TGI 657 - Dating All The Things

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? It's going. It's not too bad. I am definitely looking at everything in my house very differently today. Yeah, you chose a game that fits within our news we're going to talk about.

I think so. It does, actually. It's really funny because I so basically in the last couple of weeks, they've had a lot of big sales on Steam and there's been a lot of indies that were for sale and stuff. So I picked up like probably about five or six titles.

on Steam over the past couple of weeks that I'm going to be talking about. And I just happened to try this one. And it does actually fit in really well with what we're going to talk about later. So as promised last week, we are going to talk about the... removal of games from Steam and the online age check for GTA.

all that stuff is coming up later in the news but yeah kind of by accident this is the one i picked to start with of all the stuff that i've picked up lately so uh yeah i'm playing date everything which is um like everything Yeah, we were talking pre-show and confirmed. Everything's on the table. Everything's on the table and you can date the table. I was just going to say, is the table...

I mean, every time I ask, can you date this? It's like, well, it's in the name. Like if it's in the room. Exactly. Even the room itself. What? Yeah. And again, I don't want to like.

I don't want to spoil too much. The characters themselves, you have your phone, and when you look at your phone with the glasses on, so basically the whole concept is you get these glasses that allow you to... animate the objects to see them for who they really are and they're they're all like um personified versions of like the table the chair the couch the you know whatever

But some of them aren't very obvious. So I'm going to try not to spoil how you find some of them. And I'm going to do my best to, like, not spoil some of the more out there ones. You do also get your phone. And when you look at your phone with your glasses, there's like extra apps that pop up. And one of the apps is, it's called your Datadex, like your Pokedex. So it's got like Silhouette.

of everything you haven't unlocked yet and most of them from the silhouettes they give you kind of like clues as to like where you might find them um and so you can kind of like narrow down because it's like okay there's over a hundred unlockables or like over sorry over a hundred characters and over 400 unlockables in the game so like

It can be really easy to forget like what you've, what you've unlocked, what you've talked to, what you haven't talked to. And then like, um, some of the characters, like there's one character that's like food and. Every single piece of food in the house or like the doors, every single door in the house is the same character, just in different places. And so when you talk to.

like the living room door, it'll give you different like information than if you talk to the kitchen door, the laundry room door, even though it's all the same Dorian character, they have different like, um, pieces of information and conversation options depending on where in the house you interact with them so like it becomes very overwhelming to try to remember all of the different characters and all of the different things that you're supposed to be doing

But I'm finding it. Actually, it's really well done. And the thing that I'm finding... most interesting i think or the the thing that's keeping me engaged is the entire game all of those characters is all voice acted And so that's usually the thing that like takes me out of these games is like, you don't want to sit there and read a novel. So the voice acting really helps like each of the characters feel distinct. And, you know, if I don't feel like.

reading the text i don't have to and they'll read it to me and uh yeah i don't know i'm i'm really actually really enjoying it i mean i remember you enjoyed the dead by daylight one outside of the fact that there wasn't voice acting i think that was your biggest criticism it was yeah like i i kind of like plugged through it because it was

dead by daylight themed and i found that ridiculous and hilarious which again like this is very like tongue-in-cheek it has a good amount of humor to it it breaks the fourth wall they have like characters in the game that are like but I'm the expensive DLC. You have to love me. I am the greatest character in the game. You paid money just for me. Like it's very over the top that way. And again, like.

they talk to you knowing that they're in a game so there's some characters that are kind of like self-aware like that some characters that are like no obviously i am the floor of your house what are you talking about so Yeah, it's really well done and very, like I say, tongue-in-cheek and ridiculous. And honestly, the character direction is really well done when you're like...

well, what would this kind of an object look like as a person? And yeah, they nailed it in a lot of cases. That's cool. Yeah, and I can imagine they had a lot of fun personifying all these... uh household appliances and items uh into into people and uh just looking at the screenshots you know you see you see various what's this one um dorian's there and then there's uh i think i saw the piano and and um what was the other one we were talking about a hamper i think there might have been some

yeah like some dirty clothes or something it was it was uh it's hard to say but i think like they had a lot of fun with that aspect of it there's basically like three different options for every character, like three different like pathways you can go down depending on how you navigate the conversation. So like by the time you get to the end of a character story, they will either love you, be friends with you or hate you.

And so all of that depends on what you say to them and how you interact with them and navigate these conversations. So just the fact that they wrote. three possible paths, like three possible endings for 102 characters, I think is just bonkers. And it's fully voiced too.

fully voiced and it's well done like it doesn't none of the characters feel like throw away like there's some characters that i interacted with because basically like you find them with the glasses you activate them you have an initial conversation Some of them I had initial conversations with and I was like, you are the fucking worst and I'm never talking to you again. But there are plenty. And like, again, like.

I guess, attractiveness or how appealing you find characters is going to be totally subjective. Like, there's probably people who interact with those characters and are like, hey, this character is super cool and I love them. And that's, I mean... date everything within like the first like i don't know probably week of week of in-game time i was dating my my pc and then literally Like three or four days, they were like, I think we should see other objects. I was like, wow. Okay.

Like, well, I have a shiny new operating system. I don't know who I'm going to gel with the best. I was like, okay, because not only can you date everything, but everything can date everything else. Like it's just a giant orgy house. So you have to compete with everything. You do. Yeah. Support, you know, like help navigate like. You know, you might be friends with one object and then they're interested in another object and then you have to decide if you want to, like, help them.

down that path or if you want to try to date the object that's trying to date them so you sabotage them like there's all kinds of crazy dynamics interesting so you can you can be the the wing man or the wing person. The wing human. The wing human. To all these objects like the blender wanting to go out with the PC or something. I don't know. Exactly. Yeah. And entwined cords or something. Oh, like Avatar. Yeah. Oh, man.

i forgot about that it's been so long movie i don't know why avatar has popped back into my brain i think i i think when i went to see fantastic four they had a trailer for the new one i was like oh I forgot. They're still making those. Yeah, no, this this game, I remember when it came out, it was it was it was reviewed really well, because a lot of people really.

dug the like it has a neat concept it is a dating sim but like they've got a sort of a gimmick i would say to sort of lean on and it's fully voice acted and the art is really good and like i think it's got a lot going for it It does. And that was one of the reasons I picked it up in the sale is because all of the reviews were overwhelmingly positive. I was like, oh, OK, really? OK.

And because again, like this isn't the kind of game I normally play. Like I played that Boyfriend Dungeon game. I played the Dead by Daylight one. But in general, I don't play these. I guess. Oh, what was the other one? Oh, the one that I played that turned into a horror game.

Doki Doki Literature Club. Oh, right. You know, it's all like they're all... similar and not anything I normally you know put any amount of time into but I think it's because there are so many objects and so many like dynamics and things to remember like it's It feels like a more like a puzzle game, I guess, because you only like every single day you have basically five interactions that you can do and then you have to go to bed and progress to the next day.

And so progressing to the next day will like actually move time along. And so you have to kind of like keep track of like who you need to talk to, who you've promised to go see, because like sometimes people will say like. Promise me that you'll come tomorrow at one o'clock. And if you miss that, then they're super pissed at you and they don't want to talk to you. Because every single interaction that you do is like tied to a time. So the first one you do in a day is a morning.

Is it 9 a.m.? And then I think it's like 9 noon, 3, 6, 9. Yeah. And then it's like midnight after you've done all your interactions. So like paying attention even to time of day matters and day of the week matters too, because there's some characters that they almost like have their own schedule that moves around you.

