807: Bird Lore

Hey everybody, It's Tuesday, September nineteenth, twenty twenty three. Welcome to the Giant BombCast, Episode eight hundred and seven. Seven. I think good seven. I haven't written down a seven. Welcome to John BombCast, powered by I am your host, jan Oh Chowa joining me co captain of the ship. He salutes only to Major Mitch Jeff Grub I also salute your shorts. Don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. I won't ever forget it. Thank you, thank you. Speaking about shorts, he he's, he's.

This season, we're proud to announce that Jeff Backlar is gonna start rocking nothing but exclusively three inch in seam cotton gray shorts Jeff back pulled off. I don't know if I could pull off the three inch Yeah. I feel like maybe have an eclip situation popping up there if I did such a thing with my wardrobe. Nope. The season of Joggers is upon us, my friends, and I am jumping into that fee first, because that's how you put pants on, Just how you put on pants, yep pants. Officionado

Tamore Hussain Today, I need you to wait here for one minute. Don't say anything, I'll be back. Okay. Uh, we didn't know what. No one say anything. He just okay, we didn't prepare for this. I just you know all this dead air. Swear to God, if I get another clone situation, I'm gonna they're gonna They're gonna put in forty podcast. What's gonna happen? Okay, all right, he's back, he pooped? Okay, right, some shorts. You want to see some shorts? Oh? Hell yeah, let's go all right, okay, showing us

a pair. Okay, he's black. They go, oh, this is some Kojima bullshit. Yeah, that looks good. Those fucking shorts. Baby, you suddenly are able to become invisible inside a cardboard box and carry an obscene amount of boxes on your back. Do those shorts have like a PSP pocket? Like? God, I wish they're so comfy as well? Are they? There looks like a terrible amount of screen printing on your shorts. There, they're making you shorts expert. All of a sudden, Sam and

STI, it's the season of the shorts. Yeah, and I am a T shirt. Yeah, Like you introduced him and saying it's the season of the shorts and this motherfucker said it's joga season. Well, it's approaching. It's the approaching. H. This is what I said. But I just feel like a lot of print on shorts is h It's actually not. It's actually not high quality, high quality print. I'm excited that the fact that I know that when I watched these, it's it's gonna fall apart. No,

it's not. It's not. I can see that based on the way it feels. It's not going to disintegrate. Okay, I'm happy for I feel I feel like it would disintegrate eventually, but not immediate always. I mean, that's all of us, really, right, We're all gonna disintegrate eventually. Yeah, bought I bought like a a bunch of metal gear apparel recently, clearly all bootlegs. But you know what, yeah, phenomic.

I love bootleg merch like I love going to a big concert and then seeing vendors afterwards selling like hey, it's the official merch, and everything's like slightly askew, or it's like they would never sell a Taylor Swift would never sell

a poop brown t shirt with her face on it. You know what, I just I just went into my email to type in metal Gear Solide, or to try and figure out remind myself who I purchase or where I purchased this from it was from a company, and I instead received a reminder saying that, or an email saying that I ordered the metal Gear Solid board game, oh from from the company Come On, which I imagine was via Kickstarter, and I click the link and it takes me to a four or four

page Okay, okay, I mean, you know, sometimes operations sometimes when the campaign ends, it takes a little bit of time to reconnect the wires. Right, we know, I haven't heard a single I had a single email from them. Since that's probably mean, that's probably a good thing. Maybe. Speaking about board games, my partner, my poor partner in the thick of it, in her first official year of teaching, where at the Barnes and Noble, right and and she was like, Hey, let's go

buy that bird game that everyone's talking about. That there's a bird board game right now. It's blowing up amongst our our our friends and acquaintances. I believe it's called Wingspan. And then I look at her and I tell her it's like, Hey, we're gonna buy this game. And we're never gonna play it. You canna make me learn how to play this game, and we will. We don't hang out with anyone but you, me and the

dog. No one's gonna play this with us. And she, she like excitedly was holding onto it, clutching it in her arms, and then she quietly put it back. Oh this looks good. And then and then I saw her, I saw her opening up TikTok of like how to play Wingspan. Just I'm looking at videos of this, and I'm not being rude, but this is a board game about birds. It is, it is. Why Why would that be rude? Birds are fucking cool? Man, He's right. I just want to emphasize. I just want to emphasize. This

is a board game about birds. All right. There are the room, and I saw someone playing that, I would walk out of the room and being like that game is into birds. The only thing birds, The only thing worse than walking into a room and seeing a bunch of people playing board games is a board game about birds. I don't know. Somebody's gonna push back. I'm gonna push back here, I think, all hold on, there is a card for here for the crow. I'm walked on around on

this com in. I just think we all do a poor job of respecting birds. Birds really terrified of birds. They're super dope. I got like a big crane that's in the pond right in my backyard, and I see them all the time, and I'm just like, I'm never gonna fuck with you. You would just destroy me. You're a dinosaur, You're you're like seven feet tall. I do I do respect that you did say, like, you know, we're not I have shelves. In case it wasn't clear.

I do like board games, although I have shows of board games that I purchase and then never play, So I respect that. I think I saw one of those wrapped in plastic too, may a lot of them plastic. And then she she was saying like, oh, maybe I could teach my students how to play. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, you're this is not how this is going to happen. I'm getting it comes with little birdhouses. Yeah, I'm getting this

bird feed or dice tower a component for wingspan. Okay, if you want to get further into bird lore, I suggest looking up the song by the Sweat Shop Boys Swet Birding and you put little eggs on the cards. Especially. I would just like to say, Sweatshop Boys. I did not think that I would be hearing a reference to the Sweatshop Boys today. I did not think that I would be hearing it from Jan on the Bomb. I love he man. Shoot, dude, the wait, which sweatshop boys are

you talking about? Oh? Heams? Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, yeah, okay, cool, Yeah, heams and riz mc riz mc who you may know people. People may know him as riz riz one Ahmed, Yes, from Star Wars, rarest other things that he originally came up as a rapper and a good one. Oh, very cool. Yeah, he's He's incredible. I I wish that I could. I wish that he would look at me once in my life. You know, we'll arrange it. We'll dress you up as a bird. We'll all be the same.

The second thing I want to say is I regret to inform me that I have purchased Wingspan the bo Wingspan cut the check. Dang it. Yeah, seriously, welcome a Wingspan gets a break twenty nineteen Game of the Year winner. I guess all right, it's good, good for you. Maybe we'll play Wingspan oh, okay, TAM's out of battery. It happens, well because your camera doesn't have a camera doesn't have battery. You've seen it now, so you know you don't have dum battery for it. No, yeah,

it's got a dummy battery. But like it's it's like, no, it's fine, it's it's always working. It's just all right. Before remove onto games, I just have a quick, uh complaint or bance, please, I'm ready to hear it. So I bought the Sony FX thirty like around I believe earlier this year, and I thought it would serve me well because we occasionally travel for this job, right, and and then I shoot

the videos for it. Let me tell you, during packs, using this camera was incredibly frustrating because Tam and Grubby can Attest would see me just start cussing out of nowhere, uh and throwing my hands up in the air because this camera would randomly just shut off and restart. Was temperature issue, I thought it was it was I thought it was was not. And uh, all throughout packs would start stop no reason, no discernible reason, right,

I take it though. There was one moment where this is off to the camera had proved to be useless. Where you can where you where you dropped the camera? Yes, and as as it was falling, my foot wasn't in the way. And very quickly in my mind I saw this camera falling, and I thought I could ever put my phone away and stopped this or I could not, and or I could not because and I almost did not, because I thought this camera has been utterly useless for us. So why

am I putting my phone the way in? What's foot is in the way. It's like the trolley problem right now? If it's broken? Now, did your foot contribute it? And you're responsible for the problem. Yeah, I did put my feet in the way, and I basically caught it in before it hit the ground proper in between my two feet. Yes, exactly. Wait, so well, thank you for saving the camera, Tan, But Jim, what like what's the problem? Like? We're looking it up?

I tried looking up on several threads. But the thing I want to update folks on is for no reason, I've used the same card, official batteries, high speed SD card and everything, and I bumped it down to in eighty even even though I'm supposed to be able to shoot in four k U took it out this weekend because there was a little quirky convention. Yeah, out in like the heat. Yeah, completely fine. It sounds like it sounds like I'm gonna say, like some sort of power connection issue,

Like it's a hardware thing. It's gonna be It's not just gonna restart for no reason and then work. Fine. Did you take a picture of a ghost? Is the camera haunted? Now? I mean we saw Mike Manadian You know that man is always haunted us. I will say, I will say Jan was like trying everything in front of us, like it was bizarre. It might just be the battery connection, you know not, I don't

know. Have them replaced it. They're good with that. But what I was was gonna get to is like, Man, sometimes I think I'm just gonna use a fucking phone. I'm just gonna buy a burner phone, you know, by a burner. I don't anyone do that. Maybe, like I saw, I have the latest and greatest Apple phone. Wow, real cool, easily easily easily the worst camera I have ever used it in my life. Continue Apple, if there's anything that you can definitely guarantee and bet

on for Apple they'll give you the shittiest camera possible. My previous phone. My previous phone. The camera was so bad that I went into an Apple store and I was like, take a picture of this camera and tell me what you see. And they took a picture, and I was like, take your phone out and take a picture. And they took a picture and they looked at both of you and they were like, yeah, your camera looks fucked. And I was like, why is it like this? And

they were like, I don't really know. Let's run a bunch of tests. They ran a bunch of tests and they were like, everything seems to be fine. I think the camera's just bad. And I was like, okay, cool, what can you do about that? And he looked in my eyes smiled and said nothing. What you think because you think that might have been because you're so fucking mean to them. No, I think it's

because Apple is a racist company. Oh well, I mean, come on, and it trickles down to every everyone down to the genius bar that. Yeah, I don't think actually the problem, I will say. The man was eventually like very apologetic and was like, I'm really sorry that we can't do anything about this. And I was like, fair play. It's not your fault. I do have a bunch of Apple products that do work, but the cameras are like shite. I think. I think what has happened

is based on my research. Is their hardware is good, yes, but then they layer on software, camera software, post processing, this kind of other stuff that turns it into the dogshittest camera on market. So I bought a expensive, separate digital camera to take pictures, which is inconvenient as fuck. I'd love how Apple companies. This company started with bringing convenience to like the mobile phone environment, and now they're the most infuryingly inconvenient hardware devices to

use, especially with cameras. I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of loving this. I'm down. Over all, our camera, all our phones are are good cameras like that. That's about what they do, and that's it. The inverse is true with those phones, though, are like the camera hardware is arguably inferior, but the camera processing software so much better, and the phones are I think, just more fun to use. But that's, you know, a preference thing. So I don't think I've had fun using

a phone in like five years. But well that's why I'm thinking about getting like a burner Experia phone, you know, just to like shoot slog on a phone, because that sounds hilarious. That that's hilarious. That is crazy. Why would you Why wouldn't you just get a good camera instead of a burner phone? Because damn the the other issue I ran into. I am sick. Yes, uh, it's just I fucking I. I waited months for this camera bag to come into back into stock. Hate it. I

waited so long for this camera. I hate it. See I have the FX three and I love it. So there's I think it's I think you got a lemon. I would really get on the horn with mister Sony and be like, yo, like you have something right about this RMA. My shit, let's go. I think you should give a swap it for a new one, and if it still sucks, just be like, Yo, this camera sucks, man, and then just get refund. I'm getting different. I I bought a I bought a Lumix. Yeah those are good.

Yeah, it's great, wonderful. I love it. Uh yeah, Paul Graham, let me tell you that is a point of mild frustration for some people. Uh oh right, let's talk about video games, all right, tam you are you are more missed the worldwide than actual pit Bull Darli exactly because you you you can't stop, can't stop, won't stop stop residencies all over the place. Because you recently went to Los Angeles to check out the City of Angles. City of Angles, so many sharp angles every block,

there's a ninety degrees. It's wild. But you checked out for a little bit nineteen inches of Venom and Marvels Spider Man two. I got all up in those nineteen inches babies at the subtile. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. So I went to LA to check out the first playable demo that I've ever seen anyone have of Marvel's Avengers. Weird thing was I forgot that that we used to have events like this where went to a place and it was like really cool old they had set up.

I don't want to talk about, you know, the stuff outside of the game, but it's only no way betwe me because of how weird it was being there. It was like there was a nice space that they had decorated and made to look like it was you know, doctor Kirk Konnis's lab and and like cool and little museum. Stop. No, what you say,

bacalar. I think they just got Disney brain, because whence the last time they did this for a game, for one of their games Insomniac that that E three like getting shuffled from one thing to the next, things decorated like that is a smart different thing. Oh my gosh, it was also very cool. Now it was not because we were being herded like sheep and cattle and it was very close quarters. Would have been different if you knew Grub and Manati at the time. Oh yes, we would have. Obviously,

it would have made it more tolerable. I mean I was with my good friend producer Mark, but like you could have enjoyed the moment that what's his name? Who's the director of the director of non Charted? But the other one you've been there when his eyes really hard me and Mike when we were introducing how you Jeff Grubb, who works in the video game industry, forget both Lost of Us and Neil Truckman. Yeah, pretty easily. I have a bad brain. It's just shi brain. I've got a pretty bad brain

as well. But still, but you understand the difference between like walking into a place with a cool Spider Man statue, and then what the fuck was E three twenty eighteen. I'll tell you what I remember about that. E three mostly is like walking around in the decorated New York Spider Man setting. That's what I remember. I do remember being shuffled around. I'm just like, man, this is this is what they do, this is these companies

are so weird whatever. And then I got outside and it's like, oh, look there's a Daily Bugle or whatever the hell it's called and all that stuff. And that that was coold. Tell me about the Spider Man. I need to know both Spider Man there like they had They had Miles and Peter like side by side, and it was really cool and I took a picture over them and I was like, I probably won't post this anywhere anyway. And then we played the game. So we played about two ish hours

of the game. They just threw us into the middle of the game, which was good and not not bad, but like tricky because obviously we I didn't we didn't have a lot of like context for some things. But they were like, okay, we'll tell you the necessary bits and pieces, so you should be good. So they did good. Good on them for providing that, but yeah, it's it's really weird. So I wrote a preview,

kind of pseudo preview up. It was more of like a kind of quick crash course in on the swinging and that kind of stuff, and then I pushed to a video that me and Lucy did, but as part of the preview, I said, like, this is more of the same, and there's no way for that to not come out negative. So I had to like kind of remind everyone in that preview when I say more of the same, what I'm saying is more of one of the best superhero games ever

made, Like two of the best superhero games ever made. If you talk about Spider Man, Marvel's so Many Spider Man and Mars Morales, and that is like something to be excited about as opposed to being like, oh no, he was doing the same shit. Yeah, exactly, because you will make it, make the swinging worse, Like that's how you change it.

