Speaker 1: Hey everybody, it's Tuesday. I'm your host Jeff Grove for
Speaker 1: the Giant BombCast here on giant bomb dot Com. I
Speaker 1: am standing in for our boy Jan Ochoa, who is
Speaker 1: busy in a living email. Joined by a new co
Speaker 1: captain of the ship. Let's see, I'm gonna pick who
Speaker 1: Am I gonna pick? Sean Turbo Sean McDowell, how are
Speaker 1: you doing?
Speaker 2: I was really worried you were gonna pick someone who
Speaker 2: isn't actually running the show today.
Speaker 3: I will be very upset.
Speaker 1: Yeah, someone actually running the ship with me. Yeah, Sean
Speaker 1: is streaming because we're It's a well run operation over here.
Speaker 1: But thank you so much Sean for handling the levers,
Speaker 1: the ones and the twos. I appreciate it. Also joined
Speaker 1: by Mike Manatti. Mike, how are you doing?
Speaker 3: Hi? It's me. It's Mike Manatti.
Speaker 4: Uh yeah, yeah, I'm good, warming up a little bit
Speaker 4: out here.
Speaker 3: I'm able to go outside and not feel pain all
Speaker 3: the time, so that's nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm right there with you. I was like, I
Speaker 1: am going to go on a walk today, feeling pretty good,
Speaker 1: feeling chipper, looking chipper. Dan Reichert, how's it going in Minneapolis?
Speaker 5: I'm also going to be walking today because it is
Speaker 5: above freezing for the first time in a long time.
Speaker 3: Little snow's melting ice.
Speaker 5: The ice that was in my cooler that I threw
Speaker 5: out after my New Year's party is starting to melt
Speaker 5: on the deck.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, yep, the frozen tundry. I'm like beginning to
Speaker 1: see like a little bit of ground again. So that's
Speaker 1: it's nice out there. Yeah, we're gonna talk about video
Speaker 1: games at some point on this show. But how's everyone doing?
Speaker 1: What's everyone been up to?
Speaker 3: I finally saw Wicked?
Speaker 6: Yes, what's going on with you?
Speaker 3: I need Jan here for this one.
Speaker 1: I watched half of Wicked.
Speaker 6: I want to hear about it on your phone or
Speaker 6: you're checking your phone during.
Speaker 1: I was checking my phone of course. Yeah, we can
Speaker 1: talk about that too if you want it. Like I
Speaker 1: knew you watched Wicked because before we started you were
Speaker 1: singing Wicked, yeah, NonStop?
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, man, Wicked should have been my whole personality
Speaker 4: like fifteen years ago.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I've never could see this thing before.
Speaker 3: Is that anything?
Speaker 1: No one morens than Michid No, not your best work.
Speaker 3: I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: That's yeah, I mean lost.
Speaker 2: It's not terrible, but I remember it before the show
Speaker 2: that you've gotten good improvde I take.
Speaker 3: It all back.
Speaker 1: No, that's fairly.
Speaker 4: When you say you saw half of it, you mean
Speaker 4: that you saw half a part? What do you just
Speaker 4: saw part one?
Speaker 1: Very good, very good point. I should clarify. I've seen
Speaker 1: half of part one. I started watching with the family
Speaker 1: and then we got busy, as we do, and uh,
Speaker 1: I'll we paused it and we'll go back to it at.
Speaker 3: Something my nieces are obsessed with.
Speaker 4: They're nine good, like yeah, like they like watched The
Speaker 4: Wizard of Oz the other day because they're so into
Speaker 4: liquid right now.
Speaker 1: So that's how I do. Wonder how do they feel
Speaker 1: about the Wizard of Oz? My brother says they liked
Speaker 1: it right. I would like to check. Maybe they were
Speaker 1: on their phones the whole time to like it for sure?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, do you know I'm so vindicated about this phone
Speaker 5: conversation when I did the Next Landern thing and Vinnie
Speaker 5: Caravella beloved Vinnie caravellas. I will go further than you, Dan.
Speaker 5: If I'm watching a movie and my wife falls out
Speaker 5: her phone, I will pause the movie and just look
Speaker 5: at her and then when she puts the phone away,
Speaker 5: he'll be like, Okay, are you good for me to
Speaker 5: start again?
Speaker 4: Like that sounds like I love Vinnie. I would slap
Speaker 4: somebody if they did that.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, not the conversation, which is how I knew.
Speaker 5: You know, this is one where you guys are all
Speaker 5: misrepresenting a conversation.
Speaker 1: Now literally here's how it literally happened. You were saying,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this new thing where I watch a movie
Speaker 1: and then I don't look at anything about the movie afterward,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, oh, I say that.
Speaker 5: Wait what I did not say that. I do look
Speaker 5: up the movie afterwards. I do keep a running roller
Speaker 5: decks in my head of like, oh, this is gonna
Speaker 5: drive me nuts. I got to look this up after
Speaker 5: the movie. Who was that guy?
Speaker 3: I always I letterbox the movie. I look it up.
Speaker 5: Somebody else was saying the thing, maybe that was Backler
Speaker 5: or something. I always look up the movie out.
Speaker 1: Okay. So someone said that and I'm like okay, and
Speaker 1: I was like, yeah, I'll just look up during the movie.
Speaker 1: I will just look up who. Like if we have
Speaker 1: a conversation with my wife, I wonder who that is.
Speaker 1: We'll just look it up. Real quick, and you're like,
Speaker 1: you're like during the movie, and you were, and I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: everyone does that. It's really normal. And so when I
Speaker 1: asked ninety five percent of people okay, it was like
Speaker 1: ninety two point five perf. I don't remember where I
Speaker 1: put that.
Speaker 5: No, because that is reasonable, Like I don't look up
Speaker 5: stuff about the movie during the movie. But if you're
Speaker 5: just trying to see like who's this actor or when
Speaker 5: did this come out or who directed this something, I
Speaker 5: would not have taken a hard stance on that. It's
Speaker 5: It's literally general argument was are you on your phone?
Speaker 5: Are you checking your phone during you?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: You get turned it into that right, But that was
Speaker 2: in two different conversations because I was there and I
Speaker 2: edited the show. You two were having two entirely different conversations.
Speaker 1: You you imagine a scenario and got mad at that. Dan, Yes,
Speaker 1: that is.
Speaker 5: Correct, and I was saying, I'm hardline on that, like
Speaker 5: airplane mode, throw the phone off the deck, you know,
Speaker 5: like nowhere near me.
Speaker 1: And I think that's I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: That's commendable. We just you know, I usually when we
Speaker 1: sit down to watch a movie these days, it is
Speaker 1: like me and my wife are like, this is still
Speaker 1: a time when we're also talking because we don't get
Speaker 1: a lot of time to do that.
Speaker 5: Oh no, but Bunk and I have. We used to
Speaker 5: do a whole podcast where we talk about movies after
Speaker 5: we watch movie. Now we're just in the movie. The
Speaker 5: credits are rolling. Then we talked talk about it for
Speaker 5: a while. Then we letter Box said, so, yeah, we
Speaker 5: do talk about him stuff, but like, oh no, you're
Speaker 5: focused during the movie, you know. Yeah, No, I just, uh,
Speaker 5: we don't have that kind of time. So it's like,
Speaker 5: I want to spend this time with you, and that's
Speaker 5: more important than the people in the box on the TV.
Speaker 3: All right, So he just loves his wife more than
Speaker 3: you did.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 4: Every week I think I can't give my opinion on
Speaker 4: this because I'm going to like, I'm gonna lose a
Speaker 4: lot of my likability if I start going.
Speaker 6: On, please do, He'll turn, He'll turn.
Speaker 4: All I'm gonna say is like some people like like
Speaker 4: there's a lot of comments, like people are addicted to screens.
Speaker 3: They have to look at their phone during movie. The
Speaker 3: movie is also on a screen.
Speaker 6: Just dedicating your attention to one thing for an hour
Speaker 6: and a half is not that.
Speaker 2: Crazy, Mike, your brothers are on the record saying it's
Speaker 2: a problem how to your phone.
Speaker 3: I believe that it is a problem because they're jealous
Speaker 3: of my life.
Speaker 6: No, every time I see a comment about Mike Banati,
Speaker 6: I strolled out two inches and I see a response
Speaker 6: from Mike Manatti everything said about him on the internet,
Speaker 6: I believe.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna shift. We were having a conversation about
Speaker 1: whatever before the show today, and uh, there was Mike.
Speaker 1: You made some reference to the three bes of Dwight
Speaker 1: and you spelled beats B E, A T s now.
Speaker 1: The vegetable is not spelled that way, and I just
Speaker 1: thought that was very on brand for you to misspell
Speaker 1: the vegetable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But as I was doing it, I'm like, I
Speaker 3: think this is wrong.
Speaker 4: I think I'm getting I think I'm having a Beatles
Speaker 4: problem here, or or the beats from.
Speaker 1: Doug, the beats from Dog right. Yes, look, I'm.
Speaker 3: I'm not thinking about beats very much.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm a big I'm turning into
Speaker 5: a veggie guy here.
Speaker 3: And beads not really on those shortlists.
Speaker 1: Beats are the ones that are like, uh, they're like
Speaker 1: asparagus where they can change your out it like your
Speaker 1: waist and it's like a scary thing when you when
Speaker 1: it happens the first time, you're like, why is it
Speaker 1: that color? And you're like, oh, okay, I had beats.
Speaker 1: You have to learn that one the hard way. But yeah,
Speaker 1: how how are the vegetables going? Dan? Great?
Speaker 5: Having every day? I had some bone list skinless chicken, breast,
Speaker 5: and brussels. I had like a pound of Brussels sprouts
Speaker 5: last night. That was good as hell. What about your injury?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, that's actually a hell. And I mean none
Speaker 5: of the cuts were deep. I mean the worst is
Speaker 5: there's the one on the.
Speaker 1: What happened that aren't paying attention to your social media feeds?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I was chopped. No, I wasn't even chopping.
Speaker 5: I thought I was gonna chop onions, but then I
Speaker 5: looked up, like because I like Caesar salads and know
Speaker 5: they're very basic, but like I do like the taste,
Speaker 5: and so I got an onion out and I got
Speaker 5: the veggie slicer out. It's one of those like waffle
Speaker 5: you know, like grid things for trunk to chunk, you know,
Speaker 5: like I.
Speaker 4: Have to say It's almost comical how much like protective
Speaker 4: plastic shielding is on the face.
Speaker 3: But that's the thing.
Speaker 5: I cut it in a weird way, Like I've used
Speaker 5: that a million times and it's not hard to just
Speaker 5: don't don't do it safely. But I thought I was
Speaker 5: gonna need it and I didn't, and so I was
Speaker 5: like just cleaning it basically, and I had the top
Speaker 5: part and I didn't take the blades out, even though
Speaker 5: you can easily remove that square blade thing. I was like, ah,
Speaker 5: I'm just running some water over, getting the like onion
Speaker 5: bits off it or whatever. And then I like, I
Speaker 5: must have it all happened very quickly. I dropped it
Speaker 5: and I must have gone to grab it and my
Speaker 5: right hand went in between and then it fell on
Speaker 5: the counter and like slammed shut. And I felt the
Speaker 5: pain immediately, and I was like oh. And then I
Speaker 5: looked at my hand and all that like from five
Speaker 5: different cuts down my hand. I just saw blood like plot.
Speaker 5: I was like, ah, it's at this point in that
Speaker 5: moment your brain doesn't know if, like did I cut
Speaker 5: to the bone, Like that hurts really bad, and I'm
Speaker 5: seeing a lot of blood and I just turned to
Speaker 5: like back, and then she comes running in and she
Speaker 5: told me she's like she has walked into many rooms
Speaker 5: while I've just been bleeding profusely, and so she never
Speaker 5: knows what to expect. So she said she walked into
Speaker 5: the kitchen and thinking like this could be anything, this.
Speaker 3: Could be the big one.
Speaker 5: She's walked into the basement and seen me laying on
Speaker 5: the ground with blood pouring out of my head. She
Speaker 5: is the exact same scenario in the kitchen. So yeah,
Speaker 5: she just went and got a bunch of like alcohol
Speaker 5: and cleaners and bandages and bandaged me up and everything.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it's been healing quickly. None of the cuts
Speaker 5: were super deep. The only one to see, the one
Speaker 5: on the knuckle is like every time I bend it,
Speaker 5: it like opens up more.
Speaker 4: Yeah it's a problem, Yeah, but you feel better. I
Speaker 4: was getting annoyed because the same time you're doing this,
Speaker 4: I was just making a stew and like I made
Speaker 4: it with red wine, and I drink the red wine.
Speaker 3: It hit me.
Speaker 4: Expect herd So I did like a drunk sweet and
Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you do that. Everyone's like, man,
Speaker 4: nobody a giant ball can be trusted to cook It's
Speaker 4: like me in with them profusely.
Speaker 3: Mike is just slightly buzzed rays over here.
Speaker 2: It's like, sure me grow like our fast food, but
Speaker 2: we also can cook, like.
Speaker 3: I'm getting.
Speaker 1: I do like pitting Mike and Jan against one another
Speaker 1: in the cooking thing and like only acknowledging one of
Speaker 1: them being able to cook at one time, because it
Speaker 1: does deeply bother each of them. When you do that.
Speaker 4: Jan is definitely a much more impressive and better cook
Speaker 4: than I am.
Speaker 3: I don't want to.
Speaker 4: I don't need to put a chance level. I just
Speaker 4: don't want to. No Fitstan be put on the level
Speaker 4: of the guy who just waffle iron cut his hand.
Speaker 4: There was a freak accent. I had nothing to do
Speaker 4: with cooking, all.
Speaker 1: Right, and anyone else have anything else going on? Uh?
Speaker 1: I know, Sean, we talked about your TV a little,
Speaker 1: but you got your settle bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all this retro stuff that we're doing in general,
Speaker 2: especially some this.
Speaker 1: Is this is your family CRT.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's what makes it so cool is that this is
Speaker 2: this literally the CRT I played games on as a kid,
Speaker 2: and so I kind of forgot that. We never actually
Speaker 2: end up taking it to a recycling center. It was
Speaker 2: just in storage, my mom's storage closet for like what
Speaker 2: a decade and a half, and I took it out
Speaker 2: and it's dusty, it's dingy, it's dirty. I cleaned it up.
Speaker 2: I unfortunately took a little bit of the paint off
Speaker 2: and doing so. But you know that can that can
Speaker 2: be fixed later. No, this is it's just a sanyo,
Speaker 2: you know, just when we got Walmart back in the day. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize, like it has really good connections and everything.
Speaker 2: So it has a composite component andn S video.
Speaker 1: The picture surprisingly rare because when I go to like
Speaker 1: look for a good CRT on Facebook marketplace, most of
Speaker 1: the time like, okay, this looks pretty solid. Let me
Speaker 1: see the connect and it's just coax. That's nuts to me,
Speaker 1: of course. Yeah, even the relatively modern ones only have
Speaker 1: rf co x. Yeah, so that's awesome they had to have.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a very late CRT. We bought it to
Speaker 2: replace our TV that was dying. This is from two
Speaker 2: thousand and five. So yeah, oh wow, I guess the
Speaker 2: rand scheme of thing you didn't see that much use
Speaker 2: because what we did get in HDTV late, but it
Speaker 2: was still like twenty thirteen ish, so yeah, this is
Speaker 2: it's pretty gently used. The only thing is because it's
Speaker 2: a late one, there's some quirts there, Like it's a
Speaker 2: flat screen, so I can't use light guns on and stuff,
Speaker 2: which not a huge deal. But yeah, it's awesome. Right now,
Speaker 2: I got my modded. We hooked up to it, so
Speaker 2: I just got that loaded up with games video viewers
Speaker 2: can see. I got MARTU sixty four playing track mode
Speaker 2: back there, and.
Speaker 6: I always like that, like we have one on cam.
Speaker 5: It's so nice to just like, oh, I can just
Speaker 5: pick something thematically appropriate or something I'm meant to right now,
Speaker 5: Like I love having that shure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Like the r day I was thinking, I was thinking
Speaker 2: about putting Ninja Guide in on in the background, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, that attract mode is like one cutscene
Speaker 2: and that's kind of out.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is kind of the rabbit hole I'm going
Speaker 2: down now. You know, Grub has his handheld Dan Gondola
Speaker 2: as well. But I'm getting more and more retro systems.
Speaker 2: I did get my Xbox three sixty I'm getting that
Speaker 2: modded in time here because I want to just have.
Speaker 3: All original hardware.
Speaker 2: This is My thing is I love having original hardware
Speaker 2: and then combining it with like a flash cart or
Speaker 2: a mod or something like that. You just play all
Speaker 2: all the classic games but the old hardware. And yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's super cheap to do. So I got a
Speaker 2: three sixty with the power cable with the controller in
Speaker 2: the box for eighty bucks on eBay.
Speaker 3: Like nice, Yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Sorted that sweet spot there. If you don't want super
Speaker 2: rare stuff, you kind of just want older stuff, it's
Speaker 2: a good time to do it right now.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the three SIXTYPS three wei era is very cheap
Speaker 5: right now, even like original Xbox, you can't find too
Speaker 5: much of a super expensive right now.
Speaker 3: But that's how I started the two.
Speaker 5: It was just like I got all the actual consoles
Speaker 5: and I just got ever drives for everything.
Speaker 6: And then you move on to misters. We wanted the
Speaker 6: handhelds and all that.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the thing over the weekend talking. You don't
Speaker 2: put out his mister slash.
Speaker 1: P s one here.
Speaker 3: Transparent blue?
Speaker 1: I did. I did transparent blue as well. I got
Speaker 1: the gron right, I think I'm gonna be jealous of
Speaker 1: you guys. What's my blue one rive? Well, that's the
Speaker 1: funny thing that was grass always greener.
Speaker 2: The one that I wanted was the only one that
Speaker 2: they're not doing as Founders dish. I want the white
Speaker 2: because it's mild after the PS one slimy.
Speaker 1: So yes, right, yes, I have then I should get
Speaker 1: that out and see what I can do.
Speaker 3: I've got that too.
Speaker 6: Yeah, if you find something, let me know, because I
Speaker 6: just sitting on the shelf.
Speaker 1: Okay, I bet there's like an om sort of drive replacement.
Speaker 3: Oh I would love that. Yeah, say what the superst
Speaker 3: always say what the superstation is?
Speaker 4: You know what's funny is Like I was trying to
Speaker 4: talk myself out of it, like why am I getting this?
Speaker 3: I have original places you want? I have a retro
Speaker 3: tap up.
Speaker 4: What really got me was the idea of I don't
Speaker 4: have a mister at all, and also the idea of
Speaker 4: loading up the Saturn core on that thing.
Speaker 3: That sounds nice. There's so many Saturn games I want
Speaker 3: to play lately.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if anybody doesn't have the full details yet because
Speaker 2: we've lost over Yeah, I'm talking you done. Who's been
Speaker 2: putting on, like, you know, more and more retro stuff
Speaker 2: under his company Retro remake they did the Mister pie,
Speaker 2: which is, you know, like a mister clone that's way
Speaker 2: cheaper this new one that they're pointing out. It was
Speaker 2: basically a simple but pre configured basically a mister It's
Speaker 2: designed to do PS one stuff first and foremost as
Speaker 2: PS one controller reports, PS one memory card ports, uh,
Speaker 2: and those are configured using snack if people know what
Speaker 2: that is. So yeah, it kind of just works out
Speaker 2: of the boxes, kind of like analog. The company like
Speaker 2: analog pocket and all that, kind of like their consoles.
Speaker 2: But also it can just load up every mister course,
Speaker 2: so you can just play retro cap retro consoles with
Speaker 2: a hardware accurate emulation. It's very very cool stuff.
Speaker 6: Speaking of the analog like that. Sixty four has got
Speaker 6: to be soon, right, I prefer that one one, I thought, so, yes,
Speaker 6: me too, skew one. Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice if
Speaker 6: I just showed up one day. I'm very excited about that.
Speaker 1: Even though I did get this and sixty four up
Speaker 1: and run and I'll put another and sixty four upstairs
Speaker 1: on HDTV and then.
Speaker 3: I'll have it.
Speaker 6: I'm going to keep that on the HGTV for sure.
Speaker 1: And sixty four on every floor is kind.
Speaker 2: Of I was really thinking about getting Atomic Purple, just
Speaker 2: to like follow you guys down that rabbit hole. But
Speaker 2: I'm like, nah, Like when I get that, the superstation
Speaker 2: is like six months out potentially because they have to
Speaker 2: manufacture it and and chips from China, but that'll run
Speaker 2: the N sixty four, mister Corel, I'll be fine with that.
