920: Chumbawumba Lifestyle | Giant Bombcast

Hey!

Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, December 9th, 2025.

Welcome to the Giant Bombcast, episode 920.

Holy smokes, I am your host, Jan Ochoa.

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

I think I'm going to become a Long John's guy, because it's one of those things where no one needs to know, because it'll always be under my clothes.

Is that your pants, or is that a whole deal?

That's the whole thing. what right now the long johns i'm wearing are just the shirt but i that's what i'm saying is i think i'm going to commit and do the full deal i don't know if it needs to be a onesie i mean i'll do it i'm not against it but i just like the idea because like it's hard to like be like oh i'm going to be a hat guy now or something like it's an outward appearance you have to commit to it like oh i'm going to start wearing an eye patch but long johns those are it's my own private areas no one needs to know and i could still feel pretty good about it you going butt flap style i'm i mean i'm not again not against it i like i don't i gotta say i've never seen the butt flap onesie long john aisle at walmart uh so i don't know how to procure these things but i'm i'm gonna try he is the human you know what merch master mitch get me some he's a human embodiment of the butt flap because he is easy to access who's it gonna be who's gonna be dan reichert yeah yeah i think i'm a i'm approachable if you mean easy to access if you see me out there and you come say hi i'm an approachable friendly man but not like my butt no no no no no i mean uh like how you phrased it exactly yeah i've never been intimidated right from the butt flap to easy to enter and it's like i just don't a lot of gas comes out of there you know that's true that's true that's true Uh, speaking about gas, he, uh, I, sometimes I imagine him in a hot air balloon because he is so dang tall.

Turbo Sean, Sean McDowell.

You know, when Grubb said I'm becoming a Long John guy, I thought he meant the donuts and like I respect it.

I could do that, too.

I definitely had my long John Donut period, for sure.

Is that a log?

It's the long one with no cream filling, just like chocolate icing on top or whatever.

I'm a Boston cream guy, personally.

Speaking about cream, he's full of it because he's a little cannoli...

Oh, man.

I'm the Italian faking person now, I guess.

What's up, Jen?

How you doing, bud?

I'm doing great.

Grub said hat guy, and that was an easy segue to get to you, but I just went for the butt flap.

Sure, cream, butt flap, whatever you need, bud.

And he is everything that I need.

And yesterday was Sean's birthday.

And yesterday was Dan Reichert's birthday.

And yesterday was also my birthday.

And I guess it was also 3.06 p.m.

Mike Minotti.

The bad boy of games media's birthday.

Hi, everybody.

Oh, come on.

That birthday was yesterday.

We still don't have to talk about that thing.

That'd be ridiculous.

It's still our birthday month, though.

It's our collective birthday month.

Yeah, don't be insane.

The moment has passed.

We don't have to...

Going on and on.

He's putting on his birthday button from Disney Audio listeners.

Mike, I didn't know you get free desserts because I swear I've worn that button before on my shoot birthday at Disneyland and no one did anything for me.

Oh, Disney World, they're much nicer to you.

Disneyland, they don't care.

That's true.

Sorry, West Coast.

Is there a universally like Disney fans?

Do they look at world or land like almost universally as better or is there like competing factions?

There's like a little factions.

There's different like, you know, a lot of it is just kind of geographic.

West Coast people tend to like Disneyland more.

If someone comes up to you and says, I have a family going to Disney, which one should I go to?

There's a clear answer, right?

It's Disney World.

Even for me, though, it's usually, well, how long are you looking to go?

You can go for a couple days, go to Disneyland.

You want to do a week vacation somewhere, go to Disney World.

Geographically, right?

It matters.

Geographics matter more, yeah.

Sure, of course.

Although, you know, plane rides are plane rides in a certain degree anymore.

Before we get on with the show, Chef Grubb, I'd like to hear from you how folks at home can support us over here at GiantBombcom.

Yeah, I'm going to start with the way people have been supporting us.

We have a lot of people out there who have our backs because we're independent games media.

We're out here on our own.

No corporate backers, nothing like that.

We just have you all who have gone to giantbombcom slash join and became premium members and are supporting us and ensuring that we can continue doing what we want to do over here.

It's already a party.

It's just going to get better.

The website is up and running and more features are getting turned on every day.

All the thanks in the world to Chuck.

You should show your support to Chuck by going to giantbombcom slash join and saying hey, the website's real now.

Let's go ahead and make this our home base on the internet and support it while we're doing that.

Once again, thank you to everybody who has done that.

Speaking about the website, the website is no longer frozen because Chuck has made us a god dang brand new.

It's a fully functioning website.

It's beautiful.

I love it.

Again, I'm speaking from mine and Sean's perspective.

So much easier to use.

It works, dude.

It actually works.

It's not from 2008 anymore?

No.

And then we can upload an MP3 file and it's just there and we don't have to do some weird duct tape jazz anymore.

Oh, people don't even know, Jan.

That was just the nightmare for the past two years.

Oh, my God.

And then video is not really working.

And then you hit publish and then something goes to the wrong feed.

And then you got to jump through several hoops.

Speaking about the website, I got a couple of notes from Chuck here.

If you have opted into keeping your account, you can request a password reset now on Giant Bomb dot com for folks that have been having trouble logging onto the website.

That is what you can do right now.

We are looking for any help towards the wiki.

If you go to bombcast.com slash wiki, you can help Chuck.

If you join the Giant Bomb Discord, there is a wiki street team channel to lend some assistance, specifically some PHP and JavaScript jazz.

All I know about JavaScript is that Minecraft runs it.

I don't know if that's true.

Features are all a work in progress.

Still got lists on the way blogs reviews are all saved, but it'll take a little bit of time because it is pretty much just Chuck doing it.

And your patience is definitely appreciated.

We love you, and we especially love Chuck.

Everyone should fuck with Chuck, but not in a negative way, just like a fucks with you, dog type of way.

And you know who else I fucks with, gang?

Fucks with MainGear.

MainGear.com.

Go buy yourself a PC.

Go buy yourself a faceplate.

Don't buy mics, though.

Buy everyone else's.

It's cool.

Why would he want to do that?

Got Space Mountain on it.

And your face and your dog.

The pain in the words, it's cool.

Now, plain milk's fine.

My face is on the side plate.

You wouldn't be getting that just by delightful dog riding Stitch's car.

I like your dog.

Thank you.

I like her too.

She went to the North Pole while I was gone. they uh okay never mind the boarding place was like the boarding place is always like trying to upcharge you they always text like uh today's starbucks day you want to get your dog a starbucks cup like oh my god cop is made of milk bones or something for 15 dollars it's always not like that but they were like they were they're they're like oh you want to uh it's picture day is your dog want to go to the north pole and i was like wow she did almost die the other week and i'm like Maybe I should get a picture of her.

Right.

So, yeah, she did.

She did go to the North Pole and that was pretty cute.

Mike, do you consider yourself an easy upsell?

Because I did go to a rainforest cafe with you once and it was.

It wasn't like a big, it was just like at a mall in Minnesota.

And somebody came around like, do you want to buy a photo?

And you're like, yes, I do.

And you bought a photo.

That's a great photo.

Oh, my God.

That's a very good photo.

Worth every penny.

Literally no wait a second now, dan.

That is a treasured memory and you have that picture.

It is up there.

I've got like four photos framed up there in the den.

I've got me jan and cody roads.

I have me and mike at a rainforest cafe Not that Ray Forrest Cafe, everybody.

Oh, the infamous one, sure.

I don't think I'm an easy upcharge person.

It's just only when it's funny.

I am.

Okay.

For sure.

That's fair.

Only when it's funny.

I just get stuff.

Especially if it's like photos and memories.

It's like that's always the easy one, because it's like I will always get a hit of dopamine.

Looking back on stuff like that,

See, but I don't like...

When they will approach your table and take the photo and then come to you afterwards like oh, that's what they did at the Rainforest Cafe.

We printed this out already.

We already used the paper.

They got us at 30 Rock right after Grub pooped.

They got us at the Bucca di Beppo right when we were hanging out.

Yeah yeah, they only took a picture of Dan and I two other people at the table.

I definitely got got at the Donkey Kong ride photo thing because there's like a picture of me and my girlfriend on the Donkey Kong ride is cute photo and it's like great.

Yeah, but it's like it'll be 25 for this JPEG for me, loud.

So Mike, you take your dog to like a hotel kind of joint.

Yeah, yeah.

My awful family won't do it.

You have 400 family members in like a six block radius of you.

I don't know.

They're in chat.

You can ask them why they're so hateful.

So one of your brothers will like collude with Dan to hide an outfit and a game, but they will not watch Penny.

They don't want to watch Penny while I'm gone.

Now, Penny maybe has accidents sometimes and It can sometimes be a little loud, so maybe that is a part.

The occasional slur, I get it.

Yeah, yeah, right.

I got the whole English thing from her.

That's right, Dan, I wanted to not yell at you, but maybe persuade you.

I think you've been painting me lately and I think in my mind you believe that I am classified as a very online person.

You even tried to work it into your Metroid Prime 4 review.

I did take it out at Sean's request.

Yes.

Yeah, I do think you're the most online person I know.

Sean is silently nodding his head right now.

Okay, let's be clear.

Out of us, it is Bacalar, but Bacalar is quiet about it.

No way.

Bacalar had a whole show about being very online.

I know, but Bacalar, what's the latest with Hassan?

Yeah, I mean, I know, like, Twitch drama stuff and shit like that.

Yeah, okay, right.

That sends alone, guys.

Come on.

Mike knows every stupid gaming industry drama.

I work in the gaming industry.

I know, but you don't have to tell.

Like the thing is, you know every stupid like pretty online.

My frame of reference is always like the puddle gate thing in spider-man, like just dumb fucking thing where people are getting mad about it.

I well, i do think that grub and i are mostly quiet about it.

I do think you and i jeff like kind of know what's up like what's going on.

That is correct.

I think i'm very online and i also don't enjoy talking about it with people.

Yeah okay yeah, same wait okay, sort of like for me.

Wait manana, do you have a tiktok?

No, I don't use TikTok.

Okay, same.

So maybe you're not the most.

I just wanted to talk this out.

Raise your hand if you have a TikTok.

I actually think I'm the most online.

I have TikTok.

I'm not on it that much, but I do have it.

I don't log into TikTok maybe once every two weeks now.

I only got on Instagram recently.

I got an Instagram at Dan's request saying it's better than Twitter, and he's right.

I do like Instagram.

Mike, you're too busy checking the YouTube comments of a video you were in every five minutes.

You don't have enough time for Instagram.

Work-related.

Yeah, yeah.

We don't have to talk about that out loud, but yeah, I think...

I think everyone finds there the place that they want to be, right?

Yeah.

I would say, save for Dan, who is, I would say, chronically offline.

Sure.

Dan, you keep up more with politics than I think people would expect.

That surprises me to hear, because I don't know a lot.

Yeah, but you always know more than i expect.

You know, you know you're grabbing headlines from somewhere.

Yeah you, you bring them into conversations more than i would think.

You do not.

That i'm saying it's a lot and it's not a problem.

That's not what i'm saying.

I'm just saying like i'm always surprised, like oh yeah, dan is on top of this, he knows the basic facts of the story and stuff like that.

I think it's perspective.

Like you don't expect the dude who doesn't know what an egg white is to know, like what's happening, you know, with congress and everything.

Well, i And it's not just that I to me, Dan strikes me as someone who doesn't care, but then it's like I think you just can't help it.

Like get this information for whatever reason.

I do follow.

And I do care.

I just like I think, with what we do, I just don't ever feel like there's just so many things that I don't see.

Like, I don't see the point in bringing up like on a video game podcast.

No, no.

Yeah.

I think you're trying to emulate Homer Simpson randomly really knowing a lot about Supreme Court justices, which is a very good bit.

Look, everything I know is from Mad Magazine from the 90s, so it's not that much.

Okay, this was a productive conversation.

Thank you, Dan.

I'm glad that we could hash that out.

How is everyone else doing?

This week is TGA week.

It's Keeley's winter birthday.

Oh!

We're going to be in a place together a week from now.

Oh, my God.

How many have we said about the plan?

We haven't.

We've said it.

Well, let's just say it again.

Folks, we are not going down as a whole to Los Angeles for TEGA week.

