835: Smack Blood Punch Wet - podcast episode cover

835: Smack Blood Punch Wet

Apr 09, 20242 hr 38 min
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Episode description

With Jan out on assignment, Host Bakalar and Producer Grubb are joined by Shawn and Niki to talk about the Stellar Blade demo, Children of the Sun, Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth and more! After that, discussions about a possible new SOCOM game, Xbox moving towards new processors, and Persona fans' obsession with a bucket of green paint!

The now-infamous Persona pic: https://www.giantbomb.com/a/uploads/original/153/1530215/3567575-p25thspraypaintart.png

Transcript

It's Tuesday ninth, twenty twenty four. That was my best jen Ochilla impression. Because my name is Jeff Bagelor and this is the Giant Bombcas. We are powered by NZXT and we've got Jen and Dan Reichert on assignment in a city made famous by a single fictional boxer. That's what they have. That's all they have. Their absence is felt, but it is filled by a threesome of fine foul, starting with the one and only Jeff Grubb. That

was a Janet Choa impression. I don't know, you know, my allergies have like really kicked in this morning, and I try to make it perverted enough to be a Jana Schoe of impression. That's my big complaint there. We'll get to perversions in just a little bit. You're doing well. I find it doing great. Yeah, doing real well. Glad to be here, Glad to be back on the BombCast. Played out, played a video game for everybody after I didn't finish putting together the news. So that's gonna

be a fun section. It's gonna be a good right time. Well, we'll see if we have time for video games, but we're gonna talk to Nikki Grayson. Next, how are you hello? I'm good. It's nice out. It's gonna be seventy five today. The fact that it will be warmer in New Jersey brings me great pain. It's warmer here too, and it sucks. Fine, we will pivot to the last person on the program today, Turbo Sean. How are you probably colder than the rest of y'all

up here in Wisconsin? And let me just say your jan needs some meta mucil good? Yeah? That really you could feel everyone just sort of turning off their podcast, couldn't you feel everyone? We'll fix the post. We'll fix it. I'll skip the guest this week. Here's the thing, we already got him. We already got the downloads, so it doesn't even matter play. We can't. We can't see how far you get? That's right, that's R S S. Yeah. I feel like it's it's evolved a

little bit beyond that. But sure, Spotify, Spotify, listen, we got you. So look Spotify cops. We don't care what they do over there, nose cops. Look everyone, the sun, the moon. They fucked, okay, they banged, and in their fuckery a shadow was cast, and that shadow gave birth to a grubblet. Isn't that right, Jeff Grubb, That's how it works. That's the story that I read every night before bed. That's right. Yeah, I was. That shadow was right on top of me. It got it got up in my business, and

it was incredible. It actually really did blow my mind. I was expecting it to be very cool. I've seen some like annular total eclipses where it's like there's still that ring of fire. Anular is not a perfect solar eclipse, right, So total, a total eclipse is it blocks the whole thing. An annular solar eclipse is where it doesn't quite like it is covering the Sun, but there's still that ring of fire because it's like ninety eight percent,

it's not fully covering that. And that's when the moon's further away, so it looks smaller to us. So this was a total eclipse, and it really did block it out, and it got much darker than I was expecting. I could see Jupiter, i could see Venus, and it was just it was mesmerizing. It was three and a half minutes. It really did blow me away. I'm very jealous. Eclipses are incredibly cool. There's something sort of like there's something a little sort of like selfish about in eclipse.

Do you know what I mean? No, I don't, please tell me more. The way I look at an eclipse is sort of just like right place, right time, Oh for sure. So you're just like and you're just like, hey, like we're here and it's only happening for us in this little one hundred and fifty mile wide sort of roadway that went northeast up this country. And it's just such a weird thing that these celestial bodies

just sort of like cast shadows. I mean, it's amazing if you think about it, Most moons on most for the most of the other planets in our solar system wouldn't work this way because it's the Moon is going to look much like much smaller compared to the Sun ex actually further away, and our moon is like when it's at this distance, is like four hundred times closer than the Sun, and it's four hundred times bigger than it. So it's like they lined up perfectly. And that is a you know, a lot

of things are like that's a cosmic accident. It's like, no, that's just the way life works. Eventually it just kind of fills in all these gaps. This is one of those cosmic accidents that's like we just lucked out, and that's why it works. That's what I'm saying with this sort of cosmic look, it has to be an accident, because how the fuck did Ohio get the best of Yeah, the next one. The next one's in Iceland. The next one that's like people can conceivably get check and after that

two years from now is crossing over Spain. And I'm like, so that that would so Iceland. It's the same one we're talking about right now. Yeah, I got really into it. She was like we should Okay, you've seen the thing, so yeah, that makes sense. I was like thoroughly uninterested, like not giving shit in the world. Then he posted that pick. I'm like, oh, that probably was really cool in person. Yeah, I entered the pick is close to it, but man, it

really does. Yeah. I can't imagine. We had about ninety percent wallpaper you download for your background of your computer in nineteen ninety five, Like that's how cool it looked we had We had about ninety percent. I you know, it got darker for sure, but like you still you could mistake it for an overcast day. It wasn't anything like really weird. It definitely got like a little cooler for sure. Yeah, that's the most meshed up party. It's like, man, the sun is important. It get real cold,

turns out, what fucked go away? It get cold, is what I noticed about yesterday. But it really was fascinating where you're just sort of like, so you know, around three twenty, it was like where it was covering the most and we saw we were able to see this guy with no clouds, and I was looking through the glasses and I was like, wow, that's wild. And then it got really overcast really fast. A big wave of clouds came in to the point where the glasses couldn't see the

sun anymore. Right, No, but here's what was cool. Like again I did not stare at the sun, but like it was so cloudy that you sort of you were able to kind of like see it in your periphery, right, you were able to see a crescent of the sun in your periphery. Cool, which I thought was like so fucking wild. Yeah, and it was really really a special thing. But you're right, like that's when I talk about it being selfish, right, Like we are lucky that

the moon is the size it is. Right, If it was a bigger moon it wouldn't or smaller moon it would probably just be like a bull's eye, honest, a further way, yeah, right, or like whatever, all these amazing sort of things have to line up for this to work out.

It also feels pretty sick. Yeah, it also feels so primitive too, like in a way that is like we is kind of sick, Like I everyone I knew was outside looking at the big ball in the sky huh and like that own, like that's so sick, Like it's it's awesome that we've we've developed technologies such that we can look at it. Because we only got like fifty five percent here in La just because it's a globe. Did you know that the Earth is round? That's not what this proved. This

did not prove that. Okay, so we only got some of it, but it still was like it was fucking sick. I was like, it is nuts that, like, I the perspective that I have on this event that is also happening at the same time it's three thousand miles away, is so fundamentally different, but also still the same thing. Like it's just really it's a really cool bonding experience from like a humanity perspective. Yes, it

was very well. Problems for a men for a second. Nine, Yeah, it was your There was just a lot of cheering when it happened, and like at the moment of what totality is when it especially it was like when period like, oh my god, this morning, I was just watching tiktoks of like people cry like weeping when and I was like, yeah, like fuck, yeah, actually yes, I don't know if I would cry, but look you react beautiful. It's beautiful in your own way. Right.

It made me a little emotional, yeah, and made me feel like small and yet part of something and it's like, oh my god, like I I'm standing here, that thing has to be there, The Earth has to be here, the Sun has to be there, and it's like all those other planets are also like in perfect alignment to the sides of it.

It just felt that cosmically special. And then you could see how like you know, science scientists and like going back for a very long time of being able to protict eclips, sure, but that that like information was guarded by the by the elite, and they would use that to keep people in line and be like, hey, if you don't like come to the church or whatever, if you don't come to the temple, I'm gonna blot out the sun. And that's why I got a little mad at the eclipse. I

got mad because well I saw the eclipse. I saw the eclipse, and I was like, you know what, motherfuckers like two thousand years ago, this is really the source of all of our problems, isn't it. This is certainly why people were able to take advantage of each other, and just part of it because not be able to explain it in any reasonable way and instead, uh, you know, it came up with something insane to control

people with. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That smallness that you mentioned, Greb is like this ship would be obviously would be happening if we were here or not. Right, So it's like it is it is beautiful, yes, that we are here to experience it, but also being able to control the information about the thing that is happening becomes so important because again, if the sun went away, it would be crazy. Yeah, last eight minutes until the sun until the three servings of Tuna in eight minutes I saw the

documentary Sunshine. I know what happened when we have to reboot the sun I just not go inside. And then my cat was sleeping the whole time. So it's like, okay, so some parts of nature respond to it. We're freaking out. I love that fucking cat. He's just like he's you. But a cat's just like just chills and then he wanders always like sub dude, and for a second that just wanders back. I think because the cat was just Garfield, is that not? That's basically a cat's not going

to do game this morning with the Emma on Monday. So I love it. I don't know what you're talking about. What we didn't really get much like even in eighty percent, we didn't get like ship changing eighty percent is cool to see, like when you see it, right, you looked at it, right, did you not? No? Because I just didn't care. You don't go outside? I was outside? Or did you are your classes? Are you well? Because I've seen one before with the same amount

of totality, and I was like, been there, done that. Yeah, I've seen before, So I was like, yeah, whatever, I'm not gonna go out of my way to stop on doing. Motherfucking Charles Barkley last night during the n cua A Finals was basically calling everyone who looked at the eclipse a fucking loser. I want to say that. Someone was like, oh, you see the eclipse, Charles, and he's like, what am I fucking loser? I couldn't believe. I was like, man,

I really love his takes on hockey. He's a huget. He's an bigger hockey fan than he is basketball. And he's like, eclipses are for fucking nerds. Where was I've touched the boob before. I don't need to go. I don't need to go look at the sun for it now. And Alf it was like wow, phoenix, okay, yeah yeah, but it was anyways anyways because for me, you know, it's it's it was like a cloud passed over basically that that's that's like the change that happened. It

was alrighty, cloudy day, so whatever. I did notice one weird thing that I never thought about because I was just mind my own business doing you know, like running some errands. I look at the ground. I know, shadows looked weird. Yeah, yeah, I never thought to like especially yeah, it was. It's not really notice about on like big ones like buildings and cars and stuff, but like thin ones. I noticed it because I saw the shadow of a power line and it looked like a streak.

It was like like for the tech heads in the room, you know, when like a DLSS or like some other upscaling in video games like breaks down and there's like a rail behind Finnock is rendered oddly. I was like, Oh, I'm seeing this like video game thing in real life. That's flack. But I don't know, I guess because it's like technically multiple light sources or something. I don't know exactly how it works. But yeah, there's like I think the lights bending around the moon a little bit more than maybe.

Yeah, but whatever it was there was like it wasn't even like even it was almost like I know, some of had like a it's like stagger. It was really weird. But yeah, that that was That was a cool thing. I was like, Oh, that's that's more interesting. Why

the hell's going up? Yeah over there? Yeah, I it like it started looking strange outside at about like it started looking strange outside like around eighty percent, but it starts looking like abnormal, like you don't see this any other time, Like, you're right, it's cloudy day up until about eighty percent. Then I like took the glasses off, looked around at like ninety percent and it looked like an alien planet. So that was pretty neat and

and then but really it is all about the totality. That moment is the thing I will be for sure yes to get and actually seeing the seeing the like the little line of like the you know, the the crescent, like

it's smaller. Yeah, in real time, that part was sick, even at fifty five, right, because you could see the very tippy corners of them like getting like just a little bit smaller, and so having both of those going and then having it like completely disappear in one moment, and then just looking around and be like, oh my god, it's completely different than it just was. Yeah, Mike Minatti's in chat talking about how I was

like a religious experience for him. For sure it was legitimately, Yeah, like I'm sure we get it. Yeah, I'm shot in the library like this drug that you have to travel to do. I mean it's like the STEP's legit talking about Iceland and dude, I'm not joking. We were talking about it last night, and I think I must have told Dibb and he was like, can we go with Grubbs family to Iceland? And I was like, yeah, we should, Yeah, absolutely, we absolutely should because

I want to go to Iceland number one, number two. If there's going to be an eclipse there, then like why not? Although it's going to be really crowded because of that, but yeah, but that's that's why we're choosing Iceland in that Spain, because all the European Spain. Yeah yeah, all that these coasters are going to go to. Yeah, yeah, true,

but it's way worse. Well, it's fine. Uh. Mike is also suggesting we go to Disney World in twenty years for the next US one, and I could not disagree more with that suggestion, Like, you keep me alive, I'll go with you, all right, it'll be undern't be underwater in twenty years on a boat? Yeah, sure. Property only the tip of the Magic Kingdom seen from what we're doing. That's it. Uh. Speaking of Minati, I just wanted to touch on something real fast.

It's a Jurassic Park thing. This Jurassic Park thing that I came into contact with Jeff Garb, could you unpack this? I just want to talk about this real quick. I know it's a video game podcast, and you know how much I like to talk about video games, but I just want to talk about this Jurassic things. Yeah, I just want to talk about this Jurassic Park thing really really quick. Please. Yeah. Yeah, So, our friend Ben Hanson over at the Minmax Show has an opinion that is factually

incorrect. Yeah. I'm not sure it's just being in the wrong. Yeah. I seem to lean into telling people when they are just fucking incorrect. But I have the clip and it's important to talk about. Like they were just talking about the flea circus that he had that was his first attraction John Hammond, and he's like, you know, it was an illusion, but people bought into it. And she's like, yeah, it was an illusion.

So is this So is your sense of control over this entire place right like, and the power that you have over it, that's an illusion? And then here you guys should hear this. Let me turn it up. Oh yeah, by the power of this place. But I made a mistake too. I didn't have enough respect for that power. And it's out now this line all right, then Ben goes on, I can't tell you I didn't watch this episode. I just saw this clip. I want to go

watch the episode. I was watching a bunch of Instagram. Yeah, but yeah, I think he's like reading an email. But he basically says he agrees that when she says it's out now referring to a power, that power. He believes that they are all like, yes, they're referring to the metaphorical bit, but they are shifting to talk about the electricity at the park. Why will fucking would do for body listeners? Jeffer grabbed his head, Nikki is shaking their fists, Sean is shaking his head. It is this

is how I feel. I'm so glad for it. Is you also much. It's such a weird conclusion to draw, like, it's not weird when you're eight, it's weird when you're good become an adult, and I just misunderstood, I tweeted back at it. I replied, I was like, look, I saw this movie when I was like eleven or twelve for the first time, and even that didn't occur to me at that time. But I could be a little charitable and say that, like, oh maybe because

you're just like a young dumb kid. You instantly think that you know, she's talking about electricity in that moment, but of course not, of course not, because the power is of playing god. Right. Most people are trying to argue that she is. She's doing a little fun play on words conre okay or maybe the right wrong. We've run multiple polls, no, not. Most people are saying overwhelming everyone agrees with us. I haven't seen any poles. Is that really It's like you can bind no and both and

it's like maybe a quarter of the vote. I don't. I don't think it's a double entendre because it would be a veritable of sense. Right. But even so, it would be nuts for her to try to force one.