Speaker 2: I do want to get coming out pretty soon here though.
Speaker 2: The new version of the Retro Tank four K I
Speaker 2: do a lot that literally bring everything together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna get.
Speaker 1: What is it? Do you remember what it's missing? Sean
Speaker 1: from the more expensive.
Speaker 2: Version, Extremely specific stuff that most people extremely.
Speaker 1: Like I will almost never use it.
Speaker 2: It's like image rotation on the retro Tank itself, so
Speaker 2: like for arcade stuff. But you know that's the kind
Speaker 2: of thing you can do it on whatever you're playing
Speaker 2: on a lot of time. Yeah, just turn the TV sideways. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's usually obscure things like that. A more
Speaker 2: recent one is Jeff, you and I talked about this
Speaker 2: on Game US Mornings. The new black frame insertion that
Speaker 2: Blurbusters came up with to simulate a CRT that's complex
Speaker 2: enough that it can't actually run on the new like
Speaker 2: lower power retro tank, so it's like but it's also
Speaker 2: like two thirds of the price.
Speaker 6: So yeah, yeah, I'm probably gonna end up getting on
Speaker 6: because I know that stuff is stuff I'm going to use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that's that's out of there.
Speaker 2: That's like the end goal for my journey here is
Speaker 2: to get all these you know, retro consoles and mud
Speaker 2: and stuff, use the retro tank to output to both
Speaker 2: the flat screen O CRT, and then yeah, I'll have
Speaker 2: my nice gaming set up the way I want it,
Speaker 2: the way I've always wanted.
Speaker 5: It's when I was doing like quackshot speed runs. The
Speaker 5: Mister is great at like you know, HDMI out to
Speaker 5: capture and then the I think I had yeah component
Speaker 5: out to the TV, which is nice, and the CRT
Speaker 5: reminds me my first the one I had all through
Speaker 5: my teen years was when I worked at Funko Land.
Speaker 5: We had six Kiosks, we had an he asked Genesis,
Speaker 5: super PlayStation, Dreamcast, and sixty four, and then while I
Speaker 5: was there, they made the decision game stop, was like,
Speaker 5: we're not selling anything before PlayStation one.
Speaker 3: And so that's when like.
Speaker 5: All of this, all the cartridges, all that shit went out. Basically,
Speaker 5: they took all that down. They had three nineteen inch
Speaker 5: just like nothing fancy, but three nineteen inch monitors and
Speaker 5: they're like, you know, five of us worked there, and
Speaker 5: they're like, oh, you guys want this, And so that
Speaker 5: was the one I used all through my teen years.
Speaker 1: Is the main nice. I mean that thing must have
Speaker 1: been turned on NonStop. He did how long did it last?
Speaker 1: You did it last year until you were done with all.
Speaker 3: Of high school? For me?
Speaker 6: And I know what I think I took I took
Speaker 6: it to college.
Speaker 5: I don't think I bought a new TV until like
Speaker 5: my first HTTV around like mid two thousands, like The
Speaker 5: Dead Rising was.
Speaker 3: I remember the first game I said those things soon, Yeah,
Speaker 3: see your TV. I still have it.
Speaker 4: It's like the one I like grew up with, Like
Speaker 4: I had it since, like I don't know, middle school,
Speaker 4: And it's great. It has the VHS player built into
Speaker 4: a bit of classicate a little bit. It's it's it's old.
Speaker 4: I use it forever.
Speaker 3: I played so many things on that, but.
Speaker 4: It's still like just having it in the room, knowing
Speaker 4: that there's a GameCube hooked up to it.
Speaker 3: It just feels right.
Speaker 1: I think in like CRTs can like break in away
Speaker 1: that gives them more character, or they can break it
Speaker 1: away where it's like you can't look at it and
Speaker 1: it's kind of roll of the dice. I you know,
Speaker 1: CRTs for a long time, people were expected to just
Speaker 1: keep those for like thirty years. So the ones I
Speaker 1: grew up in my house were from the seventies and
Speaker 1: things like that, the ones that wasn't like the main
Speaker 1: TV that my dad would use every day he got
Speaker 1: from home from work. And so I have a lot
Speaker 1: of love for kind of fuzzy CRTs. I don't.
Speaker 4: People have told me before why it won't happen, But
Speaker 4: I still hope that there's going to be, like you
Speaker 4: know those people making retro consoles, somebody just makes new CRTs.
Speaker 2: Well funny you say that that's Taki's company, that their
Speaker 2: final product is going to be a PVM like replicated
Speaker 2: using March.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's like they're not going to be using
Speaker 1: a proton gun, right, or like it's not.
Speaker 2: Going to be a new CRT. It's going to be,
Speaker 2: but it's going to be an LCD that basically has
Speaker 2: like so we talked about the retro tanks and that
Speaker 2: like has cr really complex CRT shaders built in. It's
Speaker 2: presumably going to be that, but like on like a
Speaker 2: little LCD, you can take a round with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gotcha CRT emulation, gotcha. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Breaking news here, our own Janet Choa is not here
Speaker 5: because he was hosting a big all hands meeting this
Speaker 5: morning and he told us beforehand that he was going
Speaker 5: to try to sneak in yadada mean into.
Speaker 3: The thing, and he did.
Speaker 5: He did first thing, and then I sent him a
Speaker 5: message during the all hands meeting saying like, if you
Speaker 5: can sneak in and I love you solo, I will
Speaker 5: venmo you ten dollars right now. And he just popped
Speaker 5: into our chat and said, did you hear me say
Speaker 5: I love you solo in the meeting?
Speaker 3: I think he's getting a video.
Speaker 5: I am one button press away from sending him ten
Speaker 5: dollars out of my pocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: If he can send the proof, I will send it immediately.
Speaker 5: I trust jan though, I believe him.
Speaker 1: I believe and I believe that we have already been
Speaker 1: talking about video games for a minute, but that can't
Speaker 1: stop us from talking about more video games.
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, Jane's gonna give me any other thing. I'm
Speaker 3: sending him money right now.
Speaker 1: Oh you guys, not here music.
Speaker 2: I hear that thing.
Speaker 1: I can. I think I can think it'll be on
Speaker 1: the recording. I did though, Okay, well that'll work. It'll
Speaker 1: work next time, so but it will be on the recording.
Speaker 1: All right. Let's see here, let's start with Dan. Will
Speaker 1: work our way from the past the future, super Mario
Speaker 1: Land Dan tell us more about that.
Speaker 3: I don't know where this came from.
Speaker 5: It's just like, you know, sometimes like you got games
Speaker 5: you're working on, like I've been working on Red Dead
Speaker 5: two and stuff like games that are like, okay, I
Speaker 5: need time to like sit down and sink into this game.
Speaker 5: And sometimes it's like, ah, you know, you're gonna be
Speaker 5: tired within thirty minutes and go to bed. I just
Speaker 5: want to pick something up easy and just play something
Speaker 5: real quick. I don't know what got me to randomly
Speaker 5: do this, but I just picked up the analog pocket.
Speaker 6: I loaded up Mario Land one. You know, I beat
Speaker 6: him a couple of times.
Speaker 5: I did mary Land one and two on stream, like
Speaker 5: four or five years ago, just in one sitting, but
Speaker 5: I don't really remember it. And goddamn. Like I beat
Speaker 5: one and two and had a lot of thoughts on him. It's, uh,
Speaker 5: there is a massive leap between one and two. It's insane.
Speaker 5: One is what's a game?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, And it made me think playing them that,
Speaker 5: like I think as a kid because I never owned
Speaker 5: them as a kid, but I would play like my
Speaker 5: friends or whatever if they brought them to school or something,
Speaker 5: and all I remember was like a Sphinx boss And
Speaker 5: so I must have only played one back in the
Speaker 5: day because like playing two now, it's like, holy shit,
Speaker 5: this is like this is a real ass Mario game.
Speaker 5: This is like, in some ways more interesting than a
Speaker 5: lot of the ones that like Nys and Superintendent. I'm
Speaker 5: not saying they're better, but like the zones and stuff.
Speaker 5: He goes to fucking space, Like there's six zones. There's
Speaker 5: space Zone, Tree Zone, Turtle Zone, Macrozone, which I'm a
Speaker 5: huge mark for big small worlds.
Speaker 3: Mario Zone where you're going through a Mario mech and
Speaker 3: a Pumpkin zone.
Speaker 5: Like you know, if there's one criticism I think you
Speaker 5: can levy against the Mario series is like a lot
Speaker 5: of them. Lean on, here's the Lava World here's the
Speaker 5: ice world, here's the air world, whatever. Every fucking world
Speaker 5: I went into here is like Turtle Zone. What this
Speaker 5: is an old Turtle zone? Turtles God. And there are
Speaker 5: so many just weird little things like enemies and stuff
Speaker 5: like there's one level in the Macro Zone in the
Speaker 5: Attic where you get a question mark block and a
Speaker 5: heart comes out and.
Speaker 6: Some motherfucker just shows up and steals it and runs away.
Speaker 6: It's just this guy that shows up in one level.
Speaker 6: I've never seen this motherfucker in any Mario game. And
Speaker 6: I'm looking this up and it's some guy named the
Speaker 6: Collector that just shows up and steals the ship from
Speaker 6: you in one level. And then there's mass like Jason Mass,
Speaker 6: guys with knives in their heads and shit.
Speaker 3: Yep like that Jason Goomba's yes, and great, Oh my god.
Speaker 6: I just fucking loved it.
Speaker 5: Like it's a two is a tremendous, tremendous mariagain that
Speaker 5: stands right up there with NES and Superintendo Mark.
Speaker 4: It was always one of my favorites. And you're right,
Speaker 4: like the leap from one to two is incredible. It's
Speaker 4: it's not one of those things like you know, like
Speaker 4: one's age. Everybody always thought Super Mario Land one was
Speaker 4: kind of weird.
Speaker 1: They just hadn't figured out how to do Mario physics
Speaker 1: on a game Boy at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the sprite size, you know, because they wanted to
Speaker 2: have the same screen, like the viewport basically that NIS had,
Speaker 2: and you just can't do that on that smaller, lower
Speaker 2: resolution screen. That's why two was a lot smarter about
Speaker 2: having bigger sprite for everything. So I think it was
Speaker 2: just more legible.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's ushrooms and the coins and stuff in the
Speaker 5: first one or the goomba, they just yeah, looks like
Speaker 5: a t I eighty three, you know. And then you
Speaker 5: played two and it's like that's the Mario I know
Speaker 5: from Mario World, you know.
Speaker 4: And I left just like it's just so ridiculous. The
Speaker 4: story is that Mario has a castle. I Princess Peas
Speaker 4: castles Mario's castle in Marios steals it, He's get it back.
Speaker 1: It's like, what the extited universe decided to give Darth
Speaker 1: Vader a castle on the planet where he got like
Speaker 1: murdered by Hobie Want It's like, what the fuck are
Speaker 1: we doing here? The same idea? I love it.
Speaker 5: Oh, and at the end of when you kill Warrio
Speaker 5: and it turns into weird little bald kid Mario.
Speaker 3: Warrio, I was like, what the fuck is that? Oh?
Speaker 6: Yeah, this morning I started Warrio Land is so good.
Speaker 1: Have you ever played it?
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever really played it. I've probably
Speaker 3: played it.
Speaker 5: I probably played a couple levels, and I think it
Speaker 5: was just it so turns the Mario stuff on his head.
Speaker 3: Words.
Speaker 5: It's still a side scrolling platformer, but it's like, wait, okay,
Speaker 5: so I'm charging things and I can pick things up
Speaker 5: like it just it was so different. But I need
Speaker 5: to get that out of my head because I love
Speaker 5: Mario too, even though that's very different and also involves
Speaker 5: picking things up. So I think I am going to
Speaker 5: play through Warrio Land now. But yeah, when you are
Speaker 5: not Super Warrior or whatever, it's that that fucking weird
Speaker 5: little bald guy.
Speaker 1: Who is that?
Speaker 3: Who is that little kid?
Speaker 2: Have you played the other Warrior Land games before?
Speaker 6: The only ones I really played were once I started.
Speaker 5: I started reviewing in five, so anything that came out
Speaker 5: five or later, so like shake It. I think there
Speaker 5: was maybe a GBA when I reviewed back in the
Speaker 5: day two or three I played Master.
Speaker 2: Guys played, yeah, because Warrio Land four was very early
Speaker 2: on in the game Boy Advance. All all of the
Speaker 2: game Boy Slash game Boy Advanced Warrior Lands are very good,
Speaker 2: I think, and interesting. Yeah, they're notably better on alternating ones.
Speaker 2: I think. I think it's like two and four because
Speaker 2: four is phenomenal for is an incredible game. I think
Speaker 2: two is the best of the game Boy trilogy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think three recently and liked it a lot.
Speaker 1: I think they're all good. They're all good good, it's
Speaker 1: not bad good, it's good. And then oh this was.
Speaker 3: And then yeah exceptional.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he sent two or three where the
Speaker 1: whole thing is like, well, Warrior is a bad guy,
Speaker 1: so bad guys don't hurt him. They like sort of
Speaker 1: transfer their.
Speaker 2: Remember it's one that's not that's one.
Speaker 4: One is a pretty traditional two D platform, where two
Speaker 4: and three are both like that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Two and three, Yes, okay, yeah, you're right.
Speaker 4: Virtual Boy Warrio Land is the one that's actually more
Speaker 4: of a direct sequal to Warrio Land one.
Speaker 3: It's that same place. Also a very good, very game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you have a modern three ds are just
Speaker 2: soft moding, just fire up that Virtual Boy emulator on there,
Speaker 2: and it's actually a really good time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean for a virtual Boy emulator on
Speaker 1: the in the Medoquest three, same thing, very good, yeah, sure.
Speaker 3: Sure, yeah good in appreciation for this.
Speaker 5: And again as much shit as I talk on the
Speaker 5: game Boy, it's like the pocket is so good and
Speaker 5: I got the trim uy, so it's like I've been
Speaker 5: very into just like you know, and I also like
Speaker 5: the sp you know, grub you told me to put.
Speaker 6: Like the menu I or whatever on it.
Speaker 5: Something just really deep in that like portable fucking round
Speaker 5: mode right now, and so I'm playing them now. It's like, shit, Okay,
Speaker 5: Mario Land two I would have fucking loved. But then again,
Speaker 5: back in the day, I hated the game Boy because
Speaker 5: I had to sit next to a wall outlet because
Speaker 5: I never had batteries, So sure I probably wouldn't have
Speaker 5: liked it anyway, you know that that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess for me, it was like the game
Speaker 1: Boy was okay. My parents got it for me because
Speaker 1: it was cheap, and then because of that, they're like,
Speaker 1: I guess we have to keep good him batteries when
Speaker 1: he needs it, So they kind of always always provided
Speaker 1: me battery.
Speaker 5: I think my grandma got me the game Boy for Christmas,
Speaker 5: and so it stayed at my dad's house because it
Speaker 5: was his mom they got it for me. My dad
Speaker 5: was batteries, right, My dad wouldn't be buying batteries, so
Speaker 5: I did. I think I personally bought an ACA adapter
Speaker 5: so I could play it. But it's like, I've got
Speaker 5: my nes right here. Why why would I sit next
Speaker 5: to this wall and play Mario Land.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually kind of sad, Dan, I'm sorry, all right,
Speaker 1: Uh let's see here, Okay, Dan, what is grun?
Speaker 3: Grun?
Speaker 5: I was very impressed by that. Where the fuck did
Speaker 5: I hear about it? I saw someone I think it
Speaker 5: was Jane Garcia. I think Jane Garcia. I saw post
Speaker 5: some flu Sky about it and she just said like
Speaker 5: like a comparison to Outer Wilds, and I was like,
Speaker 5: all right. She said she was liking it, and then
Speaker 5: she compared it to Outer Wilds. Is like that's all
Speaker 5: I need to hear. And if you've played outter wild
Speaker 5: you know, the less you know the better. So I
Speaker 5: just loaded it up on stream over the weekend and yeah,
Speaker 5: it's like if Outer Wilds was like, look, up some
Speaker 5: images on Google Imagery. It's very kind of like early
Speaker 5: three D and it's textureless, yeah, textureless gardening focus outer wilds,
Speaker 5: where it's like you show up at this house and
Speaker 5: you need to just kind of clean up the place
Speaker 5: by the weekend. There's like different zones and you kind
Speaker 5: of like trim the hedges, cut the grass, water the flowers,
Speaker 5: make it presentable. But it's super fucking weird too, like
Speaker 5: in that outer wilds, like you're not going to space
Speaker 5: or anything, but you're finding like weird items and you're like,
Speaker 5: what the fuck is this going to do? Or why
Speaker 5: did this happen? Or who is that fucking thing that
Speaker 5: just showed up? And I've never seen them before? And
Speaker 5: there is that kind of like time limit element of
Speaker 5: it because like I think you show up on like
Speaker 5: a Friday, and then you have to have everything done
Speaker 5: by Sunday night, I want to say, so like I
Speaker 5: think that's when the narratively, I think the owners come
Speaker 5: back or something, and you have to have the house
Speaker 5: ready to show. So every time that loop starts, basically
Speaker 5: you learn more and more every time you play it,
Speaker 5: where it's like the first time you're just like okay,
Speaker 5: I guess I gotta find shears and a watering can,
Speaker 5: and I guess I'll just chop these things. But you
Speaker 5: discover more and more each time, and then you start
Speaker 5: kind of optimizing your run or the loop, where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: I know I need to go here, and I know
Speaker 5: that guy leaves that toilet stall at eleven o'clock on
Speaker 5: the first day, so I need to get that shit
Speaker 5: to him so I can get the blue coin, and
Speaker 5: I put the blue coin in the I don't want
Speaker 5: to say specific things because like you will have these
Speaker 5: big moments of realization where it's like, oh shit, all
Speaker 5: that stuff I was doing, all that busy work. I
Speaker 5: did this one thing, and now that took care of that,
Speaker 5: so now I can have all this time freed up
Speaker 5: to do all this other stuff. If there was a
Speaker 5: frustration I have with it because I haven't beaten it.
Speaker 5: Because every time you start the loop, you do need
Speaker 5: to do a lot of busy work stuff where it's like,
Speaker 5: all right, I got to get the shears and cut
Speaker 5: all this grass every time, and like there's all these
Speaker 5: zones where it's like here's the church zone, here's the
Speaker 5: park zone, here's the garden, and I don't know, Outer
Speaker 5: Wilds didn't have a lot of that, like I need
Speaker 5: to do this repetitive thing every time, like kind of
Speaker 5: once you know the path, you could just go the path.
Speaker 5: This one it's like, all right, I'm kind of tired
Speaker 5: of cutting this grass, but still very worth checking out.
Speaker 5: I think, very unique, and it's yeah, one of one
Speaker 5: of the few games since Outer While.
Speaker 3: It's given me that similar feeling, you know, And.
Speaker 1: It's overwhelmingly overwhelmingly positive on Steam. And it came out
Speaker 1: in October, so I feel like I heard the name
Speaker 1: and then never actually looked into it. So yeah, looking
Speaker 1: at it now, I liked. I always like the low
Speaker 1: fidelity vibe of it. But yeah, that looks that sounds
Speaker 1: very interesting. I'm gonna check this out. Is is it
Speaker 1: like a similar sort of length in terms of like
Speaker 1: the how long before it resets like you said, like
Speaker 1: three three ish days or something like.
Speaker 5: That day in terms of just cheer like minutes, you know,
Speaker 5: It's it's probably similar, like you know, And there are
Speaker 5: like eleven endings and I think I unlocked like six
Speaker 5: of them, and I think there's probably like one good
Speaker 5: ending and the other ones are like oh a dog
Speaker 5: attacked me, you know, or like, oh, some weirdo showed
Speaker 5: up in a hallway and now I'm dead, you know,
Speaker 5: like and you don't even know really what happened. So
Speaker 5: I never felt too frustrated when I had to go back.
Speaker 5: It was just the like, right, I gotta cut the
Speaker 5: grass again now, you know, Okay, it sounds pretty good.
Speaker 5: It is fun once you optimize, though, because then it's
Speaker 5: just like I'm flying through this, you know.
Speaker 1: Yes, totally, all right, let's bounce around here. Sean. You've
Speaker 1: been playing some fighting games. How's that going?
Speaker 3: Well? So far?
