910: Pig Bones

N M joy I O, we're getting the boots.

Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, September thirtieth, twenty twenty five.

Holy smokes, tomorrow means it's October. Welcome to the Giant BombCast, Episode nine hundred and ten. We're never gonna forget next week's episode, that's for sure, folks.

I'm your host, Jan Old show a joining me co captain of the ship Jeff grau Hey, happy to be here.

Jan.

We got the master of keys. That's right. He is our own key blade enthusiast and keyboard enthusiast. Move over, Jeff backlar, there's a new key berber in town.

Dan Record. I bought this whole keyboard cling kit with the intentions of this being how I cleaned my keyboard, and I wound up just using like, you know, like a reverse vacuum cleaner. There's like that just cleaned it all up so I didn't even have to use this thing, the air sort of thing. Yeah, yeah, I just blew all the gunk out of there. Whids My keyboard was filthy, but it's hey, right in time, it's back to operating condition.

Well, fantastic, right in record time. Right speaking about record oh there we go right right, Kurt time. Okay uh.

And speaking about Gunk, we got the bad boy of games media.

He's blowing your house is down with all of his hot air and his hot takes about Detroit Prime for in the Desert, Mike Manati.

It's me.

It's Mike Manatt. Have I been to the desert? Just that one you have to drive to to like go to Las Vegas with name. That's a good song, right, people probably think that song's cringe now or something. I don't know, what's.

You know, in all these games like you're uncharted and you're gotta wars and stuff, and movies where somebody's like inevitably like kind of going through the desert and they're just like really rough in it and just trying to get to water or lan, I think you would be really bad at that, Mike. I agree.

I think I would drop first, for sure.

Son, you walk up a slight hill to go to a retro store and complain for thirty minutes, do you want it? I had COVID then we found out later that didn't help.

Yeah, I had, But I still agree, but I would not make it. I would get way too hot, probably, faint, whine a lot, and then die.

Anyway.

Yeah, that expedited very quickly, Mike. I think you could last a bit longer than that.

I keep it. Last night, I didn't die. I saw a lot in the sun and didn't die last night.

Well, we have email. I tell you what day.

After watching you try to put your keybody together, I'm not going to say I wish you did.

It might have been spared some headache reading in the sauna. Probably my kindling the sauna, which you're probably not supposed to do, but I did that. So I'm reading at night in the shower. You do thirty minutes and I'm reading Kurt Vonnegut in the sauna.

Oh that's pretty good. Yeah, k von and your your kindle are probably sweatproof. I don't know, you're probably already it's waterproof.

It's probably fine. So yeah, it's been nice. I'm reading good thing to do before bed instead of like now megabong for six hours right before I try to sleep.

Dan, are you like playing music in there while you're reading and sauna out.

Because it's got the bluetooth gimmick and so I just put on like a Spotify just like you know, ooh spot playlist type thing where it's just like, you know, what do you think it would be?

I asked this, Dan because at the end of Mike's Hades two through the Night's stream, we were all on the call together and UH, you were going to go leave to have night time sauna time. But you could have connected us to the UH to the sauna because of the bluetooth, but you didn't want to be naked talking to us.

H No, I thought that would be weird. Yeah, because I am naked in the sauna and it's like, I mean, you wouldn't be able to see it, obviously, but your voices would be coming through there. I just don't want to talk to you guys while I'm just sitting there sweating with my dog out.

You know, I get this when I am listening to a podcast, when I sit down to do a number two, when the poop starts coming out, I have to pause it because I just can't hear people I know or even are acquainted with while the poop is coming out of it.

I'm gonna miss Backlart today.

Mike, you were on this podcast where Backlar was too busy to do it, so.

You're gonna have to deal with it. Well, it was weird because we were doing the Haiti stream. We were all just on Discord and Greub was describing stuff in baby Steps and uh so I went in and I just turned on my sauna to kind of preheat it before I went in, and apparently that activated my Bluetooth which was connect to my phone, and so out of my sauna chamber, I hear Grub's voice saying yeah, and then the guys with the Donkey Dicks want cigarettes.

Jesus Christ Auto that should play with Jeff goes into a Discord channel.

It's all just true. That's what that game is about. That playlist for some reason.

Totally yeah, yeah, the AI DJ does that. I think your sauna Dan should have a function to like clip, you know, like, oh that was a funny clip.

Should yeah, hey.

Yeah, I want I came in. I think I've been upset this whole weekend. Not for the normal reasons why I'm upset, for different reasons. Fun cameras are so boring now, y'all like video cameras, because I mean, most of my most used camera other than the one here in front of me, is not like any of the fancy ones that I bought over time.

It's just my phone, right, And I was.

Just staring at old I say old, but like two thousands cam quarters and digital cameras from like the early odds, and I wound up. I almost bought a lot of questionably used flipcams from Goodwill over the weekend, just because I was like, man, cameras used to look so fucking sick.

Like sool flipcam eric is like when I was doing a bunch of like high school video production stuff, it was just kind of handheld cannons and Sony's and the screen up flip out, and then the bit with the rich kids had the three CCD cameras. I remember, I don't know those are still a thing, but they would have been with a handle and the big thing and it was like a three CCD. I forget what that means, but I never.

Heard oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, Marino, I almost points out I almost bought or I was really looking at a Sony Mavica because it still uses floppy discs instead of memory cards, just because it was like right at the cutoff for I guess SD cards or memory sticks being a big thing. Also, Man, I hate and maybe this is because I now finally understand y'all with a collecting right, because now I just want to collect nothing but old video cameras. I saw this old Sony hand cam that's I think it was like Sony s C five, and it.

Just looks so fucking sick.

But then you look on eBay, you look at all these different online resellers, and it's like up the wazoo five hundred plus. So now I have it in me that I need to drive through different parts of America going through thrift stores looking for old digital cameras or hitting up people that have died.

I guess a family of people the same sales. Well, the thing with the state sales is because I keep an eye on that whole thing, and it's like they're all kind of the same. They're all a bunch of just like old plates with a bunch of designs on them. It's a bunch of musty chairs with like velvet backs. It's a bunch of like frame stuff of like a bunch of guys on horses or something. It's just like or like weird old dolls. Some of them are racist.

Anyway, old video cameras, the designs used to be really cool. Now they're all just boring.

This weekend, that was the part of of like my wedding was like just getting one of those flip cans and putting them at every table, and that was basically our videography was just letting people on each table film stuff, and we just got all the footage later and kind of clipped it together.

It was that that was a good time and you got I.

Mean, I guess you could just do that still. I'm sure there's the equivalent, but I don't know there. At that point, that was like a really fun and exciting thing because those were still relatively.

New at that moment.

All cameras called things like the P two nine and the F one, like they didn't have fun names, like none of them was called like the Cipher.

The Cannons had like cyber shot for a while, they would they would still also have like the you know, the letter denominations as well.

Right, it'd be like the Cimer shot line.

You know, yes, I feel like the flip cams. It was like there was like the z I eight or something like that, though maybe that.

Was a different make model. I don't know. It was hard to keep straight.

And I say this because I thought about getting back into film photography because I'm just moving a bunch of my cameras around. And I remember I looked up the price of film, like rolls of film again.

And oh man, it's too costly to even pick up oh actual That's when I said I'm not going to class. When I went to my first film production class and they're like, all right, so here's the form to fill out to order how many feet of actual film you want? And I saw the costume. I'm never showing up in this class.

Ever, Oh yeah, to be. I wonder how many more years of that class until they stopped doing that, because it can't do that now, right.

No, But he's gonna that was two days or so.

There's there's probably there probably is a class where it's like, hey, you want to work with film, but it's probably separate from that, like mainline track, I would imagine at this point.

Yeah, because I took an audio recording class at my local community maybe in like twenty ten, and I had to edit reel to reel still for that. I don't know if that was just for like for poops and giggles or if that was just like, h, we're community college, this is all we have.

I started on a Casa Blanca editing machine and probably like ninety six ninety seven, and that was like real to real, like like VHS. It was insane name hell. Yeah, So you had like two big knobs and stuff and you're picking your endpoints and your out points like these big knobs and stuff vhs to the left, you put a blank one on the right, and you're kind of like so much fun.

Could you find dissolves or anything? It was just pure hard cuts.

I think you could do dissolves, yeah, because like the first few like short films that I made were on that, and that definitely I wonder how they did.

That's really you whoever came up with the first star wipe, like they should have a Nobel Peace prize, Like, oh yeah, thank you for your contribution to some site.

Like you coming up with the ability to do the chroma key stuff. Now it's like this chemical will dissolve this color of green and blue specifically, and so if we do that to this film stock, we can then get rid of that and key in this other stuff at the bad Like that's just crazy shit, Like it's so it makes so much more sense to me that it works in a computer than it ever worked with film.

It's very bones. Yeah, we think the pig bones. Hey, speaking of film, I got some flak over the weekend for for re buttering my popcorn. Yeah, okay, this isn't that crazy a thing, is it. You guys have seen movies in the theaters.

It's not too crazy, Dan, But I think the part that was not upsetting me but worrying me is the sheer amount of butter.

Yeah, like you.

I think the reason you might have got flack is you said you went in for the initial buttering forty five seconds.

But there's probably like two cups of that AMC butter I put in for the first time. But when you write a larrange that when you get a large mic. When you get a large once you get down about halfway, it's like it didn't creep all the way down there, so you shim the bottom of that thing. It was heaping. You can't shake that much. I tried to do some shaking and you'd get the odd like, oh this one had some good butter on it. But then it's like I got half this tub in front of me and

You butter yourself at AMC. I can't remember. Like some places you have fast but take it out thank God, so they give it to you can't have it halfway through. You can't have it halfway through. And then butter it and then fill it up the rest and butter on top because you have this whole.

Our places do here, so it's fine, like they just do that.

You can't do that if you get the whole full thing. What are you gonna do with half of the popcorns? Have the side and then, yeah, we had.

The ability to do when I worked at AMC in like the late nineties, it was like we had the stuff behind the concession stands, so people would ask sometimes can you do the halfway fill? And we knew what that meant, you know, But then once they put it out there, it's kind of on you and you do on your movie and re butter.

Yeah, I think it's weird. I think it's a little strange after forty five seconds of butter if it's like you just kind of can't live with a few pieces being not perfectly buttered.

I don't know, I want them all to be soggy. Now, yeah, okay, yeah.

Okay, I mean you know, I'm not saying you have to be super self conscious, but clearly this this one has to scare.

You a little.

It's just it's weird to me that you were afraid of your keyboard electricinning you because he took a key cap off, but not of clogging your arteries with literal like cups of fake.

I've been electrocuted, and I know what that feels like, and that scares me because that hurts. I've never clogged an artery, so a heart attack is bad. Yeah, I just don't know if it hurts, so it's less scary. I guess. I'm pretty sure it's both of those, if not more, probably hurts. It probably hurts.

Yeah, And then you also said, like you were getting flak from from us, sayink kind of. Mike went in on this because you were like, hey, you guys will check your phone during a movie and you're on home, but I will leave the theater to co pee and then a few extra minutes to go re butter the popcorn. And then you said it's not part of thing. You said, that's part of the movie going experience. And it's like, so watching the movie is less important than this one.

I'm saying, being at home and opting to look at something else other than the thing you're trying to pay attention to is very different than like I have to pee or I need to kind of get some food or something like you don't have the option to pause or whatever, sure need.

I think maybe the other thing people took issue with Dan is maybe getting up to leave during a Pta movie, just because like Pta is one of those people that are film bros take very seriously.

And I see some of my favorite movies are from him. Yeah, I got back in Ben Hanson whisper. I won't say it, but Ben Hanson whispered blank happened. It was very cool and so apparently I picked the worst possible time too, and it sounded very cool. And I've not been able to find a clip of what happened because the movie's not Pirate of anywhere that I can see. I do.

Look, I sympathize with the bathroom thing. That's why I actually I like all these old movies just going back to theaters because I could just see something I've seen ten times that I know I like, and if I had to go and pee, that's okay. I've seen this movie before.

It's fine.

It's not some stressful thing. I'm not sitting there desperately holding it and being uncomfortable like I saw who Friend Roger Rabbit this weekend. That was a good time. In fact, I was the opposite of you.

I got. Maybe part of my problem dan empathizing.

Is that I like the movie theater popcorn, but I get over it pretty quickly. I'll get a small and then halfway through it, I'm kind of like I'll get shorty.

