Speaker 1: What's happening? Billy crapping in Welcome back to the fire
Escape Cast. It is episode one hundred and twenty one.
I think something like that is sixty five degrees fahrenheit
in Tallahassee, Florida.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming back to the show.
Dan Riker, here is always.
Speaker 3: Good night there. I don't know what does Florida get.
Florida get is probably warm. Well, why do you have
Tallahassee's weather up on your phone right now?
Speaker 1: Because I'm a professional host who calls out the weather
at the beginning?
Speaker 2: What do you mean, why do I have it you?
Speaker 1: He knows this is like when pulls a rabbit out
of his hat and then you're like, why do you
have a rabbit in your hands?
Speaker 2: Because I just did it.
Speaker 3: It makes sense when John Mlaney does it on his
Netflix show because it's live and he's proving it.
Speaker 2: This isn't gonna go up for like a week. It
doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: He's also giving the weather in the city that the
show shot in exactly.
Speaker 3: None of this makes sense, Mike, this is a terrible opening.
And my name's not Billy.
Speaker 2: I've been loving it. Dan right here is always Hello.
How are you doing? I'm from being irate.
Speaker 4: No, I'm I'm in a great mood.
Speaker 2: Good good to hear.
Speaker 1: I'm excited about some some some decor changes happening to
your house. I'm sure you'll announce it sometime in the future,
but you gave us a little sneak peek.
Speaker 3: You'll probably just see it in the background of everything
goes the way I'm hoping it does.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for that. Mary Kish, What have you
been up to?
Speaker 5: I've also been making upgrades to my house. I bought
a CRT with a VHS. In the CRT nice to
my kitchen.
Speaker 4: The good stuff, okay, hook up a content.
Speaker 5: And I bought Home Alone.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, seriously, in Home Alone he has they have
that kind of TV on their counter in the kitchen
when he's like that's how he does the dirty the
filthy animal line.
Speaker 5: Home Alone sception. So the goal is not game console,
which is cool and obviously I could utilize it. I
have a Sega Genesis. It would be cool to be
able to play Sonic spin Ball in my kitchen. But
the tist of this was I was like, how nice
would it be to watch, you know, movies that I
love watching on Christmas while and making Christmas dinner, et cetera.
So I was not a state sailing. It was like
just resale shopping at different, you know, vintage shops. And
I saw a thirteen inch CRT in fully good working condition, pristine,
with a VHS in it, and I thought to myself,
if I get this right now, I could also go
shopping for all the VHS's that I loved watching as
a kid. I could install it in my kitchen today
and I was watching The Lion King while I was
making dinner this evening. It has been god tear.
Speaker 3: That is, it's the right size for like a countertop
or where you could go nuts and you could do
the thing where you like mounted to the underside of
the like the cup cabinet or something. But a big
as CRT. I feel like that's probably been thirty even thirteen.
It's probably a bit too heavy for that.
Speaker 5: It's on my Instagram story right now, Like I'm like
really excited with the way it came out because it's
just under my cabinets and so while I'm like chopping vegetables,
I can watch I could watch a cartoon. Oh I
put I bought Garfield Garfield Christmas, Like, I just bought
like things that I like to watch as a kid
and a bat these vhs is it's really fun too
to also learn like the range of how much should it?
How much do you think Aladdin on VHS costs? Honestly
tell me?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, like on a resale thing, like I
usually just see lots of VHS things where it's like
two dollars a tape, come grab however money you want,
so I I.
Speaker 2: Would say two to five dollars. Are we doing closest
without going over estimate?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll do prices right, Rolls Disney did that stupid.
Speaker 2: Vault thing, right, Yeah, Dan you can you could take
a second.
Speaker 5: Guess Disney's are more I'm not going to say they're
more difficult. I'm just saying they're more coveted. Like if
you're the.
Speaker 2: Big stupid uh the plastic like there's to.
Speaker 5: Be has the big plastic case seven.
Speaker 1: Bucks, yeah, twenty nine dollars.
Speaker 5: So most of these I was able to acquire between
five and eight dollars. Lion King was seven dollars. If
you go to certain resalers, I was finding them for
twenty five dollars. To which I was like yet dreaming.
But every person has their own selling price, and the
rarer it is, the higher it goes. But I bought
like twenty vhs is today for like four or five bucks,
some of them seven or eight dollars. I think the
more expensive ones were going to for ten dollars. But anyway,
I bought probably one hundred dollars worth of classic movies
and a CRT and started watching them in my kitchen.
Speaker 3: I mean Facebook marketplace you just heard for like VHS
tapes like that is a gold mine for that because
that's just something that everyone's getting rid of. No one
has CRTs anymore, so if you've got one, you can
just get I've got a ton in the clause that
I bought recently, like two bucks of tape.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 5: You have a Do you have a VHS player like
a tap?
Speaker 4: It's behind this or underneath they here at the area.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you're ready to go. I love having it in
the TV. It's so nice that it's like ready to
go in the same system.
Speaker 4: So are you pan and scan or your letterbox?
Speaker 2: The what? Well?
Speaker 3: So with movies and four by three, you know you're
doing letters that they would sell two versions for big
movies where it's like the letterboxed one or the one
where they like had to like bastardize it after the fact.
And like this is why sixteen by nine was so
good for wide screen TVs because like movies, you don't
have to like sacrifice either way.
Speaker 5: You know, I think everything's four by three.
Speaker 3: Because okay, so that's pan and scan, so they had
to like go in after the fact. So I would
take forever after a movie came out in the theaters
because they would have to pan and scan it and
go in there be like, you don't need to see
this thirty percent of the screen over here, just we'll
cut that out. And well, but we do, we'll pan
over here for this part. And yeah, I hate that.
Speaker 5: I don't need any of that stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're watching Disney.
Speaker 4: They don't care about composition.
Speaker 5: You need two thirds of the screen at any given time.
As long as I can see the genie do his
funny faces, I'm good.
Speaker 1: Did you did the TV have the remote still or
is it like controls on under the slot.
Speaker 5: The buttons are on the unit. Yeah, everything's on. It's
like one chunky unit four x three with the buttons
and everything, and it's really nice that the VHS works
because a lot I have seen We've all seen like
CRTs at different like sales and stuff like that, but
a lot of times pieces are broken or they don't
work put perfectly working condition.
Speaker 3: And I've bought old VCRs that like they will just
have problems with the heads. So it's like there's like
a thirty percent chance that any tape you put in
there is just going to get chewed up. So it'd
be like terrifying because like I was trying to like
I have all these old VHS tapes.
Speaker 4: That I made when I was doing videos in high
school and stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the ones you recorded yourself.
Speaker 4: One It's not like I have copies or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's like I'd like to see what this is and
it just comes out and say, well, shit, okay, I
guess that's gone forever.
Speaker 1: That would be awful because I'm sure all those videos
are amazing that you made so good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, definitely not something embarrassed. Actually, there is a
time in my life where I was like I took
my first video production course in high school and I
remember like, obviously we were trying to do fake public
service announcements and they were so embarrassing and we were
making silly jokes and it's just terrible, terrible stuff. And
I also had on a VHS that I sent out
as a demo reel to try and get my first job,
and I mistakenly didn't make a copy because I was like, well,
if they don't choose me, they'll just send it back.
Well they just didn't send it back, and they didn't
choose me, and I lost a lot of basically like
all my high school material. And then I thought to myself.
At first, I was really upset and was like, damn,
I can't believe I lost all those memories. And like
maybe like five or ten years later, I was like,
pretty glad I don't have any of those memories.
Speaker 3: Some of that can be, yeah, rough to go back to,
especially like trying comedy and stuff when you were in
high school. I remember we had to do a PSA
once and it wasn't a parody one. It wasn't a satire.
It's like it was a PSA contest and it's supposed
to be about like, oh, you know, I have a
good message or whatever, and they submitted it to a
film festival and I won, and like I won like
money and a certificate and stuff, but I think I've
got it somewhere and I watched it like in the
last few years.
Speaker 2: It's just complete horseshit.
Speaker 3: It's like I filmed, I did some like stupid film
grain thing, and I went to a cemetery and I
just filmed a bunch of like crazy shots of graves
and then I shot, like you know this kid, And
I didn't know what drinking was when I was like
sixteen or seventeen, Like I knew what it was, but
I didn't party, and so I assumed it's like, well,
I need to shoot what looks like a tea, high
school or drinking. And so we took a wooden chair
and went to my friend's basement that was just dank
and concrete and had him just slumped over table, take
a shot after shot by himself and just like a
concrete basement and I'm playing the rolling stones painted black
over it. And then it's like taking twenty shots and
what is the message alcohol?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's like driving. The last shot.
Speaker 3: The last shot is him like his head hitting the
steering wheel or something, and I cut to.
Speaker 2: Some staff that I just clearly made up.
Speaker 3: That was like teams who drink there's a one in
three chance that they'll die behind the wheel.
Speaker 5: Or yeah, and it won.
Speaker 2: It won the fucking award.
Speaker 1: I got like a certificate for The more I hear
about your childhood, the more I'm glad we met when
we did.
Speaker 2: I don't think I would have been friends with you.
Speaker 4: I think we would have. I think we would have
been we were in a similar way.
Speaker 1: No, No, that was that, Mary, I remember it was.
It was like thirty episodes ago. We were talking about it.
Speaker 5: You told me, Yeah, I was wheeling and dealing. But
I also did a lot of PSAs that were embarrassing.
I remember one. In high school. We did a lot
of times. We would just pick a school rule and
be like, don't do this because it's against the rules,
and one of them was you're not allowed to street
race in the parking lot. So of course we were like,
let's let's make a street race video. So we made
a video and it's just like I think I'm the
person who drops the flag, and it's like, go, just
so embarrassing. I'm also like, I'm such an idiot in
this because I think I look a lot cooler than
I do. And I'm dropping this flag like I'm so hot,
and these cars are we get like close up to
the tires being like like jetting, and at the very
end it just goes, got to this Sixth Street race,
which isn't sick at all of it. After it it goes,
don't race your car. It's really actually a psa about
cool racing your car.
Speaker 2: It seems sweet not.
Speaker 1: I was in the company of such like public works officionados.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I made We had a video.
Speaker 1: It wasn't even on VHS, was on a remember the
flip cameras where you USB would come out. We were
filming one where this scene was basically like I forget
what the entire short film was about, but it was
a comedy, and I'm I don't know where it is,
and I'm glad that's the case, because it probably isn't
fun anymore. But I remember the funny one of the
funniest things I've ever seen. My friend, I'll just say
his first name, Tyler. He was supposed to be doing
donuts in a parking lot, but he had never done
them before, so he was doing a donut and I
think the idea was that he was taunting a cop
in the in the scene, and so we're in the
parking lot of my high school and he starts like,
you know, like he's peeling out, and then he finally
he completes like one half of a donut in the
back of his cars, and he like spun out of
control and he slammed into the concrete base of the parking.
Speaker 2: Lot light fiction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I just had this like thirty second video
on my flip of my friend and I would show
all my friends and I never deleted it. I'm sure
if I found the flip camera still in there, but
it's just learned this grand Pontiac Grand Prix, I think
it was a silver one, and he just does half
a donut and smashes into a light pole.
Speaker 2: He was completely fine, I should say, but his car
was wrecked.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was probably the funniest thing I had. But yeah,
I also do want to before I forget through some
housekeeping up front because of toward the end of the
year and we are I believe the next episode is
gonna be Game of the Year. If you're listening now,
uh crazy, Yeah, December sixth is our live Game of
the Year stream will all be at Dan's place in
Minneapolis seven pm Central on Twitch dot tv slash Dan
Riker something like that. We'll we'll put specifics up on
instagramatky yeah, exact time, but yeah, so all four of us,
including our producer Jake, we will be there doing the
thing we've done the last few years in a row.
It'll be super fun. We will be putting out the
audio versions of the episode I think as a two
parter in the Monday's following the live show.
Speaker 2: That's the time of plan.
Speaker 3: So I'm looking at the calendar now, so if you're
listening to this, actually you're listening to this on the second,
on Tuesday the second. Apologies for the delay, but as
you will see, we are talking about well it's Matt tried,
I can say now becausef we're hearing it embargoes up.
I figured it was worth delaying a day for the
last huge game of the year. So you were listening
to this on December second or later. December sixth will
be the stream, as Mike said, and then part one,
so we'll basically cut it in half, you know, based
on categories or time or whatever. We'll go up on
December eighth, which that's just gonna be like a bonus
episode because that would not have been a normal posting
week anyway. So you're going to get some back to
back to back episodes this month, and then the second
half will be in that normally scheduled December fifteenth slot.
So the next couple weeks we're listening on audio but
live live live December sixth on. We're doing it on
twitch dot tv slash Dan rekerd, which will quickly be
turned around and put on fire Escapes YouTube soon after that,
as soon as Jake can get that. Obviously Big five
also give it a few days, but yeah, it'll be
all over the place.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so make sure you're following firescape cast on YouTube
if you want to see the video versions of that,
and also if you're not a patron, you can get
audio ad free episodes and video versions. And literally right
after this recording, we're gonna do an arc rader's bonus video.
All three of us have not played the game together
yet and we've been wanted to do more bonus videos
whenever we get the chance, and yeah, so this should
be fun. So that'll go up I believe this coming week,
early this week Monday, I'm talking to you guys right
now recording wise that it'll it'll be up in our
off week. So if you're not a patron, you'll go
go do that, go become one, and then if you are,
you'll be notified when that goes up. But anyway, yeah,
I'm I haven't. I don't have a VCR here. I
do have some old stuff, like I I found a box,
Like I don't have my.
Speaker 2: Nintendo.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm so I don't have my we
hooked up, so I had to. I do have like
a smaller TV. Yeah, I do have my smaller monitor
with the ox ports.
Speaker 2: I almost said.
Speaker 1: Ox holes because I did want to hook up my
Wii for a couple of things.
Speaker 3: You're going to retro tink. Retro tink will fix any
problems you have that just go ox Uh. The retro
tankers is the thing where you can plug in any
kind of input from like you know, uh, the just
red white, yellow to the component and everything, and then
that just HDMI is out eliminates the input lag things
like that.
Speaker 4: You can add scan lines and all that.
Speaker 3: It's just the best way to play retro consoles on
a modern TV.
Speaker 1: Basically, Okay, I'm gonna undue for a new TV like
Black Friday thing coming soon anyway.
Speaker 3: Wait no, no, if you want a TV, wait for
the super Bowl super Bowl. They're cheaper super Bowl for TV.
That's when I got the hundred inch for like super
duper cheap. You want to go super Bowl for TVs, well,
I mean there will be deals on Black Friday, but
like super Bowl is the TV sale here.
Speaker 5: It's important to recognize like it depends on what your
goal is as well, because a lot of times TV
companies will plan to put out their old models right
during Black Friday and then release new models. And so
if your intention is to get a TV that is
going to be future pos future yeah, which yeah, future
proof and like functional for the next like five to
ten years, you should just buy a brand new model.
If you buy one on Black Friday, you're probably buying
an older model or one right before they shift models.
But it's still a great way to save money, depending
on what kind of deals you get. I also think, like,
I'm so skeptical of Black Friday because so often they'll
just be like, it's one hundred dollars off, They're gonna
put one hundred dollars off anyway.
Speaker 3: They just sure sure, or they inflated it in the
month leading up to it just so they can say
they take it down and blah blah blah, I'm gonna
buy it.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 5: Oh no, I just think like all so many companies
do that now. It's like so obvious. It's like a
shrinkflation thing too, which is like they're essentially raising their
prices anyway, and then they have a deal so that
you're not mad at them for raising their prices. Does
that make sense. They'll be like it's twenty percent off,
but it's like, you guys just raised your prices.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna wait for to get my Christmas tree
until the super Bowl to see if that See if
that saved the money, it's probably not.
Speaker 2: A bad idea.
Speaker 5: You saved that joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the trees will probably all be dead by then,
unless they didn take him out of the ground. Oh
you could just do what I do. I go to
Central Park every year. I cut down a tree and
I bring it home.
Speaker 5: It seems legal the love that.
Speaker 2: I'm kidding.
Speaker 3: What what would the law said? Just like there's got
to be a lot igal public.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's trees, it's the land, and I might
be able to he might he might be pro tree cutting.
Speaker 2: I should we should get him on. We could probably
Oh yeah, yeah, bring him on. That's the people. I hear.
Speaker 1: He's a big balls on the snest fan ball three
D ball three D.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I bet he's played some games. I'm just guessing he's
he's probably younger than all. Maybe I was like, he's
thirty four. I want to say Jesus.
Speaker 5: Christ, so accomplished.
Speaker 2: So he was on.
Speaker 5: He was on Twitch right before the election as well,
which was really weird.
Speaker 2: Politics.
Speaker 1: What's with these files everybody's talking about? No, I'm kidding.
Speaker 2: Anything else new with the interview? Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a busy time of year, right, yeah. Game of
the year time, it's travel time, it's family time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: In fact, that's why we had to record a little
earlier than we usually do. It's because this is Thanksgiving
week and so we're we have family and time. My
mother is in town right now, she's downstairs watching Hi Patty.
She's Amy Amy Watch. She's watching the Great British British
Bakeoff right now over the counter. Yeah, I don't think
you can get the Great British Bakoff on a CRT.
She's watching that on my regular But it's so funny
because if you go into the kitchen, Aladdin is playing
right now, nice as it should be.
Speaker 2: That'd be a nice ambiance thing.
Speaker 1: Just always have a VHS like playing in that TV,
even if you're not in the room.
Speaker 3: Do you really used to have Like back in the
days of like cartridges and CDs and stuff, there are
always those things that seemed so luxurious where it's like
it'd be a switcher or like a tower of h
you can put a twelve disc changer in this, so
twelve CDs and you can swap between them all. They
had a fucking thing for the Genesis where it's like
you can put six cartridges in there, or you can
buy numerous and hook it all up so then you'd
have all your cartridges plugged in at all times.
