Giant Bombcast 963: One Kamehameha

0:01 Hey! Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, October 20th, 2026. Welcome to the Giant Bombcast. I'm your host, J.N.O. Choa. Joining me, as always, co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.

0:41 You mentioned Moral Oral before we got started. I think that's the first episode of television I ever bought on iTunes. And I think I only ever bought like three episodes of television on iTunes.

0:51 Holy moly. Weird. He just chimed in saying that was weird. We have the cursive dirtbag himself, Jeff Bacalar. Hey, what's going on, everyone?

1:01 How's everyone doing?

1:03 Is that a reference to like you were the only one that used cursive in your signature?

1:06 Oh, well, also, he has like great penmanship. He does. Absolutely. I was impressed every time I saw his name on one of the things from main gear.

1:17 Yeah, I forget how the Curse of Dirtbag nickname, maybe it's like a dump truck or something like that, but yeah, I'm a Curse of Dirtbag.

1:24 No one will ever know, but we have him slicing and dicing behind the scenes. We got the cut man, Will Crosby.

1:31 Hi, I cut things and I make them look good.

1:36 That's right. He's our own Sweeney Todd, Edward Scissorhands, who's another sharp man. No, that's it.

1:48 Shannon Sharp. Shannon Sharp.

1:49 There you go. Yes, yes. Will Crosby is our Shannon Sharp. Will, if you don't know who that is, don't bother. Don't worry about it.

1:58 Yeah, don't worry. I won't Google it.

2:00 It's fine. And don't Google this next guy. the Cleveland streamer, the bad boy of games media, Mike Minotti.

2:11 You know who has bad handwriting aside from me?

2:14 The Phantom of the Opera. He's too busy composing music.

2:19 Yeah, I got to keep one of his threatening letters when Will and I would masquerade.

2:24 It's hard to read. That looks nice. What are you talking about? It looks nice, but it's hard to read. Soon, all the world will hear my... Seems easy to read. No, I'm stuck on this one. It's music. What else could it be?

2:40 Soon all the world will know the wafflings of my mind.

2:46 Wafflings? Is he blind in one eye?

2:49 No, he's just disfigured out of it. Yeah, so he's not like a depth perception situation.

2:57 Yeah, he's not a depth perception expert. No, no.

2:59 Christine, your voice of loss shall soon end the world.

3:07 Masquerade!

3:08 Masquerade! Masquerade!

3:11 Like, no joke, that Masquerade, like, Masquerade has played in my head repeatedly since seventh grade when we played it in band.

3:18 Oh, hell yeah. My entire life has been going off in my head. It's so good. It's a banger. People don't know what I'm talking about.

3:24 Will and I saw this weird walkthrough interactive version of Phantom of the Opera in New York.

3:28 Don't say weird. You enjoyed it so much. It was so good. Parentheses! Pause it! Weird and unusual is what I mean. It was glorious. We loved it. Weird and unusual, just like us. Folks, we just came back from the Giant Bomb-a-thon, which happened last week, Thursday and Friday, October 15th and 16th. Shouts out to all y'all for hanging out and showing up and supporting us over here at GiantBomb.com.

3:53 Jeff Krupp, how were folks supporting us, and how can folks still support us right now?

3:59 Yeah, they went to GiantBomb.com slash join during the Bombathon to become a premium member. Premium members are the people that are going to get access to our premium exclusive shows as well as ad-free versions of all of our shows. We were doing a lot of cool new stuff like Premium 64. We got a rundown of what all that means.

4:19 But if you join up, you're going to be supporting independent games media. And we got the big message from all y'all that you want to keep doing that. And so we're going to keep doing cool stuff to make sure that the premium members are getting all the stuff we've always promised them. And just a couple of new things here and there for premium 64 for the true sickos.

4:34 We get you out there. Not that any of you aren't true sickos.

4:37 Thanks to everybody who just like showed up and watched as well. We get that things are.

4:41 Times are weird.

4:41 Times are also tight. And the fact that any of you showed up to support us meant the world to us. Jim, but Premium, Premium 64, we got a whole bunch of stuff to go over there.

4:51 For all you Premium folks out there, you can look forward to this week. Yesterday, we dropped the return of Metal Gear Scanlan. Peace, Reichardt. That's right. We went to a wintry cabin and found Drew Scanlan with a log over his shoulder building a cabin. And then Dan was like, hey, can you come back and help us do the show.

5:11 And he said yes! Also, folks, you can go watch the premium season of Blight Club where we blighted Jeff Backlar, put him in a catsuit. You can see that catsuit in the Giant Bombathon day one. You also get ad-free podcasts, ad-free shows of every single video we do all up on the internet and YouTube members as well. This week, you're going to have to our little cool cats out there got to wait maybe perhaps a day maybe a little bit later today for a new episode of Nine Lives of Mr. Mistoffelees. Lovely edited by Will Crosby over here.

5:49 Nine Lives of Mr. Mistoffelees, a little Skyrim show where Chuck makes it a not normal playthrough of Skyrim and Grub and I sit shotgun for that. We also have This is the Run, Sewer Shark going on, Winky Face. If you go watch that last episode from last week, episode 21, Mike Minotti brilliantly navigating the sewers. Folks, thank you so much for joining us for Premium and Premium 64. Boys, I understand how the Odyssey happened. Yeah?

6:20 Oh.

6:21 Yes. I understand how the Odyssey happened.

6:23 Oh, is it because Mary Kish booked the wrong Uber?

6:27 Yes. What? Oh, that's right. Does Jerf even know about this yet? No, there's a lot I don't know about. What happened?

6:34 Mary Kish is key to what happened in the events of The Odyssey.

6:37 Mary Kish, who we love and appreciate for coming down to Bombathon and joining us.

6:44 So shout out to Mary Kish. That cannot be overstated. Joined us. Absolute killer. Great to have her on the second day of the Bombathon. Mary Kish, the whole ride home was like, oh, don't worry, guys. I can order us an Uber to get to the airport because it was going to be Chuck. Sean, Dan, Mary, myself, and Mikey heading to the airport in the morning. Grub. I drove in a van by myself to New York. Don't let me forget about that, Grub. There's something about you also. Okay, hell yeah. Let's do it. And then the night before, Mary's like, oh, yeah, don't worry. I've ordered it already in advance. It's going to be here. It's going to be here at 930 in the morning. And it's 930 in the morning. And we're all waiting around. We're all

7:22 packed up. Dan did like a bagel order in the morning. So we're all waiting around in the haunted house. Oh, boy. And 9.30 is rolling. It kind of gets to like 9.35, 9.40. We're all kind of getting like, oh, I wonder where this guy is. The guy hasn't left yet. Checking her phone? Like, what's going on? And then Mary looks at her phone and is like, oh, shit. I scheduled it for tomorrow on accident.

7:50 Ugh.

7:51 So it's fine. Well, not on purpose, Jan. It's fine. It's fine. You know, we got home past midnight. So Mary technically ordered it for the next day. That's okay. Mistakes happen. It happens. It happens.

8:02 Sure.

8:03 That makes sense.

8:04 Dan had the earliest flight anyway, so I was fine. My flight was for hours.

8:07 Oh, yeah. Mikey and I were just chilling. We shared a donut. It was great. Why didn't you call me? I would have taken you. Oh. Oh. No. Well. It's fine. We didn't want to bother Dan. We didn't want to bother you. But, you know, we also didn't want to perhaps bother our dear friends over at Main Gear. So we also, speaking about Main Gear, we pile into this Uber.

8:30 Mary calls a new one, an XL to fit all of us. And we've been driving along. And at this point, I think everyone kind of recognizes the local landmarks that we see on the way to Main Gear. And then... Next thing I know, I see Sean in front of me. Sorry, Jeff's face.

8:48 If you're audio listeners, just go see that party, Scott. It's like when Mike talked about picking up stuff with his feet, but it was Dan making that face.

8:56 Oh, God. Jeff with a face. I see Sean. I'm sitting in the very back of the van, and I see Sean squint over at the map on the display of the van, and then he looks at Chuck, and then he looks at the map, and then he goes to Chuck, I hear him say, are we going to main gear? Oh my God.

9:19 I could just, the thing is, I could just like, I from here can hear the gears turning in Sean's head.

9:24 Main gears. Yeah, the main gears. Oh my God. And then Sean, the polite boy that he is, turns around, because Mary's sitting next to me in the back, and he just goes, Mary, where are we routed to? and then mary's just like oh fuck we're going to main gear god bless our uber driver because he was like yeah you guys were talking about going to the airport and i didn't want to say anything but i guess we can go to the airport now i.

9:55 Suppose earlier when we were waiting for the Uber that wasn't coming till tomorrow, like I was looking at like the lift options to see if like, you know, I don't know, they were faster.

10:06 I was like, Mary, what terminal are you in? She's like, I don't know. I'm like, that's weird. It should have asked you that when you put in like where we're going and things like that. Right. Right. Oh, my God. It was so freaking funny. I gotta say. She was really tired. She was really tired. Don't get me wrong.

10:24 She has all the excuses. I'm not saying there wasn't some stressful moments. But she travels a lot, right?

10:30 She travels a lot. 100%. That's my point. It's like she's always on the road. But one of the funnier things, too, speaking about the terminal thing, is that the Uber driver's like, what terminal are you going to? And then Mary just without thinking, terminal three. There's no three.

10:46 There's like one and four and five.

10:50 There's no two or three. They're just letters. She's like, turn on three. And he's like, no. Incorrect. Incorrect.

11:03 Are they building up B and a C? Is that what it is? No, there is B and C. There is a B and C. They talked about building a new one. The train I was on did not go to B and C. So I was like, is that where that's going?

11:14 Yeah. I didn't go to New York. I'm talking about a completely different airport. Excuse me. Oh, yeah. You're a different airport. Speaking about different airport. Okay. So Jeff Grubb tells us like, hey, I got to leave at 730 in the morning because I got to drive all the way back to JFK. I can't believe. Oh, God. Well, he was here. He got home. At least it was Saturday is all I can say. It was lovely. It was so beautiful.

11:33 Yeah, I'm sure it was nothing.

11:34 Fall drive. Yeah. Yeah. I wake up because I have to walk three blocks to get to a bathroom that I can use because out of all the 12 million rooms in this house, I picked the one bedroom without a bathroom. Like literally. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I got to walk to the main wing of the house. And then I pass by the front door. Front door. It is eight o'clock in the morning. Gaping wide open. Did it pack up?

12:02 Man, I closed it behind me, but I did not lock it. And I was worried that that would happen again.

12:07 So we got all murdered. Good.

12:12 I think what happens is in that house, when the heating kicks on, it creates just a slight suction effect. And it like pulls the door open. The door is big and heavy. You think that wouldn't happen, but.

12:22 Now it does.

12:24 It must not be latched though. Like the latch is probably not catching either.

12:27 I think it's, I'm the one who saw that happen the first time. So I knew it was a possibility as I was leaving, but I was also like, I'm not going to figure out how to lock this.

12:35 I just left. Yeah. So there you go. Also, I remember all of us woke up Friday morning and we didn't hear Mary get in because Mary got in super late. She had a very complicated travel day. And I just remember Sean and I in like the living room with the weird stripper couches, both of us looking over and wondering like, did Mary get in? And then we're just looking.

12:57 There's another pair of shoes here. I hope it's her.

13:02 You know, where that house was, you're fine with every door unlocked.

13:08 Maybe a bear's going to come in, but that's about it.

13:10 If someone arrived at the house with the intention of getting in, they went to a lot of effort before the door. They would not have stopped at a locked door. They would have thrown away into the house at that point.

13:21 That's right.

13:22 Honestly, I was just cooling off the house for you. Apparently, Sean was upset that you guys had it at 50 degrees. But I was also enjoying it cold. I had those windows open. I slept like a baby.

13:32 What a perplexing estate is all I can say. Yes. Truly. Truly. Great time in that house.

13:40 I was looking at everyone else's pictures that some people are posting on Instagram and stuff.

13:43 Like, yeah, this was a good time. Yes. Yes.

13:47 I will never forget the moment. I don't know who I was with. It was the first night on Wednesday when we all got to the house and we were just exploring and just everyone's mouth equally agape at like what we were seeing. And then I searched the address and found- It was you and Will.

14:02 Oh, yeah, me and you. Right? And then you showed up after Grubb.

14:07 I walked in and I saw your guys' faces and I'm like, I know exactly what has happened here.

14:11 The headline was just like some New Jersey newspaper being like- The horror house at blank, blank, blank address. And it was this house. And you're just like, oh, wow. This house has like a history of strange behavior. And it's 400 years old and all this weird shit.

14:27 It used to be a school. It used to be numerous things. Oh, that makes sense. Oh, my God.

14:32 I think we kept it from you, Mike. I think we kept this from you.

14:35 I think, yeah.

14:35 I think a lot of people assumed I was afraid of ghosts because I'm afraid of like roller coasters.

14:40 And those are just very different things. Because those are real.

14:43 Right.

14:44 Because those are real. Ghosts are real.

14:46 I was there for the Bailey incident where you irrevocably ruined your friendship with her.

14:50 So I know you don't care about ghosts. It's like, I need to tell you a story about a haunting.

14:54 I was like, Bailey, before you do this, you should know I don't believe in ghosts and your story will not convince me.

15:00 I gave her a warning and she went through with it. And at the end, I was like, yeah, ghosts aren't real.

15:06 Yeah, she's... she still brings it up to me she's still oh yeah i mean i like a good ghost story but i don't also need to like pour cold water all over and be like no this can't be heard because it's not real i mean i'll.

15:21 Only do that i'll only do that with like you know zodiac signs that's the only thing i will proactively pour cold.

15:28 Water that's my thing about zodiac signs ghosts religions, like all religions.

15:34 So it's like, to me, going to someone who believes a ghost and be like, that's not real, is like going up to a priest and being like, you've wasted your life.

15:46 I get it. I get it.

15:47 You know, I can't really mock it. I can't really talk down to it, but I understand where you're coming.

15:52 From, Mike.

15:53 Chad's really against me. They're really mad that I was a funny, funny duddy.

15:57 About the ghost story. This is the fun, funny duddy. I want to be clear.

16:02 Bailey went to, like, a press event for some horror show. I was like, at the press event, there were some ghosts. I was like, yeah, you don't say.

16:10 I'm not going to help you dig this hole deeper. I'm not going to do this.

16:17 I'm attempting to not pile on but can I have the context can I have the background story is this like a Bailey like Bailey is super into ghosts like for.

16:27 This at least for this event she was yeah like it was a voicemail dump truck what was it Mario Party Party yeah that's right or just we're playing Mario.

16:36 Party I don't know if there's a whole thing or not we're playing this is when I did the triple nine challenge and almost died.

16:41 Right yeah we're damaging ourselves in our relationships look.

16:47 We all know what's real and what's not the astrology stuff for me is like a bridge too far like i can i'll like happily get on but like i went on a haunted hayride over the weekend and that was phenomenal what the fuck i know jan i thought of you but we didn't have time there's no time.

17:04 I know we drove past several.

17:07 Yeah yeah they're they're all over you can't swing a dead cat without hitting seven of them um and you know uh like you know there was we had a friend who has a younger daughter and it was like her idea right she's like i want to go on this i'm like are you sure you're seven like you're there's gonna be like a man with a chainsaw and she lost it but i had to do the whole like it's not real it's not real it's not real so i have an easier time doing that than i do for like.

17:33 A strike can i shift gears into that concept just really quick um my nine-year-old unbeknownst to me over my shoulder, watched several minutes, very violent minutes of Invincible without me knowing.

17:48 Whoa.

17:49 And she seemed complete, not just unfazed, but deeply into it and like was asking me questions for the rest of the day.

17:56 And I was like, look, you cannot watch this. You don't.

18:00 It seems like it's not going to bother you. I kind of trust you on that. Nowhere are you watching this.

18:07 I'm not going to advocate for anything. I'm not going to say the gimmick should watch Jaws next. But no, maybe I was watching Dragon Ball Z around nine.

18:16 And like, yeah, but Invincible is like the.

18:19 Violent Dragon Ball Z for sure. Yeah. But yeah. No. No. Serial killer. Like, serial, that's what you got. Yeah, that's, I mean, pretty cool. It's adorable, wasn't it? Pretty cool. You gotta be fast. Put you on the map.

18:34 Jay, did you compare Dragon Ball Z with Invincible?

18:36 Well, just, like, the.

18:37 Exact same show, just one's more violent, for sure.

18:40 And, like, the grand scheme of things of, like, where TV was at, like, Dragon Ball Z was probably thought of as, like, super violent, right? What?

18:48 I mean, so the thing is, like, you know, she saw someone like I think she saw multiple people get their jaw ripped off and they don't cut away. Like, I'm like, I like to I'm like, how much how long have you been there? So it was and she just I think she is ready for Jaws, though. That is kind of what I'm getting at is she watched Jurassic Park. was super into it, leaned forward in all the scary parts.

19:10 Wow. And yeah, I just, I think it's, I think it's her jam.

19:13 Okay, cool.

19:14 Do you think she could handle, do you think she could handle large Marge?

19:20 That's a really good, I think that's, it is a good barometer, right?

19:24 That's on the, on the Mount Rushmore for sure. Yeah, I think she would be into it. I do. But who knows?

19:30 I think that may be something that, I think Steph was even saying that she would be willing to, like, try that out. And she is still scarred by Large Marge to this day.