Speaker 2: A little rocky maybe, but yeah, I've been playing Virtual
Speaker 2: Fighter five Revo, which came out yesterday, and Virtual Fighter
Speaker 2: is okay. So this is gonna be an interesting journey
Speaker 2: for me because I mentioned around this time last year
Speaker 2: actually when techn eight was you know, weird leaning up
Speaker 2: to that, I'm kind of new to three D fighting
Speaker 2: games in general.
Speaker 3: It's nuts on.
Speaker 2: I really grew up with much outside of Soul Caliber,
Speaker 2: like I dabbled with. I had Virtual Fighter four, I
Speaker 2: played a little bit of Tech and three at friend's houses.
Speaker 2: It's the first time I'm really like taking them seriously.
Speaker 2: With Tech and eight, and now I want to get
Speaker 2: good at Virtue a Fighter five, and so fame one
Speaker 2: does know. Revo is Virtual Fighter five Ultimate Showdown that
Speaker 2: came on the PS four a while back, that it
Speaker 2: has now been ported to PC and then it's getting
Speaker 2: a balance It has a balance update that also is
Speaker 2: getting like backpwards to the PS four game.
Speaker 3: And it's bond like.
Speaker 2: Virtue a Fighter has always been kind of the epitome
Speaker 2: of easy learn, hard to master because it's it's a
Speaker 2: three bun fighting game. Either it's just a punch, kick
Speaker 2: and block and you can do you know, combinations of
Speaker 2: those buns will do things like punch and guard is
Speaker 2: throw stuff like that. But because the game is very simple,
Speaker 2: very pure, it's all about your positioning with you and
Speaker 2: your opponent, your positioning on the stage, like you know, putting,
Speaker 2: trying to get your opponents back to the wall so
Speaker 2: you can That's how you do combos in the long run,
Speaker 2: is trying to like force them against the wall and
Speaker 2: be able to whale on them a little bit more,
Speaker 2: knock them down so and get a follow up hit.
Speaker 2: There's no supers, there's no like meters to spend. You
Speaker 2: don't get worried about any of that stuff. It's like
Speaker 2: very straightforward and right now. That's very appealing to me,
Speaker 2: especially with Tech and eight going a bit too far
Speaker 2: with some of the like really flashy stuff. That also
Speaker 2: kind of like makes it a little imbalanced way that's
Speaker 2: not fun. It is cool to go back to this
Speaker 2: version of fighting games that is a little more back
Speaker 2: to basics. It does feel like going back to an
Speaker 2: older age, in part because this game is its core form,
Speaker 2: like twenty years old at this point. Virtue of Fire
Speaker 2: five is an early PS three game, So yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 2: There's this release of the game. You don't get a
Speaker 2: ton in the base version, but the Deluxe edition adds
Speaker 2: all these costumes in. There's Yakuza series costumes for everyone.
Speaker 2: You get the you guys have probably seen this. I
Speaker 2: think be like Virtue Fighter one models that you can
Speaker 2: put on everyone that yeah, just below poly but in
Speaker 2: a really high res environment. Is very funny. Uh there's I.
Speaker 3: Saw what I saw on Steam.
Speaker 4: It's like got mixed reviews of Farm trying to figure
Speaker 4: out why it seems like it is about the customers.
Speaker 3: So here's the thing. Here's the thing.
Speaker 2: It's a very bare bones package. If you just get
Speaker 2: the base level, Like yeah, you don't get what people
Speaker 2: are saying. You give zero customization options at all. If
Speaker 2: you just buy the base version and you have to.
Speaker 1: Make the twenty dollars version, that's just kind of the
Speaker 1: right going here.
Speaker 2: That's the important thing here because like people are mad
Speaker 2: about that. But the entry level to get in here
Speaker 2: is twenty bucks. Like, this is a brand new port
Speaker 2: that's being released, and it's not sixty, it's not forty,
Speaker 2: it's notinven thirty, it's twenty dollars base. There's a first
Speaker 2: week sixteen dollars on sale, first week discount for sixteen.
Speaker 2: All the key sellers like Fanatical, GMG, they're all selling
Speaker 2: it for.
Speaker 3: Like thirteen bucks.
Speaker 2: Like, I think that's okay to not get a ton
Speaker 2: of content, not get a ton costumes, but have it
Speaker 2: be very cheap to get in there. And you know
Speaker 2: it's they put rollback neck code in there now so
Speaker 2: you can have a good online experience. Apparently the matchmaking
Speaker 2: has been kind of funky to start out here, which
Speaker 2: hopefully they get that sort but it's I think it's
Speaker 2: a reasonable entry point. And then if you want all
Speaker 2: these different costumes and stuff. The Dog's Edition you can
Speaker 2: get for about like thirty four. I think I got
Speaker 2: it for at Fanatical, so it's like.
Speaker 4: It's forty seme right now with the twenty dollars kind
Speaker 4: of you know, entry fee of the promotion right now.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, not crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I think that's reasonable to get. You know,
Speaker 2: they have options there for people. But the yahhy scheme,
Speaker 2: the mixed reviews, and yeah, I'm having fun learning it
Speaker 2: so far. I played some games online that code seems solid.
Speaker 2: I heard that. I heard some people say that it
Speaker 2: was a little rough, but I haven't been having any
Speaker 2: issues as long as like the people's ping isn't too high.
Speaker 2: It seems to be holding up. And I'm having fun
Speaker 2: cowt just learning characters. And there's even the one last
Speaker 2: thing I was gonna say about customization. There's a tech
Speaker 2: and seven pack that they did back on the PS
Speaker 2: four version that's now here, and you can just put
Speaker 2: tech in costumes like they it's tech in skins, like
Speaker 2: I can make a character look like Lily and have
Speaker 2: like one of my favorite tech in songs that's a song,
Speaker 2: and I don't know, it's it's fun. I'm just having
Speaker 2: a really fun time with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah I didn't.
Speaker 5: I was like a ton of respect for Virtual a
Speaker 5: Fighter more than like I actually played it, because I
Speaker 5: remember for Evolution was the one on PS two, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's the one I remember that was.
Speaker 5: That was the one I box I remember reviewed very well,
Speaker 5: and I remember just that three buttons set up was
Speaker 5: so interesting to me in the era of like, you know,
Speaker 5: teching numerous seconds at that point, because what in the
Speaker 5: thing like the timing instead of like a traditional like
Speaker 5: Perry thing. I don't know if it was a block
Speaker 5: button or a grab button, but if you see something
Speaker 5: coming at you, don't you hit back and a button
Speaker 5: to kind of like Judo flip them or to kind
Speaker 5: of counter in.
Speaker 1: That sounds similiar to me.
Speaker 2: I think doing that, remember that, because I I know
Speaker 2: dead or Alive actually leans into that even more.
Speaker 3: Maybe that's okay, thank you, but okay, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this this one's like something I mean, I remember
Speaker 2: the evolution was.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I just remember like playing VIA four Evolution and being like,
Speaker 5: you know, my friends and I in the dorms were
Speaker 5: just mash buttons and hit each other. But you dig
Speaker 5: into the tutorial a little bit and it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: this could be a very high level fighting game if
Speaker 5: you have to be I.
Speaker 2: I often think about soccer I when I think Smash
Speaker 2: four was coming out and he was talking about competitive
Speaker 2: Smash or maybe it is one of his like a
Speaker 2: YouTube videos where he was like, but why would people
Speaker 2: want to play Smash competitively? If you want to play
Speaker 2: a competitive fighting game, go play virtual a fighter too.
Speaker 5: Is true that they put the tripping? Did they put
Speaker 5: the tripping in Brawl? Like to Spike competitive players? Mike
Speaker 5: man that's so fucking funny, and I respect so much.
Speaker 4: Not funny fun to ruin your game out of Spike for.
Speaker 2: Relision, it's hysterical that Mike Manatti thinks Super Smash Bars
Speaker 2: Brawl is a bad video game four ten because of tripping.
Speaker 3: I did not, Okay, I never says the fourth, but
Speaker 3: nobody said.
Speaker 2: You've said bad so many times.
Speaker 4: It's bad in that I don't know why I would
Speaker 4: ever play it when I just play all the good.
Speaker 2: Smash change in history here saying.
Speaker 1: This one is not good?
Speaker 3: Yes, all right, stupid prettypid. I gave it a nine
Speaker 3: point nine as it's a phenomenal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, was that a spite. Would you have
Speaker 1: given it a ten?
Speaker 3: If I know that? Maybe a ten?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's also float here and there's so many other problems.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, are you it's a fucking Foh you
Speaker 2: can never say a game is floating ever after gave
Speaker 2: me you can use that word.
Speaker 3: That's my word to floaty.
Speaker 1: I didn't know. Go too Ku is doing this remaster
Speaker 1: as well as as the next Virtual Fighters. This is
Speaker 1: like them cutting their teeth. Does that give you?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's what they originally did and why
Speaker 2: they're working on the new one. They did Ultimate Showdown.
Speaker 1: Oh, they did Ultimate. I thought that that was a change. Okay,
Speaker 1: very cool? All right, Well so I mean then I
Speaker 1: guess still the question stands, are you playing this excited
Speaker 1: about their next foray into Virtue Fighters?
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so excited for the next Virtue Fire. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and that's that's why they released this one on PC.
Speaker 2: And that's why I'm playing now. Is like I wanna
Speaker 2: I want to learn it. I want to get good.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Combo Breaker is gonna be hosting as one of the games.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna like enter the tournament there, probably gonna do bad,
Speaker 2: but I'm gonna have fun. Time, and I'm yeah, we're
Speaker 2: gearing up for the next Virtue Fighter. It's I'm excited
Speaker 2: to say.
Speaker 3: You're like, you know, you've been try kicks, you have
Speaker 3: a mania? Not yet.
Speaker 2: I I've been checking out Pie again because she has
Speaker 2: the Lily COSTI if I want to pick it up.
Speaker 2: I've been checking out Vanessa was who I played back
Speaker 2: in the day and when I did dabble with it,
Speaker 2: so I tried playing her as well. And uh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I've kind of just been bouncing around to a bunch
Speaker 2: of different characters and yeah, it's it's been fun to
Speaker 2: experiment because I don't really know what I'm doing, hearing,
Speaker 2: kind of just learning.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I am so mad about Super Special.
Speaker 6: I might make it the best Smash Brothers.
Speaker 4: You're such a Smash brother snowflake, Mike. I didn't know this,
Speaker 4: this Virtual Fighter five thing came out. I didn't realize
Speaker 4: that happened so.
Speaker 3: Yet it me neither.
Speaker 1: Actually, I just picked it up, so I'll be playing.
Speaker 1: I love virtually look.
Speaker 3: At that too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we could throw that on the website this week.
Speaker 1: That'd be fine. I this week have been playing Sniper
Speaker 1: Elite Resistance. I have not had a long history with
Speaker 1: the Sniper Elite franchise. It is mostly just streaming it
Speaker 1: a couple of times. Dan, I think we did it
Speaker 1: that one time.
Speaker 3: You're still credit. You exploded Hitler's balls.
Speaker 1: And then I exploded Hitler's ball. You're about seven and
Speaker 1: a half feet away.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you guys did political content. There were
Speaker 4: a couple of fire brands, you know, right.
Speaker 1: Rather than having a conversation with the man, I just
Speaker 1: shoot him in the balls. That is one of my
Speaker 1: moral failings, of course, I am. I'm really enjoying this game.
Speaker 1: That is clearly a middle of the road game. It's
Speaker 1: just one of those again, yet I have not played
Speaker 1: a lot of them, so and I bet there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are in that boat where
Speaker 1: like it's one of those b games. I've never like
Speaker 1: send my money on that. I think that if you
Speaker 1: are someone who likes the idea of a diet hit Man,
Speaker 1: a but hey, here's a world where you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do accomplish a few things. You have some freedom how
Speaker 1: to accomplish those goals. There's not a lot of like
Speaker 1: world interactions in the way that the hit Man works.
Speaker 1: But still it's the same basic concept. If that sounds
Speaker 1: enticing to you. And then in World War Two, you're
Speaker 1: a sniper. You can blow shit up. You can rig
Speaker 1: up bodies with grenades so that when you do shoot
Speaker 1: someone and that their friends come not even go check
Speaker 1: on them, they just run past them. It explodes. Excuse me.
Speaker 1: And then no matter where you are in the map,
Speaker 1: if that happens, the game cuts away to show you
Speaker 1: that show you them exploding. I mean to me, that's
Speaker 1: this is all good stuff. This is all real, solid,
Speaker 1: fun video game ass video game stuff.
Speaker 6: Do you turn up all the frequency of the goals?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that way of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: You mentioned being like Diet Hitman, and I think there
Speaker 5: is a perfect version of this game that I would
Speaker 5: want where it's like I love the slow moo kills.
Speaker 6: I want that every single time. That is what that
Speaker 6: series is to me.
Speaker 5: I don't necessarily love the sneaking around stealth elements of it.
Speaker 5: I just even if I crank everything down, it's just
Speaker 5: like I'm just constantly getting caught and it's not fun
Speaker 5: for me.
Speaker 1: Or are here like running into stuff like because you
Speaker 1: can at this point you can just shoot your way
Speaker 1: through this game.
Speaker 5: I think, Oh, I always wind up getting caught in
Speaker 5: the just like you know, machine gunning, grubering everyone but
Speaker 5: hit Man. If you remember, was it Absolution that had
Speaker 5: that pre order bonus where you're just kind of like
Speaker 5: sitting on like a rooftop and there's a party of
Speaker 5: bad guys on another rooftop and it's almost like a
Speaker 5: Where's Waldo thing where it's like you're not even moving around,
Speaker 5: you're stationary sniping bad guys and getting like bonuses. It
Speaker 5: was just a pre order thing. I played way more
Speaker 5: of that than I did Absolution. Just give me a
Speaker 5: Sniper Elite like that.
Speaker 6: I don't need to move, just set me up somewhere,
Speaker 6: put somewhere, and then have every.
Speaker 5: Fucking shot be matrix out game. What was that called silence?
Speaker 5: I want X ray head exploding stuff.
Speaker 2: God, Soundscope was so much fun I got. I always
Speaker 2: say that galloping and it's just a cool tech on
Speaker 2: that one.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Yep, is there screen in the scope?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, That's why the home points were never quite as good,
Speaker 4: because you're like, you know you scope screen?
Speaker 1: Yeah this so yes? Silent or yes. The Sniper Elite
Speaker 1: Resistance is coming to game Pass this week. I think
Speaker 1: it's on the in two days, so you can pick
Speaker 1: it up then. And I think a perfect little game.
Speaker 1: If you already have game pass, or if you are
Speaker 1: someone who's like had some interest in this, you think
Speaker 1: that sounds like a good time. Like, honestly, if there
Speaker 1: were still rental stores, this is an easy go rent
Speaker 1: this game, have fun. Uh, but you know, as it is,
Speaker 1: I think that if you can have a lot of
Speaker 1: fun with this game, as long as you're not worn
Speaker 1: out from the formula, because it is one hundred percent
Speaker 1: just that form formula. Again. It's you know, you're gonna
Speaker 1: go to cut scenes, and the cut scenes are gonna
Speaker 1: look pretty cheap, and but it's it's funks. The guys
Speaker 1: doing is like English accent, the hardest anyone's ever done
Speaker 1: an English accent, and just talking about I don't know
Speaker 1: what kind of what a badass he is, and these oh,
Speaker 1: I'm with these, the French Resistance fighters and all these frenchies.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go work with them. It is what it is,
Speaker 1: and I am enjoying it. So yeah, I would recommend
Speaker 1: it as long as you keep those caveats in mind.
Speaker 1: All right, let's check in with Sean and Indiana Jones
Speaker 1: how's that going. What's Indiana Jones and the Fantastic Circle?
Speaker 1: Excuse me?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So I wanted to bring it up because
Speaker 2: I finally finished the game, and so now I think
Speaker 2: we've all finished it, right, Oh you beat it?
Speaker 3: No? Did you drop it?
Speaker 1: Because you got an instant kill with the thing underwater?
Speaker 5: Not just one, but it happened to it was underwater
Speaker 5: and it was instant killed. Still, it's like two things
Speaker 5: I fucking hate. And I died like twenty times at
Speaker 5: that and I was like, I'm good.
Speaker 2: Okay times I'm still platforms finish the Bowser's hurry. So
Speaker 2: I'm curious, can you say, broadly speaking, where you were, like,
Speaker 2: are you talking about the big I.
Speaker 6: Was underwater and there was a big sit getting a pyramid.
Speaker 5: I even got into the pyramid. I went and I
Speaker 5: watched the rest of the game. I was at like
Speaker 5: the last snake related thing. The only thing I had
Speaker 5: to do was like kill it basically okay, but then
Speaker 5: I watched the rest. So but you know what, I
Speaker 5: enjoyed this game. I don't want to deal with this
Speaker 5: fucking snake shit way.
Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing I want to talk
Speaker 2: about here because now that I finished in we can
Speaker 2: all talk about a little bit more, you know, no spoilers, obviously.
Speaker 2: I think this game is really good most of the
Speaker 2: time when it when it's good because okay, I don't
Speaker 2: like the open sections at all. That's why I realize
Speaker 2: once you get further into the game and they sort
Speaker 2: of dial that back a little, I like it a
Speaker 2: lot more when it's a little more guided and it's
Speaker 2: a little more when it's focusing more on the tomb
Speaker 2: raider of it all rather than the uncharted and I
Speaker 2: realized the irony of comparing it to those two. But
Speaker 2: when it is more focused on indie exploring, I love
Speaker 2: those elements. I love those segments when you're exploring the
Speaker 2: tombs and the cac hombs and everything like that. I
Speaker 2: think that's a lot of fun. And even like the
Speaker 2: platforming I think can be really fun, Like you know,
Speaker 2: the one area where you need to throw a spear
Speaker 2: and then whip grapple onto the spear, that entire sequence
Speaker 2: is very fun. I think presentationally, like it looks gorgeous.
Speaker 2: This game is like one of the new benchmarks for gaming,
Speaker 2: and the performances are fantastic. Is it is Troy Baker,
Speaker 2: Who does Indy Troy Baker. Yep, great, he just he
Speaker 2: nails it. He just sounds like Harrison Ford. You forget
Speaker 2: that someone else doing the voce. It's fantastic. But yeah,
Speaker 2: there's so many little things that bug me. Because when
Speaker 2: you have like the Himalayas through Shanghai, is it like that, dear,
Speaker 2: you know, a couple hours there some of the best
Speaker 2: I've ever played gaming is.
Speaker 1: The moment of the year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, phenomenal, But then you have like so many like
Speaker 2: I had a lot of bugs. It's weird how buggy
Speaker 2: this game is and how I think unpolished in general.
Speaker 2: It is it It struck me considering how good the
Speaker 2: presentation is, Like I wasn't expecting to have it where
Speaker 2: like Indy would be hanging out a ledge it's an
Speaker 2: escape sequence. I need to get out, and he won't
Speaker 2: climb the ledge. I'm like looking around, Okay, am I
Speaker 2: missing something? Am I supposed to be going over here instead?
Speaker 2: And no, I dropped off the ledge climb back up,
Speaker 2: which took me a second, and he just went And
Speaker 2: so like all these little bugs like that start adding up.
Speaker 3: Combined with you.
Speaker 4: Get a lot of audio bugs. That was my thing
Speaker 4: was like a lot of two hours later, like Indy
Speaker 4: would say, repeat a line.
Speaker 1: So you'd have a conversation with someone who wasn't there.
Speaker 2: Dan talking about the snake reminded was what instantly made
Speaker 2: me think about the bugs is because during the entire
Speaker 2: uh like pyramid sequence, they were repeating one line over
Speaker 2: and over and over through checkpoint resets, over and over.
Speaker 2: I just had to listen. After like half an hour
Speaker 2: to an hour, it drove me up the wall. And
Speaker 2: there's also things like okay, so in the open sections,
Speaker 2: it's not open world, but does feel little generic a
Speaker 2: lot of time. And so there's this area where you
Speaker 2: have to like get a breathing device and you have
Speaker 2: to buy it so that you can go underwater, and
Speaker 2: so naturally they if you don't have enough mighty send
Speaker 2: you over here to a camp to like, you know,
Speaker 2: sneak in get some money. There's a puzzle in there
Speaker 2: where unless I'm missing something, the instructions are wrong, and
Speaker 2: so I was like staring at this puzzle for like
Speaker 2: twenty minutes, like okay, tell me do this thing basically
Speaker 2: play like a checker slash chess style game, and it's
Speaker 2: telling me to capture all the pieces. I can't capture
Speaker 2: all the pieces, and I look up the solution online.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, this is the solution. And then again,
Speaker 2: unless I'm missing something that's just not correct, but that's
Speaker 2: the solution to the puzzle.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: There's so many little things that kind of just bugged
Speaker 2: me throughout the game. So I really thought it.
