TGI 655 - Going Bananzas

Welcome to the Gamers Inn. Come on in, pull up a chair next to the fire. It looks like you've had a long journey. I'm your host, Jocelyn, and joining me as always is my co-host, Ryan. Hello, Ryan. Hello. How's it going? Oh, it's going. I was on vacation last week, which means that now coming back to work has been insane. But yeah, it's been a pretty good week, though. We had Manny was staying with us last week and helped us build a gazebo. So that was fun.

But yeah, we did a lot of a lot of tabletop gaming. So I haven't had the most time in to do like actual computer video gaming. So I don't have much to speak, but. I know you actually got some time to play Donkey Kong, which is exciting. Yeah. Yeah, I played a good chunk of Donkey Kong Bonanza on the... shiny new nintendo switch 2 and uh while i didn't get to play as much as i'd hoped because i was i was busy out of town for the weekend uh and i know what everyone at home is going to say like

well, wait, if you were out of town, you could have brought your portable switch. Out of town, exactly. But I did not buy a case for it yet. So I was hesitant to even attempt to bring it.

I understand you like that is a big investment. You don't want to break it before you've even played the second game available on it. Yeah. Although I will say like, I do appreciate at least the hotel we were staying in. It had like this little.

box that's on the table beside the tv one of the tvs because we went as a family so we got a bigger a slightly bigger room um and it had this little like hdmi box like you know sometimes when you go to hotels it's like they lock everything down it's like you're watching per view or cable. That's it.

Man, the last couple of hotels that I've been at haven't even had pay-per-view. They've just had whatever shitty, terrible cable they like was local and that's it. Oh, I guess they just assume that no one's actually watching hotel TV anymore and everyone just brings their devices. Oh man. Like I remember when I was a kid, like we didn't have cable. Yeah. So hotels were a huge deal. Yeah. You'd first check what's on TV and what am I?

Kids do. The second they get there, they see the Netflix button on the remote and they smash it and wonder why it doesn't work because they're not logged in yet. In which I had to like log into Netflix on, on the TV. But. The thing that is really cool is these new setups is they have the HDMI box and you don't have to hurt yourself trying to fit an HDMI cable in the back of the TV. You can just plug it into this box and switch the input. It's nice that they...

you know, allow you to do that where it was weird before that they just made it almost impossible to try to do it. I remember I had to like, if I wanted to play a video game at the hotel, traveling a lot for work, I had to like, get in behind the TV and like try to shove an HDMI cable into, into the.

input. And then I had to buy like a generic programmable remote because of course, like the remotes don't have an input button on them. So go through a lot of steps. Couldn't you use the buttons on the TV though? Also did not have, yeah, no, some of these didn't even have those buttons. Okay. Again, a lot of work to... to to maybe i don't know relax after working all day at a hotel i just love that you bought your own like travel remote i know i was doing a lot of traveling

And it was at, it was to, it was at to the same location. So it was always the same hotel. And like, I realized like, okay, like this is the only way it's going to work. And I, I remember, yeah, like just, yeah. Playing video games. And it was, it worked, but nowadays you don't have to worry about that. And all that to be said, I did not bring Donkey Kong Bonanza, but I did play it when I got back.

And if this segment wasn't already Ryan's brain to the max, I did want to start this conversation with some additional Ryan's brain. conversations because I and I will give a shout out to whirlwind because he he had to deal with a lot of this in discord as I was going back and forth because he's also playing Donkey Kong Bonanza

And I was having some like real issues with the presentation of Donkey Kong Bonanza, specifically the HDR settings for the Switch 2. Nintendo's doing this. This is new to them for this generation. So we haven't been able to experience Nintendo games in the wonderful technology that is HDR. It's all new. So I've played... This is now the second game that Nintendo has that has had, you know, native HDR support. Isn't that tech like 10 years old now?

yes it is jocelyn like okay okay nintendo is a generation behind their own timeline yes nintendo is just in their own little gaming bubble yeah and i i have a very specific way of viewing content. And I remember when I got the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, which was the first consoles to support HDR. And I do have a television that has HDR. It's not like... I do have a television. I do. I don't just go to hotels for TV. No, no. I have one at home too. Anyways. Yeah. So I, it took me.

a while to get used to the way video games looked like it was it was it was a change and there was a bunch of settings to tweak i think if you were to go back to the ps4 pro era of this show I would have been having a similar conversation. So now fast forward to 2025 when Nintendo picks up the HDR phone is like, hello. we're at it again. And I'm like, why does this game look so bright? Like Donkey Kong is literally glowing in this, in this environment.

And I'm like, you know, sending screenshots to Whirlwind, like, does this look like this? And he's like, it's just a colorful game. Like, you know. Calm down. Try putting your TV model into chat GBT and asking for setting.

recommendations and this is the thing like the ps5 and the xbox one or the xbox series x all work perfectly fine with hdr it looks great on the television i really it really came down to the fact of like I was playing it on the TV and then I'd take the Switch 2 out of the dock and play it in handheld mode and realize like, oh, this is just what it looks like.

what it's supposed to look like and i'm and i guess i've just got to get used to it you know like i'm not used to nintendo games i guess popping in this regard like some and some people don't like hdr i i think i like it but it's like i notice i notice it more it can bug me a little more when it's like a little too bright and i tried fiddling with settings and i guess i'm just sharing it here to see if like maybe i'm alone because i did try googling it and like nobody else is is kind of like

complaining about it there is some general rumblings that the hdr implementation isn't as great and i do recognize i have an older television that doesn't have the greatest hdr support so it could be a combination of those things but i really want to stop this conversation because i am not buying a new tv no one at home sent me recommendations of what i should buy i think there was a conversation of like an lg c2 oled or something and i was like i don't even want to look that up

It's probably thousands of dollars. Can't do that. Well, but Ryan, don't you know that when you buy a new Nintendo console, you can't just buy the console. You also have to find the TV that will support the console because other.

wise you're not getting your money's worth but the console has a tv built into it you know you don't just take it out of the dock nine hundred dollars to like five thousand dollars oh god but you need all the bits to go with the with the switch you can't just you can't just get the console that's crazy talk ryan