19:37 Because Large Marge is, and I guess also, like, the weird, freaky doctor clowns who are, like, doing the surgery on the bike. That's a weird moment. That's the only two truly upsetting moments of that movie.

19:51 Right.

19:51 I think, yeah. We'll kind of ease into it. She definitely has a lot of curiosity about this stuff.

19:57 I love it. Yeah, me too. I'm into it. Gang, anything from the Bombathon or the weekend that was that we want to talk about before we get to games? Gosh, no. We had a really... Good time.

20:10 It went by fast. I was down there for a long time. Yeah, I was in New York City for a while. First, which was awesome. Along Masquerade, I saw Hadestown with my girlfriend, which was super freaking cool. I do so much money just seeing all these Broadway shows. Blue? What?

20:28 Blue? Is that what you said? You blew all this money.

20:32 No, I said I would lose so much money if I lived in New York City on Broadway shows.

20:37 Oh, okay. That's not what I got at all.

20:39 I heard you say, I blew all this money on Broadway.

20:43 Hey, I blew all this money on Broadway. I thought the fandom was going to win this time. It is funny. Christine, come on. Some of the gents.

20:55 Some of the shows they advertise for broadway they they do almost sound like like the simpsons parody of broadway shows like there's a lot of ads for an upcoming rock opera broadway musical musical about galileo that's just not that different from i i want to get off the planet of the.

21:12 Apes when i was there to decide what's art and what isn't what's happening y'all when i was there last year I wanted to see a bunch of shows in a couple days. I was in New York before the Game of the Year last year. And there was an Idina Menzel Redwoods musical where she was just singing about being in the Redwoods. And then they had a fake ski lift or a gondola, like the Sky Cable ones.

21:40 And she was just singing about trees. I'm like, wow, you can do anything when you're famous, huh? Yeah, right? Yeah.

21:46 There were, like, there's, like, a few musicals that seem to be running just by, just on star power alone. Like, you know, modern version of What You Do About Nothing, but the guy who's Loki is in it, so come see that.

21:58 They're gonna sing and dance for you. Why not, right? What is this attitude I'm detecting?

22:03 Like, what is this, like, laissez-faire Broadway attitude I'm detecting?

22:10 I think, like, I think I'm with Mike on this in that I grew up, like, in a world where broadway is a very specific sort of uh gated concept and it's like you had to like really get over that gate with something that was going to be very broadly appealing and now broadway is and now broadway well i mean right the cats it was always the the exception that proved the rule right that was always pointed out it's like this weird thing uh now it's like it really is getting into its bullshit era i think broadway and that's what i feel like whenever i see a new one of these things i I want to be clear.

22:43 I am incredibly pro-Broadway. Yes, you love it. You love it.

22:48 I'd see all of these shows. I would have seen like seven other shows if I could have.

22:53 I was up all night.

22:54 One of the nights is kind of reading like the Wikipedia pages for all 40-something theaters on Broadway. Being like, oh, it was the longest running show in this one, right? Oh, look, I'm very pro the Broadway things. But come on, it also isn't easy target for pointing and laughing at sometimes.

23:11 Yes, I understand.

23:13 Oh, look, we can all agree, Back to the Future perhaps has no business being on Broadway.

23:17 Oh, I do wish I saw that, though. Yeah, I wish I saw that, too, though. It wasn't that bad. I heard it was bad. Yeah, you liked it. I remember you talking about that. Yeah, I did.

23:26 I wish I saw the Rocky musical for the one little bit it played. I'm mad I missed SpongeBob because I listened to the recording of that.

23:35 It has some bangers in it. Yes, yes. You would have loved SpongeBob. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to be back in Jersey around December time, and I'm thinking about tacking on some New York time. There you go. I don't know if you want to see a show.

23:48 Jeff, can I ask you a question? The guys being, let's see, was it Dan and Jan were worried about the drive back to the place in the winter because of the roads. What do you think? I'm not too worried about it.

23:59 Of course not. Okay. No. Yeah, that's right.

24:02 There won't be snow, really.

24:04 I mean, even if it snows. Even if it does snow, though. Even if it snows, they do a great job.

24:10 Yeah, that was my expectation. It's like, I bet they do a great job.

24:13 Oh, yeah.

24:13 No problem.

24:14 I snow nothing. All right.

24:16 It's surprising to hear from Dan because he lives in the North Pole and he knows how towns respond.

24:22 The list of weird things that scare Dan, again, it's always so surprising. But yeah, I was like, okay, whatever, Dan. And Jen, who's never seen snow, was like, that's maybe a good point. I'm like, You're jumping in with Dan on this.

24:35 One, Jan. Let me help you out. Let's listen to the guy from the Bay Area in California. That's it. Game of the Year is canceled. Wait. Correct me if I'm wrong.

24:43 Weren't we there last December? I think so, but we didn't drive out to the middle of nowhere like this.

24:48 Oh, sure, sure, sure. We had a lot of weather delays last year because the snow was there. There was snow elsewhere. Yeah, there was snow. Actually, there was snow, right? There was, actually. There could be. There actually could be snow. Yes. Yeah. It could snow a foot. We'll be fine.

25:02 And like that vehicle we were driving, the minivan, it's made to like.

25:06 Handle stuff like that. I almost died in the back of that minivan. Oh, I heard about that. Yeah.

25:12 The back of minivan, back of three, three row vehicles. If anyone is susceptible to motion sickness, Steph is a little bit. And sometimes she has to sit back there. Like if the mother-in-law is here or something, we got the kids in the middle row. And I'm always like, I am doing my best to make this the smoothest ride in the world.

25:27 And there's just nothing to be done. It's still going to make people feel ill. We definitely changed up the location.

25:33 I mean, you guys ultimately should decide if you enjoyed.

25:36 Being where you guys were. I thought it was a nicer part of life. The house is handy, yeah. Yeah. But again, we're not far from too many amenities and stuff like that.

25:45 Sure, sure, sure.

25:46 We're at that place, so yeah.

25:48 Speaking of Dan, I see Maygear chimed in in chat that he.

25:51 Left his GPU there. What? That's a bummer. What? That's a bummer to leave behind like an $ 8, 500 thing. You're all bullies. Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mike. Did you say we're bullies? What has Dan ever done to you? I am, and I'm proud of it.

26:13 I explicitly reminded Dan that we had a whole meeting where we talked about this thing being a possibility. And he goes, oh yeah, I guess we did do that. And I'm like, and you still believed you got a 50-90? I don't.

26:26 Know if he said this on air, but after the bit, Couple hours later, I went up to him and I was like, oh, you're a good sport. And he's like, what do you mean? I really thought I was getting a GPP. People haven't seen the bomb-a-thon. We gave them a box filled.

26:43 With a 5090 shell and cooler and everything except for the processor, the system on a chip itself.

26:49 Right.

26:50 They had taken that all off to put a water block on it for water cooling.

26:53 Yeah.

26:54 So you get the weight and everything that a real-ass 5090 would feel like until.

27:01 You try and plug it in.

27:03 It wouldn't have worked if Main Gear wasn't so giddy about it.

27:06 They love this. They were the ones pushing it. No, no. See, the best part. They hate Dan. I'm in one of their bathrooms putting on the crow makeup, and then I just hear giggling happening outside the door. And I couldn't tell who from Main Gear it was, but I just hear two people saying, oh, that went so well. Hell yeah.

27:24 It's... Man, it's just, it feels good to feel like that place, you know, having that place is like a sort of, you know, home in a way, right? Like it just, it's a home.

27:36 And they're so, they get it and they get us and they're in on the jokes and it does feel like a cool little home for us. Like I'm very familiar and comfortable with the space now and yeah. Very grateful. I don't feel like we're in their way, which is so crucial to me. I always feel like I'm in people's way and like the fact that we're not is just, It's real nice. So really just feel grateful to them for that. Oh, go ahead. I was going to change the subject.

28:01 So please, I was going to say like, this was the thing where we were, we had the first time we met, uh, like, uh, maybe a month ago, we were talking about the bombathon stuff.

28:12 For whatever reason, this was like the first thing that came to mind.

28:16 This was like, okay, well, how are we going to figure out a way to like lean more into Dan's jealousy of the 59? It's like, really? You guys don't want to like try to do something else? We could like help sell stuff or whatever it is.

28:27 It's really funny. And I think it worked out great. And yeah, rock and roll.

28:33 I do have to change the subject because I'm going to lose my mind if I don't get this out of my head right now. I'm looking at Jan's camera, and I'm sorry this is going to be audio poison.

28:41 But I just have to do it. No, it's Exorcist, right?

28:45 His whole camera feed right now is reminding me of a cover of a video game, and I just want to see if you guys can guess what it is. I'm holding it in my hand right now, and.

28:55 I'll show you here. Is it Dark Souls?

28:58 It's not Dark Souls. It is generally considered to be a bad video game. Oh, that narrows it down.

29:05 But a recent release.

29:06 Yeah, I was definitely getting the priest going into the house and exorcist vibes.

29:11 For a bit there.

29:12 So the background color, the light shining through. Thief is not a bad guess. Thief's a really good guess. It does look like Thief.

29:19 It is very similar to Thief. Who am I? I'll just show you guys. It's reminding me of Redfall. It's Redfall. Weird.

29:28 I mean.

29:28 He kind of looks like this little vampire guy down here.

29:30 Yeah. Why do you have that right next to you? Yeah. People just send me Redfall, man. Don't be on Blight Club. It's a bad idea. Oh, wait. Wow.

29:39 Okay.

29:40 All right.

29:41 Go back to the 30 minute mark or so.

29:47 We will whale fall. Take it all together at Redfall. What a time that was when we played Redfall on the website. Remember that? That fateful afternoon, yeah. Speaking about time, Jeff Bacalar and Will Crosby, you futzed around with time in the Ocarina of Time remake because you two checked it out. You're damn straight we did. That's right.

30:16 We were in New York a couple weeks ago, and we got to play, I don't know, what was it, Will? Maybe like four sections or so?

30:24 Yeah, it was three actual sections. You went off the beaten map, and they couldn't say no to you.

30:32 I was too irresistible to go the long, long range. You were too intimidating. Yeah. Yes.

30:38 So yeah, so Will has, so full disclosure... And I might as well just get this out now, right? Like, I just got to get it out.

30:46 You've only ever shot an N64 with a gun. That's all you've ever really done with that thing.

30:50 That's right. The console confuses me, okay? The console, it's an enigma to me.

30:56 I never owned one. I only had one friend who had one. Long story short, I never played the original, okay? I never did.

31:02 Neither did I. Neither did I. Fling your dung in my general direction, okay? I've never played it. You know what? And I didn't want to play it at the time. I didn't care about it.

31:13 Do I want to play it now? You're goddamn right I do, because it's fucking awesome.

31:17 Okay.

31:18 Yay.

31:19 I mean, I guess this is the question about this game. Nintendo, I didn't include this in the news, so I'll just say it here. I think one of their South American executives was like, hey, we weren't expecting it to be like this.

31:31 We weren't expecting.

31:32 People to be so crazy for Zelda's 40th anniversary to the point where we don't think we've made enough progress cards of this game the cartridges we don't think we printed enough we don't think we have enough to satisfy demand in a bunch of different ways and it's like that only comes from the fact that Breath of the Wild brought in so many new Zelda fans or just ignited a passion in a broader audience and now that audience has turned its gaze to Ocarina of Time and I'm like oh are these people going to be disappointed now you obviously you have a different perspective Jerf in that you are at least you've been aware of what Zelda was before Breath of the Wild in a lot of different ways and obviously know that it was informed

32:10 by Ocarina of Time before this. So when you pick this up, like what is it doing that's making you want to play it so bad?

32:17 I think playing it compared to the last two Zelda games made me sort of realize like, oh, I'm, I think a lot of it too is also being able to recapture the thing that I've been missing out on and have it played through a contemporary lens. with modern qualities of life improvements and all that kind of stuff, which has me really excited. The vibe I got is that this is.

32:44 A bit more of like a linear, not linear. Linear is a no-no word.

32:48 It's not as open as Breath of the Wild.

32:51 It's a bit more guided than that. A bit more straightforward, right?

32:55 And I really just sort of like the theming that's going on here. I like the dungeon theming, and I like that. And I think there's like a spookiness to it that I was unaware of. quite honestly, uh, that is really, uh, is really speaking to me. Um, and I just think it looks and plays so phenomenally and kind of like carries the, the feeling that I got from breath of wild and tears of the kingdom that it's just like, Oh, this is, this is a great controlling, uh, super satisfying Zelda adventure experience. And it's like, now I get to do this in this, you know, beloved game and have it modern, you know, and updated, you know, all these years later. And for me, that's like the whole package and it feels digestible. It feels like I

33:44 can do this in a relatively reasonable amount of time. And I think that's what has me the most excited for what I did play. Obviously it was very, Felt very good watching Will play a lot as well. And I'm like, oh man, I'm really.

33:57 Feeling these puzzles.

33:59 I'm really feeling this sort of like action puzzling stuff. And yeah, that's the overwhelming urge to explore has me very excited for this.

34:09 Will, you've played through the original, right? Yeah. Yeah.

34:13 The original is one night. I try to play it like every other year. I was hoping to get to the point because every time I come back to it, I'm like, where do I go? and I end up checking a game pack. But I was starting to get to the point where I was trying to just do runs through it so I could do randomizer runs. But I'm still not... Every time I try to attempt that, I forget to do that again. But yeah, I've played it maybe 10 times.

34:37 Okay. Oh, my God. How did this one feel for size, then?

34:42 It felt great. I hate to... use this word or phrase, um, cause it's just, no, cause it's, um, just, it just sounds so.

34:55 Stupid. No, it's not, it's not.

34:59 Um, but it's like, it's like I am playing the game. I remember, um, From my memory, not the original game. That's right.

35:09 We talked about this. Yeah. Yeah.

35:11 And I tried to get them to print it on the back of the box. And they said, sir, the boxes have already been printed. And I said, God damn it.

35:17 I want Mr.

35:18 Nintendo.

35:19 Bring me the guru. Yeah.

35:23 For some reason, I always go back to this. I played a lot of Vigilante 8. on the N64 with my brothers.

35:29 Sure.

35:30 And, like, a couple years ago, I was like, man, that game looked incredible. Like, I need to go back to that game. And I loaded it up, and it looks like Hot Diary.

35:39 Yeah. San Francisco Rush. I'm like, there's no way it looked like this. Oh, no. Yes.

35:43 Yeah.

35:44 A similar thing. And so this looks, and again, Ocarina of Time emulated looks great, in my opinion, the original. But if you go back and play it on N64, eh. you're having without like a retro tank or anything like that.

35:58 It's muddy.

35:58 It's a bit of a muddy time. So this really was like, oh shit, I'm here. Like this feels good. And you're almost like, oh yeah, you could always jump, right? And you're like, yeah, of course you could always jump. And you're just convinced, you're just like, man, this is Ocarina of Time from 1998, 98 and re-released today. Like, it's just like, they never put it out and they're just like, oh, we're going to put it out in 2026.

36:24 It felt really good. It's funny, I pulled up on my other screen here, because you start in the forest, like waking up at Link's house and coming around, and I was convinced that they changed the layout of the area, and they did. So I pulled up, there's that Noclip website that you can just fly around.

36:43 Right, they have the maps. Yeah, not Daniel Dwyer, yeah.

36:47 Not Daniel Dwyer. I pulled up the Ocarina of Time map, and they moved a couple things, and I understand why, but that just whole area... It's still so stunning being able to go around to all the different people. And it's like the little tutorial area, how to pick up rocks, how to go get your sword, fight a couple things.

37:04 And most of that stuff's all the same. You're learning the same things. Again, you can jump now, which is really cool. And just being able to run around. I went and got all the rupees, just went straight to the store. There's the little girl on top of the store.

37:19 The Z-targeting girl.

37:21 Yeah, Z-targeting girl.

37:23 Mrs. Z-targeting. Yeah, Z-targeting, absolutely.

37:25 And does the same thing. It's like, hey, target me up here and talk to me. And I'm like, hell yeah. Go in, get the shield, go through. And then we got to go into the tree spirit.

37:37 The Deku tree. Deku tree. Deku tree.

37:40 I played Ocarina of Time 50 times.

37:42 I don't know the name of the Deku tree.

37:44 I skip all the dialogue.

37:46 You can't read. Yeah.

37:49 You didn't say he plays them well. Yeah, I play them well.

37:55 So... Okay.

37:58 So we go in there. That's where Jer first saw Skulltula. And I was, like, freaking out. Creepy. You get the... you have, instead of going into your menu to obviously change items, you have like a hot swap bar.

38:13 Yeah. How did that work? Uh, yeah.

38:14 Cause like, you know, for people that don't remember, uh, in 64, it was set up so that the, you know, the a was like your context sensitive button. Uh, the B was often like, uh, I don't remember sword. Uh, and then the bottom three C buttons were all mapped to different items and you mapped to the items yourself.

38:31 So you would go into your inventory and pick an item and put it on one of the C buttons. So you had always had access to three different things. And it looks like you might have access to just one at a time, but I haven't heard any previews complain about bringing up items. So how did that work specifically and how, how was it better or worse or different?

38:47 I'm not going to remember the specific button, but I want to say it was holding R1 or R2 to bring up the Breath of the Wild menu, and then you just switch over to the item.

38:57 Or the Echoes of Wisdom menu. They've used this now in multiple games, yes.

