Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the Fire Escape Cast. It
is episode one hundred and thirty seven. I think it
is nine to thirteen pm in Shanghai. Hello to all
our listeners there where.
Speaker 2: I'm Michael Party. Yeah, millions, well in Shanghais. I think
it's only in the hundreds of thousands in Shanghai.
Speaker 3: That's our main demo.
Speaker 2: There's one hundred thousand in China.
Speaker 1: About twenty k of them are in Shanghai spread around
the country, which is nice.
Speaker 4: We love Shanghai and Shanghai loves us.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, that's me Hi's and that's Mary.
Speaker 4: Hello. It's Shanghaians.
Speaker 2: How do you I don't know.
Speaker 3: It can't be Shanghaians. That's how you say it.
Speaker 2: Let me look it up.
Speaker 1: Some city citizens have cool names, like Liverpool's. They're a Liverpudlian.
Speaker 3: That's fun.
Speaker 5: That sounds like a that sounds like, what's the thing
with a little people live the giant Lila Puttian?
Speaker 3: Is that it?
Speaker 2: You're Jonathan Swift whatever.
Speaker 5: There's the monster guy and then he lives in like
a bunch like a kingdom for couplings type like.
Speaker 2: I think it's little little Puddians.
Speaker 3: A fun name.
Speaker 2: They are as a Shanghai.
Speaker 3: No, it's not Shanghais.
Speaker 4: Amazing.
Speaker 2: In Mandarin Chinese, they're referred to as Shanghaian.
Speaker 4: Have them even more?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Shanghanese people ethnic subgroup of Han Chinese who have
ancecil roots from Shanghai.
Speaker 3: Okay, you learn something every day?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Cool, there's like, what are fun city?
Speaker 1: I don't even know how to say that fun name people?
Speaker 3: The cities and countries.
Speaker 2: Oh, here we go.
Speaker 3: Canadians isn't funny? Mexicans isn't funny?
Speaker 1: Americans not Boston, Massholes, just Massachusetts.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Hartlepool are called monk oh.
Speaker 1: Okay, these are not actual Yeah, these are, like Mary said, nicknames.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and they're probably given by the locals and you're
not even supposed to know them because you're not from there.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean. It's like, we don't belong here.
We shouldn't.
Speaker 6: If you go into some of these places and call
them these things, they'll punch you in the face.
Speaker 5: It's like the San Francisco thing, like the people to
say Frisco and stuff like that.
Speaker 6: You know, Like I remember when I first moved there
and said San fran and they were like don't.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, okay.
Speaker 4: Do you not say to San Francisco?
Speaker 3: You know what I mean?
Speaker 4: I think, what's so annoying about it?
Speaker 2: But I called it Frisco.
Speaker 5: I called it from Australia.
Speaker 4: Short it shortening it is fair.
Speaker 1: I know it is also accepted, but it's San Francisco,
s F or just the city if you're not, if
you're in there, but here in Michigan and then Upper Peninsula,
up up Upper Peninsula.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I've heard that.
Speaker 2: Thing, and I don't. I've never heard this other one.
Speaker 1: If you there's a bridge that can next the peninsulas,
if you live below the bridge, you're a troll according
to Reddit, like you live below a bridge.
Speaker 4: I would not say that to the locals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just ran out of gas.
Speaker 4: Troll, Do you think you can help me out?
Speaker 2: My brother? My brother's a troll? Hey, troll? Can you
give me a ride at the airport?
Speaker 3: Troll answering riddles even when you're not asked.
Speaker 4: One Mike Mahrty was last scene below the.
Speaker 1: Bridge somewhere in Mackinaw cheeseheads. That's what Yeah, these are
these are not this is not what I meant.
Speaker 4: Ye, they're dangerously closed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah again.
Speaker 4: I think you have to you have to be there.
Speaker 1: Doms that's what we wanted. Liverpool is Liverpudlian. Manchester is
a Mancoonian is Monagas.
Speaker 4: I don't know about that one.
Speaker 2: So Glasgow is Glasswegian. I've heard that that's fun. Style
of fact.
Speaker 6: I have the same reaction based on how silly they sound, doesn't.
Speaker 3: You If it just has an end with an n as,
it's fine.
Speaker 2: This one's good. Winnipeg is a Winnipegger mm hmm.
Speaker 4: I would definitely not use that. I saw the area.
What's up peggars q.
Speaker 2: I thought Quebequa was all of Quebec.
Speaker 3: Apparently that's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Aberdonian Hobart. I'm trying to find like a fun one.
Speaker 3: Oh this is good.
Speaker 2: There's a place in France called Condom. There's a condom.
Speaker 3: Wah, Oklahoma's Oakie. Oh yeah, Oki from Kie. Yeah, what's like?
Speaker 2: What's that's nice?
Speaker 4: I like a good rhyme or an alliteration.
Speaker 6: I can get behind all those, and if it has
some kind of silliness to it, yes, but other than.
Speaker 2: That interesting okay, well, yeah, that's that's cool.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm a Liverpoolian. I'm from Liverpool in New York. Do
people say that there? I have no idea. I just
always said they set out he's from Liverpool.
Speaker 4: Anyone who says metrol to around New York City is
a troll?
Speaker 1: Your Yeah, it was not related to my geographical location.
They just called me a troll. Coincidentally, it was.
Speaker 6: A nickname and it stuck and I've kind of gotten
accustomed to it now.
Speaker 4: When someone says troll, I I respond, I assume that's me.
Speaker 2: What is Minneapolis? Just say Minnesota?
Speaker 5: Like from Minnesota's yeah, like, yeah, there's from the Twins Minnesotan.
Speaker 1: I don't do you call people from Minneapolis Twin cities?
Speaker 2: That is, in many Minneapolitans, no one says that.
Speaker 3: No one says, no one's ever said that.
Speaker 4: No, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: You should try a Juicy Lucy if you're in Minnesota.
Thanks Gemini. Fuck off, you don't know, you don't know
about Juicy Lucy's.
Speaker 2: I'm so stupid. Wow, damn, what's new with you? Uh?
Speaker 3: I watched a movie this morning.
Speaker 1: Yeah you mentioned this and you did not say what
it was, So yeah, okay.
Speaker 5: So I'm seeing the Odyssey tomorrow, and I want to
touch on that with Mary here because I've got some
thoughts going into it because it's like I don't know
anything about the Odyssey I like, and it's funny because
like I've been talking on Giant bomb stuff this week
about the Odyssey and people are getting mad at me
as they are wont to do.
Speaker 1: Okay, it's an iconic story, right, yeah, like I know
broad strokes, but I also don't.
Speaker 2: I like, have never read the Odyssey, Like here we.
Speaker 3: Go and you've read like every goddamn book in the
world like that.
Speaker 1: I know the broad strokes of the Iliad the Odyssey
like Homer's I understand, like off like certain story.
Speaker 2: Traits somebody I know it. No, I know what they are.
Speaker 1: But it's not like I could tell you every plot
point from every version of the Odyssey is.
Speaker 5: Well, it's not just that. Okay, well okay. People were
complaining that, like I was saying, well, you know, I'm
from Kansas. They didn't teaches this stuff, and like somebody
in the Commons said, like, I went to your school district,
like it was definitely part of the curriculum.
Speaker 2: Classics teacher, Yeah, I taught you this and then I do.
Speaker 5: I remember we had an eighth grade project called the
Odyssey where we were supposed to put together is the
end of the year thing where it's like my Odyssey
and we'll put together like a timeline of our life
and essays about things that happened to us. And I
did kind of remember that we were supposed to also
read the Odyssey as part of it.
Speaker 3: So I do think they did try to teach it
to me.
Speaker 6: I think maybe you have remnants of it in there,
like when you watch it, maybe you'll be like, oh
my god, I do think I know this part of
the story.
Speaker 4: There's like eight parts.
Speaker 3: I think I will.
Speaker 5: There will be like creatures and stuff and like oh
I remember this thing or whatever, and I'll get to
how the ties on of the movie I watched this morning.
But the thing I thought, guys, you're right, yeah, well no, no,
I don't know that. I'm thinking of American ladiators like Zelda.
Speaker 1: Like most of Zelda Miyamoto has said, like the idea
of a temple that you're descending into to fight a
boss is what Odysseus did in the Maze.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, So yeah, if you.
Speaker 5: Don't know it, you have you understand I'm chrudging that
a billion things that were inspired by it or directly
reference it and just didn't.
Speaker 3: We're like got of war, you know, like all of
those creatures and stuff. But I also know stuff that.
Speaker 6: Are vague, like oh, brother, we're out there is very
directly connected to the Iliad, and like people might not
directly recognize it, but now after tomorrow, once you've seen it,
if you rewatch o, brother, we're out though.
Speaker 4: You'll be like, oh my god, I get it. So
it's all connected.
Speaker 5: That's the thing I read about all the movies I
see and everything, and I do it does like oh brother,
we're arth though. It came up with that, So I
knew watching old brother, We're out there that is based
on the Odyssey and everything, but like I just don't
know the actual story.
Speaker 3: So but the thing that got me.
Speaker 5: Okay, I think the main thing I said that made
people upset was I was talking about how like I
don't know a lot of like once you get to
like castles and swords, times, I don't really know what's
from mythology, what's from Shakespeare, what's from it's all just
castles and and what's that's a key one. They that
didn't make people as mad as when I said I
didn't know if Joan of Arc or Helen O Troy
were real, and apparently one of them is very real,
and one of them Joan of.
Speaker 2: Arc real person.
Speaker 4: She really she was really burned, really really.
Speaker 2: Tragic figure in history. That's the thing.
Speaker 3: I didn't know if that was from a Shakespeare thing
or something.
Speaker 1: Dad, I'll be the first to tell you if you're
being stupid for something, I don't think you that's crazy.
Speaker 2: I don't believe.
Speaker 4: I can't believe Watergate was.
Speaker 1: Let me say what probably pissed people off is that's
like maybe they thought that's disrespectful to Joan of Arc,
who's a new, very real person, and like, but I
don't think that's indefensible or wait, I yeah, I don't
think that's the end.
Speaker 2: Of the world. I mean, it's just.
Speaker 5: Like this is not the era or anything I know
anything about. So like that kind of goes into what
I was thinking today watch this movie is because like
you know, again Castle's swords, I don't know the difference
medieval or Renaissance or like even like Dracula. I was
gonna say Dracula times not. I know, Dracula is not tract.
Speaker 2: Dracula is real, but you know what I mean, like like.
Speaker 5: Not rot too, like you know, the eighteen hundreds or whatever.
Probably you know, it's like that's all this kind of like.
Speaker 4: Melge he's here, he's in our senate.
Speaker 1: Then I just lowered you a ladder into the hole,
and instead of climbing up my ladder, you start furiously
deep deeper. I just I get what you mean. I
don't think the joanav rc Helen of Troy thing is
the end of.
Speaker 5: The world, right, And for the I'm not saying at
any point I even entertained the iddy of Dracula being real.
I'm just saying that time period in medieval times and
the Benshi and all this shit, it all just kind
of is swords and castles, time to make anything pre
like revolutionary nineteen hundreds. Basically, I'm like, it's all just
kind of you know, the.
Speaker 1: Difference between like revolutionary war and like midie like medieval.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like knights suits of armor and revolutionary or yes,
I can.
Speaker 1: Like hundreds and years of years, but like there's a
difference between muskets and like yeah.
Speaker 3: So once there's once there's guns. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 5: Once there's guns and America, Like, I know that's different
than like nights and torture and stuff like that. But
this morning, I so I had to run twelve miles
today as part of the marathon training. And that's what
I mean for part of them Earthon training ad. It's
like it's a schedule, you know. So it's like, and
I did the math, I'm like, shit, I need a
long movie to watch for this. And I'm like I'm
just kind of like looking through what's on Netflix and stuff,
and I never seen the Northmen.
Speaker 3: Have you guys seen this?
Speaker 2: Yeah? What's his name?
Speaker 5: Avid Eggers and one of the one of the forties
stars Guard Kids.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very gray Bill or Stellin or one of
the bill is Pennywise.
Speaker 2: Stellen is the dad. It's the guy from a succession session.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, And so okay, I guess I'll lightly spoil
some Northman here, So gip ahead a little b if
you're worried about that. But it's like, so I go
into this and anytime I see like a year and
so again swords and castles, I think my default brain
state is assuming, like, well, this is probably loosely based
on reality, and I think it's like like in that
Brave Heart way where you know, like Braveheart is like
my understanding is that, like, Okay, this is based on
an actual war. William Wallace was an actual guy. They
probably took a lot of creative liberties. But this is
loosely kind of stuff that happened, you know, in like fiction,
I guess, yeah. And so like I went into this, yeah,
I literally knew nothing about the Northmend going rather than like.
Speaker 1: The funny movie that ship, the ending, especially the final duel.
Speaker 3: Well actially, so that's what I'm thinking of.
Speaker 5: I'm on this treadmill today and I'm like, all right,
well this thing it says like a D seventeen hundred
something and it's like Iceland, and I'm like, Okay, I
wonder if this is like a real maybe this is
how Iceland got founded or something. It's like and then
for like an hour it's not totally supernatural. There's like
there's a part where he talks to b York and
she's like a raven and it's like that, I'm like, Okay,
maybe this is like a dream or like a drug
trip or something, or a vision he had and like
maybe this is still like Iceland's origin or something. And
then like an hour in, I'm an hour of this
fucking movie and it's like a talking skull is telling
him he has to go fight a stalfos night to
get a magic sword that fucking like only as magic
at night. And I'm like, okay, I don't think this happens, Yeah,
inside a volcano. That's I think they're in a volcano
and it's a hill. But it's so confusing because they're
also talking about like Christians and stuff and like things
that like in Iceland they say Iceland and Christians and
like terms that.
Speaker 3: Are in the real world. And I was like, let's
pick a lane here.