While we're talking about this, there's some freaks online that I keep seeing and they're like, wow, same animations, And I would like to like to ask them, when you wake up in the morning, do you do you have a new way of walking to work every day today. I'm going to trust new things out with my step I love the idea of these absolute freaks being like I cannot believe he swings the exact same way. Yeah, he's

Spider Man, he does. This is how he does his swinging. Okay, he doesn't invent new ways of swinging every day, so that doesn't make fun of him. Yeah, yeah, they should keep it. Funnily enough, he doesn't sing swinging exactly the same way. They're like, there's a there's there's a little more to it. Like on Peter side, he's now the part where we played he has the symbiot suit, so his swinging is

different in terms of how he's animated. He's it's a little more like it feels less kind of finessed, if you know what I mean, which makes sense because he's got the symbiot suit and he doesn't need to worry about that

ship. He's just like stomping his way through it. But he does have like when you if you switch over to like the black suit or one of his other suits, he does have a little more of that Miles kind of personality and flair from Miles moralest where you know, when you started swinging at Miles, he was my man was doing poets and backflips and cool thick ship and he's got a bit more of that now. And they also all have they both have studs before. I gonna jump around a bit, but like

they have skill trees. There's a Mile skill tree, there's a skill tree, and then there's a shared skill tree away. If you're unlock an ability on that skill tree, both spider men get it and on the on those some of those are traversal abilities. I think I believe one of them is, like so one of my favorite ones is you can like like pinball yourself

off two buildings almost like yeah, you heard me. You can like you do the thing where you fire on one side of the street, fire on the other side of the street, and then run back and use their attention to kind of launch yourself a bit. And it's like really cool. It's it's cool. It doesn't give you a lot of height, it gives you a lot of like distance, and I think it works with the new traversal element, which is the wingsuit. So spider wings, wing wings, whatever

you want to call them, web wings. I think where they officially calling so he so he's just gonna be like a flying squirrel kind of situation. Yes, yes, so you can basically fly like in this game non stop if you want. How and I know what you're thinking, You're like wild, I swing, you fly, yeah, just like a spider, right, yeah, yeah, exactly. So initially I did feel like, why

am I swinging instead of flying it everywhere? And I also spoke to I think it was a lead programmer as part of an interview and talked about it there, and yes, you can fly a lot, and there's also things now in the environment. They try to make it like I'm going to use Arkham Night to a degree, you know how an Arkham Night when activity started appearing in the world instead of just being like on a map, they started

doing that a bit more, which is cool. But you can also find these like wind tunnels everywhere, which in your night exactly like Fortnite video game Forna. Now, so if you like pull out your web web wings and you go into these kind of like air pocket canal tunnels, it will just

kind of like glide you around places. However, outside of that, the wings are quite slow, like they're good for distance, But they are meant to be used as part of the overall traversal ecosystem, where it's like swing, use the dive and then to kind of like build up momentum and then swing last minute to send yourself launching back up into the air and then do the wings to glide a bit or turn a corner and then your ultimate and

have the music going on techtok and get exactly a thousand viewers. So Tim, you're not so so you had experience with using that? Did that break the illusion of Spider Man for you? Like you very quickly learned that it's way quicker to swing everywhere? Right, Okay, I think that the reason they introduced it is one it's a nice little touch to the area that you're playing is much bigger. They added two more burrows to the game skyscrapers,

right, they don't have skyscrapers. Remember in the last game or games where you'd be swinging and then you exit like the perimeter of the city and suddenly you're over a park and there's nothing to swing onto it on a tree. Yeah yeah, so you're just point launching across this kind of a park or over some water or something. Like that. This is basically the solution to

that. Where the moment you like you spin out, like or you launch yourself off a building and there's nothing around you, you hit the wing button, you glide over it, and maybe you spot a point launch area in the middle, and you can use that to give yourself a little more momentum. It's actually very very smart in a lot of ways. I also found

it. I also found it like there's times when you're like swinging and you're chasing someone or something like that, and you can very easily start to get out of control where you're like, you know how you're You're like, I'm trying to turn this way, but it's going this way, and like you have these situations where it's like god, damn it, I'm trying to catch

this and it's it's all like falling apart. It's very easy to just hit the wing soup button and regain some control, kind of tilt yourself up, and then go back to swing it again to like kind of like course correct.

So it felt it felt good. It felt really really good. And it also they work it into like the fast travel system and all that kind of business where you've probably seen the gift now where it's like you can basically fast travel at any point and you can swap to one of you can swap through the other Spider Man, and it will like do the GTA thing, pull out and move to them and they they often will be mid wingsuit flight or like mid wings or swing or something like that, which is really cool

and so like it's got like nice little animation touches to help it kind of create a smoother experience overall. But yeah, that part of it's really cool. I really enjoy the traversal. I mentioned that as a kind of big emphasis because I think a lot of people if they're like the way I am

with Spider Man always, I do it for Batman way more. But like for Spider Man, I know there's a lot of people that even when they finished with the game, they just leave it installed on there because every now and again they jump in, swing about for a bit, have a nice time, and be done with it. I feel like this is a really fun game. It's going to be a really fun game to just swing about once you're done. I imagine people are just going to have a really great

time just smoving around. Spider Man took that spot from Tony Hawk for me, where like I just left stall and like instead of just jamming out a level or just finding a combo or just swing around New York. It's happy to hear. Okay, yeah, it's it's cool. And then the other major things are so narratively, I don't want to talk too much about it.

Okay. Then I have one question. Then, at any point was there a subway sequence where Peter was knocked out by doc oc and then they had to pass him back to the end of the train, And then one NPC just said, it's just a boar. No, no, if they you just want to see that he as a man, although they see it every day. It's why very very happy to tell you they don't have that with Peter. They do have it with Miles. Basically create that scene from

the second movie. It's in an office building and like they lift him up and they move him over to the end and then then his mosque is all ripped up and they're like, he's just a boy. Now I don't believe you. Yeah, I made that of course, man, listen. That's so here's my question, Tim, if you'll allow me to just surface this

here, I really like these games. I really like Morales because I felt it was like a streamlined, almost watered down thing where like you weren't bombarded with Matt Barf and all this other stuff, and I want to know,

like how it compares to that idea. I also want to know how it compares from the combat perspective, because I found myself being handcuffed a lot by like there are being too many things you could possibly do with all your arsenal of moves and whatnot, and kind of just fell into a groove of like relying on the same maybe three to four things over and over again. I know that's a tough thing to like maybe speak to in the time you had

it, But what do you think about all that? Yeah, So the first part of that, in terms of like the scale and scope of it hard to say, because obviously we had a very limited slice of the game. I will say, based on the feeling I've got, it's not going to be. Obviously it's not going to be as contained as Miles was. That was a They treated it like almost like it was an extra game, but it was also a bit of an expansion, you know, more focused.

This is trying to tell a much bigger story at the ambition narratively means that by its very nature, it's going to be a bigger game and a little more unwieldy from a narrative perspective. Even now, you just look at everyone involved. You've got Miles, You've got Peter. They both have their

own issues going on. Right now, Miles is having a bit of a crisis of confidence because he's writing his final essay before it goes after university, and at the same time, he's in this situation where he's being forced through his life to really think about where he's going, and he's escaping that by being a Spider Man, and he's kind of fixated on the idea that Martin Lee missed the negative from the first game, who was boilers for the first

game of Spider Man, who is responsible for the death of his father is out there. He's becoming a bit of a obsessive about catching his father's killer, which obviously you know that it can have like a corrupting impact on him. And the problem he's having on top of that is like his mentor, Peter Parker is now he has this new suit which is doing weird things and

making him behave in different ways. But Peter is he's rediscovered Harry Osborne, his closest friend and basically the closest thing he has to family because spoilers for the first game, Aunt May is not around much anymore. So like now, Peter's kind of also having a bit of a crisis of personality and confidence because he's desperate to save his friend from an illness that he has, and he has the Symbia suit, which the Symbiate suit is very good at twisting

and amplifying the worst parts of you, so he's doing that. And then you have Craven the Hunter, who's around as well, and Craven's obviously looking boy his hunt and he's found now this giant lizard that is knocking about every now and then, and also a seemingly alien spider figure symbia thing, so

it's there's a lot of ingredients in this mix. And then you add in people like Rio Moralist and Gyanke and all these other side characters who have their own kind of things going on and how they intersect, and you've got a quite an elaborate story that is exciting, but it's definitely not going to be as focused as Miles is, but I'm also like, we don't even know who Venom is yet, Like they Eddie Brock isn't about Flash Thompson's not about

Like there is there, but they keep showing off a Venom who isn't Peter or Miles. So I mean there's some obvious guesses. Yeah, it's there a reason to think it's not Harry Osbourne because it wasn't that the Tea is at the end of the first game. I mean it could be, but like there could be many like also, like the Symbia has been like other people as well, Like I, if I had to bet, I I

think he would probably end up being Craven. But like because that's something that that they I don't believe Craven's been the Symbia before, and I think that is in the same way that Insomnia, who wanted to mess with our expectations of a dock X story in the previous game, I think this is a good opportunity for them to mess with, you know, the expectations for a Craven and Symbiat story by being like, oh, you've never seen Craven the Hunter as a symbiat, so her he is, and how they Yeah,

Jay Jonah Jamison, I would I wouldn't love that. I would love that. That would be so good. Yeah, So that's that part of it. In terms of the combat part of it, there is a lot going on in it, and I think in this game there's more going on in it. So it can feel a bit overwhelming at times because the combat hasn't changed much. It's still the same way that it was previously, like the

Batman style combat counter systems. You've got a little more mobility because you can web swing and that kind of stuff, but now there's like an extra layer of special abilities so on top of the standard so every both of them have two kind of ability pools. The first one is linked to their unique like spider powers. For Miles, it's his bioelectricity stuff that we had in the previous game. And then on top of that, he's got the tech,

so he's got a technology element. The technology element is more about manipulating the environment or like the enemies in the environment and doing AoE stuff. So you'll use tech to be like I'm going to stun everyone that's going to chain or I'm going to use this thing to launch everyone into the air and then his bioelectricity stuff is where you get the most mileage out of his powers, whereas you know, like doing damage to single people, like propelling yourself across the

kind of arena using his bioelectricity stuff. That the cool power stuff that he has. In the similar fashion, Pete has the similarly functioning technology side, but then on top of that he has his symbia and empowers. So a lot of that stuff is the kind of the replacement for his spider abilities, and it's what distinguishes him from Miles, which is I think is a really good move. His symbia abilities are much harder hitting and they're designed to do

like max destruction almost. It reminds me of Prototype from the Trailers I seen. Yeah, Yeah, it's like the symbia is not about finesse, it's not about precision. It's about doing damage and it's about being aggressive, and that's what it does. It like you hit a button and it'll send out spindles, grab everyone, lift them into the air and slam them to the

ground. It'll do their Marble versus capcom thing, Whereas like you press a button and he'll like become this moving pool of like horrible symbiate liquid and gather everyone else up and then pop them into the air, and then you can

like jump up there and do some damage. So those two exist, and everything's also like on a cool down, and then you have different abilities that you can like quick slot in and there's different abilities that you're unlock through skill trees, so it can quickly become overwhelming, but there's enough in there for you to, I think, look at what you like, establish a style, and just stick to it. Okay, what I mean by that is

like in the previous games is similarly like it is. There's a lot to do, but for me, I knew my focus was going to be launching and then immediately just like air web swing and air combos because that is the way I wanted to do damage. So you can unlock everything and have that overwhelming amount of stuff, but then just look at this is what I like, This is what I need to pin to basically into my memory to get the place that I want and focus on that, and it's more of more

optional. Then you need to do this stuff. There are a couple of things that are knew that are definitely need and you have to do them, which is one they have a new counter system. Everyone loves Securo. They have the secular account through so they have the thing where certain enemies will these do these attacks that the only thing you can do is out with them. I believe I only did it with Peter, so I'm not sure what the

animation would be with Miles. I imagine this bioelectric related. But with Peter it's like he's not doing a finesse counter. He's just like tanking the damage and then lashing out with the symbiot, so like pushing back on it. And there's other attacks which are crushing attacks which are you cannot count them. You just need to get out of the way. So those are like the

symbol attacks in secure, which is like unblockable. The issue with all this is on paper, all works fine, great, the readability of it is not great. There's like overlapping kind of signifiers of what's coming, and it becomes very very very messy at times because, for example, an attack that uned count is read, but so is an attack that is a projectile from an enemy that's far away. So you'll have the projectilebeam coming at you.

It's read and you know it's coming from off screen. You don't really know. It's very easy to dodge. You just hit a button at the right time and you move out the way, but it requires one too many It rides an extra second of processing that is a bit annoying. And it's also like red is the counter attack, which you can counter. Blue is the crushing attack which you can't counter, which doesn't make any sense to me.

It's like blue is like a nice color. You know, this is a nice you can collect this or be cool with this, but they want you to get out of it. Blue is somehow more of a danger than red. And it's like confusing in certain ways, Like you get to it. Eventually, you'll build the flow of it and you'll build the muscle memory. But right now it just feels like a bit too much going on for a lot of people. It could be I don't want to speak for everyone.

But like on top of that, there's like other issues with it that the enemy. There's more enemies at the same time, and they're all coming after you, and it gets very busy, to the point where I found myself satisfied by what I was doing, but not able to see and enjoy the animations of it. Yeah, because like Batman's great because you have certain enemies

come at you. They're all kind of scared of him, so they come one at one at a time, and his animations are kind of like sharp and almost slower, where it's like he's going to crack your crack your arm, throw you on the ground, get on top, and then punch you. And you can see every phase of that, and every part of it feels like a crunchy Batman esque moment. Spider Man is all about being limber and moving around and you want to see him like pirouetting and dodging and doing

all these punch motions. And I don't feel like I got to enjoy that as much because there's like shit flashing and there's characters all over the screen and that kind of stuff, which is a shame. But at the same time, it still felt good, like it still felt like a Spider Man game, and it felt quite It felt really satisfying to move around and use his powers and symbia and that kind of stuff. So the combat is good, readability is not great, and that readability extends to other parts of it.