We're going to, these fine gentlemen will be talking over the TGAs this week.

I'll be headed down.

I'll be slanging buzz balls.

You're going.

Tell everyone you're going, man.

Because I'm going.

Representing the gang over her.

So, hey, you know.

I had the hardest time finding black pants to match my blazer yesterday, gang.

Aw.

It was not the right shade.

I was like having a meltdown with Nikki on the phone.

I'm like, these don't match.

Anyway, I was able to find them.

But that doesn't matter, because next week we will all be together and we will be recording the Game of the Year podcast for johnbaumcom that will be interspersed over the holiday break podcast.

Should we just say when we're dropping those?

We should just say, right?

Sure.

Yeah, let's give people something to look forward to, yeah.

Yes.

So, folks at home, we're going to be recording four days worth of podcasts next week that will be dropping December 23rd 25th, December 30th and January 1st.

January 1st you will get the top 10, but days one, two and three will be fun categories, as they usually are.

We had a little bit of contention with some of the categories, gang.

Someone's swooping some of our ideas out there, other outlets.

So we may have to pivot, make some adjustments.

That's why Grubb has a golf club right now.

He's ready to swang.

That's right.

About to hit you with it.

That's what I do with golf clubs.

Yes, yes.

Folks, any other?

We good?

Everything's fine?

Mike, how are you?

Me, I'm great.

Last year in my 30s, thinking about that only a little bit.

Oh, whoa, you're going to die someday.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's for sure.

I do like playing along with those jokes.

Like, my one buddy just calls me up like, oh, how's it feel?

You're going to be dead soon.

I'm like, oh yeah, death.

Well, it's like it's one of those things.

Like we know, it can't be like ever, it happens to everybody.

So it's like joking about it's a fair thing right sure yeah yeah yeah yeah, real quick, before we get too far away from the game.

Award stuff uh, sean's also collecting music recs?

Uh soon yeah, i'm literally uh pulling the form together now because i was busy with our stuff this morning.

Yeah, so I will have a thread on Blue Sky, as usual, if you want to drop YouTube links to songs that you would like to see featured in Music of the Year.

And it's not going to work unless that music's from Sectory, right?

That's what you were telling me?

I mean, it's got some good music.

I'll just say that.

If you're not on social media, because I wouldn't blame you at this point, I will also have a Google form here that I will get the link for by the end of the show.

That I'll also put in the podcast description for everyone, in case you would like to submit that way instead.

Lovely uh folks, we're also working on trying to make and bank some content for your viewing pleasure over the holiday break, because i think we all need to just decompress and take some time away from our computers for a hot second.

Anyway, are we ready to talk about games?

I guess Hope you all know this birthday was low-key.

Next year when I turn 40, it's going to be pretty insufferable.

I would have it no other way.

This was low-key?

Yeah, so far from now, Mike.

Absolutely low-key.

Oh, boy.

We had a whole stream for you yesterday.

Oh, you had to play Lego Party with me?

At your request.

That's fine.

I thought it was a good idea.

I had a good time.

It was fun.

I enjoyed it.

It was great.

I was at the doctor's office and setting up predictions and that was a good time getting chat to gamble.

I love when I get to get chat to gamble.

Folks, we made it out of various jails, right?

Oh, yeah.

As a collective, we broke out.

We told folks we could break out of jail, yeah.

Yeah.

Yep, it happened.

I'm gonna break embargo right now.

Whoa.

I'm gonna break embargo right fucking now.

Jan, no!

Jan, I don't care.

Jan, you're gonna put Mike in Disney jail for this one.

Are you sure about this?

He can't survive on the outside, guys.

He's gotta go back in.

Now the freedom are the walls for him.

Guys, I got that dog in me, alright?

I got that dog in me, and that dog needs to bark right now.

Because...

I'm going to break an embargo right now.

What's that dog's name, Jim?

We just...

That dog's name is Bluey because I've been playing Bluey's Quest for the Golden Pen.

This is a mobile game.

Legitimately under embargo right now.

I told you it was okay to break the embargo.

Don't break it.

Shut up.

I can't.

I can't if I weren't thinking I would do this to Disney.

It's fine.

They're Australian Disney.

It's okay.

This is a mobile game made by Halfbrick Studios.

And folks, remember Halfbrick.

Fantastic pedigree.

Kind of like, when I think of mobile game studios, they're one of the top ones, outside of like Rovio, because of like.

Since they make real mobile games.

Yeah, they made one of the good mobile games.

Two of them.

They made like Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.

I love Jetpack Joyride.

That's why you asked about Jetpacks earlier.

Yes, yes, yes.

Also, what a fantastic name for a studio, Half Bricked.

And let me tell you, I'm bricked up for Blue's Quest for the Golden Pen.

I can't say that.

Now, Imagine Gang.

If you had an isometric, not quite Diablo, but a little puzzle game featuring Bluey and Bluey's sister, Bingo.

But in this game, Bingo, this is why I was just laughing to myself for two minutes.

Bingo is now a goose in Bluey's imaginary world.

But Bingo is Bing Goose.

Cool being goose, that bingus.

All right jen, i'm so sorry.

We do have breaking news coming from the chat, from a manati uh, and a manati in the chat is saying i'm catching up.

In regard to not watching penny, my family has done it multiple times and each time the first thing she does is take a dump in the middle of the kitchen.

Also, i have two bigger dogs and it gets interesting with all of them.

Look, she's nervous, And this is similar to the Bluey dynamic in many ways.

Yes, yes.

There's a lot of dogs in Bluey.

But I actually think this could be a very approachable game for the youth to check out.

Grub, I think the gimmicks would actually enjoy it.

It is very light in terms of the puzzle nature of it.

It is an isometric style.

It kind of reminds me of... Gosh, what was...

It is escaping me, but it is in Bluey's imagination, where she has drawn Bluey and Bingo, and then her father is the bad guy in this.

Yes, we enter Bluey's mind palace here.

And there's various things where you will use a wand to move platforms around and collect candy and give the candy to your mom, Chili.

On top of that there's kind of like no per se.

It is very non-confrontational non-confrontational, much like the show, and the neat thing is all of the voice talent has returned for the show as well.

From my memory, I think the creator of Bluey actually also has a hand in writing this game.

So if you have little gimmicks out there that also got that gamer dog in them and you want to start introducing them into games, I think this is a fantastic opportunity.

First go around

There's about nine levels.

It is like free to start.

And then I believe there is either a one time fee to check out the, to unlock the full game, or you can just pay per level.

I'm about like maybe 30, 40 minutes into it.

And it is just it is just like watching the show where it is just like pleasant.

You can give, because I feel like the show Bluey appeals to all ages.

Where they're it is doing the most watched show in the world right now.

Yeah, exactly.

Where the writing in it is approachable enough, where you can just have you feel safe having your kids watch it.

But also if you are an adult, you're a parent watching it as well.

It is something where it's like oh OK, like I can see, you're all trying to actually teach kids here.

And it is fun getting seeing that same lens of bluey being applied to video games, where kids may actually be like oh OK, this is what I got to do over here.

Halfbrick Studios, sorry for breaking the embargo on Bluey's quest for the golden pen.

We're trying to get the golden pen so Bean Goose can lay eggs.

Of course.

Bandit is living up to his name because he stole the golden pen.

Aw, Bandit.

Bad.

Have any of you guys actually watched any Bluey?

Oh, sure.

I heard it when Minotti was falling asleep in the back of your car watching.

That's right.

That's right, yeah.

Now, to be clear, you had it on because the kids watch it.

I didn't, like, request... I might have requested Bluey later.

No, you requested it on the way home.

Yeah, it was pretty good.

But you were feeling not so good in your tum-tum, so... Oh, yeah, Bluey is a safe space.

Bluey's very pleasant.

It can actually be funny.

It's sweet.

It's pleasant to look at.

Bluey has good vibes.

I think the thing that puts it over the top for a lot of parents is it has deep emotional intelligence.

It's a show that truly respects all its characters and respects the idea of kids having autonomy but also needing to have appropriate adults modeling behavior and then recognizing that it's difficult to model that behavior because parents also are frustrated and traumatized and have a million, and like they touch on all these things in a really mature way.

It's so good that, like my daughter hates dogs, like she just hates dogs I like.

The way she got introduced to.

Bluey was a YouTube video where they do the intro music of that mom dad, but every single time it was Brian painted blue and he was getting hit by a car over and over again and they thought it was hilarious wow.

But Bluey is so good that then she gave it a chance after that and it's the one dog that she likes is Bluey.

So she got over her hatred of dogs for this show.

I'm very interested to introduce this to them, Jan.

Is it like...

Is this something where they are clearly trying to build a big service or something?

Or is it just like, no, it's a video game.

Go play it, and when you're done, you're done.

No, it just feels like the model that they're going after is just like hey, if you like this, try it out.

Here's a free level, and if you want to get the full game, I believe it's like $14.99.

It's going to be out on iOS tomorrow because we're breaking a bargain right now.

Bad apple.

We're all bad boys.

And yeah, it looks like the Google Play version is January 10th and it's coming to Switch, Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox in 2026.

Yeah, there's nothing about this.

That seems very predatory at all, because you're not unlocking skins for Bluey.

There's no pay-to-win part.

There's no PvP in this.

I don't know if there's any PvE even.

Just light puzzle solving with some timed mechanics occasionally.

But yeah, if you got a little gimmick out there, I actually do recommend Bluey's Quest for the Golden Pen.

I was trying to get Scout to play along, but her attention span isn't that great.

So she just kind of said, F off, Dad.

I'm going to go get some snacks.

I hope we don't get into the dog pound for breaking embargo for Bluey's Quest for the Golden Pen.

Yeah.

We'll have to call Penny from the North Pole to come save us.

That's right.

You know, it's funny.

Since moving back in with my folks, Scout will just spend time with my mom and when my mom leaves she will put Bluey on for Scout.

I'm like, you don't have to put cartoons on for a dog.

But Scout's attention is just there, and she's just looking at the other long dogs in the show.

I need Corgi representation in Bluey, all right?

I don't think they know about those in Australia.

Definitely went for the same joke.

Oh, you were joking.

I'm dead serious.

They got all the other dogs there.

Well, didn't the Queen of England like Corgis a lot?

So maybe they might be against that in Australia.

Oh, yeah.

Right.

Which is in a box, I think they say instead.

Jeff, what's with the golf club?

I'm just, it's a fiddle, like a fiddle stick thing.

I think that's cool.

You should make that your thing.

You know, like you know, wrestling managers are like oh, I have the tennis racket and I've got the polo thing.

And like, you should be the golf club guy.

Long johns and a putter can be my thing.

Yeah, I like it.

I don't know.

You just, you have some.

I just go outside, get in the mail.

There he is.

I wish he would put on more clothes, but all right.

That's that guy in the neighborhood.

He has some last of us energy over there as well.

Yep.

What color long johns do you think can grab?

Just like the regular white?

I don't want white because the idea of pit stains and stuff is deeply, deeply uncomfortable to me.

So I would go with something like a dark color, a gray, probably like a heather gray or something.

Heather gray fantastic, isn't that weird?

The whole pit thing, because it's like we only do that and make that smoke because supposedly it's supposed to, like you know, attract mates, but now, as a side of the side, we yeah, that's why we do that.

Right, it's a strong stench, i don't know, like you know, when you see old renaissance paintings and it's like oh, back in the renaissance, like being plump was seen as like oh, that's attractive, like was there a thing where it's like oh yeah, those are, that's why animals do it.

That's the whole point.

It's like your stench and it's supposed to be like yeah, They have a variety of reasons that they have stenches.

I don't know.

Humans were that way too?

We were into pit smells?

We definitely have pheromones.

I don't know if we were into pit smells specifically.

Everyone's into something.

There's something for everyone.

Everyone is into a thing.

Yeah.

I'm glad that we have this conversation right after talking about Bluey's quest for the golden pen.

Correct.

Bluey washes well.

There we go.

I guess the other game that's big that we can talk about is Metroid Prime 4.

I want to say I have not heard any of your thoughts on it and I'm very excited to hear how validated or at odds I am with any of you with opinions.

I'm only maybe three, four hours in and I just want to get my shit off at the top because y'all are bigger Metroid fans than I am.

Miles McKenzie.

