Speaker 1: Hello everybody, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It
is Monday, November seventeen. It is fifty two degrees in
Cloudy and Tacoma, Washington. Thank you for coming back. It's
good to see you. Dan.
Speaker 2: Hi, you're back. I'm back. Yeah, yeah, it was gone
the last time.
Speaker 1: Chris, Chris Plant nobly set in to fill your steed.
Speaker 2: If I'm going, you can only bring people from Kansas City.
That's the rule. So thank you for Chris.
Speaker 1: Yes, how was a contract? He's good? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, good Manue.
Speaker 1: I like that. But people liked him. Sure.
Speaker 2: I saw him at your wedding, Mike.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. I love the dude. Mary. You were here,
I was here.
Speaker 3: Me and Chris get along so well, like peas and carrots.
I didn't even think about it.
Speaker 4: I was happy. It was bliss. We enjoyed ourselves.
Speaker 3: But we're back, and it's really nice to have the
three of us together again.
Speaker 1: Discovered that none of the games I like this year
are cool, and all the games that are truly cool
I've never heard of on Steam because they have like
twelve reviews. That's what I learned from Plant.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, okay, give me give me three games.
Speaker 1: The Plant loved couldn't have even couldn't tell you half
a way called oh no no, I got one q
up Oh.
Speaker 2: Jan was playing that today. I think Jan's into that.
I don't really know what it is, but there's a
certain thing that's a jam game. Is there gambling in it?
Speaker 1: It's a it's supposedly the only fair. It's about an
esport esport players, I believe, and the sport is just
coin tosses. So it's like, Okay, that's a jam fair.
That's a jam game. Yeah, I think its.
Speaker 4: Into something that's more than that.
Speaker 3: I think he likes Baby Steps, which was.
Speaker 1: An interesting like baby Steps.
Speaker 3: It's an interesting difference between us. But I think he
was like, I live to suffer and love the challenge
and got really into the consistency of it.
Speaker 1: No Plant was saying, Plant is playing it the opposite
of how Grub was playing it. Plant was playing it
like anytime they gave him a shortcut, He's like, yeah,
I'll use it. Like he was saying, how that game
is just about how we don't accept help when it's
thrown at our face, often to make things more challenging
for us. It's it's Chris Plant he's always got you know,
he's got he's got interesting, insightful takes on stuff. That
was what he was saying.
Speaker 2: I like it when things are easier. Yeah yeah, I
like shortcuts and spic Yeah yeah, Like being a coward
is underrated, like.
Speaker 1: Like right, like you just safer if you're a coward.
Speaker 2: Right like after Night eleven, my grandma said she would, like,
you know, send me to Canada if they tried to
draft me. And it was like that sounds fucking great.
Speaker 1: Oh you're a draft dog.
Speaker 2: I would have been I would have been a draft dodger.
Speaker 3: This only adds to my assumption that you would make
such a spectacular politician, not because you know what you're doing,
but because you ride the wave of charisma and you know,
just ego and maybe just I don't know.
Speaker 4: I don't know anything about that, so it's not my problem.
Speaker 2: I would do it in like a nice way now,
like a you know, malevolent way. Yeah yeah, like I'd
kind of.
Speaker 3: Like ignorance surfer. You know, you're just like I didn't
know about that travesty.
Speaker 2: I'm just here to have fun.
Speaker 1: The video game industry.
Speaker 2: What's that?
Speaker 1: I said? You're the eb Farnum of the games industry.
Speaker 2: Oh, never mind, I take back the coward thing. I'm
a tough, brave man.
Speaker 3: You don't know that I do.
Speaker 1: Just cowards underrated.
Speaker 2: I wasn't talking about myself. I just think if cowards
want to do that, that's fine.
Speaker 1: Okay. I don't know, Dan, Are you secretly being really
brave and tough at night when we're not around, Well
we're never around, but you get what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I'm just going to patrol in the streets,
you know, just making sure everyone's you know, in line.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, let me get you.
Speaker 3: Like a scenario like you're in a mall and somebody
in the mall is brandishing.
Speaker 4: A knife and they're being threatening. Do you approach?
Speaker 2: Why do you rat call the cops?
Speaker 4: Yeah, you're a coward?
Speaker 2: How about this? So Mike, let me here's the genetics effect.
Speaker 3: What would you do, Mary, I would I would pull
his pants down, all.
Speaker 1: Right, that's okay. That's a better option than trying to,
like knife.
Speaker 3: Because instinctively he's gonna try and pull him back up.
Speaker 1: And that's when you need him in the face.
Speaker 3: That's when you chop them. Yeah, you do something?
Speaker 1: What is it? Eyes? Ears, foot, face. I don't know, Dan,
what was the scenario you were, well, eyeballs.
Speaker 2: I've never been in a fight. My dad has not either,
but he said there was one time he was like
going to the bar decade.
Speaker 1: It's a crazy eighties the record.
Speaker 2: What that I've never been a fight on both.
Speaker 1: Of your accounts that your dad hasn't either, it's crazy
to me some official verbal Sorry, let me clarify. I'm
surprised you're has your Wait, he's never been in a fight.
Has he ever been punched?
Speaker 2: Not to my knowledge? No, okay, no, okay. I almost
like one of the last times I went home for
Christmas and we were drunk and he tried to light
my beard on fire and I almost punched him in
the face. So I probably almost come the closest to
punching him in the face. But he was at a
bar once in like the eighties or nineties, and he
overheard some like biker guys like, hey, let's fuck this
place up, let's cause some trouble. My dad got really scared,
and so he grabbed a pool ball and he dove
under the pool table and just brandished the pool ball.
So that was the closest he's been to be in
a fight.
Speaker 1: As well as he's been to a fight, is hiding
under the pool table.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Meanwhile, my grandpa, his dad was a combat medic
in Korea and had to pull the dead bodies off
the field and he got a bronze star for valor
in combat.
Speaker 1: So prentitively, Yeah, that's not far right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
not far from the tree at all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mary, I.
Speaker 1: Want to go back to the knife thing. You pull
his pants down, But what if he's coming at you,
you never printing at you holding a knife saying I'm
about to stab you calmly, so you know he means business.
They say it like normal tone. They've been playing this.
Speaker 3: I am a dirty fighter, meaning I don't play by
the rules and I don't know anyone shit. The winner
is the winner, period, And so like, is there sand.
Speaker 4: That I can throw?
Speaker 1: Is there?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Can I.
Speaker 1: Them into move.
Speaker 4: Something in front of us?
Speaker 3: My goal isn't to like, yeah, do this equally, it's
to just ruin him with objects. So I would be
looking for something that I could throw at him from
a distance while like maintaining space. I would love to
tell you that I would like lurch forward and go
after him. But when somebody has a knife, I have
to create distance and probably hurl shit at them until
they're distracted, and then ideally once they're distracted, pantsome and
then and then they are super distracted, and that's when
you make your move. And that would either be like
an elbow or probably some kind of growing or eyeball situation.
Growing and eyeballs are really just like the great equalizer.
Speaker 1: You take out.
Speaker 2: Those are the two I would go to. But I
was in a fight. I think he wants to.
Speaker 4: Fight without their ball.
Speaker 2: Do you want to know, oh the throat thing?
Speaker 5: Yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Are assuming that the knife brander is the boy, which
I find really a fun form of misogyny.
Speaker 1: You I thought IM a doctor. It's him before we
have a part.
Speaker 3: Of the problem.
Speaker 4: I do assume mostly.
Speaker 2: The ernest question here. I am not a doctor or
a woman, so I don't know the answer to.
Speaker 1: We know this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you if you were running I was going
to get to the vagina. If you were running at
someone brandishing a knife and someone kicked you directly in
the vagina, yeah, what would that would that be? Like
kicking you in the thigh? Or is there more going
on there.
Speaker 4: Is it the knife brander or somebody else?
Speaker 1: There's a third I think is doesn't matter what he's asking,
does it get what? Does it hurt to get kicked?
Let's right?
Speaker 4: Okay, so.
Speaker 3: A cooter booter is still pretty intense and does not
feel good. I don't think that it will result in
you puking, so.
Speaker 2: It's not debilitating in the way nuts are.
Speaker 4: I think it would be.
Speaker 3: I would imagine it's probably like getting kicked in your
knee where you'd be like.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, that's nothing.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't it would feel bad.
Speaker 3: But like the balls, I think is like a removal
of like you're conscious, like you have to like sit down.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, balls will just stop you and you're it
is a flashing boss weak point in a Resident Evil game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been punched in the boob before and it hurts.
Speaker 2: Now would that would that be different than because guys
have nipples?
Speaker 1: So is there a difference there?
Speaker 3: Yes, because there's like there's there's like a whole bunch
of different stuff before not only we have boobs and
the boobs are tender.
Speaker 2: There there's not like extra organs in there that are
sensitive that we don't have a we.
Speaker 4: Have a second heart.
Speaker 3: No, but they're like because it just more flesh sensitive tissue.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, all right, so you have little testicles
inside your boobs or anything.
Speaker 1: No, but I feel like boobs would be more like
the pain would be commensurate would getting kicked on your
butt cheek or is it now? It's probably more sensitive,
isn't it.
Speaker 2: But it's not that bad to get kicked in.
Speaker 3: They're like probably the best place to get kicked in.
You got all that cushion for the pushing. I don't
even notice it. If I were to get punched anywhere
on my body, I would probably say ass, And then
if I was like my least favorite place, it would
probably be my face. But boobs would be up there.
Speaker 2: That's miserable, I guess I would say like thigh ass
and like shoulder or like you know, kind of like bicep.
Like those are all punches that are that's gonna be fine.
You're gonna get a's gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think you weld on Dan
a couple of summers ago on his arm, did I
they're in the pack?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did punch you. I was like when Dan
was like, I've never been in a fight. I was like, man,
what was the last time I had a fight. It
was probably like two tuesdays ago. Oh, always scrapping with somebody.
Speaker 2: Mary. I wonder you against my sister. I wonder how
that would go.
Speaker 3: Your sister seems pretty vicious. I probably would. I probably
would brandish a cheat, meaning like pocket sand, you know,
some kind of you know, piece of wood.
Speaker 4: I would I would have to use.
Speaker 3: Something against her. I think if it was if it
was a battle of myths, I think she would beat me.
But I think if we could, if it was just
like to the death, then I would find a way
a lot.
Speaker 2: And it's like, yeah, her punch is like just even
like on the arm or whatever.
Speaker 4: Question, she's stronger than me.
Speaker 2: Oh, she's nuts because I got punched by like high
school bullies all the time in the arm and gym class,
and like these are like that's like seventeen year old boys.
She punches so much harder than anyone that ever punched
me in high school.
Speaker 4: Very impressive.
Speaker 3: I always liked to have a like my best friend
in high school was always like just really strong and
pretty impressive, and I felt really cool walking next to
her because people didn't want to fight her. She fucked
them up. So I I think I take your question,
and I think I would. I would find a way
to befriend your sister and then we would and then
we would beat up men together. I think that would probably.
Speaker 2: Be But she does love you, she listens to the
podcast and she's a big fan.
Speaker 4: So I think I would not punch you in the boob.
Speaker 2: Okay, we got a tag team here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think my if someone's running at me with
a knife mm hm in them all, yeah, I like
I would start. I would definitely, like if I had
no choice, but I would, I would start looking for
weapons for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like.
Speaker 4: Such a hit reaction.
Speaker 3: What's around you that you could utilize, especially if they're
running you, Like Dan, if you're.
Speaker 1: Just all is perfect because you got everything, Like if.
Speaker 3: You're just gonna ostriche, Dan, like you're making yourself very susceptible.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't ostrich because that ostriches leave their whole
everything out for the whole world to see. I would be.
Speaker 3: But you're so embarrassing that sometimes people like ignore you,
like you're no longer a threat, so people just like,
don't they just like leave you be.
Speaker 2: A tactic of mine, like in like a bar or
something of somebody who's gonna kick my ass or something.
I just look, you got nothing to prove here, like
you know, you know you can kick my Ass's fine.
Speaker 3: And everyone's embarrassed, like, go, let's go back to your dad.
You think that those burly bar guys who were like,
let's fucking ruin this place. Do you think they're gonna
like grab the ankles of a sniveling little guy peeing
his pants under a bar. I don't think so. I
think they just were like, that's sad, and then they
went and beat up some other guy. Like I just
think there's an element of it of like could you
beat me, I'm gonna go.
Speaker 4: After this guy.
Speaker 3: But if you're sad and I think they just leave
you alone, right.
Speaker 2: It's I think for a lot of yeah, bar type
guys who want to get in fights, like you know,
uh forever, you know, like per wrestlers when they go
to bars after the shows and stuff back in the
eighties and nineties and stuff, you would get drunken bar guys.
They're like, oh, these wrestlers think they're tough. These fake wrestlers.
Let's go start ship. Yeah yeah, And it's like, yeah,
we don't do that to you know a record. Yeah yeah,
I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the macho thing of like trying to prove
your more alpha than the other person. It's like, what's
the was it the Coen Brothers Western series on Netflix?
Speaker 2: It was like the cumber Batch Tales of the cumber
Batches whatever.
Speaker 1: Shrubs, Yeah, the patch, Yeah, we got there. It's like, oh,
the fastest gun in the West is always fighting because
everybody wants to like prove they can beat him and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I feel like they're always if you're the slowest
gun in the West, you're just living.
Speaker 3: The lowest gun in the West is such a tactic.
Speaker 1: That'd be That would be you Dan Cool.
Speaker 2: I'm I hate I like it, but he's living.
Speaker 1: Duel to be like, give me a second because time out,
time time out.
Speaker 3: Wait, cowboy boots and then you dive under the table.
Speaker 2: You call the cops.
Speaker 1: Yeah, please.
Speaker 2: Second reference.
Speaker 1: I've I got Mattsallar sites his book about it, the
Deadwood Bible or something. We're gonna I want to rewatch
soon and read that along with it. The movie that
show is still really good. The movie was good to
season four for all intense purposes. Speaking of shows, I
a couple of things. I started the Chair Company. It's
Great'm not gonna spoil anything. I'm gonna talk about the show.
Speaker 2: I like, it's a hard one to spoil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's for sure, and it's it's it's
one im. I didn't watched last night. I didn't watch
the Are you marry?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 2: Do you okay? If I were just there was no no, no no.
Speaker 1: If there was one part you know what I'm talking about, say.
Speaker 3: What your question again?
Speaker 2: Mike was protesting if I were to say, there's this
one part in the last episode that just made me cackle.
Speaker 3: You fucking know that I know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: And we don't even need.
Speaker 3: Watlous show.
Speaker 1: It's really fun. Yeah it's Mike.
Speaker 3: Do us a favor and take a screenshot of the
part that you think that Dan and I are referencing
right now.
Speaker 2: And post it to us on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Posted to us, just no content, no context.
Speaker 3: Just on the social media.
Speaker 1: Something tells me it's probably not appropriate, but do it.
I'll try.
Speaker 3: I want to know what you think is the most
is the funniest part of that episode.
Speaker 1: I have been saying, I've got the worst pillow in town.
Quite a bit of that, a lot of it.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of good lines plurbus.
Speaker 2: We started watching that yesterday.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, wait, what is that?
Speaker 2: It's his new show one, yes, yes, and he's doing
sci fi and it's like, I don't think I realize
how badly I wanted that. I know we worked on
like X Files back the day, but I never saw that. Uh,
this is like one of the most effective pilots I've
ever seen. I won't say anything. We went in totally
blind and it's on Apple TV. Yeah, I know who
the fuck has it? But it's it's incredible. It's so good.
All right, yeah TV?
Speaker 3: What do I know?
Speaker 1: Why do I know that act? Oh she's from she's
from Better Cassault. Yeah she's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah she's great.
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah she's I saw the.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I thought that was fantastic.
Speaker 4: I think it's such a good ride.
Speaker 3: They carry tension throughout the whole film, and you guys
are gonna think I'm crazy, but I actually think it's
very similar to The Chair Company in the sense that
like it's weirdly stressful and then funny, and you're like,
I don't know if this should be funny because it's stressful,
but I can't help it. And I laughed a lot
during Bogonia when I felt like I should be upset
or like stress.
Speaker 2: I can see because it's got you know, again, without
spoiling it, it's very surreal, and there are definitely characters
that have some really wild thoughts about what's going on
and paring them with the utmost certainty, like you know,
Tim Robinson talking about the Chair Company and then just
yeahs and stuff in this like it's.
Speaker 3: They're both characters that are like taking the situation so
seriously that you're almost like laughing at them because you're like,
these are ridiculous. The Chair Company has like really good
moments where Tim Robinson is still such a ridiculous person, right,
Like he has these really weird quirks that carry him
in his character. So even though the situation is wild,
it's like, why did you make this decision? It's such
an absurd decision. But Gonya is quite similar, where the
lead characters are making choices where I'm like, is this
a ridiculous decision that you chose to do this, but
they feel so strongly about their choices that it feels
endearing and honest, that's probably like the weirdest review ever.
But I actually, I think I came home from Bogonia
and watched that Chair Company and was like, why are
these so similar?
Speaker 2: Also, I just I realized, like every time I've seen
Emma Stone in the last few things I've seen her in,
it's just like, is she just incredible at every possible
type of role? You could throw her away.
Speaker 3: She's one of the best actresses of this of our
generation for sure. I mean, she's so so talented comedy, drama, everything.
How does she do it? It's just so committed to
her roles. Yeah, she's good forget.
Speaker 2: Did you see The Curse with Nathan Fielder?
Speaker 1: M you did? Yeah?
Speaker 4: I actually I haven't finished it.
Speaker 3: Oh well that's and I heard that's when it gets good.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, that one has a slow burn.
Speaker 2: It does, but and I'll say by the end this
specifically the end end is like, oh shit, that makes
us all extremely worth it. And not that it was
bad ever, but it is a slow burn. But yeah,
she's incredible on that too. But yeah, Bogonia incredible. I
want to watch the rest of his stuff. I hadn't seen,
you know, Bonk is seeing a lot of that of
the Lobster and Poor Things and his other.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I wonder what you'd think of that. I
find that movie like hard to watch.
Speaker 1: I liked it back in the day. I liked uh yeah,
I also like the Is it because Jesse Plemmons is
in Pogonia? Right? Oh yeah, yeah? I love his He's
he's amazing.
Speaker 2: This is kind of unlike his other roles, Like he's
always just kind of a creepy little freak and everything
he's in, but this is maybe his creepiest little freak role,
Like he is just uh, really unhinged in this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he was in Civil War for like two and
a half minutes, but it felt like an hour because
he's terrifying.