Something that Lucy pointed out after we finished is like the text doesn't delineate very well between who is speaking. It just like says Spider Man, and there's sometimes two Spider Man speaking, and then you have to look really close and there's a very small face icon, like you get the red and blue one and it's Peter. You get the red and black one and it's mild. But it's like, at a glance, is very very difficult to tell.

I obviously can hear fine, and I am able to process that information easily. But some people who may have additional accessibility needs might have some issues with that, because you know, they're looking at this tiny little thing from afar. If you have any sort of visual issues, auditory issues, it could

be a bit annoying for you. I don't know the full extent of the accessibility features that are available in this game, yet they did say that they're working on a bunch of implementing and tweaking it, So my hope is like and then suddenly actings only they're always on top of this stuff pretty well, So my hope is by the time it comes out, it will be taken care of. Maybe you can even increase the font size or the icon size

or whatever it may be. But yeah, there's like a general readability issue that I struggled with, So I imagine that people who have more accessibility needs might as well. But otherwise, I I honestly like, I'm very it's weird too, you know, as people who cover games, when we approach previews, will always take the tact of never make a final judgment on the

game. That's why whenever you read a preview or hear a preview, you'll see everyone talking about everything like we had a limited slice of the game, so this is based on what we were shown there obviously not representative, but we try and like almost tell the line or sit on the fence about whether it's going to be good or good or bad. I mean, like I'm not too worried. I feel okay about it, saying like this is probably going to be a very good game, like it is. It is very

it's like too big to fail. If they build on the original games, it's hard to imagine how they could screw it up to the point where the sucks. Now if it even if it is like okay, it's going to sell a bajillion copies and it will be fine, just just by virtue of like, yeah, there's enough time in between arounds and now I could use this could be carbon copy and they would still be fine or hungry for something

to play. Yeah. Yeah, it will be the biggest. It would be one of the top selling PS five games by the time this generation has done, if not by the end of next year, it will be like a smash hit whatever. But it's important also to say, like, it looks like a quality game. It looks like a very well made game. It looks like it's a game made by Spider Man fans who are excited to be making a Spider Man game. Ultimately, I'm excited to play it as

someone who is very much like burned out on the MCU. I still love Spider Man, I still love Marvel, and I still love comics, but that like Marvel on a TV and on movies is like absolutely dropping the ball for me. I don't know what the fuck they're doing. All of this seems to suck straight booty, but like, but like, this is an instance where I was like, oh, yeah, I do like this stuff. I just needed to be done well, and it looks like it's going to be done well. I I want that feeling too, tam, So

I can't wait for Spider Marvel Spider Man two. While we still have you here, buddy, I think you'd be happy to learn that I've been very invested and really into I know what you're gonna say, lies of P. Hell, yeah, Tam, I don't know what it is. Like. I of course was interested in elden Ring because the zeitgeist was there. You were very excited about it. The whole staff was very excited about it. But I felt like I had to return to it afterwards, like I got

through market, did a couple more things, and then I dipped. But lies of P. I haven't been able to put it down. I don't know. Maybe it's just overall it because it's not a giant, massive open world versus something more akin to a blood Borne where you're just going through different avenues and streets. Or maybe it's because the Disney poison in my brain is starting to activate and like, oh cool, Pinocchio. Look it's a geppetto. But it feels good. I've been enjoying this a lot, and I

as the on staff expert, how do you feel about it? So? I think I tweeted about this. I am a I'm a weird person. When it comes to souls like so I generally dislike them, like I feel like I struggle with finding. The problem I have is when you try and copy from software, I'm gonna defend, not defending, I'm gonna hold you

to the standard set by from software. Right. You know, if someone someone comes to the pitchings like I'm the next steph Curry, and then imaginally you're gonna be like, Okay, let's see how these these threes go. And if they're not on point, like, it's gonna be like you your ship, you know, you know, Steff Curry, get out of there.

But that's how I am with a lot of these games, and especially like I don't consider stuff like Hollow Night part of that kind of conversation because although I'm not a major fan of Hollo Night, it's a different kind of game, you know, it's it's it takes some of the ideas and transpose it into others. I'm thinking about stuff like I know everyone loves Neo very well made games. Not for me. I always play them, I play enough to know a lot about them, but they just don't work in the

same way as me. Same with like Wall Long. I really enjoyed well long, but yeah, it was. It was like fine, it was like an easier version of that stuff, like you know, Laws of the Fallen, the Older one, that kind of thing, like I don't really vibe with that stuff. This is the first one I think i'd unequivalently, unequivally recommend. Lisp is one that I would like thumbs up. This is

a great, great game. And it's not a great game because they looked at what was there on paper, what was written down, what are the bullet points on making a souls like and then did that. It's because they clearly took a holistic and and like a proper in depth look at and and built an understanding of what makes their games feel good and and also like have

an atmosphere and how it all comes together. It's not a lot of those games the other people try and make it have individual cordoned off elements where it's like we've got a combat system that is interesting, separately from that, we've got a world separately from that, we've got a story, separately from that, we've got a vibe. They very really will coalesce into something interesting, which is what from Software does better than anyone else, especially for something like

Bloodborn or like Dark Souls three for example. This is this is a game where you go in there and everything feels like a piece of a greater puzzle a picture, and when you start playing it, you get it. The combat system is very much inspired by both Blood Born and Secury. It's got the two main mechanics of that, like the health or recovery system where you

attack back, and then the count system. The count system is probably the weakest part for me because it just doesn't feel great and every enemy does that thing where they pause one second way too and it feels unnatural. Yeah, the window for to get the perry correctly, I'm still trying to figure it

out. When you you're going against like a bigger enemy or a boss, and you you correctly time the perry, there's like red sparks that fly off and then eventually their health meter will will turn white, and then you have to do like a charge strong attack to get them to do the like the

R one vulnerable big big staff. I think that's been That and the dodge roll have probably been my two biggest issues with the game, despite really enjoying it, is that I feel like I'm nailing the rhythm of the timing. But it's that little bit of pause that you mentioned Tam that like throws me off of it. Yeah, it's a very it feels like it's not designed to challenge. It's designed to trick, yes, which is the main thing. It's like once you once you notice it and you kind of a few

times give it a go. Most times in a from software game, there are enemies that will do like an anime and that looks like it's coming and then make it, you know, slow down a little bit or do something else. You kind of eventually caught on on twit and then you're like, oh, get this, I'm gonna I'm gonna figure this out and then you're good with this game. You it never feels right. You never feel like

you get there and you understand it. You just kind of like, I've never learned the parry timing of an enemy and then felt like I grew from learning it. I felt like I got lucky a bunch of times. And then the next time I find that enemy, I'm just like, I clearly didn't learn anything, because it feels off again, and part of it is like the timing on the enemies animations and it's also kind of the timing on PA's kind of counter animation. It's security. It's almost instant, like his

sword is up and it's there. It's like almost a one frame style thing. It isn't like it feels like that or as there's a few a little more animating to pee when he does it, and it's unclear what the window is of like active counter frames. So it's Nevertheless, it's not something that

you have to rely on. You can get around counter stuff just by being smart with you know, your movement and dodging and that kind of stuff you have to pay attention to obviously, like the the iframes in your dodge because it's a little trickier than and as not as obvious, but it's still doable. You can also quickly upgrade your dodge to add like a second one emmelia afterwards. Yeah, they introduced that pretty early. Yeah, it's it's as

part of it. It's got so many different systems as well, which is what I love about it, Like you've got and they're all their own unique ideas like the count. The count the counter system is great, but it also has account system. Having account systems great, but on top of having the second rostyle account system, they have a kind of like a weapon breaking system, which is really cool. It's like, if you counter enough and you manage to get it right, you put the enemy in this like really

vulnerable state where they're struggling. And then like the weapons. For example, pool you pick up a weapon, you can dismantle it, and weapons come in two pieces. It's got like the handle and the actual blade part of it, and you can mix and match, so you can have, for example, I have like a fire X with a electricity handle which lets me like tank damage and also do fire damage. And it's it's weird and wacky.

And then you can like upgrade p himself and like different kind of attributes to him, like that second dodge or like improve his health that kind of stuff. And they're talking about the world is really cool. I like this darker, weirder Gothic take on Pinocchio. You know, Geppetto has made a bunch of these puppets and there's other lads involved, and now they're suddenly like

rampaging. They've been corrupted and they killed everyone and you are the only Like there's like a fundament or covenant between puppets and humans where they cannot disobey or endanger a human. But obviously Pinocchio is the exception to that. Rules are lucky. You're out there now trying to undo Jape's or whoever's involved kind of

fuck ups to fix whatever's going on. It's very blood born. It's like people are hiding and you like walk up to their to their windows and talk to them and that kind of stuff, but they take it some real wacky places. It starts off being fairly blood borny, but then it starts getting real weird with it, and it's like, Okay, you guys went for it. I'm just like really impressed by it. Yeah, I don't think it's like again, I don't think it's as good as a from software game,

but it's easily my favorite non from software souls game easily. Yeah, from the ones that I've dipped into. Also, tim that you mentioned earlier, like Wo Kong didn't quite hit or feel the best, but this one is close to feeling there. I also like the different puppet arm attachments, similar to like a Securo the Spider Man grapple one I've wound up using the most in my playtime, so far, they're they're fun. It's fun. Yo. Yeah, it's a good time. And there's like looks of it

will neat touches in there that I really like, such small things. Like my favorite one and I keep talking about it and it's so small that it's almost insignificant. Is when you're out there collecting Ergo, which is their version of souls, and you have enough to to level up, it changes the color of the counter. So if it's like one thousand, three hundred, it's white. The moment you get to one thousand and four hundred and that's

what you need to level up, it goes blue. So you know, it's kind for me to go back, and that's something that like from doesn't do very much. But then there's also downside where it's like you start off and you can go to the Stargazers, which are their bonfires, and you can level up there, and then at a certain point it unlocks the Hunter's Dream or the the Workshop version in this game, and the doll in there, and from then on for a really long time you can only just level

up at her, which is annoying. It's like, yeah, you let me do this before, Why are you making me this. I was confused when they that started happening for folks start the game fresh. I don't remember this tooltip popping up or this part being tutorialized. Well, but your weapon does have kind of a type of durability to it where you do have to sharpen it like in a Monster Hunter. I at least don't remember the tooltip popping off. It does pop up, It's very brief, and there's also

an item in your inventory that you immediately have access to. It's unlimited use. You basically select it and you hold X and he's got like a rotating blade on the end of his arm that he just like puts his weapons and it looks it looks cool as fuck, and it does improve like a bunch of stuff in there, like your abilities as well. Yeah, it is.

That part of it is really really interesting. I feel like this game would normally scare me, but because of the lessons that I've learned from you, Tim, I feel mildly invincible and I don't even get frustrated at bosses anymore. Yeah it is. I am really enjoying it, and now it's surprised it's on game pass, I believe correctly that's right. I think they

put on game Pass yesterday out of so like it is. Yeah, it's really like there's no reason to not give it a goal, I will say if you're playing it, And the one thing I'll say is like, there's certain builds that feel less viable than others, and froms games, you have builds that feel less viable, but it's just because you're doing something wacky with it or start wise, Whereas in this game, I feel like if you spec into skill I think it is, which is the Dexterity build, the

game is much harder than if you went into like the Power build, which is strength build. I would recommend if you're playing that game, speck into Strength. You can still use a lot of the coolest moves and like and a lot of interesting ideas and or like abilities in there. But I from from the little I played with that build and speaking to other people, there's a point where you kind of hit a wall and it's because and you'll struggle

because you're you you've got that Dex build. I usually do Dex builds, so I didn't have I think for people who are very used to having Dexterity builds, which means they need to be more focused on defense and also being very very kind of strict about their damage output. It's probably going to be fine, but if you aren't used to that, you should think about. And you don't get a respect option until fairly late. I think it's like

chapter seven or something like that. You if I recall correctly, you can adjust the weapons with like a different crank right like to to take better advantage of whichever builds you have. So yeah, crank it away. It's still

very viable. I'm just saying like it is an additional slight layer of difficulty, and there are there are moments where boss there's like spikes and boss difficult either are kind of weird at times, but and and just having that combination of a difficulty spike and also a trickier build might be enough to put you

off. I did think it was neat that like they were kind of throwing weapons at me from the from the very beginning of like, oh cool, I wasn't expecting to find another weapon for another five hours, but yeah, I think I found the same acts you found him, and yeah, they're going There's also there's also like a like a choice system which unfortunately doesn't amount

to too much. But it's just neat that they put it in there so you can every now and then people ask Pinocchio questions and you can choose to lie or not, and that has an impact on the ending. I believe you get you get three, and I think it's equivalent of the The Blood Bornes three endings with the umbilical cords, except list like obtuse. But it's not a major difference from what I've told, what I've been told and read

about. So but it's just a neat little thing where it's like someone to ask you a question and you have the ability to lie or tell the truth, and you'd just be like, i' gonna lie right now. And so far, no nose growing as far as I've seen. On the loading screen, on the loading screen, the loading bars, there's a big old yeah. They also do this thing where it says lie or die and like prepared to lie, which is a nice It's a twist on the dark souls prepared

to die, which I appreciate. It's like good good ship, you're having fun with it. I'm just like very impressed with this team. I believe they're called Neo whiz. They're a Korean team. I'm not sure of anything else that they've done. They're familiar. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they've they've done, like I want to say, I'm not sure. I don't

think they've done anything as high profile as this. Like I googled them earlier, and they have like games someone who like Brave nine and The Hero Slayer or something like that, which sounds like very much like forgettable mobile games. But yeah, there's there's a bunch of stuff that does not ring any bells, but there is stuff. Yeah, they have stuff. This is the first thing where I feel like this is their major breakout moment where I don't

know, I don't know where they go next. I hope it isn't just more copying or like trying to do more of this, because I worry that it's This is like a lightning strikes once moment where they did something really impressive, and if they try and repeat it, it could be a problem even from Tens not to stick too closely to their own games. One to three are probably the exception. They have three games in the same series, but each one of those games is unique in their own different way way. It

feels like a separate game connected by a unified esthetic and idea. They need to make another souls like game, but continue adapting weird fairy tales. I suggest take when I need Neo Wiz to take Winnie the Pooh, knew it exactly that, and then Winnie the Pooh like hanging dong, just guzzles down blood instead of honey, you know who? I like? Okay, I feel like they should do Sherlock Holmes. Oh that'd be neat. Actually I