Speaker 5: I don't know if this is supposed to be like
super duper supernatural or if this is like, yeah, this
is the Iceland War, you know.
Speaker 6: But think about anytime you have history that's really really
old and it's.
Speaker 4: Passed down from generation to generation, often.
Speaker 6: Over like a fire, and like kids that are listening
over generations, it gets more whimsical, it gets more obtuse,
it gets more exciting because these are stories that are
being passed down and so a lot of times and
this is kind of similar to Homer's Journey as well,
like there are elements where people are like, yeah, I
mean these.
Speaker 4: Places are real.
Speaker 6: Troy was real, these battles did happen, and then it's
the details where people will say, well, she wasn't you.
It wasn't just a battle over like a lady. It
was the most beautiful woman in the world and her
face launched you know, a thousand ships, and it's like it.
Speaker 4: Just starts exaggerating.
Speaker 6: So there is a possibility to some degree that even
like these happened, and then somewhere between the eighth and
the ninth generation they were like they were in a
volcano when they fought each other, and all the kids
are eating this shit up, and I think it's genuinely
how culture tells stories over time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it's it's so twisted where it's like, because
I didn't look it up afterwards to be like, all right,
is this based on a myth or an actual figure
of some sort, And like I looked it up and
it's like the guy's name is like Amlet or something
or Amulet or It's something is his name, And then
I clicked the link of like, okay, it's from this
guy's stage of Britannica or whatever in the twelve hundreds,
and turns out this guy's also the character that Hamlet
was based on, which I don't know shit all about Hamlet,
but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a guy killing his
uncle in a volcano.
Speaker 3: Like, like, what the fuck is this? Like how does
this happen there?
Speaker 2: It's like, what do you want to call it?
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey like Star Wars is basically taking
that one for one. George Lucas just read that. I
was like, I'm gonna do this, but it's gonna be
a space opera. Like there's only like I don't I'm
exaggerating here, but there's only like four original stories. There's
a Gilgamesh, there's BeO Wolf, and then I'm forgetting like
one or two. But then every single hero story from you,
it's like, this is very, very stupid. There's really only
six cocktails, but every single cocktail you've ever tried is
like a variation of those.
Speaker 2: It's similar.
Speaker 1: It's like no a like a last word or a
last word is not the same as agrony, but they
basically have their roots in the same thing like similar
like stories. It's like there's the same tropes that are
repeated throughout thousands of years, but like the original one itself.
Speaker 4: Same thing with music too, I mean there's like not
as many chords as you think.
Speaker 2: A lot of you.
Speaker 4: Got, you.
Speaker 2: Got.
Speaker 1: That's like there's the scene in the what was that movie?
I think it was Greg Kinear.
Speaker 2: Yes, wow, No, it's actually not. It's he's a loyal.
Speaker 1: And basically they are trying like the he's a def
I think he's a defense lawyer for someone who invented
something like some sort of windshield wiper. I'm butchering the
fucking details. People can email me and tell me what
it really is, but I think the gist of it,
he's a defendant saying like, Okay, did Shakespeare invent this word?
And they're like no, He's like did Shakespeare invent this word?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: He's like okay, but did Shakespeare write this sentence? And
they're like, like, I think to be or not to be?
And they're like yeah, He's like okay, So just because
he used the constituent parts to form this sentence does
not mean that the person who originally made those words
are like has like patent rights over. He's trying to
show how like you can combine things. But like, at
the end of the day, Shakespeare is still using the
English language, but it doesn't mean that his stories are
the same as anybody else writing the English language, even
they come from the same source. It's very I don't know,
I got I forget.
Speaker 2: What the movie. I think it was Windshield Wipers. I
don't know why that stuck in my head.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Similarly, it's like, if you really look at
any story, like Annihilation is kind of like the Odyssey
because there's four people, Like I don't know. The juice
of the Odyssey is that Odysseus is getting back trying
to go home after a ten year war.
Speaker 2: That's the basic premise.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the journey and is the journey home?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that's where the word odyssey comes from.
But is the war supposed to be the war of
like Troy.
Speaker 4: Battle of Troy is within the war. He's kind of
the crux of it.
Speaker 3: This is what sucked me up because I saw Troy
the brad Pitt one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 5: And it's like, okay, yes, I assumed that was like
a saving private Ryan type like, here's what the war was,
like you know.
Speaker 2: Like that's it, that's all. Yeah, that's that's dude.
Speaker 6: When he like slowly lowers the knife into his heel
and he's like no, no, no, and he's like and
then slowly puts the knife into.
Speaker 3: See what we're doing here.
Speaker 2: That's good, thank you.
Speaker 3: No, but like that before we move on, is that
was the Trojan war?
Speaker 2: Real the Trojan So the movie itself with a war
in Troy.
Speaker 3: The horse thing happened?
Speaker 2: No, that that was it?
Speaker 4: That is a myss No.
Speaker 3: Do you say why this is confusing?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, that was mentioned in the I believe is
mentioned in the Odyssey, but it's like, what the hell
is the word?
Speaker 2: It's not the Iliad, it's not the Odyssey.
Speaker 3: The a need A.
Speaker 2: Need that's another story and I believe that deeper into that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and so does this movie.
Speaker 6: And so that's kind of important context for people who
are like, I mean, everyone's hearing about this movie because
it's like the first movie that was ever made completely
on imax, which is a huge obstacle in cinema.
Speaker 4: This machine is like extremely heavy and loud.
Speaker 6: And it's it creates all these problems, which way they
never make movies with it.
Speaker 5: I also heard the camera only the magazine is only
three minutes of films. She had to shoot like three
minutes at a time, which is insane.
Speaker 4: Because it's so much memory that it was a huge
slog to get it done.
Speaker 6: And they had to invent stuff for it too, which
is just really quickly the actors, because the machine is
so goddamn big, it's in between them while they're shooting,
so the actors can't see each other.
Speaker 4: So they had to invent a series of.
Speaker 6: Mirrors so that the actors could look at each other
while they're filming. Because the camera was so big, it's
in the fucking way, it's in the scenes. They had
to invent all these things to make sure they could
see each other. And then when a yeah, like if
an actor was supposed to like look down the barrel
of the gun or like you know, look you know,
directly into the camera, they had to be like, here
is where you should look, because it's you're just like
looking at this giant.
Speaker 3: Of Ferris Bueller monologues to the lens.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's constantly You're amazed with how much you will
not laugh in this film funny at.
Speaker 6: Just it's never funny. No, it's just not a it's
not a joke. It's never funny. It's like a very
intense and it's three.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's what I want.
Speaker 1: I have a bunch of questions for you, and we're
not to be sure we're not spoiling anything, and like
I will not like if you are someone who is
really into the Odyssey or the Iliad and want to know,
like like we were talking like the Trojan War as
it's describing the story pretty much did not happen.
Speaker 2: But there was a city called Troy stuff like that,
like and there was.
Speaker 4: A war, yeah, like there were there.
Speaker 1: There wasn't like a ten year siege the over Helen
of Troy etctera, but like it was Helen and Troy
a real person, I don't think so, Okay, I think
she was an invention in myth.
Speaker 2: She was like Zeus is one of Zeus's daughters, I think.
Speaker 6: And this is very much based on on gods, So
in this movie there's gods everywhere. But I think in
this version of it, the vision for this film feels
mythical yet human because the gods don't look like gods.
Speaker 3: So they aren't like God of War, is it?
Speaker 6: It's it's well, they have like people who look like
people who are gods.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean our dudes like throwing lightning bolts and stuff.
Speaker 6: Oh, it's not like that. It's more like ethereal. But
there are there are mystical There are several mystical creatures
or like things where you're like, that ain't human, that's
not normal, and that's it's spectacular to look.
Speaker 1: So my friend said, it's as it's the most grounded
version of a story with actual cyclopses that he's seen.
Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, Like there's a couple of monsters or things
that aren't human. But then there's also things that I
suspect in the in the in the books are meant
to be much more wild looking, and in this movie
they feel grounded. Maybe the person is bigger than they
should be, but.
Speaker 4: They still look like people. Does that make sense? Or maybe?
Like I think in the end, and again I won't.
Speaker 6: Spoil it, but there's like a there's like a scene
where I think Homer is supposed to be uh or
sorry Odysseus.
Speaker 4: I don't know why I keep calling him Homer.
Speaker 6: Odysseus is meant to disguise himself, and I think in
more of like the books and stuff, it's like he's
using magic, like gods are disguising him, and so it
probably looks so cool. And in this one, it's like,
I probably he has like a cloak on him. He's
like wearing like wearing, he's like wearing a robe and
you can't see his face. And I was like, I
don't think it's interesting, right, Like it's it's weirdly grounded
to be.
Speaker 4: Like he's disguised.
Speaker 6: You can't see him, can you? But I don't think
that was the original interpretation of it. But nevertheless, that
makes you feel very grounded when you watch it, because
when something not normal happens, it's a spectacle.
Speaker 4: It's shocking because.
Speaker 5: Like the idea of the cloak guy being just like
we're going to cut of corners and some costs here.
Speaker 6: I know there's been some people that have ragged on
the set, not the set, the outfits, and it just
kind of looks like some of them are three D printed,
which I'm sure is true. I'm sure that's helped a
lot with like the way that they've made certain shields
and helmets that there.
Speaker 4: The design of the warriors looks.
Speaker 6: Awesome, I think, and I think some people have been
like these look ridiculously three D printed, But I just
think it's they wanted a new version, and they wanted
a new vision, and.
Speaker 4: So they took some they took some risks.
Speaker 2: The helmet shot.
Speaker 1: I saw the shot of Menelause hunting John Bernhal's character
with like a bon and arrow, but his armor looks
like someone said, it looks like Lulu Lemon made hunting armor,
and I was like, I have Okay. There's a lot
of like controversy surrounding this movie. That's bullshit and people
need to get off the internet. But for that screen shot,
I was like, yeah, that's kind of on the nose.
Speaker 4: Actually, I'm fully in agreement with you. Mike's like they're there.
Speaker 6: They were like casting things that people were like, I
can't believe you'd cast the movie is perfectly cast.
Speaker 2: Oh, I mean, we don't have to get too far
into it.
Speaker 4: I don't give.
Speaker 3: Me a one sentence. What is like two woke or
whatever about the Odyssey.
Speaker 2: Uh Athena is played by a black actor.
Speaker 1: I say, you know who was birth out of a
fucking swans egg.
Speaker 2: They were pissed that this was not a realistic white character. Yeah, anyway, and.
Speaker 6: Also this this character is supposed to be like stunningly beautiful.
She's written suddenly beautiful, and she's played by the most
stunningly beautiful actress.
Speaker 2: Like it's it's.
Speaker 6: Unbelievable, and so like, I think it's unnecessary to even
go down that route. The point is is like the
casting is extremely good, the acting is very good, but
you also have to recognize all of this dialogue was
written in yesteryear. It was written so long ago that
half of it wouldn't make sense. They had to rewrite
it in modern day speak because it it wouldn't translate. Well,
if you literally tried to make a Hamlet today the
way they talk, you'd be like, I don't get it,
what's going on? Like who's who's with who? Because of that,
I think sometimes the writing will suck you. It sucked
me out of the film where I was like, well,
I wouldn't say that, and it's just.
Speaker 4: Like that's how they talk.
Speaker 6: They tried to merge old ass language with the way
we talk today, and sometimes that means you know, yeah,
they're saying like, you know, I'm not going to take
this l They're running around with a with a mix
of dialogue, but I think it's a really nice mix
of the world and it's a feast for the eyes
in terms of how many times I went ooh, like
that is a lot of times you're like leaning back
in your chair because the action sequences or the these
poor dudes. The general plot here is is this is
after the war, they are ready to go home.
Speaker 4: Is a bunch of really strong men.
Speaker 6: They're all warriors, they're all extremely what they did because
they just did a war and one because they're so good.
But they keep coming into shit on their way home,
and it is it is like dire, like it just
keeps getting like damn. It just like hit after hit
after hit to these like really strong dudes. So every
time it happens, it's really shocking to watch these like
really strong, very surefaced, muscular warriors face absurd situations, not
just in terms of like maybe a giant or like
some kind of being, but also sneaky stuff like witches
and sirens and sirens are like an ethereal, you know,
you know, there's like that lore that if you hear
their song.
Speaker 2: You'll that's that's sirens.
Speaker 4: That's a sirens call.
Speaker 5: Okay call. I hate most of these things. I'm probably
gonna recognize from God of War.
Speaker 6: You know, I think you're absolutely right interpretation luckily for me,
because I also haven't I haven't read these books, but
I have seen the Wishbone episode. Wishbone was the dog
that would play different characters in books and try and
explain the books. And it is unbelievable to me how
much my understanding of this Wishbone episode came in to
serve me during this movie.
Speaker 4: I knew exactly what I knew it was gonna happen
the whole time. You guys, you see in the Wishbone episode.
Speaker 6: You've seen this film and like maybe the design is
a little nicer, but like it's so funny, even like
the major plot, like the ending, it's Wishbones episode. You guys,
like I was, I was laughing, Yeah, quick appearance, so Hilaire,
Yeah there there is a puff in.
Speaker 4: Uh, there is a pupp not a see.
Speaker 6: It's really good and he's really cute and plays like
a pretty vital role as he should. I was laughing
at myself, like how much, Uh, I mentioned something that
I won't bring up now because I think it's too
much of a spoiler. And my friends were like, that
didn't happen in the books, and I closed my mouth
because I was like, ooh, that's a Wishbone reference. They
must have been wrong.
Speaker 4: It was in the movie. He was right the whole time.
My friends must have like missed a piece of the book.
Speaker 6: But Wishbone got it right, and Mary got it right
because I had wash Wishbone. So like that episode, and
maybe Wishbone in general has saved me from embarrassing myself
in terms of like not knowing what books were about.
Speaker 5: Well, is it even like an applicable question to ask,
like what year or time period does this take place in?