So some characters may not be available on certain days. Some characters may have important stuff going on on the weekends, but not during the week or vice versa. So it's actually like... Date and time even matters when progressing your conversations with these characters. So it's a lot more complex than maybe it seems on the surface. And on the surface, it just seems super silly and ridiculous.

but there definitely are some really interesting themes that I've explored at one of the very first characters that I met. And I still I'm not sure if you can like if you're friends with a character, if you can ever. like progress that further because i definitely like friend zoned somebody right at the very beginning because i thought i could only choose one out of the hundred to date i was like

I can't choose you on day three. This is ridiculous. So I have friends on them hard. And I'm like, once you're friends, can you be not friends? Can your relationship grow and go back to... Because that's the other thing. There's an achievement for being friends with everybody. There's an achievement for being hated by everybody and an achievement for being in love with everybody.

and all in all in one playthrough so i'm like there's got to be a way like once your friends to be more than friends like there has to be a path back i would think i haven't done it yet with any of them but it's also um it takes some time to kind of progress to the end of like one of those three hate friends love like i think i've played for well let me look

it says i played for about 12 hours i think that's probably pretty accurate um and i think i've only like there's maybe seven characters that i have like a status with And every time that you, like the first time that you go from neutral to something, whether it's, it doesn't matter if it's hate, friends or love, when you go to that next level with somebody.

Then you get points towards there's like this personality kind of system. And depending on which object story you progress, each object gives you one of those five points. And then there are some conversation options that are like locked behind like how many of like how smart you are, how empathetic you are, how funny you are.

uh so yeah like like i say it's a kind of it's a complicated more complicated game than i thought it was going to be i thought it was going to be stupid and silly and short honestly well i mean if if you can date everything and there's 100 characters it's if you want to do

everything it's probably going to take a while to get through the game Yeah, it takes if you and I think you have to progress some character stories in order to even be able to start to unlock some of the like later game characters. So I was going to say it takes you, if you did like... Five characters per day, it would still take you like 20 days just to have your first initial conversations with all of the objects. But even then, like I say, you have to progress some characters.

uh stories in order to unlock other characters which means like i don't even know what your like minimum amount of time to unlock all the characters would be and again that's just unlocking that's not even progressing stories so yeah there's a ton of games play here which i was again i was surprised um i yeah i thought it was going to be like a superficial fucking no no date date no no ryan oh at one point so um i realized uh about a week in that like you don't just interact

with stuff like using your glasses you can also interact with them as like everyday objects so you can open and close doors and drawers you can like move stuff around and like fluff pillows and like You have to act. Well, okay, Brian, it's not a euphemism. Okay, sorry. And also you can interact with them through your glasses and then you get the personified object.

So anyways, yeah, once you start opening cupboards and drawers and stuff, then you find more things in your house, right? More dateable objects. Anyways. yeah there's i guess this is a little bit little bit of a spoiler so if you guys want to go if you do plan to play this and you want to go in totally spoiler free then maybe like fast forward like a minute and a half but then you're gonna miss ryan's reaction and i think it's gonna be really funny

So I opened my bedside drawer and I found a sex toy. And you can date your sex toy. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense, right? Yeah, my mom's upstairs right now and can probably hear every word that I'm saying. So it's going to be a really fun conversation when I see her later tonight. And she's incredibly proud. Okay. Yes. So proud of what I do. Yep. Just dating everything. One of the dateable object characters is actually five guys, if you're into that. Oh. It goes down all the roads.

Yeah. So what is the what is the personification for the five guys? It's literally five guys. They're the hangers in your closet. They're into extreme sports and they're called the Hanks. Oh. Yeah. So if you date the Hanks, you date all of them. I mean, at a certain point, if you're just dating everything, like, you know. What does it matter if it's. Five guys in one interaction or, you know, the five objects in the room. Yeah. Very good point. Is it? I guess. Yeah, I guess it is a good point.

It's but it's it is funny, though, because like your brain is trained from a video game perspective with a lot of like RPGs like Mass Effect or. even Dragon Age, you have to pick one sort of character to romance. So I can totally understand your brain of like, okay, like the first character I meet, I don't want to lock it in or it's going to be a long or a really quick adventure.

uh but yeah you can date everything everything at the same time all the time but yeah i will say like one thing i've definitely noticed through playing this game is that like There is so much representation and like really well done representation, like nothing that feels like stereotypical or shoehorned in or anything like that. Like they're just there are such a wide variety of characters.

characters available and of relationships available and relationship types available like you really can like date not just everything but like in every way i guess is the best way to put it like i was i was really surprised that it wasn't like because there's like there are so many games that like just don't do well, particularly with like LGBTQ plus themes.

And they very much say like, OK, like your character is, you know, you're you've chosen, you know, to play a girl at the start of the game and that's who you are. And that locks you out of half the characters. And it's obviously good from a consent perspective that people are going to have their own preferences.

But it's nice to see that, you know, it's more of an exploratory conversation, I guess. They did a really good job of that as opposed to just saying like flat out, like, no, like you're locked out of this, this, this and this. So, yeah, I think they did a they actually did a really, really good job of representation and using like get to know you conversational mechanics to kind of explore who these characters are, as opposed to just being like.

Yes or no, like checkbox or not. So I did want to mention that because I think they did a really, really good job here. Yeah, I think Dragon Age, the Veilguard did that as well as part of their. marketing that uh and their development that they said like you as a character no matter you know no matter what you choose you'll be able to romance any character so

And they did I think they did a pretty good job of like building out those, as you said, those exploratory conversations as you're building the relationship and and seeing how it evolves. So it's cool to see that you can do that now with. you know, a toaster and a door and a game console. So weird and ridiculous when you say it like that. But yeah, and I'm trying to figure out, I keep forgetting to go back because I did find the game.

well i i interacted with the controller and i'm not sure if the controller and the console are the same character or not so i need to go back and and figure that out but uh Yeah, I was friends with her after our initial conversation because I was like...

It was actually it was really fun and really cool. And I'm going to I'm going to sort of semi spoil this because I feel like it's an interaction that everyone listening is going to be able to kind of like wrap their head around. Because when you say I'm dating my cardboard box in my closet like that.

fucking weird but when you're like i'm dating my gaming console like maybe you guys will get it so when i first interacted with the controller you uh basically like you meet this character i think her name's luna And you go through this basically like level and she's like, OK, so what do you want to do next? Like, are we going to like.

uh do we want to just like storm the boss room or should we try to like craft some consumables before we go and like those are your conversation options so you're like oh we should definitely make consumables we want to make sure we're ready for this boss fight right

And she's like, oh, great idea. And then so you like make the consumables, but you have to like go. She like lists what's in your inventory and you have to do like this little mini crafting game to try to figure out if you can like craft something useful for the boss fight.

And then she's like, whoa, we did this. We made this amazing armor. Let's go. And then because you made the armor, you win the boss fight. And then, yay, you're best friends. And it's so cool. And it's so fun. And that's kind of like...

one of very many different types of interactions and relationships you can have with but when you say you're dating your your gaming console that sounds weird but when you're like the personification of it is like your gaming buddy then it kind of clicked a little bit i hope for everybody does that make sense to you ryan dating your gaming console yeah sure i mean it does like i think uh sure jocelyn i did it does you're not insane right now or anything at all

I think for folks, I don't think anyone listening is not getting this, but I think for people who are hearing Date Everything and looking at the game, for me... It was looking at the Steam page and quickly understanding like, oh, like these, as you said, they are appliances, objects in the house, but they are personified as a human. Although, as you say, that you...

That they are still real. There are some that are not that there are some that are like most of them are just straight up like human. There are some that are like. humanoid i guess uh like there's like a um uh there's a yeti which is like human adjacent and then there's like there are a couple of characters that are like completely not human at all. Okay. Yeah. But, but those ones specifically, I don't want to spoil because.

They're some of the harder to find things. They're some of the more interesting ones. So I don't want to like, yeah, I don't want to spoil things. But I was going to say something and then I had to stop myself because I was like, nope. And the other thing is, too, you will get what's called rumors.