would be pretty fucking sick. Really like the street solving. Yeah, I felt like if they if they expand out the choice making element of it a bit more and like work that into a Sherlock homestyle system, where is you know, doing little investigations and if airly linear, but you can make these decisions that take you down different branching paths that eventually take you back to like, oh, we've solved the crime. It was this fourheaded demon. I

got it. They should They should do Sherlock Holmes, but do a twist Sherlock g nome. Yeah, oh just do just do it all like, dude, do Sherlock Holmes, but the villain is Winnie the Pooh. I love it. I love it, combine itblic domain lies of Pooh. I suggested it. I don't know why I didn't have it there. Dam are you? Are you running up against our time with you? Sadly? I am, well, I think, but I can. I can hang out for a little bit longer. If you was going to say we should take

a quick bricky break, we'll finish off games talk about news. In that case, I'm out of it all right, dam any anything you want to want to say to the folks at home, any any plugs the Spider Man preview with Lucy that's also yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. I would love to have stayed longer, but I have a few other things that I need to write up, and I'm very limited on time. So that's why I'm bailing on the podcast. Otherwise I would have stuck around for the

entire thing. I apologize. I have to work apparently, Tea. Yeah, I'm actually just gonna go see on my ass. Well, We'll see you with some more game talk and some news, because there's a lot of it today. After this quake breaky break folks were now joined by our dear friend Bailey Myers. Bailey Something something was shared with me during the break that I think is going to haunt me for the rest of my life. I thought, honestly, I already I thought you already knew. I didn't know

this. I I did not purpose we forgot it, so I knew this. Bailey plays Mario Party. Yeah, that's her self. Why why Bailey, I think we're friends now or I can I can say that I care about your well being? Right? Why do you do this? Well, it's to keep a demon's dead bay, right, otherwise she would be killing That's the only thing it's by are you just practicing for when you have to

take on people and market party? It's clearly worked. I think I think we can file this under the same thing of like, I don't know, like these pimple Popper video watching people like it's very troubling that that's what they're into. But as long as they're not hurting anyone and not like pushing the air influence on anyone else, it's like, all right, go go do your thing. So I kind of put that in the same category a little

bit. It's not it, it's it's more abhorrent. I mean, of course, but yeah, Bailey, I'm gonna do a poll here where I'm gonna ask chat if you're a sick oh or not? Is that okay? Oh, that's gonna work out in her favor. I'm positive that's fine. But Bailey, Uh, other than it being Tuesday and it maybe not being your busy week, I forget, Uh, Bailey, we have you on? Okay, fantastic, We have you on because some something's popping off, something's happy. Yeah. Yeah, I got a couple of videos out and

I wanted to tell everyone about them. So tell everyone all about them. I will. Well. First of all, everyone, please watch the newest honest game trailers for see if stars Jan's favorite game. Yeah, yep, to see if we needed a few more weeks to beat Starfield. Uh. And then also I wrote a new show that is on game Spot right now. Call that premiered called reality Check. It's hosted by our dear friend of the show, I'm a fife who we all know and love, who the

most persons I am sometimes and not sometimes. I'm making that that much more difficult by writing a show for her where we talk about why we can't fuck non people in Starfield and we're about it. Oh oh, okay, I promise you you'll be able to do all that. Yeah, well I shouldn't. I shouldn't have to, that's true. Yes, let us walk the alien animals. That's what we need. It's it's just like a deep dive into niche gaming topics and this is about like non human romance options. And

we worked really hard on it, and we went to the zoo. Work really hard at the zoo because I noticed those were like two separate clauses the way you said it, we did. She worked a little harder than I did at the zoo. My job was already done. I was just there to see the elephants actually filming. I remember asking if you could be on a upf and you're telling me, jan no, because I have to go to the fucking zoo tomorrow. It's great. The Los Angeles Zoo is fantastic,

most successful Komodo dragon breeding program in the country. Well that's great to me. Yeah, that's what I learned, all right, That's when I learned that day. Okay, uh, maybe we'll all buy a zoo together. Afterwards, Well, we'll put put a fiver in and then we'll figure it out. An aquarium, not a zoo. To be clear, there's okay, alright, alright, well I can't do like a kind of zoo water zoo. I love that water zook out the zoo. Uh speaking about

out the wa Zoo. There's an obscene amount of video games constantly releasing. You think it's a slow week, but it's not. Actually not too many. There's too many, some would say, because I don't believe anyone here is actually played Mortal Kombat one, but we do have. Okay, all right, we'll talk about put I mean, I like, look, look, look, you're gonna get the most surface level ass version of Mortal Kombat one from me. Okay here, yeah, Disney World or Mortal Kombat one.

I mean, come on, you are the talk about the most Apple and orange is ass comparison in the history of comparisons. But Disney World, Okay, No, I really like Mortal Kombat one. But uh, you know, I'm not a very good fighting game player, right I But I my Kombat one like it's pretty or Mortal Kombat is a serious has been pretty welcoming to casual audiences for a very long time. This one seems especially good

at that it does. It's very accommodating. Mortal Kombat three is like my sort of staple where I was the best I ever was at Mortal Kombat, which you know is only what twenty five years ago. Quarters. Yeah, So like I do think, I do think there's there's an approachability to this game that I was sort of surprised in seeing. You know, I'm one of those people that's like, I am going to do the tutorial, I am gonna see what the moves are once and never remember them again or use

them in combat. But I did see the kind of like rock paper scissors thing that that all I guess all finding games do have to some degree, but I'm into it. I think they're you know again, like these games are just so polished and they look so goddamn good. The fatality stuff is not my thing, but everything else is pretty great. I already do have the kind of like fatal blow fatigue where I'm just like not fucking since I shouldn't watch head. It's true though, right, like that is a without

an out of thing. When they debuted, yeah, they they when they started doing the X ray stuff right whenever whatever one that was, maybe it was nine, nine or ten, right, I was just like, oh wow, okay, and now I'm going to watch this for you know, seven eleven seconds and just sort of like be here for that quick? Is it that was there was a button to like skip that is that? Would that be fucked up? I don't think so. I would. I would welcome it, but I mean part of it. I think it's like the

flow in the match or something that they're worried about preserving. And I don't know, like, you know, maybe both players would have to agree to skip it, right, so that the other players not caught off guard or something. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I think that's the move there. I've just been playing Towers. I love how I can mix and match my cameo characters. I think everything is really I wish I could be

Syrax and Sector. I want to play as those motherfuckers. I now feel shame for shaming Bailey for doing a solo Mario party, because that's one of the modes here. Right, It's just a solo Mario party. It's still very Immortal Kombat what you're doing. But and like the board game is more just like an overworld map, but it is like they are a little bit trying to board gamify like this a single player experience and it works really well.

From what Dan showed me in the quick look, it looks like a really good way, Like if you get through the story, you're like, I just want to keep playing Mortal Kombat. This is a really good way to facilitate that. M you know what, Yes, it's the most like the Smash Brothers single player mode from Ultimate. That's the thing it reminds me of the most. I just think this one looks better and like more fun.

Are you be smirching the name of Kirby though? Is that? Is that what we're doing with I never I gotta be careful around these parts doing that that I could lose a limb. How are you liking the story? Backlar? Have you have? You didn't started? I don't. Mortal Kommer Lord is like not interesting to me. It's just I don't look like I'm not shaming anyone who finds joy in that narrative. No, no, shame

away, please please, It's just not for me. I watched the opening unskippable cinematic where uh, you know, we're talking about like recreating the cosmos and that stuff seemed fine, and I don't like it's just none of this Yeah, honestly, chats right. Like I've seen I've watched two seasons of Joejoe's Bizarre Adventure. Mortal Kombat is like a flyer you find in a bathroom compared to that lore, so like, it does not matter to me. My brain is just too big for it. Of course, right. I

do like the way you're like, oh, they remade the universe. It's nice for you. That's that's really sweetly You've got that going for you. It's very sweet. I just like in a game where like everyone's head is constantly being chopped off, I struggle to find any sort of grounded narrative there. It's fine. I love the fighting element of it. That's really all

that matters. And yeah, I'm surprised that I've found myself going back constantly to Mortal Kombat one the last couple of days and playing a lot of that game. Bailey, are you at all intrigued by Mortal Kombat or Street Furnter

six? How do you fair with the fighting game world? Okay? My thing with fighting games is it's very it's very weird because I've had I have a lot of ties to the fighting games because I used to work at a fighting game company, but I've never been good at them, and I've tried so hard and I can't fucking do it, and it's it is what it is, you know. I just I don't have I just don't have it

in me to be good at fighting games. But I know a lot of Immortal Kombat because I did a lot of really in depth research on the history of it for a video that came out on game Spot like a month or two ago, I don't remember, but it was great. You should watch a history Mortal Kombat. Watch it. And also I thought that the most recent Mortal Kombat movie was really fun. Okay, I need to ask you

because I thought this, and this bugged me. With the newest Mortal Kombat movie, I swear to God that Cole's wife in that movie, he was presented that she was his mother, and then I was very bothered when they kissed because I thought that was his mom. It was not I read that completely thought that, but I think at the point that that happened in the movie. I'm pretty sure if I'm remembering correctly. It was my first movie back in theaters, like post Lockdown, so I was just like taking it

all in. I saw it at the fucking the Chinese Theater. I was like, it's a historic moment, Like I have to see the new Mortal

Combat. They had. One of the actresses from the movie was there that night, and like we were if anyone's ever been to the Chinese theater, it's like you got these like big sets of stairs that go down like a big auditorium seating, and she was wearing one of those dresses that like really constrict your legs, that are like full length but like really tight, and so she was going down all of these stairs and it took a ship you not a full ten minutes for her to get all the way down the stairs.

And she gets to the friend, she goes, thank you all so much for being here, and then walked say. I was like, this is the greatest thing that's ever happened in cinemall. It's good. I was so amped after that. That movie was great. You could not have disappointed me. After that. That was I was so primed to have a great time. Uh speak about having a great time with Mortal Kombat. There's also a quick look of Mortal Kombat one out on the site. Now, this

game looks gorgeous. But speaking about having a great time, I think Jeff Grubb has been having a great time because someone will stop playing this game. Z. I got a crying kid over here. But I'll try to do my best. It's it's really really good, and I keep playing it a lot, and I don't need I don't need you monitoring my behavior online, Jane Cholla, I just play a lot what Major Mitch has told me, and so we all see it. We all see it. Jeff. It's

fine. It's I started playing. I played it on that upf and I'm like, I think I get this. It's but it's like it's a lot, and I don't know if the juice is ever gonna be worth the squeeze in terms of like, yeah, maybe I'll get a win, but it feels like it's gonna be luck and then it's like it turns out no. It's very much a battle royale, which is in most battle royale video games, it's about just maximizing your positioning as much as possible so that when the

luck does break your way, you can be in position to win. That was true and PUBG it's true in Fortnite. It's true Tetris ninety nine, where you just got to keep make sure you're staying ahead of the curve so that when when you know someone else makes a mistake, you're ready to get in there. And this Ki reminds me a lot of Tetris ninety nine, where you've got to be on top of every little thing. So you need to be racing well. That means avoiding the cars in front of you,

not hitting the sides. Both those things will slow you down a lot. But then you also want to be and this is like one of my little tricks, is you want to be mindful of the cars behind you because there these little arrows pop up and you want to be having them bump into you because that gives you a little bit of a speed boost. And then you want to be getting all of these power ups that fill up your meter so

that you can use your meter at the appropriate time. And you need to use the meter at the appropriate time so that gives you a superboost, puts you on a track up above of the normal track where all the other cars are, and you can reach a thousand kilometers per hour or whatever it is, and that's a that's a huge advantage. Yes, it's very fast.

It's a huge advant if you use at the right time, and then you've got to be keeping an eye on your health slash normal boost, which is like you use your boost, it takes away some of your health, so it's a risk rewarter mechanic. You want to be doing that about once per tracks. You need to learn the right place to do that, and then it's all of these things simultaneously have to be at the top of your mind, and that just takes practice. So that's why I was playing so much.

It's like I feel myself getting better. And then once I started getting to a point where I could manage all of these different things, and I was using the super boost at the right time, in the normal Boost at the right time, and I wasn't being too aggressive. That's what like. Now I'm like regularly finishing in the top ten almost every race. I still

have a ton of wins. I think I have four wins and then I have one win of a circuit, which is like five races, and I didn't even I didn't want a single race in that, but I was in the top ten every time, so I was able to or close to the top ten. So I came out of a number one in that and it's super satisfying to win. Boy, it feels good. It really is a very very good feeling, which is what you want from Better Royal, where it's like you put it on this effort and when you get pull off a

win, it feels like you accomplish something. This is definitely one of those games. Yeah. Nice. What what do you think is the next game that should get nine people mentioned? Like Star Fucks ninety nine. I'd like the idea like a dog a dog fight one that that's pretty cool, but I don't know if that's it's difficult. What do you think? What's that Kirby air Ride? Oh? I would love that. Kirby's Air Ride ninety one would be incredible. Nintendo, Doug, Doug, you're listening, write

the check our good friend, Doug. Absolutely, I would I would dig that. There's there's a lot of stuff they could go for, but it's one to Switch ninety nine. Yes, there it is. That's it one one two ninety nine switch. Yes, let's make it happen. The crime. What the fuck are you doing? Man? I'm putting these ideas out into the universe because someone needs to capitalism. All right, someone needs to capitalism Twisted Metal ninety nine lance what a great idea? Is it a greater?

