Hey! Everybody, it's Tuesday, May 13th. Welcome to the Giant Bomb Cast Episode 890. I'm your host, Jan Ochoa. Joining me, co-captain of the ship. He's wearing his curvy shirt because he's ready to absorb everything. puts into his mouth. Jeff Groff. That's right. Is this episode 889 or 890? Do we call the... Technically we call the PAX one 889. I'm updating on YouTube. I thought I did it already.
Anyway, Twitch is updated. Twitch is updated. Speaking about updates, he's up in all of your dates. That's right. Whether it is the food variety or the time variety. Dan Riker. I'm having a fancy date dinner tonight to celebrate 10 years. Oh, congratulations. The pasta stuff going on. Ten years of what? Ten years of being with Bonk. Best person in the world. What did you think? Anyway. Yeah, Mike.
Mike, let's unpack that a little bit, bud. What was in your mind there, pal? I was just wondering. Just asking questions. Alright, alright. I'm glad we can hear the lozenge. That's my favorite part. Yeah, great. Swirl that around your mouth a little bit more. I wish we had a game scent for his, like, Luden's lozenge. uh speaking about lozenges and 10 years we have the the arbiter of uh uh the keeper of a 10 year old child Jeff Bacalar. That's right. Keep him in my pocket.
He fits there comfortably. Just feed him a Kit Kat every now and then, and he'll make it until he's 18. Bacalor, are you at all worried that this weekend is like a weekend too formative of a weekend for dibs? Yeah, we fucked him up real bad. Yeah! I just gotta say, like, there's no charitable angle to approach a situation. He has become 11 times more confident than he was going into the weekend.
I definitely made a mistake. Buddy, what do you think school was like for him yesterday? Like, why do you think a kid walks into school and is just like, You had a normal-ass weekend. How about you? Do fellow kids know about this? I mean, probably not, but I think he was floating into school in a way that he has not floated before, and I think It all just went right to his head. I mean, the kid...
Dan, the kid signed a couple autographs. I don't know what to tell you. I did send people to him to ask for autographs. And again, we appreciate the collusion. I'm not going to say no to that. but yeah, you know, he is, is,
Guess this is what he thinks real life is. You know, that's what else does he know? He's 10 he's seen you do this job the whole time he's been aware of life of course but you know when when things become a little bit more real in person when you've got a couple hundred people coming to see you do the thing And I think it becomes, it takes on a new kind of dimension for someone like that. We fucked him up real nice, guys. Speaking about fucking him up.
He fucks everyone up because he's the bad boy of games media. He's been politely holding his tongue because he's a little sicky-poo, but I can tell that he's bursting at the seams to say a bunch of problematic things. Mike Minotti. Hi, I'm Mike Minotti. Hey, I'm not a contributor here. This is my first bombcast.
It's your first day. It's my first day. Day one, everybody. Day one. He completely skipped full-time employment and went to co-ownership. That's very funny. I was as shocked as anybody about that until I saw that.
Yeah, um, yeah, no, I definitely caught something from Disney. I definitely have this cough and this crud Right now. It's really just a cough. Sometimes I cough so much though that i get lightheaded so if i pass out that's why it's okay i'll be right back mike are you remembering to breathe in between these coughs i think well it's hard to breathe when you're coughing because like your you know pipes are busy with the coughing with the out so the end is difficult
I uh I don't know if this is normal when you're sick but I've been getting over just a standard cold and for the last day I've been blowing my nose and it's just a ton of viscous dark blood. That's not good.
That seems normal. I was showing it to Bonk, and I was like, this is gross, but is this normal? And she's like, oh, sometimes if you're blowing your nose a lot or whatever, that can happen. It's like a blood clot that forms. And it's not bright. I think it's bad if it's bright red, right? Because that means it's freshly... It's new blood.
Okay, people are saying totally normal. Wait, not normal. I don't have health insurance right now. You don't have timing on this. I'm pretty sure you do, number one. Number two, also, this will be the thing they go back to. They'll be like, oh, well, how did it... start. Like, if you look
If you go back to episode 890, he starts talking about problems with his face, remember? And that's how he died. It is grosser than it sounds. It is just like dark, dark, and gross. It sounds so gross. They oversell the grossness. Wait, so also...
I've had sinus surgery last summer and they said don't blow your nose. And then I had a sinus lift just a couple months ago and they said don't blow your nose. And it's been like a couple months though, so I would figure it's okay. And I've had to blow my nose a lot with the cold in the last week. And now it's just deep, bloody mess. you're probably backed up on blood and like dried blood and snot it's probably just that like how do you feel God, we're so back! This is it. This is...
That's it. We found it right away, guys. Didn't miss a beat. No way to get people to sign on right away. Giantbomb.com slash join. That's right. Arby's! Get back to me, Arby's! Yeah, I feel like I'm getting over a cold. I'm definitely not congested. I'm not dying like I was a few days ago. You're probably fine. Yeah, I think I'm probably fine. Thanks. You're teared at the doctor. Yeah, I'm not going to bother.
down genetically like doctor knowledge yeah we've talked about this same exact thing before No. How are you asking if the knowledge passes down to Mike? Oh, I see. We probably brought up Assassin's Creed and Kristen Bell. We probably did all that last time. Oh, probably. Guys, you're not sticking to the script. Come on. Hey, if you... We're wondering what happened to Giant Bomb the last couple weeks. Well, hey, we're here. If you missed the PAX panel, Jeffs, why don't y'all explain it?
Yeah, okay, so basically, if you are just hearing this, We did put up the PAX panel on the feed, but if you're like, well, I don't listen to live panels, here's a regular episode where we will explain things. uh back on i left fandom and then in the process of that happening We worked out a deal to acquire, we signed an agreement to acquire the assets for Giant Bomb. That's where we're at. The things have begun to be handed over to us.
We're in the process of setting everything up that is arduous. It's a lot, but we're getting there. In the meantime, it's business as usual on the content side of things. And then as far as the actual business, we are leaning into subscriptions. So giantbomb.com slash join. That's going to be our primary way of funding this and doing a lot more of the things you all like to see.
But yeah, that's where we're at. There's plenty more to come. Lots of things that we want to do. But yeah, we're kind of handcuffed to just getting things off the ground in the moment. And we're listening right out of the gate. I mean, there's a quick look of doom that went up this morning. So I've got some quick looks on the menu, a couple more that we're looking to do maybe even this week.
Next week, I would like to do a demo derby. So get that out there. So it's like, that's the thing, is we are going to have more time to focus on content now. in less meetings, like in the meetings we do have, or about content and stuff, outside of all the, obviously, putting the business together stuff. But we're listening. So we're going to be making a lot of stuff, and we will hear what you want. The only thing I would stress is
We are moving incredibly fast. It's insane. At a speed at which I did not think was business possible. But we are moving at business light speed. It is an exceptional speed. and it's scary but also awesome. And with that should definitely come a sort of, let's call it universal patience and understanding as we find a way to land this plane.
with maybe one of the engines blown out and uh you know uh not a lot of flatland in in in eyesight there it's a plane they built a while ago yeah it's fine boys just plug in your iPod and just throw on some Evanescence, we'll be able to figure this all out. Yeah, that's all you need. It's a good soundtrack and anything's possible. I don't know if this is a complaint, but one thing we've heard early on is that people want more ways to give us money.
And we are amenable to that. So that is being looked at as well. Yeah, we're looking at ways to do that. And if you want to buy stuff in the store right now, I've seen a lot of people saying they're going to do that. All that money goes to us now as well. So, you know. all those extra ways to show support that are there. That's great. And in the meantime, we're working on other ways to get that set up because right now we just have the one $10 tier. or the subscription for the membership.
And that's going to go a long way. We expect most people to go that way. But if you want to give more, we'll find ways to accommodate you for sure. And we love and appreciate you for doing that. If you're not in a position to send any financial support, you just listening at home. is plenty, plenty to help out watching on Twitch, listening on YouTube, or I guess watching on YouTube as well. Sure. Do all the interactive bits.
Like, I don't know, star something, like something, comment something, help the algorithm in our favor. That's right. Do all of that. Leave a review on iTunes? Do they still call it iTunes? I think it's just called Podcast. or something. Apple Podcasts.
and i think that's part of it too right like you know we have uh we have to be open and willing and you know accommodating to where people want to support us right and that's the that those are all the levers that we want to start to open up for people and
and if they're comfortable with doing that, that's great. If not, that's also great. It really is about uh being as accommodating with people and where they want to support us and and obviously the universality of knowing that hey all that stuff is going directly into this business that we all share and that's brilliant and you can feel good about that we all feel good about that if there's one thing i want out of this whole experience is that everyone feels good about that So, yeah.
yeah i was waiting to on the dump truck to get all mushy because that's where we let our feelings out that is the mushiest podcast we know that's how people describe it yeah so i'll just hold my tongue until then but i think uh i do want to get a preemptive glaze going on that the Jeffs have been working during the night to make this happen.
uh and if it feels like if dan and i feel like um we've kind of just coasted by and like i hung on to the to the coattails of the jeffs or like we asked for uppies and they were just like okay And then, you know, along the way, we found an empty stroller, and Mike Minotti was in there. Yep, baby Mikey. He also asked for uppies. Shouts out to the Jeff.
Yeah, it somehow just shook out in a way where the Jeffs are the ones that had to be in 8 million hours of meetings and stuff like that. And like, I think we'll, you know, we would love to be in those calls, Jan, but I think legally, I think that's just not how it's going. I'd love to be there. They sound fun.
funny how that works out um yeah no i you know obviously like uh there's there was a lot and there continues to be a lot and we're gonna manage that together and i can't wait to i don't know grub maybe give them some of that off our plate uh oh yeah yeah no but but seriously uh obviously you know you guys had a lot of decisions to make and things to do and to take care of and we appreciate that Mike, you're here too. That's awesome.
Sorry, I used to see Chad say, thank God all the childless ones didn't have to be in the meetings. Yeah, they were busy. Some of us had to go say hi to Mickey Mouse, okay? That is also weird how that worked out. I never quite did the math there for hey, you know, math don't lie. But I want to thank so much of this community because that's really what it is all about.
In ways that I can't even put into words because I'm just scared that saying too much of just how much this community is so much a part of this situation and all of the warm wishes and the charitability and the offerings of support and you know like uh yeah i'm looking at our stream now blake put that logo together that's unbelievable stuff things we're not even asking for right are just coming our way and it
It fills us up in a way that I can't describe. Our hearts are full. There's so much joy going around. It's fucking sick. i mean i don't know another way to say it it is so dope so uh thank you we're just like in our discord talking about like anyone else just feeling like completely just reinvigorated and oh yeah and better and it's like oh i just wake up like let's go i can't wait to get down there and see what's going on like This has been fantastic!
Yeah, it's going to be an obscene amount of work, but I am happy to go to work because of y'all around in this video call right now. And y'all listening at home, y'all make it all worth it to play this game of life. And speaking about games... oh I remember that yeah that's right I said it at the panel this is This is my... First bomb cast in what?
Is this like a month or two? You were on one a little bit ago when someone was out of town. I think I was out, and you stepped in for me. Oh, right. Oh, that was when we were announcing some other shit that we were doing at our previous ownership, and that's cool, but... But that was a one-off. Yeah, it wasn't right there. It's been a minute, boys. You've been drowning in meetings in the last...
era of 40 years. Yeah, yeah. Just say it backwards. Do you resent me for taking your spot? Just come out and say it. Hash it out. Come on, this is a new era. I'll say this. I'll say this. There's an extremely, extremely short list of people. that I would be okay with taking my spot on this show. You ain't on it. but there's absolutely a list out there and uh you know nothing really to say other than that mike of course are you kidding never in a million years i'm so glad this is uh
Man, you said it. The way that forces conspired to have us be in that spot we're in right now with what our working relationship was two weeks ago. Right. Sure feels better now. Things feel great right now. Yes. This feels fantastic. I opened up a game and I was happy to play a game. I was like, oh, I can go play a game. Wow. Me and Grump are going to play Doom and put a video on the internet. Nice.
I'll enjoy something soon, I'm sure. I know, I'm like, I still really haven't had much time. You know? Yeah. Maybe it'll be a cool breeze. Uh-huh. Or some sort of, like, shade I can sit in and look at the sky. I'm sure it's coming. Hey, I want to do a quick review real quick. The Cranballs buzzball. I think it's the best buzzball. I didn't get any of those buzz balls because you bought some before the panel, but then we weren't able to bring those in.
And, well, actually, and also Grub got kicked out. Yeah, yeah, we should tell the story about it. What happened? I think this is a cascading effect, right? Yeah. Because I had a baggie full of buzz balls. And I gave my homegirl, Jess Reyes, a buzz ball. And it looked like in her hands, she's a very tiny lady. It looked like, oh, look at you. You look like a little cosplayer and you're holding a potion. And then apparently an enforcer security was like, you can't have that.
This is after the panel? After the panel. She thought it was a goof. And she was like, haha, funny. And then he like, no, it's either I kick you out or you give me that buzz ball. And then, yeah.
So I get to the panel and we're figuring things out in the panel before us. So I don't know who they were, but apparently they have like a distillery in Denver. They just gave us a bottle of whiskey. And so I was under the assumption that they were up on stage drinking this and that must be all in the clear. And I wasn't thinking much about it.
frankly i didn't care or or you know need the bottle but they offered it so i took it and i showed you guys like hey we can maybe drink this and then we were told we can't drink it on stage and i was like oh okay that's fine so we just i put it in my bag and um And then as the panel was ending, I think it was sticking out of the side of my bag, so it's visible, but I'm like, again, not even thinking about it.