Everyone is freaking the fuck out for nothing.

What the fuck?

Y'all on the internet just love to be mad over nothing.

This dude, you just meet him once.

That whole segment is less than 10 minutes even.

You can't even put him on the radio when you get into a level or a temple or whatever they're supposed to be called.

He is a non-factor.

And everyone was just getting worked up for fucking nothing.

So all of y'all on the internet just need to fucking relax.

Also, there's nothing wrong with Chadley from Final Fantasy.

Why is Mike hanging that face?

Mike is about to boil over like a pot, y'all.

I'm way more excited to hear Mike talk about this.

Okay, just about.

Okay, go ahead.

I was going to shut up and just let you do it, because I have some thoughts, but I just want.

I want to get out of your way.

How should we do this?

Mike, you just want to go first.

Yeah.

We know you want to go first.

I don't like it.

I think I'm at a point where I'm like in between a two and a three out of five on this game.

Yes.

Two or three out of five.

Really?

Ooh.

Yeah.

I think it's, I give it a five.

Oh, right.

I'm like fascinated to hear this because, like I loved it so much pre-release and I saw the reviews and I haven't really read them or anything.

So I just know that they're all over the map.

So like I genuinely want to hear like why people aren't loving it.

So real quick, let me give it some good things.

The game looks amazing.

Absolutely.

It plays amazing.

It feels amazing.

It feels incredible to play, to control, to move around, to explore, to do things in the game.

Riding the motorcycle feels great, actually.

Anytime you swap between being Samus into the Morph Ball, getting on the motorcycle snappy incredible, using all the powers, the psychic spider ball or whatever feels great.

The game has deep structural issues that I think you know.

A lot of the reviews I think would be like this game feels like other games stitched together.

I want to say exactly what I feel like happened here.

I don't know, but here's what I feel like happened here.

Uh-oh.

Is this like, to be clear, this is not conspiracy theory.

This is well-informed speculation.

This is not – it's just – I can't – I have no insight into what happened.

I just feel like when I – the circumstantial evidence of this game laid before me, they were like oh God, we have to do for Metroid what happened for Breath of the Wild.

So we are going to kind of restructure Metroid in the same way that Zelda got restructured, which is, let's take, the core thing that happens in Zelda.

You are confronted with a problem and you have a tool to solve it.

But let's make it bigger and work in an open world sense.

So you have a core set of tools and you can apply those to all these problems in the open world.

And they kind of happen a little bit more organically.

And it's kind of a magic thing that happened there.

They really pulled it off.

Here, I think what happened is they're like, we can maybe do the same thing with Metroid.

They didn't get over the hump.

Somewhere along the line, they realized we can't actually make that game.

We need to scale back, take the parts we have, slap them together in a way that it kind of feels like what's the closest thing we can get here to a good game.

And that is Ocarina of Time.

So they have these dungeons, they have this area that connects them, and...

For the game that they're making, it's like, OK, it's OK.

But so frequently I'm like what?

What is the purpose of me not having a lot of Metroid style exploration happening in any of these other specific, like siloed areas?

And really all that is is maybe I get a tool later that acts as a key where I'm like OK, I got it in this one area.

Now I get to go back to this previous area, use it in the one door that I couldn't open before.

And I'm just not moved by that.

It's a game that the more I play, the less I'm liking it.

But do you feel that like?

So it is different in that like oh, you get a thing over here in this kind of like zone and you do need to bring it back over here.

And instead of kind of like backtracking through just corridors and things to get to an elevator that'll take you to that other zone.

You are taking the motorcycle across the desert and stuff.

Do you not feel like it's somewhat like I think that was a fine solution for what they ended up with here?

But I just... I... i don't think that's like amazing or anything no i i'm not i wasn't like blown away like every time i get to do that it's like okay kind of back to this as opposed to and i'm trying not to do the direct comparison to previous metroid prime games because this ended up just being a very different thing and i don't know how useful it is to be like it wasn't what i wanted it's not what i wanted but for what it is even on that level i think they kind of only just scraped by uh being acceptable and into something that is kind of okay and good okay i think with me it's and i don't think i dislike it maybe as much as jeff and i'm on the final boss just to like okay and i'm not i'm halfway through the ice area so i'm not nearly as far as jeff even i'm like halfway ish um the thing that's like sticking out to me the most as the problem the game you know yeah again uh mckenzie look i i don't think he's some big problem when he says things like booyah it is a detriment to my enjoyment for sure I could get over it I get over it but it's like who the hell signed off on having a character say booyah in a Metroid game but yeah like the kind of dungeon aspect of these things it'd be one thing if the dungeons even felt a little bit more like a Zelda dungeon in terms of I think the way to put it is every room I'm in feels like it has two doors, the way I came in and the way I'm supposed to go.

And that got a little bit better, even this ice area.

But Volt Forge especially, which was this really cool-looking area.

It was very much just like this room to this room, to that room, to that room, to this room, to that room and then back the way I came.

And a lot of these rooms were even combat encounters and not necessarily puzzles.

I wasn't noticing a lot of like okay, this is like.

Oh, there's a missile expansion here and I'll come back here with this power a little bit of that.

But compared to, you know, Metroid Prime 1, even Metroid Prime 2, which I played recently, and how many rooms felt like kind of like spoken wheel, like oh man, there's four different exits here and this room connects back to this room, goes to this area, and there's three things here in this one area that I can't access yet right now.

And I think having the levels connect better with each other, like in a Prime 1 or Prime 2, I do think that just works better for this kind of game than having this large kind of motorcycle area, which i i like being on the motorcycle.

I don't necessarily think that siphoning off these areas into their own little microcosms did anything positive for the formula.

They would be better.

They would be better if they were interlocked and sort of uh overlapping uh, but like that's not the game they made.

So even in the areas themselves, though the There's not a lot of that like like intra level.

There's not a lot of examples of being like all right, I'm kind of poking around and coming up with ideas about what I can do over here.

And that's like if you want to know what you're supposed to be doing with any sort of obstacle, scan it.

And it's basically just going to tell you.

And I know there's some of that in the previous games, but it feels like here.

It's like that last line of dialogue or text in the box when you scan it.

It's just going to tell you the weapon you need to do need to go get to do this.

So you kind of stop.

Coming up with ideas and stuff like that.

I mean, that's been my experience.

And then like really, the scanning was also kind of disappointing, where it's like I want to be able to like scan these bosses and feel like oh, because I scanned the boss, now a new weak point has been exposed to me.

But it's like, no, now it's the same thing.

I just read some stuff, some details about it, and it's these giant glowing orbs on the bosses that you're supposed to hit that are obvious from the beginning of the fight.

It's just...

I don't know.

Feels very bandaged together.

I mean, I feel like the scanning was, you're right with a lot of them.

Like it doesn't like expose like, Oh, here's the hint to beating him or whatever.

But like that is there at times where it's like there's that one late in the game.

That is like a spider type thing.

That's like scrambling around on the walls.

And I didn't realize until it's like, Oh, how do I get them off the walls?

And then the scanning it.

And it's like Oh, it's said something about its limbs and i was like oh okay great, i can break off the reticle and i can shoot his limbs, knock it down, definitely.

Some examples like and also the, the scanning things, that telling you specifically what to use, that that is another metroid games.

They just use a proper noun, like they will always use, like bendium oh, this is made up bendium, bendium or whatever right right, and that's like that's the power bomb, proper noun.

So it's the same thing, just presented differently.

Yeah, right.

I guess maybe I like that layer of obscurity, but that's not the problem with the game, for sure.

Sean, I can feel... Oh, Backlar, please.

And then Sean, I'd like to hear... Yeah, I kind of agree.

I'm probably in the middle of, like, Grub and Mike a little bit.

It just.

It's just a little like uninspired and I guess sort of a surprising way that you know I really enjoyed that hour playthrough at the preview and it Oh look, I'm having fun playing this game.

I just think, I think it's surprisingly, uh, uh, more linear than I was expecting as well.

Um, you know, just going off, uh, piggybacking on what you're saying there, grub.

I think, uh, It's just, is it boring?

It's boring.

It's kind of boring.

I haven't been blazing through it like I thought I would.

I don't know if I'd say it's boring, but I haven't been jumping back in like I thought I would.

Like I have a feeling where I'm like, oh, I want to see this through.

And I do think places like Volt Forge are like super cool, like really striking areas.

Just a bit kind of maybe like a little empty and sort of.

Yeah, it just feels like there's stuff missing.

Her abilities are also doled out in a very predictable way.

That's another thing that makes me feel like this was a very different game at one point.

They sort of had to scale back to just the core things that wouldn't break things too much.

But yeah, she gets her double jump early on.

Psychic jump.

Psychic glasses.

Even that kind of gestures are right, Jeff.

Like something more with like all this psychic stuff which doesn't really present itself in any meaningful gameplay changes.

The most interesting is very early on that charge shot that you can kind of move around in slow-mo.

And I like that.

That's really neat.

Like 10 times in the game.

Right.

But I haven't like outside of that I haven't really gotten anything else here that feels kind of new.

Yeah.

There's not a lot.

I mean there's a separate scan and the platforms will reveal themselves and everything, but that's nothing crazy.

As far as the boring thing, I'm so quick to be bored if a game isn't doing something to grab me.

And granted, I'm in that nebulous kind of review playing through it quickly for embargo type thing.

That kind of throws everything askew at times.

But I played that game for like 14 hours one Saturday.

And it's like, I did not get remotely bored, but...

Maybe that's just me.

I just think the moment-to-moment of pressing the buttons is fantastic.

And that does a lot for me.

Right, and me too.

At the end of the day, I'm like, there's still a lot of this game I like.

I will say, thinking back to the reviews of the high highs and low lows, I don't feel like I saw many high highs.

I was not ever in a situation where I got a new ability and had that Metroidvania feeling of like, oh my God, the world is so open.

Instead, it was here is a laundry list of of doors that I can now unlock.

And I know that's a subtle distinction, but it is a distinction with a difference.

The greatest, the great Metroid games, the great Metroidvania games.

Find a way to just propel you forward when you have a new thing that can really unlock your ability set.

And the world in this game wasn't doing that for me.

There's no one.

Like you know, you get the psychic boost ball and you know there's the part in Volt Forge where you go down and say OK well, what can i do here?

And it's like, oh my god, it makes like this spirit track, basically that i can go from one tower to another, like that was unexpected in a way.

But you're right, there's not, there's not a ton of like whoa, this is totally a new feeling.

You know, the flinging with the ball was actually that was a top tier.

That's fine actually.

Yeah now sean, i think you may be the biggest metroid fan uh, and i'm going to assume that, based off of your purchases from the nintendo store, they're in new york.

What do you mean?

One of everything.

That was awesome.

I don't think i realized until i watched the vlog.

I was like, oh damn yeah, yeah.

And then i'm piecing it together based off of all the other teas i've seen sean wear on podcasts of like every metroid amiibo and every collector's edition is off off uh, camera there yeah, uh.

So i'm very curious to hear your perspective.

Yeah, I'm throwing my head into a ring here.

I do think I'm the biggest Metroid series fan here at the site.

Grubb and Mike are definitely bigger fans of Super.

I know y'all have a huge love of Metroid Prime 1, but I love all of what Metroid is the ups and the downs because we've been through a few downs at this point.

And so I know that Metroid comes in a few different flavors.

There is the original 2d metroid and then they moved into a slightly different flavor of 2d metroid.

There's prime one, which prime two is kind of like, and then three went off in a different direction as hunters and like, even if you don't think it's good.

Other m is a yeah, another flavor.

We have all these different types of metroid.

So i know that metroid is not one thing.

Metroid is not just isolationist, it's not just exploration, it can be a few different things.

That's why i implored people to you check out metroid prime 3 in some way before checking this game out, because this project, you know, started as one thing and then nintendo took it back and gave it to retro and there was no way that retro was going to just ditch everything that they did before and not follow up.

They didn't prime 3 with prime 4, and that's what prime 4 is.

It's a variation on the prime formula that they had developed and that in itself is a variation on the original metroid formula.

They are not the same thing, they are different.

And so i went to this game very open-minded, thinking it's going to be a little different, and we can even see that from the preview coverage, from all the reviews that came out.

This is going to be a slightly different flavor of metroid, as we've had a few times at this point.

