X Button Video Game Podcast - Episode 1

Well, hello and welcome to the X Button Video Game Podcast. It's a brand new weekly audio and video podcast program show that we're making thanks to your help Internet on the Internet. My name is Max Scoville and I'm joined by two of my best friends in the whole universe, Brian Altano and Seth Macy.

Hello, gentlemen. How's it going? This feels good. This feels really good. Amazing. This feels really good. Yeah. It's nice to have a little light, a little optimism. That's what we're shooting for here. So if you've never heard of us before and you don't know how you got here, I can't help you with that part. But I can give you a little bit of context as to who we are. I figured we could just kind of before we get into the news this week, which may be a week old by the time you hear this, Who knows?

We can just kind of go around a little bit. It's going to be fun news. It's not going to be like, you know, important stuff. It's going to be about like, you know, cool video game news. It's not it's it's it's. Earthworm Jim has drowned. You'll read it. You'll read a game pro from 1998. That's not news. I'm sorry.

It's still fun. I want to know what the fun factor. Is killed in another divorce no, but I want to go around and kind of talk about our our own little relationships with video games in case any people listening or watching don't know who we are or what our deal is we're let's do this alphabetically Brian I'll tunnel let's start with you. Sure.

Yeah. I always hated that about my last name. I always had to read my book reports before everybody else. And I couldn't be like, oh man, that was such a good idea because I'd have to do that after the fact. No. So I'm a early 80s baby, I guess you would call it a elder millennial. And I started video gaming when my dad picked me up in a pizza parlor in New.

Like not pick. He didn't pick me up there. I wasn't like the idea, just living there. In a pizza parlor, yeah. What a what a 80s like sick, animated like it's just like I'm a kid that lives in a pizza parlor. I need a dad. No, my dad brought me to a pizza joint in Jersey City, NJ, and they had a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet and I thought it was the most beautiful thing in the world.

And he held me up and he put 1/4 in and I played and I probably died instantly and maybe put another quarter in. And I was immediately like, these things are really cool. And a couple years later moved to a different part of New Jersey and was like, I need a Nintendo. It's all I want for Christmas is an NES.

And I got it, I believe in 1985 or 1986 with a stack of games that my dad got from this place called Nobody Beats the Wiz. No, it might have been the way. Actually. No, I think it was Crazy Eddie. Crazy Eddie. He went to jail for like embezzling stuff, but he was open, he was crazy and murder. So yeah, he that's.

How he got off the charges? Insanity. Yeah, and because he killed Earthworm Jim, the judge was like, I'll shave 10 years. We all let's all agree that that guy sucks and he killed him with drowning, which I think is fine for Worms. No, so they, they, I got a stack of NES games and was like, I'm just in love.

And you know, I was in that era where I was trading games with friends and stuff like that. And I, my daughter's in 3rd grade now, so I play a lot of video games with her and I swear I'll make this quick. I was telling her a story in the car this morning about how when I was in 3rd grade I got in trouble because made a bunch of my friends made our own like bootleg Nintendo power style video game magazine with hand drawn maps and. Cheat codes that we stole.

From Nintendo Power and like, you know, stuff were like blurbs about games we're playing and stuff like that. And we went to the library and we printed like 100 copies and we were selling him. And Nintendo sent you a cease and desist. Yeah, I was. I was the first person. Even invented yet, but they somehow managed to e-mail you. They blocked your channel which was I. Yeah, there's a there's a documentary about me on on Pizzone, which is a streaming site. And I was the first kid to be sued by Nintendo for touring fan art.

No, they said the principal pulled me in her office and was like, you can't do any, you can't sell, you can't sell anything at school period. Let's start there. Like you can't just have a store in your backpack. But secondly, like you can't use the school equipment and the, and the printer paper and stuff like that.

But it's pretty cool that you guys are making your own magazine and the writings good and the arts good. So you know, I'll give you, you get a Gold Star there, but you can't sell these things here. And I asked my dad, can I print it on your, your printer? And he's like, what? You're crazy and so then that ended but that was my first time covering video games and sharing my love for video games with other people, which luckily, thanks to my friends right here and our wonderful listeners, I get to keep doing today so for.

Any of our any of our younger listeners or viewers back in the in the 90s, printing something on an inkjet printer cost more than a car. If it was color, forget about it. That was like you'd get maybe 1. Printer was the size of a cartoon. We I'd like a print class once where the guy came in one day like it was like when they get off, you know, if they hold the phone up and back to the future, you're never gonna believe what they're listening. This is gonna blow your mind where he came in with like a printer and he was just like, check this out. And he printed this like picture of like a forest. And he started at the beginning of the class. And by the end of the class, it was just like, and by the end he was like, look at this.

And we were like, Oh my God, he did it. Wow. So yeah, technology got better. Anyway, Speaking of vintage electronics, Seth Macy, what's your origin story? Well, I am a vintage electronic myself. I am. I am actually at the very end of Gen. X, that's how old. I comic series. Yes, by oh God, I have that right over there.

I have the first issue of that with the sticker that I, the price sticker that I had on it when I tried to sell it at the Holiday Market in North Haven, ME for $13, which is what Wizard Magazine had it listed as. So I'd always be like, Dad, I have at least $500 worth of comics and he'd always say only if somebody wants to pay that much.

And I was like, screw you, Dad. But he was right. So thanks Dad, for that valuable life lesson. What was your first video game, Seth? What was your first memory of all that? The first I remember like we were at like, I don't know, a party, my parents, friends and there's like kids and I just remember going down into the basement and seeing Pac-Man for the Atari 2600, which was not a good game at all.

But I didn't know that until much later on. I was probably 5, maybe 4. And we don't talk about this now because it's not it's just a video games are just such a thing. But being able to move this, the things that were on the screen, the image was like a huge novelty at the time. And I was just like, I was dialed in. I didn't even play.

I watched another kid play forever. And then, you know, our downstairs friends in the apartment we lived in, they got an Atari 2600, and eventually we got a Coleco Vision. And yeah. And yes, that was a fun one. The year after, we got a Tandy Color Computer 3. I'm sorry, Mom, I wasn't nice to you when you gave that to us for Christmas.

Why not? We wanted a Nintendo. We. Didn't we wanted you got a Tandy? We got a Tandy Color Computer 3 because the guy at RadioShack was like, honestly, this is better than a Nintendo. And my mom was like, really? OK, So yeah, NES, we, my brother and I worked, got summer jobs to buy a Super NES. And then I've just, I've had every everything ever since then.

I like Nintendo quite a bit. But you know, I did have a PlayStation and an Xbox. I've had, yeah, you know what? I've had every console since like the N64, with the exception of the Dreamcast. So which I have now. I have a Dreamcast now. Somebody just gave me one like five years ago. Yeah, no, you.

Have like a you have like a payphone. I do I have a payphone hold check. It out, Yeah, you got like, I don't have a Dreamcast, but I have a payphone and multiple Coleco visions and let me call it what you can play. Telephone games on that. It's a Dale Earnhardt phone. Prank calling my grandmother.

For real right now you call. Give it That's a Dale Earnhardt. The phone, are you? Yeah. Kidding me? No, I'm not. This is not a call in show. Are you calling yourself? Yeah. Who did you call? Who did you call? I know you could do that. Why would I have a payphone if I couldn't call it for my Dale Earnhardt phone? Doesn't even make sense.