Yeah. And the other thing, too, is that if if suddenly I buy a new TV because like, oh, no, the one downstairs broke because I've always said to Ashley, like, we won't buy another one to the one downstairs breaks. And the one here can go down there for the kids and then we'll get a new one for the living room. Just tell Kayden to practice baseball in the basement. Easy. Oh, my God.

between a bat and a ball something's gotta hit that tv honestly between you me and everyone listening at home i'm surprised the tv in the basement has survived this long the whole reason i put it down there was because If something were to happen to it, you know, knock on wood, I wouldn't be upset. Uh, but I don't, I, I don't, this is the other thing I, I hate researching products and I know that would be a whole like.

rabbit hole of like trying to figure out which one is that's what we have a discord for right that's true again you don't have to research you just say hey friends what's your favorite tv yeah Hit me up. Okay, well, if people have a favorite TV. I'll message Caden when next time I see you, air quotes, playing Fortnite, I'll just be like, hey, hey, do you want to know what it feels like to smash a TV with a baseball bat? Do you want a new TV?

Do you want to get your dad a new TV? That TV downstairs is quite old. I'm surprised it's still running. I think I've had it since... since I graduated university. So it's, it's like 16 years old, which is, is, is pretty good considering, uh, and it's, it's served as well. So like whenever it wants to, you know, peace out, that's, that's. That's fine, I guess. It's done its time. It's done its time. It's seen many, many generations of consoles. But yeah, like once I just...

told my brain to shut up and just play the video game and enjoy it. I was having a blast. Like Donkey Kong Bonanza is very good. And I am. Again, I have no problem saying this. I was wrong. It is not just a tech demo for destructible environments. It is Super Mario Odyssey with bananas and Donkey Kong instead of, you know, Mario stars in a hat.

Now that you've played both of them, do you still feel that maybe this should have been the launch title? And they should have held off on Mario Kart for a couple months? I don't know. Like I almost looking back, I kind of feel like I still feel Mario Kart is an end game. And I feel like if you were to swap it, you would have you would have had people buying both. But I think.

The way Nintendo bundled Mario Kart was the smarter move because I don't think bundling Donkey Kong would have had the same sort of impact. So I think... For that reason alone, them launching with Mario Kart probably made the most sense. I'm glad Donkey Kong Bonanza launched within the month as opposed to waiting any longer. I think that's a good move on their part.

I think they made the right call, especially if they are bundling and they do appear to be doing, we'll have a new story later on the show. They do appear to be doing like more, more discounted console bundles with, with some of their, um, some of their Switch 2 titles. So, yeah, I think it was the right call.

I do have to say, though, it is odd that like Mario Kart is the $110 game and Donkey Kong Bonanza is the $100 game. I don't want to give Nintendo any ideas, but I almost feel like that should be swapped. Because Donkey Kong Bonanza is like a AAA top tier Nintendo 3D platformer.

I mean, maybe it's the Donkey Kong discount instead of it. If it was a Mario game, it 100% would have been 110. But because it's, you know, I don't want to say Donkey Kong is unproven as a character, but him as the, you know. title character he's not the the flagship of nintendo though like mario is everyone everyone knows that i don't think anyone is is debating that but yeah i think um It is kind of interesting because, I mean, if I'm going to go full, like, rabbit hole conspiracy, then...

Maybe they made Mario Kart the more expensive game because it was the one that was included in the bundle. So there's more perceived value if the game in the bundle is the more expensive game. You know what I mean? Yeah. A hundred percent. It's like, it's only $10, but still. I think there's a lot of reasons and I don't, I don't think it's conspiratorial. I think it's just the way Nintendo decided to do it. Like they made the decision of like, yes, let's bundle.

Let's make Mario Kart 110. I could see Mario Kart having a longer tail than Donkey Kong. Like, I think... Mario Kart has an opportunity to sort of stick around, but with some free updates and possibly some DLC. I think similar to Odyssey, the game we got is the game we have. Like, it's not going to... get more updates. Oh, I see what you mean. I see what you mean. Okay.

What did you think I meant? I didn't know what you meant. Oh, okay, okay. I just meant there's not going to be more updates. It's a complete product. There will be bug fixes and maybe some quality of life stuff. I don't know, maybe they'll make Donkey Kong glow less. Again, not going back to the HDR stuff, but it is a game that is like Super Mario Odyssey is this big sort of...

it feels like a big world but it is it is sort of um it's like a we've talked about this before like it's not an open world but it's an open area world game where you are in a smaller condensed environment that feels open world and you can kind of explore it in the sense of like Donkey Kong Bonanza where there are limits is that there is literally a chasm like around the environment and if you fall into it you

You basically, you either get a game over or it's not, you never get game over. You get like a, like Mario Odyssey, when you, when you lose all your health points, you lose like 500 coins and then you come back. So it's similar in Donkey Kong Bonanza. You lose 500 gold and then you get reverted to your save point if you fall off the environment. But you are constantly collecting.

gold you are constantly smashing things and finding treasure chests and fossils and uh which are currencies used to get outfits and finding banana chips that you're using to you know redeem for bananas and It's a collectible extravaganza, and I'm pretty sure it's procedurally generated to constantly proc gold deposits and treasure chests. If you smash a wall, you're finding something.

And it is very satisfying. Not only the combination of just like tearing shit apart, but also just discovering random crap. in the walls and just having it explode. It is very satisfying. I think that that's the difference between the launch sort of announcement trailer and then like the direct they did. is that they didn't really showcase a lot of that extra special stuff. And then when they had the direct, it was like, oh, but you can do all this other stuff.

uh and uh yeah it's like as you're progressing through the world you're discovering challenge uh zones that you can like jump into and do a little challenge get a banana jump out you're finding a lot of like hidden bananas that you're collecting. You can use Donkey Kong's sort of clap ability to sort of do like a sonar. So when you hit the R button, which...

cause it all. Oh, okay. I see. He, you can see the hidden stuff in the ground. Like, so basically if you're close enough, you can, you can see, Oh, there's a banana under there and you can dig to it. and sometimes it's as simple as like digging into a hidden room other times it's you have to find a specific entrance to that little cavern piece or there's a puzzle involved and those are off the main track

there is like a main, like, go talk to this person to see where you need to go next. And the whole point of the game is to try to get to the planet's core because you want to go back to the surface. So Pauline, who you find... wants to return to the surface where where she where she came from and donkey kong just wants all the bananas so it's win-win you know you get to the planet's core you get to uh you i guess you get

You get one of your wishes granted. So they both want to go there. So one of them can go home. One of them can get. All the bananas. A giant banana. Yeah, yeah. Oh, all the bananas. All the bananas. They were all stolen by this other group. Like, very Nintendo-like, you know. Yeah, that's what always happens to Donkey Kong is someone stole his bananas. I mean, really, he should just get a security system, I feel like. Yeah.

