Speaker 1: What's happening Billy crapping in? Welcome back to the regular
You can't keep doing that. Welcome back to the Firescape Cast.
This is episode one hundred and seventeen. I'm Mike Maharty
here as always with Daniel Reikert.
Speaker 2: Was one seventeen The Halo Guy. The spark spark was
that it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Master Chief Spartan one one seven.
Speaker 2: Guilty spark was guilty Sparks who I'm thinking of?
Speaker 1: That was the monitor from You Meet in the Swamp episode. Uh.
The Guilty three four three Guilty Spark was the episode
where you go into the You Meet the Flood for
the first time. That's right, this is too early to
talk about video games.
Speaker 2: Mary's being quiet. Mary.
Speaker 1: This is a comedy podcast. This isn't about video games. Uh.
We're not here with Mary. She's gallivanting around Japan, knocking
down restaurant walls, probably desecrating temples we brought in. Uh.
Jesse Vittelli, explain yourself?
Speaker 2: Who are you? Explain yours?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm Jesse Vitelli. I'm an associate editor at restart Run.
I'd like to play video games. I review him, I
run social media. I do I do a lot of things. Honestly.
I usually get a lot of random discord messages from
Dan that's like, we're gonna throw you in an almost suit,
and then we're gonna like make you We're gonna throw
you into a volcano.
Speaker 1: We're gonna put you behind a wall. We're gonna do.
Speaker 3: All these things. And I'm the guy that just goes, yeah, sure,
that sounds great.
Speaker 1: Cut behind the walls. It's like the intro to Sakario
and you're threatening him as a cartel may.
Speaker 2: I was thinking more of a cask of a Montalado
situation of a literary man.
Speaker 1: That's not the pronunciation.
Speaker 3: I got great wine. Just go behind this wall. We're
gonna brick you up. It's fine, don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: It's funny because like I like to pull that reference
out as a joke of like, wow, Dan knows the
literary thing. But then I accidentally still sound stupid in
my smart guy reference because everyone always says I say
it wrong. Is it a Monteado correct? Yes, a Mantiado
type of sherry. Do you want to talk about sherry
for a bout? I could talk about Jesse Shery, Jesse.
You've only met Mike briefly, but you know we've we've
as longtime friends of Mike have learned to sidestep anything
that could go into wine territory.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that you do.
Speaker 2: Sherry was wine.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that you knew sherry is wine. Though that's nice.
Not everybody knows that.
Speaker 2: I didn't say that. I didn't say I knew that.
Speaker 1: You just said you try to side stuff anytime he
talks about wine, So you knew him anex you know.
Oh yeah, no, Sherry's kind of wine. But I won't
get into that unless you want me to. It's okay.
Speaker 3: My neighbor downstairs is a somalier, and so like Chris
right now, we could bring him up.
Speaker 1: Chris, where does he work? I have no idea. I
know that he's a somalier. It'd be funny if it
was Chris, who I work with on the weekends. Speaking
of which, really quick, I'm gonna plug it up top
because I'm excited about it. October twentieth I mentioned last
time it is fully concrete. Now I'm hosting a smash Bros. Tournament,
thirty two person tournament, three stock. It's smash Bro's ultimate
it's not full esports rules, but it's three stock. We're
going to be playing at La Company Center Street, best
wine bar in New York City. It's where I work
on the weekends as a hobby. I will be hosting
it and where some fire Escape march there. If you
go to our patreon, I have links to sign up
for the tournament. Spots are filling up, but you can
either sign up for the tournament or sign up. Just
make a reservation through rezi if you want to come
hang out, it's a you know, we'll have some snacks,
we'll have good wine, be hanging out there in Soho
for the night. I'm excited imagined.
Speaker 2: Would they host a if we ever did another New
York City fire Escape meetup? Would they be willing to
have a full group of fire escape yahoos in the place?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think so. I can't, like, say, with the
utmost certainty, but we can always just go there and
hang out. It depends on how much how many people?
How many people do we have at the Churchill one,
and I would.
Speaker 2: Guess about fifty. I think that sounds that right, sounds it? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You made me drink catnip m hmm.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesse before the meetup, was this even apropos of anything,
or that it could be funny.
Speaker 1: We were going to get breakfast or something that morning,
and we walked by that pet shop that my wife
and I like, and you said it be you wondered
if eating catnip would get a human high. Yes, and
then you said Mike could be a guinea pig for it.
And then you secretly all bought catnip that you then
put in a like a high ball of whiskey later
that night and had me drink it. Yes, you take
although I didn't get really weirded out after because you
told me before I drank it, you're like, no, I
researched it thoroughly, You're not going to be high. And
then I drank it like I actually didn't read about
it at all. So then all of a sudden, I was, yeah,
it seems was trusting him. No, it's fine. My stomach
was a bit off though, because I drank like it
was like drinking floating fish food in a glass of whiskey.
Speaker 2: It's fun.
Speaker 1: No, it was fine, though, But yeah, I know, like
fifty something people people came in from Connecticut, Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania.
It was very fun. So October twenty at the Company
Center Street, I'll be there. But yeah, we were talking
about oh yeah wine smash Uh. Mary's off in Tokyo,
or at least she's still in Japan. She went to TGS.
You both have you have either of you done a
DAN You've done a TGS.
Speaker 2: Did one TGS event in Japan four times?
Speaker 3: Yeah, down Japan, Japan zero times, Okay, which feels weird
in this line of work.
Speaker 1: I feel like at some point I should have been
in Japan.
Speaker 2: It was like so much more like first of that
like travel type stuff I feel like happened way more
back then. I mean it happens now, but it's always
like an event in LA and event in New York.
They're always just kind of the same events at like
an event space or on the twentieth floor of a
hotel in Manhattan or something. You guys missed the Heyday.
I mean, Mike, you got a little taste of it
from your game in former time. You didn't travel, but
you missed a lot of I got like.
Speaker 1: A solid two years to travel. And also Jake and
I j for what it's worth, just left New York Monday.
He was here all weekend.
Speaker 2: I can oh. I mean, like, gee, a Game Informer,
you weren't you were an intro. Oh I see, I
thought you're talking about you did. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, No, I didn't travel it all for Game Former,
but I definitely I think I mentioned on a couple
of episodes ago my first cover story I had joined
for was Lego Marvel and I that would have been
England T T games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, travelers, I get those mixed up.
Speaker 1: But no, I never traveled for a game Former, but
I definitely did for a game Spot a little bit,
and twice for Osaka.
Speaker 2: That was the thing too, is like there were more
like dedicated maybe this was just a Game Informer thing,
but like since they did the cover stories every month,
it was like, okay, it's just Game Informer going out,
so it's like you and a couple of colleagues, you know,
going meeting with the team and everything. Now, I feel
like when travel stuff does happen, it's usually like these
bigger press events like I did that Metal Your Solid
one in New York, the Destranding one in Japan, where
was just like okay, it's like a cattle call, like
the thirty forty different journalists and stuff like that, so
it's just different now.
Speaker 3: I think there's also and living in New York, a
lot of them happen here. So I don't go anywhere
because it's like, yeah, I just get on a three
dollars subway and go uptown.
Speaker 1: Like.
Speaker 3: Uh, Pokemon recently just did one where they flew a
bunch of people out to France and they played Pokemon
in the Eiffel Tower. Meanwhile, I'm getting shipped on by
a pigeon on my way to some random penthouse in
Manhattan to play Pokemon for an hour, and I'm like,
I couldn't you couldn't take me, send me to France.
Speaker 2: Was at the glass House in Chelsea.
Speaker 3: No, it was some like random like warehouse penthouse type deal.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know they do a lot of stuff at the Glasshouse.
I just I say that as this as if it's
this like Macca. I've been only a few times, and
I it's not my favorite, but yeah, no, I Uh.
Jake Decker was at the Paris thing as well, and
he always every time he's in Paris, which is weirdly
often compared like especially, he'll message me like, hey, have
you seen this? And then he'll take a photo of
the Eiffel Tower and messes me it's my favorite bit.
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, yeah, good bit. Jesse did travel
to Minneapolis recently. I hung out with him here, and
I did. I took him to the Vegas Lounge with Mike.
You you ever heard of Vegas Lounge? Yep?
Speaker 1: I showed him very quickly about that place.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's there's no way yeah, spring Street tavern. Yeah,
we walked from Spring Street Tavern to Vegas Lounge. I
showed them the spot on the sidewalk where you ate
shit and got a bunch of gravel stuck in your knee.
Speaker 1: That's true.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then yeah, full Vegas Lounge night with everything
that goes along with that. And I'm glad that place,
uh still got it. I'm not there nearly as much
these days now that I don't live across the street
and I'm not twenty five anymore. But uh pussy, yeah, yeah,
you're right, that's what Jesse kept saying.
Speaker 1: That place rules.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: You we did put you in a trunk and drive
you over there, so like you did get a little
taste of the youth, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I rode in the trunk. I do always prefer
like I like riding in the trunk on a bar night.
That was my go to in college. Was just like
everyone said, Oh, we're gonna pitt eyone the car. Its like, noh,
get in the trunk. It's like I have like anti claustrophobia,
I think where it's just like oh yeah, I'm just
I feel like cozy and nights I take it like
a little nap almost in there. You know, you can
kind of just hear like muffled voices having a conversation
in the front and you're just kind of rattling around
back there.
Speaker 1: It's like a sedan trunk or like a hatchback like
an suv.
Speaker 2: Uh is this today? I'm just like a normal car fully.
Speaker 1: Enclosed, as opposed to like, oh, yeah you black pitch
I'm were with, Yeah, I've done that a few times.
Speaker 2: I didn't like it.
Speaker 1: But I do often sit in the trunk or I
used to sit in the trunk for with like in
a jeep or oh that's or something. I wish we
still had station wagons with the leather benches in the
back facing backward.
Speaker 2: There was a new game there between the door and
the bar. It's a bonus hole. Is the new game
they have there? Played it, Jesse. I think we just
stood around the bonus.
Speaker 1: Hole just kind of pointed and laughed at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I took pictures of the bonus hole. This is
one of those bullshit coin. It's like that rat coin
game that's coming out, you know where it's like you
put a quarter in there and you hope untold riches
spill into your lap, and it never does.
Speaker 3: I learned about poll tabs. That was a big one.
I learned how to gamble yes. And the old woman
smoking a cigarette and yeah, I handed her twenty dollars
in singles.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a good Vegas lounge night. You'd like
learn every vice in a ten minute stretch and like
you realize what your true like weakness is. Well, yeah, a.
Speaker 3: Meat raffle would have got me, but there was no
meat raffle that night.
Speaker 2: That's in the mornings on the weekends. Yeah, as Jesse
was doing the poll tabs, that's when we had our
first taste of there was that woman in the back
porch that was just being real weird. I remember she
was hovering over your shoulder during the poll tabs, and
then what happened. She was like hitting on every guy
at the bar, and then as we were waiting for
our like uber afterwards in the parking lot, she was like, Oh,
my husband's gonna be upset about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so here's.
Speaker 1: Don't short dudle, don't do it. Maybe this this this.
Speaker 3: Girl was like kind of hovering around us, and we
were like engaging in conversation, trying to bring her and
her friend into the group because we were a big
group of people. And then she gave me money to
go get poll tabs because she learned that I had
never done pole tabs before. And then only one of
the like ten that I got was like a five
dollars winner or something, and I gave it to her
and I was like, oh, this was partially your money.
Speaker 1: Here, you take it. Go get your money.
Speaker 3: And then they disappeared, and I was like, I think
this was the girl just trying to get people to
get poll tabs, like I think we just got got would.
Speaker 2: Can you explain pole tabs for the non Minnesotans out there.
Speaker 3: It's a square piece of cardboard that you just you
you buy them for like a doubt. The woman was
like pick a number and a color and then put
her hand in a box like a like dune and
then just handed me like a just a bunch of
cardboard things and then you just like rip off the
cardboard and then it's kind of like a slot machine.
And it's like you're like you're like looking for matches,
I think is.
Speaker 1: What it was.
Speaker 2: Slot machine. It's like cymbals and cherries and bells and stuff,
and it's it's like a scratch cracticket needs a slot machine.
Basically when you scord of.
Speaker 3: Whole tabs, I thought you were talking about scratch offs.
Speaker 1: Oh, it was very different. I thought you're saying the
Vegas Lounge had old school beer cans that were pull tabs. Still,
oh wait, what poll tabs are? No, they sound like
scratch offs though.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's but it's weird because it's like I think
it's a legal thing where they can't just sell it
at the bar because most like dive bars you go
to in Minneapolis, they'll have the people work in the
bar and then they will have like a dedicated poll
tabs employee, and like Jesse said, usually an older lady
that has smoked eight million cigarettes. And then you just
buy Like that's all they do all night, and like
you rarely see people going up. There's never a line
at the poll tabs count or anything, but they're working
there every fucking night. And it's just a novelty. Like
I've never gone there and like, oh yeah, I'm doing
pull tabs all night. It's just it's a it's a
thing that when people from out of town are like,
what the fuck is that you show them? But no
one actually does it, you know.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've experienced that. The Vegas Lounge.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it was there the whole time, Like
it was a whole corner of the place and you
probably never even saw it. It's weird.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, it's Oh it's its own little like counter. Yeah,
it's like a key where I know the Vegas Lounge.
Speaker 2: Like if you're facing the karaoke stand, yeah, to the
rock deck out back behind it, to the right, it's
like in the back corner, it's like the door that
goes out to the dumpsters. It's like next to that,
it's like there's a blind spot there. It's insane.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just remember my I think my most vivid
memory of the Vegas Lounge was It would have been
toward the end of my internship and I had to
go pee, and then we had requested no easy way
out by Edward Tepper and you Ben Reeves, and I
want to say Tim Turry went up and there were
four mics, but you were looking for me. I think
it was Ben Reeves started sprinting around the perimeter of
the bar trying to find me, thinking I had gone
out for I don't know, to get on the phone
or something. I was just in the bathroom. And then
you did the same thing with the same exact song
at Tim Turry's wedding, but I had less a wedding. Yes,
I just disappear when that song is about to come on,
even though it's the best song ever written.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesse, are you?
Speaker 1: Are you a rocky guy? I Rocky's fine? Okay, you
know what? You know? What here?
Speaker 2: I take? What's that? Yeah?
Speaker 3: All movies should be forty five minutes no longer?
Speaker 2: Oh okay? Is this the thing with the kids today, Jesse?
Because you're you're twenty one next week. Look anyone more
than two years younger than me as a kid, including Mike.
There's a weird I don't know if it's this industry
or what. But there is a weird anti movie thing
going on with the youths. I think I've heard this.
Speaker 1: This is a me problem.
Speaker 2: No, I've heard this recently from Jordan Middler, who's a
youngster in games media, Mike Manatti, who he's not a youngster.
He's a Disney child though, so that he might as
well be a year.
Speaker 3: On years old.
Speaker 1: Yeah about Disney movies are longer than forty five minutes.
Speaker 2: I know, but every Disney is just a different Like
you know, he he's afraid of fruit, but he he'll
eat a dull whip at Disney because that's get about
his he is on it. Then all the rules go
out the window, you know, gotcha? Yeah, yeah, that's all
to say that, Like, yes, there are many younger people
in the games industry now that are either fully anti
the filmic arts or like Jesse just said, here, uh,
forty five minutes longer. You you don't think, what's the
longest movie that you love?
Speaker 1: Did have I seen what? No?
Speaker 2: After?
Speaker 1: I actually do want to see.
Speaker 2: That that's like three hours long?
Speaker 1: I still I couldn't hear you either time?
Speaker 2: What movie? One battle after another? It's great I.
Speaker 3: Mean, I've seen The Lord of the Rings extended editions
like multiple times, like those are long as how I
love Pans Labyrinth. That's like not a short film by
any measure. Like I have seen plenty of long movies.
I simply think that some movies, most movies in fact,
are too fucking long.
Speaker 1: But isn't Rocky for like an hour to twenty rock
three rock? I gotta watch three Rockies to get there,
though I've only seen the first one.
Speaker 2: Okay, here's the thing, Jesse, I want to give you. Listen,
you watch fucking Furry Vengeance with me last weekend?
Speaker 3: All right, no, no, no, no no, don't say it like,
don't say it like I was gong ho. You held
me hostage and then texted me multiple times to make
sure I was into that Twitch chat with you, and
then made me check in with you at least every
fifteen minutes.
Speaker 2: That is true. That is true, Mike. Furry Vengeance is
Brendan Fraser twenty ten. Him and Brookshields move into a
house in the woods and they're they're haunted by c
GI animals for an hour and a half. But I
don't want to get distracted from Rocky yet all right, Jesse,
Rocky one and Rocky two are films like Capital F films.
You know, it was like Oscar Camera.
Speaker 1: Rocky one Runs Up the Stairs one one got nominated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, right, those are those are films.
Speaker 3: Drinks the Rug, Yeah, absolutely, I'm familiar.
Speaker 2: Rocky four is a movie. It is the most bullshit
dumb ass. But I don't mean to say it's like, oh,
it's this ironic, it's so bad, it's good. Do you
like say it's not a fury vengeance situation. It is
genuinely one of the most exciting things I have seen
in my life. Every single time I watch it, It's
an hour and a half long, and I feel like
it's been going for twenty minutes and then it's like
the final fight has started. It is the fastest moving,
like gripping from shot to shot thing. I would want
to hear what Jesse Vittelly thinks of Rocket.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not just a final fight. It's a metaphor
for the Cold War and like just you know, like
the post World War two tensions and how that wrought
havoc across the world.
Speaker 2: It's just like that movie.
Speaker 1: Also, that movie is like people give Ryan Coogler and
Michael B. Jordan credit for bringing an anime vibe to
the Creed trilogy, especially Creed three, which Michael B. Jordan
was his directorial debut. Good movie, not my favorite. But
Rocky four was all ready in anime, basically with two jacked,
very hot men punching each other over and over and
over and the one guy.
Speaker 2: Oh god, there's a lot. There's sly Apollo and talk.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, what do you mean you said too? Who's
don't want to spoil anything about one? Fight is decidedly
unhot unless you're into.
Speaker 2: Don't spoil it, produce.
Speaker 1: That's why I didn't want to. You just brought it up.
So you got to watch Rocky two, and then you
got to watch Rocky three, and get this, you gotta
watch Rocky four.
Speaker 3: So this isn't an hour and a half endeavor anymore.
Speaker 1: SI, Yeah, you don't need.
Speaker 2: To watch There was a lot of there's such a
just emotion to four if you've seen the three leading
up to it.
Speaker 1: I would say, especially one and two. Uh A man
and I last year, two years ago, I showed her
the entire series, and by that I mean I clockwork
oranged her to the couch and we skipped three, and
I think for still we were both creaming our jeans
the whole time.