And it's another app on your phone, except it's spelled R-O-O-M-E-R-S, like roomers instead of rumors. But it's basically hints. So you can... like when other characters uh sometimes they'll have other objects like show up in their story in their quests sometimes they will uh just talk about other things that they share a room with

So if you go talk to like the coffee maker, the coffee maker might talk about the stove or something. But usually it's just like they'll give you a name that's kind of like because all the names are very close to like the hints of what they are. And then something will show up in your rumors app and it'll give you basically a hint on how and where to find characters that you still have that are outstanding. And you can go and talk to there's I think one or two.

Maybe more, actually. There might be three or four characters that like specifically like specialize in rumors and like giving you hints about the characters you haven't found yet. So if you're going like a completionist route. as opposed to just like well which is definitely what i'm doing like i'm every every day i'm like how many more do i have to find how many more do i have to find

And yeah, so if you're going more of a completionist route, then those hints are very helpful. Because like I say, some characters were infuriatingly difficult to find. Oh, interesting. It is cool that they have a hint system built in.

It's really helpful. Yeah, yeah. And again, I don't want to spoil anything for anyone, but yeah, the hints were definitely needed for me in a couple of cases. I wouldn't have found them otherwise. One of them... looking for every single day and I couldn't find it until um I'm trying to remember how I even I think I found it by accident I think I like bumped into something and I was like damn it

Oh, fancy meeting you here, that sort of thing? Yes, exactly, yeah. What's the story set up? Why are you suddenly dating everything in your room? So basically, you start your first day and you're working for this tech company. I think you're in customer service. And you basically immediately get replaced with AI. And so you are like not necessarily fired, but you are like made redundant. And so...

Then you're kind of like, okay, well, screw you two then. And then there's like a mysterious, like, is it a Discord message? I think so. It's not actually called Discord. I think it's called Discord or something like that. Anyways, you basically have Discord on your phone. And you get this mysterious message in this mysterious package. And they're like, you have to help. You need to test these prototype glasses or whatever.

And then you ask them like, why? And they're like, well, you were the lowest paid employee at the company. So I'm like, they're this like shadowy hacker type character who's like, hey, help me do this thing and screw over that company that just fired you. Yeah, take that. And then you get to date everything, which, you know. Exactly. And then they kind of like monitor you from afar and help you. And yeah.

give you more kind of goals so that your goal eventually is to i can't remember the word that they use but basically like turn all these objects into actual humans And so once you remember how I said there was like that five different stat system and everyone that you gain a status with, it gives you points.

once you have a certain number of points in a certain number like every single object is different but once you hit a certain number of points then you'll be able to actually like make them human for good i guess for realsies So you have to make the point is to try to like a relationship high enough, get your points high enough to make everybody humans. Yay. Oh, so you're turning.

Yes, because right now you're the only one that can see them. So the point is to use the glasses eventually and all of your stats and stuff to make them human. It's all very like... Okay. But really, you just want me to screw everything in my house while you're monitoring me, but in not a weird, creepy way, I guess. No. okay well so yeah so you turn them human by dating them and and uh and and everyone's watching

You progress their story to an ending, whether it's eight friends or love. I don't think it matters. And like I say, I'm not sure once you're friends, if you can, you must be able to because there's a character that you meet like. right at the very beginning on the first day who's like who basically instantly friend zones you who says like i'm not interested in dating blah blah blah and then it just says you are friends and so

there must be a way to like, since there is that, you know, love everyone achievement, there must be a way to, to, you know, bring people back around and change your, your status and whatever with them. But.

uh anyways yeah once you get a status then you get like a uh whatever the word is personify goal we'll call it and it's like in order to make this character human permanently you must have like 50 intelligence 30 charisma like um i can't even remember what the other thing oh maybe like 80 empathy and every character is going to be different based on their their own personality basically Okay. Interesting. No, I mean, I'm glad you played it because it was one that I was interested in.

Not a lot more depth than I ever imagined it would. I thought it was going to be, like I say, stupid, goofy, silly short, and it is none of those things. Well, it's a little goofy, but in a good way. Yeah, I mean... I didn't expect it to take itself super seriously. But like I say, there are still some serious like themes and there is a you have the ability to basically turn on like a content warning.

So there's like the glasses themselves also are like have a personification and they're like your help system. And so you can basically like tell your glasses when you first interact with a character, you can choose to like basically like fast track your story and, and avoid. potentially upsetting themes i guess and i i haven't used it yet i definitely ran into a character

early, early on that the warning kind of popped up and was like, hey, you're about to interact with somebody who might be a little bit much. Would you like to turn on the content filter? And I was just like, no, no, you know, I'm okay.

And so I proceeded to interact with the character as normal, but like that, that kind of built in filter is there like in game in a way that makes sense. That isn't just like a. warning pop-up kind of thing like she is but she isn't because everything is personified in the game so anyways i just thought it was uh it was a really unique and interesting way to go about that Well, it's good that it has that in there. I think Boyfriend Dungeon had a similar sort of warning that you could display.

Boyfriend Dungeon definitely had a content warning. I'm trying to remember how that was actually implemented, but that was a few years ago now that we played that. But yeah, this definitely felt like organic. it made sense in the context of the game that there would be something else kind of watching out for you at all times, which also is kind of weird that you're just like dating everything through these glasses, but the glasses are also a person.

Can you date the glasses? You can date the glass. I mean, I don't even know why I ask at this point. I was going to like launch into a list, but then I'm like, I don't want to, I guess I don't want to spoil it. Right. Yeah. Like, I think I've probably I'm very close to unlocking them all. I think I was at like around 90. I think characters unlocked and I just. gained access to a different part of the house that I didn't have access to previously. So there's a bunch of stuff in there.

So I've almost awakened, found all of the objects. But then, like I say, you have to progress their stories. And so there's so much more gameplay. Like I say, it's taken me almost 12 hours just to find all 100 things. And I haven't even done that yet. So there's definitely a lot of gameplay here. It's worth the, I think I paid like 30 bucks for it, but I think it's like 45 normally.

Yeah. Well, I mean, you're paying for the voice acting, right? Exactly. I was going to say it's kind of crazy with the voice acting that it is only, you know, 40, 45 bucks. Canadian. American, it'll be cheaper. Yes. Yeah.

yeah but yeah so date everything go check it out i actually really honestly do recommend it even as someone who doesn't normally play dating sims and i think as someone who does normally play dating sims you're probably already playing this game but i'm finding it very entertaining Cool. No, I will. It's been on my list, I think. So I'll it's it's one that I've thought of checking out. But definitely don't play with the kids around. There is a lot of there's a lot of just fuck everything. OK.

Well, I'll keep that in mind. I will. Yeah, I don't think I was planning to play. It can look kind of weird. and fun and the character design is really well done so i'm just warning you now this is not a involve the kids game no no it's it sounds like a mature title right like it is rated m I would assume. I wasn't even sure. I didn't even look at the rating, but yeah. I mean, does Steam even list the rating? I don't see it.

publisher uh dating so it does it does list that there's sexual content um oh yeah you know my brain thought it's in stimulation i was like oh steam No, it's a mature content description. Yeah. They, they list all that. So yeah. So you'll have, you'll have that to look forward to all those mature content thingies that you'll.

A lot of mature content ahead of me. Yeah. Well, you're dating everything, so you gotta. Yep. Does it actually have the rating? It just lists it at the bottom. I thought it was more clear, like. you know, the rating. But for some reason, yeah, on my screen, I don't see it front and center. Yeah, I know. It's all the way down to the bottom, right over top of the more like this and your system requirements. You'd think that they would make it like.

