875: Uniqueness of Your Digit

Hey everybody, it's Tuesday. I'm your host Jeff Grove for the Giant BombCast here on giant bomb dot Com. I am standing in for our boy Jan Ochoa, who is busy in a living email. Joined by a new co captain of the ship. Let's see, I'm gonna pick who Am I gonna pick? Sean Turbo Sean McDowell, how are you doing?

I was really worried you were gonna pick someone who isn't actually running the show today.

I will be very upset.

Yeah, someone actually running the ship with me. Yeah, Sean is streaming because we're It's a well run operation over here. But thank you so much Sean for handling the levers, the ones and the twos. I appreciate it. Also joined by Mike Manatti. Mike, how are you doing?

Hi? It's me. It's Mike Manatti.

Uh yeah, yeah, I'm good, warming up a little bit out here.

I'm able to go outside and not feel pain all the time, so that's nice.

Yeah, I'm right there with you. I was like, I am going to go on a walk today, feeling pretty good, feeling chipper, looking chipper. Dan Reichert, how's it going in Minneapolis?

I'm also going to be walking today because it is above freezing for the first time in a long time.

Little snow's melting ice.

The ice that was in my cooler that I threw out after my New Year's party is starting to melt on the deck.

Hell yeah, yep, the frozen tundry. I'm like beginning to see like a little bit of ground again. So that's it's nice out there. Yeah, we're gonna talk about video games at some point on this show. But how's everyone doing? What's everyone been up to?

I finally saw Wicked?

Yes, what's going on with you?

I need Jan here for this one.

I watched half of Wicked.

I want to hear about it on your phone or you're checking your phone during.

I was checking my phone of course. Yeah, we can talk about that too if you want it. Like I knew you watched Wicked because before we started you were singing Wicked, yeah, NonStop?

Yeah yeah, man, Wicked should have been my whole personality like fifteen years ago.

I don't know, I've never could see this thing before. Is that anything?

No one morens than Michid No, not your best work.

I kind of like it.

That's yeah, I mean lost.

It's not terrible, but I remember it before the show that you've gotten good improvde I take.

It all back.

No, that's fairly.

When you say you saw half of it, you mean that you saw half a part? What do you just saw part one?

Very good, very good point. I should clarify. I've seen half of part one. I started watching with the family and then we got busy, as we do, and uh, I'll we paused it and we'll go back to it at.

Something my nieces are obsessed with.

They're nine good, like yeah, like they like watched The Wizard of Oz the other day because they're so into liquid right now.

So that's how I do. Wonder how do they feel about the Wizard of Oz? My brother says they liked it right. I would like to check. Maybe they were on their phones the whole time to like it for sure?

Yeah?

Yeah, do you know I'm so vindicated about this phone conversation when I did the Next Landern thing and Vinnie Caravella beloved Vinnie caravellas. I will go further than you, Dan. If I'm watching a movie and my wife falls out her phone, I will pause the movie and just look at her and then when she puts the phone away, he'll be like, Okay, are you good for me to start again?

Like that sounds like I love Vinnie. I would slap somebody if they did that.

Yeah. Also, not the conversation, which is how I knew.

You know, this is one where you guys are all misrepresenting a conversation.

Now literally here's how it literally happened. You were saying, I'm doing this new thing where I watch a movie and then I don't look at anything about the movie afterward, and I'm like, oh, I say that.

Wait what I did not say that. I do look up the movie afterwards. I do keep a running roller decks in my head of like, oh, this is gonna drive me nuts. I got to look this up after the movie. Who was that guy?

I always I letterbox the movie. I look it up.

Somebody else was saying the thing, maybe that was Backler or something. I always look up the movie out.

Okay. So someone said that and I'm like okay, and I was like, yeah, I'll just look up during the movie. I will just look up who. Like if we have a conversation with my wife, I wonder who that is. We'll just look it up. Real quick, and you're like, you're like during the movie, and you were, and I'm like, yeah, everyone does that. It's really normal. And so when I asked ninety five percent of people okay, it was like ninety two point five perf. I don't remember where I put that.

No, because that is reasonable, Like I don't look up stuff about the movie during the movie. But if you're just trying to see like who's this actor or when did this come out or who directed this something, I would not have taken a hard stance on that. It's It's literally general argument was are you on your phone? Are you checking your phone during you?

Yes?

You get turned it into that right, But that was in two different conversations because I was there and I edited the show. You two were having two entirely different conversations.

You you imagine a scenario and got mad at that. Dan, Yes, that is.

Correct, and I was saying, I'm hardline on that, like airplane mode, throw the phone off the deck, you know, like nowhere near me.

And I think that's I would love to do that. That's commendable. We just you know, I usually when we sit down to watch a movie these days, it is like me and my wife are like, this is still a time when we're also talking because we don't get a lot of time to do that.

Oh no, but Bunk and I have. We used to do a whole podcast where we talk about movies after we watch movie. Now we're just in the movie. The credits are rolling. Then we talked talk about it for a while. Then we letter Box said, so, yeah, we do talk about him stuff, but like, oh no, you're focused during the movie, you know. Yeah, No, I just, uh, we don't have that kind of time. So it's like, I want to spend this time with you, and that's more important than the people in the box on the TV.

All right, So he just loves his wife more than you did.

I think.

Every week I think I can't give my opinion on this because I'm going to like, I'm gonna lose a lot of my likability if I start going.

On, please do, He'll turn, He'll turn.

All I'm gonna say is like some people like like there's a lot of comments, like people are addicted to screens.

They have to look at their phone during movie. The movie is also on a screen.

Just dedicating your attention to one thing for an hour and a half is not that.

Crazy, Mike, your brothers are on the record saying it's a problem how to your phone.

I believe that it is a problem because they're jealous of my life.

No, every time I see a comment about Mike Banati, I strolled out two inches and I see a response from Mike Manatti everything said about him on the internet, I believe.

Okay, I'm gonna shift. We were having a conversation about whatever before the show today, and uh, there was Mike. You made some reference to the three bes of Dwight and you spelled beats B E, A T s now. The vegetable is not spelled that way, and I just thought that was very on brand for you to misspell the vegetable.

Yeah, But as I was doing it, I'm like, I think this is wrong.

I think I'm getting I think I'm having a Beatles problem here, or or the beats from.

Doug, the beats from Dog right. Yes, look, I'm.

I'm not thinking about beats very much.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm I'm a big I'm turning into a veggie guy here.

And beads not really on those shortlists.

Beats are the ones that are like, uh, they're like asparagus where they can change your out it like your waist and it's like a scary thing when you when it happens the first time, you're like, why is it that color? And you're like, oh, okay, I had beats. You have to learn that one the hard way. But yeah, how how are the vegetables going? Dan? Great?

Having every day? I had some bone list skinless chicken, breast, and brussels. I had like a pound of Brussels sprouts last night. That was good as hell. What about your injury? Oh yeah, that's actually a hell. And I mean none of the cuts were deep. I mean the worst is there's the one on the.

What happened that aren't paying attention to your social media feeds?

Okay, so I was chopped. No, I wasn't even chopping.

I thought I was gonna chop onions, but then I looked up, like because I like Caesar salads and know they're very basic, but like I do like the taste, and so I got an onion out and I got the veggie slicer out. It's one of those like waffle you know, like grid things for trunk to chunk, you know, like I.

Have to say It's almost comical how much like protective plastic shielding is on the face.

But that's the thing.

I cut it in a weird way, Like I've used that a million times and it's not hard to just don't don't do it safely. But I thought I was gonna need it and I didn't, and so I was like just cleaning it basically, and I had the top part and I didn't take the blades out, even though you can easily remove that square blade thing. I was like, ah, I'm just running some water over, getting the like onion bits off it or whatever. And then I like, I

Could be the big one.

She's walked into the basement and seen me laying on the ground with blood pouring out of my head. She is the exact same scenario in the kitchen. So yeah, she just went and got a bunch of like alcohol and cleaners and bandages and bandaged me up and everything. And yeah, it's been healing quickly. None of the cuts were super deep. The only one to see, the one on the knuckle is like every time I bend it, it like opens up more.

Yeah it's a problem, Yeah, but you feel better. I was getting annoyed because the same time you're doing this, I was just making a stew and like I made it with red wine, and I drink the red wine.

It hit me.

Expect herd So I did like a drunk sweet and all of a sudden, you do that. Everyone's like, man, nobody a giant ball can be trusted to cook It's like me in with them profusely.

Mike is just slightly buzzed rays over here.

It's like, sure me grow like our fast food, but we also can cook, like.

I'm getting.

I do like pitting Mike and Jan against one another in the cooking thing and like only acknowledging one of them being able to cook at one time, because it does deeply bother each of them. When you do that.

Jan is definitely a much more impressive and better cook than I am.

I don't want to.

I don't need to put a chance level. I just don't want to. No Fitstan be put on the level of the guy who just waffle iron cut his hand. There was a freak accent. I had nothing to do with cooking, all.

Right, and anyone else have anything else going on? Uh? I know, Sean, we talked about your TV a little, but you got your settle bit.

Yeah, all this retro stuff that we're doing in general, especially some this.

Is this is your family CRT.

Yeah.

That's what makes it so cool is that this is this literally the CRT I played games on as a kid, and so I kind of forgot that. We never actually end up taking it to a recycling center. It was just in storage, my mom's storage closet for like what a decade and a half, and I took it out and it's dusty, it's dingy, it's dirty. I cleaned it up. I unfortunately took a little bit of the paint off and doing so. But you know that can that can be fixed later. No, this is it's just a sanyo,

The picture surprisingly rare because when I go to like look for a good CRT on Facebook marketplace, most of the time like, okay, this looks pretty solid. Let me see the connect and it's just coax. That's nuts to me, of course. Yeah, even the relatively modern ones only have rf co x. Yeah, so that's awesome they had to have.

Yeah, it's a very late CRT. We bought it to replace our TV that was dying. This is from two thousand and five. So yeah, oh wow, I guess the rand scheme of thing you didn't see that much use because what we did get in HDTV late, but it was still like twenty thirteen ish, so yeah, this is it's pretty gently used. The only thing is because it's a late one, there's some quirts there, Like it's a flat screen, so I can't use light guns on and stuff,

I always like that, like we have one on cam.

It's so nice to just like, oh, I can just pick something thematically appropriate or something I'm meant to right now, Like I love having that shure.

Yeah, exactly.

Like the r day I was thinking, I was thinking about putting Ninja Guide in on in the background, and I'm like, oh, that attract mode is like one cutscene and that's kind of out.

Yeah.

Yeah, this is kind of the rabbit hole I'm going down now. You know, Grub has his handheld Dan Gondola as well. But I'm getting more and more retro systems. I did get my Xbox three sixty I'm getting that modded in time here because I want to just have.

All original hardware.

This is My thing is I love having original hardware and then combining it with like a flash cart or a mod or something like that. You just play all all the classic games but the old hardware. And yeah, it's it's super cheap to do. So I got a three sixty with the power cable with the controller in the box for eighty bucks on eBay.

Like nice, Yeah, I.

Sorted that sweet spot there. If you don't want super rare stuff, you kind of just want older stuff, it's a good time to do it right now.

Yeah, the three SIXTYPS three wei era is very cheap right now, even like original Xbox, you can't find too much of a super expensive right now.

But that's how I started the two.

It was just like I got all the actual consoles and I just got ever drives for everything.

And then you move on to misters. We wanted the handhelds and all that.

Well, that's the thing over the weekend talking. You don't put out his mister slash.

P s one here.

Transparent blue?

I did. I did transparent blue as well. I got the gron right, I think I'm gonna be jealous of you guys. What's my blue one rive? Well, that's the funny thing that was grass always greener.

The one that I wanted was the only one that they're not doing as Founders dish. I want the white because it's mild after the PS one slimy.

So yes, right, yes, I have then I should get that out and see what I can do.

I've got that too.

Yeah, if you find something, let me know, because I just sitting on the shelf.

Okay, I bet there's like an om sort of drive replacement.