Sure. No, it is worth pointing out that we all, we all play video games on every system. We are are doing a Nintendo focus show on top of this called Nintendo, Nintendo 64. But yeah, we play everything. That's a big kind of the inspiration behind us doing this show. So, Max, what's your deal? Well, I'm just a little old baby, a little almost 40 year old baby. Like put on all the New Year's clip art. No, my, my relationship with gaming has kind of always been, I don't know, holistic.

Like, I like, I like video games. I like comics, I like movies, I like art, I like books. I like all that stuff. And I like how it overlaps and bleeds into itself. Growing up, my mom was a huge pain in the ass and was one of those people who would hear on the news that video games will make your kids terrible and was like, we can't have that. But also she's like an infamous Luddite and would be like, I'd be like mom, I want to play video games And she's like, we can't have video games.

We don't have a VCR anyway, still working through some of that. But my earliest memories of gaming was a lot of playing at people's house, at friends houses and stuff. And I remember, I mean, I have like, you know, faint, faint early memories of playing Duck Hunt and just being like, this is sick.

You can shoot a gun at the TV. Like, these are all these things my mom hates. Guns, TV, video games all together. Ducks. Yeah. Water fowl. The French do kill a lot of ducks. Yeah, but no the. Fatten them up for their tasty livers. That's a for the that's. A Yeah, the lorange. Who's the goose now?

This guy. I remember a very early, very, very early core memory of playing Kid Chameleon. And I think that was like the first time, like I always loved I was a video games for being like almost like somewhere between like dioramas and like playsets. Like I always like the sort of toy attic side to it where it's like, here's like a little world you just kind of go into.

And kid Chameleon is a game where you put on different hats and you get to do different stuff and different. It's really kind of the original Assassin's Creed. If you think about it. This kid gets sucked back in time and has to like relive his ancestors sins or whatever. But it's also probably why I dress like that dude on a daily basis. But yeah, later on I moved to I moved to a new neighborhood and my would be best friend moved in next door was, you know, he always, he had AC at an NES super NES. His his dad was one of the first people to be like, oh, let's get a get a PC.

And my friend was like, I better install Doom. And so he very much became like a Big Brother figure to me and like exposed me to a lot of a lot of video games And I I beat link to the past at his house for the first time, fell madly in love with secretive evermore Metal Gear Solid came along. That was a huge kind of just paradigm shift.

That was really the first time when I was like, I I I wanted understand video games more like I want to unpack what these things are as a medium. Yeah, and he I mean, he showed me how to like emulate older games and back in the old 28 eight dial up days, like you couldn't really emulate newer games. So I played a lot of older stuff that was kind of kind of like, you know, before my time a little bit. So, you know, that's why we that's why we talked to talk a rafters on Alfred Chicken over here. Yeah, I don't know.

I've been, I've been covering games professionally for like over 15 years now. I mean, we've kind of all been doing that whole side of things. That's I think that's less interesting than the the weird murky origins though. No, it's, it is. It's like Max, you and I specifically did podcast Beyond Together, which was a PlayStation Focus show and we had a lot of fun with it.

But we noticed that over the last couple of years, it fell less and less sort of pertinent to do a a specific show around PlayStation. I think Nintendo always made a ton of sense, but PlayStation right now, even our our friends that kind of funny shout out to Greg and Tim and all those boys. They they kind of sunset at their PlayStation podcast a while ago and we kind of turned beyond into a slightly different thing. And so I think the focus with this show when the three of us got our heads together was like, let's just make something where we can celebrate all things video games everywhere we play them because we all have all the consoles, gaming PCs and weird esoteric handhelds at any given

moment. Seth is like, you know, cracking into like a a weird, you know, supreme themed analog pocket or I'm, you know, just installing a dual screen mod on my ay and Thor or, you know, maxes of your helmet on. It's great. I love, I love the technology side of it, but it's only so interesting without the games.

And really the game's kind of, you know, the the hardware as a means to an end to play the game. So it's kind of two different conversations we can have about that stuff. But yeah, I mean, it is, it is weird to be like, oh, we're the PlayStation show. What's what's placed? What's Sony up to these days?

Yeah, they're making a Zelda movie. What? Yeah, they're they're making more streaming shows and movies than they are games these days, which. No, they're not even going to CES for the first time in 60 years because they're just like, we're not going to do electronics anymore, we're going to do some entertainment. Yeah.

So great news, Morbius fans. Could we see every time? Morbius, where that came from us was unnecessary. Yeah, Speaking of Sony doing things, or rather not doing things on a regular basis, that brings us to our first topic I want to I want to cover, which is that Naughty Dog has confirmed we won't see Intergalactic The Heretic Prophet until 2027. There's a quote that says there's an electricity around the studio right now as all the pieces come together. And we're stoked to finally unveil Intergalactic in all its glory.

But we need to cook for just a little bit longer. So we want to set expectations. We're going to be quiet for the rest of this year. In 2027, that changes will fully reveal Intergalactic The Heretic Prophet and give you a proper look at Jordan's wild sci-fi venture. To me, Jordan's wild sci-fi adventure is Space Jam.

But, you know, don't let me get sidetracked. We know it's been a long time since we've had much to share with you. We don't take your continued support for granted. We're working incredibly hard to make something worthy of your patients. So that basically means we're not going to be seeing intergalactic at the Tgas, which are where it was revealed however many years ago. How we feeling about this?

I feel like announcing that something isn't going to happen is the new announcing something is going to happen, and it's become far more common in the games industry. And honestly, I'm here for it. I think it's a lot easier to set the expectations that something won't disappoint fans. Like, I think all all predictions led to people probably assuming that Neil Druckmann and the cast of this game would show up on stage at the Game Awards this December with Jeff Keeley and show off brand new gameplay and all that stuff like that. And knowing that's not going to happen now is sort of a relief, right?

Like it's it's because when it doesn't appear in that three hour broadcast, you're not disappointed anymore. You're just kind of like, OK. But I think bigger picture, it's kind of a bummer that this is we've gone this far into this generation without getting something brand new from Naughty Dog. And that stings a little bit.

This game looks really awesome. I'm in on day one. I'm just kind of bummed that it's going to take seven years for us to get our first glimpse of APS 5 exclusive game from Naughty Dog that is solely built in and for this generation. You know what? I think This is why I was never invited on Beyond don't care about this game at all.

It doesn't look like a game that I'm Yeah, all we've seen of it was a a commercial for Adidas and Porsche with some some dialogue. That's all we know. So yeah, I just. Accept that she has she has the same haircut as us and I, I need to support, I need to support that in games. That is, I do support that, but no, I just I those kind of sort of big games with set pieces aren't my Forte as much as other games.

I I feel like Sony's kind of actually Max, I think you wrote about this, didn't you? Were there kind of they just do the same kind of story all the time? I saw that with Wolverine where I was like, OK, I don't know, it's Insomniac, it's different. But it starts with a big action sequence where some QuickTime events and then some some snarky quips and then it goes into you can walk around for a little bit and then about 3 or 4 hours into it you start actually playing the game. So, and I think that's what this is going to be. And I'm not interested in everybody who I've no. No, that's you're that's totally fine. That's fair.

My I'm I'm kind of with you on that to a certain like I the way that they revealed this exciting new video game is by a bunch of people talking like that's that's true. I I think there is a place for this, this pursuit of, you know, launching oneself across the uncanny valley and having these incredible human performances in games.