Speaker 2: I don't love three. It definitely has some great moments.
I was, I was thinking of the Mickey arc is important. Yeah,
that's good. I was watching the dirtier cut of Dirty
Work with some friends a couple of nights ago. Here,
you know, they put out the dirtier cut this this week.
And Norm's talking to Chevy Chase, who's the doctor who's
got the gambling habit, and he's explaining why he needs
this fifty thousand dollars. He's like, I got a lot
of people I can blame for my dead situation, you know,
the Boston Red Sox, the New England Patriots, mister T
and he keeps going like Norm's like, whoa wait, are
you saying you bet on the fight in Rocky three
and you bet against Rocky He did lose in one.
Uh oh that is true? Yes, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah I got Rocky for us.
Speaker 2: Still good?
Speaker 1: And then Creed one? So have you seen Creed one
and two or three?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 3: I felt like I needed to see all of the
Rockies before I could see Creed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: So what's the last movie saw in the theaters?
Speaker 3: Oh you don't want to know, man, you really don't
want to Yeah, mean curious, what does that mean?
Speaker 1: The last time I was okay?
Speaker 2: Wait? Is it because it's been so long or because
you think the movie?
Speaker 3: Really it's I think the last time I was in
the theater was twenty twenty three. Maybe okay, I thought,
maybe something. I mean, no, no, no, But it's been
like years, literal years.
Speaker 2: So what what gets you? Like? What is okay? In
the last like five or six years? Which movies got
you out to the theaters?
Speaker 1: The Batman? Definitely? That?
Speaker 2: Do you like that?
Speaker 1: I liked it a lot.
Speaker 3: Actually, I really really liked that movie.
Speaker 2: Not the long one, just three hour.
Speaker 3: Yes it is a long one, but that I made
a day of it. Was like I went in the morning,
I went to the Nighthawk by me. It was very nice.
Had breakfast there after.
Speaker 2: Col Bruise, so you're by the night Hawk. The night
hooks awesome. They used to do a like nineties movie brunch,
a boozy brunch things. So I saw like Speed and
eight brunch and had cocktails and stuff. Yeah, it's so nice,
it's great. Gold And I and yeah, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: So I saw that.
Speaker 3: Honestly, it's a lot of like whenever my friends want
to go to the movies and they asked me to go.
So it's like normally a lot of Marvel, it's a
lot of like video game like Sonic three. Like it's
things that I'm like, I'm not gonna go to the
movies myself most of the time. But if like my
crew is like, hey, we're going to the movies today,
you want to come, I'm like, yeah, sure, why not?
It just doesn't happen often. What was the hardest scene,
like a real movie in a theater in a long time?
Speaker 1: What was the last movie you saw before the pandemic
and then the first one you saw after.
Speaker 3: I think the last movie I saw in theaters was
Birds of Prey because that was like right before everything
shut down.
Speaker 2: That was that, Zack Snyder, I think, so I.
Speaker 3: Don't remember it was, Yeah, it was like the Harley Quinn.
Speaker 1: Twenty shutdown. And then do you remember the first one.
Speaker 3: After first one might have been.
Speaker 1: That's tough. I actually don't, just fine, I remember both.
My last one was Parasite and like four blocks Away
when we still have a movie theater. I remember it
even more because that movie theater closed to the Pandemic.
My first one after was Top On Maverick, which to
this like is still one of the most fun in
theater experiences I've ever had in my life. And I'm
glad that might actually been my first one back to
and a lot of people back because they're like, oh,
it's you know, fucking the movies are back in town.
Speaker 2: Go check it out.
Speaker 1: And my my crowd was amazing. We were They were
cheering and laughing at all the right spots.
Speaker 2: It was great.
Speaker 1: They were smart about that pandemic was what peels might
believe before. Yeah, okay was it because almost.
Speaker 3: I remember, I think it's post pandemic. Yeah, then that
was the first movie I saw back.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay saw that in the theaters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So Top com Maverick was definitely not right after
I took a bit.
Speaker 2: It was like twenty two, but it was done like
it was like ready to be released, like near the
beginning of the pandemic. And I think like Cruise and
those guys were like so adamant, like this is a
movie theater movie, so like they just sat on that
for like a year or two or whatever it was.
And like that was a smart call because like that movies,
it's not like it's gonna age. I mean, like all
the effects that were like a lot of it was real.
It wasn't even like CG.
Speaker 1: You know, Oh it's not gonna age. I see what
you're saying. I thought you're saying it's not gonna age.
Well no, no, that's what I'm saying. I think it's
like a pretty evergreen thing. It doesn't rely on like
CG that's going to be like, you know, look shitty
in a few years or anything.
Speaker 2: Like the themes or anything are pretty evergreen. So yeah,
that was totally the right call on that, which I
think a lot of studios would not have had the
patience for that, but in those crazy circumstances, it was
the right call. Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 1: I that was also the first movie Amanda heead every
Sea in the drive Through. We d then drive in
Thank You. Yeah, And we went into a drive in
summer of twenty two and we'd already seen Maverick in
the Spring or whatever it was, and then we looked
up the drive in drive Through, Drive In It's not
Fast Food. The trailer d it's one of like the
last one hundred or so drive ins in the country,
and it was playing Top Gun. So we had the
rental car trunk popped at beach chairs out nice bottle
of burgundy. I wasn't drinking burgundy when I watched Top Gun. Mavericks,
that's a shotgun a beer situation. I think, Yeah, good thing.
You know how to shotgun beers.
Speaker 2: I've done two now, the one with you in the
backyard and then one of my brother in law last summer. Nice.
Speaker 1: Wait, you're like, this is like a new thing for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Mike taught me. I was like probably thirty. Mike
was when you were an interne. You were thirteen or fourteen, right, Mike. Yeah,
And we were at a party and Yeah, taught me
at a shotgun beer. I think I was always freaked
out of the idea of shotgunning a just because, like,
first of all, like I did a decent amount of
beer bongs in college. He moved a lot too, right,
that's the butt thing. Yeah, Yeah, I did a lot
of the not a lot, but I occasionally would do
the beer bong thing because that's just an it's a
funny thing to do. It's called a beer bong. It's
just a big fucking tube going into your face. It
looks stupid, it's funny you get drunk so fast. And
I know a lot of those same things applied to shotgunning,
but it's like I never quite understood what you had
to do to the can and how, and then it's
like the fact that you put your mouth on a
thing that has freshly broken metal and so on. Actually,
I just shot on a beer with Timp Turry at
Ben Hanson's like lot this summer, so I guess I've
done three now. But yeah, just put in your mouth
on a jagged thing of metal always scared me, whereas
like the beer bod, like this is just a hose.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the same concept as how beer cans used
to need to be opened in like the sixties or whatever.
You had the Have you ever seen old number old
beer or old can openers.
Speaker 2: At the heart the sixties?
Speaker 1: Think, I no, I know, but the design of the
can opener lasted a while and there probably are still
some out there. But you know, like now, I think
pan openers all have the crank. There were the ones
before it where it was just the pointed like the point,
and in order to open beer cans back in the day,
you needed to basically poke two holes in the top.
The one hole is the same reason you have the
hole in most coffee cup lids because without that hole,
there's no air exchange because you're just suctioning your mouth
to the drinking hole. So you need that second hole
for the actual air exchange, so oxygen can replace the
liquid that you're sucking out.
Speaker 2: So I find it difficult to understand things that you
can't see.
Speaker 1: No, I get it. I know it's weird. But like
if you like you ever had, you know, when you
have a water bottle, a plastic water bottle, and you
put your entire mouth around the neck and you just suck,
you know how, like you get suction to the water bottle,
a water bottle, but that no, that's this is designed
you like a plastic like a plastic screw hole in spring.
You've probably done it, you know how. You suck it
and actually the bottle like shrivels up like a scrotum.
That's because there's nothing replacing the liquid or the auction
being lost.
Speaker 2: So the then the hole is too. What if that
was metal, the metal wouldn't like collapse on itself.
Speaker 1: No, then metal things still share you with your shotgun.
But like the shotgun thing, you I showed you how
to tip it over, and you you lean it in
such a way. Say this is upside down beer can,
you lean it. This is the where you find the
bubble with your can or with your keys of knife.
Sure you puke the bubble. You make a big enough hole,
and you make sure you're only You're not like pulling
metal out. You make sure you keep it pushed in.
You make a big enough hole you could shot on
a beer like fucking two face. If I tried to
do this myself, I always need an adult to set
everything up. No, I get it. It's a weird thing,
and I also don't I I it must it's funny.
I always wondered who figured out how to do this,
But then you look at how beer cans used to
be open, and it's actually not that far fetched like this,
People back that I could have done this easily just
by virtue of how beer cans were normally opened is
my point. Okay, But now we take for granted that
the hole on a beer can is large enough where
you're generally not able to close your mouth around it in.
Speaker 2: A way that they got the big mouths now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but like there's enough, there's oxygen getting in the
around the sides of your mouth, so you don't need
that extra hole.
Speaker 2: Like next time you have a coffee, I put my
I put my mouth around the entire like circular lid
up top. That's how during soda beer, it's the whole
can get like like you just hold the whole can
the whole I wrap it around. Yeah, yeah, cool thing,
full circumference. Yeah, I see it.
Speaker 1: Poor, it's off putting on a hinge my jeologus snake. Yeah,
but no, I'm glad. I I haven't shot on a
beer since then.
Speaker 2: I don't think. What don't you understand?
Speaker 1: Just in life? Yeah, what's what's the biggest thing that
keeps you awake?
Speaker 2: You got questions?
Speaker 3: Oh? I on the oh, I had a lot of questions.
Speaker 1: I know, I have a lot of.
Speaker 3: Questions in like, yeah, the things I don't understand big
ones are sinkholes. I just don't understand them. I don't
want I don't know if I want to understand.
Speaker 2: Them, like in streets or sinks.
Speaker 1: Oh, but the land ones.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess I don't even I've never even thought
of them.
Speaker 1: I think a lot about falling through the earth, just dreams.
Speaker 2: Do you have dreams of falling through Is this?
Speaker 1: You have dreams in general?
Speaker 2: No dreams about falling through things?
Speaker 3: No, but I do think about it a lot. It's
like when I'm walking and I see a pothole, I'm like,
is that? Could that be a sinkhole? I don't know,
Should I walk around that?
Speaker 1: Where does it go?
Speaker 2: When I was when I was in elementary school, I
was probably like fifth grade or so, there's a kid
on my block. I we'll say his name was Larry,
and he we were at the park one day and
he threw a piece of glass at my face. We
found some glass on the ground in the sand, and
he threw it in my face and it sliced my
cheek open, bleeding everywhere. And went home, got cleaned up,
got patched up in everything. And it might have been
like the next day or something. I don't think it
was the same day, but I went to the same
park and I dug a hole, like a big hole.
Speaker 1: I heard this story.
Speaker 2: I don't think Jesse yet.
Speaker 1: And this is a wiley coyote response to a.
Speaker 2: Thing when I was like ten or eleven or whatever,
and so I dug it deep. I'd say, if I
had to guess right now, two to three feet. Maybe
it was less. But as a kid, I remember thinking like,
that's a big hole, and so I dug it. Let's
say three foot by three foot or so, maybe two
foot by two foot. And then I broke off a
bunch of branches from trees and I chris crossed them.
I went home. I got some paper high v bags.
I tore them up, but not too much enough to
lay them across, and then I took the shovel and
I covered it up with sand. And then I went
to Larry's house. I knocked on the door and I
had a band on my cheek and stuff, and I'm like, hey,
let's race, you know, like where we can do a race.
He's like okay. So we go to the park and
I very specifically, I was like, all right, we're gonna
line up here. I'm at this swing and Larry you
line up with this swing. Not a coincidence that he
was lined up there, and we're gonna run the first
one to touch the slides or whatever the fuck wins,
and uh, we uh, get down. We go one, two, three,
and I you know, I'm no athlete, but I was
faster than Larry. I got past him. I turn around
just as I heard just like a and I just
saw like a fucking sand cloud pop up, and he
just disappeared. Larry was just gone into the hole, crashed
through all the sticks and everything, and just laying at
the bottom of a pit with sticks and heavy bags
and sand all over him.
Speaker 3: I imagine like that cartoon thing where they're running and
then they realized there's a hole beneath them, but their
legs are still going.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, held that said yikes or yep or whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like, what in the cartoon ass fucking trap
did you you make for this guy?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: They do that in heavyweight. Why did you do that?
Speaker 2: I mean, if I wasn't a fighter, uh, you know,
I'm not gonna go challenge the man to a fistfight,
but I'll use my wits.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it' that's a good man. You're solid. Did
you go up to the edge of the hole and laugh?
I did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's actually exactly what happened. He was pissed off,
and I think it was maybe just an unsaid thing
of like, okay, we're even you know.
Speaker 1: Was it deep enough though where his entire body disappeared?
In my again we're talking over checking you just in
your memory?
Speaker 2: Was in my memory? I remember him there's a blat
and like not being visible and then me walking up
and seeing him.
Speaker 1: It's way funnier if he actually just like vanished than
if he tripped into like two feet Yeah, funny, I'm
not again, But in my head, I remember how I
thought back then, and I definitely would have thought that,
like I want to see this guy fall into a hole,
and it's because that's a big hole.
Speaker 2: I don't remember, but like I was looking five step,
my mind is something I always made sure to do
it right.
Speaker 1: You know what. I remember the story. I thought about
it during Ghost of Yota. Have you gotten to that
part yet where that guy is digging all those I'm there, Okay,
Sorry that the sacrifice. Guys, they put me an infamous
and I told him you're gonna get to that point
in the game and you're gonna fucking lose your mind
laughing because I brought that up. I'm sorry to jump
the gun on that one.
Speaker 2: Many people at school called me Burry Samurai like they
called Youtsu. The audience was the Ghost of Holy Trinity.
There's the father son, the Holy Ghost, and then the
real ghost.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't wait for Ghost of Yote sequel.
Ghost of Fucking Kansas City.
Speaker 2: Me and Leannexa, Kansas in nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: Five, Ghost of sitting next to the hole with a shami,
just like bathing in a fucking jacuzzi. Reflecting on Looney Tunes,
it probably wasn't inspiration. I did love Looney Tunes. Speaking
of do you want to talk about video games? No? Sure, yeah,
all right, A couple of big games have come out
since we last recorded. I guess second episode in a
row where we've all been playing a lot Ghosts of Yote.
I want to jump it too right away. Is there
anything we need to clean up first? Jesse? Quick, I'm
gonna like rapid fire you Hollow Night Silk Song. What
do you think in one sentence?
Speaker 3: I think Hollow nighte Silk Song is diabolical in the
best ways.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's a great sentence. You have one sentence to
describe that game. That is a plus.
Speaker 1: Jesse, thank you, it's good work. What other game did
we talked about last time.
Speaker 2: Uh uh uh, let me scroll down. Let me scroll down.
It's basically a silk song. I Racing crossworld I was
the one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I refuse to learn anything about the Sonic franchise,
and I played forty five minutes of Sonic Racing Cross
Worlds and still don't know anything about the Sonic franchise.
Speaker 2: To like this guy, all right, I like I like
Rapid Fire, but Telly Corner.
Speaker 3: Borderlands four is specifically the guy you knew in high
school that never got out of his hometown but then
did and learned a little bit about his life and
has now come back with a fresh perspective.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I know, I know something like that. All right?
You want to go to go to Yote?
Speaker 2: Oh? Sure?
Speaker 1: Or do you have any more Rapid Fire?
Speaker 2: I can go all day Cloverpit.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the hell that is?
Speaker 3: Uh Oceanobi, I haven't played it, but it looks sick
as hell.
Speaker 2: The Minnesota State pair never been but would like to
go middle your solid Delta.
Speaker 3: I think the original is better, and I don't think
that's a hot take.
Speaker 2: The Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild.
Speaker 1: The Legend of Delta.
Speaker 3: Breath of the Wild is a masterclass in design, in
letting you do whatever the fuck you want to do.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite game of all time?
Speaker 3: It's a toss up any day between two games. It's
either Outer Wilds or Luigi's Mansion for the game cube.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, that's yeah, I mean Outer wild You had
me let me wait, Can I give you my pitch
on Luigi's Mansion? Please do so.
Speaker 3: One of the reasons I love the Resident Evil franchise specifically,
like the early games, is mastery over a space, learning
a space and figuring out the best ways to maneuver
around it and use it the systems at your disposal
to give yourself the advantage. Luigi's Mansion is a Resident
Evil game and everything, but name if you really think
about it, it is mastery over that space and.
Speaker 2: So specific like being in a mansion, and you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to take it like at face value, absolutely, yeah.
But I do think there is that progression that you
get in Luigi's Mansion that you get in a Resident
Evil game.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this before, and I feel like maybe
you could relate. I didn't know you were super into
Resident Evil because I am. My favorite video games and
movies often take place in a very confined setting. It's
almost like a stage play, like Resident Evil. Like to
your point, you're mastering a space. It's like this one
set that you're kind of like getting to know intimately,
as opposed to this like Globe trotting Adventure Residu. Yeah,
Spencer Mansion, Raccoon City Police Department. I'm, I'm that's right
up my alley.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The bad thing about Resident Evils they always have to
end up in like a lab or like a new
space by the year. It's like, no, let me just
stay in the old space like it's cool, Like.
Speaker 1: The village is the coolest, and then the castle is
less cool, and then the island sucks. Island is the
world I use podcast that we talked about this reason.
Mary and I just recently finished up for a remake
for CANEVL and yes, I like the remake. Not only
did it not improved, it reinforced how bad the last
third of that game is. Even though the village and
the castle to some extent, but especially the village are
good enough where it's still cemented in so many of
our minds is one of the best games ever because
it's really really, really good. Up front, the game should
enter at the castle, that's when you.
Speaker 2: Gamed at the castle, and just be like, what would
be like a ten hour game at that point.
Speaker 1: Something like that, Yeah, because then it becomes sixteen eighteen
with the fucking it's not just military island zombies with
guns an armor, sure, whatever, it's that the island has.
Like they're all like at the button for the garage door,
They're like, oh and then it's opening closing, and like,
I don't that that I don't need and I didn't
want and I still don't want the remake, all right,
but yeah, Ghost of Yote. Are we all played it,
all three of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like ten hours in now, Okay, I'm far
h Okay, it's people know, Okay, we.
Speaker 1: Say this a lot. Okay, let me let me say this.