Yeah, but yes, there's definitely bad language and alcohol and tobacco and sexual innuendo and references and yeah. Which I would think a lot of that would be, although I did also notice you can opt out of the alcohol in every single interaction that I've had that involved alcohol. you can say like i'd like a mocktail please so yeah they've they they have thought of of quite a lot of different um like options and preferences for some of the potentially off-putting content

So again, I think they've done a really good job. I think it's worth if you have any interest in playing like a narrative style game, then yeah, go date everything. Go have fun. Yeah. No, it sounds fun. The lights are the worst. That's all I'm going to say. You're not a fan of the lights. No, the worst. Even the paid DLC isn't as bad as the lights. Okay. This is such a weird conversation. Some of these sentences are just bonkers.

So I've been dating everything. What have you been up to this week? Well, I have been playing a game where I might not be dating, but I am in a, you know, the two ninjas. have become one. They have formed into a ultimate ninja being with Ninja Gaiden. Ragebound, which is a brand new 2D side-scrolling action game, sort of a throwback to the Ninja Gaiden games of old. And yeah, this was gifted to me by Shatterproof.

who helped with your adventures in the Shire last week. Right, right. I was like, I think I owe them a review, but no, I forgot that was the Tales of the Shire. Yeah, you had rocked the Lord of the Rings game. Yeah. Returned to that well to see how how licensed video games from that world are doing. But.

But yeah, this is it's funny because I actually played the demo for Ninja Gaiden Ragebound during the Steam Next Fest. And it was the one of the few demos that I really latched on to because I do really enjoy. these throwback games that pitch this idea of like, hey, let's make a game that feels like how you remember that era, like the Super NES and the...

I guess a Sega Genesis era, you know, with the, with the pixel art and the side scrolling and, and, and the platforming too. So this is a, this is set. I don't know when this is set, but it feels like it's set within like. the proper Ninja Gaiden universe. Ryo Hayabusa is in the game and he quickly runs off at the beginning, but he's the main character from the other Ninja Gaiden games both.

the 3d and the 2d games so you're playing a brand new character here and essentially what happens is eventually very early on in the game you team up with a rival a ninja from a rival clan And you have to work together to defeat the demons that are invading Earth, which is a standard kind of plot for these games.

for for ninja guy dead like you're always fighting demons um as far as i can recall i i've played a lot of the 3d games but the 2d games i kind of missed out on because they were they were in an era where i wasn't really playing a lot of these like difficult side-scrolling sort of uh action games but um this one is very cool and and yes it is difficult i found i find myself sort of you know

having to take three or four times to defeat a boss, but, but, uh, but it is rewarding. It's not like dark souls level where you have to like, you know, get good. It's, it's more like, uh, I would. I would pin the bosses more on like a Metroid style where you just have to learn. the pretty simple telegraphs and the patterns of the boss to know how to avoid and then just get the pattern in of like okay this is my time to like mash the x button right attack

Or this is my time to just avoid the enemy movement and stuff. And as long as you got that down, like it's pretty forgiving in terms of being able to fight the boss. You do have various sort of abilities at your disposal, including your standard sort of... Sword attack, you do have the ability to do what's called a guillotine boost, where you can kind of hit A at the right moment, and then you'll do an attack and get an additional jump off of an enemy.

And that's how they build that into the platforming as well to kind of kind of give you some of those like time based platforming moments. But again, the the timing and everything is very forgiving. I never felt like. I had a split second to get something or I like fall to my death and have to start over from the checkpoint. So that was very good. Cause I was worried like, is this going to be.

Because the Ninja Gaiden games that came out on the Xbox and stuff back in the day, like they were pretty difficult. They were known for being more of like an action Twitch based. you know, combat style where you had to like, no, no, I was never very good at them. And I know a lot of people are excited for Ninja Gaiden for coming out, uh, this fall.

uh but like those games always felt to me like they were action games and you had to like be on your toes and know all the combos and just know how to like get a get avoid enemy attacks while still pulling off these like amazing combos and i mean you know perfect twitch game in terms of watching someone play it because if they're really good like you can see them having

like a lot of fun with it and doing all the combos and just being a complete ninja badass but I don't know I was never that great at those games so I appreciate that Ninja Gaiden Ragebound is much more simple there's like four moves you've got your normal sword attack then you've got um your your ninja friend who fuses with you to fight the demons she can throw like uh she can throw like throwing knives and then she has like a magic ability

map to the Y button and you can kind of change things around as you go through the maps and unlock abilities and build your play style if you want to be more defensive or if you want to be more aggressive you can get abilities that will build a shield around you that will be chipped away at as enemies hit you or you can build um in additional weapons with the with the y button for for your

your ninja companion and kind of just have the ability to you know throw additional weapons and and stuff like that but then there is like a power move that you build up over time and that's very op because you can use it against the bosses And I would say all the bosses that you fight when you hit it with that super move, they are stunned. Like they, they actually get stun locked for a bit and you're able to go in and do like.

massive damage just by mashing the x button so like it's a much more simplistic game because it is confined to the 2d plane as opposed to like 3d action games where they can get much more creative with you know, the 3D space and all the combos and stuff, but I much prefer this because it's like, it's simple. It's not...

X, Y, B, B, B, Y, X, you know, like all the ultra mega 18 button push combos. Yeah. But don't forget, you got to like move the, the moving movement stick, like left, right, upper corner turn. Like, no, this is just. You hit the X button, you move your sword, you push the A button, you jump, you push Y, you throw a weapon, maybe you hit Y and B at the same time and just do like a, it literally pauses the screen and does a super move.

it's much, it's much more my style. Uh, and, uh, and yeah, the, the writing is good. Like they do a really good job of setting up these characters in the world and, and, and they have, um, they've sort of set it. within the timeframe of like the older Ninja Gaiden game. So like the writing is very, again, like it fits that style that I really love. Like, this is how I imagine these games played and looked and sounded like, and.

And all that. But you know deep down this is a modern take on that retro style. On the old formula, yeah. Definitely didn't look sound or was written this way in the 90s. because obviously we have much better tech these days. But I've been playing it on Steam with the Steam Deck, both handheld and docked mode, and it runs. you know, amazingly. And yeah, I'm having a really great time with it. Like I, I, there are like secret levels you unlock that like, if folks are wondering like, Oh,

Ryan makes this sound kind of easy because he's really bad at these action games. It's like, yes, that's an accurate statement. Just getting ahead of that. But there are secret levels. Like if you really like to punish yourself. you can go into those secret levels and they're, they're pretty devastating. I tried one and I, I started to regret. Yeah. I had that moment where I was like,

I was banging my head against the wall, like trying to finish something. And I'm like, wait a minute, why am I doing this? This isn't fun. I'm going to go back to the main game. I'm not meant to be here. I am lost in this secret worlds mode. I'm even an adult. It definitely felt that way. I definitely was like, OK, this is clearly not for me, but I am very much enjoying like the main campaign. And of course, as you're playing through like these two characters from rival gangs.

you know, are forced to work together to survive and they have their own selfish reasons for, you know, working together. But... Over time, like any great 90s flick where two unlikely, you know, frenemies are forced together, they eventually start to get along and, you know, crack wise jokes across. you know to each other and and uh yeah like it's it's all that typical stuff that you would you would imagine from uh from an action game but

But it is really cool. And again, I just love that throwback style that is big right now and has been for a while where you just get to play something that reminds you of the...

of the games you played back in the day while still, um, while still offering that modern take. Uh, we, we did speak to this a bit on, on Dungeons and Diapers cause Crofton's playing as well. And I think he put it well, where he said like, You know, you may think it looks like what you remember the SNES and Genesis games looking like, but there actually was an era where it was close to this and that was like the PS1 era where like 2D games were...

frowned upon and ignored and kind of shunned in that era because it was like the birth of 3d video games at least console games but then you have like castlevania symphony of the night which is still a 2d game but has those like crisp 2d graphics it's kind of what actually like this looks like you know closer to that in in the sense of of uh of the detail you're getting with this 2d art but um yeah they do a very good job of capturing that

old school vibe so uh if if you love 2d side-scrolling action games and you were looking for sort of a throwback ninja guidance style game before you you know uh lose yourself in the endless combos of ninja gaiden 4 later this fall i think this is a really really fun one to pick up uh you can't date everything in it though unfortunately oh man then i'm out

Because I was 100% in before you said that. And then I was like, oh, well, if I can't date anything, then what even is the point? I should have left with that. Really, you just you you you fuse with another character and that's it. So. that's that's kind of like dating kind of maybe you said they grow on each other eventually roommates you know like they're forced to work together and they're like oh man you didn't do the dishes like well but

I'm non corporeal. How am I supposed to do dishes? Like, I don't know. And then there's just me sitting with the controller going, now kiss. I mean, I haven't finished it yet. So, you know, no spoilers. They might. There's always hope. Yeah, I mean, really, like, that's what we're going to see it through, right? Yep.

