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