So I tried to come to the game on its own terms.

It's going to be a little different than some people are expecting, but it's maybe what I was expecting.

And so I'm going to judge it on what it is, not what other people expect it to be, or even my own expectations after 18 years.

So...

What what is there?

Do I think it's good?

I will say in large part, I agree with Dan's review, just like a notch down.

I was like a little less interested, a little less excited than him.

Like he said he was hovering between like four and a half, five stars while playing it.

And I was hovering between like four and four and a half.

I think this is a very, very good game.

But I do think that I dislike some of the lows more than Dan did.

So I do fall on the lower side.

I would probably give this game four stars if I was putting a review on it.

Because I do think it is a little more linear.

Metroid Prime is linear.

If you actually look at the maps...

They're not as interconnected as 2D Metroid is, because it's very hard to interweave 3D spaces like that.

And once they start to move towards separate planets and everything like you have in Prime 3, things dig you a little.

You enter one room.

You have three options.

One is probably a save room.

And then there's two branching paths.

One is probably a missile upgrade.

That's kind of the formula here.

That's what it turned into because Prime 1 is a different game.

Prime 1 followed up Super Metroid.

So it is... more exploration driven.

And this is following up Prime 3, which is more cinematic and everything.

And I think what's there is very good.

There are incredible moments.

Like you know, you guys brought Volt Forge and frankly, entering Volt Forge, the killer instinct theme is blaring at you and just you see some awesome visuals and you get Viola and it's a really cool moment.

Even something as like different for Metroid as like doing sort of like time trials on a bike.

It's cool because guess what?

Samus Aran is a bounty hunter.

She's the single coolest person in the galaxy.

They gave her the coolest method of transportation.

And it's awesome.

There's moments in there that are very, very good.

And I think about things like with the rest of the Federation troopers, I think about how...

There are moments where they geek out over Samus because yeah, you're just some grunt in the military and the literal coolest person in existence shows up by pure chance to help you.

Why have they not done a gag like that where someone geeks out?

Like, I love Armstrong.

I love the fact that she's like, hey, Sarge, she's doing Morph Ball.

I see it.

Calm down, Trooper.

You know, there's cute moments like that where I actually kind of laughed a little because as a Metroid nerd I'm like oh, she's me.

I'm like, Samus is doing Morph Ball.

Y'all see that?

I think there's a lot of cool moments in there.

I think the troopers are good.

I think the highs, all the set pieces that are in there are very good.

But I think about I played I played Dispatch Now twice recently.

I do think about Robert's speech and that about potential.

And that was going through my mind as I was playing Metroid Prime 4, where I was thinking about how potential is the thing people talk about when you leave the room and they say you had so much potential. that's how i think of metroid prime 4. i think this could have been more they had more here they just really needed to dial things in more i think it falls a little short like like the desert desert's pretty boring i'll be real like it was fine for most of the game and then they do something at the end of the game where you need to spend a lot of time out there to finish the game and that's boring to be clear because i i heard that and i was like yeah but like a lot of these games have a hunt at the end of the game where you use all your abilities and stuff like that and that's not what's happening yeah that's not this that's if we're talking the green crystal thing it's like i don't know if i just had an easier on that because parts i made a point early on to just like i'm just in between everything i was spending a good amount of time cruising around whatever shrines i could unlock you know getting as many green crystals as i could so like i totally see if it was like a wind waker-esque thing at the end where it's like now you got to do a bunch of horseshit for like four hours i probably would have been pissed off but i think i was just in a good spot about that dan so the thing i mean i think i was just at a good spot by the end yeah the thing is you're talking about the other thing you have to get Well, okay.

That doesn't take too long.

No, no, it went quicker than I thought.

I'll let you get back to it, Sean, and I just want to say what happened to me.

I also did the same thing with getting all the green crystals all along the way, and that definitely softened the blow.

That's also not the core of my problems with this game.

Yeah, I'm finishing my thoughts here because I know I've been going on a bit long.

No, please go.

The MacGuffin that you need to finish the game.

It's in all the preview and review footage, so I'll mention it.

The memory fruit.

That's what you get by getting all the green crystals.

There's a problem, like Grub was saying, there's structural problems with this game.

That's one of them.

Where, like if you're going through the desert and everything, you're getting the green crystals as you go from place to place.

I actually think that's really fun.

I like running around Viola, power sliding into crystals and stuff and attacking enemies.

It's pretty cool.

But the problem is the game forcing me to do something that is extremely arbitrary, because you need to gather X amount of green crystals in order to finish the game.

And that's one of those things that like dropped the game down.

For me is because that like yes, this is not metroid, it's metroid prime, but even that is not metroid prime in any of its forms.

The artifact hunt is you going back through various other places using your new abilities, solving new puzzles, getting like the master of the world?

Yeah, all that stuff.

That is how they adapted the 2d metroid formula into 3d and it went very well.

The problem here is just they're like gather X amount.

And it's even structured backwards where the last reward you get I don't mind saying this, because the last reward you get is a radar that makes gathering them easier

Why was that not the first thing you get?

So the game has issues.

I see it as like the Metroid fusion of Metroid Prime.

Where it is, they're doing some incredible things here.

There's some awesome ideas.

It just has some flaws that hold it back for me.

Keep it down a little bit.

But...

You know, this is also the fourth game in a series, just like Fusion was.

And with five with 2D Metroid.

That's where they really dialed things in and arguably made the best one.

I'm hoping that, look, right now, I think we have like a great game overall for what it is.

But I hope that the next one is just they learn everything that they got wrong and could have done better.

And the next one is a much better game.

Yeah, if there's next one, you know, i'm just gonna go back to like the metroid prime three thing.

Like you know, like i played some of three and i think i dropped it because i kind of was like i think most of the changes here just make this worse than metroid prime one.

So yeah, i get that.

Yeah, This is, you know, the sequel to Metroid Prime 3 chronologically.

But I assumed after all, this time there would maybe be a bit of a.

We should be making our games more like Metroid Prime 1 and less like Metroid Prime 3, right?

I guess you know that was just an assumption going in on what I kind of thought you know everybody would be excited about, would be interested in.

Or if not that, find some other... kind of avenue because you know metropine three i did not like having separate planets because again it's you know each of these places feel more insular and we kind of have that with a sort of dungeon uh set up this time around um yeah it's a bouncing act right like it's a bouncing act yeah having the cinematics like look i know some of this core audience like our audience may not want to admit this PlayStation games sell for a reason.

The cinematic Last of Uses and Horizons and stuff, God of Wars, they sell for a reason.

People eat that stuff up.

And that's, I assume, in a boardroom, why they would have continued in that direction from Prime 3.

They did a good job with it, actually.

The characters are great.

I like them by the end.

Yeah, the crew's great.

What's the name of the robot?

View 995?

There's a robot?

Yeah, it's cool.

He's good stuff.

I really think that Armstrong is fantastic as well.

I liked all those characters by the end.

Was happy to have them with me, fighting alongside them in a lot of cases.

That stuff, well done.

I think...

Yeah, it is.

I'm not a dispassionate observer here.

When I go into a game like this that I'm really looking forward to Metroid Prime 1 my number two favorite game of all time.

I have a list.

I looked at it before I started playing this game.

Like, yeah, there it is.

Right next to it, right behind Breath of the Wild.

When I go into a game like this, it is very much like I want to fanboy out.

I want to find a way to like this game.

So halfway through I'm sort of resetting expectations and I'm like letting go of of wanting metroid prime and be like this is now.

This is clearly mostly a zelda game.

They're trying to make it a little bit more like zelda.

I think.

Yeah, however they came to that whatever, i don't care how they came to that.

That's what i'm playing now and i think even on those terms it for me it was.

It's like a okay-ish, like zelda spinoff.

I will say just real quick, you know, you know, for some people who are surprised it would be zelda.

I got some news for you all about how close Metroid and Zelda have always been.

I guarantee you can go back and find a tweet from me in 2009.

Being like Metroid and Zelda are the same genre.

I've been saying that for years.

This is the game that made me realize there are some important differences.

But again, that's not what I'm judging this on.

I am judging on what's there.

By the end, I was not having fun for a vast majority of that game.

I do think to the Zelda point.

I agree, but I think you see it as them trying to do their version of Breath of the Wild and I saw it as Ocarina.

No, I see that they failed at doing Breath of the Wild, so they sort of retreated to Ocarina.

That's what I think happened here.

And again, that is not a judgment call.

That is me trying to sort of be a detective here and figure out what happened.

I'm judging it on it being an Ocarina game at this point.

I do want to talk a bit about what I really like about this game, because I think there are some highs for me and a lot of them are aesthetic, because the game is absolutely gorgeous.

The music is, once again, just all timer stuff.

The areas themselves are really cool.

Like, you know, Volt Forge looks awesome.

The ice area.

I love that they went with this kind of the thing like underground ice cavern research facility as opposed to the fendrana drifts kind of more open ice thing, so you have a good differentiation there, even because of the lore stuff.

Yeah, it's gorgeous, yeah it's.

Yeah, the game is just gorgeous on a technical and artistic level.

Yeah, like pushing the buttons and all that stuff does feel very good.

I i even like the boss fights.

I think You know something like playing Metroid Prime 2 recently.

All those boss fights.

It's a lot of like all right game.

What do you want me to do here exactly?

And it's a little bit obtuse and you kind of flail around for a while.

You know, even like Super Metroid, I kind of like, yeah, the bosses shoot them with missiles, right?

Like, I kind of like how un-Zelda-y they were.

And you know there's still a bit of a puzzle aspect here.

But it's also like yeah, shoot them, dodge their attacks.

I think that feels pretty good.

Yeah i, i do think.

On the areas, i think this is the strongest lineup of areas in maybe any metroid game like in terms, in terms of like their actual, like setting and yeah, the setting, the vibes, the music all coming together and even some of the elemental gimmicks, like so, mike you, are you only part of the way through ice belt?

I just turn on the power generator.

Ice Belt, I think after that point, like solidifies as being my favorite area in Metroid game.

It is fantastic.

It just stays strong the whole time.

It's such a good idea.

And that's what the game needed.

Like the game just needed more of those ideas solidifying and shining through.

It just feels like so much of it is half bait is the problem.

Like you almost got there, but the lineup of areas is very cool.

And I think they just need to do more with it and maybe shrink some other things like the desert.

I don't know if they're using like photogrammetry or whatever, but just like this the rocks sitting in the lava with the big sort of machinery on top of it.

Oh, they cooked with the art in this game.

They really did.

Yeah, it's technically just absolutely mind blowing.

So yeah, I'm like halfway through, so I'm still not sure where I land.

I think I'm kind of, you know, even with some of the negative stuff said, I think I'm still kind of at a four out of five right now.

I still am enjoying it.

But there is a, you know, maybe my big takeaway is like boy once again, just sure it's hard to make a sequel to Metroid Prime.

It's hard to live up to those, the actual standards and the standards of where.

I do put that game in my head a little bit.

I suppose it's kind of being this just monolith it's, It's all expectation.

It's hard to make a follow-up to Metroid Prime no matter how many entries removed from it we are.

It's hard to make a follow-up to Super Metroid no matter how many entries we are removed from that.

It's always going to be difficult to follow up the legacy, the expectations.

I think this was a proper word to use when you've described the baggage of the Metroid series.

You can't have...

Two of the highest regarded games of all time without having a super critical eye on it at all time.

If you have even the smallest misstep, people are going to call it out.

And that's fair because I'm glad this conversation we've had is less about, is it Metroid?

Because that's the thing that bothered me all throughout the preview period and everything.

It was people saying, this isn't Metroid.

Metroid can be a lot of things like calm down don't, don't hold down, such a pest, all that sacred just let's talk about.

Do we like it or not?

If you don't like it, that is completely valid.

Everyone's allowed to have their opinion and if it didn't hit, it didn't hit.

I think.

For me it hit somewhere in the middle and I think we have a wide, pretty wide range of how we all feel about this game and that's interesting.

Yeah, i don't even fundamentally disagree with like anything anyone on this call has said.

Like i mean, i think these are all valid things.

I i just don't think uh, most of them really were enough to bring down my overall experience and enjoyment of the game.

Like things grub says about the overworld and the structure and stuff.

I totally understand.

