and my
kids were apparently were like watching like okay, oh boy, life and stuff.
So went years of therapy there. Good job. So so you know,
thanks everyone who donated, Thanks everyone for doing it during my little pinball
situation. And I wanted to shout out another Giant Bomb community member who we
did not shout out that I felt bad that we didn't because this person was
like for a while, like acting as like the interim captain of the Giant
Bomb team until we got our shit together. I'm talking about Anthony Thomas,
who streamed for twenty six hours well done, who raised six and fifty dollars,
received the single largest donation of six hundred and sixty six dollars and sixty
six cents from Satan himself. Hell yeah, he Stan kids. And also
because I felt bad because Anthony also streamed through fires for a little while too,
and I copied him. I am a non original bastard, and I
just need everyone to know that it was a good stream. It was good
stream. Everyone had good streams. Thanks for everybody for participating. It was
really awesome to see. And you know, we're all raising money for the
kids. It's great exactly all the kids, great great cause, all around,
great job. Yeah, you know, extra life. It's always like
a fun little uh stop right before a Game of the Year of like,
all right, cool, let's let's let's put some good out into the universe.
Universe univorse uh univorse before we uh you know, perhaps divorced from each
other during Game of the Year. I just need to say this word one
time. Rmusic uh Grub. We got an email and it ties into what
you also have on the dock here. Let me hear you that. Okay,
that's it. Longtime listener, first time writer. I have a question
for Jeff Grubb. I'm wanting to get a handheld PC, but I don't
know which one to get. I heard great things about the steam Deck,
o led and the Roger ally, but I haven't heard much about the new
Lenovo Legion go. Do any of you have any experience with it? Much
love from Cody from Salt Lake City, Utah, sent from yachay mail from
iPhone. The Novo Legion go to the polls. Yes, I cannot stop
saying that every time I pick it up. Yeah, I just got mine
when I got back from from Dan's. It was it was waiting for me,
and I got it out right away and played around with it, and
I think, I listen, it's still pretty early. I haven't had a
final verdict on the thing or whatever that means, but I do have a
pretty good idea now of like how I would explain someone like what they should
do when they ask this question. The I think if you can get away
with playing your games on a steam Deck, that is the overall like most
refined experience. The steam deck O led is really awesome. It's really nice
to use. You are just going to be slightly limited in some circumstances if
you have a lot of games on Epic, if you have a lot of
games on the Microsoft Windows Store or game Pass, or if you want to
play some specific games that don't work on steam Deck because of the antipiracy or
anti cheating stuff like destiny or call of duty. So it's like those are
real limitations and things to keep in mind. There are ways around those those
things, but it's a little bit more work, and then that defeats the
purpose of the Steam deck allege just being this refined experience. But it is
the most console like, it is the most well thought out, and it's
my favorite way to play handheld games for the handout PC games right now.
But if you are someone who wants to go and like have the breadth of
all these options, of all these other stores, the ally is very excuse
me, very powerful. I think it's a very comfortable system to hold.
It's uh that they don't have track pads on it, so if you don't
care about that stuff, it's kind of more condensed, and the screen is
really nice. Uh. The Lenovo, the Lenovo Legion Go has a lot
of those same benefits. It's just kind of like it's wild own thing.
So the controllers on the side, they pop off just like a switch and
then you can use them wirelessly. But even more wild than that is the
right controller there's it comes to a little like dock, this like little circular
disc and you can put it in there, and if you look on the
bottom, it's got a mouse like tracking ir light or whatever, and you
can set it down and it turns into a vertical mouse, so you can
put the screen down on a table, and then you can use the left
controller as like your you know, your WASD kind of thing, and then
you can use the right controller as a mouse and just start playing keyboard and
mouse games on a table. Now, I think that is something I might
never actually end up using it in any real world scenario, but there are
people out there who will. And if you're thinking like I want, I
want to have my PC games on a go, but the steam deck solution
of using the track pads seems kind of whack to me. I don't really
want to play Civilization that way. I don't mind it. I'll play them
that way. But if you think that there is another option out there,
the Lenova Go does give you this full other and it has a trackpad on
it too, so if you want to play it that way, you can.
And then if you have a desk ready to go somewhere, or if
you're like at the airport and you want to take up a table in front
of you and just do that. The option is there. I think the
Lenovo Legion Go is it's heavier, it's a gigantic, it's bulky, and
it kind of like feels bulky when you're holding it, but it's not so
out of the realm of what's normal that you couldn't get away with using it
as like on the go, like you'll still be mostly fine. I think
the answer here again is Steam Deck. If you can get away with it,
and if there are games that would cause a headache on a Steam Deck,
then I would probably look at the benefits of these two systems and say,
hey, if I want something that is going to be more portable,
gonna make more sense on the go, it's probably the ally, And if
you want to have all of the features, then go with the Legion Go.
I think the software on the Lenovo and the Asus are kind of equivalent,
not great. They both run Windows eleven that has a lot of headaches.
I tried to put the Lenovo Legion Go into sleep mode while I was
playing a game, and it just keeps turning back on and goes into that
Windows like standby mode where it's like, oh, hey, put in your
pen so we can get back into Windows. I'm like, no, actually,
just go to sleep. So there's still headaches there. That's one of
the main reasons I don't like using those things. But Windows has its benefits.
So yeah, it's not an easy answer. But if you can get
away with the Steam Deck, that's definitely the one I reckon. I still
can't believe, like we don't have an elegant EGS solution on the Steam Deck.
Like I know it exists, and I know you can be a fucking
maniac and stay up all hours of the night trying to like maguver your way
through it, but it just doesn't. It's just not happening, you know.
Yeah, I mean it's not. Yeah, it's not like Native and
it is a headache, yeah for sure. I mean I think it more
surprising is just like man game Pass, Like Microsoft has this partnership on going
with Valve. Why't why wouldn't they just make that happen. But even even
that, it's like, oh, well, you could stream your games,
that's what we made happen. That's not really the answer I'm looking for,
Greb. Last question about the Lenovo Legion go if you're playing it in bed,
holding it above your face and you drop it. Do you think it'd
break your orbital bone? I think there is a like a five percent chance
that it would. Yes, okay, which is significant. One out of
twenty times, one out of twenty times. Oh a big boy, it
is big. Any other things, any other games we want to chat about
before we go to break? No sick No. Once again, folks,
if you're just tuning in now Live or you know you tuned out while you
were listening to the archive, tickets are back on sale for the Giant Bomb
Game of the Year finale. We've moved to the Terragram Ballroom. The Moroccan
Lounge was too small. We sold that out. We're trying to sell out
this one too, folks. If you're in the Los Angeles area, so
Cal, I want to see you. I want to see you. I
want to high five you. Maybe not kiss on the mouth, No,
just can't do that anymore. Yes, high fives on the mouth. There
we go, That's what we'll do. That's what we'll do. Also,
all right, I'll relax, We'll go take a quick break break and we'll
be back with some video game news. I'd be remiss if I also didn't
shout out pug Tato for dropping dropping fat stacks for the kids over both weekends
of Extra Life. You're solely, solely responsible for why I had to play
through the quiet Man again. Well I respect that. Uh yeah. I'll
blown away by the by the generosity. Yes, yes, also blown away
by the general generosity of everyone. Nothing is too small or too big.
