Giant Bombcast 795: Bros Before Chocobos

Hey, everybody, and it is June twenty seven, twenty twenty three. Welcome to the Giant Bomb Cast, Episode seven hundred and ninety five, powered by n z xteen. Too much echo on that still too wait wait, wait, too much echo? This is too much power, too much power. I am your host as always, jan Oh Showa joining me co captain of the ship. You know what, guys, you know what? Hold on. I start watching season two of The Bear and it is yet again

infected my mind. Uh. We we got handling all the sauces. He's on the broader duty. He's uh, he's he's king Sue himself. He's all three sus chefs. Jeff grab, thank you, chef. I'm very happy to be here. I uh, in my house and that couch right behind me there was Mike Manati and dan Rygritt and I've been trying to get the fart smell out of it ever since. You know what I mean by

that, I mean the fart smell. Yeah, burn it. That's a good idea that we got him handling front of house, schmoozing with all the guests, pouring the glasses of wine. Jeff Baccalar, Hello, Hello, Hello, I've not started the Bear season two, but I'm halfway through Dave season three. That show fucking rules. Let me just say that show fucking rules. You seem like a real Dave guy. I know someone that data. I don't know I'm Dicky. I seemed like a little Dickey guy.

I mean, I'm not like Dickey guy. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of his music, but I like his show. You're like, you look like you look like you're like little Dickie. Yeah. I trying to say. You know, people always saying, baccalar, you're like a little Dickey guy. People can't stop saying that. I guess it's true about my love for a little Dickie. Uh. And last but not least, we

got him staging in the restaurant this week. Michael him, thanks for having me, Thank you for for being here, Thank you for your your presence is a present. As as they say, Oh, what's happening, boys, what's popping off? What's going on? I was gone for like a couple of days. I I did something this week and then I just want to get out of the way. I'll do it, please get it out of the way. I saw the I think I saw like the best movie ever made. Okay, okay, can we all guess? Can we all

guess? All right? And you should be able to. Is it a moot? Is it a in theaters? Certainly? Is jan Is it anime? You can make the argument? Whoa? Oh? Okay? What's an animated film that came out recently? The animated BlackBerry pe Baddy and Sherman. Yeah, BlackBerry? Was it BlackBerry? Are you big BlackBerry guy? I'm a big Jay Barrichell BlackBerry guy. Wait it no, but I do see that the new Psychopaths movie is in theaters right. I don't know what that

is? Oh? The j Law movie? Yes, with friend of a friend of the show. What's his name? I forget that? Du oh he's not a friend of the show. Then he's a friend of a friend of the show. Wait are we talking about No Hard Feelings Hotel, Pennsylvania. That's the movie? Uh? That Jay Laws in? Yes? Yes? Is that the movie? That is the greatest movie you've ever seen? Spider Spider Man? Is it Spider Man? Of course it's spider you know,

come on, it could have been the Flash. I didn't want to say the literal literal with everything They're like it could have been an animate I mean you guys, like, I don't think I was actually prepared for just how shockingly amazing that movie is. Seen it yet don't no spoilers talk, No, of course not. And I don't even think you can't you can spoil it. I think, like I just don't get it. I think it's also I think it's what is it across the Spider Verse, that's across

these the Spider Verse. I think it like knocks on the door of like how much the human mind can, like except in one sitting from for mostly a visual point of view, like it is. So it's like it's like man brain overload was is is theoretically one hundred percent and this this is floating

around like ninety nine point five. I feel like for most of the film, damn not only is it the best animated film I've ever seen, without a doubt, not even fucking close, it might be one of the best movies I've ever seen, Like most of the best movies are animated, So that makes sense. Straight up, I didn't know Giermo del Toro is here fighting for animation cheese they were, Yeah, I mean, like you know, I just, I have not had a movie going experience like this in

like a decade, like it is. It left me like paralyzed, like I could not move. It was I was I was sweating when I got up. That's cool. It was happy for you? Yeah, like thank you. I I wasn't high. U was the popcorn good? Or No? I just brought like a bunch of high shoes and had a pocket. I can't do what's that? What's that? I'm gonna snitch? Don't snitch because outside food drink dude. Yeah, it's so insane, like how they make you walk through the candy shop like to get to the theater that it's

anyway, Yeah, that movie's remarkable, like absolutely floored. I cannot believe how good this movie was. When do I go to see movie? I just I would love to go see it. We should have seen it while we were at Summer Game Fest. Do y'all got movie theaters in Ohio or not? Well, we have like a public houses where like they sometimes show movies. Sometimes they have a you know, a church revivals and uh oh yeah, yeah, okay exactly. So you never see rocky horror pictures show?

Yes, exactly, damn so I would love to do like a spoiler cast at some point. Yeah, let's see it like the talk. Yeah, I'll go, I'll go watch it tomorrow. Okay, thank you, I need yeah while it's fresh. What's up, Michael? Does does it leave you itching for Beyond the Spider Verse? Like by the end of it, you're like, damn, I really wish there Beyond the Spider Verse was like a year away or something, or supposedly a year away, but who

knows when that's actually gonna come around various factors. So I so I is that a spoiler in itself? I feel like that is one of the h That's right, it is now known that that's a two parter, right, Yeah, I'll just say this. Uh well, I'm not gonna give anything away. Like I said, it's one of the best movies ever seen, all right, So like the context of knowing there's another I think indirectly answers that, right. Like it, Uh, I just have to see it,

like I have to see it set. I want to see it seven more times. It's very long. It's very long, but it was just enough before I was like, all right, what are we doing here? It's time to go. Uh my god, I don't know. It's amazing that we can do this faith in humanity, faith in humanity. After seeing this, which they might make another one of these. They's made a lot of money. They're going, well they are. But yeah, I gotta say shit, Yeah, I haven't seen across the Spider Verse yet. But

Jake Johnson fantastic. Peter Parker, Oh yeah, yeah Parker, Peter B. Parker. Yes, yes, Hailey Steinfeld. What's up girl? They to her right there, what's up? Hey? Hey, Hey, we're big fans, big big fans, big fants. Big fans love Spider Man like I guess a little dickling Dickerson, and I guess I love Spider Man like I kind of forgot. Like, yeah, should be doing Craven Spoiler cast as a two biggest craveheads. Yeah, god, that's ah. That is a That is the most trailer I've ever seen of it. I don't

think I've watched that trailer. Yeah, I might just do that in silence, real quick, craving the Hunter. Let just deal with this real quick. Deal with that. Ye, just deal with that, Just deal with that. Take some time off. Look at those fucking abs. What the fuck? He that guy Aaron Taylor Johnson. Right, Yeah, he stripped craving. The hunters got abs. So Sony's Sony's able to do it because it's like Spider Man adjacent is that it's a Spider Man Universe character. Wholl

that's violent. Rub is silently watch mister and mister fucking still your girl? Uh yeah, anyone else I want to want to talk about some random jazz anything off the top of their head. I because I have something before we get into game talk. What is it? Yeah? You got yo, yo yo, this weekend went to happen. No, I didn't gamble. I think this is this is the new flavor of the month here. I know that we're in between June and July, so this is the new one. I think. I like wine, yo, whoa wine? Moms say

all right, yeah, I know. So that's the thing. That's the whole thing. I was hesitant about going this weekend. My partner and I were like, let's have like a mini vacation that's super close. Let's go to let's go to nap us. It turns out a lot of wineries are dog friendly, so that was even better. And then I was like, yo, like to every wine tasting we'd go to like yo yo yo, like how much would this affect out for someone that doesn't have gout? And

then they want they want to be tasting notes or not doctors? What do they tell you? And then they said, don't worry about it as long as you don't have it. And I'm like, okay, all right, all right, as long as you don't have what about you know, like, then you're good. And I was like, well what if, like my specific genetic makeup is more prone to gout? And they were like, don't need any like park today, and I was like, all right,

I won't need park today. I got swindled into buying bottles. Y'all boy, you got bottles? They hook it up? Would you get? I got like an old reasoning I don't even like white wine's very sweet. It's it's like the fruit punch of wines. And then I got at, yeah, you're right, sorry. I got a port which which had some brandy in it. It was delicious. And then I got some cab. You know, I got a cab, good old cabs. Let's go hey,

hey, jan, yes, had you never had wine before? It sounds like that my bo i My favorite wine is the two dollars two buck chuck from TJ's from Trader Shows, because you know, I don't know, it was good. Yeah, but after this good wine, Earl Stevens also makes

a great mango Scotto shouts out to E forty. Uh. I also, I think during the Extra Life someone no, it was Rory Rory, I asked him to bring wine and he bought a big box of wine and then I think Moists Tavaris shouts out to Moists him and I finished that box of wine. Yeah, yeah, And I thought, this is a good box. This is great. I should maybe explore wine or whatever. Yo fucking box of Franzio five bucks from seven to eleven. Every person that we talked

about wine too. We talked about this with this old gentleman that I guess ran the winery. He was really nice, very knowledgeable, and it was like, yeah, you know, like Noah, but I just got a brilliant Mediterranean climate. But I'm I'm growing. I mean, that's a good Dgolas cages then maybe good. It was a good voice. Jan I gotta says a good voice. Whatever that is. I got some olives over there and that that's just for the bees. We just got some lavender for the

bees. Son, come come up with me and look at the lavender. And then for good five minutes I stood with this old dude just appreciating a field of lavendery. He played sick. I'm like, I'm looking at him like, okay, cool, I thought there was something different about you when we first started talking. Today it's like, this is a man that has stood in the field with an old man appreciating lavender. So I can tell you're changed person. So now my new million dollar idea is to somehow swindle

someone into helping me or letting me buy property. Not that I even am close to ever doing that myself. That's why I need to swindle someone and then we will open up the most lit winery, you know, because I see I see people trying to go to these and on their bachelor at weekends and like their little days with the girls or days with the boys and going to a winery, and it's like, oh, cool, we gotta be

brim and proper. No, I want debauchery up in Napa Valley. Wine drunk at arena, s let's go fermented foam falling from the sky, exactly. Square Enix help me. Let's let's have foam stars launching at the giant Bomb of wine castle. Let's do it. I did yesterday say to Mike we should get into like we should have our own brand of alcohol, because like that's how everyone really gets rich. It's like creating their own alcohol brand and then selling it. I feel like alcohol brands is what you do after

you get rich. Well yeah, but like they get like soup. Let's say you get super rich though, like George Cooling like sold his tequila brand for like a billion dollars some egos. Yeah, that's what all these famous people are doing that. And I think we are Internet famous enough that we could probably could do a giant bomb like run of a bunch of different alcohols and then sell that. Would you want to do? What kind of liquor would you want to do? I think? I mean, I think game.

I'm trying to think what's the gamer alcohol? Like, like, what's the most gamer alcohol? Is it? Like? Is it a wine cooler spiked mountain dews? Which would already exist? Actually, so I don't know that's what they So maybe we could do like some some like White Claw Jason stuff do a Seltzer. I think I like a Seltzer idea because it's not like pornographically gross, you know what I mean, like all that other like a lot of sugar, you know, like I want to keep it classy.

In some capacity, we sell artists and cutty bangs. Wait, I've heard of cutty bangs? What cutty bangs? Freshman? It's it's the mixed drink that is just like the little travel sized ones in a giant zip block. Oh, they sell them at the Blue store. Yea blue store and the Yellow store. I prefer the Yellow store. The yellow stores where it's at Okay, Yeah, the Blue store is right across from the kind of

funny studio. So if you're ever trying to get lit with a Greg, well, now, maybe I shouldn't divulge any information what's happenings had Well, no things that I've done in and around that area, because yo, those bags fuck you up because they come with all kinds of bullshits, like fruit punch, three different types of rum, and then it comes with like ice and shit, so you mix it all yourself and it's like, yeah, it's it's a build your own cocktail sort of joint, which is like I've

never seen any other liquor store, but that's what the Blue Store is known for here in Daily City. Baby, I think Tommy Dingo's got it right, Like a giant bomb seltzer that is somehow inexplicably seven percent ABV but only eighty galleries. I don't think that's physically possible. I don't know if that's like I'm not interested in making beer because like it's just I don't want to

just to clear too. Yeah, you don't show kind of thing. It's an impacted industry to like craft beer industry is it's it's it's already over and like what's interesting about that is like you just now would probably be the worst possible time to get into that landscape, right, I don't know, white why what's other than like the fact that there's so many craft Yeah, that's why it's just oversaturated. Yeah, and what is it? I'm sorry,

go ahead, no, I want to hear. I'm not more intrigued about what you I was just gonna say, like what I never had a wine cooler. Wine cooler was something like when I was a kid, I remember hearing just like a seltzer. Yeah, it's like carbonated white wine. I think, Yeah, I don't, I don't know. It definitely wasn't seltzer first, but it's probably the most Seltzer adjacent thing before it was like it was with juice was oh, I don't know what was it. Sprits were

all sprits. Yeah, sprits is a Bay Area of joint. I don't. I don't think it's a Bay Area joint. But I've had apperall sprits from Bay Area natives who've told me about it. Yes, that's what you're right. Whoever said carbonated elutgen says he's scared of how much he needs wine. Wen it's sort of like just wine and popcorn. Yeah, VAMPI amongst yourselves. I need to see who who the hell's doorbelling? I'll be right

back, man. I don't I was never a wine cooler person. I feel like when I was, I feel like when I was in middle school and high school, like that was the thing people wanted to drink. Yeah, right where they were like part of that lineage of like it was it was wine coolers and then it was smearknow, No, I'm sorry, it was m Yes, this is what I come back to spare enough ice, and then now we have white claw and that should become a big thing.

Like you know, they were totally about to be one of these, like either it was the wine core and the wine clus was replaced by Zema, and ze was replaced by samerranav Ice. Now it's like we have fifty of these. Like if you were to silhouette the evolution of man, like how they do that, Like that would be it, you know what I mean, Like it would be like which one is standing up to strain us? Probably maybe like a vodka martini, you know, something like that. It's

crazy, Mike, I think you said this earlier. I think you said buzz balls. We should do buzz bombs. Oh, buzz bombs, buzz balls. I mentioned balls itself when we were talking about energy drinks. Balls. Yeah, of course I love balls, little dicky balls, little Dickyan balls. I like drinking. I like that. Obviously. I had an incident a couple of weeks ago where I did drink too much. I'm not proud of it. It happens to me like one once or twice a year.

Last time, if you all remember, was Thanksgiving Eve, right. I don't know if you remember I was a piece of shit. I used to be Okay, I see the thing with me is I like that joke. But I used to be a ship and then occasionally I'll become a piece of shit and I just, you know, I don't know. It's it's rough, man. I hangover is like, oh, just the absolute worst. And I don't feel hungover after being stoned. I just don't. And I used to sleep in a little bit when I'm in the night before.

