Giant Bombcast 961: Thumb Parry

0:00 Hey. Everybody, it's Tuesday, October 6th, 2026. Welcome to the Giant Bombcast. I'm your host, Jan Ochoa. Joining me, as always, co-captain of the ship, rolling blackouts cannot turn this man's engine off, Jeff Grubb.

0:45 No, you want to hear something really sad, Jan?

0:47 Sure.

0:48 I just looked up if the Ernest movies had any popularity outside the United States, and they basically had zero popularity. Can you imagine living your life.

0:55 And not knowing about... You know what I mean, Vern? Come on. I'm okay with that. If an Ernest goes to Africa, I will frequently.

1:03 That would do all right in South Africa, which, again, they speak some English there, so that.

1:06 Makes some sense.

1:07 I mention a lot how I don't really watch YouTube, but there is an exception, whereas I will frequently put on the giant two-hour... Highlight reels of all of the earnest commercials from the.

1:18 Mid to late 80s.

1:19 It's like Mellow Yellow and stuff and local car dealerships.

1:22 Those are good. I'm sad that the earnest IP is not strong, but you know what is?

1:28 The franchise, Dan Ryker. That's me.

1:33 I am taking Vern. Vern is mine now. Chat, you are all Vern.

1:37 Hello, Vern.

1:38 Know what I mean. You are all Vern. RIP to Vern Troyer as well. No, no, no. Hey, wait.

1:43 Change it.

1:44 My new nickname? Get rid of the franchise.

1:46 I'm the new Ernest. The new Ernest.

1:49 That's right. You turned that on. Dan Reichert. Yes. Don't worry, YouTube. You will be turned on ever so shortly. Maybe the power is out over there. Maybe I had to go.

1:59 Maybe I had to watch some Ernest montages.

2:01 Yeah, I get it. Maybe I had to go sign a check, and perhaps I hope they can read my penmanship if it is in cursive. It's speaking about cursive. we have the curse of dirt bag, Jeff Bacalar.

2:16 Hey, Hey, Hey, what's going on? I'm writing in script and you can't read it. Um, Ernest, Jim Varney died at only 50 years old.

2:26 He loved smoking.

2:27 He was only 50.

2:27 I mean, the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.

2:31 He smoked so much. He looked like a cigarette. Yes, he looked like a cigarette.

2:36 He looked like a leathery skin and everything. Probably never wore sunscreen either. The genre of man we don't get a lot on the TV these days. He looks like beef jerky. He looks like a slim cheese.

2:45 Yes.

2:46 Did you guys start dressing like Ernest? I'm sorry? You're close.

2:49 Shit, I just be Ernest for... I can't be Ernest.

2:51 I have a big beard.

2:52 I wouldn't look like Ernest. I'm trying to think of... There's a Halloween party and I don't really have an outfit. Of course, I could just do a black club outfit. You're the new Ernest. I'm new Ernest. Yeah, I'm not going to say improved. I don't want to disrespect Jim Barney, but I'm the new Ernest.

3:04 Well, you don't smoke, so that's already an improvement.

3:06 I can start.

3:07 I'm going to start crack.

3:09 It's in your blood. I do think... He does have that iconic greaseball hairdo, which... He had a hat on all the time.

3:19 Yeah, but you saw it's a lot anyway. Yeah, but he would take his hat off.

3:22 He would hold it like this when he was entering a place of reverence.

3:26 I didn't know that he was Slinky Dog. Yeah, Slinky Dog. That's cool. And Three Ninjas High Noon on Mega Mountain? Yes. I remember him in that for sure. Three Ninjas. Very formative. He's the cook in Atlantis, the Lost Empire. And folks, that voice you hear is the Cleveland streamer. The bad boy of games. Mike Minotti. That's me.

3:58 Bringing the energy.

3:59 Here we go.

3:59 Oh, my God.

4:01 All right.

4:02 Here I am. Save some for the rest of the show, Mike.

4:06 Please spread it around.

4:08 Noah, like stuck in that place between your nose and your. Bro, what is that place?

4:13 What?

4:13 How is there a tube there? Why is there granola there? Are there sinuses?

4:17 I had this at a bar, and as you guys were all making fun of me, that piece of granola, it's still over there.

4:24 I mean, are you? So my guess, why is there a tube there?

4:28 And it really, the answer is because we started as just tubes, right?

4:31 When we were like little.

4:33 Things going around in the ocean, we just had a mouth and a butthole. And we're still just that, but now we have bones in the way, kind of keeping us upright. It's weird if you think about it, which you can tell I do a lot.

4:43 I like the internet. I'm a pro bones. Pro bones. I'm great. That's Mike Minardi.

4:51 I'm a wacky guy.

4:52 Folks, if you can support us wacky dudes and fun people on the internet by joining Giant Bomb Premium or becoming a YouTube member, Jeff Grubb, how do people go about doing that?

5:04 They should go to giantbomb.com slash join and then you become a premium member and then you could support these tubes with mouths and buttholes and just have that satisfaction to know you're going to keep us going and we're going to keep making stuff the way we want to and which has a lot of cool premium exclusive shows as well as ad free shows. But when you go get those premium exclusive shows, which are very cool, we're always working on new stuff, but we got a lot of cool stuff that's happening right now.

5:28 Like what Jan? God, we have, uh, folks, uh, last week we dropped a surprise one-off series called goop troop, where the biggest Disney maniacs in the building, Dan Reichert and Jeff grub, uh, maybe spent too long on a puzzle, fixated on a part that was not important. Oh, my God.

5:48 We were just appreciating the work of the developers. Yes, and we were using our brain.

5:53 Hey, what is a puzzle if not a way to exercise your brain to find creative solutions to a problem? We saw a problem, and we solved it creatively.

6:01 It's our art.

6:02 We didn't go buy the book like you dorks, Mr. Game Packs here. No, we did it our own way.

6:08 There was one moment where I felt Like, Mike, you were so justified in losing your goddamn mind. I cannot believe how much they literally stared at the answer and just kept on creating more problems.

6:27 Sorry, we didn't do easy mode. Yeah. And you can see Mike Minotti lose his mind. And what I've been told is not a covert black club season in this is the run sewer shark. Mikey, I mean, we've been running tests all season. Are you think you're ready to hit the racetrack here?

6:45 I don't know.

6:45 Maybe I like living in those tubes now. Maybe I'm just staying there. All right. Maybe I belong.

6:50 Maybe I don't get to go to Margaritaville.

6:52 All right. Maybe I don't deserve it.

6:54 Maybe I and one of the lucky few get to enjoy God's sun and the rays of the beautiful beach.

7:03 The beaches don't have rays. The sun does.

7:05 But the grains of the beautiful sand. And the tiki torches and the waves. Oh, I hear that when the waves crest just right, it's like you're looking into the face of God himself.

7:19 This is where we talk about premium, Mike, not Margaritaville.

7:24 Get giantbomb.com slash premium. Get Giant Bomb Premium at giantbomb.com slash join.

7:32 Mike, when I toss to you, this is just like, hey, here's a quick thing about this is the run, Sewer Shark, and then you toss it back.

7:38 Giantbomb.com slash join. It's better than heaven, which you won't get to go to.

7:44 I can tell Mike's preoccupied. I don't want to poke him because there's probably something important going on in his life right now. I'm just going to let him go. But there's clearly something preoccupying him. No, I'm here.

7:55 I'm very present.

7:56 The concussion you sustained this morning. What's going on, pal?

8:00 Are you okay? Speaking of concussions, you can watch Jeff Bacalar throw dudes in trash cans, in dumpsters, out windows, and perhaps give them concussions in the premium Blake Club season that has now concluded. Kat Gerfman. Mr. Bacalar, can I get a meow for old time's sake?

8:21 Of course you can, meow. But listen, nobody has thrown more dumbass cops into garbages than me. I hold the record in video games. In all the video games, I defy you. I dare you to attempt to throw as many cops into trash as I have. And folks, if.

8:42 You are still hungry... For cat-related content, don't worry, because today a new episode of Nine Lives of Mr. Mustafa Fleece comes out. I have already seen what Will has had to Photoshop, because Grub and I won't stop yapping. And it is the most stuff in the world, perhaps. Please tune into that series. Will does an amazing job editing that. That is piloted by Chuck. For folks that don't know, Nine Lives of Mr. Mustafa Fleece is a Skyrim playthrough of But when I say that, that's all in italics. He's a kitty cat. He's only got nine chances to beat the game. And folks. He's running out.

9:18 He's running out of time. He's running low on lives, yeah. He's running low on lives.

9:23 I hated what he posted. It was the craziest thing posted to the Discord in a long time.

9:26 It's a lot.

9:28 Yeah, he's posting crazy shit to the Discord.

9:30 On top of that, you can check out previous seasons of This is the Run. We have This is the Run, Absalom, who wants to be a millionaire. Also, we have two shows that have been completed as well. Portal Pals, Mike Minotti. and Marikish playthrough Portal 2, as well as Mirami Tomodachi, the internet's favorite dating show, piloted by our dear friend Abby Russell. And folks, you know, if you're a premium member, you get access to the beta game tracker that Chuck has built It is the letterboxd of games. That will roll out to all you regular Dekular people soon enough.

10:06 It's so cool, though. Just go become a premium member. Just go do it now. Just do that. You're looking for something to do in between the streams because we're not on 24-7, and it feels like we are. Go write some games. You're playing some stuff. Go down a backlog. Pick a year. Go through all the games you've played.

10:23 Rate them however you want to rate them. I know we're all doing that over here at GB. And, folks, you know, sometimes we got codes to give away if you're a premium member. We ran through all of the codes that we were giving out last week. Shout out to our dear friends at Kepler. Don't worry, folks. You will eventually get those codes. Mike Minotti has to manually send them over to you, okay?

10:44 Thank you, Mike. So please be patient.

10:46 Yes.

10:46 Please give Mikey some grace there. anything I'm missing for premium? He has a funny face.

10:52 Well, there is something else coming later this week, right, Jan? Because the Disneyland travel log is just about done. I'm going to be giving it a pass. I don't know if it's gotten the final clearances, but yes, you can hang out with me and my brothers in Disneyland if you're on Giant Bumperine, where you will all see, you all think that my brother Chris is such an angel.

11:14 You think he's going to heaven. You're going to see a dark side of Chris the Angry.

11:18 Side. Can we start calling your brother Chris, Chris Angel? Yeah.

11:24 I mean, from everything I've seen, I think you are the angry brother.

11:28 Oh, yeah. I'm definitely not. I mean, you're like you are the mind freak for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

11:35 Also, last Friday, we did another giant bomb video weekend rental club. Go to store that giant bomb dot com. Look at Dan's shirt.

11:40 Look at Grubbs shirt. Oh, look at this. Yeah.

11:43 Look how good that looks. We're going to be doing a Halloween special soon. So become part of the club right now. And you can only watch those Giant Bomb Video weekend rental clubs if you are pre-made members. We stream them live, but then they go up on the site as well.

11:56 You should watch this one. He found a special Mario Party and we played some Mario Party. Mario Party is always a good time on this site. So you should watch that.

12:03 Mario Party was being, it was on one this time. It was just doing it all. I think he was racist. I'm going to say it was racist. Particularly to me. Oh, I'm sorry, Jan.

12:14 It's okay.

12:15 I just want to shout out, I think this t-shirt, the Giant Bomb video t-shirt, is one of my personal favorite Giant Bomb shirts.

12:23 And Backyard's got a high bar, too, for these.

12:25 You know what a t-shirt snob I am. Of all time, I would say, a very short list, shouts out to Jerem. Jerem. Thank you so very much. Shout out to Jerem, yes. Tremendous work.

12:38 And also, folks, your support helps us do all sorts of things. Catch me if you can, too, out on the internets. Watch Dan and I head to New Mexico, and I'll let y'all figure out what happened in New Mexico. Maybe we made meth. Who knows? You'll have to tune in to watch. Boys, how's everything else going?

12:57 If you want to feel really young, you can do what I just did, which is try to scare woodpeckers away by hitting my wall with my Theracane, which I think I just aged 40 years by doing that. Um, but yeah, that's been, that's been my thing is this morning tying Mylar strips to the side of my house, uh, buying a bunch of rubber snakes and putting them up on my house. It's just covered in Mylar strips and rubber snakes. Now fake owls.

13:19 Good for Halloween, I guess. Yeah.

13:21 Reflective things.

13:22 It's, uh, what do you give up?

13:26 You can't because they break into your house and lay nests like, or make nests. Like I've got three different nests going on right now, which means those are all going to be woodpeckers and they're going to grow up and do this shit.

13:38 So I don't fucking know.

13:39 I mean, I bought a car with how much I've spent on these fucking woodpeckers and it's not stopping.

13:44 I feel like your.

13:45 House looks like Pee Wee's Playhouse at some point.

13:48 Swiss cheese.

13:49 It's a lot.

13:50 It's a lot. Can you take pics of all these things? I want to see that.

13:53 It's not that exciting, but I can take a picture.

13:55 Yeah.

13:55 The fake snake sounds pretty sick, dude.

13:57 I could show you. I got a few. I'd ask this on the dump truck just out loud, but do your neighbors also struggle with the woodpeckers? Like, is everyone on the block just plagued by the woodpeckers? I don't know.

14:10 This will give you a sense of how much I talk to some of the neighbors. I was walking yesterday and there's a lot of snowbirds around here, which is like, it's usually a phrase for people who like leave for the winter.

14:20 Not actual birds. Okay.

14:21 It's for old people, really, but yeah.

14:23 Yeah, so we've got our neighbors that are quite old and retired. And I was walking yesterday, and I don't really talk to them that often because they just want to ask me questions about the Vikings, and I don't know what the hell to say. So I'm walking by, and I said to the woman, I was like, oh, yeah, so how have things been this year since you've been back?

14:42 And she looked at me, and she goes, we came back in April.

14:47 You could have said, how was your summer?

14:49 I didn't even think.

14:50 I was just trying to make my brain say words because I didn't know what to talk about with a woman.

14:54 I like that your brain was like, enter neighbor mode. They're closer to leaving, you know? I mean, snowbirds, I mean, up where you are, I'm sure they're out before... Shit, they're probably out before Halloween.

15:10 They go to Palm Springs in like January. I think he worked for like the DEA. He always has a hat that says DEA on it and it's got like a government badge.

15:18 It'd be weird if he didn't work for the DEA then, yeah. Huge fan. He's big and thrifty. What is the DEA? Drug Enforcement Agency.

15:29 That's what Hank was in in Drinking Bad. Oh, so it's Hank. Okay. Got it. He's a Hank.

15:36 Based on your neighbor.

15:37 Yeah.

15:38 Yeah. I haven't talked to him too much.

15:39 Again, it's just like, it's like the Vikings. That's what everyone wants to talk about. And I haven't seen a Vikings game since like Brett Favre was the quarterback.

15:45 So, um, he wasn't talking about the weather.

15:47 You talk about your dogs, you know, that's kind of the, the.

15:50 Go-to should be enough to get you through a five minute conversation and then move on.

15:53 Right. Yeah. I like talking, you know.

15:58 No one to blame but yourself then bonk walks and bonk is just noise cancelling headphones sunglasses she's walking.

16:04 Every day well everyone salute her yeah she is correct yes oh and she does it and she like yeah sun hat and stuff she's just in her world listening to music walking i'm going out there and i see anyone within like a half mile radius and i got to turn into my goddamn grandpa at the grocery store.

16:17 And go hey how's it going you don't have.

16:20 To those riker jeans are so powerful it's crazy you.

16:25 I feel like an asshole if i don't acknowledge and talk you know.

16:27 Uh speaking about acknowledging and talk shouts out to uh the gb community member that saw me at the kaylani concert this past sunday uh i ran out to go re-up a bev and then this person like uh grabs me by the shoulders maybe don't do that to people uh and dan oh god what's happening to dan right now It's Blitbecker related.

16:53 What's he going to move? He just has to move, right? Dan, I think you have to move, dude.

16:59 It sucks. It's like they're everywhere around me.

17:03 I know you used to be hesitant.

17:04 I'm sorry, Jan.

17:04 You used to be hesitant about killing them. Would you shoot them now? I think they're protected, aren't they?

17:09 It is illegal. It is illegal. Wow.

17:11 Who's going to find out?

17:12 I didn't ask you if you were afraid.

17:14 No one listens to this podcast.

17:15 Many people tell me I should kill them. Just send a message.

17:19 What about sending a message?

17:21 I've gotten water guns before. I yell a lot. The snakes should have been a message.

17:27 What about scaring them to death?

17:29 That's what I just did. I just scared one.

17:31 I don't know if you're scaring them to death.

17:33 He flew away? We'll work on it.

17:35 Jan, you were attacked by a fan. Yeah, so he grabbed you? He grabbed me by the shoulders like, are you Jed?

17:40 I'm like, yes. Hello, it's me. You're under arrest. Come with me. And then I was like, what's up? Hey. And then he was like, oh, man, can I buy you a shot? And I'm like, yeah, I don't think they do that here at this venue. And he was like, oh, okay. Hey, it goes to the nearest concession worker and buys me a beat box. Do you guys know what a beat box is? No. I'm assuming it's something very healthy. Yeah, wait, is this an alcohol thing?

18:08 Yes.

18:08 Yeah, okay.

18:09 I feel like I've heard of this. It's not the bag thing. That's a cutty sack? That's a cutty bang. Cutty bang, right, right. Now, what's the beatbox?

18:18 A beatbox is basically a buzz ball if it was a juice box instead. Oh, okay. Out all content, very high. And then he was like, this is yours, brother. I love everything you're doing over there. I'm like, cool. Thanks, man. I'm going to go back to my seat now, but nice to meet you.

18:36 I will say, if you see us in public, generally, depending on the circumstances, good to come up and say hi. Maybe don't grab us by the shoulders to start with.

18:44 That's not the best thing. The thing is, I also had a bandana over my head. I was a little grandma.

18:51 Yeah, babushka.

18:52 A little babushka. And then I was just thinking, this guy must have been watching me for a while. If he saw my face and then went around to grab me by the shoulders... Anyway, it was a great time. Fun times.

19:04 Will in the chat says, you can touch me.