You know guys saying booyah yeah, i don't love that, but ultimately didn't really affect my enjoyment of just the metroid of it all you know.

So yeah, i i do like kind of the the wide array of opinions here.

I will say just when I was halfway through Vote Forge I thought out loud to myself

I don't think Jeff's going to like this game.

I can tell, the moment that it really hit me was, I think, maybe getting to like 75 through the game one of the new main areas and realizing it's like okay, every single one of these areas.

The save spot is right at the beginning when you walk in.

There's maybe one other save spot in the entire area.

This is not some maze.

Sean, I agree with you that Prime 1 sort of fakes it, But faking it is important.

Yeah.

Like making me feel that way.

It's a presentation thing, which is what this game is lacking sometimes.

Like as gorgeous as it is, the music is good.

I go back to feeling bandaged together.

Like I think that it's a miracle that this game ever even came out and that it's as good as it is.

Because I bet if we got any, like this is the game I'm most curious to hear what happened.

Because I bet we would hear horrors, horror stories and just things falling apart and them being like I don't think we're going to be able to finish this game.

We have to delay it just to make something here that looks kind of like a good game.

And the fact that people are able to... I mean, God, they had a good game underneath.

The way it plays is so good.

I bet they're like, we're so close.

If we could just clasp it together, and what they ended up clasping together is acceptable in most cases.

Yeah, it's funny that Mike brought up, like knowing that moment of like oh grubs, not gonna be into this, like once these things happen, because I also had probably the flip side moment of that where, you know, a moment happens later on the game where I'm like oh oh, I realize what this is.

You're playing a Metroid cutscene.

The beginning of Fusion, like when Samus is on missions with the Federation.

Like the beginning of Super, when she's like checking in with them and like gets into some trouble.

That's what you're playing right now.

And that's where like, it does feel like an intro.

Yeah yeah, the whole game.

Yeah like, as a geek for all the lore you know, reading the manga and stuff and getting hung up on all these different things, that's where i'm like oh, this is so cool for me.

But i also think this is why a lot of people aren't gonna like it because again, that's not what you want on metroid and i get that and i respect that feels.

It feels like a side story, like the uh, even the stakes of my are we just we're just teleporting out of here.

That's what's going.

There's no like the goal.

Yeah, maybe there was some other like threat that i was.

Obviously sylux is here doing his thing, but like he also seems like he wants, he wants to stop me from teleporting back home.

Maybe you you still haven't actually finished it right.

You're just like at the end.

I am fighting a man who is transforming into various elements right now.

So, yeah.

I want to hear your thoughts on the ending because I like this game a lot.

Boy, I didn't like the ending.

Well, we'll talk about the ending while we're out there.

Yes, that's what I look forward to, Grub.

Hooray.

Folks, I love having lengthy conversations about video games, but I've got to take a quick breaky break.

We've got more games to talk about on the other side as well as the news.

We'll see you right after this.

Alright, dog.

It's time to start the show.

Are you ready to go?

Uh, yeah, dude.

I'm ready.

No, Grub.

You look like you are in a den of inequity right now.

Uh, i i don't know what that means and i don't know what you want.

It's not like i have a home studio, jan.

Yes, you do.

The computers that maingear built for us have nvidia geforce rtx chippoos in them and with the nvidia studio drivers and nvidia broadcast, you can turn even your man cave into a professional studio.

Using broadcast, you can upgrade your webcams, microphones and speakers, using the power of machine learning, to take our shows, voice chats and video conferences to the next level.

You can use audio effects like noise removal.

Oh yeah, i guess i have the fan on.

Uh well, it's hot, i'm not gonna turn that off.

Let me just hit this right here.

Is that any better, Jan?

Much better.

We can clean up your shot with auto frame and video noise removal and grub.

You can even make it look like you are paying attention using the eye contact tool.

So I could still watch my stories?

Yes.

Yes, you can.

NVIDIA Broadcast is a universal plugin that works with most live streaming voice chat and video conferencing apps.

It's supported on any NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU.

And since I'm using the NVIDIA Studio drivers, I'll get stable, optimized performance in Adobe Photoshop DaVinci, Resolve and all the other apps that I need to use to fix our mistakes in post.

You know what?

Thank you to Bang Gear and NVIDIA for supplying our NVIDIA Studio PCs.

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Jan, I'm not even looking at the camera at all right now.

Grub, stop looking at me.

I haven't looked at you forever.

And we are back.

We have emptied our energy tanks from the various liquids that are contained in them.

And we're still talking about games.

Mike Minotti, you are on a quest to also finish off some miscellaneous games.

And I'm curious to hear what your opinion is on Dispatch.

Yep, yep.

Tons of buzz for this one.

Everyone's been talking about it.

You all, my brothers, everyone in the industry.

I know because I'm so online, I know what the buzz is about in the video game industry.

So yeah, I played through episode one and I definitely understand why people are getting attached to this one.

It has tons of style.

It just looks good.

It presents so well.

I think Aaron Paul is fantastic as a main character.

I think the main character could have so easily been this kind of dopey himbo guy and instead he's kind of capable and I don't know interesting, and I like him.

I actually really liked the dispatching.

It's a pretty small part of episode one but i was like oh, it's like yeah, i could send two people out and like really make sure i complete the mission.

But then the timers are a little rough on these other missions and even like it escalates nicely too over the season.

Uh, they get a little bit more complicated, not crazy, but they get.

And it's all in the right way of like challenging the core mechanic of understanding what this mission wants without it explicitly saying it right and You know, like the QTE stuff which you can turn on or off, even though I like having that interaction.

Part of me is like, should I just turn these off?

It's not much.

In the first two minutes, when you have to like zip up your suit and pull down the mask, I was like oh, I'm turning these off.

I'll say it's really good for streaming.

There's nothing better than a streamer being caught off guard and being like oh shit, everyone loves that.

When you were dancing in one of those scenes I saw Grub and I was like, oh crap, I had to do a QT there.

Yeah, or I accidentally didn't fist bump a roid and I had to live with that nightmare the whole time.

I kissed blonde blazer, I kissed her, no one could stop me.

Yeah, we all did.

You're in so much trouble.

We all do.

I was surprised because they told me only like 56% of people kissed her.

I'm like, is that it?

I bet that's going to be a little skewed by replays at this point of people who have canonically chosen.

What happens if you don't?

Yeah.

Also, please.

She's like, oh, we're going to get drinks and you're going to spit in my mouth and it's not a date.

Like, oh my God.

How do you feel about the language, the way the characters talk to one another?

This has become a little bit of a point of contention online.

I'm a fan of it.

It's, you know, me.

It's like a little TV-y.

And of course it is.

That's what they're going for.

Everybody's pretty clever, right?

Because clever people are writing things, right?

Yeah, and it's not just that.

It's like people are like, oh, there's too many dick jokes and stuff like that.

When these characters talk to one another.

And, yeah, go ahead.

I mean, to be clear, real people do talk like that.

Dicks come up all the time.

Exactly.

Welcome to this website.

I'm talking about dick literates all day.

Yeah.

Now, you know I don't generally like things like Invincible, or you know I would never.

The boy seems completely repulsive to me.

This isn't that far gone.

And that's because of the violence in it, right?

The hyperviolence.

It's a little bit of the hypersexualization as well, I suppose.

I don't know.

It just all kind of becomes...

A little much to me, the cynicism more than anything, I suppose, about it.

And there's a bit of that stuff here.

If you ask me, what's my favorite genre?

I don't think that like yeah, kind of cynical, flipped on its head, superhero stuff is necessarily my thing.

But this is being done well.

It looks really good.

I am curious to see where it goes.

I'm glad that just real quick in defense of invincible.

That's about a scene through positivity through cynicism.

But yeah, I understand.

Yeah, I know.

I'm just I have to defend my boy.

I like that Mike is hooked on episode one, because I would say man, it doesn't get really good until I episode like three.

I would say, like is that the first one introduces the main character and you know the main other character.

And then two introduces the rest of the crew.

And three is like where you see what the game really turns into.

And it really gets rolling after that.

And man, it goes places.

I do really, really like the dispatching gameplay in here, because that's the thing I always didn't like about the Telltale games is the lack of gameplay.

You know, they went for more of an old school adventure game style.

Kind of just you walk a character around, you pick up maybe a key or something like there's not much to play there.

You kind of are just watching and then making all the decisions.

That's cool, that the decisions matter, but this actually has a real game in there.

The management of the dispatching, i think, is really fun, and the strategy of it i.

Yeah, it's an evolved version of brotherhoods uh, you know, assassin's creed brotherhood.

Yeah sure yeah, i love that, even if this was like ripped out and its own thing.

I would be like oh, the dispatching gameplay is very fun, but like the fact that it's in there, they interweave it into the story in some really creative ways.

I thought yeah, some fun ways.

Uh i, i love dispatch so much.

Yeah, i'm doing a second playthrough with my friends now over uh, parsec.

We just pass the controller and like uh, this is something my group of friends loves to do with.

This kind of game is like everyone shouts what they want the person holding the controller to do and it's a little fun, like a little panicky, and And then someone locks in a decision.

We all have to live with it.

It's, it's a fun time and it's a fun way to play that game.

And yeah, I, I love this game.

This is, this is towards top of the list for me this year.

Yeah.

So I had to play more of it.

I hope you do, Mike.

I hope you stick with it, at least through episode four.

Four, four is the one where you're going to know for sure.

Like, yeah, by then.

Yeah.

And you know, they're an hour long.

That's when you see five dicks.

Yeah.

Well, finally, finally collect them all.

Taste the rainbow.

Taste the rainbow and tingus the goose.

Dan, Grub, what are we doing here?

We don't know.

I don't even say we don't like it, because that seems like a value call on if the game is good or not.

I don't know, Grub.

Is this game good?

I don't know.

We are so far away from being able to assess it on that level.

Before you all continue on, the vibe that I'm getting from y'all, when you originally brought up Tengus Goose, is the scene in Step Brothers when John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell ask their parents, can we build bunk beds?

Because there was a level of excitement and curiosity to it.

And now I feel like the bunk beds have fallen on you guys.

And maybe the Tengus Goose... isn't what it's meant to be.

The bunk beds are growing other living bunk beds off of the studs that hold it up and stuff like that.

It's weird.

If you want to do a movie reference, Jan.

I think it's like in Naked Gun the new one, when the bad guy is looking through the thermal goggles and it looks like Liam Neeson is fucking the dog and the guy goes.

I don't like this.

I think we are that guy right now.

The thing is, every time we look back through the thermal goggles, something different, weird is happening.

It's getting worse.

What do you do in Tengus Goose?

Babies get born out of a...

It's an idle game.

Say the word.

No, they don't.

That's not where they come from.

They burst out of a stomach, I think.

And then they're constantly.

The babies are constantly bouncing out, and if you click on the babies enough, a bunch of coins will come out and then the baby will explode into body parts.

But if you don't click on the baby, the baby will bounce around and go into a coin slot and I think you still get some money.

Maybe not all the money.

It's fine if the babies explode because you get to keep the money.

Yeah right, that's why I moved on.

It did not matter that they exploded.

Yeah, so then you take that money and then you invest it in your goose that has been born out of this lady's stomach and it's the neck, has continued to grow vertically, but then you can grow new stems like new branches off of this goose neck that are new goose heads or other things.

And I'll say right around then is where I'm like to what end is kind of what i thought to myself and i did not get an answer.

It's non-stop just birthing things.

This game yeah, and it's just a lot like.

I always heard that that video in junior high that everyone had to watch but me was really gross.

It's just like if it's a lot of that, the game and it's just a miracle around you.

Yeah, it's a beautiful miracle, is what it is never seen, it Never will.

Don't know what that whole situation looks like.

Way more fluid than you would think.

It's so interesting that you just like cosmically were absent that day.

I skipped a lot of class.

Yeah.

I didn't intend to, but yeah, I don't know what it looks like for a thing to be born, and I probably will never know.

Can you skip class in high school?

Dude, I mean, you can't buy it.

I mean, you can just walk out and drive to Funkoland and play something tonight for a while.

Wait, Mike, are you... You gotta unpack that question.

Mike, you just walk out of the building and get in your car.

That's all you do.

Yes.

Do you care?

I assumed they would have stopped me.

Sometimes you do it sneaky like and sometimes you have, yeah, a lot of ways.

