855: Pink Carpet

Hey everybody, and welcome to be week at shinpop dot com.

I am your host, buzzin with excitement.

I'm ready to pod the hive. I'm ready to protect the Queen. I'm driven and honey. Welcome to the Gibodcast, Episode eight hundred and fifty five.

I'm your host, Jana Choe, powered by nzxt and the power of sweet organic honey. We've raised these bees next to a mint bush, so there's a hint of mint. Co Captain buzzing around the worker bee off this website himself, Jeff Grabb.

I've activated B mode. I am a motor boat in those thoraxes. I'm getting in it and ready to party with you today on b week.

Our own thorax in the little Square himself, because I forgot he was gonna be here. Mike Manati.

Here tling. I'm about the all time against is my thing? Now can do a whole podcast like this, man?

People love it?

Very odd?

What if people love What if people love that voice way more than your normal voice and you felt compelled to talk that way all the time for the rest of your life.

Yeah, yeah, I was no good.

And it wouldn't be We couldn't celebrate B week properly without inviting our dear friends from vg Bees onto the podcast the best video game website with Bees in the name all John Warren. I thanks for having dog.

Of course, I'm great. I've I've I've been stung by so many bees. I'm so powerful.

And our own, our own vgb's own Nikky Grayson.

The honey. No, no, no, no, honey, it's good for the bro. Nikky, stop it. Everyone is freaking out about this and I am fully approving it. Why why is everyone against the honey? Honey?

How did that work out? Nik How did that work?

Wait? Seen someone eat? Honey's upsetting?

I didn't.

If you had asked me, Jeff, if I thought that would be upsetting, I would say no.

Discovering this alongside you, this is a brand new thing. I don't know if it's in my eyes it's over. I can't stress enough. I can't stress this enough. Doud don't do that to your your young child.

No, no, they'll die.

Yeah, don't do that. They love me like raw, honey. I know it's like they're supposed to be something dangerous about it, but like, is there like actually like a thing where it might kill the die if they start checking honey.

If they're really if their babies their throat can't handle the honey.

Right, that makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, yeah, they won't be able to breathe.

Okay, Now pots and chatter are saying that drinking honey can literally kill you. The honey can. So why didn't anyone stop me? So I got up? You all watched me get up, and then none of you said, well, the only thing that could they could possibly be doing is going to go get an industrial sized thing up honey.

Yeah, the Costco from Costco.

And then you watched me present it to the camera. And then did I hear anybody say no, no, no, don't do that.

Remember I'm exempt, that's right.

I didn't see the crime happen, therefore I wasn't present for it.

Merlin says, the amount you did was fine. I think. So it's like you if you just drank so much it covered your entire faith, Like, what are we talking about here? Why is it dangerous? For don't died? It was China last time we checked.

And there goes our audience over there.

So fast.

It's it's Mike Manati's job to make any.

You know, it's not my bit, that's just a bit.

Nah uh, happy B Week everyone. I was half thinking we should hype up B Week for two to three weeks and not do anything be related, but just keep saying B Week. That's really funny that we should keep that in the chamber. Yeah. Yeah, well maybe we'll do that for Infrastructure Week or Nofructure.

Yeah.

That's the thing about Infrastructure Week is that it's too good of an idea. John was I trying to pitch Infrastructure Week at fan Bite.

Trying to get this idea over for years. I'm so excited. I want to build stuff real bad.

You know, John, I'm happy that I have you here now because I saw a tweet, a tweet by Nicki Grayson good tweeter and uh you know that you had to exercise your fiduciary.

Get get his ass.

No, no, no, no, here's the thing, here's the thing. I'm on both sides here. I'm sorry. Wow, you couldn't allow and uh Nikki to do the milk tray.

Challenge that famously people were filming themselves getting hurt.

Badly doing.

As someone that doesn't offer Nikki health insurance. I'm gonna say, Nikki, maybe we can't.

Yeah, let's go. We should do the milk challenge next next.

GB at night, watch out for Nicky and I breaking our whole bodies.

I don't even know.

Honestly, the well John saying no, you can't do the milk creay challenge was a bummer, but then I did still after that text message, okay, so here's the beat by beat, the milk creek challenge was happening right and I was like, oh shit, we should do it, and Funk it was like, oh yeah, absolutely, we should do it.

So then I was like, how hard can it be to get a milk crate?

And I started looking about looking up how to get milk crates and then we started talking about it in stand up or something, and then John was like, I didn't think y'all.

Should do this, and we were like, I think we could do it. And then later that day or the next morning or something, because I think we talked about it more, and then John sent the message, and then right after he set the message, I was pissed. I was like, this guy hates fun.

And then I set a reminder with that screenshot for three years from that calendary.

Day and that's what that tweet was.

And then but then after that, I still was like, well, we'll just do it and I won't tell him, but I couldn't figure out how to get that many milk crates.

I didn't know where. It's funny is part. I mean, that's the funniest part is that y'all gave up because you didn't you realized you couldn't figure out where milk crates are. I mean, I had no idea. I didn't know. There's just a bunch of them in the back of croaker. You could just take them. I'll just see that.

That feels like a very Nikky problem to have. Oh yeah, because he does the crux of the idea, specifically milk crets.

Oh yeah.

And also just like looping people into ideas where you're like, wait, Funky was on board.

Is one of the most.

Like like one of the smartest, safest people, just such a gem in the world.

And Nikki just corrupted them immediately.

I was like, hey, milk creat challenge and they were like absolutely. So what I'm hearing is the Game Awards this year, we're bringing milk crates back. Do you think we can get Kiley to do the Milk creat Challenge with us? Absolutely not, but I think he'd like politely stand and be.

Like, Oh, I think if I got an Ai Okay to make Kojima do the Milk Creak Challenge, Yes, and I showed it to him, I think instantly, yeah.

No, no, no, no, no, here's what we do. Here's what we do. Uh. Jeff Backlar has a three D printer? Correct?

Yes, it has multiple three How.

Hard would it be to make a Mission Impossible style mask of Hdeo Kajima's face right that we throw on a spelt human being. Yes, that matches the physical physicality of Hdeo Kajima.

You want to do.

The Milk Challenge? I think you'd be the first person to say no.

What I don't even know if I know what that?

What do you think the Milk Creek Challenge?

What do you think?

I gotta like stack a couple of them and stand on it.

Yeah, it's almost like that. You basically arrange them in a pyramid and its steps and you run up them and then'll get hurt.

I'll die.

Yeah, every single person that did it did get hurt pretty bad.

That's not good at least Milk's not involved, you're gonna do.

You know, there's no no milk involved, just the remnants of it, the spirit of the milk.

Yeah, I guess at least what do you think it's disguise myself as well?

We can still do that. We can just do that anyhow, that'd.

Be really great for my like uh, the current bit.

Yes, yes, oh boy, yeah, yeah.

I didn't think we would turn into this, but here we are.

What do you guy think the strategy is for the milk great challenge? Is it just commit? Just don't even think.

You know, I think you have to.

I don't.

I don't actually think it's possible. Very crucial is I don't think the core the core idea is so deeply flawed that I don't think you can do it right. I think part of the problem is everyone believes they need a running start to go do it, but that throws off everything to begin with.

Yes, right, Like.

I'm trying to think of how would Simone Biles do this? And I think that about every situation I'm in. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. I think you have to skip steps.

You have to jump from the ground to halfway up and then over the peak, and then you have to like go step it basically on your way down to get to the bottom.

If you're trying to run up the whole thing, it's oh, it's game over.

Okay, So like crouching tiger hid and dragging it can't be on a wire, but not really.

Okay, Uh, folks, gents, how's how's how's everyone doing? How's the hard things? John? You you bought minerals or somebody is trying to take away your minerals?

Yeah?

Every day I try to protect my minerals, and every day someone tries to get to my bottom house I'm in and now thus the bad internet connection, and I.

Got the ceiling is weird, and I've got pink carpet, so.

The carpet, the carpet.

Okay, sure, I'm living out of boxes right now.

Hell yeah, and I'm in hell Sure for two hours, I'm with y'all. So that's better, I think. Awesome.

I'm glad that we could reach our hands down to school you out and then we'll toss you back in.

Yeah, hack down, deal with your minerals. What kind of minerals?

So the city of Arlington did a fracking project back in two thousand and eight.

Oh did they?

Yes, and so those mineral rights were for the fracking under our houses, but they stopped doing it like twelve years ago, so it was all like expired anyway. But the people selling us the house were like, we really want them, and we were like, I don't even know what that means. No, we're gonna We're gonna take them.

And so now we own the rights to frack under our house.

That's hum So when I go that was the next step for you.

When I go sell this house to ul top dollar for it, it'll be great. Big.

Can you get like an at home does Jeff Bezos sell him at home fracking rig that you can install?

Almost certainly you probably get it from Alley Express.

But yeah, yeah, yeah, I almost bought a Deli slicer yesterday because I thought that'd be a good idea, just to heave it home. Those things are huge. Where you going to put it, Well, that's like the problem afterwards, Like I.

Gotta put on my toe.

Yeah, that lets you see where the minerals are over hold on, I need them on my my gamer glasses. Fracking on Amazon, okay, Lickedenburg maschie kit.

You guys generally understand like what, like why fracking was a big deal.

No, absolutely not.

So for a long time they're like, we got to put this like toxic chemical solution into the ground to make the oil come up. And then what they discovered was we can just use water and it's way better. No, that's what franking is. Okay, Okay, I'm sure I'm missing like no, no, no, knowing parts of that story.

No, No, Jeff Grub, are you basically telling me fracking is using a uh water pick for the ground.

For it's basically using a water p That's awesome. Yeah, did doesn't it cause earthquakes?

Also?

Yes, because they're abuse, they're able to go deeper than they ever were before.

It's way more Yes, So it like makes the ground less stable, and especially in places that have not had a lot of before. The City of Arlington was literally like, oh, we can't build at.

D Stadium about a place of the earthquakes.

So they stopped.

Great, so they stopped. That's awesome, cool country.

It's also like it's made us like energy independent, so you give it take you know, a little earthquake here in there. That's fun. That's a good that's that's one of the good natural disasters, right, earthquakes.

Oh yeah, listen, I love those fuckers. There's nothing better to me than when the ground starts shaking. It feels like someone fell over into my house. I love that stuff. You know what else I love? Are these these fun uh Gunner optics glasses?

God, Oh my god, it's ali g.

I said. I said yes to these because they were Toky Doky branded. And here's my claim, folks, Toky Doki is coming back with a heat. They dominated twenty Ten's no two thousand and five. It's gonna come back really really hot. Now these I can't see squat, but we're gonna be. I, Jan.

These are and I love you very much. The diametric opposite of the shape.

For glasses frames for your face. These are awful.

You share like a bee.

Absolutely.

But if I saw you in public, I think I might be like, you should try different frames.

You're saying.

If you didn't know Jan, Yes, if I did not know Jan, I think I would be like, hey, okay, hold on, I got one more. Because the rest of the aesthetic is right, it's the glasses that are deeply incorrect.

Oh my god, Okay, you can see now, No, okay, these these are bad okay, Yeah.

Do you feel like head shoddier?

What do these glasses make you feel? I feel like I'm in the zone more. It's like a pleasant yellow hue to things like that. Okay, Mike, do you wear glasses?

Yes?

I take them off when doingulare.

Yeah, you could see the porn on the screen.

I can't have that. I can see okay without them. I never wear any special like I wear my prescription glasses. I have never worn sunglasses or any thing else like that.

Say your things say that people are they wear glass sunglass?

No, I hate sunglasses. I've never had a problem with the sun.

He just doesn't. He doesn't just like not wear sunglasses. He thinks people who wear sunglasses are weak.

And I kind of don't get it. I'm like, it's just like look away from the sun for a little bit, like it's not that bright.