I think that must have been what it was because I didn't realize that the buzz ball thing happened. We were talking in the middle of the hallway. Oops. And I was like, oh, we're doing the thing that they always yell at us for, which is we're blocking the hallway. We should move over to the side. And so when I see this lady and then several other enforcers come up to me, I'm like assuming it's that. I'm like, oh, should we be moving off to the side? And she says, no.
because we've given you multiple warnings and you guys haven't listened. We're going to have to ask you to leave and take your badge. And I'm like, I've never talked to any of you before. I don't know what you're talking about, but, but. i like i'm like you just you seem serious i didn't have anything else going at pax so i just gave her my badge and i i walked out of the place i was like that's completely fine
they're just trying to do their job. They're just trying to help out packs. They're all volunteers. So if there was some confusion, I'm like, I'm sure I can hash it out with, uh, with Pax later and like explain the situation because it really wasn't that big of a deal it was just very bizarre in the moment meanwhile as you were getting kicked out I have a clear glass
filled with whiskey, clearly whiskey, walking down the hallway drinking it and an enforcer came up to me and was like, is that alcohol? And I looked at him and I said in a, like I made a winky type of face without winking. I don't know if I've ever winked. I was just like, no. It's apple juice. And he goes, apple juice, huh? And I said, yeah, apple juice. He's like, okay. And I just kept walking through the crowd drinking.
What's wrong with apple juice right? The story I heard from Michael Heim is that you got escorted out like someone like arm in arm with you yeah they definitely used the words escorting us out but i if they were walking with us i didn't see them i'm just like i was leaving anyhow this is fine so uh it was it was bizarre
but uh things like that happen at cons and i'm like at this point i just go with the flow i don't want to be in a greg miller situation where i'm banned from e3 or packs or whatever like yes i can have problems like getting in next time though, right? I don't think so, but like I said, I'll find a chance to really talk to the people over at PAX, make sure they know it's all good, but it's
Because it really was not a problem from my side. And if the enforcers need more information, I was going to give it to them. But yeah, it was just weird. That's all. I think you were set up, Grubb. Yeah, I mean, it definitely felt that way. Yeah, it definitely felt like Dan Reichert said it's apple juice, but you should go get that guy. Yeah, that guy's got the problem. We all have a hard time believing Dan would do that to a person. I also think you might have been racially profiled.
A little bit, yeah, definitely. I was, you know, my people's put up with that for long enough, so, yeah, of course. Ohioans, I think. Oh, right, oh, I get it, yeah, for sure. Please, please, come on. All right, all right. All right, well, let's go talk about the newest video games around the world. I've already played the music.
speaking about newest video games mega man 5. this was actually uh just my go-to i'm in line game in uh disney oh fun yeah dan hooked me up with the amber nick sp showing them off right there which i was like okay because i i miss having a tiny portable gaming device uh that is not my phone because i hate using my phone in theme parks it just feels like i'm just wasting precious battery life
And I don't really like that many phone games anyway. So like, oh, if I can have something that looks like a Game Boy Advance SP and it just plays old video games, that would be fantastic.
and at first i was like trying to play some new stuff like uh like shinobi on the master system i was playing act racer on the sms that was good and very quickly i just went back to mega man because that is games i'm very familiar with they're games that are very fun to play just the way that they're designed they're easy to play in chunks so yeah it's like basically just kind of slowly throughout the course of the week that i kind of made my way through all mega man 5 for probably the 30th time
my life which is still a very good video game but mostly it was just really funny to me playing mega man 5 on this thing at one point we broke down on spaceship earth and there was a law there so i just busted out my amber necklace playing mega man 5 where the michelangelo robot was painting the sistine chapel and i was like this is fantastic i love everything about this I could be stuck here all day. That is my go-to as well. It's like, you know, on those like SPs or any like analog and stuff.
I will tell myself, like, I'm going to start Earthbound on this flight. And then it's like, I'm just going to play Link to the Past for the 400th time. It's just that comfort food thing. It's great for that. Right, exactly. Because, you know, it is short chunks. ActRaiser was fun for a bit. I haven't played it much. I was liking it. I definitely want to go play it.
But it's like, well, it's just really easy for me to go in and out of Mega Man 5 or any of the Mega Mans. And, like, NES games especially. NES games, yeah. I was very comfortable on that thing they were in. Well, they did not take up.
any battery so that was never a concern with that thing it was very easy to make save states and you could just close the lid because you installed that special um operating system on there so yeah that was um that all worked out just like i was hoping the one thing is that if i did it then the nephew would see it sometimes too and be like well you're on again Can I have your phone and play games on there? So I had to install some weird mobile games that the kids are into right now.
was called block blast and it was yeah so that's just like bad tetris i think What was called white out survival and he had to send an email to my account for parental permission that i had to then and mark was like should i be doing this i was like whatever yeah sure i don't know what that was and something called total battle The names are getting good, though, right? The icon of Screaming Dude.
No, it's just like a fortress in the middle of an ocean. The White House survival icon is pretty good. It's like a frozen earth, and I think an ice cream cone is stuck on it. That's not bad. Yeah, that's good. I should play these games. I should see a haircut. Quick look. Block blast. And then I'm walking around the park and I look at other kids and they're playing Block Blaster. Probably one of 15 games that's exactly like it, I suppose. I don't know.
something really drives me nuts when we say it's like bad tetris like whenever i see someone playing uh what's not 1099 what's the uh 2048 or threes. Play threes. That's a good version. That's the original. Yeah, but 2040, it's free. I know, but every time I see it, I just want to be like, goddammit. I know, it drives me crazy. Yep, yep. We got big problems, is what we're saying. That's right for us.
nothing's going our way damn it can't leave the house anymore yeah so you know i've i've had that call uh inside of me to to well i have the one that grub graciously gave me that one pack uh but like i have the call to have like a handheld in my pocket at all times to you know kill some time do you think if vr went the way that
publishers developers wanted vr to go you think we would have like maybe five ten years down the line just have a kid just going like oh man gotta load up something while i'm in line just throwing a good old helmet and have a retro experience of vr
I think like, you know, what are the, doesn't Instagram have glasses or whatever that like they're, they used to like as a camera. I think they're going to try to get those to a point where those also just have the a screen in it and they'll kind of match up that vr stuff with that every every flight i use those x-ray glasses that's how i watch like uh and the flights out there it's like i can play stuff it's awesome i look
I gotta be there the next time you do that, man. They just look like sunglasses. Yeah, yeah. Well, that's what it is. Until everything just looks like glasses. Like normal ass glasses. Nothing's really going to change. The one the X-Ray wants just look like kind of big.
sunglasses and i've got my prescriptions inside them so i take my normal glasses off normally oh god just load up with a speaker hat too wow yeah that's a life right there that's a cool dude that's a very cool yeah yeah cool yeah well dan it seems like you're on your way to becoming completely bionic And it makes sense because you've been playing Bionic Bay. Yeah, that was another flight one when I was going out to Japan for Death Stranding, which I will talk about that in a bit.
I played a lot of that on Steam Deck. It's excellent for that. It is, I would call it like a Limbo inside like in terms of just like very, you know some serious vibes going on like a 2d platformer great great vibe to it a very very atmospheric and then it's like heavier on the platforming than like limbo like it does have puzzles and stuff like that but i would say it's more action platforming with a bunch of abilities and stuff like tagging an item and then having a button that like
switch swaps you basically between like if I tag a barrel and then I run forward I can hit like L1 and then you and the barrel switch and there's a lot of fun kind of like puzzle stuff going on with that. Cool. The way the dive jump and everything works feels kind of Mario Odyssey to me, that feeling I would get when I'm jumping on my hat and stuff like that. So some great momentum to it, some great physics, good puzzles.
And just very, very atmospheric. Gets right, right into it. Doesn't really spend a lot of time with story. But yeah, yeah, it really helps some hours melt by on the flight. Cinematic platformer, you said? I don't know if I'd call it cinematic necessarily. Limbo is heavier on the cinematic stuff, and this is heavier on the platforming puzzle stuff, I think.
Right, but does it have that weight to the movement of like the original prince of persia platformer or blackthorn or something like that no it feels way more uh it feels more like a mario i would say okay all right yeah interesting So it's like a physics platformer with a physics system. So you're carrying your momentum and stuff like that. It's speedy. It's definitely kind of a high-action platformer more than it is a...
oh, the scary spider is going to come and start this, you know, little cutscene thing, which I love Limbo, but this is definitely more my speed, I think. Yeah, I'm going to check this out. All right, cool. Fantastic. Speaking about jumping, hopping, and bopping, and things falling into place, I've been playing a game called, I don't know how to say the second word here, Drop Duchi? Oh, the Tetris Carcassonne. Yeah. Is it Tetris Carcassonne or Tetris? It's Cargassonne, right?
Carcassonne. Kind of, yeah. He's bitchy then, yeah. For sure. It's not. It's not. Yeah. i'll pass this on the left hand side then yes yes um so y'all know me i'm a freak for tiles but i think this will tickle all of us because it is uh also tetris adjacent because you have a grid And Grub, hear me out here. Kind of a wrong life. Okay, alright. There's also a card system.
How does that work? Alright. So, uh, you... uh similar to like a slay the spire you have like a tree with different instances of like okay i'm gonna this is gonna be a resource run this is gonna be a combat run this is just like a random uh thing here's a store and how it works is that you have your different tetris shaped tiles are terrain tiles And instead of when you make a line clearing that space, You collect those resources of the
the tiles that make up the line. So if you have some planes that link up with some trees and a mountain, you get all the resources in that line fed into your bank. And it's cool because On top of the different terrain tiles that you get, you'll also have different production buildings, military buildings that interact with the different...
uh terrain tiles so say you got a bunch of forests going on you slap on like a wood cleaver uh building which is like a one by one square and it transforms in an area of effect all of those trees into planes And then like that synergy starts quickly building on top of each other because then you'll have a military unit that will get more.
units if it is by more planes so if you think you boned yourself by putting um a watchtower which relies on planes amidst a bunch of trees you slap on a wood cleaver a couple turns later And then that transforms all those trees to planes. So the planes feed back into the watchtower. And it's pretty neat.
Because you also have to start worrying about combat. And combat i'm still kind of wrapping my head around how it works because there is like the fire emblem style hierarchy of like this beats that that beats this and like slightly more effective so You are also in charge of placing the enemy. And just like Tetris, you can choose to reserve a tile.
If you're being smart about it, you don't have to put all the enemy tiles out. You can just have a really nasty one in your reserve tile, and that doesn't get counted in to the fight calculations. And how the fight calculations work is that... okay i'm gonna try and explain this how i think it works and that you either have like an army, infantry, sword, infantry, or archers.
And then it will take the highest number and then you would subtract from the enemies. So say you have like 20 archers and you're fighting 20 axmen on the, or 10 axmen on the enemies. you would just get 10 left over. Okay. But then how this works out with your friendly units is that you can shoot your arrows to go to some Axemen or some Swordsmen, and then it would add up all of that to make one big army instead.
um and how the flow of the game works is you're just trying to progress through the tree you have like 50 hp so whatever enemies you do not take out at the end of a round um gets calculated and subtracted from your life.
Those life points carry on from instance to instance. You have a finite number of cards, and those cards are your buildings and your terrain. And the cool thing is it projects... with each different level of like oh this is going to be very plains heavy this is going to be very mountain heavy so you can kind of switch up your building cards to match up with what you got going on what you want to plan to go on and place great on the Steam Deck.
it's just everything is just so goddamn teensy on it yeah it looks like there's a lot on the screen uh in terms of because you know the main well here is tetris for sure but then there's a ton of info on the side of the screen so and then if you need and like for for the cards you're gonna have to have the specific stuff yeah it just looks like there's a lot going on it reminds me in terms of in terms of presentation of odama a little bit oh yeah yeah yeah
That gets me excited. Yeah, other than, like, the text being a little too small, like, after you place, like, a building on your map, it's kind of hard to, like, re-identify what it is of, like, oh, what should I be synergizing with that? Is this just on Steam Deck? Have you played on PC? Is it better on that? I haven't played it on PC. I'm sure it plays perfect.
perfect on on like a nice big big monitor i mean just visually like you know readability wise yeah i'm sure the readability is like better on yeah it looks like it would work fine if you're playing on pc with a keyboard cool um yeah but we need more odontal People are saying this, yeah.
i'm gonna i'm gonna get this in the steam deck as well this uh at least i'm at least gonna try this for a little bit i wonder if it's gonna click for me yeah i want to do a quick look of it um oh the the cool thing though is that it has like a bunch of achievements in the game like hey harvest 10 fields or get this amount of resources in a run or a round and those
uh achievements are like lifetime achievements that you can use to unlock things on your greater skill tree and um i unlocked rivers and i have yet to come across a river so i'm curious as to like how that will start to synergize with everything else And this is the roguelite element of the stuff you're unlocking as you go into new runs? Okay. All right. And that is the thing that is persistent across.
I see in the video like upgrading cards. Are those like you're upgrading during the run or are you upgrading them permanently? You're upgrading them on the runs. Okay. So in between the actual like... uh expeditions and everything uh you just trade your resources to upgrade the cards and generally that will affect how much they're harvesting, like how many pieces of wood they're harvesting per line, or the AOE of transformation with some of the tiles.
um drop drop dutchy we said right drop dutchy drop dutchy drop dutchy one of those one of those it's like it's like duchess right that yeah so it's one million percent dutchy yes That's a lot. That's a lot. There's light crafting in the game, but Jeff Grubb, I want to hear about your crafting in roadcraft. Yeah, Roadcraft is here. This is the latest like bash trucks into mud game from Saber Interactive, who's done Mudrunner and Snowrunner.
we also did mud runner expeditions uh last year i think which was more of a kind of a It took the idea of driving these trucks around in this tough terrain, but made the missions much more bite-sized. It was a good idea. Roadcraft, though, is and evolution of those games where it's still very much about you have these trucks that are are realistically modeled in terms of their physics
and their interaction with the ground so if there's mud and it's loose and it's difficult to drive through and it's really wet it's going to cause your truck could get stuck very easily it's still that But the way that you are using these vehicles has been refined to the point where it's like, okay, now you really are doing specific cleanup missions as a crew meant to get the city back up on its feet. And so that means a storm came through or storms about to come through.