But I do, we think we've reached a point where I think we're just sort of bogged down and getting the pores and the, you know, the lighting, right, the the shaders for earlobes or whatever to make everything look so. Loading shaders when I start up a game that is one of my favorite. Pastimes. Yeah, well, this lady had to load up a shaver so I could get that buzzed head.

Oh, doesn't make sense in space to have your hair floating around every which way. You'd look silly. It would be no good look silly. I Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm the, the thing I'm excited about for this game is that we watched, we watched Naughty Dog go down this sort of this funnel of seriousness. And they went from like Crash Bandicoot to like Jack and Dexter to like Uncharted to like The Last of Us. And it's like you went from like you went from like colorful cartoon platformer who smashes boxes to eat the succulent fruit within to like just sad, sad make you feel bad murder game, you know, And it's like, you know, obviously I remember like back when the Last of Us first came out there being a discussion about like, but is it

fun in like, is it OK to be like this is fun? It's like you just killed a guy with a hammer because he tried to take your bottled water or whatever. Like there's it's it's bleak, like if those games are are gnarly and the second one, even just, you know, got it went even further that direction. And the fact that intergalactic is coming out by being like from the studio that bought you brought you Crash Bandicoot and Jack and Daxter gives me a little bit of hope. And that alongside the fact that it's more colorful, it's kind of this like retrofuturistic 80s aesthetic, very, very clearly cribbing a bit from Akira, which I think is, is rad. I'm excited to see what they do with it. And also the one little glimmer

of something that resembles gameplay we've seen makes it look like a from Soft game with lightsabers. So maybe it's doing something interesting. But I'm also I, I do think there's a, there's a, you wait around too long for something and it's, it's, it's hard to maintain that level of excitement or expectation.

And the fact that Naughty Dog got funneled into making that Last of Us live service title for so long and then it just disappeared entirely. I think, you know, really, really got rid of a lot of, of good faith they had. And I, I still think they're going to come out swinging with an incredible game because they are one of those prestige studios that makes good games. But yeah, I, I, there's a, there's a thing we run into where when you wait so long for a game to come out that by the time it comes out, no matter what it is, some part of you is like, that's it.

And yeah, I mean, I think I'm very excited to see what the discourse around GTA6 is, which I think, baby, I think that is going to be one of the most impressive pieces of entertainment anything ever made without question. But I do think there's going to be a, you know, a selection of people who are hoping it's like super GTA5.

And I think it's going to be something very different from that. And some people are like, what do you mean? I can't steal a Harrier jet or whatever. Like, I don't know what the complaints are going to be, but I think it is going to be just in the interest of making that get the game that Rockstar wants to make. I think it's going to be maybe not what people are expecting, always in the best ways, so.

Yeah, I think I, I think you're spot on. And having that that much anticipation and expectation for that long, I think invariably you're going to have people who build a version of something in their heads that doesn't match to the reality that they ultimately get to for for intergalactic. I think, I think, I think you nailed it, Max. And I think that like, like, look, I, I love The Last of Us. I love the Last of Us Part 2 even more. I think that game has some of the best combat and best stealth of any video game ever.

But we are on like by the time The Last of Us part Part 2, season 2, the TV show adaptation of the game that got several remasters, which was a sequel that alongside had a canned multiplayer game that they spent several years on. That's like you're looking at what, 1314 years of one studio basically being connected to one IP and that IP basically being of a era of like, hey, the road is a really popular movie and book and The Walking Dead's pretty big, so we're going to make our own take on that that's gritty and serious.

The Walking Rd. Yeah, it's. The working title. Actually, people are not. So, yeah, I, I'm, I'm happy that they can finally kind of like close the door on that. And I know they're, they're always going to have, you know, they, they announced recently like they're still figuring out new stories in, in that world effectively, right. And but I I love the idea of this prestigious studio doing something big and new in space where the protagonist lands on planets with a cool leather jacket and beats up gigantic alien monsters with a lightsaber thing cool. That is like that seems so tonally shifted from the Last of Us thing that we've been kind of in for so long with Naughty Dog. And I think, you know, even

Uncharted 4 to a degree, I believe like it it, it was can't be, but it also it it got pretty dark at at at some points. And I think it, you know, took it took itself a little too seriously. And I think that like when Indiana Jones ever does that, it sort of loses the plot a little bit, right? And so I, I think you want pulpy campiness there. And I hope that they can tap into that a little bit here. I I hope I'm going to say something controversial here. I hope that they make something that is family friendly at some point.

I hope that they go full circle because like, I mean, we, you know, we we're basically children when Crash Bandicoot came out. And then you're like a little bit older and like, I, I think it's really cool how that studio has grown up with its audience. But you reach a point where like, you know, you've got that we you know, we talk about how PlayStation makes a lot of sad dad games and it's like, yeah, that's true. But you, there's also the point where, I don't know, I would love to have a Naughty Dog game that I can play with my kid that isn't, you know, 40 years old, you know what I mean? Like, I think it'd be really cool. And and you look at, you know, you look at good Pixar movies and those are, I think that's

what I would point to, to be like, OK, this is the prestige of an all ages product that is also appreciated by literally all ages. You know, if if you you take it 4 year old, they're like, haha, the rat is cooking. And you know, you take an adult, they're like the rat is cooking really well. Like the rat has pathos while it's cooking, you know? There's no, there's that, there's that theater test where you're, you're seeing like a, you know, a movie like that, that scales for all ages and the, there are pockets of the room laughing at different parts. And I, and I always appreciate that, right. And then an adult is sobbing and a little kids like what's wrong with my dad?

And kind of like, well, I brought, I snuck 2 beers into the theater and just thinking about life and how limited it is. And she's like, OK, but the rat can cook though, like pay attention, you know, so I think that's important. I'm totally with you on that. That would be that would be really cool if they if they did did that eventually. I mean, that's what honestly, yeah, that's. What Nintendo, Nintendo does on a mechanical sense, like I think, you know, look at Tears of the Kingdom, like that is that's an all ages game.

Like you can give that to a little kid and they can play it. But it's also incredibly, incredibly, infinitely complex where you can give it to someone who's been playing games their whole life and they find new stuff to do with it. And it's like how you engage with that is really up to you. But yeah, you know, it's not, it's the maturity of that game doesn't come from the story and it doesn't come from, you know, the the tone of it at all. Like it's it comes from the fact that it will reward creative play.

That's not the kind of game that Naughty Dog makes. So I feel like they need to, you know, they would have to nail that in the story department and, you know, make a game where people aren't killing each other with ball peen hammers and like, broken bottles. You know, like it's kind of, I don't, I don't know. The the the ball peen hammer falls apart after 10 uses, that's where.

That's the trick. No, I mean, you know, I think. The the creativity of play in Zelda versus like the lack thereof. And I think why I don't really like those games because they don't let you. I just like to kind of do whatever I want to do, which is why all my favorite games are open world games because I want to be like playing in the like in the sandbox with my toys.

And that's kind of what like Red Dead Redemption, you know, Metal Gear Solid 5 tears, the Kingdom, breath of the wild. Those are like my favorite games. Well, Skyrim, my favorite games of all time and the Sony games, I tend to just not enjoy them as much as any as other people. And it it, it puts a big X on my head.

