Game of the Year Watch 2025

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Hey, guys. I'm so excited to do this episode. I'm so excited to talk about what could be the game of the year this year. I love it. I love the idea of us going through a little bit of video footage of these games just to refresh our memories. Yeah, of course, yeah. But I also have some pretty crazy news. Oh, wow. Okay.

grandma has been in a coma for 40 years oh my god and she just woke up today and i want to i want to introduce you guys to her and hey everyone this is my grandma wow hi hi grandma campbell hello everybody hi grandma it's so good to me Oh, nice. That's similar to what I kind of say. You know, my... Granddaughter, she used to play the podcast on my ears and I could hear it even though I was asleep. Wow, that's amazing. I feel very familiar with your voice.

Oh, that's five to six years of your four-decade coma. So you went into a coma in 1985. Yes, I did. You remember one of the last things I saw? What's that? Was Nintendo Entertainment System. Oh, wow. So you would have just seen maybe Super Mario Brothers. It was such an incredible game. And, you know, I heard what you're talking about.

about today and that was game of the year that year yeah grandma i hope you're ready to uh get your socks knocked off because uh games are a little bit different now oh is that so is mario still running around well actually Yeah, here's the thing. He actually kind of is. Oh, I love that little guy.

We can show you some footage of some of these games so you get a sense of what gaming is like in 2025. I would love to see what I missed out on. You just talked about Nintendo. You maybe remember Donkey Kong. Oh, Donkey Kong. Yeah, before you went into camera. How did you get into your home anyway? I hijacked a train because I needed to get my husband across the border. Wait, what? I hijacked. You hijacked a train? I had to hijack my. Like a freight train? Yeah, I hijacked a freight train.

I just needed to get my husband across the border. And this is Heather's grandfather. Yeah, yeah. Yes, it's Heather's grandfather. And when I got off. The Canadian Mounties, they shot me with a beanbag gun. Oh, my God. And they knocked me out. But my husband lived 39 years longer. Oh, my. Wait. Oh, my God. Oh, so you missed his passing. You just missed his passing. That's what they tell me, but I'm glad that he lived a good long life. You know what sucks that he died a year ago?

Because you never got to see Donkey Kong Bonanza when you were about to show. Yeah, let's take a look at Donkey Kong Bonanza. Wow! Look at that! Oh my god! That looks like a cartoon! Yeah, it's pretty crazy, right? Well, that's got to be game of the year right there. Well, get a load of this. This one's called Death Stranding 2, and there's a little too much to explain. Oh, my God. That's a real man. Yeah, it's based off of a real actor. Look at that.

He looks like a real man. Yeah, it's almost a real guy. This is a video game now. Yeah, and he's riding a coffin that comes with top. But I felt like I was riding while I was in a coma. That lady looks real, too. Oh, yeah. And the actor, Leah Sadu. Well, that's got to be game of the year. Well, there's also this game. This came out pretty recently, Ghost of Yote. What? Oh, am I in a time machine? Look at this. That looks so real. Oh, this is what the games are now. You just run around.

and it's real. It's pretty crazy what the graphical fidelity has come so far in these 40 years. Yeah, those boys. Oh my. You kind of weren't a time machine of sorts. It felt like it. I can't believe the games look like they're so beautiful. Look at that movie. Yeah, really beautiful stuff. Wow, that has to be game of the year. You might think this one is kind of interesting because I would imagine you've spent some time in various...

rooms in your past. Various rooms. Various rooms. Yeah, you spend some time in various rooms in your past. I've seen various rooms. That's true. This game is called... Okay, okay. Wow, that is beautiful. Look at that. Oh, you like it? It looks like a cartoon. It kind of does look like a cartoon. It looks like a cartoon. But hold on a second. Hold on.

How's it coming out of my eyes? I'm the one walking in the room. Oh, the first person perspective is throwing off. You've never seen it. Wow, that's amazing. Amazing. Oh, my God. I'm walking forward. I feel like I'm going to fall. That has to be. Has anybody done that before? Yeah. That's incredible. Yeah, it's just a common perspective. Pac-Man was just a sideways little son of a bitch. I was never inside his head.

What does the man look like that I'm inside of? Well, actually, that's less the point of this. You can't find this character design, but it's more about just embodying this individual. Put me in front of a mirror so I can look. myself that's inside that has to be game of the and aren't these rooms changing

These rooms are different? Every time you'd start a new day, the rooms are different. Oh, my. I wish my husband could have seen this. If only he had, yeah, lived another year. Well, he lived a happy life with all that money from the back. I did live another year. Oh, my God. Grandpa Campbell? That's right. My husband's alive. I went into a one-year coma, but I just woke up.

Wow, is this what games look like now? It looks like this, honey. Oh, they look so different in 2024. Here's a gun. Let's go get a break. We prognosticate and soothsay as we make our predictions for Game of the Year 2025, this week on Get Played. Welcome to Get Played, your one-stop show for good games, bad games, and every game in between. It's time to get played. I'm your host, Heather Ann Campbell.

along with my fellow host, Tiger Weiger. That's me, Nick Tiger Weiger, along with our third host, Mr. Games Matt Apodaca. Hello, everyone. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the premiere video game podcast where it is almost time. for the game of the year. And what does that mean for our podcast?

We're here on the 2025 Game of the Year Watch. Yeah, for those of you that are just listening, that's primarily the only way you could experience the show. Otherwise, you'd be seeing clips. There's not a way to watch the show. We have one of those big screens. that you can touch and then, like, expand images on and stuff in front of. And there's, like, a map of the, you know, of the world. Some of it's in different colors. And the games are represented on that map as well. And then for no...

We also have superimposed over that flood damage. So I am now currently 18 feet below where the storm surge is. Various parts of the map are just crossed out. Right. They're crossed out. Some of the names of this stuff has changed, but the games are on the map and we're going to be talking about some of those games. The games are on the map. The games are on the map and so is the circa 2002 George W. Bush terrorist. Yeah.

threat level and we are at yellow. We're all wearing khakis up to our fucking necks. We're ready to go. God, I forgot about the terror alert level. I feel like it was just at level three for like 15 years, and then they're like, eh, we're just not going to do it anymore. Just discontinued it because there was no help to anybody. I guess it's just kind of like.

Because also there was a time when it did go to red. Remember, it went to red and we were all like, what can we do? Yeah, but then Night Owl and Dr. Manhattan and Rorschach all got back together and sort of stopped it. Or I guess they didn't really stop it, did they? Well, I mean, it depends on your interpretation. Yeah. I was eating shit out of a paper bag. This city sucks. This city fucking sucks in this. Fucking stinks, but I love eating this shit. In a way, Ozymandias was, you know, he...

It had a whole false flag thing. I watched a rat fuck a dog at a McDonald's. And it didn't even order. This city sucks. What would happen if a giant alien squid got teleported in to Manhattan and killed a bunch of people? I got your answer. Yeah. Absolutely nothing.

You think we would just, we'd just be normalized. We would normalize that shit within one month. We'd be like, God, that was crazy. Yeah. The fucking giant squid. Remember that, that alien that came by and just, first off, aliens are real. And then also like thousands of people were killed. Nothing. Nothing would happen. Yeah. I think it would happen.

The only thing that would happen really is that more places would start selling calamari and we would just have it more available to us. And then someone would have like a shirt that said like, I'm the tentacle bitch. Yeah, somebody kind of gets fucked by one. Within, I bet within two minutes of the attack, the first meme would hit the internet that would be pervasive. Right. I remember while Hurricane Katrina was hitting.

I saw someone post a meme of Zangief spinning pile driving the city of New Orleans. Jesus Christ. This is insane. You can't do this immediately. So many things I wish. We could just put back in the tube. We can't, because... Because phones and the internet. I would love to do this show on the radio. Just like the regular radio. Yeah, we all talk like this. Welcome to Get Played. We're radio guys here on the radio talking on Get Played. I'm over here with Matt.

Kapadaka, Mr. Games. Oh, we love Matt. That's right. They love me. Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. This is our most lucrative episode. Your donations! It's just interesting that people are catching on now because... From the jump, this has been a Christian podcast. Always been a Christian podcast from day one. We got you. Yeah. Guess what?

You love God, actually. Sorry. Someone's looking down at their crucifix necklace. How'd this get on here? What the hell? Wait, what's this in my mouth? The fucking little cracker? Yes, the fucking little cracker. Yeah. In church, you take the holy sacrament and you get the fucking little cracker on your tongue. Yo, priest, give me one of them fucking little crackers. Usually...

Matt is 100%, and that was the first time I've seen him fire at 3%. It's an honor you think I got more than that. It was great for you to cover for me seconds before not being able to find the word. necklace. So thank you for doing that. That's the kind of show you're in for today, everybody. It's the watch.

Down of the game of the year runnings odds. Yeah. We obviously have our own awards that we'll do at the end of this year as we do every year as we have since we've, I think since we started the podcast. Maybe that's only about a recent. format thing. No, we've done it. I think we did it in our first year. I think we've been doing it for a while. We never stopped. Anyway.

But we're looking at the larger gaming consensus, I think. I think we're more like saying like, hey, the game awards, publications, you know. Yes. The Steam Awards, whatever, what have you. Like what is going to potentially end up on top? What is the talk? What is the goss? And what is the game? Yeah, exactly. We're going to get to the bottom of it. We will get to the bottom of it. You never have a really grim breakfast?

Oh, yeah. Let's go. Yeah. Like, what do you like? I mean, what are you talking about? Like gravy? Not like maybe like eggs with a bunch of shell in it or something. Straight gravy. Also, that's not that bad. I have that all the time. We did figure something.

when you were not around recently. What's that? We did, we did. With that, I do think brown eggs are tougher than white eggs and Heather only uses brown. I exclusively use brown. Is that true? Yeah. Can we confirm that? Anecdotally, I use white eggs, large, I get white eggs. large white most of the time. Yeah. Had brown recently. Got some shell in there. But I'm graduating. I've graduated on two things. Yeah. I've got, I bet a 50% egg ratio now. Yeah. I can also do latte art, which took...

Three years. And again, this is deflecting. That's not about eggs. Three years of leveling in order to make a heart and a little leaf. Very impressive. Also, what's funny about leveling up when you're trying a skill like that, the day before, you can't do it. the day after, you can do it over and over again. What a feeling. It's like finally cranking out a pull-up when you're trying to do that. Yeah. Or cranking on your pull-out. Or cranking off, you know?

Yeah, some days I just, like, can't quite figure it out. Can't deal with what's going on here. Yeah. Yeah. Accidentally starting a fire rubbing my hands together like this. What the fuck's going on with this thing? My favorite way to improvise jerk off is to only pull. That's funny. Like a magician pulling hankies out of your sleeve. I did see somebody one time.

I think maybe it was in a class or something with our pal, Will Hines, who's been on the show. He said when you're, I think he was noting somebody in a scene. He's like, everybody does this. Everybody, when they're standing at a urinal. They gesture like they're holding the fucking biggest hog they've ever had. He's like, do you know how much funnier it is to just...

Go like this. Just like between two fingers. And I was like, that is funnier. An improviser that Nick and I used to work with all the time, this guy Jim Woods, he would very often do the very small penis at a urinal. He also, his way of jerking off in a scene was straight down. A maniac. So funny. That's incredible. I remember Jim was doing a scene that I still remember where it was like he was like a vet treating a spider and then the spider went into like cardiac arrest.

He was doing CPR on a spider with two fingers. And then he's like, it's not working. He tried to jack it off. It's a little invisible, like, spider-sized spider. Then he's trying to blow it. I saw that guy in a scene. I saw that guy in a scene in Amsterdam. Somebody rang the door and like a doorbell, you know, and improvised giving him a pizza. And he goes, thank you very much. Threw it on the ground, stomped on it. I love that shit. I love just silly people having fun.

is fucking great. That rocks. And you can't see the work we're doing because this is an audio podcast. That's true. On 1085 AM. Yeah, that's right. 10 85 a.m the jizz cages i think because i was a kid and i listened to the radio so much i like wanted to be on the radio so bad i did want to be on the radio i thought the radio was like the place to be and then eventually the radio now now it's like you can be the radio and you're

You have a bigger audience than a podcast for like a lot of the – a lot of these terrestrial radio shows have like absolutely massive listenerships in terms of raw numbers. But it's just like a relevance thing. It's like – the difference between having a network TV show and like, you know, a prestige show on HBO Max. More people are watching Blue Bloods on CBS than are watching, you know.

