Giant Bombcast｜Giant Bombcast 939: Meat Shaped State

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Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, May 5th.

Welcome to the Giant Bombcast, episode 939.

I'm your host, Jan Ochoa.

Joining me as always, co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.

Thanks for having me, Jan.

That's right.

I'm only having you and one more Jeff on this podcast, and that other Jeff is.

Everyone wait for it.

Who's it going to be?

It's Jeff Bacalar.

Hey, Janny.

Always a pleasure seeing you, pal.

Hope you are good, fine, and well.

I am doing so.

Thank you, Jeffy.

We need to balance the scales of all this positivity and good vibes by bringing the bird boy of games media, Mike Minotti.

Oh, I'm mad at the world.

And I think that not enough people are like me.

And also, I think I'm bad, too.

What?

So, no, no, no.

Are you doing your best baccalaureate?

Is that what you're doing?

No.

Look, I was just playing the part of a miserable person.

If you see yourself in that, what am I supposed to do?

That's a self-report.

Yeah, I got a lot to think about.

Maybe I should introduce Mike first sometimes, because he always introduces the most impossible pivot to get out of.

But I'd also like to introduce our dear special friends, our partners over at Beta Hat.

And for folks in the know, you may recognize some of these faces, some of these names.

We've got managing director of Beta Hat and ex-general manager of Giant Bomb, Stan Kwan.

Hey, nice to meet everyone.

This is actually my first time on the Bombcast, even though I have a long history of with the Giant Bomb crew.

Really nice to meet all of you and thank you for having us on.

Yeah, you and I were two ships in the night passing, Stan.

I think your time with GB ended around 2017 and then mine ended at the tail end.

Folks at home may recognize this next gentleman.

Maybe.

You've seen him pop up here and there.

Research recruiter for Beta Hat and ex-community manager over here at Giant Bomb.

We got my dog.

That's a lot of things at Giant Bomb.

Matt Rory in the building.

How you doing, man?

I'm doing great.

Good to talk to you all.

It's been about a year since I've been on the Bombcast, so I'm glad to be back.

New adventures, new opportunities.

Yeah, yeah.

Your loss.

Your loss is my gain.

There we go.

That's right.

There we go.

Wow, that's a way to put it.

For folks not in the know you know, Beta Hat is a market research firm with working exclusively in gaming.

When a studio or publisher needs to understand what players think, they call the homies over here at Beta Hat.

Beta Hat talks to players in a number of different ways collecting opinions, analyzing them, reporting back to those game companies.

Stan, Rory, welcome to the program today.

Happy to have both of you.

Thank you for having us.

Excited to talk.

Yeah, this is very exciting.

So what we want to do, right?

So just to kind of get it out there, we're going to be partnering up with with Matt and Stan and their business at, and Stan's business at, Beta Hat.

And I wanna use this as like a way to kind of explain to our audience like what it is that Beta Hat does, what we're trying to accomplish with our audience, and why we think it's such a smart and logical kind of fit.

Yeah because like, if you're, if you're listening to this, like this, is this message actually legit?

Is for for you guys?

Like if you're listening to a podcast like this, we actually need your help with this specifically.

Yeah y'all, y'all are in the know in a very unique and informed tuned-in way than the general population.

You all are a bunch of nerds, and we need you.

Yeah, this is just a nerd beacon.

We need more nerds.

We're lighting a nerd beacon and we're seeing how many people, how many moths, we can attract to the flame.

So Stan, you think it's helpful to do a general overview of what beta hat is and what it is we're trying to accomplish here sure, sure.

So i started beta hat right before the pandemic in 2020, of course, the best time to start a business yes, but in short, we're a market research agency.

More specifically, in the context of market research and the business of games, We're considered a consumer insights firm.

So essentially we talk directly with players, prospective audiences, about specific topics and then we report back to developers and publishers, our clients, about what they think.

And there's a ton of data out there that tracks what people do, what they say.

You can go to the socials and see what people are saying.

You can go to steam charts and see how many people are downloading things.

Uh, and that's all great information.

What we do as a firm is to try and understand why, like, why is that happening?

And then reporting back to our clients, a lot of the big publishers and developers.

Why is this happening?

What do you need to know?

And what changes do we need to make?

And what kind of an impact is this having to our plans and our decision making?

So why do you need Rory?

So, as a recruiter researcher sorry, recruiter is more accurate I basically do.

What happens is we get these massive spreadsheets full of People who either filled out an online kind of form indicating that they're interested in a certain genre of games, or something like that.

We get a lot of data about people who wanted to be contacted.

We don't contact people without their say-so.

So what I do mostly right now, and we have ambitious plans for the year but, as of right now, most of my month has been calling people.

So if you sign up to this opportunity, you might get a phone call from the internet zone, Matthew Rory, at some point.

And basically what I do... an actual phone call, Matt, an actual phone call.

I know it's, it's a, it's a, you should be excited about that.

So what I do is basically go down these, these kinds of lists of people and we try to call them.

And what we do either these opportunities are.

They're online in person.

A lot of them are online.

You're basically working with somebody on a zoom call about you're talking about your experiences in gaming, and what i kind of do is filter out people who are either i want to say filter in people who are really eloquent and talking about games like they know what they're talking about, they have opinions, They can say them well.

And then what we kind of do is filter out people who are either, I would say sometimes people.

When we call them they're just kind of like, you know, they're not super talkative.

They just don't ask them, like, what are your favorite genres of playing?

And they'll give me a one word answer.

And we kind of have to, you know.

Do a little decision making about what people we want to let into these opportunities, and what we do is kind of, you know, make sure that people are talkative and can say things well and have opinions to begin with.

And then also we kind of have to filter out people who are totally not real, sometimes like we've had some weird.

I've had some weird experiences talking to people who are clearly just signing up to to.

You know, try to get in and and get some cash, because these are all paid opportunities for the most part.

So a lot of what i do is kind of like, you know, try to find people like weaves.

I used to talk with people on the forums all the time, people who do do review reviews on giant palm uh, people who are really invested in games and making them better, And trying to find those people.

And then obviously a lot of that involves a lot of phone tag and getting back and forth with people for multiple opportunities.

Rory, without breaking any NDAs, has there been an interesting finding or learning opportunity from people you've called?

Yeah, I really, really enjoy it when I get to talk to people because what we do is kind of in order to make sure that people are talkative and interesting, to have interesting opinions.

We kind of go down this list of, like you know anyone, make sure that people are within the age range and what they do for work and whatever, what hobbies they have.

And that's been really fun to do with people, even strangers.

When we talked to people about you know what they, what they like doing outside of video games, just kind of warm them up a little bit.

So um yeah, I've I've talked to a lot of really interesting people from a lot of really interesting backgrounds.

So that's been really fun to do.

I guess that answers your question.

Absolutely.

I just want to make sure like I want to get like put the headline first here, guys.

Like the idea here is, like you guys are coming on the show not to tell us like, how you guys make games better.

I think people listen to the show definitely care about that.

But there's like more to the pitch than that.

Right.

We want their help.

And these are paid opportunities.

Right.

It is that simple.

Yep, can we?

Can we talk about that just a little bit?

Yeah, i will say at a high level.

When we think about where the games industry is today, there is not a whole lot of, or let's just say it's very easy to go into.

The future looks pretty bleak yeah, and what we know about today's consumer is that in today's players that we're a lot more discerning games are expensive.

Shit is expensive.

We want to make sure we're getting a lot of value out of the games that we're playing.

There's also a whole back catalog of games too, that everyone has access to.

So when, for those who are creating new content, we really need to make sure we're hitting all the right notes.

There's not that much room for error.

So at a very high level, research today is actually way more important than it was maybe 10, 15 years ago.

There's a lot of money that's going into it.

There's a lot of investment that's going into it.

And really what research does is to help de-risk some of that.

Some can argue that does it detract from creativity?

And, as a research firm, I think the good researchers know how to balance the need for creativity but also understanding what are the needs of the players too, and how do we balance the two?

Now in the research process we need to – it's garbage in, garbage out uh, and garbage in comes from potentially two places.

Like we need to make sure that yeah, the having a good researcher is important um, but even more important are the people who are giving their feedback, and i think that's why we're here today.

Is um, like we respect the giant bomb community.

Um, When I think about who is the voice that I want to have be a major part of the feedback, going back to game developers and publishers, I want the Giant Bomb community's voice to be a bigger part of that, because I respect this community.

It's well-informed.

You're mature.

I think, I don't know, but maybe, you know, Dan's not here to, to, he waits the average down.

Absolutely.

One of the one of the things that I kind of go back to is, like you ever, we all, everybody in this audience has seen a million E threes and a game awards and things like that.

And if if I've seen a million games that have you know maybe the trailer starts off with a weird note and people start immediately turning on it or saying this is great.

One of the things that you know we want to do is make sure that people are seeing, not just the games themselves, that the marketing around them is effective and is not.

You know, we've all seen a game and the first thing that comes out of somebody's mouth is that's really cringy.

And making sure that doesn't happen is something that we are involved in.

It's going to make sure that we don't get the Mighty No.

9 reveal trailer again, right?

I get it.

What were you going to say, Greg?

I was gonna say yeah, but like my question would be like when I, when I hear this stuff, it's like man, do they do they really listen to when gamers come in with their opinions?

Like, what is your guys's experience been with that?

Like when you guys bring like informed opinions from people who really know what they're talking about because they play a lot of games, how receptive is the other side to like hearing what people's opinions are?

I can understand why there may be that perception.

Like, I can't speak for all developers, but what I do know that deep down is they all care very much about what players think.

Maybe in some cases, maybe a bit too much.

They're making games not just for themselves, but they're making games for others to enjoy.

And just by nature of that, they do care about what they're making.

But in today's world, it's just challenging to parse out the signal from the noise.

So you got user reviews, you got Twitter, you got all other types of social media.

Everyone's kind of...

Just they've all got opinions.

So the hardest part is actually prioritizing.

Like, what do we focus on first?

Because everyone has problems with everything.

So from my own experience, like when we do focus groups or a play test, oftentimes we have the developers in the back like watching.

And I will tell you.

When they hear feedback, it is sometimes I need to slow them down because they will make changes and start making changes to code right there in the back room.

And I have to stop them and say like, hey, like, just let's listen to the rest of these groups.

Let's fully listen to the conversation.

Let's talk about it first before you just react.

And that tells me what we're hearing from the participants has a huge impact.

Like they're all listening.

Now, it's just a matter of like how they act on it, but they're all listening really closely.

And so that got me thinking, like, what is my role in the industry now?

And being able to facilitate these conversations.

It gives me a lot of confidence that yes, developers really want to do the right thing.

They want to make sure that players are getting what they want, sometimes to a fault.

And so it's been really encouraging to see them react the way that they do to feedback.

And I think that like to me, right?

Like we've been talking about this Dan for, for a long time of like, how do we make this work?

And I think the thing that I always go back to and the thing that is like the most attractive and intriguing element to this whole thing is like what you said right.

Where To be able to like have an actual voice to shape and sort of lend that sort of directive advice, opinion voice, however you want to call it, and get that feedback in the ears of developers.

I think now more than ever is such a crucial thing to where a lot of people sort of see this industry going.

And I think closing that gap and being able to provide that kind of back-channeling is super, super cool.

Yeah, I mean, I think from my perspective, we all play a lot of video games here.

And how many times have you played a game that just had a bad first 10 minutes and you kind of bounce off of it and never pick it up again?

One of the things, like, you know, I started...

I worked on a game one time that had a very bad mechanic where you started off very kind of.

It felt very weak.

You weren't powerful.

You weren't supposed to be the kind of character you're playing.

And I wish I had given that feedback to my co-developers.

But I felt like I was kind of like one cog in a machine.

And I think maybe having that kind of information coming back from people external to that company might have changed the way that game started and made it much more exciting and better to play through.

I uh yeah yeah, just like.

So i i do want to like kind of get to the uh, the part where it's like yeah, let's tell people what they should be doing.

Uh, because i'm there's definitely more we could be talking about.

But i bet people who listen to this at this point are like yeah okay great yeah, sign me up.

Yes, sign me up.

What can they do there?

So there's no shortage of ways that we're sort of letting people in on how to sign up, right?

So the most sort of, you know, the easiest way, right, is joining our Discord.

We're going to have a a role open up to enter into a beta hat channel in our discord where Rory will be posting updates on studies right,

We'll also have a channel that, after you react to, you'll have access to, where you can ask questions and get more information about what the kind of relationship is.

We'll let everyone know in the server at some point today that the channel is available to react to.

You could also go to betahatrc.com.

You can go to giantbomb.com slash betahat.

There's a link directly to sign up.

Just do us this one gigantic favor, okay?

At the end of your sign up you just gotta click a little box that says you came from giant bomb, not from next lander.

No, not that one.

No, don't click that one.

Come on, click the one that says giant bomb, even if you are coming from next, we need this.

Even if you came from next lander, still say giant bomb, all right Yeah, no.

And, and that, and again, no shortage of ways to sign up.

We you know and obviously we are at your disposal if you want to reach out and ask more questions and we will be able to answer and show you how to do that.

Yeah.

I think like that's the, the, the sort of gist of it.

I wonder like, Stan, is there anything that you can speak to in your experience?

Because I think a lot of this sounds good on paper.

I'd love to have some kind of thing you could speak to, where it's like oh, this is the kind of feedback that changes how a game presents or appears when it goes to market.

Yeah.

Again without the specificity of breaking an NDA or something like that.

Is there an anecdotal sort of example that you can talk about to demonstrate how this works?

Loaded question.

Yeah, no, I mean, there's a lot to potentially surface there.

But number one for the audience, just like how can you get involved?

There's like once you sign up, there's a few different forums.

So there's one on one interviews.

There's online interviews.

There's in-person conversations like in focus groups.

There's playtesting.

There's remote playtesting.

There's a number of different ways that everyone can get involved.

I do want to just put an asterisk on everything that right now it's for the U S audience only.

We do plan on expanding out to Europe into other countries soon, but for now it is for the U?

S.

But once you sign up, you know and we put out some links to potential studies.

All we ask is sign up for it.

And if you get a callback, you will most likely get a callback from either Rory or someone from our team to see if there's a match.

But just kind of going, based off of some of the earlier conversations we were having, there's a number of different ways that this research impacts product marketing.

I mean, it runs the full gamut, so it can go from, should this character be, um, blue or green?

Um, It can be as a micro decision like that.

Or it could be how much money should we invest into a campaign experience?

Do we need it to be 15 hours?

Do we need it to be 25 hours? how much campaign do we put in there to command a $70 price point?

So those are the more strategic questions that some of this research can answer.

So it kind of runs the whole kind of micro to the macro.

And that's like sort of my role is to work with the different publishers to say How can consumer feedback impact these types of decisions?

Hell yeah.

And if we have not been clear about it, there is a chance for you to get paid to complete these studies.

So definitely want to highlight that as well.

Yeah, this is great.

Is there anything else you guys want to hit before we move on and send everyone to Beta Hat?

No, we'd love to see you all be a part of the community, be a part of the research community.

I think it's a great way to make an impact on the industry right now.

Research is more important than ever.

And anyone has any questions, they can always reach out through the website.

I'm um, i am available.

Uh, i'll be on the giant bomb discord and i'll also be on the beta hat discord as well.

For any questions you have, feel free to reach out dm me, blue sky me i whatever you need, i'm here.

Uh, for folks that may have missed any of the links, we'll make sure to put that in the show notes.

Uh, before we let y'all go stan, You educated me on something that forever altered the giant bomb DNA that you partook in.

If you're cool.

It's fine.

I just want to put some asterisks here.

This should not taint.

Anything that we've said up until now.

The pendulum's long both ways, right?

We like Stan.

We like Rory.

There's two people you had interviewed.

One of them is not here today because he's out on assignment.

But Stan, you interviewed Dan Reichert.

Oh, yeah.

No, I interviewed Dan Reichert.

He's like, oh, yeah.

I'll take that.

Like job interview.

We mean to be clear.

Yeah, no, this is a regular.

This is a regular like at the time when I was, when I was GM for the brand, all the hiring decisions were not like made by me.

I mean, I just gave my opinion and I was the budget holder.

But ultimately I leaned into the rest of the crew on like, and I would ask like, what do you need?

Like, what, what do you need to grow this brand?

How can I help grow this brand?

What can I do to support you all?

And then, of course, you know there's some open head count and then I'm a part of the hiring process and

Yeah, I had interviewed some of the folks, one of them who is part of the crew right now.

And I thought it was an interesting.

I'm just going to leave it at like.

It was an interesting interview.

And but look at him now.

He's your chief creative officer, like wonderful, doing wonderful things.

Yes.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

I was wondering what to do with the aftermath of that.

I realize, since I'm... I put this in the background, but I think it's being cropped out.

Oh, my God.

Don't hurt yourself.

Jesus.

Whoa.

The gold bomb cast thing.

I figure if I'm on the bomb cast, I might as well whip out this old chestnut.

I've eventually, over the years, gotten rid of a lot of the stuff i stole from the office when we had to move out.

Not stole, not stole acquired.

Yes, it was protected.

If i'm on the bombcast, i'm gonna go and show up.

I forget who sent this in, but i've had this kicking around for a long time.

So if i'm on the bombcast, i'm gonna whip out the bombcast sign.

That's amazing.

Hell yeah uh yeah matt uh, one more time for the folks at home beta hat, You go to giantbombcom, slash betahat, betahatrccom.

And then make sure, when you fill in, to mention that you're coming from Giant Bomb.

All right, nowhere else, you know.

No, don't make the video games better everybody, come on please.

Someone's got to do it.

Yes, stop yelling at us and yell at me.

Yeah okay, but join me on us, join me on the giant bomb discord.

I'm, i'm.

I'm more active on the kind of sub channels.

We just started a ceros discussion.

I've been playing a lot of ceros lately and magic arena.

I stick to some smaller channels.

So uh, come talk to me about ceros and howl How everybody's enjoying it.

I beat the first boss last night.

I was very happy.

Fantastic.

It's your chance.

This is your chance, audience.

You can get a phone call from Rory.

Yeah.

And potentially get paid also as well.

Folks, we're going to let Stan and Rory go.

We're going to fade to black and take a quick bricky break.

And we'll be back with the rest of the show right after this.

Thanks, y'all.

All right.

Before we get back to the show, we want to take a minute to talk about something that, like a good character build, gives you some solid options.

I'm always here for options.

Are we talking like multi-classing, little stealth, little strength?

I see where you're going with this, and I think it fits.

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And we are back.

Once again, shouts out to the homies over at Beta Hat.

Shouts out to Stan.

Shouts out to Roar Dog.

Once again, johnbomb.com slash beta hat.

Get paid to talk about video games.

Utilize all that knowledge that you got on your noggin.

Instead of yelling at people on the internet, have a polite chat with Rory.

Yeah, do something with your life.

All right, all right, all right.

I didn't want to say it, but.

Boys, how's everything going?

Dan Reichert is out on assignment.

Who the hell knows where?

Yeah.

I don't.

He's walking the earth for Kung Fu.

He's not.

You can't just notice.

You can't just feel the energy.

I've talked about salt yet today.

Oh, boy.

I it's interesting.

I'm in no short supply to create small talk opportunities with people.

Uh, by just bringing up Dan it's.

It's a very easy like on ramp to like Hey, I have this coworker that that says this.

It does this, or did this.

Um, have you, have you heard of eggshells?

Let's talk about those.

Yeah.

Mike, all the anecdotes I share about you, everyone thinks is quite charming. yeah yeah they use the word special a lot and that's like yeah he is yeah i think i'm weird in a much nicer palatable marketable way palatable and marketable that's what we always talk about i think the marketable uh detail is like spot on let's not overlook that yeah i hate to say it but it's like it's It's Disney weird, right?

It's very massive.

Oh, yeah, you should hate to say that.

Yeah, good point.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I saw some, okay, so a friend of mine, her boyfriend is in a local beer baseball league, right?

And it is so cute.

What does that mean?

Sorry.

It's just like groups of dudes playing baseball.

They're drinking beer the whole time.

It's an excuse to hang out while playing a sport.

That's all.

It's so cute because everyone has uniforms.

Everyone's taking the game so seriously.

And then...

What's wrong with that?

No, there's nothing wrong.

Why is it cute?

Because everyone has uniforms.

I'm looking at this.

I'm like, y'all are in it for love of the game and beer.

And I'm like, man, this is a dope ass community.

I wish I could be part of it.

And then I was ready to ask my friend's boyfriend of like yo dog, how do, how do you put me in coach?