If I'm a party terrible, yeah, five five milligrams. I'm I'm reaching fucking escape velocity out here. Man, I wake up, I wake up with like my eyes are redder than the devil's dick. Man, I can't. I can't really like just very go too hard on many over here. I like it. I like, yo, fucking I had twenty one the first time. I you know, this is always the first time. When you have two many edibles, you don't really realize how much it is. Time travel. Yeah, yo, Me and the homies were like swimming on

our carpets. We think, like, manually control your heartbeats. It's like, oh, I shouldn't be able to do it. Michael shouldn't be doing that. That's the thing too, when if I if I have ten milligrams, like, not only am I to approach escape velocity, but also I can feel everything inside my body. So I start to trip out because I have a mechanical heart valve and I could hear it and I can feel it, and I could feel the blood flow through my veins, and that is

the last thing I do not want to feel. That. Yeah, you gotta just hold on there, maybe knock yourself out or something. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, well you can always rely on zema or whatever. The fun exactly that's why you You just like down some giant bomb wine and then that'll like even everything out, you know, and popcorn and popcorn God Ques question about your winery? Yes, yes, did they happen to play music at your winery? You know, I was thinking about this and

I was like kind of tense the whole time. Every winery we walked into him, like anyone plays Yeah, that's total. Yeah, no no one, No one blessed the reins, no one, thank good. All right, good for you. It wasn't a loop, It wasn't year. Have you been afraid to go back to a winery ever since? That happened. Oh yeah, I've sworn off them forever. Sure. Yeah, I pitched this during our meeting today. And it's not gonna happen. But Game of the Year in a winery. Uh huh uh. I think I could make

it happen. One time we covered we covered the Assassin's Creed wines when they came around a couple of years ago. Oh yeah, you're wearing game wines. Let's do it. Yeah, so you can have it themed if you want to do a Game of the Year with with some with some wine, like video game wine. Give me a second. God, it can't be that hard to make our own wine, right, I mean, or at least distribute our own wines. Some tomatoes in a bathtub and just wait from

tomatoes, okay, tomatoes, excuse me. I mean there's there's cherry wine, right, Is cherry wine actually like with cherries or I don't know. Yeah, yeah, definitely, you can definitely make You can make wine with any fruit, all of it for ments, I promise you. Well, but if you do it with an apple, that's that's a cider, right like sure? Yeah? Probably? Yeah, Holy shit. Apparently there is a white cloth surge, which is eight percent. I've had white sugar.

That shit is ass. All right, I'll break in there. That's that's the new giant bomb wine cooler. Let's go all right, all right, I guess we should talk about games before we talk about actual games. I have on this list here a bunch of bullshit on the Acis rog ally. Oh yeah, sure, if you want to get that out of the way. So I got one of these. Oh it's a it's the Acis Rogli, which is kind of like the steam Deck. Competitor As has been making

PC parts for a long time. They do different versions of video cardstops, a laptops, other boards, and all kinds of shit like that, so they they made their own steam Deck and it's basically a laptop with a controller attached to it, so it runs Windows, and it functions exactly like Windows because that's what's installed on instead of like a proprietary operating system like steam Deck has with steam Os, and it has a lot of advantages and disadvantages in

doing that. I've been enjoying my time with this thing, like holy shit, dog like I'm because the thing is, since it runs Windows, it can use any PC service on it. So in addition to Steam, I also have I've been playing a lot of Diopolo four on it because it has battle I can do Battlenet on it. Game Pass is probably the biggest thing for me. I score through game Pass. I'm looking all this shit, like, you know, I could play any of this on here because it's

basically a Windows laptop. So it's been pretty sick. The only thing is that sometimes it takes like four tries for it to just boot up up updating something, and then I'll just shut down and you boot it up again. It's like, okay, now installing update. Then it shuts down, then press the power button again. It's like, okay, your updates are now installed. Now you can log into your Windows account or whatever. So and

it does that a lot. It also doesn't have a very good sleep state because it's because it is Windows. You can put it, you could tell it to sleep, but it's not the same as like just tapping the power button on a switch or a Steam back to where it like still runs in the background. And sometimes it just like turns on by itself. Like you

ever you ever put your PC to sleep and it just turns on. Yeah, like walk out of the room and like you did a heavy step in the mouse move to micro millimeter and it's like, oh, you wanted to turn back on. It's like no, I'm always on an endless journey to like figuring out how to make like the least sleep awake prone like PC imaginable, and it's always like turn off the power, like allow power to powered USB device is to wake up the machine. There's like eleven like that.

That's what I really wonder about. Then Michael's like Windows is okay, but it's not meant for a handheld gaming piece like this piece, like this is it cumbersome ever to navigate a little bit? Like the touch screen is good and accurate, but because it's such a small screen, you're trying to like tap on really small icons. So navigating a thing isn't that great. I mean, it's a gaming device at the end of the day, so it's

if the game is running. I don't really give a shit exactly any of the other function stuff as long as I can install stuff and it like runs of the games well, which it does, and I'm cool with that. And it's like for the power that you get, it's it's significantly more powerful than the Steam Deck, and for seven it's the seven hundred bucks, so it's not that far off from the highest Steam Deck that is available, which

is six fifty. You get the same amount of storage. The screen, oh my god, the screen is miles ahead of the steam Deck screen that much. Tie resolution is ten ADP, but it's a it's an IPS panel because it's not just a straight LCD, so colors are better. At least that's that's what I think. Like the and plus being higher resolution games just look better. But I'm sure I'm gonna mess around with a little bit more.

I'm trying to like cover something on it. There's like tweaks I can do with with the power settings and things like that, messing around with the bios. I still want to do that. But everything I've talked about so far as just like out of the box, and I think that's one of the advantages that the Steam Deck has over this is that the out of box experience, if you don't want to yeah, oh yeah, one thousand percent, it's like running a Nintendo Switch basically with steam Os on there. It's

like, look at my library, install that thing. It'll take care of everything else. So I think the power scaling on the steam Deck is better too, Like the steam Deck just understands how to distribute its power so you get better battery life out of it. And the fact that the internals on the steam Deck aren't as power hungry as the frog. Ally I think you

do, you do get better battery life out of it. And if you are more portably minded, Like I'm at home fucking around, so I'm just you know, by my on my bed, I have a USB plug right there, so I don't necessarily need to worry about portable battery life until I go on like a flight or something. It's not terrible, Like I coul apply play Diablo four for maybe an hour and a half at like tene'd p medium settings running fine on like performance mode. Yeah, so that you can

toggle different modes. There's there's a there's a back end, a proprietary back back end that lets you mess around with like power settings monitoring that stuff. Seem like it's reliable and solid. Yeah, it's it's pretty decent. It's it's just a button, like you press one of the side buttons up over here, and then it like pulls off like half the screen. It says like gives you like all your different runways. You can change the change of

settings on the thing, so it works well. But and there's like a turbo mode so if you want to basically like overclock the internals, I'll just get as much power from it as possible. Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty wild. It's like a pretty strong laptop, so it's it has its advantages and disadvantages. The thing I overlooked though, is like having a trackpad on it. Since this is a Windows device, it's like the steam Deck. The track pad is convenient, especially when you go to desktop mode on

the steam Deck. Yeah, this one, this thing desperately needs a trackpad for navigating some of the things. Like if it had it, I think that would be one of the that would put it. That will be one of the things that could put it over the edge of having a steam Deck. That That's where I'm at with this him is where I am very happy with my steam Deck. I would love to have more power. I'd love to have better battery life. I'm okay with like a ten EIGHTP screen.

I would honestly with the rack alife I had one, I would just play everything at seven twenty P anhow because I'm not going to see the difference on a small screen. But I think that the steam Deck being so uniform and being so popular and having all these extra features and inputs has made it very

easy for like the stuff like EMU Deck. Now I know EMU Deck is like there's a version of it for Windows that can run on the rag Ally, but I think the support is long term is going to be more robust on the steam Deck, and like having stuff where I'm like, I'm in an emulator and I have these quick menus that that's someone else programmed that just worked on these touch pads. That's really nice. And having the back paddles just be preprogrammed for three DS games so if I press this one button,

I can cycle through the different screens so I could just play. And it's like that's all the emulator stuff and people are doing that work for me. So I'm like, I'm still pretty happy with the steam Deck. It's just like that extra power is a bit enticing. So I don't know, I'm kind of on the fence with the rag Ally. Yeah, there's like I said that, there's seemed like there's something's much much better. Rag Alley does something is much much better. So I wish they could like merge the two

and make the perfect PC handheld system. But yeah, the ergonomics on the steam Deck I think are better. Also, it feels like you're actually holding a controller. It's a little bit heavier, it's bulkier. The actual experience of playing handheld with the steam Deck is like I have big ass hands dog like the thing about the rock Allies, it doesn't necessarily have. It has some level of like the curvature. Yeah, yeah, but it's it's I

mean it's fine. It's it's better than the Nintendo Switch. But again, the switch is like super much smaller, lighter. This one's heavier than the switch. But like, ergonomically it's not bad. But holding the steam decks like, oh shit, I got like a beefist thing. Oh, actually have my steam Deck right here, so yeah, like like the BFS handles, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, so it just feels much better than But anyway, I've been listening around with that thing. Does the fan

get on that it doesn't get too loud? I mean I think that I think that and the Steam Deck are comparable when it's when you have it on like turbo mode. It's just you know, fans spinning up like like any other laptop or handheld device. So so I was very close to being a total freak and just going out and buying one of these. When it came out a couple of weeks ago, I was like, I was like, Oh, it's that is that my local? That's fine, Like it's already

there. I could just go and like walk out the door and spend seven Yeah, I mean that is like I'm just skiving. We're all doing the jan voice when we do that, right, Like that is like okay, cool? Uh. And I was reading a lot about it, and I feel like the thing that I saw a lot was like this weird inconsistency that's happening after these updates, which in themselves sound like they're in consistent and and

shoddy. Like you do you have any tangible, uh takeaways from that overall like experience, Like uh, like I said, I've heard things like are much different after an update performance wise, battery wise, Like I know you touched on a little bit, but anything more you want to add, I mean not really, I mean kind of it is what it is, but

yeah, the in terms of like getting games running. I think you run into some situations where I have to boot up a game multiple times for two like for Diabolo, for for example, I don't know if this is a battle Neet thing, but I would like double tap it and would be like launching, and then it'd be like okay, it's it's done launching, but it didn't launch, and it's like okay, double click again, it's like okay, and then go back through battle Neet logging in, and then it

would crash on like on boot up, and then the third time kind of like powering up the damn thing. The third time it's like all right, everything's good. So there there's I mean, I don't think there's any explicit compatibility compatibility issues with some of the games or all most of the games that I'm playing, But I think as steam Deck evolves and gets more like gets more like steam Deck approved games on it, I think that'll there's a ton

of games. Even even if games aren't rated to be compatible with steam Deck, they'll most of them will still boot up, like the Trails Cold Steel series I've been playing on steam Deck, and I don't think any of them past two are like they're they're not supported, but I've played been playing them on Steam Deck, so it's like, and you know, I think we've talked about this before where it's not like the game will run, but if something happens steams, just like, oh, there's nothing we can do about

it because we didn't we're not technically supporting it, but sure going to fine. But I have other than like the boot up problems. I haven't really had any performance issues or like compatibility issues. But it seems it seems better baked than even I was expecting. I think I low low expectations for this thing. Yeah, it seems better baked than than what I was expecting, but it also still seems like there's some places where I can get a little

bit more refined. But overall, pretty good first start for for a company like Asus to kind of come out and do something like this. I think that it was going to be hard for a lot of these companies to compete with with Valve, who was going to have a pretty big like they were going to take some losses on the hardware because they're like, you know what,

we were going to sell games on Steam. That's where we'll make it up and so for them to come out with something that's only seven hundred, has a ton of storage, is a great screen, and overall like well thought out software, that's pretty impressive. So I'm happy with that. You know, I feel this would make a killing in the cost co market of like, uh, like families, just because like they have so many gaming

desktops and laptops in your costc section and their little electronics pile. But you know, you see like your casual mom dad on or your casual casual gamer, casual wine mom. You know, your casual wine moms. Uh, you know, after they pass by that they should say what's up to me? But they'll see that and be like, oh cool, this can play like PC games. My kid has been wanting to play PC games. Yeah,

I've heard of PC Yeah cool. Uh all right, all right, thank you Michael for the update on the Asis rog ally ass Asus ask us. No one knows ask us ask us. Nobody knows, even the people that work there. It's like you be able to you know, you know, well, let's talk about actual games now. I think I finally have this. Oh they look at it. Video games. We don't have a lot listed here, but if you feel compelled to talk about more things.

We'll talk about more things because I've been playing Soulvars. Solvers Soulvars. This was part of the Steam Next Fest, one of the million demos that were available. This is not one of the adult games, So you can play this completely, fine, don't don't know anything about that. Yes, I don't know anything about that either. Soulvars is a turn based game that is incredibly up my alley. It's all pixel style art. It's a very very

linear role playing tactics not tactics, turn based game. But the combat in it is part particularly striking. They advertise it as a card based combat system, where it kind of doesn't feel like that. It kind of feels like a combination of somewhat of a card based game and like your Mega Man Battle Network style of combat, where you have like a rolodex of five different abilities

and some of them are duplicates of each other. So say you'll have like punch, kick, shield, and sword, and from there there will have different modifications like this one has haste on it, so you will go first, or this one the attack power will go up. But the interesting thing here is that they will just plainly tell you which of these abilities will is effective against whatever monster you're fighting, So like this warm looking thing, punching

it does more damage than kicking it. And if you hit or expose a weakness or stun an enemy, then you'll get two action points. And as you keep going and like taking an advantage of weaknesses and stunts, you'll get up to five different action points which you can spend. You can also use your mana equivalent to force a specific attack to pop up in your next turn.

And the game gets rolling really really fast within like the first hour, because you initially start with just one party member, but then thirty minutes in you almost have a full squad because you have three different people. And then these three different characters they play off each other really well because if you wind up stunning or exposing a weakness with one character and you put them first, every subsequent attack will have like a little bit of a multiplication bonus of taking

advantage of the weakness, even if it hits for neutral. The action pops off really really quick. It's super duper linear. You're not really traveling around a dungeon. It's kind of like just different squares, and then sometimes there's something to interact with at these different floors of a dungeon. But I've been enjoying it a lot. It's really really flashy. The combat, despite it being turn based, moves really fast and it kind of combat reminds me.

God, it reminds me of something I played recently. But it's like a PS it's PS one inspired. Oh god, it's like trying to figure it out. Yeah, I'm watching and watching some some clips right here. I mean, it's it doesn't it doesn't look like it plays like a Valkyrie profile. But no, yes, no, yes, yes, yes, it is very close to Valkyrie profile. That's that's the game I was thinking of. Thank you Michael, pulling that from my head. Uh. Pixel looks

great, though animation looks sick too. Yeah, it's a I think it's a very small team, but Soulvars. It's it's really good. I don't have quite uh an idea of how long it is, but from the out

two hours I played, I was really captivated by the action. It seems like you'll get up to a party of four eventually and then yeah, even I don't want to say matches, but the different enemy encounters or bosses never felt like it was a slog, you know, because sometimes that'll happen in a JRPG or something inspired by a JRPG, where it's like, all right, cool, this battles pop popping off and I can't you can't skip through it, but like this just takes forever here. The battles are just zooming

constantly. Oh and the other neat thing, and which is why I mentioned battle Network, is if you pick pick a specific sequence of abilities, it'll trigger a different type of ability. So one of your dudes, if you have him pick like kick and his rock spell, he'll do like a earth kick that does a bunch of damage and it looks like a sick bicycle kick. There's also canceling in the game, so like you'll shield up one turn and then you'll you'll cancel out of it the next if you want to.