Something better than just a don't steal my bananas sign. Yeah, I think he just he really just has an open cave policy for his bananas. It's just like anybody can come in and be like, oh, look, I can just I can just help myself. Uh, yeah. So like the story, there's no story. It's like a Mario game. Like, you know, there's the story is there to just basically drive the characters towards gameplay, you know, like go do have fun.

maybe return to the surface at some point uh but pauline's a really interesting character like as a as a character that's like really been underutilized like this is this is like the most

screen time she's had in a video game ever. And she's, she's a really interesting sort of, you know, partner in crime with donkey kong as you're sort of going through the environment like she is the the sole human in the game she's fully voiced i was gonna say she's the human right because i remember seeing in the trailers like what is a person doing where's candy kong who is this person in my donkey kong that's not a monkey yeah

And there are a lot of familiar faces you're going to see throughout the game. Some that you saw in the trailer, like Cranky Kong and Rambi are in there, and I think Diddy and... dixie show up like this this while this looks like a different world the idea here is that like the surface has dk island and it has um it doesn't say specifically but

but the city in which Pauline lived, it's highly suggested that it could be New Donk City that was present in Super Mario Odyssey, but I haven't seen that yet. But... But yeah, like underground, you are under, you are into the core of, of the planet finding these bananas that they use to, well, Donkey Kong just eats them. So I, again, I don't understand it. Like every banana you find.

He smashes because they're gems and then he like gobbles them up. So like he's eating all the bananas like he's not like storing them for later. He's he's just eating them. So. Maybe he is just in it to eat as many bananas as possible. That's his adventure. The lore is unclear. It's very unclear. unsure like this isn't like the donkey kong countries of old where like those are clearly real bananas in this case these are like gems i guess like maybe like hard rock candy i don't know but

He's eating them. He seems fine. He'll, he seems fine for now, I guess. But, but no, Pauline's great. Like she's fully voiced. So all of her dialogue is fully voiced. She is like the. you know, the human voice throughout the game. Um, her and Donkey Kong become, you know, very fast friends on their adventure and, uh, her. She sort of like Donkey Kong, similar to in the movies and previous games, he is like the strong, you know, silent brute, I guess, of the game. And.

but he and Pauline get along and Pauline's the one that's kind of like conversing with the larger environment and, and sort of. You know, saying things out loud so you know what's going on. Keeping Donkey Kong, you know, in the loop, too. Like, again, he's just he's just like he's just trying to find as many bananas as he can. And and he just, you know.

He wants to, he wants to help Pauline out. Like he doesn't even seem phased that there are these like bad guys that he's fighting. He's just, he's just cool with it. He's just like, I gotta, gotta get to the bananas. That's always been his jam though. But like the gameplay itself is like super fun.

And it's very rewarding as you're like smashing things and moving through the environment. And it feels very good when you're doing all of these, these moves, like you don't. Like with a platformer, that's the one thing that can ruin it all is if the controls don't feel like they're in your favor. And I really do feel as you're playing this game, like...

You have tight controls over Donkey Kong. He has multiple ways to be mobile in the air. And I have not yet felt like I was being hampered by... the controls and i think that's a critical part for these types of games is like you you can't feel like the controls are what's holding you back and that has not happened yet uh and there's just

so many different ways for mobility. Like you can, the fact that you can pick up the environment, like you can just tear a piece of it off. And then if you hit a certain button, you can like surf. with that piece of environment and you can speed up and you can hit enemies with it. Like it's all this, these interacting gameplay mechanics that like really make it fun. And then, you know.

You step off the path, find a banana. Everybody's happy. It's a lot of fun. Again, I'm a couple hours, three hours, four hours in, and I've been just sort of like... been playing through the main sort of critical path but like going off off the path a little bit here and there just to kind of explore and and having a blast is like again from a story standpoint i don't feel like i'm being pressured to

you know move through the environment quickly like it seems like it seems like there are bad guys that you have to like get past but like it doesn't seem like there's this like critical thing You know, like in Mario Odyssey, it's like Peach has been kidnapped, Bowser's doing bad stuff. In this, it's like, well, those bananas are, they'll be there when we get there. It'll be fine. Which is good. I mean, it feels relaxed. No emergency whatsoever. No. Banana's gonna banana. Yeah. I mean, you know.

it's you're you are again and it it could also be like donkey kong is like not phased by it whereas mario is like he almost feels like he's like gosh, I gotta, we gotta save the prince. We gotta do this right now. Like nothing else can, can get in the way of our, of us saving the day. But whereas Donkey Kong is just like, eh, we'll just, we'll just, we'll just get through this. It'll be fine.

It's not like they can eat all the bananas before we get there, right, guys? It needs time to digest. Come on. Yeah. It's a very... laid back approach and i do appreciate that and it has encouraged me to sort of explore a bit and even like i love finding the little um you can find these like there's like three different sort of categories of these like bonus levels you can find

and again when you hit the sonar button you can see the the pads that they're on and in order to unlock them there's a like a huge music sort of category or um component to the game to unlock them you have to have you hold a button so that pauline and donkey kong sing so donkey kong will like

you know sort of hum along and then Pauline will sing her song and then that unlocks this like bonus stage that you found and then depending on the type it can be like a combat area or like a puzzle environment or even I did one that was like a throwback to donkey kong country which was like a recreation of donkey kong country uh the first level and you were playing through it so it's like a lot of these little easter eggs for for fans of the

of the donkey hong franchise as well and it's been really fun to play those things too like the open area is really cool and and well populated and and stuff like that but like those bonus levels have been every time i find one i'm like

It's like, we're putting everything on hold and we're going to do this. It's, it's, it's, there are a lot of fun. So, uh, yeah, it, I think like we're there, like, I think we're getting there. Like if you're like keeping track of like. how many games are on the switch to that you want to play. Like this is definitely going to be on that list of like, however many games you need to pick up a switch to, I think this one definitely belongs in the.

okay you got your first one maybe mario kart world is like you know a wait play it eventually type thing but i think donkey kong bonanza is like we get this game type of game like maybe once once a generation And the last one would have been Mario Odyssey. So it's been a, it's been a while and this is a, this one's a real treat. That's good. I'm glad that you're enjoying it and that it's kind of like.