19:06 So, okay.

19:09 I'm glad he's just not DMing that to me anymore.

19:12 He's telling everybody.

19:13 I do think over time, like I know he's not on a ton of content, but the audience should know. We haven't talked about this, but I do think Will could be rising through the ranks of the weirder thing.

19:22 Right?

19:22 I'm not even close.

19:24 I mean, he's rising through the ranks, but he's not in the top two.

19:28 You don't think it's a trio of a debate now?

19:32 Stop trying to make it a trio, because it's simply not.

19:34 You know, that's pretty weird, Dan, that you're fixated on this. All due respect.

19:39 All due respect, okay?

19:41 I'm just saying.

19:42 You guys are in a league all your own.

19:45 You guys are the majors.

19:47 There's a debate between the two still. There you go.

19:49 Don't worry, Mike.

19:53 You're trailing. Debate my butt.

19:54 Alright, good. Why are we debating your butt? No one touches me.

19:59 What the heck? Why is Jan the one getting... Am I not friendly enough?

20:03 Mike, what are you asking for?

20:06 I don't want to be touched, but also like... Why not?

20:09 You want to want to be touched.

20:11 Oh, yeah. I want you to want me. All right. I wanted to know what everyone else was doing, but not anymore.

20:18 Oh, I could have told you.

20:20 My baseball team's been losing. Maybe that's why.

20:22 I mean, I'm just mad my baseball team's bad.

20:24 You're not on the baseball team, though.

20:25 You want to talk about it for like 10, 15, 20 minutes? Just see how long it takes for Dan to explode?

20:30 What's the series at?

20:31 Oh, we're at 0-2, baby. Yeah, and that's not good. It's not good. You guys are screwed.

20:35 Is this the baseball part?

20:37 The vast majority of runs have been scored on a bad pitch from the other team. Now, the Yankees are losing, so that doesn't make me happy, but it puts people more neutral.

20:47 They lost last night, too. Good, good.

20:49 Fuck the Yankees.

20:50 Yeah, so there's that. There's that, at least, but... I'll tell you what. At least if baseball is over, if we don't win this next game, we're out. At least I'll get to stop watching these all-time worst political ads I have ever seen.

21:03 It is bad out there in Ohio, buddy. It is just... In Ohio, it's just like.

21:08 you know, here's AOC with a transgender person.

21:13 We made it in AI. Doesn't this scare you? It's nonstop.

21:17 They're dropping the N-word too, like on TV. Yeah, they're just saying everything.

21:22 It's crazy.

21:23 It has just come down to just like, here's AI of trans people.

21:26 Aren't you scared of that?

21:28 And it's like, oh, oh, this is the world I live in. Oh no.

21:31 Yep, that's what I was saying the other day.

21:33 I think like there's several dystopian fiction worlds That are better than the one we're in right now, which.

21:39 Is deeply upsetting. At least they get cool drugs, you know? Like, would you do a Blade Runner over this?

21:45 Maybe, but I would do They Live, because the glasses in They Live reveal the truth, and the glasses we have here are Ray-Ban pervert glasses.

21:52 That's true.

21:55 I guess, oh, wow, this is a fun exercise. What dystopian... future would you rather have than our current reality?

22:04 Okay, what if it was Terminator, but like the current day, like, okay, so we're not in the future, but the future robots are coming back. So we're like, you know, 1991 John Connor. Like, if you're not the one targeted by the Terminator, life is pretty normal, right?

22:16 I don't, think yeah it's about to not qualify yeah it's not a dystopia to not be yeah like no one would say children of men obviously.

22:25 Because that's no i mean that seems like.

22:27 February of next year check out our watch yeah i want to say maybe is minority report a dystopian.

22:36 Report that's the one everyone keeps referencing is like i watched that like in the last couple years That was way ahead of its time. Yeah, I love that movie.

22:44 Except for physical media. They were way too into physical media in that movie.

22:49 Digger is the dystopian world I want to live in.

22:52 You saw Digger?

22:53 Did you see Digger? No, I don't want to see it.

22:55 I want to see Digger so bad. Yeah, I want to see it too.

22:59 I think I know the answer, the one that would be fun to live in. The Running Man.

23:04 Yeah. We're close.

23:05 All right, Mr.

23:06 Game Show.

23:06 They made it fun. Richard Dawson's alive.

23:11 The beginning of that movie is just ice coming to collect people to be on a game show.

23:15 So, yeah. Oh, okay. Maybe that doesn't sound great. Yeah.

23:18 The game show part seems fun.

23:20 The Glenn Powell one's a little bit less, you know, people being stolen and more poor people having to resort to this. So, you know, who knows?

23:28 Is the fifth element dystopian?

23:31 Not really.

23:32 That city seems to be thriving, right? Seems all right.

23:35 Yeah, there's elements. There's elements there, but not fun. There's a difference between futuristic and dystopian. What'd I miss? What'd I miss? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. God. Dan's so impressed.

23:53 It's the funniest thing Jeff Beckler has ever said.

23:56 Shit, I missed it. You laugh all the time in my shit.

23:59 This is up there, though. This is top ten. Oh, man. Folks, speaking about the future, let's go talk about a galaxy far, far away and speed away from our current lives with Star Wars Galactic Racer. Yo, gang, I just want to say off the rip, Game looks beautiful. I think it's going to be my favorite Star Wars games. You know what's really funny? The highest rated one. Do you guys like.

24:27 The beginning, like doing all the startup things?

24:30 I love that. I love that. That's fun. Yeah. Totally. It feels like you're flipping switches and stuff, you know? Yeah.

24:35 It feels like you're flipping switches as you upgrade the things that those relate to, like the vent. You can get a vent level two, and then you can get the vent ultimate or whatever it's called. And then it adds another button you press at the end, and it feels like, oh, I've added a new gizmo to this thing I need to press before I can really get it going at the beginning of a race.

24:52 I love that shit. Yeah, Greb, you reviewed it for the website, and you gave it five stars.

24:58 Yeah, and that is because it is the complete package. It's got it all, and it's all very fun. The campaign is surprisingly robust. I want to say it took me about 15-ish hours, but that was just beating it through with one of the vehicles. I did the land speeder. I plan to go back at some point and do it with.

25:16 The bike speeder. I like the bike a lot. The speeder rides fine.

25:20 Then there's the skimmer as well. Uh, they're all really fun. They do play differently. Uh, but yeah, so 15 hours through that story, it's, it is the roguelike rogue light, um, structure that works really well. So you're going to be going through a lot of the same races, but you're going to be having a different build where sometimes, uh, I'll tell you one of the more, one of the more extreme and more fun builds I had, which is, um, once you get to the galactic league early on, you are in this, uh, acidic planet that has these rivers of, of like poison, uh, that corrode your ship. And I got a bill that's like, Hey, if you're corroded, you're going to go way too fucking fast. And, and so it's like, I had to just kind of.

25:57 Ride the line.

25:58 And that's what this game does really well. is it puts you in a position where you are riding the line of the physical limitations of what your ship can handle. And you have to be managing everything to not go over that line, but to get as close to it as possible, because that's when you're at your top speed and you have the most control. And that is like the heart of racing. And they really captured it here.

26:17 I was surprised how many times when I was playing through the campaign, I was like, man, this reminds me a lot of watching F1, whether that is building up your ship over your speed or over time. to make it better so it can compete at the higher, uh, ranks. Or if it was just like, uh, the relationships you're building on the course with the, uh, the other racers.

26:36 And they do a great job of sort of extrapolating on all of that stuff without getting too much in the way to keep you away from the racing for too long. You're always going to be under the next race very quickly. And then there's fun little things in between here and there.

26:48 I wanted to say, I'm only maybe like an hour or so in, I just fired it up this morning and had a blast. Um, Galactic Racer does lean into the side of Star Wars that I enjoy the most, which is the different races of aliens and the different types of aliens. I wish Zero Company leaned even more into that, but here you're seeing all sorts of dudes.

27:10 Little freaks. Little freaks across the place. Grubb, what was the guy's name that you... Billy Bass. I love that dude.

27:16 He's great.

27:17 There's also a Dexter Jetster dude that is the main race guy. And then... Lupita Nyong'o's character from Episode 7, the people with the chimpanzee arms with the multiple sets like tarantulas.

27:32 Martin Scorsese from the Mandalorian movie or whatever it was.

27:36 Yeah, yeah. But you guys, Dan and Mikey, you guys have spent more time in it too, right? Yeah.

27:42 Something I really love is like, because I don't really do a ton of online multiplayer games or anything, I really appreciate when a genre is Like, for instance, I think of this way with, like, Mortal Kombat, the last several Mortal Kombats, where it's like, I'm never going to compete. I'm never even going to touch online. Like, I just want to see the characters and the fatalities and have fun and see the story in this world. So, like, the story mode, ever since, like, the Mortal Kombat reboot back in the day, I love that type of stuff.

28:06 And any fighting game that does something like that, like a robust single-player mode. And likewise, I'm not going to be racing online all the time. I'm not going to be doing, like, leaderboard challenges all the time. So, like, the fact that it does have a robust campaign... That I don't, I feel like there's a whole thing in it for me, even if I'm not going to do that multiplayer aspect. And I've really been enjoying the campaign quite a bit.

28:25 Yeah.

28:26 It's like, God, it has to be maybe the best way to do a single player campaign in a racing game like this. Aside from just, you know, after Burnout Paradise, that was kind of the formula. That was a fun formula, right? I like things like this that is still focused on the kind of track based gameplay. racing and you have the roguelike elements i know like that throws some people off like oh they just made it roguelike but it just it makes so much sense for a racing game like this yeah and it really yeah and you know there is a lot of the permanent upgrades as well um it still is at the end day it's a racing game you're doing those tracks you do those races and it has this fun star wars flavor to it

29:02 it just looks good and it feels good i you know i have some like small i don't know issues i suppose like i'm not sure if i love the kind of basis of the boost system, where it's kind of you're always boosting, really.

29:16 Or practically, you're always boosting.

29:18 Like, part of me kind of wishes that the boosting itself, like, it's not like burnout, in that you're kind of, like, doing these things to try to.

29:25 Get yourself more boost, necessarily.

29:28 You kind of just always have the boost between the normal boost, and then that ramming boost situation. So, it's like, and I don't want to, pick this game up against episode one racer but that's a game that has maybe my all-time favorite boost system with the kind of oh you have to hold the um the analog stick up the sort of charger boost which means that you're not going to be able to steer very well while you're doing that and that just kind of i don't know that that felt really good for me this one feels a bit more Simple and also maybe a bit more cumbersome, I suppose, in terms of that.

29:58 Yeah.

29:58 How many loops have you done? Like, have you gotten to the point?

30:01 Because like there's times where like, yes, I'm keeping the ramjet going, but that is because I am doing like 10 different things to maintain that, whether that's like going to an area of the track where I know it's going to cool my stuff down so it lasts longer or as I get into the red line. That's when I'm venting and then it starts over and then kind of making sure that I can get that going. I have somewhere I'm like, okay, I'm going to upgrade my vent because it's going to automatically kick in when I get to the top of the red line. And then there's other times where it's like, oh, you're going to go even faster in the red line. So I'm trying to, like, heat it up faster.

30:33 Right. And keep it there.

30:34 So there's a lot of stuff to manage on that side of it. But have you done enough to, like, see some of these other builds to take advantage of that?

30:40 And you're right. Yeah, you're right.

30:41 It's especially that one, again, where, like, yeah, riding that red line, which is, you know, hold it too long. Your car's, your, you know, racer's going to just blow up. So, yeah, I think that's absolutely the builds do build into it.

30:51 It's sick. They say you're always boosting is a bit of an exaggeration.

30:54 I've had a couple of races where I did boost the entire time, but like there's two different boosts. So it's like that can mean a lot of different things.

31:01 Yeah, exactly.

31:02 So, again, that's a relatively small kind of nitpick, I suppose, because the boosting does feel good. But racing does feel amazing. The tracks themselves are really cool. There's sometimes, especially early on, there's a little bit of a readability issue with some of the tracks.

31:16 Yeah. yeah, it's a little bit hard to be like, Oh, there's a turn up ahead.

31:20 And I just kind of, you're going so fast and you're just going to run into walls sometimes or something that looks like a dark spot.

31:25 On the screen. You think as a tunnel.

31:27 And then before you realize that, Oh, that's just like a dark rock or something you, you blow up.

31:32 I did have a little bit of a readability issue at first when like they drop you into those first initial races where I couldn't, um, uh, not, not just in terms of the course itself, but the track, uh, the UI where, um, I didn't know what place I was in for the longest time, but maybe it's because I was just so focused on racing and the track was so new to me. And then I'm just like, oh, okay, cool.

31:54 I'm third. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. Got it. You'll learn those tracks over time. That gets a little bit better.

31:59 You also kind of like, you know, this is a game where using the brake button can be really important.

32:04 A lot of times where it's.

32:05 Like, I am going right at this wall.

32:06 And if I break and do the drift at the same time, I can pull myself out of a last minute spot of danger. And that feels really good when your reflexes get to that point. But you have to like learn the vehicle's characteristics to know that you can save yourself in some of these situations. A lot of times it's like, oh, there's a wall.

32:21 Oh, my God.

32:22 And you blow up.

32:23 Eventually that that passes. And I got to a point where I was saving myself more than not.

32:27 There's a lot of nuance to that secondary boost, that ramjet where it's like, you know, you learn which turns and which courses you can like, OK, I can drift around this and keep the ramjet going.

32:36 Yes.

32:36 Instead of if you like let up on it, it has to recharge. So it's like you you you figure out throughout the laps like, OK, here's a long stretch where I can do this. and get through a whole Ramjet thing. And I'm going to just hit that every single lap. Like it's, there is a lot of learning the courses, the readability thing. I've definitely crashed a ton.

32:51 You learn to look at things like there are the lights that'll like, kind of like go across a turn or whatever, and just glance at that and be like, Oh, I'm going right soon. You know, but, uh, yeah, overall still having a great time.

33:01 Yeah.

33:01 The, uh, the multiplayer is also extremely excellent where, uh, they kind of just put you into a six race version of the campaign where you, you know, you do one race and then you, and then afterwards you're going to get an upgrade. And instead of like on the campaign, you can upgrade one of your spec points by one here it's by three. So it's like, you're going to be in a much faster vessel very quickly. So that's, that's cool. But also it's like, okay, let's say you're in one of these things and you've done five races and you're not getting first, second or third, but you're kind of in the midfield bat midfield battle does a cool thing where, Before every race, you can choose who you want to be your rival. You can bet on,

33:38 for the last part, you can bet on who's going to win. So like you can let, then you can help them. So you can like take out their rival and stuff like that. If you think like you're not going to win. So there's a lot of stuff for you to do to kind of keep things interesting. Even if you're racing for fourth or fifth in these, in these online multiplayer battles. So I was kind of blown away by how much stuff they thought of to keep that stuff interesting. And then the racing itself with other humans is, The level of drama just ramps up where, you know, everyone is trying to take each other out.

34:06 So every single turn, because there's multiple pathways, a lot of times it's like maybe you're on the low track. Someone is jumping over your head or maybe they see you and they try to jump in and ram into you. And then there's just chaos everywhere. It is really cool.

34:20 Back. Are you going to say something?

34:22 I think so.

34:25 Oh, yes.

34:27 So you guys know me. I'm a big Star Wars guy. Yeah.

34:29 Number one.

34:31 I like the Star Wars action, though. Right. Like I like like I and it sounds like this is going to give me the action without like them talking.

34:39 I mean, there's the talking. I would be the first to be like, oh, this is too much or whatever. It has not bothered me at all. Like in between like planets, basically, you like walk around for two seconds and it's like, OK, talk to the shopkeeper for two seconds about upgrading your ship or whatever. one guy's being an asshole to you for a second. And then you go on, you do the race.

34:56 It's not even like as much as like, you know, between the runs in Hades, those had a little, a little bit more talking even.

35:01 Yeah.

35:01 Yeah.

35:03 Because that's right. Like I enjoy the, the spectacle of the action and stuff like that. And obviously the burnout pedigree here. I think I'm going to, I think I'm going to play a Star Wars game.

35:14 Yeah. I mean, yeah, that does have the burnout.

35:16 Yeah.

35:17 The legacy there.

35:18 If you have any affinity for that, this is definitely a game to go to.

35:21 Yes. In a deep way.

35:23 Yeah.

35:24 Yeah. It's not like, go ahead, Mike.

35:26 Sorry.

35:26 It's not exactly like, it's not just Burnout 3 with Star Wars, right? The crashes, the cutaway to that.

35:31 Absolutely.

35:32 But it's very much its own thing. And it's a really cool thing that it is.

35:35 Yeah. Yeah. Like drifting feels completely different. uh than like any well there's.

35:39 No wheel exactly yeah exactly what are we even drifting you know how are you drifting drifting i'm checking right now so far no one has beaten any of my times so in the arcade mode.

35:50 Did you did you see what it is that like the pc players are are kind of dinging it for they're upset about on steam what's that i missed There's no control rebinding options, apparently.

36:02 Oh, really? Especially for keyboard and mouse.

36:04 So, yeah, these are my issues. There's some missing features. I didn't realize that. But, like, there's friend leaderboards, but no global leaderboards. In the multiplayer mode, which I think is excellent, there is no private matches, at least not yet. There's multiplayer 2 or pod racing 2 or some quick race.

36:20 But if you want to do those, you can team up with a player Party of three and then go into the multiplayer tour.

36:28 That's it. That's where it maxes out.

36:29 You can't like if you have six people that want to play together, doesn't seem to be a way to do that easily in this game right now. So these are things where I'm like, I hope they are going to just keep adding to this game and kind of address that stuff pretty quickly.

36:40 That would be great. Yeah. When I there's like a time trial mode.

36:44 Right.

36:44 I forget what it's specifically called in this game. And then arcade arcade.

36:48 Right.

36:48 Greb, you had shared a screenshot with everyone's times, and I popped into there, and I'm expecting to see everyone's times, and I guess it is siloed off because I'm playing on Steam versus where y'all were.

37:00 Greb, you're on PS5?

37:01 I'm on PS5, yeah. Okay, that's why I'm seeing you. Okay, got it.