I don't quite know what that does just yet. The game is very systems heavy. There's like an obscene amount of them. It just throws you in. Yeah, but I kind of dig it, and because it seems fairly linear, I'm all for it. I might just give me the experience, just put me in the line and go, Yeah, you know what legend

of Lagaya. That's the other JRPG had reminded me of with the combo system, and it's it's it's cool because they'll do the persona thing where it's like, you know, you'll bash on an enemy and then your party members members will be like yo, get them and then and they'll just be yelling at each other. There's no voice acting, but it's just all text boxes, good soul bars. That looks that looks sick. Man. Yea. I have a question for you, Jan please. So you like Systems right?

Oh? You know I love Systems. Baby? How much have you played of Octopath Traveler Too? Okay? Okay, so I hated the first one. Dog I was I thought the first one was. Okay, m Octopat Traveler too, boy, listen if you know me, I know you. Finally is sixteen and Octopad Traveler Too. I still don't know which one is My current Game of the years Wait wait wait, Octo two came out this year. That was like in February. I think, shit, that's weird.

Shit. When Game of the Year comes around, here a game spot, you know, damn well, I'm gonna be fighting to get that shit in the top ten. I need you to do the same for y'all. Man, you're gonna put this on me, dude, you can put this on me, all right, Okay, give me a down the open like this. No, no, no, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. Give me the four bullet points here, dog, cool ass dude who takes down capitalism. I love that ship. Customizable party members and the

best turn based the best turn based battlesism ever created. Beautiful music, beautiful HD, two D pixel art. That's it. You know what I'm saying, How are you gonna how are you not gonna lead with best turn based action? Oh? The lead? It is legitimate, I think. Wait, honestly, I'm not over exaggerating. It is the best turn based combat system ever created. What does it do differently? Because I've completely missed the boat on Octopath, Dude, I think the encounters are better, and the

flexibility that you get with the different characters are better. And it's it's small additions and just like the you know, the quick nature of you know, you can boost that thing to two times battle speed. That's the way to go. Sick animations again, figuring out which turn I'm gonna boost this character to four times so they use their full ability. But I'm gonna break these enemies on this turn, so I could line this upright with the buffs that I get. If I do that, I might die from the next hit

from the boss. So it's a risk that I have to take. It's that shit is beautiful, man. No, don't think I played a little bit up. But it seems okay, there you go, co sign right there, there we go. I'll convince Grub. I'll convince Grub and then we'll go. We'll double down and then some how Optopath will be number two this year my Poms Game of the Year list. We're doing Eurovision voting again. Then maybe I couldn't juice it that way, Yeah, juice it.

God. We'll get to the game of the week. But playing a good turn based game where you can kind of chill but kind of like just click at it. Sporadically, it was nice on my hands because the last couple of games I've been playing has been messed up from my hands. But before we get to the game of the week, we have a Kurt Indovina's Toxic Crusader. That's right, I've been I played a little bit of that.

That's one of another Steam next Us demo. It's it's another one of these beat them Up renaissance games where the beat them Up is It's back and it's better than ever. And this one looks a lot like a teenage mutant Ninja

Turtles Shredders Revenge. It basically has the same exact art style, same kind of you know, beat them up systems of going in there and punch and the enemies are going to be a little bit difficult and you know the time, like timing your attacks so that you can get some hits in before they hit you, and they have like an invincibility frames, so they're gonna hit

you no matter what. It's. It's one of those, but it's based on The Toxic Crusader, which is the old Trauma film series with the guy that's a Crusader who's been toxified, and it's got all the characters from that universe. But it's, uh, it plays pretty well and I'm like, man, beat them ups. I just wish more things would do this. And I'm kind of like very excited about if something like The Toxic Crusader can get a beat him Up, we should be able to get beat them up

for all kinds. There should be a fast X beat them up. There should be all kinds of stuff. Yeah, yeah, like the Office beat him up. Yeah. I want yeah, exactly, I want Nintendo to be like, let's make a Warrior and wall Luigi beat him up, like they should like a double dragon with that. Yeah, with those two characters. It's but right now we're getting with Toxic Crusader, and again it's it

plays very like it's just instantly fun, you're having a good time. It's gonna be very deep, but it's the kind of thing you'll be able to hand the control to anyone, to anyone and have a good time pretty quickly. And yeah, I think that they've found this right balance for beat them ups where they are a little bit more complicated than they were in the nineties and the early two thousands, but they're not They didn't suddenly change it.

So it's like, well, there's deep RPG systems and you're gonna have to

like learn all these complicated button inputs to do moves. It's like, no, it's still just a simple arcade game, but they have a few more hooks in there to make you feel like you can keep playing and whether or not that's gonna transfer over to the final product here, I don't know, but it seems like they're trying to set it up to be pretty similar to what's happened with Streets of Rage four and Teenage Muntant in Turtles Streater's Revenge,

where it's like, Okay, we're gonna give you a reason to play the game over and over again, unlock new characters, unlock alternative costumes, and then maybe have a rogue light mode where you could just go in there and unlock cool powers to your character on this run, and you go as long as you can. This game is totally set up to take advantage of all that stuff, and it's it's pretty cool. I'm pretty happy with it.

So it's great, fantastic. Well, because I think he has a meeting fairly soon, I think it's time we get into the ok I didn't. I don't know why it did that. Okay, it's pretty good. Game of the Week, Final Fantasy sixteen. Damn shit, Michael. You reviewed this for game Spot and I believe you gave it a nine lovely reviews. That's not just me gassing your gassing you up. Oh you guys, let's try and not do spoilers, but can you spoilerable? Like, yeah,

this there was a plot stuff. Okay, I'm just gonna my first Final Fantasy game. Okay, this is the first Final Fantasy first one. What a way to get in there. Huh Yeah, I'm getting in there, Sorr. I remember my first time, man, it was beautiful. Yeah. I was five years old when I played Final Fantasy four. That was

nineteen nine. Yeah, back in like the early nineties. So I've had a long history with Final Fantasy, and man, I think, okay, so well, one I would say, like it feels like every major story beat is a massive spoiler because the state of the world changes, the state of like different characters attitudes, and they're like there's things changed constantly in that that game's world at every turn. So it's it's hard to dance around that stuff. So to be you gotta be you gotta be careful with how you

talk about this game, for sure. But I've had a long history of Final Fantasy, and I think going into sixteen, as like in my previews, the various videos that I did before the game came out, and the two we had two preview events that I covered. I was cautiously optimistic that I kind of I saw the vision and I was interested in what they were trying to do with this entry, but I wasn't sure if it was for me. And I know there's been a lot of debates like, oh,

is this a Final Fantasy? Is this a Final Fantasy? And now I wasn't. I wasn't really concerned with that conversation, but I was does this game have the things that I look for in a final Fantasy? Is kind of what my concern was, And like, you know, it's Creative Business Unit three, so you know, as a as a you know, Final Fantasy fourteen. I've said many times on this podcast that it is my favorite game of all time, specifically specifically Shadow Bringers, and obviously ed Walker is

incredible as well. But I was like, I want to see them kind of branch out do something different from the MMO. Let's see what they got, and this is what they this is what they came out with, And so I was cautiously optimistic going into sixteen, but they fucking did it. Like if you had any concerns whether or not this was a Final Fantasy game, boy, let me tell you this game is sometimes this game is the

most final fantasy. That's what I'm saying. That's why I don't understand any of this, like scuttle butt online say whether or not this is like a final fantasy. Yeah, I do get it though, because well, so, first off, I know a lot of folks have like in the stuff that they've seen to Game of Thrones. I'd never watch Game of Thrones, so I don't have that reference point. It's exactly like Game of Thrones and

it's not a problem. Yeah, okay, well then I'll, like I take people's words for it, of course, Like there's a lot of people I trust in this industry who have said as much, and I'm like, okay, cool, Like I you know, I believe you, but I just don't. So I'll going into this. I don't have that reference point. So I'm just like playing, oh medieval fantasy. Bad shit happens.

It's much more, much, much more violent than anything you've seen. Like I played you know, Type zero, and that game opens up pretty brutally, but that does not even come close to the ship that you see in sixteen in the first couple of hours, because holy shit. But yeah, sixteen got me, like I have a lot of it's it's weird because like I do talk a lot about like the nitpicks that I have and some of

the some of the issues that I have with it. But at its best moments, like at its peak, sixteen is some of the wildest that I've ever seen in a video game, let alone, like a final Fantasy while the shit I've ever seen in a video game, and it's not just doing like wild shit for the sake of doing it. It has meaning in the

context of the story in that world. So it's good at melding the like the technically impressive stuff, the like the blowing away with like special effects and fancy cinematics, but it's trying to also tell the story through those things, as you know many games, cinematic games do. But the way it does it is that it merging the action with what who these characters are, what they're going through, why they're doing their things. So it has purpose.

It feels like those big, bombastic moments have purpose, and I love that about it, and I grew the characters really grew on me because at first I was like, I don't know if I'm into these archetypes or whatever. I'm sure they're cool. And then by the end of that thing, I was like, yo, I don't think I've ever cared about white people this much before. Holy it. I well, at least the game gives you lots of color people do to be like excited about people people of colored though

in there. Okay, that's another conversation that I'm willing to have if we have time. It's I'll just say I've played. I played about seventy eight nine hours. I'm getting up there and it's like, I'm enjoying it. But it is like strange as you start getting into other parts of the world where it's like, man, there definitely should be non white people here somewhere, Like just looking at architecture, a a dude from the suburbs did not make that place, Like, there's no way, So where are all the

people that actually made this? Yeah, it's it's a little strange, Yes, it's there's there's a region called dal Mechia, which is the So here's the thing. The first time you step foot in that desert area, you hear stars and obviously music influenced by West Asia, South Asia, so and then they all have curved swords and like the attire is vaguely in reference to

some of some of that from that region. And then so half the people there, I roughly like half the people there's like, oh, you can herd passes like a South Asian Western Asian person, I guess, and then the other half is like burnt ass white dudes, and there's like a So here's the problem is, is like there's a themetic inconsistency. Like if you're going to evoke that culture, that's fine. And so this team has done

it really really well too. I've seen them do it in fourteen, Like if you've played it, then you know about if you play fourteen and Walker, you know about Favnir Rods at Han, which are directly drawing influence from South Asian culture and representing it that that culture extremely well, reflecting it in that world in many many ways through the music, the way the people speak, the architecture, the way that whole region is designed, and some of

the cultural norms that are embedded in that Loren story. So I know that they can do it. They just didn't necessarily do it here for sixteen, which is unfortunate, really weird choice, this odd choice for some of the stuff. I feel like this could have been like a five or a ten for me if they didn't make those odd decisions like like one of like you mentioned, Michael, Oh sure, yeah, yeah, I mean like it's so I will say that it doesn't necessarily hurt the overall like what the game

is trying to accomplish. It's just one of those things where I'm looking at it like this is funny. Yeah, it's kind of fun. This is I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm happy to be here. But yeah, it seems a little off here. But yeah, there's and there's there's there's many, many, many things to dig into in this game because it is because that's just like a really small part of the whole experience. Because this game does do so many wild things in a fairly a

relatively short amount of time. Like this isn't a fifty sixty well, I mean I spent fifty five hours playing it, because it did all the side content too, but the as far as main story goes, you can't do it in like thirty thirty five hours. Good to know. It's a long time, right, but it's a long time for like an RPG. Yeah, that's like chump change. Yeah, yeah, okay, but but this is yeah, well I was gonna sit back, lark, this is your

first foray, not even like the Final Fantasy seven remake. I'm sorry what Final Fantasy seven remakes? I hear, I heard you? What about Dirge of Cerberus? Huh what about that? A? Yeah? That one? I I yeah, I I I think I maybe got myself too excited going into what I've played so far, Like I don't know, I don't know. I've only played like three hours, so I don't it's this is not a thing that I'm thinking about a lot. I like the over the top

part that I didn't know really what they expect. Like when I say I've never played a Final Fantasy game, I don't even like understand the very basic tenants of like what the entire experience is. I realized that's changed a lot over the years, right, Like it's sort of all over the place, but got people and you shoot magic Adam big Buffalo. I don't know. I think I just have to I think I need to do. I think we need to double my playtime here and then we'll go from there. But

uh, the way you're describing thirty plus hours. I'm sort of like, uh, I mean, it's it's it's like a it's like a garvar rag and Rock. It's similarly paced. I would, I guess if that's a helpful reference point, it is, yeah, yeah, and it's it's fairly linear. I'm surprised by how linear this game was. I mean, there's there's open hub areas for the different regions that you go to or side quest pop up and you can get in like optional bosses, which are which I

found really really fun. But pretty much this game says, he go here, do this thing. Here's a story moment, here's a dungeon, something's gonna happen in the world. Then you go here and do that again. So it's it's the pacing is I still find the pacing a little bit or it has it has it like it's a roller coaster in a way where it's like, you know, this huge thing happened and it is just like the

most incredible storytelling pacing. Like they still slow things down, like in terms of how much they're like introducing new things and give you time to stew with the characters a little bit, but it's not like they're giving you a ton of other things to do. There is the side quest, but the side content is not some most of them I've done are not like, Okay, here's like a half an hour story thing that you're gonna do. It's like, oh, here's a little distraction for a couple of minutes, So like

that doesn't really work to break up the pacing too much. So it's like it all does have to happen on the story side, right, Yes, And I think that that's it's it works well for what they're going for, is what I'll say. But yeah, the there's man, there's when it comes to story stuff like of course I'm not going to the county count the cry count's at seven. Bro. Yeah, I'm a big baby if anyone knows me, like, I'm fuck y'all. I'm sensitive. Yeah, I mean too. I get it. I cried during Spider Man. I get

it. I cried during episode seven of The Bear. Yeah. Oh see, hey, listen up here, don't don't be ashamed to cry. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's a lot of moments that it was. It was different types of types of cries, you know what I'm saying. There's some that are is like overwhelming height that I couldn't believe this thing was happening in this video game. I can't believe this character was doing this. Just overwhelmed by that by those moments, and they're like emotional moments where like, oh

my god, this character is doing this thing. I'm so sad that this thing is happening, or I'm so happy or like. The thing I will say about Clive as the main character is that he's a very gruff guy at first, and I think like Ben Starr does an incredible job of embodying that character because when you finally like Clive is a character who goes through a lot of shit in his life, has like no reason to be happy about like

after what he like from the things that he goes through. So the moments that he does break out of his shell are meaningful and they're powerful and very impactful, especially with the way they're delivered in the specific situations. So when he ever, he cracks a smile, makes a joke, when he finally feels like he can, he's comfortable enough to express himself in those ways, like in those small ways throughout the story, there are not many of them.