I want to say it's probably different now.

Saturday schools.

So yes, they did care.

Yeah, I want to say it's maybe different now a little bit.

When we were in high school, it seemed very easy to do.

Also, you're just like the goodest boy ever.

I'm a good boy.

Is it possible that perhaps they gave up on Dan at a certain point?

You want to know how much of a cool bad boy I was?

I would skip school.

And when I got away, I would put in WF the music volume three and play the D generation X theme.

Cause I was being a rebel.

Yeah.

You didn't go to Catholic high school, right?

No, no.

Just until fifth grade.

Yeah.

So anyway, you make a birthing canal on the goose neck and then you can make another goose branch underneath that has a bunch of tiny fingers that point straight up and the baby goes directly into those fingers, explodes and you get the money very quickly and it's sort of like an infinite money factory.

Stop.

Well, I don't know how much longer y'all are going to be playing Tengus Goose.

It sounds, based off of how y'all are parsing it out, it sounds unbeatable.

But something that is actually unbeatable is unbeatable.

Sean, you have been checking this out.

I think this is a highly Sean anticipated game.

Highly, Sean.

Yes yes, speaking speaking of games, i've been waiting a long time for uh this, this one, not as long.

This has been uh like four years or so since the uh they did a kickstarter to get this game funded, but i've just been waiting to play this game ever since they announced it.

Um, my elevator pitch for unbeatable has always been fully coolly the game, if you like, that sort of late 90s, early 2000s anime where like, some cool shit happens and you don't know why, but it's got great music and it's music.

There you go.

That's this game.

It's, it's a little hard to describe precisely what it is, but, um, I, I'm the easiest ways to break down what the gameplay itself is, which is, um, paper mario walking around flat 2d character that's animated walking around a 3d space and then when you get into combat uh which doesn't happen often often it's not like an rpg combat but it does happen almost like beat-em-up style because this is a world where hey music is outlawed the incident happened and now we can't do music and you're sort of piecing together well why the hell did this happen And so naturally, because it's outlawed, and, you know, you're the girl with the guitar, well, in this case, a microphone stand, you beat up the cops left and right.

And that's the combat in this game.

You get in there, and it's a, like...

Guitar Hero rock band style notes coming down paths.

But instead of being vertical, it is horizontal.

It's just two lanes.

But they do something interesting with that.

Where the notes are, either you know just like you hit to the rhythm and there's hold notes and there's rapid hit notes when you're like punching people.

But then when there's like some of the more fully cooly of it, all the more like supernatural weird stuff sometimes, instead the combat is with just like these creatures that pop up, these little gremlin things.

And they do fun things where you know you hit the high note or the bomb note with two buns on your controller.

Well, if you hit a high note and it's like the blue note, there's physics on it.

And so it like gets popped up.

And then on the next beat, you have to hit on the low note.

And so it's like all these visual cues that you're doing.

Interesting.

Yeah.

And that's the combat is you play like a portion of a song rhythm game style.

But then there's all these other things, too, like minigames are abundant.

And it's very rhythm heaven where, like the first time you look at it, there's like a beat, you know, like dot dot dot hey.

And you're like, wait, what?

And then it's, like, dot, dot, and, like, it'll be baseball, and you're like...

Oh, I hit the ball on the beat.

And that's like, that's the mini game.

It ramps up, it gets harder.

And then, next thing you know, later on they use that to have like oh cop, drones are flying at you.

And it's like, dot, dot, dot, hey, and you whack the drone out of the air.

You know, it builds in that way.

It's a very special game because like, i think this is one where like, if you go to the steam page now, you look at it, you're probably gonna know if you want to play this or not.

You know, if it's your, i want to play it.

It looks so good.

The art is amazing.

Yeah, it's all like hand drawn on, like ps1 poly graphics, like it's really cool.

I would say, especially like from this group.

I would call like uh grub, jan and jerf.

I would love to see like, what you guys think of it.

And mike, i'm excited, your alley too.

Yeah it's, it's very, very interesting it's.

It reminds me of that minigame I had to play in the Back to the Future NES game on Arcade Pit.

That one time.

It's just like that.

Oh, sure.

You were good at that.

Hey, by the way, shout out to Arcade Pit.

They had a big anniversary over there.

There's a little bit of jank, unfortunately, to the point of being noticeable.

And maybe it's because you know, developing this game during the pandemic and everything sort of slowed down.

A smaller team.

But it's just enough to be noticeable, which is unfortunate.

They do it like...

I hadn't played a version of this game with voice acting up until the final release.

And so they do a cute thing where, like, the text will get squiggly or big or scrambled, depending on how people are talking.

And text boxes will overlap if someone cuts someone off.

They tried to also add voice acting to that.

I don't think it quite hits.

There's a little bit of jank with when voice lines play.

There's some bugs in the game every once in a while.

And it'll be anything from a small to like a character sprite, not loading properly until a couple seconds in to uh, like one of the big set pieces didn't load for me.

I'm like, am i just waiting until this happens?

And that's like game over, because the thing just didn't load.

I wasn't playing the actual segment.

They have been releasing a bunch of patches in the review period, so like, maybe this final version will have a lot of effects.

I don't know.

But just letting people know, because i also quickly glanced at reviews here, because this game just came out at the top of the hour And so the reviews are starting to flow in.

I see some other people point out yeah, there's enough jank.

That was noticeable when we were playing it for review.

And it's a little bit longer than I thought.

Maybe I misread something.

I thought it was four to six hours, but it's like six to eight.

So I actually need one more session to finish the game.

But again, like right now, just you want to...

Here's some awesome beats.

You want to beat up the cops in the process, have this cool anime experience.

And it's only like six to eight hours.

I think it should be right up your alley, which is, by the way, I neglected to mention the other half of this game.

Because you know how I mentioned that there's rhythm game for like the combat?

Yeah, they made what they call arcade mode and it's just a rhythm game like you just go through this giant track list.

You know from all these songs that they made for the game remixes.

They got, like you know, friends of the devs and like other like famous video game composers and stuff to do like remixes and stuff and you can just choose difficulties and like there's leaderboards and stuff like that.

There's this entire rhythm game contained within this game that has this cool story mode.

So yeah, I'm having a blast with it and it is kind of living up to my expectations for the most part.

Like I said, there's some jank.

There's a couple slower moments than I would like, but overall, I think it's a special game.

Reminds me of an anime version of Backlore.

What was that game at Summer Game Fest that had the young kids and they had the vignettes and they were sort of like learning lessons and stuff.

Mixtape.

Yes.

This is giving me like anime mixtape vibes.

Yes.

Cool uh fantastic, uh.

Next game, before we get to the news here.

We've talked about this at length at this point, but i'm curious to see if you boys have any other new jazz to talk about with sec tori.

It's the main game i'm playing right now.

It's the main game i'm thinking about.

It's the game that i have to stop myself from playing at a certain time of night, if i think i'm going to be going to bed at any point in the next hour or so, because i will see the shapes in my head.

I yeah Yep okay, that was my question.

Yep, yep.

No, no, no.

I love that.

Do you see the shapes in your head?

Yes, yes.

Like there are times where, like you know, Tetris games and Luminous and stuff like that, where it's like I know Geometry Warriors did this and I'm for that.

OLED burn-in in my brain.

Yeah, yeah.

My brain and retinas are just filled with fucking shapes, and yeah, it's...

It is tremendous.

Grub, I still am nowhere near your level.

My own level is going up.

You know, I've beaten it on the experience mode a couple of times now.

And now I'm working on challenging, because you said that's where I can see, that's where most of the high scores are.

But oh, man, it's just tremendous.

I'm just yelling as I play it out of joy and frustration.

And oh, I had eight shields and I was on the fucking red thing and died immediately during my best run.

And that I'm furious about.

And it's quickly climbing my list this year.

It is tremendous.

It's such a I mean, you know it's like I've said, it's a very light roguelite in that you're going to be unlocking things but you unlock most of the stuff.

Like you have a deck of cards but you unlock all the cards in that deck after a handful of runs.

So really, it's a roguelite in that you are learning the game.

So it's it's just an arcade game.

But whatever that's like most closely associated with roguelike games these days of like Spelunky, you need to learn the mechanics of how every little individual thing behaves so that you know how to react and sort of plan and put yourself in the best position to survive.

And then, once you feel confident, you start coming up with strategies of like If I could have dashed like a couple more times there, or my dash had a little bit more distance, I could have done something different.

And then you start stringing those ideas together.

And when it all clicks, you do feel like a God or you feel close to God.

It is an ascendant experience for sure.

Do you ever get tempted when it's like, I've got a crazy build going on.

I'm pretty deep into a run.

It's looking pretty well, but I've got like, okay, my missiles are going crazy right now.

And I have four missile drones following me around.

So there's just purple missiles flying across the screen at all times.

And then I get a potential card where it's like hey, what if we turned all four of your shields into missile drones?

I'm like, I would die immediately, but it would be so fucking cool while I lived.

I definitely did that a handful of times.

You're like, at a certain point, I'm doing so many of these runs.

Why am I not taking risks?

The reward could be very high.

And I do think on my run, I did that early on.

And it was like, it gave me four, I think, missile drones.

And that gave me enough survivability that it sort of made up for the fact that I didn't have these shields anymore.

And then it's like okay.

So for the next little bit I'm going to focus on when I can survive building my shields back up.

You know there's five in the bank there if you can get the upgrades for it.

Uh, and it was okay.

Yeah, i have so much survivability in terms of shooting things down.

Now, as long as i'm paying attention to these things that dash at me, especially from a distance, i'm gonna.

I'm gonna be okay.

And that's where the real last learning click came from.

It was i'm very good now of like clearing the, like plowing the field of clearing everything in front of me and surviving by just going forward as soon as something is going to come from a distance.

That i really struggled with that.

Once I started learning some strategies there, it's like okay, now we're good and I can take a little bit more risks.

My goal was to get over 10 million.

I got just over 10 million points, and I'm very happy with that.

It's an elite company of Geometry Wars, Robotron, those type of games.

I mean, it's the sequel to that genre.

People who played those games obviously had good ideas for how to evolve it.

It's Geometry Wars evolved, evolved.

Yeah, it really is.

Lovely.

Fantastic.

Final game during the game segment today.

This is another highly anticipated game.

Bakalar, I think you may be the most juiced.

You've been the most juiced for this.

I'm talking about Skate Story.

Pretty juicy.

Is it obvious how moist I appear to be?

You're vibrating is what it is.

Some would say shimmering.

Coated in the goat sauce.

You look like you pressed a button to say that, but you just said that.

I did.

I was muted and I had to unmute myself to make sure I could scream that for you.

Yeah, I'll go back on mute now.

It was one of those moments where I felt like I was some sort of ventriloquist dummy, where I opened my mouth but Mike's voice came out.

It was pretty cool.

That's not the worst thing that's ever happened to me.

Skate story, baby.

Jen, where are you at on this?

Okay, so in the quick look that is now up on the website and on YouTube, I think during our conversation back Lar I was a little bit down on the game.

I've since completed it after the quick look.

And holy shit.

You're back.

We're so fucking back, baby.

Is that because the vibes and the story really came together?

It was a hefty climax that really delivered on everything that was supposed to happen or that you felt was supposed to happen.

Or was it, oh, the gameplay really clicked at a certain point?

Honestly, Grub, I'll have what she's having, all of the above over there.

I think...

And Bacalar, you had some fantastic thoughts on the quick look and I'd like for you to reiterate that over here.

But I think Skate Story, I initially wanted this to just be a skating game.

And then what it wound up... evolving into is perhaps a heavy shimmery faustian deal with skateboarding and then the association of um getting back up and doing the damn thing uh whether that is your and through this lens uh that the passion or or the purpose is skating but that can 100 be applied to so many other things visually this game is incredibly overstimulating in a positive way and the music absolutely crazy town bananas because of how it is brilliantly formatted to play along with the levels the drops in it are absolutely bonkers it will go from a very ambient sounding angelic track to to blaring dubstep mid-Oli.

There are parts of the game where I still do have a little bit of friction with.

I don't enjoy the semi-open level segments as much.

I think the grinding in the game could be a little bit better.

And maybe that's just because my brain is so attuned to how it is in Tony Hawk.

But overall...