Speaker 3: Or is it just like the past?
Speaker 6: You know, I'm not sure if because it's so based
in Greek mythology, if it has a year, Mike, you
might be better to answer that.
Speaker 3: But generally when we talk was the Trojan War?
Speaker 1: I mean, let me let me, I really don't know, Uh,
the Trojan War again didn't really happen like in the
way we know it.
Speaker 4: They don't even again, this is great Greek mythology.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I want to say Homer like the Odyssey,
the epic poem was like, fuck, I'm gonna sound stupid.
Four hundred BC. Okay, fact check that. That's not even
fact checking. It's see how close I was, or just
see like when was the Odyssey written?
Speaker 3: Let's see the Odyssey was.
Speaker 2: It's absolutely BC. It's it's it's it's a while ago.
Speaker 5: Uh, boys, you think it's usually books. They just have
a thing there. Okay, first composed around the eighth or
seventh century BC.
Speaker 3: Jesus Christ eighth or damn it.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say so, like, okay, so seven or
eight hundred BC. Yeah, okay, I was not nearly far enough.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's good.
Speaker 6: I will say, like, I didn't see it in IMAX,
and I wish I had.
Speaker 3: I do an IMAX.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you kind of cut out some of
the There were action scenes where I felt like it
was really zoomed in because I'm losing I was losing
like probably a third of the screen, you know what.
Speaker 5: I'm confused by it because, like I know, the IMAX
thing is a huge deal with this, and so I
want to make sure I'm like seeing it in the
best possible way and so I looked it up in
like the theater I'm seeing it, I has, like, okay,
Imax with laser, which is what we're seeing, which sounds
like that's like one of the good.
Speaker 4: Lasers right into your eyes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but then.
Speaker 5: There's Imax, like there's a seventy milimeter one, and like
I looked it up and I saw a chart that
shows the difference, and it's like the polar opposite, like
Imax is.
Speaker 3: Like a square four three, yeah, and the.
Speaker 5: Seventy milimeter is just the most just like the super
duper crazy, like you got like four monitors strung together,
Like how could you shoot a movie for both? Like
I don't really understand how that works.
Speaker 6: I think, yeah, they have, they have visuals guides when
they're making this, just like just like you do when
you shoot anything, you recognize that there's a safety center
that you could do it. But the way it was
intended was on Imax in that four x three version,
so that, yeah, the laser is how I would see it.
Speaker 4: No, I saw it.
Speaker 6: I saw it on a broke boy theater. I saw
in a regular theater for regular people. I thought it
was fantastic and I still enjoyed myself fully and I would.
I think my lasting point is is like, yes, I
think I probably there were some action scenes where I
didn't see all of it, right. I don't think I
saw all of the detail that the director had in mind.
Speaker 4: It's a fuck.
Speaker 6: Movies are expensive. This movie was expensive to see as
it was.
Speaker 4: My popcorn was like twenty dollars.
Speaker 6: See it, however you want to see it like I
saw it on a regular ass screen and I had
a great time. And I don't know, I can't possibly.
I don't feel like in good conscience I could say
if you don't see it on Imax, you're not seeing
It's like, shut the fuck up.
Speaker 4: Watch the movie.
Speaker 6: However, you can't afford to watch the movie and enjoy it.
I thought it was great on a regular screen.
Speaker 3: Is this a good uh?
Speaker 5: Because I love I'm sending it at an AMC and
they got that mcguffin's bar, and I love getting drinks
during movie.
Speaker 4: I love getting a drink, the gimmick.
Speaker 5: Drinks like they have, Like so I'm looking at the
hero's journey. Is the cocktail for this? We're like a
ten AM show. Would this be a good drinking movie?
Speaker 6: I think it's a good drinking movie because it's three hours, and.
Speaker 2: So you think I can go three hours without a drink.
Speaker 4: By the final button, She's got a problem.
Speaker 6: I saw it at the place where they bring you
like dinner, and I got I got boneless wings, and
it was awesome because I had coursed it out. So
I did fried pickles as my app with a drink,
boneless wings with loaded fries from my main and then
I got like popcorn, salt and vinegar my dessert. Yeah,
because I'm not much of a dessert person.
Speaker 1: It's a bold person who gets bone in wings in
a dark r Yeah, just say fucking everybody hears you
crunching and yelping.
Speaker 3: I have a rack of ribs with the oh, I.
Speaker 4: Could not imagine. I feel like I have been the
theaters that have.
Speaker 6: Like full on nice meals, you know, like a like
lamb chops and stuff like that, and I'm always like,
it feels wrong to watch a movie with such a
fine meal. I don't the juxtaposition doesn't make sense to me.
But but boneless wings and the Odyssey was where it
was actus. It was constantly I constantly had something to do, right,
you're constantly drinking and like watching this and not that
it's boring, but three hours is a long time.
Speaker 4: There are stretches where they're just like.
Speaker 6: On the water and they're like I don't know, maybe
we're lost, and it's like all right, like another double Sarah.
Speaker 4: Like there are.
Speaker 6: Times I've said this before. I think it's a controversial.
I don't think any truly needs to be three hours.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 6: I do not believe so, not in my heart of hearts,
except for Lord of the Rings extended edition that gets
like one pass everything else. Most of the time, I
feel like you could have you could have cut a
couple of pieces from.
Speaker 1: This, including his previous movie, which I thought Boppenheimer was.
Speaker 3: It's pretty.
Speaker 2: Heimer, but it was.
Speaker 1: There were some stretches were like all right, I don't
I don't need this part of this courtroom hearing.
Speaker 4: I heard that people who like that movie are called Opaheim's.
Speaker 3: Oh nice, nice that.
Speaker 4: I made that up.
Speaker 2: It sounds right.
Speaker 4: They don't have any fans. That movie is universally disliked.
Speaker 3: It's fine.
Speaker 4: I made that up.
Speaker 2: Took that.
Speaker 6: I heard Barbenheimer, and I remember vividly I loved Barbenheimer,
and I remember looking out of Oppenheimer. I did Barbie second.
I can't remember. I actually remember I walked out of
Oppenheimer saying that's a film, and walking out of Barbie
and being like, what.
Speaker 4: The fuck was that about.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying I didn't love it.
Speaker 6: I was like, it's just nonsensical. Barbie was like, we're
going to the Magical Gum Drop Kingdom.
Speaker 4: Get on the bike. I was like, I don't know
what's going on. I knew exactly what was going on
in Oppenheimer. They just talked a lot.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Amanda and I both left bar We saw
Oppenheimer first with a few friends, then we saw Barbie
and we're like, I think I.
Speaker 2: Like Barbie more than Oppenheimer.
Speaker 6: I I liked Oppenheimer more, but I think they were
both fun when actually Oppenheimer isn't fun at all.
Speaker 4: I think they were doing a different thing.
Speaker 2: They were doing.
Speaker 4: They were trying very different journey.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing. It's just a yellow drink with
lemons in it. That's the.
Speaker 5: Bies.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 5: It says tart honey spice cocktail with a legendary finish.
Speaker 1: Okay, am I thinking of a Yeah, I think it's
a beasknees honey, lemon bourbon.
Speaker 2: I might be coating something. I might be confused.
Speaker 4: There's only five cocktails.
Speaker 2: There's only six of them.
Speaker 5: I love going to the bar at r AMC because
it's always the same bartender lady.
Speaker 3: She's great. She seems like she's like.
Speaker 5: Like this fifty year old probably worked a bunch of
like dive bars her entire life. But then it's obvious
she loves movies, and so every time I go in,
she's like, all, what are you seeing?
Speaker 3: Like I'm gonna see honest Oh yeah, yesterday. It's awesome.
Speaker 5: It's like and I always come out two or three
times during the movie and get another drink or whatever,
like how's it going, what's going on? Did you get
to this bart and it's just chatting movies with this
bartender getting gimmick drinks, Like I love this try.
Speaker 1: That would be awesome to have to, like to be
a regular and have a usual at a movie theater bar. Yeah,
she's got it ready for you at certain times, like
I'll be out an intermission, dude.
Speaker 5: And there are times too where it's like she gave
me I think the dead Reckoning was the name of
the cocktail permission impossible, and it was like blue and
had all this stuff in it, and she gave it
to me. It's this giant, expensive drink and and then
I came out to piss at one point during the movie,
and she like ran across the like the thing to me,
and she's like get in here, like pulled me into
mcguffin's and she's like, I forgot to put the pineapple
juice in it.
Speaker 3: Here, you go have another one. I was like, fuck, yes,
that's awesome.
Speaker 4: Oh that's a good bar tends awesome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a good.
Speaker 6: Bartender is like, I messed up this drink and I
don't know.
Speaker 4: I mean, I can't drink it. Do you want to
drink it?
Speaker 6: And it's like we all know that I'm gonna drink
this drink. I had the opposite experience I went to.
When I went to the bar, I got a I
got a whiskey sour which they make with egg white
and shaken and I was like, great, that's how I
like it. And then when I was in the theater,
you order VIAQR code, and so I tried to order
another whiskey sour via QR code, but in this theater,
they don't have cocktails by list. You order the liquor
and then the additives and then how you want it.
And so I said, okay, it's a whiskey sour, so
I want a double of bourbon. And then I said,
I want sour mix because that's what you need, and
I want it served up, and so I I ordered it,
and I was like, I'm sure they know what to do.
And I got a fucking whiskey and and sour mix
neat on a in a glass and it was awful
and I drank it, but I was like, this is.
Speaker 2: Not what I wanted.
Speaker 1: I think sour takes some a bit of prep. Yeah, yeah, approach.
Speaker 2: Egg whites listed on that list, I'm assuming.
Speaker 6: No, they didn't have add egg to my content.
Speaker 2: I get that in like in a movie theater setting,
but like.
Speaker 4: This, I was hoping they'd put it together. I thought
they would put it together. They did not put it together.
Speaker 5: Well that's weird to me because like this, this particular
context sounds terrible for ordering and drink that way, because
like even if I went to a normal bar, like
I don't want it to be like a Chipotle, or
like I go to a soft serve place, and I
pointed three topics that were like I want to just
like if you're in a movie, you want to scan
the QR code, press a button. And then like, I
don't like the idea of like putting together a drink
while you're sitting in a seat at a movie, like.
Speaker 1: The cocktail mix and yeah, it's not everybody does at all, Like, yeah,
that's that's annoying. I think they're assuming you'll either want beer,
wine or like.
Speaker 3: A mixture something.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: The guy was like, I don't know, I got all
this shit back here. What does she want from me?
She wants she wants a she wants no ice, she
wants it served up with. All right, whatever, lady, here's
your growth, here's your juice, here's your juice and whiskey.
Speaker 4: And I was like, God, damn it. That was my odyssey,
was not was dealing with like alcohol.
Speaker 6: Anyway, I think people will like it. It's got great,
it's got so much attention. I'm sure there's going to
be the occasional hater. But my suspicion is that both
of you will walk out of that and say, what
a ride, because that's truly what it is. You're watching
like a group of burly men attempt to go home,
and it's really fucking difficult.
Speaker 2: I've seen every Nolan movie. I still have not seen Tenant.
Speaker 3: It's such ship.
Speaker 2: That's the only one.
Speaker 1: And I will say every single movie by Christopher Nolan,
even I would say maybe his weakest movie is.
Speaker 3: The Dark Knight Rises Tenant.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen Tenant.
Speaker 1: I've seen Okay, I'll take your word for it, and
I've heard that from some people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have.
Speaker 2: I know one person who defends it vehemently, and.
Speaker 3: I'll tell you they're an idiot.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you when we're not recording. Okay, uh, it's
someone we like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, not anymore.
Speaker 3: Wait, I'll look at my letter box and see what
people I know scored it.
Speaker 2: His his movies.
Speaker 1: They're always so easy to pick apart and say this
is so stupid, like oh, like Talia Algol's death, why
didn't you use a different take in Dark Knight Rise?
But like, oh right, not being said, they always stick
with me in a way that I like going back
to them.
Speaker 2: Interstellar.
Speaker 1: When I first saw it, I was like, that was
a messy as fuck, But now that I go back,
I'm like that movie's actually like maybe top twenty five
for me, even though I could pick it apart.
Speaker 5: Sure most of his stuff, because like I think, I
like to love to like all timer all of his movies,
you know, except fore Tennant, which I am looking right now,
and I need to talk to Casey Malone. I need
to talk to Leo Vader. Gave it three stars out
of five. That's fine, sees, I could tell you. I
guess I could tell you who it is.
Speaker 1: If that many people it's a Simon from rock Star.
Speaker 2: It's like trying, like like pushing me to watch it.
He's wrong, and it's not okay, it's wrong. It's yeah,
it's okay. I like, I just haven't.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at grubs review on Letterbox. He gave it
three stars, which sure finds it two stars.
Speaker 2: Too high five.
Speaker 5: And he says it's bullshit, but at least it's my
kind of bullshit, all right.
Speaker 3: I can accept that. I can accept that.
Speaker 1: Because, like I still mean, I think maybe oppenheimerg a challenges.
I still think Dunkirk is Nolan's quote unquote like best
movie because he's actually restraining himself. And I like that
movie a lot, but it's not the movie that I
always want to go back and watch. I love rewatching
the Batman movies, even Dark Knight Rises every single time
I watched him like this is so stupid in some.
Speaker 2: Parts fun though this is a terrible take.
Speaker 1: But it's still like the dude understands momentum and they're
always gorgeous shit going on. And I love that he
tries his absolute best, Like the fact that Odyssey was
shot with such like space age technology but he's also
trying to do as much of it analog as possible
is pretty awesome. But those movies always stick with me
and I I he's I'm not going to say he's
like one of my favorite directors, but like.
Speaker 4: Movies, that's because they're made for you.
Speaker 6: Nolan makes films about the terrible feelings of a man,
and that is what he is known for.
Speaker 4: All of his films are like, oh.
Speaker 6: It is so hard being a dude, and and that's
why they appeal to you, guys.