Let me say this. And I'm not the first one
to mention this. It is very very funny to me
how similar the premises for Assassin's Creed Shadows and Ghost
of Yota are also the vibes spaghetti western like music
like any of Morricone kill Bill set in Japan. A
certain number of asked enemies kills people important to you,
and you're you set off on this revenge tale Assassinae
cree Chadows obviously introduced as another playable character. Yote is
very much just like again, won't spoil anything just as
it goes. It obviously changes format, but it's generally you're
hunting down the Yota Six, which are it's this band
of outlaws kind of almost Ronan who lost this huge
battle down the south, and they go to one of
the northernmost islands and you learn atsu early on she
loses her family's farm, gets attacked because of some past
transgression of her of her dad, and then you're hunting
down the people who did it, and you are this
kind of come back to life. You're seen as this
local folk legend Ghosh the Onrio. Yeah, and she as
opposed to June from the first game. He is literally
like a disgrace samurai And a big part of that
game is what is honorable to defeat your enemies? Like
if sneaking up and stabbing them back, is that honorable?
Is like is there a means to an end where
you're still a samurai? Are you just a Ronan? Are
you this dishonored person wandering the land. If you're doing
this like shady shit Yota right off the bat is like,
she does not give a fuck. She's not a samurai.
She is out for revenge. She learned. She hones her
skills in a war down south, Big Battle comes back north, Yes, yeah,
Vlamo comes back north to hunt down the Yota six,
mainly this one dude, Lord Saito. And yeah. From there,
you're set out in Yota to go hunt them down,
and you're gathering info about them, You're interrogating people. I
want to say this, I really really don't like being
hyperbolic this early in a game's life cycle. I do
think Ghost of Yota is one of the top three
most beautiful games I've ever played. I mean, I think
it might be the most beautiful game I've ever played.
Speaker 2: I had that feeling imediately too, especially when it does
the big kind of like tidle card sequence and stuff,
kind of after the prologue that test things up in
You're on your horse and just you're just seeing these
mountains and.
Speaker 1: Still the Kira Krasaua stuff. You're following the wind currents
you are riding through. There's certain colors of flowers that
speed you up more. But immediately it's like it's that
kind of like Breath of the Wild in the Distance
had that water color facade to the background. Breath of
the Wild like, technically speaking, is not that good looking
of a game in the distance at all. But Ghost
of Yota immediately the color palette reminded me of Assassin's
Creed origins and the way you have these pops of
color and you do start in like a grassland. You're
literally in the I think the grasslands of Yota. There's
some the something grasslands, and they this game, more than
Ghosts of Sushima, does start throwing you into much more
varied biomes pretty quickly, if you like.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine is very like a tumnol right now. Right now,
it's all just kind of like red and yellow leaves. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1: So they do do a Zelda thing at some point
where they're like, Okay, you can go to this part
of the map to hunt this person. You can go
to that part of the map to hunt that person.
So I have been asking people where they're going. First
sounds like I went to a different one than you.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing is like I you know, obviously
Breath the Wild gets every game gets compared to it now,
but like I couldn't help but think of it here,
because I feel like Sushima was more kind of that
old open world style game of like you know, Gtao,
you can get to this next island when the bridges
get fixed. You know, it's like, oh, you get to
this defined point in the story and then this other
part of the map opens up. Whereas this makes me
feel more like Breath the Wild. Words like Breath the
Wild had the four Divine Beasts and it's like, hey,
go at it, whatever you want to do. This was
like you established the Ota six and then like I
think it's so cool and just like riding around the
map and whether it's like people in a town like
a marketplace and stuff, or you're just like riding through
the woods and you come across something and you're just
kind of picking up all this information and clues and
things like that, and it's very much like you were
kind of filling in clues about like Okay, this guy
is somewhere in these mountains. Oh this guy I heard
the bartender over here might know something about that, and
so you are picking this thing. It's almost like a
corkboard type situation, you know, where it's like, Okay, I'm
starting to get a I'm getting a bead on where
this dude is. This dude's definitely here, whereas this guy's
generally in the east or whatever. And you can choose
which one to go after. And the map is so
smartly designed. Where you go to the map, it looks beautiful.
Just the style of the map is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Itself, is like, yeah, it's all hand drawn off off
of where you've explored, similar to weirdly, Civilization six did
that thing when you had the fog of war? Is
a hand drawn map when you haven't actually revealed. It
reminds me of that Weirdly.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of like ink blots and lines and
things like that. And you will get these cards basically
like okay, so I'm looking at the cards now that
are clearly main story, like they're yellow, these are the
people from the Ota six. But then there's the ones
where it's just straight up bounties you pulled off a board.
Here's myths about the area where it's just like, oh,
legend tells that this thing is over here.
Speaker 1: Yo, kai make weird noises in these woods over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So like it's so conducive to just
like getting on your horse or running around and just
finding a thread and following that and like you will inevit.
Like it doesn't feel like empty space, even though it
is a lot of fields and things like that. Like
I do feel like if I ride in any direction
for a couple of minutes, I'm gonna pick up on
some thread that I'm gonna get curious about. And on
the way there, I will run into three things, whether
it's like a bamboo thing that will upgrade this or
a hot springs that will upgrade my maximum health. There's
just like or you know the bird thing that they
had in Soushmowe. It's like, oh, a golden bird comes down,
Like I'm gonna follow this guy, or a fox leads
me to this little cave. Like it's remarkable how much
stuff they fit into what on the surface looks like
a bunch of feel you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I I still think and I don't know
how you would avoid this in a game like this,
but like I think I'm twenty five hours in and
there's a point in which it does start feeling repetitive
and a bit rope where you're like, Okay, I'll go
do the Okay, there's a hot spring there, I'll go
do it so I can rank up my max health. Okay,
there's a bamboo thing, which I still find these mini
games i'll call them. I don't mean that in a
derogatory sense, but generally speaking, some of them are more
like the bamboo especially is a quick time event, which
I still find them very fun. But no, it's it's
all fun. And also this game i'll get to it's
got remind I think it has Red Dead two influences
in a funny way that I will get to.
Speaker 2: In our quick look. But I think this does it better. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And it's like at a certain point, at the point
of at the game, I am starting to be a
bit fatigued with the side stuff and that's unavoidable, and
it's still it's gonna be there, and it's up to
me to engage with it or not. It is hard
for me for the yellow bird to come down and
not follow it, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh,
it's it's a it's a fox. Then, so I'm gonna
follow this fox for a bit and I'll get a charm.
I'll be okay. However, I also think I just mentioned
there are some Red Dead Redemption two elements where they're
having to do a lot with the touchpad, which when
people tell me that I tend to get turned off,
I don't. I don't normally like that, but it's deployed
in a way where it reminds me of Red Dead two,
where it's like this game does kind of force you
to slow down and be present in these little moments like,
for instance, you have to light anytime you light a
fire if you make camp or you find a fire
and you have cause you can make camp and then
summon many of the craftsmen to you and instead of
going to where they are in the towns, and they
show you again on really gorgeous menus in this game,
they'll show you like your wolf pack, which sounds like
sounds dumb, but then like there is the wolf aspect
which is also unique to Atsu that Jin didn't have.
But you know, some of these people you have to
you have to manually hit strike the flint on these
tinder piles and then.
Speaker 2: Breathe every time, though like that is a setting too.
You can have it set too like every time. Oh
I never heard or I think the default is like
some of the time. So in fact, we were recording
the quick Look today or yesterday for this, and I
wanted to show Grub the like blowing into the microphone
on the controller stuff and everything, and you know you
could do that.
Speaker 1: I always did the R two blowing.
Speaker 2: Well, the thing is, I had to figure that out because,
like I looked, the accessibility options are kind of craziness.
You can like turn off the golden bird, you all
sorts of little tweaks and stuff like that. But I
couldn't get the blowing into the microphone thing in the work.
And then I realized, I don't think I've ever had
my PS five microphone unmuted. I just had to unmute
it with that button and then you just blow into it.
But yeah, your trackpad, like you know, putting the flint
on the thing and then to kind of like make
it go up, and when you're turning the controller to
like turn the mushrooms and the fish over.
Speaker 1: Lowering the controller, and then you're what else are you doing?
You are when you're painting the doing like the watercolor
paintings you're just tracing lines and whatnot, and those things
do kind of force you to slow down. But I
did find myself getting into a routine where I was
trying the story. I actually, really, really, I think this
open world story is incredible. It does it builds momentum
well as Atsu. I love her as a character because
I think my measure of a good character in an
open world game is how much do I kind of
just incidentally want to role play as them? And there's
times with her it's not a role playing game. It's
an action. I mean, it's an action of quote unquote RPG. Right,
there's progression, but it's not a role playing game in
the sense of Balder's Gate three. It's a role playing
game in the sense that they do build this sucker
punches flashing this character out, and I have gotten so
into her character that I'm not thinking what do I
want to do? I am thinking like, what would Atsu
do in this situation? And I'm like, oh shit, they've
kind of got their hooks in me because I would
like to just go into this camp and like I'll
pick people off one by one stealth, because that's how
I play most games that give me stealth options, but
as her, it's like, well, I just found this legendary
armor that now is supposedly making me this fearsome character.
I also just fought this like folk legend, and I
love this game. Every time you kill someone on one
of these big side quests, you get basically like some
like a mask or some trophy of theirs. So I
love the fact that she's on this revenge quest and
like trying to scare all of her enemies in this
entire region. So I'll always kind of in character were
the last the mask of the last person I killed?
Because they every time you do enter a tavern or whatever,
they'll be like, did you hear that's the ownreal like
murdered that person. So I like walking into these taverns
wearing the mask of that dude that I fucked up, Yeah,
because that's very cool to me. And her whole thing
is you start to build out these abilities that are
separate from her weapon skills, where she there's a bit
more supernaw bent to this game that Sushima had a
bit of it, but this one you can do like
abilities that are literally like on real spirits, howling at
enemies and terrifying them, which there it's more magical realism
in that regard, but you also have a wolf that's
coming along with you. You can upgrade the wolf abilities,
and this game is just very much I think it
feels like Sucker Punch had a bit more fun making
this game than Sushima, which I'm putting words in their mouth.
I don't know that for a fact, but it does.
Really this game's less afraid to kind of let go
of the reins and let things get a bit weird.
But I am really just often role playing as Zatsu
in a way that I haven't cared about a character
in an open world game this much in a while.
It reminds it feels like I'm playing Kill Bill if
it was set during this specific time period in Japan.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you mentioned that, like wanting to role play as her,
and that's something I kind of learned with Red Dead two.
And maybe one of the reasons I didn't love it
the first time around is like, I don't know, I
just started that game and was like, all right, my
Arthur is going to be this rooting tutin lose Cannon cowboy.
I'm just gonna go in here and shoot this place up,
and you know, but then like the story was very
much at odds with that, where he was this like
guy who's coming to terms with mortality and the changing
world around him and stuff, and it didn't really work
with the way I was playing him. And so this
one I am kind of more like, you know, you
get a sense of who this character is pretty pretty
early on, and like I am just like you know,
you'll come across a bunch of dead bodies or whatever,
and this guy will be like, hey, don't don't you know,
desecrate their graves and steal their stuff or whatever, and
you can choose to like, you know, oh I'm gonna
kill this guy and steal this or it's like, oh,
you're right, I'm sorry. Here, here's money for your village
in exchange for these and so like you so I
try to kind of like do the right thing but
also be a you know, terror to all of my
enemies and stuff like that to kind of be congruous
with that character in the story. So that has been
working for me for sure. I'm curious, Jesse, have you
did you what's your history with like Sushma? Did you
play that?
Speaker 3: So I played Sushima all the way through some one
of those games where I enjoyed it at the time
and I cleared the map, like I did everything I
could possibly do in that game, and then I never
really thought about it again. And I don't mean that
as like a slight It was just I had my
fun with it, and I kind of moved on. And
when they announced the OTA, I was like, Yep, that
makes sense. I totally understand why they would make another
one of those. And I've seen like small bits of
that game, and I've read reviews and watched some of
like the Digital Foundry stuff on it, and like that
game is gorgeous, like just flat out like you were
talking about. But I'm excited. It's currently downloading on my
PlayStation right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: They they've switched up some things too. From Sushima Sushi
me I was very much about his his stance in
the weapons, like the combats aret. Now you actually get
different weapon types. And I will say another thing I
love about this game there is some sort of lower
backstory like large sorry like wider context to almost every
weapon or armor set you collect. Very seldom do you
actually just like find a random armor set in a
chest in the middle of nowhere. Often it's this very
compelling side quest leading up to it. So once you
finally get it, and again to the role playing aspect,
you kind of are wearing it in these situations. You're like,
I get how the legend of this armor that has
these other worldly abilities kind of factors into the context
right now. Same with the weapons, and you're not just
finding a random weapon or just going to a dungeon
and opening a chest and finding this weapon. You're specifically
meeting this hermit who was defeated a while ago and
now is crippled, but he has that weapon still and
he's training you in this weapon. So there's training sequences
where you're not immediately good with a weapon. And it
doesn't just say like hey, square square triangle will be
a combo or a square square square or a triangle
triangle triangle. It's like there's a storyline leading up to
it where that the person who's a master with that
weapon is very much like teaching you how to use it.
And I think Sucker Punch does some cool things with this.
Sounds stupid, but like with the controller that yeah, like
I show yeah, that's stuff I I showed him. I
told Amanda. I was like Hey, Amanda's left handed. I
was like, hey, there's a part in this game where
sucker punch. You know how you're doing the bamboo cuts.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: They're doing one that's very fucking hard during the training
sequence for a weapon. Yeah, And I was like, I noticed, Oh,
it's all on my left hand on the controller, which
is very rare. And I was like, are they assuming
I'm right handed because most people are gonna be and
they're making it hard. So then of course you try that,
and then the next day you wake up and it
has gotten a bit easier and you're using your right
hand more. I'm like, oh, they're actually like trying to
convey that Atsu is getting better at this and it's
so it's easier for me, which.
Speaker 2: Is so montage just through the button prompt.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, it becomes like a rocky movie at a
certain point in this game set to like again, any
of Morricone's esque soundtrack with like a kill Bill character
or Ahi character. It's fucking like that.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: That gave us so many clever things storytell wise, like
as it ties into the gameplay that I'm like this,
this is all rad and I'm very like there's a
propulsion to the story and and it within the context
of the open world that I don't know the last
time I felt that in a in a while.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And some of the things like do feel I
guess gimmicky, but I don't ever really say that in
a bad way for sure, where it's like a lot
of times you just go to a menu and it's
like I have X of X, I have enough to
press X and upgrade my sword and this one like
you do it. But then it's like you're at your
father's forge and you're literally taking the dual sense and
you're like like the heated sword you're banging down and
you gotta press a button to reheat it, observing to
flip it over and start banging it. Like so you
were watching the metal kind of like get hot and
form into the new sword. It's like it is, yes,
it's a hard word gimmick, but it's like it's I
kind of like this, this.
Speaker 1: Word it's a gimmick put to good use because again,
like when you're cooking, you're you are supposed to I
think kind of be like men you're when you're camping
and cooking. I do think it's supposed to be like
a moment of just like chilling out. They're assuming I
think they're assuming you've been chasing hot springs or yellow
birds or like again, I really really want to be
careful and not to spoil any main story things because
this game is so good along its Golden Path, But
anytime you're hunting one of the Yota six or two
or whatever it is, it's all drastically different in the
way that if you're looking at like a Zelda game
which I always mentioned, Zelda Horizon Forbidden West to the
same thing where you get to a certain point and
they're like, okay, well there's this enemy borderlines forward did it.
They're like, there's this enemy in this biome. You can
go hunt them if you want. There's this enemy in
this biome, go there first if you want. Yota does
such a great job structurally speaking, in like narrative design
of switching up the Golden Path into each of those
areas where when you're hunting this one person in the
snowy area, it's very much about like you're being hunted
most of that time, but then you go here and
it's like very much like this war torn area and
it's just this brutalized countryside where they're trying to build
up this stronghold, so it's all like being logged there
you can kind of be more brute force. But then
you go down to the quieter part of the map
and everything just weaves back in on itself in terms
of the vibes of the world as it pertains to
the story being told. I like it's it's funny if
you back of the box. Wise, there's not a ton
different from Sushima. Like, sure, there are a few, you
don't have stances anymore, you actually have different weapons. She
plays differently than June. You have a wolf with you now,
But like Taken as a whole, it flows so much
better than Sushima, I think. And I love Sushima, to
be clear, I don't I don't think. I don't think
that was a terrible game. They needed to improve on
that much. But I like Yote quite a bit, and
I like this is the first open world game in
a while outside of work purposes I've wanted. I've committed
to like finishing because and for the story, which I again,
the last time that happened was probably fucking which are
three where I was just finishing the open world game
for the story, but like, yeah, I don't know. I like,
you'll take quite a bit at who's awesome that game is.
I've used I can't help but use photo mode every
ten minutes.
Speaker 2: It's it's like maybe the best photo mode I've ever seen. Yeah,
Like both in terms of like the game is so
conducive to it because it's so gorgeous, but also the
level of like, Okay, I went burning embers in the
sky and there's Aurora Borealis behind me, and you know,
the usual expression stuff and all that stuff, but like
it just looks unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Yep, it's really good. I like you'll take you quite
a bit. Yeah, Jesse, if you if you get the
chance to play it, play it. I'm excited.
Speaker 3: And I thought I'd be burned after finishing Assassin's Cree
Shadows because I'm like, I feel like I just did this.
Speaker 2: Oh you know, yeah, did you like was that?
Speaker 1: Are you a completionist or did you really? Were you
just liking that game quite a bit?
Speaker 3: I was freelancing guides for it, and so I had
to finish it.
Speaker 1: I have the option, was that the option, see I
should have meted.
Speaker 3: So not only that, but it was going up and
down the map making sure I've seen every icon doing
most of them.
Speaker 1: Us and I like that game, to be clear. I
liked Shadows for what it was worth, but Yote just
ties it all together so much, quite a bit better.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesse, We've never, like I think, dove deep on
this or anything, but like I have, I've always been
fascinating because like guides, I mean you came from Prima
and guides writing. Uh, that isn't an aspect of games
media and games coverage I've never done. I've always just
wondered what that process is like, especially in today's landscape
where it's like, Okay, well this new big game Silk
Song launches and we expect you know, sixty different guides
about every you know, place you can find a rosary thing,
or like, is that because we're viewing a game? I
mean we were talking actually before we're recorded here. You
know you review JRBGS and so that's forty fifty plus
hours and stuff like what does that equate to in like,
if you're writing a full on guide for something, how
many hours are we talking about it here? How deep
do you have to go?