39:00 And then whichever one isn't that is the aiming button. which is probably just the trigger and then it you've it's not i mean it has motion controls but it's that nice balance of motion controls where i'm like using the stick to get close and then you kind of like adjust the controller a little bit and like get it right on target so i was just like quickly taking down uh because there's not just the skulltulas but like the regular spider guys and and taking them down and like clearing paths to go all the way up the like out of the ground scary flower guys right scared me a couple times pop out of the ground smack you and but the whole combat felt really good Z targeting still feels really great like in the tutorial

39:43 probably woke out targeting side flip yeah It's so... Actually, it is woke L-targeting. Damn it.

39:52 You got me, Mikey.

39:54 And yeah, it just... That whole section felt really good. We got to plunge through the spider web and land in the water. The water looks amazing. The next section, Bacalar got to play out in Hyrule Field, which is a classic area. This guy runs over to Lon Lon Ranch and we're like, can we go to Lon Lon Ranch?

40:14 And they're like, technically and i'm like you know i'm a big guy and i'm just like i was like we'll be on the outlet who went to lon lon ranch get in there cat jerk.

40:24 Man needed his milk yeah you're damn straight i did straight from the source baby farm the cat man listen i had never i'd never uh like you know been in that area so i how am i supposed to know that like the town square is the way to do it Will, be honest.

40:43 Like, we did, it did cause a bit of a.

40:46 Not a controversy, but people were talking.

40:49 Like a stir?

40:49 People were like, Nintendo people or, like, other people?

40:52 Yeah, you know, nothing nefarious, nothing bad, nothing out of turn, but certainly a discussion of, like, oh.

40:59 I see this fucking piece of shit back, Lars is, like, you know, wondering. No, they didn't use that language, of course, but you know what I mean? It wasn't plugged? We're back in jail is what you're saying. It wasn't plugged. No, not at all, not at all.

41:11 But it was several moments throughout our entire play session that Nintendo representatives came over because.

41:17 There is one other thing that we can't talk about.

41:20 Yes.

41:20 There's one thing where I like notice something and the guy's like, hmm. And he like goes away and then he brings like three more guys over and they're like, hey, can you go back to that thing? And I like go back to it and they're like, huh?

41:34 And like, it was the entirety of Majora's Mask is in there. Yeah. And then the FBI showed up. You see a cat shine pop up. It's a trap. Well, okay.

41:47 So like when, as you guys are playing and you're going through this, like, uh, you know, for you, will, uh, did, did it just feel right in your hands? Like, it sounds like everything just kind of like made sense immediately.

41:58 Everything felt great. Um, like, uh, back when I went into the, uh, castle town, walked around there, obviously music's playing. There's a lot more characters packed in. Now you can, It's not those fixed camera angles, which I was really hoping when you entered it, did the top-down shot.

42:14 Yes, the top-down pre-rendered shot. Me too.

42:16 But obviously not. So you go through. Everything looks gorgeous. I remember when we watched the original trailer, my gut reaction to that first forest shot was just like, ah! But in practice, especially the forest area, it looks a lot better. Not to go back to that, but they had the little... things in the air in the forest, like a little snake flying around. Yeah, which are like my favorite. So yeah, Castletown was great. We went to the Temple of Time because I wanted to hear the music in there. We got to look around a little bit.

42:50 You see like the little pedestal where you put in the first set of dungeon items. And then we fast forwarded to the Forest Temple. It started outside there, had a grappling hook, could grapple and do all those puzzles. You get inside, played the, God, is it the Song of Time to get rid of the Song of Time cube that's standing there? And then like ripped through that dungeon, like vaguely remembering.

43:20 Where to go. Oh, the twisty hallways. That was great.

43:23 Twisty hallways. Yeah, there was one section. I was like, how do I get out, get through this part? And the guy's like, oh yeah, you got to shoot an arrow at the like painting to twist the hallway back. And I was like, I totally forgot about that. And it was, it.

43:36 Just, yeah.

43:37 No, I was going to say, like, the thing you were trying to articulate at the top, and I understood what you were saying when we were sitting on the couch playing it. Like, you know, when you go back to a game, and obviously I can't speak to this specifically, but I sure as shit can speak to other games from that time and a little after Eternal Darkness, and you have this very rose-colored imagination that colors these sort of way that you uh you know ingested that game in the time and it carries with you uh for decades and you lovingly and fondly remember these things and when i went back to eternal darkness i was like fuck you know it was like one of those where i was just like it didn't help that these two

44:24 jackasses were messing with me the whole time.

44:26 But you play that alone what are you talking about Yeah. And I played it alone. Grump Dan had been dead for 50 years.

44:34 But I do think to the point of like, Will, what you said about Ocarina of Time being this, like, I remember it as it was. If Return of the Darkness had the same treatment that this game had that was brought up to contemporary gaming expectations and quality of life stuff, like, it would have been that for me.

44:54 And I think that's what you're trying to say is like, this is somehow sticking the landing and And bridging this 30-year almost gap, right, of, like, delivering the nostalgically positive experience that you've held with you all these years.

45:09 Wait, would you play this when you were, like, four years old? I don't understand. Yeah.

45:13 Well, in the womb, actually.

45:14 Okay, got it, got it, got it. Oh, my God. Nice. But, yeah. You were the little robot. It's very uncomfortable for her. It's very uncomfortable. Yeah. So, am I in the ballpark of, like, what you're trying to say? Yeah, okay. Yeah.

45:29 And, and you know, when you go back to a game and there's those frustrations where you're like, Oh yeah, this is a little dated, but I love it. And it's, it's similar with like, again, using the hookshot, using the, uh, uh, slingshot and the bows and arrows. Uh, it's just like, Oh, this just feels good and works good. And it's perfect.

45:46 I'm not sitting there for a second, like lining up with the eye and like the, the N64 joystick, trying to get it perfectly on there. Um, it's just, everything's working. It feels fluid. Um, Feels good. Animations are great. And they've stuck with the style of Ocarina of Time while adding more detail. So it's still crazy to look at Link and see like the fibers of his coat and everything like that. But it's all it all feeds into itself.

46:19 Like it feels like you're more in that like these are models of things and you're looking into the sort of fairy tale world. where it's more of a high-res version of that and not like gratuitous details because we had to Unreal Engine it, you know?

46:34 Sure.

46:35 All of it still works together in that sort of modern way. It really, like I said earlier, feels like they're like, okay, let's pretend Ocarina of Time comes out in 2026. Like it never came out before and we're releasing it now. What is all the things we do to it to make it a modern game? while sticking with the original outline and all sort of stuff. It was really fun. I went into it not expecting to like it, really, as a sort of curmudgeon. My friends make fun of me, but I really like the look of the original game. I think it's so striking, and I was so worried.

47:15 Okay, so is this going to be your default going forward, do you think?

47:18 It might be, yeah.

47:20 I mean, other than... the sort of, you know, community that's there with the original and a bit more of the nostalgia. Cause I just, there's certain things that just look amazing in those games with the low poly. This is probably like, hey, I want to play Ocarina of Time. Let's play through this. This is that version. And that, I think, really sets the tone for a remake where we have such a muddied industry of, is it a remaster?

47:47 Is it a remake? Is it a reboot? Is it a retelling? And you're just like, okay, this is a remake of this game. They just took that game and were like, hey, what if we rebuilt it from the ground up? And this is not.

48:00 That version of it.

48:00 And other people have been I've seen other previews saying like, hey, it's like it's less of a one to one remake than you're expecting.

48:06 Which, you know, it has to be really intrigued. I'm very excited to play this.

48:09 I think the thing for me is like someone whose favorite like like personal favorite is Link's Awakening. When they did that remake, I was like, oh, there was some sort of vibe feeling about that Game Boy version that felt mysterious and weird and much closer to the the Twin Peaks show that they were going for. They had just watched that show and then they made a Zelda game inspired by that. And now since then, it's like, oh, these two games kind of sit side by side. And I go back to both frequently. I think the thing, what I'm seeing here is I'm getting more excited about Ocarina of Time is it does look like it's specifically capturing that mood of Ocarina of Time.

48:45 That's kind of what you guys opened up.

48:46 I'm sure if you're being impressed by that, that's definitely the stuff that I have always liked about Ocarina of Time. And I'm not too worried about the... imagination that was filling in the gap for ocarina of time when it was on n64 being lost i think that to me it looks like they are they are filling in that gap but then they're creating new spaces for the imagination to kind of still do that same trick so i just think they've nailed it looks cohesive to me.

49:09 Which is a big thing lovely lovely coming out go ahead well no i was.

49:15 Just the one last thing is like you're totally right it's like instead of being like oh it has to be one to one it's like oh it has to be one to one translated Like you have to translate it.

49:26 Localize the 2026.

49:28 Yeah, exactly.

49:29 And that's where you get through. Like one of my other favorite games of all time is Oblivion, Elder Scrolls 4 Oblivion. And it's like they made that remaster. And I'm just like, yeah, it's Oblivion. It's a remaster or whatever. Like I still play the original. And here it's like now I'm like, what if they did the Ocarina of Time remake treatment for Oblivion? Like I would love that so much.

49:50 Just like.

49:51 We modernized it, you know. It's just good.

49:54 I'm excited. Selfishly, I'm just getting a brand new Zelda game. Yeah, yeah. Millions of people are, yep. You know?

50:00 Like, that feels really good. And also, it feels great because it isn't, you know, Tears of the Kingdom 3, right?

50:09 Like, it's not that. Yes.

50:11 So that's what I'm definitely into also.

50:13 Well, I'm glad that everyone is digging their time with it so far. Coming out next month. Yeah, it will have already been here by this time next month. I'm glad that we were not focusing on the little stitches and knots and different seams in Link's tunic and hat anymore. But speaking about seams and stitches, Jeff Grubb, you've been playing Dressmaker.

50:39 Yeah, I tried this out yesterday. I had seen people talk about it. It was getting a lot of positive buzz. It's just called Dressmaker. I'm playing on Steam. It is a game about making dresses, and it's neat. It's set up like you have a shop. You put out an ad. Before you start the game, the character puts out an ad.

50:58 It's like, hey, I can make dresses. I'll take commissions, and the first character shows up for the tutorial dress. It's like, I need something for my job. I need a new dress.

51:05 I'm a librarian.

51:06 I need something professional. And that is like, okay, so that is the big guiding word for your design of this dress, where it's like, you need to use professional materials. You need to use a professional pattern. And every sort of thing that you go into when you begin to design the dress has a bunch of meters of like, oh, this is so professional. And it's like, oh, okay, maybe I'll give this dress a pencil skirt. Very professional. And maybe not as fun, maybe not as much, all these other things. but very professional. I kind of like played around with that stuff. I didn't feel the need to make it extremely professional. So I was a, I had a little bit of a maneuvering to kind of have a little bit of fun with it. And then I

51:43 was going through the patterns and I found one. I'm like, Oh yeah, this looks like a librarian sort of a plaid pattern, a green plaid pattern. And it was like very fun to just lay out the pieces of the dress onto the, the, the, the, the, the fabric after doing a measurements of like, okay, she is, you know, this is her waist, her bust, her hips. And let's go to the mannequin and make sure that's adjusted to the exact same sizes. And kind of, all right, now I'm going to cut out the pieces. And this is like what I wanted from the game. Give me tactile verbs.

52:15 I'm in the mood for that right now. I don't necessarily need, you know, I got done with Fire Emblem. I played a game that's just a lot of proper nouns and story, and that's fine. Give me a game where it's like, I'm just doing stuff. And this is one of the games that was giving that to me right now where, okay, it is now time to cut out the patterns and it's okay. The scissors did that by itself. Do I get to do anything?

52:39 Yeah.

52:39 The stitching, you get to put the material into the sewing machine and the way it works is you hit the space button to sort of activate the sewing machine. Like you're pressing down on the pedal with your foot and then you use the mouse to to sort of grab the fabric and guide its angle. And I could feel myself getting better of like smoothly guiding the pattern through there. So I'm like moving the mouse to guide, uh, guide along the stitching where it needed to go in a smooth curved pattern. And that was, it's very simple, but very satisfying. And then, you know, you put the dress together on the mannequin, you stitch it together a And it's like, oh, okay. So I can imagine from here, which I haven't had a lot more time to play

53:21 more beyond that, it's like there's going to be situations where a dress needs to satisfy multiple measurements. It needs to be professional and this. It needs to be fun, but also something you can use in other circumstances. Did my mace make a dinging sound?

53:37 Okay, that's what that was. Yeah, that's what that was.

53:39 Death toll.

53:41 Yeah. What a sentence that was. Oh, no, I'm hearing it again. Did my mace make a dinging sound?

53:47 Grub, chat's already like, and Drift was on this, we need to have some kind of competition in this game called Say Yes to the Mess.

53:55 Okay, that is brilliant. I'll play a little bit more and see what we could do.

54:00 Yeah, we could just have the audience vote on their favorite dress or whatever.

54:02 Yeah. Yeah. Keep the dress on.

54:07 It is a very well put together game. Very straightforward. It gives you, it gets into the stuff you want to be doing almost immediately. It's a game I'm going to keep playing myself, but I'm also going to hand to the kids and see.

54:18 How they feel about it.

54:19 They love being creative in games. That's like, that is their thing. They like just, expressing themselves. And I think this game can deliver that.

54:26 Yeah. Yeah. Uh, like related, kind of related, but, um, the mannequin or like the dress form that like, uh, seamstresses, uh, dressmakers will use in real life. I didn't realize that on some of them, there's like a dial to increase, like the different measurements that you would for like a person. It was very satisfying. Yeah.

54:47 You didn't realize, I didn't realize that either, but of course it must do that. Like you want to make sure the dress fits on the person and, So, like, getting the mannequin, like, shape to fit the exact shape of the person you're building the dress for, I'm like, oh, I didn't realize it did that. And it's not really, it's not a mannequin. It's some other thing. But it looked like, like, I would have used the term mannequin before this.

55:05 Yeah.

55:05 I know so little about how dresses are made. I think everything I know is from that one scene in Cinderella.

55:11 No, that's exactly it. That's exactly it. You get a little mouse going, Cinderella! Cinderella, Cinderella, yeah.

55:18 But, yeah, I didn't, like, kind of even just realizing, oh, yeah, of course it's just a bunch of panels. sewn together in such a way that they fit together to make a dress. But it's very satisfying to piece those panels together and get a finished product.

55:32 Fantastic. I believe, yeah, this was like a husband making the game for his wife almost. Oh, really? That's very adorable.

55:41 Okay.

55:42 It feels like that. I need to get my story straight, but I think it was like a labor of love where I think she had... had some issues like making dresses in real life, maybe like some hand issues or something like that. And then her husband made this game so she could kind of like the cathartically continue making dresses in a different way. That's beautiful. That's gorgeous. Okay. Yeah.

56:06 I'll tell you what, you could feel the labor of love aspect even if you don't know that when you're playing the game.

56:11 Speaking about the labor of love, you know who I absolutely love and it feels like the internet loves?

56:16 Oh my god, just an all-time great shithead.

56:25 He's just an alligator. He's just an alligator, you fucking idiot.

56:30 What are we doing?

56:31 Dan did turn to me at the bomb-a-thon, and he's like, look, I haven't said anything, but that's just Air Force Gator. I'm like, yeah, kinda is Air Force Gator.

56:38 Well, then Air Force Gator is like Disney. Um... I have it on the rundown here. It says Star Wars Racing Mustache. Oh, yeah. It's not that.

56:50 You don't know the name of this game.

56:53 I call it the Racing Mustache because I can't stop looking at the league organizer's fucking mustache.

57:00 Oh, Dexter Jetster's friend. Dexter Jetster's friend.

57:03 This mustache is the only thing keeping me watching these cutscenes because otherwise I could care less.

57:12 I'm sorry, guys.

57:13 No, I get it. But the, the, the ones with, um, uh, with, uh, so thank you. So I'm not there yet.

57:18 Very good. Everything else. A little bit. Yeah. Give or take. I'll say I've only gotten to like the third planet. I get it. Uh, when do, when do I see, uh, Sebulba after that? When you get to the end of that first tour. Yeah.

57:32 So it's, it's not just that one circuit.

57:34 Uh, okay. I'll be offended then. Okay, cool. Yeah.

57:38 It's actually, it's actually pretty cool. Like, the reframing of Sebulba this game does where again he's.

57:43 Still kind of like well he's like.

57:45 He's still Sebulba he's still a shithead but you can't it's like Ric Flair uh the character right not the person like in like the 80s Ric Flair's like boo that man he cheats and now when he was like 60 and still.

57:57 Wrestling like oh that guy cheats it's adorable.

57:59 Yeah we love very much so Mike I just want you to know I despise that analogy in every way I just I just I can't get on board with you there but Who's more important, Sebulba or Ric Flair?

58:12 Sebulba. I know who I want to answer. Mario Party. What a terrible ending to day one. But Jerf.

58:25 Yeah, so look, I'm not, I'm very just indifferent. I'm not a Star Wars hater. I'm just indifferent. It does not move the needle for me at all. I am, I can be swept up in it as I was at Galaxy's Edge and Rise of the Resistance, and I... I enjoy a good lightsaber. I think that's fun and neat and all that stuff. So I'm never completely turned off by it. But for me, in this very good racing game, it is just like the set dressing. And I find that very cool because all of these derelict spaceship graveyards.

59:04 That you're sort of flying through, especially in that first planet, it's very cool.