Like I learned over the weekend that Bailey could go blind if she doesn't wear sunglasses.

She's got weak eyes.

I love it all right, Mike and I Dan, Bailey and Tam Lucy.

We went to games Calm, Germany.

That BombCast last week was very good, strong listen. I enjoyed everything. You guys put out really really good work. Did you all all feel busy? Did you feel like, man, I'm getting lot of games Come? Yeah? But how was Games Come as a show for you guys covering it as video game boys?

Oh? Sure, Yeah, it was very good. The first day was great because it wasn't like all of general attendance, so it was so busy, but everything was running like normally. The other days were like a bunch more people were there. Some of those big halls like the one that had Monster Hunter and the one with the Xbox booth. You know, you kind of just didn't want to be there, but you know, luckily there were these specific business halls where

Yeah, I agree with Mikey. I think there was. I don't know if it was because it was a lot of other people's first games calm that it felt like there was kind of like an excitement, like just positive feelings in general, despite you know, the state of our industry, but like everyone seemed super happy and just super genuinely excited to be there, no matter what part of the industry they were in. It did get super duper hectic, though,

Yeah, he said, just the stanch you guys can't stand the small of human.

Just like being like gridlocked with other people. That's very real, Mike. Mike was Maybe I didn't want to go there. Mike was maybe two holes away from where we're also posted to meet up, and it took you like maybe half an hour MIC to get through.

Yeah, it kept at what point, like I got redirected and like they put me through a loop, and I was just like, I am so sorry. I'm trying so hard to get where you are. It's very difficult.

So you actually you did like a shoot circle and ended up back where you begin.

Like it's like a full circle, but like a half circle. Was definitely at one point in one haul I had been in before.

Yeah, yeah, And I think games Com strikes like a nice balance in between E three and Summer game Fest for me, because like I like Summer game Fest and how it feels like a college campus hanging out with friends. But then like aspect, yeah, pretty low key, but like the demo aspect can kind of be challenging sometimes because like you're mostly on the same show floor with everyone else, and the timing for your appointments is pretty quick because I got it shuffling everyone in and out. There's a

Their wife as well.

I was an adult worth then, because I noticed as I was walking by, I'm like, holy shit, that's a Slayer machine.

Oh what Wow, y'all know me. I'm a slave coffee perve.

And like one one specific publisher had a Slayer espresso machine, and I'm like, hot dog, I gotta get a shot over there.

I'm using my mind at the idea of having a nice coffee maker booth at a games event.

Yeah, like, what do you mean? Yeah, I guess they do.

It different over there, Like if if if someone if if a publish, if I walked in and Microsoft was like, hey, here's a fucking c egg k cup and they threw it at me, expect that's what That's what I'd be like, Oh sick, they had pre coffee and I'd got their hotel room and brought it down here.

Yes, yeah, Well it's so funny because I'm used to like a SGF for an E three where people are throwing out g fuel everywhere. But here's this lovely European man asking if I want a double or a single espresso. I'm like, sir three.

Please, spussial is the right, right, that's what you go for?

Yeah, but yeah, I want all of us to go to games Com.

Yeah. I think it's a good idea. It's you all coming back saying it was it seemed a good use of your time. You had a great time, You enjoyed Germany, enjoyed a games Colm Ever, it was like all the games you saw, it seemed worthwhile. Yeah, yeah, I want to go next time.

I also think Clone is a pretty it felt like a pretty good city for it. Infrastructure wise, did for infrastructure week, Uh good train we were able to take the metro straight to there, and that was like less than a ten minute ride. I know. We had some other fandom folks out there from our sales team that were further out in the city, but they were able to just take a train in no prob. Also, I love trains, y'all.

Yeah.

Also, the culsh was great.

Oh my god, that's like all they drink there is great, Like you know, it's so funny, Like just from like travel wise, the expectations had like it was gonna be like all these different kinds of beers are gonna be room temperature apparently, and like no, pretty much everyone there just drinks these like really these nice cold colshes that all come these very tiny glasses and they just keep bringing you more until you put your koster on top of it like a lid. It's great.

I gotta say, I think when you all described that, I think it was Bailey that first we started talking about that. Ever since then, I've been thinking, like that is how I want to be drinking beer. Like if I were too, I got the wet bar over there, and if I were to install a keg, I think it would be yeah, German style, small glasses keep it cold, and so you just drink it and by the time you get that last sip it's still cold. That sounds fantastic.

It's a pretty it's a pretty light beer to refreshing gear. It's pretty hard to like be like I'm getting like tanked on this, you know, exactly nice and relaxing.

I did get judged the two times they asked who wants to take shots? But I you know that happens every time you.

Got to get away there.

It was it took a while to find a place that did shots. And then even then they like gave me a look of like, are you sure you want to do this here?

Yeah? That's nuts, And I'm like, yes, I do. My understated is like every like places like Germany, England, they drink a lot, but their beer isn't exactly like high alcohol by volume water because the water is so bad out. Yeah, that's that is their water, isn't it. Yeah, they drink the water, they'll die, So they got to drink It's like honey, it's just like, yeah, their throats can't handle.

It, isn't it nutst For a long time in human society, it was better and safer for people to drink beer than it was to drink water.

Yeah to me, because like the alcohol was it was cleaner than you were drinking.

That's it. And you know heated and all that.

Yeah, we really had no idea what we were doing for a really long time. We still don't really, we still don't. Yeah, speak about games, Calm Mikey and I games. Mike and I played a couple of games that were available to see you add games, Calm Mike. You checked out A Vowed?

I did. I got to. Yeah, I have an appointment where I played about forty minutes of A Vowed. It is interesting because you know, Jeff, I think you were talking about like what what you're understanding? What reactions was from over there on the show floor. I got a bit I was hearing, I think I I think I was hearing more positive. Maybe not not everybody got to play this. I think more people had a kind of

You know.

Pretty typical scroll style of quest structure kind of thing. I go walked in there, I found one guy talked to him like, oh, like, am I gonna give this guy a health potion to him? Who knows? Then there is a wacky dude building a statue for a god. I'm like, want of those god statue and my companion's like, I think the guy think this is bad the god statue.

Because yeah, it's not open world is it's like open region. There's like a multiple open zone.

It's Sonic Frontiers.

Like I'm not sure again, I was just I was just in this caving credible. I was just in this cave praying much so basically like I was getting a big taste of was kind of the combat and against

Right, Oh, it's great, yeah.

Yeah yeah, so yeah, that Gloster's that's because there's always lots of proper names in these things, right, you know. But even like going through the quest, there's like multiple pass and there's also a lot of kind of hidden side rooms where it's like, oh, there's these three electrical buttons here. Do you have an electrical ability to hit them so you can access the special chest? And I'm like, yes, I do. And even though it was very easy, I feel smart for doing that.

I guess like people, uh, you know, are starting to learn your taste mic. But usually what happens is like, you are pretty confident about a game, and if it beats, it's like okay to me, that usually means it's gonna be good. So I'm getting hearing that you like get enjoyed it and it was what you wanted. I'm like, Okay, I feel pretty confident but getting excited about this.

Yeah, you know, I had my doubts too, but I don't know, I really enjoyed the demo. I think it was kind of everything it needs to be let's not worry about Jan just yanking his microphone off of this there.

Oh yeah, you buddy, buy a new bike arm just go do it right now and then come back to the podcast.

Yeah that real quick.

And again really gorgeous. And we're playing on a PC thing. I know there's a lot of scuttle but about you know, the Xbox, right, and you know, I I think I complain enough about that for one lifetime. I want between this and Monster Hunter. One of the things I was feeling at the games come is m I want to get into gaming PC prison. I mean to upgrade here, person, When I say upgrade, I don't mean that PS five pro right. I think I need to do some more

Right, and you usually play like sword and board characters. Is did you get a chance to use the wand? I'm sorry if you said that I was too.

Yeah, a lot of magic people and like, yeah, the wand is like the want itself is weak, so you're supposed to using all these cool down spells. You had to constantly's magic potion. So it honestly seems like honestly seemed kind of fussy when I was like I could just be shooting people with guns and that that seemed to work really well.

There's guns. I'm sorry, seriously, what kind of gods? You'm sorry?

Their flintlock style? You like?

Let mean listen talking just going.

This episode of the Giant podcast off, I.

Like came back out one of my all right, I feel I feel confident that I'm on top of everything. He said here. I'm god, I didn't miss him beat. I'm so used to the side. Maybe have missed the sude of my voice. Here you get that pleasant humming there it is h.

Fuck you. I'm not gonna explain the guns again, flip lock, I get it fair enough. Oh I liked them a lot.

Okay. So what you're saying though, is like it is like better for you than using a wand because the one required a lot of micromanagement, because like, use.

The spell you're a wizard person. It's like, here's your wand and that's kind of week. You have twelve spells and you'll shoot fired if you get hit, like, oh, you lose them, and then you have to use mannet potions in the middle of a fight. Where's the guns? You just you shoot people?

How many how many spells can you equip it once?

So it's like it was weird. So you have to equip different spell books that then have a different suite of spells, and each of those had like four or five oh, like you know they're neat. Like the one spell book was like, here's how you can conjure a bunch of weapons, so you can use the spell to conjure a big clay war. I'm like, oh, I think if I wanted to use a clay war, though, I would have you know, just equipped.

Guy.

Right, But I guess there's a versatility there, right, like you can maybe be ready. And I said, there's those puzzles where I needed to use electricity things, and I had a gun that happened to have that like elemental affinity. But if you're like a wizard, you're probably sever every possible elemental weakness and whatever environmental thing you might want to do.

Did y'all like Pillars of Fraternity and Dead Fire? I did.

I never played it, so I don't. I'm not familiar with this world. Yeah, I feel like maybe I should say, have.

You Yeah, it's really good.

I think this is an attempt for it to go, you know, less deep than those games, which I think is maybe smart as an entry point.

So I don't think you have to. But I like those games. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I feel bad I'm not checking them out.

No, No, I think, well they're still there.

They're still there. Yeah they're not. Yeah, they'll they'll.

Be taking them away unless unless.

Who yeah, yeah, Josh sorry just says no more. No, more. Don't deserve that. Yeah.

Another game, Wait.

Are there guns and Pillars of Eternity? There aren't dead Fire?

Yeah, I can't about the first one because they're like pirates and dead Fire.

That makes sense.

Another game that there are technically guns in it, Jeff Grub, don't worry. I check this out, Mike Manada, you check this out separately, Mighty morphin Power Rangers Readers, rewind Boys friends, Mike.

I watched your social posts about this and I read there's on GameSpot there was a preview, and looking at all the different stuff that's in this game, I think it looks really bad.

Yeah, it's absolutely fantastic. Yeah, like I said in the preview video and GameSpot dot com, the YouTube game spot, it's there somewhere somewhere. Also, the Internet is terribly mad at me for insinuating we don't need a sixth Ranger, and I quickly realize, oh yeah, my preferences in Power Rangers is wildly different than the everyone else. But it is a side scrolling beat them up game, just like

Yes, I did notice.

I noticed everything. I noticed the graffiti over there, and then and then I started asking about like, hey, is this gonna incorporate anything from the extended universe from the comic books and then I started going off in like three different storylines and he was like, no, I don't know, don't stop. I'm down. It's just a TV show. Your time with the demo is done, please leave.

Uh we put a Slayer coffee machine out there for you to get you out of here.

There go. I also enjoyed the demo quite a bit. I think, you know, it's capturing the feel of that classic Power Rangers presentation a lot. I could maybe use like a little bit more in the combat there. There was some fun juggling mechanics that maybe I can kind of dig my teeth into a little bit. Also, it seems like all the Rangers play pretty much the same. I think it's just animation difference is that's okay, not a huge rub.

But what what?