In that conversation specifically that she is having with John Hammond, had been a joke in there like that that's crazy, correct, Like imagine John Hammond was like, just for sure, we're talking about what I did here, right, We're talking about what I did, hear, not about the problem of like literal electricity and like all the all the fences going down, right.

She she would never do that, just for like as a person, that character would not do that wouldn't do it, and Steven Spielberg was because they are talking about a power of nature that is being unleashed and in this thing you can't control, and that is such a completely opposite idea of And we have electricity and we no longer can use it. It has become incapacitated. One goes up, the other goes down. You cannot actually make those

puns work together, or that pun work together. It's illegal. It's illegal to try and make them dog It is almost no competent person getting paid in Hollywood to write or make a movie would try to do that thing, because trying that would just be an isolated thought. It doesn't go anywhere. Yes, part of the plot of the movie is, but like it doesn't even flip it out in the way that they did. It's still almost impossible to it for it in the way that Ben does. I don't understand it would

be truly for it to be that way. Lord Dern was acting way too serious in that moment. How did you look? Again, the power had been out for quite some time. Yes, this was not the thing at the table that they were that move. It's not happening. I just found that to be so amazing that we had to touch on it because holy ship balls. Oh well we have to touch on because Ben listens high. Ben, we need to tell you. Yeah, no, this was not just to take Ben down. I just found it to be such a funny thing.

It just so happened. It came out of Ben's mouth. I would have let it go pretty quickly after posting it, but then there were people that were like, I think Ben's right, Well, but who were those people? Do you know? Do you know? Damn it? Just so we should have a we should have an employee review with cal Do you know how for for real, do you know how wrong you have to be to get Austin to roll out of ye like posting prison that he puts himself in

being dumb right now? Do you know how that is? Like Austin who? Loston Walker replies, I didn't know time you get my man, Austin Walker to come out and be like, hey, listen, folks, we can't do this like you fucked up, like you just have fucked up. It's so true. And Dave Lang honestly to be like ye talk about anything other than ship posting, says out like free out like out of its cage. The power parentheses, the sublime might of dinosaurs and the incredible hubuistic science

which brought them out of time is no longer contained. In fact, that containment was always an illusion, which is how this line actually starts. Yeah, Austin, you forgot it? Like yeah, Like, if you have to get him to turn his brain on such that he does this to you, you've made a mistake. Okay, to be fair, Ben replied to that, like, oh, this isn't looking good that that damn Wait a second, I don't think I could put that back. Do you know what

Dan thinks about this? By the way, I'm really no. It's too late. It's too late, like the situation's compromised, Like we can't even contaminated. I think would admit so we don't know, don't we don't know? I think I think he'd get it right. I think I posted this to Twitter. I'm glad I had this opportunity when I posted this Twitter. I said this is more bananas than anything Dan Ryker has ever said. And

I stand by that for one reason. For one reason, because when Dan says something insane or does something insane, it's because he's attempting something he has had zero interest in. And his whole thing is if he has zero interest in it, it's like it's like it doesn't exist him. And I get why that. Some people are like, no, that's crazy, how can you live your life that way? But I've come to understand that for this, this is something been is active. He's making a podcast about this.

He's actually engaged. They just watched the movie, they're talking about it, and he seems to deeply care about it. To then have this conclusion, I'm like, but what movie were you watching? But what's going on here? From understanding point, also, Dan has a film degree. He would one hundred percent no the logistics behind this line. So yeah, maybe, I think, but we'll give anybody a film degree apparently. Though also in this podcast, Ben Hanson said he wants to make a play about the botched

reveal of Borderlands three. I have to listen to this podcast see what's going on over there. I don't know. Somebody Judge and Chat said that what's happening? What does that mean? Our men, our man Ben Hanson could kind of just do whatever he wants, making a third border Lens. They're making the Yeah, yeah, the farming making one. I really enjoyed the

photos you posted of Mike's brothers laughing point of crying. I like got over to the house and Mike and his friend were there, and I did the same thing with him, and I like, I didn't get pictures because they were both laughing. But then their brothers really just could not handle it and they were cracking. And to be fair, both groups like Mike and his brother or Mike and his friend and then both of his brothers. But I

told both of them before I started asking the question. They were like, they don't think it's about the electricity, but each time it was so great. So yeah, you can look at like, uh, you know both sides of the coin here, right, Like sure it awoken Austin Walker from his deep slumber, but also now we know how to get him out. Yeah right, you know, got to see both sides of that coin. Is all all right, I've been reminded this is a video game podcast,

and that's what we're gonna do right now, talk about games. That's the wrong button. Nailed it in one, all right. I'm just gonna get some of my bullshit out of the way, if you don't mind. I played the Stellar Blade right on time. Yeah, I'm super curious about what your thoughts are about Stellar Blade? Are you really that that makes me feel good? I think it's I think it's fun. I think it's really cool. And you know what, it's sexy. These people are. It's hot.

It's some hot things happening. I don't know, like there's seems there's also a lot of like awful things happening, and the and the the sort of paradox of like hyper violence and also like hotness is interesting, you know where I'm in conversation in this video game. Yeah, they they really just you know, I'm almost like stop talking and worry about yourselves because there's a terrible ship happening. Ah. I I really enjoy this sort like this game.

I don't know what it is, but it has a style that kind of like feels like there's so much energy and and and time and and craft and thought put into like the stylistic sort of like you know, everything has this almost like Grecian sculpturing to it, right the spaceships where they come in, and I love that sort of stuff, and then they kind of like throw a lot of it away, you know, and I just want to. I'm curious to see, like, is this part more part of this

you know, world building, storytelling? Like, is that what we're gonna be doing here? I don't really know. I don't think you can tell fully from the from the demo, uh if we're I think it's a great looking game. I think, uh, you know, moment to moment action. I could see myself already getting a little frustrated with the with the parry block button and how that plays with the overall like combat. Yeah, I don't. I should never have to hit a button to pick something up.

I don't know what we're doing. Okay, cool, Okay, Yeah, it's just so weird that that's what they like sort of lead with. I don't. I don't know why, but hey, it's that's pulling from the near side of things, specifically making it feel RPG all right. Turboshaw on the apologist for Stellar Blade. He keeps yelling at me for being two woke

all the time. Sorry, but I'm into it. I think it's I think it's one of those games where like it is going to be like a turn the mind off game, right where I don't have to think too hard and I'm just gonna have fun fighting some really ugly looking things. I think, did you get to the boss? I got to Yeah, so that

I got to the boss. Okay, yeah, I thought that boss fight was pretty good in terms of like, okay, now the mechanics are all singing together, it makes sense, like yeah, yeah, I think I'll be curious to see, like what the final game is sort of on board, you like, I always feel like demos, they do they the path

to tutorial is a little the weird thing. The weird thing here, apparently is this this demo is going to enable you to pick up from where you left off the demo just okay, that obvious in the beginning because of that, yes, yes, beginning. Yeah, uh yeah, I'm into it. I dig what it's doing, and uh it is a sharp looking game, and I like, you know, I like the world. I like, I just want to you know, for me, I always need that to be like fleshed out in a meaningful way. I need that to tell

a story for me. But again, I'm not going to be hanging on that. I think I'm more in tune with the sort of like stylistic and all of the combat. So we'll see. Yeah, I'm surprised, but I do like it. I'm still in that place where I think this game is going to be fun to play. I think that, and I do. I also think that, Yeah, there's a lot of sexiness in the game, and there's no, you know, nothing wrong with that. I think there is a lack of sort of depth or subtext to all that.

It's like it's a kind of just on the screen. And if there isn't any subtext, it is going to be something that is resonance of these people making this game, playing Near Automata or playing some of these other games that they are that they're pulling from, pulling it like, hey, we want to do the thing like that game, and you know, there's kind of nothing wrong with that either. There is room for that, especially for it, because it's like any that's serious. It's just a game trying to have

a good time. And I think I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna be able to have a good time with it. I doubt this is gonna be a game that I'm going to be thinking about a lot when I'm done with it. And again, nothing wrong with that. That's not like some slam against it, but I think that's what it's going for. It certainly feels like the style over the function for sure, right, and like, hey,

that's okay, I'm not gonna lie. Like I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, man, you gotta be wearing like more armor or something like we're seeing too much does have like the gameplay ramifications like it apparently does make your character more damageable, I suppo, I suppose, yeah, And then the way to stop that is to put on a sweater, and the sweater just just to like just below her nipples, so just like a real sweater. Well, all the best sweaters, so like that. Yeah, you

know, no complaints, all right, So that's that. I'm also doing more Fortnite. I'll i myself in now level fifteen because I played that games with my son and most of his friends, and that is definitively not strange. We've all moved on talking about that. Are you Battle Royale? Yeah?

So we're doing Battle Royale and then one of the friends of the friend is like, we have to do this other, you know, two v one game and it's basically this sort of like sandboxy thing where everyone has like their own corner and then it's just, you know, just like a seems like it seems like, yeah, it seems like some sort of like server made I do of love that stuff. Blocks already back of our congratulations as well. I've definitely, like you know, walked back and I was like,

you, guys, battle Royal is what we should be doing. I'm an expert. Listen to me, and they all sooner or later fall in line. So we've been playing that. But Nikki, You're so right. The difficulty has begun to ramp up, and the and the victory Royales are now a little bit parky and like it's funny because my kid's now having a reckoning with like strategy. Yeah, but what do you mean I'm positioning?

Yeah, I'm like, hey, you gotta stop just running out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a wide open field blast and you're what do you think is gonna happen? Bud? Yeah, what do you think is gonna happen? Imagine you did that on the soccer field or on the You can't do that. Yeah, So, uh, you know, sort of like teaching strategy, I guess for sure. And I think the thing that I think the thing that Fortnite does really well. Is that the

penalty for making a mistake because there is so many and I fro. I think the balance of this has gotten much better because for a while there were items in the game that would like kill you very quickly and it felt bad to have happened to you. And I still I wouldn't say it feels good to get one shot or like lit up immediately like that, but like now it is so thoroughly like a you fucked up. Therefore you are being punished now for the mistake that you made, like here is here is why and

how that is happening, which I think is sick. And like also sometimes the person killing you is John Cena, so like you can't get too mad, you know, like that's totally I'm not mad, like Peter Griffin is just like yeah, you know, like whatever, you can't get mad at

that. So it's like it. I think it as as an educational tool, like legitimately and actually for like understanding how to play other kinds of games and the ways that you have to think about putting yourself into situations, how you get yourself out of situations, the moment to moment in that game there's so much you could be doing that. I think it is like as an er game for folks, like and as an er game for your kid,

like, can't pick them better? I don't think. Yeah, Yeah, it's it's been while to also see how quickly he's just picked up all the vernacular, Like you're just like all commons, you know. He's like, I hate common guns. I'm like, yeah, he's like, he's like I only he's like, I only run purples, maybe a green. Oh that's my favorite gun. Check this out. I'm just like, wow, Yeah, you are moving at the speed of light and I am just sort

of here to watch. It's been fun. It's definitely been fun. Are you still going back and forth ofteen zero build and build or the Yeah? I think so. I sometimes if we will, it depends on who we're jumping in with. If we do it ourselves, we do build, but he's got a buddy who likes to play with no building. I prefer no build too, are you? Yeah, you're not building? Are you? Because I just don't want to do that for you. They're like I don't

want to do it and I don't want to deal with it. Yeah, I feel like anyone older older than actually seventeen years old doesn't can't build. I don't think the brain is wired that way. Yeah, yeah, a little bit more there. It's always trying to shoot someone after fucking castle sprout up? Like what like I really like my daughter's like I can't like walk into a hotel room without them being like, all right, and now we've made a flort. I'm like, it was thirty seconds. What'd you do?

Like, you just do this every room you walk into and basically yes, So like they want to be building constantly. So a game that like and then you and then you can vote and you're like, I'm never gonna build another thing. That's the Yeah, that's awesome. All right, Uh grow up. Tell us about a game that I've been really looking forward to, Children of the Sun. Yeah. So it's a game. I play that demo and now it is out today, I believe at the very least

this week. And it is a sniper game. But all you can do is this sniper is uh, basically circle around a camp an encampment that has your targets, and you can go left or right and this reveals the targets and you can mark them of course, to make it easier to find them. You can also mark things like, oh, there's there's a bird in the air, you can mark them, or a fish in the water and stuff like that, and they'll play around with that later. You can mark

gas tanks on cars. And really the whole thing about this game is you are going to fire one bullet. So what happens if there's like a dude in the house and a dude outside by the car and there's no way to get them in straight line. Well, this game is not about that. It is about shooting into one dude. And as soon as you hit that target, the game stops, or it basically slows down a lot and enables you to turn the bullet and then go into the next target, and then

turn the bullet and go into the next target. They then begin layering on It's yes, it feels a lot like Wanted, but they add a lot of stuff on top of that. Where once you have the bullet fired and it hits a target, yeah yeah, you can sure you can aim over

there at the other person. But what if there's like a fence there, Well, it's like you can actually aim above that and then hit the left trigger and this will slow down time while you're in mid air, and then you can adjust that the trajectory of the of the bullet slightly in its flight.

Eventually you get some other stuff on top of that as well. But the core gameplay of like this puzzle solving mechanic and finding ways to, you know, make sure you can get a bunch of headshots as quickly as possible so you can get your score multiplier. And this is how I am playing the game now, where I'm like, I'm looking at the leaderboard and I'm like, oh, I want to make sure I have a higher score than Tam. Of course, so I'll go back and I'll play it four or

five times, trying to maximize things. And there's situations, so okay, if I fire at this one target, this will give me good positioning on the rest and then I can go. I can go shoot another target that's on the other side of the camp. That'll scare two of the other guys and they'll start running towards the car where someone is already sitting, and they once they get near the car, I'll shoot the gas, take on the car, blow up the whole thing, kill all of them at once.