And so you need to actually take a bulldozer and move some stuff out of the way and actually push it off to the side. And then you can take that same bulldozer.
like and then switch to one of the like the tool from pushing stuff to actually like stripping the ground let's strip up this old asphalt and then you get another to another vehicle to lay down new asphalt and build new roads and it's um It's kind of exactly where this... series and this idea from saber should be going because it's a very satisfying thing to like have all these vehicles and have to still still deal with the reality of moving them around in hostile terrain
But then you have a good idea of like the goal that you're going for. And you have like, there's a bunch of fun interactions you can do now because you are trying to accomplish like the rebuilding of a road. So I'm still pretty early. But so far, I'm like, this is really working for me. It's the right idea, I think, for the future of MudRunner in general.
I know you really like these type of games and everything. Let's say in an alternate universe where this game's coverage thing didn't work out. Would you and your brain work well with the idea of laying asphalt? Just being out there in the heat, laying asphalt, eight hours a day, clock out. Just being an asphalt man. I like that. Yes, I wouldn't mind that all that much. I would definitely like...
You know what I would want to do is the vehicle rescue things. Have you ever seen these on YouTube where these guys hit my ride? No, that's a little bit different. That's a different rescuing of a ride. This is one where people go out to Arizona or something, and they'll rent a car that's meant for off-roading, and then they'll go a little bit too off-road. and so they have to call in experts who can sort of get the vehicle and rescue it out of a ravine that's what i would want to do right okay
Right. My dad always says his dream job would be like an assembly line thing where it's just like eight hours a day just like putting a screw onto a thing, another thing, putting another screw onto another thing. That's some good news for him. We're all going to be doing that job apparently. Are you bringing this up because it's like...
Like, why are you bringing that up? I don't understand. That sounds terrible. I think it's interesting how, like, certain people, like, you know, Grubb saying he would be okay with, like, the asphalt length thing. uh or like you know like my dad talking about the repetitive thing like that that would drive me insane i would i think it's interesting how certain people are wired certain ways you know oh buddy you said it well i want to unpack that with paul
Sir, what do you mean? You want to be a robot? You want to be an arm on an assembly line? Paul thinks he won. He wants that, but once he needs to get up and put shoes on and drive to the factory. Talk to coworkers at lunchtime. That's the most demoralizing aspect of your fantasy job, Paul. Getting up and going to this robot job. I'll tell you about his neighbor place that doesn't ever have anyone living in it. His neighbor place? Yeah, because he moved.
He moved into a trailer because he didn't want to talk to neighbors when he smokes. And, uh, he's really excited because the trailer next to his never has anyone in it anymore. Cause people think it's like haunted cause, uh, Uh... The last tenant was a murder-suicide situation, and the guy before that threw himself in front of a train. So no one wants to move into that trailer. And so he's like, hell yeah, no one to talk to when I smoke in that one. Giantbomb.com slash joint.
That's what you get. That's what you get with your membership. Unlimited Paul Reichert stories. I don't even know how to follow that up, Dan. There was actually another story that Dan shared with us, but I don't think we need to cover about that. That was about Paul making a game-changer, game-changing decision. What? No. I bet he'd be okay with me telling that. I don't know if I'm okay with that. Okay.
Who's HR? Who's HR for us? I designated myself as HR and I allow it. Cool, that's how that decision... should be made. You've heard the story. I'll tease it. He made a discovery while he was peeing the other day based on a new thing of clothing he had and access he had to the toilet being different. And he said out loud to himself while he was peeing, oh, game changer. Wait, I'm sorry. I need more details. I cannot fill in. way to get his penis out. Oh, okay.
I'll call him at the fancy east coast. Oh, yeah, he wears, he told me all he wears now are facts. which I said, what the fuck are fax? And he said, oh, sorry, that's what I call fancy East Coast sweatpants, which are the $18 joggers that we found on Amazon. So those are faxes, fancy East Coast sweatpants. Fax is kind of funny. Yeah, okay. Is he taking his penis out? Is he just like peeing down the side of his leg now? What's going on? He lifts up his short leg.
All right, like he just slipped up the short leg. Can he say game changer while peeing out the side of his shorts? This implies that he's been pissing the wrong way for so long. Game changer. No, it just takes him longer to have to go, you know, bring it down and flip it over the top. Hey, you know what? I actually have a question about peeing etiquette. Yeah, what's up? Okay. Yeah, pediquette. Yeah, pediquette. All right.
You know, there are urinals in a men's bathroom, right? And, like, there's no door to close. That's cool. Fine. Sure. Sure way. sure uh say you're in a smaller stall maybe like you got like one uh uh poo poo stall and you get like a urinal yeah it's never okay to look if that's your question That's not what I'm asking. Sometimes. Yeah, that's your rule only. Also, Mike, let Jane continue. Let's say the stall is very close to the sink.
And you know that someone is already peeing in there because it can fit two people at least. would you why why wouldn't you close the stall door if you're just gonna be like standing up to pee and you're like standing pretty far away so then you can kind of see the whole business oh yeah are you talking about like
Why close the stalled door if you're just pissing? This person did not close the stalled door while he was pissing. Yeah, I don't do that either. I don't do that either. No, I don't. Yeah, because, like, I've got no problem seeing someone watch me go at a urinal. They can watch me go at a toilet. No, but-
Because I want them to also know that this is going to be short, you're going to be okay. No, I want to know that somebody's in there is what I want to know. I don't care what they're doing. I want to know it's occupied. The door being closed, it's sometimes a mystery. Grub, Grub, speak up. Where do you land here? Yeah, I gotta be honest, guys.
I don't care. I was over here like, I should have an opinion on this one. I'm like, I don't think I do. I don't care. How about this? We can all agree on the fact that like, Whoever is designing public restrooms is bad at it. They started getting rid of the troughs, right? I was about to say, we should all be pinging troughs again. No, I don't. I peed in a Wrigley Field trough one time. It was a religious experience. Here's the top tier peeing experience. Trough with ice in it. Yes, the ice.
Okay, great. Listen, was it you guys were talking about the horseshoe-shaped trough? It's a hollowed out beer keg with ice in it I can't romanticize pissing in a trough as much as you can. Whoever is designing these things, I realize space is limited and maybe you don't put all the square footage against pissing and pooping and all that. That's fine. But whoever is real, like every now and then I go into a bathroom and I'm just like,
what kind of insane disgruntled architect contractor had the the demonry to like do what went on in here to build off of that how come no one has figured out Like the soap, like the area underneath the soap dispenser to not be god-awfully messy and wet.
It's just a series of poor decisions left and right like what but you're gonna have the blower go on to the urinal, too So when everyone washes their hands are gonna get blown like come on I will tell you, as someone who is intimately familiar now with Kojima Productions' bathroom, you may have heard of the panel. it's maybe the nicest bathroom I've been in. What do you mean? Of course. I'm talking about a dive bar. It's like incredible. It's Japan. Not duvets. What is it? Bidets.
The second you sit down, it's warm. They can like play music and stuff. Like you can press a button and it'll play music so they can't hear you're splashing and shitting. um oh man it's all just like it looks like the last room in 2001 a space odyssey it's all just like bright white light and everything well that's maybe not the best color for a bathroom but sure i think i like I respected that bathroom so much. What would be the most upsetting dominant color in a restroom? Yellow. Yellow beige.
i think entirely black actually is pretty upsetting yeah because then like you because why is the floor sticking There was a place we were at for Comic-Con New York this past October. There was a party I was at in the entirety of the bathroom. floor to ceiling was like black porcelain.
and you're just like, what am I touching at any given moment? What's happening? It's all a fun house of germs and everything. It was deeply upsetting. That's a scary, spooky monster section of that new Universal Park, and the restrooms there are black, but that's theming, so... Like the black porcelain seemed cool.
how do we feel about the bathroom and the shining the red one if you google the shining bathroom yeah there's the red one upsetting i love it i think it looks so sharp give me a yeah the bathroom in the shining is pretty cool with like subway tile too that's nice yeah yeah
Uh, here's, okay, let's design. The worst bathroom is certainly yellow. It has carpeting, wall-to-wall carpeting. Oh, yeah. That doesn't exist. Also, it has people who have carpeting. What's that? It has, like, a bathroom, by the way. That's what I'm going to shine. Yeah, the bathroom, the worst bathroom has a bathroom attendant in there. Yes, and the bathroom attendant is only wearing socks. What?
because it's all garbage. No, what? Have you seen this? You said all these socks! We're designing, we're doing a bit of a mind thought experiment. We're designing the worst possible bathroom. Well, yeah, okay. There's a guy in there who punches you in the face. I don't know things that you've actually seen, you know? I've, well... Well, I've seen carpet in bathrooms, not in public, but in private, and it's deeply, deeply horrifying. It sucks.
Have y'all ever seen that hand-drying thing that looks like it's just a conveyor belt? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, we used to have those at my school, and, you know, they're gross. A bar opened, like, a few years ago that had one of those. And my younger brother was just so confused that he just ripped it off and started washing and drying his hands with it. So, you know, the next time we were there, they had a normal one. destroyed it. He was so confused by it.
All right, well, you know, we're talking about the Dark Ages of Ping, so we might as well talk about Doom, the Dark Ages. Oh. That game's cool. That game did the quick look. That's up there now. You haven't played it yet, have you? No.
You seem to be liking what you were seeing. Yes, what you showed there was like, okay, yep, this is exactly what I'm in the mood for from Doom. It just looked uh you know all the words visceral all that stuff just impactful uh and then i just think the design and everything was super on point Yeah, there was a thing where it's like, you know, the early trailers, I was wondering like, is this going to go too far in the fantasy direction and not feel doomy enough for me?
But no, it's a Doom-ass Doom game. You're getting super shotguns and grenade launchers and stuff. Some of them are, like, aesthetically a little more medieval-looking, like the grenade launchers, these, like, spiky balls, and it looks awesome. They've got some weight to them. They bounce. But yeah, it's a Doom game. It introduces some elements that are definitely new to this one or feels that way where like... Green projectiles that's a pretty common thing or green attacks that enemies will do
That means you can parry it with your shield. So if you hit LT with a pretty generous window on the default difficulty, you can either reflect a projectile back or you can kind of stagger someone out of a melee and then hit a big melee flail combo, stuff like that.
It is a little more focused on parrying, a little more focused on melee, but it all works really great. This shield dash is awesome, where it's like if you're holding your shield up from pretty far away, you can just dash into a group. fuck them all up with a shield, kill, you know, five, six dudes at once.
And then it's got these interactions where it's like if things have metal shields or metal armor, you can shoot it until they get like hot and they get like, you know, glowing orange. And then you can throw your shield at it and it'll explode their armor or their shield and deal a bunch of damage around them. similarly there are like energy shields like plasma shields that are blue and if you use a plasma weapon on those you'll blow up a lot of stuff around them so it's just a lot of like
Identifying an enemy that's like, okay, I'm going to use that and blow up a bunch of stuff around him. And super fast arena combat. The melee stuff is really great. It's fantastic. I like it a lot more than Eternal. Dan, you mentioned comparing it, some parts of it felt like a Housemarque game, but watching that quick look, it felt really Returnal-esque.
Yeah, especially some of the bigger mid-boss and boss-type enemies or some of the dragon and mech sections where it's not full-on bullet hell, but it is a bit more than I would expect from a Doom game. because you are just looking at like, okay, dodge or shield all the orange projectiles. It's kind of like Ikaruga, you know, kind of color-coded thing of like, I'm going to go over here, get my shit in there.
So, yeah, it's not full Returnal. And I wouldn't even say it's, you know, like the quality of Returnal. Returnal is like on a tier of its own when it comes to that type of like projectile boss bullet hell combat. But it does it a lot better than I think I would have expected from a Doom game. And then it also has the, I showed off the mech section, the Atlan stuff. and the dragon combat, which that stuff is just fun. I think if that was every other level, I would get tired of it.
But, you know, Grubb, we were doing the thing where, like, you're basically, you said it's like a kaiju-sized thing. And you're, like, looking at a bridge full of enemies that when you're just a dude, they're, like, hulking creatures. But when you're this kaiju mech thing, you're just stomping through bridges.
have the supercharged turret gun and just annihilating entire levels of enemies and it feels awesome. Dan, in that quick look, I suggest everyone check it out after this. You rev up your dragon. Yeah. Your dragon has petals on it and energy wings. That's the thing. Yeah, it's a dragon, but this isn't Game of Thrones. This is a Doom-ass Doom game. What is the most Doom-looking dragon you could have? Mechanical parts and energy wings and petals and stuff like that. It's fantastic.
Yeah, I think the word going around is like this was going to be more slow and deliberate, but it still just looked chaotic. So I don't think that people should take away that this is like
uh lumbering because that's why i suggest then you're like it definitely doesn't feel that way when you're playing it's not as fast as eternal in terms of like all the movement options you had but it's there's definitely a ton going on still did you find any differences there i mean i just feel like with eternal they just gave you too many things to tweak and too many options in combat and stuff like that towards like you know you get to the flamethrower and beyond it's just like
Oh man, I'm kind of like losing track what I should be doing here. And then Eternal felt slower to me in some ways and that like it would really hit the brakes at times and have a big platforming section. which I like platforming, but not exactly what I go to Doom for. Whereas this one, it doesn't feel lumbering to me. I feel like I'm constantly doing some high action arena combat. And I think it feels better than Eternal did. This makes me feel closer to how I felt with 2016. Cool.
That's good, yeah. I was just super impressed with the way it looked, too. Just thought it... really nailed the I know you were worried about the fantasy for me I'm like this is exactly what I want looks like a metal album cover yeah they really got it right Yep, yep. So, love it. Definitely going to keep going with it. I'm like, you know, nine chapters in now. I think there's something like 22. So, definitely going to keep moving. That shield looked mighty neat.
