Fire Escape Cast #121

What's happening? Billy crapping in Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It is episode one hundred and twenty one. I think something like that is sixty five degrees fahrenheit in Tallahassee, Florida.

Thank you so much for coming back to the show. Dan Riker, here is always.

Good night there. I don't know what does Florida get. Florida get is probably warm. Well, why do you have Tallahassee's weather up on your phone right now?

Because I'm a professional host who calls out the weather at the beginning?

What do you mean, why do I have it you?

He knows this is like when pulls a rabbit out of his hat and then you're like, why do you have a rabbit in your hands?

Because I just did it.

It makes sense when John Mlaney does it on his Netflix show because it's live and he's proving it.

This isn't gonna go up for like a week. It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter.

He's also giving the weather in the city that the show shot in exactly.

None of this makes sense, Mike, this is a terrible opening. And my name's not Billy.

I've been loving it. Dan right here is always Hello. How are you doing? I'm from being irate.

No, I'm I'm in a great mood.

Good good to hear.

I'm excited about some some some decor changes happening to your house. I'm sure you'll announce it sometime in the future, but you gave us a little sneak peek.

You'll probably just see it in the background of everything goes the way I'm hoping it does.

I can't wait for that. Mary Kish, What have you been up to?

I've also been making upgrades to my house. I bought a CRT with a VHS. In the CRT nice to my kitchen.

The good stuff, okay, hook up a content.

And I bought Home Alone.

Oh wait, seriously, in Home Alone he has they have that kind of TV on their counter in the kitchen when he's like that's how he does the dirty the filthy animal line.

Home Alone sception. So the goal is not game console, which is cool and obviously I could utilize it. I have a Sega Genesis. It would be cool to be able to play Sonic spin Ball in my kitchen. But the tist of this was I was like, how nice would it be to watch, you know, movies that I love watching on Christmas while and making Christmas dinner, et cetera. So I was not a state sailing. It was like

That is, it's the right size for like a countertop or where you could go nuts and you could do the thing where you like mounted to the underside of the like the cup cabinet or something. But a big as CRT. I feel like that's probably been thirty even thirteen. It's probably a bit too heavy for that.

It's on my Instagram story right now, Like I'm like really excited with the way it came out because it's just under my cabinets and so while I'm like chopping vegetables, I can watch I could watch a cartoon. Oh I put I bought Garfield Garfield Christmas, Like, I just bought like things that I like to watch as a kid and a bat these vhs is it's really fun too to also learn like the range of how much should it? How much do you think Aladdin on VHS costs? Honestly tell me?

Well, I mean, like on a resale thing, like I usually just see lots of VHS things where it's like two dollars a tape, come grab however money you want, so I I.

Would say two to five dollars. Are we doing closest without going over estimate?

Yeah, I'll do prices right, Rolls Disney did that stupid.

Vault thing, right, Yeah, Dan you can you could take a second.

Guess Disney's are more I'm not going to say they're more difficult. I'm just saying they're more coveted. Like if you're the.

Big stupid uh the plastic like there's to.

Be has the big plastic case seven.

Bucks, yeah, twenty nine dollars.

So most of these I was able to acquire between five and eight dollars. Lion King was seven dollars. If you go to certain resalers, I was finding them for twenty five dollars. To which I was like yet dreaming. But every person has their own selling price, and the rarer it is, the higher it goes. But I bought like twenty vhs is today for like four or five bucks, some of them seven or eight dollars. I think the

I mean Facebook marketplace you just heard for like VHS tapes like that is a gold mine for that because that's just something that everyone's getting rid of. No one has CRTs anymore, so if you've got one, you can just get I've got a ton in the clause that I bought recently, like two bucks of tape.

It's great.

You have a Do you have a VHS player like a tap?

It's behind this or underneath they here at the area.

Yeah, you're ready to go. I love having it in the TV. It's so nice that it's like ready to go in the same system.

So are you pan and scan or your letterbox?

The what? Well?

So with movies and four by three, you know you're doing letters that they would sell two versions for big movies where it's like the letterboxed one or the one where they like had to like bastardize it after the fact. And like this is why sixteen by nine was so good for wide screen TVs because like movies, you don't have to like sacrifice either way.

You know, I think everything's four by three.

Because okay, so that's pan and scan, so they had to like go in after the fact. So I would take forever after a movie came out in the theaters because they would have to pan and scan it and go in there be like, you don't need to see this thirty percent of the screen over here, just we'll cut that out. And well, but we do, we'll pan over here for this part. And yeah, I hate that.

I don't need any of that stuff.

Yeah, you're watching Disney.

They don't care about composition.

You need two thirds of the screen at any given time. As long as I can see the genie do his funny faces, I'm good.

Did you did the TV have the remote still or is it like controls on under the slot.

The buttons are on the unit. Yeah, everything's on. It's like one chunky unit four x three with the buttons and everything, and it's really nice that the VHS works because a lot I have seen We've all seen like CRTs at different like sales and stuff like that, but a lot of times pieces are broken or they don't work put perfectly working condition.

And I've bought old VCRs that like they will just have problems with the heads. So it's like there's like a thirty percent chance that any tape you put in there is just going to get chewed up. So it'd be like terrifying because like I was trying to like I have all these old VHS tapes.

That I made when I was doing videos in high school and stuff.

Yeah, the ones you recorded yourself.

One It's not like I have copies or whatever.

It's like I'd like to see what this is and it just comes out and say, well, shit, okay, I guess that's gone forever.

That would be awful because I'm sure all those videos are amazing that you made so good.

Yeah, yeah, definitely not something embarrassed. Actually, there is a time in my life where I was like I took my first video production course in high school and I remember like, obviously we were trying to do fake public service announcements and they were so embarrassing and we were

Some of that can be, yeah, rough to go back to, especially like trying comedy and stuff when you were in high school. I remember we had to do a PSA once and it wasn't a parody one. It wasn't a satire.

It's just complete horseshit.

It's like I filmed, I did some like stupid film grain thing, and I went to a cemetery and I just filmed a bunch of like crazy shots of graves and then I shot, like you know this kid, And I didn't know what drinking was when I was like sixteen or seventeen, Like I knew what it was, but I didn't party, and so I assumed it's like, well, I need to shoot what looks like a tea, high

Yeah, he's like driving. The last shot.

The last shot is him like his head hitting the steering wheel or something, and I cut to.

Some staff that I just clearly made up.

That was like teams who drink there's a one in three chance that they'll die behind the wheel.

Or yeah, and it won.

It won the fucking award.

I got like a certificate for The more I hear about your childhood, the more I'm glad we met when we did.

I don't think I would have been friends with you.

I think we would have. I think we would have been we were in a similar way.

No, No, that was that, Mary, I remember it was. It was like thirty episodes ago. We were talking about it.

You told me, Yeah, I was wheeling and dealing. But I also did a lot of PSAs that were embarrassing. I remember one. In high school. We did a lot of times. We would just pick a school rule and be like, don't do this because it's against the rules, and one of them was you're not allowed to street race in the parking lot. So of course we were like, let's let's make a street race video. So we made a video and it's just like I think I'm the person who drops the flag, and it's like, go, just

It seems sweet not.

I was in the company of such like public works officionados.

Oh yeah, I made We had a video.

It wasn't even on VHS, was on a remember the flip cameras where you USB would come out. We were filming one where this scene was basically like I forget what the entire short film was about, but it was a comedy, and I'm I don't know where it is, and I'm glad that's the case, because it probably isn't fun anymore. But I remember the funny one of the funniest things I've ever seen. My friend, I'll just say

Lot light fiction.

Yeah, so I just had this like thirty second video on my flip of my friend and I would show all my friends and I never deleted it. I'm sure if I found the flip camera still in there, but it's just learned this grand Pontiac Grand Prix, I think it was a silver one, and he just does half a donut and smashes into a light pole.

He was completely fine, I should say, but his car was wrecked.

Yeah, that was probably the funniest thing I had. But yeah, I also do want to before I forget through some housekeeping up front because of toward the end of the year and we are I believe the next episode is gonna be Game of the Year. If you're listening now, uh crazy, Yeah, December sixth is our live Game of the Year stream will all be at Dan's place in Minneapolis seven pm Central on Twitch dot tv slash Dan

That's the time of plan.

So I'm looking at the calendar now, so if you're listening to this, actually you're listening to this on the second, on Tuesday the second. Apologies for the delay, but as you will see, we are talking about well it's Matt tried, I can say now becausef we're hearing it embargoes up. I figured it was worth delaying a day for the last huge game of the year. So you were listening

Yeah, so make sure you're following firescape cast on YouTube if you want to see the video versions of that, and also if you're not a patron, you can get audio ad free episodes and video versions. And literally right after this recording, we're gonna do an arc rader's bonus video. All three of us have not played the game together yet and we've been wanted to do more bonus videos whenever we get the chance, and yeah, so this should

Nintendo.

Oh my god, I'm so I don't have my we hooked up, so I had to. I do have like a smaller TV. Yeah, I do have my smaller monitor with the ox ports.

I almost said.

Ox holes because I did want to hook up my Wii for a couple of things.

You're going to retro tink. Retro tink will fix any problems you have that just go ox Uh. The retro tankers is the thing where you can plug in any kind of input from like you know, uh, the just red white, yellow to the component and everything, and then that just HDMI is out eliminates the input lag things like that.

You can add scan lines and all that.

It's just the best way to play retro consoles on a modern TV.

Basically, Okay, I'm gonna undue for a new TV like Black Friday thing coming soon anyway.

Wait no, no, if you want a TV, wait for the super Bowl super Bowl. They're cheaper super Bowl for TV. That's when I got the hundred inch for like super duper cheap. You want to go super Bowl for TVs, well, I mean there will be deals on Black Friday, but like super Bowl is the TV sale here.

It's important to recognize like it depends on what your goal is as well, because a lot of times TV companies will plan to put out their old models right during Black Friday and then release new models. And so if your intention is to get a TV that is going to be future pos future yeah, which yeah, future proof and like functional for the next like five to ten years, you should just buy a brand new model.

They just sure sure, or they inflated it in the month leading up to it just so they can say they take it down and blah blah blah, I'm gonna buy it.

Oh sorry, go ahead.

Oh no, I just think like all so many companies do that now. It's like so obvious. It's like a shrinkflation thing too, which is like they're essentially raising their prices anyway, and then they have a deal so that you're not mad at them for raising their prices. Does that make sense. They'll be like it's twenty percent off, but it's like, you guys just raised your prices.

Yeah, I'm gonna wait for to get my Christmas tree until the super Bowl to see if that See if that saved the money, it's probably not.

A bad idea.

You saved that joke.

Yeah, it's good.

Yeah, the trees will probably all be dead by then, unless they didn take him out of the ground. Oh you could just do what I do. I go to Central Park every year. I cut down a tree and I bring it home.

It seems legal the love that.

I'm kidding.

What what would the law said? Just like there's got to be a lot igal public.

Yeah, but it's trees, it's the land, and I might be able to he might he might be pro tree cutting.

I should we should get him on. We could probably Oh yeah, yeah, bring him on. That's the people. I hear.

He's a big balls on the snest fan ball three D ball three D.

Yeah.

I bet he's played some games. I'm just guessing he's he's probably younger than all. Maybe I was like, he's thirty four. I want to say Jesus.

Christ, so accomplished.

So he was on.

He was on Twitch right before the election as well, which was really weird.

Politics.

What's with these files everybody's talking about? No, I'm kidding.

Anything else new with the interview? Oh yeah, yeah.

It's a busy time of year, right, yeah. Game of the year time, it's travel time, it's family time.

Yeah.

In fact, that's why we had to record a little earlier than we usually do. It's because this is Thanksgiving week and so we're we have family and time. My mother is in town right now, she's downstairs watching Hi Patty. She's Amy Amy Watch. She's watching the Great British British Bakeoff right now over the counter. Yeah, I don't think you can get the Great British Bakoff on a CRT.