And I'll get huge bonus points. And so figuring out how to manipulate manipulate your environment to get these targets in specific positions so you can do as much damage as quickly as possible is the whole game. And it's been really fun

so far. I'm super into what this game is putting down. It's also got a really cool style where like there's mini games where your characters just like cleaning their gun and it's like this that you do like these slow interactions of like you know, pulling out the pistol or whatever, pulling out the chambers, and then it turns into like this weird old arcade game while your character's still cleaning their gun, like this is what's happening in their head, where

you're controlling like a bullet on a two D plane. It's it's got a lot of style. It doesn't get in your face with story. There is usually a little setup intro video for most of the levels, but those gott go by pretty fast and then you're just in the action and it's like, Okay, how can I figure this out? And I'm yeah, like I

said, I'm very down with it lately. Even Oh sorry, go ahead, No, I was gonna say, like, the first thing that you uh, you know when you're describing the first thing that pop in my head was super hot. Yeah, it's got super hot lives. Yes, it's got super hig vibes. Yeah. Absolutely, I think it's Yeah, you know, they're not gonna play exactly the same, but you could see how

these are like branching paths of similar ideas into it. Sorry, Nick, Oh, No, I was gonna say, yeah, I've been thinking about Neon White a lot over the course of the last two weeks for some reason, because I was like, damn, remember that video game. You know it was good. It should have made more of that, But it sounds like this kind of maybe scratches some of that itch a little bit. Maybe it definitely, I mean, it definitely does in some ways because I am

leaderboard chasing. It's not about like just raw action is like, Okay, I tried something, it didn't work. How either how can I make that work? Or I'm gonna have to figure something else out, And it's a little bit less like in Neon White. I'm like, go go go, brain off, brain off, go go go, And I love that that is one hundred percent where I want to be when I'm playing a game. This game is a little bit more like no, you go, you're gonna

you're gonna have to think about it. But then, at least at the very least for me, it is rewarding once you do figure out a really cool method to get these characters to behave in the way you want them to. So it has what I need to get out of a game like this. And then to see the score at the end of the kind of like I think the little hump there for me at the beginning was figuring out how that scoring mechanic was working. And then like I thought I did pretty good.

It's like, okay, well, it's very important to keep the multiplayer multiplier going. That means getting these kills as quickly one one after the other as possible while the meter's dropping down, so you can't like take a long time to like aim your bullet. You kind of have to whip it around. Which actually I'm like, oh, I should be playing on mouse, because playing on the scene is fine making it work. I should probably be

playing on mouse. I'm trying to get the best score possible, and then it's like the next most important thing is getting multi kills or getting head shots and as opposed to chess shots or occasionally they'll have like glowing parts and that enables enables you to get special bonus abilities later on in the game, and

you could do more with that. So yeah, it's it's a it's a cool game, and it's it's got a really cool vibe, and I think it's doing enough to keep me like attached to the leader board chasing, and I think if you sprinkle on all of those factors, that's the kind of thing. It's like, Okay, yeah, this is a solid, well made game, well made game that understand what understands what it needs to be

cool, very good. All right, I need to check that out and we might be doing something with that later, right, Yeah, we'll probably get it on the site at some point. Yeah, we'll do something excellent. Uh, tell me someone about Yellow Taxi goes room Grub. Did you end up playing this? I did play. I played a bunch of this, I am did you? I played the demo? So I wanted to

talk it over a bit with you? All right, So why don't you start and then I'll kind of like answer your questions if you have questions to go beyond what's in the demo. Okay, So Yellow Taxi Goes Room is an interesting game. It's basically a three D platformer, kind of a retro style collectith On three D platformer. But you're not playing as, you know, a Mario Asonic, you know that's our answerpomorphic just person walking around.

You're playing as this wind up toy car and so you are doing You're playing a platformer where you're constantly either driving forward or going in reverse and then just

turning left and right. It's a very interesting control scheme. And then it just plays like you expect a three D platform to play, like especially I'm getting big like three D Sonic game vibes from this in the way I would have been set up, Like you get a line of rings and Sonic to sort of direct you this way, you get a line of coins in this game to tell you, hey, go over there next. It's very wild visually. They're going for like this retro esthetic which pro tip turned on the

CRT filter and turned down your game resolution too. Four ADP and it just a retro game. It's very cool. How fun? Yeah, but you

get started getting other abilities. I don't know how deep it goes in the demo at least, I think you only get a mid air dash, which which is kind of cool because your tax will just like pause in mid air, spin around, and then dash forward, and that allows you to sort of if you chain it together, you can cancel that and they'll give you a little hop and that's your jump in the game, is canceling your dash. There's a lot of really unique movement options in this game that you wouldn't

expect out of a three D platformer. My big thing is that it's very visually busy once you start. Me. Yeah, I'm I'm looking at this trailer and it is. It is wild. There is a lot going on. It is if I'm not mistaken, it's I think it's Is it published by anyone we know? No, I think it's just like some Arcade and those awesome guys. Is the publisher? Okay, Yeah, it's definitely. It looks like the kind of game you would like expect Evolver to publish.

It's one, you know, one of those games in sort uh in terms of the sense of humor and everything that's going on there. But it's all, yeah, it's a lot to take in. It starts out very like a very sonic, very like coastal sort of area, and you're kind of just like going from this major platform so the next one collecting a little bit stuff, but then it puts you into this city where you are playing crazy Taxi. Basically they you know, do the joke there, but there's all

this shit happening around you. Is so just absolutely bonkers. But there is a demo, so I think people should go check it out and see if this type of humor and style is for them, because I think it might be a bit much for me. I actually play the full game, but I thought it was a really interesting concept at least. Yeah, So I have the full game and I've been playing it, and I it took me a minute to like understand all those movement options that I did have, especially

because it's like there is no just straight up jump. You're gonna have to like maneuver your vehicle so it's in certain parts of the level so you can access other parts of the level, and usually that's going to mean you're gonna need a ramp at least as far as I like at my skill level with this game, And like I have said, I like not jiving with it immediately. At my skill level, M like, okay, I could see

there's something over there. I could see there's something over there. If I can get to that ramp, I can hit my midair dash and get over there maybe, And if I can hit the brake, I'll be able to stop on that tiny little platform and get the collectible that's up there. And figuring that stuff out is pretty satisfying. But I find myself a lot of times being like, oh, I wish I had a jump I kind of just wish I had a jump button that would make this a little bit east

your spring tires or something like that, something like that. And now I mean I do there are opportunities where it's like, okay, I was able to basically almost like drive up this wall and get to this really rare collectible. So that's up there, and that felt really cool, and those moments are neat. But like Sean said, the levels are so visually busy. I'm not like picking out the cool opportunities. It's just kind of all washing over my eyes. I'm like, Okay, I guess I got to get

all these coins and all these people. I guess I could talk to most of these people, they're just kind of saying random stuff. It feels a little it feels like it kind of needs an editor a little bit. It just needs to be paired back here or there and kind of like focus in on the fun for the player and at least that in the first couple levels that I played, That's how I felt. But it does. It's got a real great style to it at the very end. Definitely cool. All

right, and that is out now go check it out. Yeah, another game out today? Yep, Sean, I don't know if we ever gave you a Pokemon corner again and now whether you like they're not let alone a room to hang out in with Pokemon. But what's going on? Okay?

So first of all, First of all, so I realized what I was doing timestamps for the last BombCast. I never mentioned the name of the show that I'm watching, which is kind of important for a TV show, Like, yes, it's Pokemon, but the new one is a Pokemon Horizons. But I want to sneak this in here because I have a video game thing to talk about. What that show just keeps going places I don't expect, Like I mentioned the whole like the main character has some issues she's dealing with

and everything. But a few episodes later, the cast of the show is very eclectic and they're all like riding around this airship is how they get around. So it's a very like a whimsical classic anime sort by they're going for very colorful cast of characters. They're all very different, different things going on there. Even it's cool to see, I know a lot of shows are doing it's cool to see fucking some gender roles a little bit. You know, they're like, yeah, you know what, Dad can't be the one

that's good cooking clean, That's that's cool everybody. So I like seeing that. But like one of these examples is this very nurse joy character, got the pink hair and everything. She's a doctor, and but her thing is like she's always wearing like this punk rock outfit. She's always wearing like leather jackets and like goth dresses and stuff, you know, big vibes of like the doctor from Persona five. And it's like, what's going on with this

character? Why why is she like that? And they address in the episode where she's like, my whole family is pokemon doctors. I was born into this. I was forced to go down this path. They put me at a Pokemon center right out of school. I didn't want to be there, so I ran away from home. And I'm on this journey now because I want to take care of while Pokemon. I've never had a choice in all this, and I'm taking back my life. I'm like, I'm sitting here

pajamas on with my cereal saturnymore. I'm like, man, I expect Pokemon had me crying in my cheerios over existential Wait, so is the implication? Sorry, and I'm so grateful for you sharing this moment, but it does raise a large question that I have. Are the nurse Joys and Officer Jenny's a race of people? Basically, Okay, good question. They're all family. It's it's a very silly family. They're all family in some way,

shape or form. That that's the because you know, they had to explain, well, why does the nurse in Pokemon Round Blue always just look like the same person. They're like, oh, because they're all like cousins and sisters and they all look like that, and they mean talk about video are the true Are there male or gender non conforming? Even the nurse Joy family. You know, they reproduce sexually. You have to assume, right,

you have to assume that's is much scarier. So yeah, like like that guy up in the north of where the male was born in the woods. Yeah, I think some dude in a chancey are just like popping out all these nurse joys or something like, oh maybe that's what's in the egg. Yeah, that's what's in the egg. Anyways, But to retie in the video games, the European International Championships for Pokemon happened over the weekend. Wherever

that whoever like major the best Pokemon again? Did he win again? You're an idiot, so whenever basically want to know, Well, these national championships happen, like you know, everyone gets the itch. It's like, oh, yeah, I want to play the video game because whatever, well all

of us fans, all of us nerds. Uh so I I want to play Pokemon TCG Live, which I kind of fell out of love with a little bit there, but like the virtual hard game video game right there, because the person who won that was using my deck, like the deck that I run very unique. Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. Yeah, I get like huge these tournaments, these tournaments pay ridiculous nowadays, Like you can kill it how much? Like ten grand? That's nuts to get

it last place or for first place? I first place, just like I think that might be what regionals even pay out now, like, and it's even higher for like gnats and stuff. It's crazy how much they're paying out nowadays. What's the most anyone's ever won because you're yeah, that's whatever the payout for worlds would be, which I I don't know my head, I'm just thinking like ten grand, it's like all right, but like how what would it cost to get you there? Like what are we dealing with?

That's the thing. Like if you go to everyone, obviously it's not worth it. But if you're like keep in mind, regionals happen like several times a month, and it'll be like there's one in Ohio, there's one in Wisconsin, there's one in California. They're all over a place. So if you win your local regionals, it basically costs you nothing to go and you win. However many thousands it is, it's so that's so much they used to pay nothing, yeah, nothing or less. So now the prize pool

for twenty twenty four acumulative prize school is a half a million dollars. If you come in first at Worlds it's fifty k. Second is thirty k, Third and fourth get twenty k. Fifth through eighth get fifteen thousand dollars. That doesn't make any sense. Why would fifth through eight whatever? Yeah? Why not? Sure? Yeah? Well because your participation trophies. Am I right? Because you're wrong with the way the bracket wokie. Those are all

these same woki month. If you finish fifth through eighth, you've all finished in the same place in the bracket. Yeah, that's like you you get the elite you crushed at the same time. But considering like back in my day, it would be like you could win a major championship and they're like, cool, congrats, here's like two booster boxes. See you next time. Here's a hat when I won my day. Huh, Jeff, I've

been playing the TCG competitively since two thousand and four. Actually, back in my day, when I won my my regional and bi regional, I mean it was at the one Toys r US Babe Blade tournament. They gave me a fifty dollars Toys r U S gift card that I immediately used on more bay Blades with that gift card I bought. That was the first series of like those smaller metal ones that they released was at that time, and those were fucking ringers. Dude. They were so heavy, like it was impossible

to get take take someone's ankle off. Baby. Yeah, yes, yeah, my fucking bab blades. We should get into bay Blades. I feel like Janas said this before on the website. We got to get into bay Blades. We can have a baby blaider. I think blades are I they're cool. They're no longer like cools, is what he's about to say? What the fuck? Fuck stun locked me there. He's the only one who can get away with that on this gas. He said that there would be

competitive these traders have spikes on them. That'd be sick. No, I feel like Mikey doesn't care about them anymore. He's like, those are just pops. I mean it's because they are. They are stupid tops like, but like he's just he's like, we're done. It is as done. It is as primitive as looking at the sun during the eclipse. No,

I think that maybe cooler. I think that sure is maybe I mean are kind of like, you know, collecting any bands, like you know, like shoes, because like shoes are functional, like but they're just still their

shoes. Yeah. But like I'm with you with like they're all not bespoke, but they're all like the hell will have their own unique design and like that's kind of fun and you can mix and match like all the three pieces, Like I like that, and you can let it rip, you can let it yeah, hell yeah, I want I want fifty dollars from Attack of the Show once? Uh and uh, hell yeah you're rich? What what what was the show? Yeah? She said my hair was nice. Oh hang on, I picked it out. I picked it out before I

think she was being paid. You did not win fifty dollars. And this is us. This is a different story, you know when Sean is your fucking manager. A better memory and it was like you want a pizza Hug gift card? Yeah, I want a pizza gift card for fifty dollars. Very different. It all It all fun turn intois at the end of the day. So yes, it's just very important. Yeah. Uh do you I okay, how many times were you on Attack of the Show? I think just that one time. I mean that was like as like a call

in, like a fame guess, like a media hit. No, no, no no. I was on the Twitter wall a hand for you a handful of times. That was my whole That's the reason I have Twitter.