Oh that's right, X button. There's there, there is this theory that this that this will have some open world elements to it or some, or some wide linear stuff, right. And I think that like that's, there's a push and pull with that. I think that those were some of the sections in Wolverine, you know, that Insomniac released recently that I I think felt like they were a good idea on paper. But then ultimately you're in these kind of environments that that character specifically doesn't really make a ton of sense rummaging around the alleyways of like looking for, you know, those big PC gaming towers to smash and get costume points or whatever.

And so that's, that's tough. It's it's, it's tough. And I get like coming off of off of Wolverine specifically, like I think that there's probably some apprehension there because that was, you know, that was a pretty good attempt at, at something from kind of a bygone era. And I think gamers are expecting something more at this point.

And I think with Naughty Dog specifically, like if they made a really linear game after this long, I think people would be really bummed out. Like if it was just tunnel, tunnel, tunnel cutscene, walk and talk, walk and talk tunnel, tunnel cutscene, boss room, tunnel tunnel cutscene fly right? Like I think people would be like, I'm, I'm a little over it. And so I'm hoping they find like I'm hoping they have that thing where you land on a planet and you're like, I don't even know where to start, right.

And it it rewards that, that's my. Favorite thing? Yeah, that's all. I mean, they're also not a city that's known for that, that level of openness. And it's, you know, I mean, having an big, a huge open world is sort of antithetical to telling a story. Yeah. Yeah. That's a interesting, interesting problem I have. Well, did it Red Dead Redemption 2. Like there's Red Dead, there's also. Red Dead Redemption 2 I like, I'm not even like a guy who's like, yeah, I loved stories and games, but that was the one where I was like, oh, my God, I'm invested in this story to the point where I like the characters so much that I never actually beat the game because I knew that it didn't end well. And I just wanted to, like, hang

out with these. There's that one scene where you, like, go fishing. And I was like, oh, here we go. And they're gonna be like, do you remember that drunk lady at the bar? Oh, I sure do. But it actually turned into like a really organically good conversation that they were having while you're like doing a fishing mini man. Don't even get me started.

I read, I guess you. Didn't get me started. Unredited redemption too. The exception to telling, you know, an open world is like, if you wander off in any direction, like you can find a story that's worth hearing, you know? And it's like creating creating a trail of bread crumbs that the player actually wants to follow rather than just being like, anyway, you cannot progress to the next area unless you sit through these following cutscenes.

No, so my, my last, my I think my last big shoot that I did for IGN even it was actually a couple days after I was let go, but I was like, I want to finish this and it's it should be live now. But it was an hour long interview with Dan Hauser. And you know, like Dan Hauser worked on GTA, Red Dead, every, everything in between.

And he told me specifically like to him, open world games are the future of video game storytelling. And that the linear path is effectively still chasing this idea that video games should be like movies and they're taking a lot of ideas from movies. But movies do that so well in their own way, in their own medium, right?

Like you, you can put yourself into the character story in your own head, like you're reading a book or watching ATV show or watching a movie, but with an open world game, you have the big story beats, but all of the crazy stuff that you do in between that becomes the story and all of that. Like when I, I don't know, Max would one of my favorite things in the world is to talk about like Far Cry with you and just how much fun. Like, hey, we went to this camp and you know, I shot off a lock and the bear ran out and then he accidentally started a fire. And then I zip lined in and I, you know, choke, choke the guy and like all this other stuff.

And you're like, Oh yeah, well, I did this. Whereas like, you know, when we talked about Wolverine, it was kind of like, yeah, I pressed the XA bunch of times and I, I killed a bunch of, you know, mini Sentinels. And then there was a, there was a cutscene and I did it again. And not to say that there's only one way to make a video game, but I sort of see his point in that.

And he's got, he's got the pedigree to back it up and he's making new open world games now with absurd ventures and hearing someone say that kind of stuff. I'm, I'm kind of like, that's a really interesting philosophy because this is a this is a thing that movies can't do right. Movies, movies can't copy the, the chaos of an open world game of how much stuff happens between the set pieces and between the big story beats that becomes your story, you know?

And, and so, yeah, I think that that was kind of inspiring. And so I'm, I'm hopeful. We're working on a, a I was working on a feature at IGN. We have the series called art of the level, which is, you know, taking a particular area of a game and breaking down what works about it, What doesn't, you know, what makes, what makes it so kind of emblematic of that particular game? Been doing them for GTA, which is weird because that doesn't really have levels.

You know, it's got, it's got missions and it's got large areas. And the one I was doing was for GTA5. And it's the, you know, I, I, I kind of zeroed in on the one that they put in the original trailer, which is basically just the armored car scene from, from heat. And like GTA5 is like, is it has a lot of heat DNA. Like it is, it makes no secret about that. But what I really adore about that mission is that that takes place maybe like 1/3 or halfway through that game. Like it takes place really far in there. So by the time you get there, you're not like, they're just covering heat.

They're like, oh, I'm completely invested with these characters. I don't care if they're doing a little bit of heat cosplay. In fact, the way that mission is broken up is like the armored car heist and like the subsequent shootout is like the kind of the big climax. But there's a there's a series of little fetch quests that lead up to it, which are all presented as story missions. And if you haven't played before, it's really funny because you know, like Lester will call you up and he's like, hey, guys, you're going to be robbing a car. So you got to go get some funny masks and stuff. And you're like, all right.

And you go do a, you know, a mission where you go to the costume store in Venice Beach and you buy masks and you can speed run that and get a gold medal for doing it really quickly, which is like a weird thing to do because you don't do anything. You drive to the place you walk in, you buy the mask and you walk out and it goes.

And it's like, OK, you want, I don't know, I did the law and order noise for GTA. But you know, the noise I'm talking about. The funny thing is like if you if you specifically select the exact outfits from Heat that they wear in that scene, it gives you like a little wink and a nod. It's a little bonus achievement or, you know, bonus objective. I know that.

Yeah, it's like they very much kind of like wink and just on the on the nose like, yes, so you are literally cosplaying as characters from Heat. And here's a little, you know, acknowledgement of that. But the fact that it takes these otherwise completely uninteresting little segments of a mission that build towards something bigger, where it's like going to a store and buying a jumpsuit in a video game is not an interesting thing to do mechanically.

But if you're doing that as like a side objective while you're out doing all this other stuff that you do in a big open world game, it really kind of it it, it weaves, it makes a it's like a tapestry, like it's weaving in and out, you know, and it's got you've got a handful of these little things and it's that it's so wonderful for. I think it's also a big, you know, movement away from what a lot of earlier GTA games would do, where it would take all of these objectives and squish them together into this big, you know, cartoon Dagwood sandwich of you got to do, which could always be checkpointed kind of weirdly where like a reference objective one drive to the bowling alley. And if you drive to the bowling

alley and like get shot or something, they're like, no, no, no, no, you got to drive to the bowling alley all over and you're like, OK, the driving to the bowling alley. I'll take a cab next time. Like it's. Not no. It's I think that's spot I'm in. And it's exactly like, it's exactly why I loved Sinners so much. And I think it's because, and I've, I've saw a lot of people who went into that movie and they're like, nothing scary happens for the first hour, which is like a failure of horror.

And I'm like, well, you know, the opening scene is a guy covered in blood walking into a church. But sure, I'll humor you. But for me, the idea of the director spending the first hour accumulating all the pieces and all the ingredients and then cooking, I think there's something really magical about that.