Well, now let me paint the picture a little more so you understand my plate. So it was a six fifteen movie. Okay, that's a weird time because you're leaving before that. Normally I'm having dinner closer to six thirty seven, so I hadn't had dinner. Okay, it's a three hour long movie. So we get like halfway into the movie. I'm a rumbling there and I will go for my

I never had that popcorn satiate my hanger. I got to become a theater nacho guy exclusively.

I think that's kind of something.

About, well, yeah, you're right, they're not as easy to eat that. Popcorn is the perfect movie snack we associate with movies. It's just kind of fun to go in there.

I get it.

That's why I always see myself going there. Don't be a pickle guy, as long as you're not giving that bag of pickle jan what do you get?

No, no, no, no, the yeah. I have not seen that, but I believe it. What the hell are you talking about?

It's literally it's like a pickle in like a plastic sleeve filled with the pickle. People take it to the theater, stink up the whole place, and are just eating this giant stylic pickle. It's disgusting. I made a friend set away from me the one time, like, you're not saying next to me at that thing, get out of here. Uh.

I love popcorn.

Popcorn is maybe one of my top five foods, but I think the perfect food to consume during a movie.

Is a hot dog. That's good. Yeah, you know.

We used to go to Alamo Draft House and the perfect food was whatever meal the chef decided to serve with any of those like specialty screens.

I went with one time.

It was just like beef brisket and whiskey while we were watching True Grit, and that was That's the best shit you can have during the movie in my opinion.

Okay, I want to build on this. This is more of a mic check question. We should get to the actual pod soon. What is what is the chef's meal for the bomb cast?

Ooh, the chef's meal especially hair with the podcast.

Oh oh, it is hot dogs at some point, right.

And paps ribbon dogs and buzzballs. Fuck that ship, Pat Blue Ribbon. I was centophile. I'm a I'm on a run though, because that was Sunday night. I had the large popcorn for dinner, and well, here's the thing I told myself, I was gonna get a small popcorn because it's like I'm trying to eat healthier. And I went out there and I'm looking at the prices and I'm like, the only economical option here is to spend twenty five dollars on the large cooke, larger popcorn and candy back change.

You say you weren't a mark or whatever the phrase was there with the chimney.

And literally that is the most buffaloed that is. I mean they, I mean the most economical. I know, it was like a dollar, Dan. They literally it's called the medium popcorn thing where it's like they literally, so you have the thought the only economical thing is to spend the maximum amount of.

Money like you you got. I'm sorry, I don't want to love well here, I think I think last night, so the runo was on was pop worn and high dinner on Sunday. And last night I had friends over for ann As competition and a doubleheader of Dirty Work, the dirtier version and Naked Gun and we got Jets pizza. Like I got an eight corner turbo crust. We've got a four corner turbo crust. We got a triple two turbo sticks. Yeah.

That's another thing, Dan, that I wanted to to talk about, is it's just a casual observer. I feel like eight times in the last month you told Jeff getting Jets pizza again.

I need him to love TURBOI crust.

This makes me feel good, it does.

I've just gave credit. My friends were over. I was like, this is Jeff Grubb introduced me to this. You gotta try. Grew up in the Midwest and they had never heard of it. Now I've got more jets people here, that's right and left over taking over the world. I two giant pieces for breakfast. Just now. I got more dinner. It's good in the morning. It is, Man's good.

We didn't get We usually get pize s fried. If we didn't do it last week, I don't have to do it this week. Man, that's good stuff. I'm not the triple cheese turbo bread.

Is that we said? Turbo sticks with an X?

Maybe the best the name of food and Idiocracy, but.

It could also be cool cameras though to hear that, Michael is prazy to hear that. When I saw Ideocracy, there are so many things in the movie, I was like, I'd be into this. Yeah, balls and stuff.

That's just Costco to get a sauna.

Yeah, you'd be fine. I was sitting in that Costco sauna filled with turbo sticks last night and beer. Yeah you know what I do? See you buttering popcorn? Yeah?

Well, let's uh talk about a very tonally similar game as to Dan's popcorn debacle. Oh real quick, Dan, did you like one battle after another?

Yeah? It's very good, very very good. To see it again because I.

Need to check it out my movie going experience. This weekend I went and saw Demon Slayer in Infinity Castle. Very good, obscenely long. I don't need to make it.

Yes, that's the party anime.

Yeah, but this one depressed me to like the Mario Party Game.

Actually, yes, yeah, probably.

I saw the movie this weekend as well. There's no way you guys would guess what it is. It is a kid's movie, Land Before Time three.

Now, Dan got it the thin line. That's right. It was.

It was Gabby's Dollhouse, the movie my nieces saw that.

Uh yeah, yeah, how go there, let's got a voice cast though, that's got a cast on it.

Yeah, it was. It was. It was well made. You know.

We came out and he goes and she's I don't know where she gets this from. I give it a nine out of ten. It's not as good as K pop Demon Hunters, so I'm like, okay.

But you talk about kids movies the way I talk about musical theaters. It was well made, they were talent.

I am immune to this stuff. I've seen so much garbage YouTube at this point. None of these movies could hurt me.

Uh well, Grub, I was thinking about you and the kids today because of the patience factor because I was watching you stream Baby Steps sor Jane, I hope it. I was watching and I could not look away. I mean, that's what the nature of that game is, like, any step could be the one that sends you plummeting. And I thought, like, I was thinking about how I respect this game so deeply. Baby Steps. I think it's so

Towing around, Uh, Grub, please tell us more about your Baby Steps adventures. You've been streaming it on the website for folks that may have missed it, and also for folks that may have missed it. We continued the streak, Baby we took down kind of funny again?

Oh yeah, yeah. Consolation for sure. Why did I play shot?

Shouts out to the kind of funny crew for for putting that together with us. That was that was really tense and a good time I got. I got a little frustrated.

Though, because as soon as we were done with the stream, I discovered there's a Day one multiplayer mod, so we all could have just been in there together playing playing the game.

An official multiplayer thing.

Not it's not official. Maybe it's official, but like it's a mod. But yeah, it's multiplayer and you can get in there and everyone could just play together at least you see each other.

Yeah, yeah you can. Can you fuck with each other? Yeah? I think absolutely you can. Yes, yeah, definitely. Okay, well like a foot race and stuff. Yeah, that would be a good time. I aw that.

I am on the man breaker in Baby Steps, which is it got its name on account of how many men it has broken, is what the character tells you.

And it's it's very funny.

Because this is it's basically the end of the game, and you know, I've done a lot, I got lost a bunch of times. I already really love this game, and then you get to this point where you've taken this character Nate, who is clearly depressed and and and and kind of aimless, and you know all the things you could just tell kind of looking at him, like

I'm gonna go up that.

He's like that, that's the man breaker. It's you know, God's name on a canter five many minutes broken. You should take the stairs, and clearly they're setting up like, if you have any sort of pride in what you've done so far, you should go up to the man breaker.

But it's really hard. It's so hard. It is. It is.

Every single step is challenging. But there are The really challenging thing is you do get into a flow, you'd start to figure it out, and then the game will like throw a change up pitch where it's like you have gotten into this flow, now let's do a different kind of steps. So you have been carefully placing the foot a few inches away and you're doing these stutter steps, and you have that's really secure. If you do that, like you're you're probably gonna be pretty stable and be

And it's like you get in your head and you kind of can't. In this game.

You have to sort of just act without thinking. It is a feel sort of game, like you have to just feel your way through these steps. And so every time you get to one of these moments, it is terrifying. And that happens like they're probably about ten times on your way up the maner, these moments of okay, now we have to try another different big kind of step and figure things out, and eventually you do come up

I have two questions for Dan. One, Yeah, did you understand the metaphor in this game? Dwn? And two would you just take those stairs?

I don't know if I would play to that point, so I don't even think I would get there. I think if I took the time to actually get there, I would probably feel compelled to take the man Breaker, just because, like, if I spent that much time, i'd want to beat it, right, you know, I didn't pick up on a metaphor.

Yeah that's okay. Yeah, I don't ever mind that you don't pick up on a metaphor. What I don't want is did you just say did they intend that? Did they mean that?

Is that?

What?

It's something they like meant for you to get?

Because I don't care about any of that. Like, this is how I feel about the game, and I do think they probably did intend.

Many of these metaphors.

But things that I'm getting out of it are just so potent and it's so like emotional, like I really do feel like, oh my god, like it really, you know, because that's how I feel I got to this point in life putting one step in front of the other. Like if you asked me, like, how did you plan to get here?

I fucking didn't.

I have no idea how I got to this job, how I got this family, how I got any of these things in my life. I just kind of did one step after the other because what other choice do you have? And the game just really hones in on that feeling in such a powerful way that, yeah, it's it is up there for my on my Game of the Year list, Like I'm like already like placing up there in the top three, top top five for sure.

I'm kind of surprise that go ahead. Sorry no no, I please please no.

I want a mod for the game where there's a monkey on your back, just along for the ride, so like it can be like how I got my life?

Yet Yeah, a lot just actually literally on my coattails.

I was going to say that I'm kind of surprised at how much this game has been picking up steam.

Amongst our circles. I thought he was part of me.

Was just going to be dismissive of it and think it's like oh there's another funny haha stream.

I thought most people would dismiss it too, Yes.

But seeing that there are there's a lot more juice inside of the baby steps, I think I need to explore.

Can you you don't die in it? Right? Right? You fall off the mountain and live right.

It's very much a in Alison Wonderland sort of thing where it's like, I don't know if any of this is really happening, Like what is Yeah, yeah, it's it's Anisa Kai maybe, or he's just he's exploring the depths of his own depression or whatever, like when you fall from the highest heights land directly on your head and your head gets lodged in the ground through the geometry, he stands right up and he's fine.

So so, so what happened is like when you load up the game next time you play, are you going to be right where you fell? Or what's the checkpointing situation? I will be there. There is no checkpointing.

I know that Russ Freshdick was telling the story on the Bestiees about how he was doing something.

Risky to get a hat.

He could actually get the construction hat that I got, and he was you know you cheffed up basically walk out on this girder, pick up the hat. And I think he got on the girder and he did something I've done before where when you've been over to pick up the hat, if you're too close, he'll fall over. And I think he fell over and he's like shit, I said. He's like said to himself, if I fall down, I'm not going to do this again, so I'm going to try to saves gum. And he turned the game

You also see like entirely new cut scenes you hadn't seen before. The game wants you.

To realize you shouldn't necessarily be playing it to like get to the end.

You should be playing it to do one step after the other.

And wherever that takes you, it's probably gonna take you to the end eventually, but wherever it takes you next is part of the journey. It is part of like recognizing that Nate is still dealing with his problems by just being willing to get back up and keep going.

And you know, the man.

Breaker can't break me until I decide to put down the controller, right And I'm just gonna keep going and take those deep breaths and keep trying. And it's yeah, it's been really really fun.

Awesome speaking about a game with a little bit of symbolism in it, I didn't get the chance to talk about this last week because my power got raptured, maybe because I told someone on Twitter to eat my ass, But Silent Hill f Holy Smoke's Gang, I know Backlar Talked had an extended to talk about it. There's a

Gosh was that last year? Y'all last year? Last year? Okay?

Yeah, So I'm well acquainted or as acquainted as I can be, with the fog, and I think I speak for a lot of Silent Hill people, or there's been hesitancy anytime a new entry into the series is teased or gets announced. But Silent Hill f completely radically different from most entries, or at least the ones I'm familiar with in the series, because you're no longer in the PMW or somewhere in like Maine or wherever Silent Hill

Right.

But this game, specifically, you play as a Heinko, a Japanese high school girl, and one of the things I love about it is that her frailty and her position in life is a major component in the story rather than just you know, perhaps her being sexualized.

Thankfully she's not.

But the ways that they use the Silent Hill ethos to tell a story is incredibly effective in this game. But also I don't think you need to have played any of the other Sound Hill games to really get the gist of this. It's I know Backlaw was saying last week he wasn't super scared of it. Maybe my tolerance for playing scary games is much lower, but I

Fight all the time. You can just run away. But at least you were given the tools.

Now of like all right, yo, he andko, she got that pipe on her, these demons they're gonna fucking go down. I'm gonna swing away. But the story in this it's great. Your overall run will probably be maybe eight to ten hours. But in classic Silent Hill fashion, this will only get you one of the endings. I wound up looking up because I just don't I don't have the time y'all to go play through a game again. I went and looked up the different endings, and god, this game goes

Band aid for someone's problems.

And the deeper relationships that we have with one another, with our family, friends, are our town is very important and essential to that. Also, there's cool crazy fox demons in this and that's sick.