Speaker 2: But that's the thing, is like he's really like imposing
and genuinely scary and that like he's a scary character
in this too, but in the way that he's just
like not he's detached from reality and you feel like
he can kind of do anything, but he's not this
like this threatening Like Mary, how would you describe that
you've seen Civil War right, Like there's a difference in
the way he's threatening in the.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's insane in one of them, and and this one,
I actually think he feels quite sure of himself.
Speaker 2: While also being completely.
Speaker 3: Insane totally, But I think in this one there's relatability
to his character, Like he's sensitive because he's it had
really tough experiences and so you empathize with him, whereas
like in Civil War, like that's just a it's a psycho.
Speaker 2: He just seems like a violent, aggressive, awful person, seems
very broken.
Speaker 3: And in all every character in Bogonia, I was like, oh,
I kind of feel for this character, but they're all
wild so excellent acting from everyone. And I know you
guys mentioned the main too, but there's a third one
in there who's also an excellent actor, and I have
no idea who the hell that guy?
Speaker 1: Dude?
Speaker 2: His family member, Yeah he was. He was fascinating in
that too.
Speaker 1: He was great.
Speaker 2: I really love that movie.
Speaker 4: Yeah I saw it.
Speaker 3: Oh, I wanted to tell you guys that, yeah, look
him up. So while you look up that, I'm going
to describe uh a movie theater in Portland that I'm
always a surprised that they do this, but it's a
movie theater where they they it's like a it only
has like eighteen seats and the seats are like couches,
and so it kind of feels like a home theater,
but it is a legit movie theater with really nice
around sound. And then they cook full meals and deliver
them while you're watching the movie. And when you order,
you order two drinks and they give you a drink
when the movie starts, and a drink when the movie's
halfway finished.
Speaker 2: That sounds like a perfect experience.
Speaker 3: If you ever come visit me again, I think I'm
gonna take you because it's so weird. It's just so
weird when you're like, I'm gonna go see a movie,
but the whole experience. We're gonna go see Pogonia. And
he's in the hallway with us, and then the guy
before he takes us to our seats, he's like, well,
before I do that, let me show you our specials.
Speaker 4: He pulls out an iPad and he's like, we have scallops.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: We fly our scallops in three times a week. These
are never frozen. So I really want you to consider
this Atlantic local salmon and he's like going through all
these like super nice high end dishes.
Speaker 4: They do surf and turf and shit like.
Speaker 3: That, and then you sit down in your little couch
and they give you this massive menu of options of
like pretty nice high end.
Speaker 4: Food that I thought was like cooked quite well.
Speaker 3: I was surprised with how high end this kitchen is
considering it's a fucking movie theater. And then the people
who sat next to us brought their own goddamn blanket
and so they're like eating surf and turf with their
own blanket on top of their legs.
Speaker 4: It's surreal. It's very strange.
Speaker 1: I goes.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of the stuff started with like
Alamo draft houses and stuff before the pandemic, but I
do feel like post pandemic theaters just had to kind
of like step up their games in a lot of ways. Like, hey,
come on, I know you can stream everything, but still
come over here, and like you get all these recliners,
you get like all the sound, and like everything just
seems like I really like going to the theaters now.
Speaker 3: It was so advanced and everything about the place just
feels so odd, and yeah, I keep going back because
it's really nice to have a full meal with your
with your movie, plus getting a drink halfway through the
movie given to you. I was just like, oh yes, please,
I deserve this. It was great.
Speaker 1: I'm I miss sneaking vodka in in like gay, I mean, yeah,
you can still do it. I wish that was the
only option. We're pampered, We've gone soft. I don't need
a meal during my movie. I want pailbone to hurt
when I get up.
Speaker 2: It's still the smart thing to do to sneak it
in because it's way way tooper not.
Speaker 1: To save money. No, no, no, no, no, you're you're not
here what I'm saying. I missed when that was a
survival tactic, not just saving ten twelve bucks. In my day,
before YouTube came up, we had to I had to
boof vodka and then let it out during the movie
at like a fucking like a water cooler nozzle.
Speaker 2: In my day, I was working at AMC trying to
people stuck an alcohol.
Speaker 1: And get kicked out. Oh I was. I was on
boof patrol twenty four to seven at the movie. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: He's like a little meer cat with a wine bottle
sticking out of his ass making sure the police aren't nearby. Alcohol.
Speaker 1: No, it's sexual cool.
Speaker 2: I've got the far sight from perfect dark looking near
rectum yet.
Speaker 3: True, let's taste it. This is alcohol.
Speaker 2: Get out of here. I'm gonna call your mother that worthiness.
I think there's some Brett.
Speaker 1: And then lastly, I'm going to see Chris Fleming on
Saturday at Carnegie Hall. Uh. For those who don't know,
he's a comedian who's been kind of blowing up a
bit and like his clips and whatnot is very funny.
Speaker 4: Conan loves him, is number one guy. I see her clips.
Speaker 1: I heard the podcast saying like he would go to
Conan's house for parties and then Conan would just like
make a show of throwing him out every time. And
I couldn't tell why that was amped up, but like
it's a really good bit, Like Chris Fleman would go
into Conan's house during parties and like that, people would
try to talk to him and converse and he'd be like,
not now, I'm being hunted, and then would like kind
of sneak around the party and then Conner would see
him and sprinted him from across the house and throw
him out. I can just.
Speaker 2: Picture Cony like whenever he does that Poe enraged thing, like, yeah,
really good.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking forward to seeing Chris Fleming. I'll report back.
He should be good. Anything else new either, updates? Dan,
you've been going like a few weeks?
Speaker 2: Yeah, New York City it was, and yeah yeah, Bonaton,
did you have.
Speaker 3: A good time? What were some of your highlights? So
it was like your favorite part.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things where it's like twenty four hours,
but in your head it felt like it was like
a three hour stream or something, just because it's like
you're so loopy. And so many things happened, Like at
some point I played basketball against Mike Manatti. I kidnapped
Jeff Grub and dropped him off in the woods in
the middle of the night. I Vinnie and Alex came by.
I put Jesse Vittelli in a VR helmet, made him
watch Love on a leash, and Nubes did a Mortal
Kombat tournament. Just a lot of stuff happened, and it
was just a lot of laughing and eating McDonald's and hating.
A ton of support from people, uh for for a
new Giant bomb and uh yeah, very just across the board,
extremely positive experience, good, good old bonding with the team,
got a big airbnb together. We watched Naked Gun. It
was my third time in like two months of watch that.
Speaker 3: Uh good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just hanging out just it was one of those
things where the trip ends and you're flying back and
you're like wow, that was just really pulled some stuff
off there and had a lot of fun. So yes,
very feeling very very very good about Giant Bomb right now.
It happened for basically since May.
Speaker 4: But especially since the transition.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, so it's looking looking very good.
Speaker 3: That makes me happy. I'm glad that you guys are
doing well. I saw you guys on Twitch a couple
of times and and uh, stop by as my corporate overlord.
Speaker 4: It's fun to do that.
Speaker 1: Yep, yep, it was fun to seeing you there.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the chat will be like I wonder if it's
merry or if it's true.
Speaker 2: Did did you have access?
Speaker 1: Yeah? He does?
Speaker 3: Oh really okay, yeah yeah you never know.
Speaker 2: But I think he gets a couple of those gen
tonics and the and Drew will say anything just because
he's a pier soul.
Speaker 3: I actually I think that he wouldn't unless he like
asked for permish, like, that's the kind of person he is.
So if you see someone chatting, it's got to be me,
because Drew would never do that without being like, am
I allowed?
Speaker 4: I would like to say x y Z like he's just.
Speaker 2: Too good from a Twitch account, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: He would be like more honest.
Speaker 1: I think he's a flight risk. I think that guy's
nothing but trouble.
Speaker 3: Nothing.
Speaker 2: There's no one I would feel better about if I
got on a plane and they were there greeting me
in a Captain Suita. But Drew Scalen, Great, We're going
to do just fine.
Speaker 1: Oh I meant like as a metaphor, Oh sure, sure yeah,
but ironically he has a pilot's license though he does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anything he could be gett an astronaut, no problem,
I'm sure.
Speaker 3: Now, if somebody was coming at you with a knife
in a mall, who would you want next to you?
Speaker 4: I'll to be a personal friend. It can't be like
you know.
Speaker 2: Answer for this. It's someone I've been to a bar
with numerous times. It's Samoa Joe. That's that's the guy.
I've never felt more secure than drinking with Samoa Joe.
I still think I could take him. Oh, my god, Mike,
do you know how much I would pay to watch I.
Speaker 1: Think actually, like I've been playing a lot of Donkey
Kong Bananza. I think like he would punch through me,
like you punched through the terrain in the first layer.
Once you've upgraded your power, I would just I would
just explode or be pakes against a wall.
Speaker 3: All the particle effects would look so cool, but you
would be super dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Substance as well, I should I forgot. We watched
the Substance. He's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah, speaking of there
was a point in that movie where I was laughing
so fucking hard. I mean, I thought many parts of
that were funny intentionally, but there's other parts where it's
like just horrific shit, and it was the funniest fucking
thing ever. Cathartic but funny. And oh yeah, that movie's awesome.
To be more fucking unreal, especially like the more the
movie goes on, the more I'm like, damn, I forgot.
I didn't grow up watching her, so I was like,
I never saw her at her peak, but she still
was killing it. Jane No, oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Charlie's Angels full throttle.
Speaker 1: She was one of the was she one of the angels,
she was the villain.
Speaker 4: She was wearing like a bikini the whole time.
Speaker 1: I gotta go check.
Speaker 3: Just so you know.
Speaker 2: I saw the strip to the poster a lot.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I forgot ab Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh I've seen this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think I have these downloaded.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, I had a BlackBerry full of just
specifically for photos from that movie from.
Speaker 4: Charlie these Angels full Throttle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and dazzled.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about video games?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Dan, Yeah, you've seen some quote unquote Valve stuff. Oh yeah,
what's going on with that?
Speaker 2: This is my first time getting to talk about it
because of the embargo timing and stuff. You So, I
haven't even told you guys about what this is. No, okay,
we're recording this pre embargo. It will be coming out
after embargo. I got I went out to Seattle to
go to Valve HQ and checked out three new pieces
of hardware that they are working on. Uh, and it's
I'm very excited about all three of them. So it
is decker is steam jack decker? Yes, yes, they have
a steam steampunkers decker that lives steam upper deckers. The
second one, I thought you hadn't know about this, Mary, Mary.
Speaker 3: I should work in marketing. Tell me more about this
Steam upper decker. I'm excited.
Speaker 2: So first thing is the steam controller. So that is
a controller that basically imagine you took a steam deck
and you just cut out the screen anyone and you
put it all together. It's got the track pads, it's
got the sticks in the same situations and all that.
Like all the layouts very very similar. It looks weird
if you look at the photo of it, it's gonna
be like, what is that thing? But when I first
held it, my first thought was like, this feels like
a better version of the Dreamcast controller, which like in
terms of just like I was kind of sha you know.
Speaker 1: The way if you cut out the screen from steam
Deck and you put it together. What I'm imagining it
looking like is something like this like the switch to
like square ish, because I feel like if you just
mash the sides of a steam deck together, it would
come out looking square.
Speaker 3: Is it square?
Speaker 4: What's the silhouette?
Speaker 2: It's it's think like Dreamcast. Actually I could send you
I will send you here. We'll get a live react here. Okay,
I'm sending the image in our private discord here so
you two can react to it. Here here is the
reveal of the Steam controller. What do you think of that?
Speaker 3: Kind of like it looks like the Xbox controller, but
somebody pulled its pants down a little bit.
Speaker 1: And panting, Yeah, that looks.
Speaker 3: Like it's good. I think it's that the Xbox controller
has like you know how like the PlayStation controller is
skinny and like fits smallly in the hand, and the
Xbox controller is like kind of fat and thick.
Speaker 4: This is fat and thick and also long. Strange.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so it's also got stuff that like so
it's got the track pad and something can see visually,
but then there's stuff too that like I'm sure people
are gonna find really weird cool ways to deal with this,
but like it's got this capacitive stuff on the grips
to where based on like how hard or how far
your palms are from it. Like for instance, uh, what
was that plane? I was playing a first person shooter?
I was playing cyberpunk and they had it where it's
like if you grip it fully, it kind of activated
the gyro on it so you could, like you know,
you could aim around first person with the motion, which
the gyro stuff is incredible on this. In fact, if
it's in like mouse mode and you're doing like like
a mouse cursor, it is remember like the the WE
remote you know, had the lag and stuff when you're pointing.
It sounds good in theory, but it felt like shit.
This one felt like using a mouse. It was incredible.
But yeah, so the capacitive stuff, I'm curious to see
what people do with that because that that's a unique
implementation there. But yeah, it's got the backgrip buttons and everything.
It's got the track pad there, but it is it
looks like just like a tall controller basically.
Speaker 4: All like what's up with the double track pad?
Speaker 1: I think?
Speaker 2: So what they want to do is uh and all
the stuff I'm going to talk about here, is they
they for the video of folks who were really doing Yeah. Yeah,
they want everything to kind of be similar in terms
of the Steam UI and the controller experience. Uh, just
kind of one to one across this hardware and what
people know and like about the same deck and everything.
So that's why there's no big swings in terms of
control layout.
Speaker 1: With what I was going to say, what's yeah, what
is what is the Is this meant to become like
the de facto PC controller or no?
Speaker 2: So let me move on to number two here. Actually,
right now, they.
Speaker 3: Took this Steam Deck and broke it out into two
pieces of hardware. Is it a fucking fat ass controller
and a fat ass screen?
Speaker 2: Nope, there's number two. Uh yeah, they made a game
cube cube. It is the cube that is the stem machine,
which out of the three, this is maybe the one
I am the most excited about. Uh it is, by
the way, So I'm sending you a picture. Now, there's
like a bar. There's like an LED bar on the front.
It's it's just like a black cube basically, but there's
this like LED bar that it can you can customize
it to be like, you know, power. You can have
it be like download you know, you can be a
proceress like.
Speaker 1: Half of a Series X kind of if you were
to cut it like a.
Speaker 2: It does look it is actually smaller though it is
more akin to the size of the game cube, I
would say, and power wise, So this is a console.
Steam Valve made a console. It is six times more
powerful than a Steam Deck. And so if you were
to get this and you just it's got an HDMI
out and it's got to display pored out. So let's
say you just put it under your TV like any
other console, hook it up via HDMI. You could take
it on day one when you own it, and you
could take the SD card out of your Steam deck,
pop it in there, and all your games and everything
are right there. And since it's all using the same
UI and everything, oh you don't have to read download
a bunch of stuff. It's just using the same game,
the same system and everything. So they just straight up
made a console.
Speaker 4: So they made a switch, being that now you can, like.
Speaker 1: Now it's easier to play PC games in the living room,
et cetera on a TV exactly exactly, but also presumably,
what is the hardware like compared to a series extra
PS five? Do you know?
Speaker 2: So I asked that a bunch, you know, just like, okay,
we're talking like base base PS five here we say,
And they were they were a little reluctant to say
things like that. Okay, Mary is lifting up her keyboard
right now and shaking out beer.
Speaker 1: We have beer there, So what's happening? Oh cores light.
Oh she's still cores light in.
Speaker 2: The Oh my goodness, Mary, this is this is I've
done this before. This is not good.
Speaker 3: That's pretty brute, you guys.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, Mary, keep going.
Speaker 1: That's tough.
Speaker 2: It is six times more powerful in the Steam That
is what they told me basically, So they were not
going to I've got the specs here, so I don't
know are you Are you a specs guy, Mike.
Speaker 1: H enough to all right, get Egg?
Speaker 2: What do you want?
Speaker 1: What? Like? What's the video card in it?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: The video card is a semi custom a m D
r d n A three twenty six cu supports four
K gaming at sixty FBS with fs R rate tracing supported.
The CPU is an a m D six scores in
four x eighty six, comes in a five twelve gigabyte
model and a two terabyte model, and it is going
to ship with one of those Steam controllers.
Speaker 4: That's the price.
Speaker 2: That's the bundle price. They did not announce. So and like,
you know, I think it's one of those things where
like I think it's the new reality now is like
you're going to see a lot of things announced and
people being like I I don't know, Like look at
the switch, you know, you got announced and they had
to change the price of successories and stuff like that.
It's just the current state of things.
Speaker 3: But no screen. And here's the thing that's like really
interesting about this unless the third thing you're going to
announce is the screen.
Speaker 1: But the thing like, wait, what screen? What are you
talking about?
Speaker 4: I'm saying there's no screen.
Speaker 3: So when you're talking about TV, yeah, it's like a console,
as I was saying, when you're talking about a switch
or a steam deck, it has a screen built in.
And screens are really expensive to produce, right, oh, because
of the stuff that's in them. This has no screen,
so obviously you have to plug it into one. But
what I'm saying is that the price point is going
to be distinctly less because it doesn't have to pay
for a fucking screen. You're paying only for like a
piece of hardware. So I'm actually thinking it's going to
be around three hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: Oh. I think it's that the specs you just read
off are like, I don't disagree with you that, like
they're saving money by not having a screen, not making
it a handheld. But the specs you were just reading
are like the good a decent PC.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And when you think about like the price of
modern consoles, you know, like they're not three hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: It's seven.
Speaker 1: I would say, like five six.
Speaker 2: I'm operating off of no information here. If they said
seven hundred, especially for this two terrible one, I would
not be shocked. So but they have not announced it yet,
so yeah, I mean I would think of this more
akin to like a PlayStation five or Nextbox Series X
or something like that, you know, versus comparing with things
with screens and stuff like that, like all these components
and everything and bringing things in from all over the world.
Like I think everything is influx right now.
Speaker 1: So you know, wait, let me guess, is it the
next VR? Yes, okay, it's.
Speaker 2: The Steam frame. It's the Steam frame?
Speaker 1: So no, wait was the vibe them?
Speaker 2: No, that was if I was HTC, But they worked
it was like a third party thing they did, so yes,
it was involved. They did the index was I wonder if.
Speaker 4: They're going to do a new half life.
Speaker 1: Still going on VR?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's a good one. It's maybe I think
it is the best one I've ever used for sure. Like,
so I'm showing you the picture here of kind of
the whole suite of stuff, the front of that VR
headset is the computer. Basically it's all a local thing
like like the metic Quest, but it is so light.