I really want to see those sort of super Scaler special levels that yeah, yeah, we didn't have that in the demo that it seems like we kind of ended right before one of those. Those look fantastic, and that's what I think is really gonna potentially make this standout.

I'm curious as to how they're going to handle the big Zord fights if you are playing co op, because like if we're doing like five different players, like does everyone like control a limb?

Yeah, that's how it should be, Like, yeah, I'll control the right arm because THEE or whatever it is.

Did it seem like it might be like QTE or what like? Or are you just like imagining these scenarios. Did you get a chance to like glimpse at these the Zord fights?

No? No, yeah no. There was some slight allusion to like how they would play out, but no direct details on how it would be, like it.

Should you should have Yeah, you should have to get the connect out and do like the wipeout game and do poses. Yeah I never one. Yeah, then you can make it the same post in the fight.

But this game is just so primed and ready, uh to get DLC for like the Green Ranger eventually the White Ranger. Yeah, he's the same person. It is the same person. But then he like he almost died because of a candle, and then they were like, oh we need someone who are we gonna get who has experience of being a power Ranger. I guess our friend that was a power Ranger and almost died.

That was deeply upset when he was the White Ranger instead. I was like, because green is my favorite color.

I was like.

Pressed yeah, yeah exactly by the white people.

Thank you for understanding the plight and being an ally.

Mike and.

You're welcome.

Yeah, I'm super jazzed. Like the small stupid detail that I got a big kick out of me is you know in a a side scrolling beat him up. When it'll tell you to advance to the next screen, it will say go or here or next. Yeah, this one because of Power Rangers, it says go go Yeah.

I'm like, that's cool, just to play like a little jingle each time I bump.

They do the uh every time you finish a level and everything. Just like the attention to detail is insane. I said this in the game spot video. But you know the sound that the Putties make when they like get dressed into a place.

Exactly, I'm just gonna watch the back of my chair. That's a Putty from Seinfeld joke. Sorry, that's funny. Thank you. Yeah, I loved that. Uh, Jeff Greve, you or the David Putty of the show. Thank you. I'll row dog my flight. Yeah. He taught He taught me the ways he would he does, he did, he did.

Yeah.

Uh, I'm very excited for it. It's coming out twenty twenty four this year. Oh shoot, I should get that on Fantasy.

My question is, and I think Mike might have been alluding to this when he says hoping for a little bit more of the combat. It seems like the choices they're making have led them to be like, we have a lot of variety. There's a lot of different stuff, so maybe not make any one part of the game too complex?

Is that the sense what I was saying, Like I want to say, like I don't know if there's quite as much going on with the combat as even in Shredder's Revenge, right, Yeah.

And Revenge is like a notch down from like Streaks of Rage. Sure.

Sure, I think it's good that the game for children is easy to understand personally.

But is it for children?

Right?

Because like it is it's like, you know, it's based on the New Power just based on the Power Show from the nineties. That's it's a retro beat them up, So it's kind of both things.

It's a game for children with expensive taste and coffee.

Yeah, I feel targeted by that.

Weird, It wasn't meant for you. He was talking about someone else.

All those kids out there, was like I love expensive coffee machines.

You know, hey, Mike Manatti, one more game that we checked out, or you checked out from games Calm you played months or Hunter Wild's.

Well, yeah, this is what I didn't have an appointment for, and I probably had one of the longest lines of the show. So the last day I was there, it was playable. It was playable. Last day I was there, I just kind of like they did let press in like an hour early. But even then, like you got on that line, you were still there for a while. So I got innerly enough that I only had to wait ninety minutes. Wow, which was absolutely uh you know, I was. I I'm really excited for this game. I

The monsters around like you do sometimes in these fights.

And that field where the parents of the animals crying and saying, please don't kill my kids, Please don't kill my kids.

Natural colonialism. You got to understand, Nikki, just like they say vgb's.

Is when we announced this last week on the website or on the podcast, which you can go listen to on iTunes or wherever podcasts, or sold by typing vgb's podcast. We are an anti Monster Hunter publication. We are oh because it fucking sucks.

Well, It's like it's like, oh, oh, now that the talent has been cut off, it's kids know where to find it and you can kill kids. Now. Listen when you describe what's happening in the video game, which I think is unfair, sounds bad, all right, it sounds like an issue. If you just plant and during your brain off the way God intended turned your brain off, you have to play the video game. It feels like ship

I had so much fun killing these animals. You cut the limb off and you get to carve that for extra goody it's pelts to protect yourself when you fight. It's the descendants or whatever. But no, like there was a little bit of yeah, like I had to chase the monster around, but you know that stuff's been a rise. There was like a little bit of.

That's what I was asking, just like, because like you said, you couldn't get the scope that you didn't notice the scope in that segment. It wasn't like, oh, now we're chasing them across this whole continent or something. It felt normal to what Monster Hunter has been.

Right exactly. And of course I was always going to be hard, and so thirty minute demo let alone one that was kind of just half cut scenes and an intro, right, there was a bit in me that after that, I was like, yeah, I definitely played Monster Hunter just now, which you know, it is what I want in some ways, but yeah, it was hard to get a sense of

I guess John Warren vgb's maybe an anti Monster Hunter website slash podcast. But how is it In regards to the game of football.

Oh man, Jan have been playing a lot of the two football games that are out, and I think they both stink.

I think they stink because I was very excited to hear about it because I haven't checked out a Madden in god, I don't know decades, and it's been a minute since college football, and I thought this would be good.

I think I think I'm excited about the future of college football. The vibes are immaculate, like for real, and I'm the kind and I'm enjoying that aspect of it a lot. But I think both franchise in Dynasty Mode, which are like historically the two most uh, you know, the deepest modes of perspective game, I have not really been touched in a meaningful way in a long time. The fact that there's nothing really new in this Dynasty Mode than the one eleven years ago is inexcusably.

Weird to me.

And I think the Frostbite engine is awful for this, and it has been for a while, and them not trying to do anything new with it is perplexing to me. I mentioned I said it to Nikki. It feels like shoving Ghak through a steel grate. M hmmm, controlling these guys in traffic. It just feels like it's.

Not meant for this. Because it literally is not meant for this. You very much have to like play this game how it wants to be played, Like you can't bring too many your own ideas to how you're going to get these characters to move. It's like, Okay, I got to learn the language of how these characters are going to move into space. And I think that's just

I personally wouldn't have made the decision to translate the first person shooter engine that you designed for battle Field and then put football in it.

That's insane, Like I don't.

Yeah, it wasn't even like the engine that they were using previously was. It wasn't great, but like had legs and was workable and was designed from the ground up for football.

They were gonna have to do a lot of work either way. It just feels like they chose this one because it was getting more attention currently and they're like, Okay, well, then we can just do a little bit more work, and it's no, it's gonna be a lot more work. I think that you can get to a point with college football to where like, once you do understand it, it's like, Okay, this begins to feel the way I want to feel, and all the other stuff is working so well that it's easy enough for me to enjoy.

So, John, when you say you're excited about the future of college football, is it more sort of the promise of improvement on it or.

Yeah, because I think they still understand what people like about that game, and I think that team did an exceptional job or madness stagnating. I think where I'm excited is that eventually I.

Think these two teams will be in some ways competing.

Against each other or for ideas for kind of structural differences for eyeballs, because these are coming out a month apart, and I don't know how many years in a row people.

Will be like, I'm going to buy both.

Like I do feel like at some point people are going to start to silo themselves.

But yeah, there's a you know, oh sorry, there's a big when you start up college football, there's a big do you want to save thirty percent iem Madden?

Right now?

Right?

Did that?

Though?

Yes?

I did? This year? Yeah, yes, this year. I think you're absolutely right that. I think the ideal scenario for them, you know, because you're right, it's going to putter out a little bit is people like alternate years. Right, this is the year I'll get college football. That's next year I'll get Madden. And you know, that gives them a little bit of room to like maybe let off the gas on trying to like force these new features into these games that just never ever really hit the way

This is interesting, later this year, the NFL decides whether or not to renew that contract with EA.

Yep, yeah, right. It's weird for EA, right because if EA does get the contract renewed, it's probably for a lot more money, and then that means probably spend less money on Madden than they've already not been spending, or you know, they they have to compete in the market. And then suddenly, you know, I don't know if two K can come back and make a football game. I think they do right away, like instantly, they.

Do it, so we'll see and and like it's so clear right that the move for EA is Okay, We're going to kind of divest ourselves from the idea of being directly attached to these leagues, right like or these leagues or organizations, Like it's not.

The right move.

Yeah, absolutely, And it's like it's not FIFA anymore, it's EAFC. This is just the soccer game. Like we have the license for soccer teams, right, like the college football game is we got the license for these teams. And like the NFL is the biggest game in town obviously, but like if you're the NFL, yes, you are getting money, but like I would probably be more interested from a digital like strategy perspective if I'm the NFL and like giving like, yeah, you can keep making Madden and also

Biden got stuck at the stuck at mid court and then post did a t pose in the middle of the in the middle of the court and that game never came out, like they shifted it into stores and they pulled it off the shelf. Like so, but from a like from the NBA's perspective, who kind of who cares? Right, Like people are they're making video games based off of your thing. You're making money regardless. People aren't going to think less of the NBA because EA has made a

An Arcade NFL Blitz style situation like w like license the players from the player Association Like that seems like a more intelligent move, like to get the game out there that way.

To be clear, other other developers are allowed to make an Arcadie style game.

Right now, They're okay, they're allowed to do that.

They're not allowed to make a simulation simulation.

Okay, right.

Yeah, So we are seeing like Retro Bowl on the iPhone is doing an NFL pack, so they are interesting.

So there is a technical they're they're like, it's the technical one.

Yeah, So NFL is dipping their toes into other licensing agreements, but not in simulations based.

So like the.

Simulation agreement is what is so active, and that's what's preventing other teams from being able to make an NFL same game.

I see. Yeah, Yeah, I think the NFL probably ends up being like, how many other companies are actually going to come through on this and give us any money to make something? Maybe it's better we just got our money up front from EA, who we know it's valuable to, so we know we can put the screws on and on them and so yeah, I mean towards them probably renewing this the NFL. I don't like that the NFL is very lazy, and a lot of that's true.

Yeah, if they've got if they've got to, if they've got a big check coming to them, they're not looking at like finding more necessarily, they're just like, we can we can basically just doest this.

Right, they got the I mean, they got the TV rights, they can afford to be lazy on everything else. Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah, more like no funly, am I right? That was that was a tactical strike. Nikki Grayson, just like John Warren and Jeff have been taking tactical strikes. Thank you uh in Tactical Breach Wizards A little sad I haven't played more of this.

I only I kind of just started it. I'm like, uh, maybe an hour and a half in and I'm like, oh, I'm surprised how much I like this. I thought it would be. Oh yeah, sure, it's it's fun. There's some tactics here and it's funny. But if there's not much to it, and it's like, this is giving me like into the Breach vibes in terms of I'm gonna see a level in front of me, I can try to find out the best choices to take the least amount of damage and do the most amount of damage each turn.

I'm still pretty early, but I know I know a couple of people have watched them play that are a better a bit later.

It does keep building on those ideas.

And this is a Tom.

Francis joint who made a game called Gunpoint that I like eleven years ago, as well as Heat Signature, which came out in twenty seventeen.

Also, Tom Francis sounds like the magical Tom Clancy, So it makes it it it does.

He's just a smart developer.

You're basically wizards basically busting into hostage situations to take out terrorists with magic and helly and foresight and stuff like that. It's it combines a lot of cool magical RPG stuff with tactical xcom like invisible ink like.

And boy, it's crunchy. It's really crunchy.

Yeah, there's a lot of really good writing in it, and it's it's a little like start like starcasm is by native language writing, but it's actually good, which is very strange.