I mean, look, is F zero ninety nine on paper a good idea? One hundred car race? But I don't know, like why not have combat vehicular combat? Yeah? I think about F zero is like there's not a ton of tracks, so it's like and apparently like people have gone in and saw there's other modes where it because like this one is it's still

just F zero. It is about finishing first. Yeah, some people in the back are gonna blow up and like not make the cut, but for the most part, like eighty people are going to cross the finish line. I'm like, I'm like, there's still space in this battle royale genre for like no just the last car standing. It sounds like they might have modes like that in F zero ninety nine that they're gonna release later, but I

still think like a car combat one that could work. I would I would be down to try that Mega Man ninety nine the well, like that mini game from Pokemon Stadium where you're a liqua tongue trying to eat as much sushi as possible but not the w Sabby, I think that ninety nine, Yes, definitely where we were all thinking. He's yeah, uh, do you want to get to the news. You want to talk about this last thing? Here? I play a little bit heavy duty challenge. You move big

trucks over things. It's okay, it feels like a cheaply made game, but it touch the thing where the tires go over the mud and then the mud falls apart, really realistically, And you know that's what I need. Jan Jan, you know you you love like long haul mud games and desolate space games. It's like, yes, it is the two different sides of grub. It is the two wolves inside of him costly howling. They're howling, They're always howling. That's absolutely right, Like, look at that mud,

good fucked up. Yes, I need it. And then then let's go to space where I'll never have to see mud again. I don't know, I don't know what it is. You need absolute mud and the absolute absence of mud. I'm a spokesperson for absolute mud. It's my favorite vodka. That's for sure. All right. You know what, Yeah, let's let's hit the news do them news button. There we go, and I'm glad. I had it this week, watch out next week whoever's on the

bomb cast. Yeah, Microsoft accidentally uploaded all of their secrets. They will Yeah, I Phil was just he uploaded the wrong files to the FTCs like server or whatever, and now I get it. Yes, exactly, that's the common ye. Anyway, it's there's a lot going on here. We'll dive into most of it, although some of it's still being like sorted through,

so there'll be more in Game Nest Mornings later this week probably. But Microsoft is planning to release a redesigned Xbox Series X console in November twenty twenty four. Right now, it has the code named Brooklyn. It will have sy Brooklyn. It will have more internal storage, faster Wi Fi, reduced power consumption, a more immersive controller which we'll talk about in a second, and a beautiful design. And that beautiful design is a cylindrical shape. According

to the reports. It won't have a disk tray, so they're not going to do a disk drive on this thing, but it will have two terabytes of storage instead. But and like the specs aren't really going to be upgraded, they'll be slightly improved. What that really means probably is they're using a new chip set that is basically more power efficient. That's where the power, like the reduced power consumption comes from. But it basically basically it's gonna run

games almost exactly the same. I would assume this is in line with Microsoft. Microsoft is said about, hey, they don't want to do a pro version in the middle of the console generation, but they might do something like this, which is just an Xbox Series X revamped in a bunch of other ways, and then and it's gonna be five hundred dollars. Still, what's up, guys? What the fuck are they doing? This isn't a box, This is a fucking cylinder and slinder serious x Yeah, that's good,

good call out everyone. Everyone's upset about their like data potentially being leaked and this stuff feeling bad for big Philly. But we should we should be causing riots right now. A box you're saying, must be square shaped, all right? Or rectangular cube angles to this shit, baby? Okay? Not a single one round? Yeah? What is it like? There's a lot of there's a lot of jewelry boxes and stuff that aren't like perfect squares. I don't know, I feel like you're being kind of prescriptivists. Yeah,

yes, can be a circle. Yes, you're wrong, Jan, I'm sorry, can be a circle. A box can be spherical, It could be cylindrical. Rather, you could do a round box too. All boxes are circles, but not all circles are boxes. You know, yeah, you know, all this time we didn't know Phil had it in them, and now I was gonna show us. All Right, I apologize for darrelling the news. Alright, Actually, let me do it this general quick. Just give me a second. I'll be right back. It's a good idea.

I I'm looking at the rest of this stuff here, and I gotta say, from a tech perspective, back, lark, I don't press. I don't need no, I don't think anybody I think. I think it's that's the right time to buy it if you don't already have one, but I don't. This is not like a half step upgrade console in the way of like a pro or anything like that. I'm sure girl will come back and reiterate how that's the case. But this is not a thing where you're

like, well, my refrigerator xbox is no longer relevant. I must upgrade to the cylinder. It's what about it's gonna be a thing that the controller is intriguing. Though. What about these hot Starfield raps that I'm putting gonna buy for this Xbox? I can't put them on the cylinder? No, I mean I love the I love the Starfield raps. They're so fucking cool. Like, what's why? Why release something cool like that and then immediately make it so I can't use it? Okay, the controller looks sick.

I think it's different. Controller looks like it it's been dipped. Oh. I think Starfield's color packaging is very, very good. I like the brand. I like what they did with the packaging of that stuff. It's a shame that I just find myself so disinterested in that video game. The problem is, like all of the colors that they've used for the Starfield promotional stuff are so much brighter and more interesting than anything you can put on your character

in Starfield. Like the first day I played it, I searched for hours just to find my character a slutty little crop top so I could relate to her better. Nothing, fucking nothing, that's space. What you know space? You can't wear a crop top? Definitely sluts in space? Oh yeah, I mean, I'm making my way through Cowboy Bebop. I'm aware. Yeah, let me dress her up like Fay Valentine and then we can talk.

You're not getting an honest game trailer for that game until then. Hear that hold hostage warnings warning I want to wear a crop yeahs all wear crop tops and rock in there we go, all right, all right, this controller it's uh, it's also going to be updated. It's got a codenamed Sabill. Do with that what you will. Uh. It's got new features including improved precision haptic feedback using voice coil actuators which double as speakers, basically

just haptics that happen to be speakers. That that makes sense because like the haptics on in the in the duel sense really work because they always pair it up with a sound. So it's like you can like complete it in your brain, like, oh, I know what they're trying to go for, I'm going over gravel or something like that, so making that the same thing, that's fair. It also have an accelerometer which will have a lift to wake features, so lift up the control or your Xbox will turn on.

That sounds annoying, actually don't. I'm not gonna use that. And then yeah, because like I'm gonna be cleaning the table and I'll pick it up into my xbox. Is gonna turn on, That's gonna turn on the TV and I'm in the middle of the night. I hope it's hope. It's like the eight Bit though, where you like really have to violently shake it, shake you show it. Who's boss? Yeah? Yeah, you want to make it all dizzy and whatnot. That's how's your father? Yeah?

More things for me to assume there's a ghost in my house exactly. That modular thumbsticks a rechargeable battery, which but you can people have been asking for for a while, stop the press is what. Chargeable batteries and my controllers I hate them actually because they always go bad after a year and then you got to control it last for two hours. And if they always go bad after a year, what do you mean? What like my jewels since last

like an hour and a half. It's because it's a rechargeable battery. Well, maybe the capacity is the problem. I'm with you. I think those are like not impressive battery lengths, but like I don't know, don't do that better? I don't. I don't know. I don't have to tell you now. But these rechargable batteries, they do mention can be swapped out. So that's something because because if you can put in a new one on

the fly, then we're then we're all good. I suppose I don't have to get Hopefully it's just like a double aced kind of a chargeable battery. We'll see, yeah, I know. And then if they're gonna have quieter buttons and thumbsticks, I don't. I like my loud dumb sticks and buttons, but I get it, I do. Are they loud? Are they louder? Everyone click? I have a dual sense. Son, No, you're using two I can't wait. What's happening here? That's very loud.

That's actually very loud. It is. I guess it's good for a keyboard, not for a controller. It's satisfying, but I don't know. I don't have it. It's feel like a jeweler. I don't have Handy because it's the only console that I don't like personally own. That's okay. You have a competent, you have a PC. It's okay, Bailey. I don't have a feel like such a fake You don't you have a PC,

you don't need one. That's exactly all the games are on there. I mean, we've established I'm a fake gamer anyway, so's we're all fake gamers together. Good for us, absolutely, high five. Differently, I'm just gonna go play more fzero ninety nine and avoid all these new games. That's what I'm doing. Hey, I like loading batteries. That's it. Look at that. Oh that's a good sound. I like that. That's good stuff. Sorry, no, it's okay. More news here. Microsoft is

looking to launch its next gen console in twenty twenty eight. Microsoft has been targeting at twenty twenty eight launch window for its next Xbox console, as mentioned in a May twenty twenty two meeting attended by top company executives, including CEO Satya Nadela and Head of Gaming Phil Spencer. May have it may have flexible

hardware specifications and be more developer friendly than previous consoles. Microsoft believes that mid cycle hardware refreshes are not helpful for creators or players, and that current console cycle is still young. Microsoft's next gen vision this is like some of the details here, which is actually some of the stuff sounds pretty wild. Microsoft's next gen console Xbox series X, X, X and S would represent not just a new device, but a new ecosystem generation. Executives outlined this plan

in that made twenty twenty two meeting. Console generations usually just involved a new offering of one or two models of a new, more powerful piece of gaming hardware. The leaked presentation on Microsoft's so called Gen ten offering including consoles, phones, web browsers, a handheld system PCs, and a cloud console with a shared operating system available across devices. According to the presentation, Microsoft has

already selected ARM sixty four architecture for the core devices CPU. The company expected delivery development kits to game creators by twenty twenty seven ahead of a twenty twenty eight launch. That would be a big change going from X eighty six to ARM sixty four for their processor. And basically the simplest way to explain this is the switch uses ARM. Now they use it's going to be a something different version of ARM. Like all your phones use ARM. All the all

these mobile devices basically use that. But they're becoming so much more powerful these days that it makes some sense because this gives you the most flexibility, which sounds like they want to go for now. They did also like they're like, hey, we want to do a handheld Xbox, but they're like, we would probably do this with a partner and not make it ourselves because the resources it would take to get that spun up. I wonder if that changes

now after they see what happened with the Steam Deck. I suppose that was probably happening when they originally had that meeting, though, so I don't know. All right, more news here. Yes, the cloud gaming aspect is going to return. So Microsoft plans to release a next gen Xbox console late twenty twenty eight that we were just talking about, and it will use cloud

processing to improve performance enabled new game experiences. The company has been working on cloud gaming for over a decade and has already implemented it in some Xbox games. But now it's you know, obviously they tried this once before with the Xbox One, where it was going to be better with the cloud. That's something they are going to return to with the next system. They've been silently working on this for a while. I mean, obviously that's one of the

things Kojima is working on with there with his game for Xbox exactly. So they are probably looking for a big coming out party for this tech where they like, hey, here's a game that really is better because it's using the cloud and it's not just a Microsoft flight simulator, which is something that I think a lot of people are like, yeah, I get it, but I'm never gonna play that game. They're looking for a way to like, hey, make make games seem better because they are running on the Azure Cloud

server or something like that. I think this is all a smoke screen. I think they're just trying to get Final Fantasy seven onto the Xbox. This is the game that's the cloud gaming of the future. Absolutely, yes, So that's what Phil Spencer's always been. Cut the check, fail, cut the check. Uh okay, well, speaking of cutting the check, Phil Spencer and Microsoft, we're trying to acquire Nintendo in the year twenty twenty twenty. What sorry, what Findintendo? Well, listen, they took they had

conversation. Okay, you know in twenty twenty, Microsoft gaming boss Phil Spencer wanted to acquire Nintendo. He believed that Nintendo was a key asset for Microsoft and gaming and that a merger would be a good move for the companies. However, Nintendo was not interested in being acquired. Yeah, yeah, and horrific for planet Earth, like great for Microsoft, and you know, world ending for the rest of humanities, Like, wouldn't it be nice if we

own that? Yeah, man, probably would probably be really nice for you. It'd be nice if we all individually owned a lot of things. That doesn't mean we just get to go buy Nintendo Io. I'll hear this. I don't even want to hear this as a freaking thought experiment. This sucks. So he is antitrust loss, yes, and he's aware that like Nintendo was like not really super hot on the idea that was like him. He

had to kind of explain that to other people at Microsoft. He suggested that he believe Nintendo's future exist off of their own hardware, which is wild in a world where they game sell like fifty million copies on just Switch, but claimed it was taking a long time for the company to see that without that catalyst, I don't see an angle to a near term mutually agreeable merger of Nintendo and Microsoft, he explained to other execs inside of Microsoft. And I

don't think a hostile action would be a good move. Yeah, hostile takeover Nintendo would be something everyone would love. So we're playing the game. Uh huh. But our board of directors has seen the full right up on Nintendo and Valve, and they are fully supportive on either if opportunity arises, as am I Valves out there, like what what? What the fuck? I

mean? Valve's a privately owned company. They're not even like you couldn't even go out and buy the shares, but you couldn't assume that eventually gave Newell is gonna want to be like, what's wait, I'm not gonna be around forever some what I'm gonna have to like do something here, but I don't know he's going to leave it. Through Swords is my favorite first person shooter of all time. But mentioning Valve in the same breath as Nintendo is insane.

Phil, What are you talking about? I love weeks. You get to see all the most embarrassing emails and power points that never made it past to the initial marketing rounds, where you're just like, I don't know, Phil, maybe take that one back to the drawing board. By both of these, I see what like what like. In the context of this conversation, I'm like doing the short version here. The context of the conversation is

like, what would be the biggest pie in the sky? Possible moves we can make that would completely redefine everything, and that are also in the realm of possibility. Nintendo, we all know not in the realm of possibility. Valve is not like some impossible thing, though, So I get like he's like, at some point getting Nintendo would be a career moment, is how he describes it. Oh yeah, I'm sure, and I honestly believe a good move for both companies. It's just taking a long time for Nintendo to

see that their future exists off their own hardware. And then he reiterates a long time. Someone should let me be in a CEO because of all of my wild ideas. I think, I think I would do a major disservice to humanity, but it'd be really fun. Yeah, I mean, but if Microsoft just buys Apple, let's let's keep dreaming. You know, it's

just all this like wildly irresponsible consolidation that is horrifying. It's like their job to like like have all these ideas, but it is weird just to see it written out right, just to have someone's like, oh, they really did have that conversation. That's crazy, and like it would be it would be probably anti competitive for Microsoft, the company that owns Windows, to be the company that also owns Valve, the biggest PC gaming store, that would

be a tough one, I think for them to get past regulators. I mean, Nintendo is a whole other thing. Honestly, I don't even know what that would look like, how do you even pull that off? That'd be impossible. But yeah, I don't like it's weird these companies. It's we have these laws against price fixing, right, Like if all these companies got together and decided, hey, we're going to work together to fix prices,

that would be super illegal. But if you're just a company and you buy everyone and then you decide to fix those prices, that's like totally for Yeah, but there's yeah, but they're the market still operates that way. There are still like, you know, that sort of pricing like matching and and and that sort of strategy that's sort of like don't step on their toes and we won't step on yours, right, Like that sort of thing.