So it's got the computer basically on the front and
it's got the battery in the back, and they have
got to balance extremely well. So in terms of comfort level,
it is definitely the best I've used. And so something
I think is really cool here is it comes with
this dongle and you can use it locally, so you
can use it like a meta Quest three. You can
play games locally on it and everything. But that dongle
will plug into the Steam machine or a PC and
it will just send the gameplay, like all the gameplay information,
graphical information, and everything goes over the dongle. My understanding
is not using the Internet. It is just using it locally,
just kind of beaming it there and then so that way,
it's like if you have bad Wi Fi or something
like that, it's not gonna to be super hitchy and
shitty because it's using your WiFi. This dongle will send
it and just the gameplay stuff, just the stuff needed
for the gameplay versus like you know, Discord voice chat,
other Internet applications and things like that, so we uh
we we. They turned on some debug filters for us
when I was using it, and they have a thing
where it's like they have a ten percent of your
view basically like which sounds like a very small amount,
but like they turned they toggled it on and off,
and it's like basically the center of your view no
matter where you're looking with both your head and your eyes.
It's got eye tracking. They are putting way more like
horsepower into that ten percent window that the center of
your eyes is looking at what they're doing. The thing
that they've done it in like standard non VR games
as well, where it's like you know, they'll be is
it dynamic rendering or.
Speaker 1: No, there's a there's a cool I'll look it up
something like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think they had a term for it here they
called like foviated streaming or something. Yes, I think, yes,
they were using the term foviiate of the lot.
Speaker 1: I think I think Meta also used that. Yeah. Okay, okay,
and maybe not not to the extent you're talking about,
but that's I knew I'd heard that phrase before and
I didn't see this, but.
Speaker 3: It's it's all wireless, and so you're not connected to anything.
Speaker 2: At no point will you be wired. I mean, I
don't even know if that's the possibility charge.
Speaker 1: Though, Like, could you could plug into so you don't
have to How would you How do you charge this thing?
Speaker 2: I mean I would just seem like anything else, you
just plug it in when you're not using it.
Speaker 1: Right, But if you have zero if you have zero battery,
I'm just refuting the fact that you'll never be wired.
If you have zero battery and you want to play it,
you're gonna have to have it.
Speaker 2: That's probably an option to just play.
Speaker 1: I'm being as I'm just yea, how do you charge
this thing? Yeah? No, it's it's it's really solid.
Speaker 2: I I remain skeptical of just like VR in general,
because until they're actually like, look, half Life Alex kicks
ass and I played a half Life Alex beaming off
of the Good Game. No doubt this will be the
best way to play it, just like super easy streaming
from going to be a new half didn't say anything about.
Speaker 1: That, but Half Life Brad, Oh my god, if they
if they in some world did like announce that this
is going to launch with a half Life three, they
that would just I mean, I know there's that's a no,
I'm not actually thinking it's gonna happen. There's in no
way what they need to do, if anything. Like I
think this lineup's kind of cool. Like, I think it
all looks good. I like the aesthetic. It's ten times
better than the monstrosity that is the PS five that
I've still not gotten used to seeing in my home.
Speaker 2: The console itself, the.
Speaker 1: Design of the console itself. I think this, all this
stuff is all slick looking.
Speaker 2: I like all this Like when I go home for
the holidays, I'm not bringing a fucking any modern console
outside of the switch. Like, this thing is very packful,
and I think more importantly, the thing I kept thinking
about here was someone like my sister, who loves video
games just her whole life, has loved video games, but
has never had never played games on a PC, you know,
never never had that. Like this is a way to like,
like just just if something's just on Steam, she's not
playing it. She's even if it's like super for her,
and I would love for her to check it out,
I'm never gonna recommend it because she's just doesn't have
a way to play it. This is this is a console.
This is a box that you plug into your TV,
but it has access to your games Steam library.
Speaker 1: I will say.
Speaker 3: The use case for me is like when I play
PC games, I have to go upstairs into my work
station where my gaming you know.
Speaker 4: Spaces, and that's fine, I can do it.
Speaker 3: But the thing I really want to do is play
PC games on the couch, like in the comfort of
my home.
Speaker 4: But I don't have.
Speaker 3: Another PC set up there. So I play my Steam
Deck on the couch. This I would connect to my TV,
and I think that is that is kind of the
game changer.
Speaker 2: So here's another thing too, is let's say, okay, Haitis
two runs great on the Steam deck, you play it
on there, then you can also go play it on
the Steam machine on your TV.
Speaker 1: Same thing I said.
Speaker 2: About the SD card works with the Steam frame as well,
where you pop it in there and all your games
on Steam are there, and so even two D games,
so like anything on Steam. I played Hades two in
the Steam Frame and did the thing where it blew
up the screen super big. The resolution was awesome, Like
it was a super comfortable, cool way to play that game.
It's got the split controllers I sent you guys. The
photo here you can see it's you know, if you've
seen like a Metaquest controller or something like that, it
looks similar. But it was a very comfortable, cool way
to play Hades too. So like if you were in
that Steam ecosystem, you have so many different options here
that you knows, assuming it works the way they're saying
it will and the way I experienced it working is
it's just this seamless way to like, I don't know
if you want to play on a Steam Deck on
a plane, you want to play it on your TV
at home?
Speaker 1: Do you want to play it in VR?
Speaker 2: Like it's really really cool stuff they're doing here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's like a world in which if I have
all of them, I'm in here playing Rainbow six Siege
on mouse and keyboard or a strategy game on mouse
and keyboard. But then I'm like, oh, I'm done. I'm
gonna go hang out in the living room of the
mand I bring my Steam deck and then my brother
texts me, He's like, hey, do you want to play
Apex on Steam? And I'm like sure, and then I
bring I come back in and now I'm all of
a sudden on this console like that's the seamlessness. And
also like I trust fail to figure out the software
side of things and the platform side of things and
the hardware now at this point. So that's all super promising.
I would like to have that full suite as of
now pending. Yeah, to Mary's point, like how much I'm
gonna have to pay for it?
Speaker 4: How much is it because I can make it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm saying that particularly it's dan how much is
it because I have computers that when I build them,
it's nice because then I could replace pieces. What's kind
of frustrating about buying a PC console is like again,
that's why I bring up the price point, is like,
if I'm going to spend seven hundred dollars, I'm going
to build my own PC and then replace pieces as
I need to.
Speaker 4: This is like a one and done Cuba.
Speaker 1: Or is it modular? Did they say I doubt it?
Speaker 2: Look at the spec sheet here. I want to say
they said something about like they might have said like
certain elements of a good like storage and things like that,
but I don't want to say.
Speaker 3: I'm only seeing two USB c's and one no way, Yeah,
two USB's and one s port, and it's.
Speaker 2: Like okay for USBA ports two USB three in the front,
two USB two in the rear. Yeah, okay, I'm not
seeing anything on the spec sheet about modification, but you
know TVD on that, I don't want to say anything
like that.
Speaker 1: I doubt it.
Speaker 3: I ventually on consoles, they don't want you like opening
your up and like fixing it. So it's just like
again for a PC situation, especially for people who are
like playing multiplayer games, You're gonnaed to hook up your
MIC and you know, like other components and so anyway,
when I'm like streaming, I need to have a rig.
So I probably I would never use this for like streaming,
but for gaming casually this has a market, but again
only to a certain price. At a certain price, like
just build.
Speaker 2: These days, any new piece of hardware, I'm just always
bracing for it to be more than people want or expect. Yeah,
probably fair. I think that's the worst.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm still so hopeful. I'm so hopeful that it
won't crush me with its cost.
Speaker 2: Yeah. By the time this episode goes up, the announcement
will have officially gone out from Balve. But I don't
think they're going to be announcing the price the soon.
Speaker 3: I think they know better with what happened plus all
the other stuff, it's probably still actually like malleable based
on tariffs and a bunch of other factors of what
it will end up being.
Speaker 4: Ye crazy cool.
Speaker 1: Dan, Yeah, very very like.
Speaker 2: That's the thing is, like they don't They are very
selective and when they reach out to press and stuff
like that, and every time they have reached out it's
been for a good reason. And so yeah, we took
the trip and went out there and it's like, oh, okay,
you guys have some real shit cooking here. It's no game.
They didn't announce anything about like games or anything like that.
Speaker 1: I played.
Speaker 2: I played Haites two. I played a Half Life Alex.
I played there was I forget the name of this game.
It is you're on a boat talking to a dude.
I don't know, you know a boat spirit fairer. No, No,
it's there's a storm. There's a guy with a hat
on a boat.
Speaker 5: Mmm.
Speaker 1: See if thieves like two games say it.
Speaker 2: Was like an indie game. I wasn't aware. Turned I
played Cyberpunk, I played Metal Garslid Delta, I played you know,
they said like the Steam Library as of now is
like it can kind of run everything at like four
K sixty the Steam Machine.
Speaker 1: So cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh wait sorry, and they there's no like launch window.
Speaker 2: Early next year.
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha? Okay, so I would see like I wonder
if yeah, I wonderful see price stuff like before the
New Year's or not. I don't think so. I think
if they're going to they do it right now. But
yeah cool. Speaking of new hardware, I caught up and
got a switch to and so far I've played a
bunch of ports for like work purposes, just to test
stuff out. But uh, tried Mario Kart as well. Cool
stuff there. That game is like, I don't know that
I'll keep going back. I was never the biggest Mario
Kart person I.
Speaker 4: Played console seller. In my opinion, that game is not.
Speaker 1: But fucking uh Dan, I'm not trying to be mean
when you talk. When you talk a big game about
Nintendo games, I think you you'll be the first to
admit like you really like Nintendo games. No, I think
you're you're capable of looking past your Nintendo mark.
Speaker 2: I have given so many bad reviews to first person
Nintendo game awesome up a fucking list. If you need them, Paper,
Mario Colors, Black, start Bucks zero, all fucking shit on
Nintendo all day.
Speaker 1: Yeah those games suck though, But like I'm saying, yeah,
you really like Nintendo games, I'm always like, oh cool.
And then also when I hear that Giant Bomb likes
a three D platform, I'm like, what else is new?
So I was like, Okay, I went into this game
with high expectations because it's the Super Mario Odyssey team
and because it just I've heard a lot of people
say it's really good, that game is fucking good. But actually,
I realize people who are listening to this have probably
heard a lot of people talk about this game so far.
I won't like harp on this game too long, especially
because we've got Game of the Year coming up soon.
I'm going to save some stuff for that. I'm only
two worlds and two layers quo quote not much, not
counting sub layers. So this this nomenclature is weird. You're
basically instead of going between worlds, you're going deeper and
deeper into this like planet toward the core. But of course,
like once you get down to a certain one, you're
outside in like a lagoon or hilltops, or a forest,
et cetera. But like, I don't think this game is
is perfect by any means. I think the camera. I mean,
so those who don't know, you can break almost everything
in this game. It's Donkey Kong. You're just smashing almost NonStop.
You can punch upward, you can punch downward, you could
punch forward, you can surf on these explosive blocks, you
can punch through walls. You're doing this ground slam to
highlight collectible items like bananas or seashells or whatever the
thematic item is in that world, and you're highlighting them
like with a sonar ping when you slam the ground,
which is really nice creative use of that. It's gonna
happen when you get into tight tunnels in this game.
The camera's not gonna know how the fucks react. It
gets a bit annoying. I forgive it, just because again
they are letting me basically dig into the bowels of
this game with by punching the ground and like minecrafting
my way through the environment. But like the amount of
creativity on display is just unreal. The joy Yeah, it's
the like it's the most like Capital v Capital G
video game of I'm trying to remember. I think we
we've talked about this a lot, Like Mary, you would
love this game. I think like it. Obviously the switch
to is not everybody has one, but like, if you
get it, I would actually like Now I know how
much I like this I wish I had gotten a
switch to sooner. The worlds are gorgeous. The fact that
like it's super reductive at this point to like compare
it to Super Mario Odyssey. But I will say that
that team is so good at classic Mario games or
just like Genius in the way that they can introduce
an idea and then put a twist on an idea
and then like test you to master the idea, whether
against a boss or just like a more difficult world.
The fact that they can still sort of pull that
off in a wide open world, like these areas are
not completely wide open, but for all intensive purposes they
kind of are, especially because you can just dig from
one side to another in certain cases. The fact that
they can still onboard and tutorialize such like fun creative ideas,
but then by the time you get to a different
part of the map, it's just you've mastered it and
now you're being tested in a really creative way against
a boss. Like I also just love that half the
time the solution is just to smash things, like everything.
They're they're under no illusion that Donkey Kong needs to
be anything other than an ape that really fucking likes
bananas and smashes.
Speaker 2: Everything's Donkey Kong's not doing witness puzzles, you know.
Speaker 1: No, Yeah, there's no secret thing happening in the sky
that you need to draw a line across. It's just
it went ins out climb something, or you can almost
climb nearly anything as well, unless it's a certain surface
or break anything like.
Speaker 2: Throw a boulder at something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they they're not precious about Like it's just I
come across like there's this lagoon that's been drained, or
like there's this water source up in the sky has
been plugged up by this villain, and you're trying to
remove these butt plugs to let the water flow back down.
But of course there's a monkey trying to fish in
a lagoon, and you can see his thought bubble or
his conversation bubble from like a few feet away, and
he's just like finally some peace and quiet of fish
and then I come through slamming the ground and breaking
all the palm trees and like basically just destroying the pond.
He's like, well, now I gotta find somewhere else to fish,
Like you can the world and the NPCs are so
nonchalant about you just wrecking everything. Oh, it's it's it's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's the most like, yeah, just hop into a world
and run around and fuck stuff up, and you're gonna
you're gonna just come across fun stuff to do in
specific challenges and stuff like that. But you really can
just aimlessly go through the world and punch stuff and
it's not totally mindless in that way, you know.
Speaker 1: Right, I was gonna say much of the time it
can be mindless and you're just smashing stuff, and I'm
like going into a trance just destroying everything because it's
so satisfying and the haptic feedback and it's such a
crunchy game. It feels amazing to play. But then other
times there's like, oh, right, it's the it's this team.
They know how to create a puzzle, which again they're
not gonna be the most complicated puzzles, but every once
in a while I have had to stop and think
a bit, or at least like look around and take
in the environment and figure think out my next step.
But it yeah, it's just I also, oh god, I
love that there's there was one point where I thought
of you, Dan, and I was like, oh my god,
I think they made this game for Dan Riiker. Basically,
you have to hear one character talk or read his
his you know, a rant for like sixty seconds, which
by this game's measurement, is a long time. And I
was like, oh, I wonder how Dan felt about this.
And then all of a sudden you get a banana
just for sitting through the dialogue, which are funny time
congrats a golden banana. Yeah. And then Donkey Kong like
of course, now I got a skill point and now
all of a sudden, I can punch through harder terrain. No,
that game's amazing. It's just like I love Super Mario
want to see. I liked Astrobot for what it's worth,
and I thought that game was like just joyful and
they had a blast making it and it's just unabashedly
a video game. But like Donkey Kong Bananza, I don't
know that another game this year compares in terms of
just like it's not trying to be anything other than
what it is, and what it is is they just
nailed almost everything they've been trying to do so far.
And yeah, it's great. I'm glad that a whole bunch. Yeah,
it's phenomenal. I like it quite a bit.
Speaker 3: I'm glad.
Speaker 1: Mary. What have you been playing.
Speaker 3: I've been playing a little game called I should be
like one of the best titled games of the year
r V there yet, which is a.
Speaker 4: Co op or what we've been calling what do you
call it?
Speaker 3: Like slaugh friends slop game about four people who need
to get in an RV and go to a destination
on a map, but most of the time you're.
Speaker 4: Smoking and drinking and chilling by the water.
Speaker 3: It's just a really fun, stupid game to play with
your friends because there's nothing truly serious about it. There's
a complete dedicated button to smoking, and so you just
constantly have a cigarette in your mouth and you're like
all smoking while you talk to each other and planning
what you're gonna do. It's the actual like the gameplay
is that the RV can get stuck on the terrain.
It puts you in some like really precarious situations mud,
really tall steep hills, you know, precarious mountain tops, et cetera.
And so you need to be able to use the
tools to get your RV through these physical puzzles. There's
a wench, which is my favorites kind of op and
you can attach a cable from your RV the front
or the back to pull your RV through some of
these spaces. There's also like wedges that you might want
to put and then just like classic stuff like a
wooden board, and so you put the wooden board in
front of the tires if you're stuck in the mud
and things like that.
Speaker 2: You can also attach the wench to other players. So
if you're playing with four players and we were doing
a stream, I attached it to Jeff Backlar and suddenly
Mike not he's driving the RV and it's dragging Jeff backl.
Speaker 3: So funny like the situations that you get into, but
like it really is the surprises of the game that
I think made us love it so much, Like you know,
running into the trees to be like I wonder what's
ahead and then running back and being like bear, Bear Bear,
And there are bears in the game and elk for
some reason that can impact your gameplay.
Speaker 4: So we laughed a lot about all the crazy antics
we got into.
Speaker 3: The RV is a stick shift, which is a very
funny thing to play in a video game. So you
have to like push in the clutch, go into first
in second gear to be able to drive, and the game.
Speaker 4: Is it's just very cheeky.
Speaker 3: What does it say.
Speaker 4: It says like.
Speaker 3: In the instructions it goes, oh, if you never learned
how to drive a stick shift, it's time to learn.
And so it's just kind of like making you try
these things for the first time. I think when the
coffee cup is full, it has the option to drink,
and when the coffee cup is empty and you're holding it,
the option for action is to do nothing. It just
literally says do nothing because there's nothing in the coffee cup. Like,
these guys had fun making this stupid bid game and
allowing you to play.
Speaker 2: And there's fun stuff you can do too, where it's
like almost like air traffic control arms and stuff. So
if you're like, you know, you can move arms individually
to point like, oh, you're far away, and it's if
I told you guys aout the movie Sorcerer where it's
a but the truck never had the draw bridge.
Speaker 1: It's a lot like that.
Speaker 2: It's a lot like there'sious stuff. It's like William Friedkin's
Sorcerer to like lay down, you know, planks and stuff
across like a river and you're driving an RV across
it and one person's on the other side. Okay, go
that way, go that way, and you've got the prox
chat and all that stuff. You can also just kind
of wildly motion towards things. It's it does a there
is that good mix of like actual gameplay there and
it's not just total chaos, but also like they know
what kind of game they're making, and there's enough silliness
there too.
Speaker 3: They knew what they were making for sure, and they
kind of honed in on that. There's a lot of
stuff that isn't really final, but it's fine. Snakes in
that game are just like a straight up like it
just looks like a long piece of brown. It doesn't
have any snake qualities, but if you get close to it,
it will bite you and poison you. So they like
knew where to put their their energy and it was
not in snake animations. This thing looks they put.
Speaker 2: In a bunch of chubby little dudes, and they put.
Speaker 4: In a bunch of chubby little dudes.