Speaker 3: It really depends it depends on a lot of factors,
and like it's kind of a cop out answer, but
depends on the game. It depends on the team you're
working with, because like I've I've worked with my team
when I was at Prima for my team at Restart
a freelance where I'm just like a small part of
a bigger puzzle. Like IGN's got a whole different operation
going on over there, because they've got a lot of
people on these projects.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's.
Speaker 3: It's intensive because you're taking notes on everything because a
lot of the times you don't know if something's important
or not, because like there are a lot of quest
lines in Silk Song right, or like like elden Ring
was a big one where it's like I talked to
this NPC, this might be important ten hours from now.
Speaker 1: I don't know nothing at all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's no because when you're the one writing the guides,
you can't consult guides because they don't exist yet. So
you're playing these games in a vacuum where if you
get stuck you can maybe ask the developer maybe, but
really you can't. And so it's a lot of like
it's very collaborative in that regard because it has to
be because people are exchanging information with one another, because
that's all you've got.
Speaker 2: Were you ever on the you know, because premium. When
I think at PREMI I think by the old you know,
just old big chunky strategy guides. We tried to sell
it funkal Land back in the day, you know, like
were you doing print ever or was it more like
dedicated like okay, so this is a URL for how
to find every one of these and this is this
and how many were comprehensive walkthroughs that you were doing?
Speaker 3: So we did one print guide while I was there.
I co wrote it with my buddy Lucas White, who
was also there at the time for axiom Verge one
end two.
Speaker 1: So it's what it was. One package.
Speaker 3: It was package's limited run. It was like a pre
order like pre order, only it was the last physical
Prima Guide to ever exist, probably will be the last
physical guide to ever exist. And that one was tricky
because axiom Verse two wasn't out yet and it was
still in active development, like we were doing this like
months before that came out, because it was it was
to go up like alongside it, and so we would
do like whole sections of that game, and then Thomas
Happ would email us to be like I actually changed
that entire section, and so we would just like delete
the Google doc and like start again.
Speaker 2: Do you remember I came if it was a prima,
But do you remember the story of like Mortal Kombat
was at nine, the reboot one. It was after the
DC Universe thing, and they sent out the strategy guide again.
I can't remem if it was premium or not, but
it had everything is you know, oh the fatality inputs
and stage fatalities and all this very specific like here's
how you do this move. Yeah, And then before it
came out everything changed, so like if you bought that
strategy guide, you had to like email a thing and
they would send you a bunch of like little like
glossy flash cards like oh, sorry, here's the actual fatality thing.
Like yeah, that seems crazy.
Speaker 1: That was back during the time.
Speaker 3: I mean, obviously I wasn't around for that, but that
was back during the time where people from Prema would
actually go to studios and get like a day with
the game and just do whatever they wanted to do
for you know, a handful of hours able to take
their notes, screenshots, get all their stuff, and then they'd
leave and they'd be like put in like a room
and they'd be like, Okay, here's your you know build.
We're gonna have somebody sitting here, so you don't like
steal anything or break anything.
Speaker 1: And then you'd have here, you.
Speaker 3: Have eight hours like get all the information you want essentially,
So I think Mortal Kombat was one of those cases
like a lot of the like Narudo Ninja Storm game
stuff like that, but like modern Day Guides is a
lot of like SEO targeted stuff, so it's like what
are people specifically googling? And how do we title a
game or title an article specifically?
Speaker 1: Like that?
Speaker 3: So it is a lot of like what does the
F in Silent Hill f mean? You know, like like
you're that's the kind of stuff you know.
Speaker 1: A certain when that build?
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly? Yeah? Or yeah, Like certainly, game like Silk Song,
more than anything I've seen in probably a few years,
is the most like I found myself going to a
lot of like all right, how do I unlock Act three?
What do I do? Like what does this NPC do?
Like that was so conducive because the game itself is
so not pointing you towards things that like at a
certain point, it's like, I'm just gonna look this up.
So there's so many fucking silks on guides right now.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's everything I did like comprehensive Monster Hunter
guides for wilds of like weapons, so it was like
cataloging all the weapon weapon details, materials, how to get them,
putting them in tables like guides. Work is all over
the place, like it really depends on the game. But yeah,
so I did that for Shadows, and that's how I
ended up playing not only all of the main story,
but all of the side content screen shadows.
Speaker 2: That's not the you put into Shadows close to one
hundred Okay, maybe just like mainlining the story, like playing
it at a standard pace? What is that like a
fifty hour game?
Speaker 1: I think about half that I would say, okay.
Speaker 2: It makes sense. Yeah, yeah, I played a fair amount
of it and I like it.
Speaker 1: But I've also started Hades two and I'm committed to finishing.
But uh, I've played enough of Haites two to uh
get the ball rolling. But I think both of you
probably played more than I have. I'm like three hours
in Jesse.
Speaker 2: How about you. Where are you at?
Speaker 3: I am on the route for the true ending. It's
a little bit more of a grind than I had anticipated.
Speaker 2: But so I wonder I think you might be past
me then, So I'll speak somewhat generally here, Yeah, don't.
Speaker 1: Spoil this game, because have you seen credits?
Speaker 2: I have not.
Speaker 1: Then you were okay, then okay, But but I'll.
Speaker 2: Say I feel like I'm close to something resembling credits, Like, so, Mike,
I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's a spoiler. Like when you walk to
go Out, you see that there's a go up right,
So in the in the from her the camp basically yes, yes, from.
Speaker 2: The hubs rules. So I beat the final boss of
Going Out, and this morning I beat the final boss
or you know, going up, at least the final boss
as I can see it now. So there's a big
boss fight after going up. And so like obviously I
haven't seen credits, there's still talk of like okay, well
that guy when you go down is still around, you know,
so like what do I need to do to finish
him off? I'm still expanding the hub. There's still a
ton of stuff obviously I can unlock and everything so
like Jesse, based on what I'm saying there, like so
you've beaten you've beaten up, you haven't beaten down yet,
or you have have I beat down, then I beat up.
Speaker 3: You have you have quite a few runs ahead of you, Okay,
Like that it is and I don't think it's suppiled
to say it's kind of operates similar to the way
that the first game does, where like sure it is
a set number of completions that helps push that that
final chunk along. So you have to do a handful
of more runs down there, you have to do a
handfle more runs up there, and then you'll have to
do some stuff around the hub and then you'll you'll
you'll know when it's it's.
Speaker 2: I assume it would be a little different each time,
like now that I beat that, Now this is different
over here, Like it seems like that's kind of.
Speaker 1: The narrative, will like push along and you'll know you'll.
Speaker 2: Do it does feel like it's it's done by any means,
But it feels like I've definitely like knocked down a
couple of big obstacles on the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and there's a lot there, Like the crossroads is
so expansive, so I'm interested, did you start.
Speaker 1: Playing one point? Oh? Where were you playing? Early access?
Speaker 2: So when it first came out in one point zero
and people because I was adamant about like, I'm not
touching this until it's one point because that's how I
did the first one, I was happy I did it
that way. I would much rather play the kind of
complete thing than you know, a bunch of stuff along
the way. And people are like, oh, you know, the
two is even in the like early version early access
is like there's a lot there or whatever. And I
played like maybe an hour of it when it first
launched on Early Access, and I was like, I can
tell this is very good. I can tell there's a
lot here, and it's not. This does not feel like
a you know, preview build or anything like this. This
feels you know, whatever. But I still told myself, like
I was so happy I waited with the first one,
that I'm going to do it again here. I very
much support like the early access. I think the early
access process leads to something as polished as Haities two
releasing in the formats at But just as a player,
I prefer to just wait and then have this whole big,
almost overwhelming, you know package, you know, and glad. So
that's all to say, play about an hour, put it
aside for a year and a half, and now I'm
just playing one point Oh.
Speaker 3: That's what I wish I did, and I told myself
I was going to do. And then they dropped one
point oh, and i'ment.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'll just I'll just boot it up. I'll just
see what it looks like.
Speaker 3: When they did the first early access launch, it's like,
I'll just poot it up, I'll see what's going on.
And then I blinked in like thirty hours went by
and I was like, oh, I made the mistake I
said I wasn't going to and then I was like, okay,
no more, no more, not until one point oh. And
then they dropped the next update, and same thing happened.
And so I came into Hades two a little bit
like I came into one point zero in a weird
spot where I had like an excess of a lot
of materials and a lot of stuff because I had
just been playing and grinding at a point where like
there was nothing to spend any of this on because
I had maxed out everything that I could do so
I've had like a.
Speaker 2: What were they acting along the way? Like? Was it
missing boss fights? Was a missing whole section snap like
along the way?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: So Early Access launched with the entire underworld fleshed. It
fleshed out like final Boss was there like everything, but
the upper world only had two zones of the multiple
that are in there now and it didn't have it.
So they added like two bosses. They added zones, They
added a new weapon, They added a bunch of other stuff,
like a bunch of the upgrades around the crossroads, only
a handful of them were in. They added that there
were characters that weren't showing up yet. There was there
was like literal like placeholder art in the Early Access
version that got updated, you know, they did a pass
they added I think one of the updates added something
like thirty or forty music tracks to the game, Like
they they really kept you know, those updates were very substantial.
But the thing I love about Hades two is that
it kind of expects you to have played the first
game mechanically, like like there's not a lot there that
like really eases you into that experience, but it's also
almost like it's built to sort of like sidestep all
of your knowledge of the first game, because it's like
Zagarias plays a very specific way. He's a very like
get in there, you know, beat him up. Milenoe is
like she's got magic, She's got the Omega moves like
it's like, this is a different character who's going to
operate around the field differently, and you can build into
a play style that plays like the first game. But
inherently those first two weapons were giving you the Witch's
staff and the Sister blades like they've got more range
to them. Her cast is different. It's like it's an
AoE around you. It's meant to ensnare enemies, like they
want you to be a little more strategic with her
because she's a more strategic character in this world. She's
thinking about things differently than Zagaras. And I like the
way in which Hades two is combat sort of tries
to like go around your initial knowledge of that first game,
but also still kind of expects you to know how
to play this game and know when the right time
is to like what builds to go for, and how
these these things work around themselves. It's really fascinating because
I think The experimentation period with Hades two has been fascinating.
Of just like I thought I had like a solid build.
It was like, I use the acts, I can sweep
across the field and just destroy enemies. But then I
go on like speed run dot Com and I'm like, Okay,
what are the what are the speed Runners using? Like
what's the cool strength? And they use the skull and
I think the skull is like the worst weapon.
Speaker 2: I hate a skull on my you it'll probably but
like they they show me the ones I have not
unlocked yet, but there's definitely like two two I don't
even see in the unlocked or locked options or it's
like the second to last one. I think, yeah, you
have to pick.
Speaker 1: Up when you first see the weapon options, there's six circles.
Yeah on the menu, I only even see four. So
like they have not added so I was worried. I
was still in like a past build, but I just
used whatever.
Speaker 3: No, I think it's just a thing of like as
you haven't Yeah, yeah, I've used that skull. The skull
definitely has I've read briefly that that plays. I've only
used the sister blades and the staff so far.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do. My mains are the Sister Blades
and the Axe, and like the axe is like okay,
the only real downside to it for me is that
like it's slow, so you know, you boost the attack
speed on that. And I've also gotten boons where like
it basically makes it like a three sixty swing around you,
so you can make some broken builds in the best
way with the axe. But like there are a couple
I tried once and like like the gun or the
skull gun and uh, the the two like torches, Like
I use those once and I was like, I don't
like these. Like occasionally I'll do the staff, but almost
always it's the Sister Blades, the axe, or the last
one that I just got, which I don't want to spoil,
but it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which we will spoil, but is wild.
Speaker 3: Truly, it's pretty cool wild, which in the same ways
that the first hades, Like the last weapon you get
in that game is is the the rail like that
the gun like it's wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got the artillery shot for its special yeah,
then the machine gun for like so yeah.
Speaker 2: You were you were mentioning the first one and how
that worked, and like I totally forgot we were talking
about on the BombCast where it's like I forgot the
cast was just that diamond thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should the diamond to get them back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally forgot that's how that works. But then
you mentioned the charge, like the omega attacks and stuff
that did the first one have the omega attacks?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: Okay, because you didn't have a magic The magic meter
is new, just.
Speaker 2: As straight up MP is new. Yeah. So that, yeah, strategic,
Like you're talking about Mollinaa having more like strategy to her.
Like I think about every time I start to fight
with the Sirens, and it's all right, I dashed between
the main lady in the shell and the drummer drop
down a cast where it's like, you know, I got
lightning or whatever they're and then I'm going over there,
I'm beat the fuck out of the guitarist, and so like,
there is totally a strategy that I go into with
each of these battles that I love. Now, you're right,
I don't remember having that feeling with the first one,
like the first one is fucking incredible, but I do
think this one is pretty much better in every way. Yeah,
I was.
Speaker 1: Gonna ask, like I'm not that far in and I'm
asking this more to play Devil's Advocate. I don't think
every sequel needs to like fucking completely upend its predecessor.
I so far, it feels like more Haites to me,
and like she plays extremely differently for sure, And I
don't think that's a bad thing, because that's kind of
what I wanted. Does it Is it taking drastic steps
away from the first game, whether it's like structurally as
you're in the progression, or is it largely just as
a result of the way Melanoi plays with different weapons
or how she kind of builds her skills, or or
is it just a slight like a different variation on
the first game in a fun way, which is fine.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of variation. I think there are expansions
in in ways. I think there's a lot of experimentation,
which is I think the word I would use to
describe it like I think some there are two zones
in particular that are structured like drastically different than anything
in the first game, And it's more of a like
you have more agency over where you want to go
and what you want to pick up and sort of
how you want to navigate that space, and I think
moments like that are really interesting, and I think it's
full of little moments like that where it's just like,
here's an idea that we've kind of twisted, or we've
really just kind of taken this time to experiment with
something completely different. But at the end of the day,
like you're still getting your P minute upgrades the same
way you did through the Mirror of Night, Like this
time it's the Arconic cards. You're still upgrading your home
base the crossroads in this one. You're still talking to
characters and giving them nectar and ambrosia and social links.
You're still using six different weapons, You're still getting keepsakes
from all the different characters that give you different variations.
Speaker 1: Throughout your run.
Speaker 3: Like all of that is still there. Like the foundation
is the same, and honestly, the I think the theming
of the story is also pretty similar. Obviously, the stakes
have been escalated tremendously from the first game, where the
first one is like about like reuniting your family and
figuring out like what's going on, but like the second
one is like, shit's bad man, like everything, we have
to figure this out, and it's kind of on Melina
way to solve all of the problems. But at the
same time, it is like, kind of this story of
living forever doesn't have to be miserable, because so many
times when you're talking about like the Greek panthe On,
it's all of these gods being selfish and hating each other,
and everyone's mad at everyone, and someone's killing somebody and
something's happening. But it's kind of nice to have a
sort of situation where it's like, you know, there's still
selfish motives for a lot of these characters, and they're
still pain and anguish there that's being explored. But it
is nice to have a story that's like, you know what,
we're actually going to be pretty helpful to each other
and like, at the end of the day, hopefully be
a little bit better to each other. And that's something
there's something nice about that. I think it fits thematically
with the first one, which is sort of this story
that ends on like a very hopeful note despite it
being about the god of the underworld.
Speaker 1: So I do appreciate that about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's if somebody just didn't
like with the first one at all as far as
just the format and how it all works and the
tone and the story and everything. Like I don't think
that there's such a huge change with two that's like,
well you're gonna love this one. Like there definitely are
those sequels where it's like, oh yeah, this is totally different,
this is similar. I think it's better. I think it
offers more. There's I love just having the options of
like you know, you know now I'm more specifically like okay,
I'm trying to get to the go up boss or
the go down boss or whatever. But like there's that
kind of middle again once your few hours in, It's
like I love going up there and be like Okay,
I guess i'll give this another shot. I'll go down
there and okay, I'll try this weapon here and I'll
go up there, and then you can do the things
where you know, you add the modifiers. It's like the
Halo skulls, you know of like make this harder and everything.
Like it's fun just like deciding early on like what
kind of run you want to have, and then as
your build kind of progresses as you go through the zones,
being like Okay, well I guess it's gonna be this
type of run my cast is super overpowered or I'm
doing all weak or lightning based powers or whatever, and
just seeing the way these runs progress. But it's not
that different than that in the first game. I just
think it's all expanded upon in a big way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it hooked me hard in the first couple hours,
Like that's the only thing that's really like pulled me
away from Ghosts of Yote and again, I want to
I'm gonna finish Goes to Yota. But like Haities two
is I knew I shouldn't have started it, but I
played a few hours just so I could talk about
it at least in the intro tonight. No, yeah, it
feels amazing. I'm already very I'm very like intrigued by
the different characters at the camp, Like Nemesis. I appreciate
that you can't even give her ambrosia at the beginning
because she's so You and her clearly have such a
terrible relationship. Well she she's Nemesis, so like, of course
she's not going to be super friendly with you. But yeah,
I also appreciate returning characters. I like that there's new ones.
I I was not someone who played the first game
for the story, but I thought it added a welcome
layer to the story, even though I was playing it
for the gameplay, for the progression for the loop. I
like that those characters were compelling in their own right
outside of the Loop.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm I'm thinking the game. I just gotta
you know, I want to keep playing more.
Speaker 1: And it's completely fine if it's not revolutionizing the ideas
in the first game, because I don't think it needed to.
I think if it needed if it's a refinement of
the best game of twenty twenty, then that's a pretty
good start. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Maybe the best Rogue Light of all time. Yeah, it's yeah, Jesse.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know the we literally for
twenty twenty. That was when we started fire Escape and
for our Game of the Year discussion, which we did remotely.
I think since then we've done every Game of the
year in person, but I believe that was our only
remote one, and I think we did two maybe two,
and and Haites won one Game of the Year for us,
and we literally I don't think said the name Hades
until the very end when we announced it, and we.
Speaker 2: Didn't get a whole order of the list, and everything,
and it's like we didn't say hades. We didn't go
over it. It's just like, okay, so I think this
is a good number ten, and our this is this
will go up, this to go down. And then we
got to one and we're like, oh fuck, we haven't
said hades yet. It was just such, it was just assumed.
Speaker 1: Kind of clear. Yeah, but yeah, no, I mean, I yeah, Hades.
I'm liking it so much so far. I'm I'm I
do think very very like at this point, I'm just nitpicking.