Oh I would love that. Yeah, say what the superst always say what the superstation is?

You know what's funny is Like I was trying to talk myself out of it, like why am I getting this?

I have original places you want? I have a retro tap up.

What really got me was the idea of I don't have a mister at all, and also the idea of loading up the Saturn core on that thing.

That sounds nice. There's so many Saturn games I want to play lately.

Yeah, if anybody doesn't have the full details yet because we've lost over Yeah, I'm talking you done. Who's been putting on, like, you know, more and more retro stuff under his company Retro remake they did the Mister pie, which is, you know, like a mister clone that's way

Speaking of the analog like that. Sixty four has got to be soon, right, I prefer that one one, I thought, so, yes, me too, skew one. Yeah, yeah, that'd be nice if I just showed up one day. I'm very excited about that.

Even though I did get this and sixty four up and run and I'll put another and sixty four upstairs on HDTV and then.

I'll have it.

I'm going to keep that on the HGTV for sure.

And sixty four on every floor is kind.

Of I was really thinking about getting Atomic Purple, just to like follow you guys down that rabbit hole. But I'm like, nah, Like when I get that, the superstation is like six months out potentially because they have to manufacture it and and chips from China, but that'll run the N sixty four, mister Corel, I'll be fine with that. I do want to get coming out pretty soon here though. The new version of the Retro Tank four K I do a lot that literally bring everything together.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that's what I'm gonna get. What is it? Do you remember what it's missing? Sean from the more expensive.

Version, Extremely specific stuff that most people extremely.

Like I will almost never use it.

It's like image rotation on the retro Tank itself, so like for arcade stuff. But you know that's the kind of thing you can do it on whatever you're playing on a lot of time. Yeah, just turn the TV sideways. Yeah, but yeah, it's usually obscure things like that. A more recent one is Jeff, you and I talked about this

So yeah, yeah, I'm probably gonna end up getting on because I know that stuff is stuff I'm going to use.

Yeah, So that's that's out of there.

That's like the end goal for my journey here is to get all these you know, retro consoles and mud and stuff, use the retro tank to output to both the flat screen O CRT, and then yeah, I'll have my nice gaming set up the way I want it, the way I've always wanted.

It's when I was doing like quackshot speed runs. The Mister is great at like you know, HDMI out to capture and then the I think I had yeah component out to the TV, which is nice, and the CRT reminds me my first the one I had all through my teen years was when I worked at Funko Land. We had six Kiosks, we had an he asked Genesis, super PlayStation, Dreamcast, and sixty four, and then while I was there, they made the decision game stop, was like, we're not selling anything before PlayStation one.

And so that's when like.

All of this, all the cartridges, all that shit went out. Basically, they took all that down. They had three nineteen inch just like nothing fancy, but three nineteen inch monitors and they're like, you know, five of us worked there, and they're like, oh, you guys want this, And so that was the one I used all through my teen years.

Is the main nice. I mean that thing must have been turned on NonStop. He did how long did it last? You did it last year until you were done with all.

Of high school? For me?

And I know what I think I took I took it to college.

I don't think I bought a new TV until like my first HTTV around like mid two thousands, like The Dead Rising was.

I remember the first game I said those things soon, Yeah, see your TV. I still have it.

It's like the one I like grew up with, Like I had it since, like I don't know, middle school, And it's great. It has the VHS player built into a bit of classicate a little bit. It's it's it's old. I use it forever.

I played so many things on that, but.

It's still like just having it in the room, knowing that there's a GameCube hooked up to it.

It just feels right.

I think in like CRTs can like break in away that gives them more character, or they can break it away where it's like you can't look at it and it's kind of roll of the dice. I you know, CRTs for a long time, people were expected to just keep those for like thirty years. So the ones I grew up in my house were from the seventies and things like that, the ones that wasn't like the main TV that my dad would use every day he got from home from work. And so I have a lot

People have told me before why it won't happen, But I still hope that there's going to be, like you know those people making retro consoles, somebody just makes new CRTs.

Well funny you say that that's Taki's company, that their final product is going to be a PVM like replicated using March.

Yeah, but it's like they're not going to be using a proton gun, right, or like it's not.

Going to be a new CRT. It's going to be, but it's going to be an LCD that basically has like so we talked about the retro tanks and that like has cr really complex CRT shaders built in. It's presumably going to be that, but like on like a little LCD, you can take a round with you.

Yeah, gotcha CRT emulation, gotcha. Yeah.

Breaking news here, our own Janet Choa is not here because he was hosting a big all hands meeting this morning and he told us beforehand that he was going to try to sneak in yadada mean into.

The thing, and he did.

He did first thing, and then I sent him a message during the all hands meeting saying like, if you can sneak in and I love you solo, I will venmo you ten dollars right now. And he just popped into our chat and said, did you hear me say I love you solo in the meeting?

I think he's getting a video.

I am one button press away from sending him ten dollars out of my pocket.

Yeah.

If he can send the proof, I will send it immediately. I trust jan though, I believe him.

I believe and I believe that we have already been talking about video games for a minute, but that can't stop us from talking about more video games.

Wow, Okay, Jane's gonna give me any other thing. I'm sending him money right now.

Oh you guys, not here music.

I hear that thing.

I can. I think I can think it'll be on the recording. I did though, Okay, well that'll work. It'll work next time, so but it will be on the recording. All right. Let's see here, let's start with Dan. Will work our way from the past the future, super Mario Land Dan tell us more about that.

I don't know where this came from.

It's just like, you know, sometimes like you got games you're working on, like I've been working on Red Dead two and stuff like games that are like, okay, I need time to like sit down and sink into this game. And sometimes it's like, ah, you know, you're gonna be tired within thirty minutes and go to bed. I just want to pick something up easy and just play something real quick. I don't know what got me to randomly do this, but I just picked up the analog pocket.

I loaded up Mario Land one. You know, I beat him a couple of times.

I did mary Land one and two on stream, like four or five years ago, just in one sitting, but I don't really remember it. And goddamn. Like I beat one and two and had a lot of thoughts on him. It's, uh, there is a massive leap between one and two. It's insane. One is what's a game?

Yeah?

Yeah yeah, And it made me think playing them that, like I think as a kid because I never owned them as a kid, but I would play like my friends or whatever if they brought them to school or something, and all I remember was like a Sphinx boss And so I must have only played one back in the day because like playing two now, it's like, holy shit, this is like this is a real ass Mario game. This is like, in some ways more interesting than a

Mario Zone where you're going through a Mario mech and a Pumpkin zone.

Like you know, if there's one criticism I think you can levy against the Mario series is like a lot of them. Lean on, here's the Lava World here's the ice world, here's the air world, whatever. Every fucking world I went into here is like Turtle Zone. What this is an old Turtle zone? Turtles God. And there are so many just weird little things like enemies and stuff like there's one level in the Macro Zone in the Attic where you get a question mark block and a heart comes out and.

Some motherfucker just shows up and steals it and runs away. It's just this guy that shows up in one level. I've never seen this motherfucker in any Mario game. And I'm looking this up and it's some guy named the Collector that just shows up and steals the ship from you in one level. And then there's mass like Jason Mass, guys with knives in their heads and shit.

Yep like that Jason Goomba's yes, and great, Oh my god.

I just fucking loved it.

Like it's a two is a tremendous, tremendous mariagain that stands right up there with NES and Superintendo Mark.

It was always one of my favorites. And you're right, like the leap from one to two is incredible. It's it's not one of those things like you know, like one's age. Everybody always thought Super Mario Land one was kind of weird.

They just hadn't figured out how to do Mario physics on a game Boy at that point.

Yeah, the sprite size, you know, because they wanted to have the same screen, like the viewport basically that NIS had, and you just can't do that on that smaller, lower resolution screen. That's why two was a lot smarter about having bigger sprite for everything. So I think it was just more legible.

Yeah, there's ushrooms and the coins and stuff in the first one or the goomba, they just yeah, looks like a t I eighty three, you know. And then you played two and it's like that's the Mario I know from Mario World, you know.

And I left just like it's just so ridiculous. The story is that Mario has a castle. I Princess Peas castles Mario's castle in Marios steals it, He's get it back.

It's like, what the extited universe decided to give Darth Vader a castle on the planet where he got like murdered by Hobie Want It's like, what the fuck are we doing here? The same idea? I love it.

Oh, and at the end of when you kill Warrio and it turns into weird little bald kid Mario.

Warrio, I was like, what the fuck is that? Oh?

Yeah, this morning I started Warrio Land is so good.

Have you ever played it?

I don't think I've ever really played it. I've probably played it.

I probably played a couple levels, and I think it was just it so turns the Mario stuff on his head.

Words.

It's still a side scrolling platformer, but it's like, wait, okay, so I'm charging things and I can pick things up like it just it was so different. But I need to get that out of my head because I love Mario too, even though that's very different and also involves picking things up. So I think I am going to play through Warrio Land now. But yeah, when you are not Super Warrior or whatever, it's that that fucking weird little bald guy.

Who is that?

Who is that little kid?

Have you played the other Warrior Land games before?

The only ones I really played were once I started.

I started reviewing in five, so anything that came out five or later, so like shake It. I think there was maybe a GBA when I reviewed back in the day two or three I played Master.

Guys played, yeah, because Warrio Land four was very early on in the game Boy Advance. All all of the game Boy Slash game Boy Advanced Warrior Lands are very good, I think, and interesting. Yeah, they're notably better on alternating ones. I think. I think it's like two and four because four is phenomenal for is an incredible game. I think two is the best of the game Boy trilogy.

Yeah.

I think three recently and liked it a lot.

I think they're all good. They're all good good, it's not bad good, it's good. And then oh this was.

And then yeah exceptional.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, he sent two or three where the whole thing is like, well, Warrior is a bad guy, so bad guys don't hurt him. They like sort of transfer their.

Remember it's one that's not that's one.

One is a pretty traditional two D platform, where two and three are both like that kind of thing.

Two and three, Yes, okay, yeah, you're right.

Virtual Boy Warrio Land is the one that's actually more of a direct sequal to Warrio Land one.

It's that same place. Also a very good, very game.

Yeah, if you have a modern three ds are just soft moding, just fire up that Virtual Boy emulator on there, and it's actually a really good time.

So yeah, I mean for a virtual Boy emulator on the in the Medoquest three, same thing, very good, yeah, sure.

Sure, yeah good in appreciation for this.

And again as much shit as I talk on the game Boy, it's like the pocket is so good and I got the trim uy, so it's like I've been very into just like you know, and I also like the sp you know, grub you told me to put.

Like the menu I or whatever on it.

Something just really deep in that like portable fucking round mode right now, and so I'm playing them now. It's like, shit, Okay, Mario Land two I would have fucking loved. But then again, back in the day, I hated the game Boy because I had to sit next to a wall outlet because I never had batteries, So sure I probably wouldn't have liked it anyway, you know that that.

Yeah, I guess for me, it was like the game Boy was okay. My parents got it for me because it was cheap, and then because of that, they're like, I guess we have to keep good him batteries when he needs it, So they kind of always always provided me battery.

I think my grandma got me the game Boy for Christmas, and so it stayed at my dad's house because it was his mom they got it for me. My dad was batteries, right, My dad wouldn't be buying batteries, so I did. I think I personally bought an ACA adapter so I could play it. But it's like, I've got my nes right here. Why why would I sit next to this wall and play Mario Land.

Yeah, that's actually kind of sad, Dan, I'm sorry, all right, Uh let's see here, Okay, Dan, what is grun?

Grun?

I was very impressed by that. Where the fuck did I hear about it? I saw someone I think it was Jane Garcia. I think Jane Garcia. I saw post some flu Sky about it and she just said like like a comparison to Outer Wilds, and I was like, all right. She said she was liking it, and then she compared it to Outer Wilds. Is like that's all I need to hear. And if you've played outter wild

It's given me that similar feeling, you know, And.