37:04 Yeah, so that stuff seems to be siloed. The multiplayer itself, the head-to-head multiplayer, that is cross-play, so they do have that.

37:11 Okay, okay. Maybe we'll fire up some races on UPF later this week. Speaking about going really fast, Mike Minotti, Dan Reichert, you two have been playing Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve? Thieve? Thieve.

37:26 The Wings of Thieve.

37:28 Yeah. Yeah.

37:30 I checked this out last night for a couple of hours, so I got to do a few missions in that campaign, and boy, that is exhilarating.

37:39 Just straight up exhilarating.

37:41 Like the first time, I was chasing with a dog fight and realized I was going too low and like had to pull up before I crashed into the ocean and barely made it.

37:49 Wow.

37:49 That feels good. Just a pretty-looking game. I've never seen clouds look so good. I don't think real clouds look this.

37:56 Good, man. I've been Sky, and I got nothing on this. Mikey, you're just playing with a Steam controller or a regular controller?

38:02 Yeah, I just use a Steam controller. Obviously, the Hotas thing's great. Dan's probably going to talk about that in a moment, but it works really good on a controller as well with all the pitching and yawing and things like that. Just like that moment when you accelerate and you break the sound barrier and it does that whoosh sound.

38:19 So cool.

38:20 The third mission is this really neat one where you're protecting a base, and this other group joins you who happens to be a band one of your squad mates likes, so they're playing their song. And you're, like, just defending the space against all these bombers. And, like, the very end, this kind of more, like, elite force of enemy jet fires come in.

38:39 You're chasing them down. Yeah, I fought them. Oh, yeah.

38:41 Oh, yeah.

38:42 Yeah, it was fun taking them out. Yeah.

38:43 It was super fun taking them out. Because it's, like, there's this moment where it's, like, you're kind of heading head-on to them. There's, like, that initial, like, change fire. And then it just kind of turns into this. Everybody's swooping around, going crazy, doing these weird zero-G air brake things, trying to get them in your sights. There's a lot of radio chatter, which I think maybe there are some people off. I think it's kind of fun flavor. Just like, you know, sometimes almost tuning it out, sometimes tuning it in all the like everything my teammates are saying about the situation.

39:09 I am fine with the radio chatter. That's fine because that feels like, okay, there's probably radio chatter when you're a fighter pilot, but like it is the in between where it's like, I don't need a half hour of this dude talking to himself.

39:20 Or whatever the hell is happening.

39:21 You know, sometimes the opening thing, I feel like it's like almost a half hour of just like, Just a lot of exposition that I don't know if anything paid off. off I don't even know who I am or who I'm fighting for it's just it's.

39:33 Not exciting what do you think Mike?

39:37 I've heard some other people about that. I like it.

39:38 I think it's kind of fun.

39:41 Can I ask if there's, if Top Gun Maverick is on one side of the military sci-fi spectrum and Tom Clancy is on the other, where does this sort of land?

39:50 It's kind of weird. Cause I think it's like, Is it Gundam?

39:54 It's like 60% Tom Clancy with 40% anime, or maybe those ratios are bad off.

39:58 It's a triangle in anime.

39:59 I think that's what's a little weird about it, right, is that you do have, like, it is kind of a Reese's Cup situation, right, where you've got this strong flavor, and you have this other strong flavor which you wouldn't think matched. Now, I'm not saying they go together as well as a Reese's Cup, but sometimes the two clash in a weird way. It's like, I wasn't expecting to see that in this airplane game.

40:18 Is anyone's soul in an airplane? Or is it just, we're just piloting? Yes.

40:24 So, I mean, Dan, well, Dan asked what's going on. I will say that a ghost talks to me the entire time.

40:31 Really? Yeah, there's a ghost. Ghosts are real. That's cool, man.

40:34 Who's that guy supposed to be?

40:36 Is that Thieves? What?

40:38 Remember in the beginning, you were a navigator for that guy? Yeah, but he died, and he became a ghost who talks to you.

40:45 Is it Goose?

40:47 You were the Goose, except you didn't die, because you were the navigator.

40:51 It's a reverse Goose? It's a reverse Goose. Oh, no, you can't do that.

40:54 And he's now a voice in your head, and basically, he was just kind of a figurehead for your collapsing government, because you were invaded. And they're like, well, now you have to be the figurehead. But you're really good at flying. So what if I actually was as good as we're pretending we are? And that's kind of what's going on now.

41:11 And you're trying to fight back the evil.

41:13 What are the names of the countries? Is it like Europa and stuff?

41:17 It's actually. So it's the. Not everything is. You're in the fuck you. The FCU is what it is.

41:23 The fuck you.

41:24 Okay. Yeah. And you've been invaded by.

41:26 Other people whose names I don't remember right now.

41:29 Jeez, Mike. Yeah, I know. I'm barely paying attention. It's Dylan, okay? Not Jesse. That's kind of fun.

41:36 Sometimes the cutscene is just sort of slice of life thingies. Like, oh, you're all in the mess hall and it's a little bit of lore about some of the other characters. The production values are pretty good. From what I remember of Ace Combat 7, which I played some of back when I got my Steam Deck, I felt like it was more like, I don't know, dialogue and text over pre-rendered video things. This is just all, you know, most of it real-time cut scenes with these good-looking character models and things like that. So, yeah, they put a lot of effort into that.

42:06 The only downside of the flight stick I'm using is that every time there's a cut scene, it's like some guy reaches out to give me a high-five or something, and it says a button prompt, but it's not mapped to the thing.

42:15 It's like, ah, why on this?

42:17 Oh, right, right.

42:18 I miss the high-five and leave him hanging.

42:20 Oh, so at Wolverine, they don't just complete it for you automatically? Wow, it's a real video game. It's a real video game. Okay.

42:25 Dang. I really want.

42:27 This in VR. Cause I did that project wingman. And that was actually really, really cool in VR. Now I'm like, Oh man, a flying game.

42:35 That would probably be better that way.

42:37 This is one of the few things where it'd be like, all right, I would have to pull out the VR and try this out.

42:42 Like this would be ideal. Yeah, it is.

42:44 It's good to hear that.

42:44 It's like thrilling on a controller too.

42:46 Cause like I was wondering, cause like I've liked ACE combat a lot in the past, but with a controller, but like, I feel like it is like five to 10 times more intense, like with the flight stick. And, uh, but no, it's good to hear. It's great on the controller. It's, it's just fun as hell. The way the, the mission objectives shift, you know, throughout the actual missions, like they're pretty long. There's some checkpoint issues and stuff like that, but, uh, it's cool. It'll be like, Oh, bomb this base. And all of a sudden it's like, Holy shit. This elite squadrons over here bombing these oil. You got to like get over there right now. Forget everything else.

43:14 And it's like, Oh shit, you're hitting the thruster and like, yeah he was just like landing on the aircraft carrier feels really fun and satisfying the music in general super good.

43:23 Yeah you can skip that like the landing on the aircraft carrier and every time i'm like fuck no i'm landing this plane with this stick.

43:28 Yeah brings it back to my nes day yeah it's a lot better it's a spiffy game man it's just really pretty and it's super fun and Like with this and Galactic Racer, I'm so glad to see these really like high production value, well-crafted games in like a very specific genre.

43:45 Yeah.

43:45 Genres that maybe we used to get kind of like more representation from. And God, I just kind of love those sorts of video games.

43:51 Mike, are you also a sucker for when you shoot the missiles? I always do two and then I hold on the second one to watch the missile cam go in.

43:58 Do you do that? I didn't even know you could do that. Oh, dude.

44:01 When you shoot a missile, hold it in every fucking time. Ever since Ace Combat 2, I've been doing that every time I shoot shit.

44:07 It's awesome. Okay, okay.

44:08 Or like a bomb. You follow the bomb the whole way down. You see the place explode.

44:12 It's wild how pretty it is. Even when you complete a mission. First, we'll just play the cinematic replay of what you did if you want to watch that. But then in the debriefing, it's kind of just like the tactical grid view of your plane just kind of flying around.

44:26 With your squad mates showing what you did as they're talking. I'm like, look at that. It looks like I know what I'm doing there or something. There has to be tech out there, and I'm sure they've done this with other flying games and racing games, to hook up a fan to your computer to blast you appropriately.

44:45 Have you ever seen the guy that has his full rig with the hydraulics?

44:52 And I think he plays... One of those space games where it's like you're flying around and it moves as he's moving, but he did set up the fans. Yeah, Elite Dangerous, I think that sounds right.

45:03 So when he speeds up, the fan blows in his face, even though that wouldn't necessarily be how it would work in the game.

45:08 But he's got the full rig. It's crazy. He's got a suit he wears. That's my future.

45:13 I think that smelly game thing that me and Will checked out at Gamescom, it's in the travelogue. you can set it to activate during certain times. So I think you could, and it sprays in your face. It's like a wind. So I think you would need to attach a smell to it. So you can attach like gasoline to it and have it spray in your face.

45:34 You smelled Minecraft.

45:36 Why is Jan making that face? I did smell Minecraft.

45:38 Yes, yes. I don't think it's... I don't want gasoline sprayed in my face.

45:42 I don't want gas in my face. I'm going to take a brave stance.

45:46 It's too expensive right now anyway.

45:48 Did you guys hear that thing of gas stations don't smell like gasoline anymore?

45:52 Have you guys noticed that?

45:53 I guess they don't. One of the additives they got rid of was the smelling thing. It's like they got rid of that. Since then, it has not smelled as much of gasoline. I think it was like benzene or something like that.

46:06 Isn't that a safety thing?

46:08 Apparently it was the thing they replaced lead with, and then they turned out benzene causes cancer. So lead was causing entire societies to become stupid, and benzene was causing cancer, so now they got a new one.

46:19 What is it going to be, everybody?

46:22 Idiocy or cancer?

46:24 There's an additive to natural gas, right? To make it smell like sulfur, right?

46:30 Or whatever.

46:31 The point of it wasn't to smell it. Yeah, that was... That's like an oven, right?

46:36 Yeah.

46:36 If you're in a gas station, I think you're not going to be like, I smell gas.

46:40 Something's wrong.

46:41 No, of course not. I mean, outside of a gas station, Einstein.

46:46 What are you talking about? Whoa, I wasn't coming at you. I was just saying. Yeah.

46:50 Oh, ethanol.

46:51 Yes, ethanol is the new additive, and they're putting more ethanol in there, yeah.

46:55 Cool.

46:56 Look, I know they talked over you a little bit in that Galactic Razor segment.

46:59 Don't take it out on me.

47:01 I'm not over it. I'm not over it.

47:04 I'm not happy. Grub, you mentioned wanting to do Ace Combat 8 in VR, but you have been playing a different game in VR, which I didn't know existed, Titanfall 2 VR.

47:17 Uh, So this is the best video game in VR ever made.

47:22 Oh, hell yeah. Yes.

47:23 This shit owns so goddamn much. So this is a mod that the guy did. The first thing he did was actually big walk VR. I also want to try. And this guy's thing is it's not like, okay, I'm going to walk around in first person.

47:37 That job's done.

47:38 Full mapping of the limbs for everything. So that's how it would work in big walk where you have your arms. You can move around and pick stuff up.

47:45 Cool.

47:45 In Titanfall, yeah, you're running around as the pilot, and I'm reloading my weapons, and that actually does rule. But once you're in the mech, your arms are, again, mapped, and then those arms are mapped to the mech's arms. So you're watching your arms move around, and you could see the mech's arms moving, and you could just walk around like that and start wailing on shit.

48:06 It is so well done.

48:07 I did not get motion sick even a little bit.

48:09 Really? Whoa. They're just really good at it. Wow.

48:13 Been really impressive, and I'm having a great time wall running. It's just, yeah, obviously Titanfall 2 is a great game. I didn't know how well it would map to this, but it translated perfectly, and immediately having a very, very good time with that. I played a bunch this morning, and I might play through the whole thing.

48:29 Because it's just... been the best experience I've had in VR so far. If you have time, I'd love to, like, do maybe a quick look or just, like, see it in action. Yeah, let's do it.

48:38 Let's do a quick look at this. Yeah, I think it'd be a good way to kind of show off the Steam frame one more time, yeah.

48:42 Somebody was, was it somebody who shared a note clip? That's confusing to say. I was talking to Vincent Pella about, like, Timefall 2 and, like, its similarities to, like, the Half-Life campaigns and how awesome it is. I'm like, you don't really have those anymore and he's just really on it. It's like, yeah, you, what, spend 75% of your resources on this thing? People play for six hours and don't touch again. And then you spend, you know, a quarter of that working on this multiplayer mode that gets infinitely more play time. It's like, and you get it.

49:08 But boy, it makes me sad. Boy, it makes me sad. Because that campaign is so good.

49:13 The sort of cultural cachet that the people who've played Titanfall 2 carry with it. Yeah, it's unmatched, man. That game is so good and deserves all the accolades and the sort of pedestal that we put it on.

49:25 And it's awesome in VR. Hell yeah.

49:28 Is the big walk thing? I'm curious about that. Is that something we could try? Like, we have steam frames.

49:33 I think let's beat the normal thing the way we have been, and then maybe if we go back to.

49:38 100%, maybe we could do a stream where you and I are in VR or something, Dan.

49:41 That sounds pretty great. And we could goof around. Yeah. Okay. Lovely. Lovely. Speaking about goofing around, Jeff Bacalar, you were goofing around at a certain... No, not goof troop. Oh, okay. That's getting upset. That's goofing around. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Goofing around, playing a bunch of relaxing sports in Nintendo Switch Sports Resort.

50:07 That was pretty serious. It was like.

50:09 Yeah, thumb wrestling, the most serious sport.

50:11 Oh my God, I forgot about thumb wrestling. Yes, Switch Sports Resort. We got to check out this game last week in New York City. And folks, bowling's back. All right. And that's it. We've got 100 pins this time, which is 10 times what they normally let you knock down.

50:39 Didn't they do that in Wii Sports? I feel like they did.

50:42 I definitely remember 110 mode, yeah.

50:44 So I got to play every sport, and it's interesting. There is a lot of, like, very sort of, like, similar, I would almost say, kind of, like, redundant objectives with some of the sports that you are playing.

51:03 You fly a.

51:03 Plane, you wave race, you skateboard, and you're kind of just sort of Going around this island and collecting items. And I thought that was only going to be fun for so long. And I just want to know what else I'm going to be afforded the option to do on this island with those sports. I will say, out of the gate, my favorite thing was table tennis. This, I think, is going to be like the new Wii Tennis.

51:32 This feels... really responsive with you know i'm a big table tennis nerd and uh i was doing a lot of the things that i normally do when i play and i'd say i was having about a 90 success rate with like getting the result uh compared to what i was expecting right.

51:50 All right that was the we experience yeah we will call it that although this is the switch experience but i get your meaning Yeah, it's a throwback.

51:59 It's a throwback. So that was a lot of fun. I played the thumb wrestling. The thumb wrestling is interesting because often throughout a match in thumb wrestling, you are forced to make a motion with your hand really quickly.

52:14 I don't understand. Like this? Really quickly. Really quickly.

52:19 Uh, yeah, you're, you have to hitchhike.

52:22 It looks like this.

52:22 Hitchhike really quickly. Oh, thumb out.

52:25 Thumb out style.

52:26 Okay, got it. You know, you're trying to break free.

52:28 Thumb out style. Extra support. Yeah. Oh, I see. Okay.

52:30 So, you know, I mean, this seemed like the most sort of, like, you know, you go into, you're like, how are they going to make thumb wrestling, like, competitive with a joy con?

52:41 Sure.

52:42 So basically, like, hold it where your thumb is the trigger on the R, you know, the ZR button, right? and whenever you press the trigger you're you're going for an attack and obviously you have the complete gyroscopic um gyroscopic uh control over your thumb and you can like power up your thumb by dodging and pretending to hold there's a it's it's it's something again.

53:06 Is there a thumb parrying oh uh please say yes I don't think there is.

53:13 I didn't experience any of that in what I played. Thumb parry sounds like a private eye. Yeah. But if you power up your thumb by basically pretending to pin, I guess is the word you would use, you can level up and increase your thumb power, which is represented by a thumbprint. from your opponent's point of view and your point of view, you just get a line across your thumbnail. Now, uh, the characters are also wearing like hand thumb extension gloves as a part of this. So it's not, they're like actual pink hands. They're using like hand gloves to play.

53:56 They've, uh, they've strapped on like an extension.

54:00 They've, they've, they've strapped something on and then they go into thumb battle.

54:04 Got it.

54:05 Look, it's, it's fine. You know, uh, there's also skateboarding, which we, which I played, uh, sitting down, interestingly enough, and used the mouse.

54:15 Controller to- All that sounds insane.

54:19 I vocalized how sort of insane I thought it was in the moment, but no one really appreciated it. And Will did, maybe. And, you know, you sort of like use, drag it across.

54:31 Your knee to- Oh, like a dragon drive.

54:35 Yeah, although I never play that. I'm assuming it's the same sort of mechanic where you're speeding up on your skateboard by dragging the mouse across your thigh, which, okay, sure. You flick it up to jump, and you can jump onto rails and grind that. It's very kids-glovey. It's very easy to play. I gotta say, there was nothing, you know, and then the one other game that I kind of enjoy the other sport was the flying, where you hold the Joy-Con in sort of like a paper airplane.

55:07 Oh, that's fine.

55:07 And you fly that around the town and do collection items and explore.

55:11 The opposite experience from Ace Combat 8. This is the different part of the spectrum.

55:15 Yeah, this is gonna give you a slightly different experience, I'm willing to bet. But yeah, you know, I think... you know, aside from the table tennis, there was nothing really that made me want to be like, oh my God, I can't wait to like play this. Even with, you know, with Dib and stuff like that. Like, I don't think, and maybe there's more bowling modes. The thing I played, it wasn't like, wow, they've taken the bowling to a different level now. I'm sure there's more precise, you know, motion measuring and whatnot. I don't think in the time that I played, I also played with Patrick Klepek, who was out there. I played him the game. I played my own game. I didn't see anything that I was like,

55:52 immediately like, oh, this is markedly different than the experience you had, let's be honest, well over a decade ago.