Speaker 3: There's hats that you get to wear, so a lot
of things to enjoy about the game. I also will
just say it's it's lovely to actually sit and rest
and look at the beautiful vistas the game puts you
in and have a cigarette. I just kept I kept
finding myself being like, what's time for lunch? A little
lunch break, right, like thiss have little cigarettes and like
enjoy the view, and we would we would.
Speaker 4: Do that a lot.
Speaker 3: The cooking in the game is very silly. So health
is you know, you can break bones falling and stuff
like that, and one way to get your health back
is to eat. So when you first start, there's these
frozen patties and if you come across to grill and
you light the grill, you put the frozen patties on
the grill, and after like I don't know, ten to
fifteen seconds literally goes and a full burger with lettuce, cheese, onion,
tomato comes out. It just kind of pops out and
then you go collect it and eat it. I think
it's it's whimsical and cheeky and fun, and I loved it.
Like some stuff I wish they did a little differently.
I find that most problems can be solved with the wench,
and I wish that.
Speaker 4: They pushed the player to try other things.
Speaker 3: I found that in almost every situation would be like,
we can winch our ways out of here, but.
Speaker 4: It's more interesting to lose.
Speaker 3: I think it's more interesting to be challenged with a
situation where you cannot use the wench and you have
to like brute force your way through it. The way
you lose this game is everyone dying or you're RV
taking so much damage that it is essentially broken, and
then you start back at your last save. But you
can repair your RV at every save location. I found
that very rarely did we destroy our and had to
start back at the save, and so I would have
liked the game to challenge us even more. But the
situations that it put you in is very whimsical. When
one of them was just a massive ramp that shot
up and then a huge gap to get to the
next area, and so it's like whoever's driving needs to
be able to get into fifth gear very quickly and
know what they're doing, and the rest of us are
just holding on for dear life. And we we had
a good time, Like the whole time we were laughing
and pushing each other off cliffs. You can also pick
each other up and throw throw each other, which I
think is fun. A great friends slop game, especially in
between rounds of Peak or some other crap that you'd
play with your friends. I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I'm pro friend slot.
Speaker 4: It's like seven dollars too.
Speaker 3: I like bring up cost a lot with these things,
cause like when you talk about friend slop or like
just some random stuff that you're like, I don't know
if we're gonna love it, but it'd be nice to
try it. I think under fifteen is the amount of
money where it's like it's less than fifteen dollars, I'm
not going to worry about that. That's the cost of
a movie ticket. It's a cost of like a couple
of beers at a bar. I will do that for
an evening, and if we never play it again, that's
worth it. But when the game is like thirty forty bucks,
that's like, well better be good, you know, Like that's
that's like a lot of game dollars.
Speaker 2: Especially games that like really kind of require you to
have friends to really enjoy, Like it's it's smart.
Speaker 1: It's easier to say, hey, go come play this with
me at seven bucks.
Speaker 4: Yeah, baby, that's right.
Speaker 1: I think it's.
Speaker 3: A very alluring price point for you to have one
night with your friends where you try and drive an
RV together.
Speaker 4: And there's lots of surprises.
Speaker 3: I don't want to like spoil them because if people
are like, oh, I'm kind of interested, the more I say,
the less don't look it up, because like it's the
fun part is discovering the stupid things that are in
this game.
Speaker 1: That's a good point about the money too.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, if you're just trying to convince
friend to get it, it's like an uber to a
bar is going to cost way more than that.
Speaker 1: You know, totally let's just hang out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, and I actually think that is what
happened and why I played it, is that we were
all going to go out and then it didn't work out,
and I was like, listen, I think it's eight bucks whatever,
it's seven ninety nine for seven dollars and ninety nine cents.
This is an easy game evening for you to have
fun all night and play this and enjoy it. So
I think that alone is why it's a It's sold
for me as a quality experience. Does it need work? Absolutely?
RV bugged out I think once and it Yeah, just
totally couldn't handle the physics and it was a total mess.
But other than that, I mean, I just think it
was really fun. We also had the same discovery of
holding onto the wench. I fell into a snake pit
and they threw the wench down to save me, and
I was like, holding on to this wench over a snake.
Speaker 1: Pit, saying, wench, it's not much winch. What wench? I
like saying wench, No, the tool as a winch. Say
the same w I w e. Oh yeah you're from
the you're both Midwest, Yes, yeah, yeah, but you're saying
they're different.
Speaker 6: It's a gym gym winch winch Yeah whench winch. Yeah, No,
they're different things. You're Oh, I know how to spell everything,
but I don't know how to say anything.
Speaker 3: That's a good Dan impression.
Speaker 1: Oh, I got a cool hardware news for you. Uh,
speaking of Dan, Yeah, you played Arc Raiders that with
Giant Bomb. Folks.
Speaker 2: Yes, I've been playing that a lot with different groups,
played with Giant Bomb, played with Bomb, play it with
my sister Kayla. Uh. It is a fascinating game. I've
never played an extraction shooter before. Every time I've read
about them, I have been, I guess, more disinterested than
actively turned off at the idea. It's just like, oh, okay,
so you go into a multiplayer thing and you're just
getting loot and then you can die and lose everything,
and it's like that doesn't sound appealing to me. Yeah,
this one just kind of like it seems like this
is the one that made it accessible to kind of mainstream,
you know, or skeptical people of the whole extraction shooter thing.
It is close enough to like a pubg or a
hell diver's experience, but also has like I can't speak
to other extraction shooters because this is my first one,
but I do understand what it is offering that is
very different than other games of the silk, and that's
it's the interactions with other players. Because it's pvpv so
it's like the main things you're kind of running into
and actively getting into gunfights with are arcs, which are
these floating things. It's hornets and wasps. Basically these drones
and stuffing can shoot out their rotors and stuff. And
it's even those encounters are really cool, Like there's a
lot of really animations and everything and all these different
kind of robot arc characters. But then there are also
other human you know, if you do solos, you're you're
going to run into solos, you know, or you play
with up to three, and it does very much change
the way the games play out where it's like if
you're playing trios, they tend to have more violent encounters
with other players. I don't know if that's just by
nature of like, okay, people getting a group of three
together more kind of hardcore about this, or there's more
kind of tension because there's three people here. But I've
seen enough and played enough like solo as well ay
and duos to know that like it kind of decreases
the amount of aggression as you're doing that, because like
Bonk plays largely solo, and I I've watched her play
a lot, and it's a lot of like you know,
you run into a person there, and you know you
turn on the microphone, it's got prox chat and everything.
But hey, I'm a friendly. Oh don't shoot, No, I'm
a friendly and like oh oh yeah, okay cool. Do
you see this over here, like oh yeah, I tried
to kill that thing or like actually having these moments
of like hue when interaction and stuff, and then they
don't kill each other. And then there are times too
where it's like, oh, okay, you went to extraction extract
and at the very end, somebody, like right before the
elevator game kills you even though they told you that
they're friendly and stuff, you approach with their gun out
and stuff like those moments.
Speaker 1: Attentions of the end of which thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, But it's also prone to like, God, we
did a stream. I implore anyone to check this out.
It was unprofessional Fridays with me, Jeff Grubb, and Kayla,
my sister, playing and it was the funniest fucking thing
I have played in so long because Kayla, I am
trying to be the voice of reason here and I'm
trying to like approach other people like.
Speaker 1: Oh, we're cool, We're cool. Hey, hey, no, no, let's work together.
Do you want some stuff here?
Speaker 2: Go ahead and Kayla is just screaming threats at them
and just being the most vulgar, just talking about how
she says, I'm gonna full frontal your ass or I'm
gonna be your stepmom's mom. Like she doesn't even make sense,
but like she was, like she would just get in
people's faces and scream so much that most of these
the other teams just ran away because I didn't want
to deal with her. SOB would be like apologizing for
I'm sorry about my sister.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. No, no, no, she's not gonna hurt you. She's
not gonna hurt you.
Speaker 2: And people are just taking off and like leaving loot
for us because they were scared of my sister.
Speaker 1: So that's unreal. She's the what's the character and the
wild card character in Heat at the beginning? Oh uh oh,
what's his name? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Not Wayne, not Wayne grow Wayne grow Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's that, and it's just like what she is.
Speaker 2: Just yeah, it's so many different types of gameplay you
can get between, like just that peaceful kind of looting
and extracting of a solo game, but it's also really
good for like a I've been playing on PC and
PS five. It is probably the best use case I've
ever seen for the PS five mike situation, where it's
like you've got the mute button right there. You've got
like this game doesn't require if you're playing solos, you
don't need a headset on. Like I'm someone who really
doesn't like wearing headsets when I'm playing games. So it's
just the thing where it's like, oh, you see someone
in the distance or someone in the same building as you,
you just unmute. You're like, hey, I'm a friend, Like no, yeah,
go ahead, there's some loop back there. Okay, cool, see
all right, don't shoot, you know, like and then new
mute again. So it's it's really really good.
Speaker 1: For that yeah again.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you will have like you know, doing a trios thing.
You run into another trio and then it's all six
of you fighting against some huge you know, this ambastion creature,
this mother like all these these leapers, these big robots
and stuff like that, and it's you know, it's the
best case of like emergent gameplay I feel, where it's
like everyone's kind of getting their own stories and it's
really unlike things you would see and like, you know,
a pubg a Fortnite, a hell divers. You know, you
see something, you're shooting it. It's it's more nuanced here
in a really cool way.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the social experimentation there is like the compelling thing.
I think technically the ability to do that and escape
from Tarkov exists, but I would say percentage wise ninety
percent of the time in Tarkov you're you're fighting the
other people, like right away. The fact that they created
this game in this world in which it kind of
you can that's an option to be not pacifist, but
like team up is really cool, and yeah, that's I agree.
I think this is it's a pretty accessible take on
the genre, especially compared to some of the more hardcore ones. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you the amount of times of like
turn to bonk and be like wow, I've never had
an experience like that where it's like me and Bank
will be playing together and we'll run into like another
couple and we'll just like be like, oh shit, are
we about to die? And then we talked for a
second and then we're like, oh, now we're just kind
of working together and stuff and like oh cool. Then
we go our separate ways and everything's like, that's fucking cool.
I've never had anything quite like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gamifying trust is a really cool thing or distrust,
like the I guess among us sort of traded on
that when it was blowing up in a different way
in a social, like purely social situation. This the array
of objectives that you have to complete or the options
to complete, and like the a number of factors that
can happen once you do team up can just make
the tension either escalate or they can maybe mitigate it
in some respects because then you get through a bunch
of tough fights, but you still have to extract with
those people, and sometimes that at the end is like.
Speaker 2: Of just there, like yeah, you all have guns, you're
all just waiting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can get like a genuine I felt a
genuine sense of betrayal playing that game with just a stranger. Yeah,
it's like it's like, oh okay, it makes Journey look
like infantile and restaurant on joking, but it's a similar
thing where it's like you can have a meaningful experience
with someone and then if they fuck you over at
the end, it genuinely I'm like, I thought we.
Speaker 2: Had something I don't like them as a person. Yeah,
to be.
Speaker 1: Clear, I have been that the person betraying people fuck
you no, mainly to like see how it worked at
the beginning.
Speaker 2: If there were one thing I would criticize it for,
it's that in a genre that I've heard is mostly
about getting loot and hanging on to it and getting
better loot, it's I find that, like I'm constantly just
having to deal with inventory management and like I don't know,
I've got a million fucking pieces of plastic and rubber
and metal and wires and tubes, and it's like I'm
not super sure what I need to you know, like
there's certain obvious things to level up, and you can
level up your guns and your kind of work benches
and all that stuff, and there's certain quest tied to things.
So like there's some obvious ones, and it's got smart
stuff with like tracking certain things you need in the field.
But ultimately I've spent a lot of time just looking
at a grid of shit and like old metal and
rubber and being like I just want to get rid
How do I just clear up more space here?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: What can I get rid of? So that stuff is
kind of laborious in between, but I don't know the
special moments while you're you know, in the shit are
worth it.
Speaker 1: I think, yeah, I don't want to forgive it for
the inventory just by just because that is a big
thing in extraction shooters. Because I agree, I do think
they a lot of the new I think a lot
of the loop could be more interesting, more like compelling,
just on at face at first glance, and I would
say like they do have some good quality of life
things for sure, in terms of of how to rearrange
your inventory and stacking certain items and whatnot, but they
still definitely have a waste to go with that, because yeah,
it's not are you playing mouse and keyboard or controller?
Speaker 2: Me to myself, I'm mainly playing on PS five, but
I cried a little bit of PC. It's kind of
I kind of been doing a little mouse and keyboard
for inventory management and I switched to control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the actual game. That's what I was going to recommend,
because like on PC, those games are so much more
doable between the actual runs because you're you can just
click and drag stuff right click, left click, et cetera. Scroll.
I don't know. Time tails all is time that I
think keyboard mouse are better for that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But which to go back, I'm very excited to hear
what you think once the Steam machine and controller come out,
because that, like that was the best like mouse on
a TV experience I've ever had by a long shot.
Speaker 1: Oh, speaking of that, I tried the mouse mode of
a switch to. I did not love it. It's I
don't know when I would actually just use that, Like
I'm not going to play Cyberpunk or I'm not gonna.
Speaker 2: Play Metric Prime. It's the thing where you know, by
the time Switch Too is done, there will be seven
games that fucking utilize it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of them was Mario Paint on Nso you know it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, no, But that's good to hear that.
Speaker 3: The is it an accessibility thing where it's opening it
up for.
Speaker 4: It could be in other ways to utilize it.
Speaker 3: To me, like that has value right for other people
to be able to be able to play in different ways.
I just don't see a good reason that I would
use it.
Speaker 2: I thought with the Switch Too. I've thought about it
in that like I think it'd be cool like on
a plane and if I want to play Metroid and
like set it up, you know, use the kickstand on
the tray and then play with mouse and keyboard. I
would at least try that, but I could also see
myself doing it for fifteen minutes and being like, oh,
play with controller.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know what world it would be more
than a gimmick.
Speaker 2: Yeah for me, but dragon Drag. We're all playing drag
and drive esports, right, wheelchair basketball?
Speaker 1: No are you playing that? No, no one's playing it.
Speaker 4: But we are playing Simpsons Fortnite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, married did you check this out or just no?
Speaker 3: But I'm curious. Oh, because obviously it's Simpson's I know
it's just gonna make funy transition.
Speaker 1: No, I didn't have a transition, Dan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm like really curious about it because I love
the Simpsons game and I always thought that the Simpsons.
Speaker 4: Is such a good Uh.
Speaker 3: It's just a really it's a really good thing to
have as a video game format because it's so playful
and stupid. But I don't know how they did.
Speaker 2: It historically, Like they have really run the gamut between
like some of the worst games I've ever played are
Simpsons games and then like some pretty good experiences. I
won't say, like I don't think there's an all time
great since like the Arcade game. Yes, everyone has fun
experiences of I don't know, you play with Infinite Quarters
or whatever. Un Free played it's.
Speaker 4: The pretty base one, the driving one.
Speaker 2: So that's the hit and run. I never went all
the way through it, I know. I don't know why
I didn't. Like, I loved it was in game PPS
two and every I just never played it, I guess
not Virtual Bart Bart versus Space Mutants, all these things.
Even the Simpsons game for the movie, like Virtual Bart
had the egg throwing thing, that tomato thing was good,
but like I always wanted to love Simpsons games more
than I did. I remember there was a PC game
called Virtual Springfield, and I hesitated to even call it
a game. It came on a CD that looked like
a Homer donut and you put it in and it
was just the most fucking like mid to late nineties
CD ROM thing of just kind of like it wasn't FMV.
It was just you could kind of walk through Springfield
like it was a mist game or something, and just
the idea of like exploring that space that I loved
so much from the show, being like, oh wow, I
never thought about how like, to get from the Simpsons
house to most Haven you had to go down here.
I didn't know this was by hero. Oh that's what
the nuclear plant is. And I get to walk around
like that was such a novelty and I feel like, again,
not having played a Hit and Run or road Rage
or whatever, I had never really experienced that in the
game as well as Fortnite. Here it's Fortnite. First of all,
the opening, like when the you know, the bus is
going through, it's the full on Simpsons going through the
clouds thing, but it says like Battle Royale and you
drop down out of the it's duff is slurp in this.
But all the logo and everything looks the same, and
it's just okay, Well, there's the power plant, there's Burns's mansion,
there's downtown, there's the Jebediah Springfield in the City Hall
and everything. Here's Evergreen Terrace and Flanders House and everything.
It's just so fucking cool and like, visually it all
looks incredible. It all looks just like it looks like
the Simpsons, but you're also you know, you're playing a
solid snake and running into Flanders's house and fucking Goku
comes in you gotta shoot him with a gun. It's
just insane fever dream that I can't help but laugh at.
But also it's Fortnite, so it's a really good fucking game.
Speaker 3: And they do can you go in the house?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, you go into the house? Isn't Yeah,
you can go into the house, And like you can
go up to the Simpsons couch and press X and
you're sitting on the couch. So I was solid snake
sitting on the couch with Kayla who is vegeta and
we're doing like a couch gag together, and like Marge
is walking around. You can talk to them and get
missions from them, and there's so many gags, like the
people who worked on this so clearly understood, you know,
the Simpsons and everything where it's like it's I'm sure
there are a million gags and stuff that happened in
seasons twelve through fucking six hundred whatever they're on now,
but it's going for the ones where it's like, Okay,
you see a rake on the ground and it's like,
I bet they do the thing, and then you walk
up and the rake happens, and it's like all these
little bits and jokes and everything, and Blinky the Three
Eyed Fish is one of the items that gives you
a boost and stuff, and like yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Instead of Doff, it's just Slurp. So you get like
six packs of Slurp and stuff like that and it
gives you boosts and it's just incredibly well put together
stuff that like, as a Fortnite fan, this all works
great as a Battle Royale game, and as a Simpsons fan,
it is such a good love letter to the Simpsons. Like,
it's hard to say that it's not the best Simpsons
video game experience ever. Again, I haven't played Hit and Run,
but it's it's it's perfect. It's so much better and
bigger in scope than I could have expected. The whole
fucking map is just spring.
Speaker 1: Here's my question. I don't know if you two like
have a definitive answer. My impression is that the crossover
between Simpsons fans and Fortnite demographics would would not have
been that.
Speaker 2: Huge, right because the Simpsons isn't really hot now and fortant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just surprised. Like everybody talked to you
says the same same thing. It's like super faithful and
like just packed to the brim with Easter egg kind
of stuff. But like someone was saying, maybe it's like
you know, like.