Speaker 1: Was like unpiled. Yeah, yeah, it's it's like unpolished in
Speaker 1: some ways. And then I'll clearly visually it's the presentation
Speaker 1: that you said very polished, which I think, you know, ultimately,
Speaker 1: the way this game was received seemed to be the
Speaker 1: right move, where it's like, let's make this game look
Speaker 1: and feel really nice, and most people will overlook the rest,
Speaker 1: and it's like, I think I ended up overlooking the rest,
Speaker 1: even though it definitely happened to be throughout the game
Speaker 1: bugs where you know, for the first two hours, I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: this game is one of the worst animated games I've
Speaker 1: ever seen, because every character had stiff arms. And then
Speaker 1: I realized, oh, it was just broken for the first
Speaker 1: two hours.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, jew like snap into their animations and everything.
Speaker 3: It was a little odd. Yeah, yeah, but it's.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I think they found the balance where
Speaker 1: they ended up with a game that is still very
Speaker 1: easy to recommend, very good. It just is not like
Speaker 1: an unassailable masterpiece in any way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I remember thinking, like when we were talking about it
Speaker 5: at Game of the Year, I think most of us
Speaker 5: were like working through it at that point, and oh man,
Speaker 5: that's so excited and talking about this. I can't wait
Speaker 5: to get back and play more of this shit. I
Speaker 5: wish I could have played it earlier, because it probably
Speaker 5: my ten lists this year, you know, now that I've
Speaker 5: mostly beat it.
Speaker 6: Uh it uh, I don't think it would have made
Speaker 6: my top ten.
Speaker 3: I like it. I think they did a great job
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 5: I still agree with you know what I said about
Speaker 5: it's one of the best taking an ip and making
Speaker 5: a game that's faithful to the tone and feeling of that.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I think if I were to review it,
Speaker 5: it probably would have been like an eight. You know,
Speaker 5: it's like good.
Speaker 1: You know, like your your brother's a huge Indiana Jones fan.
Speaker 3: I just have sisters.
Speaker 1: I'm Mike, I'm talking about I'm sorry. Yeah, CJ loves
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones. I Clark, Yeah, Clark ended up? Did he
Speaker 1: really like it. He loved it.
Speaker 4: He loves Indiana Jones. He's the one who like made
Speaker 4: me go see Crystal Skull a second time.
Speaker 3: What's funny. It was like he had the biggest bug
Speaker 3: I ever heard about. Though. We're like, he just skipped
Speaker 3: the climax of Vacts one, like that whole point part
Speaker 3: where like, you know, the Nazi finds the artifact and
Speaker 3: breaks it in and then the Giant shows up and
Speaker 3: you fight the giant like that just skipped to watch
Speaker 3: it on a YouTube lader.
Speaker 1: He likes id.
Speaker 3: He had just so much.
Speaker 4: He was very forgiving of that. But I was like, man,
Speaker 4: that's wild. That's a pretty bad bu.
Speaker 1: I think that's the dial though, because for me, it's
Speaker 1: like it did end up on my top ten because
Speaker 1: I just love Indiana Jones and this is so Indiana
Speaker 1: Jones that, like, you know, like with the Star Wars,
Speaker 1: the Ubisoft game, very easy for me to overlook the
Speaker 1: stuff I didn't like because they're giving me so much
Speaker 1: stuff that was like in my wheelhouse. So I think
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, if you enjoy Indiana Jones, we
Speaker 1: could take it or leave it and there's still a
Speaker 1: good game here. An eight out of ten. I think
Speaker 1: it's Dan said, yeah.
Speaker 4: I think that's right, and yeah, the Indiana Jones in this,
Speaker 4: and I also do like India Jones a lot, so
Speaker 4: that just, yeah, it helps, especially since it's been so
Speaker 4: long since I've gotten an Indiana Jones something that I
Speaker 4: really like, right, like doubt this and he was like
Speaker 4: generously fine and then obviously a bunch of other worst things.
Speaker 4: I do constantly think, Jeff about that Star War or
Speaker 4: out Lost comparison, right.
Speaker 3: Because a lot of plays.
Speaker 4: I feel like these games are of a similar quality
Speaker 4: and one just got like very right, it got it
Speaker 4: got treated. I don't say it got treated unfairly, but
Speaker 4: you know, people like very critical of it, and it
Speaker 4: maybe deserved it. I don't wost I'm not saying any
Speaker 4: of it just got a free pass and it says, but
Speaker 4: there was a different earned.
Speaker 2: Earned difference of expectations is sort of what hurts Star
Speaker 2: Wars there, because you know, we hear Ubisoft Star Wars
Speaker 2: game and people have lower expectations because they're down on Ubisoft.
Speaker 2: But then we hear Machine Games Indiana Jones and we're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's a perfect fit, and like this studio does like
Speaker 2: really good stuff looking forward to it. And you know, ironically,
Speaker 2: like the things I like about machine games as games
Speaker 2: aren't really in this game. It doesn't really feel like them,
Speaker 2: actually like them Last Gripe.
Speaker 1: Other than the cut scenes, like the cut scenes very right.
Speaker 2: Exactly it had done fighting enemies in this game. I
Speaker 2: think just in general doesn't feel good, but that leans
Speaker 2: into Indy isn't much of a fighter, Like, sure he
Speaker 2: gets into shootouts and stuff, super Yeah, he's not Nathan
Speaker 2: Drake just mass murdering people. No, you are supposed to
Speaker 2: be a little more cerebral cerebral about it, and I
Speaker 2: think that's where maybe being faithful is what is going
Speaker 2: to make you a little divisive for some people like myself,
Speaker 2: who I didn't think like, y'all, if I shoot someone
Speaker 2: in the face of video game, they need to die.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I had a pistol point blank to a Nazi's head
Speaker 2: shot him. He just reeled backwards like, no, let me
Speaker 2: have this. So yeah, it was a bunch of little things.
Speaker 2: But I think that in general it's a very interesting
Speaker 2: and fun indie experience.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think for while you and I Sean
Speaker 1: didn't love the beginning of Indy, most people seem to
Speaker 1: like be like on board with it pretty quick. Star
Speaker 1: Wars Outlaws does have a much rougher introduction, and it's
Speaker 1: like it turns into a very good game later, but
Speaker 1: it it does not start out as well. All right,
Speaker 1: let's see here, Mike Tokyo Extreme Racer. Both you and
Speaker 1: I played some of this. I played a little bit
Speaker 1: on stream, kind of not enough to get fully grasped
Speaker 1: what it's going for. It is in early access. Have
Speaker 1: you played enough to like kind of get the idea
Speaker 1: of the structure of the game, or just kind of
Speaker 1: took a taste of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I played an hour of it.
Speaker 4: Like you said, it's early access, and I talk a
Speaker 4: lot about liking arcade racers and wishing we'd have more
Speaker 4: of them, and you know, like this is not Ridge
Speaker 4: Racer right in structure in a lot of ways. The
Speaker 4: one way it maybe is that the vibes are very
Speaker 4: good here. The whole sort of nighttime Tokyo City highway
Speaker 4: driving thing, going through all these tunnels and all these
Speaker 4: lights in the distance and these kind of you know,
Speaker 4: melodic beats happening. All of that is great. There's also
Speaker 4: like a little bit of a story here. And it's
Speaker 4: not much, but it's very funny. It's always like a
Speaker 4: woman approaches you and she's sexy and wearing a leather
Speaker 4: jacket and she's like, why do you race?
Speaker 3: A reason why?
Speaker 1: You're like, why do.
Speaker 3: Real deep stuff? The structure of it like that.
Speaker 4: I was kind of hoping for it to open up
Speaker 4: a bit more, because it really was I'm doing a
Speaker 4: loop around this highway and then you flash your lights
Speaker 4: at like somebody and you do a one on one
Speaker 4: race with them.
Speaker 3: That's it's fun.
Speaker 4: But I kind of kept like waiting for you know,
Speaker 4: is there going to be like a real race or
Speaker 4: because the highways kind of narrow, it's not really a
Speaker 4: drifting game.
Speaker 3: You can drift, there's not a lot of room to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 4: So you know, I was like, Okay, at some point
Speaker 4: we're gonna expand here, and eventually I race so many
Speaker 4: people from one faction that I fought there like boss,
Speaker 4: but it was still just sort of another one on
Speaker 4: one race, so the vibes were very good. I almost wish,
Speaker 4: and you know, I hate being like I wish it
Speaker 4: was a different game. I prefer to have just some
Speaker 4: more traditional Hey, there's eight cars in a starting line
Speaker 4: and here's the track we're going on. That just sort
Speaker 4: of doing this kind of weird like limited version of
Speaker 4: Burnout Paradise, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, it doesn't need to be like full modern
Speaker 1: like need for speed game where like there's a million
Speaker 1: different races littered all over a map, but it's like
Speaker 1: I would like to like get off one of these exits,
Speaker 1: go find like maybe a small part of town where
Speaker 1: there is a set up race there, and yeah maybe
Speaker 1: and maybe that does happen eventually. Again, I don't know,
Speaker 1: but the way the structure works early on was I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm just I just don't feel like I have a
Speaker 1: lot of options here in how I race, And.
Speaker 4: It might still open up, either like in that game
Speaker 4: right now or as it gets further in development, because
Speaker 4: like you know, sometimes you get these branches where it's
Speaker 4: like you can turn left or right, but like the
Speaker 4: one is always blocked off. Yeah, so you know, I
Speaker 4: assume eventually I can go different places, and I'm not
Speaker 4: expecting suddenly to you know, get in the big open areas.
Speaker 4: I think the game is all this highway driving. That's fine,
Speaker 4: but yeah, like the first hour literally is just this
Speaker 4: circuit and the progression stuff as you know, the kind
Speaker 4: of typical you know, hey, you can upgrade your car
Speaker 4: here do that? As ever, is so much into that
Speaker 4: garage aspect of racing games right for your kidstyle was like,
Speaker 4: here's the three cars you can pick. I don't need
Speaker 4: to adjust their suspension. I don't know what that means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's go with this. This game of
Speaker 1: the week, Ninja Guide in two Black. All three of
Speaker 1: you have been playing it. I want to get in
Speaker 1: there find some time, but I have not yet. Real
Speaker 1: quick before we do have all three of you played
Speaker 1: the original Ninja Guide in two before.
Speaker 6: I played all every Ninja Guiden game I've played.
Speaker 2: Okay, interesting you say that, Actually you go first.
Speaker 3: I never played two, but I played all of one,
Speaker 3: and this is very okay.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I played one and two and some of three,
Speaker 2: but it hasn't been since each of those games released originally.
Speaker 2: So I'm actually going back to the best of my
Speaker 2: ability to check some of those out because I want
Speaker 2: to do a comparison. And so I fired up Black
Speaker 2: in emulator, and then one Sigma is on game Pass
Speaker 2: and if I don't have access to original two, but
Speaker 2: two Sigma in Gay Pass and then now too black
Speaker 2: to sort of see yea, and how the different versions
Speaker 2: compare to each other.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I do wonder, like it seems like mostly
Speaker 1: people are pretty happy with this, but I have seen
Speaker 1: like some there's a conversation in the Ninja Guiden fan
Speaker 1: community about like, okay, is this actually the definitive version,
Speaker 1: and they're like, like scalpeling it apart, that's probably not
Speaker 1: gonna be something that that's gonna bother us too much
Speaker 1: one way or the other. How are you guys finding
Speaker 1: this game? Well?
Speaker 3: I think it's so fun. It just feels good.
Speaker 4: What I love about these Ninja Guiden games now, and
Speaker 4: I think it's maybe why some people have a hard
Speaker 4: time like jumping into them right now, is that there
Speaker 4: there's a kind of delineation of action games, and they
Speaker 4: definitely follow the more of like the Devil May Cry
Speaker 4: and God Have More than Later the Arkham games, Right,
Speaker 4: those are the real blueprints.
Speaker 1: Yeah, x Men Origins Wolverine likes.
Speaker 3: This says exactly.
Speaker 4: You know, sometimes obviously took things from Ninja goid It,
Speaker 4: but even still, these Ninja Guiden games, they feel like
Speaker 4: they're doing their own thing, right, You don't really walk
Speaker 4: onto enemies, like enemies aren't going to attack you one
Speaker 4: at a time, right, the a three of them, we'll
Speaker 4: just come at you.
Speaker 3: So you know you're really moving around a lot. But gosh,
Speaker 3: it just feels so freaking good. Still, that kind of
Speaker 3: calm as you pull off you know, those iconic moves,
Speaker 3: the swallow dive or whatever was.
Speaker 4: Fam out of that so good, especially early on. Gosh,
Speaker 4: you just cut people's heads off. Then you figure out
Speaker 4: the Azuna drop. I'm not even usually a fan of
Speaker 4: the different weapons now I'm just gonna use the sword,
Speaker 4: but you get this kind of staff thing that it
Speaker 4: just goes wide.
Speaker 3: It feels so freaking good just spinning that thing around
Speaker 3: like a absolute madman. So I've been having a ton
Speaker 3: of fun with it.
Speaker 6: I love the clause later. I remember those were awesome.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I've actually liked seeing the reaction to this
Speaker 5: because I remember back in the day, like I never
Speaker 5: was like, oh, this is better than one, but I
Speaker 5: thought it was also very good and you know, pretty
Speaker 5: close to one in quality, and for some reason it
Speaker 5: got a lot of ship back in the day. I
Speaker 5: think it's still reviewed fine, but everyone was kind of
Speaker 5: like the vibe of it being disappointing and a three yeah,
Speaker 5: three side, but two was good and I'm glad to
Speaker 5: see people coming around on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: What I find interesting is that Ninja Guidance fans really
Speaker 2: seemed to like the blueprint of one, and when I
Speaker 2: went back to Black in particular because uh, Sigma Sigma
Speaker 2: sour smooth some of this stuff out. One is so
Speaker 2: much more focused on like the light puzzle solving and
Speaker 2: light platforming.
Speaker 1: No DMC one resident.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it has like yeah those Resident Evil one references
Speaker 4: which influences and I kind of liked I think I
Speaker 4: kind of liked the second one going away from that, Oh.
Speaker 2: You do, okay, I thought you would like you would
Speaker 2: appreciate how much one has it. But like, you know,
Speaker 2: this is why I said during the talkover, and some
Speaker 2: people really did not like me saying that the talkover,
Speaker 2: but I did not like how Ninja Guy and Black
Speaker 2: I had, you know, at least I went back into
Speaker 2: like two levels of it, and yeah, there's like a
Speaker 2: decent amount like tracking and like grab the mcguffin to
Speaker 2: unlock the thing, and it is more focused on the
Speaker 2: environment rather than the combat. And two is much more
Speaker 2: involved with the combat. That's why I do compare it
Speaker 2: to like Ninja Guy and Black Ninja Guy in Black
Speaker 2: and two versus say DMC one and the later ones
Speaker 2: like three and especially five, because four kind of falls
Speaker 2: into those traps a little bit more too. I like
Speaker 2: it when it's more combat focused because I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of that resident evil lineage there that clearly DMC
Speaker 2: one has that because it was originally a resident evil game. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and so that's why that's there and why it's like,
Speaker 2: you know, fixed camera most of the time and stuff,
Speaker 2: and clearly that was part of the blueprint for Ninja
Speaker 2: guid in one. And I think just especially a post
Speaker 2: Good of War because everyone looked at God of War.
Speaker 2: If you're making an action game, they didn't move any
Speaker 2: more combat oriented direction, more control over the camera, even
Speaker 2: the camera's not great in two. I just think that, yeah,
Speaker 2: two is a huge step forward. And here with the remake,
Speaker 2: it's a full on remake in on real engine five h.
Speaker 2: It's really good. I think it loses somewhat charm a
Speaker 2: little bit because Jeff you and particular will know I
Speaker 2: meis say it looks very unreal engine.
Speaker 5: That's always been a Shiny series. They look like action
Speaker 5: figures and they always have.
Speaker 2: And Unreal by default kind of has like a Matt
Speaker 2: finish to a lot of stuff. Like you look at
Speaker 2: the blood of enemies in this game and it looks
Speaker 2: like Clay almost. It's a little odd, and so yeah,
Speaker 2: I do think that the style is lost in translation
Speaker 2: a little bit.
Speaker 3: It's also very heavy game.
Speaker 2: That's Unreal lunch in five. But I think in general
Speaker 2: it's a good remake and it's I always think it's
Speaker 2: fun when they like do bring these games back, adding
Speaker 2: quality of life stuff and just make it more accessible.
Speaker 5: And I remember little moments in the combat of those
Speaker 5: games that I love were that I haven't seen other
Speaker 5: stylish action character action games do. Where it's like you're
Speaker 5: being overwhelmed by enemies and you just killed one and
Speaker 5: his orbs floating around. It's like, Okay, if I can
Speaker 5: just land with enough time to hold and wide to
Speaker 5: suck in that orb and that fucking crazy ass attack
Speaker 5: and you just chop them all up, that feels so
Speaker 5: fucking good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The Ultimate Technique or whatever it's called, that you can
Speaker 2: charge up to two levels and we just does like
Speaker 2: a canned like going to enemy to enemy to enemy,
Speaker 2: just like going to town on them and it's so satisfying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, all right, yep, definitely was gonna play it.
Speaker 1: This one is not running great on Steam Deck, right,
Speaker 1: I would.
Speaker 3: It's great on Xbox just me laying on your Xbox
Speaker 3: plants great.
Speaker 2: I mean it's really heavy even yeah, like I'm my system,
Speaker 2: I have a just a thirty sixty TI and it's yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to like turn the internal res down to
Speaker 2: like ten eighty jeff. So like it's it's a heavy game.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 1: We on the PC then that'll be the way to
Speaker 1: play it.
Speaker 5: Funniest update, I have been playing Crimson Skies on my
Speaker 5: rog ally via the Xbox Cloud streaming and that's been
Speaker 5: working fine. So I think I'm near the end of
Speaker 5: Crimson Skies and I like that game a lot.
Speaker 1: I have not started Grim Fandango, but I'm making plans
Speaker 1: to do so this week because I wanted to start
Speaker 1: before January is over. So I got a couple of days.
Speaker 2: Well, I I was waiting to get the Wii set
Speaker 2: up in earthing, but now that I have that step
Speaker 2: and everything, yeah, I planned.
Speaker 6: So world Mitch the best student, You're the homework teacher's pet. Congratulations, Bridges,
Speaker 6: it's my old things. I love academics.
Speaker 1: All right, that does it for the games. We're gonna
Speaker 1: take a quick he says, bricky break and we're gonna
Speaker 1: do that in on our a jam right now. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back after this. All right, we're back. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's do some news. Look gonna work there it is. Nope,
Speaker 1: you guys still aren't hearing it.
Speaker 3: The recording of the doors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we'll just put it in there.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 1: There's no reason it shouldn't work now, it's just the
Speaker 1: broken computer's fault.
Speaker 3: All right.
Speaker 1: Uh news, I have it written down here somewhere. I'm
Speaker 1: so I can find that window. Let's start with one thing.
Speaker 1: I don't know why where did it go? I have it?
Speaker 3: Want me to do it? Yea.
Speaker 4: With Nintendo Switch to Preview event, confirmation emails are being
Speaker 4: sent out. Nintendo Switch to Preview events will take place
Speaker 4: in various locations across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia
Speaker 4: between April fourth and June first. Nintendo has started informing
Speaker 4: registrants of their application status while waitless opening January twentine,
Speaker 4: for those who were not initially selected which You console
Speaker 4: official launch claier this year, with a full reveal plan
Speaker 4: for April second. The console's price, really, state of softwaretos
Speaker 4: have You yet to be confirmed, although a new Mariocard
Speaker 4: game was featured in the reveal trailer.
Speaker 3: Anybody try to get in on this? Nope? I did not, No,
Speaker 3: not that close to me. Were close to me, So yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess I could go to New York.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, Mike thinking was wet me. Maybe
Speaker 1: they'll invite us, But now I'm like, I don't. I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure. I don't know things. Yeah, it's nice
Speaker 1: to want things, but yeah, so I didn't even try.
Speaker 1: But I did see like a lot of people including
Speaker 1: Kitt and Christa and Jeff Keeley being like I didn't
Speaker 1: get in. Jeff Kehiey was like, horrible day over here,
Speaker 1: and then he deleted the tweet after that, so maybe
Speaker 1: maybe felt bad.
