876: The Catholic Quota

Hey everybody, It's Tuesday, February fourth, twenty twenty five. Welcome to the Giant BombCast, Episode eight hundred and seventy six. I'm your host, jan Oh Shoah. We've assembled our own Fantastic four here and simultaneously, we are all hot, we are all super stretchy, and we are all the rocks of this podcast. Speaking about this podcast, we have co captain of the ship Chip.

I'm sorry after to announce this, but I'm leaving the podcast. Guys, I aprol for gotch where's the season? Ah?

That is indeed, that's right, that's right, tis this season? And uh grammy season, I guess was the other day. And we have our own short and suitet over here. He's the bad boy of Games Meeting. He's the pug Mike Manatti.

It's me, the puck slammer, Mitch Tolkoto, Mike Manati.

That's right.

When you think of Sabrina Carpenter, you also think of Mike Manatti, and you think of the twenty twelve movie Nubes. Of course.

You don't.

We have the arbiter, the keeper h the originator of the Nubes whole. That's right. Sorry, Dan, this is just how the history of books will.

Reflect like that the Halo two guy. Yeah, well that's right. There's ever been context, and he doesn't need any context because he's making his own.

It's all about the notes you don't read and the lines between the notes, Dan Riker. Yes, that's me.

Hello, Hi everyone.

Human jazz is what we also called Dan human jazz. Human jazz. I like that I could do that, yeah, yeah yeah, And you're.

Making faces when when our friend Jam was making references to the Fantastic four trailer? How many times have you watched the Fantastic four trailer?

Dan Riker?

That's a marvel. I don't like your eyeballs right now, Dan, Please.

I don't look at him anymore. I refuse to look at Dan Riker. This is just how I look.

Listener, he has ai eyeballs.

Now a eyeballs?

Yeah, everyone loves it.

Oh boy. You know see, if if we didn't trust our regular eyes, we would have been robbed.

Jet you know.

Oh yeah, the the will Smith could with the castle on his head.

Yeah that's right. Yes, Yeah.

How's everyone doing? How's everyone feeling? The rumble was over the weekend when I were talking about watching I shows getting speared several times.

It's just like I half expected, like mister potato head, like arms and legs and stuff as popping off the speed at which he hit Speedummy, it was really incredible, and everyone, oh, great, sell great sales. That's not selling, brother, you can't sell and train it.

Yeah, that's working stuff.

Yes, yeah, I don't think. WWE put out last year's Rumble on YouTube with a couple of superstars watching it, and everyone else was goofing and gabbing over it except braun Breaker, who was having like an existential crisis and reflection. Maybe, but like, yeah, I got called up. Last year was really great. You know, it's been so long since I've been in front of this many people. I'm like, all right, bron you did not get the assignment, duck.

It was a fun watch. I like that a lot.

I liked we'll talk about more. We'll do a power Bomb cast this week. But you know what, I went so bad and they teased it is Jacob Flatu versus Brown Breaker. Yeah those men will beat each other up.

Yeah, yeah, I'm I need to write a promo for the power Bomb cast, just uh riffing off of Jacob Flatu's style because I fucking love that man.

I really think of you every time I see him doing one of those new things that we see. That's the YadA the mean that's part of the there's gonna be out of the mean shirts say.

No and I can't wait.

I can't wait yadaa mean shirts.

It's funny because like he is just actually like a very soft spoken man, and then you see him when he's on and it's like, oh my god, who is this.

I don't know how I wound up on this, but I was watching an old interview with Dennis Hopper. Sure as you do, right, and uh, Dennis Hopper is like Jacob Flattu, very soft spoken, like very crazy into his art type of dude. But then you watch him in anything he was in. Yeah, yeah, it's great.

He was awesome and insane.

Yes, awesome and insane. That's what I aspire to be, gentlemen. He is in water World he was and Mario, Yeah, like.

The defining films of the nineties. Yeah, Blue Velvet, right movie in there, I did it. What the World's real?

Yeah, that's just telling us about the future. Yeah, how's everyone doing? How is everyone okay? Is it freezing?

Where y'all are at or six degrees, which is not bad. Soon then it's negative three wind chill. But yeah, it's twenty night. It's starting to get colder again. It got up to like forty yesterday, saw the snow melting. It was fifty here yesterday, And you think that would have like helped me feel good some reason, I felt terrible all day yesterday. I went outside in the fifty degree weather and got insanely chilled.

I was like, like, did you fog, Mikey, are you in a head fog? Or did you feel bad? Because I saw this on Blue Sky And I came to this conversation very late. Why did you think April Fools fell on February? Yes, it's just not a good reason for I saw. I saw that like Nintendo reddits, like that post was on my feet for some reason. If somebody posting, then the tendor direct like April second and then titled direct and they posted it, and in my weird half conscious mind, I was.

Like, oh, this is an April Fools. They were trying to This must be an old post.

They're trying to say that a direct was gonna happen on the seconds, which obviously didn't Oh that's crazy, April Fools happened. I didn't even realize it for some reason. So then I just skeaed it out, like oh it's great. I didn't even know it was April Fools this year. It was like, like what it was it a The fact that it got to a skeet is really impressive. It got to a skeet and I left it alone like that for a while. We're damn good.

His eyes his eyes were too real closed it and it would just minimize it just turns out to closes it his eyes.

Like I definitely like had a similar thought where it's like, uh, I was just kind of like going through my brain like what happens the beginning of February April Fools was like oh, well that's dumb, and then immediately was like, okay, no, it's it's a Groundhog's day.

So it was just like a moment for me.

I didn't skied it, So maybe it's not exactly the same that you did, but I definitely like it was on the same train as.

You for a minute.

It was quite a while for me. Somebody had to point it out.

Actually, somebody tried to point it out because first the first part I was like, I'm trying to figure out what the joke is here, and I thought that's a weird thing to say. I thought it was very clear what's going on here. It's almost just like Mike, it's February. That I read that, I was like, oh my god. And my first was like I want to delete this. I just I want this out of my life.

I know it's too late.

It's like gott to lean into it. Now I have everybody, it's me. I'm the April Fool. I've come early this year. That's right. The crowdhog told me he saw the shadow the April Fool this year early. I mean to me, the Groundhog and the April Fool do hang out. I think that's for me. I both in that like d Tier holidays exactly.

Yeah, it's not even a holiday, that's t Tier right.

Yeah, they're just days. It's Saint Patrick's Day, you get your time off federal no. No, but it's more of a real holiday than ground between. Yeah, the Groundog Day is not a real holiday. No, of course, not Valentine's Day.

That's all.

Well, it's not Allentime's Day, Saint Patrick's Day, these are like old Catholic holidays that we've kind that certain cultures have adopted, or you know Hallmark.

I think St.

Patrick's. They are on the same tier for sure, like you know that top like your Halloweens and Christmases, and you can maybe throw Eastern Thanksgiving in there, like those are the four.

I don't count Easter because Easter always falls on a Sunday, and a holiday can be a weekend because.

So when you go to Catholic school, Easter you get like a fucking week off. You get our Thursday, Friday, Monday. It's all good Friday, happy Monday or whatever it's got.

It turns out though other kids just just had something called spring break. I found time off that we were supposed to think about Jesus dying on a cross. Fun then, you know, even in like the super Catholic days, right, Easter was you know, it's always a big deal.

It wasn't fun, you know, no fun. What are you talking about?

Yeah, I got to go hunting for eggs and stuff, and we never heard about dead Jesus.

Really.

Palm Sunday was the less fun day.

Yeah, yeahs Wednesday, that's where you just put some ship on your forehead, right, I don't know what happened on Thursday Friday, Jesus was murdered, and then like a bunch of days went nothing really happened, and then the rock moved and then all of a sudden you flew away.

It was a good Thursday. Was that the last Supper day?

That's good Thursday?

And I'm with I'm with three good Catholic boys right now. Right, you all grew up Catholic one way or the other.

Catholic.

Yeah, yeah, part time.

Now, do you know how they determined when Easter is? Any of you?

The Easter calendar, the Easter candle, the big one.

Good guess. But no, uh, fine, you guys have any idea something to do with like the moon. It is the moon, I'm guessing.

Guess at some point in the Bible they must say something about what the moon looks like, so like, well it's gotta it's got to happen when the moon looks like that. Again, No, they just they decided this long after the Bible was right, and that ship They're like, we got to standardize this ship. It's the first Sunday after the full moon that occurs on or after the spring equinox. They knew how to do that back then. You know, they know how to do that.

That's how they created religion. Like, we know when the moon and the stars are going to move, so you have to trust us because God told us these things.

And how far ahead of time do they know when the full moon is gonna lie?

They know everyone knows when they keep track of this stuff, they know when the full moon is going to happen for years and years and years.

Well yeah, you mean, now I've never thought of this, but it's crazy to predict how far they could do this in five thousand years ago. They could do this with accuracy. Yes, it's just patterns dance, it seems mm hmm.

Do you think the moon just decides each day on a random right what it's going to do. You've not noticed the waxing and the waning.

I mean, I know it does it at a certain order like this, then it's this, and it's probably a predictable time frame that it stays at each one. Yeah, about what's a month it turns out?

Yeah, like like like it goes on a cycle every year, once a month, it's a new once a month of time.

About about Okay.

The Gregorian calendar isn't perfect. I really appreciate you taking that heat off me so fast after the April Fool's Day thing. Thanks buddy, I'm here for you. But blue moon. A blue moon is when there's two full moons in a month. That sort of thing.

Oh interesting, Okay, right, we fulfilled the Catholic quota.

The agenda has been fulfilled.

Agenda has been fulfilled.

Let's just do rosaries for the rest of the hours. Okay, all right?

What is a rosary? As a Lutheran?

Lutheran it's like if you do something bad and you tell a priest and he's like, this is how many rosaries you have to do, which is like each little nub.

Is like you gotta do a Hail Mary. Here, Hailmary, and it's likecond our father after.

Like okay, so like to hail Mary's and five our Fathers you go get the thing of like I'm assuming roses.

On a necklaces. Yeah, so the rosary is the bat thing. And yeah, they won't if they tell you do five hill Marys of five our Fathers, you just do that. They might tell you to do a full rosary. You got to do the whole circuit.

You go, okay, and like each it's like a grand and Mario Kart instead of just like a single race.

Yeah, okay, Yeah, I've.

Seen these things in movies and you guys have all clicked it together.

For me.

They're in Castlevania too. Yeah, it's important. I was a fan. I never really understood like like like what there's like dividends here. That's like saying two hail Mary's were powfled than saying one.

You're filling up your quotas to the different people, you know. Yeah. I always my favorite prayer was the Glory Bee because it was short and sweet, and I always hated that it got the short end of the stick on the rosary because it only got the string before the Hail Mary.

I didn't know the glory I never did anything that bad to require a glory be. Actually, I just never ever did what the priest. I never did a rosary.

Oh god, I'm just thinking about all the times as an altar server now and oh boy, anyway, my my gripe with the Catholic Church, there's so many. There's so many, as you said, hey, okay, uh, I went to Mass for Christmas. I think it was yeah Christmas and yo, okay, all right, all right. I understand that they want to move to like the current century and everything. But whoever is running AV at a church right now, get your fucking shit together, all right. I do not care if

I always got the sense that like churches had good AV because they always get like the kid, the good kid at school that just loved AV he wanted to like apply his trade somewhere so you would volunteer. And I knew, all yeah, okay, Matt, just make a church's a also.