Like I've played right field before where no one ever hits.

So I'm safe to just put me over there.

He's did.

Fair.

It's not a lot.

Not a casual game.

Not a beer league.

Nah, we're not majors.

We don't have to worry about lefties.

If they were good, they'd be in the sport.

Are you playing, Jim?

No, because...

As like I'm watching the game.

You know I'm having a good time hanging with the homies watching another homie play and everyone is also chirping at each other.

And it's only the first inning and people are already arguing and I'm like this is great.

But someone's rounding the bases, and a big boy...

Takes a little bit of a tumble.

And I thought like, oh, homie just slipped.

He just like maybe tripped over his own feet.

And then I noticed he's not getting up and out.

And this immediately makes me question whether or not I want to send in my application to join the team.

Uh, and then I thought like, oh, he's going to walk it off.

He's going to walk it off.

He looks like a big, burly, strong man.

And, um, and then he needs like a, at least three, four people to, to help him up.

And you know they, they do the thing where they reach your arm out and then, like you know, you kind of like it's a low key dap to help you up.

And then as soon as the hands make contact, The guy winces in pain.

Oh, no.

He's fucked up.

And it turns out this dude not only broke his wrist.

From the dap?

No, from the fall.

Yeah, go on.

Because there was a lot of momentum as he fell.

But homie also tore his Achilles tendon.

Oh.

That's crazy.

Yeah, I mean, being old and big, falls are pretty rough.

But, like all these people are around, like our age and everything and, like you know, I thought the beer would just lubricate the muscles and make everyone relaxed.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

No, it turns out it's the worst thing to do for exercise.

Oh, God, yeah.

Wait. clue me in are these guys drinking before they play during all they play while they play the entire time that's fucking baseball man you can't hey no baseball's back have you heard baseball yeah we're so fucking back listen yeah it's back everyone likes baseball again not just me it's It's the number two most popular sport again.

It's back above the NBA.

Is it because of the pitching call challenges?

It's a big part of that.

It's the timer.

It is the Savannah Bananas.

Let's not overlook that.

Go to one of those.

There's this dude called shohei otani.

Uh, apparently he's having a superstar.

Well, i think he's become a heel quickly yeah, but well yeah, but like me, right for the dodgers and stuff like that.

That's just good for the sport.

Like mike trout was about as good as him as a batter at least, and uh, no one cares about mike trout like he was like the most boring guy alive.

So yeah yeah right, I did a sports thing this weekend.

I went to the Cavs Toronto Raptors game seven.

You went to game seven?

Went to game seven.

Yeah, yeah.

Me, my brothers, my doctor, dad, my nephew.

We had a great time.

It was a weird game because the first half we were behind the entire time, tied it up right before halftime.

And then we came back and just kind of dominated the third quarter and never looked back.

So it was looking real rough there.

It was great, though.

I'll tell you what.

And I go to theme parks a lot.

I've never seen people more desperate to entertain you than... Oh, yeah.

Like the basketball players, sure.

But...

The people who own this arena.

Every time there is a timeout, like a two-minute timeout, there's an army of people who run out there to throw t-shirts, to do a dance routine, to shoot from half-court, try to win something.

Fire is shooting out from spires.

There's lighting effects.

There's drones, there's lasers, it's wild.

Sports are Disney now.

Sports have been Disney.

Oh, shit.

But my favorite, underappreciated part I don't know if y'all wind up noticing this or this comes across on the basketball broadcast.

But the towel boys that will slide into place to wipe the floor yeah yeah, yeah.

Circle things yeah yeah, it's so.

Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Well, they'll slide in to quickly like uh like, shammy up the floor to make sure it's dry, so no one trips.

But that slide this.

This implies a level of slickness that they should.

I'm taking care of.

I think it's just like their clothing.

You know, reinstall friction, not create more of it.

Right right, Reinstall Friction.

Reinstall Friction, baby.

Grob, Grob, now we're playing the Detroit Pistons, so Uh, how about a top, a top golf bet, sir?

The winner has to pay for around a 90 minute session of top golf.

Hell yeah.

Okay.

You can get your steam controller too.

Yeah.

That'd be awesome.

I'm going to get my steam controller before this series is done to be clear.

You'll be seeing me soon.

Mike, I want to see, I want to see your, your new rides anyhow.

So yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Why don't you do a wager that actually has some stakes?

Hey, it's not cheap, buddy.

Honestly, it could be our most valuable bet ever that we've ever done.

Do a wager that means something.

This is Topgolf.

As long as I have an excuse to go to Topgolf still back there, don't ruin this for me.

You can get wings and beer while you just like poorly drive and no one cares, because everyone there is bad.

Drive as in golf, not drive as in like driving.

No no no, no.

Speaking of driving yeah sorry sorry, it was an eventful weekend for me.

I bought a car this weekend.

Guess what kind of car he got?

Did you get another jeep?

No no, jeeps are bad.

Now jeeps are out.

Apparently i wouldn't let him buy a jeep.

Okay, is it a gas or electric?

It's actually a hybrid.

Oh!

Okay, so you're splitting the difference here.

You're like, I want two systems to possibly go wrong.

Hey, my Toyota Prius has been run.

It's the thing I own that has caused the least problems in my life.

That's great.

Since 2012, yeah.

Okay, this is a fun game.

What do you look like in terms of hybrid?

I'm not really super familiar with the hybrid scene.

I mean, there's a lot of just cars that come in hybrid versions, really.

It's a hybrid version of a car.

You got a Kia Sportage.

I don't like Kia.

I don't trust Kia.

Those hamster commercials weirded me out back in the day, and I just can't get over that brand now.

I'm sorry.

What?

Uh, you know, i want to see you in a kia.

Everybody go to giant bumpcom slash kia doesn't go anywhere.

Listen, first of all, i forgot that we're doing kia ads.

Yeah right, I just said it cause I know two people with sportages and I'm, and they seem happy.

I, yes, they're good.

Yeah.

And people like, like, and as a side, like we'd, you know, like people seem to be okay with it.

Okay.

All right.

I want to keep a carnival.

I wanted that to be my next car ad or not.

Um, Man, you doing a 180 on Kia was incredible.

Mike, did you get a round?

Who cares what I think?

Let's see.

I guess this game is not as fun as I had hoped.

Yeah, why don't you start naming some?

I want me to give you the brand.

Sure okay sure, all right, it is a subaru.

Oh, a subaru, is it a cross tech?

I tried the Crosstek and I'm like a smaller should be better.

And it's small.

My head was not clearing it.

Do they make a Forester?

I'm not that tall a guy.

They do a Forester in hybrid?

They do make a hybrid Forester.

Is that what Mikey's driving?

I got a Forester.

Mikey's driving a Forester.

Nice.

And the color is mahogany.

Oh, brown.

It's like a red, dark, a dark red, red, red, brownish red.

Yes, that's great.

Sorry, buddy.

I'm in my lesbian era.

That's right.

Soon, Mikey's going to be rocking some Blundstones with me.

We're going to go to the plate that says get out.

Yeah, we're going to be in the PNW.

It's going to be great.

What's your favorite features?

Any, like, cool, like, any cool specs there?

I mean, the Jeep was old, so everything is new to me.

Even having, like, the rear camera thing.

Oh, damn.

To me, like, having the touchscreen dash thing, car play.

How old was your regular?

It was a 2014, so it was getting older.

I had a 2014 Forester for a while and that felt like the first implementation ever of a rear backup camera.

You know, 96P on the front screen, and you're just sort of like squinting.

You're like, is that a rock or a child?

I'm not sure.

It doesn't matter.

And then after year one, it becomes incredibly dim.

No matter what you try and do, that it's just not useful.

Uh, i actually have a question for y'all.

Okay yeah, i drive a 2014 honda civic.

Uh, mikey and i were uh, 2014 car bros.

Yeah uh, we're fine shit.

Yeah, my ac don't blow cold.

No more engine hella loud.

Yeah, It would be more costly at this point to fix it up.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, brother.

I think filling it with gas totals your car.

Oh, totally.

And here's the thing.

I know that I would like an electric car and everything, right?

I would like a hybrid.

Uh, I do want a key truck so desperately, but I can't, I can't bring a key truck on the freeway.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking, and also I want to buy used.

I want to buy used.

I don't want to be on the hook every month.

Sure.

I'm thinking a Honda element.

That's a fun name.

Much bigger.

It's a little bit boxier, right?

Yeah.

I've seen people convert it into a mini camper so I can rip the back seats out, give Scout some play area and everything.

Sure.

Thinking about it.

I just need to know.

Buying it used okay wait, yeah.

So do you have like a specific question that you wanted to ask about it, like how many miles in like a used car?

With honda's i would go high, they're so reliable.

Yes, if you buy it like certified and stuff, you're gonna be fine.

Uh, on that side of things, i would say, like bigger car, Lower miles per gallon on that thing.

Now, you're buying used, so you're going to save a lot of money up front.

That's crucial.

That does offset a lot of that.

But in this moment, more miles per gallon would be a lot better.

And that problem's not going to solve itself anytime soon.

And who knows what future problems we could have with that.

I did not go in thinking I was going to get a hybrid.

And then, like, it was not...

Much more.

Also, apparently, I knew so little about hybrids.

I didn't know you don't have to plug those in.

They just charge from the brake, apparently.

Is it capacity brakes?

You can charge it though right, what's that?

No no there's no, there's no point really.

No no no, there's plug-in hybrids, and that's a whole other category.

Oh right, the hybrid, the standard hybrid, is just, it's the engine powers it mostly and then the braking recharges it a little bit.

It's mostly powered through the engine.

You know it's a supplemental, it's just not like you know.

Uh, That's 40 efficiency, basically.

It mitigates your lines on fuel.

Yep.

It's weird when you start it though.

Cause like when you, when I start my car, the gas engine doesn't kick in right away.

So quiet, which is kind of, Whoa.

Yeah.

You know what my favorite feature is?

You know, my stupid fair feature is I think a lot of new cars have this where you open the driver door and there's like a little light that shines on the ground with the logo of the car.

Oh, It's funny because I remember when we got into Bacalar's car during dinner once, he hated it.

Like, I don't like this thing.

Why do we need this?

You don't need this.

It's stupid.

It's like, it's fun.

And it's like, you don't ask for it.

It just comes with it.

And you're just like, you got to deal with this.

I would have paid for extra for it.

It's a little ostentatious in a way that I like.

Could you potentially put on a little gobo on it so it changes what it projects?

I don't see why not.

You could put a gel on it for sure because it's just a series of LEDs with a sort of fish eye on it.

Well, I'm excited for you, Mikey.

That's great.

I got to clear out the old car today.

Can I ask what you got for the Wrangler?

The Wrangler is going to Dr. Dad.

He wants to convert it to some kind of snowmobile or something.

I don't know, just leave him to do his own devices, like a snow plow.

Yeah, i don't know, he's got plans for it or something.

I don't know if he replaces the tires with tank treads, i'm in, i need to be going on over there.

Wait so your dad's buying your wrangler yes, And is he giving you friends and family?

How's this working?

I want to know all your... I'm not giving you all the dirty details, all right?

Don't do the... Okay, I'm not expecting it.

Just don't do the, here it is for a dollar.

Have you ever done that?

I bought a car for my parents for a dollar.

It was one I had for forever and I needed to sell it.

And I'm like, thanks for this.

It was awesome.

But now I need to actually own it so I could sell this thing.

And then I sold it for like $500 or something like that.

It had 250,000 miles on it.

That car ruled.

It was a Hyundai Sonata.

I drove that thing so nice.

My dad kept telling me, the transmission's going to fall out.

I'm like, not the way I drive.

This thing's going to be just fine.

I gotta be honest.

I'm not, I'm not selling him the car.

He's done.

Dr. Dad's done a lot for Mike.

When he, yeah.

When he's like, I buy the car for him.

Like that feels wrong.

You can have this car.

It's fine.

All right.

You have a different relationship with your dad, I guess.

That's the difference between 3DO dads and not 3DO dads.

That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's nothing better than driving a car into the ground, though, I will say.

Yeah.

Stacey had a 2009 Honda Civic two-door that I think we put in.

I think we had 290 on it when it was all said and done.

Hell yeah.

And we just left it somewhere.

No, no, no.

Someone did pick it up.

It's in a swamp.

We filed the serial numbers off.

Yeah, the VIN numbers got.

We had it in Hoboken and we were just like this car really isn't starting well anymore.

And we just left it on a corner.

Called up the charity place, and we're just like, you got to come get this car.

Yeah, this is your problem.

Yeah, I'm going to miss the Jeep.

I'm going to miss the ducks.

The thing that was killing me was the heater, which I tried getting fixed twice, and it never took.

It was a really cold winter.

Yeah, I was just like I can't do this or another winter as soon as it's nice out again and the prices are insane.

I'm buying a new car.

Yeah, I had the inverse problem right now with my Civic where I have to park my car outside.

So it's going to be it's black.

It's going to be a hot car that I'm just like burning on the inside.

And then, you know, you're trying to impress people, and then they're like, so your AC doesn't work?

I'm like, let's roll the windows down.

Let's be chill.

Let's let our hair fly in the wind.

California dreaming, baby.

Let's go.

Any other weekend activities that y'all want to share?

I just want to let Bacalar know one pinball development in my neighborhood.

That brewery that gets all the new pinball machines is getting that fancy new Pokemon one and they're having a March Day event on the 19th.

So I'm going to check out this new Pokemon, Stern pinball machine, and I'll give you a report Bacalar.

I would love that.

Would you do a quick look?

Hell yeah.

That'd be fun, yeah.

Oh, yeah, I bought that camera.

That's gimmick of Osmo.

What the...

That is gimmick infringement, isn't it?

I thought we had a strict rule about if you if you can beat me to it, you go ahead.

But I know where one of these is.

The closest one to me is in like Brooklyn, which is a train ride.

It's I mean, it's literally 18 miles away and will take me two hours to get there.

It's crazy.

I uh i do.

I just have like one other thing yeah, that uh i am.

I think it's bad.

It's bad.

Uh, i think i'm becoming like a person that has to do house projects all the time.

Oh, you're my brother, i don't.

I don't want to be like.

This is definitely like steph wants these things done, and i was just like i don't know what i'm doing.

I do know what I'm doing.

I'm figuring it out and I know what I'm doing.

So now it's clearly possible.

We like put up the wallpaper in the house, in the one bedroom.

And that wasn't like some huge thing, but it was enough of like, we've never done this before.

Sure.

And now we're doing, now we're redoing the laundry room.

That process has actually begun.

So you're doing it?

Yes, cabinets and stuff.

We're going to buy the cabinets.

I'm not going to be like making the cabinets myself, but we'll buy the cabinets and I'll hang it up and we're putting up more wallpaper.

We're going to be painting.

We're going to put up a new counter, a new counter around the sink.

Yes, Jan.

Grub, are y'all going to put a new backsplash on the kitchen?

Uh look, the kitchen actually is has an open back there, so it's like the, the uh no, i guess the part there.

Uh listen yes, that's a possibility.

She's not mentioned the kitchen yet.

So yeah, that's the kitchen.

Yeah, we're gonna put that away for a while.

Yeah, there's other projects, for sure, but number one right now is the laundry room, and i'm feeling more confident, which sucks, because i'm like i could do this.

So are you doing any plumbing with, like a slop sink there, like what you're doing like?

No, there already is one there, and i think we're gonna build around the one we have, because it's kind of just like the shoddy, like tub sink like you.

Yeah, you know, you see it in a laundry room and we're basically just gonna build the counter around that and, and it's gonna, she's got a really good vision for it.

So, So it's like OK, but I feel like a piece of shit though, because something's got to be in pretty bad shape for me to be like it should be replaced.

I mean, yes, if it wasn't her motivating me on this stuff, I wouldn't even have the time.

So I wouldn't even think about owning a house like I don't even have one of those.

What are you talking about?

Yes.

Right.

Exactly.

Again, it's a weird shift to be like, I can do these things.

That's cool, though.

It's cool.

It takes a lot of time.

So it's like all weekend I'm doing this instead.

But hey, that's fine.

Well, that's the thing, right?

It's like, you know, your time.

That's it.

That's amazing, though.

That's really that's that's very admirable.

I'm proud of myself.

Yes.

Yeah.

So I'm proud of you, too, buddy.

And I'm your hero.

And I'm proud, gang, that we are quickly approaching one year of being completely independent.

Let me show you something.

That's right.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Keep going.

Mike's going to leave now.

And a new word that we've coined since last week.

Happy Malo to everyone.

The Sunday will mark one year being fully independent.

And we're going to go bananas.

Oh, I know what he's getting now.

I know what he's getting now.

No, I still don't.

And part of the celebration of reaching one year of independence is Mike Minotti's is.

Depending on y'all's level of support, Mikey's going to be our own marathon man because he's going to be playing DK64.

And the more that y'all help out, the more Mikey's going to play and try and get to 101%.

He's got the DK costume right there.

That's right.

We've spared no expense.

We didn't make Lucy send her DK costume back to us.

Oh, we did try, but she wouldn't return our calls.

I know.

We were the same size, too.

It would have been so nice.

Yeah.

And then she was like, oh, what's all this then, mate?

Peanut butter.

No, I don't.

I've never heard of it.

Jelly bean.

Who's Mike Minotti?

I'll never forgive you jan, for calling me biscuit bitch, and it'll be a memory that'll haunt you forever, for the rest of your days.

Oh my god, this is so fucked up because she's gonna hear every last second of this And I'm going to be the one to have to like, manage that situation.

Thank you.

But folks.

Yeah.

So, uh, schedule TBD, but Mikey's going to be going long hours next week to celebrate Malo.

Uh, And forget May the 4th, May the 5th, Revenge of the 5th, whatever.

It's all about Malo this year, 2026.

Mark your Malos.

It's going to be Malo.

Explain it, because I feel like when you just hear Malo, everyone's like, what the fuck?

Malo is May 10th.

It's also the new word for calendar.

Oh i, i forgot that's.

It meant calendar.

Uh yeah, mark your bailers, mark for someone who doesn't get stoned.

You sure have a lot of ideas.

I gotta say uh, and folks, if you are a premium member, you get the long talked about endurance run a week earlier than everyone.

Monday through Friday.

Grubb and Minotti have already wrapped Bully.

And then we're going to get those up there for you a week early.

If you were a premium member, those will start dropping May 11th.

So mark your malos, like Mike Minotti said.

And we had a problem with launch look?

Yeah, seriously.

Here's the thing.

Because I think i had the idea of malo.

So when mike said it, i was like, all right, sick.

Oh sure, it is good.

I still need to do like a small ted talk to explain it to people, but i think i'm just nodding and smiling.

Let them have their fun.

Yeah, i mean, you know, we reached that incentive to make the giant bomb malo, so now we're gonna make a giant bomb malo right yeah god yeah, malo.

Games, media evolved uh, i don't know if i'm on board with it anymore.

I don't know, i don't know.

Uh, Speaking about help, Chuck needs your help everyone.

If you've opted in to keeping your account, you can request a password reset now on giantbomb.com.

Chuck has been slowly... sending out emails and everything to you at home.

But we also need help on the wiki.

Independent wikis are very important.

If you have any experience with PHP media, wiki knowers out there, bombcast.com slash wiki.

And I believe there's a GB street team channel on the discord as well for help with the wiki and gang.

We got video player apps.

They're available using our new apis, our appies.

Uh, out there you can find, on ios and android built in apps made by khan and clint eastman.

Go to john bombcom slash apps.

Oh man i uh, i don't think i'll ever have a triple dipper in my life.

What?

Why not?

They're great.

I don't think I live near one is the problem.

Really?

I thought everyone lived by a Chili's.

I don't think I have a Chili's near me.

I thought that was the point of Chili's.

I have a Chili's burned down.

Oh, no.

I'm so sorry.

Were you about to say you have a Red Robin?

No, I had a Red Lobster.

Oh, okay.

Well, that's great for the Wi-Fi and the brews, of course, but you can't get triple dippers there.

The CEO's very attractive.

Like, you know, we need some apps, baby.

Mikey want appies.

Appies, please.

It's the appiest place on Earth.

Oh my God.

And then like, uh, instead of, it's not work.

You can take that if you, it's worked.

Come on.

At the Red Lobster, uh, it's not uppies, it's appies.

And these are like lobster claws.

My hands are.

Oh, that's good.

Yeah.

Hot CEO.

Meet me up.

We got ideas.

The Blazing Fast Wi-Fi Fantasy Drafts with the boys.