He doesn't turn into like fucking decku or like a shown in protagonist or anything. But the moments he does break out that as it's like, oh my god, that's my guy. It feels earned in a way too. Like that that makes sense with where you are with the story beats. I think I got to the first part where it's like, oh Clive can smile. Yeah, yeah, and I'm like, oh, finally, Oh it's high he's he's buddying around with everybody at the hideaway, like, Oh,

that's cool to see. Shouts out to Ben's star though, like across the board, Yeah, I really like his performance. It's very good. That's what and that's what it is for me is uh, I'm enjoying the characters. I'm enjoying the performances. Uh. And I'm enjoying the combat. And that's it's. It's if you come to this game and if that stuff works for you, I think you're gonna have a very good time with this game. It's gonna be one of your favorites of the year. Yeah. If

one of those misses though for you, there's not. There isn't a lot of else going on, and I'm fine with that. I'm not. I didn't really have any expectations about this game. I'm not like some big final fantasy guy. I like six never beat it, but I enjoyed what I played of it, played some twelve things like that. It's like there's always a series that I always thought that'd be cool to be into and then never got into it. So kind of coming in here with no expectations, I'm

like, this is. Yeah, it is trying to be a lot like God of War, and it is trying to be a lot like Game of Thrones. But once I'm like actually in here with these characters and they're setting up their plates and they're you know, they're the tensions that they have between one another, and their their goals that they're going for, it's all. It's it's easy to understand, and I'm connecting with a lot of it.

So yeah, I'm pretty easy mark for some those things, like Clive just being ah, He's like, oh, this is John Snow from Game of Thrones, and I'm like, God, I like a I like a bastard. I like a character that's like gotta come up from the bottom and actually make something happen. So all that is working for me and I'm enjoying it. Yeah, we haven't talked too much about the combat yet, and a

combat in this absolutely it's such a fucking banger, dude. Yeah. It hits in a way where like I just could never really click with God of War twenty eighteen and or Ragnarok. And I think it's more so because this is closer to a Devil May Cry. It was about to say, car car Uh devil may car May. I don't know, not like a Devil may Cry style of combat. And like you know, they will have their little star ratings of when you trigger off an ability like oh, you launched

or you did a magic thing. And I'm just waiting, like I just wish there was a style combo meter because I was there is what Yeah, it's an arcade mode. It's a separate mode, dick okay, because like, yo, like I'm looking at it, I'm like dog, I would have gone to like triple essent style by this point. Uh. And it it hits for me very very early. As soon as you get access to Torgol, which isn't a spoiler. Uh, Turgo's your wolf that you fight

with occasionally. Yo. I was making the dumb move of using the Phoenix shift, which is the circle ability to just close the gap, and then I jump up whenever I'd use Turgo's launch ability, and I was like, oh, sometimes I'm not getting them. So then I figured, yo, okay, you launch them up in the air and then I'll hit circle to get to them there, and then just uh the air juggles in a Final

Fantasy gap was so fucking good. I was really disappointed that they didn't carry over the ATB system from Final Fantasy seven remake, but now I don't care about that system because this one is just so good. And then the ability to shift your different uh I guess styles of combat and be able to trigger those abilities off, and like the UI is not cluttered in such a way where I'm having trouble keeping up and keeping track of everything. I also like

how they handle the I Guess accessibility modes by making them accessories. And the one that I've kept on the whole time I've been playing is the countermeter or like the dodge meter of like the ring of something timely dodges or something ring of timely dodges, where you know you'll if you get a perfect dodge, then you'll be able to like warp behind them and get an attack off.

Sometimes, because there's a lot of stuff going up on screen, especially when you get to the boss battles, it can be a little bit hard to see where an enemy is projecting that they're going to attack or when. But then with the ring of Timely Dodges, you'll you'll just slow down everything and give you a giant R one indicator of when to get out of the way.

And it's great. I'm having a fantastic time. And sometimes I'm like, oh, maybe I don't need this, And there's other parts of it where, you know, sometimes I'm accidentally using all of my potions and other consumables because I thought I had Torgo selected. Oh yeah, uh so you know, it's sometimes I'm just gonna put on a ring that just Torgo Goes does whatever the fuck he wants in there at the very least. Yea,

so those things are cool. I'm just really really enjoying, like everything about the combat now knowing there's an arcade thing and that there's apparently leaderboards boys,

ye boy's gonna get messed up real quick. Yeah, I'm excited. I want to hear what you think later on later on down the game because I actually thought the game started pretty slow in terms of combat stuff, like, yeah, so the first preview I did gave you like a bunch of shit like this is what this game is at its full extent, and you actually don't get all those powers. You don't get a full set of icon powers until about maybe fifteen ish hours into the game, so it builds up slow,

but you can at least take that time to understand the game. So by the time you get all those powers, you kind of you learn the basics. You've mastered the basics, so now you would have all these toys to play with, and when you finally start to figure out how you can string things together because you know you can. You can air a juggle and then you can cancel into a ground pound and things like that, and then you have that charge up attack with Titan, and then it's all these different

ways that you can customize your attack rotation. It feels like if you play MMO, like attack rotations or just like how you have to play a certain class or ability. But the flexibility that you get in sixteen is phenomenal, and the fact that it is wrapped in a stylish action game is really really like it makes this shit a hell of fun. It's so much fun. And even though the like the late game abilities that you get are they start

to branch into different styles of the game entirely. So like the first couple you get is like, oh, okay, I have these different powers that can set off. Then like later abilities where you have you can send like do damage over time and then when you execute your damage over time ability while they're mid air, it'll keep juggling them in mid air, so you can

keep those enemies going there. Yes, And then there's also other abilities where if you activate something and dodge, it builds up a meter and then you can shoot like these fucking missiles from the sky and like they oh, and there's like there's a there's like an anime swordsman ability where you charge it up and then you do like a thousand slashes on a on a group of enemies and you take them all down in one swipe and it has this special animation

with Clive and it's God, there's so much good bullshit later on in the game. So the thing is like, I hope folks stick with it, because the like even just bet the best story stuff, the best gameplay stuff is in that back half of the game, I feel, so it's it's hell fun to play in this. Man, if I can find the time to do it. After completing this, I'd love to revisit this with like a new game plus. Yeah, the new game Plus. I'm on the

new game plus right now. And they raise the enemy levels so you go back through the story dungeons, but they retool the encounters so it's not just the same enemies at a higher level. They throw in extra, extra enemies,

stronger enemies. So it remixes that stuff and makes gives you kind of gives you a reason who wants to go back because you get all your abilities, you have all your equipment once you start a new game plus, and I started playing a little bit more of it, and the fact that I had all these abilities going back through all the old dungeons, I'm doing some wild shit, man, Like I'm doing something, and I get to like, it's another excuse to experiment with some of the late games stuff, because

I think I feel like some of the best stuff is just gets introduced a little too late in the game. Okay, So now that I'm like, now that I have like a full understanding of those late game abilities and then incorporating them and these different encounters. Boy, god damn, this ship is sick. I love it a lot. The other thing that you mentioned in your review, Michael, and I thought this was going to be a problem, but I really enjoyed the boss battles here because they wind up just being

a really high budget Oscer's Wrath. Yo. Yeah, So I mentioned uscers Wrath in my review because the sois the Icon versus Icon battles, which they've made kind of a big deal about, and during previews, Yeah, I got hands on with them and like the early ones and like, Okay, I see what y'all are trying to do. Y'all are trying to like flex the power of the PS five and have these big, huge explosive moments to like be impressive. But I didn't really like they weren't that fun to play.

So I was like, yeah, after if you here and there, I don't That's been my experience so far. I think they look cool, but they're not that fun to play so far. Yeah, yeah, And so I felt the same way until you get too about the halfway point of this game and on or a little bit Earlier than that, there's one icon fight where it kind of changes the way the whole thing plays and they give you new abilities to give you different boss mechanics, and it is fucking wild.

It is so much fun. And so the oscers Wrath call out is for the quick time events. There's a lot of qts in these icon versus Icon battles, and like, I enjoy a good QTE. I don't mind them at all, especially if they're indicative of what's happening on screen. It's

just like some excuse to like press a button prompt or whatever. Sometimes they feel like that in the early ones, but later on you really feel like you're mashing square and it's like, you know, I'm trying to punch through this fucking rock right now, and I'm doing it by mashing the square button

on my fucking controller. Holy shit. And so the way Clive just like is grunting and screaming, and just like the way the screen kind of the way the screen like shifts around as you make it further into the QTE, it feels like they played Oscerer's Wrath and said, yeah, let's do that. Let's put that shit in our game. If you ever play that game. It's almost all qts, but it is over the top ridiculous. It's just such a huge spectacle that you don't even like there's no other way to

do it other than having a QT where you mash buttons. So it's perfectly fine and Final Fantasy sixteen. I did not expect that to be part of a Final Fantasy game. And they do it so well to capture the moment, to get you in to feel like you are clive busting through this fucking huge ass monster or enemy or just like power levels type shit. If you ever watch dragon ball Z, y'o, this is like fucking what if we put dragon ball Z in Game of Thrones. That's the kind of ship that

you get out of this. Yeah, the other anime thing. And this is probably because I watch I'm watching it right now, but it's like, oh, yeah, y'all, motherfucker's y'all watch Attack on Tyan recently? Two didn't you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, definitely there's I didn't Someone else had referenced Attack on Tian also as a as a good reference point for some of those huge moments, but yeah, man, I think some of the

so those are the icon versus Icon battles. Some of the boss battles that you take on as Clive are also really well designed too, because it feels like they took a lot of the design principles from Final Fantasy fourteen and then put them into an action game. So for me, I'm playing this and I'm like, yo, I've seen these boss mechanics before. I do Savage Raids in fourteen, so I see a lot of like that. The way the AOEs work, the different attack patterns. I'm like, oh shit,

I saw that in like the last Raid series. I saw that in like the Heavens Word Rai Raid mechanics. So it's really cool to see how those things have crossed over and it just makes like I just enjoying the hell out of those out of those moments. But yeah, it's gameplay wise, there's a lot so they can improve and build upon, but the foundation that they set with this is fantastic. Yeah. Do you think we get a Final Fantasy sixteen two and three kind of like they've gotten with all these other ones

recently? I hope, man, because they didn't. They didn't really do that with fifteen, right, No, there, they had the episodes, right, but part of the episodes for fifteen felt like part of them felt like patchwork for what was missing from the base game to begin with, but like the episodes for the different characters, so they're like the kind of like a DLC, but they didn't feel like any like sequels in that regard, because I mean, if you know the story of fifteen, you know it

goes in a certain direction, so you can't really do those sorts of things. But it feels, yeah, it would be a shame if they didn't use this foundation again in some form. So you have like three pronged approach for Final Fantasy at this point, it's like fourteen the best MMO. You have seven remake, which is the fusion between the old and what's new with the ATB systems, such a smart fusion between term based mechanics and action RPG.

Then you have sixteen, which is another branch that is like said, fuck being an RPG. We're doing stylish action and like it's still an action RPG, but I mean at the end of the day, you're really playing this much like a Devil May Cry. So it's it's an exciting prospect to have like these three different approaches that all feel true to the Final Fantasy ethos.

There's crystals in this and choke it's a final Fantasy game. Yeah yeah, but it could have just called this Devil Make Clive, Devil make Clive. Hey, that was one of the that was the one of the subheads my preview. But but yeah, I think, I mean, yes, so like last words about it that I touch on this in my review, but it's kind of three things to like, I think people should know going into this game that it's also very much about slavery and magic users being being

used as slaves in that world. And they touch on the dialogue and the some of the story sequences really hit the nail on the head in terms of them understanding the concepts that they're working with. And then there are times when they try a little too hard. I'm like, all right, I get it, y'all. Are y'all are really trying to y'all are really going for it. But you can you can take your foot off the gas a little bit. I get it. You're doing it. You're doing a lot.

Sometimes they're just doing a lot, And there are times that really undermines some of those themes that I mean, I don't have to get into now. But I think people who play this game, I would want them to have like a critical lens when it comes to those sorts of things. It's part and parcels to the story in the world that they're trying to like build and tell, and I think that they overall it does. It works, but

there's certain pockets of this game where it doesn't. Really I wish they just were a little bit more tidy with Howard they were telling that story a little

bit smarter in some regards, but overall it works. Another story theme I think people should really pay attention to is what it says about environmentalism, and seven dives into that stuff as well, So it's not foreign for a Final Fantasy game to have environmentalism and climate change as a core theme sixteen as well, and I think that they do it in a very smart way that is

consistent throughout the story. So I think that's really interesting. I touched on that a little bit, and I think the theme of brotherhood is the last thing I'll mention. Not many games really get me when it comes to like family stuff. I love my family. I've said before, like I love my family, my brother, I love my secret family. A. You know, I hit their cash app. It's all good, baby, Like the conversion rate from US dollars to Filipino pesos was working. You know.

It's it's yeah, happened. We're fine. We're fine. But the tale of brotherhood, like siblings don't, doesn't necessarily resonate with me, like I love my brother, he's cool. We're all a little bit years apart, so we've kind of had different lives phases of our life. So it's a

it's it's different for me. But in this in sixteen is probably the only story that I've experienced where the sibling relationship really fucking hit me and hit me deep, and it is beautiful and it's like sad, it's it's it's sad and it's beautiful. It's it's all these different things. It has ranged when it comes to that particular theme, and it really of it for that,

and I mean, you see it in the early hours. It makes it very clear that you know, Clive and Joshua, their relationship in there there, how tightly they are, how tightly bound they are by their circumstance, and how the world just tries to tear them apart, but they really are committed to protecting one another, and you see that in the early hours, and the way that drives Clive is very very powerful, and I love it

for that. And that is probably one, if I had to point to one thing that's going to be the most memorable about it out of the twenty things that are almost like unforgettable in this game, brotherhood is just it's beautiful. You know what I'm saying. There we go, There we go, bros. Before I'm not gonna say hoes, whoa dude? Yeah, relax,

come on, I'm not gonna lie. The way you talk about this game, Michael has really made me rose before Chocobos thank you chat has saved me think twice about the sort of where I'm at with it, I don't know, I think, uh, I love hearing you talk about it. So I'm gonna I'm gonna really, I'm gonna really give it another effort.

Here, I'm gonna do it. I mean, get get past get to get your first next power or your next an and then try so see how the combat change is up, because I think it really opened up for me at that point. Okay, that's where I gotta go. Well, Final Fantasy sixteen is the game of the week. Maybe, or you know, if it isn't too great to try and finish, maybe we'll line up a spoiler a cast and you know, we'll round up some homies talk about Clive's

adventures and Targle's adventures. Yo, best dog, it's gonna be Targle. I'm sorry, that's easy. Very good boy, very very good boy. I don't often feel compelled to like buy like a game plushy, but like Targo plushy, it's realist. It's really it's oh my god, it's right there. I do have a real dog, but like that Torigle plushy. Oh my god. Well, that is it for the first segment of the show. Will be right back after a quick break to talk about video game

news. Blah blah. I will have to dip out. I have breaking news at the top of the second segment of the show. Folks, hit the news music me. No, I'm not stoned. That's that's like, you know, the news thing like the wire, the wires, oh grubs, urban up h is happening. Shout out out to Argentina. That's not the breaking news, break news, because I specifically told y'all not to wild out in the Google duck. I now have to actually tell y'all not to

wild out because the shout outs are too long. It's too long. Right now, we're not mad, We're just disappointed, all right. I mean, I'm gonna stop, Jim, I'm gonna I'm gonna stop. Okay, it will stop. The it will stop halfway through the news segment. All right. Look, look, you you made your bed. I did, and now you gotta lay in it. This is timing from mister postcard. I mean, yeah, exactly, believe me. I know from experience.