56:01 What other games were there, Bacalar?

56:07 What I remember from the first... Wii Sports Resort was the frisbee throwing to the dog. Is there frisbee throwing?

56:13 Onichambara or whatever.

56:16 Oh, yeah. Yeah.

56:18 No, I didn't do that. I didn't play that game.

56:21 There was skateboarding.

56:22 I did do archery. Archery I thought was interesting. Archery was kind of... It was fun. I think like, you know... you i there's a certain level of precision i think i was expecting with the archery that i kind of couldn't dial in and again to be fair like we blew through all these sports so it wasn't like you really honed in your your sort of sure precision and that's.

56:43 How people play these games really that's.

56:45 Totally right um didn't do volleyball i don't think right yeah i'm just looking at the list here that they uh that's online of what they're doing that's right that's right summary the other game uh i did do that i enjoyed was boxing was actually all right it seemed to be pretty good.

57:03 I would say that was the weakest thing on the original wii sports.

57:06 Yeah this was um this was this was better than what i remember playing uh and it's just you sort of do like a king of the hill where you're just making your way through rounds of like everyone on the island and And they're just like, yo, you've been challenged, and you just beat the snot out of this poor guy.

57:24 This person is barely walking straight afterwards, and it's just like, all right, you just beat the shit out of this poor island. Do you sucker punch them to start it? No, but it's so funny. They're like, okay, touch gloves. And you're like, oh, this is Nintendo. Touch gloves. And then it's like, punch this bitch in the face.

57:39 And you're just like, bam.

57:41 Now punch him in the gut. Yeah, bam. You could do these combos, and they stumble back. It's pretty funny. Yeah, I actually enjoyed that. I will say for the jet skiing, you're meant to hold the Joy-Con as you would handle bars.

57:55 Sure.

57:56 And the round that we did was like five minutes.

57:58 Now, I'm alright. Five minutes? Yeah.

58:03 You hold your arms up for five minutes.

58:05 Yeah.

58:06 Cross-checking position. You should be able to do that.

58:08 Okay.

58:10 Look, I did it. I survived. People are going to be slowly... It's a little fatiguing.

58:14 Sure.

58:15 I could see that. Again, I was tired. It's tiring. Yeah, because I thought that was.

58:20 you know, holding something to kind of put some of your stress and weight on.

58:22 That's right. When you're holding the handlebars on a jet ski, you're resting your hands.

58:26 On the bar.

58:27 This is a floating bar that doesn't exist and it's different.

58:30 Yeah, they didn't figure this out. Yeah, I mean, I don't know.

58:33 I think, I just think it's going to be Received.

58:39 In the way.

58:40 You know, again, I don't think... And nothing's just ever going to be the pop. Nothing's ever going to have that same splash, right?

58:46 No.

58:47 And it sounds like, you know, all the same things for the most part and all the same complaints. Like, that fatiguing thing was something that we was doing from.

58:54 The very beginning.

58:55 So.

58:56 Yeah, I kind of like.

58:57 Look, the last one, we switched sports, not Resort, did very well. There's an audience for these games. We'll see how Resort does, because we've seen people be like, oh, I got my fill.

59:08 I don't need to do that again. Maybe that won't happen. I don't know.

59:11 Yeah, I mean, yeah, go ahead.

59:13 Is your player character still that pseudo kind of me, not really a me, like the anime-looking one? It's not like the Weemies anymore, right? At all.

59:23 It's not the Weemies, but it's a pretty detailed, like you said, anime kind of adjacent character.

59:28 Which is weird.

59:29 There's plenty of customization there. They exist.

59:32 That's cool. Tamodachi.

59:33 The Miis exist.

59:34 Yeah.

59:34 You don't need those weirdo guys. Stick with the Miis.

59:37 That's strange.

59:38 Yeah, it's like there's different parts of the tent are not talking to each other or something.

59:42 Yeah.

59:42 We have two different successors to the me's.

59:45 So again, the sports mates were intended to replace the me's. And then a lot of me diehards were like, fuck these things.

59:53 They're right. I think I'm a very hard.

59:55 Yeah.

59:56 And so they like, they kind of like backported the me's in there.

1:00:00 And so the me's looked a little weird.

1:00:01 And now they're like, well, we'll just have them both.

1:00:03 I guess it's, it's weird. Yeah.

1:00:05 Um, so yeah, I mean, look like, uh, I think there's fun to be had here. I I'm not like counting this thing out. Um, I also wasn't expecting really much. So I think these games are fine and I think they're going to do exactly for people what they're kind of expecting, but I would maybe temper those expectations, uh, fully competent. Uh, there you have it. Switch sports resort.

1:00:29 Remember the, the, the year of we motion plus, uh, Yeah. We'll never forget that year. What a beautiful year.

1:00:35 What about it? You got a problem with more control?

1:00:38 We were all obsessed with it.

1:00:39 Yeah.

1:00:40 God.

1:00:45 Yeah tap need it i don't think so.

1:00:46 I would play red steel 2 on this website i would yeah it's supposed.

1:00:49 To be good two was supposed to be okay yeah yeah they started.

1:00:53 Building it into the we remote eventually right yes there's an add-on to begin.

1:00:59 And then it's a little yeah a little thing on the bottom and then you would wrap the.

1:01:02 Bigger condom around both and then eventually.

1:01:05 The condoms oh yeah.

1:01:06 Yeah Did you send away for your condoms, everybody?

1:01:09 Yeah, I got like several condoms, yeah. I will say, you know, I have the Donkey Kong 64 condoms.

1:01:16 Donkey condoms?

1:01:17 Those are enormous. I could produce them right now.

1:01:21 They are the fabric green sleeves for your Donkey Kong controller, the 64 controller that protects it. I do not have the Mario Party glove anymore, but I have the Donkey Kong condoms.

1:01:34 Condoms yes yes yes that's kind of gross but cool.

1:01:39 I'll get them during the break i'll grab my condoms oh great.

1:01:42 Cool great yes please thank you thank you thank you.

1:01:44 I i um what was i gonna say yeah it's like uh i just think the one thing with the the straps for the the joy con i don't know like do they come attached or they just come like in the box when you get them.

1:01:57 The straps were they came with For the new Joy-Cons? The wrist straps. Oh, for the Joy-Con? The Joy-Con were like a separate little thing that came with the system.

1:02:05 It comes with it, but they're not like pre-attached, right?

1:02:07 No, no, no.

1:02:08 These are also the mouse attachments.

1:02:10 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:02:12 What I was going to say is like, you know, obviously whenever you play a Nintendo game at Nintendo, they are very aggressively strap on, you know, which I get it. It's a whole thing. But these are way better than like the Wii, like all those straps. Like they're just like the pinch to resize kind of things.

1:02:30 Oh, yeah. Sure. You know.

1:02:32 Rob, you got to do the ergonomic pack for the Steam Frame.

1:02:35 Oh, okay. Yeah, that's great.

1:02:36 I literally put it on my hand right before you said that.

1:02:39 It is awesome. It is so great. You can just open your hand. It doesn't fall. Yeah.

1:02:42 Yeah, I wanted to test it without this stuff because most people I don't think are going to get the ergonomic thing. But now that I've fully done all that, I'm like, yep, got it all set up, especially now I'm doing Titanfall.

1:02:49 It's way better. People should get the ergonomic pack for the Steam Frame. Fantastic. Fantastic. Last game that I have here on the rundown. It's not a full game, but a demo. And that demo is for castlevania belmont's curse.

1:03:06 Yeah yes i i checked out uh the whole demo there which is i played a little bit of it yeah it starts from the beginning of the game gets to the first boss and then you kind of get a a movement ability you get like a whip that you can use to latch on to enemies and like certain hooks to go around so you get to play with that for a bit then then the demo ends so you know decent size for the demo it.

1:03:28 Like I really like Castlevanias.

1:03:32 I've liked both kind of 2D passive it where we had the sort of traditional, more linear classic style with the NES games and then things like Rondo of Blood in the Genesis game. They've had, you know, the Metroidvania style that started with Symphony of the Night and all of that.

1:03:50 Maybe he should mute himself before he does that. No, I like this. It's pretty good.

1:03:55 So.

1:03:56 I guess I was kind of curious, like, hey, I know this is a Metroidvania. How closely is it going to sort of follow that Symphony of the Night thing? I will say, like, immediately, it threw me off a bit how little it feels like Symphony of the Night. Yeah, it is very much kind of, like, doing its own thing. Like, you immediately have a wall-jumping ability. And that seems like a weird thing to complain about, but, like, that doesn't feel very Castlevania-y.

1:04:17 I don't know.

1:04:18 Even just, like, the fact that your attack isn't just the kind of classic Castlevania where you push the attack button, you attack.

1:04:23 With your weapon.

1:04:23 There's a little.

1:04:25 three hit combo situation kind of a thing, right? So I was both like trying to figure out if, all right, they're doing this new thing and I'm happy about that. I can accept that and I can get into it while also being like, I think I might be would like this more if it just felt a bit more like Symphony of the Night.

1:04:43 Yeah, I'm open to them trying something new with Castlevania because, you know, we have seven of those, you know, very symphony style games if you count the GBA and DS1s. And I love like Prince Persia. I love Silksong. I'm very intrigued by what I've played of Well Dwellers. So like I like fresher takes on Metroidvania. I'm curious how this one plays out. Like they're trying some stuff with like the tarot card system and stuff that you can kind of see in the demo and what I played at Gamescom. Just curious how it plays out for the full game.

1:05:12 Yeah, I think what I played so far, I'm kind of I think I'm mostly on the same page as Mike where I'm throwing off because I love the symphony style so much. But I like Mike had said this to me a bunch of times before I started the demo. So it kind of prepped me to be like, I need to recognize what he says. This is something different.

1:05:28 And so I'm trying to look at it through that prism again. every step of the way. And that's helping a little bit. That's actually helping where I'm like, okay, it's something new.

1:05:36 Oh yeah.

1:05:36 It is very dead cells with this combo attack. And, and, uh, oh, I guess I'm not shocked that you have this wall, uh, you know, jump here pretty early on in the game. Uh, yeah, it is, um, it, it could work. I'm just like, I want to feel that sense of progression. And once I know what that feels like later on after the demo, I'll probably have a better idea of whether this game is really going to be for me or not.

1:05:59 Yeah.

1:05:59 The most fun I had was definitely kind of after the first boss fight where I got that whip ability. Cause like, it was like, Oh no, I'm kind of swinging around with this whip thing. And that was feeling it, you know, classic Metroidvania stuff. Well, now I can go back to this place and I can get this item now.

1:06:11 Cause I have this swinging whip thing. So, you know, that stuff, uh, the fuck up game looks really good. Like just the background details and the colors. Um, I like, I like, it's got a really good style.

1:06:22 Yeah. Yeah. Everything's red and saturated. It's therapy.

1:06:26 Yeah.

1:06:28 Go ahead no no please please please please i i'm like maybe a bit of weirdo who doesn't love dead cells also so you know that like the parts of it that sort of feel like that um maybe that that's what throws me off a little bit.

1:06:40 As well it doesn't feel like dead cells to me it's not exactly like that in any one way except.

1:06:45 For that that combo of the attack we have but even that right that is quicker and dead yeah exactly it's definitely not a one-to-one.

1:06:52 I was about to ask, I just wanted a reminder of where everyone lands with Dead Cells Pro. One of my favorite roguelikes of all time. Love it, love it, love it, adore it. I played 80 hours.

1:07:02 Into the week it came out, and that's back when it was really difficult and it hurt my hand.

1:07:06 I put it up with Hades and Rogue Legacy among my favorite roguelites.

1:07:10 Yeah. See, I don't know why. I like Rogue Legacy.

1:07:13 I love Hades, but I don't know. Dead Cells doesn't really do much for it. I basically completed a run. Then when the Castlevania DLC came out, I was like, well, this one, I'll be really into it. Even then, I did a few runs, and I was kind of over it.

1:07:25 Interesting. Interesting. Okay. Did anyone want to talk about Well Dweller real quick before we go to break? I keep playing it.

1:07:32 Yeah. I'm like... i really dig this game man oh.

1:07:37 Yeah i'm i thought you might i'm glad to hear that.

1:07:39 There's a lot of little freaks in it too right well.

1:07:42 Need i say more i mean um it's it's not so far i i just don't feel like i'm being punished in the way that a lot of those other games punish me not that i'm a i'm bad at video i you know i if i had the time in the in the sort of like you know, dedication, I would, I would get good and do these things, but like.

1:08:01 You're right.

1:08:02 You get the exact, you get the experience of something like silk song without any of the punishment. And you're still like getting most of those feelings of like, that's right. You know, strange little world.

1:08:10 I'm with you.

1:08:11 It's beautiful. Uh, all of the bosses are like such freaks and so care. Um, you know, carefully, uh, designed and, and really thoughtfully weird. Like, I love how strange everything is. I like the, you know, it, the story is like very surface level, but it's like kooky and, and sort of, uh, bizarre enough to keep you interested. A couple of chuckles here and there too. I just, I just really dig it.

1:08:36 All the, all the thoughtful little design choices, like your matchstick burns according to how much health you have. Like, I just, I just love it. I love, I love how cute it is. I love all the areas. I love, uh, I love it. It's like my, I'm playing on a steam deck hooked up to my TV in the bedroom. And it's just like, I just play for like 45 minutes.

1:08:54 Before I go to bed.

1:08:55 And, and, you know, even like Stacy grabbed the controller and, you know, play. that and it was i was surprised she's like this game's fun this game's cool i'm like i i know is this our good night bedtime.

1:09:09 Game oh it makes sense yeah i mean the um like you talk about the story being very serviceable and it is, but it's like, then it uses all of that to add flavoring to everything below that. So it's like all the world is filled with like the ramifications of this queen who wants to get all these bird feathers and, and the fact that, you know, that's her obsession.

1:09:29 So they rule this land and everything else is sort of decrepit. And there's all these people that like served her and have turned into these monstrous bosses. And they don't, they're not in your face about like what happened there. They kind of give you one little piece of flavor text and, And then they show the boss itself and that exists in the context of whatever land you're in.

1:09:47 Cool.

1:09:47 And that's all you need.

1:09:48 And you can kind of tell the story yourself, but then you could find these pages that tell these, these sort of fairytale style stories about a lot of the characters within that world. And then that reveals just a little bit more, but those aren't overbearing at all as well. It's like the right amount for the level of depth that they're going for. And it all serves this greater purpose of adding to the atmosphere, adding to the vibes of the game, which are incredible. I think they're like, It's not as refined as Silksong. Nothing is like simply just nothing is as refined as that. But it is as close as you can get, I think, without matching Silksong.

1:10:22 It knows what it is, right? Like the game knows what it is and it doesn't get too far in front of its over its skis. And yeah, I just really think it has this like really mature kind of self-awareness, especially the minuscule size of this team.

1:10:37 Right. Is it one?

1:10:37 Is it one person? I actually don't have no idea. In the beginning, it says, I think, like, what appears to be.

1:10:45 I mean, yeah, the developers just listen as a Kyle Thompson. Now I'm sure, like, you know, that's.

1:10:49 Oh, yeah, they always contract out help.

1:10:51 Right?

1:10:52 But small, regardless, right?

1:10:53 Yep. So.

1:10:54 Yeah, really, really impressed by this.

1:10:57 Nice.

1:10:57 How many gold feathers have you collected so far?

1:11:00 Just one.

1:11:00 Yeah, I think I'm on three or four now. And I'm still kind of surprised at how they're doling out the upgrades. Because I'm like, man, if they give me a double jump, this is going to end like, I still have not got a double jump. I've got some other stuff that really improves my ability to get around that world. But it's like, oh, I can climb infinitely and things like that.

1:11:17 And that's where that's topped out at.

1:11:19 And there's, you know, there's like a good healthy amount of like the secret stuff, like with the spirits, like the bird spirits and stuff.

1:11:25 Also, birds are cool.

1:11:27 Birds are cool. Well, some of them are. Yeah. Yeah.

1:11:31 You know, look, they all got problems, right? They all have their different traits and whatnot, but birds in general, pretty, pretty cool.

1:11:38 Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Fantastic. Well, that does it for the first segment, folks at home. We're going to go take a quick bricky break and we'll be back with the news. Right after this. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We forgot to talk about a game. We forgot to talk about a game. Gears of War. Oh, yeah. E-Day.

1:11:58 I think he yelled at us for not talking about it. Gears of War E-Day. Yes.

1:12:02 Well, we should talk about our Horde Siege experience in a second. But first, I'll say I played an act of the campaign co-op with Kayla.

1:12:11 It's very fun. It's Gears.

1:12:13 I'm also very intrigued because the first act is very just like, you've probably seen in the trailers and stuff where they're all in street clothes and E-Day is happening. And it's like, that is very like traditional Gears, you know, linear narrative. And then we kind of left off with like the second act where it's like, oh, it seems like this open area, like very large, like, and not like just a big desert or a big, you know, like the ice area in Five. This is like a dense city. Like you are in a city on Sora, like going around and finding little objectives and things like that.

1:12:43 So like, I'm very intrigued to see where it goes. The only thing that's been driving me nuts is, Is there are so many times now where like, you know, gears is famous for being like the, the ultimate like walk and talk game. Like this one does something where it's like, you'll be in a room and you want to just kind of keep moving, but there'll be talking like, uh, Marcus and Dom talking, talking. And then it's like, you'll be looking at a door that has a lock symbol on the padlock. And it literally just waits for all the dialogue to play out, and then the door is magically unlocked. It's just like, man, there's not even remotely a narrative reason here. It's just like, I just have to stare at this door until we're done talking, and

1:13:15 then it unlocks.

1:13:16 That annoys me.

1:13:17 We use it as a pretty frequently. But overall, really, really having fun with the campaign. And then we did some four-player board siege mode recently.

1:13:26 That was a lot of fun. Yeah. That was different than I was expecting it to be. Yeah. I'm trying to come to terms with it, because.

1:13:33 because it's we're in like this more open zone and we're kind of running around the different objectives and sometimes that turns into the traditional you know here's a few waves of the horde experience so it's both fun but also part of me is like hey i thought the point of horde mode was that they come to us yeah why am i doing all this running around but they've also.