Speaker 3: I don't know, horrible day for Jeff Keeley. Oh No,
Speaker 3: it's rough.
Speaker 4: What I find really interesting and it's kind of touched
Speaker 4: on here is how all the anxieties about the switch
Speaker 4: to being announced have just transferred over to how much
Speaker 4: will the switch to cost?
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean that's a fair one. Money pays,
Speaker 1: given money to people sucks. So I understand that we
Speaker 1: are kind of dialing in though, where four hundred feels
Speaker 1: right to me. But I mean, god, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: I guess I wouldn't be shocked if it's four to fifty.
Speaker 1: I would be shocked if with three fifty that would be.
Speaker 1: But I don't think there's really any shocks that go
Speaker 1: below four hundred.
Speaker 3: Three fifty would shock me more than five hundred would
Speaker 3: shock me.
Speaker 2: Honestly, four hundred has always been the most logical price
Speaker 2: point because.
Speaker 1: It's just sort of like naturally falls it for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially if they drop the price of the Olan,
Speaker 2: you know, having a switch at two hundred, three hundred
Speaker 2: and four hundred. It just makes so much sense, you know.
Speaker 5: Question, I feel like all of you know more about
Speaker 5: actual like horsepower and graphics and GPUs and stuff than
Speaker 5: I do. Will this almost certainly be let's say, more
Speaker 5: powerful than the current steam deck or.
Speaker 3: Roger X much, not by much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's gonna be like it's gonna be in that
Speaker 1: It's gonna be in that zone. It will like once
Speaker 1: all the bells and whistles are applied, will probably run
Speaker 1: games better than a Steam deck, and then probably better
Speaker 1: than a rock Alley, but not by much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the difference between Xbox one and PS four.
Speaker 2: It's all within that ballpark, but yeah, one runs a
Speaker 2: bit better. The more interesting thing is that, because it's
Speaker 2: still in video, they're probably going to have some form
Speaker 2: of DLSS upscaling it to look nicer on your four
Speaker 2: KTV than any of the current handhelds do, and certainly
Speaker 2: better than the current switch.
Speaker 1: And stuff will just be on by default, so it
Speaker 1: counts as the horsepower for that device. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the effectively your games will be a little bit
Speaker 1: smoother than the current crop of handhelds. But very soon
Speaker 1: we're going to get a new crop handhelds from PC
Speaker 1: hands right after that that will be probably blowing this
Speaker 1: out of the water. But there's also be much more expense.
Speaker 2: We already heard about selling ships come out of CES
Speaker 2: and yeah, the next way a handhelds are gonna be
Speaker 2: so much more powerful and switch too probably, but also yeah,
Speaker 2: not having that up scaling, so it's sort of like
Speaker 2: evens out a little.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I think the way to think about
Speaker 1: it is somewhere between PS four and PS four Pro.
Speaker 1: It's whateverone keeps saying, whether it's closer to PS four
Speaker 1: Pro or PS four We are just going to have
Speaker 1: to wait and see.
Speaker 2: I think people heard speculation of PS four Pro misunderstanding that,
Speaker 2: especially like when me and Grubbs say stuff like that,
Speaker 2: We mean it's going to run games like a PS
Speaker 2: four But like the PS four Pro did upscaling to
Speaker 2: those PS four games to make them look nice, That's
Speaker 2: what's happening here.
Speaker 1: Better up scaling the PS four pro head that are checkerboard. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and no machine learning applied to that stuff. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they're It's going to be good for Nintendo games for sure,
Speaker 1: and a lot more third lot more third party games
Speaker 1: will run on this always.
Speaker 2: The need to keep in mind is keep your expectations
Speaker 2: in check, and it will probably be a solid machine.
Speaker 6: If Mario looks good on it, I'm happy.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, but what about Xbox games? How will that
Speaker 4: look on this shoe? Because Xbox will be on switch
Speaker 4: to Phil Spencer did a kind of some interview rounds
Speaker 4: last week here with Microsoft Gaming CEO Praise the Time,
Speaker 4: switching plans to support it with Xbox game ports. Xbox
Speaker 4: teams are prepping multiple releases for switch To, including the
Speaker 4: Level four Halo, Massive's Collection and Microsoft Flight Simulator. That's
Speaker 4: a bullet point here, Jeff. Is that all that's not all?
Speaker 1: Okay? So yeah, and I got the doc, thanks Mike.
Speaker 1: This is not not all that's confirmed. All that is
Speaker 1: like between speculation and rumors leaks. Uh, stiff definitely, like
Speaker 1: in that same bounty, the same basket of leaks where hey,
Speaker 1: we've heard the Gears of War might be coming a
Speaker 1: PlayStation similar to that, but also very likely. Uh these
Speaker 1: days because Microsoft is talking openly about Hey I did
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Nintendo and I'm going on all these
Speaker 1: podcasts and saying, yeah, we're gonna support switch It's part
Speaker 1: of our switch To. This is part of our new
Speaker 1: thing where we're putting our stuff out everywhere and everything's
Speaker 1: an Xbox. I mean that's their marketing campaign. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this stuffs very likely.
Speaker 4: It's just gonna be incredible to me after all this,
Speaker 4: like you can't invite Phil Spencer out to coffee without
Speaker 4: him screaming about how they're going to release Xbox games
Speaker 4: on other platforms and yet like where they when Master
Speaker 4: Chief shows up on a play station, people are still
Speaker 4: going to like lose their.
Speaker 3: Buying and be surprised.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does feel like, you know, the message is
Speaker 1: beginning to sync in. And yet you're right that there
Speaker 1: are still those on the deserted aisles during World War
Speaker 1: two fighting the war, not knowing that it's over. So yeah,
Speaker 1: but he's repeatedly basically said console war's over. PlayStation's basically
Speaker 1: saying the same thing. That's not gonna stick into every
Speaker 1: one of these kids heads.
Speaker 3: Though.
Speaker 4: It's it's good though, especially for some games. I loved
Speaker 4: Diablo three on the Switch. One actually a great way
Speaker 4: to play that game. So I could see myself may
Speaker 4: be getting back into Diablo four having that on the
Speaker 4: switch to you know, the next Halo. Sure, but there's
Speaker 4: something about the Master Chief collection, like, oh, I could
Speaker 4: play Halo one on the Switch.
Speaker 3: It's just so novel. How could I say? Noticed?
Speaker 5: It was very Sonics on a Nintendo platform. You know
Speaker 5: exactly they should call it.
Speaker 4: They should call it Halo Combat Evolved Battle and.
Speaker 1: And and the directory, and then they should definitely do
Speaker 1: a Sonic and Mario and Master Chief at the Olympic
Speaker 1: Games and.
Speaker 6: Halo every once in a while.
Speaker 4: God, God, I just hope that, like I could find
Speaker 4: I hope that in the next Metal Girl Solid Snake
Speaker 4: randomly falls down.
Speaker 6: I would every would not you're telling you.
Speaker 3: What I wouldn't like it?
Speaker 4: No, I think, yeah, I think when you're trying to
Speaker 4: actually play a video game, you're down, You'll be because
Speaker 4: and fucking meddle your solid too when you roll when
Speaker 4: you're going up or down the stairs.
Speaker 5: He just donks his head and eat ship and I
Speaker 5: laugh every fucking time.
Speaker 3: I would love you best something.
Speaker 4: Up and you slipped on bird Ship, not because algorithm
Speaker 4: said it was gonna happen.
Speaker 3: Now you're wrong about this. I would love it.
Speaker 1: Why don't we always do podcast? I don't know.
Speaker 6: We're all trying to be TikTok YouTubers. That's what the
Speaker 6: meeting was about. How to be more TikTok yellers.
Speaker 4: Yeah, boy, I don't mind if people don't like the show,
Speaker 4: but I hate it. It's like, look, they have to
Speaker 4: appeal to a younger audience.
Speaker 3: What are you talking?
Speaker 5: I never thought of that ever. We need to yell more.
Speaker 5: The kids like yelling. We're always saying that. Yeah, just honestly,
Speaker 5: just like yelling. At each other.
Speaker 1: It's weird.
Speaker 3: That's how friendship works. Yeah, it's odd. Uh.
Speaker 1: Okay, So all these games are going to be on
Speaker 1: switch huh, and they're going to keep coming out to PlayStation.
Speaker 1: What does that mean for Xbox hardware? Well, in more interviews,
Speaker 1: he did a lot of this talking on gamer Tag Radio.
Speaker 1: Very good interview over there, if you want to go
Speaker 1: listen to this. Basically said we are going to try
Speaker 1: to make the hardware stand out on its own through
Speaker 1: its own capabilities. Now, didn't say what that means. I mean, obviously,
Speaker 1: one thing it could mean is it runs games very
Speaker 1: very well, and I'm sure that is one of the
Speaker 1: things they will try to make a key point of
Speaker 1: the next Xbox. But it also to me feels like, well,
Speaker 1: if that is the point, well I'm still just going
Speaker 1: to keep getting PC. And of course they don't mind
Speaker 1: if you get a PC. But if the point is
Speaker 1: to make Xbox stand out through capabilities, I think that
Speaker 1: also means capabilities including you can run your games from
Speaker 1: any store, including Epic and Steam, things along those lines,
Speaker 1: because then then the capabilities will really matter if I
Speaker 1: can get my games from anywhere and bring it to
Speaker 1: this device and it's very simple plug into the TV.
Speaker 1: But what other capabilities do you would you want from
Speaker 1: an Xbox if you can get these games anywhere?
Speaker 4: Right now, the backwards compatibility stuff was so good.
Speaker 3: I would love more of that, but they already seemed
Speaker 3: disinterested in that.
Speaker 4: But like, aside from that, I just like, what, what's
Speaker 4: even a possibility here?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, I think what he's getting at, though, is more
Speaker 2: Xbox specific ecosystem stuff, you know, like uh quick resume,
Speaker 2: you know, stuff like that at a hardware level, and
Speaker 2: then being the console where a game passes. I think
Speaker 2: that's the type of thing he's getting at, where sure,
Speaker 2: you can play those games anywhere, but there's still a
Speaker 2: lot of people who, you know, they tell us all
Speaker 2: the time they don't want a PC, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean grub blax poetically of our PCs, and some people
Speaker 2: are like, I just don't want that. I think that's
Speaker 2: where a space for Xbox consoles continues to exist, because
Speaker 2: even if that is a diminishing audience still having, even
Speaker 2: if it's just a really really pre configured PC and
Speaker 2: that's what they're selling as the console, I think that
Speaker 2: still works. And I think that's the type of thing
Speaker 2: he's getting at is saying, hey, we have hardware for
Speaker 2: this audience that gets them in the ecosystem. It'll have
Speaker 2: some specific things that it'll do, like quick zoom, like
Speaker 2: having backwards compatibility with the older console games and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. And I think assumed sort of just like
Speaker 2: hedging their bets a little.
Speaker 1: In terms of hedging things, he had to talk about
Speaker 1: Xbox Series S, something that people always point out as, oh,
Speaker 1: this is holding back what Xbox is doing with games.
Speaker 1: Of course that's sorry because for years they were still
Speaker 1: making games for Xbox One and they have to make
Speaker 1: games for a bunch of different PCs. But it's simply
Speaker 1: something gets brought up frequently, and he's like, ah, for
Speaker 1: the most part, it's been a benefit to us, because
Speaker 1: when we make games for Xbox Series S, well, hey,
Speaker 1: now we have a game that is more optimized and
Speaker 1: more ready to go to something like say a Roger
Speaker 1: ally or a Steam deck or Sweaches so It or
Speaker 1: switch even right exactly, or a future Xbox handheld. And
Speaker 1: so having these these smaller, slimmed down versions means that
Speaker 1: we are more malleable when it comes to supporting less,
Speaker 1: lesser powered devices. And that seems to be becoming more popular,
Speaker 1: not less popular. So this is something we're going to
Speaker 1: do more of in the future. And at that point,
Speaker 1: Xbox Series S just continues to not be a problem,
Speaker 1: which sounds right to me.
Speaker 3: It sounds right, especially for them.
Speaker 4: I think it's maybe a bigger struggling to play for
Speaker 4: third parties, right right, you have to do that optimization.
Speaker 4: Maybe they don't really want to or it's yeah, we
Speaker 4: saw a Borterskate three that for a long time it
Speaker 4: was this problem. They had to kind of get special
Speaker 4: permission to release an Xbox Series S version that didn't
Speaker 4: have split screen. I think just recently they finally got
Speaker 4: that stuff figure it out.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, well yeah, and and that that game ended
Speaker 1: up running really well in steam Deck eventually because of
Speaker 1: all that work though exactly.
Speaker 2: And that's also a company doing something very specific or
Speaker 2: the hardware then maybe the hardware can't really do anymore.
Speaker 2: And the reason we could do split screen, uh, you know,
Speaker 2: using the example back in the day, we do split
Speaker 2: screen is because it was easier to basically just render
Speaker 2: to viewpoorts to render everything twice essentially, or you know,
Speaker 2: to like do some smart mat to like make sure
Speaker 2: everything that you need is rendered in at the same time.
Speaker 2: And on modern hardware that's just getting harder and harder
Speaker 2: do because of how realistic everything is. And so it's
Speaker 2: very specific things like that that are rougher on the
Speaker 2: S because of you know, less ram and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But broadly speaking, yeah, games do run as they intended.
Speaker 2: Is just like the difference between a high end PC
Speaker 2: and a low NPC. You just need to scale things back.
Speaker 2: And also some things just won't work on that low
Speaker 2: NPC and that's maybe what Xbox needs to be a
Speaker 2: little more flexible about with the s of.
Speaker 1: Like, and they've like gotten moderately more flexible here or there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: And Baller's Gate three, I think is a good example
Speaker 2: on that of saying like, oh, okay, like the vast
Speaker 2: majority of the core gameplays here is just like this
Speaker 2: one feature.
Speaker 3: Okay, I guess that makes sense.
Speaker 1: So yeah, one last little tidbit here from Phil Spencer
Speaker 1: this week in Xbox Nins You Got him for Collaboration
Speaker 1: was apparently Phil Spencer's idea, or he at least helped
Speaker 1: facilitate it, where apparently Team Ninja had talking Xbox constantly
Speaker 1: about Ninja Guide in but they were struggling to come
Speaker 1: up with a plan for it, and he suggested, why
Speaker 1: don't you work with Platinum. It really makes it feel
Speaker 1: like a make good for whatever happened with what was
Speaker 1: that game called scale Bound? Thank you? Yes, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't. The timeline would not be that far off
Speaker 1: from like scale Bound. You know, scale Bound got canceled
Speaker 1: quite a bit ago, but not too long after that
Speaker 1: they probably started working on this, so yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of give them some work. Now, a lot of
Speaker 1: Platinum games people have left since then, but you know,
Speaker 1: this game's also come out later this year, so maybe
Speaker 1: a lot of that work was done still though, a
Speaker 1: cool thing that, you know, when Phil Spitzer talks about
Speaker 1: going to Japan and working with these developers and trying
Speaker 1: to get stuff to happen, it's always like, Okay, what
Speaker 1: does that look like? It doesn't feel like that. Okay,
Speaker 1: this one here's some good evidence of that, And I'm
Speaker 1: glad that at least some good has come out of
Speaker 1: his efforts in Japan. So pretty cool. I'll accept it,
Speaker 1: all right. Moving on to other topics, the SIMS one
Speaker 1: and two are both reportedly being re released with all
Speaker 1: expansions very soon. He's remembered to be rereleasing The SIMS
Speaker 1: and The SIMS two by the end of January to
Speaker 1: celebrate the twenty fifth anniversary. It's the end of January, basically,
Speaker 1: I guess the rest of this week. This could still
Speaker 1: pop off at any point, but yeah, I'll take this.
Speaker 1: Have you got any guys ever spent any time with
Speaker 1: the SIMS.
Speaker 3: SIMS one was a phenomenon A bit on the first one.
Speaker 5: It didn't really run on my computers, so, okaymember really
Speaker 5: wanting to play it.
Speaker 6: But SI City two thousands about right top down here.
Speaker 3: You're more of an Herbs Sims in the City kind
Speaker 3: of guy.
Speaker 2: Actually, my SIMS agent Herbs was on the DS and
Speaker 2: so that was like one of the only games we
Speaker 2: had early on with that system. So it was like
Speaker 2: half of my friends had the Herbs for some reason.
Speaker 3: The Herbs the.
Speaker 1: SIMS nostalgia does feel like it's at a point now
Speaker 1: where like they're gonna be able to capitalize on this,
Speaker 1: and I'll be interested to check this out. But I
Speaker 1: think I'm at a point where if I was going
Speaker 1: to sit down and play The SIMS, I would probably
Speaker 1: jump into SIMS four now and really go to town with.
Speaker 3: All those the scores already old anything, yes, exactly, and they're.
Speaker 1: Gonna keep supporting it like well, they are working on
Speaker 1: a new SIMS. I think they keep saying it's not
Speaker 1: gonna be SIMS five so much as like something else.
Speaker 1: Who knows what that really means? I don't know, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, use us and physical game spend has had
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty one. Mapis Catela from Sircana put out
Speaker 1: a report this week about you know, game sales from
Speaker 1: last year as well as from December overall, you know,
Speaker 1: hardware way down. Software sales kind of booyed it for
Speaker 1: the most part, but really it was mobile game spending
Speaker 1: that really saved game spending in the United States last year.
Speaker 1: But one interesting tidbit is that while we've known that
Speaker 1: physical game sales have been declining for a while now,
Speaker 1: since two thousand and eight, basically it's gone down every
Speaker 1: year since then, it has actually begun to accelerate the
Speaker 1: rate of decline has begun to accelerate. So from like
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two to twenty three and then twenty four
Speaker 1: it is dropping off even faster, and a big part
Speaker 1: of that is, you know, people are just buying Xbox
Speaker 1: Series s is and PlayStation five digital editions or you know,
Speaker 1: the PlayStation five and not getting a disk drive, right,
Speaker 1: the straight up PS five Slim, and so there's just
Speaker 1: fewer people are like, oh well, I'll get that later,
Speaker 1: and then they don't, and then they just get off
Speaker 1: digital games. This is sort of going to be a
Speaker 1: self fulfilling prophecy, right, It's going to be something that spirals.
Speaker 1: Now that there are fewer people buying digital, there'll be
Speaker 1: fewer reasons to or fewer people buying physical. There will
Speaker 1: be fewer reasons for companies to print digital copp or
Speaker 1: physical copies. Keep saying that, and then now with tariffs
Speaker 1: threatening everything, this is probably only going to get worse
Speaker 1: for people who buy physical, right, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it was always this was accelerating, It
Speaker 4: was always waiting for a bit of a tipping point.
Speaker 4: I think that you know that the PS five Slim
Speaker 4: right with an optional disk drive, is a pretty big
Speaker 4: tipping point. You know, then when that next generation does happen,
Speaker 4: way Station six or whatever the Xbox is, I don't
Speaker 4: know what drives look like with that, but I could
Speaker 4: very well see it again, being like it a standard,
Speaker 4: it doesn't come with one, and then the acceleration is
Speaker 4: really going to continue faster here. I mean, you know,
Speaker 4: I go into a Best Buy now and I see
Speaker 4: that physical game section getting smaller, smaller, just like how
Speaker 4: I remember the DVD and Blu ray section getting smaller
Speaker 4: and small for it just disappeared. And before that, the
Speaker 4: C section, which was once half the store, getting smaller
Speaker 4: and small before that just disappeared. It's kind of just
Speaker 4: the next thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a whole bunch of factors that I contributed
Speaker 2: to this, because I won't be surprised if the pandemic
Speaker 2: had a big impact on this, because when you're just
Speaker 2: you know, staying inside and trying to find that kind
Speaker 2: of entertainment, I'm sure a lot of people didn't even
Speaker 2: want to even think about going to the store, and
Speaker 2: they didn't want to wait for Amazon to deliver it,
Speaker 2: so they just start buying games digitally. Realized that they
Speaker 2: really liked the convenience of it, and now they've just
Speaker 2: kind just stuck with it.
Speaker 1: Right, I mean, once you break the seal, right, it's like, well,
Speaker 1: now this is where my game collection is. I want
Speaker 1: all my games to be on this device because it's
Speaker 1: it's convenient. But also, like people just you do have
Speaker 1: a collector's mentality. Humans do just want to gather things
Speaker 1: and they want to gather them in the same place.
Speaker 1: So once you start doing it digital, you just start
Speaker 1: going all the way down there. And then of course
Speaker 1: there's going to be exceptions.