There were so do you know how many postcards? I like, Look, I don't want anyone to get the idea that I didn't fucking read every last one of those postcards. I absolutely did, but didn't read every postcard. Would say, yeah, right, no, I really did. I actually even brought like a few home with me because it got out of hand like that. But I just want to say, also, Jen, you made your damn BEDA would you expect even by saying when the cut off time is

gonna be? You? Wait, someone just selected all of them For folks that aren't aware, we've had a running Google doc as we do the Live Bomb cast, which I've put the shout outs in given given that power to you, and I, you know, I think I might have to take that power away, think that power away. You just have to, like at a random time close it off, like that's just what you gotta do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, all right, I'm gonna stop

acknowledging the doc because the kids are docking. Guys, the kid would you expect would you expect the docking to happen? Jeff Grub Please tell me about video game news. Yeah, no problem, I whole I wrote down some news here. I'm gonna read it to you. Now. There's a lot of fun stuff happened over the last week or so, starting with the May twenty twenty three CIRCNA report. It doesn't say, it doesn't have the same ring to it. The May twenty twenty three MPD report Ledger is All the

Tears The Kingdom was number one on the list. Then it was a lot of familiar faces after that, Hogwarts, Legacy, Star Wars, Jedi Survivor, Dead Island two. Total spending was up twelve percent and made to four billion dollars. That was largely due to a strong debut for Tiers of the Kingdom. Software sales overall, we're up nine percent to three point six billion. Hardware had a huge jump though, up fifty six percent to three hundred

and thirty eight million dollars. Yes, that's pretty good for hardware. A lot of that came from the Switch. This is the highest video game hardware spend for a May month since the four hundred and twenty seven million reached in May two thousand and eight, so best May in fifteen years for hardware sales. Nintendo Switch was the top selling console. It was the second best May

ever for the Switch, behind only May of twenty twenty. That's also impressive because that system is at the end of its life, you know, the sales are slipping. It turns out Tiers of the Kingdom can sell a lot of hardware. Speaking of Tiers of the Kingdom specifically, it is instantly the number two best selling game of the year, but that only includes its physical

sales. Digital sales including that work, so yes, so if you include digital sales, almost certainly the number one best selling game of the year. So it's just a massive, massive game. Huh what Okay, I guess that's just how these reports are they don't include the digital right, so they do include digital for most things. They don't include a digital for any Nintendo game, and pretty much any digital sales from any sort of thing that is

on the e shops. So some things will be like it'll have digital sales from Xbox and PlayStation, but not Nintendo son. They don't try to interpretate it or anything like that. They're not going to guess. They're like, we're just not going to include those sales and explain that those sales aren't here. So yeah, but almost assuredly they make up for what you do, like this probably about fifty fifty PA say happen. Yeah, yes, it's probably twice the amount of sales. Yeah, you know, Nintendo is a

tough one. Digital sales can be tough one. You say, maybe they could be they could be temperamental. They could be a little temperamental with that stuff. It's a tough one to gauge specifically where it's like you have a lot of EA games. So they'll they'll they'll just straight up tell tell investors during their meetings like like, oh, sixty seventy eighty percent of our stuff

is digital. Nintendo games are like different for each one, Depending on what it is, Zelda is probably going to be in that fifty to sixty percent range, maybe fifty five percent. Kind of wow. So a lot of a lot of digital sales on accounted for their massive success for that game, though, uh and not too surprising. I guess I wonder best second,

best may ever for switch hardware sales. A lot of people still buying new switches, do you guys think gets Is that just a blip because Zelda is here and things will kind of go back to being calm for the switch after this, or it's it's all Zelda. It's all Zelda. It's the Zelda bump, right, maybe a Mario movie bump, you know, like sure Mario movie plus Zelda equals this. Yeah, I'd probably primed the pump for people a little bit at the Mario movie and then the Zelda is like what

pushed him over? Pushed him over the hump a little bit? Yeah, I could see that. I you know, we got the director. You know, that happened after the BombCast last week. So we'll talk about what was in there here at the before we're done with the news. Just a tiny bit, but that stuff in there probably continue sales a little bit for the switch, but really it's all about Tears of the Kingdom. I think you're right, Like, from here on out, they might have a they'll

get another bump obviously with the Super Mario Brothers Wonder. I think a lot of people are gonna be very excited about that, especially after the Mario movie. But this was most likely the last hurrah for the system in a lot of ways, just like the idea of buying a switch for Wonder. I just it's like, it's you know what I mean, It's like, yeah, but that's us I think so. I mean, I think you got to keep in mind that two D Mario very popular. You're right, I'm

not. I'm not denying the popularity of a two D Mario game for sure. I just think like it really almost feels I don't know. I look, I get it, you don't have a switch, you need to switch, you want to play that game, and then all of a sudden, it's like, oh, you also have like seven years of back catalog of fantastic software. I don't know, I don't know. Yeah, it's you hear where I'm coming from, right, I just think it's just you know

that game is probably going to sell like twenty million copies. It's like it's going to be insane. It's going like if Super Mario Party or Mario Party Superstars whatever, which over one of those is like fifteen million copies, and it's like, man, we're definitely going to see this game just be on massive success as well. It's probably not gonna sell as well as Tears of the Kingdom though, so freak you out that. It's like, how did this company ever do bad? At one point, like, right, how

did this company up? How did they fuck up with like a wee you or even you know, like they have like money printing machines basically, yeah, and they just the way they run things sometimes it's like how do you guys, why do you think this was okay to make the system this way? Yeah? But you know, I don't bet against them ever, and like, uh, you know, man, I guess there's always gonna be

a bump along the road. But my gosh, like the streak, the tear, the absolute crush fest that this company has been on, it's it's mind blowing. Yeah, It's it's like the Pixar track record, right, Yes, I heard I heard Elementals dog shit? Is that Pixar? That's Pixar. I heard the actual dog shit you heard? Wait? Well, because so, so they did the thing where they went to CANS and they were like, oh, let's let's bring a Pixar movie to Cans. And

then they did that with Indiana Jones. And then because the specific audience headed to a Cans film festival is going to pooh pooh on like a big blockbuster style movie, that's what happened. Oh. I don't know if that's where the negativity is is stemming from, but perhaps Ah, but yeah, Jesus Christ, the switch is how old now? Getting that? So it came out in twenty seventeen, we are in twenty twenty three. It's going to be going into its seventh year here pretty soon. Basically yea, yeah,

it's it's up there. I mean that. Listen, console life cycles are longer. That is uh, that's pretty that's how they work these days. But still, the idea that this thing is selling this well, this far into the generation is nuts. And it's different. It's different because it's the thing you're like holding in your hand and you're just like under hardware. When it came out, Yes, exactly. Not a lot of other stuff happening

in May in terms of big new releases. It is worth pointing out that, let's see the legend is all The Breath of the Wild jumped up to number thirteen on the sales chart, so a lot of people are like, I'm getting the switch for Cheers of the Kingdom. I see what happened in the Wild. Yeah, I wish I could do less in the same game. Uh wrong, I like challenge accepted? How is Mario Kart still in the top ten? And then it rose, my sweet baby, jan don't

ask. It's just for questions to you can't you can't you don't want to know the answer. Don't ask these kinds of questions. There's so many Mario Kart eight copies out in the world. There's just so many verses there. Somebody's sales of that game. That's just it outsold. Yeah, like the Receival four and far Christ six and Elden Ring and mind Craft all these things, and it's like, yes, that's just physical and all those other ones

do include digital. I got a question, do you think Super Mario Brothers wonder do you think it's going to be seventy or it's like forty No, Dave announced already that's going to be a sixty dollars game. Oh okay, okay, so yeah right, I'm not listen Metroid dread game I love, but they charged sixty dollars for that. There was no universe on this, in this entire galaxy where they were going to be like and fifty dollars for Super Mario Brothers. Wonder it was always going to be seventy. I thought

was maybe on the table for like Metroid Prime four. Maybe it still is, but I don't think they're ready to do that with anything that's not like their top, top tier, biggest budget game, and that's Tears of the Kingdom right now. Jesus yep, all right, let's let's move along here. Perfect Dark is still two to three years away. This comes from an IGN report that smoke to a number of developers who are familiar with the progress

of Perfect Dark. It is having issues, but there's no one singular problem. There's no scandal. It is just a list of common sling stumbling blocks for that you know that happened to all modern games. It's just like this one is not escaping those, it's it's hitting every one of those, just like a lot of games are in many ways, Perfect Dark is still in the earliest stages of its creation, is what There's what a lot of people

are saying. It's like, yeah, they've made some progress in some areas, but in a lot of ways, it's like, no, we are just getting this thing off the ground. One of the problems was building up the team. The Initiative, which was Xbox's new homegrown studio they announced in twenty eight team. When they had all those acquisitions, the Initiatives like and we're starting a new one in Santa Monica. I think it's like the big

hub there in California. They started there, and they struggled to build up the team, and so the idea was, well, we'll bring in support studios to like really help with the grunt work here, to actually take the ideas from the Initiative and make something happen there. They brought in Certain Affinity, which is a team that has worked on Halo and Call of Duty. They're a very popular support studio. They're currently making a Battle Royale kind of

mode for Halo. They're doing some other things. That relationship apparently was pretty fraught and there was a lot of fallout there where it's like this is not working. Some people from the Initiative left and those jobs didn't get filled,

and so it seemed like things were falling apart. And that is when Darryl Gallagher, who is someone who used to work at Crystal Dynamics now oversees the Initiative is overseeing perfect Dark suggested to the brass at Microsoft, hey what if we got Crystal Dynamics to come in and help and they were able to make that deal happen. And that was not like a perfect thing either, but has definitely smoothed out the development process and now things seem to be going pretty

well. Crystal Dynamics is now basically the like the headlining developer on this game. The Initiatives obviously is still involved, but Crystal Dynamics is kind of covering everything else. But now it's like the game is coming along. But now two three years before we really before it's realistic to expect this game to release. I would put it right now, late twenty twenty six, maybe in

the twenty twenty seven before we actually cool Boy Away. You know, we had we had we had Matt Booty on the couch you next to Phil and he just straight upset. He's like, games are taking five, six, seven years to develop, and that's just what's happening here. Perfect Dark was first announced, Yes, Perfect Dark teaser Thank you Marino was at the Game Awards in twenty twenty. So I mean this, I think it's fine for

the most part that games take five to six years. Obviously, there's so much wrong with that in terms of people working on one project for that long. That's got to lead to more burnout. Uh yes, absolutely, But it's like overall, like these games are getting bigger, so they need more time. Maybe it's better if they, like if you just go in with an expectation that they are going to take longer. Maybe that gives a little

bit more relief than people working on it. I have no idea, but announcing these games when it's twenty twenty and it's barely anything and the game's not gonna come out until twenty twenty six or twenty twenty seven, that is bananas and clearly like I think Microsoft's got to try to get away from that.

But yeah, I don't know, can you guys I got it? Like, do you guys have any excitement for a game like this where it's like it's in the early stages of development and there's nothing really to even be excited about yet. No. No, like straight up no, and like it's just really it's unreasonable to be excited, like just straight just from a strictly like you know, mental health point of view. It's uh, it's kind

of how I felt about Fable. You know. It's like I don't care about Perfect Dark right now, and I guess a lot of people do, which is like, as of right now in the developmental cycle, I don't find a specific reason to be excited. You can't. You can't. I wish you didn't even know about it till it was much closer. Yeah,

I'm right there with you, guys. And I mean I think that like that Fable trailer that we got this year was pretty good, and it's an engine and stuff like that, and it's it's showing like a it felt more like a proof of concept than anything else. But like it's a concept that I think is it seems pretty cool. But even that can only go so far because I'm like, I need to know what it feels like to be playing it with a controller myself. And that trailer didn't do much of anything

for that, at least as far as I could tell. Maybe some of the developer wants to sit down bere like, well, here's what's happening there, but they didn't. They didn't do that. They just had a trailer with some cinematics and then a few elements of gameplay. But yeah, no hud and no idea, no sense of what it was like to actually have your hands with the controller. So it's like that is what they're doing Fable and Fable also seems like it's not gonna be around or not gonna come out

until like twenty twenty five. That's it's still a few years off. So yeah, I don't know. Perfect Dark. When do we actually hear about that game next Maybe it's next year. But overall, I'm with you guys where it's like, just hold off and show us the game when it's actually much much close backlark ahead. The fact that my kid is going to be of age to play this game when it comes out, like he will be like, it'll be it'll be a reasonable thing for him to play this game.

Yeah I like that. Yeah, I don't like that. Actually, Dizzy now, I'm dizzy. They gotta stop showing or teasing games at the Game Awards or what all these other shows before they're actually everyone And like, you know, I get it. Do you want to build up a hype cycle but then it ultimately winds up hurting a game? I think, Yeah, they are glorified logo reveals. Okay, like that's what it is.

It's so insane because I mean I wish I wish someone did, like the real is a lot of work, but the homework of like charting out you know, make me a spread spreadsheet. I'm a I'm a spreadsheet perv. I want to see one that, like I want to understand like the percentages of like a game ever seeing the light of day. I bet you would be like shockingly low as well or lower than you would expect, you know, like that Judas game, right, Like look, I don't what you

don't remember who it was from? It was the It's like, is it not not Ken Lavine? But it's like it's like the oh irrational pedigree people? Right, yes, yes, right, okay, yes, sure and I know sure now yes, Like I'm it's that you know, when something

like that happens, I freak out. It is Ken Leavine. Okay, good, that's right, because the team is still working on bio and I guess I guess there was gameplay there, so like that's a bad example, but you know, just stuff that like you it connects whatever it is, and then you're just like, cool, I was I guess incepted? Is

that what it is? Like you're just sort of incepted for like a memory point back in the sort of you know, corners of your mind, and then all of a sudden, you know, four years later, you're like, that game's not the same thing. It looks like this now and it's

still called that. But just I don't think that's that speaks to like the realities of development where it's sure, we know and that's okay, yeah, many of these games, yeah, but it's like I think, but it's puts more pressure on these depths because it's, uh, we know that these games get rebooted internally several times. At least, it's pretty common. Maybe

not every game. Maybe some games are just this perfect thing that that you know, they sketched out from the beginning, and that's what we end up playing. I think what's much more likely what's what's what's much more common is, yeah, we said we're gonna work on this game, it got the green light, and as we're working on it, we figure out what's gonna work, what's not, and maybe enough is not working that we are fundamentally changing what this game is. And if you start talking about a game so

early, it's like, are we beholden to some of these ideas? And it's I hope that these developers don't feel that way, but it's it's more likely when you start talking about them pretty early, like Ever a Wild or Beyond Good and Evil two. Yeah, Like those games are likely when they come out not gonna look anything like looks as promised, and they shouldn't because

it just make something that's actually possible to attain. Yeah. I think that's partially why I have a weird stink around Starfield, is that it got announced so so so early, and it was just the logo, and you've got like the sense of like, this is what's weird about all these announcements, Like there's always this ulterior motive of course, like with Perfect darkts, like we gotta sell xboxes, we gotta give people promises so they get the hardware,

we'll get them in and then these games will come eventually, but then they'll just be happy with the hardware and say, okay, we can we can kind of see through that. And then with Starfield, it's like, we're talking about Fault seventy six and we're not sure about that. People are going to think this is a different direction and we're not going to deliver this stuff we've done before. So let's promise we're gonna Starfield and Older Scroll six,

and then they'll be okay with fall Out seventy six. And it's like, we can also kind of see through that, because at that time I was like, yeah, the Older Scroll six five years from then to this day, Elder School six is still five years away, and we know realistically it's actually probably much further than that. They are these weird kind of like almost like ambiguous upfronts, you know, yeah, where they just it.