Also if you're just hanging out to too small general generosity, general general generosity.
Uh, I need to find an outlet for the stupid like two line
bars that I come up with because I I don't have a proper outlet.
Maybe you know what, one one week during the shoutouts, we're just gonna
freestyle, all right everyone, right, Yeah, I bought a I bought
a kai Oh yeah, the drum hand right beats yeah yeah, to make
beats. I say what we do is I'll make I'll make beats and there
will be like five minute long beats and then you just drop your two bars
and then we'll put it up on SoundCloud. Like it will be ridiculous.
It'll be hilarious. People listen to five minutes songs for like two lines.
Okay, what's what's your producer tagging name? Then if I'm general generosity.
I had one. I had one that I won't tell anyone. Oh.
So we were walking once Vanilla Ice, two Vanilla Icia. We were walking
and there was just like this sign on in the streets of London that just
said general Waste on it, and I was like, that would be my
rap nickname. There we go and then and then we came up with a
whole like trash based rap group. Lucy had one as well, so I'll
stick with general waste. What about horse animal? No, that's pretty good.
I feel like that's horse animal. WHOA, Let's not be shoals here.
Let's not be shoals here. Okay, all right, East Coastal.
How you guys remember these things? I remember grub because I occasionally think about,
like, man, I'd like to maybe have like a local political career
where I helped my community. And then I think, no, that's never
gonna happen, because last Friday I loudly proclaimed, let's make a new slur.
Anyway, when did you say that? I don't remember exactly. We
don't can't place these things on a timeline, but we can't place the news.
Hello, everybody, real quick, here the there you go? This
is the Lenovo Legion. Go look, wo thing is wow Deck? How
many of these fucking things do you have there? Jee? Wow? I
got my two Steam decks. I'm getting it. I'm good. I'm getting
another one as soon. Actually might be geting another two. And none of
those count. The little Chinese handhelds that are just like little Android emulators.
That's that's that's your rap name. That's your rap name. Grab Chinese handheld?
No no, no, yeah, yeah, I like I like his
rap name being little Chinese emulatory. Yeah, that's a lot of That's like
a sentence to say, you know, I feel like I'm using my analog
pocket the wrong way. Like I'm not like I'm playing it. I'm not
using it. It's like a paperweight your ass with it. I usually it's
like a DDLL machine is just in fucking shambles on the ground. Now.
I just want to make sure I'm like maximizing all of a couple of games
you want to play. I don't know. All right, there's another podcast.
Maybe. All right. There's not a lot of news happening this week.
It's like a bunch of people about to take the rest of the week
off, so we'll get through this switch to might not have the chops for
real DLSS. DLSS, which is deep learning super sampling, is a feature
that everyone knows about because in Vidia on PC. It works by using AI
to upscale the resolution of games. Basically, in Vidia trains a model like,
hey, here's what this game looks like if it was running at like
thirty two K, and then it takes that data and it like instills it
through those big updates that you get from Nvidia into your hard drive. So
it's like when you play those games, it'say, oh, okay, we're
just going to take this stuff and make it look more like that. Some
of these solutions are going to be coming to the next switch and DLSS might
be in there. But apparently this the switch chip might not have the d
LA, which is the deep learning accelerator processor that would essentially make DSS free
for developers by freeming like they could just add that as a feature and not
worry about any of the detrimental effects of taking away horsepower from actually running the
game. And if they don't have that, that could cause some like picking
and choosing between developers and so hey, this this new handheld system from Nintendo
might not be as powerful as other systems on the market. Big shocker.
Huh, why you even got to say that? Yeah, I mean that's
just where we're at. I mean, it's listen, I think that video
is going to give as much power to Nintendo as they possibly can. They
want, Nintendo have something that's pretty powerful, but at a certain point we've
got to recognize this is Nintendo and they're just not going to do that.
Nintendo. Is that you know that scene from Futurama, Zach Branninggan's like lower
lower, lower, too, low lower. That's Nintendo aspects. Yeah,
I mean the reality is is that like that would probably add a little bit
of cost to the processor, and Nintendo's like, well, well, we
don't need that when our games don't use that, who gives a funk about
other people? And so yeah, listen, this thing's going to get revealed
in the next year. So it probably actually almost certainly in the next year,
so we'll know. But people shouldn't get their hopes up that DLSS is
going to solve everything. Uh. It will probably have some positive effect on
the next switch, but it's not going to be some magic solution for the
switch. The way I used to use. I used to use this thing
on account track called half Life Sound Selector, which was called h l SS.
So every time I hed DLSS in my mind, it just translates to
dof life sound selector. Hey, I always see DLSS as dssl's or DSLS.
Yeah, of course, yes, Oh okay, I have the shoe
fits sure, you know. And I learned now that when we're saying that,
we're not talking about we're talking about the Internet right now. Oh yeah,
in the internet, Internet, Internet, okay, yeah, five fiber
mica all that. Yeah, Pokemon is going to last for hundreds of years.
Oh my god, my wait you here's an idea for you. Here's
an idea. Okay, I'm just gonna float this idea for the Pokemon company
and Jan. If this is gonna last for hundreds of years, it's going
to be entirely unmanageable for that many Pokemon to exist. And I think what
start what expire so that I think manageable amounts of Pokemon. I think what
needs to start happening is some sort of weird Pokemon disease that is like making
certain Pokemon extinct, like killing them off, Like, oh my god,
we had this, this virus went around and killed all the Pikachu's and now
there's no Pikachus. So I feel like then seat and not need to start
calling Pokemon as well, like put them in a vault in the same way
that Destiny does with fucking guns. Just be like, oh they're they're gone,
man, Like all all the hit one chans are dead. When will
peak? It should be in the public domain? All right? Well Google's
not very helpful there. Eventually the stuff is going to be the public domain,
and then Jane can make Pikachu Pikachu. Well, zero chance Pikachu is
going in the public domain. So if Mickey Mouse does it maybe in Japan.