And I think that's exactly what that GTA mission did, right? It is, it is basically it's like you said, it's taking all these little things that are not necessarily interesting in isolation, but they're building up like you're like, oh, he's, you know, he's got a wardrobe change. What's going on with that? Why are they wearing that thing?

And all of a sudden it client axes in this gigantic, crazy, you know, insane action over the top thing. And I I love that. And I think that like, if you have the patience for it and you're willing to meet it on its level, I really love when art does stuff like that. It it, it basically says like, we'll get there, don't worry.

Like you can peek in the oven a couple of times. But like, let let me cook. I'm, I'm building something here. And then, yeah, I mean the IT pays off. The underlying thing with an open world is like, is it, is it you want to hang out there like it? You know, in some cases it's like, absolutely. Are you kidding me?

No, we should not hang out there. Like you want to go to Yarnham? Dead horses and dudes with like harrows trying to beat you to death. Like, why would you go there? It's. Awful. Anytime there's like a message board post about like which video game world would you want to hang out in? People are like, oh, Wind Waker, I'd love to be on No one. No one says Yarnham, right?

Nobody's like Vice City. I want to get, I want a car to hit me while I'm standing on the street, you know? Speaking of GTA though, we should talk about GTA 6 because our friend legally. Obligated to as a video that we show being produced this decade, we should bring. That's true. Our friend and former coworker Alana Pierce published a video recently that Max I believe you and I were also talking about the same exact subject a couple days ago about GTA Sixes eligibility for the Game Awards.

Wait, hold on quick correction since recording this. The Game Awards confirmed the cutoff date for nominee eligibility stating on the official sites FAQ section. Quote Games must be made commercially available to customers on or before Friday, November 20th, 2026 at 9:00 PM Pacific Time, which is about a day and 1/2 after GTA6 goes live and more or less in line with the TGA cutoff dates from previous years. Presumably TGA judges will have had plenty of time with early builds of the game by then.

Meanwhile, in the Players voice category quote games must ship on or before November 30th, 2026, so presumably everybody who is loudly declaring GTA6 to be the game of the year will have completed its 80 to 100 hour main campaign by then. Anyway, back to the show. The rest of the conversation still goes. Or Video game awards in general, Game of the Year awards. And it's in a really interesting spot because there are numerous video game award shows, right?

What's the what's the one that happens in the UK that takes place in like March or something? Yeah, the and that is that is so far after the year has wrapped that you're almost like you guys are still talking about 20. That's where the Academy Awards are. They have exactly January, February when all the dust is settled. But yeah.

Yeah, every like winter I see all the UK people I know in suits be like, ah mate, the BAFTA's what a delightful time. I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a. It's, it's, it's like bad for SEO or whatever, but it's so it's so good for art to let those, those things sort of have their moment and have their time. And I think that the way a bunch of big video game websites and small video game websites and the Game Awards do it, it's a little different because they have generally they have a cut off date for what is eligible.

And it's somewhere between like mid or early November or mid November at the earliest and the second, second or so week of December at the latest, right? And throughout time we've seen games get delayed a little bit, come out December 10th or something like that. They're not eligible. There was, you know, there are games that came out two days before the Game Awards eligibility cut off date or two days after. And that wasn't enough time for the jurors and the press and all the, the, the fans and everybody who votes on these things to really spend any time with them.

And so, yeah, go check out her video. It's really good because it's, I think it's a really analytical perspective on how that process works. And I will say from from our side, having voted in what's what, 17 years of IGN scheme of the year awards, I don't not even sure how many TG as we were asked to be to basically fill out forms for, because that whole process is those those forms get sent out to people all over the industry who are like in the know. And I will say from full, full transparency, like there are years where there is a clear front runner, like internally, externally, like clear obscure was one of them last year where I was like, this is far and away the game that everybody loves. And it's not for me.

It's just something that does not resonate with me. I played like 3 hours and bounced off of it and was like, yeah, this is not my thing, maybe I'll go back to it. And then had I had people be like, well, it's like 30 hours long. And I was like, OK, no disrespect to this game. Like it looks great, sounds great. Just did not click with me personally. And so when I get that form for the TG as I just omit my vote in those categories or I will vote for the categories where I am well versed.

And I did have a clear front runner. Like last year I was like Donkey Kong Bonanza, it was one of my favorite games. So I voted for that over Claire Obscur, and people probably thought I was crazy for that. And so I, I don't know, I'm sort of a gremlin in the system, I guess. Like I'm throwing throwing.

Wrenches around, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way that the IGN voting and the TGA's worked is that we would take a vote internally and then our winners would then go on the ballot that way. Yeah. So like we all, we all shared a TGA vote like the like the interns in Life Aquatic share a Glock.

Like we're like, we can't, we can't 1. So you get this weird, you know, debate. And that's in addition to the whole game of the year conversation that happens internally there, which that, you know, frequently turns into like knock down, drag out arguments about the most, you know, trivial things like this is the best action adventure game of the year.

It's not an action adventure. It's an adventure game or it's an action game. No, it's an action RPG, Yeah. Exactly, it's not an action game, there's a skill tree, it's an RPG. But yeah like the the weird thing here. Can GTA be included? Because I'm pretty sure it's after the cut off. It's out on November 19th and the cut off I feel like is usually in the 1st 10 days of November.

I could be a little bit off there, but you know, that's it's people are starting to go, you know, off on off break for the holidays. It's that's usually when most of the big games have come out. Everything's kind of going to be on store shelves before Black Friday, or at least that was the case back when games came on discs.

But you know, it's there's every everything in in gaming is sort of framed around this big holiday rush. And since then, everything sort of bled over and you get, you know, this, there's this wonderful thing that's been happening in in recent years where games were like, yeah, what if we didn't come out between mid-october and 2/3 of the way through November? And you get games that like, like Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon, was it Wildlands?

That was like the best selling game of the year up until October. And then a bunch of other stuff came out and completely trounced it. Last I checked, Resident Evil Requiem is the best selling game of the year. Which probably has a lot to the fact that it came out in like what February was it super early? You know, like Capcom has kind of staked out that early part of the year.

So it gets all this momentum and it gets, you know, tons and tons of sales. And also it doesn't it doesn't hurt that it was on not just PS 5 and Xbox and PC, but also Switch, which helped that out a bunch. But it's the interesting kind of flip side of that is that by the time the game of the year conversation rolls around, people are tired of talking about those games or the.

Regency bias has evaporated. Yeah, yeah. So there's this, there's this weird balancing of act like, what are you trying to do here? Are you trying to release a game that's going to sell a lot of copies? You're going to try to release a game that's going to sell a lot of copies immediately during the holiday rush?

Are you going to try to make a game that wins awards? Like, what's the objective here? And it's tough, yeah. Yeah, and I think what's interesting about it specifically, like you shouted out some great ones. I remembered Super Smash Brothers Ultimate came out December 7th and we were like, and it was like these are these are games that it's not just that they came out too late for these, you know, sort of arbitrary cut off dates.

These are games that you need to place for significant amounts of time to really understand if they're even eligible for game of the year. And what the problem is by the time like forget about recency bias, by the time you're in the November after that, a year later, no one's even talking about those games anymore. Obviously GTA is going to be an exception. We're going to be buying that game and talking about it. But even if they were to, so I'll put it this way, we currently don't know.

I, I will say this full, full transparency. I don't know what Rockstar's plan is for getting review code out to press to influencers, to Youtubers, to anybody who's going to do this. I'm trying to remember what they did with their previous game, which was, you know, Red Dead Redemption 2. And I believe that outlets and individuals were given access a little bit early on a on a smaller basis, and that I do remember buying that game specifically with my own money launch week.