Speaker 2: Well the children even know the That's the thing I've
been thinking about with Fortnite a lot, is that, like, yes,
they do have modern stuff where they'll have Sabrina Carpenter
or K Pop Demon Hunters or something in there, so
they're smart about that, but also you look at how
much shit that is, Like here's Ellen Ripley from Alien,
Here's the Terminator, here's the Simpsons, here's like, you know,
fucking Mark Hamill from the original trilogy. It's they kind
of are casting a wide net here, and I think
somebody derive for me that, like, oh, it's a lot
of people that own these ips of like old classic
sci fi action whatever things. It's like, this is a
way to introduce kids into this old Yeah.
Speaker 1: You automatically get like cool points just by being in
for a punt right night, I feel like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like but also modern current things again, K
Pop Demon Hunters huge, they're in there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it really is a kind of staggering achievement
what they've done with this game. The fact that it
is still a really good video game, and it is
just objectively the wildest roster of IP in video game history.
It's like not even fucking cloakse you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I've I've heard the same thing. I've heard
people who they're like I was talking to Bert's he
was playing it and showing his daughter because like he
understood all the references. I don't know the her knowledge
of the Simpsons, but I also imagine there's a decent
amount of parents that are like showing their kids stuff
in there too, which is kind of cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I mean yeah, Ellen Ripley and stuff like that.
That'd be so cool. Like a kid who's like kind
of getting into sci fi or horror something. Oh yeah,
oh that's from Alien. Do you want to see that? Yeah,
unless you're Jeff Backler and you don't let your kids
see anything cool until he turns thirty.
Speaker 1: Oh is that happening?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, ja Yeah, his son's like a twenty four
year old hockey player and he can't see Jaws.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really Yeah.
Speaker 4: Jaws, that's just a rite of passage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the coolest movie you can see when you're six,
And you should see when you're six.
Speaker 1: I haven't thirty four, and it's still one of my
top five movies all the time. And I said, yeah, yeah, No,
I have this conversation frequently with him. It's insane. Is
Backlar a shitty dad?
Speaker 2: He's a bad person, I think first and foremost. And
I think that translates to the dad thing. Yeah, and
you haven't even met a son. It sounds a I've
met him a handful of times. Oh really? Oh yeah,
so we play hockey together? How much it's missing from
your house after he showed up?
Speaker 1: No? Wait, have I told you the story when they
came over a couple of years ago? What do you do?
They all three of them came over and they were
in our kitchen for like, you know, you guys have
been in my apartment. The kitchen is kind of the
first place you go. Not ten seconds in, we're we're
starting to catch up, like barely, like took a few
breaths to catch up, and he just goes, I'm bored
back and show them where the window?
Speaker 4: Yeah give him a yo yo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was the funniest thing. I wasn't even mad.
I was just like, this is hilarious.
Speaker 3: He's just into this ball and cup. Now, yeah, you
gotta give him something.
Speaker 1: Not ball and cup but ball x pit. Mary, Oh god,
I'm fucking it's pretty good. It's the cinnamon orange clove
tea I drank.
Speaker 3: That's not alcohol. Ball x Pit is a game I
heard other people talking about, and so I was like,
I am susceptible to impressionism. I needed to know about
this game.
Speaker 4: I think I got influence.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha interesting.
Speaker 3: I don't think impressionism is the right use of that word,
but I got a ball pit.
Speaker 4: This is a.
Speaker 3: Vampire Survivors meets Balls with a Z. If you ever
played that on your phone?
Speaker 4: Balls with a Z?
Speaker 2: Wait, you're not talking about balls three D for the
Second Genesis and Superintendo?
Speaker 1: Are you?
Speaker 2: Balls three D with a Z?
Speaker 1: Wait? Are a phone game? Ripping up balls three D?
Speaker 2: I don't know now, ball I recognize what balls with
a Z.
Speaker 4: Balls with a Z is a phone act.
Speaker 1: I forgot about balls.
Speaker 3: A ball balls coming at you, and you wanted to
ricochet and hit as many balls as possible and the
more that it hits. Kind of like brick Breaker.
Speaker 4: But like, okay, it's a bit more.
Speaker 3: Strategic. I feel like brick breakers just like, hurry up
and shoot?
Speaker 2: Uh more than balls? Three D The Battle of the Balls.
Speaker 3: I'm yeah, more than the balls THREDY the Battle of
the Balls.
Speaker 1: With a Z. It's with a Z. I I'm having
one of those moments where I I know for one
hundred for a fact that I have not accessed this
wrinkle in my brain in probably thirty years. Is I
don't think something yes from or yeah. I don't know
what emotion this is. There's got to be a German
phrase for it. Sorry, but ball x pit.
Speaker 3: Okay, so half Vampire Survivors, half brick breaker balls, phone balls,
phone balls. So you are auto shooting. You can turn
it off into like manual shooting. But I don't know
why you would do that. Well, yeah, I don't know.
And so auto shooting. As you collect the balls from
the things that you have killed, you level up with
three options. This is very Vampire Survivors, right, And then
you continue to shoot. But the macayx of the pit
is what's interesting is like they're constantly shooting stuff at
you and you have to again strategically try and get
it in an area where the ball is just going
to go crazy and bounce back and forth.
Speaker 4: All inside of this space.
Speaker 3: Doing that is like.
Speaker 4: Quite rewarding and feels really good.
Speaker 3: And then for some other reason, when you've finished the
game and beaten it, and that feels really good. When
you get all the way to the end and you've
killed the ball. I think there's two mini bosses that
you complete, whether different challenges. It ends in a boss fight.
Speaker 2: It's a timeline on the side that shows you correct.
Speaker 3: That tells you when you're complaint, and when you finally
beat it, and that felt really good. It unlocks new levels,
new characters. That's what's actually interesting about it. It's not
just beating the game. It's beating the game on like
different character sets that are a lot more difficult, on
different terrain sets that are difficult. And then it has
another area that's just straight up farming, and that was
very different to me, and I was very shocked by this.
You like unlock spaces, you plant stuff like wheat and stone,
you know, plant stone, but you I don't have to
I don't have to explain myself to you, sweet and
wood and stone. And then you send your little brick
breaker guys out on an angle and they they farm.
Speaker 2: It's like there's a timer for like your your farm
or your harvesting time and stuff like that. So like
there are ways that you can like, Okay, I need
to get a bunch of weeks, so I'm gonna make
this corridor here and they're back here. And yeah, I
really liked that idea. I thought that was a fun thing, cause,
like I really did like just the the actual like missions,
like the arcade style, just because they do clever things
with that. Like there's the one character that's the two
characters and they kind of like miror each other's balls
and they.
Speaker 3: Silhouette and there's one person that only shoots balls from
the back, and so you're constantly where you're aiming is
actually backwards because everything shoots from the behind of the game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's got that Vampire Survivors thing where it's like, Okay,
I've got this build going where it's like I've got
these ghost balls that like will go through things, and
so I'm when I try to get all these things,
like of all different powers together that work together. Well.
So it's very Vampire Survivors in that way, which I'm
a huge sucker for. And I do like base building
stuff too, and I like Rogue Light stuff, so like
it was saying all the right stuff for me, and
then when I got to the base building stuff. I
still like this game a lot, but the base building
thing just didn't. I was I've never gotten excited about
it when I got back, like I think a great
Rogue Light is like you know, a Hades or something.
Where I get back to the hub and I'm like, okay,
let me go, like who can.
Speaker 1: I talk to? What can I cash in? What can
I upgrade here?
Speaker 5: This?
Speaker 2: When I get back and I'm like, I guess I'll
put a week thing here and then I'll bounce them
around like it's I did not love the in between
stuff in this game.
Speaker 3: I don't care for the in between either. I think
it's an interesting choice and it's nice that they're testing
it out every time you see another Vampire Survivor esque game,
and I do think this is the most different of
the Vampire Survivors they've They've made so many Vampire Survivors,
but this is a very different take on it. I
got really excited by all the ideas here. They're trying
a lot of stuff, and a lot of it works
and some of it doesn't. I don't think, in my opinion,
that the farming works. I don't get excited about it,
and I don't want to do it, but I think
it's a neat test. I also think some of the binding,
so when you choose two different items you can merge
them into like a super item, some of them are
just so much better than others. It's really hard to
not be tempted to go with the same build each time,
because certain builds are just freaking insane and other ones
I think are a little bit more blase. I have
a lot more to play with it. I think I've
only unlocked like ten or so characters and five different lands,
maybe four different lands, So I'd really like to play
a little bit more of it. But I will say,
like when it comes to Vampire Survivors, I would have
liked to see.
Speaker 4: More like fucking insane shit on the screen.
Speaker 3: Obviously, ball x Pit does get to be fantastic on screen,
but you're never it's never as crazy as Vampire Survivors were.
Like every square inch of that screen is an arrow
or like a dart or some magical force field. This
is just like you're shooting balls wildly at the screen
and hoping that they kill all of your enemies through
their bouncing.
Speaker 4: It's very satisfying.
Speaker 1: Nevertheless, did you play Megabok.
Speaker 3: No, but I have watched people play megabunk on Twitch,
so I know what that one.
Speaker 1: Is as well.
Speaker 2: I think it's one of my favorites the year. I
think what you're feeling it is. I think if you
try it, it's another one of those cheap ones too.
I think it's like, yeah, it's less than ten bucks, yea,
marry you.
Speaker 4: But it looks like it's less than ten bucks, you
know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but like playing it like it's it really is
probably my favorite. Vampire Survivors, Like, I love it. I
think you should check it out for a Game of
the Year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, I'm loving the general fact that that's becoming
like a genre into its genres.
Speaker 4: Vampire Survivors.
Speaker 3: Yeah, auto shooters are interesting and the ability to like
push the limits of what you think games should be
able to do. Like, remember the first time you played
Vampire Survivors there was just so.
Speaker 4: Much shit on the screen. You were like, I think
I broke it.
Speaker 3: And it's just fun to have that control in a game,
even if it's intended it doesn't feel like it. I
feel like Megabonk gives you that vibe as well, where
it's like you shouldn't be able to do this, but
it it lets you break it.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but yeah yeah, Mary play Mega Bonk. It's
very good. Okay, I'm going to try ball x Pig
download it. Dan, you also played MK Legacy Collection.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just fucking love Mortal Kombat. It's I think
mount rushmore of video game series that have like changed
my life. I think it is Mario Medal Year, Zelda,
and Mortal Kombat. And so for someone like me, it
just loves the history of this game and all of
its weird lore and weird characters and everything. And like
the era that this focuses on is extremely just the
sweet spot for me. Like I have been into it
from the beginning, including like the more recent ones and
the PS two era and all that stuff, but like
this era of it becoming like the biggest thing on
the planet was what fascinated me the most.
Speaker 1: It's ninety two to three, so first game one, wait, wait,
this this collection, well, it's like well, I mean when
I think Tournament Edition, well.
Speaker 2: I mean there are some like GVA ones on there
or anything, but that those are kind of more like
Easter Egg, like they've got special forces and mythologies, and
those are kind of like bonus add ons. I think
the important ones to me are from Mortal Kombat one,
Who Ultimate, Mortal Kombat three, and then Mortal kom about
four I kind of fell off because it went away
from the digitized actors and went into three D and
at that point, Virtual Fighter Tech and other things like
that were just more interesting games. But the documentary so well,
first I'll touch on the game stuff real quick. It
is it's incredible, like the amount of stuff you can
do in terms of like going into the individual games
and saying, like Unlimited Fatality Timer, you can have the
move list on the screen, which like that was always
like one of the things that made Mortal Kombat harder
to just pick up and play with someone who hadn't
played before, is you just constantly be looking at a
move list if someone didn't know, Like, sure, I know
all of sub Zero's moves, but if I'm playing against
a friend that like doesn't know, okay, well this is
down forward whatever, But having it on the screen the
whole time helps a ton all the different CRT filters
and arcade filters and Save States and all that stuff.
It just makes it a fatality trainers and all this stuff.
It just it's a great way to just take in
everything these games offered back then. But the thing I've
really been diving into the last few days is the
documentary stuff. And this is Digital Eclipse who did like
you know, the Atari fifty stuff that is like a
really really cool way of I don't want to say
it's a gamifying a documentary because there's not much of
a game to it. It's just like a timeline. It's
an interactive timeline that you can go between and like
scroll through you know, original drawings of like here's the
initial concepts for these characters. Here's the first notes about
you know who Sonia could be. There's cool like this
one clip I saw last night was incredible of you know,
the scorpion spear and the get over here thing is
like the most iconic move in Mortal Kombat history. And
there's literally footage of the actor I think it was
Daniel Piscina playing a scorpion and Ed Boone, this twenty
sentthing year old Ed Boone. It's like, you know what
would be fucking cool. What if you like threw out
like you had a spear and it had like a
rope on the end of it, and then you like
pull him towards like you see the moment that ed
Boone thought like, oh shit, this would be sweet, and
then you see scorpion and full scorpion gears like okay, yeah,
and then he does the fucking movement that you know,
like it for something like me, it's like this is
the coolest shit. And so I've just been like ravenously
devouring all this documentary stuff and every photo and note
and flyer and all this stuff. And I realized now,
like Ben Hansen is for a fucking fifteen years been
yelling at me to watch all these documentaries and stuff
and his Double Fine stuff and all that shit, and
like I've always been like, I'm not interested. I'm not interested,
I don't care, I'm not interested. Turns out it just
has to be about a game I care about. I
don't get a shit about games. I fucking love Mortal Kombat,
and watching this is like the most fascinating treasure trove
of Like it's I have not seen it behind the
scenes thing like this that has hit me like this,
like I I all watch yeah, yeah, ah.
Speaker 1: No, It's what I wouldn't give to like have something
like that for Zelda. Oh it would never happen. I
realized that's pipe dream, but like that'd be unreal to see,
like the moment when they figure out the hook shot.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah. But this is there's something really there's
there's there's a less cliche way to put this in
like a punk type thing, but like it's just a
bunch of fucking twenty somethings in an office in Chicago
and they were in the nineties and they were kind
of giving carp blanche to like you know, like they
keep talking to these documentaries, like nobody was really telling
us what to do. Like they were just like come
in and be like cool, keep it up. And so
like these guys just like they had one arcade cabinet
and yeah, and like the Kevin they came in and
they thought they were worried about the fatalities and stuff.
They're like, oh, it might be going too far here,
and like the mid guys would come in and be
like sweet, it's like something.
Speaker 1: It was just such a cool for everybody wanted a handy.
Speaker 2: Corporate medaling and all that and everything. It was just
a bunch of cool fucking dudes that grew up on
the same ship and they wanted to put all their
cool influences into a game, and they made one of
the coolest things ever. And it is such a time
capsule that made something so so special. And watching this
you can tell how much passion these guys had for
it and how much fun they had making it, which always
came through in the games. Like I, you know, without
ever seeing any of this behind the scenes stuff, you
play Mortal Kombat games and you're like, these guys are
having fucking fun. And it's so cool that so many
of those guys from this footage from nineteen ninety one
are still at nether Realm now. And I think that's
a big reason. Like Hi, Yeah, like Mortal Kombat has
like had like it never had, you know, it has
games I like more than others and stuff like that,
And I don't love the DC one or whatever, but
like it never stopped feeling like Mortal Kombat. And it's
like because even as it grew, it was still these
guys that made this game and kept that DNA the
same way throughout and like it's just I've always loved
Mortal Kombat. This is making me love it even more.
It's it's a fantastic collection.
Speaker 4: I love the behind the scenes stuff.
Speaker 3: I think that's really cool to to get that kind
of lore and that background of the people who love
this uh just made this game what it is and
to see them care that deeply about it in a
game very fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I uh. That's like one of my favorite things
about Command and Conquer Remastered collection. They had so much
that behind the scenes stuff. I love the museum aspects
of these remasters, these collections. It's it's awesome. I want
more people to do it.
Speaker 2: But you'll frequently see this stuff where it's like, oh,
here's some concept art or whatever, like you know, oh,
make a man legacy collection, Like here's a drawing of Cutman.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh no, don't have ass it.
Speaker 2: This is like digital Clips goes nuts with this stuff,
and it is so in depth and like even just
little things like oh, from the timeline of the Mortal
Kombat two documentaries. You can like press a button and
start playing Mortal Kombat two and you can play play
the arcade version you want to play the Superintendent version,
you want to play, the game Boy version, do you
want to play? Like, it's just all of these different
versions of these games. It's it's cool, it's it's I
love it.
Speaker 3: So what about online?
Speaker 2: I haven't. I haven't played a single online game yet.
I you know, honestly, for me, it's fighting it.
Speaker 4: That's a reason, just like Mortal Kombat is so much
about like competing.
Speaker 2: But to me, I kind of push back on that
because like, to me, I was never a hardcore fighting
game guy, and I knew even back then that the
hardcore fighting game guys went towards Street Fighter, And I
also think Street Fighter is a better mechanical fighting series
than Mortal Kombat is. But it was the personality of
Mortal Kombat. It was just the super over the top
nature of the fatality. But they it was so fucking silly.
But they also took their stories like seriously. They played
it straight like it's the most ridiculous fucking story. But
the lore is actually kind of fun to follow. So
I think that's what made me draw in to it.
It wasn't about like I'm going to be the best
Mortal Kombat player and learn all these like highlight level
you know, fighting esport moves or whatever. It was just like,
I don't know, some zero is cool, you know. So
that's what drew me to Mortal Combat more than the
hardcore fighting game.
Speaker 1: You know, Mary, what is Henry Halfhead?
Speaker 4: This is a quick one. It's a puzzler game.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: You play as Henry.
Speaker 7: You do have half of a head, and you can
embody a object and then become it, and then you
use that to solve puzzles.
Speaker 2: So one of the very operator talks the entire time.
Speaker 3: There is a narrator. I didn't care for that. But
I actually did play this game on my steam deck
while watching TV, so I actually didn't have the audio on.
Speaker 2: It's probably smart, yeah, because like the idea of like
inhabiting all these different things is kind of fun, but
it was I kind of tapped out when every I
thought it was just like a tutorial. Oh Henry, he.
Speaker 1: Liked playing with his ball, He's playing Shut the fuck up,
just let me play the game went sleepy by. It's like,
oh I hate this. It sounds like Bash, but they're
narrating like boring stuff.
Speaker 2: I had really different.
Speaker 3: Experiences excited that.
Speaker 1: The audio on Shut the Up.
Speaker 3: It's my God, I was just messing around with it
like it would. It has all these puzzles where it'll
be like make a party, and so you're I'm I'm
inhabiting a plate and setting the table, I'm inhabiting candles
and putting them on a cake. I'm inhabiting a match
and lighting myself and then lighting the birthday cake. And
when I did that, I threw a party and I
was like, that's so cute. This is a cute, little
simple puzzler. But I actually never really listened to the game,
so that would be very annoying.
