913: Brisqué Joke | Giant Bombcast

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Hey everybody, it's Tuesday.

Welcome to Giant Bombcast episode 930.

I am your host today, Mike Minnati, and joining me is a cast of the...

Scariest games media people out there, including, no, that's not a leather face.

That's just his normal face.

It's the Ohio Grub Saw Massacre co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.

I have a, I have a normal human face.

I swear.

I saw a house get TP'd this morning and I thought that was, I'm glad we still do that.

Good job kids.

And of course, he has to be associated with Jason Voorhees because he wears a hockey mask.

That's where I went.

Baccalaureate the 13th.

Jeff Bacalar!

That's right.

There have been 12 before me.

I am the 13th Bacalar.

What's up, Mike Minotti?

It's good to see your smiling face.

It's good to be here.

It's good to be awake.

You don't want to fall asleep because that's when Dan Reichert will get you, everybody.

And we all remember the name of that movie.

Nightmare on Dan Street.

Dan Reichert.

I feel like I'm failing here.

I've never seen any Nightmare on Elm Street, and I've never TP'd a house.

And I feel like, personally, I really should have TP'd out.

I think my fear of getting in trouble probably... Yeah, you're a cop.

Yeah, I like causing trouble that I can't get in trouble for.

You know what I mean?

I abide by the law.

I'm a scamp.

I'm not a criminal.

You're a narc.

Sure.

What's Michael Myers' deal?

Anyways, I haven't seen those movies.

He's got a weird white face and a knife.

You know what that mask is, right?

It's a Shatner mask.

It's a Shatner from Star Trek and they just like dyed it or bleached it or something.

Now hang on, Grub.

I'm curious to see if Mike is implying that I have a weird white face and a knife here.

Oh, was he introducing you with that?

That's weird.

That's a weird thing to say about a co-worker.

Yeah, and he'll suck your blood.

It's count turbo shot, sean mcdowell.

You see i wasn't gonna give you shit if you didn't like read the intro, as i have a highlight emboldened.

But i swear to god mike, if you miss a single thing on there, i am just gonna roast you for the rest of the week.

Oh, look at this.

There's stuff on here.

I didn't open up this doc.

There it is.

There's an energy from Mike today that feels like he just had nitrous earlier in the day.

Yeah, like some sort of head injury.

How long ago did you wake up?

I woke up at 11, of course, and actually felt pretty good for once, which is shocking to them.

Yeah, I actually felt relatively rested.

What time do you go to bed?

I fell asleep at about 3 or 4, probably.

PM?

Well, I can relate.

Yeah, so I feel pretty good.

Look, look, I got nothing to do.

Look, you guys need me at noon today, and here I am, right?

Look, no complaints.

We can't say anything.

You seem seemingly all right.

Greg Miller, no one's got anything on Mr. Up at Noon, Mike Minotti.

Holy shit.

I have a feeling Miller's not getting up at noon anymore, I think.

Miller's getting up a little earlier, yeah.

That's what I'm saying.

Nothing, nothing important happens in the morning.

I don't need to be awake for any of that, that's for sure.

That's just true, and i got you know i had so much pokemans to play too every night.

It's always something i want to play on my switch for, not just, like you know, cute little 30 minutes before i fall asleep, but for hours, And I just do it.

I just sit there in bed, and I just keep playing.

Then you look up, and it's 5 a.m.

You're like, that's okay.

I'll just get up an hour before whatever.

I got to do a giant bomb, and it's okay.

It works out.

If it's going to be hours of gameplay, why are you doing it in bed instead of on a comfortable couch where you're sitting properly?

Oh, bed's way more comfortable.

Bed's super comfy, dude.

Oh, I never play games in bed.

Absolutely not.

I think these days...

Probably 80% of my gaming happens in bed, actually, in general.

That's a crazy number now, actually.

I don't want to be associated with him anymore.

It's insane.

Who are you?

It's a lot.

It's like one of those famous people that gets too famous.

Then you just hear like they've been in a bed for seven years.

Like, that's what that sounds like to me.

Is he here on Howard Hughes?

Yeah, Marlon Brando or something, yeah.

I want to see the Aviator Mike Minotti edition.

I respect him.

Mike's getting comfy.

He's living his best life.

You do, you.

But that can't be good, like, posturally and skeletally.

That can't be good.

Oh, my posture is just already kind of shot.

Let's be honest.

And I don't know if, like, gaming in a chair is doing much for you.

Dan, if you're talking about like you play games standing up, then maybe we can have a conversation.

No, no.

I mean, you get a good ergonomic chair.

Even just a couch has to be better than a bed, right?

I don't think it has to be better, no.

Is it?

Really?

Yeah.

Really?

It's all just sitting down, yeah.

Yeah.

I do probably have to get like a new mattress eventually though, because just kind of sitting in one spot, putting all of your weight, you know, via butt on the same spot in your mattress for years.

You get a little bit of a dip in there.

Have you not rotated your mattress?

I rotated it once, but you can really only do it once.

The...

The mattress, you could turn it, right?

You could do a 180.

I get it, you can't flip every mattress.

You're sitting on your bed?

Sometimes I'm sitting, sometimes I'm, like, leaning against the backrest.

Either way, he's going into that bed butt first.

Like, most of the weight is going through the butt into the bed.

I guess I was picturing you laying, like, propped up on a couple pillows.

No, that's actually not super comfortable to me.

I could do a little bit of that, but my arms will get tired eventually laying up and doing this for a while.

You're describing a very, what I believe to be a very uncomfortable lifestyle.

I feel like the lack of couches and lazy boys like I'm with Mike mostly on this, because I'm just in general never comfortable.

So, like, it doesn't matter.

So what's the difference?

Yeah, I don't think I...

I don't think I've been comfortable in, like, 15 years.

I am a little, like, sad about how little I use my living room.

It's my least used room in my house.

I have not played a video game on my couch on my TV in like months.

I think you guys are just out of the, the comfort zone, like there's been fabulous.

You're saying to me you're on a recliner, i enjoy sitting in the recliner.

After sitting in the recliner, i almost stand up and it's like oh, that was a bad choice.

They're like yeah yeah, You get to get one of those recliners with the lumbar support thing where it's like you can control and it can like put you out there, you know.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a reason that they need lumbar support.

It's because sitting in these things is not actually good for you.

That is when I like felt the worst is like during the pandemic.

And I was like doing everything from that recliner.

I was working from the recliner when I first came back to giant bomb, always sitting.

And that's when my neck started getting fucked up my back and all that stuff.

Like that is no good.

I bet I play games on the toilet more than any of you.

I think that that is true.

I don't play games on the toilet.

No.

I don't play games on the toilet.

You can have that.

Yes, that falls asleep.

Do I have the healthiest gaming habits?

I don't think it's unhealthy other than when my legs fall asleep and it hurts a lot.

Okay, so maybe it's unhealthy.

Okay.

You know, what's going to get me back in the living room is only when I get the Christmas tree in there.

Then I'm going to want to be in that room a bunch.

That's when I finally play Ghost of Yotai or Yotay.

Sorry, every time I say it wrong and then I double-guess myself and make it worse.

I want your problem so bad.

Mike, you should make a home gym and just fill it with Christmas trees.

At this point, just put your lights, make a little train go around it.

Just make it fun as hell.

I do have a Star Trek The Next Generation train that I got for Christmas last year.

I got to put that up this year.

We're going to get jacked, Mikey.

Jacked in my Christmas room.

Playing Pokemon.

Chad's saying she also was playing Pokemon in bed last night.

So you got that Kayla lifestyle going on.

There we go.

Yeah, see?

Kayla's healthy.

All the cool kids are doing it.

What's that?

Kayla's healthy, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, she also loves McDonald's and stuff, like I do, but she plays volleyball every week and everything.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, that's fun.

Yeah.

I went to an apple orchard this weekend, Mike, and I thought of you a lot.

Oh, don't think of me.

Real quick, did Mike forget that he was hosting the show there in that moment?

I get excited when there's silences.

As long as they rose.

He just woke up.

I'd like to see how long they roll.

Sometimes what I know is bad podcasting, but I find it funny.

Just following the routine of most hosts who just roll out of bed and get on the stage and do their thing.

I feel great.

I feel fantastic.

It's weird that none of the rest of us do, but all right, go ahead.

What'd you do at the apple orchard?

Did you throw up?

I would've.

Mike, I thought about you the whole time, because not only are you just surrounded by like 500 trees covered in hundreds of apples each, they're also.

You forget the part where they're all over the ground too.

I don't forget about that.

You are like crunching apples underfoot.

Like every step you take.

Yeah.

Again, not to exploit your, uh, you know, atypical kind of phobia for, uh, more education.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Monetize his apple phobia.

So you can't go?

Oh, no.

I won't go to the apple orchard.

Mostly because if the apples were just staying put in the trees maybe, but it is all the ground apples that hurt when they get up and walk around and start jumping up the butthole.

Yeah, I hate that.

You know Indiana Jones where he looks in the face like, snakes, white-eyed beasts.

That's Mike at Apple Orchard.

I do like trying to figure this out with Mike.

So Mike, I've heard things that you are very averse to.

Would you rather go to an apple orchard with me and taste test every type of apple for like hours, or go skydiving with me?

Oh my God.

The fact that there's an option of like, well, I could jump out of a plane to avoid the apples.

I'd probably skydive.

No way.

You're more afraid of apples than jumping out of a plane?

Yeah, i'm surprised, run the ball, run the ball, but that's.

But that's honestly uh, such an indictment right like that is, if that's not evident, of how true and real it's true like, oh god, that's why i feel bad.

I do remember i was planning a bit where it was like an sgf or a game awards.

Yeah, a few years ago i almost had uh, kenny omega was almost gonna swing by but he couldn't make it schedule wise and i was like mike, kenny omega's your favorite wrestler.

Can we do a bit where kenny omega like brings in a fruit platter for you and he's like no, absolutely not, he's not.

That's when i realized how real it was.

He's like we can't bit this.

Yeah, just so you can't take bits, bites out of apples because they're gross.

Uh, we got a little housekeeping to do here.

Uh Jeff, are you good to talk about some of this?

Chuck wants us to talk about some stuff with the new site, everybody.

Oh, yeah, the whole thing here.

Okay.

Premium site bet is still happening.

If you're a premium member, get over to EnormousExplosive.com.

That's a good reason to kind of join us and help us out and build what you want the new site to be.

We are still welcoming feedback.

There's a lot of people using that every day.

It's very helpful.

Thanks to everyone who has done that.

Also, we're going to keep putting out calls for aid for the Wiki Street team.

I'm just going to read what it says here.

The Wiki needs your help. programmers, editors, testers, join hashtag wiki-street-team in Discord.

There's a channel in there.

If you don't see it, just ask one of the mods for help with that.

They'll get you put in there.

And really, we're trying to crowdsource this as much as possible to really save this thing.

So if you have any sort of love for the Wiki Street team, if you possess any of these abilities or you know anyone who does, let us know.

Let's try to do our best to make that happen.

You can also go to bombcast.com slash wiki.

And that will give you the code repo, I believe, that they're storing there.

Beyond that, Mike, I think that's it for the new site stuff.

Chuck made it kind of clear.

He's like, yeah, Chuck needs help with that, everybody.

So, you know. saving the Discord.

Again, that's hashtag wiki-street-team in the Discord or bombcastcom slash wiki.

If you're a programmer editor tester, if you think you can help in any way.

If you're unsure you can help, just go check it out.

See if you can do.

Chuck needs our help.

Damn it.

Help Chuck.

And that's not to say that there hasn't been an outpouring of support already.

Thank you to each and every one of you who has taken the time to get in touch.

It means a lot.

We've made tons of progress with the wiki.

We still have more to do.

We have every intention on preserving it.

Don't worry about that.

But yes, we still need some help as we close in on the relaunch of this website.

Very exciting.

Yeah, the people in there that are doing that work would just love to see even more people join in, because it would just kind of reinforce the work that they've done.

So thanks, everybody.

Yeah, lots of stuff coming together.

I mean, this is our last show before we do the Bombathon, right?

And that's crazy.

So that's this weekend.

Some plans have really been coming together.

We might have had a two-and-a-half-hour meeting yesterday where we already had the run of show set up, and then we have all sorts of incentives and segments and stuff.

That is very fun.

Grubb, can we tell them about the thing we were talking about, the shuffle?

I think so, because I think I want people to start thinking about it.

I do too, yeah.

So yeah, we were talking Dan, about a bunch of fun ideas for this and we're going back and forth and I think at one moment you mentioned, like BizHawk and the Shuffler, that BizHawk can do.

BizHawk is an emulator.

Basically, the idea is at 2 a.m., Look, we play a lot of bad games on this site.

I'm looking for people's most out there games.

Games that are an assault on the senses.

And if you want to, you can submit this and make us play it by...

We're going to have an incentive where, if you donate a certain amount, we'll get into all the details later.

But you can suggest a game for the 2AM Nightmare Shuffler during the Bombathon.

And I will put it into the playlist.

And that means every like 30 seconds to a minute and a half, somewhere in that range.

It's going to switch from one game to the next with no warning.

And suddenly you're just going to be playing whatever crazy stuff you want to put in there.

And we're going to pass the controller when it switches to.

That's right.

So we're going to be passing the controller back and forth.

It's going to be chaos.

And we're probably just going to keep going for a while with that.

So the more games, the better.

I mean, take Tuesday off work, folks.

Stay up late with us.

We had to do a Monday night for this thing.

We know it's weird timing, but take Tuesday off.

It's going to be a long, fun stream.

Also trying to make sure, like the nightmare shovel stuff and everything, a bunch of the wackier stuff is the late night loopy hours.

So it's going to be a fun time.

We have a lot of fun stuff planned.

And yeah, you know, programming note, this is next week starting Monday night, I believe at 8 p.m.

Eastern.

Nope.

You do that.

That's what's in my calendar.

What do you mean do that?

Mike, it's right on the dock.

I'm looking at my calendar.

Monday, October 27th, starting at 5 p.m.

I got Pacific and Eastern mixed up.

Fives look like gates.

I get it.

That's when it starts.

It goes for 24 hours.

I'm going to clip this.

This is going to be our promo for it.

When does that start?

I don't know.

I don't want to have to fly there.

Take off.

What do you batting averaging?

Perfect on that either.

Listen, if you can't take off work on Tuesday, quit your job.

Yeah.

Chat is important, damn it!

Chat does say, can you write us something we can send to our bosses?

Can we make a note that we can just post to our blue sky and people can print it out and give it to their bosses?

Yeah, I'll make my dad sign it.

He'll love that.

That'd be great, yeah.

You've got the stamp, I bet, right?

Yeah, exactly.

I know you're writing yourself scripts.

Just steal one of his prescription pads and write it on there.

There you go.

Is that still a thing?

Are blue prescription pads a thing still?

I bet it's all digital.

Yeah, I don't know.

I feel like it's always been straight to pharmacy.

Okay, anyway.

Of course, next week there is going to be some Wednesday, Thursday, don't expect anything.

We're going to be in New York.

We're going to be flying home friday.

I might do something.

It's halloween uh, so i'm by myself.

Might do a little halloween stream, but nothing big.

So yeah, next week is really all about the bombathon.

We'll be making some other fun stuff while we're there.

Maybe that we'll post later, but yeah, It's a big deal.

I see some people asking.

This is a drive for us, a way to get some support, get some subscriptions for Giant Bomb Premium.

If you're already subscribed to Giant Bomb Premium, there are going to be other ways for you to monetarily support us.

So we have a lot of fun stuff planned.

And some of the incentives are really cool in that they will allow us to do some bigger things that you know we would not be able to do without this drive and the support.

So you'll see the incentive list once we get going.

But there's some very, very fun possibilities there.

And also, we haven't really talked a lot about where we're doing it and all that stuff.

But I just want to say next week will also be the start of a couple new partnerships that we're very excited about, that we've been working on for months and months and months.

It's going to be sick.

I'm very excited.

There's a lot of new opportunity that's going to come along with this.

Things are moving here.

We've got stuff going on.

It's good.

It's real good and uh, it's gonna be merch, merch as well, merch as well.

And you know that's not it for the year.

We are still going to do an extra.

If you don't think that this is the only you know marathon thing we're doing, or that we're not doing the charity thing because we're doing this, that was part of what we're planning yesterday too is getting the flights together and everything for uh, folks coming out here doing a nice long marathon extra live stream.

That's going to be great.

Someone in chat says, are you guys doing anything with Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection?

Stay tuned next week.

Stay tuned.

Yeah, stay tuned.

That's something that's very much on my radar.

Yeah, I'm excited.

I'm just very excited about it.

That was a long meeting yesterday and I remember leaving that and just being like hell yeah, I am excited about so many different things right now here.

Yeah.

You can all shut up about mugs.