Oh, the shield. The dash, the parry, the throw. That thing is not just a gimmick. That is a big part of the combat here. I was going to ask, is it Rygar-like at all? You know, I don't think I ever really played much Rygar. Well, we can probably rank that one. When people say Rygar, are they talking about, is this NES? There's NES Rygar and there's PS2. It's like a Frisbee thing, right? Yeah, basically. Like a chain shield. Change Frisbee? I always show Rygar and Karnav confused.
That's fair. Because I didn't really play either of them, but you hear them come up every once in a while. Yeah, Rygar and Karnov. Karnov's like a circus man with a mustache. Basically. Strong man. Rygar, Rygar, Rykert, is there something there? Oh, no. There's just something happening to your name there. We can't make a whole feature on GiantBomb.com just because it's got a punny name. No, no one would ever do that. By the way, stay tuned for Monday Morning's Mist with Mitch, parentheses, Mike.
Also, all of us steal my sunshine free on YouTube now. We got... We haven't given him the keys to stream yet, right? No. Yeah, there's still time. There's still time. It's too late. I think he has to bring it to the board before he just goes wrong and streams Mitch on Mondays. Or streams missed on Mondays. Fuck, streams Mitch. It's so good, you're always getting mixed up. I'm identified with it now. Okay. We talked about this, I guess, not at the PAX podcast, but the podcast before that.
I think this is my current game of the year, but I'm excited to hear what Jeff Bacalar and Jeff Grob have to say about Claire Obscure Expedition 33. Yeah, I'm French now. That's how it goes. Oui, chef, oui, chef. You know, I feel like on its face, I was really worried that this was going to be a game that I kind of like. I don't know. Turn-based RPG stuff isn't always like my bag. There is a language that this game speaks. Thankfully, it's English. It's not. Surprisingly, it is English.
No, I think there's the right mix of style and presentation. I will say this, I think... It's a very weird sort of and compelling jump into the narrative of this group of people who are seemingly evaporated in this alternate timeline once a certain date hits. and you are part of this sort of group that is meant to, you know, go out on this adventure and, you know, don't want to give too much of it away, but certainly, like, I think the setup has been one of them.
in a game where I kind of didn't think I was going to care about what anyone was saying. I was more like, oh, about the style. Me too. It's kind of dope. It's kind of like a really cool freaking idea in a way where I'm like, Oh, this would work in any kind of medium, this kind of story. It is compelling in a way that I'm... Frank frankly surprised by
And then when you start to unpack the combat situation, I think what they are trying to do is delivered in a very accessible way to my surprise as well, where I'm like, I get this. I understand. what's at stake i understand the currency i'm spending when i'm fighting i understand all of these things this game also looks Phenomenal From every, you know, top to bottom, yeah, I'm absolutely blown away and surprised as to how much I'm really digging this experience.
I think it wins the most points for me just because of how refreshing and kind of unique the whole thing feels and carving out its own path in a genre that is obviously dominated by a lot of stuff we've all seen before. Holy smokes, I'm into it.
yeah and I just you know the french stuff you just you're french now everyone i i that it's time it's time the french got back into video games in a big way is what i've been pounding on my desk all these decades and my favorite french game it's tyson's punch out the most french game of all time that gets in it yeah like wow you know i mean where's your mind out uh mind out with it grab like what are you there
Yeah, yeah, no, I'm right there with you. I've been kind of getting back into it since I got back from PAX, and I played a little bit. I do think that this is the game that's making me realize that I think my Intel 13th generation CPU is
is busted because nothing's running anymore. Really? Yeah, I think it's a shot. So I'm going to have to get a new CPU and stuff like that, but whatever. I've been trying to force myself through it anyhow because it's running at 30 frames per second a lot of times. Does the same computer I have? Basically, but now with a 5080 in it. So, yeah. Oh, okay. Interesting. So, just for color there, the bug, that power distribution bug, right? That's what you're talking about? Yeah. With the Intel chips?
yeah yes that the whole it was like the whole 12th and 13th generation of higher end chips were just busted so and they get worse over time right and presumably you just replace that chip which is not not an expense but certainly yeah yeah but i mean at this point it's like if i'm gonna do that i would probably get a whole new motherboard so i could use a whole different generation probably amd so i don't have to deal with this at all
But whatever, that's another thing. I think this game continues to be really surprisingly good at everything it's trying to do. I really love that they have an overworld. That's awesome. But RPGs, why did you stop doing that in the first place? This is fantastic. I love just having a little guy going on a big map or whatever. and then the combat still just keeps getting better and better once you start realizing that a lot of the parrying and dodging comes down to
Really listening to that audio. Because it always winds up. uh like it like winds up like with both both visually like as an enemy is like winding up to hit you but the sound does as well and so that makes it a lot easier to get that timing right and the pairing feels great every single time Uh, I'm-
I just kind of got into like the second area of like the cool water stuff not too long ago. And it's like, oh, they're going to do awesome stuff with the setting as well. So yeah, this game is probably going to roll up. This is the first area really I'm going to after the basic fantasy area. It's like, oh, okay, they're really going to cook. So I am...
I'm on the hook for this game, I think, at this point. I really want to play through as much of it as I can. It's the game that I missed the most while I was out gallivanting in Florida. Oh, you poor guy. I know, it's Mikey. You are going. I'm hoping, and I'm assuming, based off of what I know about your taste, that you are going to absolutely die for this game. I already got in a bit. I'm 10 hours in, and I think it's incredible. I think it's amazing. I absolutely
Love it. I just want to play more. And I... if there's ever been one of these kind of games that I think Dan would like. I don't know if he would. I want to. No, no, Bianca's been playing it and I've been watching and it's like, okay, I'm intrigued. I like the tone of it. It seems to have a silliness that I enjoy. I saw some weird little mini games and stuff like that. And the combat itself looks fantastic, I think.
The look of the game, the aesthetics look awesome too. The story sounds intriguing to me. Yes, Mike, I think you're totally correct. If there was a turn-based... I like Mario & Luigi. I like Paper Mario. Give me something to do during the turn-based stuff. There's so much to happen there. I think I might like it. It's more the stuff you do. There is the... When you attack, you can time some button press.
But it is more the defensive stuff is where you are really doing the extra bits there and it feels just so good.
when you win a battle because you did two awesome parries in a row it's like okay that great i thought i was waiting for my next turn it's like no i was not this is uh fantastic um even the uh getting to points where it's like oh you're fighting a group of flying enemies and you're supposed to kind of shoot the flying enemies like in not real time you're still you're both still just standing there but you can hold down the left trigger to aim
pull the right trigger to shoot and it's like because they're flying enemies they're harder to hit with your standard attack so you're supposed to supposed to shoot him so it's like that was a quick fight where i just shot like a guy six times and that was it and it's like oh that keeps the fighting feeling fresh as like each fight can feel different from the next depending on the kinds of enemies that you're going up against. So just a really well thought out game overall.
I'm a big sucker for stories in RPGs, and then this is firing off on all those cylinders, like you mentioned, Bacalar. Um, performances in the game across the board. Fantastic as well. Yeah. I know the side bent stars in it. I don't, uh, you're going to get very acquainted with his role in this game. If you stick, stick with it. Um, but Charlie Cox, Wow, look at that guy. He can act, huh? Did a really good job.
Everyone's doing good. The music's incredible. Just aesthetically pleasing all around. One of my favorite things in this game is that it helps me get over, not a fear, but I guess like a preference where I just detest the artistry of mimes. And this helps me get out all of my aggression on mimes. Because you're killing them. Because I'm killing them. It's like the Paris level of Twisted Metal 2. Just like that.
Put it on the box, Claire Obscure. And Mike Minotti, you've been playing something on this list that I'm curious about dipping back in. I've been kind of fiending to get back into. And maybe the five of us could roll into it. Oh, that'd be awesome. Yeah, I heard Overwatch 2 is good again. I don't think it ever really stopped being, you know. Good, but it got to a point where that was a game that I played a lot of almost 10 years ago, right? Like that game is nine years old this month, I think.
And I played a lot of it. They had this sort of big change when it became Overwatch 2. And a lot of that stuff I didn't necessarily love with the free-to-play-ness and going on to five people. So it just made it very easy for me to finally move on.
from that game and you know still kind of think fondly of it but they added this new mode called stadium everybody seemed to like it so i checked that out and it's a really good new mode it's still 5v5 and there's kind of two components to it one is the actual competition where instead of just playing on one map and one game type
It's a best to four kind of thing, and you're doing a bunch of mini objectives. So it's like you're going to go to this map, and you're just going to play one point, right? Or it's just like a very short version of pushing the robot so you get it close. And again, it's these shorter rounds, and it's whoever wins four rounds first.
But then there's also a progression system between the rounds, kind of like a Counter-Strike or kind of like a MOBA, where you can buy upgrades and perks for your hero. So I've been doing Soldier 76 a lot. and there's things where you can kind of just do it your own but it also just suggests what builds you should get and what things you should be buying so eventually i'm buying these abilities that just make my you know missile rocket launcher ability
stronger where it's like okay now i'm firing two of them and the blast radius is stronger and those are kind of like the bigger bonuses that change the way they actually work but then there's also the passive buffs that you can buy where it's just like okay now the ability damage is higher the recharge time is higher
so there's some customization there with all of that that in in the way it works is where it's like oh as you keep playing everybody's getting more powerful so it just kind of does you get that power creep but in a satisfying way And if for some reason it's like tied 3-3, then by the end you're all picking some really kind of wild ability.
Yeah, it's just I don't know it's like a neat sort of change for it's kind of delivering at least a little bit on that original overwatch 2 promise where there's going to be that co-op campaign where you're going to have talent trees and augment the hero's abilities i'm still kind of mad we didn't get that but this is at least some of those ideas and a satisfying All right
i'm sorry like the mode itself is is like a it's a round based thing is it like counter strike is that what i should be thinking or what a little bit it's almost like how long each round works and like after the round you go to the shop and you buy things but those are permanent right so you're not buying for
each round against not counter-strike in terms of like the setup there where it's like you know you die right um you know like counter-strike the moba just in terms of you're buying those upgrades and it's again the first to win four rounds um so it's like a game of stadia maybe takes as long as a game of just normal overwatch i'm not sure but you're gonna see you know five six different maps playing this thing instead of just being on that one the whole time excuse me
Oh, okay. So that, I don't know. That sounds really interesting to me. Maybe we should check this out. That'd be cool. Mike, in your time with it, how heavy is Classcom? or team comp factor into it. It's still roll Q when you're doing this, and it's still the two support, two damage, and the one tank, and you're allowed to pick which ones that... you do but you know like because you can augment things like you know if you're playing healer you can do a pretty damage
based healer, and I think healer is actually relatively popular to play like you can do some weird stuff with with moira where you're shooting out two of those balls like you're just going to shoot about both of them the healing ball and the damage ball
Every time that you do it's also a smaller hero pool in this mode. It's not just everybody There's only certain heroes available at a time. I even kind of like that kind of like i i jump in the main game now and i've been gone forever i'm like who are all these people do we need this many characters what is even going on here anymore start putting some in a vault yeah right exactly um yeah it's just like
Played on a super fun, but I actually was playing it off stream. That's like I have like half an hour to kill I think I'll go play a round of stadium now cool Oh, by the way, I bought one of those Genki controllers from Nintendo. I'm trying to buy it right now. I didn't know it was up for sale. I got one. I got one. I'm in a line. I'm on a queue thing for Nintendo's store page. Let's go. Is it Mario 64's got the link, I assume? Yeah, it has.
Yeah, yeah, I'm good to go. Oh, baby. Probably gonna be delivered while I'm at LA, but still, that's okay. I'll take that.
uh only a couple more games to chat about here jeff grubb best pelote yeah uh boy this game is incredible um it is So you... play as a young boy in Ecuador while the country and you are obsessed with soccer and specifically the Ecuadorian national team that is is trying to get into the World Cup for the first time ever, trying to qualify for the World Cup for the first time ever.
And that's like the overarching narrative that's happening on top of you just being this young boy with a family and other things going on in your life. But you... Walk around in first person in this world that is like... Almost looks like real pictures that have then been run through a filter to make them sort of impressionist paintings. Well, that opening with the TV and the soccer game is like, it's crazy. Like that look, I've never seen anything quite like that. Yeah.
and that like the whole thing has that vibe and um so so like the important things to know are So if, It feels like you're living through someone else's memories. And the way it conveys that is all of the unimportant, fuzzy information is that sort of impressionist painting. And then if something is interactable or important to the story, it'll be like this cutout drawing of them or a cutout drawing of your toy. or whatever, like a Zord from Power Rangers or something like that.
um and then you have a soccer ball that you can kick around in a lot of levels or a balloon or something like that but a lot of the interaction is kicking and that's the right stick you flick it back and you push it forward and you can do a really huge kick and the way the game works is it tells these days in this kid's life by bouncing from one Ecuadorian national team game to the next. And that stuff is kind of always happening either on the radio or on a TV while you're at a wedding.