I don't want to say makes the Switch 2 worth it, but I'm glad that you didn't buy a new console and then have... nothing necessarily to play on it for an extended period of time after that happened because i think the next big thing that's coming out is the pokemon game right and that's like this fall

I don't know. Yeah, I think it's October. I think so. Yeah. So like if if this didn't exist, then you would very much be surviving on Mario Kart for like the first five or six months, assuming you're even going to pick up Pokemon. I don't even know. But. Yeah, I'm glad that this exists and it's fun and it's not a tech demo, I guess, is what I'm getting at. No, yeah, no, 100%. I think that when the Switch 2 was announced...

If it was just Mario Kart, it was like, okay, I can wait for that. But I think it was Donkey Kong Bonanza that was like, this has the potential. Like when I hit the pre-order button, we didn't have that direct yet. But it was like, there's still potential here. This is very clearly a, you know, Mario Odyssey-esque, like, experience. But when that direct hit, it was like, okay, this is definitely. So I'm really glad that it did.

It has exceeded my expectations. And but yeah, like for the rest of the year, it it's hard to know sort of what. I mean, Metroid Prime 4 is the next one for me, looking forward. There is rumors that Nintendo will have a Direct at some point now that Bonanza has launched.

They have their sort of fall slate, fall and winter slate to sort of confirm. But I would say the next one that's on my radar to 100% pick up is Metroid Prime 4. pokemon za like i i think i will wait until i've had a chance to maybe boot up scarlet again just to kind of see you know it's been a long time since a pokemon game is really connected

For me, I find that the new gameplay style doesn't quite land, but then like the old gameplay style is too slow. So maybe I shouldn't be playing Scarlet. Maybe I should be playing... legends it's been so long i think i think za is closer to people will correct correct me and i i welcome it i think za is closer to legends than it is scarlet but i could be wrong

It could be a whole new thing. I don't know. Looking at the trailers that was posted today for ZA, it did look as though it's a more active Pokemon game. rather than a turn-based sort of experience still turn-based but like you know it's more you're in you're engaging with combat like not necessarily like a traditional rpg battle screen type thing

All right. It's so funny because we always do this where we take a look at the show notes and then before the show I'm like, oh, this is probably going to be pretty quick. And then I look down and it's been like 45 minutes. We're just... been talking about Donkey Kong so much for the quick show it's good though I'm glad that you are enjoying it enough that you have a bunch to talk about that's good yeah

It's also good that I don't have a lot to talk about this week. So Race 2 and Two Point Museum, which are two games that I've really, really enjoyed in the last year, both got DLCs on July 17th. I played a little bit of the Race 2 stuff, which is the Everglades. It's like new kind of like... swampy, rainforest-y type stuff, which is really cool. And then Two Point Museums is like a fantasy dragons, I guess, theme.

Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to play Two Point Museums yet because I didn't get very far in there. I guess I didn't get far enough.

in the base game to uh to get access to the dlc content so that is coming i'm hoping to have more of that next week but um the thing about like these little add-on content pieces for these games is like you guys can let me know if you want to hear about them but it doesn't change like my opinion of the game it's just like oh more cool stuff like for this game that i love

But like the gameplay loop is still the same. The mechanics are still the same. There's lots of different things to experience, but it's still basically the same. So let me know if you guys want to hear about it. But yeah, that's that's what I'm going to be playing in the next little while is just kind of digging my teeth into those DLCs as well as like if you guys have.

any interest in what my next patron episode may be about, you could maybe go to digging into my profile and see what I just added to my library if you want a hint. So mysterious. Yeah, I'm going to be playing some older titles to do some research. I think, well, it's interesting because I think some of those titles were game club games and some of those titles were... pitched as a Game Club game. So I don't know what you added to your library, but maybe there's some group homework we could...

we could tie to it i don't know quite possibly that would like that would be really really super cool and uh so as as an aside to that or i guess um to to pitch the patreon uh you can head on over to patreon.com slash the gamers in right now and hear my first inside stories in INN, inside stories. We did it. Episode. Thanks. Which is my very first attempt. at a scripted solo storytelling podcast. So for my first episode, I talked about the Two Humans saga.

which was a Canadian game company that sued Epic and everything went horribly, horribly wrong. So if that sounds remotely interesting to you, then go and check that out again, patreon.com slash the gamers in that went up, I believe today. So it is currently live. I am open to your feedback. Be nice. It's my first ever fully scripted show. It was very...

It's a very big project. It was very intimidating, but I hope you guys really, really like it. So I will be doing these every other month. And then so my next special will be in September. And that one will be... about something mysterious. I'm so excited to do the September one. I'm so excited about this project in general. I had a lot of fun. The research is really fun.

The, you know, like looking into gaming history and finding cool stories. It's just, it's all really, really cool. So if you have suggestions or anything else, just hit me up, send me a DM, tag me in Discord. Whatever. I'm open to feedback and suggestions for future topics. We should also thank our July patrons. So Night Vale, thank you so much for supporting the Gamers Inn. And also plug this Friday is our monthly game night. We are going to be going live like we did last time.

within the discord so we are giving patrons priority invites but anyone's welcome to jump into the chat and come hang out so Please do. Again, that is Friday evening. I believe the poll is live for patrons currently. You guys can vote on what we play. I think Fortnite is winning. Yeah.

Yeah. And I don't I don't vote in these things. So don't look at me. I'm not putting any fingers on any scales. This is you guys are asking for this. So the Fortnite season, I will say, is very fun right now. It's Superman, right? It's yeah, it's superhero themed and they just put Superman in the game. So the Fortress of Solitude is there. You can actually become Superman. So yeah, there's.