Will never Mickey Mouse is in public domain? Uh, steamboat Willie technically
is okay. I was gonna say, I can't imagine the kind of heinous
ship that Mitch is coming up with in his mind right now. Well,
Mike, I know you're gonna love this. Is against Mickey Mouse going into
the public domain. He wants the Disney to have it for forever. Oh
he's he's he's pro capitalism. I get it, Yes, pro capitalism,
Mitch, Yeah, the fuck Mike. Okay, he gets a lot of
heat, just like I want I want. I want Mickey Mouse to be
private and I don't want health careful anyone. That's what it sounds like.
He's going to come in here. He's going to come in here. Yeahst
the he does get a lot of heat for this one. Go easy on
him, guys. He just likes Disney a lot. Go easy on him.
This capitalist ghoul. Yeah, this is this disgusting pig, all right,
But he makes a lot of money for the kids this week, and
everybody give him a break. Yes, because we can't afford healthcare. I
want to get Mitch a tsha that says privatize Mickey Mouse on it. I
feel that would be a great Actually that's actually a shirt, all right.
Sosnmia, who is the chief operating officer at the Pokemon Company, says his
role is to ensure Pokemon will outlive us all. He wants to keep Pokemon
alive for hundreds of years, making sure it survives well past our lifetimes.
It's important to keep satisfying existing Pokemon fans. It's equally as important and harder
to ensure younger players will keep discovering the series. One way the series can
expand the futures to show how show more of how pokemon behaved in the wild
e thither, that's what it needs. Jan's four kids will be like,
well, I got to see how these pokemon actually live. No, just
just cut down the amount of them. Most of them are dog shit.
We the vast majority of my ship. Keep all the dog ones, keep
all the cat ones. Take out the sand castle. I like the chandelier
ghost, what about the ghosts? Keep all the ghosts. Yeah, keep
all the sexy ones. Keep the Oh you need the sexy ones. Yeah,
a fun, fun story. My partner was giving out candy and stickies
for Halloween and then there was one, Uh low puney folks at home.
You can go google Lowpney l O p U and not do it at work.
Be be a little freak at work. Yeah, yeah, turn safe,
setch off on a Google low Punny and uh, one of the kids,
like you know, he grabbed his little sticker pack and then he saw
that low Pony was there and was like, miss blah blah blah, can
I can I switch for that one? And then she just up and she
knows, like, I know why you want to fucking switch to this,
you little freak. Yeah, go ahead. I like how what you said?
Uh, I like how you said fun story my partner, and then
from behind it, I mean just like turn like, oh god, you're
educating the children. It's good. That's the story here though, right,
Jane is like your your desire for them is to focus in more on the
good Pokemon. And what he's really saying here is they have to keep making
an unsustainable number of Pokemon, because that's the only way this makes sense in
hundreds of years. You have to keep making more Pokemon. I think that
the Pokemon legacy will definitely live on if they are a little bit smarter with
their decisions when it comes to the games and how they handle the IP.
Because it's been how many years since that last Detective Pikachu movie. I don't
know if there's enough momentum or sustain momentum anymore for like a Detective Pikachu two
movie at least. Yeah, I mean, with the Morriman movie, make
it so much money, They're gonna keep trying Pokemon movies, just maybe not
Detective Pikachu too. I'm waiting for them to get to their phase where they're
like, we're gonna make Pokemon mature. We're gonna make it for like the
older people, and it's like Pokemon his Oh no, mewtwo's a fallen on
hard times as crackhead. Now no, no, here's what we do.
Here's what we do, tam. We just remake Logan but with Pokemon,
but with yeah Logan, but with like who's hit Man chew? No,
hit Man chew? What the fuck is up? Hit Man hit Man chomp?
But I can't. I decided four thousand of these things. I don't
remember what they're called making up POC. I had a really good shot of
it being real. Now let's keep it. You had a solid show.
I was thinking of, what's the one with the fucking the frog with the
tongue that everyone loves Greninja gren Inga. But it's like Logan and then mew
two is Professor X in that movie. Yeah, mew two is Professor X.
Yeah, I love it. I'll cut the check, cut the check,
let's go. I think what they should do. You know how the
MCU like they had the longest time, they were like ship. We can't
access these characters because they're fox Everyone's you know, now when them back,
we need the Fantastic four, we need or the X Men back and now
they go and everyone's like, oh, hell yeah. I think what they
do is they do that but with dig one where they're like, we need
Digi one, and they acquired Digi one and didgit wan to fold it into
the universe as well, and that would be incredible. It now it's like
Marvel versus Capcom by his Pokemon versus Digi one, and it's like Capcom makes
up fighting game is sick, let's go. It would be more like when
ww by WCW and then they just treated the WCW wrestlers like garbage. Yeah,
idiots, like sting you get out? Yeah. Returnals director is leaving
Housemart Kerry Kruger director of Housemark's acclaimed PS five exclusive Returnal and so now he's
leaving the Helsinki based developer after fourteen years. Kruger said the decision to leave
was very difficult, but he was confident that the developer's brightest chapter has yet
to be written. He said he was proud of all the amazing things Housemark
has accomplished and that he's leaving the company with nothing but deep gratitude for the
past. We don't know what he's doing next. I don't necessarily, but
he's probably gonna go start his own thing. Who knows. I just want
to say someone in chut used the Pokemon Fusion website to create Hit one Shoot.
Okay, Yeah, it's it's fantastic and Pikachu obviously that's very good.
Oh that makes sense. Uh well, yes, so it's sorry, sorry,
well well done front tickiness for that. Harry Krueger. Yeah, he
was in charge of Returnal, but he is not in charge of their next
game, which is some new I p uh. They're still working on that.
That'll come along here in the next in the next couple of years.
How do you guys feel about Returnals? That was like a hot one for
you guys. I thought it was pretty okay, Yeah, I liked it.
Yeah, I enjoyed it. I think I thought it was a cool
place for that depth to like go it. He was like a very satisfying
evolution, good use of their skills. Yes, agreed. Yeah, I
think it's a quick game, all right. Dragon's Dogmas two's release date has
seemingly leaked. It's coming out on my birthday, March twenty second, twenty
twenty four. Yeah, March specifically, and only March birthdays, true,
Jeff Acalor, I happen to know it's your birthday too. No, no,
I said, only March birthdays is cool, Like everyone, Okay,
that's true, that's I know, you know, I know, you know.
Yeah, Dragon's Dogmas. It's impossible to Dragon's Dogma two's release date.
There's too many possessions there. Yeah, so this this game was the date
was leaked by Peggy in the UK Capcom Peggy again, she is, they're
just shouting on the streets about release dates. The Capcom has an event coming
up soon. I think at the end of this month they'll probably reveal this
date then confirm it. But we haven't heard much about this game in any
real way since they announced it. There was so they had like one little
revealed trailer since then, and then oh yeah, okay, well we'll hear
about that game and like probably another year and then we'll release it a year
after that. It's like, no, this thing is coming in fast.