When before the uh, like the mechanics of her bucking up back against that. Do you think that is like where they are saying, this is what silent Hill is, like, you know, because I think that's one of the criticisms I've been hearing, or maybe not even criticisms, but people just kind of like maybe warning others, like, you know, it's not.

Really silent Hill.

But do you think like they are are trying to say, well, no, silent Hill can also be this and maybe should also be something like this, so we can explore different ideas under this umbrella.

Do you think they like pulled that off? I think they did.

I think because one of the major aspects of a Silent Hill game in my experience is that the town and the setting overall is and like the tension behind the town as well, and the overall mystery is a major component of Silent Hill. And I think Solent Hill f really nails that. And maybe I haven't played any of the later titles in the series, it probably nails

I also like have heard that people be like, Oh, the combat's not great, but it sounds like for you, like.

It did what it needed to do, or like, I guess what I'm asking is is it thematically good where you're like, oh, this fits with what the game's trying to do, or is it just like a fun video game ass combat system.

I think something that I walked away with Silent Hill to remake last year is just kind of like the rage that gets put into every swing, and that it makes sense with James in Sound Hill too, And I think when you get introduced to the weapon very early on in Sound Hill out f you can tell that there is a lot of pent up rage and anger Inhinko the player character. That I think it makes sense. And also we're playing a video game gang where like this weird these weird red flowers take over the town

Eight to ten hours sounds real good to me.

But am I am I going to finish the first run and feel like I'm missing something if I don't replay it, like you didn't do that, you went to go watch the other endings.

Were you satisfied with that?

I think I was satisfied enough, because, like in Silent Hill fashion, there's a bunch of different notes to pick up that flesh out the story and start to make you wonder of, like, oh, wait a minute.

What's going on over here?

And if you were like more aware of like the different plot elements and plot devices, specifically with flora and flora and fauna from the Silent Hill universe, you may start to pick up on other things in Silent Hill f But yeah, I would easily recommend it if you're if you want something spooky to play. I also think that the voice acting is specifically with the Japanese cast. I haven't checked out the English cast, so I can't speak to that. That the Japanese cast fucking killer performances

Yeah, I'm the ghost in that. Everyone thinks to your ghost walking around killing people. It's very good. I liked Sushima a good amount. I kind of fell off near

Yeah, I think I've experienced the same thing Dan, where like it's looming in the background and we've known that Yota is coming out, but then all these other smaller bite sized games or bite size experiences have popped out where like, no, I could sink in a quick like hour into this and then the one hour becomes like twenty five hours into Megabank like you said, and just finishing sorry, oh sorry, just like losing time traveling with games like Hades two, where it's like I thought it

Great.

And did you play any Assassin's Creed Shadows?

Yeah? This year? Oh my god Jesus, yeah I did. And I did like it more than I like I typically actively dislike the Assassin's Creed. This one, I was like, ah, this is actually doing some fun stuff, but it's it's still felt there's something that just feels kind of weighted down about that, you know, just running around in that game and the combat and everything, which maybe some people prefer.

Is it illegal if we started selling pocket sand on the store.

No, we're not responsible for people use pockets sand. We're in your pockets for building sand castles. Yeah, yeah, okay, okay, cool, Mike write that down please.

So cocaine pocket sand, gotcha?

Cool? No, we're not. So Anyway, I'm gonna play a lot more of this. It is very very good. But yeah, it's just weird how much just those other games have just completely occupied like my brain stay there.

There's a lot everybody's going to have the prioritize.

Certain games right now, right, Yeah, definitely, this is like this is someone's chat to this.

This is kind of one of those holiday break games. It almost sounds like even though it's out now, where it's like, yeah, a few days off.

I can see that, you know, I could totally see that. Yeah, I think odds good. I'm gonna beat this game and it'll probably be on my top ten because I am really loving it, but like, I just need to find that town. I need a little bit of a break. But I did just see like a collage of the box art of all the games coming out in October, and it's like, fucking Jesus, wait, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, I'm not even close to done with like Hades and Megabond as much as I played them, so yeah, wild.

Well, let's add another cute little adventure game to explore around and lose some time. Last night on Mega Man, Mike Minatti, you checked out Ooh Ooh.

I think it's ooh because at one point I solved the puzzle in the game and I went, no, it gets this because I went oh, then I'm like, oh.

I get it all right.

Maybe it's also called that because you're kind of a caterpillar guy, and uh, the start off is just ahead and then you get a segment and then it's you know, but you actually get two. In fact, the game was originally called Oh with four o's, but they cut one

Like what kind of mechanics, Mike. It's like I'm trying to think, what was that like Zelda like game few years back that had the the you know, the manual pieces that you found in the world world you played as a little fun tunics, Oh Tunic so tunic Hat's and like Hitten mechanics where it's like, hey, if you like pull down this button and certain spots you'll you'll do a thing, and that you've been able to do this the whole time, but now you found the manual

Know you had a double jump, Like, what is it?

It's not quite like that, but I think a good example is at one point the kind of section of a wall you need to blow up is above you and your bomb doesn't reach. But you realize that if you drop a bomb on this platform and it falls, and if you kind of get under it within it falls on your head, they can kind of carry it over to that place, and now it reaches it and everything is kind of like that. It's not like, oh, you didn't know that pushing A and B at the

And then layer.

In the game, you just see that same room layout again and you're like, well, I bet I could bomb that part of the room again and unlock something, and you do.

So it's just tons of that. It's also you know, it's like virtual highlight not telling you about pressing B and C to do your specialty. Now it's better than that. See that was that was there's no way for me to better that.

Yes, in this game's on Steam, it's like eight bucks right now, it's on it's actually on sale, normally it's ten bucks. It's you know, it's it's not super long. I went through it actually throughout the Mega Man Block. It was super satisfying. I basically beat it right at the two hour mark.

Oh well that's great shit.

Yeah, and you know, maybe it'll be a bit longer depending on how long it takes you to figure out the puzzles. But yeah, it's just a really nice, kind of bite sized one of the Metroid Brain you if you want to. The music is very good, very chill, uh kind of fun tracks playing throughout it. Yeah, it's it's overwhelmingly positive on Steam. It doesn't have a ton of reviews, but it seems like everyone who does check

I'm going to play this side.

Two hours is like the exact right length of Like, oh, I can fit that onto the Steam deck and play that at any moment. There's another one like that I've been meaning, Capoot Mordem, which is like a spooky game, and I'm like, I'll say that for October. Apparently that's like two hours. So yeah, maybe I'll fit those into one of these morning streams.

At some point.

I think you'll like it, Jeff.

Okay, something else I think you'd like, Jeff. Grub is a game that I've been playing, Final Fantasy Tactics, The Evils Chronicles, Pile Pervs, Stand with Me, Lock into Place with Me, Gang. The game is here. It's finally here. The rumors were real. It's here, and Greb. We talked about this very briefly on an episode of Game as Mornings last week. But if I reviewed games on this website or I guess I could, I think this is an easy four out of five five out of five.

Gang.

But this has all of the trappings from the original game, where Yep, throw your dude over here, and then after you've done your move, pick the position he lays in, and then if you hit someone from behind, does more damage good. And then you got your little cute dudes and like you're ere looking guys. It's great, It's fantastic. We're going to try and spin up a quick look for folks to see the game in action, because it is pretty much just Final Fantasy Tactics, the original game.

Maybe I used to think that wasn't gonna happen, id. I used to think people didn't really like Tactics Advanced that much until I met you, Fucos, and uhs, I realized, yeah.

Yeah, that game fucking rule.

That's that's the game that I did actually like play like at a red light and did not like look up into and then realize, oh my god, it turned green and I can't do this.

I can't take this to work anymore. So yeah, yeah, that game is the reason I went to class for the first semester of college. That is the only thing they got me through that semester I went to school.

I'm glad that this is hitting. H I I love Final Fantasy. It's one of my favorite game franchises, and somehow I just have not really played that much. Final Fans A two.

I don't think it was as good, but it was that first one's a I was excited for or didn't.

Really do it for me. Yeah, it didn't quite hit.

Yeah, but I'll stand by this. I think Tactics advanced and then Evilase chronicles with this one are probably for me. Top five Final Fantasy games. And yeah, go back to Eviase more. I mean twelve was cool with your twelve vest Man and the Bunny Ladies. Yeah you know what, throw in more tiles. Yeah, Phantom Menace and Bunny Ladies in Final Fantasy, and I think we'll have hits.

Did I ever tell you about the Foul Fantasy fourteen raids series where you just went to Elise and uh.

Ron and I was tactics. I don't think i've ever heard you talked about this, so yeah, what is this all about?

So you know, like when they do the raids and foul Fantasy fourteen, there's a different context. The raid with the most people I forget eight times, the twenty four people together raids, they're usually very thematic. They have their own storylines, so you like watch like you talk to people and then you go and do a rush of kind of four bosses and it's thematic. But yeah, you're like going to Evily and these ones and all these characters from tactics and mostly tactics, but there is also

Yeah.

This when when I saw that the Evila stuff made its way into fourteen, I thought, Okay, this will be this will finally be the thing that gets me to sink in a bunch of time. But then video games keep coming out and I don't have time to play the one video game forever.

You would have to have played.

You probably need to play like three hundred hours of fourteen before you could do the evil stuff one. Maybe that's pushing it maybe let's say fifty or one hundred.

There are a lot of kings and knights in Final Fantasy Tactics. But Mike Manatta, you've been going on your own King's Quest with kings Quest one.

Yeah, stupid idiots playing all these new games, you fools. There actually was like a little it was like Sunday night, like what am I gonna play? And I knew I should.

Start like Solid Hill f or maybe Gsta Gyote or all these other things.

And I'm like, your chat demanded an old game. No they didn't, Yeah, I bet they didn't.

I was like, you know, I really need to satisfy my own stupid crave things right now. You know, I like graphical adventure games a lot, talking about a much. I like Monkey Island things like that. Obviously, been playing through myst and guests, so and I've always respected King's Quest and I've always been curious about it. And I played King's Quest six, which was a very very early CD game, and I finally played through all that recently. But kingsqust one is kind of the first one of these.

Puzzles, like like spelling Rumpel Stiltskin backwards for an hour.

Oh that's yeah, yeah, so some of the way some of the puzzles I want.

When I tuned in, it was like an hour of like trying to spell rumpels Stiltskin backwards.

Yeah, here's here's I made a map of the world and this is my rupples still skin cipher.

Yeah.

So at one point, wait, did you know you were supposed to be spelling rumples stilt skin backwards?

Let me explain. So also, you just said the phrase Rumpel Stiltskin cipher, and I just want to point that out.

Yeah, that's going to be the title of the episode now, so you at what point you come across a a nome, He's like, oh, if you can guess my name, I'll give you a pressy.

You get three tries, and like you at first, you're like it, that's probably Rumple. Still He's like, ooh, that's close, but it's not it. It gives Even when you fail, he gives you a key so you can progress through the game. But whatever, you want to get his name right, Well, you go to a witch's house later and you find a note it's like think backwards. So I was like, okay, I tech the right ruppel still skin backwards right, and then he's like, m you're closer. I'm like, okay, what that.

So like, why is z z is A? And so on it?

Why now not only that, even after I did all of that, it turns out that I was spelling the Rupple part wrong because Google says it was e L not L e uh fuck Detroit, just score excuse me?

So that was right, me crazy, Yeah, there's up two spots.

But the thing is, this game, even in nineteen eighty four, was doing like a, hey, each puzzle kind of has multiple solutions, so you don't need to know Rumpelstilskins stupid backwards cipher name. The key that you get from him is good enough to go into a cave, so you can go up some stairs and go to the floating island where the giant is who has the magic chess that always refills with gold, which is one of the three items you need in order to complete your King's quest.

Yeah, I mean that's like literally what you described describe there. That's the one that the genre is named after, right, the adventure.

I think, yes, yes, I think it.

Is like when you're playing it, do you like, does it feel like eventually or like there was some logic to it?

Or is it just no ROBERTA.

Williams was on cocaine the entire time.

There's like there's.

Some logic to so the air thing too. These games are parsers, right, and that means that you have to type out, type it out your commands. So a good example is, at one point I was in the bottom of a well and I wanted to see if there's like I was in a body of water, and you could I constantly these games. So I'm like, Okay, swim this one for a bit. Eventually you get tired and die. I'm like, go underwater, submerge. Right, the only word it

Video game?

Like, like, I still feel like you said it all exactly right. I think you're going to be younger people who still just don't really know what you mean. Like there are no buttons on the screen that say, like, here are the options, here's the context sensitive buttons that will give you an idea of what the game's looking for. He literally has to type out what he wants the character to do and hope that that's what the game is after.