Of course, I do think the home base in Haites
one was so much more readable up front, Like the
space two there's so much and it's gorgeous. And two
there's there's so many little corners that I didn't realize
I could even walk into. It's a bit overwhelming at first,
Like the first one was just like, oh, a few
rooms where you knew exactly where you can go. This
is the tavern where he hangs out. This is your
your living quarters that you go into, throne room. This
is where I forget what his name is, Hypnos not Hypnos,
Brad Pitt's Achilles hangs out. So I was like, all right, okay, cool,
So now but now the Crossroads is like so much
more sprawling. But again, on the flip side, that's kind
of I'm more excited to explore it, which at a
certain point in Hades won that space I was going
back to an emerging from the pool every time got
a bit old. So yeah, I can't wait to keep
playing this game. I only have two weapons so far,
and I'm I'm probably on my sixth run if i
was to boot it up after the recording, So it's
not like I'm far and whatsoever, but it's it's got
a hooks in me for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do think that part of the Crossroads readability issue
is that it is outside. It is not clearly defined, yeah,
like rooms of a house are. And it does I
don't know if it ever gets better, because you kind
of just keep adding stuff to the Crossroads as you
do more, as you brew more of the incantations, and
you know, more characters show up and whatever. But it
does get at least you're like, Okay, I know nothing
is going on over there. Nothing has ever going one
over the walk.
Speaker 2: I've gone up the pool path a million times in which.
Speaker 1: Nothing could be nothing.
Speaker 3: Ever. Yeah, so that's nice and then you eventually do
get to decorate it. As you start do more runs,
you'll get more stuff to decorate, kind of like the first game,
and the customization options are like pretty good. I like
a lot of the this. It feels like a worthwhile
reward for your efforts times like, yeah, I actually do
want to hang these string lights. These look really nice
and like I kind of vibe with it. The one
big thing that kind of bugs me about eighties two,
and I think it gets better with time. But there
are a lot of resources. That game asks you to
spend a lot of plates all the time, and it's
like you're maintaining a garden and you're getting bones and
ash and psyche and minerals and weird other like mystical
materials that you don't really always know what they're golden
used for, golden apple, wool, silver, like just random stuff,
and you won't always have options to use them in
the incantations pool until you've like progressed certain stories. So
there are times I was sitting on like eighty bronze
and I'm like, can I get rid of this?
Speaker 1: Do I need this? What do I do with these?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: And it'll tell you, luckily, now in the when you
go to recycle, it'll say like, uh, when you're highlighted
over something that's important, it'll say like important resource, like
you still need this basically, And there are other ones
that won't say that. And it's like you can get
rid of these, but.
Speaker 2: Because I unlock the recycling, Yeah, all the fish, I've
always saw.
Speaker 3: You there's rubbers, nothing to do with them.
Speaker 2: Okay, also recycling things where yeah, there's the rubbish stuff
that the arrest throws out, and I always crash that.
But then everything else in that menu I've been afraid
to use because it's like, am I going to need
this for an incantation or an aspect of a weapon
or something like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So, and it's it's always it's hard to tell
because you have the book, which is great. The book
will tell you like here's how you get this material,
here's where you get it. Sometimes it don't even tell
you what it might be used for. So I use
the book all the time. But when you have like
I think like twenty five to thirty different materials at
any given places, it's like we go like six right now, Yeah,
in between that, and like the fish and like some
of the other random bits and bobs you get. It's
just like, yeah, all the plants, there's there's got to
be twenty different plants like there. It's just it's a lot,
and you can ignore ninety percent of it and have
a great time with this game. But truly, you can
ignore most of the ancillary stuff and just play the
game and be like, I'm just playing eighty two. It's
a great time. It takes me fifteen minutes to a run.
I get to go home after that, like whatever. But
when you're trying to like get everything or you want
to see certain storylines, you're like, all right, how many
man Drakes do I have?
Speaker 1: Do I have the olives?
Speaker 3: Did I get the moper fish?
Speaker 1: Maybe we didn't need all of.
Speaker 2: This, right, I can see that. Yeah, it's not something
that actively like impedes my enjoyment of it moment to moment,
But like I can't argue that, like there's a good
reason why we have this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a little silly, but I think all the
characters in that game are great.
Speaker 2: It's tremendous. It's gonna be you know. I think about
it a lot like Game of the Year type stuff
like it I cannot wait to see what these discussions
are like, because there are so many fucking games that
could have a real shot at like near the top.
Speaker 1: Remember my last year, I think around this time of year,
and we'll I think later this episode we'll talk about
timing of Game of the Year again. But I told
Amanda what I thought would win Game of the Year,
so she knew, but like I wasn't so she could
then tell me like she could then claim that I
was right or wrong last year.
Speaker 2: Like writing on a piece of paper, yea, yeah.
Speaker 1: And what was our game of the year, Like I
think I.
Speaker 2: Forgot oh last year? Last year was I never remember?
Speaker 3: Probably it was balatro and yeah, I told that was
just a guess that was most.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have gotten Astrobot the game of the year,
so I assume no, Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: Correct last year, but I think all of us kind
of expected that. But this year there are several I
could see it being Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's probably like four I could.
Speaker 1: Say, yeah, yeah, especially no, I don't want to Uh,
I'm not gonna without marry here. I'm not gonna dog
on any games. Dan, you played MEGABONK yes, so three
d okay? It's three D Vampire Survivors, like an accurate
yeah description.
Speaker 2: That's definitely the first thing you would think of when
you see it. That's the literal first thing I thought of.
I love the way I was introduced this game. I'm
sitting on the couch next to Bank my wife. Her
name is Bianca. We call her Bonk, and we're both
you know, we do a lot of sitting next to
each other playing Steam decks and switches, and we.
Speaker 1: Do a lot of sitting next to each other. It's
such a romantic.
Speaker 2: Thing, you know, wild, Yeah, sit next to someone on
all you want. And she's scrolling through a Steam looking
for something to download, and she just chuckles and she's like,
look at this. Look at the name of this game
and the little megabonk and it was like, oh yeah,
it's like your name, Bunk. And then she's like, wait
a minute, overwhelmingly positive. And I was like, oh, okay,
what's this And She's gonna show me pictures of it
and stuff, and I'm like, okay, I'm curious. So I downloaded.
It is three D Vampire Survivors, And in these last
two weeks, like there's three very distinct modes with all
these games coming out, it's like, Okay, if I have
a night you know where it's like, I'm gonna sit down.
It's a weekend night. I have all the time in
the world until I fall asleep, nothing to do tomorrow.
I've been playing Yota, where it's like, that's the game
I like to sink into. That's not a game I
load up for thirty minutes and run around a field
and whatever. And so that's why that has not happened
as much. It's because that's a commitment. Hades, I feel
like the runs are even your best runs are going
to be like less than thirty minutes. So it's like,
all right, I got an hour before the workday starts,
I'll do a run in Hades. But the potent drug
of Megabank is that it is Vampire Survivors, but instead
of that thirty minute limit, it is ten minutes. So
it is very easy to find like, oh, okay, it's
ten minutes. I'll do a run before bet, I'll do
a run between these things, I'll do whatever. And then
it's so easy to just that turns into hours upon
hours upon hours. So I have played more Megabank than
i've played Hades or Yota as a result, even though
I'm telling myself it's just going to be ten minutes,
it is just that loop of that Vampire Survivors thing
of like, man, I just keep unlocking new weapons, I
keep unlocking new characters and this laundry list of quests
and everything. Like when it starts, it's very Vampire Survivors
where it seems very bare bones and I'm just running
around and it's kind of auto shooting everything around me,
and like there's things you immediately realize where it's like, oh,
being three D, the levels are designed differently. I can jump,
which adds a whole different element that Vampire Survivors didn't have. Oh,
I can upgrade, so like now I can get double jumps,
triple jumps. Now I got a quintuple jump. Ooh, but
now I got the scarf that makes it so I
do thirty three percent more damage when I'm airborne. So
now I'm picking the character the skeleton with a skateboard
that moves really fast, and now I'm like just tuple
jumping over the entire battlefield, moving fast as fuck, shooting
like sniper rifles and throwing bones and bananas down on
all these guys and it's fucking awesome, Like you can
break that game insane ways. And it does show its
hand more as like, Okay, it's not just Vampire Survivors,
but in three D it shows you everything that can
be added to the experience by giving you that three
D space to play around. But yeah, everything is very
inspired by vampires, fibers, and like starting very basic. In
the new unlock kind of a quest log, you unlock
like more and more characters, Like it seems like every
time you're playing, it's like, Okay, I got these three unlocked.
Now I got this new weapon that can pop up
in the run, and it's uh, it's potent is the
word I keep thinking of. It is hard to stop
playing it in a way that like Hades. I I
think objectively Hades is like a better game. I think
it'd be hard to argue against that. But it's like
I can stop playing Hades because it's like, ah, I
can't commit to am if this is a good run
that could be thirty plus minutes. You know, I don't
have time for that megabonk. It's like that run doesn't count.
I can do another ten minutes. That's fine, you can.
You can bump megabonk Is that a drug thing?
Speaker 1: Mike Mahartyah, it like bumps a coke.
Speaker 2: I don't need to find so come on, man, we're
gonna get kicked off these platforms. What do you talk?
Speaker 1: I think you've been some before, Dan, my goodness, sucking
lame o Dan over here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, geez, not a bump before, you, little bitch. I
have not, actually, so imagine me on cocaine. Can you
imagine that's not a good time for one?
Speaker 3: No, that's a valid point, man, It would be a good.
Speaker 1: Time for me.
Speaker 2: You've all been around me a lot. You've all drank
with me a lot.
Speaker 1: I don't need cocaine, no one needs it, but that
would be fun.
Speaker 2: No, Jesse, I don't think you think you might like
to see it.
Speaker 1: I think it'd be a real thing that I want
to see it. I know, I know I want to
see you. I want to see it. Also, Oh you
we both do. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I've done harder than weed three times, and it's like, well,
you fuckers better be ready to babysit.
Speaker 1: Shirt three times like psychedelics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did shrooms twice and Morning Glorious needs once
all when I was eighteen, all in dorms, and every
time is like everyone cancer, you're playing for the night.
You got to just make sure I just don't lose
my mind in this bunk bed. For you know, eight hours.
Speaker 1: Harder than weed is just a funny phrase for Dan.
Speaker 2: I think it's like even weed is like I am
the most lightweight with weed ever because I could sew
up up in my head and everything. So it's just like, yeah,
me on coke, I can't even fucking imagine what that's like.
Speaker 1: What if you were just really what if you were
actually just really cool on coke? It mellows you like
cac Man or like nuclear Gandhi and civilization back to
normal and the bottom end.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's I took the crayon out of Homer's nose.
You're not going to get that reference. Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 1: I watched that episode. It was one of the ones
you recommended.
Speaker 2: No you didn't, No, I don't know, boy. I mean,
there's a cure. In a groundhog day situation where nothing
matters and I'm just going to wake up the next
day and everything's back to normal. I would do everything
because I'm curious.
Speaker 1: That that brings holy shit. I don't remember how we
got in this. It was my fault, I think. But
I asked Amanda that last time we watched Palm Springs,
and we watched that movie like three times a year now.
I asked that. I was like, would that with the
next day reset any of your addictions.
Speaker 2: You might have been building up? Yeah? I think so, right,
but your memory is.
Speaker 1: Up building, like you lose the hangover because the body stuff.
Speaker 2: If there's a chemical dependency, I think I think that
would be flushed.
Speaker 1: Your memory is not flushed out. Well, PTSD wouldn't go away.
But he's not the horror he witnessed. He does a
lot of drugs, he says all the time. Him and JK.
Simmons do the We are the ship in the bathtubs.
Like I had wondered, like, could you build up a
chemical dependency over time in this?
Speaker 2: So I think flushes out that'd be fun. Yeah, it's
like loading a save state.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be nice, megabo but megabonk Yeah, so it
might as well be a little Palm Springs groundhog Day
kind of.
Speaker 2: I mean, it is absolutely just like doing every trick
video games have learned over the last forty years of
making the chemicals in your brain just fireworks go off,
you know it is. I am not gonna say it's
better him than eighties. I'm certainly not gonna say it's
better anything we're talking about here. Uh. It's just something
I can't stop playing. And that is in spite of
the fact that it is the most lousy with internet
humor game I may have ever played. And that is
my kryptonite. I hate meme internet humor. So like your
bonuses where you get more money is like, oh, stunks,
and like one of the characters is Megachad and his
base weapon is Aura, and so like that's garlic. But Aura,
I'm telling you, trust me, I hate that ship. It's
like when you die, it's it's like you dead. Maybe
him skill issue, Like I'm telling you, I'm telling you
this ship.
Speaker 1: For that reason. I'm out a.
Speaker 2: Testament to how fun the game is that I can
look at this stuff that I think is the lamest
ship ever and I can be like, Okay, it's still
worth playing, but it's it's it's it goes hard into that.
Speaker 3: Would you say that megabunk is certifiably harder than weed?
Speaker 2: Now that they're both legal I think they might be
in unequal planes, unless you live in a state where
weeds now legal, in which case weed is harder.
Speaker 1: All right, good to know, yuh Jesse, speaking of harder
than weed. Tell me about Digimon's story Time Stranger.
Speaker 2: Beautiful.
Speaker 3: So you know, we were just talking about eighties two
and how it's a story about the Greek pantheon and
you have.
Speaker 1: All these great characters.
Speaker 3: What if I told you digitmon story Time Stranger is
also that story is also like, imagine.
Speaker 2: Who's the Zeus of Digimon?
Speaker 3: But no, but actually I don't know who Zeus is,
Like who like no, no, no, no, no, no, the analog
for Digitimon.
Speaker 1: But what I will say is like, think about Apollo. Right,
did you just start explaining Zeus is to him?
Speaker 2: He said, who was guy? Yeah?
Speaker 1: But I meant in the digit ready to rock with
the with the Light version of Zeus.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 3: So it is a time travel story based on the
you know, based on the name. You are in the
digital world of Iliad and there's a character named Homerus
and you get to hang out with characters like Apollo Mon.
So what was there a rocky I wish? Okay, So
here's the thing. I actually think the story of this
game is pretty good because when you're looking at other
games in the genre, like like other Monster Teamer games,
is the genre okay, like like Pokemon, Pokemon is. It's
an RPG. You collect digitmon you battle them the same
way you would like Pokemon. It's all like three three battle.
Speaker 1: I knew what Digimon was, but the way the title
is structured, I thought it might be like a graphic
novel based.
Speaker 3: No, that's super valid because I realized, like I've just
been playing this game for seventy hours and I'm just like, yeah,
obviously everyone knows what Digimon's story time strange, but not us. No,
cruually not affair shit. So yeah, so it's a it's
an RPG, you know in all names. You know, it's
you collect monsters, you battle them, You're trying to save
the world. It's anime as fuck. It starts off at
like very like Slice of Life sort of. You're just
kind of walking around Tokyo. You get brought into the
digital world, embroiled and things much larger than yourself. That's
sort of sort of typical anime. My friends are my
power type stuff, But it does punch above its weight.
Which I think is really fascinating. When you're look at
something like Pokemon, that story is always like kind of
whatever for the most part, like no one, it's for
you know, it's it's basic, is what I would say.
Where Digitmon like tries to tackle more mature problems and
like real issues that I'm like fascinated by.
Speaker 2: Did Youmond ever committed suicide?
Speaker 3: You should play digitmon stories Stranger? Oh okay, But the
thing I was learning about Digitmon is I watched the
show growing up, and I was like, yeah, okay, it's digimon, Like,
I don't know, they're just monsters, not as good as
Pokemon is kind of think the sentiment around the town.
But then when you play the games and you learn
about all the other freakos that are in this game, Like,
let me just paint you a picture. Okay, do you
guys know VV from Final Fantasy nine, Like your typical
black mage looking character with like the big yellow eyes
eyes pictures picture that, but its body is a revolver
and then it's holding two revolvers. His name is Deputymon.
Speaker 1: Nice. Okay, I don't get don't don't get that. I
don't either.
Speaker 2: Forty one I'm going to I'm not gonna that's definitely
this dude, Jesse. Don't you didn't tell me his body
is a revolver.
Speaker 1: That was the first thing I said, you just and
he's no, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, no, I wasn't done. His body's a revolver and
he's dual wielding revolvers, a cowboy hat and cowboy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his his horse, I was a revolver. But the
rest of him is still just like a badass cowboy
and he looks like a heartless from Kingdom hearts.
Speaker 3: But now let me tell you. Okay, So there's that
guy right like the evolutionist attribute. Sorry, sorry to go
for it.
Speaker 1: I'm on, I'm on dis fandoms digimon Dan, are you
looking at this too? Look at his character at the
top of his wiki Pasi and his attribute is vaccine.
Speaker 2: What his family is virus pro. He's very pro vaccine.
Speaker 1: His size is just twenty g. It's like his Wait,
his next form is superstar on. Let's look at superstar.
Click on his next.
Speaker 2: Form superstar on.
Speaker 1: It's just a fucking batas star with sunglasses.
Speaker 2: And box Holy shit, he's got like wrestler boots and tassels.
Speaker 3: This is just this is like just the baseline, Like
this game is four hundred and fifty of this.
Speaker 1: So it's Pokemon, but the base Pokemon is.
Speaker 2: Hang on, Like there are.
Speaker 3: Like normal like baby creature looking digimon, but then there's
also a digitmon that's literally just like a construction crane
with eyes. I think it's called break dramon. Like it's
just like, did Youimon have like a really weird evolution
path where it's like creature to like just a machine gun.
Speaker 1: Wondering what is the weirdest digimon you know?
Speaker 2: Hang on, Okay, it's looking. Prior forms of Deputy Moon
are Star Moon and superstar On. So wait, is it
that he was a star with sunglasses and he evolved
into being a deputy like a sheriff star like a badge?
Is that the connection?
Speaker 3: Sometimes there is no connection, especially in the games, because
there's branching evolution lines. You get to kind of pick
and choose where you want to go. So the games
like really break away from like the anime where there's
this like set like like Pikachu evolves into Ryo Chew.
It's like not like that or set. Digimon is all
over the place.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at golf man right now, Jesse, this is
dangerous that you introduced me to deputy.
Speaker 3: Look up, look up gun dram on just on g
U N d r A m O N. This guy
was in my party the entire game once.
Speaker 2: I that's a lot of it's a fucking guy another
but every appendage and more is revolvers.
Speaker 1: Is this dick a revolver? It kind of looks like
his guns on him.
Speaker 2: I don't see a dick.
Speaker 1: I see one. No, it's not a no, I see one.
Speaker 2: Okay, I is digimon cool.
Speaker 3: I need to teach you the other half of digitmon,
where where I think we're going to get Dan out
of digitmon, because this is where digitmon gets really confusing,
because what you're looking at right now is certifiably just
a mode weird weird thing that exists.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: Look up bel b e E L storm on one word.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, it's like on the top with a lot
of bullets flying around her.
Speaker 2: Talking like bett.
Speaker 1: Just a woman, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Right, But like there's a head that's like a cool
shark head floating around and then it looks like a
shoot shark head.