59:08 I'm it's very cool i love being all up in that shit um but that's really not what this is this is a racing game right this is like a with the sort of backdrop and the setting of Star Wars and all this stuff, is there like a certain time that this is taking place in?

59:25 I don't know why I'm asking this.

59:26 Because the Empire has fallen. So there's references to that. The Empire was like band racing and now it's back.

59:32 Gotcha.

59:33 So, you know, I've I had this pounded into my brain going into this that this was, you know, burnout three legacy folks and having that sort of pedigree. And obviously you play this game for 20 minutes and you certainly see that coming out and playing and shining, especially in those, you know, takedown. whip around camera shots and all that stuff. That stuff rules. I think this game, I don't know what it is. This is probably a me thing. Certain games when I am onboarding and maybe it has something to do with like my mental state at that moment and perhaps my level of intoxication or whatever it is. But like when a game tries to tutorial me, I either like sink and drift immediately or i'm just like or the game is having a one-way

1:00:26 conversation with me and i did feel a little bit of the latter in how i was onboarded with this game i think it's the menus are not as there's something that is unreadable to me in these menus and i don't know what it is i think they have a lot of like false buttons And I know that's like, Oh sure.

1:00:46 You know what I mean?

1:00:47 Like there's a lot of places where you're like, Oh, I'm just going to like click over to that. Oh wait, I, I can like, again, this is, this is fairly minor criticism, but I do think the overall like packaging for me is, The design language is not necessarily syncing with me. The more I'm playing it, I'm about three hours now, the more I'm playing it, the more I understand what it's doing because my knowledge of the loop is eclipsing what I find to be.

1:01:15 A relatively inaccessible menu system.

1:01:19 So that's fine. But yes, I mean, God, this game is such an impressively surgical, like, man, feeling the weight of all these ships and having their engines lock and engage. And you just buy all of the fantasy around it. It really is awesome, especially in that boot up stage where you're really having to do those quick time button moments.

1:01:47 You're like, I'm flipping switches and I... You feel like you're flipping switches. Yeah. I'm in this like, whatever, duster, I forget what they're called, speed duster. Land speeder. Land speeder.

1:01:58 Speeder bike and swoop speeder.

1:02:01 Skimmer. Skimmer. Skibble shanks. The bike gimbal shanks.

1:02:05 Yep.

1:02:06 I'm in this thing. I'm flipping the switches.

1:02:09 Not.

1:02:10 Totally clear on the advantages of doing that. In my mind, it's like, oh, I don't have to wait for a cool down. It depends on the thing. It depends on the thing.

1:02:17 Like for vent, I think you will get the vent faster at the beginning of the race.

1:02:21 Sure. I assume that's what I was doing. Really cool. Like, I love that. The, what is it? Rip Jam? Ramjet. Ramjet.

1:02:33 That extra booster thing, when you fucking lock that thing in and you slam on.

1:02:38 It, holy shit, is that satisfying.

1:02:41 Oh my gosh, is that just like the sound and the vibration and the feedback, all that stuff clicks in and this feels awesome.

1:02:50 I think this is where the HUD, the user experience stuff actually does work where it is all wrapped around the border.

1:02:57 In game, it's very good. Right.

1:02:59 But it's like, yeah. And it's like, I am doing the racing thing. I'm like keeping my eye on the furthest possible corner so I can prepare to have my speeder in the right position on the track the way you're supposed to do in a real racing game. Meanwhile, I'm getting all of this data and information about what's going on with my vehicle. And obviously a lot of that is incredible sound design feedback.

1:03:18 Yes.

1:03:18 And you know, I can like hear the drift working for the land speeder in this turn. And it's like, that means I've engaged it properly. And now I'm coming out of the turn with as much speed as possible. And obviously the ramjet is redlining.

1:03:32 I can hear that.

1:03:33 I know four beeps is my safety. After four beeps, I got let off right away. But also like visually, I'm still getting enough information.

1:03:40 And you hear the alarms. Yeah.

1:03:42 To manage all this stuff.

1:03:44 It should be visual clutter, but somehow it isn't.

1:03:46 Yes.

1:03:46 And actually it's like to the game's benefit that there's so much you need to manage on every turn at every second. that keeps you super engaged. It feels like you're doing alien racing.

1:03:57 The progress that I'm making with being able to get better at balancing all that stuff has been very satisfying as well, right? Because the more, you know, battery perks that you're unlocking and adding to your loadout, the more you have to juggle them, right?

1:04:14 And they sit in the corner there.

1:04:15 And now I think the game does a really kind of good and organic job at demonstrating the need for you to actually start to use that sort of stuff, especially like that way, if you get like an ion cannon and you're literally just like shooting fools, uh, and, uh, you know, some of the, uh, um, system failure re, uh, um, you know, sort of buffs that you get, like all that has been really satisfying. And I think last night for the first time I was like, yo, I'm now juggling this in a really cool way. I do think, um, you know, to your point of like being not, not being cluttered, but also being complicated. I do think that was a skill I had to learn. That wasn't just a thing where I was like, oh, I'm locked in

1:05:00 right away. There's a lot of visual language.

1:05:03 And it's going to be frustrating when you also need to learn the tracks and you're.

1:05:06 Running into the wall a lot. But that's why it's good.

1:05:09 It does have those roguelike elements because when you fail, you're getting some bonuses. But like a lot of roguelikes, it really is just, yes, you're getting that stuff.

1:05:18 Like, oh, I have plus one to my cornering.

1:05:21 Because I did this. But it really is, you're just getting better at the game. I actually just.

1:05:24 Re-bought the game on Steam, because I wanted it there.

1:05:27 And, you know, so I didn't get to carry over any of my perks from the PlayStation 5 version I was playing on. But, you know, I started doing the bike instead this time, which I really liked. But, you know, without having any of that permanent stuff, I went through that starting circuit basically in two tries. I went through the galactic circuit on the first try. So, like, now I know how this game works now. I can kind of zip around these things now. I feel like I know...

1:05:50 what upgrades I am looking for. I just, I know the tracks to a decent degree. I kind of know the game.

1:05:55 I mean, just being able to predict how the vehicle is going to behave. Like, like, Oh, I actually, I'm going right at that wall. I made a mistake somewhere back there. I don't have to accept my fate. I can slam on the brake.

1:06:06 I can use.

1:06:06 This vehicle's characteristics. to get out of this particular jam. And yeah, it's going to slow me down, but not as much as if I crashed. So I'm like, I'm managing the risk reward a lot more, a lot better after a while. And that becomes just as satisfying. The fact that I was able to, to use this vehicle's characteristics to save myself.

1:06:24 By the way, if you haven't like, Been trying the bike speeder yet very much.

1:06:28 Oh, I like that. That is my jam now. All right, all right.

1:06:30 I guess it has the kind of Kirby Air Rider kind of brilliance where you sort of slow down into your drifts, and when you release it, you get that boost of speed.

1:06:40 Ooh, it feels good. Okay.

1:06:41 The skimmer feels like you are never in control, and then when you actually are in control but still feel like you're not, it feels incredible.

1:06:49 It's so wild.

1:06:51 I discovered the, I don't know what it's called, the racer type, but it's the one that rewards like takedowns and stuff like that.

1:07:01 Sure. Yeah, redlining. I'm super into that. Yeah, go ahead, Jan. I was going to say, I know it isn't quite your fancy baccalaure, but Grubb, I think you can agree. And Mike, I forget where you land with Star Wars, but in regards to like being in a Star Wars world, I think this is one of the better games to do that. I mean, it gets it. Yeah. Yeah. It feels good. The story stuff. And like, I get that complaint of like, oh, do I really need this stuff?

1:07:28 I like it enough.

1:07:29 It's enough of a framing device to get me there, but also just gives you an opportunity to have all these fun characters.

1:07:33 And obviously Bitty Blaze is like, we all love that. All these people. There's a lot of others. There's the one healing where the droid talks for them. And I like that.

1:07:41 There's the Nazi with the Imperial tattoo on his arm. And people are like, oh, you're proud of being a Nazi, huh? And I'm like, yes, I am. And I'm like, oh, right.

1:07:48 Like, you know, they talk to you during the race. It's just, It's a very, very fun Star Wars world to inhabit for sure.

1:07:54 Yes. Even I can admit that.

1:07:58 I think, yeah, it was really cool sort of discovering like the drifting versus letting go of the gas versus breaking, you know, and finding the right balance of all those three. driving mechanics has been really good. Yeah, I'm into it. I knew I would like this just because of the burnout stuff, let's be honest. I had that baseline going into it, but this has been a game now for about five days where I'm like, oh, this is what I'm going to play tonight. I'm looking forward to it.

1:08:30 I think, so I had heard the burnout comparison much before I'd seen any footage of the game or played it myself. before I watched the quick look. So when I started playing the game myself, I think I was just the dirtiest racer in the game. Because I'm trying to hit... You're trying to take everyone down. Exactly. I'm trying to boop everyone into a corner without thinking about the ramifications of like, that person could have died. I don't care. I'm going to keep going. Going from one drive... game. Wait, just real quick. Did any of you guys beat Act 3?

1:09:03 Not yet. No.

1:09:03 No, it's actually my first time in Act 3.

1:09:06 Let's come back.

1:09:07 We'll come back and talk about it one more time because that's when you really get the pod racer. And boy, that just opens up the game yet again because now instead of going 500 kilometers per hour, You're often going 1,200, 1,500 kilometers per hour. And you've spent so many hours doing the roguelike stuff. Basically, you've spent so much time learning these courses. Now it feels like, oh, it was all training for this.

1:09:30 And it owns. It doesn't stop being awesome.

1:09:33 It's always awesome. It's not like, oh, this is the real game. But in a lot of ways, it just feels like, holy shit, I can't believe I'm going this fast through these courses.

1:09:42 Can I be a little stinker? Be a stinker. Correct me if I'm wrong.

1:09:47 I've not seen all the Star Wars movies. I've seen the old ones a bunch, not the new ones. Uh-oh.

1:09:53 Lore questions. Do they use miles?

1:09:57 Do they use units of measurements that are Earth-based?

1:10:00 In this game, they use kilometers. Kilometers. And I do think that.

1:10:04 I feel like I remember them using, I think, I feel like I, yeah, I prefer them to come up with something.

1:10:10 Uh, uh, well, parsecs is a whole, that's like when you're measuring.

1:10:13 Yeah.

1:10:13 Light years. That's too much. That's like comparable.

1:10:16 So you're telling me even star Wars is using the metric system before the United States.

1:10:21 Yeah, basically. Uh, Yeah.

1:10:23 And I think they use the kilometers in the EU and stuff like that. I don't remember it ever being mentioned in a show or a.

1:10:28 Movie because there's, there's a, I feel like when you watch all that media, you do detect like things every now and then you're like, Oh, that's just like earth weird stuff, obviously.

1:10:37 Aside from English. But, um, yeah, I just, uh, it's, it's fun.

1:10:41 Uh, On a completely unrelated side note, if you're watching the video, it sure does look like Grub's holding a shotgun.

1:10:47 It sure does look like he's going to blow his weapon. It is a weapon. His mace. Obviously my mace. One last thing about Galactic Racer from me. Hey, Hollywood, if you're listening, Joseph Kaczynski, please make a Star Wars racing movie.

1:11:06 He's making Days of Thunder. Is he making Days of Thunder with Tom Cruise? Is that what they're doing next?

1:11:10 I can't remember. He's making some movie. I think you're right.

1:11:12 But yeah, just yeah, full on. I mean, the pod racing was so easily the best thing that happened in those prequels. Just give us a pod racing movie.

1:11:21 Come on. He just maced himself. Speaking of one driving game to another, Jeff Grubb, you've been playing Over the Hills.

1:11:32 Yeah, I just got a chance to start this. So Over the Hill is very much a Jeff Grubb game. It is about driving Jeeps off-road. And to kind of like give an idea of what kind of game this is, the character in the tutorial who walks you through how you're supposed to just handle the vehicle and kind of like the general vibe of it is Buddha. It's like, oh, we're going to be going for a very zen-like vibe of exploration and you're You are in a relationship between the car and the land and the vehicle and the tires and friction and gravity and momentum.

1:12:08 And that is definitely.

1:12:10 What I come to video games for a lot of the time. And it's delivering that. The vehicles feel big and heavy and weighty. There is a terrain deformation. So as the tires dig into the dirt, they are separating the particles of the mud.

1:12:26 And the dirt.

1:12:26 And that means sometimes the tires get stuck in the mud. And you need to shift to low gear and winch onto a tree and pull yourself out. And all of that feels exactly right. It feels very good. The structure of the game is where it's extremely zen-like. I think there is something zen-like about moving any sort of object through a 3D space that's meant to represent physical reality.

1:12:52 For me, 1080, all these games have always been about, hey, I want to explore concepts of things I can get in reality, but are either dangerous or expensive, hard to come by. And I want to explore them in a somewhat poetic way. And this is definitely doing that. But then it kind of leans into that with the structure where it's like, man, I don't know. Here's some question marks on a map. Go see the next one. When you get to the next one, maybe it's a crate that has some cosmetic in it, or maybe it is a cabin that you can camp at and access as a safe point. And You know, you can camp inside there and pretend you're sort of just on this journey.

1:13:30 It is about wanderlust. It's about, hey, you are in this world and you want to see what's over the next hill or you get over the next hill. And that was, you know, manageable. And then you see a big rocky mountain with a tower on top. Actually, how would I get up there? That seems much more challenging because if it's a steep hill, You can go in low gear all you want if there's not enough trees to winch onto. And even if there are, it's like that...

1:13:55 You still have to deal with the fact that you're in a big, heavy Jeep. Maybe you can't pull yourself up there. It's going to be difficult. So there's upgrades.

1:14:02 But this game is also... a four-player game. It could be played cooperatively. I was about to ask. I was about to ask. Oh, shit.

1:14:08 And the vehicles can winch onto each other, and you could sort of do the, what's it called when the kids jump over each other?

1:14:15 Leapfrog?

1:14:15 You sort of leapfrog one another, and it's like, okay, we'll help you get up to that ledge, then you help us up there.

1:14:21 Cool.

1:14:22 And you begin to see those paths, and it's like, oh, it is very much about exploring the world together as well. Now, I really like playing these games by myself as well, but I was playing them like, I think I might make a giant bomb play this with me.

1:14:36 Yeah, do it. Get the guys on here.

1:14:38 Yeah, I think very similar vibes to how we felt about playing that one construction game together. Without any of the construction stuff, it's going to be about just moving these vehicles through the space. But yeah, it's definitely one of those games where as soon as people saw it, they began sending it to me. Oh yeah, this, it is, it is hitting all of those notes exactly right. I'm curious to see like how the structure holds up and a lot of that will come down to the variety in the terrain.

1:15:08 Like, let me try to get on top of one of these mountains.

1:15:10 I got on top of a small mountain and I got up to one of the towers and it kind of did the Assassin's Creed thing and looked around. If that one wasn't too challenging, there is a bigger mountain right across the way. I'm like, oh, okay, I want to see what that's like. How deliberate do I need to be in my planning of attacking that hill to actually feel the challenge of it? Is this game going to be? And that will be sort of the make or break for me when it comes to playing this game on my own. But yeah, I think I might try to schedule something with you guys and get in there.

1:15:36 And play together. I smell UPF. Yeah, definitely pop it in there for UPF for a little bit. Fantastic. All right. We've got a couple more games here. At first, I thought someone was just talking about the current state of events, but Will, you've been playing World in Conflict. That's true.

1:15:55 There were so many releases in September for years, which means I have to play World in Conflict from 2007. It released September 18th. Is this a Napoleon game? It's not, Mike, it's a Cold War game. You were alive for that, weren't you?

1:16:11 Ah, got it. Wow, when did the wall come down? 89, 90 years.

1:16:16 Do you remember the beautiful.

1:16:19 Year of 1989 when I was negative five? No, I was three negative five.

1:16:23 Oh, man.

1:16:27 This is a game by Massive Entertainment, now purveyors of a large amount of video games, but they made The Division, Division II, among other games. Uh, so they made this in 2007. It is an alternate history, 1989, where the cold war goes hot. Um, instead of, uh, uh, fixing the cold war, uh, Soviet Russia invades, uh, Western Europe.

1:16:53 And that kind of trickles down as Reagan would say into world war three.

1:16:59 And, uh, It's fun. It's good.

1:17:02 I'm playing the complete edition, which includes the Soviet campaign, which was DLC. So they actually end up intertwining the two campaigns sort of similar to, you know, like a Call of Duty Modern Warfare or Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, where you're you're it does this great like flagpole transition to the Soviet flag to the US flag.

1:17:22 You start off as a working for NATO and the Russians have invaded Seattle. So you're doing that whole conflict and it like kind of culminates in this big moment. And then you go back in time and it's you and some of the characters previously, like six months before fighting in Europe against the Soviet threat. And it's sort of this like it kind of builds up this big moment and you're like, oh, let's go back in time and learn about the character again. So you like get deeper feelings for them. And it's pretty cool. This is a real time strategy game, real time tactics. So there's no like pausing. There's no base building, but you are ordering in.

1:18:03 Troops, tanks.

1:18:05 It's mostly tanks.

1:18:06 You're welcome.