Speaker 4: And it's like, man, things just used to be Like.
Speaker 3: I'm nostalgic for cartridges and CDs and cassettes and stuff,
but like, man, that was a pain in the ass.
Speaker 5: It was a complicated time, but it was also a
rite of passage to be able to hook it up
and actually make it work. I am proud of that
era where it was like right red into the red, yellow,
into the yellow, white into the white, like you have
to have all of the different wires connected so that
all your shit worked. And I don't know, it's a
it's a badge of honor kind of like how our parents,
like I had to walk uphill to work both ways,
ten ten miles and it's like I had to plug
in the white wire, the yellow wire and the red wire,
and if anything was wrong, nothing worked, you had your
dad car see you everything. The cartridges. My dad, Jim
Kish loves.
Speaker 2: Right over white idiot.
Speaker 3: I remember when before they started put ounce Simpsons DVDs,
obviously where DVDs were a thing, I so desperately wanted
to have all my favorite Simpsons episodes like at the ready.
All the time they would occasionally put out of like oh,
here's like the Simpsons, here's three Christmas episodes on one
BHS or whatever, but like I wanted to be able
to like watch the Lemon Tree or whatever whenever I
wanted to. So I still I have in my storage.
I've got tons of a perfectly labeled I think I
was probably twelve years old, labeling just this one's got
you know, twelve Simpsons episodes on. I would do the
extended playthings so you could actually record more of them
on there, and it's okay, this is Lemonry, this is
Mono Rail, this is like I would cut out the
commercials and yeah, I was I would went in the
rest days I would have to like watch raw and
then record it, record Nitro and like set it to
record the right channel and all that. I was a
VCR wizard back then.
Speaker 2: Do you ever watch those like those VHS's.
Speaker 3: I will occasionally, like if I have people over for something,
like you know, if I have people over for like
a wrestling paper view or whatever, I'll put in one
of the old wrestling vhss I had and just have
it play on the CRT and another part of the room.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's kind of fun.
Speaker 3: Or like like I'll have tapes that are just labeled
comedy and I'm like, oh, okay, what did I think
comedy was in nineteen ninety eight or whatever, And it's like, Okay,
it's just a bunch of like Letterman and Conan and
you know, daily show bits, Insomniac or whatever.
Speaker 4: So south Park. So yeah, it's always fun.
Speaker 3: It's like going back to an old mixtape, like an
old CD and just be like, oh, what do they
make as a mixtape in two thousand and two?
Speaker 5: You know, an old like nostalgia shot, you know, just
to make you feel good. It's not like the most convenient,
it's just something that takes you back.
Speaker 2: Do you guys happen to remember one, at least one
of the songs on your first ever mixtape or burn CD?
Speaker 5: I mean I vividly yes, Uh there goes my hero
is like on one of my very first tapes that
I was like, this song is so good, Well what
still is have to record it? Oh it's still good? Yeah,
but I like, I absolutely have the record on on
a lot of those classics.
Speaker 2: Let me let me throw this at you and see
what your reaction is.
Speaker 1: I remember one song, and I remember the name of
my first I wasn't around when like you could make mixtapes,
but or I wasn't old enough to be making them.
But I remember my first Burned CD, and I had
a label and everything, and I named the CD and
one of the songs was story of a Girl I Forget,
and the CD was called Mike Monsters Mix.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, probably somewhere my parents. Oh sweet, I was going
for like a nevermind thing? Is never mind the one
with the baby in the pool? Yes, I'm going for that,
just without the baby.
Speaker 2: It was just a pool. Oh cool.
Speaker 1: I don't think my parents would have been cool with
a baby on the cover underwater sure, but yeah, Mike
Monster was my nickname for like two weeks.
Speaker 3: Mine was I I am old enough to do mixtapes,
and I would put in an a cassette tape and I
would call the radio station and I would like, so,
I remember the first time I did this, I really
wanted a doctor dere is nothing but a g thing?
And so I called into the radio station and said,
I want nothing but a G thing. I'm like nineteen
ninety one, I've probably like seven years old, and so
I have to sit there, buy my boom box with
a blank cassette, and I'm just waiting.
Speaker 2: It took like four hours for.
Speaker 4: Them to know this.
Speaker 3: One goes out Dan requesting this ver good, nothing but
a G thing, and they hit play and record at
the same time. So that's how I would get them
all is by calling the fucking radio station. And just
sitting by the boombox for hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remind that reminds me of like I think
the last song I remember like waiting or at least
being really psyched every time it came out of the
radio was Danny California, and I just didn't have the
money to buy Stadium Arcadium, especially because it's a two discs. Yeah,
Saturn in Mars, I believe, or Pluto in Mars. Apologies,
I'm embarrassed. Yeah, Danny California. Every time it came on,
my brother and I would be freaking out.
Speaker 3: Do you think Anthony Ketis would be awful to hang
out with or awesome?
Speaker 2: Based on his autobiography? Pretty awful? Oh? Is he?
Speaker 3: Is he like an He just strikes me as a
very obnoxious dude?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so okay, But is he also like
a bad dude? I don't really know.
Speaker 4: Was like personal?
Speaker 2: I have a red scar tissue in a while. I
know he grew up pretty rough.
Speaker 4: We had the Heroin thing going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I.
Speaker 2: Want to say he did.
Speaker 1: I might I mix this up sometimes and I'm not
trying to sound judgmental, but I believe the first time
he did Heroin he was nine and the first time
he had sex he was fourteen, and I believe it
was with like a stepmom or something.
Speaker 2: My dad was like an actor and I watched he
was an actor. Yeah, yes, something like that.
Speaker 1: But no, just the way it was written. I remember
it being very, very douchey.
Speaker 3: But I don't think Morris vibes from him. But like
Jim Morrison was alway trying to be like deep poet,
cool guy, and Anthony Ketis is just like, what if
all my lyrics.
Speaker 2: Were likelip You know that's also obnoxious? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what if I made What if I took hip
hop but made it bad? I've had my red out
Chili Preppers.
Speaker 4: I mean, they've got some very good songs, yeah.
Speaker 1: For sure, But no, I don't really feel an urge
to hang out with him.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think what's a number one musician?
Speaker 5: You don't want to meet your heroes? Just listen to
their music, enjoy the music.
Speaker 2: What's the what's the number one musician you think would
be awesome to hang out with.
Speaker 1: Them?
Speaker 2: Alive? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, yes, Alive. You like their music and you
think they'd be awesome to hang out.
Speaker 4: With Mike, I know yours is kid rock. I'm trying
to think.
Speaker 1: I think yours is Chris Brown, right, and then Mary's
a big Mary is a big Diddy fan, you know what.
Speaker 3: I bet Ludacris would be pretty fun to hang out with.
Speaker 5: Today.
Speaker 3: I liked him when all of his music videos were
him with like big hold hands and stuff and like
he was. He was a lot whackier back in the day.
I feel I don't really know what he's doing now.
Speaker 2: I mean you could, yeah, you'd have correct me if
I'm wrong.
Speaker 1: That's he was the one in Fast and Furious, right,
A couple of them, A few of them he was
in two, and then the rest of them. At least
you'd have that common ground to talk to him about.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I don't know that much about Fast and Furious,
but he was just always seemed like kind of a fun dude.
Speaker 5: I Jack Black and Kyle Gass would probably be pretty fun.
But that's not together these days, I don't think, But
I think they still get along. I just think that
one of them has to protect. I don't think you can.
I don't think you can be super political and also
be in a Mario movie.
Speaker 1: When you're the more popular one who makes the most money. Yeah,
you have to you have to be.
Speaker 2: A bit more.
Speaker 5: I think he rides the line. But I bet you there,
I bet you there. Friends, I don't think that that
ruined a friendship. I actually doubt it. Considering I actually think,
like I bet you, my guess is that he actually
does align with him politically. He just doesn't want to shower.
That's my guess.
Speaker 2: I go back and forth.
Speaker 1: I would love to run into David Byrne.
Speaker 3: I bet you would have a lot to talk to
David Byrne about. I don't know if I would.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I mean he's my favorite musician, so I
probably have big suits.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, big suits.
Speaker 1: I'd waltz around in oversized clothes all the time.
Speaker 2: I'm known to do that.
Speaker 3: But I also he seems like a guy that would
like talk about wine and books.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think so. But he went on Louis
Threw's podcast recently. I think he's at a point in
his life now where he's definitely admitting that he could
be a tough person to work with when they were
still songwriting as a group. But there's definitely like many
phases of his life where I don't think i'd like
hanging out with him, even though sure I love his
music with all my heart. Oh here here's someone who's
someone you hate but love their music. You would not
want to hang out with ever, but you love.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a good one.
Speaker 5: Billy Corgan is like kind of notoriously a piece of shit,
and I think he's like really hurt a lot of
his bandmates who I actually respect. But Melancholy and the
Infinite Sadness is so good. And I think a huge
part of what makes that music so good is his
distinct tone and voice. I just don't. I don't think
he's replaceable, but I do think he's not a good person.
Speaker 3: I love Bob Dylan's music. I bet he would suck
to hang out with.
Speaker 5: I think so too.
Speaker 2: I don't think he'd be like a person necessarily.
Speaker 3: I think I would just be like, man, I just
can't get anything out of this, dude.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for the emails telling us that every
one of these people is actually terrible.
Speaker 4: Super duper canceled.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure they are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of which, and this is I don't I'm
not actually trying to like be political, but this is
really funny.
Speaker 2: I saw a Reddit headline.
Speaker 1: I saw a Reddit headline today that the sham Wow
guy isading for Congress in Texas.
Speaker 2: Wonderful un like a yeah, he's running on an anti
woke agenda. That's when I saw that.
Speaker 3: The most shocking thing knock me over with a feather,
sham wow wow woke?
Speaker 2: Oh my god?
Speaker 5: WHOA.
Speaker 4: My whole worldview is shook.
Speaker 2: I forgot he was a person.
Speaker 4: He'll be president, It's fine.
Speaker 5: He's like it's like hashtag is like, let's clean up
this t city. He's like this titty city.
Speaker 3: No, but oh axl Rose. I I like him as
a singer in Frontman a lot.
Speaker 2: I bet he's I said, that's.
Speaker 5: Probably true for a lot of rock stars. I question,
like James Hetfield buckethead Like, I just feel like a
lot of these people are like, not super great to
actually chill with.
Speaker 3: Sure Slash, I bet I bet current day Slash should
be okay.
Speaker 2: I honestly don't think I knew Slash.
Speaker 5: I would love to believe this.
Speaker 2: Oh how old is Slash? Now?
Speaker 3: I'm going to seventy eighties, fifty I'm gonna get fifty
seven really or maybe early sixties maybe?
Speaker 2: Oh, like I will go to at least seventies.
Speaker 4: He's sixty.
Speaker 2: Yeah really this year? Yeah, yeah, huh. They were younger
than I thought.
Speaker 3: I mean they were in like the late eighties early
nineties when they were at their peaks. So yeah, I
guess so twenty something, you know.
Speaker 2: Rolling Stones, they're like late seventies now, right.
Speaker 3: Oh, they're like I think Mick and Keith are probably
close to like eighty something now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've looked like they were eighty for forty years now.
I saw them.
Speaker 3: I guess it's probably ten years ago now, and like,
god damn, they were like seventy something at the time
and they were like shit, I guess when it's it's
one of those things where that's all they do. That's
all they've done their entire lives, and it's just like
their bodies are just you know, built for it and
touring and everything. Like they were actually pretty fantastic. No.
Spring Springsteen's another one of those guys that's like very
old but like the energy levels and everything, and they're.
Speaker 5: Like I saw Springsteen not that long ago, and I
thought he.
Speaker 2: Did great, Like he's a great live show.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they still have it. I don't know, I don't
think everybody loses their luster.
Speaker 4: Oh you know who does? Bob Dylan? Bob Dylan.
Speaker 3: I saw Bob Dylan twice because I just felt like
I had to because he's one of my favorites. And
both times it's just like there was one time he
started singing and it was like two minutes into the
song before I realized, oh, this is like a rolling stone,
this is like his most famous song.
Speaker 2: But he just goes up there.
Speaker 3: You have no idea what the fuck he's singing, or
just like renting into the microphone.
Speaker 4: Was like, oh, this is an awful concert.
Speaker 2: I've met a few friends told me that I don't
have a desire to see him anymore. Yeah, all right,
well sorry, Mary, go ahead.
Speaker 5: All of our heroes lost to Tom.
Speaker 3: With George Clinton and Prolman Funkadelic. They were very cool
and I was eighteen and they gave me beer. That
was cool. I was on stage with them and then
went back to hotel and shot a little sketch and
they were all.
Speaker 4: Very cool funk dudes.
Speaker 5: And where are they now?
Speaker 2: George Clem's live, he said he's sober. Clem's doing better
than ever. Good for him.
Speaker 5: Yeah, gonna be dead.
Speaker 3: I don't know it's Bootsy Collins and Bootsy Collins was
not there that night, but uh yeah, it's like a
lot of peopunk.
Speaker 4: It's doing well, all right.
Speaker 2: You want to talk about video games? I do all right.
Speaker 1: As mentioned, we are a day late with the episode
because we were waiting for the Metroid Prime four embargo. Dan,
you are the only one here has been playing it.
You said you're about three quarters ish of the way
through as of this recording.
Speaker 3: Based on what they show, like, oh get this many
things and uh not three quarters, I'd say maybe sixty
seventy percent is kind of where I'm feeling right now. Yeah,
it has been my entire weekend. It's been a lot
of four am nights and stuff like that. I am
actually intending on doing a written review a bit for
Giant Bombs, So as this episode goes up, it should
also have a written article at Giant Bomb that you
should check out unless something goes awright. But uh yeah,
I've got that pretty much ready to go. Metrod Prime. Yes,
what is your two experiences with this series?
Speaker 2: Sorry, I'll be right back in.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I got it. Go ahead, Uh Prime or Metroid.
Speaker 4: Prime.
Speaker 5: Big fan of Metroid and really enjoyed the last in
the series. I think I'm trying to understand like where
we're at now with the latest the latest Prime, and
what this has added to the series.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's been so long now, and it feels
like just the whole history of Metroid is so weird
where it's like it always felt like Japan never really
understood what like they always tried to bring Metroid to
the States because they're like, oh, okay, well they like
first person shooters and stuff there, and that's why, you know,
Metrod Prime was kind of a first person you know,
that was a big debate back in the days, like
this is is this an FBS Metrod Prime. No, it's not.
It plays very differently. It's a three D Metroidvania. But
they were doing like we'd multiplayer stuff and pinball stuff
and you know, the DS game and like they've been
all over the place of the series for so long,
and I think the Prime series is the one thing
outside of just that core two D traditional Metroidvania series
that they really really nailed. Like did you remember Other
End Did you ever play that?
Speaker 4: Mary?
Speaker 5: I don't think I played Other m.
Speaker 4: It's it's like it was such.
Speaker 3: They've made so many weird missteps with the series where
it's like this is one where they made like Samus
is like super sassy and we're gonna put a bunch
of cutscenes in here, and she's.
Speaker 5: Well, excuse me, it's bam.
Speaker 3: That it's basically that they gave it to Team Ninja
and gave her like it's just it's not at all
what makes Metroid metrod and Prime is Metroid as it
should be in three D. And the first one I
think is definitely the best in the series. It is
just kind of that like lonely isolated experience of just
Samus and space as you're traveling between all these planets
and things like that. U two got a little bogged
down with this like kind of light world dark world
type stuff that I did not love to That was
my least favorite Prime series. And then three was good,
but it was we so it was like really kind
of like motion control gimmicky. So there were those three,
and now it's been fucking forever since three, since that
Wei game, so we had.
Speaker 5: Dread, Like are we just saying only Prime.
Speaker 3: Dread is Dread is from the I think at the
beginning it even said like Metroid five, I think because
it's Metrid one to Super Metroid, and then I think
metrod Fusion was technically four Dread was five of like
the Core series that's like the two D metrod Mania.
So this is the fourth Prime and so it's been
forever since we've had a Prime. I want to say,
Corruption was like two thousand and eight or something like that,
two thousand and eight, I think. So I think there's
a lot of reason coming into this to be very
skeptical because it's been all over the place from a
series standpoint, even the Prime series itself has been kind
of like varying levels of quality, and it's been forever,
And there was a huge delay that was like them
straight up saying like, hey, we're going back to the
drawing board here.
Speaker 5: Something's wrong here, which is not what you want to
hear from your game design.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're restarting development basically from scratch, is what they said.
So like there was like a lot of reasons to
be kind of like, Okay, what's going to be the
deal here? I will say, I do think, and keep
in mind, this is not my final thoughts here. My
final thoughts will be like the review and things like that,
because I've not beaten the game yet and there's still
things I need to test. I need to test the
mouse mode and things like that. But as of right now,
you know, sixty seventy percent in I feel like this
is definitely up there with the first one as far
as the best.
Speaker 4: Met Roid Prime.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, Dan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't think right now, I'll say it's I
don't think it's better than one. I think One was
just like, what is age incredibly Well, if you play
the remastered one can on Switch recently, it's like it's
still incredible. So it's like, you think about them doing
that in two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: I think that came out with.
Speaker 5: All the advancements in technology.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like, but this does capture that spirit of
the first one. They've changed some big things about the
format as far as like there's an open world here,
and I think when people hear that, I think people
immediately go to like, oh, Breath of the Wild and
what they did with Zelda and making an open world.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: Also because Prime is also notorious for being like you
get a specific thing, you're meant to go to a
specific place. What are you doing in an open world
when you have a very specific item.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean there is that.
Speaker 3: There is that like Metroidvania elements where it's like okay,
so I went and did this. I went to this area,
and oh, I can't cross this bridge or this lava
thing because I.