Speaker 2: He got to like a flesh down there you go.
Speaker 1: Woman character was Jessica Chestain an Interstellar, and even that
that movie became more about his experience though than her.
Speaker 2: She became she became the elderly woman.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 6: It's about the experience of a man emotionally dealing with
the subject matter that Rachel.
Speaker 1: Rachel gets blown up in Dark Knight.
Speaker 6: And didn't that make Batman feel things? Wasn't that hard?
I think about that every time I watch the next
Nolan film, I go, I, I know a man is
going to go through some real tough stoff and it's
gonna make him feel bad, and we're gonna we're gonna
really empathize with this man.
Speaker 2: No Dunkirk, they saved a lot of women back in London, and.
Speaker 5: It was those guys got shot with bullets and I
heard think about the boys.
Speaker 4: I think about them boys movies. I always think about
the boys. Every time I go to the theater, I go, man,
I really hope they tell a story about how a
man feels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got Oppenheimer and Barbie in that context are
really wow. I know, now you're not wrong. What's There's
a lot of Fridge wives in Nolan's movies.
Speaker 6: Like their background characters for sure, and this movie is
no exception. I think that it has some pretty sick
lady moments, and I'm happy to say that some of
them are like so memorable. I think there's like a
a scene she's not I don't think she's like one
of the famous actor scenes. She's like a you know,
they they're hungry and there's a lady who needs to
feed them, and that scene will stick with me.
Speaker 4: For a while.
Speaker 6: There's some really good sequences.
Speaker 4: Who's to say, but I.
Speaker 6: Think, uh, I think they it's an iconic film. I
think it's a very memorable film, and I think that
every man who watches it is going to be like, man,
I really was worried about those men, and I'm so
I'm so glad that I saw that because I see
myself in them. You know, how strong they were, sure,
how important they were. How dude, the muscles in this
film is crazy. Everybody's got an eight pack.
Speaker 2: It's it's Tom Holland. Hang don, there's no dong.
Speaker 4: It is bobliss.
Speaker 1: It's not two stars maximum I know outside of I
don't even know who's in this A lot of Tom Holland,
Robert Pattinson, Lapita Longo, Anne Hathaway is his wife back
home Enda John Marl Zendia is she?
Speaker 3: Who is she?
Speaker 4: She's a god? Is she?
Speaker 2: Athena? Did I butcher it. There's Lapita, there's Lapita's Athena.
Speaker 4: I get them mixed up.
Speaker 6: But Zindia is a god and uh Lupita is the
one who the face that launches a thousand ships.
Speaker 2: She's really yes, okay, okay, that's.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's right because Athena is the one that like
dresses him up as a disguise and it's a fucking rag.
Speaker 4: There's more. There's like other famous people in it.
Speaker 6: I feel like, but it's got a crazy cast and
it's and it is really well casted.
Speaker 4: I think anyone who criticizes the cast is crazy.
Speaker 6: See it's it's very brilliantly casted and every everyone, even
like the ones where people were like, I don't know
about this, they do a great job. Robert Pattinson is
a fantastic, fantastic actor, and it's so fun to see
him in this role because he's usually like, I don't know,
he's just usually such a beloved character. So it's really
fun watching him not being the main guy.
Speaker 5: It's funny because like, I feel like my my feelings
in Pattinson are similar to how I felt about DiCaprio,
where it's like when they first start you know, like
him with Twilight and DiCaprio kind of like, I know
he did Steff four Titanic, that was a big thing.
I just kind of assume they're like, oh, Okay, these
are these like heart throb types or whatever that are
just like not great actors. And then afterwards and he's like,
oh wait, okay to Caproo's one of my favorite actors.
And then I haven't seen any Twilight thing, but I've
every single thing I've seen Robert Pattinson, and I'm like, oh,
this guy's awesome.
Speaker 4: You've seen The Lighthouse, right, He's so.
Speaker 3: Probably next that's coming up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I should watch The Lighthouse, right.
Speaker 5: I was thinking about that today because it's like, man,
I'm really liking The Northman a lot, so I should
check out The Lighthouse.
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 6: So Lighthouse was the one that put Robert Pattinson on
the map for me where I was like, oh, this
guy is not a heart throb, this guy is an actor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does some stuff in that movie that I
was like, this is bold.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's good, it's fine. I'm looking forward to seeing that, Daniel.
Speaker 4: I'm excited to hear what you guys think. Yeah, I am.
Speaker 6: I excited to hear what everybody thinks with the world things.
It's like probably like one of the biggest releases of
all time. I think it's opening box office was like
one hundred and twenty million. Like this is going to
be one of those movies that everybody's it's Nolan. It
appeals to all men. This is going to be a
big one, and it's true.
Speaker 4: But they love it. They want to make it for
the men, and they did.
Speaker 3: We have movies for us.
Speaker 4: Finally, boys, we're.
Speaker 2: Tired of all these lady movies, all these women.
Speaker 4: When will they make one about war?
Speaker 1: They need to make one about war and men returning
home after war and having a hard time. Now, Like
it's funny because the King Arthur, the Clive Owen one.
Did you ever see that with Kiaren? I watched that
movie weird when growing up, Like I just like that movie.
That's about like certain versions of the King Arthur and
Camelot story are the odyssey He's trying to get.
Speaker 2: Home after war. It's so much of this here Russell
Crowe is trying to get home and then he gets Basically.
Speaker 4: It's all the same. Dan. Once you see this, what
I think would be neat is.
Speaker 6: Maybe you could keep like a little notes document or
just like an audio tab of any time you're like.
Speaker 4: Oh, is that Odyssey or Iliad related?
Speaker 6: Because there's gonna be so many pieces in this movie
where you'll be like, that's familiar, and I think they
stole this. And that's because every fucking movie we've ever
seen has stolen from Iliad and Odyssey, like they've they're
all they're all so borrowed games one hundred percent. This
is a very familiar subject matter. But you're seeing I mean,
I don't know if these even the original, but you're
seeing like the original as far as back as we know,
interpretation of some of these story story elements, and like, yeah,
the general consensus is get home, good fucking luck, and
and it's great. It's it's a great journey. I think
you guys will like it.
Speaker 2: Enough About movies though, do you want to talk about
video games?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I hope they're about men.
Speaker 3: They don't make games about the men.
Speaker 2: About men and.
Speaker 1: Being a father and how God changed us on my son.
All right, Mary, I finally played Taro tech Legion. Yeah,
I was dming you guys a bit about it.
Speaker 2: You're You're both.
Speaker 1: Right, Mary, you were right initially and Dan and your
support for it, that game's rad.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't have too much new stuff to say. I
will say, Dan, I think you had a concern where
it's like, all right, well, if I'm stopping every x
seconds to like add to my car, I feel like
that'll hurt the momentum you gain during something like MEGABONK
or Vampire Survivors or Deep Rock Survivors. But the game
is structured such where it's like they make building the car,
so the games that like, it's not it's not that
that's taking away from the momentum of the game. It's
like you're you are putting more thought into it, and
it's not like you're not like engineering rockets. You're just
stacking stuff in a way that's very resonuval for at
Ta Shay case, kind of like making sure things fit,
thinking about the firing arc of different things, like Okay,
I want to give this as much three sixty room
as possible, so I'm not blocking. It's like I still
don't even have the fourth character. I've just been playing,
like I think I played three hours total and I'm
like already really hooked on it from I DMed you
guys as like, I started like putting all the spikes
on the side of my car so I could drift
into crowds, and you asked me if I had them.
Speaker 2: Apparently the fourth character is based around drifting.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, so.
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to getting them. But yeah, the game's awesome.
Speaker 1: I also just love the different like biomes you get into,
Like it's yeah, crunchy. Uh, there's a lot of side
stuff to pursue. But at first the steering felt a
bit too floaty. But then I started like, that's kind
of on purpose because you get the gripstat which you
can improve, which from my understanding, makes your steering tighter.
But then when I'm trying to drift, I don't like
that stats. So balancing all those different stats and learning
how they work is super fun.
Speaker 2: It's also funny.
Speaker 1: It just remembered, like every time I make like a
monstrosity of a car, I hear cousin Eddie and Christmas
Vacation saying like, as she abute Clark looking at this.
Speaker 6: Beat up our discussing, yeah, you want it to be symmetrical,
but you don't. Your your luck isn't there, So you
keep getting the wrong things and so your your back
end is like all awkward. I also love I think
it's a contender for most Dewey because there's like no.
Speaker 4: Story, Like it's not like we gotta kill these aliens.
Speaker 6: They're coming after us, like you don't know, like you
could be a real piece of ship in this In
this game, they don't explain.
Speaker 4: Why you're killing everyone. It doesn't who gives a ship
kill them?
Speaker 2: Which is saying more good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it is. The story is non existent.
Speaker 5: I'm a truck driver and I'm gonna put spikes on it.
It really is just a trucker and.
Speaker 2: It's I love that. I love that, dude. Oh yeah,
that game's awesome.
Speaker 1: I played quite a bit on just my PC, but
I also played on Steam Deck.
Speaker 2: It's great on both.
Speaker 5: It's tremendous, like the way it does all the like
putting the car together stuff with just the controller and
it feels great. Like that could have been that felt fucky,
that would have ruined the experience. But like and that
question I had when Mary was describing it before I
played it about like, oh it does a break up
the flow?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 5: No, no, every single time I go to that screen,
I'm like, hell, yeah, Okay, what am I gonna do now?
Speaker 3: Like I'm excited you can completely rebuild.
Speaker 6: It doesn't punish you to say, take everything off and
put it back together again, Like it's just it's it's strategy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Mary, I think you started like a whole domino
effect thing when, like, because this game came out in
like April or something, and I hadn't heard anyone talk
about it. You mentioned it. I started playing it. I
go to Giant Bomb starting and we've got some Giant
Bomb folks planet. Then we got fifty codes from the
developer that we gave out to fans, and like, it's
like people are playing. I'm seeing people in the industry
start to pick up on this and stuff like that.
I think you, personally, you telling us about it on
this show has probably led to thousands of people playing
this game that had.
Speaker 3: Not heard about it before.
Speaker 4: Finally, strong influence.
Speaker 1: I like that. That's like my main game I'm playing now,
even though I only played three hours so far.
Speaker 4: That's great.
Speaker 2: Speaking of a newer I believe a new game didn't
come back.
Speaker 4: You both driving Yeah, the.
Speaker 2: Anc point on bench Attack or not.
Speaker 4: It is there is there is an exclamation.
Speaker 2: Had a type of damn, why I edit it?
Speaker 3: This is the longer Oh my god, it's an exclamation point.
I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't Infamous style guid Ship. This was the longest
fucking embargo ever. I played this game like over a
month ago. It feels like, so I'm kind of like
good for good for the getting out. It's a good thing.
But it's like, yeah, when you got to like think back, like,
oh right, okay, that was like.
Speaker 4: Did I like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 6: I played it yesterday, so it's very fresh.
Speaker 4: But I'm curious.
Speaker 3: Did you play Thumper, Mary, Yes, amazing game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5: To me, this was like kind of like Thumper meets
Tony Hawk meets like a Dreamcast game. You know, it's
all the style of Dreamcast game. It's kind of on
that rail like Thumper. There's a certain amount of kind
of rhythm to everything and certainly timing, and then the
Tony Hawk kind of like you're landing stuff into manuals
like you're you're a bus. That's like grinding on a rail.
You jump up in the air, you do a flip,
you slam down, and you hold in up to like
do a manual into it, like so you're you know,
putting combos together and stuff like that.
Speaker 4: Tricks is a huge part of it.
Speaker 6: You get bonuses for finding things in the world that
you're meant to interact with.
Speaker 4: So oh god, they're called something.
Speaker 6: There's usually seven of them in a round, and you
get bonus points forgetting them.
Speaker 4: One might pay cans or totally.
Speaker 6: One of them might be like there's an air balloon,
and if you jump on the air balloon, that counts
as like one of these like elite tricks. I think
it's I appreciate your general consensus. I would be nervous
comparing it to Thumper, only in the sense that I
think Thumper is like melodic and and then that you
would send out to and it's it is just so
extraordinary of the style, whereas this one it feels.
Speaker 4: Cartoony and whimsical and silly.
Speaker 6: It's a completely different vibe aesthetically, audio even wise.
Speaker 4: They're kind of just like, that's crazy, do it again.
I don't.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I felt kind of like this is more youth
kid style for me. When I was playing it, I
was like, I feel like kids will really like having
someone be like try that trick again, you know, but
I don't. Thumper was more like I'm in the fucking zone.
This one was more silly and childlike to me.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Thumper is demanding in a way that this is
like you can kind of float through a level and
die like twenty times on the same weird spot and
then like maybe you don't get a super ranking and
get every objective or anything like that, but like you
can beat most of these levels fairly easily.
Speaker 4: It's forgiving. It's also uh, it almost has a.
Speaker 6: Uh there's just like such a weird whimsy to it
where all of a sudden you'll be on uh, you'll
be riding your bus and you'll land on a boat
and now.
Speaker 4: You're surfing on a boat and your wheel, yeah.
Speaker 6: Or a ferris wheel and you're you're knocking over machines
to get to the end of this farise fue wheel ride.
It feels ridiculous and uh, otherworldly and animated in this
like childlike sense of wonder. It feels like a dream
when you're playing it, which I really liked. I liked
when they broke out of the mold of you're a
bus doing kickflips, and I liked when they were like.
Speaker 4: Now you're surfing a sick way. That was when I
felt like I was actually alive in the game.
Speaker 5: That's a good point because it's like I do think
it is stuck between like okay, kind of whacky, like
like I think of this game Incredible Crisis for PS one,
where it is almost like a warrior Ware esque very
humorous game, one silly thing into another, and it's kind
of stuck between that and like trying to be a demanding,
like trick based game. It gives you almost too much
where it's like there are times where it's like like
the whole First Island is constantly like okay, now here's
how you wall ride, and here's how you do this.