Cheddar Bay all day.

Let's go.

Speaking about with the boys, we got video games.

I thought we were just going to skip those this week.

You know, I have thought about it.

Presenting it like, what if we skip talking about video games this week?

What if we just went all news and emails?

But Jeff Grubb, you beat a video game.

You beat it.

Amongst all of this housework, you found time to beat Sorrows.

I fired this up.

Oh, you did.

Okay.

What do you think?

So I never like I downloaded Returnal, never really dug into it.

So this is kind of like my first foray into this Housemarque universe and like the style of game.

I think more games need Raul Coley for sure.

Sure.

A dash and um, just more ikaruga elements in it because uh, as soon as that, i i got that ability and then you're just like uh, all of like the blue bubbles and projectiles, like it started to kind of hit.

Um, I don't know if this game is necessarily for me, just because of how the loop goes.

And you've mentioned your review, which is now out on the website and, like the little review roundtable discussion we did.

But like the loops for me personally, a little too long.

But I can see someone like diving in. and sinking their teeth into it.

I think, at least where I'm at right now, still very early in the game.

I haven't unlocked a lot on the skill tree yet, but the runs are taking longer than I would expect them to be, and sometimes when I come to a roguelike, I kind of want a more condensed experience to just jump in, jump out.

Yeah, the runs will get a little bit shorter later on.

A big part of that is it's not a skill tree.

It's definitely an upgrade tree.

And so every time you go back to it, you're just going to make your character more survivable and be able to do more damage.

Uh and yeah, at a certain point the game clicked over to become more about that side of it than about me playing it.

Like i, you know, i learned how to play this game.

I was doing all right, having some great runs, and then uh, my character just threw me, naturally playing, and i think i did like one run where i played from the beginning just to see what that would do.

But even before that I was having an easier time with the game.

But after that, the word really is trivial.

The game becomes trivial at a certain point where all the fun I was having with the very good bosses early on of learning their patterns and trying to react and having a good first opportunity at them

Be like, man, I almost had them.

And then kind of learning too much so I get too cute on the second run.

Then coming back on the third to fifth run and beating the boss.

Now that all went away.

I one-shotted every boss after the third one and i like cool the first time at a certain point it's like oh, this is just happening because something got messed up in the scaling here, just something.

They made the game too defanged and um, That like really hurts it for me because I was already feeling like those runs had sort of run their course.

You know, I think I wrote in the review that it took me I'm estimating not great at like figuring out like Oh, how many times have I done this?

But I think I was around 60 to 70 runs and I was done with those runs in terms of finding new enjoyment from them at around 30 to 35.

Now, They do plenty of stuff to keep things pretty interesting.

You touched on the absorbing of the blue projectiles, which just give you energy that you can use to continue to power your shield or to use your power weapons.

And that is a good management system.

It keeps you on your toes.

There's another side to that where there's these yellow projectiles.

And if you absorb those, it gives you corruption, which is basically it comes down from the top of your HP bar and now you can't get health back above that corruption.

Now, that sounds bad all the time, right?

It's not though, because there are some upgrades or some weapons.

You'll pick up that.

You'll find that will be like hey, if you are corrupted, this is going to do more damage.

So if you are in a situation where you're like Okay yeah, I'll run with this gun while I have full health,

But in a boss fight maybe when I get to a situation where there's not a lot of health pickups anymore, I'm not going to replenish my health.

If I'm down to like a quarter health...

I'll absorb some of this corruption instead with my shield.

And now this weapon's going to be doing twice as much damage 250 350 more damage.

It's like okay, that's one more thing to kind of keep things interesting, and I really like that side of it.

Where I was just surprised that they didn't do more is...

The builds always still feel very samey.

You are running, you're shooting, you're dodging, and then now, this time, you are absorbing these projectiles.

And that's going to be every run.

And the guns, they do feel different, but they don't feel different enough to really kind of change how you play other than like, Okay, I got the shotgun, so I'm going to have to get up close.

And then, because I'm up close, I could stagger them and then punch them.

And that's a little bit different, but it's not different enough and it doesn't build on those ideas.

It's like okay, now that I'm doing that with the shotgun, maybe I can lean this build I'm getting into.

Uh, really doing a ton of melee damage or maybe my, uh, my dash can do damage.

No, there's none of that.

So like the variety of how the character is going to feel is pretty limited.

I think they wanted to focus on what they do well, and they do that, but it's just for me it drags on too long.

And then all this stuff they sort to sort of do to like hold that up with the story.

The story's just not very well told yeah, and it is well trodden ground in my opinion.

Um, that's what i also wanted to bring up, and we talked about this a little bit last week.

But i don't know, when you have uh, an actor like raul coley, i kind of want to enjoy more stuff and lore with him, and I'm kind of a fan of the Yellow King stuff and stuff that influenced HP.

Lovecraft, all the Cthulhu-like crap and everything.

And it just wasn't grabbing me.

But when it's used in other media, it's like, oh, I'm really into this.

I was bummed that... the story didn't quite grab me at all.

Yeah, I think the real rough thing there is the story halfway through or whenever it happens does shift to be like don't worry.

This whole time it's really been about this guy's Personal life back on earth and very specific things that happen in a grounded way and his failings as a person, as a husband, as a friend, as just a general person.

And it's like, okay, so...

Does this does this other stuff matter?

The fact that there's a yellow king?

Oh, no, it's a metaphor.

It's clearly a metaphor.

And I just don't know if it's like a very powerful or fetching one where I'm like oh, I am enthralled by this.

And it's telling me more about the character.

It just feels like two things happening at the same time, kind of saying the same thing but in different ways.

Yeah.

Um, yeah, it just, and it doesn't work great with this, with this game.

Uh, you know, Hades figured out a way to, I always bring up Hades in relation to this game.

Sorry, I'm just going to keep doing it.

Um, like Hades found a good way to integrate its story into its loop.

And I, I don't, I think every time that the game stopped me to be like, here is a walk and talk.

Here is a walk where the game's gonna narrate at you what this character's feeling and you can't run anymore, you can't dash anymore and we're gonna ask you to go from room to room and find some stuff.

That's a real pace killer.

Um, and I think some people will be definitely more into that than I am.

That's definitely something that is a little bit of my kryptonite, but I'm not.

I do like the King and yellow stuff.

I really do like Carcosa.

And uh, that stuff is the kind of thing where, as soon as I first learned about that, I ran to read those books.

Um, it's just, it's just not doing a lot here for sorrows.

That's a bummer.

Uh, I mean, the game plays great.

Sure.

It feels great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It looks awesome.

It sounds awesome.

Sound design is off the charts.

I think that seeing all the actors captured so well and their performances are captured so well, that stuff all works.

Just, I don't know, it doesn't come together on the other half, and it does not hold up over the 20 hours that I played it. got it got it uh this was like a um it's like a weird one right like i i don't i think it's still very kind of uh tough to kind of wrap your head around the kind of moment to moment i mean obviously if you played returnal right like there's tons of dna there right yes uh right i think there's uh It's going to take a handful of runs to be like, should I be going down this path or this path?

Because this path goes right to the boss.

If you go that path, you're going to fill up these buckets that make your character stronger or have more HP.

And then you wrap back around and you'll teleport back and you'll take out the boss.

But be like, okay, so what should I be paying attention to?

Like the weapon number is bigger for this weapon than this weapon, should i just swap it out?

It takes a minute to be like maybe do you like this other weapon that you already have better because it has auto aim and it has um, these certain perks.

Maybe you should pay attention to the perks more than the number, and it does take a while to like kind of figure out that language.

A little bit for sure interesting, Got it, got it.

You spent 20 or so hours with Soros, but you haven't spent any time.

But you can talk about that it's on the way or that you're playing Forza Horizon 6.

Yeah.

I think that's all we could say, right?

Mike was, we got, we have a code for that and we're playing it.

We'll have some coverage of it here pretty soon, but that's, that's exciting.

One of those deals, but yes, yes.

Going to find that game and we will talk about it.

Yep.

I don't want to play a driving game.

I kind of want to.

Yeah.

Right.

I'm like in the mood.

I'm in the mood.

Yeah.

I think this one's going to hit very hard.

I think it could hit like us, like this group, this crew right now.

Right.

We're all talking about it, but yeah we, you know we don't even have like the need for speeds doing a similar thing anymore.

Right.

So.

You want one of these big open world racing game things.

It feels like you just got to wait for the next Forza Horizon.

This and Crew Motor Fest.

That's all you got.

I actually kind of like that last crew game.

Yeah, for sure.

But yeah, we'll do a quick look for sure, I'm sure.

Yeah.

Grub, when it comes to like a slightly more arcadey game like a Forza Horizon, right?

You busting out the wheel for that or are you just the controller dude?

I'm just thinking about it.

Right now, I'm just using a controller.

I was actually I use the Steam controller and that caused some issues, actually.

But that's working better now.

I use the Steam controller and I did think about it like, oh man, I'm really like wanting to get out that steering wheel.

So that hit me.

And I'm like, then I was thinking, oh, that's kind of awkward to set up this desk.

So I did Google like one of those Logitech. like, wheel bases.

I'm like, should I get one of those?

But then I gotta connect the monitor to that.

It's a lot of work.

I'm probably just gonna play mostly on the controller, but I might get the wheel out.

We'll see.

I feel like... I've never been a wheel guy.

Never been a wheelman?

Nah.

Never a wheelman.

Never a wheel guy.

I'd drive my actual car with a controller if I could.

I believe you.

I believe the most.

That's the truest thing i've ever heard you say.

I want a car to have tank controls.

Yeah yeah mikey, would you uh, would you want your gas to be on like the bottom face button?

Or the triggers?

Oh triggers, triggers.

Uh, that was a good development right, And it still is a bummer with the Switch, because racing games just will never feel quite as good because you don't have the analog triggers.

And I was like when you go back and play an older game.

Like you know, I like a lot of the PS1 racing games and they're almost always X to go.

It's fine.

You'll get used to it.

But the triggers feel good, okay.

Okay uh, i have been briefly checking out.

Uh, this game came out a hot second ago but uh, tama shika um, another roguelike first person shooter, except this one's got some jazz with it.

Boys yeah, it's got a look to it.

Yeah, it's um Backlar.

I think you'd really appreciate the style.

It's kind of like that jiggly, jittery drawing style over stuff.

What are you trying to say?

Well, I think you and I are cut from similar font cloths where style and pizzazz kind of speak to you and I.

I got my font cloth right here, buddy.

There we go.

Just dab yourself off.

Just off cam.

Just off cam. look at all the Sarah's on that bad boy.

Um, but Thomas Chica, it's, um, it kind of reminds me, it, it emulates that hallway style game.

Like, uh, what is the one that the horror game that blew up exit eight, I think.

Yeah, actually.

Yeah.

Uh.

So it kind of emulates that like Japanese subway style where you are just jamming down um Uh, these hallways.

It also reminds me a little bit of neon white, less so the platforming, but more so like the fast paced combat.

So you are getting like these little frog dudes that you either got to shoot or uh, if they get up too close to you, you can use a knife to Perry.

Um, Feels very inspired by like Doom 2016, was it?

Where you are like trying to fast pace, get through these hallways.

There's a little bit of a light rhythm element.

Whenever I try and play it to the beat, I kind of like don't do well.

So I'm kind of going more by feel.

So it's a little bit more jazz like that.

You know, boys, it's all about the buttons that you don't press.

But in this case, it's all about the buttons you have to press.

Is there a little bit of like, what was the mullet game?

Mullet Magic?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It does remind me of that.

Yeah, that was fun.

I've played maybe an hour or two into Tamashika, and I really dig the art style, if anything.

But I don't know if my reflexes are able to sustain something like this for an extended period of time.

It's a lot.

It looks really cool, but it's very bright.

It's kind of flashing a lot.

There's text popping up over the places.

Is it overwhelming at all visually?

I you kind of lock in when you're into it and like you're going on a run and like you kind of build that momentum of like okay no, i need to do one more, because i know what to hit.

I know like the formation and the layout of the enemies in this level um, in such a way.

But Yeah, I kind of bounce off of it because it is a little visually overstimulating.

But also I don't know how much of like a Mullet Man, Jack Ghost Runner, were the parkour roguelike games.

Yeah, there's two of those, yeah.

I don't know how much of those that I can jive with for an extended period of time.

Sometimes...

It sounds like, Mikey, if you don't mind me speaking for you, Mikey, I do apologize in advance.

It just sounds like this is the sort of Disney ride that you're going to hold my backpack while I go on it.

Yeah you'll.

You'll just give it back to me when I and I'll tell you all about it and how.

I don't think you would want to know.

Yeah.

It's a good thing.

You stay behind.

It's a good thing.

You stay behind.

Yeah.

I really, really like the look.

Yeah.

Yes.

Jeff Grubb.

Are there leaderboards?

Yes.

Question.

I'm installing it.

This man needs to be on the board.

Just like put it on the board.

Back to Moe with the leaderboards.

Moe.

Oh, that's right.

Some people on this podcast are anti-Moe from guts and we can't get into it.

I didn't say I was anti-Mo.

Did I?

I just wanted to see the life leave his eyes.

I forget.

Oh, shit.

Now I can't remember what I said.

I wasn't anti-Mo, chat.

I was not anti-Mo.

I was just sort of like, yeah, whatever.

What the fuck was it?

Fuck.

Why'd you do this, Jan?

Because it bugs me so much.

But what did I say?

I don't remember.

You said Moe is a piece of shit, I think.

No, I hate her.

Overhyped.

Worst TV referee of all time.

Here's what I said.

I remember now because I hold this true and I stand by it.

Oh, he's doubling down.

People are saying, like People were saying, Moe over Mike O'Malley and I was like I think Mike O'Malley did a lot of the heavy lifting on that show.

And I think I said that I got no problems with Moe.

Oh, yeah, they should call Moe a cop.

Yeah, I called Moe a guts cop, an aggro.

Are referees cops? yes kind of what do you mean they get booed apparently in chat mo it was a referee on the nickelodeon athletic game show guts yeah right and she was unforgiving because because everyone knows Everyone knows on guts, every episode, there was one kid who was just not coordinated enough to be on the program.

And they kind of like have them on as like a pity, a pity contestant.

And Mo would just like be brutal to that person.

I would love to.

I just I know it could probably make it at this point, with how 3D printing is and everything, and just go on Etsy.

But I want a shoot piece of that aggro crag.

Yeah, I get it.

I feel like so many things in my life would be solved if I had a piece.

It lit up.

I fantasized that it was like 40 pounds.

Yeah, you know, they must go up on ebay from uh every now and then when you know, just use.

All people have a hard time finding it.

Yeah, use your saved up game stop credit or whatever and you can.

That's pretty good.

Oh yeah, don't worry, We'll get to that.

But last week on UPF, Jeff Grubb, you and the crew played Forbidden Solitaire.

And then I played some more of it today, actually.

Forbidden Solitaire is really neat.

It is a game from this year but it pretends like it's a game from 1995.

Cool, then it also has a pretend os in it, which is uh, i heard recently like the people that make those kinds of games pretend os's are trying to get that to be a genre on steam, and it really should be, because it's like every time i see it, every time i see i'm like, oh yeah, i do want that yeah, that's a great idea.

Game does a good job of it.

It gives you a Windows equivalent with the background and you log into the character's account and you open it up and your sister DMs you and messages you and has information about the game Forbidden Solitaire that you saw as a kid and your mom wouldn't let you play it.

Well, she found a copy at a thrift store and gave it to you, or maybe you did, and she's also trying to find it.

And she's sending you news clips like hey, here's a local news clip of a person talking about how the game is coming out and there's people protesting it.

And here's a news story that got buried, or a police report. someone who died at the studio right as the game was coming out what's going on there so there's this mystery underneath it's very um inscription like i think it's probably cool thing you would point to it they sell it as a bundle with inscription on steam so they're like making it explicit uh but then the core gameplay is solitaire version of solitaire um and it's mostly um You're just trying to keep the combo going of if there is a four in your hand, you want to go find the five or the three that's up on the board.

And you're you know, there's a little bit of strategy of like looking and seeing what else is available and trying to remember what else you've seen so far.

So it's like, OK, I want to maximize the probability that I'm going to be able to keep this going.

But it is just probabilities.

Uh, and then they add layers on top of that that don't make the necessarily like the strategy that much more complex, at least so far where I'm at.

Uh, but they'll do things like okay, now here's a lock on a set of cards that you can only unlock if you play two heart cards, like two cards of the heart suit.

And it's like, okay, so I'm trying to find a way to do that as quickly as possible.

Because if you do run through the whole deck, you lose.

You get a game over.

Now, it's checkpointed.

You go right back into that same match again.

So it's really low stakes, which I think is probably right.

The gameplay is engaging enough in terms of what I'm doing is growing in complexity enough to keep my attention.

But what I'm really there for is that, along with all of the extra stuff of how they are presenting it,

You know, it looks like an older game.

The character designs, the pre-rendered backgrounds, the FMV cut scenes of the guy of the main character who looks like the chess master from chess master dying or whatever and like puking out green bile and stuff like that.

I'm there for like how they are presenting this to be like.

Here's what you think a 1995 game looked like.

It's like, yeah, this is what I think.

And then the mystery there of what is like what is really happening with this game.

There's all these other icons on the OS that I've not messed with yet.

It's like, I bet I'm going to dig into some files here eventually and see what else is going on.

That is also pretty enticing.

So.

Yeah, I'm into what I've played.

I started playing on the Steam Deck.

It runs really great on there, using kind of the touchpad to just navigate with the mouse.

Yeah, I'm into it.

It's really neat.

Yeah, the vibe just looks so good.

The aesthetics are great.

I know it was crashing a bit when we were trying to play on UPF.

It seems like they... Because they even reached out to us like, oh, we've released a patch.

We're sorry about that.

Has it been more stable for you now, Jeff?

Yes, certainly on the Steam Deck, no issues.

And then I think on the PC, it's all fixed.

There was some problem with...

It's running as like a 32-bit program, so it can only get access to so much.

So if you had too much going on, like it was working fine for me and then I was streaming it to you guys and then there was a problem.

It's like, I guess if I would have shut down some other stuff, maybe it would have worked.

But it sounds like they fixed it themselves.

So yeah, I was able to see that scene without the game crashing.

So yeah, it's running better.

Hell yeah.

I am very interested in this, Jeff Grubb.

Yeah, it's worth checking out.

Folks, we'd be remiss if we didn't acknowledge the holiday that happened yesterday, that the gang celebrated.

And I apologize to you at home if I didn't open the show with it.

But may the fourth be with you and with your spirit, because the boys played a whole slew of different Star Wars games.

One of them in particular being Star Wars Rogue Squadron 2 Rogue Leader.

Well, you don't watch the content.

We did not play this on that stream.

Well, I was taking care of some stuff, but Mike played it anyway.

No, I've been having bad luck with the Star Wars games because I wanted to stream KOTOR 2.

I wanted to basically play that all month.

And do it around May the 4th.

And that game is just not cooperating with me.

It's not running.

It's just not working with OBS.

OBS doesn't like it.

It's crashing constantly.

There are weird bugs.

It's an older game but it's been remastered recently right by that company that kind of does a bad job a lot of times.

Aspire.

Aspire, right?

So that was just a mess.

Yeah, even on our Star Wars day stream I tried to play Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, which is just Age of Empires 2, but Star Wars and that wasn't picking up on OBS either.

So really, I just threw my hands in the air.

Yeah, I mean, it's an older game.

There's some resolution weirdness.

I don't know.

So like so last night, I'm like, OK, we're going to I did some stuff.

KOTOR 2 is going to work for sure this time.

Now, I just threw my hands up there, just put Rogue Leader in my GameCube.

Let's screw it.

We're playing this, which is one of my favorite GameCube games.

Oh, yeah.

And it's so freaking fun.

It's so good.

And just the pacing of it.

You could just you could play through the campaign like three and a half hours, which is exactly what I did.

And just such an absolute blast.

So many amazing missions.

That one where you're on that kind of like beach planet and first you're like defending your guys and then there's some AT-ATs that come in and they're kind of in water so it's sort of hard to circle around them without hitting the water or touching the AT-AT.

I can't believe I said AT-AT, by the way.

I just went on a rant yesterday about how I hate people who say AT-AT instead of A-T-A-T.

You did it on purpose so you could bring it back up, right?

Yeah.

Why?

Because they're not at-stas.

They're AT-STs.

I'm with you.

I get it.

My opinion is always the Imperials call them AT-ATs and the Rebels call them AT-ATs.