Speaker 4: Need to go back to this previous place and I
need to get.
Speaker 3: This thing that gives me the suit that lets me
you know, be heat resistant and stuff like that. So
I want to be careful when I say open world.
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 3: This is not a breath of the wild type situation.
I kind of thought at the beginning it might be
more like that, because like I went to my map
and it's like, oh, you can set markers. You can
like you know, say like oh this is a missile
expansion or an energy tank or something like that. It's
you can do that, but it's not this huge thing.
It's more like High Rule Field was in Okrane of time,
where it's like it is a kind of large open
area with some things dotted throughout that you can do
to kind of connect these larger you know, like Death
Mountain and Cocriaco Village and all that stuff. You know,
it's you know what I thought of a lot Mary
is Gears five because remember how Gears five tried that
stuff where there was I think Act two and three.
Speaker 5: It's an open world, but it's like you were going
to a very specific location most of the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, whatever those two acts were where it's like one
of them was like ice and one of them was sand,
and like specifically I was thinking of the sand one
because it's very much like that where it's like there
is this large open desert and there are things kind
of sprinkled throughout. You know how like in Gears, you
know you'd find like a little outposts like I'm gonna
shoot some things here and I'm go get this some
cogs and shit like that. Uh, this is similar like
you'll take an elevator down into a shrine, you'll do
a quick thing.
Speaker 4: You'll get like a missile expansion or something like that.
Speaker 3: But it is I think this is gonna be a
polarizing thing because it is kind of an empty open world.
It is it's a desert, so it's there's not a
lot going on, like enemies will like you know, some
flying enemies will show up. You know, there's shrines here,
there's these like green crystals you can go around and collect.
Speaker 5: But the shrines. Sorry to interrupt, you, just like down
what the shrine is?
Speaker 3: But why it's it's it's like a shrine that's probably
closer to Breath the Wild, where like you go down
into a thing, you save a very quick puzzle, you
get a.
Speaker 4: Thing and you go back to the open world, you.
Speaker 3: Know, but kind of thing, a missile expansion or a
thing that makes it so if you charge your ice beam,
you shoot three ice beams at a time something like that.
But yeah, but it's it's not like Breath the While,
where there's one hundred and twenty. There's like I've run
into like five of them I can go to, you know,
and I'm pretty far out of the game. So it
is it's pretty empty, but it's it's cool in that
like you've got the bike. Have you seen the bike
from the trailers or anything? Viola, it's just sam as
looks cool as hell. This bike is cool as hell.
The way you summon it is you hit the plus
button and like, you know how like Eldon Ring you
want to summon Torrent and just like well right here,
you know, it's it's not the whistle wait for the
horse thing. It's like, oh, they're right under your ass basically,
so you hit the button, it just seamlessly does this
great animation if you're going from first person to camera
pans out Samus does this giant backflip twenty feet in
the air. Motorcycle comes up underneath you. You land on it,
and you're just taking off through the desert on your
space bike. It's fucking cool, Like it just feels good
to cruise around. It's you know, hilly, and there's some
jumps and there are some collectibles and stuff to get there,
but ultimately you are just kind of going from point
of interest to point of interest. But it like, it
feels really fucking cool with this bike. So I think
some people will probably complain about the emptiness or whatever,
but honestly, it didn't really bother me.
Speaker 4: And then once you.
Speaker 3: Get to these large areas like this first area of
Fury Green that you go to, or then Volts Forge,
like it is kind of this like you know, ice fire,
you know, kind of the traditional type of thing you see.
You know, game is forever, but everything visually, the music,
it is just the most metroid shit you can imagine.
There's a part where it's like I went back and
I did. I reloaded the save just so I could
record this of when you first go into Fury Green.
It's like the first kind of foresty area you're in,
and it shows the title card and just the fond
treatment's really cool and everything, and the music comes in
and it's the most metroid ass music and it's so
so good. It sets that tone so so well, and
so those Metroid moments are really there now.
Speaker 5: The vibes are immaculate.
Speaker 2: They are.
Speaker 3: But another thing I heard people were upset about was
that there's there are other characters now and some of
them talk, and so, Mike, have you heard some of this?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I read the previews, so sorry I stepped out. Apologies
if I'm retreating stuff. I read previews, and I know
there was worry that they were having like an Atreus
situation with helping you solve stuff early.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's not so That's the thing is like I
fucking hate the Atreyas memir Aloy thing where you walk
into a room. It's like, no, I bet if I
climb this, and then if I jump down, and then
if I equit this thing and then break that rock
wall I'm gonna get to the next thing.
Speaker 4: It's fucking not that at all.
Speaker 3: Like the first maybe hour of the game, there is
a character you run into. This is the one that
they talked about in the previous His name is Miles McKenzie.
He is an obnoxious character. He's like, I'm nerdy science
guy or whatever. I'm here to help you out, Santas
and like there are a couple parts where he's like, Oh,
you should do this, go check this out or whatever.
He's just kind of really there in the first hour,
and he is obnoxious in that, Like it is weird.
In a game that's all about kind of like the
vibes and the atmosphere and just the loneliness of space,
you've got this fucking guy who's saying things like whin
and boo yeah, and like you know, it's it's I know,
I know, that's like you're spoken exactly and that epis
is kryptonite to me. So if that was a guy
that was saying that type of shit and doing mameir
aloy shit the whole game, I would be the first
to be like this sucks.
Speaker 4: Shit.
Speaker 3: But he's there for that first little like maybe an
hour is probably generous. He's kind of done after that,
and then he's just like a dude that is like
when you go back to your like home base area
to like upgrade your arm cannon or something, he's the
guy you give it chip to and he's like, God,
now you can do ice, and then you leave and
fuck off and don't talk to him again. You know,
It's like you can call him as like a codec type,
like you know, like a metal gear. You can call
the colonel. If you need to figure out what to
do next, you can do that. You can go to
the map and hit X and talk to him, but
he's not like constantly in your ear. And more importantly,
he is not telling you what to do Like that
would fucking ruin a Metroid game for me if I
walked in and he was like, hey, Samus, I think
you need to power that up to open the door.
Like it's not that at all, and he's not the
only character, but it's far from a constant thing in
this game. So if anyone's worried about that based on
the previews or whatever, like I agree, he's annoying, and
but like he's not a big deal in.
Speaker 1: This I'm so I also really liked how Metroid Prime
and Echoes and Corruption to some extent, emphasize Samus's skills
as like a scientist.
Speaker 2: They lean into that here. I don't know, Prime, you're
very much like you're scanning stuff a lot.
Speaker 1: You're like you're you're you're cataloging stuff. I love that
aspect of it. That wasn't the main draw for me,
but I liked how they embraced her as this like, yeah,
this explorer. This not not just like actually like documenting
her exploration.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of like you know, Batman also had
like the detectective stuff I just beaten people up, you know, yeah,
they do that.
Speaker 4: And the scanning.
Speaker 3: I actually, before I write the review, I still need to,
like I want to go back to my reviews of
like you know three and things like that, because I
think this is the first time like the scanning, like
back I remember it in all the old ones is
like tiny orange squares, tiny red squares, and you're going
around kind of scanning all that. This is just kind
of visually it's better where it's like just big green things,
like the whole object, like if it's a statue, will
be fully green, so you know, you go into that
and it's like the psychic you know filter or whatever,
and you can just see entire objects highlighted and things
like that. So it's a lot easier to kind of
go around and scan and not just have a bunch
of little colored squares everywhere. So yeah, that's scanning aspect
and going through log books and trying to find out,
you know, what happened with this ancient civilization, these like
Lamorne priests and like, you know, this ancient it's it's
very metroated, this like ancient you know race that like
you know, you are the character of prophecy that's supposed
to save them and all this stuff. It's very metright
in that way. But you are going through all their
log books and things like that and kind of deciphering
what has happened with their history and how things came.
Speaker 4: To be okay on the present.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it's it's a thing where it's like, Okay,
there's these five mcguffins. There's these five things you need
to get. As of right now, I've got three of them.
There was a point after I got the first two
where it was like, okay, well here's you need to
get three more and do it in any order, like
they say, do it in any order. And I remember
like going to just a far off one. It like
seemed like they were suggesting, like, hey, go to this one.
I was like, oh no, I want to do the
you know, Breath the Wild thing. I'm gonna go all
the way over there, you know the way Breath the
Wild kind of wanted you to go towards the water
area firstance like I fuck that, I'm going to the
Rito village or whatever. But they did kind of like
gate me and we're like, oh, yeah, you can't cross
this thing. You should probably just like I do wonder.
I do want to do some more research on this
and see how open it actually is, because it did
seem like there is kind of an order to do here.
So like, I don't want people going into this thinking
this is the Breath of the Wild of Metroid.
Speaker 2: It is not.
Speaker 3: This is a Metroid game with the big desert in
between like these much larger areas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think I want it to do that.
I don't either.
Speaker 3: I mean, I guess I didn't know if I want
to Zelda to do that, So I'm always open to
be surprised. But I am happy with the way this is.
You know, it's just like briefly, like these dungeons you know,
for lack of a better term, are big and they
do follow like kind of that Zelda thing of like
you're going through solving puzzles, unlocking doors, you're getting an item,
you're fighting a boss with it, and then you're kind
of back to the open world doing some other stuff
before you go to the next area. So yeah, I
do feel like that desert is just kind of that
again High Royal Fields from Acarina, where you're just kind
of like, yeah, I'm just I'm walking across here to
get to you know, the lake or whatever. So do
not think this is a breath of wild or anything
like that. Other big changes and stuff there's instead of
just like missiles, there's like elemental shots, so it's not like, oh,
you get the ice beam or you get the plasma beam,
and then your standard shot is just that it is.
You have your standard shot, which I think is just
called the psychic beam, but then you can switch to
missiles with the dpad, but you can also switch to
you know, I won't spoil every beam you get or whatever.
But they use a separate, separate type of AMMO basically,
and it's very generous with that. I don't feel like
I have to be sparing with it. And you know,
I'm just constantly getting You get elemental AMMO and you
can use that for whatever of these elements you've unlocked.
Speaker 4: Basically, it makes.
Speaker 3: Sense standard shots, missiles, and then you've got the elemental shots,
and the elemental shots are critical to like opening certain doors,
doing certain things as you would expect the game.
Speaker 5: Also, like boasted in the advertising, I feel like this
isn't a spoiler because it's in the ads for it.
It's like some kind of psychic abilities or something like yep,
that is that elemental or is that something else that's different.
Speaker 3: The elemental is just kind of like your your shots,
like from your.
Speaker 5: Lightning cannon, your whatever. Okay, yeah, so what's a what
the psychic stuff?
Speaker 3: The psychic stuff is like early on, you get this
like crystal and it's in Samus's helmet and you can
it's like when you go to scan, it's basically like
the psychic filter now, so and you can use that
to like you get a psychic lasso, so you can
like pull certain things and some of the stuff. They
just add the word psychic to an ability that's already
been a metroid. So like I just got this boost ball,
which has been in every metrod Prime basically, but now
it's the psychic boostball or whatever. So it's like, oh,
and there's like a purple contrail, Like everything's just kind
of purple if it's psychic, you know. So ultimately it's
like you can use it to like certain locks and
things like that. You can move like kind of telekinesis,
move things with your psychic abilities. It's to me, it's
more of a branding thing than anything. It's just like
things that have kind of already been around at metrod
Prime are just now purple and they call.
Speaker 2: It psychic, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: There's some cool things where it's like you'll find a
psychic it's like this boostball cannon thing and you're basically
riding this like psychic wave instead of like a physical
boostball track or something like that. But I don't know,
it's functionally, I think that's very similar to the other stuff.
And then the moving stuff around is kind of like
it almost feels like the motion stuff from metter Prime
three on wis it's not a game change or anything.
And it's also not obnoxious. And I will say the
motion stuff. I'm playing with the switch to pro controller
and that has been really good. Like I went into
the options and you can very much get in there
and be like I want this to be motion controlled.
I don't want this to be motion controlled. I want
this the aiming to be motion controlled, but I want
there to be a threshold where it's like I have
to move the controller a certain amount before my you know,
lock on will kind of like let me target other
limbs and things like that. So I've really tweaked that
a lot, and I do think turning motion control on
for most things in this game is the way to go.
I want to try the mouse mode because I try
it at the preview event in New York City and
the really great for certain boss fights and stuff. So
I want to try, but like I just don't know,
Like I'm sitting on a couch playing on a big TV.
I don't know, Like I know they said they want
the mouse to be like, oh, you can put it
on your thigh or whatever. I'd just rather play with
my controller that it seems to be doing a great
job here, so remains to be seen on that, but
ultimately it's like all of the Metroid stuff is there
and it's great, Like all the stuff you come to
Metroid Prime for specifically is kind of top notch right now.
And I really do think I like this more than
two and three. Two just got it's focused. It's focused
in a way that two and three weren't. I think
two was going a little too hard on these kind
of like light world dark world gimmicks that I didn't love.
Three went a little too hard on the motion stuff.
This does seem like a bit of a return to form,
even though they've kind of added things like the more
open area and certain elements. It feels more like the
first one than two or three.
Speaker 4: I would say.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say I liked Corruption.
Speaker 1: Corruption was definitely my second favorite one, but like, and
I like that Echoes was attempting that light dark world
stuff as like its overall defining mechanic.
Speaker 2: I was gonna ask, is that Metroid Prime fours.
Speaker 1: Is it that it's semi open, more open this time around,
that's like it's defining conceit.
Speaker 2: You'd say it's.
Speaker 3: A good question, because, like I think the stuff that
I'm liking the most is that it does remind me
more of the first game, and like, I do like
the open world stuff, but I don't think it's that
huge of a part of the experience. I mean, all
the stuff I'm loving is the stuff of just going
through these worlds and exploring and upgrading and things. It's
like very Metroid Prime one, I would say. And then
if anything, the open world is just kind of like
a fun thing to do in between that. So yeah,
I don't think there's a huge gimmick here. I like,
and even adding characters that speak and dialogue and stuff
like that, they haven't gone full other m or made
this like a weird like we're gonna give Samus a
big story. It's like, no, they don't get too hard
on that it. It does seem like they're just trying
to kind of go back to basics in a way,
in a way I appreciate. And something I think is
really cool is it looks the way like Samus and
just these environments and everything I have always in the
Prime series have looked so sleek and so cool, and
the design is just incredible, and I feel playing this
that it looks the way I remember Metroid Prime one
looking in the same way that like when you play
a really good like HD remaster or remake, like when
you play when wacer HD, it's like, oh, yeah, this
is how I remember it looking. But then you actually
go back and you play the original one, You're like, oh,
this actually looks way way better. I think this is
a similar thing where it's like it is obviously head
and shoulders above it, but like it is, it is
evoking that same feel. It is looking the way you
remember it looked when you were being blown away by
the first Metrod Prime and O two.
Speaker 1: You know, that's super promising, especially having played Metroid Prime
last year on the switch the was it last year
two years ago? The remaster two years ago? I think
one or two years something like that. Either way, replaying that,
I was like, oh man, now I really can't wait
for four. So I'm definitely gonna try to play it
at least a few hours in the next couple of
days before Game of the Year stuff starts.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we will have to decide if it's eligible, I mean,
because like I mean it is, it will definitely be
on my top ten for sure, but we have to decide,
like if it's just not reasonable for people to you know,
play through enough of this year.
Speaker 4: We might have to push it to next year.
Speaker 5: But it's just such a difficult time to release a
game like that, and unfortunately, especially when it comes to
like our Goady, it's meant to be a love letter
to all of our tastes and so that makes it
really difficult. But this is such an obvious game for
us to play.
Speaker 2: So yeah, but I'm not going to play it.
Speaker 5: I just don't know I'm going to play enough of
it for us to talk about it. That's what it's hard.
Speaker 3: If we got to push it to next year, we
push it next year. But I mean the important thing
is I think everyone's going to like this a lot.
Speaker 4: It is. It is a tremendous game.
Speaker 2: Dumb question. Is it compatible with the first Switch? Yes?
It is? Oh cool, Okay, I have not tried it's
not in that regard.
Speaker 3: Then uh no, no, it's it is because they announced
it as a Switch one game, and then yeah.
Speaker 1: That's that's true. It's been in development for a while now.
Speaker 3: Oh, going back to Marry you asked about the psychic abilities.
A one new one that I like a lot is
there's a psychic charge shot. You can do so if
you charge your cannon and you shoot it while you're
in the psychic mode, it does the uh you eBay
heavenly sword. Yeah, you know how you like shoot an
arrow and you could like after touch the arrow and
stuff like that. So, uh like Jumper bending the bullets, you.
Speaker 2: Could that masterpiece. Of course, everyone knows Jumper. You've never
seen it. No, Wanted is when they curve the bullets.
Speaker 3: No, I think Jumper is the bending the bullets one.
I think to look it up because in my notes
it's Jumper and I haven't written the review yet.
Speaker 1: Jumper is the one with Hayden Christiansen and I think
Samuel L. Jackson where they can literally just warp around
the world. Wanted is James McAvoy with the bending the bullets.
Speaker 4: Which movie can they bend bullets? I told you it's Wanted.
I got to change my notes.
Speaker 5: It's Angelina Joli.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, they've got it. She's got a scene.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's he's Mike is right, It's it's Angelina
Jolie bends the bullets by moving the gun really fast.
Speaker 5: From right to left. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I am changing my notes right now to wanted
instead of where ye but yeah, and then it's like
you have a lot of control over it. It's not
just like after touch, so it's like there will be
a certain panel that you need to hit and so
you charge it.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: A great example is there was like a mini boss
and he had these three kind of like energy orbs
around him in a triangle and you could only kind
of take a shield down if you hit all of
them pretty much simultaneously. So of course you start and
it's just like, okay, well I'm trying to shoot them all,
but he's recharging real quick. But then you realize, oh, right,
when I do the psychic charge shot, it kind of
pauses time for a little bit or like super slows
it down, so you're able to like guide this one
energy shot and steer it and you can do that
with the gyro controls too, and you're just steering it
around to hit all of these orbs and then it
brings down the thing and then you can just unload
missiles and stuff into it. Like lots of great mini
bosses and really clever stuff like that, Like the bosses
specifically have.