It's overwhelmingly overwhelmingly positive on Steam. And it came out in October, so I feel like I heard the name and then never actually looked into it. So yeah, looking at it now, I liked. I always like the low fidelity vibe of it. But yeah, that looks that sounds very interesting. I'm gonna check this out. Is is it like a similar sort of length in terms of like the how long before it resets like you said, like three three ish days or something like.

That day in terms of just cheer like minutes, you know, It's it's probably similar, like you know, And there are like eleven endings and I think I unlocked like six of them, and I think there's probably like one good ending and the other ones are like oh a dog attacked me, you know, or like, oh, some weirdo showed up in a hallway and now I'm dead, you know, like and you don't even know really what happened. So I never felt too frustrated when I had to go back.

Yes, totally, all right, let's bounce around here. Sean. You've been playing some fighting games. How's that going?

Well? So far?

A little rocky maybe, but yeah, I've been playing Virtual Fighter five Revo, which came out yesterday, and Virtual Fighter is okay. So this is gonna be an interesting journey for me because I mentioned around this time last year actually when techn eight was you know, weird leaning up to that, I'm kind of new to three D fighting games in general.

It's nuts on.

I really grew up with much outside of Soul Caliber, like I dabbled with. I had Virtual Fighter four, I played a little bit of Tech and three at friend's houses. It's the first time I'm really like taking them seriously. With Tech and eight, and now I want to get good at Virtue a Fighter five, and so fame one

And it's bond like.

Virtue a Fighter has always been kind of the epitome of easy learn, hard to master because it's it's a three bun fighting game. Either it's just a punch, kick and block and you can do you know, combinations of those buns will do things like punch and guard is

Saw what I saw on Steam.

It's like got mixed reviews of Farm trying to figure out why it seems like it is about the customers.

So here's the thing. Here's the thing.

It's a very bare bones package. If you just get the base level, Like yeah, you don't get what people are saying. You give zero customization options at all. If you just buy the base version and you have to.

Make the twenty dollars version, that's just kind of the right going here.

That's the important thing here because like people are mad about that. But the entry level to get in here is twenty bucks. Like, this is a brand new port that's being released, and it's not sixty, it's not forty, it's notinven thirty, it's twenty dollars base. There's a first week sixteen dollars on sale, first week discount for sixteen. All the key sellers like Fanatical, GMG, they're all selling it for.

Like thirteen bucks.

Like, I think that's okay to not get a ton of content, not get a ton costumes, but have it be very cheap to get in there. And you know it's they put rollback neck code in there now so you can have a good online experience. Apparently the matchmaking has been kind of funky to start out here, which hopefully they get that sort but it's I think it's a reasonable entry point. And then if you want all these different costumes and stuff. The Dog's Edition you can

It's forty seme right now with the twenty dollars kind of you know, entry fee of the promotion right now. So yeah, yeah, not crazy.

Yeah, so I think that's reasonable to get. You know, they have options there for people. But the yahhy scheme, the mixed reviews, and yeah, I'm having fun learning it so far. I played some games online that code seems solid. I heard that. I heard some people say that it was a little rough, but I haven't been having any issues as long as like the people's ping isn't too high. It seems to be holding up. And I'm having fun cowt just learning characters. And there's even the one last

Yeah I didn't.

I was like a ton of respect for Virtual a Fighter more than like I actually played it, because I remember for Evolution was the one on PS two, right.

Yeah, yeah, that's the one I remember that was.

That was the one I box I remember reviewed very well, and I remember just that three buttons set up was so interesting to me in the era of like, you know, teching numerous seconds at that point, because what in the thing like the timing instead of like a traditional like Perry thing. I don't know if it was a block button or a grab button, but if you see something coming at you, don't you hit back and a button to kind of like Judo flip them or to kind of counter in.

That sounds similiar to me.

I think doing that, remember that, because I I know dead or Alive actually leans into that even more.

Maybe that's okay, thank you, but okay, that makes sense.

Yeah, this this one's like something I mean, I remember the evolution was.

Yeah.

I just remember like playing VIA four Evolution and being like, you know, my friends and I in the dorms were just mash buttons and hit each other. But you dig into the tutorial a little bit and it's like, oh, this could be a very high level fighting game if you have to be I.

I often think about soccer I when I think Smash four was coming out and he was talking about competitive Smash or maybe it is one of his like a YouTube videos where he was like, but why would people want to play Smash competitively? If you want to play a competitive fighting game, go play virtual a fighter too.

Is true that they put the tripping? Did they put the tripping in Brawl? Like to Spike competitive players? Mike man that's so fucking funny, and I respect so much.

Not funny fun to ruin your game out of Spike for.

Relision, it's hysterical that Mike Manatti thinks Super Smash Bars Brawl is a bad video game four ten because of tripping.

I did not, Okay, I never says the fourth, but nobody said.

You've said bad so many times.

It's bad in that I don't know why I would ever play it when I just play all the good.

Smash change in history here saying.

This one is not good?

Yes, all right, stupid prettypid. I gave it a nine point nine as it's a phenomenal.

Yeah, you know, was that a spite. Would you have given it a ten?

If I know that? Maybe a ten?

Yeah, it's also float here and there's so many other problems.

Yeah, you know, are you it's a fucking Foh you can never say a game is floating ever after gave me you can use that word.

That's my word to floaty.

I didn't know. Go too Ku is doing this remaster as well as as the next Virtual Fighters. This is like them cutting their teeth. Does that give you?

Well, I mean that's what they originally did and why they're working on the new one. They did Ultimate Showdown.

Oh, they did Ultimate. I thought that that was a change. Okay, very cool? All right, Well so I mean then I guess still the question stands, are you playing this excited about their next foray into Virtue Fighters?

Well, I'm so excited for the next Virtue Fire. Yeah, and that's that's why they released this one on PC. And that's why I'm playing now. Is like I wanna I want to learn it. I want to get good.

Uh.

Combo Breaker is gonna be hosting as one of the games. I'm gonna like enter the tournament there, probably gonna do bad, but I'm gonna have fun. Time, and I'm yeah, we're gearing up for the next Virtue Fighter. It's I'm excited to say.

You're like, you know, you've been try kicks, you have a mania? Not yet.

I I've been checking out Pie again because she has the Lily COSTI if I want to pick it up. I've been checking out Vanessa was who I played back in the day and when I did dabble with it, so I tried playing her as well. And uh, yeah, I've kind of just been bouncing around to a bunch of different characters and yeah, it's it's been fun to experiment because I don't really know what I'm doing, hearing, kind of just learning.

Yeah, I am so mad about Super Special.

I might make it the best Smash Brothers.

You're such a Smash brother snowflake, Mike. I didn't know this, this Virtual Fighter five thing came out. I didn't realize that happened so.

Yet it me neither.

Actually, I just picked it up, so I'll be playing. I love virtually look.

At that too.

Yeah, maybe we could throw that on the website this week. That'd be fine. I this week have been playing Sniper Elite Resistance. I have not had a long history with the Sniper Elite franchise. It is mostly just streaming it a couple of times. Dan, I think we did it that one time.

You're still credit. You exploded Hitler's balls.

And then I exploded Hitler's ball. You're about seven and a half feet away.

I can't believe you guys did political content. There were a couple of fire brands, you know, right.

Rather than having a conversation with the man, I just shoot him in the balls. That is one of my moral failings, of course, I am. I'm really enjoying this game. That is clearly a middle of the road game. It's just one of those again, yet I have not played a lot of them, so and I bet there are a lot of people who are in that boat where like it's one of those b games. I've never like

Do you turn up all the frequency of the goals?

Yeah, that way of course.

Yeah.

You mentioned being like Diet Hitman, and I think there is a perfect version of this game that I would want where it's like I love the slow moo kills.

I want that every single time. That is what that series is to me.

I don't necessarily love the sneaking around stealth elements of it. I just even if I crank everything down, it's just like I'm just constantly getting caught and it's not fun for me.

Or are here like running into stuff like because you can at this point you can just shoot your way through this game.

I think, Oh, I always wind up getting caught in the just like you know, machine gunning, grubering everyone but hit Man. If you remember, was it Absolution that had that pre order bonus where you're just kind of like sitting on like a rooftop and there's a party of bad guys on another rooftop and it's almost like a Where's Waldo thing where it's like you're not even moving around, you're stationary sniping bad guys and getting like bonuses. It was just a pre order thing. I played way more

I don't need to move, just set me up somewhere, put somewhere, and then have every.

Fucking shot be matrix out game. What was that called silence? I want X ray head exploding stuff.

God, Soundscope was so much fun I got. I always say that galloping and it's just a cool tech on that one.

It is.

Yep, is there screen in the scope?

Yes?

Yeah, That's why the home points were never quite as good, because you're like, you know you scope screen?

Yeah this so yes? Silent or yes. The Sniper Elite Resistance is coming to game Pass this week. I think it's on the in two days, so you can pick it up then. And I think a perfect little game. If you already have game pass, or if you are someone who's like had some interest in this, you think that sounds like a good time. Like, honestly, if there were still rental stores, this is an easy go rent

Yes, yes, So I wanted to bring it up because I finally finished the game, and so now I think we've all finished it, right, Oh you beat it?

No? Did you drop it?

Because you got an instant kill with the thing underwater?

Not just one, but it happened to it was underwater and it was instant killed. Still, it's like two things I fucking hate. And I died like twenty times at that and I was like, I'm good.

Okay times I'm still platforms finish the Bowser's hurry. So I'm curious, can you say, broadly speaking, where you were, like, are you talking about the big I.

Was underwater and there was a big sit getting a pyramid.

I even got into the pyramid. I went and I watched the rest of the game. I was at like the last snake related thing. The only thing I had to do was like kill it basically okay, but then I watched the rest. So but you know what, I enjoyed this game. I don't want to deal with this fucking snake shit way.

This is the kind of thing I want to talk about here because now that I finished in we can all talk about a little bit more, you know, no spoilers, obviously. I think this game is really good most of the time when it when it's good because okay, I don't

The moment of the year.

Yeah, phenomenal, But then you have like so many like I had a lot of bugs. It's weird how buggy this game is and how I think unpolished in general. It is it It struck me considering how good the presentation is, Like I wasn't expecting to have it where like Indy would be hanging out a ledge it's an escape sequence. I need to get out, and he won't climb the ledge. I'm like looking around, Okay, am I missing something? Am I supposed to be going over here instead?

Combined with you.

Get a lot of audio bugs. That was my thing was like a lot of two hours later, like Indy would say, repeat a line.

So you'd have a conversation with someone who wasn't there.

Dan talking about the snake reminded was what instantly made me think about the bugs is because during the entire uh like pyramid sequence, they were repeating one line over and over and over through checkpoint resets, over and over. I just had to listen. After like half an hour to an hour, it drove me up the wall. And there's also things like okay, so in the open sections, it's not open world, but does feel little generic a

Yeah.

There's so many little things that kind of just bugged me throughout the game. So I really thought it.

Was like unpiled. Yeah, yeah, it's it's like unpolished in

Oh yeah, jew like snap into their animations and everything.

It was a little odd. Yeah, yeah, but it's.

Like you know, I think they found the balance where they ended up with a game that is still very easy to recommend, very good. It just is not like an unassailable masterpiece in any way.

Yeah.

I remember thinking, like when we were talking about it at Game of the Year, I think most of us were like working through it at that point, and oh man, that's so excited and talking about this. I can't wait to get back and play more of this shit. I wish I could have played it earlier, because it probably my ten lists this year, you know, now that I've mostly beat it.

Uh it uh, I don't think it would have made my top ten.

I like it. I think they did a great job with it.

I still agree with you know what I said about it's one of the best taking an ip and making a game that's faithful to the tone and feeling of that. But yeah, I think if I were to review it, it probably would have been like an eight. You know, it's like good.

You know, like your your brother's a huge Indiana Jones fan.

I just have sisters.

I'm Mike, I'm talking about I'm sorry. Yeah, CJ loves Indiana Jones. I Clark, Yeah, Clark ended up? Did he really like it. He loved it.

He loves Indiana Jones. He's the one who like made me go see Crystal Skull a second time.