What's the what's the white lotus? You know what I mean? Or a white lotus is in the zeitgeist. I have a question about that, which is that I don't know. I feel like the zeitgeist, as is defined by online presence. actually isn't the zeitgeist. Like, I think when I see the numbers for shows like Yellowstone or whatever, and they dwarf everything, I'm like, the true, it's not the true America, but the true public.

The most popular song on television, if it were, is, is it were, as it were, if it was, I don't care, is a thing that we just don't. listen to sure yeah yeah and i don't think that makes it less popular and i certainly don't think that makes it less zeitgeisty i think people in our little online circle just aren't talking about it's like how mad men was topping out at 500 000 viewers a week and it's like yeah i I was releasing YouTube videos with bigger numbers. Right. We all like it's.

And it's interesting, like, because we also have our own, like, little gated ecosystems now. And so, like, I think, like, like a lot of, like, for instance, the country music, which is, like, enormously popular, like, just in our circles is just. Kind of we don't hear we don't hear a ton about, but it's like it's so fucking. Yeah, I guess I don't know how to characterize it. I guess I am thinking in terms of like what the the media.

like outlets that I consume, you know, are talking about. But, you know, like, what is that? That's also like self-selected. I do think, yeah, the zeitgeist is probably not dictated by the size of the audience of the thing, but the medium it's discussed on. yeah right so like oh interesting like millions and millions of people watch a second spin-off of the big bang theory called

George and Mandy's first marriage. Wait, that's a Big Bang Theory spinoff? Yes. What's it about? It is about Sheldon's brother. Sheldon's brother? Yeah, young Sheldon's brother. As a young guy? Yeah. Young Shelton's brother getting married. Yeah.

Young Sheldon's brother's not on Big Bang Theory. I don't think he is. No, he is. He appears. He's Jerry O'Connell. Oh, he's Jerry O'Connell. Hey, if you can get Jerry O'Connell on your show, that fucking rules. I like Jerry O'Connell. He's awesome. Good guy. But wait, hold on. So on. But it's not Jerry O'Connell and George and Mandy's first marriage. No, it's some young guy.

I wonder if Jerry O'Connell gets residuals for helping establish the character. For originating the character, yeah. Oh, interesting. I hope so. But wait, the premise of this is by the end, it's like a reverse How I Met Your Mother. By the end, they get divorced.

It was a tough example because I actually don't know anything about this show at all. But to illustrate, I brought it up to illustrate a point. That's a show that none of us know anything about, but millions of people watch this show. But I would imagine that the size of like the reddit community is

Either non-existent or small. I think that the only place where the zeitgeist aligns with, and I'm going to wrap it back up to our show, the zeitgeist aligns with what people are playing is video games. Yes. If people are talking about the video game, it is also a big hit. Yeah. Like there are not video game like I know you guys don't specifically talk about Fortnite, but it's certainly online.

Fortnite is spoken about and is a massive hit. It's not like everybody was talking about blueprints, but it didn't sell even 20,000 copies. You know what I mean? Sure, but I do think there are games that are absolutely massive that don't get discussed much. Like I imagine like a Clash of Clans is like played by so many more people. Or Genshin Impact. Yeah, exactly. These games are like absolutely fucking massive.

And so – and also I think like the Call of Duties kind of get short shrift in the gaming press because they're just like coming out everywhere. The Maddens and the FIFAs of the world get a little bit less talk and those are games that are like played a ton. So I think it just depends. Somebody's gonna be so mad. Somebody's gonna be like, I talk about...

Call of Duty all day, all the time. I don't care. I don't care. Let him be mad. It's fine. It's okay. Let him be mad. I don't care. Let him be mad. I don't care. I'm talking about like if you go to like, you know, if you're looking at gaming, the gaming press, if you're looking at just kind of like what people are actually talking about. And also I think there is something to.

There's a different sort of fandom for something like that, you know, versus like the kind of people who, again, would like go super deep in Reddit threads. And again, the Call of Duty Reddit is probably absolutely massive. Yeah, it's probably locked down. I mean, I get like.

Is it Battlefront? I get Battlefront clips on my timelines all the time of somebody jumping out of a fucking plane, bazooka-ing another plane, and then getting in that plane. I get that shit all the time. But it's all bubble.

stuff though right like like it's you're gonna be fed stuff that like you don't maybe have like a passing interest in that necessarily but because you like video games and these are like popular clips that's gonna make its way toward you versus something like country music or this show that I mentioned a second ago that I've not heard of Mandy's first marriage. Yeah.

or just like anything like that. People love the new Matlock, and I just don't know a single person that watched it. Yeah, I've heard the new Matlock's good. I'm happy that it's- Is it a fucking girl? Did they make Matlock a girl? It's Kathy Bates. They did, they made it awoke. Un-fucking-believer. I fucking knew it. I knew it. But I think the thing about it. I fucking knew it. I think if I have.

By the way, that was my line. I'm now red-pilled. Welcome to the resistance. You know, like the guy I saw in the Dodge Ram driving over with a bumper sticker that said, not woke. Dude, we saw your truck. Kind of a hat on a hat, buddy.

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Are you seriously gonna miss out on Alienware's biggest gaming sale of the year? I mean, these are Black Friday prices we're talking about, so it's not just another sale, you dummy! I took a look and this is some pretty big bang for your buck. You know, it's Alienware with some of the most advanced engineering out there with systems at the top of reviewers list. And what about a gift for yourself? Gift. Yourself.

A new Alienware 16 Aurora gaming laptop. I mean, this thing's got performance at the absolute next level with Intel Core processors. And even better, you can get it during Black Friday starting at, listen to this, starting... at, are you ready? Listen to what I'm going to say. Starting, are you prepped? Starting at $899.99. Plus, you can save on all kinds of displays and accessories like the Alienware 32 4K QD OLED gaming monitor for ultimate visual fidelity.

These really are incredible deals on PCs with otherworldly performance. So I'd visit Alienware.com slash deals soon and grab what you can before their biggest sale of the year goes dark. I've seen so many Cybertrucks this week. I thought, I thought I had, I thought Cybertrucks had crested and I wasn't going to see them anymore. I've seen so many fucking Cybertrucks this week. You're at the dealership.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Every time I see one, I have this reflex that I'm not in control of anymore where I just go like this. You know what sucks? You know what sucks is that between the Cybertruck and the Optimus robot, Elon Musk is making the world I want to live in, but he's an awful fucking person. So I don't get to indulge myself in any of these.

crazy things. He's like, I'm also doing all this other bad stuff, but this other stuff, yeah, no. Like, like the Optimus is the- Is this a new thing? It's his robot that he's, that he's gonna make. I built something because people have decided they don't want to fuck me anymore. So I'm going to fuck this thing. Well, there's like this week there was this big robot that announcement called the Neo. Yes. Where they're like the Neo. Yeah. Where it's like.

20 grand. You get one next year. It can do your laundry. It can wash your dishes. It can walk around your house. But also... Damn, that's all. Also... For Coho's a robot. It is potentially remote operated by an off-site person. Oh. Well, who's in like a VR helmet. If the task is too complicated, if it's like, hey, I need you to sort these cards. Then it gets booted into a real person and the real person sorts the cards, which is.

Unethical. Yeah. But what I'm saying is. Hey, I need you to shake this corn dog. Sort of near your mouth kind of. I'm going to put a blindfold on you, robot, because I don't want you to see how gross my corn dog is. He's only doing it this way. Only pulling. But that is the conceptual extension of the AIBO, which was Sony's dog that it released in, like, 99 in 2003 or whatever, right? Like, that's...

The dream is to have a robot walking around your house that does shit, right? I kind of don't want a robot. I do so fucking bad. Here's the thing. We have a fucking Roomba, and I think it's a pain in the ass. I was like, sometimes it's easier just to vacuum. You gotta dump it out. There's all sorts of maintenance you have to do. There's all sorts of things you have to replace. There's more shit that you have to maintain than- Wow.

on an actual... vacuum and then also it's like things like like it's just like like Roomba is stuck it's like okay I thought this thing was automated now I gotta go find this thing I gotta flip it open flip it over I gotta like pull some like you know hair out of it or whatever the fuck just got a dog stuck in a trash can in his house So I don't know. I mean, I could see it being more one of those things where it's more trouble than it's worth. It's like the sort of thing when you read about.

All the appliances that came about in the mid 20th century, all the things like dishwashers and washing machines. um and what have you that like like this stuff actually made housework take longer because what happened is the standard for the expectations

for housework became higher because it was automated. It was like, well, now you should be able to do more. You know, we should, like, things should be at a higher level. This is a tangent that we certainly don't have time to go down, I think. I wonder what the last... most necessary invention was. The last invention that had a net good... Air conditioning. Yeah, it probably was air conditioning. You're absolutely right. I think air conditioning might have been a net bad. For the environment?

Yes, bad for the environment and also led to a bunch of people moving to areas where it was really energy efficient. Like it's like the gigantic populations in, for instance, Arizona. No offense to our Arizonans out there. but it's not a particularly efficient place for people to be living. It is interesting. Like, I bet you have to go back further than you think to find the most, the last necessary thing we actually like needed. I think.

I think the telephone probably helped. Yeah. The telephone feels pretty good. But now look what the phone is now. The phone's bad now. Well, yeah, the phone is bad now. But I mean like the old school wired telephone where you could call somebody, you know. But you could argue that it. That killed Violet Evergarden's job. That did kill Violet Evergarden's job. I forgot about the toll it took on Violet Evergarden at the telephone. Here I am singing its praises, and yet look what it did.

Unemployment line? What is soup? This is all references to our sister show, Get Animated. We watched a show about a weird lady. We watched a show about a very slow time in the world where you wrote letters and had somebody else write them for you. Well, I think you're kind of characterizing it in a negative way. It was the auto time of auto memory dolls when they would.

people would be enlisted in a time when not everyone was literate. I can't believe you remember the term auto-memory doll. I enjoyed the show, okay? Sorry for liking Violet Evergarden. I thought the last movie I didn't love the ending of, but I thought overall it was a very satisfying series. Let's not forget. There was a romantic subplot that had an age gap and a power dynamic too, okay? That was also part of it. Are you talking about...

The major? She loved the major. She loved the major who was effectively her boss. Yeah, yeah. And her dad. And her dad. Ah, great. All right. All right. This is the show. Anyway, back to my breakfast. Oh yeah. So I had a, so I was just like one of those things where I was just like, what am I going to fucking have? And I opened it up the fridge and I had like half of a leftover turkey sandwich. So I'm just like having a fucking.

turkey and cheese sandwich with like old lettuce at like 7.30 a.m. That's not nothing. You could do worse than that. You could do worse, but it was the kind of thing I'm just like, I guess I'm just going to eat this because I got to eat it at some point. I think you're right, Heather. We were saying something. Before we started, something's in the air. I had my breakfast today. It was the same breakfast I eat pretty much every single day. A chicken sausage, some spinach, an egg.

and a piece of toast. Jesus Christ. I think you get four different items there. Yeah. And Ezekiel, like a piece of Ezekiel bread. Wow. What, do you saute that spinach? What do you do with that? I do, yeah, yeah. Fucking hell, man. But I couldn't eat it today. You couldn't eat it. Like I ate some of it and was just kind of like, ah. I think I was just like stressed out about the week or whatever. Just like work stuff. But like I was just like.

I gotta eat this. I was sort of eating it just to eat it, and then I was like, I don't even want this anymore, and then I just left. I have the same thing I have every day, which is a single piece of sourdough bread covered in organic peanut butter and manuka honey. Yeah. And a cup of coffee. And that's my breakfast. Sounds real fun. I did have my espresso today and I loved it. Yeah, good. God, espresso's so good. Ranch, breakfast check? Greek yogurt, muesli, muesli.

I think it's muesli, yeah. And blackberries. Oh, okay. That sounds pretty good. That's good. That's good. Yeah, but I was doing yogurt breakfast pretty consistently for a while. Then I pivoted to cottage cheese breakfast. Always with some sort of berry. Always with some sort of fruit accompaniment. So I was like having like yogurt and fruit.

and then I was having cottage cheese and fruit, and now I'm in an oatmeal phase, and that's mostly what I've been doing. Oh, I love oatmeal. Love oatmeal. It's a little cooler in the morning, so nice to have something a little warm in the morning. It is nice, and it's a little heartier. I kind of also find myself wanting...