It's like gentlemen's agreements behind closed doors that sort of stuff. Where did this leak out of? Like? How did we where? So? Microsoft apparently uploaded unredacted files to the FTC server as part of the activision case. So it was like someone that Microsoft sped, Yes there was a giant rake, and they're just like, man, that's looking juicy, gonna step on that juicy rake. Well, baby, man, I love your ambition, but I have a switch on my desk and not an Xbox for a reason,

Kitto can't coma. Oh there's a buggy, I see it. Yeah, that's very opinions about this too. Let her chime in. Yes, someone, someone please photoshop Phil Spencer as Craven the Hunter. Okay, I already happened for Xbox weirdos. All right, let's see here there's more U Phil Spencer and Mike Stoff. We're getting a tindo and then the next story. Dishonored three and more showed up in a leaked game list from Zinni Max zinny Max's management forecast. This is pre COVID, so a lot of these things

have been delayed. But if you look at it, you'll see stuff like Dishonored three, a new Doom game, and remasters of the Elder Scrolls, Oblivion and follow three. We now know that that remaster of Oblivion is happening, so that this list is still red mostly probably very relevant. But at one time they're like, we're gonna put out Starfield in like heim, we see if I can make this big enough for me to actually read it.

Starfield was going to come out in fiscal year twenty one, and then the Elder Scrolls six was gonna come out in go year twenty four, and well, we know that's definitely not going to happen now, but that's the kind of thing that they were looking at doing. And these other games on here, most of them have come out or we do know about. And then there's the handful of like Fallout three remaster, which is probably one of the ways that they're going to try to keep Fallout relevant. It says Ghost Wire

Tokyo sequel. Yeah, I mean I thought that was Immortal Slam. That's what it's reminded me of. All the stuff did much better than Immortals of Avum. That Ghost had a much better style too. I think, well, no, it's just all the hand jazz, you know. Yeah, there's a ton of like weird sign language looking stuff almost in a way, which is pretty interesting this man, I mean start again, it's American and

all we were like string stuff too. Did you notice that, like remember those games where like peoples play with a string and with lies of p and sync is getting back together? Oh, cut the check fail? What's happening. I'm just trying. I'm just trying to have cut the check go over as my new catchphrase. It's handful, you know, maybe this go ghost wire, like hopefully they do, like do it again and like just like better right, Like I'd be okay with that. They're something before that happened

before. Yeah, if the sequel does a big improvement, that's normal for gaming at this point because like getting a team together and making a new game hard is almost always going to have result in about a seven point five out of ten. It takes so much work to like get something like across the finish line, the idea that you're going to be good at everything as well. It's like no, but the second game, maybe you can bring that stuff together two Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I mean an Assassin's Creed too.

I think it's the one I always think of where it's like Assassin's Creed is and then Assassin's Creed two is very very good too, the best first person shooter of all time. This is just a joke I'm gonna keep saying, and everyone in chat is gonna assume I'm not joking, and it's gonna be really fun for me chat. Uh So, yeah, this this leak was was huge. There's still more stuff coming up, but this was the

stuff I was able to gather up before the show this morning. I don't know what, like, there's gonna be any fallout from any of this in terms of people, you know, the Microsoft partners with getting mad at Microsoft for making this big booboo or whatever something like that. Or Nintendo's relationship with nintend or with the Microsoft is going to be like more frosty or whatever. It's like you were going to try to buy us, You're gonna talk about

hostile takeovers. I don't know. I think most people are gonna be just assume it's business. Is normal to me. The big thing here is the next Xbox being an arm based thing. Very strange. I kind of want to see what that's actually gonna end up. Looking like i'd wear it on arms, you would you're gonna look like a very cool dude, like like Jack so cool. Yeah, all right, so let's see here. Starfield is a salesman, get hit. Starfield is the fifth fastest selling game in

Europe this year based on its launch week performance. It is also the biggest

Xbox launch this generation in Europe, ahead of Forts the Horizon five. The data does not take into account early access or game pass sales, but if you line up week one sales for all these games this year in Europe, Hogwarts, Legacy, Diablo four, The Legends, All the Tears in the Kingdom, and Star Wars Jetta Survivor all performed better than Starfield, but Starfield is ahead of Residumeable four, Final Fantasy sixteen F one twenty three, Dead

Island two, NBA two K twenty three, and most of the other games on this list are not on game Pass. So even despite being on game Pass, a lot of people showed up to purchase this game, And even if you take out early access stuff, which is everyone buying that game for one hundred dollars. Kind of like, you know, I think the becko you were saying, like you heard like people outside in public at like a soccer game right, kind of talking shit about the game. I think that

Starfield is one of those one for a kind of space. It was supposed to go out there. You are not that far away. I mean. At the same time, like they did make good points, I thought like I didn't engage. I didn't really know them. Mud. This is like like Baldish gayo, Baldish gates. What I'm playing. I'm supposed to get my slut on. I want to be a space slot in this game's limiting

me. Uh will definitely let you be a slut. So like there, you're definitely I'm more excited for I like to I want to be a little puppet boy. Okay, sorry, go ahead, that's awesome. All right, let's see your. Unity's changes to its reviled install fee plan leak ahead of announcement. Unity has backtracked on its controversial install fee policy following a backlash from every single game developer on the planet. The new policy will limit fees

to four percent of a game's revenue over one million dollars. Installations will no longer be retroactive, and Unity rely on users to self report installation data. Unity CEO Johenre Caatello acknowledged that the company could have done a lot of things better. Hey does Unity three? Does Unity actually make a Unity game? No, clearly they make it like a Disunity product now at this point, but they don't make anything that's called It's not like Unreal, like where there's

the Unreal game or anything like that. Okay, because I was gonna say, we should just like fire up the Unity game and just constantly refresh it. There you go, Yes, work yourself. The phrase they used in the apology tweet was like, we're sorry for the confusion and angstallate like listening

to my chemical romance because all these indie devs are getting fucked over. Like yeah, man, absolutely, those are the two emotions I can think of when I saw the response to this, bonettit ass decision great, it's who does this? So why would you do this? I mean, the only explanation here continues to be that this is a company that desperately needs money. They have a ton of debt, and they they don't have a lot of path forward for growth, and they tried a bunch of stuff nothing's really worked,

and now they're they might as well commit supuku. Yes, And that's definitely what they've done because no one wants to work with him anymore. They might as well like go out there and get a sword and do them to what needs to be done, because because this is what is, because like no one like if you're making a game today, I just don't see anyone being like, well, I'm gonna go with you, like that's gonna be a good thing. Five years from now when I'm releasing this game, that'll

be something I can trust will be there and we'll have my back. Like no way, this is They're done. I think they're cooked. They didn't to themselves. I can't remember a more. I can't remember more a recent example of someone more like instantaneously just reversing all goodwill just completely. I think maybe Drew Barrymore is my best. That whole arc was amazing. I'm like she managed to recover from it. I don't think Unity can no. I think I think they have not managed to figure a way to one eight.

This absolute stupid shit they've pulled because they are still trying to mostly get away with it here, like they still want to be like charge people for charge developers for having people install your game, and they're like, yeah, we're gonna have all these limits on it, but those limits could go off over time. No one, no one's gonna trust them on this. So uh yeah, they're they're in a tough situation in terms of ever turning this around,

and they're not even trying that hard to turn it around. Really. They still think this is the only way that they're going to be able to survive, and good luck with that. Unity, let's see. Nintendo started talking to Activision about the switch to last year. Nintendo briefed Activision Blizzard on plans for its next gen console in December twenty twenty two. Activision expected the

console's performance to be comparable to the PS four and Xbox One. That's before all the DLSS magic, so that's going to be the raw power in terms of performance. However, Activision CEO Boby Kotta claimed July twenty twenty three that

Activision was unaware of the specifications for specifications for the Nintendo's next console. Uh, he probably is, just like, I don't know what processors in there, but I think he probably does know it's generally around a PS four or Xbox one, which is I think what everyone's kind of expecting in terms of a handheld from Nintendo coming from h the same company that made the Switch that

had relatively outdated mobile hardware when it launched. That's probably going to be the same case or the switch to. Uh, we do hear about this thing, probably pretty soon, so we're not We're gonna have to wait like so much more long longer before we find out what this thing is capable of. But for now, I don't know. Do you guys have any like high hopes for switch to in terms of being able to play games much better than it can? Like, is anyone here hoping, Hey, that thing I

wanted to be able to play four K games on my TV? No? No, I don't expect it to, do you. I guess that's the one big question mark, Like do you think it'll make that four K jump? Because didn't they still be put in four K? Right? But it's not going to render or anything in four Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I guess it's it's fo Yeah. I'm not gonna take my Hundai Sonata racing and be like, why won't it go so fast? That's not what it's for. It's for my little Celda games. Yeah, that's left. Wow.

Switch card cartridge slot cats. Yeah, that's it's got really good like latency. Yes, I'm trying to think of one single gaming word one even what it's got blast processing? That really nice? Tannin's I don't know. Uh, yeah, it's they'll probably output in four K. They're not going to render anything in four K. Maybe a couple of games with like DLSS would be like, yeah, we can put out in forty four K and thirty frames per second. That's gonna be right few and far between, and most

people are not even going to notice or care about that difference. Nintendo games will probably continue to be ten eighty on TV and seven twenty on handheld. Maybe they increase the resolution on the screen for the hand held. I that's kind of a headache because they got all these seven twenty P games for the switch. You might as well just keep it because a ten ADP screen for that's like seven or eight inches is not that much better than a seven twenty

P screen at seven or eight inches. Back, go ahead, I guess out of the gate. You know, even I even remember when the when we were at that you know, New York Switch launch event many many years ago, and the first thing realizing like, oh the bezel on this thing is pretty substantial, I think out of the gate, Like, I'm I'm

optimistic that that stuff won't be as glaring of an issue. But I guess there's really not that many things from the portable experience that need to be that much better, right, Like they it's pretty much gonna be the same thing, right, I mean what they don't need to change much at all. I guess, you know, you improve the Joycon controllers or whatever, maybe introduced entirely new controllers so that you could just leave the Joycon name behind,

because that's sort of been somewhat tainted. Yeah outside of that, yeah, yeah, that's literally Like I feel like I hear so many complaints about the way the Switch runs, and that's just not something I've personally experienced. I feel like sometimes like I'm living in an alternate reality. Like if I complain about Balder's gate bugs and then I get yelled at like they have no bugs, I'm like, they listed it's very buggy. What are you talking about?

But with Switch, I've never really encountered any problems. I think just because I'm like, if I'm going to play like a huge fucking mega game that's available on another console. I'll play it on that other console, and then the switches for it's my Tetris ninety nine system. It's where I played my Tetris ninety nine. I think the one time I've had a hard crash was playing uh Wolfenstein on the switch. Oh, play it on something else

exactly. Yeah, I mean, I definitely think like to see something like the Zelda game running at sixty would be amazing. I mean, I think there's a lot of stuff that could get better. But yes, it's completely serviceable and it is not in any way like a deal breaker by anything. Activision Blizzard hasn't had a ton of Switch games. They've had a few. I haven't had a ton, though, and uh body Cotic on the stand during the Activision Microsoft merger deal with the FTC. He said, Hey,

I regret not supporting the switch. More in fact, I regret not having call of duty on the switch in some form because we missed out on a lot of money. We missed, we miss judge what the switch would be, and then we got behind. Yes, exactly all nuts. I should I could have made more money. So so Nintendo going there and giving this presentation pretty early on it probably trying to win over Activision. That probably will

be more effective. But I still wonder how third party games like Call of Duty is going to come to Switch, because that's what Microsoft is they're going to do. Is anyone going to care because not a lot of people cared. I mean it ran bad Apex Legends, but the Apex Legends didn't doesn't make a ton of money on the Switch for examples. So be curious to see what support looks like from a company like Activision. Uh, they're gonna put Wow, They're gonna pull Wow on the Switch. That's it. Yes,

no other console, just the Switch. I would like that. That'd be very fun to see. Uh all right. Hades two Early accesses launching next year. I'm very excited of the sequel in twenty game is scheduled to release in early access in Q two twenty twenty four. It will be a both on Steam and Epic Games. This time. Technical test will precede the early access launch though, so we will be able to get our hands on

a little bit before that. The full game will be released after the early access period, which will include more content and updates, as they are wont to do with these early access games. So excited me too. I like, someone mentioned this new story the other day and I was like gripping my chair because I was like, wait, us it out now. Because they originally said it would be out in early access this year. Obviously we knew that wasn't really going to happen as we got kind of later and later into

the calendar. But Q two twenty twenty four, I'm gonna be there. Hades two is one of my most anticipated games by far, so this will be great. Finally, there was the State of Play in the Nintendo Direct. Just to highlights here from the State of Play, Final Fantasy seven Rebirth got a February twenty ninth release date. There's that Spider Man footage Tam talked

all about by actually playing it though, so good. There Resident Evil four Separate Ways DLC is due out in like two days from when we're recording this September twenty Feet Roadblocks is coming to PS four and PS five on October tenth. Hell Divers twos it's gonna be PS four and then it'll run on PS five. Hell Divers two is launching on February eighth, and Foam Stars is getting an open beta on September twenty nine. We talked over that thing.

We gave our opinions on already, so if you want to see us react to that, that's available on the site for the Nintendo Direct paper. Mario the Thousand Year Door HD is coming in twenty twenty four. That was exciting. A reimagining of Mario versus Donkey Kong the Game Boy Advanced Game is coming February sixteenth, fzero ninety nine. Shadow dropped. Princess Peach Showtime is coming March twenty second, or birthday, with Peach in a detective outfit a bunch

more. It looked great. There's a tumb Raider one two and three remaster. Another Code Recollection is a bremaster of those two games, Trace Memory and another Code r and then Unicorn Overlord is a new tactics RPG from Vanilla Ware that looked very, very promising as well. Ah, that doesn't for the news, jan I'm handing the show back over to you. Here we stand World's apart, Heart's broken in two two two, sleepless sleepless nights, losing

ground. I'm reaching for you, you you. It's the lyrics of Separate Ways, you know, beautiful movie bribe, separate man, I touched me and the journey that I've been on with journey, huh breaks my heart all the time. Sure, I just I didn't recognize it as journey because you were performing at like slam poetry. Man. I hate being part of the ten percent of Filipinos. I can't fucking thing anyway. It's completely unfair. It's really pulled the bed straw there, budd. You know I got everything

else except a nursing degree. It's fine I talked about. I'm just thinking of my own inadequacies that I've built into my own self now. So it's okay. I'm gonna take quick, pricky break in I'll read some emails from the fine folks at home. Right after this. I can't stop thinking about the Muppets. We weren't even talking about the Muppets during break. We were talking about a separate group of puppets, but like Pumper related adjacent Muppet adjacent

man perfet the frog? What's he? OPTU? Is he? Okay? Is he a right? I think you can just message Lucy on slack. Yeah, yeah, I did go to the Muppet theater thing at Disney That was very good. I'll say, yeah, oh you saw Muppet Vision. I did. That's the best thing. When they got rid of that in Disneyland, I pitched a fit. That's the only thing I've been upset about ever. Oh that's interesting. I think, like, I don't know.