That's how I always broke it down.

Oh, no.

I sympathize with the Imperials.

Yes, you're a real sympathizer.

That's my job.

That's your job.

Gosh, it's incredible how amazing this game looks for a 2001 GameCube launch game.

And it still often just looks absolutely amazing.

You know a lot of the spaceships, right, in space.

We were able to get those things looking pretty good right away.

The star warsiness of all of it, the music kicking in, and they kind of have a dynamic music system where some of the drops will happen at specific points, like one of the last missions is just attacking the second death star and they kind of wait to like they made a second one, they made a second one, huge development.

It's just control c, control v kind of thing.

There's like this part where you know like a million TIE fighters fly at you.

And it happens just, like, in the movie.

And then the music kicks in, like... It's awesome.

That game's awesome.

It's so freaking good.

It's so... It still feels amazing to control.

I love all the ships.

I love the weird narrator.

And I love just going up to the ship in the little garage.

I almost said garage.

Like, I'm...

I feel like that's how you would say that word.

And you push the Y button.

The guy's like, the X-Wing is the workhorse of the rebellion and going on.

I just love hearing that guy do his things.

It is just such a Star Wars game.

Definitely one of the all-time greats for me.

Even though you can't play through all the missions in a few hours, there's a lot of replay value in trying to get better medals and there's all these weird unlockables, things like that.

It's such a good time.

I've never played this, and I because not having a GameCube, but it's in a place where I could right.

Yeah, yeah.

Actually, yeah, go ahead.

So the Dolphin Emulator is amazing.

This is one of the few games that has historically struggled with.

This is because Factor 5 was doing some weird hardware wizardry stuff that is sometimes hard to emulate.

I think it's gotten better.

I'm not sure what the state of it is right now.

But yeah, this was always like the one that was the hardest to emulate.

That's right.

There's another GPU on the disc.

Yeah.

Wild.

It's crazy.

Super FX two in there.

Yeah.

Gang, you know, it's it's like it's not an official Star Wars week here at GB.

But, you know, we got some space on UPF.

Can we play battlefront 2?

Sure, if you want to wait, which one?

Battlefront 2, the 2017 jimmy jam by dice?

Yes absolutely, let's do it.

Okay, thank god.

I was like wait, how young is jan?

He's a little baby.

Oh, God.

Yeah.

I remember.

It's funny.

It came out 2017.

Stan and I were talking about ships in the night.

I kind of got back into games, really hardcore also because starting this job man, I would fucking lock the fucking battlefront to sometimes.

Oh, yeah.

Also speaking about a game, and I don't like thinking that 2017 was a while ago.

But it was a while ago.

And that game still looks gorgeous.

Is it really?

2017 was when that battlefront 2 game came out.

That game is 2017.

Yeah, i mean we say it's a lot now, but that's like a nine-year-old game and games really don't look any better than that anymore.

No way yes, absolutely not.

I mean geez uh, It's a shame.

I get why the loot boxes were so derived, but it's a shame we took the whole game down with it because there was so much there that was good.

I'd kill for a Battlefront 3.

Well, no, they got that Battlefront-like experience in Fortnite now, brother.

You don't need another Battlefront.

Look, I get that it's an art style, but it's almost a little depressing to play the Star Wars Fortnite game and compare that visually to the Kamino map in Battlefront 2, right.

A little different.

Yeah.

Any other video games you all want to talk about?

Any little tidbits?

I mean, I played Buck Bumble.

I'm wearing the shirt.

It reminded me.

Yeah.

I'm like, man, I need to actually really play that game.

Like the horn.

I thought it was just a Hornets logo.

It looks like it's meant to look like it.

Right.

Yeah.

But that's Buck Bumble himself.

Yes.

I always knew that you.

Yeah.

I always knew, Grub, that you knock when you buck.

I never stop celebrating B-Week.

I'm doing it all.

I'm holding it down.

And that game is... It's weird, like a lot of N64 games are.

But once I started getting into it, it's like, oh, I do like flying around.

You just kind of have to like um, it's like f1 you either have to always be accelerate or always on the brake.

You kind of can't just like rest in between because it's it's the character's uncomfortable to control in that situation.

But as long as you're holding the brake, you can then like look around and fire uh, and then, once you're flying around, it's like okay, this does feel pretty decent.

Um, you know, it's not as good as some other flight games, like star fox on n64, but it's uh, it's doing a different thing.

It's got these levels that you're exploring.

So it's in this weird space between a mascot 3d platformer and a arcadey flight game.

Uh yeah, it does a pretty decent job of that.

And then uh, the song is really good.

Oh, of course, song's still very good.

I like uh, taking a genre like the space flight or the flight sim and adapting it to little bugs.

We need to do that more.

Yeah yeah, i would like that.

By the way, this wikipedia page for star wars battlefront 2 the new one is so funny because like, one of the sections is government response.

Yeah, fictional government, real government, the real government one.

Okay, all right beautiful, all right, i i'd like to pause it.

A uh, a topic of conversation that i think might be worth uh, the discourse here on the show.

Are you gonna defend the death star again?

Not today.

There'll be plenty of time for that next year.

Is Dib old enough?

Is Dib ready to play Uncharted?

Dib is 11.

11?

Yeah.

I think I mean, has he played games where like, the standard enemy type is just people and you shoot them, because that's really the big thing is just right he's.

He's played fortnite, of course he's a he's, he's a fortnite legend.

I mean, we all know this.

But but the the problem, like so it's just so much casual murder, like it's a lot of casual murder and there's that little narrative dissonance of it.

Yeah, He casually murdered all those old games journalists when he played Rocket League on Giant Bomb, that one time.

That's true, and I'm not sure the bloodbath witnessed during that segment could even be matched in the most aggressive moments of Uncharted.

Sure, exactly i yeah, like i, i'm sort of on the fence with this.

I don't care about the language.

The language does not matter, yeah.

Yeah, it is just the amount of shooting people to death, And they're all T for teen right.

They're all T for teen?

Not that that fucking matters either, I guess.

Yeah, I don't think any of them are rated M. I think that's right.

Has he seen Raiders of the Lost Ark?

Just kind of vibe check?

Oh, buddy, no.

No?

I don't think he's ready for, like, faces melting.

Okay, at the end of the movies.

Raiders! raiders is probably was raiders pg like wasn't raiders famously famously the first pg-13 it's the reason we got pg-13 oh yeah right yeah it was pg because there was no pg-13 right we couldn't do any better than that god yeah um Yeah, that is certainly a PG-13 movie.

Was it that or Temple of Doom?

Because Temple of Doom might have been... Yeah, right.

Maybe it was Temple of Doom.

Yeah, Raiders was that.

The Temple of Doom also had a PG rating.

We need something in between PG and R.

Yeah, maybe we need to fill in the chasm that occupies the distance between PG and R.

I think he's ready.

I think it'll be less the murder and more the thematic theme.

What murder?

Okay.

Right?

Yeah, go ahead, Jan.

Oh, no, no, no, no.

Please, please.

I want you to finish.

I realize I have something I should talk about.

Yeah, I'm just trying to weigh it.

We were hanging out Sunday and he's like he's playing so much of this fucking Minecraft mode and it sucks so bad.

And I'm just like, dude, you've got to play something cool.

Stop being such a dork.

I guess I'd rather like, yeah, let him deal with the trauma of murder over the Minecraft slot.

I feel like it's it's like baby's first murder.

Right.

Like baby.

Sure.

You know, we're younger than that.

Right.

I get the fidelity wise.

It's different.

I get it.

I think with Dylan though, not only should he be checking out actually better games and fully fleshed out stuff, but I think there is the cognitive ability there to discern like oh, this is video gamey violence versus like, actual violence.

Yeah, without a doubt, that's easy.

I'm not worried about that either.

Right like I think he look, he is very he's sensitive to that sort of intense stuff, and I think what's gonna wind up For now maybe putting this on hold, is more of his sensitivity to like oh, this is a little spooky.

It's a little scary.

The stakes are a little higher here.

Like maybe that's what's going to might turn him off more than the actual murder.

Um, he doesn't like exactly.

He doesn't like the blood and there's really not a lot of blood in uncharted.

Yeah, because if there was, it'd be, m it'd be.

Yeah, it's not really bloody.

Uh, is he old enough to have a crush on elena fisher?

I thought you were going to ask if he's old enough to have a gun.

And we live in the U.S.

The answer is yes, of course.

Born that way, yeah.

Standard issue as he was leaving the hospital.

Born in the U.S.A.

Yeah, Bruce said it the best.

So, yeah, you know, I don't know.

We'll see.

Yes, he is old enough to have crushes for sure.

I'm seeing that play out in real time.

Breaking hearts over here.

Gang, I'd be remiss if I didn't say this.

Backlar and I did a preview of it, but I checked out 007 First Light.

You'll get excited.

Gang, go watch that video.

Backlund and I talk over some B-roll and you really need to see this game in action because admittedly, I was very skeptical, because I'm used to how Agent 47 controls in an IOI game and that doesn't necessarily lend itself to the level of mobility and flexibility I think the character of James Bond needs.

And I've said this on Blue Sky.

Say this a lot in the video, but this is what happens when you inject Hitman's DNA into an Uncharted game because, like that's what it feels like.

Also, this characterization of James Bond, he's younger.

This is like not quite year one, I think, but it's like early, early stages of becoming a double agent and

The voice actor they got, the writing that they have for this James Bond, very, very charming.

He's got the swag very much picked up, cherry-picking the different parts of Bond to throw into this guy as a character.

And he also seems like a good dude because it is so early into his career.

But the gameplay need to talk about, because you still have the hitman stealth and the shenanigans right.

But where I think it really shines is the gunplay and the combat.

I...

Never really liked getting into a gunfight in Hitman.

It's just never how I approached those games.

I didn't like how it felt.

Also, the melee combat never really clicked with me either in the Hitman games.

I'd always had to be a quiet, stealthy boy hiding in a costume, silently bipping dudes from a distance, or using the patented coin tactic to get people separated.

Um, but here you have the option and you're encouraged to do both.

You, right.

You can go quiet and they definitely throw you into scenarios where you have to go loud.

And it does feel like a gigantic action sequence from a bond film.

Um, one of the things that uh jeff, i think you're particularly uh uh, wowed with is the utility of the watch that you have.

Right yo, this watch.

Let me tell you, this watch is powerful.

Yeah okay, because op watch, you know, bond bond, much like agent 47 is a man of gadgets and uh, the watch is a major component.

And you have, like like the bioweapon side, and i don't mean like a terrorist bioweapon but like um, you can make people get queasy or their tummy hurt or throw up.

But you also have a tech side of your watch where You can use that to just quickly blind someone with a laser from your watch.

Or you can use the laser to like quickly laser off a lock on a door, to like get through it.

So. it really does open up different avenues to approach a situation.

Um, in the demo that I had there were multiple different like areas of interest to how to get up to like the upstairs place.

And um, I was talking with a friend, or the site miles, and and he had approached the situation in a completely different way that I didn't even come across.

That felt like a fully involved experience.

I showed off in our little video a security route where you have to talk to a security guard, get the info of a name, but then in the process of that you kind of got to do some like swarmy uh slick uh, um james bond action, to like get the codes and everything and then like charm your way into it.

Charm is also a factor in the game.

If you do like a stealth takedown or you do something um, um stealthily, or or you get like a particularly stylist, stylish kill in the game, you get rewarded.

And I, for the life of me do not remember what they're called, I'm just going to call them swag points.

So it is an additional meter that you get swag points on, and you can use those swag points to purposely Kind of like lull an enemy in where it is kind of like a freebie of like a free distraction, like a guaranteed distraction.

So say, you get caught in a hallway and instead of it kind of like messing up your whole flow, you just hit the charm button or the lure button and then you kind of diffuse the situation and you have like an easy way to get out of it, whether it's like a takedown, or you just walk on your way and just exit the door.

Um, I think it's going to really, really hit with Hitman fans and people that have been clamoring for something like another Uncharted game.

I'm excited because I don't have a ton of affinity for James Bond per se, but I like IOI a lot and I like Uncharted a lot.

So if it has some of that flavor, I'd be very happy.

Yeah.

I was digging what you were looking at.

I think, like the watch stuff, I'm a little like on the fence with it, just because it was almost like watchdog levels of like.

This is just this all-powerful, you know, Swiss Army watch thing.

James Bond can get away with that.

That's been there from the beginning.

That's exactly right, right?

They're just like, hey, James, you see this little, like, paper clip?

It's a bomb.

It's an antenna.

It's a car.

It's also a car.

And it's a tank.

It's a paper cup car.

It's all the things you want.

And it's also a sexy lady.

Whoa!

And he's just like, cool, I'll use it while I'm drunk.

And that's James Bond in a nutshell.

That's the story of James Bond, yeah.

Does the watch have a malo in it?

Oh my god, uh no.

But but money penny in your ear will tell you what the, the date is.

She'll, she'll reference her malo, not all the time, good good.

But yeah, if you are like a fan of like the james bond series, i think they do lean into it like, so you do have like money penny in your ear.

Sometimes I didn't get the chance to talk to too many other characters in the little demo session I had.

But I'm like, yo gang, I'm fucking jazzed for this.

Turns out IOI makes good games.

Choice in publishing.

Could work on that a little bit.

Oh, right, that Mind's Eye mission.

Wait, is that going to be the Delight Club, Jeff?

Now, that's a lot.

Oh, yeah.

Oh, no, I won't be around.

I want to see it.

Yeah, it might be.

I mean, maybe Delight Club's not the word, but that should be played in the Delight Club slot.

It'll delight somebody, yeah.

It'll delight someone out there.

But, yeah, 007 First Light, I think it comes out this month, May.

This month.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Crazy.

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This is just to tell you guys where i'm at right now today.

Uh, i was just like the podcast was starting back up from the break and i'm like i can't wait to hear what these guys have to talk about.

And then you said here's jeff grubb with the news.

I'm like, oh yeah, it's my turn to do the podcast now, so Let's read some news everybody.

Hey, this is a fun one.

GameStop makes a wild.

56 billion dollar.

Build a bid excuse me, for ebay.

Uh gamestop, led by ryan cohen, who is normal, has made an unsolicited cash and stock offer to acquire ebay for around 55 56 billion dollars.

Uh, this values ebay's current shares at 125 dollars, which is about a 20 to 30 premium.

GameStop says it already owns about 5% of eBay.

So it would use that.

It would also use the 9 billion it has in the bank from the meme stock craziness when it was like selling stocks into the huge spikes that were happening because it was a meme stock.

And then they would get about $20 billion in financing.

They have a note saying that they are ready to have that lined up.

And then the other half of the $55 to $56 billion would be stock in GameStop.

Now, that was definitely like, okay, that could work.

Could you explain it more?

Was a question that was posed to Ryan Cohen in an interview on CNBC.

And his answer was basically, no.

Go look at the website.

And that's, I am barely exaggerating there.

In fact, the only thing I'm saying, he didn't say no.

He just said, go check the website.

It is a it's an embarrassing interview.

It is awkward.

It is clear that this man is out of his mind.

And I just worry because and why do I care about these fuckers?

But I worry because the cult around the GameStop meme stock has not gone away.

So everyone that is still invested in that is looking at him like this is 4d chess.

He's got this all figured out.

What a legend.

Yeah, what a legend.

And uh, it couldn't be more clear to me that, like no, he just wasn't answering because he doesn't.

He doesn't even know where he is, let alone knows what's going on here.

To be serious, it's bad.

To be serious, just very quickly, i think this also highlights that these big news corporations, they really genuinely do need someone on the games beat to talk about this seriously.

And in a nuanced way.

Yeah.

Mike.

Wow.

Honestly to like speak to it, like in a way where it's like Oh, you know that someone like Ryan Cohen is a dork.

Yes.

Yeah.

I, It is kind of wild that, like, first off, where's this investment commitment letter coming from?

Like, that's what I want to know.

Who is lining up to take on this debt?

Because, like, I don't know.

You just, you know, in the last, well...

It's an American tradition, right?

Collusion, market manipulation and basically just like letting the capital elite just connive and just run amok in every way, shape and form.

And I feel like this is the one guy that they're going to like actually draw the line.

And we're like.

I just feel like you have universal consensus that this is the most unlikable CEO right.

Right where it's like maybe it's like elon and he does like elon gets with because he's the richest person in the world right, that's so.

They just keep him like he well, he's the richest person in the world.

They can't do that here.

Yeah yeah right, the most unlikable.

Yeah yeah, like creep, right.

And you know i, i don't know.

I feel like this is a guy who at one point overheard fake it till you make it and was just like this is my entire life.

I'm gonna just completely do this forever until someone says stop or i die, and that uh, i don't get it, i.

And to have this completely propped up off meme stocks, right.

Because that's essentially what's floating the backing for this.

How can this happen?

Yeah, and it's you know.

So there's definitely a lot of talk about like why is he going for this so hard?

He has a compensation package that if he were to get GameStop stock above 100 per share, there's steps.

There's, like, different tranches of if he gets at certain levels, he's going to get money.

But the top one is...

$100 per share, then he would get about $30 to $35 billion in a payout.

That's his money.

And that's worth a lot more than what GameStop's worth right now.

And so everyone's thinking.

The strategy here is do that at all costs, and the cost could be the health of GameStop and especially those investors.

Now the investors are the retail investors, the people that are buying in on the GME meme stockness of it all.

They're continuing to try to justify it, being like, you know, this could benefit us if...

He grows GameStop way beyond even what.

He might potentially dilute the value by issuing new stock to pay for this deal, which is something he explicitly said he might do will do.

Yeah, you could say that, but there are so many potential pitfalls, including just like taking on too much debt.

Them not actually being able to do all these huge cost cutting things because the natural collection combination of eBay and GameStop regional stores working together

It's a wait, what?

What the fuck?

What does that mean?

Are people going to drop off their eBay things and have you sell it for them?

That was like a business model in 40 year old virgin fashion.

50 years ago.

And we don't see those stores anymore for a reason, honey.

What are you talking about?

I would just like to buy these shoes.

I would just like to buy these shoes, please.

I just sell them on eBay.

Yeah, no, I could give you money, though.

That's how that works.

It's bizarre.

Obviously there's like definitely a lot of other considerations of.

GameStop is very involved now in Pokemon cards and eBay is like the other side of that for a lot of people.

Yeah.

And that's not worth this much money.

No, no.

We had like Fame Whitaker on GMM yesterday.

And I don't.

I didn't think about that angle at all, about how much Pokemon cards and the fucked up, inflated market that has been created is that much to influence trying to acquire eBay.

Jeez.

Yeah.

I just he's clearly not thought about it more than this is a thing he could kind of piece together, cobble together enough ideas.

And like his basic pitch is eBay spends a lot of money every year trying to acquire new users and the amount of money, which is like some astronomical number number, and then they're only getting like a million new users last year or something like that compared to the amount of money like the money per new user acquired was really crazy.

So he's like yeah, I will come in there and I'll fix that.

And then we'll do all these obvious cost saving things.

And those alone will make the stock more valuable.

And it's like, I just feel like that is such a rosy picture of what will happen here.

And the reality is going to be oh, there's going to be a lot that goes wrong, and it won't go as well as you think.

And the natural combination of GameStop and eBay actually doesn't sound that natural to me.

And then he always says, and then we're going to be an Amazon competitor.

It's like, oh, there's a long walk from one to the other there.

It is.

And the most horrifying element of all of this is to keep in mind that we are currently inside and living through a completely delusional market.

Like a mark that looks at itself in the mirror and does not recognize itself.

And it's just like, I'm worth shit.

I know everything else is on fire, but I am still inexplicably valuable.

Uh, and I just, that's why I see this stuff and I'm just like, fuck, there's good.

There's, there's going to be enough strings that are pulled where this could actually happen.

That, that is the, that is the thing here.

You're right.

Uh, like the.

The one thing that kind of got pointed out recently is that every time the Everyone rushes into MoneyBallit because now everyone's been trained to be like hey, this is an opportunity to buy.

Buy the dip.

And it's become such a widely accepted thing among so many investors and retail investors that people never want to be on the FOMO of it and never want to miss out.

Yeah.

And uh, that sort of energy could be like pushed through something like even this big and this wild right.

Everyone's just like Hey, obviously we don't know what we're doing, but I don't want to miss out on the chance that this is the next big thing.

Uh, so yeah, this could actually end up happening in a really weird way, but I mean, right now it feels like this is backfiring.

GameStop's stock was up like on the rumor.

And I get a lot of people made a lot of money on the rumor.