Absolutely not.

All right.

Anything else, anybody?

Before we get into games?

Do you have any questions about the apple orchard, Mike?

Gosh, I just, what's the point?

I don't get it.

Sean, what's the point?

Do you know how quaint and nice it is on a cool autumnal day?

I guess I get it in that.

I like going to a pumpkin patch.

I get that, but that doesn't reek of apples.

I bought a pumpkin.

You know what?

He would like cider.

No, I've had cider.

I know what cider tastes like.

God, apples are so good.

Cider's the problem.

He hates the juice of it all.

I mean, I'd rather drink a glass of cider than eat an apple.

Clearly.

It's the juice coming out.

The juice coming out of the crunch seems like a big deal.

Yeah, they're both together to be optimally bad.

That's what I was thinking of every time I stepped on an apple, because it's like that crunch, that pop.

I was like, oh, that I could feel my shiver from across the country.

Yeah.

I mean, the most easily consumable apple thing is like the dried apple chip.

If I had to do that, I could do that.

That's pretty much an apple.

It is just an apple.

It's an apple flavor.

It turns into an apple in your mouth, basically.

Yeah, but it's not...

There's none of the texture.

There's none of the juice.

It gets rid of a lot of the problems, the gross skin.

He's consistent at least.

He just doesn't like the consistency of fruit.

So is there any like okay, I don't know if you're like a Jolly Rancher guy or anything but like apple flavored candies?

Does that do anything?

Even at that.

It doesn't really taste like apple.

Yeah, but even then, I don't like the apples.

I don't like the apples.

That's probably association at this point, right?

Yeah, I thought it was a ton of bullshit when Skittles replaced Green Lime with Green Apple.

I was all for that change because green apple is one of my favorite candy flavors.

And then they went back to lime like cow.

Yeah i, i love the green apple era.

I was with you and i was like i was like i don't ever need lime back.

And then they brought lime back.

I was like, oh wait, actually this is better.

Lime is one of those really boring ones.

The lemon, the lime, and the orange are the boring Skittles.

They're good.

I mean, they're Skittles, but like, I mean, come on, give me some red.

I mean, purple is the best, yeah.

No, red, then purple, then yellow, then orange, then lime.

If you get green apple, that jumps up.

Purple's definitely the flavor colors.

Yeah, absolutely.

Purple's the best fake fruit flavor by far, I think.

Purple's great.

They don't have fave purple Starburst.

They have fave reds.

Who are you people?

Who are you people that can talk about...

We're growing, man.

We're going to talk about candy.

We have joy and light in our lives, Bacalar.

The lowest tier trash candy imaginable.

I'm trying to have a Dubai chocolate from the gas station.

No, dude.

No.

Starburst and Skittles are low tier trash candy.

The two most iconic candies ever.

Garbage.

Garbage tier.

Don't besmirch this holiday season with your fucking nonsense that nobody wants in their trick-or-treat bags.

Skittles.

No one wants Skittles.

You know what they want first?

They want Snickers.

Snickers is the best chocolate-based candy.

Exactly.

What are we even talking about? then what are we even talking about?

Well, no, Snickers and Starburst, or no, Skittles and Starburst are better than Snickers.

Snickers is number three, though.

So, Sean.

Snickers is the best.

The best chocolate.

There's candy.

Sean has the baton.

Sean.

I would like to move away from the candy discussion just to save this podcast.

No, okay, okay, okay.

I don't want to talk about Jets pizza, but I guess we want to talk about that.

Sean, you've got the floor.

Wait, you better come correct, Sean.

I swear to God.

What did you order?

All right.

So I was having dinner with my mom and I was like, OK, let's let's order this pizza.

So we didn't get a ton.

So we got like a small Detroit deep dish.

We got a corner or four corner.

No, no dance is small.

Yeah, eight corners big.

Eight corner is like two smalls.

Did you get four corner?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, okay, okay.

You got corners.

It's a deep dish.

You got corners.

All right, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, the corners were had.

Okay.

We got the turbo sticks and we got the cinnamon sticks that we got, you know, across the board.

I never had those. fuck's a turbo stick is it crazy bread but basically okay so good news is turbo sticks godlike like probably the best cheesy bread bread sticks things i've ever had from a piece of place they're so good I didn't realize it didn't come with any dipping sauce because I like marinara when I'm dipping breadsticks.

Ranch with turbo sticks is incredible.

Okay, I'll have to try that next time.

The pizza.

It was really good.

I think you guys oversell it a little bit.

It's really good pizza, especially when you consider that Jets is like a chain.

Yeah, I think I'm always couching it.

We're not saying that it's going to be the most gourmet Michelin star stuff, but compared to any other chain, I think it's good.

That's the thing.

I put it up next to, you know, you're compared to a Pizza Hut, a Domino's, those type of things.

It's definitely above that.

It's the top tier of that.

But also, Sean, you're in Wisconsin.

What do they know about cheese?

Like, you're not going to get the best stuff.

What do we know about cheese?

What do we know about meat?

Yeah, there's nothing here.

It's like we have a ton of Europeans who came over.

The football team is literally named after packing meat.

That's an insane thing.

They wear cheese on their heads.

It sits in between.

It's definitely a step up from like Domino's and Papa John's stuff.

And like that stuff's getting so expensive that like Jets was roughly the same price anyway.

So yeah, we'll just hear about Jets.

Yeah.

Like Grubbs said, it's not, you know, you go to a restaurant or a gourmet pizza thing.

That is a different type of thing.

But if you're just ordering a pizza for your watching football game or wrestling pay-per-view or something like this is like the top tier of that type of pizza.

Yeah.

I do still prefer the local place because it's also around that price.

They have thankfully kept it low.

But Jets, you know, Jets is solid.

I'm reporting in.

I do like the Jets.

You guys were not off the mark.

Are there any out near me?

I wasn't even aware of it.

There's some in New York.

There's some in the city.

There's one in Brooklyn.

There's a couple of them.

They sell by the slice.

I think every Jets location sells by the slice.

So if you want to go in there and try it out.

And they're big slices.

Yeah.

Like they're fat.

It sounds pretty good, but I think we need to jet away from this conversation and talk about some video games.

Whoa, you had me All right, you guys were talking them up, that pizza.

How about you beat them up instead?

No.

Go back.

I don't know what to do with Absalab.

Absalab.

It's a made up word.

What do I got for Absalom?

I think that barbecue joke ruined your life.

His brain is deteriorating.

That's it.

You are brain broken.

I've completed a run in Absalom now.

Dan and Grub have been doing test runs for your This is the Run of Absalom.

I think we did.

I think we aired those.

But yeah, we've just been kind of testing the tech and making sure that we can connect and everything.

Yeah, it's looking good.

Well, we will do a run.

Based on what we've tested, though...

Holy crap, that's a good game.

That game is awesome.

For people who don't know, this is the new beat-em-up published by Dot Emu.

And it is basically what if Hades was a beat-em-up instead of the kind of top-down action game thing?

And it has two-player co-op.

And it is really good.

It's very pretty.

The beat them up mechanics are fantastic.

Some of the people who worked on Streets of Rage 4 are involved here.

So, you know, there's a lot of that vibe to it.

But yeah, like the progression is very Hades in that you get a lot of permanent things between runs.

And then during the runs you essentially get boons that power you up in different ways and different resources and other things.

Uh, meeting here too, there's a lot of branching paths also.

So there's kind of a nice exploration aspect to it too.

Yeah.

Yeah, we've seen stuff where it's like, oh, you need a key to go up to this island.

And it's like, okay, I'm sure at some point during one of these paths, we'll get a key.

And then on the next run, we'll go up here.

Like, I'm curious, because like, I'm having so much fun doing a co-op.

This is ideal to me.

But Mike, have you been doing solo?

Yeah, I've just been doing it solo, and it's still very good.

I mean, it'd be fun co-op for sure, but I don't feel like oh, I'm having some kind of lesser experience or some kind of worse experience because of that, or a harder experience even.

It's a pretty good difficulty.

One of the reasons I'm really loving it is because that genre of just that side-scrolling beat-em-up you know Streets of Rage, Final Fight, you know The Simpsons Arcade, Turtles Arcade, all that stuff.

I loved those games so much growing up and playing them in arcades and bowling alleys and stuff.

And then it was once they started coming out on Xbox Live Arcade and stuff, where it's like you know, obviously you can just infinitely hit quarters and stuff like that.

So when it removes that kind of challenge factor and like, oh, how far are we going to get?

Yeah, the magic's kind of gone and it does just kind of boil down to like Oh, this is very simplistic, especially like the Simpsons arcade game, which is one of my favorites.

It's like, boy, there's not a whole lot going on there outside of the Simpsons of it all.

Um so, this being like okay, this is that type of gameplay uh, But with some really fleshed out stuff and bringing in roguelike mechanics and stuff, this is doing it for me in a major way.

Yeah, beat-em-ups have definitely had their renaissance.

When they went away, I was glad.

I'm like, these things are...

They don't make sense in modern gaming.

Coming home on a console and trying to play through this because of what you said, Dan.

And so when the resurgence did start to happen with, I guess Mike, what was like the early first one.

Castle Crashers?

Going all the way back then?

Castle Crashers is the start of it for me.

Some people would say that Scott Silver game, which I didn't care, but it's definitely part of that.

Yeah.

And then I think for a while there, everyone's like, well, Castle Crashers did it.

We're not going to necessarily be able to do what they did.

And then we get that string of really great ones sort of culminating in Streets of Rage form for me.

It's like, oh, you could do so much more with just a little bit more complexity to the combat.

And now, like, this is the team that did the combat for Streets of Rage 4.

Guard, advance, guard blocks.

Guard break?

Guard break.

I think that might be guard break.

Yeah.

And it's like, okay, yeah.

So once they got that down and it was like, oh this, just beating people up in the beat-em-up should be the funnest thing you're doing in the game.

Now we can just start layering stuff on top.

And now we're at a point where it's like okay, we've learned a lot from all these other roguelite games.

Mash these things together, and it just works.

And I think Mike, you were saying like it's not going to feel super different run from run, in the way that Hades always does, because you are getting like the same weapons.

But, like, some of the boons, like, I got the rocket dwarf.

And I'm sitting there, blasted back and forth and kind of learning how to use it, and realizing that he's using his gun to like basically, do a triple jump in the air and it throws him across the level.

But if I do a triple jump, he's shooting his gun down so i can kind of attack that way.

Or if i rocket dwarf into an enemy, i immediately hit them and i could start attacking them.

So like i had all these options available to me and it's like that was an awesome build and never expected it, and i'm like oh, i can't wait to go again.

You unlock more stuff that does help.

Runs feel a bit different.

Like, you kind of unlock different sort of categories of boons eventually.

Like, at first it's basically just, like, fire, electricity.

Then you get wind ones.

I have necromancy ones that will kind of spawn skeleton minions for a little bit, based on things that i do right, and then you do unlock more characters just four that you get in total, but you know they're all pretty different as well, Yeah.

And we're mentioning the runs we're doing.

If you're familiar with, this is the run.

So we will do a run today.

Grub, I assume you're good for this evening.

Maybe, like.

Maybe like five-ish your time, five-ish eastern.

Yep, let's do it.

Yeah, so we will do that.

Uh, tune in.

We're doing a thing there where it's like everyone can watch free live on twitch and youtube and then the archive of these test runs.

If we don't beat it, uh go up on the website.

So uh, tune in live for free.

If you're premium sub, you can go back and watch all the vods.

I was bemused to see Jeff.

I was like, hey, you should talk to that training lady in your camp to teach you things.

Then I see you, so I was like, hey, Mike said we should talk to that person.

Then you guys were like, well, let's not do that.

It's me and him.

This is what a co-op game with me and Rob is going to be like.

I did look for the previous time and she wasn't there.

So it's like when it didn't happen in that moment, I'm like, it's probably never happening.

Mike told me about this.

Let me ask you this.

Do you guys know what a clash is?

Is that the little sprinkle when you do the dash forward?

Nope.

Grubbs, should we check that out?

I had an idea.

Maybe we should check that out today.

All right, Dan, I like it.

Let's give it a shot.

Man, smart guy.

Okay, yeah, we'll do that today.

All right.

Fantastic.

But I mean, it's been an incredible year for roguelikes.

You'd almost think it'd be too much.

There's so many of these popping off.

And yet I'm still actually not sick of it yet.

Dan, you've been playing a ton of them, including this one.

I want to hear about Ball XL pits.

I don't know if it's ball cross pit, if it's just ball pit.

I think people say it's just ball pit.

I think let's just agree.

We'll just say ball pit.

It's not an x, it's a cross.

So you don't pronounce crosses, All right?

There you go.

So Ball Pit's another one of these that seems to be popping off pretty good.

Dan, how are you finding it?

It's really good.

I don't think I love everything it's doing, but I love most of what it's doing.

And like the core game is you've probably seen, you're just kind of going up.

It's almost like shmup style, you know, and it's not full bullet hell or anything, but you are dodging a lot of projectiles and stuff like that.

But instead of like, you know, Galaga style or shmup enemies, it is blocks.

So it's almost a bit of like a breakout Arkanoid situation.

And you are a character that like...

I always turn on auto fire.

I don't know if anyone else has been playing this, but like I don't even know why, I would ever tell.

Like some say, if you turn off auto fire, you can move quicker.

But I have not felt the need to do that.

So if you have it on, you're just constantly shooting and you've got like eight slots.

You know the way, like in a Vampire Survivors, I feel like there's another one I'm playing where it's like you have a certain amount of slots for balls.

And when you start, you have your characters like baseball.

Like, okay, this one has, it's a fireball or a bleed ball or something like that.

And then the rest are baby balls, which I hate.

How much I have to say baby balls when I'm discussing this game, but they do say baby balls constantly in this game.

So as you level up you get to pick things to replace the baby balls with like okay, a poison ball, a freeze ball, and then, like vampire survivors, you can fuse them.

You can evolve them like certain ones can fuse with others, and you can really do some fucked up things where it's like okay, now my freeze and my poison combined and then I fuse that with a horizontal laser one, and so this ball, every time, is shooting out a horizontal laser and poisoning and freezing everything it touches.

And then you can get all these perks and stuff where it's like okay, the ball launches at 70 speed, but every time it bounces it gains like 20 speed.

So there's all these different ways you can kind of go at it for a game that's basically just shooting balls at blocks that are moving down the screen.

Like there's a crazy amount of variety.

Um, and all the different characters are cool.

Like.

One of them is a set of like I don't know if they're twins or it's like this like weird spooky guy and weird spooky lady.

And then like they shoot, uh, opposite.

So if you move one left, the other shoots, right.

But no cool 50% damage.

So like, there's a lot of different ways to play.

The thing that I'm not as hot on is in between the runs.

You know, like I love in Hades when you finish a run and you go back and like all the hub stuff and the incantations and talking to the characters and all that stuff.

Like Hades has maybe the best in between run of any roguelite I've ever played probably.

Absolutely.

And so compared to that, it's pretty weak.

It's this like, it looks cool.

It's this like kind of base building thing, where you're kind of clearing out land, like this farmland you're kind of clearing out and you're building structures.

And so like, oh, this structure will unlock this character once it's built.

This one is a wheat field.

And every time you go over it you get wheat and there's like currencies.

You know wood stone, stuff like that.

So it's kind of like pinball type thing.

But it's not super engaging.

Like it's pretty easy to just be like, all right, I'll just I need wheat.

So I'm going to arrange it.

So you know the wheat fields are blocked off here and it's just going to bounce back and forth real quick and get a bunch of wheat.

That part's not super fun to me.

It is just the runs themselves, I think, are great.

So there's a lot there, considering how simple the core gameplay would appear.

Definitely going to keep playing it.

But yeah, it's the town.

Building stuff is the weak part, but the rest is very, very fun.

I would say.

Yeah, I didn't get a chance to actually play much of it, but I did fire it up the other day and at least a run and got to base building stuff.

And when I fired up I thought like, oh cool, this will be like a little arcadey thing where you just keep doing the runs.

It's like Vampire Survivors versus that's it.

That's the game.

And, you know, I think it's fun enough that I could see myself putting some time into it.

Then when we got to the base building, it was such a brick wall for me of oh, I'm going to go play something else right now and come back like I do not want to engage with this, when the other half of the gameplay is like you know, fast-paced arcadey stuff.

I may.

Maybe they thought it'd be a good way to like uh, calm down at the end of a really intense run or something, but to me it kind of reads as we need something else in here to elongate the gameplay time Yeah.

It's like, you know, like imagine a vampire survivors.

If you had to do kind of a half baked thing in between every run like part of the beauty of vampire survivors.

To me it's just how just simple it is.

Like how the elegance and simplicity and, uh, it didn't need that thing in between the runs.

Like not every roguelite needs that.