It's a really cool theme and there's a lot of really fun weapons and stuff in the game right now. Bullets are back? Bullets are back. No more stupid Star Wars lasers. Can I get emails about that? No, I mean, like, Star Wars are fine in Star Wars and Star Wars games. but in fortnight the infinite like always having infinite ammo and having an overheat mechanic instead like took away the scavenging part of the gameplay because you just never had to worry about

if you had enough bullets, because you have infinite bullets, and it just wasn't as fun. Anyways, I'm not going to make this a Fortnite podcast. But that is what is currently winning for this Friday. So if you guys want to hang out and play with us, again, that'll be Friday night. We will go live in a Discord chat channel and you can join us. either to play if you're a patron or if you just want to hang out and watch. Yeah, it'll be a lot of fun.

Again, all of that cool, fun stuff can be found at patreon.com slash thegamersin. That brings us to the news this week. And Mortal Kombat 2 got a full trailer and... i love it like i'm not a huge mortal kombat player like in terms of the actual game stuff i played the like original original original because it was like oh my god this game so gory and it was like four pixels of blood yeah yeah but yeah like uh it was just it was one of those things like

Maybe we can like rent this and like mom and dad won't know and then we can play it and it's going to be so gross. I was that kid. So I had no idea what the lore or anything is of Mortal Kombat. I just kind of recognized the characters. I always played girl with fans. Oh, Kitarra?

maybe katana is that maybe yeah yeah anyway that's the character i always chose to play because she was one of like two female characters right and sonia blade and the fan lady yes I, yeah, I'm not huge on the lore, but much like the Jurassic Park movies. I just like them for the campy ridiculousness of them. Like, I like Jurassic Park for the dinosaurs. Are there dinosaurs in it? Great. 10 out of 10. No notes. Like Mortal Kombat 2.

Are people getting split in half with swords? Great. 10 out of 10. No notes. So, but again, I am not involved in like... the lore or the world or anything else like I thought the first movie was super fun I'm looking forward to the second one I love Carl Urban so oh yeah yeah like yes please sign me up I'm very excited about this. I love what they've done with Johnny Cage. Cause I remember when they announced the casting of Carl Urban, it was like, he's, he is older.

He's old, yeah. He's older. You can call him old. He's older. He's not like the... The kind of early 20s heartthrob that's in the game from what I remember. Right. Because there's 12 of them now or whatever. There's many. But I do love that they've kind of gone with like the 90s sort of. of washed up hero doing the or not hero but action star doing the sort of like comic-con circuits and that's how they they bring them in because i think this launched with like a a fake trailer for um

One of Johnny Cage's movies. And it was like Carl Urban sort of D not D age, but just using makeup to make him look younger. And then you get the real trailer that kind of showcases that. Yes, that was a fake.

sort of movie trailer and that he is sort of a 90s action star that's that's doing these these uh yeah in the trailer he even says something along the lines of i left that in the 90s or something yeah i'm like oh i feel that so hard I just, I remember when the first movie came out in theaters, like I was in grade school and...

Oh, right, because there was one in like 93 or 95 or something like mid 90s. Yeah, exactly. And my uncle owned a bowling alley that was next to a movie theater. So my cousins always got to go to the movies and they went, they snuck in and saw Mortal Kombat. And I remember it was like, it's like, I remember this very vividly. It was like grade four and they would come in and they were telling us about, Oh, and Johnny Cage, uh, he like, he does the.

He gets his glasses broken and he says asshole or something. And I was like, oh, shit. I didn't say shit at the time, obviously, because I was reacting to asshole as if it's a terrible word. Terrible thing that happened. Yeah. And then he gets his glasses broken. Then he does the splits and punches the guy in the nuts. I'm like, whoa, what is this?

And I knew Mortal Kombat, of course, because we had played it on, I think we had it on the computer, to be honest, because I remember trying to learn how to do the Scorpion. get over here. And it was like backpack four or something on the keyboard. Again, the things that you just remember, but, but yeah, I, I, I liked the first movie. I think the only feedback I had is that they tried to like create a new character for the movie instead of like just focusing on.

going to the well of a billion characters they already have yeah so it looks like and and i do like that the second movie is is very much focused on johnny cage i think that's a smart move The original character that they had in the first one is back. They've actually brought back a couple people. If you watch the trailer, Kano's back, which I love that actor. I think he's hilarious. So I'm glad they brought him back.

But yeah, like just having like another, cause the first movie you have that fish out of water character who knows nothing of the world and is like experiencing it for the first time. We're getting that again, but this time it's Johnny Cage. And I think that's. That's the right move. And as you said, Carl Urban, you can't go wrong. It's going to be perfect. It's going to be fun.

Yeah, I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. So I'm looking forward to that. And we can talk about it on Gamers Inn after we go and see it. We also got a very kind of rare interview.

with Gabe Newell from Valve. He says he's been retired in a sense for a long time, but in reality works seven days a week because he's just having so much fun. It's like, okay, if you're working seven days a week, dude. That's not retirement. No. no but i mean like i did i did i looked through the interview and i understand what he's saying is that like you you leave the um the pressure maybe and the grind behind and then

pick up on projects that you really want to do just for the sake of doing projects. And it's really great to have that sort of creative freedom. I mean, I didn't love that he's working on a bunch of AI stuff, but you know. there's a lot of also weird and interesting projects that he mentioned as well so as long as he's not trying to put ai in my brain i'm good i mean

It sounded like he is. It sounded like maybe he was trying to put AI in my brain. Yeah. I mean, look, I wasn't quite clear on like how closely all those projects were aligned to each other. like he's like oh yeah i'm working with this guy on on some ai stuff and then it kind of ends with like um Brain-computer interfaces are cool and all of the associated neuroscience is cool. So I just work all the time and I'm like, wait, wait, wait.