I was sitting in front row, and I think, like, the one part of that story that is tragically stupid is just like the three D cartoon that they create in the like the cartoon character. I hate that little fucking thing. I think it's really stupid. You're supposed to like him. I think he's supposed to be unlikable. Yeah, and like three D sucks, and this is a representation of three D manifested right. Mike helped me out.

I guess the thing's name is Waldo or whatever the fuck. And the effect is so strong in the first row that like, I found myself cross eyed a lot, and I was just sort of like, this feels bad. I'm here for the air conditioning and entertainment. Right, you close your eyes, you take a da bubbles. Oh. I closed my eyes through about half of it. But nevertheless, I enjoyed it. I'm just there to hear Sam Eagles say a salute. To all nations, but mostly America.

Line in Disney. Oh Sam, it's good. Yeah, you scandalous, you scammed level, it's great. Dan is just Gonzo, right, yes, yes, from another planet. Doesn't realize it. Gonzo's an alien. Yeah, yeah, I don't think I knew that. I don't think I knew. I don't think I knew that. What are our muppets? I feel like I'm Statler and Waldorf, both of them. Yes, if you're both of them? Okay, tons off of each other in an individual Wait, I got it. I feel like who else am I supposed to

identify with? If not those two freaks. You could be the Buzzer No, no, no, she could be Statler, he could be Waldorf. You could be Oscar the ground. Now it sounds like a Jewish joke, but that's fine. I think a little bit. Wow you because I heckle. No, but Oscar the Grouches is not a muppet. He's the Sesame Street again, muppet adjacent. Yeah, talks in corporation. Yeah, yeah, I want to keep it outside of Sesame Street if we could. But

yes, Oscar makes sense. Yeah, I'll be I'll be the sweetish chef. That's that works for me that I don't want to be got to be the Kermit Sorry boy, sorry, got very use Those are muppets. They were all made by Jim Henson, all the same characters. All right, Then I could be motherfucking Raphael. Then I guess because that too is a Jim Henson creation. Like that's a bit different, you know, it's different. Bye, I don't want to. I don't want to come to the

realization like I like doing this fantasy casting stuff. Oh, Mike just messed up through camera. Yeah, unbelievable when it comes to properties, because I'm like, oh, that's fun. What do people think? Am? But someone once said when I brought this question up a long time ago, that I'm the what's his fucking name? I'm the scooter of the crew, And that just the meanest thing anyone say over here. Oh God is because I

do have hold the clever and I make sure it's going. You got the classes even kind of like, yeah, there is we're almost the same shade of brown. I know there is a Is there a band number that you remind me of? No, I'll I'd rather take Rolf. I'd take Yeah, let's go with that. I take secret piano player. I love it. I've anyway bobcasting giant bomb dot com. It's the place to send your emails to any most fart of the show, there's an email show. I'm

not Scooter h BombCast bomb dot com. God damn it's true. Uh hey, Muppet Babies the original one still a banger of a show. Archive dot org if you want to watch that ship. That is the first place that I learned about Star Wars. So, oh yeah, the Buppet Baby episode. Yeah, what was that? Bailing? Great? I'm sorry, that's just really good. That's like the first time that I heard the one song that's the Charmed theme song was as the Charmed theme song. Oh god,

you know the one? Yes I do farm Hereman and Arnie love that one. Yes, yeah, okay. I also learned about RoboCop at first because of Alvin and the Chipmunks. Sure Robomunk, I think is what they named him. It was not as graphic as the actual movie anyways, but not quite. First email comes from Terrell from is PA Philadelphia. Who knows? I mean, yeah, you know that in Pittsburgh and I don't know nothing but California and New York. You don't know what the You don't know one

of me? Don't You don't even tried fight? Wait for real, you don't know. I don't know where shit is? No, no, I'm asking about the two letter abbreviations. Oh I in Pennsylvania is never top of mind for me, No offense. I don't worry about what's CT Connecticut? Yeah? Okay, what's m O Misssouri? That's what I was. Yeah, I think. Yeah, the two coastal elite millennials don't know shit anything. If you would ask either of us what a septic septic tank is,

I don't I can't answer you. I'm so busy living within striking distance of the beach, you know, right, Yeah, well wait, actual ocean beach. Shit. Shit, my beach is literally called ocean beach. That's amazing, all right. First email comes from Terrell. Hey everyone, I know console wars have always been a thing, but it seems within the last five to eight years it's reached a fever pitch of toxicity and negativity. Because of this space I'm making. Because of this I am making a conscious choice

to drastically pull back from engaging with the gaming community and industry. I'm tired of hearing about Nintendo having kiddie games, PlayStation games being movies, or Xbox somehow being in trouble because Starfield was not was only one of the biggest releases of the year. I'll play my games in peace and that's okay. Uh smiley face emoticon. Have you ever pulled back from me hobby or interest because of the community or personalities within said hobby. Thanks for everything. So we're

all from pa send from my iPhone. I think it's I think I probably have a little bit, But it turns out the real solution is just get off because this is all happening on YouTube and Twitter, these places where people get rewarded for this kind of behavior. Yeah, like like they like, YouTube is monetized. It has turned into a business. It's a cottage industry to be someone who stirs up the console wars and you can make a good living doing that. A lot of money you can be made by being that

person. So of course we're getting more of it than ever because it's it's you're you're being incentivized to do that. So there's never been a better time to be a huge piece of shit. Exactly. Yes, it's really rewarded. For it now it is, so I just stay off in those parts of YouTube. I I blocked the people on Twitter who behave that way, and that's the real solution for me. I get like, if like it bums you out in general, and you're like, is kind of tainting the

whole exercise. I don't blame you. I get it, sure, I mean it makes perfect sense. Like I you know, I've I've not felt this because I just don't. I've like, I've put on blinders to it for so many years that I that I don't like feel it the weight of it as I did maybe ten years ago. So you can there are tools in place for you to not experience this. Have I ever left a hobby because of the toxicity of it with it? I don't think so. Man,

that's a really sad thing. I don't. I don't think I've ever had that certain Yeah, I feel like there's just certain online spaces I don't engage with. Like I'm not going to even talk about gaming, because as we know, it is completely super easy to be a woman in gaming, but I I will say that, like, I don't like I love K

pop. Jan knows this, We all know this. But I'm never ever going to talk about it online because that is a that is a fandom that scares the shit out of me that I can'll rip you limb from limb, They'll rip you limb from them. They're like hungry wolves that love good music. I just love good music, but I'm not that hungry of a wolf. You know. It's so like, you can't run with that pack, no way, Yeah I can, so I say, I just stay separate.

I don't engage with anything beyond the song itself, and I feel so much happier about that. I think there's just some stuff that like, that's what it is, like the space is toxic. Don't go into the space, enjoy the thing on its own merits, and pretend no one else likes it except for you. Yeah, now that you mentioned that, with music like there's there are subsets of fans that take things way too seriously, and

I think people need to stop taking things so fucking seriously. Yeah, that's that's why I watched sports by myself usually because oh, I feel like I take it the exact level that I want to take it, which it can be pretty serious, but I don't want to infect anyone else with my level of enthusiasm, and I don't want someone else who's like who gets super upset to be bumming out my vibe. So I kind of like, I'm gonna watch my team by myself in my basement, and that's where I'm happiest with

it. Act. Yeah, it's just I mean, I don't know. I think I think there's just such a level of seriousness with like the entertainment we engage with that is unwarranted and outsized. Like I do remember like when I first started working at Fandom, I was like hosting a trivia thing and I was so nervous and one of my bosses was like, Bailey, we

are not saving lives here. And I was like, oh my god, you're so right, like and immediately just stopped taking any of it particularly seriously other than in the I wanted my work to be good sent it's like yeah, And I think more people who engage with this stuff kind of need to remember that like it it's not it's it's for fun, and if it's no longer fun, you're kind of not doing it right. Yeah. Yeah, I've seen this float around, but like there's there's a mentality that's been prevalent

over the last decade or so of what about me? You know what? Sometimes yo, you don't matter better, but almost statistically almost never. Yeah. When Grub was saying the next Xbox is going to come out in twenty twenty eight, I was like, we're not fucking getting that far. My tax dude yesterday was I was like, hey, so your next season and he was like if I live that though, huh. I'm like, yo, yo, yo, chill out, dude. I know you're an accountant,

but still tomorrow, what are you gonna do? You know? And I was like, hey, like that. That autograph is really cool. It's Barsela. Do you want it us? Great? I think I think we're having questions. I do want a tax guy who's clinically depressed, though that is that makes them better at taxes. I think trying to converse with this guy to send me my I D while he was at the cheesecake factory trying not to be rude. While Ben Starr is chugging a drink, He's

like, okay, you want me to over night? Can we have a cartoon with this person? I think that I want this person. The most twenty two minute episode of something. He has the most conflicting imagery on his walls because he has a red hat that says America is Great. So I'm already like, okay, I don't know what you're going for it. But then but then next to it, it's like black Lives Matter, and then i'd be like he has a photo with him and Obama. I'm like,

I can't read you. The America is Great hat is like an anti Maga hat because it's like, no, America is great. Okay, all right, that's what I think. At least that's based on the other show, like a C plus student at best generous, you're measuring it. What's the metric? Because it's like we earth population down there. We know that we're not going to a university, so we're just not going to try in high school and we're just gonna go straight to community. We're coasting. We are

definite, baby, Yeah, absolutely, yeah. We peeked in high school. Oh god, I mean that's my fear every single day of my life. But anyway, peeked in middle school. It's you had that one role in the play that we weren't even that good. We were just now we were just the only guy who auditioned Bailey. Stop, It's not my fault. I was the only dude in the Drava club. Okay, oh no, I'm sorry from Tennessee, Tennessee. Right, Mortal Kombat Colon the movie

Colon the Game has to be near the top of worst gaming subtitles. All right, cool, thank you? It is through such a thing. Yeah, what the fuck is this? I think he might be thinking's Street Fighter the movie the game. I think he may be. I could be wrong, but but like, I've never heard of this. I think, oh, yeah, that happens. It's just like, what if you make that game and then gave it a bad title, then I could complain about it. I mean, yeah, sure, street of the Movie the Game is

an incredible title though. I always adored that like that, Yeah, that's like some spaceball shit right there. There's exactly any time anyone has fun naming something like I'm never going to watch High School Musical the musical the series, but I'm going to respect the hell out of it from Hey, Hey, Hey, Season one pretty good. Listen. I will listen to Olivia Rodrigo and never engaged with her fans online, but I'm not going to watch the show. Listen, I love hs TMTHMTS. You just you back off?

Okay, okay, okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I had to really practice that my head before. How do I say this not so aggressively? Should go st hr. I'm still upset that they never did high school musical too, because I just needed I just needed bet on it to reach a whole different populace. Got any time. I'm never on a golf course. What am I saying? Improve it? We know that,

Hey, we should go golfing. Rich and Seattle writes in with a request, Mike, if you're listening, feel free to pop in at any time. Rich and Seattle writes in, jan please sing this in Mitchell style, our dog marking to the side of his pretty little shroup of four wheel drive CAF my name and to his leather shoets. All right, that's all I'm gonna sing for you. I can't get in on the shoutouts because of

work, but ask and you shall receive. Hi. That's not a words I took a They continue to write in I can't get in the shadows because of work. I appreciate if this gets on the show, Mike Mike, do you want to finish the stanza here? Yeah? Where were you? Because I took Louisa Louis Slugger both headline Hall and off fortas next before before he'll put his car in the garage, right, what the fuck? Okay, thank you, my cart? Shoot, wish carry is here. She's

she's with us on this podcast. We're so lucky, like she's in the room with me. It's amazing. My favorite running not my favorite runner up of American Idol an up. It was Clay Aching until he got kind of creepy. Oh he started that. The guy's then bow bisce oh bis oh he's back. And I think you somebody corrected you before on this and I think it's true. I think Carrie Underwood won American Idol. I swear she was the same season as Ruben stuttered and Ruben stuttered one that was Clay Aching

and stuttered right Underwood in that same season. No, she wasn't. Yeah, you should learned more about music like me. That is the most artful thing anyone has ever said. Oh god, okay, okay, all right,

all right. Uh Florianopolis, Oh wait that's where they're from. Eduardo from Florianapolis Brazil writes in Dear bomb Flowers, after four hundred and eighty five hours spread across four months, I'm proud to say my Tears of the Kingdom map screen says I've reached the one hundred percent completion mark, wow, which involves finding all of the locations and core ox seeds, amongst other things.

I've also gone on to take care of things that didn't count towards the game's completion percentage, such as getting all stable rewards, two hundred and twenty eight recipes, twenty nine paraglider skins, and six monster medals for defeating all two hundred and forty nine monsters, as well as completing every quest and adventure in fully upgrading all stage vows, available, pieces of armor and energy cells,

and finding all the bubble frogs. Sorry God, Michael Boulay Frog. I needed a place to brag about it, and you have the perfect cast of lovable goobers for this, including Uber Goober himself, Dan Reichert. Anyway, you can be the Uber Groober two. Anyway. Have you ever been obsessed with a game to this degree? If not, do you think there's ever going to be a title that aligns with your taste in games so much that you won't put it down until you have done every last thing there is to

do in it. Or are you in a position where games just come and go you'll never desperately fall in love with one anymore. Kisses on the cheek, Eduardo, really melancholy. Note, Actually I can't feel anything anymore. I've burned twice as hot, but for half as long like I would like. Actually had like games where I played that for a month and I put like two hundred and fifty hours in a month in a game. But that's that. That doesn't happen very often because I got a lot going on.

I got a lot of games sometime I'm trying to play. But yeah, I'm here for a good not a long time, because I get like hyper fixated on a game, like I just am all about that game and nothing but that game for like like a week, and then I'll, for some reason, will be pulled out of it. Either something happens in the game that I can't get past or I just don't like or I just have to play a new game for work, and then I'm like, okay, for

work reasons, I must move my fixation to this now. But like Inscription for me, like I was obsessed with it, could not stop playing.