And I cannot deal with whatever updates they've done to some of the prayers because I sound like a fool. I'll be saying, and with.

You, and everyone's saying.

What what when did we When did we change this? I updated their hearts. No one emailed me.

Is there a bunch of like yeat and skibbity in there?

Now? Yes? God, I did go to church so hard. If the preseid in the name of the Father and Son, Holy Spirit, d I didn't know where are.

Both altar boys? We both had that ultra boy.

Dog in us. That's a new sentence. It has to be right. That's crazy thing to say any for a long time. It's kind of an altered teenager for a while there. I will judge alter servers depending on if they properly ring the bell right during the thing. What's the what's the strat?

Don't hit the pew you're sitting on, you dummy. Okay, everyone will hear anyway anyway. Everyone else is.

Okay, everything brain yeah, doing all right? Okay.

I have a friend that's thinking about becoming a priest? How do I tell him not to?

Are there happy priests?

You should just be like, hey, this isn't gonna be a happy job.

I watched the movie Conclave. You guys seen that one?

That was pretty good.

That's it's about them choosing a new pope and you see like, oh yeah, like they're all just it's like running a corporation like anything else.

And it was pretty insightful and a good movie. If you if you if you butt them a prostitute, would they be disqualified? I'm off resing louse to everyone else is say jokes.

I'm saying, hey, some people have the audio skip thing turned on. If there's silence on your podcast player, go turn that off and go back thirty seconds.

Yeah, okay, I feel like we should start the podcast again. Anyway. I think we should wrap up the Catholic agenda by actually doing a film in forties of Angels and Demons and the Divincion.

Yeah, well, I'm.

Still my only context of any of that being reviewing the PS two game.

I think for it that was PS two that had to be a late PS two gain. Yeah, was like five understanding of time is completely off. Yeah, I've got to look this up now. God. I mean, it's like Angels in Demons was popular like two weeks ago.

The Vinci Code Game was an O six adventure puzzle game for PS two, Xbox and Microsoft Windows.

Yeah. Man, I feel like it'd be especially hilarious if we got someone on one of those film and forties that is not anywhere a shred of Christian at all, and just have them be completely confused the whole time.

And we just wait, we sell it as a shoot. Yes, just say this is like, no, this is real?

Is it like day does he fight Satan at the end?

It is like it's it's like slightly magical realism that veers into just realism by the end. Usually in these Dan Bright novels where I supposed like Indiana Jones, where it's like it's realism and then it goes into magical realism or at the end something magical does happen, they kind of like.

Reverse that a little bit.

Okay, maybe I can uh grease the wheels to have uh, someone that's very good at spelling join us on that. Yeah, anyway, video games to play the music? Uh? Dan, I swear to god, you did not talk about grun?

I did I.

Remember trying to explain grun? Do you guys know grun grabbing?

Yeah? Where did they talk about this?

God?

Where did you talk about it? Somebody talked about grunt? Because I remember the whole time thinking that's a weird name for something. Okay, Okay, people say I did last week last week, Dan, a week ago, look at this? Yeah? All right? Really? Yeah, but I'm done.

Was I here last week? No?

Not emotionally. No, he wasn't even here, Sean.

Was you were at that meeting?

You guys are we? Okay?

Who's kind of bad?

Braid?

Now we've known that about on Mike. Well, Jane, you can just listen to last week. I won't bore everyone again with it.

I have the same thought. Okay, I remember when I saw it here. My first reaction was grunt again. Okay, all right, Hey, Mikey talked to pepper Day. What's every day? Of course it is? Yeah, yeah, all right, doctor pepper Day. I'm not a fool only because I'm a man. I don't go down diets for women that you needed to know. But that's why zero exists. That's why zero guys didn't

Now, no, that's you.

I'm drinking zero.

I'm like, I wish we got a clean, clean read of that.

We'll get We'll have the ice.

Don't worry, so, uh mister ten manly categories? But who cares anymore?

But have you been listening to this podcast? Do you think we care anymore? Is how they presented the Real Game Awards with Ted c Yeah, a video game. I genuinely hope that's that that people do enjoy this podcast. I'm having a great time, Like I hope you would. I hope you don't listen to this podcast of obligation or habit. I hope you're enjoying this anyway. Jeff Grub before the Royal Rumble, I decided to stream Disco Elysium, but it was made known to me before that you

I started Grim Fandango as part of my punishment as given to me by the winner of Bowser's Hurry Mike Manatti. Uh, And I'm having fun it is. It's a good, good game so far it is. I have don't have a lot of history with point and click adventures, especially from this time, but I've always like, like a lot of stuff that I don't have history with. I'm like, I see them afar, I'm like, I should spend time with it. And Grim Pandango always heard at the time, very good game.

But the game itself is it's just really solid.

I just had to like get in the mindset of how these games work, of oh, this is not an RPG where I'm just choosing my own path. I'm like, I am supposed to click through every dialogue option and hear everything every character has to say. And I'm like, Okay, now that I know that this game, it clicked into place immediately, I can kind of figure out I will be I'll be giving a general task or or an obstacle, and then I will have to figure out how to get around that using the.

Stuff available to me. Now it is very up to the puzzles.

I am going to just look these things up. That's what everyone recommends. And so the fun of this game does come from getting to talk to these characters, the good writing, the good voice acting, the actual.

Really incredible world design.

You know, it's the Day of the Dead Dead for people that don't know, which I think is today as well. You know it happens right around at the same time as April Fools Down. Oh yeah, so yeah, I'm really enjoying it. I'm glad, I'm I'm glad I'm playing it. I played about the first hour and a half because I wanted to stop so I could fix things. But now that I'm I'm up and running, I'm probably gonna get through a lot of it the next time I stream, which at the latest will be Saturday.

Yeah.

I tuned in and it was like perfect timing, because you know, I think my experience of those type of games mirror errors and that, like, you know, people really.

Respect them and love them.

You know, Bianca loves those games and everything, and like I just like I've always been like I should this should be in my rolodex of game memories. But then tuning into you, and the first thing I see is you're next to something some do hickey and you're just clicking everything that can't pick that up, can't pick that up, can't pick that up. And then you're like, what do you want me to do?

Game? What do you want me to do? And eventually you had like three whole punch of playing card and put it into a pneumatic tube and you were like, why would I have known that? And that's why we would like no, and no one.

Knew it right, and let's like, you know, some fans of the game in chat were saying you were supposed to just like get lost in these games for weeks and figure it out on your own by eventually trying every combination everywhere, and it's like, okay, maybe you did it that way, but I can't imagine most people will just have.

To do that, or like back in the day, call the Lucas Arts hotline and me and Jeane tells you tips. Yeah, that kind of thing. So you know, the way to do it is you do kind of explore and make sure you go to every area see what you can do, and then you know when you're as soon as you are stuck, instead of getting frustrated, Yeah, you just go and look up what to do. I mean that's what I did probably the first time I played this game in nineteen ninety eight. We still had game facts, you know,

But what I want.

I watch your vod, Jeff, and it's still just looking at I'm like, man, there are very many games like this. This is just such a unique, different vibe and it was fun seeing you kind of like, just get used to this kind of game, which I'm super familiar with, Like you know you're talking about you know it's not an RPG, and you have dialogue options, and you know you might be trained, like, oh, so, how do I want my Manny Calavera to speak?

What is he?

Like?

Like, No, Manny is Manny.

He's going to always be that character you need to say all these things, like you want to talk to Glottis for the first time, and you used every dialogue option but the one you needed to profess the story and left, and I was watching the vod. I was like, oh, I don't know if I could take this.

I definitely noticed a vibe shift in chat when I did that, and I'm like, I think I know what happened here.

I think I'm playing this game wrong. I will get back there and we'll continue because it was I had to just kind of learn what this game was trying to do.

But now that I have it, and really that pretty whole punch thing on the card thing that is instructive, it's like, oh, if I have something in my inventory and then there is something I can interact with in the world, I should probably be like messing around and trying everything with all of these devices. Now again, I probably won't do that a ton. I will just let chat help me, and so far that's been an ideal way to play.

I want to try to be there live on the next one because like I can Nudgjoe Well.

Yep, mikey. I'm also a novice when it comes to these games, and I've been curious about the adventure games. In your opinion, which should I go with? First, Grim Fan Dango, Day of the Tentacle Escape from Monkey Island.

Well, before you say, they not escape from Monkey Island, right, and a modern things is rough Anyways, Day the Tentacle for sure, because they had the remaster. That's a very funny game. It has some fun time travel stuff, great characters. That was actually like, that's a very important game for me, because that was the first one of these that I ever got. We were just at a software et cetera, back when there used to be one inside Barnes and Noble, and but that's like, you guys can get a PC game.

It's what it's called.

Okay, that's fun good consoles, it's just like full analog control instead. But yeah, it's the that they added classic point and click for it. Yeah, this was like a PS four game.

That's like when I remember seeing it at the PlayStation Experience and they like had like a whole stand there for it, and I'm like, I'm going to play this game now that's remastered, And of course I didn't, but I'm like, yeah, I works on ConTroll er.

How's the point and click going to work on that. So it's like, oh, okay, now of course it was always meant to be played that way. All right, cool, I'll give that a shot.

Speaking about punishments, Dan, you've completed yours.

Yeah, a lot more to say about it other than yeah, now that it's done, sow credits.

Really enjoyed it.

Mike was dead on with his punishment there, and it's one that if I would have played back then I would probably be uh a soapboxing for like Mike does.

So yeah, I get it.

It's very fun.

It's good stuff. They need to make a new one.

I would love a new one. That'd be great.

I kind of like this idea of punishments and just just seeking that out in your own time. Mike, I think you should give out more punishments, Okay, make more contests that I could win and will. We should do more things like the punishment thing.

I like that a lot.

Yeah, it's a good stake to have, and when we do these things for Yeah.

I want to make you guys play syops oh.

I yes, yeah, I played that demo so much.

Just the room where you can just spawn in Scientists and random physics and wrecking balls and just fucking just murder people all you want.

It so much fun just throwing a box and then like riding like the box lid and throwing that oh yeah good.

Yeah, and habiting some bad guys brain make them jump off a cliff. Yeah, it's great.

Games could have been so so cool. Speaking about super cool games, Mike Minatti, you have been playing a cool game, Vampire Survivors, but you've checked out ode to Castlevania.

Yeah. So we did our Best to Music of twenty twenty four episode and there was a bunch of just the remixed Castlevania songs that they put in this in there. I was just listening to that. I's like, man, why am I not playing this DLC? It's probably like three bucks or something. I never got the game on switch. I'll just buy that also still really cheap.

You know.

I like Vampire Survivors. I never liked it quite as much as maybe like you guys did some other people. I tell you what, You're throwing all that Castlevania stuff in there, and it's neat because the Castlevania level it's not just oh like you know, we put a Castlevania tile set here. You go inside the castle, you fight the bosses. There's even a two D section all of a sudden, at one point there's a couple of them. Yeah.