So if it's not going to be like a Hades thing which really thought out and fleshed out and everything, I don't like it that much.

And that's the case here.

You gotta love roguelikes because they always got you replaying them.

Just like Grub is checking out Yuka replay Lee.

Yeah.

Did you play the original Yooka-Laylee at all, Jeff?

I played it enough to find out that I didn't think it had the juice.

I remember being like, hmm, this game just... feels absent.

Like there's just not a lot of spark here when I'm playing it.

And so I put it down pretty quickly and pretty disappointed because I was looking forward to it.

And that, so that's your experience as well, Dan.

So we're, yeah, I grew up.

Because we both love 3D platformers and everything.

I remember that was one of the first very high-profile Kickstarter games ever.

Because there were so many of the people who were actually involved at Rare, right?

I think they got like her and everything and like all these rare people and it's like, oh man, that sounds perfect.

I would love, like I was so ready for like 3D platformer stuff, some sort of a resurgence.

And yeah, I felt the same way where it's like I loaded it up and it's like okay, on its surface, a lot of this like sure, this looks like rare characters, they're talking like rare characters, but there's just kind of an emptiness or a coldness to the actual that I bounced off very quickly originally.

So I was I went into this.

You could replay Lee specifically to investigate if that had changed at all, because I think the talk for this game was this will be a chance for us to sort of address some of the criticisms and make some improvements.

And I'll say the thing that I think I noticed is that there is more.

Like very quickly.

You are encountering more challenges and more of the pages which I think are there.

They're the primary thing that you're gathering up this game.

Yes, they're stars.

Yeah.

Seems like there's more of those.

So that was already an improvement.

And yet it's like maybe 15 more juice like there is.

This is definitely better.

It's just it's not like night and day better.

I think that's where i kind of ended up with it.

How about you, dan?

I yeah I, I didn't play that much of it but, like initially, I think I'm liking it more than the first time around.

And like, I like the look of it.

Like it just looks like they made a lot of improvements there.

Yeah.

Yeah, totally.

So it is something that is on my list of stuff to play, but with everything out right now it is so far down on the list.

So yeah, maybe I get to it in February or March or something like that, but...

You know, played a little bit.

It did not grab me enough to keep it going, even though I love that genre so much.

And I would love to see more Rare-like platformers.

But I think I like the Donkey Kong Country style one more.

They made that 2D one.

I hear that a lot of people.

The Impossible Lair.

The Impossible Lair is fantastic.

Yeah, that one's a lot better, I think.

So I'll get back to it, though.

Yeah, I think I'll play this a little bit more.

The other thing is it does get started more quickly.

You don't have to unlock all of your moves.

You just have them from the beginning, or you get them very quickly, at the very least, like within the first half an hour.

And that immediately makes the game feel a little bit better because it's like, okay.

Now I'm encountering challenges where I can use the roll move and sort of roll on a slant and not worry about falling down.

And that just feels good.

It doesn't feel as good as a lot of other 3D platformers that are kind of in its same space.

Like that big hop game, I think... just immediately is so much better than this.

And what's the other one?

The Demon?

Demon's Turf.

Yeah, and that's the person that's making Buffy 4D as well.

Buffy 4D has got more going on than this.

But this is not bad.

It's just like I don't necessarily know how you translate Banjo-Kazooie sort of like plotting on animation and stuff like that.

I think what made Banjo-Kazooie work was...

It was a really good-looking N64 game that did seem like it had a lot of love put into the characters.

Charming.

Yeah, an over-the-top visual aesthetics that kind of complemented that and brought it into a charming zone here.

It's like that's a little bit harder to pull that off these days and if you're kind of just being a standard 3d platformer with standard 3d platforming visuals which again they are better here uh, it's not as like aesthetically like interesting as something like a demon's turf which has that like 2d cut out character style and stuff like that.

Yes, Yuka's the lizard and Laylee is the bat.

Yeah.

Were we all bracing?

I noticed we all were bracing.

Did we think he was going to try a really ham-fisted segue there?

Yeah, I was worried.

We don't know that he's not.

I was just a question, because the bat is just kind of hanging on there, maybe sucking blood from a spot, like some kind of parasite.

Fuck!

And speaking of parasites... No avoiding it.

I was checking out Parasite E this weekend.

Don't ever go anywhere ever again.

So much.

Hey, this has been a big one on my backlog for a while.

This is a PS1 game from Squaresoft's era of just releasing Banger after Banger.

No way this holds up, right?

Oh, this game holds up.

It's so freaking cool.

It's so good.

It really is this weird combination of Square Enix at their peak or Squaresoft really back then, of just like oh, their games look really pretty.

They have all these insane FMVs.

There's just incredible production values.

Yoko Shimomura is doing the soundtrack.

So the soundtrack is just incredible.

So, it's like some of the best stuff you will hear.

And then it's got a lot of, you know, Resident Evil, survival horror influence with things like a lot of the pre-rendered backgrounds.

Obviously, Square was doing that as well.

And some of the survival horror mechanics.

But...

It's not like, you know, a tank control, you know, aim and shoot zombies kind of game.

The combat is... kind of turn-based.

It's real-time turn-based.

You have an ATB bar kind of like in those Final Fantasy games.

And every time, you know, while it's filling up, you do run around and you're dodging attacks.

And once it filled up, you push the button and the sphere kind of expands from you and anything within that sphere's influence you can then attack with your gun so it's yeah so offense offense is turn based but then defense is like bullet hell active it's real time now it's a really cool system So I'm curious because I remember, I think I was working at Funkoland when that came out and we're looking at that box and reading about it and being like, okay, people seem to like this game and it looks cool.

Like it looked like it like it was set in kind of modern times and it wasn't like a fantasy setting and stuff.

1997 Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

And I think the reason I never checked it out was I saw it was Square and I just associated Square with like oh OK, they make those games I don't like.

So do you think if I were to play it, even like now like, do you think I would enjoy it, or is it too square for you?

Unless you were really upset about the idea of waiting for a bar to fill up to have to shoot people right.

No, that's fine.

I think you'd be fine.

Do you like original-style Resident Evil games?

Because the pacing is yeah yeah, definitely.

It's more like what if they made a resident evil rpg rather than a square soft like horror game.

I think okay yeah, i think i could like that.

Even the magic system, like you, have abilities and it uses something kind of like MP, but it also is refilling constantly so you don't have to take like a mana potion.

So you can kind of just, you know, use those abilities relatively frequently and not have to worry about it.

In fact, at least early on.

Maybe my criticisms that the game is a little easy, because one of the abilities you have is a healing spell and your MP is constantly recharging.

So it's like, well, I could just heal myself basically infinitely.

So, unless i'm really messing up here, things are going to be fine.

But again it's okay, because just the vibes and the aesthetic um, of the game is absolutely corrupt, like even just like.

It's such a ps1 game right, even when you're in the car.

In just a weird way they're framing these 3d models in a car.

That is a pre-rendered background and behind it is this animated loop of a cityscape.

I'm just like oh, i could just stare at this for hours.

You can tell it's the same people who did FF7 by the way it looks sometimes.

Oh, wow.

And I love that look.

Like, I don't know why I associate it with like vagrant story of like PS1 RPGs.

I think combat's similar.

Okay.

I would be curious about like okay, it sounds like they're doing something different than just kind of like a turn-based battles, you know.

So I was like curious about them.

I think they have bigger story has like the same kind of expanding sphere.

Yeah.

Very similar.

I'm going to make a note.

I think I want to play Parasite Eve.

I think I should.

Yeah.

Mike, you said this is your first time ever checking it out.

First time ever playing a moment of it.

Wow.

That's awesome.

It's been huge on my backlog.

I also had it on my backlog forever and checked out for the first time last year for Christmas, because you know it's a little made diehardy, but like it takes place during Christmas.

And so it kind of has those vibes, especially in the beginning.

And yeah, it totally holds up, especially because it is such a unique combination of that term based and real time.

It's just really fun.

And you know, last night, as I was falling asleep, I pulled up a six hour Sean Johnson video.

And I guess the part in the Square Enix one where he talks about Parasite Eve I'm like Just looking at.

Yeah, this holds up.

It's so good.

It looks so cool.

It's fun to play.

It's gotten, you know, compelling enough story like it's solid.

I like a lot.

Yeah.

And the translation is pretty good.

I did laugh at one part.

I don't know if this is the original writing of the translation, but they're going to a museum.

We got to meet this scientist nerd.

You're playing as cops, right?

You're in the NYPD.

We have to meet this scientist nerd at the museum.

And she's like, what is a guy with a PhD doing working at a museum?

I was like, chat, that's a very normal thing, right?

Normal thing for a PhD person.

Yeah, that's what PhD people normally do.

There is also something about horror games set in Christmas where it's like I can play this in October, November or December.

That's great.

It's the night before Christmas in video games.

It'll run in May if you try it.

Yeah, I bet it will.

Get that out of here.

But yeah, if you've been curious about this game forever, like I have, I think it's just absolutely still worth checking out out.

I'm curious about the sequels.

Apparently the sequel is much more traditional survival horror and it's still very good, but it's kind of like a bit of a shame that it lost some of the uniqueness.

Then there's that weird third one for the ps2 that nobody seems to like and i'm kind of curious what happened.

Yeah, uh there with that one um.

But that is enough about Parasite Eve.

I don't really have a good transition set up.

No, no, no.

Take your time.

Really stealthily move over to this next game, almost as if I was some kind of ninja.

Good save, Mike.

Which makes me think... stealth about this game.

No, it's the least stealthy game ever.

Yeah.

You can push Y and a person's unsuspecting and kill them right away.

You can't assassinate.

It's like the least stealthy ninja series, right?

And I do respect that about that.

That's why I love it.

Yeah.

Should know he's not very stealthy.

Ninja Gaiden 4, it's out now.

I played a couple hours of it yesterday.

Sean's been checking out.

Dan, I think you've been playing maybe the most of it.

I think I'm probably well over halfway, I believe.

Yeah, I love it.

It turns out.

I'm really nostalgic for that, like PS2 era, Devil May Cry moving into, like the 360 Bayonetta, like that.

We used to call it stylish action genre again.

And like that, I love that shit.

And, like nowadays, I feel like we still get a lot of, you know, third person action games, but it's very much in the from, like that is what's kind of in vogue now.

And I have a lot of respect for the from style of, you know, an action game.

I respect them more than I enjoy them.

Whereas I really love playing this style of like... It brings me back to those type of games.

Like fucking Ninja Blade and stuff like that on the 360.

You know, even like the kind of like B-tier ones.

Like, yeah, this is...

I'm not saying this is a B-tier one, but it reminds me of that.

It is so fucking fast.

Backler, I've been thinking about something you said about this game when we were playing it a week or two ago.

You compared it to another series, and now I can't stop thinking about that.

Do you want to tell people what you told me?

Yeah, it's just Sonic.

It's just Sonic the Hedgehog.

But you know what I mean, right?

I do because it's like you were just in Sonic.

You're just kind of flinging around doing stuff and like weird music's playing.

This one is like, you're just zip zapping all over the screen, chopping heads.

It's like a more violent Sonic, but it's got that kind of music, that tone to it and everything.

I'm like, God, I think Backlar's right.

This is kind of the Sonic of action games.

It's just, you're right, it's violent Sonic.

It's like, oh my God, someone put Sonic in a, yeah, I get, sure.

Someone put Sonic in a gi and now he's just like swords and now he's just fucking fools up and chopping their heads off.

And you're rail grinding and like you've got like a glider and you're flying around the sky and yeah.

And a lot of the early parts are sort of just like hanging out on like gigantic elevating platforms, to like the next area.

Yeah.

It's just a Sonic game, folks.

You know what?

I fucking Okay.

This was after my heart right away because I was going to the options first and some of the options were like do you want to enable emphasized dismemberment?

I'm like, Yes, please.

It defaulted to that.

It also defaulted to enable bloodbath kill camera.

I was like, yes, I'm listening.

It's like very excited about this.

And then it starts.

There's not even a fucking cut scene.

There's not a line of dialogue.

It starts and you are on a moving train and there are a bunch of dudes with guns and you chop up their bodies and then their body parts stay on the train.

And as the train moves, their body parts are like sliding around and stuff.

This is my kind of game.

This is fantastic.

It's definitely funny.

It's a funny game for sure.

I think for me, you know, obviously you really dig it.

Like I can only handle so much of something like this.

Because after a while, I'm just like, oh, cool.

Out of the gate, you unlock, I don't know, 73 different combos.

You get a lot right away.

Keep in mind though Backlar, we probably got the same code.

That was like we got a ton of currency earlier.

I even, even without that, I wasn't reclaiming that.

And I even did say like, boy, it is a lot to keep track of.

It's a lot, a lot.

Cause every you get multiple weapons and each one of them has this like is it the blood Raven mode where you can like hold LT?

So I actually love this system.

But it is a lot where you can hold an LT if you have meter to kind of like, you get kind of red and glowy and you can do these like kind of stronger attacks and it opens up a whole new like suite of attacks for your weapon.

So, like your, katana has all these combos, but if you're in Bloodraven mode, it does these combos and then you start unlocking more weapons and they all have your Bloodraven mode.

So, like...

Yeah, Backler, you're right.

It's like, I have to go into that list a lot and be like, oh, right.

I can do that thing where I hold in LT for Bloodraven.

Then I do RB and A, which will make me pogo up on my bloody sword.

Like Yoshimitsu?

And then, yes, but it's like way taller.

And then you can do different OX and Y, which one does the sweep?

Which one is the single attack?

Like it's, it is a lot.

You kind of got to find your favorite moves and stick with them.

And lean into that.

Yeah.

I mean, it's combo barf, right?

There's just like so much that you have at your disposal that me, personally, I'm sort of like...

Man, I really wish there was maybe a fifth of these combos available and I would really master them into a super cool choreographed kind of ballet of death.

Exactly.

I'm just not able to do that.

I'm not able to...

Like very quickly I lose the thread and I'm just spamming buttons and I'm like I'm still doing cool shit.

I'm still dodging.

I'm still being a fancy murder boy.

But like, I don't, I don't feel like I'm really controlling this guy where I want to be.

You know what I mean?

That's interesting, because I think that's the sign of good action game is, they said, you're still having fun with it.

Just come pressing buns and cool stuff happens.

Because this game, what you just described, that's what makes it cater to both you guys and the action game sickos like me.

Because I'm the kind of guy who, when they gave me training mode, I hop in training mode for half an hour to see how long can I make these combos, how high can I score.

I'm labbing the game so I can convert into a ton of currency, get even more moves and keep my combos going even longer.

So that way, when I do enter combat, it's just a chain of me rolling around, sliding you know, jumping off the walls, grapple hooking and maybe not even getting hit during the combat just because I'm doing so much to these enemies.

It's a blast.

You can kind of find a couple things that work for you.

Like, I am still doing the Azuna drop, like, 70%.

I can't not do it.

Yes, Dad!

That's it.

That's all you need.

Every battle, I jump in, flying swallow.

You do the thing where you do it three times.

Yes.

I was doing a drop.

Fuck you.

That's all you need.

That's what Ninja Gaiden has always been.

You only need those two moves.

That's our stuff if you want it.

Throw some shurikens for some reason.

Never seem to do anything, but it looks cool.

Yeah, because it allows you to add damage to the board while you're moving and weaker enemies it will stagger them.

So the dudes with guns don't shoot you.

It's sonic and it's pinball.

It's both of these things.

I didn't want to say that.

Sean is describing is something that I think very few games can do.

And I love it when they do where it's like I soul.

Caliber to me is the ultimate of this where it's like you can jump in, you can hit buttons and it's going to look cool.

You're going to have a fun fucking time.

You don't need to know anything.

Yeah.

But I was the sicko with Soul Calibur that I went into training with every fucking character and learned everybody's moves.

And it can be really rewarding on that front.

So it's like I do think that like, having this many combos and stuff isn't necessarily a bad thing.

You know yeah, and you know the.

It's funny you say that dan, i was thinking that this weekend with a different game because i i just picked up ninja guy and last night when i came out uh, but over the weekend, you know, i've doused up itagaki-san rip.

We lost him.

Last week I fired up Dead or Alive on my 360 all Dead or Alive games.

And thinking to myself that's the Koei Tecmo legacy there.

Because Dead or Alive is so easy to hop into, press some buns, get like a three hit auto combo or you can extend it really long.

You can do like the wall bounce stuff and all of that.

That's what makes this feel like it's in that legacy of the Ninja Gaiden games, you know, the 3D games and Koei Tecmo and everything they're doing, despite the fact that it is made by Platinum.

Because, you know, this is...

Kind of Metal Gear Rising 2.

I immediately thought of that because like the way you run and kind of like auto parkour over stuff and everything.

It's like the slide under things like, oh, this feels a lot like Revengeance.

The most you get that is like the first big boss fight.