And so we don't even know like Rockstar, they're the only company that can be like, yeah, man, we're not sending out review code until the day of, right? It could. Yeah, they can do that. They might do that. That's entirely possible, given for spoiler. Purposes and stuff like that. This is like look at the the amount of there.

There's a guy who's been leaking early builds of GTA6 for like a full year now and he's still threatening to do it and it's like the game's out in like a month, so you know. Threatening to do that until like years after that game is out. I would love to see I love seeing I'm gonna do it. People like no, but like say that say this game takes 3040 hours to beat or something like that. Even if it came out two days before like the cutoff date, it that's that's you being like, Oh my God, what a what an amazing first five hours of this game game of the year and then not knowing anything that happens afterwards. I got, which isn't isn't fair.

Red Dead was what, 2018? Yeah, I got I got married in 2018 after being engaged for like 7 years or something and having to keep like shuffling around wedding plans. And I was more impressed that I finished Red Dead 2 cuz I was like, this is, and this is a journey. And I like, you know, I was, you know, kind of no lifing it and trying to get through it, but also juggling everything else.

And also that's not a game that rewards that. Like that's a game where you really want to just kind of let it, you know, you want to soak in it, you want to take it in, you want to enjoy it on your own terms. And like, I think a lot of games are done a disservice by that, like trying to trying to beat GTA6, what however long it is in, if you have a weak turn around time that's gonna suck, that's terrible. Glad I don't have to do.

I am worried enough about us as three unemployed married fathers who are going to buy GTA Dollar fathers with our own money and our wives are going to be like, what are you doing? And you're like, we've I've waited 15 years. They'd be like, yeah, like. Hun, we've launched the Pro, we've launched the Patreon. This is I have to do this.

Yeah. Faint. No. Dude, like I was, I don't know, we're texting about this and we're like, well, I guess I'll be, I guess I will not be working when GTA 6 comes out. And you're like, you know, that's like the number one thing that comes out in like custody hearings, right? Like unemployed dad playing GTA6 over Thanksgiving or whatever but. That's so funny.

It's significant though, like it's a big it's a big deal that game. I mean the the game awards thing of it all is like, ultimately it doesn't matter. Rockstar does not need the game awards to make someone no who is who is there being like wow, the game of the game award for best game Gtas. I think I'll give a.

They didn't. I'll get it now you. Get one last time they lost to God of War with Red Dead. That was the same year. Like they did. Not really. Yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering if they're if they're pissed about that because it's like, it's like rock stars, like they don't, they don't need, they don't need to give a but also like they want a trophy, they want a cool trophy.

They want to be able to put game of the year on the side. They want to have that. I would. I would probably. There's nothing that says you can't just put game of the year like on yourself. You can just write a sticker. You can go to Cole and you can go in the dressing room and you can write game of the year on the wall in Kohl's. And if you get, it's not legal, but you can do it. I'm not going to tell anyone if you do, Mervyn. I thought you meant like on the wall in coals like you had coals like for.

You could do that. You could take charcoal and go to Murphins and write it. Just throw them off your trail. What are we talking about? Do the coals charcoal challenge and see how much charcoal you could sneak in it if they get. If you get caught just be like coals. You've been very naughty. This.

What are you gonna do? Coal the cops? How did we get here? All right, let's talk about some games we've been playing because they're they're making them and they're out there. Yes. Brian, what do you plan? Well, you and I recently talked about Star Wars galactic racer we talked about on our on our final episode of beyond, which I I want to give another shout out to the single player version of that game is available to stream on Amazon Luna if you're a prime member right now as it's.

Not important that might that might be long gone. Might be gone, I don't know if. That's the best way to. That's a very fast-paced game. I don't know if streaming is the way to do it. Yeah, I don't know what to say. Give it a shot if you have the infrastructure. You're one of those Luna heads out there, and I know you're listening. Plug yourself into the Luna Matrix. Luna Heads.

Well there was. What was the Google streaming cloud thing that had the most die hard fan base ever? Stadia. Yes. Stadia. One of us, one of us found it. That's I remember, like anytime we'd be like, yeah, and it's coming to the PS4 and Xbox and Nintendo and Stadia. I guess people would be like, how dare you?

It would be like, all right, well, we're gonna, we're gonna win this war of attrition. They named a video a streaming platform that sounds like a sugar substitute that you put in your coffee. Yeah, when my my aunt puts it in her teeth because she's very ill. No. So I, I've been on a huge Castlevania kick. I I downloaded the Belmont's Curse demo on Switch to which I am sad to report is not the place to play that game. No.

As of right now, Konami is just doing a switch one version of that game. So on switch to you can you can do like the whole graphic boost stuff, but it just does not look great like it every time the camera punches in it's like blurry and it's just it's it's such a bummer because to me Castlevania is so it's such a handheld thing for me, but I am playing the dominus collection, which I yeah, I mentioned I mentioned this on my final episode of Nintendo voice chat.

Shout out to Logan plan what up over at NBC. We love you, brother love you. The the cool thing about that collection is they let you arrange all the screens. These were originally dual screen games and now you can basically have, you know, gameplay, map inventory and you can make some small, some big. You can make it so it's old school and you just click a button to switch between them and you just have full gameplay. And these games are so great.

Like they are such they're such awesome games. And I feel like Belmont's curses is different because it is way more dead salzy and coming off of a bunch of Castlevanias. I'm like, all right, so I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm gonna, I'm gonna sort of reconnect with this and recalibrate here and, and get into it.

But yeah, Bellmont's Curse is one of my most anticipated games this fall. I'm gonna, I'm gonna think I'm gonna get it on PS5 now, which I'm surprised about. I really if like if they announced the switch to version tomorrow, I would, I would pre-order that or wait for it. But now I'm playing Order of Ecclesia, which is or Ecclesia, however you say, one of those silly ass names.

It's a man. Up word doesn't matter. It's just awesome. It's just such a good just a good ass action platforming Castlevania game. Like it is just like them at their peak just doing everything right about that's like that series from like Symphony of the Night to the end of the DS era is just pretty much perfect.

Like even even the couple of stumbles here and there are like, these are still great. Like a pretty good Castlevania game from that era still rips harder than just, I don't know, the average action platformer that that was coming out during that time. And so yeah, Dominus Collection and the advanced Collection are regularly on sale.

They are some of my favorite action RPGs ever. They're they're they give me that blood borne vibe where you're just killing big nasty monsters and horrible creatures. You're grinding and farming and you know you fight the same merman 600 times to get a card or whatever that let's you throw bubbles at somebody. But I just love those games so much. And on the flip side, I've been playing a lot of my AY and Thor where instead of taking a dual screen game and putting it into a single screen, they're taking single screen games and modders are figuring out how to make dual screen versions of them. So I'm playing, I'm bouncing between Minish Cap, Chrono Trigger and Link to the Past, which have all, they've all gotten dual screen mods.

And I know the Chrono Trigger did get ADS port, but this one uses the Android version, so it's full widescreen and it's got, you know, they've got like touch screen, bottom screen elements and maps down there. And if you want to switch between your weapons and Link to the Past, like all of that is right there. And it they feel like proper full releases from Nintendo, like they feel like something that Nintendo would do. There's also another one for Dusk, which is the Twilight Princess mod that are basically port that people got running and that got a dual screen mod on it. So yeah, if you have a handheld device that can do dual screen emulation, people are that community is doing the coolest stuff in the world right now.