The story that gets unfolded of you are this demon glass skater hell bent on consuming the moon, and your journey through hell and your let's just say friends that join along the way is great.

The overall message and the fonts in this game.

Y'all, I think this might be the best font of the year.

Baccalar.

I don't want to speak for both of us here, but I think this is a lovely game because this hits the Jan and Baccalar Venn diagram of like immaculate vibes music, atmosphere and fonts.

I mean, yeah, you kind of put it perfectly.

Yeah, I mean, just vibes are immaculate, top to bottom.

I don't know.

On the quick look, we went over this.

I am so impressed with how such a singular vision is so uh, perfectly realized in this game.

It is unbelievable, and in the way it's presented in the uh, seemingly impossibly small amount of people or person that is involved in the creation of this game is nothing short of a goddamn miracle.

Yeah, I think this has the right amount of sort of you know consideration for all the things that you would want to do in a game where I'm not.

You know, I want to just get lost in this world when I'm playing it.

And that was... selfishly what I was hoping for with all the trailers and the lead up to this.

It was sending a message of like, oh, is this game like a Tony Hawk but in chromatic hellscape?

No.

Is it sort of Something else.

And I was kind of hoping it was something else.

And that's what it is.

And you get out of it what you sort of put into it.

Would you describe what it is just real quick as kind of a poem almost?

Like them trying to throw a tone for mechanics and vibes and all that?

It's a bit like...

It's a bit like almost like a beat poetry kind of thing, too, where you're just sort of.

It's abstract.

Watching.

Yeah, but definitely abstract.

Definitely just sort of ingesting little chapters and short, you know, storytelling moments that you know don't really are mostly inconsequential.

Certainly, to Jan's point, deliver a positive message um, but again, a lot of it is is, you know, you are, you are going from chapter to chapter in this story about a demon who is making uh looking, assigned to deal with the devil, to sort of make his way through the underworld so he can eat the moon.

So many moons, there's many moons that you will consume in this game and they are, by all accounts delicious yum um Yeah, so it is very abstract.

There is light skateboarding trick chaining sort of together.

I definitely echo Jan's thoughts about the grinding.

I do think it is very rewarding when you kind of figure out how you are meant to parlay some of these tricks together and with the grinding.

The move set of tricks that you have um, is not wildly uh, you know varied, and i think that forces you to be a bit more creative with how you kind of chain stuff and implement stuff.

And you know you're using these combos and these trick uh performances to uh to to battle bosses.

That's how the the game sort of is structured.

Um, you know, it is very light.

Everything is very sort of light and airy about it.

It's a, it's a very breezy kind of playthrough.

Uh the, the environments are all sort of like New York based, you know whether it's a subway or sort of an overworld.

Um and yeah, you know again, like the biggest part of this game for me is like I know I'm going to play as I'm going to be visual.

It is striking.

Everything is so striking.

You were so sort of blown away.

It's like all the, uh, particulars that are happening on screen at once.

It really is just like a total carnival right, and i think it's.

I think this game, more so than anything i can really think of in recent memory, is such a product.

You know the sum of all of its little parts right, i think you know.

If you take one thing and sort of slice it out and examine it, you're like oh, this is like an interesting mechanic.

But i do think the best thing about this game is how, when all these ingredients are put into the blender, the thing you get out is this like is such a satisfying sort of overall experience.

And yeah, I mean it's.

You know, I don't think it's going to like, I don't think any of the gameplay specifically is going to blow anyone away.

That is not what this game is.

This game is mostly the experience, mostly the vibes.

And I think when you play this thing, like for me, it's like this is a thing.

I don't even understand how to.

Put into words the experience of what you're doing.

You've never seen anything like this.

You've never played really anything like this.

And you've never been presented with anything in this sort of way.

The music implementation is nothing short.

It's almost perfect.

Seriously, it is so...

Do you mean like the track choices or do they like integrate with the gameplay?

There's score, there's track choices.

Blood Cultures is the band that put together a lot of the music for this.

It is... And like Jan said, when those drops hit, it is chills.

Like literal chills what this game's able to do.

And again, I think like, you know, you pop in for a second here and there and you're just like, all right, you're just... controlling is kind of like clunky little glass man and that's weird i guess and these things look strange and striking and unique and whatnot all together though really just uh such a such a satisfying tremendous experience overall really happy that this is out there i'm so grateful that this thing is out there um yeah what what a past couple weeks for like these music and vibes focused games you know sectory unbeatable uh now escape story like it's seems like we all kind of have one of these that's it's kind of awesome especially you know like hey if some of the bigger releases are a little disappointing in ways that it's cool we have these smaller and more personal experiences that are really hidden with us that's really cool I think it is personal, right?

I'm not expecting every Tom Dick and Harry.

That's what they're talking about.

I'm not expecting everyone to just totally sync with this and be like, I get it, Bacalar.

This is speaking to me in the exact... It's not.

It's not going to do it.

There's a lot of...

And I think, Jan, you share the same sort of mentality.

There's a lot of things that just kind of speak to the stuff we're into, right?

And that's definitely a recipe for success when you've got that sort of commonality with what this game's presenting.

So it is a deeply kind of personal thing, too.

But yeah, when it hits, it hits, man.

Cool.

I wasn't expecting to take as many screenshots of the game.

And when I take screenshots of a game, it's not just because it looks pretty in the moment, but because they're dropping bars with the dialogue or the story and the text.

Each chapter ends with a poem that summarizes the whole level, and it's done very well.

So I think for me, this kind of again, this is yet another example of the beauty of telling stories through video games as a medium, because I don't know like watching this would be cool, as like a visual or a music video, but like playing through it.

Another thing that I think Skate Story does really well is that it nails the weight of skating and like the heft and like the fervor of like you got to push and kick.

And even though he's like a little glass demon man, you see him like swaying and like trying to recapture his balance.

Yeah.

Also, when I say I have had so many screenshots, it's because this game reminded me, oddly enough, of aspects of mouthwashing from last year.

And for folks that are also looking for another game that it may be similar to.

I mentioned on the quick look.

There are moments where it does remind me of Sayonara Wild Hearts.

So imagine Sayonara Wild Hearts mouthwashing on a skateboard and you are a little glass baby man.

Also, one of the frogs of the year, I think.

Oh my god.

There's a pillow man also.

Just such strange little weird shit.

It is very also like David Lynchian.

Yes.

In a weird kind of way where you're just sort of like...

I don't know, this floating skull has these like scissors that say something important to what I'm meant to do here.

I don't know what else it is.

Everyone's little, and we're all going into this portal, and that's what's happening.

Bacalar, did you get to the penguin?

Oh my god, yes.

Did the penguin also remind you of Vinati?

I love penguins.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

I need to see this penguin now.

I'll send you a screenshot.

That's amazing.

That's parentheses positive, Mike.

No more Reddit threads about how we're bullying Mike.

I have no doubt it was positive.

Penguins are great.

Yeah.

Because he just had like a sway to him.

That's like if Mike Minotti ran like a jewelry shop, he'd be this penguin.

You know, and that's the cool thing, like you know, this is, you know I This is the playfulness of hell that I feel like I've been synced into, that no one else has really on board.

Gets on board with me with that.

You've been proselytizing this for a while.

Yeah, I've been banging this satanic drum for a minute and if Skate Story is any you know vindication of what, what exactly i was going for here?

I mean, here it is folks, it is uh, you ever go to a bar and you're like yes, and like the decoration, i wasn't done, i wasn't done and the decoration, and like the shit on the walls and like the, the things they're calling their menu items and the people behind the bar and all the, all those little bit.

You're like, fuck man, this would be my bar if i made a bar.

Right yeah, like that's the feeling i'm getting with skate story, where it's like god, i feel so at home here, you know, i feel so much uh uh, like i belong, like this is a member, like i'm, i'm supposed to be a member of this club somehow, and uh, that's it for me.

So i i feel, you know, the skate story should make merch.

Oh, my god, you know, like sam, let's talk.

Like, what do we?

What are we doing?

I don't know, Sam.

I keep talking about Sam like I know Sam.

I think Sam's probably pretty cool.

I think Sam is very cool.

God.

All right.

That, folks, is Skate Story.

That is it for the games.

No, it's not.

Jan, tell me just real quick about Baby Steps.

Oh, okay.

Grub, I had completed Skate's story and then the story that it was presenting towards me, and this is, I think I've just been on a journey this year of like oh, all these games are making me feel way too much.

Let's go for another game that may potentially make me feel way too much.

And so I booted up Baby Steps, and I made it decently far, and I...

I was kind of letting it all sit and simmer with me and then it just kind of clicked into place after I thought of Glass Story.

Or not Glass Story, Skate Story, sorry.

And this is going to be a very interesting game of the year.

I deeply appreciate a developer like Bennett Foddy.

I think Sam Ng also should now be in that conversation for fantastic indie devs, because...

The stuff going on in Bennett Foddy's brain is very poetic and beautiful, but also, are you OK, dog type of deal.

And I think I get baby steps, not just for the hilarity that is presented, because of the physics of the game and how it is, how it breaks down.

And makes a complicated task out of just walking, but then the act of walking and entering that flow state, but then getting back up because you know you get knocked down and you get back up again and they're never going to take me down.

I got knocked down and then stop playing it.

You are the person who least lives the Chumbawamba lifestyle, Dan.

You can't just say anything on podcast.

I'll say it.

I'm not afraid to say it.

I'm brandishing your weapon.

I fell down the first hill and I was like well, that's it for me.

And then, like I fell numerous times before we even like it took me so long to get out of the initial like little water you're in and I kind of just flopped around like we did in the original unfinished of baby steps.

But yeah, like it clicks into place.

There's a moment in that game that was top three most emotional moments for me in any video game ever.

And it does happen related to the Man Breaker, but after the Man Breaker.

I'm not quite there yet, but from what, the parts of the game that have spoken to me and that's just me finding meaning in it have definitely reverberated inside the cavernous hollows of my soul right now.

Yeah.

Jesus.

Anyway, Jeff Grubb, the news.

This is Jeff Grubb.

Jeff Grubb.

Hi, I have news.

Let's start here with GameStop may have accidentally leaked a second playable Resident Evil Requiem character.

A GameStop listing for the Resident Evil Requiem Deluxe Bundle briefly revealed a potential second playable character, Rosemary Winters.

The listing now edited mentioned a Shadow Walker costume pack. with three exclusive outfits for Rosemary Winters and a morphic visor cosmetic filter for Rose's visor and Aiden, whatever his name's, iconic hat, I'm sure.

Let's see here.

Yeah, so that's one character that could be in that game.

There's another one, though.

Now at the PlayStation Store.

They have also accidentally revealed a Resident Evil veteran will be coming to Requiem.

This is a different character.

An image on the PlayStation Store for Resident Evil Requiem seemingly confirms the return of veteran character.

I mean, I guess it's a spoiler, but everyone was guessing this.

Come on.

Leon Kennedy.

Yes.

Yay.

Yeah, this has been in the air for a while now.

I think this is something one or both of these could be revealed at the Game Awards even.

Yeah.

Oh, my God.

Wait, three characters.

Are we doing a Resident Evil 6-like?

Hell yeah.

Or a Devil May Cry 5-like?

Or GTA 5-like?

A Martian Gothic-like?

I just want to zap to one of the other characters and one of them's just doing some random crime.

Eating a hot dog.

Yeah.

Yeah, okay.

So how many years?

Because Rosemary was a kid.

She was the baby in Village, right?

She was the baby in Village, but the DLC was a flash forward.

Yeah, she's an adult in a DLC.

Yeah, it's like 20 something in the dlc yeah, but this i can't imagine it's taking place during that time skip era.

I don't know, i never played that dlc so i i feel like the rose thing, i i don't know what to make of that.

That could be something small or whatever, but looking at especially the key art where you get the leon leak, like that is a.

Uh, what do you call that deuteragonist?

Right, it's just the second protagonist, right?

I Deuteroginous.

That's a fun one.

It's fun to say that.

I'd need to learn that better.

Deuteroginous.

I like it too.

Deuteroginous.

If you have a son, Deuteroginous.

There you go.

Right there.

I think this is why we probably have the first person and third person gameplay.

I bet the Leon Kennedy stuff is going to be A bit more action presenting, whereas the stuff with the new character, like we see in the trailers, is much more like Resident Evil 7, more scary.