Oh, man. On that note, if you would like to support what Ryan and I are doing here, I don't know why you would, but if you'd really like to, you can head on over to patreon.com slash thegamersin. Like Josh did, thank you so much for supporting the show.

Josh is our August patron. We've gone through a lot of Patreon changes lately, so there's a lot of cool stuff going on now. Ryan has August as his host special month, so you guys have that to look forward to. And we have our game night is actually coming up. uh this friday august 15th uh so go and check out the post over on patreon if you'd like to know what we what wait we want to know what you want us to play so go and fill out the poll

There was an other option. Somebody chose other and then didn't tell us what other game we should play. So if you are going to choose the other option, please make sure that you also give us suggestions and not just say your poll is bad. Other. Goodbye.

yeah yeah and we also talked about this was pre-show we talked about this um the way i've been structuring the poll has not been scientific at all except for one sort of simple thing when we play you have a rule yeah when we play a game i don't include it on the poll so fortnight's not on there but um i think for and there's still time for this month but definitely for september we're gonna we're gonna

ask the the the patrons like what games do you want on the poll because i am clearly filling out this poll with like i know we play these games and like them and people like them uh but If there is something you want to see, and Jocelyn and I are not opposed to picking up new titles, I think you had picked up one peak you were talking about?

Yeah, Peak. I haven't actually tried it yet, but it has been like super all over the place. Like I have seen so many people talking about it and it gives me like, and again, I haven't actually played it. but just from kind of like the vibe and the trailer and stuff.

it reminds me a lot of like raft potentially where uh yeah the whole objective of the game from what i can tell is that you and your friends are trying to get from the bottom of the mountain to the top So, the only thing I'm kind of unclear on, I don't think it has those ragdoll physics that I hate from a lot of these style of games.

I'm pretty sure it's normal movement, but it's kind of got like survival type like resource gathering and, you know, all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it looks it looks really.

like fun and funny and uh it's again overwhelmingly positive it's kind of exploded i think it's got almost like 100k reviews on steam and it's overwhelmingly positive so uh yeah i think uh that's definitely an option that's something i picked up i think it's on sale right now it's like 650 so again 650 canadian if you're not in canada it's probably going to be even cheaper than that they pay you to play it in america yeah

yeah pretty much yeah so go and check it out uh but yeah there's there's lots and lots of options and like ryan said we're not opposed to to picking up multiplayer titles we just want to hang out with you guys we just want to try new stuff and uh hopefully entertain those it can show up so yeah again uh this friday august 15th poll is now live again go to patreon.com slash the gamers in for all the cool stuff

That is happening this month. That brings us to the news this week. As promised last week, we are going to dive into we've had a couple of more posts that have come out, a couple of confirmations and just some more information. So I'm glad that we didn't try.

dive into these like as breaking news last week because uh there are lots of kind of issues going on here but basically what happened was um nsfw titles were removed i think completely from is it itch.io i've never used it before yeah no itch.io is a service that is like a digital platform for not just games but you know, music and, and other software and you can offer stuff for free or there's payment processors as well that you can, you can offer your product as a paid, paid product as well.

Okay, because it's not just them. It was Steam as well. Basically, there was a removal of a whole bunch of content. H.io since has put the free NSFW content back. but not the paid content, unless that has changed in the last couple of hours. And basically, they were saying that this was due to pressure from payment processors.

This is like your Microsoft, or not your Microsoft. I'm so used to shitting on Microsoft that that's the first M company that comes to mind. I'm sure it's probably their fault too. It's probably their fault too. Yeah, everything's moved back to Microsoft. But no, MasterCard, MasterCard, Visa. those kind of companies as well as like the banks that they were I think PayPal was involved as well it's basically like all of the major payment processors due to pressure from outside

Would you call them like activist groups, lobbyist groups, maybe? Yeah. Basically saying that the content is unsafe and usually evoking unsafe for children, which I think as, you know. We're both parents now, so we can probably speak to this a little bit more authoritatively than we did maybe 10 years ago. But for me, anyway, I think it's my responsibility to know what Olivia is.

engaging with and making sure it's appropriate for her and that isn't the job of a company a third party right whether it's a payment processor whether it's a platform you know whether it's a game maker which kind of leads into the gta online age check conversation we're going to have in a couple minutes but like

I'm the parent. I should be protecting the child. Like my child is my responsibility in my view. No. Yeah. And I don't think, look, there's two things here. Like pay, uh, parental controls. have come a long way. There's no excuse. When our parents are dealing with, you know, the rise of phones and video games and all that stuff, there was no parental control. The internet.

Basically, you had to trust that the EB Games guy wasn't going to, you know, wasn't going to sell you an 18 plus title. Yeah. But even then, like I remember when I was a kid, like, you know, all you had to do is just. convince your parents to buy the game and if they were down for it like it was a conversation uh yeah but you know parental controls exist for a reason they work really well and um

I've had really good luck with them. And it's not just about keeping your kids away from this stuff. It's about just giving them an experience that is suitable for their age. uh and having a conversation when stuff comes up like because we have parental control set up for for our kids but they go to school

They learn. Damn it, school! Yeah, they learn a lot of things. And we're not going to go through all of them here tonight, but I can tell you... sometimes i can't wait for my first my first day when olivia comes home and says mom what's uh some crazy inappropriate thing that i'm just like how what no we How is this happening already? Oh, don't worry. You will have that reaction a lot because it happens.

Fairly quick. They're on the school grounds with older kids. They're on the bus with older kids. They're not supervised all the time. And shit gets said. They overhear things.

We've set up an environment where the kids can ask us questions. And video games come up a lot. And it's not just video games that aren't suitable for kids. We're not just talking about GTA or... call of duty we're talking about games that are marketed to kids but we don't we don't play here like roblox that's one that's coming like roblox yeah that's the big one

Yeah, it's one of the bigger ones. And it was Fortnite as well. And it was Minecraft as well. And we did get to those. But all that being said, I don't think when... outside entities get involved like payment processors like oh no we're going to protect the kids we're going to remove these games so now everything's good it's like i think that makes that actually makes the situation harder

for parents because now all of a sudden like yeah maybe this stuff has been removed but like it still exists just because it's not on steam you know like it's it it's you just can't buy it on steam uh you can and but steam has the parental controls right so yeah so it's like by removing it from the platform that has

the or the gives the parents some amount of control and making it just you know like downloadable on the web without that um the launcher without that storefront then you're actually potentially putting kids at more risk and you know not Not only that, but kids famously, I know me as a kid growing up, it was like, you can't have the thing. Well, now I want the thing a hundred times more. So I'm going to figure out how to do it because you've told me I can't.