We should be playing it in the first quarter next year. And this is
the game that Capcom was probably hinting at that they said that they have a
big game. It's gonna sell millions of copies in the first quarter next year.
That's unannounced. Well, this is all those things except for their assuming
it's gonna be a big hit, So it seems like they have a lot
of confidence in it. Any of you guys, dragons, dogma guys.
No, but I know someone who is tams his hand in the air,
Tam, you're a big dragon's dama guy. I like that game. I
think he is great. I think Dark Orisen was a fantastic expansion. However,
it needs to be digging some serious points for getting rid of the original
theme tune, which is one of the greatest theme tunes of all time one
of the greatest title screens of all time. Bees Into Free is a unbelievably
brilliant butt rock from Japan that it comes out of nowhere. It starts with
like piano notes and you're like, oh, this is gonna be one of
those things. It goes it basically yeah, it's just like you start shredding
and you're like, oh my god, this is incredible. But yeah,
that game is the original was a lot of fun. It had that like
nice blend of monster hunter souls ish and like its own climbable stuff, which
is which was really cool. I feel like it's It's The interesting thing for
me is like they're very confidently saying this will sell millions and millions, and
yeah, I'm like, hmm, interesting. I feel like the world is
in a different place now with Fantasy, where that feels more like a reasonable
as assssion, especially given in a post Skyrm world, in a post you
know, Game of Thrones world, you know, in a world where you
know the cells games are super popular or difficult years is kind of like expected
in a lot of bunch of games. But yeah, I'm excited to see
how that game performs. I'm excited to play it. It's you know,
it's like, for my money, one of the most talented it's not in
Team Act. Capcom one of the most talented developers when it comes to combat
and stylish combat as well. Obviously worked on a bunch of dovitm Cry games.
So I trust them to make it a really cool, interesting game.
Last couple of stories here. Let's see Balderskate three is getting a physical deluxe
edition. It's going to be eighty dollars. There was no physical edition before
this, so it's not like you can go to the store and buy a
copy of this. This was a digital only. The deluxe edition is going
to have a bunch of extra stuff in there. It's actually a pretty good
deal because it's eighty dollars. But it does make me wondering in the future
as we get to more like digital only releases, something that will probably be
more common as we get later in this generation, especially next generation. You
guys think this is kind of maybe the way that it's going to happen,
where big games get released digital only and then a like an eighty or ninety
dollars version gets released and if you want it physically, that's the one you
buy. Yeah. Yeah, I could see that being a trend, especially
with I mean, I don't remember the last physical game I bought, but
there's been like digital releases where I've thought, like, oh, I'd really
like if I had a physical representation of this, like Tunic Right, metrop
Prime four was from earlier this year, is the last one I bought physically?
Yeah? You pull Metroc Prime four Metroc Prime Remastered? What the book?
No, don't stop telling people care for an alley. That's where I
get my leagues from the Alley shit. Uh yeah, clipped and ship everywhere.
Yeah, Games Journalist, Chefu Report, Metroid Prime four, it's ship
everybody, Stop getting your expectations up. It's acoustic day. Uh yeah,
I am. I'm thinking this is going to be very common. I think
Baltis Gate three is actually gona probably set a precedent for this, and it
like Alan Wake two that's digital only. I think a physical version of that
comes out eventually, and it'll be something like this where it's like a deluxe
edition, maybe not like a collector's edition. They might have that as well,
and that'll be two hundred and fifty three hundred dollars whatever, But I
think they'll have a physical deluxe edition only and that'll be like eighty or ninety
dollars. They give me a fair mossh really like this idea because it feels
less shitty in my mind. There's a period of time where all these collectors
editions with yourself is perhaps the most memorable, like perpetrator of this, where
it's like we've got five different versions and each version is full of more bullshit
than the last, and it felt like these things were being created to try
and like in a very cynical way cash in on excitement for games, whereas
this approach allows it to be reversed where it's like a game comes out like
Balder's Gate three people are super in love with it, you know, culture
around it emerges, discussions around emergers, like brains around it emerges. The
developer can look at that, take some money that they've earned from the game
already, and be like, let's make something that is for these people who
love it, who can now buy and use it to and have it every
part of it being meaningful. I think that's the important thing that about the
bottles Gate one that feels a little different. It is like you look at
every item in there and you're like, that's that's cool. That's cool.
As a fan, I would be excited if I had all of these as
opposed to here's an empty case, a map, and some other bullshit like
that. At the very least, in that empty case map and that I
have an investment in that. I know that I like that map or whatever
it may be. Yeah, So it feels like a much better way to
do this. I wouldn't be surprised a few months from now there's a physical
version of Alan Wake and it's like got the thermos in it, it's got
you know, a slash, the soundtrack, flashlight, or it's got like
you know, the clicker in it or something like that. And it's more
meaningful because you've played through that game. You know the value and the kind
of like weight of those items in the game, and and you have an
attachment to that stuff. I really like this idea as far as like cashing
in on fandom goes. This feels a little more and also keeping physical alive,
right, like, yeah, we get like already Alan Wake, Baulder's
Gate. These are Game of the Year nominees coming out without physical versions right
away. The trend is moving in that direction, and people want to keep
physical around. Well, this is how it's going to happen for a lot
of these games. They're just they're going to save so much money by not
having to print this stuff up and then recognize the demand afterward and then being
able to charge you a little bit more, a little bit of a premium
because you've already fallen in love with it. As you said, tam So,
I think you're right. Yeah, there's that one company that does similar
right already with limited rings Actually there's actually like six or seven of these things.
Now, Yeah, like limited runs approach is really good, but it
is obviously taking like indie digital titles and doing it for them. In most
cases, I would like it, like like bigger games to have a similar
treatment where it's like it has a bunch of has an expensive thing, but
everything in here is something you're going to care about. All right, let's
see here, border Borderlands four and Tiny, Tina's Wonderlands to have been mentioned
on someone's leakedin profile basically a former Gearbox employee. Have these mentioned, It
seems a bit obvious that these will happen. They aren't happening. Borderlands four,
Tiny and Tina's Wonderland too, probably will get announced over the next couple
years. The question is Gearbox is that embracer Embracers in a tough situation.
They They've even mentioned that they might try to sell off Gearbox. This Gearbox
has enough momentum, has had enough successes that someone will probably pick them up.
You guys think two K I if it comes down to it, two
K will just buy Gearbox to ensure that these games can keep coming out.
Because two K deeply involved in the Borderlands games, right, Yeah, I
that's the first immediate company I can imagine picking them up other than them getting
swallowed up in the mailstrom that is Xbox and just consuming everything. Yeah.