He goes into a phase transition and then the song that was playing gets lyrics.

And i'm like this, just like rising revengeance oh, and it activated me, just like that.

So platinum, platinum never got the chance to do too even though they were clearly planning it that weird tgsts and everything, but They just put it into Ninja Gaiden 4 when we got the contract.

It's like cybernetic ninjas and everything just like rising.

It's all that futurism and like invading like the enemy's tower.

Even this character that you're playing as instead of Ryu, this new guy is very riot encoded.

Instead of grabbing the Gatorade spines like in Rising, you're doing the obliteration moves, which you can hit Y or hold Y at a certain point.

It does this animation and everything where you're just tearing these fucking dudes apart.

But you...

You also get something similar.

That's kind of what the blood bath kills are, when you know when you're in Blood Raven mode and you charge it up and it gets the red.

The screen turns black, white and red.

Very mad world with like Japanese characters on it.

And it says you do that over and over and over until they're all dead.

Ooh.

Yeah.

It gets the same feel as doing Zendatsu over and over.

That blood bath mode.

So you got your blood raven bar and then you have the blood bath bar.

It's probably not called that.

But once you fill it's berserk mode.

So it's the difference between uh, the blood binding, which is blood binding you were describing this like blood raven is almost like a stance where you do different moves.

That's kind of like the true heavy attack of the game, because you get armor on the attacks and they do much more damage, can hit multiple opponents.

Uh, and then you have the berserk gauge, which is like devil trigger.

In berserk gauge.

At any point you can hit or I don't know if you hit or hold.

I think it's both sticks and it does this.

Yeah.

You hold it and it'll do this thing where it's just, it does some crazy animation and it's kind of a screen clearing thing.

Any like low level enemies will be torn apart.

So it's, Oh, and I think you get that later.

I don't, Oh, maybe that's not right away.

But like once you get that, it's like, so you'll activate it, the berserk mode type thing.

And then if you hold in an attack, you can kill one enemy, a low level enemy with just holding the button.

But then if, before it runs out, if you do the hold L3 and R3 thing That's where it does the kind of screen clearing thing.

And God damn it, that doesn't feel awesome every time.

Yeah.

The one thing like I don't know about the game is the story stuff, but the story has never been anything interesting in these games.

It's very forgettable.

It's so forgettable.

At least it starts you off right away.

But then there is a bit where it's like we have to talk to this character for a while.

It's also when the game suddenly looks ugly because the character models up close don't look amazing and their mouths are moving like they're still in an Xbox 360 game.

Yeah.

There's a lot of that.

But I like the look of those Ninja Gaiden games, the 3D ones.

They all kind of look like action figures.

There's just kind of a plastic quality to a lot of the models.

And everything's just wet and plastic looking.

And it's kind of cool.

What's with his face, Mike?

What's going on?

Come on.

These characters are going to talk about how everything is wet and plastic.

We're going to add an old timer.

All right.

I'm lost.

Yeah, I know what you're talking about.

What are you talking about, Mike?

All the girls in these games have giant, big, you know what?

Oh, it's a technology, yeah.

You know what?

What are you talking about?

Yeah, I don't know.

Like weapons?

Plastic batons?

Is that what you mean?

I don't get it.

It's like the very first mission, you're like, you're going to go talk to this priestess.

And I immediately had a picture in my mind of what I expected this character to look like.

And you forgot what series it's in.

I didn't forget.

But it is just like yep, of course did any of you guys.

Were you like a sickle like me and you just were like I wonder what like the hero difficulty does?

I did that on Ninja Gaiden Black.

Uh, the kind of re-release of of the first one you're talking about with this one.

Yeah, i'm not that.

Yeah, i went in there just to see what was going on.

It was, it's kind of cool, like obviously it's incredibly easy and you, you can just put your controller down and it'll sort of almost kill everyone for you.

But uh, i just wanted to, i wanted a taste of the of of the forbidden, you know.

I wanted to like see what that was all about and i don't know.

I feel like the game felt easier than i thought it would be in regular mode.

I'm sure you know there's punishing, you know parts that lie ahead, But it was still somehow kind of fun.

Some of those boss fights are pretty tough.

I've died a lot of boss fights and really chew through items.

Some of those items are pretty expensive.

I always like to pop the attack boost and the defense boost, but those cost like 7500 of your ninja coin or whatever.

I did realize pretty quickly though, when you die during a battle and retry, you get your health back.

So if I'm going to a battle without much health, don't use healing items.

Just go in and die, and then you can retry and get all of your health back.

I'm such a freak with Because you'll die and it's like do you want to use your potion of revival or whatever?

I have not used it once because I have that dumb brain thing where it's like well, I'm going to really need this sometime.

I'm not going to use it on this boss.

So I literally have never used one.

You're min-maxing.

I get that.

Because...

You know, you don't realize until a little bit like oh, they actually give them to you with a decent cadence.

It's not often, but it's like, you know, a couple times a level, a chest will have a revival one.

So it's not like super scarce, but you do have to be like conservative.

Like, oh, I died right away.

Yeah, I'll just restart.

Don't even bother using it.

So.

The levels are pretty linear, but there are those kind of like okay clearly, if I go to the end of this side thing, I'm going to get a treasure chest with something in it.

Not a ton of exploration in this.

I will say, speaking on what Jerf was talking about with, like you know, the difficulty and everything, this game does have a lot of like accessibility options related to difficulty.

That's something that they focused on in their TGS presentation was the fact that, like hero mode is there, where it's kind of just like the guided story experience, which is a little bit heavy-handed maybe.

But if you really just want to see what's going on in this game and not really feel pressured, you can do that.

But there's also, like you know, auto opening things.

If you don't want to just be constantly hanging buns, there's auto like wall running and traversal stuff.

If you're like not good with the timing on that thing uh, that kind of thing.

There's a lot of those options in there, not like a ton of time, but enough where it's like okay, if i have trouble with this element of the game, there's probably something that can help alleviate that.

And i think that's cool because that's the kind of accessibility option i like where i can play on the default difficulty, get a slightly difficult experience.

There's a more difficult experience to be had, but also it can be scaled back if people just want to have more fun with the game and not to worry about that too much.

Are we past the point now?

Because I remember when Bayonetta came out there was some online discourse about.

They added an easy mode where basically you just jam on A and she'll do a bunch of cool combos, and everybody was furious about it.

Do people still get mad about that?

Not for these games.

All those people...

Well, those people are still on Twitter, so we kind of just don't see that.

But they also have their stuff now with the FromSoft games.

So it's like they go over there and they have that argument about those games.

All right.

Boy, you all still made me hungry when you were talking about all the pizza earlier.

Makes me wish I had a nice hot za right now. talking about a segway.

Doesn't it have to technically take this thing and connect it to this thing?

I don't think you can go back.

He just grabbed some random thing out there.

Yeah.

You have to go from the current one to the next one.

It might restart.

Yeah.

I was going to so if I could just drop a note there too.

But um, Just because it's in your head doesn't mean you have to say it.

I don't know.

I think actually he does have to.

Again, this is all constructive.

I've always known that about Mike, but I especially learned it last week with the With his urethra.

About his urethra.

Sure.

Speaking of wide holes, we've been playing Pokemon Legends ZA.

Pizza.

Pokemon pizza.

Say it.

Poke pizza.

Pokemon saw.

Hey, everybody.

Come on down to Pokemon Legends.

We can get a hot, fresh slice.

We cooked it earlier.

Don't worry.

Then we'll pop it back in the oven and heat it up for you.

Get a little fresh mozzarella on there.

Hey.

Minotti is Italian.

He can do this.

How do you reheat your pizza?

I don't.

I'll eat cold.

I like air fryer.

Air fryer.

Oven.

I would have an air fryer.

As long as no one's microwaving it.

I can't tell if I do like it or if I'm just lazy.

I don't care.

Mike, what?

I can't tell if I do like it cold.

I eat a lot of things cold.

I'll eat my leftover pasta cold.

I'll eat it all cold because I'm just like... it's fine this way, but maybe I'm just lazy.

I don't know.

Cold pizza is, I feel like a bit of a stretch for the most part.

No, it's like a whole thing.

People like it.

There was a TV show called Cold Pizza because people like it so much.

And it's canceled.

Unlike me.

Jan left a note here.

Said, please read if I'm non-pod.

This is how Jan got his groove back.

It got the sauce.

Dang it, that could have been another pizza reference.

You guys should have really let me go with the pizza thing all the way.

I've been playing this a good amount.

Sean, I think you've been playing a lot.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Grubs thinks you might have played a little bit.

Sean, let's start off with you.

You're probably the biggest Pokemon fan among us.

We both like it.

You like it more than I do these days.

You play it more...

I always just, like, play the story, and then I'm usually done.

You get deeper into it.

You've also liked Scarlet and Violet a good deal more than I did.

I couldn't even get through that game.

So how are you finding the Zaw?

Uh, the...

It feels good because finally, the thought that popped into my head when Jan was streaming it which, by the way, if anyone wants to see the beginning of the game, just to check it out, we have a video on YouTube.

The first three hours of Pokemon Legends ZA.

It's actually closer to four, but I lowballed.

The thought running through my head when we were streaming it and when I picked it up is this is just a really good video game.

No asterisk.

Yeah.

Shouldn't be the thing you're aiming for.

But with Game Freak, it's kind of the thing, the problem we've been having for around a decade now.

There's always something wrong, especially in the Switch era.

You know Scarlet and Violet was the height of that of like running and looking like trash because they rushed it out.

No.

They just made a very good video game.

It's a ton of fun to play.

And I think I'm I am curious to see what you guys think.

I want to hear your thoughts because I'm curious how it plays to people who are more casual with it.

You know, Mike being more casual than I am, and then Grubb not really being into the series in general, because this is the game that I always wanted as a kid.

This is just the Pokemon battles from the TV show.

That's the focus of this game in general.

The real time Pikachu dodge out of the way.

That's finally something that happens in the video games.

And that's really cool to be brought to life.

I got some deeper thoughts on it, but I'm curious how you guys are finding it.

I'm looking at a lot and yeah, like the move over to cooldown based battles, more real time actually works really well here.

It changes the dynamic.

It makes certain moves that I used to like never think about using.

Like there's a lot of moves in the old games like Like it'll do a little bit of damage each turn.

And here, they kind of become traps on the battlefield.

So suddenly, they're more interesting.

Just the fact that because of this system, now you don't have PP anymore.

Like, oh, you can only use this move five times.

No, the stronger moves just have longer cooldowns.

And between those cooldowns, you're using other moves.

So maybe...

Like sword dance isn't something I would ever use, just playing through story mode, because you don't really need to use stat boosting moves unless you're playing competitively or doing real late game stuff.

But here it's like, maybe I'll throw in a swords dance here and there or something like that.

It gives you something to do while you're waiting for your big, heavy hitting attack to come off a cooldown.

Yeah, and even aside just all that, i like the setup.

I like having it all take place in this city.

That's, you know, big enough.

It's not some giant city or something like that, but it certainly gives me enough to explore.

I like the kind of during the day, that's when you're doing maybe, missions and catching pokemon, then at night, that's when you're doing your trainer from the division yeah, The Dark Zones right, there's kind of like a nice formula to that that feels really good.

So yeah, I think that in a lot of ways this is a really nice direction.

You know, I don't know if like, if all this is going to be taken to the main series.

I don't know if I need it to, but I think I definitely like that in the legend stuff.

Yeah, I was kind of already turned on to this because I enjoyed the last one quite a bit.

And then hearing Mike told me about the combat system, the real time combat system and, just like him, giving the reason why now he can use Lear.

And it's like, oh, that's something that always bothered me.

So let's go see this for myself.

And it's all true.

You're going in there like okay yeah, but the other things on cooldown, this will be a great thing to use right now.

It just feels more engaging in some ways.

And I hope they like find ways to loop some of these ideas back in the main game, even if they keep it turn-based.

I have no problem with turn-based, but they got to figure out some other way to get mixed in these other moves in the story mode.

But whatever.

For this game, I also was really impressed with the way it looks.

Now, there are obvious...

Like, just real limitations.

The background of the city being a JPEG on a wall is absurd.

But I do come to Pokemon games because I think Pokemon are cute.

I think that these are good character designs for the most part.

He just robbed the Louvre or something, and he's running down, running through the streets.

And I'm like, ah, that is just cute.

I'm having a good time chasing this little freak.

And so I think they nailed that side of it in terms of the visuals.

And so it's like, yeah, I like looking at it and I'm really enjoying playing it.

I think the last lack of voice acting is is kind of absurd at this.

It's awkward, it's super awkward.

It's just like the one big like presentation thing that like, everyone notices and has a problem with including me.

Yeah Yeah, and it's because it's like they don't even do the Animal Crossing.

There's no sound when the characters are speaking.

It's just silence and text and their mouth moves.

And it's a bad combination.

It's got a bad look, a bad feel.

And I think... the actual baseline there should be voice acting.

This game should have voice acting.

I know other Nintendo games, Zelda continues to get away with it for whatever reason.

It doesn't bother me in the Zelda games.

Really bothered me here.

But that was kind of the one nitpick.

If you're playing this game in bed while watching long YouTube videos about playing every Simpsons game, it's kind of nice not have any voice acting interrupting this.

It's the thing I was thinking of when Mike was talking last week about the voice acting in Trails in the Sky being maybe subpar.

And it's like, well, I guess sometimes it's a blessing in disguise.

But yeah, it should not be the case for sure.

And as we know, because of the leaks, that was a budget thing.

And like clearly like the cut scenes are even animated as if there should be voice acting.

Yes.

Even if you like insist on pulling a constraint in there for development, do the persona style thing.

Big major cut scenes are fully voiced and then you just have sort of like the efforts, you know like the yeah or okay when like other like dialogue boxes.

It was definitely most awkward in the beginning when it was like this you know animated cut scene and it was still just the dialogue.

Even i'm like lip flaps and everything like should have like got steve down at the opera.

Officers need to come in and record some lines.

I don't know.

There's also quite a bit of just talking in general and delaying the gameplay.

Maybe it's not so much that I'm not going to keep playing the game, but it is quite a bit that I do feel like it's a hassle to get through.

I'm like, all right.

It is still an RPG.

Yeah, it's not as bad as Pokemon can be, but because they established this system of like hey, get so many battles and you can do a rank match.

I almost wish they really lead into that.

And it was just almost entirely that.

And I didn't have to worry about this kind of larger story thing.

Hmm.

Maybe that's, you know, wishful thinking here.

So that's like, I don't even know if it's a complaint, that's maybe just a criticism.

It doesn't feel like there's a ton of Pokemon to catch, especially early on.

Maybe that's another like, because you have like these zones where the Pokemon are and each of them will have like six or seven or eight Pokemon to catch there.

That's it.

So I felt like I didn't have a ton of variety.

Oh, I said six, seven.

Oh my God.

I was like, what is Backlard doing?

Literally Cartman in the new South Berks.

Dylan scored over the weekend and celebrated with a six, seven.

And Sean, this might shock you, but I still do not love Mega Evolutions.

Well, yeah, because you're a bad person with bad opinions.

We know.

This game emphasizes them so much that if there's a Pokemon in your party who can't mega evolve, it kind of feels like a little bit of a of a wasted slot.

Sometimes like there's, it is because those are inferior pokemon.

You should put the cool ones on your team.

I wouldn't, but i know i want this pokemon and it's not my fault.

They didn't bother designing a mega evolution.

Well, that's.

The thing though, is that you also have to remember the target audience.

The vast majority of people love Mega Evolution.

No, I know.

And think it's the coolest.

What if they're wrong?

If you're going to have a gimmick...

If you're going to have a gimmick, this is the one to have though, because you know it's temporary, but you get a cool design.

It doesn't get in the way of everything, and it leads them to do cool stuff like that.

Basically, the raid battles are in here.

You don't have, like they've had dumb versions left for past few games and like no, taking down a pokemon that uh didn't want to mega evolve, it just like happened and you're trying to solve the mystery of why that happened.

That's also like a good story beat.

By the way, the story like, if you're paying attention, is kind of interesting because it's weirdly political like it's very much about like local politics of.

I don't think they should be turning, you know this um, this uh street into like a wild zone for pokemon to roam free, don't you agree, tyranitar?

And it's just like what?

There's nimbies, not my backyard, all right, let's go.

Yeah it's, it's.

It's interesting if you're like looking like, if you're paying attention to the main story and you're looking at all the little dialogue boxes that pop up as you're walking around.

There's there's, they're telling an interesting story here and people say that it does get kind of interesting towards the end.

So i i'm, i'm wondering about that, i'm curious where it goes.

Um Mike, you did bring up that.

Yeah, there's the day-night cycle.

During the day, you're exploring the city and you're catching Pokemon in the wild zones, which are kind of like sanctuaries, almost like zoos, almost where you go in there.