What's funny. It was like he had the biggest bug I ever heard about. Though. We're like, he just skipped the climax of Vacts one, like that whole point part where like, you know, the Nazi finds the artifact and breaks it in and then the Giant shows up and you fight the giant like that just skipped to watch it on a YouTube lader.

He likes id.

He had just so much.

He was very forgiving of that. But I was like, man, that's wild. That's a pretty bad bu.

I think that's the dial though, because for me, it's like it did end up on my top ten because I just love Indiana Jones and this is so Indiana Jones that, like, you know, like with the Star Wars, the Ubisoft game, very easy for me to overlook the stuff I didn't like because they're giving me so much stuff that was like in my wheelhouse. So I think it's like, you know, if you enjoy Indiana Jones, we could take it or leave it and there's still a

I think that's right, and yeah, the Indiana Jones in this, and I also do like India Jones a lot, so that just, yeah, it helps, especially since it's been so long since I've gotten an Indiana Jones something that I really like, right, like doubt this and he was like generously fine and then obviously a bunch of other worst things. I do constantly think, Jeff about that Star War or out Lost comparison, right.

Because a lot of plays.

I feel like these games are of a similar quality and one just got like very right, it got it got treated. I don't say it got treated unfairly, but you know, people like very critical of it, and it maybe deserved it. I don't wost I'm not saying any of it just got a free pass and it says, but there was a different earned.

Earned difference of expectations is sort of what hurts Star Wars there, because you know, we hear Ubisoft Star Wars game and people have lower expectations because they're down on Ubisoft. But then we hear Machine Games Indiana Jones and we're like, oh, that's a perfect fit, and like this studio does like really good stuff looking forward to it. And you know, ironically, like the things I like about machine games as games

Other than the cut scenes, like the cut scenes very right.

Exactly it had done fighting enemies in this game. I think just in general doesn't feel good, but that leans into Indy isn't much of a fighter, Like, sure he gets into shootouts and stuff, super Yeah, he's not Nathan

Yeah.

I had a pistol point blank to a Nazi's head shot him. He just reeled backwards like, no, let me have this. So yeah, it was a bunch of little things. But I think that in general it's a very interesting and fun indie experience.

Yeah, And I think for while you and I Sean didn't love the beginning of Indy, most people seem to like be like on board with it pretty quick. Star Wars Outlaws does have a much rougher introduction, and it's like it turns into a very good game later, but it it does not start out as well. All right, let's see here, Mike Tokyo Extreme Racer. Both you and I played some of this. I played a little bit on stream, kind of not enough to get fully grasped

Yeah, I played an hour of it.

Like you said, it's early access, and I talk a lot about liking arcade racers and wishing we'd have more of them, and you know, like this is not Ridge Racer right in structure in a lot of ways. The one way it maybe is that the vibes are very good here. The whole sort of nighttime Tokyo City highway driving thing, going through all these tunnels and all these lights in the distance and these kind of you know, melodic beats happening. All of that is great. There's also

A reason why?

You're like, why do.

Real deep stuff? The structure of it like that.

I was kind of hoping for it to open up a bit more, because it really was I'm doing a loop around this highway and then you flash your lights at like somebody and you do a one on one race with them.

That's it's fun.

But I kind of kept like waiting for you know, is there going to be like a real race or because the highways kind of narrow, it's not really a drifting game.

You can drift, there's not a lot of room to do that.

So you know, I was like, Okay, at some point we're gonna expand here, and eventually I race so many people from one faction that I fought there like boss, but it was still just sort of another one on one race, so the vibes were very good. I almost wish, and you know, I hate being like I wish it was a different game. I prefer to have just some more traditional Hey, there's eight cars in a starting line

Yeah, Yeah, it doesn't need to be like full modern like need for speed game where like there's a million different races littered all over a map, but it's like I would like to like get off one of these exits, go find like maybe a small part of town where there is a set up race there, and yeah maybe and maybe that does happen eventually. Again, I don't know, but the way the structure works early on was I'm like, I'm just I just don't feel like I have a lot of options here in how I race, And.

It might still open up, either like in that game right now or as it gets further in development, because like you know, sometimes you get these branches where it's like you can turn left or right, but like the one is always blocked off. Yeah, so you know, I assume eventually I can go different places, and I'm not expecting suddenly to you know, get in the big open areas.

Yeah, all right, let's go with this. This game of the week, Ninja Guide in two Black. All three of you have been playing it. I want to get in there find some time, but I have not yet. Real quick before we do have all three of you played the original Ninja Guide in two before.

I played all every Ninja Guiden game I've played.

Okay, interesting you say that, Actually you go first.

I never played two, but I played all of one, and this is very okay.

So yeah, I played one and two and some of three, but it hasn't been since each of those games released originally. So I'm actually going back to the best of my ability to check some of those out because I want to do a comparison. And so I fired up Black in emulator, and then one Sigma is on game Pass and if I don't have access to original two, but two Sigma in Gay Pass and then now too black to sort of see yea, and how the different versions compare to each other.

Yeah, so I do wonder, like it seems like mostly people are pretty happy with this, but I have seen like some there's a conversation in the Ninja Guiden fan community about like, okay, is this actually the definitive version, and they're like, like scalpeling it apart, that's probably not gonna be something that that's gonna bother us too much one way or the other. How are you guys finding this game? Well?

I think it's so fun. It just feels good.

What I love about these Ninja Guiden games now, and I think it's maybe why some people have a hard time like jumping into them right now, is that there there's a kind of delineation of action games, and they definitely follow the more of like the Devil May Cry and God Have More than Later the Arkham games, Right, those are the real blueprints.

Yeah, x Men Origins Wolverine likes.

This says exactly.

You know, sometimes obviously took things from Ninja goid It, but even still, these Ninja Guiden games, they feel like they're doing their own thing, right, You don't really walk onto enemies, like enemies aren't going to attack you one at a time, right, the a three of them, we'll just come at you.

So you know you're really moving around a lot. But gosh, it just feels so freaking good. Still, that kind of calm as you pull off you know, those iconic moves, the swallow dive or whatever was.

Fam out of that so good, especially early on. Gosh, you just cut people's heads off. Then you figure out the Azuna drop. I'm not even usually a fan of the different weapons now I'm just gonna use the sword, but you get this kind of staff thing that it just goes wide.

It feels so freaking good just spinning that thing around like a absolute madman. So I've been having a ton of fun with it.

I love the clause later. I remember those were awesome.

And yeah, I've actually liked seeing the reaction to this because I remember back in the day, like I never was like, oh, this is better than one, but I thought it was also very good and you know, pretty close to one in quality, and for some reason it got a lot of ship back in the day. I think it's still reviewed fine, but everyone was kind of like the vibe of it being disappointing and a three yeah, three side, but two was good and I'm glad to see people coming around on it.

Yeah.

What I find interesting is that Ninja Guidance fans really seemed to like the blueprint of one, and when I went back to Black in particular because uh, Sigma Sigma sour smooth some of this stuff out. One is so much more focused on like the light puzzle solving and light platforming.

No DMC one resident.

Yeah, it has like yeah those Resident Evil one references which influences and I kind of liked I think I kind of liked the second one going away from that, Oh.

You do, okay, I thought you would like you would appreciate how much one has it. But like, you know, this is why I said during the talkover, and some people really did not like me saying that the talkover, but I did not like how Ninja Guy and Black I had, you know, at least I went back into like two levels of it, and yeah, there's like a decent amount like tracking and like grab the mcguffin to unlock the thing, and it is more focused on the

That's always been a Shiny series. They look like action figures and they always have.

And Unreal by default kind of has like a Matt finish to a lot of stuff. Like you look at the blood of enemies in this game and it looks like Clay almost. It's a little odd, and so yeah, I do think that the style is lost in translation a little bit.

It's also very heavy game.

That's Unreal lunch in five. But I think in general it's a good remake and it's I always think it's fun when they like do bring these games back, adding quality of life stuff and just make it more accessible.

And I remember little moments in the combat of those games that I love were that I haven't seen other stylish action character action games do. Where it's like you're being overwhelmed by enemies and you just killed one and his orbs floating around. It's like, Okay, if I can just land with enough time to hold and wide to suck in that orb and that fucking crazy ass attack and you just chop them all up, that feels so fucking good.

Yeah.

The Ultimate Technique or whatever it's called, that you can charge up to two levels and we just does like a canned like going to enemy to enemy to enemy, just like going to town on them and it's so satisfying.

Yeah, yeah, all right, yep, definitely was gonna play it. This one is not running great on Steam Deck, right, I would.

It's great on Xbox just me laying on your Xbox plants great.

I mean it's really heavy even yeah, like I'm my system, I have a just a thirty sixty TI and it's yeah, I have to like turn the internal res down to like ten eighty jeff. So like it's it's a heavy game.

For sure.

We on the PC then that'll be the way to play it.

Funniest update, I have been playing Crimson Skies on my rog ally via the Xbox Cloud streaming and that's been working fine. So I think I'm near the end of Crimson Skies and I like that game a lot.

I have not started Grim Fandango, but I'm making plans to do so this week because I wanted to start before January is over. So I got a couple of days.

Well, I I was waiting to get the Wii set up in earthing, but now that I have that step and everything, yeah, I planned.

So world Mitch the best student, You're the homework teacher's pet. Congratulations, Bridges, it's my old things. I love academics.

All right, that does it for the games. We're gonna take a quick he says, bricky break and we're gonna do that in on our a jam right now. We'll be right back after this. All right, we're back. Uh, let's do some news. Look gonna work there it is. Nope, you guys still aren't hearing it.

The recording of the doors.

Yeah, yeah, we'll just put it in there.

I don't.

There's no reason it shouldn't work now, it's just the broken computer's fault.

All right.

Uh news, I have it written down here somewhere. I'm so I can find that window. Let's start with one thing. I don't know why where did it go? I have it?

Want me to do it? Yea.

With Nintendo Switch to Preview event, confirmation emails are being sent out. Nintendo Switch to Preview events will take place in various locations across North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia between April fourth and June first. Nintendo has started informing registrants of their application status while waitless opening January twentine, for those who were not initially selected which You console official launch claier this year, with a full reveal plan

Anybody try to get in on this? Nope? I did not, No, not that close to me. Were close to me, So yeah, yeah, I guess I could go to New York.

But yeah, I mean, Mike thinking was wet me. Maybe they'll invite us, But now I'm like, I don't. I'm not so sure. I don't know things. Yeah, it's nice to want things, but yeah, so I didn't even try. But I did see like a lot of people including Kitt and Christa and Jeff Keeley being like I didn't get in. Jeff Kehiey was like, horrible day over here, and then he deleted the tweet after that, so maybe maybe felt bad.

I don't know, horrible day for Jeff Keeley. Oh No, it's rough.

What I find really interesting and it's kind of touched on here is how all the anxieties about the switch to being announced have just transferred over to how much will the switch to cost?

Yeah, and I mean that's a fair one. Money pays, given money to people sucks. So I understand that we are kind of dialing in though, where four hundred feels right to me. But I mean, god, I wouldn't be I guess I wouldn't be shocked if it's four to fifty. I would be shocked if with three fifty that would be. But I don't think there's really any shocks that go below four hundred.

Three fifty would shock me more than five hundred would shock me.

Honestly, four hundred has always been the most logical price point because.

It's just sort of like naturally falls it for you.

Yeah, especially if they drop the price of the Olan, you know, having a switch at two hundred, three hundred and four hundred. It just makes so much sense, you know.

Question, I feel like all of you know more about actual like horsepower and graphics and GPUs and stuff than I do. Will this almost certainly be let's say, more powerful than the current steam deck or.

Roger X much, not by much.

Yeah, it's gonna be like it's gonna be in that It's gonna be in that zone. It will like once all the bells and whistles are applied, will probably run games better than a Steam deck, and then probably better than a rock Alley, but not by much.