1:18:07 And all sorts of other cool stuff. Ground infantry. You can do artillery strikes, airstrikes. And it's just so much fun. This game, like I said, came out in 2007. It looks so good. You can zoom all the way down to the ground level and, like, look at the troops. You go out to this big tactical map. The vehicles, like, in the tutorial, you're in this runway area with, like, grassy parts near it. And, like, the tanks... drive on the grass, onto the runway, leave mud on the runway, and then back onto the grass and like leave ruts and all sorts of stuff.

1:18:47 It's just, it's good.

1:18:49 The campaign's been super fun so far I've fought like I said in Seattle in like streets and stuff and then we were in Marseille and I think I was just fighting in Norway they actually have some of those I want to say they're called.

1:19:04 Norwegians is it the French thank you I wasn't brave enough to say it No, is it a chrono plans?

1:19:11 What are those big Russian plans? planes that are used to travel across lakes. They have like crazy jet engines on them.

1:19:23 Yes.

1:19:23 They're planes. Um, and they're look them up. They're ecto planes or a chronicle, whatever they're called. They're so cool. And they feature pretty heavily in, uh, in a couple of the campaign missions where you're just dumping troops with them. Uh, overall, it's really fun. I love, I've talked about getting into, uh, RTS games. I played, uh, uh, Rise of Nations, Rise of Legends before this, which is a bit of an older RTS. And then my friend has been banging the drum on World in Conflict for a while. So I hopped in. It's well worth it. I bought it on GOG.

1:19:59 I think it was like five or ten bucks.

1:20:01 Cool. They dropped it from Steam last year, I guess. Yeah.

1:20:04 Yeah, you can. There's like an upgrade patch for it. And you have to do that like four gigabyte patcher tool to like make it run with more memory. But overall, I've been having a blast. I'm not in the multiplayer, but apparently in the multiplayer, you can set a second monitor as the map screen, which I think is the coolest thing ever.

1:20:25 That's neat.

1:20:27 But yeah, I've been really enjoying it. It's in no way like a hidden gem. I mean, not a hidden gem. It was very lauded when it came out. It has very good review scores. I don't hear people talk about this game much.

1:20:39 Apparently it was deleted from Steam last year, which is a bummer, so. Like, how did you pick this up? Where were you?

1:20:45 How are you?

1:20:49 I'm glad you asked so I could answer that question. Yeah, I picked it up there. And and yeah, it's just been.

1:20:55 You said that earlier. Is that why you did it? Why did it?

1:20:58 It's OK.

1:21:01 I was happy. You didn't listen.

1:21:03 Also, Alec Baldwin is the narrator. So it's just Hunt for Red October.

1:21:08 Oh, that's awesome.

1:21:09 Cool.

1:21:11 It's really good.

1:21:12 I just got bodied this segment. I'm sorry. First there was the Cold War thing, and now that. This is a rough one for me, all right?

1:21:20 Will, you said you're not building buildings or managing those kinds of resources. How does the economy work? How are you calling in more tanks? Is it like a cool down or what?

1:21:31 So they'll start you off with a group of guys, uh, at the beginning of my mission or whatever your loadout is, or they'll be like, Hey, here's your reinforcement budget. And over on the side, you have a reinforcement screen. You can pick all the guys you want you out of a budget. Uh, and then you place where you want them on the map. It's only a certain area on the map that like you control. So you can't drop it in enemy territory. And then you order the units.

1:21:55 And it, it seems to me as you are fighting units and as you lose units, uh, you're getting, uh, currency back to continue. Cause sometimes I'll be fighting a bunch and then I'll look up and I have like 1300 in budget and I'm like, Oh shit, let me order some guys in.

1:22:11 Sure.

1:22:12 Uh, and then similarly you have points ticking up for like airstrikes and artillery. Uh, and those are a separate amount of money. It's almost like time you're paying for with those. And you can place those all over the map, uh, There's even some every unit has like a special ability. And this one map I was just playing on last night, I was like Norwegian special forces. And so they could call in airstrikes themselves. So like I had to get the troops in range of things and then click on their special ability to call in an airstrike on something.

1:22:48 OK, interesting.

1:22:50 It has a I can tell there's a lot of high level like gameplay with this where like you can put troops in a building. You can hide troops in forests. I was there's a couple of missions like I would get halfway through and be like, oh, I could do this better.

1:23:03 And restart it.

1:23:04 Sure.

1:23:05 And be like, oh, I can I can bring these guys up through here. Hide in that building. Hide in this forest. I would a lot of times get the there's like anti tank infantry there. And I would, as soon as the match started, I'd be like, okay, I have 30 seconds before the game's timer starts to prepare. So I'm going to prepare now. And I would send guys in further into enemy territory and hide in the woods.

1:23:26 So as like the enemy tanks are spawning in and coming in, I'm just nailing them with the anti-tank guys.

1:23:32 Oh, that's fun.

1:23:33 It's, it's, it's similar to like that feeling of like, oh, I could do this fire emblem map a little.

1:23:38 Bit differently or advanced wars.

1:23:40 Like, let me restart it.

1:23:41 Definitely what I thought about when, as soon as you started talking about that.

1:23:43 Yeah.

1:23:44 Yeah.

1:23:44 And all the trap, like you can skip cut scenes and stuff, but all the, for the second or third time you're doing something, but all the trappings around everything, like the Russian missions start with a propaganda thing where they're like, we are halfway through America. And it like shows the map of them controlling almost all of America.

1:23:59 When in reality, they're just still in Seattle fighting. Uh, and it's, it's just really neat. It's a lot of fun. Uh, Go ahead and play it if you like strategy games.

1:24:09 It's a good time. I'm happy you're having fun with it, Will. And I'm going to assume that Jeff Bacalar is happy having fun with this demo he's checking out for Pulse? Apples? I don't know how you say it. Not Apples.

1:24:21 Calm down. I mean, the word apples is in there. I just want you to know, if you change around some of the letters, Mike, but you're going.

1:24:30 To be okay, pal. Not an anagram. He also hates anagrams. God, what do you like? Anagrams. I like pinballs and guns, but what am I going to do about that, Jerf?

1:24:42 I guess not play it. Folks, this is a, how do I describe this? This is like, what if pinball was sort of like a sci-fi.

1:24:54 Shooter?

1:24:55 Right uh like a roguelike uh sort of uh framing uh and it this this basically takes place on like you're in a spaceship and and you are somehow meant to uh achieve all these objectives through this uh sci-fi uh you know cargo spaceship playfield and you're moving around the playfield and Your ball that you play as develops guns very quickly, and you're also taking down waves of enemies.

1:25:26 You can control the direction of the guns on your pinball with one of these sticks, and shooting also forces recoil.

1:25:39 So you can nudge your ball around with the recoil from firing. I don't like it. It is cool. And it looks, it looks good, but you hate it. I don't hate it. I don't hate it.

1:25:57 The problem I have is the same thing I have with, I'd say about 60% of pinball video games. And I think we touched on it in a big way during pinball week. There is, there is like a floatiness that some of these pinball games are guilty of. That kind of breaks the whole thing for me. And I do think a pulse.

1:26:19 A pulse? A pulse, we'll go with. I think a.

1:26:21 Pulse has that floatiness that just doesn't feel right. It just feels like there's enough of a delay in not just the flipper control, but the sort of weightlessness of the ball. And I know we're in space here, but it's just not like... Like, I want to love this game because there is so much to do and it is a very fresh take on what pinball can be.

1:26:49 And it's the reason why I love that pinball games, pinball video games exist because it, you know, it puts on all of these impossible layers on top of a very real thing that is pinball. but there is like a, there's, there's something that's just not sinking for me with the floatiness of the controls. I'm very concerned about precision and getting shots to go where I want. And because of this, like latency issue that I'm detecting, I'm just not able to like get anything going the way I want it to.

1:27:21 And when you playing a pinball game and aiming and direction is a problem, uh, you, you, you're going to kind of lose my attention rather quickly. Now the scheme doesn't come out till November 26th.

1:27:32 Okay.

1:27:33 Uh, certainly these things can be tweaked and adjusted. I don't want to close the door and a pull on a pulse just yet. But as of right now, I think there's a couple of things that need to be fixed for me to really start giving a crap and getting in there and really trying to make a meal out of it. Um, So that's where it's at. The demo's out now. Try it out for yourself. Maybe you'll understand what I'm saying with the fluidness and those issues.

1:27:58 It's out for real next month, November 26th. That's right. So yeah, I don't know.

1:28:03 That's where I'm at. Just a quick touch on that. Yeah, it looks good, man. It looks really good. And it brings some really interesting ideas into virtual pinball. But you just got to nail a couple things for me to really keep my attention.

1:28:20 And right now, It's a bit of a mixed bag. No, yeah. If that's one of the essential things, I mean, hey, Pinball Week is forever, folks. It goes on in our hearts. It does. Gang, up next, the last game that we're talking about on the podcast is the Game of the Week. It's back. whoa that's right it's back whoa castlevania belmont's curse uh folks i've been playing this grub you've been playing this mikey you've been playing this i don't know jeff will if you'd to have the time to check this out um I would say very device, perhaps divisive amongst us or some of us and the rest of the Internet.

1:29:03 Yeah, this game almost has me kind of thinking about what I mean when I say I want so and so to come back.

1:29:11 Right.

1:29:12 Oh, I've been screaming about bringing Castlevania back for a long time.

1:29:16 And now here it is. And it's it's good. Like they made a good game here, I think.

1:29:22 And I know it kind of bristles some people when I'm like, this doesn't feel that much like a Castlevania game because, oh, they should do something new. But the new thing here is kind of just making it feel like a lot of other modern Metroidvanias while losing some of that Castlevania-ness to a point where I'm kind of like, well, what is this? What itch is this really scratching for me then?

1:29:46 Exactly.

1:29:46 Is it just a modern Metroidvania with some Castlevania trappings, the aesthetics on it.

1:29:53 I don't know. Like, the whole thing is just having me feel a little weird. Can I ask you, Mike? Sorry, Trev. What specifically from other Castlevania games are you missing or do you want in this?

1:30:04 The general just, like, feel of the movement and the combat. Like, it's like a silly thing, but, you know, Castlevania games, you push the attack button, you throw an attack. Here it is, like, the kind of very deliberate... combos. There's more of an emphasis on kind of like the gimmick platforming stuff, which again, very modern Metroidvania. And a lot of games do that stuff really well. And I, and I like that, but here I'm like, I don't, I don't know if that's something I necessarily needed.

1:30:28 And you said, you said it at the bottom of the, I overheard you talking to Dan about it. And it's been sticking with me as I've been playing it where it's like, we, we have a lot of games that play like this. We don't have a lot of Castlevanias anymore. And so it's like, when you say you want a Castlevania back, what you mean is like, you know, this isn't, that's not to say we don't want this. It's just like, we do have a lot of options when it comes to getting a game like this. And we don't have a lot of options when it comes to getting a game that feels exactly like symphony of the night. And I, I definitely think I find myself preferring. It would have felt even more like an Igavania or symphony of the night.

1:31:03 And yet, as I kind of had that in my mind, I'm playing it. I am having a very good time. Like it is, it's what it's doing. It is doing very well. And, I don't think that means that we can't have this conversation about expectations around this game. And because, you know, they they've brought back Silent Hill and they did a lot of work to, like, bring that back in a bunch of different ways. And it's like, yeah, that's admirable. And it's like, oh, is Castlevania going to get that same treatment? It doesn't necessarily really feel like it will.

1:31:32 Right. And like, again, Castlevania has been a lot of things.

1:31:34 It's weird to just like be like 2D Metroidvania Castlevania game.

1:31:39 You know, if they made Super Contra or Super Castlevania 5 or whatever, you know, follow up to some of the more iconic 2D ones before Symphony of the Night, that also would have been very cool to see.

1:31:53 Right.

1:31:53 It's like, you know, I'm in this weird spot of like, yeah, I want to judge this game by its own merits. Even when I do that, like, and again, I think it's good. Is it as good as like a Prince of Persia? The Lost Crown or some of these other sort of heavy hitters.

1:32:05 No.

1:32:06 Part of that is this game does not really look very good on a Switch 2. First off, there is no Switch 2 version. It's just a Switch 1 version. So, like, they pull the camera back a lot and it's kind of a dynamic camera and oftentimes everything is just too small. It's hard to read. It's hard to, like, tell when an enemy is about to attack. It's hard to read the tiny text. Things get blurry. The frame rate.

1:32:29 Even stutters sometimes. So, like, the performance and the aesthetics are kind of a mess on the switch. I, uh, I was going to say, I, it's, it's been, my, my switch two has been collecting dust. So I thought like, Oh, this is available there. Let me go check it out. Boy, howdy. I, the game looks gorgeous normally. And if you watch the quick look that Dan was piloting game, it looks very pretty in motion playing this on the switch to looks like absolute ass. Um, I think steam, I think steam deck, I should say. Yes. Yes. I wound up getting it on steam. Um, in addition because I just could not play the Switch 2 version. It was just upsetting me that much. And again, it's wild.

1:33:07 There is no Switch shooter. It's just Switch 1, which is bizarre. Like, how is there not a version that takes advantage of Switch 2? I hope that happens soon and it better be a free upgrade when they do.

1:33:19 I have absolutely been loving my time in this game, though. I think, I agree with Mikey where this doesn't quite feel like a Castlevania game, or at least you know, my touchstone for Castlevania games are the GBA ones, right? I didn't get to Symphony of the Night until like much later in like the gaming timeline of things. Those GBA ones and the DS ones were very formative for me as to like what I'm expecting. And this from the jump does not feel like those did, but I think as soon as I divorced that and I just remember that it's, going to feel a little bit more dead cells in the DNA, I think I started having a better time, just a little bit. And I was not really having fun. Like, I beat the first boss.

1:34:10 I'm like, okay, that was kind of a slog. I'm not really having fun, but I should play more than just the first boss and explore more of this map. And then as soon as you beat that first boss and you get access to the whip, And the whip is very different than how it is in other Castlevania games, right?

1:34:28 This is more of like a grappling hook, uh, come over here style thing. That's right. And go over there. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it's more of a go over there, um, where you see an enemy, you can latch onto them and you can either, depending on your weapon, you can attack them with the, uh, bespoke whip attack, or you can use it to grapple onto specific different points. Um, But as soon as I found the gauntlets or like the fists, holy shit, did the game start singing for me personally where I would get a new weapon as I was progressing through the story. And I did not care because I just settled into a rhythm where there have been multiple screens where I will not touch the floor for like a solid minute because I'm just like whipping onto

1:35:16 a dude and like hitting, holding the attack button and hitting an uppercut. to gain a little bit of momentum, gain a little bit of verticality, and then whipping onto another enemy further up. There was a moment where, like, I just kept doing that, that it felt like I cheated the game. And before you get to the second boss, you have to climb, like, a prison tower. And I wound up not going up the actual tower instead. I came up through the right side of it through, like, a different means. And then I kind of, like, just got to the top floor. Oh, you found the elevator? Yes, I found the elevator. So, yeah, you kind of, like.

1:35:54 There's, like, this, like, tarot system that's basically clues, and, like, one of them kind of sort of tells you what the shortcut would be. And you can't just find that on your own without even getting to that clue, which is at the top of the normal route.

1:36:06 Yeah, I didn't see the clue. I just got to the elevator, and that was fun that you have that option, too. But, yeah, gang, I don't know. I'm really... I think it starts to click with me as soon as I found a weapon that I really liked. And then I remembered like the fists were the style of weapons that I really liked when I was playing Dead Cells. I think the, at least where I'm at right now, there isn't a means to like fast travel between like these different mirrors or portals that you're using. So I'm having a little bit, I'm getting turned around a little bit of the time.

1:36:42 I don't know if you guys are running into that or maybe that's just me and my confusion with the map and everything. But I'm having a good chunk of fun. It feels like the Kendrick Lamar song where he's going bing bop, bing bop, bing bop, boom. And that's just me zipping through levels of like, yeah, let's fucking go.

1:37:03 And I don't know. It taps into that feeling that I had when I was playing through Prince of Persia Lost Crown. Um, and making the jump and deciding to play it on steam versus the switch. Uh, God, it just looks very pretty. Um, the story I can, I can take her or leave. It is fun being in France. I don't want to spoil who the second boss is, but I'm like, I know her. I was going to.

1:37:26 It's McCrone. Yeah. Yeah.

1:37:27 Yeah.

1:37:27 It's crazy. It's Napoleon.

1:37:31 Yeah.

1:37:32 You shut your mouth, Mike.

1:37:34 I might as well be who it actually is to be honest.

1:37:38 Yeah.

1:37:38 I am appreciative.

1:37:42 Of Mike and Dan sort of prepping me for what to expect here, and that has enabled me to go in with my sort of target set appropriately for this. So I am also having a pretty good time. Very early on, but having a very good time. You know, I think Mike's just telling me, like, oh, you start.

1:37:59 Off with the wall jump. I'm like, oh, okay.

1:38:02 That kind of tells me a lot about what to expect from this game and what they're trying to do. I'm not going to be unlocking stuff like that. So let's see what they are going to start unlocking. And it's like, oh, I get this whip. And the whip is very much a platforming item early on.

1:38:16 It is useful for.

1:38:17 Attacks, but it's not as useful as getting that cross from the same boss, I think, where you can just throw that through three sets of enemies and it just makes them explode instantaneously. And it's like, oh, okay, that felt pretty powerful. That was my magic attack. So I'll kind of pair that up with these really awesome platforming movements.

