Hello, gamers and non-gamers. Welcome back to the No Clip Crewcast. This is episode 222. We hit the triples. Big two episode. I'm joined by two. lovely gentleman this week, Frank Howley. Frank, how are you, my good friend? I'm great. We're recording this in the afternoon. It's like 78 degrees. The sun is out. I'm like, oh, this is perfect. It's spring. I'm happy.
Yeah, we're finally it's it's the almost the middle of April. By the time this is out, it'll be basically it'll feel like it. It's not quite warm up here, though. I'm glad you're having the warm, sunny California times. But yesterday it felt like minus 17 degrees Celsius. which I'll just in Fahrenheit is I'm sure cold.
So, yeah, brutal. I don't like it. I don't like Canada or East Coast winters. And, you know, who also probably isn't enjoying East Coast winters or maybe he is or Springs. I'm not sure. Jeremy, how's how's. The weather looking on the east coast of America. Well, here in northern Massachusetts, it snowed quite a bit yesterday. Yeah. All right. It did not accumulate. But after a little more than 12 years living in California where it's like.
You know, it's because it's always sort of like between 50 and 100 and it's always vaguely sunny or cloudy. Like it's never like fucking stormy for real out there. It kind of feels like the passage of time doesn't exist. And then you wake up one day and it's been 12 years.
Uh, so having, having the variance of intense weather, it just fucking, I just feel alive. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. The seasons are really, that's what give us some sense of normalcy. Although I'm sure in the past, it's exciting now to have seasons. But like 100 years ago, if it was cold for two extra days, that was like there was no more, no more fruits, no vegetables.
It was hell. Yeah. Like grandma would die because it rained for six days in a row. Exactly. She felt it in her bones. She still feels it in her bones. I bet. If it gets a little too humid, a little too sad and cold and rainy.
Sorry, can you tell that I'm not in a great mood? Can you tell I'm not exactly happy with the world? That was a joke that like a necromancer would make. Yeah, grandma felt it in her bones. I'm just thinking about old lady bones. You know, who's also thinking about old lady bones? Our patrons? Our battle pass holders. Hell yeah. Yes, our patrons who support us at patreon.com.
slash noclip. They support this 100% ad-free podcast. They fund our documentaries. They allow us to fly out to Sweden. Hey, speaking of, I should probably mention someone who's not here on the show. Regular listeners may be aware. Danny O'Dwyer is not with us. This week, just this week, because he's he's out filming something. And that's it. I will not say more as I don't want to break the NDA that I'm pretty sure I signed in my sleep. I can't remember.
I'm sure my signature's on some piece of paper somewhere. But he will be back with us, I think, next week, if not the week after. busy guy, always working. But like I said, this episode, you know, he couldn't go out and do all those things if it wasn't for all of your fantastic support. So thank you so much for doing that at patreon.com slash noclip. Again, with our Battle Pass holders.
I haven't read this new version of the list yet. And if there's anyone who's joined in the interim, I apologize. We'll get you next time. Dwayne the Rock Lobster. We got to come up with noises for everybody. These names are so funny. Anthony Thomas, Nico Possiteri. It's a me, Ferrario. Penelope Hayes. Senator Armstrong. Harry Flanagan. Joosh. Arno. Jose R. Matt Pearson, James Brown, Mark Rojas, Tucker Morgan, David McGarry, Sven Hooster, Pez, John Akers. Akers? We'll figure it out. Uint Nate.
Tim Robinson, Forrest Pruitt, Jonathan Kremen, Eric Hamilton Schneider, Christoph Fatui. That always throws me off in the edit every time. I'm ready for a Cameron Latin. It's not there yet, but here it is. Cameron Ladd. Zachary Snader. Alex Goucher. George Zarkotis. Jacob Godserve. Entheogen. Wait, did we decide that there was a better way to say that? Enthogen. Is it Entheogen? Entheogen. Usually the emphasis is on the Theo, as I've heard it. Entheogen.
James Med, Tohir Tilyev, and Rycin. Thank you all so much for your support. Keeping us all warm and cozy in our lovely bedrooms and back rooms where Jeremy's located. I still have not escaped from the liminal space. Can you paint the wall? Is that an option? Can you do something? What? You don't like the fucking... like white wall that got like Piss painted on it 10 years ago and oxidized.
Yeah, it's got the landlord special. It's full of cigarette smoke at this point. Grease that's made its way down. You're in a basement right now, right? Listen, the only thing I have to do in here is chain smoke cigarettes, okay? So they won't let me out. I've crawled into the fucking drop ceiling. There's no way out. Are you in the same space John Oliver was in the COVID years? I'm actually in like a work in progress, immersive sim level.
Okay. Yeah, but there's not enough systemic features yet for me to escape. The vents are just kind of gray boxed and stuff. Is it fun hanging out in a gray boxed environment? You're saying you don't have anything, but you can still move, right? yeah yeah we've got there's camera controls and like you can WASDE around but um other than that it's just like a lot of notes from the developer that are like oh it'll be so cool when this catches on fire
I don't know. It seems like these developers are pretty lazy. They haven't written anything on the wall yet in blood. Yeah, bad devs. There's no environmental storytelling yet. Lazy devs. That says like... Like, don't open door. Yeah, don't dead open inside. Where's that? Don't dead open inside, exactly. I love me some Walking Dead.
No, I don't. Is that Walking Dead? I thought that was 28 Days Later. No, it's from The Walking Dead. It's the first episode of the show. It's, I don't know. I don't remember the exact sequence of events, but he's like getting out of the Rick. He's getting out of the hospital. I think that's what's on the door. That's exactly how 28 Days Later.
Yeah. Could you believe that zombie movie and TV show and comic writers are perhaps somewhat lazy and copying each other? No, it's all it's love. It's love for the art form. They're not lazy. Unlike those immersive sim developers that made Jeremy's space, they couldn't even throw the black and white box texture on anything there. It's just a plain wall. and drop ceiling. What's going on? Yeah, they just went on ambientcg.com and just searched drop ceiling and piss wall.
We've got to talk about some video games this week. And while we're on the topic of developers doing interesting things with their visual design, I really want to hear, Jeremy, what you have to say about this brand new game from... perhaps the freakiest developers of our generation. The new game from the developers of
I'm thinking Psycho Patrol R, but that's the name of the new game. The first game was Cruelty Squad. Oh, Cruelty Squad. Literally every time I try to say Cruelty Squad in my head, I say Lethal Company. Yes, I have the same sort of problem. But yeah, you're playing their new game, Psycho Patrol R, which looks just as freaky.
And perhaps is... No, not perhaps. It is definitely out in early access right now. What are your thoughts on it so far? Could you describe this game? Could you describe this game? That is a real... Usually that's a rhetorical question when we talk about games because they can always be described. This one...
challenges the capability of description. Psycho Patrol R, this is a game, like Jesse said, from Consumer Soft Products, the creator of Movie Squad. I almost said Lethal Company again. This is a... How do I even describe this? I saw one of the Steam reviews, I think, nailed it so much that I'm just going to steal their joke. They described it as dystopian science fiction Morrowind where you have a homoerotic fixation with your... Okay. This is a future dystopian, like...
immersive sim, first-person RPG with guns. It's like a... Yeah, it is kind of like a science fiction Morrowind a little bit. It is a... interconnected world of spaces. full of fucking weird things happening. So this is a game where you are a member of the Psycho Patrol. Okay, so a lot of what I'm going to describe here is like lore, like the world of the game. But I feel like that is sort of the most important thing to talk about.
Because if I were to describe the gameplay, it'd be like you walk around, talk to people, you shoot some stuff, and occasionally you drive a big police.
and that I mean that sounds like a great game I'll buy it yeah but the but the real sauce here I think is like the the context and the world building and like the the the cognitive context in which all of this is framed is what makes it so good for me You're a member of the Psycho Patrol, which is a futuristic, dystopian policing squad that is sort of like... It's like it's it's a it's kind of like a joke on the idea of like a police squad that recognizes like.
Yeah, policing is like it's really hard. It's like really taxing and it can veer into like fascistic power of the state being enacted on people. So we need to be really aware of how we're policing. So they're obsessed with a new age. they keep talking about Wilhelm Reich, who is, this game is so specifically targeted to my sense of humor. Wilhelm Reich is a post-Freudian. psychoanalysis psychologist. I believe he was an Austrian.
But so a lot of his stuff is like his earlier work is referenced by a lot of sort of like mainstream political theory and psychological literature and stuff. But then his later work gets into like really weird esoteric bullshit about. If you've ever heard of, like, orgone energy or, like... He gets into like this really weird stuff about how there's like a, there's like a, like pseudoscience base.
there's like an energy underlying everything that's like if you're leaning so this is leaning more Scientology you're saying Yeah, he basically, it was kind of like Sir Isaac Newton, where early Sir Isaac Newton was like, oh, the apple falls and that's gravity. And then at the end of his life, he was like, what if there was a philosopher's stone that could turn you to gold? Wilhelm Reich has a similar trajectory.
But they keep referencing Wilhelm Reich. So, like, for example, there's a psychologist who works for the Psycho Patrol who's, like, their team psychologist. And you talk to him and he's like, you know, at first I was a little hesitant about... you know, becoming part of the state monopoly on violence. But then I met the boss and he really knows his Wilhelm Reich. So it really put me at ease about this. Like they keep using this like pseudoscientific, like psychoanalysis.
to basically be like, it's okay that we're the state monopoly on violence. So this game has a really ridiculous sense of humor. It is kind of like... It's very much like Disco Elysium's sense of humor, this sort of Eastern European Eurodrank leftist. sort of like post-ironic communist sense of humor.
But so they keep doing that bit, which is killing me. And you have, I won't spoil too many things, but this is all stuff that's like in the first 20 minutes. It's such an onslaught of fucking detail. You can summon, when you talk to the psychologists, it's like, oh yeah, you can press O to summon your like bioenergetic.
subconscious being and so i was like press oh so i press oh and there's like a like bring and behind me this fucking like emoticon smiley face apparates into the room and it's just like this fucking just like this being you can talk to this like incorporeal being So the first thing you're trying to do in the game is remember the password to your computer. And in true MSIM fashion, you can either go find the system administrator who is like...
If you, you could check his social media profile in the game. And he's like, if anyone asked me for their password again, I'm going to fucking kill myself. And then you were like, I guess I'll go ask him for, I DM'd him and asked him for my password immediately after I saw that as well, which I thought was very funny. Or you can tap into your bioenergetics Reiki and subconscious through Orgo and energy to retrieve your password because it remembers it.
I'm trying to follow. I'm losing. I know I'm doing my best here. Listen, I it's may sound like I've lost my mind. I'm explaining this in the most concrete way that any human being could. This is this game is fucking. Fever dream is an overused term, but this is like actually lives up to the term fever dream. Right. Did you play much of the original Cruelty Squad? I played a little bit of it. I feel like.
it didn't super i i loved the sense of humor and the tone and the art style and like i loved everything about it and it just didn't sort of mechanically click with me But I think I'll have to revisit it after how much I've been liking Psycho Patrol R. It feels like there's more of this game that's about going around and talking to people. So it's kind of letting me indulge in the things that I enjoyed about Cruelty Squad, which are like...
the sense of humor, the characters, the world building, doing, doing bits about there's a, I wrote this quote down because it's so good. Your boss talks about. tackling crime at its root and he says that the psycho patrol is the first anti-fascist anti-hitlerite police tactical unit in the world so it's like it's it's just like it's just the contradictions of being like yeah sure we like do we have the state monopoly on violence but like
You know, we've like read Marx. We know about Marx and stuff. Like it's like this hilarious contradiction and everything. That reminds me so much of, did either of you watch the Damon Lindelof Watchmen on HBO? Oh, yeah. Yeah, the whole idea of the police in that. being vigilantes to some extent, like they're trying to protect their identity. So they wear masks and they're like, we know what we're doing is bad. And we're obviously doing exactly the same thing as the bad guys were beating up, but.
We're the good guys. And like they're not so much explicit in their political beliefs driving that. It seems more just like we're the good guys. So it's OK. Sort of like self-acceptance thing. But I do think it's funny because obviously the way that it's written, it's like one of the characters is called fucking looking glass. Like you're not being subtle with the it's like, you know.
101 for psychology and so she's like oh the looking glass self really you call them that like all right whatever um yeah it's always funny when they make uh police into this sort of
No, we know. But, you know, it's fun. They're like, don't worry about it. It is funny, too, because in more linear media, like in TV shows and movies and stuff, sometimes I find police narratives to be a little like... hard to stomach because it feels like it gets pipelined either into like the police are actually good and like the world is a cruel place so you gotta be like this
or it's like oh no like the police are bad and like i'm actually like a rogue agent or something like it feels like but but that second one the problem with that second you're totally right i completely agree but the problem with that second one is usually the way that it's presented is that the police
have problems but the only people who can solve it is the police and it's like brother that is not how that works yeah totally yeah so I couldn't agree more and I think that video games are a weird sort of because of the agency of the player, things like Disco Elysium can exist where, you know, on the surface, it's like a murder mystery where you're a cop, but ultimately it's a game about a...
you know, being a weird amnesiac, degenerate, alcoholic, middle-aged man with a beer gut. And that's awesome. Yeah. So I don't know. There's something about like. police games in general that is very inherently gamey because In most games, you can go around and fucking barge into people's houses and kick their doors down and stuff. Link does that in fucking Zelda. He smashes everyone's pottery and stuff.
Right. And maybe people are cool because he's the hero of time. But it does seem a little weird to me if like a guy in tights and a green tunic came into my house and smashed all my plates. Is that not something that happens every single week for you guys? I mean, occasionally, but not as often as it would happen in that game. But when you're a cop, it's like...
You know, surprise, fucko, I'm smashing all your plates. And they're like, what are you going to do? I got a warrant. And it's like, show me the warrant. And it's like, don't worry about it. Yeah. It's somewhere. You don't need to see it. I'm a cop. Here's my badge. Half a second. Anyway, so yeah, this game is just like...
I don't. Yeah. Sorry. What is the game again? I don't really know how to. I guess. What are you doing? Because this is this is early access. This is you were saying it's a lot of like walking around talking. You're a mech robot police officer. I'm watching some gameplay now.
which was probably the wrong idea because the person who put this together is like constantly cutting between their camera and the gameplay footage. So I don't know what's I don't know how linear this is, if it's hopping around on purpose or not. It could just be cuts in the gameplay. But like, what are you?
doing because a lot of it looks like it's just walking around shooting people sometimes talking to things and then there's like menu screens with really small text yeah i i boosted up the tech i felt like i was on my dad's ipad when i had boosted up the the text size um Yeah, I mean, kind of like...
shooting people going around talking to people is kind of the gist of it i mean you know very similarly again to morrowind where it's like if you boil morrowind down it's you're talking to people they're like go to the bar north of the village to the left of that statue and then you're like writing that down in your notepad and going there and then swinging your sword It's vaguely similar to that. I think for me, it's like...
I've been trying to suspend thinking about... the mechanical side of this game and just just like immerse in the world because um i kept thinking about uh elation for the wonderbox 6000 a game that we talked about an unreleased game that uh we've talked about on during next fest coverage
The writing in that reminds me of this where it's like, it's so... idiosyncratic and it's so different than most games writing the world it's building the way it writes the things it talks about that I feel like that's the main appeal for me is just steeping myself in the mental world of a creator who feels like they themselves are influenced by very different things than most games. Same with Anthology of the Killer. Like it just, there's a textural, tonal.
like, flavor difference in games that are made by, you know, people who are reading, like... to lose instead of watching like you know severance or something i'm not hating on severance okay all right i get it okay i'm not hating again i'm not hating on severance i just think it's like um there's a way in which
A lot of creative people have seen the same thing, even if they're not inspired by it. There is sort of a cultural osmosis that happens where those ideas sink in. So when you read the bibliography or whatever they call it at the end of Anthology of the Killer. And it's like a bunch of comic artists I've never heard of. I'm like, oh, that's why this game feels so different than other games is because. This dude is just fucking on one reading comics I've never heard of. And that's awesome.
Yeah, no, that that is absolutely you. You've sold me on Psycho Patrol are I think talking about it now more than any footage of it ever could or any like short description, because it's always like you're you're a fucked up guy doing a crazy thing who commits a crime in England. And I'm like, I don't.
That sounds silly, but what is the core of it? What's fun about it? And as per usual, Jeremy's done a great job of turning something absolutely impossible to describe and made it sound beautiful. So well done. No, I completely agree with you that I feel like... I always end up walking away from games that are interested in talking about something deeper or even like.
Just like you said, from people who clearly have some degree of inspiration, that's not just and that's not to say that people who make video games that are like inspired by Secret of Mana or something aren't also reading weird material or pulling from a different spot.
You can feel it in the work, like the way that it's represented a lot more obviously in games like you're saying, like Anthology of the Killer or or even Citizen Sleeper to an extent. Like it's still very sci fi inspired, but there's a lot of talk of like. your the control over your body and disability and like what it means to lose access to your own body, which I think is so interesting and not something games tend to... talk about all that often. So it's, yeah.
That's what I love video games for. And that's my favorite stuff. So you know what? I will wait until this is out of early access. It is expensive. Not just because of the price, but also because I'm sure it'll be more fleshed out and like the whole thing will be there. But yeah, so you don't normally do this. What inspired you to hop in here and early access for Psycho Patrol R? I just feel like this year has been a drought for me of games that are personally interesting.
And Psycho Patrol R looked fucking bizarre and eclectic and weird. Yeah, I don't know what even really attracted it to me. I guess the... anti-capitalist fucking bizarre surreal morrowind where you're in love with your boss like that steam review i was like oh that's that i don't know something about that tickles something in my brain uh and also i wanted to this reminded me of when we talked about anthology of the killer the like
weird diversity of influences in these like the fact that it references wilhelm reich is not a good creative move to me because i'm like ah i understood that reference like i feel smart it's because like it's It's just like, it's fucking bizarre and weird. Like it's just, it's, this dude is cooking with ingredients that most, most chefs don't have in their pantry is the way.