It was not getting enough sleep because I was playing Inscription late into the night and then I like just read some stuff about the back end that I thought was kind of stupid, and then immediately the spell was broken and I was into Slay the Spire and it you know, it's but that's my last one where I was like just trying to find every single card and beat every single achievement, and that that's the most recent one for me. Was definitely an

Inscription for sure. That's my answer. And also I'm sad I haven't played Inscription in so long and I have literally no desire to anymore. Oh did you beat it? Though? Right? Yeah, I was in the Casey's model, Like I was gonna say, I feel like I'm always on the lookout for something like that, Like that's the thing, like I'm always, uh, there's a part of me that's always cautiously optimistic, like I'm gonna find the one that does it to me, and I don't. It just

never happens. I think it's a combination of like I nothing can really contain my interest for that long I think a lot of the I do. I think remedy stuff does. It probably gets the closest for me like a control where I'm like, I need to do as much as I can of this thing, but I don't. Yeah, I don't think I've ever really had that thing. I think it's also a byproduct of just like my personal life and how it just can't lend itself to something like that at this point in

my life. Yeah, complete the game is just never never done it for me, getting every little thing. I don't feel much for that. So for me, my obsessions are, Hey, there's a leaderboard here and me and my friends are going to be competing in it, and I will put a thousand hours into that and that that's where I get my excitement from from from that sort of experience. Did you ever beat Neon White? No? I got stuck. I got stuck on a boss fight and I couldn't get

past it. And I was thinking about Neon White literally yesterday. I was like, why didn't I beat that game? And I tried to pick it up and do it. I was like, Oh, because I can't get with a sing fight and it's not fun for me. It's not fun for me anymore, so I stopped. But Neon White was so good man, that's great. Yep, what a great game. That first handful of levels huh, I mean all the levels are good. I just yeah, yep. I got until first major character in game was killed. No spoilers once.

I who But I was getting to a point where clearly a second one was about to be and I couldn't get past. It's very sad, very sad for me. I remember when my computer exploded because of the Neon whit it open ye try that again? Hardcore too cool and hardcore and it was all the contestants. Uh backlar this this email is kind of for you,

hey, folks. Question for our keyboard wizard, Jeff Bacolar eight. But do is releasing a mechanical keyboard styled after classic nysesthetics someone who loves their products but doesn't know a lot about mechanical keyboards? Is this a good bang for your buck? Amazon link? I love the look of it, but I don't know if this is a good starter mechanical keyboard for someone who does not know a lot about switches or does not want to get a lot into detail

with it. Alternatively, it would be a good mechanical keyboard for under one hundred dollars. Thanks heart emoji. Brendan in Rhode Island, sick it's got kale. I don't know. I've never knew how to pronounced this kale box switches in two whites. Yeah, those switches are Those switches are fine. I think like, uh, look, for ninety nine dollars, there's any mechanical keyboard a price that that is like a wild value just on its face. Uh yeah, I think like the aesthetic of this thing is pretty neat.

Uh is it hot swap? Yes, it's hot swap. Okay, mean you could swap out the switches and add your own, right, but you obviously wouldn't change the key caps because that is the whole aesthetic of the of the design and everything. Look, I think for nine nine dollars you're not going to find anything else, and obviously, knowing what we know about the quality of this company, like it's it's it's gonna likely be pretty good

or above average at the very least. I'm assuming it's not aluminum. The keyboard's probably plastic, So for me, I don't buy keyboards that are not metal of some kind. I just can't do it anymore unless I'm like building something for someone else. I usually recommend an aluminum keyboard. The heavier the better, let's be honest. So if you're looking there's something sub one hundred

dollars, you're probably not going to find anything there. I think there's a couple sixty five percent keyboards that you might be able to get in like the one twenty to one thirty range, which might do you well. The one they have here is called a TKL, meaning it's a ten keyless, so it's got the regular sixty five percent, then the fro, then the cluster of arrows, and then those like navigational keys above the cluster arrows. So

that's what you're looking at for in terms of like the functionality. For me, I like a little larger keyboard. But I also do like that sixty five percent compact. Yeah, I mean I would. How much of a freak you are with it? Yeah, if you want to, I do. There are two vendors I think are really good if you're just starting out. One of them is Novel Keys and one of them is Canon Keys. So go check out those two vendors and they'll probably get you stored in the

right direction for entry level mechanical keyboards. This thing looks cool. I like, I like the vibe of it, for sure, I you know, for me, like for me, I you know, the design is a thing, but it also is like, oh is it gonna sound good? And when it's a plastic keyboard, it doesn't always like sound the way you want it to sound. A lot of that is also dictated by switches. But hey, we ain't a keyboard podcast, right, you know, we

can't get too down. It's all right. We'll follow it up with like a five minute coffee thing with me and then grub you can get into whatever you want to get into. Bailey, You'll have ten trucks, trucks, trucks working on my Type five as they speak. Okay, fantastic, it's cool. I like the I like the key caps. I remember there was like a Nintendo sixty four keycaps that we did. We showed everyone right a

while back. I don't even think that one's out yet. Yeah, so this is this is very cute and I would certainly put this on display. Let's just say that that's sorry. I just see Mike chiming off on the chat. No, Mike, all right, this one is for Actually Grub could help out with this one. Hey duds, my wife, my lave, and I are traveling from Oklahoma to Columbus for a music festival this weekend. Hopefully you see this in time. Does Grub have any recommendations for good

fast food to get in the area. I know sheets, gas station food is one of his go toos, but what else should we be on the lookout for. Also, if any other duters have some suggestions along the route Oklahoma to Saint Louis to Indianapolis to Columbus, throw them out there. Thanks fellas, Keep on keeping on stand from Tulsa. PS. If any other GB freaks are going to Lost Lands, maybe we should organize a meetup.

I So, yeah, Sheets, definitely try sheets. There are a few open in Columbus now, is my understanding, There was not when I used to live in Columbus that was not an option. So definitely try that out. That's actually surprisingly good food. Skyline there's definitely a couple of Skyline chilies in Columbus. It's Cincinnati thing, but there are a couple in Columbus,

and that's gonna be like a local flavor. You should definitely try. I recommend the coney dogs, but if you want to try the chili on the spaghetti. It's not my thing, but a lot of people really do like it. Beyond that, there's not a lot of like local only if there's if I think they might have a Swinson's drive in. Now that's the really good burger place that we have up here in Cleveland. I think there might be one down to Columbus. Now, get thee get their burger. It's

very very good if you get a chance to try that. But that's was that the really good burger that high Mike uh was was talking about. I wonder, I don't know, Probably not, but I'm gonna truth to believe. Yes it was. Let's just hope it was. What do you call it a cheesy burger? Okay, it was not that burger? Okay, don't meet to mispurpersent Mike here. All right. That about does it for the emails this week, once again, you can send your emails to BombCast

to John bomb dot com. We got a lot of stuff pop and off for the rest of the week. Jeff Jeff's returns tomorrow. Correct. That is correct. We are continuing the Cowboy beeB Up Guide in my favorite two episodes of the entire series. Yesterday is what we talked about. WHOA, I don't know it was. It was mostly a popular opinion, but we get into it and uh my god do I love Cowboy Beebo. Great show.

Uh Gamus Mornings popping off for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, Voicemail Dump Truck this week, potentially the end of Dan Play, Sonico six popping off tomorrow, and Blight Club potentially who knows, We don't know. Uh. I believe the idea is to play party Animals together on upf Bailey, what are you doing on Friday? Party Animals? If you guys separately by myself? Bailey just has like four three other controllers set up and just nudging them

occasionally. Bailey, what else is going on for you? You plugged it when we brought you on at the top of the news, but plug it again. I will plug it again. Yeah, I mean. Check out the new Honest Game trailer for see if Stars dance favorite game? Uh and check out the very first episode of the show I had wrote for a Giant Bomb along with m A. Fife, who is the host of that show. Reality Check, which the first episode is called Why I'm Sad. There

are no aliens to romance in Starfield. It is all about non human romances in games, and we did a lot of weird research about it, like so much research. Please watch It's fun. I can't wait. Go watch them on twitch. Just watch me on twitch. I'm so fun on Twitch. How do your research having sex with? Yeah? There there was a literal study called the Monstrous Desires Study that we did a huge dive into. There's so much stuff. Not to spoil it, bales, have you ever

read Animorphs? Of course? Come on? Okay, all right, right, okay, we'll make one episode happen then, okay, all right, we're yeah, okay, I'll put it together. Grub You read that first one, right, all right? That more of a goose bumps kid. But okay, well we'll do like one one episode of Jannam Morrison. That's him. Yeah, let's go anyway, we've gone to the shoutouts. Shouts out begin with Jan's tact tax Dude, if he lives that long, I

obviously hope he's okay. Em and Bailey's new show, Reality Check, Scopa shouts out to that one episode of Charmed where a bunch of wc W wrestlers showed up as demons and they wrestled the Charmed ladies. Hey, Jed, don't buy that board game for your partner's surprisor teacher's got a hard yo playing Mari Mario Party solo is a time honor tradition, and Bailey is a hero for championing people like us. Bailey, you are the voice of the voiceless

and for killing it lately. Great additions to the GB crew. Plus one major Mitch for always jumping in podcasts like some sort of kool Aid. Mitch

Unity presents John Rictello, the almost dumbest of failing upwards. Motherfucker's shouts out to the rugged cowboys on Yellow I'm not gonna read the rest of this wing Span the competitive medium weight car driven engine building board game from Stone Mayor Games, designed by Elizabeth Hargrave and featuring over one hundred and seventy birds, illustrated

by bet Sobel, Natalia Rojas, and Anna Maria Martinez. YEA Disney World was cool as hell, but Florida is a trash state and building the happiest place on Earth. In a swamp with fifty percent humidity almost killed me. It's humidity. What are you talking about? Yeah, brought to you by seven inches the realize of pe foam stars Hype, rise up, my Fomo sapiens. Hey knows. Fuck you know you don't have to take this abuse knows? Emoji? What happened? What happened? Bella? Why are you

crying again? I know? Vampire? Right, Vampire will fight to me. I trusted to protect Bella, but you did not. I will sure you die, Edward. I will sure you die from now on. She's mine. It's beautiful Jesus, all right, we should do a film in forties with the Twilight series. Oh my god, the first Twilight movie is a classic. We absolutely have to watch that movie. Okay, okay,

I think our team Who's who was your team? Team Taylor Lounger team that giant fucking fan that they put right in front of Bella's face in science class and then and then Edward looks like he's gonna throw up. That's the best part of the movie other than the baseball team. That's my team, grub.

Can you put up a pole in the giant bomb chat of Team Edward versus Team Jacob yea giant fan uh number seventeen on the shout outs, jan Is Professor x back Lari's Cyclops, Tamas, Gambit, Lucia's Rogue, Baileys Psiloc grub Is, nineteen nineties, Beast Naughties, nineteen sixties Beasts, and Dana's Arcade Audition, an unknown Wolverine Halloween stream. Let's see it go? Wait, wait, wait, Cyclops. First of all, aren't you're the Cyclops? Weird? That's what I thought was odd, you know, And

he's like, he's like a cop. Right we should switch? Uh. Nut Butter shouts out to my new close personal French Chupaca dressing up like a hot dog and driving hot dog car into a building and then tracked up for ten oclock you did drives like hot dog car, sweaty alien intercourse? Intercourse discourse? How about a board game group named Wings? Jan Fun Dan is indeed the gonzo of the GB crew, A masterful showman and artiste. Where

are there's so many songs about rainbows and what's on the other side? Jeff Backlard doing for doing work on podcast archive. Thank you, Jeff do a film and forties of from Justin to Kelly the Season one American Idol movie. Okay, we can't do that before we erase your voice starring Hillary. I'm sorry, I'm gonna put my fucking foot down. I just learned that Justin. Yes, he's he's a little sweet Doctor Pepper. I didn't know that.

What. I don't know what this means? So, yeah, do you know the Doctor Peper commercials with the really tiny guy that comes out and sings, No, that's Justin Garini it is. They were telling me in. I was like, that can't be right. I'm gonna I'm just gonna put the trail trailer the video here so you can watch it in your own time. You know, they say that historically the runner ups on American Idol tend to have better careers, and I can see that being true. Now,

yes, for a little sweet Doctor Pepper. Absolutely yeah. I mean, what has Ruben Stutter done except being apologizing for the year two thousand and four anywhere? Apologize for that has been the show. I have been Jan, he has been Jeff. He has also been Jeff. She's been Bailey. Tam was here and he's going to continue to be Tam. And you at home, go go go step outside for a second, just take take a deep whiff of the air, and then I don't know, rate the

podcast. That's a thing to do. Do that right, podcast podcast specifically? Yes? Yeah, yes, back, Like next time you're on a road trip and like you're sitting shotguns on and you're just like, oh, what are we gonna do? Talk this whole time? No, just surprise your friend and put on put on God's favorite podcast, you know, the BombCast to a CD and put it in your friend's car and remove all the other download it first, because you know, just just give us the sweet

downloads, you know, just give hell. Yeah. Okay, Now I actually want to do a film in forties series of of the DCLM originals. Okay, I think that would be so fun. Baily, which one do you want? Absolutely has to be smart House first? Oh we've done smart House on this website. Fuck that? Al right? Fine, fine, fine, sister from Planet Weird. No, you know what, let's let's do let's have to Smart House again. Just DC Channel original movies that you're

talking about. Let's okay, let's do Brink first, because that's actually the we also did Brink of course. Wow, fuck have we done the thirteen? Fear? Have we? Okay? Luck of the Irish? We have not step And again I can't stop. I can't stop shouting this one out. Stepsister form a planet weird? See's a bubble? We need to do zenon because see you a girl that's twenty first century. Yes, yes, this is the Lizzie McGuire movie. The old sci fi is my passion,

so I'm excited about all that theatrical release. Dude, Oh, I'll lemon aide mouth. What are you okay? Nikki's age is showing. Oh yeah, Nikki, you're like a generation younger than us. That's just after I stopped watching Disney Channel and stopped existing to me, yes, yes, that's that's when Hailey Kiyoko took over as a token Asian from Brenda Song on Disney. That has been the Giant bobcast. Everybody, We'll see you for another

episode next week. Till then, go go hug someone, even if it's major major Mitch, the real answers, we should do high school musical. I mean yeah, I met Monique Coleman once, whoa