Speaker 4: Here's twenty different things you need to learn.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and then here's like you get here's how
like you have to split off and do three different
objectives here, and here's how we do manuals. Here's you jump,
and then here's how you slam down, and like it
is just throwing a lot at you. So it does
feel like it's stuck between like are we doing gimmick
fun time cartoony game bus skating game, or are we
doing you know, Tony Hawk Thumper like trying to be
like a more demanding skill based game, and.
Speaker 4: It's a bit stuck.
Speaker 5: It is, I mean, but that's not to say it's
not like I've enjoyed it a lot, Like I think
it's a really good game.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's going to be a thing
where it's like like a Neon White or something where
it's I'm playing these levels over and over again trying
to you know, get a better score, better time or
something like that.
Speaker 6: Can you compare your scores to your friends online? Because
I didn't see that when I was playing it.
Speaker 3: I don't remember, so I've played pre release, so.
Speaker 4: I didn't see your guys' scores.
Speaker 6: Like we're friends on Steam, so I never saw your
guys' scores when I was doing it. But it compares
your time because these are time based levels, plus your
sick flips every time you do a kickflip or whatever
that adds to your score, plus those seven bonuses.
Speaker 4: That I told you about.
Speaker 6: So it's like if you see the hot air balloon
and you pop it or you like figure out this
like secret, and there's secrets in every level, which I
think are really fun. If you do those that all
adds to your total score. You also get like a rating.
I can't remember what they are, but you get a
rating based on like whether they think you did okay, good, great,
And then you get a final score that you can
I think stars. Yeah it's one, two, three stars. And
then you get a score. But it's like who am I?
Who am I replaying this level four so I can
get the better score?
Speaker 1: Is my question.
Speaker 5: It's one of those things where it's like, yeah, if
you're like a game Zene Quick Person or something, I'm
sure you could do some incredibly impressive stuff where you
chain at combo the entire level and get every objective
in one run. But like, I think most people are
going to be like, Okay, that was fun, and then
move on to the next level and like and that's
fine too.
Speaker 3: You know you did you?
Speaker 4: How much did you play of it?
Speaker 6: I only I started playing it yesterday on a plane,
and I will say it was a great plane game
on my flight because for this two hour flight, I
was just doing kickflips and I was completely locked in
and I really liked my two hours with it.
Speaker 4: This is a portable game. How long is it did
you how far.
Speaker 5: Did I got into? Like I'm probably halfway or a
little beyond that. And the second island, it's like surprisingly
like just look at the map. It looks like there's
you know, I don't know if there's four or five
islands or something. And like each level, like it's like
a Mario World type thing where there's you know, there's
seven eight levels here, you know, like some side things
and like, oh, this one's like a race, this one
is a battle thing. This is an objective base thing.
So there's a lot of variety here. There's just more
game here than I think I expected from what I
thought might have been more of a gimmick game.
Speaker 4: You know, you can upgrade your bus.
Speaker 6: There's things you can do to alter your bus to
make it like, I don't know, more reliable or faster,
have more acceleration. There's things that you can do to
esthetically change your bus. I changed all my stickers to
look like like octopus, and it's I have like this
like underwater looking bus. I find it fun if it's
not obvious to listeners yet, this is this is just
like another worldly game where buses don't work like regular buses.
This is This is far beyond crazy taxi. This bus doesn't.
Speaker 4: Work on any level the way a bus should really work.
And I don't know.
Speaker 6: Exactly why they have had it within the world of
a bus, because it's not operating like a bus. You
are you're not even hitting a to accelerate except for
to literally start your bus, you hit go.
Speaker 4: Other than that, there's no acceleration.
Speaker 6: You're just you're just grinding and kick flipping and moving
your bus around jumping, yeah.
Speaker 5: Holding the are and then yeah, like what The mechanic
that feels the best to me is like when you
do the turn and you hold in lt yes, and
then there's like a little meter that pops up and
if you let go in the green you can get
a boost coming out of the turn, which like it's
almost like that feeling of like on the drift mark.
Speaker 3: Yep, that's it.
Speaker 6: So one hundred percent, one hundred percent, And I think
that is when the game is the best, is like
when it gives you little rewards for doing the turns properly.
Speaker 4: Sometimes you'll see an element in the.
Speaker 6: Sky and it'll be like, Ooh, if I jump at
the right time, I can grab that item.
Speaker 4: That feels really good in order to do that.
Speaker 6: I think this game is going to be very addictive
for a lot of people, especially people who want to
collect them all got the people who like getting all
the different items. I think this is going to be uh,
something that a lot of people enjoy. And I also
think it's accessible to kids because, like we said, if
you die, you they don't even restart the level. They
go back ten seconds and a little person.
Speaker 4: Goes, that's not going to stop me. It's kind of
an anime character and they just generously let you. I
didn't know.
Speaker 6: You probably noticed this, but the time does not go backwards.
So if you get hurt, sure, sure you eat that time. Yeap,
that's your punishment. Is your time is not going to
be as good?
Speaker 5: Yeah, but yeah, overall fun, I'm enjoying it. I mean
it's not one like I don't know if it's gonna
be top ten of the year for me, but I'm
having a good time with it. If you, I don't
know how much it is, but seen on a sale,
you know, grab it.
Speaker 3: How much is it? I'm curious now.
Speaker 4: I know I want to check too.
Speaker 5: This is oh seventeen ninety nine, you know that's that's
a good price for this. There's a lot of game here. Yeah,
there's a lot of game here that's.
Speaker 4: Under under twenty bucks is like my new vibe.
Speaker 6: And all the games that I've played this this round
have all been light hitters for me. They've all been like, hey,
this game's four ninety nine, that's the steal snag that
bad boy. So yeah, for bargain games, this is a
heck of a deal.
Speaker 1: I have a game. Speaking of bardain games, this game
is thirteen dollars. It came out, I will say, in
twenty twenty four. Did either of you play Throne Fall?
Speaker 4: No, I don't even know.
Speaker 2: I found it.
Speaker 1: It's been in my wishless forever and I finally pulled
the trigger because it's the same publisher as Tarot Tech Legion.
So the best way I can describe it, and I
will say, it's it's one of those games that starts
very chill, and you think it's going to be very relaxing,
and then it gets to be really intense, like, oh,
there's way more fucking game here than I thought it
would be. So generally speaking, it is late base building
meets light tower defense meets Vampire Survivors.
Speaker 2: If you look up the store page. I think it's.
Speaker 1: Gorgeous for it looks fantastic. Did you guys play Door
Romantic that tie game? It looks like Romantic.
Speaker 6: It looks like it's a simple in a beautiful way,
right like minimalist.
Speaker 1: So it starts off and they're the tutorial and you
go through a bunch of different biomes. But basically you're
controlling this person. This the king of a town on
a horse in this like kind of isometric not top
down like isometric view.
Speaker 2: In this like look it up.
Speaker 1: It looks like Door froment kind of watercolored cell shaded
combination world.
Speaker 2: And there are waves wave defense. I should also mention
the tower defense.
Speaker 1: So there are enemies that are attacking your town as
you're building it up and you're just protecting the castle.
You start off just building bless me, building towers on
specific plots, building walls around specific lines, and you're upgrading
your barracks, your archers, range your farms, you're you know,
you're managing your economy similar to real time strategy games,
and your character is auto shooting most of the time.
And it gets to the point where there's hordes similar
to Vampire Survivors or megabonk et cetera. But you're also
managing different troops in a very simple way. It works
well on controller, I will say it works.
Speaker 6: Are you like an elite attacker, so you you're personally attack,
but you also yell at people if you die, king man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you start over at the beginning. I think it's
twenty it goes up. I think it starts at your
like twenty rounds. You're defending the castle as you're also
improving it and building up the economy. But it starts
off at just like enemy archers and swordsmen and spearmen
are attacking you. But like by the biome I'm in, Dan,
you'll appreciate there are like wooden kirov airship blimps attacking me. Okay,
and your base is no longer just like a few
farmhouses and mills and fields and the castle. It's like
six layers of walls with turrets and towers strewn throughout it.
The beginning starts off very meditative and kind of cozy game,
and it now is at the point where it's actually
an intense tower defense real time strategy game. It's gorgeous.
It's an amazing steam that game. I will say the
most frustration I've had with controls is you before you
activate around you literally you hold a to say okay,
send the enemy troops. Before that, you could do with
some base building. You can arrange your troops and put
them at different because like at a certain point, the
enemy will be coming from like eight different spawns, so
you could put okay, I it shows you where what
enemies are gonna spawn there as well, so you could say, okay,
knights are gonna be spawned up here, so I'm gonna
put my spearmen there to counter them. So you can
you can snap them to you hold your character near
you do like a click and drag near them, and
then you could just tap a button. Then they'll warp
to the spot you want as long as the wave
has not started. Once the wave starts, different units will
move in real time at different speeds. Selecting all of
them in certain units is not the most intuitive, So
it's intuitive doesn't always work, I would say, because I, oh, fuck,
I just accidentally painted a night as well.
Speaker 2: In addition to these spearmen.
Speaker 1: That's the extent of my frustrations outside of this, Like
I was, we were just talking about like a good bargain,
like thirteen dollars. It's not new, it came out two
years ago, but like extremely simple idea that they build
upon in really fun ways. You go to really gorgeous
different kinds of biomes, like not just artistically, but also like, oh,
this one has layers of cliffs like terraces that I'm defending,
like minis Ter with the Lord of the Rings, or
this one has a lot of different winding pathways through
the woods to my village, which.
Speaker 4: Here biomes look like settlers of Catan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's another good comparison. It's like they
play with the art in a cool way throughout each biome,
but they also play with the actual mechanics of the
defense in fun ways where it's like, all right, this one,
the castle is very central and safe, but your mills
and fields and farms are way out on the outskirts,
which means they're the enemy. All they have to do
is like hit the field once and they' quote unquote
burned it. So there's like, you, the fields don't cost
a lot to establish, but they can also destroy them
really quickly. And it's at that point so like, oh,
maybe I stationed my troops to protect the mills, and
then I'm kind of roving around and just going where
I'm needed.
Speaker 2: Based on the mini maps.
Speaker 1: Great, it'll shop, Okay, Okay, shit, I'm losing a lot
of people up here against this group, so I'm going
to go help out.
Speaker 2: And you do get some active abilities as well.
Speaker 1: You start off with a simple sword swing and you're
automatically shooting arrows the whole time.
Speaker 2: Later on you get new weapons. Oh shit, I should also.
Speaker 1: Remenzan tons and tons of modifiers, like dizzying amount of
modifiers where oh your your.
Speaker 2: Mills take you.
Speaker 1: They're more expensive to upgrade, but each time you upgrade them,
they get all three on the tree instead of just one,
which would be cheaper and faster, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that.
Speaker 1: But also like, oh, this weapon will now do AoE
damage in a way that makes it less like an
arrow more like a lightning bolt kind of thing. There
are a ton of those, and it's similar to Tarotech,
Legion or Vampire Survivors. They have a really good UI
showing you what you haven't unlocked yet, So like, I
know what the carrots on a stick I'm chasing are
at all times for the most part, but you get
active abilities that keep you from getting too complacent. Like
I love MEGABONC, but there are times when I'm on
a flight and I'm playing MAGAPONC, I'm kind of I'm
almost falling asleep because.
Speaker 3: It's so passive running and jumping.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this game's great about like, oh, okay, so
I get a sort attack that the less health than
an enemy has when I attack it, the quicker the
recharge my active thing will be. So you're kind of
using it as this assassination like dagger in their back,
so you can do it quickly again as opposed to
hitting someone full health, waiting for a much slower radial
reload and then doing it. But you get a lot
of stuff like that where they're like it's like Gears.
Active reload is just enough to keep you like engaged
when it can be just a lot of third person
shooting and cover shooting, et cetera.
Speaker 2: Would you compare it.
Speaker 6: To Kingdom at all Kingdom two crowns, you know, like
you're a king in that and you set up your
little thingies for way more attacks.
Speaker 4: No, it's don PC two Kingdom.
Speaker 2: I don't I don't know it.
Speaker 4: Let me see if I'll send it to you.
Speaker 6: But I think like that you're also like a king
that's defending and but if you die.
Speaker 2: Yeah, i'd say, so that was side scrolling.
Speaker 4: I loved that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, check this game again. It's thirteen dollars.
Speaker 1: I think it's money well spent, even if it's not
like your favorite game ever. And also it's been a
part of a bunch of sales this summer. That's also
why I came across it. Like as of this recording,
I think it's part.
Speaker 2: Of the.
Speaker 1: Uh secret Sauce sale that.
Speaker 6: Is going on right now, so it'll be around this
so when this episode goes out, you'll have a couple
of days.
Speaker 1: So it's thirteen right now, but it might be it
might be less. It's just telling me I already own it.
Oh yeah, shit, Mary, there's a bundle with throwne Falling
Kingdom two crowns, so apparently they're similar.
Speaker 4: Well, well, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's great, Like it's not new, it's not the
most exciting thing. It's not going to be talked about
in the Game of the Year, but it could be
it maybe comes up in the best year that didn't
come out this year for me. But outside of that,
just like I think if anybody's looking for an affordable,
super simple game that they then make very engagingly complex
throughout the course of the game. On Steam deck, I
think this is right up your alley.
Speaker 5: I mean, just looking at the Steam page here, it's
it's reminding me of when I said Tarottach and it's like, oh,
I love to look at this. This looks really fun. Like, Okay,
I missed it when came out. I should check this out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like it a lot.
Speaker 1: It's it's probably my playing game for the foreseeable future,
alongside Tara Tech.
Speaker 2: Legion.
Speaker 1: Not as involved as Taro Tech, I will say, but again,
by the you'll get to biomes, You're like, oh my god,
it's like blimps and siege towers and you got to
like use different troops and who do I upgrade? How
do I spend my money? It's it's a it's a
rad game, just extremely well made. Uh mythrights the publisher
really quick. I just want to give a shit Grizzly Games.