Speaker 4: Been a blast in this one.
Speaker 3: Nice I mean, as soon as I've been playing it
all day, was we're done with this stuff. I'm going
right back and playing it all night. So well, it's.
Speaker 1: Also switched to speaking of Mary before I move on
to you. You've been playing Kirby Air Riders.
Speaker 3: Oh damn, Oh my god. Oh I thought you were
queuing up Mary. You're crying, you up?
Speaker 1: Mary didn't play it. We're talking switch. Yeah, like a
few hours of it on Gamecubrets.
Speaker 4: Of the original one on GameCube was. I didn't play
it much.
Speaker 1: I compared it to super monkey Ball, like similar, like
I think they were kind of going for and I
might just be actually, now that I think about it,
I might be confusing it with super monkey Ball, but
I remember it being like high velocity kind of three
D platforming, course navigation.
Speaker 3: Is that platforming? It's it's it's a racing game, but
there's no acceleration button.
Speaker 4: It's just the first it was a one button game.
Speaker 5: The first people say it was like the Smash Bros.
Of racing.
Speaker 2: That's what it was.
Speaker 3: The Smash Brothers guy, like the guy who made Smash
Brothers made And it's like so obvious playing it cause
it's just filled like it kind of makes sense in
Smash Brothers, where it's like, good, it's every Nintendo character
effort and everything from every game, and this one it's
just insanity. Like, I really this is the game that
made me realize that there's a limit to me liking
that specific Nintendo brand of bullshit, you know, like Mario
Party and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Just feed it to me, you know, put in my veins.
This one is just like, this is just chaos in
a way that I don't know if I.
Speaker 2: Like, uh and finally went too far.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's just a bunch of shit on the screen.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but I kind of like it like that you're
respected in ways where it's like you'll go to the
main menu, it's like, wait, what is this gummies section?
Speaker 3: And it's like, oh, I guess I unlocked a bunch
of gummy candy in the shape of all the machines
and stuff, and I guess I can like zoom in
on all the gummy candy, Like why is this a mode?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 3: And then it's every time you finish a race, you're
unlocking eight thousand things like in Smash Brothers, all the
stickers and decals and new character and all that, it's
like the same announcer and you know, just the menu
style and everything is so fucking Smash Brothers. But I
don't know if it's just because, like I don't know,
people are used to like the Mario Kart style of
like yep, here's the acceleration and you roll over.
Speaker 5: The right, not just play Mario Kart, I guess is
my question.
Speaker 6: Oh I will, That's what I'm gonna donative to. Yeah, yeah,
I mean I kind of appreciate the variety that they
have here, because like there's weird modes like the city
trial thing where it's just like five minutes and a
city is just exploding and there's giants and meteors and
all you're doing is just going around eating fucking JPEGs
of food and getting these stat boosts and stuff like that,
and then it goes to a like randomized minigame afterwards
where it's like gobble up the most stuff, or yeah,
you know, here's a melee fight with everyone or a
boss fight.
Speaker 3: Like there's just like weird, weird variety that I appreciate,
But also it just seems like there's no clear through
line between any of this it's like I don't know
if it feels great as a racing game, and some
of these mini games are okay, but it also feels
like to what end, Like what are we doing here
with this kid?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 5: Visually it's crack, Like it's so hard to parse because
there's a lot of particle effects. There's a lot of
uh different ways you can impact the players around you.
I think there's even like NPCs in the space. There's
just like a lot visually going on. And I think
for the youths, it's really possible that this is something
that's going to like really appeal to a younger generation
that like needs a lot of action action action to
keep their attention attention attention. But to me, I feel
kind of overwhelmed watching it.
Speaker 3: I do too, And I feel like I would have
felt it even back then when I was younger, Like
I had Bonk play it just because like this is
like the opposite of a Bonk game, Like this is
just she has no tolerance for like just Nintendo insanity bullshit.
Her play like for a few minutes with me, and
she's like, this is like the video game equivalent of
just like putting your forearm against the keyboard and just
like rubbing it back and forth. A bunch of shit
opening here, Like yeah, I uh, I don't know if
I'll play much more of this. I like that there's
a lot of unlockables and variety and stuff. I'm kind
of intrigued by the single players stories story mode, but
it's just kind of a lot of nonsense, maybe in
the bad way.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I'm more likely to play Metroid Primes
four if I had to choose.
Speaker 4: That's a better and I will say that is a
better game.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, Mary, you played something called good Night Universe.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is really cool and I don't know if
you guys have heard of this game, but I'm really
excited to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Oh. This is made.
Speaker 5: By the same people who made Before Your Eyes, which
was an eye tracking where you start as a baby
and every time you blink, you go possibly five seconds,
possibly five years into the future of your life. And
so the game is in a way and directly trying
to train you, you know, be careful of blinking too
fast because your life is going to flash before your eyes.
And so it's a very provoking game. Good Night Universe
is their second game. Uh, Similarly, you do start as
a baby, but you remain a baby throughout the entire
period of this game. This isn't about flashing forward through time.
This also tracks your eyes and it tracks your emotions,
which I thought was really cute. So if you laugh
in the game as a baby, you laugh. If you cry,
your baby cries, which is kind of cute. So yeah,
it has it has like a camera track on it,
so anytime I was like, my baby would cry and
the mom would be like, it's okay, honey, it would
like take care of me. I thought that was a
cute little gimmick.
Speaker 4: A cigarette.
Speaker 5: It only does happiness and sadness. It doesn't smoking, which
you cannot do as a baby.
Speaker 2: I would try to break it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, like Inject Heroin. No, it's not that type
of game. It's more like simple. But it also tracks
your face stop trying to jack off.
Speaker 3: The audio listener Mike Maharty was doing the jack off
motion a baby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got started young.
Speaker 5: But it tracks your head, which is important mechanically to
something that happens. So I'm gonna try to not go
too far in this story because it goes a lot
deeper than before. Your eyes this game story progresses dramatically,
and I actually really like that about this game. So
at the very beginning, what I will say is is
you are a baby, and it starts literally from like
you coming out into the world and learning very early
that you are cognitively basically an adult. You understand people,
you could react to them, but your baby actions are
very limited, and so your parents will be saying, like,
what do you want to be when you grow up?
A firefighter? And you're like, no, I want to like
be a doctor, like I want to do all these
other things. Know, all your baby can say is like
googu gaga, and so you're very limited with what you
can output into the world. Cognitively, you are very smart,
and so.
Speaker 3: That how you you as the player or the baby
character is smart both.
Speaker 5: I mean, like you are also smart Dan, like a.
Speaker 3: Baby that was like cognitively, were you like a smart
adult that got turned into a baby?
Speaker 2: Like, yes, how do they like you? Yes, that's what happens.
Speaker 5: I mean you will have to play the game to
really understand how you got there. But the concept of
this game is that you are obviously way too smart
to be in a baby's body, Like what's going on
something is wrong, right, Essentially that you are so smart
that you are self aware. You're not supposed to be
self aware until like you're like six or seven, and
all of a sudden you realize that you're self conscious. Yeah,
somewhere when your frontal lobe develops around twenty four. Until
then you're just you're just a meat bag. In this game,
you are thoughtful and aware and functioning. You are aware
that you love your parents. You know that your sister
is smart, but like she she's like an angsty teen, right,
and so she's going through all these problems. And then
you also start to develop these skill sets so moderately
through the game. So I'm not going to go too
far because again we're going to get into spoiler territory,
but I will acknowledge moderately through the game you start
to develop some type of powers that will impact the
world and the people around you. And I think that's
really when the game starts to take off. You do
shit your pants in this game, Yeah, this is expected.
There are like there are like standard things that I
think babies do that you do in this game, like
poop yourself. But then all of a sudden you'll realize
that if you concentrate hard enough, sometimes you can hear
people's thoughts. And so this is where the face tracking
comes in, because the game will ask you to close
your eyes, and the game tracks your eyes so it
knows when you close your eyes, and then you'll turn
your head. And turning your head is like a radio
dial So as I turn my head to the left,
you'll hear like different waveforms and different sounds. And as
you turn your head to the right, you'll turn the
exact frequency of your sister's thoughts and you'll hear what
she's thinking at any given time. And it's actually quite
well written and cheeky. There'll be these like situations where
your parents are fighting and you'll turn your head to
like hear what your dad is thinking through this fight,
and it's it's like really, it's it's funny and interesting.
I think the dialogue is quite brilliant. It gets really good,
especially towards the end, where you're like, I cannot believe
it has gotten this far in the story, Like I
didn't know that I was gonna take this turn. So
I encourage you not to dive too far into videos
because I don't want you to spoil yourself. But I
loved it. I loved this journey of being a baby
that's like too smart for its own good and figuring
out how I'm gonna like tell my I'm trying to
tell my family that I'm really smart. I'm trying to
figure out I'm trying to protect my sister because she
has a boy over and I don't like him, and
it's like, how do you how do you like scare
this guy as a smart baby? But you're not fully
in control of your body yet. It's really it's really cool.
Speaker 3: Do you get prompts like when you are closing your
eyes and turning your head, is there like a like
tuning in kind of audio for something.
Speaker 5: There's like ann think about it. Think about like turning
a knob on an actual radio, and then all of
a sudden you hear like your sister's voice. That's kind
of what it does. Same thing for being able to uh,
maybe you're not in the room, but you want to
know what your mom's up to. You can start to
do stuff like that too, or you'll like close your
eyes and as long as you're looking in the right direction,
all of a sudden, like something will happen and you'll
see what your mom is up to, or maybe you
can like move stuff like it gets pretty cool as
you progress.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's cool that they're, like you said,
this is the same developer as the Behind Your Eyes game.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Before Your Eyes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Think that's a cool gimmick of Like I've always liked
the idea of like incorporating like you know, like bach
Tie had a solar panel on it and you had
to go outside to charge your gun, Like I like
any outside the box type stuff where it's like game
mechanics utilizing like a camera or something like this. Then
that sounds really cool to me.
Speaker 5: It's underappreciated in my opinion. I don't think a lot
of people are talking about it, but I was. I was,
so I really enjoyed the ride, and I think this
game was about four to five hours. This is not
a long experience. So this is an evening for you
to enjoy a beautiful story of a family that loves
a baby that's too smart, and you, as the baby,
get to decide the fate of this family and your journey.
You get to learn a lot about the dynamics of
what a loving parent relationship is like, especially when they're
under an extraordinary amount of pressure from external forces, a
lot of good family dynamics. It takes some interesting turns.
I didn't love all of the different what I'm gonna say,
like they took risks as game designers. I could tell
they said, ooh, we're going to try and do this
and se if it works. And I didn't love all
of them. But I do love risky design. I love
that these guys tried something very different than Before Your Eyes.
They like pushed it to the limit on this. One
of it works, some of it doesn't. I still think
this is an excellent game, and I do I would
love more people to have this experience, especially for a
four hour game, like give this a try.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it only has like four hundred and seventy
Steam reviews considering how much press Before Your Eyes got.
Speaker 5: I agree, and I to hear about it before it
came out. It does more than Before Your Eyes did,
Like quite frankly, I mean it just does. I think
it's just so much more, uh with the idea of
like what can you do with eye tracking and uh
face tracking? Because it knows where I'm looking and it
knows when I'm happier, said, I will say some of
it is more gimmicky than others, right, Like the fact
that I can like make my baby cry is funny.
Is it dramatically like alter my gameplay experience? No, Like
you could have just hit you know, see for cry,
and instead I go, I like this. But I think
it's funny that a couple times my mom is asking
me like, do you like it? And I, instinctively, because
a mom is asking me, I go, yeah, I like it,
and my baby laughs.
Speaker 3: Your actual mom is there right now? Are you talking
about the game mom or real.
Speaker 2: My real mom?
Speaker 5: My video game mom is like interacting with me as
a baby, and it makes me laugh. And so when
I laugh, my baby laughs. And I thought that was
kind of funny because I wasn't just it wasn't just
a controller of me saying I like it. I actually
it actually captured my genuine smile in a situation and
then reflected that into the characters, and then they reacted
to my genuine smile. So I think that's neat. I
don't think that's like really the core mechanic of it.
I would say the highlights of this game is that.
I think it's really well written. I think it the
dialogue is quite smart. The performances of all of the characters,
the sister, the mother, and the father are very good,
and they nailed what parents under extreme pressure and dress behave.
Like I think it's it's well written and executed. Yeah,
it's just a good little story. Guys like, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 2: That is good Night Universe by Developer. A nice dream. Uh,
I played Mary.
Speaker 1: You talked more about ball CK's Pit last episode, and
Dan you had said you hadn't played it beforehand. I
had been deciding which game to jump into prior to
last episode. Then you talking about ballas Pit convinced me
to try that. Oh my god, I like that game
a whole lot.
Speaker 5: What do you love about it? I'm excited to talk
to them because, like I was kind of not that
I don't like it, but I liked it. But it's
just like it got a little repetitive. But there are
parts of it that I think are so addictive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to just spend the whole time
comparing it to Vampire Survivors, but obviously Vampire Survivors is
the one that popularizes genre. Even though it wasn't the
first like quote unquote auto shooter or whatever you want
to call them. But I think this game's overall progression
clicks a lot better for me than Vampire Survivors. Vampire
Survivors wasn't really going for that in the sense that
if you beat like this mission, this map with Vampire Survivors,
you'll unlock the next map, or if you find this coffin,
you'll unlock this character.
Speaker 2: It was very old school in the sense.
Speaker 1: It wasn't completely pushing you in specific directions, whereas this
is very much like, all right, you have to beat
the current map with any number of characters in order
to get a COG, which is then going to upgrade
the lift that you're basically your village is built on
that you're taking down into the pit, at which point
you are then building out this roster of characters, which
you know, Vampire Survivors was very much about unlocking characters.
Deep Rock Galactic Survivors was also about unlocking the new
that was more class based than specific characters. But I
like the character design here a lot. That's definitely kind
of the fuel marriage.
Speaker 5: Yeah, maybe pushing you to try different characters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's stuff I don't even want to
mention that we're like gameplay spoilers for me that I
had no idea you would be able to do like
synergy wise later on or ability wise that kind of
blow open the game. I don't always love the town
building aspect. I mean there was parts where I was like,
at a certain point, you really don't need to design
your town in the most clever way. I basically will
just like build mines and wheat fields and forests around
certain buildings, and then I clump all my character buildings
around the Veteran's hut because that increases their XP gain.
Other than that, the buildings that I'm upgrading and the
new buildings I'm building that I need to construct by
bouncing my characters off of a lah brick, similar to
the actual in game gameplay in this game, it's very
much about like angles of bouncing balls or characters around.
I just put the buildings I needed to construct down
at the very bottom and then just machine gun bounce them.
Speaker 3: But I appreciate it was more strategy needed in that point.
Like I never really felt like it got to a
point where it's like, oh, I have to do this
very in depth thing.
Speaker 4: It's like, nah, it's all pretty basic, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 1: It reminded me of Cull to the Lamb that had
this one action packed facet to it, which is the
dungeon delving dungeon crawling, and then it had the cult
building and town building back outside.
Speaker 2: Ironically, they're both Devolver but now Ball x Pit.
Speaker 1: Though the actual gameplay of the auto shooting I like
a lot, and there's recency bias at play, but I
do right now consider it to be more satisfying to
play than Vampire Survivors. I think Vampire Survivors there's more,
there's more room for you to for skill to come
into play. It's not the most demanding game, but there
are certain moments where it's like you can really start
turning the tide against these encroaching gargoyles by angling the
ball a bit better and really getting into those pockets
where it can bounce around between them for a while.
So there's a bit more agency in that regard. But
there are certain characters I unlocked and that I didn't
really recognize how powerful they could be, and I think
I mentioned that when we talk about Bilatro, I mentioned
that when we talk about Hades two, Like, I think
that's my mark of a good Rogue Light is you
can unlock a character or a weapon or something, and
it just seems useless at the time. But then the
more you get to know the game and the more
you see through the matrix, the more you realize they're
actually allowing you to break the game.
Speaker 2: Sure, and you really can kind of break.
Speaker 1: This game if you if you combine the right abilities
and whatnot and like upgrade a character the right way.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Did you play much MEGABONK?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: I like Mega Megabank was very much like to me
the embodiment of like, here, go break our game if
you want to right away.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, because the things you're describing, like maybe think
of MEGABONK. Yeah, like yeah, come up during the Game
of the Year. I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Megabunk's also great, But yeah, No, I liked the
Ball x pits. I think overall, the thing that Ball
x Pit nails for me more than MEGABONC or band
Pire Survivors or Deep Rockyalactic Survivors is I think the
general Rogue Light progression works a bit better for me
where it's like I always felt like I accomplished something.
Vampire Survivors in your first like ten hours is very
good about that as well. But then I think I
at least hit a few walls in Vampire Survivors where
I'm like, oh man, I definitely need to google something.
There's some like nes Era secret stuff I need to
do to unlock these last few. But this one, it's like, okay, well,
I upgraded my statue that I built after I beat
the first map, because I beat that map with a character,
so I get, you know, better AoE damage or whatever
it is. Or I beat Snowy Shores again with this character,
and then I also ranked up that character specifically, and
then I can rank up the building that increases your
strength scaling. So it's very like catnip carrot on a
string between almost every match, I don't know that I
ever lost or completed a match went back to the
town and didn't have something unlocked.
Speaker 2: Sure, but yeah, I like that game a lot. I played.