It knows what it's doing, right, because it's like it's not just trying to be military wizards, right, it's like, well, yeah, we're gonna do that, and then we're gonna understand and deconstruct that language and kind of like put it out there baldly for everyone to be like, oh, that's funny that they're just going for it. But then we could tell they know what they're doing, and that makes it even that much funnier.

And it's just a it's really fun, a lot of deep uh strategy here.

What I like about it is that you.

Can kind of see what things are gonna what things are going to happen before you execute them, which is like really great because I think a lot of tactical games are.

Putitive, like are overly putative, especially to new players.

I think you shouldn't have that information.

Yeah, sure, And I think it's really fun to see all that stuff play out and you can play with strategy and also like knocking guys out a window is like.

A key strategy and base huh fun.

Never stops being fun. And it's an indie it's it plays great on steam Deck even though the text is pretty small, and I'm having a blast with it.

Awesome.

Yeah, I think that foresight of being able to see everything of like, okay, you've made some choices here, and now you can press this button as a wizard to like see the future, and you could see what's going to happen in this turn, and then if you like it,

It makes games that don't allow you to do that seem really silly by comparison with See It.

It's like you're still using your brain, like.

It's still very tactical and feels like strategic, but you're not. It's it's not like, well that didn't work, and out three of my guys are dead. I've got to reload a save. It just feels silly.

To have to do that. So it's just the best way to build a vocabulary of how to play the game.

Sorry, Jane, go ahead, No, no, I was gonna say. I think that's one of my biggest fears if Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Advances ever remastered or remade, because there's so many quality of life additions to Tactics style of games that I don't know Square would implement in fear of angering the original audience. Because like, God, into the breach that rewind mechanic that you had at least once in every level was absolutely essential to make sure

Also, there are guns in this game. They're good. Yeah, there's guns in it.

That's holy smokes. Jeff Grubb. Are there guns in Star Wars Outlaws?

No? No, No, Star Wars Outlaws. Yeah, I've been playing that, Jeff Greb. I'm a little bit more than ten hours in, and I I enjoy it, even though I could, like I did tweet like saying, hey, I like it, but here are a bunch of the issues that you should probably know about. And of course that got turned into a whole thing where it's like it likes it just because of Star Wars. It's like, yeah, haven't you all

If this was a PlayStation two game, it would be the best PlayStation two game ever made.

Yes, that's a very you know what I mean.

And it is going to be, like there is a fourteen to sixteen year old who is going to get this game, and it is going to be their favorite video game. Like they are going to talk about the stuff that they did in it all the time. Their parents are going to hear constantly about their exploits in

Yeah, Like sometimes you really do just need to go make a video game. You can see the seams of this thing constantly. It is showing you the edges of what is possible with this budget all of the time, and to me that is endearing. Like I love that, like I love that I can see that a person made this kind of all of the time.

I think it looks great, it sounds really good. There's an option I.

Texted Sean the day I downloaded the game.

There's an option they run you through the accessibility settings right before you can play the game.

I have it also.

Actually, while I remember, Greb, what do you think about the lock picking mini game?

I am good at it, So it's fine, Okay, God, it's just timing. It's like I played a ton of rhythm games. I'll just kind of and and it's not too punishing. So what it is, it's like the light lights up on a beat and you have to like just hit the button along the beat, so the both

Nikky's leaving that's interesting, drinking more honey? Now, oh no, Nikki stop, Like you.

Could start it at any point and it doesn't matter. So it's like, if you like get the beat halfway through, it's not gonna punish you, like you didn't start from the beginning, so it's like it's not punishing. So I've been fine with it.

Nikki said a bunch of us in the old fan bite discord like a message that was like the luck pick is terrible.

No, no, no, no, no, I said, and I quote, I said, either what did I say?

The forking realities here? All right?

I said, where the fuck?

No hold?

I have to defend myself lock.

Lock picking, I said yesterday at eight o nine am, I said in the hashtag fan bite rebirth.

Area, I said, I am either America's worst gamer or the lock Picking mini.

Game is the worst thing in the world. So it does seem as if it's the former.

It's the former. What were you trying to do?

I was mashing that right, your buddy, really just fuck it. I was like, because there's the thing that goes around right and I was like, oh, so I need to time because there's there's a visual indicator, there's a rotating thing in the walk and you have your data pick right, And I was like, I need to time the key to go into the slough.

No, none of that matters. That's not it at all. There's none of that all.

And I was like, the like does nothing. So what did I do? I turned it off to Yeah, that's why I.

Did Spider Man.

That's what I didn't Spider Man twenty eighteen as well. Like there's there's the those puzzles when you're in the lab and you have to do science to like wign it sh up.

And I was like, I'm turning this off. I don't need like I get it. Like he's smart now, I just turned it off. Yeah, Like he's smart, he can do science, Like I understand, I'll press X one.

Time and then I'll move it.

I forgot what I was gonna say.

So you were talking about like other stuff and the accessibility options, I think, and then you stopped talking about this.

Because of that, you can play the entire game, even letter Box.

It's like default, right.

Which is wild. And then I texted John and I was like this is nine And then I played it for like maybe thirty minutes, so I was like, maybe this sucks, and I turned it off and I turned it back to full ski. Uh. This was playable in demo form at games Com, and I think it was automatically set to letterbox. There's a very heavy film grain, and I thought it looked like garbage.

You need to turn that film film grain needs to be turned down a lot, if not all the way off, at least down to medium.

Uh.

The you want to turn off chromatic aberration. That's not looking great in this game. That's a hit or miss for me. In a lot of games mostly miss. It's a miss here. Once you do that, it'll look a lot crisper. The big that that film grain is aggressive, it's it's a chunky, especially if you are playing with the DLSS turned on. I don't know. It doesn't seem like dalysis handles at least as far as I could tell, it doesn't handle film grain super well. Maybe it's just the.

Which is like yeah, because it's noise.

It's just visual noise.

So the idea that like you're feeding the computer which is generating information based off of a crisp, clean image and you're feeding the computer bullshit noise.

Yeah, it's gonna make it look muddy and weird.

It's just from somebody who like is like Star Wars, that's the thing I watched on VHS. Yeah, but Jeff, you know, I played like that big preview of this like maybe a month ago. I got to play for five hours. I remember at the time, I was like, this is a stealth game, actually, and people seem to kind of surprise by that. I even started doubting myself, like maybe I did something wrong because it doesn't seem like this is being positioned as a stealth game.

It's a stealth game.

It's a stealth game. You can you can blast your way out a lot of situations, of course, but it's a stealth game.

That's why it was kind of my biggest concern was like, well, all this stealth seems fine, but it's clearly not like it's trying to be a hit man or mogarsol at five in terms of what you can do there. So if a lot of the game is just these kind of basic you know, uh, follow by behind the guard kind of stealth stuff, maybe that might be a bit of a bummer.

It's it's it's a bummer. I mean, this is a license game. I think this is what I think of when I think when I'm playing this game is a Super Nintendo Total recall. It is, Hey, that's a platformer, but it's not a platform like Mario's a platform. Come on. This is a stealth game, but not a stealth game like Pitman or Metal Gear Solid five or something like that. It's probably closest to Metal Gear Solid one in terms

Okay, and I think that it's like, oh sorry, go ahead, jen No I was gonna say. And like the two different demo missions I played, I think they're more action oriented and the gun play just felt very, very poor. Yeah, because it's not what you're supposed to be sure, Okay, Well that makes more sense than hearing that it's supposed to be framed as like a semi stealth game.

You also you need to upgrade your your blaster. It gets some more powerful stuff later on, and that makes it a little bit better. I think the gunplay is fine once once you get some of that stuff going.

It was more so like the controls of it felt very floaty in like a different way other Star Wars games feel floaty with like the gunplay in terms of like the lasers and stuff.

They definitely want you to be like feeling like you are sneaking. I did a mission where I was supposed to steal something from an imperial fortress kind of guarded on on this planet, and I mostly did that stealth, and I got an occasional skirmish and I used my little Nick's guy to turn off the alarm before someone set that off, so the whole station would be alerted to my presence. Things like that, and that felt pretty cool. The biggest part, as it is with this entire game,

And this isn't how this conversation is going to go because obviously reviews came out yesterday and this is not

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a general problem with Star Wars as like a property, is that, like everyone is expecting every new.

Project, whether it's an anime thing, a movie, show, game, for it to make a gigantic leap for the random but it's and it can't, Like it fundamentally cannot.

Yeah, it's better, and it's better when we are all like in the thought process of oh, there's a ton of these and so cheaper, and it feels like, oh, there's less at stake because I know there's gonna be another game here in a couple of months that it might be very different, but maybe that one would be really good. Yeah. So the fact that I played this one, and people pointed out, like, back when you could rent games, people had much more tolerance for these sorts of things.

Character story. Is that working for you?

It's getting a little bit more interesting. It's not as good as like Fallen Orders story. I have not played Survivor yet, I've played a little bit of it, but in terms of that being the point of comparison right now, it's okay, serviceable in line again with a lot of these other Star Wars license games you would have played before, very similar like a dasher in Daru. So. I mean, I think that k Nick's or k k Ves is actually a pretty good character. I enjoy spending time with her.

Holy crap that you get it in that you you want to fuck the robot.

I think I want to fuck the robot. Yeah. It's like like there's just such a like a good vibe there and then yeah, you're safe.

You think it'd be rude to ask the sexy robot if the sexy robot can make me good coffee.

I think you can. You can. I think the robot will be figuring. The robot kind of starts off a little bit like I'm putting you in your place, and it's like, yeah, ok, Droid, yeah, daddy Droid. Absolutely. But so you're gonna like come across pretty good characters. I think all the voice acting stuff is pretty good. There's a little head in the jar alien guy that you meet and he's a lot of fun. Yeah.

Yeah, it's got the stuff that you want from Star Wars.

And like.

I think that there is with this license specifically right because it is fraud right, like in every kind of way.

Place. Yeah, And it's like, if you think about what Star Wars is fundamentally right, it's a story where weird shit happens in space and that's kind of all you gotta that's all you gotta do. Like it's gotta be fun and like hearted and silly, and like it kind of needs to feel like because the original trilogy was like this, it kind of needs to feel like it doesn't make any fucking sense and it needs to feel dirty and rickety, like yeah, that's what Star Wars is.

I read I read someone say that it.

Reminded them heavily of Shadows of the Empire, which is.

That's to me what I keep going back to my head the most, like honestly, and also a lot of the prequel era games, we've got a lot of that, but like Shadows of the Empire, not a good game and a great first level, but a level is all time, but it understood what the license was like the exactly, I.

Feel like, yeah, And it's just interesting because there was a time where The Empire not a great game, and yet that could still be a very important game, right, And we're kind of at an era now where I think at Last could probably still do well. You know, who knows whether it's going to be a success or not like for Ubi stuff, but is it going to be an important game?

Right? And that's kind of where that's the frustrating part right now is it feels like you're right, it has to be an important game for for to justify itself, and that sucks. I wish that's not where we were, but that is kind of where we are with these publishers.

Uh.

The one comparison to like Shadows the Empire, Shadowy Empire maybe had a little bit more variety in what you're doing as much as this is an open world game. Yeah, and I'm playing Sabah and stuff here and there, and but it's like, no, you're gonna go to a mission. It's gonna be go here, get the thing. Probably do some stealth, maybe do some shooting, come back, talk to someone, and then do it all over again and again. If

Sure, last thing, I went to Disneyland immediately after game's calm because I'm a broken person. I'm kicking the dirt underneath my desk because doctor Randall had told me that I could buy a shoot physical sabakh wait really card deck at a Galaxy's Edge, and then I forgot about it again. Ah nuts. I guess I'll just have to go again. Folks. That's it for games. Wait, can I talk about Fortnite for two seconds? Please?