Wait what really the who? They had a TV on the left side or the stage right side of that set that was a vertical television and it just was tweets that like a producer was looking at the hashtag and then would pull the tweets up onto the thing and then like you would watch the show and then tweet, like do a live tweet and then like that was That's why I have Twitter, because I was trying to get on the on the TV board. That's fair. Yeah, I want to say I did it three

times. You were on the program. I was on it. I was part of like the talking head that had refrigerator segments on attack of the show. I missed those, Nikki you about I'd talk about the iPhone, you know, good that was cold, but that was really refrigerators, I know, uh huh uh No. I think the first one I ever did was talking about like Ghostbusters. I'm probably clean shaven when we're this is like pre

twenty ten. I want to say. I remember having to stay so late in the goddamn city because they were on the West coast and I had to go to like a satellite place around Times Square and they were like, can you just stay till like eleven o'clock in the city and not go home and just do And I was like, sure, why not? Olivia munn The only time I've done one of those like satellite studio calling things was for Chinese State Media Come again cool. Chinese State Media had like a cable channel was

kind of like their equivalent of BBC, like World Service. Yeah, they had me on to talk about Fortnite and PUBG. I think, yeah, do you like Did you like doing those things? Do you like talking head stuff? It was weird. I mean it was fine. I didn't like. I wasn't like, oh, well, this is my future or anything, but I was like, yeah, this is fine. I'm not I didn't like having to drive into the city to do it. That sucked.

Yeah. I always grappled with the idea of like, this is gonna do better things for your career and then simultaneously be like who fucking watches television? Are? Yeah? It's like this will be in front of the most eyeballs anything you've ever done. Is also, none of those people care about the figure talking about exactly they will. You are being used to like help them

understand because they're geriatric and irrelevant. Huh, I'm sorry, CNBC. Whatever, Right, Well of the games we got going on before we take a potty break, did we We talked about Content Warning. We played it on DPF last week, we talked about it on BCR. I don't know if we want to talk ye any more about it about a little bit more here for the main show. Content Warning was a lot of fun, real quick, Sean Nikky, do you think back of Our would get motion stick with

you? Yes, there's for the exact same reason there's no crosshair, so fuck me, really, I think you would. I think it would fuck you up. Wait, that's not it's not. It's not universal like I think it was just that was the end of the game again the company. But it's mostly I'm assuming yes it will because it's this exact same style and vibe of hen Bob and like I'm motion and stuff, I'm willing to jump into it. I'll take one for the team, Thank you so much for

your service. You got it, You got it. But yeah, Content Warning is a lethal company like which is funny, and the goal is to create a video that gets a lot of views that is scary. You go down in this bell, this diving bell, into a place called the Old World, which is just hell. It's just hell. There's monsters down there. There's here in Pittsburgh. There's monsters down there. The refrigerator parry is down there also, and he wants to just take you anywhere. But I

think the monster design is really funny, Like it's all very silly. Like the tone of the game I think is far enough away from Lethal Company. Legal Company is like the joke is like, oh how dire this is right right, and it plays with that. But Content Warning is like, oh

it is very bright and silly. When you're above ground, you go downstairs, it's all gray scale except for you and the other like the player characters, which I think is like such a good bit because you can always tell when a person is getting attacked, like regard if you're doing a quick scan

left to right. And like I was posting some of the videos that we filmed to TikTok over the weekend, and like it's the visual language in that game is so strong because you can so very much tell when a person is being attacked. But yeah, you're going down there, you're filming monsters and ski spooky things. And then there's items in the game that you can buy that like modify it. So it's like you can get a googball, which

just creates a ball of goo that slows a monster down. Or you can buy microphones, which work because it has proximity audio, so if a person has one of the reporter mics, it can go really far away from the camera but still speak into it and be audible. There's a boom mic. There's like a soundboard which is very funny that has a bunch of like silly preloaded sounds. There's a green screen that you can go like cycle through what

feels like a million JPEGs to film little pre and post role stuff. It's really fun. It's silly, it's like hearted. It feels like you can get in and get out without like really being the penalty. I think that I felt when we would lose in Lethal Company felt made me kind of feel a little bad because I was like, oh, we did do all of this work and we have these huge, like these huge pieces that I'm like, oh, we have to we have to get this out. We have

to get this out. But turning it into the one camera that you have to work with and it still lets you save the video even if you don't recover the camera, which is huge. I just think it's really smart. It's a it's a smart it's a smart iteration on this idea. And it's only eight bucks if you haven't played it. Yeah, I think I think what really like since it for me is the everything is set up to encourage

the players to start acting like YouTubers very quickly. We kind of like didn't miss a beat once we were what was going on, ye, and then everyone's like, and here's what this looks like to me, And it was like it was just everyone's shouting in their stuff and shouting catchphrases or doing weird intros or just having a different idea for the video and being so excited by I like, when we get back, we're gonna watch this video and I bet it's gonna be funny. And it always made us laugh. I don't

know I got of context post that thing to YouTube. It's a real YouTube video and obviously it's not gonna work that way, but like if you were watching it, everyone was having a good time. Everyone's like very excited to see those videos when we got back, and that made us like one of like, okay, well we are going to get the boom mic and do stupid stuff and have the clapper going across the screen the entire time. And I really enjoyed myself. It was fun to see the audience really be happy

to that game as well. And I'm like, yeah, I'm like jam Dan, once you guys get back, we should try it out back. You can risk your your you know, your your barf bucket next to me. It's fine, it's fine, just turn usually, you know. Yeah, yeah, technically, I mean, look, the world is my barf bucket. Yeah, you got hands. I do wonder if there's a mod so we could do the same thing we did with the Lethal Company and have like, you know, eight nine people. Yeah, I think I've seen

that too, So I have a new theory about the motion sickness. I think it's also mouse and keyboard. I think mouse and keyboard do it more than because it's faster than your body would normally move. I'm gonna I'm gonna act like that wasn't an insult. It wasn't. I'm sorry, free look, okay, I move quickly when I need mostly when there are sharp blades on my feet. About it, I'm not fucking old, okay. Even the people Fortnite with we're like, who's the other guy? It was like,

oh no, it's my dad. They're like, really, he's not bad, one of the good ones. He's not. So he's okay. I just feel like I'm stepping on every rake in the fucking backyard right now.

All right? Uh yes, I but okay. I think there's something about like I don't know, mouse and keyboards just like the way to get like I always rock on, you know, And I don't know what it is, like varying factors right like like, yeah, you're away from the TV, you can have a different like you know, field of view and a different like speed at which you're moving the camera and stuff like that.

All those things affect you differently. Because when we were doing CS that the latest CS update, I was good, I was good to go and I was mousing keyboarding the ship out of that. Uh So I don't know, all right, thank you for the comment. Nikki is trying. I was just trying to say, do you move a mouse because of mouse acceleration? You're neck doesn't have neck acceleration. It's not like it's not like it scales up. And we all know I have no neck. Okay, all right,

take us a break. I have no nets him today seriously that I know you didn't mean a Nikki, but I have no neck. You've got it. Everyone always says to me. You're just shoulders and chin and that's it. You got a neck, it's there. But this is normal perfect neck in there somewhere that rules ship. All right? What are the games we got before? Uh? I'll hit a one two here. I'll just follow up. After my soul searching from last week. I did find the

video games I want to play right now, Unicorn Overlord. I am still playing that handheld mode, which means that I am not very far because I get like an hour in before Bad before fall Asleep. It's a weird game to not be on PC because it combines tile based stuff with RTS elements, and so frequently I'm like, I kind of just want to click on the thing instead of switch, have a touch screen, you know, a touch screen. But yeah, that's why I said it. But I don't know.

I can't That's the thing I can't imagine for a variety of reasons playing this game on like PS five or Xbox, like having to pause the action cycle through your units with like the D patters on or move that cursor around with the analog stick. It feels a bit clunky, and so they're early on. There were some moments where I would have to like figure out how to was the quickest way to get to this unit, cancel their movement, and then send them to this other place instead, and it just felt a

bit awkward. But I don't know. I learned it. I got over that, and now I'm having fun. But it does feel very like old school fire emblem, like more of GGBA era fire emblem. Maybe to a fault sometimes because there are things that they label as side quest optional stuff. I'm like, this is like a tutorial for how to play a class of character that doesn't feel like it should be optional content. But I get that they want to give you the choice if you want just like get straight into

the more story stuff. I don't know, but I am a joyant it's a fun tactics game. It's vanilla ware, so obviously it's got style to it, and it's great in handle mode outside of like learning how they're assigning all the bunsner I think, yes, Jeffrey Grub, do you think I would enjoy this game? I feel like it's a game you would once the tactics click, you would be like down, but would probably fall off of it eventually. Okay, all right, there's nothing else because I have a

very anime with a not great story. The story is very paper think just like yay, verily, we must capture the kingdom. It's like so surface level medieval stuff. Yeah, you can skip stuff. So if you just want to pack demos, I'll try it. I'll try it. Try the demo out. It's it's a weird. It's a very weird feeling tactic scheme, but once you get in the flow, it's like you can actually like start getting you know, it's pretty snappy once you get the hang of.

In school. But the other game I've been playing, like I mentioned, I would move on to you'll hear about like a Dragon Infinite Wealth. Yeah, don't know about it. I've heard this game that's a pretty good game. Huh. Yes, it is like I'm coming coming off a Person of Three reload. I keep drawing comparisons there for so many reasons, if nothing else, they're all under the same roof. But man, I had such a blast. Like Sunday night, I didn't even make progress in the story.

I was just wandering around. Do they make it clear what city you're in or is it just like Hawaii. It's because they're like, very explicitly, Yokohama, this is where you are. Yes, you get to America and they're like, you're on ho in Hawaii City. Yeah, I think they show I love that. Yeah, yeah, I think they fictionalize it so much that they maybe like don't reference it too much at least. But no, it's really fun. I just uh I met Danny Trejo. That

whole scene was really awesome. Like the acting in this game and the I assume motion capture is like fantastic, is really really well done. The music, like, dang, the Yakis series I've already I've always known to have good music, especially some of the older ones. There's some bops like Cuse's theme and everything that a lot of people know. But there's even just random

songs like there's this. I got to a point in story where like a band of the Barracudas who like kind of don't know to not mess with EG and the crew. They show up and the Barracuda theme song kicks in and it's like ding ding ding barracud I'm just like jamming out with this random grunt battle and this came a so much style. I really have a fun time with the one issue I'm kind of having with it. I still think this is the problem I had with Yacis of seven. I still think that the

battle system can be a little too analog for its own good. Where sometimes I will try to line something up and like the arrow will point in a specific direction. I'm like, okay, so this will be knocked back into my teammate, or like it'll knock them into a specific object or healing AoE stuff, Like they're in range right and then they like saunter out of range. Sometimes things just don't quite line up, even when the game tells me

that they should, and that's kind of annoying. I get why they're doing it, because it's you know, trying to pay homage to like the beat them up roots of the series, but it can be a little frustrating. So that's something that it is more frustrating early on, you get like as your characters build their social links between one another, you will be able to do more and more with those characters, like helping each other out. That

sort of mitigates that. But early especially the like lining things up the area of effect healing things, that's something you just kind of have to get used to. We're like, uh, okay, I probably should just heal myself and try to get as close as possible, because if I try to heal someone else, she's gonna run over there, and unless I know they're all clumped together, I don't want to take the risk of her running over and like kind of missing everybody. So I want to make it a little bit

more predictable. That is a little bit frustrating, but also like on the flip side of that, I got so good at, like when you would start group fights. Sometimes if you roll up on the enemies and they're all clumped together, if you move fast enough before they split up, I would

be able to like throw a grenade or fromage to like six people. And that was really fun because it felt like I was like I was moving fast enough through the menus to beat them, like to beat the to beat them the set up, which was really nice, but yeah, it is. It's really good. I hope you don't hit the wall that I hit. I am noticing, So this is something I know. Lucy talked to DCM during the room in multiple this happens. Yeah, and Nikki you brought up

on BCR the R day. But it does feel a bit grinding in the sense that it feels like I'm always a little under leveled and you could do you could do a lot to get over leveled, but then the game will make sure once again you will be under leveled again at some point, Like I'm learning the link which you should be here and here, you should have this level in these this gear, and that'll happen three four times throughout the

game. Right. Yeah, So I went I went through the you know, the factory area, and it's like, hey, you should be level thirteen and have two star equipment before you go through here. I was like, all right, well, eachy's thirteen. The other guys are like twelve almost thirteen. I have like mostly two star gear, like I should be good. Maybe it'll be a slight challenge, like I'm used to turn bas RPG's, I'll figure it out. I was expecting a little bit of challenge

and I got my ass handed Jimmy. I was like, I had to use all my like good healing items and everything, and I came out of there with money and stuff and like all of my resources gone. And so many RPGs they really thought about it. So many RPGs you just never use all of your inventory. So I guess maybe that's what they were thinking, is that they scale things in a way where they do make you use all

of your resources. They make you think about you have X amount of money, you have x amount items that you've picked up, you need you actually need to strategize before going into a fight. You need to prioritize what to bring in and like figure out how to spend these resources. And when I thought about that way, I'm like, Okay, yeah, I think it is just a challenge at least so far. I am curious to like how

much of a wall you get to. I will say this is one of many games that's reminded me this year that if you don't play our a lot

of RPGs, some people don't know. If he gives you a lot of safe slots, you use those sure, And that like that was that was something that I had to actively start changing in the way that I was playing the game because I was like, oh, it's just this is how that, this is how they want me to do it, Like they want me to do this, like the thing that I because I started, I picked it back up and have just been literally like running around to like like familiar

refamiliarize myself. M I. The thing that I will say about this game

is that I don't feel stronger than I did when I started. It is that just how these ones are like these I'm at the end, like I'm I'm I'm basically at the end, and like I don't know if it's like maybe I haven't been as experimental with the classes like yet with the job, like I have swapped them around, like everyone is doing something different and I've tried and you're you're taking those skills them, but like it doesn't feel like

it just feels like I'm Pokemon has the same issue for me, where it feels like you get the guy and then you like come out with the move set and then you use the same moves and then you're like, okay, well here the moves like yeah, So I think the the more power I felt came from the drink links that would make all my characters like they would Okay, hey, I'm going to we can like team up and do an

attack and someone else. Once they're down, we'll do we'll do a follow up attack, and and all those other stuff will kind of like latch onto one another and make every attack that one that much more powerful. And I don't know, I thought some of like the higher skilled job class abilities felt felt more powerful. But yeah, overall, anytime you're like just fighting characters, if they are appropriately leveled to you, yeah, you're gonna feel about

the same throughout the entire game. So yeah, I think games feel I think I think I think the positional stuff is almost misleading because this is very much a traditional JRPG, and I mean to the point that you know, each's obsessed with dragon quests and talks about it all the time, and uh, you know, Yu is seven, So I think that's just that's what they're going for. And traditional t RPGs usually are Okay, you're you're a

little bit stronger. Now you got a better version of this move. But then eventually the enemies are going to like start to scale up to where you are, and that's sort of the give and take the flow of this type of game. So yeah, yeah, I think Rub's right. A lot of where your power comes from is in finding those new ways to play through the stuff you'll lock with, drink links and whatnot. Did you all use the football job? Yes, that's a good one. That's a good twenty

hours into this game and I'm still learning. Still it's still tutorialize. Are you in Hawaii? Also? Apparently, I'm sorry, folks said that they mentioned that it's all Honolulu a lot, so yeah, like Hawai City. Yeah, they might have mentioned that like at the start and just having to say because yeah, it is always just Hawaii. Yeah, I am where did I leave off? I left off, uh searching for a Khane. I'm like finding out where she works. Okay, very good, folks,