Yeah, it's like the difference between Xbox one and PS four. It's all within that ballpark, but yeah, one runs a bit better. The more interesting thing is that, because it's still in video, they're probably going to have some form of DLSS upscaling it to look nicer on your four KTV than any of the current handhelds do, and certainly better than the current switch.

And stuff will just be on by default, so it counts as the horsepower for that device. So yeah, I mean the effectively your games will be a little bit smoother than the current crop of handhelds. But very soon we're going to get a new crop handhelds from PC hands right after that that will be probably blowing this out of the water. But there's also be much more expense.

We already heard about selling ships come out of CES and yeah, the next way a handhelds are gonna be so much more powerful and switch too probably, but also yeah, not having that up scaling, so it's sort of like evens out a little.

Yeah, I think I think the way to think about it is somewhere between PS four and PS four Pro. It's whateverone keeps saying, whether it's closer to PS four Pro or PS four We are just going to have to wait and see.

I think people heard speculation of PS four Pro misunderstanding that, especially like when me and Grubbs say stuff like that, We mean it's going to run games like a PS four But like the PS four Pro did upscaling to those PS four games to make them look nice, That's what's happening here.

Better up scaling the PS four pro head that are checkerboard. Yeah, and no machine learning applied to that stuff. So yeah, they're It's going to be good for Nintendo games for sure, and a lot more third lot more third party games will run on this always.

The need to keep in mind is keep your expectations in check, and it will probably be a solid machine.

If Mario looks good on it, I'm happy.

Wow.

Okay, yeah, but what about Xbox games? How will that look on this shoe? Because Xbox will be on switch to Phil Spencer did a kind of some interview rounds last week here with Microsoft Gaming CEO Praise the Time, switching plans to support it with Xbox game ports. Xbox teams are prepping multiple releases for switch To, including the Level four Halo, Massive's Collection and Microsoft Flight Simulator. That's a bullet point here, Jeff. Is that all that's not all?

Okay? So yeah, and I got the doc, thanks Mike. This is not not all that's confirmed. All that is like between speculation and rumors leaks. Uh, stiff definitely, like in that same bounty, the same basket of leaks where hey, we've heard the Gears of War might be coming a

It's just gonna be incredible to me after all this, like you can't invite Phil Spencer out to coffee without him screaming about how they're going to release Xbox games on other platforms and yet like where they when Master Chief shows up on a play station, people are still going to like lose their.

Buying and be surprised.

Yeah, it does feel like, you know, the message is beginning to sync in. And yet you're right that there are still those on the deserted aisles during World War two fighting the war, not knowing that it's over. So yeah, but he's repeatedly basically said console war's over. PlayStation's basically saying the same thing. That's not gonna stick into every one of these kids heads.

Though.

It's it's good though, especially for some games. I loved Diablo three on the Switch. One actually a great way to play that game. So I could see myself may be getting back into Diablo four having that on the switch to you know, the next Halo. Sure, but there's something about the Master Chief collection, like, oh, I could play Halo one on the Switch.

It's just so novel. How could I say? Noticed?

It was very Sonics on a Nintendo platform. You know exactly they should call it.

They should call it Halo Combat Evolved Battle and.

And and the directory, and then they should definitely do a Sonic and Mario and Master Chief at the Olympic Games and.

Halo every once in a while.

God, God, I just hope that, like I could find I hope that in the next Metal Girl Solid Snake randomly falls down.

I would every would not you're telling you.

What I wouldn't like it?

No, I think, yeah, I think when you're trying to actually play a video game, you're down, You'll be because and fucking meddle your solid too when you roll when you're going up or down the stairs.

He just donks his head and eat ship and I laugh every fucking time.

I would love you best something.

Up and you slipped on bird Ship, not because algorithm said it was gonna happen.

Now you're wrong about this. I would love it.

Why don't we always do podcast? I don't know.

We're all trying to be TikTok YouTubers. That's what the meeting was about. How to be more TikTok yellers.

Yeah, boy, I don't mind if people don't like the show, but I hate it. It's like, look, they have to appeal to a younger audience.

What are you talking?

I never thought of that ever. We need to yell more. The kids like yelling. We're always saying that. Yeah, just honestly, just like yelling. At each other.

It's weird.

That's how friendship works. Yeah, it's odd. Uh.

Okay, So all these games are going to be on switch huh, and they're going to keep coming out to PlayStation. What does that mean for Xbox hardware? Well, in more interviews, he did a lot of this talking on gamer Tag Radio. Very good interview over there, if you want to go listen to this. Basically said we are going to try to make the hardware stand out on its own through

Right now, the backwards compatibility stuff was so good.

I would love more of that, but they already seemed disinterested in that.

But like, aside from that, I just like, what, what's even a possibility here?

I don't know.

Well, I think what he's getting at, though, is more Xbox specific ecosystem stuff, you know, like uh quick resume, you know, stuff like that at a hardware level, and then being the console where a game passes. I think that's the type of thing he's getting at, where sure, you can play those games anywhere, but there's still a lot of people who, you know, they tell us all the time they don't want a PC, you know, I mean grub blax poetically of our PCs, and some people

In terms of hedging things, he had to talk about Xbox Series S, something that people always point out as, oh, this is holding back what Xbox is doing with games. Of course that's sorry because for years they were still making games for Xbox One and they have to make

It sounds right, especially for them.

I think it's maybe a bigger struggling to play for third parties, right right, you have to do that optimization. Maybe they don't really want to or it's yeah, we saw a Borterskate three that for a long time it was this problem. They had to kind of get special permission to release an Xbox Series S version that didn't have split screen. I think just recently they finally got that stuff figure it out.

Right, Yeah, well yeah, and and that that game ended up running really well in steam Deck eventually because of all that work though exactly.

And that's also a company doing something very specific or the hardware then maybe the hardware can't really do anymore. And the reason we could do split screen, uh, you know, using the example back in the day, we do split screen is because it was easier to basically just render to viewpoorts to render everything twice essentially, or you know, to like do some smart mat to like make sure everything that you need is rendered in at the same time.

Like, and they've like gotten moderately more flexible here or there.

Yeah, exactly.

And Baller's Gate three, I think is a good example on that of saying like, oh, okay, like the vast majority of the core gameplays here is just like this one feature.

Okay, I guess that makes sense.

So yeah, one last little tidbit here from Phil Spencer this week in Xbox Nins You Got him for Collaboration was apparently Phil Spencer's idea, or he at least helped facilitate it, where apparently Team Ninja had talking Xbox constantly about Ninja Guide in but they were struggling to come up with a plan for it, and he suggested, why don't you work with Platinum. It really makes it feel like a make good for whatever happened with what was

SIMS one was a phenomenon A bit on the first one.

It didn't really run on my computers, so, okaymember really wanting to play it.

But SI City two thousands about right top down here.

You're more of an Herbs Sims in the City kind of guy.

Actually, my SIMS agent Herbs was on the DS and so that was like one of the only games we had early on with that system. So it was like half of my friends had the Herbs for some reason.

The Herbs the.

SIMS nostalgia does feel like it's at a point now where like they're gonna be able to capitalize on this, and I'll be interested to check this out. But I think I'm at a point where if I was going to sit down and play The SIMS, I would probably jump into SIMS four now and really go to town with.

All those the scores already old anything, yes, exactly, and they're.

Gonna keep supporting it like well, they are working on a new SIMS. I think they keep saying it's not gonna be SIMS five so much as like something else. Who knows what that really means? I don't know, Okay, all right, use us and physical game spend has had since twenty twenty one. Mapis Catela from Sircana put out a report this week about you know, game sales from last year as well as from December overall, you know,

Yeah, I mean it was always this was accelerating, It was always waiting for a bit of a tipping point. I think that you know that the PS five Slim right with an optional disk drive, is a pretty big tipping point. You know, then when that next generation does happen, way Station six or whatever the Xbox is, I don't know what drives look like with that, but I could very well see it again, being like it a standard, it doesn't come with one, and then the acceleration is

Yeah, there's a whole bunch of factors that I contributed to this, because I won't be surprised if the pandemic had a big impact on this, because when you're just you know, staying inside and trying to find that kind of entertainment, I'm sure a lot of people didn't even want to even think about going to the store, and they didn't want to wait for Amazon to deliver it,

Right, I mean, once you break the seal, right, it's like, well, now this is where my game collection is. I want all my games to be on this device because it's it's convenient. But also, like people just you do have a collector's mentality. Humans do just want to gather things and they want to gather them in the same place. So once you start doing it digital, you just start going all the way down there. And then of course there's going to be exceptions.

A little bit of a bummer for console players definitely, because you know, over on PC we have at least feels like we have more ownership our games, Like, yeah, the Steam is still a DRM platform, just like the consoles, but there are other ways to get games on PC, if you know the mom rises.

Yeah, long supported ways by the community exactly kind of can you can rely on it?

And that's what physical games have been for a long time for consoles ever since digital became one of the normal things you could do. Having a physical disc at least felt like ownership for you. But yeah, it's a little bit of bummer sye that slowly going away.

PS six, Xbox next, you know, Switch three. Do these things have physical media insert things built into the system or are they all going to be sold separately or do they not even sell them at all?

We'll switch in particular definitely has it because.

But like, yeah, but like the switch after switch for backward compatibility, you think yeah.

For backwards compatibility, and also the switches all over the world, and so they still need physical games getting out to

Yeah, they really did just kind of seal the deal when it was like, Hey, if you want to get PS five and you want to complain about the disk drive, just go buy one yourself, Go get your own. And it's like at that point, it's like, what can you really complain? They are still giving you the option, But really, they are selling you a console without a disk drive, and that's that. That's going to be it from now on.

Yeah, speaking of disk drive real quick, I just said someone in the chat say they pre ordered the retro remake PlayStation thing superstation with optional disk drive. Did not realize that was optional.

So yeah, that's a little weird that it's an optional add on. But yeah, you have to email me or I.

Bought mine separately later because I didn't realize either. If you it.

Literally says do not buy separately on this, so.

To buy it separately and then email them and say I bought these two things separately, can you combine them?

And I emailed them just seeing like can I add this?

Yeah?

I just emailed them and that works. Took okay, you know, yeah, they're very it was very responsive, very quick. So they understood that people were going to make this mistake.

Yeah, good to hear.

Okay, uh, okay, you'd be soft. Confirms one eighty five layoffs as the closest former DJ Hero studio and downsizes others. A bunch of studios kind of throughout Europe got hit with the downsizing. This is a studio that's mostly done a lot of support work recently. They have not made a DJ hero game anytime recently. That's yeah, yeah, yes, that was so that that was they were called something

I was like, I was like, oh, finally I took that seriously, No, no, of course not. Gosh can you I just can't imagine if Assassin's Screen Shadows doesn't become a big hit.

Right yeah. And it's like talk about headwinds coming out of meetings, Uh, like it has a game that like the quality almost doesn't matter at all compared to like just how people feel about Ubi Soft right now, ever existed more than Assassin's Creed Shadows where it's just like it almost doesn't matter, like if people like that game, they just hate Ubi Soft so much right now that it that they're probably not going to buy this thing, so it has to be kind of above and beyond

You have a rough time between how people justifiably feel about Ubisoft the way the chuds have done everything they've done to that game, like bad game, just like it really needs.

To hit yep.

What is the vibe on Ubisoft from.

Like overall like what's the overall violentce You mentioned it being like bad like and everything.

Oh sure, the thing forever that's been the.

Thing that it's really come home to roost where it's like now every one of their games is that people see it. They're like, this is more you be slopped. That has become the term, and it's like now but now it's like showing up, yes, but now it's showing up in the sales.

Figures like Soft like made a lot of bets that seems short sighted, you know, like live service, but also like they were the one big third party publisher that not didn't it just talk about NFT games, they actually did make some and release them, right, that kind of stuff, the quarts quartz.

Uh huh, Right, And of course like there have been just tons of layoffs and things like that, and shutting down these studios and all these false starts with like that Prince of Persia remake right, and you know, things like Skull and Bones take you forever to come out. Then it comes out and is bad anyways, and beyond good and evil to being a punchline. Just so many issues over there right now.