You get three seconds?

Okay, I'm gonna do three minutes.

Unfoture's guns.

There is gun. They added guns. This Fortnite season is really good. I think they do this. They're doing this thing right now, which is like, it's really hard.

I'm sure for this studio. They have a great season and then they have a piss poor season. They go back and forth.

I think it's deliberate. I think they do it on purpose.

I also kind of think they might be a little bit intentional. And it's like because the narrative is also it's good again mm hmm, you know, and then you're like, oh, really it's good.

It back together, We're getting back here. It's the Marvel season.

I think that the seasons where they are like fucking whatever. You can get every like just every gun is rare. All you get every single power up that you could possibly want. You feel silly, you're doing like silly combinations like you get you can have a load out that is like war machines like jet pack and an automatic turret and rocket launchers, and you can have Captain America's shield, and you can have a gun.

And when you have Captain America's shield and you hold left trigger, you can't take damage from the front, and they have the auto turret and the auto turret is shooting shit automatically. You can throw a Captain America's shield and it does the thing that you want. It bounces off of people, it comes back to you. Like the

Right?

Like?

A video game is like we are putting things together that should not be together and turn it into an experience that you can only do doing this thing.

Yeah, I means what this is describing what you do in Fortnite sounds awful.

Doing it feels like a million bucks.

Yes, it feels like a million fucking dollars. It's incredible.

It's it's right in the mopad right where it's like it's embarrassing you your friend seeing it when you're doing amazing. Yes, it's I think it's great.

I just I simply I think it's.

Good when you when then when you kill, you whirl up to doctor Doom. He's or Misterio is hanging out and you kill Mysterio and then you can play the canteena theme on Miss's body, and then you can run around and then you turn the corner and guess what who's that? That's right, it's j Balvin. He's here now and he's dressed up like a dinosaur.

I'm a monster for killing a bare dinosaur preacher and moster hunter. But killing Ariana Grande in mystereo.

Yes, because she signed a contract that Lizard.

Didn't sign out to be there. Yeah, I Dicky, I.

It stinks that you weren't available when we checked all the Marvel stuff out that they readded because it was hilarious to see that Bailey got down as Magneto, I throw Captain America's shield at someone that knocked her, knock them in the process, pick up Magneto as cyclops, throw Magneto's life almost lifeless body to get past like the the goo zone, and then shot Grub you were playing right, and then Grub and Sean laying down suppressive fire and

You're playing Call of Duty, when you're playing war Zone. For me, there is a point where I'm.

Like, I could just be playing Team Deathmatch, honestly, like, I would rather be doing that because then I get to play more of the video game. When I die in Fortnite, I am never mad because I always something has something silly has happened. Even if the round is three minutes long, something silly has happened. Even if the image of me getting got the character that got me is good, and I'm like, well, you know what, I'm

It's you know, it's the one that makes you feel like you're not wasting your time, especially when you're playing with other people and when people around you are getting killed. There there they still had a good time. Pubg is the one I would play solo that I would never play Fortnite solo.

To start playing Fortnite solo, it's great. I don't so no that's the thing though. Grub still hits.

But like what I'm like, I want to be hanging out with friends in Fortnite and then and PUBG scares me. That's why I don't want to play. It's a very different experience.

Can you play fall Guys in PUBG though?

Ship? Yeah? See, so there we go, there we go.

All right, folks, that does it for games and bands. We're gonna take quick bricky break and uh we'll be back with the news right after this. And we are back with the video game news. Jeff Grub take it away after this segment. Music segment, Music is go away.

News news a buzz all right, Yeah, we've got a bunch of headlines here. Let's start. Let's start with this one. PlayStation five gets another steep price increase in Japan. Sony has announced another price increase for the PlayStation five in Japan effective September second. The standard PS five console will cost seventy nine eighty EN, which is equivalent right now to about five hundred and fifty dollars. That is a ninety dollars increase essentially, while the digital edition will cost

Doing this is good, right, you want to do this?

Yeah, this is a sign that everything's going really well.

I don't know math or business is good, right, I have terrible credit score, I'm an insurmountable debt. I don't know if they if they want to sell more, why make give more costly?

You don't if that's your goal, right, So then what's the goal? To make more money from the people you know are going to buy the system? Also, they have the PS five pro coming out soon, so this sets the stage for that to be even more I think backwards. Uh, yeah, I think the PS five Pro. This confirms to me like that thing's probably going to be at least six hundred dollars, and they want to so we start a pull.

I think I'm going to say six.

I think that's not out of the question.

So yeah, man, it just sounds wow when you say it. I know there's reasons and like I shouldn't believe. I just have a hard time.

But I think it could be six hundred in the United States and essentially seven hundred dollars everywhere else, including like what that means for the markup in places like Astra Australia in Canada. So add you're one hundred and fifty dollars on top of that or whatever it is.

So what will rag watch a lot of five?

Five?

That's not funny.

We're so sorry we're not speaking English, and I know it makes you mad, Okay, real quick.

I mentioned this in our little discord. But I was at Disneyland and someone walks by me, points, smiles and yells English it anyway.

Please, you can get anything over, brother.

Uh you get hatred over. Let's do it.

That's me.

Uh yeah.

Someone checks asking why aren't prices going down for console? Why aren't they treating these things as lost leaders anymore? And I think it's it's because they understand the audience and they are looking for growth, and they realize they

It?

Yeah, I mean it's it's it's as simple as as they want to get more money from us, the like, and uh, they want to set the stage four, not just the PS five pro, but for PS six a couple of years from now, where that thing could easily be seven hundred dollars. And also the yen still very low compared to the dollar, so when they're selling things in Japan, they're not making as much money as they make when they sell these things in other countries. So

There boiling the frog right like for people that haven't jumped in yet, they're they're slowly fully turning up the heat and it's like you got to get in because we're not going down like you know.

So they're also no noticing that, like, oh, that frog is gonna wake up here in a second, realize what's happening, because inflation is about to be like, oh, you know, it's going out the door here pretty soon. Uh, they're

Why is there not a box that goes under your television that just runs Windows that is six hundred dollars. Yeah, someone like Microsoft should make this box that.

Sounds like what their next system might be. And well, but I think it'll be more expensive than six hundred down right.

But like I don't understand, because that's what I when I was I distinctly remember being in college and having this huge idea and I was like, it's insane that you can't walk into best Buy and buy a computer that Microsoft makes that runs Xbox games and runs Photoshop. Now, it doesn't make any sense to me from like a perspective where you're like, oh, okay, well if I just put this one thing on my desk, it'll do all of it'll do all of it. And that's what a PC is, but like at a cost that is.

Like experience that is not optimized for what you're talking about as much as I like using my PC on the TV or talk about is the steam decification of a home PC. And I think we're about to get there. I think all these companies realize that there's more of an appetite for that. And as these concerts become more like PCs. You might as well be in that space because then they can play their Steam games and maybe people choose your hardware, but if they have more access

If only, if.

Only there was some sort of maybe like eighth Windows version, right, and then in this eighth Windows version you could like say it's like inspired by like Metro.

Something like that and Metropolitans.

Yeah, and it's kind of like got tiles, and those tiles would be pretty easy to navigate if you had like a deep oat or a stick and if you were to press a and then like it would kind of assume that there was no keyboard and mouse attached, maybe kind of designed for touch or some other some other kind of inputs.

And of course if they did this work, they would never give it up.

And if you handed one of these devices to an NFL coach, they'll spike it.

Like, oh my god, surface devices are out there. Everybody, go get your resident right now in stores. Yeah, so five hundred and five dollars for the digital version that is. Yeah, that's quite a bit more than what this thing launched at. So a ninety dollars price increase. I don't think this is going to be everywhere. Span is kind of a specific case, but I think they've already done a lot of price increases in a lot of places. But yeah, PS five Pro is imminent. We'll see what the price

At it the other day six to twenty ninth, I believe, okay, right, and the other day was earlier today, right, yes.

Exactly, So holy crap. That's upsetting to me, actually, but I think, yeah, that's all that sounds right, that PS five Pro is coming out this year. Maybe announced it at the State of Play. It could get announced before that and then they reveal more stuff at the State of Play. But was anyone like hoping for a showcase, because I know a lot of people are kind of bummed out that it might be a standard play.

I get why people were bummed up, because like, we just didn't we haven't heard much from PlayStation right this summer compress of other companies. But you know, it was just, yeah, they don't have as much to really talk about. It's just not kind of a year for big showcases. Doing another State of Play does make more sense, right now.

I've got it.

It's got the word pro. I think it's better.

Yeah, it's black and that's it.

Oh, this was going to be black like a PlayStation two. And then they're gonna they're gonna be like, wow, can you believe it? It's it's as big as a ps this. They made a slim one of these, right, Yeah?

Slim er slim er, Yeah for sure, man, not exactly slim, but more spelt. Will they sell me one that doesn't look like ship because I'll buy that.

One, Okay. Don't make an enemy out of them. That's gonna be my weird hill to die on?

Is that?

The placation I is beautiful? Beautiful, Yes, I think it's the best.

I like it, but I don't agree with them on that. I think it's ugly. In a very fun and interesting when I like.

It, I think ironic.

I think it requires a lot of gall to over design a box that is designed should not be seen and.

It's it's definitely an affront to design. Yeah.

For that and that way, I do respect the PlayStation.

Yeah, it barely fits in. I know, I know.

The thing sitting behind my monitor is the ugliest thing I've ever seen.

Really fun, anything else we want to see from like a state of play and like hopes can like it doesn't feel like a state of play. We even get like Ghost of Sushima two's coming out in late twenty twenty five or something like that, probably not maybe.

Remember that that was maybe Soulaver.

Like is that game?

I think, Mike, I think we discovered what that was. That it's apparently it's a cartridge for the Evercade like handheld thing.

Oh that's all that was.

I think it might be all that is never mine.

I have five words of what I want to see at the stadium.

NAC three knack, three knack.

Yeah, that's right.

It's forty five minutes of Concord.

Yeah, relaunch of Concord is upon us. Yeah yeah, just how fast did they just ahead? Oh? I just I just want to they see them. Hey, by the way, like a few weeks ago, we released this game. Yeah, how about it.

How fast are they pulling the cord on that completely? Like they got to.

Try for the rest of the year at least.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think an episode coming out and that show.

That's it.

I think they they Here's if I were to wage wager, they will play it by ear until that episode of the TV show comes out.

Yep.

They will then be like, the game's free to play.

If you spent forty on it, you get I don't know, one hundred skins or whatever.

It's sorry, sorry for spending for it. Yeah, they'll give you a gun that kills people in one hit or.

Something for some reason.

Yeah, and then you're.

One of the weirdos. I'm sorry. We'll take the pronouns.

They should lead in to it. That would actually be fun.

And then by this time next year the game's off. So yeah, and then that episode of Loved what's it called love?

Actually secret secret level. That episode is just really confusing. It's just real confusing. The men in black us about the game.

We never.

Yeah we made that for this this is our o C.

Yeah, check this out. Yeah, we'll see state of play. Set your expectations appropriately. You know, I've heard state of play. It could always change. Maybe it is a showcase. But usually when I hear from from the sources like this, they're usually pretty on point. Last time, when I was like unsure, I had heard about it before, I had heard from some more reliable sources. And this time I'm

Rumble really probably brought in the money.

Huh. I think that game shut down too. Crash was in early development at Toys for Bob was canceled. Activision polled funding for single player title titles in favor of live service multiplayer games.

Games is sorry, games plural?

What do you mean? Call of Call of Duty, Crash Bandicoot four, it's about time. Sales what were considered muted by Activision not even bad, but mutated because they were pretty good.

Actually, yeah, we're pretty good for Crash Bandicoot.