Yeah, there's like a dozen plus bosses, it feels like, and then the other's parts where you go it's like, oh, it's the Doppelganger fight. Now it's just two D controls, and yeah, it's really really cool. It's really neat. You know, I love Castlevania. I love the metro videas, I love the classic Castlevania's. There's so many characters to unlock.

I just got the first one so far with Leon belmont Right, and I'm so excited. It's great because it's not just you know, like the big hits, it's not just Trevor Simon al Lucar. There's a ton of characters across all these games, even the unpopular ones. That's awesome.

Mike, you have to whatever you think the limit of that is is not the limit. There are so many characters in that game.

Yeah, so I think I'm going to Honestly, I see myself getting into this even more than I got into the base game. Especially, you know, I was playing a lot of RPGs. Then I played Donkey Kong. I forgot to throw it on there. I beat Echoes of Wisdom, and that's why I sort of started this before starting my next kind of big game, which is probably gonna be Tales of Grace's f but I want to do something a little bit more chill first. Echoes Wisdom, by the way, very good game. Glad I went back and

I completely forgot about Echoes of Wisdom completely.

I always did.

That's why I'm glad. Like I was like, no, I want to go back to that.

If I go back to it now, I can go back to it, and I could jump back in. If I wait too much longer, it may never happen. So I'm glad I did it when I did.

Speaking about jumping in, you dove headfirst like Manatti into SpongeBob SquarePants Battle for Bikini Bottom rehydrated Are you ready?

Fuck us?

Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa whoa that's.

A kid, I can't hear, Like, oh yeah, so kind of a similar thing where I was looking for a change of pace. I actually finished Dark Soul three and that was fantastic. That was my stream game, and I was like, Okay, I want to stream something else. Definitely need a different vibe right now. I was definitely in the mood for a three D platformer, and I've always wanted to play Battle for Bikini Bottom. I always heard

Because it was made for like the game Cuban stuff when this show was at its height.

But yeah, the platform kicks. It's kind of like a better Donkey Kong sixty four, like he has some of that character swapping stuff. It's mostly a collectithon with, you know, just some solid platform mechanics. You get some new abilities here and there. The levels themselves all have a good variety two and you're like, you know, Downtown Bikini Bottom.

It does a good job in the.

Fan service front. But then is a three D platformer. It feels really good. It's very precise, all the mechanics are nice. Yeah, just surprisingly a very chill and fun play through. And it's not like you know, oh licensed kids game, super easy and boring, right, It's it's kind of astro bought in terms of difficulty. It never gets too hard, and then towards the end though, you have some nice more challenging areas that.

Can maybe give you a bit more of a of a good struggle there. Yeah, liking this.

One a lot. I did you You were there when I was playing that Patrick Star game, right.

I was.

I think that's part of what made me think of it. And that game looks more like Goats simulator, right, Yes, that one.

That one's definitely much more like chaotic and like you can make Patrick Starr flop over and and and then he'll just roll around like an idiot and stuff, and that's really fun. And then like it's all pretty dense, Like every two feet there's another land that has like this one is a roller coaster in it, and this one has a bunch of cars you can take, and it's kind of just seems like, hey, just go have fun. But beginning bottoms just straight up a real shoot platform.

It is, and it's definitely doing the Mario sixty four formula.

Like the thing here's the golden Spatula's right, and in each level there's so many of them and just kind of like the main one, you know, right, it's kind of like Mario Odyssey code that way, which sounds insane. You kind of follow a main path to get to that the main spatul, but on the way there's other ones. Then there's things kind of like the blue coins of

That's gotta be one I should try out. And I've thought about for a while, just like I don't really know SpongeBob at all, but just like a fun platformer, you know, there's not many of those, and you can play on modern platforms and stuff I need to Yeah, yeah, you came.

Up specifically during my stream because it was like, what Dan like this because he doesn't really know SpongeBob, and I'm like, I'm not like some giant SpongeBob guy. I definitely have some Nostalgjian affinity for it.

I just had it on the background where my kids are watching it constantly, and yet I'm like I enjoy the SpongeBob nests of these games.

I've never seen it, but like every single thing I've heard about it is like, oh, okay, I was a huge ren.

And stimpy kid, and this seems to me in that it's the special success.

Yeah.

I think if I was a little younger, I think I would have loved spongeob.

It's a funny show. Especially again, this was from its prime.

The one weird thing this won't bother you, Like they got almost all the voice actors, but not like mister Crabs, so he just sounds like a weird fake mis of Crabs Mermaid man. Well, Clinton Brown was too busy making Carnival for HBO.

I mustn't be there.

I must have been it, but gosh, yeah, part of me is like, ooh, do I check out that cosmic shake thing after this? I that's sure what people thought of that one, right, because that was like the new actual one that this team made it later.

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna ask like, yeah, so I don't think any of us have tried that, but what I heard it was it was not quite as good, but also not the worst platformer ever.

Yeah, that's the one where Patrick Starr is kind of following you around as like a weird balloon.

Right, He's like the Navvy character or something that's yeah.

Yeah, I I hate I hate how SpongeBob has kind of infiltrated my and been part of my brain for forever. He's in your mind palace, He's in my mind palace. Yeah, him and his damn squeaky shoes. So I I was at a function and someone had fell and then groaned eye lug, and then I laughed to myself, and then people I was with was like, that's fucked up, dude, Why are you laughing about that guy's leg? I'm like, but he I thought he was okay, never mind moving

Do they have guest characters in there, crossover or anything?

Oh? Yeah, yeah, throw throw a Gordon Ramsey in there.

Yeah, the Bear. Yeah, exactly, I need to watch that. It sounds good.

It will stress you out in some parts, Dan, but it's not real, so it's fine.

I say it's listed as a comedy, and I heard that that was the thing where people are like, but is it like some people don't understand that Succession was a comedy and Succession was hilarious, Like is it like that.

A little bit?

Yeah, no, a little bit, just a little just just a skow, I guess.

Because like uncut Gems, everyone's like, oh, this is so stressful and I watched them, like I love this, this is fucking great, And is it like that?

Just like that?

Okay, you're in a.

Different wave, like you like you also say you never get sad from a movie too, so maybe you just don't get stressed out from movies, right, No, I've never been stressed.

By I think you would be annoyed by Karmi if anything, the main character.

Okay, there would be characters that you wouldn't like for sure. Well, I mean that's a Succession. I didn't like any of those characters.

Yeah.

Uh.

Speaking about funny games, I don't actually know if this is funny. I have a code for this that I've yet to check out, and perhaps we will check this out together in the website and I could use the expertise of one Mike Minatti and Jeff Grubb to guide me through Civilization seven.

Why did you Civilization was a funny game?

Aren't some of them funny? No? Not not at all. Aren't there some games that are funny?

I don't think humor is it? I mean sometimes it's been funny when like Gandhi nukes you because you know that happens, But they're not comedies. Sid Meyers Pirates is a little funny. Hm, that's a close. That's a little bit of a goof There's not much goofing around in them, especially the recess game.

I've played more Sid Meyers Pirates than any Civilization game.

That's fine. Sid Myers Pirates is a perfect video rules. I love that.

Well, it's funny. How I got that wrong?

Then, Mike, Civilization seven is is pretty solid for a new civilization game. These games are notorious for releasing and disappointing their fan base because it takes time for them to like kind of get in a good spot where by kind of patching up the new systems so that they work better, and then improving them vastly with expansions to the point where like everyone looks back on the old SID games and says, oh, man, wasn't that so good?

So for a game that is in this.

Early state, you know it's out though you can it's a well, it's going to be out later this week. You could buy it for extra money right now, I think. But for again, it's like not presenting itself as early access but still has that SIV baggage.

It is very solid. It does a lot of the basic stuff very well.

There are some newer systems, at least I didn't play a ton of Sieve six, but the city management and the optimization of the cities I think is very well done and rewarding where each city can it continues to grow the entire time, and each time.

It grows, you will choose which sell to grow, and you.

Can you know, a lot of times you're like, oh, I just want to get the thing that has the most output of resources that I need. But you can start to like make some decisions about, Okay, do I want to be growing or do I want to be taking advantage of building more people into the cities, because that actually uses up more resources than giving me resources.

There's the.

Era of antiquity, there's like the classical era, I think it's called, and then the modern era. And so these are like periods in a hockey game where it's like you are going to try to win each period and you're going to get a specific goal to accomplish during that period. So during my era of antiquity, my goal with my civilization was I'm going to be the civilization that builds the most modern or excuse me, wonders of

That sort of resets things a little bit so that everyone can feel like they're caught up.

Now I'm playing with NPC computer player computer control players, but still you get the idea of what they're going for here to keep the thing as interesting as possible for as long as possible, and I think it mostly

So I you know, reviews for this game opens are kind of a bit all over the place, right, I think I'm on the more positive side or Positijieff kind of the counterpoint to that whole like, oh, the Cieve game comes out and it doesn't have as much stuff as the last Stiev game, and like I remember this cycle happening when Sieve six came out. I played Sieve six again like a month ago because I was excited for this. I remember thinking, but there's a lot of

Yeah, I started as the Mississippians and ended as Japan and like you still have your leader, so that's still a connecting tissue.

Although it's like somethings a little weird, like I'm Benjamin Franklin of the French right, something like that, but there's still some cohesion to it. I don't know, it's still is just doing the SIF thing that I'm looking for. And again I'm more of a I'm going to play tens of hours of this game, not hundreds of hours, right, but for me, these games are fun to stop every once while, and they're incredible time I don't say time wasters, but they definitely make time fast forward. Yes, that's my

I think I just think that those the little games you do in each of those eras, like building the wonders.

I like building wonders. That's fine. Spreading religion. I don't know what that accomplished.

I'm not like, maybe it did, I don't know what it did. And then the of the archaeology thing, I think that's how the NPC sieve that one got their victories, Like they just had fifty archaeologists, archaeologists.

Going around the world exploring these various.

Sites, and it's like, Okay, I was doing that, but it's like it's just sending a character to a space having them do something for a couple of turns, which I guess is a lot of sieve. But it just didn't feel like I had a ton of say and what was happening.

So I definitely still with the religion thing, like it told me what to do, and I was sending my missionaries to the city, and I was like, if if you convert a city for the first time, you get a reliquary, if you get so many of those and you complete these missions, which again we'll give you bonuses for the next phase, you can have it kind of

Out there that's very nebulous for me, and it's often what leads.

Me to lose.

Yeah, and I think that that's like the all the these things that you're doing in these various eras. It's it is just like trying to clear a condition. Usually I'm not sure if there's any sort of like analogue oh this because these religions are are spreading in this way and has an effect on how people feel and

I think that that's interesting to say. It almost feels more like a board game than before. I definitely get that one thing. I do like you kind of talked about the way cities grow. I do like how it's just depending on that growth meter and every once in a while you basically get to expand by a tile, whereas in the old games, is like you had to have that worker unit you kind of sent them around to build the improvements and it was like it wasn't terrible,

Yep. I am very intrigued to check out Civilization seven. I am a little bit intimidated after hearing both of you talk about that. But the reason why you're gonna.

Have so many laughs though, it's gonna be such.