Speaker 2: A little bit of a bummer for console players definitely,
Speaker 2: because you know, over on PC we have at least
Speaker 2: feels like we have more ownership our games, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the Steam is still a DRM platform, just like the consoles,
Speaker 2: but there are other ways to get games on PC,
Speaker 2: if you know the mom rises.
Speaker 1: Yeah, long supported ways by the community exactly kind of
Speaker 1: can you can rely on it?
Speaker 2: And that's what physical games have been for a long
Speaker 2: time for consoles ever since digital became one of the
Speaker 2: normal things you could do. Having a physical disc at
Speaker 2: least felt like ownership for you. But yeah, it's a
Speaker 2: little bit of bummer sye that slowly going away.
Speaker 1: PS six, Xbox next, you know, Switch three. Do these
Speaker 1: things have physical media insert things built into the system
Speaker 1: or are they all going to be sold separately or
Speaker 1: do they not even sell them at all?
Speaker 2: We'll switch in particular definitely has it because.
Speaker 1: But like, yeah, but like the switch after switch for
Speaker 1: backward compatibility, you think yeah.
Speaker 2: For backwards compatibility, and also the switches all over the world,
Speaker 2: and so they still need physical games getting out to
Speaker 2: certain places. It's less of a concern with these Xbox
Speaker 2: and PlayStation consoles, which are more and more being sold
Speaker 2: to a more particore crowd who is leaning to digital,
Speaker 2: and they basically just have to wait out people being
Speaker 2: mad that they can't insert the disc anymore is kind
Speaker 2: of what they have to do here, and so I
Speaker 2: don't think they go away in any real form next
Speaker 2: generation maybe with Xbox because of how much they've leaned
Speaker 2: into digital, but I think the one after that, as
Speaker 2: weird as it is to talk about, like the PS seven, Yeah,
Speaker 2: assuming PlayStation still looks like a console, then I think
Speaker 2: that's what it's all digital.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really did just kind of seal the deal
Speaker 1: when it was like, Hey, if you want to get
Speaker 1: PS five and you want to complain about the disk drive,
Speaker 1: just go buy one yourself, Go get your own. And
Speaker 1: it's like at that point, it's like, what can you
Speaker 1: really complain? They are still giving you the option, But really,
Speaker 1: they are selling you a console without a disk drive,
Speaker 1: and that's that. That's going to be it from now on.
Speaker 6: Yeah, speaking of disk drive real quick, I just said
Speaker 6: someone in the chat say they pre ordered the retro
Speaker 6: remake PlayStation thing superstation with optional disk drive. Did not
Speaker 6: realize that was optional.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that's a little weird that it's an optional
Speaker 2: add on. But yeah, you have to email me or I.
Speaker 1: Bought mine separately later because I didn't realize either. If
Speaker 1: you it.
Speaker 6: Literally says do not buy separately on this, so.
Speaker 1: To buy it separately and then email them and say
Speaker 1: I bought these two things separately, can you combine them?
Speaker 6: And I emailed them just seeing like can I add this?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just emailed them and that works. Took okay, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're very it was very responsive, very quick. So they
Speaker 1: understood that people were going to make this mistake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good to hear.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh, okay, you'd be soft. Confirms one eighty five
Speaker 1: layoffs as the closest former DJ Hero studio and downsizes others.
Speaker 1: A bunch of studios kind of throughout Europe got hit
Speaker 1: with the downsizing. This is a studio that's mostly done
Speaker 1: a lot of support work recently. They have not made
Speaker 1: a DJ hero game anytime recently. That's yeah, yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: that was so that that was they were called something
Speaker 1: else back then. Now they were like Ubisoft Lymington, if
Speaker 1: that's why you say that, And they've been working as
Speaker 1: a support studio for a very long time. This is,
Speaker 1: you know, continuing the trend of Ubi Soft cutting jobs,
Speaker 1: and they're going to continue cutting jobs unless some miracle
Speaker 1: happens there. H So this is going to keep happening.
Speaker 1: You just took a pay cut too, right, No, no,
Speaker 1: of course not Sean, so we can yell at him.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 4: I was like, I was like, oh, finally I took
Speaker 4: that seriously, No, no, of course not. Gosh can you
Speaker 4: I just can't imagine if Assassin's Screen Shadows doesn't become
Speaker 4: a big hit.
Speaker 1: Right yeah. And it's like talk about headwinds coming out
Speaker 1: of meetings, Uh, like it has a game that like
Speaker 1: the quality almost doesn't matter at all compared to like
Speaker 1: just how people feel about Ubi Soft right now, ever
Speaker 1: existed more than Assassin's Creed Shadows where it's just like
Speaker 1: it almost doesn't matter, like if people like that game,
Speaker 1: they just hate Ubi Soft so much right now that
Speaker 1: it that they're probably not going to buy this thing,
Speaker 1: so it has to be kind of above and beyond
Speaker 1: in quality to break through that ceiling set up for
Speaker 1: them games.
Speaker 2: You have a rough time between how people justifiably feel
Speaker 2: about Ubisoft the way the chuds have done everything they've
Speaker 2: done to that game, like bad game, just like it
Speaker 2: really needs.
Speaker 1: To hit yep.
Speaker 5: What is the vibe on Ubisoft from.
Speaker 2: Like overall like what's the overall violentce You mentioned it
Speaker 2: being like bad like and everything.
Speaker 6: Oh sure, the thing forever that's been the.
Speaker 1: Thing that it's really come home to roost where it's
Speaker 1: like now every one of their games is that people
Speaker 1: see it. They're like, this is more you be slopped.
Speaker 1: That has become the term, and it's like now but
Speaker 1: now it's like showing up, yes, but now it's showing
Speaker 1: up in the sales.
Speaker 3: Figures like Soft like made a lot of bets that
Speaker 3: seems short sighted, you know, like live service, but also
Speaker 3: like they were the one big third party publisher that
Speaker 3: not didn't it just talk about NFT games, they actually
Speaker 3: did make some and release them, right, that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: the quarts quartz.
Speaker 4: Uh huh, Right, And of course like there have been
Speaker 4: just tons of layoffs and things like that, and shutting
Speaker 4: down these studios and all these false starts with like
Speaker 4: that Prince of Persia remake right, and you know, things
Speaker 4: like Skull and Bones take you forever to come out.
Speaker 4: Then it comes out and is bad anyways, and beyond
Speaker 4: good and evil to being a punchline. Just so many
Speaker 4: issues over there right now.
Speaker 5: Quurts okay, Ubisoft, Quartz quarts ubisof dot com.
Speaker 3: It's still just very are is this.
Speaker 6: A thing that's happening?
Speaker 3: Still enjoy the unique years of your digit?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it still exists. I don't think they're
Speaker 2: everybody myself to isolate that. Yeah, wow it digit genuinely
Speaker 2: dumb decisions on top of everything else.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, the choice of an energy efficient technology, proof
Speaker 5: of blockchain.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this seems great. It says this is just the.
Speaker 1: Beginning on its grand opening. Yeah, you guys. Ever hear
Speaker 1: that that song sung by that old lady where it's like,
Speaker 1: taste the biscuit, Taste the goodness of the biscuit.
Speaker 3: Now, definitely there's ring my bell, you know, there's that
Speaker 3: if you say a little bore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course I could see the whole thing for you.
Speaker 1: It is an internet meme. But when you just said, uh,
Speaker 1: enjoy the uniqueness of your digit, it just triggered me
Speaker 1: because it sounded like the goodness of your biscuit. Okay,
Speaker 1: well we'll splice that in. I'll make sure I do
Speaker 1: the work, all right. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth has a
Speaker 1: strong start on PC. Basically the most played current player number,
Speaker 1: first single player Final Fantasy game on Steam. It was
Speaker 1: in the forty thousand range previously, like Final Fantasy fifteen
Speaker 1: and sixteen, we're like thirty thousand underneath that. Actually, and
Speaker 1: sixteen had fewer players at launch than fifteen did, so
Speaker 1: they are kind of seeing a bounce back here now.
Speaker 1: It's not as much as a Final Fantasy fourteen does,
Speaker 1: but of course not that is a massive online game
Speaker 1: that has a lot of PC players already, and it
Speaker 1: didn't those those expansions don't have massive delays from the
Speaker 1: PlayStation five version. So this is pretty good news where
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, that strategy of putting out games where
Speaker 1: people play games seems like a good one for score INIX. Right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I liked Rebirth a lot, and I
Speaker 4: was a little bummed out that it kind of did
Speaker 4: seemed relatively poorly on PlayStation five.
Speaker 3: The thing I bounced back here is good.
Speaker 4: And you know, they they've been talking pretty openly about
Speaker 4: how like, hey, we don't want the next one to
Speaker 4: just be exclusive on one platform for like a year, right,
Speaker 4: kind of hoping next time they get it, figure it
Speaker 4: out and they just release it on Steam on day
Speaker 4: one and you can just have this big first day
Speaker 4: right away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and this in part is performing well almost surely
Speaker 2: because this is what people want Final Fantasy to be.
Speaker 2: If it's going to be an action RPG. Sixteen was
Speaker 2: clearly too much of a deviation for the formula that
Speaker 2: really just is an action game with RPG elements kind
Speaker 2: of bolted on at a certain point, and this is,
Speaker 2: you know, there's this big open world to explore. Mike
Speaker 2: talked about that. I think here are gody stuff of
Speaker 2: just like it feels like an old school RPG and
Speaker 2: how much you sort of just explore the world. And
Speaker 2: the combat is fantastic in rebirth and in remake before it,
Speaker 2: And so I think that's yeah, good word of mouth,
Speaker 2: it turns out does sell your game, and hope hopefully
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, there's less of a gap for the
Speaker 2: next one. There's some creative phrasing about the next one
Speaker 2: where they're like, yes, it won't be a PS six exclusive,
Speaker 2: and it's like, okay, so this will be a PS
Speaker 2: five exclusive.
Speaker 1: PS five and PS six and it is a yeah, right, put.
Speaker 2: Put it on PC day one please. I also fix
Speaker 2: PC stuff because I I know Alex doesn't have his
Speaker 2: Digital Foundery video out yet, but it seems like maybe
Speaker 2: it's still got some tech issues, just like remake before it.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, Sean, you mentioned like the deviation and I
Speaker 1: don't even know if that's like the problem where it's
Speaker 1: like it's just so honed down to be this slick
Speaker 1: thing that is easy for people to consume. And I
Speaker 1: think the lesson has been learned now that sixteen sixteen, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: sixteen Yeah. I think gamers want something that is not
Speaker 1: not necessarily messy, but something they feel like you can
Speaker 1: take ownership of. Do you remember that Folding Ideas video
Speaker 1: about World of Warcraft where he talked about the evolution
Speaker 1: of World of Warcraft from being like this thing where
Speaker 1: like a lot of people like would just do the
Speaker 1: thing where they'd go and kill a bunch of stuff
Speaker 1: for a long time and grind, and and then they
Speaker 1: were like they made the game much more streamlined over time,
Speaker 1: and then people began to crave having the old style
Speaker 1: World Warcraft where they could just sort of have ownership
Speaker 1: over how they leveled, even if it was technically less
Speaker 1: efficient and on paper less fun, but people felt an
Speaker 1: ownership of it. So I think that they kind of
Speaker 1: are learning the lesson here coming out of sixteen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't maybe give people more stuff to do that
Speaker 1: they can just decide on their own how to approach it.
Speaker 4: It's so easy to like pitch streamlining, right when you're
Speaker 4: developing a game and you're talking to a bunch of people,
Speaker 4: It's like, well if we streamlise something that means where
Speaker 4: people will jump in and play, you know, maybe those
Speaker 4: people aren't interested in playing. They're never going to leave Fortnite.
Speaker 4: And you know the boters Gate three on this side
Speaker 4: and then the Final Phisy sixteen and Dragon Age Vailguard
Speaker 4: thing on this side thing, right, it really does just
Speaker 4: say it all. You have this game that's so old
Speaker 4: school in a lot of ways, and it is kind
Speaker 4: of messy and it's complicated, and that attracted so many
Speaker 4: more people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that you look at the success
Speaker 2: that they had with fourteen, I think that's exactly what
Speaker 2: Jeff is talking about there. Where fourteen it's a convoluted
Speaker 2: ass game. But guess what, everyone's playing it anyways, because
Speaker 2: you have that person in your life who tells you, no,
Speaker 2: this is really good, like here, if you don't like
Speaker 2: this thing, I'll tell you how to get around it,
Speaker 2: because I just want you to start playing this thing.
Speaker 2: And that Like that's how like me and my friends
Speaker 2: were where like they know about it. I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: do you want this thing out of it? Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: I did. Just ignore this. Go do that and you'll
Speaker 2: have great time. Yeah, they get into fourteen, and that's
Speaker 2: how like their numbers are getting too crazy.
Speaker 1: Choosing to ignore stuff that you don't want it, like
Speaker 1: that is actually a feature a lot of times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Like people, it's like just look at like Minecraft, right,
Speaker 4: and what's a big Minecraft or Pokemon that's not a streamline?
Speaker 3: Yeah people, it's like the most popular thing ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like but Pokemon the same way, where it's like
Speaker 1: there's so many like tiny little things in there that
Speaker 1: you can either gauge with or not. But when kids
Speaker 1: do they feel an ownership over it because they're like,
Speaker 1: I understand this thing.
Speaker 2: There's my parents don't even under There's stuff to discover
Speaker 2: that doesn't feel like bloat in the you know, we
Speaker 2: were talking about Ubisoft of like, oh, we need to
Speaker 2: put a outpost here for you to take control over,
Speaker 2: because that's what you do in this game. Like no,
Speaker 2: there's like random things that maybe don't land and like
Speaker 2: maybe people really dislike but they you know, taking some
Speaker 2: more risks, while yeah, just having the freedom, you know,
Speaker 2: the freedom is what people are looking for there. And yeah,
Speaker 2: when you said streamlining doesn't always work, I struggle to
Speaker 2: think of a time where streamlining has worked like at all.
Speaker 2: So I mean you have.
Speaker 4: All right, mass Effect too I think Mass Effect to
Speaker 4: god away at it. Yeah, and everybody took the wrong
Speaker 4: lesson from that, even BioWare all the games became more
Speaker 4: like Mass Effect too long, very good point.
Speaker 1: It's like we were craving it in that moment, but
Speaker 1: we did not think it was going to the pendum
Speaker 1: was going to continue to swing in that direction forever.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: All right, I have a breaking story here. This is
Speaker 1: from January twenty third, twenty twenty five, from Greg Bowman
Speaker 1: at Folding at home dot org if you haven't. If
Speaker 1: you haven't already, we invite you to check out the
Speaker 1: latest release of Folding at Home client version eight point
Speaker 1: four point nine. Is it still going from five days ago?
Speaker 1: This version makes it much easier to create and join teams.
Speaker 1: You could find the controls by logging into the client,
Speaker 1: clicking on your avatar in the upright corner to access
Speaker 1: your account settings, and selecting teams from the menu at
Speaker 1: the left. So they've added, I.
Speaker 3: Boot up my PS three right now? Could I be
Speaker 3: folding right PC? Unless they have a PC version.
Speaker 1: I think this might be the PC version, only the PC.
Speaker 3: I love back then.
Speaker 5: Okay, I understand it exactly as much now, which, by
Speaker 5: the way, this is because in the chat I said
Speaker 5: that I thought grub was talking about folding it home
Speaker 5: ideas they I read so much about that back then.
Speaker 5: I downloaded it and it's just like, Okay, my screen
Speaker 5: just gets filled with quigglies and I guess it's like
Speaker 5: solving gold, global warming or something. I don't know, Like
Speaker 5: I don't know what the fuck was supposed to be happening.
Speaker 5: To throw the word hero round.
Speaker 1: I think like a cancer treatment or something they were researching.
Speaker 1: I don't remember.
Speaker 3: Did the PS three cure cancer? I think three problem anymore? Interested?
Speaker 3: We justies?
Speaker 1: Oh boy? All right, real last story here is Skies
Speaker 1: of Arcadia actually coming back. Sega has renewed its trademark
Speaker 1: for the Dreamcast RPG Skis of Arcadia that was, you know,
Speaker 1: originally released way back in two thousand. They have not
Speaker 1: done a ton with it since they did have the
Speaker 1: GameCube port. Was there ever a Sky's Arcadia two?
Speaker 3: Nothing out? Never two and never another ports? Right?
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's why, you know, I look at this
Speaker 4: and I'm like, hey, yes, guys, are K two would
Speaker 4: be good? But boy, first thing should be just making
Speaker 4: sure people can play Skies of Arcadia on the switch
Speaker 4: to and on PC.
Speaker 1: Yep. And that feels pretty realistic at that point. That
Speaker 1: feels like that could easily happen. Of course, Sega right
Speaker 1: now very much going after their old ip, like going
Speaker 1: through the library, pick and stuff off the shelf, say
Speaker 1: we're going to make a new one of these, and
Speaker 1: they they're doing that with a ton of games, so
Speaker 1: many games. We talked about Echo the Dolphin recently. There
Speaker 1: was like there's at least ten to fifteen others like
Speaker 1: in the works or planned to be in the works.
Speaker 1: So why not Skis of Arcadia at some point for
Speaker 1: doing Common Zone? Why not Sky's Arcade exactly? Like exactly so, uh,
Speaker 1: there is a chance that we're going to get more
Speaker 1: Skis of Arcadia, but it's always worth pointing out when
Speaker 1: these things happen. Could just be a lawyer doing their job, yes,
Speaker 1: and it also could be could be zero, but it
Speaker 1: could just be a port And at this point I
Speaker 1: would be happy about that. I like Sky's Arkadia quite
Speaker 1: a bit.
Speaker 3: It's really cool.
Speaker 4: And you know, Sega has so much success with RPGs
Speaker 4: on the Atlas side of things right now, right, you know,
Speaker 4: maybe Atlas's bandwidth doesn't let them specifically jump in and
Speaker 4: help here.
Speaker 1: But still, but if you're and you're looking to invest
Speaker 1: in something on RPG right now, makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2: It'd be like RGS twentieth game that they haven't.
Speaker 4: Development, right, Yeah, bringback Skis of Kadia, but make another
Speaker 4: Fantasy Star that is just an RPG again, doesn't have
Speaker 4: to be an MMO kind of thing. Gosh, even you know, hey,
Speaker 4: there is an RPG if Panther Dragon that's really neat
Speaker 4: that's ever been on the Sega Saturn. So there's yeah,
Speaker 4: there's a lot.
Speaker 2: Of Yeah, like we were just talking about with a
Speaker 2: messiness and you know, sort of like letting people decide
Speaker 2: what they want to do. I think that's kind of
Speaker 2: what Sega's doing right now. They're kind of having the
Speaker 2: shotgun approach by like you know, brain stuff back, like
Speaker 2: having this like wild new concept for Crazy Taxi, by
Speaker 2: having like a new Shnobi game and uh was the
Speaker 2: Golden Axe was the other one. Yeah, they're trying rage again.
Speaker 2: They're just trying things, which is cool. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't be surprised if yeah, New Sky's Marcadia they tried
Speaker 2: that because they're taking some risks and you know, maybe
Speaker 2: they don't pay off super well, but it seems like
Speaker 2: they are sort of garnering that fan dedication again, which
Speaker 2: is what you need to not have a company that
Speaker 2: people are just constantly pissed off with, you.
Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, you gotta like, you gotta have that identity
Speaker 1: beyond just oh, I guess this company also makes games.
Speaker 1: You don't like, you could be a UBI Soft and
Speaker 1: you don't want to be a ubi Soft or you
Speaker 1: can go this path and try to say no, we're
Speaker 1: Sega and you know what that means now, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: You can't just think of about investor relations the entire rights.
Speaker 4: You actually have to like you are in the business
Speaker 4: of good for.
Speaker 2: Those games I will sell like a million or two
Speaker 2: And was a safe risk to take because like maybe
Speaker 2: you don't make another one after that, but at least
Speaker 2: you try it, right.
Speaker 1: Do you shoot like vector man? Dan? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because that was tripped? Was that? What if he
Speaker 3: tripped every ten minutes?
Speaker 6: I think I would like that in any game. Honestly,
Speaker 6: it's just a lie.
Speaker 3: No not, I mean it.
Speaker 4: I think that's not a lie that I think you're
Speaker 4: you're fibbing.
Speaker 3: I don't believe that that would be the case.
Speaker 1: Can someone to make ad for a game that Dan
Speaker 1: is playing at some point that makes his character trip
Speaker 1: randomly and we will force him to install it and
Speaker 1: we'll just test this.