Speaker 1: I have three characters I didn't unlock. I'm not sure
if they're going to require and I've unlocked up I've
I've collected a bunch of blueprints recently that were not
character buildings. So I'm not sure if there's some sort
of secret thing unlocking it or if I just really
need to keep playing more, but I think I will.
Speaker 2: I'm going to try to unlock them all. I'll consider
that one hundred percent.
Speaker 4: Once I do, that's what I'm going to go back to.
Speaker 3: I think once, like all these kind of like big
games with like defined endings, I'm done with for the year.
I definitely want to go back to it because I
enjoyed every second Planet.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The last thing I'll say about it is I mentioned
there's certain like gameplay spoilers I don't even want to
touch on because I think this game is very good
about putting a twist on the gameplay in a way
that was not advertised and people didn't even tell me about. It.
Was like, oh my god, this completely changes how I
think about the game now and how I think about
ability synergies and how I think about upgrading this specific character.
Speaker 2: So that's probably also like that's.
Speaker 1: A huge thing for this game. That might be my
favorite thing about it. It's very good at constantly challenging
your assumptions. There's a lot more mileage on this game
than I initially thought. After unlocking like the first three
four characters. I like it a lot.
Speaker 5: I'm glad you played it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, it's great. Mary.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about Arc Raiders, but I'm
sure all of us will talk about that first.
Speaker 2: Uh, what is Moonlighter two?
Speaker 5: Moonlighter two is the sequel to Moonlighter one. Ah, I
should for anyone who doesn't know Moonlighter. Moonlighter was a
kind of like a it almost looked like a pixel
ardy indie game that was half rogue Light half Uh,
what do you do it? Where you like make a
shop and you sell.
Speaker 1: Stuff sim like like managed like market management sim.
Speaker 2: Maybe market sim.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And it was kind of like the first that
I ever played that did that really in an interesting
way where it was like go into the dungeon and
get all these cool little things and go to a
shop and sell it. And it's a cool concept.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: So Moonlighter two builds on that a lot. Now, Moonlighter
two looks very different Moonlight or two. They went for
a I don't love it, but like I understand why
they needed to do it, which is like this like
type of three D art style is a lot easier
to probably work with and uh, visually. I just think
they're probably able to scale a lot more with this
type of art style. Nevertheless, it is the same concept
where you are going into a dungeon. The dungeon is
also even more rogue light than the first one, where
you're like, you get to choose out of three destinations
where you're going, like, Kaiti's too really, so you'll be like,
do you want to get a chessed? Do you want
to get something that upgrades your character for that run?
Do you want to get you know? So you get
to choose the location that you're going to. You have
to kill all the enemies. At the end of killing
all the enemies, you get an item. The item goes
into your storage. The storage is also a mini game,
which I find I like. So maybe some items that
are in your storage will upgrade everything in the row
or everything in the column, or maybe it burns the
thing to its right, but it eats it and like
improves it and makes it more valuable. So you're every
time you as you progress through this dungeon, you will
get too many items. They won't fit into your satchel anymore,
and so you have to choose which ones you want
or maybe you burn some of them to upgrade your
most favorite pieces, and then when you get home, you
take them and put them into your shop, and there's
an entire secondary mechanic of like pricing them appropriately. If
you price them too high, people tell you, go fuck yourself.
If you price them too low, you're basically losing precious money.
So putting them into your shop, pricing them, making sure
your shop is clean and looks good, and everybody wants
to pay you lots of money, and then you use
that money to upgrade your person, so getting more health upgrades,
you know, getting more potions, health potions and things like that.
Upgrading your weapons and eventually armor is kind of the loop.
So it's like, go get relics, sell relics, use relic
money to make yourself more badass, go in and do
it again. That's the mechanic. I think the loop is sick.
I think the concept of it is really good. Sometimes
I think the combat leaves a little bit to be desired.
I'm essentially hitting X a lot in this game, and
you have a combo if you hit X enough, and
so there's a more of a heavy move that you
can use. And my favorite is to use like a
distance move. Essentially you get to like shoot at enemies
from a distance. You can upgrade all of these in
your roguelike build, so as you progress sometimes they'll be like, hey,
we're gonna let you do critical hit chance twenty percent
more likely. Okay, that's sick, but it's only for that life.
After that you lose all those abilities, but you get
to keep your relics and take them home and sell them,
and then all the things you buy with your relic
money is permanent upgrades.
Speaker 3: It's kind of reminded me of what you're describing of,
like a second time it's come up, but Cult of
the Lamb, where you know they had the two modes
to it, or it's like the in between. But then
I remember like liking Cult of the Lamb a lot,
But it was the part where I went out into
the combat and I was like this is pretty basic here. Yeah,
I like combat wise.
Speaker 1: Now that I'm looking at it was like I did
play Moonlighter one Mary, I think you talked about it
a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: I fires case and.
Speaker 1: I liked I loved the overall loop. It was the
moment to moment I was like, oh man, it's not
hooking me on a purely like kinetic sense. But I
did like all the interlocking systems, if not the minute
mechanics to it.
Speaker 5: I think this is like exactly how I feel, and
I think this is like really valid responses to it,
which is just like this idea is awesome. It's such
a cool idea to go into a dungeon, get artifacts,
sell them, and then use it to like upgrade my character.
Love all this stuff the dungeon day to day. I'm like,
I've already beat these enemies four thousand times. I know
how they work. I know this system works. I don't
I don't get like I don't get my jolly's off
by like killing the same guys again and again and again.
But I do like testing different upgrades that you can
get in the system. That makes it more interesting. There's
a lot more variation now where they'll be like, okay,
and this one you have blight, or you have like, uh,
you you have like some kind of curse effect on
your on your heavy attack, So I use my heavy
attack more because of that, or like I was saying earlier,
like maybe you do one where you get like a
more extreme crit chance. I think there's there. They're obviously
trying to make the combat more interesting, and I do
think they put more energy into that in this game.
It's just that with Cults of the Lamb, if you're
going to compare it to that, Culture of the Lamb
had like so much personality, you do exactly what it
was because it was so distinct. You had your cult
members like eat shit and stuff like that. This still
is like looking to find its core identity. I think
I don't know if it has that same very clear
identity grab, but I think for people who are looking
for an addictive loop, this has it. It has an addictive,
very easy to follow loop. If you're like I just
want to play a game and I want a very
clear understanding of what I'm meant to do, I could
explain this to you in five minutes, and you can
go out there and go into the dungeon, and even
if you die, you get to like scrape together a
couple of your relics. You can also leave the dungeon
at any time, which I think is kind of cool,
Like you don't have to complete the dungeon to be successful.
You can be like I'm OUDI like I don't want
to do you have to keep it. Yeah, it's fine.
The value, it's like a risk of rain situation where
like you kind of want to keep going because obviously
there's better loot the further you go. Also, as you
get loot, you get to sacrifice some of your loot
to other loot. That makes it stronger, so you're getting
better artifacts if you stick around. Also, the enemies get
more interesting. There's a boss fight halfway through, and there's
a big boss fight at the end, and both of
those drop like better items, better artifacts for you to sell.
So it's intriguing to stick around. But ultimately, if you're
just like a little bit of a baby, you can
do a couple, take them home and sell them and
live to fight another day. And that's cool too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, anytime I see like item inventory management,
I think of Dredge now, which I love. Dredge is
another game where I had those two layers of the
inventory management and the actual fishing, which those two were
pretty very closely intertwined.
Speaker 5: But such a good game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I love.
Speaker 1: Those are some of my favorite games these days that
do that really well when they combine those two things,
And yeah, I might try and moon later two because
I did like the first one for its part.
Speaker 5: Dred You guys are really comparing it to games that
just like have personality for days, like Cult, the Lamb
and Dredge. Are these like super iconic When you describe them,
people know exactly where you are and what you're talking about, right,
like like evil deathfish like coming at you, and like
you know a cult situation where people are eating their
own poop and you're sacrificing them. This one, like, I
don't know if it's as easy to describe the world
building for this one. There is a story, but I
don't know if it grabs me in the same way
as those other games. I think the hook of this
game that is valuable is its simplistic loop that is
addictive to get a couple artifacts and sell them in
a shop. I will say that like often when I
am getting cool shit in a game. I love the
role playing of being like, oh man, I would love
to like sell this in at a little place and
like have people come and look at my wares and
buy them. It's fun to open a shop and clean
it up. If you look at any screenshots from it,
like I have a little rumba that keeps my shop
tidy and replaces my items for me I have. There's
just like little characters at play that I think makes
my shop really fun to keep up. So I can
tell what they're doing and how they've built upon the
first game, and I really appreciate how they've grown this.
I think it still needs a little bit more in
the sense of, like, what makes this so distinct that
it's so obvious when you're describing it to someone that
you're like, what a unique world building system? And I
don't know if it's honed in on that yet, but
I do love I do love the loop. I think
this is a brilliant concept of running into a dungeon,
getting stuff and selling it at my little shop. I
love that. I'll never get sick of that.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: That is Moonlighter too, Dan, you played a game called
and Roger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very briefly here because I don't want to spoil anything.
It's kind of hard to talk about it spoiling. So
if you're curious about this, maybe skip like two or
three minutes ahead. But this is another like you know,
I talked about Consume Me recently. I guess you could
categorize it as like an empathy game. This one you
can play through in like forty five minutes, maybe an
hour indiegame. Beautiful animation, incredible animation, and I don't want
to say too much because kind of going through the
story and is a huge part of this. And again
it's a very small time commitment. If you're even remotely curious,
I will just say I very much related to it
as if you have ever dealt with a family member
or you know, I guess more often you know, it's
usually like an elderly family member that is dealing with dementia, Alzheimer's,
anything like that. It is along those lines and the
ways it uses game mechanics to illustrate certain things about
how difficult you know, those omens can be. This does
a It does a really like beautiful job of communicating that.
And also, you know, the animation is just visually musing.
Everything is beautiful. But also it is very smart with
how it incorporates the game parts of it into trying
to convey the uh, you know, frustration of memory and
uh you know, I'm trying not to say too much here,
but it's yeah, you.
Speaker 5: Have spoiled but I get I think I'm getting what
you're picking up as well, because if you're doing like
let's say, I'm just assuming that you're doing like a
consistent mechanic and then it's like not working the way
you expected it to. That's reflecting what it's like to
not understand yes, or have dementia yourself maybe, which is
like I expect that I know what this system should
do when I'm brushing my teeth or when I'm brushing
my hair.
Speaker 3: It's amazing that you do the brushing my teeth thing
because it's that's consistent. But that is also say, that's
one of the early ones that they do, is the
brushing the teeth thing, and like it, it is a
thing that is expressed in using game mechanics, I think
better than like a short film or something you would
be able to do. So if that sounds at all
intriguing or interest to you, I would recommend checking out.
Speaker 4: I think it does a very good.
Speaker 2: Job with that.
Speaker 5: I love this. It's also five dollars now it's forty
five minutes. But like I always look at games as
is this a wonderful evening experience, you know, for the price.
That's what I always look at it, not hour, but
like I always do the movie what I enjoy and eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do the movie thing.
Speaker 3: It's like Bonk and I just bought Avatar tickets for
when it comes out, and it's like that was fifty
two dollars for two people for I mean, granted it's
a very long movie, but still you break down the
hours to the time, it's like, I don't know, five
bucks for forty five minutes or an hour of a
game doesn't seem too bad.
Speaker 5: You know, yeah, absolutely not. I think that's totally worth it. It's cool. Hopefully,
would you say it's sad, I will just like ask like, okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean in the way I always.
Speaker 5: To prepare myself for like an emotional I'll.
Speaker 3: Just say, like anyone who's dealt with, like you know,
family members with dementia or Alzheimer's, it's rarely the like
and then they were all better. You know, it's not
you know, it's it's a pretty realistic depiction of that.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I was looking if the dev ever played any or
made anything, and I just like don't see them have
any history of games in the past. But I've played
like iPhone games that do stuff like that that kind
of like subvert your expectation with mundane everyday tasks and
then alter them slightly to mess with you.
Speaker 4: It's kind of that.
Speaker 3: And I will also say, like, similar to consumeing, it
does have a little bit of a turn at one
point that is kind of like, I mean, it seems
like a personal story for sure, so I'm not going
to slight it for that, but it's just like, oh, okay,
well now we got this extra element here that I
wasn't really I don't know we were going there, but yeah,
I won't say too much, but yeah, very very similar
to consume me in a couple of ways.
Speaker 4: So that's cool.
Speaker 5: I really appreciate that type of recommendation, especially for like
an evening, you know, like so often I'm like, oh,
I just want to like play a game, but I'm
like also kind of sitting on the couch casually and
maybe there's like something in the background on TV. I
just want to play something. That's how I was playing Moonlighter,
by the way. It was like, ah, I'm watching Rudo,
and like it's nice to just have like a little
game that I can also play simultaneously.
Speaker 4: And like, Mary, I follow your Instagram.
Speaker 3: It seems like you're either like on a mountain with
Simone or you're getting like horny about Naruto characters or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know who's this guy? Who's this? I can
fix some guy Gara. It seems like you've been posting
a lot about him lately. Hill tell us about him.
Speaker 5: Gara's a freak and a half. Gara's a misunderstood villain
in Naruto. He has a like a tub on his back,
like a like a clay pot, and it contains sand,
and he can use his chucklate to alter the sand,
and then the sand can wrap around people, and then
he uses sand coffin to crush them to death and
then consume them. And so when he releases his sand,
it smells like blood because it's basically stained with the
blood of his enemies that he's killed over his over
the years. He doesn't know love, so he has like
no oh joy, and he has like he basically says
his purpose in life is to kill because he doesn't
know what love is. And I think I can fix him.
Speaker 1: He really skipped over a lot of middle ground there.
I don't know what love is, so I'm just gonna
kill everybody.
Speaker 3: I mean, what's what's desirable about this character? And why
do you want to fix this guy?
Speaker 5: I just think he's neat.
Speaker 3: He is pretty speaking of that Simpson's Fortnite, keep kicking ass, Simpsons,
It's incredible.
Speaker 2: Holy shit, I unlocked Marge Mary today.
Speaker 3: I was thinking about spending like thirty fucking bucks on
Itchy and Scratchy.
Speaker 5: Such a tangent. I don't know, Yeah, I just think
they're neat. Listen, who's to say what what awakens something
inside of us? But when sixteen year old Mary watched
Narudo probably older than that, for the first time, and
I laid my hands on Gara, who does have like
heavy eyeliner and looks like an emo boy, I was like,
uh uh, this better not awaken anything inside of me.
And it did. It did, And watching Arudo again, this
is like my second round watching Naruto from the beginning,
I have forgotten how impactful Gara was to my awakening.
Speaker 4: So so you're what you're saying, is Nerudo is your
be dazzled?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Gara specifically is Yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, I understand that.
Speaker 5: This is like that scene and it's always sunny where
it's like I get it now.
Speaker 1: Who's Who's Who's the Zenya in Nerudo Gara? No, no, everything, no,
not but yet the public.
Speaker 2: I don't know what I meant. I just want to
talk about Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we are going to be doing a recording bonus
episode of Arc Raiders. So if you, if you're not
a patron, like I mentioned earlier, you should go subscribe
because the three of us are going to play it
after this recording. However, Mary, you did write it down
to talk about it tonight.
Speaker 5: I've just been playing a little bit of our Creators
and Dan, I know you've played it and you've talked
about it. I haven't talked about it because I did
not play it, and I've been kind of itching to
try it. I get it. I get why everybody's like
really excited about it. Is such an incredible solve to
so many other gaming problems. Of like, I'll be so
devastated if I lose my lute. But this game has
cracked the code with some free Essentially, you can have
like free loot every time you go top side, which
lets me feel less vulnerable or less upset when I
get murked by some rando online. It's okay to die
in this game. Because you can always have a free
load out to solve it. I just I think mechanically,
what I'm saying is, I think they solved an issue
that other games had, and it allows me to laugh
when I get killed. When I get killed in this game,
I am not fucking pissed off. I'm like, you won,
You're better take take my stuff. I'll just get another
free load out.
Speaker 3: It's okay, But you know it's so smart too. Is
the free load out thing is great? But also the
safe pocket. So it's like, let's see you find some
one of a kind legendary thing. It's like, all right,
I'll put this over here, so even if I die
and lose everything else, I still have that.
Speaker 4: Like it makes just a lot of smart little one.
Speaker 5: Hundred percent Where do you think the safe pocket is?
But he put it in his ass? I think he is.
It's one hundred percent your butt. And I think it's
awesome that if you find a pocket watch that is
super valuable.
Speaker 4: You can keep it, but you expand it too.
Speaker 3: So is that like you're just going go see to
get some more fucking rubber parts in there.
Speaker 5: I just think you stretch it out over time.
Speaker 1: I guess he didn't want them to get his watch,
so he took it and he shoved it up his ass.
Speaker 5: It's a really that is a really great that you
can tell that these guys the developers are gamers and
we're like, this game is reat, but you know it
would make it a little better, and they're just solving
these little core pieces that allow you to have more joy.
I also think this game is really fun to watch
other people play, especially people who are very good I am.
I will self admittedly say I'm not excellent at this game.
I'm making lots of mistakes. I was like dying all
sorts of terrible ways because I I just make mistakes
all the time, but I don't have the stress of
losing everything that's precious to me. Every time you go
top side, you gain a little bit, you learn a
little bit, and you can always put one secret item
in your secret pocket, and there's.
Speaker 4: A skill tree and all that stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally, you're learning either way, no matter what. But
I like watching people who are very good at the
game because it's excellent to watch. There are so many
things that I'm afraid of in that game, not just
like the human beings that are obviously all terrible, but
there's these ex spiders that are mechanically they're insane and
they jump at you and like one shot. You watching
people who've been playing this game for over two hundred
hours be able to take down these spiders awesome. It's
very cool to watch good people play this game.