1:13:52 Done so many of those at this point it's like horde 2.0 3.0 and uh that weird judgment mode like.

1:13:57 I like the idea of them.

1:13:58 Ideally, I would have liked both versions, like, because Horde Siege is very fun. It does feel like you're just doing a bunch of campaign-style things. But yeah, it feels more like campaign action than it does Horde mode. Like, you're not setting up turrets and fences and all that stuff, you know?

1:14:11 Not as much of that, anyways. I guess I would need to play more, too, because there's doing this thing where there were, like, two other groups of four players also live in the map, and It was kind of neat to run into them, but I didn't really necessarily understand, like, what the dynamic was there exactly.

1:14:26 I mean, to me it seemed clear it's like eventually we all could have teamed up and taken on the big boss, but, you know, you don't have to. To me that seems like what it's supposed to be is like, oh, we're all kind of doing our own thing, and now do we want to, like, communicate to them, let's go take on the big boss together.

1:14:40 Yeah, that seems to.

1:14:42 Be the entirety of how that would work to me.

1:14:44 I don't know, though.

1:14:45 We didn't really do much of that. We did kind of just run into them a couple times.

1:14:49 Mm-hmm.

1:14:49 Yeah, lots of weapons and stuff. Like there's a new grenade launcher that like you shoot it by holding RT. And like if you just tap RT, it'll be like a timed grenade that bounces around. But if you hold it, you can let go to have it explode whenever, which I feel like is a Turok or a Perfect Dark or something did that. There are time splitters did that.

1:15:07 And it's always fun trying to time that perfectly. There's the incinerator shotgun, which just like sprays acid all over everyone.

1:15:13 Yeah, that was really good. Yes, that one.

1:15:15 That one just takes just a beat to shoot after you pull the trigger. You get this really satisfying of like, did I get him? And then as your brain is thinking that you watch the flesh melt off their bones.

1:15:26 And that ruled.

1:15:26 I did that a lot and felt very good about it.

1:15:31 Definitely impressive.

1:15:31 Just in the quick look, I when I played a film, we were kind of in that more open part of the campaign and just running around there. Very dense is a good way of putting it. I like how it's this city that's under attack, so there's a lot of craters of damage, but you can still tell this is a city that was actually running big. There's some color and lights on, and it's interesting to look at. It's not just Xbox 360 grays and browns.

1:15:55 Yeah, I was impressed by the look, and then I even had fun in the head-to-head multiplayer when we did one round of that. It took us a while to figure out what was going on there, but once we did, it felt like we... kind of got our legs under us, and then we're able to perform competently. And then I'm like, oh yeah, Gears multiplayer.

1:16:12 Can be fun.

1:16:13 I've not done a ton of it, but when I have and was confident, it was a good time, and that was true here as well.

1:16:18 Nice, nice, nice. Fantastic. Ah, right, yeah. I think we deserve another break. Pew, pew, pew.

1:16:30 Let's start with the news of Naughty Dog reportedly returns to Uncharted. MP First says Naughty Dog is developing an all-new Uncharted game. We talked a little bit about, oh, Naughty Dog's got Intergalactic, the Heretic Prophet, last week. And they are talking big stuff about revealing that in 2027 to the point where it's like, oh, that game could very likely be coming out by the end of 2027.

1:16:51 Well, what would they do after that?

1:16:53 It does seem like they are going to work on Uncharted after that with director Sean Eskeg.

1:16:59 Who did, God, what is the Lost Legacy? Lost Legacy. Oh. Lost Legacy. I really like that. He's just great.

1:17:06 Dan, can you mute when you do that?

1:17:07 I'm trying to figure out what's going on.

1:17:08 Sorry, I'm muting myself. Yeah, but mute yourself before you do that.

1:17:11 Um, so it was, yes, he did Lost Legacy. He's going to oversee this. It's going to involve, uh, Nathan, Nate Drake in some way. Uh, and he is going to, uh, maybe be a cameo, maybe be like a full playable character, maybe be someone who shows up for a mission or two. Seems, I think everyone, when they hear that, because we don't know exactly what it's going to look like, assumes he's going to be like the Sully role. He will kind of take on the role of the older mentor, and then you will play as his daughter or some other character, but probably his daughter.

1:17:39 Yeah.

1:17:39 Um he's with us though still yes oh.

1:17:43 I mean i don't know he was pretty old in that epilogue there um i don't think i i think i could very easily see a solid moment or he could.

1:17:53 Be man in the chair maybe i mean maybe he's the bad guy no they'll do you shut up the bad guy that's true like he's got now yeah they already did that they already tried to do that twist in the first one it's you know he's Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:18:07 You remember the story in Uncharted 1?

1:18:09 I remember Uncharted 1. I like Uncharted. I think Uncharted's cool. I do, too. I remember that story. I feel like I like it. I went one time, too. I remember.

1:18:15 Oh, what a sicko. Yeah, okay.

1:18:18 As long as.

1:18:19 I just don't feel like they should, like... Kill him for no reason.

1:18:22 I think they'll kill him in this game.

1:18:24 They'll kill him in this game as the big emotional beat. I think that'll be it. I can look at that.

1:18:28 Yeah.

1:18:28 If he can.

1:18:29 I would almost respect it more if he just, if he almost kind of died off camera of old age than like, we brought him back and he was murdered and now we're mad.

1:18:36 I don't think it'll be, he'll like sacrifice himself in some heroic way.

1:18:40 That'd be fine.

1:18:41 There is a little bit of magic in these games too, right?

1:18:44 Yeah.

1:18:46 There's some supernatural stuff, which has kind of got a mixed reception, and sometimes there's less of it, and sometimes there's more of it.

1:18:52 Oh, for the uncharted purist? Did you name a lamer person? It's been there from the beginning, yeah.

1:18:59 Oh, no. Oh, no.

1:19:01 I don't know where I stand on all this. Boy, I'm ready for Uncharted. I think it has been the amount of time where people are missing Uncharted. I bet when this comes out, that's going to make a pretty big splash.

1:19:15 It'll be the first one in about 14 or 15 years by the time this game comes out. That's crazy.

1:19:21 I'm with you, and I'm not ashamed to say it.

1:19:22 I am a big Uncharted guy. Oh, my God.

1:19:26 You know a chart two and four especially and four has been getting a lot more lovely and lost legacy lost legacy is also.

1:19:32 Great i need to play that i know that i did.

1:19:34 Not play that twice that's how much i.

1:19:36 Yeah uh after uncharted they will then according to rumored this this uh rumored uh roadmap will go on to last of us part.

1:19:44 Three at that right because i assume that's basically just gonna be the you know the truckman heretic team after they finish that will right then go on to last.

1:19:53 And the 3sk team will take on uncharted right exactly.

1:19:56 Yeah which that sounds good i mean if the if this uncharted team needs a break out their chart to give them jack and daxter or something or another killer.

1:20:03 What a beautiful world that would that what what go back.

1:20:06 To the recursers what does the light-hearted naughty dog game look like in the 2020s i.

1:20:11 I don't know if that team exists anymore.

1:20:13 That is my worry, that, like, they're gonna come out and they're gonna be like, no, this is gonna be the darkest Uncharted ever.

1:20:20 And we'll be like, no. That's not what we want.

1:20:23 What kind of dark, though? Like, what kind of dark?

1:20:26 Because.

1:20:26 Sad Dead. Sad Dead. Well, dark... Extremely Sad Dead.

1:20:32 Oh, okay. I hope they take, like, a couple lessons from perhaps, like, 007 First Light and kind of incorporate more of, like, more of a charismatic protagonist. versus like a sad dad, because I don't want to play a sad Nathan Drake.

1:20:48 My expectation is when they're going back to Uncharted, it is so they can do a different tone, and this will be more upbeat, and they will avoid a lot of the pitfalls of the, you know, pitfalls, the dark side, the stuff that they have to engage with because of the top of Last of Us.

1:21:04 Or they go in a completely different direction and, And it's more like a naked gun Uncharted.

1:21:12 Okay.

1:21:13 Oh.

1:21:14 Yes.

1:21:14 All right. It would be all right. It's called Unfarted. Do you think people would.

1:21:19 Be more mad or more happy if they did like, you know how like Onimusha was like an actual actor? What if they did that with Leslie Nielsen? It's much more recent. Yeah, like if you just brought back Leslie Nielsen and had him be like new solely or something.

1:21:37 I don't know. I feel like Leslie Nielsen's like a funny man. Yeah, he could pull it off. The ghost of Leslie Nielsen could pull that off, I think. Trailer for Jeff Bacalar's version of Uncharted features. Let's get it started by Black Eyed Peas. Yeah, the original version.

1:21:51 Okay, I guess I'm still on board, but all right.

1:21:57 Meanwhile, Sony is also reportedly opening the vault. There's been a lot of reports that Sony is taking pitches for Ape Escape and Killzone. And there's more smoke where we think that fire might be. Also, apparently, according to Push Square, and I'm not corroborating this in any way. I don't know about this one.

1:22:17 Sly Cooper.

1:22:19 It's also one that they are taking pitches on.

1:22:20 I don't know, gang. I can't deal with it.

1:22:22 It would be Sucker Punch not doing it. It would be some other team coming in and handling that. Last time, I even speculated on this. Sucker Punch was like, no, we have one game at a time, and we're not doing that. And it's just like, hmm, okay, maybe. I hope this is the direction Sony is heading in.

1:22:37 Me too.

1:22:38 Jan, don't feel guilty or conflicted about this. This was always meant to be. This was always happening. Listen, as the most raccoon-coded person on this website, I take certain pride in Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, right?

1:22:55 Right.

1:22:55 One of my favorite stealth games, for sure. Yeah. The way that they're talking about this, and we talked about this a little bit on Gamest Mornings yesterday, but that these... pitches that they are entertaining might be for a PS6 launch title takes the wind out of my sails versus getting it on this generation. There's no way it could be a PlayStation 6 exclusive even if it's a launch title.

1:23:21 I can't imagine.

1:23:23 The other way to solve that, Jan, is for you to pitch the game.

1:23:28 Okay, go do it, dude. I'll go now. Go jump in my car, drive to Foster City. Also, bring a picture of Chuck and be like, he'll do it. Follow up question for Mikey. How do you feel about another media company having a vault? Yeah, vaults are a bad idea.

1:23:45 I almost worry if some of these properties have been in the vault too long. Maybe they're getting a little too rusty. Maybe some water got in there. There's water damage now. Are people going to care anymore? I think Sly Cooper, clearly, I hear from people all the time that people would be excited about that.

1:24:00 Ape Escape, I hope so. I'm excited about that.

1:24:02 But as the people who told me when they did it, like my Castlevania take, I'm old now, right?

1:24:09 No.

1:24:10 Sly doesn't have to worry about the things Figment has to worry about. I mean, that's going to be fine.

1:24:15 But PlayStation desperately needs to be releasing more games. So, you know, you can make these smaller scale games and attach these old IPs to them and get excitement for them and get. games out there that your fan base is going to have a craving for that can do well, that can help you move the conversation past something like a Wolverine, which is going to be the only game you've released for months and months and months until Lafayette finally comes out.

1:24:42 Yeah.

1:24:42 Oh, I remember that Wolverine game.

1:24:44 I remember that. Oh, yeah.

1:24:46 I mean, that's if they are like taking pictures and the idea is to bring in other studios. I mean, that has worked really well for stuff like Star Wars. Star Wars is like banger after banger for years now, and that's been their structure is kind of bringing in teams. There's games missing in action like the High Republic game from David Cage.

1:25:04 Sure.

1:25:04 That one hasn't shown up. That can keep being missing.

1:25:07 Exactly.

1:25:07 To the ones that have come out, ZCOM.

1:25:09 This, the Jedi Night Game, not the Jedi, the Jedi Fallen Order games, Outlaws, all of them really good to very good.

1:25:18 I would love to see a new or redone Legend of Dragoon. perhaps let's bring back loaded, loaded, reloaded, reload.

1:25:27 Oh, there we go. That was an early PlayStation class.

1:25:31 But also like, I'm surprised like with the popularity of the show that they haven't gone back to twisted metal at all.

1:25:38 I know they were trying, they were trying at the time and there was like two different studios that tried and both sort of fizzled out. So I bet they're like, Oh, we got to like, the show is already going. We're not going to be able to have a game in time for it. By the time that game's finished, this game's probably, or the show.

1:25:51 Yeah.

1:25:51 By the time the game is finished, and out this show might be done and forgotten about.

1:25:55 So they've given up again.

1:25:57 Hopefully they can come back around and, and, and kind of do it all again and try twisting metal. I'm with you, but they have not.

1:26:04 There's no way I'm getting jumping flash. I feel like that's too old and crusty. Yeah.

1:26:08 I mean, I love it.

1:26:09 They're definitely, they're definitely like, you know, ape escape is like, sounds like, Oh, is that the oldest that they're going to go? And it's like, no, I think there's some older like PS one stuff that they are going to try to get out and bring back.

1:26:22 But I don't know if it's Jumping Flash.

1:26:23 The ones that get thrown around that I hear about are like, oh, yeah, I guess people care about that.

1:26:28 And I go and look.

1:26:28 It's like, oh, this did have a ton of fans. It's not like Colony Wars, which I always think of when I think of PS1 games. It's like, no, that's mostly forgotten. But there are PS1 games that would come back. But Jumping Flash might be stuck in the middle there.

1:26:41 Brandy, Fat Princess. Jesus Christ, Jan.

1:26:46 The Fat Princess community is losing their mind for a new one.

1:26:49 Of those, of course.

1:26:52 Sony themselves but again think with the playstation is ridge racer grub have you heard anything now with everybody's clamoring for this new star wars galactic racer racing games are back is the scuttle but have they greenlit a new ridge racer yet.

1:27:06 Uh they are that they've shut down that studio even more like no ridge racer never um.

1:27:14 Make an airplane game.

1:27:15 Make a card game. I know, exactly.

1:27:17 Ace Combat, that really works.

1:27:19 Make that team.

1:27:20 Make a Ridge Racer.

1:27:21 I bet it'd be great. All right. Let's see here.

1:27:25 Regular PS5 owners are getting a meaningful graphics upgrade. Sony announced Quick Spectral Super Resolution, or as we call it, Kisser, on October 1st, bringing a new upscaling option to the standard PS5. Marvel's Wolverine and Ghost of Yotay are the first to receive updates and patches. Notably, those two games kind of tell the story of what Kisser is. Ghost of Yotay already had really good upscaling, and you don't notice much of a difference with Kisser. Wolverine had kind of that FSR quality where it's like you can tell the image is being reconstructed and there's some softness and some shimmering, some problems on edges. or on like transparent material, mesh materials. Yes, that stuff has been addressed by Kisser.

1:28:13 So basically it's like in the performance, there's probably a performance upgrade, a little bit of one. Mostly it's about making sure that that image stability, when there is that kind of material, gets cleaned up. And Kisser is doing that with Wolverine. So if there's a game that kind of has a little bit of a shaky upscaling tech, this should fix that on the original PS5.

1:28:33 When it comes to PS5 Pro.

1:28:35 Good old pisser, is still your best bet. That's their top-end technology for image reconstruction, and they will keep using that there. But this means that the shelf life of the PS5 is going to be even longer, which they definitely seem keen to keep around for a much longer time, although that does lead right into the next story. PS5 hacking has gone crazy. it is it's gone bonkers in like the last couple of months but in the last few weeks it really seems to be reaching a zenith and i think there's probably a bunch of reasons why this is happening but the first thing i did write down here is the backlash from no the no disc no buy crowd seems like it's having real consequences and it's this stuff where people seem motivated to be like

1:29:20 hey let's get together and let's crack this shit open and they are doing so so there's a I think a couple of weeks ago, Marvel's Wolverine was loaded up in an emulator and it was running at two frames per second in a menu in the last couple of days. And during they've got gameplay going and that is running somewhere between seven frames per second and 20 frames per second.

1:29:44 So that is a big improvement in just a matter of weeks.

1:29:46 So, yeah, that.

1:29:48 They're finding a lot of performance for that, and that is charging right ahead. Then the AnyPS5 tool, which is this tool that can take PS5 executables and turn them into formats that communicate with Windows and Linux, and then the kinds of graphics libraries that would be in a GPU for a PC and kind of translate that from the PlayStation graphics library. They are making a lot of progress.

1:30:12 They have this big chart where they show, oh, we're making stuff so that the PS5 graphics library can... It's like 80% complete, and it's going to be 100% complete here in a few weeks. That's the kind of stuff where if that works... Grand Theft Auto 6 could be ported to PC in a matter of months after it comes to PS5. So that stuff is moving ahead. There's also a super simple jailbreak that cracks open actual PS5s, a one-button thing. You point your PS5 to a different DNS than the default DNS. Then you click on one button.

1:30:48 It takes you to this website.

1:30:49 You click one more button, and your PS5 is jailbroken, and people are running Halo on their PS5 and doing all kinds of other stuff. I guess Halo's on PS5. But people are running, like, original Halo Xbox games on their PS5 using emulators. They are also showing off full pirated stores, stores where you can run this on your PS5 and just browse it like a normal store. Then you click the button, and the game begins downloading to your PS5 without any payment. It's all pirated. And that is the kind of stuff that Sony's got to be really worried about. So they're going to keep a PS5 around in some way, but it'll probably be called a PS6 Lite or something because they will want to refresh the security because all of this has got to have

1:31:29 them pretty concerned. If any one of these methods, and again, it's multiple, gets bugged, enables people to crack open Grand Theft Auto six and play Grand Theft Auto six on other devices, especially PC. That is going to be kind of a big, big problem for PlayStation. I think now, of course, that game is going to sell fine and it's going to, find its audience. But a lot of this is happening all at once, and you guys kind of think that this is reaching a zenith because of the backlash to no-disc, no-buys, and also the fact that these AI tools are making it simpler.

1:32:01 What do you think? I think it's also maybe a combination of folks just being generally unpleased with the PS5, where it's at and how many things are on it and what's on it right now.

1:32:16 And the price is going up.

1:32:18 Exactly.

1:32:19 It's a perfect storm of everything.