That'd be a nice ambiance thing.

Just always have a VHS like playing in that TV, even if you're not in the room.

Do you really used to have Like back in the days of like cartridges and CDs and stuff, there are always those things that seemed so luxurious where it's like it'd be a switcher or like a tower of h you can put a twelve disc changer in this, so twelve CDs and you can swap between them all. They had a fucking thing for the Genesis where it's like you can put six cartridges in there, or you can buy numerous and hook it all up so then you'd have all your cartridges plugged in at all times.

And it's like, man, things just used to be Like.

I'm nostalgic for cartridges and CDs and cassettes and stuff, but like, man, that was a pain in the ass.

It was a complicated time, but it was also a rite of passage to be able to hook it up and actually make it work. I am proud of that era where it was like right red into the red, yellow, into the yellow, white into the white, like you have to have all of the different wires connected so that

Right over white idiot.

I remember when before they started put ounce Simpsons DVDs, obviously where DVDs were a thing, I so desperately wanted to have all my favorite Simpsons episodes like at the ready. All the time they would occasionally put out of like oh, here's like the Simpsons, here's three Christmas episodes on one BHS or whatever, but like I wanted to be able to like watch the Lemon Tree or whatever whenever I wanted to. So I still I have in my storage.

Do you ever watch those like those VHS's.

I will occasionally, like if I have people over for something, like you know, if I have people over for like a wrestling paper view or whatever, I'll put in one of the old wrestling vhss I had and just have it play on the CRT and another part of the room.

So yeah, it's kind of fun.

Or like like I'll have tapes that are just labeled comedy and I'm like, oh, okay, what did I think comedy was in nineteen ninety eight or whatever, And it's like, Okay, it's just a bunch of like Letterman and Conan and you know, daily show bits, Insomniac or whatever.

So south Park. So yeah, it's always fun.

It's like going back to an old mixtape, like an old CD and just be like, oh, what do they make as a mixtape in two thousand and two?

You know, an old like nostalgia shot, you know, just to make you feel good. It's not like the most convenient, it's just something that takes you back.

Do you guys happen to remember one, at least one of the songs on your first ever mixtape or burn CD?

I mean I vividly yes, Uh there goes my hero is like on one of my very first tapes that I was like, this song is so good, Well what still is have to record it? Oh it's still good? Yeah, but I like, I absolutely have the record on on a lot of those classics.

Let me let me throw this at you and see what your reaction is.

I remember one song, and I remember the name of my first I wasn't around when like you could make mixtapes, but or I wasn't old enough to be making them. But I remember my first Burned CD, and I had a label and everything, and I named the CD and one of the songs was story of a Girl I Forget, and the CD was called Mike Monsters Mix.

Nice.

Yeah, probably somewhere my parents. Oh sweet, I was going for like a nevermind thing? Is never mind the one with the baby in the pool? Yes, I'm going for that, just without the baby.

It was just a pool. Oh cool.

I don't think my parents would have been cool with a baby on the cover underwater sure, but yeah, Mike Monster was my nickname for like two weeks.

Mine was I I am old enough to do mixtapes, and I would put in an a cassette tape and I would call the radio station and I would like, so, I remember the first time I did this, I really wanted a doctor dere is nothing but a g thing? And so I called into the radio station and said, I want nothing but a G thing. I'm like nineteen ninety one, I've probably like seven years old, and so I have to sit there, buy my boom box with a blank cassette, and I'm just waiting.

It took like four hours for.

Them to know this.

One goes out Dan requesting this ver good, nothing but a G thing, and they hit play and record at the same time. So that's how I would get them all is by calling the fucking radio station. And just sitting by the boombox for hours.

Yeah, I remind that reminds me of like I think the last song I remember like waiting or at least being really psyched every time it came out of the radio was Danny California, and I just didn't have the money to buy Stadium Arcadium, especially because it's a two discs. Yeah, Saturn in Mars, I believe, or Pluto in Mars. Apologies, I'm embarrassed. Yeah, Danny California. Every time it came on, my brother and I would be freaking out.

Do you think Anthony Ketis would be awful to hang out with or awesome?

Based on his autobiography? Pretty awful? Oh? Is he?

Is he like an He just strikes me as a very obnoxious dude?

Yeah, I think so okay, But is he also like a bad dude? I don't really know.

Was like personal?

I have a red scar tissue in a while. I know he grew up pretty rough.

We had the Heroin thing going.

Yeah, I think I.

Want to say he did.

I might I mix this up sometimes and I'm not trying to sound judgmental, but I believe the first time he did Heroin he was nine and the first time he had sex he was fourteen, and I believe it was with like a stepmom or something.

My dad was like an actor and I watched he was an actor. Yeah, yes, something like that.

But no, just the way it was written. I remember it being very, very douchey.

But I don't think Morris vibes from him. But like Jim Morrison was alway trying to be like deep poet, cool guy, and Anthony Ketis is just like, what if all my lyrics.

Were likelip You know that's also obnoxious? Yeah?

Yeah, what if I made What if I took hip hop but made it bad? I've had my red out Chili Preppers.

I mean, they've got some very good songs, yeah.

For sure, But no, I don't really feel an urge to hang out with him.

No, I don't think what's a number one musician?

You don't want to meet your heroes? Just listen to their music, enjoy the music.

What's the what's the number one musician you think would be awesome to hang out with.

Them?

Alive? Yes?

Yeah, yes, yes, Alive. You like their music and you think they'd be awesome to hang out.

With Mike, I know yours is kid rock. I'm trying to think.

I think yours is Chris Brown, right, and then Mary's a big Mary is a big Diddy fan, you know what.

I bet Ludacris would be pretty fun to hang out with.

Today.

I liked him when all of his music videos were him with like big hold hands and stuff and like he was. He was a lot whackier back in the day. I feel I don't really know what he's doing now.

I mean you could, yeah, you'd have correct me if I'm wrong.

That's he was the one in Fast and Furious, right, A couple of them, A few of them he was in two, and then the rest of them. At least you'd have that common ground to talk to him about.

Yeah. I don't know that much about Fast and Furious, but he was just always seemed like kind of a fun dude.

I Jack Black and Kyle Gass would probably be pretty fun. But that's not together these days, I don't think, But I think they still get along. I just think that one of them has to protect. I don't think you can. I don't think you can be super political and also be in a Mario movie.

When you're the more popular one who makes the most money. Yeah, you have to you have to be.

A bit more.

I think he rides the line. But I bet you there, I bet you there. Friends, I don't think that that ruined a friendship. I actually doubt it. Considering I actually think, like I bet you, my guess is that he actually does align with him politically. He just doesn't want to shower. That's my guess.

I go back and forth.

I would love to run into David Byrne.

I bet you would have a lot to talk to David Byrne about. I don't know if I would.

Well, yeah, I mean he's my favorite musician, so I probably have big suits.

Oh yeah, big suits.

I'd waltz around in oversized clothes all the time.

I'm known to do that.

But I also he seems like a guy that would like talk about wine and books.

Yeah, yeah, I think so. But he went on Louis Threw's podcast recently. I think he's at a point in his life now where he's definitely admitting that he could be a tough person to work with when they were still songwriting as a group. But there's definitely like many phases of his life where I don't think i'd like hanging out with him, even though sure I love his music with all my heart. Oh here here's someone who's

Yeah, he's a good one.

Billy Corgan is like kind of notoriously a piece of shit, and I think he's like really hurt a lot of his bandmates who I actually respect. But Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness is so good. And I think a huge part of what makes that music so good is his distinct tone and voice. I just don't. I don't think he's replaceable, but I do think he's not a good person.

I love Bob Dylan's music. I bet he would suck to hang out with.

I think so too.

I don't think he'd be like a person necessarily.

I think I would just be like, man, I just can't get anything out of this, dude.

I can't wait for the emails telling us that every one of these people is actually terrible.

Super duper canceled.

Yeah, I'm sure they are.

Yeah, speaking of which, and this is I don't I'm not actually trying to like be political, but this is really funny.

I saw a Reddit headline.

I saw a Reddit headline today that the sham Wow guy isading for Congress in Texas.

Wonderful un like a yeah, he's running on an anti woke agenda. That's when I saw that.

The most shocking thing knock me over with a feather, sham wow wow woke?

Oh my god?

WHOA.

My whole worldview is shook.

I forgot he was a person.

He'll be president, It's fine.

He's like it's like hashtag is like, let's clean up this t city. He's like this titty city.

No, but oh axl Rose. I I like him as a singer in Frontman a lot.

I bet he's I said, that's.

Probably true for a lot of rock stars. I question, like James Hetfield buckethead Like, I just feel like a lot of these people are like, not super great to actually chill with.

Sure Slash, I bet I bet current day Slash should be okay.

I honestly don't think I knew Slash.

I would love to believe this.

Oh how old is Slash? Now?

I'm going to seventy eighties, fifty I'm gonna get fifty seven really or maybe early sixties maybe?

Oh, like I will go to at least seventies.

He's sixty.

Yeah really this year? Yeah, yeah, huh. They were younger than I thought.

I mean they were in like the late eighties early nineties when they were at their peaks. So yeah, I guess so twenty something, you know.

Rolling Stones, they're like late seventies now, right.

Oh, they're like I think Mick and Keith are probably close to like eighty something now.

Yeah, they've looked like they were eighty for forty years now. I saw them.

I guess it's probably ten years ago now, and like, god damn, they were like seventy something at the time and they were like shit, I guess when it's it's one of those things where that's all they do. That's all they've done their entire lives, and it's just like their bodies are just you know, built for it and

Like I saw Springsteen not that long ago, and I thought he.

Did great, Like he's a great live show.

Yeah, they still have it. I don't know, I don't think everybody loses their luster.

Oh you know who does? Bob Dylan? Bob Dylan.

I saw Bob Dylan twice because I just felt like I had to because he's one of my favorites. And both times it's just like there was one time he started singing and it was like two minutes into the song before I realized, oh, this is like a rolling stone, this is like his most famous song.

But he just goes up there.

You have no idea what the fuck he's singing, or just like renting into the microphone.

Was like, oh, this is an awful concert.

I've met a few friends told me that I don't have a desire to see him anymore. Yeah, all right, well sorry, Mary, go ahead.

All of our heroes lost to Tom.

With George Clinton and Prolman Funkadelic. They were very cool and I was eighteen and they gave me beer. That was cool. I was on stage with them and then went back to hotel and shot a little sketch and they were all.

Very cool funk dudes.

And where are they now?

George Clem's live, he said he's sober. Clem's doing better than ever. Good for him.

Yeah, gonna be dead.

I don't know it's Bootsy Collins and Bootsy Collins was not there that night, but uh yeah, it's like a lot of peopunk.

It's doing well, all right.

You want to talk about video games? I do all right.

As mentioned, we are a day late with the episode because we were waiting for the Metroid Prime four embargo. Dan, you are the only one here has been playing it. You said you're about three quarters ish of the way through as of this recording.

Based on what they show, like, oh get this many things and uh not three quarters, I'd say maybe sixty seventy percent is kind of where I'm feeling right now. Yeah, it has been my entire weekend. It's been a lot of four am nights and stuff like that. I am actually intending on doing a written review a bit for Giant Bombs, So as this episode goes up, it should also have a written article at Giant Bomb that you should check out unless something goes awright. But uh yeah,

Sorry, I'll be right back in.

Yeah, I got it. Go ahead, Uh Prime or Metroid.

Prime.

Big fan of Metroid and really enjoyed the last in the series. I think I'm trying to understand like where we're at now with the latest the latest Prime, and what this has added to the series.

Well, it's it's been so long now, and it feels like just the whole history of Metroid is so weird where it's like it always felt like Japan never really understood what like they always tried to bring Metroid to the States because they're like, oh, okay, well they like first person shooters and stuff there, and that's why, you know, Metrod Prime was kind of a first person you know, that was a big debate back in the days, like this is is this an FBS Metrod Prime. No, it's not.

