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