Pokemon are roaming free and you can catch them.

That night it goes into the ZA Royale, where it is a Battle Royale and the goal of the game, the way the reason it's called za is because you're climbing the ranks from z to a.

I think they undersold how interesting that system is.

Yeah, that's because yeah like, first of all it is a battle royale like, so you have real-time combat and you're just like fighting all these different people as you run down the street and it's pretty fast paced.

But i think there's also two different levels to it, where people who are it's kind of like we're talking about ninja guide and two different levels of like people who are more casual, are gonna like Probably to get that advantage the first striking so that they can have a little bit of time to figure out how to best defeat this Pokemon they don't really know or the type matchups they don't know.

Whereas someone like me or like Jan...

For us, we know the Pokemon.

We know the time matchups and everything.

It becomes a speed run because you get rewarded at the end of the night the more trainers you have defeated in the ZA Royale that night.

So it's not just about getting enough points to get to your next promotion match.

It's about like defeating as many as possible because you get a like a combo multiplier going and stuff.

That way you get more money and then you can go around buying cool outfits, buying more items you need for the gameplay, buying more Pokeballs.

Yeah, it all feeds right back into each other.

It's really cool.

I have Pokemon news.

Yes.

Yes, sure.

It's unrelated to this ZA game, but do you still want to hear it?

Let me say one thing real quick about the whole structure of the ranks.

Yeah.

Because that...

They also kind of, like, cheap you out on that a little bit.

Like no big spoiler, but there's a part where they're like you're like rank like W and they're like ah, we gotta get you up.

This is now a match for rank F. And you, like, shoot past 15 of them.

Like, ah, I kind of wanted to go up all the ranks, but okay, story.

But, so, whatever.

Go ahead.

This has been in the rumor mill for many, many, many, many months.

And I have yet to feel confident enough to start talking about it with the confidence that I believe it is going to happen.

Pikachu's gay!

Why would you ruin my spot?

Don't add Pikachu.

Yours was way better, Mike.

I like that a lot.

That's Pikachu's choice when he wants to come.

Here's the deal.

Yeah.

Stern Pinball's next game for Q1 2026 is most likely Pokemon Pinball.

Whoa.

Interesting.

What do you mean interesting?

You mean, holy shit.

Sean is going to be sad that's not more like the Game Boy Advance game.

Yeah, I'm curious because there's a literal legacy of Pokemon Pinball.

I'm wondering how much of that is going to translate into the board.

I would say 0%.

I think there's a chance they make it like Pokemon.

What is the... Red and Blue, is that the first pinball one?

It was just Pokemon pinball, and then they did Ruby and Sapphire for the GBA.

Ruby and Sapphire, that's what it was.

I don't know.

You have to...

They don't make pinball games the way video games do that, right?

Like they are built on very proprietary platforms.

They are not, you know, the assets.

It's just not the same.

I know.

What would I know?

So, look, it's really like, is this game going to be good?

And I'm not worried about the theme implementation.

I'm sure that's going to be just fine.

I don't know.

And I hope it's fine for Pokemon sickos.

Uh sean, i guess you and jan will have to be the test of whether or not it's implementation.

Have you ever played the pokemon pinball games, The video games?

No.

Oh, OK.

I think you're missing out because they do some cool stuff with like it's.

They don't try too hard to make a Pokemon game.

They try to like have Pokemon adapt to pinball mechanics.

You get some really cool stuff where like up on the screen, like you'll go into catch mode.

You need to hit certain things on a table like you do in pinball all the time.

Sure.

If you hit enough of those, the Pokemon will unlock, and then you hit a point in the center of the board and then you catch that Pokemon.

And so I'm just curious, like how much of that is going to be in the board?

Because that's what they can do.

Yeah, I would imagine the primary objective of Pokemon, the pinball game, is catching Pokemon.

I would imagine that is like the only thing.

And I guarantee you they'll probably have, like you know, the the ball on the table.

There'll be some fun gadgets, some fun toys.

Again, that's all speculation but um, they should.

Yeah, just because we're on the topic of pinball, they should make a real world pinball game that is also a roguelite, like you can upgrade your pinball.

Oh Like, I don't know like how that would work, but I guess it would like With physical pinball.

Yeah, but like Yeah, they'd have to like All the things would just have to like react differently depending on the upgrades you got on your ball, or something like that.

Yeah, I mean, that's...

You know, there is that, right?

Like you are stacking combos.

Sure, yeah.

The current ball you have can be worth more than the ball you previously had because of where you've leveled up that ball to.

So there is that.

There's a lot of similarities with the sort of psychology of point scoring and whatnot.

But yeah, that's all I have to say.

Q1, you can pretty much lock it in, I would say, judging off of some of this reporting coming out.

Not totally confirmed, but here, Pokemon Pinball, folks.

Thank you for that news update.

We are, of course, an ally for Pinball.

We are an ally for Pokemon.

And speaking of allies... I wonder where he's going.

Dan, do you have any updates about that ROG Xbox Ally X?

Uh-oh, you're sighing like something else happened, Dan.

What happened?

Oh, yeah, I'm going to watch the AEW pay-per-view, and I'll play some ball pit on my ROG Ally here.

And I load it up and normally it's like okay, press your finger on the fingerprint reader and it loads you right in.

Oh, that's not working?

Great.

You need to create a pin.

Okay.

I press that button, and the keyboard doesn't pop up.

I'm like, okay, can't really type a pen in here.

So I'm doing all this stuff, trying to like authenticate it through Microsoft Authenticator, trying to like I can't attach a Bluetooth keyboard because you need to get to the Bluetooth settings, which is past the login screen.

So I'm just fucking around with this.

And then at a certain point I like restarted, and then I'm just pressing the screen to like try to enter a pin or something.

And it's just getting that windows error noise over and over and over again.

And it's, I just wanted to fucking load this thing up and play some ball pit and just nothing fucking worked. so you couldn't you couldn't like plug in a keyboard i mean i could at that point i was like fuck this i'm just like i grabbed the steam deck yeah there is something indignant about yeah at that point i am kind of like that's what it's letting the machine win right yeah that's too far right it's conscious it could it knows when it's one i think the dreamcast it's thinking Look, I'm with you, man.

Again, I really do stand behind the take of this.

It's just the portable Windows 11 machine that has a couple layers of Microsoft branding around it.

That's it.

Until it completely jumps off to a forked OS version of whatever the fuck.

Like, you're just not going to have the experience you have on Steam Deck.

So, you know, I've been enjoying it because, again, the performance is untouchable.

Yeah, totally. it fucking rips.

And the battery's pretty good too.

Yeah, the battery's great.

And we can also say now that Ninja Gaiden 4 is maybe one of the best examples of like, I tried to run that on the Steam Deck. you don't want to play on there like it'll run kind of but like you don't want to play it on there it runs pretty fucking good on xbox ally like i played a lot yeah well to be clear the ally act because i think that's part of the problem here is like i've been meaning to get this out there I think the main problem with this product is just a like, who is this for type of situation?

Because on the one end, cause they, it's not just the LIX.

That's what most people are reviewing, but it is also the regular ally at $600.

It's, you know, the more it's, like a beefed up Steam Deck in terms of specs.

You know, it's the same tier-ish, but it is more powerful.

But, so who are they trying to go for with this?

Are they trying to go for the casual audience and say like hey, you know, there's been the Switch, the PlayStation Portal and everything?

Finally, we have the Xbox handheld.

And you have the option of $600.

It's more reasonable.

And then if you want the premium one, $1,000.

Are they going for that audience?

Or is it for the hardcore audience who's listening to these podcasts and everything knows everything about this, knows that it is a Windows handheld?

But that's also like what you're going after.

An audience of like a few hundred thousand people total.

That seems misguided when you are behind and are trying to reinvent yourself.

Well, i so, so we kind of figured it out live on stream, right?

So one, There's the Jeff Grubb perverts of the world who are just going to buy this because they can't help themselves.

And they're just like, I need the best thing.

I might not, but yes.

But you know what I mean, right?

I'm considering it.

Oh, every day I'm considering it.

Yep.

I fell into this weird category of like hey, I have a Steam Deck, but I do want to access my Epic games and I want to access my Xbox PC Game Pass games.

And I was like, oh, this is doing the thing for me. and then i think number three is this like you know idiot brain where you're like i what xbox has a portable i'll just buy that which is misguided of course yeah they're gonna those people it's an xbox yeah it's an xbox kind of in name only right so that's that is kind of part of the problem though is like because um i know some people We're like, oh, like, who would even be looking at this and doesn't know that only plays PC games?

And that I would say, well, remember, they're saying it's an Xbox.

And I don't mean that in the sense of like, oh, like you can't expect it to run 360 games.

It's still just a Windows PC sure, but also like someone could buy a game as recent as Elden Ring on their Xbox, that will not run on here because that is not a play anywhere.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is not going to run on this Xbox, Right.

Yeah, exactly.

Like any Xbox console game that is not play anywhere will not run on this thing that they're calling an Xbox, which that's to me.

That's the actual problem.

I saw in a comment i think it was retro game course video, maybe it was ours uh where someone was like i have about 300 games in my xbox library.

Only about 15 can run on this thing.

Oh yeah, that is the problem when people actually get them in their hands.

I think what are you doing?

Yeah, i mean It's funny because we've definitely unpacked that talking point a bunch.

And I was like yeah, I know that.

Because I know it, because I'm very ingrained in what the situation is.

When you step outside of that sort of vacuum that I exist in, you're like, oh my God, that is so insane.

Again, they're not outwardly saying I don't think there's necessarily this like uh, nefarious deception campaign at play right, because it's not like they're like, but but on the other hand it's like.

You have this brand thing, you have this thing called Xbox that is now incredibly fragmented.

Literally to decouple what it means on console and PC separately.

You've just painted yourself into such an impossibly you know decipherable corner like sorry.

I don't know how you can justify talking about this without very conveniently leaving out some serious details about what this thing is unable to do.

I think the thing is this will be maybe not a short-lived but a temporary situation, because I don't think there's any way they launch that next Xbox that might be a PC without it being able to play Xbox games.

I really think there will be an emulation layer, and that will come back to this.

Yeah, you can't like like this is a handheld, so there are going to be some concessions, like obviously you can't pop a disc in or anything whatever, but you can't have the next xbox console and you clearly market it as a console, even you don't use the word.

You can't have that go out there and then it doesn't play.

Xbox series games like backwards compatibility has been Xbox's whole thing.

That's why it's all in Xbox is because each console just runs.

There are exceptions, every single generation but it just runs like the games you want to play from the last console.

That cannot be a case moving forward.

The crazy thing to me, Grubb, is like, I'm with you.

I fundamentally believe that's what this thing maybe you know, hopefully will evolve into.

Just say like if that's the case though, say it, say that there's a path.

Like you will, people will buy, will take your word for it, and they will buy this thing preemptively.

I'm telling you, like the fact that they're not saying it certainly leaves room for uh, You don't worry.

That sucks.

And I think too, Sean, what you said earlier about like, who is this for?

Is this for casual?

Is this for hardcore?

I think about things like, for instance, Kayla.

Kayla loves playing video games, but she's never played on PC.

You know, growing up, we never had gaming PCs or anything like that, so we were console kids.

But there's so many games I know she would love, and I would love to recommend to her.

And I've thought before like, oh you know, a Steam Deck would be great, because that is something that, like you don't really have to, like you can play that thing and never go into Linux or anything.

It's just, you download it, you play it.

It works.

Whereas I couldn't do that.

Like I don't if I gave her a, you know, a Xbox rock ally or something.

It comes with all the hassles of a PC, which is the complicated stuff that you don't want.

Like that's why the steam deck is so great is you can access PC games and without a bunch of bullshit.

So right, that's the problem with it being just windows, where i know they you're not going to have like jerf said this explicitly you're not going to have that seamless experience until you have a fork of the os designed for this.

But i saw some people saying that as like the reason that this is the case over like the weekend when people were talking about it.

Nah dog, that's the problem.

That's what all of us who are critical are pointing to.

If Microsoft is taking partial ownership of this.

I know it's a partnership, but they're taking partial ownership.

You make windows make the fork of the OS designed for this.

Don't have desktop replaced by the Xbox app as the desktop shell.

Like that's, that's a clever way to get around it.

But then you see things like when dan has tech issues it's because something broke in that chain that you didn't expect.

And like the steam deck is incredible because valve made linux accessible.

Like it just works the vast majority of time, unless the game is incompatible and they tell you that.

And if you want to boot in desktop mode to get your Epic game set up, your GOG game set up, itch all that stuff you can optionally.

I just think this hardware could have been really cool, especially because the power is there.

Like it's a very powerful handheld and that's awesome.

I think there's a place for that.

They just really fumbled when it came to setting up the OS and then marketing it correctly.

The password issue that Dan had is something I have had on the original Asus ROG Ally because of Windows since it launched.

It's happened about once a week, anytime I'm using it actively.

And the fact that they have not fixed that and it still shows up in this is kind of that to me.

That's the whole point story.

That's all i need to hear to know.

They're not taking this seriously at a thousand dollars.

They're not taking this thing seriously.

They're not even fixing the base bugs that have been in there for literally years.

So why should I have any faith that they're going to be able to navigate kind of the difficult process of building a new, either forked, version of the OS to do this or some new top layer that is so well thought out and so integrated into Windows that you never have to think about it?

I have zero faith that they can do that.

Did you see the videos I posted on blue sky?

Like it's like, there's like four different windows bullshit problems happening simultaneously.

Yes.

And it's, it's, it was just very reminiscent of any time.

Anytime you have like gone online and complain about it.

It's something like that has been happening to me.

Yeah. the worst part is that it forces you to like come to terms once again to be reminded of just how fucking lost windows is like just how off in the goddamn middle of the fucking ocean that os is where you're just like Things used to just work better.

I didn't have to be reminded of the frustrations.

Like I guess you kind of got numb to it when you boot up a PC or a laptop where you're just like, well you know, it's Thursday.

I guess it's time for a fucking typical Windows fuckery.

And, you know, like, oh, this...

Your PC just restarted by itself.

It didn't tell you is gonna restart.

It installed 11 things and now you have to go through this nonsensical onboarding again of like you sure you don't want to Office 365.

They hook you up with a fucking useless piece of fucking bullshit.

It's like, stop.

You are the most pervasive software company on the goddamn planet.

Leave me the fuck alone.

Yeah, rebooting your os and getting that full screen office ad is offensive.

Don't sell me something while i'm logging into my computer.

It's insane.

I gotta send you this like anti-bloat.

Uh fucking package.

Oh the script, the powershell thing.

Oh my god, what a godsend friend of the site anthony, sent it to me.

Yeah, it's a pinball buddy.

Oh my lord, it's like.

That's why.

Another reason why I think they are infinitely far away from delivering on this concept because there is something so important about picking up a Switch 2.

And just being like, oh, everything is about funneling me into the game.

Because once I'm in the game, this thing works really well.

That's true of the Xbox ROG Ally X as well.

Once you're in the game, it's really great.

But the fact that the whole experience of when you pick it up is not about making that as simple as possible.

Just they do not understand the importance of that intimate connection you have between yourself and a gaming device that you're holding.

That's pretty special.

And they kind of don't respect that at all.

Like, Like you said, it's like a faith thing.

I don't have faith in them because they kind of keep fumbling all the small things and leads up to a big issue like this.

Yeah, their priorities are somewhere else.

It's AI.

My fingers are crossed that I'm going to have a better time with.

I've got a DHL truck that is two stops away with a AYN Thor.

So I want to mess around with that quite a bit.

And hopefully that's a better experience.

So I'll report back on that.

All right.

That's it for games and hard.

We've been checking out when we take a quick bricky break.

We'll be right back with the news.

Stay tuned, everybody.

What's that?

Can you hear that, folks?

Oh, God, it's coming down the pike.

It's the Giant Bombathon.

My goodness, folks, we are one week away or less, depending on when you're hearing this.

That's right.

The Giant Bombathon is coming your way live from the East Coast, 5 p.m.

Eastern. on Monday, October 27th to 5 p.m.

Eastern on Tuesday, October 28th.

Take Tuesday off.

Listen, we had to do this on a Monday night.

We know it's during the week.

Take Tuesday off.

Take it off now.

Get your requests in.

That's right, 24 hours of local multiplayer shenanigans, gimmicks, fun.

Hullabaloo.

All this stuff.

Pyro Valley.

No pyro.

We had the confetti cannon last time.

That didn't work well.

We're going to have a lot of fun, folks.

It's going to be the five owners of Giant Bomb.

You know who we are.

We also have Chuck and Sean flying out to join the festivities.

That's right.

Remember, Monday at 5 p.m. into Tuesday at 5 p.m.

Take care.

Tuesday off work.