Yeah right, I mean they didn't do the trilogy numbers, which was massive, huge, huge, but multi millions.

Was a bit of an anomaly because you know, it was a really good value proposition of those three games, like, yeah, there's things going on there and then Fun. I guess they thought like, oh, we're gonna build on that with FORO. It's going to sell even better than that, which was maybe naive.

Yes exactly. Toys for Bob conceptualized a multiplayer Crash title, but pivoted to a single player entry, resulting in Crash Bandicoot four. After Crash Bandicoot fours released, a small team at Toys for Bob began envisioning Crash Bandicoot five as a single player three D platformer. Alleged concept art and story concepts include a school for villainous children and a team up with Spyro. The reports claims aligned with previous

An adult bandicoot just like stiff arming like evil kids for killing.

Yeah that's amazing. Yeah, Crash Bandicoot would go back at time and choke out. Baby.

When y'all say that Crash sold, well, does that mean it made its money back?

I think it did more than make it.

Okay, So then if your company, this is a fundamentally don't get it.

Your job to make money. You want to make money.

You spend money to make money, right, John, you're shaking your head.

No, yeah you're but you're talking about like if you and I were building a company. No, really, really, we're not. Like, we're talking about a different thing. We're talking about people that are like, yes, it's not just make profit on thing, it is make an unbelievably obscene amount of profit on thing, and then do it again. But then ten times that like it is, it's a fundamentally broken idea, and so when something doesn't even remotely get there, they scrap it.

It's done right.

The motivations are just out of whack, right, are when we show up to the to the table with these companies and say, hey, we got money, what are you going to make for us? It's going to get this money away from it. We don't want to spend too much of it, so better be good. What we're saying there is we want you to make video games, and they're like, what, we don't want to make video games. We just want to make money. Like that is our

OK, just for sold five million copies if you that's crazy, that's so good? Yeah, right, like that has to be you know, I know that you see other games that can manage it, so forty million or whatever and that'snomally on. Yeah, Eddie, game that you are making. You have to be able to live in a world where five million is a huge success and the fact that that can't be enough to get a sequel.

It's got to be one of the best selling crash games, got to be one of the best selling Bree platformers. It's not Mario of all time. It's crazy that that's not good. So we's that's where we're at.

We should have listened to Jenny Jesse j back in twenty ten. You know what she says. It's not about the price tags. She's that not about the money money.

She was that Ara, you don't need your mom.

I know that's all not about Yeah, we just want to make the world dance.

Forget about the price tags.

Ain't about the chut chu ching cha ching, ain't about.

The yeah yeah brother.

And you don't know Chapel Rowan.

Give him time. He's gonna be the biggest supper Own fan out of all of us, give it.

That's that's the one I can't remember.

I think he'd also like Charlie.

I don't know.

Oh, I think no XCX.

I think Charlie XCX might be to b to oh gross, but like, yeah, unfortunately, Mike.

Do you remember when Nintendo announced Nintendo World and there was a lady that came out saying that Super Mario Brothers remix song no Okay, Well, that was Charlie x cool. Never mind a quick correction, maybe Sean says the logos for uh the for the blood omen A Soul Reaver collection. It was different on the ever Kid one than leaked at games Comus. Yeah, I just I'm like choosing to

Still, I hope get at least a few like old plates. You know we got some accomplished. Is the Nintendo thing? Give me a few PS one collections or remasters or a ring because I'm not expecting to see foun Fantasy Tactics or that Foumpasy nine remake to finally show up. Give me something a ray.

Man collection out? Yeah?

Oh yeah, RayBan two is great. Yeah, more people should play Rayman two.

Uh. Square Enix's Phone Stars, the Concord of its Day, is officially going free to play in October. Foam Stars, a Square NX game previously sold for thirty dollars on the PlayStation store, will become free to play for all users beginning October fourth. Excuse me, is this the time to get in Foam Stars?

Oh?

No stars, hey boone stars though seemed like it did better than Concord ever did.

Right bar though, Wow, Yeah I sure did. Wow.

Literally the lowest bar like it doesn't get lower than Concord did make you think good point. Yeah there was pink and foam.

Though, Samn, you're right that is pretty gay.

I'm so glad you're here to say, yeah, hey, I don't think this is going to change the fate of anything. Uh like do like, No, one's really going around being well. Some people are saying it just make Concord free to play.

That doesn't It doesn't. That doesn't solve it.

No, that doesn't solve any problem with Concord. It feels like I don't know if.

They added paint to Concord. Okay, okay, and then the characters can turn it to squid with.

No paint and then give you a powerwasher and Shrek.

Okay, right, we're not there yet.

Almost there.

That's two stories away. Actually, no, speaking of that. That was in the Nintendo Direct today and the the Indie World Showcase actually, which they did together. One of the things in there was blatro is getting the Witcher Vampire survivors among us and Dave the Diver decks. Balatroe is receiving a series that I'm gonna say it both ways of DLC collaboration decks, including the WHICHERR Vampire Survivors among Us The Day of the Diver. The free update is

I'm assuming that at least each deck will introduce like a handful of jokers that represent their game.

Oh that's a good point, yeah, because I don't know.

Yeah, how do you adapt among us in a single player game? You have to swipe every single card.

It was among us massively. It looked like there was like a lot of extra like glass cards or something, which makes sense because people get like eliminated like those, right, So I think, yeah, I think they're going to figure it out. It's gonna be thematically consistent. It's just skims, it's just skins. Never mind me.

Then let's free that was this year. Yeah, yeah, but that but like that was this calendar year in this game, Well it's I mean, it is August now, I guess, I guess pretty far into this base.

It does feel like January was just there for me though, so I'm like, yeah, that's that game just came out.

Remember when we started this year and I said I was going to get super into poker, and then this game happened, you, Jane.

Powerwash Simulator is getting Shrek DLC because it's twenty twenty four and you could just say anything. You could just say anything and it could be true. Powerwash Simulator is getting Trek DLC. The game will receive a paid DLC pack that includes five levels. The DLC pack will be released later this year. Levels include Shrek's Swamp, which has been covered in colorful paint. A night costume will also be made available for players based on the nights from

Yeah, that's cool. There's a lot of Shrek perverts that I know who are gonna be amped about this very site.

Yeah, hey ja microphone again. Yeah?

Oh yeah, yeah it did it did?

Uh the let everyone know Backlar already did say he could order a new bike arm and it's.

Not gonna get here by the time.

By the top of it, I said, no, yeah, of course not. Yeah, that was just this morning. I think you said that, or maybe yesterday. Again. I'm replacing time. I don't know when it was, but uh yeah, it's on its way. Everybody, don't worry about Chan. He'll be okay, all right, a few more stories here. Digital Clips is releasing a Tetris collection called Tetris Forever. Uh it is.

Okay, so we're losing it. So I just want to be really clear.

Yeah, Tetris two plus bomb Bliss and Super Tetris two plus bombless different games?

Yes, yeah?

Is there a Super Tetris three plus Bombliss?

Is there any way you could stop asking stupid questions?

No, there just bombless. I think there's just bombless, but it's not in here. But I don't know. Maybe they always paired up Tetris with bombless? Is it super? Sorry to join? I don't remember these actually, I don't think these were real. I think I played Warriors of Woods, which I think can have bombs. I assume that this is that was just bombless free skinned for game.

I don't think that's true.

Head right now, that's also possible. Uh yeah, what's actually interesting here is this is a gold Master from Digital Eclipse which means they're gonna have a bunch of the documentary footage in there and historical documents and it's going to tell the story of Tetris and legacy Pageantov is involved in that stuff.

So that's very cool.

Excites me about this, you know, like, you know, a Tetris collection cool. There's a lot of ways to play Tetris on Switch all right right now, some very very very good ways of Tetris effect and Tetris ninety nine. But you're having that historical stuff here. That's great. I'm also kind of god, you know, they've been doing these and it's great, and they've been doing some obscure ones, which is neat. But I'm like, yeah, maybe get the bag a little bit here, go with Tetris, get a

Did y'all watch that movie on Apple?

No?

Is it good?

It's okay?

Is it as good as the BlackBerry Movie?

No? BlackBerry Movie is very good. I think Tetris. Tetris is a good watch. The best part about Tetris the movie is that they have Howard Lincoln, President of Nintendo of America, a guy who like was in courtrooms, very serious sober Man running from Russian spies in Moscow. It's a car in a car chase. It is incredible.

Good.

Fucking popped so hard when I.

Saw that, Like, that's not based on any real No, not really no, No, they might have like missed their flight or something and had to like go fast in Moscow.

God like Coward Lincoln in that guy he used to wear their red bow tie.

The thing I recommend is Gaming Historian on YouTube's got a Tetris documentary that is incredible. Watch that first and then you'll enjoy the Tetris movie. It's great, Okay, cool, It's a cool double feature, a good double feature. Uh, here we go on more time, one more time, or as I call them, APIs for short. Rebrush demo is available now. A demo for Epic Mickey Rebrushed. Rebrushed is now available on.

Xbox Series and.

VGC praise the demo for saying it significantly improves upon the original game. I'm gonna try this out and see if I'm.

I tried the demo for this on the Switch a couple of months ago. They adapted the weak controls perfectly fine to a regular standard controller.

Good, great, good. I obviously, Like man, I was really hype for original Bic Mickey back in the day, and I enjoyed it, okay, it was probably disappointed with it. So you see that this game is getting a remastered because there are a lot of things you can't kind of improve upon and maybe tighten up a bit. I'm excited to go back to it.

Or Inspectors ORNs, Inspectors or Inspector.

I made him ride Space Mountain with me at the preview event for this game, my first pre event ever. Had a good time.

And then they uh in the Nintendo Direct they had Castlevania Dominus Collection. Is that what it is?

Dominant somehow that I guess that kind of sounds like DS.

With with S. Is that what they're going for?

And that must be what they're going for with what Dominant.

Stress No no no, no no no Spell Deluxe jan No sound is what I go ahead, Spell Deluxe, look forward to the first later this week.

That's right, I'm playing this on my Steam deck right now. They have adapted Basically, it's laid out like you see it on an emulator, Like there's the DS screens.

I want to.

And then and then the game's over here. The one screen is over here. It's pretty cool. Actually, the touch screens controls work really well for putting in Like I wrote my name, You're probably gonna have use that to do the glyphs and stuff. But you got glyphs.

Haters can suck it. I liked drawing those glyphs. When I killed the bosses and Donna sorrow, I thought it was neat. So you're gonna tap the bricks and like some of the levels, there's a lot of sorrow. You thought Sorrow was early, so it had all that ship and people were mad, and I was like, nas is cold?

Do anything to blow over with the microphone?

Oh god, that there was there was in that there was might be I hope. I bet there's a button dedicated to that. There is Like if you're like wanting to play this on a different console that doesn't have a touch screen or or something along those lines, you can hold down right bumper and then I think, use the right stick to mimic touchscreen control. So they'll still give you a way to do it. It'll be a little bit more cumbersome, but yeah, I'm pretty happy with that.

R PSP game that was yeah, kind of you know, pixels and stuff, kind of isometric ly, very very good JERRPG among that crowd. Yes, yes, beloved. So this remake announcement was a huge surprise. It looks very cool, like at first, because we had like the smaller snippet in the North American one, it's hard to see what the bow system was like. There was a longer segment in the Japanese direct, and it seems like it still has all that depth that the original had. I'm excited for this.

This has always been a not guilty pleasure.

Uh what's it called? What?

Yle? Shame? Yeah?

Miss, this is the only shame I feel. That's it.

Yeah, that's it, okay, Damn Nick knows other shame though?

Well's it like living clean? Jan you know, it's not actually clean for me.

Buddy, Jim. What's the acronym for trails in the sky tits?

Oh, that's true.