Mary?

I don't think I played Other m.

It's it's like it was such.

They've made so many weird missteps with the series where it's like this is one where they made like Samus is like super sassy and we're gonna put a bunch of cutscenes in here, and she's.

Well, excuse me, it's bam.

That it's basically that they gave it to Team Ninja and gave her like it's just it's not at all what makes Metroid metrod and Prime is Metroid as it should be in three D. And the first one I think is definitely the best in the series. It is just kind of that like lonely isolated experience of just Samus and space as you're traveling between all these planets

Dread, Like are we just saying only Prime.

Dread is Dread is from the I think at the beginning it even said like Metroid five, I think because it's Metrid one to Super Metroid, and then I think metrod Fusion was technically four Dread was five of like the Core series that's like the two D metrod Mania. So this is the fourth Prime and so it's been forever since we've had a Prime. I want to say, Corruption was like two thousand and eight or something like that,

Something's wrong here, which is not what you want to hear from your game design.

Yeah, we're restarting development basically from scratch, is what they said. So like there was like a lot of reasons to be kind of like, Okay, what's going to be the deal here? I will say, I do think, and keep in mind, this is not my final thoughts here. My final thoughts will be like the review and things like that, because I've not beaten the game yet and there's still things I need to test. I need to test the

Met Roid Prime.

Oh my god, Dan.

Yeah, I don't think right now, I'll say it's I don't think it's better than one. I think One was just like, what is age incredibly Well, if you play the remastered one can on Switch recently, it's like it's still incredible. So it's like, you think about them doing that in two thousand and two.

I think that came out with.

All the advancements in technology.

Yeah, it's like, but this does capture that spirit of the first one. They've changed some big things about the format as far as like there's an open world here, and I think when people hear that, I think people immediately go to like, oh, Breath of the Wild and what they did with Zelda and making an open world.

Well.

Also because Prime is also notorious for being like you get a specific thing, you're meant to go to a specific place. What are you doing in an open world when you have a very specific item.

Well, I mean there is that.

There is that like Metroidvania elements where it's like okay, so I went and did this. I went to this area, and oh, I can't cross this bridge or this lava thing because I.

Need to go back to this previous place and I need to get.

This thing that gives me the suit that lets me you know, be heat resistant and stuff like that. So I want to be careful when I say open world.

It is not.

This is not a breath of the wild type situation. I kind of thought at the beginning it might be more like that, because like I went to my map and it's like, oh, you can set markers. You can like you know, say like oh this is a missile expansion or an energy tank or something like that. It's you can do that, but it's not this huge thing.

It's an open world, but it's like you were going to a very specific location most of the time.

Yeah, whatever those two acts were where it's like one of them was like ice and one of them was sand, and like specifically I was thinking of the sand one because it's very much like that where it's like there is this large open desert and there are things kind of sprinkled throughout. You know how like in Gears, you know you'd find like a little outposts like I'm gonna shoot some things here and I'm go get this some

You'll get like a missile expansion or something like that.

But it is I think this is gonna be a polarizing thing because it is kind of an empty open world. It is it's a desert, so it's there's not a lot going on, like enemies will like you know, some flying enemies will show up. You know, there's shrines here, there's these like green crystals you can go around and collect.

But the shrines. Sorry to interrupt, you, just like down what the shrine is?

But why it's it's it's like a shrine that's probably closer to Breath the Wild, where like you go down into a thing, you save a very quick puzzle, you get a.

Thing and you go back to the open world, you.

Know, but kind of thing, a missile expansion or a thing that makes it so if you charge your ice beam, you shoot three ice beams at a time something like that. But yeah, but it's it's not like Breath the While, where there's one hundred and twenty. There's like I've run into like five of them I can go to, you know, and I'm pretty far out of the game. So it is it's pretty empty, but it's it's cool in that like you've got the bike. Have you seen the bike

And then once you.

Get to these large areas like this first area of Fury Green that you go to, or then Volts Forge, like it is kind of this like you know, ice fire, you know, kind of the traditional type of thing you see. You know, game is forever, but everything visually, the music, it is just the most metroid shit you can imagine. There's a part where it's like I went back and I did. I reloaded the save just so I could record this of when you first go into Fury Green.

The vibes are immaculate.

They are.

But another thing I heard people were upset about was that there's there are other characters now and some of them talk, and so, Mike, have you heard some of this?

Yeah?

I read the previews, so sorry I stepped out. Apologies if I'm retreating stuff. I read previews, and I know there was worry that they were having like an Atreus situation with helping you solve stuff early.

Okay, it's not so That's the thing is like I fucking hate the Atreyas memir Aloy thing where you walk into a room. It's like, no, I bet if I climb this, and then if I jump down, and then if I equit this thing and then break that rock wall I'm gonna get to the next thing.

It's fucking not that at all.

Like the first maybe hour of the game, there is a character you run into. This is the one that they talked about in the previous His name is Miles McKenzie. He is an obnoxious character. He's like, I'm nerdy science guy or whatever. I'm here to help you out, Santas and like there are a couple parts where he's like, Oh, you should do this, go check this out or whatever. He's just kind of really there in the first hour, and he is obnoxious in that, Like it is weird.

Shit.

But he's there for that first little like maybe an hour is probably generous. He's kind of done after that, and then he's just like a dude that is like when you go back to your like home base area to like upgrade your arm cannon or something, he's the guy you give it chip to and he's like, God, now you can do ice, and then you leave and fuck off and don't talk to him again. You know, It's like you can call him as like a codec type, like you know, like a metal gear. You can call

This I'm so I also really liked how Metroid Prime and Echoes and Corruption to some extent, emphasize Samus's skills as like a scientist.

They lean into that here. I don't know, Prime, you're very much like you're scanning stuff a lot.

You're like you're you're you're cataloging stuff. I love that aspect of it. That wasn't the main draw for me, but I liked how they embraced her as this like, yeah, this explorer. This not not just like actually like documenting her exploration.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's kind of like you know, Batman also had like the detectective stuff I just beaten people up, you know, yeah, they do that.

And the scanning.

I actually, before I write the review, I still need to, like I want to go back to my reviews of like you know three and things like that, because I think this is the first time like the scanning, like back I remember it in all the old ones is like tiny orange squares, tiny red squares, and you're going

To be okay on the present.

Yeah, And it's it's a thing where it's like, Okay, there's these five mcguffins. There's these five things you need to get. As of right now, I've got three of them. There was a point after I got the first two where it was like, okay, well here's you need to get three more and do it in any order, like they say, do it in any order. And I remember like going to just a far off one. It like seemed like they were suggesting, like, hey, go to this one. I was like, oh no, I want to do the

It is not.

This is a Metroid game with the big desert in between like these much larger areas.

Yeah, I don't think I want it to do that. I don't either.

I mean, I guess I didn't know if I want to Zelda to do that, So I'm always open to be surprised. But I am happy with the way this is. You know, it's just like briefly, like these dungeons you know, for lack of a better term, are big and they do follow like kind of that Zelda thing of like you're going through solving puzzles, unlocking doors, you're getting an item, you're fighting a boss with it, and then you're kind of back to the open world doing some other stuff

Basically, it makes.

Sense standard shots, missiles, and then you've got the elemental shots, and the elemental shots are critical to like opening certain doors, doing certain things as you would expect the game.

Also, like boasted in the advertising, I feel like this isn't a spoiler because it's in the ads for it. It's like some kind of psychic abilities or something like yep, that is that elemental or is that something else that's different.

The elemental is just kind of like your your shots, like from your.

Lightning cannon, your whatever. Okay, yeah, so what's a what the psychic stuff?

The psychic stuff is like early on, you get this like crystal and it's in Samus's helmet and you can it's like when you go to scan, it's basically like the psychic filter now, so and you can use that to like you get a psychic lasso, so you can like pull certain things and some of the stuff. They just add the word psychic to an ability that's already been a metroid. So like I just got this boost ball, which has been in every metrod Prime basically, but now

It psychic, you know, like yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's some cool things where it's like you'll find a psychic it's like this boostball cannon thing and you're basically riding this like psychic wave instead of like a physical boostball track or something like that. But I don't know, it's functionally, I think that's very similar to the other stuff. And then the moving stuff around is kind of like it almost feels like the motion stuff from metter Prime three on wis it's not a game change or anything.

I would say.

I was gonna say I liked Corruption.

Corruption was definitely my second favorite one, but like, and I like that Echoes was attempting that light dark world stuff as like its overall defining mechanic.

I was gonna ask, is that Metroid Prime fours.

Is it that it's semi open, more open this time around, that's like it's defining conceit.

You'd say it's.

A good question, because, like I think the stuff that I'm liking the most is that it does remind me more of the first game, and like, I do like the open world stuff, but I don't think it's that huge of a part of the experience. I mean, all the stuff I'm loving is the stuff of just going through these worlds and exploring and upgrading and things. It's like very Metroid Prime one, I would say. And then if anything, the open world is just kind of like a fun thing to do in between that. So yeah,

You know, that's super promising, especially having played Metroid Prime last year on the switch the was it last year two years ago? The remaster two years ago? I think one or two years something like that. Either way, replaying that, I was like, oh man, now I really can't wait for four. So I'm definitely gonna try to play it at least a few hours in the next couple of days before Game of the Year stuff starts.

Yeah, we will have to decide if it's eligible, I mean, because like I mean it is, it will definitely be on my top ten for sure, but we have to decide, like if it's just not reasonable for people to you know, play through enough of this year.

We might have to push it to next year.

But it's just such a difficult time to release a game like that, and unfortunately, especially when it comes to like our Goady, it's meant to be a love letter to all of our tastes and so that makes it really difficult. But this is such an obvious game for us to play.

So yeah, but I'm not going to play it.

I just don't know I'm going to play enough of it for us to talk about it. That's what it's hard.

If we got to push it to next year, we push it next year. But I mean the important thing is I think everyone's going to like this a lot.

It is. It is a tremendous game.

Dumb question. Is it compatible with the first Switch? Yes? It is? Oh cool, Okay, I have not tried it's not in that regard.

Then uh no, no, it's it is because they announced it as a Switch one game, and then yeah.

That's that's true. It's been in development for a while now.

Oh, going back to Marry you asked about the psychic abilities. A one new one that I like a lot is there's a psychic charge shot. You can do so if you charge your cannon and you shoot it while you're in the psychic mode, it does the uh you eBay heavenly sword. Yeah, you know how you like shoot an arrow and you could like after touch the arrow and stuff like that. So, uh like Jumper bending the bullets, you.

Could that masterpiece. Of course, everyone knows Jumper. You've never seen it. No, Wanted is when they curve the bullets.

No, I think Jumper is the bending the bullets one. I think to look it up because in my notes it's Jumper and I haven't written the review yet.

Jumper is the one with Hayden Christiansen and I think Samuel L. Jackson where they can literally just warp around the world. Wanted is James McAvoy with the bending the bullets.

Which movie can they bend bullets? I told you it's Wanted. I got to change my notes.

It's Angelina Joli.

Oh yeah, okay, they've got it. She's got a scene.

Oh yeah, it's he's Mike is right, It's it's Angelina Jolie bends the bullets by moving the gun really fast.

From right to left. Yeah.

Well, I am changing my notes right now to wanted instead of where ye but yeah, and then it's like you have a lot of control over it. It's not just like after touch, so it's like there will be a certain panel that you need to hit and so you charge it.

Oh.

A great example is there was like a mini boss and he had these three kind of like energy orbs around him in a triangle and you could only kind of take a shield down if you hit all of them pretty much simultaneously. So of course you start and it's just like, okay, well I'm trying to shoot them all,

Been a blast in this one.

Nice I mean, as soon as I've been playing it all day, was we're done with this stuff. I'm going right back and playing it all night. So well, it's.

Also switched to speaking of Mary before I move on to you. You've been playing Kirby Air Riders.

Oh damn, Oh my god. Oh I thought you were queuing up Mary. You're crying, you up?

Mary didn't play it. We're talking switch. Yeah, like a few hours of it on Gamecubrets.

Of the original one on GameCube was. I didn't play it much.

I compared it to super monkey Ball, like similar, like I think they were kind of going for and I might just be actually, now that I think about it, I might be confusing it with super monkey Ball, but I remember it being like high velocity kind of three D platforming, course navigation.

Is that platforming? It's it's it's a racing game, but there's no acceleration button.

It's just the first it was a one button game.

The first people say it was like the Smash Bros. Of racing.

That's what it was.

The Smash Brothers guy, like the guy who made Smash Brothers made And it's like so obvious playing it cause it's just filled like it kind of makes sense in Smash Brothers, where it's like, good, it's every Nintendo character effort and everything from every game, and this one it's just insanity. Like, I really this is the game that made me realize that there's a limit to me liking that specific Nintendo brand of bullshit, you know, like Mario Party and all that stuff.

I love it.

Just feed it to me, you know, put in my veins. This one is just like, this is just chaos in a way that I don't know if I.

Like, uh and finally went too far.

Yeah, it's just a bunch of shit on the screen.

Yeah, but I kind of like it like that you're respected in ways where it's like you'll go to the main menu, it's like, wait, what is this gummies section?

And it's like, oh, I guess I unlocked a bunch of gummy candy in the shape of all the machines and stuff, and I guess I can like zoom in on all the gummy candy, Like why is this a mode?

What is this?

And then it's every time you finish a race, you're unlocking eight thousand things like in Smash Brothers, all the stickers and decals and new character and all that, it's like the same announcer and you know, just the menu style and everything is so fucking Smash Brothers. But I don't know if it's just because, like I don't know, people are used to like the Mario Kart style of like yep, here's the acceleration and you roll over.

The right, not just play Mario Kart, I guess is my question.

Oh I will, That's what I'm gonna donative to. Yeah, yeah, I mean I kind of appreciate the variety that they have here, because like there's weird modes like the city trial thing where it's just like five minutes and a city is just exploding and there's giants and meteors and all you're doing is just going around eating fucking JPEGs of food and getting these stat boosts and stuff like that, and then it goes to a like randomized minigame afterwards

Like there's just like weird, weird variety that I appreciate, But also it just seems like there's no clear through line between any of this it's like I don't know if it feels great as a racing game, and some of these mini games are okay, but it also feels like to what end, Like what are we doing here with this kid?

You know?

Visually it's crack, Like it's so hard to parse because there's a lot of particle effects. There's a lot of uh different ways you can impact the players around you. I think there's even like NPCs in the space. There's just like a lot visually going on. And I think for the youths, it's really possible that this is something that's going to like really appeal to a younger generation that like needs a lot of action action action to

I do too, And I feel like I would have felt it even back then when I was younger, Like I had Bonk play it just because like this is like the opposite of a Bonk game, Like this is just she has no tolerance for like just Nintendo insanity bullshit. Her play like for a few minutes with me, and she's like, this is like the video game equivalent of just like putting your forearm against the keyboard and just

All right, well, I'm more likely to play Metroid Primes four if I had to choose.

That's a better and I will say that is a better game.

Yes, all right, Mary, you played something called good Night Universe.

Yeah, this is really cool and I don't know if you guys have heard of this game, but I'm really excited to talk about it.

Oh. This is made.

By the same people who made Before Your Eyes, which was an eye tracking where you start as a baby and every time you blink, you go possibly five seconds, possibly five years into the future of your life. And so the game is in a way and directly trying to train you, you know, be careful of blinking too fast because your life is going to flash before your eyes. And so it's a very provoking game. Good Night Universe

A cigarette.

It only does happiness and sadness. It doesn't smoking, which you cannot do as a baby.

I would try to break it.

Yeah, yeah, like Inject Heroin. No, it's not that type of game. It's more like simple. But it also tracks your face stop trying to jack off.

The audio listener Mike Maharty was doing the jack off motion a baby.

Yeah, I got started young.

But it tracks your head, which is important mechanically to something that happens. So I'm gonna try to not go too far in this story because it goes a lot deeper than before. Your eyes this game story progresses dramatically, and I actually really like that about this game. So at the very beginning, what I will say is is you are a baby, and it starts literally from like you coming out into the world and learning very early

That how you you as the player or the baby character is smart both.

I mean, like you are also smart Dan, like a.

Baby that was like cognitively, were you like a smart adult that got turned into a baby?

Like, yes, how do they like you? Yes, that's what happens.

I mean you will have to play the game to really understand how you got there. But the concept of this game is that you are obviously way too smart to be in a baby's body, Like what's going on something is wrong, right, Essentially that you are so smart that you are self aware. You're not supposed to be self aware until like you're like six or seven, and all of a sudden you realize that you're self conscious. Yeah, somewhere when your frontal lobe develops around twenty four. Until

Do you get prompts like when you are closing your eyes and turning your head, is there like a like tuning in kind of audio for something.

There's like ann think about it. Think about like turning a knob on an actual radio, and then all of a sudden you hear like your sister's voice. That's kind of what it does. Same thing for being able to uh, maybe you're not in the room, but you want to

Yeah, I think it's cool that they're, like you said, this is the same developer as the Behind Your Eyes game.

Yeah, Before Your Eyes.

Yeah, yeah, I.

Think that's a cool gimmick of Like I've always liked the idea of like incorporating like you know, like bach Tie had a solar panel on it and you had to go outside to charge your gun, Like I like any outside the box type stuff where it's like game mechanics utilizing like a camera or something like this. Then that sounds really cool to me.

It's underappreciated in my opinion. I don't think a lot of people are talking about it, but I was. I was, so I really enjoyed the ride, and I think this game was about four to five hours. This is not a long experience. So this is an evening for you to enjoy a beautiful story of a family that loves a baby that's too smart, and you, as the baby, get to decide the fate of this family and your journey.

I'm surprised it only has like four hundred and seventy Steam reviews considering how much press Before Your Eyes got.

I agree, and I to hear about it before it came out. It does more than Before Your Eyes did, Like quite frankly, I mean it just does. I think it's just so much more, uh with the idea of like what can you do with eye tracking and uh face tracking? Because it knows where I'm looking and it knows when I'm happier, said, I will say some of it is more gimmicky than others, right, Like the fact that I can like make my baby cry is funny.

Your actual mom is there right now? Are you talking about the game mom or real.

My real mom?

My video game mom is like interacting with me as a baby, and it makes me laugh. And so when I laugh, my baby laughs. And I thought that was kind of funny because I wasn't just it wasn't just a controller of me saying I like it. I actually it actually captured my genuine smile in a situation and then reflected that into the characters, and then they reacted to my genuine smile. So I think that's neat. I don't think that's like really the core mechanic of it.

That is good Night Universe by Developer. A nice dream. Uh, I played Mary.

You talked more about ball CK's Pit last episode, and Dan you had said you hadn't played it beforehand. I had been deciding which game to jump into prior to last episode. Then you talking about ballas Pit convinced me to try that. Oh my god, I like that game a whole lot.

What do you love about it? I'm excited to talk to them because, like I was kind of not that I don't like it, but I liked it. But it's just like it got a little repetitive. But there are parts of it that I think are so addictive.

Yeah, I don't want to just spend the whole time comparing it to Vampire Survivors, but obviously Vampire Survivors is the one that popularizes genre. Even though it wasn't the first like quote unquote auto shooter or whatever you want to call them. But I think this game's overall progression

It was very old school in the sense.

It wasn't completely pushing you in specific directions, whereas this is very much like, all right, you have to beat the current map with any number of characters in order to get a COG, which is then going to upgrade the lift that you're basically your village is built on that you're taking down into the pit, at which point you are then building out this roster of characters, which you know, Vampire Survivors was very much about unlocking characters.

Yeah, maybe pushing you to try different characters.

Yeah, and then there's stuff I don't even want to mention that we're like gameplay spoilers for me that I had no idea you would be able to do like synergy wise later on or ability wise that kind of blow open the game. I don't always love the town building aspect. I mean there was parts where I was like, at a certain point, you really don't need to design

But I appreciate it was more strategy needed in that point. Like I never really felt like it got to a point where it's like, oh, I have to do this very in depth thing.

It's like, nah, it's all pretty basic, you know.

Yeah, it's funny.

It reminded me of Cull to the Lamb that had this one action packed facet to it, which is the dungeon delving dungeon crawling, and then it had the cult building and town building back outside.

Ironically, they're both Devolver but now Ball x Pit.

Though the actual gameplay of the auto shooting I like a lot, and there's recency bias at play, but I do right now consider it to be more satisfying to play than Vampire Survivors. I think Vampire Survivors there's more, there's more room for you to for skill to come

Sure, and you really can kind of break.

This game if you if you combine the right abilities and whatnot and like upgrade a character the right way.

Yeah.

Did you play much MEGABONK?

Yes?

I like Mega Megabank was very much like to me the embodiment of like, here, go break our game if you want to right away.

Yeah. Yeah, because the things you're describing, like maybe think of MEGABONK. Yeah, like yeah, come up during the Game of the Year. I'm sure.

Yeah, Megabunk's also great, But yeah, No, I liked the Ball x pits. I think overall, the thing that Ball x Pit nails for me more than MEGABONC or band Pire Survivors or Deep Rockyalactic Survivors is I think the general Rogue Light progression works a bit better for me where it's like I always felt like I accomplished something. Vampire Survivors in your first like ten hours is very

Sure, but yeah, I like that game a lot. I played.

I have three characters I didn't unlock. I'm not sure if they're going to require and I've unlocked up I've I've collected a bunch of blueprints recently that were not character buildings. So I'm not sure if there's some sort of secret thing unlocking it or if I just really need to keep playing more, but I think I will.

I'm going to try to unlock them all. I'll consider that one hundred percent.

Once I do, that's what I'm going to go back to.

I think once, like all these kind of like big games with like defined endings, I'm done with for the year. I definitely want to go back to it because I enjoyed every second Planet.

Yeah.

The last thing I'll say about it is I mentioned there's certain like gameplay spoilers I don't even want to touch on because I think this game is very good about putting a twist on the gameplay in a way that was not advertised and people didn't even tell me about. It. Was like, oh my god, this completely changes how I think about the game now and how I think about ability synergies and how I think about upgrading this specific character.

So that's probably also like that's.

A huge thing for this game. That might be my favorite thing about it. It's very good at constantly challenging your assumptions. There's a lot more mileage on this game than I initially thought. After unlocking like the first three four characters. I like it a lot.

I'm glad you played it.

Yeah, No, it's great. Mary.

I want to ask you about Arc Raiders, but I'm sure all of us will talk about that first.

Uh, what is Moonlighter two?

Moonlighter two is the sequel to Moonlighter one. Ah, I should for anyone who doesn't know Moonlighter. Moonlighter was a kind of like a it almost looked like a pixel ardy indie game that was half rogue Light half Uh, what do you do it? Where you like make a shop and you sell.

Stuff sim like like managed like market management sim.

Maybe market sim.

Yeah, And it was kind of like the first that I ever played that did that really in an interesting way where it was like go into the dungeon and get all these cool little things and go to a shop and sell it. And it's a cool concept.

Right.

So Moonlighter two builds on that a lot. Now, Moonlighter two looks very different Moonlight or two. They went for a I don't love it, but like I understand why they needed to do it, which is like this like type of three D art style is a lot easier to probably work with and uh, visually. I just think they're probably able to scale a lot more with this type of art style. Nevertheless, it is the same concept

It's kind of reminded me of what you're describing of, like a second time it's come up, but Cult of the Lamb, where you know they had the two modes to it, or it's like the in between. But then I remember like liking Cult of the Lamb a lot, But it was the part where I went out into the combat and I was like this is pretty basic here. Yeah, I like combat wise.

Now that I'm looking at it was like I did play Moonlighter one Mary, I think you talked about it a couple of years ago.

I fires case and.

I liked I loved the overall loop. It was the moment to moment I was like, oh man, it's not hooking me on a purely like kinetic sense. But I did like all the interlocking systems, if not the minute mechanics to it.

I think this is like exactly how I feel, and I think this is like really valid responses to it, which is just like this idea is awesome. It's such a cool idea to go into a dungeon, get artifacts, sell them, and then use it to like upgrade my character. Love all this stuff the dungeon day to day. I'm like, I've already beat these enemies four thousand times. I know

Yeah.

I was gonna say, anytime I see like item inventory management, I think of Dredge now, which I love. Dredge is another game where I had those two layers of the inventory management and the actual fishing, which those two were pretty very closely intertwined.

But such a good game.

Yeah, I love.

Those are some of my favorite games these days that do that really well when they combine those two things, And yeah, I might try and moon later two because I did like the first one for its part.

Dred You guys are really comparing it to games that just like have personality for days, like Cult, the Lamb and Dredge. Are these like super iconic When you describe them, people know exactly where you are and what you're talking about, right, like like evil deathfish like coming at you, and like you know a cult situation where people are eating their own poop and you're sacrificing them. This one, like, I don't know if it's as easy to describe the world

Right.

That is Moonlighter too, Dan, you played a game called and Roger.

Yeah, very briefly here because I don't want to spoil anything. It's kind of hard to talk about it spoiling. So if you're curious about this, maybe skip like two or three minutes ahead. But this is another like you know, I talked about Consume Me recently. I guess you could categorize it as like an empathy game. This one you can play through in like forty five minutes, maybe an

Have spoiled but I get I think I'm getting what you're picking up as well, because if you're doing like let's say, I'm just assuming that you're doing like a consistent mechanic and then it's like not working the way you expected it to. That's reflecting what it's like to not understand yes, or have dementia yourself maybe, which is like I expect that I know what this system should do when I'm brushing my teeth or when I'm brushing my hair.

It's amazing that you do the brushing my teeth thing because it's that's consistent. But that is also say, that's one of the early ones that they do, is the brushing the teeth thing, and like it, it is a thing that is expressed in using game mechanics, I think better than like a short film or something you would be able to do. So if that sounds at all intriguing or interest to you, I would recommend checking out.

I think it does a very good.

Job with that.

I love this. It's also five dollars now it's forty five minutes. But like I always look at games as is this a wonderful evening experience, you know, for the price. That's what I always look at it, not hour, but like I always do the movie what I enjoy and eat.

Yeah, I do the movie thing.

It's like Bonk and I just bought Avatar tickets for when it comes out, and it's like that was fifty two dollars for two people for I mean, granted it's a very long movie, but still you break down the hours to the time, it's like, I don't know, five bucks for forty five minutes or an hour of a game doesn't seem too bad.

You know, yeah, absolutely not. I think that's totally worth it. It's cool. Hopefully, would you say it's sad, I will just like ask like, okay.

Yeah, I mean in the way I always.

To prepare myself for like an emotional I'll.

Just say, like anyone who's dealt with, like you know, family members with dementia or Alzheimer's, it's rarely the like and then they were all better. You know, it's not you know, it's it's a pretty realistic depiction of that.

You know.

I was looking if the dev ever played any or made anything, and I just like don't see them have any history of games in the past. But I've played like iPhone games that do stuff like that that kind of like subvert your expectation with mundane everyday tasks and then alter them slightly to mess with you.

It's kind of that.

And I will also say, like, similar to consumeing, it does have a little bit of a turn at one point that is kind of like, I mean, it seems like a personal story for sure, so I'm not going to slight it for that, but it's just like, oh, okay, well now we got this extra element here that I wasn't really I don't know we were going there, but yeah, I won't say too much, but yeah, very very similar to consume me in a couple of ways.

So that's cool.

I really appreciate that type of recommendation, especially for like an evening, you know, like so often I'm like, oh, I just want to like play a game, but I'm like also kind of sitting on the couch casually and maybe there's like something in the background on TV. I just want to play something. That's how I was playing Moonlighter, by the way. It was like, ah, I'm watching Rudo, and like it's nice to just have like a little game that I can also play simultaneously.

And like, Mary, I follow your Instagram.

It seems like you're either like on a mountain with Simone or you're getting like horny about Naruto characters or something.

I don't know who's this guy? Who's this? I can fix some guy Gara. It seems like you've been posting a lot about him lately. Hill tell us about him.

Gara's a freak and a half. Gara's a misunderstood villain in Naruto. He has a like a tub on his back, like a like a clay pot, and it contains sand, and he can use his chucklate to alter the sand, and then the sand can wrap around people, and then he uses sand coffin to crush them to death and then consume them. And so when he releases his sand, it smells like blood because it's basically stained with the blood of his enemies that he's killed over his over

He really skipped over a lot of middle ground there. I don't know what love is, so I'm just gonna kill everybody.

I mean, what's what's desirable about this character? And why do you want to fix this guy?

I just think he's neat.

He is pretty speaking of that Simpson's Fortnite, keep kicking ass, Simpsons, It's incredible.

Holy shit, I unlocked Marge Mary today.

I was thinking about spending like thirty fucking bucks on Itchy and Scratchy.

Such a tangent. I don't know, Yeah, I just think they're neat. Listen, who's to say what what awakens something inside of us? But when sixteen year old Mary watched Narudo probably older than that, for the first time, and I laid my hands on Gara, who does have like heavy eyeliner and looks like an emo boy, I was like, uh uh, this better not awaken anything inside of me.

So so you're what you're saying, is Nerudo is your be dazzled?

Yeah, Gara specifically is Yeah.

Okay, I understand that.

This is like that scene and it's always sunny where it's like I get it now.

Who's Who's Who's the Zenya in Nerudo Gara? No, no, everything, no, not but yet the public.

I don't know what I meant. I just want to talk about Yeah.

Yeah, we are going to be doing a recording bonus episode of Arc Raiders. So if you, if you're not a patron, like I mentioned earlier, you should go subscribe because the three of us are going to play it after this recording. However, Mary, you did write it down to talk about it tonight.

I've just been playing a little bit of our Creators and Dan, I know you've played it and you've talked about it. I haven't talked about it because I did not play it, and I've been kind of itching to try it. I get it. I get why everybody's like really excited about it. Is such an incredible solve to so many other gaming problems. Of like, I'll be so

It's okay, But you know it's so smart too. Is the free load out thing is great? But also the safe pocket. So it's like, let's see you find some one of a kind legendary thing. It's like, all right, I'll put this over here, so even if I die and lose everything else, I still have that.

Like it makes just a lot of smart little one.

Hundred percent Where do you think the safe pocket is? But he put it in his ass? I think he is. It's one hundred percent your butt. And I think it's awesome that if you find a pocket watch that is super valuable.

You can keep it, but you expand it too.

So is that like you're just going go see to get some more fucking rubber parts in there.

I just think you stretch it out over time.

I guess he didn't want them to get his watch, so he took it and he shoved it up his ass.

It's a really that is a really great that you can tell that these guys the developers are gamers and we're like, this game is reat, but you know it would make it a little better, and they're just solving these little core pieces that allow you to have more joy. I also think this game is really fun to watch other people play, especially people who are very good I am. I will self admittedly say I'm not excellent at this game.

A skill tree and all that stuff.

Yeah, totally, you're learning either way, no matter what. But I like watching people who are very good at the game because it's excellent to watch. There are so many things that I'm afraid of in that game, not just like the human beings that are obviously all terrible, but there's these ex spiders that are mechanically they're insane and they jump at you and like one shot. You watching people who've been playing this game for over two hundred

Mary, you got to watch that upf we did with Kayla. She's insane, right, Like she is a force of nature in that.

Yeah.

Just I mean that's the one time I played it with her and it was just like wow, all right, she just has an ability where she just scares people off by screaming at them.

It's incredible to watch.

Yeah, she was saying like, I'm going to be your step mom's mom.

Afterwards, I'm going to go full frontal on your asshole.

Yeah yeah, yeah, Yeah, She's just a terrifying I'd be afraid if I heard that.

Yes, I think online I do not have the aura that I have. I r L and online I'm always like hello, they're like, let's murder this person.

That's bank when she plays, but Banc does solos and like she's just the nicest person ever. And sometimes I find myself getting very angry if people like, you know, they're going to shoot her, like right at the extraction, where.

It's like, how dare you shoot things? And I shooting at.

The extraction is rude and I think you should leave people alone. I once crawled into an distraction and they still shot me inside the instruct and I was like, if I'm able to crawl my like decrepit ass into the distraction for anyone who doesn't know as long even if you're downed, if you can get in, you make it. You left, which is super cool. They still like took me down even from the inside, and I was like,

Yeah, I agree.

I think it's more interesting as a social experiment to be able to fuck with people at the very end.

I don't know what I mean.

We are us three have never been together in this game, and Mike, you have not really started it recently. I'm looking forward to seeing how our dynamic in our graders is right after this.

Yeah, looking forward to it as well. Just watch your backs. We're on this same squad. Is there a friendly fire? I don't even know. No one we'll find out, won't we.

No, yeah, no, no squad is ever friendly fired and tell.

Us all right, you want to talk about emails?

Sure, okay, as usual, you can write into firescape cast at gmail dot com questions you want read on the show. We got a bunch this last episode, and I called because we were running a bit low toward the end of the year. We replenished for a few months, but keep them coming, because you know, the more, the merrier, the more the better. Also, I think the more people

Yeah, good evening.

Yin's Pittsburgh things. Oh it's y'all like John's.

Uh like John. John is from Philadelphia. That's like you. You could substitute that for almost anything. Yin's is specifically like Pittsburgh's y'all.

Oh, okay, good evening, Yin's second time writer. A longtime listener question I love. I love a listener that gets right to the point. I appreciate it. Is there for something in high school you wish you would have tried but didn't.

Prince, how long have you had that locked and loaded?

I don't asked a bullet in the chamber, sports band, a job or activity you know, For example, hockey is a big deal in the city of Pittsburgh.

I often think of how I may have missed out on high school hockey. Instead I was in a local band playing shows. That also sounds cool, though, Yeah, anything come to mind for all of you. Much love from Pittsburgh.

Uh, it's like it's the most old man phrase ever. But the whole youth is wasted on the young thing. It's like it's like there are so many things now that like got just basic ass things like just general taking.

Care of yourself.

Shit.

I just wish I would have like at a younger age, like I would occasionally like go to the gym or the rec center in college and get on an elliptical for you know, thirty minutes or whatever and go home. But like just general taking care of yourself, general food stuff, things like that that like, you know, I'm definitely learning a lot as I get older and trying to make changes and stuff. But I think that stuff just is so much easier if that was part of your day

Ah, yes, I realize.

We were just me and Bank the other day. We're putting the duvet on the blanket and stuff like that. I realize growing up, I played a lot of my dad, and I think a lot of it's fair. I was never taught that you're supposed to wash your sheets.

Oh it's a bit gross. Yeah, it's gross. No, I think about it now and it's like, objectively, that's just gross. So neither your parents washed like a well, it was.

Two separate houses, and so I didn't, like, I don't know about that really.

Yeah, I mean that's on hygienic for sure.

Yeah, and you think about it like, well, of course there's there's a million reasons why that's uh you probably should wash those but uh yeah, So.

To clarify you were doing putting the duvet back on the actual comfort the other day with Bank.

This was the first time you realize you're.

Supposed to no, No, We've talked about it so many times. Yeah, trust me, trust me, it's a very clear line of pre and post bunk I love.

But you didn't even like before Bank, you didn't know that, like you were you were like any things.

I didn't know, uh before Bank, I just wasn't taught a lot of things. It's a lot of basic ass things, and I think of now and I'm like, oh, boy, that's yeah.

It's like when it's your fault for not like you know, to wash a shirt after you wear it, right, you understanding?

Well, yeah, but there.

Were things too where it's like I didn't know you could wash a hoodie until I met Bunk. I thought you said, yeah, yeah, we talked because I didn't think it was eligible for like smells, because it wasn't touching your skin.

Which it is eligible. Yeah, no, I don't. That's the thing.

Since I met Bonk and she just brings up a bunch of normal ass human things to me. In the last ten plus years, it's been like, oh, of course, how the fuck did I never?

But don't you ever think about like being on a pillow and like you know, like you drool when you're sleeping and stuff?

Like that.

I'm just feel like I think, I think growing up, I think the thought about like laundry and cleaning and things like that was that like if there was a stain on it, then you would do it.

Visual I can.

Get when you're like super young to like not know that you're just constantly like secreting stuff even when you're sleeping, like even on a micro level, I.

Got considered that, but like, yeah, it's just like I think cleaning clothes or hair in that Bunk I thought was just like although, you know, I guess that's not true, Like I would wash my clothes you know, all the time after worn. It's just because it's touching your skin. But I don't know why they didn't apply to I don't know.

Can you ever think about like impressing Like I understand there's like a pre impost bank again, like you know really you know, big ups to the big B. But like when you were in the courting stage of impressing bank, would you not want to have clean sheets for a lady?

I mean, I just look at this.

I never had a lady in the sheets.

No, I mean I think about it like it was I think when Bunk met me it was mattress on the floor.

Erast no cry.

Yeah, I just never got anything.

Worry about it.

I want to say when I met Bonk, it was either like I got my mattress off the floor a month or two after that, or it was like a month or two before meeting Bank. That is when I first start of the Giant bomb. I was in full on mattress on the floor guy.

That's that's a very stereotypical like guy who doesn't know how to actually like live bachelor. Yeah, like a man said she was still going on some dates where that was the case every once in a while.

Yeah, I was fully in the case of like you know, my my dad brain or it's just like well, I mean what, it's fine some mattress. It's just like, well, you're gonna spend money on something just to be high falutin, you know, like I think I was, and I guarantee that's how he still thinks. But like I definitely like when I first started the giant bomb, was in full on like why would I get that it doesn't do anything? It's just well, now I know that actually super does

Yeah, I was gonna say, like, I think you get to a certain age you have you can't be going that low into a mattress.

Yeah.

Yeah, but like, boy, the things I've learned in the last you know, ten plus years whatever, Like yeah, I look back and it's just like, oh boy, all those the twenties. We'll just say specifically the twenties. Maybe there's a past when you're a gross dumb teenage or whatever. I do feel like the twenties when I was just like, oh boy, there's just ship. I should have known that. I did not know a lot of twenties.

I do think like not to you know, ally feminist, like not to not to.

I thought you're gonna do ally gross dude.

Oh no, I've I've always been like, if anything, I agree with Dan No.

I had like a compulsion shower too twenty stuff.

My dad's the guy who says everyone's got fucking skid marks all the time.

So yeah, that's where I grew up with.

That's that's gross. I would say the thing, sorry continue or maybe.

I don't know. I'm so this is interesting, pack Yeah no, it's a weekly therapy is always very interesting. Yeah.

No, there's there's been stuff, and like I think you're you'd be forgiven for, like early and mid twenties having your math on the floor, because I think a lot of people do. But yeah, no, I I remember Amanda, like the first time she saw my apartment, my previous one, obviously before we lived together, she was like impressed that I my mattress was not on the floor and that I had art on the walls. I was like, is this the bar that like women are dealing with dating?

This is so true that, like, especially in college in early twenties, I would say, like the bar is so unbelievably low that if a guy had sheets on his mattress, it was like hula lah, what is this the rints? And it's just so bad.

Mary?

You would do that, Mary, I think. On that note, can you please check the discord. I just sent you a photo of me and my college bedroom, And if you just want to break this down for the folks, let me know this is okay.

You've here on the bar, this man has four pieces of art on his walls, which.

Is yes, I mean, what is this?

Probably this is probably two thousand and five for the record, two thousand and six.

Maybe is this a cool What are you holding? Is that fire? I'm holding a handful of fireworks.

If you look on the thing next to me, there's a bunch of Saturn rockets and maybe twizzlers, a.

Bunch of ones in a jar, which I love because it's tell it to me. This your piggy bank was like a jar where you're like, I have a dollar left after Chinese food. I'm gonna pop it in here for a good time later.

It's correct, Yes, you got a box spring though.

It's nice. Oh you have actually.

Progressed after this actress on the floor.

Yeah, you regress from them.

It's dead Wood and Clint Eastwood.

Yea full of dollars, dirty Harry, Yes.

Yes, yes.

What's the poster to the right that I can't see.

It's like that is a bunch of god damn, the video paper, the newspaper clippings of myself.

Oh my god, that's unforgivable.

I know.

It's a bunch of like local film students has successive films. The pictures of me and George Clinton and stuff. I'm I'm afraid that their push pinned on the wall. That's a picture of me and actor James Woods at a casino.

Oh my god, that's crazy. I just rewatched casino with James Woods in it.

Sure.

Yeah, this is just telling a picture here, isn't it.

I have to ask, embarrassed. I think I know the answer. Who made the collage of articles of you?

My mom?

Oh?

I thought it was a Christmas gift. It was a Christmas I thought it was you, So it was my backside pass for p funk. It's a bunch of newspaper articles.

You're deming's that your mom did that?

I will also give you some ups.

You have a water bottle by your bed, so you're obviously a hydro homie, and you were like taking care of yourself by drinking water. Unless there's vodka in there.

No, it's probably water.

I probably do more of that now. Yeah.

I think that's nice. You had books, which was like kind of the no on your nightstand?

Are those I'm doing in?

Those?

Might be my yearbooks?

Yeah?

Those are my yearbooks?

Oh?

You unfuckable?

Is this a dorm room or a house? It's my apartment.

Okay, that was that was nine and Lawrence brother, he lives on Lawrence. Uh in Lawrence.

Oh gotcha?

Okay, I mean, this isn't the worst I've seen. This isn't the worst that I've experienced. I think, like, again, the bar is so low.

I thank you in hell why I thank you for not touching upon what me as a person.

Also, Oh yeah, I guess I think there's nothing wrong with your physical appearance. I don't know like what you smell like, or like your uh yeah, your cleanliness. But I will say, like, there's nothing wrong with long hair. I like that look. I like like a T shirt and jeans. Dude, I got nothing wrong with like your vibe.

I will say this, the mattress in that picture is probably filthy. But me, I was always a regular shower guy. I've never been a stinky guy. Really, that's good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so I'm.

Good on that. I'm not worried about like your your appearance. I think you look completely reasonable. I will say, like so many boys black sheets, like dark, dark sheets, And to me that was just like a reflection of we all know that these could not be white. We know that you could not get away with it. So, yeah, really dark sheets to mask the dirt.

What was my thought of, like directly above the bed in this photo. I've got a poster of Curb Your Enthusiasm and it's one where it's just like every character is Larry David's head.

So what is my thought as college guy?

Oh?

I would I'm single. I would try to hopefully things happen here. Let me put forty Larry David heads above my bed.

Yeah, it's like a girl was. If you were like with a girl and she was looking at that in your bed, that is stressful. But I think there's nothing more stressful than the poster above the mattress on the ceiling.

I don't have that.

Well, I mean, you have evidence of that in this photo, but I would.

Say that I did not. That does not exist here.

That is an unforgivable phot.

Just getting slammed while macho man Randy Savage is staring down at you.

Actually, when we stayed at your house, you you blew up a photo of Mike's face and put it above that.

Funny I still have that. Yeah, it's still somewhere in the house. I'm looking forward to seeing what the ceiling poster is going to be this year.

Back to well, actually, I just realized Mary might have a guest and oh, yeah what we talked. Yeah, weird thing.

I'm gonna put like a towel on it.

No, that in the corner. Just a weird like black like phantom for those listening.

By this point, two days from now, I might have a eight foot tall Zeno morphe.

With a strangely normal human torso and likes good posture.

No, it's a strange device. But Dan and I were just bonding over unnecessary purchases in our adult years of like, listen, we have some income that I think you can like basically just say it's disposable, like, let's enjoy our lives and do something with it. I bought a CRT for my kitchen, which is ridiculous, but it brings me a lot of joy. And you brought a you bought a sino morph.

I visited a xenomorph tonight and I approved of him.

So now I'm arranging for the transportation.

So bad.

He's going to be in this room looking over you.

It's such a good I mean, yeah, I'm sorry, I'm not not stupid.

So cool, thank you.

Look, I'm still looking at this picture of me in two thousand and six, and it seems very cool.

There's moments of this that are cool.

The question that was, I, here's mine. I wish I wish we had done when we were younger. This is a two parter.

I wish I had gotten more into like theater, but I'm glad I'm not a the I wasn't a theater kid. But I do wish I had tried like performance more because I really do like I do like crave attention, and I do like, really like what people are paying attention to me.

So here's the problem with that. Because I took this route. I also love attention. And I did go into theater class in junior high and I loved it. It was I did plays and it was fantastic, and I I loved, you know, have my characters, my lines and all that stuff. And then you go to high school and then in saw musicals.

Oh oh, that's actually why I didn't get apart. I was trying to sing Daddy Warbucks and the music teacher, who hated me to begin with, didn't give me the part. I would have shaved my head and everything for Daddy Warbucks.

But I didn't get there.

You could pull it off.

Thanks, but no, I think that's it. I kind of I think I've said this before. I was kind of part of like several different clicks in high school. I like hung out with lacrosse players and basketball players because I literally played those sports. I some of my best friends were ones. I geeked out about video games with them. They came over and we did system links with Halo, et cetera. Then I sometimes hung out with the cool kids, and then I sometimes hated them. So I was kind

Really having a car was a big deal for me.

I oh, my friends did my car?

Two for me?

One.

I always wanted to be a camp counselor and it just never happened for me. And you know how many movies you have with like people are cool camp counselors and like they get to like do cool sexy stuff Like I never had that experience, and.

I wished just get slammed in cabins.

Six.

I wish I was a camp counselor. Yeah, I've always wanted to be a camp counsel and I never did it, And now I think will be weird. I think if I did it now, they would.

Be like, why is this old lady age range? Is it like early early twenty twenties.

But maybe even maybe even like eighteen.

Yeah, you're like twenty two maybe twenty.

Like being a dorm what do you call that? Like a alright, yeah, it's like the same, but way cooler to be a camp counselor. And so like I regret not getting that opportunity in my youth. I would say the second one is I never truly learned to read music, and I think that was a mistake. I always was self taught. I've learned so many songs on piano, guitar, bass. To this day, I play bass, but I am self taught.

It's really confusing. It's like really right in English.

But in my defense, it's confusing.

It was just go twang, twank, walk, walk walk. I'd figure it out. It's that simple, fucking Mozart deal Mozart.

When I was a kid, I was like, I ain't learning all that, especially when I can literally like, any time I saw a song I really liked, I could just mimic and this is what I did. I would listen to it on the radio and then I would just be like, okay, bomb bomb bomb bomb, and then I would do it on the piano until I until I duplicated it. I did it by ear and that's just how I learned. So yeah, I just like never, I never did it right, and I don't know.

I wish I had read more Chekhov. No, I'm just kidding, and I thank you, zach Dan. Do you want to read this one from Doc Hensla?

Sure?

Hey, Fire Escapees.

My wife loves to give me grief about a game I have played ever since we started dating twelve years years ago, when we were in medical school together, I started to play a Hearthstone. It was mainly during study breaks, but has now turned into my ADHD game. Whenever I have some downtime and just need my brain to turn off. I play it now mainly the Battlegrounds game mode. Since the game doesn't give me how many hours I've played, I've done a deep dive on how many hours I've

Say it's your ADHD game. But I'm actually pretty impressed with how long you stuck with one game.

Yeah, yeah, that's I was talking about this last night. I got dinner with a bunch of game informer folks and we were talking about like a couple of guys played a bunch of like Doda and Wow and stuff like that, and they had, you know, thousands of hours with all that stuff. And I still think my number one most played game ever is Soul Calber. That's probably

You've played them so many times.

Yea, yeah, I'm sure it adds up. But like I'm still sure, like linked to the past, My favorite game ever, the game I've beat the most. I'd be surprised if I've played more than like one hundred and fifty hours of you know, I think.

That's fair, But it's also can those hundred and fifty hours are like super valuable to you. Oh h yes, something you shouldn't overlook, right, Like, I really don't play a lot of replayable games. I often play games. I play a lot of indie games, and so like those games I play really hard for like forty hours, and then they're done. I've completed them, and I'm like, what a great experience, and then I move on. So it's I don't have a lot of games that I've played

Like I played Left for.

Dead too a lot.

Yeah, the Steam stuff is nice, but it's also like, well how many times did it? Just did the execute will not close correctly?

Or I think the highest played game in my Steam is I Am Bred, and that is not true. I left it overnight at game Spot on a computer that wasn't act like that wasn't able to turn off, and it logged hours for seven days, and so I have like seven hundred hours and I Am Bread. But did I play I Am Bread? I did not play that many hours of I Am Bread? So my steam is not accurate. I would say Team Fortress two and Left for Dead too are games that I think I put

I just think we're just like edge cases where it's like, I don't know my entire adult life, I've been doing this for a living, so it's like I can't just stick with one game for a thousand hours. So it's like if I did not do this for a living, maybe I would have got Wow or something back then, or Mobile or Doda or something and like gotten super into it. But like you just can't do it when you have to play everything.

You know, I got really into Warframe for a bit, remember that, I don't know if I actually cross a thousand hours. I will say Total war Warhammer three now says I'm at twelve hundred. However that I'm sure that's also idle time and similar things where it didn't close or I'm not it could be any number of things,

Now I am playing still a.

Shit ton of hours. By the way, if we could just say, like it's a bar of like, what is a shit ton of hours in a game? I think is eighty If you've played a game for eighty hours, you have obviously loved that game.

Yeah, yes, yeah, you could have read you read a book for once.

I know, although all the things I could have accomplished and intellectually if I wasn't playing to learn to read music, I got to learn a a fuck ton about wine, gotten a high level to ploma.

You could have been somebody.

Hell, but no, I'm I've I was just playing yesterday.

I'm I'm playing the new DLC, which is embargoed for tomorrow to talk about It's why I'm not talking about it. But yeah, I noticed that today that it's said twelve hundred, but I don't think it's actually past one thousand. Yes, Warframe Warhammer three, and I will say I love Warframe.

Warcraft, I had control over it.

However, there were times when I was like, I just played like six hours of this game and it was mindless.

To a point where I think my feeling I think.

I think every once in a while, if you want to play a game that, like like doc Hensla mentioned to turn your brain off, I think there's tons of value in that as like a relaxation, meditative thing. However, Warframe I was starting to feel like a bit gross.

That's the thing like if you're playing something for you you describe playing six hours and not feeling like anything like you had accomplished anything, Like I think, there's it's not just an hour count means something or it doesn't mean something like I've sent this entire weekend playing Metrod Prime four. But it's like, Okay, that's something I'm doing, you know, even if it wasn't for job. It's like that is a game with a finite ending. I'm going

You know.

I think that's healthy and normal. I think when you say playing six hours and like, I think a lot of these games where it's just kind of the carrot on this during dopamine type shit. I think if you play it for like five or six hours and you just kind of just feel like you were just in this like trance basically. Yeah, and it wasn't a story based thing where you're making progression. You're just kind of like like, I don't know. That type of stuff kind of weirds me out.

That's why I'm not I'm not ashamed to say with Warhammer three, because it's an in depth strategy game where I'm actually like considering shit and like there's some sort of stimulation. But also it's funny looking back at the time frame when I was playing warframe like that. It's very funny to look at my like life of relationships circumstances and know exactly why I was playing that like

I think they're really good ones do a good job of hiding it because like I have studied a lot of time just playing fucking Fortnite the last two weeks because I gotta get Homer. He's the last thing in the battle pass.

I gotta fucking do that. Yeah.

Yeah, there's like a whole episode worth of like my thoughts on where much of game design is today, which is why I infinitely appreciate Mary you bring in cool indie games that are not like that all the time, Dan you being able to dive into stuff that's like still very quote unquote old school, and how it's not always just a carrot on a stick in front of

Grosses me out.

Though, Like when I hear, like, you know, there are certain like you mainly hear by this, like the mobile space and stuff with people who bring like psychologists on staff to like try to like, how do we incentive by a player and in centim by players to keep playing and not stopping or like you know, check in every two hours, and like, remember the one time I played a Class Royale for like a month or whatever, and it was the one like kind of mobile game.

Yeah, and you mentioned the good games are good at hiding it. This is a different thing because it's not trying to get you to spend micro transactions. But you look back at, uh, what's who what's the name of the blatro dude? He local he used his experience designing slot machine interfaces to get people to like, obviously, that's very much like a that's a very very intelligent rogue.

Leg we all, it was our game of the year. It's an incredible game.

But like he himself has said, like, oh no, like some of the visual stimuli that keep you playing on slot machines. I used that for Bilatro, which is funny because.

Vampire Survivors did the same. Yeah, you know, it's like, yeah.

Is that what I'm thinking of? Or no, I think Blatro was Yeah, if you But either way.

I want to say it almost might have been Vampire Survivors stuff when like all the different like you.

Know, it's totally Vampire surrivor it's not.

I'm so sorry to the creative Bilotro that game remains sacrosanct. But yeah, no, Vampire Spibers absolutely knows how to keep you like just in a trance while things are blowing.

Work ship, and if you spend time in a casino or in Vegas, it's like you see it and it's like all these little tricks and stuff, like you can go in and know like okay, there's no windows, there's no clocks. They're doing these things on the ceiling to make it look like it's the daytime outside. Yeah, like you can know that stuff and it's still extremely effective. So it's like, I don't know, it's good to just kind of like just kind of back out of that.

Yep.

Well, thank you Doc Kenslow for the question. All Right, last question, tonight, Hey, escapists, I listened to a lot of the Giant Bomb Extended universe, and I think that you guys put together my favorite Game of the Year content each year.

Thank you very much, Robbie.

I think it's great to see and hear the energy you all bring being in the same room together. Also, it is fun hearing the banter and arguments that ensue from the alcohol being consumed. We don't consume any alcoho. I don't know what you're talking about. You all have worked in a lot of places of the years, GameSpot, Polygon, Game, Giant Bomb, Game Informer, et cetera. My question is what are some of your favorite and least favorite parts of the Game of the Year process from your previous places

We love these conversations, and I will say I look forward to Game of the Year every year. It's like super fun. There are some like consistent lulls that I will never like that I always got stressed about at Game Spot, which was emotional tirades of people who were like, this game is really important to me personally, and I'm going to explain it for twenty minutes.

Yes, joy, It is not yes, like okay.

Ethically for me to interrupt someone and be like, hey, we don't really don't give a shit about that, you have to sit there and listen to someone sometimes like get really emotional for twenty minutes about why game is so deeply and seriously important to them.

Fuck your trauma. I want to talk about.

Twenty must say like okay, okay, we're going to bet on then that sucks. But like, just a game emotionally hitting at is important. We're not saying it's not. That doesn't mean that it should be in our top ten and that is. I think sometimes it can, but I think there is a limit to how much I can stomach someone being like this game changed my life and I hop talk to you about it, and it's just like, can you can you tell dry this is so important to you?

Yeah? Similarly, I remember there was a few instances a game Spot and game Spot was a large staff across how many different time zones when we had when we had these and we had people calling in, and there was a few times where and I'm not about I don't expect every single person to be good at arguing a point or even to all these people that's the first time they're even doing some of this.

But I remember, be the best game and you're just not good at explaining.

Yeah, And that's the thing.

It's like, I'm not expecting you to be like like the most eloquent person ever when you're telling why this game is like genius or whatever and deserves Game of

This is not fire Escape, this is games. I'll say it was game Spot. There were you could probably figure out who I'm talking about, really.

Big personalities who just you can tell like an interpersonal conflict is coming out in this argument. Like they're not really talking about why Rock League is better than the Witch are three. Their Aaron grievance is about each other. Mary, you might have remembered this, and I was like, guys, we are this.

Yeah.

I was like, guys, we are an hour into this, like you can't be at each other's throats, like and then it became about like this person not being able to like separate being a critic from loving a game as a fan.

I was like that that was the not fun, like when you make it uncomfortable in the room.

That's That's the thing I've never understood is because to me, like the content the thing you're making is like, yeah, you're going to debate and you're trying to kind of jockey your thing up, you know, like especially with like Giant bombits always like, Okay, you gotta make your stand for I know I'm the only one who.

Really loves Sturdy Valley. I gotta get it on the list. I got it, you know, like it's like a game, you know.

And then it's like you would hear that other people treated as like or they would need like a break afterwards, just going it's like emotionally rot or It's like and it's like, wait, you're actually serious about this, Like wait, we're just we're just talking about a game. We like, trying to get on the list. Like I've never once felt like upset, actually upset about something during a Game of the Year argument.

But apparently some people like get.

Actually like you are very good at uh separation though, Dan, I have I mean even times where I have I have I have taken shots at you, and then I'm like, oh, I hope that was okay, and you're like, I didn't even think about it.

Your shots are good, but I always love that.

But we're also joking, and we are we are talking about video games. And I try and always remind people we don't save lives here. This is this is a hobby that we love. We love it with our hearts, we love it with our souls. We put a lot of time and energy into this. You're allowed to care about this, but also remember that these are things for

Yeah, I think one of my favorites was like, I'm probably gonna get the specific games wrong, but we were doing a game of the year argument like a game Informer, and when we did that, none of this was for show. This was behind the scenes as much as Hanson Ben Hansen wanted to broadcast all of it. It was very much the old school magazine style, like no, we're just gonna sit down for eight hours, we're gonna hash this out.

It was like, just like Matt.

Helgerson, who was one of my favorite people ever, after a bunch of argument and just seeing him, I'm just kind of like sitting in the corner just wanting to kill himself. Just be like, guys, we're talking about if Journey is better than this year's but like we're all gonna die someday.

Let's let's save the energy for when it's necessary. Gives a fuck.

Yeah, that that kind of stuff like I remember my I think I led Chris Plant and I like kind

That's like, yeah, don't don't blow your load for whether or not something is forty six or forty seven. This isn't like, this isn't going to kill you.

This Matterney, It's just matters the way that it's a fun thing to listen to on a podcast and for the people making it, it's a fun thing to put together the list, and like, I can't wait for you folks to be here in like a week and a half.

And it's fun to fight you.

It's fun to nargue about the different mechanics.

I think I can't imagine taking it seriously, Like like I think I saw something on Reddit recently that I was talking about our game of the Year stuff, and it cracked me up because it was like, yeah, with a fire somebody who's asking, like, oh, who else does game of the year the way like old school Giant Bomb did, And somebody said fire Escape And the first comment was like, yeah, I don't know, I really like

All right, yeah, right, the list And that's so accurate total about that. We forgot what it was the year after Reternal I think.

But it's the games are either I forgot a lot for h Yeah, Like.

It's a vehicle to look back on the year of games and celebrate games and like just geek out and talk about the games that you love, and like sometimes you're like, holy shit, I forgot that came out this year. That game was amazing, even though it's not like registering as a twenty twenty five game, but like two years ago or I think it was two years ago, maybe last year, when Pickman four came out of nowhere at the end and almost got tears.

They came out of it's like you bitches like that. That was me taking something that was like me like that.

I could see the politics that gave rise to that, and I'm like, no fucking way cool, and it was funny.