Absolutely, but just no surprise these I mean Borderlands three very successful, tiny
and Tina's wonder Lands they said beat expectations. So the fact that we're getting
more little surprised there. I mean, do you guys want anything else from
Gearbox at this point? No? I think I'm good. I'm full,
yeah, full, all right full. It's one of those instances, you
know, where you create food and you have a lot of it, like
day after day, week after weekend, and then you realize I don't need
to eat this food anymore. Yeah, and have cheddar Bay biscuits in.
That's the one thing that in my mind, I'm like, maybe it wouldn't
be in their best interest to do that with gearb isn't Gearbox like partly OneD
by ten Cent now or something like that. Or is it Embracer It's Embracer,
It's Embrace. There's so there's some stickiness there as well, or messiness
there as well that they'd have to untangle. But I also feel like they
if I was in that situation trying to make that decision. I would look
at whether how viable this franchise is going to be long term, if that's
the main reason I'm acquiring that developer. I feel like a lot of people
love that franchise. I feel like it also is on the cusp of like
going one way or the other. The movie is gonna come out. I
feel like that movie will be a kind of collection point for the franchise.
Yeah, exactly. Either it breaks through to the mainstream where people are like,
oh, I love this shit, this is amazing. I've never had
mad Max but annoying before this is this is I'm down for this, and
and that will be like, oh yeah, we should acquire them, or
I feel like if that doesn't work. My my personal opinion is as much
as I you know, do engage with the boradline franchise in the gaming space,
it feels like it's losing a lot of momentum and it's like doing a
lot of the same things over and over again. Like that last boat Borderlands
three, I was like, it sold very well, but I know it
sold really well, but like I every moment playing that game was like this
hurts man. This is just I know, right, like we're being and
people It's sold very well, probably because people want Borderlines back. Does that
mean they like after a while they're like, ah, I don't know if
I need more Borderlands because Borderlands three didn't do much for me. Does Borderlands
four get hurt by that? But I think by the time that that that
that people realize that it will be too Like the publishers the two K and
Gearbox will be like, well, now we're already making X. Last one
succeeded, so yeah, yeah, I guess so, but my my,
I guess the point is like, the next one could succeed, but if
it continues on the trajectories on do they believe that it will be the investment
is enough for them to do they believe the trajectory is good enough for them
to invest in long term by buying that studio and untangling the mess that isn't
breaker Embracer and then also h and and and then also getting in bed with
a bunch of people who have done questionable things in the past. Yeah,
I I I speculate that the reason two K did not buy Gearbox when they
were up for sale Embracer broad is because they probably didn't want to have to
deal with the headache of Randy Pittford. But they found a usp with some
yeah pawn on it and they were like, well, maybe we shouldn't buy
this. H Finally, earlier this week or Lassen last week, at some
point I said Star Wars to the Old probably isn't being worked one anywhere anymore.
And I just clarified this on GMM, but I figured i'd do it
here as well, so I mentioned this and it got picked up everywhere.
Uh. Yeah, Star Wars Noting the Old public does seem very unlikely to
ever come out this remake. Uh. And that's not that's not going to
change with any of this, but it's I say that because PlayStation seems like
they're done with it and they don't want anything to do with it. And
this kind of game from Lucas, Lucas Arts and Lucasfilm doesn't really happen anymore
unless it has a partner. Lucas does not really like funding games themselves.
They like finding outside partners. That's why the uh, the Quantic dream game
happens because Quantic Dreams said they would fund the game themselves, and Lucas say
all right, knock yourselves out, go have fun with it, go make
it sure. That's what this was where it's like, hey, Embracer will
make it. Sony is going to come in and basically be the publishing partner
and have the exclusive rights to it, And now Sony washing their hands of
it and not wanting to do deal deal with it anymore makes it seem very
unlikely that it would be able to find that partner to make it come to
life and actually happen. Now you would say, well, what about ea,
they they did it before. Ya. He's been asked multiple times and
they've said no because they want to focus on what BioWare like owns completely themselves.
Maybe that changes, but it has not changed over the last five years.
Where the over that period where Lucas has been very excited to make this
happen. So if this game is also has it has their own thing right
like their Star Wars games are doing gangbusters in a completely different format, like
the Jedi Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order, like they are printing money with that
stuff and right critically acclaimed and doing some interesting things that they have no real
incentive to go back and real that a game clear here that is like probably
going to require more effort than they than most people realize because that although people
love the Nights of the Old Republic games, they're like very they are extremely
outdated, Like you basically would need a full redesign, and that that was
what the promise was for this game. So it's like like an EA looks
over them, like, yeah, we don't want we don't want to deal
with that. So like when I say the game is not being worked on
anyway, it means from the perspective of what this game was announced at as
a Sony published game that's gonna come out and be on the PS five,
that idea is almost certainly never gonna happen. That doesn't necessarily mean no Nights
of the Old Republic remake is gonna is gonna never happen, and someone could
be working on it somewhere. This is where like my information ends. I
want to want to be clear on that. I don't know what's going on
in Side Embracer. I don't know what's going on at Saber and so like
this is not my reporting. I'm just if someone is working on something over
there, I have no idea, So just to be clear, it's from
the kind of the sony side, and that makes it very unlikely that anything
actually happens with this thing. So if what you care about here is will
one day I'd be playing Nights Old of the Old Republic remake? Will I
get Kotur again? As of today, it seems very unlikely. So yeah,
sorry about that. If that's what you were looking forward to. I
was looking forward to that. Oh well, Jim, that's gonna do it
for the news. Ready to get out here to do the final segment.
We've got so much power Jeff Grubb right, yeah, making news like I
was making news. I was like, all right, make some ship,
make some news about us, like do that get selfish with Jeff Backlar was
there when I bought Metroid Prime for everybody? Please? Well, I am
realizing, you know we we need to defrost the Okay, that's right.
Your Lenovo Legion go to also comes preloaded with a bunch of photos of Tam
so yeah, yeah, you can only be so blessed. We'll be back
with your emails right after short quick Fricky break BombCast at try bomb dot com
email address to send your emails to. We read them, print them,
out shred some of them. Some of them. I can't believe you would
write that and type that to another human being, and then, you know,
we all have a laugh about them afterwards. Fun quizzes, fun musings,
fun beefs. There's been a growing trend lately of people emailing the show
and then a day or two later emailing a retraction saying like, hey,
I was not in a good place when I wrote that, Please don't air
that. Yes, where everyone's punching bag, you know exactly exactly. First
email comes from a A rights in? What is this? Pretty little liars?
Is that a timely ref? I don't know. I know what you're
talking about. Thank you, thank you, Thanks. It's that HBO show,
right, yeah, it was like an ABC Family joint for a bit
free for what am I thinking of? What was the HBO show with the
lying uh gossip girl, low down, dirty liars, big little lies?