A laugh right why I thought this game was supposed to be funny. But one of the reasons I want to check this out is my boy hero of the Philippines, Jose Brizzalez, in this fucking game. And then I was just reading some of his attributes and I'm like, oh, that's what I'm all about. I'm all about being diplomatic and cultural and my agenda is copla.

Mike, did you ever attack a AI Civilization I That's like with these games in general, I never liked playing them like military games. I made a military to try to defend myself and often will lose because I eventually kind of don't and then I get attacked and I die. I never like going for military victories. Now did they ever attack you? They attacked me?

Yeah, they never attacked me. Yeah, I almost get the sense that maybe, yeah, right, it was nice. But I get the sense that maybe something was bugged out because they also stopped.

Doing the.

Sort of diplomacy stuff, whether that's another thing. Yeah, Like in the third act, I not once did they reach out to me to do diplomacy stuff. So I wonder if my game bugged.

Out, maybe your civilization smelled bad.

Yeah that's true.

Hey, we were God, we have maybe just so much culture that these people couldn't even stand to look at us.

They couldn't understand embarrassment.

Yeah.

Yeah, you guys were talking about scibbities and they were like, what.

The fuck still on Polly Shore and we were onto Skibbity.

So yeah, right, right, well you had your own biodome what it was, that's right. Yeah.

I think that it's also just a little buggy in general. So I was saying some things, like I was getting like some of like the speakover like lines for tech trees and stuff that I didn't actually fulfill. I think they just showed up for the first time, small things like kind of like Indiana Jones dialogue. Bug's kind of like exact level.

You have just some annoying UX stuff where and part of that. So I'm playing on the steam deck, but I'm like, I'm trying to move this resource to this city.

Just let me do it.

And eventually I'm just like, I'm gonna click on the screen and see if that works. And sometimes that would.

Yeah, I was also having some weird stuff there sometimes. Yeah, it's just I'm coming in a little hot, a little hot.

I don't uh speaking about coming in a little hot. Citizen Sleeper too dropped last week. I was a big fan of the original Citizen Sleeper. It was one of those games that really made me think, oh shit, oh fuck, no, I got to reevaluate my life. And Citizens Sleep or

Okay, that makes sense.

It's it is a lot of information to digest at the very top of the game, but you settle into the flow of it very quickly. Ever, actually completed one run of the original game, just because I felt like, very, very satisfied from the one story that I experienced, and I didn't really want to explore the different options, even if I even knowing now how much I kind of

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering because I always meant to play that first one, didn't get around to it. Do you think I should still play that one first? You think I should just jump into the new thing? But both on game pass, right, I think just the second ones on game pass.

Maybe I don't think you need to play the first one at all, only if you just want, I guess, compared to something a little bit more scaled down in terms of the systems. But this guides you through the process. The only callback, at least from what I've experienced from the original game, is the concept of the Sleepers, and you were basically just like a robot that someone dumped

Oh.

The other bit that's really neat is at least where I'm in the game, everyone is constantly in zero G, so there's fun little details where like everyone's character portraits are kind of floating around, and as you're reading through the text, people are just gliding through space, and I just want to glide through space with y'all. Yeah, of course, have.

You done a sensory deprivation chamber?

No to try it. You're literally just kind of floating in darkness. I don't know if I can handle. I just in San Francisco. Yeah, I strike a bottle tequila and lay in my bathtub. That's also yeah, yeah, yeah, you were jaying you had this one on Fantasy Critic to you got a sweet sixteen points from this thing. You're now in first place for actual points but also projected first place. Look at that.

Well, yeah, baby. Also, the music in this game, god fucking banger after banger similar to the fact I played.

A couple hours of the first one, and that's the thing I really took I mean, okay, the two things I took away from the first one. Three things I did like the systems. I like the dice rolling. I thought the art was astounding. It was just an awesome game to look at. And then the music was very good. They kind of hit all that here as well. Is what I'm getting, Oh totally, I think. Also over the weekend I check it, checked out Disco Elysium, and I know that it's everyone's favorite game here.

Uh. But the thing I think I benetted from the most is checking it out now and that there's voice acting added to it. Yeah, so I was, I guess further immersed into the story. I know that the Citizen's Sleeper Team is very small. I would maybe enjoy it with some voice acting perhaps, Uh, not not critical at all. I'm completely fine reading it, but I wouldn't mind maybe like an edition down the line, combining one and two and now we got voices and hey, need someone to

In that snow.

I'm lonely on this mountain. Lonely Mountains snow Riders. I am playing this on steam Deck.

It is out everywhere, though, as far as I can tell, in a lot of places.

It is the follow up to Lonely Mountains Downhills, which was a BMX downhill racing game, sort of racing slash chill hangout game, but it has the leaderboards in it, so you can imagine the way that I play it. This is similar, but it's about skiing, and so it

Yeah, I don't think I quite got the hang of because I just played like a little bit of it and it was like, wait, does I want me to let go of the jump button after my skis leave the ground?

You can do that? There's like some benefits to that sometimes.

Okay, Yeah, I just wasn't understanding that really because I anytime I load up like a snowboarding type game or a skiing game, I just assume ssex controls.

I hold in the X button, I can.

Start kind of preloading the backflip or whatever I want to do. And it kind of threw me off that it definitely if I would say not as I love that.

Yes, yeah, yeah, this is much more like it's not a sim but it's much more sim than it is SSX. So it like a lot of times, like when you're going on ramps and stuff like, you are holding down that jump button, but that jump button is also just your tuck down button, so you can go faster and get speed, and a lot of times you're just sort of when you let go, you are just letting go

Yeah, it seemed cool from when I like, just the carving through the snow felt great, and.

I think I just need to get used to it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but overall it's like solid I actually struggled to find a friend's leaderboard, so I'm not I'm not sure if that's in the game. It might be, but you could play online multiplayer together. I've not done that yet. We might try to do that this week, though. I think that'd be a good UPF game.

Oh yes, I looks like such a Jeff grub game.

God, yes, very much.

Downhills was very much my game. This one is too.

I've always been snow activity curious as someone in San Francisco. I want to make a snow angel.

Can y'all what if it snowed in San Francisco? Every car would crash? Yes, every even the parked cars would crash. The hill reference to a Johnny Moseley skiing game for the PS one, I think, Wow, Johnny Moseley.

Yeah, what's he up to? Huh?

I haven't thought yeah?

Uh God, you talking about Johnny Moseley just made me think of Travis Pastrana.

For some reason. Yeah.

They're all from that era. They're all from they where they would wear the uh that in that video. It's an f m V cut scene from Johnny Moseley Mad tricks.

Uh.

He is wearing one of those like puffy jackets without the sleeves.

What are like just that thing?

But he's not wearing a yeah vest, he's not wearing a shirt underneath. So it's like, yeah, that's the cool guy right there.

Wow, what a that? That is a cool guy. Bless you, Mike manaughty audio listeners, Mike sneeze. Then he graciously muted his mic dan last game we got here on the docket Eternal Strands.

Yeah, heard about Lonely Mountains. Seemed like a grub game. Grub I've thought of you several times playing this.

I downloaded it, and I finally because you saw it on the list and you put it on there, You've talked about it, I need to just go look and see what this is.

And as soon as I did, I'm like, oh, I should be playing this. Yeah. I didn't know what to expect it all.

Ben Hanson was telling me about it over the weekend and I was like, oh, okay, maybe I should check this out.

Yeah.

It The two things I think about most are Breath of the Wild and Shadow of the Colossus.

With this, oh yeah, that's pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah, lots of fun physics magic type stuff like you instantly get a couple Basically you get like the forest power thing where you can just pick things up, throw things so and there's a lot of like, okay, this plant creates fires. If I throw this thing into the woods, it's going to create kind of like a cascading fire thing. But then I also have ice, and so I can kind of like paint the path, or I can cool off a tree or something and fix

I just unlocked one where it's like a sphere of gravity that pulls every thing in, so like all the like items like you know, a broken bridge that I cut down or something, and a bunch of enemies and then you can explode it and then I level that up, so now I can like move the orb around.

Before I exploded.

So it's it's got some cool like it's almost like Monster Hunter two in that it's not a giant open world the way Breath the Wild is it is segmented where it's like I'm gonna go to this area to this area as I'm unlocking these fast travel points, and there are day and night cycles and certain crafting things you can only get during night or day, and so there is this loop of like you can go out and try to do the story. Or you can go out and just this is just a crafting resource run.

If I'm going to a neutral thing. It's neat cool.

Yeah, with like it's just very easy to do and you're not losing resources or anything like that. And then there are like super rare resources where it's like this is like a colossus that I go out here, and

Back to having fun. So do we ask game Yeah, I'm downloading it. Yeah, Danny, good week for game pass stuff here, because what this This is on game pass? Hip twos on game pass, Grip and Dingo's still on game Pass, SpongeBob's still on game Pass.

Let's a game pass games we're talking about.

This is weak.

I mean, luckily everything is an Xbox, so that's okay. That's so I could download these on my switch then right free, Dan, quick question about these colossi that you're fighting. Do I experienced extreme guilt after killing them? Not bad?

It tells you that they were like they were created to.

Do construction stuff and everything, so they might have just been like, oh, this is what I do and then all of a sudden some dudes coming and hacking away.

It is like armor.

But I bet evil took him up. I'm sure if I paid attention.

To the story, you'll be like, oh, the evil Sorcerer made him bad or something, but cool looking, all right, all right.

I do wonder about the story because, like I I have just enough.

I don't know what it is.

I don't know if it's guilt or what.

I can't just mash through the dialogue boxes, so if it's bad, it just makes the game bad for me, and I like it less and I wonder how much of it there is, even in that Master Hunter Wild demo thing whatever. Though the beta, I was like, why is there this much story in this game? I just want to hunt the monsters. I hope it's not too much of the fucking head dialogue boxes.

I just you know, I I'll never skip a cut scene, but I will a through some fucking dialogue like no one's business. And that's what I'm doing here.

I have to work on that.

Fantastic Apparently this is like former BioWare devs or something.

Yeah.

Wow, so Yellow Brick Games. I think this is their first game. That's cool.

Yeah, very fun, Grub, I think you'd like it a lot.

You know what, I'll try tonight.

But Jane, you weren't here for my Wicked turn because I saw Wicked and I'm now wicked coated and wicked pilled and all that stuff.

Mike, I don't know the context, but I think I may be on your side all right.

Yes, looking very good, But I was gonna say I could have done without that seat where we got the orgin story for the Yellow Brick Road. Stupid but a way that sounds like a parody. Yeah, I saw this was about something Jeff was talking about, but I really liked the movie.

Are are you more of an alphaba? Are you a Gullanda? What do you say?

Are you grub Linda and your tokoda?

Buh?

Yeah, your grub let is a very pumped. I'm definitely you could beat Glinda. I could be Glinda when she changes her name.

Sure a little bit, Okay, okay, uh, Dan, you can be bach Uh. What will be back right after this quick hockey break and we'll be back with this breaking after this breaking break with the news right after this Grub, I actually have an opt ed today? Is that? Okay? No?

Yeah?

Yeah, this is your space down with rat faced men bringing big beautiful boys like us anyway, right, Jeff grub.

Yeah, no one's ever called me rat face. I could never be that beautiful. I got news for you. Switch to Uh.