Usually I'm, I'm, I'm fueling before I go to the gym and I want some carbs. I don't know if that's the most efficient thing. Like, I don't know if that's like, but, but I just like, I find if I don't do that, my energy dips a little bit. There's probably like a better way, like a better pre-workout meal to eat. But I just, I find myself wanting a little bit of carb.

So I usually have some oatmeal with a banana tossed in that sumbitch. Oatmeal used to be my pre-boxing workout meal all the time. But then I pivoted to sourdough toast. I got a good toaster and so I love using my toaster. Toaster's really good. Toasters are good. Yeah. Maybe that was the last invention that was really necessary. Toaster's pretty good. I wonder when the toaster came about.

I'm trying to think of what else happened in the 20th century. There's a lot of telecommunications, obviously. You could argue the microwave, maybe. Microwave sucks. I don't think the microwave's good. Microwave sucks. Yeah, and I think it's just lowered the overall quality of home food, led to a lot of ultra-processed meals and shit. Can't even heat up a Hot Pocket the right way. Yeah, I think microwaves are probably a net negative, even though they're convenient. Let's see. You got...

I mean, any sort of like electricity infrastructure. Maybe like electric rail. Yeah. It's either that or like the Switch 2. Switch 2. You know, Switch 2 is a good answer. So that was what, 2025? Yeah, that was earlier this year. Actually, yeah, maybe not so far back. So I guess we're doing pretty good. Yeah, actually, everything's perfect. The countdown is on. Holiday shopping season is officially here.

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I did have one thing I want to talk about before we get into games, which is. Really? I did. I have one thing. This is games related. And this is something that maybe has been discussed in the podcast at some point. I don't remember it. And it was new to me. So anyway, obviously in the news this week. week as of this record. We'll see what happens. Maybe there's a complete stock market crash by the time this episode is out a couple of days from now. But NVIDIA is now valued at over $5 trillion.

And it's something like 10% of the S&P 500. It's just like it's such a bubble. There's so much of the U.S. economy isn't this one company because of AI speculation. And it's just crazy that we went from, you know. high-end PC graphics cards to crypto mining to this. Now it's like the backbone of the economy. I was looking into NVIDIA a little bit and I found this 2025 Yahoo article.

Nvidia nearly went out of business in 1996 trying to make Sega's Dreamcast GPU. Instead, Sega America's CEO offered the company a $5 million lifeline. I'll read some from this article. So how exactly did NVIDIA end up getting such a reprieve from Sega? It stems from the history of the Sega Dreamcast, which initially Sega went to NVIDIA to develop the GPU for. While NVIDIA's following work in...

Low-power GPUs may have helped the company make more power-efficient chips down the line. These low-power graphics were ultimately not up to the spec that Sega needed for the cutting-edge Dreamcast ahead of its 1998 release. Thus, the conclusion of the Sega NVIDIA contract seemed to be doomed to failure for both parties. NVIDIA had spent lots of time and money on R&D and had nothing acceptable to show for it, which put NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang in the unenviable position.

Still the CEO, by the way. He wound up coming clean to Sega about not having their needed graphics hardware, but still asked for a payment despite this. And ultimately, NVIDIA was still paid for its failed attempt at making the Dreamcast GPU thanks to then CEO of America, Shoichiro. So Iramajiri, the answer picked by Iramajiri and Sega wound up being a $5 million investment into NVIDIA. This investment was cashed out for $15 million afterward.

helping keep Sega stable as the company departed the console business. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. Sega gave NVIDIA a lifeline, kept the company afloat, and as such, they were able to parlay that into a... $10 million gain, which kept the company going. What we are, though, looking at is a fortune globe. What do you call those? Sliding doors moment? Orb. A sliding doors moment where... We're looking into an orb, yeah. Where Sega... Where Sega...

received financing from another source after making the initial investment in NVIDIA and then cashed out once it's a multi-trillion dollar company. Yes. And then became the dominant hardware on planet Earth. Release the like headset that was like light as glasses. Yeah. And then like let you see through walls. Put this on and you can run as fast as Sonic. What if, guys? What if? What if?

I don't know, Wild. The Dreamcast, such a pivot point of history. Yeah. And people look to it, not just for stuff like this. You can always trace back any sort of historical moment straight back to the Dreamcast. Yeah, right. Yeah. People are always talking about it. Yep. Why Ellen got canceled, right? That was part of it. That was a big part of it. Ellen. Actually, I mean, it's a lot of the people that got canceled. It's all going back straight to the Dreamcast.

What else? I'm thinking of horrible examples that I shouldn't say. I was going to say, every joke I can come up with would actually get me arrested here in our new America. All right, let's get to what we're supposed to be doing here. Let's talk about the video games we're playing now. It's time for What Are You Playing? What are you playing? What are you playing? Hey, it's me, the Resident Evil Merchant, and I'm here with my friends.

Talking about what they're playing, and I'm talking about what they're playing by asking them what they're playing. Very comprehensive. Yeah. Very good. Very well done, R.E.M. A. What? B. R. C. What?

I was helping you. You look like you didn't know what the next letter was. So I was just trying to help. What are you talking about? Nevermind. Well, so here, here's the whole thing with pattern making. You don't know until you get to the third one. I hear a B. I naturally assume C is coming next, but who knows? It could go back to a again. Who's talking about what?

Never mind. You did A, what, B, R. It sounded like you were going to say C, U, D, plan. That would be my assumption. B, no, C comes after B, not R. Yes. A, B, is it R? It's kind of one of these situations where I don't know if I'm allowed to be upset. I mean, W, X, Y, Z. You can be upset, but maybe it's not appropriate to express it. Yeah, you're right. You're right. What? C does come after B. Sequentially in the alphabet, R.

We're not referring to the letter R. No. We're referring to its homophone, the word R, spelled A-R-E. I'm so fucking lost. It's okay. It's okay. Why don't we just – we'll just – look. Why don't you start over? Land the plane. Land the plane. All right. All right. What are you playing? Like that. That's good. Yeah, pretty good. Actually, that was a great read. That's smooth. Maybe we'll just use that. I really appreciate you guys printing this script for me every week.

Yeah, I know. And thank you for reading the lines that we just that we just did really well. It would be I mean, like just just, you know, again, just to re up this, if you want to bring like your like an iPad or even just a phone and we can just send you a PDF, it will save us the hassle.

Okay, I got that. I got it. I got it. Yeah, and he's got a tablet, really. You guys got rice? Uh, you know, we might. We can certainly get some rice. Yeah, if there's only, I just need to be able to put my... device into my rice it's always wet before like maybe I'll show up like 45 minutes so we can hang out I don't know if rice can bring back a device from the brink of death if it's been

soaked for so long. I think it's like a time limit type of thing. I went to the, back when I used to swim at the public pool, I went to the pool to swim some laps and, You know what whatever got in like a good like like I like a good long stretch. I was in the pool for a while. I love this story. Yeah. Anyway, I got out felt something in my pocket

The story so far is that he went to the pool and swam laps. I went to the pool and swam some laps. I was in the pool with warming up and everything and cooling down. I was in there for about 45 minutes. I get out. I feel something in my pocket. My phone. Your whole phone. My phone in my pocket the entire time. Just immersed in like chlorinated water. Wow. Did it work? No, it was. It was. No, it was fucking dead.

Some of the new phones, some of the new phones you can, I was at, I was in Palm Springs with a bunch of my friends as I typically go once a year in the summer times. That's right. um i actually don't know i i can't actually i can't sign off on that um because i don't know i actually don't know that to be true um i can i can't speak on it but my a friend of mine we were all drinking in the in the pool and stuff oh yeah a friend i mean i was

Y'all know me. I was slamming beers. There you go. Just like crushing beers. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And a friend of ours dropped his phone in the pool and nobody knew. But like at some point later. all of us were like, hey, there's a fucking phone down there. Whose phone is that? And our buddy was like, oh, that's my phone. And he pulled it out, and it just worked normal. Wow. How long was it in there for? I mean, nobody knows. We have no idea. It didn't just get down there.

But it was down there like flat. I need a new phone. I need one of these water phones. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is this water coming out of me? Do you have like a special case or anything? Inside of my phone. Yeah. And I don't, the screen is dry. Yeah. The inside is wet. Okay. Is it possible? It's like it's one of those little toys with little floating rubber rings. What is that? And like two buttons. I don't know what that is. I'll get you one. You will? I'll get you one. I'll make a call on anything.

Call my friend. I don't know. Speaking of. Thank you so much, Resident Evil 4 Merchant. I'm going to make this brief. I'm almost done with Pokemon Legends ZA. Oh, almost done. I'm ranked D. Actually, I think right now I'm ranked C, which means I only have three more ranks to go, and then I'm assuming it's done. There's a lot to be said about this game, I think. Oh. Is it completely bad? I would say no. I think in terms of the way it looks, yes. You sound like a hostage. Here's just what I think.

I want to save my judgment, my full judgment for it once I've finished it. Where I'm at currently, I would like to be done. I would like to be done with it. It is, I think for my money, and this is rich. for a Pokemon game. It's a little bit too repetitive for me. Oh boy. Wow. It's a little, I wish there was just more to do. Like, I mean, there, there's a lot to, there's like side quest stuff that I'm just like kind of at this point fully ignoring because it's a lot of like,

get this Pokemon with this specific move. And I'm like, I'm just like not interested really in catching a bunch of the same kinds, hoping to find the right one with the thing or whatever. Rank battling online is extremely fun. I think that is probably the best part of the game. But even that sort of has its limit because I'm going to get to rank A online and then when the season starts over.

do that again, just keep doing that, maybe. But the stories in these games are always, what do you call it? They're like, Red Bear? Yeah, they're just kind of like nothing. They don't have any stakes ever. It just kind of just feels like, you know, and I'm a nearly 35-year-old man. These games are for babies, so they don't necessarily need like a gripping story.

at all but like there's just so many great games with great stories that it's kind of just like you know it sucks that the franchise hasn't grown up to a certain degree it's got me wanting to check out this new Digimon game everyone's saying that this new Digimon game is eating

Pokemon ZA's fucking lunt. I've heard this about the Digimon game. Yeah, yeah. I downloaded the demo on my Steam Deck, so I'm going to see what that's about at some point. But I'm just kind of like, I don't think this is even like my least favorite. of the switch uh pokemon games but it's just kind of like it's just not it it's just i liked arceus the best yeah and that was like a high watermark and is in the top

of like the franchise to me. And I just don't think this one clears it. I just, it's just, it's a little worse, uh, than that version of it. But I, I hope to finish it soon so I can get back to my beloved, uh, this is the thing. I stopped playing games. I fucking love. Yeah. to play this. And so it kind of feels like I want to finish it because I know that there's not much left. So I wasn't going to drop it completely. It's a compulsion at this point. Yes, it is. I have a disease.

But I'll hopefully get back to Silksong and Ghost of Yote very soon. That's my update currently. I kind of want it to be done. Okay. Heather, what are you playing? Well, I've got a few updates across a bunch of different fronts. One, I continue to play The Ghost of Yote. I played it so much that I bought myself a beginner's shamisen. Hell yeah. I'm going to learn how to play shamisen.

I don't know how long I will play Shamisen. Maybe it will only be for a few months. And then I'll be like, this was not for me. Or maybe you'll see me being the extremely awkward white woman. at the Japanese Cultural Center during like Shamisen night. Yeah. Who knows? Why not? Probably not the latter. But yeah, playing Ghost of Yote.

Love that sweet spot that I found with the difficulty. I actually had a clip that I was going to show you guys where I go through like a little barricade and another character's talking to me as we're like raiding a thing. And she goes, Atsu! And then I'm just stabbed and die. And I'm like, that's so emblematic of what the game has become for me. If somebody gets a drop on me, it's done. There's nothing I can do. Love it.

Two, this is the one-year anniversary of Pokemon the Card Game Pocket. Wow. Huge quality of life update was released today as a record, along with a new booster. They have made it possible for players who have missed. bonus cards in the past to access the chance to get them by engaging in the current event. So that's a real quality of life for people who are like missing those one card in a bonus set.

They've made trading easier. They've made it so you can give cards to your friends. Oh, nice. So you don't even have to do the trade. You can just be like, hey, bro, I know you need this card. What else have they done? They made like just UI improvements. Really excited to sort of dig in. I played it for a while today. Had a had a blast. I'm like, really? I'm surprised that a year later I'm still playing a card game. Wow.