We're going to be there live on Twitch, on YouTube.

Check us out.

It's going to be a lot of fun.

We'll make it worth your while.

We got some incentives.

We got some stuff you might like to see.

I got things I'm biting my tongue on.

I'd like to say some of these incentives, but you'll have to tune in Monday night, 5 p.m.

Eastern.

Be there!

The Giant Bombathon!

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Before we get into the real news, i have my own breaking news for jeff grubb you're pregnant.

No, I'm projected first in fantasy critic because Ninja Gaiden 4 got me a good amount of points.

It has an 82 on open critic, which for what I play, I'd say a little bit better, but who knows?

I've got to play more of it.

But I was the only one here with the foresight.

To think that maybe Jurassic World Evolution 3 might do decently with reviews.

And that has an 85 right now.

That's really good.

Okay.

I got some.

Definitely the only one.

Yeah.

I got some Jurassic World points on my side.

Oh, shit.

I'm going to sign for that Thor.

I'll be right back.

Alright, cool.

So, there you go.

I'm sitting pretty right now, projected, but just a little bit.

It kind of seems to be.

Well, Sean has a shot here, but it definitely is Jeff, and I favored the most right now.

I think it's going to come up in June.

It's going to come down to Metroid.

If Metroid does very well, I'd probably win.

If it kind of does anything beneath that, I think it's all you.

I have Age of Imprisonment, which is a little risky because I'm like, I don't know.

Maybe that'll... I don't think you're going to lose points with it.

I don't think that's skipping below 70.

They've been all right.

I think I...

I'd give you a run for your money if I didn't fucking counterpick blueprints like a dumb bitch.

Yeah, you gotta get screwed right out of the gate, Bacalar, yeah.

Why didn't you say Lavender?

It's like, I haven't heard of this one.

And then Lucy was like, you done fucked up.

You could have been really stupid and pulled a bonehead move like Counterpick, I don't know Metroid Prime 4 or something.

That'd be insane.

Could you imagine someone doing that?

I'm not a total moron.

That'd be absolutely ridiculous.

All right, Jeff, play the music, get to the news.

Oh, it's fun to be able to tell you to do things then you do them.

Don't get used to it.

Doesn't he always do that?

Cluck like a chicken!

Cluck, cluck.

All right, I have some news here at the News Roost.

Bawk, bawk.

Let's start here with Nintendo's second Kirby Air Riders Direct.

Is this week... and will last an hour.

Yes.

It's longer.

It's 60 human minutes of Kirby Air Riders information from Sakurai himself.

What the hell?

It's October 23rd.

It's 6 a.m.

Pacific time, 9 a.m.

Eastern.

Yeah, that game's out November 20th for $70.

So they're like, yeah, we really got to talk this up.

I'm shocked, though, that it's even longer than last time.

Remember our idea of having only Bacalar react to this?

I do remember that.

No, I don't know what the hell you're talking about.

So maybe you keep talking.

Wouldn't it be funny Jeff if, instead of all of us reacting to this thing which you know whatever we're probably just going to get on tangents and talk about our own bullshit, because it's very long.

What if it was only you reacting to this kirby racing game?

Deep dive for an hour.

I could not think of something that would be more of a waste of time.

Let me ask, dan do you think it's funny if only jeff bacalar reacts to this hour-long kirby air riders presentation?

The answer is so obvious to that that it's almost insulting that you asked that.

We can't be surprised that we have to commit to someone.

Jeff.

Yeah, you're exactly right.

For the good of the business.

Why we do.

No, i promise you, from a dead ass, serious fucking point of view, my time would be better spent doing something else than watching.

How is that not painfully obvious?

Whatever you're doing, what?

Is it an email or something i can do that?

Yes, we've discovered all of these things.

We're all equally capable of doing.

No, absolutely not.

What do we have to do?

I don't know.

Who knows?

A phone call.

Who knows what it will be that will be worth my time by a magnitude of 50.

It's only an hour.

I'll Venmo you.

You will Venmo me?

What do you mean?

Yeah, we'll pool it together.

I don't think you know where the money comes from.

There's a number.

There's always a number.

We'll give you a free copy of Kirby Air Riders as a reward for doing this.

The idea would be funnier than the execution anyway.

No, it would be really funny.

Well yeah, it would be funny to be like oh wow, did you see that grown-ass man have a mental breakdown?

Live on Twitch.

Wait, did you see that?

They gotta just talk about everything that's in this game, like every character, every thread.

What, did they find a third button or something?

I'm with Mikey, though.

I do think on paper, this is hilarious.

Like, without a doubt.

It's like when I wanted to do the two-hour pre-show for the last one.

Right.

Maybe now we do the two-hour pre-show.

And then we all just leave in backyards there alone.

That's right.

And then we became millionaires.

That was it.

That was the moment it all changed for us.

They're going to talk about everything, I think.

The VGC's hands-on did suggest the game is deceptively deep.

We better be very deceptive for it to be another.

I don't want it to be too deep.

That's part of the charm of Kirby Air Riders that it was a one button game.

Now I will allow the second button.

That's fine, but I don't want too much to depth in this baby.

Are you a big Kirby Air Ride fan, Mike?

I don't know if I call myself a big Kirby.

I respect Kirby Air Ride.

He's one of the bigger Kirby Air Ride fans.

I think it's a good game, which is like a bridge other people won't cross, I suppose.

It is funny that this is the bit.

You know what I mean?

It's funny that this is the bit that it's like oh, we're going to give you like so much, so much more than you could possibly need about this.

It's a good bit.

It's funny.

It's honestly very good.

Yes.

Yeah.

Part of it's definitely still Sakurai is...

He has that sway and they're kind of wanting to keep him happy.

But I think they're also like, hey, that last game maybe underperformed.

So it's like really go out there for this one.

Tell you what, if this one doesn't do well, it will not be for a lack of them trying.

They definitely have made the effort here.

Yeah, look like i.

I did not like kirby air ride the first, but this one i'm in full support of this because, like well sakurai, do whatever the hell he wants, that man's earned it.

You want one passion project on the company's dime?

Take one, my man, absolutely.

Uh, next gen xbox console plans heading into 2026.

Sarah bond commented on these.

Uh she, after talking about the handheld stuff and and like kind of you know talk like saying, oh yeah, we definitely have a lot of ideas still for improving the rog xbox ally x.

She went on and confirmed that Xbox is still actively developing its next generation console, the follow-ups to the Xbox Series X and S.

They didn't really give too many details again, but she did continue to point to That AMD statement that Microsoft or that Xbox and AMD made previously, where they're like yeah, we're developing a new chip and we are going to have backward compatibility.

Like.

So they said like, whatever they end up doing, if it is going to be this PC thing, it will have some sort of backward compatibility.

But this is her reiterating this once again, as there have been questions around the future of Xbox and how committed they are to any of this.

And every time they're sort of put in a corner to ask that sort of thing, this is how they respond.

I...

Do we buy that this is something that they are taking seriously over at Microsoft, or does it feel like?

Well, of course Sarah Bond takes it seriously, but maybe the people above her could undercut this thing.

I think that second... I think the latter there is what's maybe going on there.

Clearly, Microsoft as a bigger company, their focus is elsewhere, as you said.

And yeah, at this point, it really just comes down to, like we said, faith.

Like...

Okay, you're gonna have this more PC-style box.

That's mostly up to rumors at this point, by the way.

Rumors and reporting.

But if you're gonna have this more PC-style box that will have backwards compatibility with Xbox games, it's just a disconnect of well, why didn't you do that for the handheld that you just launched, because that would have gone a long way.

Yeah, exactly like you gotta do something there.

So it's The idea of it is cool.

I mean honestly, like you know, I was kind of dumped on Xbox during that segment, but their ecosystem is my favorite of the big three right now because they let me use the hardware that I want to, except for when they don't apparently.

So i don't know my.

I was actually like mildly interested in what this console could be, but you know, the launch of this new hardware has my faith waning a little bit.

Yeah, and of course you know, price increases inflation, all those things continue to cause various headaches for just the current gen of hardware, where it's like the Xbox Series X and S have gone up in price multiple times, especially in the United States but around the world.

And so it's like, what is the pricing even going to look like for a next-gen Xbox?

I think everyone is expecting the absolute worst there.

We're talking about like a floor of...

Seven hundred dollars, even that feels unlikely.

It's like maybe we're talking about eight hundred dollars and maybe they're like the real version you want to get is a thousand dollars, eleven hundred dollars.

Like these are things that people have actually said to me when when we had these conversations.

And meanwhile everything's still going up in price, including the Xbox development kits which they just announced have increased in price from 1500 to 2000.

Whoa! flex macro economic developments.

We remain committed to providing high quality tools and support for your development efforts.

And these are, these are the kits that, like you know, they get you, like licenses and all that stuff.

So they were always kind of expensive at 1500, but maybe it's not expensive relative to previous development kits.

But now, you know, even these things are getting hit by price increases.

You need people to make games for your platform, right?

Yeah.

That's part of it, yeah.

You don't want to sensitize that.

It's also weird.

I didn't realize that they were $1,500 because I thought... Because they don't call...

Well, yeah, don't they call the alternate mode on Xbox the developer mode?

And that was kind of the appeal.

And that's like $20 to unlock that.

So this must have some other feature that maybe it has more fully fledged out a development kit aspect to it, a dedicated dev kids, what like a triple a studio is going to use sure, and so i guess maybe they're getting a little more money from those places, but how many of these do they even so?

I just exactly mark up, right?

Yeah, It definitely is.

Like every dollar you raise this reduces the number of people who are going to be making games for your system.

Something that seemed like it might be still be important to you at one point maybe not so much in this moment.

Um, you know, I I think maybe that's something they're not, they're less worried about if they are kind of going to go go with a PC route which should be, like you said Sean, like that's rumor.

That's the reporting.

We still don't know for sure.

They have not said that.

Uh, but if they do go that way, maybe that kind of gets them out of this where it's like any PC game can just work on this new Xbox and that's what we want.

So, um, We'll see.

The Simpsons is reportedly coming to Fortnite, including an entire Springfield map.

Yeah, that's the thing that really made me do that same sound right there.

It's like, oh, that's cool.

I'll play as Homer.

Wait, a Springfield map?

That's brilliant.

That's awesome.

I fucking played virtual springfield all the time.

That was barely even a game.

I just want to see springfield.

You know, i was about to say dan, i just watched a two-hour video about virtual springfield last night.

I loved virtual Springfield.

Yeah, just walking around Springfield is actually fun.

I mean, that was a big part of the appeal of the car game that everybody liked.

Hit and Run.

Road Rage and Hit and Run.

Hit and Run, yeah, exactly.

I'm in.

That's, I mean, man, I haven't played much Fortnite in quite a while, but... It's been a moment.

That sounds fun.

That's great.

I wonder if it's going to be like, it's a separate map.

Is that right?

Or is it a part of the larger map?

Yeah, I bet it would be...

Go ahead.

You're trying to read it out here.

It's like the extensive crossover which includes a cell-shaded Springfield nuclear power plant is a rare occurrence for Fortnite, as most collaborations are limited to skins and items.

So it makes it sound like they're going to be implanting Springfield kind of into the current map in some way.

That's what they usually do.

Yeah, because I want to do zero build.

I want to play normal.

I don't want it to be a side mode thing.

Yeah, that'll get me in.

I'll play that.

Did you guys also see that Futurama Total Conversion mod for Simpsons Hit and Run?

Yeah.

Oh, really?

That was really neat.

Yeah, that's really well done.

God, that's a good game. by the way.

That's just an old-timer licensed game, Hit and Run.

I don't know how I never played Hit and Run or Road Rage.

It's a genre I like and a console I loved with my favorite license pretty much ever.

If you played Hit and Run, God.

I need to remember this.

Next time I can maybe give you a punishment, because if you played Hit and Run right now, I think you would.

Love it.

Hit and Run or Road Rage?

Which one's the better?

Road Rage is the crazy taxi-like, but Hit and Run.

It's like GTA, but instead of Yeah, but instead of doing the shooting.

It's like there's some platforming that you do sometimes.

God, that sounds great.

Man, I gotta...

Tank at the next punishment thing.

I got to lose on purpose.

There you go.

The only way I can play it.

Oh, wow.

You won one.

You're very good at Tony Hawk.

I'll tell you what.

You were the best.

Thank you.

Wow.

Yeah, it was impressive.

Resident Evil Zero remake casting seemingly found as lead actor refers to Project Chamber in his resume.

People believe that that references Rebecca Chambers, who is the star of Resident Evil Zero.

This lines up with some other Rumors out there that this game is one of the ones being remade right now, alongside Code Veronica, which could come first.

That one could come in like 2027 and this one in 2028 or maybe 2026 and 2027.

Although, of course, Requiem is coming out early next year.

So maybe this is going to be a little bit further off.

Resident Evil 5 continues to not be in active development for a remake apparently which yeah, that seems like a challenge.

So they probably want to do all these other ones first.

We're good.

Thanks.

Yeah.

I am glad because I was a little worried that they would just go to 5 and brute force that and figure stuff out there which someday they will do.

They'll figure that out.

But I was kind of worried that they just wouldn't do Zero or Code Veronica, which would be a shame.

Especially Zero, which is a game that's very...

It's like such a good premise, good ideas, and some of the execution is just lacking.

But remake that like, you know, what they've done with these other remakes.

Resident Evil 2, Resident Evil 4 remakes are just some of the best games ever.

They did such a good job with that.

So just seeing that treatment given to Zero and to Code Veronica, I am super excited about.

And Zero could super use it.

Like you're right.

Like I love the concept, the two characters and the train and everything, but it's like it just was.

It was missing something for sure.

So like full remake treatment sounds awesome for that.

Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, that game is getting a free third person mode and new game plus update.

They kind of talked about this a little bit before, but they reiterated that it's going to launch in December, on December 5th, right alongside Avatar, Fire and Ash.

I guess I did want to ask do you guys think games like this because we've kind of reached a plateau with visuals kind of a licensed game that is a few years older can get a small update and maybe ride the excitement for a new movie, especially one that's going to be as big as this?

Do you think that's a strategy that these companies might be able to use going forward?

Maybe this one also got like a full on expansion of that's coming out in December.

Yeah, that's right.

It's releasing alongside the movie, right?

Yeah.

So it's also getting that, which I think I think that's definitely the smart thing. to do for this.

This is a game I actually liked and would like to play more of.

Especially, I bet I'll be in an Avatar mood after, unless that movie bombs somehow, but I don't know.

I liked, I liked Way of Water so much that I'm pretty excited for Fire and Ash.

I am too.

Mm-hmm.

But it's weird because we don't actually get anything of this scale even for games anymore, right?

Even releasing an expansion theme to the new movie for an existing game in the IP.

Most franchises don't have an existing game in that IP anymore.

Yeah, right.

So it's kind of like out on an island.

And I'm glad we still have this.

Yeah, like I'm glad that they didn't give up on this or Star Wars Outlaws so much that they're like when they did have these opportunities, they didn't take them.

Like.

It seems like they're like ah, you know what this will get us some return and launching Star Wars Outlaws on Switch 2.

That could probably work, and that did work really well.

Maybe they're going to stick with these things a little bit longer.

I don't expect them to go back to the well of doing another licensed game like this anytime soon, though.

Especially having NASA do that.

No way.

Yeah, I don't think we're going to get another...

This might be the last Avatar game like this we ever get.

I think you know people will kind of keep finding it through sales and because you know the movie's coming out.

Like, I don't think this.

You know, this game wasn't some gangbuster success clearly, but it'll have a tail.

Uh, warner brothers discovery puts itself up for sale basically hey, there's some interest in acquiring us and we're gonna go back out there.

I think they're talking like larry ellison might buy this as well, because he fucking buys everything else.

So, of course um, But you know, Warner Brothers has several game developers NetherRealm, all the DC stuff, Rocksteady.

And so they've...

Also been pretty disillusioned with making games themselves for a while, even despite having multiple hits.

I mean, they had the Batman games for a long time, and then Harry Potter did very, very well for them.

And then the immediate aftermath of that they were talking about.

The next Harry Potter game is going to be a live service game.

Screw, making the best selling video game of the year.

We want to do something different next time.

Um, so they've tried to sell their studios before.

They have not been able to do that because they weren't selling the IPO alongside that.

Um, So yeah, I guess.

Do we think that the video games are going to factor into this at all, into this deal?

I don't know.

What happens to Rocksteady, right?

Because they, you know...

They're still Suicide Squad ramifications to a lot of things, right?

Not that Gotham Knights was much better over on that side.

Right.

It seems like they've been de-emphasizing it for a while now, but I don't know if they totally crossed the bridge and started selling or closing studios off.

Yeah, I think they're like, it's too big to close down.

We need to get something back for it.

Maybe this is the opportunity, but I don't think whoever acquires them will actually have any good answers on how to run these studios either.