More Giant BombCast After this, we'll get into the news. See what kind of news Grub has made and curated for the show. All this and more after the break, be right back. Welcome back to the Giant BombCast. We're having fun here and who cares? Who cares if my neighbors decided to mow their lawn right as we're recording the next part of the podcast, ship Man, I don't care. You know, it's their prerogative. It's their lawn. They can do whatever they want. Maybe, I guess, so

we'll share the street. We've got news, We've got Jeff Grubb. Let's do this all right. First story, everybody, Uh. On the return from wrestle Mania, Jan Ochoa's flight has been diverted because his plane is full of ship. From the Twitter account of Jan Jerome Ochoa, well, flight home is getting diverted because it is literally full of poop emoji. Oh maybe it's just full of the poop emoji. Listen, you're right, That's why I said it. I wanted this is very this is very important. We

have someone on the ground. Follow tweet here from one Mike Minati. My bad. Oh again, get it your source of everyone's problems. We know you've never heard of this. Did he get into the air? I mean I think so well, so much poop came out fly above toilet from South Market. They can't they can't, just like, uh, you know,

this is my Dan Reyker question. They can't just like open up a hatch and like us, it must be that the toilet has become a biohazard and they don't have the ability to clean, Like legitimately, they don't have the ability to clean the toilet such that another person can use it. Right, But what I'm saying is, like, certainly there's some sort of like exit hatch the Yeah, Like, can't they just mathematically determine where the payload would

land over some sort of Yeah, that's just gonna happen. I mean, there's a reason we call them the fly literally want to dump our ship on that. The three tabs I hope and have opened that aren't the news? Are my taxes? Jen talking about? This is ship, plane and the script to Jurassic Parts. So that's that's my life. It's cool. That's actually cool. That's a trifecta achieved. Listen, I did shape my life so it would be exactly like this. So I'm glad out here. Absolutely,

don't do your taxes whatever they're already done. I just got to pay him now. I'm a bit all right. Getting to the news. There's a rumored new socom game that could be in the works. Another entry in the Socom franchise might be in the works. Basically, someone spotted on a late actors resume. I believe the actor is David Veitch, who passed away a couple of years ago. But they looked on his resume, I suppose on LinkedIn and saw a mention of a game called so Coom one one one.

People are like, well, maybe he just put on him or his representatives put a game on there that he'd been in previously, and they just didn't know what it was called. They went back looked at all the credits for all the pre games. They didn't see David Veach mentioned in any of them, So thinking, okay, maybe he did some work, which apparently this work is voice acting and performance capture, and maybe it's for like a so Caom show or something or something along those lines. People have not been

able to track it down. So based on this, people are assuming we are getting a new Socom. My opinion is that's pretty weak. It's probably not happening at least not based on this. Yeah, how do you all feel about so Calm? And you need to touch Grass is what I think. Wow, Jan is rolling in his race. Jan biggest Socom fan I know. I don't even know if he likes Socom as much. He likes the idea of Socom really, I like, so, I like Socom as an idea from the nineties, and like that's it? Is it even?

Is it from the two anything? Yeah? No, My entire Socom experience is that on in the eighth grade, we did a trip up the five uh to Sacramento, and then we came back down and half of the bus, the boys, was playing so Calm on the plate whatever. So Calm was on the yeah, and then the back half, which was the girls in the gaze And I just was in the back there, not really thinking about what that meant. But I was back there were playing Mario say,

I would yeah, I would have been. You think it makes make you think do some digging, but yeah, like who cares? Yeah, Like, I don't think it's a story, right, whether or not this is happening. Do you all think that so Calm has the juice the days No, Siphon Fielder has more juice, I would say, so, like do that? Yeah, And it's not like, you know, have to disturb the grave of some actor in the process. That is the most nuts to

be is like this is what this rumor is based on. Yes, and it's also why are they imagine being so down bad for Socom that you're like, let me think of a guy who could be in so calm and then you find this dude who is dead and then you're like, it's just nuts. What I'm trying to think of what a new Socom would even accomplish for Sony at this point because easy is it a PlayStation five and maybe PC game and you have to go up against Fortnite that's everywhere or whatever, or Pug

that's everywhere. Call of Duty that's everywhere. Well that that's my big thing is like so many people who don't know what's so comms a video game series are gonna be like, oh, well this is just a Call of Duty knockoff, right, and they're not gonna be under twenty five would just be like huh yeah. Like SOCOM was important back in the day because of what it did for multiplayer gaming as respective platforms. On PS two it was, you know, your doorway to online shooters just with the you know, with

the headsets, you could talk to people. That's where people first communicate a lot of people's first communication with other people online with voice wasn't so calm? Yeah exactly, or the PSP version like Nikki mentioned, you know, like kids were played on the bus and like older people would I think love them

head online? You would do that. But nowadays it just feels like there's no reason for it to exist outside of some people have asked for it, but I don't know, like you Ghost Recon Advanced war Fighter three, Yeah, that's what I want. Three three called gros Groks fcks Dash three. Would you prefer them to make another SoCon game or another kills It? Oh? I would kill them Personally, I would definitely prefer a SO com because, like I know, what I just said makes it seem like nobody cares,

but so actually has a unique place because it's tactical. Kill Zone four is the one I'm actually going to get into. Yeah at this point, the one. This is the one. Uh well anyway. Shout out to Reddit user keck and keck and Cock for touch Grass and Cock. Okay, yeah, all right, Well moving on. Two upcoming PlayStation Plus classic titles have seemingly been revealed a new trop this. I'm bringing this up because I

think it's weird. Uh. A new trophy list for Medieval has been spotted, suggesting that PS one title could be soon made available on PlayStation Plus. And that is like the p S one version of Medieval, not the remake that game. Yeah, they just right, and then's so that but they're not doing that one PlayStation Plus Classics, which they would do it for Classics, but and then the other well the other gay doesmatics. That's the one I want to talk about. Yeah, yeah, why why why would you

do I don't know, why would you do that? Yeah, it's a little from a perspective of good to keep this game play it like the original version of this game playable on more things, great, awesome. I do remember the other game, this one. I'm like, yeah that, I'll play this Rebel Assault to the Hidden Empire. That one's like the very FMV one. It's got some fun stuff in there. But how do you all feel about the subscription services that you are or are not subscribed to these days?

Including PlayStation Plus, Xbox Game Pass, things like that. Do you guys have all of them still? Because I I just was on the PlayStation five the other day and I was about to like play a game. Oh yeah, it's a PS Plus game I got. I ended my subscription and I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna turn this off rather than resubscribe. So you so when you turn off PlayStation Plus, don't you lose You lose

everything. You lose access to the games that you got through the PlayStation Plus subscription previously, and then you could lose access to like their library of games. But when you subscribe, you get them back. Yes, that's for you, Yes you do, Okay, because I remember there wasn't there like a time where there was a really caveat where like not it wasn't terrible.

It's just like if you're not subscribed, then you can't like claim them, and then if they're gone, you can't go back in time and claim them. Okay, okay, that's what it was weird compared to games with gold over on Xbox, because on Xbox you just had those games permanently in your library. When you write it's like this, yeah, this is actual like subscriptions as we know them nowadays, where you need to claim them in the

period and then you only have it when you are subscribed. And but then on top of that, then there's the library of games where you don't have to claim them. It's just like the Library games, right and confusing. I only I have Game Pass Ultimate until the sun explodes. I think I literally have Games Insultsman until like twenty twenty twenty six, because I like they remember they were doing that thing where you can upgrade the dollar a dollar a

dollar yea. So I went to Costco and I bought two years or three years of Mark of Gold, and then I canceled my game pass put the live account, and then I so I'm good on game passes with twenty twenty six. Thank you ten cent for paying for that. And then I also have the Nintendo Family Plan, which I don't I don't really know why I

have that because I super don't use any of that. But there's like eight people in that like under or not right, but there's like a handful of people under that umbrella, so like I feel obligated to keep paying a couple of bucks so nothing you go online with Mario card. It's so funny that you think I have the gumption to ask these people who are under the umbrella to give me the money. You know, you're the one, You're the

hood of the account. Okay, I go, yeah, I'm not gonna hunt down out for eight dollars, like come right, and like is it a lot of money? Yes, but like I can't. I can't be fucked to d that. And then I don't have PlayStation Plus. Like if someone is like I want to play, like if we play Hell Divers this week, like I'll have to re up on PlayStation Plus for the month and

then I'll cancel it again. I just like don't have subscriptions really in general, because I just buy them as necessary, like it which God got to download all my PS plus saves because hey, fun fact, you can't access your cloud saves unless you are currently subscribed to PS plus. Yeah, dumb, that's so slimy. Yeah, but I mean I believe Nintendo does it too. I think it's dumb there for the record, But yeah, I

don't subscribe to PS plus because I just usually don't play on console. I'm not subscribed to game Pass because I subscribe when there's a game I want to play on game Pass. You know, I just you know, drop the ten bucks whatever it's cheaper than buying the game. And then I mean really anything else, even in I kind of just don't subscribe too much. Occasionally I'll do some bundle if it's like this and this, and we'll give you

a discount. It's like three months for five bucks or something. I'll try that. Yeah. Usually I don't know. I just it is nothing I need really meshes with that, I would argue most of these subscription services. Maybe I think Xbox righted the ship in a way where like they successfully elevated the idea of game pass as this sort of like Dane date thing right where

they were able to like equate it to that sort of thing. So I think they probably won the messaging battle, whereas the PlayStation experience is mostly in limbo, right, Well, the place experience is you get that when you need to play online, and yeah, that's there. And then and then like you know, ten percent of those people are like looking at the deal like all right, I'm going to get it. I'm going to get it

so I can play online with my friends. And then they look at the tiers like if I pay you a little bit extra, I get some extra shit. Yeah, I'll do that. I think it's like it's just a step up for the people they've already converted for the same reason that they've been converting people since the beginning, which is sure, I want to play Call of Duty and that's it. So well, you don't even need PS plus for free to play games anymore, right for you? Right in the traditional

call Duty? Yeah right right? Yeah, so like war Zone and then like fort nine and whatnot, So most people nowadays probably actually aren't paying for PS plus on PlayStation. Yeah. I mean I think I think there's been some numbers out there. It's like kind of pretty steady around. I want to say, forty million ish, okay, just big numbers, that's so a lotular. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Remember I was I was trying to explain if someone remember when PlayStation Network was down for like a month

and a half. Yeah, yes, I was trying to explain to a person who is like he was like so thoroughly unplugged. Thank you for your service, by the way, Greb, thank you. I was trying to explain it to someone, and I like, I still felt like I was down playing how crazy that was. It was so crazy? Must the nuts just nuts? Like they just couldn't it was off. Yep, they got hacked so bad they unplugged everything. Yeah, and that's that was their solution.

So I remember learning about that like the following year, because I played on three sixty at that point and I was like, fucking oh, this didn't affect me. That's why I didn't hear about it. Okay, yep, that was yeah, that was a wild time. Yeah, all right,

seventy dollars games may go the way of the Dodo believes. Saber ceo Saber Interactive CEO Matthew Cars believes that seventy dollars games will eventually become obsolete as developer seek to cut costs and risks in an increasingly challenging Triple A games market. Saber with studios like Nimble Giant, three D Realms and possibly four A games, depends on what happens with them. An Embracer is seen as a

middle market publisher between independent studios and Triple A publishers. Karch cites Hell Divers two as an example and explains that the upcoming Space Marine two is priced that seventy dollars due to concerns over perceptions of poor quality. He predicts that games will become more affordable over time due to the high risks associated with expensive Triple

A titles and the need for reduced costs. Carch acknowledges the major shift in Triple A development with thousands of jobs cut in the industry, and basically, so, yeah, I get what's happening there, but yeah, let's do a check in on this seventy dollars games. We are a few years into this console generation where seventy dollars games became the norm. It feels like we have not backslid in any real way. And yeah, there are other options

out there, like a Hell Divers two that comes out. It's like, yeah, we're a forty dollars game because we want to get as many people playing online as possible. That feels like a notable exception to the rule. And I don't know, I don't know if I agree with this. I feel like these companies are going to get to take as much a profit as they possibly can, and that means keeping costs for the consumer as high as

possible. What do you all think? And yeah, yeah, I just think that like the way that the economy on this works is that the game comes out at seventy dollars, but it's so rarely is seventy dollars forever exactly that, it's like, and they build that into the financial modeling that they do when they price, when they figure out how much the game is going to cost from the jump, right, like they know that three months later they're going to put the game on sale at twenty percent off, fifteen percent

off whatever, whatever, with only Nintendo being the company that's like, no, like this shit is gold, like you, it holds its value forever, like we don't know how to lower it. Yeah, yeah, we need that button broke, but they never the button. I'm not going to start looking for it now, and it's just like yeah, like okay, Like I don't know. I feel like people for people for whom the ten dollars jump was a big gap, like a big jump already probably weren't buying

games at launch anyway. So I think do you think that those people now by the game when it drops to forty instead of like waiting for thirty, Like do you think that do you think that maybe everyone sort of slides up a couple percentage points? I think that's what there's that I think that gets to put in the model a little bit. Not everyone, obviously, You're any sort of price pressure is going to be felt by some percentage of the

audience. Absolutely, So I think what really this charch over Ataber Interact Cyber Interactive is getting at is that developers are going to have to get more creative with how they present their games because that idea of like Space Marin two needs to be seventy dollars, because if we release it for fifty dollars, people are going to get it in their heads that it's not a real big video game, not a big video game. It's a video game, but not

a big boy video game. And it's like, okay, Yeah, if you are in that situation where you can't even like put out it at the price you want to because you're afraid of perception, you're gonna have to like begin telling new stories as these companies going forward. But you know, we are very like, the price is the thing we think about the most. You know, we're having the conversation about the subscription stuff, and it's like that's what we're thinking about. It's like, yeah, the cost and cares

what's in there. The cost is what I'm worried about. And so I think, yeah, these companies are going to have to get more creative. I don't just I just don't know what that looks like. It's going to take time to figure that out, though. I think I think Nikki was right though. I think if you were already not buying full price games,

the ten dollars didn't change anything. And oh yeah, for sure. I say this as someone who you know, had grew up having to like constantly sell games forward the next game and so like even Penny pitching up until honestly, relatively recently, Grub, I've told you all the time, I still like buying sell physical games, like if I have to to save the money, and I don't know, even to me, I'm like, ten dollars

doesn't change much. That's not like a world of difference. I was either going to buy this game at launch or I was gonna wait either way. I don't think it's moved the neal that much. Granted, there's, you know, there's all the economics we could talk about about how that ten dollars isn't going to people who need those sures, which is a whole different conversation.