And then it dropped 10% the next day.

So on the news, if you bought on the news, you lost a lot of fucking money.

And the people that knew, I doubt that will ever be prosecuted.

But yeah.

And like, don't even, don't even get ahead of yourself.

Right.

Like cause, if you start to really just even have the most sort of surface level understanding of like what a game stop shit coin mean stonk, disaster dystopia would look like, with them owning eBay and running eBay.

And if you think like, If you think like the current hellscape that we occupy with predictive markets and the hyper-infused gambling culture into every facet of everyday human life is somehow injected into what eBay looks like.

I just don't even want, like don't even wind up getting up tomorrow, because you will just do, you will take, you have such an exercise in in fucking a nightmare.

Uh I, I can't even begin to like like, just don't think about it, because I did it yesterday and I had to lay down for 45 minutes.

Um, it's not great folks.

It's just not great.

Uh, we get what we deserve and that's, uh, this is our great filter folks.

So Joker said that.

Yeah.

Um, I, yeah, I am, uh, I'm with you and it's, uh, it does feel like, uh, someone's just keeps pouring NOS into the, into the engine.

And, and no one's like wondering, it's like, Hey, is the engine going to hold together?

It's like, well, we're going faster.

Why the fuck do you care?

Uh, and eventually some, some key component is going to snap on there.

Um, and it's gonna look, it's gonna look bad.

All right, let's keep going here.

GTA 6 expectation management.

That's become the story now.

Strauss Zelnick has been doing some more interviews.

He talked to Jason Schreier over at Bloomberg, and he basically said that the expectations that are on Grand Theft Auto 6 are, and this is his quote, terrifying. uh the game is still set to come out november 19th 2026 uh and and basically he's he's just like yeah there's uh this is a game and i don't know if he said in this in so many words but the truth is if this is a game uh that comes out and sells 10 million copies on day one that's a disappointment oh my analysts are expecting it to sell 25 million copies day one day one day one not 25 million copies not weekend one not i mean look yes i'm sure there could be some squishiness there there but in general they're expecting 25 million it's a okay uh tears the kingdom did like 20 million in like a week, right?

Basically, basically first day, 20 million.

So this isn't impossible.

In fact, it's probably pretty likely that this is going to do that and maybe surpass that number.

That's crazy.

And to make sure that that happens, there can't be any sort of wide memed backlash.

There can't be missing faces.

There can't be like just, oh, this game looked funny for a second in a bad way.

Everything has to go right.

I don't think they're going to let anyone see it.

Right.

That's so that's real.

Okay.

So that is the question here.

That's what the story is about Bacalar, which is like what?

How are they going to talk about this game?

So there's how much do they show the campaign?

They could show a lot.

They could show a little, they show others and it's looked really good in trailers.

It'll be really well.

It'll present really well that way.

Are people going to get to play this game before it comes out?

I, We're living in such a different universe now.

Historically, we've had such a great relationship with Rockstar.

We would get invited, especially when I was at Cena.

I was there all the time seeing stuff super, super early.

And I just...

I think things are just too big now.

I think the stakes are so high that I can't imagine.

Even people in China are like oh, paid streamers and influencers.

I don't even think that's safe.

I don't even know.

I don't know.

After...

Dan went to that WWE event and the games journalists were on one floor but the influencers were on a separate one.

They'll do it that way for sure.

Lower.

Yeah.

But I think like they're going to roll the red carpet out to streamers and influencers that will just goof and gab about this game divorce cougar in chat.

I don't think it's too far off.

Like logan paul on netflix feels like the kind of thing yeah, where they would do something along those lines to do something right, but like yeah, and they'll do it like as a big, like on nbc, like they'll get it like on tv or something like it'll be beyond what we've seen before.

But but i, but i, i don't even know if it could be anything other than like a presentation yes, where all the messaging is completely And even that falls short.

I think of what people want and could even be a risk in its own right.

There's so many questions because they're certainly going to sell the game here that people are going to be playing on day one, which is mostly the campaign.

There are so many other things to consider.

We've talked a bunch about, like when do they talk about online?

Do they promise?

Like, do they begin making promises about what that's going to be before people buy the game initially, or do they save that for like hey, that's coming six months down the line, so we're not even going to talk about that right now.

But then there's the the role playing side of it.

There is the user generated content side of it.

These are.

We know these are all big parts of Grand Theft Auto six because rock stars made those acquisitions years and years ago.

And when we look at the, we got numbers recently about spending on Grand Theft Auto online for different platforms.

And it was everyone pointed out The Xbox One, not the Xbox Series, not the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro any of this stuff.

The Xbox One.

More people spent money on Grand Theft Auto Online on that platform than PC.

And it's like, I kind of think about it.

It's like oh yeah, that's because on PC people use that game for free stuff like the role playing servers and a bunch of user generated content.

It's different.

The mods like that's way bigger on PC.

So now they're trying to, like, capture that.

And it's like, how much do they talk about that?

Because, in like the lead up to this game coming out, most people are just going to want to hear about the campaign.

That's that's, and if they like decide like well yeah, but we got to sell all this other stuff because we we want console gamers to know about role playing and all that stuff.

They could stand to dilute the message.

It is a tough line to walk.

It's a very narrow path.

And if I were them, I guess I would probably lean towards let's save everything that's extra.

For after the game comes out.

And right now, just say Grand Theft Auto six is the campaign.

And then we take it from there after like in the following weeks.

But I don't know.

I don't know if that's what they want to do for all these major investments that they've made.

Major acquisitions.

And even that, they have to weigh, is that a disappointment announcement, right?

Is the perception of something like that that this thing is not nerfed at launch, but certainly not wholesome right?

Yeah.

That's wild.

It must be such a complicated web to try and unweave, uh to dismantle, like and and convince people to transition over from gta, gta online from five to six.

Um yeah, that's kind of.

I mean, that has to factor into that calculus.

I understand the pressure.

I also don't have a whole lot of sympathy for them over it, right?

Like, you're the guys who want to make the... Yeah, it's more fascinating.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like you guys want to make the biggest game in the world and you know, remind us how it's going to be the biggest game in the world, and all that stuff.

And now nobody can even make games like this, except for you.

I'm like, all right, deal with the pressure then.

See how it goes.

Yeah, it's.

You know, there is not an impossible scenario here where something key does go wrong and this all blows up right in front of us and no one knows what that looks like.

So, I get being... There is grace for these things.

Like, cyberpunk Oh, sure.

He did have that.

And now everybody's like, that's my favorite game.

Right.

Like the people.

I mean, after years, real quick after years, maybe they can't afford a year long reset on GTA.

I mean, it's just like the blow up could be even bigger than that.

Like what happened with Cyberpunk was taken off the PlayStation store.

And, you know, it was a worldwide story when that game fell apart at launch.

Like people were actually interested beyond our sphere.

Grand Theft Auto is obviously like potentially way bigger than that.

Totally.

And Cyberpunk also had a really, really strong... kind of preview right like cyberpunk was also coming in hot where people had this inflated expectation based off of right how that game showed up at e3 and just the pedigree it was the next game from the witcher three exactly that game was exactly but you know there's a lot of that here too i mean we're not going to maybe get previews but trailers and just It's the next Rockstar game.

Yeah.

The hype will be insane.

It's wild.

This whole thing's pretty wild.

Xbox hardware and services decline again in Microsoft earnings.

Hardware was down 33 year over year in Q3 of fiscal year 2026, but content and services revenue was also down 5.

Um, This company keeps shifting things with new leadership.

They are going back to, hey, we're going to really focus on the console.

We might bring back exclusives.

We are all heads down on Project Helix and all this stuff.

Does it feel too little, too late to be able to like undo what we're seeing in these numbers, where people are certainly not buying the hardware and it's not like the games are supplementing the losses there?

I mean it's probably too late to overcome playstation again or, you know, seriously compete with them within the next 10 years.

I'm just still so curious what this next console is and what it looks like.

The Sigma, for a while, is almost going to be de-emphasized.

It's mostly just a PC.

They're kind of reversing course.

They want us to think of this as more of a traditional console again.

And yeah, it's a PC, but it's an Xbox.

And there's going to be exclusives maybe and all that stuff.

What are your expectations for a machine like that?

How much do you think that's going to sell these days?

Yeah, I mean, that is going to be expensive.

I mean and I think we always expected it to be like going way back to the first time we heard anyone talk about it, which was Sarah Bond at Game Awards maybe Summer Game Fest saying oh yeah, we're going to have a new hardware and it's going to be the biggest technological leap you've ever seen, or whatever.

And our eyes rolled into our butts.

Yes, to our butts.

And then we said, well, if that's the case, how much is it going to cost?

Probably at least $1,000.

That was before we ever were talking about tariffs and before we ever were talking about component shortages.

And the AI run on memory and storage.

So this thing could be extremely expensive.

And then how does that make sense for still being an Xbox console?

Wait till you see how good Star Wars Battlefront 2 looks on that thing.

Okay.

Well, now I'm excited.

Call of Duty finally appears to be done with PS4.

God, I always think about it like, man, they're just going to keep releasing them on PS4.

No, they're done apparently.

So there was a rumor that the next Call of Duty was going to be on PS4.

And this actually caused the Call of Duty account on social media to be like hey, we don't know where this started.

But no, the next Call of Duty is not going to be on PlayStation 4.

So this will be the first Call of Duty in 13 years.

Yeah, 2013.

I had to look it up.

The PS4 came out in 2013.

It is older than you think.

13 years of PlayStation actively getting new call of duty games crazy.

And it's finally done.

And i'm like a little shocked.

It's actually done.

But is this mean the next game is going to be better?

Or is this another?

Too little, too late?

Because i just don't think it matters.

I don't know.

I think it saves the money right.

Like, at a certain point, you had to pull this band-aid.

It's wild that there's, like, a lineage starting with Call of Duty Ghosts.

I almost said StarCraft Ghosts.

Call of Duty Ghosts!

But whatever the last one was.

Oh, man.

Black Ops 7.

Man and i just pieced together why this is happening.

Because grand theft auto 6 is here.

That's why it's happening.

Because they're like, oh everyone, if anyone that was holding off on buying the next gen system up until this point they weren't getting for the new call of duties.

Well now, call of duty and grand theft auto 6 is a good reason to upgrade.

So, but final fantasy 14 recently was just like Hey, just a heads up.

Like in about two years, we're going to be done supporting PlayStation four.

Yeah.

So like that, that's, it's happening now, right?

People are kind of moving on.

Even like the games that made sense to linger there for a long time.

Cause there, there are a lot of PS fours out there.

Even they're like, this thing's too old, everybody.

I mean that hard drive is going to be a limiting factor in like what they can really do with those games.

So that will be nice for some developers, but it won't show up immediately in Call of Duty.

I don't think so.

Yep.

All right.

Valve says Steam Deck 2 is still in development, but shortages are a problem for making that thing.

Yeah, Valve's Pierre-Lou Garafis, I believe, is how I would say that told IGN and VGC that Valve is hard at work on the Steam Deck 2.

This comes as the Steam controller just launched yesterday and sold out immediately.

And this also comes as we're hearing reports of the Steam console, a Steam console being shipped in huge numbers to the United States.

There's a possibility that is just more Steam decks to replenish the supply of that.

That has been hard to get in the United States.

But sounds like chances are this actually could be either the Steam frame or the Steam machines.

So they're continuing to make the hardware actually work and come out, despite all of the problems that they're having.

For Steam Deck 2.

It's like they Sounds like they're gonna.

Yeah, we'll figure that out, despite all these problems.

They will cause problems.

But the real issue is...

What they keep saying about it.

They want it to feel like a major upgrade when they actually release the Steam Deck 2 versus the Steam Deck.

That is probably another couple years out then.

So one or two before we start really hearing about that thing.

But I guess the question is, have they established that as the obvious go-to for PC handheld gaming?

Or is the market, which became very crowded very quickly, so crowded that they will just be another option there?

I think it might be a little bit of the latter Grubb, because on social media or ads, as I'm scrolling through social media, I've been seeing a lot of heat on the street and people pushing the Asus ROG, the Xbox ally really, really hard.

Um, and then I wonder this doesn't apply to me and I don't think it applies to our audience, but I wonder with like, the general audience, because you can't find a steam deck in a big box retail store?

Does that harm it at all?

Um, does the, the name brand of steam, also intimidate people versus seeing something like Asus, where people have come to associate that or Xbox on there?

Yeah.

Uh, associate that brand with something that is more like pickup and play.

Yep.

I mean, I think that uh, those are questions that they'll they'll probably want to continue addressing, with those steam deck too.

Um, I mean God, I don't know if they ever actually I at one point I'm like yeah, they'll put the steam deck in retail.

Um, They haven't needed to, and they're not doing it with the Steam Controller or Steam Machine, Steam Frame, yet

At least they haven't announced that.

That could change.

But at some point, I do feel like that is the next step for these devices.

It could open it up to a lot more, but I don't know if that will ever actually happen.

All right.

Denuvo and 2K had to add a 14-day online check to their games, to the 2K's games that use Denuvo, which is the anti-piracy, anti-tamper tool.

Uh, because a bunch of crackers not lowest kind, a bunch of people were able to crack open the game and and get and get in there.

And, uh, basically they just destroyed this check.

It doesn't do anything anymore.

Uh, so they have uh, instead been like okay, well then you have to check in online with your game and prove that you own it.

And uh, It's like DeNuvo's next step here was just like yeah, we'll just have the online check instead, which is it feels very in your face of like this is just obvious DRM now.

It's not just hanging in there in the background like DeNuvo tried to do in the past.

It was still very obvious to a lot of people.

So this feels like a worst-case scenario for everybody involved.

This will just make Denuvo even worse and more annoying for people trying to play their games, especially if they're offline.

And Denuvo having to be like yeah, I mean we can help you put an online check, which is something 2K could probably just do on their own right.

The reason you use Denuvo is so it works in all these different scenarios.

This is, you know, it's an arms race between pirates and security companies like this.

It'll keep going back and forth, but it does seem like Denuvo's on its ass a little bit here right now, which a lot of people will probably be cheering about, because it just makes gaming worse, especially for pc.

Yeah, 100.

I i wonder if uh, the people sailing on the electronic high seas are extra inclined just because of how um, tight funds may be across the board for general gaming audiences.

Yeah, life finds a way and all that right like finds a way to play games, and uh, The pressure to do that is increasing as people look to save money.

Absolutely.

Fortnite gets a huge Star Wars UGC slash platform push.

Three Star Wars official experiences from Epic and Lucasfilm.

I love official experiences.

Launched.

Official experiences are here.

Galactic Siege, which is one that looks vaguely like Battlefront.

Escape Vader, which is basically, maybe it's an asymmetrical multiplayer.

Like a Dead by Daylight maybe?

Yeah yes, I think so, but like where Vader's chasing people down and killing everyone and it's scary or whatever.

And then droid tycoon, which I'll remind people for fortnight.

Tycoon just is like an idler means that you're taking your hammer and you're banging on stuff to like make it shoot out points or money and then use that money to make even more stuff, and you're gonna do that in a droid shop and All those play very similar, but people like them, so they just kind of swap out droids with whatever was there before.

Then there's a bunch of user-created islands that are going to use the Star Wars stuff as well, and I'm just not moved by any of it.

I think it all looks pretty bland.

I mean some of the Star Wars, at least a lot of the skins have been there for extended period of time now um, but i can't say any of these particularly move me, or i'm seeing people move to dip back into fortnight.

I think the last big thing was probably the simpsons.

At least that was great man.

That was good.

It's tough to, that's going to be tough to match.

Right.

Anytime soon.

I mean the, the level of involvement in production there is, just it was on a different level where this surprisingly, is not

I think that's just kind of where this game is at though, where it's um, There is the way that this game makes money by bringing people back.

And then there's the way the game makes money by satisfying its marketing partners' desires.

And right now that's Disney in a big way.

Um, and that that's a.

You know, they did a billion dollar investment and they're probably going to do even more going forward, because the current Disney CEO seems pretty hot on fortnight.

So they're like Hey, let's just keep doing this stuff and let's get that next big investment from them.

And that's the money we care about.

So it's puts fortnight in a weird spot with the people who actually play fortnight. yeah yeah because i you know this is all anecdotal but um a lot a lot of the younger fortnight audience grub i think you reported on this like rejecting the italian brain rot stuff that got thrown into um fortnight so i don't know if this doubling down of like uh an IP is going to land well with those players.

Yep.

All right, let's hit these last couple of stories.

007 First Light on Switch 2 is still coming, but it needs more time.

Chris Dring was interviewing IO Interactive CEO Hakan Abrak, and basically Dring was like hey, are you going to do a Borderlands 4 to this?

Meaning that Borderlands 4 was announced for Switch 2 and then it got delayed, and then it got delayed indefinitely and now it's obviously never coming.

And Abrax is like, no, no, no.

We have it running.

We're looking at the game.

We don't want people to complain when it launches that it's not a good version of it, so we're going to make sure that we get it to that point.

Sounds pretty simple, and it does sound like developers and publishers of this scale still want to support Switch 2.

Yeah.

But they're also not like to the point where we have to rush it and make sure that we have put in so many resources that it launches day and date.

It's still okay if it comes later.

And I think that's right.

I think Switch 2 audiences is like, yeah, we get it.

We never were really expecting these games.

So they are still kind of nice to haves.

And I think the question is like can these publishers support the system enough that it gets over that hump and people do think about getting these third-party games on Switch 2 first and foremost?

And that might never happen, but it definitely is something they can nurture.

I mean they have to see the success of like RE9 and Pragmata on the Switch 2 and how well that's been received and realize like oh, you know, there are people that want our games over there as well.

Let's put in a little, the elbow grease and work needed.

Even if we have to push it back further from like the other console release and PC release.

Yeah.

And I can understand them being careful with Because I know I was disappointed by Hitman on Switch 2 honestly.

I think that's what they're burned from, yeah.

And part of me hopes that whatever optimizations they're doing for this can maybe work for that also.

I don't know.

That's maybe optimistic.

But I'd love the idea of having Hitman on my Switch 2, but that version just didn't really feel very good.

Yep.

Madden NFL 27 appears headed to Switch 2 as well.

Nintendo Life reports that an eShop Nintendo website page for EA Sports Madden NFL 27 appeared for the Switch 2.

EA, like, released a bunch of FIFA games for the Switch 1.

Most of them were the same game with just roster updates in a way that like people would always joke about, like no, that's actually what those games were on the switch um, And then they had a couple of other games released here or there.

I think they eventually put out like Plants vs. Zombies and stuff on Switch 1.

There was that one year where they're like, hey, we have five Switch games.

And that was kind of the run of it.

That was the most that they did.

So there was always the question of, hey, is EA going to come back for Switch 2?

And they kind of gestured at that idea early on.

And the question was always Madden.

Is Madden going to come to Switch 2?

Um, and it seems like, yeah, that they are going to do that.

It is.

You guys think this is a one-off, like they've done that in the past as well where, like a Nintendo console would get one Madden and then they wouldn't release another one.

Uh, is there like a certain threshold this game has to meet to ensure that EA is fully on board with the system going forward?

I don't think, look, I mean, I just don't think the interest is there.

Even with Madden based on, like, even my most normiest of video game friends are disenchanted.

Like Madden is just not on their dumb ass football radar anymore.

It's gambling is the first thing.

So if they put a gambling game on switch to, I'm sure to it, they would flock.

Um, I think this does feel like a flag in the ground, kind of like okay, here's your first taste of Madden, and maybe you're right that it does get an update down the road, not on a yearly cadence like we normally see on the other consoles and platforms.

I actually correct myself.

Yeah, i guess madden 26 did come to the switch too, so this is two years in a row.

Um, but uh, i i think that yeah, i think it's still in the wait and see category of they want to continue to do this, but see if madden continues to grow on the switch.

Maybe, maybe not.

I think that's that madden 26 game wasn't great on switch too.

I'm like googling really quick but um, I never played it so I don't know.

All right, let's see here.

And then yeah, I wanted to take your guys' temperature here regarding the Star Fox and Ocarina of Time rumors.

Specifically, Star Fox, the thing was, hey...

Hey, so that thing is going to come out in June and it's going to get announced in April.

And if it doesn't get announced in April, that means the marketing changed.

And it's like that certainly has happened.

It's happened to me with rumors before.

Absolutely.

But, you know, other things could be afoot here.

What are your guys' feelings on what's happening with Nintendo and those rumors right now?

Yeah.

I mean, I still...

I still ultimately, like, you know, put a gun to my head.