This weekend, The Simpsons comes to Fortnite. Oh, yeah. As of right now, in the last 50 hours left of Fortnite's current season, season six, whatever, the aliens from The Simpsons, those little guys. Canyon Codos. Those dudes. Uh, they're flying up beside the battle bus and like, uh, making fun of it. I saw something. Yeah. Fortnite. Fortnite's pretty good. I've got, I, I, I got one for you, which is what the ad campaign is.

Which is that Bart is spray painting over the signs, like the signs in New York Times Square. What are the union stations and stuff? Yeah. And so he's spraying an A. So it's his fart night. Pretty good. And then he signs that El Barto was here. That Barto is one step ahead. That's good stuff. Yeah. So it's Fart Night is the next season. Fart Night. So though I am not a fan of The Simpsons, I just missed that.

Bus. Yeah. I am excited to get on the battle bus and see what that season has to offer. And then finally, finally, I got goods to show you guys. Oh. Heather's got goods. I got goods. So this last summer I pre-ordered. The Death Stranding 2 ring from, I think it's Anicorn. Anicorn and Kojima Productions. And it comes in this fantastic drawbridge wrapper that has all the barcodes and shit on it. And then the drawbridge steel case.

Um, here's the thing, boys. I have to treat this like it is a, um, like the way that when you buy a limited edition or premium edition of a game, you get like an... item that you don't necessarily use but instead sort of appreciate. Yeah, sure. Because this ring is so much larger than I expected that it is unwearable for me. Oh, sure. And not larger. It's adjustable. Yes. But it turns out that the ring itself, as is mapped in the game, which is a full metal replica of the thing, is just a...

A massive fucking ring here. Yeah. The container it's within is kind of like a, you know, like a thing of a container of shoe polish or like a container of. you know, pomade or like one of those stubby Pringles cans. It's pretty substantial. And then the ring is a big honker. Yeah, it's a giant ring. That's some bitches. Matt has it on his thumb and is giving it a thumbs up. It's very cool. It glows in the dark and it has an NFC code.

built-in or a thing where you tap it to like a phone or whatever and it brings up a website the website is just the ring and like kojima productions like it doesn't do anything but people are talking about hacking that so that it brings you to something else like a ui or whatever yeah It is really cool. I will say that the way it clasps, which is kind of like a hairband, it folds in on itself. Yeah, it has little hinges. It hinges. It doesn't slide down like a traditional ring.

So it feels a little bit flimsy. But the nice thing is you can expand its circumference. You want to put it on your hog. Give that ring back to me right now. I'm saying it's an option. Just give it back to me. It's happened at this point. I think I'd have to close it a little bit. The thing about this, though, is that I wish if there was a ring like this. Yeah. That was like a phone. Your phone was the ring. Yeah. I would just have that. Right. I wouldn't have.

I wouldn't have... Matt, I hate that. What do you mean? I don't want a phone fucking ring. I'm gonna be looking at my ring the whole day. You give your thumbs up, you get a little sort of like... You get a little HUD. Yeah, a little HUD. Like an AR screen. An AR screen of some kind. You also have glasses. I'm gonna look at my fucking thumb all the time. I'm gonna look at my ring. Yeah, but I'm gonna look at my ring. Thumbs up. I know you didn't play as much Death Stranding 2 as us.

Every time you pause the menu to look at the menu, he gives a thumbs up and it goes like, it's POV thumbs up. It just made me feel so good the entire time I was playing it. Just like every time, just like, I gotta open the menu. If I just had all my stuff, I would like my life would be better I feel like you'd just be staring at that getting angry because you just be like reading headlines Yeah, exactly

Yeah, I guess I just want it to have the social strand system so I could talk to everybody. I'd talk to you guys on there. I would do then a map. I mostly just wanted to have a map and then maybe a phone. I don't need to have like the news on it or something. It would just be on there. It's just like how like what like now I open Apple Maps just has fucking ads in it now. You just can't get like it's just inescapable. I wish that this ring.

I wish it had like a USB rechargeable LED in it. Because I do wish that the light was brighter. I like that it glows in the dark, but ultimately... Like when I look at this ring, what I have is something that's going to sit on my shelf next to my BB. And that's all it's going to be. Yeah. Whereas I was really hoping to wear it. Like I had a vision of wearing it the way that like.

The characters wear that ring around. Do you think you might try wearing it? You haven't taken it out for a spin, I'm guessing. No, I have. You have? I have. I wore it around the house. And kept giving Mary a thumbs up and she's like, okay. Yeah, that's basically what I would do too. And it's just a little bit unwieldy. It's just a little too chunky. I guess I don't need a...

Special ring to annoy my wife. But it helps. But it helps. It's easier. It's a faster way to do it. Give my wife a thumbs up as she packs a cardboard box. Like!

Yeah. I think it's really, really cool. Not that I'm encouraging that. The ring? I was like, that would be the reaction. No, she would, yeah, she would be doing that. I think what's great about the ring is the manufacturing of the ring is... like it's pristine it's the you you sometimes will order something like this and it's like the keyblade from what and you get it and it's like you can see the seams where they like

melted it together and like it's just not like it doesn't have the quality of the actual item as you conceive of it this is I mean, other than the fact that the screen doesn't work, that's the ring. Or even if it was just like. That's metal and it's heavy. A collaboration with like, you know, the aura ring or something. Like if it had some functionality. Right, right. That'd be so, that'd be great. Well, the.

The fake windows that I have were also had a Death Stranding collab. That's right. And you can look at the windows and see like the landscape of the first game. And that's really nice. Yeah. And that's the sort of. I don't know. That's the kind of collab I like. Yeah, totally. Yeah. Can I ask a question? Sure. What do y'all think about ring guys? Like guys who wear a lot of rings. Guys who wear a lot of rings? I don't know. That's not for me. I don't know. I mean, I think it can be a good look.

But it definitely is like, that's a choice. You're a ring guy. I had never worn a ring before until I got married, of course. So I thought I was going to be very resistant. to the way it feels, but I just didn't notice it 10 minutes after wearing it, basically. I think there's a certain type of, it depends on the fingers, doesn't it? I think three fingers for rings are safe. For guys, there's like a power move thumb guy, power move pinky guy. Yeah. And it's tough.

You got the one on the index. Yeah, I have an oral ring that I have to switch from index finger to index finger because my hands swell when I get warm, which is also why I'm currently not wearing my wedding rings. Because it's too hot in the studio, and so it cuts off my circulation when we record. Yeah. I think that's okay. Yeah, pinky and thumb, it's kind of tough stuff. Ranch, what's the ring count?

For a boy? No. Well, for you and then for like in general, how do you feel about ring guys? I don't usually wear rings because they annoy me. Yeah. I like how they look on women, on men. Getting like a Pirates of the Caribbean vibe. It's like they're... They're bad. Not a good way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're like cover for it. Straight up saying they're bad. Yeah. They're like, it's like, they're either a magician or a creep guy. Too many drinks at lunch kind of a guy.

The one thing, one exception I will say is, and also like whenever listeners are ring guys, hey, God bless you. Do whatever you want. No. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm saying it for myself. Rank says no. Yeah. I guess ring guys aren't welcome according to our producer at Shelton Ranch. Turn it the fuck off. I think there is a place. Ring guy tears streaming down his face. There's a place at which your aura.

outpaces the rings yeah and like if you're like that kind of a guy then it doesn't matter yeah but that's a rare that's a rare venn diagram overlap you know the ultimate ring guy is sonic Sonic is kind of the ultimate ring guy, so it's a good point, Matt. And, you know, he's never really outpacing the rings because he's running right into them and getting them for himself. No, he can't get enough of them. Yeah. You're shaking your head like, you mean no, but you also...

Guy didn't have to admit that I'm right. Because I am right. And it's okay. Yote, you're still having a ball with. Having a ball with Yote. You put a substantial number of hours into it at this point. Oh, yeah, yeah, because I've been waking up at 5.30 in the morning from errors in sleep and playing until I go to work in the morning. Wow. So I've gotten, I think I'm above 50 hours now. Because it's typically too early for me to write at 5.30. Yeah. But I can have coffee and play Ghost of Yote.

So, yeah, I don't know, murking my way across the landscape. Wow. It's fucking great. Wow. How about you, Nick? What are you playing? Heather, thank you so much for asking. I enjoyed asking. Yeah. I like being asked. Okay, great. Nick, what are you playing? Matt, I liked hearing that too. Didn't like it as much, but that's okay. No, I also liked it. I liked it too. I liked both versions. It wasn't a competition and I wasn't trying to win or anything. Fuck. Ranch? What are you playing?

See, that one was working for me. Okay, interesting. Okay. Interesting that mine's last somehow. You did good. You did a good job. Everyone did great. What are you playing? Tell us. Thanks for asking, Matt. I've been playing a game that I've been anticipating for some time that is on PC Game Pass from Obsidian The Outer Worlds 2. Now, I really enjoyed Outer Worlds 1, which came out back in 2019, which I...

I can't believe you're one of our podcast. I just like that's fucking that made me want to. edit but like the i was i i would just just like that was one of those things where man the slow decay of time that was like pre-pandemic and then the all like like six years happened an hour with part two but but i did like part one was a little bit less.

Robust than this game, which is which feels like a straight up triple A game. It has it's a much more expansive design as higher production values and apparently had a development cycle that was about twice as long. So it is a it is a meaty boy that feels. very polished, and is, you know, I've heard some performance issues, but it's running pretty well on my gaming PC so far. I love the writing and the acting. It has this satirical tone.

which is obviously, you know, it's coming from some creators of Fallout. Also, you know, like it evokes Bioshock to some degree, like also with its aesthetics. But it's that sort of thing. Like basically, if you want to call this game, these games. And I know people know this and I know people are playing this, but if you're not familiar, if you want to basically characterize this as Fallout in space, you really wouldn't be wrong. That's pretty much what it is.

And so it's kind of like like fallout grafted onto mass effect. OK. Right down to like you having like a kind of a ship that you're flying around in that you can go to two different biomes, which are represented by planets here. But yeah, it's like genuinely funny. It's got like a ton of interesting dialogue options that are like feel substantially different. It feels like a, you know. Like, uh, uh, uh, and, uh...

Like a game, like I'm not saying it's necessarily on this tier yet as I'm playing it, but like a Disco Elysium or a Baldur's Gate 3 type of thing where it feels like, oh, these are substantial choices that change how the game is played and it feels like I can really, you know, role play. this thing as far as going through these dialogue trees. And hey, I love when people remember things.

Don't you love that in a game when someone will remember this? Yeah. I do. I do like it. Yeah. Even if it's a choice that I was not proud of because I'm like, I'm interested narratively how they're going to be upset with me later. Right. Yeah. That's my only experience of playing these games. So the character creation in Outer Worlds 2 is really fun.

Obviously, me being me, as I've talked about before, one of the default options was pretty much good to go physically. I basically just changed the facial hair and eye color. And then there we go. I was looking in a mirror. But it's also one of those games where it's like cyber. punk, it's an FPS. So for me, I didn't want to spend a ton of time in the character creator. But it's fun if you want to tweak the physical aspects a little bit. What's really interesting is getting into...

Who your character is and how you're going to role play it. The character has backgrounds like as options. So you can choose like basically like are you a lawman? Were you like a professor? Were you kind of like a rogue? I went with gambler. That's awesome. Yeah, you know, you got to know when to hold them, you got to know when to fold them. Oh, fuck yeah. I'd lean into it. But no, I was like, this isn't normally what I would pick, but that feels kind of fun and it feels kind of...

like the kind of choice to make in this game. And also, you know, it reminds me of Han Solo and his famous dice. That's the thing that I was hoping you'd get to because when I think of Han Solo, well, first of all, when I think of Gambler, I think of... Han Solo first. Yes, yeah. Then I think of his famous dice. His famous dice, yeah. More than anything. I love those things. I hope he made it a canto bite before he got fucking iced by.

I hope that. Kylo Ren, because he would have loved it. Maybe they did like a sort of family vacation before things went south. That would have been fun. Can you imagine how cute that would be? Like you're taking little Ben Solo, Leia, and Han, young parents going to Canto Bight. And you know Chewie's there too.

You know, Chewie's going to tag along. Yeah, he's part of the family. Do you think that's maybe part of, I know that like they sort of made it so that like, you know, Kylo, Kylo Ren, Ben Solo going to the dark side was sort of like the big thing. that Leia and Han's relationship couldn't stand? Yeah. Do you think maybe, I don't know.

Chewie being around so fucking much that they could never have a moment to themselves. It was kind of like a Fableman sort of situation with Seth Rogen. Like, who's this guy just lingering all the time? What's going on? Wait a minute. I got to watch some home movies to get to the bottom of this. Yeah. Ben Solo just watching.