And I will always big be a big fan of that clamshell handheld design. And so yeah, it just makes me so happy to see that stuff happening. So check all that out. Get an AY and Thor before they get more pricing. Get any video game hardware before it gets a price increase. Yeah, honestly. Seth, what you plan? I'm playing Hell Let Loose Vietnam with the fellas. The beef Lords are back.

That's my my gaming group. It's just like a bunch of dads and we just jump in. It's a little hard because Rich, he works like weird hours. So he'll I'll wake up and I'll check Discord in the morning and they'll be like a message at like from 12:30 at night. He's like anybody down for some late night hell let loose. Like nobody answers him because we're all long since asleep. But that game rules.

I love it. It's so fun If you get 3 of the of the fellas together on a mortar squad, that is maybe one of the funnest ways to play as a USGI or as the NBA. The Mortar team, all day, every day. So the, the whole thing with that is it's like, it's like asymmetrical gameplay, right? Or. Between those, yeah, like you're, it's you versus it's like I don't know, like 30 versus 30.

But it's like the the things you can do on either side is sort of dependent on historically what resources were available. Like, you know, there's obviously there's infantry and then the the parts of that there's like heavy, like armored. So like you can drive a tank, the GIS have a helicopter, the sky dragon, but the NVA have tunnels. So you can like build a tunnel and then you can just pop up in a different part of the map.

It's like fast travel, so. Wow. So cool, it's so awesome. And then everyone's this got like proximity chat and everyone's just everyone is Larping the hell out of that game. Like when you play, everyone is either like, oh, I'm a GI, so they're going to be a GI. Like I listen to credence do that. And then when they're NBA, it's like you're NBA, you're like GI, your country doesn't love you GI and you like you just say all these horrible things to everybody. Well, let's.

I mean, have you seen anybody doing like some like Forrest Gump LARP and just like Karen dudes around? I haven't. I'm sure if I played more I would see that. But yeah, that game is it's super fun. It's like super dad mode and people take it very, very seriously. They will get so mad at you if you're like goofing around like you've got to get in there. You've got to like knock the the enemies out. I think it's an arm of three mod. I think it's another one of those. That's so and and it got A and it became a it's own game, right and got like a full retail.

How let loose is it is is set in World War 2 and then this is like the sequel. It just came out and the start of the summer and man. You like playing any other games with Soviet themes? That's a matter of fact. I downloaded a game called Whole. I have to look at it because I can never. It's called Workers and Resources Soviet Republic, which is where you build, it's a city building game.

It's like city skylines except for it's like dirty communism. It's like you're building a coal factory and you have to get some dirty little trucks to bring the coal from the coal factory to the coal processing plant. And although by the way, you got to build some communist block housing, that just looks awful and horrible. And then I haven't gotten to the part yet where I need to like suppress my population because they're starting to get sick of, of my crap.

But turns out idiot mode. I bought this like 3 weeks ago for 40 bucks and right now, well, I don't know if the steam sale is going on still it's nine it's 10 bucks right now on the steam sale. So yeah, that one again, I'm on my like my dad arc is infinite and it will never end. And I just like, yeah, yeah, that's.

What I love about you stuff. Thank you. Dad Dad arc is an interesting way of putting that. I've noticed that like, my taste in games has changed so much in in recent years, and the running theme right now is roguelikes or roguelikes, which I used to think we're not. I used to be completely like that's a waste of time, that's deliberately Sisyphean. And now the flip side is like that my time means nothing regardless, so who cares if I lose after a run? I don't feel bad for bouncing off. I feel bad if I play 10 hours of a game and then get sidetracked by something else.

But if I play 10 hours of a rogue light and I'm just, you know, I have a good time, I, you know, bash my head against it for a while, get some upgraded unlock, get some crazy builds and then go do something else. Like I don't feel any, I don't feel any like sense of obligation that I'm not, you know, I'm not getting the full experience.

And I know that there's, you know, there are, there are rogue lights with great stories and that you should finish and see the ending. But like, I'm having a really good time with like Blood Dungeon for instance, man. It's so good. And I've gotten that yet? Yeah, everyone keeps telling me how rad it is.

I fell down the ball pit earlier this year. That was another big one. Ball pit's amazing and. Expansion coming out next month actually. Yeah, they're also they're making heroin too. It's check your local dealer. No, but like I don't know, I had a really good time with these games and I'm I'm that's kind of something that's been fun for me with with Star Wars Galactic racers racer singular, though, I guess there are multiple of them in there, but it. Would be pretty boring if there was. Yeah, just, I mean, now this is not pod raising, but the other one I want to check out that I haven't jumped into yet is the Ghost of Yote Most wanted mode.

Yeah, where they took like the bounty hunting mission and you just, you're going and like unlocking costumes and just kind of, I don't know, no, like that that gameplay loop I used to think it was again, I used to just be sort of like, oh, it's randomized that has no, that has no, I don't know, value is the wrong word for it. But like there was something about it that just wasn't appealing to me.

And it's I've completely turned course on that where I'm like, cool, great, sign me up. And the thing I would liken it to is cooking versus other sort of longer form hobbies or activities where I cook all the time. And it it definitely scratches some creative itch, but it also is functional. Like I, you know, I spend an hour or two making dinner and then I feed it to everybody and they eat it and then it's gone. You know, you still got to wash it off the plates and stuff. But like, it's not, you know, it's not like I have all these half finished projects and stuff that I try to do or like, Oh, I'm going to make a paper mache Jigglypuff with my daughter. And it's sitting over there, no

eyes. Like some let me just show you this horrible thing. This is. Not awful, I keep you. Like we're going to finish the Jigglypuff this weekend, but we haven't. That is working. On it. So it's incredible. It's just sleeping. It's just it. Yeah, it looks. It looks like a Jigglypuff in Silent Hill.

It's terrible. But are you? Going to let all the candy and beat it with. Bats, I got AI got a life hack for you. Just paint a Ditto face on it and then that's like so easy to do. That is a great idea. That is a very good idea. But yeah. You should put Kirk, put Kirby's face on there, see how that feels. Just you.

That's wrong. That's a crime against God. You can't do that. I've been playing I've been playing Pokopia with my daughter though, and Pokopia's. It's amazing. Favorite Nintendo Switch two game of the year? I have not. I haven't really gotten into like I'm never I've I never. I don't don't like the crafting stuff.

Again, it's that like I, I have the like, I'll I'll play a bunch of one of those games and then I'll be like, I need to be digging real holes outside or like I need to be crafting real things in real life, which is. I need to be turning garbage into usable resources. Yeah, rubbish to eat, but. No, it's been it's been fun just kind of and like I'll, you know, well, she'll ask me to read a bunch of chatty ass cutscenes because, you know, again, like games, they talk too much.

Those put the Pokémon. Why can't they just say their names repeatedly and let you figure it out? You know I don't that would be. Yeah, more straightforward picture above your head of what you're hungry for. Yeah, but you know, it'll be like, I don't know, piggies, like I'm depressed, bring me toys or whatever.