1:38:35 And then I think the game looks, I think it looks nice when I'm playing on a device that can handle it. The artwork, the sort of stunning red overlay on Paris in the background. I'm like, well, that's a real stark look. I'm into it. I think the character designs are maybe a little bit over designed, just a touch, even in game moment to moment, but not to the point where it's distracting. It's just like, OK, maybe I would have preferred a slightly subtle, more subtle approach to Castlevania here. But they're going for something a little bit more extreme. And it works for the most part there.

1:39:10 And as I'm discovering more of these bosses, more of these characters, I'm getting more into that as well.

1:39:17 The music, you know, have you guys, has it stuck out to you guys much? I'm still early on.

1:39:22 Yeah, that's maybe I'm questionable about the music.

1:39:24 The only time I get, like, even notice it is if it is a remix of a familiar song.

1:39:29 Yeah, exactly. And there's that, right, yeah. It's just, yeah, yeah.

1:39:32 It's just, it seems like every little thing, like, it's not that much of an RPG. Like, the weapons, like, getting the weapons feels different, right? There's not, you know, the upgrades.

1:39:41 I don't know. I don't know why it throws me off as much as it does.

1:39:44 But even just, like, the kind of flow of combat, which, you know, in the old Castlevania games, it's very much kind of a spacing thing, and it's kind of just, you know, deliberate. And in here, it's very much, it's that Dead Soul style, and a lot of other modern games, like, very aggressive.

1:39:58 You get in their face. You look for like. Toe to toe.

1:40:00 Yeah. And you look for them to do your thing. And then you do your dodge the other side. You keep attacking. You dodge the other side. And I, you know, I like that in other games. It's just, I just don't know if that's what I wanted in the Castlevania situation here.

1:40:12 Yeah.

1:40:13 There are so many things that are different. And again, of course, it's not inherently bad because it's different. Of course, you can change that stuff up. Yeah, but you're allowed to bring your baggage to an old series coming back.

1:40:23 That's the whole point.

1:40:24 That's what they're doing here.

1:40:26 Like, if Mario suddenly had a double jump in the next 3D Mario game, I would be critical of that. Like, that doesn't seem fair to me. Right, so I don't know. If people want to say it's just me being a fuddy-duddy, but... I don't think it's being a fuddy-duddy.

1:40:39 I don't know.

1:40:40 I think a lot of people are going to feel the way you feel, and it's important that we talk that out.

1:40:44 I guess I'm a little surprised that when I said I wanted Castlevania back, it wasn't obvious. I had to clarify, and I wanted it to play like... the castlevania games that i like a lot uh yeah.

1:40:56 I mean not just that you like that are you know iconographic they are right yeah huge and important to deciding what games were going to be like very quickly after that.

1:41:06 Yes and yes i know that there were other styles i guess i know that there's the classic linear castlevanias and then we had the metropanias and i liked both of those Um, and I just think that this shift, it doesn't do much for, for me.

1:41:17 I mean, it just begs the comparison to some of the best Metroid venues of all time.

1:41:21 Yeah. I've been playing well dweller as well. Right. And like, I kind of stopped doing that to go try this so we can talk about it. And I'm going back to well dweller. That just seems, that just reads better. It seems a bit more interesting to me. I don't know. I like that style a bit more.

1:41:38 You know, maybe some of it is I don't like dead cells that much. I know that's like another argument, like how much like dead cells is this? Honestly, I get a bit, a lot of things I don't like about dead cells. I maybe am getting here with that kind of the heaviness of the combat and things like that.

1:41:53 See, I think that's part of my issue. I think that's where I'm on, on the other side, Mike, where I absolutely adored and loved dead cells. So kind of adapting more of that DNA in, in this Castlevania game, I think I am clicking and meshing with more dead cells. And maybe I don't have the same fondness or the same history with like that Metroidvania Symphony of the Night style game. So like this, it's like, OK, it's just Castlevania name for me. And there's spooky Gothic people like similar trappings. But like I'm enjoying like how the combat feels for me because it is that more aggressive side that I wind up enjoying more rather than just like like the poking and the spacing stuff like you mentioned.

1:42:37 It feels like a game that should have a parry.

1:42:39 Do you get a parry? You get, like, a shield where, like, you can block attacks, yeah. Yeah. There's, yeah, where I'm at right now, I beat the first four bosses. I, like, could not stop playing last night, actually. Okay. And there was this, I felt kinship because there was an enemy that came out of nowhere just flying around, a gigantic crow, and this crow. Hey. The crow's. this crow vomits crows on, onto you. And just like, and then as it's like calling, just like little crows are like flying out of its mouth.

1:43:16 And then like, I kept getting booped by her. Um, and I was thinking like, Oh, you know, I just got like a shield or like a Perry in like, it was telling me like, Oh, you could do that for projectile attacks and like regular attacks. I wonder if it'll work on this like crow vomit. And then it did. uh, the crow vomit and like that stuff. Like I, I, I would suggest maybe stick around, uh, like get through those first three bosses and then, you.

1:43:44 Know, yeah, I'm going to stick with it. Uh, I am, like I said, I, I, I said, I'm, I'm very early. I'm trying to feel it out still, but I'm not having a bad time. And, uh, hearing you get it like so into it, it's like, okay, I'm just going to, I'm going to follow in Jan's footsteps here a little bit and kind of see how I feel and maybe talk to you about it as I go.

1:44:01 Yeah. I think, uh, perhaps like different, um, learning trees of, like, 2Dvania games and preferences there. Mike, I'm just curious. How did you feel, or did you like Shadow Complex at all? Oh, Shadow Complex. Yeah.

1:44:16 You know, that one's very much in the Metroid sound. We get fewer Metrovanes that actually feel more like Metroid. That is for sure.

1:44:23 That's true. Right, yeah. I was just thinking... Go ahead. I like Bloodstained, too. I know some people play Bloodstained.

1:44:30 Oh, just go play Bloodstained. Ah, that game came out a long time ago, right? And hey, we're getting Bloodstained 2.

1:44:35 Next year. Yeah, I am excited for that as well, for sure. I did have one of those moments where I realized the challenging platform room I was in wasn't essential to advancing the critical path. But then I was like, I see the chest that I'm supposed to get, and I know that I've died a million times. I'm just going to stick at it. I'm just going to keep going.

1:44:59 And then like it felt like that level of satisfaction where you were triggering off the whip and then you get an ability that kind of your light shield that you can use to parry, you can use it to get rid of certain parts of the environment. And then just like zipping around with that, it just like felt like it was singing. And I don't know, it felt very satisfied. And it was one of those moments where like, I'm good at games. Wow. Hell yeah. where, like, I guess, like, I, when I look at, like, a 2D action game, and if, it's great if I enjoy the combat, but also something I come for is, like, challenging puzzles that take advantage of the movement, and this 100% does that. I'm very interested to see what other movement abilities you get. I

1:45:48 do think, like, your main character kind of, like, runs at a very slower pace so i'm assuming you will get boots of some sort.

1:45:55 That's that's definitely how i'm feeling early i'm like oh there is like a gap in the combat here that's where i'm like oh the parry should probably be here like i do feel like this is a game that is asking me to go even more toe-to-toe with the enemies uh than than i am because i do have to kind of back up and get out of the way a little bit now the game doesn't feel right when i'm doing that it's like and then yeah the so many other aspects of it. It's like, where are the Metroidvania abilities going to slot in here? And it's like, oh, there's obviously a lot of other gaps that I'm feeling, and I'm curious to see how it's going to develop.

1:46:25 I'm going to stick with this one.

1:46:27 Apparently it's pretty long, but I'm going to try to beat this one before, maybe not before next week, but maybe in the next two weeks or so.

1:46:33 Yeah, there are other games I wanted to check out. I wanted to check out Tenembris Somnia, I think it is called. Yeah, I just saw some of that too. That looks cool. Yeah, we talked about that before. Is that like out, out now? It's out, out now, yeah. Okay, maybe that's one we'll bring next week. Maybe we'll check that for a bit of UPF as well. Okay, good idea.

1:46:52 But like this, I just want to keep playing. And hearing that it runs well in Steam Deck, it's very encouraging because, man, I'm really bummed out that it looked like Garbo on the Switch. Yeah, I bet we'll do a Switch 2 update at some point. Folks, that is a hefty first segment of video games and video game adjacent things. We're going to take a break. We'll hear from some friends. And then we'll be back with the news right after this. Gosh, what am I going to do?

1:47:25 I know plenty about starting a business, but I don't know anything about spinning.

1:47:29 Up a store. Jeff Grubb, don't worry. My best friend Merchant Tech can help you do that. I thought I was your best friend, Mike Minotti. Not anymore.

1:47:38 Merchant Tech is here to help support independent sellers like you.

1:47:42 They can do it all in one easy-to-use platform.

1:47:45 But what if I need someone to help hold my hand through the process? It's scary to go at it alone. Will you help hold my hand through this?

1:47:52 No, I don't want to touch your disgusting hand, Grub. But Merchant Tech will. They have white glove customer service. And more importantly, customer friendly.

1:48:03 White gloves? Holy moly.

1:48:04 I hope Merchant Tech will be my new best friend, too. I needed a way to figure out how to make a merch store, figure out payments, and other stuff I've struggled with starting my business.

1:48:13 But if you need help starting a new business or just want help with your current one, my BFF Merchant Tech is here for you.

1:48:20 You.

1:48:20 Easy to use tools and unmatched customer service. Hit up our friends over at merchant.tech slash giant bomb. This is Jeff Robb with the news.

1:48:38 Jeff Robb.

1:48:40 Hi, hello, yes, I have news for you. Let's start with this one. Battlefront 3 rumors. DICE and or Bungie are reportedly circling the project. EGM's final issue contains a quarterman rumor naming DICE and Bungie as potential developers for a new Star Wars Battlefront game. Uh, this comes from a magazine rumor column, uh, written probably over the summer, a bunch of the other rumors in there, uh, did come true.

1:49:06 Uh, let's see here.

1:49:08 Lucasfilm apparently has been looking for a development partner and the two studios are the ones that they seem to be talking to. Uh, since that, uh, War Dogs studio CEO, you know, Bulkhead Games, this guy does seem to talk. Joe Brammer just, I think bizarrely, just came out and was like, yeah, EA Dice, and from what I've heard, Respawn are now working on Battlefront 3, which very strange thing for someone in the industry to do, but I'm not complaining.

1:49:42 Just weird.

1:49:43 Yeah, and that seems to be the kind of thing where it's like, oh, I bet there were talks and Bungie was maybe trying to make that happen. But of course, if possible, they were always going to go with DICE. Now, it's worth pointing out, and we'll get back to Bungie here in a second, because.

1:49:57 We probably should talk about that side of it still.

1:50:00 A lot of the people that worked on Star Wars Battlefront II, they don't work at DICE anymore.

1:50:05 That is.

1:50:06 a studio that's changed a lot since 2017. And even like the people that oversaw that game's resurgence, a lot of them aren't necessarily there anymore. So when you say it's DICE and then Respawn stepping in, that begins to maybe make some more sense because Apex Legends is one they sort of waffle. And by they, I mean EA, waffle back and forth on like what the future of that game looks like, whether it's an active development, whether it's major development, investments in its future, whether it's just sort of maintenance and letting it die a slow death while still making some money here on the side. What is Respawn going to do to sort of replace all of that revenue it was once making from Apex Legends?

1:50:45 Maybe Star Wars Battlefront could be the thing. I guess let's start there. You guys want Star Wars Battlefront 3 from DICE yet again and Respawn helping?

1:50:57 Yeah. Respawn helping?

1:50:58 Yeah.

1:51:00 I like Battlefront 2.

1:51:02 A lot.

1:51:02 And that game was hamstrung by the loot boxes and the controversy around that, which was deserved, but also did overshadow what was a really fun and cool game.

1:51:13 I know a lot of people don't work there anymore.

1:51:15 I'm sure they could still put a good Battlefront 3 together, especially if you have Respawn helping out. Those two studios together can make a decent Battlefront 3. They are going to kind of run into that issue, though, of how do you monetize that game the way that you want to?

1:51:32 Because they were very aggressive with the loot boxes. That didn't really work out.

1:51:35 It's also kind of hard, like, making a Star Wars one of these, it's extra hard to do things like put Beavis and Butt-Head in your game, right?

1:51:44 You've got to imagine that Star Wars has enough stuff in there that you can do battle hashes.

1:51:51 Put Vinny Blaze in there, for the love of God. Put Andy Serkis in there, and then he does his monologue.

1:51:57 Right, and like give extra cosmetics to all these characters and reveal new characters and you do seasons based on various movies and new movies come out or new TV shows. Like they're Andor cosmetics for the true freaks. Just let me be Saw Gerrera.

1:52:11 Yes, exactly. Oh, good.

1:52:13 Oh, man.

1:52:14 You got to imagine that they have enough there that that can still make some sense, but it would be that Battle Passes would be the sort of monetization thing on top of this, right?

1:52:23 Give me Dash Rendar. Oh, God. Yeah. Fuck yes.

1:52:28 I'm a huge fan of the original.

1:52:30 Yeah. Yeah.

1:52:31 I'm a huge fan of the original two Battlefront games.

1:52:34 Pandemic games. There's a pandemic. Will, are you wearing your Napoleon coat right now?

1:52:38 I know you don't have. I'm wearing a cape. Uh, it's part of my, uh, work cosplay from over the garden wall. And I went to the bathroom during the break and I saw it.

1:52:50 He just texted me.

1:52:51 He's like, this guy sucks.

1:52:53 All right.

1:52:53 And, uh, I was like, what have I put this on? And will anyone notice? And well, Oh, we noticed buddy.

1:53:00 I'm sorry. You're familiar with, and you like the original battlefront games. Yes. Um, yes.

1:53:06 Thank you for as rudely interrupted. Yes, I love those games so much. And like, it's funny when that classic collection came out, everyone complained about the online multiplayer. And I was like, I played these games by myself. Like, I just like being on those maps, playing Star Wars and just having a fun time. I don't necessarily think Battlefront, the new Battlefront wanted to recapture that very well, but they do, I agree with you guys, capture Star Wars and like fighting in a Star Wars battle and stuff like that. And to that end, like I would love a Battlefront 3 follow up from DICE solving a lot of issues. But in my head, I'm like, what if we got like a Helldivers 2 style thing?

1:53:46 Sure.

1:53:47 Or even a lord-like of a Star Wars game where you are landing on a big battle map and completing objectives in the map and across the map and doing different things and stuff like that.

1:53:59 What do they do for the single player side? Like, is there a campaign? Because Battlefront 2 did have a campaign and I just thought it was... I mean, yeah, that's the right noise, Jan. I don't know how else to say it, but that noise is great.

1:54:10 It's weird because I see people glaze it nowadays, and that's what I thought. I thought people didn't like it, and now I see people... They're wrong.

1:54:17 They're wrong, yes.

1:54:18 And the original campaign's... like Battlefront 2 originally, the 2005 one, had like, oh, you're playing through the campaign, you're the 501st, it's through the fall of the Republic into the Galactic Empire, but you're still just playing the missions, like you're still going on a Battlefront map and doing Battlefront things. And that was a good way of tying in the multiplayer, what was ostensibly just a multiplayer game, but having single-player campaigns in it. And I think... I kind of like that about Battlefront because you know what you're getting across all the game modes, where a game that has a separate single player from a multiplayer, you're like, oh, these are kind of two different things where you could be

1:55:01 a fan of both in the older one. So having a campaign that is more structured like a multiplayer could be a lot more fun in a Battlefront 3 and bringing that stuff in.

1:55:10 That's why I was excited- That's why I was excited, Greg, when you were talking about the story yesterday, where any rumor of Bungie being involved, because I would have loved for my dreams of Star Wars Republic Commando to be realized in having something like Halo ODST thrown in there.

1:55:31 I just feel like whatever Bungie does next needs to have some sort of campaign, right?

1:55:35 Yes, please. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And I don't hate the idea of Bungie doing it. It's a bit of a mess there.

1:55:43 Part of me is like, because Sony would have to allow that. And does Sony really want Bungie, this company spent billions of dollars on, working on somebody else's IP for a game that presumably has to be multi-platform and all this stuff, right?

1:55:56 I mean, it's worked out with them, with Disney, with Marvel, right?

1:55:59 Yeah.

1:56:00 And maybe everyone involved was saying, could we do that with Star Wars? And obviously, it's like, that got them far enough to have these conversations, right? But, you know, this does just speak to like, is that what you spent all that money on Bungie to do? And the answer to that question is, of course not. Of course, that's not what they were spending all that money on Bungie to handle. But maybe that's where Bungie needs to be because everything else is too risky in the eyes of Sony.

1:56:24 And they don't they don't want to spend the half of half. Yeah.

1:56:28 Would it be half a billion dollars required to make a Destiny 3 that that is unappetizing to them at this moment? And Star Wars is just a lot more palatable in terms of, hey, we think that can do well, especially in video games. And there's been a lot of evidence of that recently with Galactic Racer. Bungie doesn't seem to be making this game.

1:56:48 Or does Battlefront 3 just become a Fortnite mode? AI makes it.

1:56:56 Yeah.

1:56:57 I think they definitely are still going in that direction. And it sounds like there's going to be some Mickey Mouse stuff characters, related characters in Fortnite in one way or another at some point. But that just can't be their only approach.

1:57:13 And I think they've seen.