1:32:20 People should also be definitely careful doing any of this stuff because who knows what types of security or lack of security are implemented. I know some folks have their cards saved onto their PSN account. So don't just willy-nilly jump into the deep end with this.

1:32:41 Yeah, and yeah, so Cain, I would like wish Grubb knew a lot of this was vibe-coded AI slap. Yeah, no, I do know that, and that's true.

1:32:47 Yeah, you weren't saying this was a good thing.

1:32:49 I'm saying this is a problem for... Yeah, give me this guy.

1:32:51 There we go.

1:32:52 I'm saying this is a problem for Sony. It's a problem for the cat.

1:32:55 It's a problem for this guy, yeah. It's a problem for Sony, and they're going to have to deal with this, regardless of if it's AI vibe-coded or not. And it's going to keep happening because the tools are there. And also, it seems like the motivation is there from a lot of people who are displeased, as Jan said, with Sony.

1:33:13 Wow.

1:33:14 Oh, no. For the part of me, it's like, oh, you companies love AI now. What do you think about this now?

1:33:21 Yep. God.

1:33:23 Uh, I think the perfect storm of all these things, affordability being a, an incredible motivator as well. Um, that's like, I feel like this is not the first time this has been driven by the kind of like affordability, uh, situation, right?

1:33:42 Like, yeah.

1:33:43 Um, so I think you have bad PR, uh, the state of what everything is for ability and yeah, that's a hell of a motivator.

1:33:52 And yeah, and then I think, you know, Grand Theft Auto 6 on top of it is, you know, that's the kind of thing that will be, if you're the guy, if you use AI tools or not, that makes it so people can play Grand Theft Auto 6 wherever they want. That's a bit of notoriety that does motivate the kinds of people that would like be doing this work. So it seems like we're going to have all this come to that, come to a head here in the next couple of weeks and we'll see how it ends up.

1:34:17 But we, yep, yep, exactly. Yeah. Oh, that's fine. That's much worse. Okay, great. Poor Dan.

1:34:25 So Xbox isn't for sale, but Ninja Theory employees began publicly confirming layoffs and roles at risk this week. Departure span programming, audio, art, and performance capture. Microsoft previously said two agreements intended to secure the studio's future fell through, triggering consultation on a proposed closure, which of course is just a legal status as they go forward with very likely closing the studio. But hey, what about Senua, which was revealed in June? Its future remains officially unresolved, which is crazy to me that they announced that game in June with their plans to shut the studio down or find someone else to take it on. You probably shouldn't have announced that thing. That, to me, feels like a line,

1:35:10 and that makes me feel bad. Of course, in response to all the shit going around Microsoft, Asher Sharma did say in an interview on September 30th that Xbox is not for sale. but not many people seem to believe her.

1:35:23 Not right now. Not right. It's been it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I don't know if Asha Sharma will be around to see it go for sale. You know, she made right before the, she.

1:35:34 Around in two years time promoted.

1:35:36 Yeah, exactly.

1:35:37 Uh, she's going to like get rugged, right. Go back to the AI thing, which is where.

1:35:41 She came from.

1:35:42 Um, but yeah, I mean, sin you, uh, got announced in June that studio supposedly supposed to deliver that game somehow, but, um, Microsoft is going to try to wash their hands of it. Unhinged behavior from a company that just continues to break things as they go through all of this, right?

1:35:58 Yeah. I'm just very curious to meet and see the people that are clamoring for more Senua's Saga. Like, I played through Senua's Saga 2 almost as, like, not hate played, but just, like, gritted my teeth and like, all right, let's just see. Maybe this will deliver something. It just wasn't for me at all by the very end. I want to know who wants more of that really sad, sad game.

1:36:26 I was definitely shocked at, like, hey, hey, a third one of these, right? But even, like, aside from that, whatever the project was, why are we announcing it? They even kind of said, like, well, we're hoping it kind of gets interest in people to buy them.

1:36:40 That's stupid. That's bizarre.

1:36:42 You can't lie to us. You promote it to us as a new game from you.

1:36:46 From Xbox, yeah.

1:36:48 Yeah, so that whole thing is just, it's a sad situation. It's an incredibly talented studio that has made a lot of cool games and they do a lot of important stuff with motion capturing technology, right? So the idea that they are maybe just going to shut her down because Microsoft, the company with all of the money in the world, just kind of doesn't want to play with them anymore.

1:37:09 It's disgraceful.

1:37:11 Yep.

1:37:12 And then, all right, finally, Sega has finally made... I skipped one. Let me do this one real quick. Retro achievements on an actual PS2.

1:37:20 This is cool.

1:37:21 A new homebrew XZ Rabora by Hacken359 works with OpenPS2Loader to track achievements while games run on original hardware. It involves additional setup and a PC connection, but if you have all that stuff, you can now get retro achievements on real hardware, which is.

1:37:39 Very cool.

1:37:40 That's not something we've had before.

1:37:41 Magic PS2s.

1:37:43 Magic ps2s open ps2 loader which i think you.

1:37:45 Have and i do have a magic ps2 and i know you can do that on mister as well now too i i'm always so terrified to even like update my mister because it's like everything just works yeah that's the way i want to do i don't want to fuck with anything but like i still haven't set up a superstation one i would love for that to be like okay this is going to be the one where it's like i fiddle with stuff and do.

1:38:02 You should do that that's a great idea yeah.

1:38:04 Okay because it's got the console mode sorry i know we're talking about a different thing but like uh yeah the console mode i'm thinking about setting up and trying the retro achievements thing um But yeah, I'd like to try it on real hardware, too.

1:38:15 Yeah, that's the thing where it's like, I got all these magic PS2s and magic Dreamcasts, but I also want to do retro achievements, and that wasn't possible, but.

1:38:21 Now it is. Sean has chimed in and chat here. This is also vibe coded.

1:38:27 Fuck yeah, let's go. I mean, it's going to be, it sucks. Uh, yeah, I didn't realize that that did not show up when I looked this up, but.

1:38:35 Raise my hand here.

1:38:36 Uh, can I get an explain like I'm five? Uh, what is vibe coding?

1:38:39 It's, it's a vibe code is the term that people use when they say, when they go to a Claude or open AI and they're like, Hey, make this for me. So AI coded, just coding by vibe, which is just having the AI do it for you.

1:38:49 Yep.

1:38:49 Got it. Got it.

1:38:50 And it's not, yeah, not manmade. Um, not farm to table. Not farm-to-table code, which is what we prefer. Sega finally made Sonic out of the same stuff that we make toilets out of.

1:39:01 Ceramic? Well, no, it's porcelain.

1:39:05 Say again, Japanese porcelain brand Yo-Yo-Yo announced Infinite Blue, a Sonic 35th anniversary statue limited to 50 pieces. The price, 1 million yen, approximately $ 6, 300. It combines work from two Japanese kilns with ties to Arita's porcelain tradition.

1:39:22 Sales begin October 9th.

1:39:24 There's also going to be an exhibition where they're going to have a couple they'll give away or give you the chance to buy as part of a lottery. I don't, I don't want to meet the person that wants to have a porcelain $ 6, 000 Sonic statue.

1:39:38 It's probably gorgeous.

1:39:40 I'm looking at it. It looks awesome. It looks great. Okay.

1:39:45 As insane as it sounds.

1:39:48 I mean, it's going to be made by true artisans.

1:39:50 Like immaculate, right? It's almost like a total disservice and insult to the entire practice.

1:39:57 It looks crazy.

1:39:58 It looks like something they would sell in Uncut Gems.

1:40:02 Why would you show it to me if I can't have it?

1:40:05 This is cool, actually. It looks great. Can we get one for Giant Bomb? Yes, Giant Bomb, a.k.a. me. No, we got to ship it to Will's house. It's where we ship everything now.

1:40:17 I'm the Sonic guy.

1:40:21 I sent something to Bacalar's place for you, Jan.

1:40:24 Oh, great.

1:40:24 That should be arriving soon.

1:40:25 The Sonic doll that he slept with as a boy and a man.

1:40:29 Uh, cool.

1:40:31 Troubling how within arm's reach that was. I think, um, this thing, it's just so sick.

1:40:37 Like, you know what?

1:40:39 It's almost like, it's almost not Sonic. It's almost like not too much Sonic where you can kind of get away with it being like, oh, this is art. It's not just like my pervy admiration for this video game character.

1:40:52 Cool. Yeah, it is.

1:40:53 It is empirically cool.

1:40:55 Infinite blue also sounds cool.

1:40:58 It does, man.

1:40:59 Yeah, that is cool.

1:41:00 They have a long tradition of porcelain artwork in Japan. And yeah, apparently that's that's this is what they're doing with it.

1:41:07 Oh, yeah.

1:41:08 Not being like when I hear statue, I think of like a huge thing. It'd be actually something that you could put on a shelf or something. Yes.

1:41:14 It's meant to be displayed like in a home and stuff like that.

1:41:17 Oh, there's a big boss statue.

1:41:18 I didn't realize his feet in motion make an infinite symbol. Oh, that's good.

1:41:24 Yeah, that's the Sonic peel-out. That was introduced in Sonic CD. That's what you started doing down in the jump button. You do up in the jump button.

1:41:31 Okay, buddy. Me and Brooks say the news is over and we're handing the show back over to Jan.

1:41:38 Someone had just pasted a Kotaku article that I just want to read the headline of before we get to take another break and get to the e-mails. GameStop is now selling used PS5 Pros for $ 1, 400. Wait a minute, Jen.

1:41:51 That's almost 100% more. yeah what they retail for yeah.

1:41:58 They started at yeah that's crazy.

1:42:00 What they're 900 now ps5 pro new so this yeah this is kind of revealing it's like oh another price increase does feel imminent i did see this you said it's used we're at a game stop game game stop yeah it's a good sign that's a good sign rough wow man that's actually terrifying I love video games.

1:42:20 I mean, I guess the price goes down maybe right after Grand Theft Auto 6 launches, but maybe not.

1:42:25 I don't know. That's rough stuff.

1:42:26 I think it takes a little bit, but yeah.

1:42:28 GameStop wouldn't do anything unscrupulous.

1:42:30 No, no, no.

1:42:31 Never.

1:42:32 So, folks, if you are in the market for a PS5 Pro, I would hit Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, now versus waiting. If you are... at all interested in upgrading. I think I am no longer in the market for one. Yeah.

1:42:45 I was going to say like, if you're in the marketplace, like allow us to talk you out of being in the marketplace. Yeah.

1:42:51 Perhaps go buy a computer, uh, instead. I know that we'll play GTA six, but.

1:42:56 Yeah, thankfully like, The one game I played on just my base PS5 recently was Galactic Racer, and that was really good on there.

1:43:01 Like, that was fun. It doesn't make me, you know.

1:43:03 So it's all driven by, like, the GTA.

1:43:09 It's everything. Yeah.

1:43:10 It's a perfect story. No, I know why everything's expensive, but I do think there is.

1:43:14 But, yeah, the recent, the current thing right now is, yes, prices, everyone knows prices aren't going to go down. And it's not like they were making a ton of these things over the last few months. And then in the last few weeks, we had the Grand Theft Auto 6 reveal. And so that has people getting ready for Grand Theft Auto 6, and that is the most recent thing that put up the price.

1:43:32 It caused the price to go up. Sean, in our Twitch chat here, posted the GameStop actual posting for it, and it says refurbished. What are the odds that GameStop has perhaps acquired a bunch of PS5 Pros, opened them, and are reselling them as refurbished so they can charge higher?

1:43:55 That is definitely something GameStop's done before for sure yeah cool sure.

1:44:00 But i mean you just gave them the idea i don't.

1:44:05 Know i need to keep these ideas to myself uh folks we're gonna take another quick bricky break and we will be back with emails and super chats right after this it's gonna be super.

1:44:20 These are the emails for the show.

1:44:26 Emails bombcastgiantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to you can write in about any and everything every single week i say this but thank you so much for flooding our inbox with actual emails and not just your chili's receipts uh you can keep sending those too i guess if you need them for expense reports tough luck bud first email of the show comes from Alex from Ottawa. Hi, Duders. I had an odd situation exiting a store this past weekend and immediately thought of Mike.

1:44:57 As I was exiting, I was confronted by a bunch of middle schoolers who set up to offer the people free apples. No donation or anything else, just free apples. When I declined, I'm allergic, a kid behind me wanted to make me take one if he was able to crush one with his palms of his hands before an adult intervened. It was an apple gauntlet. And you know what?

1:45:21 For a hot second, I understood Mikey's apple plight. So I ask, what would Mike Minotti do in this situation? Thanks, guys, and keep bombing. Alex from Ottawa. I'd punch a kid. Okay.

1:45:34 And what if he beat you up after?

1:45:36 I'll call the police and say he started it.

1:45:40 Oh, good. There you go. That's right.

1:45:41 Officer, please, this seven-year-old beat me up.

1:45:46 Man, I wish I was allergic to apples. I'd make this whole thing so much easier to explain.

1:45:49 You should have just lied.

1:45:50 You can say it. It's less crazy. I'm not a liar, guys.

1:45:52 No offense.

1:45:53 He's not a liar. He's a truthful boy.

1:45:54 You could have lied about the allergy.

1:45:56 That would have been all right. I kind of prefer if you would lie on this one, actually.

1:46:00 I'm happy to completely suspend what I know about it.

1:46:04 Should we retcon it? Let's retcon it.

1:46:07 Yeah i won't be able to keep it up i'm guys are lying.

1:46:11 What if we lie for you bad what do you mean you won't be able to keep it up you you're like i can't.

1:46:15 Be within the same time zone as.

1:46:16 Mike i get it i get it like lying is rough because it's like i always think about like people that murder people and they're just living their lives and they're just like oh you just have to like hope all the time you don't get arrested for murder and you gotta lie all the time about that murder like that'd be a rough existence i could yeah that'd be rough.

1:46:32 Also, the murdering of someone would weigh on me in a way that not having to explain this weird quirk would be like, oh, relief.

1:46:38 I don't know.

1:46:39 I'm talking about the Curb Your Enthusiasm after effects of the murder.

1:46:42 I feel a bit ashamed about the apple thing. I think I deserve the little bits of ribbing I get about it.

1:46:47 I don't want to excuse myself from it.

1:46:49 Okay, well, that's different. Yes, that's different.

1:46:52 If you have some weird perversion where you're.

1:46:54 Getting off on this one.

1:46:55 I'm an honorable person, grub.

1:46:58 Sure. Okay.

1:46:58 Chat says, bullshit, Dan. You fucking love lying. No, I love working. Working and lying are two different things.

1:47:05 That's right.

1:47:06 Working is for bits. Lying is unscrupulous. I've used that word twice today.

1:47:12 Patrick from England writes in. Hey, y'all. I'm catching up on a bomb cast backlog and just heard you talking about using walkie talkies in a theme park. A few years back, I was living in a two-floor apartment with a couple of people, and we bought walkie-talkies to communicate as a joke. Our comms got more lewd and inappropriate over the course of several days until we heard someone else we didn't know on the line. Oh, no. Turns out a daycare a couple doors down.

1:47:39 Was using walkie-talkies for their staff.

1:47:42 And I guess we were on the same frequency or something. I guess my question is, what's the closest you've been to accidentally being put on a list? Love you all. Patrick from England. You don't have to actually answer that question.

1:47:54 No, but I definitely have had weird stuff with walkie talkies where it's like, oh, this isn't just like tapping into someone else's walkie talkie. This is tapping into someone's like wireless phone back when we had like wall.

1:48:04 Oh, yeah.

1:48:05 I was like hearing some random like one side of a conversation.

1:48:08 And it was like, that is what it's like.

1:48:10 Oh, that's why all this FCC stuff is on here. It's like it's not supposed to do that. You can get in trouble if you use it to do that. And I definitely felt dirty when that happened for sure.

1:48:19 Yeah. a, I think of like what my dad described on the dump truck where it's like, he needed to pee really bad. And I think he specifically said like, oh, I'm trying to do it, you know, covertly. So don't get put on a list. Like I do think, cause I suffer from the same, like I gotta pee all the time. And especially when I was doing like the long runs and stuff like that, sometimes you're like, on a trail or something. It's like, I need to fucking pee.

1:48:37 And there's no bathroom around. And like trying to figure out how to urinate in a way that like, no one can possibly see you here.

1:48:44 And it's a, you know, it's, it's, it's a skill. Definitely.

1:48:48 Did you have any close calls?

1:48:51 Um, no, I know there were a couple of times I just had to go into the woods.

1:48:54 I mean, I always went far enough into the woods that like, I'm just trying to.

1:48:58 Evacuate as fast as possible. And I don't hear any footsteps coming either way. It's like no close calls or anything, but you always worry that someone's going to walk by and you have to be like, sorry, you know, but like that does not happen.

1:49:06 No. I mean, you're just pissing.

1:49:08 Yeah. I know. It's not a sex thing. It's just piss. Yeah.

1:49:11 You're facing a tree, you know, you go at least 15 feet into the woods there.

1:49:15 You're good. Yeah.

1:49:16 Yeah, I had that dream where I was flicking it. That was the closest I got recently.

1:49:20 I was scared. Was it a dream you had? Yeah, and then you keep telling everyone you meet about it. Oh, I know.

1:49:24 I remember the dream.

1:49:25 It's a dream, though.

1:49:25 You can't prosecute people. You definitely thought you were going to be.

1:49:29 You definitely thought you were going to tell people because you thought you were going to get in trouble for having this dream.

1:49:34 You can't prosecute people. Don't worry. I mean, you can if you want to. We have a super chat about that coming up. Okay. He said prost.

1:49:44 He, like, conflated prostate with prostitute. I got prostate and prosecute.

1:49:49 Prostitute.

1:49:50 Which is... Which is... That's fine. Appropriate.

1:49:53 Yeah, if it's something adult, it's okay. Yeah.

1:49:56 I'm not going to yuck anyone's yums. Yeah.

1:49:58 Maybe prostates are cute.

1:49:59 I don't know. Mikey B. writes in. Mikey, this is appropriate because you were asking about Masquerade. Hello, Giant Bomb. Please forward to Mike Benati, if not read on the Bombcast. This is Mikey B., and last fall, my wife and I took a trip to New York City, and we were lucky enough to see Masquerade while we were there. First, an explainer of what it is. This is a full production of the entire Broadway show with Broadway-level actors in production.