Thank you Michael, Yeah, big little anyway, A rights in, I
was just thinking about these terms. It's important to differentiate the two. I
should say that these their subject read bouncing off versus falling off. Example,
I fell off sentiment, enjoyed it, but got distracted and never finished hooks
were not strong enough to pull me to the end. Bounced off of f
F sixteen because my forum felt like I was gonna spasm from just pressing attack
repeally without thought. Bounced off is way more negative, I AMO thoughts biggest
falloff versus bounce off games of the year as always, Hey, A is
totally right. Bouncing off is much more of a sort of pejorative. I
think it can be for me A lot of times. Bouncing off means I
did not get hooked in time, and I bounced off before what I really
think is a good college try. Like I don't think I even gave this
thing enough of a shot just to know if this is a pejorative or not.
I bounced off, and yeah, so it's like it's more repulsive and
not like, oh it's repulsive, but like it's actually like pushing back in
such a way where like, oh, okay, I just can't deal with
this right now. And I guess that sounds more pejorative, but I don't
mean it that way. It's not experienced enough a bit to know I understand
where you're coming from. I think I think bounced off has a more like
deliberate sentiment about Yeah, yeah, we're falling off. It's like, not
my fault, it just happened, and I feel bad about it. Bounced
off as a phrase has negative connotations, but a negative sentiment isn't necessarily necessary.
Isn't necessarily why that sounds right, you know what I mean? Like
bouncing off is like, oh, yeah, it didn't work for me,
But I could play a game and be like it's just not really working for
me, or I like this, but it's not enough for me to carry
on playing, so I'm going to leave. I feel like you can bounce
off that, whereas falling off is like for me, I imagine it as
like I want to play that game more, but one reason or another,
I'm unable to do it right now, or I for you know, I
want to return to it later on. So when the kids, when the
kids say I fell off, When you fall off, you know, when
you say you fell off, that's very different. That means that you're washed.
You're washed, and you're you're no longer ret of it. Yeah,
well grab on our business cards. It says bad YouTube or so yeah we
already we Yeah that makes sense. I guess that's where in my head because
I'm thinking of that connotation where I think that fall off feels like the more
negative term out of the two. And I'll associate falling off a game not
with not having the time for it or letting extenuating circumstances get in the way,
but for me just being bored with it. Like See of Stars,
I fell off because I was bored of Sea of Stars. That's that is
how I interpret it too. Now I'm bad at using words so to so
maybe you and I are in the same thing. It's you and yeah,
yeah, maybe we're doing that thing. I feel like that in that case,
it's a bounce off, not a fall off. Okay, okay,
listen, I'm ready to change. I'm ready to be better. Yeah,
I'm ready to start about growth, giant bomb, We're all about growth,
punching down, gatekeeping, girl bossing gas light. Right, you know I'm
saying all right. Next email comes from Rob. Rob writes in about AI
and games. Rob asks, hey, bombed, DearS, Well, most
use cases of AI tend to be focused on replacing jobs or how can we
make more money? There's one case I'd love to see sports games. Growing
up, playing Madden or NHL, I always hope that this year's title might
be the one where my name would be one of the options, and it
just never happened. Being able to train an AI on the announcers and use
them to say every name in existence would be inclusive and also something beyond what
is feasible without it. I'm sure there are many other use cases that can
be improvement being an improvement and not just detrimental to the industry. Hopefully we
get the positive ones. Thank you for all the years of entertainment, Rob
Ps. As someone who came over from GameSpot to Air Pointing Down and all
the years of Giant Bomb, I think it's amazing how resilient you have been
and how well you have stepped into the roles. Keep it up, keep
it going. Great job. Thanks Rob, Thanks Rob. Thanks Yeah,
I mean listen, it's I remember talking to a guy about VR who had
been doing VR research. This was the early days of our current generation of
VR, and he'd been doing VR research for years and years and years,
and I'd be like, man, it's someone gonna be able to like take
a celebrity and put him in VR and kind of just kill them or do
whatever. And he's like, yeah, man, it's VR is like a
nuke. You can heat a city or you can blow one up, and
it's like, at a certain point, everything's kind of that way. AI
is going to be able to do amazing things, and it's also going to
be able to destroy a lot of things, and we're not going to really
know what's what until we're there. In a lot of ways, you know,
I'm hopeful for some of these things I have In recent sports games,
I think they have been doing some of this stuff now, maybe not MAD
or NHL, but I feel like I played something recently and they just said
my name perfectly and it sounded like that that person's voice. Now they pay
these people a lot. Maybe they have them sit down in a booth and
Jeff is one of the names on a list. I don't know. Yeah,
oh it is, So you meant your surname, oh, Grub.
I love that. I love the idea that you're surprised Grub as well.
That's I love the idea that you're surprised that someone said Jeff. And a
lot of games do have that, Like a lot of games do have the
list, but this felt like one that wouldn't. So I was like,
I can't remember what it was, but it was surprised. But like if
there was a list of names, Jeff would be on there. It's like
the it is my name going to be on the the souvenir license exact,
Jeff would be there. Yes, for sure, I think, Uh,
I want to say, I fucking heard Doc Emrick do it once for one
of the NHL games. I forget how long he was doing those, but
I think that he's like a famous uh person, it's a prolific hockey sports
announcement who was retired and I forget which game it was. I don't remember.
I definitely remember that being a thing, but it was very clear that
this person just recorded did like four hundred popular you know names. I think
the notion of like using AI to have I think you got to ask.
I think it needs to be done with the permission of the voice actor.
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, that's the difficult part where you're
where you're using and also like the problem with doing that kind of stuff is
you can get the permission of a voice actor to do it, but the
voice actor would need to be very careful. So like they have phrases like
in perpetuity, in there, which they can use like loopholes on to carry
on using that that kind of like techno, that same based technology to for
many years to come. Like the voice be like, yeah, you can
use that in the next NHL game, but like ten years down the line,
they could still potentially be doing it, and you're like, fuck,
I did not count for that. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's
it's a whole It's a slipper slope. I think. I think that's my
biggest fear is voice actor would If I was a voice actor and they were
like, we want to use your voice for this brand new technology, I
would be like one million dollars. Yeah, get one million. Yeah,
I would like one million per use every new game used it. One million.
That's how much. It is. Like they're telling you this is brand
new technology, and ship take the piss. I would take the absolute piss.
If I was one of these voice actors, and it'll probably end and
them going funk off telling me off. I'd be like, sucks to you.
You then you either give me the bag, the very big bag,
or get lost, or take this piss, have this piss. Gargle it.
Okay, uh yeah that that that's a fear right, So voice actors.