I would choose to believe them.

I am certainly opening room in my heart for it all to just not pan out.

But, you know, I usually trust Nate to hate.

There's just logic to all of this as well.

I mean, maybe they did realize maybe we should have a big direct and why not just have the star Fox thing be part of a direct?

They've done a lot of other stuff just as kind of Nintendo today announcements recently.

It feels like, right.

So maybe as part of, like they're filling out the next director, like this is a little sparse.

Uh, can we actually save a couple nintendo today, like announcements, those announcements in nintendo today, that app, maybe they didn't like do the numbers that they were expecting, like maybe maybe we should do something better with star.

Oh maybe, Maybe Glenn Powell's busy and they want Glenn Powell to pop up with Miyamoto.

That's important.

There's always that.

All right, well, Mike obviously thinks this is a psyop.

What do you think, Jan?

You know, I've been Star Fox curious for a bit now.

Again, I don't mean to disappoint anyone.

I haven't played Ocarina of Time.

I'm curious.

But at this point, I would wait for a remake.

And so I want it to be a reality.

As you should.

Again, I think this is like existing in this weird Goldilocks zone of like an extremely believable rumor yeah uh, but also like there, i guess, the longer it sort of sits on the shelf, it it starts to corrode a little bit.

I don't know, is that the kind of vibe?

Yeah, I mean because, like a June release date for Star Fox continues to be the rumor.

Yeah.

And so the other side of that is that the direct that we keep talking about could be coming up, a big, major direct.

That's also rumored for June.

So it's like, oh, is it going to be a shadow draft for Star Fox?

It's got to be a direct eventually.

It feels like it's been forever.

Yes, in a lot of ways it has, especially for a mainline direct.

We haven't had one since, like, September.

Ooh.

So yeah, I think the question is like OK, if this Star Fox thing is coming that soon, then how are they going to announce it?

And it's getting very close and it just doesn't feel like something they would shadow drop.

So we've got to see something happening here.

And is it going to get its own direct in May?

I mean, who knows?

How close do you think the Mario movie is from leaving theaters?

Well, you can already rent it.

It just went to streaming.

Oh, well, never mind.

Because then I thought, oh more people will be able to see it at home so they can see.

Star Fox is in the movie.

And then that's when they would release any announcement with a new Star Fox game.

But I guess it's already out.

I mean, it just happened, Jan.

So maybe maybe this week.

Right.

Because of that, like you couldn't.

It feels like that makes as much sense as anything else here.

But they don't.

They're not like.

They do shadow drop stuff, but not like this.

Not like this, right?

No.

I mean, that doesn't mean, you know, we always try to pattern match with Nintendo, right?

Right, right.

Like, oh, they've done this the best, they haven't done that.

And it's Nintendo, and they exercise.

Yeah.

Yeah, so they pull out the rug from underneath us.

Exactly.

So, I mean, look, they do often follow a pattern.

It's worth mentioning, but they could change it up on us for no good reason.

You know, I think I got it now.

It just hit me like a truck.

Yeah, sigh up.

No, no.

Well, perhaps a little bit.

Maybe there is some confusion at Nintendo HQ because they got the word that who switch over and stop using the word calendars and start calling them malos.

Right.

And no one can find their malos.

Their malo's confused.

Right.

Because then, like we all write the date differently with calendars in the US versus other parts of the world?

So who knows how we write a date down with a malo?

Lomé.

The year goes in the middle.

It's crazy.

Lomé, delicious.

No one likes it.

Exactly.

Chicken Lomé.

The best.

Beko, you keep saying psyop.

That's part of this rumor as well.

Shut the fuck up.

It's happened before.

What do you mean it's happened before?

This is a Nintendo PSYOP to flush out the leaks.

That's one of the rumors here, is that this and Ocarina of Time are part of a fake rumor campaign started by Nintendo as disinformation to find out who's doing it.

Back before there was a rumor about a Star Fox racing game that a lot of people were reporting on.

It never happened, and It itself is a rumor that Nintendo sent that one out themselves on purpose to track down leakers.

Yep.

What the fuck?

That's fun.

You trust them.

Those Nintendo ninjas, I tell you.

It was a joke.

God, I just hope it's real.

I want both these games real bad.

I really want... I think an Ocarina of Time remake would hit hard right now.

They have so many gaps in the release schedule for the rest of this year right now.

We got Splatoon.

We got Yoshi.

We got Fire Emblem.

Pokemon's not until next year.

I don't know.

There's just got to be a couple more games, and that's a couple more games right there.

Go ahead, Jen.

Shout out to Slane in chat saying Ochoa Arena of Time.

It's good.

Okay.

Yeah, I like it.

Dan, I can't have you being one of these people who plays Ocarina of Time and is like I don't get it.

I don't know.

I just wouldn't be able to handle it.

Well, that's the thing.

I feel the GTA 6 pressure where there's two wolves inside of me that are fighting.

No, you have to like this.

And then other people are like, that's okay.

I think you'll like it.

Yes.

All right.

We'll see what happens.

I mean, look, by June, they're going to do something with a direct.

And if neither of those games are there, then I will truly no longer.

If by the time we have a direct, we don't hear about these things.

And yeah, then it's over.

It's so Jover.

It's Jover.

All right.

That does it for the news.

The headlines.

Jan, back over to you.

Folks at home, we're going to take a quick break, and we'll be back with emails right after this.

We want to talk to you about Beta Hat for a second.

They're a market research firm and friends of ours, whose job it is to make sure that when the biggest studios and publishers in the industry are making big decisions about a game feature, a direction, those decisions are informed by what real players actually think.

Not assumptions, not gut instinct, real feedback from real people.

The Beta Hat Research Community is how you become one of those people.

You join, you get invited to surveys, focus groups, playtests.

You share your opinions and those opinions go directly into research that lands on the desks of the people making games you care about.

If you've ever wanted your voice to actually matter in this industry, this is how.

Head to betahat.com RC.com.

And when you sign up, tell them Giant Bomb sent you.

No, seriously, tell them.

When you sign up, make sure you select Giant Bomb when asked, how did you hear about Beta Hat?

Thanks, Beta Hat.

All right, before we get back to the show, we want to take a minute to talk about something that, like a good character build, gives you some solid options.

I'm always here for options.

Are we talking like multi-classing, little stealth, little strength?

I see where you're going with this, and I think it fits.

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The K4 family features sleek and sporty designs.

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Look, I may not be a car expert, but turbo definitely sounds like it belongs in a racing game.

The point is you've got performance when you want it. and comfort when you need it.

If you're looking at the K4 hatchback, one of the big things is spacious cargo room, which is great if you're hauling gear, groceries or a suspiciously large number of collector's editions.

Forget about all that.

What if you're transporting a massive CRT because you insist that old fighting games only feel right on one?

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Meanwhile, the K4 sedan leans into a sophisticated look, and it also offers roomy legroom, which is great for longer drives.

Especially if you're heading to a convention visiting friends or doing a late night snack run after a marathon gaming session.

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Find the vacation you're looking for in Missouri.

Whether you're searching for this, wanting something like this.

Oh, that's cute.

Maybe up for something like this.

Or just really, really need something more like this.

You'll find the vacation you want in Missouri.

Missouri, it's the getaway that gets you.

Plan your fun at visitmo.com.

These are the emails for the show.

Emails.

Bombcast at GiantBomb.com is the email address to send your emails to.

You can write in about any and everything.

You want to avoid an awkward social interaction.

You got a fun little recommendation.

You need a recommendation and you need some advice.

Gaming related things or various whatever things and you trust us for some reason.

Send an email to Bombcast at GiantBomb.com.

Gang, I say this every single week.

I've been saying this every single week.

We are flooded with emails, and I am so thankful to all y'all.

I love the engagement.

Speaking about engagement, I don't know, go thumbs up this podcast or like it somewhere.

Tell a friend burn it to a cd and put it in your friend's cars.

Yes, i put it in their new kia sorento, that you can.

Yeah oh, i am bummed.

I think my new car doesn't have a cd player, which i guess makes sense.

But uh, i can't listen to my race racer type 4 cd anymore.

Man, that's weird.

Maybe it does, I just haven't found it yet.

Is it not weird?

It definitely does not have a CD player.

What are you talking about?

I didn't think about it.

Man.

Yeah, they're done with that.

My van has a DVD player, so I'm very used to just putting stuff in there, but it's always been DVDs, so

Okay, I guess that makes a little bit more sense, right?

I mean, the van with the TV in the back.

Right, of course.

I know it has carplay and I know the Ridge Racer Type 4 soundtrack's just on the music things, but I kind of like it.

It was always my backup.

If, for some reason, my phone wasn't syncing or I didn't want to plug it or connect it, or the radio's bad, I would just put on The Ridge Racer CD.

And then Christmas time, I'd swap that over to the John Denver and the Muppets CD.

I had two CDs I listened to.

That was it.

That was a fun one.

That's a good one.

Yeah, that's good.

I'm not watching the DVDs while I drive.

I can't.

It won't let me.

You can't.

All right?

You have to put on the parking brake for it to turn on.

He's too busy playing Marvel Snap anyways.

Mikey.

I think I might outsource you to be like my dad's son.

I want to be clear that I was not surprised it didn't have a CD player.

Jeff was the one who was surprised.

I'm surprised.

I never thought about it.

That's all.

Obviously, people are like, since 2018, I just never thought about it.

Yeah, I'm just going to need you guys to talk about writing checks and stuff.

I don't know.

All right.

We got a bunch of emails.

First one comes from Caleb from London, and the Giant Bomb influence knows no bounds.

Dear Giant Bomb.

Last week was the London Marathon, which was won by Kenya's Sebastian Saw, becoming the first ever runner to go under two hours.

Jesus Christ.

Amazing.

As my apartment is along the route, I walked outside to see the aftermath before the cleanup crew came.

There wasn't a huge amount of litter but, much to my surprise, I saw a significant number of buzz balls.

Having listened to Giant Bomb, I've known about buzz balls for a while.

In the UK, I thought they were more of a niche product.

Seeing the buzz ball litter has shattered this expectation, and now I realize that buzz balls are mainstream.

My question is which product you own slash have consumed.

Did you think was niche, or only to realize it had become mainstream when you saw it in the wild?

Keep up the amazing work.

Caleb from London.

Well, that's an interesting question.

Good question.

Yeah, yeah.

Carhartt.

And I was gonna make the same joke, yeah.

I was like that's.

The only thing that come to mind is Mike learning about Carhartt, now seeing it everywhere.

After your Carhartt epiphany, you see it now everywhere, right?

Actually, no, it's just, I was in a loves.

I was like, Oh, I'll find a, I bet there'd be there like trucker section.

We'll have some Carhartt stuff and I'll take a picture by one and post it for laughs.

But they didn't have any.

Yeah. that you walked past right by it.

Like at least I'm going to say a hundred people wearing some form of Carhartt when you were at that basketball game.

You've walked past me several times wearing Carhartt.

Is that when you look like a plumber?

Yes.

Those overalls.

Those were all Carhartt overalls.

I like when you look like a plumber.

It's cute.

Jan's got Carhartt at arm's reach in any moment.

I do, actually.

It's not a joke.

Um okay yeah, i don't know.

Uh, maybe like chip brands, i guess.

Then they blow up like i liked cape cod and i thought that wasn't a big brand and then it became a big brand of chips.

Ogk yeah yeah yeah um god, there's always like i don't know, there's like sauces, like there was like a cleveland only cast iron pan around here.

Bertsman yeah, i saw the uh, that bachman's whatever, that japanese barbecue sauce is showing up in more normal stores and that's nice, good for your stir fries, things like that.

If you want a little bit sweeter okay, they make the garlic version.

That's real good, you get that garlic one.

Oh shit um uh, i think it's more like uh, like bands and movies.

I feel like, oh yeah, oh yeah yeah, there's.

I definitely am having uh oh, i liked them before.

They were cool.

Right now, with that uh boyd uh, who's on that?

She's on some song recently.

But uh, i'm like, oh yeah, now i'm seeing her everywhere.

It's like, oh hell yeah, i got, i get to do the thing i'm.

Hey, i liked her before she was cool.

Yeah, you kind of have to do that sort of like flexy thought experiment to discover the ones.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know.

Nothing's, I feel like, oh, oh, that band Ghost.

Oh my God.

That band Ghost went from like zero to 60 in 14 seconds.

Right, right.

And I feel like I had no idea what was going on until and then I realized like oh, something happened on TikTok, and they're one of the biggest bands in the world.

I feel like I got you.

No, no, you.

There's a couple of like video game moments.

Someone likes like the Animal Crossing thing or like when Pokemon Go was everywhere.

It's like that was always huge.

But now the neighbors that are just always drinking on their back porch.

I met them on a walk and they were playing Pokemon Go.

Still like yeah, still yeah wow, this was back in the day, but no, they played for a long time.

Um, and then uh, like recently, like tomodachi life is having that right now.

Right now, i'm like only i know about tomodachi life.

No, that's.

Uh, everyone knows about that game.

That's huge.

So uh, it happens with video games every once in a while.

Hell yeah, that would be like pokemon in general.

It was like I knew about it because of magazines and stuff.

So I remember like calling Walmart desk.

They had Pokemon cards.

They had no idea what I was talking about.

I remember wanting to get the first VHS of the cartoon at Hollywood video.

And I got there and they thought I meant Pocahontas too.

And they did not have Pokemon.

And then like, Two weeks later, it changed and everybody knew what Pokemon was.

I never had to clarify myself again.

Yeah.

It also happens with... Look, guys.

Whatever, I'm just going to say it.

I don't go around blowing to my own horn, but I came up with Flex.

Flex.

I was the first one to say it that way.

I said it on a podcast in 2007.

And I was like, weird flex, but okay.

I said it.

I was the first person to say it.

Flex is your mellow?

Yep.

I was the first person to say it.

Fuck you, Mike Bonatti.

Jesus Christ.

I hate this show.

Next email comes from money.

I'm so mad that you just torpedoed my very true thing that I am absolutely positive about.

So that's like you're positive?

Like how sure?

Like put a number on it.

Like 100% you know that you're the one that originated that?

There's obviously no way to know that.

Um, because people have done it like people like uh, gone back and like been like no, vinny really did start the dark souls of x, this is the dark souls of x, so he was the first one to say that, or whatever.

Here's the impossible task that awaits you.

I'm pretty sure.

So i'm not even joking.

I said it definitely very early.

Whether or not i was the first one to coin it is unknown.

It was during the 404 days in the before 2010s.

So I don't know how the fuck you go and find that.

I don't know what you do there.

I'm going to listen to the 404 podcast from the beginning.

And I was going to find out how many problematic things that back of our say you had to say.

Maybe one worst thing you said in those 2000 episodes.

I'm positive black guys, black eyed peas on it.

And he told him to use that word.

It was his idea.

Um, so i but.

But here's the here's the, here's the the kicker.

I meant it actually muscle flexing, and i was the first person.

No, i don't know, there's no way to tell.

I know I did this.

So you're saying the first one would be like, oh, I just want to flex.

Yes.

Well, Jeff was very a big proponent into Kegels and stuff like that.

That's exactly right.

And about refrigerators?

No, I don't remember what I was talking about.

That's the joke, right?

So yes, great job.

Somebody told me that, or the kickstand on the switch, you get pity points for that.

You put your name on the fucking test, mazel tov.

Um, i'm trying to think, because somebody said this to me later on because i had forgotten about it.

So that's what I'm going off of.

Could be hearsay.

I'm going to stick with it.

It's also a dumb, meaningless thing, so who fucking cares?

But there you go.

Email or thing.

I'm impressed.

Well, you know.

This is so mean in chat, but it's funny to me.

MrXAKRebel says, it's sad that he actually believes this.

It's like like, obviously you don't know me at all yeah, but it's like now, oh man, that's very funny.

You don't know me, you don't fucking know me.

Everyone just mark your malos, alright.

Mark your malos.

Mark your malos five years from now when everyone's saying malo and flex.

You guys are so... Chat, you're so fucking dumb.

Oh my god.

Are you fucking kidding me?

Make up a word or a saying.

It's going to be great now.

When PUBG came out, I was definitely like, I want to coin some stuff.

And attachments for guns, I called them tachies.

And I tried to get that going.

And then someone else said Tachos.

And I was like, shit, Tachos is way better.

But I said I had to stick with Tachos.

And then years later, I was watching Will Smith play and they were still calling it Tachos.

And then they gave me credit for it.

And I was like, oh, that's nice.

Has Proggies broken containment yet?

Not yet.

We're working on it.

I've tried, Mikey.

I'm trying my darndest.

No one cares.

We have to keep doing it, though, because Dan doesn't like it.

So we have to keep doing it.

Then by all means, it has been greenlit to the moon.

How do you guys feel about calling something launch look?

That's a terrible name.

I love it.

I fucking love it.

Okay.

All right.

I'm so in on it now.

My position is whatever Mike wants.

Uh-huh.

Same.

Wow.

That's just like my dad.

Whatever mikey wants, i'll take that hybrid.

Thank you, mikey.

How do you feel about people because i do this to myself now uh, about people saying what a day for mikey's and my name isn't mike?

Yeah, it'll get you, they'll get you.

How did I get that?

Because there's a good chance I copied that from something.

I'm not original.

I don't know.

Nope, nope, nope.

That's not what happened.

Yeah, but even if you did, like, it's yours now.

You know how often I just start saying things that my friends used to say in high school out of nowhere.

Like, recently I've been saying...

God, I've been saying, I've been bringing back another one recently.

Oh, oh, Cool Beans Daddy-O, I've been saying, because one of my friends said it all the time.

You hate it back, Lar.

It's not the best.

Yeah, he said Cool Beans Daddy-O.

I can only follow you so far, Mike.

I like it every time you drop it.

That's a beatnik thing, right?

Yes.

Daddy-o.

Daddy-o, certainly.

I don't know if Cool Beans is.

Did the Beatniks get canceled?

No, I think they're just insufferable.

I don't like this.

I've always taken issue with the word Beatnik.

It doesn't make me feel good.

No?

Oh, you think it's coffee racist?

Coffee racist?

Coffee.

Oh, wait.

No.

Wait, did you not know what the word was?

I was like, I think he might be mishearing.

Did you not know what the word was?

No, I knew that.

For 10 seconds in my head, it was being a Nick.

Uh-oh.

This happens to me all the time.

He's using his headphones as an eye visor now.

As a shame cave.

You know what that means, folks.

Don't perceive me.

I'm cyclopsing right now.

Oh, I forgive you now, Mike.

You're cyclopsing things.

You can't look at me when I'm Geordie Laforging.

Yeah, you're Geordie Laforging.

That's the new hot new trend.

Where the beatniks cancel.

Oh boy guys.

I said daddy, i saw people check be like oof.

I'm like what did i do?

Now what happened?

They just thought it sucked mike, it's not deeper.

They just didn't like it, they just hate it.

They can't all be melos, all right, which i know you all love Mike, I like how much you love it.

I'm with you so far on the Malo train.

You can't say it anymore this episode.

I think...

I think Mike's doing a psyop to me of, like, trying to get me to stop always yes-anding him.

He's like, let's see how far you'll go with me, fucker.

I think no-butts are so much funnier than yes-ands.

Yes, yeah, no-button all the time.

No-button yes-ands.

So good.

What are we, Mormons?

All right okay, we have so many emails and we only read one.

Um oh, it's just okay.

What?

That can't be true.

Yes, it is.

It was about buzz balls and we got stuck on malos.

That's like i'm flex first.

Yeah yeah, who crossed out this awesome email from jeffrey michael from cleveland?

Did you write this?

Maybe.

Dear Giant Bomb, is the Guts video game bad?

There was a Guts video game.

There is a video game.

Yeah.

Is Mo in it?

Is it Super Nintendo?

It can't be good.

No.

It can't be good, right?

But how bad?

It can't be good.

Snapstruck did a video on it.

Was there any video game that had a Nickelodeon logo on it that was good?

No.

There's, like, a couple, like, of the cartoons that are, like, okay-ish.

I mean, I don't know.

Like a Rugrats game or something?

They always disappointed me.

Rugrats didn't really have a game until PS1, oddly.

The Rant Zippy games, not very good.

Rocko's Modern Life game was, like, one of those you have to follow the dog around and protect him.

It's a Lemmings-like, but with just one of them.

But that Doug extraction shooter.

The All Real Monsters romance novel.

God, the Porkchop build goes crazy.

Mr. Dick.

I mean Skeeter, please.

Yeah, you are a main screen, all right, all right.