He watches what? The Empire Strikes Back? He's watching an 8mm film. Yeah, he's watching The Empire Strikes Back. Wait a minute. How do they have that? My mom kissing her brother. What the hell? My uncle? Anyway, so... Take your background and then from there and that affects some of your dialogue options. And then you have your traits and your traits are tangible bonuses to your character. So for me, I took two of them.

Lucky, which gives you a boost to crit chance and also gives you additional dialogue options as a lot of these do. And Brilliant, which Brilliant allows you to take an additional skill, which we'll get to in a second, or I give you an additional bonus skill. So the way traits work is that you can take one for free or you can take two, but you have to take a negative one as a tradeoff. And that is really fun. And I was just like, I kind of want to do that.

So I took lucky. I took brilliant. And then the negative traits are abrasive. Which basically gives you a charisma penalty. You can never go above neutral with any sort of faction. It's basically saying you're just annoying. Yeah. And I was just like, I just don't want to role play an annoying guy. Would have been a good fit for you, Wiker. Should have.

Weiger should have taken abrasive. Go let that person in. I don't know, but come on, leave me alone. I'm trying to live my life. Yeah. I listen to the podcast every week and Weiger is abrasive. I listen every week, so I think I can make fun of you the same way that they make fun of you on the show. Anyway, so... So you have abrasive, which is Christmas penalty. You have dumb.

Which just means you're a fucking idiot. And so and it also like limits the number of I think skills you can take bonuses from. I went with sickly and sickly sickly gives you a penalty to your health. But I was like, you know what? I'm playing this game on normal. I'm not necessarily worried about the difficulty. I think I can take like a 15% bonus to my maximum – I'm sorry, penalty to my maximum health just to mess around with another trait.

And then as far as skills go, like I took lockpicking, medical, and then observation, which just sort of like gives you more environmental cues. But again, like something like medical. as I was playing opens up a surprising number of dialogue options, which is an additional possibilities for, for solving, you know, like, like, like solving quests, solving puzzles and what have you.

So we know the drill with these sorts of games. There's a cold open slash tutorial and then a time jump. And then when you have the time jump, it's the one time you can respect. After playing. Because the rest of the game, I guess, respecs are just not a possibility. It's like you're really just locking into things, which I kind of like. As opposed to Cyberpunk, it felt like Cyberpunk 2077, which is a natural comparison for this game, even though tonally...

I guess tonally it's also – Cyberpunk is also a satire. Just like that's like more of an edgelord approach. This one's a little bit smarter and more wholesome. Yeah. And I really like Cyberpunk. We all love Cyberpunk here. Oh, yeah. But anyway, but the – That one you can you can respect endlessly. And in fact, most of these like most games like this, you can respect endlessly. Right. Like you can like sometimes there's some sort of.

a currency cost or something like that but usually you can just do whatever the fuck you can completely change your build part way through i do kind of like that like no this one you're going to role play this character and you're just going to stick with them all the way through it seems like a fun way to play it and i like just kind of committing something. However, when I did have the opportunity to respec...

Through the first section, I found lockpick to be pretty boring. And basically, since I was using the brilliant trait, what pretty much got me was the skill of lockpick because I got a bonus skill that I could pick. I was just like, I don't know if I need this. I don't know if the trade-off of being able to lockpick is worth the health penalty. So I just ditched Brilliant and Sickly and got rid of lockpick and just sort of simplified my character a little bit.

He's a lucky gambler, which feels like the kind of thing that, again, the game is sort of steering you towards, but why not lean into it? I love the palette of this game, like art-wise. I love the environmental design. I think the art direction is very strong. You know, it's not the most...

Like like absolutely technically gorgeous game on the market, but it's a good looking game with a get with again, just a just a good aesthetic. When you get to the first planet, especially just like love the way the environment looks. It's very lush. It's really just. extinct. One thing I'll say about the combat, I think it's like, you know, it's FPS combat, which is...

I think it's well executed. It seems to be fun so far. The stealth kind of feels like I'm compared to cyberpunk. Again, cyberpunk stealth. It's that not super robust. uh fps sort of like you know just line of sight stuff there's not a ton you can do with it there's there's some distractions that you can have that you can create but it doesn't feel like there's as i was stealthing my way through a big part of the early game i was just like

I don't know how much fun I'm having doing this. I feel like I'd rather just kind of start blasting. You know what I mean? I do. And also there's a... There's a piece of gear, speaking of cyberpunk, like the Sandivestin, which lets you dilate time, which is pretty fun. Hell yeah. Yeah. That's how you say it, right? Sandivestin? Sandivestin? Sandivestin? I don't know. I remember. Who remembers?

We put collectively like 600 hours into this game. We don't have to say. All three of us played it twice. We all played it twice. We all watched Edge Runners twice. It's all just like... It's all gone. All the creases are just fully smooth now. What a waste of a life. No, it's worth it. Even the dumbest... The dumbest life possible is worth it. Overall, I'm really enjoying it so far. I think it's fun, it's funny, and I think it's just a...

Just a cool, vibrant, well-fleshed-out world. I love the world building. I love this satire. I like that it lays it on thick. And because, you know, why not? It's like reality is a fucking cartoon. Would you? Oh, no, you go. And hey. If you like The Outer Worlds, be sure to check out my episode of Secret Level on Amazon Prime. That's right. Where I wrote an Outer Worlds animated short. Hell yes. With CG. Would you say the game, the second one?

is worth jumping in on if you had not played the first one. Yeah, I don't think you need to play the first one at all. Okay. I think it seems very self-contained. I am interested in it, and I think I own the first one on multiple...

platforms like because i was like oh it's on sale and it's like just always now on sale it's like ten dollars and i'll just get it like maybe i'll maybe i'll play it on this and just like oh yeah never played it yeah i bought a game on steam a sale this uh this weekend for 74 cents i was like

I guess I'll just do that. Am I going to play it? No, but 74 cents are a game. I did the same thing with Fallout New Vegas on, I bought it on Xbox because it was like $2. I was like, oh yeah, I'll just have this because I don't have Game Pass right now. If I ever feel like playing my Xbox again, maybe I'll play Fallout New Vegas, but who knows? Who knows? So that's what we're playing, right? That's right. But what about the greater world? What were they playing? It's interesting to consider.

What was the greater world playing? Yes, what was the greater world playing? I just talked about the outer worlds, but what about the greater world, meaning this blue marble we all stand upon called Spaceship Earth? Me personally, I don't think it's a marble. I think it's like a blue sheet of paper or something. Oh. Kind of like a thing of plexiglass. We're just standing on top of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just kidding.

A horrid thing to think. I think there are about a thousand worse things. Honestly, bring back flat earthers. Remember when people were concerned about flat earthers? God bless them.

Even the most benign sort of like conspiracy though is always rooted in something bad. Yeah. But yeah, at least you could sort of like be like, well, actually, no, this is a fucking globe, you idiot. This one's pretty easy to prove. I feel like if you dig like six layers deep on... basically like any conspiracy theory that's hard a heart it's just i'm racist 100 yeah i remember talking to a guy

when I was on a friend's bachelor party and he was in the Navy and I just was sitting next to him. I didn't know this guy very well, so I just asked a question that I immediately regretted because I was like, oh, maybe I don't actually know what this person thinks about this. And I just immediately, I just asked.

hey, does it bother you when people ask you if the earth is flat or not? And he goes, I've seen the fucking curve. I lived on a ship for years. I was like, all right, this is my guy. And then we got it. Wasted in Vegas. Right now, though, because I feel like that was a gauntlet that was thrown down. I do think maybe that... we didn't land on the moon is not a racist conspiracy theory.

Sure, look, I was being hyperbolic. I don't think it's true about everything. I was really going in on it. I was really going in on it, and I was like, yeah, you could make an argument that certain JFK ones are still racist because... of Lee Harvey Oswald. You can navigate your way there. Maybe the moon landing is just pure. Moon landing is base fun. That is a fun one.

I will let you have that. Oh, you don't think that it's interesting. They showed up. They showed it on the news and stuff. I mean, it's it's look again, compared to a lot of what we're dealing with, it's relatively harmless. But it is like one of those things where you're denying scientific reality.

And you're saying that the media is lying, which I'm not saying the media doesn't lie. It's always 100 percent truthful. But it's like those are those kinds of things, those sorts of doubts about institutions. are one thing that has kind of poisoned the well about discourse and politics in general. Without the conspiracy, you don't get Buzz Aldrin punching a guy. That's true. That's pretty fun. That was really funny when he did punch that guy. What about Mr. Mime is Ash's dad?

That's pretty good. That's pretty good. That one doesn't have racist undertones, does it? Well, actually, you gotta dig deep. You haven't seen what I've seen on the internet? No, no, no, no. That one seems fine. I regret saying the racist thing. I was making a joke. No, of course not. arguing a thesis to be defended. But a lot of them do go that way. I'm chewing on it. I'll say...

A lot of them do go that way. I would say 95% to 99%. I agree with you. Here's a conspiracy, a new one that I've dropped. Okay. I texted this in the group chat last night.

I think something's going on between the red M&M and the yellow M&M. They're not in commercials right now together. They're putting yellow with green. They're putting yellow with orange. What's going on? Those are the guys. There's some sort of schism going on. They're just like, yeah, the two big guys, the classic comedy duo.

from the Santa They Do Exist spots is just, they seem to have fractured. Red is plain and yellow is peanut? Yeah, that's right. Wow, I don't know the ads, but I already, it's enough of a person. perm...

It's permeated culture enough. Yeah, it's permeated enough that I know those guys. They all have their individual personalities. They do? Yeah, they're all interesting characters. Oh, right, because Yellow's dumb. Yellow's dumb. Red is kind of like a smart mouth. Oh, and there's one that's like a... A slut, read the green one? Well, hang on. I don't know if I'd call her a slut, but yes.

She's the one where you can see her vagina online. The green one is supposedly the horny one. I think it's more she makes people horny. But the brown one also makes people horny. Look, the female ones make people horny. Those are their attributes. Their sex objects. Nobody wants to fuck the male M&Ms. The blue ones or the female ones are incredibly fuckable.

That's just how it is. Is the blue one a girl, too? I think so, actually. I don't know. Is the blue one a girl? Is green, brown, and blue our ladies? You know what? I think it's just green and brown. I'm not sure about blue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then the orange is the... Blue's like...

Hey, guys! Or just caramel, right? Yeah, or just caramel. Or just caramel, yeah. Or peanut butter. I think it might depend. Anyway. They're not in the commercials right now, and I think something's going on. Yeah. And the Mars corporations... Silence on this issue is deafening. I like to hear it, and it's not an ad. It's just Appadaka talking about M&M. I've seen two different commercials where the two guys, the two stars, you wouldn't put, you wouldn't put.

You wouldn't put Garfunkel with a different guy. You wouldn't put, I'm a Mac, I'm a PC. with the verizon guy yeah you wouldn't be like i'm a verizon yeah you wouldn't do it just like you're just taking justin long like justin long is being the i'm a mac guy and he's the verizon guy you'd be like what's going on what happened between him and hodgman yeah

I'm a Mac and I'm a KitchenAid. Pass Get Play guest, John Hodgman. That's right. I'm a PC. The PC. I came on to just talk on Untitled Goose Game. Did we ever talk to him about PC gaming, actually? We should have done that. What a missed opportunity.

There's so many different sliding doors, windows, where you're thinking, this show could be good. If we had asked a question like that, that would have been great. The show is good, but it's good for different reasons. If we made Colton a fourth host. Colton, Amy, here's the thing. We'd all be...

The richest people alive. You hit your wagon to Colton Dunn, forget it. But you were teeing us up for- Yes, what about the games of the greater world? That's right. We're talking GOTY Watch, Goatee Watch 2025. I mean, Matt, how are you thinking we should go through this? I was kind of just thinking, I actually pulled up a list of just some of the big games from this year that are by many publications count.

in contention for Game of the Year. Sure. And I thought we would just kind of go through them, possibly one by one, and talk about them. Or I could just read the list right now. Let's take them one at a time. Okay. Well, the first one on the list here is on my list that I'm working off of anyway. And then I also, I thought about this real quick too. I'll just flag this as a potentiality. I have a Metacritic list.

of games released in this year by their meta score. Yes. And I just think that's just interesting data to see where we're at. The first two are, of course, I'll just read this real quick, are... Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom Switch 2 Edition and Breath of the Wild Switch 2 Edition. I don't think that counts, of course.