That will continue to be a challenge.

Atari announced the Intellivision Spirit, a revamp of the iconic 1980s gaming console.

I guess this reminded me that Tommy Tallarico did lose the Intellivision name.

I was about to say, I thought he still, what about the Amico?

I think they just call it the Amico now and they dropped the Intellivision part.

Incredible.

That was the whole point.

I thought it was that big pot.

I thought so too.

This thing is, let's see, it's available for pre-order at $150.

It's shipping December 5th as well.

It's also December 5th.

Basically it will play your old games, I believe, but you can also install games on it, and then it uses HDMI.

So it's an easy way to get Intellivision games onto a modern television.

Like a lot of these devices, they've done this with their 2600 and other Atari devices recently.

Now they're just doing it with this.

Do we know how those sell?

I think they seem to do okay.

You know there was a long time where, like you could get one of these Atari like joystick things that plug directly into your TV with like RCA cables.

Those were like popular stocking stuffers for a very long time.

And I think that that actually probably mostly continues for these kinds of things.

But 150 is maybe getting up there where it's like.

It's probably for the person in your life that you know likes old video games as a gift to give.

Yeah, it's not as successful as, like you know, you go to Costco and you see all those, like you know Pac-Man, tabletop things and everything.

You just want like a cool thing in your house.

You just have a fondness for old games.

Like I think something like that would go before like this is a little more niche, you know?

Yep.

Wait, is this thing called the Intellivision Spirit or the Intellivision Sprint?

You know, I I thought it was the spirit.

And then I Googled it and I and it came up a spirit.

And then I but I do.

I had that same question.

Is it called the sprint on their website?

I think it's the sprint on their website.

OK, because I got this from a website from a news story that covered it and called it the spirit.

And I was like, okay, so it must be right.

I think if you look at it quickly, it looks like Spirit instead of Sprint, I guess.

I think it's Sprint.

There's a bunch of news stories saying Spirit.

I think they may have misspelled it in the press release because their YouTube channel says Sprint.

What the heck?

Oh, man.

This rules.

We clarified it.

There we go.

I had that same question when I was getting this story, so I'm glad you brought it up.

Okay, yeah, it looks like Sprint is the actual name.

Incredible.

Okay, I mean, that's a weird name considering the, you know, telephone people.

Wood paneling, right?

Wood paneling consoles are always.

It's very cool, yes.

Imagine.

Mike, I'm with you on retro stuff.

I love it so much, but it is really like, as soon as you go before the stuff I personally grew up with, it's like eh, I'm sure that's important or whatever.

Right.

If it's pre NES, it's like well, you better be some like.

You better be King's quest or something on PCs, for me to care.

Yeah.

I had the Coleco vision.

I'm like, Oh, look at that thing.

All right.

There you go.

That looks nice.

Very cool.

Awesome.

Yeah.

And then, of course, we mentioned it early, but Itagaki Tomonobu.

Itagaki did die last week.

He was 58 years old.

He spearheaded the modern reinvention of Ninja Gaiden, originally in 2004 for Xbox, also obviously known for the Dead or Alive series.

The first game he worked on at Tecmo was Tecmo Super Bowl for Super Nintendo, which was a fantastic game.

So just a legendary career, really cool guy.

I'll mention on Game Mess Mornings his persona that he was very good at portraying.

He definitely was putting on airs a little bit, because there's a lot of footage of him before the persona and it's very cool to see.

Oh, really?

Is it like Larry the Cable Guy?

Well, maybe we'll learn that.

Yeah, he explained it.

He's like I was doing this to get attention from the Western press because they like basically like gimmicks, and it worked.

They paid attention to him.

Fucking charm.

Have you ever heard the story of where he invited Harada over to Tecmo at one point?

Mm-mm.

He, like, invited him.

I think it was for Dead or Alive 2.

It was DOA 2 or 3.

He invited him over.

And, like, Harada told the story.

It's on Twitter somewhere.

Where, like, he, like, brings him in.

And they like it's a very serious, like almost confrontational thing where like, we're walking down the hall, brings him into a room.

It's like a dark room and he's like here, sit and then turns on tv and it's like dead or alive, two or three, and it's like isn't this amazing?

And harada's like am i being kidnapped or something?

What's going on?

He's about to become a made man, right?

Yeah, and if you like, again, if you see Harada's post about this over on Twitter, it's so sad.

I'm not even going to pull it up because I might start tearing up.

But it's just like he was very obviously like afterwards, you know, Itagaki sort of like you know, kind of apologized and like they became maybe more like rivals but like a friendship of a type.

And it was clear that he just like, loved what he did and wanted to, like you know, put on a show for everyone.

And so, yeah, it, this is definitely a sad one for sure.

Yep, definitely.

He did put a message and basically just said he didn't have any regrets, but he did have some sorrow about not being able to do just one more game.

And it's like, oh, that's a worker right there.

That's someone who just did love what he was doing.

But yeah, got a lot of great games out of him.

Is there an easy way for us to play Devil's Third?

We need to know you.

I've always been very curious.

There's a very easy way, Dan.

Yes, there's an easy way.

And we also have a show where that might make sense.

We do have a show where that might make sense.

Maybe I should add something to a doc.

Okay.

All right.

Okay.

That does it for the news headlines I have.

I was going to hand the show back over to Jan.

Jan, the show is yours.

Please, Jan.

Thanks, Grob.

Let's take a little coffee break here real quick.

Nobody say shot o'clock or else I'll have to imbibe in alcohol.

Wouldn't want to do that.

Barbara Jan might disapprove.

Actually, Barbara Jan might like that.

We'll be right back, everybody.

It's a quick, quickie break.

Bye-bye.

I hope Jan doesn't see this.

What's my password again?

Oh, yeah, let me just hack into the mainframe for you, but I'll get you set up.

Oh, Chuck, thanks for the help.

Can I return the favor?

Actually Jan, you and the folks at home can help me with the new website which we're hoping to launch in December of this year.

Wow, neat.

That's soon.

It's soon, right.

Specifically, we need some help with the GB Wiki Street team.

We are rebuilding the Wiki as a community effort using MediaWiki and PHP JavaScript XML templates Vuejs.

Do you know these words?

Then we can sure use your help.

If that's you and you feel like you could help, go over to the Giant Bomb Discord and find the Wiki Street Team channel or go to bombcastcom slash wiki.

Thanks, Jan.

That means a lot.

Thank you, Chuck.

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This stress check, aka friendly reminder that your hobbies matter is brought to you by State Farm.

Because you deserve to lose yourself in the stuff that brings you joy.

Here's mine, painting my tabletop battle miniatures.

Yeah, seriously.

After a long day, I grab a brush, pop in some music, and just get into it.

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It helps me clear my head, slow down, and just breathe.

But it works.

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No pressure, just paint, creativity, and a little reminder of what makes me happy.

Some people bake, some people garden.

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You don't have to be good at your hobby.

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We'll be right back emails.

You can send your emails to bombcast at giantbombcom and, who knows, maybe we'll read them on the air, just like this one from Valerie from Denver says hey, bombers.

I know Mikey likes point and click adventure games.

I want to ask if he's played Poco yet.

It's an adventure game with a gorgeous hand painted art style where you play as an adorable little two inch clown named Poco.

And it's free.

I have no idea why no one is talking about it, but it's driving me crazy.

Please.

Give it a look.

I have not played Poco.

I'm looking.

It is free.

Why is this game just free?

Is this a point-and-click adventure game that's for overwhelmingly positive reviews?

Came out in May?

Why is this thing free?

It can't have microtransactions.

It's a point-and-click adventure game.

Huh.

How many of these do that?

It was just like a small project they made as a passion project.

Sometimes it just played out for free.

It's really cool.

A two-inch clown reminds me I was playing a game for like, I was looking for stuff for the Nightmare Block and I found this beat-em-up that is kind of awesome called Gourmet Warriors or something, and I'm playing as this lady who poses and sticks her butt out to like get her health back or whatever, and that's whatever.

Of course.

I like beat up a Moai statue.

I think that's how you say it.

Moai statue.

And then, when that exploded, a tiny little man like and it's like a Super Nintendo game or something.

So it like looked like a pitfall Harry character when he was like like seven pixels or seven.

Yeah, seven pixels on the screen.

And he's just started running around and started beating me up like he started fighting back again.

And I like I had to like try to hit him, but he was too tiny.

So it's very hard.

So I kind of had to like wait for him to jump right in front of me and I punched him.

Yeah, how did you regain your health?

But you just pose and you stick your butt out.

Okay.

But is it the butt out that gives you health?

I mean, she's got a Cammy-like situation back there.

Oh.

Wedgie?

A wedgie.

I call them Cammy's.

Is Cammy known for her ass?

Oh, my God.

Yeah, we can't.

We can't.

All right.

Anyway.

Did not know that.

Oh, my God.

All right, then.

Next up is from Travis.

We got here.

Question says, how old do you feel?

Mentally, physically.

I think I stopped aging as a holistic person at around like 27-ish.

I think that's like in my head when I think of myself.

I'm still that person I was when I was 27, for the most part.

From just a mental state.

From like just the way I consider Jeff Grubb as a picture of Jeff Grubb in my head.

Okay.

I'm picturing kind of the person I was at 27.

Got it.

I mean in terms of like interests and taste and things and humor and stuff.

I feel like I pretty much at like 15 and have been uh, in parentheses positive forever.

Um, But then I have had the actual kind of emotional maturing and things like that.

That is a separate thing.

So that I feel like is proper.

Physically, I think I'm going back now because I'm getting back into a workout thing and everything.

So I'm starting to feel a little better with that stuff.

So yeah, I'm maybe 30.

How old do you feel?

You feel 30?

But there's so many factors, just like broadly speaking, like like jeff said, like jeff grub, his head is like a 27 year old like you.

You just think yeah, i'm like lifestyle wise.

Lifestyle wise, let me okay, because i do like drinking, so you gotta be over 21.

I'll say lifestyle wise 23.

That sounds... Playing video games and drinking beer and having fun and stuff like that.

That sounds pretty accurate to me.

Emotionally, I feel like I'm a proper, like, you know, 41.

I feel like I've aged and grown.

I'm an old soul.

I'm 500 years old emotionally.

And physically, I'll say 30.

Yeah.

Mike, I'm curious.

How do you feel?

I guess I feel 38.

I am 38.

I don't know.

This is about right.

I've had too many colonoscopies to feel younger than that.

That's fair, that's just like a good punchline.

Yeah right, like i'm like you know, not tmi, but like my mom had to have her first, like i don't know first or second one, and i'm like you're not getting any sympathy from me on this one, I definitely Like I got you beat here.

I don't feel 30.

I don't know.

Something about that number just feels like, eh, you're old as shit, dude.

But I don't know.

Maybe like 25 for me.

I definitely feel older than just, like you know, still in my wild teenage years or anything like that.

But I don't know.

30...

It hasn't sunk in yet.

Yeah, I mean, I think there's just a natural sort of like you feel like you're changing because you are changing.

And then at a certain point, like you know how, they want the key demo because they still haven't decided their brand loyalties.

They don't want older people because older people don't change brands.

I think there's a certain point where the change after 25-ish has to be really driven by a decision to change, whereas opposed to before that it's just happening all the time.

I would think we are special.

And like this line of work probably changes that.

Cause, like I bet, if I had never gotten into this line of work and I was just working at a call center like I was beforehand I bet I would feel a lot older and beaten down by life.

I think um.

I think playing games for a living is definitely helped me mentally feel very young, you know.

Can we address this Super Chat real quick, Mike?

Yeah, Antonio Morales says, Super Chat, the devil's third is on the way.

Penis.

Thank you, Antonio.

Antonio, I'm going to send that back to you when we're done.

Come on.

You can send it to me, Antonio.

That's right.

I post my P.O. box. that's uh i think yeah all right i'll pick it up and uh that i could just give to someone else so maybe someone else could play that we'll see oh boy oh boy all right thank you so much antonio uh next Email here is from Chris from Rhode Island.

He says, hello, my wife and girls are away this weekend on these unicorn weekends.

I always get Taco Bell.

I ordered too much for lunch and had a Crunchwrap Supreme leftover.

It feels sacrilegious, but I saved it in the fridge for later and then reheated it for dinner.

I feel dirty.

As the Taco Bell aficionado, I must know from Dan if reheating Taco Bell is a no-no.

I'll still vacuum out my car, car seats, goldfish, and all.

Then play Hades 2 for four hours straight today.

Some help.

Cheers from Chris. you really eat Taco Bell.

It's fine.

Not only is it not a no, no, it is something I specifically do as a strategy.

So if I'm having a weekend night or whatever, I'm going to be up late having some beers and Taco Bell.

Really just sinking into all that.

Uh, I will specifically get stuff for the next morning.

Cause when you wake up a little bit hungover on a Saturday and you're like Oh Fuck right, I have that quesadilla and that cheesy roll-up.

I like to have two items in the morning.

And the thing is too, air fryer, air fryer, air fryer.

We were talking about that with pizza earlier.

Get one of these fucking things.

They're cheap.

They work so fucking well.

And Taco Bell.

I swear like a quesadilla will sometimes taste better coming out of an air fryer.

It's a crispier than it will from the taco bell.

Dan have you?

Are you much of a taco bell breakfast person by any chance?

No, i'll do it on occasion, like if we're like doing like a road trip or whatever and you know we just gotta stop and get some food.

I'll get like it's fine.

Um, they do eggs and shit.

Yeah, it's like a crunch wrap with eggs in it and stuff like that and I think it's underrated because they like combine the breakfast stuff to make Taco Bell things, like you know, a breakfast crunch wrap instead of having like the hard shell in there.

They have a hash brown, like a flat hash brown thing.

They do scrambled eggs and cheese and stuff in there.

I think it's pretty good.

I mean, it's fine, but it's just like every fast food breakfast thing.

It's like I'm just like Taco Bell.

You can order from the main menu during breakfast.

I'm always going to just order the lunch stuff.

That's why, if I go to McDonald's at breakfast I'm like I fucking hate this because I can't order a quarter pounder and fries.

You know, I don't think mine. does the normal menu.

Oh, the one I went to in Wisconsin actually was the last time I had Taco Bell breakfast, and then I had it.

They stopped doing breakfast here.

You don't like McDonald's breakfast, Dan?

It's fine.

It is fine.

I've come to terms with my thoughts on eggs now.

It's not a phobia thing.

It's not a gross, like, you know, I'll eat them.

They're fine.

They make my stomach a little bit queasy, and I don't particularly love the taste of them.

You can order just the sausage and McMuffin, by the way.

Oh, no, that's what I do.

Yeah, I'll just get like a sausage and cheese biscuit or a McGriddle or whatever.

And you can take that egg puck out of there real easy if it comes with it.

That's why I'm saying last time we talked about it, you were like, I'll just chuck the egg.

I'm like, just order without the egg.

You save like $2.

I tracked a lot of egg pucks in my life.

Did you say this?

Someone in chat put a quote.

Did you say this just now?

I've come to terms with eggs.

I think I've also come to terms with eggs.

I understand.

I'm at peace with eggs.

Yeah yeah, all right, makes sense, i'm glad.

No mention cleaning out the car.

Look, i say this as all of the people with kids, but your cars are.

It's so disgusting there, i can't imagine how many cars.

Yes, it is just terrible.

It sucks.

I'm out of the shit.

But i remember those dark days man, You know, the kids still eat breakfast in the van some mornings.

And it drives me crazy because I'm like I'm going to find whatever that is six weeks from now, no matter what I do in this moment to prevent that from happening.

And it does get to me.

It really like it bothers me a lot.

Well, are they both one of... Are both your kids in booster seats still or no?

No, they are books.

I got some little girls.

They're little kids, yeah.

Okay, regardless of their age they are, it's their size.

Yeah, they're little kids.

So when, when dib got out of the booster seat, that was a revelation where it was just like oh, he's a little bit more aware of where the trash is and like right and all that stuff and they're just isolated in their like little spots.

They're kind of helpless in there.

Yeah, I think I probably know the answer to this.

But do kids today maybe this is a specific part of the country thing, but do you still ride around in the beds of pickup trucks?

It's the only person that said what you know.

I've never seen that.

Here's the thing.

It's super, it's super illegal and it's like a bad idea.

Yeah, but it was awesome.

But it was awesome.

I mean when I was a kid, we would ride around in the back of the station wagon and we would just be rolling around in the back.

No, I mean open air, bed of the truck.

I'm aware of what you mean.

We were doing that in the 80s still.

You were such a coastal boy.

It's insane, man.

There's people live where I live.

Yeah.

Where no one sees you and you can get away with crazy shit.

You can't do that.

You're crazy, dude.

You can't do that where people live.

People live there.

It's like, that's just a thing.

I'm sure people live there.