And some of the things the game does to convey what it's like to be eight years old. are astounding like you're at the wedding and you're kind of running around and your sister's like come on let's go play because and then and then you like lose her for a little bit you're like where'd she go and then you see something under the table and so you go up to the table and you press the button to to to go under the table with her and then you have the like the um the sort of
what's it called the tablecloth is hanging down off the side so you're like in this your own little cave yeah the sound outside gets a little bit more muffled but you could still hear your parents talking distinctly and they're talking about what's happening in the country dollarization as the economy is dealing with stuff and then the game starts
and the lady whose wedding it is is like upset that they're bringing in a big tv uh while that's over there and you and your sister just under this table like blocking out the world and you're talking to each other about how nice it is to be under here because no one's telling you what to do or
or to go play or whatever, and you can kind of just shut things down. And it's like being transported. It is like living these kids' lives, and it's so easy to connect to because we've all had similar experiences growing up.
that i'm i mean i'm just i couldn't be more impressed with this thing it feels singular it feels important um i you know i always get the always had the the sense that people would be able to convey these sorts of um you know uh like biographies through feeling like making you feel the way i felt by putting you in a situation i thought video games would be good at that to see it executed and executed this
expertly, this exquisitely has really been quite something. It's up there for one of my favorite things I've played in a long time. I'm really enjoying Awesome. Yeah, that sounds real cool. i don't know if it's going to be something like that will click for everybody but i think there's going to be a lot of people who will be super open to it and then it's like you know
kicking around a soccer ball feels really good they don't it kind of sticks to your position like and if you like move it from the left to the right your foot will just automatically sort of kick it in the direction you're going so you kind of keep it in front of you and that becomes really satisfying and then sometimes it's like
It jumps around in time a little bit. Sometimes you'll be an older kid at a house party or whatever, kind of telling what it was like at that point in your life for a little bit.
and you know so maybe someone's mean to you so you take the ball and you go or you find the soccer ball and you start kicking around and you'll start being like oh this feels good i'll start just kicking it over towards this field and then you sort of just the party fades out and then the whole world fades out and then it goes back to another scene or something like that it's just really well done
Okay, yeah, I'm excited to check that out. I dig the style of it. It feels like I've seen this game advertiser floated around for forever now. Yes, yeah, definitely. Absolutely. I think Panic is publishing it. I think that's right. That's right. And last game on the list here, Dan, a couple weeks ago you traveled all the way to Japan to check out Death Stranding 2. I did. I played 30 hours of Death Stranding 2.
That's the craziest preview event I've ever done. I will do it all again when the game comes out because it's very, very fun. I have a lot of thoughts about the game. If you want to see the full unabridged stuff, I wrote a big article on gamespot.com about it. I was on the kind of funny games cast yesterday about it. So let me open it up here. Are there any burning questions from this crew about Death Stranding 2?
The baby. The gun. Baby gun, yeah. They're both in this one as well. Do they interact in any way? I don't want to spoil anything, but I did not see the baby get a gun. Okay. Baby's got a gun. I am just you just told us so many crazy things that you didn't even understand when you were like conveying them to us
And so, yeah, I have a lot of questions, but maybe you should start from the beginning. I don't know. Let me ask you this, because I don't know how I feel about Death Stranding one, honestly. I want to try this one.
The beginning of Death Stranding one was pretty slow. This one would pick up a little bit faster. Yep, this one jumps right into it. That's one of the things that... really like like if this is how the first s stranding had felt at the beginning i would have probably not been so immediately turned off of it because it does just kind of drop you in and um you know the stuff that i think
everyone can appreciate from Destro Anyone, even if you don't love the game, is like the parts where the music kind of kicks in as you're cresting like over a hill and stuff like that. It kind of starts with that, where it's just, you're Sam, you got your baby there, Lou, and you're on just this mountainous area, kind of on the border of Mexico and America, and it's just like, hey, get home with Lou.
And so there's no big stakes here. You're not getting chased. It's just like, he's not even in the midst of any kind of like crazy situation. It's just like, I don't know. He was out in the mountains with his baby. He should go home. Yeah, and it does this. There's this wood kid track that plays, and there's like gate quakes that happen, which are like little earthquakes, and you just see all the environmental boulders falling down, cascading all around you.
And it's beautiful. I mean, the look of it, the soundtrack is incredible. And like you are just walking from point A to point B and that Kojima magic is just blasting you and it just makes everything feel like super just cool and important. And it doesn't really let up on that. And it doesn't bombard you with stuff at the beginning. Like, you know, there were cut scenes at the beginning where it's like, okay, what?
Why is this fragile lady eating these bugs? Why are they crying? What is the chiral network? I don't know. So like if you play the first one or if you even watch like, you know, a 20 minute recap of the basic concepts and things like that. There's no 20 minute recap. I watched the 20 minute recap while I was there to kind of refresh me.
And yeah, as long as you just know the basic thing of like, okay, there has been this extinction level event and humanity is very disconnected right now. And in the first one, there were these porters that were, you know, Sam was trying to connect basically this network, like Wi-Fi across America. And it starts out and Fragile's like, hey, there's a BT heading towards dead man's lab across the border. Can you start spreading the chiral network down into Mexico?
And that's kind of how it starts is like, okay, well, shit, we connected America. Now let's connect Mexico after like seven or eight hours in Australia. Like, so like I probably spent over 20 hours in Australia connecting that. And then, you know, there are characters that pop up, like Higgs, Troy Baker's character from the first game, who, you know, you presume dead.
So there are larger story beats. I don't want to spoil or anything. And there are definitely some dramatic things that happen early on that are not just like, hey, we need to spread the Chiral Network. And if you were confused by any of it, which I understand...
There is something called a corpus, which is like, I heard recent Final Fantasy had something like this, but I haven't played that, so like avowed is my point of reference, where it's like, you know, a proper noun or a location or something. A glossary, yeah. A glossary that you can pull up.
Exactly, yes. You pause. You say, like, oh, right, that guy was in Fight Club. Yeah. No, so it's got that. So it's like, oh, fuck, what is Kyrillian? Or it's fragile. It's like, oh, I've been suffering from jump shock from too many trips to the beach.
And if you're like, wait, what does that mean? You can, during a cutscene, go into the corpus, and it's a very, very in-depth glossary of terms, tutorial stuff, because there's so many systems and things you can do, too. It's got all of that handily available. I like this trend of us getting glossaries, but I also do feel like it's empowering.
Kojima to be even more into his bullshit than ever. Let him keep doing it because this is a lot better than the first game. Okay. All right. That's good news. Dollman is my favorite. Tell me about Dollman. Dollman? Okay, Dollman was a normal dude, human. What? Yeah, he was formerly a normal guy. He got reverse Pinocchio'd? Yeah, that sucks. Well, not quite that simple. No, his ka got separated from him and wound up in the ha of a puppet.
That's what happened to H. John Benjamin's character in What Hot American Films.
the puppet would look older but he maintains his youthful appearance because uh rainy The woman who's seven months pregnant the baby won't get past seven months because she's like a still mother She causes time fall rain all the way around her when she goes outside that causes everything to age but in a 1.5 meter radius around her it's core fall rain which makes things younger so every once in a while when she's taking a shower um rainy will allow uh doll man the puppet to take a shower with her
and the shower water turns into Corfall since it's so close to her, and then it makes the puppet look younger. It's just incredible you guys ever give Kingdom Hearts shit. It's just insane to me. The things you say about... If Donald Duck waddled in, I'd be like, this is ridiculous. I'm not playing this. What have I told you that Donald Duck's the most powerful wizard in Final Fantasy? Dude, doll man, okay.
So I always talk to him every time I go back to my private room. And at one point, he was like, oh, Sam, I see you got that music player. Oh, you got this one track from, I forget the artist. That's the best track.
and out of curiosity because this is a kojima game i'm like what happens if i play this song for this puppet And I started playing the song and it triggered an entire J-pop dance sequence with five doll men doing like a synchronized like a super crazy dance and one of the doll men turns into what I assume is an actual like J-pop singer and it's like a full thing and if you pan the camera around you see Norman Reedus
watching the doll man j-pop dance and he's like yeah yeah yeah i think they showed that at like south by southwest if you look up doll man dance that's stranding you'll probably see it all right It's just filled with the goofiest shit, but it's so much fun. Move over, Claire Obscure. Game of the Year is here. I mean...
So, okay, but, okay, so in Death Stranding 1, you kind of start off slow like mike was saying and then eventually you get a few chapters in and you're just connecting everything That is.
still the connecting part is still the bulk of the gameplay right or you are going from outpost to outpost to prepper to prepper and you are like you know doing a delivery or two for them and they're like okay cool yeah I'll let you bring us on the chiral network and you put your USB drive in there it floats and they're on the chiral network so that still happens but like the in between stuff is like that's where the kind of like Phantom Pain feel comes in because there are enemy outposts and
I just by default started playing this like I played Death Stranding 1, which is just avoiding every bandit camp and stuff because I just don't want a bunch of angry guys throwing lightning sticks at me. That was not enjoyable in the first game. And I know eventually you could get non-lethal weapons and stuff in the first game, but in this one, everything's non-lethal. So it's like you're getting like a Trank sniper rifle. You're getting assault rifles.
that just feel like you're shooting an assault rifle, but they're technically rubber bullets. But I mean... It feels like you're storming these outposts and stuff like it's Phantom Pain. You're building a watchtower. You're tagging everyone.
You can take Dollman and throw him over camp, and he floats in the air like a drone, and you see through Dollman's eyes, and you tag guys, and then you can, like, suck Dollman back to you, and he's, like, once praised, like, oh, Sam, did I do a good job? Yeah, Dollman, but he did great. You know what? That's not weird enough. I'm not joking. I'm not joking. Like, I've been watching anime now, and that's just not weird enough. It's just not weird enough. Do better.
I was laughing out loud at points. There was one part where it's like, you know, I saw some people compare it to Mimir, like a dude that hangs off your belt and talks, but Mimir sucks and just spoils puzzles for you. Dollman is just hilarious and fun and useful. And as I was walking towards this like river,
And Dollman was trying to explain to me because there's a new system where if it rains, river levels will rise and stuff and make it harder to kind of go across. Oh, that's cool. He's attached to my belt, and he's trying to warn me about this. And as I'm approaching the river, I'm like, hey, Sam, you know the rivers when they rise and stuff? But I didn't realize as I was going into the river, the second he went underwater, he's like, hey, Sam, so the rivers are That's pretty good
And I got out and he's like, oh, God, Sam. You see? He got me. Put him on your shoulder. What's the problem? He's so much fun. I do want to play this. I'm not going to go back to Death Stranding 1. I just don't really have time. You think I'm going to be fine just watching a video?
We do a podcast together all the time. Ask me about the story. I actually do think I've come to a point where I get the big beats of Death Stranding's story. But it's better told in this one. I compared it in my article to like This is more like the first three seasons of Arrested Development where it's this ensemble cast and they actually talk to each other. Whereas the first game was more like,
Just two characters at a time, it seemed like. Okay, I'm talking to Hartman in his lab. Okay, now Fragile visits me in the private room. This one, you're like on a crew. You're basically on a flying metabolism.
not flying it can ride the tar current so it can go down into because okay so tar man who looks like george miller the the mad max director it's just his likeness not his voice he's missing a hand which you'll learn why in a flashback and so he can kind of put his hand in the pilot hole of the Metal Gear head it's called the DHV Magellan but it's just a Metal Gear Rex and so his hand is technically in the tar current so his hand is kind of on the beach because his hand is dead
so but in the tar you can like talk to his beach hands you know this right you're following and then uh so he can navigate the dhv magellan through the tar current so it can like go down and underground to the tower and that's why it's okay for me to just play this game without playing the Yes. Yeah, they don't talk about this shit. He just explained it all to you. No, I got it. Mikey, maybe you don't need to ask questions.
No, they're bad. Dan, I think you should do a video where you're forced to recap the story of Death Stranding One. I could try. Give them a time. That's me, and I'll recap Kingdom Hearts to you. Oh, God. Okay. And then the three of us will grade it. Yeah, there we go. Sure, sure. Which was more coherent. Yeah. I like that. It felt great. I will play another 30 hours of this and then everything. They said that was 30 to 40% of the game was my turn now. Oh, Jesus. Yeah.
How much more walking can Sam do? All right, well, that does it for the first segment of the podcast. That's going to do it for Game Talk. We're going to take a quick break. You're going to hear from a sponsor, and then Jeff Grob will be back with the news right after this. This episode of Giant Bomb is brought to you by Kinda Funny. When we said we were going into
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them a chance whether it's your first listen or your first It's fine. Welcome back. we're back. Thank you for joining us. This is a giant bomb cast episode 819. And speaking about joining john bomb.com slash join best way to support us moving forward. And I need support because I don't know what's next. Oh, it is the news. God, I forgot about this music!
I'm here. Yeah, yeah. You mentioned giantbomb.com slash join. People might have heard an ad. If you don't want ads, go to giantbomb.com slash join and you get ad-free versions of all our shows. there you go there there's the first bit of news a second bit here marvel 1943 rise of hydra has been delayed uh show of hands who knew or thought marvel 1943 rise of hydra was going to come out this year me
What is that? I don't even know if I know what the fuck it is. It's just my hand. This is the aiming headache one. It is kind of a World War II era game that has Captain America and a Black Panther, one of the Black Panthers. And they're like the lineage of Black Panther kings. So are they, like, killing Hitler in this? Like, what's happening? They might, yeah. I mean, if you're going to make a video game set during World War II, I think you would want to go that route. I hope so.
They'll probably have a more Marvel, maybe Red Skull or something like that. He was always mixed up with them, right? Yeah, Red Skull is a Nazi. He's a straight-up Nazi, right? He's a Nazi. Yeah, he's one of them. He's from the SS, at least in the movie. I don't know. Some of the stuff I read, he was a member of the SS's...
super secret science division or whatever. Something like that. Right, right. He's Red Skull because they tried to do their own super soldier serial. Why are we explaining it? Dan's an expert. Go ahead, Dan. Explain all of the lore of Captain America and Black Panther. He is a... Captain America is a time traveler who's very strong because they gave him the Joker venom and he has a boomerang shield and he hates Nazis. And Black Panther is like an Atlantis situation. There's like a...
Kinda. I think it's like a Dr. Robotnik sky fortress that grows from the water like Atlantis. Are you talking about the same thing? That's Wakanda. They charge up. They charge up their, it's like a Power Ranger thing. I don't... That's 100% correct, Dan. Thank you all. If only they were taking showers with each other, he'd remember.
Taking showers with each other. What? You just explained that's what they do in Death Stranding 2. 10 minutes ago. I heard showers together. I thought of Starship Troopers. Puppet taking a shower with the magic always seven months pregnant girl. I'm the only one that made an impact on He's got some very selective memory of what he wants to remember, right? So that's what he does not want to remember. That's it. I remember that Sarsha Tripper scene.