Speaker 2: They made a good game.
Speaker 1: They've done some other stuff. They did Islanders in twenty nineteen.
I remember playing that again. Just simple games done really well,
and they expound upon the idea, initial idea, really cool.
Speaker 3: Ways, nice.
Speaker 2: Dan, you played Heave Ho two as well?
Speaker 3: Yes, a multiplayer with our multiplayer? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Fuck you?
Speaker 3: Like cut out for a second? Whererose that?
Speaker 4: I said, tell us more?
Speaker 5: Wait a minute, like three seconds, my internet went down,
and then I came back and Mike was laughing, And
now it seems like Mary's lying.
Speaker 2: She said tell us more.
Speaker 1: But she also told this really blue joke about someone
you don't know.
Speaker 3: I gotta been quick.
Speaker 5: Okay, okay, okay, normallyvo it's very fun. It's if you
played the first one. It is just the concept is
you're a little dude. You got hands and arms. Left
trigger grabs with your left hand, right trigger grabs with
the right hand. It's a lot of swinging around and
creating ropes with your friends and flinging each other, and
it's a lot of just laughing and farting and there's
a fart button, and just getting from point A to
point B for the most part, and then trying to
figure out, like, how the fuck are we getting around
these spikes?
Speaker 3: How are you okay?
Speaker 5: This whole area is ice, So it's like it is
not that different. I mean, to be fair, we only
played the first area, which is like the ice area.
We did go forward and try like a later level,
and it seems like they do introduce some crazy mechanics
later on that we haven't gotten to yet. But I
would say the biggest changes or upgrades we've seen from
the first one was there is mechanic where it's like,
let's say the three of us were place with Jake,
and the three of us get to the end and
instead of like you know, some of these levels, it's like,
how the fuck would Jake ever get over here? One
of us can pilot a drone and like so we
can have like a little drone with our head on it,
like go over and we can like direct him like okay,
grab onto the drone and it's like a fun way
to get a straggler to the finish basically. But then
also this competitive multiplayer mode is fucking hilarious. We put
a quick look up on Giant Bomb, just a lot
of just you know, here's a survival mode, here's a
race mode, here's a mode where you get lightsaber.
Speaker 6: Amount of people you can play this with, you know,
we played with four online.
Speaker 5: I bet you could have fue with two. I don't
even know if you can with one. I don't know
what the fuck that looks like, but I.
Speaker 4: Can confirm you cannot play it with one.
Speaker 3: Okay, that would be fucked up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's pretty it's pretty sad you got Oh oh no,
I was trying to fling my own lonely ass around
and I.
Speaker 3: Just let you get into a level I.
Speaker 4: Played like I started playing.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh so maybe technically you could wait are you
just bad at it?
Speaker 3: Are you bad and have no friends?
Speaker 5: Is that?
Speaker 4: What? How do you throw your own ass?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: Why would why would it let you go into the
level if you can't do it?
Speaker 4: Because it's probably like get some friends, like you know,
they can drop.
Speaker 6: I think it's fucked up that you played without me
because I was dying alone on an island.
Speaker 4: So many friends.
Speaker 3: We have to be on like a chameleon on Friday,
and you couldn't do that.
Speaker 4: I'm booked and busy, bitch.
Speaker 5: Okay, well then takes both.
Speaker 4: I'm conflicted. Watch Barbie friends see me.
Speaker 7: But I yeah, oh yeah, because we've moved this recording
specifically for your schedule, sex, I said, we have to.
Speaker 4: We have to record at ten in the morning.
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I know, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Shut the fuck up. You should be on my side.
You are not an ally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they only served.
Speaker 4: Where are we fighting? No Ah, you are not.
Speaker 1: The testimon everyday live.
Speaker 4: That means leaving the room women can talk not about you.
Speaker 2: Mary. You played Scale the Depths.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'm probably gonna burn through several smaller indie games
that I played that came out.
Speaker 4: These are all on sale.
Speaker 2: Singing that's right, the music.
Speaker 4: Mary's Bargain, bin Hole, cozy.
Speaker 2: Game, and indie stuff.
Speaker 1: I had so many friends except for when they deal with.
Speaker 4: Your trauma for a deal.
Speaker 6: This is Scale the Depths is a fishing game that
uh creatures will come up to your boat and say
I'm hungry.
Speaker 4: You need to fish, and it's a boat.
Speaker 6: You treat the fish and then you feed the mythical creature.
Some of them are mythical, some of them are real,
like eagles, and then they give you money and that
upgrades your fishing equipment.
Speaker 4: The fishing in this game.
Speaker 6: Is hard to describe, but it's very simple. It's a
string that has a You have a certain amount of
string with a lore on it that has a certain
amount of strength, and all you have to do is
dink the fish. If you dink the fish, you've injured it.
If you dink it again, you'll probably kill it.
Speaker 4: The lower you go into the water, the stronger the
fish you will find, meaning you'll need to dink it
a lot. When you run out of line, you immediately.
Speaker 6: Go back up to your boat boat and you have
to cast again and bring your line back down there.
That's why the upgrades are really important, because at the beginning,
your line isn't long enough for you to attack.
Speaker 4: Any creatures in the depths, which are worth the.
Speaker 6: Most points and kind of the most fun to kill,
so you you want to up grade your line almost immediately,
plus your lure, you can upgrade your knife because the
second half of the game is once you've filled your
bucket with fish, you have to descale them.
Speaker 4: You have to worm them.
Speaker 6: Sometimes it kind of grows some of them barnacles, and
you have to smack the barnacles off, and you get
scores for how good you are at cleaning up your
fish and chopping them up. A perfect score gives you
a star on your fish that's worth more points, and
then you feed it to the creatures. Thus that is
the game loop. I think for people who like fishing
games and like, I'm gonna call this kind of mindless
gaming where you turn off your brain and you're just like,
I'm a fisherman and I love feeding eagles, and you
just really slow your brain down. This will cure what
ails you. It is for people who are looking for
a challenge or they're looking for strategy, this will bore
you two tears. This is a chill game about feeding
fish to animals and making them happy. And I think
role playing as a fisherman. That's that's kind of the scale.
There's some fun things down there. Sometimes you find messages
in a bottle with some lore.
Speaker 4: I didn't read it.
Speaker 6: Sometimes you find treasure boxes with stickers and stuff that
you get to put on your boat. I think it's fun,
but it's this is a simple game done well that
allows you to feel like you can enjoy ben a
fishermen in the sea. And I think it's also uh
pretty cheap right now. This is an under ten dollars game.
Speaker 3: Are you saying and lure are the same.
Speaker 4: Damn it? Uh your lore and then there are animals
from low damn it.
Speaker 2: Lure, Laura Lure.
Speaker 6: I will burn through the other two if that's cool,
because these are these.
Speaker 2: Are short go cat. Oh that's your ty.
Speaker 4: No, it's not. You can't read bitch again. Don't you
start with me? Thank you, Dan, You're.
Speaker 2: An ally, all right? What's cat company?
Speaker 6: Cat mail is a cozy cat post office. You are
yourself a cat, although it's first persons, you never really
see yourself as a cat. So I don't know why
they all your No, there's no whiskers.
Speaker 4: It's through your eyes and when you know, it's in color.
Speaker 6: Because all of the creatures in this game are cats,
so all of your uh, all the patrons that people
come in to either collect their mail or drop off
their mail, they're all cats.
Speaker 4: And they all have real fun names like.
Speaker 6: Uh, like whiskers mixed snuggle muffins or like you know,
rumpel tail feather that would make sense. But they have
ones that are like free mixed scratch ems and they're
really cute and they'll always say they'll come to your office.
The post office. You get a shit ton of mail.
You have to organize it. It's your job to organize
your own mail and put it in the right spots.
Mail can come in and mail can come out. It'll
make you go a little crazy. I was thinking of
that episode It's always Sonny in Philadelphia, or it.
Speaker 4: Was like, I keep getting this mail from Pepe Sylvia.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I don't know where Pepe Silvia is.
I kept getting mail and I was like, I don't
know where this goes. I don't know where it's supposed
to be. But the important thing, and the reason I
think they can call this a cozy game is that
there's no time limit, so you don't need to be
stressed when someone goes, I'm here to pick up a
piece of mail from uh Tatum Kristofski and it's heavy.
Speaker 4: And so you go back into all of your packages
and you look for mail that says Tatum k and
it needs to have the heavy symbol on it. And
if you do that, you're returning, you're giving that person
the mail.
Speaker 6: Then they'll drop off mail that has There's all these
different like little toys that you get to play with.
Speaker 4: One is a scanner. You scan it.
Speaker 6: It lets you know if the mail is heavy that
needs a heavy sticker, or if it's fragile, which means
it needs a fridge elaysticker. Some you open up new
areas of your mail. I opened up one that's it's
a fridge, and so they'll be like, hey, this contains
stuff that goes bad that needs to go in the fridge.
So all these different stickers, you need to weigh it,
you need to put the right amount of postage on it,
and then you need to put the thing on it
of the island that it goes to.
Speaker 4: It gets complicated. I actually was not super relaxed.
Speaker 6: Playing this because I was going through all this mail
because I was trying to find mail of some fucking cat.
Speaker 4: I couldn't figure it out. And I stumbled across the
package that I had had.
Speaker 6: For three days that was meant to go in the fridge,
and it was not in the fridge, y'all. And so
I put it in the fridge, but that fish had
gone bad.
Speaker 4: That did not feel good. This game is for organizers.
Speaker 6: Is for people who like going sorting through mail and
junk and like role playing.
Speaker 4: As if you have a job at night.
Speaker 6: A captain of a ship comes to collect the mail
that's meant to go to different islands, and that's a
Tetris game, and that's my faceavorite part. There's a very
finite amount of space on this boat. You have to
get as many packages on it as you humanly can.
I'm and to do it perfectly. You need to tetrist
the packages in a very particular.
Speaker 4: Way so that you can minmax the space. That feels
fucking good, and I like that.
Speaker 6: I don't know if I love being inundated with packages
that literally don't have a home. I'm running out of space.
My post office is out of this mind. People need
to stop shipping things.
Speaker 5: I'm looking at this right now, and I think next
time my dad comes here, I do want to make
him play this as someone who worked at the post
office and half of his day every day was organizing
a mail, and I guarantee his reaction plan is going
to be like, this isn't what it's like at all.
Speaker 3: At Yeah, there's not any cats, there's.
Speaker 2: There's no boat.
Speaker 4: It's fun. I actually played this for hours and got
really into it. Oh it's also multiplayer.
Speaker 6: I didn't play it as multiplayer, but if I played
it again, what I'd really like is for you guys
to also be cats in cat mail co and for
us to play it together.
Speaker 2: Chrek if you're actually are a cat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and if I have.
Speaker 3: Friends, that's true. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's like a thought experiment about this somewhere that
I it's not like bullshit to me, Mary, what tilted golf?
Speaker 6: Tilted Off is the last one at Tilted Golf is
a also smaller game that I suspect is Oh my.
Speaker 3: God, it's the Breath of the Wild mini game.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, it is the Breath of the Wild mini game.
It's used.
Speaker 6: You have to play this on a Steam deck. This
is a I would not recommend playing this on anything else.
It is a gyroscopic where you don't hit the ball,
you tilt your yes, sorry, mobile hand thank you my god,
mobile device handheld device where you use the gyroscopic to
move the ball into the hole. It is time based,
which I like because instinctively you'll try and get the.
Speaker 4: Ball in the hole really fast.
Speaker 6: And they get pretty complicated, but some of the levels
don't have edges, so it don't the ball will fall
off the edge of the world if you're if you're
not careful. It's it's very simple. This is not a
complicated game. This is a This is a game that
makes you feel fun and competitive and makes you want
to try and get the lowest possible times to get
ball in the hole.
Speaker 4: Ball in the hole.
Speaker 6: This game should be called ball in the hole, and
you just tilt, tilt the device to get it there.
Speaker 4: That's it.
Speaker 6: It's a very simple pitch. This game is probably not
a lot of money. It's it's four ninety Oh wow.
Is a simple game that if you like the gyroscopic golf,
this will burn two hours of your life.
Speaker 4: No problem.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, there's DLC coming out soon. Yeah, all right, tilted.
Speaker 1: That's the end of Mary's Indy Happy Hour. Dan, you
mentioned retro achievements. You asked if we knew what that was.
Speaker 5: We said no, So, okay, this is I mean, you know,
I play a lot of old games all the time,
and uh, you know, you run out of I like
playing old games a lot.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you are spicy today, Mike, he's drunk. Yeah, you
said it so authentically.
Speaker 2: Good for you tell us about these old games.
Speaker 5: So you know, I've played these old games a million times,
even just the normal way. And then I've always known
of the existence of retro achievements, which is exactly what
it sounds like. It is a thing that you can
attach your emulators, retro arts, whatever you used to play
your old games, and it adds like there's a huge
robust community that adds.
Speaker 3: Like all these fucking old games.
Speaker 5: Obscure old games with a whole you know, kind of
a points system, and you have an overall point like
on the website in your account. You have like it's
just like an Xbox Gamer score basically, And it's just
really fun for me because like this is all part
of my Like I've just been going nuts with the
Steam Machine for like a month now, and it's just
my all purpose retro box as well as new stuff,
but all the retro stuff. Like I'm now playing old
games again like I always do, but I'm playing it
in ways that I haven't played them before. And it's
really like giving new life to a lot of old
games for me. Like, for instance, puzzle Fighter, that is
a game that Bonk and I played a billion time.