It almost puts it, by trying to take it away and trying to hide it, it makes it this forbidden thing that they really want to do because they just want to defy you. I'm looking forward to that as well! Well, the whole idea is to delay that as much as possible, but I hear that it's going to happen no matter what. Yeah, I think our kids are still too young to do that, but it'll happen. Hasn't happened yet, but I know it will happen eventually.

So, yes, mentally preparing for that. But, yeah, essentially what happened was this group lobbied the, you know, the... It's not even the payment processors, but like the MasterCard. And we don't even know who was involved until basically someone said not like they just said payment processors and banks. And then it kind of. went back and forth a bit steam removed uh you know i don't think there were details on what games they removed but there was a list

There was a selection of games that were not safe for work that were removed from the platform. Itch.io, because they're a smaller company with under 30 staff. made the decision to just remove everything because basically both Steam and H.io were being threatened by the payment processors saying, if you don't comply...

we will remove our services from your platform. Yeah, people can't use Visa or MasterCard on Steam anymore, which is like totally debilitating, especially when you're talking about like credit card companies and PayPal. Right. Like then how do you safely.

like have do your transactions online right like those are all the big ones that have again all the safeguards in place and stuff like that so if you can't use your credit card if you can't interact with these big you know like cyber i don't want to say there's a cyber criminal proof but you know like there's definitely um a certain amount of security involved in using the big name services and big name companies. If you can't, all of a sudden you're putting yourself at all kinds of other risks.

Right? So, you know, that would be a huge potential hit to Steam and their bottom line to the platform. So they kind of like... They're over a barrel, right? They basically have to comply. Otherwise, they're going to lose a lot of their business because people just aren't going to feel safe entering into transactions with Steam.

So yeah, like I definitely understand like why they did what they did. But I think the itch.io response is basically the problem with all of these kind of like vague policies laws. threats, whatever, is that, you know, if you aren't given explicit instructions, then you end up with these blanket statements and blanket censorship.

where they just have to remove anything that is you know a mature game that's 18 plus because it's you know like they deem it nsfw and where do you draw that line and i get like there is some content illegal content that should not be on these platforms and i get that and i'm on board with that like there's some stuff that you know like you should not be selling you should not be promoting like i get that and i am on board with that

But it is a very, very slippery slope. And some of the communities that get hit first are already small, marginalized communities. And they're the ones that get their content. basically stripped off these platforms and representation we just talked about it which i know like we were you know talking about how the nsfw stuff was going to relate to this news story from date everything but

Really, it's the LGBTQ plus themes in these games. If you take that content away, that representation is gone. And then all of a sudden we have this like... Just all of our content is all of the same and we have no representation. And that isn't good for anyone at all. Like it really does matter. It makes a difference.

not only to marginalized communities, but to everybody. Just having that level of exposure to... ideas and themes that you might not see otherwise just makes you a better person makes you a more well-rounded person regardless of your background so

Those themes aren't inherently harmful. I get that illegal content is harmful. That's why it's illegal. But just these blanket NSFW tags and laws... is where we get into a really slippery slope that hurts marginalized communities first and worst and that's awful and i do not want that to happen because i know like through gaming and well you know tv and movies and like everything all of the media that i consume

I've been exposed to a lot more ideas than I would have just through my day-to-day life. And I think that's very, very, very important and something that we shouldn't lose through these blanket censorships. Yeah. Oh, 100%.

i agree with that i i yeah it's like you you you can gain so much by you know exploring you know other ideas and content and stuff like that and and you're right like when i When I heard about this story and it is a lot of like, you know, Spider-Man meme pointing where like one and it's all these big companies like it's Steam pointing at the at MasterCard, MasterCard's pointing. at their terms of service very vaguely. The banks and payment processors are pointing at Steam.

and mastercard like it's this it's just a lot that this gets hasn't been resolved because it's all these big giant corporations and not necessarily just steam But more of the payment processors and MasterCard and Visa basically saying... like well i don't know like it's not us like it's the banks and the banks are like well like you know it's not us it was us uh yeah at your instruction because your terms of service say xyz thing and

Yeah, you're right. Like there's definitely been a lot of finger pointing, which is why we didn't want to talk about it last week is because there was still a lot of finger pointing going on. And I don't even think that the steam. statement had come out by last week because steam basically came out with receipts and said well actually like this is all the stuff that you told us this is all the stuff we were sent like yes it came through the banks not through you but

it came to the banks through you. So just because there's a middleman doesn't mean you weren't involved. So, yeah, it's all just, in my opinion, it's a very slippery slope. And I think that it doesn't do us any good to... make blanket statements and blanket content removals. And, you know, like a lot of these places aren't going to have the staff to kind of go through and be like, okay.

everything that's labeled as nsfw like there is a certain amount of responsibility for sure being the platform holder but yeah the it just like if it's not explicitly illegal illegal content then like you're the purity police and i don't want that like if you don't want to interact with nsfw content if you don't want to interact with porn if you don't want to interact with whatever then don't interact with it

Like, you don't have to. There's no one saying you have to. But for those that do want to interact with that content, for those that find it compelling or interesting or whatever, that's their own fucking business. Get out of it. it's again not illegal as long as it's consenting adults it's not illegal just leave them be teach their own have at her or him or them who cares yeah

Or the fridge is the game you played before. Or the fridge! Yeah. And again, it's a really... This specific news story, it's not, as we've discussed, it's not... complex from our opinion because like yeah this is bad this should not be happening this could have been done in a much more constructive way not from like the lobbyist side like you know they have their opinion and

It is wrong in the sense that they want to remove. They have a very specific goal to remove all not safe for work content or not safe for work content. Yeah, it isn't just about.

the illegal stuff because i agree like yeah if it's illegal steam has rules against that they do not sell illegal content and they remove stuff that is is illegal right like they don't they don't sell it and they have had instances where games have gone online and have been taken down afterwards based on content review stuff slips through it happens that's why they have the staff

But yeah, but it is still a complex issue from more of the standpoint of how payment processors and MasterCard work and all of that and how they do hold a lot of the cards. And aren't sort of like forced to sort of work with everybody. They do have the ability to kind of throw their weight around because of. I think the specific clause that they used is not even illegal content. It's about like literally just you can't make us look bad.

yeah anything damaging to their brand which i mean like we could that i feel like it's a whole other conversation of basically like Terms and conditions and fine print and consumer contracts and stuff that like you don't have like you can't go to you can't go to MasterCard and say, I'm sorry, I don't agree with clause 27.13. Therefore, please.

remove it from the contract because MasterCard just comes back to you and says, no, this is our terms and conditions. If you don't like it, you don't get a MasterCard. And yet... our current society and the way everything works like you can't you have to have a credit card of some kind from some company but they all have clauses like this right so it becomes a point where like you don't actually have

control or choice as a consumer because like you have to have these things to interact with our society and you don't have the power to go back to these giant companies and say i don't agree with this so i'm not doing it Cause they're all the same. Like there is no choice. So yeah, they do have, they have too much power and they're throwing around too much weight. Yes. A hundred percent. And I mean, if you are looking for.

Like an even bigger deep dive and more of a look at the payment processor side and how that works. I did listen to... uh, podcast, Brad and will make a tech pod. And they had a episode two 98 where they say, don't accidentally become a bank. Pretty good advice. Uh, they spent a lot of time going through this even more detailed than we did. And really getting into the details of like the payment processor side and why.