No, I don't think those I mean, like even if you wanted to say they were technically qualified, if we're talking about what's going to be considered the consensus game of the year. by the time this uh the move on to 2026 it is not going to be either of those no it's not going to be re-releases with upgrades yeah or a new platform if if if the the the meta scores are to be believed the highest rated game of

of this year is Hades 2. Okay, so Hades 2 is an interesting case. I love Hades 2. I loved Hades 1, one of my favorite games. And Hades 2 comes out five years later. Definitely improves upon it, iterates upon it, is already a perfectly tuned gameplay experience that is just even more expansive and refined and polished.

The thing that I think Hades 2 is missing is novelty. Like, I feel like because Hades itself won, I think, Game of the Year at the Game Awards in 2020. It was just already like such a... Or was it 2021? Whatever year it came out. I think it was 2020. I think it was. And it already has that commendation. It's kind of hard to see Hades 2 repeating.

When it is, in a lot of ways, in a very good way, and for people who are deeper into the game than me and maybe have a different take, I don't want to mischaracterize it, but... It is kind of more of the same. It is like a like a like, hey, you know, this is how do you improve upon perfection? Well, you know, it's like this is this again, just such a well crafted game. Let's just do an even.

an even better version of it. And that's what a lot of Hades 2 feels like to me. Yeah, I think, I mean, I have not completed Hades 2 yet. I'm still just, it's something I'd like to get back to. I spent...

Quite a few hours with it, though. I think at least more than 10 hours with it. Something that I think about with Hades 2 in particular is that it's a real example to me of you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Because I feel like after playing Hades 1... there was like, not maybe a groundswell, but there were probably people that were like, wow.

I loved this game so much. I wish there was more of it. I wish that there was another one I could play immediately that was just like this. And then that exact thing comes out where it is more of it and it's just like that. And it's just kind of like, okay.

Yeah, like, it's good. It's exactly as good as you wanted it to be, but like, you know, that's still sometimes not enough. That's also the curse of Death Stranding 2. Yes. Was people were like, I love Death Stranding. I want more Death Stranding. And they got a refined and elevated version of Death Stranding and Stranding 2 that continued the story. And a lot of the complaints, mine included, was that, oh, this is the same game.

And in fact, less weird. Let's come back to Death Stranding, too. Let's let's take these one at a time. But I think that's the I think there is the difference between Death Stranding. And its sequel and Hades and its sequel is that Hades was universally lauded. Yes. And Death Stranding, the first one, was a little bit more polarized in terms of its reaction, especially initially. Yeah. But Hades, too.

Hey, there's a case that it's maybe the best roguelite ever because it's a better version of Hades 1. But I just think the absence of novelty and, again, the fact that Hades 1 already kind of – you know, like, like, like, like tick that box already has that trophy. I think it will just be a little bit harder for Hades to, to repeat, but we'll see. And the thing that Hades one has over Hades two for me is. Hades 2 doesn't have DUSA. Yeah, I mean, yeah. But I mean, this is the thing.

First off, I'm not deep enough into the game where maybe do some experience. You know what? It's a good point. I'd say retract it, Matt, because you don't want to look like a fool. At this stage, I don't have enough information. I must retract.

I deeply apologize to anybody I've offended by mischaracterizing whether or not Dusa is in the game or not, and this will be in a notes app, and this is actually a good time for me to just maybe listen and learn a little bit. Yeah, bring back the notes app apology. of those guys who writes it up on an iPad and it takes a picture of it with your phone. I always like that move. I don't know how to take a screenshot, but I did have this. I was going to say the...

But you do bring up something interesting about Hades 2 specifically, which is that because it's like largely a new roster of NPCs. And people's reactions to it may partly be like, I miss my guys. I miss my old friends. You know what I mean? It's kind of like a – not exactly, but like a new Final Fantasy. It's like a whole new roster of individuals to –

And you may just have more affection for a previous cast. It would be interesting if, I mean, it'd be a completely different world, of course. If Final Fantasy was like, it's the same people every time. You get the same people. Every game, it's the same people. Well, you always got a Sid. Yeah, you always get a Sid. You know, there are some constants. Yeah. I guess it would be more like Resident Evil, I guess, where like sometimes the characters just like are back. Yeah. Shoot.

Should we do – like how – what are you thinking for this, Matt? Should we have like a list as we're going? Should we – or should we just kind of basically say whether we think it will or won't? I think there's a case for Hades 2, but I just don't think it's the front row. I have a – I just want to rush the finish line here. Yeah. And I have a spicy take. Go for it. And it's not because I thought this game was perfect. It's not because I thought that this game wasn't frustrating.

I think game of the year is blueprints. I think there's a strong case for blueprints. The thing is because certainly its initial reaction was so rapturous and it is so distinct and singular. And it is a really, really impressive achievement. And, you know, certainly indie designs are very often lauded when these commendations come down. So I could very much see it being blueprints. It's hard for me to say.

about any other game that I had an experience in that game that I had absolutely truthfully never had before. And though, obviously, you know, if you listen to our Blueprints episode, it, we... We spend more than half of that episode complaining about the shortcomings and frustrations. Yeah, people did listen to it and they did get mad. Of Blueprints. But I can't think of a game.

that I will always think back on and always remember. For example, the first time I played Demon's Souls, I was like, oh, this is a shift. Like the first time I play, you know, like the first time you play a Mario game.

You're like, oh, this is a shift. With Blueprints, I was like, there are going to be games and this is the genesis of this thing. And they're going to be... descendants of blueprints yeah i mean i had that feeling playing vampire survivors fairly recently which i talked about now obviously that's been that's become a whole thing you know like a game like ball pit owes its existence mega bong yeah exactly there's all these games it's it's uh the the you know the sort of auto shooters

genres all comes from that. So I'm sure there will be blueprints derivatives that will, you know, for sure. It was not my personal favorite game of the year. Like that's also important to say is that I think that in terms of whatever the metric is here, I'm not saying Heather's game of the year. I'm saying what was the game of the year. It's really hard for me to see.

an argument against blue. Well, get gone. I was going to say like, it does sort of like the experience of playing the game sort of does mirror mirror the year itself in a, in a certain way where like you go into one room and it's.

not what you wanted at all and you go into a different room you're like well this is worse actually and then you're like okay what are my options for another room like okay none of these help yeah this is all bad i'm just fucked i guess i'll start over actually that's the the difference you can't

Start over in this reality. I guess maybe if I go to sleep, I'll try again. You're stuck with the same shitty house now. You just wake up and you have this shitty house and that's where you live. Tonda Ross, the developer who made it solo. of love and just such an again.

We didn't necessarily personally respond to it. My big issue with blueprints is I just thought it was not respectful of the user's time, though I did put a ton of hours into it and I was transfixed by it for a while. I know a lot of people have put... 100 plus hours into it and just like like love getting super deep into the lore and figuring out absolutely every secret in this thing.

All of the lateral thinking puzzles are really impressively crafted. Just the core design, the sort of roguelike kind of. You know pipe dream sort of like building a house as you go and just sort of like like all these decision points that you have to go that you have to make like really really just like incredible stuff as far as your argument Heather.

Yeah, if we're going through these, I think Blueprints has a stronger case than Hades, too, for winning Game of the Year, just because of the novelty and also because the solo dev story is so... The kind of thing that I think the gaming press graphs onto. I saw a clip of blueprints within the last couple of days of somebody doing a puzzle that I had never seen. I played so much of this fucking game. What is this?

person doing. I've never even seen that before. They're like screwing a faucet into a rabbit. It was the grid. It was like an image of the same grid that you're... building houses on but there was a single letter at the bottom of it and it was like a letter puzzle so you have to then figure out what other letters occupy which spaces based on something I can't remember exactly what it was but then you use that to like

That's a clue somehow. Not for me. Yeah, no, no, no. Can't do that. It's the kind of thing you read about this and it's like the dude spent, the individual spent eight years making this game. And then I just rewind the clock eight years and I was like. What was I doing, man? Just imagine if I just started and I was like, hey, you know what? I'm going to spend eight years on a creative project, something that I care about and that I want to make that's going to be fully my own.

It may not have the sort of – I mean it would not have the sort of success of Blueprints because that's like such a – like it's a phenomenon and people are speedrunning this game. But it's like the kind of thing of like – I bet that would be an incredibly creatively satisfying endeavor to come out on the other side.

of it I feel like a million bucks you don't think so I disagree like when I turn in scripts I get so depressed like for like for like three days afterwards I'm in an emotional and creative crater yeah and I think that My experience of like giving birth to these fucking anything that I make. Yeah. Like if it's a show, if it's a script, if it's anything like a drawing.

I always feel so miserable on the other side. Yeah. And I think a lot about when I think a lot about the way Hideaki Anno talks about Evangelion ruining his life when I have very small. moments of creative output that then leave me miserable. And I think if I spent eight years on a project, no matter how it was received.

There's a likelihood I need to be committed afterwards. I like I, you know, when I when I finished writing something like that, I usually feel pretty satisfied. But I also like I. And same thing when I used to make videos, when I'd finish a video and finish editing a video and post it. Even if the reaction was like muted, but sometimes the reaction would be like people would love it. Heather, I know you used to make videos as well.

Like I to me, I feel I don't feel that like that sort of reaction that you have. Like I don't have that feeling of emptiness necessarily. I more necessarily I more feel like like a series like a feeling of finality and like like accomplishment. But also, so often I'm doing things that are.

just for hire. And I guess maybe that's the sort of thing you're talking about. That's the difference I guess I'm saying. Something that's purely a passion project versus something where I'm doing this for money, those are the ones where I have a little bit of emptiness afterwards. For me, I hope to have a good idea.

someday. I think blueprints more so than Hades 2. I think that's a good argument, Heather. We should also talk about Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Yes, I do want to talk about this because a lot has been made about this particular game. and this particular show, I think. How so? Because people on the Discord in particular, great community of folks. Truly, honestly, in the last couple of weeks, I will say, just as somebody who...

I think of the three of us is in there with the people. Honestly, I've just been really, honestly, touched and just blown away by the community. The people, they're all so nice in there. I thought that was going all the same way. I feel like they all... help each other in different ways too. Like somebody had an issue with...

like figuring out how to get their Patreon sorted out and the community stepped up and helped this person. I was like, this is just great. This is what you hope for when people listen to the show and get together. No, it's a wholesome community over there. I really love it. They're all really good.

Discord.gg slash getplayed, is that it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. They are really great. They're all so lovely and nice, but they piss me the fuck off when they talk about me not finishing Claire Obscure Expedition 33, and I'm like, look, sorry. I do want... It is a game that I intend to pick back up. I would love to pick it back up once... But, like, this year, there were games that... Like, because...

Clear Obscure, for me, came out of nowhere, kind of. For a lot of people, I think it took people by surprise. It's this turn-based... this turn-based French JRPG that people just were just delighted and surprised by. And I was too when we played it for the little bit that we played it. There were other games this year that I personally was more hyped for that when they came out, I had to, you know, I had to put away childish things.

How dare you? Yeah, how dare you? I think this game rocks. I'll speak for myself, and this has been a really trying year for me, both just in terms of I've gotten extremely busy, which is a great... problem to have I'm very very lucky to be to be working more but I've just like I've gone from being

uh you know like like a like very to having a lot of from having a lot of time for gaming to having minimal time for gaming so i unfortunately games like clear obscure which i normally would have devoured i've just had minimal time to get into and then also as we're going the years been going i've been battling some mental health issues which has also made it harder for me to focus on is particularly more expansive gaming experiences

I do think Claire Obscure is a triumph. I loved the parts of it that I played. My brother, my alpha brother, Nate, is almost done with it. He loves this game. We gotta get Nate on the show. Nate rocks. Yeah, do it. But anyway, it's...

It's such an impressive design and also akin to blueprints, like you were saying. Matt, just to reiterate, that is kind of out of nowhere. It just wasn't on anyone's radar, and I think that's the sort of story that people like when they're awarding a game of the year. Yes. think that I mean not to jump too far ahead I do think that the story of game of the year this year is between

Claire Obscure and Silksong, probably. So you think you'd put Claire Obscure above Blueprints? Because I would, too. I think I'd probably, if the ones were going Claire Obscure, Blueprints, Hades, too. Not talking my personal order in terms of how these games are. I'm just talking in terms of how they'd be ranked for a game. Oh, yeah, because I'd put... Blueprints all the way at the bottom if it was my personal list. I would be surprised if Silksong... I wouldn't be surprised if Silksong...