Speaker 5: It makes me laugh every time, Like if you're in
Speaker 5: the cold for too long in metal gear and you
Speaker 5: just sneeze while you're trying to be sneaking and you
Speaker 5: get caught because of that, that's fucking.
Speaker 3: Funny to me.
Speaker 6: Like I would absolutely find that funny in any video game.
Speaker 1: I believe you.
Speaker 4: But there was a reason just now that you said
Speaker 4: that that's happening because he's in the cold and.
Speaker 7: He sees the reasons people trip, Yeah, but happen.
Speaker 6: But fucking because of unexpected things is funny.
Speaker 3: Mike, You're wrong about this. I would like this, damn.
Speaker 1: Point.
Speaker 3: The point is that you shouldn't.
Speaker 5: No, I do, and I do like vector Man, vector Man,
Speaker 5: I occupies the same space in my head as Yoshi's Island,
Speaker 5: because I remember I had Genesis of my mom's, I
Speaker 5: had Super at my dad's.
Speaker 3: And there's a ps A PlayStation in sixty four.
Speaker 5: I started seeing the magazines talking about Saturn PlayStation sixty
Speaker 5: four and it's like, I don't I'm not gonna be
Speaker 5: able to get this.
Speaker 6: I don't have money, like I.
Speaker 5: So I am my head not understanding video game technology,
Speaker 5: being like, well, maybe they should just keep making good
Speaker 5: games for Super, Nintendo and Sega and then those will
Speaker 5: be the only consoles forever and these new ones will fail.
Speaker 5: And so like when Yoshi's Island came out and like
Speaker 5: the Mode seven, like the warping and stuff is like,
Speaker 5: see look at that that looks incredible. Oh, they put
Speaker 5: Virtual Fighter two on the Genesis. Oh, this is like
Speaker 5: the cardboard box era of Genesis. Donkey Gun Country is
Speaker 5: three D. Donkey Gun Country is three vector. Man's three D.
Speaker 1: We don't need a new conton he campaigns for those games.
Speaker 1: Where's like from a dunky country, It's like, who needs
Speaker 1: thirty two bits?
Speaker 5: Specifically, there was an ad that was an e GM
Speaker 5: all the time that was like a very nineties fish
Speaker 5: eye shot of a baby crying and it was like whining, sniffling,
Speaker 5: you know, shit in their pants whatever. And that's just
Speaker 5: the people who bought new consoles have ever seen them
Speaker 5: be like fuck yeahs, that's.
Speaker 1: What I like. All Right, we're gonna go to another break.
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back. We'll do emails after this.
Speaker 2: It's working.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, Uh we got emails everybody. Let's let's
Speaker 1: hop into him. I'll read this first one here. Uh,
Speaker 1: let's see. It is from Alan from Wisconsin. Handheld Game Consoles.
Speaker 1: I recently got a trim Ui brick. Shout out to
Speaker 1: grub I fuck with you and your handhelds. I fuck
Speaker 1: with you too, brother, and I just finished Metroid Fusion.
Speaker 1: What a game? What are some deep cut GBA games
Speaker 1: I should check out. Thanksgang Alan from Wassau, Wisconsin. So
Speaker 1: how you say that?
Speaker 3: Saw? Sure?
Speaker 1: Thank you a PS. Please make this Wisconsin we fuck
Speaker 1: with Grub meet up happen. I can be designated driver, Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll get out there.
Speaker 6: That happens, I will go out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can take an am trek out there on
Speaker 2: Wisconsin Ambassador to Giant Bomb.
Speaker 3: When do we decide we fuck with Grub?
Speaker 1: It was the last episode. It was there was someone
Speaker 1: from Wisconsin that said they fuck with me, and I'm like, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, yeah just oh would be a good answer.
Speaker 3: And that just got a re release, right, you can
Speaker 3: just play that on everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but played on your trimum, I believe. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: the thing.
Speaker 6: Even when they get re releases and stuff.
Speaker 5: I have found that, Like I remember I had that
Speaker 5: moment with the Advanced Wars.
Speaker 1: And you started taking about Vance Wars, was like, why
Speaker 1: don't I just play this?
Speaker 6: Sounded like I like the fun factor.
Speaker 5: It feels more true to the original you know vision
Speaker 5: of it, and I also like the way it looks more.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's that astro Bot game that's really good. Yes,
Speaker 4: astro boystro Boy all the.
Speaker 5: Time, ham Tarrow, Ham Ham Heartbreak, hamp Tar there's like
Speaker 5: the hamp Tarow Sports collection.
Speaker 2: To love those ham Taro games at least. I don't
Speaker 2: know which ones were like spinoffs within us, but like
Speaker 2: at least the Game Boy Color one was just like
Speaker 2: an adventure game and it was really cute.
Speaker 3: I like that one.
Speaker 5: In the chat says as Minushkapa good Zelda, Yes, I
Speaker 5: played there a few years ago. Again, I think it's
Speaker 5: a much better than links Awakening.
Speaker 1: You can tell.
Speaker 5: That it was. No need to play out my ranking
Speaker 5: of Zelda's.
Speaker 1: No, I don't know what you.
Speaker 8: Do that it.
Speaker 2: No, we're just saying that you're wrong.
Speaker 6: Better menus cap all right, it's links Awake things at eight.
Speaker 1: Nintendo make better the games than Capcom, but it's still
Speaker 1: in general.
Speaker 3: Yes, I was. I okay, I was thinking about it
Speaker 3: if you played the Oracle games.
Speaker 1: Yet, I played the Oracle of Ages when it came
Speaker 1: out and didn't love it, which I understand. Oracle Seasons
Speaker 1: is supposed to be better.
Speaker 2: But.
Speaker 3: More Yeah, I like, okay, just more, I think okay.
Speaker 1: I had always heard Seasons was just better, but uh, okay,
Speaker 1: fair enough.
Speaker 2: It may be an obvious one. But if you like
Speaker 2: metro Fusion, go play Zero Mission if you haven't, because
Speaker 2: it's awesome. It's it's my favorite metroid. I still think
Speaker 2: it's the best one overall because it combines so much
Speaker 2: of what metroids should be into one package. And while
Speaker 2: I do like the creepy vibe a Fusion more, in general, uh,
Speaker 2: Usion just talks so fucking much. And Zero Mission is
Speaker 2: just like, we're gonna give you a title card with
Speaker 2: Samus's internal monologue and you're just going, man. You get
Speaker 2: the occasional like three second cut sing that's kind of
Speaker 2: like a loading area, but you're just guys going.
Speaker 5: And I saw someone in chat say back tie and
Speaker 5: now I was literally just going to eat because I've
Speaker 5: never played it and it's a gem again wow, And
Speaker 5: uh it's a bit pricey, but I do.
Speaker 1: That's when I that's when I think would be fun
Speaker 1: to emulate on the phone and see if you can
Speaker 1: get the senil the phone or the light.
Speaker 2: Thing lights on starting your phone to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you get the right emulator. It just works. Okay.
Speaker 1: Get out of Pen Wisconsin Drill dozer.
Speaker 3: Car battles, drill Dozer kicks ass Yes.
Speaker 1: Drill dozer to. That's when that one should emulate pretty
Speaker 1: well because I think they do the rumble on there,
Speaker 1: but you want the rumble.
Speaker 6: Work twisted, but do it on your phone.
Speaker 1: That worri work twisted. I am about to beat it,
Speaker 1: dan Uh. It's great on there right, It's so awesome. Literally,
Speaker 1: I enjoy pooping so much right now because I'm playing
Speaker 1: it every time I go to.
Speaker 6: The bathroom, shaking your phone around.
Speaker 1: Shaking my phone, and it helps, you know, helps work
Speaker 1: things out, you.
Speaker 5: Know, with the it feels like better on phone than
Speaker 5: it ever felt on GBA.
Speaker 1: Somehow, It's awesome. It's honestly, could get to the end
Speaker 1: of the year and that might be on my Game
Speaker 1: of the Year list. Oh yeah, twist twisted. So good
Speaker 1: Car Battle or Joe. That's a good one. That's kind
Speaker 1: of in that range of like Ninja five ooh, and
Speaker 1: a few others. Let's see a gun Stars Superheroes. Oh sorry,
Speaker 1: was that Gunstar Superheroes? That's a good gun Star go ahead.
Speaker 3: Back, Yeah, forget about Mario Kart Super Circuit.
Speaker 4: Play the Konami Mario Kart clone that has you played
Speaker 4: as a bistical Ninja that.
Speaker 2: I feel like people overlook this one a lot. Pokemon Pinball,
Speaker 2: Ruby and Sapphire is a really good pinball game.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all the Tony Hawk games on g b A.
Speaker 4: There's like weird things like Max Pain on GPA. There's
Speaker 4: this whole thing where they just took three D games
Speaker 4: and made them isometric games on the g B A
Speaker 4: and they're actually pretty.
Speaker 1: And people like shoot three D games on the Gameboy Advance,
Speaker 1: like Stunt stunt Man. It's really good. I love Stuntman
Speaker 1: on Game Boy Advance.
Speaker 2: It's like dank about with the sixteen big consoles getting
Speaker 2: like three D adjacent stuff or light three D like
Speaker 2: towards the end of the GBA, they were getting ambitious there,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of cool sometimes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Golden sounds good.
Speaker 4: Yes, there's a two D dragon Ball not dragon Ball Z,
Speaker 4: dragon Ball kind of action game that's really neat.
Speaker 3: There's also a Star Wars episode three Beat Them Up.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of fun on the GV Yeah.
Speaker 1: Man, And then like any any sort of like, hey,
Speaker 1: a big console game happened, and now here's the Game
Speaker 1: Boy Advance version, like that zone of the enders game
Speaker 1: Boy advance games. Pretty interesting tech in advance ye advance.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff like that that's
Speaker 1: worth checking out, especially when you have a trim ui
Speaker 1: and you can just get it the way you get it.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, the term wise is very nice.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's just so handy.
Speaker 4: So I can't believe, like, Lakes Weakening is your favorite
Speaker 4: game of all time and you like got no enjoyment
Speaker 4: out of those two games that came out that were
Speaker 4: like ninety five percent the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's game ever, it's it was it's very important to me.
Speaker 1: Shut up, Dan, I'm I'm not talking. I'm talking to
Speaker 1: my friend Mike Minatti right now. I I want of
Speaker 1: them protect. I think that that's part of the problem.
Speaker 1: Is I like hold I held Links Awakening in such
Speaker 1: high regard that the five percent like feels like a chasm.
Speaker 3: D That Donkey Kong Country too things, the Donkey.
Speaker 1: Count Country two thing I have where it's like yeah, sorry, ahad,
Speaker 1: just where it's like something's like I'm expecting one thing
Speaker 1: and now I can't play a Donkey Kong in this game.
Speaker 1: It's not exactly the same, but it's it's similar so.
Speaker 5: So question you just made me think because I'm as
Speaker 5: I'm trying to look up like game Boy games since
Speaker 5: I'm enjoying Mario Land one and two so much once
Speaker 5: I'm done with Warrior Land. Are those Donkey Kong Land
Speaker 5: games good and are they different than their.
Speaker 1: They're interesting, yes, okay, because they are mostly bespoke games.
Speaker 1: There are there's a lot of like, oh, here's this
Speaker 1: for version of this level from the Donkey Kong Coutry game,
Speaker 1: but it's it's its own game in a lot.
Speaker 5: Of ways, and like two is Diddy and Dixie. One
Speaker 5: is Donkey and Diddy.
Speaker 3: Is it the same?
Speaker 5: Like you know, the cover always looked the same, but
Speaker 5: it was like, but they're calling it Land.
Speaker 6: This is a different game.
Speaker 1: I think that they're honestly, if you like, just like
Speaker 1: in a vacuum ranked platformers on the Game Boy, I
Speaker 1: think they would be in the top five for like
Speaker 1: at least Donkey Donkey Kong Land one and two.
Speaker 2: So okay, they're You're right, they're interesting if I'm remembering
Speaker 2: this right. So Land is like remixing slash scaling down
Speaker 2: of the Country games to game Boy original. But then
Speaker 2: they also did ports that were a little more flesh
Speaker 2: out of Donkey Kong Country to the game Boy Color. Yes,
Speaker 2: though so the like mostly faithful ports to game Boy Advance.
Speaker 1: That are really good act versions of those games. Yes, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: wild lot. I mean Donkey Kong. That Donkey Kong Country
Speaker 1: one sold so well and two sold very well. But
Speaker 1: they just went ham on Donkey Kong on everything back
Speaker 1: then for the point now they put him into theme
Speaker 1: park and.
Speaker 2: Then I don't think we much all but Dan, you're
Speaker 2: aware of Donkey Kong ninety four right?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, yeah, that was, like I think the first
Speaker 5: game I seriously played on the analog.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, well, good game, good god.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see here. Let me get back over
Speaker 1: the emails. Okay, can Sean read this one from Dave?
Speaker 2: From Dave from California. Yeah's topic is video game skill
Speaker 2: to real life application. Hey all, I worked at a
Speaker 2: warehouse for a big online retailer. You can probably guess
Speaker 2: which one. I played a lot of Tetris when I
Speaker 2: was a youth, and all that time spent on a
Speaker 2: game somehow gave me amazing skill at arranging boxes for
Speaker 2: maximum efficiency. What game has given you an accidental skill?
Speaker 3: Keep up?
Speaker 2: The amazing work oil listener from the Shoemaker Days, consenting
Speaker 2: kiss all lips for each of you.
Speaker 1: When I played that eco game, it gave me an
Speaker 1: understanding of pricing and tariffs and stuff like that, just
Speaker 1: by accident, just by arguing with my friends about how
Speaker 1: we should arrange the econ me in our game and that.
Speaker 1: So now when I see things in the news, I'm like,
Speaker 1: that won't work. And I know how from firsthand experience.
Speaker 3: I learned how to yell from the Phoenix Right.
Speaker 1: Games during our podcast.
Speaker 8: Yeah, yep, I've never driven a stick shift, but I
Speaker 8: feel like I understand the basic concept from switching to
Speaker 8: manual in some old racing games, being like okay, it's
Speaker 8: kind of topping off here, it's going to year two.
Speaker 6: Like, but I've never got I don't know how to
Speaker 6: do that tunk tunk tunk stuff.
Speaker 1: You know, that's the bulk of it.
Speaker 6: But I mean I think I know when like, oh,
Speaker 6: that sound means I should shift gears.
Speaker 1: Okay, so when do you hit the clutch?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 5: I don't want that probably correct answer, but also where
Speaker 5: my grandpa's lawnmower had a clutch on it and I
Speaker 5: didn't know what that pedal did and it was a
Speaker 5: riding lawnmower and I hit it once and like I
Speaker 5: did some weird combination that it like bucked up, and
Speaker 5: I thought I was almost going to get crushed by
Speaker 5: a lawnmower.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, I'm not touching knuck
Speaker 1: clutch every that my dad's Friday loanword did the same thing,
Speaker 1: and I would purposely get it to do wheeling instead.
Speaker 2: I still remember it. I was like, fuck that, I'm
Speaker 2: surprised I'm not dead. Yeah, I think anytime someone asked
Speaker 2: me something like this. The only thing I never think
Speaker 2: of is that I like kind of know how to
Speaker 2: play the drums thanks to rock band, because obviously, you know,
Speaker 2: playing the guitar and guitar hero is like just wailing
Speaker 2: on a toy. Singing maybe you know, is like it's
Speaker 2: Kerry okay, so it's yeah, you're singing. And then drums
Speaker 2: are an interesting one because you can at least learn
Speaker 2: like basic drum beats on this, especially if you're like
Speaker 2: playing on an expert in your game.
Speaker 1: The actual pretty is kind of not one to one
Speaker 1: but pretty close, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there are songs where like I learned
Speaker 2: the general beat through playing rock band, and then yeah,
Speaker 2: I would when we were hanging out with friends Friday
Speaker 2: night in my friend's basement, he had drums at there,
Speaker 2: and occasionally, yeah, I would hop on there, and so
Speaker 2: we're just like, yeah, play drum being He's like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that sounds right to me because he obviously played drums,
Speaker 2: So yeah.
Speaker 1: That does remind me. Like I always think, if I
Speaker 1: had to like shift gears into another business entirely, I
Speaker 1: would take DDR and I would market it as a
Speaker 1: good way to like improve the footwork of athletes, because
Speaker 1: I think if you, if you can get good at DDR,
Speaker 1: like a quarterback would benefit so much from that. But
Speaker 1: like everyone in any sport where like you are moving
Speaker 1: your feet a lot, having like to quickly move direction
Speaker 1: and understand the way to get your body to do
Speaker 1: that without like the help of a bar would be
Speaker 1: beneficial to I think they all athletes should just do it.
Speaker 1: But of course, like it's a weird little Japanese game,
Speaker 1: so they're not aware of it.
Speaker 5: I bought a powerwasher at my old house because I
Speaker 5: played a lot of Powerwaws simulator and then I instantly
Speaker 5: fucked up my driveway.
Speaker 1: Did you like chip it away?
Speaker 3: Like there was like an.
Speaker 6: Asphalt driveway and it was like pristine.
Speaker 5: It was awesome when I moved in and there was
Speaker 5: like some like bird shit or something on the driveway,
Speaker 5: and it's like, all right, let's test this baby out,
Speaker 5: you know, from like point blank, and then there's asphalt
Speaker 5: pebbles flying up everywhere. That's like and just permanent, like
Speaker 5: a whole. Then I never used it again. I sold
Speaker 5: it on face place.
Speaker 1: Imagine the ant that was living in there. It's just
Speaker 1: like his whole world exploded.
Speaker 2: Just a mushroom clock on your listeners. Mike is dying
Speaker 2: inside right now?
Speaker 1: All right, less weird, Mike Minati. I read this one
Speaker 1: from Tom P from Florida.
Speaker 3: Idle Games while you work, Hey, Giant Bomb crew, I'm
Speaker 3: currently playing the idle game Rusty's Retirement while I work.
Speaker 3: I found it gives me a nice reward when it
Speaker 3: glanced over at the screen and see the numbers go up.
Speaker 3: Do you have any good idol games that you enjoy
Speaker 3: whilst working?
Speaker 1: Tom P from anything, Yeah, talk about it.
Speaker 6: Go to click clickbomb dot com. It's fantastic.
Speaker 5: Chucktowski Pickle Draft, Oh my god, I think we all
Speaker 5: got really into it, like talking.
Speaker 1: About it in our games this week for sure, because
Speaker 1: I really did.
Speaker 6: I played the hell out of it that I be
Speaker 6: it three times, Mike, there we go, okay.
Speaker 3: There yeah, yeah, Gosha.
Speaker 4: He just made a clicker game about giant bombs and
Speaker 4: it's it's actually very undertating.
Speaker 1: Tchuktowski did the bulk of the work, and then the
Speaker 1: art was like just taking screenshots from pixel Draft videos
Speaker 1: of the various characters like Mike mcquanchie, for example, and
Speaker 1: then those characters cards. You can level them up and
Speaker 1: they become more powerful, and then you could take them
Speaker 1: with you from one game to new game plus and
Speaker 1: it's just so well done. It's not and it's not.
Speaker 1: It's just like he could have just completely been like, oh,
Speaker 1: here's an idol game and it was like halfway half baked,
Speaker 1: and I would have been like, that's awesome. But it's
Speaker 1: like such a good Idol game. It's got so many
Speaker 1: good ideas. I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 5: Tuktowski in the chat says, pickle Draft did those cuts
Speaker 5: himself and sent them over in the right ratio.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Nice, Yeah, just amazing work. And then when we pointed
Speaker 1: out saying, oh, you're like, Sean's not in there. Now
Speaker 1: Sean's in there, and so it's tam and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: because yeah, they hadn't appeared in a Pickle Draft video
Speaker 1: because it's based on Blake Club, but they just made
Speaker 1: new ones.
Speaker 2: So's I have been animated in the past. There was
Speaker 2: a Dayshon cameo in one of those videos, but.
Speaker 1: Oh no, maybe that's the one they ended up using. Okay.
Speaker 2: Also, I just had a Pickle Draft emote that I
Speaker 2: realized I've been saying that for a long time, and
Speaker 2: they definitely deserve to be in the chat.
Speaker 1: All right, Dan, can you read this one titled Golden Age?
Speaker 5: Yes, Hello, smart Bombs. I believe Giant Bomb is in
Speaker 5: a new golden age powerful. Jeff's great new and old
Speaker 5: content and the vibes on the podcast are immaculate. What
Speaker 5: is something else you love that is experiencing a golden age?