Alright, so that's Amy Hennig's game. Yeah, I never thought that was coming out. That did not sound like a game that was coming out this year. We haven't heard anything about that, really. We got that trailer, and that seems like it was forever ago. We have not heard much about it. Yeah, so you're right. We still don't know a lot. It is developed in Unreal Engine 5. They're using stuff like the epic tools like Meta, Human, that make it easier for them to create cool 3D characters or whatever.
all stuff that we heard because i think this game had a relationship with epic to like show off unreal engine like it was in like one of those unreal engine uh demonstrations so that's all we've had it was first revealed in 2022 um i expect they will just for this one you know like when grand theft auto 6 got delayed right it was Like, okay, I wasn't too surprised that we got a trailer because
That's a massive, massive company that probably did have an asset ready to go in case that game was going to come out. Here, I bet this one actually does go radio silent until next year when they are much closer to actually releasing it. I don't think this game is not coming out, but it is a concern with this more so than a Grand Theft Auto 6 where that game is going to happen eventually.
But, you know, Amy Hennig has had a lot of false starts recently. The idea of just making a Marvel game and it immediately being a hit, that's not really the case anymore. at all. So I hope that we do still see this game. I hope development is going smoothly and that this is a normal delay. Do you all know who the publisher of this game is? Uh, no. No. EA?
No. it is uh sky dance interactive oh that's the mission impossible place right yeah they're related yes exactly it's the interactive side so you know they're probably not working hand in hand with tom but They, yeah, I don't know. I just don't know what else they've done, right? I guess I'll click this button here on Google where I double check to make sure that was the case.
and games all right here's the games tab let's see if there's anything recognizable i'm guessing they're not going to have anything the size of a marvel 1943 okay that's right uh behemoth the skydance is behemoth was that the one that they're doing with the um on the team Mercury.
what's your mercury steam right uh okay maybe i was thinking of something else then yeah um retro they did walking dead saints and sinners uh arch archangel retribution another walking dead game so stuff like that um okay either way to me when i hear that
that makes me think also like that there's a slightly higher chance we never see this game because it's a publisher and maybe didn't know what they were getting into with let's making amy hittig's next big game let's make it a marvel game there's just a lot of fast
there right i mean those games were hard to make back when you know her games were actually coming out and so much has changed since then in terms of being able to make one of these with you know the kind of vision that she has she does great stuff but That's difficult, especially when you don't have a Sony or a 2K behind you.
Yep, absolutely. Okay, well, we'll see. I do hope that she's able to get this game out because it's been a long go of it since her last game, and a lot of people are looking forward to that one. all right next up uh a rumor a leak suggests why maybe so many of the switch to launch games are game key cards as a reminder game key cards are
The version of the game cards that will show up at retail that if you order the physical version of a game, you might get it. It might have a big white label on the bottom that says, There is no actual game on this game key card. Instead, it is going to just download it to your system, but you'll use the game key card. to access the game so what that does is it enables you to resell the game although i imagine it's not going to have a ton of collector value for people who collect physical games
Either way, a lot of games are using this at launch. In fact, there's only a couple of standouts like Cyberpunk. is getting a lot of cred from fans right now because uh that game is gonna be be entirely on the card most other ones are not and this rumor says the reason for that is mostly because of what nintendo offered up you could either go digital which would have been like a coat in a box.
You can have a game key card or a 64 gigabyte card, which is prohibitively expensive for most developers, unless you absolutely need 64 gigabytes. you would have to pay you don't need that much size and those cards are super expensive compared to like the switch which had eight and 16 gigabytes as options for cards
and those were much more affordable. Now, that will probably change here pretty quick. This sounds like something that's just happening because Nintendo's getting things up and running, but that seems to be the case. So, hang on. So they announced at a recent direct that like that keys, did they call it key cards? That system where it's like, oh, I could lend you this game. That's virtual game cards. That's virtual game cards of these.
game key cards are physically they look like the card they go into they actually go into the system and you can resell it and like without the card you wouldn't have access to the game anymore so you could resell it That's right. Exactly. Well, I mean, isn't that kind of like how... Like PS4 even games? There are a lot of games on both Xbox and PlayStation that have discs.
that basically behave exactly like a game key card. Yeah, it triggers a download. You have to still download the whole game and have it in the system to play it, right? Yes, it's not a maybe codified system or as hard codified as it is here, but... Really, people's issue is Every single game, for the most part, with a few exceptions, are going this route.
And there's a lot of people who have really enjoyed buying physical on Switch and they built up a massive collection and they sort of want to keep that going. But then they see that big white label that says this isn't going to work in 20 years when you want to actually play this thing again. And they balk at that. Now, some like limited run games which has its issues for sure but uh they have said that whenever they put out
one of their numbered games, which is, I guess they have like a numbering system, kind of like Criterion Collection did for a while. I don't know if they still do, but when they put out one of their numbered games, those will always have the game entirely on the card, although they have put out one so far that is going to be a game key card.
So, yeah, I think this is a problem for now until Nintendo gives developers and publishers more options for 8 and 16 gigabyte sized cards, but that's probably a little bit of a ways off for now. Tekken director is trying to bring the game to Waffle House, but to no avail. Yes, Tekken boss Katsuhiro Harada says he's attempting to collaborate with Waffle House.
but he's been unsuccessful. He's trying to set a stage at Waffle House because at one point on social media, whenever he's like talking about levels that people are saying, hey, what do people want to see in the game? And everyone's like, oh, we want to have a fight at Waffle House. Why does everyone keep making this joke? and everyone explained it to him, which was a lot of fun to watch online.
And so since then, he's been really in on this idea and he wants to make a Waffle House level. Waffle House apparently has not returned his calls. What is wrong with them? yeah buddy how much time yeah let's race harada let's race harada to like a waffle house like deal well what happens first does he get waffle house or do i get rb yeah there we go oh that's the race yeah It is, to be fair, like... It would be weird if I was on Blue Sky and saw a Waffle House
social media account. Like, I don't want that company to be online. I just want to go to Waffle House when I need Waffle House. Yeah, that's fine. But what does that have to do with anything? Of course they're hard to reach. They're hard to get in contact with. They have a corporate contact. I'm sure there's... There's always a way. There's always a way. I mean, they've got to have some kind of...
you know, professional facing like a way to get in touch with them. Come on. Do they not realize how, well, I guess we don't know if they've been contacted, if they're even aware of this because Somebody has to understand a game as popular as tech and the amount of marketing they would get. Corporations. Corporations can sometimes be weird and the people in charge can be like, well, that's not very good for our brand app.
fighting outside a waffle house. Yeah, not like it happens every single day on the planet in every video online that you ever post from our restaurants. Include that and only that. I thought I saw some good. I've never been I want to go I've never been the closest one is probably a thousand miles away from it it's very Midwest
Yeah, definitely. I definitely prefer Waffle House to like IHOP or any other one. Yeah, I can easily believe that. You know, when I went to, for the first time on my, when I drove down to Florida, my pop was a Buckees. Buckees. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what? Yeah, Buc-ee's, right? Buc-ee's. I keep doing the N. The N isn't there. Get the N out. What N? What did he say? He said Buc-ee's.
It's Bucky's. Okay. There's an... Okay. Wait, wait, wait. Say it one more time, Mike. Bucky's. I don't know how you said it before. Bucky's. No! I got me! Sorry, I'm so sorry. I think they're nuts, actually. They're very good. I bet they are. You drove to Disney from where you live? My dad wanted to drive down there and he bribed me into going with him by, you know, we're going to get there early. Then I flew back with my brother's family. But did he force you to have the CPAP in the back?
no no that yeah he was he was going to do that for a while He insisted that it was a normal thing to require from me. I think it was only when we were in the car he realized how ridiculous his request was. I got no strips. I'm like, look, I'm not going to snore that much, and I didn't. You just drive me to Disney and I'll sleep for 15 hours. Thank you. The ultimate passenger princess. Absolutely. My stepmom was there too. It's not like I just
completely left him out the drive. No, I could see you with like an eye mask on and your CPAP machine just sleeping in the back and be like, work me when we get to Bucky's, thanks. in ohio for summer slam he always just sat in the back we just set him up with some bluey and he would fall asleep that's sweet Bucky's is pretty good though, I had a chopped brisket sandwich there. I don't know if you could have all been.
it's never been it's been hyped up insane and still i was very impressed with what was going on in there it's a whole situation at bucky's yeah it sounds like it it's a whole thing a cult almost I was going on about loves, because we got a loves here, and that's great. But Bucky's, it's like a town. it's like it's more than that it's a town it's a community yeah yeah when you're here your family yeah i i want to go i went like how far did you guys drive before you started
Florida. I think we are getting one somewhere in Ohio. Maybe by Columbus. I don't know. That's why the only people I see tweeting about Buc-ee's are wrestlers. Yeah, it's wrestlers and theme park people who I think have discovered Buc-ee's first. Diagram's a circle. um all right stellar blade is coming to pc in june with a ton of new outfits of course uh there was a leaked trailer i think playstation accidentally leaked it uh but yeah june 11th
I played a little bit of this game, thought it was pretty okay, and I definitely was like, I'll play it when it comes to PC, and now we're almost there. Did any of you spend any time with Stellar Blade? Yeah, I liked it. Five or six hours? That was pretty good. Yeah, that was pretty good. It's fun. It was hard to not kind of let, you know, the outside stuff sort of intrude on my mind space while playing it. What do you mean? What do you mean? Oh, you know, the Gooners.
oh oh right that's why i also read the headline i was like outfits come on they're not really wearing a lot in this no um i think uh there is a tangible desire for this that i think as like uh manifested uh help manifest this pc situation right like there has been
I've gotten that. I've extracted that from... I don't know. I guess the gooners, right? But like... They wanted this on PC. Probably because they want to be naughty. But they want it on PC. How do they do that? I don't know. I'm not a hacker. They should take every outfit from Stellar Blade and put them one-to-one in Donkey Kong Bonanza. Yeah, there we go. That's a new partnership that's definitely happening.
uh switch two's price may pose challenges for first year sales says for okawa uh that's nintendo's president basically they had a chance to talk to investors and kind of explain things a little bit and they are setting their expectations for the first fiscal year At 15 million Switch 2s, Sold to consumers.
and uh people are like that's you know that's really high still but pretty modest uh compared to the way nintendo's been talking and some other things and nintendo's like yeah we're gonna be a little conservative because we admit the price is maybe even a little bit higher than we wanted um you know in so many words he said that but like we we we acknowledge
that the high price is going to be a hurdle for some. So we're setting our expectations at 15 million. They are likely to get past that. This thing's probably going to be closer to like 20 million. But i don't know i don't know about you all but i do feel like we have actually moved past the price conversation with the switch too it was a big thing those first couple of days and then the tariffs came immediately after and that's that definitely distracted
but now i think people have just accepted this is the price even if you don't like it and a lot of people are paying well a lot of people are worried that the price is going to get even higher there right exactly it almost makes this initial price look a little bit better and you know we do have xbox actually raising the price of an xbox series x like that thing is uh six hundred dollars now right two terabyte one uh like last week we'll catch you up on
holy shit the two terabyte one that's not like a xbox pro or anything like that it's just an xbox series x but with two terabytes and it's got like a design on it is seven hundred and thirty dollars What? It's fine, Backlark, because every other item you own in your house is an Xbox already. I mean, I only play Xbox games on my PC, folks. I mean, haven't we gotten a good indication that like people are fucking...
belligerently pre-ordering this thing into oblivion? Yes. Yes, they are. It also seems like Nintendo does have way more than what is normal for a launch. Seems like they are able to serve that massive demand to a point that is pretty impressive. So I think this thing is going to have an enormous start here. I think they're just, what they're looking at is,
Will the demand be as fever-pitched as it has been for past consoles as people who are sitting on the sidelines get in later? And will that price scare off those people? Because the nerds we're talking about now are just going to rush and get this thing. It's the hangover, yeah. Yeah, we're just going to go, we'll brute force our way through whatever price they kind of put in front of us up to a point, but obviously this was not that point.
and again i will rely on my uh busyness in the last month or so what have they talked about the price of like the upgrade for like a tears of the kingdom Yeah, so it's kind of different depending on stuff like that. I think Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild are $10, but You get them if you're a subscriber to Nintendo Switch Online expansion pack. And it's like, the Kirby game and Mario Party, those upgrades are also coming with expansions, like new content, so those are 20.
is it gonna be fucking annoying with like dib playing the original because the first thing you said was i got the original right and i'm like man So what's your concern there? Because there are some developments there as well. What's your concern? So thank you. I'm worried that like, We both can't play the same game that we sort of own. So they did just introduce that virtual game card system. So if you are a family and people are in your family, you can...
You can share a virtual game card with someone else and they can just have it for two weeks and then it automatically at that point reverts back to you. But basically think of your virtual digital games now as working exactly like a game card. So you can lend it to him. Or if you have a share account, if you have a family account, there's some extra sharing stuff there. But you can't play the same game at the same time anymore. So that's, if it's digital, at least.
Everything's digital. Yeah, sure is. All right, yeah, Switch 2 coming out soon. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, it really is all I can think about. I'm like, God. Really? Switch 2 coming out, yeah. I'm very excited. I'm excited too, but like, It's just Mario Kart. No. Oh, Jeff. Oh, Jeff. That Mario Kart looks so good. I'm excited for Donkey Kong. That's July. Also, just Mario Kart. Just Mario Kart's enough. And what? Don't forget about the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour.
Yeah, $10 for a welcome tour. They're charging for a tutorial, I understand. And F0GX. So much Soulcalibur 2. It's not going to be funny. Yeah, okay, that's okay. I mean it was that meant to like excite me or Excite you oh my yes, do it for your soul caliber doesn't do it for you
I want to replay Tears of the Kingdom. I want to really do that. That's what I'm excited for. That's going to be my... biggest time suck i'll play matter card's great i'm i'm i'm into it i like the uh the thing they're doing there but Yeah, I think after Donkey Kong, maybe things are drying up a little bit. But we don't know when Metroid's coming out, and it won't be this year for sure. Ain't no epic holiday. Maybe we'll have a Mario or something. And I've done that open world Pokemon Legends.