Speaker 3: Which one you're looking at because.
Speaker 1: He's in a like a Zanya outfit. We're looking at
the same thing.
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the thing that's above are you looking at
the fandom.
Speaker 2: I'm looking so that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like it's it's.
Speaker 3: The thing above her and like those are just bullets
like otherwise it's like just a woman with two revolvers
and like a mask.
Speaker 2: Okay, I don't think I see the woman and that
is going to get Dan out of digimon.
Speaker 1: Well so I was.
Speaker 3: It's it's less interesting when a lot of digitmon are
also just like humans wearing gotcha like like it starts
as a creature and then it becomes just like a human.
Speaker 1: Like in a mech.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm looking at Mitos Simon Bee now and he's
just like a vampire guy, Like he just looks like
a guy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of those, But then there's also
a lot of your like deputy moons, right, like I
think break like I said, break Tramonts just like a crane. Like,
there's a lot of volcanessman or whatever. It's like a
dude inside of like a suit that loves action figures.
Like there's a lot of weird things going on all
the time. But yeah, so then there's like the Olympos twelve,
which are their version of the Pantheon, and it's just like,
here's a guy named Apollo Mon who shoots fire out
of his wrist and he's this like big red creature
mech robot thing, and they made a whole game about that,
and it's surprisingly pretty good.
Speaker 2: There's more fun terms like I don't know how deep
you go here? Can you tell me about the Digi
Egg of Miracles?
Speaker 3: I can tell you about the digit Egg of sincerity?
Speaker 2: This is.
Speaker 1: Please do please do no.
Speaker 3: I actually like all I know about the eggs is
that they are used to digivolve certain digimon. I don't
I'm sure there's like a lower reason for it. Okay,
I don't know what that is. Okay, I know I
can go to a vendor in the game and buy them,
and that's about all I know about them.
Speaker 1: Is this like what it feels like when I talk
about wine. This is cool as possible.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna show myself getting I could see myself getting
into digimon more than I could see myself getting into
Like I like wine. You've made me a wine, like
I enjoy a nice night with a bottle of wine.
But I could if you showed me this shit when
I was nine, I would never I would have multiple
digitmon tattoos. At this point, I think, well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think a nine year old get into wine.
Speaker 2: Regardless.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to just saying what it's I was.
Speaker 2: Like, I'm just that Revolver Man did something. Yeah, that
was very cool. Oh I felt it. Wow.
Speaker 3: Yes, imagine playing sixty hours of that and then having
to come out the other side and like, yeah, I'm
I'm I'm good, Like everything's fine, everything's cool because it's
it's a lot, But I do like him comes out
on Friday.
Speaker 1: It's cool.
Speaker 3: If you like RPG's, I think it's a good one
of those. If you've got time for sixty hours of
a game in your life.
Speaker 2: Who's avenge Kidmon?
Speaker 1: I think Dan, you're more into the idea of Digimon
than you would be into playing this game.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I play it for ten minutes and be like,
I think that's been generous. I think it's just the
gun guy really got me going on that.
Speaker 3: The dialogue is cheesy and very exposition heavy, like no
one really talks like that. Okay, ever, but when it
gets to its heart, it has like an emotional core
to it that I appreciate. Okay, I just like making
the weirdest guy I can.
Speaker 2: Is it a big thing now, because like Pokemon is
still a big thing? Is did you mind? Like when
I feel like I was hearing about the most it
was like the maybe early mid two thousands. Is it
still a thing? Is it a force?
Speaker 3: I think it's it's got it's like core audience that
shows up for games like this. So Digitmon story Cyber
Sleuth was the last Digitmon story game, and that was
about a decade ago, and that one only got localized
and brought over here because there was such like a
fan outcry for it because it was only released in Japan,
and then they did like a very low budget localization
and brought it over alongside his DLC. I think it
was called Hacker's Memory. So this is the first time
like a Digitmon story game has kind of had a
budget behind it and come to the West. So there
are a lot of people very excited for that.
Speaker 2: I understand.
Speaker 1: Totally cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but well, what's it.
Speaker 3: On PlayStation Xbox PC? I think it's coming to switch.
Don't quote me on that. Okay, I played it on PlayStation.
Speaker 4: It ran fine, nice, right, Dan, I know a lot
more about digitmand than I did before.
Speaker 1: Then you play Baby Steps.
Speaker 2: I played a little bit idy Foddy. Yeah. I think
this is one of those rare games that I would
watch more than I would play because I am not
particularly patient. I appreciate the like, you know, I'm a
platformer guy. I love platformers, and like, this is not
a platformer, but it is very much to just like
you know, we say Dewey games here where it's like
all you're doing is doing stuff here, you're just walking,
and it's like, again, I'm not a traditional platformer, but
it is like how am I going to position myself
on this to get this next platform? And things like that.
And I got maybe an hour into it and I
slipped on a rock that was in like a running
thing of water and I kind of fell into a
waterfall and it sent me down. I was like, okay, hah,
it's gonna you know, checkpoint me or whatever and send
me back up. And I realized like, oh no, no,
it's it just keeps going. I need to like go
all the way back up there. And I think I
did a whole loop around a mountain before I realized that,
and I was like, oh, okay, well, I'm never playing
this again. I'm not I already did that. I'm not
going all the way up there again. And then I realized,
like that is like the appeal. Like I've been watching Grub,
and Grub is someone who is like, look, he's got kids.
He is a patient man in a way I am
at And he got to this part that's called the
Man Breaker, and it's this mountain near the end of
the game, and it's just this insane fucking mountain that
it's so many specific little footholds you have to go up,
which the way you control this is like it's left
trigger and right trigger, like left your left and right legs,
and then you like lean with the analog stick to walk.
So it's a very novel You're not just holding up
and pressing aight a step or anything like that. It's
very very coop, very getting over it. And I've watched
Grub now several of these mornings, like before the workday
like officially starts hell Stream into a giant bomb, and
I've just been watching it like I can't look away,
you know, like I'll pull it up on my phone
while I'm eating breakfast, and I'm just like, it's just
like gripping, because like, you know, literally one wrong step
and he can just fall off a mountain and have
to start over. And I deeply respect both the game
for that type of commitment to the bit, and also
anyone who plays it and is willing to like when
they fall down that far, be like all right, back
at it. You know, I'm not strong enough to like
go back and be like, all right, I'm just spend
another hour climbing this mountain to get back to our
I was and maybe fall down again with no checkpoints whatsoever.
So it's a game I deeply respect and do not
want to play basically.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, I'm right there with you. I don't even
want to watch it. I'm sure Jeff Grub's dedicated and
very skilled at it, but I don't.
Speaker 2: He's both those things. Yeah, you get to really this
guy gets a real sweaty ass and people live. I
saw the chat say that he's kicked up.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Jeff Grubb or the character.
Speaker 2: I think they've been referring to the character. He wears
a onesie and he gets the real sweaty ass.
Speaker 1: I thought you're talking about it.
Speaker 2: Grub Yeah, I don't know rub butt some grubbs butt
really now. But yeah, Nate the character and baby steps
caked up as they say. But no, it seems like
a great game for what it's doing. I don't want
to play it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that whole subgenre is not up my alley.
Speaker 2: No, all the like going up or even the old
Ben and fotty stuff and everything like, yeah, I love
the idea, just cannot do it. I don't even like
the idea. I respect the idea.
Speaker 3: I beat getting over it, and I was like, okay, cool,
I never have to play one of these games ever again.
Like I had my sense of accomplishment, have fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah that that that's oh man, I'm I'm gonna piss
people off with this one. With that kind of game,
I feel like once you grasp it, Dan, I feel
like you have a sane approach to it. Once you
get it, you're like, okay, I don't this is not
where I want to find sand. Yeah. I I think
I think video games are a great use of time.
I think I think that they can provide a lot
of entertainment. They can they can be up doingies for growth.
I also don't think they need to justify themselves. I
don't need like to look at like my time with games,
those foightying games, I actually question why the fuck? There's
so many better things you could be doing than that,
and I don't I'm please please call me out if
that's a shitty take.
Speaker 2: No, I think there's a right amount of it, like
for me, And again it's personal preference, like Grub seems
to be loving it.
Speaker 1: If you're enjoying it, that's all that matters. Like I
who am I to say like you're not, you shouldn't
enjoy that. If you're enjoying something, then obviously that's worth
the time.
Speaker 2: But I mean compared to something like Hades two, where
it's like what are you doing in Hades two or
any rogue light but doing the same thing over and
over and trying to get better at it? And yeah sure.
The difference though to me is that something like a
Hades too is like the rogue light element where it's like, Okay,
I am getting actual tangible things that are helping me
progress here, Like this acts, I've upgraded a little more
to get a little further. I've made it so there's
some healing points along the way, you know, like whereas
Baby Steps is literally just like hey, fucking get back
up there. You know, it's a I think that would
be disheartening to me, where it's like Haites, even if
I die, it's the last boss, I feel like progress
was made.
Speaker 1: And you could argue that you're making like intangible progress
in baby Steps in the sense that you are learning
more like in a Oh, then in Early Dark Souls
or something where it's like you're not actually progressing because
you didn't upgrade anything, but you're still getting knowledge, like yeah, yeah, yeah,
and out of wilds I get, but I'm still getting
a reward from exploring it. Where it's like there's a
there's a like asceticism or I don't know if that's
the word, but like a spartan vibe to the the
foudy and thing where it's like, but this is just
almost masochistic.
Speaker 2: So a perfect example of that is the Man Breaker.
That mountain they very much show you when you go
up there, there is a winding staircase that goes all
the way to the top, and it's not like necessarily easy.
You still got to kind of wrestle with the goofy
controls to get up to the top, but like it
is probably again I have not gotten that bar, but
it seems like that's the easy route, and it seems
to be put there specifically to be like it seems
like the whole metaphor is a game. But oh, one
foot in the other in front of the other, accomplished
hard things and stuff, and it's like, Okay, the stairs
are the easy way, and I've seen Grub look at
that and be like I will not fucking touch that.
I will not go up that, Like it is there
to taunt you, and like if you start going up there,
it seems like a character talks to you and it's like,
oh yeah, yeah, you're taking the easy way, like oh yeah,
that's the man breaker, that's the one that everyone struggles with,
you know. Like so it it's like and it's later
in the game, so at that point you've already overcome
so many obstacles and everything that it's like, I'm not
going to take the easy way now. So like I'm
sure there's a deeper metaphor there and everything that like
it's kind of clever, but it still does not seem
fun to play. Oh sure, there's a lot of.
Speaker 1: People love that that kind of game, So like, I
get that there's I'm not the audience, but I also
sometimes I'm like, oh man, maybe it's because it in
Haites that there's like such immediate quick feedback loop and
run to run or something like that. So yeah, totally
all right, I get it.
Speaker 2: It's a cool thing. I'm very glad it exists. Yeah,
I think it's doing the thing it's set out to
do perfectly right.
Speaker 1: Uh, do you guys want to talk about emails the concept?
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, as usual, you can ride into firescape cast at
gmail dot com. That is, Fireescape cast at gmail dot com.
Questions that you want to be read on the show, Dan,
do you want to read this? First one? From Darien?
Speaker 2: Sure? I remember back in the odds there were articles
and stuff going around about how boss fights were bad
and always bad, and that no game should have boss fights.
Now they're a cornerstone of some of the most loved
franchises in the world. Can you think of any similar
opinions that didn't really hold up? Cheers Daring from Toronto.
First off, that is a dumb, fucking opinion. Boss fights
have been amazing since the first video games I've ever played,
and like like you mentioned here nowadays, yeah, between silk
song from games and everything like boss fights, that that
is a fucking cornerstone of this is just boss fights. Yeah,
And I feel like that's the thing that, like, you know,
when you think of people who don't even play video games,
that they associate with video games, you know, it's like, uh,
one ups and extra lives and stuff are like you know,
the Rock when he came back to wrestling, he was like, Oh,
the Final Boss was this whole thing, and it's just
like that, that is a that nomenclature and everything is
part of video games for a reason because they're fucking fun,
don't Yeah, that's a stud I don't even remember that
discourse at all, the early odds that would have been
pre social media. I don't even know e Bomb's world forums.
I don't know where people.
Speaker 1: All hell yeah banana phone or hello fuck. It was
one of my favorite early videos. Do you know what
I'm talking about?
Speaker 2: No, but it sounds like something that's just a.
Speaker 1: Guy I hung over. I think he was hungover. He
woke up and his phones ring in somewhere in a
like really messy dorm room and he keeps picking up
random item and saying hello. Fuck when he realized was
on the phone, and he did like.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's your whole bit with the barbecue ribs, and yeah,
I've seen the whole that up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but this was like he was pissed off that
it wasn't a phone every time he picked up a
shoe or a dildo or I don't know. Yeah, this
just was self serving because I think I talked about
this recently, I since I first played a Banjo Kazui
and Tooey. This isn't really like a discourse that I
think was a bad opinion. This is more something I have.
It takes a big man to admit that you know,
he was mistaken. It takes a really brave person to like,
you know, change course on something. So I guess, you know,
I guess I'll leave it up to you guys if
you want. If you think I'm like a cool, like
really cool person for saying this. But I used to
think Banjo Touey was better than Kazui. I was way
fucking off. I was very off. I've replayed about actively
the last five years, and I was confident and my
argument was that Banjo Tui. I liked the fact that
the Metroidvania aspects, actually, you know, it dictated that you
had to go back to worlds after you had gathered
an ability or an upgrade from this world. I went back,
and Banjo Toue is just like, objectively a terrible game
in some respects, Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's laborious. I did not play those games until like
the pandemic and I streamed him and I one hundred
percent of Banjo Kazuei, and I was like, this is
fucking great. I really missed out back then. And then
I started toohey with all the enthusiasm of the world,
and very quickly I was like, oh no, they they
their eyes are bigger than their stomach. You know, they
tried too much.
Speaker 1: Heart was in the right place, because it's like, oh, well, okay, well,
if you put this hungry, crying, throwing a tantrum kid
in a mind cart in the theme park, he's going
to go off into this tunnel and you're like, all right,
where do you go? You find out that he it's
like the three worlds later you find them. But in
order to go back and complete the quest, you need
to go back and there's no fast travel, there's there
there's really annoying things to move around the world. I
I replayed those recently. That was back when I was
still streaming on my own individual channel and I played
Twoey and I kept telling people every episode I started,
like this game is this sucks and not having fun.
Speaker 3: The game kind of shows a tan though, because that
game's opening moves at a glacial pace like it is.
It is a long intro for that game, and then
by the time you get into it, you're like, yeah,
now we're in it. Now we're gonna we're gonna we're
gonna be doing banjo Kazooi things, We're gonna be cooking.
And then you're like, oh no. The whole game kind
of moves like this, Okay, they're trying to do too
much here and it's not exactly where it needs to be.
But you play Banjo kazoe and that's just SKA the
video game, Like it's just there's explain all right. When
you think of Ska, right, you think of a lot
of horns, you think of a lot of a beat music.
You play banjo Kazooi and it feels like your brain
is on fire. It feels like there's just so much
happening all the time. You're doing backflips, you're you're running
around or whatever. The music is very sky like. It's
it's a lot of like.
Speaker 1: You know, the Grant Kirk Hope was just listening at
Scott when he.
Speaker 3: Was just he was just yeah, it's like, so you
put Real big Fish in that soundtrack, and it's like, yeah,
this is Banjo Kazui.
Speaker 2: I got this.
Speaker 1: I know what. I know what's up?
Speaker 2: Okay, I see it.
Speaker 3: Next time you play Banjo Kazu, we put some ska
on and you'll you'll know what I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: I don't like you say that like it's that simple.
It really is like put skat.
Speaker 1: On Scott on Spotify, just like, yeah, just ska.
Speaker 2: Man is real big Fish to go to? No.
Speaker 1: It was my math teacher's sons band in ninth grade.
Apparently they blew up a bit for Syracuse standards and.
Speaker 2: I went to a gold Finger. I went to a
gold Finger and Real big Fish concert once. And I've
been to a Warp tour.
Speaker 4: Just like Banjo KAZUOI exactly, it's like living the game
what other what other video game opinions are bad that
we like, Yeah, discourse.
Speaker 2: The thing is there is a billion that are just
like one dumb ass on Twitter or Blue Sky. I
want I want something like agreed upon. Yeah, oh that's interesting.
There's so many stupid things that came and went like do.
Speaker 1: One or or pick one person and then take an
opinion of theirs. Ben Hanson, what's an opinion? Ben Hanson's
had that was just stupid?
Speaker 2: Tank Tank Tank was the best game of the WU launch.
That's so stupid, which again not a great launch, but
there was new Super Mario Brothers you which you know,
it's one of those new Super Mario Brothers games. It's
it's an objectively good game, not one of the best
Mario games by any means, but like better than Tank
Tank Tank. Ben Hansson has a lot of weird takes
over the years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't want to actually fan those flames. Jesse,
what is your We've asked this, people have asked us
this before. What's your like, what's a what's a what's
a video game? Take the It would piss us off
that you have and you believe Yeah, no.
Speaker 3: One that I hold deer currently. I don't know if
this would piss you too off. But like, I think
Death Riding two is actually a very bad video game,
ently like way worse than the first one in almost
every I think it's a I think it's a mediocre game.
Speaker 2: Well, I guess you and I talked a little bit
pre released about this, and I can tell you weren't
quite as hot on it as me.
Speaker 1: No, I mean open world game with really cool tools.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it feels like they learned all the wrong
lessons from the director's cut and then made a sequel
and it was like where's the friction? Where's like where's
that like that you you want to just climb that mountain?
You want it to be this like perilous journey, and
there's like, now here's the truck. We give you like
ten hours in like you just that truck can get
you anywhere you want.
Speaker 2: Sounds like steps in a lot of ways.
Speaker 3: I do want baby steps, but I also want baby
steps with all.
Speaker 1: The Kajima bullshit.
Speaker 2: That's fair, understand.
Speaker 1: I want I want you're talking to you're talking to
the two who argued for Death Raining one, but uh,
somebody we know thought it wasn't eligible.
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty three, or whatever.
Speaker 1: It was because director is not on the podcast was
eligible apparently, you know what I think.
Speaker 2: I think Silk Songs not that great. Wonder what the
consensus is going to be by the end of the year.
Speaker 1: I think Silk Songs fucking blown up. But I think
Team Cherry is not nearly as smart as we all
think they are. I think Team Cherry is actually not
that great at developing video games. Jesse, you're going all out, Yeah,
so silk so legitimately the Silk Song defender. No, No,
I like Marry like Silk Song quite a bit. I
think Silk Song's.
Speaker 2: Not that great.