That is such a huge, a huge thing. So if you if you are looking for further reading and as we already said, like this is still not resolved. It's still everybody pointing the finger at somebody else. We'll probably have updates over the next few weeks, I would imagine. Definitely. Yeah, definitely. We did get some confirmation in the last week, too, that the basically rumors and leaks from last week about GTA Online requiring an age check that has been confirmed as an actual.

real thing um so this is i get an Again, this was in response, I think, to the UK's new laws. So the UK just very, very recently passed their Online Safety Act. And so now that had been impacting a lot of porn, had been in... impacting a lot of social media but now we've get we're getting the first hints of it impacting gaming with gta 6 and requiring uh so basically like so the rumor that i heard is that there

doing age verification particularly for the online stuff um and you're gonna what i okay this is what i heard and ryan correct me if i'm wrong but the they will be verifying age by uploading photos of your real id and then storing it in their um like databases yeah uh well it's it differs across

It depends on the service they're using. So this is part of the Online Safety Act that the UK has put forward. And there are various other countries, I think, that have similar acts either enabled or in the process. But... The age verification system that I've seen in the news is kind of twofold. It's either, yeah, uploading or taking a picture with your ID. For a scan or basically having a credit card like on the system. So for a lot of these use cases, like, you know.

discord where you might pay for nitro because you have a credit card attached like they can they can safely say we did our due diligence here over the age of i think i think it's 18 i think australia has a certain thing where it's like you know, social media is illegal for people under 14, something like that. But the idea here is like with video games in GTA six specifically being a huge game and hugely anticipated game, there is.

And let's be honest, GTA Online is played by people of all ages. It is a mature title, but people under the age of 18 are playing that game. so i feel like things have kind of like skirted by the whole like mature whatever because the um uh the ratings board doesn't rate online interactions right like that's on every single one it's like the base game is rated m for mature or like warcraft i think might be like pg or whatever um but

they don't rate like as soon as you connect to the internet they're like oh we have no idea what happens on the internet so therefore the internet part's not rated so shrug where like we know as soon as you connect to the internet All of that shit is M for mature. Most of it is stuff no one should see, let alone M for mature people. You could hear a podcast talk for a half hour about dating everything. Yeah, exactly. No one needs to hear that.

Something that could happen. And yeah, you're right. They do not rate online interactions because it is impossible. There are systems in place that the platform holders have to combat. you know, abuse and harassment and it's not perfect. And it has certainly, um, has a long way to go still. Uh, and there's, privacy concerns with how they implement those tools as well. And it's an evolving situation. But essentially what's happened is the government is...

Stepped in in certain areas and said, I know we're we're going to figure this out and we're going to put an ID check on everything that we feel needs an ID check. And specifically, they aren't the. The specific thing here with GTA 6 being the biggest game coming out next year, it's not going as far as to say you need to do an ID check to play the game at all. It is specifically...

these online interactions, still not great, but I could see this being a slippery slope towards, you know, we can't trust EB games to sell this game to you properly. So now if you boot it up on your console, you got to have. id present like i it's a slippery slope i feel like that's kind of where they want to go and they're starting with the you know online interactions can't be rated bit but um

There's been a lot of growing pains with this act. I've seen a lot of reports that people are unable to use Discord. It's the direct messaging and stuff that's been an issue. Someone said they couldn't. I don't know if it was a joke or not, but I believe it. Someone couldn't update their NVIDIA drivers because they needed to, you know, verify their age to get into the NVIDIA app, which I saw that too.

great at all uh so and then there was another story where people were tricking it by using um one of the verifications had to have you you know turn on your camera it would scan your face and then ask you to smile so what people were doing is they were using death stranding to trick the age verification and there's a button in photo mode to make Norman Reedus smile and that was Oh my God. It's working. So lots of, lots of people. Which honestly, like.

This is so funny because I was just listening to another podcast last week that was basically talking about Facebook verification. It's not age verification. It's verifying that you're human. And she went through it three times and got permanently locked out of like her personal Facebook account that she's had since like 2004 because.

they determined and there was no opportunity for more review that she was a bot and she's like this is my face like i didn't do my hair and put my makeup on today but this is my face like what more do you want me to do so like whether it's looking at age verification or it's looking at are you a robot or not like this tech is not good at its job so like like you say it's you know like taking

very well rendered but still like video game footage and saying yep that looks like a real person to me and then or taking video of real people and going well you're a robot that's ai created like it can't tell what it's looking at. So if that's what we're using, then that's also problematic because it doesn't work properly all the time, right? So yeah, there are a lot of potential issues with this.

Yeah. I mean, the core issue here is that like one of the core issues from a technology standpoint is like they're not using like really they just shouldn't be doing this at all. Like that's the first step. But the second thing here is that they are not using real people. to identify this. It's all automated systems and they're not perfect. It's automated systems, but then there's also the kind of assumption of storage of data.

If you've got me and my face next to my real ID, I don't want that on Rockstar server number 297. I don't want them to have that data. stored somewhere that's not theirs that's mine and with identity theft and fraud and everything else being so rampant because of all of the data leaks and the hacks and everything else that's happening on the internet right now

The last thing I want is yet another place where my data is stored and can be stolen from that's completely out of my control. So like I have a big problem if there's any kind of storage, which like. There probably is. Because your data is worth so much money that, yeah, it's probably being stored. And that's where I start to have big problems with it is the storage of data.

yeah no i agree with you there like i'm not i'm not scanning my id to access stuff like i i mean i am i am an adult i have a credit card so for most of these instances like I guess for Discord, if it comes to it, I feel comfortable with that for Discord, but not every single service. And I think that's where this... ID check thing sucks is that it's an invasion of privacy.

You know, like, again, going back to the top of the news segment where we talk about parental controls and and just putting just trusting parents. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you know, I do not understand. on one hand you have the the folks that say like oh you know don't you know don't tread on my rights like these are my rights but then on the other hand they're like no we need to we need an id check for you to access things

Like it just doesn't make, it doesn't compute. And I know like me saying this out loud, everyone's like, duh, Ryan, like, you know, people contradict themselves all the time on. every you know on so many topics yeah and but to me it's just it like i can't understand it and uh i i feel like i'm able to like understand

when I'm being contradictory, and then someone can tell me that, and I'll be like, oh, yeah, you're right. That is really shitty. Let me think about this a little bit more. But yeah, like, it's a privacy concern. It's... It's it makes me feel like an idiot as a parent. Like, it just doesn't make sense. It's like, let me parent my kids. You know, let me let me handle this. And and again.

online ID checks. That's bad. Parental controls. Very good. Like give me the option, the ability to like, for example, for parental controls, like they're not, they are, they're optional. And I have the ability to say, yeah, like this is Caden's tablet. He can only access, you know, E for Everyone games. But sometimes I need to go in there and like, oh, I need to download Disney Plus or I need to download Plex, you know.

I can't do that because the apps are rated at a higher rating. I think Disney plus in Canada, at least on the app store is like 18 plus like you got to like. basically unlock the ability for them to download whatever on the app store so that they can get it and you have that ability to do that as a parent to be like okay i'm gonna unlock this so that you can watch bluey

on Disney Plus, but I got to unlock the rating. Again, it's not perfect, but it has those controls so that I can be a good parent, you know, and instruct. you know, the kids to just watch bluey. Yeah. You as the parent, not, you know, like your government again, like the, the, A lot of the people who want small government and out of their business seem to be putting government in everybody else's, all of the other businesses. Yeah. It does not compute with my brain.

you know, the government's got enough on their plate. I don't think they need to worry about GTA six, you know, let, let the other checks and balances handle it. Parents. Yeah. You know, store clerks like. Games are behind glass counters for a reason. If it's over 18, ask for ID, ask for a parent to be present. Like, you know, clerks aren't. stupid like they know parents are buying these games for their kids and they

as the store clerk, like need to just make sure like, okay, like I'm selling this to you. Well, they've done their due diligence, right? Like, yeah, exactly. They're selling it to the person who is over 18, what that person chooses to do.