And so you thread that needle on that, man. I would have fumbled that halfway through. Well done. Yeah. No, I just like I when we talked about Anthology, the killer was like there's like an Ezra Pound joke in here. And then we moved on and I was like, oh, fuck. I hope people don't think that I'm saying like.
and I know who Ezra Pound is and that's why it's funny because I like I fucking don't know I read Ezra Pound's Wikipedia when they referenced him in Anthology of the Killer because I was like I bet that's I bet that's really funny like it's like when I was a kid and you know Family Guy would reference like a musical I'd never I wasn't like, ah, I'm such a musical head. Jesse obviously do all those references. Of course.
because he's a theater kid and a genius. No, I knew those references from Family Guy, and then I found out later that they were... Family Guy radicalized you into a theater kid. It did. It turned me into a theater kid. That's the worst thing I could say. Sorry. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Go on. You should complain to something. You should file a class action lawsuit against him.
But, yeah, I kind of think that's all I have to say about it. Oh, actually, I have to talk about one more thing. The first case in this game, sort of like the initial, like, you get into the world and they're like, here's your first case as Psycho Patrol, is... The Psycho Patrol investigate something called psycho hazards, which is like a joke on like info hazards, basically. And so the first case you get within a few minutes of this game is your boss is like.
Somebody is spreading the rumor that sodium lauryl sulfate, the like foaming surefactant that's in shampoo like in the real world is causes like. damage to your dna and like can make you bald and he basically like the idea of the psycho patrol is like if these psycho hazards get out to the general populace then like everyone will believe this lie And so they're like, it's kind of like, um...
It's like the most mundane version of Minority Report, where it's like, instead of doing pre-crime, where they have precogs seeing the future for the crimes, they're like, if people have the wrong idea about something or believe misinformation. it will lead to crime due to social dissonance. And so what you're doing as part of the Psycho Patrol is basically like...
getting fucked up and like going to intervene on people who are essentially spreading like misinformation. But it's very funny to me because it's like, You know, they're they're like these sort of things where it's like in the real world, something will be like FDA approved. And it's like, yeah, that's probably safe. But then they're like has only been one study on it that like 10 people ate it in the 60s. And they're like, yeah, it's fine. So I don't know. I love the idea that they're like.
You're a part of this elite policing force that drive fucking mechs around and stomp people.
to death and it's like in order to stop like some mundane conspiracy theory yeah from like saying that like shampoo makes you bald or whatever it's so fucking stupid i love it chemicals in the water that's turned to the freaking frog skin you're like we can't let people know about this yeah yeah it's like the most like mundane like alex jones level bullshit ever uh but it kind of sounds like first person like if hypnospace outlaw wasn't so much about banning
comments it was more about stopping facebook well actually i guess it'd just be deleting facebook comments never mind yeah no this is this is like um this is like if hypnospace was like the atheist version of that oh my god uh no i'm joking but yeah no that isn't very i don't think you are i don't think you're joking i mean a little a little bit
Frank, you were big into, big is maybe the wrong word. You have played Cruelty Squad in the past. Do you have any interest in checking this out or are you waiting until it's dropped? It's the early access thing where I'm like, oh, I want to play it. Isn't it 40 right now? It's $40. I assume that means the game will be huge.
yeah and but it's also the kind of thing where it's like it is like the money is going towards the right place like i don't know how big this team is if it's one person or how many people but it's like okay they're they're making this art that's so worth funding like yes like you know like no one else is making yeah the gamers like
exactly so it's like I'd rather pay a like it's so funny the game price has entered the conversation but it's like I don't know I feel like for unique games yeah it's worth paying $100 for like art games and then like 20 bucks for a Nintendo game like you know I don't know I feel like it's like
$20 for your baby games, Nintendo. I don't know. I don't know. But it's like, yeah, I'm excited. But yeah, if it's still waiting to be developed and further I'm in, the one thing I'm interested in is like... Because when I heard mech, I think of like there's that 90s PC game Shogo, which you're jumping, you're in a mech and you're stomping stuff. That's very anime inspired. Does this have any like anime references or nods that feel anime inspired or is it very much doing its own thing?
I don't know. That's a really good question. I feel like the key art for the game is this very sort of like... It looks like a French painter doing anime key art or something. Like it's like this cop with like the glowing eye. with his like face in silhouette, uh, standing in front of like next to his mech that's down below. It reminded me of like, like French persona or something. Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't know. It's a, that's a great question. I kind of feel like most.
like mech related things are sort of directly or indirectly influenced by mecha anime but um but yeah i mean it does feel very fucking neo tokyo when you go into the like free incorporated city slum and like in your Mac. And the first time I went in, I went in without my mech and I died within like half a second. Like everyone turned on me and just started blasting.
And then I came back in the mech to retrieve my, all the stuff I dropped when I died and everyone's shooting it. You just can't do any damage. So I'm just walking around in my back and there's like a thousand criminals are shooting me and I'm just completely unfazed.
I guess that sounds very much like Paul Verhoeven Robocop. That's not anime, that's more Paul Verhoeven, and that immediately sells me. Okay, I get it. That's a great comparison, actually. I do feel like this is Verhoeven Disco Elysium in some ways.
Like if the RoboCop aesthetic was more about like just cops that suck and are terrible. And it's not like you don't have to read between the lines. It's like, no, they yeah, here they are. They're terrible. Yeah. And if like RoboCop was shooting people in the dick because like. shampoo makes you bald right because they were thinking too hard about how like
cheese has chemicals in it. Hold on. Yeah, because they read the ingredients list on their mozzarella cheese. And they were like, I don't know what anatomicin is, but I don't know if it's good for you. Remember people tripping over their cellulose in this cheese?
Is this going to give me brain worms? Yeah, yeah. I love that shit. I honestly think that's why the sense of humor of this game gets me so good because when you find out that Walmart cheese is like... has like the same stuff as like trees in it like it's like It's a thing that you could so easily...
buy into it immediately be like oh my god i can't eat like it could lead to like an ocd diagnosis if you get obsessed with all of the bullshit that's in our food and so it's like that that is what the idea of an info hazard is so having a whole police squad that's like about that is just it's fucking brilliant it's so weird
Well, look forward to the future of Psycho Patrol R. You can check it out now on Steam or you can wait six years and it'll just be like that. It's really everything's going to have bad textures. There's going to be giant mech cops running around and shooting you for your Facebook posts. We didn't get a chance to talk about it last week because we recorded the day before it happened. And Frank, you sort of alluded to it. I'm not getting into the debate. I'm just curious.
I'm sure all the listeners are curious on our two weeks late thoughts on the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct. Did anyone see anything they remotely care about? uh donkey kong with marching cubes like fucking procedural digging donkey yeah dude i can't believe you made donkey kong bonanza i did i did make a marching cube prototype like two years ago and now i'm like i should have just fucking released it that game about digging guy made like 10 million dollars
Just anyway, sorry. I'm not bitter about it. I was just like, I should have just dropped the proto. Jeremy Jane's a game about digging a hole. Yeah, I'll just put my name on it. Well, yeah, it could be like a Bennett Foddy thing. If you talk to the player at random intervals.
That's so true. I'll record. I'll just I'll be like, listen, I'm not bitter about the fact that I released this game so late. The trend. I just like you don't even have to do that. Just read some Zizek and you'll be set. OK, that's actually pretty good. Yeah. Yeah, what else? Kirby Air, new Kirby Air Ride. Yeah. Pretty cool. You can tell how locked into the news we are here. Yakuza Zero Director's Cut, I was very excited about. New content.
I wasn't sure if they're going to do like Kiwami 3 or whatever, because like they announced Project Century, but I know there's going to be like 16 more Yakuza games before that comes out. And sure enough, Yakuza Zero Director's Cut. which I'm excited. The graphics operator and everything. I still like, I think it will still probably come to PS5 and Xbox down the line, but.
uh that'll be perfect to like try it out so I'm excited for that and then um I'm excited for a new Mario Kart but not if none of my friends can afford to play it like oh I'm like I'm so excited for Mario Kart but like if I get the thing and none of my friends have it yet
Like, well, what the, like, that's the joy of Mario Kart and Switch 1 and Wii U Mario, like, whatever. So, hopefully, eventually, everyone will be able to get their hands on that. Other than that, like, I slept through the announcement. I woke up and, like. I don't know. I can't forget what flow. It was just Mario Kart. Yeah, new Donkey Kong is cool. I don't know. Yakuza 0 was a thing at the top.
Yeah, if you watched it after the fact, all you saw was $450. It was like, yeah, they might have kind of drowned out the game announcements. Yeah, they could have shown Jesus 2 when it would have been like, dude, who cares? The fucking Switch 2 cost $450. You got $100 for Jesus? Yeah. Duskbloods as well, new FromSoft game. I had kind of mixed feelings about it, even as the biggest... FromSoft fanboy.
I don't know. I thought it looked really cool and interesting, like tonally and aesthetically. A lot of the characters they showed off were looked like like. player created characters like they were so fucking there was like pajamas man and then there was like the dude was like big fucking like bear looking dude with a bear chest
Uh, and then there was like rocket man from the fifties movie rock or whatever that fucking rocket. There was a jet pack guy in like a metal tin can suit. I think it was rocket man. Um, I kept thinking of the Harlan Ellison or not Harlan. Who's the fucking... Elton John, Rocketman? What's the movie, the Rocketman movie where the guy gets a... He's in space. It's like a 90s comedy movie and everyone goes into cryosleep except for him.
Is that also Rocketman? His name is... Harlan Ellison is the author. What's the name of this guy? Hold on. Now you're talking about. Yeah, doesn't he play the cop in Dumb and Dumber? Harlan Williams. Harlan Williams. Wait, who's Harlan Ellison? Didn't he write a I Have No Mouth and I Messed? I don't know. I don't think he was. Yeah. It is rocket man.
Now I'm picturing Harlan Ellison, the writer, like farting in his space suit and inflating it in a 90s movie. But anyway, Duskbloods, it's also PVPVE, which is kind of weird. That's what Night Rain is too, isn't it? Yeah. Well, does Night Rain have PVP? I thought that was like co-op PVE, but I don't know. Is that what it is? Okay. I don't know. I'm just, am I being a boomer by not being super psyched? You're not down with the multiplayer from software games?
I don't know, man. I don't know if that's what I go to FromSoft. you know like i'm happy they're trying new stuff and i think that's cool but i'm i will reserve my judgment on being psyched about this until i see a little more because it's like i don't want like a you know like an extraction shooter from from soft with right souls combat i want but if it was good i mean if it's good then it's good i but personally for me the from soft experience is
I'm like a fucking lone, powerless weirdo in this weird world and slowly clawing my way up the mountain. Yeah, it's I've always heard stories of. Like Dark Souls co-op and that being really exciting or Elden Ring co-op and that being really fun. And I can see the novelty in it, but I'm totally with you. Like there you lose that sense of.
challenge. I feel like, like it's, you know, if you, especially if you play with people who are really good at the game, that was my problem. I'm not very, I'm not, I'm all right at, uh, at the from soft games. So playing them with someone who knows what they're doing or who's beat it already. And you hop on multiplayer with them. It's a bit like,
It's really like playing an MMO and your friends got all the end game gear. And he's like, hold on, let me switch to my loser outfit for five seconds to play the rest with you.
yeah it's like you're visiting like a new city with your friend who lives there you're like whoa what's that he's like oh that's just a shitty statue we don't care who cares we see that every day yeah it's like me with the cn tower people like dude that's really tall and i'm like who cares that's not that tall yeah like just immediately kiboshing their childlike wonder.
You paid hundreds of dollars to fly here. You fool. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. We'll see. I have played seamless co-op for Elden Ring and I had a lot of fun, but it was definitely for me a lesser experience than my initial sort of like. being a lone wanderer in this world against the elements.
Yeah, fair. Frank, anything else you saw that got you excited? I'm very stoked for all the GameCube emulation stuff or whatever they call it. That I'm generally very stoked for. And they announced niche titles for it too. I can't remember if I'm crazy, but was Chibi-Robo part of the... I think that was in their list of games. I know that pulled me and Jeremy were talking about GP Robo too.
I love Chibi Robo. I'm excited for that. You can load up Dolphin and just play any game you want. Even with Retro Chibos, that's great. But what I like about like the curation system is it forces the games and the zeitgeist a bit. Yes. So it's like, oh my God, it's me, a bunch of people playing GameCube games. Like, I don't know. I think that's really cool. It also kind of like.
tranquilizes the fucking retro market a bit, which is horrible. Like people's flipping GameCube games for like $500. Like, stop, stop. When I saw that Fire Emblem, which one's on GameCube Path of Radiance, that's like $300 on a regular day. I was like, that's going to be on Switch Online. I could pay $10 and play that on my Switch or $0. I mean, copy my own disc. And then what I like, too, because with the Switch, my friends and I did it a bit, is the N64 games.
I feel like the internet connection was never great. So hopefully Switch 2 is better. But you could do multiplayer. So my friends and I would do like N64 Mario Party games. And it was like. so easy doing the official thing. So if they have like GameCube multiplayer games, like, oh, that's really, that's like fantastic. So I thought that was cool. And then them announcing like, Some games will have a Switch 2 version, so like...
I never beat the last Zelda game that came out. So there being a Switch 2 digital upgrade or whatever option, it's like, okay, great. This will run above 30 frames per second, hopefully. And then I think it's also just a good opportunity. If it is a bigger screen and all that. Like, a dozen Switch games I never beat. Like, I got the Kirby game. I got, like, the Donkey Kong, whatever, some Donkey Kong.
So all of a sudden I can like finally, I stopped playing my Switch years ago just because it like looked crappy. Like it just, I don't know. So if there's a Switch 2, then you also have to pay a premium price for it. But it'll be a reason to play all these Switch games and having GameCube on there and digital stuff. So I'm like, okay, cool. I'm ready for it. So yeah, we'll see whatever happens. I think they're still sticking with release date. The one thing that sucks.
Is I think, what's the deal? is they're blocking you can't buy like a region free version in Japan if you go to Japan it's only Japan only so it's like They're already cutting the loophole. They know about you. They're watching your ass. Because I was genuinely like, wait a minute. My friend goes to Akihabara every single day. I'm like, oh my God, can I just...
You know, but I don't know. I'll find a way. I'll find a way. I'll find a way. Just learn Japanese and then it doesn't matter. No, because like you have to have it's like I think there is a region free version. But I think you need to have like a Japanese Nintendo account, a Japanese address, the little stamp and all this crap. And I'm like, I don't know. You got to have your visa. I'm still working on it. I need a visa one day, one day.
I think this is, this is the pivot point where you're like, Danny, listen, we gotta, I need to be from Japan to cover games. So if you could just like help me out, you know, Japan can, or Noclip can be based in Japan. And you'll be our sole member, our founder who lives. and where all of your international work
over. Noclip will be truly international. We'll have somebody in every country in the world. We'll change the logo to Takana Takana. Yes. Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't quite work with the animation at the start, though, I guess you can't really type that. It won't really have the same width.
Yeah, it'll be a little, no, no, no creepy. Something like that. I like that. A little something like that. Yeah. The only other things I wanted to mention, at least myself, game chat, I think is very funny. hilarious idea for Nintendo to do. What is this?
So, OK, there, you know, Nintendo has been notoriously bad at doing Internet conversations. There's probably a good handful of reasons. If I was making a game console that a lot of children use, I also wouldn't want to have there be chat at all. That sounds bad for everyone and very scary.
Now they're introducing this like game chat thing where there's a secret button that they wouldn't reveal on the joy cons. And it turns out it's just a button that brings up the chat window. So you can hop in a call with, I don't know if they said exactly how many people will say they were showing off four. So maybe up to four, maybe more players. And you can all be streaming the game to each other. And they, in a very un-Nintendo or maybe...
very Nintendo way showed off the footage for it. And it's these tiny little like 480p. That's probably pushing it like 10 FPS windows. under your gameplay so you can like talk to your friends and watch what they're doing um so i thought that was very weird but also the button is only dedicated to bring up the game chat stuff And eventually you have to pay to use GameChain.
So if you don't have the subscription, you've just got a button on your controller. You just have a vestigial button. Yeah, it just does nothing. That's so strange. They should have it in secondary. Well, actually, no. I kind of... it's a very it's like a weird dystopian thing to have a button that it's like yeah I don't have the subscription so I just have like a fucking forbidden button that's like on my remote I have a Hulu button a stars good point
Holy shit. I never hit the Hulu button, you know, whatever. You're not allowed to hit the Hulu button, dude. It's just like app error. Your TV turns off. Like, oh my God. That's brutal. The police are going to show up at your door if you start pressing that button. Don't do it. You pressed stars. We told you what happened.
If you press stars, it's a psycho patrol police. They just show up. That's what the police squad from Raccoon City shows up. If you press that button. Oh, no. If you hear a helicopter crash in the distance, run. Yeah. If you hear a bunch of dogs barking. Don't go outside.
And the other thing I wanted to mention that I think might, I don't know, this is really the breaking point for me. The price, things are expensive. It's, you know, whatever. You could fucking litigate it all you want. It's like, oh, there's reasons, whatever. Games being $90 sucks. Games being $100 up here sucks. I really, really hope with Mario Kart World
Because they know it's going to sell one quadrillion copies anyway. Every human being on Earth is going to have four copies somehow. It doesn't matter. But I really hope, Frank, for your point about the games being very pricey and sort of inaccessible, I hope. that they do the game sharing thing. And people who didn't buy the Mario Kart bundle for 500 US dollars so far, who knows if they change it.
can play with their friends and share it. That I thought was really nice. Not something they needed to do. That's like the one nice thing that we got out of it. Showcase. Everything else is like, hey, the pack-in game is $5. Hey, the camera, $50. You're like, what are we doing, man? Give me something.
So yeah, I don't know. Nintendo Switch 2. Are you guys going to pick it up on launch or are you going to wait until there's games you actually want to play on it? No, I'll get it. I might even... try to like get as many pre-readers as I can that way I can make sure my friends can get them but I know everyone I don't know because it's like yeah like yeah yeah yeah your friends we get it Frank you're scalping it's fine no no no no you would never
No, because I don't know how fucking impossible it is. I want to have friends to play this shit with. Like, I need friends to play Mario Kart with. But, yeah, no, so on Nintendo, you can click. Like, I am interested.
So, so we'll see whatever. And then there's Amazon best buy. So I'll, I'll definitely try to get at least one. Um, and then if there's extras, then like, I feel like in my head, I have a list of friends to reach out to like, did you, do you need one? Do you need one? Let me, let me know. But yeah, no, not to like flip or whatever, but it's just generally like, I don't know how hard these will get to get. Well, now if the price is like cut everyone's interest in half, I have no idea.