I've played hundreds of hours a puzzle Fighter. Did not
know that the PlayStation version had these like kind of
like these puzzle stars that you could earn. Each character
has like six different challenges you can do to unlock
stuff in the PlayStation version, and I learned that by
opening up this game that I love and then looking
at the achievements and being like, oh shit, I didn't
know that was the thing. And so it's like it's
giving me these different ways to like, Okay, beat a level,
beat an opponent without ever rotating a block. It's like, oh,
that's fun. Like these games that I know all the
mechanics very deeply, and it's Okay, here's a fun new
way to play it. Mario three. You know, it's like
I beat World one one without ever letting go of
the right button on the dpads.
Speaker 3: That's cool.
Speaker 5: Okay, I've beat this level five hundred times. I've never
done it that way.
Speaker 3: Mario one.
Speaker 5: Do a passpist run of World one where you don't
hurt any goombas and you don't get a fireflower.
Speaker 3: You know. It's like that type of thing.
Speaker 4: Well makes these the communities? Can it just like another nerd?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean it's the whole retro community is insane,
like they are to go so deep on all this stuff,
and I love tinkering with all these devices and stuff,
and like the Steam Machine is like I'm just spending
so much time trying to make it like my ultimate
retrobox that I am like, this is the first time.
I'm like, I'm actually going to do retro achievements. I've
really been like every time before you go to bed,
it's like I'll try to get a couple. I'll open up,
you know, to pick an old game. I like Twist
the Metal two, and it's like, Okay, here's the thing.
Here's a fun way I can try to beat the
Los Angeles level or something and get a quick retro achievement.
So it's breathing a lot of new life into a
thing I already was doing and loving. It's just making
it feel fresh.
Speaker 4: It's great now you have a goal.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's like one that like there's never gonna
be an end to this. There's a million retro games.
I love playing old favorites, I love trying new ones,
and now there's like a fun extra layer to it.
Speaker 1: You know that sounds rad I looking back at the
three six here, I was initially resistant to achievements. I
was like, oh, I see what they're doing, and then
I was like, I'm thinking way too much about this
and less about just enjoying the game. However, as time
went on between trophies, and achievements. I do appreciate how
you kind of have a journal of what you've done
in a game throughout its run time, which is which
is nice because and it's also just that second layer
of like, all right, I have one hundred percent of
this according to like yes, the game, but there the
publisher or the developer, there's still something else I could
be doing that I like to say, I really completed this.
Speaker 5: And that's how I've done like PlayStation trophies stuff for
the last few years. Is like Astrobot. I wait for
a game that I really fucking love and I'm not
done playing it yet, and it's like I beat every level,
I've done everything I can do, like you said, Mike,
But then it's like, oh, but then there's this thing
and this thing, these fun little bonuses I can get.
So it's just a way of extending the life of
games you already love.
Speaker 6: So are you going to give a challenge to someone else,
considering you know these games really well?
Speaker 4: Can you upload your own? And I'm like, can you
do it this way?
Speaker 5: Tyson, It's not really like that. It's like they're they're
baked in. So if it's like retrotreatments, dot Org. And
it's like, I don't know who makes the sets. Like,
I'm sure if I wanted to, I could like to
be fun for you.
Speaker 4: To add one one thing you think is challenging for you.
Speaker 5: But most games already happen, Like most games already have
a full set, So it's like and it's retro, so
it's not like they're a bunch of new retro games
coming out. So there's the occasional like really deep cut
game like the game I just beat for Blake Club
that doesn't have a set.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, why.
Speaker 2: Am I blanking on the fighting game we play on
your cabinet? Oh?
Speaker 3: The out Foxies, I bet you anything Foxies have. Oh
I bet it doesn't.
Speaker 1: The out Foxes kill someone, kill someone with the cannon,
which you did to me when I was playing with you.
Speaker 5: Now I'm gonna have to get some retrochiements. Yeah, there
are twenty one retro achievements worth two hundred and fifty points.
They do have them.
Speaker 2: Oh, is there one about the cannon that you could
see at a glance.
Speaker 3: There's one.
Speaker 5: There's one called He's Got a Gun and it's clear
as dweb only.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as a dwee Maine. I love it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, kill Betty ninety seconds, get a time out, throw
Dweeb off the plane is one I've.
Speaker 1: Been I've been meaning to add quote unquote Dweeb Maine
to my Instagram bark.
Speaker 6: Our Christmas festivities are sorted. It looks like we're gonna
have to get.
Speaker 4: Through all of these during our game deliberations.
Speaker 5: It's so twenty two. Like I'm looking at recent players
of the out Foxies. It's like, oh yeah, Evil Murray
two hours ago got a Bernard White versus Deueeb achievement.
Speaker 2: Like I'm starting to like this guy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's very cool. It's it's very for me. It
really works for me. And then another quick thing just
with the Steam Machine is Clone Hero. Are you familiar
with that? It is just another community thing where it's
like it's a way to play Guitar Hero on modern stuff,
like a modern computer.
Speaker 3: So basically I.
Speaker 6: Saw you posting about this on Instagram because you're playing
Guitar Hero again, and I was like, why are are
you back there?
Speaker 3: Well, because it's you know, they got the PDP riff.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean it's like everyone has very fun memories
of that, and it just kind of went away for
the most part, and so now with the Steam Machine,
just kind of like tinkering around with all this stuff
that you can do with it. It's like, all right,
I do so much retro stuff, and like Guitar Hero
is one that you don't hear about as much because
it's like not as successful you need a guitar, but
the riff Master enough people bought that and people love
those games. So there's a thriving community of people charting song.
So it's like you can get a program where you
type in like, oh, here's every led Zeppelin song and
stuff that was never in and they have the community
has charted them.
Speaker 3: But you can also down.
Speaker 6: All under underground because they don't have the rights to
these songs.
Speaker 4: I assume I wear I own.
Speaker 2: The album, so I'm probably goody with Mick Jagger.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Robert Plant's been churning these and clone Hero yeah,
but yeah.
Speaker 6: I do with so much music licensing bullshit. I like
like this and I'm like, how do they do it?
Speaker 5: And listen just absolutely underground. Yeah, but it's thriving. Like
there's these like zip files and stuff where it's like
here's all of the actual charts and everything. From every
Guitar Hero and every rock band, and so you can
get all those on one I load up Clone Hero
and here's the set list with hundreds and hundred and
hundreds of songs of the official ones from Guitar Hero.
And then there's like, oh, the entire Nirvana discography over
here that I've gotten people have charted out meticulously and
done different you know, difficulty levels and stuff like that.
So it just I mean, my brother in law has
been thank you scientists like that is they have like
tons of tracks on there. So it's just insane that,
like that wrestling promo I was playing on Instagram, there's
like gimmick ones like that. There's video game music Caslvania
tracks you can play.
Speaker 6: You know, you get a score. Yeah, can you compare
your score to your friends?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I think you can.
Speaker 5: I think there is a leaderboard aspect. Yeah, I've just
been kind of tinkering around.
Speaker 4: I feel like I'm a broken record with this.
Speaker 6: But usually if I'm like playing a game where there's
a score, I want to be like, well, did I
beattherboard stuff?
Speaker 2: Miss pac Man all the time.
Speaker 4: I think about it all the time.
Speaker 3: I don't think there's any.
Speaker 4: About hitting him.
Speaker 3: There's no record there.
Speaker 4: I took a photo of it.
Speaker 3: I lost the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it looks like there's some semblance of leader words here. Yeah,
leader boards, Yeah, yep.
Speaker 4: I think that's neat.
Speaker 6: I think that makes it really fun to be able
to play like a childhood beloved song or just like
a song that you love so much now and try
and master it and then compare your score to others.
Speaker 5: That's great, And it's just one more step towards what
I'm going with with the Steam machine, where it's like
this is the ultimate box one HDMI in with every
old old game I've ever wanted to play, and way
more all new games you know, and then also like
Guitar Hero and stuff like Weird. So if you can
do with perival t I'm learning like Linux shit and stuff.
Thanks for this. It's it's a really fucking cool machine.
Speaker 2: Cool both sound like cool. Community. Yeah, what's the word,
I'm looking for community fuel projects?
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: Last thing.
Speaker 1: I'll say I did play David Divers DLC a bit.
I've not played a ton to go fully into it.
I do appreciate Mary, I will say they do. The
wording is confusing you do not need to finish the
first game before you play a DLC what I thought
he did, unless they changed it since you talked about it,
you do not. It just heavily recommends, like maybe there's
a pop up that sounded like you said you had to,
but I played it without finishing the bass game.
Speaker 6: Oh interesting, I wonder if they changed it, because when
I looked it up, it said, yes, you need to
roll credits.
Speaker 2: Oh you need credits. I do like that. Like the
Stardew Valley elements, it's not just that's great.
Speaker 1: From education to location like die to the sushi to
the gun thing, you're actually they've got the glue of
like trying to impress the different towns people.
Speaker 2: I'll last Stardu Valley.
Speaker 1: I've only played like two hours of it or three
hours of I don't know how long it played.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna play way more.
Speaker 1: I'll talk about it more in the next one because
I do intend to keep playing this as well. Outside
of Tarotech, Legion Throne Fall, this is really good. I'm
kind of just going between these three for steam Deck,
which has been really fun.
Speaker 4: Interesting.
Speaker 6: That's I'm glad you're playing it. I'm very confused by this.
I feel like when you do a quick search, everybody
says you have to play the game main game.
Speaker 2: Unless I rolled credits without knowing about it or without
remembering that.
Speaker 4: I did, you don't know if you finish the main game.
Speaker 1: I played a lot of the main game. I didn't
think I did. Maybe it's just because I thought there
was more to do, but it's I don't know. I
let mean.
Speaker 4: Maybe I'm wrong. That's great.
Speaker 6: Yeah, either way, it's freaking great because I I was
thinking about it, and I didn't love the end of
Day of the Diver and so being able to do.
Speaker 1: This negative memories about my later hours in that game.
So maybe I did play more than I thought. But
either if you if you can play the Jungle DLC
right now, go play.
Speaker 2: It's it's rad added.
Speaker 6: That if I spend eight hours finishing Day of the
Diver and I.
Speaker 4: Didn't have to, that pisses me off.
Speaker 1: I remember seeing the way they were. I was like,
I don't think Mary needed to do that, but it's possible.
Speaker 5: Oh Mary, you do need to pay for it twice,
don't I hope you like that's worse.
Speaker 4: Than kishing it.
Speaker 6: Spending eight hours playing a game that I don't want
to finish to get to DLC.
Speaker 1: Now because the search results are in consistent. I need
people listeners to if you've beaten the game, go check
it out, or if you haven't been the game, go
see if you could play it, because that now I
want to know if Mary did quote unquote, I'll.
Speaker 4: Be so, I'll be frustrated.
Speaker 6: I did not love the end of that game, and
I and I was like ready to move the fuck on,
but I I do think the DLC is fun and
worth playing, And that was my main feedback was, I
think the DLC is great, but it's not worth beating
the game over Like that's generally how I felt.
Speaker 4: So damn it, I'll play.
Speaker 1: I'll talk more about that next episode because I haven't
played enough to get a firm grasp of everything.
Speaker 2: But that's the nature of that game.
Speaker 1: You start getting crazier and crazier with the activities, which.
Speaker 6: Ye that is shaking those trees, getting the coconuts, getting
the little dry land stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, reminds me of the action RPG aspect of Call
to the Lamb, not mechanics. Fact that you're like delving
into this maze of pathways et cetera.
Speaker 4: Believable. If that's the case, this counts as my blight club.
Speaker 2: All right, you guys want to talk about emails?
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: As always, you can run into Firescape cast at gmail
dot com. Get those coffers overflowing, get our inbox full
of questions.
Speaker 2: We got a few here today.
Speaker 1: We're gonna read one from Melbourne, one from Coffers enough,
I know one from but yeah, get some questions in
or comments, corrections, concerns.
Speaker 2: They're all welcome. Mary, do you want to read this
first one from Wassi? Sure?
Speaker 6: Hey, Escapees Love the Pod have been a Day one listener.
Last pod, Mary was talking about Dave the Diver and
we talked about this time too, and it got me thinking,
every time I play a new game, which is generally
on release, I'm min max and play the shit out
of it trying to get the platinum, and then by
the time a DLC is released, I've already moved on
and I've played other games, and I've never gone back
to the old game, no matter how much I loved it,
I always worry that I'm going to forget the controls
and the story and pretty much everything from the game.
Speaker 4: So probably stuck myself out.
Speaker 6: I probably play one tenth of the amount of games
that you guys do. My question is, how do you
re engage with an old game You're not feeling totally
lost after you go back to it after some time?
Speaker 4: Am I overthinking it? Cheers?
Speaker 6: Wassee from Melbourne of avid Barbecue shapes Eater. Oh yeah
better than chicken crimpy o OI any Aussie will tell
you that. I don't know if I think sometimes barbecue
is just too sweet for me. And I'm not a
sweet snack person. I'm a salty, savory snack person. This
might be a personal.
Speaker 3: Precice's I never thought of barbecue being sweet, but.
Speaker 1: Miss mesquite definitely has some sweetness too, Okay, stuffy.
Speaker 4: I definitely like brown sugar.
Speaker 6: I I will accept this, And because you are truly
from the landown hunner, I feel like you get more sway.
Speaker 4: Than I do in this.
Speaker 6: But I'm allowed to decide my own favorite snacks, and
chicken crimpy is my favorite, so you know.
Speaker 4: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Uh As far as the question goes, I have this
problem often because there are not percentage wise of games
I've actually finished in the last two years that I
started is very low. Just because I try so many
things on Steam and for my day job. Everything i'm playing,
i'm finishing for the most part, and obviously, where like
we're talking extensively about Pragmata, I'm finishing it because, like
I mean, that game's easy to finish, but there are
other games like I still have not done nearly everything
I could in Elden Ring or in certain Dark Souls
or some side stuff.
Speaker 6: I still feel like going back to Dark Souls would
be pretty brutal, because like.
Speaker 1: You're building up a muscle memory from the tutorial in
those games and trying to you know, like you're ingraining it.