Are we trying to enhance brains with computers or enhance brains with AI? I don't want to mesh my intelligence with artificial intelligence. This is getting really... this is how the world ends e yeah yeah um i mean some of this stuff sounded really cool like the the pathogen detect detection device so you can tell what pathogens are around you in the air

That's kind of cool, but also, again, very terrifying. I don't really know if I want to know all the things in my air that are trying to kill me. I don't know. He's an interesting dude. He's a really interesting dude. Yeah, he's very interesting. I think the scary part that does come out of the interview is if he was like... like a lot of other, uh, folks that have a lot of money and are like semi retired and into AI. They, they do kind of, um, well, they, they fire.

thousands of people to to make co-pilot a thing like i i read this and i'm like okay well at least he's he's he's doing he is semi-retired he's doing it on his own time like he's not you know, Steam is not suffering. I think the only thing... Well, I was gonna say, he never talked about, like... bringing ai into gaming or creation or steam like it very much seems like those projects are separate yes Like he said, sorry, he said some like sometimes I'm working on.

with Drew and Jeremy, whoever they are on AI stuff, or Chris on Steam stuff. I mean, who's the real hero here? It's probably Chris, right? Making sure that the Steam stuff isn't like neuroscience. The Steam stuff is on track. Yeah.

yeah screw drew and jeremy i mean look ai has its place we've talked about that before maybe drew and jeremy are like you know doing the real gods work here for free i and making sure drew and jeremy and chris are all ai and they're just robots that gabe is talking to while he sits in his bedroom on the boat i think the only negative thing

that we can truly take out of this article is that Half-Life 3 isn't happening for these reasons, probably. I mean, not that Half-Life 3 is... I think a game being made at Valve is no longer dependent on... Gabe Newell. It sounds like Gabe is having a fantastic time in retirement. I think this is a it's a fascinating sort of look at a life that we just really didn't know much about.

I think it's cool that he gave this interview to, uh, this relatively unknown YouTuber who had like 19 subscribers at the time. I don't know. Yeah. Like how did that even, did he just, did he just email Gabe and be like, Hey. Sup. Yeah. Can I talk to you for my school project? I've set up a YouTube channel. Yeah. That's really, really what this feels like. But I mean, you know, like, I think it's.

I think it is easy to get caught up in the AI stuff and the brain computer stuff like you and I did. But at the end of the day, he seems... really happy and stable and not trying to make steam. uh what it shouldn't be which is just a you know a platform for you to buy and play games and connect with friends like steam

is still great. I bet you anything he's just trying to figure out how to put his brain in a computer before he dies so he can live forever. Like, 100%. That's what he's doing. But not in a maniacal way. How do I become a robot? No, just in a like, I want to keep doing this for the rest of forever way. Yeah, he wants to keep scuba diving. He wants to keep working with Jeremy, Drew and Chris. Who wouldn't? I kind of want to work with these guys. They seem really nice.

He doesn't mention who he's working on with the pathogens or the neuroscience computer stuff. That has me a little worried. I don't know if maybe he's working with like a Steve. No, I don't know about Steve's. Or maybe it's a car. Sorry to anyone whose name is actually Steve. There's probably at least one listening and I apologize. Definitely one. You're one of the good Steve's.

uh super super massive games has uh delayed the next dark pictures anthology entry uh directive 80 20 and uh i mean like okay so i i'm of two minds here because like It sucks that because of layoffs, basically they don't have enough people to get things out within their time frame where they originally thought they were going to.

I think that of because it's Little Nightmares 3 and Dark Pictures were supposed to come out at the same time. Directive 8020 were supposed to come out at the same time. And they've had to basically push dark pictures so that they can get Little Nightmares out on time. All of that sucks. Layoffs suck. I've heard from early looks at cons and things that this dark pictures is an improvement. Because I will say I was really not first of all, like it's a sci fi, like sci fi horror genre.

which is my least favorite of the Dark Pictures anthology pieces anyways. But that last one we played, that was so brutal.

And this one apparently was like a really big jump, like an upgrade to the formula, the storytelling, the engine, like the gameplay, everything. It was supposed to, from all reports, seems to be... a step up from the previous so that makes me sad that it's not coming out when it was expected to come out but honestly i don't even know if i would have played it because that last one was so bad it was so bad yeah

I think we only got, yeah, we only got what an hour. I don't even think we made it past the prequel or like the, like, um, the prologue. We did get through the prologue. We did not get through like the chapter afterwards. We were just like, We noped out of there pretty quick. It was interesting because an entry like that could easily have been...

sort of the death of a franchise that we did enjoy. And, and they took, they, they had always planned to take a break between season one and season two. I think that's how they're describing it. But, uh, when. when Directive 8020 actually was revealed, I think there was questions of like, oh, this is, is this a different, you know, game? But it is a, it is a dark pictures game. And I think just the...

difference in quality was the thing that sort of tripped us up. But yeah, no, you're right. Like layoffs, layoffs always suck. I think a delayed game is, is always better. I'd rather I. yeah i'd rather a delayed game than crunching your staff crunching the only staff that are still there like yeah yeah morale's got to be low enough yes so i

And it's tough to see like these are and these are layoffs that not not quite like the Microsoft. I think the Microsoft ones were were very different. Like there's been a lot of news like those were cold and callous and like.

large in number for some unknown purpose and I think the reason they give like layoffs are never good, but the reasons they do give are say, you know, adapting to team structure, as you said, trying to make sure that they have the staff they need to prioritize, you know, one game at a time in terms of launching.

uh they might have like a i think little nightmares 3 is like a publishing deal uh because they weren't the original developers for little nightmares were they i feel like they took on i don't think so yeah So there might be something to that as well. But yeah, I always I always struggle with this because like 36 in the grand scheme of a of a large developer.

Seems like small numbers and like, could you not have found a way to just make it work? I don't know. It seems like were the layoffs really necessary? Yeah. In what is likely to be like 100 to 200 person team working on two large games. It's it is kind of it. It's hard to see the savings, you know, but I don't know. I it's hard to tell, but, uh, but yeah, like it's, it's never good news when there are layoffs. It's, it's, it is unfortunate for sure.