beyond that and again like we're talking about games we're not talking about harmful substances like alcohol so yes yeah like there's a there's like levels of responsibility there and yeah i don't think gaming content is really up there but anyways let's move on to something a little bit more fun to kind of end off the show we've got some Nintendo stuff going on Ryan do you have anything from the indie showcase you want to chat about before we talk about all of the

my mario baby stuff that's coming out which i'm actually kind of excited about because it's super cute okay good throw on the all for babies. Anyways. That's how you know Ryan has already ordered everything. It's all for babies. I'm not a baby. Oh, I'm a man. It's Japan only. I can't order it until next time. next year uh but no this isn't this isn't like a long uh game for me to to get uh wooden block amiibos that's not happening i'm not doing it um

But yeah, before we talk about that quickly, there was an Indie World Showcase for Nintendo. I mean, if you're living under a rock, you might not know this, but no silksong was present. Sorry, folks. I know this was a week ago, but didn't happen. The one game that jumped out to me that that I will mention here, and I'm a big fan of the far series. There were two games in the franchise where essentially it was like you managed this.

vehicle to move through. I think the first game was mainly focused on like a desert landscape and you had to like maintain the vehicle and there was like puzzles and stuff and it was very short but cool. And the second one was more water-based. But the makers of that series have a new game coming out actually next week. Or sorry, two weeks from now. It's called Hurdling. And yeah, I'm a big fan of the far series. I'm excited to see what they do next. And hurdling looks like. Was that hard?

series the water one was that where you like had your boat i remember you talking about that one yes yeah there was a boat and you had to like maintain resources and unlock obstacles so that you could progress further and um it was like a non-vocal game so it was very like right atmospheric yeah it was very good so uh hurtling is in the same sort of vein where but uh you are a shepherd of some sort as you're getting these animals and trying to uh herd them across the plains so uh

I'm excited to play this one and I will definitely be checking out for the show before the end of the month. Is this a Switch 2 only or is it available on the Switch as well? So it's going to be available for, uh, everything. So steam PlayStation five. Oh, it's actually coming to game pass as well. So look at that. So lots of opportunity to play anymore. Yeah. And I'm not sorry about it.

You don't have to be sure. I'm going to get that into like every episode from now until I don't even know. Yeah. Well, I don't blame you. I don't blame you. So, uh, yeah. Hurdling is out, uh, August 21st and the studio is, um, Akamotive and it's actually being, um, uh, published by panic. So those are the folks that published, um, I think it was duck game.

The one with the button where you put... No, Goose. Goose Game. Duck Game. Oh, Untitled Goose Game. Yeah. Yeah. So they publish some really interesting titles, so they don't... They have a very specific style for what they go for with their titles, and this one... Again, like I really like the far series, so I'm excited. The tagline is guide a herd of mysterious creatures on a stirring and beautiful journey into the mountains and beyond. So awesome.

So, yeah, finally tonight, as we kind of already mentioned, Nintendo has announced My Mario, which is a whole bunch of Mario themed products aimed at kids. um and so some of these some of these are really super cute they have like these kind of like wooden block characters that kids can play with there's a whole bunch of stuff that's like um clothing and there's like um lots of like kids safe dishes and stuff there's picture books there's um

like uh oh what did they got those little loveys where like it has the character head and the rest of it is just attached to a blanket there's a little mario one of those they rattles like it really is all the way from like kid baby all the way up to kind of like toddler and and beyond so it looks like there's like a mystery bot like those um we got one for livy that's like a fabric

box thing that you put stuff into and they can pull out like a like a Kleenex box kind of thing looks like they've done that as well like there's there's a lot in this photo there's a lot of really cool looking kids products so I mean people were making unofficial Nintendo content like this like you can go on Etsy and find basically all of this stuff so now Nintendo's like huh maybe we should be the ones making the money from this let's make officially licensed

products and sell them instead of letting people do it on etsy so yeah there's lots of stuff here though yeah you know like that's a really good point like i think you know a lot of these I mean, Nintendo is trying to be, they're doing the Disney path, right? They're diversifying. They're bringing things under their umbrella, whether it's through licensing.

or manufacturing it themselves. And I think this is a clear example of like the continuing Disneyification and hopefully not going down. You know, Disney has its issues. I don't want a Nintendo streaming service. Don't go there. Yes, please no. But, you know, having their own line of, you know. child products like young young kids you know from from bait as you said baby all the way to to to young kids with these products like i mean

They have amiibo blocks. So these blocks are like the classic wooden style blocks, but they also, you know, double as an amiibo. These storybooks look really, really neat. But as you said, like you could buy.

a majority of this stuff that's knockoff nintendo doesn't see a cent for it and then i mean you know these will be expensive but uh these are officially licensed products they live up to the nintendo sort of brand seal of approval type thing and and um this is this is good like i i I think for those that want like officially licensed quality Nintendo products for their kids, like this is a.

This is a market Nintendo needed to sort of enter because like they were having their lunch eaten by, you know, randos. Yeah. All of us that grew up on.

like super mario on the you know nintendo and super nintendo and 64 and everything else we're having kids now like obviously kids that are using loveys and stuffies and wearing onesies don't know mario it's for us who now who grew up on mario who are now having kids who are like absolutely i want my kid dressed up like princess peach why would i not want that that's that's why they're getting into it now is because the people

who grew up with Mario are having the kids now. So this is the perfect time to get into the market because it's us parents that are going to be buying all of this stuff for our kids.

way before they even know who these characters are so yeah this timing makes sense for me they've been out there forever but the timing makes sense to me yeah there may be there may be like five to ten years behind the behind the curve but you know they got there eventually yeah well i think that's the big thing is that um again like i want to be careful because like i don't

I don't want Nintendo to just like, you know, corner every part of the market. But then on the other hand, it's like, well, it is their IP. And if they see and they make quality stuff. So, yeah. Yeah. It makes sense. I don't see this and I can be, again, previous point made, I can be convinced if I'm, if I'm, if I'm wrong here, but like, I don't see an issue with them sort of.

you know, seeing a, you know, a need for a product and, and, and filling it because like, again, it's their IP, they can build these products. And that's not to say like, there won't be other like license.

kids products for Nintendo products like you're going to be able to buy like officially licensed Nintendo stuff that isn't part of this line but it's an additional option and all these products look like really solid in terms of the actual website when you go through to the to all the Mario stuff it details all the products they have and there's a lot more here than I originally had seen but yeah this is

This is very, very neat. I mean, it's probably going to be super expensive. You're going to pay for it for sure. But it'll be interesting to see how much comes here. Yeah, I think the announcement. the has at least the i guess japanese because it's only available in japan right now right um until next year like you said So that wooden block set that we were talking about is about $135. I'm assuming it's American dollars, which means it's probably even, well, almost $200 probably here.

would be my guess for the full 30-piece set. You can buy them in like three-piece sets, but the full set is 135 American approximately. Obviously, the prices are in yen, but... Yeah, so, I mean, like, it's not out of the realm of possibility. Like, that's probably, especially since you said, what, four of the characters are amiibos, so.

yeah mario luishi peach and yoshi are amiibos so that's gonna bump the price up a little bit as well so i mean yeah then that sounds about right you know for better or for worse Yeah. Not unexpected. But yeah, there are a lot of different products here. So you can go and check out the website. It's Nintendo.com.

i'm sure there's a link if not there's a link in our show notes i'm not going to read out an entire url i am tired but i am not that tired i am well aware that that is bad podcasting so we'll just wrap it up there and i'll say go and go and check it out if you're interested and link will be in our show notes If you'd like to continue the conversation, head on to tiny.cc slash TGI discord. That's where we do all of our chatting and finding our news stories and stuff ahead of the show.

uh when we're not recording so go and check it out there you can also visit us on the web at gamersinpodcast.com that is where our show notes are you can also follow us over on blue sky you can find me jocelyn at jossplays.com and ryan is at ryan murphy.ca And be sure to check out our TGI Community Starter Pack at tiny.cc slash TGI Starter Pack. Thanks for staying at the Gamers Inn. And remember, tune in next week. Bye, everybody. Bye, everyone.