Speaker 2: It is that like that did annoy me, but like
also like the puzzles, and I played maybe like an
hour or so of it. It's sure everything was just
the most obviously okay, now gotta it's like you realize
them too. So it's like I gotta put the candles
on the cake. And then it's like fucking three minutes
of like I'm rolling the candle over. Okay, let's get
the candle. Okay. Now it's like it's the puzzles weren't
really doing it for me either, Like it had a
good look to it and everything it.
Speaker 3: Has a cute look to it. I think the pet
puzzles are simple. I think that's super fair to say.
I think it's cute.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's probably more for like younger kids.
Speaker 2: I think said his daughters were liking it, so I think.
Speaker 1: This just had like a.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a young vibe to it.
Speaker 4: It's very simple.
Speaker 3: The the art style is so cute and adorable, and
I think it's thoughtful in that sense. But I also
did not.
Speaker 4: Play it probably more than three hout.
Speaker 3: I think I played it one evening for three hours,
and I thought that that's nice, and I never went
back to it.
Speaker 1: Yep, if you're six and listen, Hey, hey, any listeners
that yeah listening, asshole? Yeah, let's luminess arise. You don't
know what now?
Speaker 2: Oh you god, damn fool? What is it?
Speaker 1: You don't know? Luminous? No listen.
Speaker 2: The PSP, the PlayStation Portable is a dog shit system,
but Luminous almost made it worth it. Luminous is a
puzzle game. When I say puzzle game means a lot
of things, it is like more on the side of
like blocks and grids and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 2: It's got this element of kind of I don't want
to say rhythm, but more like timing, Like there is
a timeline that goes across the screen and it kind
of like clears things out as the timeline passes things.
So if you get a two by two grid of
the same color like every you're always dealing with two
different colors or two different items, Like I just did
one that's like ice blocks and taxi cabs and stuff.
And I see Mary bobbing her head right now.
Speaker 3: Because oh this music is fucking tie all.
Speaker 2: About music and visuals. It is the most like it
was Tetris Effect before Tetris Effect in terms of the
visuals and everything. And just as you progress through the level,
it's just like, oh fuck, the music changes completely and
all the the blocks look completely different, and uh.
Speaker 3: This would hit so hard if you were on drugs.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: And it's also like I can't wait to try it
in VR because ooh boy, Tetris Effect probably George Washington
in The Mount rushmore of good games to play while
you're high. Luminous is all about the sound and vision
and stuff, So I do want to get very high
and play this in VR.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 3: The little.
Speaker 6: Chameleons, oh yeah, yeah, And there's like this fruit level
where you're like building huge apples and stuff and they
fly at the screen when you break them.
Speaker 2: Everything it's I'm not going to describe every fucking puzzle
mechanic to you. It is a game where you were
dropping blocks and you were matching things together, and you
were getting a high score and trying not to let
the blocks get to the top of the screen. It is.
It sounds a lot like Tetris when I describe it
that way.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 2: It definitely feels very different than Tetris, but it is
right up there for me.
Speaker 3: Likely has like a Mario uh is that is called
doctor Mario.
Speaker 1: Would be like og one the pill Mario was just
the kind of the two pip pills and stuff like this.
Speaker 2: This is a two by two. You're dropping a lot
of two by two squares, and so some of them
might all let's say it's just blue and orange, you know,
some of them might just be all blue, some might
be all orange, some might be a mix. And gravity
affects the blocks as they fall, and so you were
just trying to make big blocks basically to clear them out.
And but you can do really cool combos and stuff
with it. There's this new burst mechanic that is really awesome.
So they basically Tetris Effect. Tetris affected Luminous and made
it better than ever. And I mean, Luminous is one
of the all time best puzzle games to me, and
Tetris Effect was one of the best kind of reimaginings
of a puzzle game. And they've done it again. Luminous
Arise kicks ass. Mary.
Speaker 1: I know you play a lot on your Steam deck.
This is.
Speaker 2: I played pretty much all of this on my Steam deck.
Speaker 3: I love this. This seems like really up my alley.
I really love the old drug binge. So I think
I'm gonna I'm gonna think I'm gonna give this a try.
This looks great.
Speaker 2: This is I've not been high yet playing and I've
played through the entire journey mode of this, and it's
very good high or not high. I will also be
getting high and playing this.
Speaker 1: Very drug binge. It's the funny, funniest way podcast.
Speaker 3: Good drug binge.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think I've had a rough working environment.
Speaker 3: I love to like get out of my head when
I'm not working right now, and I think like this
is the kind of thing that I think would really
allow me to transcend reality. That sounds great, So I have.
Speaker 2: To sound on with this one because the music is great,
totally jaz mode and like, did you did testor sffect right?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2: You know that journey mode where you're like, it's got
the exact same thing here, it's got the journey mode
where it's kind of broken up into different like you know,
here's here's five little stages basically, and then here's another four,
and then it's got all the different like shifts between
the music and the visuals and everything.
Speaker 1: It's just like that.
Speaker 2: It is just a good time.
Speaker 3: Damn, this is really cool. Thank you looks awesome.
Speaker 1: I want to hear what you think of it. I
guess I won't play it because Dan yelled at me
about it.
Speaker 3: She doesn't even do drugs. Mike, you've been playing Monster
Train too, which I heard you could be stone sober
for tell us about it.
Speaker 1: I talked about it last episode. But yeah, that's probably
my favorite thing. I'm still playing now along with Donkey
Kong Bananza. That game is really really good. I've unlocked
every faction. I have a bunch of new cores to
my train, like the Heart of the Train that they're
trying to destroy, but you also get ones with different abilities.
I still really really hate the art style for the
first game and this it looks so cheap. It gets
the point across, and there's some really clever character models,
but like it just looks like a bad line straddling
between paper cutouts and like online like flash game. I'm
not sure, but yeah, the games are to a flash game. Yeah, sorry,
that's it was immature of me. But no, this game
is like incredible. And again I don't I don't historically
love deck Builders, but this game does such cool things
with it that builds on the first game two. Like,
there are certain effects you get that really just blow
up how you're thinking about certain factions. Valor is this
effect where basically, if you end in the front of
a row, you'll gain armor, but you'll also add some
to your attack power. And then there's certain characters that
can move around the train build valor each time you
do that. So it's it's very very good at forcing
me out of my comfort zone in like a play
style that I get comfortable with. Similar to Blatro, Blatcho
will force you out of your comfort zone quickly in
terms of like how you're building your deck or with
jokers there. But Montra Train two is very very good
at just forcing me to keep thinking of my feet often.
Speaker 2: I like it a lot.
Speaker 1: It's also just very satisfying for a deck building game,
similar to what I was saying about Donkey Kong. It's
got a good like snappiness to it. It feels great.
I like that game quite a bit.
Speaker 4: I have one more that I thought about last minute.
Speaker 1: And what was that look you were giving me? You
were going to say something?
Speaker 5: Do you know?
Speaker 2: I think I was given Mary a look because she said,
you don't deserve anything? And I realized, did you know that?
I won the McDonald Anopotly game and I won one
hundred thousand American Airlines miles just send me and bank
to Hawaii round trip.
Speaker 4: I saw you on Instagram thank McDonald's and I rolled.
Speaker 1: Is that what you're dealing with them?
Speaker 4: What did you win?
Speaker 2: We haven't decided yet, but they are in my account now.
I have one hundred thousand American Airlines miles approximate retail
value twenty five hundred dollars that I won of McDonald's
monopoly feasts one piece?
Speaker 1: How many did you buy it?
Speaker 3: You didn't have like Baltic Avenue.
Speaker 2: It was like it was one of the quickspans you
get bonus spins on the app when you do it,
and so I hit the bonus pin and it was
like usually it's like you want a free small fry
or a small cone and me it was like twenty
five hundred dollars worth of flights?
Speaker 1: How long did it? How long were you suspicious? Like
did this really happen? Or is like there's that there's
some pass Like what were the odds that it was?
Speaker 2: Like until it was in my account, I was kind
of like, all right, hopefully some bullshit doesn't happen or whatever.
And then I got an email like a few days
ago and it was like, hey, congrats, put this code
into your advantage account or whatever. And I put it
in and it's like miles available one hundred thousand. And
I looked it up and it's like, oh wow, round
trip for one person to WHII is forty five k.
That's that's pretty good believable.
Speaker 3: You should play the lottery the way you flip flops,
stumble dip dog your way through life without fucking knowing
shit or giving a shit, and you just fucking keep
winning unbelievable.
Speaker 2: I think I could win the lottery and it's gonna
be really funny.
Speaker 3: I think you would.
Speaker 4: I like, I wouldn't be surprised if you, like went
for governor and won.
Speaker 3: I'd be like, who knew.
Speaker 1: Would do?
Speaker 2: I could actually become like a governor.
Speaker 1: I a governor. Yeah, if you if you become governor
of any state in the country, just governor here I know.
Speaker 3: And he's corrupt.
Speaker 1: The body, the mind.
Speaker 3: This isn't a ring.
Speaker 2: I think you go to water.
Speaker 1: I don't think you become governor. I think it's more
than a popularity. I mean what I can do first, Yeah,
just keep trying. Especially, wouldn't be running against like the
most whatever. Oh yeah, Minnesota Dan Ker versus Tim Waltz
would be never mind, the equivalent of Samoa Joe fighting
me physically. All right, No, no, no, I won't go
against walt You won't. Yeah, you won't take him down
for the good of the state.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true, for the betterment of Minnesota.
Speaker 1: I wonder what state you could become governor and if
you try, I don't think. I don't think they would
vote for Dan down there if.
Speaker 2: I said the stuff they wanted to hear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure.
Speaker 2: Down the road if I wanted to, that'd be the
easiest shit in the world. My all right, grip turn, oh,
that'd be the easiest fucking fish in a barrel. I
would be making millions within a year. The Republican Whip.
Speaker 1: Like, if there was a government shutdown and the Democrats
are trying to hold out, the Republican Whip would go
to Dan in the middle of the night with like
one hundred dollars Taco Bell gift card to get into
defect and he'd be like, yeah, sure, I don't care. No,
I just got one hundred thousand miles from McDonald's. I'm fine,
I'll see you in the morning. I have the miles
damn inside of Bill McDonald's drill.
Speaker 3: I did some value, so fad don't worry about me.
I voted for Chastity Bono. I would never.
Speaker 4: I won't support you.
Speaker 1: I will, I will.
Speaker 3: I will move to Florida and vote for the other guy.
I won't. I won't be in Florida.
Speaker 1: It could be a woman.
Speaker 3: There she goes again. I also have been playing I
forgot about it, but I was playing another game. I
wanted to tell you about called dead Take.
Speaker 1: I forgot about this, but I'm going to talk about it.
You're so the hosting is easy.
Speaker 3: It's hard.
Speaker 1: Forgot this. Now I'm gonna enthrall you. Okay, I go
dead tape. Okay.
Speaker 3: Dead Take is a FMV horror game which should really
be right up my alley. It has cut scenes starring
Neil Neubin nubn from balders Gate, Iree Asterion and Ben
Starr and uh, Laura Bailey, Matthew Mercer, a lot of
pretty big names on this f FMV file. You are
in a house. I think it's like a producer's house,
and I think he's a bad guy, and all these
actors are trying to get like good roles in the
next film, and you're playing. You're like finding out what
went wrong in this house because there's like spoopy stuff
going around and you have to like uncover it. I
thought it was okay. It was a horror game that
I think. I wish it was a little scarier. I
only like got actually jump scared maybe twice throughout the
whole thing. It's more the environment is is kind of
uncomfortable or scary.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: I didn't think the puzzles were super hard.
Speaker 3: I figured everything out. I think I beat this game
in four hours with UH with my bud Silver. I
think we basically burned through it pretty quickly. But I
do love F and B horror, and I think if
you're into like weird horror psychological films, UH, it was.
It was a cool experience and I'm glad I played
it if you like that kind of thing. It's a
very unique style of horror game. It's weird to see
Ben Starr, like not just his voice, his like physical form.
All these people a lot of pearces in it. Like
there's a lot of actors, but it's like their actual
physical form. It's they're they're not I mean, they're playing
a role, but like it's actors, you know. So that
was confusing.
Speaker 2: Names start are so weird to me because it's like
he's the guy that I see all the time and
I talk to all the time whenever we do a
thing and you know, game Awards or SGF or something.
But I've never played I guess Entail Expedition thirty three.
I never really play games. He's been a voice and
so he's just like a dude. I sometimes talk to
I don't, so I only know him as just a
physical dude. Yeah, it's weird to see him as a dude.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 3: It's weird because he plays like, uh, I'm not gonna
I'm not gonna give it away. But they're all playing
characters that are like kind of strange and nuanced, so
it is like stressful to watch him get like really
angry on set and things like that. There's also that, Yeah,
there's just a lot of actors in it where I'm like,
I know that guy, but he's playing he's playing like
a weirdo.
Speaker 4: So yeah, people, Yeah, it's a lot of it's a
hard sell for me.
Speaker 3: I thought it was an interesting experience, especially a four
hours psychological horror puzzler with FMV stuff.
Speaker 4: I think it's it's neat what they tried to do here,
but a little bit too.
Speaker 3: Slow burn for me. A lot of it is like
slowly waiting for the next video file and watching it
and figuring out what that's uncovering, splicing together video files.
Glad I played it. I don't regret that. How much
is it?
Speaker 2: It's understanding right now, you're making an F and B game,
anyone out there, you're making an F and B game
that's gonna be a real game, soundstame or something.
Speaker 1: I will be in your fm B game.
Speaker 2: Free your charge. Let me know and I will. I
will go for it, just I would love to be.
Speaker 3: He's got the miles.
Speaker 4: He will fly there and speed it in the morning.
He smells like fries, but he.
Speaker 3: Knows how to act. Yeah, people like McDonald's fries.
Speaker 2: Dan at a certain time, Like at the Bombiton, we
had a room filled with fries that we're sitting there
for like six hours, and I tried to take a
nap in that room, and look, I love McDonald's. I
was like, this is overwhelming. I cannot sleep in this
fry room.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't let them hear that they might snatch those that.
Speaker 3: What do you want, Ronald, Come get me, Ronald. It
wouldn't be him. It would be the guy who steals
the burglar. He would he would come. Get your mind.
Speaker 2: Go for it, Joe on the Hamburgler.
Speaker 4: Stop bringing up Samoa Jo. He's not gonna save you.
Speaker 2: My good personal friends, Tomojo, who will always see me
if I get in trouble.
Speaker 1: He doesn't even know unless I then there's no stopping me.
Even if you're Samoa Joe, I'll tear through like tissue paper.
I think, I think, I actually like he is probably
the size of three and a half of me, maybe.
Speaker 2: Four, probably more than three.
Speaker 1: And now, yeah, I still I maintained you can run
for governor Florida. I'll fight Samoa Joe. We'll see who's
more successful. Okay, we'll race. What's the how would I race?
Speaker 5: You?
Speaker 2: Do you have to beatmo Joe before I become a
US governor? And I have.
Speaker 1: What kind of fight?
Speaker 2: Street fight?
Speaker 1: Oh? Fuck?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, just like bar bar fight one? Do you
ask to give up?
Speaker 1: I'd have better chance with that than an actual like
wrestling match. All right, Okay, can I use weapons?
Speaker 2: Whatever's there?
Speaker 4: Okay, whatever is around on the ground. Okay, you can
stab Samoa Joe.
Speaker 1: With Call Joe up. I'll take some shirtless photos and
you can send those to him. Be like this guy
wants to fight you. Oh, just be a mortal combat fatality.
But I would have the like the the cockiness of
uh Johnny. Sure?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Do you want to talk about emails?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well we like to discuss about them.
Speaker 1: Okay. As always, you can run into the fire escape
cast at gmail dot com. That is Firescape cast at
gmail dot com. Questions, comments, stuff you want read on
the show. We are running low, so fill that inbox
back up. We've been getting a lot of good questions
throughout the year. We will also be kind of prepping
for going into next year as we finish up Game
of the Year stuff. So fill up the inbox with
questions about anything, preferably food or beauty tips. I can
give you some of those or fight fight tactics, which
Mary is happy to share. We have a few questions tonight.
This first one is from Tyler Mary. Yeah, first one
balls nos eyes face vagina kick.
Speaker 3: They can never get past it.
Speaker 2: Hi, the kick is not super effective, so don't go.
Speaker 4: No more effective than a shoulder or.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it go over your eyes eyes is anyone's guess?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 3: There escapees first time, long time. I recently picked up
Mark Oh Lord help me Daniel Luski, Daniel Luski's new
book Tom's Crossing.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I'm not normally one to pick up a book on
release day, but finding out that the author of House
of Leaves had written a magical realism eighties Western set
in my hometown, I could not order fast enough. Reading
it has been an absolute delight. Has made me feel
seen in a powerful way. Do you have any favorite
pieces of media that line up perfectly with your preference
and have built in connections to your real life, such
as being set in your hometown or fusing on a
niche interest of yours.
Speaker 4: Love the show, Thanks Tyler.
Speaker 1: I would say Annihilation the movie kind of really hit
me in a way where I.
Speaker 4: Was like, set in your hometown.
Speaker 1: I did not grow up in the Everglades, but it
was like horror meets sci fi meets fantasy meets I
don't know. I'm a sucker for like expeditions in movies,
like anytime someone goes into an unknown place where things
are they don't know what's going on. I always love
that Annihilation felt like it was made for me in
that respect. That was probably the one that comes to mind.
In terms of movies video games, I would say Alan
Wake two felt like it was just this confluence. It's like, oh,
Alan's story was very inspired by Taxi Driver and neo
noir seventies stuff about like from New York City in
the seventies and noir crime dram is in that. But
then you also have the pack Northwest Twin Peaks, FBI Investigation, Survival, Horror,
Over the Shoulder of Side, and I was like, oh,
they made two games just for me and mashed them
together into one crazy, unwieldy thing.
Speaker 2: It's a I can think of a really good example
and a really bad example of So I'm not like,
I love wrestling and I love movies, but I like,
you know, they tried to make a million movies with
fucking John c and a Randy Orton or Diana Ambrose,
Like I've never watched any of them. Don't give a
shit I've ever seen like The Marine with Johnson. It's
like I watched John CNN wrestling. I don't need to
watch him in a bad straight to DVD movie, you know.
So I don't really care about that. So when The
Wrestler was coming out, I was kind of like, all right,
I'm always very wary of like depictions of pro wrestling
in mainstream media because it's always the exact same thing.