We also got a Pokemon event. So they are releasing, as we mentioned earlier, Z to A. in october yes so we got okay yeah so we have confirmed october good okay so yes it's coming out in october um this is the newest uh in the nintendo franchise the pokemon franchise and And you never leave the city in this one, right? That's like the big change is everything takes place within whatever it's called. L. yeah i don't know what it's uh lumiose lumiose city

It does look like a Paris-styled city. You've got the Eiffel Tower-esque in the background. There's a big focus on fashion and outdoor restaurants. And stuff like that. So yeah, I know like they do make it seem like it is very tied to the city that has both Pokemon and humans living, coexisting and working together to make a better.

a better city and i mean i i think i watched i watched the trailer and my big takeaway is like yes it looks like more of the pokemon we've been getting over the last couple of games uh it still appears as though you're gonna have these like all these silent protagonists like no voice acting which i think is is a bummer i really do hope that the pokemon company does like you know start they have so much money like just

Hire a team. It's all translated. Get it sorted. I think that that's the one thing that I, as we play more and more Nintendo games, I do wish that they would get on board with.

with voice acting like and you don't have to do it for every game you know pikmin probably doesn't need it but pokemon is one of your main franchises there are human characters there are pokemon one of the i can't even remember which one the last pokemon was that i played uh it might have been sword and shield is the last one that i played like all the way to the end and the biggest thing i was just like these pokemon sound terrible

like just update the sounds and i get that you probably want the nostalgia and that like certain pokemon sound a certain way but jesus we've come so far Please just update what your Pokemon sound like, if nothing else. Even if you don't put full voice acting in, just fix those sound bites because, oh, it's grating. Yeah.

they have all of them from the show. Like they have all the Pokemon saying their names, but for some reason they decided to stick with what sounds like a really, you know, bad am radio being kicked down the road like i it's a bad recording it's really bad of a soundbite from 1987 like i get it on the game boy you had a certain amount of like sound processing

power but the switch two is very changed it's my biggest takeaway is like they've um they have been very reluctant to re imagine the formula of pokemon and they finally did it with uh legends uh that came out earlier i think maybe 2020 or something and then with pokemon scarlet and and now this one they've they've reimagined sort of the pokemon formula to make it more more of a bigger experience um

And yeah, it just seems odd when you don't have the voice acting or the Pokemon. It does, to me, it does sort of cheapen. the experience when I'm watching the trailer and it's very clear that like, Oh, this is, uh, is, it has similar issues. Although the performance, the trailer was a switch to trailer and the performance looks really great. So. It is still my intention to play Scarlet or at least boot it back up on the Switch 2 to kind of see.

like the performance and the difference yeah so uh i'm not convinced that this will be when i buy day one but i'll certainly keep an eye on it it does it does kind of look like more more pokemon which uh And they've had a couple of rocky launches, so I feel like it's definitely a wait and see, says the girl with no console to play it on. Well, you have a Switch. Yeah, if I had a Switch 2...

I still think I would be kind of waiting to see how this actually goes and what the what the reviews look like. I think keeping everything in a city is an interesting choice, but maybe there are enough like. neighborhoods that the aesthetic will change enough to keep the game interesting through the whole time and also obviously give you access to different kinds of Pokemon.

We'll have to see. But yeah, that'll still be a wait and see for me, even if I did have the Switch 2. But was there anything else from the Pokemon Direct or Pokemon Presents?

uh, presentation. Yeah. You wanted to chat about. Yeah. The only thing I would mention is, uh, we got a very brief teaser of, uh, a new animated series called Pokemon tales, which is being done by, um, Aardman Animation Studio, which is the Wallace and Gromit folks. So yeah, to see Pokemon in like a different animation style, which in this case would be like stop motion sort of clay model. Claymation, yeah.

Yeah, so I'm excited about that. We did not see a whole lot in the teaser. It is a teaser for a 2027 project, but I think that's really cool. And then they... They showed off a bit more information about their Pokemon Champions, which is the sort of follow up to the Pokemon Stadium slash Coliseum games. But this is like a Switch mobile.

switch to game where you can sort of sync up your Pokemon from Pokemon home and then like battle, uh, free to play against other players. So like that, that seems interesting again, not.

likely something that i'm gonna engage with because i don't have like a like a pokemon home sort of setup with a bunch of my pokemon because i haven't played in a long time but i think it is very cool it's the stuff that i would have thought about when playing pokemon stadium like man like this if to see this on a grander scale would be so cool and like i think we're finally gonna get it with pokemon champions like the way pokemon companies

it's a kind of one step forward one step back like the fact that they are kind of holding back their main sort of games from really flourishing either due to performance or lack of voice acting but then you see them launching lately with like you've got pokemon go you've got the pokemon trading card game that's been doing really well on on mobile and now pokemon champions like you do see them innovating with their ip and in other areas but

But then it does suck that they can't bring everything across the finish line with ZA. The fact that we might have to wait another... three or two or three years for maybe Pokemon sort of hitting that milestone. But I mean, if you can get full voice acting in a Donkey Kong game, I think Pokemon can do it too. You have so much money. I know they have more money than like, they're probably the most, if not for Mario outside of Mario.

They are probably the most profitable IP that Nintendo is connected with, you know, so they they can do it again. They own it all. Just take the files from the animation. From the TV show. I'm sure you could use it. Plug them in. And again, I know it's not as simple as that, but like... Probably pretty close. It should be as simple as that. It should be. Move the MP3s over. Get rid of the broken modem sounds. Change the path.

You know, drag and drop. It's fine. Like make Pikachu sound like Pikachu and not like a broken radiator or something. I don't know. Yeah.

And then finally tonight, the Mass Effect TV series over on Amazon is sharing Fallout's production team. Which is, I think, good news. I'm glad that the Mass Effect project is moving forward and that it's moving forward with a team that was so successful with Fallout. I think we're getting season two of Fallout really soon, aren't we? I think it's end of this year. It's supposed to be December, maybe. Yeah. So yeah, I'm looking forward to that.

yeah no i i am uh i really enjoyed that first season and it's a really really good video game adaptation so the fact that they've got sort of mass effect uh they got mass effect uh sort of coming up soon like it seems like it's still a few years out and we're probably we're still in the sort of pre-production the post from november last year said that

the mass effect project was going to basically take up the next couple of years and like one to two years of, uh, this is a post from the, uh, who is he? The director, maybe. showrunner possibly it was a runner casey writer yeah writer writer and executive producer oh okay uh posted it's gonna take up the next one to two years so I expect we'll probably see the Mass Effect TV shows somewhere in 2027 would be my guess. But yeah.