I don't know. So yeah, but I will try to get one. If I don't get one, then it's like, it's the same weekend as like, dude, there's so much stuff coming out that week. It's like around the time of like Summer Games Fest. I feel like Doom is like a few weeks before that. A bunch of other stuff is coming out in June. What's a big thing? I forget. Oh, Tony Hawk comes out in July, so I don't care. Oh, they showed off the bikini bottle. Are you excited for the SpongeBob level?
Wait, what? They got SpongeBob and Tony Hawk? Yeah, Tony Hawk 3 and 4, they showed a very short clip of there being an under-the-sea SpongeBob level. in their new remake. Before you say another word, was this, did it feel... justified or was it like did they just fucking throw Spongebob in there was there like a cutscene let me throw it back at you Jeremy how would you justify Spongebob
skateboarders showing up in bikini bottom. It begs the question. I think this is how I would do it if I was on Nintendo of America Marketing. I would call up Tony Hawk. And I would have him do like a, like he would drop into a ramp. And then when he came up on the other side of the half pipe, it would go into slow motion and SpongeBob would be stayed.
like a hang loose or something. And Tony would fucking high five him as he went by. And then it would be like, Spongebob joins the fight or whatever they do in Smash Brothers. I like that. That's a good idea. I would have also accepted calling Tony Hawking, asking him, hey.
How long can you hold your breath for? Hey, how much money would it take to put a... Yeah, they get Tony Hawk. Okay, Tony Hawk. This is what they do. They get Tony Hawk in the Sandy the Squirrel outfit. Yes. And he's underwater in Bikini Bottom.
And he's like, I got to take over the fucking, like, thug, like, in Underground, where he's, like, starting from the bottom. He's like, I got to take over the skate scene. I've conquered the skate scene on Earth. What about underwater? And then they're like, he's a nobody in Bikini Bottom.
Congratulations. Well done. You've solved the problem. Frank, you were looking at, I imagine, the trailer. Yeah. Seeing the Nickelodeon crap in this makes me think they're not going to have the succubus. So in Tony Hawk 3, you can unlock a demon succubus, and she's a, you know, a...
the red giant lady, whatever. But like, if they put this kids game crap in here, then they're not going to have the suck. I don't know. You can't have a succubus in bikini bottom. She's a Satan spawn. She has her tails on fire. It'll extinguish it. I don't know. Um, It is interesting, but it's kind of, it's messing with the integrity of the original.
I don't know, man. SpongeBob's kind of horny. They could figure it out. I don't know. I love that instead of it being a conflict of tonal because of the adult kid themes, you were like, well, logically, it wouldn't make sense because the tail is on fire. If anything, you want more logical inconsistency.
I don't know. That's so weird. Why SpongeBob? I get it. Yeah, I don't know. That is an odd choice. Yeah. SpongeBob, it's like a 90s cartoon. It's just like, I guess fucking, okay, now it all makes sense because Tony Hawk is like... If you're a 90, only 90 kids remember this game. It's leaning too much into that and it grosses me out. It's like, I don't know. It does feel like pandering. Put like a CKY shopping cart level. Like that's what you need to put more in.
preserve the that culture not the fucking I don't know whatever yeah no it does feel a little bit like they're doing like top 10 things only yeah and it's like number one drinking out of the hose we're putting that in Tony Hawk three you're totally right like I don't understand why I guess because they're trying to appeal to yeah what you guys are saying of like the imagined version of what someone who likes Tony Hawk
Yeah, it's like the 90s kid thing or whatever. Yeah, so you want to sell it to kids today who like stuff that people who are older than them like. But people who are older than them don't really like I have some nostalgia for SpongeBob, but I'm not like, boy, I sure hope I can skate around there to like a song I never listened to when I was younger. That's not going to sell me on Tony Hawk.
You're right. It should kind of be a museum of that era, like really of that era. Like, I want an element branded. Here's the thing. They can make it work if like. Mr. Krabs gets an element tattoo. Then I might be like, okay, they kind of get it a little bit. Or if Mr. Krabs is a skate shop, the Krusty Krab is a skate shop. Okay, that's a way of grounding it a bit. Or if like, yeah, okay, okay, okay. That's kind of cool. But I see what it is.
Tony Hawk 3 had Wolverine and had Darth Maul. They don't have those licenses anymore. One of the last few Tony Hawks had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, so they still have this partnership with Nickelodeon, assumingly. I don't know.
But yeah, it's kind of gross. But I'm excited for Tony Hawk either way. I do wish they'd do that contemporary thing because at the time those were contemporary references and they still kind of are because unfortunately time is a flat circle and nothing ever gets to go away. I feel like the Tony Hawk community now would be like, yeah, smiling friends. That makes sense. Oh, that's way more in line. Yeah. Adult swim stuff. Not Rick and Morty. Don't you dare. It's too late.
The window is closed. Yeah, no, it's almost like baby. I mean, I get it. But it feels like it's babifying. Not babifying. I wish. It's like babifying. The wrong type of babifying. It's like lowering it. It's like, I don't know. It's like.
I don't know. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Skateboarding, even though the Tony Hawk video games were this like... sort of mass media phenomenon that was like there was nothing countercultural about a fucking video game that sells a bajillion dollars worth of copies but skateboarding is inherently sort of countercultural so then to link it up And now Totino's Pizza Rolls is the new sponsor.
Yeah, you got into Tony Hawk and PS2 and that stuff because you're growing. This is my personal experience. I got into Tony Hawk and Jackass and all that stuff because, like, okay, I'm done with Nickelodeon and Rugrats and SpongeBob. Oh, MTV? Oh, my God. Let's cut. Like, South Park level makes way more sense than SpongeBob. That's what that is. You know, like, that's why, like, wait, why are we looking down at SpongeBob? What's, I don't know.
That's a very good point. Yeah. It's like a safe version of what the actual associations would have been back in the day. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. No. Yeah. I keep thinking of like I'm trying to think of other things that would be in the top 10 things only 90s kids remember. And it's like if Mr. Krabs was playing with like devil stick.
Like it's like no one actually cared. It's just a thing that was there in the 90s. Or have a WCW arena and it's like, oh my God. Yeah, totally. There's a way better overlap there with wrestling for sure. Weird choice. Nicktoons, Tony Hawk's Nicktoons skater coming. But this is, if the bikini bottom crap, I'm sorry I'm so negative against it. I love it. I think I just have. Nickelodeon and Spongebob crap shoved in my face everywhere constantly and it's like
I like Rugrats so much better. Such a better show. Rugrats and Tony Hawk would be so much cooler. But if that's exclusive to Nintendo, maybe bringing back to Soul Calibur 2, that's going to be on the GameCube Switch stuff with Link. I remember back when every console had its own, like Xbox 360 version of Soul Calibur 5 had Yoda. So it's like, okay, the Nintendo baby Switch version has SpongeBob. What's Xbox get? What's PlayStation get? Now I'm in.
For Soul Calibur 2, which I think is the one that they're putting on the GameCube, they had Link, right? Yeah, Link for GameCube, Spawn for Xbox, Hiyohachi for PS2. Yeah, see, that's so much more fun. what are the mascots for the consoles? What do you put Ellie from The Last of Us in the Tony Hawk? That would be cool. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I guess. She finds the last functioning skateboard in America. She's like, what is this? And Joel's like, you know, we used to ride those around. Oh, yeah.
In, like, Last of Us 2, there's a shopping mall, so that could be, like, because in Tony Hawk 1, there's a, whatever, whatever. No, you're cooking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we've just invented a better story mode for the new Tony Hawk. I guess Microsoft owns. the studio making that now right or they own Activision period so yeah right they bought Activision and then it was Vicarious Vision was the last one now it's Iron Galaxy And they had something like Battletoads. I don't know.
That is kind of weird though, because I feel like... Microsoft has so many IP that I hate saying that. Ew, gross. But like so many characters and whatever.
that they could put in... Why did I say that? I want to punch myself for saying IP. I don't know. I want to put on a blazer. Now we're cooking. All right. Let's get these activations going. I'm in. Yeah, where are my activations? Yeah, yeah. I read that article. User engagement via content strategy. You know what it is? It's because I read that article and I'm like... Got some verticals.
I don't know if you guys saw this article from aftermath where they were talking about like game words that they want to die. And that was one of them in there of like people using them all the time. Like we're not brand ambassadors. I'm not talking about like, so my. My subconscious is like, don't do it. Don't say IP. And then I did it anyway.
Whatever. My point being, I feel like Microsoft has a lot of cool characters that were cool. Maybe a stretch back then that were cool. And now they own the brands. It's like, why is that not in there? They're doing Doomguy, right? Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes. It's like the Doom Eternal model. That's cool. Okay, yeah. Where's Quake? What are we doing, Quake? Where's Crash Bandicoot? Oh, wait. Is this a good time to talk? Did you guys see the Quake AI thing?
oh brother i can we shit on this for five seconds because it's so bad okay welcome to the shitting on ai section of the podcast that's a new segment i think it'll be perma relevant unfortunately moving forward um there was a uh what was it? It was Microsoft co-pilot showcase, uh, where they were showing off like in the future, Microsoft and Xbox are working with AI to improve your technology, consumer IP experience.
And they had a version of Quake that was AI generated frame by frame, essentially. And it was a playable demo. And what it is is a shitty AI version of Quake where it's trying to sort of like a generative algorithmic network does. It's trying to predict what the next frame would be based on context and having studied.
presumably footage of quake being played um but essentially it has no object permanence so it's like It's basically like most AI demos, not to paint with too broad a brush here, but it is sort of a thing where it's like... it's oh yeah it's got like issues but when they work out those issues which may be irreconcilable and never able to be overcome it'll be really good when we overcome like the inherent flaws of the system that may never be overcome so like
In the demo of it, Austin Walker posted a great thread about this, but I had to play it myself after I saw it. If you walk into a dark corner... and then you like look at it for a minute, the game will superimpose that you're like in a completely dark area. So you'll start turning 360 and just be like in a completely dark area. And if you keep turning 360 enough, it'll be like, there's a light over here and maybe that's the hallway.
but you walk towards it and it's like not a hallway. It was just like an illusion. And it's like, it feels like it's a playable stress. is how I would describe it which if that had been the intention I think would have been cool but I think it's like I've seen some overly credulous rubes being like, whoa, this is actually pretty cool. It's like a weird dream-like thing. And it's like, yeah, but it's not a game.
There's no, there's no game here because there's no, you can't create like meaningful interaction. It's like what we talked about within Zoe, like having this unbelievably broad range of possibility is a very exciting thing on the surface. But what game design is largely is like constraining those systems into meaningful experiences or creating like pathways for the player to meaningfully interact.
Uh, and this just is like, oh, there's like a, it like, you know, it hallucinated like a player on the screen and I click the shoot. And the guy goes like, and then like falls down and it's like, and then his body disappears. If I look the other direction. Yeah. You turn the corner and it's like, Oh, well the previous character model that was there is gone. Well.
All right, here's a new one. There's supposed to be a dead body here, right? I think based on the footage, like, yeah, it's so weird when you see it because I feel like this is related to. the thing that they were talking about a couple months ago about games preservation and how their hope is... AI can just do that instead. Is that what this is, Jeremy? It's showing off their potential to do that? I did see some games preservation thrown around, which feels a little bit like...
It's like the Psycho Patrol R thing, where it's like... They're like, yeah, we're the police, but we're like really in touch with our feelings. You know, like we're like shooting people in the head, but also we're like really thinking about what it means to shoot people in the head. That's kind of how I feel about using games preservation as a cudgel. You know, because like, how is it games preservation when it's like... It's like Games Preservation if you had one guy who has a terrible memory.
and you like told him about every game and then that was the guy who you go ask you're like what was quake like he's like i think you like i think it was like really dark a lot you get like lost in the dark it's like i don't know lost eventually there's a big pillar of light you can walk through maybe yeah
It's just, I don't know. I saw other people saying that maybe the long-term strategy for it would be sort of predictive algorithms for streaming games so that when there's latency issues, if you're playing a game that doesn't exist on your... via streaming, like, you know, any of those services.
none of which I can think of the names of at this moment. xCloud. Yeah, anything. Yeah, that kind of shit. Jimbo. I'm sure that's a streaming service somewhere. Yeah, Jimbo from Bellatro. He has his own streaming service. They did it. People were saying like maybe this is sort of like a predictive algorithm. for that but then it doesn't even really seem that promising for that because there's like
I don't know. There's like netcode rollback, which is actually based on data that's incoming from the game world, from the actual simulation. And that seems like it's grounded in reality. This is just like, it's hallucinating what might happen. And I just feel like, I don't know, maybe I'm not a fucking big brain enough computer scientist to see why this is so brilliant. But to me. I mean, yeah, it sounds like you're trying to solve a problem in the wrong way. If the problem is connectivity...
Just like I think people would rather their game lag and disconnect than have some fever dream take place for five seconds before they reconnect, you know, like it. There's nothing worse than playing like Street Fighter online, although the new ones are better at it, but like older fighting games online, losing a connection and just like watching everything catch up really quickly. That is funny. But I can't imagine a world where I'm playing as Guile and I accidentally charge or flash kick.
Because the game, I lost connection and the game was like, hey, what if... I'm pretty sure you would have flash kicked here at nothing, right? And again, it's speculation. How does that even work when you reconnect? That was not the express written purpose of the co-pilot showcase or anything. No, but if that's one that they're trying to... like wheel out as an excuse for for melting down the you know the amazon rainforest so that you could see this quake thing like
If that's the excuse, well, it doesn't make any sense. And even if it did, I don't want it. I can't imagine like who. Who is hyped for this? I don't understand. People on LinkedIn. They're not real. I go on LinkedIn. That's a fake website. I love we talked about this. I love the idea that like the only people who like AI are like. People who unironically think LinkedIn is like a chill place. Yeah. I love posting on there. It's very. like top 10 ways to increase your efficiency.
Yeah. And you could tell all those articles that they're posting were also generated by AI. Is also true. Yeah. But anyway, I just wanted to bring it up because I thought it was such a such sort of like an interesting like. The response to it is what I thought was most interesting because this seems like the kind of thing where a bunch of, again, overly credulous rubes would be like.
oh, the future is here. But instead, it was like... almost universally every comment section was like fuck you don't do this it was really like i was like okay cool people even you know like people who like aren't chronically online and are just like in the whatever like facebook comment section or like
fuck this this sucks yeah it's uh it's weird the reaction to ai stuff because as time goes on i feel like people are becoming not so much more accepting of it but It's becoming harder to discern it. Because that Ghibli stuff was happening a couple weeks ago, right? Everyone AI generating their image into Studio Ghibli. We made it. Studio Ghibli Lord of the Rings. I don't know how anything works. I'm a big smarty dum-dum pants.
Like, you know, getting excited about that and people posting the pictures or gibbler flying themselves with chat GPT. I'm like, what are we what are we doing? It's yeah, you know, we're willing to sort of accept that stuff if it lets us do something that we think is fun half the time. And even like hardcore, I don't like AI people are having a hard time discerning it. Sometimes I've seen people post songs that like I know are AI generated because the artist says this is AI gender, but they.
You know, it's, it's just becoming harder and harder. There's so much of it. And it's like reaching this point where, and this is purely a me thing. I think maybe it's not. I am finding it really hard to look at stuff and not get frustrated because I'm constantly.
wondering if what I'm looking at is AI generated. Like I am coming at everything with this defensive feeling like art, games on Steam, especially like when I'm scrolling through recent releases and I'm trying to find something interesting. My immediate move is. Is there something I generated in here and they're hiding it like that? That for me, it's totally a personal thing, but it's maybe it's again, I'm sure there's other people who are having a similar problem, but like I hate that.
Even when I'm experiencing new things that are cool, in the back of my mind, I'm like, man. Where's the, when's the shoe going to drop and they're going to reveal that everything I was just looking at was a co-pilot generated hallucination and actually, you know, the lamp, the lamp isn't real. It's going to be one of those moments. Where's my house of leaves moment in gaming? I need that to get over with. All right.
Just remind me that the world's not real. No, I, I totally agree. And I think it's like, I, even people, people who are very anti AI and pro AI, I've seen both make this point that like largely the. The ethics side of this boils down to the fact that like... The algorithms need, they need creative input from real people, at least as they exist right now, because if you feed generative AI models off of other AI generated shit, it's like, fuck it.
It's like inbreeding, like it just decays. There's, I think it's called model collapse or something. There's like a, and again, who knows? Maybe that's an overcomable problem. But as it exists right now, there need to be creative people for these things to exist, for them to parasitically leech off of.
And and so, like, even if you're the most pro AI dude in the world, unless you have this utopian vision of like, hey, I will overcome this hurdle, which we don't can't confirm or deny at the moment. It's like. You acknowledge that there is value in creativity and people like human beings that create things. And so the problem is that like, you know, it's not like people are signing up for this and they need money to live and stuff. So it's like.
You could be the most pro AI guy in the world and still be like, yeah, but we should pay artists, I guess is the problem. So it leads to, yeah, whether or not you love or hate AI, it still does feel like a weird witch hunt where you're like, Am I getting duped? Is this steam capsule image AI generated or something? And the ethics thing is only relevant to be beyond the obvious implications of people need to get paid and value humans over fucking people that own algorithmic networks and shit.
I think there is a fear when you look at things like this that As someone who recognizes the ethical problems with AI, if you see a steam capsule image and you're like, whoa, that's sick. And then a second later, you're like, it's AI generated. It feels like you've been... like duped into supporting something evil. Like I'm falling for it. I can't tell anymore. It's like, oh, there's some old sci-fi book. I can't remember where it's like eventually the main character.
I got to figure it out. But like eventually the main character can't discern between the synthetics and the humans anymore. They used to, it used to be really obvious, but he couldn't tell the difference. It's not iRobot. um but like it's it's fuck whatever it doesn't matter but like even Blade Runner he yeah Blade Runner I guess if he's the fuck if he's a
Maybe it was Android's dream of electric sheep. Yeah, but like it's whenever it reaches that point, it's like, oh, no, I'm am I one of the replicants? Am I one of them? You know, which one is which? I'm watching Alien for the first time. No. Yeah. That is a sad part of the future where we can't see the thing anymore. But also like the ethics conversation, I feel like it's so interesting. We've had it a couple of times on here.
I'm so concerned with AI ethics and I'm like, I'm going to go to H&M and buy a t-shirt, you know, like there's some ethical quandaries we're willing to accept. But then this one, it's like hardcore because it's easier, right? I can look at that and say, I know that this is bad because the character has six fingers. So like clearly this was, you know, either a really, really bad artist or AI generated where if I'm buying a t-shirt at, you know, Hot Topic, I'm like this one.