It's just someone doing a bad Randy Savage impersonation, and
it's just like, I don't know, I'm always very skeptical
because it's typically not done well. But it was Aeronofsky
and like you know, he's very much that like, oh,
film dorks liked Aeronofsky stuff, especially back then, and he
did an incredible job. It was like, I think the
large majority of wrestling fans look at that movie and
we're like, oh no, that's they respected the business in
a major way. And also it's if you don't give
a shit about wrestling at all, it's just a great movie.
Do you know if he oh, sorry, no, no, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Was he always into wrestling and wanted to make a
movie about it or was it something that like something
sparked a fascination and then he did a deep dive
and like, I think this is gets to the core
of it.
Speaker 2: I don't think he's necessarily a guy that's super into wrestling.
What I've always heard is he wanted to do I
don't know if you want to do it originally as
the same movie or as just kind of companion pieces.
But Black Swan and The Wrestler when he was out
around the same time, where it's like these stories about
this like kind of personal trauma and like sacrificing, you know,
for your art and stuff like that. But he wanted
Black Swan to be the high brow one and the
wrestler to be the lowbrow one. But he did, like
you know, by all accounts, like when he was making
that movie and everything, he wanted to make it authentic,
and like it very much reads as authentic. It's very
very good at that. I will say one that was
coming out that was it sounded extremely up my alley
was The Expendables because it was, oh, it's Loan and
Schwartzenegger and all these guys and Bruce Willis and it's
just like it just kind of sucked. It's like it
was just boring. Just like all the coolest guys ever
into a movie.
Speaker 4: I think they all were like competing with who got
to be the coolest.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there's much of a good thing too, you know,
I'm sure they all got paid very well to hang
out with their buddies.
Speaker 3: But that is not what I asked at all.
Speaker 4: It's not how much money they made.
Speaker 3: I'm saying, like, when you watch a movie like that,
you want one of them to be the superhero, and
they can't all be important.
Speaker 2: I mean, Stallone was definitely supposed to be like the
guy there, but it's like it just it was just
a stupid movie. And like I like a good stupid movie.
This was a bad stupid movie. Like I think I
saw the third one. Maybe I might have skipped one
of them, but like they're just not good.
Speaker 1: Have you seen them? There's a scene that's always sunny.
There's an episode where they're basically just like riffing on
Shyamalan movies and Charlie and Mack are trying to write
a movie together. And bear in mind they have not
mentioned this actor the entire show. I want to say,
this is season seven, so this comes out of nowhere.
It's not like this is a bit in the show.
It's just in one scene they're like, you know what
people are doing these days. They're taking like these washed
up old actors and then giving them new life with
this like really great movie. And he's like, yeah, we
should do that. Who's like a really underrated actor who's
come by hard times, who's like the most underrated actor
of all time. And Charlie's like Dolph Lungren Max like exactly,
like I ou't of know where they do it. Every
time I think about like the Wrestler, I want to
say that was Mickey Yorke's first thing in a while.
Speaker 2: That was a big comeback thing, because yeah, big deal
in the early nineties and he made some weird life
decisions and career decisions and like tried to become a
boxer and then so I was like face got fucked
up and all that, Like he was the it was
gonna be Nicholas Cage, which also would have been amazing,
but work was the right choice.
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew that's how his face got
so changed so.
Speaker 2: Much that he tried to do a boxing run. Yeah,
he was so bad that.
Speaker 1: His face got pulverized.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus Mike, you asked that, like Darrenovski being a
wrestling guy. You know who is a big wrestling guy
and you see it in a lot of his stuff
is Tim Robinson.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think I knew that.
Speaker 2: On Detroiter's Kevin Nash, like one of my favorite dudes
ever is his dad and uh and like I think
you should leave. He's got a bunch of wrestlers that
show up in that and everything. Uh, Darby Allen, who
you know from AW, He's like skates with Darby Allen
has had him like any time AW is around, he's
always backstage.
Speaker 1: So like, yeah, Tim Robbinson's I can see that, Like
he's so much. I think he respects people who commit
to like commit to the bit. Yeah, and like I
feel like wrestling is like a big dramatic bit and
I feel like that connects with him.
Speaker 2: I also feel like he has a good taste because
it's like like he got Kevin Nash to be his
dad in the show, and I'm like, all right, that's
like the coolest guy you could have possibly picked.
Speaker 1: So I would like to meet Tim Robinson. This is
extremely an aside, but I was watching him and Zach
Canaan went on seth Myers, and I saw a clip
and they were doing the thing where it's like, oh,
what are some sets like? Or Tim Robinson Zach Canaan,
who wrote helps write I think you should leave. He
also plays in the show. And same with the Chair Company.
Every once in a while they're like, yeah, none of
our SNL skits ever got accepted, like maybe on the
back end of an episode, and sets like how about this.
You pitch me one of them and I'll tell you
why it didn't make it, And so they're like, okay,
So they had one where basically this like legendary really
well respected, dignitary senator was on his deathbed and he's
just like there are other senators showing up, and ambassadors
are coming to his hospital room to say goodbye, Like
just this like class act dude who everybody just like
looks up to as a like an example of a
good human being. His family's there, his friends are there,
and he's just like just really facing death in a
really dignified way. But then with all these people surrounding,
he actually starts to finally die and he just starts
screaming at the top of his life, shouting, and apparently
to Robinson said, the thing he keeps repeating is, holy shit,
this fucking sucks.
Speaker 2: That sounds way more like a Mister Show sketch. Yeah,
like that every thing where It's like, I'm sure NBC
when you get like, you know, Lauren Michaels and all
these kind of like older corporate guys around, you probably
can't do, but like a Mister Show type thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or what did Showalter and Michael ian Black? What
was their thing they did? Stella? Stella was very goofy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, the state was earlier and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But anyway, sorry, Mary, do you have any things
are confluences.
Speaker 3: Of I'll say one, which is Ohio is known for
a lot of TV shows and movies. It just seems
like it's a great place to be, Like what is traditional,
you know, Midwest Americana feel like. And I think there's
no movie that embodies that better than Tommy Boy. Tommy
Boy is not just a real good reflection of Ohio culture,
but Ohio people.
Speaker 4: There's a lot of.
Speaker 3: Blue collar workers, factory workers every day Joe's in that movie,
that are not this is not like looked down upon.
These are like people who give a shit, and so
the joke is not about them or the livelihoods. It's
just about what a fucking dumb shit Tommy is. Stupid
little kidd heus where.
Speaker 4: He looks into that thing and he says, Duke, I
am your father.
Speaker 3: And they catch him being such a little dumb shit.
I was like, oh no, that's me, Like this is
I'm such an idiot and I have to be.
Speaker 4: A business person now and I have to make money
and I.
Speaker 3: Have to be important, and there are days where I'm like,
I don't I don't deserve any of this because I
am I am stupid. I am just a stupid person
that somehow has to continue to make a mortgage. And
so here we are. But I think Tommy Boy, I
feel really seen by that entire film, not just Ohio,
which it is like prolific to have a drive that
flat where you don't see a hill or a mountain
for hours, that's like so Ohio, but also just his
character and the way he exists in that film is
like very important to me.
Speaker 2: That movie we watched, me and Bach watched like maybe
four or five years ago, and it aged a lot
better than I expected. And there are things I forgot
where it's like you talk about the different characters that
are like dan Aykroyd being like the slimy Midwest you know,
car dealership owner. It's like, oh, this is good. It's
like I don't remember a lot of like like that's
always the thing with like a comedy, especially from like
the nineties and earlier.
Speaker 3: You're like, uh, wasn't that bad?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 2: I walked away from it being like I'm glad it
aged that way.
Speaker 1: I feel like, yeah, Chris Farley could pull off clean
humor oh quote unquote clean humor, just because he's such
a physical presence, not that he wasn't ever getting dirty,
but like.
Speaker 2: He could be like in like a kid's movie in
the physical force of Nature, you.
Speaker 3: Could find a way. Yeah, uh yeah, Beverly Hills Nincha's
like all slapstick stupid.
Speaker 1: But that did that.
Speaker 2: That movie taught me what a pimp was because he
gets a jacket at some point and it's got like
the tiger or whatever print and somebody says that he
looks like a pimp or something. And we're turning to
my grandma at the time, being Grandma, what's a pimp.
Speaker 1: It's a.
Speaker 2: She said, it's a man that slaps women. God, So
that's what I thought it was for a while. I
mean in a way, I mean I see why she
was trying to like say kind of what it was
without saying what it was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I think I told you this.
Speaker 3: But in Amsterdam when we did our first the first
time I ever went to Amsterdam for work, and we
did a little tour, the tour guy said, when the
children first come, you know, down in the city and
they see all the girls, the teachers tell them they're
selling kisses. And I was like, that's an acceptable format
for type thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeahs that's why she didn't.
Speaker 2: Say I need tim.
Speaker 4: They're selling butthole kisses.
Speaker 1: Okay, just just a little smooch on your touch. I learned.
Speaker 4: I learned a lot in the in the third grade.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Tyler. Dan. You want to read, Oh shit,
I'll get the if you want to start it, I'll
get the It's from Dalton.
Speaker 2: Uh, Dalton's his name's not on here? Are you fool? Okay,
he's typing in adult adult. I can't confirm yet. Okay,
Dalton with two l's. That's insane, Dalton. Mike fixed this? Okay,
Oh thank god. Okay, Dalton says, are there Mike still typing?
This is a great bit.
Speaker 1: Are there any ongoing doesn't even play on video?
Speaker 5: It's just a document that no one can It doesn't
even play with me seeing exactly what you're doing.
Speaker 2: No joke, And I'm like over it already, Dalton says,
are there any ongoing gaming complaints? You're just tired of
hearing at this point? Mine is, I'm so tired of
hearing people talk about Final Fantasy going back to turn based.
Final Fantasy hasn't been turn based in twenty five years, guys,
let it go. It has not been turn based longer
than it was turn based. The last turn based Final
Fantasy game was Final Fantasy ten on the PS two.
Squiring Enix has other turn based games, Dragon Quest, Bravely, Default, Octopath.
Speaker 1: Come on, that is Dalton?
Speaker 2: Fuck you? You fucking pussy is that can't be his name?
Speaker 5: Mike?
Speaker 1: Why do you?
Speaker 2: Why does that say that in all caps?
Speaker 1: It's just insulting you while you read it?
Speaker 2: My sorry Dalton?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what's a what's a complaint that a lot of
people share? Like what somebody you say on Red Air?
What's something like that?
Speaker 3: I mean, here's a classic one, which is yellow tape
or fly This is stupid, but it's like obviously so helpful.
You'd be so many people would be lost. You genuinely
would not enjoy an experience that didn't give you a
little bit of guidance. I think sometimes it can be overdone,
but like, so can that complaint?
Speaker 1: Like because otherwise, aside from that, God of War would
be a masterpiece of literary ambitions.
Speaker 3: Wid is like I think we're supposed to turn the
clock clockwise.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe you could break through the wall.
Speaker 5: It's about fatherhood and the yellow paint doesn't fatherhood, responsibility,
that the responsibilities and how you can't escape your past
you have to confront it through.
Speaker 2: I feel like I see more complaints from like because
I didn't really see like the average like comments or controversies,
Like I feel like Manati is my controversy whisperer, So
I don't really see.
Speaker 4: It's Manati been complaining about recent.
Speaker 2: No, I'm saying, well, he reads every comment that's ever
been on the internet.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's you know, what's what's he picking up?
Speaker 2: Every once in a while, everyone's mad about fast and
I'll be like, what the fuck, what is it?
Speaker 3: Tell me one?
Speaker 2: Uh oh, you're saying people are mad about Metroid and
Metroid Prime trailer. They showed too much of like the
bike is in the desert too much, and the world
looks empty or something, and it's like it all just
sounds to me, like like the Puddle Gate shit or
whatever of Spider Man Spider Man thing where the puddles
got too small or something.
Speaker 1: It's just I don't know.
Speaker 2: I love video games more than anything like in the world.
It's given me my entire life and everything until I
met my wife. It's just my entire career. It's just
people get too fucking how.
Speaker 4: You won twenty five hundred miles.
Speaker 2: That was separate. No, I would leave McDonald's no matter
what the fuck I was doing, Mary, that had nothing
to do with video games. I would have had that
McDonald's piece no matter.
Speaker 3: What, no matter what differences in your life.
Speaker 2: Could be working out fucking gas station on Shawnee Mission Parkway,
and I would absolutely still win that thing.
Speaker 1: But my this isn't really a complaint. It's kind of
a complaint. And I'm I remember I remember one specific
Game of the Year meeting. We had a game spot
where this like the detractors of Breath of the Wild.
We're using the argument that it's not a Zelda game,
Like it's not, it's not like it's the most And
then you're like, that is the most Zelda game, since
this is what they would have made with the first
game if they had the technology and the design chops,
and but like people were like, no, it's not, that's
not like what a Zelda game is. I'm like, well, hey,
you're you're making every you're making every your pities. Yeah yeah,
but also like yes, it fucking is so like I
don't know, it's I mean it's it's that shit is
insane to me because like Okerina Time one of the
best games of all time, probably my top ten ever,
Breath of the Wild is more the original Zelda than
Okerina of Time is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like that's a fucking horseshed argument.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, it annoyed me. Also throw out like remember.
Speaker 3: That too hard. It should have like it should have
more options to play it easier. I think if a
game is if the developers have designed it to be
very very difficult, that is like their m O.
Speaker 4: Yes, that is totally fine. That game is allowed to
be very difficult.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel like that comes from like like there's
stuff where you get a bunch of people talking about
like oh, when Bey and Atta first came out, it
was like, oh, they had a one button easy mode
if you just want to see the cool stuff and
you don't want to you're not good at games. And
people got mad about that. And then Elder Ring comes
out and it's like, oh it's too hard, and people
get mad about it. Shut play it, play it.
Speaker 1: It doesn't not every game.
Speaker 3: It's for you, you know, And I I feel it
on both ends, Like I think it's so cool that
you said the other end of the spectrum, too, which
is like the game's too easy and it's like shut.
Speaker 2: Up, that's kind of mya. There was something like this
year that was like really hard, and it sparked a
bunch of fucking think pieces and stuff and social media
bullshit about like, oh it's too.
Speaker 1: Hard Hollow Night too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well don't play solk song.
Speaker 1: So sorry.
Speaker 3: Not it's called silk Song, Hollow Night, soil song. But yeah,
it's like you sorry, Bud, Like sorry, the game is
is extremely challenging.
Speaker 4: Some people find that very rewarding, like.
Speaker 2: Perrying, I don't play Sechiro. It's not ruining my day,
you know, just there's a lot of games out there.
Speaker 3: I have low self esteem.
Speaker 4: I didn't finish elden Ring.
Speaker 3: That's just the way it is sometimes and.
Speaker 2: You're doing fine, it's like it's thank you, but I'm
not going to.
Speaker 4: Sit there and be like the game is wrong. It's like, no,
it just wasn't for me, and that's okay.
Speaker 3: I do think you can still have criticisms of it,
which is just like, hey, like the difficulty spikes for
this were a little too much for me, Like I
found that challenging. I think that's fair, but to just
say this game should be easier is not a valid
criticism and kind of annoys me.
Speaker 2: I mean that came up, Yeah, solks Soong came up
a lot, and there were as much as I fuck
love folk song, there were boss fights where I was
just like, man, really got to hit this guy like
twenty five more times. Yeah, Like, but it's like, Okay, well,
do you want to keep playing it or not?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 3: Also, maybe, and this will come up later, but like
maybe you needed to grind in some other place and
sharpen your needle more. Maybe you needed a different badge
that would have let you have like a faster speed
or a quadruple jump, and that would have also help
helped with that boss fight. I suffered on a boss
for like three hours, and then I found out that
I really really really needed that triple.
Speaker 4: Jump dash and I didn't have it. So I was
just kind of I was like so convinced that this.
Speaker 3: Boss was broken, and it was just like user error
that happens all the time. That game humbles the shit
out of me.
Speaker 4: So I find it a little exhausting for someone to
just be like too hard.
Speaker 3: She's like, well, did you did you try? Are you good?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think that game has bigger problems than difficulty.
I think I think we glazed Team Cherry too much.
That's a whole other thing. No, I like that game
quite a bit the other day. It's a fucking video game.
Speaker 3: Go get some real problems, get go get a mortgage.
Speaker 2: It's just it's a fucking just put down the controller
and go figure out your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you go get out hospital bill and if you
can't get yeah, fucking babies. Thank you. Okay, Now that
we ramped up with that, uh more, Uh what a
fun one antagonistic question, Let's get to a very heavy one.
Hey there, what's the most important element of a trail mix?
Thanks West from Baltimore. Oh, I've we finished our wirery watch.
I've been I've been trying to say Baltimore like they
do Baltimore, Baltimore.
Speaker 2: You've been trying on mirror trying.
Speaker 1: I noticed, like they can dialect in the in the
show all the like locals say like Baltimore. They I
don't say Baltimore, and I have nothing from Baltimore, so
I know, I'm just no, I'm not trying to say
it like normally to sound cool, literally trying to physically
say it. It's hard for my mouth to say, no,
it's not it, No, it's not it.
Speaker 2: Do you know Mike Manatti can't say chimney because his
brain goes into chimney from like Jim Jimminy Jim Jimminy.
Speaker 1: Disney stuff doesn't surprise me.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm sure if he's slowed down he could
say it.
Speaker 2: He's tried probably a hundred times on Giant Bomb and
failed a hundred times.
Speaker 1: I think it's all for show.
Speaker 2: It's probably you don't know, Mike Manattier.
Speaker 3: For a stretch goal, I'll say chimney.
Speaker 1: Correctly at some point. I love Mike naughty. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 2: I did during the Bob on her. Beforehand, I was like, Mike,
what's the number for? Like, what is the crazy incentive
to get you to eat an apple?
Speaker 1: On and stream?
Speaker 2: He said, there's not a number, Like, I I know
it's not a bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I don't. I don't think that's a bit.
I know people. I know someone who was like that
with bananas when I was younger. We thought it was
a bit, and I'm ashamed to say I like played
a prank on him with a banana and it.
Speaker 2: No good freaked out.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 1: I to be clear, I was like twelve, and I
learned my lesson.
Speaker 2: I was going to do that where I was going
to present him with a bunch of fruit and stuff
and like, no, it's like a like real phobia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not fun. I learned after I was once I
was thirteen not to do that. But like I put aim,
it wasn't even a creative prank. I just like our friend.