You're right, the ulterior motives should not be discounted because that is obviously a big thing that's at play here too. Octo and the Chat mentions that announcing a game is part of hiring practices. Yeah, it's something that's happened recently. There was just a game that did that and I can't remember what it was, but yeah, go ahead. It just it just seems so odd. But I guess, like, you know, you want to attract people that want to be excited to work on a specific game or specific project.

But I don't know, like the film industry like has very vague postings about stuff, but again completely different industry, and like, you're devoting a scene amount of time of your life to make Senior develops are really hard to come by, so you got to get them excited about stuff. So yeah, Project Dragon from io Interactive, something we'll talk about in the news here in a little bit. That was one that they just announced earlier this year.

And the announcement was basically, this thing exists, come work on it and actually make it into something. It's like, oh, they're just trying to hire people, and that we've seen that happen five six, seven times for the other big, high profile games from from big developers in the last year, and that was clearly coming down to it is hard to find talent. We got to do everything it takes to find them. And if we have

to just say what our game is, so be it. All right, Let's keep moving along here, and Nintendo is keeping the same account system for its next console. Kind of go over to details here. You don't need to drop your current Nintendo account when the Switch two arrives, if that's what actually it's called. Nintendo President Shootintaro fur Akawa told investors that the company plans

to maintain account continuity across devices going forward. Nintendo says it has two hundred and ninety million Nintendo accounts across mobile and console, and it doesn't want to

restart that from scratch. This is also good news, though potentially for backward compatibility, because the idea is the account you have on your switch is going to carry over to the next system, as should all your purchases, as should your subscription Nintendo Switch Online and the expansion pack and all that stuff. Well, the thing I'm paying for is continuing over, and the thing and all this stuff I've previously paid for is continuing over. I should be able

to play those things. I think that's clearly what Nintendo's going for, And this is the right move because people like you know, Phil Spitzer said explicitly that one of the reasons he feels like they're so far behind a PlayStation is PlayStation one, the generation when so many people got their accounts, bought a bunch of digital games, and now they're just going to stick with them. And Nintendo recognizes this as weird as Nintendo is. Nintendo recognizes that as well,

and it's not going to give it up. So this isn't too surprising. And it's almost like, actually it's a little surprising just because Nintendo recognizing this and actually being like, we need to do something here where we keep that continuity. It's almost a little bit strange for them, right, Yes, yeah, and completely I was expecting to have to make a whole separate account for the next system, whatever it is. Yes, it's like that would not be They do that every time, right for the most part.

And it's even when they have a continuous account outside of their systems. The systems are like, well, you know the three D s, it's a it's tied to your your your actual console, and so that's so weird. Why would you do it that way. It's like, because it's Nintendo, they didn't think about it beyond this console. Uh so them actually figuring out a process to make it tied to your accounts and actually delivering on that that's some good news. It's shot in the dark. Here. Whatever next system

they're making, you have to plug your switch into it. So you're gonna like, you're gonna it's gonna duct tape the two together and that's how you can play switch games. Ye wait, you like them. So you're saying, there's gonna be some sort of like docking. There's gonna be a lock on technology. It's gonna be you gotta plug it into Sonic and knuckles and then Nat plugs into the switch too. Yep. So there's gonna be like

some sort of human centipede situation. Oh yeah, m oh yeah, Like you're gonna have to, like, beautiful thing, put your switch in the dock, flip that around, and then put that in to whatever new thing they're they're doing. So would be from just from a strictly like morbid humor point of view, to see them totally fumble like a switch to allah we you would be like, I don't know, I don't want to see it.

I don't want to see it happen. I am not wishing that on anyone that we all lose in that situation, But just from a strictly sort of like shot and freud kind of thing, like my god, still really sit back and be like, let's see what this company could do if it wants to get on It's it's bullshit again, It's Nintendo. It totally good.

It's like, it's always so strange. So yeah, I'd be sick because, you know, deep down, the idea of them releasing a allow up to the Switch that is just the switch again but more powerful feels like something Nintendo would be against. I think that was probably more Iwata's Nintendo Shuntaro fur Kawa is pretty conservative. I bet that's exactly what's gonna end up doing. But hey, this is Nintendo. That could always prove me wrong and

just completely bone it up. All right, let's get to this Sonic Team story. Sonic Boss teases possible Knights and Burning Rangers game. In a conversation with VGC, Sonic Boss Takashi Iyazuka smoke about classic Sonic Team games Knights and Burning Rangers. He explained, I can't say yes to anything right now.

These days, I'm the creative officer for Sonic, the head child, so I'm totally focused on that side of the business, so I can't really speak for anyone else, but Sonic Team in Japan has been ramping up and hiring lots of people. Recently, they have more people than ever, So there may be some future where you'll be hearing about these kinds of titles. I would like a world in which the Sonic Team could sort of spread its wings again and do something that is not just Sonic over and over. Yeah,

I don't you know what the fuck is this about? About fucking Burning Rangers. We just leave the door openers through the banished cameras Burning Rangers. I swear to God if you charge me for this, listen, listen, listen. I thought we dead bolted that door. He turned his camera on. It's it's it's he's he's he's hunkered down. Oh man, I got his camera turn Oh if you say the words burning Rangers, I have all rights. Uh No, judge would convict me of bursting in here and doing whatever

I want. Explain yourself, what why are you justified? It was because Burning Rangers has the best song in any video game. So it's just the music that's it. The music. Yeah, I never played Burning Rangers, but that song was in Samba Day Amigo. And you could go online on your Dreamcast, download it to your VMU and then play it and sampade amigo and it's just like the best. It's better than all the Sonic songs,

even the Brading Rangers theme. Incredible. It's insane that we have worked ourselves into a situation where there's just like a Mike Manati bat phone that like rings that we don't know we had made ring and he just like kind of shows Burning Ranger sensation and he's like, I gotta go, I gotta be somewhere, and he just a cool concept. Though it's just sci fi firefighters. Nobody knows what Burning Rangers is. I saw this headline and I thought we

were talking about power Rangers, and I got excited. Powers. But damn, what if power Rangers were one in space? I know sometimes they are, but these ones are in space and they're firefighters. There's gotta be a firefighter power Ranger too. I feel, well, there's a season where they're all so Mike, would you be upset if someone in chat described you as the Cramer of Giant b who just bursts randomly through the door. I would

love that for myself, definitely. Okay. Michael Richards called the George. So this is like, stand that better. I can't leave if you guys want too, though I just wanted to come and scream about Burning Rangers. I'm just gonna keep reading the news. Keeping can hang out if you want to. Yeah, totally, Burning Rangers is okay. It's an okay game. It's a really cool concept though. I agree it's that and and I

would like them to do more with that. Also, they could just make it look like a Saga Saturn game, and that would be cool too, because Saga Saturn was actually pretty dope. I want to be excited about Knights, but they tried bringing it back on the Wii and it's sucked. So because Nights isn't a very good game, well, I definitely liked Knights more than it deserve. I think it's a good game. But like, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. Why don't bother bringing Knights back

whatever? Burning Rangers, though, there's some like there's some juice to squeeze there for I agree, and it's just it's just neat. It's a cool concept, sure, Like bring back the music whatever. I don't know that song. So now I'm excited to go listen to it because listen to the EU it has the best sax solo ever, I think ever. And uh yeah, and listen to the English version. I actually like the English version even more. The guy just really goes for it. It's fantastic, all

right. Moving along, BioWare confirms that Star Wars the Older Public is moving on to a new studio. EA will remain Star Wars the Old Republic's publisher. This is This is from BioWare. By the way, development of the game will move to our partner and friends at Broadsword, a boutique studio with

expertise in managing online games. Both the Broadsword Studio and the Star Wars the Old Republic team members will be joining forces and working tirelessly to support every player every day, ensuring that these worlds and their communities continue to thrive and grow. Their founder and president Rob didn't even has direct experience with swotor, having helped lead the team during the development and launch of the game during his time

at EA. This is something we heard about ig and had a report on this. Now they're confirming it by where officially moving on from slow toward that that games would more than a decade old. I think it's probably about twelve years old. I remember, was that one of those first Pecks East we went to in Boston. That was like twenty eleven or twenty twelve, twelve years Yeah, So this is the kind of thing where what happens to a

game like this when it's too successful to full like completely fold. But it's not like something that's not the future of buyowere either. This seems like a fine end of life thing to do here, right, Yeah, this company's like this is like MMO retirement home. Yeah, exactly. There's other games that do this sort of thing. You know, after a while, you

don't really completely closed it off. You still have you know, thousands of people who are giving you like money every month or whatever, so it's worth keeping it on the line. But are you gonna still devote your entire Buyoware Austin Studio to this when you have things like your draggon Age and that new

mass effect coming out. No, So I don't think this is a shock to anybody, and that that is an MMO that is so sort of story content and rich that yeah, adding content too, it's fine, But it's a game that you can't just go to and play through the story, which is kind of rare for an MMOs. Just kind of keeping it supported is almost good enough. Yeah, and it's BioWare Austin is definitely on the rise within BioWare of like a team that is has a lot of belief in it,

a lot, a lot of leadership at BioWare. Now it comes from BioWare Austin, So I would imagine they're like, man, we if we had more access to their time and resources, we could do this and that. And it's like, well, now they can actually tap into that stuff without taking away from smoke toward because smoke towards being taken away from them, and I think that's the right move. All right. Now, we got a bunch of headlines from the FTC versus Microsoft battle. You see, let's

go, it's been there's a lot of fun juice from the one. Uh let's see, let's see. Let's start here. Phil Spincer swore under oath that he's gonna keep Call of Duty on PlayStation and this this was a fun moment because, uh, the FTC lawyer was just like, hey, like, are you gonna keep doing this? And Phil Spencer's like yes, And then the judge is like hold up. You know you're under oath, right, Like, are you actually going to do this? And and Phil Spencer's

like, I'll hold up my hand. I'll swear on whatever book. This is my testimony. We are. I'm gonna do everything it takes to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation. Just like Spencer's like, I'm agnostic. You think any of this bullshit? Yeah something to me. Yeah, I'll swear on an Emerald Agassi cookbook. I don't give a ship. Cost of wars

are just a social construct anyway. So the exactly said as well, uh so, but the judge stopping him to like actually clarify that point makes it clear that this is something that the judge thinks is a key matter here. If is if he can be trusted when he says that, says that and by swearing under oath, if he were to go back on that, he would get in a lot of trouble, like that is perjury. You just can't do that. He would be under legal threat and that would be very

bad for him. So, yes, he has to be telling the truth there. I think that is going to be one of the things that might move the judge. But there's a lot of other stuff happening here. We're not going to go over like all of the back and forth because it's ongoing. It's they're literally happen. It's happening today. If we're like tried to give analysis about like where these things stand in terms of what the FTEC and the judge is going to do, it could change in the next day,

So keep up with Game Next Mornings for that stuff. There are other headlines though, For example, Hitman Studios in the works. Fantasy RPG is probably an Xbox exclusive. This comes from documents uncovered as part of the battle between between Microsoft and the FTC regarding the former's acquisition of Activision and Xbox Game Studios is listed as the publisher of Io Interactives so called Project Dragon in some of

those documents. Io confirmed in February that it's making this. This is like the first we've heard about it since then, But this is how the context I always heard about it in is like Microsoft was working with Isole Interactive on this project, and now it sounds like, yes, it's definitely going to be an exclusive. It's one of those it's pretty far away. This one might not come out to like twenty twenty eight. Is it also fables?

That's every studio of Microsoft is now just making fables. That's the problem with Perfect King Journey too. We had to get a connects back out, get the connects back out. Yeah, not even the new connect the first the first gym, first one. Yeah, they'll make a dongle for you next up. Pete Hines was mad about the Activision acquisition at Microsoft, or at least that's how his email reads. I'm just gonna start reading some of the

lines from his email. I'm confused, is the is this called duty policy? Not the opposite of what we were just asked parentheses told to do with our own titles. What's the difference? And he's speaking there about how there was a blog post from Phil Spencer and Nextbox saying we're gonna let call of duty come out to everything, and then your Pete Hines read that's like,

what the hell, why don't we get to do that? He went on to say, basically he spoke to Phil Spencer about that exactly specifically in an email. He's like, what's going on here? They then had a call, so we don't know what Phil Spencer said in response to that, but Pete Hines was definitely annoyed. That's juicy man, that like man Hines.

Hines did go on the stand and was sort of asked about these things, and he was much more diplomatic, and he was it seemed like, to say repeatedly, yeah, like it's annoying to like have different things, but only shipping games on Xbox is a huge boon for a lot of reasons. We really like that. It's a good thing for these games. For example, Starfield wouldn't be coming out this holiday if we also had to be queueing it for PlayStation as well. It's like, yes, are you saying that

Pete regrets that email in Hines sight? Okay, actually, now I'm okay with you billing us. Don't don't able him to take it back. That's good. That's good for me. Good for me, so good getting that one out there. That's his GMAIL address it Pete. Yes, okay. You know, I was a little embarrassed to admit this, but I was very confused the whole time because this whole time everyone's been saying Pete Hines. I thought we were all talking about Pete Holmes, the comedian. I'm like,

what does he have to do? With any of this. The crash, guys, the crash very upset about, very wholesome, non has wholesome takes. I'm tired, all right, fires, I get fired next next many headline please. Xbox Studios boss suggested this strategy to spend Sony out of business, something he probably should not have put in writing and another email at Services part of the FTC's trial against Microsoft Xbox Game Studio boss Matt Booty might have given up the game. He wrote, we being Microsoft, are in

a very unique position to go spend Sony out of business. If we think that video game content matters in ten years, we might look back at say, totally would have been worth it to lose two billion or three billion in twenty twenty to avoid a situation where ten Cent, Google, Amazon, or even Sony have become the Disney of games and own most of the valuable content.