I don't know. I can't tell you. I got to check the tag. I'm not going to do that. I want the cute shirt with Totoro on it. And then Totoro's AI generated. It's like, how am I supposed to? What do I do here? The shirt was made ethically, but the art wasn't. What do I do? You know, it's also a weird thing with like.
this is a very sort of like out there, uh, surreal thought experiment version of this. But I was thinking about the fact that like, uh, If you took like a bunch of psychedelic drugs and were hallucinating and you closed your eyes and you saw like, you know, a new style of architecture that doesn't exist, but maybe it's like a synthesis of all the architecture you've ever... then like it is sort of like a human brain.
that is aggregating aesthetics into different aesthetics and it's like if I could then capture that image in my brain that hallucination and print it out into an image and like be like I'm an artist it's like It makes me it challenges my notion of the ethics of AI, because I think functionally that's just using the human brain as a fucking computer. to become like an algorithmic aesthetic generator which is not that dissimilar from like a gan uh but it's like
For some reason, I'm like, oh, that'd be sick, though. And it's like, no, that's like that's not the same problem. Yeah, I saw so many layers deep here with this one. I do think it boils largely down to sort of like the. the ethical implications of like stealing other people's work and profiting from it without compensating. So like I only bring up that example because I am inherently sort of lean like anti-AI art on basically everything. And so I think it's healthy to like.
challenge my assumptions about that and be like do i do i hate this because i've made up my mind that it sucks and because i'm aware of these ethical implications or is it specifically because like it's ripping off people like in a world where every artist was you know, had infinite money and bread and water and safe housing and whatever, would I still? Totally fair. Yeah. Conversation that I'm sure will continue until...
The heat death of the universe at this point, Pandora's box has been open. Which is getting sooner and sooner with every algorithmic network. Dude, it's all good. Now I know what that one scene from Fight Club at the end would look like if Hayao Miyazaki drew it.
Did you guys watch the Lord of the Rings AI? This is the last thing I'll say about it. Dude, I watched the first two seconds of it and I was like, oh, they just ran it through a filter. They didn't like... It looked really bad, I was going to say. It like screenshots well, but it looks like shit. I just wanted to say.
100% but like I think Austin Walker said it not to Austin Walker post again we're just welcome back to the Austin Walker podcast he's a smart man he's just so smart but like I think he made a point that making The Studio Ghibli version of The Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit or whatever is not shot for shot remaking it in that art style. They would make a different movie. It would look different. People make art on purpose with an intention. It's not like they just drew.
It's not like it was shot that way because that's the only way you could shoot that page from that book. It's like it has to look.
A certain like obviously, you know, but I feel like a lot of people look at art and they're like, oh, it looks like that because that's how it looks instead of like, oh, it looks that way because I saw this book when I was four years old and the free radicals floating around in my brain resulted in this picture that you're looking at right now. Like there's so much to art that's not just. you know, Xeroxing a Xerox. It's like someone did this on purpose.
it's you know whatever it's like oh i'm so excited it's ghibli no it's not that is the funniest thing about it uh is that like people like wow this would be such a cheap way to do what studio it takes studio ghibli like 10 years to do and it's like Yeah, if you made the entire Lord of the Rings movie first and used that as training data, which at that point you might as well just draw the fucking movie. Yeah, dude, anyone can trace. It just takes time. Like, fuck off.
Anyway, it's very, very, very fucking funny to see people so psyched about something that looks so sloppish. Yeah, it's embarrassing and I hope they all... sleep on the warm side of the pillow, and there's no cold sight. I was going to say something meaner, but I remember it's being recorded. Yeah, I don't want to... I'm getting on a plane soon. I don't want to make any jokes.
You know what, I want to talk about a video game that I feel like you guys have talked about multiple times in the past, and I've always been interested. And I've wanted to talk to you guys about this all week. Katamari Damacy. I finally played that video game, start to finish over the weekend. I'm so mad at myself for not playing this earlier. Guys, you've talked about this, Frank, especially like...
I said last week, I've had a stressful couple of weeks. I've been trying to sort a bunch of stuff out before we go on our honeymoon. Finally, we're going to Amsterdam. Very excited. like looking forward to that a lot. But of course there's like 900 things you got to wrap up before you leave. You got to say goodbye to all your family members. Like you're never going to see them again. Like there's a bunch of stuff you got to do before you go on a big vacation.
put a lot of weight on me. And I'm like, man, I really need something to help me de-stress. And I've been doing my little puzzle games. They've been making me feel good. And I, you know, I feel smart. Yay. I can, I can do Sudoku on easy now. But I was like, I need to play something that will truly bring me joy. And oh my God.
This is the most joyous video game I've ever played in my life. This is like, it's like someone took Happy and ground it up and put it inside of my Steam Deck. It's so, so good. Like I can't even vocalize really. How much fun, if you've never played Katamari Damacy, it's a game about rolling a ball around and saving the universe and creating stars.
in space again, because some giant guy with a huge ball just like just knocked all the stars out of the sky. And now you, as the little prince, have to create the stars by rolling up the entire Earth and then shooting it up there to make something. I played the re-roll version of it. So like the remaster remake version of the original Katamari Damacy on my Steam Deck. It was a really fun time. But man, this is just...
It's so weird. It's like when I was playing it. Right. And I think, Frank, you talked about it before about it being just like a joyous experience, but also the controls being really weird. That was like fun to me. I don't know. Was there a point, Frank? You played it more recently, I think. Or Jeremy, did you check it out? I haven't played Reroll, but I have played multiple Katamari Damacy games. Okay. Like, the games, the controls for them are basically like...
Both the analog sticks and stop me if I'm saying something that's not there in the original, but both the analog sticks control the ball like you go forward, but also you could use them to like pivot. Like the controls are so weird. At least in that first game. But oddly, like it feels necessary to create the tension and the friction for the game design.
even past that, the mechanical introduction stuff. Have I done enough? Does the, does the listener perhaps understand what this game is? Um, I don't want to talk about it anymore, but like the core for me here is I halfway through playing it. I was like, This is so special because I'm not... doing anything which is like a weird thing to say but like you're not the inherent goal is just to make a big ball like there's no objective markers you know what i mean it's it's a very 2004 ass video game
And it felt very childlike. Like I was trying to think about what exactly the feeling I was having was. And I've been hanging out with our friend's baby who just turned one a couple last month, I guess. I had the same feeling just sitting there rolling a ball or like we were throwing Lego pieces around for whatever reason, knocking over a tower of Lego is really fun.
And it was that same childlike sense of like, you're not doing anything. There's no objective. There's no, like, there's a goal in Katamari Damacy to like reach a certain, but I, you know, I got that done at like half the time, every single time. It's not like it's challenging once you understand the controls anyway.
But just that that act of play that felt so removed from any extrinsic motivator, like there's achievements, but whatever you get them for finishing. That's all that really matters. There's like percentage goals for some of the challenges, but for the most part, it's like.
You're just doing it. I don't know. Do you guys have any thoughts on Katamari again, Frank? I mean, I'm sure you're excited to talk about it anyway. Yeah, I mean, again, it's a big reason why I'm obsessed when I'm in Tokyo. Like, let me walk down Harajuku. Let me go down to Kesha Street. Let me go to Akihabara. like you're surrounded by it's like pure serotonin dopamine like the like there's so many layers of it but like one is the music like shibuya kei like that era of music like even
In the last month, I got into a 2003 hip-hop Shibuya K band called Hal Kali. And it sounds like H-A-L-C-A-L-I. And it sounds like their music should have been in Katamari. And it's the same reason I love Jet Set Radio. It's like... When I listen to that genre of music, just like that mashup of everything in Y2K, it's like so joy. Like I had, I like.
went out of my way to look up a new Shibuya K band because I was like, my mood was like up and down like the last like two months. And it was just like, what's going on with me? And like, so just hiking and listening to that music, like brightened me up. And I remember literally like a year ago, post my dad's past.
I was listening to the Katamari soundtrack while riding my bicycle. It's just so joyous. It kind of puts your head in a light-hearted, daffy... It's just so like... like it's it's just and like there is scatting in katamari but it kind of like it kind of like flips your brain a bit. Like, Hey, don't take everything seriously. Like a toddler, like enjoy everything. Everything is new. And then like,
The game is so colorful. It has such a unique, like, you know, we're just talking about the Ghibli stuff, but it's like that.
Katamari's like sense of humor through their art like you want to see what does a telephone look like what does a cell phone look like what does a giraffe look like everything is just funny the way it's drawn presented and then people in the streets panicking it's like i know it's also like just seeing the perspective you go from like an ant to a kaiju and like every time the scale and shifts everything
Every time the scale and perspective shifts, then everything looks different. And it's just so funny. And you are experiencing the world through this very unique artistic lens. And it's like, you want to see everything. You want to see, you want to reround, replay levels. Like, let me, it's like crazy tags. All right, let me start this level going this way. And then the unique things you find, but it's just like. It's so it is like the most delightful game I've ever played.
And like the second the sequels will start like, OK, you have to pick 20 giraffes and it makes it a little less fun because it's like, OK, there's a little bit of that in the first one, but but not as much. Yeah. Yeah. And like the original is like, oh, no, let's it's very like. I don't know just pure in that sense but it's so Joyce and there is like this like
I don't know. I always equate to OCD, like where I like picking stuff or whatever. But it's like when you pick, when you collect stuff, it makes it a little like boop. But like that little sound effect. And it's the equivalent. I used to peel paint. It was like an OCD pick. I used to peel paint off a door.
And now I occasionally do my fingers, but like there's something so delightful about like when, when you're rolling over something, you can't grab it and you get a little bit more mass and then it just.
effortlessly like clicks off the ground and you keep going and it's like oh god yeah and then you you keep mashing into something eventually you get it and you get like it's so satisfying and i don't know it's the snowball effect of it gets bigger and bigger and bigger i guess that but um yeah it's just it has every like the music art sense of humor that The game feel. The placement of objects. Like you were saying, the way that things are set up is almost like...
telling its own little story. I remember the one that stuck out to me the most was when, I don't remember which star it was, but one of the later ones. You start off and, you know, the way that it's designed is sort of like that Mario set up in certain spots like, oh, follow the coins and this will be the path that you're supposed to go on or it'll be like an optimal whatever. You can go this way if you want. One of them started with you picking up fruit.
And there's a bunch of bananas in a row. And like, I picked up the bananas and the King of Cosmos pops up on the screen. It's like, bah. And I was like, what the hell is that? I kept going, nah, I'm like, you're kidding. That's so funny. And then you get to the end of the line of bananas and there's a bell. And I picked the bell up and it was like, bing! And I was like, I was in that moment. I was like, no, this game is perfect. This is so funny. The fact that they're able to do so much.
Tell so much of a story and like have these little moments of joy in such a simple system is just so beautiful. I mean, you know, I'm hyping up a game from 20 years ago, but like. It's just so I hadn't I have not played anything, even something like Donut County, which I think is in the same sort of realm of like, you know, growing and size.
I was waiting for Katamari Damacy to turn into like some deep existential criticism of capitalism. And it's like, no, no, no. It's just fun to make a big ball like that. I think. when I finished it was a real wake up call of like, oh, maybe video games are a little too subversive. Maybe we need to like be a little bit more sincere in our.
visualizations of stuff like you just make a game that's fun and joyous and enjoyable and it doesn't have to be some like I'm sure you could make some observations about Katamari Damacy absolutely especially with that ending song like all art is up to your own perspective, but it's not like in your face about it. It's not like sitting you down and going, Hey, This is a critique of capitalism, man. It sucks.
It's like, no, you collect all the stuff. Yeah. You got to become as big as possible. And the bigger you get, the easier it is to get bigger. And I'm like, yeah, powerful. Yeah. But I got to come to that on my own. I don't want to have to sit down and like the characters turn the camera on me and they're like, hey, man.
What do you think? Just like the real world, right? Yeah, isn't it crazy? Sponsored by the McDonald's Corporation. Like, it's, yeah, yeah. And the way that it captures that sense of, I don't know, 2000, this game launched, what, 2005, right? 2004, something like that? I think. before like at that point in time i imagine there was like less i was what was i like nine years old i don't know anything but like there was less of a
understanding of Japanese culture. And it was still sort of that time where, at least from what I remember, Japanese commercials were like, whoa, dude, there's an octopus. Like it was, you know, Japanese culture wasn't something that was like seen as fun. It was more just like this weird other universe. So it's cool to go back and play this game. Obviously, it's the remaster of it and see.
that stuff really early on. Like I imagine there was parts, especially in the, in the house, like food items or like. uh, uh, certain cultural, like the, the banners and stuff like that, that at that time was like, and I was, I was curious, actually, I went back and read reviews. I'm surprised that this game reviewed so well.
Like it did really, really well at launch. I thought like, I was like, there's no way people like this. This must've been like some weird, no, no, no, no. Like, yeah. It was like a cult classic right out of the gate. I remember being very popular. It definitely was like one of those things that broke through as I think, like you said, it has this sort of initial Trojan horse of otherness for a Western audience that it's like, oh, it's so wacky because like Japan is so wacky.
And then you play it and you're like, oh, no, this is like a Trojan horses you into playing it. And then it's this fucking bizarrely like Neo sincere game about just, you know, experiencing things. And like also the feeling of.
Like Frankie was saying, it sort of taps into an OCD thing. The OCD thing for me it taps into is it has this like... collection aspect aspect to it but it's like the most chaotic form possible it's not like you're collecting things and like lining them up on the shelf you're just like throwing them all in a pot they all just stick to you and when they do you get the little pop-up of this sort of little
3D model that's like cat and it's just a little sort of like Hetauma like bizarrely adorable weird looking surreal cat and it's like yeah i don't know it's like the feeling of manically building a collection but sort of the impermanence of knowing that at the end you just blasted into the cosmos it becomes a star you're not like collecting things with any sense of Yeah. It's, it's so, I don't know. It's just so beautiful. It's such a.
Cool, unique video game, man. I'm so mad that it took me this long to play it. I appreciate you guys big up in it and planting the seed in my brain so long ago. But part of. What I got from playing this, something I'm trying to do this year is be more like curious, I guess, about the games that I play and just everything in general. I think I was talking to Jeremy about this off the pod.
My relationship with video games after playing Wanderstop, of all things, I'm like questioning why I do any of this, like why I play video games. What do I get out of that? Am I just doing it? Cause I feel like I need to, you know, um, this is something I'm trying to escape out of my own brain is like not getting into that wiki sense of like trying to.
have every video game in my brain. Like I'm not trying to do homework. I did this because my friend more immediately, my best friend was like, hey, I just played We Love Katamari. You should totally play that. And I was like, what if I didn't listen to you and played the first one instead? So I went and did that because you guys are. it before. So I was like, it'll be a good opportunity to talk about it on the pod before I'm gone for a couple of weeks.
But in my goal of trying to be more curious about the games, I went and started reading about Keita Takahashi, his work. the way his career went. This man has had a very interesting life for being someone who is not very public. Like he doesn't go out and do a lot of talk. He's done a small handful of them, like not a million interviews for someone who seems so critically lauded as he has been in his career. But it's interesting going back and reading those interviews because like.
He has this mind about making video games that seems so like. I don't know. Jeremy, you were talking before about how the art that you tend to connect to the most in games. The ones where the creators are clearly inspired by stuff that's not immediately a video game. Like there's, you know, obviously great video games made by people who are inspired by the classics or even new age stuff that has really interesting ideas.
There was there was an interview that he did with I can't remember who in particular. I have a different one here I wanted to mention later, but. It was an interview with OneUpGames where they asked a bunch of community questions. And one of them was like, what are you inspired by that's not video games? Because Keita Takahashi came up as a sculptor. He was trying to be in art school to be a sculptor.
and eventually started working at Namco, doing art stuff with them. And he was talking about his inspirations for... Katamari Damacy. And it was like a bunch of sculptors and like a children's book author. And I was like, this is amazing. Like, this makes perfect sense because you see the way that things are represented. Human beings are like squares. Like, I love that. The art style of Katamari Damacy, the cut scene.
It's just so good. And then the humans in the game look so ridiculous, despite the amount of detail on a bunch of the other smaller models. The fact that everything can be interacted with is so cool. But yeah, Kitayataka Hashi's career is just so, so weird. The fact that he left Namco. He talks about making video games in this way that...
Like he said, he didn't want to make video games in a decade in 2005. I think the interview was in a decade, I will not be making video games while he has one coming out this year. So that was. Liar. No, but like you read, I'm just reading through all of these. It's like this perspective of somebody who thinks video games. Our joy, like it is just a joyful thing to play them and to make them. One of the things that he wanted to do as an artist was make.
And eventually he did get to do that, I believe, in New Zealand. He ended up working with the local municipality. They hired him and Namco paid him to make a play. He has like the designs up and you can check them out. I don't know if they ended up being made, but I just thought that was so interesting that like that's the direction that he wanted to go. And I think part of what he was saying there was that like he wanted to make.
the joy of playing video games, something anyone could access. Like it wasn't something where you needed to have a home and electricity and internet or whatever to play a video game. Like you can have that same experience of joy just by going to the park and like making something that was less function and more joy. It's like, that's beautiful, man. What the hell? Katamari Damacy is like the closest thing. to a video game playground that I've ever played, which is really, really cool to see.
specific quote I wanted to bring up because reading it in retrospect, it's about Wattam, I think was one of his games, right? It's an interview that he did with Brendan Sinclair for gamesindustry.biz. It's really interesting. Takahashi's talking about how... He wants to make video games that challenge the status quo that like escape that sense of what video games, quote unquote, are like it's fighting games, shooters, whatever. At that time, like him getting hired at Namco was based on.
him wanting or not him, but like the executive that brought him on that was like, hey, you failed the interview, but I want you to make video games was because video games are boring and I want you to make cool ones. He was like, OK, here's here's your breakout hit, baby, Katamari Damacy. But so many years after making that first game and now breaking off and having his own studio and working with Annapurna Interactive.
he's had that sense of like, I can't, am I breaking the status quo? And he's like, not really. Like, it feels like games aren't really changing. So reading this interview in retrospect was really interesting. And this quote that I want to read was, I thought, just really indicative of the kinds of games. that he makes that I want to play more of now, but also just something that really spoke to me. It's always like that.