1:50:25 It felt in no way like we were getting a lesser version of anything. You and the rest of your group of around 30 or so all decked out in formal silver and black costumes. and a masquerade mask, brought or provided, as required, are shepherded through the musical in different rooms and sets. You are right there inside the show, and people talk to you and interact with you as the show is happening right in front of you. It was a highlight of our trip, which included seeing Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter performing Waiting for Godot. Oh! I saw they were doing that. I don't know.

1:50:56 Oh, Jim, was this a Clibber thing?

1:50:59 No, this man said prostate cute earlier. It's fine. Okay.

1:51:05 Bill and Ted are doing Waiting for Godot that's awesome.

1:51:08 I don't know if they still are I think they're done but boy I would go.

1:51:12 See that That's cool that's very cool.

1:51:14 Yeah yeah Was I that jam sorry A little bit more if you're a fan of Phantom It's essential if you're a fan of musicals in general It is still fantastic if you're just a stage Production nerd it is fascinating as there Are.

1:51:26 Like five shows happening all Simultaneously in like 30 minutes Split from each other all with their own lead cast Members damn that's a big ass cast It was awesome. Highly recommended. If you have any questions about it, please let me know. Mikey B, I'm from my iPhone.

1:51:39 It sounds like the immersive theater stuff, right? It's like Sleep No More, but for Phantom of the Opera called Masquerade. Sleep No More was very Phantom coded, right? Yeah, it's a smart idea, right? Yeah, it's very cool. It's based on Macbeth. That's right.

1:51:58 I do think I would like to do this. Now, my girlfriend has... voiced reservations about the interactive element, which is way up my alley, right?

1:52:06 Sure. Like, yeah, talk to me. I want to be part of the show, right? Like, that's my thing.

1:52:11 But I think you could shield for that, because, like, that stuff kind of gets sucked into, like, my personality vortex anyway, so I think she'd be safe.

1:52:21 Mike, would you do the game like Michael Douglas' David Fincher's The Game?

1:52:25 If it was your choice, we would do it to him. That should be an incentive for the bomb-a-thons. We put Mikey in the game. What's the game?

1:52:33 Hey, guys, put me in charge of it. No. For Mikey's sake, no.

1:52:38 Honestly, do we fake manslaughter, dude? You're the first.

1:52:44 Yeah.

1:52:45 What I don't understand.

1:52:46 I like the game. Yeah.

1:52:49 The thing that you have to say out loud about that film is that they literally needed him to want to commit suicide.

1:52:58 Right.

1:52:59 So my version will be different. It's not going to end there. It's going to be the fun, the game.

1:53:02 They're like, and Sean Penn's like, well, you know, I'll get my brother to want to kill himself and that'll be the grand finale. And it's like, oh my God.

1:53:10 I'll do fun stuff. Like when he thought he was drowning in a car and stuff like that. Like guys are going to murder you. I'm not going to make Mikey kill himself.

1:53:16 No.

1:53:16 Like it's going to be a fun ending. Yeah.

1:53:19 I want it to be called The Goof.

1:53:22 The Goof. The Goof. We're goofing. We're goofing here. Oh, man. Go dot.

1:53:29 They do have some tickets on a Tuesday that I can see this.

1:53:33 Mikey, if I was headed to East Coast earlier, I would go with you in a heartbeat. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh. it's expensive, but I kind of want to do it. Do it. Because she's leaving earlier Tuesday.

1:53:46 Part of me is like, is this the thing I go to by myself with that interactive element? I'm just going to be this guy who's by himself.

1:53:51 You will not be the only guy like that there. You'll be fine.

1:53:55 Just so you know, this is what a normal conversation with Mike is like.

1:53:58 Yeah.

1:53:58 Just so you know, this is exactly what it feels like. He's like, can I afford it?

1:54:01 I could start selling my prostate cute pictures and it's all.

1:54:03 That's right. That's right. Okay.

1:54:05 Yeah.

1:54:05 Forget a meat cute. We're all about prostate cute now. A lot of shows. A lot of shows.

1:54:09 There's a, 8.15 is the latest show. If any of you are coming in earlier on Tuesday, I'll let you know.

1:54:14 We'll see.

1:54:15 I'm going to talk about this because I want to do this. I'm seeing Hades Town for sure. Try to think about other New York things I want to hit up because I'm going to have more time.

1:54:22 Yeah. Yes.

1:54:23 You're around Friday night, right?

1:54:25 Yeah. I come on Friday night. All right. We'll talk. Yeah. We'll talk. We'll talk. I'm going to be there. Yeah.

1:54:32 I get an early Friday, really. So it's going to be a whole long weekend and then I'll see you guys in Jersey.

1:54:36 So that's a lot. Go with Will to his improv class, maybe. Will, do you want to see Masquerade with me? We will take his answer off air. Sean writes in, not our own Sean, but a different Sean, writes in real quick with, Is it just me or does this Taz action figure look like Bad Boy of Games Media? The Bad Boy of Games Media. And then I pasted it.

1:55:01 There's a Mike Minotti action figure. That does look like him. Except he's wearing sunglasses and Mike's eyes are too strong for that.

1:55:08 Mike, can you say, but I digress?

1:55:10 But I digress. Oh, wow. Okay. Can you say like, oh, look at Podcast Jones here. I look at.

1:55:16 Podcast Jones here. Okay. That's not exactly Taz. I feel like.

1:55:21 No, no, no, no. Hang on. Backlar only knows like 1997. I know. It is definitely Taz now.

1:55:26 15 minutes of Taz.

1:55:26 Okay.

1:55:27 And it's just Red Hook, Brooklyn.

1:55:30 Yeah.

1:55:30 You know, Taz going through a hole with Bam Bam Bigelow.

1:55:33 Yeah.

1:55:33 Current Taz is a whole different beast. I was in that hole.

1:55:36 Yeah. Bam Bam hole. Yeah. Bam Bam hole. Bam Bam. It's cool. Bam Bam. Um, Travis Safarga writes in, he writes in five questions. I choose one of them. This week, Travis asks, what enemy type would you delete forever or make illegal? I'd say any bad guy that explodes and does damage when they die.

1:55:54 All the bugs.

1:55:56 All the bugs.

1:55:57 I hate bugs. If your shooter has a bug arc to it, I hate it. I hate how you have to shoot bugs. I don't want bugs the size of ponies. I think that's so stupid. I'm over that, except for... other bugs which we'll talk about in weeks to come but i don't i don't like those bugs i don't.

1:56:15 Like snipers that you can't reach them like melee like they're just.

1:56:19 Off screen kind of like one hit kill you sure.

1:56:21 Yeah i just it's i mostly just find them annoying there's always ways to deal with them but i don't ever find that too much fun.

1:56:27 I uh never liked bats i thought bats are always annoying they'd always be too high uh it's the 2d games especially because like it's not the A lot of times they'll be perched, and they're invulnerable while they do that, so you have to get close enough to get them unperched, and then they float around, and you can't reach them, and then some other enemy shows up and.

1:56:44 Is attacking you, and that's when the bat makes their move. Yeah, they're annoying.

1:56:48 And in Ninja Gaiden, it's like, oh, I'm going to back up, and then it causes it to respawn, so you just get 10 in a row, and it's a nightmare.

1:56:55 I don't like swarms of enemies. I hated the flood in Halo. Little strippy dudes.

1:57:01 That's like bugs to me, right?

1:57:04 Medusa heads. Oh, God, they're so hard.

1:57:06 I mean, I kind of like how difficult they are to deal with sometimes, but they are annoying.

1:57:11 They get me a lot. They get me a lot. The Flea Man.

1:57:14 We're just naming different Castlevania guys now. Yeah, a lot of, like, erratic, boob and ladder assholes. Castlevania enemies are like that.

1:57:23 Yeah, yeah.

1:57:24 The Sun in Mario 3. That's a wonderful idea.

1:57:26 That's kind of fun. Jumping the Tornado.

1:57:29 Yeah.

1:57:30 All right, folks. Just a couple more emails here before we get to Super Chat. Pat from Milwaukee writes in, hey, Bombcast boyos. Question for the zaddies in the group. Jeff and Jerf. My son turned four this summer, and I'm trying to figure out how to navigate gaming with him. How did you guys decide on letting your kids play games?

1:57:49 I'd like to be thoughtful about what games I show him as far as being just a sensory overload versus something that's fun but also gets the wheels turning in his brain. My wife and I have started talking about screen time as well and whether video games would replace the screen time we allow him already or whether it's appropriate to allow video games in addition to watching shows.

1:58:08 Can you give me your insight? in what worked or didn't work for you guys? Much love, Pat from Milwaukee.

1:58:13 I do use all the family app stuff to like, cause you know, a lot of times I'll be working like in the summer I'll be working and I can't like go up and like necessarily look exactly what they're playing. So that tells me what they're playing and how long. That stuff is pretty handy. It's also a little cumbersome, but it's worth getting set up. And I do that for it's like set up on Windows and set up on Switch and Xbox and stuff like that. And then the games themselves. I mean, you just can't you can't go wrong with Minecraft. Minecraft is so creative and and kind of teaches all the basic skills of playing just about any game that I kind of feel like if you introduce in the Minecraft, see if that's their jam.

1:58:52 And that's going to be way better. Their friends are going to be like, hey, let's play Roblox. And you kind of have to cut that off at the pass and put Minecraft in front of them instead.

1:59:01 And then, yeah, I don't know.

1:59:02 Just try a bunch of different stuff. My kids, it was pretty easy because they burn really bright for two weeks and then they'll put something behind them. So it was never going to take over their lives. Minecraft was maybe the closest to doing that. But even that, they'll put down for months at a time and then come back to it.

1:59:18 Okay. I got several nephews.

1:59:22 And so my brother-in-law had them just playing like NES games for like most of their upbringings, like show them Pac-Man and things like that. And I guess just recently he told me that he introduced them to Ocarina of Time and it just.

1:59:34 Blew their minds. Really?

1:59:35 That's the most modern thing they've ever seen. They're like, this is incredible.

1:59:38 Like this is cutting edge.

1:59:42 I've always heard guys talk about that. I'm going to start my kids on 8-bit stuff. I'm like, that's crazy. But to hear that that Ocrude of Time blew a kid's mind in 2026 or whatever.

1:59:50 Yeah, like in the last month.

1:59:51 That is weird.

1:59:52 That's crazy.

1:59:55 I can't remember... What was it? How we get them started? Is that what the question was?

2:00:01 Well, one of the aspects of like, how did you introduce what worked, what didn't work?

2:00:05 I was very... I mean, I remember when he was born, it was like Wii U and Mario Maker stuff. And he was enamored by the look of that stuff. He wasn't playing. I remember giving him the tablet as like a little toddler and just be like, what's this fucker going to do? But it wasn't until we moved out here and he started getting his hands on, if you'll recall, Donut County. Donut County was like the game that taught this kid how to play video games. He finished it.

2:00:37 He loved it. And yeah, I mean, it's not really an answer, right? I think I'm just very hawkish with it. Just very controlling over what I wanted to introduce him to and what I thought made sense for him. And yeah, that's really it.

2:00:52 I mean, he is.

2:00:55 in my opinion, devolved into a Fortnite person. And that's kind of where he is right now.

2:01:01 Backlar, I'm curious. It seems like Dib may have been more used to touchscreen controls prior to a controller. You remember if there was at all a difficulty of picking up a physical controller?

2:01:15 Well, if you remember, he used to control the left joystick by pinching it. Oh, you know, he didn't use his thumb. He just sort of pinched it first. And that was how he moved it. He, he, uh, he was, uh, he wasn't a huge tap gamer. He would, he likes geometry dash. That's his big, like iPad game. But other than that, everything's console. Uh, that, I mean, I, I realized that's probably atypical for people, for kids his age, but, um, Yeah, I was just, like, super... I was just very helicopter-y with the games. I was like, you should play this.

2:01:48 I'm going to put this in front of you. And then, you know, they get older and they get friends and they want to play what their friends are playing. And that's really how it goes. That's nice.

2:01:58 Yeah.

2:01:58 I seem to remember you bringing in a Switch with, like, his first Mario Maker level. And I can't remember if we did it on content or not, but I think I remember playing a young Dylan's Mario Maker level.

2:02:07 Oh, yeah, definitely.

2:02:08 Maybe, yeah. Young Dylan heading to... uh, Paramount plus this fall. He did not be my levels for the record.

2:02:16 Young did.

2:02:17 Young did. Uh, two last emails here. Pierce writes in, uh, Hey Jan, simple email. What camera are you guys using for vlogging content? I saw in both recent travel logs that Grubb and Dan had these handheld cameras on a stick. It seems to have decent stability too. I was wondering if you could help link that or something. Thanks for everything.

2:02:35 GB crew, uh, Pierce, we, uh, I think I got the whole crew on the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. These Jimmy Jams, very useful. It'll record up to 4K. I believe it goes up to like 120 frames and everything. Very handheld. It's like a handheld gimbal and everything. Can't go wrong with these.

2:02:53 Yeah, it's got the gimbal built in. They're $ 11, 000.

2:02:55 Yeah.

2:02:56 I do want to get one, but I can't just buy it.

2:02:58 You get the Extra Muse is their U.S. brand that avoids the tariffs. And it's the exact same thing. It's X-T-R-A and then Muse.

2:03:08 Yes.

2:03:09 So you can look for that or the other and just kind of get whichever one has the best price at the moment.

2:03:13 Alternatively, I don't always mesh well with the Osmo, like the gimbal kind of being a little bit slow. It doesn't do all the things I need it to do. So I also, for Catch Me If You Dan, I use the DJI Nano, which is like this little jimmy jam. How do you like that? I love this thing back. This thing's great. Um, when Dan was in the Jetsons style car with our dear friend, Steve. It was a UFO. Uh, yeah, of course. Um, Dan was just holding this up, uh, by his arm. It was a great shot. Audio on it sounded great.

2:03:49 Uh, I did go to film school, so not everyone can replicate that.

2:03:51 Of course, of course, of course. Um, and, um, yeah, this, this, this thing's a little neat. The little screen bit here, you can monitor the, the actual view of the camera. um and i would recommend these jimmy jams i am kind of thinking about trying to get the new osmo pocket four with the two cameras.

2:04:09 Oh sure the p right.

2:04:11 No not the p there's uh the four or the four p.

2:04:15 I think it's the four p has the two lenses yeah.

2:04:18 It's got the two lenses insta 360 also has like their equivalents of like the osmo that look really cool um I just need to stop buying cameras. It's my advice.

2:04:28 I genuinely think if you can find like a used Osmo, which you probably can't, but I don't, I, for everything I've seen is, um, indicates that like the, the upgrade to the four, maybe the four P is a different story, but everything I've read is that the upgrades, if you have the three, you don't need the four.

2:04:44 Yeah.

2:04:44 I've been loving my three. Cause I, yeah, I use it for the road trip. blizzcon the disneyland um travel log that's going to be going up soon so it's been.

2:04:53 Awesome it's become like the go-to yeah yeah for the better part of it it's like one step above just point and shoots like i have enough of the options for things for me to do but it's just very intuitive.

2:05:02 And very easy also if you're in like the dji ecosystem like these little mics that they also sell sync up to them perfectly like you just.

2:05:11 Flip this on it It's got a USB-C in it. I plug for the Sleep Demon videos and stuff like that. I just plug the USB cable for the dongle for my Rode Wireless Pros, and it just syncs that up, and the mic audio goes right into it and goes right to the SD card. So, yeah, it's very, very handy and durable and, yeah, nice.

2:05:31 And the same way that Chuck and I did a little coffee stream last week, I've been wanting to just do, like, a little camera stream or camera video of, like, hey, these are things I like. I see some people asking for like, oh, I want a nice compact point and shoot. Gang, let me put you on game. Forget the X106. Forget the Ricoh GR4. Go get this little thing. It's a Godox 100. It's got a clear thingy jam here. You just hit the button. This is your viewfinder. There you go.

2:06:01 There's your little camera. It looks like your pictures are out of perhaps the early 2000s. That does look like a pocket station. I got to say, it did work, Jan. You said, forget those other cameras. And I have no memory of ever knowing about them. Wow. Impressive stuff, Jan. What's that power?

2:06:15 Fantastic.

2:06:16 Last email of the show comes from John from Greece.

2:06:18 Oh, hello.

2:06:19 Yo, Giants. What do you think is an ideal video game length? Single player narrative linear games. Example, Resident Evil. I think 10 to 15 hours is good for open world games and RPGs. Example, Elden Ring, Blood of Dawn Walker. I like 35 to 50 hours. What do you guys think? Any other genres? John from Greece. Man, I don't know.

2:06:38 I feel like 15 is even pushing it for Resident Evil as much as I love those, right?

2:06:43 Sure.

2:06:43 Those classic ones could even be just eight hours.

2:06:47 Onimusha, which I am enjoying, I'm at the 17-hour mark, and it's clear there's still quite a bit left. I'm like, we could kind of start wrapping this up a little bit, guys.

2:06:57 This is a 20-hour game, really?

2:07:00 I think 10 to 12 is mine, unless it's like a breath of wild or something. That's like a generational, like all time caliber thing. But like, I'm seeing that with control now, like control resident. I'm like probably 15, 16 hours in. I'm like getting kind of annoyed by this game at this point. I'm kind of okay for it to wrap up. And Onimusha, I still like a lot, but it's like, again, getting a little long in the tooth for me. So yeah, 10 to 12 is my sweet spot.

2:07:21 It's proportionally related also to my age. Like, The older I get, the shorter I want it.

2:07:26 Right?

2:07:26 Like, to me, eight hours and I'll kiss you on the cheek. Like, that's exactly what I want.

2:07:31 I've not had time to play games on the weekend for, like, the last several months because I've been busy doing other stuff. And it's like, man, yeah, a couple hours or an hour a night here and there and I'm trying to fit stuff in. And it's like, yeah, man, ten hours for a game campaign is enough.