If someone brings up AI B B B, be wary and ask for
the bagh without a doubt. Yeah, or come to that meeting well hydrated
and ready to piss Joe or John writes in from Vegas. Do you think
that name is in in in the list of names that sports commentators read John?
No, no way, Johnny john Tham, but not John. What
a crazy name? Exotic man beer. You bring up the whole key chain
name tag thing brought up like a sore memory where it's like, I have
to buy two key chains for my first name. Oh buddy, there's not
one that's Jared Jerome, but it's I have to buy and then you got
to buy a little one that's just a hyphen. Did you have a have
a phase where you went as JJ God No, fuck, no, dude,
I've tam I've tried to navigate these seas. They are choppy. I
just want you to know I want to give jan a nicknames so bad,
but he won't let us. I'd rather just go buy Jerome, which is
perfectly cool. Just go like Delfish name for for jan j Jo Jjo.
I thought you hated and now I want to do it a lot more.
I mean, I feel like my hockey bring went to OCHI for a while,
but he was like, you shut your stupid whoa we got, we
got I can play now you're ochie, I can play. Boys. Wait,
is Jerry Seinfeld's full first name? Is it Jerome? No? Okay?
If anything, it's like Gerald. But I imagine because I had a
friend trying to make Jerry pop off when when she was only calling me Jerome,
and I was like, the fuck is this anyway? Uh? John
from Vegas writes his name is Jerome? Is Jerome Allen Seinfeld? Is it
really? Yeah? Yeah, I can't believe that. I know, I
don't believe. I googled it. I googled it. Yeah, Jerry,
I meaned him, I'm sorry this happened to you. I think you owe
someone else an apology to Jerry Seinfeld. I will not have me no oh,
because the boy who cried wolf is all of a sudden once not lying.
Okay, buddy, great job, here's your here's your trophy? Are
you you're not taking it back? I thought it's very clear what I'm doing
with that I am not taking. Well, then I will see you in
Court. It's coming you sue me in some podcast court in the World Universe
podcast Court. Happy to be there. I will be representing myself. Dan
Record is your attorney, No me. I pulled up time dot is to
sink up anyway. Hey guys, it seems clear that this is an extremely
strong year for games. Would you say this is the best year for games
that you can remember? If not? I hate this, man, you
need this discussion. I hate this. Stop this. Okay, We've do
this every year. Every year is just the best year. And you,
oh, it's basically like it's basically like, I wrong, I've got nothing
to talk about. Should we talk about if this is the best year in
games? Who cares? Man, It's fine, it's probably good. But
thank you for your email. Yeah, thank you for email. I'm not
mad. I'm not mad at the email. Like it takes a lot to
email this podcast, and I respect that. Is this the worst year in
games? Is this the worst year in games? Yes? I think it
might be. I feel like you can make a compelling case for it be
the worst year in games. That what was that new worst game that just
came out, That Walking Dead game? Apparently on the playla is really really
bad. So we got Gullum, we got King Kong, and we got
this Walking Dead games. So that's a trifecta, right there came out,
Oh yeah, buddy, that was not That was like Midway too, Jesus
Man. Oh red Fall. Red Fall also came out, Oh red Fall,
but also yes to the emailer, this is the best year in games.
Every year is the best year in games because games are some buy some
miracle made. John can Tinues, you guys do great work. Fuck you,
Jordan twenty podcast points. There you go, Yeah, give him all
the points forever. Damn. You are right. I I agree. The
fact that anything gets made is don that is it. If a game is
released, I'm like, this is the best year ever. I can't believe
these people made a game. It's crazy games astonishing, astonishing. We should
check out. How can we make Dan dress up as what's his face?
From Walking Dead? Who would Who's this Walking Destiny's game? Yeah? No,
that's what I'm saying. Does he be Daryl? Does he be Rick?
He would be a funny looking sheriff, No, mister Grimes, Rick
Grimes. But then but then Dan would have to wear like a sleeveless like
Denim vest. Yeah, I want to see him as Darrylay. I think
as Darryl he can played one of the Anderson brothers easily. The Gods of
Ascar old Gods of Ascar guy. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
If were gonna costplay as someone else, it would be Lord Sadler from a
Well. Of course, you just have to get a cape, I guess.
And that's it. It's done, cost him done, all right,
all right, last email of the show before we uh take the long break
of a short week. Let's see what is the name? Jeffrom Quebec City,
Right, so, dear bombers, who's made a fucking show lately?
No, man, Jeff from Quebec City. Thank you? What does that
mean? It's our new slur? Yeah, we made a new slur back
of our goal. Yeah what does it mean? You know? You know,
I don't know. If you and I are walking walking, we've got
a cup of coffee, I nudge you and like look at this show.
Yeah, like you know, you know, you know, Baal, you
know you'll know when you feel it, you know you'll be driving down,
you'll be driving your cart. When we described when we came up with shoals,
Jesus Christ. We can you can you can you spell it for a
back lass? So you can h o A l al Yeah, can you
use it in a sentence? Look at his show? Yeah, but that's
not don't deserve rights. They should round up all these shows, right,
we took it too far, too far. It could be any is it?
People who cheat? And Mario Kart he could have been I can't believe.
I cannot believe you. I cannot believe we got canceled May weeks before
our first time a Life show by all the shoals. It went really it
was zero to sixty, all right. I've learned to never to not let
Backlar out of a joke, otherwise he will turn it all the way.
He'll steer into the skin and keep going gas. He's hydro planing over jokes.
That's good, making it new Slurs would say, it has nothing to
do with space nazis. That's the title of this episode. A new episode
four, a new slow episode. We we have a we have a good
time here a giant boy. Uh you know what, No, never mind,
never mind going to keep those thoughts in my head for the best,
because now it's time for these shoutouts, shoutouts, and shoal was the only
one. There wasn't like another like candidate that was like there might have been,
but I brought up how On the Old Bodega Boys podcast, they brought
up calling, uh how polygons sounds like a slur sometimes. Oh okay,
oh you dirty polygon? Yeah? All right? Shout outs, shoutouts,
happy, thanks, sliving, hashtag ad hashtag not sponsored hashtag, sleigh unused
cow thanks for the shoutouts. Mister clothing corky. Winter is nearly upon us,
which means one thing, fluffy Tanoki season has begun. This message brought
to you by the Counsel of Appreciation of Raccoon Dogs. What's better Thanksgiving dinner
plate for loaded turkey sandwich from leftovers plate. Shout shout out to Mike,
Chad, half Life and joy or Minnati. I am Turktron. I have
come for the year ninety five, ninety five to save this bird that lies
before you. He is great great great great grandfather of God blocks that's destined
to leave the rebellion against master chickens. That's aquatine. You know, most
people don't know the difference between apple cider and apple juice, but I do.