Because I'm trying to go against the current trend of games we have right now. You know, shooters or fighting games. They never change. But almost all people love that kind of game, which I understand. Shooting or fighting is kind of fun. But as a game designer, that's kind of sad because we couldn't provide a different perspective for the player.
I understand fighting is fun, but this is a different perspective of fun. I still believe games are a very unique medium, which is interactive, has music and vision. can provide you with a more emotional story, but we still provide the player a very tiny, small perspective of life experience. And it's like the kind of game, like I need to go play the rest of this library of games.
At first, I was like, I'm going to go play seven Katamari games. Turns out he only made two of them. He didn't even want to make We Love Katamari. Isn't that part of the joke of the game? That it's like, here's for the fans. And he talks about the dedication of wanting to make that game. not because he wanted to make it, but because Namco was going to make it without him and he didn't want it to be bad. Like...
What a beautiful, like, oh my God, just reading everything he has to say, especially he did this talk. I'll put a link to it in the description. He did this talk about working on the playground, but he was reading out. his GDC talk that I think he did in like 2006 or maybe even a little after that. describing how hard it is for like, like when he went to E3.
He saw people outside that were homeless, unhoused, living in their communities, trying to just survive on these streets. And he's like, I'm walking into E3, hanging out with all these developers. living this, you know, totally devoid of reality lifestyle as people outside can't experience the same joy. Like, what am I making video games for? It's something that he says a lot in these interviews that I've been reading.
Dude, your game is just pure joy. And I feel like you're struggling. Like, I feel so bad, man. Just such a beautiful perspective on making art and what the point of any of this is. And I know, Jeremy, you're working on video games and your goal in the conversations that we've had is to make something that... exists outside of the norm to like bring experiences to people that aren't.
you know, just the regular same old video games. Like how many, you want to make a roguelike deck builder? Do you think we can make that happen? It's I the quote you read was very like gave me chills. I think that's such a beautiful perspective on like.
how to make stuff uh it uh i one of my favorite studio ghibli you know there's like a million documentaries about hayao miyazaki like every time he makes anything he's like making a sandwich and he If you want to get like the fucking, you know, the news crew in here to film it, I'm cool with it. Even though Ponyo isn't one of my favorite Ghibli movies, the documentary about Ponyo is one of the most inspirational for a similar reason. And it's because this is like...
Hayao Miyazaki constantly establishes these new highs in his career where like Totoro, he describes as like the shadow that hangs over his whole career because it's like, how can you ever beat Totoro? And then he makes like fucking, you know, like Princess Mononoke. And it's like, oh, my God, this is like this mature work that throws off the reputation he has as this creator of child friendly works or whatever.
And then he does like Spirited Away that sort of like transcends age boundaries. And like, you know, I've shown it to my parents. It's probably the only Japanese animation they've ever watched. And they're like, this is incredible. Like it resonates with people in so many different cultures and walks of life and age ranges.
And and so after that, it's like, how do you keep fucking getting how do you continue in that manner? Like it's it's this fever pitch that can't be continued. And in Ponyo, which is takes, you know, was made after all those films. His approach is basically that like.
And like weird mediums and stuff. Like it's a media that he doesn't usually draw with. So he gets all these pastels and just starts doing these like watercolors and pastels and illustrations and new styles and stuff. And he has this like. This childlike joy about it. This guy who's drawn, you know, like in the entire human history, this guy has probably drawn more pictures than 99.9% of people who've ever drawn.
Yeah. Like an animator, especially because you're drawing a fucking, even if you have people doing the in-betweens, like he's just constantly drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing. And so to see someone like that get excited about the process of drawing, I like, I think that's what it's all about. And so the Kid Takahashi thing you read is like. I think that that's part of the role of being a good artist or creative person or whatever in general is.
It's not just to master your craft and find an approach that works really well for you and then like drill down as deep as you can into that. But it's to constantly sort of like drill a deep well in one area and then pull completely back up and almost. like start over in a different area, having more experience generally in your craft. Yeah, I think that the reason we see games that are just like, oh, I like Slay the Spire. What if my game had like cards and swords?
towers um is because it's like it's very hard to come up with a new type of gameplay you know it's like coming up with a new color uh if you but it's not quite that because there's like a fucking you know there's no like rgb sliders for gameplay or whatever you can't go like 40 saturation past lay the spire and you're like there's your game Not yet, but with the power of AI. God damn it, don't bring me back there. Sorry. I'm finally ascending out of the buck. No, but it's like...
It's making new types of games is like a search algorithm, and it can be a very costly one, either in terms of time or literally money, depending on how you're doing it, who's funding it, and who's doing it. Yeah, I don't know. I think there is a purer version of creativity that like is very hard to do unless you have.
like the medici family funding your efforts or whatever and you're just like oh i'm making the first helicopter it's like 1400 like if you're not like a da vinci it's hard to just be like fucking a bizarro dreamer or something But ultimately, like, again, that's like that's why it's important for us to have as a as a as a civilization and as a as like a planet, as a species to have like. support systems for artists and for people who want to live sort of more fringe existences because
To do so is sort of like the necessary foundation to break through. Like you don't get a Katamari Damacy without someone who's like thinking very differently about things. And you don't get people who are thinking very differently about things unless you create a world in which those people can exist without being ground up into fucking hamburger meat because they don't work in marketing.
like more sort of like traditionally established, financially recognized and rewarded roles in society or whatever. So, yeah, I don't know. I think. It's a weird needle to thread, but I think...
It's such a fucking stupid thing to say, but that's like a true artist to me as someone who just loves their craft so much that they constantly want to make something, do it as well as they can, and then pull all the way back to that beginner mind and be like... what would it be like if I was drawing for the first time? Yeah, that's beautiful. Well put. I think it's going to be something that...
We have to come to terms with as time goes on, especially in the games industry of how do we fund ideas that we can't see as as, you know, moneymakers. That's, I think, also something Takahashi talks about in. Even he says it multiple times throughout time, too. It's not just like an early thing of these. publishers obviously are only making decisions that make money, which like, of course they do their businesses. That's how they operate.
video games that inspire joy in people. That's not how you get new interesting ideas. That's how you get something that people are already playing. That's how you get Street Fighter 7. I can't wait to play it. But that's how you get that, right? Um, it's like everything sequels. It was actually really sad going back and reading all that because.
In that moment, it almost seemed like every journalist who was talking to Akita Takahashi was like, this is the future of video games. Weird, small experiments that are cheaper and more fun. And I'm like, God damn it, we're doing the same thing right now. It's 2025 and we're talking.
we're saying exactly the same things to exactly the same creative minds. And we're saying to them, Hey, you're the future of video games. You're making weird art. That's going to change the world. And it's like, no, man, we were saying that 20 years ago. Nothing changed. Yeah. Cause the funding structures haven't changed. Like there will always be.
Until we live in a world where it's actually literally impossible to survive as a person who doesn't just make like... whatever like extremely mass appeal games or whatever there will always be people who just like love games in a way that is different and uniquely them and they make idiosyncratic
weird shit and some of those people will win the indie game lottery and make a hundred million dollars and some of them will uh you know work as like cashiers while they make this like unrecognized masterpiece in their bedroom or whatever But yeah, it's a hard thing to reconcile. Do you do like a fucking like a communist revolution and like seize the means of production? It's like now that now that every American owns.
A little tiny piece of apple. We can finally fund all the artists. Settle down. Have you heard perhaps of trickle down economics? Just give it 50 more years, man. Ronald Reagan's ghost is going to figure it out. I got my fucking basket out towards the sky. I'm just waiting for it.
Hey, you can make a game about that, I bet. Trickle-down economics. Yeah, it's like a... It's just a guy holding a bag waiting for money to fall into it? Wait, that's... Be a good, like, 80s arcade game. Yeah, that's got big, like, uh... I can't think of the game.
Whatever. It reminds me of a specific game that I'm also trying to think of. It's like Space Invaders, but instead of shooting, you're catching money, basically. You gotta dodge the shields. And the shields are tariffs. I don't know, whatever. Sorry for the topical joke. I didn't mean to do that. It's okay, they're all over. It's all good. You can pre-order your Switch 2 now. God bless.
All right. Speaking of people who are very passionate about the video games that bring joy to their hearts, Frank, you're playing Dead or Alive Venus Vacation Prism. We've been waiting 93 minutes to talk about this. Guys, this is the biggest news story. We're the only outlet covering this. This game is not sold in America. I had to import this from Hong Kong from PlayAsia. So this is Dead or Alive. Venus Vacation Prism.
I'm sorry, Dead or Alive Extreme Venus Vacation Prism. So this is the newest in the Dead or Alive Extreme series, notably the Dead or Alive games without fighting. This is a full-fledged dating sim. This is also the first Dead or Alive Extreme with no volleyball. They have just been like, all right. What do people want in a Dead or Alive game? Not fighting? Okay, let's do volleyball. Wait, no one wants that either? This is basically Pokemon Snap.
What? No. Oh, my God. Okay, hold on. Do I need to pump the brakes on this one? No. There's no rating system on this. On this island, the moment of love. On the Venus Islands, a land of everlasting summer, you meet six girls. As you interact with the girls as their boss, a variety of unique stories unfold. The heart-fluttering sensation of casual gestures, the thrills you draw close to your love interest.
and they'll worry about which girl to choose. Are you ready to experience true romance on the islands of everlasting summer? So the premise of this game is you're now the boss of an island, and you kind of got to boost, like, tourism. You have to, like, convince people that Venus...
Whatever this island's called. In the previous games, it was Zack Island. They cut Zack out. They don't even mention Zack. This is your own island or something. I don't know. But you have girls showing up to your island every day. You call them your Venuses. And you have to take pictures of them because the more likes they get on social media, it increases the popularity of the island.
So every day you're hanging out with girls and essentially coordinating like photo shoots or like activities. You're taking pictures and the more likes they get, the more outfit options you unlock. But the like tension in the game chooses.
It comes from what do you spend your time with? It's like persona. You'll wake up in the morning. Sometimes girls will come into your room and be like, oh, hey, I made you some coffee with marshmallows. Do you want to take me out to breakfast? Or you'll get a text message that's like, hey, we're already out on the beach training. Do you want to help us out with our abs exercise?
And so, like, if you say yes to some girls, other girls will start getting jealous. And, like, it's the constant, like, their like meter will go up or down depending on, like, who you choose. And like, it's hard because like I've now played maybe four to five hours of this game. I've unlocked all the girls. But now it's like, who do I spend my time with? At the end of the night, they keep talking about how there's like a meteor shower.
You get two bracelets. Whoever you give your bracelet to on the night of the meteor shower, there's like a story of the island. And if you both look up, if you both have the bracelet and you look up into the meteor shower, then they are your everlasting Venus. okay so like i think that's nice yeah i think it invites multiple playthroughs so it has like what a lot of dating games do where it's like if you pick it you can always like go back to an earlier chapter and pick the other option um
so yeah this just came out uh it is very funny if there's no volleyball like it's straight up like it's not like there's barely any mini games it really is like you'll wake up you start a day and you'll have like your photo assignment it's like take a picture of a venus eating breakfast Take a picture of Hanukkah. This is a fully consensual thing, right? You're not hiding behind a pillar trying to get a really good picture of her eating breakfast or anything, right?
No, although you can go into photo mode at any point in the game. So like when you're playing the game, you press L1. It's like quick photo. Just take a screenshot of the thing. Or you can press square and go into photo mode. And then so you can zoom out the camera. You can move it. You can adjust the F stop. Like it has all the full on like. you know, everything you need. You can just expose your levels, put frames, filters on it, whatever.
And when you take pictures, they make noises. They're like, oh, hello. Whatever. It's all in Japanese, but you can have English subtitles. The oh, hello makes me think they didn't know you were taking a picture. I don't know. Everyone's shy. But no, the girls have different personalities. There's like a CEO boss type. There's like a very like, you know, it's all the anime tropes. And yeah. And at the end, it's like really is like Pokemon Snap at the end of the day.
I don't like that comparison, Frank. No, I'm not kidding. At the end of the day, you have to submit which photos you want to get approved. It's just like when Pokemon Snap, it's the same UI menu and everything. When you have to share your photos to Professor Oak and he judges. Professor Oak's in the game. No, I'm kidding. No, there's a name. The boss is Elise, which is the pink hair.
That's the one. She looks like she's the boss. She's the boss. She judges your photos. And there's like a star system. There's one star, two star, three star. So you basically can just. submit the highest rated photos, or if there's a girl you like, if you favor a girl, let's submit all of Hanukkah's photos. her like meter will go up further. Like the holiday?
Not the Hall. No. Hanukkah is the only one from the previous Dead or Alive that's in this. Otherwise, these are five new girls that have never been in the series. Maybe they'll be in a new Dead or Alive. I don't know if they'll ever make a new Dead or Alive.
um that has sorry is this all cut scenes like is this are you adventuring around on an island it's like you don't have free control of the camera no it's like it's like pov dialogue stuff so it's like you can pick what what option you say what you select what girls you talk to or where you like The girls always split up into pairs. Like, oh, I'm going to go over here with Elise or whatever. And so you can choose where you go with. And again, like Persona, there's like...
There was like morning breakfast, so you can have breakfast with. It's also kind of like White Lotus. It starts off every morning. Everyone's having breakfast, talking, and then Sam Rockwell starts telling you a really awkward story. Yeah, and you get text messages, and you're checking your phone in front of it. It's great.
And so then you have your afternoon activity and then your nighttime activity. Are you going are you taking someone out to dinner? Are you are you doing a photo shoot? Are you are you.
taking a walk on the beach are you talking about the the meteor shower and the bracelets i don't know um and so yeah but at the end of the day you have all of your photos and they're scored and you submit them and then all your points get tallied up and then at the end of the chapter it shows you like all of their how many social media likes they have what is their like preferences towards you what routes and stuff you unlock and so and then you unlock more costumes for the next day i don't know
I don't know, new game plus it, what's the fancy stuff in it. I don't know how long this game is. DLC episodes or whatever like it's all in here we'll sell you another game if you want to play more yeah yeah and so So we'll see. But yeah, this just came in yesterday. I have other games I'm excited to talk about, but this just came yesterday and my hands were shaking. I was ripping it open. Sweat pouring down your face.
Because even when all the tariff stuff got announced, PlayAsia had to make a statement that was like, hey, yeah, don't worry. If you pre-order Dead or Alive Venus, we are still... Like, I paid for this game last year. So, you know, this was a tax expense. The IRS knows I reported this on my taxes. So I paid for this last year, and it arrived yesterday. Awesome. My friend got the deluxe edition. This has an English mode, right? Or are you like using it? No, so it's...
Just Google Translate, but you have to block the case. You're like, only the text, only the text. It's the same thing that they did with Dead or Alive Extreme 3. It was not released in America. You can't buy it on the North American store or the digital marketplace, but they made an international edition. So the voice is in Japanese, but the subtitles are in Japanese, English, Chinese, traditional Chinese, simplified Chinese, and Korean. So it's a multi-language, like multi-Asian.
It has trophies and more. I don't know anyone else playing it. Well, I have a friend in Japan who got it, but, you know, it's local there. I'm very excited to have this. And yeah, it was only 60 bucks. They didn't charge a premium for it. I don't know if tariffs have messed that all up. I have no idea. I think, yeah, I don't know. But yeah, you can get it from PlayAsia. They always have booths at like anime convention stuff too. So if you do...
But yeah, Dead or Alive Extreme, Venus Vacation Prism. I will say the fact that there's no volleyball or annoying minigames means it's not frustrating. The other games are so frustrating because progression is so difficult because you have to be good at the volleyball stuff. And all this here, it's like, I don't know. It's it's very easy. All I got to do is take pictures. Yeah. Yeah. And it's it's like.
It doesn't have the dead rising thing where like it doesn't tell you how many points the photo are when you take it. I would accept this more because like on one end of this, obviously, I'm like. Is this objectification of women? It's the Dead or Alive series, so probably a little bit. Absolutely. But also, if they went a little more arcadey with it, I'd probably be like, that sounds kind of funny.
Yeah, like the Yakuza Infinite Wealth Pirates, whatever. The most reason when they have like, they don't call it Pokemon Snap. They call it like. They call it's like Frico Snap or something where you're taking pictures of. That's what they should have called this. Yeah. That's basically what it is. And that one, it's very much. It's very silly. This is like the kind of thing where it's like.
not a like it's not intentionally like it's like it walks the line because it is silly but some of the dialogue and stuff is so stupid but that's why i like it's yeah sorry how is the dialogue is it like it's like it's dating sim is it dating some crap of like oh you're so cute yeah yeah yeah they're spamming your phone with like emojis and it's like this is the like six girls are texting me oh my god who am i gonna have breakfast
It's awesome. And they're charging less than Mario Kart World for this? Yes, it's cheaper than Mario, right? So I'm excited. Mario never texts me. Yeah, it's cool. Actually, I really like the, as a game design choice, because if it was just...
On an island, like Pokemon Snap, taking pictures of these girls to boost their career. I feel like that's kind of what I thought this game would be with like a dating sim. But I like the fact that you could take pictures that like favor certain characters and it plays into the dating. Yes, yes. That's like a very clever overlap of sort of the two. Yeah. Trying very hard to like say a nice thing. No, no. Legitimately, I fucking, that's like.
That's smart. It's hard because like the first girl, I'm like, oh my God, I love her. She's the one. And then the next girl shows up. I'm like, oh, I like her. And then the next one and the next one. And then the boss shows up and it's like.
like the boss is you have like she's like you have a consulting meeting with her and she's like doing a progress report with you and then another girl comes in is like boss do you need a snack oh you look so stressed what's wrong and it's like you can you can bail on your like meeting with your boss to go hang out with this girl but it's like
Sorry, I'm in a I'm in a work meeting. OK, well, let's hang out tomorrow. Wink. And then like, oh, my God. You know, so it's like you're afraid of like turning people down. But then they like. Then you book them the next day. It's okay. If the woman said no to you, just take her picture, post it on Instagram, and then she'll be cool. Yeah, then she gets more likes or whatever. But if you call everyone your Venus, the Venus.
So, I don't know. It's cool. I like it. It's weird that there's no volleyball, but at the same time, it's like, okay, great. So, yeah, it's pretty easy. I just wanted to say that the first time you said the title of this game, I thought you said Venus Vacation Prison. Oh, no, no. Venus Vacation Prison. You take pictures of them. I was picturing the protagonist of this game for some reason as George Costanza.