Speaker 5: Like we're in the Golden age for Oreo Collapse something
Speaker 5: like that. America. You're always saying, Wow, the real answer
Speaker 5: for me wrestling?
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, good point. Wrestling is healthier than ever as
Speaker 6: a business, not just of it, are you? And content
Speaker 6: has been fun as hell to watch and you know,
Speaker 6: the Netflix stuff and everything, the Max deal, it's the
Speaker 6: better ways to watch it. It's just been fantastic.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I guess emulation, but like emulations always getting better.
Speaker 4: But it just feels like we're such a good place
Speaker 4: of all that and all these fun little consoles. Maybe
Speaker 4: just retro gaming in general. Prices of actual games is
Speaker 4: a thing, right that's always going to be a little
Speaker 4: bit of a problem. But outside of that, there's so
Speaker 4: many ways to play old games right now, and that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is something I me and Mike talk about
Speaker 2: decent amount. We're kind of in maybe be the golden
Speaker 2: age of fighting games. Like as much as people romanticize
Speaker 2: the late nineties early two thousands, there there's so many
Speaker 2: to play. They're so accessible now coming up with new
Speaker 2: ways to play them even and they've been more accessible
Speaker 2: than ever and that's really cool. And there's so much
Speaker 2: variety that you always have something to check out. It's
Speaker 2: really fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, go ahead, no you go because mine's bad.
Speaker 4: Go yeah, just like certain companies, so like it's clearly
Speaker 4: a Nintendo Golden Age right now. Like you know, it's
Speaker 4: been kind of going on since you know, twenty seventeen,
Speaker 4: but we're still in that capcom definitely, and when it
Speaker 4: seems like, say, guys maybe just entered theirs, like they
Speaker 4: figured stuff out, and if all this sort of retrovival
Speaker 4: stuff works out for them, they should be pretty And I.
Speaker 1: Might have talked to everyone. You said that was from
Speaker 1: a Mike from Loveland and then mine. It's like you
Speaker 1: guys had all the good ones that I would have said.
Speaker 1: So right now, I just think that a lot of
Speaker 1: sports are in a good place. Not the NFL because
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl kind of sucks, but.
Speaker 6: Like they I'm okay with it, yeah, but you are.
Speaker 1: But like, you know, hockey's like a place where's like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's so many great veteran players and then there's so
Speaker 1: many great kids coming up at the same time that
Speaker 1: like clearly we're watching like Sidney Crosby when they're young.
Speaker 1: So it's just very cool to be checking in right
Speaker 1: now when it's like there's so much skills in all these.
Speaker 5: Different sports sports question, as someone who grew up watching
Speaker 5: the Chiefs and sense moving away, you know, I'll watch
Speaker 5: them when they're in the Super Bowl or some of
Speaker 5: the playoff games and stuff like that. I did get
Speaker 5: the sense just on like Blue Sky over the weekend
Speaker 5: that like, are the Chiefs becoming hated in the way
Speaker 5: that like the Patriots were hated.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they've won too many times?
Speaker 3: Right, Okay, that's it growing up there, you know that's cool.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Ye yeah, of course you want Everyone wants that for
Speaker 1: their team. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean like we were like, let's be clear, in Detroit,
Speaker 1: we were planning that, Like we were like, hey, when
Speaker 1: once the Lions win, we're gonna be the most toxic
Speaker 1: fan base you've ever seen. We are, you're gonna hate us.
Speaker 1: And then of course you bit us in the ass
Speaker 1: and we lost, so uh but so everyone wants that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's it is wild when I go home, because
Speaker 5: it's like, you know, growing up, like of course, yeah,
Speaker 5: were talking about like Elvis Gerbach or like when Joe
Speaker 5: Montana came to the Chiefs and you know, uh, Trent
Speaker 5: Green was the thing for a while, and like people
Speaker 5: were obsessed about the Chiefs even when.
Speaker 3: Like at best they would get to the playoffs.
Speaker 5: Now I go home, if it's during football season, oh
Speaker 5: my god, everyone's wearing it Mahomes is on every fucking billboard.
Speaker 3: It is like nuclear there.
Speaker 1: Now, yep, it's then that's that's how it goes. And
Speaker 1: that is people hate that too, right, Like, oh, Mahomes, well,
Speaker 1: here's the reasons why he actually sucks and the league
Speaker 1: is always pulling for him and making making sure he wins.
Speaker 1: It's like, I don't know, maybe, but we would all
Speaker 1: take that in an instant if we were given the choice.
Speaker 3: By the way, and I really may say too many.
Speaker 5: Commercials you talk about, like all the leagues pulling form
Speaker 5: and stuff, the amount of like weird conspiracy theories I
Speaker 5: hear when I got home too, was like, well, Mahomes
Speaker 5: brother has mob connections, and then there's the Tailor Swift
Speaker 5: thing going on here. So whenever the Chiefs lose or
Speaker 5: something or something goes negative, it's about the mob or
Speaker 5: Taylor Swift or something like, yeah, the fuck are you
Speaker 5: all talking about.
Speaker 1: That fucking rules?
Speaker 3: Actually, right?
Speaker 4: It is in crimble how many people just immediately believe
Speaker 4: that like all the rests secretly make sure the Chiefs
Speaker 4: win their games too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I do find that when I come home in Kansas.
Speaker 5: Conspiracy thinking is in a golden age, right, now, so.
Speaker 1: I go, yeah, all right, I'll everyone's read one, now
Speaker 1: I'll read this one. The retro handhelds from a Brad
Speaker 1: and Huddersville. Wait a second, and that's near Tumwater, Washington.
Speaker 1: Uh okay to grub or anyone else sufficiently qualified. I'm
Speaker 1: looking to get retro handheld like the size of an
Speaker 1: old school game boy, preferably can play up the PS
Speaker 1: one games. Any help would be appreciated. You guys rock
Speaker 1: keep rocking. I mean trim you right, that's true, that's
Speaker 1: the one.
Speaker 5: Well if you specifically went up to PS one games,
Speaker 5: I think it's funny. This morning I went to go
Speaker 5: load up. I was like, I had the trimuy and like, oh,
Speaker 5: what should I do on this that I wouldn't do
Speaker 5: on the Pocket. It's like, all right, pocket can't do PlayStation.
Speaker 5: And I loaded up Tony Hawk three just I just
Speaker 5: saw the words and I was like, yes, that's good.
Speaker 5: And I loaded up and started playing the Foundry level
Speaker 5: and I was like, this isn't running that great? And
Speaker 5: then I realized, oh, right, this is the PS one
Speaker 5: version of Tony Hawk three.
Speaker 1: Right, that's why it's.
Speaker 5: Not the way I remember. But it does play PS
Speaker 5: one way I played Twist Medal two on there. It
Speaker 5: plays PS one games pretty solidly, even some Dreamcast stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's some Dreamcast suff Yeah, go ahead, Mike, Yeah.
Speaker 4: There's a PS one version of Tony X pro Skater four.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I gotta see, what is that messed up?
Speaker 1: I mean, didn't we say that there was like a
Speaker 1: PS one version like way past Tony Hawk's pro Skater four.
Speaker 1: Didn't they have like thug even No, I don't think so, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm like curious because uh remember something along? Oh no,
Speaker 1: it was game Boy. It was the game Boy design Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: American and Doug two and yes, all those.
Speaker 3: Stuff.
Speaker 1: That's what it was. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah,
Speaker 1: trim and the trimuney is really affordable. If you want
Speaker 1: to spend a little bit more, you can definitely get
Speaker 1: uh one up to like one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 1: that will have analog sticks and can play easily, can
Speaker 1: play Dreamcast, maybe even play a little bit of PS
Speaker 1: two maybe. But I think, you know, if you're just
Speaker 1: dabbling in this and you want one that's going to
Speaker 1: be good out of the box, and it's just just
Speaker 1: nice to use. I think the trim UIs is the one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's a perfect starter one because it's
Speaker 5: just like especially when you like follow some of these
Speaker 5: YouTube tutorials on like really cleaning up the interface and everything,
Speaker 5: like I forget what is it's not menu I for
Speaker 5: the is.
Speaker 1: It MENUI for the you Ui?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that one's just fucking fantastic. It plays everything.
Speaker 5: Like I was debating about, like, oh, as I'm playing
Speaker 5: through these Mario Land should I do it on the
Speaker 5: pop do it on the trim And it's like I
Speaker 5: do think the pocket screen is better and it just
Speaker 5: feels better for like especially game Boy, game Boy Advance games.
Speaker 1: It's like literally just annext the resolution of a game
Speaker 1: Boy screen.
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, it looks awesome, but like, the trimuy is cheaper,
Speaker 5: it's easy to set up. It's so easy to just
Speaker 5: kind of like toss in a bag and not worry
Speaker 5: about it.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: I like the sp one from Ambernick, but it's a
Speaker 5: little chunkier, a little slower. I think the trimuy is
Speaker 5: the best kind of like entry level hand.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've reached a point where pretty much the chip
Speaker 2: in any of these systems will play everything that is
Speaker 2: reasonable for you to emulate on the go that you
Speaker 2: would want to emulate. I go that if you want
Speaker 2: to spend a little bit more on like one of
Speaker 2: the newer retroid pockets that can also do you know,
Speaker 2: like Dreamcast GameCube PS two, you can. But yeah, it's
Speaker 2: it's more a matter of, yeah, just finding the form
Speaker 2: factor that they want and just playing YouTube channels out
Speaker 2: there to help with that stuff. Now, like regularly really
Speaker 2: like retro game Core, right.
Speaker 6: They're great, use I use them all the time.
Speaker 1: Good boy. Absolutely for me, I've like kind of settled
Speaker 1: into this way of doing things where it's like older games,
Speaker 1: especially handheld but you know, uh a PS one, Super Nintendo.
Speaker 1: I will use one of these retro handhelds. And then
Speaker 1: if it is PS two, PS three and anything like that,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna do steam Deck. It's just steam Deck.
Speaker 1: I know it'll run. I have a good interface already
Speaker 1: set up. There's a ton of community sport for mu
Speaker 1: deck to make sure it's as good as possible. So yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I keep eyeing like the iin odin or
Speaker 1: something like that. I think that's what it's called. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't think it's worth the price, especially, yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 2: know the person emailing and specifically did ask for like
Speaker 2: a very pofortable one around the size of a game boy.
Speaker 2: But if anyone is curious, the steam deck is still
Speaker 2: just like the best emulation machine that you can take
Speaker 2: around with you portably. And now now there's trying to
Speaker 2: clear out some of the older ones. You can get
Speaker 2: them on sale for like you can get refer one
Speaker 2: for like around three hundred, which is like.
Speaker 1: You put in a a Samsung SD card, one of
Speaker 1: the faster Samsung a s D cards, and you're not
Speaker 1: going to be hurt and for not having the SSD
Speaker 1: actually turns out exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yep, good device.
Speaker 1: All right, let's see, let's do one more email Sean,
Speaker 1: can you read this last one? What is a coworker
Speaker 1: or what is coworker?
Speaker 3: What is coworker?
Speaker 1: Oh boy?
Speaker 2: Science is ever evolving. It is not magic. It is
Speaker 2: a process. Observations are made, trials run, results are analyzed.
Speaker 2: I realized my prior experiments were rudimentary and flawed, raw
Speaker 2: with surface level speculation, so I narrowed my focus to
Speaker 2: an individual subject co worker or apparently also known as
Speaker 2: Jeff Backlar. I present my last work, the behavioral analysis
Speaker 2: of Jack Backlar. Through careful observation, I've grown to appreciate
Speaker 2: the mundanity within the life of Coworker. Admittedly, there were
Speaker 2: times where I had doed his existence. Was Coworker something
Speaker 2: my subconscious was implanting as a way to provide a message.
Speaker 2: One minute, a disgruntled side in my headphones, so the next,
Speaker 2: staring at the starring in the Blockfuster flopped the green
Speaker 2: hornet the last in my dismay. He is real?
Speaker 1: But what for?
Speaker 2: Despite the odds, Coworker has made some slam improvements to
Speaker 2: cementing his existence in the world. I now know that
Speaker 2: Coworker loves the New York Rangers, hats and Jesus. But
Speaker 2: the struggle of being the straight man in such a
Speaker 2: wiggly world it's probably why that has so shiny. Anyways,
Speaker 2: who was I talking about? George J from Chicago? Ps
Speaker 2: of this major giggle. These are fun to write, bomb
Speaker 2: fall asleep?
Speaker 3: Was was the Jack Backlar bit?
Speaker 8: An?
Speaker 3: Actually just type focus. That's a cred either way. Tyler
Speaker 3: Dirden situation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jack back, that sounds better. You should change Jack's back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there we go he's gonna start on bullying two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you, Jordan. Jay. Always appreciate your emails. These have
Speaker 1: been very fun these past couple of weeks. All right, Sean,
Speaker 1: we did get a message from Dan jan to check
Speaker 1: the discord. I can play the sound if you want
Speaker 1: me to focus on that, or can you or do
Speaker 1: you want to do that?
Speaker 2: I don't know if if it's playing sound, you should
Speaker 2: do it through your end.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, give me a second, you guys. Maybe
Speaker 1: actually we skipped an email. Maybe do that? Why I
Speaker 1: get that set up? Let's see here, Mike. Can you
Speaker 1: read the one from is it perfect game mash up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's what we didn't do.
Speaker 3: Yes, I wasn't paying attention, Dan Riker.
Speaker 1: Could you read the way it says perfect game mash up?
Speaker 1: The email from the email thing there?
Speaker 7: Yeah, a perfect game mash up for me, Jeff, Hello, Bombers,
Speaker 7: co workers, poggers, and soap eaters.
Speaker 2: You are tasked with creating the best video game of
Speaker 2: all time by combining the gameplay of one existing game
Speaker 2: and the world of another. What's the best combo example
Speaker 2: of one Slay the Spire gameplay mash with the Umble
Speaker 2: Verse world page shout outs elbow drop, attack car, dang
Speaker 2: one example two Doom gameplay, mash with Elden Ring World,
Speaker 2: rip and tear those fucking lobsters. Dbi's doing all right,
Speaker 2: Jeff from Quebec.
Speaker 5: Twisted Metal gameplay in the Mario Kingdom Mushroom Kingdom interesting?
Speaker 3: Hit me?
Speaker 2: Now, hold on, Hold on, Dan, I want to explain
Speaker 2: that one to me.
Speaker 5: I want a Twisted Metal game where I can choose
Speaker 5: between Mario Kart style characters, and I can choose different
Speaker 5: vehicles based in the Mario world. And I didn't want
Speaker 5: to drive around Mushroom Kingdom locales using fun I guess
Speaker 5: I'm just describing battle mode of Mario Kart.
Speaker 4: Yes, never mind, Mike, I want hit Man World of
Speaker 4: Assassination gameplay in the world of Shrek.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. Well what so what
Speaker 2: did Shrek be the one point on disguise or like,
Speaker 2: are you playing as Agent forty seven?
Speaker 4: You might not be playing a Shrek. Shrek might be
Speaker 4: a target for all I know. Like worlds would be
Speaker 4: like Lord Farquat's Castle, Far far Away Land, trek Swamp,
Speaker 4: that that university, that that dweeb Prince Arthur went to
Speaker 4: in Shrek three, all these good places, and yeah, you
Speaker 4: just kind of have to wander around. You gotta mark
Speaker 4: like the Big Bad Wolf as a big bad wolf
Speaker 4: because he's smuggling cocaine and needs to die. So you're right,
Speaker 4: you gotta go figure out the best way to you know,
Speaker 4: find them when he's pretending to be Grandma or something
Speaker 4: and put on. You have to disguis yourself as a pig, right,
Speaker 4: so that you can go in there all on, assuming
Speaker 4: like stuff like that.
Speaker 2: It would be the more the more you talk, the
Speaker 2: more I like the idea. I guess, yeah, it's much
Speaker 2: better than Dan's.
Speaker 1: I agree. All right, I have got this audio. It's
Speaker 1: six seconds. While I was getting that ready instead, I
Speaker 1: was gonna play it. You didn't see like Janet Show
Speaker 1: and Chet say, oh god, don't.
Speaker 3: Play that right, see that. It's just talking right.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna play the audio. That's it. So this
Speaker 1: is a confirmation that Jane Joe had lived up to
Speaker 1: his side of the bargain. I'm gonna play it. You guys,
Speaker 1: let me know right away.
Speaker 5: If you can't hear it, Okay, Dan record my god,
Speaker 5: I did say in quotes, can you say I love
Speaker 5: you solo. I said I would venmo him ten dollars
Speaker 5: from my pocket if he said I love you solo.
Speaker 5: He said I love solo.
Speaker 6: So he got seventy five percent of the words, which
Speaker 6: I think should be seven dollars and fifty cents. So, Jan,
Speaker 6: if you can venmo me back two dollars and fifty cents,
Speaker 6: I think we're good.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna play it one more time, just so we
Speaker 1: could be clear.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, I need two dollars and fifty cents back.
Speaker 3: Jane. We'll say, you know, I respect it.
Speaker 2: You.
Speaker 6: You gave it a good shot there, and you got
Speaker 6: three force of it.
Speaker 1: I mean the heat of the moment. It's pretty good performance,
Speaker 1: it is for Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a hard thing to work into a corporate
Speaker 5: at all hands Media. Jacob fut To samoean werewolf reference.
Speaker 5: But by the way, somehow we decided that Mike was
Speaker 5: the Italian werewolf. So that's another one. You just want
Speaker 5: to throw that into the Mike nickname bucket. Sure you
Speaker 5: forgot these our Jacob fut To.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's got so many kids, this guy, Mike,
Speaker 1: Yeah seven, all right, I don't know how does he
Speaker 1: get in the show, he does what we learned. I
Speaker 1: don't think we learned anything on this episode. Four of
Speaker 1: us no, absolutely each other a lot. That was nice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was good.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Nikki Jacobo has seven kids and he's like thirty
Speaker 5: two years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's not done yet.
Speaker 4: Do any of you have grandparents that had like, like
Speaker 4: thirteen siblings, because I.
Speaker 5: Yeah, my my grandma had like seven siblings. My grandpa
Speaker 5: had a bunch of two.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, my my mom has like seven siblings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, my dad like seven or eight. Yeah, it's hard
Speaker 2: to count.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's gotta be impossible to happen eatingful relationship with.
Speaker 1: All your Oh yeah, that's where the idea of like
Speaker 1: favorites definitely comes from.
Speaker 3: Yeah, twelve or something.
Speaker 1: I'm good to have them.
Speaker 5: Jan, I am confirming I received your two dollars and
Speaker 5: fifty cents with a note that says sorry, so one,
Speaker 5: we're all good.
Speaker 6: Good work, Jan, excellent.
Speaker 1: All right, good way we did learn Jan does good
Speaker 1: work in all hands meetings. So we'll wrap it up
Speaker 1: with that. I guess you know what, maybe this this
Speaker 1: is gonna work. I can just hit this and get
Speaker 1: us out of here. Uh, he's gonna do the oka.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna end it. There we go.
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: Well then in that case, bye everybody until.
Speaker 3: Next time on this show?
Speaker 2: How do you not know this show?
Speaker 1: I don't pay attention to this part. I'm long tuned
Speaker 1: out at this point. All right, Yeah, Blake Club tomorrow Thursday,
Speaker 1: will voicemail dump truck? What else is happening? We what
Speaker 1: were we just talking about?
Speaker 5: Like we wanted to play on the site, or you
Speaker 5: wanted to play or.
Speaker 1: Orcs Must Die or Orks Must Die game. We're gonna
Speaker 1: try to do that Friday. Wow, that's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Are we doing the best music of twenty twenty four?
Speaker 6: B Yes, that's Friday ye put together.
Speaker 1: So it's gonna be a big weeks, gonna be a
Speaker 1: good time. And then Nicky says Minecraft. So there you got?
Speaker 3: All right?
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah there was something. Oh, Sniper Elite. Yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna play some Sniper lead on the on uh on Thursday,
Speaker 1: maybe Dan, I don't know.
Speaker 6: We're also trying to get Virtual Fighter and maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe we'll maybe we'll decide between Sniper Elite and
Speaker 1: Virtual Fighter. All right, everybody, we're gonna get out of here.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to Sean,
Speaker 1: thank you to Mike, thank you to Dan, thank you
Speaker 1: to the dog cam. I've been Jeff Grubb, thanks to
Speaker 1: everyone else in Giant Bomb. Until next time, have a
Speaker 1: good one, take care of yourself. Goodbye, japanstemperat