Speaker 3: Mary, you got to watch that upf we did with Kayla.
She's insane, right, Like she is a force of nature
in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just I mean that's the one time I played it
with her and it was just like wow, all right,
she just has an ability where she just scares people
off by screaming at them.
Speaker 4: It's incredible to watch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she was saying like, I'm going to be your
step mom's mom.
Speaker 4: Afterwards, I'm going to go full frontal on your asshole.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Yeah, She's just a terrifying I'd be
afraid if I heard that.
Speaker 5: Yes, I think online I do not have the aura
that I have. I r L and online I'm always
like hello, they're like, let's murder this person.
Speaker 3: That's bank when she plays, but Banc does solos and
like she's just the nicest person ever. And sometimes I
find myself getting very angry if people like, you know,
they're going to shoot her, like right at the extraction, where.
Speaker 2: It's like, how dare you shoot things? And I shooting at.
Speaker 5: The extraction is rude and I think you should leave
people alone. I once crawled into an distraction and they
still shot me inside the instruct and I was like,
if I'm able to crawl my like decrepit ass into
the distraction for anyone who doesn't know as long even
if you're downed, if you can get in, you make it.
You left, which is super cool. They still like took
me down even from the inside, and I was like,
this should count as a safe zone. I think it should,
like morally be you should leave people in that safe
zone alone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: I think it's more interesting as a social experiment to
be able to fuck with people at the very end.
Speaker 4: I don't know what I mean.
Speaker 3: We are us three have never been together in this game,
and Mike, you have not really started it recently. I'm
looking forward to seeing how our dynamic in our graders
is right after this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, looking forward to it as well. Just watch your backs.
We're on this same squad. Is there a friendly fire?
I don't even know. No one we'll find out, won't we.
Speaker 5: No, yeah, no, no squad is ever friendly fired and tell.
Speaker 2: Us all right, you want to talk about emails?
Speaker 1: Sure, okay, as usual, you can write into firescape cast
at gmail dot com questions you want read on the show.
We got a bunch this last episode, and I called
because we were running a bit low toward the end
of the year. We replenished for a few months, but
keep them coming, because you know, the more, the merrier,
the more the better. Also, I think the more people
send in, the more likely to get new stuff. Sometimes
I think maybe people who haven't listened to the entire
run of the show reask them, or it's just been
three years since we asked them, so uh yeah. The
more people who write in, more chance there is for
an unusual or unasked or uncommon question to come across. Uh, Mary,
do you want to read this first one from Zach?
Speaker 5: Yeah, good evening.
Speaker 2: Yin's Pittsburgh things. Oh it's y'all like John's.
Speaker 1: Uh like John. John is from Philadelphia. That's like you.
You could substitute that for almost anything. Yin's is specifically
like Pittsburgh's y'all.
Speaker 5: Oh, okay, good evening, Yin's second time writer. A longtime
listener question I love. I love a listener that gets
right to the point. I appreciate it. Is there for
something in high school you wish you would have tried
but didn't.
Speaker 2: Prince, how long have you had that locked and loaded?
Speaker 7: I don't asked a bullet in the chamber, sports band,
a job or activity you know, For example, hockey is
a big deal in the city of Pittsburgh.
Speaker 5: I often think of how I may have missed out
on high school hockey. Instead I was in a local
band playing shows. That also sounds cool, though, Yeah, anything
come to mind for all of you. Much love from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 3: Uh, it's like it's the most old man phrase ever.
But the whole youth is wasted on the young thing.
It's like it's like there are so many things now
that like got just basic ass things like just general taking.
Speaker 4: Care of yourself.
Speaker 1: Shit.
Speaker 3: I just wish I would have like at a younger age,
like I would occasionally like go to the gym or
the rec center in college and get on an elliptical
for you know, thirty minutes or whatever and go home.
But like just general taking care of yourself, general food stuff,
things like that that like, you know, I'm definitely learning
a lot as I get older and trying to make
changes and stuff. But I think that stuff just is
so much easier if that was part of your day
to day back then. Oh, pe bring up something that
might be gross.
Speaker 2: Ah, yes, I realize.
Speaker 3: We were just me and Bank the other day. We're
putting the duvet on the blanket and stuff like that.
I realize growing up, I played a lot of my dad,
and I think a lot of it's fair. I was
never taught that you're supposed to wash your sheets.
Speaker 2: Oh it's a bit gross. Yeah, it's gross. No, I
think about it now and it's like, objectively, that's just gross.
So neither your parents washed like a well, it was.
Speaker 3: Two separate houses, and so I didn't, like, I don't
know about that really.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's on hygienic for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you think about it like, well, of course
there's there's a million reasons why that's uh you probably
should wash those but uh yeah, So.
Speaker 1: To clarify you were doing putting the duvet back on
the actual comfort the other day with Bank.
Speaker 2: This was the first time you realize you're.
Speaker 3: Supposed to no, No, We've talked about it so many times. Yeah,
trust me, trust me, it's a very clear line of
pre and post bunk I love.
Speaker 1: But you didn't even like before Bank, you didn't know that,
like you were you were like any things.
Speaker 3: I didn't know, uh before Bank, I just wasn't taught
a lot of things. It's a lot of basic ass things,
and I think of now and I'm like, oh, boy,
that's yeah.
Speaker 5: It's like when it's your fault for not like you know,
to wash a shirt after you wear it, right, you understanding?
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, but there.
Speaker 3: Were things too where it's like I didn't know you
could wash a hoodie until I met Bunk. I thought
you said, yeah, yeah, we talked because I didn't think
it was eligible for like smells, because it wasn't touching
your skin.
Speaker 2: Which it is eligible. Yeah, no, I don't. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: Since I met Bonk and she just brings up a
bunch of normal ass human things to me. In the
last ten plus years, it's been like, oh, of course,
how the fuck did I never?
Speaker 5: But don't you ever think about like being on a
pillow and like you know, like you drool when you're
sleeping and stuff?
Speaker 2: Like that.
Speaker 3: I'm just feel like I think, I think growing up,
I think the thought about like laundry and cleaning and
things like that was that like if there was a
stain on it, then you would do it.
Speaker 5: Visual I can.
Speaker 1: Get when you're like super young to like not know
that you're just constantly like secreting stuff even when you're sleeping,
like even on a micro level, I.
Speaker 3: Got considered that, but like, yeah, it's just like I
think cleaning clothes or hair in that Bunk I thought
was just like although, you know, I guess that's not true,
Like I would wash my clothes you know, all the
time after worn. It's just because it's touching your skin.
But I don't know why they didn't apply to I
don't know.
Speaker 5: Can you ever think about like impressing Like I understand
there's like a pre impost bank again, like you know
really you know, big ups to the big B. But
like when you were in the courting stage of impressing bank,
would you not want to have clean sheets for a lady?
Speaker 4: I mean, I just look at this.
Speaker 2: I never had a lady in the sheets.
Speaker 3: No, I mean I think about it like it was
I think when Bunk met me it was mattress on
the floor.
Speaker 2: Erast no cry.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just never got anything.
Speaker 2: Worry about it.
Speaker 3: I want to say when I met Bonk, it was
either like I got my mattress off the floor a
month or two after that, or it was like a
month or two before meeting Bank. That is when I
first start of the Giant bomb. I was in full
on mattress on the floor guy.
Speaker 1: That's that's a very stereotypical like guy who doesn't know
how to actually like live bachelor. Yeah, like a man
said she was still going on some dates where that
was the case every once in a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was fully in the case of like you know,
my my dad brain or it's just like well, I
mean what, it's fine some mattress. It's just like, well,
you're gonna spend money on something just to be high falutin,
you know, like I think I was, and I guarantee
that's how he still thinks. But like I definitely like
when I first started the giant bomb, was in full
on like why would I get that it doesn't do anything?
It's just well, now I know that actually super does
do things. It's like give me support.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I think you get
to a certain age you have you can't be going
that low into a mattress.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like, boy, the things I've learned in the
last you know, ten plus years whatever, Like yeah, I
look back and it's just like, oh boy, all those
the twenties. We'll just say specifically the twenties. Maybe there's
a past when you're a gross dumb teenage or whatever.
I do feel like the twenties when I was just like,
oh boy, there's just ship. I should have known that.
I did not know a lot of twenties.
Speaker 2: I do think like not to you know, ally feminist,
like not to not to.
Speaker 4: I thought you're gonna do ally gross dude.
Speaker 1: Oh no, I've I've always been like, if anything, I
agree with Dan No.
Speaker 2: I had like a compulsion shower too twenty stuff.
Speaker 3: My dad's the guy who says everyone's got fucking skid
marks all the time.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's where I grew up with.
Speaker 1: That's that's gross. I would say the thing, sorry continue
or maybe.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm so this is interesting, pack Yeah no,
it's a weekly therapy is always very interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 1: No, there's there's been stuff, and like I think you're
you'd be forgiven for, like early and mid twenties having
your math on the floor, because I think a lot
of people do. But yeah, no, I I remember Amanda,
like the first time she saw my apartment, my previous one,
obviously before we lived together, she was like impressed that
I my mattress was not on the floor and that
I had art on the walls. I was like, is
this the bar that like women are dealing with dating?
And then yeah, I heard more horror stories after him,
like yes, oh my god. I wasn't like I'm doing
more than that to be appealing, but that was apparently
the low bar.
Speaker 5: This is so true that, like, especially in college in
early twenties, I would say, like the bar is so
unbelievably low that if a guy had sheets on his mattress,
it was like hula lah, what is this the rints?
And it's just so bad.
Speaker 2: Mary?
Speaker 3: You would do that, Mary, I think. On that note,
can you please check the discord. I just sent you
a photo of me and my college bedroom, And if
you just want to break this down for the folks,
let me know this is okay.
Speaker 5: You've here on the bar, this man has four pieces
of art on his walls, which.
Speaker 2: Is yes, I mean, what is this?
Speaker 3: Probably this is probably two thousand and five for the record,
two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: Maybe is this a cool What are you holding? Is
that fire? I'm holding a handful of fireworks.
Speaker 3: If you look on the thing next to me, there's
a bunch of Saturn rockets and maybe twizzlers, a.
Speaker 5: Bunch of ones in a jar, which I love because
it's tell it to me. This your piggy bank was
like a jar where you're like, I have a dollar
left after Chinese food. I'm gonna pop it in here
for a good time later.
Speaker 4: It's correct, Yes, you got a box spring though.
Speaker 2: It's nice. Oh you have actually.
Speaker 3: Progressed after this actress on the floor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you regress from them.
Speaker 4: It's dead Wood and Clint Eastwood.
Speaker 2: Yea full of dollars, dirty Harry, Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes.
Speaker 5: What's the poster to the right that I can't see.
Speaker 3: It's like that is a bunch of god damn, the
video paper, the newspaper clippings of myself.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, that's unforgivable.
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 3: It's a bunch of like local film students has successive films.
The pictures of me and George Clinton and stuff. I'm
I'm afraid that their push pinned on the wall. That's
a picture of me and actor James Woods at a casino.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's crazy. I just rewatched casino with
James Woods in it.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: Yeah, this is just telling a picture here, isn't it.
Speaker 2: I have to ask, embarrassed. I think I know the answer.
Who made the collage of articles of you?
Speaker 4: My mom?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: I thought it was a Christmas gift. It was a
Christmas I thought it was you, So it was my
backside pass for p funk. It's a bunch of newspaper articles.
Speaker 5: You're deming's that your mom did that?
Speaker 2: I will also give you some ups.
Speaker 5: You have a water bottle by your bed, so you're
obviously a hydro homie, and you were like taking care
of yourself by drinking water. Unless there's vodka in there.
Speaker 2: No, it's probably water.
Speaker 4: I probably do more of that now. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I think that's nice. You had books, which was like
kind of the no on your nightstand?
Speaker 4: Are those I'm doing in?
Speaker 2: Those?
Speaker 4: Might be my yearbooks?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Those are my yearbooks?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 5: You unfuckable?
Speaker 2: Is this a dorm room or a house? It's my apartment.
Speaker 3: Okay, that was that was nine and Lawrence brother, he
lives on Lawrence. Uh in Lawrence.
Speaker 2: Oh gotcha?
Speaker 5: Okay, I mean, this isn't the worst I've seen. This
isn't the worst that I've experienced. I think, like, again,
the bar is so low.
Speaker 4: I thank you in hell why I thank you for
not touching upon what me as a person.
Speaker 5: Also, Oh yeah, I guess I think there's nothing wrong
with your physical appearance. I don't know like what you
smell like, or like your uh yeah, your cleanliness. But
I will say, like, there's nothing wrong with long hair.
I like that look. I like like a T shirt
and jeans. Dude, I got nothing wrong with like your vibe.
Speaker 3: I will say this, the mattress in that picture is
probably filthy. But me, I was always a regular shower guy.
I've never been a stinky guy. Really, that's good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm.
Speaker 5: Good on that. I'm not worried about like your your appearance.
I think you look completely reasonable. I will say, like
so many boys black sheets, like dark, dark sheets, And
to me that was just like a reflection of we
all know that these could not be white. We know
that you could not get away with it. So, yeah,
really dark sheets to mask the dirt.
Speaker 3: What was my thought of, like directly above the bed
in this photo. I've got a poster of Curb Your
Enthusiasm and it's one where it's just like every character
is Larry David's head.
Speaker 2: So what is my thought as college guy?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: I would I'm single. I would try to hopefully things
happen here. Let me put forty Larry David heads above
my bed.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like a girl was. If you were like
with a girl and she was looking at that in
your bed, that is stressful. But I think there's nothing
more stressful than the poster above the mattress on the ceiling.
Speaker 4: I don't have that.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, you have evidence of that in this photo,
but I would.
Speaker 2: Say that I did not. That does not exist here.
Speaker 5: That is an unforgivable phot.
Speaker 1: Just getting slammed while macho man Randy Savage is staring
down at you.
Speaker 5: Actually, when we stayed at your house, you you blew
up a photo of Mike's face and put it above that.
Speaker 1: Funny I still have that. Yeah, it's still somewhere in
the house. I'm looking forward to seeing what the ceiling
poster is going to be this year.
Speaker 2: Back to well, actually, I just realized Mary might have
a guest and oh, yeah what we talked. Yeah, weird thing.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna put like a towel on it.
Speaker 2: No, that in the corner. Just a weird like black
like phantom for those listening.
Speaker 3: By this point, two days from now, I might have
a eight foot tall Zeno morphe.
Speaker 2: With a strangely normal human torso and likes good posture.
Speaker 5: No, it's a strange device. But Dan and I were
just bonding over unnecessary purchases in our adult years of like, listen,
we have some income that I think you can like
basically just say it's disposable, like, let's enjoy our lives
and do something with it. I bought a CRT for
my kitchen, which is ridiculous, but it brings me a
lot of joy. And you brought a you bought a
sino morph.
Speaker 2: I visited a xenomorph tonight and I approved of him.
Speaker 4: So now I'm arranging for the transportation.
Speaker 1: So bad.
Speaker 2: He's going to be in this room looking over you.
Speaker 5: It's such a good I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm
not not stupid.
Speaker 2: So cool, thank you.
Speaker 3: Look, I'm still looking at this picture of me in
two thousand and six, and it seems very cool.
Speaker 5: There's moments of this that are cool.
Speaker 2: The question that was, I, here's mine. I wish I
wish we had done when we were younger. This is
a two parter.
Speaker 1: I wish I had gotten more into like theater, but
I'm glad I'm not a the I wasn't a theater kid.
But I do wish I had tried like performance more
because I really do like I do like crave attention,
and I do like, really like what people are paying
attention to me.
Speaker 3: So here's the problem with that. Because I took this route.
I also love attention. And I did go into theater
class in junior high and I loved it. It was
I did plays and it was fantastic, and I I loved,
you know, have my characters, my lines and all that stuff.
And then you go to high school and then in
saw musicals.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, that's actually why I didn't get apart. I
was trying to sing Daddy Warbucks and the music teacher,
who hated me to begin with, didn't give me the part.
I would have shaved my head and everything for Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker 2: But I didn't get there.
Speaker 5: You could pull it off.
Speaker 1: Thanks, but no, I think that's it. I kind of
I think I've said this before. I was kind of
part of like several different clicks in high school. I
like hung out with lacrosse players and basketball players because
I literally played those sports. I some of my best
friends were ones. I geeked out about video games with them.
They came over and we did system links with Halo,
et cetera. Then I sometimes hung out with the cool kids,
and then I sometimes hated them. So I was kind
of between a bunch of groups. So I didn't really
know that I had a firm identity in high school.
I guess everybody's still figuring out who they want to be.
But in terms of things I wish I had done,
I think like I wish I had tried theater more,
but and I wish I had gotten into actually one
thing I'm actually really glad I did get into. I
got into like, quote unquote av Club, which was basically
I learned how to use like premiere in high school.
I forgot a lot of those skills later, and then
Mary had to piss me off once in order for
me to brush back up on them. But I was
definitely like I did it, Yeah, but I know I
was I I, uh yeah, it was probably theater. I
also wish I had a car in high school. I
never had my own car.
Speaker 5: Really having a car was a big deal for me.
Speaker 2: I oh, my friends did my car?
Speaker 5: Two for me?
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 5: I always wanted to be a camp counselor and it
just never happened for me. And you know how many
movies you have with like people are cool camp counselors
and like they get to like do cool sexy stuff
Like I never had that experience, and.
Speaker 2: I wished just get slammed in cabins.
Speaker 1: Six.
Speaker 5: I wish I was a camp counselor. Yeah, I've always
wanted to be a camp counsel and I never did it,
And now I think will be weird. I think if
I did it now, they would.
Speaker 2: Be like, why is this old lady age range? Is
it like early early twenty twenties.
Speaker 5: But maybe even maybe even like eighteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're like twenty two maybe twenty.