Sirius has been over recently. Again, I'm not understating how excited I am. I just think the time period is not, it's not all just in three weeks.
so even when i'm like even beyond that though when i was talking about being excited i talk and think about i kind of do just want an upgraded switch hardware that feels nice to hold because my switch is getting rickety like that's just the reality so that's a big part of it yeah agree uh horizon 3 as in like uh sony's gorilla games's horizon uh series could come out in 2027 like obviously they're going to be working on a new one of these right uh this is the most recent rumor
Gorilla's also apparently working with someone else on a Horizon MMO. That's been rumored before. and a multiplayer title that is anticipated before Horizon 3. So they got a lot going on over there. But they still seem like all in on Horizon. Yeah, that's surprising. Thank you guys. That's interesting.
i don't know if it excites me it's i don't know what it does for me if it does who are do we know horizon people sean sean is a horizon person oh really yeah that's my point right just that on a scientific poll You know, that's a small minority. Somebody's got to be buying these games. i think they're pretty good games odd and they pack them in too yeah this seems soon though forbidden west came out in 2022 five years as a very fast turnaround for these games and what they are now.
i feel like they've they got like all the tools for these games now right yeah and this is this is the the development team is the team that makes the engine here the decimate engine right so that they should be the ones that are kind of masters of that and even like you know kojima working with the decim engine for death straining death straining 2 he's been he's been able to do stuff relatively quickly from the outside
not being guerrilla so i don't know five years for me sounds like especially for the third game in a series where they the the changes don't necessarily need to be ground shaking they can kind of just continue to build on what they've already done i don't know that sounds right to me although it was five between the first one and the second one i i guess part of it is like what's the scope here do they feel a need to once again make it bigger bigger bigger because two is
has to be big enough for just about everybody, right? I hope so, yes. We don't necessarily need big. So I guess that means that Half-Life 3 will come out the day after. Yes, right there. What was it? The first one was Zelda Breath of the Wild. The second one was Elder Ring. Yep. Gosh. Incredible.
yet they still do very very well there's still tons of people who like these games they have it's almost become It's like more flagship for PlayStation than anything Naughty Dog these days just because it takes so long for them to make a game now and they just keep releasing Astro Bot.
it should be but and i love astrobot and astrobot does do well but it doesn't sell as well as these are not and they're not pushing astrobot they should they should as well we'll get another astrobots i'm not worried about oh yeah for sure uh tony hawk himself wants an underground remaster after three and four of course he does he sees value he gets it he gets it he says he'll try to campaign but he did say of course that it's up to activision um
I mean, what do we think the chances are of an underground after three and four? We didn't think three and four was going to happen, and they did, so... Yeah, I could see it. Everyone should buy three and four and keep these coming. Yeah. Okay, then what does Underground need to do? Because three and four, they're kind of adapting four to be more like three or one, two, and three to make that make sense.
For Underground, they probably wouldn't be able to do that. They're going to have to sort of change up the foundational structure of how the game works mechanics-wise. uh what do they need to do to sort of it needs to be more one-to-one because people do want that campaign with the npcs the story with eric sparrow was very important here So, you know, I think you do a one-to-one there. If you put Thug 2 in with it, that's where it gets a little weirder because that game was so tied to Jackass.
right as a brand that was too much for me at that time i was like i don't want this much jackass in my tony hawk game it was it was a lot even for back then so what do you do now do you just like maybe just do one just do one yeah you think you just do one i think you go straight to project eight
That's what you're doing. Project 8's pretty good. Project 8. rules yeah i hated project eight really why because you thought it was too awesome like what like there's too cool maybe i was drinking the skate kool-aid at that oh the skaterade i mean that game really had such a satisfying new look at
doing the tricks in slow motion like i think that was that was the biggest game changer for what they were doing they should do i think you got a lot of nostalgia juice for thug one remake that and then do something new if we're gonna do then we probably don't need to worry too much more about the remakes and remasters at that point you know american wasteland that's all fine and dandy if they wanted to sure i would check it out but uh
Super nostalgia. Probably as with Thug One. You can maybe get away with Thug Two if you can figure that out. It's a little bit more complicated again. But at least Thug One. I think there's, yeah, I forgot who said it here, but like, yeah, there's too much jackass in Thug 2. That if it was already a process to get Bam back onto the roster...
Who knows what it's like to get the rest of those dudes on. Just replace Jackass with the cast of a modern TV show. Us. Us. RuPaul's Drag Race. Alright, I'm Steve-O. succession i'm uh succession family man you guys are pros you know this you guys i had to zone out uh and you guys talked the entire time while i got my gamecube controller so there we go back and actually you should click in and place any second now okay all right you went to the site not too long all right back to the news
Capcom reports eighth consecutive year of record profits as Monster Hunter Wild sells 10.1 million copies. That's really fast. They kind of rushed to 10 million copies. Let's see some of the other games they have listed here. Monster Hunter World eventually got to 28.5 million copies sold. That's nuts. um rise is 17.18 and then resident evil 4 remake is 9.92 so it's already outsold the best-selling resident evil game ever and and
World and Rise, they would kind of get second lives when the PC versions would come out for those, right? Because those were later. This time you had the PC right away. But... they can do a switch two version and that'll be another big boost for wild and i bet uh that will absolutely happen this game will continue to sell well for a while right and the big part of that number for world has got to be when they introduced what was
Sunbreak Iceborne for that one. And then Sunbreaker something for Rise. There'll be the big expansion at some point. Exactly. In the old days of Monster Hunter, they would have a whole new game that was basically an expansion, but they introduced it as a new game, sort of like Pokemon used to do the third games. Now they do... DLC, and that helps them sell even more because they package those up again basically as a new package, but some people buy it that way.
All right, this is the most important story of the day. Krispy Kreme and Bandai Namco announce Pac-Man Donuts. If you like fluffy. These look amazing. Yes, they look so good, right? I'm going to have to try to find a Krispy Kreme around me. Oh, that's awesome. Holy shit. Don't they just look appetizing as hell? Yeah. I don't know. They're a bunch of, like, they have a donut that looks like one of the fruit, like the cherry or whatever. Oh, my God.
This is art. This is art. I want a donut so bad. I love donuts. God, donuts are good. The campaign is only available in the United States. So once again, another win for the hegemonic powers of the United States. You guys are in the France and UK. Yeah, this is winning. Let me tell you. This is what it looks like, everybody. All right, enjoy your free healthcare. God. Don't eat too many foods.
Yeah, I'm going to try to track one of these down. We'll see if I can get one. I live very close to one. I'll try and track it down as well. does yours have the um the sign that turns on yeah yeah yeah it has like a hot fresh and ready one yeah i have so much fucked up thing though is sorry mike the fucked up thing though is that By me, it's a Krispy Kreme in the same plaza as an In-N-Out burger, and it's down the hill from a hospital.
Oh yeah, or attached to a city MD walk-in urgent center or something. DMV's across the street, actually. Great. I have so much guilt and regret with Krispy Kreme as a brand. Go on. What? What did they do to you? Because they had one. My brother went to school in Pittsburgh. We would visit him a lot because he was like the first. wanted to go to college and my parents went to visit him almost every weekend and we had to go um
You know, there's a Krispy Kreme on the way there, and that was a very special treat, and we went almost every time to the Krispy Kreme, and it was awesome. We loved it. And then, like, a few years later, they opened one just in our town. And we went to that one, like, one time and never again because it wasn't special anymore. And it closed down two years later. And I always feel kind of responsible.
that yeah it's your fault for sure um i've gone to the crispy cream website specifically the find a shop feature have a feature on the site that allows you to filter by the hot now sign. Apparently a hot now sign indicates that the welcoming glow of the Krispy Kreme hot light means our donuts are piping ready.
And deliciously divine right now. There's no better time to enjoy them. That means they're fresh out the oven. You get them off your finger belt, which is what you do. And if you go there when they're fresh, sometimes they'll just give you a... Wow. Yeah. The people that make the donuts, once they're done making the donuts, as soon as they come on the oven, they flip on a switch that turns on a sign outside that says, we just got done making fresh donuts. I guess that's...
kind of fucking awesome, but also like fucked up at the same time. Can things be awesome and fucked up at the same time? Yeah, but look at us. I think most of our society care. I have to go to Milwaukee or Des Moines if I want to get Krispy Kreme. My nearest one's 17 miles away. Mine's like just out of reach where it's crazy. I'm going to go there after work. There's no chance the Pac-Man donut's going to show up at the play when you go to a 7-Eleven and they have the Krispy Kreme. No.
No, I think so. I think you're right. I agree. Alright, I'm going to Akron now for this thing. Damn it. I had it all and I threw it away. That's how it goes, man. Ooh, cinnamon roll donut? The fuck is that? That's just good. It's mostly a cinnamon roll because cinnamon rolls are donuts. kind of already do you guys like have easy access to cronuts yeah yes actually a very local bakery makes them they're great a cronut like the the generic cronut
I think so, yeah. Yeah, because I feel like there was a place in Brooklyn that tried to, like, own that. Sure, no, no, just generic croissant mixed with a donut. There's plenty of fancy bakeries where I am, and they'll do, they'll give you a cronut. No problem. Okay, all right, I'm going to try. Great. Oh, that's so good.
The first time I ever had one, Mike, was that Games Beat trip to LA to that resort that we had. Oh, right. They had a bakery there. We lost all that money because it was too fancy, but it was a great time. It was a good time. I'll find you a bakery in LA, Grub. Hell yes, that would rule. Alright, last story here. Shifting gears, Microsoft announces plans to lay off thousands of more workers, it says here. 3% of staff is the plan, and that would be around 7,000 people.
There's not a lot of details beyond that about how it's going to affect individual brands under Microsoft. Like, oh, is this going to affect Xbox more than anyone else? Not a lot of information out there about that when I was looking into this. Of course, Xbox has already had a bunch of layoffs. They were like left off, let go of like 2,000 people last January, something like that.
So they continue to shrink. These companies really built up a lot over the pandemic and they hired and hired and hired like crazy. And it seems like they are trying to cut back from that. Now, at the same time, a lot of companies are. holding on to employees because they're unsure of the future. But it's either that or we hear news like this and Microsoft doesn't seem to be pulling out of that tailspin anytime soon. All right. That does it for the headlines.
I'm handing this show back over to you, Jan Ochoa. Oofa doofa. Well, we're going to go take a quick break and we will be back with emails right after this. This episode of Giant Bomb is brought to you by Kind of Funny. When we said we were going independent. Kinda Funny was the first group in our inbox because they believe in and want to support independent media.
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Giant Bomb, kind of funny, only exists because I'm Give them a chance, whether it's your first listen or your first time. They're the eating house. Emails. bombcast at giantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to normally uh however i don't have access to that email box right now so Lord knows where emails are going. They're going to someone right now. Someone may be reading them.
and I appreciate every single one of them. I'm not going to stop you from sending them in, so continue to send them in, and they'll go to someone. BombCastGiantBomb.com. In the meantime, though, I've solicited... The Giant Bomb Discord, which is a fun place to hang out. A lot of fun, fine folk running the ship over there. A lot of fine convos happening there. I'm in the livestream tab of the Discord, and I fielded some queues.
Starting with Postman. What's the wildest thing about becoming a co-owner of an internet brand? Everything. Finding out about it from Disney World. Yeah, I think you have us beat there. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it's the weirdest thing has been like all the stuff we didn't know we didn't know, right? It's like there's so many things to deal with of getting things set up.
And then it's like, you know, when we do start making content, it is looking around and being like, oh, we really can just start making whatever we want now because that's what people want us to do. So that's been cool. Certainly. The last night of PAX, I skirted off to my room because I was feeling a little sweepy. But shouts out to John that handed over some goods, if you know what I'm talking about.
uh part partook in some of those and then i was like oh i feel okay now and then i kind of just disassociated and i was just like talking to myself of like holy fuck yeah I could do whatever I want now. Yeah, we can't be fired. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, sure. uh but like if i wanted to do it i guess but if i was like hey guys i'm just gonna like i'm gonna take all the smoothie recipes from uh ring fit adventure and i'm just gonna make them
Yeah, you can just do that. Sure. Yeah, that's great. I like that. Should we bring the rock on our board? No. Yeah. Dwayne Johnson? Yeah, he's on the TKO board. He doesn't seem to cause any troubles there. No, he seems to just be fairly smooth. Level-headed, down to earth. Yeah, I think we should have Dwayne join. Can he just not?
Can he just, like, fucking not? Like, if he could help himself, he would have. Like, he's the highest paid, I think he's the highest paid actor in all of Hollywood. He was. Of the world. The world, yes. Of the world. Yes. Yeah. So like enough. Okay. He's crazy too. Yeah. Just fucking relax. Like you go on vacation dog. Like, you know he's got one of those like Curated personas where it's all about like how insanely hard he works
It gets up at 2 and does nothing but works and does meetings for 28 hours a day. That kind of like, right? That very curated image. I agree. Relax. Get up at nine. It's okay. You're going to get plenty. Yeah, he'll be fine. He looks okay in that new movie coming out.
That he's in Smashing Machine. Oh, that A24 one? Yeah, and I'm curious about the Scorsese one. But, yeah. Sure. Oh, he's doing serious movies now. We're here. We finally have to. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like the guy from Tropical Thunder or whatever. Tropic Thunder. Oh, yeah? Which guy on Tropic Thunder? Extrapolate that. The guy from Zoolander. Ben Stiller? Ben Stiller? My brother had a, uh, my younger brother had a I'm Perka-sizing shirt and it was, like, the people who knew.