Silk Song 1. Yes. Well, let's talk about Hollow Knight's Silk Song, which I have not played. Ranch, you've played, and Matt, you've put a lot of time into. Yes. I've obviously... uh, not falling off of it. And this is the thing I actually want to do. We gotta, we gotta just rebrand this narrative. We gotta, we fall, it fell off of it.

No, sweetie. I put it away for a little bit. I'm going to get it back. I'm going to get back to it. Just because I'm playing Pokemon doesn't mean I fell off a Silksong. I'm going to get back to it. It's not... so deep in my backlog that I'm not going to see it to the end. I'm going to finish that game this year, I think. But I finished the first Hollow Knight the night before Silksong.

uh, came out. So I feel like I have a little bit of stolen valor there where, you know, lots of people waited for seven years. Uh, and I was just like, Oh great. Now it's ready for me. Uh, but even so it, um, it's such an impressive feat. I think Team Cherry is three people, and...

All the reporting about why it took them so long was just that they kept thinking of stuff and having a good time making the game. And that's all you could hope for, especially just with how tumultuous game production, game development.

is you hear about that on other studios so like the fact they're able to stick to their vision and execute it in an extremely high quality way I think is extremely impressive and then also just like I think the game fucking whips ass it's so it's so good and so fun and even the parts that are

very challenging i just i think are it's just incredible i think it's like it's my personal favorite game this year and you were saying there's creeping up your favorite games all time yeah and you like it better than hollow night oh i think i like it like

At least twice as much. Twice as much as Hollow Knight. Because it's harder. It's like, not that I disliked the, I don't think, I don't think Hollow Knight's an easy game. Yeah. At all. But like, I think that the. You know who did my alpha brother, Nate. He didn't actually say it was easy. I think he did 180 percent or whatever. But it's also like in the same way that I liked. I think Death Stranding one. Yeah. Is a more unique experience. Right.

But I think I like Death Stranding 2 more. Yeah, sure. Because it's just more refined. So you're just getting more out of the already good formula. And I do think it's just like, I just like it more. I like Hornet's moveset. I like the things that they've added, like crests and tools I really like. So I think that's just a little more exciting to me. Ranch, what about you? What are you thinking about Silksong these days? Do you like it more than Hollow Knight?

It's hard to say because since I also played Hollow Knight pretty recently, it kind of feels like I'm playing the same game. So I don't know if I... I feel like one is better than the other. I think I like both equally. Well, and it's also, I mean, Silksong was at one point originally DLC for Hollow Knight 1. So it is really just like... A lot of these sequels are 1.5s, right? Or it's like it's just more, just a little bit better. But I do think...

I hope that at a certain point you have time to try it out and see what it's like. I would love to. I think you both would really love it. I'm sure I would. full playthrough of Hollow Knight, which has been lingering for too long now. In my backlog, I will say that I think that...

My my as as my outsider's perspective is that I would just compare Hollow Knight Silksong to Hades, too. But it does seem like there's a little bit more, even though Hades, too, has a higher meta score. It does seem like Hollow Knight Silksong has more of a. Like just sort of – what's the word I'm looking for? More of an energy behind it, more momentum in terms of like people saying that this could potentially be the game of the year. Again, maybe because Hades won.

was so lauded back in its day. I would say, all that said... Where does Silksong rank versus the other ones? I don't know. I could even see the groundswell for swinging back to blueprints by the time we're picking these awards versus Hollow Knight Silksong, which is benefiting a little bit from recency bias.

right now i do think though that like the impact of the release of silksong though should be should be noted here as well because other games moved out of the way like they self-delayed even though they were basically about to come out at the same time and uh just like just to get out of silksong's way and the only other game that has done that

Grand Theft Auto 6 when it was supposed to come out. Games moved out of the way to make room for Grand Theft Auto 6 and then it didn't even end up making that shelf date. Yeah, I just think there's something... There's a I don't know. There is an energy. It's like sort of like a, you know, kind of like not like a romantic story, but like it is like there is like a bit of I don't know. You kind of like that. Something like that people have wanted for so long.

Came out and it was good. That's a great point. It was like it could have been vaporware. It could have been like, you know, Guns N' Roses, Chinese democracy, this thing that's long promised and then ultimately kind of under delivers or Duke Nukem forever. It was never going to be Duke Nukem forever, obviously. But I mean, just like – I'm Hornet and I throw shit at people.

What's that coming out of my dick? Oh, it's right. It's piss. I forgot what piss was and where it came from. I shit straight rice. And no, I know what you're thinking. That's not tapeworms. Ugh. Let's talk about split fiction real quick. We should just touch on it because this is a game that I've seen on some of these lists. My case against split fiction, which is a co-op game. I fucked a stare. The other stairs got jealous. I shaved my teeth down to look like little penises.

It is hard to stop doing it. It's like the worst thing. My pubes tell me to do things. So split fiction. I want to marry my computer. My computer said no to my proposal. We're in couples counseling. You gotta help me. I threw my computer in the dumpster. Don't know if I got a new computer. Oh no, we killed Heather. The thing, here's what I'll say about split fiction.

I think it's awesome that a company is making games like this. I think it's cool to be making co-op games. Totally. Because co-op is, you know, that was like me and my brothers only played games together and stuff. So like that was, this would have, if I was. If I was like 20 years younger and this game was out, I'd be so excited to be playing with my brother. We gotta release a mod. We just... We should just record like a thousand of these. Just release a mod for Duke Nuke.

My favorite candle scent is carrot. My dick plays co-op with my balls. But only one of them. The other one won't participate. He's jealous. So here would be my one argument against split fiction, which I have not played. I don't think any of us have played this game. No. I put a sandwich in my ass the wide way. I'm going to get my ass crack surgically removed. I want an Audi butthole. Why don't they make steak flavored gum?

Because it takes two, one game of the year at the Game Awards. I just don't think they're going to do it. I just don't think it's going to be repeated. They can't risk it. They can't let that guy on stage and let him cuss. They can't do it. But I just, I feel like.

there's other options that are maybe just like a little bit less niche and a little bit more I kind of wish I played it because like the stuff I've seen of it looks fucking awesome and I just it's hard to you know a game like that if you don't have uh somebody in the house who wants to play who because like i feel like that it's not just like playing mario kart or even just any sort of sort of like

casual game these games are like you have to like really yeah know how to play games and like play like difficult platforming sections so like getting my wife to like play a game like this we would just never finish it no that i mean that's one thing i've heard about this just in terms of people who are criticizing

in this game again i haven't played myself is is that it is a little bit challenging and because very often co-op is like like oh i'm gonna play with my non-gaming partner i'm gonna play with my kid you know what i mean it's like who maybe is you know not as like hey some kids are are awesome

When games make us a little bit younger, it's like you maybe want it to be a little bit more generous or have some sort of assist mode or something like that that makes it just like a little bit easier to get through. When I have a kid and they're bad at games, they're going to go to bed with no dinner. Matt. I love it. Oh, you got a game over and split fiction with me? Go to your fucking room. I love it. I love it. I'm going to be in so much trouble.

Go to your room Duke Nukem. My dad grounded me in the bathroom. My bed is the toilet. My best friend is a soap dispenser. What is happening? I can't get a feel for who this guy is. The character's just, like, obviously in a straight jacket. He's all over the place. Yeah, I wish that there was, like, I mean, maybe there is, like, maybe in an assist mode, or, like, maybe you can adjust the difficulty.

on the other side of it. I know that there's a version of it where you could play it with a friend who's not in the house. If you buy the game, you can get a code and send them the code and they can play it with you, which I think is...

Really cool, too. I did play It Takes Two. I played It Takes Two remotely. And I played, you know, yeah. So I imagine it's the same thing. We shouldn't spend too much time speculating about this. This info is out there. Yes. We just can't speak to it firsthand. Donkey Kong Bonanza. I love bonanza. Ooh, banana. Ooh, banana. Oh, banana. Oh, bonono. He's holding grapes.

I don't think Bonanza is going to win, even though it's so, so fun. It's such a hoot. It's such a blast. And I think it's just like it's like such a again, a triumph for what it's trying to do. It is a big game, maybe bigger than it needs to be. Yeah, I could have shaved five levels off of it easily. Just like Donkey Kong himself. Too big. Maybe just a little too big. And maybe, you know, just does not quite. have enough to it versus some of these other games that are a little bit more...

The substantial. And also, I just think I think the fact that it's just sort of like this, that's it's a it's a platformer is just going to be a little bit of strike against it in terms of it actually winning the award. I feel like I've seen a lot of people considering. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, which I know you spent some time with, Heather. Gentlemen, let me say that this game was a triumph. Wow. It was a thrill.

It was as granular or as broad as you wanted it to be. I never got out of the starting area. I played. At least 12 hours, if not 20, of the game. Yeah. There was so much to do that it reminded me of being a child with a copy of, like... I think it was called Daggerfall. Oh yeah. Where it was just like a game that was just like, I was, I was like not, I was a baby and I was given a world.

And I was like, what do I do? And I think I just spent most of the time in like three houses in that game. And that's very much what my experience of Kingdom Come Deliverance was, was I went to like... Four houses. And I was so overwhelmed with the freedom and the scalability of that freedom. Like, do I want to talk to this cop?

Whatever they were, knights, cops, whatever. Do I want to talk to that cop and like see if there's a relationship to be had there so that I can do a thing later? Like it's it's massive, massive, massive. And. I don't know. I think for people who want that kind of game, I think about you a lot when I think about that game. I'm sure I would love it if ever I dedicated some time to it.

For people who want that kind of game, that kind of game is like the apex of that kind of game. It was staggering. And I can't believe I got it on a whim. And then probably spend an hour and a half in the menu screen being like, wait, I can change the thread on my pants? Like, why do I need to do this? I don't know. I look back fondly. I'm afraid of it. I don't. I'm afraid of it. It could consume you if you let it. It's like.

It's like being like, I want to read a fantasy novel and somebody hands you the entirety of everything Brandon Sanderson has ever written. And the book list just goes down the block. And it's like, OK, I'll start on page one. And like maybe I'm going to read like, I don't know, 100 pages of this over and over again and then look down and there's still 52,000 pages to read.

It was crazy. And it was gorgeous. Yeah. Not game of the year. Yeah, I've heard nothing but good things about this. I think for this exercise, I can't imagine it winning game of the year just because I don't think enough. people who have played it. And I also just kind of feel like it's, you know, if we look at some of these other games, there's just a little bit more critical consensus behind them. But speaking of sequels that were...

Considered substantial improvements over the original Death Stranding 2 on the beach. Now, this is one going back to this. You were talking about this earlier, Heather, and I want you to like it. Like, please, if there's there's anything else you want to fill in, please do so. But like. I think Death Stranding 2 on the beach actually is a very strong case, partly because it is.

Just like Death Stranding 1, people were like, what the fuck is this game? At first, a lot of people were like, this sucks. This is nothing. This is a walking simulator. What is going on? And then over time, especially the director's cut comes out, there becomes more of a fan.

community behind it. There becomes more groundswell support. More people are like realizing kind of the genius of its core design and what it's saying about humanity and about our current world. And it becomes this this this like this like beloved game. And then Death Stranding 2 on the beach comes out in the aftermath of that, where everyone kind of understands what a strand game is.

And it just feels like it has just, again, just like this rapturous reception upon its initial launch. I think that the – wasn't there like a Game Awards recently announced? Not the Game Awards, but A Game Awards. And I think Stranding only got four nominations. One was Troy Baker for Best Supporting Actor. Yeah. One was... What's his name? Ludwig Fossil? Yeah. Something like that for... No, no, no. The other guy. Woodkid. Yeah, yeah. For score.