It can't come soon enough, according an analyst, because Nintendo had to lower forecast once again, for how much the Switch is going to sell this fiscal year. After the Switch sales declined last quarter by thirty percent, so it lowered its forecast by another one point five million. It's lowered a bunch of times for o Kawa said Hey, yeah, we're not going to hit our targets, and we're not gonna hit our reduced targets either. They're not sell environment

Hey, don't worry.

In the meantime, they did update like their best selling switch games, Animal Cross.

All right, let's do Mario Kart first. Mario Kart sold.

Another two million copies. And I think that's just and I think that's in the last three months of the year, because that's yeah, because from September twenty twenty four to December thirty first, twenty twenty four, it gained another two point zero eight million copies. It's now it's sixty seven point three five million copies. So that is like base I mean, that's more.

Than a third.

Honestly, if you're talking about a third. Animal Crossing New Horizons at forty seven point four to four million copies sold another one million copies in three months. At the end of the year, one in three people who have a switch own Animal Crossing New Horizons. Yeah, that is a system seller.

Oh yeah, yeah, that.

Is one of the biggest successes of all time in any field of entertainment.

Gosh, I think they didn't even release the first Animal Crossing.

Here, Yeah in the day.

It's insane that like Nintendo hasn't really supported it since maybe they dropped that like Ocean Pack or whatever it was.

They just make a game and put it out. Yeah, yeah, and it's good. Continue sell sells forever, it sells.

It's sold, yes, one million copies and for the last three months of the year is going to be better than most video game new video game releases.

Yeah, so yes, that just sells forever.

Lots of other successful titles from them, Smash Brothers Ultimate is now at thirty six million ish, Breath of the World Mild sold another three hundred and thirty thousand copies.

It's at thirty two point six two.

Million, Mario Odyssey's almost at thirty million twenty nine point zero four Pokemon Sword and Shield, Scarlet and Violet are both around twenty six million each. That's pretty good. Yeah, Tiers of the Kingdom is actually okay. So there was a period there after Tears of the Kingdom came out where Breath of the Wild was selling better than it. Tiers of the Kingdom is now selling faster than Breath of the Wild, but not by a ton. It's sold five hundred thousand copies and is at twenty one point

Of the year, I think they said that Jamboree has already sold six millions it's coming out, which is and then absolutely Wild.

Mario Party Superstars I think it is around like ten to fifteen million as well.

So another made for Mario Party God, good reason. You know, It's just it's just, you know, I I'm trying not to be no not that's funny.

Yeah, that's funny.

I try not to be inflammatory here, but like, you know, whatever, your favorite like Prestige TV esque Sudy kick the Ship out of the Mario Party sold better than it. Uh they Uh so they're they're looking toward the future at Nintendo, but well, they don't worry about.

Says it will continue to support the Switch after Switch to his launch as long as there's demand.

Uh.

They say these kinds of things sometimes.

H for Akawa basically was like, hey, yeah, we're gonna do this despite you know, thirty percent decline, blah blah blah, there's still like lots of people playing the switch. They didn't say something along the lines of one hundred and twenty nine million people are playing.

The switch still or something along those lines. I don't know how they count that. Uh, you know, they have, yes, and that makes sense.

They go door to door.

It's a census.

They have sold one hundred and fifty point eighty six million switches, So it is in that one hundred and fifty million range where you know, very few other consoles have gotten only the DS and the PS two. PS two is now at one hundred and sixty million according to Sony, So there's a lot out there and they're like, hey, we want to keep supporting that because there could be

It's difficult, right because even when the DS had, like you said, over one hundred and fifty million consoles sold, it still moved on to the three DS pretty quickly. There there was like some cross gen support, and then with the Game Boy Advance that there's going to be crossing games for the Switch for a while because there aren't just so many players there. But you know, it's it's gonna keep getting harder and harder to make games

Yeah, I think a lot of people come down to like, what does Nintendo actually do as it's releasing its games. Obviously, I think Mario Kart, the new Mario Kart's just going to be on switch to. Well, why would they put that on switch again? They have a switch there all right, or they have a Mario Kart on that switch already that continues to sell just fine, so this new one will just be on there. And if they do that with all of their games, yeah, people will move on

People will be ready to move on.

Last little thing here from Nintendo. Nintendo says it's making preparations for switch to resellers people you know. Scalpers President Shintaro for Akala addressed concerns about potential switch to shortages and reselling. For Okala stated that Nintendo has taken measures to ensure a smooth launch and sufficient inventory to meet demand based on past experiences with the original switch. They

I don't know about that, but there's you know, rumors have been saying that they've been making switch toes already for a while. I think the strategy is just there's gonna be so many of them exactly that scalpers really won't have a leg to stand on. There won't be any reason for you to have to go to them because you will just be able to go on Amazon or go to a Walmart and pick one up hopefully.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be like the PS five pro situation where that dropped and they were just in They were so readily available that you didn't have to worry about scalpers. I personally think Doug Bowser is just gonna have a bat ready and go to town.

Here the Bowser bat they did. There is rumors that they're gonna have like twenty million ready to go for the first quarter of its launch, so that that'd be a pretty good number. That would probably help a lot. Wouldn't do it, wouldn't do everything to stop scalpers, but it would help a lot.

You know, I think they sold twenty million game cubes ever?

Really yep? Yeah, wow, years of that that's wild yep.

ESA says tariffs on video games could cause significant harm to everyday Americans. This is the lobbying firm for the video game industry. They are they don't have a lot of power, So them kind of pointing out how this is going to be bad doesn't it probably.

Won't stop it, But who knows about tariffs?

They keep going back and forth, they say they were about to put a twenty five percent tariff on all goods from Canada and Mexico, and then everyone freaked out and they've kind of backed off, But I imagine that he'll get bored again and want to enact these eventually.

Going to have an upward effect on a lot of prices.

The ESA, though, kind of being like, hey, we're going to go fight for the video game industry doesn't stand much of a chance. In Video Boss, Jensen Huang went into the White House, spoke with Trump directly and explained why a tariff on chips from TSMC and Taiwan would be a really, really bad idea. He said, likely it was a great conversation came out, and Trump still wants

All right, let's see here.

PlayStation is reportedly prepping a February state of play for Valentine's next week, for Valentine's Week. Excuse me, this is from Nate to Hate I had this sounds about right. I haven't heard this myself, but it sounds right to me. PlayStation is overdue to talk about some things.

Yes, all right, I put my conspiracy hat on right out there. Jan all right, all right, don't worry, folks. I'm not gonna speculate about a watch. That's silly intended doing that, all right, PlayStation state of play next week around Valentine's Day week. What is a big symbol for Valentine's Day? Jarman Heart exactly what have we not seen in a long time?

Vitality sensor, No Hearts, No Mike, come on, come on, work with Kingdom Hearts for baby.

It's time bust Sora out. Why has he been in Shibuya? I need to know.

It's not impossible, No, it's not. There's actually maybe a decent chance. Chance, I mean, like chance, not bad.

I remember who sounded insane first, and then you'll think he did sound insane, but he was.

I mean, now that you know, we've got Prophecy sixteen, we got seven reberth out like square Enix kind of needs to talk about another big impending game, right and they haven't talked about dran Quest twelve in a long time. Maybe that could show too. But we know more about Kingdom Hearts four than that actually, so it might start ramping up Kingdom Hearts four again here. Honestly, it's been a while since we heard from it. That's can't last forever.

Let me tell you Mowana to actually good. So let me play as Moana. Let me play with Mowanna in my party.

I think that you know, with state of play, it's easy to get your hopes up and they could go either way, this one could be a big one, right. I think that last state of play is the one that had ghost of Yota in it, and it's like that was a pretty no one complained about that state of play. They comin about a lot of the other ones. But there is a chance that like this one also comes along and just has a lot of nothing for most people in it because it is Partner games things

So they kind of need to get control of the narrative again here a bit right, because it's sort of a straight into well, they bet big on live service and that didn't work, and they're canceling games and closing studios. That's what's happening at Police Station right now. So yeah, we know about ghosts.

That's great. We got to have a couple other things either reintroduced, like Wolverine or announced here from some of these big studios.

Yes, I think go ahead is the Venom game real?

Does it exist?

We don't know anymore.

It's I mean like it leaked in that hack and it seemed like it was going to fill in that slot that Miles Morales did. But then people dug further into the week and got the sense that maybe it's it's not coming out when they said it was, or maybe never coming out. But who knows, that's incomplete information from quite some time ago, So we'll just have to wait to see.

Now, Jeff.

Bridge Racer recently came back. Yes, it did on the n s O Ridge Racer sixty four.

Is this the start of what people around the world are calling the Ridge Racer renaissance? And we are in fact going to see a brand new triple A Redge Racer revealed at this State of Play event. Many people are saying that, yeah, yes, without people assaulting me about this, you're right.

The Happy Meal toys right now is yeah, Mike, I don't think it's good if it happens. I do think it happens with Nintendo and not with PlayStation because Nintend's got a pretty good relationship.

With Banda Namco these days, uh or Konami. As you would say, Look, look, don't bring that up.

That one hurt.

That was a bad brain for it. I was embarrassed.

I could see dan a shame of me right now and band Namco mixed up once.

Hey, I'm hopeful for you, Bud, and I I promised I will actually start asking people about this one for real.

Actually you've been asking for years. I've been telling you too. You're right, yeah, Okay, who knows?

Do you think we could potentially see something from Microsoft on the state of play?

Yeah, Fortza right, I mean that Fortsa got announced. I think that.

I think part of it is. The reason Microsoft announced it when it did is because it is going to show up in that state of play, and they didn't want their fans being like, now, Microsoft's just making State of plays look better instead of their own stuff. Now it's kind of hurt a little bit less, but it's real and it's happening, so yeah, I think so. Yeah, and Indy will get an update. We know Indiana Jones is coming, so that stuff could easily show up in

If it's FORTSA, it's anything, right.

Yeah.

If there might be a few people are still like, well still, that's a little different than than Halo. I think most people have now gotten the message, like you said, like, yeah, Phil Spencer kind of did the circuit basically to rearrarate, right, Like you know, every chance he got is like, yeah, we're putting our games on everything and anything switch to love that PlayStation.

Absolutely.

He never said, yeah, we're gonna put all our games except for you know, of course a few of them. No, it's everything now, and I absolutely expect to hear if it's not not the next Halo, maybe master Chief collection sooner or other or later, maybe the rumors of a Gears of Work collection same thing. That could easily be the first time we see Gears of War on PlayStation. Yeah, it's happening.

Where you're I'm Sweeper.

Perhaps finally it's guys Brute Force. Everything is on the table now cell Damage. Uh fucking cameo, remember cameo, Elements of Power, NFL Fever, Yeah, NFL Fever. I think I have a copy of that, but yeah, yeah, yeah right Tang, what's the fighting game? The Lotus?

How fan Chaos of course? Yeah, so any minute now, all those will be breaking down the door onto the PlayStation.

Oh god, I would love like a seat, a collection of seats your original Xbox games on platforms that would rule so much excellently.

We should just make it ourselves and sell it as a bootleg out of the front.

Yea spellcaster was I can't call and remember that all that good ship and it's just bootleg.

Copies of Wicked Hell yeah yeah, oh yeah, blood spoiled right yeah, BAVD.