Really liked that at Disney. It was a deep cut. I was pretty jealous of the reactions he was getting from that thing. God, heavyweight. SLAP! That's a... I love Heavyweights, I do. Of all the child ensemble movies made for kids and families from the 90s, it's better than Mighty Ducks, even. Heavyweights is the best. It's better than Sandlot.
I'm going to say it right now. Better than Big Green. Better than Big Green. Come on. Little Giants. Better than Little Giants. Better than Three Ninjas. Three Ninjas kicks back. Three Ninjas knuckle-ups. Angels are my favorite. Not better than rookie of the
It's not better than Mighty Ducks, you demon. It's not hockey, but it's better. My movie's barely about hockey. What are you talking about? Mighty Ducks has the most powerful... hockey move ever in existence that, as far as I know, has never been unleashed. The Knuckle Puck, obviously. That's two. No, it's three. I think it's three. Two has the Knuckle Puck. Two introduces the Knuckle Puck as if Disney invented the Knuckle Puck. Also, Tina Thompson did. Exactly. Please give it to me. Yeah, look
So what? They go to like downtown LA to learn how to play hockey better. I get it. It makes sense. also also uh you it is not better in any way than the sandlot how dare the sandlot sandlot's great are you kidding me it's fantastic heavyweights is just It is the best of those. Kind of by far, it is. So funny.
i love heavyweights i was really upset as a kid because i didn't know how to swim right i still don't and i could never be on like the blob thing i wanted one of those so bad that looked like so much fun the end of the movie where the zoolander guy is like he's on the rafters because he escaped prison They're showing the video of him like making them eat rats or something like oh Technique that he does like a triple backflip. Are you repeatedly referring to Ben Stiller as the Zoolander guy?
He's done that many times. It's upsetting. He's kind of pretty big. Also, he made Severin. He does know Jerry Stiller by name, though. George Costanza's dad. Yeah. King of Queens. Oh, I didn't realize I was going to be increasingly upset by this kind of stuff. Wow. Welcome back. Cool. Sick. Awesome and sick and cool. We just need three votes. I want to... We actually don't know that. Yeah, relax there. You think you know, but let me tell you. To answer the question of the original emailer, yeah.
That's the answer is oh my god. There's just so much more to even do as if my plate wasn't full enough before Now it's even more full and there's just a lot to do. That's the answer There's so much to do and so little time And that is equal parts freeing and amazing. uh exciting and all these things and yeah with a with a dash of horror right with a dash of a peppering in of of anxiety and horror yeah we're we're not a24 we're like the other indie film company neon
Oh, man. Shit's kind of stressful over there, huh? Are they sold out? I got in finally and it says item limit reach. Didn't let me. There's no add to cart. Oh, sorry. I got mine so I stopped paying attention. Yeah, sorry, bud. You have to pay for one-on-one. What happened to extending the ladder down, grub? Yeah, grub, jeez. That's done. I'm independent now. I'm a business owner. Get fucked. Did you sign in before you try to buy it, Dan? Because it's one per account.
Oh, am I still helping? Maybe not. Oh, log in and sign up. Oh, shit. Okay. You're welcome. I better have your vote for the next time you try to get me out of this. We'll see. We'll see. All right. Tanner writes in, two toppings. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. What? I just want to say this ahead of time. I'm sorry. Oh, shit. Okay. Two toppings for a hot dog that can't be ketchup. Chili and cheese. I would ideally have chili cheese and mustard on my hot dog, but, uh,
I wouldn't want just mustard and cheese or just mustard and chili. So if it's just two, I guess chili and cheese. Chili and Texas Pete's. That's my final answer. I am plagued by hot dogs. Like you're a genius. You're welcome, Dan. You're welcome. I got your vote. I'm checking out right now. I got your vote? For now. Yeah, come on. What have you done for me lately? Jen, you were answering. We're sorry. What was your... Oh, no, I'm sorry.
Just throw some onions on that bad boy and I'm good to go. Raw onions. Those raw onions, I don't get it. That's so much. The thing is they taste really good. They taste like... It's not about the taste. The texture of raw onions is pretty rough. Oh, okay. Wait, is it because it's, like, fruit adjacent? Oh, yeah, yeah. Raw vegetables may as well be fruit. We're on the ball.
Wait, wait. I'm just joining if you've come back to Giant Bomb. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a chance, Dan. You could actually... All right, let me try right now. I have a question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got no eyes on this now. Yes, Baccar. so like a chopped up pepper you're not nowhere near that dipping it into a like a ranch no cook that thing
Don't you have like tummy stuff because of raw veggies and that's partially why? Okay, to be clear, it's probably not good for my stomach, but I'm not using that as an out. I will not fucks with it anyways. Okay. Okay. All right. Love Zoo writes in. So happy y'all are back. I often think about how patio could be a really beautiful name. What other inanimate objects would make good names for babies? Dwarf. Worf's the guy from Star Trek. No, W-H-A-R-F. Parasol!
Parasol? Parasol? Parasol. Parasol isn't a thing. What's a parasol? Wait, you say parasol? Yeah, it's like an aerosol. Oh, that doesn't sound as good, man. It's O-L. It's O-L. Yeah, you're right. That doesn't sound as good, then. That's like, yeah, like aerosol. Okay. This is my daughter, Aerosol Monati. Obviously most good. Dr. Zabo was like a somebody in my school. I can't remember feels one of the problematic ones that went to jail or not There were many of them. To me there were many.
Mezzanine. Mezzanine is good. Oh, casserole is good. Cassie! Yeah. Cassie? Like, this is my daughter, Cass. What is casserole? GameCube? Yeah, GameCube, Rikert. Yeah, I like that. Oh, what about Double A? That's Arne Anderson. Arne Anderson will shoot you. No, no, like battery. Yeah, he'll still shoot you. Maybe not battery. I'm trying to convince everyone in my life to let me, if I have a son in the future, to let me name them Nacho.
You have my permission. There are people named Nacho on this planet, I promise you. Oh, for sure. Wasn't there a bad guy in Breaking Bad named Nacho? Better Call Saul. I think he's in both of them. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Yeah. that would be like one of the main characters just want you to know jan i'm kind of running through i'm i'm kicking the tires on that one you're talking about a nacho toa that's kind of
It's a bit of a tough. It's already Nacho Ochoa. Can it just be named Nach? So that's Nacho. All right. Well, Mike's a big fan of that guy's politics. How about Duffel? Duffel? Like a duffel bag. Are you just... Okay. Duffel. That's kind of cute. Duffel Manati. Duffel. First in his class. Duffel Manati.
I just looked down at this AGM I have here and I thought, oh, did he? And he's like, wait, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope
By the way, that Donkey Kong coaster in Epic Universe, that is so fun. Oh, I got to do it at night, too. It's so pretty at night. Last one, JPEG. Your first name, Jay. Middle name, Peg. Web P. All right, all right, moving on here. We'll only read a couple more. Fram writes in, who do you think of the five of you can jump the farthest? Farthest.
Well, Dan's been training for a marathon. I bet Dan... I just started, though, and it's rough right now. Okay, then maybe Bacalar, because he's going to have the glutes from hockey. Yeah, Bacalar's like an actual athlete. He's engaged in athletic activity. Yeah, and that skating really does. My legs are tree trunks. Yeah. It's not me. Yeah. It's probably Mike. No. I'd say Jan, too, because Jan's, like, limber. Like, with her somersaulting. I'll do better than anyone expects, but I won't win.
As long as you be dead, that's all that matters. I'll hurt myself very badly, probably. I wish I could dunk. Did I ever tell y'all when my dad used to pick me up from elementary school and like, you know, kids would be playing basketball. He would steal the ball from them and dunk on them. That's fucking awesome. Holy shit. My dad is like, you know, he's an old frail man now. Shouts out to him. But he used to buy those and one mixtapes.
watch them and teach himself how to do all those tricks. Did he pass any of that athletic prowess to me? No. My dad did the same thing. Sure, yeah. Yep, there we go. Our dad should start our rec league. And he's just like, learning these movies, he goes, game changer. we just got a basketball hoop in the driveway and obviously you lower that down to 8 feet immediately so you can fucking dunk
And that's been a lot of fun. Because that's the thing I can still do that Dib can't. And I'm going to continue to do that. Be careful. Because my dad. destroyed his knees playing basketball with my brother. It became a lifelong problem. He has new knees now. That's what it eventually led to. So careful. that's why i'm just skating skating i don't have that big problem you know since he's a doctor did he get to like install his own knees no Someone else do that
You could probably though, right? No. If you were a really good knee doctor, if you were like a great knee doctor, couldn't you replace your own knees? No. It would be very painful. Use your head. What do you mean? No, I bet you could. I'm not kidding. Why? Think about it.
Okay, so you know the mechanics of the situation. You've got the tools. Give yourself a local anesthetic. Okay, so you have to give yourself a new knee. From your perspective, and then what are you just like... spinal tapped are you just like completely numb from the waist what else do anesthetics impact maybe well if it's generally if it's general it knocks you out but i'm saying like if you just local up you know you're totally fine it's not enough like
If it was like end of the world situation and a doctor needed to replace their knee and had like, could they do it? Maybe? Maybe. I think they could. That's the best case scenario is maybe. Best, maybe. Yeah, they're like, at gunpoint. Like, replace your knee. Sure, maybe. The situation has changed since we first posited this. Replace your knee. They're going to do it. Okay, got it. How is my dad if he thinks he could have done it under the worst case scenario? I'm basically going to say no.
Man, that is some self-surgery that I am not interested in watching. There are so many other surgeries that would probably be like, that would make way more sense than knee surgery. I bet you could take out your own gallbladder with much more ease than you could replace a knee. You know? A cavity? I bet you could do a cavity. Cavity? Cavity? You don't want a mirror. I think you're wrong about that. Big mirror, yeah. Big mirrors.
All right. Thanks everyone for writing in to the show. Uh, bombcastandjiantbomb.com is the normal email address. Chat says... Although, when I got my vasectomy, my doctor told me of another doctor who did their own vasectomy. Yeah, that's literally a snip. Yeah, that's like... But balls are so much scarier than these.
Okay, oh my god. No, you're so wrong It's not a matter if you're getting punched in each of them. You're surgically It's making an incision and snipping a thing as opposed to taking out an entire joint. I'm just saying I'd be way more scared of ball sniffing than me. He's got himself convinced that this is all like how he originally thought we're done. Dan validates his entire thing. If he feels validated, it's over. Getting your knee replaced is a much bigger deal.
than a vasectomy. But if, okay, me at gunpoint, and they say replace your knee or snip your balls, I'm replacing my knee. You're gonna, like, slice your knee open, and you're gonna look and see all the shit that's in there, and you're gonna die. No, it's gonna suck, but at least it's not my balls. We are going. We are going. I can't argue. We are absolutely going to call you out. The new giant bomb is going to fucking We voted on it Dan, you have to do it!
Absolutely. I did not agree to this in the board meeting. Okay, last question comes from Slane. What do you call a werewolf YouTuber? what is it super ipad 12 oh yeah sure that's easy next question No, there's a punchline here. Yeah, I get it. I understand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And anyone have one? No. Um. What do you call a werewolf YouTuber? There's howl, there's moon, there's like and there's like and subscribe. Like and subscribe.
like and subscribe and that's what you should do to the giant bomb cast as well as all of our lovely other podcasts Here at giantbomb.com, giantbomb.com slash join. You can help support us. Giant Bomb is now completely independent. We're like a co-op grocery store now. That's right, you'll see us all stocking up the aisles, checking you out at the checkout line. Dan's working the fish counter, and he's just like presenting you as fish. I'm sorry, he's at the medical aisle just chopping me.
uh gang we got a lot of stuff going on uh but this week specifically um game mess mornings popping off wednesday thursday and friday yes that's right uh as well as a voicemail dump truck can't wait professional friday on friday uh dump trucks on thursday but tomorrow we start a brand new season Light Club. And this time, Mike is gonna look so cool. Mike is gonna look so cool. I'm gonna look so cool. Really cool.
Backlard, do you know what he's going to look like? I have no idea. Oh, okay. It's real good. Do you want to know or do you want to see it for yourself? I want to see it for the first time. Hell yeah. He's going to look so cool. Very cool. All right. Also, you know, you can catch us around the internet this week and probably leading into next week, we are going to be everywhere telling and spreading the good word of giantpom.com slash join.
Hey, Backlark, check your Discord real quick. I'm gonna get your reaction to how cool Mike's gonna look. I just said I wanna see it for the first time, man! I thought you meant the character! This is fucked up, alright. I'm in. What the hell? What you want me to lie to you it's a temperature joke isn't it Yep. Yep. that's tomorrow upf we talked about oh my god cool world Damn it's Cool World. No one remembers Cool World.
Maybe Power Stone? Yeah, Power Stone. Well, we'll do the whole fighting collection too, but we'll play a lot of Power Stone. Yeah, yeah, I want to do a quick look because there's a lot of games I'm looking forward to in there, but yeah, Power Stone multiplayer is going to be a... yeah that'll be most upf and we'll do a quick look as well so look forward to that yeah i'm gonna try and get some other quick looks up and running if you missed it this morning there is a doom the dark ages
quick look that Dan and Grubb put together. Might get a clear obscure one. May do a drop duchy, duchy, whatever the heck the game's called. Call whatever you want. Nubby's Number Factory, baby. Yeah, we'll do that. That's a good game. And yeah, anyone else got anything else left to say? If you want, I will rate on Twitch, but I'm about to pee right after this, and then I'm going to hop on the Jeff Gerstmann show, which should be live and in progress.
I'm going to hop on and catch up with Mr. Gerstman. So tune in there. Jeff has been showing lots of love and support. Thanks for being helpful. All right, everyone. I guess that's it. We'll see you next week somehow for another episode of the Giant Bomb Cast. He's been... I've been Mike, he's been Dan, I've been J- Genuinely. Or shoot. We love you! I'm not paying by the hour anymore. I don't have to try to stretch this show out as long as I
That's what you were doing? Those four-hour bombcasts make a lot of sense now.