See, you're writing a better game. They need to call you up. Jerry, there's six of them, Jerry. Jerry, you gotta come now. Kramer shows up and they all leave. Yeah, exactly. He's like, what's going on? He doesn't realize he fucked everything up for George.
I feel like that should exist. They probably have made that, right? Someone's, yeah, probably tried to do something like that. Probably very litigious. Yeah. Can I make an officially licensed Seinfeld game? If anyone could, it'd be you. I would really like to do that.
What would you do? Are you doing like a... It'd be a good Telltale type game. Yeah. Yeah, the Kramer will remember that. Oh my God. Oh, that'd be burned into my screen and just be like, I'd do that over and over again. I feel like it would be like a...
That's a weird comparison. You really just don't change anything. It would just be world of horror. It would be world of horror, but like it wouldn't be like the horror element would just be sort of the like the social angst of being a neurotic Jewish man in New York in the 90s.
Right. You know, I just feel like that's a good note. I feel like I feel like I could really speak to that perspective. I feel like, yeah, if anyone knows what it's like to be a Jewish man. Larry Davis, hit me up, baby. Yeah. All right. Well, that was Dead or Alive Venus Vacation Prism. Buy it now on PlayAsia. What did you say it was, Frank? $60? I think it was $60. I don't know if like...
I have no idea what's going on with the global dollar. Tomorrow could be $90. Next week it could be $300. It all comes down to what the orange man thinks. But I don't know, like, if you go to Japan, I don't think the Japanese version has English subtitles. So you think you specifically have to get, like, the... Dude, they're region locking you with this, too. Yeah, like, the global version. But, like...
Yeah, I don't know if these will be rare or whatever. So it's like if you have any interest get it now before like I because I really don't know what like importing games and stuff is gonna be like in the future So I was like very happy like it shipped it arrived no extra fees or whatever. So it's like, okay Thank you. And then again, I'm happy to buy it. So, cause I want more dinner live.
There you go. Maybe one day they'll make a dead or alive game where like the woman is the one you play as. And she like. Let's take pictures of a bunch of guys. I'm sure that's already a game series, and we've just never heard about it, and 10 million people play it on their smartphones. Do you guys ever see that, by the way? There's like...
One of the most played games on mobile is one that I've never heard of before. It's like a... like a dating sim where it's all like it's from the I don't remember what the word is where it's from the perspective of the woman and it's all men they're trying to get what there's like a genre name for that but like yeah it's it's very detailed and it's like 10 million players or 25 million players or something
It's huge. You guys haven't seen this? No? I don't know. Am I imagining a video game? I know what you're talking about. I remember when I was in Tokyo seeing so many ads for mobile games, and I think... I think I remember seeing an ad if this is the same game we're thinking of, but, like, I mean, the term is, like, fajoshi, where it's, like, girls obsessed with, you know, cute boys and all that. Like, it's also a trope, and, like, there's yaoi games and stuff like that, but, like, yeah, yeah.
We're all Googling Chinese dating sim. Oh, I got it. Love in deep space. Yowie was the word I was trying to remember, and I just didn't want to Google the phrase boys love to find it. Yeah, fair. Thank you. Although if you search Yowie, that's what comes up anyway. I once said the word vajoshi out loud at a vajoshi bar, and like-
The room got quiet. So I don't know if you're not supposed to say Fajoshi. But no, I don't know. I feel like in anime, I'm watching like a show called Akiba Rangers and the girl openly draws Yaoi and says, oh, I'm a Fajoshi. But I don't know. I said it out loud and it was like... It's like you said bong in a head shop in the year 2007. It felt bad. That was my first trip, though.
Well, your second trip, you know, don't say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, the name of the game, Love in Deep Space. It's a mobile romance game by the Chinese company Paper. In reading this article also, Love and Deep Space reached 50 million users across more than 170 regions, countries and regions, sorry. But a recent major update has furrowed some brows by introducing an unusual new feature. Yeah. What? I'm not reading into that anymore, but that sounds really interesting.
Okay. Listen, I'll give them this. We were talking about novel game features. I feel like that's, that's, I've had, I'm not seeing anyone else doing that. That's true. We're missing out. I'm just saying they're on the cutting edge. They're on somewhere out there. There is a cutting edge and they are on it. They have found it. That is true. I think that's all the games, unless, Frank, you want to jump into...
Any of the other ones? Yeah, I mean, I have so much more, so it's whatever you guys want to do. Dude, we got time. Let's cruise it. Danny's paying. Doesn't matter. Okay, so... Rock and roll. I could do another two hours. I'm paying by the hour. So before Dead or Alive Venus Vacation, like, arrived yesterday, I'd spent, like, the last...
Basically, yeah, like the last week playing through Yakuza 5. So I got the Platinum Trophy in Pirates Yakuza, and it was an incredible game. Did it stick to landing? yeah like it was great but it's like a side game so it's like oh that was oh you know what yeah I will say like It does, it does like, it is canon. It pushes the story along. Okay, cool. So I thought it was all silly side stuff and he gets the ending. I'm like, oh.
And I think I texted my friend who works at Studio RTG. I was like, fuck you. What's next? So it's worth playing if you're invested in the series. So I finished it. And then the next few days, I was heartbroken. I felt off. I was like... Like something in my life was missing and it's because I wasn't playing a Yakuza game. And so I was like, all right, let's go back to Yakuza 5.
I need to beat Yakuza 5 and 6, and then I'm all caught up in the main line. There's secondary ones. There's Fist of the North Star, the Samurai 1, and the zombie one. The Judgment games, do those count? I've played those. Those are its own timeline. But those are also very, very good.
So like, all right, back to Yakuza 5. I finished Kiryu's Saga. And the reason Yakuza 5 is really amazing is it's just like in Yakuza 4, they introduced it where you start playing as multiple characters. So Yakuza 4, you're playing as four different characters, but it's all in the same city.
yakuza 5 is amazing because you go to all throughout japan so i think the first uh yakiru is i think in like fukuoka which is like way west side of japan and every chat every character has their own like deep hardcore mini Kiryu's is he's a taxi driver. So there's like two... like types of missions as a taxi cab driver.
One is like you are straight up being like a obedient taxi driver in Tokyo. So you have to obey the stop signs. You have to like wait for people to cross. You can't go too fast. You can't be too erratic. And you're having conversations with your taxi guests. That's cute. The second is you're doing taxi driving on the freeway. And then it's just straight up like initial D Tokyo speed, extreme racer, like racing with drifting and extreme Eurobeat music. And it's amazing.
I did that, like, last year, and it was amazing. Now I wanted to go back to Yakuza 5. I'm playing as Saejima. His whole side thing, you're in Hokkaido, which is like the very north part of... Japan there's a whole hunting mini game you have to set down trap traps you're hunting foxes you're hunting a giant bear it's a whole you can ignore all this and just do the story but the side stuff is you're hunting a bear that was amazing
The main reason I was excited to get to Yakuza 5 is in the middle of the game. I think her name is Hiroka. The story, you have to do this, is you are an aspiring J-pop idol. So in Yakuza 5, this is the main game, this is the main series, there's no fighting. Instead, you're doing dance battles. You're doing handshake events. You're doing a TV guest show appearance.
it is like there's backstage you're beefing with the other girls it is like and this is like it's not side stuff this is the main game and it's a fun payoff because like And they introduced this girl in the very first game as like a little kid and every episode, every game, she gets a little bit older. Yakuza 3 is all about like maintaining the orphanage that she...
Her and all her friends are in. Kiryu is, like, essentially the father. And now, like, Kiryu is now laying low from the Yakuza. And Heroku is on her own as a J-pop idol. And, like... It's so fun wanting to finally play it and playing it. And it's great. Like it's a Sega rhythm game. It plays much like the rhythm game stuff has showed up in the side games and like judgment and the other.
but playing like the real version is great. Cause now it's like all these, all the songs I know from this series, I'm playing as Heroku, she's singing it.
What I like, too, is, like, I love, like, J-pop idol stuff. Like, not so much of the actual, like, traditional, like, AKB48, the idol stuff. I see it all through, like... joshi wrestling stuff but it's like i've been there i've gone to like handshake events in akihabara i watch like anytime the wrestlers are on like these japanese game shows i'm looking at the interview i'm like
So I'm absorbing all of the idol culture. So it's so funny to like play a game that's based on the idol culture and it's Studio RGG's sense of humor. Like it's very, very funny. The handshake events.
it's really funny it's like you're you're handshaking the event but if a guy holds your hand too long security comes and like kicks him out of the line oh that's awesome and so like so you have to like hold his hand just long enough so that security doesn't bounce him because if the security bounces him then he like your fan level detracts so you have to like play the role of an idol and there's all these pressures on you and it's like oh that's actually like
Like I was playing this and I was like, oh man, I love the Japanese wrestling stuff so much. But it's like, oh, this is really their life. Every day they have to do all this bullshit. Like all that kind of. But like, so it was really funny just to get like, because yeah, you're in this office and like you have these grueling managers like pushing you to do all this crap. And it's like, oh, that's actually kind of great.
It's really cool to get this inside like. I can't believe there's that much depth to it, but I also kind of can like the Yakuza series is so good at having those really deep spinoffs or like. uh, side mini game things, at least from the ones I've played so far where, yeah, they surprisingly like the, the cabaret game or I think it's cabaret and the second one, um, where you, yeah.
I thought it was just going to be like a dumb make the bars go up. But it's like, no, this is the challenge of running a business in Japan, especially one that's built around, you know, women who sometimes can be abused and are exploited for their looks. And I'm like, oh, my God. What the hell? I thought this was a funny, stupid video game where a chicken runs a cabaret club. Like, what am I doing?
So that's not surprising, but it is also a little surprising to hear that they go to that level of depth with the J-pop idols. Sorry, go on. I just don't want to comment on that. No, it's that. And I did look up, it's Haruka. I'm saying Haruka, whatever. Haruka. But yeah, it's, I don't know. So I haven't finished the J-Pop Idol stuff. I want to keep beating it. And I'm excited to see what the other two chapters in...
uh, character size. Yeah, you did. You, you weren't saying Haruka. So I was, I was a little, I had to just Google to make sure. Yeah. The daughter is the one who's the J pop idol. Yeah. Yeah. What? Again, these games take place. I feel like Yakuza 1 is like 2005. Obviously, Yakuza 0 is like...
And now we are in present day. Like I think Pirates Yakuza takes place in August, 2024 or something like, or like, you know what I mean? Like, so it's like, yeah, you're seeing this girl grow up and I think she's even older and sick. And then, yeah, so that's why it's amazing. It's like, oh my God, yeah, now she's a teen idol. And it's, I don't know, it's awesome. And it's just very, very fun.
doing the j-pop stuff you even do like a magical girl transformation on stage is one of your heat actions the rival girls are like scheming against you trying to get you fired and all this stuff and it's like oh this is like like like like euphoria type backstabbing it's like this is so like i would love a i want more games just like this and like i don't know if they'll do a spin-off of this and like i mean this this game was made like in 2012 so
I don't know, but if they ever go back to this, well, they kind of do in judgment in judgment. You're undercover as a high school teacher and you coach like the, the, the girls dance team. And it's basically like a micro version of Haruka's thing in Yakuza five. But, um, Yeah, just again, shows like, again, same thing with Jesse, what you're saying about like how joyous and silly Katamari is like the Yakuza games. It's like, God, it's its own genre of video game. Like, there's no, like...
Because it's an RPG. There's story stuff, but there's dance rhythm. again just in yakuza 5 there's the taxi driving mini games that's amazing racing there's the hunting stuff that's like so funny and then yeah that's the j-pop stuff i don't know what the other two are
But I'm excited to keep going in Yakuza 5. And again, a big part of it is like I was playing Yakuza 5 because it's like, yeah, I already missed Japan. I want to go back. But the cool thing... oh yeah in Yakuza 5 is like you go to Hokkaido in the second chapter and in there they have the Hokkaido Snow Festival which is like a very big annual thing like
Like I follow a streamer and she was just doing a bunch of stuff there like back in January. So it's like, oh my God, I just heard of this like this year and here it was perfectly rendered in a Yakuza game like 15 years ago. They even have a giant Don Quixote. So it's like. As I keep learning more and more about Japan, it's like I get to keep... experiencing it through like the video games of Yakuza and then I've never been to Nagoya but one of the chapters you go to Nagoya
So right now, Haruka, you're in Osaka. So like I have my Google Maps pinned with Dotonbori and Ashibashi, all these spots. So it's like. I'm, I'm, you know, the next Japan trip I want to go do, I want to, I want to go outside Tokyo. Um, um, but, um, yeah, so I don't know. It's just, it's, it's the thing that keeps me, uh, that, uh. No, no, it's I totally get what you're saying, man. It's cool that you get to sort of.
adventure around japan without being there and see more of it through the years too i think that's what yakuza has done such a great job of capturing is like this is what this district looked like in the 80s this is what it looks like now and you can sort of play that series not for a full
you know, perfect representation of the city or anything, but you can go through it and be like, this is a place. This is a real place. And you can see like how it has changed, at least artistically in this representation of it over all the years. I really hope like. It's not often that it happens. I hope it ends up being sort of a roadmap for other games, but I would love to see that approach taken on.
Other parts of the world that don't have that same reverence around them. Like there's parts of Europe that I feel like would be really interesting to see how the cities change over time that I'd love to see more of like historical stuff, not just. Like the 1400s, like going back to the medieval ages is cool, right? You know, go as far back as you want, but. Those time periods, I think the Yakuza series captures it really well.
The way that a city changes in 10 years, 20 years, especially at the turn of the century, is so interesting. For Japan, especially, there's tons of stuff to look at there, obviously. So it's a lot more, you can see more technological change. People looked at it in this weird sort of... a little xenophobic way of like, look, Japan's the future. Everywhere was the future, man. What are you talking about?
Yeah, I just think that's really interesting. I'd love to see more games explore that part of it. And also to your point of the games, the Yakuza being so joyful and having all these like weird side games. I was thinking about it, too, with Katamari. I feel like Katamari Damacy, if you wanted to make that today and not sell it for $10 on Steam, like...
It's the sort of idea that would be captured inside of another game that has 50 other games attached to it. You know what I mean? Like, like it takes two or I'm playing split fiction now, like. The idea of Katamari Damacy being its own separate video game that costs, you know, what was it launching? Like $40, $30 or something like that. Like a full price box game on a disc. The fact that that was a thing you could do in 2005 and now it would be like three minutes.
in in split fiction or something or three minutes in astrobot you know i feel like those kinds of games that that size of it that scale of it um only really works in that context and yakuza series is great for that like they end up making games that last five minutes or games that last
Like 20 hours, like you were saying in Infinite Wealth, right? Dondoko Island just never ended. So yeah, really, really impressive series. The amount of stuff that they're able to do in those games, in the short windows of time that they're able to make them into is... wildly impressive. I'm sure Project Century isn't that far out, despite the fact that it feels like
Yeah, we'll see. And I also know the same studio is cooking up a new Virtua Fighter. But then they slapped Yakuza 0 out of nowhere. So it's like, oh, my God. Yeah, exactly. I'm excited. Yeah, hopefully... God, I don't know. Yakuza 0 will be out within three months, so now I've got to beat 5. I don't know. Yeah, I was so, it exceeded my expectations doing the J-pop.
I'm excited to keep it going, and I don't know what the next two chapters will be. I think the last chapter of Kiryu again, but we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. The next big game, I guess, is... We wouldn't be in Hawaii. No spoilers. Nevermind. I don't want to know. Yeah. Yeah. I generally have no idea. Yeah. It sounds like you're like, what the hell is next after beating a pirate Yakuza in Hawaii? So.
I guess we'll see the future. Maybe they'll go to the future. Maybe they'll make Yakuza minus one. Oh, shit. Maybe they'll make like a Neo Tokyo Yakuza. That'd be cool. Oh, my God. They did the Gaiden, right? Or what was it called?
Oh, yeah. Lost his name. No, no. There's the one that was like way, way back. Like Feudal Japan. Yeah. There's like the samurai one. Oh, Isshin. Yeah. Isshin. Thank you. Yeah. That one's samurai. And the Fist of the North Star is like Fist of the North Star's version of the post-apocalyptic. which is like Mad Max, but yeah, future Yakuza.
Well, there you go. Do you want to talk about GTA 5? Why are you playing GTA 5? Okay, this was cut for time last week, but yeah, so I'm so excited for GTA 6. I know, I'm so excited for GTA 6, but like... I might be dead by the time that comes out. Hopefully not. But I don't think it's coming out this year. There's no way. I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know how the hell I even landed on GTA 5. Did you play the new graphics model? Or did they put another Dr. Dre mission in there or something? You know what? I remember, like, this was... I remember...
it was honestly like when uh danny ju and i were working on the the half-life project at valve we were driving back to the airport and we're just talking about like just other games because like we had spent like weeks talking about half-life too i think we're just talking about like other incredible that probably had long development cycles. And we're just talking about like Rockstar, like, oh man, that'd be so cool.
And then, like, all of a sudden in the car, like, man, it'd be so fun to play Red Dead. Oh, man, I'll GTA. Like, we just got in this nostalgic wave. And I'm like, yeah, I want to replay GTA. And like... I just, I don't know what, I just never finally sat down and committed, but I think it was, I finished Pirates Yakuza, I like... I had spent like a month nonstop playing WWE 2K25, and I'm still playing that almost every day. It's great. Have you ranked up on the island?
No, I got all the trophies of the island, so I'm done with that. So now I'm still grinding the world tour mode. I have to do the showcase mode. Um, but, um, but yeah, I kind of like scratched all the easy achievement stuff in WWE. So I'm like, all right, let me, let me spin up a new game. And, uh, I think I was just scrolling through my trophies on, on like, what did I like start and never continued? And I was like, oh yeah, GTA five was like.
when it came out. So what, I don't know, 2013 or however long ago. And I looked at the trophy data and I only played that game for two weeks and then stopped. Because back when it launched on PS3, I was so excited for GTA Online, but the online wasn't ready. So I played GTA 5 for two weeks and then never went back to it. Then it came out on PS4. I started the story again a little bit.
abandoned it. During quarantine, my friends and I, when the PS5 edition came out, we all played online for like that whole summer. But I had never like replayed the story. It's now been long enough. since I played GTA five, that it feels like playing a new game. And like,
That's awful. I've replayed, right? It's been so long. I've replayed GTA three. I've replayed vice city. I've replayed San Andreas. And it's like, and I've replayed, I finished, like I played, I played for all the DLC stuff like a year ago. And it's like, Yeah, I guess, I guess it's now's the time to play GTA five. Cause once GTA six comes out, GTA five is done. There's no reason ever, like, unless you really want to play that again, but it's like, all right, I'll, I'll play this. And, and, uh,
Again, it's amazing playing it now on PS5 because the fidelity is incredible. It's like 60 frames. There's so much detail. There's even new music. They kept updating the online for like a decade. And so I loaded up this morning and there was a Megan Thee Stallion song in there, like in the single player mode. I'm like, oh my God, there's so much stuff that kept updating the game. And I think a big part of it is like...