Xbox revenue fell seven percent in Q two has hardware sales dropped twenty nine percent. Basically, software stuff is up two percent. Hardware is dragging it down. They're putting all their stuff everywhere, so people are, hey, why would I buy an Xbox? And then people don't buy an Xbox. The hardware is down for everybody. It was down for Switch, it was down for PlayStation five like double digits. But

Yeah, I just it's gonna be so interesting to see what that next machine looks like, because it is gonna be the first Xbox ever that is and kind of first and foremost trying to compete with PlayStation because maybe say the Xbox One was trying to do that poorly by being a TV box thing y. Yeah, but yeah, it's like, you know, if you're expecting smaller stones anyways, I wonder just kind of how more boutique and maybe high end it's gonna be.

Is it just basically going to be an Xbox branded PC?

Right?

Even maybe just straight up run running Windows and stuff like that. Gosh, it's it's It definitely feels like at the end of an error. Right, Xbox isn't dying. They're gonna still make hardware, but it certainly isn't going to be the same. And anybody who ever hoped of things feeling like the Xbox three sixty again, that's not happening.

Now. I could see them going down something closer to a pre built PC path, even like bridging that gap more between console and PC, like.

Even working with like third party hardware manufacturers that's the same machines, the Phillips Xbox Yes God, and then the three D strategy you know, yea great yes Sanyo can come back and make an Xbox.

Xbox and everyone can make an Xbox.

I am Xbox.

I mean, I have no idea how that strategy would work, or if it could work. I think if they, you know, make it a lot like surface machine surface laptops, where it's like, hey, this is our hardware that runs Windows. Now this is hardware that runs the Xbox stuff, but it's open and you can do whatever you want with it.

I think that would win over some people. I would still just go with the PC though there's still there's still a chance if they can make a very good handheld, right, yeah, that'll be something. But again, like how long is that going to take, how powerful is it going to be, how much is that going to cost? I bet that's something that's very you know, foremost on their mind at

Do you think Microsoft could potentially try and I don't know, go for that annual model that phones have been doing for forever now of like this is this year's Xbox. Next year we're gonna have another Xbox.

I think it'll be a little bit offset where it's like this year we have the new Xbox home console hardware, and this year we have the new Xbox handheld hardware. And then maybe there's like some other iteration like a here's the new version of the Xbox series S that's very cheap, and then in the next year, don't worry for those who wait in the big Boy version will get an update and we'll have that ready to go

There were layoffs at BioWare.

They are focused on Mass Effect, which means they're making one game now instead of when they were making two games. They sent some people to work at other stuff within EA, and apparently a lot of people were told, Hey, this is going to be a temporary assignment, and then they were surprised to find out, no, you are permanent. We're permanently working on these other projects at EA. Now you're

Still very very far away, which I actually announced like four years ago.

We're trying to figure out what that's gonna, you know, look like in a very nebulous way even still but everything depends on it, though, but everything depends on it. And it just feels like, is that game ever going to meet whatever expectations, expectations from fans, expectations from e A. It's such a difficult thing. Like I hate to be pessimistic, thank you, but it just it's it. You could kind of see oll in ten years from now there's just not a BioWare anymore, and that'll be a bummer. I

Right, Well, don't worry if you if you worked on the narrative side of the Biowork games, they just fired you.

You're not working at AA. So yeah, was that last Dragon Age successful? Generally is?

It was considered a disappointment by AA based on its budget. It's all about one point five million or had one point five million players.

Fans like it ah, it's really nixed. But mostly no, I would say mostly.

No drama level.

No, it works as a game.

Mostly people are just like they wanted one thing, and the characters and the tone and the writing didn't quite meet those expectations.

I don't think it helped with like Balder's Gate three being such a success that.

No right, And again, this was a game that was going to be a live service game that they had to re engineer basically save to turn into a single player game, and it's probably a miracle that they are even able to do that, but it kind of wasn't enough. Plus, you know buy wors. Two games before this were Anthem and Andromeda. So it's just been a rough patcher know a lot of stuff. How much of that fault is there's who told them to make an Anthem with the

It stinks because it's like mass Effect maybe is the most set up for success. They are switching back into a unreal engine and they will be able to bring out a lot of people to help that know what they're doing with that sort of thing. And I think Mass Effect five kind of will have be a fresh start in a lot of ways, so they want to carry a lot of that baggage with them. So it's like, yeah, they could really deliberate if they're able to get that done.

They're still gonna have the problem and Drama did, which had a lot of problems, but one of it is, you know, Mass Effect for some people is kind of just shepherd in those characters, and you know, you wrap that trology Trosy up, you moved on, and I know that there seemed to be some illusions to those characters again, but how much can you really bring them back?

Right?

I mean, if Greena is back, Baby Joker is back, selling you NFTs.

I mean, if I'm them, it's like I just lean into it being a cheesy television sci fi show where hey, we found a shepherd's DNA and we and for some reason we need him back because it's like the it's like the Star Trek for right, it's like where only shepherd can calm down these space whales or something like that. So you bring him back and then it turns out Seth Green, actually the robot lady that's still alive, just downloaded his consciousness.

Yes, Edie, and we'll be able to bring him back. And then some of those aliens live live for hundreds of years, so they'll just all be here. And don't worry. They're still hot. They're not scars. Still hot.

Don't worry, still hot. All the blue ladies still hot. Dan record is going to be completely satisfied with this game.

For audio listeners, Dan's eyeballs are now bulging out of his face has hit the floor and his flopped out. Yeah, I think they think it's still have fun with it. I know it sounds like really cheesy the way I'm describing it, but I don't know. I kind of don't know what else you do.

I hope to make it work. I like mass Effect, I like BioWare. I think the video game Mystry is better with biowear in it in whatever form. I know a lot not a lot of the same people anymore, though I like BioWare, I want them. A lot of the Massfect team is a lot of the same many of the same people that did work on Masspect. Mike Gamble I think his name is. They had a whole list of people that worked on Masspect previously, so they make a big point of that.

But you're right, I semi related. But like, after playing through a bit of Citizen Sleeper too, I've realized I don't care about wizards and shit. Send me to space. Goddamn it. Space is so cool. Let me go back with Shepherd and crew. Also, man, don't please please buy Awaar. Don't ham fist a multiplayer mode into this. You don't heed it.

Man, people love that mass Effect multiplayer. It wasn't bad. But if they have one hundred people or so, yesday, I don't think you're gonna have the bandwidth to make that another hormone thing and that single player game anymore.

Yeah, And it's almost like, I don't know, released that separately somehow, I don't know if you're gonna do that, but don't.

You're right don't do that, just focus on this game, all right.

PlayStation named a new old president and CEO as Herman Holst takes studio role. This was like a weird thing where you know, Herman Holst and and let's see a Nishio were co CEOs of Sony and Interactive Entertainment. Herman Holst was in charge of the studios, Nishoneau was in charge of the hardware and platform stuff and dealing with third party. They still have those exact same roles. It's

Reporting on it.

So yeah, this one caught a lot of eyeballs, but it seems like PlayStation's kind of continuing as business as usual after they figure out what was going on with their live service stuff. Okay uh Ea shared pre alpha Battlefield gameplay alongside testing details. Basically, they're the important stuff is. They're going to do some early testing of this game over the next several months. They might release this game relatively soon, could be later this year, could be next year,

Helping on it.

They showed a little bit of gameplay, some like tiny little snippets like ten seconds at the end of a video, and the video was mostly them saying, hey, we are serious about Battlefield. We're going to bring it back and it's going to be awesome again. Vince Sampella front and center of this video. He now oversees battle field in the way that he's never had before. So they're trying to make some big promises. I I don't just put it to you, guys, what does a battlefield.

That makes sense? And twenty twenty five even look like. I would love to see them go all in on the destruction stuff, because I think, at least when I think like Bad Company and stuff, that was what made it stand apart from other stuff. To me, it was just like, oh wow, I can just like knock a house down if someone's in there. I would love to see like full red Faction style. Yeah. Yeah, it's difficult.

I think I remember people complaining it about being very feature light, because it seemed like that game came out hot and they never got around to really improving that side of things very much.

And of course it didn't have a single player campaign. It was just multiplayers.

So I think people had an a d in their in their heads that this is not worth seventy dollars in a world where there are a lot of shooters that are free to play.

Yeah, it's so difficult because so many people. It's like you have to find a way to move forward while also retaining the Battlefield DNA, which in a lot of ways is kind of old school, right, just that general kind of control point mode.

But it's when it works. It still does work, And it wasn't.

That long ago that they were still having some pretty big successes with stuff like Battlefield one, and battle was very successful. Battlefle of Force twenty thirteen, Holy crap, that's longer than I thought.

Yeah, I mean that that Golden era Battlefield or the second Golden Era Battlefield. I guess three and four were a long time ago, and really four wasn't It was before the one that was plagued with online.

Issues for a long time. It had like people liked the game, but it had a lot of connectivity issues. I just remember covering that. Yeah, I think so.

They they said for this testing that they're doing, they will have the traditional modes that they're known for, but they're like they're hinting out, we're gonna try some new stuff. So maybe this is where it's like lean into that destructibility stuff.

Dan.

I think like, if you can make some new modes specifically about.

Encouraging people to engage with that, that could be fun because that is one of battlefield strengths. So yeah, but I think at the end of the day, if this game comes out and it's seventy dollars again and that's the only way to play the multiplayer, I just don't know how it competes against a raft of games that.

Are now free to play, not just Fortnite. Yeah, but again, I'm so like, I'm like cautious of like, okay, so we gotta go that free to play rude, and it's got to be a very seasoned, pass heavy game. It also doesn't sound good now, because you know then it's like, what kind of cosmics you say? You can't just sell more army fatigues, right, you gotta do weird, wacky shit or a bunch of IP stuff, And how does that work in Battlefield? You know, there'll be a lot of

Happy throwing some some Stormtroopers that gets well, they work and everything it turns.

Out, yeah, Arcane or the Star Wars one.

Sorry, yeah, because stormtroopers are already in there technically yes, oh, usually okay in Battlefield game, but not Star Wars Startroopers both, yeah, yeah, side by side and then Jeff Beckler in between all of them. Arcane founder Rafael Colintonio is working with Lies of P publisher on next game so Wolfly Studios, founded by former Arcane Studios founder Raphael Colintonio, has a partner with Neo Is to publish their upcoming retro sci fi first person action RPG.

Hey, that's cool. Neo was fine with Liza P. So that's neat.

I'm glad that the cal Antonia was able to find a new publisher. Sounds like the game should be coming along here relatively soon, although who knows when we hear about it next.

Is good.

Remember we were watching that speed run of it a bit at games then click, it looked really good.

I've not touched it still.

Oh it's fine. God. Yeah, I don't know how I clicked in and managed to complete it. But man, I really need them to deliver on that after credits scene because it's right.

You're the one who told us about You told me about the after credits scene and I was like, that sounds awesome.

Just can we talk about that as a spoiler moratorium.

On what did Liza P come out? Two years ago? Yeah?

I mean, if they're gonna start talking about the DLC here pretty soon, so they're just gonna say what it is?

Uh yeah, okay, so what was it? It was? Yeah?