Wow, Wow, there's tits in this game. And then uh, last story here. I was gonna skip it, but I guess I'll do it. Capcom Fighting Collection two features eight games, including Capcom Versus S and K and Powerstone one and two Online.

Stone two is the best video game Capcom's ever made.

I'm really glad that they're putting it out again. I'm not kids pretty good, it's really good. It's amazing.

I'm so the fact like that again, I would have I'm a sicko. I would have paid like fifty bucks, sixty bucks, just like, hey, we brought Powerstone two back finally, thank you so much, or same thing with CAPCN Versus S and K two. The fact that they bundled in so many of these games and other a lot of Dreamcast games with the Project Justice and Plasma sort also the fact that we're getting some Dreamcast game compilations with

The receipt people, Uh well.

I'm more of a Walgreens game. Yeah, actually.

A second.

Uh Powerstone I only know about because John won't shut the fuck up about it. But like Mark of the Millennium, sorry, let me read the whole title for you. Capcom Versus S and K.

Two colon Mark of the Millennium two thousand and one. It's one of the best games ever, not a real game.

It's one of the No. One of the true love making. Huh what that's the song from it? It's incredible.

Oh, cap coversess K two is so smooth.

Okay, what is Plasma Sword of Bill?

So Capcom was going to make a Star Wars video game called Star back on like the PS one, and then they lost the license. Yeah, so they released it anyways, and then this is the sequel to that. Yes, it's cool.

It's it's it's very there's like an obvious Wookie. There's a lot of like very obvious.

Story obvious like yeah, this is the Luke Skywalker and stuff like that. Yeah, and I haven't actually played much of this one. I'm excited. I mean, same thing with Project Justice, even I kind of missed out on that at the time. Now there's still like some weird things here, like we don't have that first Star Glid Air game, we have Project Justice. We don't have Rival Schools, which

Are the street Fighter ex games in any of the collections.

There, But that's also Capcom didn't develop those in turn.

I know that that does like The Fighters X or whatever.

So there's like a little weirdness there. But still at this point I want to be shocked if we get those one day also, but yeah, you can do those and maybe those those other the Rival Schools and Starglighter, and that can kind of be like your p S one, uh Capcom collection for sure.

Yeah, Capcom should make a Capcom five collection. And then they put out the fifth one.

Literally said.

Said that this morning, word for word, the.

Whole actually put out the last one year.

But that's what makes it a good idea.

It's just manifesting inside all of them. Yeah, I want to play Piano three so bad.

Didn't you buy that one? Didn't you spend? Yeah it's over there, all right, we'll buy things.

I did buy caslvania order of Ecclesia like physical recently and it was pretty expensive and that price is going to tank now. But that's okay.

Honestly, know what this collection starts to feel like a little bit is in it'sun no collection because it's got Alpha, It's got the Star Gladiator sequel. Uh, is this the one that has Rival Schools on it, or has the sequel?

Project Justice is the sequel.

It's got Powerstone one and two. He did those games, so a lot of good insign no stuff on this collection.

Yeah.

They also have Capcom Fighting Evolution, which was like a big disaster for them, but I'm kind of glad it's there anyways.

Yep, uh Okay, I think that does it for the News. I felt like there was something else that came to mind and I'm not remembering it, so you know, I'm just gonna hand the show back over to you, Jan if we think of it gone. Yeah, it was Sonic three Learn.

Yeah.

When Ship says Concord, I mean we kind of talked about that when we talked about some of this other stuff. It didn't sell to anybody. No one bought it and no one's playing it.

It's just upsetting.

Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at with it. And I've talked about it a bunch and I'm like hesitant to continue dancing on It's great, but I tried not to do it all right, but hey, I wasn't interested in that game. I didn't think that meant no one was interested in that. That's a weird thing to like sort of wake up and see the games out and

It's it's it's I think that the cervict thing is the idea that a first party PlayStation game with like that much marketing at least behind it, like you can't force at least something there, like a bit a bit more than that, right, you know, we've kind of had conversations about those other people have said or like back in the day, you could just kind of release a game and as long as you have to like it

I think this is when I was talking earlier about like we come to the table with money and would say, hey, make us games, and they're like, well, we just want to make money. I guess we'll make games if that means you will give us money. But then when they do a project like this and no one buys it, yeah, I think there are long term ramifications on the kinds of things that they spend money on. And clearly right now we're at the end of a year where people

I don't think they're going to have the self awareness to be like, hey, like we went to these life service games, so we didn't have faith in the other thing. Do we just flip flop back and forth forever here or do we carry there is something.

In between, perhaps maybe a mediums multiple medium size.

Games, maybe a temporal pincer movement.

And like this came up because of Concord, but it's like, yeah, I mean we're talking about the stuff that Nintendo does, right, make a game that sells a lot and doesn't cost a lot. And I feel like if Sony could have done that by now, they would have done it. But maybe have they really tried. I guess I don't know. I just maybe they haven't really tried.

And then they shut down the studio.

That would have been Japan Studio, right, that would have been the most suited to guy in that direction, and so like, no, it's tough.

Yep. Yeah, Jim Ryan got up. I thin get it was good. I said all the time.

Nobody, nobody knew more. He read those tea leaves like he was reading the fucking Bible.

It's like, here, you know, you guys, go make those last service games. That's gonna solve it for you. I succeeded victory let PS five PS four piece and yeah, people are like, no he got kicked out, Like no, he just left because that's difficult. This would be that's a great analogy, nickie. He also made the tea leaves. Yeah here, he grew them in his own garden. And then he was like yeah, all right bye. Uh yeah,

We're gonna take quick breaking break. We're done with the news. I'm just thinking about Jim Ryan now in Concord, and I'm just upset.

Uh.

The only thing to fix that, uh, he is to read some emails after.

This bricky break did a bit.

These are they emails for the show emcast. Giant bomb dot com is the email address to send your emails to. I read everything. I enjoy everything. Thank you for sending them.

And the jan There's no way you enjoy everything on that address.

You know.

There's a couple like newsletters people have signed us up there, and I'm like, have you gotten signed up for a knife defense tutorial like I did to John one time? No? No, but I'd enjoy that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know if I get those anymore. It was that my fan bite address anyway.

Sorry Kyle.

You guys ever think about that Tommy Lee Jones Bencia del Toro knife fighting movie? Yes, I do, No, thank you. There's a scene in The Sopranos where where Aj is working at a video store and he's arguing about that movie with his buddy about the best way to hold a knife, and I'm like, God, that's so I've been in that conversation and I'm so embarrassed that they know that and they're showing it to me. And this TV show, The Sopranos amazing, right In thank you chat Hunted sorry.

Write in about virtually any and everything you want to quiz you got a question about the industry? You got anything. If it's something nice, specifically towards a member of the crew, I will generally forward it to them. And it's always nice to have a little compliment. Love compliments love.

I've never gotten one weird. Oh shit.

First email comes from Paul from Australia. Hello, I noticed when you were drinking from water and coke bottles on the recent bomb cast video from Games Colm, you seem to open the lid by twisting it and then leave the lid partially attached and never and leave it open. Is this a special water bottle or a special skill you have? Whenever I opened a bottle, the first turn completely severs the connection between the lid and the plastic circle at the bottom of it. Maybe I just don't

This is so exciting because this is just the way bottles in Europe work now, And like all of us, the first one we're like, oh, our bottle thing didn't work. It's still kind of attached there, that's weird, and then the second ones like it, I'm like, oh, this is this is like a feature And at first you're like, this is all the caps in the way, and then not. Then you're like, I'm never gonna lose my cap again. It's just still attached to the thing here. Okay, kind

How frequently are you losing the cap tool?

I don't know all the time really so often?

Wow?

Oh yeah, I got a lot of things that have caps.

I don't listen too frequently of these days because it's like, I'm pretty like the thing I hate more more than just dropping things is things spilling. Some very militant about keeping the cap. But I have kids, right, and they lose they basically they get the happen. They just throw it into orbit and it's never seen. So it would be nice to have that. I could see a video of someone doing that. I'm like, is that a special

I wonder if we'll get it or if it's one of those things that because it's different, there will be it'll be like that's the chip.

These people will not. That bitch was loud, right, so would clip that and use it?

Uh yo? This okay. If we fucking had these bottles in America, I could just get and reseal my stupid soda bottles whenever I watch a game or a concert at the Chase Center right here in San Francisco, and they don't have to pour out my soda into a separate cup. Yeah, that's venue to venue though.

Why I was in San Diego last week or over the weekend, and which, by the way, snap Dragon Stadium is the most hostile building I think I've ever been to in my entire life. There's no shade in the entire building. It's a soccer stadium. It's it's like twenty eight thousand people. There's no shade in the whole building. The building is is angled the wrong way, so the entirety of the time when the sun is up, it goes the width of the stadium like the whole time it's baking.

It would never do that with the NFL because they consider that shit so easily because they have the money and like the political power to pull it off. Soccer in America doesn't have that thing.

Nuts to me, Yeah, but they were giving out metal.

Bottles for water. I was shocked. I was like, from a safety perspective, it.

Would be really easy to fill this bad boy up and throw that bad boy right on the pitch.

It's crazy. And they gave you the lid and everything. Let you keep the lid.

That's just got to be like a well, why, yeah, why wouldn't they just put it in gu I guess it's plastic cup and you can actually recycle metal, and recycling plastic was a lie they told us for years. So yeah.

Next email comes from tiaguan and Vermont. Hey, Gang, I recently had a revelation that I love games that have densely packed worlds that become familiar over time, whether it's learning a level through repetition or just uncovering nooks and crannies through exploration. I find it super rewarding to spend

Ario Odyssey kind of scratches a similar itch for me. I think, right, like those levels are like they're big, but they're not so big that like there's kind of these big eupy spaces, some of them are bigger than others when they're very densely packed and you kind of start running around, or like other playthroughs, you're doing things like I got like, you know, five moons and a rugs. I know exactly where everything is, and I know that this shiney bird is gonna pop up here at this moment.

Yeah, I think. I mean, like, obviously animal crossing is a great example of this. I think it's really great when you go into someone else's animal crossing island, especially in New Horizons, and you're.

Like, what the fuck you?

Why is your store over here? Why'd you do that? It's supposed to be over in this quadrate And that's great.

Because it gives you that familiar It gives you this similar familiarity that you get with these locations that the tag enlisted. But then also it is localized to you, so it feels it feels home but different.

You know.

Yeah, I knew.

I was trying to think of an example, and I was like, the Hitman came to mind first. I was like, oh damn, he said that was gonna be my saying now. But I'm like, I know, there's no one in my mind that I was just thinking, Hey, this is like a city block or two and I'm going and I'm like, oh yeah, a disco Elysium. I've been playing that and that is just like a pretty confined space, pretty dense. You definitely learn it. You learn how Oh there's an

So yeah, so those uh.

Shut up? That entire first game is is that for me? Big time.

Jumping off of Tony Hawk, I guess portions of the city and skate three like I'd remember two. Yeah, Like this is the good ledge right?

Oh sure? Yeah?

Like this like like being able to like drop a pitt down facing the correct direction so that when you reset to get the line because you know that zone like the back of your Like, yeah, absolutely.

Tiny. Terry's Turbo Trip was like a small open Yeah, these small open world games where it's like, oh yeah, I've already learned where everything is. That's great.

Next email comes from Troy from Colorado. I was listening to the Next Lander podcast over the weekend and Rob Zachney was on and brought up an interesting spot. When discussing the diskless Xbox series X. Rob said that Microsoft should lean into physical media crowd instead of running towards all digital as a way to differentiate themselves. I hadn't really considered this an option, but the more I thought about it, I thought it was a great idea for Microsoft.

These other guys will have like a fun answer for you, But my not fun answer is this sounds great and it'll never.

A Yeah, I'm gonna say, Troy, this is insane.