Uh, we have a very involved email written by nathan from lake geneva, wisconsin.

Nathan writes in hey, bombers.

So i run a coctology bar out in wisconsin and was wondering if the planned road trip would take you out this way at any point.

While wondering this, I decided to come up with cocktails based on the personalities of the bomb crew.

This is fun.

Jerf.

I know how much you like a dirty martini, so I came up with a savory cocktail that also represents Jersey.

Sofrito fat-washed vodka.

Fat-washed?

Fat-washed.

Charred red bell pepper acid.

Chinar artichoke amaro.

Basil tincture.

Saline solution.

Holy shit.

Saline?

Is that?

What?

Isn't that like the salt you wash for contacts or whatever?

Wait, someone called me fat and washed?

No, no, it's like a type of vodka that goes through a process.

He's flexing on you.

Well, I don't.

Basil, thank you, emailer.

I'm doing a 180 on the vibes of this.

Basil, I despise basil, but thank you.

I'll drink this.

Do you not like pesto?

I'm like one of those weirdos.

The cilantro guys, right?

Yeah.

No cilantro, no celery, no basil.

I'm going to see a cilantro and celery, but I think my Italian genes protect me from basil.

I like basil.

Dan, I feel like you really love tiki-style cocktails, so I came up with a riff on a daiquiri using ingredients I think would surprise and delight.

Dark rum, Oloroso sherry, coconut cream, pineapple juice, tiki bitters, overproof rum float oh the sherry is an interesting aspect there yeah jan my man i would lean into your love of coffee with a riff on a revolver what i call the ocelot coffee infused fry whiskey that was aged in a chocolate bitters casks Coffee liqueur, Montenegro Amaro, orange bitters.

I want what you're drinking.

Now you guys can drink me instead of Minotti.

And we don't have to wait for you to die.

There we go.

But we could.

We're going to kill Chad and drink him.

You don't talk about cocktails much, so I'm not sure which way to lean in other than avoiding Italian flavors.

So I think a breakfast-themed cocktail, old-fashioned for you.

Bacon Fat-Washed Wild Turkey 101, maple syrup, brown butter tincture, cherry bark vanilla bitters.

Whoa.

That sounds like something I would never, ever, ever order.

It's just like candy.

Yeah, I typically like simple and bitter is usually my thing.

My coffee order is just a triple espresso these days.

I just want very, very simple.

I mean, I would try it, but yeah, that's a bit much.

And last but certainly not least, And Mikey, last but certainly not least, parentheses Bacalar.

What?

I don't know.

I came up with a cocktail that, despite what anyone else says, might be an acquired taste.

Haku Vodka.

Aperol.

Guava Aleo.

Lemon Juice.

Aquafaba Foam.

I call it Hakuna Matata.

Pause for spontaneous singing from Mikey.

You don't control me.

Much love.

Gang gang.

Nathan from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.

P.S.

Fun fact.

I once bought a round for Patrick Klepek and his wife shortly after they had their first child.

When they popped into a bar, I worked out.

Worked at way back when.

That's cool.

That's fine.

Hell yeah.

What's aquafaba foam?

Bean foam.

That's bean foam?

Yeah.

Yours sounds fun too, Mikey.

I would drink that shit.

Maybe a little too fun.

It's like two things screwed in them.

It's the guava that throws you off, isn't it?

It is the guava.

Aperol's fine.

It sounds like apple, but it's not.

You put any of this shit in a tiki mug and I'll be fine.

I mean, look, I appreciate the Italian Aperol in there for sure.

That's a good... Yeah, I put a tiki mug.

That's true.

I had a cocktail the other week.

This guy's using a lot of fun bitters, and I like that.

It had tobacco bitters in it, and it was actually really good.

Yeah, yeah.

It was kind of an interesting flavor in that.

Similar to tannins, where you get that smoky flavor.

Yeah.

A little mellow.

Tannin.

All right.

We got a bunch of emails.

Once again, thank you so much for writing in, everybody.

Last email of the show before we get to Grub Guesser.

Grub, reminder, record your screen, please.

Yep.

And to Super Chats.

Aether's Elixirs writes in, parentheses EV, what key items are in your inventory?

Which ones have you been dying to use to get it out of your inventory space?

Aether's Elixirs.

Those Visa gift cards.

Carl, what a perfect answer, Jan.

Because a lot of places look at you funny whenever you swipe a card now and those don't have tap to pay at all.

There's no real good way to transfer the balance to something.

So I have a $20 one that I got as a gift from an aunt burning a hole in my wallet.

I like that.

Yeah, what about you, Mikey?

What do you got?

I mean like the actual, like key items, like that we always have in our inventory and the way that Jill has like the lock pick or whatever is like.

I mean, you know wallets, the phone condoms, AirPods.

I thought about bringing up a lock condom and I'll, I'll, yeah, I won't go there.

Um, Gosh, cash in general almost kind of feels like that sometimes anymore.

Sure.

Like, great, I have this five.

What am I getting, you know?

Does anybody need $5 exactly?

Because I could really help you there if that's what you're looking for at the moment.

But otherwise, like, it really is just the essentials and... the wallet for the most part.

I do always have a rotation of Arby's coupons in the car.

And they give me a whole new sheet every time I go in there.

I always have one to use.

Is that a question there, Jan?

Yes, yes.

But I wanted you to finish first, Mike.

There's a lot on there, but I'm usually just using the one for the roast beef combo, maybe one for a beef and cheddar combo.

Sometimes there's a chicken select.

You get that select the chicken sandwich you want.

Every once in a while, if i'm like really feeling good and i think i deserve a special treat, i will use the coupon for a four-piece mozzarella stick.

Oh nice gang.

How do i use a paper coupon?

We just give it to them.

Well, what do you mean?

I mean, like where?

Like at the grocery store?

At a Subway?

A food establishment?

You just give it to them.

Give it to them when you pay.

Do I tell them at first I have a coupon?

I would just be like, hey, I brought a coupon.

And then watch them quickly judge whether or not you're still going to tip at the amount that it would be without the coupon.

Okay.

And then they'll walk away and you got to do that.

Cool.

I've always been too scared to ask. interesting i'm a little bit to save you're scared to save money i'm a little bit anti not anti-coupon you're right i'm whatever jan is i'm with you where it's like i don't want to be a hassle yeah yeah i'm just like i hate being a hassle and this i know look this is a this is a self-worth problem for sure i'm like i don't want to bother anybody i'm really trying to do i'm not worth it i'm trying to do the mental gymnastics of like occupying a position where you're like, you advertised to me to come to your business.

But not the person who I'm actually paying.

They don't care.

And that's why you tip on the original price.

Yes, you're right.

Grubb and I share the same brain on this because...

You know, you go to the Subway, you go to the BK McDonald's wherever, and they're in a certain flow of like just knocking out these transactions.

And how often do they handle a paper coupon that, like you present that to them and they're like oh fuck, how do I enter in this coupon to this POS.

And then I just I'll feel bad.

You guys are unlocking a new level of psychosis that I am unaware.

These are problems that we need to deal with.

We won't.

No.

This is why.

No one will ever be like, oh, Jan's weird.

Grub's weird.

It's like Mike's weird.

Mike just said he goes to Arby's.

He's weird.

This isn't weird.

Frequently we've said, I think both me and Jan have said, that we are secretly the weirdest ones.

Oh, keep getting away with it.

A hundred percent.

You got it all wrong.

It's because of Grub's boyish charm and my manic pixie energy.

No no, you guys, you guys no look, i let's talk through this just for a second here.

Okay, it's okay, i can't do it.

I can't do it.

Okay, to bring it look, especially if it's got like a barcode on it.

That's easy peasy.

They just stand that shit and you're moving on with the person who's fine person, person working, who's accepting the coupon is, is more than happy to do this for you.

They already look so sad though bacalar, can you give me an example?

You're not making their job worse.

I go to the taco bell and then like i have a coupon for a free taco and then okay, i already said you think I already said no, that I'm not using the mobile app.

I'm like, fuck, should I use the mobile app?

You think they're going to cry themselves to sleep over it?

What do you mean?

This is a minimum.

You didn't send something back.

You didn't give them an impossible order.

All you're doing is like, I've got coupon worth money.

That's it.

Listen, I know you're right.

I know you're right.

And yet my brain's just like, don't be a bother.

I know it's not, but I can't get my brain to stop being a piece of shit about this stuff to myself.

This weekend, it was Daddy Dylan weekend.

Stacey was away.

We go out for dinner.

A nice dinner.

It's like the first, like, oh, we're kind of like boys night out a little bit, right?

Sloppy Steaks.

He goes, this place is too nice for Sloppy Steaks.

Gentlemen, please, no Sloppy Steaks.

And, you know, we're finishing up, and I let him splurge.

I let him have a sody.

Oh, shit.

Oh, yeah.

Sugar?

Yeah, it was a Coca-Cola, raw.

Marlboro Reds.

The Marlboro Reds of sodas.

Marlboro.

The Marlboro Reds of sodas.

So we get the check and the waitress goes, oh, I forgot to put his Coke on there.

And I'm like, don't worry, I won't tell anyone, right?

She laughed, but i think she meant to say, like you better fucking tip me, like i did, and i think that's what she meant.

Now, how much could a coke be?

20 cents for the coke, that's what i'm saying, right?

So like i kind of just didn't, you know, do the whole thing.

That's just like a knee-jerk reaction right, like you're saving money, but That doesn't mean I'm getting less money which, of course, yeah.

And I said to myself don't worry, I always tip on top of taxes, which is the way you're not supposed to do it.

No, yeah, but I do.

You're so generous.

Yeah well, you know, that's what they call me.

I'm flexing left and right.

Yeah, i got sick with my dad too.

Yeah, i got sick with my dad.

And my steak came out and i thought it looked a lot like ohio.

And i was so excited, like the sir put down, i was like i turned it looked like look at this seemed like i was a pet, but i was like doesn't this look like ohio?

Yeah, wait what?

Yeah, you had meat that was shaped.

I'll show you.

I'll show you it was it was.

It was shaped like ohio.

I took a picture of this.

That kind of tracks like ohio is a meat ass looking.

It's meat shaped already.

It's a meat shaped state right there, meat shaped state.

Yeah yeah uh, I don't know.

It was really good, though.

It had a brandy au poivre sauce.

A filet?

I feel like Ohio was a filet steak.

Yeah, it was a filet.

So the medallion got kind of smooshed around a bit and kind of looked...

Before we get to GrubGaster, y'all fuck with chops?

Y'all fuck with lamb chops at all?

Hell yeah.

No, I'm not a lamb guy.

I did in the past.

I've not had it in a minute, though.

Lamb?

Hell yeah.

What about some Oisties Rockefeller?

If the whole table's getting them, I'll do it.

I don't seek them out myself.

Okay, okay.

But I'll indulge, for sure.

Had some lamb chops, you know, split a plate.

I'm like, ooh.

Underwear.

Where'd you go?

I'll do it.

I skittered off to do some wine tasting on Sunday.

Oh, you fancy lad.

Oh, yeah.

What does that look like?

Sorry.

Sorry, Jim.

Go ahead.

Oh, no, no.

The last thing I was going to say is it turns out you can have too much wine sometimes.

No.

Oh, my God.

Wine is the weed of alcohol.

That looks like Ohio.

Um yeah, why i i?

Why i?

You know the problem with wine, jan.

It's so sugary too that you're like you get like a double hangover from like a sugar overload and the alcohol.

So, you know, i feel like i get uh, profiled all the time and not in the ways that i normally get profiled.

But um, These wine tasting people are like Yeah, because they're like oh, you're going to turn all red.

Is that what they say, Jan?

That you're going to turn red?

No, I only turn red from Mike Minotti's jokes.

You forgot to say the thing out loud.

Yeah, he helped you out there.

There's no such thing as subtext with Mikey.

Where they'll be like, you look like a dry type of guy.

You want the driest type of wine.

You don't want any sweet.

I feel some bitterness in you.

I'm like, okay, cool.

Thanks.

Great.

Lovely.

Anyway, that does it for emails.

Bombcastgiantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to.

Just to be clear, well, I'm sorry, one more thing.

When Dylan got his filet, the waitress said, how would you like to cook?

And without skipping a beat, he said, medium, please.

Oh, how strange.

Just for the class to know.

Just more of a man than Dan Riker will ever be.

I was thinking Ben Hanson, but yeah.

Oh, well, yeah, man, the two of them.

It's a catch-all.

Yeah.

Jesus Christ.

We're done with emails.

So you know what time it is.

Jeff Grubb.

What time is it?

Welcome to grub guesser.

This is the podcast within the podcast where i take an old video game uh, or video game related magazine ad and i show it to you, mostly out of context, and i ask you guys to guess what it is, what the product is.

It's actually advertising.

I have two for you today because, again, I think this first one could be pretty easy, but who knows?

It's always hard to judge these things.

So for audio listeners the copy here is Get Shafted for the Last Time and there's like a lightning globe for the O in four, like for the last time.

And then the background is a shaft.

What game is this advertising?

Oh, I think it's Descent.

Descent?

It's Descent!

Wow!

What hole in one straight down the shaft.

That's mike, i recognize the orb.

I recognize that the set orb.

I was wondering if the orb would just give it away.

Yeah, i was.

So i'm glad you got that one pretty quickly, because this other one is uh kind of dumb.

And what we got here, let me just get this.

Wait, what is this send?

What i don't know.

I don't think i've ever played that.

Let me send you the other thing here.

The set was like an early 3D shooter.

It was a PC thing.

It was the one that had the 360 degrees of movement, so you were flying around everywhere and people would get sick.

Oh, I know this.

So if you unfold this ad uh, it folds out into this right here.

And jan, i'm sorry i didn't get anything in stream elements.

If you want to pop it in there for people and show it to them, i got it.

I got it.

I see this now.

I'm sorry that that lightning globe does ring a bell.

Yeah, maximum.

Yeah, the dave matthews band logo is like in there a little bit too for logos.

I don't know why.

Take the final plunge at full throttle.

All right, Interplay.

Get shafted.

Very nice.

All right, here is... Is that the same freaking thing, dude?

So, okay.

For audio listeners, the...

Fish eye lens is back.

It's pointing at another just random high adolescent white kid.

Yes.

Uh, and he's doing the same exact sort of cock in his head at the camera and he's looking right at it.

And then there's some copy here that says uh, You no longer have to play these games in dark dingy, smelly arcades.

You can play them in your dark, dingy, smelly room.

And I've blocked out everything that might tell you more about this.

What is this advertising?

Pinball?

No, how dare you sir, pinball dingy, i?

I just think of the bars that i've seen pinball at.

It's a pinball related, jeff.

There's no way.

Please say no.

This is not pinball related.

Thank god, we almost had a flex moment.

All right, i think, using the context clues I think this is another peripheral, because you're not that was somehow exclusive to an arcade, but now available.

Ooh, is it like a steering wheel?

That's what I'm thinking.

Some sort of wheel, maybe a gun, maybe a... Is it a gun?

This is a gun.

A gun!

Good job.

Jeez.

Well, it's not right.

It's too late to be the zapper, right?

It is not the Zapper.

Is it the Menacer?

It is not the Menacer.

I have no reference for names of gun peripherals.

Is it Super Scope?

It is not Super Scope.

Gotta be the Gun Con, baby!

What was the gun that?

Okay, here we go.

It is not the gun con wow, but those are the three.

I knew the names.

Uh we uh you, so so it is.

It's uh, advertising a suite of games that will work with it.

Uh, you guys want to try guessing some of the games?

Or the publisher?

All these things will help you narrow it down.

Is it midway?

It is not Midway.

Namco?

It is not Namco.

That'd be GunCon.

Gun games?

Oh, who did Area 51?

That was Midway, I think.

Sega?

Was it Konami?

Konami.

It is not Sega.

It is Konami.

Oh, Lethal Enforcer and shit like that.

Silent Scope?

Lethal Enforcers 1 and 2 are two of the three games on this page.

If you guys don't get this third one, that'll be fine.

The gun is The Justifier is what it's called.

The Justifier.

I didn't know that name.

Didn't know that name.

It's for PlayStation and Saturn.

There's versions for both.

But I mean, do you guys want to try to guess the other game here?

It's a little bit under the radar, but it is one that people who play light gun games will know.

Silent Scope?

Not Silent Scope.

What was the game?

Police something.

So it's kind of like, I'll say it's a bit of a House of the Dead equivalent.

Ah, yes.

Lethal Enforcer.

Wait, wait, wait.

Corpse Killer?

No.

Corpse Killer.

It is not Corpse Killer because it's Crypt Killer.

You just got the word wrong there.

Crypt Killer.

Let me show it to you guys.

Listeners, I misspoke.

Area 51 was Midway.

It was not Konami.

I thought it was Konami and backed into the right answer.

They just love using this kid and this angle to sell peripherals.

People don't realize, what year is this?

This has got to be like 96.

Only fish eyes.

That's it.

We are only fisheye lenses, as you can see from every skateboarding video, right?

Yep.

I think I rented the Justifier with Lethal Enforcer one time, actually.

I think I do recall doing that, yeah.

I don't, I've never seen this gun before.

I don't know.

Yeah, it is not mine.

There's the issue.

It's from, we did this one before and a couple of more good ones in there.

So that was grub guesser.

I was thinking one that looked more like a, like an Uzi.

Uh, that's, that would probably be the gun con maybe or Uzi.

I don't know.

A lot of these went away for a while after you know what happened in the late 90s.

Yes.

Which one?

Columbine.

The blowjob in the White House.

Oh, it's funny.

At the winery I was at, they had a different bottle for every year.

That a That happened since the winery opened.

So it went all the way back to the 30s.

And every year they'd be like, oh, here's this thing that happened.

Here's this thing that happened.

The last president they mentioned was Bill Clinton.

No other president afterwards.

Maybe this is a bad game.

Yeah.

Like I ran into 2001.

I'm like, OK, that's what you're going to put there.

All right.

Ran until like 2016.

I'm like, oh, okay, okay, okay.

Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Thanks for playing Grubcaster, guys.

That was great, Grub.

Good job.

Thank you.

Thank you for playing.

You guys did great.

Last part of the show.

Mike Minotti, please hit me with some YouTube superchats if we have any.

All right.

We have a bunch here, so thank you, everybody.

Burrito says Bomb Crew can Grub share.

Which year slash model of Prius?

He has attempted to buy the Prius as well, but need external validation.

Thanks beep.

Yeah, it was uh the 2013.

Uh, there's the, you know, there's the C and the V and then there's the standard Prius, it's that.

And then there's like a.

The trim level was three, I believe.

It goes up to five, maybe more um, And it's great.

It's been fantastic.

We bought it new.

We did the service plan.

So we got it serviced whenever you're supposed to.

I think that was a big part of it.

Also, it's a Toyota.

And it just has had zero problems, knock on wood.

Zero problems ever.

It's been the most reliable vehicle by far.

Good old pre-pre.

Yep.

Make it, man.

Yeah.

Migsy says, and Stan Riker is a creative officer.

I want to clarify he's chief content officer.

What positions are everyone in?

I just thought you guys are a joint five-headed Hydra boss.

Will and Chuck are the minions.

I mean, we have titles, which sometimes are relevant to what we're actually doing.

Sometimes we just game ourselves.

Like, I'm chief product officer.

Okay, I remember everybody's.

Bacalar is CEO.

Jeff Grubb is president.

And, John, are you operating officer?

COO?

Because I'm... Who?

There we go.

Yes.

I got it.

Did I get everybody's?

Yeah, I think that's right.

Have a look at me.

Migsie says, Jeff Grubb, Perfect Weapon tomorrow with Mike Minotti and Gianna Ochoa.

Gianna's not going to be able to join for Delight Club or Blight Club.

Probably not that.

I forgot that we already talked about maybe doing Time Gal on Delight Club, just to play a good game that's somewhat adjacent to Space Ace.

Uh, then there's the idea of the mind's eye stuff.

So I don't know.

We'll do something.

Probably not perfect weapon.

Maybe I was going to say, should we do a premium poll?

Yeah, well, that's not a bad idea.

Maybe we can have them help us to pick between Time Gal and the other thing.

But Perfect Weapon we'll leave out.

Perfect Weapon is just like we've already played it in a short burst on that marathon stream.

When I return to Perfect Weapon and I will I want to play it for a long period of time and really put a dent into it so that we can get to the point where we can see that game through to the end at some point.

Kononeku-san says, Yellow King is a metaphor, but was it re-fantasioed?

Oh man, thankfully it wasn't re-fantasioed.