1:57:14 That now, especially after Galactic Racer. But yeah, Bungie's trying to figure out what they're doing next. And I definitely, we've seen that reporting from Schreier about they've pitched a whole bunch of different things, a whole mess of different things. And they kind of don't really know what their future looks like still. But it doesn't seem to be like 10 years of marathon.

1:57:34 Yeah. For sure. For hardcore marathon players out there, is marathon something you could adapt to have a good single player campaign?

1:57:44 That's all I wanted.

1:57:45 Why not?

1:57:46 All I wanted was a single player campaign for that game. Because it's such a cool idea of like, I believe you're beaming into these robot bodies at a colony across space and collecting stuff and fighting. And it's like, there could be such a cool campaign of like, discovering how the colony crashed, like reviving it. And I'm not saying that lore is not in there, but to just put that in an extraction shooter and be like, I'm trying to read this note while I'm being attacked by other players.

1:58:14 It's just like not fun.

1:58:15 Yeah. The pendulum's about to swing, guys. Oh, yeah. We're going to go. And then people are like, what do you mean this has multiplayer? What are you talking about? Yeah. I can't believe they added... Yeah, you would like that? I would be so happy.

1:58:31 There is an alternate reality, right? Where that's all of a sudden out of vogue.

1:58:37 Yeah, when there's a fun multiplayer mode that you're not expecting, that's a great little bonus. I enjoyed the Uncharted multiplayer. Yeah. Totally.

1:58:49 My personal opinion, I think it's very difficult to convey exposition through multiplayer-only stuff. As you pointed out, Will, you're getting shot at.

1:58:57 You don't have time. Uh, I don't know. Yeah. I don't know. Whoa. Destiny two had a star Wars like crossover, right? It did.

1:59:06 Like one of the last things it did. And people, people, people really, even people who are like, ah, this is a kind of a, I don't know. Slop is the term people are throwing around for it. Even those people were like, oh, they, they still executed.

1:59:20 On it really well.

1:59:21 And the start, like the lightsabers felt awesome and all this stuff. It looks really cool. And yeah, uh, Bungie could have made it work. It definitely would have spoken volumes about where that company is, because it is basically them going and, like, making a Marvel game, making a Star Wars game at this point. And that is not where Bungie was supposed to be headed when they were selling themselves.

1:59:43 Gosh, it's so interesting, like, because that Halo campaign evolved was this year, and the excitement around that compared to the excitement of, say, Ocarina of Time, right?

1:59:52 Boy.

1:59:52 Yeah. It's just weird. Even Gears, I'd say people were more excited for. I know it's not a remake remaster, but like an entry into this.

2:00:03 We pointed it out at the time, the comparison to the ports of Black Ops 1 and 2. 2PS5 or whatever it was, just eclipsed whatever Halo Campaign Evolved was doing. Like by a factor of 10 or something like that.

2:00:19 Not really, but close.

2:00:21 All right, PlayStation 6 memory and NAND storage alone is going to be $ 680. That's the cost to Sony, according to Kepler L2, who's an insider who does a lot of AMD analysis and has had a lot of AMD data. They had a post on NeoGAF where they said RAM and NAND alone. Again, that's the memory and the storage alone.

2:00:45 will cost Sony $ 680 per console. That's a number that's way higher than, obviously, way higher than when they locked in the specifications for the PlayStation 6 a year and a half ago or so. So they do seem stuck with this, but this is a number that they're looking at being like, what do we do here other than charge a lot more than that for the console? And again, that's just those two components. We're not talking about the CPU.

2:01:15 Or the GPU. Or, you know, or anything else that's going into this thing.

2:01:19 The cooling. The disk drive? The disk drive. Don't worry about that, Mikey. How much is that? Phew, phew. That'll make up the difference.

2:01:29 Can I buy it without the RAM?

2:01:30 Yeah, I think you should be able to. I mean, what is that? It's not even important. Who knows? It's random. That's really funny. I'm not joking.

2:01:44 That is the same fucking answer Dib gave me over the weekend. He was looking at the PC we have in the living room and it has rainbow lights in it.

2:01:53 And he goes, what is that? I said, that's RAM. It's random access memory. He goes, who cares? It's random. How good could it be? Give me deliberate memory. Yeah. A memory that knows what it wants to do with its life. Come on. Random.

2:02:11 Not just a little so random. Get out of here with that. I don't want the D20 of memory.

2:02:17 I understand what you're trying to joke about and i hate you yeah well it's not at this point you've lost it and now we all hate you.

2:02:29 Who's excited to spend twelve hundred dollars on a playstation six i'm.

2:02:33 Not gonna yeah okay but he like there people will and he's will again will will.

2:02:45 Uh, I don't know. How do you, how do you, where do I want.

2:02:48 To ask you this grub? Because I don't think, I mean, the, uh, affordability is a problem, but people.

2:02:55 Seem to just still be buying things. Right.

2:02:58 So like, where do you land on that and the connection of that? Is it just like, I'm convinced everyone is just like wildly in debt.

2:03:08 They are.

2:03:08 And that's, that's, that's what the data is saying is yeah. Consumer spending is keeping the economy.

2:03:14 Yes.

2:03:15 Uh, and there is, uh, lots of corner the, but, um, Credit card delinquencies are increasing. Car loan delinquencies.

2:03:23 Mortgages, right?

2:03:24 Are increasing. Mortgages are beginning to trend that way.

2:03:26 If only this had happened before. We don't know what happens after this is a routine. It's impossible to say. There's just no way to know. Robin on shorted territory, guys. In a bathtub. I know it's going to happen.

2:03:37 How badly do you want to bail out an AI company is what I ask you to do.

2:03:41 We're about to find out. Don't worry. Not too badly. It is. Yeah.

2:03:46 I mean, the thing there is like a lot of those car delinquencies are, you know, on monthly payments for a Ford fucking F-150 Raptor that's $ 1, 500 a month or whatever. And if people shed that, they will have a little bit more maneuverability because that's just completely irresponsible. And that and people not paying their loan back for a car doesn't have the domino effect on the economy like it would.

2:04:09 But it speaks to this concept of people are running towards the brick wall still of, we have no money left and they're not changing their behavior. They are going to have to change their behavior soon. And it seems like it's going to line up perfectly with the launch of the PS six at a price that is astronomical.

2:04:26 I think there's going to.

2:04:27 Be, sorry, Jim, like what's going to be exciting about like, What's going to be the launching?

2:04:32 Are they going to be any exclusive?

2:04:33 None of those problems have gone away. None of those problems. All those problems were going to be there no matter what. And now the price tag attached to it screams that, hey, are you annoyed that this thing is getting rid of discs? Well, now that's become a real big reason not to get this thing, let alone the fact that they probably won't have any true exclusives because... They're going to be terrified, too.

2:04:54 They need to sell these games that cost more than ever to make. They're going to sell them on PS5. They're not going to make Heretic, Prophecy, Intergalactic, whatever, exclusive. Spider-Man 3?

2:05:03 Oh, no.

2:05:04 No way.

2:05:05 Maybe, because that's the biggest card they're going to have to play, right? So I don't know.

2:05:09 Maybe they panic and try to make that one exclusive. But again, boy, that's going to be a small audience for that game that's going to cost $ 500 million to make or whatever.

2:05:18 Yeah.

2:05:19 Right like you said it like you laid out every logical reason why they can't do that.

2:05:25 But then there's that third such a shitty position because and you know and it's their own making in a lot of ways the ps5 is just being bitch slapped right now in terms of the jailbroken and all this other stuff where it is just It is wild that people are going to be able to play GTA 6 on their PC. They're going to be able to download it for free on their PlayStation 5. It seems like we're heading toward that in a month. It's coming apart at the seams before our very eyes. And the only real solution they have to deal with this is to launch a new console that resets the clock on security. Now, they could sell us PS5 Slim, but that thing's going to be $ 1, 000 as well.

2:06:10 So why would they do that?

2:06:12 No one's going to replace their current PS5 with that.

2:06:14 The stuff used to get smaller and cheaper, and we got the fun Slim version at the end of.

2:06:18 The lifecycle of a console.

2:06:22 So rock and hard place. It is going to be difficult for them to navigate. But yes, the price is not something they're going to be able to move on. This thing's going to be very expensive. And so, really, they're just going to have to accept that the PS5 is what it is. And, you know, the solution here might be find some way to force GTA 6 to come with a version of the PlayStation OS that you have to install that will reset that security. And that likely will happen, actually. And everyone involved, it's to their benefit.

2:06:56 And they're probably going to do that.

2:06:57 All right.

2:06:58 Those are some of the big stories here. Let's get some of these other things here real quick. The Switch 2 version of 007 First Light got a new release date. It is coming out March 18th of next year. So one of those ones where it's, hey, is that actually going to come out? Are they indefinitely delaying that thing?

2:07:14 It seems like it keeps getting pushed back and pushed back. Is it going to be a Borderlands 4 situation? 4, yeah. Yeah, where that never actually comes out. Nope, they have a real date for this thing. Of course, it could slip again, but they seem to be intending to get this one out. That's nice to see. And then computational analysis solves, quote unquote, what Mario 64's infamous plaque says, and it's not El Israel 2401.

2:07:39 What? Big Death Note fans here.

2:07:44 There's a long history of people looking at the plaque in Mario 64.

2:07:49 It's blurry.

2:07:50 It's 32 by 32. There's no way you could read it. People attached it to this idea that Luigi was once playable in Mario 64, and so it said, L is real, and there's all this history behind it that's mostly been debunked.

2:08:04 Well, someone took a tool that is not AI upscaling. Let's be clear.

2:08:08 This is not just that Obama, let's make Obama in 4K, and it turned into a white guy.

2:08:14 It's not that situation.

2:08:15 It is where they basically are like, okay, we're going to look at all of the tools available at that time to take text and scale it down. We're going to look at the fonts they had available to them at that time. And we're going to look at all these combinations and we are going to analyze it and see what it could likely be. And apparently it said eternal star.

2:08:35 We hope so.

2:08:36 So I hope you were waiting however many 55 fucking years for that answer, everybody.

2:08:44 The plaque was on the base of a statue of a star, right?

2:08:48 Yeah, I think so. Makes sense. It makes a lot of sense.

2:08:52 Do they never clarify this at all? Nintendo has never answered it. The artist has never said what they put there. Uh, you know, maybe this shakes them loose or something like that, but also it's Nintendo.

2:09:03 They don't care. They don't care about this. This is just the, the fandom being, uh, very weird.

2:09:10 Uh, All right, meanwhile, over at Activision, we talked about those Black Ops 1 and 2 ports doing very well. Well, former Treyarch-level designer Gavin Goslin, who worked on Black Ops and Black Ops 2, argued the original developers should receive royalties from the successful PlayStation release. He pointed out, basically, only the suits made money from this, and it did make a lot of money. The ports arrived July 9th.

2:09:33 Black Ops 2 topped the Circona's July U.S.

2:09:37 Sales chart.

2:09:38 And Alenia Partners, or excuse me, Alenia Analytics estimated that 11.2 million combined sales happened for all these games, netting somewhere around $ 435 million in 15 years after these games came out.

2:09:53 They had another $ 400.

2:09:54 Million month where they were available. And none of that money went to the people who made the game. And that's the way this industry works. And it's kind of coming to a head a little bit. There's been examples of People talk about Star Wars Galactic Racer. There were some interviews done where it's like this small core team of around 75 people. And if you get to the credits of that game, there's way more than 75 names in those credits. In fact, it goes on for 1,100 names.

2:10:22 It just goes on and on. And a lot of that are support studios. And everyone's going like, oh, this is just a way of building in those. A game comes out and we do layoffs into the structure of how the business works. It's a gig-based business now. Similar to how Hollywood works, but without all of the benefits of having unions and be able to move from gig to gig in a very easy way and without having sort of health care that can cover you between jobs, things like that. And when people see stuff like this, it's like, oh, all of the money made from these games because it's not like they did any extra work.

2:11:00 All they did was basically had ports of the PS3 game or whatever it was put on the PS5, PS4 and PS5. That's all they did. And it made another $ 400 million. And the people who did that work got zero of that. And that's kind of reminding people, oh, yeah, we still haven't figured out what should happen there. And it is leading to a lot of conversations about how to handle these things. And it's, yeah, the unions, the unionization is kind of, it's kind of, it has to happen now. It's got like now or never at a certain point. And these are the kinds of contracts that will have to be painfully acquired. Because the companies that do these things are not going to want to give up royalties. Royalties are going to be the last thing

2:11:44 they're going to want to do. But it's maybe a bad time because the companies think they're going to be able to do it without these people because of AI now. So kind of a tough situation.

2:11:55 That's a nightmare. Yes.

2:11:57 I mean, and that's we're in a crisis across the industry right now where people are. So there's double the number of Steam Next Fest demos in this Steam Next Fest than there was in the last Steam Next Fest. And a lot of that is AI slop. And then people, maybe more than half of that would be because a lot of developers are afraid of putting their games into Steam Next Fest. Because what they're seeing is when they do that, people are taking their ideas and putting the game out. The next day and releasing it. You've just been like, we're going to take this idea, make it with a prompt and clawed and release it instead. I think we are in a full blown crisis when it comes to how games are made, how this business is operated.

2:12:38 and how it's being been disrupted to the, to a point where, oh, it's, it's being dismantled again, right in our, before our very eyes. And it, you can't do things the way you used to do them. Uh, because even if you try to do things the right way, there's still all these people circling you like sharks ready to take your hard work. And that is petrifying to a lot of people who have spent their life trying to make this business happen.

2:13:02 It is bad out there. Uh, Can I talk about consoles again?

2:13:06 I saw someone in chat posting a Fortune article that is saying that the Xbox handheld is coming out holiday 2027, and the new console has been moved to 2028.

2:13:21 Just keep moving it all. Just keep moving it all. Right.

2:13:23 The Xbox console, as in Microsoft, is making it themselves, or is this a new Asus one?

2:13:29 I think they are referring to Helix. Yeah, so could be.

2:13:33 Yeah, Xbox is working on a next generation handheld device targeted for the 2027 holidays. Yep, Project Helix, a major hardware initiative that has sparked internal debate between Xbox and Windows teams over strategy, over software strategy. Yeah, so they're still having that debate. I'm kind of like going through this a little bit.

2:13:48 Right.

2:13:49 There will be greater focus on major franchises such as Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Halo and Blizzard properties. We've known all that. It's very much just kind of going over the stuff that if you've been listening to this show... or Game Mess Mornings, the things that we've said about Asher Sharma's strategy of a lot of layoffs, and what is it leading to? Nobody seems to know.

2:14:07 The memo's about how we need new IP, which is, you know, who's gonna make that?

2:14:12 Or they're gonna vibe-code it into existence, I guess.

2:14:14 Right, and everyone's gonna be afraid to pitch a new IP because you're focusing more on Call of Duty, Minecraft, and Halo.

2:14:22 The Holy Trinity.

2:14:23 Uh-huh.

2:14:24 Right, yeah.

2:14:26 Boy, I do wonder if them coming out and just straight up being like, hey, 2028, i can't imagine that really factors into playstation plans very much but it just still seems like 2027 i i don't it just doesn't feel like we're getting a playstation 6 then but also maybe i don't know.

2:14:43 Yep it's it's it's hard to tell like they have every reason not to do it and then so many reasons to do it again mostly about security or and momentum of development and stuff like that but um Yeah, we'll find out. I just can't imagine a real PS6 or a real Xbox follow-up coming out next year.

2:15:00 That would be bizarre.

2:15:02 There was rumors that Rockstar really tried to get Daft Punk to reunite for Grand Theft Auto 6's original soundtrack.

2:15:08 You crazy people. You crazy people.

2:15:11 Apparently, the rumor, which who knows if this is accurate, but the rumor says they approached the Daft Punk members, the two guys, with an unlimited budget. And we're just like, whatever you need here is a blank check. Get back together and get to work. And they didn't do it. And so Rockstar went with their second pick, which is, I guess you're supposed to pronounce it with the French way, Justice.

2:15:37 It was kind of a similar band to Daft Punk.

2:15:40 My wife really likes Justice. My wife. Yeah, there you go.

2:15:44 But Justice, like Daft Punk apparently was originally supposed to do, He's doing original music for Grand Theft Auto 6's soundtrack. These are not just licensed tracks, although I bet they will have some licensed tracks. And meanwhile, Guy-Emmanuel de Holmen-Cristo, who is one of the members of Daft Punk, is producing that Travis Scott Rhino song for the GTA 6 soundtrack.

2:16:06 So he showed up to do something. Probably not with the unlimited budget for that, though. All right, last story here. Uma Musume, Pretty Derby's first U.S. concert gets canceled because.

2:16:17 What? Yeah, the horse girls. The horses. He's lost the horse girls.

2:16:25 Cygames confirmed October 20th that its Uma Musume Pretty Derby 7th event, the stage in Los Angeles, its concerts, which were originally scheduled for October 22nd through the 23rd at the Peacock Theater, have been canceled. They're going to refund tickets and all that stuff. The company for the last six months after announcing this has been working with U.S.

2:16:46 lawyers and promoters trying to get visas for everybody. We're unable to do so. And so they were just like, we can't do this concert.

2:16:54 It cannot work.

2:16:55 We can't get visas for many of the key people. And so they have canceled the canceled the concerts instead. They don't anywhere call out like Trump specifically. But yeah, this is.