Speaker 1: Oh god, Jesse's going to be interesting. No, no, no, no,
I think I I literally said my piece in the
last episode. I was like, I think Silk Song is
incredible at certain moments, but I think those moments the
payoff makes you forgive a lot of bad game design
leading up to it, and then we kind of think, oh,
Team Cherry, it was intentional all along, these indie developers
toiling away obscure. No, I'm just I'm We're getting ahead
and I don't know the blue sky. Yes, no, no,
I think Folk Song is a good game.
Speaker 3: I do have another maybe hot video game do it.
I think the boss fights are the worst parts of
Soul's Lakes, Like, I inherently think they're the least interesting
part of that entire franchise structurally.
Speaker 1: I think I might agree with you because I think
the games are at their most brilliant in between and
also when you're like connecting the world via the checkpoints
and whatnot. Not that that's what you're saying, but that's
kind of where I'm coming from.
Speaker 3: No, that's that's also where I'm coming from. I think
the world design is like way more interesting, and I'd
rather run around that world than get stuck on a
boss for five hours and then be like, I don't
get to enjoy the interesting parts of this game anymore. Now,
I just have to do like a pattern recognition check.
Speaker 2: Jesse. I think I'm with you because I think about
this slight. Here's maybe my hot take. I think maybe
the whole from format a little overrated. I think it's
maybe not like everyone looks at it as like, oh,
this is the new trailblazer for a game genre here
outside of elden Ring, which I do. I will give
elden Ring all the credit in the world. I think
that's one of the best games of all time. But again,
the beauty of elden Ring is in the discovery and
the exploration and running around that world and the moments
in between the parts I really don't love. It's like, Okay,
I'm fighting the Red Giant, I'm just dying a million times,
and it's like every boss fight is just me dying
a million times. And it's not even like satisfying in
a silk Song way. All the stuff I love about
elden Ring is just oh, I got warped across the
map and holy shit, the map is so huge, and
like just the freedom part of it, and that's why
it's like Bloodborne, Dark Souls and stuff like that. I
respect those games, but I don't really like playing them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. No, I totally agree with that. You lost me
because I love a lot. Bloodborn is one of my
favorite games of all time, But like, yeah, I think,
I think a lot of what they're doing gets kind
of wrung out by the time they do it for
the fifth time. Now now I'm mapped up.
Speaker 2: What else do I fucking want to? What else do
I hate video games?
Speaker 1: It's something I disliked that a lot of people liked.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've always said that about Assassin's Creed, but
I don't think that's a hot take anymore because I
think at this point so many people are tired of
Assassin's Creeds.
Speaker 1: Is the first I think my hot take is I'm
still in love with Assassin's Creed. Like I still like
that series. Okay, I didn't have to play it for
guides granted, but like, I still I.
Speaker 3: Still like Shadows, Like even despite all of that, Like
I think, oh, I think that game is a hell
of a game. It's my one problem with Shadows, not
to go in too much of a tangent, is there's
too much foliage. Like when you're running through trees for
like ten minutes, you can't see anything.
Speaker 1: Maybe we didn't need this.
Speaker 3: It looks great, but like this is kind of just bad.
Speaker 1: Like that's that's the world apart. But it doesn't make
for good gameplay when you're trying, Like you can escape
into the woods initially, which is fun, but then after
that it's like, oh, they're actually like separating the individual
settlements with just dense trees, which makes sense for the setting,
but also they've been toying with the setting for since
ac one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if this is more of a
hot take or an old man take or both, but
it's the kids today, and I think when I start
that way, it probably goes in the kids old man mode.
When you think about them aging and thinking about games.
They are playing Roadblocks, they are playing Fortnite, they were
playing these kind of platform based, online, ever changing experiences.
They are not going to be able to kind of
have that appreciation, appreciation and revisit these games of their
youth in the way that like, look, I can load
up Mario. I loaded up Mario three two days ago
and played a good amount of that and it's still great.
I wonder what that's going to do to kids growing
up loving games now that like that retro kind of
nostalgia type thing isn't like you'll get the occasional like oh,
Fortnite OG mode or World of Warcraft Classic or whatever,
but like you're not going to be able to just
like emulate or collect or revisit their youth the way
they are now. And I think they're kind of getting
robbed of that, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's the thing where it's like it's one of
those things where they grew up so differently than us
than I don't think it will even compute with them
how special it was for us to be able to
do that. For them, No, there will be some sort
of nostalgia for them in a way that we don't
even understand yet.
Speaker 2: Like they will talk about it, and they will like
they will sit around in their dorm rooms and be like, oh,
remember you know Roeblogs when we were in like third grade,
when this would happened.
Speaker 1: That's like currently happening.
Speaker 3: It's the reason fortnite OG exists, right, is like you'd
all these people being like, oh, remember Fortnite Season three,
Like that's back when it was peak, and like they're
talking about it and it's like a it's a bygone
era because you can't play that version of that game anymore.
And then Fortnite OG comes back and they're like sure, oh,
but it's like not really what I remember it to be.
And it's like they're going through all the same mode
that you do when you like revisit something that you
loved from the past, and it's like, yeah, you're you're
looking back with like rose colored glasses. You love the
experience the memory of it, but then you play the
game and you're like, oh, it's actually like not that great.
It's like it was never about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there's an aspect of like I do wonder
how they're going to preserve it in a way that
someone might be able to go back play their favorite
Roadblocks experience in fifteen years. I don't know how long
it takes for nostalgia to kick in, or I don't
know how long it takes for an experience to become
more nostalgia than an actual, like recent memory.
Speaker 2: But I feel like when for like, look, you're not
going to recreate the like you know, pulling a CRT
in an Xbox and getting sixteen friends in a room
and playing Blood Gold, Capture of the Flag, Halo or whatever.
Speaker 1: Right, and that's amazing.
Speaker 2: They can make the master Chief collection and you can
play that game online everything. You can't recreate those actual
childhood memories. But like, yeah, I don't even think you
can do that with a Roadblock or something, you know,
like just a weird obscure, just you know, user created
maps and stuff like that. I just I don't know
if that's a lost.
Speaker 1: Private servers baby, that'd be fun though, actually doing a
system link for Halo two at some point like physically
setting one up again.
Speaker 2: Oh sure, it was amazing in our dorms, Like it
was before the three sixty came out. It was Halo one.
You could fucking plug the Ethernet accord or whatever it
was from the Xbox into your dorm room wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that the local area network. It.
Speaker 2: Yes, it wasn't just the dorm I lived in. It
was all five dorms on the hill and got Ku
and then even ones further away, and all of it
was on the same network. So that was for that
was before Xbox Live. That was for any of that.
And you could just play Halo one with anyone in
any dorm in the city, and like that was just
such an interesting like this is before way before iPhones
and stuff like that. So you're just calling friends up
being like, oh yeah, so we're gonna get on this
local area network thing, and that was that was awesome.
There's there's no way to recreate that. Why why would you,
you know.
Speaker 1: Did you ever develop like a rivalry with a specific dorm.
Speaker 2: Or it was more just like dorms had their certain reputations. Oh,
Naysmith is the rich kid. Dorms I lived in Hashingar,
which is like the weird art kid dorm. Yeah, so
like this is like kind of the future frack.
Speaker 1: I've always called you when you weren't, you know, behind
your back.
Speaker 2: I did. I kind of hated it, just a bunch
of very preticulous, Like every time I walked into the
dorm past five pm there were like three guys with
shaggy hair, like playing acoustic guitars.
Speaker 1: And is the guy leans in your doorways like local
Area Network purports to be about connection, but really it's
just all isolation and then he goes to bed.
Speaker 2: That's not even an exaggeration.
Speaker 3: In drug rugs, playing hacky sack like just.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yeah, but yeah, team Cherry needs design lessons,
all right, next to Emil, all right, this is kind
of a rapid fire. It's a few questions in one
from Jeff all right, sup FBC, long time, first time here.
Love the show, love the opinions, and I pretty much
buy video games based on what's talked about on the
podcast because of different facets, your own personalities and likes
dislikes that match mine. You make it too easy anyway.
Some questions subtitles, I always have them on video games, movies,
TV shows, sports don't give a fuck they get turned off. Opinions.
Speaker 2: Video games, yes, uh, because that can really help because,
like you know, you're not necessarily like hearing everything they
say as you drive from point to point, and it's
good to see that. Movies, I don't. I don't do
it with movies video games. It's a special case because,
like I'm streaming them so often with work and everything
that like it's better for the viewer to have the
subtitles on. So I do default to turn those on.
But I'll never do it for movie, never do it
for TV show unless it's a thing with heavy accents. Yeah,
I was.
Speaker 1: Gonna say, I've come around and watching subtitles for like
long form TV because you can miss so things so
easily that like last time we watched we rewatched The Wire,
We're now rewatching The Wire again. That show. I mean,
there are so many different dialects in that show, because
I think the great thing about that show is that
they're covering so many different sects of the city that
people are speaking differently within their different bubbles. And also
that show loads so much information into one scene. We
had the subtitles on last time, We're like, holy fuck,
I've never caught that before. Oh my god, this scene
has so much more gravitas to it, because even like
Bunk and McNulty, some of their scenes when they're talking
and we're rewatching the show right now towards the end
of season two, and even that season, I'm appreciating much
much more because I know the stakes of what's going on,
because I didn't understand the Greek or some of the
things that like Horse was saying to Frank Sabaka or whatever.
But like I've come around on them. With TV movies,
I still because they're so short form and I'm not
as worried about catching every little nugget of information. I
don't use them for movies. But what did I just
watch recently? Sinners? Finally watched Sinners, great movie, fucking rules. Yes,
there was a few scenes where I went back and
turn on the subtitles because I wanted to hear every
lass like piece of information. But like there are certain
movies when you're like Annihilation, I don't necessarily need subtitles
because I'm not there for like the dialogue. Well that
that movie has great dialogue, but I'm there more for
the vibes of that movie, even though it's the best
movie ever made. I don't need to know every little
piece of information, but like, yeah, I've come around on subtitles,
although in games Ghosts of Yote, I will say I
kind of regret picking Japanese voice acting English subtitles. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: I feel like that's the thing. Like I keep getting
asked that in like comments like you're playing this or
this night, I'm just doing English voices English subtitle.
Speaker 1: I kind of wish I did, and here's why. And
when I'm when given that choice, I almost always pick
whatever is diegetic to the setting, like I'll pick oh yeah,
And I don't regret it when during cutscenes Gusta Yote
and I should have mentioned this earlier in the episode,
that's not I don't think it's a knock on it.
I think it's just a knock on me not speaking Japanese.
They there's some dialogue during fights or while I'm riding
my horse trying to aim for the flowers, where there's
like I don't understand Japanese. So I'm trying to read
the subtitles while doing all this stuff in the world,
and I can't read it. I have to go read
and then like be like fuck and steer my horse
back into the white flowers and shit like that, or
during a fight, to be clear, I understand how to
fucking swing this giant, two handed fucking sword while I'm reading.
But there's a lot going on in some of the
combat in this game, to the point where like I
can't see every badass line that Odds says but likes.
Speaker 2: Also a weird thing where it's like in Ghost of Yota,
the the melee stuff, it's got to like blue glint,
a red glen, yellow glen stuff, and that's clearer how
to respond to that. But the way they dealt with
the range guys, like the guns and the bon and arrows,
like they just yell before it, and so it's like
ah and then throw and it's.
Speaker 1: Like the friends yeah and they fucking yeah. This doesn't
feel really realistic. I don't. Yeah, I don't think Lego
Loos was like here it comes gunn yeah, get ready.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I can't like fault them fully for trying to find
some way that doesn't just clutter it even more visually.
Speaker 2: It's a video game. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I use subtitles for most things, games, especially because most
of the time I'm playing games usually on Discord with friends,
and so if I don't have subtitles on it, I
miss something. I'm like, I can't do two things so
much with the subtitles. A second, like read some some
dial or something.
Speaker 2: But just that's something I keep hearing about now, is
like people just like hanging out in like Discord voice servers,
and like I I think I probably know a bunch
of the guys you're talking about that you're in these
things with, and I've never done that. Piece of ship Carson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my message right now is Mike says, fuck you, Okay,
I love that guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's like are are we're talking about? Like there's
like six people playing video games and you all have
just open mics and you're all playing different stuff and chatting.
I mean that sounds fun. I just that seems like
such a It.
Speaker 1: Doesn't sound like you think it sounds fun, danced because
like you're doing that's amazing. But like.
Speaker 2: Because I'm thinking about like a lot of times, like
I was talking about, like being Beyonca, well be sitting
down both playing our steam deck games, or.
Speaker 1: You're sitting next to each other when you're separate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're talking and stuff, but it seems like maybe
that type of thing, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well it's this idea, right, like how many times have
you like gone to a friend's house or had a
friend over when you were younger and one of you
is just playing a single player game or the other
person is like, well, what do I do? I guess
I just watch you play. This is like everyone gets
their screen time. Everybody's in their enclosure, everyone's in their
own space. But then we get to like talk to
each other like also while that's going on, and like
sometimes we'll toss streams up, so it's like everyone's able
to like watch each other's gameplay. So there are some
nights where I've got six different video games being streamed
to me at once, and am I paying attention to
all of them?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: But I have them up and it's like this nice
communal night that we're all having where you know, we
might be quiet for twenty minutes and then we might
go off the rails for thirty five minutes and then
we all go back to play in our games.
Speaker 2: That sounds fun, it's a good time.
Speaker 1: It's very like a.
Speaker 2: More recent thing, like I don't think that really was
happening ten years ago.
Speaker 3: No, No, not at all, but it is the reason
I have to put subtitles on when I play a game,
and because if like I said, like if I have
six people blaring Discord soundboards in my ear and I'm
trying to watch a Ghost of Yota cut scene, like
it's I gotta be able to read what's happening with movies.
Though It's like I don't really have subtitles. My roommates
like subtitles a lot, so like it really is just
based on like if they're watching with me or not.
And then TV, especially like I think Game of Thrones
really changed me on this. I had to have subtitles
on for Game of Thrones because it helped reinforce a
lot of like proper nouns, you know, regions, character names,
like because there's so many that that game, that show
is so dense with information that I just needed the reinforcement,
the visual reinforcement of being able to read those names.
Speaker 1: I'm also very much like a visual learner, like that's
my that's how I build my memory lexicon. Seeing names
helped a lot with shows like that or again, like
the Wire, same thing. There's so many characters. I'm like,
all right, this is okay. I got to know Bunk
or Russell from season two. I'm like, I wouldn't have
known who they were if it wasn't for the fact that,
you know, like the show is well written, so it's
not like they're saying, hey, Russell, remember when you told
me that thing last episode, Like, I'm I need to
know who they are, so it helps a lot to
have that.
Speaker 2: Deadwood is another one, oh yeah, where it's a really
dense dialogue and a bunch of characters and stuff, and
it does just kind of help with that, so it
is kind of like a show by show basis.
Speaker 1: Then Deadwood's really good, Deadwood's fuck, it's good. Russ Frushtick
convinced me to rewatch. I started it back in the
day and then uh, when I came to Pobaly gond
rushed it is like it's a slow burn, but it's
got one of the best several payoffs in like TV history,
and I rewatched it. I'm like, oh my god, it's it's.
Speaker 2: The three times now I have watched the show and
I had a poster that show in my fucking college department.
I love it, but I every time I get to
two or three episodes in the season three and I
fall off, and not because it's bad. It all seems good.
I cannot explain it, but i've I didn't and Bianc
had not seen it, and so a few years ago
it's like, Okay, I'm gonna do this. It was around
the time the movie was coming out on HBO, which
is a very good movie. Yeah it was great, but
it was like, Okay, I'm gonna watch all the way
through five. I've never seen season three outside of the
first couple episodes, and we did the same fucking thing
where we got like two episodes in and then we
just watched the movie. And I still haven't seen most
of season three, and it's like, I love that show.
I cannot explain why I haven't seen it. Like it's good, right, Mike,
like the season three?
Speaker 1: Yes, I like it quite a bit. It's not my
favorite of the show, but it's definitely good.
Speaker 2: We did that with A Wire or two, where we
watched because I've seen The Wires several times and probably
the best show ever, and we got through. We watched
the first four seasons pretty quickly, and then I think
we watched like the first one of season five and
then fell off five five. There's moments in five.
Speaker 1: Yeah, five's like rightfully criticized being self indulgent on Simon's part.
He was, you know, a Baltimore Sun reporter, and then
the fifth season was about journalists.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do think the media was integral to the story
they were telling. I just think it got a bit
too in the weeds. I didn't mind because that like
I came up watching that show and be like, oh, yeah,
I want to be a you know, a journalist. This
is awesome, Like.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I think that's one of the weaker seasons. Rewatching the show,
I think season two is actually way better than I
ever gave it credit for.
Speaker 2: And I always liked season two. Iat.
Speaker 1: I get why people initially were like what the fuck
are they doing before they saw what they were actually
going forward with the whole thing, but like this is.
Speaker 2: Totally different, but like I think it's it's they were
looking at several different aspects of the city and crime
and it and like what an interesting take on like
just the docs And for.
Speaker 1: The first like two episodes, you're like, why the fuck
do we care about these Steve it or doc workers
like and of course, and again initially the show is like,
why the fuck do we care about what all these
like white Baltimore dudes are doing? Like I was watching
like I was watching these like like you know, these
characters that I had gotten to love and like they
were their whole thing was like playing the game with
the cops everything. And then all of a sudden, like
why do what do the Steve Lers have to do
with it? You realize later on they're like essential to
the story. Oh it's really good. I'm rewatching again. It's
still incredible. All right, I still got more from Jeff.
All Right, we kind of just actually touched on this
sound in video games. I'm on my second playthrough of
Tiers of the Kingdom and put one hundred and fifty
hours the first time around. I have never heard the
in game soundtrack. Video game time is my time away
from family and kids, so I like to listen to
my own music, drink some drinks and escape. Donkey Kong Bonanza,
no sound, Breath of the Wild, Tears the Kingdom, no sound,
And am I a monster for this?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: So so he said no sound, I think he means music.
Speaker 2: He's saying no sound, but he said, I've.
Speaker 1: Never heard the in game soundtrack after Tears of the.
Speaker 2: King either way, Like you know what this this track,
this goes right into a previous question about bad takes,
and I remember, I think it was Stephen Tatillo had
a thing around the first Red Dead Redemption saying that
like he did he listened to podcasts or you never
listened to like the music and return the music off
and red dipdemption, and he got a lot of shit
for it because it's like, oh my god, like you
know Red Dead Redemption, those musical moments, like you know,
those few times they bring in an actual song and everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're crossing into Mexico, the yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Like those are the things some of the things I
remember the most about that game. And two two did
the same thing, unshaking yeah, yeah, yeah, And I remember
he got a lot of ship for that back in
the day. And the thing is, I don't even want
to say that age poorly because I think at the
time he got a ton of shit for it. But
I guess it is a personal preference thing, like what
Jeff is saying here, But like it's kind of crazy
to me, you know, that's the part that's a huge
part of it. Like when you think about like when
we used to score games, it was always graphics, sound
like replay value and overall score. It's like sound is
a huge part of games if.