Starting from not from square one, but starting from going
back to the game after like a year away and
relearning the timing and everything is one thing, but there's
also little things you're gaining along the way and your
character build that are nuanced and like, oh this helps
against these enemies. Like I usually just start over because
I don't feel like I have the training to get there,
like I did that with Ghost of Yota. I didn't
finish it when it first came out. Love that game,
just had to move on to other stuff. And then
before Game of the Year, I'm like I'm just going
to restart this that game, especially because like to learning weapon,
you're literally going through like several quote unquote weeks of
training to learn it from the master. I was like,
I feel like I need to really start over because
the's a lot of stances and timing and little equipment
things that I probably forgot about.
Speaker 5: I think it really depends on the game though, Like
Elton Ring is a great example, because like that's one
like when Urgery came out, where it's like I think
a lot of people loaded up their old characters, like god,
what was I even okay? What am I to battle
age here? What are my spells? I don't really fucking
know what this guy's deal is. But then there are
things where it's like, you know, for instance, I was
thinking about how I don't engage with DLC most times,
even with games that I love, like Requiem. You know,
Resona will Requiem easily one of my favorite games of
the year. They did something like DLC not that long
ago that Leon Must Die Rogue Light something or other mode,
and like, I adore that fucking game. And with that,
it's just like, you know, barely enough time to like
just kind of play all the new releases as they
come out, So my barrier is not worrying about like
with games like that, like oh am, I gonna remember
how to play this or anything. It's more just like,
you know, like is this something I need to go
back to? Is this important enough?
Speaker 3: Or anything?
Speaker 5: Like urd Tree is something that is a huge addition
and you want to go back to, but it's also.
Speaker 4: One practically a new game.
Speaker 5: There's like yeah, and the mechanics are so complicated or
not complicated, but they're more involved to the point where
it's like that would be harder to go back to
with a character in progress where it's like requim, I
could pick that up start playing immediately, but that DLC
just kind of seemed like maybe a skippable thing, you know.
So it's really a case by case basis.
Speaker 6: Wah see, it's kind of u The consensus generally is
that you're not overthinking it. It's really hard to go
back to a game that you have, in my opinion,
you finish. It reminds me of going back to a
book that I've read three quarters of.
Speaker 4: It's like now I just got to start over.
Speaker 6: I find it awkward to go back to a game
I've tried to pick up Hollow Night Silk Songs several times.
Speaker 4: In my current play.
Speaker 6: It's very far in. I'm in a very difficult spot.
I'm fucking miserable. I would rather restart that game than
start it like ninety percent where I'm at right now
and just be like completely obliterated. I find that kind
of I also tried to go back to Blueprints the
other day, and it was kind of the same thing
where I was like, I've already played I've discovered so
much of the whimsy of this world. I met that
part where I think I'm trying to there's a certain
area where you need to get the tunnels so that
the airflow goes a certain way, and I was like, I.
Speaker 4: Don't want to deal with all this. I already felt all.
Speaker 6: The vibes that I wanted from Blueprints. I don't think
you could catch me replaying Blueprints from scratch like or
sorry mid game again. I would have to play it
from scratch, and I'd have to be in the zone
to play it from scratch. I actually think your instincts
are spot on. You play a game, enjoy it when
you're done with it. If you feel the nostalgic itch
go back to it, but ultimately like it's over, it's
jo move on.
Speaker 2: No, I don't think.
Speaker 1: I also don't think you're overthinking it, because I mean,
for my consulting, we work with a lot of studios
and like WAT, more than anything we talk with them
about onboarding, they think a lot about it. They a
lot of time into easing people into different mechanics and
making sure they stack in intuitive ways. Most of the
developers are not like, how do we design this if
the player lapses for six months and needs to come
back in.
Speaker 2: They're not thinking that.
Speaker 1: They're like, how do we ease them in if they've
already been playing for twelve hours since release? Like vast
majority of games these days are played in the first
two weeks after release, So they're not thinking about this
unique situation. Not that they're not thinking about it, but
it's not a priority. And I don't think that's like
saying too much. I'm not like putting any of the
people I work with on blast, like that's just not
how they think. But like David Diver was easy enough
just because that game has already got that warrior where
structure of like doing a bunch of different things where
it's like I'm still learning those mechanics and they're simple mechanics.
But also like a lot of design developers design their
games to be a certain amount level of difficulty here
based on what you've been doing the previous few hours.
So like it, I just feel like most games are
not designed to be able to jump back in, even Balatro,
which is simple mechanically, like there's a lot of cards
I need to really grain like what these jokers do.
Metro Vanias, I think is the worst genre to try
to jump back into because you have the mini map,
but you don't have that mental map that you've been
building and knowing exactly what all these dead ends are
and where you need to go.
Speaker 2: So those are tough. Thank you, Wissie. Dan. Do you
want to do this? One? From David from your neck
of the Woods? What Toledo your original neck of the
Woods to Toledo is Toledo, not Kansas?
Speaker 3: Is here in Topeka?
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of Tepeka. Toledo's Ohio.
Speaker 4: Yeah, That's where I'm from.
Speaker 2: I've been not even but that right up?
Speaker 4: Classic cut it Dan from Toledo.
Speaker 2: From Ohio, Do you want to read this one from
David how to Escape Ease.
Speaker 5: I'm finishing up a two weeks day in Italy as
part of an archaeological dig. My now fiance took me
on after a Mike's frequent wine talks. I was excited
to try the different types of area as famous for Okay,
I know, David, I'm not mocking you.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do this in a mic voice.
Speaker 5: After tasting at least fifteen different local including separate taste
things out of the Mantasino Brunello's, I can firmly say that, well,
I respect the complexities. Matte sweet to you, still prefers
the alcoholic grape juice. Have a good reggae red. My
question is it sounds just like my question is, well,
it's something you've had the best of, but still prefer
the cheap version of that.
Speaker 3: Thanks for all you, dude, David Toledo.
Speaker 2: Separate from all this, that is actually a really good
cartman once.
Speaker 5: I've never tried to do a carbon always, including now the.
Speaker 1: Intonation at the end, the curl at the end of
the sentence. I thought I did a good carbon You're
all way better. I'm not kidding that. I was trying
to do you. I know, but I'm saying you could
do a kick.
Speaker 3: Ass if you want purpose learning stuff.
Speaker 2: What is something you've had the best stuff but still
prefer the cheap version of it. That's a good question.
Speaker 5: I got one because around here we try to like
I'm always talking about the burgers around here, and like
not just like the Juicy Lucy, Like there's just great
fucking burgers everywhere.
Speaker 3: And there's a new place that just open up.
Speaker 5: It's called Late Burger forty three oh four and had
great reviews and stuff. I saw it in the paper
and it's like we went there and it's like, you know,
all the burgers. I'm looking at the ingredients for the
La Royale and it's one year crew booth, faux gras,
Cooper's Fromage Americane, black truck, black truffle, aoli and pickles,
and it's like it's all like kind of overthought stuff,
you know.
Speaker 2: And it's like you don't need that in a burd
inventing the wheel.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's like it has good reviews. I know
it's it's good. It's well made stuff, but like Bak
and I both had that, and like, man, I would
just really prefer lions.
Speaker 3: Tap that place.
Speaker 5: Then we go to when when you guys come in,
it's like and that is just like a basic ass
burger on a paper plate at you know, on the
side of the road in Minnesota is a million times
better than this kind of fancy burger place.
Speaker 6: The people meal of a burger is better affordable, it's
better with like whatever you can scrounge up. American cheese
is great on a fucking burger. You don't need it.
Speaker 2: Like I have.
Speaker 6: Preferred American cheese over cheddar on burgers for years because
it's meltier, it's give gives you more of that like
go that you are looking for. Smash burgers are amazing,
and they're so you can make them at home for
like next I make my own smash burger.
Speaker 4: They're so cheap, they're so good one hundred percent. You
just don't need it.
Speaker 6: I would not go to a fancy place and buy
a thirty dollars burger. That feels like a waste of
time and energy.
Speaker 1: This is not the exact same thing. This is sort
of different. I love coffee. I love good coffee. I
care a lot about how my coffee tastes. But similar
to how I'm not averse to like shotgunning a bud light.
If I'm on a road trip and i'm driving, I
don't think it's truly a road trip unless I'm buying
like shitty Cumberland Farms gas station coffee. It's not good,
but it's still I don't want like my local cappuccino
to I don't want that before I'm getting in the
car to driver. I want like jet fuel way overcooked.
I want it to taste like like diners same thing.
I don't want really really good coffee at diners. I
want like the lowest common denominator thing or else I'm
not really having a diner experience. I don't prefer it
in the most contexts, but like in certain ones, like
I'm taking the shitty thing here because otherwise I feel
like I'm being way too bougie.
Speaker 6: I think that's I think there's like a lot of
examples of it where the cheap thing is also a
part of its benefit. Loaded fries, I want them moderately priced,
or they don't taste as good even if they're delicious.
If they're twenty dollars, that pisses me off. Loaded fries
should be somewhere between like seven to fifteen dollars like max.
After that, it's like, what are we doing here? It's fries, cheese,
some bacon, some green onion drizzle some sauce on it
and be done with it.
Speaker 4: And some of that is just.
Speaker 6: Like the bedrock of there is a price for a
good meal that I am willing to pay. There is
always a point with no matter how good the meal is,
if it was if I feel like it was overpriced.
Now I don't think it tastes as good. It bums
me out to eat something that I feel like I
paid too much money for, So I'm always looking for
a good bargoon in SF.
Speaker 4: I will always remember that.
Speaker 6: It was impossible to go out to eat in San
Francisco for less than twenty thirty dollars.
Speaker 4: Who's so freaking expensive there? I found a.
Speaker 6: Place that had a deal on Wendy Wednesdays for chicken
wings and you could get twelve wings.
Speaker 4: Club the best deals on wings, and they were so good.
Speaker 2: Gold Club was joking, that's the dude.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I prefer the wings and the booth were so
good and I could get out of there.
Speaker 6: I could get out of there shift twenty Bucks, I
could get out of there.
Speaker 2: I would have the courage charge though we know, we
know somebody used to go there for lunch during a
work day, because I know who you're talking about. Yeah,
for the.
Speaker 4: Wings, for the wings. He would always say, it's just
such a good deal.
Speaker 2: Last one.
Speaker 1: When I'm getting like legit barbecue down South, if they
give me like fucking fukasha bread on the plate.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm leaving immediately.
Speaker 1: I need white wonder bread, like shitty white bread to
mop it up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're giving.
Speaker 1: Us, I'm like, nope, I'm frisbeeing the bread back into
the kitchen and then I'm rab it up.
Speaker 2: But anyway, good question, Thank.
Speaker 4: You, Yeah, thank you guys.
Speaker 2: David from Topeka, Uh sure, I know.
Speaker 3: Oh, I say, that's our.
Speaker 7: Show, David from Topeka, David from Topka, Classie from the
BOSSI it was a good weekend recording.
Speaker 2: Mary. What do you have going on before our next episode?
Speaker 4: Just streaming on Mondays as usual. Check it out.
Speaker 6: I usually do go live on Mondays after work, and
I've been playing a lot of the games that we
talk about, which is fun.
Speaker 4: And then I'm going to try not travel.
Speaker 6: For a while because I'm so tired. I went to
open sauce. Well we'll talk about that some other time.
But it was really cool. But I'm like so exhausted.
Speaker 4: No more traveling for Mary for a little bit, Unlike Dan.
Speaker 2: I'm coming to you, Dan, Yeah, Dan, what do you
have going on?
Speaker 5: Come to me, Dan, I've got a road trip coming
up here and flying into San Francisco a couple days early,
hanging out, staying with some friends and and then hitting
the road with Giant Bombs Jeff Grab, Jiannachoa and Mike Manatti,
and we were gonna drive up the coast and wind
up in Portland, hang out with Mary doing a mis
convention apparently. Yeah, I'm sure, yeah, sure, that'll be interesting.
And then yeah, hanging out with some fans at We're
gonna put together a little meet up things.
Speaker 6: So Giant bompans, how do people find it if we're
keeping it low key?
Speaker 5: So we're gonna keep like kind of a premium thing.
So we've got you know, discord and stuff. We're we're
gonna get it out there. But it's gonna be very fun.
Looking forward to seeing you. That's gonna be great.
Speaker 4: And I'm excited.
Speaker 3: It's gonna be awesome.
Speaker 4: We got to take the voice to a good brunch spot.
Speaker 3: Oh god, that Pine State Biscuits was the fucking best.
That was so good.
Speaker 1: And speaking of speaking of premium members, I should mention
if you're already a video patron, you saw we did
a mecha chameleon bonus video co op video with all
three of us and Jake, our producer. You're not already
a bonus a video patron. Go become one.
Speaker 2: You'll get that.
Speaker 1: You'll get all our past bonus episodes. That one was
super fun co op kind of friends sloppy game you
know we always want to do. You can also get
add free episode. Just go to firescapecast dot com to
get to our patron page and you can become one.
We also just have a you know, a tip jar
if you appreciate what we do. We again, it's fire
Escape cast at gmail dot com. As far as I'm concerned,
my day job, it's all behind the scenes stuff with games. However,
you can probably easily find out where I work as
a somier should tell people I'm at a French wine
bar in New York and I'm now at an Italian
restaurant as well which is famous wood fires.
Speaker 2: Everything.
Speaker 1: You two need to come, like next time we do
a fire escape thing in New York, or just next
time you're in New York. Need to come because it's
like all wood fired, like rustic Italian food.
Speaker 2: It's kickass. You can find those places on my Instagram.
Speaker 1: I won't say I'm out loud now, but I'm like,
I'm basically doxing myself on my Instagram. So you can come,
say hi, tell me you're a fire Escape listener, and
be fun to hang out.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: We will be back in a couple weeks with episode
one thirty eight. Thanks for joining today, everybody, We'll see
you then.
Speaker 3: Bye bye,