Everyone saying you're fine, it's all right.

So you finished the game, and then someone, uh you, like another player character is on a train and pretty much says like, all right, the mission's complete. We we can do the thing. And then like a book closes and then you see feet walking across a rooftop and those feet are wearing ruby slippers.

Yeah, that seems timely. That's a good idea. About a month ago, jan I would have been like, Okay, now I'm like, hell yeah, give me the fucking Wizard of Oz souls Like, I'm real into that shit.

Oh man, think about how cool Alpha bo would look. Think about the flying monkeys.

Flying monkeys shit.

I mean, Liz of p already dealt with a lot of the designs of like being big puppet people, of course because Pinocchio. But like with Wizard of Oz and how the Wizard is, that could be really cool.

And Liz of PTE didn't really have a magic system. There's kind of mechanical st up. But then now you can just, yeah, straight up put magic in the game. That'd be neat.

Yeah. Maybe Dorothy throws shoes, Sure, Dorothy, what Dorothy, Dorothy, Dorothy.

It's not like it's like Witness Day.

Yeah, yeah, Dorothy, Dorothy, Oh yeah, that's right, Jesse. Uh, Toto could be like a grizzled dog. Oh yeah, Like we.

Could make Wizard of Oz cool. That's not possible.

I learned that David Lynch fucking loves Wizard of Yeah, it's wild at heart. Apparently in the book none of the Wizard of Oz imagery was in it. He just really liked it in one of that rules. That's good.

He's just I'm into this right now, and I'm putting into this movie. I don't give a ship uh last thing.

Platinum Games, a bunch of the people that worked on stuff like Bayonet at Three and Banonet Origins have confirmed left the studio.

There's like a list of five names.

But like the director of Bayonet of Three and the director of Bayonet Origins no longer at Platinum Games.

Some of them might be going to is It's Clovers clovers plural.

With Camilla and so. But some of them also might be like starting their own thing. Seems to be the suggestion. A lot of this came from a video from Camilla, so uh. Not a lot of details other than many of the people that made Platinum Games. Platinum Games no longer there. But that's it for the news, Jan this show's back over to you.

Gosh, Now, I just wanna just want to skip down a yellow brick road with you three.

Yeah.

Of course, find myself afterwards, and we're gonna go. Might have skipped in this very basement. Oh my gosh, what a blessing. Uh, I'm I'm gonna go. Think. I'm gonna click my heels together three times and say there's no place like emails, and we'll be back right after this emails.

Mike you doing his happy little dance there, smiling everyone that j had didn't see the last twenty five seconds before that where he almost died like six times.

Yeah. I just hurt myself a lot just trying to close a window, all right, Johnny Cash. I hurt myself today. That's what that's about.

I think I have a lot in common with the down trodden.

I want to go home. Bobcast, the cowardly lion, just one of the all type great goobers.

Am I right?

I don't like him. I haven't thought about him much.

Someone's in the show. Yes, actually I think so is he? Dan?

Is that right?

It's not, but I have my own theories. Is that little cub the cowardly lion?

Yes? Have you never seen wicked? No?

I know you believe it.

That's why he's so into it now because he never got it. He's like, I should always made this my personality.

You. You have the most theater kid energy, Mike, I know I wanted to just happened.

More than a.

And he has.

No March the mitched. Okay, it's it's growing on me, Mike, It's not. That was a really good way I felt about it originally.

So when please email in about who is who in Wizard of Oz uh and tell me why you think Mitch is the cowardly Lion, because I think it just fits. I think I like it.

Good Goober had a balloon, that is true, that's got there outside a curtain.

Uh damn, please ant me.

The only Oz me ever seen was Oz the Great and Powerful with James Franco.

What No.

I saw the Wischard of Boss as a kid, and I was like, this is kind of doune, and then I never had interest again.

I was just so excited for that to baby be a puzzle. Why would they?

No?

Absolutely not, Sam Rami made that people like Sam.

Rai really no, like Sam Raimi. No one likes that movie though, not even Sam Rai.

Mitch, you'd be excited. Look what Death has gotten on the soda train. And this is a Doctor Pepper water called Doctor Death.

I've had that from a different other brands before, where they're like, this is water that tastes like Doctor Pepper and it's pretty good.

I kind of like it.

Yeah, it's dricking my brain in a good way. I'm listening.

Yeah, and there's also Killer Cola. There's root Beer, Wrath and Doctor Death. So there's Coke, Doctor Pepper and root Beer, but it just water. It's like with Death, it's like somebody else.

Yes, yeah, Mike, Killer Cola probably tastes like there's other brands that do this, Mike, I could show them to you. Uh, Killer Cola probably tastes like Pepsi and.

Not Coke, though it's all the same.

Mike, I need you to get super deep into The Wicked, Wicked and Wizard of Oz lored because it goes places.

Oh I was, don't worry. I was on the wikis after seeing the movie. Got a lot of questions, right.

Oh man, Oh, Mikey, I will fly to shoes. I will fly to wherever you are to watch Wicked two with you opening night, Mike, will you?

Will you go to Problem with me? So I could just see the musical and see what happens. I don't want to wait to hear. I don't want to wait to hear. Easy peasy, Mike, it's a date. Go all right, Broadway, Jane and Mike. It's gonna be great Broadway Babies Way, Mitch. There was a bar in New York that would show E pay per views, and so I used to go there with Bonyellow and and Mahardy and friends and stuff. And it was right across the street from the theater

Yeah, uh, Mike. Currently there is a Wicked tour happening in Los Angeles.

So oh, I looked up the tour to see if it was coming anywhere near me.

Wait, what is it tour? What the yellow Bick Road? No, like, oh you mean, oh, you mean like the Broadway show is touring. I understand. I'm like, there's like a tour, like if you go see the sites from the film. I got very confused. All right, first Pools day, guys, you're right up there with the cowardly in terms of top tier goobers. Thank you. I appreciate that. I just wanted my respect.

What would you ask the wizard for Jeff to leave me alone?

Does he give wish? Just fucking leave me alone? Not really, I want to deal with It's all work. But it's just gimmicked. Like he's like, is he like a Genie situation?

No, No, he's a Carneye. He's the car.

That then the reason they go there is because they think he's going to grant their wishes. Yeah, okay, yeah, he kind of just like stumbled into success. Yeah, like he's literally a Carnie. Yeah okay, I like this guy. Yeah, he's kind of you would make a goods Oh yeah, scary, but I'm on board with the rest you.

Would somehow convince a bunch of monkeys shoot monkeys to work for you.

Yeah, this sounds awesome.

Excuse me, grub. They don't grow wings because of Dan, they grow wings because of Alpha. But all right, yeah, I'm sorry.

Operation in general. Yeah half of Wicked. He also wears a green suit. I think you look really sharp in one of those suit. Yeah, you look great and wacky seats should be oz.

You should be actually yeah yeah, uh oh right, first email the show comes from, Uh, says Nikky? Do you fuck with Monty mole parentheses? Mario? Thanks?

Yeahs Money is a good guy.

Dan. Do you know about the Whiz.

The Kansas City's soccer team?

I don't think that.

No, it's the Michael Jackson version of the Wizard. Oh I remember hearing about that. Yeah, not the Wizard, the nes movie. Uh well the Wizard was the movie. Yeah, yes, I just had to evoke the Wizard.

During our fire escape tournament for best Game of ball time because I think Mary was like, so why was Mario three so big?

And I had to go into full old man and be like, listen.

We went to a theater before we had YouTube and E three streams to see a glimpse of the new Mario and I did.

Yes, it's take me. Yes, so it was Mario three. I don't think it needs to be explained why it was.

I do, trust me.

There were some fucking travesties. Just hey, what one. I'm not gonna tell you. Okay, you know what. You deserve some travesties after what you did the links awakening there.

There are absolute travesties there, things that go out in the first round. But I almost lost my fucking mind out. But anyway, incredible.

I can't wait, Lovely, lovely, next email?

Do we actually answer? Is talking awesome?

Yeah?

We all forget what the wiz part. We never talked about Monty Mole.

I think Rocky Wrench gets a bad rap though, because I think he should be on par with Monty Mole. But we all forgot about Rocky Wrench.

I know who that is. Look up Rocky Wrench.

He's a good dude. He's a Monty with a wrench. Yes, yeah, look how cool he is. He's got goggles, he's all right, he's got.

A manhole cover on his head.

Yeah, he's like hiding in a little hole throughout Chez. That's it. That's my dream job. Yes, that's an upgrade to Monty Male. Sure.

Sure, if Monty mol is the blueprint, you know.

You're right, that's just a better Monty Male. Yes, you know what, I don't fucking Monty Moore. He hogs the spotlight. Well can go to hell.

You know what? It starts today April first, twenty twenty five, The Rocky Wrench Renaissance. Yo. I like it?

Yeah? What is promise and me start?

Oh, I canna go?

And my horse this lay miserable?

No but close.

No, that's the greatest show man.

Be poor dog. I'm singing from you.

All right. Next email comes from Sean in Denver, Calllorado. What's a Bomb Crew? So I was listening, okay, very fun typo there. So I was listening in a game mess Mornings on Friday and they were talking about E A n B A NBA jam and then they brought up Space Jam. That made me think, why haven't they made a good space jam game in the NBA jam format?

That game exists, by the way. That game's real. It's great. I had it on the Sega Saturn. I play it all the time.

Yeah, same publisher's NBA Jam two.

Yeah, it's just NBA Jam but with Looney Tunes and the Mons Stars and the kind of bad mini games in between.

Is this real?

No, Michael Jordan's on the Government.

It weren't a much bigger deal if it was like on the Genesis or something on the Station of Saturday and just got buried.

So yes, was it Genesis and stupid Tim. There was a NBA Jam clone Looney Tunes basketball game, but just like going to the basketball game that was not Space Jam themed. Yeah, the Space Jam one didn't happen. I loved it.

I played it. Beat him up. No, it was.

Are you thinking of Bill Lambier's Combat Basketball? No Space Jam I'm looking at I think this is one of the many games you're talking about. Bugs. Bunny is just punching the hell out of robots with probably one of the mini games. Yeah, there's a little slot machine thing in the background. That's a mini game. But I think Drew Scanlon made one about the news space jam too.

Yeah, Al, you're about to pitch us a Wicked Ba Jam game.

I think, oh yeah, Alpha Ba. She just like glides across the court because she can fly, and then gull Andda has like her little bubble that she just dunks herself in as the bar.

There you go, Dan, watch Wicked.

It's concerning how much this fucking movie is coming up.

Just watch Wicked. I don't look watch it son hours in a day.

Just watch it.

Just can't bring myself to what's it on? Uh TV?

No? Amazon?

No, Yeah, it's not gonna I'll give you my plex and you can get it from there.

We do movie night once a week. Bank would hate it more than I would. It's just ain't gonna happen.

I just watch it.

I want to.

I just show your shoot opinion on it. I would freaking I hate it. I don't. I don't think I do want to. Why Yeah, you you're not gonna like the response here definitely. You like freaking a net and that's fucking great.

Yeah, this is like a good musical.

This is a theater doork musical, and that's like cool dark thing. Yeah, but it definitely has a much larger appeal than that. I mean, like four hundred million. It was like, oh, things are always the best, all right. I'm just saying first, You're like, this is only for dorks, and I'm like, it has a broader pill.