So the context there is is that he was just like really worried about what was happening in the video streaming space where it's like it's going to be hard to compete with Disney because they have all of the IP. So maybe we should be the one that goes out and gets all the IP Microsoft did clarify that this email was written like two and a half years before the Activision acquisition. Still, though doesn't read your honor, mister Booty did not know

what a monopoly was. He didn't he didn't know that. You couldn't do that. Now we kind of ship. We can't. We can't stop him. Not as good as hindsight now, but Booty, like there is some sort of booty a lot of money thing you could do. Like everyone's name seems to be you know, rely, yes exactly, They're play yeah, because Booty sounds like an ass Phil Spender. There you go. Would these be Spencer's gifts? God, damn it. We we're the best. Okay,

I really need to show he can't do shit to me. Where's our Webby? You're the best? Uh? Finally, Xbox is previously considered buying Sega and Bungee, because of course they did, because I told you all they were doing that. And then like this is false and everyone's like, oh, Jeff grob and making stuff up again, and then if they're getting black and white, and right there in the documents it says say they were

gonna acquire take your victory lap. They didn't do that. Yes. Internal documents as part of the FTC versus Microsoft hearings revealed that Xbox began building a strategy to acquire Sega and or Bungee so well, it was like there's whole list of developers they were actually looking at. Xbox pushed for Sega because it believed it would have a positive impact on game Pass subscriptions. Microsoft also said that the value of an Sega's library, but maybe these persona games maybe I

don't know, Yeah, coun we just have Atlas instead. Then when it comes to Bungee, they said that the value of that would be will include securing valuable IP Destiny and its community, and integration of its dev's and dev and live ops infrastructure into Xbox Game Studio, which is definitely all the reasons that Sony ended up actually making that acquisition. Other potential acquisition targets included Io, Interactive, Zinga, Niantic, Thunderful, Super Giant Games, and Playwrecks.

Playwrecks is the only one I don't recognize there. But Thunderful is like the Steam the steam Bots games, what is that? The Steam World dig and yes, Giant Games too obviously like yeah that like a lot of these are like, oh, yes, somebody's makes sense. Yes, Niantic and Zinga Mobile Giants and things like that. But I would happened if Microsoft owned Niantic, whose biggest game is a Pokemon game. Well, I mean that

you know that they're contracted out to do that. I think Nintendo would probably mostly fine with them continuing in that because Microsoft Nintendo seemed to have a pretty amicable relationship, right Is that the right use of that word? But yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, I interactive is one that I always heard, was it like in the talks a bunch of times alongside Bungee. But it's like a lot of these things, like these companies are talking

about these things all the time. So none of that is is too shocking. Uh this like I said this, Uh, the court case is ongoing today, it'll be they're doing closing arguments on Thursday, so we'll see what's going to happen here. The likeliest scenario, according to experts, not me, according to other people who actually know what they're talking about, is that this injunction that the FTC is going after, it's probably not going to get

it granted by the judge. They're probably going to fail the burden approof to get the injunction to like push out the date for when they have to come to decision like way out there. So the deal will probably close and then the FTC will continue with its a lawsuit in August and then operate from a world where actually Microsoft does fully own Activision now, so and you know a TC can still regulate at that point, but it's going to be a different

world. But once you do that like retroactive regulation, what does that Even so the FTC's mandate does not It doesn't like as far as they're concerned, it doesn't matter if the deal is before it closes. After it closes, the FTC still has full legal obligation and right to regulate the market and make sure that it's a competitive place. It might be make it a little bit

more difficult to peel these things apart. But the FTC in the past has recommended like breaking up uh, you know, the telecom companies like Bell, and it's like, well, we're instead of having this massive conglomerate Bell, We're going to break you up into regional companies that all sort of compete against one another. Imagine has to be harder though, like to just you know,

compared to stopping the sale. Now the sales happen and now yet to like find out how you're splitting this up, and it's definitely more They would definitely prefer to get this injunction, but when you know, who knows, We really don't know what's going to go. Experts though, seem to think it's going to be tough for FTC to get this injunction, especially with their argument kind of really hinging on this foreclosure strategy for call of duty, something

that under oath now Phil Spencer said he's not going to do. They have all these agreements, uh, and it's like and also a lot of that relies on considering Nintendo not to be a part of the console market, and it's like none of that stuff sounds right to us and the judge so far in her questioning and when she stops stuff and when she gets frustrated, it seems like she's also not by into a lot of it. But we're trying

to read someone else's mind. Who knows. We're going to see probably pretty quickly though, because it's still the weirdest thing to me, is this like idea that anybody should take seriously that Microsoft is it competing with Nintendo? Yeah, I mean it's the console market, that's the only games. Yeah, video game console market is just like that is actually actually the definable market here, and that's super important to an FTC case. For people are wondering,

like why we're harping on this. That's they have spent a lot of time trying to say that Sony and Microsoft are not competing with the Nintendo because that makes the numbers that FTC is putting forth when it's like, oh, Microsoft will be this much far ahead of Sony in these areas if this deal goes through, that's actually what this whole thing, that's the case. Wouldn't that mean Nintendo's competing with nobody and they're the ones with monopoly? Yeah, Mike,

Yeah, that's what it would mean. You sue them, let them, let's do it, let's do it. Yeah Yeah, how about that? Wow, Wow, you you're out of order. Yeah take that. I say, I played Phoenix, right, I could do these mic drop moments. Everybody's gonna have their Phoenix right shocked. Jeff, Now, what do you guys, do you like throw your papers in the air if you're like a clown. You would like blow up a balloon note pop in your face and all your clown makeup would come off. One of those things.

I'd spell hot coffee on myself or something. Oh yeah, there's a guy who does that. Did you ever play Phoenix? Right? Three jan there's a guy who loves coffee and they talk. No, I never got the three like a dot. Yeah, you need to play three then very coffee heavy. There's no there's no time to play any old games. Like I know, I want to play old games all the time, and I'm like, man, I feel bad when I do it now. Rough right,

there was a direct after our BombCast last week. I'm just gonna read the big games that matter to me. Super Mario RPG, Super Mario Brothers, Wonder Warrior, Wear Move It, Princess Peach Game, Luigi's Matching Dark Moon Port that's actually coming to the Switch, Kenny's Big Breakaway, and Penny's Big Backaways. A lot of these other ones people are gonna recognize. Penny's Big Breakaway is a new three D platformer from the Sonic Menia team, and it

looks very good ready on a platforms. I think that one's kind of thing. Yes, yeah, it was a good direct Uh. You know, we're about a week out, so we've talked about this a bunch for people who would just listen to the BombCast. I guess I'll ask each of you Super Mario RPG. Have you played it before? Are and if you have, are you excited? If you haven't, are you excited? Mike? Oh? Sorry? Yes, I have played it before. I've played it like back when it came out. It was the first RPG ever beat It's

like, you know, maybe fall in love with that dramon forever. One of my favorite games, one of my most favorite, like childhood games. But I have played it since then and it still holds up. I am incredibly excited for the remake, as anybody who saw the live react will know. I freaked out. Yes, I'm going to play the hell out of this about you, Jam, I remember playing it with my uncle because I didn't have a Super Nintendo and liking a lot of what I played of it.

I'm happy to revisit it. And and Bacalar was the Super Mario RPG? Was that one for you ever? I've never played that game. I forgot it existed. When you saw to the trailer, was did it Did it look strange to you? Does it look like kind of like funky? Because they are definitely going for a Yeah, we've updated all of the the assets, but we're not going to change any of the animation. It's still gonna look exactly like that game. And I love that. I think that's

fantastic. But it's definitely coming from a place of nostalgia for me. Yeah, I think that's the problem is. I mean, I knew of its existence. I think that game came out and I just sort of had blinders to it. I think, like, who knows how old comes down to. It came out like the PlayStation was out and stuff like that. Earlier, you're talking four something like that. Maybe, all right, what I'm fourteen and ninety six, so I'm probably maybe, Yeah, I'm probably definitely.

I think you're right. I think I see the word the letters RPG, and I'm just like, what's that? Fuck that A lot of the fantasy stuff. Okay, Yeah, I guess you're right. I guess you're right. Playing cool guy games on PlayStation like tomb Raider. Now I'm playing Jet Moto for man Man Mountain dew ads in it. That's cool. Certainly did that sold me? I think, uh so, I don't have the context of nostalgia to like appreciate the reimagining of it, which I'm really regretful

about. So that would be another fun way to play with. Yeah, I think, Oh, we're I'm all over it. I'm all yeah. Don't you play like the paper Mario games with your son or something? Yeah, we've we we finished that from King's Way better, so this will be great. Yeah. Yeah, I'm stoked. Oh We're gonna love it, very excited. Money's gonna love it. Yeah, yes, de Money's gonna be all over that. Okay, So then the other question and then we can wrap up the news. Uh, just yes or no? Super Mario

Brothers. Wonder is it a core Mario game based on what you know? Yes? Obviously yes, yeah, only to a complete psycho path. What is it? Of course he is, He's not even out and he's like, it's not it's not why it's start of a news like this is a three series Now, I don't know why. What is it that's justification for his mind? Is that like the lineage went from Mario World to sixty four

and now it can't ever go back to two d's. It doesn't consider wait, the portable games, are any of the new Mario Brothers games to be core? Weird? All these fucking rules that he's made up that are exclusive only to his mind. Nobody cares he's wrong, mostly pregious. One still is that he doesn't think Super Mario three D World is a core game. He's right about that, now, I'm kidd kidding. Ok this is this is me being a little silly goose here. Yeah, Mario Maker, No,

that one's very like I don't think so personally on that one. And I'm sure huge Mario Maker fans, and I'm like, for me, yeah, it's a platformer with Mario and so yeah, I guess that's core, but it's weird. It's if it's a little weird. I'm like, you know what, I'm not. I'm not here. That's not specialized line in the sand for me. Okay, I don't want to stir up anything.

I was just curious. I understand the reasoning why you would bring and use the Maker as an example, right, Like, there's a lucid argument to be made there, but that's it, you know. The most the same thing that that Dan believes with this stuff is that Yoshi's Island is a core Mario, but Wonder is not. And I was like, you play, you play its Mario in Wonder and in Yoshi's Island you barely He's a power up like it's like completely, it's insane. So he's luggage. It's a

crime. It's an actual crime. This is Yoshi's Islands. Islands great, yeah, yeah, from the best games. But come on, folks, this is exactly why don't get two bets out of shape of over Dan Reicher say, which Mario games are part of the mainline cannon, and don't get bent out of shape over star ratings over wrestling matches. That's right, exactly if Mario Wonder was in the Tokyo Dome. Though. I can't wait to see if Meltzer gives Osprey versus Omega like nine stars or was It's gonna be

something stupid. I can't We were at cheesecake Factory when we first had this conversation in dance like I hadn't thought about it. I'm like, oh my god, I regret asking you. But he turns to me halfway through his like rant and he's like, I'm I'm for shoot right now. You know this, Like this is like sometimes I like play it up, but I mean this. I'm like, Dan, I do know you're being for shoot

right now. And that's what hurts most of all. I think I could talk him out of the ridiculous three D world thing, because that is just lunacy danced better than that. He's not. He's not he's not He's not much better than it. But I think he's better than that. I think I can help walk him through, Like I think he's finally been taught why he can't breathe in space like one over, so it can't happen. So I'm operating him here. I'm operating from a similar position, Mike. I

think you're onto something. I think there's a lot of like things that exist in his mind because he doesn't know about them right the same reason like oh, I can't breathe in space turns out well in the same way that he could be educated about space being a vacuum, he could be educated about Mario games and where they belong in Even the core problem like with the thing with space was I think he just thought that Aaron space were the same thing because

they look the same, because there's nothing. He's like someone who was born one hundred years ago, who like couldn't understand a cell phone. Just witchcraft. Yeah, he would be big into all the witchcraft explanations. Could that be a lot simpler? Like, oh, would just do that? Okay, you know, I was thinking. I don't know why I was thinking this over the weekend. No, okay, Okay, it's because I was watching The Bear and I know that Carmi in the Bear is like me and

is a denim freak. I feel like there is a world where Dan Reichert would understand and buy into expensive denim and like eighty dollars white T shirts. I feel like there's a world where that could happen. Yeah, I can see it, like where he just like gets super serious about the look that he has. Yeah, no, Michael, you could come in. Michael, you could come in. It's fine, come in, we'll figure it out. Come in. You can come back. No, no, no, if you can, all both of y'all can stay it. It's fine.

Yeah, we got it. We'll make room and we're about to head to a break. I know how to get him, which Hey, I'm done with the news. Jan this show's back to you now. Jesus H. Christ. I opened up the dock for just a second, and there's even more stuff in it. Let's go. We've got to stop shoutouts. I'm sorry, I'm putting my foot. Oh my god, it's like five pages were Oh Mike, it's yours is expired? My face next to cock.

Yeah, we're all right, we're gonna fade the black. We're gonna take quick break, and we'll be back with maybe one email and then five pages of shoutouts and maybe another Michael Jeff baccalar, who's your Michael? Who's my Michael? I mean my Michael. Don't know my Michael's here? Grubs, Michael's here? Who's where's your Michael at? This? Is that John Travolta's Michael from the movie Michael? I could be that's a very specific Michael. Oh, wow, you're I didn't realize you were here. Wow.

I didn't realize that this Michael was back on the market. I'm here to come here to stir trouble. Man, my bad. I can you know what I'm saying, y'all can figure the shit out on your own. You know, has enough Michael for everybody. Don't worry, is there though, because everyone should have a Michael. I don't really have a Michael I have. Oh no, if I have a good friend Mike, but I only call him by his last name. But I do have a Michael. I

have a lot of people call Mean. That happens with all Michael's. A lot of people call Meman, not many of us. Yeah, every most Michaels I know, I call by their last name, and same thing with every Matt I know. I called at the last name of people. Do have all the Jeff's here, Like I'm the one person who calls Grubb Jeff by default, which is like I ought to stop myself when Bacclard's here too, from doing that, and so I called Jeff Grub. I call him

Grub, And it sounds weird to me to do that. Never ever, ever turn your name into into like a pun to make fun of you, like Manadi manaughty boy, Manadi America. My younger brother's AOL screen name was Manati too, Hotti. Some people surface that up in a way, but I also think it's funny though Manati is a good last name. Yeah, it's a fun last name to say. I wasn't a huge fan when I was younger, people calling me that it seemed weird, but now it's like

whatever, I get it. There's a lot of mics. I love my last name, very happy, but I feel like Ochoa. You can't. You can't call some one Achoa right, like in the same way like if you hockey team, they'd call you Ochi. Anyone your auntie isould be like, oh, all the fucking time. We don't need to. We don't need to. Yeah, sorry, I'm stirring up. I'm starring up bad memories. Obviously here man broke its back, so Gangham style could fucking run

and take over the world. Anyway, let's talk about some emails. I guess I guess these want to give everyone show emails email addresses. BombCast a giant bomb dot com dude to the nature of uh the next week, the upcoming week, We're just gonna read two emails and maybe next week will be an email heavy show. The BombCast will fall under fourth of July, which

is a holiday here in the States. No live BombCast, but we're gonna try and pre record that bad boy to send your emails in first email comes from Ash from Lutton, Luton, Grub, if you could do me the honors of reading this one. Yeah, absolutely, let's see, says Hey Bombers, new listener and first time emailer. I was listening to an episode of Voicemail Dump Truck and Grub said how he loved plantain. I have a rather large problem with pronunciation of plantaine. If you were to say that in

my Caribbean house, you would not be getting fed. It's pronounced planton. Take a look at other words that you spell similarly. Repeat after me, mountain, fountain, plantonlant that is all. Keep up the good work, Ash from Luton, up the hatters. Yeah, yeah, but a different places maintain. Listen, Listen, listen. No one is denying that we are seeing it the wrong way, using but using but using other English, the world's dumbest language. Okay, to prove a point like isn't exactly effective.