Yeah, Like later games kind of get better about synonyms and things like that. This one it's pretty specific. Like at one point I had a key I want to open a door that was locked, and it guys like open door, use key on door. It just wasn't like any of that until I said unlock door. It was looking for the word unlock, and then it was happy. So start as he can go a little crazy because you're like, Okay, am I on the wrong track here? Am I just not typing in the right exact word?

So that became kind of standardized eventually. I remember the first time I encountered that was Robin Hood on the nes and being like is this I just could not.

Understand it, as like a little boy, some of the Kingsworst games had any sports. Kings Quest five, which is pretty late in the series, had in any support, and I'm like, how the heck would that have worked out?

So yeah, I think few people would appreciate this game like I did.

By somebody who loves this, Jen Ry and has been very fascinated by early computer games. Recently, I've been watching a lot of videos about Ultima and things like that. I found it very interesting. So gg is where I found this, Uh, you know, easily played. You just download it and runs off scum VM or whatever, so I worry about how you work on modern computers or anything.

Yeah, builts is a package for you, so you could just go and start playing it. Yep, wonderful.

I'm thank you for that history lesson, Mike about a game that I will probably never play, but I'm happy that you were happy playing.

Yeah, the people if you were watching the seventh Guest stream and you're like, this game looks old, don't look at King's Quest, he.

Won't like that.

What do you guys think Dan would have an easier time doing the Man Breaker.

Or King's Quest Man Breaker, Man Breaker? I think I think I'd get frustrated, but I could do it. Yeah.

Dan would lock in after a while, like he fell into a rhythm with it.

Yeah. Yeah, you're obviously different than like speed Running, but like you know, with speed Running, I get used to having to do the same thing over and over and over again and just get better at it. It would drive me nuts, but I could beat it. King's Quest. You would just change leave the industry, change careers. Yeah. Wow.

Back to the movie theater buttering popcorn WIT's Protection program.

Yeah yeah, folks, we're gonna take another quick We're gonna take a bricky break, and then we'll be back with more games talk and video game news, as reported by one Jeff Grubb right after the.

Rub.

It's okay, just look at it. Okay, it's fine.

Wait wait, wait, wait damn, what are you doing here? Oh? We like like existentially or what do you mean? No, Dan like here a giant bomb covering games?

Oh?

Oh what I do for a living? Okay, Well, I'm here because of Game Informer. That's right. Way back in nineteen ninety three, I saw a Game and Former magazine and subscribed for the first time, and it has been a huge part of my life ever since, from you know, working the register at Funko Land and selling subscriptions to starting working there full time in two thousand and nine. Game Informer has been there for me the whole time.

Now, Danny boy, I see that you're holding a magazine right there. Tell me about how that page feels.

I'm telling you I have held hundreds upon hundreds of Game Informer magazines from nineteen ninety three to today, and this is, without a doubt the best. But I'm feeling this right now. This is this is a smooth cover, This is a thick, nice paper here the print is just because this is a wonderful quality print magazine. It makes my heart feel good.

And I know that Game Informer is a team that I can rely on to say something substantial about games and the people who make them, because GI has a stellar crew of editors.

These are people I love to.

Have on the couch at Giant Bomb at night over at Summer Game Fest. It's people I can always rely to have something interesting to say. That's why I know when they have those excellent cover stories, just like they always did and always will continue to do, so it's going to be some of the best coverage in video games.

And another fun bus, Game Informer donates five percent of every subscription purchase directly to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.

You know earlier this year, the future seemed very uncertain for both Game Informer and Giant Bomb. That's putting it mildly, and as someone whose life and gaming hobby has been greatly impacted by both of those outlets, I am thrilled that we are both back and doing our thing online and your podcast apps and in print in your hand. That is right, gaming news, reviews, everything in between sent

Now begins the rogue light like block of the game portion of the Bomb cast. We got three big hitters here, a gang before we move on to news. There's so much we gotta move. We had to take a break in preparation. We gotta to take it. Take a quick, deep breath, and now we're back in games. Uh, Dan, you said this earlier, but you've been playing MEGABONK.

Yeah, And I just remembered. I was looking at my notes and I was like, wait, I feel like I talked about this. Uh I talked about it last week a little bit. Yes, you did talk about it a bit last seek. So last week you went the discord.

You're like, guys play Megabank and I went you and I talked about it on a little bit on last week's Yes on this show last week, and since then, apparently you've played a lot more.

Yes, yeah, because I feel like I probably was just starting it before last week, but it was yeah, three

Yeah, with the sticks on there, like it just feels like a good place. Like the controls are good for that game.

Yeah, I thought like because I was like, there's so many care and so much action on screen, is this going to be a cluster fuck? And then I was telling Alex Boniello that he should download this and play it, and first of all, he immediately text me back' is like, oh, this is a perfect video game.

Uh.

And he realized that, like it's four hundred megabytes it is. This is not a big game. Oh shit. Yeah, So like I just I continue to love this. It is my go to. It's you know, if I'm up in the morning before you know, we start recording something, I'm playing it. If I got an hour before bed, I'm playing it. If I got something on the background team it's a perfect podcast. Putting a TV show or something on the background game, it's it's fantastic.

We we should play Risk of Rain two, which is I think, okay, I would love to first person multiplayer version of this.

Yeah.

I was gonna say, like every time we've talked about megabonk on the website, someone will bring up Risk of Rain two, and that's at least four players, right, I think, so yeah, we could party.

I just think them just a first one that.

Was isn't the first one two D?

Yes?

Yeah?

Oh and then they went first person three D, which I thought a third.

Person three D? Yeah, third person? Yeah, it's third.

Person okay, okay, so I'm just thinking of it win three D Okay. So yeah, the first one's two D, the second one is three D. I love when that happens when they go from uh an indie game, and then they do a sequel and they follow it up.

With three D version of that. The hell diverse things yep, thatch your friends. Yep. Of course I would love to try that because yeah, I'm I'm all in on this, this type of game player. And again it's just a ten minute run. Like you know, Vampires Farmers had the thirty minutes and you could do things like the hyper mode or the Devil speed mode and things like that, but like ten minutes on these it's just like you get in that loop and it is so easy to just be like I do one, Why I just unlock

Well, speaking about Poe C, you know, it is very ponent And I guess a lot of people associate with my personal brain and on the internet gambling, and you know what's so good about gambling slot machines. Baby, I saw people saying that they would lose me if I started playing clover Pit.

Jokes on you, gang, I've been playing clover Pit for most of those games. We got code for like a month and a half ago because it was supposed to come out around Silk Soong and I got pushed back, so like, yeah, most of my time playing it was in like mid August.

I think, yeah, yep, Dan, you and I have been playing clover Pit. This is a slot machine rogue light where I guess, let's just compare it to Bilatro because that's the easy comparison. From run to run, you're building you have to hit a target of currency. From there

Or I've always just done the full payment unless I literally don't have enough gold to cover it, Like okay, that seems crazy to not play full Yeah.

Yeah, I've also only done that, and unfortunately.

This does scratch the casino itch. But Dan, how have you been finding your time with it? I mean, it is very good, and it Blottro is the right comparison just because of the formats. I mean, it's it's very different in that like there is more of a narrative setup, like you are in this like torture room basically and the floor drops out if you can't afford the debt and stuff like that. So there's like a creepy almost

They're specifically rigged against you in real life. I was gonna ask, and I know what you're gonna do. But as you as you guys, as you answer this, like the threat this through, do you feel like they try to like maybe lean it in your favor instead.

I don't know. How do you feel about it?

I don't think.

I didn't get a sense that they were kimmicking it at all. It didn't feel like it was. I mean, you can do things where it's like some of the charms will give you like, oh, every seventh spin you get a bonus to your luck stat, and the luck stat will in general like make you know good good spins show up more often. Okay, I don't it's not random. I think like if your luck stat is up, it

I think that's like the major detriment to the game, because in some roguelikes, even like maybe your first or second game in Blatro, or first or second run in eighties eighties two, you can get obscenely far just because like luck is in your favor and you can use the mechanics of the game. Here, you are really just limited to the fate of the slot machine, and if you just get a bunch of bad spins despite having a good build, it does kind of like take the momentum out for me.

Yeah, I think people will point out that, like, well, poker's random, right, so what's the difference with Blatro. But I think, well, poker's not as random as slot machines, right, like we whether.

It's mathematically, it's not as random. And also if you are playing actual poker against actual people, I mean, the real game is in the psychology and how you play, you know, bluffing and things like that. So that's that's a different deal for sure. Slot machine is there is just randomness.

There as the Residents slot Machine. I'm not gonna say expert enthusiast here. In comparison to another slot machine game, Luck Be a Landlord, I think I would from a run to run basis, I think Luck Be a Landlord is an easier time because there still is some ramp up because of like the weird setting that you're in and like the jail cell or weird place that you're locked into.

At least you have a bathroom. You can pee in the game if you want. Yeah.

With a clover Pit, I feel like clover Pit takes a little too long to get a run up and going, and I kind of just need like that drip feed faster. I need that dopamine hit faster to like lock in, and but there's there's too many things going on in clover Pit. That being said, I do like the grungy setting of it, and I don't think I have that bad of a time being locked inside with the slot machine.

I think all that matters is it has an eighty five on Open Critic. I have it in Fantasy Critic. It has put me very far ahead of everyone, and now I have the projected points just way way out there. No one's good guarantearic guaranteed victory, guaranteed victory for your play.

One more note on that is that like you know, with these other games we're talking about, Megabonk and Haites that like the rogue light elements, like the stuff that actually progresses and it's like, oh, I've unlocked this thing are pretty exciting and fun. Like with Hades too, you know, we're gonna talk about that in a second. It's like you're getting all this new stuff in the hub world.

All right, Gang, final game on the docket over here, and you know what, hey, industry, just we're good for the year.

We're done.

Just pack it up, You're okay, Well, we'll see you in January of twenty's.

Still playing Silk Song. Please stop. We do this living and we're so underwater with this shit. Imagine just imagine being someone with a normal job and just wants to play games when they come home from work, and on top of responsibilities and stuff. How the fun is anyone gonna play through all this shit? I think they.

I think the guys don't do just pick a game and just like stick with it, like, yeah, that sounds nice.

Yeah.

I think that's why you know, well, we will talk about Haities two in a second, but I think that's why your war Zones, Call of Duties, your Fortnight's continue to be so popular, because I.

If it just goes to OTA, someone's going to pick that up and be like, that's what I'm playing for the rest of the year, and that sounds lovely.

That's something a really good time. That's probably healthy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, please please be healthy, Gang, because I don't think I am being healthy with Hades two. I had already spent sixty hours in pre release, and I thought when I came back to it, when one point Oh came out, I was like, I don't remember shit of what was happening or who I was like romancing and what my progress was.

Just start from the beginning. What's the worst I could do?

And I have quickly gotten close back up to sixty hours with a new save in Hades two. Gang, how have you all been finding your time?

I I love it.

It's it's a really instantly fantastic game. It I think the way that I've been like processing my feelings from the early access to now is they've obviously done some stuff that I as someone who's not a game designer, someone that doesn't really fully understand all the tweaks you can make to something like the dash. Whatever they've done

Yeah, it's it's definitely a sequel. That's sorry, Dan, but it's definitely like a sequel. Playing not it's not playing it safe. But you know, yeah, More Hades that was a.

Very good formula.

Actually, I would just like to see that again with some different characters, some different weapons, some different ideas. Then they find a lot of fun ways to kind of plus it up and make it feel like a different experience.

Yeah, you know, we don't want to go into super specifics about like I don't I going up. I feel like isn't a spoiler because it's right there in the hub world it says, yeah, go up question mark.

I originally thought it might have been a spoiler when Nicky first brought it up forever ago.

And then you go in the game. You walk five feet and you see the words go up.

You're like, I get what's happening here.

I I was thinking that, like, Okay, it's gonna have a similar structure to the first one, where it's gonna have like these four biomes basically, and then you beat the big boss or whatever. And it's like I went down there and I focused on going down. I beat Kronos the first time, and it's like, Okay, I'll kind of mess around with this going up a little more. And it's like, oh my, okay, they I'm deep into I think I've gotten to as far as up can

Like minutes or more right, A lot of times that's not just like, oh, we bust a quick one out, like oops.

It's four am y yeah, yeah, I Jordan Minor. I saw him saying that this is from eighties one to

Something minor I did in a run. The level of detail is crazy. It's like, you know, they will sometimes talk about your weapon or the familiar yeah with you. But then I got this thing in the last round of I so off for the first time where it's like I just got bigger, and it's like I got to a characters like you can do one of these

It's it's funny because I got the opposite of that Dan where that character offered me like oh, you can get smaller and your Dodge's chance goes up. And then her Milanoway's character portrait is significantly smaller, and they pitch her voice up so and like where all the characters like were you always this height? What's going on.

When she's bigger? Her voice gets deeper too. Just the level of details unbelievable here and just everything, Like I don't play early access games, but I very much support the practice because I think it leads to something being so fucking polished by this point, even little things like the cross save thing, because I play oh yeah, Switch. I play on Steam Deck and I play on PC

Sometimes I'm getting hit by things and I'm not sure why, especially you know later in runs when there's a lot happening. Part of it is almost just a focus thing. But yeah, just being able to switch between those two platforms super nice.

I think we are at that point.

With Mike mentioned the other day, it's something we've talked about a bunch of the just duologies of you put out a game and then probably the best thing is the developer is take a long time to refine that concept to its sharpest point you possibly can, and then after that you can go in a different direction and do something new, because a third one probably would be diminishing returns. So you don't need to go and do it a third time. So put everything into that second game.

Like even like the minor changes that they did to combat I never used did y'all use the weird diamond cast thing in Hades one?

I never diamond cast.

It's like like here, your cast is like the circle that like, I would use it.

Yeah, I used that all the first one. The first one.

It's like, god, I don't quite remember how to you shot like a projectile thing?

Yeah, like the cast, just the cast, the projectile thing it was. Yeah, it would like debuff people sometimes or something like that, right, Yeah, never use that ship.

Oh, I use it constantly in this one, like that circle and then you can make it fireball you shoot and then it like forms at their feet.

Like that's awesome and it's funny how just like adding something that is very typical to games but just wasn't in Haities one, Like you have Manna now right, Like, oh, that changes the complexion of this experience now.

Also, everyone in this game is hot.

I hate it. I I'm opening my mind to that. Yeah, you know what, because I'm I'm my brain doesn't typically think that, And like I knew that was the thing everyone talked about with the first one, and so like I wanted to investigate this time, and I'm like, I'm going to think about if these characters are hot this time. And I tell you, folks, I think uh. I saw the Selini there and I saw Harah and I was like, if these were real people, they'd be very attractive. Yeah.

I want to avoid Hades two spoilers as much as possible because the game is still super duper fresh for people. But you said something at the end near the end of the Hades two marathon stream you did where you were saying that you started to build distrust for whatever reason, of Hecate or yeah, that's how you say it, right.

Ever since you said that, which mommy with abs. Ever since you said that and I've played the game, I'm like.

Hmmm, no, I don't trust this person, not Nemesis, which he but then like there's also Nemesis, which is kind of a simile.

Nemesis is like clearly like supposed to be adversarial, and so you're supposed to feel that way.

Just three of Ripley with Suline. Since then, I am fully back on board trusting her.

I do not believe. I also think it might go which is the other way, maybe why it's gonna happen again.

But no, right now I would be upset and shocked. I know, I think she's on my side. I think she loves me, okay, h paternally.

Also, I it seems like a small addition to this game. I don't think this is spoilers, but you have familiars in this game now. Yeah, he's got my friend Jesus Christ. I couldnot not roll up to fight Grandpa of Time without my little frog buddy.

Oh frog is the best one because the other ones look I like the dog, like the bird, like the other ones that come later. But like that Frog gets past that mini game, wheres I don't don't need to be singing with ghosts every second? You know, why don't come back to the hub? I was confused first, like I didn't get to play the baby game. Oh the frog didn't for me. I wish Frog could kill Dora because I don't need that ghost hanging out. I don't like I like Dora. Dora is Aubrey Plaza's character from

Dora.

I hate Dora.

I don't like what's her face that leaves trash in like our little camp.

Oh yeah, I don't like her either, tank girl.

I like how she calls me babe, though I like her weird like you babe vibe. Yeah, she called me babe all the time. I don't like the Riss character. Yeah, I like I, you know we I became very familiar with like the gods that were would present boons in Hades one, and I was kind of disappointed that one of them didn't give you uh boons from your runs in Hades two until I ran into them when you go up and uh oh boy uh showing a lot of skin.

A lot of skin.

Uh talking about do you see you see like the like the the cum gutters, the bones, the vagina bones.

Yeah, with one of them, the vagina bones, the cum gutters. Anyway, my face.

He loves it, but he kind of hates it. I think he's repulsed and loves it. Okay, Oh, I'm sorry. We're we done with Hades two.

I thought was a natural conclusion.

That's that's I think we have to be. Yeah, all right, okay, I have news. Yeah, hello, everybody, let's go. I don't know.

EA is going private in a fifty five billion dollars Saudi backed deal. Saudi Arabia, through its public investment fund, is acquiring EA in that fifty five billion dollar leveraged buyout. We'll get back to that in a second, marking the second largest deal in gaming history. It's one of the largest leveraged buyouts ever for a company to go private. Really, honestly,

The reason that.

We're believing that that's what they want is because they're spending a lot more money on EA than EA is actually worth. If you look at how much money they make, the growth potential, the twenty five percent premium they're paying on the stock, price to get to this fifty five billion dollar number is kind of hard to understand. It's also like a deal you can't refuse if you're EA.

Key issue here.

So twenty billion dollars of the fifty five billion dollars is being funded by debt that JP Morgan is you know, basically lending to.

Get this deal.

Across the finish line, and that twenty billion dollars of debt will go onto EA's books. So basically, Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia they're spending some money and then they're going to put the company that they're buying into debt so that they can own that company. That means EA will.

Have to service that debt.

They will have to pay the interest payments on that debt going forward to the tune of about a billion dollars a year. Now that that sounds vaguely familiar, this is exactly what happened to Toys r Us back in the mid two thousands. Was Toys r Us got had a leveraged buyout and some vulture capitalists went in there and they used debt to buy the company, and they put that debt on Toys r Us and then Toys r Us went bankrupt, and everyone's like, people aren't buying

Yeah? Please? Yeah? Quick?

Tangent though, Greb, I was catching up on last week's BombCast after I got raptured, and it was news to me when you broke down that Satya Nadella, Microsoft's CEO. Right, yes, uses several AI agents all the time, A decisions. Yes, there's something wrong about that.

And it's if a billion dollar paid ceo can't see that.

I don't, I don't want to windows anymore.

Gang, Yeah, I mean it's it's it's just.

Sorry, sorry. And this is the richest people in the world love AI.

I don't.

I don't know why. I guess it's just some other thing that makes them feel special or not have to deal with the common people. I don't know what it is.

I mean, it's very clear what it is.

It is they can take all of the expertise that has been gained through human effort and they can lock that up behind AI, and then they can control the AI. That is a tool that they can own, because really only the richest corporations have the capability to run a global AI system that requires just gigawatts and tara watts and and beyond of energy to run and then they can have a monopoly on expertise. Is this idea, and then if we want to access that, we have to go through them now.

To get it. That's the idea. Whether or not that.

Actually is how it will play out, well, we'll see, but that is definitely the idea, is they can you know, yeah, go ahead.

Jam, I understand the world of done now, I get it. Computers are bad. We'll just make one dude a computer for us. And he just rolls his eyes back and it's like, all right, I got the math.

Gang boy.

If you I mean, you know, I bet things like things like Madden and Football Club and SIMS are gonna roll along here. The quality might go down if it keeps. You know, if there's a lot of that workload is done by AI, you do wonder about things like, you know, that next mass effect by Aware, a company that you know, seems like it's kind of on desk door anyway, what's gonna happen with that? What's gonna happen with Skate, which is only an early access. They don't have to actually

I think after stopping making uh the uh, the the other racing games that they've done they can't burn burnout. But then also all the ones that like they acquired code Masters, and then they're like, we're gonna stop making some of those code Masters games, not even making Need for Speed, So why would they continue making Colin mccraze dirt.

Or whatever the fuck it's called. Yeah, Colin, it's.

You know, and none of that even gets into uh is Saudi Rabian blood money and uh killing journalists and having actual slavery, uh you know, not not like the worst kind of chattel slavery we've ever had in human history,

Journalists drive a few years ago, though, Yeah.

There's skateboards there now, but they have a whole comedy festival now everything.

He's one of us, right, he would have been comedy in Saudi Arabia and they did it. Everybody. It's the contracts as you actually can't talk about like you actually can't do it.

Yeah, yeah, well you listen, comedy is not about disparaging or ridiculing people in power, Dan, Yeah, to be clear.

That's right. Yeah, that's done that. Yeah, stupid Yeah.

I I I'm coming out of this feeling like, uh well, we're at the end of something. We are at the end, like this is the endpoint of a certain kind of game publisher, a certain kind of way of making video games.

Uh Ea.

Looked around, saw it was still operating under a world of capitalism, and said, so, you know, in the old Adam Smith's style capitalism. It was, well, let's make a better widget, Let's make a better game than anyone else. Let's let's find a need in the market and service it better than anyone else can, and we will succeed. And obviously, clearly, just blatantly, that's not what they're thinking at all. They haven't been thinking about that for years.

But I think people get what we're getting at well.

Even the major corporations like US based gaming major corporations, and now is just Take two and Microsoft, and Microsoft like gaming is not their main thing at all, really in Take two is just so heavily invested in a few huge games. So yeah, it just it just isn't like it was. It's kind of wild how quickly that all change, and how little of the power bas of Games seems to be based in America right now.

Yeah, they're I mean EA's office is based out of or I guess they're major US offices based out of Redwood City, like a couple of twenty thirty minutes away from me, and all the local news is just it seems like a moratorium of like man Ripea, You're gone

Yep.

It's uh yeah at the end of something like what happens next, you know, as something like we come on this podcast every week, we talk talk about the games we've been playing, and I bet if we like did some if we charted it out and we like normalized for sort of the games that we cover out of obligation because they're big games and they have big marketing budgets behind them and people are wondering about them.

I think our percentage of the stuff that we talk.

About is you know, shrinking when in the idea that it comes from one of these big publishers and them wanting to like sort of fight back for that market share and that mind share. Like that fight is gone, and so yeah, that's the thing that's ending. And then in the meantime, we do have numerous and countless indie

And that's sad and troublesome. All right, let's keep going here.

Super Mario Galaxy Plus Super Mario Galaxy two reviews popped off this morning, you know, doing pretty all right. Eighty six on Open Critic mostly wanted to include this because we were like wondering, like, how remastered is this?

Like what's happening here? Well?

Did they figure out the pointer controls? Well, those are the a couple of things here. The remastering of the visuals, people repeatedly in reviews said that was really well done. This is a pretty decent step up for these games. They look really good on Switch and Switch to It is on both I believe, yes it is. And then the other thing was the pointer controls for stuff like Yoshi Stung not great but not so bad or anything

I don't know. Ye, yeah, you have to do. Like Galaxy one had more of the motion gimmicks, like you know, hold the the WE remote and then kind of tilted. I can't remember how they did that for three D all Stars, like because you don't have to detach the joy con, you can play with no pro controller.

Yeah, I think you sort of there was a button. I think there was a button to sort of like set the center and then you go and then it was like, okay, now now you could sort of just do regular motion controls using the gyro the accelerometer.

Probably, yeah, sure, yeah, it mostly words. I I'm really looking forward to these. I like the Galaxy games a ton, and it's been a while since I played too, because you know, it hasn't been on Switch. I played through Galaxy one again when we had three D All Stars. But yeah, I'm planning to play this like on Thursday on the site when it's out.

Yea.

Even with all these new big games, I'm kind of the same where I'm gone to probably take a break and play through Mario Galaxy too. I just like the three d mar games and these one specifically so much that I'm super excited about it.

Is it a switch To edition or is it just a switch one edition that plays on two that's a switch upgrade. That's a good question.

I think I think there is a switch To edition. I think there is, but I'm.

Searched for Nintendo's website and I'm just seeing the switch one. I hope there's a like Wwitch two. I think I think that's the case.

But uh, very feel like everyone's a switch one game that runs a little better on switch To. It might not be a full switch to edition thing.

Yeah, okay, there's there's just a free switch to patch, but that that would be I think that's what we're good qualifying. Is what we're looking for, like a passign that actually makes it a little run a little bit better.

All right.

A new PS five Pro could soon release a new, slightly improved PS five Pro is expected to be released in Europe soon, following the recent quiet introduction of a different PS five Slim.

The reporting here.

Makes it sound like it could have actual improvements to how it processes games and visuals.

I doubt that.

I bet it's going to be more power efficient, but I'll bring this up with this next story as well. Sony is reportedly set to release an updated PS five Dual Sense controller with a removable battery. A new report suggest Sony will release a revised Dual Sense in November, featuring a removable, rechargeable battery. This new controller will replace the current Dual Sense models. The report also mentions minor revisions to the PlayStation five Pro, which will use three percent less powers.

So there you go. There's a kind of exactly what we're speculating there. Yeah, man, I hate that.

I kind of hate the places five Pro's existence because it's too expensive for me to really justify buying one. But also knowing that when I play a Placetation five game now, I'm not playing the best version. It's maybe that's one of the reasons why I haven't driven into Yota yet, even though I could have. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna play some compromised version of this game, now, I guess, and I know if I sit down with it and I'm playing it, I'm gonna think it looks great.

The frustrating thing, Mike is that, like the narrative around the Pro over the last month or so has been, shit's not taken advantage of this thing, and it's.

Really not worth it.

And then of course Ghost to Yota comes out and it's like, no, actually, this one totally looks awesome on the Pro.

It's like, god, damn it. Now.

I was just like really over it, and then I hear that, and that's the game. I think I'm doing the same thing, Mike, where I might be avoiding it because I'm not getting.

The best version or whatever.

It's stupid, but yeah, and it's I think that the Sony is just in a spot here where they are trying to position the PS five Pro as a long term play where even once the PS six is out, PS five Pro will be like a tier below that, and there might be a tier above a PS six

But it was a double play. Mic, I'm right behind you.

But yeah, well, we'll see what happens with this when people do get a chance to look at these things, And yeah, that that'll sounds like it'll be in November.

I guess.

I don't know when they will actually officially announce this stuff, or even if they will, maybe it just suddenly appears on shelves.

Sorry, we had people in first and second no outs, then we had two outs of guy went to go play and got tagged out.

Oh, he's safe. Ah, challenge that he's safe. He's safe.

I tell you, sorry, Jeff, what were you saying?

No, it's okay, I understand. Sorry.

I don't pay attention to baseball unless I have a hot dog and a beer in my hands.

Yeah, that's well, let's get him one, Mike. I'll get the beer for him. You send him a hot dog, all right. Five is Sodi's most successful console generation ever, and it's not even close. This is it just puts in context all like the price increases and the struggling to sort of get the the PS five to be cheaper. You know, I guess you just do that because it's nice to make even more money. But they've made more than ever before.

Now.

A huge part of that is the PS four generation never really ended, so they've made they are they're stacking PS four success on top of PS five success or you know, vice versa. And I think that that is going to be the kind of thing where they are going to try to keep that going forward, which I think explains why they're so interested in ensuring that the PS five pro is relevant long term, because again, I think they want people to keep buying that thing.

As the PS six coming out, which could be two years away. They overturned it. He's safe. Okay, now there you go, Minch. I'm happy for you. Yeah.

I mean, does it feel like the most successful place theytion generation? To you?

No? I mean right, because it's it's really not.

It's like it's because the PS four continues to be the most successful generation for them ever, and the PS five is, and then more so it's again it's weird and it doesn't feel great. So I do wonder like if there's a time limit on people being like, well, you know, I stuck with this thing, and am I going to do this rodeo again with the PS six?

Am I going to spend.

Another five hundred or eight hundred dollars on a PS six so that I can wait for them for years to put out a game I care about?

Yeah? I don't know.

I guess we'll see. Again, what other choice to people have? Are they going to get an Xbox? Almost certainly not?

Yeah, exactly.

They're benefiting so much from kind of being the only game of talent, which is why I hope that the parody of the switch to because more of a thing, we get more throir party reports actually want Nintendo Sony to be competing more directed with each other. Again, I don't want them to feel like they're on their own separate islands that they kind of have for the last seven eight more years. Right, So, yeah, you know, and Place of five is not a back house by any means.

Let's see the rot. Oh yeah, go ahead, jam please.

Oh sorry, I just lost my train of thought. I was just thinking about baseball and then the plate. Oh.

I have several friends y'all that bought a PS five at launch because they told me, I can't wait to play the next Kingdom Hearts. I'm like dogends that for Wow, it may not even on this They got.

Generated the right price.

Yeah, they didn't have to spend the extra money on a more expensive PS five that went up in price like two times, So actually the right choice. Despite everything, Uh, the Rock Xbox ally and la X finally got their real pricing. We've had this story leak over and over again, and it was like, you know, the the U Xbox ally will be five fifty and the ally X will be nine hundred.

Well that was wrong.

They're actually six hundred and one thousand dollars. You can tell that they probably did want those other prices. They were trying to keep it down, but taros and the decreasing value of the dollar and a bunch of other microeconomic factors for them to make it even more expensive. So we've had this question before, but let's do it again. At one thousand dollars? Are you interested in the Xbox ally?

Wait, wait a second, Jeff, that sounds like a scary four digit number.

There, it's nine hundred and ninety nine dollars cent.

You don't have to spend one thousand dollars on a video game system?

Are you crazy? You're right. I'm bad at math. That's why I'm a video games journalist. You're right, you got me.

Yeah, Hey, it's that's too much. I don't know, but I think that's where we're at. It's going to just keep being that level of expense for these consoles and these devices, and I think they are setting us up for a next generation both these companies, Microsoft and Sony, but especially Microsoft because why would they do this.

Again if they can't get the maximum.

Dollar value out of this hardware, where we might be paying one thousand dollars for the like real version of the next console.

I don't know.

Fun A deep dive on the future of Halo will be held next month. Halo Studios announced a Deep Dive panel for next month's Halo World Championship on October twenty fourth, which will discuss the future of the series. This follows up on a previous conversation from last year's Halo World Championships and a new Dawn video. Last year, the developer formerly known as three four three Industries and rebranded to what they call it a Halo Games Studio Halo Videos now Halo Studios.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

They revealed it was that they are working on multiple Halo games using the Unro Engine five, and then they kind of showed a teaser of some stuff happening unreal.

So they will probably, they will.

They will probably follow up on all of that stuff. I've not been plugged into, like what the rumor mill has been saying about what they might be working on or what they could do with like Halo. Could they bring you know, Halo one back in, remake that and put it out on PlayStation and switch to I think people have talked about that. I don't know if there's smoke there or something. So I guess my question to you guys would be, what do you want from Halo?

I want from Halo? I mean, I guess I kind of just want, like, you know, a good next Halo. I liked a lot of things about Halo Infinite. I would like to just see them do one of those that was more popular and well liked by people, maybe one where they can actually make more content for it. He's I guess that's why they're doing Unreal Engine five. Although I liked the way Hey If it look and played a lot if right, maybe it's hard to develop

Does? You know?

We know how people are. People acted like Halo Infinite was the plague. If they don't like the way the next Halo looks in place, oh Halo if and it's gonna be held up on a silver.

Platter all the suf that'll be fun. Yeah that didn't happen.

Yeah, I bet it'll be a Halo one remaker. It'll be like that, here's a war thing we just got, right, A remake, A remaster based on a remaster is an excuse to get the thing on PlayStation.

It's not the most exciting thing, but I still do like having the new way to play. You know, I'm almost done with reloaded, and it's like, yeah, this feels like the remake I played a year ago. Put it on the switch to.

Yeah, I think they'll probably that's that'll probably be something that happens with Hayle. I mean, even they did Halo Infinite on like switch to and and PlayStation.

I would take that.

But they're not going to like go back to supporting that game, so that's probably not the pathway forward.

Boy, there's like a there's a decent chance master Chief is in the next semester.

Brothers.

I feel like, yeah, oh, if Nintendo even wants them?

Is that from Geist? Is that the Geist Man? All? Right? Last couple of stories here.

Expect the Third Entry and Final Fantasy s and Remake trilogy to change things up again. Naokihamaguchi was interviewed and said, hey, you know, we had the first remake and it was linear. We had the second one it was open world, and we're gonna change things up again for the third one. Mike, I asked you on another show, but like, what do you think that means?

It's kind of hard to tell because you have the linear one, then you have the open world one, and I'm like, well, what else?

What else is there?

When you think about what normal fisty seven was, Like, you know, there really is that moment in the game where you go in the open world and you're wandering around and it does Yeah, that's what got translated to Part two. Part three is a bit more go here, go there, go here, go there.

Go ahead. Jan It's gonna be a strand game. Okay, all right, you gotta build a monorail. Yep.

Cloud Strife is going to be like, you know what, I'm tired of being an eco terrorist. I'm just gonna like walk across this with my friends and like carry a big backpack and deliver pizza.

Yah.

I mean like they're gonna they're gonna keep the combat system. That's the thing that most people pretty much just absolutely love about those games. The combat feels very good.

I bet it's.

Gonna be open world. He still maybe more open world and less kind of open zone. Even though seven Rebirth did kind of turn into that by the end, it will sort of sort of start that way.

I don't know.

I'm not too concerned about that. My concerns are more about some of the story directions stuff, just how multiverse drivilly are we going to get here? That kind of thing. But I liked Remake, I like Rebirth both a ton. I'm still very excited about this. Christian is just crazy that of all the thing I have to hear about

You realized. Christian is our like on on call Argentinian hipster slash griefer of you, right, Yeah.

Deeply respected. Yeah, he's just knows how to do it, and yeah he'll never stop.

Chris Doug Bowser to retire Devin Pritchard to succeed as Nintendo of America President Doug Bowser's been been doing that thing since like what when when did you start? Like twenty fifteen is when he joined Nintendo. In twenty nineteen is when he became a president of Nintendo of America. So six years, so a pretty long time for that that kind of position. I know there's some people who have had jobs like that for a long time, like Phil Spencer Bert Xbox, But no, that six years is

Yeah, it's neat. Uh yeah, it does feel like Bowser's tenure just happened in a snap.

But yeah, flew by. Yeah, good for the company, right, yeah, well.

You know, and Reggie kind of left not too long after the switch one launched, Bowser leaving a little a little bit even sooner at the switch too much. But you know people, these these CEOs or presidents who tend to leave kind of after these big milestones and transitions happened. So it makes some sense. So uh yeah, I bet everything is going to be just fine over there. It's I doubt it's going to be like Reggie a game where it was a very public personality and there's you know,

Yeah, I think you're probably right, like just kind of. I think they were setting it up, like why did we have Reggie become a celebrity. I mean it worked when they needed to kind of put on a little bit the show to distract from stuff like the WU and things like that.

He was.

Exactly with Bowser ever in a direct once. I think, yeah, a little bit, but he was not like Reggie that switched to reveal I was in New York Live while it was also going out to you guys, and he was on I was sitting next to you. That's right, Yes, I did any of that air, any of that air on the switch to h. I don't remember something like that.

They were at one of the Nintendo stores and museums at one point or another.

I'm surprised I'm.

Not just at the Nintendo museum that they have in Japan.

Yeah, yeah, I think they're still got all puppet bombcasts sometime. We definitely do. I want to anyone got a puppet connection. Let us know. We definitely had some reached out to be like, I make puppets, and how easy to me to make a puppet of me? Yeah, that's absurd.

Just take the Osama bin laden one and just kind of put it back out there.

Yeah, sir, Jeff Dunham's got one in a closet you can.

Oh you know what, we just put a we put a black hat on the old man. Jeff Dunham puppet and that's backlar.

Oh yeah, that does for the news.

I'm handing this show back over to Gianna Choa.

Oh wow, well we hit our Jeff Dunham mentioned category or quotas. Yeah, thank god we didn't end the month of September with un mentioning Jeff Dunham.

You're on Desert Island. The only comedy you can watch for the rest of your life is Jeff Dunham's uh, I don't know, discography, I don't know we'd call it, or the blue collar comedy to our guys. Hey, definitely the Reds game. Yeah, I skip that.

Yeah, there's inn a Lord of the Rings game they're making. I just I don't even see that anymore good lately. I'm sure this will be great the blue collar comedy guys. That one of those guys is like pretty fund back then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right.

One of them is major from Cars, Yes, from Cars. Wow.

Abu Dhabi Investment Office is going to pay for a Lord of the Rings game. It's let's see, a hundred million dollars is how much they're spending on this game. The deal, which has been in the work since last year, is expected to be final ass soon. This is all a rumor, although I'll say I've heard this rumor as well. People have reached out to me about this. I'm not being able to confirm it, but this is coming from

Forget we had Gollum, which was at least so bad it was remarkable. Then that Minds of Moya game no one talked about, and apparently that Aubit Shy Sims like thing was also bad. Actually just I bought Shadow of War because it's on sale on the Steam Celle right now. I'm like, boy, I missed when they're at least taking some big swings with these Lord of the Ring games.

So yeah, it sticks that, like you know in the sort of tear list of licensed games, like of that kind of license, it's like Warhammer way above Star Wars, and then that's like actually above Lord of the Rings. Like it gets bad fast with.

Those major franchises. I think it's it's fight.

The story says they want to compete with Hogwarts legacy. I don't think you can do that for only one hundred million dollars.

That's actually a really good point. Yeah, so I don't know what they're expecting.

Good luck with all.

Right now, I'm really handing the show back over to Jan catch sure, but I thought, oh god, got it.

I thought you were fibbing for a second. Well, folks, we're going to take a quick brickie break and we will be back with emails, super chats, and who knows what else right after the These are the males or the show emails. BombCast at giant bomb dot com is

Email us at.

BombCast at giant bomb dot com. First email of the show comes from Mike from Loveland. Hello, bombus, grandees. I think the taco place dropped one of my tacos in the sink. The wrapper an tortilla or sagi and difficult to separate the other taco, same variety was normal. Foolishly, after eating the good taco, I still went in for a bite of the wet boy, and now I'm sure I can't have tacos for a while. I should have known better. Has this ever or a similar experience happened

I've never had building a deck to beat up a guy? And what does that mean? I don't, I don't.

I'm lost, Dan, nobody's ever dropped my video games in a sink before I bought them?

No, and then like card decks like you?

First I thought card decks, but then I don't. I don't duel people in bathrooms.

So building a deck to beat up guys in a public bathroom? The built two decks?

Email or the answer to your question is no, We've never.

I've never, never, would never. It's never happened to me with video games.

But thank you for your for sharing your experience.

Sorry about your case, Ada or whatever, Haco talk next.

Email. This could be about anyone. They simply write, Jeff has fathead.

Right, Sorry backwards batheads the big stickers of us put on your wall on Cleveland.

At least at one point that was a Yeah Cleveland company.

I bought this house sight unseen my my mother in law came here looked at it for us when we were moving from Colorado, and I walk in and one of the rooms had a giant fat head of the Buck guy from the Ohio State Buckeyes, just the mascot or whatever, and that.

I had to get rid of that. Yeah, it was disgusting. I hate that.

Next email comes from the real McCoy Highdooters, having been just a couple of years too young to enjoy the original MGS three, now at thirty years old, playing the Snake Eater Snaky to remake as my first played MGS game, I kept on feeling genuine nostalgia for a game I never played, but had such an intimate knowledge of thanks to watching the entire Metal Gear Scanland series on Giant Bomb. My question is, has this ever happened to any of you?

Yeah, I mean, you know King's quest when I was playing that, right, I mean, it's a game from before I was even born. I didn't play it back then. I never actually really played through it, But you know, I just it's so much of a trailblazer, and it's so recognizable as something that's old and of an era that I can't help it being nostalgic for it, even as I'm playing through most of it for the first time.

Yeah, I think any game that appeared in a magazine ad for one of the video game magazines I read, if I were to go back to any of those, and I've done this before, I would feel nostalgia for.

It, for Sake, and sixty four for saken sixty four.

I honestly like Virtual Highlight definitely appeared in some magazines I was reading. So watching you play that I still hadn't played that, I still had nostalgia for it.

It's like watching, yeah, watch like an old black and white movie, right being or Softwar. It's there's something nostalgic about that, just something just nostalgic about the way Super Nintendo games are, or Sega Saturn games or PS two games are.

I get that if I watch a movie from like the nineties, as well, where it's just like ah, man, yeah, this is good. The look of the movie, the absence of phones and stuff like that, Like totally, although I've seen so much chatter about like nostalgia lately with like the fucking Walmart uh Ai video. I don't know if

And it's also not what it was really show about two thousand and two Walmarts. They were still Walmarts. There was no I think it's.

Just because it's targeting people that were a kid in two thousand and two.

You know, it's not like the nineties Pizza Hut you idiots, Like there's about that.

Yeah, And like also the video was like like grainy and stuff in a way that like they were trying to make it look we was shot in the seventies. Just it sucks so bad.

I guess, like kind of similar to what emailers writing in about a lot of my exposure to other media was through the lens of Muppet Babies.

Hell yeah, so that's how you learned about Star Wars.

That's how I learned about Star Wars. And that's how I learned about other movies through the the other movies that they'd spoof at Saint Daniel Jones, yeah, Indiana Jones, but also with Alvin and the Chipmunks. The first time I ever saw or was told about the story of RoboCop was through the lens of Alvin and the Chipmunks Robo Monk.

That was a whole video because I never even saw that movie, but it was always advertised in front of my VHS copy of like the actual Chipmunks movie that they did where they were doing some around the world in eighty days race bullshit against the chip Bets or whatever that was the Chipmunks man.

In the chat, he says, a Robocopa straight up marketed to kids, so much for not being a kids movie that I'm nostalgic for that, like all of my sh in first grade, like my binders and stuff being Terminator like official Terminator merchandise marketed towards me a first grader. It's like that we're missing that now, just.

Do the cartoon like there's no one battle after another cartoon series that's gonna be on Saturday morning, right, But there there is sort of what's that Netflix show, the one I've never seen it?

Yes?

And squid Games yes. And then the version of that is that mister Beast will make his videos and that's all exclusively basically for children to watch. And so kids are crazy about squid Games and that's like not really for kids.

So yeah, well that's there.

We we do have that because I mean five Nights at Freddy's is like a horror game.

But yeah, that's all around.

But it's like goosey Yeah right.

That's a little bit goat closer to Goosebumps. Yeah probably, OK.

Moving on, speaking about Pete from Connecticut Rights in Hey BombCast, I'm a thirty six year old married man with kids and my hair.

He started sinning on top a bit.

Nothing crazy, but it's something that I noticed. So I've been giving this question.

A lot of thought lately.

I was curious did any of the bald men on the show ever try to consider anything like Roguain, finasteride or hair transplants. Alternatively grubbing jan if you noticed you were starting to go bald tomorrow, would you consider any alternative option or just let it go?

Thanks for all you do. Pepe in Connecticut, I definitely did the rogain thing for a little bit, and it's just I don't know, this is kind of gross.

If it was a thing where I was like, I know this is going to work, right, like, okay, just you take my medicine and get my hair back. But I'm doing this thing that feels kind of weird and gross and also probably won't work. So I'm like, what the heck with this? And then anything else like it's just too drastic or expensive or too time consuming that I don't really care that much.

Yeah, I was like twenty seventeen or so when I was really starting to notice how the bald spot going crazy there, and I think it was finastrite or something that I got, and it's like for like a week I put it on there, and I'm like, do I really want to fucking do this? Like what? I don't know if it's like twice a day or something for the rest of my life. And then like as my hair if I lose more of it's just like more covers on the head every fucking day. It's like it's

It's still in the cards, is what you're saying, Like like.

If ifs I think I would do it as a bit or like like a sub goal on Twitch. Okay hair again, yeah, or if like like if a local place was like, hey, we'll do this for you for free, I would think about it because I would just go back to shaving it, you know, like what would be the downside. I'd rather give back of our hair back than give hair back for myself.

I think actually.

So magnanimous.

I think, yeah, dunkle Master Sauce in the chat, let's do it for back back.

Yeah, he does get. He does get real like listlessly, he talks about it.

That's what about you two? What would you do if you're going called?

I would do that stuff. I would try the propicia.

I would uh, I would.

Give it a shot. I wouldn't do the rog game thing. You're right that that sounds like a half soule uh and whatever. And then you know, when that didn't actually play out, I would just you know, I would shave it.

I would whatever.

Yeah, I would tattoo my skull and be sick like that'd be sick. Yeah, yeah, all right, Gang, a couple more emails and then we'll move on.

We could call you Jan Bigelow.

Okay, all right, all right, Scout, get to it anyhow, Okay, slip all right, Travis, and Fargo writes in with five questions, but we're not gonna read all five. I'm going to read the fifth one. Travis. I got a job. I've been a full time stay at home parent for the past few years, but now in addition to that, I'm working part time for my favorite local coffee company. I work with a good buddy of mine, and the best perk is free coffee. My question is my questions are

I mean, that's what's really cool is just it's cool enough to just do the thing you love for your job and play games, Like I realize how rare that is. And then when it's also it's like, oh, just by nature, you're doing it with people that share that passion, and especially in the circumstance like what we do, we got to basically pick who we do it with. We're all

Yeah, Yeah, that's that's exactly right. The park is just like getting to do the job, honestly, getting to come in, come with an idea, and the idea is how can we play a video game in a fun and interesting way. Yeah, couldn't have dreamed it up better, but that's exactly what I want.

Yeah. Also, wow, we're his family. Yes. Sure.

The bonus of being friends and considering y'all very close to me is that I feel more comfortable being me around y'all, and I don't have to like code switch or style switch. I can say some out of pocket stuff like cum gutters and then we just move on to the next time. But also, you know, I fully transparent for the folks at home. I've been going through some stuff and I feel comfortable going through the day because I can rely on this crew of dudes here

Dance? Fine, what a day for my keys?

Dirt Bag Dad rites in Hey bomb Daddy's I think they meant that, not the way I read it. But this question is for the two Jeffs, Solid Jeff and Liquid Jeff. New parent here, Yay. I have a seven week old baby and I'm not gonna lie. I'm starting to lose it. The lack of sleep, the logistics, etc. Are all pretty taxing, and I've noticed it's taking a toll on my partner and I, I will admit the

I mean, look, the kids that young, you should be finding sometimes during the day to like just let the kid lay on your tummy while you play a game, So take advantage of that.

Baby is fine to keep gaming.

So that's my advice there is you can still make that happen later on. Yeah, it'll only happen during certain times for sure. No, No stand up to five am to play Hades two when you got to get up at six am to start getting the kids.

Ready for school. Yeah.

Look, it's it's hard, and really all you can not all you could do, But the most important thing to do is recognize it and being like, hey, I am getting irritable, I am getting this is challenging. I do have to kind of take a step back and figure out some ideas here. I think the biggest thing is a perspective shift. You're you're not really living for yourself anymore.

Bad about stuff, because they will.

You can tell they'll start trying to manage your emotions because that it makes them uncomfortable. So you've gotta have to recognize that, and it's not easy. You're just gonna have to get better and keep growing. The good news is you that's what we do. We keep growing and we get better. So I would just take this moment to not beat yourself up, don't feel guilty like you.

But I used to like sit.

Down and channel flip or or record a show on the TVO and then put that down and watch a whole series or whatever. You know, I just put some hobbies aside, some activities aside, and moved on. And maybe that you have to take some stuff off the burner. Maybe that's the answer here. And then the other side is it will just like it's gonna put holes in

You'll just have to roll with it. But you're doing great, keep at it, and you're gonna be just fine. You know.

I'm not a father at all, but I think the fact that you took the time to recognize that you're going through these things.

Was also a big step. You know, just make sure you're communicating with your partner. Dan. Do you have anything to add to this about fatherhood. I'm just thinking, like if Grub's saying like the kids are the reason the memory and stuff, I can't imagine what kids would do to my fucking brain. I don't have that excuse.

Just like literally you would be able to feel the gaps in your brain, like that's what it just feels like there's holes up there for me.

Yeah, anyway, but that's probably just beer, not kids.

Yeah, Okay, anyway, last email of the show, and I'm gonna preface this by saying, I know you know, the last emailer asked about fatherly advice, But do not take anything that we met, any medical advice that we give to you explicitly. And also I'm gonna say the same thing for us to not take any medical advice or living advice from our audience plainly, all right, Joaquim writes in hi last voicemail, Dump Truck, Dan said he bought a sauna, which to me, as a finished person, sounded

I will take that advice that I already was taking, but it's I feel validated. So yeah, like I said last night. One in the morning, I'm filled with fucking turbo crust and and cocktails and beers, and I'm just having a great time sweating all out in there.

What do you think this sauna is like still gonna be there in five years. It's gonna be some kind of bad ending for the sauna. I don't think it's gonna hurt you unnecessarily. The sauna is going to break or explode or catch on fire or something eventually, Dan.

I mean, we'll read the instructions on like inside it says, oh, don't don't put any fabrics or anything over the heat pads. That's fine, and also says don't you know with alcohol, don't be in here. But so you're facing some of it, you know. I think it's fine. It's like it's pristine. It doesn't get wet and there. It's not gonna be like a steam room thing where it gets moldy. It's a dry son a box.