Speaker 1: You wanna so, yeah, Jesse, like I I that's when
you were saying that you have like several streams up
and you're talking to your friends. That's where I'm I
got to a point where I'm like, okay, interesting, That's
where I might have fallen off if that was something
I was into, Because turning soundtrack off is one thing.
If you want to tellor your experience to be like
as immersive to you as you can make it, and
if turning the soundtrack off helps that for you, go
for it. But yeah, I can't imagine, like I cannot
imagine goes to Yota without a sound, even some game
like Shadow of the Colossus which is verrely bereft and desolate,
but like the sound becomes even more important for me
there where it's so quiet. But do you do you
feel like it diminishes games when you are and maybe
I'm misunderstanding how your how it goes when you're like
hanging out with people because like I totally get how
the social aspect of that can really amplify your enjoyment
for games, because I was always a person who I
would either be playing games in my place when friends
came over or vice versa, I would go watch them
play games, So I totally connect with that. But are
you playing with like low sound or no sound or.
Speaker 3: So I'm very first of all, so when I'm watching
like other people streams, like when I'm playing my game,
like I'll normally turn their streams off, like the volume
because it is more of just like a oh, just
seeing what they're up to what they're playing, and then
like I'm playing my thing with my volume on, so
I'll have people talking like over voice obviously at me,
but like I still have my sound like cranked, like
I'm still say But I'm also like very particular about
the games I will play in those settings, Like I'm
not playing a very story heavy like ASA is an example,
just like a Hades is great where it's like it's
mostly reading, and like I've done the run multiple times,
I probably won't push the narrative forward. I can just
do that run I've heard the soundtrack a million times
or I'll play like a multiplay, like I'll jump into
like a Call of Duty lobby, like things that are
like sound is part of the experience, but it's not
like why I'm there, Sure, something low low stakes, but
like if I'm reviewing something or if I'm playing like
something that I really want the full experience of, like
that is like a me game. On the side, I'll
play when I'm not doing you know that, Or I'll
like Deafen on Discord and I'll just be the thing
if someone needs to poke me about something, and I'll
just and be enjoying the game myself for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, like tough. Yeah, it goes out saying it's
like obviously if any of us are playing something for work,
then we're giving it our full attention. Yeah, Like it's like, yeah,
what game was I recently playing? Like Ghost of Yote,
I guess is probably the best example. It's like I
can't like without the soundtrack there when you're doing the
standoffs and like it's doing the zoom in on her
sword and you've got like the she pulls it out
the last minute and then or the last like few
inches and it's got that like Marcone kind of guitar riff.
I can't imagine something without that. However, yeah, I don't know,
Like even Breath of the Wild comes. Breath of the
Wild is something that's interesting if you turn the soundtrack off,
because we when we first played that game, it was
a big deal with the fact that they were so
withholding with the soundtrack. It would be random little flutters
when you're just in the woods or when you're coming
over a hill and then you've always you would all
of a sudden hear like and then like that would
add to it, and that would be amazing. But I
can't imagine the game without those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like Brett the Wild is, I think it's a
game by game thing. Like Brett the Wild was never
a podcast game for me. But like Jesse was saying, like, hey, thees, Yeah,
after a certain amount of like you know, I played
these runs million times, it's I feel okay, you know,
watching something or listening to something. And then there's things
like MEGABONK where it's like I played it a lot,
and I know how this music is. The music is great,
it's awesome, but can very easily put something else on
and I don't feel like I'm losing anything, So it
really is game by game thing where it's like Mike Yota,
I think is the current thing that like I can't
imagine listen to a podcast or something or having a
conversation while playing YOT that is like I'm turning the
lights off, phones on silent. I am just watching this,
you know, playing it like a movie. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't need the sound and risk of Rain two,
even though I fucking love that game. And I also
don't need the sound in Tower Dominion, even though it's
one of my favorite games this year. Like I don't
need the sound like.
Speaker 3: But you over and over again that are designed to
be heard over and over again, is like yeah, now
it's the time. Like I think of curated experiences a lot,
where like death Strending is a very curated experience when
it comes to his music, right you're cresting over a hill,
that low roar song is going to play. The lower
third comes in, like if you're listening to like your
own music, Like that doesn't compute with me, where it's like, oh,
that whole moment is kind of just gone, Like you
just lose that moment and like you've maybe you've created
something for yourself and like you enjoy that more and
that's cool, But like for me, it's like so much
of my relationship with that game, Outer Wilds is the
same way where it's like, yes, when you hear the
Timberhearth theme play, when you hear the music play, and
you know what's about to happen, Like that's so intrinsically
tied to my experience with that that game that if
I was like listening to whatever, but then I think
about something like Spider Man and that was like a
big thing going around when Marvel Spider Man came out
where a lot of people were like put on like
nineties hip hop like make your own Spotify playlist and
just like swing around the city listening to that. And
I'm like, oh, I actually tried that and it was
actually really cool and I really enjoyed that, and I
ended up doing that for most of the game because
it was honestly like a way better experience for me.
Speaker 1: I thought it was neat well. Also, yeah, Insomnia, like
Insomnia can't get the rights to Wu Tang clans, so
like you're gonna make it way better.
Speaker 2: If you do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I totally get that for sure, But I
definitely if if Jeff's saying he turns the sound off,
but that's I don't have kids. I'm sure like there's
there are people who do that are like I just
literally want quiet. I can sort of get that penn
ultimate question, not finishing video games. The reason I'm playing
Tears that king him again is to finally finish it.
I'm notorious for not finishing games, not getting to the end,
especially with open world games. If I feel I have
reached a point of fatigue but also enjoyed the fifty
hours I got out of the game, and I would
just stop playing that game forever. Am I a monster
for this?
Speaker 2: No, not at all.
Speaker 1: It was a turning point for me when I decided
I do not need to finish every fucking game I start.
I that was like ten years ago, maybe fifteen at
this point. Obviously, again keeping in mind at fall three
of us are playing something for work. We're going to
see it through and like make sure we give it
our full attention and you know, meet it more than
meet it all the way. But like, if there's a
game I'm playing that just to check it out and
see if I enjoy it, then no, I I long
ago stopped feeling the need to finish a game, let
alone hundred percent.
Speaker 2: That was something reason Jesse we're talking about off the
air tonight, where it's like, if you're writing reviews for
a game, like you know, that's all I was doing
from like oh five to maybe twenty fourteen, is like you,
it's a scored review. You need to beat it. You
need to be able to talk to the entire of
the game. But it was a thing once I shifted
to Giant Bomb, and it was like, okay, it's podcast discussion.
Like look, I can play ten hours of a thirty
hour game and say how I feel about that ten hours.
I wouldn't have written a review, But like that shift
caused me to be a little more okay with like, Okay,
I'm not really having a great time with this. I
don't need to beat this entire game right now, so
kind of pick and choose. But like, yeah, like you're
talking about writing score reviews, it's like, yeah, gotta kind
of play that whole thing, Gotta gotta speak to the
whole deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that means in my free time, I dropped
games all the time. Yeah, I when I learned learned
it like it was like a skill, but like truly
I broke the habit of being like I paid for
this game, or I got this game and I'm going
to see it through, Like oh my god. There's nothing
like the rush of dropping a game you're just not
enjoying or not vibing with, or you play ten hours
of and you understand. It's like I love that feeling
when it's like I put like eight out dry. I
think Dragon Age recently was, or I guess last year
it was like a good example of this. It's like
I want to see this game through. I'm halfway through it.
I don't know if I'm really vibing with it. And
then I just ditched it and never looked back, and
I was like, great.
Speaker 2: What's the feeling of like having something like socially that
you need to do, like a party or something. Yeah,
and then like for some reason it's like, oh, you
have a great excuse to not go or it gets canceled.
Speaker 1: The rush of canceling.
Speaker 2: I just don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I Like I said, Yota is the
first game in a while and my free time that
I'm like, I'm going to finish this because I really
do just truly, and that's not I'm not like pushing
myself to finish it. The game's good enough where it's
pulling me toward the finish, but like it's been a
while since I thought, Okay, I'm actually going to see
this through for sure. And then last question from Jess
shower beers, Yes or no? I'm not a shower beer
WI used to be.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've cut back my drinking pretty significantly over
like the last year. But if I'm on vacation and
like the vibes are right, a shower beer Hell yeah, man.
Speaker 2: I was a shower beer guy before the bars. You know,
take a shower, get clean, take get a little pre
drink going on. Now I'm an older man, I'm a
sauna beer guy. Do you have a sauna? I just
got one from Costco. This has been a saga for
the last week or two on Giant Bomb. I've talked
about so I got. I'm probably gonna start preheating it
right after this podcast. I'll probably do a run a
Hades while it's heating up to one fifty, and then
I'll have a couple of beers in the shower or
in the sauna. There that.
Speaker 1: That's my new thing where I'm trying to like like.
Speaker 2: In the bathroom, the macaroni cheese bathroom.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, no, I've seen it. It's like the that like.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no, no no, not the steamroom closet.
That's the older that was the old model. I bought
a full on wooden, big ass like sauna thing.
Speaker 3: How many people can it fit? Is it just a
one person sna or can it fit two person?
Speaker 2: It's a two person in your back. Go in there.
It's got bluetooth, it's got fucking like it is hotter.
It's a dry sauna situation. Like the audio listeners won't
see it. But that's that's the guy there it is.
Speaker 3: That's from control. Yeah, yeah, that's the oldest house man. Yes,
that's in your back. I've been doing that every single
night for the last two weeks. And I will usually
have some beers in there, and that's Uh. I've been reading.
I've been reading, uh a mic or a literary man.
I've been reading Breakfast of Champions and drinking beers and uh, just.
Speaker 1: Ben Handsome recommend that to you.
Speaker 2: No, That'shouse five. And I enjoyed it, and I was
like reading Signs of Titan. That's my favorite. I might
be back on the Maharty book suggestion train, because okay,
I was doing that if we.
Speaker 1: Talked about it a few episodes ago. When you're done
with those and you want like a book that's actually
gonna like fucking change your life. One hundred Years of
Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez one of the most right now.
Enjoy It's it's it's it's literary as fuck, but it's
also like Enjoyable's hell page turner, So like, don't let
the the the way this situation to turre you.
Speaker 2: I love that book. No I read I look, I
got nothing to do in that thing. I'm in that
thing for thirty minutes. I I'd love to have a
book to read. Oh yeah, I was thinking about like
physical books because I like physical books. But like I'm
sweating a lot in there. I don't want them to get.
Speaker 1: All well, I don't know if that's the spot for that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just doing the Kindle in there. So that's
sauna beers and yeah.
Speaker 3: Can the kindle handle it too? Is it like not
too hot?
Speaker 2: I looked it up. It's not like recommended, but like
if it gets to a bad point, it'll be like, hey,
it's fucking hot, what are you doing? And but you
know I usually do like, you know, fifteen minutes of
reading and I'll put it down on the ground where
it's less hot and it's going to sweat out the rest.
Speaker 1: All right, Yeah, I don't, I don't. I don't remember
the last time at a shower beer as a joke.
A man, it brought me like a shower red wine,
like a last year or something. I don't, but it's
not like something I do on purpose. All right, Well,
thank you, Jeff. That's all our emails. Excellent again for
next episode. Restock that in box. That's Firescape cast at
gmail dot com. Appreciate all the questions you send in
marriably back next episode. Jesse, thank you so much for
joining us.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having it was to have you plug things.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, what do you have going on that we
should know about currently? I don't have a whole lot
going on.
Speaker 3: But if you go to restart dot run, or you
go to you type my name Jesse Vitelli into any
social media, you'll find me there Blue Sky, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,
whatever you want, whatever your social media choices. I just
put out a Digitmond review if you want to read
more about the wacky world of Deputymon that went up today.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't really have anything major going on, but.
Speaker 1: You might see me around other places. Who knows, Dan,
what about you?
Speaker 2: Giant bomb dot com, that's that's the place. I just
started playing my Blake Club game. I'm playing a Darkest
of Days. Have either of you heard of this?
Speaker 1: Yes, Darkest of Days?
Speaker 2: Now it's my Blake Club. I have to dress up
like a Civil War soldier and which side time cops.
That's the thing. I learned what the game was on
the air, and I had to dress up and instead
a Union soldier outfit, and it's that's the north. Okay,
we're good, but it's the idea of a time traveling
soldier time cop situation where it's like, oh, you're getting
rocket launchers and shit in the Civil War in World
War One and stuff like that. So it's not good.
And I'm playing the three sixty version, which runs terribly.
So that's my Black Club game right now. But yeah,
keep an eye on Giant Bomb. We got some fun
stuff coming up. I don't know if it'll be announced
by that time. This episode goes up, but we've got
some Marathon Subdrive type stuff coming up very soon and
that's gonna be a very fun show. So yeah, Giant
bomb good stuff there.
Speaker 1: Cool. I'm just here and then I guess said October twentieth,
go to our Patreon page for tickets to that Smash Bros.
Speaker 2: Tournament.
Speaker 1: If you can be in New York on October twentieth,
whether you live here, whether you're nearby, come in, hang out,
wear fire, skip gear. Love to see it. Also, we
do officially now have fire Skate Merch dot Com. I
saw to that. I know the bit with Mary and
I was fun, but just now Fire skate Merch dot
Com should go to fourth Wall.
Speaker 2: I hit enter.
Speaker 1: Look at that some of our merch. Yeah, there we are.
Yeah yeah, fire fire Skate Merch. There's still there's a
lot you can get. We actually just restocked the stainless
steel water bottles because people were buying those even when
we didn't have the domain name. So go buy stuff there.
We like quite a lot of it. We do have
some new stuff on the way soon. We're finalizing some
of that to get ready for our Game of the
Year stream and Game of the Year season as we
like to call it. We did mention, are we well?
I guess we'll wait until Mary's back to like the
triple confirm the actual date. We have a date in mind,
it's gonna be. Can we say the month at least
because we did November last year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's in tentative. Obviously, it's tough with all of
its having jobs and me also having to do a
game of yer stuff with my day job and everything.
But we are looking at early December. Yeah, it is
kind of what we're looking at now. Saturday, there's the TGAs,
there's holidays and stuff. So just will update you once
it's for sure, but like, we're looking at December right now. Yep.
Speaker 1: Subby fire skate merch dot com, get prep for that.
We still have our dorky Christmas sweaters there if you
want to rock those. I might bring mine in Minneapolis
this year. We will be back at Dan Studio for that.
Outside of that, I think that's it. Uh, Jesse, thank
you so much again for joining and Dan. I don't know,
I don't really I'm here. I don't have anything to
thank you for that much beer? Sauna, Yeah, got your
sauna and read your fucking book, your fucking geek. Yeah,
like your sauna beer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, beer, Well read Shotgun, your shotgun, the beer in
the sauna.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read Kurt Vonnegat. Will I drink a beer
this on?
Speaker 2: I mean, what does that not sound?
Speaker 1: Okay, that sounds amazing to me. All right, thank you,
I'm next. Next, Next, I'm gonna read Infinite Jests. Well,
I drink some wine.
Speaker 2: I started Infinite Jests. It seems like a lot recently. No,
a few years ago.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, yeah, I don't do that. It's
Dan gets into infinite Just jesus.
Speaker 2: It seems like a whole lot nobody.
Speaker 1: Here's another hot take of mine. Nobody should ever read
Infinite Jest. I don't give a fuck what those intermittent
chapters add to the book. It's in the same way
nobody should ever fully read Moby Dick, which I did.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, no, no, no, wait, I think I'm sucked
up here because I was just I'm thinking of Inherent
Vice very.
Speaker 1: Very very differently. But you can see that, you can
see the similar exemp. The name Thomas Pinsion. I like
that book Infinite Jess David Thomas Anderson.
Speaker 2: One that's the one I tried to read the book
though that's in hair advice.
Speaker 1: That's your advice, infinite just is like the stereotypical, like
ponytail college bro, like performing, who is that performative?
Speaker 2: Now? Like uh, David Foster Wallace before I know, no, no,
I have not and like.
Speaker 1: There's there's a half it's about tennis, because he thought like, yeah, yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 2: No, Mike. The last time I altogether is you. You
tried to make me read a book about surfing and
I quit reading books for like six years.
Speaker 1: Barbarian Days by William Finnigan Jake Deckers this Year's Weekend
and agrees it's amazing.
Speaker 2: I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I'm back.
Speaker 1: I'm back on the book the fucking needs you to
do it. That was nonfiction. Now you're back on Kurt Fonnigod.
I'm I'm Ben Hanson. I'm just reading Kurt Fonniicain in
the Sun. I've never heard been handsome. Oh he's talked
about Breakfast Champions, Yes, Slaughterhouse five Tires Are Titan is
my favorite one.
Speaker 2: I have a few here, Okay, hey consider me open
to suggestions. Now I got sonic time.
Speaker 1: Now you mean you don't want to read Native Wine
Grapes of Italy.
Speaker 2: Not again.
Speaker 1: You don't want to read Seller Rat. You don't want
to read Making Sense of Burgundy by Matt Kramer.
Speaker 2: God, my dad's waking up in a cold sweat and
doesn't know why.
Speaker 1: You don't want to read the New French Wine Volume one,
the History or Volume two?
Speaker 2: The Producers? Are most of those books wine books? Behind you? Yeah,
the whole this whole room.
Speaker 1: Wait, I don't want to read wine Grapes.
Speaker 2: It's so big, Jess, you can the call anytime you
want to know. This is great.
Speaker 1: I'm learning so much. That's a big book.
Speaker 3: Infinite just too many grapes.
Speaker 2: Wait, wait, do you think I would like infinite jest?
Or that book that you're holding more this book that
I'm holding more? Infinite?
Speaker 1: You actually learn? Yeah, you'd actually be better person for it,
and not just a douchebag who look at the section
on Pino noir just keeps going, Oh now we're talking. Uh,
it's not done yet. Fucking the party, all right, thank
you everybody for joining Episode one seventeen. We will be
back in a couple of weeks. And we'll be starting
to solidify our game of the year plans. It's been
a blast, it's been a good year so far. None
of you please ruin it or please don't ruin it.
Don't ruin it. But thank you again Jessic for joining, Dan,
thanks for joining. As always, we will see everybody in
a couple of weeks. Until then,