You're like, all right, gotta go find some rocks to turn into toys or whatever. But I don't know what it was. I bounced off that game so hard and I was so in love with it. Like I think I just, I unlocked like the 4th or 5th area and I was just like, oh man, there's a lot to clean up here. And I think I just got overwhelmed and just put it down. But I I keep meaning to go back and check in on everyone and see if they're alive.

Bulbasaur they are is not doing well, man. I'm just gonna let you know he's having a bad time. You should give. You should see if he's alright. Just text him, you know, see if he's every time. You would accident, you'd be like digging through a hole and you'd like accidentally smash the back of some Pokémon's bad house. You know, he you'd give you'd give like some it. It felt so like you would build some animals like a really nice house and then this other guy would just be like, Hey, so I just like, you know, if you make me like a grave and like a bowl, I can think about my dead wife and eat and you're like. It's so dark too.

Yeah, it really is. It's so it really is. It's. It's so. It's like, it's so sad because it's basically like a bunch of Labrador retrievers got let go in the woods and they're like, well, the, but our people will be back anytime now and they're just running around slobbering on stuff and being adorable.

And it's, yeah, I got to get back into that game too. I didn't bounce. I just, something else came up that I started playing and it like ruined my momentum, You know, I think I had like 60 hours into it. Well, there's some other games that came out this year. It's been a busy one. No, it's that what's in Shibuya?

It's a station. There's that the statue of a dog that, like his owner just left one day and he would just go This. Yeah, he would. How'd you go? Would go to the station every day waiting for his master. And his master never came. And then they took the dog and they covered him in iron and made him a statue. That last part's not sure so but that's what that's the same vibe of that of that game.

And then they're like, they're like, oh, you can unlock sunglasses and you're like, hey, hold on, man. Can we talk about the other thing? Looking at that as like a from a sort of sociology standpoint, but then also like a zoological standpoint, it's pretty weird. Like it's pretty, it's pretty weird on it.

Like even by Pokémon standards. But yeah, like playing with my kid, she's like, what's in that Bush? And I'm like, it's a squirrel or whatever. And it comes out, she's like, OK, that's cool. And she's like, what's in that tree? I'm like, it's a site there. And she's like, is it gonna hurt me? And I'm like, not in this game.

But if you ever see something like that in real life, run away. Like that's a, that's a velociraptor with praying mantis arms. That thing will kill you. That is absolutely a violent enemy hit Monchan just sitting on a bench. Like, that's not even an animal, that's a guy. I. Keep that thing alone.

There's definitely Max you and I had a theory about how many Pokémon are just a dude in a suit. It's a not insignificant amount that it's just like, that's not a, that's OK, That's a, that's just a guy that's a guy in a suit. Like when you see a huge dog at the airport and you're like, you're trying to sneak a man out of that play. I like that theory a lot.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so that's what we've been playing. We should probably wrap things up. But I do want to thank you. Thank you for hanging out, fellas. This was fun. This was nice. We should we should probably do this again sometime. But also thank you to everybody who gave us a shot and give us give us a watch or listen. To be perfectly honest, we are we are shooting this like a pilot.

We have no idea if it's going to come out right or look good or sound right or whatever, but we are figuring things out as we go. If you want to support, we're doing, please subscribe to us on YouTube, Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, threads, X, wherever you get your X button and wherever you get your podcasts. Just go just do the do the do all the stuff that everyone always tells you to do, but also, please go support our Patreon.

We got a bunch of different tears and tears that come out of our eyes because we need work, but also tears that you can support to help keep us from crying so much like huge babies. And we are try to do more stuff. We've got all sorts of stuff planned. We want to see what what works, what does it, what makes sense and we want to hear from you and also keep an eye out for our Nintendo centric show, Nintendo's 64, which is. Infrendo 64 So each week we'll have a new episode of the X Button video game podcast and Infrendo 64. And that's just for now.

Like Max said, support that Patreon. We need little things like, you know, buying video games and we need big things like new laptops and stuff to like, literally make our shows on. And so, yeah, like, you know, we are, we're figuring this out as we go. We are scrappy. Eventually we'd love to have like, you know, you're looking at gameplay of everything we're talking about. And, you know, there's a fancy intro and there's like, you know, there's a whole band.

They're on a roof and it says a crane shot. We don't know how to spend money. We're really more now. Into one another in the intro, like 1991 movie Terminator 2, we're actually. We have a one stretch goal on the Patreon. We are trying to get a mascot. We want to get the X baboon and so we're trying to get a live baboon that we can have shared custody of. We'll ship it back and forth between the our houses. And yeah, if anyone knows a good divorce lawyer let us know cuz yeah that might be 1.

You know I only have so much love in my life. Forgot I take care of that X baboon. I got to train him to do emails so I can do GTA6 baboon everywhere and there's just piles of plates and I'm just like smoking a cigarette and look, what's that thing about? Like the monkeys on typewriters will eventually.

Write Shakespeare. I think if you've got a baboon and ChatGPT, you've got yourself somebody who can answer emails. Why do you say it like that? Why do you say But I always said. Baboon, I like saying it, but sounds. You say it like. Babar the elephant baboon. It sounds a bar. Like French elephant? It sounds like buffoon.

Is it Baba? Is it Babar? Babar. Bay Bar Bay Bar. I always. I always thought it was Bay Bar but. It is Babar. It's Babar. It is Babar. Yes, OK, because it's. French. Do you think he goes to the? Babar after. Work. With the baboons. It's so dumb. No, please support our Patreon. This is the happiest we've been in weeks.

I'll be completely honest with you. It's been we've been pretty down in the dumps. And so we want to we want to get back to making cool stuff. We want to get all of our friends around the industry to guests on these shows, devs, voice actors, celebrities, our peers who have their own shows. Shout out to pretty much everybody. Shout out to Giant Bomb Kit and Krista to Game Informer to kind of Funny so many.

We want to work with all of these people and build this big cool network where we're just collaborating all the time. So you'll see us on their shows, We'll be on. They'll be on our shows. We're going to do everything we can to make this feel like one big happy family because that's the thing we can do now. Yeah.

What do we? I don't want to spoil the future. Plans but X button live, we could do that. We could do that too. Yeah, we we can do that too. I know a guy who can jump around. On stage for 16 hours who I know we. Want to do like packs? Panels and stuff like that, you can jump around on stage there, that'll be OK. We're going to do a potluck.

We're we're all gonna everyone's going to come over to, we're going to go to the YMCA and everybody just brings this stuff, whatever they got. And then we're going to do, there's going to be a dance party if you go to the YMCA and you go in the. Pool, you might notice that there's nothing on that list of rules on the sign that says you can't have a big potluck supper in the pool.

So in the pool, you know, just put that out there. It's. Gonna be great. It's going it's it's going great. It's going to be great and it's all thanks to you. So seriously, thank you for letting us do this and thank you for supporting us. And we're really we're just getting started. We're really happy to figure out how to end the show, but we're I know we did this.

Do we do it? I know we could say. We could say do. A Patreon exclusive episode. Yeah, do that. Yeah, we do. We do have. A special tier. So go, go check that out if you are a member at that level and we will go do that right now. Until then, we'll get on your level. We'll get on your level. Get on our level. Is that is that that's our our outro. That's mean.

It's mean, right? Get on our level. Head on over to. Patreon for more that we'll record. Right now that I don't, we haven't. We'll figure it out. We'll see you there also. I don't Yeah, I don't want. I don't don't get on our level. You you probably have a job that's that's not a good one.

X Button Video Game Podcast - Episode 1

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin