Fire Escape Cast #77

Hello, everyone, Welcome back to the fire Escape Cast. It is episode seventy seven. We're getting into getting close to the eighties. This is always a great part of the episode where I just talk about the numbers in a really straightforward way. I wasn't you remember the eighties? I wasn't here last episode. I was. I do not remember the eighties? Were you alive in the eighties? I was a baby. That's been six years there, Yeah, yeah, how was it. I think it's like the six yiares.

I don't well, I mean, I guess I don't remember like thirty nine and a half years with my memory, but I definitely don't remember the eighties. I remember the nineties pretty well. You were not sentient in the eighties. You were like a lump of meat, and your parents kept you alive. Yeah. I mean, look, my parents are Mary until I was like four and a half, and I don't remember them ever being married. So that cuts off everything up to like eighty, like June nineteen eighty

eight. We're right now, probably about nineteen eighty nine. I don't remember anything post divorce. I think, what's memory? What's your earliest earliest memory? Sitting on the floor at my dad's place, post divorce, playing Super Mario Brothers. Sorry every time you say post divorce some reason in my head, I'm finishing your sentence. I don't remember anything post abortion, and I'm

like, well you, I'm sorry, I've been tired. I'm i gotta just let you finish your se No, divorce is a completely different thing. Oh really Yeah, it's like if you don't remember pre divorce, it's not like, uh, it's not like you're talking about like uh ad you know what I mean, Like it's it doesn't make sense because there was no pre divorce for you. It's just yeah, yeah, that's true. It's it's just I guess it is like an ad thing, right, like that's the

that's the way to timestamp things. But I guess if I don't have anything pre time stamp, it's all just kind of Yeah. Nineteen ninety is probably where I started. It's all a d for you after two fours. Yeah, just like the Bible. Yeah, it's God intended. I went to Catholic school. I remember everything ad what was When was the golf war? And when did Beavis and butt Head get popular? Golf? Like Persian golf

was ninety one I think it was. Okay, so that you keep track of well, I remember being Dallie North was doing his thing over in the Persian Golf and then Beavis and Butthead were there. I'm thinking about it earliest memories. I remember laying in bed trying to sleep, and I could hear from the living room my dad laughing at Beavis and Butthead. And I remember the Golf War constantly showing up on CNN, and I didn't know what the

golf was, and I kept thinking it was like a golf war. So like, I, yes, probably like ninety one is about when I started coming into full consciousness. I think, yeah, Desert Storm was ninety to ninety one. Okay, that checks out, Okay, yeah, yeah, So I know I don't remember the eighties. I don't. I was I was nine, uh yeah, nine when two thousand hit. I was born

in ninety one, so like, I sort of remember the nineties. But when you're that young, you're not really participating in the culture all that much of the time. Like, yeah, sure, I'm into the TV shows that people are watching, playing the video games, Like I can tell you that the video games I was playing, But it's not like I still barely consider myself a nineties kid. I was nine by the time they ended.

I mainly remember the nineties because I was old enough, but also I hadn't started drinking yet, so like it's like the perfect decade for me to remember, you know, it's like old and I remembered things too young to be drinking. I remember the nineties more than any other decade. For sure. They're coming back. Gen Z's really into nineties fashion at least the pants, yeah, music, and the most nineties I've ever seen. They're like baggy, yeah, like with like a metal you know, what do you call

the wall chains? Wallet chains? Yeah? See, that was that was the thing in high school. Like everyone had Jenko's and wallet chains. But like I was always way too much of a coward to like participate in the trends because I thought I would do it wrong. So like my entire goal was just like what can I do to make sure no one notices me in any way good or bad, Not like ooh, Dan's got cool pants or oh what the hell is Dan wearing? I just wanted to blend in and

not be noticed at all. So I never I don't think I ever bought a piece of clothing that was like in style. You know, yeah, I've been like holding off on getting you know, like baggier with my clothes. I'm still holding pretty fast to like twenty tens fashion, and I think it's going all right. But if you asked like a twenty five year old, they would probably disagree. What is like timeless fashion jeans? Well, but it depends on what kind, right, because like Jenko's sorry, like

wide leg baggy jeans are in right now, skinny jeans are out. But if you asked ten years ago, you would wear skinny jeans and then flared jeans, which were like popular in like the sixties seventies. Those are back to now, baby, So like if we're we're back into flares as well. Is that the same as bell bottoms splare jeans? Sure, but those

are two different like scopes. Bell bottoms are like massive where they cover your foot and everything, whereas like you could have a flare that's like almost like a boot cut. So many different types of jeans. Like what's weird is that if you talk to kids now, it's funny because I was like just hanging out with a bunch of people who had kids and they were telling me

about all the styles that are in right now. They will tell you to your face if you wear skinny jeans, those are for moms, like skinny jeans, or for moms. Don't wear skinny jeans. We wear baggy pants and we drink Prime and we it's just crazy like to see like the trends. But yeah, skinny jeans are aged now. Baby. So when I hear mom jeans, I think of like, you know, the kind of like they're pulled up to like your belly button, and they're like they like

round the ass, you know, Like, is that not? Are those not mom jeans anymore? Do those not exist? High waisted jeans are in style, But in terms of that specific kind of the ones you just described, no, they're not in style. You're correct, But like high waisted genes are a big thing right now. I'll never go back. I will not go back to low rise jeans with my little butt crack showing. I won't do it. I'm here now, I'm getting off the style train,

and I will just look a fool. I don't care if I look like a mom, that's fine, I accept it. I won't go back. But yeah, right now, you could still have high waisted jeans, but they have to be baggy. And like the other day, I went shopping at like kind of a trendy g like they call it denim, right, like when it's a when it's a trendy store and they want to charge one hundred dollars, it's you're paying for denim, not jeans. And the denim

was high. The cutoff like where the gene ends was high, like almost bottom. Yeah, it's like where your shin is and you can see your whole ankle in like some of your leg And I was like it, just like these are high waters, like they look. I would beat a kid up for wearing this kind of thing in like middle school because I used to beat up kids for their clothes all the time. And I got beat up for wearing high waters. Yeah, and the lady was like a lady was

like, oh no, this is all the rage. You want them high like this, And I was like, I just can't do it. And I wanted to, like I went to this trendy store to make sure I was on trend, and I was like, I'm out. I just can't. I don't want to wear shoes. I don't want to wear pants that are that high off the ground. It was weird. So how does this

like, how does that happen? How do how do trends? Like is it just like one influence, like oh, Kim Kardashian started wearing these tall jeans and now everybody's doing it or is it just like a cultural ship that happens without any rhyme or race see Double Wear's product. No, okay, first of all, you should wear You should watch devil Wears Product's a really fucking good movie. But there's a really iconic scene in it where who's who's

the devil in Devil's Wears product street? Yes, Oh my gosh, she's so amazing. Okay, and Devil's Wars Product there was like Glenn Close, it's always I think it's Meryl Streep, It's Meryl Shape. And uh, she's like looking at all these different sweaters and her the person she's like training, she's a kind of new scoff setter because she's like, oh, no, we need something that's lapis or whatever. And they were like and and the girl laughs and she goes, why are you laughing? And she's like,

well, because these are all blue. It's all the same, and Meryl Streep fucking ends this stupid bitch in front of everybody, and this is

like a family friendly movie, and it was a death on camera. And she goes, you have no idea that the sweater you're wearing, it's not Crulian, it's not Lapis, and she gives it a very specific color and she goes, that's from like the nineteen ninety six collection by this guy, and he came up with this color and everybody thought it was amazing, and so it became the trend of summer of nineteen ninety six, and then everybody wore it, and then over time it made its way from the high end

stores to the regular department stores and then eventually into some sad sales bin which you fished it out of and now you wear it and you think that what you're wearing doesn't matter. But they decided it a decade ago. And I think she's fucking amazing, but I also think she's right, which is like fashion people from like Paris Fashion Week, they decide fashion trends like now, and then over time it trickles down into like average people's spaces and we get

to find out what's trending like years later when we can afford it. But it's like it's kind of like a cyclical effect that carries its way down. But there is also cultural effects, like the fact that all these kids are super into resale now and I used to didn't. That wasn't a thing when I was a kid. I've always yeah, resale, like back in my day was like something that people who like, you know, if you couldn't ford name brand clothes, that's what you did. But the kids today,

they've turned resale and thrifting into like a really fun hunt. And because the nineties are back, you can get a really sick outfit for a pretty reasonable cost thrifting, And so I think thrifting is altering culture as well. Now it's also but like the last thing I'll say is I think people don't want to wear what their parents wear, so then they start doing like the opposite, and then things that were not in style ours are all of a sudden

in style and whatnot. I mean like that's the same thing with food, beer, wine, anything like service industry is similar to I was kind of thinking about this recently because I've got a cousin and she's probably like somewhere in the teens. She's like in junior higher high school, and I noticed, like when I go back, she's always wearing Nirvana shirts. And I follow

her on Instagram and like she's always posting like Nirvana stuff and everything. And I thought today, I think I saw one of her stories pop up, and I was like, god, damn, Like her being into like Nirvana in twenty twenty four is probably like me wearing Zeppelin shirts. And I no, but it's crazy to think of that because I remember, yea, that's

just what happens when you get old, I guess. But like, it is crazy to think about bands that you remember when they had new albums coming out being like, oh shit, yeah, that person wearing appetype for Destruction shirt that's their LEDs up and poor or whatever. Like that's that's kind of crazy. It's all cyclical, and I think that is fair. But I don't think you can underestimate what Mike said, which is nobody wants to dress

like their fucking mom or dad. And I think like the real cursor here is that, like whatever your parents are probably rocking, you have to you have to mix it up, right, Like you have to update your look somehow and and break the mold. And so I think that really presses the kids to be like, if my mom is wearing skinny jeans, that is no longer cool, and I am going with these high water baggy is fuck pants that I think look dumb as hell, and I won't do it.

I won't do it. I don't care if that's what all the thirteen year olds are doing. I don't care. I'm glad I'm not at risk of dressing like my dad because I don't have enough cigarette reward points or casino comps to get his free shirts that he wears. Oh, Mike, did I send you the thing? Yeah? I sent you the text he sent me. Right about the toilet paper? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know about his his gig to steal toilet paper, right? I saw it on

Instagram? Yeah, I saw to hear it's it's batshit. Send him two hundred and two hundred rolls of the cheapest, literally, the cheapest toilet paper I could find on Amazon. I spent time trying to make sure his quantity was funnier to me than anything. So I just bought. I sent two hundred rolls to his house, and he sent me a text like two days later being like, oh man, I feel like I feel like Mike Maherty with his fancy pants. Toilet paper is two ply toilet paper to ply.

That's his bar for sophistication is to ply butt shake clean because it's the cheapest way to go. Also, he has no idea what he's talking about, because Bianca bottom a bunch of toilet paper three years ago for Christmas that he's still using, and that was definitely better than two plies. She got an actual good stuff. And I think he just assumes this is fainancy. And that's what I cannot believe that a gift for your dad includes toilet paper and

water, just like the basic necessities of life. And he's just like, well, well well Ladi dah, yeah, I'm a fancy guy, now look at this. That's that is very funny to me because sometimes he makes fun of me for like justifiable things of like me being a bit too high brow about something one thing or another. But other times you use, Mike, is it like forty I don't know wine labels, it's just wine labels that squirts out one. My ass has a different taste than my mouth does,

and your ass palette is really refined, working on it. It's getting better. It's still really into like like Oakie Chardonnais, and we're trying to move past that. A lot of residual sugar wines. I don't know, but I have to have someone come in and swap out the bidet bottle once a week. Mary. Back to what you said about like, you know, you're fine, you know, dressing like a mom or whatever. Like I feel like, as you get older, isn't that the more like,

uh gracious, graceful way to dress as we all get older? Is like, rather than trying to wear what the kids are wearing, isn't it the more graceful thing to just like wear age appropriate clothes, Like isn't that like that's probably the way to go, right. I mean, you can't get

away forever. And I'm not gonna get away with wearing Djenkos, Like even if I do it, I don't think the kids are gonna be like, you know, hardly been kissed or whatever, it never been kissed where they're gonna think I like, you know, missed the bus to middle school, like that ship has sailed. I'm not getting away with anything. I just look stupid. I'm showing up to Portland like in the Fall or sometime wearing Jenkos. I'm gonna get my first pair of Jenko's in twenty twenty four.

I would look weirdest in them of all three of us, so stupid in Shakos, Like I know I do look stupider. He don't, don't cut me shortier. I think I think I would look stupider. Have some ba I wear on top of those net tank top like the ones where you can see through them, like a cross necklace that goes like down to your nipples. I'm gonna get the shell necklace. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I went to I went to a nineties dance night with some girls

a couple of weeks ago. It was actually really fun and we all decided to dress like we would in the nineties, and I did the craft so like black skirt like fish nets, blacktop, and like I thought I had, I had really gone for it. But there was a girl wearing like really wide leg pants that we used to wear in the nineties and a puka shell necklace, and I was like, a she did it, she really went to it. I feel like I remember a bunch of dudes wearing that

when I was nice? Was that popular with girls too? Yes, because I think it was like a thing where like the boys gave their necklaces to the girls. And oh wow, sure, fucking deep, I know, because you know that's how you anymore? Here he goes again, before we episode Every time, my wife and I talk about this all the time. Whatever happened to the chival risks, give your puka shell necklace to your girlfriend? Whatever happened to that? Is that so hard pull a chair out for

a woman? Give her a pukahell necklace? No? But I mean it's the Seinfeld bit too. In season three or whatever, where uh god, how does the plot work there? George is trying to sell all his dad's old Cabana shirts to the thrift store because he doesn't think he's ever gonna use him again, and then they decide to go on a cruise and then he needs them, but Kramer accidentally led a moth into the box and ate it

all. But Jerry that they were still doing the They were still opening episodes with the stand up at that point, so it must have been season five or before, because uh, Jerry's doing like you ever notice how like men or like specifically Dad's, you could tell what was the best decade of their life because they still just they just dressed like that the rest of their life.

So you could pinpoint like which guy really liked the seventies or which guy really liked the nineties, because that's still how he dresses when he's seventy five. I'm probably gonna keep dressing the way I'm dressing. I don't know, because sometimes I wear something that I would not think I would be comfortable, and then all of a sudden, it's like, man, this might I

need to get like six more of these from my wardrobe. I found it easiest in college because I never knew what to do in anytime I tried to actually like get something nice, it never worked or felt right. So I just switched to like the all band T shirt all the time thing. So it's nothing but Zeppelin stones, you know, just old bands. Did that from maybe oh three to twenty, probably several years into Giant Bombs, so

probably like fifteen years. I would say I just did that. And then as certain points like okay, it seems like like flannels and just like just nice just plain colored shirts and colored shirts. But that seems like a fairly like I don't know if timeless is the word, but like it's safe. It's safe just to like wear a nice flannel shirts. Yeah. I don't think like button down Oxfords are ever going to go super out of style. I'm sure like kids see me and they think I look like I'm thirty two,

but I still wear those quite often. The Okay, actually, here's here's the thing. And I will credit Amando with this because she's definitely she encourages me to like try something new if I want to do it. I've very much jumped on the like Tony Soprano shirt train in the last two years. Like uh, like the short sleeve button downs. It's not a shirt that says the sopranos, it's the Tony Soprano wardrobe. Yes, is this similar to the Larry David wardrobe? Uh no, he's cause he does button

down like Polo's. No, not Polos specifically, like those nineteen fifty styles like like kind of like light billowy button down shirts with like vertical stripes. Oh okay, oh these are nice. Yeah, I just searched Tony soprano shirt. Lots of good options here. Wow. Yeah, So like I've I have like twelve more of those in my closet than I did two years ago. In the summer, They're like the most comfortable thing to wear.

They're not quite Tommy Bahama shirts. They're not tropical, but like material wise, they might as well be. Or like yeah those those like again, I think like it's almost like at the nineteen fifty style came back when The Sopranos was in fashion and then everybody watched it, and everybody who watched it in what twenty twenty was the Sopranos biggest year ever, and I think it's still huge on Max. I think that has definitely influenced it. I feel

like I feel like there is a crossover there. Take a look in the discord, like what do you you would call this a Tony Soprano shirt? Right? Like I feel like yes, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah yeahah yeah. So like early two thousands HBO Dad shirt, Larry David Tony Soprano? Yeah, yes, like the same person. Wait, which one is Mike? More like uhrano? Yeah? Because I don't think Larry David would come to Portland to murder me, yeah, paper Trail, he wouldn't.

He would. Let's go down the line here. So Mike is more Tony soprano. Absolutely, I'm which one of my closer to You're Larry David. Yeah, absolutely, You're not as as he is, but yes, neurotic. Yeah, you're the George Castanza I think of the group. Okay and Mary, uh wait, we did this like two episodes ago, didn't we, Larry David or Tony Soprano? We did this? Yeah, yeah, Mary's more of a Tony soprano. Yeah, so I'm the I'm the one Larry David. Okay, I think so. Oh absolutely, Jake,

Jake might be more of a Larry David. I could see it. There has to be a certain amount of terrible danger in violence and Tony soprano, and I can see that out of both you. Yeah, I'm harmless. I've seen Mary literally get in fights with Jersey moms in New York, so like that's something Tony does quite off here the show from New Jersey, and like half the episodes of the Sopranos started it. Larry's always getting into fights for their verbal I don't really get into either. I don't get into physical

or verbal fights. Yeah, I'm finding my own fucking business. If somebody gets in my face, that's on them. I'm just sitting here, live in my life. Don't get in my face, and I won't fucking threaten you. I don't see this problem. I don't understand why I'm the aggressor in these situations. Yeah, we I think you you you calm down when you need it to that night, largely because I literally carried you away from

the argument picked me up. I always forget with this story where that I was in the room right, What was I doing the sometime busy though we had like a bunch of people, this is a meet up, I was probably Yeah, Mary was in the bathroom and like this woman who h was just like trying to barge into the door, and it was a one person bathroom, and Mary kept saying, hey, it's locked, I'm in here, and I think the she was just based on evidence later, I think

she was just pretty drunk, the woman, not Mary, And yeah, I would say, trying to barge in. And then Mary came out and I didn't see any of that happen. All I saw was I look over after going to talk to Amanda and Jake or someone, and I see Mary, like clearly on some sort of mission and angry coming out of the bathroom, which was enough to give me pause or at least like alarm me a

bit. And I saw her just like scan the room, see the table, and storm over there, at which point I started already following her to make sure nothing terrible was happening. And then they started just jawing, chirping, because what's crazy is like I again, I didn't do anything at that point, and I just said, you have to wait your turn. That's just how bathrooms work. I think we're all old enough to understand what a line is, and I expect you to wait in it like everybody else does,

so that you can pee when it's your time. And like usually when you tell someone like you have to wait, you can't just come into the bathroom when someone's using it. Usually the person would be like, oh my god, how embarrassing. I didn't know, and I would be laz fine. She was like, what did she say to me? I was kind of I was kind of lit too, so like she but she looked at me and she goes, she goes, oh, you're gonna come at me. You're gonna come at me, And I was like, yeah, I

a fuck. And that's when it lit like she just wouldn't let it go then I and then I was like I'll kill you. Her husband and like sixteen year old son were both embarrassed. Yeah, they were like I get the sense that that's either not the first time that had happened, or something like public had happened for them, or that whole night she had been maybe you know there's that one. There's the airport guy that I forgot what the

whole deal was there, but there's almost a fighter the airport. What was Yeah, yeah, and he was like trying to enjoy my dinner and I was like, oh are you trying to enjoy your fucking dinner? And airport? The conflict follows you. I get really annoyed when people are just full volume meetings, calls or whatever. Marry do you take Yeah, I mean that's not as bad as like, I'm okay. He was like trying to eat his dry ass steak and a fucking clam bake earrant. It's so stupid.

And his stupid wife was sitting there, she was obviously embarrassed to trying and enjoy her soup, Like you're not going to have a very romantic dinner in this experience, like just eat your stupid food, do you Guys? Being married to someone who's constantly doing that thing where they're like causing trouble and get into fights and just dramas like that would just be like non stop. Like I feel like you would never be able to just relax. Yeah,

you should. They they should seek therapy, you know. I think that would be important because if they're angry that much, that would be a problem for the marriage. I think I wouldn't want to be around someone like that. No constantly, yeah, yeah, yeah, every once in a while, I think confrontation is called for, But yeah, when it's just a constant thing, it's like, oh man, this person's seeking it out. Man. I I I pride myself on the diffusing. I think it's a

good it's a good trait to have. It keeps you out of travel, it keeps you out of fights. It's like, yeah, I escalate and I I show I. Uh, I just go all in and hope that that results in fear. If I wasn't a podcaster or maybe I would have been a cop Nixon loving cop over here. Yeah checks out. Yeah,

Like I don't know. I think about it, Like, you know, I think back at times like in college where it's like I I distinctly remember a couple of times like walking with drinks, you know, I bought some people drinks and walking back to the table or whatever, and some drunk iy like you know, will like bump into me and he caused like the spill

or whatever and it got on him or whatever. He turns around, yeah, but he's like obviously some like big drunk ass frat guy or something, and it's like turns around with it like oh d like obviously Logically in my head, hey this is your problem, buddy, this is you know, like but like what is the fucking what is there to be gained by being like no, you fucking did it? Like and then I get punched in the face, and then's the whole thing just fucking be like hey, yeah,

sorry, man, yeah my body is. I'm sorry. Let's build it way that it's the adult way time. I don't give a shit. I have no pride in that, Like I don't have any kind of like I got approve that. I nope, nope, I just it's not a pride thing. I would like to clarify. I think it's a mouth thing.

My issue is that if I feel disrespected before I've processed what is happening, I will be like, well, that's fucking stupid, and then I will like and then they will react to me, and I will go, oh, no, I have gone too far right, like I have fucked

up, and that that happened in San Francisco. Several times I told you that where like I would I be like minding my own business and someone would yell at me, and without thinking it through, I would just be like, eat shit, fucker, and then they would like run at me and I would have to get out of the way. The famous one was like, when I was in Australia, I was minding my own business, telling a story and a group of three pretty burly Australian women were walking the opposite

direction, pretty beefy. But I wasn't paying attention to them. I wasn't thinking about it, and I was talking about shoes and I said, it was a really nice pair of shoes. I'm really glad about them. And as she passed me, the middle girl said, oh, did you really like your shoes? Nice story, and she was making fun of me. That's that's kind of fun. Like shit, terrible thing to do, but

still really fun. As we were crossing. As we were crossing, and without like even thinking it through, as we continued across, I said, oh, did you like my story, cunt? And then she turned around and tried to beat the shit out of me. Yes. I had two people with me and they kept us separated, and she was like, you fucking started it. And I was like, you fucking started You've talked about my shoes. Yeah, you were just telling a story. You didn't start

anything with her. I was not starting it, but she got really I called her a cunt, and she did not like that. Yeah, you definitely escalated, but you didn't start it. That's the definition. It wasn't. There's one word you could use something. I think that's that's up there. My instinct wasn't a fighter. My instinct was you made fun of me, so now I'm calling you a cunt. And then uh, they eventually like got her to calm, like her friends kind of like chipped in to

like keep her. I wasn't trying to fight her. I was just sitting there like, oh, you didn't like that, and they were all holding her back, and eventually she like, let it go, and she pointed at me and she goes, I'll find you in the city, and then she walked away. And someone someone said that to me once and I responded

by telling them my exact address, come find me. Good thing. I think in their head they're probably well, they'd never intended to find me anyway, but like even if they did, they thought, well, no one's dumb enough to give me their real address, So that's not it. I always forget about it. You've definitely had some some fights in your day, but like in each of these situations, all of them, I wasn't going out of my way to say I'm gonna fight you because I'm like offended or

like you hurt my feeling. It is a it is a fight or flight instinct that I have when someone cuts me down in a situation like that. And typically not all the time, but typically someone says something really like dastardly to me out of nowhere, I will just retort, without question, without thinking it through, without proture. I will just say eat shit, fucker, and then I will be like, ooh, this person is two hundred and fifty pounds. They have a bunch of friends and they're fucking coming at

me. I should not have said that. I can't, Like, that's so funny that that is a kneejerk reaction for you, that like before you even think, you do that, And like I'm trying to think of what could possibly get me to like, I don't think even if I had time to think, I can't think of a scenario in which I would be like, hey, fuck you dude. Well, I guess I don't know, Like maybe I just have been lucky and haven't been in those circumstances because certain

things would warranted. But like I feel like every time I've gotten something and just been like, all right, whatever, I don't encourage you to do what I'm doing. I think that one day this will haunt me, right, I do think that one day it will not be a fifty year old drunk Jersey woman getting into the back. One day, it will be like an actual person that will beat the shit out of me because I called them like a stupid bitch when I could have just let it go. So like,

this probably isn't good advice. I'm not asked. I don't think it is advice. I'm not saying to do it. I'm just saying that I have built it ingrained in my system, probably from like middle school, when like I was getting picked on or something that if you say some shit to me while passing by, I will probably respond, And that's that's that. That's just it's in there. It's in like the subconscious of my brain. I don't think about the things that I say. Sometimes I test your levels

on this. Tell me how you react to this, because this to me so I saw it was very funny and me and Jake laughed a lot about it. I mentioned that when we were in Belgium and he was shooting a take with me to do an intro for a video, and then he cut and then he goes perfect, and then that Belgian guy on the street, he's like perfect, perfect, hilarious. Mary, Would you go up and just drop kick him? It depends that kind of sounds like he's just having

a good time. It was funny. Yeah, it depends on like it's entirely I would it sounds funny to me off him, But if like his he had a certain face that it would probably annoy me more, or like if he was just brilliant, if he's stupidest faces that could be that could be just a delightful, like cheeky he Actually something really simple air happened to

me in Paris. I was getting some stuff from a grocery store and I tried to give someone a credit card and then it was the wrong credit card and I went oops, sorry, and a guy who was restocking shelves behind me went sorry. He kind of repeated me. I don't think he was

making fun of me. I think that the French were like, I've never heard someone say sorry like that before, and he said it multiple times and we started laughing because he was like sorry, and it became a catchphrase throughout the trip, and when we made a mistake, we would look at each other and go sorry, and it's just like this funny thing. I think in that exact scenario, I would have found that very funny. I don't

think that's offensive. I don't think he was hurting you. I think he was like a cheeky language barrier and he was enjoying like hearing you guys say like piff perfect. Yeah, I think that's funny. I think that's funny. Yeah. He was like, oh, you guys, could it take up the whole sidewalk? You know, like to shoot your stupid little thing. I would have gotten in his face. I was, uh oh, j Jake killed a guy notorious, Yeah, notorious, like like not at

all level headed. Jake Decker freaked out on somebody in Belgium. He's still in Belgium right now. They've been detaining him. Raised his voice. In my entire life, I've never heard this person ever twice, the most even mood, and I've never seen him get visibly frustrated with anything. I've never seen him be anything but just incredibly pleasant. I've seen it twice, and I like, even then, I knew it was like a solar eclipse and like, I gotta savor this because I'm never gonna see it or it's like

Haley's comment, I don't know. I was not on last episode. I've been traveling a decent amount with a new job and the way a wedding. I just got back from San Juan yesterday Puerto Rico. I don't know if anybody's ever told you this before, but Puerto Rico's like super nice. I heard that, Yeah, San Juan, I'm joking, of course, it was awesome. We were only there for two days. I was a quick

turnaround. But we were right in old Town, so like cobblestone streets, like looking right at like each part of Old Town has this old like fortress on it where cannons used to be for during the you know, piracy and East India trading days. It was it was super cool to see those ruins and whatnot. But before that, I was in Stead and it was my first time ever in Sweden. Was there for about a week and Stockholm is

unreal. I'm a huge fan of Sweden now, really good food. I did one night of Swedish food, like Swedish ass Swedish, what what's that look like? So it turns out I thought Swedish meatballs were some dumb americanization. They're they're super Swedish. Were they just like they're not like they're not made out of like lamb eyeballs over there or anything? Are they? Or they like no, I'm not sure what would be in the Swedish meatballs.

I think what defines them as Swedish meatballs, and it's they're like soaked and resting in this pool of gravy, like very buttery gravy. All right, As someone who is developing lactose in tolerance. It was definitely a risk reward thing for me. I had to like, you know, take a lactate or two and like acknowledge that I might have like an hour after eating where it was not worth it, but it was it was worth it. They

were great. I had like this assordid plate of pickled herring with different like mustards and whatnot on it, and then my favorite thing, they were just I don't know if I'm curious. I know we have some Swedish listeners. I didn't get the chance to ask anybody at the restaurant, but they just gave us toast. But then they gave us row to spread along it. Yeah, like they're little tiny orange fish eggs you get on sushi sometimes. Oh yeah, that was great. Like the texture of the row combined with

the toast was awesome. I don't know if that's a dinner thing there or if that's like every time you have toast, that's an option, but I can't imagine it's the second one because roe probably gets expensive. But it was great. And then surprisingly the rest of the nights I didn't realize, like, I guess it makes sense. The water there is really good water clean so when they're doing like baked goods, and they're also like bread snobs and

flower snobs, so bakeries were unreal. Pizza and I came from North Jersey and had more pizza in Stockholm. It was that good. Beer was great. I had solaris, which is like Sweden's Uh they're native like there, that's one of the only grapes they grow that no one else does. I had that. It was surprisingly good, but uh, it was great. The people that were super cool too, Like I I didn't expect anything else, but like, I really liked the inhabitants of Stockholm just as much,

which is not always the case when you're traveling. What's the worst city? And I guess I shouldn't say the like the people suck, but like, there's definitely been cities where that didn't feel as welcoming. Which city has the worst people you're walking me into You've traveled a lot, I'm just curious. I will say that the city where the people liked me the least was Colonne, Germany, And I have to I can't blame them because I have heard

and I've seen firsthand. I don't think local. I don't know what the word for people who live in Cologne to be but the Cologne citizens do not like colonialists. I think, oh that's probably it. Yeah, it was so, and everybody talks about not liking you know, colonialists, So okay, okay, wow, that makes sense. But I can't super blame them. Yes, yep, colonizers. You got to take a colon test to get a citizenship, yeah, Colonne powellstration. Yeah, I think they just

don't like games. Comm and how many people come to the city like which is a gorgeous city, which by all means most of the time is fairly laid back and fun and I always I've done it once. I had fun there. But they just didn't seem to be happy about games. Colm Happening did not like the idea of a bunch of games coming to your city.

And I guess it's it's just a sh ton of people descend on it for a week, and half of them are half of them are from America, half of them are from I don't know half, but like, you know, people from all over Europe are coming for one week, and you know, I think that can be great. But also just like people who like their city might get a bit annoyed then it's just there's fucking tourist left and right during games com, which like anytime we walk through Midtown Manhattan, we

want to fucking punch ourselves in the face because of the tourists. So I sure did, Sure, yeah, But I'm most curious what like people coming from elsewhere think of New York, Because I know New York has I think there's the reputation of New Yorkers for having an edge and being like, hurry up and order your bagel, like you're holding a line up. I find New Yorkers to be at heart extremely kind. I don't think they're super nice, but I think they don't put on as, they don't put on airs,

but they're not actively rude. I don't think curious if that translates to people not feeling welcome here. I think from what I've seen when I had like family members from Kansas come out to New York, I think the overwhelming thing was not like, oh, people being rude or anything. It was just like, how do people live like this? Everything's so expensive, everything's so crowded, the traffic's crazy, Like how do they just go go go

and it's so expensive? Like that seemed to be. I don't know if they're just my family, but that's that's the overriding thing I always heard. It wasn't about like, oh, people are assholes like San Francisco. People are assholes. LA. People are assholes like New York. I think people kind of respect, Like there's a lot of like blue collar people that are just going about their day and they're not trying to be rude or anything. You know, people will, Yeah, I prefer the New York style.

I've met some assholes in LA. I think what I'm saying, LA is filled with assholes, yearly experienced, some like assholes, just self centered, tough to get around people, not really giving a shit about anyone else. Yeah, and San Francisco's right up there too. I think, like, yeah, LA and San Francisco gotta be like one and two of like asshole

cities. I think, I think San Francisco, but like, I think it's worth pointing out at least most of the assholes I met in San Francisco were definitely not like from there like they had They were tech tech guys who

had come in and we thought they were running the world. Oh and it's same with LA, where it's like a bunch of people from everywhere else that think they're going to go be the next big star or whatever, and they go out there and they're just assholes out there, and they get bitterer than

when it doesn't work out. Yeah, asshole in La. Yeah it's not like the native people, like the people that grew up there necessarily, it's the people that fucking like came there and yeah, just still shth heads or shit heads and if they live there, a city full of shit ends. Not everyone obviously, but people in Stockholm are awesome. People in San Juan for talk about a fucking touristy city. And we were there, like height,

we're there for a wedding my wife's college friend. But it's spring break season right now, so like there were some college kids down there as well. We luckily avoided most of them. I will still say though, the like servers and the bartenders in San Juan, like to a tee, we're all incredible, Like they have every right to be annoyed by people, and they were just unreal. It was great. I mean it's I guess it's hard to be super annoyed when the weather's eighty five degrees in March but it

was a I like San Juan a lot. We want to go back when it's not such a quick turnaround. But uh yeah, it's nice traveling for work again. It's been a while since I've done that. Now it's a lot all of a sudden, but I'm done. I mean, we're recording this. All of us are getting ready or Mary, maybe not you, but Dan, You're going to PAxx East in a couple of days. I'm going to GC tomorrow. I'm packs and WrestleMania. Yeah, Mary, are you going to GDC? No. I don't have a good justification. I

think that, Yeah, that's I tried. I was like, Twitch, listen, my best buds are gonna be there, and they like each shit. I don't have a good because I don't work in BD, so there's really no reason for me to go. Now. I have a stronger justification to go to PAC's East just because there's like a good potential for being on a panel or something. But almost every year I just find it more, I don't know, more justifiable to go to PACs West, and I put

my tokens into that. I've just kind of found I'm not going to go to every game event, so I picked the top the top boys. I did the same thing when I worked at GameSpot. I used to be like it was all calculated. I used to be like, you're such a good person, Jake, why don't you go to PAS East? And I was like, I'm going to fucking Tokyo Game Show if it killed me, I will give everybody else everything. And then when Tokyo Game Show comes, get

the fuck out of my way. I do I do that here. I just kind of think of, like which top game thing should I go to, and I and I try to go to those also Packs West and like Summer Games First and Game Awards for you that's like an hour hour nation. I will say that I love doing the Packs East Boston experience, and like it's sometimes it's snows and it's like pretty cool, Like it's a cool experience. I don't regret any year I went to PAX East. I just don't

have the same reasoning for going as I once did. There's more of a novelty to Packs East, I think because it's like when you work in games, like I've been to Seattle so many fucking times because like there's so many no Microsoft, Nintendo, you know, Soccer Punch is a million million developers. Especially when I was gamingform where it was like four times a year at least had been going out there. Now it's like, you know, Boston. The only time I've ever gone out there is for Paxis for the most

part, so there's more of a novelty there. I haven't been there as many times. Yeah, they were the they were the development hot spot in like the late nineties, like that immersive sim crowd harmonics like Irrational was popping up. But yeah, former dev hotspot for sure. But like god, going to I once. I'm at GDC and this is my first time going to San Francisco since I want to say, like Game of the Year stuff for game Spot back in twenty twenty, right before I left. If is

that correct? I think wouldn't that be twenty nineteen because twenty twenty was like deep in the pandemic there. Nineteen March March of twenty twenty was when they sent people home. Yeah yeah, good, sorry, sorry, Game of the Year twenty nineteen into twenty twenty. Yes, yeah, so that was the last time we were probably out there at the same time. Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. Every time that all the time. It just so happens. I'm not going when you're going to be there, and

I'll be there at first. Once i'm there, it's great, But that fucking the flight from Newark to San Francisco gets longer every time, I swear, And I just did like Reykovic and Stockholm and that was you know, those were some decent flights, but like that, flying west and then on the way back on Friday, you know, you're jumping forward three hours once you land or as you fly, and the prospect of San Francisco tomorrow compared to like Boston, it's like, ah, god damn it. But once

I'm there, I'm sure it'll be great. And it's my first GDC largely being there for like business development, which is new for me. But yeah, I'm looking forward to it. That has been one of my favorite things about being back in the Midwest is like any domestic flight is like, I don't know, three hours on the high end, you know, it's like no more that, Like, yeah, Newark to San Francisco, like that was rough. You know, Game of the Year every year. Oh god,

flying to Minneapolis in December was It's always easiest. Shit, Yeah, the airport's great. Yeah, really eazy. That's an easy one for me too. You have to like justify all the flying and stuff that we do anymore. Now, Like I fly a lot. I actually am really looking forward to. I think I have two weeks where I'm not flying anywhere, and it's just like, oh that's so nice. Yeah, two whole weeks where I get to like do nothing. I love that. So my tune

has changed. Whereas in twenty twenty, when we like stopped all flying, I would have killed to fly somewhere and like experience different city every once in a while. But now I'm back on the other We're swinging the pendulum the other way, and I'm I'm I'm out a lot, so I enjoy the old home now. Yeah, when I get back later this week where our dating anniversary is going to be this week, so we have like dinner plan the day like the weekend after I get back, and that's also kicking off

I think three solid weeks of no traveling like anywhere. Can't wait. But thanks for Jeff Grubb for coming on in my absence, y for most of the episode. It went. It was it was super fun episode, Yes it was. He was awesome. Yeah, super He's super fun and it was a good conversation. We all agreed at the end of it we could make this work. Yeah. I'm glad I finally had an opportunity to talk to Jeff Grubb on a podcast. It's so rare. Yeah, so unique

to be able to have Jeff grab on a podcast. Yeah right. He normally refuses to be anywhere near a podcast, you won't sit in the same room as a podcast, but owns a microphone. No, no, we had to ship it to him. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, well Mike drove it over. So Mananti, do you guys want to talk about video

games? Yes, Mike Dan. Isn't it amazing when you want to order some wine and you get exactly what you want and you didn't really have to think about it or do nothing that lazy type of wine mm hmm yeah, or you didn't even or you got something you didn't even know you wanted, and all of a sudden you're in love with it. It's so nice when you're just like not paying attention and life just works itself out for you. Mike, tell me a little bit about some of the wine you've been ordering.

Yeah, so if you sign up for First Sleeve. Dan, you'll talk about this more soon, I'm sure. But you go through the steps to say, like, I like coffee, I like burnt toast, I don't like walnuts, and they'll kind of curate boxes for you. But like, my favorite part is finding something I had idea I even liked. You know, the weather's starting to sort of warm up here in New York and

it's a nice time to start getting back into some rosees. I had a grenache rose from California that I haven't been doing too many California wines recently, but this was great in the warm weather out on the pier. I think I've talked a lot about. One of my favorite wines I've had in a long time was this Chilean Carmen Air that we had steak, which again would

not have been on my radar if it wasn't for First Leaf. But yeah, it's great for discovering wines and for just reinforcing the stuff you already like. But Dan, tell them how they can get involved First Leaf, Well, you can join pers Leave Today. It's a wine club that really gets you. Go to try persleave dot com slash fire Escape to get your purse box of wines. That's t R y F I R S T L e a f dot com slash fire Escape, try persleaf dot com slash fire Escape.

I'm gonna kick it off with a game that you two have been talking a lot about, but I have not been on the show since I started playing it. I think I'm sixteen hours into Bilatro, okay, like like I out of curiosity, I was like, all right, I told him I play this, and I was flying to Reykivic. I was like an hour in my flight. I was like, I'm done reading, I'm gonna try this game out. And all of a sudden, I looked up and I was like, in Reykivic, four hours had gone by and I don't

know where they went. That's the way. It seems like the perfect playing game. I have not traveled since I started playing, but like, I cannot imagine a better playing game. The touch screen is so easy, like I could just like have one arm while I'm also sipping coffee or whatever and

then just tapping every once in a while. I it's We've talked about this before at length on fire Escape, but some of my favorite games in recent years are the ones that like here's the kingdom, like they want you to break them, like, and that's just what this game is about, is juicing the stats how the poker works, because like we've talked, like apologies if I'm like read or anything, but like you barely even know need to

know how poker works. If you understand the hands, that's fine. It's broken by the time you figured it out, like I had every time I stream it. Someone in the chat is like, you have a straight, you have a straight, And I'm like, listen, you stupid bitch. Do you know how many points I've put into two pair pair slaps? You have no idea what you're fucking talking about. That's a joke to me.

This is two pair city I'm getting. I was getting. I don't know what you guys is like like a number one hand has been but I was getting. I was getting million dollars scores, like million score, million points

scores on two pair. By the end of my run million. The pair just pops up a lot, And you can also fashion it pretty well to like you know, you can copy cards to be like Okay, let's say you get the two pair thing leveled up quite a bit and you get the tens and fours, the walkie talkie Joker, and it's like, all right, I'm going to turn every fucking card I can into a ten or a

four. If it kills me, then you can full house. You can, yeah, yeah, but seal put a full house is yeah, that's my bread and butter, like and that that's what Deck was I using. I forget what Deck I started with, but that becomes almost like so secondary once you get far enough into a round. So you've beaten the game once, No, I think I've done it more than twice. I've gotten very cleve. I've gotten to the final the Final Boss Blind four times, maybe

in sixteen hours. I don't know if sixteen hours are super accurate, that might just be Idle time as well. But it was like two trips worth

that I played that game. The first time I got to the Boss Blind, I was very the Final Boss Blind, I was very overconfident, and I waltzed in and they gave me the modifier was just extra big blind YEP, so I needed and I just barely missed it because like I had been that's like the fun of that game, or it's not fun in the moment because you're losing, but you go like you get through three boss blinds and like two pairs been working the whole time, and you keep juicing that,

and you get the neptune or whatever does it increases that and then you keep turning everything into one of two numbers Uranus yeah, go on and Jupiter's slush. And so I was like so like comfortable in just juicing that that by the time I got to a boss where I needed like eight hundred thousand or whatever, the points were like, oh god, damn it, I'm not. Yeah, I've been getting enough to win everything else. But then all of a sudden they throw that at me. But they do it all the

time. I love when even when you're not at the final boss right, when you're like at the third it's like the third round boss and it's like you've been only you've been getting rid of everything in your deck except for hearts, right, and you've just been flush flush City, and it's like hearts don't work no more. Like your boss is just like we're fucking you over.

Or you can only play one hand against you, or you can't play a hand more than once one andied, well one hand, have you gotten the one that's like you get one, yeah, like that one that's a killer. I've had decks that I was just killed it with like all face cards stuff, and one of my jokers was like all cards are considered face cards, and then the final joker being like your final boss playing being like, uh, face cards are rebuffed, dock so screwed. Yeah, they

it's funny too. On the flip side, I guess more than positive or not that that's negative, but like when the game's not fucking you over, it's like, Okay, I just got pretty far. I fucked up. I got to restart, but I got a new joker that I'm trying to think of what the one joker was. I literally I was like that seems

way too hyper focus. That's never going to be that useful. I put my steam deck down and I went to the bathroom on the plane, and while I was pissing, it like dawned on me how I could use the card you kind of like dropped the copy muguets I joined the Mile High Club. If the Mile High Club as you have a video game epiphany in the bathroom like that, I almost had to sprint back to my seat and then test it out. What joker was it? I should remember. I think

it was the Curious. It was one of the one where if you, oh, okay, I remember what it was. It was a combo of one of the jokers where every time you save up more money for each discard or reshuffle withever that you don't use. So I was like, well, I've kind of been using those because I'm using those to get full house. But then I had another one where the joker was if I played a face card, it would refill one of my like re redeals or whatever for that,

so I could basically game it and still get as much money. And like those hands that are built around making a shit ton of money surprise make the game pretty easy because you're actually buying every bonus. You're buying everything you need, and you're diversifying. So when you hit those bosses that are like you can only play one hand, you're like, I don't care. I

got my full house is ready to go. And then right before the final boss, you're just buying everything, rerolling, buying all that stuff rerolling. It's like, I've got two hundred dollars, a motherfucker, I'm buying everything here being flush is extremely valuable. You don't want to be poor in Bilatro and you can scrape by. But usually I find the runs where I win and I beat the game is because I had enough money to spare. I

had. I had a really good one. I had a really good joker that was just cashing me out, and I think I got it really early in the game, and because it added a dollar each round. By the time I was in seven, I was just getting paid twenty three dollars every time. It was crazy. I was making so much money I couldn't spend

it anymore. At that point. My favorite joker that I ever got was I'm curious like your favorite jokers, My favorite was at the very beginning of any hand, if the very first discard is one card will kill the card. It won't exist anymore. And I think you even get money for it or something like that. You get like three bucks. I thought you were gonna say, it's the one where it shovels it back in your deck, but it makes a copy. No, that one, it deletes the card

from from the deck, and I was using it. I had enough disc cards where I could afford to just throw away my first disc card and I was just getting rid of every spade and uh yeah, I was just getting rid of decks and that way, I was like all hearts and diamonds. It was really easy to get a flush and it was super super fun just being like each time I started a hand, I was like, which card

will I murder this time? It was really fun. I think the one that you believe you two have talked about it, but the first joker that truly was like, oh god, they really are trying to let me break stuff. It's like, uh, you can get a straight, but yeah, that's the one you can suggest. Golden Gate was well how do I not get a straight? Now? If you get that? And the one where flushes and straights can be done with four cards, the hoh choke at

that point, Yeah, like you're not it's so easy. That's a really fun one. I think that was the first time I ever beat the game was with the straight that you could skip. You could skip a number. It's laughing when I was playing it is so stupid. Yeah, I definitely like unlocked the game for me. Such a good game. God, yeah, so hot right now. It's great, But uh, newer game that

I know a couple of us have played. Mary. I think you're holding off for a bit Dragons Dogma two yeah, like five, or you guys are talking about SpongeBob square Pants Battle for Bikini Bottom Rehydrated, not yeah, we'll save the best for last. That's what I thought the game. Everybody's talking about right now about the SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Rehydrated. Jess Christ, that's a lot of first game. So many words come up for Gody,

worst title or best. There's not like six colons and a couple of hyphens and amper sands in it. I have a colon, okay, one or two colons? Yeah, like a Tilda They yeah, it's so Dragon's dog wa two. Dan, what is your history? Did you play the first game? I think the only thing I did with the first one was I was on a video at Game Informer of it where I created some called Steve Austin and tried just to have a bunch of monsters in the nuts. That's

all I remember. It was like a thirty minute episode some video. Never actually like spent any real time with it. So this, for all intents and purposes, this is my first experience with Dragons Sogma. Okay, So for those who don't know, Dragons Dogma was made by people at Capcom who had like previously worked on Devil May Cry like action games, and then they wanted to make a more open world game. But one of their big things

is they wanted to make it actually feel dangerous and more systems driven. So I don't think it's that surprising. Having said that that people that I would say it's like, Dragons Dogma is one of my top like twenty five games. Ever. I love the first Dragons dog Jesus really yeah, yeah, wow, I've gone back to it with Darker Risen on PS five when they re released it. If that maybe it was a PS four versus four, right, It came out originally on three like three six era, and then

probably got Darker Risen the next one. Yeah, yeah, and it I like system driven games, immersive sims. I like where I'm just kind of figuring finding the story for myself. So yeah, I'm about five six hours into this. I haven't I literally just played like yesterday and today. I haven't been able to dig super far into it, kind of rough around the edges, like the game itself, Dan, I think are you playing on

PC. Now. I started on PS five and I actually switched to PC because, yeah, I could not believe there was not a performance mode and like I am kind of a I'm not a resolution snob, I'm a frame rate snob, and like it was kind of killing me. Yeah, I'm still playing PS five. It's rough. It's not even that they don't have a performance option, it's there's just there's no like I wouldn't even call the

base default resolution oriented. I mean, it's definitely low frame rate, but it's it's didn't there's no run great Yeah, no, yeah, it's I got past it once I started playing more. But yeah, I don't know. I still am trying to figure out a couple of weeks they've made to

the pond system and how that works. But I'm really enjoying how these quests you're getting are time based, many of them, and you start to see this more and more as you play, where it's like, oh, I guess if I play this one, something could happen in the world that basically fails this quest because I took too long. But also you'll hire a pond and those who don't know a pond system is there are these like procedurally generated

characters? Well, they're two things. They're procedurally generated characters you can hire to be your party members, and you can have four now I think it was only it was three in Dragon's Dogma. Was it the same thing where you had like your main one that you created and others could summon, and

then there's just two others that you bring on. Yeah, yeah, okay, But now they've got a whole bunch of new wrinkles to that where you'll find these like broken rift stones in the wild that either summon pawns of one disposition or one vocation but they're really good at it, or you could just

randomly summon a very high level pond. But basically, like the characters in the game, are these procedurally generated, like if you've played State of Decay two or there's like shades of the Nemesis system from Middle Earth, how they

react to what you're doing. And you know, now they've added a lot more where I'll be getting ready to go continue on the main quest as I'm going to the capital city and Vermond or whatever you want to call the world, and then this pawn I just hired will be waving her hands and be like, you got to come check this out, and she'll lead me like two hundred yards away onto a part of the map where this other emergent kind

of quest pops up. And it's tough to fully judge the game without just like really getting deep into all of that stuff, the actual you know, the emergent systems the game, the quest that are coming out of nowhere that I didn't really plan for, because that's the joy of the first game to me was sure, you set off on this this journey to go kill the cyclops, and then you're taking a bit longer, so night's falling and you don't have camping supply, so it gets a bit tense because there's also you

really need to be resting at ends in order to save, because the auto save is purposely bare bones in these games. There is a pop up that says like, hey, don't rely on auto stave, and I was like, that's interesting. I don't think I've seen a pop up like that. Yeah, that was very much the first game, Like I think, you know, they want to to actually make it feel like you're going on this overnight journey. It should feel dangerous, like if you come across this campground,

you can use camping supplies. However, if you don't clear out enemies that might be in the vicinity, you can get ambushed at night when you're like caught off guard with your pants down, so to speak. So that is that was like why the game, the first game has such an indelible place in my memory because I remember those kinds of missions that were not really scripted by or they were scripted by the designers, but not necessarily like cut

scened or you know, part of the main quest. It was just these these missions that popped up that I kind of dictated myself, and then the game pushed back when it needed to on certain aspects. So I'm seeing that a bit here. I think the first game got off to a much faster start than this game. But so far, I'm intrigued. I want to keep playing. I wish I didn't have to you know, travel once I started getting into it. But yeah, I'm curious, what, like what

your impression is, especially as if this is your first one. Yeah,

I came in having no idea what to expect at all. I knew people generally liked the first one and that dark Horism was a little bit better, But like I came in, I think I came in expecting what I expect from most big kind of like fantasy based RPGs, where it's like, all right, there's probably gonna be some really cool systems here, but like I always kind of hate slogging through the lore of like as much as I like like Oblivion and Skyrim and and plenty of fantasy based games, like I don't

need to know like this novel's worth of like the lore of Nerf and Herfin or whatever the area is, you know, like I don't give a shit about that stuff or these characters, and this is extremely dewey for a I guess I would call this like a fantasy action RPG. Is that fair, Like definitely RPG elements, but it's like it's pretty action heavy. I didn't I didn't know about the Devil May Cry pedigree. Oh yeah, if you look up the credits, it's Devil May Cry people. That's that makes a

lot of sense, because like there's a ton of combat here. Are you? Did you go with a fighter vocation? You know? I? I almost always do, and I wanted to kind of do things differently this time, and so I've never played. It's like a thief. So I'm playing so really fast. Yeah, like so like I've got these double blades and my main pawn is a wizard who can like imbue my daggers with lightning and

stuff like that, and then I'm hiring these other pawns. Actually, today I hired a I went into the rift where you can hire random ponds, and since it's pre released, it's you know, you'll see people pop ups like, oh, this is clearly a capcom person. I hired a Chris Plants pawn Apheliah. Yeah, we're not, like we weren't on the same friends list, so I think I just I was like, oh shit, I know that. Yeah all right, so yeah Pillia, Chris, I

know you're listening. Pelia is doing great, and I'll send her back with some beef jerky or something. But you offload them? Was that? Yeah? I was gonna say, have you hired out your pond yet to other people? I think so, because like you can set God, I forget, there's something I like set pond quest or something like that, and I think I could maybe only set it for like do a day in a night

or whatever. So I haven't really gotten deep into that yet, and I'm still trying to figure out, Like, Okay, it seems like if I give upon equipment, like if I give them stuff that they're wearing, that's going back to their original owner. But I think I can give them any kind of like weapon upgrade stuff or consumables and that comes back to me when they go away. Is that correct? Yeah? That sounds generally right.

Yes, Okay, okay, because that's the things. I'm a thief, and so I want to say super duper lighte and like my abilities are ones where I'm doing these like concussive jumps and I'm like doing flips and shit, and so I want to be very mobile. So I just offload everything except for like the clothes on my back, onto all my different ponds and I'm just hoping it's all coming back when I fire them or whatever. Yeah. That was in the first game that was a very popular pawn. Archetype was

a fighter with a very high carry load. They're literally just like your pack mule. Okay. So I went with Archer specifically because I found Archer to be the most boring in the first game. They have done a lot to make that clap. That vocation, I should say, much more fun. You can get start doing acrobatic stuff early on. You've got more options to be a sniper. So my pond art, she's a fighter like Gigantic,

just fucks people up. But I'm already building her out to be much more aggressive and tanky, and I'm really upgrading my And you upgrade vocations at inns, you learn new skills, and then anytime you rank up, it's just a basic these twelve numbers went up. Other things change, but and you can go to other vocations basically whenever you want after a certain point in the game. But yeah, I'm definitely working on developing my archer, and then

I have two other mages in my party with me and the fighter. Right now, what are the enemy types like? Generally speaking, like a lot of dudes, harpies, little goblin dudes, good Greek myth I mean, it's like Tolkien Fantasy kind of Greek myth like. So there's also like the monster hunter aspect of this game, where some of your quests are to go kill this hulking cyclops, troll whatever dragon. Then you get supplies from them, and then you can use that to craft like more legendary type weapons,

but yeah, it's largely like Tolkien esque enemies. All some monster on are like in a lot of meat cooking, although when you do it in this it cuts to actual footage of meat cooking, which I find really funny. Did the first one do that? I don't remember, I don't think, so it's I don't know why I love it so much. It's like when I go to cook at the campsite and I'll see like five different kinds, like, oh, I don't think I've seen them cook the tiny flank yet,

I'll pick that one. Just here's this nice b roll of just meat cooking. Yeah, actual meat. There's so much like Little I mean the first game too, and I'm seeing that a lot here. There are certain times where the you know, like the AI needs to be good in a game for the pawn system to work, because it's not just the ponds.

There's also certain parts where in the main quest, someone basically becomes your party member with their entourage for a long stretch, and there will be some rough patches where they're like, do you want to join us on the way to the capitol? Jump in this ox cart with us and kind of basically not even really fast travel, but just like it's gonna be safe for anyone need to worry about supplies. And I said, no, I want to kind

of make my way to the capitol. Then I saw, oh, it's farther than I thought it was, So then I jumped in the ox cart with them. Wait, is that the early one where you have to go

like when you first need to go to the main city. Yeah, okay, tell me what I did wrong here, because I went to that ox cart and it seemed like I need to jump in there, and I jumped in the back and they were like they said something, and they're like, oh, you can't do this, And so I went the long way and I remember thinking like, god, damn, they spend like this is a five or six hour fucking first mission to like get to this place. So

tell me what the fuck I did wrong there. It took me a while, and I brought that up because one of two things I didn't realize you needed to sit on the bench by pressing circle next to the main guy and then also front of the ox cart. No, on the back there's a

bench he's sitting on. And then secondly, one of the his Ai who was supposed to get up onto the front seat of the ox cart just was walking in circles, okay, because no one was in the back of the ox cart when I was there, But like people like NBCs were talking like I should, but nobody was back and I didn't see any prompts. I looked for a while. It's like, I guess I'm And it took like five buck hours to get to that city, all right, I guess this

is just an extended tutorial. I assume. Yeah, And the game is much like the first game. I'm getting the sense, you know, like I'm gonna have to be putting up with some annoying shit like that, because

like, honestly, I think you did the right thing. It like, this game is very much about the journey, and like literally like those treks and the shit you come across, And it's annoying in a way that that main quest giver at the beginning of that quest, when you leave border Watch or whatever in melv the town where you first have those flashbacks to ship in

your past, you're supposed to be following him on the map. However, if your PAWD suggests, oh shit, I think there's a treasure chest over in this area, based on like when I was with another Arisen who guided me to there, and because basically the lore is that it's a multiverse and in each one there's one Arisen who commands the ponds. That's basically there in your world, you're the risin and I'm the risk And that's their way of

saying, like, this is how you're sharing ponds. Because they're jumping between these realms, They're like, oh, I've been here before in another realm with a different Orisin, there was a treasure chest. We should joke check it out. So you go to check that out, and then the main guy who you were following. Sometimes it works really well where the game is recognizing that, oh, they should start following you on this little tangent for

a bit. It's coming back to the main road and them kicking back into follow me Captain Price mode. That is not always smooth. They're path findings sometimes, like if we go into these ruins that are not technically on a main road, they'll like go way back to a beginning part of the main road before coming back to where you just were five feet away. It's like the path finding and a bad RTS path finding. Mm hmm, there's a

lot of that already, which Darker great too. That there was uh like it's all time based as well, so if they're like, hey, you need to do this, if you dick around in enough time, you actually

do lose that pathway. Yeah, some of them means or if people can die if you don't help them in time, and things like that, and then it's it is it is yeah, which, again, like Darker Risen was much better because they like cleaned up a lot of the game and they added some other things to This feels like the original era of Dragon's Dogma one where I was putting up with a lot of annoying things because I like the rest of it so much. And again like that is the danger in a

systems game that's so dependent on AI and these things working smoothly. It's like you start to see why so many developers don't do stuff like that, because so much can go wrong. So, to be clear, I'm not saying that has happened a lot so far in the five hours, but it's noticeable. The game is just rough around the edges. However, I'm still very much enjoying I want to keep playing it. Like the pond system did not

truly strike. I didn't fully like understand how amazing it was in the first game until like twenty hours in. And I'm not saying it'll take you twenty

hours to start liking this game. I enjoyed, you know, some a decent number of bits early on, but once you start unlocking those high level ponds that also like have this weird little pond quest about being in someone else's realm, and it leads you to like finding this gryffin that you kill, who then lets you craft this new shield that has gryffin feathers on it, and then you know, you get your your your pond back and like your friend text you is like I just used Arta that was She'd like saved my

ass like sixteen times. Like that's texting Chris Plant today. I al cool. Yeah, this is That's when it gets like fun. You know, the pond system and also just how the vocations work. This world map is pretty or the world itself is very Siri Diill Elders Girls four as the original Dragon's Dagma was. But I think they've they've put enough interesting stuff in there and little side quests stuff that popping up. I really wish I could just

really sink into it for a few days. Unfortunately, I'm gonna have to put it down for a week. But I'm intrigued for sure. So I have not fast traveled at all yet. And my assumption was, like the thing they did teach me that I haven't used is like you can buy those stones or whatever, the ferry stones or something and warp back to certain areas. But like, I just got a quest. I don't know if you've

done this in the main city. And it's like a monster hunting thing where it's like, Okay, there's three spots on the map, you got to go kill some monsters, and two of them were really close to the city, and one of them was like as far away as that first you know mission that sent me to the city. And so I was like, fuck, I guess that's the game. I guess I'm doing. I guess another five hour trek out there or whatever. So do I just need to be

looking for like carts? Is that the main thing? Like, like, how do I am I expected to to make that entire track? Like I don't hate that all the time. There's stuff later on, I will say camping supplies are a big thing. Make sure you bring those because you'll come across campfires in the wild where you can rest refill. I always have the one. I've got like one graded one that I have my pond carry and

it seems like it's multiple use. So it's just like, yeah, every time I see a campfire, I cook, I sleep, yeah, oh yeah one of my my I keep my fighters stocked with camping supplies as often as I can. I didn't do that specific one, but that's a fairly common quest structure in the first game. It I think they're expecting you to really just try to enjoy that trek. Okay, I'd say I'm the wrong person to ask, because that was the fun of the game to me.

And the first one, well, I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything, because I did miss that initial thing when I did that long ass you know tracks, but I did not. I really didn't dislike it, like that was the game for me. I was just like, you know, running around from campsite to campsite killing monsters. Yep, it's it's

very much. I mean the way I played the reason I love the first game it's like make a cocktail, settle in for a long trek, and like like, okay, the risk reward of do I use camping supplies here? I hope I can find one higher up. It's like, well, my maid is doing pretty well, so we'll have healing. My supplies are low, but I think I can get back. Oh fuck, the sun's

going down now. It's getting scary. It's not like dying light levels of scary night, but it's up there because bandits are more frequent at night. In the first game, at least you have finite lantern oil. So yeah, it's like survival light elements. It's not quite like Suns of the Forest survival, but it's you know, it's there's survival elements for sure that make those those those long distance journeys like those are the joy of the game.

I think that's why it's working for me so much, is it does have these elements that if they're done too much will annoy me, Like too much story will annoy me, too many like hardcore survival elements will annoy me, and things like that. This one, it's like there's enough of a story, it doesn't waste too much time. It's just like, hey, okay, you're the orisin we got to go prove that you're the Arisen. All

right, let's go to the castle and then the survival stuff. Like you mentioned, it's there's systems in place there and everything, But I don't feel like I'm slogging through like a million different tutorial things like I feel like I get it pretty quickly, and even though it is rep around the edges, I think it's got the right balance and all of these different systems it's trying

to do. Yeah, it's it is trying to do a lot much like the first game was, and I think it was a cult classic for the reason that it was really ambitious for its size and budget and scope, but it nailed those things really well. I mean, Same State of Decay two is not the cleanest game I've ever played, but it's one of my favorites because of the way those systems are all interacting with one another, and I get so much more attached to those kind of characters or like Nemesis system enemies

than I do in most scripted situations. But yeah, I want to keep playing it. I'm uha. I made a maybe not surprisingly, I made a cat man for my main character, the beast string. I believe they're called Oh yeah, yeah, you can basically just be a person or a cat person, So of course I'm gonna be a cat. I have a my uh my main paonnd is like a seven and a half foot tall wizard

with terrible posture. Oh you made it might hunch over? No, no, no, he leans back when he watchs and it's just like giant Yeah, like he's got a gumby walk. He walked back in his elbow angle and his knee angle is both like best man walk. You know. I actually made my pond like semi normal. I guess she's but then she's she's kind of a psycho. It's nice in a world where you can be anything. Mike is a cat and Dan is gumby pon. I'm a cool thief lady. Yeah, yeah, I want to use your I gotta find your

what's your pawn's name? Uh? Kan okay? R c A N Is that did you write that? Or is that the Moniker? No? I picked the Moniker and then I just named I did that with my main character too, because like I didn't know if it was going to be vocalized. It like the just have to be the same. Yeah, as I understand, the moniker shows up in the world like when you're looking at searching for ponds, but then if you look at their actual stats, the name name will show up. I could yeah, yeah, but anyway, yeah,

I I I'm excited to play more of that game. I didn't truly love the first game until like twenty hours in anyway, so I'm maybe that will happen again. I don't know, we'll see. Yeah, I'm having a lot of fun with this somewhere, Mary, How's how's it going? Also a very systems driven AI geeky kind of game, Battle for Bikini Bottom.

I know that's very complex and high brow, more survival stuff, right, Yeah, this has been a ten year battle because anyone who knows Battle for Bikini Bottom would understand that this four has happened since two thousand and three,

which is when I first originally played this game. Now rehydrated did refresh the graphics and some gameplay elements, but the basics of it is the same game I remember from when I was in high school, which is a platformer where you collect shiny objects and golden what are they called flippity flues battle flip.

Sorry, I can't believe you're trying to get what I wanted off from a flippity flu no aspatchela, and you're basically like saving Bikini Bottom from a bunch of robots that planked and created, but they actually self replicated and now they've taken over the town. It has a lot of the nostalgia that I was looking for. This is actually the reason that I purchased an Xbox many many moonso, so you can thank Battle for Bikini Bottom for how I kind of

got more hardcore into games. Originally I was playing like more simple DS games, but when Battle for Bikini Bottom came out, I had to get that Xbox to play it anyway, and that kind of like started a cascading effect of like playing Gears and a whole bunch of other games. So anyway, the point is is I actually never finished Bump SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottoms. It was such a difficult game back then, and some would say broken,

and so this is kind of my redemption to rehydrated. It's, uh, it looks a lot better. I do think that the gameplay is still outrageously stupid and uh, sometimes it just doesn't make sense or I don't know what they were thinking when they did it. A good example is like you'll see something that you want, like a golden spatula, and it'll be above water, and so you'll be like, cool, I'm gonna dive down and get it, and you dive and you instantly die. Because a SpongeBob can't

swim despite the fact that he's in the fucking ocean. Does he swim in the show or is he always inside like contained in the game he cannot swim? Is he went in a show so the the swimming water the whole time, but I know he was in buildings. I haven't seen the show, so I don't know if he's like mine to water. I'm sorry. Have you never seen an episode of Much Mold? Simply generation it transcends, you've

you've never seen one episode? I think. I think Bank showed me one episode when we first met, and I was like, oh, I would have loved this if I was, like, I appreciate it now, but like you know, you get to that age where it's like I don't want cart doing it anymore, you know, unless Simpsons. But again, it transcends, like it's no, it's very funny. The chocolate selling episode is like for all ages. It's not a child's episode, that is for everybody.

Everyone can enjoy that episode. But I find that fascinating that you have no idea this universe because it's very it's it's clearly developed for people who are fans of the show. I think you would not understand or give a shit about this game Dan in any capacity. It's a lot of inside jokes about all the characters, Mister Crabs obviously, like selling you out for cash money

and squid word being like it's just a selfish prick the whole time. It just like it's it's the show manifested into a game, but it's it's silly. The answer to the puzzle where I can't swim is that later on in the game you it's an underwear dive, and so like they they hook your underwear and then you like stretch it all the way to the bottom to get this batula and then it like zip zaxy back up. It's like an ability

that you get is the underwear thing. It's just a random hook and it's just like, no, you can dive now that you found this hook. Yeah, it's so stupid. But I was like, they didn't explain it, so you instinct is to jump in the water, and that's wrong. The game is dumb. I think the review is this game is stupid as hell. It's a lot of what I remember when I was in high school. It is a silly game for silly people. But if you it's on

game Pass right now, which is why I played. I did not kiss it wow, And I only played it because I saw it on game Pass and I thought to myself, oh my god, is that the same game I played like so long ago? And it is. It is the game that I played many moons ago, and it's just kind of like a nice to go back and actually beat it. So I'm gonna beat my high school nemesis. Nice. That's it. You've been playing anything else? Dan briefly

today tried out Windowkill on Jeff Grubbs's recommendation. It is a weird little five dollar game on Steam that like think Geometry Wars, but it's done on your desktop and it's opening up a bunch of different windows for like you start in a box and like, let's say, so it's you know, you're you're a ship and it's like a dual stix shooter thing and you're shooting other enemies.

But let's say you hit the wall of the window, it expands the window out, and so the windows kind of trying to box you win all the time. So you're killing the enemies and you're trying to shoot the windows window to make it bigger like your playspace, but then bosses will pop up in other windows, and so you're trying to make your window expand into theirs. It's it's really it's a cool gimmick. It's it's it's a rogue light too, So it's like Geometry Wars rogue light that's opening up a bunch of

different windows on your operating system. And uh, it's not like a like a hypnospace or something like that where it's all a fake operating system. It is literally like these windows are popping up over whatever you have on your desktop. So, like I was looking, I had, like in the background of my game, I had Mike Minatti playing Moratal Combat sub zero and I'm shooting stuff over it and boxes are popping up over his face and stuff. It's a it's a cool gimmick. I like it. I like an it

looks fun. Yeah, anything that it kind of plays with like your actual operating system in a novel manner like that. Like, I think that's pretty cool. Do you think though that it is like five dollars is such a reasonable price point, But like, how long can you really see yourself playing this game? Yeah? I probably not a ton honestly. It's like there's nothing about the It does not feel as you know, tight as like a

Geometry Wars or anything like that. I mean, you can upgrade your fire rate and things like that and splash damage and it's not bad by any means. But I do think the star from what I've played, is the the hook. They are the novelty, the novelty value of it. Yeah, I'm looking at it now. I didn't realize I didn't. Maybe you probably said this. I didn't hear you saying that you can actually move the windows though, or that's just on the main menu. I don't I might have

missed that. I was playing with controller, and then when I quit to get on this call, I saw it recommend that like, oh, hey, you you can use the controller, but we recommend keyboard in the mouse. So like I am wondering if there's more to it that I don't realize. But yeah, they get makes seem pretty solid. Okay, cool neat that might be all the video games this week, kind of like, no, that's not real, that's not correct. What else? There's two more.

I'm not going to let us go without talking about Hell Divers. There have been several nights in the last week where I've thought, after we talked last week about how you're always like excited if someone asked about Hell Divers. I've had a few nights from like, am I in the mood for some Hell Divers? Here? I could text Mary, I could ask her, but I knew if I texted you and we played, I was gonna want to make a drink. And I was like, ahh, I'll be good

tonight. I'll go to beout at ten o'clock instead of drinking till one o'clock playing Hell Divers. But I was tempted several times. I'm still playing Hell Divers. The reason I think it's worth bringing up is that there's been a really interesting evolution that I think has had an impact in games. That's why I'm bringing it up. Like if we play every time, we play a game like eight weeks in a row, you don't have to fucking talk about

it anymore. But hell Divers is doing something really interesting right now. What they're doing is, you know, like when Destiny has an update, they'll be like, March twenty fourth, there's a new chapter and here's what it looks like, and here's the boss you're gonna fight. Okay, hell Divers is updating the game, and when and when the people are finding out in the game that they've updated it. I'll give you an example. All of

a sudden, people are playing it and there's bugs that are flying. They will go to Discord or to Reddit and be like, whoa wait, there a flying bugs and the developer is like, no, there's absolutely no evidence that bugs can fly, and saying so is actually counter your kind of like siding with the bugs on this, and we don't want bug apologists, and they'll fucking like threaten from the discord. They're denying, they're pulling a propaganda

and the game that are like addicted to they're getting in on it. They're getting in on it, and they're basically like, get out of here, get out of here. We promised you there were they said that bugs don't fly, So what you're saying is actually like out of line, and you

need to be quiet. And the buds are fucking for how many people are like going on the subreddit for the first time with a very earnest question and everyone just giving them misinformationists do it for democracy, Like they're evolutionizing game updates here, because we've had a system where again, like Destiny, you're basically feeding your audience and saying like, here's a couple of nibbles to let you be excited because we do have a big update coming and here's the length of

it, and here's like, here's what you can expect from it. This game is doing the opposite. It is updating the game and denying the updates,

and it is fueling this this game fandom so hard. People who are addicts of this game are freaking out because they don't because the games are lying to them or like, who's to say, really, and there's something fucked happening, Dan, there are people who are like playing this game that are all of a sudden getting sniped by like lasers and it's never happened before, It's never happened, and and they're like where's this laser coming from? And

the devs are like, we've never heard of this. I think you friends whatever, dude, yes, either their own friends are like, you're you obviously have made that up. You should just like be quiet and eat your food. Well, I think it's happening. We don't know. But what what the audience is starting to assume is that there's going to be a new faction. That's right, that's right, Mike, there was, and so this one is only bugs and uh and robots, but this blue laser is

hitting people. Another rumor that's hitting the town is that we're using a ship ton of nukes to get the bugs, and everyone's like are these nukes good for humanity? Like is this going to impact us? And the devs are like, don't worry about it. Use as much gas as can, like get in that gas, like go for it. And there's just like something fucked about the way they're like feeding us into using as much like gas related

like nukee systems as possible and denying like flying bugs. That makes everyone be like they're gonna fucking they're gonna drop a new faction and then they're just gonna deny it. It's that's so cool. It's fucking brilliant. It's so cool that was happening. That's awesome. That oh my god. Oh wait, yeah, so the the the last faction in the uh in helldivers was the

Illuminate. They were like the elite aliens that use blue laser shit. Well well well, and people are getting sniped by blue lasers, like at the end, like when the drop ship is coming and they're denying it. It's

it's fucking fascinating, you guys. I think this is like a new era of uh of Dev's slowly unleashing gameplay where there well that's like a way story too though, like they're using the format of like a live service game to tell the story, Like they did that a bit with the asynchronous worldwide multiplayer the first game, but like they did not have the resources. Also, people were not even then as online as they are today, so I think

they're embracing that in a way. That's like now they're playing like the the propagandists. Yes, they are the propagandists, and they're playing the role really well and it's working well for them. There's nothing funnier. The Red is actually quite interesting. I do encourage everyone to go check out the hell Diver's read it, because even like not just not the devs, other users will

be like, get out of here, you bug apologist. They said there's no flying bugs, and you're feeding into the system and the lies and it's I just looked at a YouTube video about flying bugs and all the comments are like get out what is this bullshit? Like get out of here, Like I find this offensive, even though the footage is there of the bugs. The footage is there, and people are like, you've clearly doctored this. This is very upsetting. You should go to jail. It's just New World.

I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying it. The drama associated with like how they're doing this and how much the community is eating it up, to me is more interesting, Like the game is obviously still phenomenal, like it's it's just so alluring, Like this is so interesting to me, how they're how they're getting away with it and how the audience is like feeding into

it. Is this the termicide stuff? Is that the gas ye safety sheets like saying like it's not safe, it's not saved, and then people being it's completely safe. Keep using it like that's fuckings are like, there's nothing that's said that termicide hurts humans, like keep keep go for it. It's just giant, giant nukes are going off and you're like shooting and everyone's like, it's fine. They told us it's fine. Don't fucking question them.

Oh my god. Someone I just saw a clip on the Reddit. Someone died and was coming back into a pod and they landed on a moving drop ship that was dropping a tank off, and they like got out on the drop ship and then rode the tank down to the ground. It's it's a very it's very smart what they're doing. I'm very curious. I think we all know what's about to happen. But what's so juicy is you don't know when it's going to happen, you don't know how it's gonna happen. And

they're not going to like play this as a usual update. This will not be a standard release of a game. They are essentially going to deny it and and we're going to eat it up because it's brilliant. It's just really cool what they're doing. Anyway, Like that's my update. I think it's it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. I already wanted to play more of that, and now hearing that, I just super want to get back in. That's that's so cool. I love that there's little hints throughout

the game that they might be doing something. There's like they're like releasing new armor suits that are like like, why are you releasing this armor suit right now? Like the that's right, the world is a buzz to what is going on but that, but we I gotta find it. There was an interview that they did back with the first game where they're like, in an ideal world, we would do shit like that where like you get this new armoor set that's resistant to this thing, and you're like, well, what

the fuck is this thing? And then all of a sudden, the stuff like I could see that being the world where these termicide nukes we've been using are now creating maps where you are just going to gradually lose health if you don't have that kind of armor and that's our fault. And there an image on the separator here just titled it's real with this, you know, picture of a blue laser and then like first thing being like this is like UFO

sidings taken as shittiest potato quality images possible. Oh, I didn't think it was possible for playground rumors for games just still exists in twenty twenty four. Oh, this is this is good. You can expose too long to the thermicide chemicals, fellow, Hell do I ever report the nearest infirmary. It's chemtrails and conspiracy theories in a game, and everyone's just playing along. Everyone's

just in Kpe about this. I love it. It's eating it up if you if you're on the post truth era, it's a game of our time. Conspiracy City like theory City, everyone's playing wrong. I think it's I think it's the most interesting thing I've ever seen in like recent years. I can't think of another thing that is like evolutionized. How you would update a game like this? It's so interesting to me. Yeah, this is awesome. Yeah, it was very cool. It Mary what you have? Frog

Detective? Oh yeah, I played Frog Detective with my mom. It's not nearly as interesting as Hell Diverse, but I will say I played another episode of Frog Detective. Is the most wholesome, sweetest ship you'll ever play in your life. If you're like, oh, my god, my niece is coming over. My I've always wanted to like connect with my parents, like play play one round of like round, play a level of Frog Detective. It's so cute, it's it's such adorable writing. It's sweet as pie,

cool period. That's a you solve the stupidest mysteries in the whole world, and it's just adorable. And my mom is a saint. She visited me this week. Yeah, she was great. We had a good time. We went to Astoria, which is where they filled the Gooni's oh yeah, yeah, she loved it. So Long Astoria? That's that? What that? Or is that a story of Queen's Oh I'm talking about so Long a Storia from that was a band that you be, the ones who did the

Boys of Summer right, Yes, the ataris or Oregon. It's deaf, it's got to be the same. I don't know. I can't even like say that with a straight face. I have no idea. But it was definitely during the same era of me playing Battle for Bikini Bottom. So two pieces of nostalgia coming at you hot anyway, that's it. Now I'm looking at more propaganda on here. The propaganda is so fu, why aren't you. I love when they give for not playing the game because you're not helping

the war effort. Yeah, yeah, I get. I get. I was in uh s F this week for work and the people were like, we're texting me. They're like, we're about ready to drop, and I was like, I'm sorry, I only got to work there. I have to work. And they were just like, oh, you are so busy working that you can't defend humanity. Yeah's your job? What's your job going to be worth? What's the stock market going to be worth? Mary? When humanity has been overrun by bunks? Is money that important to you?

Just like I guess I have to work the stock market? Mary, Yeah, it's absolutely ragging on me. Yes, it is Rob Handler and Peter Brown. Oh my god, the video you posted of him his voice over when you were all dropping. I don't uh dan if you've seen that. But like every time we drop Dan uh Dan, Rob pretends that he's dropping in real life and screams like this guy. Sometimes he'll be like, tell my kids, I love them. Does he live with anyone? His dog

freaks out? Mate? So sometimes we'll be like, why didn't you do it? He'll be like, my dog's really upset. I can't do it for the rest of the night, does it. I'm just picturing like a significant other in the house and like, what the fuck is happening around eight times a night? What are you? Okay, that's really good, Jesus. I gotta play more of that game. And Dragon's too. But I'm just gonna be playing Billottro all week in San Francisco. It's so hard.

There's so many good games right now. It is actually quite competitive. Like my time is precious and my priorities are. If I'm on a plane, it's Billatro all day, all night, like that's where I'm at. If I'm home and I'm thinking about playing something, If I get a text, that's it. It's hell Divers. I'm playing Hell Divers with my buds. And then if there's nobody and I'm lone skis, it's probably DRAGONSGMA right.

Like it's like there's like there's systems that I have and you have to like if you're at home, you have to set rules for like, Okay, I'm not even gonna start Bilatro because I don't know how many nights I've like planned on playing something else and it's eight thirty and I'm like, I'll do, like, let me do a quick run of Blatro, get one good run in and then I'm fucking going to bed and I'm bringing Blotro in there. You know. The night that I played, I played Blotro for like

five hours. Unexpectedly. I was playing Frog Detective with my mother and we beat the game. These these levels are so short, they're like an hour, right and I stream for three hours. So my mom was like, that was a great level. I'm going to bed now, and my mom leaves, I have two hours left to stream, and I was like, whatever, I'll play like a huple hands of Blottro. Four hours later, I was fucking racking up points on Blatro. I was fucking addicted again.

I was playing it in bed on my Steam deck, like I have to actually take a break from Blatro. Yeah, I love Volatro so much that one's like that one's really in there. I also think it's gonna be a great one for like when we're in the kind of frenzy right now, because it just came out fairly recently, but I think eight months from now, if I'm on a plane and I just need to pass the time. And

I haven't played Blattro in two or three months. I think that's gonna be the most evergreen shit to just pull up and be like, you're not gonna forget like how the game works, or how poker works or anything like. I think that's gonna be a plain game for years for me. I I agree. I think Blatro will stick around. It has extraordinary replayability. I will say I've played it so much to the point where I've seen I feel like I've seen a lot of the Jokers and I'm just like, whatever,

I know that Joker's trash and I'm like, I'm burning through runs. But you can easily update the game with like additional Jokers, and the idea for me to like get a fresh Joker and play a completely different run. Plus the different levels of run right, like mistakes and everything. Yeah, yeah, the different stakes, the different ones that restrict you in different ways. There's one challenge. Most the challenge modes are nuts, and then there's Endless

Mode. Yep, yep. I played Endless Mode where the small blind was seven million. I was like, well, I'm fucking dead, like twelve. It starts getting like that and it's like if you look at like the breakdown, it gets sound to like, you know, to the twenty seventh power and should say, Jesus Christ, I've only gotten to any eleven. That's part as I've gotten I should check. I wonder does it tell you

I got Yeah? The status there's a couple of stat screens, like if you look at the it's in a weird spot, like it's something like the blinds or the tags. When you go to the collection, there's a thing on the left that tells you like what all the anties are. And then if you go to your profile and the stats, you'll see how many times you've won. You see what your your highest antie was. Things like that. You're there's a straight up progress meter and I've played fifty hours of the

game and I'm at like twenty three percent. I want to look I that sounds really interesting to me of like how how far I've gotten in things like that profile one is that where it is yeah yeah, God, buttons where it's just like we can reset your profile is so rude. Why would you do that? Why would you ever reset a profile? What was your problem?

Did you say it's in collection? If you want to see. If you go to your profile and then stats, it'll tell you that stuff, but then there's like the actual like what the the h the anti numbers are is hidden in some collection thing, But the profile thing will tell you some interesting ones like your progress meter. I don't see. So if it just says like Mary or I don't know if you said you're on Steam deck, Uh, well I'm I've opened it up right now in Steam on my computer.

This is dangerous. I haven't I haven't played on there. But there should be a part where you just like click like profile or your name or something like that. I am clicking on profile, but I don't see where it says all the cool stuff that I've got to options. I'm gonna I'm gonna let's come back to this in the email section once you find it. Do you guys want to do emails and also talk about Mary's Balatro stats.

I'm going to play around, okay. As usually, you can read into fire Escape cast at gmail dot com for questions, comments, concerns, ask us fun stuff about games or anything else. Married did you find your stats Fortro? My best hand, Uh, it wasn't as high as I thought. I think that. Uh oh, I thought I was getting sting. It's my Auntie was eleven. My highest round was twenty eight, and I was getting over. I was getting nine hundred and five thousand each hand.

Nine hundred and five thousand. Wait, it tells you like your average. It says your best hand. And I was getting nine hundred thousand each hand because I had a system that was essentially giving me the exact same almost number each time. Crazy, Okay, within like a couple thousand. So what's your progress, mater at Oh, that's a good question. Twenty seven. Okay, I'm at twenty seven too, exactly twenty seven. That's so cute. Yeah, I get fourteen percent of the collection. Yeah, wow,

what are the odds? I'm probably at like six. I have thirty six percent of the collection. But I don't think I have as many challenges and stuff as you do. Probably I haven't touched with challenges. I've just made a point of, like, anytime I see a not discovered joker, if I'm having like a bad run, I'll just buy stuff from the store just to like fill out the collection. I see what you're saying. I don't do that. I go for the like I try and get like the highest

whatever. It's interesting. Cool. Okay. My most played hand is two pair. I'm gonna play this after how much money? What's your most money? I'm just curious most money. Let me see. I'm absolutely gonna start this and play until I go to bed. Collection ninety three joker stickers five percent. Jesus fucking Christ, I'm at zero percent. That's so sad. Yes, okay, best hand is four million, highest roundest thirty, highest antis eleven. Most money is two thirty. What was yours? Two hundred?

Most money? Okay, okay, that was such a good hand. I was just like, whatever the cost, I'm so rich, you can't stop me. What's your number one most played joker? Oh? Hold on, where do you see that? Mike? This is gonna be another two hours, just so, now go into card stats. This is the last one. Then we're moving on. Okay. My most common joker is three times molt. If all cards held in hand are spades, are clubs? Okay, that's my second one. My first one is plus one multi per

tarot card used. That's a second. Are we best friends? That's crazy? The exact same setup. Either that or the game is broken and like you you need these jokers in order the same. Yeah, wow, I have not used the the three times malt. If your hand's all what's your number one consumable? Oh? This is it's it's Jupiter. It's Jupiter. Uranus is number two. Okay, cool is number two. All right, let's read stupid emails. All right, we're gonna start aside. Ye,

alright, read this. Read this first one from uh Tim from Baldwin Mary. Okay, hello, fire Escape. The Masters Golf tournament has a tradition where the last year's winner hosts a dinner where he selects the menu. Only past champions are invited to this dinner. That's awesome, actually very cool. That's a very elitist thing to do. But there's stories about some of them, just like, who fucking love KFC and they just get a ship ton

of it? That's what I would do. That says something about that person. I wouldn't do that. Okay, back to the email. You have just won Gamer of the Year and an all expenses paid dinner is being held in your honor. What are you selecting for your menu? They usually include a couple of appetizers, soup and salad, and Entrea dessert wine cocktail pairings. Thanks Tim from Baldwin. That is a good email, Thank you,

Tom. It is and I don't want to do the obvious. So everything's Scaco Bell thing, even though I literally just had Taco Bell and McDonald's for dinner in the same meal tonight. What do you mean? Sorry? Well, okay, so I wanted dinner before this, and Taco Bell just introduced the new canteena menu, which actually it's kind of a pre release right now. It's only for rewards members, so I was able to get it,

so I went in. It's true, but it's also the last day for the Shamrock Shake mcflurry, and I really wanted that, so I drove to both Taco Bell and McDonald's before this and got a bunch of Taco Bell and a bunch of McDonald's. And yeah, so that's why that happened. But I'm not gonna do Taco Bell for this dinner. I do want to do.

I know this is a gimmick thing, but the Oreo and nacho cheese thing, because I've had enough people try that and it's been like pretty much one hundred percent success, right, So that's like the ticket to get in, you gotta try an oreo and anto cheese at the door. Tell me what you think of it, writing a little notebook like you're signing a wedding

thing, and then you can go in. And I would just have I think Casey Joe's barbecue, you know, just the best barbecue I've ever had, barbecue my hometown, my favorite food, A bunch of burn in. It's just a bunch of Casey Joe's burn ins. I think so good. That's like one of the number one things to get if I get barbecue mary. The next time you're here, I get the like the dry ice.

I get it shipped up here from Kansas City. I will we will make Casey Joe's burn ins, and you will see it is the best cue you will ever have. I usually when I go to a barbecue place, it's my instinct to get burn in. It's not only because it tastes really good.

It's usually like so much more affordable than all the other options. It's like, I don't know, it's like it's like the common man's barbecue dishes, but it's like, let's messy, Like I never get actual ribs because like it's just like with burn ins, you can just eat it with a pork your hands, don't get all fucked up dirty and stuff. Yes, it's you. You gotta try these. Oh that sounds good. Wait, so like you do with oreos and nata cheese, you do? That's my

appetizer and the demand thing is the burn ins. Yeah. What what would you do for dessert and drinks? What? What? Like? What beverages would you have? Mmm? I'm such a novice in this stuff. You're probably gonna be an open bar. But like, what would you want served to them at the dinner table with like their food. My wedding, I had those Baja Blast champagne flutes. Those are pretty good. I don't know. There's a few cocktails I've made in my you know, a couple of

months of getting under that that I've really enjoyed. Uh Yeah, I like Schambourd and I like quantroe. I like, uh is it a curse ow anything with curs ow in it? Swy am I saying that right now? This does in this contro is CROs right. That's like orange curse, right, and this one's blue curse. Ow. I didn't learn this until very recently. Blue Carousel and orange are the same exact flavor, just blue color

coloring. Yeah, I've been suckered again. Yeah, isn't Quantroe and like Triple Sack and Grahm Marnier Like that's all kind of the same the Currosow family. Yea, okay, I think I'm just a big curros ol. Guyra is like more like acidic and like kind of tart, which I like. Quantro has got that like cloudy hazy sugary which you can drink both on the rocks. But but yeah, that type of cocktaire like a Yeah, there's this one I called the exam that I've made a lot and I like that

a lot. So maybe that and dessert, uh dairy quinn cake or shamrock shake mcflurry are you asking us or like that? Oh? Those are the options that's I would have to decide. But to be one of those, no, you could do both and give people to like the the option. Yeah, like when you r s v P. Yeah, Marry, what would your what would your appetizers be? Okay, so I would go with

my favorite meal theme, which is brunch. My appetizer would be Like, that's harder because I know I would do like eggs, Benny and like hash Browns eggs and million dollar bacon. You guys know, million dollar bacon something real. It's the thick bacon. Millionaire's bacon is like so thick and it's normal strips, but they're really thick and they taste so good and they almost have like a brown sugary like esque to them. Dessert, obviously you would

choose between pancakes and French toast. Appetizers like how do you. Drinks would be mimosas and uh, Bloody Mary's. But appetizers like what like nobody has a salad for brunch unless they're crazy. So there's a place near me that does little like like shareable French toast. See, it would be like yeah, like little doughnut holes or something like that. Anthony David's near me, they do. I think we got it. Yeah, it was just so good. Yeah, anyway, brunch, I forget what are like breakfast and

brunch person? You are like I dropped the ball with next time you're here, Mike, when you lived here, did you ever go to Al's breakfast and thank you town? No? It is like I'm not a breakfast guy at all, but it is some of the best food I've ever had. It's like this. I think it's the smallest restaurant in like Minnesota. It is just in an alley way basically to like get in, you have to

shove behind a bunch of people and stuff. There's like eight seats there and it's speak easy brunch, but it's just the most like there's nothing fancy about it. It is just like there's a griddle behind you. You're basically in a trailer, and it is the pancakes, the bacon and the hash bruns everything, but it's just marry Okay. If we do wherever we do Game of the Year or next time you're here, we're doing Al's Breakfast and we're

doing case you do is Barbekeep for dinner. That's so valuable to me. I think like that will kind of seal the deal for us coming back, because like I love brunch so much, and obviously every table would have a bottle of crystal hot sauce because that's like my favorite hot sauce and I would just douse everything in crystal and it would be like just such a great meal. I would love that meal. That would also be like if I was

like on death row. That would also be my meal. This is the last thing I want before I die, or before I'm awarded Gamer of the Year, whatever it is, like, that's the one. I guess mine too. Casey Jos would be my death row meal. Is the same question, Mike, what would you eat if I like had some overarching theme. I think I would just try to get like do the Joe's Barbecue route and have like my favorite pizza from the area there, and then also like,

uh, there's it would be hyper specific. There's a seafood restaurant here that does oddly enough, they do Mexican streetcorn at Lothe and it's like one of the best things ever. Even though it's you know, it's a seafood restaurant, you wouldn't particularly associate that. So I think I would go, like, try to do a little bit of an around the world vibe, start

with Mexican streetcorn, and maybe I don't I know. Oysters are hit or miss for a lot of people, but I fucking love oysters and like it's my dinner, So I would do like Prince Edward Island Canadian oysters alongside that. If you don't like either of those, that's fine, the entre is gonna be Margarita pepperoni pizza from tenth Street in Hoboken, and then maybe another entree I would do, like trying to think if there's anything like that's been

No, I already did the entre. It would be tense three pizza. But then I would pair that with a cabinet franc get that like the green notes in a little bit of a kind of a fruit forward red that's going to counteract the pepperoni, but you know, you get a little bit of green in there alongside the meat. And then the oysters would be with a sans are no avouvre. Because you can do anything because it's whatever cost, Like, why not just go with like the most expensive wine you can Findlets

just metal and jewels. Yeah, yeah it's nice, Shut up and eat it. Covering eggs, put them in my pockets. Yeah, I guess For dessert, I would end with what do I donant diamonds? Just shred pooping them out next day? Uh? It would be like, uh, what dessert do I really like? Actually, at our wedding, I really liked the dessert approach. It was like a triplet. It was like a mini cremberlet a mini pie. Didn't you many key lime pie or no?

Yeah, there's a few things on it, but it was great. I think I would do something along those lines and then give you, like a Tokayazu from Hungary, some of the best dessert wines in the world, and then cocktail wise whatever you want. But you know, I'm a sherry guy. I know I would have sherry there for Dan because I'm assuming you will. We have to assume we would all be there, because you guys would probably have one Gamer of the Year, and then I would be able to

invite you exactly. Eligible. It's a question of who I would invite because if you're like you're making a large assumption that Dan was previously Gamer of the Year, Well, it'd be like us and Greg Miller and like boogie, I'm not going oh wait wait, it was like Jack septic that I need to be here yelling at my dinner. Yeah, Beauty Pie is there. It's gonna be a weird dinner. Guys, Okay, yeah, I would. I change my mind. I don't even want to partake it now.

I'm joking. I'm sure they're uh, I'm sure they're lovely people. People to hang out with. Thank you to, thank you to Uh. Okay, you can't have any eggs, get out, no fabers, eggs or diamonds for you. You know, freak. You get nothing. We need to do like a halfway to Game of the Year here, just so I can take it to these places marry and show you the casey Joe's and stuff

my way for brunch. I'm also like one of those weird weirdos who will like gladly wait an hour for brunch you Like some people are like that's insane. I will not wait an hour for brunch. You need to do that with that, I will. I will wait as I think it's It's such a fun experience for me, and I love the whole thing, Like I get right rally for it. I get excited about it, and I wake up and I'm like, where am I going to go? Like I love

it. Next time you go across coast, just set up one day that you stop in Minneapolis, crash here and we'll get up and then head home. Yeah, okay, I go to Owl's layover Bronchaction. Yes, Dan, you want to read this one from Phil Yes? Hi find folks first off, shout out to Mike for convincing me to spend a one hundred europe dollars for the ingredients for in Alaska. It is now replaced for Net and Coke as my signature cocktail. Boy, what question on the Lord's work in

that regard? Has a game ever been so good for you that it makes other games of the same genre just tastes like ash in your mouth? I used to play a ton of different FPS games up until I started playing Overwatch back in twenty eighteen. Now, nothing feels as good as flying across the map as Doomfiss assassinating people in any new shooter I try, I drop after a couple of hours that is filled from Finland. This is the most boring possible answer, and for me it's Mario. I mean it's the first.

It's just any platformer two D or three D. It's like, there's a lot of twoting three D platforms. I like a lot, but outside of I think the closest has been Astrobot. I think the feel of Astrobot is up there with the best marios. I just don't think I play them all, and I like most of them. You know, Penny's Big Breakaway or Sonic Mania or anything like. I just compare everything to Mario, and Mario feels the best to me, so that's probably it. Yeah, Mine,

I guess two answers would be I guess first person shooters. I still I've played a lot of them. I still don't think any has felt as good

as titan Fall two. Yeah, for many reasons, but like the aiming, the shooting, Like even Doom twenty sixteen is just like stiff compared to that, which there's such different games, like they're the same genre, sure, but titan Fall two, it's just like when I think of a good feeling game, I think of that game, and then in a wider sense, I know this was I don't know if it was like a meme or whatnot, but I think when people started getting really into dark souls and demon

souls, those games really just kind of ruined all other games of any genre when you're really into them. But I had a friend who got like that's still to this day, for the past fifteen years, that's all he plays. Fifteen Yeah, so like he really just doesn't play other video games. He's like, I just want to be playing a from Soft game. I'm not that extent obviously, but I still like Bloodborne just in terms of like action RPGs, Bloodborne has kind of ruined how they feel for me and how

they're structured like that there's nothing more rewarding. And then in those games, just even finding a bonfire or a short cut back to a bonfire that's just so impactful in the way that, like other games, boss fights don't even come close to Do you put Bloodborne above like elden Ring in good question overall? Yeah, I still think I do. Wow, I need to go I need to go back to it blood Borne there in what sense, like how they feel or just like in general, what like overall is a game.

The thing is, when I played Bloodborne like that until elden Ring, that was the only from soft game I'd beaten, or at least as far as when we say from soft games, I'm not talking about fucking cookies and cream on PS two, I'm talking about you know the prompts, Yeah, souls likes. Yeah, And I think I did it through just it wasn't through skill. I wasn't playing it right, I wasn't recognizing boss patterns.

I was brute force leveling up, and then I was I was streaming it, and I was doing stuff where it was like, oh, I got this boss and Eric Tay jumped into my game and I hid in a corner and Eric Tay did all of the work, and so it's like I feel like, yeah, I saw credits on Bloodborne, but like I didn't really play it. And then when I played eldon Ring, you know, properly, it was like, oh fuck, these might be like absolute masterpieces.