It's so nice just driving around L.A. but not actually having to deal with the physical stress. Driving around in L.A. like as if there was only five cars on the road with you at a time. It's like the guys who come home from there. We were talking about this the other week who come from like.
driving a forklift and they play like train simulator you're like you could just go drive in traffic but you're like i'd rather sit an ideal version of it it's kind of funny though because like since playing it a decade ago it's like I now have so many new memories about being in LA and just like I don't know it's just like very
I don't know. It's a very nice, surreal feeling. I think it's like I was playing all the Yakuza games and it's fun, but it's so nice to have like... a truly open world like you could drive around like i don't know it's just very nice but it's doing like i'm generally like invested in the cut scenes and story again and like switching to being characters good
On the PS5 controller, the driving and shooting is so satisfying. Oh, does it use the haptics? Right? It's like, damn, this is so good. It's so... i don't know it's and i'm also like not rushing it when i played gta 5 it was kind of like the same issue i had when i played last of us 2 and everything it's like oh i want to beat it before it gets spoiled here i don't care like i'm taking my time and
I'm not going out of my way for trophy stuff, but, like, all the trophies in there just beat the story, basically. But when I finish that, I might dive into online. because yeah they've been updating the online for a decade there's like Dr. Dre missions there's all this silly stuff in there and it's like I'll give that a shot before GTA 6 comes out and there's no you know no one's playing that
But yeah, it's just been fun playing this in the background every day. And yeah, I don't know. It's just a good game. Yeah, I don't know. It's just fun. It's just a good game. It's nice to give myself permission to replay an old game. There's like this OCD conquering thing where I will never reread a book. I'll never rewatch a movie unless I'm doing it like they're like.
You know, I've had this twice where it's like when I have a girlfriend, it's like, all right, let me show you like, let's watch all my favorite stuff. But now I'm just like by myself and it's like. You know what? Fuck it. I'm just gonna play GTA. And it's like weird, like for decades.
I like, I'm not going to waste a day doing this when I've already done this. And now it's like, maybe I'm just getting older or maybe it's been so long I forgot, but it's kind of nice to be like, yeah, this feels nice. I don't know. So it's just kind of nice replaying old favorites. So, um, but I think a big part of it is I'm so like, I'm done waiting for GTA six. I don't care anymore. So it's like, I'm just playing.
So, I don't know. That's it. It's a good-ass game. No, that's great. Yeah. I love that, man. Like, going back and playing old games, that's totally, yeah, a really good point that there is this, like, paralyzing...
fear that you're missing out on something new by playing something that you already understand. Like, obviously you can get something out of it, playing it again, GTA five, like the cut scenes, the story, I bet in retrospect, some of that stuff is like, oh, that's funny or, okay, that's a little. It's a little much. But, you know, going back and playing even older games for me, like playing Katamari Damacy, I'm like... I should go play that because that's like history. That's like homework.
And now I'm kind of stressed out because there's so many cool games coming out that are new that I want to play. Like Blueprints is out this week. Promise Mascot Agency is out this week. Talos Principal Remaster is out this week. There's lots of stuff that I want to go play that's new. But the other day I started playing sleeping dogs again. And I was like, dude.
I forgot that if you just do something you already know you like, you don't have to worry about it being bad and disappointing you. Although you can go back and play something you thought you liked and it turns out it's shit. And you're like, oh, no, well, this is this is a terrible feeling. I don't like this at all. That doesn't happen to me too many times.
It happened to me with James and the Giant Peach, the movie. That was my favorite movie as a kid. That sucks. I'm so sorry. Yeah, don't watch the movie anymore. Just live in your childhood version. Wasn't there like a French like spider babe or something? What am I thinking of that? Is that James with the Giant Peach? That is James with the Giant Peach. There's like a spider chick, right? Is she bad?
No, she's got like the... No, no, no. You're not hearing what I'm saying. No, I hear... Yeah. I don't remember. I just remember that spider chick. I do remember there... Oh, yeah, she's got the cigarette. Oh, she's French. It's still a very cool movie. I felt like it lacked cohesion, that my child brain was just like, I like the way it looks. I like when they're at the beach. And as an adult, I'm like, I don't know about all this.
I had a similar thing, but I still liked it because I am a fool. When I went and watched... The Lemony Snickers series of unfortunate events. I've never seen those movies, never read those books. That movie, it's only one movie, unfortunately. They were supposed to make like eight of them. And I think Jim Carrey was like, I'm tired of being like this. I'm going to go draw.
I'm tired of being like this. I like to imagine that he wasn't saying that about the character. He just was saying that about his way of being. I'm pretty sure he reached the point where he was like, I'm tired of being me. I'm going to go... Mary Jenny McCarthy or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. He took a long break and then he was like, you know what? I'm going to be Dr. Robotnik. That'll bring me back. Um,
Yeah, I went back and watched the Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events movies. Not that movie. Not that long ago. They did a show on Netflix. Not as good. But those movies, that one movie, I keep saying those movies because now you're making me think there's three of them. No, that movie is.
Bad, but it's also good. I thought you were going to say it's also good. The cinematography in that movie is, I think, genuinely some of my favorite cinematography of all time. It's really, really good. I think it's Emmanuel Lubezki. Oh, no shit. Yes. Yes. What? I know. Every time I think about that, I'm like, that doesn't make any sense because he did. Yeah. I'm looking at his his filmography here. And yeah, he did the cat in the hat.
Right? He's not an eclectic mix of films. Yeah, he's all over the place. He did the Cat in the Hat movie. He did the Lemony Snickets, a series of unfortunate events. And then he did Children of Men. Yeah. And then, you know, he went on to work with Inyoritu and did Birdman. Yeah, like, E2 Mama Tambien, and then two years later was doing... Like, he went from E2 Mama Tambien to Cat in a Hat. One is about, like...
And then what's the two Mama Tambien about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He did all the Inorito movies as well, like Birdman. And the Revenant as well. Yeah. Which is crazy. Like, but I'm telling you, if you go back and watch. lemony snick it's a series of unfortunate events there are some shots in that movie that set my heart on fire like the use of lighting the way it's framed like it's just so there's a moment at the end where they they stop
Mr. Snicket. I can't remember his name. Jim Carrey's character. Olaf? Count Olaf? Yeah, Count Olaf. And then there's always been an anagram of... Like, Folo. Yeah. It's like, the kids will never get me. Now I have a big beard and I'm from Texas. They foil his plan and it's like this light burning a hole into this paper he's holding up. And just the way it's shot is like, dude.
Kids movies don't look like this anymore. You used to watch a kid's movie and like it would, it was, you know, it could stir up emotions about the way that art is created. And now it's like.
Cocomelon like I'm not trying to be like kids movies were better when I was younger I watched the Grinch movie and I thought it was okay but no there has been there have been good children's movies do not get me wrong specifically with cinematography this is also a discussion about um high dynamic range sensors for cameras where like you it changes the way that you light things because you have to be very
about differentials in light and stuff. So a lot of stuff is shot very like flat and almost documentary style. And they're like, well, like fix it in post or whatever. Yeah, we shot it in, you know, C-Log. We can just fix it later if we don't like the colors. It's a very different feeling to like. super intentional lighting with uh with the again the like constraint of uh of the sensor of the film um also i love the idea of like
when they do these films that are like the cat in the hat and they're like, yeah, let's get like the cinematographer who did, you know, like Kieślowski's Decalogue or whatever. And then he's like, yeah, you know. He is a man. He is also a cat. And this is his greatest burden. Like, I love the idea of, like, a guy who's, like, overthinking. How does he feel in this moment? Tell me, the cat in the hat, is he struggling with this? It's like, nah, man, just fuck it.
Just put the fries in the cinematography bag. Just put the fries in the cinematography bag. Oh, brother. Just put the film in the canister. That's so good. Oh, yeah. The point being, go back and experience things that brought you joy and flip that coin of whether or not they make you happy or they make you really sad. It's really the spectrum of all art is James and the Giant Peach. And Lemony Snicket's a series of unfortunate events. Nostalgia is a burden that we all must carry.
We got some questions, right? Some emails. I really want to answer these. We're two hours in, but you know what? No, thank you guys. Let's keep going. Let's go to three, baby. Yeah. And then, yeah, please, if you want to send us questions, podcasts at noclip.video or in our Patreon Discord.
in the podcast chat channel. There's so many questions, Frank. People wrote, you know, I appreciate it. No, it's awesome. I love it. Thank you to everyone for sending them in. JazzJackRabbit wrote in, do you guys have any silly boomer gaming takes or opinions? For example, it seems in recent years there's been a real resentment towards sniper characters in multiplayer FPS games. My take is that snipers have always existed in these games. People just need to deal with it and get...
Back in my day, we used to 360 no scope off rust in Modern Warfare 2. So put some respect on it. Yeah, you guys got any boomer gamer takes? I don't like multiplayer games. Really? That's why the Blood Duskborn or whatever. I just want to play a game by myself, but...
I'll play games with friends, but anytime there's force co-op, force PvE, I turn my brain off. That's why I ignore that new Bloodborne game, that new Elden Ring thing. I just want to play the thing by myself. That's my boomer opinion. My boomer opinion is probably not that much of a boomer opinion because I think it will be objectively validated by the sands of time. But you should sell me a fucking video game and I should pay you a price for it. And then you should never.
god damn it do not put a store in my fucking video game let me buy it and experience as a discreet item of culture. Yeah, that's just a valid take. I don't even think kids like that. I think they get into it because they have. It's like, oh, well, I mean, what am I going to not have John Wick? What, am I going to look like a loser? I don't want everyone to know I didn't have $10 last week. Are you kidding me?
The most hopeful I felt for the future in probably 10 years was I saw, I just, I don't even remember where I encountered it, but a video of like a bunch of small children and whoever was filming was like, what do you guys think about Fortnite? They're like, nah, Fortnite is quench. And I was like, we did it. But dude, I saw a five-year-old with a Minecraft shirt. So if Fortnite is cringe, Minecraft lasts forever. You know why?
What you just said. As far as I'm aware, it stimulates the spirit. It does not dampen the mind. That is right. It's not the sort of the Frank Herbert of Minecraft. That was like a fucking Dune quote. Oh, my God. My only boomer take, perhaps also not a boomer take. I don't know. Maybe it is. I feel like kids don't care about this stuff anymore. If I buy a disc for my video game, can it have the video game on it?
Damn. Bars. Why are we talking about this stupid cartridge crap with the Switch 2? It's like, oh, the cartridge may or may not have the video game on it. It may or may not have the video game on it. What are you talking about? I can accept buying a code for your game, piece of paper with the thing on it, whatever, you know what you did. It's the digital version, but you punch it in, you're good. The cartridge doesn't have the game on it.
If I lose the cartridge, I don't have the game anymore, brother. What do you mean? That means that that's the game. What do you mean it's not on there? You know what people are saying about the Switch 2? And it's like, oh, maybe or maybe it doesn't have it on there. We haven't had anyone from Nintendo confirm whether or not the $90 thing is going to be a real copy of the game. But the Xbox and PlayStation are already doing that. Like the disc...
If you're buying an Xbox for some of them anyway, if you're buying an Xbox one game and it's explicitly Xbox one. The Series X and Series S, well, I guess the Series S, you can't do it because it doesn't have a disk drive, but the Series X will work on backwards compatibility, but it downloads it off their servers. So you're not really playing it off the disk. What? I can get that to an extent, but just let me play the game on the... The game is on the disc!
Sorry. Put the game on the... Put the fries in the bag. Put the fries in the bag. Put the game on the disc. We should sell a shirt that says that. Just put the game on the disc. Another boomer take that's not really a boomer take is... games are too high fidelity. They take too many people, too much money and too much time to make. Just make the game, just have really good art direction and give me like 128 triangles that make up the protagonist and paint them really well. And I will.
I'll play your game and I'll love it. I'm going to transcribe that and put that on the Sonic. You know, I want cheaper games by people who are paid more to work less. I'm not kidding. Yeah, exactly. It's like a fucking, that's why it's not a boomer take is because I've seen people that are like 23 posts. Sometimes they yearn for...
They yearn for PS2 games, really, for being honest with ourselves. That's where we need to fucking just where the indie games went through the PS1 phase or entering the PS2 phase. Lock it there. Just lock it there. You don't want to get to the PS3 phase? You don't think there's... We don't have enough gray video games? I would love the like piss filter to be used like ironically or unironically.
I would like to see both iterations, but yeah, no, it's all right. PS1, PS2 forever. That is kind of, yeah, the peak of gaming. GameCube, I guess it's the same era, but you know, games look different on there. More colors. Yeah, Haynes writes in, or Hannes writes in,
Hello, crew. Lately, I've been fantasizing about doing game dev as a hobby, so I decided to give it a go, even though I've never written a single line of code in my life before now. Currently trying to learn Godot as my first engine, and I'm having a lot of fun figuring things out. It's only baby steps, but I do feel like I'm making progress.
But I'm honestly kind of intimidated and worried that I'll give up too early. I have this little worm in my head that keeps telling me to give it a try because I get the feeling that I might regret never giving it a chance.
So I'm trying to have low standards and an open mind for myself because I can only dedicate around two to three hours each day to the skill since I'm also working a full-time job. But I hope that if I keep this up, one day I'll be able to make games that other people can find enjoyment in and where I can express myself in a way I've never been able to before. So my question, do you guys have any tips or encouraging words for an absolute beginner in game dev?
I mean, Jeremy, you can definitely speak to this. Yeah, for sure. I would say your mentality is good. Stick with being excited about it. Follow that passion. Make the things that are exciting to you because the things that you will feel motivated to continue making are the things that are exciting to you.
That doesn't mean don't do tutorials. That doesn't mean don't make tiny little games like everyone says. But what it does mean is that don't feel like you have to follow any sort of conventional path. Like if someone is like, you have to make. asteroids first you haven't made tetris yet so you can't make an rpg yeah exactly like you don't feel obligated to follow that if that doesn't excite you like and it again it's okay to like
You know, it's good. It's better to finish projects because you will learn a lot of things from finishing a game and being like, I'm done with this and someone can play it and I've tested it and whatever. That is valid. But yeah, don't be afraid to just like. have a weird idea and spend a weekend prototyping it and uh you know it's okay it's better to finish things but it's also okay to try out things that you're excited about that are unrealistic because uh
There are things you can only learn from finishing stuff, but there are so many things that you can learn from just experimenting and trying weird shit. I got obsessed with liquid physics simulation for like three weeks. And I haven't made, like, a fucking Mario Sunshine game. But I learned a lot of skills that have carried over into other things that have gone into stuff I've completed.
Be regular about it and don't beat yourself up too. I started game dev in 2019 and then I didn't do any game dev in 2020. And I was like, maybe this is just not for me. And then I picked it back up. So try to be consistent and be disciplined, but don't beat yourself. Yeah. Great answer. Yeah. Finishing games is not about finishing.
The thing you're learning about finishing a game isn't necessarily making the game the whole way through. Obviously, you're making it the whole way through. But you're going to learn in the earlier days a lot more jumping around than you are getting to the end. You're going to learn how to finish a game, but maybe... It's not something you're interested in or yeah, like, like.
Jeremy saying it's going to be you're banging your head against a brick wall when this is supposed to be a fun thing you do on the side. You might hate it if the first thing you make is a game that you hate and you finish it, then you might give up game dev forever. That's what happens to people who are paid to do this, and you're not even getting paid, so you might as well have fun the whole way. Yeah, just like any creative medium.
Go where your heart leads you. I think that's a good piece of advice. Oh, and last thing is draw inspiration from games, but also draw inspiration from like a weird book you read or like a fucking sandwich on the menu. When you get to the design point, I think early on. Copy a title screen while you're trying to figure something out, man. I don't know.
yeah that's yeah don't be afraid to copy but also don't be afraid to like just fucking make weird bullshit yeah please for what jeremy's saying is like go to your museum and then make a video game please do something weird that's actually such good advice i think it is i think if you feel That's what I've done. Yeah. If I feel like I can't move forward in any creative pursuit, I'm like, I'm just going to go.
I don't know, do pottery or something. Do like a weird thing that I would never do before. Get out of my comfort zone. I'm trying to do more of that too, so. While I'm in Amsterdam, maybe I'll, I don't know. I don't know what you do in Amsterdam. Eat haddock. I don't know. I've never been there before. I'll let you know when I get back. I'm not allowed to do that. That's like one of the three things there is to do there. Okay. It sucks. I'm going to have a cookie. No one will know.
Frank, sorry, unless you have any game dev advice. No, I mean, I would just say with any hobby that you're getting into is like, if you want to say like. don't want to be a filmmaker just be the filmmaker so if you start being a game dev you're a game dev and so like yeah like in hannis's email you're saying you might regret never giving it a chance you're giving it a chance right now
Like, don't sell yourself short. Sorry, Frank, I didn't want to. No, yeah, that's perfect. So it's like, even if you like, because sometimes like, even if I'm working on like a noclip project, like with doing game capture, it's like, even if I just boot it up and just record like maybe 30 minutes of something.
It's like, oh, cool, at least I got it going. And then you get into a flow and we want to keep doing it. So it's like... even if you're not feeling it try booting up your program or jotting down your ideas or playing games as research that's part of being a game dev you know like so like being very open-ended is what you count as productivity but like also like
Yeah, just just just any habit. Just just give yourself time to do it and then you'll you'll find a routine that works. So it's like that's not even like the end goal, but just being in the this is more just talking about building a new habit. So if you want to be a game.
of habit um and then i would say also like if you make any prototypes like try putting it in front of somebody do you have a friend on discord do you have a local friend family whatever just put stuff in front of someone see if they can even read it like funny i mentioned like valve earlier They would all talk about working in cabals and like everyone just constantly playtested stuff over and over and over and over again.
don't beat yourself up you're not trying to make a product there's not millions of dollars at stake or whatever but like See if what your design is even reading. Can someone understand this? Do you need to tutorialize it? Whatever. Even if you're just making a tiny ass thing that's like click the button. I don't know.