But I just think most people this hasn't affected them, Like I am fortunate enough now to you know, get a lot of games and not having

a pay for them. But then when my friends want to play with me, like say Call of Duty, when they they really want to play in Modern Warfare three with me, based on the way I was talking about, I was like, guys, you know, it's seventy dollars for like basically DLC And they were like, yeah, but this is this is like my purchase for the fall, So like, sure, whatever, it sucks, but yeah, I'll pay the seventy bucks to play with you. So that

that just hasn't really changed. And yeah, I don't think the small change has affected people's purchasing decisions. Yep. I think it's also like a psychology

too. I think like the price, you know, it kind of gets built into like the optics of like what the the sort of like average game buyer kind of like you know, does in their heads of like oh, you know, in terms of budgeting, and I mean you tell us grub like the spent is spending down in a way that like would point to I mean, I know what Carts is saying, because it's more of like, hey, the market can't sustain a seventy dollars price, just from like what

we've seen in the last you know, six months or so, right, Like, but I but I do think you're still gonna have You're still gonna have people charging seventy dollars for certain games as like a matter of principle, you know what I mean, as a matter of Like this game is without it doubt the full maximum retail price that we can charge, right, Like, this is worth it. The seventy dollars makes us display confidence that it's

worth it. I don't know, There's a lot of contributing factors. I think the point of this is more saying that the middle of the road sort of stuff, right, the games that sit in between Triple A and n D, Yeah, might not be able to get over. And what you have to when you like think about pricing those games though, right like it is you have to beat you're beating, You're going up against free Like.

This story is in direct conversation with the with the story from a couple of weeks ago that was, like, people are playing games that are over five years old. Usually sixty percent of games that people spend their time on, or the sixteen percent of aunt of time people spend on games are on games that are more than six years old. Yeah, yeah, so it's like they've that's that money. They're not even thinking about it, right, Like

it's already been spent. It is so far in the past, so like you have to go up against games that people have already spent money on or they are free. Yep. And I think that's so backlarer to answer your question about like, oh, like our sales down not a lot of games. But I think what happens is the problems get exacerbated, so like a

suicide squad comes out and when it misses, it misses hard. Yeah, And I think that people make that decision pretty like firmly, because hey, seventy dollars looks a little bit bigger than sixty dollars, but if it was a game you were going to buy anyhow, people pay that money. So I think that it just makes the gap even wider, which I think then makes these games that are in between in like you know, the biggest games in the littlest games feel like they have no home because they really don't.

I think that's the reality is that these games are getting too expensive to make To like sort of be in the middle of the road, you need to be a bigger hit. You know, and I guess obviously there's a couple exceptions there, Like I think Dead Island two is gonna be the one to keep going back to whar It's like that one probably made a lot of sense based on its budget. It just didn't make a lot of sense when it

was under Embracer. I guess I did really think of that when now that we have seventy dollars games, that means projections are going to naturally be higher. And so yeah, like you said, when it misses, it's going to miss even harder than if it was a sixty dollars game and they miss those sales, It's like infinite growth is fucking bullshit. Yeah, who something doesn't It doesn't sound right to me. It seems it seems fake and unsustainable to me. Every day new baby is born, they get buy my go,

right, and no one ever died, ever dies. That's yeah, that is so crucial is that nobody born with money? Yeah, nobody ever dies and everyone has the same amount of money. Yeah, babies are born with dollars ready, every baby is born with a gaming budget. All right, let's get some real news now, Star Wars Outlaws. The story trailer came out. The release date is August thirtieth. It is coming to of course, Xbox consoles, PlayStation five, Amazon Luna, and PC via the

Ubisoft launcher. I did not get a chance to watch the story trailer got launched right when we were starting the show, but I'll check it out. I'm excited about this one. Uh. There was rumors that was like even gonna come a little bit like earlier than that, but it's like, I don't know, August thirtieth, they still wait summer times, really expecting yeah,

summertime. Yeah. Yeah. I pulled it up and was looking in the corner of my eye while we were talking about the last topic, and it looks good, Like I I don't I'm not the Star Wars nerd that grub is. I'm sure you would pull more of its. I'm interested to see what you had to say once you take a look at and you know, can listen to it everything. But man, that's a pretty game. Yeah looking games. It's in Snowdrop right, Snowdrop. Yeah. Good.

And so that's a theme with the Ubi South there. So I'm looking forward to speaking of memberships like boy playing that with Ubi Soft plus that I'll probably be a good deal. Yeah, good point, right, Yeah, and it's like you could probably get through that game pretty quickly and you have you're one month of ubstuft plus and played Avatar and stuff. Once the person go for it, does anyone sidle up to the side of it like a speeder door and then shut it? I don't think I saw that. No,

damn, it's not snowdrop to me. Then pop so hard. When that that Division trail had First Division gameplay, when they when they when that dude fucking closed that door, I was like, this is yeah, that's what's if. I have no idea why that fucking did it. For me,

I was like video games are back for me. The First Division trailer was always like, wait, they're going to do the thing, aren't they Where it's like every Ubi stuff trailer back then was like Okay, here's a mission, here's a mission, and then we're gonna pull out and you're in a world and there's other people. Yeah, that's like, yeah, okay, you've done this time now, especially when they have the gamers speak going on as a friendly A division had that, they were like a little bit toned

down, but they still had that Yeah. Good good trailers. You'd be doesn't know what they're doing. Battlefield twenty forty two is ending, and EA has laid out plans for the future of the Battlefield franchise. Battlefield twenty forty two's a seventh season marks the end of the game's active development. EA and Dice are shifting their focus to future projects, with Motive Studio joining the franchise to work on upcoming titles in the series. The decision comes after two years

of updates and improvements to twenty forty two. Man, it's already been two years, which launched in a rough statement, I thought it was longer. It seems like a lifetime perception of times is like the Tornado War game, Like that's the Yeah, that's where you fight the fucking Tornado. See that was That was twenty thirteen by Motive Studio, known for the Dead Space remake and Star Wars. Squadrons, will collaborate with existing Battlefield studios worldwide to create

a cohesive universe encompassing both multiplayer and single player experiences. The studio is also continuing development on its upcoming Iron Man game, So Motive is the latest studio kind of get sucked into the Battlefield of Vortex. Yeah, you really want is all of your cdios to like fall and turn into call of duty support CDOs because really, well forgot division in the Battlefield, right and for Battlefield, which is you know, kind of having some rough go of it.

Yeah, and that's the that's the one that I always wondered about Battlefield was like what twenty forty two, I'm like, yeah, that game is gonna come out, it better be free to play, because yeah, a world of super shooters, and that it was not. It's oh, oh you think you could still do this your battlefield. You're not call of duty.

We learned that a long time ago. Even call of duty is not called Yeah, yeah, but call of duty still can still seventy dollars every year, right and even but even so, like you are starting from such a disadvantage out of the gate, like you're not even yeah yeah, the moment, and the moment has so thoroughly passed, right, like the moment where the market was strong enough to support two of these first military first person shooters

at the same time that basically there was a time there wasn't time, Like that moment is gone, Like I think that window has closed. Can you for me name any story beat from a single player battlefield? Oh? Absolutely not. Maybe the maybe Battlefield one. I was like the one where you go to rescue the tank and I'm like, nope, that's Call of Duty. Maybe Battlefield one like the first thing I would I would recognize it. Could not reiterate it to you at all. That's tough, Like we should

have just don can we play co op Bad Company two? Is that that one was good? I like, I love that. There's probably a way to do that. Battlefield three. Battlefield three was the best one. They should have just every year. They should just really re release back. I played a lot of three back in the day. Yeah, because at that time it was so distinct from Call of Duty. It did feel like a difference experience. But was that the one which was the one I had to

like persistent online connection issues for like six months? Was that four Medal of Honor? I don't remember honors a lot back then. Yeah, I think I think it was four. That sounds correct. Man. That was like the PlayStation one era of like, oh my god, war is amazing, Yeah, Oh my god, oh my god. World War two was like so important to relitigate. Oh, like, we have to, we have to. What about the three where they had Hardline and they're just like,

right, do some cop ship. And the thing about Hardline though that I didn't really like it. There was something about the scale of those maps that felt a little like and you could like take on them. Yeah, yeah, totally all right. The App Store guidelines are now going to allow game emulators finding. Apple is updated its app Store guidelines. Music streaming apps in the EU can now redirect users to external websites, and game emulators are now

allowed on Apple platforms. The changes come after the EU Commission find Apple for abusing its market position. Spotify and Apple Music are mentioned in the context of the EU Commission ruling. The update also includes changes such as allowing mini apps and game streaming. So, hey, that's that's pretty cool. Emulators are legal, and they were just like, we're not going to allow allow you to do this. Uh, and that was that was the end of it.

And Apple's draconian about this stuff. They just completely shut these things down. Uh, this is a good sign. And once again it's like man EU regulation shaking them loose and forcing them to do something that's not just dumb as hell. Uh. So that that's that's really cool to see. Android. On the other hand, like emulation has kind of had like a backsliding because of all the nint where a lot of a lot of emulators are like

afraid to put their stuff on an Android now. So it was Google's getting really weird about the play story and in a way that like I don't really Google a weird company, but like they're they're getting weird about the play store in a way that is like they're trying as Apple is getting their ass handed to them in Europe and and here and here, I have so little faith in the Department of Justice but likes so thoroughly crossing my fingers, but like

I'm with you too, But the deal this is the first time that I've read like a DOJ diatribe where they're like they're kind of making very like us points, Like I'm like, hey, someone under fifty's working there now absolutely you know it's this about the green bubbles. Yes, yeah, it's outlined in it too, and and the watch. It's like they but they make like very cohesive arguments in a way where you're like, did they fucking outsources?

Yeah? It feels it feels legitimately informed. Yes, in a way that's wild, Like we're slowly moving past the generation of the flashing twelve o'clock on the VCR, right, you know what I mean, and like this is where we're It's like, oh my god, okay, yeah, well we'll see see, yeah, we'll see And emulation at least is going to soften on the App Store and that's good that What that really means is a lot more development will happen in that scene as people be like, hey,

we could do stuff on Apple. Now that's kind of a big place to put these things out at. So keeping people interested in making emulators is going to be important in the long run, and that'll be something there. Xbox is moving full speed ahead on the next gen hardware. Microsoft is diligently developing the next generation of Xbox hardware, aiming for the most significant technological advancement it's ever had. Xbox president Sarah Bond confirmed this, hinting a new Xbox series

hardware this year. Images of a white, digital only Xbox A Series X resurface recently. Xbox is also investing in game preservation and forward compatibility. Sony's mentioned a PlayStation five's late life cycle indicates that Xbox Series X Slash S's also approaching the end of its current generation. The key point here being like, so we've known about the hardware that they were like going to announced later this year. They mentioned that, and they also mentioned they would have the biggest

technological technological advancement so far. There's been a recent thing where now Sarah Bond has talked about this backward compatibility team ARM and it's ARM. Well, yeah, it seems like it might have to do with ARM. So they had they had a backward compatibility team that got a lot of stuff up and running on the current Xbox Series X and s uh and before the Xbox One,

from Xbox three sixteen Xbox games. They've basically cashed out what they can do with those games for whatever reason, mostly legal reasons, so they wound wound down that team, where like that team was no longer like an active thing. They're bringing it back up, and maybe that's because they got some Activision

games. Now that makes some sense. It seems like they are they are setting this up for a larger scope than that, And to me that suggests, well, hey, you have a bunch of games that right now run on Xbox series X and S. What if the architecture changed, would you be ready for that? This seems like this is a step to get them ready for that, whatever that might look like. And to me, it still sounds like that might be ARM. I don't know, Sean, I

know you're curious about this kind of stuff. What do you think? No, I definitely think that's what they're heading towards, because you know, if all those lead documents are true and they are eventually moving towards that architecture, they're going to need a translation layer for the current games. Like for if anyone doesn't know, basically what we're talking about here is if they're moving from what's effectively a PC processor to the type of processor that's in your phone.