Now here's a little trick to help you remember. If it's clear and
yella, you got juice there, fella. If it's tangy and brown,
you're insider town. Oh. I want to dance with Menadi. I want
to feel the HARKing with Manati. I want to dance with Menati with some
grubby cuboo. I Ganachoa am making a formal declaration. That's skull Island.
Rise of Kong is Giant Bomb's game of the year. If you're lost,
you can. If you're lost, you can look and you'll find him.
Tam after Tam. If you follow, you will catch you. He'll be
waiting Tam after Tam. Heinos fuck you. I love eating non bread with
garlic ioli and pizza pie while drinking ice Chai Tea shouts out to not catching
live Giant Bomb podcast since I'm working in the new time zone starting tomorrow.
Sad Face Tom realization. The RoboCop movies are totally tokusatsu. The realization brought
to you by rewatching the first two movies before diving into Rogue City, a
solid B game. She's Whizz more like She's Jizz can we beat Giant?
Can we beat Giant? Bomb? Besti's finger points, best nuts, big
shoutow Shouts out to my cousin, doctor Richard, who finally finished his dental
residency, all while keeping in shape as a professional bodybuilder, checked out his
socials at fitting. Oh hey, did you skip the last name because you
don't want to like the docks? Yes? Yes, yes, because it's
it's Richard Handler as in Dick Handler. See because I was like, oh,
some people they don't want their whole last name, and I was being
kind. How do we finally get shot banned for his behavior? He knew,
he knows what he did. The wind is pushing me into the clouds
again. I feel the blood in my veins. Thanksgiving tip, don't feel
your potatoes before boiling. Less water in the mix, lots of butter,
heavy cream, and smooth it out. Jan Freestyle check. Uh uh uh,
I don't got anything right now. Coke free style check still sucks.
Hi, Roger Goodell here Goodell. After watching Patrick Mahomes flounder last night,
I can definitively say Brock Party is better than Patrick Mahomes. Bang bang uh
the frick the toots. Hi, I'm the dude, Mike met on the
cruise. Hi, Mike, you were super nice. But I gotta tell
you guys, he hasn't been totally honest. He was Disney Adult's Only Cruise.
Mike was a legend and we all called him the Cocketeers. You're a
fan Launchpad McCook. Oh my god, was he lying about something and he
was holding He was definitely in like some like wife swapping stuff on the Disney
Adults Only Cruise. Put all your keys in this bowl. We put all
those cuyes in this bowl. We'll get ready to k You're so skimmity,
you're so phantom tax Everyone who donated, streamed and watched during Extra Life but
Potato and Permanent sigh and shouts out to you for listening live or the archive.
I love you right right the podcast five stars or a thumbs up.
I don't know how people rate podcasts nowadays. I don't know. Right right
into Apple and be like, dear mister Apple, I really like God's favorite
podcast, the Taylor Swift, the podcast, the Giant BombCast. What a
lovely, handsome group of folks they always have. You're gonna be with your
family. So what you do is you might end up in like a family
member's car. Burn episodes of the podcast, especially the ones where we invent
new slurs onto a CD and just put it in their their CD player in
their car and just leave it in there and then put duct tape over that
and jam some gum in there so they can't get it out. Oh that's
sick, Like like the car has a CD player though, I mean mine
is a DVD player that plays CD. So I figured every one. Shit,
yeah, I don't know who. I used to use my my uh
CD slot in my car as the mount for my phone, like they used
to make those fucking little do hickeyes. You know what, if you're out
there and you're doing thanks coming alone, don't worry about it. Head into
the discord. There's loads of people in there that you can hang out with,
play some games, watch some movies. I'm not going to have a
good time with yourself exactly, you know what, Have a good time with
yourself in every conceivable way, within reason, within reason, no, no,
no, let yourself go, hold yourself and let yourself go. Yeah,
and then buy as many Ticketmaster tickets to our show as possible. Yes,
that's the right. Let you buy eight. So do that. If
you want to spikee By. If you were Spike listening to this podcast because
you you hate what Giant Bob has become, go spike by all the tickets.
Just do it, Just do it, Just do it so no one
else can pay. I bet you won't. I bet you won't spite buy
these tickets you show U? Was that what a little charge? Yes?
It was, yes, it was. Oh dear, oh dear. Did
that have the sauce on it? It did? It did. But hey,
if you do want to not spie By and watch the finale of Giant
Bombs Game of the Year live in Los Angeles, we have moved to the
Tearogram Ballroom. Tickets are now and still on sale. If you bought tickets
to the Moroccan Lounge, don't worry. Those all transfer over. Your Ticketmaster
app should have updated to reflect that we are now at the Teogram Short week
this week, gay mess tomorrow? No? No, no, okay,
are we doing anything tomorrow? No? All right? Everyone go have fun.
You know, it's like, I don't think that's fit with the It's
not like a bond thing something. Take it gun. There will be like
a tiny, tiny tiny bite sized episode of b c R dropping over the
holiday break. Yeah, just a little special, just a little special,
just just a little, little, little little kiss on the audio, kiss
in the cheek from from us to you at home, folks. Anything else
we gotta plug we want to talk about before we guess break dip. I
don't know, just look forward to everything. We're gonna We're gonna have some
fun stuff yet still coming together. It's gonna be great. There's no Blight
Club, yes that's yeah, yeah right, because Dan's out of town,
and yeah, I was. I was thinking about playing some Allen Wake,
but there's there's Let's get to the vacation. Let's get to the break.
Yeah. Yeah, Well, well we'll start out the miscellaneous bits and bobs.
We'll schedule stuff out just so you full week next week, full week
next week, don't worry. Oh actually full week next week, so full
in fact, that the Game of the Year deliberations start next Friday. Yes,
from this Day one of categories, December one. We're starting off the
month right with Day one of categories, folks. And then we're gonna we're
gonna make sure that all the stuff is pre recorded and all that jazz.
You can follow along, listen along. We love you, We're We're.
We got all the categories listed out, We're slotting them in where they make
sense. Once again, if you were in the Los Angeles area, we'd
love to see you. Chime Bomb Game of the Year Live Grand Finale featuring
all these lovely folks next to me, Lucy James, Dan Reichert, Mike
Manatti, Special guests Bailey Myers, Nikki Grayson, Blessing, Audio A Junior,
and potentially more. You know what. The real special guest to you
too. I've been jammed, he's been Jeff. He's also been Jeff,
He's been tam and you should really think about switching up the sides this year
for Thanksgiving. Get some green on those plates, eat some goddamn vegetables,
and we'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant BombCast. Yeah
well, I fuck your mom. Show time whoa okay, right right with
Mike Manattie with Big Wi We're gonna get a cardboard cut out of Sean.
Don't worry, Giant Bombs is now over. Go go go, go wash your hands