I'm gonna like set a reminder to ask me ask Dan about his sauna in five years. I just want to know what's going on with it.

Two hundred degrees, it gets one fifty, but he said, if the finished ones are two hundred degrees.

That's the twelve degrees away from boiling. I I go to that is a finished style one and they have one that is like that, and it's like, that's crazy. Yeah. I don't like saunas. I don't get it, and I've never red.

I don't like well, okay, I also don't like I don't like saunas or hot tubs because I I don't like being too relaxed.

What oh, maybe that's what it is, Jane. I need I need the stress.

I need the stress to like keep me together, scaffolding to hold up my body, like external pressure.

How fucking good it feels to thirty minutes just read and sit in the thing, sweat it out and everything no screens and everything for bed, and then like go right into a shower. Your fucking pores are open as hell and you're getting soap in there. You will never feel c I'm not worried about it. I'm sure that you'll never feel cleaner than in a post sauna. Showers are all open and everything, you soap it all up everything.

Still I still think a sauna without water or some kind of like hydration component or steam just kind of sounds like you're a temperature.

A sauna is dry. The steam room has its vapor. It's water you pump in there.

Yeah, that's that's I can see the appeal of that. I don't want to be a hot box.

You know.

Maybe you know a couple of emails ago, I said, I'm going through some things. Maybe I'll just go have a SPA day. We'll see what happens.

Yeah, well, go to place that has like the hot and the pools and stuff, and I'll have the hot pools, the cold pools and stuff. I don't buy into the like fucking cold plunge stuff or whatever, but like doing the song and end of the pool stuff is really really good. We should have spa week. Yeah, I can stream it.

I don't quite know what that needs week.

Yeah, well okay, oh I get to watch it. This is great. Actually a stream from mycena. I could do that.

I won't be naked, Mike, or You're right, you're kind of like employ where he's at.

So I get to watch it here and see what happens. Great podcasting for everyone's gonna listen to it later this week.

Oh sorry about that. Just there.

For the audio listener. Mike Manatti looks like he is not quite in a state of bliss, but it could be that as well. Uh, Mike Manatti, if you feel comfortable enough, hit me with some super chats.

Yeah.

I could use a break from this game.

All right. I'm not gonna take any crap.

You know how many podcasts I've done with Jeff where he's just watching hockey or whatever.

The one time I'm keeping an eye on a game, I'm not going to hear it. I'm not going to hear it. I didn't say anything anything either. Oh, let's run a poll with how's the keeper come along? You get that figured out? Is that don't clean up? Yeah? It's great, it's totally altogether. Look at that.

Yeah, Ricky B says the jurf quiet quit? Are the kids still quiet?

Quitting? The kids are quiet? Quitting? Uh?

No, backgur Yeah really just quiet quitting, we're all slacker. This guy not doing any work for using like that. Yeah, I know he's he's busy, he's he's doing stuff with his family, but also making things happen.

Yeah, just quit.

Actually, because you just quit, you don't get paid. That's that was the benefit of QUI quitting?

Uh right? Yeah.

Ricky be also says, do you think Dan doesn't get symbolisms and movies because he's always peeking during crucial moment?

Most movies I watch at home and we pause if we're being you know, Yeah, I still don't get symbolism.

Urschel says, speaking of Silent Hill, when will Jan eat Heather Vacation.

I don't know who Heather Vacation is. Maybe I'll embark onto Silent Hill three eventually.

I just need a co pilot for that Heather vacation.

Vacation because I called Henry the protagonist of the first one, Henry Vacation because I never remembered his last name.

I think it was Mason A wienerless Steve situation Right Hill three, girl, I see I see Tyrant asks power BombCast returns when bi weekly AW is good?

Yeah, sounds like AW is really good. I have no interest in ww right now. Also just been it's been too busy to really have a chance.

All wrestling is one of those ones that has come off the stovetop a little bit.

Yeah, but but I will say I know that's still related to ww because Triple A and ww A earned this weird partnership right now.

God, Triple A is so fucking hilarious.

They have I told the story about this, but they have a dude whose whole gimmick is just cheeseburgers.

Good, that's good. Yeah.

I did get the ip TV thing, which has nine thousand channels, including just like anything that's on pay per view, and so I have been like catching the occasional like really weird wrestling pay per view.

And that's been fun. Just like I'll show you Dan, I don't have something.

There's some yeahoo anime rules, there's I've saved a lot of money here and it's a good deal so I didn't have to pay for it, but it's like not nearly as much as I was paying for cable. And yeah, it's been pretty cool just to see like ten people in a room and some weird wrestling stuff. So I put on the background occasionally I'll be doing some more of that.

Everyone is saying, shut the fuck up, Jeff set up to me. Yeah, yeah, don't worry. I do watch. Like you know, if I don't have something going on the day of aw pay per view, I'll order it because those are always you know, the matches are always great and stuff. But yeah, sitting down, paying attention to stuff, getting excited about stuff. Yeah. Again, if it's if it's a night wrestling is on and I'm playing Hades on Switch, I will have it on in the background. But I couldn't.

I was a big fan of AJ or aj Lee, I guess, and I have kind of missed most, if not all, of her return other than seeing a couple of clips. But yeah, aw I hear is going well, so probably no power BombCast must soon unfortunately, but.

A yeah, still they're even with so many top guys injured, they're they're doing some great stuff right now.

Did you see like when Vince mc manhad is what eightieth birthday party whatever, and it was like super secretive, but but the gift he gave everybody came was a marble bust of his own head.

Yeah, there were one hundred of them, maid and yeah, a marble bust with vins his head, which, by the way, if you see one battle after another, Sean Penn is just Vince McMahon in that movie. He fucking looks like him, He walks like him. He just is in every possible ways. There's parts where he's like just wearing a suit walking down a hall and it's like, that's just Vince, that's just Vince. It'd be incredible and a biopic. I need to iopic. I need to see this movie really good.

Simon from Saskatchewan says, question for everyone but Mike answers last, please, what's your favorite type of mug? Normy eleven ounce? I like the fifteen to twenty ounce mugs he'd activated things.

Give me look a little espresso mug, you know me, That's what I like. But uh, if it has to be a coffee mug, I want one that's like, you know, really absurdly large. Give me one that's like way too big, that's fun.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know. I I like one with a handle.

I guess I don't want a full four finger handled, maybe like a two and then I'll just like pinky up.

Yeah, I like. I have a variety of just great mugs from Giant Bomb's past, and I really think it's just they looked nice, they felt nice, and it's great for Giant Bomb to be represented in mug form. So yeah, that berea use the ones. Yeah, those are the ones I really like.

When I when I was a kid, my dad had a Star Trek mug that was the Transporter room and when you put something hot in it, the characters showed up like they were being beamed in. And it's been all downhill for mugs since then. Next up is from symbiosis. Mike is a mug marketing genius. If the next round of mugs ever comes, everyone will just buy them out a spike. Yeah, that would be mean. I'll do you all favor and we'll just avoid that whole scenario. Then you don't have to worry about buying it.

We don't know. I'm gonna find the hard way. We should just do mug week, right, like mug, like the cup DLC like mugs and video games. You got course there's that, that's it or just some you can play that. We can find some others.

You play the visual novel.

In the cafe.

No, no, no, they have to have like a cup stacking game, right, that's mug adjacent.

Oh sure, yeah, the game they.

Took thirty seconds to get to mug adjacent for your whole week of mug content going great?

What else we got?

No?

The week could be five days and each day has a new giant bomb mug reveal in the store.

Oh god, I guess on the stopping on shows because my old job is gonna be nothing but dealing with coup plaints.

For broken mugs.

You could none ever roasting in Horizons zero done you collect ancient vessels, which are coffee mugs.

She just doesn't know what you call them. Series deadly premonition. That's always coffee, right, yea.

My coffee. That what I'll give you. I'll give you that.

But I mean, yeah, yeah, that's not close.

That's the different thing.

Just vacation. Mike will handle bug week.

I mean Assassin's Creed. You rob some people, and that's mugging.

That is true.

Okay, I'm gonna lose Detroit when you do a red damn bounty hunting stream and some mug shots get on mug shots, but that on a mug says, I got to read a super chat, Eggie says.

Any hype for the New Tron movie, I assume some of you will be seeing it because you're either a Tron pilled b restnor pilled or c Mike Manatti, I like tront a lot.

I don't feel the real world. I don't what I can handle that.

I just can't believe that they got what's his fucking face?

Uh?

You love? Yeah, Jared Letto, why the hell?

Yeah, they're both on their own private islands when cobo.

Themselves equally seriously, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I don't know I'm kind of I'm almost bummed, ucuse I just already assumed that he's not gonna do that. Well, you know, they're going to put Tron on the back burner for another fifteen advertising it a lot. They're trying. Maybe it'll do fine. I I liked Tron Legacy a lot. I love the original Tron. The Tron Arcade game I think is my favorite of those classic arcade games. If I had had one, like eighties arcade Cabinet, right, it

I never liked watching the Tron movies. I just always enjoyed the vibe. It's a good vibe. I've never seen the movies, but yeah, I mean, I basically just know Tron from the Simpsons joke, and I always thought it was supposed to be bad. He's the Simpsons joke is that no one saw it, so I always just thought like, oh, it must been some big flop. We apparently people like.

It, Yeah, transit. I I wonder what Dan would think of Tron. I don't know.

I watched Tron the original recently for the first time and thought it just was the sickest shit.

It looks so cool. It's like such an.

Extreme vibe that it overcomes anything else. And yeah, I came away wanting to like decorate my basement with some some weird Tron stuff for sure, I mean.

Trump, Jeff Bridges.

Also, you know, it's just I do lot. Yeah, which is great. Also top tier Kingdom Heart's World Tron.

So yeah, I'm with you there.

I heard that the more recent four K Blu Ray remaster of Tron was really well done.

Oh so maybe I'll check that out again.

It's been a moment. It's been a moment as I've seen that. All Right, that's it for the super Chats. Back to you, Jan fantastic. Well, we got another packed in, stacked week. Here a giant bomb HQ Games Morning's popping off for the rest of the week, right, Grub.

That's right. We will be back with some guests talk about the news. It's going to be fun.

Hell, yes, voicemail dump truck popping off later this week. Mike, I think you said you're gonna do like a quick little short stream block for Super Mario Galaxy two on Thursday, correct, you know, a.

Couple hours, maybe more. It's not going to be like that super long Haities two stream or something like that. But I want to play some Mario Galaxy two. I might have so much fun. Who knows, maybe we'll play for a while. I'm very excited to get back into that.

One Friday gang. I don't mean to alarm anyone, but we are going to have ourselves a little party, a Lego party party. But that's right.

This game is a little bit more streamlined than some of the Mario party games, so I don't believe we'll be stuck for five hours, but we'll see what we can get down to.

Dantas, if you can figure out how to make it as painful as possible, Dan, can you like look at some settings and see if you can get like as many turns as possible out of this thing.

And not for this stream, but at some point in the future. Well that thing. I will be kind of scouting it during this stream on Friday. Just let's go through the menus and seven see what's possible. So I like it, Yeah, yeah, all right, Well.

We'll get bricked up with the boys on Friday, but before we can celebrate, before we can have a party gang, tomorrow after noon we start a brand new season of Bike Club and it is Dan Reichert's turn.

Dan, you excited. I have two packages right there, I understanding, man. One of them is a costume. One of them is the game. I have the three sixty hooked up. I'm looking at it. I put in a disc of Capcom's Dark Void yesterday to make sure it works. It unfortunately works, so we are good to go for tomorrow. My prediction, I have two that I'm you should I say out loud,

With you?

All right? Gang?

That about does it. For the week after this, shouts out to Derek Stone, We're gonna be premiering a best of Virtual Highlight or what.

Did well like?

I think Mitchell hide, Mike, I don't fucking know you guys.

You guys should know the name. You should have figured out a name. Now every time we say it might get so mad. It's trample. It's the best hide Mike. Yeah, I think that's what we called it, right, Virtual hide? Sure, Mitchell.

Both of them are placed on words, So Mike didn't like that.

I forgot in Dirty Work, Norm's name is Mitch. So I thought of Mitch a million times last I was watching it. Well, there we go again, prostitutes in my life.

Uh. That about does it for the Giant Bomb Cast. We'll see you next week for another episode. Shouts out to Derek Stone for the best. Shouts out to Turba chankre editing the show, Shouts out to Chuck for general chuckery.

Shouts out to backla for backlaar. But until next week, he's been Dan, he's been Mike, he's been Deep. I've been Jan, and you at home have been beautiful.

Good Bye,