I'm really looking forward to it. I think this is going to be super cool. And I'm glad that the same team is involved because they've done really good work on Fallout. Yeah. But here's the question for Mass Effect, the TV show.

obviously fallout tv show very successful in canon but new story new characters right now for mass effect i feel like we want the opposite we want a retelling of mass effect one two and three right yes with like canon canon decisions and events and endings and and stuff um I think that there's because you play as a shepherd character and you make your own decisions and you can like shape that character.

You're still playing as Shepard and she or he is so central to the Mass Effect story from like. Just all the way through, like it's an iconic character and the series really revolves around that iconic character. It's not quite the same as being, you know, and I haven't played Fallout, so please. don't come for me, but like generic Vault Dweller 726, you know? Oh, you're 100% right. They are generic NPCs. Your player is generic. Your player character is a generic Vault Dweller, right?

So, yeah, I think there's a really big difference there where in Fallout, you're basically fleshing out and creating your own story. in a world created to revolve around a generic character, but you don't have to interact with that generic character necessarily.

And I think in Mass Effect, it is, like you say, totally the opposite. Like, you have to have Commander Shepard. You have to. Like, there's no other way to... you know touch on the events of mass effect in a satisfying way i don't i don't think um like even if you made a tv show that was just like mass effect the citadel like That would be so boring. That wouldn't even have enough politics because it's all about like the buildup and then the invasion. Right. So I don't know.

I don't see a way you could do it without just retelling the games, but I don't mean just retelling the games. I think you can tell the game, the story of the games in a very compelling manner and that would be good television. But yeah, I don't want like...

the fallout treatment necessarily i don't even know what unless you told like this story from the from a different perspective like um the perspective of well like the elusive man or the perspective of um who was the guy in the first um the first mass effect i have uh sarin oh

yeah well yeah yeah yeah the the guy who kind of goes rogue right that you are chasing after in the first he's like the the antagonist of the first game yeah um yeah like telling a story from like his perspective or something but like yeah to since you don't have those kind of generic character shoes to slide into, which is basically like Lucy, right? I don't see how you just like create another story.

that's as compelling as Shepard's story within the Mass Effect universe. Well, that's the big thing, right? Like it's the IP, maybe Mass Effect, but like the core. fandom is is is surrounding that shepherd yeah yeah those three games with shepherd and and i i think there's a way to do it where you can have a balance of like i know a lot of people played

you know, all Paragon or all Renegade, but I think there's a way to like balance it and have the show be its own version of Shepard. And yes, they're going to have to make sort of decisions that, that become. the show's canon, whether, you know, I really hope they go with Fem Shep. I think that would be perfect for the show. I really do hope they go that route.

But also, like, the different choices of, like, which characters live. Like, there are choices that create branching paths in the video game that they will have to decide on how they adapt. for the show so i guess it could be tempting from an like if this was done 10 years ago they would have done like a

Well, it's Mass Effect, but it's like not the story of the games. It's like a different story. And I think that's where the Halo show really failed is that they were trying to do both. And then when they got to the point where it synced up, they got canceled. Yeah. So I really hope that they don't make the same mistake with Mass Effect where maybe like season one is the contact wars or something.

Yeah, the Warcraft movie made the same mistake telling like technically the first stuff to happen, which was the orcs coming through the portal. but not telling arguably their most compelling and most interesting and most loved story of Arthas, right? Like, if you just started with the Lich King, like...

Yes, things would have been out of order, but that's who everybody wanted to see. That's the story that everybody wanted to hear. Yeah. And so by not doing that, by choosing to go like chronologically. Well, never. They lost a lot of people and now we'll never get it because there's no way they're going to do a follow up to that movie. So, yeah, I think.

There's ways to explore the story and, like I say, make it your own because there are decision points and ways to play the character that do make playthroughs slightly different from each other. But yeah, I don't want to see I don't want to see anything but Shepard on the screen. Yeah. Give me Shepard, Garrus, Liara.

Yes. All those folks like you have this cast of characters adapted. And if we get even a whiff that it's the silver timeline. I just I don't think that's going to happen. I feel like with. Fallout, they had a production team that loved the games and they understood that they could easily tell their own story within the universe and have it all connect and make it canon.

I think you could do the same thing with Elder Scrolls. Like if you made an Elder Scrolls TV show, you could totally have it be its own story set within an era or even a whole new era. Like it wouldn't. it would not matter. Like you, it's not like you need to see King. I can't even name the king. King What's-His-Face from Elder Scrolls IV, voiced by Patrick Stewart. Like, it doesn't matter. Yeah, it doesn't matter. As long as it has the vibe and the lore.

yeah that universe in that timeline is big enough that and maybe that was the same for fallout as well like it stretches over enough time and enough locations but like the mass effect story just isn't that it's like might take place over some years but it's still like one linear contained story so i mean as long as long as the canon that they go with is that their shep seduces thing i'm fine

Yeah, there you go. That's the only thing that I want to be made canon. Is that romance choice that everyone thought I was bonkers about. Yeah, I mean... It makes the most sense for the end of the world, okay? I mean, there was a lot of choices in that game that like they all they all worked. They all made sense. And it's just the way they wrote them in the way that was like, no matter what path you took, you felt like, oh, man, this was very rewarding.

but I feel like the canon choice for romance is likely Liara. No! And I'm not just saying that because that's the path I took, but it really did feel like the game 1, 2, 3, like... with the dlc it felt like that was their their main path but people will have opinions they'll share them and and they'll post to the discord it'll be fine

All right, guys, that is going to do it for us tonight. If you want to continue the conversation, head on over to tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. I'm also going to plug the Patreon again. I don't normally do this, but I'm going to do it again because... that july host special just dropped and we have our game night this friday so

If you are interested in coming to Hangout, you need to be in the Discord. Again, tiny.cc slash TGI Discord. And if you want to vote on the game before that or hear the host special, you need to go to patreon.com slash thegamersin. You can also visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com or follow us over on Blue Sky. You can find me, Jocelyn, at jocplays.com and Ryan is at ryanmurphy.ca.

And also be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack, which is at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack. Thanks for staying at the Gamers Inn. And remember, tune in next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.