Yeah. This isn't a new disc medium that like is several like zeta bytes or petabytes on one disc or something like that. It just got invented. It's called son and you put them in a specific player. Right, It's the future, I think. I mean, I would love this. That'd be cool if they like had that for the next system. I would love this.

But like you need to look at like weird third party onboard emulation hardware perverts that are making stuff like this, But it's.

Not going to be Microsoft that does it. Right.

Yeah.

Also, I think broadly people are not going to and this is like a dire statement that I'm about to say, people are not going to care about this until it is too late, right, like like on the on the whole, like people are not going to care about or think about the fact that, like they don't own any of their games until more of them start.

When you say when you say people, you mean like a fun of people. Yes, a lot of people are Troy. You're probably Troy.

You're probably having this panic right now, but like the average person is not.

Yeah, yeah, I mean the average person who's not starting. Yeah, you had a nightmare. Oh, I wanted to tell you this. I had a nightmare the other day, Greb that this is what sparked this is what sparked this. You had a nightmare that your game library was inaccessible, right, Yeah.

I'm all digital for many years. Yeah, and I certainly I had a nightmare that the world ended and I couldn't access my game. Yeah.

I had a similar It was like similarly stupid nightmare where I was like T.

Mobile found out that I haven't limited data for one hundred dollars a month.

I was like, oh ship, they're gonna like they sent me a big bill and I was like, oh no, That's why I asked that question on Twitter yesterday. How much dated everybody's using on their phones every Monday.

Happy t Mobile Tuesday, your go go get a free seat cushion.

Oh sweet?

All right? Next email still Xbox related. This one comes from Matt from Murphreesboro, Tennessee. Hey guys, well, I didn't honestly expect an Xbox handheld to get announced a games Colm. I did get my hopes up that after all the buzz earlier this year, we would have an official announcement within twenty twenty four. Do you still think an Xbox handheld is coming? I definitely hope so, and really do think so. It seems to me that the next Xbox could be handheld that has game Pass and access to

Yeah, listings are coming. There's gonna be probably a lot more than you're even thinking there's gonna be a ton of them. Yeah, And really it's gonna come down to can they figure out the software and the you know, the over the top interface that goes on top of Windows for Xbox and for PlayStation. Can they like figure out like, oh, is it just going to be PS four games or all PS five games? What does that look like? And if it's not, do we have to

Next email comes from anonymous. Hi guys, is Peter MALINEUW the jj Abrams of video games over promising and under delivering?

Thanks? I know I love this question. Jj abrams is not.

Even remotely in the ballpark at.

Peter Malley, Like, it's very different. J j Abrams isn't.

As fun as Peter malineu.

No brands is Ford Copola someone who someone who clearly has talent like Fables a great game, like like Fristopher Copel has made amazing stuff. Megalo looks like a full on weird disaster that is more in the vein.

Of I think what Peter Molineux has kind of done into more.

I think it's important because he was able to hire all those canceled actors. Do it weird like on tape, groping of people and stuff. Yeah, it's a really weird thing, but that was that's just that's Ai. That's just Holly trying to keep you. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't I don't think it's j J. But I love like the spirit of this question, love it.

I would love to figure out, like who in the film space is kind of the Moleneu.

Yeah, how do people feel about Super eight? These days? People think about that one anymore?

Quite frequently the film Oh what's that about?

Into Darkness?

I'll say it's really scary. I thought it was fine. No, it's e T right, it's it's his, it's his e T H. Yeah, it's all right. I like I like Super better than most of his I think mission impossible.

Three rules three does Rule It's great? Might that might be his best one that I like, Force Awakens, But then fine, that first Star Trek movie one.

Mala New hasn't made anything that I would consider like the worst thing in the media.

But JJ Abrams did.

Yeah yeah, but you you forgot about his blockchain game is the pro I did?

I did?

It feels like, well that's his episode nine, Fable the ride, Fable three the Ride.

Wow.

You know what, Maybe maybe I'm talking myself into this being the right comparison.

Yeah, maybe it actually works better Gotis. Yeah, that just didn't happen. And that's happened with Gotis. Nothing went went on.

Total movie but never made Curiosity. What's in the Cube? That's right? And I coicked on that cube a whole bit of time.

So I'm god it, we're so we're all so lucky we didn't win that. It sounds like it was.

A major I won the huge.

Oh yeah, that was the shock. It was actually only one. That's why it's fun for everybody.

Here's a real disease yay. Last three emails here. This comes from Alex and Bendigo, Australia. I would like the Australian saying, suffer in your jocks to get more play internationally. Please do what you can to make this happen. Thank you, Alex and Bende go Australia.

No, I won't stand for it.

Well, you're going to suffer in your jocks?

Huh, I could just smell that sense.

Ew I'm suffering now? You wishing pain upon someone's genitalia? Is that what they're saying.

I don't think your sweating.

Yeah, I don't think it's like you're just yeah, they want you to boots.

Kind of you know?

Yeah? Okay?

Do they say it in Bluey Yeah?

I can't understand anything they're saying on that show.

They say it and blooey, then I will accept them.

Mike, not be watching Bluey yelling English.

Never I liked never perfect.

Okay.

Next second to last email comes from uh Let's Switch to the Order ben Hey Bombers. In episode eight hundred and fifty four, Dan said that if he had heard the children shushing him, he would have lectured them about not doing that to adults. I say, nay, if you're being so inappropriate that children know better, you deserve to be shushed by them and feel shamed. Feeling that you cannot be corrected by kids. Is entitlement. Don't be a boom or Dan change your ways. Thanks Ben.

I feel like they would say, no, I'm older than them. I've earned it. I'm their older. They have to respect me. Haven't you ever heard that before? Like, damn, we have a lot of arguments against this.

Yeah, yeah, so yep. I can't believe. Oh god, this, I can't believe. I felt so much secondhand embarrassment three times on this trip. Last email of the show, I'm glad, Mike. Last email of the show comes from Travis in Fargo. Oh, shouts out to far Do you think human beings have any weird latent abilities that we don't know about yet?

Great question, Travis, Man, that'd be amazing. What if we all can fly? But no one figure out I just haven't done it right, like what somebody does. Like, guys, this is just how you do it. It's like a TikTok or something like.

Tomorrow everyone is flying and it just really messes up with because not designed for that right.

It's gonna be a major problem.

But if people could just start flying tomorrow, I hate that.

I'm gonna look out my window after the show is done, and think maybe Mike's right, right, I mean if you tried no, no, no, you know what, I'm gonna go get a bunch of milk crates after this.

Off and see what happens. You can make the TikTok. It will be the most magine how well that TikTok flying off the earth challenge? He is God.

Oh man, there's gonna be like non people that are Adams, like, no, we're not meant to fly. I'm never gonna fly.

Yeah, like the people who like it takes longer to figure out than they're gonna get, get real self conscious.

It's gonna be. It's gonna be exactly the exact same split of people who could see those three d I like, I'm magic magic. I get if those you're not gonna be able to fly?

Oh, this goes back to my superior eyes, you know, near sight of this thing. But like I was so good at magic eye. There's God, forget the spelling pea can there'd be like a magic eye competition.

You want to be the best at looking at never mind, I know you do. I get I would want to so good at it.

I can like look at it for a second, but that's the Mona Lisa, that's a spaceship. That's sent I'd be so good at it.

You're listing the things you've seen in magic God, Yes.

Because I can see it so quickly, because I can cross my eyes really good.

All right, if it just looked like you opened your eyes a lot.

That's all.

Okay.

All right, that about does it for the emails for this week. Mike Minatti. Where can people find you on the internet if they want to?

Uh hey, yeah, check me out on that site games be. You might have heard of it. Welcome to Amoron Connor.

Like trying to.

I felt back because I've been traveling. I'm like, I'm like, I haven't you know. I gotta still get get that train rolling a bit more, gotta work on an introduction post and everything.

Yes, well it's just word press. You can just get in there and start right. Yeah, it doesn't work anyway.

Yeah, that's just that's all made up nonsense. But yes, please go to games B to be very excited, very excited to see all the stuff and Round is gonna have cooking up for us, Gonna get some in depth stuff going on in there.

John Workin Folks, find you on the internet.

People can find me a floppy adult on my personal accounts, or go to vgb's dot com and vgbs where you can find everything on socials.

Awesome, lovely, Lovely, Nikki.

What's popping this week for you? Nothing? Okay? Wow?

Okay, grub You got anything else you want to you want to plug?

When we were doing the last episode of Blake Club before we took the break, we we me and Dan and Mike talked beforehand that we were going to try to force pickle Draft to animated and animate us doing the Blue intro, and we were going to say that we were going to try to do that. We were just going to start singing it. And so I started doing it and we're saying stuff, and then Mike just nos sold it so hard that that I think pickle

Have no memory.

There's an actually Now, well, okay, Mike, in your defense, it's possible me and Dan talk to each other about it and never told you so.

To think I was not a part of this, I do.

That sounds possible.

I do actually have a thing to plug. John and I have a podcast called if You're Driving, Close your Eyes.

It's comedy.

It comes out every Friday. No, wait, is that true? Mondays now we recorded on Friday.

Huh, but yeah, you can find that wherever podcasts are sold. If You're Driving Close your Eyes. Folks, expect a slightly odd week, not just because it's B week, but Game Mess mornings on Wednesday and Thursday. Grub is traveling on Friday, so no mornings that week because it's also packs week.

Oh God, love traveling.

Can't wait to see you guys out there. I'm not going, but Dan Reikert, Mike Manatti, Jeff Grubb, to More Hussein and Lucy James are going to be there. We've got two panels. We've got a BombCast Revengeance happening as well as a Blight Club panel Poppin'.

All Club Live as well. Uh.

We tried our darned best to schedule a film in forties for this week. We may have to compensate and do that next week as a make good, but we're digging out wicker Man from the Giant Bomb Premium Vault and going to put that out on the Giant Bomb Presents. Ye shouts out to Marino for that lovely idea. We're also going to have a Bee Light Club sometime tomorrow as well as a new season of Blight Club starting tomorrow. It's going to be Mike's turn at the wheel.

Yeah, we'll get him.

He's so excited he loves it. Voicemail dump Truck popping off this week as well, with the original driver of the truck, Ben Pack, hanging out in the dumpster we broke him out of podcast jail. I believe Bailey also wants to be on that because her name begins with a bee. So Grub take a quick break and break before the long week.

Hell yeah, I appreciate that I can actually pack my bags.

Yes, because I know you didn't want to do it yesterday.

Shut up, j I know I sit it aloud and then I didn't do it. I'm like, I hope no one brings it up. Well, damn it, Jan, Well here I am buddy.

Also look forward on Thursday, we are having Giant Bombs first Annual Spelling b Invitational Invitational. Uh. I believe our current competitors are Nicky Grayson, Turbo, Sean Grub, you're you're announcing with me. Uh, we're also going to get Emma Fife. But also that the two main competitors who will really boil down to maybe.

In the end, I hope they both lose.

No, it's because.

Because these two got very heated at each other in front of a chocolate museum by the river as I was drinking my glass of wine spelling congruous, I.

Guess, and then like these two are yelling about it. Bailey Myers and Dan Record are also competing in Giant Bombs first spelling b But folks, what we learned today. We learned that John's going to get into fracking really hard. We learned the honey can kill you if you drink too much. We also learned that we might make the milk Creak Challenge happen. It's Game Awards because I have no fiduciary responsibilities to Nicki. Sunglasses are apparently for babies

We'll see you the rest of this week for Bee Week until that next week for another episode of the Giant Bob Guys.

I love you.

Good b figures out for bees.

That's right, get killing me wing, bet you goddamn let me see some beans out and put this finger out in front. Oh no, sorry, no, don't do that.

Don't do that.

It's oh