Speaker 5: Like being a dorm what do you call that? Like
a alright, yeah, it's like the same, but way cooler
to be a camp counselor. And so like I regret
not getting that opportunity in my youth. I would say
the second one is I never truly learned to read music,
and I think that was a mistake. I always was
self taught. I've learned so many songs on piano, guitar, bass.
To this day, I play bass, but I am self taught.
I listen to songs and I watch YouTube videos and
someone will be like, here's how I play it with
my hands, and I mimic them and I memorize it.
I cannot read sheet music, and I think that sucks
that I didn't just sit down as a child and
be like, learn how to do this. I never did,
and I pay for it the rest of my life.
Speaker 4: It's really confusing. It's like really right in English.
Speaker 5: But in my defense, it's confusing.
Speaker 2: It was just go twang, twank, walk, walk walk. I'd
figure it out. It's that simple, fucking Mozart deal Mozart.
Speaker 5: When I was a kid, I was like, I ain't
learning all that, especially when I can literally like, any
time I saw a song I really liked, I could
just mimic and this is what I did. I would
listen to it on the radio and then I would
just be like, okay, bomb bomb bomb bomb, and then
I would do it on the piano until I until
I duplicated it. I did it by ear and that's
just how I learned. So yeah, I just like never,
I never did it right, and I don't know.
Speaker 1: I wish I had read more Chekhov. No, I'm just kidding,
and I thank you, zach Dan. Do you want to
read this one from Doc Hensla?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 4: Hey, Fire Escapees.
Speaker 3: My wife loves to give me grief about a game
I have played ever since we started dating twelve years
years ago, when we were in medical school together, I
started to play a Hearthstone. It was mainly during study breaks,
but has now turned into my ADHD game. Whenever I
have some downtime and just need my brain to turn off.
I play it now mainly the Battlegrounds game mode. Since
the game doesn't give me how many hours I've played,
I've done a deep dive on how many hours I've
likely played. Drum roll about seventy two hundred hours. My question,
what is your most played game ever? My next closest
was Halo two. It's seven hundred hours. That is Doc Hansla, you.
Speaker 1: Say it's your ADHD game. But I'm actually pretty impressed
with how long you stuck with one game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's I was talking about this last night.
I got dinner with a bunch of game informer folks
and we were talking about like a couple of guys
played a bunch of like Doda and Wow and stuff
like that, and they had, you know, thousands of hours
with all that stuff. And I still think my number
one most played game ever is Soul Calber. That's probably
you know, five hundred to six hundred hours in second place. Like,
I don't think there's many other games that I've gone
more than like one hundred or two hundred hours with.
Like I'm sure stuff like Ya and yeah Alert's probably
up there. Alert two, But like you know, there's stuff
like Mario sixty four and Mario World and stuff that
I go back to because.
Speaker 5: You've played them so many times.
Speaker 3: Yea, yeah, I'm sure it adds up. But like I'm
still sure, like linked to the past, My favorite game ever,
the game I've beat the most. I'd be surprised if
I've played more than like one hundred and fifty hours
of you know, I think.
Speaker 5: That's fair, But it's also can those hundred and fifty
hours are like super valuable to you. Oh h yes,
something you shouldn't overlook, right, Like, I really don't play
a lot of replayable games. I often play games. I
play a lot of indie games, and so like those
games I play really hard for like forty hours, and
then they're done. I've completed them, and I'm like, what
a great experience, and then I move on. So it's
I don't have a lot of games that I've played
for hundreds of hours. I really don't, I would say
if I had to guess, And like Stee does sometimes
clock how many hours you have in games?
Speaker 2: Like I played Left for.
Speaker 5: Dead too a lot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Steam stuff is nice, but it's also like,
well how many times did it? Just did the execute
will not close correctly?
Speaker 5: Or I think the highest played game in my Steam
is I Am Bred, and that is not true. I
left it overnight at game Spot on a computer that
wasn't act like that wasn't able to turn off, and
it logged hours for seven days, and so I have
like seven hundred hours and I Am Bread. But did
I play I Am Bread? I did not play that
many hours of I Am Bread? So my steam is
not accurate. I would say Team Fortress two and Left
for Dead too are games that I think I put
hundreds of hours into. Generally, I can I can probably
gauge that I played hundreds of hours of those games
back when I had hundreds of hours to play replayable games,
and I just don't do that much anymore.
Speaker 3: I just think we're just like edge cases where it's like,
I don't know my entire adult life, I've been doing
this for a living, so it's like I can't just
stick with one game for a thousand hours. So it's
like if I did not do this for a living,
maybe I would have got Wow or something back then,
or Mobile or Doda or something and like gotten super
into it. But like you just can't do it when
you have to play everything.
Speaker 1: You know, I got really into Warframe for a bit,
remember that, I don't know if I actually cross a
thousand hours. I will say Total war Warhammer three now
says I'm at twelve hundred. However that I'm sure that's
also idle time and similar things where it didn't close
or I'm not it could be any number of things,
like I've definitely played that game a whole lot. Like
I think Warhammer three is probably closer to six hundred something,
but like that's a very deep strategy game with one
hundred and three one hundred and four legendary lawyers.
Speaker 2: Now I am playing still a.
Speaker 5: Shit ton of hours. By the way, if we could
just say, like it's a bar of like, what is
a shit ton of hours in a game? I think
is eighty If you've played a game for eighty hours,
you have obviously loved that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, yeah, you could have read you read a
book for once.
Speaker 1: I know, although all the things I could have accomplished
and intellectually if I wasn't playing to learn to read music,
I got to learn a a fuck ton about wine,
gotten a high level to ploma.
Speaker 4: You could have been somebody.
Speaker 2: Hell, but no, I'm I've I was just playing yesterday.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm playing the new DLC, which is embargoed for
tomorrow to talk about It's why I'm not talking about it.
But yeah, I noticed that today that it's said twelve hundred,
but I don't think it's actually past one thousand. Yes,
Warframe Warhammer three, and I will say I love Warframe.
I have not played it for a single second, since
I stopped playing it, because that game very much was
like that started to feel not like the addictions you
hear about where like those people would go to like
the World of Warcraft like internet cafes back in the
day when leave for three days playing World of.
Speaker 2: Warcraft, I had control over it.
Speaker 1: However, there were times when I was like, I just
played like six hours of this game and it was mindless.
Speaker 2: To a point where I think my feeling I think.
Speaker 1: I think every once in a while, if you want
to play a game that, like like doc Hensla mentioned
to turn your brain off, I think there's tons of
value in that as like a relaxation, meditative thing. However,
Warframe I was starting to feel like a bit gross.
Speaker 3: That's the thing like if you're playing something for you
you describe playing six hours and not feeling like anything
like you had accomplished anything, Like I think, there's it's
not just an hour count means something or it doesn't
mean something like I've sent this entire weekend playing Metrod
Prime four. But it's like, Okay, that's something I'm doing,
you know, even if it wasn't for job. It's like
that is a game with a finite ending. I'm going
to play this. It just came out. I'm very excited
about this. I'm going to play it for a few days.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: I think that's healthy and normal. I think when you
say playing six hours and like, I think a lot
of these games where it's just kind of the carrot
on this during dopamine type shit. I think if you
play it for like five or six hours and you
just kind of just feel like you were just in
this like trance basically. Yeah, and it wasn't a story
based thing where you're making progression. You're just kind of
like like, I don't know. That type of stuff kind
of weirds me out.
Speaker 1: That's why I'm not I'm not ashamed to say with
Warhammer three, because it's an in depth strategy game where
I'm actually like considering shit and like there's some sort
of stimulation. But also it's funny looking back at the
time frame when I was playing warframe like that. It's
very funny to look at my like life of relationships
circumstances and know exactly why I was playing that like
that in that method. But so clearly there is some
like self medication going on in a in a way
that I also didn't need to be doing but and.
Speaker 3: I think they're really good ones do a good job
of hiding it because like I have studied a lot
of time just playing fucking Fortnite the last two weeks
because I gotta get Homer. He's the last thing in
the battle pass.
Speaker 2: I gotta fucking do that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like a whole episode worth of like my
thoughts on where much of game design is today, which
is why I infinitely appreciate Mary you bring in cool
indie games that are not like that all the time,
Dan you being able to dive into stuff that's like
still very quote unquote old school, and how it's not
always just a carrot on a stick in front of
you every five minutes. But I also talk with people
I work about this all the time, because we work
with studios all over the world, and it's like some
of the advice we give them is often counter to
what a lot of like live service video games are
doing these days, and that that.
Speaker 4: Grosses me out.
Speaker 3: Though, Like when I hear, like, you know, there are
certain like you mainly hear by this, like the mobile
space and stuff with people who bring like psychologists on
staff to like try to like, how do we incentive
by a player and in centim by players to keep
playing and not stopping or like you know, check in
every two hours, and like, remember the one time I
played a Class Royale for like a month or whatever,
and it was the one like kind of mobile game.
I would put some money into it and everything, not
like a lot, but like and just seeing like a
glimpse of that and being like, oh, this is gross.
I don't like how this feels and I and I
see how much it works and how effective it is,
and it's like, I don't want to engage with this
part of gaming.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you mentioned the good games are good at
hiding it. This is a different thing because it's not
trying to get you to spend micro transactions. But you
look back at, uh, what's who what's the name of
the blatro dude? He local he used his experience designing
slot machine interfaces to get people to like, obviously, that's
very much like a that's a very very intelligent rogue.
Speaker 2: Leg we all, it was our game of the year.
It's an incredible game.
Speaker 1: But like he himself has said, like, oh no, like
some of the visual stimuli that keep you playing on
slot machines. I used that for Bilatro, which is funny because.
Speaker 4: Vampire Survivors did the same. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Is that what I'm thinking of? Or no, I think
Blatro was Yeah, if you But either way.
Speaker 3: I want to say it almost might have been Vampire
Survivors stuff when like all the different like you.
Speaker 2: Know, it's totally Vampire surrivor it's not.
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry to the creative Bilotro that game remains sacrosanct.
But yeah, no, Vampire Spibers absolutely knows how to keep
you like just in a trance while things are blowing.
Speaker 3: Work ship, and if you spend time in a casino
or in Vegas, it's like you see it and it's
like all these little tricks and stuff, like you can
go in and know like okay, there's no windows, there's
no clocks. They're doing these things on the ceiling to
make it look like it's the daytime outside. Yeah, like
you can know that stuff and it's still extremely effective.
So it's like, I don't know, it's good to just
kind of like just kind of back out of that.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you Doc Kenslow for the question. All Right,
last question, tonight, Hey, escapists, I listened to a lot
of the Giant Bomb Extended universe, and I think that
you guys put together my favorite Game of the Year
content each year.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much, Robbie.
Speaker 1: I think it's great to see and hear the energy
you all bring being in the same room together. Also,
it is fun hearing the banter and arguments that ensue
from the alcohol being consumed. We don't consume any alcoho.
I don't know what you're talking about. You all have
worked in a lot of places of the years, GameSpot, Polygon, Game,
Giant Bomb, Game Informer, et cetera. My question is what
are some of your favorite and least favorite parts of
the Game of the Year process from your previous places
of work. You don't have to mention places or names,
but just curious if there were some highlights or low
lights you could share. Keep up the great work and
looking forward to this year's Game of the Year. Thanks Robi.
A bit of an inside baseball question, but I feel
like a lot of people would, considering how much fun
we have a Game of the Year, I would like
to hear stuff we love.
Speaker 5: We love these conversations, and I will say I look
forward to Game of the Year every year. It's like
super fun. There are some like consistent lulls that I
will never like that I always got stressed about at
Game Spot, which was emotional tirades of people who were like,
this game is really important to me personally, and I'm
going to explain it for twenty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yes, joy, It is not yes, like okay.
Speaker 5: Ethically for me to interrupt someone and be like, hey,
we don't really don't give a shit about that, you
have to sit there and listen to someone sometimes like
get really emotional for twenty minutes about why game is
so deeply and seriously important to them.
Speaker 2: Fuck your trauma. I want to talk about.
Speaker 5: Twenty must say like okay, okay, we're going to bet
on then that sucks. But like, just a game emotionally
hitting at is important. We're not saying it's not. That
doesn't mean that it should be in our top ten
and that is. I think sometimes it can, but I
think there is a limit to how much I can
stomach someone being like this game changed my life and
I hop talk to you about it, and it's just like,
can you can you tell dry this is so important
to you?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Similarly, I remember there was a few instances a
game Spot and game Spot was a large staff across
how many different time zones when we had when we
had these and we had people calling in, and there
was a few times where and I'm not about I
don't expect every single person to be good at arguing
a point or even to all these people that's the
first time they're even doing some of this.
Speaker 5: But I remember, be the best game and you're just
not good at explaining.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's the thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, I'm not expecting you to be like like
the most eloquent person ever when you're telling why this
game is like genius or whatever and deserves Game of
the Year. But I remember a couple of specific instances,
Pete Brown and I would be the ones in the
room to really and marry you to some extent too,
it would be the ones to push people to say
like people would do the whole Like I think the
Internet has like ruined people's brains in the sense to
be like it's fucking bomb, it's so good, it should
be on our top ten. We're like, okay, cool, why
and they're like it's just it's so good and I'm like, good,
why and they're like, it's just the best thing ever.
It's I was like, do you know what why means?
Like I and like we it was the and then
people would and then this. I think at a certain
point when you get into these conversations, even fire Escape,
I think there's a certain a few points every year
where it's you have to remind yourself not to take
something personally and you be an adult. But like there
are people who immediately within the first hour of something
take something very personally and too big personality.
Speaker 2: This is not fire Escape, this is games. I'll say
it was game Spot. There were you could probably figure
out who I'm talking about, really.
Speaker 1: Big personalities who just you can tell like an interpersonal
conflict is coming out in this argument. Like they're not
really talking about why Rock League is better than the
Witch are three. Their Aaron grievance is about each other. Mary,
you might have remembered this, and I was like, guys,
we are this.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was like, guys, we are an hour into this,
like you can't be at each other's throats, like and
then it became about like this person not being able
to like separate being a critic from loving a game
as a fan.
Speaker 2: I was like that that was the not fun, like
when you make it uncomfortable in the room.
Speaker 3: That's That's the thing I've never understood is because to me,
like the content the thing you're making is like, yeah,
you're going to debate and you're trying to kind of
jockey your thing up, you know, like especially with like
Giant bombits always like, Okay, you gotta make your stand
for I know I'm the only one who.
Speaker 4: Really loves Sturdy Valley. I gotta get it on the list.
I got it, you know, like it's like a game,
you know.
Speaker 3: And then it's like you would hear that other people
treated as like or they would need like a break afterwards,
just going it's like emotionally rot or It's like and
it's like, wait, you're actually serious about this, Like wait,
we're just we're just talking about a game. We like,
trying to get on the list. Like I've never once
felt like upset, actually upset about something during a Game
of the Year argument.
Speaker 4: But apparently some people like get.
Speaker 5: Actually like you are very good at uh separation though, Dan,
I have I mean even times where I have I
have I have taken shots at you, and then I'm like, oh,
I hope that was okay, and you're like, I didn't
even think about it.
Speaker 2: Your shots are good, but I always love that.
Speaker 5: But we're also joking, and we are we are talking
about video games. And I try and always remind people
we don't save lives here. This is this is a
hobby that we love. We love it with our hearts,
we love it with our souls. We put a lot
of time and energy into this. You're allowed to care
about this, but also remember that these are things for
us to enjoy. And so when I say this game
is the most important thing in the world to me
and I'm so obsessed with it and it's the best,
and Mike goes, I didn't like it and I didn't
care for it at all, that is not him saying
anything about me personally. And you, you, you have to
be able to separate those things. And some people, I
would say, the people who really struggle at this job,
cannot make that distinction. Not liking your favorite game does
not mean they don't like you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think one of my favorites was like, I'm
probably gonna get the specific games wrong, but we were
doing a game of the year argument like a game Informer,
and when we did that, none of this was for show.
This was behind the scenes as much as Hanson Ben
Hansen wanted to broadcast all of it. It was very
much the old school magazine style, like no, we're just
gonna sit down for eight hours, we're gonna hash this out.
Andy's gonna get up on the white board and we're
gonna just talk until we figure out our top fifty
of the year. And it was just this drawn out
thing of like it was something to the effect of
I don't think it was these actual games, but it
was like, okay, for number fifteen and sixteen, is it
going to be? Is Journey gonna be above NBA two
K twelve or something.
Speaker 2: It was like, just like Matt.
Speaker 3: Helgerson, who was one of my favorite people ever, after
a bunch of argument and just seeing him, I'm just
kind of like sitting in the corner just wanting to
kill himself. Just be like, guys, we're talking about if
Journey is better than this year's but like we're all
gonna die someday.
Speaker 2: Let's let's save the energy for when it's necessary. Gives
a fuck.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that kind of stuff like I remember my
I think I led Chris Plant and I like kind
of cooperatively led. I want to say, three Game of
the Year discussions in a row for Polygon, and the
first one we did we got into the weeds like
that in a way that Plant and I the next
year we're like, we really need to cruise through like
the twenty to ten, the thirty, who like, at a
certain point, it's almost more insulting to be number fifty
than to not even be on the list, So let's
not worry about between forty fifty and forty the actual order.
Speaker 5: That's like, yeah, don't don't blow your load for whether
or not something is forty six or forty seven. This
isn't like, this isn't going to kill you.
Speaker 3: This Matterney, It's just matters the way that it's a
fun thing to listen to on a podcast and for
the people making it, it's a fun thing to put
together the list, and like, I can't wait for you
folks to be here in like a week and a half.
Speaker 2: And it's fun to fight you.
Speaker 5: It's fun to nargue about the different mechanics.