I should probably go back and play Bloodborne. Right. I don't think you were playing it incorrectly. I think the reason you can grind them in a way that it's like, that's kind of its difficulty modifier if you're not really But yeah, I think to your point, now that you played elder Ring,

maybe Bloodborne's a whole different speed than elden Ring. However, I think because of your history with character action games, Bloodborne will absolutely feel way more natural to you than Dark Souls. Dark Souls is lumbering, and then Deliver Is I played. I just never beat them, you know. Oh yeah, but Bloodborne is one I like the most. Like that's Bloodborne. Your

dashing is such an integral part of it. But yeah, overall, I still think Bloodborne is a better game as a whole than elden Ring, which it's hard to compare it because elder Ring is such this gargantuan, fucking ambitious

thing, and maybe that's why. Maybe it's just it's easier for me to say that, like this more compact thing, and Bloodborn is pretty expansive and there's a lot of many layers to it, especially once you start doing the messing with the uh those like love crafty and creatures that are kind of lingering everywhere. But yeah, I still put it above it put Bloodborn about felden

Ring. I'm going to shortlist that when it's time to replay something, when game releases actually slow down, then yeah, yeah, I'm gonna write that down right now, so don't forgot. I also just I think, still to this day, Bloodborne is my favorite or like just the tonally the most incredible game world, Like, there's really nothing else like it in the way, and it's and I don't normally care about lore, but I actually got into the lore there because it was so potent in the way they present it.

But yeah, I put blood Born about it. Mary, what games have ruined? Okay? I cannot find another farming game like Stardoo Valley that even comes close, And it's actually ruined a lot of games that I think are actually quite good. Slime Rancher is really good, Ublitz Forager, my time at Portie Coral Island, all of them are like those are pretty good, but like, why wouldn't I just play Stardoo Valley, Like why wouldn't

I just play the good the good good? And so it's actually kind of ruined a lot of quite solid games in my opinion, because Stardu Valley is just the best. Yeah, I Mary, you and I were both pretty obsessed with starting when it came out, and like anytime I've played one since then, like, oh, check out this Dorymond story of seasons for a quickly. So many there's so many, yeah, and I always like it,

you know, like I always like these games. But then like the whole time, I'm like thinking, like, oh, yeah, this is reminding of Sturdy Valley. Oh boy, I really like Sturdy Valley. I should play Stardu Valley. Like that's not a great set. Well, there's nothing wrong with these games. It's just telling us how fucking good Stardoo Valley is. That it's just saying the way my brain is wired, I'll tell you how how wired it is. When everyone got really into animal crossing,

I was playing Starduo Valley. I was like the only idiot who wasn't into animal crossing. I like, and I understand they're different, they have different focuses. I would rather play Starduo Valley, and so I was struggling to play Animal Crossing during the giant animal crossing craze because my instinct was but Stardoo

Valley is the coziest game. And I'm with you because starting when you're like deep in the throes of one of those runs, it's just like you can play that for many, many, many hours, and I always did with

stardo. Animal Crossing has been the same since it was on the GameCube, where it's like I love Animal Crossing, but you know, you play, you do your thirty minutes a day, and you know, you put some new thing in your house, shaking trees whatever, like give a hippo a carpet or something, and then it's like, all right, I'm out of

things to do. Where Stardu It's just like I gotta get to bed because I got to get back to these mines in the morning, like, oh shit, o Tomorro's gonna be rainy, dam I'm spent all day in the mind. It's like I couldn't stop fucking playing that game. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's ruined games, I guess. Breath of the Wild also

in just terms of open world games, didn't run Tiers the Kingdom. Yeah, Breath of Wild, Tiers the Kingdom, I guess have Although Tiers the Kingdom has ruined many other games that aren't even open world, like Here's the Kingdom has ruined most immersive sims for me now, which is not to say I still don't sometimes want to go back and play Dishonnored too, because that's such a tight game as well. But uh yeah, god, now I want to play all those games. Yeah, a lot of good games.

I might do any Stardo Run on the Flights if, like, just to kind of ease off the Lottro if I need to, which I don't think I will, but like just to vary it up a little bit. I also curious because I haven't played in almost ten years now, like I haven't played since like you know, any of the multiplayer updates, any of the like oh pick a different like Farm template at the beginning, like I played like Launch Stardo and that's the only one I played, and I played like

one hundred plus hours. Then, yeah, they've added a lot. I loaded up like two years ago or no, it was twenty twenty. It was. I got bored of new horizons as well Animal Crossing. I was like, I don't want to wait until tomorrow, the real tomorrow, to play the tomorrow in this game. I want to just go to sleep and wake up and I'm there. And it was a lot. They added all those new map sets, but like, I still think the original farm and islands the best from what I I didn't play all of them, but I

think Mary, you'd be more experienced there. But yeah, start is still great. I can't fucking wait for the Haunted Chocolate Tear. No release date, No, I think there's He's still like he's still like slow dripping, like just certain assets. He's like, here's a chair from the castle and people freak out about it and Reddi goes nuts. There's a blue laser now yeah, no, sorry, I've never heard of it. No, I don't think I'm sorry. I'm sorry to take it off Spotify because you mentioned

blue lasers, and I wouldn't. I didn't know it was a referencing Sorry, okay, are careful doing things like that without doing your research? You better come with proof, spoke. I'm sorry, Jake, I hope so oh god, oh man, this is dicey. Now you have to Now you have to. I A. I'm gonna speak about this in as vague terms as possible. I found out that someone important in my life, close to me. It's not my wife, I'll say that, or it's it's

a certain family member very into like conspiracy. We are close. Who doesn't have a close family member who's super into weird And I come from a big family, so like each one of them has these things that I don't talk about when we're hanging out around Christmas. I know this is just a family thing, but I I just had this weird someone sent into a group chat I'm in, like a link to something they had retweeted. So that was

a when I learned that they were on Twitter at all. And then that was b when I went to their Twitter feed and was like, oh my god, this is it was. It was just it caught me off guard. It's like, I don't even know some people that I spent most of my life with blood relation. Let's try to let's do twenty questions here. Okay, did I meet him at the wedding? Who says it to him? No? Yeah? Yeah? Did I meet him before the wedding,

like before that weekend or before the wedding day before the weekend? Yes? Okay, yeah, this is so this is not fun to listen to for any of the listeners. I got it. How close are we to the eightieth episode? Again, we're close. We're seventy seven. I think that's cool. Well, the number eighty and the ancient Gregorian calendar. Here we go, here we go. If you just do some research, I'll send you some links. It's actually we're just it's Mary that I'm talking about.

Well, we know how she feels about vaccines. But anyway, oh god, there's those two back home. Yeah, it's always okay, okay. Here, here's why I bring it up. It's just funny because my wife is from a she's an only child. She has a step brother, but she grew up an only child, smaller family, not many cousins, So

it's always eye opening to her how big my family is. When like any arch type of person gets brought up, whether it's flat earther or anti vaccine, and like, I have at least one of them my extended family, and she's like, I forget that. Like turns out, you know, more people increases the likelihood of different Oh yeah, world, you're gonna have a couple in there. Yeah yeah yeah. I was like, I was like, but again, I think I know well enough to not bring that

stuff up when we go home. Oh that that's yeah, that's I love all these people with all my heart. They're they're very close to me. But you know, there's a reason I just don't talk. You gotta do the fun thing where you do the thing where it's like you went out to the bar one night and then you go back afterwards and you just like, all right, here's my chance I actually really talk to, you know, a person who believes these things, and let's just have it, talk about

it where we get along. Fine, obviously we're not gonna get a fight. Let's talk about what you that's that's that's my thing when I go home pretty frequently, and it's it's always interesting. I'll tell you, yeah, like it's been that the times that that stuff has brought up in my family. It's always I think, there's always we fall back on the love we have for each other, so it never gets like out of hand. Yeah, you don't do it at the dinner table with a bunch of people around

it. They all live there. So when I go home, it's like, oh, right, the leftist brother is coming back. Yeah, And I get I get how that's to them. It's like they know they don't want to bring certain things up around me. It's just always like, let's desperately talk about the things we know we both like, dude, remember Majora's

mask. Oh let's talk about it for six hours and nothing else. It kills me when I go back home and I feel like other people see me as like I'm fucking Noam Chomsky, like I'm just like a hippie liberal firebrand or something. It's like I never talk about politics at all, but I bet they think that I'm like, Oh, here comes mister elite coastal guy or whatever. You Yeah, I live in San Francisco. They must have gotten to me. Me and Mary are these elite coastal guys on this podcast?

Now? All my family is like, oh, we must be different in Portland. It's just like we're talking about real standard stuff here, like like body autonomy. Yeah, I don't understand how we got here. We're like, I'm insane. America is a big country. There's a whole lot

of different places. Yeah. My family, a lot of my family thinks I'm just like in a in like just a de Lulu bubble of like flowers and rainbows where it's ridiculous that I would ever even consider any type of restriction on any gun of any kind ever, just like there's no room for discussion here. And they're like absolutely not. You know you like you just think you can do whatever you want, that nobody will ever break the laws were

we talking about. I am amazed people think I'm insane. It's the Mary. I think when you and I first started working, or when I first started working in game Spot and I was getting to know you, I knew I said that something about being from Syracuse and someone's like, oh, so like from New York, so it's probably like they're just as liberal as us. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no no no. And then you you were like you being from Buffalo or like it is not the same in that part of the state. It's not.

It was A big state is a big state. And if you are not in this No. The thing you'll find a lot of times if you look at a map is that cities tend to be more left right in a giant state. Once you leave Austin, Texas, you're fucked, bun. I mean, you gotta stay within those city limits. That's Minnesota. You look at the Twin Cities, that's blue red. You look at Kansas, there's

Lawrence, Kansas blue, just red. It's like you look at just the map and it's like, well, the thing like Trump is putting up like maps in the White House is like, look at all this red. It's like, well, yeah, but a lot of people live in those blue spots. Oregon is no different. As soon as you get out of the Portland city limits, you will see the posters and everything and everything goes red. It's as soon as you leave the city for sure, everything is mostly

rural. If you're just looking at like a map, you know, suburban roll. Yeah, we very successfully dodged. I'm really proud of us. Brought that up at the end of the episode risky biz. Honestly, I don't know that's what we're known for. It was just surprising to me. It's like, man, I gotta I don't keep up with these people as much as I should. I'd probably be learning some really cool stuff. If I talk to this person way more often about their beliefs and everything, my

eyes would be opened. Mm hmm. Man, I'll talk to you guys more offline about certain things I've I've seen that I didn't know there were even conspiracies about like X or Y, Like it's an A, B, C, D, E F G. I mean, it's all of them. It's conspiracies about everything, man, like things I thought we could all agree

on. No, Nope. Yeah, I remember naively at the beginning of the pandemic, you know, talking to people and be like, wow, you know what, this is interesting because it was such a it was an extremely polarizing time, as all years have been recently, but it was like, oh, here's this one issue that ever, like, who's gonna who's gonna not be like, oh yeah, yeah, we should all like you know, be cool and protect each other and this is a serious issue and

things that we're all on the same page about this here pandemic thing. It's always gonna be that way like a week later. It's like, put a blast fighters at my restaurant. What Yeah, it was a no menu. I've used a QR. Come, I've got a fire bomb this place. Just let grandma die. I'm not gonna eject a computer into me. All right, we did it. We got there. We got to the controversial part. Happy sat Patty's did to you too, Same Patty's Day. While

we're recording this, I'm I'm bombed. We're not going to be in the same city during Paxy Slash GDC week, but I don't know when we're gonna be spread to the wind. He might you might see my better half at GDC. Yeah, I'm going out to East Boston. Mary. You right here, you're staying alright. I got no travel for like two weeks. I'm soaking it in. I'm sitting right here, right at this computer. Although I might visit a couple different planets. Uh to shoot to shoot bugs,

as is the right on the grin. I have to do my part. There is no other kind. Mike. I don't understand what you're even just reminding you. Yeah, okay, good, I'm applying. You're inferring. What are you inferring, I don't make me commy. Commy commy sounds like a comy is on this podcast. You will never take me a lot fucking their pro vaccine and pro flying bug. I'm not listening to this ship anymore because I like fire Escape until they got political. Oh god, okay,

bugs political about the bugs. But as usually, you can write it the fire escape cast email dot com. Uh, Mary, tell people where they can get merch. Uh, fire escape cast dot com. Escape tightly oiled ship here, tightly oiled, tightly oiled ship that's up tightly, that's up. Okay, that was my nickname in college. All right, fire State Birds dot com. Go get some beanies, go get some shirts and

mousepads. I was close well. Firescapecast dot com is our patrioton. If you want to unlock ad free versions of our audio episodes or the video versions of our episodes, go to Patreon, or you can just treat it like a tip jar if you like what we do, but the whole archive too.

At this point we have gotten a good amount of Patreon only video stuff on the Patreon, and if you sign up you get access to all that and like long full length like podcast up you got, you know, hell divers play, you got a bunch of game footage stuff, podcast up, in person stuff. It's a we got a decent amount of stuff. Therapy if you sign up for the first time. Now, yep, Mary, tell people what you have going on that they can I stream on Monday,

so check that out and I just update mostly on Instagram. Now that's my safest space. Same damn, what about you Instagram, That's the main thing. By the time this podcast goes up, my packs East stuff will be done, so don't try to find me there. Yeah. Twitch so doing that. Yeah, Twitch and Instagram. I would say, cool, we're still talking about pass. We still need to do like some sort of meetup again somewhere. I would love to do a meetup. I think it'll be

we can talk about this offline, but I'm thinking like Al's Breakfast. Al's Breakfast. Yeah, for all hundred fire Escape people into that six table restaurant. I will get French toast sticks for as many as possible as many can fit in there. He is, Yeah, we should talk about that. Yeah, because you know, Game of the Year, we're so busy and it's kind of in and out. Uh, there's got to be some time. We have no actual plans for this, but we would like to see

more Beia in person. It yeah, all right, all right. We will be back in a couple of weeks with episode seventy eight. I'm glad to be back. It's been a while. I think this is the longest I've been away from the show, and like since maybe I was on vacation toward the beginning. Might be it. I think take like between like two and five episodes off. Maybe. Yeah. I've got a much calmer couple

months coming up, so I'm excited to be back here more regularly. I got some stuff coming up, but I don't know if I'll miss any We'll see, all right, Well, we will see everybody in a couple of weeks. Thanks for joining. Thanks everybody, So yeah right, sound like a muppe.