He was a friend who did amp up. He he
exaggerated a lot of stories and whatnot. So I thought
he was being doing the same thing with his fear
of bananas, like just being around them. So I like
snuck a banana into his glovebox while in like sorry,
not his glovebox, his like what do you want to
call his like a basketball gym bag. The glovebox was
a separate prank later on in life to someone else
did not with a phobia, but he like opened his
gym bag and like hyperventilated.
Speaker 2: When you do that stuff.
Speaker 1: I didn't know at the time. I was fucking twelve.
I'm gonna go back through your childhood and find no,
I told.
Speaker 2: You, I get fired as a babysitter right from the
bee prank. This rings a slight bell, the short one.
I was babysitting the neighbor kids. There are three kids,
and the youngest one, Nick was uh he was like
a pread of bees or something or actually, I don't
even think he said that. I think he was just
a kid, and kids don't like bees, including myself.
Speaker 1: I don't think adults like bees either.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know what, take it back. I don't think
it was a phobia thing. I think we were just
walking to the pool in the neighborhood and I was like, oh, Nick,
oh god, you gotta bee. You gotta be on the
back of your head or something, and he just lost
his fucking mind and burst out crying and was the
whole thing. And he told his mom, Yeah, you could.
Speaker 1: Tell us about this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there was also that I ate the whole
box of cheese its, And so I think I can't
remember which one was the one that actually got me fired,
but uh, yeah, don't do that one.
Speaker 3: Traumatize my child.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah.
Speaker 3: So I was in a good babysitter either. I once
let them out on the roof and I said, don't
tell your parents. And then the next day, the dad
took me aside and was like, you took them out
on the roof, didn't you? And I said, yeah, no,
And then I looked at the kid and I said,
I'm gonna fucking kill you. Yeah, but watching Blues Clues again,
you little cunt.
Speaker 1: No. I believe Mike when he says he doesn't like apples.
I have seen it close. But I'm though, what is
the most important part of a trail mix? Oh? Not raisins.
There's a lot of.
Speaker 4: Different are not really something that I ever enjoy.
Speaker 3: I will say that, uh an oatmeal, raisin cookies fresh
from the oven.
Speaker 4: I can be like, yeah, I'm into this.
Speaker 2: It could be a good component. But like when you
think about being a kid, like you were always confronted with,
like I just have a box of raisins, Who the
fuck is like eating boxes of resk?
Speaker 4: Some questions for adult?
Speaker 1: You dant the little raisins, the little California boxes? Hell, yeah, baby,
do you eat?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 1: I don't know now anymore? They weren't they sell them anymore?
They absolutely sell raisins, I promise you. Is the red
box with a lady on it? Like yellow? Was it
red with a yellow sun? And the yellow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Rais nineteen ninety six is
the last time I've seen one of these.
Speaker 3: I've seen raisins.
Speaker 1: Maybe they're in like, maybe they're in bags. Maybe they're
in gummy bags. Oh wait a minute, how did I
not bring this up yet? Speaking of Amazon, which one
of you fuckers sent me ten bottles of mustard in
an unmarked box. It seems like a merry thing.
Speaker 3: That could be anyone, but it is absolutely dass.
Speaker 1: I got a package that just said Mike Maharty. There's
no return address, just said Amazon Fulfillment Services. And I
open it and it's it's ten bottles of mustard. Ten Yes,
I counted them, and it was like very like.
Speaker 2: Models mustard.
Speaker 1: Don't send me any more shit too much. I have
to bring it down four flights of stairs to the trash.
That sounds really annoying. Yeah, you the only reason you
didn't send me the whole fuel drum of chocolate syrup
is because Bianca talked you out of it, and she said,
a reminder, you're playing the prank on Amanda too. You
think that I think you're thinking of Tim Turry. Don't
send me any more mustard. No, that sounds really annoying.
I'll go toe to toe with you in terms of
how annoying I.
Speaker 3: Can be someone's getting Raisins.
Speaker 1: I would I would welcome a box that size of Raisins.
I like Raisins a lot worse than Ladybugs. That was,
I will admit, very funny. What was it a one
thousand or twenty five hundred or something bugs? But that
was back when I was immature. I don't know who
sent the mustard. Yeah, I assume you're on stream and
someone's like, hey, Dan, this mustard's on sale for US
scent each bottle on Amazon. I think raisins play an
important part in trail mix because they alter the textures.
You get a bit of chew in there. It's not
all just crunch.
Speaker 2: But they're not even gross. They're just annoying, like raisins,
like the flavor's fine at best. I feel like, if
you're making a trail mix thing, why wouldn't everything be good?
Because I feel like there's always that Why I want
the pretzel.
Speaker 1: Well, peanuts are literal, like people use peanuts as a
metaphor for things that are just filler.
Speaker 2: I think peanuts are great.
Speaker 1: I like peanuts. I don't think they're my favorite part, though,
Like i'd rather I'd rather take the peanuts out than
the raisins.
Speaker 2: Oh that's crazy.
Speaker 1: No, what trail mikes are we talking here? This one
with like M and m's in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I sums cash cashewsh not have cash is peanuts.
Speaker 1: I think walnuts are in there. Sometimes pineapple smells ones
with a bigger one on one end, like they're like
a decu nut or no, sorry, the decu the spiral
thing you get the beginning, the spiritual stone of the forest.
Speaker 2: I only want these things if they involve pretzels.
Speaker 1: Walnuts look like brains from up top. But walnuts are well,
n'ts a lot.
Speaker 2: Kind of like nut variety stuff like pecans, walnuts, all
that stuff's great.
Speaker 1: Almonds.
Speaker 4: I love a pecan, although I like them candied.
Speaker 3: I feel like a regular pecan feels like it's missing something.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, do you like the little candied
squares of like pineapple and some trail mixes.
Speaker 3: I love the candied square of pineapple. I'm glad you
brought this up. We invented this very important a replacement
of the raisin but also cube form.
Speaker 4: They could have made it anything. But that guy was like,
make it a cube.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I did it again.
Speaker 4: That girl was like, it's a cube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it could have been a woman. It could have been.
Speaker 3: It probably was.
Speaker 1: Look up, look up Phyllis p cube. She invented the
pineapple cube.
Speaker 3: The Turkish apricot.
Speaker 2: I'll take pineapple before raisin, for sure. You know what's
good to dried out apples? You don't see that a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh yea yeah, but that's a good because those retain
a lot of the apple flavor.
Speaker 3: I think you're leaning out of trail mix. Dried apple
is not a trail mixed situation. You're dodging the question
trail mix component Dan, And he's like, I don't like
anything because it's all nuts.
Speaker 1: I want to I want to make a distinction. Not
your favorite, the most important Oh, I mean the nuts.
I want to be semantic about this, the nuts.
Speaker 4: If it didn't have nuts, it wouldn't be trail mixed exactly.
Speaker 2: So it's let's just say nuts in general.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, because that's that's basically all Like
what which nuts and peanuts could Why because they add
the filler or because they're the filler they're good, but
also they fill. I'm not saying I like them, but
they are by definition they're added because they're cheaper and
they're easier to they fill. I think hash peanuts infinitely.
Speaker 4: More so important. And if trail mix doesn't have cashews,
I'm like, this is for a bitch, like it has.
Speaker 3: To the cashier.
Speaker 2: So okay, So, Mike, you said the peanuts out of
the shell. Is this just a mean thing? Like going
to baseball games in the nineties and stuff and you
get the big thing of peanuts in the shells. I
would just put the whole shells in my mouth, you
and you and swallow them. No, So I think I
knew as a kid that like it would get really
dry and like splintery, that's stringy. Yeah, and so but
like I did, like they were so so salty. They
were super fucking salty. So I just like suck on
them and then chew them. And then you would also
chew like so like in your mouth you would kind
of purse out the peanut parts so you could swallow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like a sunflower se just spit out all the
fucking like. Uh, I mean, I don't I don't necessarily
agree with that. I get why you did it, opinion.
Speaker 4: I was angry.
Speaker 1: I was eating the entire sunflower seed until I was
like eight. Yeah, I didn't know you're supposed to not
do that. Yeah, the asshole was bleeding every time I pooped.
Speaker 2: That's the entire reason I'm still doing.
Speaker 4: I don't remember eating any corn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because of a sunflower seed. Yeah, dismissing tooth was
just literally biting surely in.
Speaker 2: A week or two, getting the implant finally put in
after twenty plus years whatever. Because I was eating a
bag of sunflower seeds on the couch washing fucking South
Park in two thousand and three or something, and I
just bit into it and my tooth shattered and it
was bleeding like crazy, and it was a lot of pain.
And I did not have health insurance. And I found
out you could go to a dental school and they
would do the business for cheaper. And so some fucking
kid that was younger than me when I was like,
you know twenty, uh fucked up. He really fucked up too.
Like he hit me in the head with the like
X ray machine accidentally, so like I'm in deep, deep pain,
bleeding out of my mouth, and he's like, oh, he
seems like the Simpsons, just like the.
Speaker 3: Simpsons child to imagine.
Speaker 4: That kid, we're all out of anesthesia.
Speaker 2: Bonks me in the fucking head with the X ray
machine and they're like, well that now I'm hurting in
a couple different ways, and I'm just I'm in hell
right now. And then they say like, well we can, uh,
we can we actually save the tooth. And I was like, yeah,
how much does that cost? And they were like, oh,
it'd be you know, four hundred dollars versus one hundred
and fifty or whatever like something like that. It wasn't
like thousands or whatever. It's like four hundred or whatever
or one hundred and fifty. And I did not have
hundreds of dollars, and so I said, oh, just pull it.
And they're like you're probably gonna regret this later in life.
And I was like how much later? And they're like, oh,
when you're like forty, and they're like, that's never gotta happen.
That's fine, And so I told him to pull the
tooth and uh, they fucking tried to crack it out
with pliers and also, fun note, this is during the
time in college when I was afraid of the effects
of drugs because I had my first panic attacks under
uh when I tried mushrooms, and so I did not
want to take any nitrous or drugs for it or anything.
So felt every bit of this pain as they put
the the plyers in and tried to get my tooth
out and it broke off, and so they broke off
the like kind of crown part of the tooth, the molar,
and all of the root was still in there, so
they had to fucking dig into my gums while I
was not drugged and fucking like at one point he
put his fucking foot against the chair to get leverage
because he had to like yank this fucking bone out
of my head and just bleeding profusely, all to save
a couple hundred bucks. And sure enough, now I'm spending
you know, like five figures trying to fix all this
shit that I could have just spent a couple hundred
bucks when I was twenty and had.
Speaker 4: It fixed backs So Little Timmy was right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's my son flower seed story.
Speaker 4: So is it your favorite part of the trail mix?
Speaker 2: Pretty good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I do really like sunflowers, like hey, but yeah,
the barbecue ones. You kidding me? Barbecue ran this thing
and in a couple of weeks, I'm gonna get I'm
the same on a sunflower, go nuts on the dust,
you break three other teeth. Uh yeah, No, I seriously
didn't know you're supposed to spit out the seeds, so
I was too old.
Speaker 2: They're fine, you can swallow.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: Jeff corrupted something to his asshole by eating too many
some flower seeds shells.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't digest them all the way, and they get.
Speaker 2: So many that like fucked up his asshole and he
had to have somebody blue sky to Jeff Grabb and
asking about his asshole with some flower seeds.
Speaker 1: Okay, no, I can imagine. Yeah, I don't know. I
don't know all the things I would say. Yeah, I
didn't ask for that either.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: The most important element of a trail mix, you know
what I'm gonna be fucking I'm gonna I'm gonna say
that the eminem you need some sugar when you're on
a hike. They add a lot of like a good
flavor profile to it. They give it a bit of
a candy. It's like those are the pieces that you're
excited to see. It keeps you eating all the peanuts
and the walnuts and the cashews and the raisins, the
healthy stuff, because then you get to that next eminem
You're like, oh this is great and on a hike.
That's what you need anyway, you need to keep your
blood sugar up.
Speaker 2: I will never buy a pack of Eminem's, but I'm
upset about being confronted with M and ms.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I do like the Christmas like sometimes I remember that,
Like my Grandpa always had the green and red ones
for Christmas.
Speaker 2: So I eat a lot of those those. Yeah yeah, no, no, no,
just the regular, but there were colored red ones that
were they had those two ones.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, those were really good, the Prezza ones, the
caramel pieces. Fuck them up? All right? Well, thank you
Wes first not long time, first time, long time, long time,
long time, long time, Western Baltimore. That's our show, fire
Scape Cast at gmail dot com. Get the inbox filled
up with good questions. If they're not good, good, I'll
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want to get video versions. We do video versions of
every episode. We also do occasional bonus episodes, but right
now we have a bonus series going on with Vinnie Caravella.
Over at Nexlander, I'm playing We're playing Total War Warhammer
three co op campaigns. We're doing one for fire Escape
that's every other week, the off week from the show,
and then we're doing also a show where we're playing
evil factions for next Lander, and that's every other week
over there. You do need to be a patron at
both if you want to watch both, But if you
just want to do a piecemeal, go subscribe to them
or US. I like us quite a bit. I like
them a lot. They're worth subscribing to. If you're not
a patron already, Dan, what do you have going on
in the meantime.
Speaker 2: Giant Bomb, I'm just doing a whole lot of stuff.
We got a new website launching very very soon. Thank
you Chuck for all the work going into that. But yeah,
really going nuts over there. So check out Giant Bomb.
We got the Twitch channel and all that stuff. But
this time of year especially, it's kind of harder to
find time there, So buyer escaping Giant Bomb priorities.
Speaker 1: Mary about you, Just.
Speaker 3: Usually streaming on Mondays when I can and Instagram lots
of good dog picks on there. Come check out my
happy dog in the fall in Portland. Lots of leaves, guys.
It's stunning over here, is.
Speaker 2: The recent pictures, like I saw one like today. If
you walk and seeming around like Portland looks delightful.
Speaker 3: It's so I'm so pretty in the fall here it
really is like a it's just a magazine and I
love it.
Speaker 4: It's a short lived time though, like soon it will
be winter and there will be nothing.
Speaker 3: But right now I'm bliss, you know, like this is
this is like a dream, so so I probably have
like I want to say, there's maybe two weeks left
of this and then all the leaves will be gone.
Speaker 1: What are Portland winters like rainy. Oh gotcha?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like really rainy, kind of sad on Oka winters.
It's hard, it rains a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh tropical, Oh.
Speaker 3: Rain sounds incredible, it really does.
Speaker 1: And then I feel like I had something else. Yes.
December sixth, Fire Escapes Game of the Year annual live
stream will be commencing henceforth from Minneapolis, as we do
every year. We'll be descending on Dan's house, Jake, Mary,
Dan and I. I think we decided it's gonna be
on twitch dot tv slash Dan Riiker. We're just gonna
keep that going.
Speaker 2: And then we have the YouTube for fire Escape.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you're not, if you're not following the
fire Escape YouTube, then go do that because that's where
we'll be putting up the video version afterward, the VOD
and tentative plan. I don't know that we're one hundred percent,
but tentative is that we're going to if you can't
make the show that day or you can't see the
whole thing, because they tend to be like six or
seven hours, we're going to break it into two episodes
and publish those in the subsequent weeks before we get
back and not the.
Speaker 2: Usual two week cadence, you will there will be like
a bonus week where normally there wouldn't be anything, and
now you'll get part one of a Game of the year. Yeah,
and then the normal post day you'll get part two.
Speaker 1: And then back to regularly regularly scheduled programming once we
get toward twenty twenty six. Yeah, lot going on. Busy stuff,
good stuff, are busy.
Speaker 2: Yeeah, we should uh do we have time? Like it's not.
The next one is the Game of the year, right, No? No,
this one more before we should each thinking, uh to
give each other one homework assignment of like, Okay, this
is a game I feel very strongly about, and I
will talk about for like game of the year type
caliber that we you know, say, at least get a
couple hours into it or something.
Speaker 1: Okay, I gotta catch up.
Speaker 3: Me think I have to think about it like that.
Speaker 2: You've got a couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: I know.
Speaker 3: It's just important because whatever we say, it's like what
we're essentially saying is is like listen, this is going
to come up during gody. I need you to take this.
Speaker 1: Seriously and we have to pick one that like obviously
the other two have not really played.
Speaker 2: So yeah, okay, But.
Speaker 1: Then there's some I'm not even gonna bother recommending to you,
Like a lot of people are telling me I would
like Kingdom Come Deliverance too. I don't think I'm gonna
recommend that to you too, But I know Jake has
played it, so I'm gonna see what I think.
Speaker 2: Sure, it's good.
Speaker 3: Jake's going to be my saving grace for a couple
of things because I know there are things that him
and I play that you guys probably didn't play that
He's gonna come out of the woodwork to protect me.
Speaker 2: God, it's a tough one because I would love for
you too to play dest Training two a lot, but like.
Speaker 1: I've played a lot of deasth Training two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he didn't.
Speaker 1: We talked to We talked about it for like thirty minutes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I literally told me that you never played it.
I'd be like, oh, okay, you should check it out.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, that's what you We're just assuming and
I'm refuting it now I know, Okay, So don't assign
that I won't or I could have had you assign
it to waste yours. Now, it's not a combative assignment, but.
Speaker 3: Like it's a strategic ahead to you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make you guys play like fucking City Defense
six your Universalists, and I'll wind up loving it. Yeah,
I'm sure. No I made that game up. If you
couldn't tell, Well, that's our episode. Thank you everybody for joining.
We'll be back in a couple of weeks with episode
one twenty one, which is the final episode before our
Game of the Year showdown Shenanigans. Should it be a showdown?
Does that automatically imply it be combative?
Speaker 2: I think it's a discussion. I feel like it's rarely
been combative. I think it's like certain silly arguments or whatever,
like you know, me pushing for Fortnite or destranding or whatever,
and you know, like, I think that's rarer than.
Speaker 1: YouTube for me a coalition to push Pickman right at
the very end after we gushed the ball.
Speaker 2: It's been pretty cool.
Speaker 1: It would have been cool because Dan didn't do pick
me a giant bomb, but this could have been his
Pickman pick I don't know what voice that was. Yeah,
it'll be fun. We're gonna do our team dinner the
night before, so I'm sure We'll be in great shape
the next day.
Speaker 3: Oh we will.
Speaker 4: Our butts will be ready to go.
Speaker 1: My butt's gonna be torn asunder.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna eat so many seeds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna scread that only trail mix.
Speaker 2: We go to the sunflower seed restaurant here in Minnesota,
and yeah, I just doesn't get shifts his brains out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I'm just leaking out of my butt the.
Speaker 3: Entire All the seats have paper towels on them.
Speaker 1: Perfect. Oh I'm bringing diapers this year, baby, don't you
worry about that. All right, we'll be back in a
couple of weeks. Until then, see you, h