But putting in front of someone, I feel like will be the joy. So if you have a friend, like even when I was like starting to write like sketch comedy, like for YouTube, I would like. Like I would text it to my friends or like Facebook, send it on Facebook Messenger. Like, does this joke make sense? Like, oh, that's great. Shoot it. Like in hearing that.
mirror back of like this is good do it like that's all you need like it whether it's whether it's sincere or not just someone saying like gun body no someone's saying good like do it is that's everything so we're telling you do it do it make it make it um even but i think also like It might, like, try to make something small and, I don't know, share it or whatever. But, yeah, I don't know. You're already doing it, so that's all.
Yeah, Frank fucking nailed it. Make something small and then put it in front of another person. I made my girlfriend a game for Christmas that took me less than a week to make. And I thought the idea was so cool. And then I let her play it and she loved it. But the things she said about it. completely changed my perspective on like what could be done with it what was cool And now I want to make another game taking that foundation and build.
it so it is uh you may you don't know what your game is you won't know what your game is until other people touch it and they're like this is fucking cool because of like i think you've never even considered while making it that's art baby it's collaborative it's all about the human experience boiling it down hell yeah Yeah, and then Jack on Discord wrote, given that Noclip has carried the torch for the summer of games, what games fit well with the lighter weekday evening?
For reference, I really enjoyed relaxing with Delta V, Rings of Saturn in the dark evenings. Space is dark, great soundscape of sensors pinging, but it just doesn't have the right vibe when it ain't completely dark. My immediate thought was like games that have sunsets in them. And the Tony Hawk remaster one and two, the Venice beach level takes place during a sunset. So I immediately go to like Tony Hawk stuff, stuff that is already like fitting well for spring and summer.
I mean, like Jesse just mentioned GameCube, but it's like, oh my God, Super Mario Sun. I feel like games that will kind of plant the idea you should go outside are healthy. So like, yeah, like Pikmin and like Mario Sunshine and anything you want to put down and leave your houses. Yeah. What's that series you guys have talked about? There's like a multi.
10 hour long thing from Action Button or whatever. Boku no Natsuyasumi. Oh, Boku no Natsuyasumi. Yeah, that series. There's a new game. I don't know if it's the same thing. Natsuban? Yeah, there's Natsumon, and then there's another one, Shiro-chan. Yeah, Shin-chan. Shin-chan, yeah, thank you. Yeah, those are all really good for that. Yeah, I got to check out Natsumon. It's made by the same developer as Bokuno. There you go.
That's on the list. Exciting. Trying to think if there's anything else. I think also like GTA, genuinely. Yeah, GTA 5, yeah. It really is that. Like being in Southern California and then playing a simulation of Southern California is very funny. Oh, Keep Driving, indie game from this year that I played a couple months ago. That's a really, really good one. It's a road trip RPG.
It's really like, oh my God, I just started driving this year. So I'm like, I've been going places and even just going on short road trips is like so liberating. I mean. So it's like weird freedom juice, baby. I put freedom juice in my freedom mobile and then I'm free. But keep driving. Find some way to like encapsulate that and gamify the act of.
It has systemic storytelling because of the routines that you build over playing it, like stopping at every gas station and buying up coffee and drinking it on the way there to stay awake so your levels don't drop. It's like... It's a weird gamification of going on a little road trip. It's very fun. It's very good. And the soundtrack will inspire your new road trip soundtrack. The music in that game is so damn good. It's like mostly licensed stuff. And I, yeah, I was driving my wife to work.
It was like 630 in the morning. We're on the expressway here and the sun was setting in the distance and it had this like golden hue to it. And I put that song on and I was like. I get it. I understand it now. I also think that America should liberate countries from their gas. That's a joke. That's a joke. I'm joking. They shouldn't do that. But I, you know, freedom in cars is fun.
The American dream. Driving everywhere. That's right. Yeah. You know what? 15 minute cities are nice, but sometimes you want to drive on a highway for three hours and lose your mind. And then Cartooner in our Discord wrote, What games do you think were ahead of their time? Mechanically, narratively, our terms of...
Ooh, Mirror's Edge. That's one I always come to for that. Looks great. Parkour games, I feel like, really popped off a little later after that. Like, it was cool, but there weren't a ton of parkour games, and now there's, you know, people love running around. How many games have parkour mechanics that don't need them? And they're probably built off the back of that. Yeah, this is such a hard question because it's very broad, but...
There's two games on Dreamcast. One is Shenmue. Even for its time, it's insane. Just the idea of every NPC has their own day-night cycle. It's also an anti-game where there's a little bit of combat, but it's just like... You're a teenage boy, and you're wandering around, and that's the game. You know, like, everyone was ready for a grant. Like, I remember the first time I started playing it, I was so excited.
Oh, I got to feed this cat. Oh, oh, I got to, I can't talk to the quest giver because this shop isn't open. I have to kill two hours. What am I going to do? Like, oh, I guess there's an arcade. I guess it's like now the Yakuza games have like, you know, we finally caught up to that. But Shenmue is like. I didn't really get it until like 20. I played it on like Xbox when they did Shenmue too, but I didn't get it until like 2018. I was like, oh, okay. So Shenmue for its time is like.
Dude, Shenmue was 99. Yeah, I forgot what year it came out. 1999. And it's graphics, too, for its time. Because it was... Right before PS2 came out. It's all voiced. Every character's dialogue. The English dubbing is that perfect 90s bad dub. It's hello, welcome. I'm sure you can do it on the remasters. It would be fun to finally play it in Japanese, but I've only played it in English.
So it's Shenmue. And then the other side is like Jet Set Radio to me is still like where we should be heading to when it comes to video games. Like soundtrack and it's like the controls are a little rough. And then like Bomb Rush, Cyberpunk and like the Tony Hawk games, he clips it with controls.
in terms of just style and like just you're you're it's the it's the coolest looking game and the coolest sounding game and i'm surprised that i feel like we had talked about this when we talked about like uh bomb rush cyber funk but it's like it's insane we live in a world where there's not 10 000 Maybe that's just my personal preferences, but that's it. That's the North Star for video games. Why aren't we doing that every week? That's why I will chase Yakuza, Katamari.
Even if it's, I don't know, it's just, yes, that's why I'm excited for Tony Hawk, but, like, give it a Japanese soundtrack. Give it, I don't know. But Jet Setsumi is the peak. Like, graphics, like, that's how video games should look like. I don't need something that looks like real life. Give me Jet Set cartoon graphics. That's right. Like Jeremy was saying, PS2, Dreamcast, GameCube. That's it. Lock it in.
I think the Mother series is way ahead of its time. I think that not only for the fact that it sort of rebukes this fantasy setting for ordinary world settings and situations and characters and monsters and stuff, but also... Just like tonally, it has this sort of... uh you know what people might call like neo sincerity now but it's it's very sincere but not like saccharine or syrupy it's it's very irreverent and quirky and weird and like
like off-putting at times, but in doing all of those things, it is inviting you into a ultimately sort of like optimistic and beautiful relationship to the world. But it's not doing it in a way where it's like, and everything is always beautiful. Sometimes it's like... there's like a shit monster and it does like a fart attack and you're like that's gross and it's like yeah but it's kind of funny too right you're like i guess okay you got me you got me there
The only other one I can think of, and maybe it's not a positive ahead of its time, Evolve. You guys remember that game? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That like 4v1 asynchronous game design, I feel like is so many. Like, Lethal Company is not quite. exactly the same thing but that four-player co-op trying to
solve a thing in a small sort of a confined space because Evolve wasn't like a big open world shooter. It was like a arena shooter, like in a smaller area with one target. So it doesn't have, you know, but like phasmophobia, I feel like does that same sort of thing where someone. controls the ghost, right? There's elements of that game. that sort of became more popular over time. I wonder if that would have performed better if it came out a couple years later, but also like would...
the games that exist now exist if it wasn't for that game failing. And also did it do bad because it was bad or did it do bad because they sold it like terribly with the 900 different versions of all the DLC and crap. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting point too, because it's kind of like, um, uh,
it doesn't it does like some things that left for dead did but not as well and then but it doesn't break away enough from the tradition of like running around and shooting shit that like later things like deep rock and lethal company would do and sort of you know, breathe new life into co-op as sort of, you know, there's like combat in like deep rock, but it's not like the focus. It's more about like a sense of place and exploration.
interested in sort of unconventional cooperative multiplayer in that case asymmetrical competitive but still um the experience of being in a group with people and doing something other than just like walking around shooting zombies But I feel like it didn't go far enough. It took sort of like the safest possible innovative route or something. I went with a kaiju route, but I didn't figure out how to make a game that was cool about fighting Godzilla. I went to...
I went to E3 Judges Week the year that they were showing that, and I went to the Evolve event, probably the most hungover I've ever been in my entire life. And so thinking about the game Evolve makes me a little... it has nothing to do with the game itself I just remember playing it and being like don't throw up on the keyboard I'm so sorry okay i survived i just think it's funny that like that game makes me feel hung over no that's really funny oh my god it's not their fault at all a little bit
All right, sorry, what's next? Is the last email, Frank? Yeah, last one is from GhostBoyUwu. During the intro of the most recent crew crash, Jeremy... Jeremy said he was using a Scarlett 2i2 as part of his improvised stack of stuff mic stand saying, honestly, it's the best use for it. Danny agreed mentioning issues with the electrostatic bleed. On behalf of any hypothetical Scarlett 2i2 owners out there, are there any audio interfaces you guys would recommend as an alternative or...
Is the Scarlett 2i2 owner in the room with us right now? No? I'm right here, baby. I'm still using it as a bike stand, too, because I forgot to order one. So what are you plugged into, then? A Behringer. other i can't read the model number b222 or something there's a sock on top of it it's a clean sock i should say um yeah i mean the 2i2 is like fine daddy has had problems with his i've had compatibility issues but ultimately the sound quality is not Like if I record my synthesizer.
i'll use it uh yeah i don't know i'm not i don't i've i've i if i'm buying hardware i'll become an expert on hardware in that exact for like one week yeah yeah and then like I'll never learn anything about hardware ever again. So I will never know until I have to buy an audio interface. I wish I had better advice.
Yeah, I use the universal audio volt one, but I'm in Jeremy's camp where like I needed to buy a new one. And that was the one that I heard was really good and had all the features that I wanted. And that was kind of it. We're probably not the right people to come to for recommendations on that sort of stuff. But I do think the interesting place that we're at with microphones right now, Frank, you're using what the Elgato wave two, three.
I don't know. Danny gave this to me, so thank you very much, Danny. I have no idea what this is, but it's very nice. But it is in Elgato, right? I think so. Is that on there somewhere? I have to check my YouTube. It's fine. Actually, I could probably check it in a second. Yeah.
Elgato Wave 3? 3? Okay. Or Elgato Wave. Yeah, yeah. USB microphones, especially that one, have been getting better, like a lot better. They're not nearly as good as, you know, an XLR microphone plugged into the... But at the same time... If you're not recording a soundtrack for a movie or like a song, if you're just streaming or you're talking to your friends on the internet or whatever.
USB microphones are usually good enough that you're you're OK. You know, if you already have this stuff and you're you know, you don't want to make the transition from XLR to USB again because it's a big waste of money because you already sunk cost fallacy your way into having real audio equipment. Then, yeah, I get it. But, you know.
another one that's okay. Like my universal audio volt has been fine, but also my Scarlett 2i2 was fine for a really long time. I had no problems with it. I just, it broke eventually because I used it for like six years every single day.
um, that happens. So I don't know. It's also such a common piece of gear that like when a billion people have a piece of gear, like a number of them are bound to have bad experiences. So it's kind of, it's like a meme audio interface, but like, totally. I, mine is. it's like the blue yeti it's like oh it's terrible but it's just it's not as bad as everyone says it's just that it's like not great and very common exactly
This is popular. So I don't know. Our recommendation is type in best audio interfaces, Reddit on Google and then pick whatever the most answer for everything. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And then, yeah, so I did. Yeah, it is the Elgato Wave 3. It's the same mic I think Danny uses for the podcast. Actually, I don't know. No, I'm pretty sure he does. He's got the same arm. It has that feature where you can tap the top and it mutes it. I love that. I use it all the time.
Cause like I do Twitch streaming, but I'm there for like eight hours eating and drinking every now and then. So like I have to, I will tap it cause I hate like mouth, those external mouth slurping noodles. Yeah. So I'm always hyper conscious and you tap it. And the light changes, and it's awesome. So it's so easy. So, yeah, I also fidgeted.
Um, not having that. I have a, like, cause I have some friends who they'll have to mute their mic, but you hear their button click every time. And it's like, that's almost like worse, you know? Like, so I don't know. So the Elgato wave three is really good. I have some fancy mic arm again. Thank you, Danny. Thank you. You know, so, but, uh, Yeah, I always end up breaking on my microphones because I scream and freestyle rap and drop stuff.
I don't know. That's what they're made for is to be abused. Yeah. Right. I know the Shure for the longest time I had a Shure 58 that would plug into a Volt 2. And the Shure has a dent, and it's perfect. Dude, you could run that thing over. It'll still work. Yeah, so the Shure 58 into a Volt 2 worked pretty well. It's just I scream a lot, so the game...
See, that's the thing with gear, too. It's like you can upgrade it, but there's such a what's the word? Diminishing return so quickly with audio gear. especially for regular people. Like if you're uploading your audio, I was saying this earlier, sort of as a joke, but seriously, if you're uploading your audio to the internet,
Who cares? The thing that matters way more is your room being okay. If you're having like technical issues and it's not working, your focus right or whatever you're using, obviously replace it with probably the same thing or something better. upgrade from the, from the solo or the two I two or whatever, like, what are you going to get? You know, I just, I'm going to recommend you $800 audio interface. You don't need that.
Does it have the features you're looking for? Like Frank's saying, it's got the Elgato Wave 3's got the mute button on it. That is more worth it than buying an audio interface and a, you know, a Shure SM7B, like a bunch of dorks. Right, Jeremy? I had to check the label because I forgot what this was. I'm using it too. It's a good microphone. But yeah, I don't know. My recommendation would be buy whatever. Don't worry about it too much. Use gear as always.
Also a really good call. Yeah. But then what if you get the used 2Y2? That's bad. That's true. Ask the guy before you buy it. Hey, what do you think about this thing? And you will be able to fucking like L.A. Noire if he's lying. Hey, another game ahead of its time. If he's like, yeah, it's a really good interface, and then he goes...
Yeah. Then you'll know he's fucking wild. You just press square to doubt and then you move on. Yeah. For the audio listeners, I was making a weird squinty face. Yeah. Just like everyone's favorite actor. I was going to say, one game ahead of its time, I never heard of until this year when I was doing retro achievements. There's a game, I think Namco made it, called The Outfox.
The Outfoxies. O-U-T-F-O-X-I-E-S. It came out in 1994. It's Super Smash Brothers. In terms of combat, it's Super Smash Brothers. You're on a giant stage and you're picking up items and smashing people off the stage. I don't know if like Nintendo played that and got the idea, but like, I remember playing this and like, this is just Smash Bros. for Smash. So the outfoxies is ahead of time because it did that Smash Brothers gameplay first.
What the hell? It's an insane game. Dude, it's got like Mode 7 scaling and rotation. It's crazy, but it's straight up Smash Bros. It's like a 2D Smash Bros. I've never heard of this. Right? It's crazy. You know what it looks? You ever play Duck Game? What's Duck Game? Oh, man. If you think this is cool, go play Duck Game. That's a good game. It's like a multiplayer. It's a bit more like this than Smash Bros.
Because it's, like, shooting and, like, throwing items and stuff, and it's a lot more silly than Smash Bros. is on purpose anyway. That's a great game. Oh, okay. This is so cool. There's, you can play as a, like a, what do you call it? A butler monkey. I don't know. It's just, it's very, very goofy, but like it's, it's silly like Smash Brothers. And, uh, but yeah, I don't know. I thought that was the one kind of thing that was like, oh yeah, this is, no one talks about the out.
Good shout. You're never going to hear about the Outfoxies on any podcast other than this one. And you've got to wait until you're two hours and 40 minutes in. That's your reward for making it this far through the audio interface. The pearl at the bottom of the ocean. That's right. All right. Well, let's wrap this up. Thank you so much for being here and listening to the no clip crew cast. This has been episode 222. You can support the show on Patreon, patreon.com slash no clip.
fund the show, fund our documentaries, let us go on fun plane rides to Europe. And we get to take vacation, too, because of all your support, which is really appreciated. We have tons of cool stuff coming up. I'm not going to pretend that I know everything that's going on with Noclip, but if you aren't already, you can...
Hop on the Patreon and get in the early access tier to watch all of the episodes of Dwarf Fortress. They should all be publicly available soon, but you can watch them all right now. Do that if you'd like. Lots of cool stuff coming up in the future. And again, Danny should be back next week, if not the week after to talk about his trip and, you know, all the fun stuff that he's been playing. I'm sure he's been playing something cool.
I'll be gone for two weeks. I'm going to be in Amsterdam for my honeymoon. Finally, almost a year late, but I'm very excited to spend a week and change with my wife in a place we've never been before. And I'm going to struggle to say words in Dutch. I'm going to try my best to say. But donked, I think is how you say thank you or something like that. So I'm looking forward to that. You guys do anything fun this weekend or?
The week next week is the Vegas WrestleMania weekend. There you go. I'm very, very excited. I'm like ready to go. But the weather has been so good that the bike riding has been really fun. And, yeah, again, I know it ties to the weather. But a lot of stuff with friends going out. Like I went to Knott's Berry Farm a week ago. Right. I don't know. It's just stuff is happening. Yeah, bike rides. I even did a bike ride Saturday with my friend and caught up and we, yeah, it was a good time.
hell yeah hell yeah i'm uh i've been figuring out what restaurants out here are good because i haven't lived out here in so long in this area so i found a ramen shop that's in like one of the shittiest towns in this area, but it appears to be the only good restaurant in that area. So I'm very intrigued by this very authentic sleeping ramen shop.
get some ramen, and basically do a lot of game dev. That's the plan. Hell yeah. I hope you, listener, have a great week, weekend, night, day. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe. Bellus. I don't know. Whatever. We'll see you next week. Goodbye. Goodbye. This has been so long. Goodbye.