You know, those two program types are not compatible. You can't install an EXE on your phone or whatever, so you need a translation layer, like say the Steam Deck uses to play Windows games on Linux, you know,

a different operating system. That's what they're going to have to do eventually if they do transition to ARM, like say Apple did for all of their products, now, which you know, Apple has proven that it's it's credible, like one or like the M series of chips is like I I I feel like I have not experienced a jump like that since Mac went from power PC to Intel. And even when I was a kid, I was like, oh shit, like we're fucking playing with different gas now. But like as

an adult cojin adult, this Intel to m like crazy killed. I cannot kill this laptop. I can do. I can do anything on this MacBook Air for like ten hours and it won't die if I do nothing but have Chrome open and and messages fucking forever. It's a It's so good. That's the beauty of having effectively mobile architecture in a bigger, uh higher power device. Any efficiency it's yeah, it's still so efficient that it's just basically using

all that for battery life or what have your lower power consumption. It's really cool. And by the way, you know, we talk about like RESIDEVIL four on iPhone and stuff nowadays, the only reason you're getting stuff like that is because Apple's ecosystem is unified now. It's all running out the same chip. It's all run on the M chips, So they make that stuff for maco ass. But then they're like, yeah, but also it just runs on like you know, the iPhones and iPads, like with a little bit

of work that we put in, So why not also put there. That's why you get stuff like that, And that's what Xbox is eventually going to be moving towards that they hand in that direction is Yeah, any form, any physical form that a quote unquote Xbox can take will now run all these games, including these legacy ones through backwards compatibility. Yeah. And it's so people are going to be wondering, Hey, you talk a lot about power

efficiency and mobile devices. Well, real quick, those M one chips M three now are in their desktop PCs as well over an Apple, they're and all of their computers across their entire stack, and they're very very powerful if you get like the you know, the desktop or like the very very top

of the line of the top line MacBook Pro or whatever. The trajectory that these two things, X eighty six and mac our Arm are on is that the ARM is getting more powerful faster than X eighty six is getting more efficient. Right now, X eighty six is still way more powerful if you have built something directly for it and take advantage of everything it can do. Sure,

but that's not going to last for much longer. We are pretty much getting to a point where, like right now, M three is running things faster than X eighty six because things are built right directly for it and they could take more advantage of it, and Apple is really good at that. But one day it feels like ARM is going to be able to enable that for across the board for everybody, and at that point, you're gonna be sticking with X eighty six because it's what you always used. Why would you

want to be in that situation? At least having the opportunity to make the decision to go to ARM is going to be a position that all these companies are are going to want to be in. And if one company does that, the other one doesn't, and that enables them to make a very very powerful handheld gaming device that takes over, they're going to have a huge advantage. So you don't want to be left behind on that. That's what all this is really about, right. X eighty six processors are stagnant at this

point. That's why you see trickle down effects like and video move and video moving into a frame generation on their graphics cards of like generating frames through AI and everything like that to boost your frame rates. It's because CPUs can't keep up in the high end and right PC gaming space. It's also why you have things like why the PS five is in the situation it's in and going into PS five Pro, why is the processor not improved? They could have

theoretically what broken backwards combatibility? So what had to put some work in there? But at the same time, in terms of like costs for them to produce, the efficiency jump hasn't been there yet for them to move on to a more efficient processor that would be better at the job. It's all yeah, just all all the advancements are happening in ARM and I think that's why you're going to see more companies doing it, like Xbox also at least it

on the like the M series of chips. They work the way I think computers all right, the way I thought computers worked, which is you just put more stuff on top of it. Like the only difference between an M one regular or like an M three regular and an M one Pro and an M one Max is just how many of the chips there are on top the

ship. They just put them next to each other and they're like, yeah, three times is good because we put three of them in here, it's like, oh okay, like sick the U and for the X eighty six, those chips are pretty much getting as big as they can really get. This is the limited limiting factor that that Sean was talking about. So the new technology is going to be three D stacking, which is like taking these little chiplets and instead of putting them side by side, they're gonna start stacking

them on top of one another, and that'll have it. They've already started doing this in a lot of ways, but they're going to do this across all those little chip different chiplets that are that are in there, and that there'll have. Yeah, there'll be a lot of like thermal concerns with all that stuff. So we'll see if it's able to keep up with ARM. But as far as I think Xbox is concerned, being able to have the option to go in the direction of ARM when they so choose, it's going

to be very important. And that translation laters layer is going to unlock that for them, right they you can't not have backward capatibility, Like listen, you want to change the shived over to ARM, fine, but the games I bought better still work and they know that last thing here, well one more thing after this. I guess the US video game hardware market peaked in two thousand and eight. This was a tweet from Mattis Mitella over at Sircana

and I just like want to want to bring this up. He's like Sheriff, console purchases is increasingly swinging to older folks. Zoomers care less about consoles than prior gens and Generation Alpha, which we can't call them that, they never care that. I think, yes, every video game company is thinking about expansion beyond console because they have to. And they're a chart here that

you guys can see where it's just basically consoles. Video game hardware spending in terms of dollars reached a peak in two thousand and eight, and we've not come close to that peak, even when even like with inflation, because these are not adjusted for inflation, so we've not come close to that. Nicki Grayson gian By anything else happened in two thousand and eight. Yeah, so listen, there were some issues with the whole economy, But honestly, there's

a couple of things that happened. It was one the economy just completely fall apart, fall apart globally. And also the iPhone came out. Yeah, the phone came out. Yeah, the phone came out. Imagine. Yes, recently I was thinking about, like, imagine how much money Epic would have if they had Fortnite on the iPhone? Yeah, and money, think about that, Just like think about what if Fortnite was on the iPhone.

That's that's impossible. They can make that happen. Yeah, yeah, no, obviously, Like that's the the the mile marker, right, is like, oh, smartphones, just smartphones in general, right, but just to showing people that like devices can be agnostic and to the point where and it can get you like sixty percent of the way they're seventy percent yeah, right, And that's where like you know, gen Z was like, this is

the primary device I'm gonna use most of the time. And for kids, it's like, why would I ever want anything else If you're not gonna be on my phone? I don't care about you that And and so that's where a lot of these console manufacturers are finding themselves where it's like it's impossible to bridge that gap with these new new generations of gamers because they just have no

affinity for this way of doing things. As the eldest millennial, I do have a uh a pretty direct line of communication to Generation Alpha and by that I mean my Fortnite crew and correct and Generation Alpha whenever you're playing with them. All right, Gen Alpha, let's get in, Like, where's my Gen Alpha boys? That's good. Not yet, they don't they're not allowed to have phones yet. But huge. It's cool because when I tell them I'm playing on PC. So again this is anecdotal, but their reaction to

that is like I somehow own a space shuttle. Like when I say, like, no, I'm playing on PC, they're sort of like what because the toy streamers right are are on PCs and they have the big powerful rigs, and that feels like, oh, well, that's something rich people have, like exactly. I think they I think they see that as some sort of like symbol of affluence, you know. But they are precious about consoles though, too. I mean I think most of them have switches. Like

that is the thing that kind of doesn't count here. Yeah, yeah, for sure, right, but like yeah, you know, I don't know, I find that to be interesting. You know, it's a little it's a little hyperbolic. To be like Alphas may never care, like okay, maybe, I mean I think they probably won't, and like the way that loyalty, it's even like a loyalty or like a default mindsetting where it's like, for me, gaming is consoles, even if someone like primarily primarily these

days, I'm playing on my Steam Deck PC and then some switch. When I think about games, I'm thinking about a video game console, and I just don't think they're doing that same thing, going to be software, yeah, in a way that battle Yeah, yeah, it's just a different interpretation of kind of the same thing. I think it's just like the different way in which you ingest the software right, right, and then then you know,

you do look at these the dates on this. It's like, yeah, two thousand and seven, two thousand and eight, Nintendo was selling the Wii and the DS and both were massive, massive success. Is over one hundred million for each, and so you look compared to today, the switch very successful, but it doesn't come close to If you match up both the Wii and the original DS, it's like, yeah, we have to we have to point the finger to we you a little bit for that downturn.

We can't we can't act like it's this innocent platform, right, it's got blood on it too long. Exactly what we do with the fact that that we burned very bright, very fast. Yeah, yes, that's true. Yeah, the we U and three DS online functionality a shutdown yesterday. Actually that's a little story as well. Uh hell out. Matt Piscito had one other point, sean physical software accounted for approximately ten percent of all US video

game content spending in twenty nineteen, back back in twenty nineteen. Well, yes, yes, across everything, right, yes, in twenty twenty three, that percentage fell to under five percent. Now that includes console portable PC, cloud, non console, VR subscription, and mobile. So you think about all the dollars literally everything including mobile where you cannot get those games physically, right Yeah? Yet yeah, right, trying hard, right, yeah.

End, Gauge games run great. I've never seen an engaged cartridge in my life. I've never had the box, the boxes, but I've never seen the card. I think it's like a switch card. Yeah, yeah, I see them once in real life. Yeah, so then it's a it's not a cartridge, it's a card. Never uh if we we know this is happening though, but I think the reason I bring this up, Sean, is because I think these are the numbers these companies are actually looking

at. I think when we look at like, oh, the split between physical and digital, when you put out a game on a console, it's like, you know, forty percent physical, maybe sometimes fifty percent physical, maybe a little bit more than that. Sometimes it's like they're they're looking at the wider market, like there are dollars being spent on digital, and physical is like a five percent slice of this overall market. And that's why we are where we are, whole thing. That's why you get Remedy not putting

out a physical copy of ellen Way too. That's why I get Xbox not on a physical copy of hell Blade too, Like, yeah, that's because

it just doesn't make much sense because it won't make them much money. Yeah, and again not the weird thing, right, is that that creates that creates another business, which is bizarre, right, And I am I am a bit doing these physical editions, which is like which if you are going to have a physical addition, I think I am personally and this is because I'm old and washed, but it's like I want it to be nice, like I think I've moved past the here's a bright, fluorescent green box that

I'm displaying in my home. Yeah, a little bit. To me. It occupies the same place as like, oh, we're going to print a thousand vinyl for yes, I mean games, just skip to that, right, right, instead of waiting for physical games to go away for ten years and like, well, we started printing vinyl again. It's like, yeah, no, they saw that as an opportunity and that's one they were going, Yeah, and there will be a market for that for quite some time.

I think, sure, But I don't. But I don't think that market is more than boutique, I right, Like, I don't think that market makes a dent. I mean, only the truly most perverted of free spend time, money and effort hunting down legacy physical media. Yeah right, don't disagree, Yeah right, Like the biggest freaks we know, Yeah, the biggest freaks we know that we we yellow shouldered, Yeah, disgusting,

exactly. We're above them, We're above them, We're above that. Uh. Finally, the last headline I have here says Sean wants to talk about paint. Okay, I love news, like, so this is news adjacent it is a rumor. Uh the Twitter account Midori, who you might know as that Twitter account leaking everything Sega doesn't mean what does marduri mean in Japanese? Green? I think you Sentaori time now I'm thinking Midori, like there's

like a paper company in Midori. I believe it literally means green. Which is interesting here because, uh so this sware account often associated with Persona News because they have that as like their profile pick. They were talking about P three rialo before it came out a bunch but they seem to just know a bunch of stuff about Sega, like grow when you do gmm. This is like the Twitter account those stories are always talking about, right, I recognize

it. Yes, yeah, so this account just tweets out randomly. Persona six's color is green, and which is something we've been talking about, like what's the color going to be for the next Persona game? And the reason I actually want to bring it up is because this interesting rabbit hole I did not know existed about this image that was released for Persona's twenty fifth anniversary where it's all the characters in front of a wall where they just dig graffiti.

And you can look this up it's very easy, fine, because you just look up like the green paint theory or green bucket theory something like that. Well, there's all these persona characters standing in line, but then very prominently featured is a paint bucket of green paint. And so people are like, what's interesting, Why is there green paint? If like, all these characters are associated with different colors and they have on their hands, why is there

green paints? And so people are trying to put one and two together to figure out where this all adds up. This is the wildest shit because apparently they were like, okay, does the order mean anything? The characters are standing in a specific order, and so like yeah, and so it's like you if you line up the game with like what the character is like five, one something something, They're like, okay, well if the paint bucket, if we assume that's the next one, that's six. It's wild because

forwards the order means nothing. Backwards, the order of the characters is the hex code for the shade of green and the paint buckets. And I was like, this is so you told this story because that has never heard anything worse than his life. Green is fucking grass. Okay, it was. I'm not sure you understand what the section is or it all counts. It's all good anyways, screen all right, I have another final update. Sorry.

Nicky is also wearing are what green screens? J o'hoa underscore Jam Jerome on Twitter at eleven o five a m. Pacific time, tweeted in all caps, You've got to be kidding me. We went to Vegas. In Las Vegas. He's taking a selfie. He's wearing an orange hootie with black backpack and some noise canceling over the year headphones. And he is standing in front of a Wheel of Fortune spot machine, which is the one ever one just sits at. They just sit at these like jan run away, what

are you doing so? Agress in peace too? Wherever he's gonna have a tough go, he might he might want to drive to sef Believe it's like a it's like a thirty minute difference. They couldn't have fucking stuck it out for thirty more minutes, right, like, how cus would you? Situation? That's annoyingly close, that's frustratingly close. I have to land in macaren and just be in the gross bah. I just wanted to share the headline here. Persona fans lose it and it says as Leak suggests next game's color

scheme, but really just focused on the Persona fans. That's the important part, you guys. I think this is wild that people like went through these likes to fear this out, Like, what the hell got to your hands? I appreciate the brit was the bridge too far? Like I was on board with like a nido and then you're like, but if you it's a fucking RGB color color, where I was like, that is wild. I

love the people who did it. That's so funny. That's good. Yeah, those meetings in the over at Atlas must have been sick o mode to be like, I'm gonna make the bucket green and then if we put all the animes in the numb in the order, it'll be they'll be green. Yeah. Wow, Well is that it? Grub. That's it for the news. The show's once again yours Backlar, Okay, I will take it from you with my hands. I will place it on the side, and I will let you bring us to break on the other side. We've got

some emails. Stay tuned. Hey, it's emails. Get excited email time. You could play the there we go. That's right, oh ship, there we go emails. If you want to email the show, you write an email to BombCast at giant bomb dot com and then uh usually Jane Ochell goes through all them. I have access to them as well, but I ignore them. Did you go through these emails or was this or was this a jam before a flight or something? Wait, oh, I thought you

did this. I think I know it's jan because these are targeted as we go through these missile strikes from Dan right here. I don't have the Dog the program. Somebody send a couple of times. I just fucking raw dog in this. I have no idea what's going on? There you go. It's the best way to podcast is to raw dog. And one knows that I'm excited. Uh No, the emails are good. I do read emails. I just have a I don't want people to think like, oh,

Packler is above reading emails. Number one, Yes, but number two I I create a filter in my Gmail. Yes that I don't want to filter. You don't seems, but there there are certain keywords that will remain anonymous that if you do no, not talking. I'm sure yes, maybe. Now you just have to send emails and see if you can trigger them. That's the game I'm playing. It's an a ar g. This is the game I've made for you. All. Okay, we're going to get through

these again. BombCast at giant bomb dot com is the email address. Uh, let's go to Corey from British Columbia. Corey said, Hello, my wife. My wife eats shrimp tails frequently, Jeff gasping. She thinks it's a good source of calcium. Can we can check that. We can look that up. She'll make us a nice shrimp pasta for dinner and leave the tails on. I will have to pick through my food, remove the tails and place them on the edge of the plate. It's an actual source of

friction in our relationship. Sounds like it. I hate this idea. There may be a cultural component to this, since she was born and raised in Japan. You gonna leave with that now? I feel it just seems I have no idea, and, out of stubborn frustration, refuse to explore furthership. Have you tried asking? Yeah, like talk to your part gets just ask and also like you you can either ask or don't get over it. This is this is the part about relationships that people forget, is that like

you're with other people and they're allowed to be weird in themselves. Yeah. Also for sure. So like unless you're eating the shirt pasta every fucking day, which is probably not true, just fucking get over like not to be like, get over it, now, get over but get over it. You'll eat the tails or keep picking them out. We'll talk about it or I am endlessly blown away hearing not again, Corey, you sound great.