Speaker 3: I think I can't imagine taking it seriously, Like like
I think I saw something on Reddit recently that I
was talking about our game of the Year stuff, and
it cracked me up because it was like, yeah, with
a fire somebody who's asking, like, oh, who else does
game of the year the way like old school Giant
Bomb did, And somebody said fire Escape And the first
comment was like, yeah, I don't know, I really like
the way they do it. But then it like kind
of takes some of the wait out of it when
you realize that, like they're gonna have all these passionate
arguments about it, and then three months later, none of
them can remember what their game of the year was.
Speaker 2: All right, yeah, right, the list And that's so accurate
total about that. We forgot what it was the year
after Reternal I think.
Speaker 3: But it's the games are either I forgot a lot
for h Yeah, Like.
Speaker 1: It's a vehicle to look back on the year of
games and celebrate games and like just geek out and
talk about the games that you love, and like sometimes
you're like, holy shit, I forgot that came out this year.
That game was amazing, even though it's not like registering
as a twenty twenty five game, but like two years
ago or I think it was two years ago, maybe
last year, when Pickman four came out of nowhere at
the end and almost got tears.
Speaker 2: They came out of it's like you bitches like that.
That was me taking something that was like me like that.
Speaker 1: I could see the politics that gave rise to that,
and I'm like, no fucking way cool, and it was funny.
Speaker 5: Sometimes I am chaos too, though, because I think, and
you'll probably recognize this, especially the more that I drink,
the more that I recognize the most important thing is
that we were having a fun, engaging conversation where people
get out of their seats and say, I've had enough
of you. I have to say something, and like, that's
good conversation if we're all agreeing about the same game.
I actually don't find that very interesting. So I want
interesting dialogue that pushes you to your limit and and
to Mike's point, makes you say why this game should
be in the top ten, because if you can't explain
it to me, I don't give a shit. If all
three of us like it, I want someone to debate
with me about why it has to be in the
top ten. And if you can't do that, I don't
fucking want it.
Speaker 2: On there.
Speaker 5: Even if I like the game, I want you to
prove it to me. I want to see you articulate it.
And I know Mike it you were all capable of this.
I'm probably the weakest in this element of like being
able to explain it, but I absolutely will personally come
for you if the game that I like the most
doesn't make it. And these are all like things that
we get to enjoy and have fun with.
Speaker 3: That's such a fun moment too, where it's like I've
seen that with Gianbad numerous times, where it's like there's
one year Austin Walker was the only one who like
had played or was super passionate about this game Invisible Ink, Yeah,
and just to see the moment yeah, where it's like
it kind of clicks in where it's like, all right,
here's the point where I'm standing up at the podium
and let me tell all you motherfuckers why this game
is great. And he did, and it was like his
argument was like, Okay, yeah, none of us had played
this game, but it was like it's hard to argue
with this passion, but you can also blow it. I've
seen people blow.
Speaker 1: It during our I made the mistakes during our I
have since stopped reading chat while we do these, and I, I, oh,
when have we ever? I don't know, twenty twenty our
first one. Oh, I had it up because we were
remote on Twitch for our first one. Right, So I
made the mistake for the first like half of the
show of having chat up. And I saw someone specifically
say when I was trying to push Kentucky Road zero
past both of you, not past you, but like I
was trying to convince you it should be on our list,
there was a chat that said, like Marty thinks he's
Austin Walker but sucks, and I was, yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Was it was funny. I deserved it. I didn't know
how to talk about that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: If I was your mom, I would frame that quote
and hang it in your dorm room.
Speaker 1: I was I at that point, I was like, all right,
I got to turn off track because that that got me.
I'm done talking about zero forever.
Speaker 2: Oh that's really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Maybe you needed to hear that though too.
Speaker 1: When I was trying to get Kentucky Roof zero to
fire Escape like top five, I think.
Speaker 5: That was so hard in this group. It was our
first Yeah, And I also think like that game was
very meaningful, and that's about this actually is a perfect
circular point to my first point, which is you also
recognized the point at which you're the game meaning something
to you personally is meaningful to me and Dan it
is it is very meaningful that that game was so
personal to you to the point where we put it
on the list because it probably wouldn't have been on
our list we we had done something. And so that
is like meeting in the middle. There is a point where,
like when we're starting to like argue tooth and nail,
you didn't do this mic, but like there is a
point where someone argues tooth and nail, be like, well
it should be in the top five, where it's like
you have to recognize that this group holistically does not
feel the same way you do. Your your emotional weight
has value, but only to a certain point. There is
a point in which the dynamics of this group, especially
people who do not read a lot, Dan, Mary, won't
put it very far and we just have to recognize that.
Speaker 4: But there is a real like I you know, I
won't I can't do justice.
Speaker 3: But like if you watch last year's Giant Bomb Game
of the Year, there's you know, Sean Turba, Sean did.
He talked a lot about how much I think it
was some Persona remake or something meant to him, and
like normally no Persona game I just I don't I
could not give less a shit about any Persona game,
But just hearing Sean talk about it and seeing how
much it affected him and everything, Like as much as
I don't give a fuck about Persona, I wouldn't put
it on any top anything list. Sitting next to him,
hearing him, seeing him react to it's like, yeah, I
have no problem with that. Like if this is Giant
Bomb's list, Turbo Shawn's a Giant Bomb, like absolutely, like
what that brought out of him, Like that's a real thing,
you know. Yeah, So yeah, like there's that's what makes
it so interesting, I think, and I think we are
good about that too. Where it's like if there was
a game, like if Mike had some rat tile game
that he fucking loved this year, like you know, if he,
you know, really made a show of it, I think
me and Mary would be like, Okay, sure we'll put
the rat title game.
Speaker 5: Game of the Year, Like, yeah, it's not gonna be
like Super High but yeah, I like I listened to
and and Jake as well. I think it's also actually
really important. Is I think our our tiebreaker, our judicator,
our uh. I would just say, like our secret spice
is Jake, who will sometimes come out of the fucking
would work because this dude does not talk very much
and will be like I want to tell you guys
that this game is important. We all shut the fuck
up and listen to him like he's a total game changer.
Speaker 3: Well, but we also get him like once a year
on the show when he's got a gavel. So it's terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's this is a gang in my head.
It's really good.
Speaker 1: It's ever and like I think last year, I was like, dude,
is it hot under the wig in the robes like
a little bit. I was like, I don't care, you're
keeping them month Like, I mean.
Speaker 5: We're not going to change it. We just wanted to
know how hot it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice cool. Look, Yeah, no, I'm I'm looking forward
to game of your stuff.
Speaker 1: I definitely like, I have actual things I hated at
GameSpot and Polygon that I'm not about to talk about now.
Would be good radio because I would actually be venting,
but by and large, like Polygon and game Spot, we
I also like I loved hearing intelligent people make their
argument for a game, and it was fun at a
certain point, Like even with fire Escape, there's the element
of like you got to know when to spend your
political capital and when to withhold it.
Speaker 2: That's what I like. Now I've learned if I have
a Kentucky for zero, I should not blow my political
load on that game.
Speaker 3: Unless you're really confident, and that's where you want to
put all your points this year.
Speaker 5: You know, like you can't be emotional about twenty different game.
I think that's sucking smart and it's like my other
major pet peeve. So like again, as we said, you
can't have an emotional labor of love for twenty minutes,
like sum it up, like get to the fucking point.
The second one is is you can't do that five times.
You can't. You can't have five games that changed your life.
Speaker 2: I think the best argument fucking three and tell.
Speaker 5: Me why and that's it. But you can't do this
to me every time. You can't be like this is
the game that like changed me, Like my mom and
I have a better relationship.
Speaker 2: Shut the fuck up. Which ones.
Speaker 5: Truly need to be up a notch? You can't do this?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, No, I also think the best arguments are
relatively brief, Like I like, I think if you have
a good if you have a good point to get across,
I don't think it should be that long winded to
make I.
Speaker 5: Agree the best arguers as well. And this is like
something that will also come up and Mike, you alluded
to this earlier. Is like the best arguments. You might
not necessarily have the best game, but you have found
a way to particulate your point that is convincing to
the group. What's so fascinating about Game of the Year
is that, quite frankly, like in so many of these cases,
it's not so much that it's just truly like this
objectively great game, is that the people that we're fighting
for it are very good at making their arguments and
also getting people on their side. There's a political nature
to this battle, right, there's three of us. If two
of us are like really sided on this, it can
sway the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jake, I.
Speaker 5: Consider like the bonus like surprise, like I'm tie breaking,
But generally speaking, the three of us make these calls
of like what should be where, and so if you
can sway someone on your side, that is a big difference.
So like, yeah, the game obviously huge, say in this,
but how you are able to argue, how you are
able to get people to be with you or not,
And especially like in my experience at games, but if
you could rally that room, not only could you like
score big points for that game, you were also the
coolest fucking person in that room. Like it's there was
a high that came from being able to get people
to be like, you're right, that is speaking.
Speaker 2: A good game.
Speaker 3: And you mentioned Jake and like really spending your points
appropriately and everything. I'm looking at last years and if
I'm looking at this right, I think lower lay in
the laser Ese it was number seven Jakes here that
was super and like and I remember Jake fucking loved
that game. And he came out of the wood the
argument in a way that's like, yep, that makes life.
Speaker 5: And then guess what he did. Yep, he fucking sat
back down and he waited until he had something funny
to say. And that's why he's the judge. If he
did that every time, it'd be fucking annoying. I he
used his points.
Speaker 1: I still wake up in the middle of the night
from a deep sleep and start laughing sometimes at the
memory of Jake playing the Judge thing, and then we're
all like waiting with baited breath.
Speaker 2: He's like, give me a beer, someone give a.
Speaker 5: Beer, and just said, I just don't want to hear
you talk anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, He's like, this is just going on too long.
Speaker 5: Anyway, everybody loves Judge Jake. I think it's a wonderful time.
I think there's a lot of positives, and there's a
lot of like there's a lot of trials and tribulations
of it. The good news of fire Escape is I
actually think it's mostly like all of the joys of
these things, Like there was a lot less, way less
drama than Game Spot. And he's just like, all right,
here this person I've ever been. It's like, here we are.
Speaker 3: I'll say, I've literally never been legitimately angry at any.
Speaker 5: Of you, though I wonder, like, have you ever been
legitimately angry at a game? At a Giant Bomb?
Speaker 2: No game?
Speaker 5: Like I think you are an anomaly, but are most
people do get mad at a game of the year
debate because and again, it's not because a game isn't
good and it shouldn't be that high. It's because a
person is fucking irritating.
Speaker 3: I've never been upset about something. I have just been
surprised when I have seen people be legitimately upset about stuff.
You know, it's like, oh, I didn't know we were
doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, passionate.
Speaker 1: What's materializes differently in different people, and I take some
people it's like it's more of a toxic thing, and
I'm like that, I guess you did not play Mass
Effect Legendary Edition twenty times this year, so I'm going
to mix that from your argument.
Speaker 2: That's physically impossible.
Speaker 5: Like if I just also, like if I can also
just like shoot our own horn one more time, I
will just say something that's really awesome. I think about
the fire Escape dynamic is that we all have very
different argumentative styles. Mike is usually very analytical. You will
bring up like very specific points of why this game
is designed explicitly better. That is your secret sauce. That's
like what makes you extremely good at what you do.
I think that Dan, you have riz and you will
just you you have Sway and you will explain things
in a way that is like really charismatic and entertaining
and enjoyable, and people will be like, man, I like
this guy. I like the way you explain it, like
the way you say it, and people like, naturally go
your way, and I scare people into submission. I think
we all have different styles of game of the year
and they flow well together.
Speaker 3: Marry the amount of times people when they bring fire
Escape up to me and the first thing they say
is I love fire Escape because I love how much
Mary can just put you in your place and just
shut you the fuck down.
Speaker 2: And I'm like doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I still think about You're not important enough
to be this annoying, and it's like, my god, there's
never been a more laser bream attack at me and
I love it.
Speaker 1: That's the Mahardi thinks he's Austin Walker but sucks common'stle.
Speaker 3: I have nothing, but just like I just want to
applaud that and like that. That's what people love, like
they love that dynamic with you and me, and I'm like,
I get it total.
Speaker 5: I think we have good dynamic together, and I think
that's what separates us. There are a lot of companies
out there that do Game of the years. But those
people were not They did not decide to do that together.
They were chosen by, like you know, people who hired them.
And like, there's a lot of bureaucracy that goes into that.
There's people that should that are in those rooms that
probably shouldn't be there, people that are in that room
that should have left ages ago. There's a lot of
shit going on in a lot of those rooms. We
choose to do this every year, and so we choose
to have this dynamic, and I think it I think
it allows for it to just be like a little
bit more NATCHI and a little little bit good. So anyway,
I'm biased, but I just prefer the way.
Speaker 3: That we we do it.
Speaker 4: This is making me very excited for about a week
and a half from now.
Speaker 5: Good news, we're about to fucking do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's our episode, thank you, Rovi. But yeah, December
sixth about let's just say roughly seven pm Central. We'll
figure out the exact time it'll be on Twitch dot tv.
Speaker 4: If we're we're gonna have a dinner and then we
will start doing our thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Twitch dot tv slash Dan Riikert, but also go
followscape Cast on YouTube if you're not a patron and
you want to give video versions or add free episodes
of our normal episodes. But also we'll be putting up
The Game of the Year as a two parter on
December eighth and the following week December fifteenth. Also, Vinnie
Caravella of Nextlander and I do a co op show
Total World Warhammer three where we're playing through.
Speaker 2: A campaign for.
Speaker 1: Firescape Cast and another different campaign with different factions, different
part of the world for next Landers. So if you're
not a patron for them, please go do that. They're awesome.
Those of you who already are, no, they're great. We
will we have merch It's Firescape Cast merch dot com.
Still can get your water bottles if you want to
make sure you're hydrated during Game of the Year, which
we need to do too. If you want to get
your banana hammocks, if you want to get your pajamas,
your swim trunks, maybe you know, stock up while it's.
Speaker 5: Cold sweater for Christmas.
Speaker 1: Oh do we still have is dorky Chris Christmas. You
can get Dorky Christmas sweatshirts. That'd be great.
Speaker 4: Got a hand job yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: It's not itob it's about a hand. Yeah, the story before,
but that I have a friend who like said, they
had a holiday celebration and the little girl came down
the stairs and looked at everyone and said, I'm not pooping,
And everyone was like, all right, well, now that's all
we think you're doing. I probably shouldn't explain something you're
not doing publicly because now it's all I can think about.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're looking forward to it. Game of the Year, Dan,
what do you have going on in the meantime?
Speaker 3: Giant Bomb? We're doing our Game of the Year stuff.
You know, we'll definitely be announcing when all of that's
going to be rolling out. We will be recording it soon.
We'll be doing you know, talkovers for the game awards
and things like that. But yes, the actual Game of
the Year award deliberations, we will be announcing the time
frame for that. But yeah, very much looking forward to it.
Speaker 2: Mary, what about you?
Speaker 5: Streaming every Monday on Twitch And mostly I think my
funnest updates right now are on Instagram dailies, Like just
in my day to days, I just find that an
update that disappears after twenty four hours is the most
alluring to me. So, like the majority of like what
I'm doing on my day to day is going on
Instagram stories. I just find that fun.
Speaker 2: What about you, Mike, just working at magod doing the
more behind the scenes and video games, which is nice.
Speaker 5: You've said working at MAGA.
Speaker 2: Well, that's behind the scene, you got. How do I
put this?
Speaker 5: He loves I.
Speaker 2: I can't.
Speaker 1: I don't blame you for hearing that. No, I'm working
at maggid is the company I work for.
Speaker 2: We are We're all over the place.
Speaker 1: I want to hear something. I want to hear something funny.
I will be flying to Dan's house for Game of
the Year from the south of France.
Speaker 5: Oh my god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wish I could help it.
Speaker 5: Dan, do you know how to make an espresso martini?
Speaker 4: I can do it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, vodkaf espresso and vodkah I'll be making them.
Speaker 2: I think that's going to be the day before Game
Year for what it's worth. But oh, I'll be fine.
Speaker 1: I don't think I'm not going to be there long
enough to super get adjusted to the time.
Speaker 2: For what it's worth, and they're literally gonna be chaos.
Speaker 3: Here's the thing, Mike, I swear to God, you and
Jake need to stay awake for Naked Gun the night
before again.
Speaker 2: I think I'll be fine.
Speaker 1: I think I'll be jet lag just from the physicality
of traveling. But I'm only there too.
Speaker 5: Have everyone seen the naked Gun?
Speaker 3: No, Mike hasn't and hasn't No, Ja, Yes, I'm pretty sure.
Jks Okay, Well, Mike, I swear to god, it's like
an hour twenty five. It feels like it's twenty minutes long.
Oh yeah, you fucking said. I'm shoving my fingers into
your Brainstand you don't stay away.
Speaker 1: That's a very weird threat out for people who don't
didn't see the context last year.
Speaker 2: I'm not even gonna expound that.
Speaker 5: Video evidence somewhere. I don't know what I've done with it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm not going to
be in France long. It's like literally two nights and
then I'm back.
Speaker 5: You're going to France?
Speaker 2: You can't. I can't, Mike, I lived there. If I could,
Oh I can, I might, I will, It is reasonable,
all right, but uh No.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, I'm I don't really do anything forward facing.
I'm just here this is you, guys, get all of
my forward facing Shenan's. Oh god, damn that video I
sent you. This is the first time that's that's the
first time I heard vodka soda referred to as a
vod sod.
Speaker 2: I really didn't like it.
Speaker 1: Up, order a couple of are before you switch over.
Some cours lattes. I hated it too, but those were
stuck about it. I want a cours latte before I
switched to the vodside. All right, we will be back
for Game of the Year Live December sixth, Bookmarket.
Speaker 2: We will see you then, bye bye bye. All right,
I'm gonna stop recording.
Speaker 5: That was very funny, I thought.
Speaker 3: H