Quurts okay, Ubisoft, Quartz quarts ubisof dot com.

It's still just very are is this.

A thing that's happening?

Still enjoy the unique years of your digit?

Yeah, I think it still exists. I don't think they're everybody myself to isolate that. Yeah, wow it digit genuinely dumb decisions on top of everything else.

Yeah yeah, the choice of an energy efficient technology, proof of blockchain.

Yeah, this seems great. It says this is just the.

Beginning on its grand opening. Yeah, you guys. Ever hear that that song sung by that old lady where it's like, taste the biscuit, Taste the goodness of the biscuit.

Now, definitely there's ring my bell, you know, there's that if you say a little bore.

Yeah, of course I could see the whole thing for you. It is an internet meme. But when you just said, uh, enjoy the uniqueness of your digit, it just triggered me because it sounded like the goodness of your biscuit. Okay, well we'll splice that in. I'll make sure I do the work, all right. Final Fantasy seven Rebirth has a strong start on PC. Basically the most played current player number,

Yeah, you know, I liked Rebirth a lot, and I was a little bummed out that it kind of did seemed relatively poorly on PlayStation five.

The thing I bounced back here is good.

And you know, they they've been talking pretty openly about how like, hey, we don't want the next one to just be exclusive on one platform for like a year, right, kind of hoping next time they get it, figure it out and they just release it on Steam on day one and you can just have this big first day right away.

Yeah, and this in part is performing well almost surely because this is what people want Final Fantasy to be. If it's going to be an action RPG. Sixteen was clearly too much of a deviation for the formula that really just is an action game with RPG elements kind of bolted on at a certain point, and this is, you know, there's this big open world to explore. Mike talked about that. I think here are gody stuff of just like it feels like an old school RPG and

PS five and PS six and it is a yeah, right, put.

Put it on PC day one please. I also fix PC stuff because I I know Alex doesn't have his Digital Foundery video out yet, but it seems like maybe it's still got some tech issues, just like remake before it.

So, yeah, Sean, you mentioned like the deviation and I don't even know if that's like the problem where it's like it's just so honed down to be this slick thing that is easy for people to consume. And I think the lesson has been learned now that sixteen sixteen, yes, yes, sixteen Yeah. I think gamers want something that is not not necessarily messy, but something they feel like you can

It's so easy to like pitch streamlining, right when you're developing a game and you're talking to a bunch of people, It's like, well if we streamlise something that means where people will jump in and play, you know, maybe those people aren't interested in playing. They're never going to leave Fortnite. And you know the boters Gate three on this side and then the Final Phisy sixteen and Dragon Age Vailguard thing on this side thing, right, it really does just

Yeah, and I think that you look at the success that they had with fourteen, I think that's exactly what Jeff is talking about there. Where fourteen it's a convoluted ass game. But guess what, everyone's playing it anyways, because you have that person in your life who tells you, no, this is really good, like here, if you don't like this thing, I'll tell you how to get around it, because I just want you to start playing this thing. And that Like that's how like me and my friends

Choosing to ignore stuff that you don't want it, like that is actually a feature a lot of times.

Yeah, exactly.

Like people, it's like just look at like Minecraft, right, and what's a big Minecraft or Pokemon that's not a streamline?

Yeah people, it's like the most popular thing ever.

Yeah. Like but Pokemon the same way, where it's like there's so many like tiny little things in there that you can either gauge with or not. But when kids do they feel an ownership over it because they're like, I understand this thing.

There's my parents don't even under There's stuff to discover that doesn't feel like bloat in the you know, we were talking about Ubisoft of like, oh, we need to put a outpost here for you to take control over, because that's what you do in this game. Like no, there's like random things that maybe don't land and like maybe people really dislike but they you know, taking some more risks, while yeah, just having the freedom, you know,

All right, mass Effect too I think Mass Effect to god away at it. Yeah, and everybody took the wrong lesson from that, even BioWare all the games became more like Mass Effect too long, very good point.

It's like we were craving it in that moment, but we did not think it was going to the pendum was going to continue to swing in that direction forever.

Exactly.

All right, I have a breaking story here. This is from January twenty third, twenty twenty five, from Greg Bowman at Folding at home dot org if you haven't. If you haven't already, we invite you to check out the latest release of Folding at Home client version eight point four point nine. Is it still going from five days ago? This version makes it much easier to create and join teams.

Boot up my PS three right now? Could I be folding right PC? Unless they have a PC version.

I think this might be the PC version, only the PC.

I love back then.

Okay, I understand it exactly as much now, which, by the way, this is because in the chat I said that I thought grub was talking about folding it home ideas they I read so much about that back then. I downloaded it and it's just like, Okay, my screen just gets filled with quigglies and I guess it's like solving gold, global warming or something. I don't know, Like I don't know what the fuck was supposed to be happening. To throw the word hero round.

I think like a cancer treatment or something they were researching. I don't remember.

Did the PS three cure cancer? I think three problem anymore? Interested? We justies?

Oh boy? All right, real last story here is Skies of Arcadia actually coming back. Sega has renewed its trademark for the Dreamcast RPG Skis of Arcadia that was, you know, originally released way back in two thousand. They have not done a ton with it since they did have the GameCube port. Was there ever a Sky's Arcadia two?

Nothing out? Never two and never another ports? Right?

So yeah, that's why, you know, I look at this and I'm like, hey, yes, guys, are K two would be good? But boy, first thing should be just making sure people can play Skies of Arcadia on the switch to and on PC.

Yep. And that feels pretty realistic at that point. That feels like that could easily happen. Of course, Sega right now very much going after their old ip, like going through the library, pick and stuff off the shelf, say we're going to make a new one of these, and they they're doing that with a ton of games, so many games. We talked about Echo the Dolphin recently. There was like there's at least ten to fifteen others like in the works or planned to be in the works.

It's really cool.

And you know, Sega has so much success with RPGs on the Atlas side of things right now, right, you know, maybe Atlas's bandwidth doesn't let them specifically jump in and help here.

But still, but if you're and you're looking to invest in something on RPG right now, makes a lot of sense.

It'd be like RGS twentieth game that they haven't.

Development, right, Yeah, bringback Skis of Kadia, but make another Fantasy Star that is just an RPG again, doesn't have to be an MMO kind of thing. Gosh, even you know, hey, there is an RPG if Panther Dragon that's really neat that's ever been on the Sega Saturn. So there's yeah, there's a lot.

Of Yeah, like we were just talking about with a messiness and you know, sort of like letting people decide what they want to do. I think that's kind of what Sega's doing right now. They're kind of having the shotgun approach by like you know, brain stuff back, like having this like wild new concept for Crazy Taxi, by having like a new Shnobi game and uh was the Golden Axe was the other one. Yeah, they're trying rage again.

Know, Yeah, you gotta like, you gotta have that identity beyond just oh, I guess this company also makes games. You don't like, you could be a UBI Soft and you don't want to be a ubi Soft or you can go this path and try to say no, we're Sega and you know what that means now, Yeah, yeah.

You can't just think of about investor relations the entire rights. You actually have to like you are in the business of good for.

Those games I will sell like a million or two And was a safe risk to take because like maybe you don't make another one after that, but at least you try it, right.

Do you shoot like vector man? Dan? Yeah?

Yeah, because that was tripped? Was that? What if he tripped every ten minutes?

I think I would like that in any game. Honestly, it's just a lie.

No not, I mean it.

I think that's not a lie that I think you're you're fibbing.

I don't believe that that would be the case.

Can someone to make ad for a game that Dan is playing at some point that makes his character trip randomly and we will force him to install it and we'll just test this.

It makes me laugh every time, Like if you're in the cold for too long in metal gear and you just sneeze while you're trying to be sneaking and you get caught because of that, that's fucking.

Funny to me.

Like I would absolutely find that funny in any video game.

I believe you.

But there was a reason just now that you said that that's happening because he's in the cold and.

He sees the reasons people trip, Yeah, but happen.

But fucking because of unexpected things is funny.

Mike, You're wrong about this. I would like this, damn.

Point.

The point is that you shouldn't.

No, I do, and I do like vector Man, vector Man, I occupies the same space in my head as Yoshi's Island, because I remember I had Genesis of my mom's, I had Super at my dad's.

And there's a ps A PlayStation in sixty four.

I started seeing the magazines talking about Saturn PlayStation sixty four and it's like, I don't I'm not gonna be able to get this.

I don't have money, like I.

So I am my head not understanding video game technology, being like, well, maybe they should just keep making good games for Super, Nintendo and Sega and then those will be the only consoles forever and these new ones will fail. And so like when Yoshi's Island came out and like the Mode seven, like the warping and stuff is like, see look at that that looks incredible. Oh, they put Virtual Fighter two on the Genesis. Oh, this is like the cardboard box era of Genesis. Donkey Gun Country is

We don't need a new conton he campaigns for those games. Where's like from a dunky country, It's like, who needs thirty two bits?

Specifically, there was an ad that was an e GM all the time that was like a very nineties fish eye shot of a baby crying and it was like whining, sniffling, you know, shit in their pants whatever. And that's just the people who bought new consoles have ever seen them be like fuck yeahs, that's.

What I like. All Right, we're gonna go to another break. We're gonna come back. We'll do emails after this.

It's working.

Yeah, all right, Uh we got emails everybody. Let's let's hop into him. I'll read this first one here. Uh, let's see. It is from Alan from Wisconsin. Handheld Game Consoles. I recently got a trim Ui brick. Shout out to grub I fuck with you and your handhelds. I fuck with you too, brother, and I just finished Metroid Fusion. What a game? What are some deep cut GBA games I should check out. Thanksgang Alan from Wassau, Wisconsin. So how you say that?

Saw? Sure?

Thank you a PS. Please make this Wisconsin we fuck with Grub meet up happen. I can be designated driver, Okay, yeah, I'll get out there.

That happens, I will go out there.

Yeah, I can take an am trek out there on Wisconsin Ambassador to Giant Bomb.

When do we decide we fuck with Grub?

It was the last episode. It was there was someone from Wisconsin that said they fuck with me, and I'm like, okay, all right, yeah just oh would be a good answer.

And that just got a re release, right, you can just play that on everything.

Yeah, but played on your trimum, I believe. Yeah, that's the thing.

Even when they get re releases and stuff.

I have found that, Like I remember I had that moment with the Advanced Wars.

And you started taking about Vance Wars, was like, why don't I just play this?

Sounded like I like the fun factor.

It feels more true to the original you know vision of it, and I also like the way it looks more.

So.

Yeah, there's that astro Bot game that's really good. Yes, astro boystro Boy all the.

Time, ham Tarrow, Ham Ham Heartbreak, hamp Tar there's like the hamp Tarow Sports collection.

To love those ham Taro games at least. I don't know which ones were like spinoffs within us, but like at least the Game Boy Color one was just like an adventure game and it was really cute.

I like that one.

In the chat says as Minushkapa good Zelda, Yes, I played there a few years ago. Again, I think it's a much better than links Awakening.

You can tell.

That it was. No need to play out my ranking of Zelda's.

No, I don't know what you.

Do that it.

No, we're just saying that you're wrong.

Better menus cap all right, it's links Awake things at eight.

Nintendo make better the games than Capcom, but it's still in general.

Yes, I was. I okay, I was thinking about it if you played the Oracle games.

Yet, I played the Oracle of Ages when it came out and didn't love it, which I understand. Oracle Seasons is supposed to be better.

But.

More Yeah, I like, okay, just more, I think okay.

I had always heard Seasons was just better, but uh, okay, fair enough.

It may be an obvious one. But if you like metro Fusion, go play Zero Mission if you haven't, because it's awesome. It's it's my favorite metroid. I still think it's the best one overall because it combines so much of what metroids should be into one package. And while I do like the creepy vibe a Fusion more, in general, uh, Usion just talks so fucking much. And Zero Mission is just like, we're gonna give you a title card with

And I saw someone in chat say back tie and now I was literally just going to eat because I've never played it and it's a gem again wow, And uh it's a bit pricey, but I do.