2:07:47 I've been stun-locked by Fire Emblem. For some reason, just knowing how long that game is, like, and I'm enjoying it alright. I guess I'm not like, in love with it after playing it for five hours or whatever. I'm not going back to it a lot of nights, really.

2:08:00 I'm kind of just like, what's the point? I'm not going to bid this game for four months anyways. It's that, like how people have said it, it's obscenely long that keeps me from wanting to engage with it. It's the same thing with the Octopath series. I've heard those are incredibly, really good JRPG stories. But hearing that it may not be good until hour 70 or 80 is insane. Like, I don't want to occupy my time like that much slogging through a game to get to the good stuff.

2:08:31 Right.

2:08:31 I think Silent Hill Townfall is also way too long for the game.

2:08:35 Did you finish it?

2:08:37 No, I threw it in the trash because I hated it. Oh, my God. I wasn't that.

2:08:41 Oh, okay. All right.

2:08:43 Well, we'll see.

2:08:43 Oh, yeah.

2:08:43 I think you were out that week when I talked about it. Oh, yeah. He was not into it.

2:08:47 He threw it in the Trish.

2:08:49 He's not into it. He threw it in the Bammer. In the Trish. I've not heard people, I've not heard much discussion about that game.

2:08:56 I think, you know, from what I played, I understand mostly where Jan's coming from. I also was, going through it with eyepatch while we were going back and forth while we were playing it and we had the same qualms i think this is like the first you know bit of a misstep in that otherwise pretty consistent uh uh trio that they have come out with if you want to include the remake of two.

2:09:23 Like the story and you if you want to do annual releases you're gonna probably have a couple of those every once in a while yeah.

2:09:29 Yeah That does it for emails. Bombcastatgiantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to. If you didn't get on the show, please keep writing in. Don't be discouraged. Because since next week, we are gearing up for the Giant Bombathon on October 15th and 16th. We're going to pre-record next week's podcast so we don't miss a Tuesday.

2:09:51 We're going to be recording it this Friday. We're going to do an email grab bag. So send all of your emails, too. We're going to try and rapid-fire get through as many of them as possible, gang. We don't want you to miss listening to us on a Tuesday. So we're going to go prerecord that. A lot of folks are traveling out or prepping and getting ready for the Bombathon later in the week. I'm going to be masquerading. Yeah, Mike Minotti might be masquerading. Folks at home, bombcast at giantbomb.com.

2:10:25 Send your emails over there, please. But after that, Mike Minotti, can you hit me with some YouTube Super Chats, if we have any?

2:10:34 We definitely do, and I would love to read them. Starting with BigFresh37 says, Both Jeffs hope you needed another game to take like 30 plus hours from you this month. Because they announced tape-to-tape hits 1.0 in October.

2:10:48 Oh, really?

2:10:49 Okay, I would want to check that out.

2:10:50 I would go back and check some of that out, too.

2:10:52 Yeah, I'm curious to see how they develop that over time.

2:10:54 Cool, cool, cool.

2:10:55 BigFresh37 says, I think Gears plus Galactic Racer today is my personal best two-game release day since Twisted Metal Black plus Sonic Adventure 2. What say you? I mean, that Animal Crossing.

2:11:10 Doom Eternal one was always so fun. Which one was that, Dan? Mortal Kombat and Portal 2. In like 2011 or so? Oh, wow.

2:11:17 Between Galactic Racer and Gears of War, which one's Barbie and which one's Oppenheimer?

2:11:23 I mean, Gears is Oppenheimer. I was going to say they're Barbie. Gears is Barbie? Yeah, I just want Dom and Marcus to kiss finally. Oh, yeah.

2:11:34 They need to bang and get it over with, right?

2:11:36 Yeah. Yeah.

2:11:38 Martin Hollis is aware the year has had a lot of great content, but would you put it up like 1998, 2004, Citra is one of the best years of gaming?

2:11:45 No. No. We don't have.

2:11:47 I think I've seen some of you say this. There's been so many 9 out of 10s and 8 out of 10s. There haven't been a ton, if any, 10 out of 10s. Maybe the only 10 out of 10 I played this year, for me, is Big Walk, right?

2:12:00 It's great. Sure, sure.

2:12:02 Not enough of those kind of games to make it an all-time great year.

2:12:05 It's a good year.

2:12:06 This is an all-time great year for me. I was thinking about that the other day where it's like, yeah, you're right. Everything you said is right, but there's been so many 8.5 plus games, so many that I can't help but put it in that echelon of, oh, this is an all-time.

2:12:22 Great year for me.

2:12:23 I actually, they said 98 and 04, which both incredible, but 01 I think is my favorite ever. That was, it wasn't the PS2 launch year, but it was the year it had GTA 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Final Fantasy X. 2001 was also Halo.

2:12:38 It's Halo. It was the GameCube and Xbox launchers. Yes. Smash Bros. Melee. Smash Bros. Melee. Yeah.

2:12:45 Was Metroid Prime that year?

2:12:46 No, that was later. No, that was later. Prime is later, but yeah. Yeah, but 01 is incredible. Pikmin, Soul Calibur 2 would have been 2001. Yep, yep. KOTOR maybe? KOTOR is later, much later.

2:12:57 Oh, KOTOR was maybe the 04 one.

2:12:58 Yeah, maybe that's later. Yeah, that's later.

2:13:00 Yeah. Yep.

2:13:01 Um, there's some good years.

2:13:02 I think about, yeah. Oh, four 98 do stand out to me quite a bit. So I'll have to look again and see what some other one. I mean, then there's like, you know, the 2017 ridiculousness, big stuff. Uh, DD Daniel says, on the spectra of Top Gun versus Tom Clancy, Ace Combat sits firmly within Mobile Suit Gundam.

2:13:23 Ah, okay. Okay. I asked him about that. It makes sense, actually.

2:13:26 Which I'm not, my friend made me watch that Endless Waltz Gundam Wing movie when I was in high school, which was good.

2:13:33 Gosh. But that's all I've ever seen of a Gundam Wing. I thought that was like the most beautiful thing as a youth. It's a good name. It's a good name. Yeah.

2:13:43 Uh tomorow says can't watch live peace be with you mike thank you tomorow also is with your spirit that's taking me to church today uh yoda says mike just got back from my second colonoscopy in two years i'm getting old sucks what's your go-to meal after words i usually just want something kind of greasy and quick so some usually some sort of burger or taco situation Like a Taco Bell would be pretty good. Something where I can get a lot of food very quickly because I get hungry. Yeah, the colonoscopies are taxing, so sorry to go through that. But hey, getting old sucks, but it beats the alternative. So you hang in there, Yoda. I hope everything's going well for you. Zombie Porn says, you should make Grub set up the Big Walk VR mod,

2:14:24 then immediately put on that helmet thing that makes it so he can't see for the entire street.

2:14:32 That's funny. I think I did hold on to that, Mike.

2:14:34 Yeah.

2:14:35 Oh, right, right, right.

2:14:36 Yeah, because when we did our test, we realized that we didn't have our egg, so Grubb and I went to just go grab that one egg we already got, which was the one from that mission. And I was like, Grubb, hold on to this helmet so it can also be spotted with us.

2:14:48 I mean, that's just torture. It's like legitimate torture. It's like cruel and unusual.

2:14:53 But it was funny when we did it to Dan.

2:14:55 Yes. That's an exception to the rule. I'm just saying it sounds like torture.

2:15:00 Thursday, big walks back, everybody. We should be good.

2:15:02 We should be finishing the fight.

2:15:05 Ed Bagel Jr.

2:15:06 who's been a Giant Bomb premium member on YouTube for four months, thank you so much, Ed, says, not trolling. Hellblade 2 was in my top five in 2024.

2:15:14 Sure. Yeah, I definitely understand why people like it. That's fine, yeah.

2:15:18 Continues, we don't need a third, but Microsoft can piss off with the way they handled this.

2:15:24 Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

2:15:26 I think I saw someone chat, and I'd be like, oh, like, oh, so good. Companies can't, like, get rid of unprofitable, you know, sectors. I'm like, you should figure out how to make a Ninja Theory profitable, right?

2:15:38 I mean, come on.

2:15:38 Just don't shit on us and call it chocolate cake.

2:15:41 Yeah, also, you're lying to us, too. Like, yeah, it's insane. It's insane.

2:15:46 Eggie says, Mike, where does pumpkin carving fall on the produce's yucky, wucky scale? It's very wet and goopy, and it has a strong smell. So I don't like it. I can tolerate it a bit just because I love holiday-themed activities so much.

2:16:04 I'm sorry. I missed the beginning of the super chat. What is it? It's about the pumpkin carving situation. Oh, pumpkin carving. Okay.

2:16:11 You'll do that, though. You'll partake, yes?

2:16:13 I'll partake. A parent or an adult is going to have to get the goop out for me. I'm not.

2:16:19 Scooping.

2:16:20 I'll scoop for you. Someone else is scooping the goop.

2:16:24 Scooping the goop. Scooping the goop.com. Can we role play just a little bit? You have taken out the stem. And what's the first thing that comes out of your mouth where you're just looking at.

2:16:35 A whole big bowl of guts? I'm looking in there.

2:16:38 You're needed as an adult.

2:16:40 You know the sound that Lucy made in the Charlie Brown thing when the Snoopy licked her?

2:16:46 I'm going to make that noise. Go. Oh, sure, yeah.

2:16:51 And you say, I need an adult to remove the goop, please. I'll be like, Mom, Mom, Mom.

2:16:57 I kind of do repeat. I'll repeat, like, Mom, Mom, Mom. And she'll know. She'll know I'm in distress. And she'll come over and assess the situation.

2:17:04 That sounds like Mikey needs his goop removed.

2:17:08 Mom, help, there's goop. There you go. Good old pumpkin curry sounds great right now.

2:17:14 Sure. Yo, dip your pumpkins in what?

2:17:18 Vinegar, is it?

2:17:19 Is that how you do that? Make sure the squirrels won't eat them?

2:17:23 Oh.

2:17:24 What is it?

2:17:24 Oh, is that what you do?

2:17:26 Because I did have a squirrel. I already have a pumpkin on my front porch. Last year, though, the squirrels were getting into my pumpkin. So can I just spray them with vinegar?

2:17:33 Spray it with gasoline.

2:17:35 Well, I don't know. It's something. It is some sort of like home, the product you have at home. Coat the edges in Vaseline? That just sounds hot.

2:17:47 Yeah, that's just good. That's a good time.

2:17:48 That just sounds sexy.

2:17:50 Sir 5000 all right or to the goop troop yeah was that it for super that's it for super chats yes also yeah that was the last one thank.

2:18:01 You everybody his own yeah appreciate it cool cool.

2:18:05 Folks, that does it for this week's Giant Bombcast. Like we mentioned, we're going to pre-record next week's episode this Friday, so get your emails in. We'll probably talk about some other things we've been playing. Boys, this week, what do we got going on? Gay Mess Morning's popping off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, right?

2:18:23 That is correct. Beautiful. Tomorrow, Grubb, I'm so happy for you. I'm so happy to see my friends get past hard things in their life because... The national nightmare that was Grubber Dillo is now over. So Mikey. Thank you, Trip Hawkins. Thank you, Trip Hawkins. And with your spirit. Mike Minotti, it is your turn at the wheel for Flight Club.

2:18:47 Any last minute guesses you got? The wheel. That's appropriate.

2:18:52 No, because I could have like, oh, I'm going to look at a list of all the backwards compatible Xbox.

2:18:58 Games or whatever. Xbox 360 games.

2:19:02 And that may have narrowed it down, but that seems a little bit like cheating. I respect that.

2:19:05 I respect that, Mike. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

2:19:07 I'm a hero.

2:19:08 You would have gotten in trouble for doing that, I think. I would have gotten in trouble for doing that.

2:19:11 The only game that I know that's kind of bad that does have that is Sonic Unleashed, which is certainly not as bad as Sonic 06.

2:19:21 You're hairy enough, so we don't need to get a costume. I think we'll play it eventually. Yeah.

2:19:24 Anything else?

2:19:26 You got any lightning round of potentials you've thought about? And we will no-sell all of them.

2:19:31 Again, I know, I think the 50 Cent games are backward, but I thought people liked those games.

2:19:35 No, those are fun.

2:19:36 Right, those are good games.

2:19:37 That would be a delight club, if anything. Do I know what it is?

2:19:40 I don't think I know.

2:19:41 Oh, yeah, I think you do. The costume.

2:19:43 Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

2:19:44 Yeah.

2:19:45 He's going to look very cool.

2:19:47 Giggity.

2:19:48 He always looks cool.

2:19:49 Yeah. Yeah, it's true. I am excited.

2:19:51 I'm glad we're out of this.

2:19:54 Era of Blight Club. We were just playing some of the worst, most frustrating, difficult, ugly video games of all time. We're going to have fun tomorrow. This is going to be terrible. I hope you know this is a terrible game. It's going to be a bad game and I'm going to get like upset, eat spaghetti, a little glumpy sometimes.

2:20:12 Someone else said upset, eat spaghetti. I did it.

2:20:14 It's going to be good.

2:20:15 We're going to have a good vibe Blight Club tomorrow, everyone.

2:20:19 It's going to be great.

2:20:20 It will not be difficult for you to beat this game. no yeah again i beat this game it's difficult in ways that don't have anything to do with the game it can't be.

2:20:29 As sex pesty as leisure suit larry was maybe i don't know what.

2:20:33 You guys are complaining about it's fun like oh these games are fun oh i laughed so much during uh what was it cat woman yes cat was.

2:20:44 Fun yes i just remembered a game And now I wonder. Well, no selling.

2:20:49 Nope, shut your mouth. No selling.

2:20:50 There's nowhere to respond to say it.

2:20:51 You made it this far. Just shush.

2:20:53 No, just say it. I just want to start with my guess.

2:20:55 I can't remember what the name is called, but there's some kind of Mickey Rourke Xbox 360 game, I think.

2:21:00 Oh, Demo Dick Marcinko? What? Demo Dick Marcinko's Rogue Warrior, of course. Yeah. Rogue Warrior. Oh, God. That's one of my favorite quick looks in the history of this website. My guess is now Rogue Warrior. That's my guess. Okay.

2:21:13 Good answer.

2:21:14 Google Dick Marcinko. You agree with his politics. No, I mean, just look at the man.

2:21:20 He was at an E3 signing when this game was coming out. Yeah, I can tell you right now. I've seen Dick Marcinko at E3.

2:21:26 Oh, my God.

2:21:27 Look at this picture of this man. Jesus Christ. Jeez. There's one picture.

2:21:32 He has so much cheek facial hair.

2:21:35 That's strange. Got them chops, baby. Look at this image right here. Folks, we also have voicemail dump truck popping off on Thursday, and I'm going to continue to tease it. I think I got one of the Hall of Fame voicemails ever. And we're going to play them there. I'm keeping that.

2:21:51 You're hyping it up, man.

2:21:53 Because it's got the juice.

2:21:56 Dude, we just got out of an episode where we were like, this is undefeated. This is the king.

2:22:02 Yes. And the people are stepping up to the plate. All right, man. I respect it. I love our audience. 707 exit flu. Maybe you can outdo this caller. But also on Thursday, gang, Mikey mentioned it. We're going to potentially and hopefully get Finish the fight. Big, big walk is happening. Special shouts out to the whole team for getting the tech working just right. Chuck making a whole new service for us to use. And then also, as always, special, special, special shouts out to Turbo Sean, Sean McDowell for live switching that thing and listening to all of us having separate conversations today. yelling in his ear holes and getting the moments masterfully as they happen. Let me see some capital S's in the chat for Sean. And then to

2:22:51 end the week on Professional Fridays, I believe we're going to try and play some Galactic Racer, a little bit of Deadlock, programming notes as well, gang. We will be taking next Monday off to observe Indigenous Peoples Day. And yeah, the only other big thing to mention is October 15th, October 16th. The giant bomb-a-thon is coming to you. Two 12-hour days of streaming. It's going to be a lot of fun. We've had a lot of meetings.

2:23:19 Enough subs and we're the game in the mic.

2:23:22 Yeah.

2:23:23 Oh, boy.

2:23:24 If you liked Grump Snatch, here we go. No one's going to die. And when he says it like that Or want to die There we go No one's gonna die No well I'll sign the thing Saying no one's gonna die Let's just call it The 1997's The Game.

2:23:37 David Fincher Michael Douglas Charles Martinet Dies in it It tells.

2:23:41 The story Of a wealthy investment baker Who's given a mysterious Birthday gift by his brother Participation You love birthday gifts In a game That's true That integrates In strange ways Of everyday life Oh yeah I.

2:23:53 Want a CRS shirt. That's probably.

2:23:54 Yeah, that's a good one.

2:23:55 I've seen this poster with the puzzle pieces coming off his head.

2:23:58 Oh my God, a puzzle piece? Like a poster with Mike with the puzzle pieces, me in the background. Guys, I really want to the game, Mike.

2:24:05 I want you to too. It seems really complicated to game me. It's a benevolent thing.

2:24:11 I will need all of your data, like your fax machine number for some reason, keys to your house, car. I will need a lot of stuff from you.

2:24:19 1995 or whatever, like.

2:24:21 just get his email or discord login now do.

2:24:23 They ever do they ever uh uh go over the cost like i know sean penn at the end it's very it's a ton of money it's like presumably like 10 million dollars or something yeah i'll try to make it like a budget the game sure just argm Right.

2:24:39 Like an EA Majestic game? Yeah, let's blow through everything we potentially learn next week.

2:24:44 I'll just get you canceled and say that you vibe-coded my game.

2:24:47 Yeah, there you go.

2:24:48 I didn't know what that meant an hour ago.

2:24:50 And he's not gonna know an hour from now. At this point, it sucked.

2:24:56 I think every single time something interesting was brought up on today's episode, there was a chat that was like, oh, that was vibe-coded.

2:25:01 Shit!

2:25:02 It's all, everything. It's all of it.

2:25:03 It's great. It's great. Damn it! It's nothing but good stuff. Maybe just keep playing old games. or something like that. Folks, that does it for this week's show. Unless you guys got anything else we should shout out or plug.

2:25:16 Yeah, the Disneyland travel log again should be this weekend.