Sometimes I am chaos too, though, because I think, and you'll probably recognize this, especially the more that I drink, the more that I recognize the most important thing is that we were having a fun, engaging conversation where people get out of their seats and say, I've had enough of you. I have to say something, and like, that's good conversation if we're all agreeing about the same game.

On there.

Even if I like the game, I want you to prove it to me. I want to see you articulate it. And I know Mike it you were all capable of this. I'm probably the weakest in this element of like being able to explain it, but I absolutely will personally come for you if the game that I like the most doesn't make it. And these are all like things that we get to enjoy and have fun with.

That's such a fun moment too, where it's like I've seen that with Gianbad numerous times, where it's like there's one year Austin Walker was the only one who like had played or was super passionate about this game Invisible Ink, Yeah, and just to see the moment yeah, where it's like it kind of clicks in where it's like, all right, here's the point where I'm standing up at the podium and let me tell all you motherfuckers why this game

It during our I made the mistakes during our I have since stopped reading chat while we do these, and I, I, oh, when have we ever? I don't know, twenty twenty our first one. Oh, I had it up because we were remote on Twitch for our first one. Right, So I made the mistake for the first like half of the

Was it was funny. I deserved it. I didn't know how to talk about that. Yeah.

If I was your mom, I would frame that quote and hang it in your dorm room.

I was I at that point, I was like, all right, I got to turn off track because that that got me. I'm done talking about zero forever.

Oh that's really good.

Yeah.

Maybe you needed to hear that though too.

When I was trying to get Kentucky Roof zero to fire Escape like top five, I think.

That was so hard in this group. It was our first Yeah, And I also think like that game was very meaningful, and that's about this actually is a perfect circular point to my first point, which is you also recognized the point at which you're the game meaning something to you personally is meaningful to me and Dan it is it is very meaningful that that game was so personal to you to the point where we put it on the list because it probably wouldn't have been on

But there is a real like I you know, I won't I can't do justice.

But like if you watch last year's Giant Bomb Game of the Year, there's you know, Sean Turba, Sean did. He talked a lot about how much I think it was some Persona remake or something meant to him, and like normally no Persona game I just I don't I could not give less a shit about any Persona game, But just hearing Sean talk about it and seeing how much it affected him and everything, Like as much as I don't give a fuck about Persona, I wouldn't put

Game of the Year, Like, yeah, it's not gonna be like Super High but yeah, I like I listened to and and Jake as well. I think it's also actually really important. Is I think our our tiebreaker, our judicator, our uh. I would just say, like our secret spice is Jake, who will sometimes come out of the fucking would work because this dude does not talk very much and will be like I want to tell you guys

Well, but we also get him like once a year on the show when he's got a gavel. So it's terrifying.

Yeah, so it's this is a gang in my head. It's really good.

It's ever and like I think last year, I was like, dude, is it hot under the wig in the robes like a little bit. I was like, I don't care, you're keeping them month Like, I mean.

We're not going to change it. We just wanted to know how hot it was.

Yeah, nice cool. Look, Yeah, no, I'm I'm looking forward to game of your stuff.

I definitely like, I have actual things I hated at GameSpot and Polygon that I'm not about to talk about now. Would be good radio because I would actually be venting, but by and large, like Polygon and game Spot, we I also like I loved hearing intelligent people make their argument for a game, and it was fun at a certain point, Like even with fire Escape, there's the element of like you got to know when to spend your political capital and when to withhold it.

That's what I like. Now I've learned if I have a Kentucky for zero, I should not blow my political load on that game.

Unless you're really confident, and that's where you want to put all your points this year.

You know, like you can't be emotional about twenty different game. I think that's sucking smart and it's like my other major pet peeve. So like again, as we said, you can't have an emotional labor of love for twenty minutes, like sum it up, like get to the fucking point. The second one is is you can't do that five times. You can't. You can't have five games that changed your life.

I think the best argument fucking three and tell.

Me why and that's it. But you can't do this to me every time. You can't be like this is the game that like changed me, Like my mom and I have a better relationship.

Shut the fuck up. Which ones.

Truly need to be up a notch? You can't do this?

Oh yeah, No, I also think the best arguments are relatively brief, Like I like, I think if you have a good if you have a good point to get across, I don't think it should be that long winded to make I.

Agree the best arguers as well. And this is like something that will also come up and Mike, you alluded to this earlier. Is like the best arguments. You might not necessarily have the best game, but you have found a way to particulate your point that is convincing to

Yeah, Jake, I.

Consider like the bonus like surprise, like I'm tie breaking, But generally speaking, the three of us make these calls of like what should be where, and so if you can sway someone on your side, that is a big difference.

A good game.

And you mentioned Jake and like really spending your points appropriately and everything. I'm looking at last years and if I'm looking at this right, I think lower lay in the laser Ese it was number seven Jakes here that was super and like and I remember Jake fucking loved that game. And he came out of the wood the argument in a way that's like, yep, that makes life.

And then guess what he did. Yep, he fucking sat back down and he waited until he had something funny to say. And that's why he's the judge. If he did that every time, it'd be fucking annoying. I he used his points.

I still wake up in the middle of the night from a deep sleep and start laughing sometimes at the memory of Jake playing the Judge thing, and then we're all like waiting with baited breath.

He's like, give me a beer, someone give a.

Beer, and just said, I just don't want to hear you talk anymore.

Yeah, He's like, this is just going on too long.

Anyway, everybody loves Judge Jake. I think it's a wonderful time. I think there's a lot of positives, and there's a lot of like there's a lot of trials and tribulations of it. The good news of fire Escape is I actually think it's mostly like all of the joys of these things, Like there was a lot less, way less drama than Game Spot. And he's just like, all right, here this person I've ever been. It's like, here we are.

I'll say, I've literally never been legitimately angry at any.

Of you, though I wonder, like, have you ever been legitimately angry at a game? At a Giant Bomb?

No game?

Like I think you are an anomaly, but are most people do get mad at a game of the year debate because and again, it's not because a game isn't good and it shouldn't be that high. It's because a person is fucking irritating.

I've never been upset about something. I have just been surprised when I have seen people be legitimately upset about stuff. You know, it's like, oh, I didn't know we were doing that.

Yeah, passionate.

What's materializes differently in different people, and I take some people it's like it's more of a toxic thing, and I'm like that, I guess you did not play Mass Effect Legendary Edition twenty times this year, so I'm going to mix that from your argument.

That's physically impossible.

Like if I just also, like if I can also just like shoot our own horn one more time, I will just say something that's really awesome. I think about the fire Escape dynamic is that we all have very different argumentative styles. Mike is usually very analytical. You will bring up like very specific points of why this game is designed explicitly better. That is your secret sauce. That's like what makes you extremely good at what you do.

Marry the amount of times people when they bring fire Escape up to me and the first thing they say is I love fire Escape because I love how much Mary can just put you in your place and just shut you the fuck down.

And I'm like doing it.

Yeah, yeah, I still think about You're not important enough to be this annoying, and it's like, my god, there's never been a more laser bream attack at me and I love it.

That's the Mahardi thinks he's Austin Walker but sucks common'stle.

I have nothing, but just like I just want to applaud that and like that. That's what people love, like they love that dynamic with you and me, and I'm like, I get it total.

I think we have good dynamic together, and I think that's what separates us. There are a lot of companies out there that do Game of the years. But those people were not They did not decide to do that together. They were chosen by, like you know, people who hired them. And like, there's a lot of bureaucracy that goes into that. There's people that should that are in those rooms that probably shouldn't be there, people that are in that room that should have left ages ago. There's a lot of

That we we do it.

This is making me very excited for about a week and a half from now.

Good news, we're about to fucking do it.

Yeah that's our episode, thank you, Rovi. But yeah, December sixth about let's just say roughly seven pm Central. We'll figure out the exact time it'll be on Twitch dot tv.

If we're we're gonna have a dinner and then we will start doing our thing.

Yeah, Twitch dot tv slash Dan Riikert, but also go followscape Cast on YouTube if you're not a patron and you want to give video versions or add free episodes of our normal episodes. But also we'll be putting up The Game of the Year as a two parter on December eighth and the following week December fifteenth. Also, Vinnie Caravella of Nextlander and I do a co op show Total World Warhammer three where we're playing through.

A campaign for.

Firescape Cast and another different campaign with different factions, different part of the world for next Landers. So if you're not a patron for them, please go do that. They're awesome. Those of you who already are, no, they're great. We will we have merch It's Firescape Cast merch dot com. Still can get your water bottles if you want to make sure you're hydrated during Game of the Year, which

Cold sweater for Christmas.

Oh do we still have is dorky Chris Christmas. You can get Dorky Christmas sweatshirts. That'd be great.

Got a hand job yeah, yeah.

It's not itob it's about a hand. Yeah, the story before, but that I have a friend who like said, they had a holiday celebration and the little girl came down the stairs and looked at everyone and said, I'm not pooping, And everyone was like, all right, well, now that's all we think you're doing. I probably shouldn't explain something you're not doing publicly because now it's all I can think about.

But yeah, we're looking forward to it. Game of the Year, Dan, what do you have going on in the meantime?

Giant Bomb? We're doing our Game of the Year stuff. You know, we'll definitely be announcing when all of that's going to be rolling out. We will be recording it soon. We'll be doing you know, talkovers for the game awards and things like that. But yes, the actual Game of the Year award deliberations, we will be announcing the time frame for that. But yeah, very much looking forward to it.

Mary, what about you?

Streaming every Monday on Twitch And mostly I think my funnest updates right now are on Instagram dailies, Like just in my day to days, I just find that an update that disappears after twenty four hours is the most alluring to me. So, like the majority of like what I'm doing on my day to day is going on Instagram stories. I just find that fun.

What about you, Mike, just working at magod doing the more behind the scenes and video games, which is nice.

You've said working at MAGA.

Well, that's behind the scene, you got. How do I put this?

He loves I.

I can't.

I don't blame you for hearing that. No, I'm working at maggid is the company I work for.

We are We're all over the place.

I want to hear something. I want to hear something funny. I will be flying to Dan's house for Game of the Year from the south of France.

Oh my god.

Yeah, I wish I could help it.

Dan, do you know how to make an espresso martini?

I can do it.

Yeah, vodkaf espresso and vodkah I'll be making them.

I think that's going to be the day before Game Year for what it's worth. But oh, I'll be fine.

I don't think I'm not going to be there long enough to super get adjusted to the time.

For what it's worth, and they're literally gonna be chaos.

Here's the thing, Mike, I swear to God, you and Jake need to stay awake for Naked Gun the night before again.

I think I'll be fine.

I think I'll be jet lag just from the physicality of traveling. But I'm only there too.

Have everyone seen the naked Gun?

No, Mike hasn't and hasn't No, Ja, Yes, I'm pretty sure. Jks Okay, Well, Mike, I swear to god, it's like an hour twenty five. It feels like it's twenty minutes long. Oh yeah, you fucking said. I'm shoving my fingers into your Brainstand you don't stay away.

That's a very weird threat out for people who don't didn't see the context last year.

I'm not even gonna expound that.

Video evidence somewhere. I don't know what I've done with it.

But yeah, yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm not going to be in France long. It's like literally two nights and then I'm back.

You're going to France?

You can't. I can't, Mike, I lived there. If I could, Oh I can, I might, I will, It is reasonable, all right, but uh No.

In the meantime, I'm I don't really do anything forward facing. I'm just here this is you, guys, get all of my forward facing Shenan's. Oh god, damn that video I sent you. This is the first time that's that's the first time I heard vodka soda referred to as a vod sod.

I really didn't like it.

Up, order a couple of are before you switch over. Some cours lattes. I hated it too, but those were stuck about it. I want a cours latte before I switched to the vodside. All right, we will be back for Game of the Year Live December sixth, Bookmarket.

We will see you then, bye bye bye. All right, I'm gonna stop recording.

That was very funny, I thought.

H