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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast covering

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the video game industry. Join us every Thursday or Friday

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on this week for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews,

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and exclusive reveals, alongside Game of Former staff and special

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guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts,

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Charles Hart, and today I'm joined by Wesley LeBlanc.

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Speaker 2: Hello. Hello, I'm back. I'm barely live, wow, and making

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sacrifices to be here.

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Speaker 1: Yes, to serve your magazine.

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Speaker 2: It's not much of a sacrifice. I'm on like day

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seven and feeling pretty normal, so I actually wanted to

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come on and talk and do something other than rot

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away in my quarantine.

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Speaker 1: Couch Fair and Eric Van Allen.

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Speaker 3: Hello, Hello, week two. I'm still live. I'm still going.

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Speaker 1: It's you know, you know, we're having a great week

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at Game Informer. When everyone's introduction is like, well we're alive,

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that's the bar right now.

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Speaker 2: The worst part about this kind of stuff, like these

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weeks is like it all just stays with us, like

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none of it gets to go out and no one

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knows why. Yeah yeah, hell, but wow, is this week?

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Hell not not Game Informer's fault, Like weird.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's my fault, everybody. I did it. I walked

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in the room and then I just knocked everything over.

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So it was terrible.

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Speaker 1: It was it was funny, just listeners.

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Speaker 2: It's all.

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Speaker 1: It's a bunch of like scheduling stuff and people are

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sick and everyone's traveling, so we're just shorthanded and then

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the travel there's all these mix ups and whatever. And

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in one of our meetings, editor chief Matt Miller was like, Eric,

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just so you know, this is this is a crazy week,

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and Eric's like, I get it, it's just Tuesday. And

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we're like, I can't. We can't emphasize enough how much

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this is not just Tuesday. So much going on.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's fine, things are chill, but I was I

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was talking to to Brian earlier today. I told him,

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you don't sign up for the big leagues and then

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train for t ball. You know, you show up to

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play and sometimes things go a little bit awry. This

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is what you suit up for. This is what the

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professionals handle. It's all good.

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Speaker 1: It is funny though, because it's like that that metaphor

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is kind of like you're getting you're getting ready to

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hit really fast baseballs and it's like we're doing that.

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But also right now the field is flooded with like

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three inches of water and nobody knows why. And that

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doesn't really have to do with the baseball skills you've accrued,

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but we all have to do with it.

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Speaker 3: On top of the exactly you're trying to hit baseballs,

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the field is flooded, the ump behind you has like

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a shoe that he's trying to thwack you in the

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head with while you're not looking at It's, uh, there's

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always the USI of ump Yeah, honestly, I want to

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I want that to be a game where you are

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just like the umpire and a base ball game, and

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you just like call the most annoying plays and.

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Speaker 1: You hit people.

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Speaker 3: I was going to say, let me tell you about

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the magical game of blaze ball that ended all too soon.

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Didn't quite have that, but had some elements of that.

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Speaker 1: Definitely the closest thing. Well, this week we got a

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fun show for you. We're going to be talking about Mafia,

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the Old Country. I'm gonna be talking about my trip

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to gen Con, and then West is going to talk

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about his reviews for wheel World and Ninja Guiden Rage

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Bound before we get started. Just as always a reminder,

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we make a magazine. You can subscribe to it at

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gameformer dot com slash subscribe. Our next issue coming out

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is The Vampire the mass Grave blood Lines two issue,

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so if you subscribe now you can read that digitally.

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I think we've passed the window for physical so if

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you subscribe now, you'll get whatever the next issue is

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after that in your mailbox, and then ten issues for

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that year long cycle. But yeah, I wrote that was

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my cover story. That was very fun. Game looks cool.

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I'll have some more coverage going up. But if you

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want to read that and all the other stuff digitally, like,

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you can subscribe there and yeah, anything else, any other

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housekeeping stuff. I think that's good. Let's just jump into

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Mafia the Old Country. This is a Mafia prequel, I believe,

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and Wes, you're the one that you just put your

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view of today.

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Speaker 2: Dave recorded, Yes, yeah, Mafia the Old Country, which is

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out when you're listening to this, it's already out. It

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is a loose prequel, like it takes place in the

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same universe, and it's the earliest portion of the Mafia

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series timeline. But for the most part, it is standalone

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unless you're like familiar with last names and locations in Mafia.

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But for the most part, you can play this and

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not worry about anything that comes after, although the games

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that come after are really great, better than this game unfortunately. Yeah.

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So I gave Mafia the old Country of six. I

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wish I was giving it a higher score because I

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really really loved the Mafia series. I especially loved Mafia

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Definitive Edition in twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, and

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this game was supposedly taking a lot of cues from that,

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like in the lead up to the game's release in

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the press and marketing and whatnot. So I was really

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excited for it, but ultimately it's just it.

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Speaker 1: Oh what, sorry, I was gonna ask as someone who

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doesn't know Mafia. Yeah, was the Definitive Edition? Was that

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like a full remake?

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Speaker 2: It was a very very pretty maybe Unreal Engine five,

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if not like a very late Unreal Engine four remake

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of the first Mafia game, which is my favorite of

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the series. And it's it's like a type of game

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we just don't really get anymore in the sense to like,

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it's here's some missions play each mission, and then you

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have a story that plays throughout each mission, and then

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the game's over and there's not really much to do,

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which people liked, and Mafia two opened up a little bit.

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Mafia three went way too wide as an open world game,

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way too checklist, and people were like, whoa whah, well,

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none of that, none of that. So when Definitive Edition

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came out, it was like a return to form, and

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it did well enough that I think two K Games

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the publisher and Hanger thirteen was like, oh, we should

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maybe return to our roots, and that's what Mafia the

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Old Country is trying to do.

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Speaker 1: It is.

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Speaker 2: It's some acts and there's like quests within each ack,

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but it's basically like point A to point B, two

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point C to the end of the game, Like there's

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no real reason to explore. There are some collectibles out there,

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and there's like a kind of hard to find explore

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mode if you want to go out there and search

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this beautiful world for those collectibles, but you don't really

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how because you have to go to Chapter replay and

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then at the top of that, which is like on

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the main menu, you have to go to Explore, and

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then Explore puts you into the world without any like

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quests or anything like, you don't just you can't just

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necessarily mosy around in this world, like if you want

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all the collectibles to be on the map, and you need

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to be in the explore mode, which is odd choice,

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but honestly, I don't just think it's one people are

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gonna There's really there's no reason to go find the

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fifty weird per collectibles or like the newspapers unless you

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just want to be in this world more, which Hangar

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thirteen is aware of. Like they they have been saying

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this is a linear story focused game, and it is.

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There is a like a huge emphasis on the storytelling.

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It's just unfortunately for me, it didn't really pan out

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to be much. I think kind of the thesis or

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crux of my review is everything in Mafia the Old

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Country you've seen before, and there's a good shot it's

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been done better. The story is not really going to

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surprise you, and it's going to be very predictable in

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some instances, like so predictable, and they I don't want

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to call it like Chekhov's Gun type stuff, but like

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I think they were leaning way too much on like teases.

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It's it's so obvious where the game goes, and if

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you're familiar, I don't even think you need to be

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familiar with like mafia media, like in pop culture to

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know where the story is going. Like it's it's a

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very basic premise. That said, it's it's still an enjoyable one,

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Like it's still fine, it's it's a fun mafia story.

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I'm always gamed for these types of stories. They don't

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need to be surprising every single time. But given the

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storytelling throughout a series, I kind of did hope this

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one would be a little more impactful.

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Speaker 3: The one.

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Speaker 2: Not one thing. There are a couple of good things

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I have, like a nice little fun persona background on

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my computer, and then now I'm like, I look over

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and I see like that Firehouse.

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Speaker 3: That's the best case for we've ever seen on a podcast.

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We do not.

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Speaker 1: We do not.

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Speaker 2: We are not sponsored by Firehouse subs.

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Speaker 1: Although it's it's also funny because if you had YouTube Premium,

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you still have to see these these ads in the background.

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Wait do you really I'm saying, because so you'd be

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watching someone at home, be sitting on their couch watching

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gaming form show. Right, and then even within the Game

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Former show. We have an ad in the background for.

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Speaker 3: Firehouse Wild of the YouTube premium turned off your ads

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on other people's ads. You know what I'm saying, Like.

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Speaker 1: You're watched like a cyberpunk nonsense.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, why is that not our cyberpunk future? You know,

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why don't we just have.

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Speaker 2: Yes, Firehouse? That sounds delicious right now. That said, uh,

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the game is set in Sicily, which is they did

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a really good job of like creating an early nineteen

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hundred Sicily, which I love. I really love Italy. My

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wife was born and raised there, Like I go to

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Italy often. It's it's a place I cherish in my

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heart a lot, which is one of the more exciting

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aspects of this game. And they did a really good

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job recreating that portion of Italy, which Sicily is like

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its own island. It's a very unique part of Italy.

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There's also an incredible Italian dub that actually takes into

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account that it's set in Sicily, and they use the

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Sicilian dialect instead of the Italian dialect, which is great

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because the Sicilian dialect is so different that my mother

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in law, who is one hundred percent Italian born and

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raised there, very fluent, says that Sicilian might as well

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be like a different language. She can kind of understand it,

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but like you can't. Just Italians can't go to Sicily

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and speak it as if they were fluent. It's its

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own thing. So she thought it was really cool that

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they use the Sicilian dialect versus the Italian dialect, which

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I think that is that's a really nice not a

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detail that I'm sure a lot of people won't care

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or appreciate, But I do want to give Hanger thirteen

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some credit there because I think that's cool.

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Speaker 1: I do also want your mother in law's opinion on

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other games. I like a concept of like a column

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of like my mother in law's favorite games that she's

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watched me play. Well, she's like offering from an injury

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right at your house.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, she has broken her shoulders, so weird. She's

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been living at her house for like a month and

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probably another month. And also the COVID I got hit

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her today unfortunately. So now it's just my wife is

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the last bastion of immunal hope and my daughter shout

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out to my wife because she is lifting mountains tube

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to maintain our household while we're all going through it.

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Shout out Wes's wife, Gabby.

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Speaker 1: Hell yeah, that's good.

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Speaker 2: That's good Italian Women.

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Speaker 4: If there's one thing you take away from this, this podcast,

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the game and former though, shout out Italian Woman, I

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was gonna say, we need to get on your INTI

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persona now, just like a carousel of pictures of your wife.

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Speaker 1: What Yeah, I love Anyways, I.

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Speaker 2: Need to get like an eel of Italian Woman's shirt

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next episode. I would like ironically wear that too.

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Speaker 3: A lot of questions answered by my shirt, you know.

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Speaker 2: But yeah, so like the Italy part of this game,

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I think they really nailed. It's just like everything else

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is so boring is not the right word, because I

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had a fine time. It's just so middling. It's just

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depressingly middling. Like the gameplay is seems cool at first,

237
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like you're going around old Sicily, you're doing like shootouts,

238
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you're doing stealth sequences where you're stealthing through a warehouse

239
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and there's enemies with paths and you have to track

240
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their paths and then get behind them and choke them

241
00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:37,519
out or knife them and your knife has durability and

242
00:12:37,519 --> 00:12:40,519
blah blah blah. But like what you play the first

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time during a stealth sequence is what you're going to

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play the last time during a stealth sequence. There is

245
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virtually no growth in systems or any kind of progression

246
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in that regard. You can unlock different knives, maybe they

247
00:12:53,600 --> 00:12:55,960
do different things. I don't know. I switched around my

248
00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,960
knives and never really noticed much difference. The biggest one

249
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I liked was like it auto looted enemies that I

250
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killed with the knife takedown. But like, I don't know,

251
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it's so mind numbingly easy, and I was on like

252
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the standard difficulty and I even went up to hard

253
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to see if that would change anything, and for the

254
00:13:13,519 --> 00:13:16,120
stealth it didn't. I mean you were It is the

255
00:13:16,120 --> 00:13:21,759
most bog standard stealth game, like crouch from cover, get

256
00:13:21,799 --> 00:13:24,519
behind somebody and choke them out, and you don't even

257
00:13:24,519 --> 00:13:26,960
have to be that like sly. You can. If they're

258
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looking at you, just walk faster and get behind them

259
00:13:29,279 --> 00:13:30,000
and you'll be fun.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, like for real, I've been playing this too, and

261
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that was one of the first things I noticed was

262
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they give you the option. They say, you know, it's

263
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a big deal. When you go buy your first knife

264
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and you go to a store and there's like an

265
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old lady who just has a box of knives that

266
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you're pulling from and it's it's fun, it's flavorful, it's good.

267
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And then I was looking at all the stuff and

268
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I remember seeing one that was like, oh, like throwing

269
00:13:53,840 --> 00:13:56,480
knife takedown or something like that. It may implied that

270
00:13:56,519 --> 00:13:58,279
there was a new takedown I was going to unlock.

271
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And then I did a stealth section right after it,

272
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and I just played it the same way because it

273
00:14:03,639 --> 00:14:07,559
seemed like it was very clearly signposted to be played

274
00:14:07,679 --> 00:14:09,679
in the way that the game teaches you how to

275
00:14:09,679 --> 00:14:13,080
play a stealth segment right at the beginning is okay, well,

276
00:14:13,120 --> 00:14:15,320
there's two guys and they're talking, and one's going to

277
00:14:15,360 --> 00:14:17,879
peel off that direction. One's going to peel off that direction,

278
00:14:17,919 --> 00:14:19,919
and they're going to look at a wall for a

279
00:14:19,960 --> 00:14:22,240
little bit and they'll give you time to go up

280
00:14:22,279 --> 00:14:24,919
and er and then throw them in a box and

281
00:14:25,559 --> 00:14:28,600
ad repeat. I didn't even I stopped looting the bodies

282
00:14:28,639 --> 00:14:31,720
after a while because I didn't see a huge point

283
00:14:31,720 --> 00:14:34,200
in it for me, because I just I had more

284
00:14:34,200 --> 00:14:36,799
wetstones than I ever needed to keep my knife sharp,

285
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:41,679
and honestly, there wasn't a ton of combat or anything

286
00:14:41,720 --> 00:14:44,159
to speak of that made me really want to engage

287
00:14:44,159 --> 00:14:47,720
with that stuff. So I was really surprised. And then

288
00:14:47,720 --> 00:14:49,519
to hear you come back and be like, oh, actually

289
00:14:49,639 --> 00:14:54,279
that the game just does that. It's it's like that, yeah, yeah.

290
00:14:54,120 --> 00:14:56,320
Speaker 2: It's kind of a funny we're throwing knife thing. I

291
00:14:56,320 --> 00:14:58,200
don't I had that night, like I unlocked a bunch

292
00:14:58,200 --> 00:15:01,159
of knives, just trying different things out. I never got

293
00:15:01,200 --> 00:15:03,679
a prompt or a tutorial or anything on the throwing

294
00:15:03,720 --> 00:15:05,399
knife takedown, so I don't know if it just means

295
00:15:05,399 --> 00:15:08,360
an animation that happens sometimes which I did never see,

296
00:15:09,000 --> 00:15:11,000
or if there's like a whole system with that. But

297
00:15:12,960 --> 00:15:16,360
I was like, well, okay, sure stealth is stealth. It's

298
00:15:16,759 --> 00:15:19,840
like and it sucks because I recently just played Eric

299
00:15:19,879 --> 00:15:22,399
Schulm The Stolen Dream and I gave that an eight,

300
00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:24,720
and that was a really good stealth game that had

301
00:15:26,000 --> 00:15:27,840
My biggest problems with it weren't with the stealth. The

302
00:15:27,879 --> 00:15:30,159
stealth was amazing, and I really liked the way the

303
00:15:30,200 --> 00:15:33,000
AI moved around the world and acted a part of

304
00:15:33,039 --> 00:15:36,720
the world to like inhibit your stealthy progress. Like you said, Eric,

305
00:15:36,759 --> 00:15:39,720
these guys are just like standing around to be taken out.

306
00:15:40,000 --> 00:15:42,840
Speaker 3: They blair witch themselves into the corner. Yes, so you

307
00:15:42,879 --> 00:15:45,600
can take them out one by one and.

308
00:15:47,159 --> 00:15:51,080
Speaker 2: Before yeah, you throw one coin and they're like, oh

309
00:15:51,080 --> 00:15:52,919
my god, I do see that coin.

310
00:15:53,120 --> 00:15:55,840
Speaker 3: I forget which game it was where developers started having

311
00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:57,480
it so that if you threw the bottle and they

312
00:15:57,519 --> 00:16:00,240
could see the trajectory of the bottle, then they ai

313
00:16:00,320 --> 00:16:03,159
would be like, I saw you throw that across my

314
00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:05,120
field of vision. Right, so if they saw kind of

315
00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:07,320
go left to right across their path of vision, they

316
00:16:07,440 --> 00:16:10,399
turn and be like, I saw you throw that, dude.

317
00:16:10,840 --> 00:16:13,279
But in this game, I tried that and he just

318
00:16:13,679 --> 00:16:15,840
looked immediately to the right was like what was that

319
00:16:15,879 --> 00:16:18,639
over there? And I was like, oh, okay, gotcha all right? Yeah.

320
00:16:18,799 --> 00:16:21,799
Speaker 1: Is is stealth like a significant portion of the game

321
00:16:21,919 --> 00:16:23,320
or is it just like especially bad.

322
00:16:23,519 --> 00:16:25,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like it's a major portion of the game.

323
00:16:25,960 --> 00:16:30,039
Every sequence of the sequence is start as stealth, and

324
00:16:30,120 --> 00:16:33,000
you can fail in stealth and then it becomes a shootout.

325
00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,200
But like the premise of the game is like, we

326
00:16:36,240 --> 00:16:38,759
aren't super abundant with guns. There's no Tommy guns. This

327
00:16:38,879 --> 00:16:42,679
is like nineteen oh four, although like you can get

328
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:45,200
guns pretty easily if you want, Like, they put a

329
00:16:45,200 --> 00:16:48,320
lot of focus on the knife aspect of Enzo the

330
00:16:48,399 --> 00:16:53,320
protagonists like build, which is to say, like, if you

331
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:55,840
fail the stealth and you go into a shootout, there's

332
00:16:55,919 --> 00:16:58,679
gonna be guns everywhere. You can buy your own guns,

333
00:16:58,679 --> 00:17:00,919
but also every enemy drops the gun and you can

334
00:17:01,039 --> 00:17:03,879
encounter every single gun in the game. Honestly, in like

335
00:17:03,919 --> 00:17:06,440
one shootout, they just be dropping all their guns everywhere.

336
00:17:06,880 --> 00:17:10,160
And the shootouts I enjoyed more than the stealth. But

337
00:17:10,279 --> 00:17:14,640
the shootouts again are nothing. They're doing nothing unique or interesting.

338
00:17:14,680 --> 00:17:18,440
They are just third person cover, pop out and shoot people.

339
00:17:19,039 --> 00:17:25,319
The AI is not particularly good or like threatening. I

340
00:17:25,440 --> 00:17:27,799
just happen to enjoy shooting guys in the head with

341
00:17:27,799 --> 00:17:32,079
a shotgun more than slowly knifing them out, and I

342
00:17:32,079 --> 00:17:36,039
can get through encounters faster by shooting. But I mean,

343
00:17:36,119 --> 00:17:39,200
there's not much going on here in terms of combat,

344
00:17:39,279 --> 00:17:40,799
whether you're stealthy or shooting.

345
00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:44,440
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it's a bit of a bummer because I was

346
00:17:44,480 --> 00:17:46,960
really excited about this game because when I think back

347
00:17:47,000 --> 00:17:49,359
to some of my favorite open world games and also

348
00:17:49,440 --> 00:17:53,119
kind of like crime based games, crime story games. Two

349
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:56,000
that immediately jump to mind are Sleeping Dogs and Yakuza

350
00:17:56,240 --> 00:17:59,160
games that I think make really good use of the

351
00:17:59,160 --> 00:18:02,240
fact that gun exist but are not prevalent, and it

352
00:18:02,279 --> 00:18:06,880
creates almost a like, yeah, a sliding scale of how

353
00:18:07,000 --> 00:18:10,440
dangerous weapons are. And when you introduce a gun like

354
00:18:10,519 --> 00:18:15,559
that carries consequences, that carries a significant impact to the story.

355
00:18:15,640 --> 00:18:18,119
People can die now instead of just like punching each other.

356
00:18:18,880 --> 00:18:20,880
And Mafia I thought was going to do that for

357
00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:22,400
a while. I did think it was goofy how often

358
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:24,119
you could kind of get slashed with a knife and

359
00:18:24,160 --> 00:18:27,279
still be walking around later. I was like, I don't

360
00:18:27,559 --> 00:18:31,000
I don't think that's like something you just brush off, dude.

361
00:18:31,039 --> 00:18:32,000
That I saw your.

362
00:18:34,079 --> 00:18:37,119
Speaker 2: Uh comedically large in sentences. So like you you buy

363
00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:39,200
and it looks like a little switchblade, and then you

364
00:18:39,240 --> 00:18:40,680
go out there and he whips it out and it's

365
00:18:40,720 --> 00:18:43,000
it's like an eight inch blade, and I'm like, that one.

366
00:18:43,160 --> 00:18:44,519
That's a one shot kill.

367
00:18:44,359 --> 00:18:46,279
Speaker 3: Right, It's a decent blade. Yeah, And so I was

368
00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:48,880
I was kind of excited for that aspect. I was like, Okay,

369
00:18:48,920 --> 00:18:51,799
we're going to scale it back. Even when you watch,

370
00:18:51,960 --> 00:18:55,000
you know, a mob movie, you know when somebody pulls

371
00:18:55,000 --> 00:18:56,759
a gun. Maybe they pull a gun, but when somebody

372
00:18:56,759 --> 00:18:59,680
actually shoots it and uses it, that is an escalation,

373
00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:03,839
that is a heightening and games often try to do that.

374
00:19:03,920 --> 00:19:06,440
But then video games are video games, so you're you're

375
00:19:06,480 --> 00:19:09,200
going to shoot people because that's the video gamey like

376
00:19:09,440 --> 00:19:12,640
brain go birth thing that happens. And I was really

377
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:15,119
excited for Mafia to kind of play around in that space,

378
00:19:15,359 --> 00:19:18,000
and it seems like it just didn't do much with

379
00:19:18,119 --> 00:19:18,960
the potential there.

380
00:19:20,000 --> 00:19:23,519
Speaker 2: Yeah, they do try to play into that space a

381
00:19:23,519 --> 00:19:27,079
little bit with what I'll call boss fights. It's one

382
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:29,720
one on one knife tools, which is cool because that

383
00:19:29,799 --> 00:19:31,920
does go back to like Sicilian mob history. They were

384
00:19:31,960 --> 00:19:35,720
big on knives and like it was an honorable fight

385
00:19:35,799 --> 00:19:39,200
to like drop your weapons and fight each other with knives.

386
00:19:39,599 --> 00:19:42,319
But the game doesn't really like play into that enough.

387
00:19:42,359 --> 00:19:44,599
I'm not sure if I just know that because of

388
00:19:44,640 --> 00:19:46,640
my history with Italy or if the game is does

389
00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:48,799
a good job of explaining that, because often you like,

390
00:19:49,480 --> 00:19:52,160
my dude's carrying a shotgun on his back, like a

391
00:19:52,240 --> 00:19:54,880
large shotgun. He's got a pistol shotgun and my knife

392
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:57,359
and then I'm about to go fight this guy and

393
00:19:57,440 --> 00:19:58,799
all of a sudden, those are gone and we just

394
00:19:58,799 --> 00:20:01,799
got knives out. I'm like, well, hold on, I'm already

395
00:20:01,839 --> 00:20:04,279
doing bad things. I just murdered like twenty people with

396
00:20:04,319 --> 00:20:07,039
a gun. I have no problem just blowing your face

397
00:20:07,039 --> 00:20:09,119
off with a shotgun. Which there are other moments in

398
00:20:09,160 --> 00:20:11,759
the game where you have these big enemies that you

399
00:20:11,759 --> 00:20:13,759
think you would get an honorable death and the game's like, nah,

400
00:20:13,799 --> 00:20:15,799
shoot them in the head. So it was kind of

401
00:20:15,839 --> 00:20:17,519
like funny to be like, Okay, I guess we're doing

402
00:20:17,519 --> 00:20:18,920
a knife duel now because we have to do a

403
00:20:19,000 --> 00:20:22,400
knife tool, which, like the rest of the game, the

404
00:20:22,440 --> 00:20:24,519
first knife duel you do is going to be the

405
00:20:24,519 --> 00:20:27,000
same as the last knife duel. There is a perry

406
00:20:27,440 --> 00:20:31,480
window that's pretty simple to hit. There is a evade window,

407
00:20:31,640 --> 00:20:34,400
which there's a big light like a slash on their

408
00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:36,680
arm that lets you know you can evade, and you

409
00:20:36,759 --> 00:20:38,599
just want a perfect dodge and perfect parry so that

410
00:20:38,640 --> 00:20:41,000
you can counter with big damage. And other than that,

411
00:20:41,039 --> 00:20:44,680
you're just thrusting with triangle and slashing with circle and

412
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:48,039
sometimes breaking their guard with R one. They're kind of

413
00:20:48,119 --> 00:20:53,160
like they're so repetitive though, they every single fight. When

414
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:55,359
you get to halfway health, there's like a cut scene

415
00:20:55,880 --> 00:20:58,759
where they struggle and like, oh, Enzo is not going

416
00:20:58,839 --> 00:21:00,720
to make it, and then nope, you got to slam

417
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:02,880
square over and over and over and oh he gets

418
00:21:02,880 --> 00:21:04,440
out of it, and now it's time for the second

419
00:21:04,440 --> 00:21:06,839
phase of the fight. No different from the first. Just

420
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:10,359
a kind of old school style QT cut scene in

421
00:21:10,440 --> 00:21:12,599
the middle, which is fine, But whenever you do that,

422
00:21:12,680 --> 00:21:15,839
like fifteen times across fifteen hours, it's like, what are

423
00:21:15,839 --> 00:21:17,759
we doing here? Why do we need to have this

424
00:21:17,839 --> 00:21:19,559
many knife fights? And they don't work?

425
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:22,119
Speaker 3: It's like the makeshie, you're awake?

426
00:21:22,279 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 1: Check right?

427
00:21:23,400 --> 00:21:25,799
Speaker 3: Yeah honestly, yeah, yeah, you're still there.

428
00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:28,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you gotta can I ask.

429
00:21:29,559 --> 00:21:33,160
Speaker 1: What it is about like the original Mafia games that

430
00:21:33,240 --> 00:21:35,519
you liked so much that you feel is like not

431
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:38,079
present here or is just done not as good?

432
00:21:38,640 --> 00:21:40,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, I think and I kind of touched on

433
00:21:40,920 --> 00:21:42,880
this in my review a little bit. As much as

434
00:21:42,920 --> 00:21:46,519
I love Italian countryside and like Sicily in the early

435
00:21:46,599 --> 00:21:49,119
nineteen hundreds, I do think the environment is kind of

436
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:53,480
a detriment to the game, because when you think of Mafia,

437
00:21:53,559 --> 00:21:56,200
like it's fun driving around on these like prohibition eraic

438
00:21:56,279 --> 00:21:59,319
cars and going into flashy banks and casinos and underground

439
00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:02,480
bars and the environments like Scream Mafia, and they give

440
00:22:02,519 --> 00:22:04,119
you some some cool stuff. And there are some cool

441
00:22:04,160 --> 00:22:06,400
environments in Sicily, don't get me wrong, But for the

442
00:22:06,440 --> 00:22:11,359
most part, you're like traversing around dilapidated buildings and like

443
00:22:11,799 --> 00:22:14,200
Roman aggression ruins that are like kind of destroyed and

444
00:22:14,200 --> 00:22:15,880
that kind of all looks similar at a certain point,

445
00:22:17,200 --> 00:22:18,680
and you're just kind of like shooting out in the open.

446
00:22:18,720 --> 00:22:21,240
I've seen other reviewers call this game like almost like

447
00:22:21,240 --> 00:22:23,960
a Western, and I think that's a really good way

448
00:22:24,000 --> 00:22:26,000
to parse It's like it does feel more like a

449
00:22:26,039 --> 00:22:31,000
Western than a mob adventure game, which is fine and stuff,

450
00:22:31,079 --> 00:22:33,119
but for me, I was just kind of missing like

451
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:36,640
the spirit of the Mob and Mafia one. You're kicking

452
00:22:36,640 --> 00:22:38,160
down a door with Tommy gun in your hand and

453
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:41,880
just like unloading on the place Scarface style that kind

454
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,160
of thing. Like you're in these flashy environments that make

455
00:22:44,240 --> 00:22:46,160
you feel like you're coming up in the world as

456
00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:49,720
a Mafia member, and that's something I really appreciated, and

457
00:22:49,759 --> 00:22:53,039
I just think ultimately, like the other the metropolis environments

458
00:22:53,079 --> 00:22:55,640
that are in the games are probably just better, Like

459
00:22:55,680 --> 00:22:58,160
they just work better for these type this type of storytelling,

460
00:22:58,279 --> 00:23:01,359
especially Mafia Definitive edition that Lost Haven, which is like

461
00:23:01,839 --> 00:23:06,079
Chicago esque. Basically it's bright neon lights, the water's reflecting

462
00:23:06,119 --> 00:23:08,039
off the streets, the car, it's fun to drive around

463
00:23:08,079 --> 00:23:11,160
the cars, and there's like a radio that plays like

464
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:15,880
era specific music. It just gets the vibe. It's a

465
00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:19,319
it's a much better vie vibe from Afia, and I

466
00:23:19,880 --> 00:23:21,319
guess there's no way to get around that if you're

467
00:23:21,319 --> 00:23:23,480
going this far back in the timeline, like nineteen hundred.

468
00:23:23,480 --> 00:23:26,079
Sicily is a place that's well documented. You can see

469
00:23:26,079 --> 00:23:30,000
that it is not Chicago or New York. But ultimately

470
00:23:30,039 --> 00:23:32,640
it kind of just as much as I love Sicily

471
00:23:32,680 --> 00:23:35,599
and the environment, it does take away from the Mob

472
00:23:35,720 --> 00:23:42,599
and Mafia aspect of the game. But yeah, it's yeah,

473
00:23:42,680 --> 00:23:45,279
it's it's a mostly just forgettable game for me, which

474
00:23:45,279 --> 00:23:48,519
sucks because like, I really do enjoy these games and

475
00:23:48,680 --> 00:23:50,359
I would like a reason to jump back in. But

476
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:54,119
the story isn't all that compelling, the characters aren't all

477
00:23:54,160 --> 00:23:56,599
that compelling. You're you're pretty much getting your like cliche

478
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:01,880
trope cast here. There's like a trophy romance, although very

479
00:24:01,880 --> 00:24:05,079
good Italian woman. I'm saying I love Italian.

480
00:24:06,119 --> 00:24:08,839
Speaker 1: It was it was gonna be a five, but every

481
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:11,559
every Italian woman on the screen bumped it up to

482
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:12,079
us six.

483
00:24:12,680 --> 00:24:15,000
Speaker 2: I have three screenshots on my computer from this game,

484
00:24:15,039 --> 00:24:16,359
and all three are the same.

485
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:20,960
Speaker 1: We pull up we both less his screenshots and it's

486
00:24:21,000 --> 00:24:24,319
just like his wife's face photoshopped onto all of the

487
00:24:24,519 --> 00:24:25,440
women in the game.

488
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:30,559
Speaker 2: Like wow, shout out Italian, shout out, shout out. Is

489
00:24:30,599 --> 00:24:33,759
there anything else I'm missing at this game? I don't

490
00:24:33,799 --> 00:24:37,200
think so. I think it had a lot of potential.

491
00:24:37,599 --> 00:24:40,720
I was really rooting for it. Six isn't the worst

492
00:24:40,759 --> 00:24:42,480
score ever. I do think like I spent and this

493
00:24:42,519 --> 00:24:44,480
is a fifty dollars game too, we don't really I'm

494
00:24:44,519 --> 00:24:47,759
not really interested in like trying to like, how how

495
00:24:47,799 --> 00:24:52,920
long was it? Like twelve to fifteen hours? Okay, yeah,

496
00:24:52,920 --> 00:24:54,839
you could probably beat it faster too. I try to

497
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,400
do some due diligence with like reviewing it. But I

498
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:00,640
bet if you're stuck to just like fool on mainline,

499
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:04,759
like maybe ten hours. But yeah, it's a fifty dollars game,

500
00:25:04,839 --> 00:25:06,480
so like budget title or whatever you want to call it.

501
00:25:06,519 --> 00:25:09,880
But I don't really I don't try to like quanticize

502
00:25:09,880 --> 00:25:12,599
that into my review, like games good or not without

503
00:25:12,640 --> 00:25:15,519
being fifty bucks. But like, if you're fine with like

504
00:25:15,559 --> 00:25:19,359
a fine Mafia game at fifty bucks, sure go for it.

505
00:25:19,440 --> 00:25:21,519
If this was like twenty bucks, yeah, easy recommend. It's

506
00:25:21,519 --> 00:25:26,039
a fun, little weekend whatever game. I just think, set

507
00:25:26,079 --> 00:25:28,400
your expectations because it's not. It's not at the part

508
00:25:28,480 --> 00:25:32,039
with the rest of the Mafia games, and I wish

509
00:25:32,039 --> 00:25:33,799
it was. I wish it was. I hope this is

510
00:25:33,839 --> 00:25:36,839
not like a death nail in the Mafia series. I

511
00:25:36,880 --> 00:25:39,200
do think there are some cool ideas here that the

512
00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:41,480
team could build on. I do think there's a lot

513
00:25:41,559 --> 00:25:43,880
more storytelling to be had in this universe, and they

514
00:25:43,880 --> 00:25:47,640
clearly care about it. But yeah, we'll see I hope.

515
00:25:48,200 --> 00:25:50,839
I hope it sells well. I guess despite me, I'm

516
00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:52,960
not ensuring that, which is weird to say, but like

517
00:25:53,039 --> 00:25:53,359
I love it.

518
00:25:53,480 --> 00:25:56,279
Speaker 1: It is weird, and it is weird to be a

519
00:25:56,319 --> 00:25:59,240
critic and also a fan of a thing of Like

520
00:26:00,079 --> 00:26:01,920
often I review a game and I'm like, this one's

521
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,359
not it, but they should make another one, and if

522
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:06,599
they learn from this one, it'll be better. But it's

523
00:26:06,640 --> 00:26:09,200
hard to be like it's a six out of ten,

524
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:13,119
and then what happens happened more or less in line.

525
00:26:13,359 --> 00:26:15,599
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not nearly as far to feel like I

526
00:26:15,599 --> 00:26:19,039
could definitively put my own score on the paper. But

527
00:26:19,839 --> 00:26:22,559
when I was talking to Wesley about this stuff, I

528
00:26:22,720 --> 00:26:25,440
was kind of thinking about the parts that I'd liked

529
00:26:25,440 --> 00:26:27,559
so far and the parts that I hadn't liked so far,

530
00:26:27,960 --> 00:26:30,599
and it sounded like the parts that I hadn't liked

531
00:26:30,599 --> 00:26:34,640
so far would continue to propagate, mainly the kind of

532
00:26:34,640 --> 00:26:37,599
missions that I didn't really like. I don't love a

533
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:41,920
mission where you described it super well in your review, Wesley,

534
00:26:41,920 --> 00:26:46,079
that you get on a horse, go somewhere, talk to somebody,

535
00:26:46,799 --> 00:26:49,839
Get back on your horse, go somewhere, talk to somebody,

536
00:26:50,279 --> 00:26:52,880
and it's like, compared to like a Sorkin walk in

537
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:55,000
talk is just a ride and talk where you're just

538
00:26:55,720 --> 00:26:57,720
going from place to place to place in talking the

539
00:26:57,720 --> 00:27:01,160
whole time. And I think that became a staple of

540
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:05,279
open world games, especially you know, games like Red Dead

541
00:27:05,480 --> 00:27:07,799
love that stuff, and I think it can work to

542
00:27:07,920 --> 00:27:11,440
varying degrees, but it can weigh on you too, especially

543
00:27:11,440 --> 00:27:13,200
if the things you're doing when you get to a

544
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,480
place are not inherently interesting. You're kind of just showing

545
00:27:16,599 --> 00:27:19,880
up and standing there while two characters talk or watching

546
00:27:19,880 --> 00:27:22,640
a cut scene and then leaving. It's like, Okay. There

547
00:27:22,759 --> 00:27:25,720
was one cool moment in one of those where it

548
00:27:25,759 --> 00:27:28,960
was when you're first given a gun and you're told

549
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,680
to basically intimidate someone with it. So in the middle

550
00:27:31,720 --> 00:27:34,279
of talking, you pull the gun out and you point

551
00:27:34,319 --> 00:27:38,200
it at somebody and then he's like, he's not giving

552
00:27:38,279 --> 00:27:40,359
up the money that you need to collect, and so

553
00:27:40,400 --> 00:27:42,440
the guy's like, you know what to do, and then

554
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:45,720
the objective thing is like, hey pointed at his son,

555
00:27:46,079 --> 00:27:48,720
and it's like, okay, now we're doing like mob stuff.

556
00:27:48,839 --> 00:27:51,880
Now we're doing and I imagine that doesn't happen very

557
00:27:51,880 --> 00:27:53,240
often in the rest of the game. That felt like

558
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:58,359
a very mission specific moment. Yeah, but that stuff is cool,

559
00:27:58,400 --> 00:28:00,279
but it sounds like there's not enough of it to

560
00:28:00,359 --> 00:28:05,680
carry the full game. And that's that's kind of a bummer,

561
00:28:05,720 --> 00:28:08,519
because I do I liked Mafia three more than most.

562
00:28:08,559 --> 00:28:11,079
I think that was actually my personal favorite in the series.

563
00:28:11,119 --> 00:28:13,039
I think Mafia two is okay. I never played Mafia one.

564
00:28:13,079 --> 00:28:14,920
I should go back and rectify that at some point,

565
00:28:15,000 --> 00:28:18,359
But I actually liked the story and the setting and

566
00:28:18,400 --> 00:28:20,440
the theme of Mafia three a lot. It had a

567
00:28:20,440 --> 00:28:23,680
decent time with the action of it too, Yeah, more

568
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:24,359
than most.

569
00:28:24,160 --> 00:28:26,559
Speaker 2: Ocky three story is like that might be the best.

570
00:28:26,640 --> 00:28:28,559
It's awesome, and the things they do with like that

571
00:28:28,599 --> 00:28:31,000
period of history is really cool. It just it was

572
00:28:31,039 --> 00:28:34,480
like a product of its time, twenty fifteen or twenty sixteen,

573
00:28:34,599 --> 00:28:38,799
like Ubisoft Checklist type open world, which is yeah.

574
00:28:38,559 --> 00:28:41,960
Speaker 3: Which is weird because Mafia the Old Country feels like

575
00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:45,519
a product of that time in some ways, like it

576
00:28:45,599 --> 00:28:48,200
really reminds me of playing a game from that era,

577
00:28:49,079 --> 00:28:53,160
you know, a decade ago or so. And in some ways,

578
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:55,960
I think we are seeing an almost revival of the

579
00:28:56,119 --> 00:29:01,240
Xbox three sixty mindset of here's this tight, focused, quirky

580
00:29:01,480 --> 00:29:04,359
single player action game. We're moving away from like the

581
00:29:04,440 --> 00:29:07,160
super Prestige Triple A games, and we're moving back to

582
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:12,039
sort of like reasonably scoped and budgeted single player action games.

583
00:29:12,279 --> 00:29:13,680
And I like that a lot. I think there's some

584
00:29:13,720 --> 00:29:15,799
cool games coming out because of that. But I don't

585
00:29:15,839 --> 00:29:20,400
know if Mafia handled the jump so well, and I

586
00:29:20,440 --> 00:29:23,880
do hope there's more because I like a good mob story.

587
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:26,519
Man it's it's good, and I was really excited for

588
00:29:26,559 --> 00:29:29,839
this one. You know, I'm a little bit basic and

589
00:29:29,880 --> 00:29:33,680
all that, but I love Godfather Part two, I love Veto,

590
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:35,839
I love all of that stuff, so I was really

591
00:29:35,880 --> 00:29:37,400
hoping for some of that to come through here.

592
00:29:38,559 --> 00:29:41,839
Speaker 2: Yeah. Another thing you mentioned about the the riding on

593
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:43,559
the horse or like in a car and going from

594
00:29:43,599 --> 00:29:47,000
place to places. There's like interesting conversations that happen atop

595
00:29:47,079 --> 00:29:49,839
those horses. It's kind of like b stuff. But then

596
00:29:49,880 --> 00:29:52,400
the game also just says like it puts a little

597
00:29:52,440 --> 00:29:54,559
prompt like skip drive or skip.

598
00:29:55,160 --> 00:29:55,839
Speaker 1: Look or whatever.

599
00:29:55,920 --> 00:29:59,480
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, So I'm like, okay, well are you even

600
00:29:59,519 --> 00:30:02,880
like confident and the riding here or like like it's

601
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,400
like a war of two worlds. Like one group's like, well,

602
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:07,440
people don't want to drive for ten minutes to the

603
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:09,839
next destination and yeah, and then the riders are like,

604
00:30:09,839 --> 00:30:11,559
well we wrote really good dialogue. And I was like,

605
00:30:11,720 --> 00:30:15,839
it was just weird to see that. And I often

606
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:17,519
end up did skipping because I was like, well, if

607
00:30:17,559 --> 00:30:19,200
they don't want me to drive, if they're not interested

608
00:30:19,240 --> 00:30:21,839
in giving me something for fifteen minutes, then I will

609
00:30:21,839 --> 00:30:24,240
because sometimes the conversation was good they would go the

610
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:26,119
whole fifteen minute drive and then other times it would

611
00:30:26,119 --> 00:30:27,920
be like thirty seconds and then it's just quiet and

612
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:30,880
I'm like, okay, well yeah, Usually in the countryside is.

613
00:30:31,480 --> 00:30:33,440
Speaker 3: In like La Noir, they would do it to where

614
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:35,920
they would do the conversation and then when it ended,

615
00:30:35,920 --> 00:30:37,359
the little thing would pop up and be like, hey,

616
00:30:37,359 --> 00:30:38,559
do you want to finish the ride?

617
00:30:38,759 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 2: Like yeah, no, not this this is just like skip

618
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:45,720
it all if you want. Who cares last thing? None

619
00:30:45,759 --> 00:30:47,240
of this is in my review because this is like

620
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,720
I don't know, I guess experimental tech on PC. But

621
00:30:50,839 --> 00:30:54,599
like the DLS and the video stuff is like kind

622
00:30:54,599 --> 00:30:58,799
of borked right now. If you use the frame generation

623
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:02,200
stuff to like get your frame rate up, it's a mess.

624
00:31:02,279 --> 00:31:04,880
It gets very blurry and like kind of sludgy on

625
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,000
the outsides, and the captions and ANYUI on the screen

626
00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:11,880
gets real shaking weird. Don't recommend. And then the DLS

627
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,799
like resolution scaling stuff is pretty wonky too. Pretty much,

628
00:31:16,839 --> 00:31:18,839
just if you're going to use any of the DLS

629
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:22,880
into stuff like DLSS stuff, your game's going to be

630
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:27,119
a little weird sometimes. And also me and Eric both

631
00:31:27,160 --> 00:31:28,359
have this problem. I don't think it has to do

632
00:31:28,359 --> 00:31:30,880
with like the experimental tech. I think it's just the

633
00:31:30,880 --> 00:31:32,640
game if you're playing on a frame rate higher than

634
00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:35,599
thirty or uncap like I was. For example, when the

635
00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:38,759
cutscenes which go down to thirty half and every single

636
00:31:38,799 --> 00:31:41,880
time it will have a weird three second stutter where

637
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:43,920
it's like trying to jump from one hundred and twenty

638
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:48,799
frames to thirty. Funny, it sometimes ruins very impactful moments

639
00:31:48,799 --> 00:31:52,240
at other times and obviously just ugly to look at.

640
00:31:52,319 --> 00:31:55,079
But I wouldn't say it's like broken on PC or anything,

641
00:31:55,119 --> 00:31:56,640
but be aware of those issues.

642
00:31:57,039 --> 00:31:59,559
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was playing uncapped. I was joking with Wesley

643
00:31:59,559 --> 00:32:02,240
that my whole week has been playing the game of

644
00:32:02,319 --> 00:32:05,440
how do I make this look good? Because you know,

645
00:32:05,519 --> 00:32:08,160
I'm over here recording b roll and everything the b

646
00:32:08,279 --> 00:32:10,480
role that you're probably watching on whichever side of the

647
00:32:10,519 --> 00:32:14,319
screen that I put it on. But there was all

648
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:18,319
kinds of stuff with screen dooring faces on some of

649
00:32:18,359 --> 00:32:22,880
them weird pop in depending on what DLSS I was using,

650
00:32:22,920 --> 00:32:28,799
because it has I believe FSR, DLSS and whatever unreals

651
00:32:29,119 --> 00:32:33,119
version is all as options, and I think it's worth

652
00:32:33,160 --> 00:32:36,920
mentioning for PC specifically because you have to flip through

653
00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:40,400
some weird settings and toggles to turn it off. Like

654
00:32:41,039 --> 00:32:44,279
getting to the point where everything is turned off was

655
00:32:44,359 --> 00:32:48,160
actually kind of difficult to find in the menus compared

656
00:32:48,200 --> 00:32:51,480
to other games that have had those options before. It

657
00:32:51,519 --> 00:32:54,079
seems like they wanted the player to use them. And

658
00:32:54,119 --> 00:32:56,599
every time I used auto detect to kind of say like, okay,

659
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,599
well recommend me my system settings based on what I have,

660
00:32:59,640 --> 00:33:03,680
which is pretty beefy. I've got a forty seventy super

661
00:33:03,880 --> 00:33:08,000
in mind and a pretty decent CPU. And it was

662
00:33:08,079 --> 00:33:10,720
still it was showing on the meter like you have

663
00:33:10,759 --> 00:33:14,640
eleven gigs a video card available, you're gonna use two.

664
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:18,000
And I was like, what are what are you talking about? Well,

665
00:33:18,000 --> 00:33:19,680
why are we doing it this way? And it would

666
00:33:19,680 --> 00:33:23,920
always be like, oh, just use the DLSS, use the FSR,

667
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:26,799
It'll reduce the load. And then you would have weird effects,

668
00:33:26,880 --> 00:33:31,920
weird hair, weird faces, screen dooring during pivotal moments, and

669
00:33:31,960 --> 00:33:34,200
I was having to go back and re record scenes

670
00:33:34,200 --> 00:33:37,319
because I was like, that looked not good. That didn't

671
00:33:37,359 --> 00:33:41,039
look good. So I'm curious to see if once this

672
00:33:41,119 --> 00:33:44,480
game is out and open, if there'll be driver updates,

673
00:33:44,640 --> 00:33:47,519
you know, there's always kind of Day one graphics drivers

674
00:33:47,599 --> 00:33:50,519
or even Day plus five graphics drivers that kind of

675
00:33:50,559 --> 00:33:53,119
try to tune this. But I am curious to see

676
00:33:53,119 --> 00:33:55,319
what the long tail on this looks like, what the

677
00:33:55,599 --> 00:33:57,440
Digital found retake on it looks.

678
00:33:57,279 --> 00:34:01,440
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, was shut out. They just went chat last week.

679
00:34:02,440 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: Yeah.

680
00:34:02,680 --> 00:34:06,839
Speaker 2: Yeah, of note only Steam codes for pre release, so

681
00:34:06,960 --> 00:34:10,079
like they're trying. They have a PS four pro PS

682
00:34:10,159 --> 00:34:12,840
five pro patch coming and on PS five base they

683
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:15,760
want performance to be sixty fps, but they weren't sure

684
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,000
if they were going to hit that. From what I've

685
00:34:18,000 --> 00:34:21,239
read online, none of us at staff have codes for consoles,

686
00:34:21,239 --> 00:34:25,119
so like, yeah, wait, maybe wait for Digital Foundry or

687
00:34:25,679 --> 00:34:28,719
you're going to be testing it yourself. PC is a

688
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:30,800
little weird. I do think PCs mostly fine though, like

689
00:34:30,840 --> 00:34:34,000
it's there are some weirdness to it. It's not like unplayable,

690
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,719
but like it definitely could use some work. No idea

691
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:42,360
on consoles though, so go with your own risk there. Yeah,

692
00:34:42,480 --> 00:34:44,840
that's that's Mafia. It's a It's a six out of

693
00:34:44,840 --> 00:34:46,480
ten and probably the most six out of ten game

694
00:34:46,480 --> 00:34:48,280
I've played in a minute.

695
00:34:48,360 --> 00:34:51,599
Speaker 1: I think my one contribution to the end of that

696
00:34:51,639 --> 00:34:54,559
conversation is that a walk and talk on horses should

697
00:34:54,559 --> 00:34:57,280
be called a canter and banter. Good.

698
00:34:57,320 --> 00:34:57,800
Speaker 3: I like that.

699
00:34:57,920 --> 00:34:58,159
Speaker 1: Good?

700
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:06,199
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, okay, man, Well next up, I'm gonna take

701
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,559
the reins, so to speak, keeping on the horse theme

702
00:35:09,079 --> 00:35:13,199
and talk about I went to gen Con, which I

703
00:35:13,199 --> 00:35:14,920
had never been to before, honestly hadn't even heard of

704
00:35:15,039 --> 00:35:18,039
until a few years ago, which is a big board

705
00:35:18,079 --> 00:35:24,880
game and tabletop convention in Indianapolis. And I live in Dayton, Ohio,

706
00:35:24,920 --> 00:35:26,239
and so I learned that it was a thing, and

707
00:35:26,280 --> 00:35:27,800
I was like, oh, I can just drive there.

708
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,960
Speaker 1: I don't need to like approve travel or hotel or

709
00:35:30,960 --> 00:35:33,039
anything like. I can just go for a few days

710
00:35:33,039 --> 00:35:35,559
and see what it is. Uh So I did that.

711
00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:37,159
And I don't know if either of you have ever

712
00:35:37,239 --> 00:35:40,559
been to gen Con or like a similar large convention.

713
00:35:42,679 --> 00:35:45,679
But the thing I didn't realize. So I've been to

714
00:35:45,800 --> 00:35:50,440
like local conventions and stuff before. There's one super since

715
00:35:50,480 --> 00:35:54,920
the Expo, which like a local gaming convention. They've invited

716
00:35:54,920 --> 00:35:56,960
me to the They've only I think it's only existed

717
00:35:57,000 --> 00:36:00,159
two years, and I've been both years. But that's just

718
00:36:00,199 --> 00:36:01,320
you know, you walk in and there's a bunch of

719
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:04,960
booths and people are selling you know, their mercher they're

720
00:36:05,039 --> 00:36:07,559
showing off pictures of I don't know, there aren't like

721
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,760
game developers there usually, but like you don't have tournaments

722
00:36:10,800 --> 00:36:13,000
and everywhere, would you say.

723
00:36:13,239 --> 00:36:14,679
Speaker 2: Three D printed dragons everywhere?

724
00:36:14,679 --> 00:36:18,679
Speaker 1: If it's like yes, definitely, three D printed dragons, three

725
00:36:18,719 --> 00:36:24,360
D printed eggs everything, And yeah, there's like meet and greets,

726
00:36:24,440 --> 00:36:29,920
there's you know, fighting game tournaments or whatever. Gen Con

727
00:36:31,039 --> 00:36:33,000
has kind of what I was expecting where it's like

728
00:36:33,039 --> 00:36:35,960
there's you know, like hundreds of booths of all these

729
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:38,280
different like board game publishers and developers that are like

730
00:36:39,679 --> 00:36:44,559
we make Wingspan, we make Everdell, we make you know, Magic.

731
00:36:44,599 --> 00:36:46,320
The gathering obviously, which is the coast, is there in

732
00:36:46,320 --> 00:36:49,559
a big presence, all sorts of stuff like that. But

733
00:36:49,599 --> 00:36:51,119
the thing I didn't know about gen Con is it

734
00:36:51,159 --> 00:36:54,280
has like thousands and thousands of events you sign up for.

735
00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,599
There's people that have you know, panels and seminars of

736
00:36:58,679 --> 00:37:00,960
like you know, D and D, people that stream playing

737
00:37:01,039 --> 00:37:02,840
D and D. They'll do a live at live show

738
00:37:02,880 --> 00:37:06,159
there or other related things. There's board game designers we'll

739
00:37:06,159 --> 00:37:08,519
talk about their thing, and then there's also just so

740
00:37:08,679 --> 00:37:12,159
many places you can sign up to just play board games.

741
00:37:12,679 --> 00:37:14,159
So if there's a thing where it's like, oh, I

742
00:37:14,239 --> 00:37:15,920
wanted to play this game and no one will ever

743
00:37:15,960 --> 00:37:17,880
play it with me, you can go to gen con

744
00:37:18,079 --> 00:37:19,599
and just sign up for a table and then just

745
00:37:19,599 --> 00:37:22,079
sit at the table and then play with people. And

746
00:37:22,159 --> 00:37:24,719
it works for stuff where it's like a game you

747
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:26,960
haven't bought a game. You can't find people for a

748
00:37:27,000 --> 00:37:29,360
game like you know, D and D where you're like,

749
00:37:29,360 --> 00:37:31,440
I don't want to write my own thing and none

750
00:37:31,440 --> 00:37:33,000
of us want a DM. But we can just go

751
00:37:33,039 --> 00:37:34,880
to the convention and we can all play the table together.

752
00:37:36,639 --> 00:37:40,320
So it's really cool. And the first day I went,

753
00:37:41,400 --> 00:37:45,159
I had an appointment. I saw a panel and it

754
00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:48,519
was Eric Lang, who is a guy I didn't really know.

755
00:37:48,920 --> 00:37:51,079
He did a game called Blood Rager, which I think

756
00:37:51,159 --> 00:37:52,880
is his most well known thing. I don't know. All right,

757
00:37:53,079 --> 00:37:54,480
First of all, let me back up real quick. All right,

758
00:37:54,559 --> 00:37:56,920
you guys like board game people. I don't know if

759
00:37:56,920 --> 00:37:59,199
that's a.

760
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,400
Speaker 3: I'm a card game person, not a board game person.

761
00:38:03,159 --> 00:38:05,559
Speaker 1: Well represented here, Wes. Do you have like favorite board

762
00:38:05,559 --> 00:38:06,559
games off top of your head?

763
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:11,679
Speaker 2: I really like Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven, Games of Night City,

764
00:38:11,920 --> 00:38:13,719
although that one's kind of hard to wrestle people to

765
00:38:13,719 --> 00:38:16,760
play together for because it's like a campaign focused. Yeah,

766
00:38:16,800 --> 00:38:21,440
tabletop game, the Bloodborne TTRPG is really good. And then

767
00:38:21,480 --> 00:38:26,039
for like more casual things like Photosynthesis. Wingspan obviously is

768
00:38:26,039 --> 00:38:30,960
a classic splendor pretty much like a lot of those.

769
00:38:31,480 --> 00:38:33,840
Like I have a friend and he comes over once

770
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:36,400
a month and we just pick like five or six

771
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:40,719
random board games we have and play for hours, and yeah,

772
00:38:40,760 --> 00:38:42,679
it's great. Even Villainous, Like we play a lot of

773
00:38:42,760 --> 00:38:45,639
Villainous because they just keep putting out infinite sets of

774
00:38:45,639 --> 00:38:47,280
that game. Jesus Christ, they.

775
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:48,800
Speaker 1: Have They have a new one. I don't know if

776
00:38:48,840 --> 00:38:52,000
you know about it, West, but it is Davy Jones.

777
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:55,079
Speaker 2: My friend that I play with literally today went and

778
00:38:55,119 --> 00:38:57,119
bought it and sent me a picture. It's David Jones

779
00:38:57,199 --> 00:39:02,800
and krakatoa from Moana, the two Tomato guys. Tomato, Yeah, Tomato,

780
00:39:03,920 --> 00:39:06,440
which is awesome, very cool. I like that those two

781
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:07,599
are the ones in the.

782
00:39:07,559 --> 00:39:09,320
Speaker 1: Set, very very West.

783
00:39:09,360 --> 00:39:11,960
Speaker 2: The Yes, so I love the board game's rule. Board

784
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:12,639
games are great cool.

785
00:39:14,519 --> 00:39:15,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I was gonna say, I went to a

786
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,519
panel and it was one guy did that Elizabeth Hargrave,

787
00:39:18,519 --> 00:39:21,360
who's the designer of Wingspan, so it was like very

788
00:39:21,360 --> 00:39:24,239
excited to see her. And then also Joe mangan Yellow,

789
00:39:24,360 --> 00:39:28,400
who is like an actual big actor guy but also

790
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:34,559
like death Stroke and the Snyder credits scene he's flashed

791
00:39:34,639 --> 00:39:37,079
Thompson in two thousand and two Spider Man.

792
00:39:39,400 --> 00:39:41,599
Speaker 2: He's ex husband.

793
00:39:41,400 --> 00:39:43,880
Speaker 1: Ex husband. Yes, I did. I did post a picture

794
00:39:43,880 --> 00:39:45,119
with him, and a lot of people are like, well,

795
00:39:45,199 --> 00:39:47,760
you met Sufia Bergar's husband. I was like, I got

796
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:52,920
news for you anyways, Uh, yeah, it was. It was

797
00:39:52,920 --> 00:39:54,199
a panel with the three of them. It was kind

798
00:39:54,199 --> 00:39:59,280
of an awkward panel because Eric, the guy didn't know

799
00:40:01,199 --> 00:40:03,760
super nice, super Fine would jump on questions and talk

800
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:08,119
for a long time about them. Elizabeth didn't get as

801
00:40:08,199 --> 00:40:10,599
much time to say stuff, and it's a thing where

802
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:13,480
I wish that the panel host had kind of like

803
00:40:13,599 --> 00:40:15,639
probed her a little bit or trying to get her

804
00:40:15,639 --> 00:40:17,519
to open up or make her more comfortable about the

805
00:40:17,559 --> 00:40:20,679
whole thing. And then there's like an interesting thing with

806
00:40:20,760 --> 00:40:24,920
Joe where he would he would say stuff and I

807
00:40:25,599 --> 00:40:28,519
hear that he's like celebrity and then also board game person,

808
00:40:28,559 --> 00:40:30,639
and I'm like that's fine, those two things can coexist.

809
00:40:30,679 --> 00:40:33,000
I'm totally cool talking about the board game stuff, and

810
00:40:33,079 --> 00:40:35,159
it was a funny thing where anytime he would mention

811
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:39,239
like doing Magic Mike, it would get like an enormous

812
00:40:39,480 --> 00:40:43,320
uproar of laughter from the crowd. And it wasn't like

813
00:40:43,599 --> 00:40:45,960
they were making fun of him or like a thing

814
00:40:46,079 --> 00:40:48,119
he would. He kind of played it for comedic effect

815
00:40:48,199 --> 00:40:49,960
where he's like, no one thought the guy from Magic

816
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:51,960
Mike would be into this stuff. And to me it

817
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:53,639
was a thing where I was like, I feel like

818
00:40:53,639 --> 00:40:56,239
we're still like we can get I'm past that, I

819
00:40:56,280 --> 00:40:58,119
get it those two things can exist. I want to

820
00:40:58,159 --> 00:41:02,159
like hear what he thinks about games and instead its yes,

821
00:41:02,280 --> 00:41:05,000
exactly has a bit obviously he's like playing the bid

822
00:41:05,039 --> 00:41:08,199
a little too often. Yes, And I think I think

823
00:41:08,239 --> 00:41:11,639
he knows like to be honest, and I'm like psychoanizing him.

824
00:41:11,679 --> 00:41:13,639
I don't know him as a person, so this nother

825
00:41:13,719 --> 00:41:18,280
thing I kind of read a level of kind of

826
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:22,519
an insecurity of him of being like because because uh,

827
00:41:23,079 --> 00:41:26,360
you know, nerd culture is famously like gate keepy, So

828
00:41:26,400 --> 00:41:28,239
I do think there is a thing of like, well

829
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,519
you want to come and like play that you're a

830
00:41:30,519 --> 00:41:32,960
real nerd like us, but like we are the real

831
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:34,519
nerds that did this and do all this stuff all

832
00:41:34,519 --> 00:41:36,920
the time you're off at your big Hollywood parties, And

833
00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,320
I feel like, I don't know if he he thinks

834
00:41:39,320 --> 00:41:41,800
he's perceived that way or he has been told that

835
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:44,760
he's perceived that way, but I did, I don't know.

836
00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,320
I kind of picked up from him, but I got

837
00:41:48,400 --> 00:41:52,000
I got uh two autographs from Elizabeth Hargrave, which was

838
00:41:52,079 --> 00:41:54,840
very exciting. And then after that I went and I

839
00:41:54,880 --> 00:41:57,559
played Hero Quest to Joe Magan Yellow because he wrote

840
00:41:57,599 --> 00:42:00,440
an expansion to the game here requests, not a game

841
00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:02,480
I had played before, and I was embarrassed about that,

842
00:42:02,519 --> 00:42:05,239
but then found out knowing at the table like the request,

843
00:42:05,559 --> 00:42:08,320
so I felt a lot better. And it's like a

844
00:42:08,559 --> 00:42:11,639
it's like a dungeon crawler, and it comes with like

845
00:42:11,679 --> 00:42:14,840
a big board and these like preset scenarios and basically

846
00:42:14,840 --> 00:42:17,159
every time you open a door, like on this big

847
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:21,960
grid of board, the person that's behind like the DM screen,

848
00:42:22,000 --> 00:42:24,400
which is what Joe is doing, they'll like place down

849
00:42:24,400 --> 00:42:26,440
the items, or like, Okay, this is a hallway and

850
00:42:26,440 --> 00:42:27,960
these are the doors on either side of the hallway,

851
00:42:28,039 --> 00:42:29,960
or like this is what's in this room. It's like

852
00:42:30,039 --> 00:42:32,840
a you know, alchemist shop or whatever. So it's like

853
00:42:32,880 --> 00:42:39,159
an interesting dungeon crawling, exploring type thing. And I honestly

854
00:42:39,159 --> 00:42:40,880
am not I'm not a judge for whether it was

855
00:42:40,920 --> 00:42:43,239
a really good expansion or not because it was literally

856
00:42:43,320 --> 00:42:46,199
my first ever exposure to the game. But we did

857
00:42:46,199 --> 00:42:47,199
have fun and we liked it.

858
00:42:48,000 --> 00:42:51,079
Speaker 2: Did it take place in Las Vegas and like behind

859
00:42:51,079 --> 00:42:54,760
this door was a scantily clad man, great ass.

860
00:42:55,079 --> 00:42:56,760
Speaker 3: It took place in.

861
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,920
Speaker 1: Uh tavern and he he introduced a bunch of people

862
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:05,760
again he wrote it's like called Joe Manganiello's Crypt of

863
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:09,679
Perpetual Darkness, I think is the title, and he kept

864
00:43:09,719 --> 00:43:12,880
introducing people that had Philadelphia accents, which I assume is

865
00:43:12,920 --> 00:43:17,440
because he's from Philadelphia. I was I was like kind

866
00:43:17,440 --> 00:43:19,679
of role playing as my character, but I had chose

867
00:43:19,719 --> 00:43:21,599
a voice that was very similar to mine, and he

868
00:43:21,719 --> 00:43:24,000
kept doing committing to voices no one else at the

869
00:43:24,039 --> 00:43:25,679
table was. I was like, oh, man, I should have

870
00:43:25,800 --> 00:43:27,880
like I should have really gone for it because I

871
00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:29,679
don't want him to feel left out, and just my

872
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:34,559
uh every time he put a goblin down on the board,

873
00:43:34,599 --> 00:43:37,840
he went ah. He was talking to his completely normal voice.

874
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:40,320
He never did a goblin voice, but anytime he placed

875
00:43:40,320 --> 00:43:42,280
a goblin down as if it was like a soundboard

876
00:43:42,320 --> 00:43:44,039
effect to go like, ah, if.

877
00:43:44,000 --> 00:43:45,639
Speaker 3: I thought that was you kind of have to. I

878
00:43:45,679 --> 00:43:48,320
think if you're like putting down a funky little goblin guy,

879
00:43:48,360 --> 00:43:50,760
you have to make like a noise with it. It's

880
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:53,119
like when the thing like you put a pair of

881
00:43:53,159 --> 00:43:55,199
tongs out and you tell someone to pick them up,

882
00:43:55,199 --> 00:43:56,280
and they always give them a little.

883
00:43:56,159 --> 00:43:58,760
Speaker 1: Like click click click click. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have to,

884
00:43:59,440 --> 00:44:01,480
you have to. I fully, yeah, I was like I

885
00:44:01,519 --> 00:44:03,639
could tell he it was a thing where it's like

886
00:44:03,639 --> 00:44:05,599
if I called him out on it, I think he

887
00:44:05,639 --> 00:44:07,679
would not realize he was doing it every single time.

888
00:44:09,159 --> 00:44:13,360
Lizard bring and also he had he also had a

889
00:44:13,400 --> 00:44:16,599
little tiny chiuahua named Bubbles with him, which was very nice.

890
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,920
Bubbles was just limply sitting on his lap the whole time.

891
00:44:21,119 --> 00:44:21,639
Great dog.

892
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:24,119
Speaker 2: He's like really big into D and D right, like

893
00:44:24,119 --> 00:44:26,280
that's his main thing. Like he spends a lot of

894
00:44:26,280 --> 00:44:30,679
money on his basement and invites celebrities like Vin diesel

895
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:33,639
Over and they played celebrity D and D often.

896
00:44:34,440 --> 00:44:36,119
Speaker 1: Uh, I don't I don't know how often he plays

897
00:44:36,119 --> 00:44:38,760
with like celebrities specifically, but I do know that's like

898
00:44:38,800 --> 00:44:41,079
a whole thing with him. And he's like, there's a

899
00:44:41,159 --> 00:44:44,400
D and D setting dragon Lance, and he's been he's

900
00:44:44,480 --> 00:44:47,239
adapting dragon Lance into a TV series, and he was

901
00:44:47,280 --> 00:44:50,320
talking about how he's like doing that right now. It

902
00:44:50,360 --> 00:44:52,320
was funny in the panel hearing all the board game

903
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:57,320
designers talk about their inspirations, and he was like, yeah,

904
00:44:57,360 --> 00:45:00,480
you know, I grew up and I playing D and

905
00:45:00,559 --> 00:45:03,480
D and hero Quest and all these like epic fantasy stories,

906
00:45:03,519 --> 00:45:05,480
and I just really liked this part of my life

907
00:45:05,480 --> 00:45:07,719
and these things I was doing, and that's why I

908
00:45:07,719 --> 00:45:10,199
wanted to make games. And Elizabeth Hargrave, who if you

909
00:45:10,199 --> 00:45:13,000
don't if you don't know Wingspan. It's a game about

910
00:45:13,159 --> 00:45:16,159
birds and has a lot of like really specific bird

911
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:18,920
art and they all have like bird facts on them.

912
00:45:18,960 --> 00:45:21,519
And it's a thing that was like not really popular

913
00:45:21,719 --> 00:45:24,679
around the pandemic because it was a board game. All

914
00:45:24,679 --> 00:45:28,000
of a sudden, everyone's stuck inside playing board games that

915
00:45:28,119 --> 00:45:30,840
people that didn't play strategy games or intense board games

916
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:32,480
would be like, oh I like birds, or like a

917
00:45:32,519 --> 00:45:34,320
grandma would be like, oh this is interesting, I'll learn

918
00:45:34,360 --> 00:45:37,039
the rules of this. It's all birds Her inspiration for

919
00:45:37,119 --> 00:45:39,480
starting was, I was so sick of every game was

920
00:45:39,559 --> 00:45:42,920
D and D. Every game was like castles and goblins

921
00:45:42,920 --> 00:45:47,000
and swords and stuff, which jen CON's got room for

922
00:45:47,039 --> 00:45:47,519
both of them.

923
00:45:47,760 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's fair.

924
00:45:50,039 --> 00:45:52,199
Speaker 1: So that was my Thursday. I worked on Friday, and

925
00:45:52,239 --> 00:45:56,320
then I went back on Saturday and that day. So

926
00:45:56,559 --> 00:45:58,960
it takes place in the Indiana Convention Center, real big

927
00:45:58,960 --> 00:46:03,159
convention center, obvious. It has like a lobby that kind

928
00:46:03,199 --> 00:46:05,599
of like wraps around the main halls, and then the

929
00:46:05,639 --> 00:46:07,920
halls are like this huge I think it was like

930
00:46:07,960 --> 00:46:10,920
a big LA shaped or maybe even like C shaped,

931
00:46:11,320 --> 00:46:14,639
like combined thing of all these halls of places to go.

932
00:46:15,400 --> 00:46:19,639
But it's connected with an underground tunnel to Lucas Oil Stadium,

933
00:46:20,239 --> 00:46:24,639
which is the stadium where the Colts play the NFL team.

934
00:46:24,840 --> 00:46:28,320
It's an indoor stadium and because of that, during the

935
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:31,559
summer when the Colts aren't playing, they use it for

936
00:46:31,679 --> 00:46:36,039
like conventions and stuff. So I went through this underground tunnel,

937
00:46:36,199 --> 00:46:39,199
came out in Lucas Oil Stadium and the fields are

938
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:42,719
just covered in tables of people playing like magic. The gathering.

939
00:46:43,199 --> 00:46:45,320
This was mostly where the magic stuff was.

940
00:46:45,960 --> 00:46:49,239
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where the magic happens true.

941
00:46:49,360 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 1: There you go. I had a joke. I can't remember

942
00:46:51,880 --> 00:46:53,760
if it made it into my gen Con piece in

943
00:46:53,800 --> 00:46:56,079
the magazine or not, but I was laughing that, like

944
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,280
one of these guys be like, yeah, I've competed on

945
00:46:59,320 --> 00:47:03,239
the an NFL field before, I've actually one of won

946
00:47:03,280 --> 00:47:05,719
a few games. It was like wow, not not even

947
00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:09,880
talking about magic. Yeah. Anyways, from there, I went into

948
00:47:09,960 --> 00:47:12,559
they have like these a bunch of like meeting rooms

949
00:47:12,599 --> 00:47:16,760
and suites in the stadium, and I went into this

950
00:47:16,840 --> 00:47:20,280
like super fancy decorated room and I played the new

951
00:47:20,480 --> 00:47:24,599
starter set for Dungeons and Dragons just called Here's the Borderlands.

952
00:47:26,360 --> 00:47:27,960
And I'm a big D and D guy. I keep

953
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:29,719
trying to figure a way to get all my D

954
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:31,480
and D books on this shelf behind me, but I

955
00:47:31,480 --> 00:47:33,800
can't make the shelves tall enough to fit the books.

956
00:47:35,199 --> 00:47:37,760
But I have them all on this other side of me.

957
00:47:39,280 --> 00:47:40,920
So I was interested to play this. I like the

958
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,599
twenty twenty four rules. It's kind of controversial online, but

959
00:47:43,639 --> 00:47:44,960
I was just I don't know, I was interested to

960
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:48,480
see what this is. And it's like, well, quick pause break,

961
00:47:48,599 --> 00:47:50,360
do you either of you guys play D and D? I think, Eric,

962
00:47:50,360 --> 00:47:51,840
we've talked about D and D before.

963
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:56,159
Speaker 3: I have looked into the idea of like dming before

964
00:47:56,280 --> 00:47:58,960
because I think it would be fun, it would be enjoyable.

965
00:47:59,000 --> 00:48:01,000
And I also learned that the fact way to get

966
00:48:01,039 --> 00:48:04,159
your friends to play a tabletop game is to DM

967
00:48:04,239 --> 00:48:08,039
the tabletop game, because that's It's like playing Jungle and

968
00:48:08,119 --> 00:48:10,440
League of Legends. You know somebody's got to do it,

969
00:48:10,599 --> 00:48:12,400
and usually you have to be the one to do it.

970
00:48:13,599 --> 00:48:16,079
Speaker 2: I know what we're talking about here was legal stuff.

971
00:48:16,880 --> 00:48:20,519
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a quick pivot here, No, it's it's

972
00:48:20,639 --> 00:48:22,960
it's cool. I own a lot of books and I

973
00:48:23,079 --> 00:48:25,719
like a lot of writing around it and about it,

974
00:48:26,679 --> 00:48:28,960
but I have yet to do more than play like

975
00:48:29,039 --> 00:48:31,760
a one shot just because getting it. Turns out, the

976
00:48:31,800 --> 00:48:34,440
greatest challenge in D and D is getting people together

977
00:48:34,480 --> 00:48:35,760
on a regular schedule to play.

978
00:48:35,760 --> 00:48:39,199
Speaker 2: It's literally impossible, impossible.

979
00:48:40,599 --> 00:48:41,199
Speaker 3: I love D and D.

980
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:43,119
Speaker 2: I play it not as often as i'd like to,

981
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:45,519
just because I have friends that keep moving away to

982
00:48:45,559 --> 00:48:48,280
different states and virtual D and D doesn't hit the

983
00:48:48,280 --> 00:48:50,679
same as in person, although I probably just need to

984
00:48:50,679 --> 00:48:53,480
get over that. But yeah, I love D and D

985
00:48:53,599 --> 00:48:55,679
and I've been playing it for years cool.

986
00:48:56,039 --> 00:48:59,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I play. I actually haven't played in the last

987
00:48:59,440 --> 00:49:03,760
time I played D and D was for over at

988
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:06,920
min Max. They've got a podcast pp Bang and for

989
00:49:06,960 --> 00:49:08,719
their big season finale, I ran a D and D

990
00:49:08,840 --> 00:49:10,920
game for them. That's the last time I played, and

991
00:49:10,960 --> 00:49:13,239
that was like a month or two ago. I used

992
00:49:13,280 --> 00:49:16,239
to play very regularly, but then I moved an hour

993
00:49:16,320 --> 00:49:18,079
north of my friend and now it's just way harder

994
00:49:18,079 --> 00:49:20,519
for us to get together for a group. But we should.

995
00:49:20,519 --> 00:49:22,320
Speaker 2: We should do a game in Former one because we

996
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,920
have We also have Matt Miller, who is like, yeah,

997
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:26,320
I want him. I want him to DM and I

998
00:49:26,320 --> 00:49:27,280
just want to see what that's like.

999
00:49:28,199 --> 00:49:29,559
Speaker 1: I'm so curious to see him.

1000
00:49:29,559 --> 00:49:32,000
Speaker 2: He's been playing for like decades and he loves Matt.

1001
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:36,920
Speaker 1: Matt told me he he wrote a D and D

1002
00:49:37,119 --> 00:49:43,360
campaign setting for fun. He wrote and like just just

1003
00:49:44,000 --> 00:49:46,800
just like for his friends, wrote a setting for it,

1004
00:49:46,880 --> 00:49:50,000
like a continent of like this world for their next

1005
00:49:50,039 --> 00:49:52,679
campaign over like a series of months. I think he

1006
00:49:52,760 --> 00:49:55,559
told me. Rachel at Game Informers, she's the one that

1007
00:49:55,599 --> 00:49:57,159
like laid it out for him to make sure it

1008
00:49:57,199 --> 00:49:59,639
looked okay, and then had it like printed out in

1009
00:49:59,719 --> 00:50:02,440
Bounce and handed it to his players before they started

1010
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:04,960
the campaign so they could like learn about the lore

1011
00:50:05,000 --> 00:50:07,000
of the world, and then they like ran that campaign

1012
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:07,920
for several weeks. Rule.

1013
00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:09,639
Speaker 2: That's so sick, Like, I want to get into that

1014
00:50:09,679 --> 00:50:13,519
part of Matt Miller's mind. He's such a nice, chill, professional,

1015
00:50:13,559 --> 00:50:16,320
professional boss. Even when like we're having a complete wreck

1016
00:50:16,360 --> 00:50:19,320
at work about something, he's still so calm headed. I

1017
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:21,400
want to know. I want to hear his the goblin noises,

1018
00:50:21,440 --> 00:50:23,800
you know, the Matt Miller goblins.

1019
00:50:24,800 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 1: I actually really have fascinating to know what Matt's goblin

1020
00:50:27,800 --> 00:50:29,920
noise was. This is going to be the next meeting

1021
00:50:29,960 --> 00:50:30,159
we have.

1022
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:31,400
Speaker 3: That's gonna be the first quest.

1023
00:50:31,440 --> 00:50:37,239
Speaker 1: Stand up, Matt, can you make a make a goblin noise? Well? Anyways, uh,

1024
00:50:37,280 --> 00:50:43,039
Here's the Borderlands is a really interesting starter set. If

1025
00:50:43,079 --> 00:50:45,239
you haven't played D and D. There are books that

1026
00:50:45,320 --> 00:50:46,480
like have the rules of D and D and you

1027
00:50:46,480 --> 00:50:48,199
can print out character sheets and right stuff on that.

1028
00:50:48,360 --> 00:50:50,719
But they do sell like boxes, Like if you go

1029
00:50:50,800 --> 00:50:52,360
to Target, you can get a box that's like a

1030
00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:54,760
starter set and or essentials kit, which is basically just

1031
00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:59,320
like a smaller version of the rules some pre made characters.

1032
00:50:59,320 --> 00:51:00,599
If you want to use the and then like a

1033
00:51:00,639 --> 00:51:03,079
little adventure so you guys can play a few sessions.

1034
00:51:03,079 --> 00:51:05,119
It's got dice, it's got everything you need to get started.

1035
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,960
And if you feel like graduating writing your own stuff,

1036
00:51:08,000 --> 00:51:10,320
or like getting a more proper campaign setting or something,

1037
00:51:10,559 --> 00:51:12,960
you can get some of the other books. Here's the

1038
00:51:13,000 --> 00:51:17,679
Borderlands is one step even further than this like easy

1039
00:51:17,840 --> 00:51:22,119
access thing, because they give you like physical boards, like

1040
00:51:22,159 --> 00:51:24,960
the way we mentioned Wingspan before, but there's a lot

1041
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:26,960
of board games where like to start the game, you'll

1042
00:51:27,000 --> 00:51:30,079
have like a like a I don't know, I don't

1043
00:51:30,079 --> 00:51:32,679
know what the material is, but like a laminated cardboard

1044
00:51:32,840 --> 00:51:35,119
board where it's like this is my pieces where my

1045
00:51:35,119 --> 00:51:37,760
things are gonna go. It has like your stats and

1046
00:51:37,760 --> 00:51:41,280
your character pre made, and then there's those slots for

1047
00:51:41,320 --> 00:51:44,599
like equipment and spells, and you have like playing cards

1048
00:51:44,639 --> 00:51:46,920
that you put in those spots to be like I've

1049
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:48,440
equipped a mace and you'll put it there and it

1050
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:51,400
says this mace does this much damage plus whatever thing.

1051
00:51:52,320 --> 00:51:56,599
So it like streamlines it so much that they're always like, yeah,

1052
00:51:56,639 --> 00:51:58,519
you can pick this game up and start playing within

1053
00:51:58,599 --> 00:52:01,639
five minutes, and that's always like that's not true, because

1054
00:52:01,679 --> 00:52:03,559
no one, no one's gonn understand it. This is like

1055
00:52:04,719 --> 00:52:08,880
before exact exactly our minimum. This is genuinely something where

1056
00:52:08,920 --> 00:52:10,639
you could take people that haven't played D and D

1057
00:52:11,199 --> 00:52:14,440
and fifteen minutes after you sat down, you guys can

1058
00:52:14,559 --> 00:52:17,360
start the experience of it, probably assuming one of you's

1059
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:20,840
played before. Though. The rules do have instructions for new dms,

1060
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:27,320
and they specifically I was playing with Justice Ramon Armand

1061
00:52:27,320 --> 00:52:29,000
I think is his name. I'm probably pronouncing it wrong,

1062
00:52:29,039 --> 00:52:31,239
but he's he's one of the like managing game designers

1063
00:52:31,239 --> 00:52:32,960
over at Wizards of the Cost that on D and D,

1064
00:52:33,079 --> 00:52:36,440
and he helped design the set, and he said that

1065
00:52:36,880 --> 00:52:38,639
the way they wrote the book, they were trying to

1066
00:52:38,639 --> 00:52:43,800
emphasize that the dms and the characters are all players.

1067
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:45,840
It's not players and dms. They're trying to say, it's

1068
00:52:45,880 --> 00:52:48,159
all that. And they actually wanted people to trade the

1069
00:52:48,239 --> 00:52:51,280
Dungeon Master role around the table for this, and they

1070
00:52:51,280 --> 00:52:54,639
were like specifically very like piecemeal quests and stuff like that.

1071
00:52:56,320 --> 00:52:58,840
So I played it. I played it with this D

1072
00:52:58,840 --> 00:53:03,280
and D influencer name Sean, who I think known online

1073
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:06,800
is krit Hit the Giant. I want to say his

1074
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:11,480
name and the pr person invited my partner because he

1075
00:53:11,559 --> 00:53:13,280
knew that she was going to be there, and she

1076
00:53:13,360 --> 00:53:14,800
decided not to do it at the end because she

1077
00:53:14,840 --> 00:53:18,000
saw she saw a stand that was selling a froggy

1078
00:53:18,119 --> 00:53:20,800
fanny pack, and she was like, I actually have to

1079
00:53:20,800 --> 00:53:22,639
do I left her alone for an hour and came

1080
00:53:22,679 --> 00:53:25,239
back and she had a froggy bucket, hat, a froggy

1081
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,480
fanny pack and had already gone back to the car

1082
00:53:27,559 --> 00:53:29,400
to drop off a bunch of other stuff she bought.

1083
00:53:30,360 --> 00:53:35,719
As is her as is her right. I'll say it.

1084
00:53:35,760 --> 00:53:37,840
I love her, even though she's not Italian. You know.

1085
00:53:40,639 --> 00:53:42,119
Speaker 2: Women, froggy women.

1086
00:53:43,119 --> 00:53:43,719
Speaker 3: You know we're not.

1087
00:53:45,199 --> 00:53:49,119
Speaker 1: We can opens Yeah, no, no, don't don't even show

1088
00:53:49,199 --> 00:53:51,639
me a picture of an Italian frog woman because I'm

1089
00:53:51,679 --> 00:53:52,599
not even going to know what.

1090
00:53:52,519 --> 00:53:53,599
Speaker 3: To do with myself.

1091
00:53:56,199 --> 00:54:03,079
Speaker 1: West you know how to say frog and Italian? Are

1092
00:54:03,119 --> 00:54:04,039
you thinking? Did you hear me?

1093
00:54:04,719 --> 00:54:04,920
Speaker 3: Oh?

1094
00:54:04,960 --> 00:54:07,519
Speaker 2: Sorry, no, I'm music. As I had to cough because

1095
00:54:08,079 --> 00:54:08,840
I laughed too much.

1096
00:54:09,119 --> 00:54:11,519
Speaker 1: I said, do you know how to say frog in Italian?

1097
00:54:12,559 --> 00:54:12,760
Speaker 5: Oh?

1098
00:54:12,800 --> 00:54:15,440
Speaker 2: My god, no I don't. Actually I know a lot

1099
00:54:15,480 --> 00:54:17,920
of other animals, but not frog. It's probably I need.

1100
00:54:18,679 --> 00:54:20,360
Speaker 1: I need you to find out and you'll have to

1101
00:54:20,400 --> 00:54:23,519
do this right now, but just for future purposes. One

1102
00:54:23,760 --> 00:54:27,159
how you say frog and Italian? And two what they

1103
00:54:27,239 --> 00:54:30,320
say that a frog makes the sound that makes because

1104
00:54:30,320 --> 00:54:36,519
it's always like animal sounds are different. Another thing. Anyways, Uh,

1105
00:54:36,840 --> 00:54:38,719
my partner didn't come, but I didn't realize that they

1106
00:54:38,760 --> 00:54:42,280
had like an empty seat basically that she was gonna fill.

1107
00:54:42,440 --> 00:54:44,199
She was just gonna watch, but she could have played.

1108
00:54:44,840 --> 00:54:47,320
So it was me. It was this influencer, Sean and

1109
00:54:47,360 --> 00:54:50,119
then Sewan's kid, Riley, and Riley's like.

1110
00:54:51,880 --> 00:54:52,519
Speaker 2: Eleven.

1111
00:54:53,400 --> 00:54:54,880
Speaker 1: You know that age where you're like you could be

1112
00:54:54,920 --> 00:54:56,639
eight or you could be twelve, and I can't really

1113
00:54:56,719 --> 00:55:00,559
place it just because people mature at different rates. So

1114
00:55:00,599 --> 00:55:02,360
I played. I played like an hour of D and

1115
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,199
D with Sean and his kid and it was very plightful.

1116
00:55:06,320 --> 00:55:10,239
And Riley, the kid for the record was I was like, oh,

1117
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,840
this is so perfect because I can see how like

1118
00:55:12,880 --> 00:55:15,119
a kid who's never played D and D or doesn't

1119
00:55:15,159 --> 00:55:19,039
know that well might be able to adapt it. Riley

1120
00:55:19,159 --> 00:55:23,360
was like such a pro, already knew everything. I think

1121
00:55:23,400 --> 00:55:26,320
they picked playing a rogue because it was just the

1122
00:55:26,320 --> 00:55:30,239
one class they hadn't played before. They showed us a

1123
00:55:30,239 --> 00:55:32,039
picture or they told us about it, and I found

1124
00:55:32,039 --> 00:55:35,559
on the Instagram later the two of them have a

1125
00:55:35,599 --> 00:55:39,199
picture like with Matt Mercer because they had gone to

1126
00:55:39,239 --> 00:55:41,320
like a meet and greet a year earlier or something

1127
00:55:41,360 --> 00:55:45,880
like that. So very funny. But yeah, and it was accessible.

1128
00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,280
We found a secret door and behind that secret door

1129
00:55:48,320 --> 00:55:50,199
there was a young dragon and we were all level

1130
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:52,639
one and it was like, give us your gold and

1131
00:55:52,719 --> 00:55:55,320
Riley was like, I'd rather die and the dragon was

1132
00:55:55,360 --> 00:55:58,679
like okay, and then we would have for sure died

1133
00:55:58,800 --> 00:56:01,679
if we hadn't run out of time. But I was like,

1134
00:56:01,719 --> 00:56:05,000
that's D and D man who knows? Who knows? I

1135
00:56:05,039 --> 00:56:07,119
was like, probably could have. There could have been a

1136
00:56:07,159 --> 00:56:08,760
lot of twenties and a lot of ones after that,

1137
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:13,239
you know. Anyways, Yeah, so it was it was a

1138
00:56:13,880 --> 00:56:16,719
it was fun. I think it's an interesting idea. I'm

1139
00:56:16,760 --> 00:56:20,440
really curious of like how it'll be received because it's

1140
00:56:20,480 --> 00:56:22,039
it's one of the things where I'm I'm kind of

1141
00:56:22,079 --> 00:56:24,119
like hopelessly D and D pilled at this point, Like

1142
00:56:24,159 --> 00:56:27,119
I don't think there's a lot that would happen that

1143
00:56:27,159 --> 00:56:31,960
would make me stop playing the game, just because I

1144
00:56:32,039 --> 00:56:34,639
have all the books and stuff already that I would need,

1145
00:56:34,639 --> 00:56:36,320
Like I'm not buying every new book when it comes out,

1146
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:39,000
but I don't need to be convinced to like the

1147
00:56:39,039 --> 00:56:41,480
game at all. And I'm curious if I brought this

1148
00:56:41,559 --> 00:56:43,920
to like my dad or something, and I'm like, this

1149
00:56:44,119 --> 00:56:46,719
is overwhelming. There's just these boards and these tokens and

1150
00:56:46,760 --> 00:56:49,079
these cards, and it'll it'll all make sense as we

1151
00:56:49,159 --> 00:56:53,320
go along. I Am just I'm curious as how it

1152
00:56:53,360 --> 00:56:53,639
will go.

1153
00:56:54,760 --> 00:56:57,440
Speaker 3: It's interesting to think about because D and D did

1154
00:56:57,480 --> 00:57:02,519
have that explosion, right, you know, the combination of actual plays,

1155
00:57:02,599 --> 00:57:05,960
crit roles, stuff like that alongside stranger things is kind

1156
00:57:05,960 --> 00:57:07,559
of the one to point to of like D and

1157
00:57:07,679 --> 00:57:11,159
D being in pop culture mainstream Again, it did have

1158
00:57:11,480 --> 00:57:15,000
a giant explosion. Now it's very mainstream. A lot of

1159
00:57:15,039 --> 00:57:18,159
people play it casually, play it with their friends who

1160
00:57:18,880 --> 00:57:22,280
normally you might not expect to at the same time.

1161
00:57:23,039 --> 00:57:27,960
I do always then wonder are these tools actually getting

1162
00:57:28,199 --> 00:57:30,960
people in or is it the people getting people in?

1163
00:57:31,159 --> 00:57:35,400
And like, what is facilitating what here? Is it always

1164
00:57:35,440 --> 00:57:38,119
that you need a good format to get people in

1165
00:57:38,199 --> 00:57:41,039
or do you need good tools for other people to

1166
00:57:41,079 --> 00:57:43,840
get other people in? That's I think that's what changed

1167
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:46,960
for me with Magic and why I'm suddenly like crazy

1168
00:57:47,000 --> 00:57:50,039
down the Magic rabbit hole is because I've played Magic before.

1169
00:57:50,079 --> 00:57:53,079
I played Duels with the planes Walker on three sixty.

1170
00:57:53,239 --> 00:57:55,440
I played bloom Borow back when that came out, because

1171
00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:57,480
I like to set a lot. But what got me

1172
00:57:57,519 --> 00:58:00,679
to stick this time was having a commander that I

1173
00:58:00,760 --> 00:58:03,199
like meet up with regularly, and having people that I

1174
00:58:03,239 --> 00:58:06,679
play with online, and having actual reason to play with

1175
00:58:06,719 --> 00:58:09,559
the cards I have and play the game Magic versus

1176
00:58:09,639 --> 00:58:14,039
just experience it as a collecting thing that I sometimes

1177
00:58:14,039 --> 00:58:16,519
play on an app every once in a while. And

1178
00:58:17,400 --> 00:58:19,800
that kind of like unlocked in my head that it

1179
00:58:19,840 --> 00:58:22,239
really is about having that setting around you that I

1180
00:58:22,239 --> 00:58:24,800
think is conducive to getting people to join it, not

1181
00:58:25,039 --> 00:58:28,639
just making the game itself super approachable. Commander and stuff

1182
00:58:28,679 --> 00:58:30,719
like that in Magic has also made that game super

1183
00:58:30,719 --> 00:58:34,920
approachable and sociable in a way. This fresh and interesting too,

1184
00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:38,320
But it's interesting to see these these hobbies kind of

1185
00:58:38,320 --> 00:58:40,000
adapt as they grow in popularity.

1186
00:58:41,079 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is cool to see them make moves like this,

1187
00:58:43,559 --> 00:58:45,639
but ultimately I think with D and D and Magic

1188
00:58:45,719 --> 00:58:49,360
like it really is and similar games, like the people

1189
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:52,400
you're playing with are everything, especially like for D and D,

1190
00:58:52,639 --> 00:58:56,840
like if if one person is not like vibing or

1191
00:58:56,920 --> 00:58:58,639
is kind of like messing up the vibes, like it

1192
00:58:58,639 --> 00:59:01,239
can really take down the whole party, Like it needs

1193
00:59:01,239 --> 00:59:05,920
to be a pretty cohesive unit. And I've always found

1194
00:59:05,960 --> 00:59:08,480
that like, yeah, that kind of stuff. It just for

1195
00:59:08,559 --> 00:59:10,360
all the tools, for all the features, for all the

1196
00:59:10,440 --> 00:59:12,760
D and D beyond things you can do to make

1197
00:59:12,960 --> 00:59:15,519
D and D easier, Like none of it works unless

1198
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:19,440
you have a party who is like active in buying

1199
00:59:19,480 --> 00:59:22,280
into it. So I am curious to see if like

1200
00:59:22,360 --> 00:59:25,880
this type of board game approach works because like ultimately

1201
00:59:25,920 --> 00:59:27,360
you still have to go to a board game shop

1202
00:59:27,400 --> 00:59:29,880
and like that even that's like a big step for

1203
00:59:29,920 --> 00:59:32,280
a lot of people out there, like they're stepping into

1204
00:59:32,360 --> 00:59:34,079
like a card shop or a board game shop is

1205
00:59:34,119 --> 00:59:36,159
like a crazy experience when you walk in, and if

1206
00:59:36,199 --> 00:59:39,119
you're not into that community, it's like, oh, whoa, this

1207
00:59:39,320 --> 00:59:40,599
is like something's going on here.

1208
00:59:41,199 --> 00:59:43,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, they like ask you if you if you're looking

1209
00:59:43,960 --> 00:59:48,360
for something specific in a way that like like another

1210
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:50,760
store wouldn't bother doing that where it's like you come

1211
00:59:50,880 --> 00:59:52,400
you often come to a board game or a card

1212
00:59:52,440 --> 00:59:54,199
game shop of like oh, I'm here for this game

1213
00:59:54,280 --> 00:59:55,239
or this specific thing.

1214
00:59:57,079 --> 01:00:00,880
Speaker 3: I think a lot about when I was fighting games

1215
01:00:01,039 --> 01:00:03,119
a little bit more competitively than I do right now.

1216
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:06,400
It would be that feeling of walking into a tournament

1217
01:00:06,719 --> 01:00:09,280
for the first time, or walking into a weekly for

1218
01:00:09,360 --> 01:00:13,719
the first time, and everybody's setting up, maybe they're playing casuals,

1219
01:00:13,760 --> 01:00:15,880
they're warming up and stuff like that, and you're like,

1220
01:00:17,119 --> 01:00:19,280
I don't know anyone here. I don't know what the

1221
01:00:19,400 --> 01:00:23,639
vibe here. I don't want to like disrupt the vibes,

1222
01:00:23,840 --> 01:00:26,920
you know, and so you kind of just like try

1223
01:00:26,960 --> 01:00:28,840
to figure some stuff out. Maybe you look for somebody

1224
01:00:28,840 --> 01:00:32,039
else who looks similarly lost, and you find companionship there.

1225
01:00:32,119 --> 01:00:33,840
But that really depends on just.

1226
01:00:33,840 --> 01:00:35,840
Speaker 2: Through the record scratch moment, because when you will open

1227
01:00:35,840 --> 01:00:39,920
the door, everyone's like turns and looks you're walking in,

1228
01:00:39,960 --> 01:00:41,559
and you have to be like, Okay, they're just looking

1229
01:00:41,559 --> 01:00:43,360
because the door opened. They don't they don't hate me.

1230
01:00:43,800 --> 01:00:44,599
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1231
01:00:44,599 --> 01:00:48,760
Speaker 3: I've done weeklies for two games. I've done weeklies for

1232
01:00:48,920 --> 01:00:51,920
Smash back when Ultimate came out, and that was the

1233
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:54,639
experience of walking in and being like, there's a giant,

1234
01:00:54,840 --> 01:00:57,880
thriving community here that I'm trying to enter into. And

1235
01:00:57,960 --> 01:01:00,800
play against full of a lot of personalities, let me

1236
01:01:00,800 --> 01:01:05,960
tell you what. And then I played Soule Caliber and

1237
01:01:06,199 --> 01:01:10,199
Soule Caliber was like, there's not a lot of people

1238
01:01:10,199 --> 01:01:12,400
here and they all know each other super well and

1239
01:01:12,440 --> 01:01:15,440
they've been playing together for ages and I'm just walking up,

1240
01:01:15,480 --> 01:01:16,440
like which one?

1241
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:17,880
Speaker 1: And when when were you playing?

1242
01:01:17,960 --> 01:01:21,039
Speaker 3: This was six? When six first came out and I

1243
01:01:21,079 --> 01:01:23,039
was playing, I forgot his name. Now I feel bad

1244
01:01:23,039 --> 01:01:25,239
because I really I grow was his name with the

1245
01:01:25,320 --> 01:01:27,559
dual swords that could kind of do the stance changing

1246
01:01:27,599 --> 01:01:30,440
and stuff like that, and I got pretty decent at

1247
01:01:30,519 --> 01:01:32,360
him and could do a lot of the combos and

1248
01:01:32,719 --> 01:01:35,159
changeups and stuff like that, and it even won a

1249
01:01:35,159 --> 01:01:37,920
few games. But it was still that feeling of like

1250
01:01:39,320 --> 01:01:42,679
it was a really small community and you still feel

1251
01:01:42,840 --> 01:01:46,119
very alien at times, and it can be hard to

1252
01:01:46,159 --> 01:01:48,639
find that. And I think when you do find that

1253
01:01:48,679 --> 01:01:51,239
with a game, you end up latching to it because

1254
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:55,119
it is a different feeling altogether. Like having a group

1255
01:01:55,239 --> 01:01:58,599
to play commander with regularly in Magic is huge because

1256
01:01:58,639 --> 01:02:01,280
now you have not just a game to play, but

1257
01:02:01,400 --> 01:02:04,599
people to play against. I've already started like crafting decks

1258
01:02:04,599 --> 01:02:06,440
in my mind that are like this will beat that.

1259
01:02:06,639 --> 01:02:10,519
This one person keeps running chatterfang squirrel tokens on me

1260
01:02:10,639 --> 01:02:13,119
and I'm sick of it. So I'm going to design

1261
01:02:13,199 --> 01:02:17,719
a deck to destroy this. And that gets really interesting.

1262
01:02:17,760 --> 01:02:21,400
But you have to overcome that initial pump. And that's

1263
01:02:21,400 --> 01:02:24,760
not easy for everybody to just walk into a place

1264
01:02:24,800 --> 01:02:28,159
and try and insert themselves. I mean, we're all fairly

1265
01:02:28,239 --> 01:02:31,679
personable people. We're on a podcast, for God's sake, and

1266
01:02:32,039 --> 01:02:35,559
still we might walk into a room and that's the bar. Yeah,

1267
01:02:35,719 --> 01:02:38,719
personable is having a podcast, we'll talk about our opinions

1268
01:02:38,719 --> 01:02:41,119
online for people down below to yell at us about.

1269
01:02:42,440 --> 01:02:45,119
And still, like you can walk into a place and

1270
01:02:45,719 --> 01:02:48,000
feel unsure about what the vibes are and stuff. I

1271
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:49,960
think that's the biggest hurdle to overcome.

1272
01:02:51,079 --> 01:02:52,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, there you go.

1273
01:02:53,199 --> 01:02:59,280
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think also the uh there's a uh I

1274
01:02:59,280 --> 01:03:02,599
don't know she like knows a professor that I had

1275
01:03:02,639 --> 01:03:06,239
in college, but there's an online figure, doctor Friedman, and

1276
01:03:06,320 --> 01:03:09,400
she writes a lot about tabletop games and stuff, and

1277
01:03:09,639 --> 01:03:12,599
she recently, I think, was commenting on I want to

1278
01:03:12,599 --> 01:03:14,639
say it was an NPR piece that was kind of

1279
01:03:14,639 --> 01:03:17,239
about dungeons and dragons, and she was kind of pointing

1280
01:03:17,239 --> 01:03:20,480
out some like not like tearing to shreds, but kind

1281
01:03:20,480 --> 01:03:23,480
of pointing out some inconsistencies in like the conclusions it

1282
01:03:23,519 --> 01:03:25,079
was making, and one of it is a lot of

1283
01:03:25,079 --> 01:03:27,880
what you're saying, where it's like, yes, Dungeons Dragons is

1284
01:03:27,920 --> 01:03:30,360
doing really well, but Dungeons and Dragons didn't sell out

1285
01:03:30,360 --> 01:03:33,480
Madison Square Garden to mention twenty sold out Madison Square Garden.

1286
01:03:33,760 --> 01:03:36,719
And it's like that the game is good and people

1287
01:03:36,760 --> 01:03:38,519
have liked the game, but it has a lot to

1288
01:03:38,559 --> 01:03:40,440
do with those performers and like the stuff that they

1289
01:03:40,480 --> 01:03:44,960
bring to it that's very interesting. I think too. Here's

1290
01:03:44,960 --> 01:03:47,360
of the Borderlands credit and why this specifically makes me

1291
01:03:47,360 --> 01:03:49,199
more curious than a lot of other stuff because like

1292
01:03:49,840 --> 01:03:52,480
the D and D twenty twenty four rules, I do

1293
01:03:52,519 --> 01:03:55,440
think simplified things and made it. I find it easier

1294
01:03:55,480 --> 01:03:57,519
to make a character with those rules than the twenty

1295
01:03:57,519 --> 01:04:03,519
fourteen rules. I think the thing that this does is

1296
01:04:03,760 --> 01:04:07,519
more more of a reach out towards confused people than

1297
01:04:07,519 --> 01:04:10,360
I feel like they've done before, where it's not just

1298
01:04:10,400 --> 01:04:12,320
like we've made your character sheet already you can look

1299
01:04:12,360 --> 01:04:15,199
at it. It's like we've redesigned the character sheet. We've

1300
01:04:15,239 --> 01:04:18,239
made these things like physical pieces you can hold.

1301
01:04:19,679 --> 01:04:22,199
Speaker 2: It sounds like it makes it a more tangible thing.

1302
01:04:22,280 --> 01:04:24,119
I think that's one of the barriers that D and

1303
01:04:24,159 --> 01:04:27,440
D has is like it does require I mean, unless

1304
01:04:27,440 --> 01:04:28,480
you've got a lot of money and a lot of

1305
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:30,159
sets in many figs, but like there is a level

1306
01:04:30,159 --> 01:04:32,599
of imagination there that can be uncomfortable as adults because

1307
01:04:32,599 --> 01:04:34,639
we don't really Yeah, yeah, that every day. So I

1308
01:04:34,639 --> 01:04:36,760
think board gaming it up a little bit where it's like, oh,

1309
01:04:36,800 --> 01:04:39,119
I'm holding this piece and I'm moving this here and there,

1310
01:04:39,199 --> 01:04:42,239
Like I think that that sounds like a smart.

1311
01:04:43,400 --> 01:04:45,719
Speaker 1: Move for Yeah. It also it also comes with like

1312
01:04:45,840 --> 01:04:47,440
maps for all the areas you go to, and you

1313
01:04:47,480 --> 01:04:49,800
have like little standis for each of like the races

1314
01:04:49,840 --> 01:04:53,440
that you can pick or their species now. But yeah,

1315
01:04:53,559 --> 01:04:56,000
so but yeah, no, I think it's it's all an

1316
01:04:56,000 --> 01:04:59,719
interesting conversation and a matter of like is it D

1317
01:04:59,760 --> 01:05:02,559
and D, is it tabletop games? Is it Matt Mercer,

1318
01:05:02,679 --> 01:05:04,599
Brendan Lee Mulligan or is it just the idea that

1319
01:05:04,639 --> 01:05:08,280
you can be then? Yeah, that was wild. That was

1320
01:05:08,320 --> 01:05:10,119
another thing at gen Con I didn't get to go to.

1321
01:05:10,679 --> 01:05:14,280
Was they Yeah, they had a live show at gen Con,

1322
01:05:14,840 --> 01:05:17,239
and then Matt Mercer came out and was talking about

1323
01:05:17,239 --> 01:05:21,679
the I mean Dagger Heart and sorry for your game

1324
01:05:21,719 --> 01:05:24,039
to this podcast just for video games. We're getting real

1325
01:05:24,400 --> 01:05:27,199
deep in the world TTRPGs right now. But Dagger Heart

1326
01:05:27,480 --> 01:05:30,719
is a competitor to D and D created by the

1327
01:05:30,719 --> 01:05:33,440
people that made Critical Role. They have their own game

1328
01:05:33,480 --> 01:05:36,639
publishing arm now and they've made a D and D

1329
01:05:36,920 --> 01:05:40,119
like game that has a little bit lighter rules, different

1330
01:05:40,239 --> 01:05:44,000
rule set, has has physical cards for all your abilities,

1331
01:05:44,039 --> 01:05:46,000
just as when we're talking about like tangible things. That's

1332
01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:47,599
one of the things I like a lot about the game.

1333
01:05:48,800 --> 01:05:52,320
And then two of the head designers of fifth Edition

1334
01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:56,679
left Dungeons and Dragons and are now working for Dagger Heart.

1335
01:05:57,000 --> 01:05:59,639
And in this big show, like Matt Mercer came out,

1336
01:05:59,639 --> 01:06:01,880
he's talking the future of Critical Role, and then these

1337
01:06:01,960 --> 01:06:04,760
two guys came out like on the stage with him

1338
01:06:04,880 --> 01:06:07,440
months after they started there as like a show of

1339
01:06:07,920 --> 01:06:09,920
I mean, they were they were both wearing one shirt.

1340
01:06:10,039 --> 01:06:12,400
They were collectively wearing one shirt. The two of them

1341
01:06:12,719 --> 01:06:14,840
has a bit about they were all trying to be

1342
01:06:14,960 --> 01:06:20,360
Steve Jobs, so they all had different turtlenecks. Anyways, Yes,

1343
01:06:20,360 --> 01:06:22,599
and now Brendlee Mulligan, who's the DM Mention twenty, is

1344
01:06:22,599 --> 01:06:25,320
gonna DM campaign for Critical Role, which is big news.

1345
01:06:25,400 --> 01:06:28,159
Speaker 2: And that's the kind of thing that which is also

1346
01:06:28,199 --> 01:06:30,239
crazy because he's always the DM.

1347
01:06:30,360 --> 01:06:33,519
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, yes, that's kind of thing that if

1348
01:06:33,519 --> 01:06:37,440
I had learned about gen Con even earlier in the year,

1349
01:06:37,519 --> 01:06:39,119
if I had thought to do it, then I could

1350
01:06:39,119 --> 01:06:41,079
have gotten tickets to stuff like that. But that is

1351
01:06:41,079 --> 01:06:43,920
one interesting about the event that it's like there are

1352
01:06:43,920 --> 01:06:46,079
stuff to do if you don't have appointments and you

1353
01:06:46,079 --> 01:06:48,079
haven't signed up to play games. But kind of the

1354
01:06:48,079 --> 01:06:51,639
heart of it is in these are the board game

1355
01:06:51,679 --> 01:06:55,480
celebrities you can see and the anyways.

1356
01:06:55,559 --> 01:06:57,679
Speaker 2: So as that was my thing just because they go

1357
01:06:57,719 --> 01:07:00,599
for excited about the Critical World. Season four, Yeah, not

1358
01:07:00,639 --> 01:07:03,159
set in Xandria, which is Matt Mercer's like own little

1359
01:07:03,199 --> 01:07:05,360
setting he created in D and D, but it's a

1360
01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:07,760
whole new world, whole new setting that I presume Brendan

1361
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,480
is created, which is really cool. So like very if

1362
01:07:10,519 --> 01:07:12,519
you've ever been like I want to get into Critical Role,

1363
01:07:12,760 --> 01:07:15,960
I do think Season four. I mean, you can watch

1364
01:07:15,960 --> 01:07:17,639
all of them, they're all great, but Season four seems

1365
01:07:17,639 --> 01:07:21,480
like it's going to be a legitimately completely standalone like

1366
01:07:21,760 --> 01:07:27,079
New Fresh Start, and Brendan is if you Matt Mercer

1367
01:07:27,159 --> 01:07:30,000
is an incredible DM, but like secretly, Brendan might actually

1368
01:07:30,000 --> 01:07:31,199
be the best DM out there.

1369
01:07:31,480 --> 01:07:34,679
Speaker 1: Dude. That's my take, is im Brendan spoiled me for

1370
01:07:34,679 --> 01:07:35,920
basically other DM.

1371
01:07:36,079 --> 01:07:39,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not a huge actual play person. I'll sometimes

1372
01:07:39,920 --> 01:07:41,840
put him on to like Fall Asleep too, because they

1373
01:07:41,840 --> 01:07:45,320
have a pretty even volume. Yeah, that's fair, And that's

1374
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:48,119
like a weird thing that I'm sure some random people

1375
01:07:48,119 --> 01:07:50,239
in the comments probably identify with and everybody else is like,

1376
01:07:50,239 --> 01:07:55,079
you're crazy. When I got eye surgery a while back,

1377
01:07:55,599 --> 01:07:58,119
I had to basically lie in a room to heal

1378
01:07:58,159 --> 01:08:01,239
and recover, like in a dark room and screens for

1379
01:08:01,800 --> 01:08:05,480
a couple of days, and I ended up listening to

1380
01:08:06,679 --> 01:08:09,880
Dimension twenty. They're they're like high school one where they're

1381
01:08:09,920 --> 01:08:12,440
all at the D and d H. Yes, yeah, I

1382
01:08:12,480 --> 01:08:15,800
listened to the first season of that because you know

1383
01:08:15,920 --> 01:08:18,039
that that worked. I didn't have to like see it

1384
01:08:18,079 --> 01:08:20,079
to understand what was going on. I could hear it

1385
01:08:20,119 --> 01:08:22,720
all and it worked. And uh, let me tell you

1386
01:08:22,880 --> 01:08:25,039
that's that's a good time. That's a real good time.

1387
01:08:25,319 --> 01:08:27,399
If you ever get eye surgery and have to line

1388
01:08:27,399 --> 01:08:29,359
in a dark room for a couple of days, that's

1389
01:08:29,439 --> 01:08:30,840
my recommendation to you.

1390
01:08:31,760 --> 01:08:35,159
Speaker 1: Yeah and uh yeah, I was gonna say even the

1391
01:08:35,159 --> 01:08:38,960
the easier approachable thing from that is Brennan DM a

1392
01:08:39,239 --> 01:08:43,560
like prequel spin off mini series for Critical Role that's

1393
01:08:43,600 --> 01:08:46,800
like four or six episodes or something. Yeah, so if

1394
01:08:46,800 --> 01:08:48,760
you just want to taste of what he will be

1395
01:08:48,880 --> 01:08:50,520
like on Critical Role, that's a good u.

1396
01:08:52,439 --> 01:08:54,800
Speaker 2: And then he's going to be damming and Matt will

1397
01:08:54,800 --> 01:08:58,000
be one of the characters like that is I cannot wait.

1398
01:08:58,079 --> 01:08:59,920
It's going to be so awesome.

1399
01:09:01,239 --> 01:09:04,720
Speaker 1: Uh. My last shout out is Brennan has a podcast

1400
01:09:04,720 --> 01:09:08,199
with Lou Wilson, Erica who's the ghost of Yota uh

1401
01:09:08,239 --> 01:09:11,199
and Abria Engar called Worlds Beyond Number. That is my

1402
01:09:11,439 --> 01:09:14,199
pinnacle of D and D show. And they're almost done with

1403
01:09:14,239 --> 01:09:18,960
their like big first season, which is very cool. You

1404
01:09:18,960 --> 01:09:23,239
shoul watch that too. Cool. Okay, let's move on past

1405
01:09:23,319 --> 01:09:27,039
tabletop games. If you are sick of that, then good

1406
01:09:27,199 --> 01:09:29,399
are not good? Good for you because it's done. Now

1407
01:09:29,479 --> 01:09:31,600
we'll go back to Italian Women or whatever. Talking.

1408
01:09:31,680 --> 01:09:34,399
Speaker 2: We're video, We're a game informer. We are not video

1409
01:09:34,520 --> 01:09:38,439
That's true. That's we're talking games here, like get informed people.

1410
01:09:39,640 --> 01:09:42,079
Speaker 3: Yeah, wants to talk about.

1411
01:09:45,159 --> 01:09:47,880
Speaker 1: It was funny to be at gen Con and there's

1412
01:09:47,920 --> 01:09:50,680
like a big wingspan booth and a big like clank

1413
01:09:50,720 --> 01:09:52,439
booth and all these board games I know, and then

1414
01:09:52,479 --> 01:09:54,479
also like a big Uno stand.

1415
01:09:54,600 --> 01:09:57,119
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, let's go, let's go.

1416
01:09:57,279 --> 01:09:59,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mattel's Mattel represent.

1417
01:10:01,479 --> 01:10:02,359
Speaker 3: Phase ten?

1418
01:10:02,880 --> 01:10:03,159
Speaker 1: Is that?

1419
01:10:03,840 --> 01:10:06,960
Speaker 3: What are they up to? What are they doing? Block

1420
01:10:07,000 --> 01:10:07,640
has got to be there.

1421
01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:10,119
Speaker 2: They're on twenty now, phase twenty, I think.

1422
01:10:09,920 --> 01:10:12,399
Speaker 3: Phase That's crazy, that's so many phases.

1423
01:10:15,359 --> 01:10:20,800
Speaker 1: Anyways, wess you reviewed some games recently? You reviewed a

1424
01:10:21,399 --> 01:10:24,960
wheel World in Ninja Guiden, rage Bound. I'll let you.

1425
01:10:25,000 --> 01:10:26,800
I'll let you pick which one you talk want to

1426
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:27,600
talk about first.

1427
01:10:28,039 --> 01:10:30,239
Speaker 2: I'll probably start with rage Bound, just because I know

1428
01:10:30,319 --> 01:10:32,359
Marcus talked a lot about it last week, and I'll

1429
01:10:32,359 --> 01:10:36,000
just kind of ducktail and finished that convo. Yeah, the

1430
01:10:36,000 --> 01:10:38,439
past four weeks for me, I've I realized I've published

1431
01:10:38,439 --> 01:10:40,880
a review every week for four weeks now, and I've

1432
01:10:40,880 --> 01:10:43,399
been exploring the scale here at GI I published an eight,

1433
01:10:43,920 --> 01:10:46,359
then a five, then a nine point five, and now six,

1434
01:10:46,439 --> 01:10:49,680
and I'm currently working on my fifth review. I don't

1435
01:10:49,680 --> 01:10:52,159
know where that will land, but it's been fun opening

1436
01:10:52,199 --> 01:10:54,079
up our review skill and going up and down it.

1437
01:10:54,760 --> 01:10:59,279
Rage Bound is probably my top three games of the year.

1438
01:10:59,479 --> 01:11:02,840
It's just it's just fantastic for all the reasons, Marcus said,

1439
01:11:02,880 --> 01:11:04,520
And he hadn't even gotten to the real meat yet,

1440
01:11:04,560 --> 01:11:07,479
which is when you fully unlock both characters to use

1441
01:11:07,520 --> 01:11:10,840
at all times. And yeah, they are kind of like

1442
01:11:10,920 --> 01:11:16,399
a Nail and Piccolo situation, I believe is what I

1443
01:11:16,439 --> 01:11:20,239
remember reference last week, shout out to Nail, gets that happens,

1444
01:11:20,239 --> 01:11:22,159
and then I think he shows up. You hear about

1445
01:11:22,239 --> 01:11:23,960
Nail one more time near the end of Z and

1446
01:11:23,960 --> 01:11:26,119
then you're like, oh, yeah, that guy exists, and that's it.

1447
01:11:26,239 --> 01:11:29,239
Speaker 3: A real MVP, an unsung hero of the series.

1448
01:11:29,319 --> 01:11:34,079
Speaker 2: Truly, truly, but yeah, rage Bound, for everything Marcus said

1449
01:11:34,079 --> 01:11:36,319
about the first two ax he had, plays like the

1450
01:11:36,359 --> 01:11:38,479
rest of the game, it only gets better, it gets good.

1451
01:11:38,640 --> 01:11:44,880
It's just keeps ascending to new heights. I adored Rage Bound.

1452
01:11:44,960 --> 01:11:50,920
It is a hard, awesome, fast platformer with awesome combat,

1453
01:11:51,279 --> 01:11:53,479
and it does a really cool thing that he's kind

1454
01:11:53,479 --> 01:11:56,159
of mentioned, where like it becomes a rhythm game because

1455
01:11:56,199 --> 01:11:58,199
certain enemies need to be hit, like if they're pink,

1456
01:11:58,239 --> 01:12:01,760
they need to be hit with the girls range weapon,

1457
01:12:01,800 --> 01:12:03,560
if they are blue they need to hit by the

1458
01:12:03,560 --> 01:12:07,479
guy's melee attack. And as you continue through the game,

1459
01:12:07,520 --> 01:12:09,720
that just builds up to where you're like, pink blue,

1460
01:12:09,800 --> 01:12:11,920
pink blue, boom killing this, blah blah blah, and it

1461
01:12:11,920 --> 01:12:13,920
just goes crazy and it really tests your limits on

1462
01:12:13,920 --> 01:12:16,239
a controller, which I think is kind of Ninja Gaidan's

1463
01:12:16,239 --> 01:12:19,600
original appeal. Although I do think rage Bound is probably

1464
01:12:19,680 --> 01:12:22,239
easier than every other Ninja guiding game out there, which

1465
01:12:22,279 --> 01:12:25,119
is great. I just can't sing the praises of the

1466
01:12:25,159 --> 01:12:28,560
game Kitchen's work enough, like I mean, blasphemous games are great.

1467
01:12:29,039 --> 01:12:31,359
I love that they didn't make this a Metroidvania, because

1468
01:12:31,399 --> 01:12:32,960
I'm sure they would have crushed that. But I think

1469
01:12:33,000 --> 01:12:36,920
that rage Bound is works better as like a retro

1470
01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:40,520
throwback platformer. And yeah, I gave it a nine point five.

1471
01:12:40,520 --> 01:12:43,119
I don't really have any issues for me. I haven't

1472
01:12:43,119 --> 01:12:45,239
given a ten yet, and I'm kind of just maybe

1473
01:12:45,279 --> 01:12:47,439
waiting forever for the game that just screams ten at

1474
01:12:47,439 --> 01:12:50,439
me because I feel like it will and who knows,

1475
01:12:50,479 --> 01:12:53,399
but nine to five is like one of my highest score.

1476
01:12:53,520 --> 01:12:55,159
I was very happy to give that game a nine

1477
01:12:55,199 --> 01:12:58,079
to five. It truly rules, and I think it's like

1478
01:12:58,119 --> 01:12:59,680
I don't even know. I think it's like twenty bucks

1479
01:12:59,720 --> 01:13:00,520
maybe even less.

1480
01:13:01,399 --> 01:13:01,840
Speaker 1: Oh wow.

1481
01:13:02,000 --> 01:13:04,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's a good little appetizer for Ninja Guid

1482
01:13:04,640 --> 01:13:09,359
in four, which is later this year, I think, right, So, yeah,

1483
01:13:09,720 --> 01:13:12,680
I Ninja Guid and Rage Abound is a must play

1484
01:13:12,720 --> 01:13:14,560
in my opinion. If you like platformers, if you like

1485
01:13:14,600 --> 01:13:17,359
retro gaming, if you like beautiful pixel art, if you

1486
01:13:17,439 --> 01:13:21,319
like the blasphemous games, give it a go. And some

1487
01:13:21,359 --> 01:13:23,680
people beat it in like four to five hours. I

1488
01:13:23,760 --> 01:13:25,920
beat it in like twelve. I kind of went syco

1489
01:13:25,960 --> 01:13:27,520
mode on it and tried to get like S rank

1490
01:13:27,560 --> 01:13:30,560
on everything and find every collectible. So if you want

1491
01:13:30,600 --> 01:13:33,840
a meati little platformer, that's there. But if you don't,

1492
01:13:34,000 --> 01:13:36,720
you can just mainpath it in three to four hours apparently,

1493
01:13:37,279 --> 01:13:39,319
which I know is like a big appeal for people.

1494
01:13:39,600 --> 01:13:42,720
Speaker 3: What did you play it on? Because I would be

1495
01:13:42,800 --> 01:13:46,199
curious to know if there's a particular like platform preference

1496
01:13:46,239 --> 01:13:47,000
for this sort of thing.

1497
01:13:47,840 --> 01:13:50,039
Speaker 2: I played it on PC. Also, if you hear my

1498
01:13:50,079 --> 01:13:52,479
daughter in the back, she's okay. She's just testing at

1499
01:13:52,479 --> 01:13:57,239
her vocal cords. I played it on PC primarily on

1500
01:13:57,279 --> 01:13:59,520
Steam Deck runs like a dream. It's perfect there. It's

1501
01:13:59,520 --> 01:14:02,680
perfect on PC. I've I've heard and read that it's

1502
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:04,880
good on consoles as well, except with the exception of

1503
01:14:04,920 --> 01:14:07,760
Switch Too and Switch it's just a Switch one game,

1504
01:14:08,319 --> 01:14:10,520
and it is a capped at thirty fps, which is

1505
01:14:10,600 --> 01:14:13,760
kind of a bummer in my opinion, especially when it's

1506
01:14:13,840 --> 01:14:16,199
not capped at thirty fps elsewhere. So like, I'd probably

1507
01:14:16,199 --> 01:14:19,399
recommend it anywhere else. But again, I know it's you know,

1508
01:14:19,439 --> 01:14:21,520
Switch is really nice to carry and hold around. So

1509
01:14:21,560 --> 01:14:24,119
if you're fine with thirty fps, like, yeah, go for

1510
01:14:24,199 --> 01:14:26,279
It's not the game, it's not broken, it's just cap

1511
01:14:26,359 --> 01:14:28,199
to thirty And that's kind of a huge bummer for

1512
01:14:28,279 --> 01:14:31,840
me after playing on Steam Deck and PC. But yeah,

1513
01:14:31,840 --> 01:14:34,920
it's an excellent steam Deck game. It's not like one

1514
01:14:34,920 --> 01:14:37,479
of those ones that feels weird holding that gargantuan brick.

1515
01:14:37,520 --> 01:14:42,279
It feels at home there. Yeah, that's rage abound. I mean,

1516
01:14:42,319 --> 01:14:46,439
I just I just kind of wanted to tailcoat off

1517
01:14:46,439 --> 01:14:49,079
of Marcus's thoughts and just say, like the first half

1518
01:14:49,119 --> 01:14:52,560
of the game, he's loving. I suspect he's he hasn't already,

1519
01:14:52,560 --> 01:14:54,359
He's going to really love the second half. And I

1520
01:14:54,359 --> 01:14:57,720
would highly recommend that game too, pretty much anyone out there.

1521
01:14:58,119 --> 01:14:58,760
Speaker 1: Oh there you go?

1522
01:14:59,720 --> 01:15:01,680
Speaker 2: Was it real world? Oh go ahead.

1523
01:15:01,840 --> 01:15:04,920
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, just in terms of the the difficulty,

1524
01:15:05,079 --> 01:15:07,600
do you think it's like hard enough that it'll be

1525
01:15:07,640 --> 01:15:09,840
off putting for some people? Like is it is it

1526
01:15:09,920 --> 01:15:13,159
like a I don't know, not to compare everything to

1527
01:15:13,239 --> 01:15:15,119
Dark Souls, but is it like a Dark Souls where

1528
01:15:15,159 --> 01:15:16,960
it's like it's really hard and that's the point to

1529
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:18,000
frustrate you, or is it.

1530
01:15:17,960 --> 01:15:21,520
Speaker 2: Like no, No, it's challenging, but not like brutally hard.

1531
01:15:21,560 --> 01:15:24,920
And there's really good accessibility options to like make things

1532
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:29,520
easier or slow down timings or you know, change visuals

1533
01:15:29,520 --> 01:15:33,279
and stuff to make windows easier to see and stuff like.

1534
01:15:33,800 --> 01:15:35,399
You can make this game as easier as hard as

1535
01:15:35,439 --> 01:15:38,479
you want. And I think the baseline difficulty, like the

1536
01:15:38,520 --> 01:15:42,880
normal difficulty is, is really good. It's not it's going

1537
01:15:42,920 --> 01:15:45,319
to challenge you, but it's not going to like break you.

1538
01:15:46,000 --> 01:15:48,279
And you can also like some of the options include

1539
01:15:48,319 --> 01:15:50,840
like you don't take damage so you can enjoy the

1540
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:53,399
platforming and fun and not worry about like dying. It's

1541
01:15:53,439 --> 01:15:54,800
got a lot of cool options like that.

1542
01:15:57,680 --> 01:16:00,600
Speaker 1: I really like when when companies get like real, real

1543
01:16:00,640 --> 01:16:04,720
intense and specific with accessibility ones like that. I always

1544
01:16:04,800 --> 01:16:07,439
mention a game called Ike and Fell that came out

1545
01:16:07,520 --> 01:16:10,560
and like, oh, yeah, twenty nineteen, I don't remember exactly

1546
01:16:10,640 --> 01:16:12,680
the year, but they had a thing where when they

1547
01:16:12,680 --> 01:16:15,000
were developing the game, they created a button that just

1548
01:16:15,079 --> 01:16:17,359
let you skip combat encounters because they were trying to

1549
01:16:17,399 --> 01:16:19,479
just make sure it worked out. And then they're like, hey,

1550
01:16:19,520 --> 01:16:21,199
why don't we just put this in the menu. If

1551
01:16:21,239 --> 01:16:23,199
someone doesn't want they just want to play the game,

1552
01:16:23,199 --> 01:16:24,760
the don't want to fight people, we might as well

1553
01:16:24,840 --> 01:16:27,319
just have a skip combat en counters. But it's like, yeah,

1554
01:16:27,359 --> 01:16:29,479
why not, why not let people do whatever they want?

1555
01:16:29,760 --> 01:16:33,520
Why the ara of cheat codes is over? Just put

1556
01:16:33,520 --> 01:16:36,960
it in the menu, Let me toggle big heads, you know, South.

1557
01:16:36,840 --> 01:16:38,439
Speaker 2: Of Mind, And I did that too. You can completely

1558
01:16:38,479 --> 01:16:39,880
skip the counter.

1559
01:16:40,439 --> 01:16:41,039
Speaker 1: What a game?

1560
01:16:41,760 --> 01:16:45,239
Speaker 2: Love A game that actually might if I reviewed it,

1561
01:16:45,239 --> 01:16:47,640
I wouldn't give it like a Game of the year's score.

1562
01:16:47,680 --> 01:16:50,079
But like, since I didn't have to review it, I

1563
01:16:50,079 --> 01:16:51,520
can just be like, I think that's my game of

1564
01:16:51,520 --> 01:16:54,680
the year because I loved. I can just ignore that.

1565
01:16:54,720 --> 01:16:57,479
I can ignore the parts that are bad and be like, no, yeah,

1566
01:16:57,520 --> 01:17:00,920
the Cajun culture, they nailed it. Love it perfect, excellent game.

1567
01:17:01,800 --> 01:17:03,199
Shout out South Them Midnight.

1568
01:17:03,159 --> 01:17:04,439
Speaker 1: Shout out South Them Midnight.

1569
01:17:06,319 --> 01:17:09,920
Speaker 2: A game I cannot recommend highly compared to Rage Bound is, unfortunately,

1570
01:17:09,920 --> 01:17:12,479
wheel World, which is probably my biggest disappointment of the

1571
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:16,000
year so far. Am I lowest score this year. I

1572
01:17:16,039 --> 01:17:19,800
think technically my casting a frank Stone review got a five,

1573
01:17:19,880 --> 01:17:22,640
but I played it last year, but we reviewed it

1574
01:17:22,680 --> 01:17:25,439
in our downtime, blah blah blah. I gave wheel World

1575
01:17:25,479 --> 01:17:27,800
a five. I really really wanted to like this game,

1576
01:17:27,880 --> 01:17:32,680
but it just didn't work for me. It's it's like

1577
01:17:32,720 --> 01:17:35,920
a tale of two games. There's a really cool vibe

1578
01:17:35,960 --> 01:17:40,000
bicycle game, and then there's like a really and then

1579
01:17:40,039 --> 01:17:42,439
there's like a racing game, a bicycle racing game in there,

1580
01:17:42,479 --> 01:17:44,439
and I don't think it commits to either one well

1581
01:17:44,560 --> 01:17:46,880
enough to work, and so you just have this like

1582
01:17:46,920 --> 01:17:50,840
disparate package that is a lot of boring and clunky

1583
01:17:50,920 --> 01:17:57,199
races in my opinion, a pretty boring world, like basically

1584
01:17:57,239 --> 01:18:00,600
non existent storytelling. For example, you have to like go

1585
01:18:00,680 --> 01:18:04,920
around and race these like legendary bikers to get these

1586
01:18:05,000 --> 01:18:09,199
legendary parts. There's a whole story, but like, honestly, it's

1587
01:18:09,199 --> 01:18:12,359
not even it's whatever. The game doesn't commit to it much,

1588
01:18:12,399 --> 01:18:14,960
so I'm not going to either. But like you, they

1589
01:18:15,039 --> 01:18:17,880
build up these legendary bikers and then you you race

1590
01:18:17,920 --> 01:18:19,640
them and you beat them and they're like, oh, you

1591
01:18:19,720 --> 01:18:22,720
beat me, good job, and that's it. And I'm like,

1592
01:18:22,720 --> 01:18:24,159
what this is?

1593
01:18:24,199 --> 01:18:24,840
Speaker 1: What this is?

1594
01:18:24,880 --> 01:18:27,039
Speaker 2: It? Like your rid this is like your this is

1595
01:18:27,079 --> 01:18:29,479
like I've read and Pokemon was like, ah, good job,

1596
01:18:29,560 --> 01:18:31,640
and then that's it. There's no built like it was

1597
01:18:31,720 --> 01:18:36,119
just it was bizarre. And I didn't particularly like the races.

1598
01:18:36,159 --> 01:18:38,159
And I never struggled in the races, and I'd be

1599
01:18:38,199 --> 01:18:40,359
finding all these bike parts that change how my bike

1600
01:18:40,600 --> 01:18:43,359
plays on the road or in bushes or on grassland,

1601
01:18:43,600 --> 01:18:45,279
and it just didn't matter. I just put the best

1602
01:18:45,520 --> 01:18:47,720
stats on my bike and go And I never struggled

1603
01:18:47,720 --> 01:18:49,600
in a race, and I never had a hard time

1604
01:18:49,720 --> 01:18:53,279
fighting to get first place. Even when the game's annoying

1605
01:18:53,800 --> 01:18:56,239
rubber banding put me way back into eighth place. It

1606
01:18:56,279 --> 01:18:58,039
took me like not long at all to get back

1607
01:18:58,039 --> 01:19:01,159
into first place. The only challenges I had during the races,

1608
01:19:01,159 --> 01:19:05,319
we're completing bonus objectives like finding hidden kat kat is

1609
01:19:05,359 --> 01:19:08,600
the protagonist's name letters throughout each race. But it's one

1610
01:19:08,640 --> 01:19:10,039
of those games where I was making my own fun,

1611
01:19:10,079 --> 01:19:15,039
which is not fun ultimately. That said, I like the

1612
01:19:15,119 --> 01:19:17,079
art style. It's weird. I don't know how to describe it.

1613
01:19:17,079 --> 01:19:21,319
It's very different, very cool. I don't want to say

1614
01:19:21,319 --> 01:19:23,319
like very indie looking, but like, I don't know. You

1615
01:19:23,319 --> 01:19:24,800
look at it and you're like, that's a cool endie game.

1616
01:19:25,439 --> 01:19:28,880
And the soundtrack is incredible. I really, actually, legitimately love

1617
01:19:28,960 --> 01:19:32,800
the soundtrack a lot. It's really really good and probably

1618
01:19:32,960 --> 01:19:36,199
one of my favorites of the year. But yeah, it

1619
01:19:36,239 --> 01:19:40,560
was just pretty much nothing worked for me. The world

1620
01:19:40,600 --> 01:19:44,079
is pretty boring to explore. There's only three types of

1621
01:19:44,239 --> 01:19:45,800
things you'll see on your map, and they're all the

1622
01:19:45,800 --> 01:19:47,960
same and they don't change. And then it does the

1623
01:19:48,000 --> 01:19:51,159
most annoying thing in games, which Charles I think you're

1624
01:19:51,199 --> 01:19:53,920
dealing with in Shadow Labyrinth, where like, oh we're at

1625
01:19:53,960 --> 01:19:56,880
the end, boom, pal Nope, a whole new thing just

1626
01:19:56,920 --> 01:19:59,600
opened up and now you've got to do all this,

1627
01:20:00,399 --> 01:20:03,159
and then the narrative that happens. There was just like blow,

1628
01:20:03,520 --> 01:20:05,199
like what are we doing? And then I'm at the

1629
01:20:05,239 --> 01:20:08,560
final part of the game and it was like, Okay,

1630
01:20:08,600 --> 01:20:11,159
here we go. I hope you did it all right.

1631
01:20:11,239 --> 01:20:15,920
Game's over. No built, like, no, no momentous, yeah no,

1632
01:20:16,039 --> 01:20:18,600
And it was just like it almost felt like I

1633
01:20:18,640 --> 01:20:20,079
don't know, I don't want to like speculate, but I

1634
01:20:20,119 --> 01:20:22,000
was like, what, like it just is this really done?

1635
01:20:22,000 --> 01:20:25,800
It's it's finished. What happened the heck just happened? And yeah,

1636
01:20:25,840 --> 01:20:27,920
Ultimately I gave it a five. It's just my biggest,

1637
01:20:28,159 --> 01:20:31,199
my biggest disappointment this year. I don't really know if

1638
01:20:31,199 --> 01:20:33,640
there's anything redeeming in it other than the soundtrack, which

1639
01:20:33,640 --> 01:20:37,560
I will be listening to throughout the year. But again,

1640
01:20:37,600 --> 01:20:41,000
it's a It's another smaller, cheaper title, so like, if

1641
01:20:41,000 --> 01:20:42,560
you want to play a biking game, there's not many

1642
01:20:42,560 --> 01:20:45,199
out there, Sure go for it. It'll do it as

1643
01:20:45,279 --> 01:20:47,920
you know, maybe you'll. I'm I'm on the lower end

1644
01:20:47,920 --> 01:20:50,479
of reviews I've found, so like, there are people out

1645
01:20:50,479 --> 01:20:52,159
there who actually really like this game and dig what

1646
01:20:52,199 --> 01:20:55,640
it's doing, and that might be you. It just uh,

1647
01:20:56,039 --> 01:20:58,960
it didn't work. It felt the ViBe's part of the

1648
01:20:58,960 --> 01:21:02,399
game weren't given enough attention. In the racing part of

1649
01:21:02,399 --> 01:21:05,199
the game, weren't giving enough attention and put together, it

1650
01:21:05,239 --> 01:21:07,000
was this package that didn't work at all for me,

1651
01:21:07,359 --> 01:21:11,239
which is unfortunate, but you know, that's how it goes.

1652
01:21:11,319 --> 01:21:14,159
Sometimes that's a that's wheel World. It's not happened in

1653
01:21:14,159 --> 01:21:14,680
the wheel World.

1654
01:21:14,720 --> 01:21:16,560
Speaker 1: They said, that's life in the wheel World.

1655
01:21:16,800 --> 01:21:20,880
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and the name is terrible. Ghost Bike

1656
01:21:20,960 --> 01:21:25,479
was way cooler. Having played wheel World, I now know

1657
01:21:25,520 --> 01:21:27,600
why they called it wheel World because the ghost bike,

1658
01:21:27,640 --> 01:21:31,520
the whole ghost aspect basically non existing. All of that

1659
01:21:31,640 --> 01:21:34,439
is like it's mentioned and then it's kind of there

1660
01:21:34,479 --> 01:21:36,399
in the background. Like I get why they changed the name.

1661
01:21:36,560 --> 01:21:38,479
It is not very it's not a very ghostly or

1662
01:21:38,479 --> 01:21:41,560
ghost bike game. But I also don't know if it's

1663
01:21:41,560 --> 01:21:43,119
a wheel World game. There's there's a lot of people

1664
01:21:43,119 --> 01:21:45,880
that ride bikes, but there's still annoying cars that not

1665
01:21:46,119 --> 01:21:50,760
you to freaking files and wheels. That's true. Actually those

1666
01:21:50,800 --> 01:21:54,520
are tires wheels. Here's what we want to get into here.

1667
01:21:55,000 --> 01:21:59,279
Speaker 1: We got it. We got to know it's tires are

1668
01:21:59,359 --> 01:22:02,600
wheel There's no debate there, it's that's that's.

1669
01:22:02,520 --> 01:22:06,199
Speaker 3: I think tires are subset of wheel.

1670
01:22:06,439 --> 01:22:11,359
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, but uh we should we should

1671
01:22:11,359 --> 01:22:14,800
rename Grand Theft Auto six to real World. I think

1672
01:22:14,800 --> 01:22:16,079
that's like a better name for that.

1673
01:22:17,479 --> 01:22:25,840
Speaker 2: Just Florida World, Florida, Real World, Florida, Florida. Yes, yeah, yes, exactly.

1674
01:22:26,000 --> 01:22:29,319
Speaker 1: General question for both of you. Uh, this is either

1675
01:22:29,319 --> 01:22:32,039
true for reviewing games or just in general. Would you

1676
01:22:32,319 --> 01:22:37,399
rather play a boring game or a frustrating game? Oh?

1677
01:22:37,439 --> 01:22:40,479
Speaker 2: God, probably probably a boring game, because then I can

1678
01:22:40,520 --> 01:22:43,920
at least turn on a podcast frustrating at my current

1679
01:22:43,960 --> 01:22:45,800
state in life, which is with the four month old

1680
01:22:45,840 --> 01:22:49,640
at home and the ever never ending schedule of being

1681
01:22:49,680 --> 01:22:54,920
in games. Media, frustrating is like, can be really frustrating. Sometimes.

1682
01:22:55,199 --> 01:22:57,399
I hate when I'm like, I just want this section

1683
01:22:57,479 --> 01:23:00,640
to be done as boring, I'll turn on music, I'll

1684
01:23:00,640 --> 01:23:03,560
turn on a podcast. At least I'm accomplishing something for me.

1685
01:23:03,640 --> 01:23:11,359
Speaker 3: I think, well, you, Eric, I think I'd rather play

1686
01:23:11,439 --> 01:23:16,039
frustrating right now, because boring just makes me fall asleep.

1687
01:23:16,399 --> 01:23:19,560
Like I have actually fallen to sleep while playing a

1688
01:23:19,640 --> 01:23:22,439
video game before because it was so boring, but like

1689
01:23:22,520 --> 01:23:26,000
the music was also so serene and relaxing that I

1690
01:23:26,079 --> 01:23:28,760
just kind of like dozed off. What was the game

1691
01:23:28,880 --> 01:23:33,880
playing it? It was? It was some random RPG. I

1692
01:23:34,359 --> 01:23:36,880
legitimately don't remember the name of it. That's how boring

1693
01:23:37,079 --> 01:23:40,000
was that. That's not for the bid. I'm not trying

1694
01:23:40,000 --> 01:23:42,800
to like dodge casting shade on somebody. I legitimately don't

1695
01:23:42,840 --> 01:23:44,560
remember the name of it. I just remember like the

1696
01:23:44,600 --> 01:23:49,000
little piano lulling me off to sleep, which gives me

1697
01:23:49,000 --> 01:23:50,560
a hint. I think in my head to what it was.

1698
01:23:50,600 --> 01:23:52,079
But that was a long time ago. But maybe it

1699
01:23:52,119 --> 01:23:59,399
was im sesnah, who's to say, but I I don't know.

1700
01:23:59,520 --> 01:24:03,199
Like frus can be its own reward in that way.

1701
01:24:03,399 --> 01:24:06,840
And also I find something fascinating in a frustrating game.

1702
01:24:06,960 --> 01:24:09,520
I don't think I would enjoy playing Lord of the

1703
01:24:09,560 --> 01:24:11,680
Rings Gollum, but I think I would find it an

1704
01:24:11,760 --> 01:24:16,439
interesting game to play because of the ways in which

1705
01:24:16,439 --> 01:24:20,159
it is frustrating actively, whereas boring is never going to

1706
01:24:20,199 --> 01:24:25,239
be textually interesting. It's just going to be wrote by

1707
01:24:25,279 --> 01:24:27,960
the numbers, you know. And you can put on a

1708
01:24:28,000 --> 01:24:30,039
podcast or something, but at that point I'd rather just

1709
01:24:30,079 --> 01:24:34,359
be watching something or listening to the pocket, like actively

1710
01:24:34,359 --> 01:24:38,239
listening to the podcast than like passively. Yeah, so I think,

1711
01:24:38,319 --> 01:24:41,319
I think frustrating for me, but it is an interesting question.

1712
01:24:43,000 --> 01:24:48,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you. I I would rather play a boring game,

1713
01:24:49,439 --> 01:24:52,720
but I do. I find frustrating games easier to like

1714
01:24:52,840 --> 01:24:56,439
review and talk about because I'm like, sure, finally I

1715
01:24:56,479 --> 01:24:59,960
can talk about this thing that's been I Wes brief

1716
01:25:00,199 --> 01:25:02,479
mentioned Shadow Labyrinth, which I've been trying to finish forever,

1717
01:25:02,560 --> 01:25:04,199
and I just keep having other things on my plate

1718
01:25:04,239 --> 01:25:07,720
and I'm at the final area. But it's a whole thing.

1719
01:25:07,840 --> 01:25:10,800
But one thing about that game that I don't like

1720
01:25:11,239 --> 01:25:13,880
is there's two types of collectibles. There's yellow collectibles and

1721
01:25:13,880 --> 01:25:17,359
there's red collectibles. And red collectibles can either be health

1722
01:25:17,439 --> 01:25:21,960
upgrades or like super important like character upgrades, or it's

1723
01:25:22,159 --> 01:25:25,680
map markers. It can just be more map markers. You

1724
01:25:25,720 --> 01:25:27,560
can do a whole like challenge section and get a

1725
01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:29,720
red collectible and then find out you have more markers

1726
01:25:29,720 --> 01:25:32,479
for your map, which, like I was never like I made.

1727
01:25:32,359 --> 01:25:34,119
Speaker 2: An amount of markers for your map.

1728
01:25:34,399 --> 01:25:37,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can place, which I didn't realize until I

1729
01:25:37,199 --> 01:25:40,680
got more. And I keep going to places and it's like, hey, man,

1730
01:25:41,359 --> 01:25:43,119
give us one hundred gold, we'll get you some more

1731
01:25:43,159 --> 01:25:46,560
map markers. It's like crazy be the first level of

1732
01:25:46,600 --> 01:25:49,520
this this boss rush mode, and you'll get some more

1733
01:25:49,560 --> 01:25:51,680
map markers, and I'm like, why is this a reward

1734
01:25:51,760 --> 01:25:56,680
to you? And then the yellow collectibles are either a

1735
01:25:57,760 --> 01:26:00,399
currency that I didn't figure out who I supposed to

1736
01:26:00,399 --> 01:26:02,520
give it to until literally like our thirty five of

1737
01:26:02,560 --> 01:26:06,760
the game, or text logs, and it's always that's one

1738
01:26:06,800 --> 01:26:08,520
where it's like always not fun to get.

1739
01:26:09,439 --> 01:26:11,399
Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought you're gonna say something like the ability

1740
01:26:11,439 --> 01:26:13,239
to pause, Like you've gained one pause.

1741
01:26:14,319 --> 01:26:17,000
Speaker 1: I made fun of the game earlier that it's like

1742
01:26:17,239 --> 01:26:19,760
you gotta get five hours in and beat a boss

1743
01:26:19,840 --> 01:26:22,680
and then like your first big metro vanea thing, it's like, congrats,

1744
01:26:22,680 --> 01:26:25,800
you've unlocked the Perry button, Like why didn't I start

1745
01:26:25,800 --> 01:26:27,520
with the Perry button? And then after you get the

1746
01:26:27,520 --> 01:26:30,199
Perry button, you unlock the block button and it's like

1747
01:26:30,239 --> 01:26:32,239
you can't block in perry at the same time. They're

1748
01:26:32,239 --> 01:26:33,000
two different things.

1749
01:26:33,840 --> 01:26:37,159
Speaker 3: Anyways, That's that's like a gaming cardinal sin to me

1750
01:26:37,600 --> 01:26:40,760
is when you take too long to give the player

1751
01:26:40,920 --> 01:26:43,880
the stuff that is just the fun parts of the game.

1752
01:26:44,399 --> 01:26:47,680
Speaker 1: Like I get this exact conversation we were talking about Donkey Kong.

1753
01:26:47,840 --> 01:26:53,000
I feel so strongly about that. That's don Yunk's the

1754
01:26:53,000 --> 01:26:56,079
perfect example, perfect example of Donkey start off and you

1755
01:26:56,119 --> 01:27:00,000
can you can turf surf and you can jump, double jump,

1756
01:27:00,079 --> 01:27:01,640
and like you start off and it's like, oh, I

1757
01:27:01,640 --> 01:27:03,439
have so many things I can play with. It's just

1758
01:27:03,479 --> 01:27:06,159
fun to exist. There's a version of Donkey Kong where

1759
01:27:06,600 --> 01:27:09,359
you have a punch button and then eventually you do

1760
01:27:09,439 --> 01:27:11,680
a tutorial to learn how to punch down and punch

1761
01:27:11,800 --> 01:27:13,880
up and it takes like five hours to get the

1762
01:27:13,920 --> 01:27:15,520
like movement tech stuff.

1763
01:27:16,319 --> 01:27:17,640
Speaker 3: Has to learn how to punch up.

1764
01:27:20,399 --> 01:27:21,159
Speaker 1: Yeah, terrible.

1765
01:27:21,359 --> 01:27:24,239
Speaker 2: Now my flip side, Prince of Perser Lost Crown, you

1766
01:27:24,279 --> 01:27:26,000
don't get the double jump. That's like one of the

1767
01:27:26,039 --> 01:27:28,920
last things you unlock. And they did so good with

1768
01:27:29,000 --> 01:27:31,000
the progression and the momentum of that game that, like,

1769
01:27:31,119 --> 01:27:34,199
it is one of the best feelings I've ever had.

1770
01:27:34,279 --> 01:27:37,520
So it sounds like Lost Crown is doing the opposite

1771
01:27:37,600 --> 01:27:40,119
of Shadow Labyrinth in the medic The.

1772
01:27:40,039 --> 01:27:42,720
Speaker 1: Double jump is kind of like a whole thing in

1773
01:27:43,119 --> 01:27:48,319
a Metroid Venus specifically, where it's like any platform or

1774
01:27:48,359 --> 01:27:50,079
you want to double jump because it's just such a

1775
01:27:50,119 --> 01:27:54,600
common movement tool. I do like of all the abilities

1776
01:27:54,600 --> 01:27:56,960
to withhold. I like withholding the double jump because it's

1777
01:27:56,960 --> 01:27:58,920
something you know you're gonna get and you always want,

1778
01:27:58,960 --> 01:28:01,239
and there's something about not being able to jump quite

1779
01:28:01,319 --> 01:28:02,800
high enough that you're like, oh, I'm gonna get that,

1780
01:28:03,359 --> 01:28:06,159
but it prints. PUSH's a great example of like, you

1781
01:28:06,199 --> 01:28:09,319
do get other cool stuff before then, so it's not

1782
01:28:09,560 --> 01:28:11,840
like you're so disappointed you never get the double jump.

1783
01:28:11,960 --> 01:28:14,600
Shoutout Laborth. That did take me fifteen sixteen hours to

1784
01:28:14,680 --> 01:28:16,840
get the double jump, And when I finally did, I

1785
01:28:16,880 --> 01:28:19,199
was like, Ah, finally the base features of the game

1786
01:28:19,239 --> 01:28:21,119
are complete. Now I can move on to the rest

1787
01:28:21,119 --> 01:28:21,720
of it.

1788
01:28:21,720 --> 01:28:24,399
Speaker 3: It depends if the game feels like it's been laid

1789
01:28:24,439 --> 01:28:26,720
out and designed it that way right. Does it feel

1790
01:28:26,760 --> 01:28:29,800
like you are kind of getting this tool to moment

1791
01:28:29,840 --> 01:28:31,359
that makes it feel like it opens the game up,

1792
01:28:31,479 --> 01:28:33,279
or does it feel like, oh, now I can play

1793
01:28:33,279 --> 01:28:37,920
the game more comfortably axiom verge. Weirdly enough, is when

1794
01:28:37,960 --> 01:28:40,520
I think of a lot where you start that game

1795
01:28:40,960 --> 01:28:44,760
as almost cumbersome, like you're just kind of plodding around

1796
01:28:44,800 --> 01:28:47,279
and you just have a gun. It's almost very metroidy.

1797
01:28:47,760 --> 01:28:51,239
I mean, it is extremely metroity, but it gives you

1798
01:28:51,319 --> 01:28:54,039
so many movement tech options to start to think about that.

1799
01:28:54,039 --> 01:28:56,840
By the time you start doing weird movement and weird stuff,

1800
01:28:57,560 --> 01:28:59,720
you kind of have the mind space to start thinking

1801
01:28:59,720 --> 01:29:02,039
about how all those things can combine together to do

1802
01:29:02,119 --> 01:29:04,199
some really cool stuff and then hunt some secrets with that.

1803
01:29:05,199 --> 01:29:09,079
And I think those are good examples of giving you

1804
01:29:09,119 --> 01:29:12,079
something later on that is kind of an expected upgrade

1805
01:29:12,279 --> 01:29:14,920
in a video game like that, but making you wait

1806
01:29:14,960 --> 01:29:18,520
and designing worlds around it so that it feels right

1807
01:29:18,640 --> 01:29:21,600
and timed and impactful, Whereas, yeah, I think there are

1808
01:29:21,600 --> 01:29:24,039
other games where it's just like, why'd you wait so

1809
01:29:24,119 --> 01:29:27,359
long to give me this? Man, that's the good stuff.

1810
01:29:27,560 --> 01:29:31,079
I liked Final Fantasy sixteen more than most, and I

1811
01:29:31,079 --> 01:29:33,319
think you spend too long in that game with too

1812
01:29:33,399 --> 01:29:36,439
limited of a skill set when it comes to the

1813
01:29:36,680 --> 01:29:38,439
icons that you can use, because by the time you

1814
01:29:38,439 --> 01:29:42,319
start to unlock more than like two icons, maybe two

1815
01:29:42,399 --> 01:29:45,760
or three that you start out with, then the game

1816
01:29:45,840 --> 01:29:48,039
starts to really open up and give you some really

1817
01:29:48,039 --> 01:29:50,159
cool stuff to work with. But up to that point,

1818
01:29:50,199 --> 01:29:52,439
you're kind of working with a very limited skill set,

1819
01:29:52,560 --> 01:29:55,079
and that can be frustrating because you're like, give me

1820
01:29:55,119 --> 01:29:56,800
the cool toys. I want to play with the cool

1821
01:29:56,840 --> 01:30:00,000
toys was so excited.

1822
01:30:00,359 --> 01:30:03,920
Speaker 2: Review Charles also, yes, I love oh Sure sixty as well.

1823
01:30:04,000 --> 01:30:06,000
But your shadow out in the review is probably my

1824
01:30:06,039 --> 01:30:09,159
most anticipated of you to see. I've just I've just

1825
01:30:09,199 --> 01:30:11,239
seen and heard so much of the ups and downs

1826
01:30:11,239 --> 01:30:14,319
you've gone through a lot of times playing it in slacks,

1827
01:30:14,399 --> 01:30:16,159
so like, I can't wait to it.

1828
01:30:16,600 --> 01:30:19,520
Speaker 1: It's one of those things where I sat down to

1829
01:30:19,560 --> 01:30:24,199
start drafting it and I blew way past the one

1830
01:30:24,239 --> 01:30:28,000
page limit, and now I'm like, I'm gonna have to Yeah,

1831
01:30:28,039 --> 01:30:30,000
I don't know if I'm gonna do two versions of

1832
01:30:30,000 --> 01:30:32,319
I'm gonna do a web version and a magazine version.

1833
01:30:32,439 --> 01:30:36,560
Listeners are our magazine. We go based on character count,

1834
01:30:36,640 --> 01:30:39,039
and like one page is like thirty six hundred characters,

1835
01:30:39,079 --> 01:30:41,880
which is not that many words, definitely less than you

1836
01:30:41,920 --> 01:30:44,000
would normally put in a review. So it's often hard

1837
01:30:44,039 --> 01:30:46,960
to like pare down your thoughts into something as concise

1838
01:30:47,000 --> 01:30:50,159
as that. But when you're writing something right at the

1839
01:30:50,199 --> 01:30:52,640
magazine deadline, it's like almost more work to write a

1840
01:30:52,640 --> 01:30:55,239
web version, and of almost it is more work to

1841
01:30:55,239 --> 01:30:57,680
write two versions of a thing versus one version of

1842
01:30:57,680 --> 01:30:59,159
a thing, but it's good.

1843
01:30:59,039 --> 01:31:02,039
Speaker 2: Practice though I do that, like, yeah, the magazine version

1844
01:31:02,079 --> 01:31:04,479
really forces you to think about what needs to be

1845
01:31:04,520 --> 01:31:07,760
said in this review. There are I often sometimes I'm like,

1846
01:31:07,760 --> 01:31:10,159
if I had one more paragraph, that would be awesome. Yeah,

1847
01:31:10,239 --> 01:31:12,159
when I'm trimming, I'm like, I wish I didn't have

1848
01:31:12,159 --> 01:31:15,880
to trim this. But I think it's a unique thing

1849
01:31:15,920 --> 01:31:18,399
about writing and physical that really tests your brain in

1850
01:31:18,800 --> 01:31:20,840
a way that doesn't happen online elsewhere.

1851
01:31:21,199 --> 01:31:24,239
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's some There's a few points in my life

1852
01:31:24,279 --> 01:31:28,319
I can pinpoint as the most relief from stress I've

1853
01:31:28,359 --> 01:31:33,159
ever felt. And number three or four is my first

1854
01:31:33,159 --> 01:31:35,279
week at Game Informer. I found out that it was

1855
01:31:35,319 --> 01:31:38,359
a character count and not a word count, where I

1856
01:31:38,399 --> 01:31:41,560
thought I had to write like sixteen hundred words on

1857
01:31:43,920 --> 01:31:47,159
Path of Titans. Maybe it's called it's like a dinosaur

1858
01:31:47,399 --> 01:31:49,840
MMO game that I didn't really have all that much

1859
01:31:49,880 --> 01:31:51,520
of a thought about. And I was doing like a

1860
01:31:51,600 --> 01:31:54,279
half page preview on it, and I was like, I

1861
01:31:54,319 --> 01:31:57,840
can't write like an essay on the like hour or

1862
01:31:57,880 --> 01:31:59,279
two I played on this game. I don't want to

1863
01:31:59,279 --> 01:32:01,800
do that those character counts, And I like almost cried.

1864
01:32:01,880 --> 01:32:03,520
I was like, oh my god, oh maybe I can

1865
01:32:03,680 --> 01:32:04,600
do this job longer.

1866
01:32:05,239 --> 01:32:07,399
Speaker 2: My favorite is I don't want to say names, but

1867
01:32:07,479 --> 01:32:11,239
we are like freelancers, Like you know, help a freelancer

1868
01:32:11,239 --> 01:32:12,720
get a piece in and pitch and stuff, and then

1869
01:32:12,760 --> 01:32:15,600
they get it in and they're like, dog, these character

1870
01:32:15,640 --> 01:32:17,760
counts are you for real? And I'm like, welcome to

1871
01:32:17,800 --> 01:32:23,159
print man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1872
01:32:21,399 --> 01:32:24,239
Speaker 1: That is a thing of I think it's also a

1873
01:32:25,000 --> 01:32:29,640
coming from a school environment where it's like the hit

1874
01:32:29,720 --> 01:32:33,000
the minimum, like minimum a thousand words and like you

1875
01:32:33,000 --> 01:32:34,720
would never write three thousand words for that thing, but

1876
01:32:34,760 --> 01:32:36,880
you get so used to being like I'm just gonna

1877
01:32:36,880 --> 01:32:39,039
fill as many thoughts as possible and get them out,

1878
01:32:39,079 --> 01:32:41,800
and there's like definitely an art to the magazine of

1879
01:32:41,840 --> 01:32:43,680
making it more concise. Yeah.

1880
01:32:43,760 --> 01:32:46,319
Speaker 3: Forces you to talk about the game, though, And I

1881
01:32:46,359 --> 01:32:49,000
think that's what I like is I think too often

1882
01:32:49,079 --> 01:32:52,680
when I am given unlimited space, I'm like, oh well,

1883
01:32:52,720 --> 01:32:55,680
I really need to like write all of this almost

1884
01:32:55,720 --> 01:32:57,920
back of the box summary of like this is what

1885
01:32:58,039 --> 01:33:02,119
the game is, this is what you do, and having

1886
01:33:02,199 --> 01:33:04,600
a character limit forces you to just talk about what

1887
01:33:04,640 --> 01:33:08,600
you think about the game. Not this has a gun

1888
01:33:08,600 --> 01:33:10,760
in it, but the gun in this game is not

1889
01:33:10,920 --> 01:33:12,960
very good, or the gun in this game is very good.

1890
01:33:13,199 --> 01:33:17,319
Shout outs to the smart pistol. And that's a that's

1891
01:33:17,399 --> 01:33:20,479
a good thing to encourage, I think for writers, and

1892
01:33:20,520 --> 01:33:22,399
so I like it and.

1893
01:33:22,359 --> 01:33:24,439
Speaker 1: That's that's why it's nice to have the podcast where

1894
01:33:24,439 --> 01:33:26,399
it's like I can give my unabridged thoughts.

1895
01:33:27,359 --> 01:33:28,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1896
01:33:28,880 --> 01:33:32,720
Speaker 1: My all time lowest review. Definitely least favorite game I

1897
01:33:32,840 --> 01:33:37,600
played was Super Bomberman R two. At least we have

1898
01:33:37,600 --> 01:33:39,800
a flavor work. I've probably played worse games otherwise, but

1899
01:33:40,239 --> 01:33:43,520
that game has like insane lore where it turns out

1900
01:33:43,560 --> 01:33:46,840
that like these little cute guys have been committing suicide

1901
01:33:46,920 --> 01:33:51,000
for you on like you get to never mind. It's

1902
01:33:51,199 --> 01:33:54,479
it's a level of weirdness and annoyingness that I'm like,

1903
01:33:54,640 --> 01:33:57,560
I literally I don't have the word count to explain

1904
01:33:57,600 --> 01:33:59,239
it in a written review. So I was glad I

1905
01:33:59,239 --> 01:34:01,439
got to come on here and they gave me like

1906
01:34:01,520 --> 01:34:06,159
a minute timer to just word vomit how much I

1907
01:34:06,279 --> 01:34:08,479
was baffled by the weird lore of this game, whereas

1908
01:34:08,479 --> 01:34:09,840
like the average person is like, I just don't know

1909
01:34:09,880 --> 01:34:11,359
if it's fun, Like I don't really need to get

1910
01:34:11,680 --> 01:34:14,920
I don't need, you know, twenty thousand characters on the

1911
01:34:14,920 --> 01:34:17,119
ins and outs of the Bomberman law as you've now

1912
01:34:17,359 --> 01:34:18,359
become familiar with it.

1913
01:34:18,439 --> 01:34:21,319
Speaker 3: But that's a good segment. Idea is just here's a

1914
01:34:21,359 --> 01:34:24,199
minute to vent about something in a game you've been playing.

1915
01:34:24,319 --> 01:34:28,960
Speaker 1: That's actually great my back pocket. My favorite thing about

1916
01:34:28,960 --> 01:34:32,239
Super Super Bomberman R. Two is I explained it it's

1917
01:34:32,239 --> 01:34:34,840
like an open world Bomberman game and Matt Miller, having

1918
01:34:34,880 --> 01:34:36,640
not played it, I don't think he ever played it.

1919
01:34:36,720 --> 01:34:38,399
I don't know he ever said a thing about other

1920
01:34:38,399 --> 01:34:40,159
than this, but he was like, that's like making open

1921
01:34:40,159 --> 01:34:44,439
world tennis. I was like, oh my gosh, that's genius.

1922
01:34:44,479 --> 01:34:47,000
What a bar that's gotta be the I don't think

1923
01:34:47,039 --> 01:34:49,079
I put it in my review, but I was like, Matt,

1924
01:34:49,520 --> 01:34:55,520
that's so good. All right. Uh well, thanks everyone for

1925
01:34:55,920 --> 01:35:01,600
tuning into this episode of the Game Former Show. As always,

1926
01:35:01,600 --> 01:35:03,520
you can subscribe to Game for a magazine, a Game

1927
01:35:03,520 --> 01:35:07,199
for when a com slash subscribe. We're working real hard

1928
01:35:07,239 --> 01:35:10,279
on our most recent issue or our upcoming issue, rather

1929
01:35:11,359 --> 01:35:16,239
hoping that all our scheduling stuff works out, but we

1930
01:35:16,279 --> 01:35:20,119
are excited about it, so that'll be fun. Yes, I

1931
01:35:20,239 --> 01:35:22,720
don't know your guys' social handles. Off the top of

1932
01:35:22,760 --> 01:35:29,199
my head, I'm I'm everywhere as that's a friendship. I'm

1933
01:35:29,239 --> 01:35:31,640
I'm member, where was Chuck Duck? Three sixty five West?

1934
01:35:31,640 --> 01:35:32,680
Where can people find you?

1935
01:35:33,560 --> 01:35:36,880
Speaker 2: Mostly Blue Sky? I'm just Wesley LeBlanc there and then

1936
01:35:36,960 --> 01:35:42,600
on Instagram, I am annoyingly I underscore, am underscore, Wesley Underscore.

1937
01:35:42,640 --> 01:35:44,239
I've been trying to be more active there and like

1938
01:35:44,279 --> 01:35:47,279
posting about my work and travels because I'd like to

1939
01:35:47,319 --> 01:35:49,600
travel and do a lot of it and take pictures.

1940
01:35:49,920 --> 01:35:52,000
And I'm also trying to make TikTok thing, which I am.

1941
01:35:52,039 --> 01:35:56,000
I've been seeing those seven on TikTok. I'll talk about

1942
01:35:56,079 --> 01:35:58,520
my China trip that I returned from in a later

1943
01:35:58,560 --> 01:36:00,119
episode one day. I have a lot to say and

1944
01:36:00,159 --> 01:36:02,399
it was an awesome trip, but I was there with

1945
01:36:02,439 --> 01:36:04,439
a lot of people, like it was the biggest event

1946
01:36:04,479 --> 01:36:06,479
I've ever been to. At one point, like two thousand

1947
01:36:06,479 --> 01:36:11,079
people China shows up and a lot of them were influencers,

1948
01:36:11,119 --> 01:36:15,880
And to be frank, just hearing some of the numbers

1949
01:36:15,920 --> 01:36:18,039
they're throwing around, I was like, I gotta get on TikTok.

1950
01:36:18,479 --> 01:36:19,079
Speaker 1: I gotta start.

1951
01:36:20,520 --> 01:36:23,960
Speaker 2: I got to make my life content and it's a

1952
01:36:24,000 --> 01:36:28,159
struggle It's not easy and it's kind of embarrassing, but

1953
01:36:28,199 --> 01:36:31,399
it helped. Like filming in public is really hard, but

1954
01:36:31,439 --> 01:36:34,960
seeing these people are like professionals at it, like they

1955
01:36:34,960 --> 01:36:37,960
have no problem whipping out their phones and just doing whatever,

1956
01:36:38,000 --> 01:36:40,359
and I was like inspired. So I'm really trying to

1957
01:36:40,359 --> 01:36:43,239
give it a good go. We'll see if that continues.

1958
01:36:43,239 --> 01:36:44,880
But if you want to join me there in the

1959
01:36:44,920 --> 01:36:47,640
cringe and in the work travels and whatever else I post,

1960
01:36:47,680 --> 01:36:49,359
It's Wesley LeBlanc seven.

1961
01:36:51,439 --> 01:36:52,800
Speaker 1: And Eric C.

1962
01:36:53,039 --> 01:36:56,119
Speaker 3: Moussy on Old b St. Guy is about the only

1963
01:36:56,159 --> 01:36:58,880
place I'm on these days. I'm trying to disconnect myself

1964
01:36:59,000 --> 01:37:04,039
from social media as much as possible. So yeah, I've

1965
01:37:04,039 --> 01:37:07,079
got you know, I've got stuff for friends and family

1966
01:37:07,119 --> 01:37:09,399
to get signs of life every now and then. But

1967
01:37:09,600 --> 01:37:14,399
uh yeah, I especially when the Great Exodus happened and

1968
01:37:14,439 --> 01:37:16,079
all that, I was like, it's probably a good time

1969
01:37:16,079 --> 01:37:17,920
for me to just take a break from a lot.

1970
01:37:17,720 --> 01:37:18,760
Speaker 1: Of social media.

1971
01:37:18,920 --> 01:37:20,520
Speaker 2: It was connected.

1972
01:37:20,840 --> 01:37:23,319
Speaker 3: Yeah, we should we have connected. Kajimo is so right

1973
01:37:23,359 --> 01:37:27,359
for that, And so I've been doing it less but

1974
01:37:27,399 --> 01:37:29,439
best guys where you'll find me most of the time.

1975
01:37:29,600 --> 01:37:32,560
So when I decide to post random thoughts that enter

1976
01:37:32,640 --> 01:37:33,359
my head.

1977
01:37:34,439 --> 01:37:35,960
Speaker 1: Well, there you go. And if you want, if you

1978
01:37:36,000 --> 01:37:39,319
want someone that's gonna post consistently, you can find Game

1979
01:37:39,359 --> 01:37:43,520
Informer dot com, on Blue Sky, game Form magazine, on Instagram.

1980
01:37:43,920 --> 01:37:45,840
You can just search game for him anywhere. We'll probably

1981
01:37:45,920 --> 01:37:50,880
pop up before we go west. Did you find out

1982
01:37:51,079 --> 01:37:52,199
frog and Italian?

1983
01:37:53,439 --> 01:38:00,199
Speaker 2: Yeah? Frog and Italian is ratza, no rana? But hey,

1984
01:38:00,439 --> 01:38:03,760
do you know what Italians? What frogs sound like in Italy?

1985
01:38:04,359 --> 01:38:14,000
Like the noise that they.

1986
01:38:09,920 --> 01:38:11,000
Speaker 3: Ribb it an Italian?

1987
01:38:12,119 --> 01:38:12,560
Speaker 1: What did they?

1988
01:38:12,760 --> 01:38:12,880
Speaker 3: Does?

1989
01:38:12,960 --> 01:38:13,560
Speaker 1: She say something?

1990
01:38:14,319 --> 01:38:16,359
Speaker 2: She said that she just knows it's rhana, but doesn't

1991
01:38:17,560 --> 01:38:20,159
she says she knows it's rana an Italian like that's

1992
01:38:20,199 --> 01:38:22,840
the word for frog, and she's positive they do not

1993
01:38:22,920 --> 01:38:26,520
do ribbit. Like if you're a kid in Italy doing

1994
01:38:26,560 --> 01:38:27,760
a frog noise, you don't do a ribbon.

1995
01:38:27,840 --> 01:38:28,600
Speaker 3: You don't do ribb it.

1996
01:38:29,439 --> 01:38:32,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, this this week instead of looking it.

1997
01:38:32,800 --> 01:38:35,760
Speaker 3: Up to find out okay, okay.

1998
01:38:35,880 --> 01:38:38,439
Speaker 1: This week after watching the podcast, instead of looking it up,

1999
01:38:38,479 --> 01:38:43,199
you guys can imagine whatever you want Italian frogs to say. Firstly,

2000
01:38:43,279 --> 01:38:44,800
I think they go rubato.

2001
01:38:46,159 --> 01:38:47,039
Speaker 2: Oh hold on, but.

2002
01:38:47,239 --> 01:38:54,000
Speaker 1: Yeah it's cra cra cra, oh cra.

2003
01:38:54,119 --> 01:38:55,920
Speaker 3: Well Okay, Cra, cra.

2004
01:38:57,800 --> 01:39:01,800
Speaker 2: Shout Italian women. Shout out frog, there we go. Shout out.

2005
01:39:01,800 --> 01:39:05,000
Women that like frogs, shout out women, shout out Italy.

2006
01:39:05,399 --> 01:39:08,760
Frogs are up, We up, we up.

2007
01:39:09,119 --> 01:39:13,279
Speaker 1: Shout out Italy, shout out. Thank you so much for

2008
01:39:13,319 --> 01:39:17,000
listening to this absolutely insane episode The Game for Michelle.

2009
01:39:17,279 --> 01:39:48,399
We'll see you guys next week. Bye bye,