Don't worry, everybody.

He's not here, and I love Dan.

I will say one of my least favorite Dan moments ever was his complaining about the intro to Metaphor Fantasio, asking if something's a metaphor or whatever, and him thinking that was the most atrocious thing he had ever seen.

We don't need to get into it.

Big Z says, will you guys do a quick look of Samson?

I mean, probably not.

I feel like the moment's passed for that one.

Whatever interest people had in it has already kind of fizzled out.

I'm still curious, but probably not enough to be able to take time away from other stuff.

UPF, if anything.

Yeah, that's a good idea.

Are they, like, working on that game?

Because I know it was kind of a little rough when it came out.

Yeah, because it's coming to consoles and stuff, and yeah, that's the plan.

Digital Bobby says, it's half cash, half stock grub.

Yes, that's what we said.

Oh, the eBay.

Yeah, that's what we said.

Blame it.

Awesome.

Says Death Star to Kevin's back.

Jack.

Hell yeah.

That's good.

I'm all one seven.

Oh, three, two.

Sometimes I don't say the numbers, but if their name's short, I feel like I can give them the numbers.

Uh, hi, tutors.

Does Jan still keep up with any gotcha games?

If yes, is he planning on checking out nte neverness to everness, which released last week, and maybe doing a quick look, despite everyone thinking that i have a gambling problem?

They're right, but i have to uh, you know, wean myself off and i cannot.

I i purposely do not let myself participate in too many gacha games, Macy says.

Mike Minotti, how was Jeff Grubb before he became family friendly?

Oh, he was already pretty chill by the time I met him.

I think I missed out on your scumbag era.

Right, Grubb?

Oh, yeah, for sure.

Yes, 100%.

Like, I'm 42.

Scumbag era was a long time ago, guys.

Yeah.

Big Frustrated Sam says, don't know if you guys check in on... I'm 43.

I'm sorry, I got my age wrong.

Oh, fuck, that sucks.

Jeff, you forgot your birthday again.

That's bad.

Big Frustrated says don't know if you guys check in on Xbox full screen experience, but it's had big updates recently.

After my initial setup, I haven't needed to go back to desktop in weeks.

Cool.

I haven't checked that out.

I haven't really used anything but my Switch 2 for portable gaming in a long time.

I got to boot that thing back up again.

Okay.

Good to know.

Painbus says, Jan, have you played the Pokemon ROM hack called Unbound?

If not, I cannot recommend it enough.

Great fan-made game for Pokemon lovers.

A lot of people have brought this up, especially during Pokemon Monday Night Combat, to check out one of these Pokemon ROMs.

And a lot of them have been streamlined and there's a lot of love and a lot of work put into them.

Just very intimidating to get into and select which one.

Also, I've been wanting to make the crew go on a Nuzlocke run for the longest time, but time is just such an issue.

I would love to do a whole, like, challenge run series.

I think when we first talked about Nuzlocke 2, I think, like, Kind of funny was doing one.

And not that we can't do something kind of funny.

They were doing a really cool one.

They were freaking hacking themselves into the game.

Andy was doing some original art.

I was like, I don't know.

I don't know. this, but I could do a, a gritty down to earth, giant bomb style.

Nuzlocke runs some time, right?

You know what I mean?

It'd be a fun premium thing to do.

Maybe we do kind of like uh, Sean and I coaching someone piloting, and then uh Yeah, we can figure it out.

And Mike, thank you for keeping the disdain out of your voice when talking about fan ROMs.

I appreciate that.

I want you to know that when I was having trouble with KOTOR 2, I immediately blamed the couple of mods I had installed for it.

Of course.

It turns out it was just the game.

Zombie porn says, did Jan talk about gamble with your friends?

No, but that's another UPF game to possibly play.

Oh, good idea.

Yeah.

And Cube says, what's a better third person shooter to get right now?

Saros or Pragmata, pragmata.

For me, pragmata yeah, i definitely was, as i was playing sorrows at a certain point was like man, i wish i could go play pragmata instead.

Yeah, you haven't really been able to play a ton of it since you started because you've been busy.

Because of Soros.

Yeah, so now that I'm done with that, and I got other games.

Like I said, I'm playing Forza Horizon 6 now, which is great, but I'm going to make time to finish Pragmata here in the next week or so.

What, Pragmata?

Every time I see a bunch of Waymos lined up together, Diana's hacking grid pops up in my head.

Nice.

And they open.

Yeah.

You have to shoot their weak points.

Josh Valentini says, hey, dooders, can't stay long.

I just wanted to say I went on a date yesterday.

It went great.

Love you all.

Happy to hear that Josh, that's awesome.

Hell yeah uh, kitty cat, don't don't introduce them to us yet.

All right no no, not yet.

Yeah, that is a date for move.

Kitty cat man says super excited about the beta hat partnership.

Now's my chance to make a difference and speak out against the scourge of metroidvanias and roguelikes.

Oh no, Sigh out.

Never mind.

Cancel that person's account.

That's a sigh out.

A brown spot says, fun fact.

He started watching Giant Bomb from Independence Day on.

Grub has only really been bladed once and he liked it.

There's Trespasser and Grub Kohl's.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Grub's face says it all.

He's just been found out.

Oh, yeah.

Look at his face. there was a time where I was definitely being mistreated on that show.

It has changed so much that I'm like, Oh, that's just like the way the dice was rolling.

And obviously I'm rolling all sixes right now.

So, or whatever the good role is.

I think it's funny because I think everyone finally felt remorse for subjecting you to the games you played grub.

That's like, Oh, let's give Grubb something fun.

But I don't think the same grace is going to be given to Dan even after Space Ace.

No, this is what he's earned for sure.

It would only be like me and Mike do not have that desire to always escalate.

And so we're just going to try to go back to normal.

And Dan does seem like in this moment he's learned his lesson.

We'll see how long that lasts.

Right.

Like I do wonder if the next time I say Dad, if you don't start behaving, I'm going to pull a ripcord.

If that, like, means more to him this time.

Yeah.

I will be very curious.

JD Kip says, can Bacalar snack review Wonder Bread?

Pretty good snack.

It's fucked up.

You seem pretty insulted, Bacalar.

Wait, what?

Wonder Bread?

They want to test that alarm for Wonder Bread.

I'm not going to lie, Chatter.

That seems racially fucking charged there, dude.

Oh.

Oh, should I just drink some mayonnaise through a straw?

Yeah, you want me to drink a fucking gallon of whole milk while I'm doing it, too?

How do I present to you?

What is this?

I guess it's incredibly white.

Wonder bread?

As if.

Oh, my God.

Who eats white-ass wonder bread?

I did as a kid.

Who has that?

A snack?

I did it as a kid.

As a child?

Yes, of course.

When I became an adult, I put away childish things.

Nah.

Mikey, you're still walking?

What?

Why?

I still get the white bread with the Italian flag coloring on it.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's basically just Wonder Bread, but they're like, this is fancy in Italian.

I'm like, no, you're not.

Do you guys get Shwaybles, or is that a local thing?

Is that a local thing?

I don't know what you just said, motherfucker.

I get Shwaybles.

Shwaybles?

Shwaybles.

Mike Minotti, are you trying to bring Schwifty back?

No, Schwaples.

They have like a clown on the cover and it's a yellow bag and they just make white bread.

What's the white bread here?

So I am absolutely living my best snack life.

And I don't snack on anything like white, but the most white bread adjacent thing that I snack on.

So I do love...

Italian sesame breadsticks.

Oh, baby.

There's a bunch of obviously Italian delis near me and they all make their own in-house breadsticks.

Just give me that and a tub of butter and I am living.

Yeah.

Okay.

Are you doing those thin slice Dave's Killer Bread things anymore?

Steph still gets them.

What were those?

They're just like really thin.

They say it's like better for you, mostly because it's cut so thin and there's extra seed.

That's high in protein and high in fiber and stuff like that.

I'm doing the carb smart tortillas is what I'm going with.

Good choice.

Those taste real bad.

But yeah yeah mike, you're like, i mean, you love bread, right like i love, i love bread, just fresh italian bread.

Give me that all day, give me that roll.

I will say i love bread, but like it is more of a, i'm at a restaurant, i'm gonna have nice bread.

I don't really buy nice bread for her, especially living alone like yeah, all bread is going to feel bad before i can finish it, Throw it in the freezer.

You'll be fine.

Treat yourself to this bread.

I don't know why I don't want to freeze my bread.

I know.

That's the move.

Freeze your bread and you can bake it and it's as good as new.

Yes, Divorce Cougar.

I frequently visit Uncle Giuseppe's.

Thank you.

Yeah, what is this?

What is he talking about here?

Uncle Giuseppe's is like, what if the local Italian market became a Costco?

And it's just like Mike.

Next time you're out here, I promise you we're going to go there and you are going to fall to your knees.

Oh, I'm sure.

You're going to fall to your knees and tears will invade your ocular cavity.

Can we get focaccia?

Oh, you can't say that.

Come, buddy.

I've got focaccia me up.

Dude, it will blow your mind.

You will start looking at real estate listings.

Are we a Focaccia Pro website?

We better be.

I'll leave.

What?

I don't know.

Watch that tongue.

It's just, it's just bread with soda and olive oil and shit.

I love it.

I'm joking.

Yes, it's fantastic.

That's a great, that's a great snack.

Uh, Bacalar, you'd, you'd love this.

Uh, I don't know who I'm becoming.

Because now I think I can discern between good and bad olives.

Shit.

Yeah, you're becoming a grown adult is what it sounds like.

I bought a jar of blue cheese olives and I'm like these aren't as good as the other blue cheese olives.

You need to be able to discern.

Olives are not equal.

All olives are not equal.

You gotta be careful out there.

It's rough out there.

Alright, let's move along.

We've got a few here.

This has been a long show.

Yeah.

Big, fresh three sentences.

Surprise!

New hard co-op mode added to Infinite.

I assume Halo Infinite?

What?

What other Infinites are there?

Disney?

Yeah.

There's a Call of Duty Infinite Warfare.

Bioshock Infinite?

Was Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite?

Yeah, but I bet they don't mean that.

I bet they don't mean that either, but I'm trying to think of all the infinites.

Right.

That's weird.

Next up is from Andrew Panton.

It says, I just got Whoopi Goldberg's Game Boy and copy of Super Mario Bros.

Deluxe.

If you could have any celebrity save file, who would it be?

And for what game?

Nick Cage's Minecraft would be my number one.

This is a great fucking question.

That's Andrew Patton.

Holy shit.

Shouts out to the gang at Regulation Pod.

I don't know what we're supposed to do with Canadian dollars, but that's neither here nor there.

Sylvester Stallone's save for the cliffhanger game on Super Nintendo.

That's what I want.

I just want to see how far he got into that game.

I bet it's just the first level.

I would get Robin Williams' Legend of Zelda.

Oh, that's actually really sweet.

That would be amazing.

Steal it from his daughter, Zelda?

Absolutely.

Oh, yeah, that'd be great.

You think Michael Jackson had a power glove?

Probably, actually.

I don't know if I want anything Michael Jackson.

I thought about it some more.

Has anybody seen that movie?

I have not.

Dylan, you're playing Uncharted now.

Nice.

Oh, really?

Okay, let's game, guys.

Yeah, your weird not internet uncles decided it was okay.

Yeah.

Go for it.

What design would you play?

All right.

I think we got good answers there.

Migsy says, Mike Minotti, Jeff Bacalar.

Is president a higher position than president?

Uh owner, like it's.

So all equal ownerships.

Although yeah look, some of these titles are like ceo and president are just better titles.

It's okay, we gave the jeffs a little extra love, a little extra uh, kiss on the cheek, but they're fancy titles.

And also because you know they did The lion's share of the work yeah,

My opinion was always, these are all made up.

So it's like, I'm going to make it up.

I'm going to go big or go home.

Can you change yours to either Super President or President Plus?

Right, President of Super Giant Bomb, like President of Super Earth and Helldivers 2.

Sure, I'll do that.

Next up is zombie porn.

Did Jan order hot dogs while at the vineyard?

No.

There was no hot dogs, but there were other cured meats over there.

No hot dogs in Napa, unfortunately.

No dogs in Napa?

No.

Does Martha's Vineyard know about hot dogs?

No.

No way.

A big fresh racer says, I can't play much Forza.

I find myself driving aggressively in real life after playing a bunch of Horizon.

That ever happen to you?

No.

No, I'm a fucking adult.

What do you mean?

Yeah, big press.

No.

When I wasn't, though and I definitely got out of a Fast and Furious movie I was like I'm driving a little bit faster.

And I was like, I'm going 85.

I'm definitely going way too fast.

So when I was a child, I definitely was childish about it.

But no, that wouldn't happen today.

I have a minivan.

Christian.

Argentina says, thoughts on Zest's final form, and do you like Sieg as the final bad guy?

Is this about one of his fucking super sentai bug man shows?

Tokimeki Memorial, whatever it is he watches?

Yeah.

I have no idea.

Someone in chat is going to help me.

It's Kamen Rider.

The Power Rangers motorcycle guy.

Yeah, it's Kamen Rider.

I should have known that maybe.

Kamen Rider.

Don't you know what I mean?

I'm at Shipman, live on your TV.

Tom Morales says I had a New Year's resolution to read more this year and just finished my sixth book.

Let's go.

This one last year.

Any recommendations for my seventh book?

Uh, um yeah, go for it mike, if you're still, if you enjoyed everything going on for artemis and you want to learn about apollo 8, which was the uh nasa mission that First circled the moon like Artemis just did.

There's a great book called Rocket Men all about that that I enjoy quite a lot.

Same author did one about deep sea diving.

That was really awesome.

And like what the people discovering the mixtures that they could do to actually go underwater and not get the bins.

And they're like well, we were doing it anyhow and it kind of sucked, but now we're going to do it and be able to actually go down there and not have terrible pains afterwards.

Uh, that, that was a really good read.

Uh, if you like Haruki Murakami at all, I suggest you check out his semi autobiography.

Uh, what I talk about when I talk about running, uh, it's a quick memoir.

We goes into his head space when he uh thinks about ultra marathons and how that applies to his writing style.

Interesting.

Right.

There you go.

So whichever one of us you like more, read their book and then report back.

Read the Bible.

Or don't.

Twice.

Start from the Old New Testament to Old.

Make sure you get vengeful, angry, kill your children God as the last taste in your mouth.

That's the machete order.

Hungry Purple Dino says are only hot dogs proper included in the total, or can I count spaghetti or breakfast hot dogs?

Hot dogs proper.

I think it's got to be proper.

I want some bun action.

If you're cutting up the hot dogs into the spaghetti, then no.

It's got to be.

No.

Not that spaghetti shit.

What the hell is a breakfast hot dog?

A hot dog at 8 a.m.?

Yeah, I don't know.

I'm going to Google it, but I don't think that's going to answer it.

If you've got hot dogs in your eggs or something, then no.

In my game on Sunday, somebody double-stacked the hot dog.

Let's go.

They put two wieners in one bun.

Damn, impressive, man.

Mike Minotti, do you think a Ronto wrap counts as a hot dog?

Is it a pita?

That is so close.

I don't think so.

I don't consider a brat a hot dog, honestly, so no.

Okay, okay.

I don't think so.

Shouldn't have said that.

Man, the eggs on these breakfast hot dogs look so good.

Jesus.

All right.

I'm hungry.

Okay.

I got to eat.

Let's go.

Please.

Any other super chats, Mike?

That is it, actually.

Thank you so much, everybody.

Appreciate it.

Wow.

That was a lot.

Thank you so much, everyone.

We deeply appreciate it.

Uh, boys, what do we got going on the rest of this week?

No Blake club this week.

Uh, instead we're doing more.

We just did a three hour podcast.

I know.

That's the rest of the week.

Uh, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday game.

This morning's popping off, right?

Grub.

That's right.

We'll talk about apparently Build-A-Rocket-Boy laying off the rest of their workers, or most of their workers.

What just happened?

Jeez, but they just exposed all the saboteurs.

Yeah, I know.

It looks like it's still raining shit over there.

We'll talk about that and more rest of the week.

Okay.

Um, Pokemon day night combat is back on Wednesday.

So Sean and I will fight you at home.

Uh, the community tomorrow morning, right after game as mornings.

Like we've mentioned, we will have a D-Lite Club.

The topic is still up in the air.

Voicemail Dump Truck on Thursday.

And then on Friday, we have Unprofessional Fridays.

We'll probably run a grab bag.

We got a bunch of ideas popping off.

Battlefront 2, perhaps.

Maybe Gamble With My Friends.

A bunch of different options.

And check out that Far, Far West game that some people have been playing, too.

We'll see.

And then, for all the premium people out there, we got a new episode of Nine Lives of Mr Mustafa Fleas coming out right after this.

And as well as the return of Marami Tomodachi, the Internet's hottest gaming dating show ever.

We'll see you on Thursday.

Boys, did I forget anything?

No, we're good.

No, I'm excited.

We had a week off from Marry Me to Adopt You, so excited to get back in there.

Maybe I'll become an adult again.

In the game?

No.

I'm sorry, Mikey.

I can't be mean to you.

Uh, I also apologize for that.

Uh, blue sky post yesterday where I said you were late for the meeting.

Uh, that was rude of me.

We, I was not late.

I was just, yeah, you change it on me.

And the last one would just tell me that the steak looks like Ohio and everything will be forgiven.

The steak looks like Ohio.

And folks, if you missed it at the tippy top of the show, Go check out beta hat.

Giant bomb dot com, slash beta hat.

Get paid to talk about video games.

Give your input.

You are an expert audience out there.

So we trust y'all to help shape and craft. with our friends over at Beta Hat.

And gang, I think that about does it.

That's the end of the show.

He's been Jeff.

He's been Mike.

I've been Jan.

Shouts out to Chuck.

Shouts out to Will.

Especially big shouts out to Turbo Shop for cutting up the ones and twos.

We'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant Bobcast.

Until then, goodbye.

Goodbye.

All right, before we get back to the show, we want to take a minute to talk about something that, like a good character build, gives you some solid options.

I'm always here for options.

Are we talking like multi-classing, little stealth, little strength?

I see where you're going with this, and I think it fits.

The Kia K4 family is all about getting the best of both worlds.

The K4 family features sleek and sporty designs.

So, whether you're more into something that looks refined or something that leans practical, there's a style that fits.

And both models come with an available 1.6 liter turbo engine, which...

Look, I may not be a car expert, but turbo definitely sounds like it belongs in a racing game.

The point is you've got performance when you want it. and comfort when you need it.

If you're looking at the K4 hatchback, one of the big things is spacious cargo room, which is great if you're hauling gear, groceries or a suspiciously large number of collector's editions.

Forget about all that.

What if you're transporting a massive CRT because you insist that old fighting games only feel right on one?

That's very on point.

And the hatchback also has a panoramic display across the dashboard which kind of looks like a sci-fi cockpit.

Meanwhile, the K4 sedan leans into a sophisticated look, and it also offers roomy legroom, which is great for longer drives.

Especially if you're heading to a convention visiting friends or doing a late night snack run after a marathon gaming session.

So yeah, with the K4 family, you can really get the best of both worlds.

If you want to check it out and spec out your real world loadout, visit Kia.com to learn more.

Find the vacation you're looking for in Missouri.

Whether you're searching for this, wanting something like this.

Oh, that's cute.

Maybe up for something like this.

Or just really, really need something more like this.

You'll find the vacation you want in Missouri.

Missouri, it's the getaway that gets you.

Plan your fun at visitmo.com.

Find the perfect Mother's Day gift at your local Pandora store or online at pandora.net.

[巨弹播客第 939 期：Beta Hat 玩家调研合作、游戏业界新闻风暴与社区互动]-[Giant Bombcast 939: Meat Shaped State]

📋 Summary

巨弹播客深度总结：赋能玩家声音与业界风云变幻

Beta Hat：连接玩家与开发者的“极客信标”

业界新闻：GameStop 的疯狂收购与 GTA 6 的压力测试

游戏评测与社区文化：从 Roguelike 到怀旧情结

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[巨弹播客第 939 期：Beta Hat 玩家调研合作、游戏业界新闻风暴与社区互动]-[Giant Bombcast 939: Meat Shaped State]

📋 Summary

巨弹播客深度总结：赋能玩家声音与业界风云变幻

Beta Hat：连接玩家与开发者的“极客信标”

业界新闻：GameStop 的疯狂收购与 GTA 6 的压力测试

游戏评测与社区文化：从 Roguelike 到怀旧情结

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