Oh no, it's supposed to be. They're for musical theater.

Considering I saw all the best musicals apparently in person, and didn't move the needle at all from your bomb. I just think we're not a musical couple. I agree, they're not for you.

Yeah, not for you, all right. Next email comes from an anonymous email because they didn't write their name. Hey bombers, quick question. I'm playing Tunic right now and I'm not really loving it, not doing that much for me. However, I love the manual mechanic in the game. I actually got out my original Legend of Zelda manual and compared it to the manual in Tunic, and I was just blown away. The commitment to the art and the layout

Oh yeah, okay, I totally agree with that. By the way, Like Tunic's a good game, but it was definitely the instruction manual thing. I was like, oh, this is my favorite part of this, which was very overblown I think in terms of yeah, I claim.

Right, yeah that I love that, like instruction manual stuff. I did not really like playing the actual game very much with Yeah, well that's a good question though, good to my head. Yeah, like like there's stuff like that game where you like take the pictures, you can go in the pictures.

I love that.

Yeah, that was the game itself amazing. I know that's a very mechanic.

Was that that game?

Remember Quantum Conundrum? Yeah, that had some good gimmicks, right, and then I remember the overall game being kind of blackluster.

That was one of the Portal people who made that. Yeah, Kim Swift, Yeah, Kim Swift. Yeah, yeah, that's the feeling, man. I'm glad you remember that. I was like Kim control and that's what I could think.

Control quantum conundrum. I like the idea of.

Playing a pinball game where it control an army with a mic like an Odama. I don't know how much I really like playing Odama.

The idea of brutal Legend was awesome, like the gimmick and the idea of RTS stuff being in there. But it's like that was not what people wanted from the actual game.

No, No, they did a bait and switch over there, Oki Doki. Next email comes from Brian. Brian just has a couple of nice things to say. As someone suffering from chronic loneliness, all the content at giant Bomb always makes my days a little brighter. I hope and pray I get to have a friend group in real life as supportive as you guys are to each other, even though things in my life feel pretty hopeless right now. Just in case you ever doubted yourself, you guys do

That was really nice. I will say, like, I know, like you know, being twenty five, ye doesn't like necessarily feel like you're that young, and you know you're definitely thrown to the deep bend in terms of being an adult and that stuff. You still have so many more years for things to kind of come together there, right, Like all my shit didn't pop off until a few years ago, and I was kind of walling around there in obscurity for quite a long time.

So hang in there. Thank you for all the kind words. But things can definitely still get better.

Damn they definitely will get better. Yes, Like it's yeah, twenty five is you're not? You're still kidding it really are. Your brain doesn't doesn't fully mature until you're twenty six. You're gonna feel lost at least until then everyone really does.

Yeah, Brian, if you're in a position to go see therapy. Pipstyle also suggests that as well does Wonders Baby, also twenty five and Alive Jesus Christ, Live Life, Live Live Life, because everything will hurt after a while. Physically live Moss. Yes, yes, we're always saying that, live Moss.

Uh.

Don't do a fuddy duddy Dan hit the button.

Just doing that boys me, that's great. You should do that for a real video game. I'll do it to funny duddy simulates like good simulator. Yeah. I just kind of like go around just sour mood.

No, Like I walk by the movie theaters, like movies have too much c G.

Now you passed by an improv troop and you just go no, right, you know I want.

I watched the Super Bowl halftime show and I'm like, this isn't Bruce Springsteen, but.

It's Kyle Omar, So you're okay with it? My boy, Kyle Brammy winner, oh boy. Next email comes from Steve Hey Bomb Crew. Last year, in the summer drought, myself and some friends accidentally gone into Valerint. When it came to consoles. It's since taken over most of our lives. Were playing ranked multiplayer multiple nights a week in an attempted an attempt to get better at the game. I looked, took to YouTube and ended up stumbling on Valerie Esports.

I have never seen these sports and I don't want to. I watch it online sometimes, like especially like Evo that's fun, But for like the team based games online, I'll check it out maybe very rarely. When Overwatch League was first happening, I watch, but whenever, like I'm in a position where I watch it live, like when I would go to blizz Con. They would have like something called the Overwatch

MLG used to do Southern Columbus, so I would occasionally be like, hey, can I go cover this?

And I would kind of go there and watch and they do Call of.

Duty and a few other things, usually Legal Legends or something like that, and the crowd getting it excited always made it easy to get into. Like Rainbow six, Siege is really fun because they have really good camera controls where they can like make the walls all invisibles. You could see through everything really easy, kind of see how people are moving around the map in a way that's really satisfying. But you also realize they're just playing a different.

Game than you are. When you play Siege, it's like there.

It's completely different tactics, they use the characters and you never you never not only never think you could, but really it wouldn't make any sense when you're playing with just a bunch of other chuckle fucks like yourself. So it's interesting to a point for me, but it's not not something I'm usually seeking out very frequently.

Evo goals though. Don't you see the sports Uh you went to that? You saw that uh that one Gears of War three tournament that one time? Oh that's right, that rain Clan one Yeah, behind clears the Poison Pixies or what were they called. Well, I think that one guy in the ring clan through the match because he had a crush Dan.

You've technically seen a movie about sports, The Wizard. Yeah, it sucks.

They didn't put you in nubes. That's what you deserve. You deserve almost.

They put him at dubes and like just bid made to say something homophobic. Probably would have just probably in the Sessler role.

Yeah, probably you got the dubes home with the role yucky. Uh god. Yeah, I watched a lot of League. I'm a recovering League person, but I do also like watching competitive Pokemon. I don't think the commentators that commentate over like, uh, the official Pokemon battling stuff get animated or hyped enough. So I'm also throwing it out there if you need, uh fun what's his name, kicker?

Uh, Pat McAfee.

Yes, if you need. If you need a Pat McAfee for Pokemon, I'm your fucking guy. All right, these are my boys. All right, we'll go.

To every thing. I'll be one of your McAfee boys. Yeah, that rule.

We'll eat so fucking hard. I'll jump on the table all the heels. Make me the Pat McAfee of Pokemon. I'm sorry for yelling.

I've done some shutcasting before.

That's fun, yes, yeah, yeah, you're good at it. You know, forgetetive gaming.

What I do like even more than esports is speed running. That's generally sure were fat. I watched that as somebody that broke a record for in game uh andy percentage Super Metroid and I watched that run last night. That show was exciting, That was fun.

Uh. I'm just saying, Pokemon Company World is going to be in San Francisco and then it's gonna be an Anaheim, so you know, like I'm already eating California. Holler at your boy.

Anyway, speaking of McAfee, did you see the clip of Hogan on there yesterday or the day before.

Oh, I knew I was gonna good boot. It's because of the nw O.

Yeah.

I had all that heel heat there. Last time I was around at Running Hard in California, I was in the nwo's heel heat brothers. That's why they were would meet.

Oh honey, some well dumb fucks out there, huh.

And then McAfee be like, well, yeah, you know, it's not just the politics thing that people are, you know, there were other things and like how we laughed, like, oh yeah, other things.

It's cool.

Cool, what a fucking idiot? Yeah, how's that?

A beer fest over the weekend and Real American Beer had a table there that was funny Paul Cogan Zone. Huh Paul Cogan's beer. And I was like, well, I guess I don't have to pay for it, so I guess I'll try it. I swear I got it is just PBR.

I heard they had several liquor stores here around Minneapolis that we're going to have him in store shilling it, and he set it up and the beer places advertised it and people were ready.

For it, and he just no showed them. Oh Jesu Christ Hm, yep, oh my god. You think he was supposed to be at my thing and he no showed it? Thank God possible.

He heard you were going to be there and he got scared. I got heat with him, brother, Yes, all right. Final email of the show comes from a Michael, and this is about our own Michael. Yes, that's you, Hey, Mike and bomb crew. I don't like that he addressed you first as a hercle. He's a racle as a fellow, cute white Mike. I must agree with Jordan j from last week. I married my beautiful black queen and feel very lucky and suggest you find your own. I'll try

I am googling.

G you can go to the cookout with grub.

Yeah you're invited, dude, Damn I hope.

You joined me. Ps Any story I tell my wife about Dan? She walks away half through shaking her head. Hell yeah uh and a PSA. There are not enough black egg and sperm donors for the demand. Please consider donating if you can help families like mine. Have you, beautiful black baby, much love Michael M in Seattle and hey you know what haavy Black History Month? God damn it?

Ye man even also a Michael M. Gosh, this could be you.

From the future, Mike, what if this can be?

These are all great points, right, I got nothing to dispute any of it.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody in your corner just gonna call a doctor a whore on your beck. Wow.

Great, that would be my dad. So I'm like, well, well we'll see all that. Doctor Manatti is kind of a whore, right.

That cookout with grub?

What if it's in a jovial, joking manner, right like ore, No, he wouldn't grub. Next time you see doctor Manatti, can you call him a whore?

Doctor him once, but that will be the first word out of my monk.

Doctor said websites. Can I find him on a website? Doctor Manatti?

And there is a doctor review like website where like they can't control it and you can review him and call him horror on there? Business? What is his name? Philip? I should just say yes that you leave me alone because it doesn't look like I could break your dad. Don't break my No, don't break my dad dot com that.

This is definitely your dad. I think I definitely found your dad.

Right. What do we learn today?

Guys? The phone numbers right here, he's got good reviews any better.

We learned how rosaries work. We learned that The Civilization is in fact not a funny series, as opposed to what I thought in my head. We're currently living not only through the Ridge Racer Renaissance, but the Rocky Wrench renaissance as well. Fuck Monty Mole. That is our official stance. We also learned to please God, do not prank Mike's dad. And hey, the Catholic agenda continues on on this website. Folks, What do we got going on through us of the week?

Yeah, we're gonna We're gonna puck it up.

Yeah, we're gonna play that first person hockey game that is impossible play. You guys can come hang out if you want. It's gonna be a mess.

I'm washing my hair. I just want to point out.

Uh.

In the meet Doctor Manatti, Uh, he mentions Disney.

O good on the Doctor Web.

He was there.

He's coming back home today. So Joe us I was like, you had a great time.

Let's leave Doctor Manatti alone. We terrorized.

You speak for yourself.

We terrorize one of his sons more than enough.

The phone numbers right there. Look, you need to stop bringing that up.

To God doctor Mannatti.

No, no, no, we're not doing that. Leave doctor Manatti alone, Folcus. Guys, he's a dougher. He'll call the cops. They'll listen to him. You don't want to do that. That's right, Dan mentioned earlier earlier this episode, but instead of BCR, we will be having a power bomb cast later this week to chat about the royal rumble and then a upf of sorts probably right, Yeah, we'll call it something together.

We'll play that Lonely Mountains game.

Yeah yeah, Well we may also try and check out some SIEV seven on the website this week. Yeah, folks, that's that's it. That's a Tuesday. That does it for today's episode. I'm a giant bobcast. I have a lovely week. He's been Mike, he's been Dan, he's been Jeff, I've been Jan You are beautiful. Wow, God damn you are doing things right. Cheap and tight. Use both cheeks, you know what I mean?

Jack, step and Jack