2:17:06 Yeah, go ahead. So I have seen screenshots from Twitter of people with their anime little profile photos freaking out, tagging JD Vance, tagging Trump, tagging the White House. Please fix this. Oh, my God. I'm like, you fucking idiots. What the fuck do you expect, you dumb shits? You're fucking hiding behind your anime profiles. Of course they're not going to let the horse girls play music here, you idiots.

2:17:35 Yeah, what do you expect?

2:17:37 There's a big crossover between the Umaga Masai.

2:17:42 What is this? No, that's good, Mike. Oh, boy, that's not going to be the episode title. Oh, no.

2:17:46 Remember that horse shit on Nancy Pelosi's desk?

2:17:50 That's crazy. That was an anime horse girl.

2:17:52 January 6th.

2:17:55 If this is the weird domino that tips things a certain way during the midterm elections, oh, my God.

2:18:06 I want to see horse girls protesting during the midterm voting.

2:18:10 Now you're talking. On November 3rd. I need to see that. Chad's right. Magamuse may sound so much better. Magamuse may. I mean, to be clear, it sounds like a nightmare. It sounds better, buddy. Jesus Christ.

2:18:23 This article just pointed out a lot of people were talking about traveling from Japan. They come see this and they book their travel. And that stuff, unless you get insurance on it, won't be easily refundable. That's necessarily so. That'll be its own headache for a lot of people involved who are planning to come here.

2:18:37 So frustrating.

2:18:39 A reminder that this is a silly country that is barely even real at this point.

2:18:45 There wasn't enough Invermectin left for all.

2:18:48 No. That's good. That was good too, Will.

2:18:51 I have an audio from Giant Bomb just real quick.

2:18:53 Sean's bullying me.

2:18:55 I was looking at chat, and he said, I see you looking over here for the reaction.

2:18:59 Go back to Symphony of the Night, Grandpa. You know what?

2:19:07 I was about to say how I've not been this bummed out from a new section. I think the Xbox thing, really, I don't know what happened to me during that.

2:19:20 My brain went down a rabbit hole.

2:19:23 I mean, don't go, don't go like look at the headline and the hero image. It's very much like, this is maybe the woman coming.

2:19:29 To save Xbox.

2:19:30 And, uh, that is the way that the Xbox fan boys on Twitter are still presenting it, which is, uh, pathetic you guys are fucking bozos for continuing to do that you are losers and i think you're i.

2:19:42 Mean fanboys have always been fucking losers i know but the fact that they're still just ready to kick the.

2:19:47 Football yeah cool like you know they they mean nothing they don't matter um.

2:19:52 It's it's a joke yeah but their vote counts the same as mine.

2:19:55 Yeah look they'll they'll let anyone vote um i i think.

2:20:02 I don't know, man.

2:20:02 What are we going to do? We can't just end it like this. We have to talk about, like, candy or something.

2:20:07 I could talk some more about how I'm mad at Chad and Sean and everybody.

2:20:10 That makes me happy. That's great for people that listen to the podcast later, Mike. All right, that's great. That's everyone. Shut the hell up. Yeah, I'm turning 40, and I like old games. I like new games, too.

2:20:21 I'm sorry that you like some modern super mid Castlevania, Metroidvania thing.

2:20:26 That you wouldn't even know existed. Oh, my God, you're stuck on that. Oh, Castlevania.

2:20:29 Uh-oh.

2:20:30 Oh, I'm dead.

2:20:31 Oh, I did actually. Oh, I could uppercut something. What the fucking do? What did I do.

2:20:37 Old man? I'm not old. I'm taking my centrum. Bullshit. I have a cape. Mike doesn't like something. He's a funny daddy. He's a funny daddy.

2:20:46 Oh, now he has toxic positivity this week because he likes this thing too much.

2:20:50 Shut the hell up.

2:20:52 You said you delivered the word mid during that Castlevania thing. In a way that I hope stays on forever. You were just like mad like that.

2:21:05 I don't know what it was. It was about the music. It was about the music, yes. The music.

2:21:09 You were just like mad and I just lost my mind, dude.

2:21:14 If you go back and listen to that, I laugh out of nowhere. Are we having a post-mortem in the middle of the podcast right now?

2:21:22 It's the one thing that they took from Metroid Dread was having mid-music.

2:21:26 We're distracting from reality a little bit.

2:21:29 That's what this is all about anyway, isn't it? Yeah, get you off the sad horse girl news. That does it for the news. I'm handing the show back over to Janichoa. Folks, we're going to take a quick, bricky break, and we'll be back with emails, YouTube super chats, if we got any. And apparently, a surprise little segment for the show. The Rikert Scale. Oh, no. I don't want to.

2:21:51 Get me off of the scale.

2:21:54 Folks. I'm too heavy.

2:21:55 We'll be right back. Jeff Grubb, put the mace down. Tell me what you're going to present to us with the Rikert Scale.

2:22:05 Yeah, alright, so Dan Reichert isn't here, but he could be with us in spirit, and I want to see how well you guys can put yourselves into the mind of Dan Reichert.

2:22:16 I don't want to be here. I'd like to recuse myself.

2:22:19 He has reviewed hundreds of video games, and I think he has all done it at Game Informer.

2:22:26 I think these are all from his time at Game Informer, which.

2:22:29 Sometimes on a 100-point scale, sometimes on a 1,000-point scale, there are psychos over there.

2:22:33 1,000?

2:22:34 1,000?

2:22:34 Yeah, I saw one that was like 0.75, or yeah, that would be 1,000. Either way, or maybe like 80. I think it was only the 0.25s. Yeah, 0.25s, which I guess, I'm like, was that 80-point scale?

2:22:42 Either way.

2:22:51 This is something where we are going to present games Dan Riker has reviewed, and I want to see who can get the closest to his score from his time at Game Informer. Now, Dan did give me one here, and we'll go over a few here, and we'll see who can get the closest and win, or maybe lose, actually, if you get the closest. He gave me Mario Party 8.

2:23:13 What do you think Dan gave that out of 10?

2:23:17 I like that for a 9. Was this the first one where you were in the stupid little car? Car.

2:23:23 I bet he wouldn't have liked that. I think he wasn't super hot in this one. I'm going to say 6.5.

2:23:30 Maybe a 7. Maybe a 7.

2:23:32 I was going to do 6.25.

2:23:33 All right.

2:23:35 So let's see here. So, Jurf, did you say something?

2:23:38 I agreed with Jan's original 9. I don't know what to make of it. You know, he's a Mario Party sicko.

2:23:47 It's not the car one, according to Dan.

2:23:49 Oh, nine's the car one?

2:23:52 Okay, so Mike, you said 6.5, and then.

2:23:56 Jan, you said seven? Yeah, Will said 6.2. All right, let's double.

2:24:00 I'm going to double check to make sure I have the exact right number here. I believe technically we have to give this to Mike Minotti because it's a 6.7. Oh, wow.

2:24:11 It wasn't one of the car ones even. I guess it was just mid- All right. Well done there. Okay. So that's one point for Mikey. But I like it when he says it. Let him keep saying it. Okay. All right.

2:24:24 WWE 12.

2:24:27 Oh, my God. Is this 2012? I'm assuming. The year 12?

2:24:29 It would have been like 2011. It would have been WWE and then the year 12.

2:24:35 Yes. 7.3. No. I think like 5.8. I was going to say 5.9, but I'll say six and a half. Sorry, Jan. This was one of the better liked ones, if I can recall, actually, 12.

2:24:49 Although I think it was like, was it the CM Punk one? He doesn't like CM Punk that much. He also doesn't love these. So I want to say, I bet he gave it an eight. I bet he gave it what he thought was a generous eight.

2:25:04 All right. I think, Will, you went with 5.8?

2:25:08 5.9.

2:25:09 Okay, who said 5.8?

2:25:11 Someone said 5.8.

2:25:12 I think Michael kicked it.

2:25:15 Oh, no, no.

2:25:16 I did 5.8. Jane was going to do 5.9. Sorry.

2:25:18 Will, you are the closest to 5.5. Damn it.

2:25:21 Out of this one. Damn it. All right. That's a point for Will.

2:25:26 Oh, people did like this one. Dan got death threats for this review because he didn't like it enough.

2:25:31 Oh, I see. Everyone calmed the fuck down.

2:25:32 You sure it was for the review?

2:25:34 I think his main objection was. The story mode, scripted objectives, and interruptions repeatedly got in the way of simply wrestling a match.

2:25:42 Right.

2:25:42 This was, like, one of the first times they did it. I forget if it was the Austin one or something, but people liked.

2:25:46 It at the time. And that's kind of how they've been doing it since, in a lot of ways.

2:25:50 Dan was right, though.

2:25:50 It was actually bad. So, I mean, Dan was correct. All right. Let's see here.

2:25:56 Let's go with this one, and then we'll do that one next.

2:25:59 Just a couple more left. Rambo the Video Game. Is this the Wii one? We won't give.

2:26:04 Rambo, the video game.

2:26:05 Out of 10. God, I don't know what year this came out.

2:26:08 It's a 360 game because I've looked at this for Blight.

2:26:11 Club before, actually. It's what I think it is. I'm going to say a 4.8. I say 4. I'll say 5.5.

2:26:17 I was going to say 5.5.

2:26:19 I'll say a solid 6.

2:26:26 The correct answer. Another point for Mike. Exactly a four out of ten.

2:26:30 Well done, Mikey. Wavelength there. All right.

2:26:34 Borderlands 2. What did he give Borderlands.

2:26:38 2 out of 10? 9.75.

2:26:40 I think I remember his review of this.

2:26:44 I think he likes it a lot. Let's give that to Mike. That's 9.75. I remember! Oh, come at me! No, I won't, because I'm scared of you. I'm scared that you know this. Why do you know that?

2:26:58 I think I saw this one out in the wild not too long ago, and I was looking at it like, oh, is Dan in this?

2:27:02 And he wasn't. It was his Borderlands 2 review. Weird recognizes weird. That's right, Jason Fennell. Yeah. Let's do three more. Dan's like, it was really good at the time. Yeah, that game's great. Yeah. I still like Borderlands 2 a lot. It was good. At the time, we all loved, loved, loved it.

2:27:19 All right, let's do three more here. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Out of the Shadows.

2:27:25 Oh, I don't think he would have liked this one. Which one is that?

2:27:27 I'm trying to remember if this is the Platinum Games one or not, because people didn't like that one.

2:27:32 4.4. It was really hyped. Out of the Shadow, I don't remember. Oh, the Xbox Live one? No, out of 10. Out of 10. Yeah, I'm gonna go for four seven.

2:27:43 Uh no i'll do 6.5 yeah i.

2:27:45 Was gonna say six six two five yeah six just six.

2:27:50 All right this one goes to janicella he gave it a two out of ten.

2:27:54 I don't think it was that bad hell yeah two Let's see.

2:28:00 It's not even so bad.

2:28:01 It's good. It's just terrible. Yeah, just endless loading, invisible walls. Was it caught again? Out of the shadows.

2:28:09 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, out of the shadows. And feel free to double check me on any of these scores. And what's the problem with the game?

2:28:14 I know, right? All right.

2:28:16 Gotham City Imposters. What do you give Gotham City Imposters? Superhero fan, Dan Reichert.

2:28:23 Interesting. He hates that. This was a weird game, man. Gotham City Imposters? I don't know this game. Five.

2:28:32 This was the Xbox Live Arcade team-based deathmatch game that was kind of Gotham-themed.

2:28:38 Two. I don't think he hated it. I'm going to say seven.

2:28:45 Seven seems generous.

2:28:47 6.75. What'd you say, Will? Five. And Drift, what'd you say?

2:28:52 Four.

2:28:52 Four.

2:28:54 It was an 8 out of 10. Mike gets it again.

2:28:57 There we go.

2:28:59 This is weird how obsessed Mike is with that.

2:29:04 I play Biggins. I remember.

2:29:05 People kind of liked that one. People kind of liked that one.

2:29:08 All right. Last one, and then I feel like I'm the only one. Last one, and then I have, like, two.

2:29:14 Quick bonus ones.

2:29:17 Another Mario Party to cap it off.

2:29:22 Mario Party Island Tour. What do you give Mario Party Island Tour?

2:29:26 Tour.

2:29:26 That's how I say it, and I'm not going to change.

2:29:30 I didn't know he was gentrifying now. He does not like handhelds, but he likes the DS. 5-5. 6-2. 6-5.

2:29:41 No, 6-5 is good.

2:29:45 I'm going to go 6.75 again.

2:29:48 I believe that one goes to Jerf. It got a 4 out of 10.

2:29:51 Yeah. He really did not like that. Hated it. All right.

2:29:56 So I think that means a point for everybody except for Mike, who had a 4 points. So he beat all three of you combined. It's okay. okay all right time time for some revenge then all right um let's see here what did mike monati give star trek 2013 on games beats 100 point scale 88 uh 82 69 all right like you want to.

2:30:15 Guess or.

2:30:29 I think I gave it a 70 probably, I guess 72.

2:30:32 Okay, Will wins that one.

2:30:35 He got a 59. 59 for Star Trek. 59. Oh, and that must have killed you. 59. That game was fun. I kind of liked that game.

2:30:43 Do you remember the bit you did for the review?

2:30:45 Yeah, I did it like, it was like an officer's log for all the characters.

2:30:50 Yeah, I need to read that immediately.

2:30:52 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right.

2:30:53 And then, okay, what did Mike Minotti give Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania out of the five star scale on Gamespeed?

2:31:03 Yes.

2:31:03 Why, you lowered the scale by a factor of 20. That's insane.

2:31:07 It was controversial at the time, yeah. Yeah, sounds like it. I'll say three. You gave that a three out of five.

2:31:13 A five out of five.

2:31:15 Will's right.

2:31:16 It's a five out of five.

2:31:22 I agree.

2:31:23 That was what we're always people who are just old and they just don't get more. We're like, this feels slightly different. And I'm more open minded than that.

2:31:30 Like I said, this is the best super monkey ball has ever been.

2:31:37 Other than the cabinet. Yeah, of course. All right.

2:31:43 That's what I got. Well done to Will for winning the real match there.

2:31:46 Yeah, that's the one that mattered. All right.

2:31:49 Thank you, Jan, for humoring me on that.

2:31:52 All right, emails. Now we're getting to emails. Emails. Bombcastgiantbomb.com is the email address. Send your emails, too. You can write in about any and everything. Thank you so much to everyone for writing in. I say this every week, and I'm going to continue saying this every week. Thank you so much for flooding the inbox with emails. We're going to start with Matt in the UK. Hi, Bomb Crew.

2:32:16 Star Wars Galactic Racer really delivers in the best parts of Star Wars Little Weird Guys. Biddy Blaz rules. I can't stop saying scream dude as my new vocal stim. If you were to play a little guy in the Star Wars project, in a Star Wars project, What would your little guy look and sound like? Cheers, Matt in the UK.

2:32:38 Real quick, real quick, before we get onto that, I do want to make it clear. I know there are going to be people who are going to feel that Scribdune is played out. It's getting old, annoying. Keep it to your fucking self.

2:32:48 I don't want to hear it. I'm having fun. Fuck off. I don't care. No, it's fun. It's cool. It's fun. Great. I love him. I absolutely love him.

2:33:00 I want to be a droid of some kind. I want to be kind of like a gonk droid. Maybe more wide than deep, though. And I want to kind.

2:33:10 Of talk like Falco in the original Star Fox. Give us a sample. You know, that kind of thing. Oh, yeah. So, yeah. I want to do that kind of thing. I want to be a little dude, maybe like Sebulba height. And I want him to sound like... I've been watching a lot of Yu Yu Hakusho for some reason.

2:33:33 Sure.

2:33:34 And I want him to sound like Kuwabara, but the only thing he says is, you're a meshi. And that's all I want him to say in just, like, different tones. But still, you're a meshi.

2:33:45 I definitely also want to be a small guy. I want to be even smaller than that. I want to be, like, a little guy that sits. You want to be a salacious crumb? I want to be a salacious crumb size. I want to be maybe even smaller than that.

2:33:58 Yes, I want to be. And Dellen, is that what they were called? And Dellen, yeah. The Babu Fricks. And Dellen, yes. Babu Fricks.

2:34:04 I want to be just a little freak that's mostly just looks like myself, but I'm that small. I got a little spaceship and I hang out with those guys and we kind of have our own little world down there, but we do still interact with the big people. That would be the freak I need to be.

2:34:18 Like a Fraggle? I'll be a Fraggle. Yeah, I'll Fraggle Rock these people.

2:34:22 I want to be those little construction guys who are even smaller than the fragments.

2:34:26 Ooh, I love those guys.

2:34:30 I want to be an Ithorian because they go boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. They're pretty freaking sweet.

2:34:38 I love Ithorians. I changed my mind. I just want to be a Buff Hutt from Star Wars. Oh, you'd be good at that.

2:34:46 That's the best character in that movie, by far.

2:34:49 He is awesome. I like him a lot. Jerf, you want to be a creepy little dude or a freaky little freak?

2:34:55 I don't have names for any of these guys. I don't know any of them.

2:34:58 You make your own.

2:34:59 I just want a dude who's wearing a track suit and.

2:35:03 He's just like, take that ass.

2:35:05 Like that. I think that's how George Lucas came up with these characters.

2:35:11 He's just going to be like, You know, like with a toothpick, you're like, oh, that good-ass. And you're just wet all the time. It's like Greedo. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how they came out with Elon Sleazebagano. Yeah.

2:35:25 You know, I think that works. That's who I'd like to be.