I understand what you're trying to do with the with the continuity there, but like people who speak English as their first language don't know because English is fucking stupid. I want to say in chat, a lot of people very upset with you. They want to keep saying plantain. I definitely dool said that. In my head, it's always gonna be plantains. But when I was eating fried plantains in Jamaica, I feel I do feel like I remember being like, oh, plantains, and I do think I gotta look from

one of one of the laborers there. So maybe when I'm in the Caribbean. That's what I don't want to say the help Mike, I don't want to like they were they were servers. They were just they were workers. I guess workers in the world you want. I don't know this episode question question. I didn't want to say wild ship. So it's planting and Button is the guy from SpongeBob SquarePants or as Plankton's got a real time back in

the Red But Toston is right, which is basically like fried plantings. Ye don't say I have to if that's how you can, it's how they say it there. But I mean someone who works as someone as someone who pronounces all words the way we all agree on. Okay, Yeah, I'm uniquely qualified. Yeah, plantains are so good. They're so good. Oh yo, you if you ever had thrown jo Jan, we gotta we gotta, we gotta give if he's gonna be an uncle, if he's gonna be an

honorary grubbin back of our honorary uncles. You know Manati too, al right Italians? Oh yeah, yeah yeah. If I'm an honorary Italian, so is Mike Manati. Everybody does. Italians aren't white. We're fine, as Jesse tell you would say, y'all are off. Wait, yeah, well except me. I know I'm incredibly white. I want the plantain planting wars to continue. So if you are from the Caribbean, I want you to write in or maybe call into the voicemail dump truck and give us your take

on this, because I want to hear it. All right, Jeff Backlar, if you could please do me the honors of reading the next email, I most certainly can. I need Jerve to help on this one. We've got a work do coming up Wednesday at a pinball arcade. And here's the lineup. I haven't played much pinball before. Would you have any recommendations for their tables? It's from Johan. Thank you, Johan. I am not cooking. I can read the lineup or you if you would like. Oh

I got it? Oh my lord? All right, looking at roughly, there's a lot we're looking at. What is this three seven, We're looking at twenty wow, twenty two three games. Okay, a lot of stuff here, a lot of some rarities here, a lot of new stuff, mostly new stuff. I think you should absolutely make a time to play Rick and Morty, which is a game that is not in a lot of places. It's rare to find it. It's by an indie pinball maker called Spooky

Pinball. I've never played it. I've never seen it in the wild. We have it at like the one place here. Do you really pinball? I played Rick and Morty Pinball. Yeah, it's pretty pretty fun, do you well? Sorry, I say, because I saw the one next to it, But yeah, I thought it was really fun. Although I see in this list now that Medieval Madness is there, which is my favorite. Sure, that's like a stone called classic. Yeah, so they have people

know they do have classics. They have termin here too, many regard as a classic. Yes, Twilight Zone, of course, Adam's Family. This is one of the better collection lineups I think I've I've seen in a really long time. I would I would play Godzilla, which is like a modern classic. I mean look, I don't know how long you're gonna be there. I think there's more here that you want to play than you don't want

to play. There's really there is. This is a shockingly good list, even like like, I think the weakest one here is maybe Ye Yes of the Rings one is not the best Lord of the Rings one, I think is one that Jersey Jack made. I think that was the Hobbit one. But this, this one, I feel like, is not super super well regarded as as is Ghostbusters. I think a lot of people have problems with

Ghostbusters. I just walked by the Mandalorian. I had that in the I had in the house for like six months, and I learned to dislike it. I'm not a big fan of the Mandalorian. Now a backguard's gotta come hang out with me in a boardman Ohio. I'll show him the Rick and Morty pinball. I would love it. I would love to get my hands on that fish tails. Is that what you're excited about? That is another class. Maybe the Madness is the one I really like because I didn't know

the thing, and they had it at the same place. I was just playing it and I did the bit where you like you knocked down the drawbridge and you go into the castle, and the castle turrets are like bumping into each other. And I found out later that apparently, for like the random voice Cliffs, they just got like Second City Comedians at the time. So it's Tina Feye doing like a lot of like simples and medieval madness and stuff

like that. That's funny, that's very cool. The only thing they're kind of missing from like the Mount Rushmore of pinball, and that Mount Rushmore pinball is probably like twelve games instead of four. But I think like Theater of Magic not being here is a little weird. But man, everything else is

pretty sick. I'm I like high speed a lot. I'm you know, that's a that's really do the pinball freaks they like those two like projection ones the episode one and the Mars like that, wait, what the what now? The person that star Wars EPSO one pinball machine were like, you like are almost shooting into like a hologram screen in the back? Oh yeah,

yeah, I don't. I don't know, that's a good question. I feel like most pinball weirdos, I guess, you know, I'm I'm indifferent, but I think most pinball purves are like not super big fans of that. And then there was like that alien like non ip one, the attack from Mars, the second attack from Mars. Yeah, the original attack from Mars is also regarded in the Mount Rushmore for sure. But yeah, this is an unbelievable lineup. I hope you have enough time to play everything.

They've even got guns and roses here by Jersey Jack, which is sick. I mean, damn this this might be the place. Where is this in New Zealand? Yeah, you are looks like it's a New Zealand. This is the place in New zeal I would imagine this is like the place. Uh good for you. There you go. It's very nice. And that does it for emails. We got a lot of lovely emails that we will go over on the prerecorded show. Still plenty of time to get your emails

sent out. Email address is bomb cast a giant bomb dot com. I'll check the spam folder even if you want to get a little susio with it. Listen, listen, listen, listen everybody. Yes, I want people who are listening, if they have a TikTok account to follow us on TikTok. Hey, I know that sounds I know that sounds like he was going to be the first shout out. Honestly, I'm sorry, Yeah, I'm sorry. I just want to get this in front of the shout outs because

that's gonna be eleven. You're gonna lose some some information and actual Turboshaan's doing unbelievable work. Big shout out to Sean. His last video, I'm gonna say it, his last view has got two point five million views on TikTok. Sean, if all, if each one of those of you sent us one dollar, now I'm kidding money, it's very it's very much the TikTok business model. But no, thank you, Jean. Please check out our TikTok if you don't already know about it, or if you don't know about

TikTok, which is probably right for some of you. So yeah, that's all. No, let's mess up the algorithm. Let's get all these old heads into TikTok so then we can just have weirder TikTok's. Let's do it. Show my feet on TikTok totally. Someone asked, it's the real giant bombs our TikTok handle the real real Ghostbusters. That's how early we were on the platform. Lazy on top of the latest trends. Yeah to the TikTok account, Ben and I made. I think it was like giant bomb free

v bucks. Uh, that was just a kid. Look at this guy. Yeah, we tried to get it from him. I think we DMed him and then did he say no? He just didn't respond. You you battled youtuberstokers. I'll take I'll do it. Yeah, let's do it, at least for something. At least. Just wait, Just wait till we start dancing. Just wait till we start dancing. I just thinking maybe I should be recording myself and send it to Sean and just see what happens.

Uh. Hey, there's a lot of video of Mike macnaughty dancing, even just during the at night shows. I saw an upsetting gift that I don't want to talk about. Oh all right, let's get to the shadows. God, damn it. Perhaps perhaps it's your backside special shot. Damn, you should your whole ass off it to me, said, I don't know. I've deleted it for my brain. I don't know where it is. First again, special shout outs to Turbo Shan one hundred and fifty podcast points

to you big dog. All right, let's fucking get to the shout outs. During the first break, I lamented to Grub with that I was really upset, and this is you know. I've made my own bed and I'm gonna go lay in it, and I'm gonna go roll around in it. I'm gonna roll around change your scenario. You could change your life now, Jen, if you need to attack me in jin, I could pick up some of these ports. I might. I might going wild in the shot

outs. Just making up for last week, ripped to Jan about five pages of shoutouts. Taking edible at work, boy, taking edible right before being on voicemail, Dump truck for a fun time? Make it mile Hime?

Is this anything prawn cocktail? What sits? See image below? Mega means these crunch cheese, take toe, cheese and onion all the Spanish butts, Kenny by God, Omega, Kenny Omega feeding, Mike Manadia Banana, weirdly spelling flavor with a you, Jemmy Buffetts, Margaritaville, Bubba Gum Shrimp Company, Cheesecake Factory, Cheese Cake refinery, cheese cake refractory period its clause,

did Digimon loose to Pokemon like sonic clauses? Mario Transformers Versus Thunderbirds, Mega Mix Extreme, Jim Ryan passing up the courthouse in order to be scann into the Kajima Machine, The curse possibility of Jim Ryan Jim Ryan as porn. Brian Danielson's Fractured The Console Wars are a social construct, but the wounded and victim IT leaves in its wake are very real. The people currently fighting in public park outside my window is Super Mario Brothers Wonder, a core Mario game.

The Conoli Wars are a social cake struct. All this and Uritas here to Kermit Crime, Red Blue, Yellow, Green, Nova Twins and the Big Moon at Glastow twenty twenty three. This is still the pre show, and this is how many shoutouts have been written. Silence jan Or Jeff Grabbed Chips and kso the common bomb in Roman Goblin. Michael Him for the Iomnium file recommendations, Michael Him, But Michael he may saw is still pretty good

too. Thanks for the catch thumbs up Emoji. The Giant Bomb cast Sid's buttery smooth voice everyone a Final Fantasy sixteen Twitter want to get their backs blown up by sitting Jesus capcom versus SNK on the Dreamcast. CBS two is still better, though, Jan playing Final Fantasy UH fourteen, si Ochoa's and the Seventh Dawn Venture Bros. Movie Soon Hype. Also Metal Metal, Metal,

Metal, Metalocalypse movie Hype. Eating it Up like Groceries out shouts tom through Tim three thumb thumb tacks, Little Dicky Backler on when It co wote Oo Woo Spider Verse. No spoilers except on a GB spoiler cast. What's in the Bag, Max, tell me, I tell me when I'm telling lies. Gotta crave the Craven Colonel John Matrix two Buck Chuck from TJ's The Old Wine Guy getting ten am wine drunk at packs. Oh that sounds great,

Clive the Devil's Dick, Tommy Tellarrico, No No, No. Shout out to Tommy Tellarrico and the Lip Broken and the Oh Okay, Tommy Telarrico and the Limporino Bandidos, Hello Rat. Shout out to Stone Colt's favorite game side Pockets see below. Band Bowen Commando is an excellent movie. Harrison Ford film since the twenty first century are unnecessary. Get off my plane is Warrior landy Core Warrio game, Blessing the reins at a winery, Edibles, the upcoming

dozens of steam dep deck ripoffs, Aura Auramudmuda. I watched Chernobyl last week for the first time. That shits fucked up. Yeah, discovering a fantastic, authentic Mexican restaurant within walking distance from my place. Yes, give me all the bush burritos. Afternoon fun with my Bishi boys, Link and Clive.

Fifty five burghers, fifty five fries, fifty five occas, fifty five pies, fifty five tacos, one hundred taps, hundred feats, one hundred tenders, hundred meatballs, hundred coffees, fifty five wings, fifty five shakes, fifty five pancakes, fifty five posts, fifty five five ferres, one hundred fifty five tatters. That's awesome, what taters precious? We're still fucking

going shin common writer, We're dhide next month, change my mind. Fifty six burgers, Arms and Rangers, Sisters squad Go Mission Impossible two is a terrible movie. They're right, you know, Carrot top is that the one with Kimera virus. Yeah, no jokes. The movie is horrendous, but the doves though that ship's keyno also DMC five would not exist without m KI hey knows, fuck you. Maybe we should let Jan rest now some mercy. He brought this one on himself. Anti shoutouts to Jan for not reading

the Voicemail Dump Truck shout out section. Also, the Voicemail Dump Truck doc is still unlock seven out seven Exit blue double. The shoutouts show this episode to make up for last week. No Lucky Lucky Luckylicky on my Blicky Oi h Rider kick feeling your emotions while enjoying media Ben Starr, enjoy your gaming air juggles and final Fantasy game Change my Mind fifty six burgers. Jan is a QTE match a to continue shouts to the people who didn't know the opposite

of inn is hitting is deep. Clive's drive Clive and let die. I don't want to Clive without you, Clive Wire, mound do Clive Wire, who wants to Clive forever? Guilty year? Clive, you are the only one that gets me. You all have to stop now, stop now, can't stop won't stop grub No chance Jan reads this far five dollars says he doesn't pay up. I'll take that bet. He absolutely will read this. Swar. I love steam docking, Google docking, Google docking. Don't go

Google docking, do Google choking, upper decking doc shaming. Jan gave us an inch, and we took five hundred miles and we would take five hundred more just just to be the chat who walks a thousand miles to add shoutouts to your doc. We love you Jan, Miles tales Prower, we love you Jan, Mika Hakeenan Kiema, right, Conan Finn Finn Okay, yeah, okay, finish, say all right, seriously, we gotta stop Jan or Jan's gonna take our toys away docking toys kisses on the cheek, which

cheeks? Hey Google, turn all the lights on, Hey siree, Text Dad, it's announced can Con the Canned Fart Festival. The film cast per Daniel Stupid Sexy said, opening the doc for one the end that oh my god, my eyes was a journey. My eyes a journey. All right, did you highlight I just tuned into the dock? Did you highlight this? In all red like this, like what happened? I did? So

it's easier to read because I could just see the picture of Mike. Easy to read, Okay, I will because it's just a picture of Mike Manatty on every single page of this document. Good got some cock, man, Yeah, just get a cock right over your shoulder. That's right, that's Michael Hi. Thank you, Mike Manati, thank you, Jeff Grubb, thank you, Jeff Backlar, thank you. Thank you. Give us at home, whether you're watching live or you're listening to the archive or you're an

audio listener only, thank you. What do we got popping off? For the rest of this week? We'll have an a E W Quick Look live tomorrow over aw Fight Forever, Voicemail, dump Truck, my good friend Matt Shipman this week. I think it is going to be a usual grab bag of a UPF this week as well. I'll get the played forward archive. Op. I'm sorry, that's that's still. That's right. That's on the top of my list now. Uh and some other videos will be popping off.

Anyone who want to plug anything, anyone want to promote something. I contributed to my first ever honest trailer of the street Fighter sixth one that went up on Fandom's a nice channel to Yes, Yes, a writing credit on that. I'm very pleased. Yeah, Michael cool, go check out my final Fantasy sixteen review. You know the vibes, that's right, and you know the vibes. And we'll pass and have some more vibes next week a pre record one. So yeah, just make sure to send your emails to

BombCast at giant bomb dot com. I've been Chan, he's been Chef, he's been Chef, he's been Michael, and he's been Michael as well. And we'll catch you next week for another episode. Oh, the Giant Bob Cast again. Special shout outs Turbo Sean. I had the insane idea to just do the shout outs during this song, but there's this song is not long enough, so fast you gotta bust out the extended hour cut by everyone