I'm sure.

Do you ever do?

Come on.

You ever do, like, an equivalent though, Jurf?

Like, ever, like, a doubling up on seats because we have one too many people or something like that?

Yeah, like, like, like, four people in the back?

Yeah, it's like, sure.

But someone has a truck instead of a van.

It's the Midwest.

Yeah, but I mean four people in the back is not even in the same solar system as riding in the flatbed of a pickup truck.

It shouldn't be.

You're right.

It shouldn't be.

Chat says Backler thinks everything that happens outside the tri-state area is like Narnia or some shit.

Hey, you just have no sense of in some capacity.

Yeah, you know, like i'm not, i'm right, i think you know i get it.

To answer the question.

I think you see it much less now.

It was more in certain areas and it was it's not very safe.

It's it can be fun, but it's not safe.

I mean, here in ohio, like i like i was like surprised because we were in denver for a long time with the really young kids and it's like everyone had car seats, everyone like especially a kid under 50 pounds, for sure.

And then that's a little bit more rural here and i will drive the kids to school and every kid is just no seat belt, flopping around inside the car.

As i'm like that's going on and that's where i've shifted.

Like as a kid i was one of those kids rolling around the back of the station wagon not thinking about anything uh, but my parents didn't know any better because there's been a lot of advances on advancements on this stuff since then, and so now i'm like well, that's just what everyone does.

It's like, oh no, we're kind of the only people who have their kids like safely buckled up in their cars, Like I mean even like if I wanted to go to the closest thing to like the boonies where I live, which is like Catskills, right.

Like upstate New York, like Woodstock, like that kind of area.

Yeah.

Like, you would still never see that up there either.

It's not really the boonies, though.

I've been there.

It's rural compared to where I live.

I've been to rural boonies in the last couple years.

I don't think I've seen it at all.

It's rural.

Like, kids?

No way.

Maybe some, like, workers or whatever I've seen.

They've, like, crashed down on that kind of thing.

And also, like, there's ice.

There's snow.

What are you doing?

You're going to skid out and murder a bunch of kids.

None of my friends died when we did that, dude.

It doesn't sound like they all made it out though bud, right to be clear, great memories of it.

To be clear listeners, we are not saying these are good things to do, we're just saying they are normal, where we literally saying it's awesome, repeatedly normal people.

If I was a kid right now I'd be like put me in the back of that truck.

You know what the problem is now.

This is like I'm not even really in the same conversation, but now like e-bikes are a huge problem, like all those kids on e-bikes man yeah, Cause all that shit is is just like a 30 mile an hour fucking dirt mountain bike.

You know, it sucks.

People are getting killed.

It sucks.

It's insane.

Jared from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada says, let's move on from dying kids.

I didn't bring it up.

About Rushmore.

Discussions for games doesn't always make sense to me as someone who doesn't live in America.

I was thinking about other styles of ranking, and the Michelin star system seemed fitting.

The original intention of the Michelin stars was to indicate if Rushmore was worth going out of your day to drive to up to three stars.

So Doom 2016 is a three-star first-person shooter.

Worth checking out if you aren't familiar with the genre.

It also gave Michelin stars to developers.

Supergiant Games would be one with at least a couple of stars for their consistent quality.

Thanks for all the arbitrary rankings you do.

Jared from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

This is two different things.

I mean, Mount Rushmore is like the four kind of staples throughout history of whatever topic it is.

Whereas the Michelin star thing is just a rating system.

Like there's not even, like you know, It's not even really a rating system, because you could have zero stars and still be a very good restaurant.

If you have a star, that's amazing.

Right.

That's why I'm like the Michelin star system is confusing to me a little bit.

So I don't think it would be a very good shorthand.

Of course, the Mount Rushmore is also not a good shorthand for a lot of people, but it's become one because it's like it is a parlance, especially in sports.

I hear it all the time.

I...

How do you get a second Michelin star?

Is it like, is it, oh, this is even better than a one star?

Or is it like, oh, you got one year and another one another year?

I'm confused.

I don't know how it works.

So there's something weird too because like, certain states don't have it, because like OK, so Minnesota doesn't have the Michelin Guide because they have not expanded the restaurant inspection and rating program here.

So we have James Beard Awards.

That's the thing.

So it's like it's the same thing.

It's like it is a stamp of quality. whether it's a Michelin star or James Beard award.

It's just like, Hey, people that know their shit said that this is a good place.

You should go out of your way to.

It took me a long amount of time in my life to realize that the Michelin stars were literally given out by the tire people.

Michelin.

Yeah, because it's worth driving to.

It's like the Guinness Book of World Records is the Guinness company that makes beer.

Yeah.

That's wild.

All right, then.

From Andreas Nilsson from Sweden says, Hey, cuties.

Just wanted to say I absolutely love you guys.

Please don't change a thing.

I'm listening to the bombcast for it.

Honestly, I've lost track of how many years now.

Lately I've realized I tend to skip or just kind of zone out when you talk about games and I'm way more into the parts where you're just chatting about everyday life.

So, out of curiosity, what do you think would actually keep more listeners?

A only talking about games or B only talking about yourselves?

Big hugs from Andres Nelson.

You kind of do have to have both.

I know that's not answering the question.

Yeah right, like nobody would just listen to like four randos for no reason talk about themselves unless they're already.

They couldn't buy and can do it, right.

But us people need to hear.

But like if it was only one, i think it would have to be about games.

But it works because you're doing both things.

Yeah, I agree.

You get like half of that on, I guess, Dumb Truck, right?

I was going to say, we have a show about that.

Yeah, but even then there's like, you know, I guess we're talking about ourselves a lot.

So yeah, I guess that is the most just talking about ourselves.

That is the least video game-y program we do here.

That's the things you want to sell to people outside of our bubble and stuff.

Like, hey, nothing new with games or anything, you know?

It's a good normie recommendation.

And perhaps one for our friend from Sweden.

Yeah, you should listen to Voicemail Dump Truck.

Have you heard of it?

More people should start their emails by saying, hey cuties, I like that.

That made me feel good.

It's going to carry that energy throughout the rest of the day.

I did ask Nikki Glaser this weekend if she'd be on the dump truck, because she's previously said she'd be up for it.

But it turns out she's kind of busy right now with hosting SNL.

How about that?

But that's this week.

What about next week?

She could promote it.

At some point, she will be on, but she is just continuing to be busier and busier.

Imagine asking a guest, so anything you want to promote?

Yeah, I'm going to be on Saturday night.

I'm going to be on Saturday night.

Saturday Night Live in two nights.

Actually, can you reverse that?

Can you promote the voicemail dump truck on Saturday Night Live?

That'd be great.

Give her a dump truck shirt for SNL.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That'll work.

Lauren loves it.

Give her a Spoon Heaven shirt.

She's got a bunch of them.

That's awesome.

Story.giantbomb.com.

All right.

I just got my Spoonheaven shirt and I wore it around the house and my kids are like Is that the game you were playing where the people were making all the weird noises for hours and hours?

Why is it Spoon Heaven?

I finally had to explain the joke to my family.

I'm like, guys, it's really stupid.

You could have said anything.

Literally had to explain it to a nephew this weekend because my brother was wearing his.

Was the reaction just like, oh?

The only reaction somebody could have.

Of course.

They're like, what does that have to do with Spoon or Heaven?

I'm like, oh, that doesn't matter.

We don't know.

This shirt, which many people have bought, is me just laughing at Jeff Grubb by myself.

That's the business we're in.

All right.

We got some super chats, too, from folks.

Let's read those.

Antonio Morales says, I will call off work for Dr. Minotti note.

Boy, I tell you what, I had good access to those.

They're on my back when I needed notes.

They were easy to get.

Oh, my God.

The first, Andre says, Mike fears mugs, but how about Giant Bomb shot glasses?

Ah, you all need to drink less.

But even before my time it was probably during your original run, Dan there were shot glasses, weren't there?

I still have them, yeah.

Yeah, they're good.

They have the Tipsy Bomb logo and yeah, yeah, totally.

Yeah, maybe people shouldn't drink water.

Thanks.

Maybe someday we'll do some more.

We are.

We're dropping a good amount of merch as part of Bombathon.

You don't ever want to do too much, but there will be some fun things there.

No, not mugs.

Shut up.

Pixels and Thoughts says, Homemade alcoholic cider is the best juice.

I doubt that.

It's got to be much better.

God, apple cider is so good.

I love apple cider.

It's so good.

I tried some in my fridge right now.

I'm going to go get some as soon as we're done.

The only thing about apple cider I know is that if it's clear in yellow, you've got juice there, fella.

Juice there, fella.

If it's tangy and brown, you're in cider town.

There you go.

You know.

I got that part down.

Al Gregg says coming in late.

So sorry if this was talked about, but I need Bacalar to play Xenotilt, the sequel to Demon's Tilt, so I know if it's a good pinball game.

Oh, I didn't know they made another game.

Yeah, I saw this and I guess I conflated it with Demon's Tilt and was like oh, it's just that game right.

Okay, I didn't know it was new.

All right, let's do something there.

Hostile pinball action.

Sounds good.

Bingo.

That's how we describe Bacalar.

Hostile pinball action.

Another shirt I want.

Yeah.

Migzy says, Jeff Bacalar wears dibs insulting t-shirt for Dan.

I'm looking at it.

Like right now.

Yep.

Like, like past the script.

So we can't do, I don't want to see, I don't want to be spoiled.

So what's I've not seen it.

Do we have plans?

Like, I think we have a plan, right?

Yeah, it's just, you know, it's coming down to the wire.

I do think it will be ready by Bombathon.

Oh, so you're looking at the completed design.

Yeah.

It has not been turned into a shirt yet.

No, not yet.

It's ready.

It's done.

Okay.

What was the deal there?

What do I have to wear?

You have to wear it for a month.

I don't think that's what it was.

You have to wear it for a week, right?

Month, week, you know.

Either way, that's a lot.

I think a week we said, right?

Yeah.

Uh, tell me where else again with that sending double third our way.

Thank you so much.

Antonio Rio Raku says our super chats, the pay to win of bomb cast emails.

Of course yeah 100 yes, yeah.

Uh, mixi's back saying when will you guys be playing lego party again?

What do you guys do next week?

Yeah, that's that, that one's happening.

Right, we can just say that we're gonna.

We're gonna play that.

On barbathon yeah, we're very excited about that.

Uh, We'll play max turns, which you know.

Is it going to be super long or anything?

Right.

I believe.

But it's pretty long on there, but it says the max turn on there is like three hours.

But like, I think they really overstate that.

Let's do that.

And the level that has the most complicated bullshit as well.

Like, I don't really want to get into it.

Yeah.

It'll actually be fun, which is sick.

Do you think that'll be like a top 10 game for you, Dan?

I was looking at my top 10, kind of starting to get that together and it's, it could be, it could be, but this has just been such a wild year that I don't know if it's been a lot.

I don't know.

We'll see.

I haven't played enough of it yet either.

So it's something I will be playing for years.

I'm sure.

Then Slam McAwesome says hey Mike, I don't think the people that only listen to the Bombcast had heard your brisket joke yet.

No.

You're the host now.

Nobody could stop you.

You're the host, but you're not the producer, to be clear, Mike.

I did not see the dump truck last week, but I saw it was the thumbnail.

Was there anything of note with the brisket joke that I missed?

I think we're going around traumatizing people.

My kids seem to genuinely be a little bit like, I'm pretty sure Danica didn't like that.

No, I think Danica just sold it like a champ.

I did see somebody, I forget who, but somebody chatted a good twist on it.

Can I tell you this?

And if you were a chat, you could speak up.

I need to come up with a, like, a naughtier, more triple X version of the joke.

Do you, though?

So that I can have a brisket, brisket joke.

Oh, my God.

Hit the brakes.

Oh, here's Kayla in the chat saying that goddamn brisket joke.

That's right.

He called Kayla on stream and told the joke.

Baby, what?

She loved it.

The worst part of your joke is that every time you tell it, it grows by 30 seconds.

That's the joke.

We need to do this.

Mike, just do the brisket version.

The brisket first.

That was the joke.

He just wanted to say the goddamn word.

Nobody has to like make it a real thing.

He has to make it like a sexy brisket joke.

This is your punishment.

Give him a moment.

Right.

So a woman who has been living alone and hasn't known the touch of a man for a while had to call in a plumber to work on her pipes, you see.

But Palmer's like, I'll be right there, man.

But first, I've got to wait for this brisket to come up to temperature.

He's like, oh, yeah, you like working on big meat, huh?

He's like, oh, yeah.

But you know the thing about being fat.

Unmute him.

No, no, no.

Unmute him.

I want to let him do this.

There's two cuts of it.

There's unmute him.

How's this?

He's laughing.

He's making himself laugh.

There's the fatty part of the brisket.

She's like, ooh, I only like the fatty part.

If you know what I mean, he goes, yeah, I know what you mean.

You're talking about burnt ends.

And she's like, no, what, what?

He's like yeah, you take the fatty part, you cut up the cubes and you put it out there on the smoker again.

Let it all tack up.

And she's like, what?

And he's like, yeah, that's good.

The lean is OK, but it takes you know.

At least you can feed people the leans while they're waiting for for the burnt ends.

And she's like, ha ha ha.

Yeah.

When are you going to get over here so we can you know?

And he's like but don't worry, the the the ends will justify the leans.

And then she hangs up.

That was criminal behavior.

That wasn't that brisque.

I think you can do better.

And then they fucked.

Now I'm back on board.

You got me.

Ally Miracle says, I missed the joke last week.

Boo.

Thank you, Ally Miracle, for that chat.

Oh, and then Sam O'Night says, is this Italian brain rot?

Hey, everybody.

We have a great week planned for you all.

We still got gay mess mornings popping up.

Black Club is returning with more of the dance of ruin.

Days of Dan.

What's it called?

No one can remember the names.

Darkest of Dance.

Darkest of Dance, everybody.

Can we also for the Kirby's Air Ride thing?

I don't know if we even talked about doing a talkover of that.

Mike, do you think you could do a solo one where you maintain a brisket joke the entire time?

No, no, absolutely not.

Just throwing the challenge out there.

No, look, either we're all watching that or none of us are.

I don't know what we're going to do with that.

Yeah, I guess we'll talk if we actually want to do a talk over.

Oh, my God.

You guys, you don't want to do that.

Come on.

We did it before.

I know, for the first one.

The first movie.

I'm committed.

I'm doing it.

Oh, God.

When is it?

9 a.m.

9 a.m. on Thursday.

What day?

Thursday, right?

Thursday.

The 23rd.

Then I actually can't wait.

8 a.m.?

Fuck.

Maybe I'll be able to.

Oh great uh, i have to be at a brewery at 9 am, as you do.

I think might be a couple quick looks coming your way.

So everybody uh some some, some new stuff.

We can play for upf as well.

Don't know if we can talk about that yet, but yeah, you know.

And then i got the bombathon bombathon Next week, starting at 5 pm.

Pacific... Eastern.

5 p.m.

Eastern.

Monday!

5 p.m.

Eastern on...

Monday, October 27th, and that is going all through the night and all through the day on Tuesday.

It's going to be a giant drive.

Tell all of your friends.

If anybody is interested in supporting us or just hanging out with us, we are going to appreciate it.

It's going to be very good.

Good, there's no way, looking at this run a show, that this is not gonna be a fun time.

Yeah, people have a lot of fun.

Yep mm-hmm, it's gonna be good stuff.

Anything else, anybody other housekeeping, are we ready to get out of here?

Good job, Mikey.

Thank you everybody.

Sort of I do my best and that's something.

It's the 20th anniversary of the one-up show today.

There you go.

Wow.

Congratulations.

Shouts to the one-up show.

Holy crap.

At some point, I got to host a big one-up reunion just for my own entertainment.

That was the best.

All right, everybody.

I've been Mike.

He's been Dan.

He's been Jeff.

And he's been Sean.

Thank you all so much for hanging out with us tonight.

Radio games we gotta keep playing them.

They still keep coming out, they still keep somehow being very good.

So hang out with us this week, hang out with us next week.

I'm just gonna say we love you, we're not afraid to commit anymore.

We love you, don't leave us.

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[Giant Bombcast Episode 930: Bed-Gaming, Apple Phobias, and Bombathon Preparations]-[913: Brisqué Joke]

📋 Summary

Gaming Habits and Lifestyle

The Apple Orchard Phobia

Giant Bombathon and Site Updates

Game Reviews and Impressions

News and Closing Thoughts

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Giant Bombcast Episode 930: Bed-Gaming, Apple Phobias, and Bombathon Preparations]-[913: Brisqué Joke]

📋 Summary

Gaming Habits and Lifestyle

The Apple Orchard Phobia

Giant Bombathon and Site Updates

Game Reviews and Impressions

News and Closing Thoughts

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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