And then it got like an effects or something or like sound design. And none of the categories, and I didn't even investigate what this list was. It popped up on my Twitter feed because I follow Stranding on Twitter or Blue Sky or wherever the fuck I saw it. But I was surprised that... Since this was an awards show that clearly had both soundtrack and score and...

performance that I would assume it would also be game of the year or what or like, you know, best game or best writing or whatever. And none of those categories were represented by this again. thing I saw. You're doing the best you have with what information you have. Let me look it up while you guys muse a little bit. I would just say like

I mean, Matt, you sunk a ton of time into Death's 22. Maybe just give us your thoughts. For me, I would say it's on my personal list. I have finished it, of course. it kind of feels like for me it's between Silksong and Death Stranding 2 if I had to pick, even though Silksong as of now remains unfinished. For your personal list. Yeah, for my personal list. I do think it deserves a wider shot.

at game of the year uh just because of like what we've said before that like it just like took everything about the first one and like not only just like refined the systems and gameplay and stuff, but somehow made it more normal. Death Stranding 2 is, I think, less jarring of an experience for... a new player than death stranding one is and that's only simply because there was not a death stranding before yeah so it felt crazy but because there's one there's a second one

The second one, just by default, is more normal because you're used to it already. And I do think that it, you know, but people have asked if you could just play Death Stranding 2, and I'm like, yeah, you could. You could, but I think you got to experience the whole thing because it really is both. It's not where like the second game is like a completely different story or something like that. The story of two.

uh the story of one is necessary for two like like two doesn't happen without one so it is just uh i think it's a it's you know it's a triumph of course and i i think it's maybe and this is gonna you know people who love Metal Gear Solid 5 are going to be coming for me with this. I think it's Kojima's...

best gameplay in any game that he's made. I think it's all-time great stuff. But yeah, Death Stranding 2, I think there's a strong case for it. I wonder if the wider sort of quote-unquote gaming public... agrees. I know it's highly reviewed but I kind of feel like people are

Maybe more likely to go with a Blueprints over a Death Stranding 2, I think. May I read this list? Yeah, please. Because I found the list. It's the Golden Joystick Awards, which is the longest running game awards that there are. Right? And so for your best storytelling, you've got Claire Obscure, Silent Hill F, Blueprints, Mafia the Old Country, Lost Records, and The Hundred Line. For best multiplayer, you've got Battlefield 6, Peak.

Elden Reign, Night Reign, Split Fiction, Mario Kart World, and Rematch. Like, there's, for best storytelling, if you're not nominating Stranding 2 for storytelling... then it seems to me like it's a little bit on the periphery. Right.

Of what might be considered game of the year. Because that's primarily what that game is doing. Telling you a story. It's fucking telling you a story. Well, I guess, you know, we're prognosticating here. So it seems like that is something of an indicator that some source that is saying that.

We're going to exclude it from the nominations. But I think we're talking about overall game of the year. I don't think it's like it would be out of the running. I would think Death Stranding 2 actually – has a better chance of getting an award than Hades 2, even though Hades 2 is maybe a more complete or a better overall game, but like less so than like.

silk song if we're comparing to we're talking direct sequels right yeah and certainly more so than kingdom come deliverance do oh yeah by far it's not a shoe-in but it's not um you know completely out of the conversation. No, I think there's a case that it could ultimately happen. While we're talking sequels, we should touch on a couple that we've talked about on the podcast. One we just talked about, I just talked about here.

So we'll see what happens. I think just like keep an eye on Outer Worlds 2. I don't think it will end up being game of the year. I think it's just like a little bit too. It's a little too specific and it's also like probably feels a little too familiar tonally because of the fallout, you know, like.

lineage that I don't think it will actually, and the gameplay is not quite as revelatory as some of these other games. It's pretty conventional gameplay, but I'm really liking it so far. Ghost of Yotei, the other one. Ghost of Tsushima. So well regarded. Such an awesome game. Ghost of Yote.

I don't know. I could see a case for it, but also I could see it being a sort of like a game that kind of gets lost in the shuffle because there's just so many heavy hitters this year. Yeah, there's just a lot of big dogs this year. Like, yeah, it wouldn't necessarily mean that like.

Obviously, it doesn't mean this for any of these games, that it's less than if it's not nominated in some way. Because, you know, it's arbitrary, of course. But I think, like, so far, the story of Ghost of Yote is... It's a great, maybe one of my favorite stories in a game that I've played this year. Yeah, it's been really satisfying to play it. And it's, you know what I like?

What I didn't like but now I like about Ghost of Yote is you can't skip through dialogue. Yeah, me too. Like you have to watch it and you have to watch all of the scenes of all of the people giving these performances and you can't just tap, tap, tap. At first I was... frustrated because I like to go to the next fight but the longer I've played it the more I'm like wow I really appreciate that I'm spending time theatrically in these moments where I get to really see some like acting

on these these characters faces yeah so far i haven't seen something that i was like i wish i could have skipped that it's always like been pretty enjoyable to me I think, I mean, is there anything else we should note? I mean, I guess just because it's been an indie darling lately, Ball Pit. Ball Pit's awesome. I just can't see it winning if we're going for an indie over Blueprints. Yeah, as much as I like Ball Pit, I don't think it has the same.

sauce that Vampire Survivors has like even though it's yeah that's a good point it's similar in how you play it but I think you gotta do a lot to sort of get to that seat I think So should we make a call? What do we think we should? I kind of feel like that's part of the exercise. We should just say what our prediction is. If I'm going to go on the record, I think...

I think it's going to end up being Claire Obscure Expedition 33's year. I think that's what's going to happen. I kind of think that just because of how much people really enjoyed it and just... Down to the performances, down to like the music and just the gameplay and people then being like, oh, actually turn-based combat is fun and good. Or it can be fun and good. Just like, it's just such a complete package. And I know that.

I would like to get back in there, of course, and finish it once and for all so everybody gets off my fucking ass about this thing. To be the outlier just in the votes. Yeah. And to give the... podcast a little bit more hope of actually nailing it i think it's gonna be silksong i could very much see it being silksong i think it's there it's the it's between the two of them because like the other games maybe yeah there's gonna be some there's

probably going to be multiple nominations and maybe some that we didn't even get to. But the two, the two big, the biggest dogs this year are Silk Song and Clear Obscure for sure. I'll show you a big dog. It's called my butthole. That on a big dog shirt, like on one of those shirts. Your stepdad wearing it at a barbecue. What's that shirt say? What the fuck? What is this game?

It's time for a segment. Let's get into this one. Guys, we're back at the bargain bin. We're back at the bargain bin. I love it. I'm giving you all $15. Woo! And you all get to spend this money that I've given to you. I love it. games of the year. Oh! So these are all various games of the year. from last year down to 2004. So again, $15. They can either spend this on Games of the Year or one matcha latte. Yeah. Holy shit. Or half a piece of avocado toast. Oh, my God. Okay.

Got some really heavy hitters, obviously. So in the $5 tier. So starting at, you know. And how did you source these as games of the year? I just picked a single publication. Got it. With like the most. available and went back. Look at this list. So this is 20 years of games of the year. And so in the $5 tier, we have Astro Bot, Baldur's Gate 3, Vampire Survivors, and Returnal.

Returnal Game of the Year, okay. I mean, I haven't finished it. It's incredible. It's so fucking good. In the $4 tier, we have Hades, Outer Wilds, God of War, and What Remains of Edith Finch. In the $3 tier, Uncharted 4, A Thief's End, Fallout 4. Destiny, and The Last of Us. In the $2 tier, we have Dishonored, Portal 2, Mass Effect 2, and Batman Arkham Asylum. And in the $1 tier, Super Mario Galaxy, Bioshock,

Ghost Recon, Advanced Warfare, or Advanced Warfighter, excuse me, and Half-Life 2. Oh boy, that last one made it tricky because I thought I had a pretty, a garden path here, but I'll go first. There you go. $5, my favorite game, Baldur's Gate 3, gotta pick it.

endlessly replayable and uh just uh you know like an incredibly satisfying gaming experience four dollar tier hades i'm playing hades again just speak of endlessly replayable yeah play the shit out of that game and uh you know like keep keep uh keep jacking up the heat and just just just keep doing more runs. Man, you had me keep jacking. Okay, Duke. I'm gonna keep jacking. I jack limp.

$3, I'll take Last of Us. I mean, I love Last of Us. I like it better than Part 2. And it's a pretty perfect game. $2 tier. Okay. I think I got to do Portal 2. Man, as much as I... Yeah, I mean, I just like Arkham Asylum is is great. It's so good. And, you know, I still like like for me, Ark Asylum hit me so much. I know I know Arkham City is like a more realized, fully realized game, but just like the way Asylum hit me and just I was we're so surprised.

that someone a game just like finally fucking nailed batman slash being a superhero uh that first rock steady batman is awesome but i i'll take portal 2 even though i really love mass effect 2 um i just feel like i already got another meaty rpg and then the one dollar Well, I guess I got a Valve game because I was going to say Half-Life 2, but maybe I'll pivot over and go Super Mario Galaxy. So yeah, those will be my five. Baldur's Gate 3, Hades, Last of Us, Portal 2, and Super Mario Galaxy.

A lot of good options. A lot of great ones. Heather, are you think you're ready to make some choices? I don't know how to spend enough money. Because you don't want some. I don't want enough of them. Well, spend what you want. Spend your budget. You can spend 15. No, I'm saying I don't. I can't make it. Yes, you can. You can figure it out. I don't even want enough games on this list. How is that possible?

Because all I want is Mario Galaxy. $1. $14 left. The Last of Us. Okay, that's $3. So that's $4 spent. You have $11 left. God of War. $4, that's what, $7? An astrobot. There's not, I don't have enough money. You got $2 left. Oh. So you don't want anything from the $2 tier? I don't want anything from the $2 tier. You don't want Portal 2? It's an all-timer. That game's incredible. I think, honestly, I'm going to get Bioshock as a bonus and Half-Life 2 as a bonus. There you go. You can do that.

That's not bonus. That's what you're allowed to have. Yeah. But those are my games. And really, the truth is, I only really, on the whole list, I only want Galaxy and Last of Us. I don't need any of the other ones. I'm going to do something. I think I'm going to do something crazy. Wow. Three copies of Vampire Survivors. I'm going to go with Astro Bot in the $5 tier. Okay.

Also in the $5 tier, I'm going with Baldur's Gate 3. Wow. $10. That's $10 right there. In the $4 tier, I'm... This one's hard, actually, because I love... two games in here so, so much, but I'm making a choice. I'm gonna go with Hades in the $4 tier, and then with my final dollar, I'm gonna go with Super Mario Galaxy.

I mean, Super Mario Galaxy, the $1 tier, is such an incredible value. A great value. I mean, you got Super Mario Galaxy Bioshock and Half-Life 2. I know you're pricing these bad, but those games could all very easily be $3 or $4 games. Oh, yeah. And, you know, certainly like What Remains of Edith Finch was a lot of fun to play through, but hard to justify at the $4 tier. So a lot of these things are just like based on spending your budget. But yeah, that was a fun exercise.

I always like doing it, and I like hearing what you guys pick, and I like making the little graphic. Yeah, it's fun to make the little graphic. Honestly, I'd spend $15 on factions in The Last of Us and let the rest of the board go. How'd I miss that fucking game? Hey, that was Bargain Bin. That's this week's Get Played. Our producer is Rochelle Chen. Ranchyard underscore underscore Sard. Ranch, you streaming anything? Still on Silent Hill F. Awesome. Nice.

Check that out, twitch.tv slash yard underscore underscore start. Our music is by Ben Prenti, benprentimusic.com. Our art is by Duck Brigade Design, duckbrigade.com. Get played, merge at kinshipgoods.com. And get animated. Our sister show is over on Patreon. Matt, what are we watching this week? We are watching our new series, Serial Experiments Lane. And let me tell you something. It's an interesting show. Yeah, it's certainly not serial experience.

Serial experiments? I was going to say, it's certainly not serial experiments lame. No. It's not. It's not that. It's not even fucking worth it. I wish I'd never spoken. I do some cereal experiments. I use piss instead of milk. Patreon.com slash getplayed for getanimated. And, uh... That'll do it. And I guess, you know what? Who knows what the game of the year will be, but... It got played. It will have gotten played. It will have gotten played. And if we got it wrong, we got played.

That was a HeadGum podcast. What's going on? It's Lamorne Morris. And Hannah Simone. And we host The Mess Around, a New Girl Rewatch podcast now on HeadGum. Now here's the thing. Every single week we chat about an episode of New Girl. And we really get into it. Like we get up in there. We get up in there. You know, we reminisce about our times on set. We share behind the scenes tea. We react to rewatching episodes that we haven't seen in years. We talk about how Jake Johnson is dog.

That's not true. We talk about so many memories we have of working with the biggest stars on the planet. I'm talking Prince, Taylor Swift, Olivia Rodrigo. We're just two BFFs. Having a good old time, okay? Sometimes we even talk to other co-stars like Zooey Deschanel, Jake Johnson, Max Greenfield, and Damon Wayans Jr. And your dad. We talk to your dad on this show as well. Make sure you subscribe to The Mess Around wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes. drop every single Tuesday.