That's when I that's when I think would be fun to emulate on the phone and see if you can get the senil the phone or the light.

Thing lights on starting your phone to do that.

Yeah, I think you get the right emulator. It just works. Okay. Get out of Pen Wisconsin Drill dozer.

Car battles, drill Dozer kicks ass Yes.

Drill dozer to. That's when that one should emulate pretty well because I think they do the rumble on there, but you want the rumble.

Work twisted, but do it on your phone.

That worri work twisted. I am about to beat it, dan Uh. It's great on there right, It's so awesome. Literally, I enjoy pooping so much right now because I'm playing it every time I go to.

The bathroom, shaking your phone around.

Shaking my phone, and it helps, you know, helps work things out, you.

Know, with the it feels like better on phone than it ever felt on GBA.

Somehow, It's awesome. It's honestly, could get to the end of the year and that might be on my Game of the Year list. Oh yeah, twist twisted. So good Car Battle or Joe. That's a good one. That's kind of in that range of like Ninja five ooh, and a few others. Let's see a gun Stars Superheroes. Oh sorry, was that Gunstar Superheroes? That's a good gun Star go ahead.

Back, Yeah, forget about Mario Kart Super Circuit.

Play the Konami Mario Kart clone that has you played as a bistical Ninja that.

I feel like people overlook this one a lot. Pokemon Pinball, Ruby and Sapphire is a really good pinball game.

I like that.

Yeah, all the Tony Hawk games on g b A. There's like weird things like Max Pain on GPA. There's this whole thing where they just took three D games and made them isometric games on the g B A and they're actually pretty.

And people like shoot three D games on the Gameboy Advance, like Stunt stunt Man. It's really good. I love Stuntman on Game Boy Advance.

It's like dank about with the sixteen big consoles getting like three D adjacent stuff or light three D like towards the end of the GBA, they were getting ambitious there, and it was kind of cool sometimes.

Yeah, yeah, Golden sounds good.

Yes, there's a two D dragon Ball not dragon Ball Z, dragon Ball kind of action game that's really neat.

There's also a Star Wars episode three Beat Them Up. That's a lot of fun on the GV Yeah.

Man, And then like any any sort of like, hey, a big console game happened, and now here's the Game Boy Advance version, like that zone of the enders game Boy advance games. Pretty interesting tech in advance ye advance.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, there's a lot of weird stuff like that that's worth checking out, especially when you have a trim ui and you can just get it the way you get it.

Yes, yeah, the term wise is very nice.

Oh yeah, it's just so handy.

So I can't believe, like, Lakes Weakening is your favorite game of all time and you like got no enjoyment out of those two games that came out that were like ninety five percent the same thing.

It's game ever, it's it was it's very important to me. Shut up, Dan, I'm I'm not talking. I'm talking to my friend Mike Minatti right now. I I want of them protect. I think that that's part of the problem. Is I like hold I held Links Awakening in such high regard that the five percent like feels like a chasm.

D That Donkey Kong Country too things, the Donkey.

Count Country two thing I have where it's like yeah, sorry, ahad, just where it's like something's like I'm expecting one thing and now I can't play a Donkey Kong in this game. It's not exactly the same, but it's it's similar so.

So question you just made me think because I'm as I'm trying to look up like game Boy games since I'm enjoying Mario Land one and two so much once I'm done with Warrior Land. Are those Donkey Kong Land games good and are they different than their.

They're interesting, yes, okay, because they are mostly bespoke games. There are there's a lot of like, oh, here's this for version of this level from the Donkey Kong Coutry game, but it's it's its own game in a lot.

Of ways, and like two is Diddy and Dixie. One is Donkey and Diddy.

Is it the same?

Like you know, the cover always looked the same, but it was like, but they're calling it Land.

This is a different game.

I think that they're honestly, if you like, just like in a vacuum ranked platformers on the Game Boy, I think they would be in the top five for like at least Donkey Donkey Kong Land one and two.

So okay, they're You're right, they're interesting if I'm remembering this right. So Land is like remixing slash scaling down of the Country games to game Boy original. But then they also did ports that were a little more flesh out of Donkey Kong Country to the game Boy Color. Yes, though so the like mostly faithful ports to game Boy Advance.

That are really good act versions of those games. Yes, yeah, okay, wild lot. I mean Donkey Kong. That Donkey Kong Country one sold so well and two sold very well. But they just went ham on Donkey Kong on everything back then for the point now they put him into theme park and.

Then I don't think we much all but Dan, you're aware of Donkey Kong ninety four right?

Oh yeah, yeah, that was, like I think the first game I seriously played on the analog.

Yeah yeah, well, good game, good god.

All right, let's see here. Let me get back over the emails. Okay, can Sean read this one from Dave?

From Dave from California. Yeah's topic is video game skill to real life application. Hey all, I worked at a warehouse for a big online retailer. You can probably guess which one. I played a lot of Tetris when I was a youth, and all that time spent on a game somehow gave me amazing skill at arranging boxes for maximum efficiency. What game has given you an accidental skill?

Keep up?

The amazing work oil listener from the Shoemaker Days, consenting kiss all lips for each of you.

When I played that eco game, it gave me an understanding of pricing and tariffs and stuff like that, just by accident, just by arguing with my friends about how we should arrange the econ me in our game and that. So now when I see things in the news, I'm like, that won't work. And I know how from firsthand experience.

I learned how to yell from the Phoenix Right.

Games during our podcast.

Yeah, yep, I've never driven a stick shift, but I feel like I understand the basic concept from switching to manual in some old racing games, being like okay, it's kind of topping off here, it's going to year two.

Like, but I've never got I don't know how to do that tunk tunk tunk stuff.

You know, that's the bulk of it.

But I mean I think I know when like, oh, that sound means I should shift gears.

Okay, so when do you hit the clutch?

Oh?

I don't want that probably correct answer, but also where my grandpa's lawnmower had a clutch on it and I didn't know what that pedal did and it was a riding lawnmower and I hit it once and like I did some weird combination that it like bucked up, and I thought I was almost going to get crushed by a lawnmower.

Oh shit, yeah, yeah, totally, yeah, I'm not touching knuck clutch every that my dad's Friday loanword did the same thing, and I would purposely get it to do wheeling instead.

I still remember it. I was like, fuck that, I'm surprised I'm not dead. Yeah, I think anytime someone asked me something like this. The only thing I never think of is that I like kind of know how to play the drums thanks to rock band, because obviously, you know, playing the guitar and guitar hero is like just wailing on a toy. Singing maybe you know, is like it's

The actual pretty is kind of not one to one but pretty close, right.

Yeah, And so there are songs where like I learned the general beat through playing rock band, and then yeah, I would when we were hanging out with friends Friday night in my friend's basement, he had drums at there, and occasionally, yeah, I would hop on there, and so we're just like, yeah, play drum being He's like, oh, yeah, that's that sounds right to me because he obviously played drums, So yeah.

That does remind me. Like I always think, if I had to like shift gears into another business entirely, I would take DDR and I would market it as a good way to like improve the footwork of athletes, because I think if you, if you can get good at DDR,

I bought a powerwasher at my old house because I played a lot of Powerwaws simulator and then I instantly fucked up my driveway.

Did you like chip it away?

Like there was like an.

Asphalt driveway and it was like pristine.

It was awesome when I moved in and there was like some like bird shit or something on the driveway, and it's like, all right, let's test this baby out, you know, from like point blank, and then there's asphalt pebbles flying up everywhere. That's like and just permanent, like a whole. Then I never used it again. I sold it on face place.

Imagine the ant that was living in there. It's just like his whole world exploded.

Just a mushroom clock on your listeners. Mike is dying inside right now?

All right, less weird, Mike Minati. I read this one from Tom P from Florida.

Idle Games while you work, Hey, Giant Bomb crew, I'm currently playing the idle game Rusty's Retirement while I work. I found it gives me a nice reward when it glanced over at the screen and see the numbers go up. Do you have any good idol games that you enjoy whilst working?

Tom P from anything, Yeah, talk about it.

Go to click clickbomb dot com. It's fantastic.

Chucktowski Pickle Draft, Oh my god, I think we all got really into it, like talking.

About it in our games this week for sure, because I really did.

I played the hell out of it that I be it three times, Mike, there we go, okay.

There yeah, yeah, Gosha.

He just made a clicker game about giant bombs and it's it's actually very undertating.

Tchuktowski did the bulk of the work, and then the art was like just taking screenshots from pixel Draft videos of the various characters like Mike mcquanchie, for example, and then those characters cards. You can level them up and they become more powerful, and then you could take them with you from one game to new game plus and it's just so well done. It's not and it's not. It's just like he could have just completely been like, oh, here's an idol game and it was like halfway half baked,

Tuktowski in the chat says, pickle Draft did those cuts himself and sent them over in the right ratio.

Man.

Nice, Yeah, just amazing work. And then when we pointed out saying, oh, you're like, Sean's not in there. Now Sean's in there, and so it's tam and stuff like that, because yeah, they hadn't appeared in a Pickle Draft video because it's based on Blake Club, but they just made new ones.

So's I have been animated in the past. There was a Dayshon cameo in one of those videos, but.

Oh no, maybe that's the one they ended up using. Okay.

Also, I just had a Pickle Draft emote that I realized I've been saying that for a long time, and they definitely deserve to be in the chat.

All right, Dan, can you read this one titled Golden Age?

Yes, Hello, smart Bombs. I believe Giant Bomb is in a new golden age powerful. Jeff's great new and old content and the vibes on the podcast are immaculate. What is something else you love that is experiencing a golden age? Like we're in the Golden age for Oreo Collapse something like that. America. You're always saying, Wow, the real answer for me wrestling?

Oh yeah, good point. Wrestling is healthier than ever as a business, not just of it, are you? And content has been fun as hell to watch and you know, the Netflix stuff and everything, the Max deal, it's the better ways to watch it. It's just been fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, I guess emulation, but like emulations always getting better. But it just feels like we're such a good place of all that and all these fun little consoles. Maybe just retro gaming in general. Prices of actual games is a thing, right that's always going to be a little bit of a problem. But outside of that, there's so many ways to play old games right now, and that's awesome.

Yeah, this is something I me and Mike talk about decent amount. We're kind of in maybe be the golden age of fighting games. Like as much as people romanticize the late nineties early two thousands, there there's so many to play. They're so accessible now coming up with new ways to play them even and they've been more accessible than ever and that's really cool. And there's so much variety that you always have something to check out. It's really fun.

Yeah, Okay, go ahead, no you go because mine's bad.

Go yeah, just like certain companies, so like it's clearly a Nintendo Golden Age right now. Like you know, it's been kind of going on since you know, twenty seventeen, but we're still in that capcom definitely, and when it seems like, say, guys maybe just entered theirs, like they figured stuff out, and if all this sort of retrovival stuff works out for them, they should be pretty And I.

Might have talked to everyone. You said that was from a Mike from Loveland and then mine. It's like you guys had all the good ones that I would have said. So right now, I just think that a lot of sports are in a good place. Not the NFL because the Super Bowl kind of sucks, but.

Like they I'm okay with it, yeah, but you are.

But like, you know, hockey's like a place where's like, oh, there's so many great veteran players and then there's so many great kids coming up at the same time that like clearly we're watching like Sidney Crosby when they're young. So it's just very cool to be checking in right now when it's like there's so much skills in all these.

Different sports sports question, as someone who grew up watching the Chiefs and sense moving away, you know, I'll watch them when they're in the Super Bowl or some of the playoff games and stuff like that. I did get the sense just on like Blue Sky over the weekend that like, are the Chiefs becoming hated in the way that like the Patriots were hated.

Yeah, because they've won too many times?

Right, Okay, that's it growing up there, you know that's cool. I like that.

Ye yeah, of course you want Everyone wants that for their team. Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool.

Yeah.

I mean like we were like, let's be clear, in Detroit, we were planning that, Like we were like, hey, when once the Lions win, we're gonna be the most toxic fan base you've ever seen. We are, you're gonna hate us. And then of course you bit us in the ass and we lost, so uh but so everyone wants that.