I'm sure you and your partner have a fantastic relationship outside of crustaceans. I think there's so many people that like, don't talk shit out there significant others, right, I see it all the time. People in the locker room. They're like, oh man, I'm just I'm not gonna say anything. Okay, Well, continue to lead your terrible life. Friend. I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. The only way to make changes to

change stuff, you know, so you gotta do something about it. It also seems more funny than not, so I do realize you're having a laugh here, but go ahead, Seohn, Yeah, yeah, exactly, though you're trash. Look, I've I've tried to rationalize the shrimp tail eating thing as much as I could. I've been as charitable as possible. I've brought the conversation to many groups of circles, friends, circles, and nobody.

It's unanimously what you like. No one in their right mind is like, oh, you can eat them, or like I only eat them if they're fried, like Tempora. No, nobody across the board is like the they are shrimptails are like the fingernails of the shrewd. Like, what are we doing? Okay, yes, could you digest a fingernail? Sure, it goes through the poop. Yeah, you know it ain't up in Chance Plaine. Yeah. It's a cultural yes, I think so, just like Bailey,

Just like Bailey Myers, Hey, California. All right, so Shawn's racist, get it, that's what we're saying. We get it. That's not what we're trying to be though. No, so we will keep shaving the cultures exactly. That's the bigger thing. Thank you. Calcium in the tails. There's a lot of shit in those tales though, like protein, fiber, iron, vitamin B. I would think ship is that what you meant? No, that's not in there. That's just me being a bad swear boy. Yeah. But a protein, viber, iron, vitamin B,

and calcium. That's that's what's in the tails. Cool. I do love shrimp pro shrimp. Okay, next caller, next caller? Wrong show? You sit there. I'm like, I'm not playing a voicemail. You can understand? Yeah? Right? Which show I'm used to hosting? Uh? I'm a few episodes behind. But I was destrut listening to you all talk about the Peak Final Fantasy game in episode eight thirty two. In my opinion, it's either seven or tactics. No, Jen, not tactics.

Advance you sicko. It's better than tactics. Though. Where I got destrut though, was Grub defining Peak of a Game series. He said that everything after that entry in said series would try to recapture the same magic as the former release, which could only mean one horrible thing. The Peak Final Fantasy game was Kingdom Hearts. I mean, and they've been chasing that Mousho dragon ever since. Why do you think they haven't made a turn based mainline game

ever since? That's from but like like a dragon infant w Wealth is doing Okay, yeah, listen, I don't want to. I don't want to. Why do you got to put your definitions on my desire to board turn put them in a room like that, put me in a box, put them in a box. But it isn't like like Persona gets bigger with every game, right, yes, okay, why did Kingdom Hearts ruined everything? That's the world? Yeah, I don't know. I'm I'm kind of happy

to be detached from all that. Like I knew when Kingdom Hearts was a thing. I I just I just sort of, like, you know, decided to sit it out. I guess, like based on how old I was and what I was into, Like I I should be sick, but I should be it missed me and I'm I'm normal. Yep, yep, I'm completely regular. Yeah. Yeah, all right, Well that was from Buddy in Florida. Thanks Buddy. Okay, next one, we got Jeff from Quebec. Hey, Bombers and Fighters. You're hired to come up with

a name for a new fighting game franchise. The gameplay would be good, but the publisher needs a game title to outshine Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, tech In, et cetera. What's the best possible name for a fighting game? I suggest shoot fighter X. The X doesn't mean anything. It's pretty good. It's pretty good. You can put any series of words together after they released in night underbirth, rebirth to you got it two? Oh, that's it? Okay, there, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

there it is. So we could we can. I think we should each give a word that we like in order, and that'll be the name of the game. All right, back of our starts smack blood we wait in that order, smack smack. Well, I guess that's the show title, right right, yeah, right, write that down. Smack smack, blood, punch wet. That's okay, okay, that would be good. Isn't that a game? Not any time recently? Wait? What was what?

What game? I think of? It's not a fighting game. It's like an action of game from it was like your Dark Siders was that was? That was Dark Sider with like the three the three Horsemen, the four Horsemen kind of it was just a game. It was three Horses three are you thinking of? Are you thinking of night Trap? Night Trap? It was called Dark Siders. I thought it was called something else, But that is about the Dark Stalkers, which is that where Morgan is from. Yeah,

smack smack, blood punch wet is good. Yeah. I would If I had to name a fighting game, I would just call it blood Sport the game. That's why I said blood Let's Sport the No no, no, no, Yeah, it would be bootleg, but it wouldn't have any references. There would be a character that kind of looks like Jean Claude Van Damn if you squint it, what if you? Yeah, just call it fighting stuff, you know. Yeah. That's like half of what we do here is like, hey, that was a dumb name. We should do that.

Yeah, and that becomes a show. It's true. H Okay. Next we have Jacob from Kansas Hello, on Disputed Heavyweight Bomb Squad Champions. Since wrestle Mania just happened this past weekend, I wanted to ask if the Wrestling minute hasn't already been used up. No, I think we actually we haven't hit the quote yet. Who was your favorite mid tier wrestler to watch, someone who never won the big titles but was always around putting in work.

Mine was the Hurricane in the mid two thousands, or Sugar Shane Helms when he was in WCW. I love this superhero gimmick and the theme music at the time, I'm probably qualified to answer this. I think for me it was like Al Snow, like loved Al Snow with his mannequin head that he would do in ECW. Sure, maybe that's is that. I don't know if that answer qualifies, but he was definitely like mid mid tier dude. I don't think he won stuff ever. He was just sort of involved

in a lot of storylines. And he was also like not an absolute freak in the way that like you could watch The Sandman from Afar and also be like, I don't I don't think i'd ever want to hang out with that person, where like Al Snow you'd be like, yeah, I get a beer with Al No, that might be all right, Yeah, I I really liked Raven's Nest. That the wasn't that Raven. It was Raven, Yes, Raven was the leader of that stable. Yes, but I like

all of the characters in there, including Billy Kidman. I think it was just called Kid at that time, big Kidman fan. He was. He was like wearing georgs even before it was like Emo boys, right, Yeah, basically, yeah, they had feelings and then they wrestled about it. So yeah, they called themselves the flock. It was the flock. Yeah, yeah, that's right, the flock. That's right. Yes, And then Raven was also kind of mid too a lot. Raven was fun.

Yeah, I saw I saw the Bubba Ray was that he did rest you draft to match? That's cool? Yeah, I like that. My favorite made Carter is like Triple H like John Cena, like those kind of guys, Like they didn't really hit the big time for me, but like I think they've put in good work, and I think at least a couple of like maybe like the Rock, Like I feel like you might have like a career outside of wrestling if if you wanted it. Hot take. Yeah,

all right, we'll see where that goes. And Sean, you're completely detached from wrestling? Is that true? It's cool? I mean, look, I who know, I was gonna say that was gonna make some sort of comparison of like who knows more, whether Dan knows more about wrestling or Sean knows more about Pokemon. I feel like that's a pretty good, you know, way more. Okay. Then Dan, I said, Okay, well, now this is just I know, I don't know, but this seems

like a decent there's something there. Yeah, like, what do we get to do that thing where where like we say a word and then Mike and Dan had to race to see who could get it to Disney Wrestling faster? That was fun. Yeah? No, but but oh this does feel like something though, and it comes from a good place. It's just the spirit of competition. It's not like Dan takes competition to a place that gets ugly and awkward and weird and terrible that before I have I have something else deposit.

What about the idea that nothing is fair? Even professional sports aren't fair. Nothing is fair? So why not just do it and have fun? Right, nothing's fair? Yeah, let's go, Yeah, let's do it. Okay, Well we've got content for next week. I'm looking forward to it. Uh final email Ton from the Bay Area'll why have the backyard games, football, baseball, et cetera not been a remade? Who would you like to see do it in a perfect world? And what would you like

to see in that game? I was I never really played these the backyard Yeah, who's the who's the really good player in those games that people have a like Alberto Sanchez or something. Yeah. Yeah, Like like I was watching the Pat mcavie Show and J. J. Watt was on there and he was wearing a shirt with that character from the Backyard Baseball and I was like, huh, It's just it was never in my orbit. It must

have been like a PC thing mostly thing. These games were great, like as a child who was alive during and the age like that the target age for these. I've seen these streamed a lot. They're really good. The reason why that they haven't been remade is unbelievably boring. Is just that, like the company that owns the rights barely exists anymore, so like even if someone wanted to buy the rights, it is hard to find them to them, buy the rights from them, just do a clone. That's the thing

that I'm confused about, is why someone hasn't. It's like a perfect It screams mobile game to me in like a non derogatory way, but it's like, yeah, for sure, yeah, like and they're great. When you google backyard Sports, by the way, Johnboum dot com is the second result. Yeah, the wiki. Yeah, they're really great. I would I think that EA and they won't do this because they won't. But I really do think think that EA should have been the stewards of this kind of game.

There needs to be a like an or like a game that is maybe above this in the NFL NBA street category. They don't even make those nuts. Yeah, I like, yeah, ArKade sports games on real devices should come back. Yeah, I wish they would get back to it. I know they keep trying stuff that's like here, it's like NBA JAM. I'm like, yeah, but a lot of times they just aren't good enough. If they were better games, people would care more. So. Yeah,

it must be. It must be tough trying to make one of those games when the the ones that you are using as inspiration or the basis were so good. Yes, Like the idea of doing a spiritual successor to NFL Blitz is like an impossibility, right, Like it almost Yeah, it can almost exist exclusively in our collective mind. Yeah, like it can't even be real.

Yeah, it's how I look at that. Oh. Apparently, Apparently, on their New Heights podcast, Travis and Jason Kelsey said they were looking into who has the rights for the backyard football and backyard baseball games because they want to bring them back. Oh they want to be a hope they find

the guy who did this. They probably they probably could make that happen, right, You just put those characters in there, those celebrities there, and there that such a there's there's such they're So you would be able to do this correctly, which is to say that, like you would be able to get the NFL PA and the NBA PA, like you get these player associations to license the likenesses of the players, so like you would be able to have like a yes, you would have some kids, but then you would

also have these like licensed adults, and I think it would work perfect. Like there's never I don't know, it seems silly this so many things you're like money left on the table, but like a sports game for kids seems like a fucking no brainer. I know, I know. Yeah, sometimes weird shit just like gets left. Oh yeah, dangling for whatever reason less so a little bit, let's think overall, But I don't think there's trip.

The participation in sports has trended down for everything except for lacrosse for some reason, mostly because lacrosse was so small that anytime someone had no place to go. But uh but uh yeah, exactly so uh and then uh, you'll be happy to hear that the coaches. When you ask high school coaches what's happening, they're like, well, there's no reset button in sports,

and these kids grew up playing video games. And it's like, I wonder why the involvement numbers are going down and they always say they always say reset button too. It's like, bitch, there has a been a reset button. What are you talking about it? Right? So old? Well, because they were forty when ANYS came out, I guess, and just understand what a reset button does. It's like, that's not reset in the stage. That would be like you're starting a whole new thing. You guys don't

know what you're talking about. Yeah, that's very upsetting to hear. I think it's a combination of a lot of things. I also think there's a lot of parents who are fucking disaster. I'm gonna go ahead and say that just based off the anecdotal exposure I've had with soccer and hockey parents. Yeah, they need to be hugged. How frequently are you like blow like, I guess blown away? I guess by like the way that I can't imagine having a kid at a thing and then being around a parent who like completely

is missing the point of your child being in sports. So I will say this div is a hockey and soccer, and hockey is so wildly popular where I live that you are able to almost position and sort of manipulate the trajectory so that you can find the normal po with right like there is I will I will say, I hope this hasn't come back to bite me in the as, but there is most certainly a psychotic level that you can aspire to where you're practicing five days a week and you're playing four games a weekend,

and we the back of our family will not be absolutely in that right so like and but that's the thing, Like, not everyone has the luxury of like being able to find that place, I think, And it's a big turn off. Like if if the Triple A team is the only team in your area, that's it. That's what you're stuck with and your your you you have to deal with the psychosy. But I mean they're everywhere. No one is ever completely uh sectioned off from all Nowhere is nowhere safe, but

you can rest assured you are safe here at Giant bomb. What do we got cooking and popping off the rest of the week. Yeah, there will be a Blake Club, I believe tomorrow, so tune in for that. Super Dan sixty four will return. There will be some other stuff popping off probably tomorrow. We'll see games mornings of course the rest of this week. On Thursday, we're playing Hell Divers too. We're gonna have the Hell Divers two going. There's gonna be an update for that game. We're gonna check

in on that see it for ourselves. Apparently the machines, the automate automatons have been defeated, so we'll go see what that's all about. Uh. And then on Friday we're gonna the UPF could be a little bit different. I think I'm gonna set up a Fallout game with a bunch of mods and make someone play it and we'll see how that goes. We're not gonna tell them what mods are in there. They're just gonna play it and see what happens. So that'll be UPF and we'll have a BCR as well. We'll

figure out what that's all about. That was a good one last week though. I had fun doing that Console draft always do, always could do another draft, another mount rushmore. Oh what's that? And the show turn it? I mean, don't worry. We're also gonna dump. We're also gonna dump. I believe Kurt and Lavina is gonna be joining us for the dump truck this week. We are also going to host a discord Q and A. It's been a minute since we did one of those, so I believe

that's scheduled, uh for Thursday at twelve thirty. I just have to sync up with Jen on that and make sure we're all set twelve thirty Eastern time. Uh. That'll be fun. Come hang out there. That's always a goofy little chat and yeah, we'll be pecking away at the rest of the week. Dan and Jen should be back tomorrow. Unless Jen is in the back of some pit bosses office for his life negotiating some sort of scout transfers for his freedom. That's gonna do it for the Giant BombCast. Thank you

so much to Jeff, to Nikki, to shaw On. I'm Jeff as well. We'll see you next week. Have a great rest of your week. Everyone, Take care, Bye bye,

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