Yeah, that's it is wild when I go home, because it's like, you know, growing up, like of course, yeah, were talking about like Elvis Gerbach or like when Joe Montana came to the Chiefs and you know, uh, Trent Green was the thing for a while, and like people were obsessed about the Chiefs even when.

Like at best they would get to the playoffs.

Now I go home, if it's during football season, oh my god, everyone's wearing it Mahomes is on every fucking billboard.

It is like nuclear there.

Now, yep, it's then that's that's how it goes. And that is people hate that too, right, Like, oh, Mahomes, well, here's the reasons why he actually sucks and the league is always pulling for him and making making sure he wins. It's like, I don't know, maybe, but we would all take that in an instant if we were given the choice.

By the way, and I really may say too many.

Commercials you talk about, like all the leagues pulling form and stuff, the amount of like weird conspiracy theories I hear when I got home too, was like, well, Mahomes brother has mob connections, and then there's the Tailor Swift thing going on here. So whenever the Chiefs lose or something or something goes negative, it's about the mob or Taylor Swift or something like, yeah, the fuck are you all talking about.

That fucking rules?

Actually, right?

It is in crimble how many people just immediately believe that like all the rests secretly make sure the Chiefs win their games too.

Yeah, I do find that when I come home in Kansas. Conspiracy thinking is in a golden age, right, now, so.

I go, yeah, all right, I'll everyone's read one, now I'll read this one. The retro handhelds from a Brad and Huddersville. Wait a second, and that's near Tumwater, Washington. Uh okay to grub or anyone else sufficiently qualified. I'm looking to get retro handheld like the size of an old school game boy, preferably can play up the PS one games. Any help would be appreciated. You guys rock keep rocking. I mean trim you right, that's true, that's the one.

Well if you specifically went up to PS one games, I think it's funny. This morning I went to go load up. I was like, I had the trimuy and like, oh, what should I do on this that I wouldn't do on the Pocket. It's like, all right, pocket can't do PlayStation. And I loaded up Tony Hawk three just I just saw the words and I was like, yes, that's good. And I loaded up and started playing the Foundry level

Right, that's why it's.

Not the way I remember. But it does play PS one way I played Twist Medal two on there. It plays PS one games pretty solidly, even some Dreamcast stuff.

Yeah, yeah, there's some Dreamcast suff Yeah, go ahead, Mike, Yeah.

There's a PS one version of Tony X pro Skater four. And I'm like, I gotta see, what is that messed up?

I mean, didn't we say that there was like a PS one version like way past Tony Hawk's pro Skater four. Didn't they have like thug even No, I don't think so, Okay, I'm like curious because uh remember something along? Oh no, it was game Boy. It was the game Boy design Yeah, right, American and Doug two and yes, all those.

Stuff.

That's what it was. That's what I was thinking of. Yeah, trim and the trimuney is really affordable. If you want to spend a little bit more, you can definitely get uh one up to like one hundred and fifty dollars that will have analog sticks and can play easily, can play Dreamcast, maybe even play a little bit of PS two maybe. But I think, you know, if you're just dabbling in this and you want one that's going to be good out of the box, and it's just just

Yeah, I think that's a perfect starter one because it's just like especially when you like follow some of these YouTube tutorials on like really cleaning up the interface and everything, like I forget what is it's not menu I for the is.

It MENUI for the you Ui?

Yeah, that one's just fucking fantastic. It plays everything.

Like I was debating about, like, oh, as I'm playing through these Mario Land should I do it on the pop do it on the trim And it's like I do think the pocket screen is better and it just feels better for like especially game Boy, game Boy Advance games.

It's like literally just annext the resolution of a game Boy screen.

Yes, yeah, it looks awesome, but like, the trimuy is cheaper, it's easy to set up. It's so easy to just kind of like toss in a bag and not worry about it.

You know.

I like the sp one from Ambernick, but it's a little chunkier, a little slower. I think the trimuy is the best kind of like entry level hand.

Yeah, we've reached a point where pretty much the chip in any of these systems will play everything that is reasonable for you to emulate on the go that you would want to emulate. I go that if you want to spend a little bit more on like one of the newer retroid pockets that can also do you know, like Dreamcast GameCube PS two, you can. But yeah, it's it's more a matter of, yeah, just finding the form factor that they want and just playing YouTube channels out

They're great, use I use them all the time.

Good boy. Absolutely for me, I've like kind of settled into this way of doing things where it's like older games, especially handheld but you know, uh a PS one, Super Nintendo. I will use one of these retro handhelds. And then if it is PS two, PS three and anything like that, I'm just gonna do steam Deck. It's just steam Deck. I know it'll run. I have a good interface already set up. There's a ton of community sport for mu

Don't think it's worth the price, especially, yeah, exactly. I know the person emailing and specifically did ask for like a very pofortable one around the size of a game boy. But if anyone is curious, the steam deck is still just like the best emulation machine that you can take around with you portably. And now now there's trying to clear out some of the older ones. You can get them on sale for like you can get refer one for like around three hundred, which is like.

You put in a a Samsung SD card, one of the faster Samsung a s D cards, and you're not going to be hurt and for not having the SSD actually turns out exactly.

Yeah, yep, good device.

All right, let's see, let's do one more email Sean, can you read this last one? What is a coworker or what is coworker?

What is coworker?

Oh boy?

Science is ever evolving. It is not magic. It is a process. Observations are made, trials run, results are analyzed. I realized my prior experiments were rudimentary and flawed, raw with surface level speculation, so I narrowed my focus to an individual subject co worker or apparently also known as Jeff Backlar. I present my last work, the behavioral analysis of Jack Backlar. Through careful observation, I've grown to appreciate the mundanity within the life of Coworker. Admittedly, there were

But what for?

Despite the odds, Coworker has made some slam improvements to cementing his existence in the world. I now know that Coworker loves the New York Rangers, hats and Jesus. But the struggle of being the straight man in such a wiggly world it's probably why that has so shiny. Anyways, who was I talking about? George J from Chicago? Ps of this major giggle. These are fun to write, bomb fall asleep?

Was was the Jack Backlar bit?

An?

Actually just type focus. That's a cred either way. Tyler Dirden situation.

Yeah, Jack back, that sounds better. You should change Jack's back. Yeah, there we go he's gonna start on bullying two. Yeah, thank you, Jordan. Jay. Always appreciate your emails. These have been very fun these past couple of weeks. All right, Sean, we did get a message from Dan jan to check the discord. I can play the sound if you want me to focus on that, or can you or do you want to do that?

I don't know if if it's playing sound, you should do it through your end.

Okay, all right, give me a second, you guys. Maybe actually we skipped an email. Maybe do that? Why I get that set up? Let's see here, Mike. Can you read the one from is it perfect game mash up? Yeah, because that's what we didn't do.

Yes, I wasn't paying attention, Dan Riker.

Could you read the way it says perfect game mash up? The email from the email thing there?

Yeah, a perfect game mash up for me, Jeff, Hello, Bombers, co workers, poggers, and soap eaters.

You are tasked with creating the best video game of all time by combining the gameplay of one existing game and the world of another. What's the best combo example of one Slay the Spire gameplay mash with the Umble Verse world page shout outs elbow drop, attack car, dang one example two Doom gameplay, mash with Elden Ring World, rip and tear those fucking lobsters. Dbi's doing all right, Jeff from Quebec.

Twisted Metal gameplay in the Mario Kingdom Mushroom Kingdom interesting?

Hit me?

Now, hold on, Hold on, Dan, I want to explain that one to me.

I want a Twisted Metal game where I can choose between Mario Kart style characters, and I can choose different vehicles based in the Mario world. And I didn't want to drive around Mushroom Kingdom locales using fun I guess I'm just describing battle mode of Mario Kart.

Yes, never mind, Mike, I want hit Man World of Assassination gameplay in the world of Shrek.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's good stuff. Well what so what did Shrek be the one point on disguise or like, are you playing as Agent forty seven?

You might not be playing a Shrek. Shrek might be a target for all I know. Like worlds would be like Lord Farquat's Castle, Far far Away Land, trek Swamp, that that university, that that dweeb Prince Arthur went to in Shrek three, all these good places, and yeah, you just kind of have to wander around. You gotta mark like the Big Bad Wolf as a big bad wolf

It would be the more the more you talk, the more I like the idea. I guess, yeah, it's much better than Dan's.

I agree. All right, I have got this audio. It's six seconds. While I was getting that ready instead, I was gonna play it. You didn't see like Janet Show and Chet say, oh god, don't.

Play that right, see that. It's just talking right.

I'm just gonna play the audio. That's it. So this is a confirmation that Jane Joe had lived up to his side of the bargain. I'm gonna play it. You guys, let me know right away.

If you can't hear it, Okay, Dan record my god, I did say in quotes, can you say I love you solo. I said I would venmo him ten dollars from my pocket if he said I love you solo. He said I love solo.

So he got seventy five percent of the words, which I think should be seven dollars and fifty cents. So, Jan, if you can venmo me back two dollars and fifty cents, I think we're good.

I'm gonna play it one more time, just so we could be clear.

Yeah, yeah, I need two dollars and fifty cents back.

Jane. We'll say, you know, I respect it.

You.

You gave it a good shot there, and you got three force of it.

I mean the heat of the moment. It's pretty good performance, it is for Yeah.

Yeah, that's a hard thing to work into a corporate at all hands Media. Jacob fut To samoean werewolf reference. But by the way, somehow we decided that Mike was the Italian werewolf. So that's another one. You just want to throw that into the Mike nickname bucket. Sure you forgot these our Jacob fut To.

Oh yeah, he's got so many kids, this guy, Mike, Yeah seven, all right, I don't know how does he get in the show, he does what we learned. I don't think we learned anything on this episode. Four of us no, absolutely each other a lot. That was nice. Yeah, that was good.

Yeah, Nikki Jacobo has seven kids and he's like thirty two years old.

Yeah, he's not done yet.

Do any of you have grandparents that had like, like thirteen siblings, because I.

Yeah, my my grandma had like seven siblings. My grandpa had a bunch of two.

Yeah. Yeah, my my mom has like seven siblings.

Yeah, my dad like seven or eight. Yeah, it's hard to count.

Yeah, it's gotta be impossible to happen eatingful relationship with.

All your Oh yeah, that's where the idea of like favorites definitely comes from.

Yeah, twelve or something.

I'm good to have them.

Jan, I am confirming I received your two dollars and fifty cents with a note that says sorry, so one, we're all good.

Good work, Jan, excellent.

All right, good way we did learn Jan does good work in all hands meetings. So we'll wrap it up with that. I guess you know what, maybe this this is gonna work. I can just hit this and get us out of here. Uh, he's gonna do the oka. I'm gonna end it. There we go.

All right?

Well then in that case, bye everybody until.

Next time on this show?

How do you not know this show?

I don't pay attention to this part. I'm long tuned out at this point. All right, Yeah, Blake Club tomorrow Thursday, will voicemail dump truck? What else is happening? We what were we just talking about?

Like we wanted to play on the site, or you wanted to play or.

Orcs Must Die or Orks Must Die game. We're gonna try to do that Friday. Wow, that's pretty good.

Are we doing the best music of twenty twenty four?

B Yes, that's Friday ye put together.

So it's gonna be a big weeks, gonna be a good time. And then Nicky says Minecraft. So there you got?

All right?

Uh? Yeah there was something. Oh, Sniper Elite. Yeah, we're gonna play some Sniper lead on the on uh on Thursday, maybe Dan, I don't know.

We're also trying to get Virtual Fighter and maybe.

Yeah, maybe we'll maybe we'll decide between Sniper Elite and Virtual Fighter. All right, everybody, we're gonna get out of here. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you to Sean, thank you to Mike, thank you to Dan, thank you to the dog cam. I've been Jeff Grubb, thanks to everyone else in Giant Bomb. Until next time, have a good one, take care of yourself. Goodbye, japanstemperat