I'm excited to see what this looks like a bit more.

At the Game Awards, I like Leon Kennedy a lot.

Me too.

He's one of my favorite Resident Evil characters.

He grew a beard and has facial hair now.

He's got a stubble, a very tasteful stubble.

He's a tired old man now, and I respect that.

Face pubes, just say it.

He's got the face pubes, everybody.

Who among us?

The future of Tomb Raider will be revealed at the Game Awards.

The future of Tomb Raider will be revealed at the Game Awards this week, as confirmed via a Fortnite island.

I'm sorry to cut you off.

No, please.

I get it.

I hope this does good news.

Like, this... Yeah.

Like, I'm worried that... We're killing Lara.

Is this the end of Lara Croft?

I hope it goes the good way.

I fucking still love Tomb Raider.

I'm glad that you do.

Me too.

I never loved it.

I do too.

I never hated it.

I hated the original games.

I really loved those first two comeback ones.

Oh, sure.

Me too.

And didn't love that... Was it Shadow?

Shadow, Tomb Raider.

Didn't love that one, no.

It got a little...

It sort of ventured down maybe the least desirable path, I think.

But that is a really great tool for testing performance on PCs.

Oh, really?

Yes, that was always like the benchmark, right?

Yeah.

You know...

Yeah, maybe that original game is basically unplayable by today's standards.

But you know what?

I have a fondness of just not knowing what the fuck to do in these insane dungeon areas where the path through is some completely unseeable little ledge, where you just had to, like snow, to jump off the corner of a thing, whatever it right, like obviously there's rose colored lenses uh, that are informing that opinion.

But where you're right, where the that relaunch went was nothing short of a fantastic right and yeah i, i hope there's a bright future ahead here because there's still gas in that town.

Speaking of Bright Future, that remake trilogy, which I did enjoy.

I think it kept getting darker and darker, which I think, by shadow, was maybe a bit much.

And it made sense that direction when Uncharted was happening and it kind of already maybe cornered the market on the bit more like fun adventure side of it.

Now that we're in a pretty vacant uncharted area i i hope to see tomb raider maybe lean a bit more back in that direction, be a bit more.

You know, adventuring fun time.

You know it can have obviously heavier moments, but i don't want it to be shadow of the tomb raider super dark.

I don't need to see laura croft getting stabbed in her thigh every two minutes.

Yeah, go back to that old like Indiana Jones pulpy vibe that the first couple Tomb Raiders had.

I'd be down for a revisit to that.

I might have some breaking news here.

I'm sorry.

There might be developments on Desert Statue Gate.

Yeah, I was just reading that as well.

What do you have there, Mike?

I'm distressed.

I'm distressed because I liked the Altered Beast series a lot.

Oh, that is a good one.

Hey, like you playing Metroid.

When I was reading that news story I was like Dan and Mike are going to like this.

Yeah.

Unfortunately though, the new Scuttlebutt thanks to a trademark reveal and some logo shenanigans is that perhaps this is related to divinity, which was oh never oh, never mind.

The larian franchise oh, come on.

Bonus game three is so good.

The next game from larian, this is larian.

That's a huge deal.

It's a huge deal.

It's very exciting, but but if they, if they do have us visit their studio to play the game, we should send dan like no absolutely, it only makes sense.

It only makes sense.

Yeah, I like that.

Mike turned his compressor back on and now, when he yells, he becomes small Mikey again.

Yeah, you totally turned it off and I was like, I don't know if I like this.

Look, I'm Belgian.

I'm the only one that can speak to these people.

You're right.

Yeah, and you're fluid Belgian.

It does look pretty similar.

I guess now it looks very similar.

It probably is divinity.

And that will be a pretty big get.

And this is also kind of the kind of thing they would do.

I've not really asked around about this.

I've been having fun with like the mystery.

And we might as well just carry that forward.

Now we're going to find out in two days.

So I'm going to the desert.

I will find out.

All right, man on the scene, you could actually go find this.

Like they have the coordinates out there, I'll pour like a series of, I'll make a transmutation circle around it of like five different colored buzz balls and we'll see what comes out.

Okay okay beautiful, all right, let's see anything else from.

Was that all from?

The Tomb Raider thing?

Yeah yes yeah, we haven't left that one yet.

It could be the show, could be the movie or the game.

It could be both.

There is the tease that couldn't end up happening.

I think they said it was Crystal Dynamics related or something.

Right.

But I think I think they might also talk about the show at this thing.

So we'll see.

I mean, it's Jeff Keighley.

He would love to have anything related to Hollywood.

So they would do that.

Xbox was outsold by a little-known Kinect-style console during Black Friday.

This came from Matt Piscitella, who pointed out PlayStation 5, which had a really steep discount, like 100, and they had the biggest discount out of any of these consoles.

47% of Black Friday sales went to PlayStation 5.

Nintendo Switch 2 was second at 24%.

And then after that, and third, not the Xbox, 14% was the next Playground, which is...

I have one of these things.

It's a little cube with a camera and it's just a bunch of like PlayStation Eye toy-style games of you, you know, whacking your hands around and hitting beach balls and stuff like that.

A lot of whacking games, yeah.

Oh, like the Bowser Jr. game you can play at Nintendo World.

Yeah, I like that.

Should I bring this to New Jersey and we can play it in the house?

Maybe.

Oh, but your kids will miss it so much.

I pay for a yearly subscription for that thing and I don't think they've touched it since that first month.

Oh, cool.

Hey, also cancel the Just Dance subscription, Grub, if you haven't.

Oh, shit.

Yeah, I have not.

Let me do that.

Or we could keep dancing.

Yeah, we could keep dancing.

Hey, I had a good time.

I feel good after that stream.

In the B&B, we should just watch MXC and Beyond the Mat again.

Like, that's the only thing this TV can show.

It's a good time.

Yeah uh, i had a roommate once my first roommate actually who said that if the tv is going to be on the house uh, from the hours of five to six, it has to be on the simpsons.

And i was like yeah, that's great.

And then i got, and then i got super mario sunshine and i started playing that and he was like it's five can't have the tv on unless it's on the simpson.

I'm like you're, you're fucking serious.

This guy seems cool.

All right yeah, seriously about that.

Yeah, Eventually they kicked me out for not being like Chandler and Joey.

Oh, right.

That's our story.

Yes.

Wait, you had to be both of them?

Yeah, that's a lot.

They wanted our relationship to be equivalent to Chandler and or Joey.

You're neither of those people.

I was never going to be one of those people.

In your exit interview, they were like, ah, you weren't enough like these fictional guys.

Literally, it was like an exit interview.

Oh, my God, yes.

Yeah, you were crazy.

A bit too Kramer for a... He lives...

I was, go work a back-breaking job and come home and sleep.

That's what I was.

That is so funny.

Fun times.

I moved back home and that was the right choice.

Xbox was outsold.

Netflix has agreed to buy Warner Brothers, including game developers behind Mortal Kombat and Hogwarts Legacy.

But watch this!

That's Paramount's music!

Larry Ellison from the top!

They're going to try a hostile takeover, $180 million in cash.

And yeah, that's a very, very rich person, Larry Ellison.

But he's not going to use all his own money.

He's going to Saudi Arabia and Qatar or Qatar and going to have them help them fund this deal.

And they promise they won't be involved in running the Warner Brothers if they get it.

So yeah, that's going to be a fun back and forth.

Here's the thing about the video games on all this.

They are not the central thing.

They don't care about it right now.

If Netflix gets it, they're getting HBO and all that content and all those subscribers to HBO Max.

Did they go back to HBO Max?

They went back to HBO Max, I think.

They did.

I don't know which one to watch for HBO now.

The watch for HBO is gone.

This is just great.

This is just the best.

I don't know about you all, but there should only just be one fucking company ever.

Just the company of Earth.

As long as it's a tech company, I'm going to be fine.

This is great.

I can't begin to describe to you how amazing this is for everyone involved.

And I'm very excited for the one company that we will all be buying our content from.

What the fuck?

Oracle is Larry Ellison's company.

My understanding is they kind of just stand in the middle of everyone and buy stuff from one company and sell it to another.

And now he's a trillionaire.

Larry Ellison, I had not heard of.

And I just had the thought, oh, I bet this guy sucks.

And I Googled him and he looks like a Bond villain. yeah they always do he sucks he looks like a guy that really sucks yeah i feel like the last time i heard a friend of the show ed zitron talk about oracle he made me feel good that like oracle was in trouble because of like them not being able to be solvent with all the money they've got out on the street it's definitely yeah i mean it's the bubble thing obviously yeah it's bad like there's a lot of stuff invested in gpus i hey either way uh Like, NetherRealm's not going to go away.

That is a company that makes games.

The rest of these studios, who's to say?

Like, how much interest are any of them going to have in?

I don't know what's a sort of Rocksteady is kind of in a weird space.

Yeah.

In a pro-suicide squad world.

Yeah.

Um, travelers tales right like yeah, lego star wars made a lot of money.

That was a bit ago.

You would imagine the hogwarts legacy people.

They would just want to make another one of those that made a zillion dollars, but who knows, they just don't care.

In the press release that came out, they didn't even mention wb games.

They were nowhere in any of that.

So it's like small potatoes compared to what they get and everything else.

Apparently, it would potentially also make wrestling very weird.

Isn't that a different thing, though?

I thought the TNT and TBS fell under a different jurisdiction or something.

I take it back then.

Wrestling, weird on its own then.

Super normal wrestling.

Yeah, it's like weird.

I know people don't believe that these, some of these characters, are ever going to go public domain, but they've already sort of won all the battles they can win with that.

Like superman's going to start going in the public domain here pretty soon and i know there's always weirdness around there.

It's like can only be the first version of superman, you can't go base it on anything since then.

But that stuff's going to be less valuable here in the next five to ten years.

Uh and yeah.

So the fact that they're doing all this and then they're going to turn to these companies that have primarily made superhero video games like a rocksteady, and then like go invest five to ten years making the next one of those I don't know.

It just seems precarious on all sides.

And the worst part is, of course, the companies making these acquisitions don't even know there's video games being made, let alone care about it.

Is Oracle the American company that they made kind of take over TikTok?

Yes, that was the idea, yes.

Yeah, got it.

And Paramount is... uh the reason they're showing up now is what is their company skydance is a skydance media that was them they acquired paramount recently and now skydance like mission impossible like aren't they like tom cruise something something related right yeah yeah definitely i think he's like yeah he was like in the ground floor there but since then it seems like a vessel for the ellison family to acquire more and more of american media uh they would also own uh oracle cnn and stuff like that after that so that'd be fun Suda51 says he wants to bring back this forgotten PS2 game, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Grasshopper Manufacturer CEO Goichi Suda, Suda51, wants to bring back the studio's 2004 PS2 title, Michigan Report from Hell. what i know right i remember hearing about this i never played it i am desperately wanting to play this game now um he's uh basically just plays a cameraman covering a plane crash in a miscovered chicago uh on lake michigan i think oh lake michigan okay i was gonna say strange is this the joe grub story what is michigan basically uh yeah i i would love to see this i i wonder if this is the kind of thing that suda just says to see if he can make it happen or if he's really actually working on this yeah yeah that man manifests uh very very well he does so i'm hopeful uh all right buckle up you motherfucker mike minotti if you're ready oh my god what's going on here capcom plans to grow Mega Man, Devil May Cry, and Ace Attorney into core IPs similar to Street Fighter and Resident Evil.

Capcom's president, Haruhiro Tsujimoto, stated in a corporate report that the company plans to elevate Mega Man, Devil May Cry and Ace Attorney.

Man, that's a bunch for you, except for how much you hate Devil May Cry.

To core IPs.

That's the best one.

I don't hate it.

DMC5 is mid, I've heard.

It was a mid.

It was a 7 out of 10.

It was good.

Didn't mean to put you on the spot.

I was just having fun.

I know how you feel about it.

I just know everyone else thinks you hate it because a 7, whatever.

I repeat what he explicitly told me.

We can't start this.

We can't start this uh.

Okay, so we we know that capcom wants to do this.

It's obvious from the way that they've been like treating some of these other uh franchises that they have talked about them wanting to like elevate dragons, dogma and uh, and it seems like they didn't include one game on this list, dead rising which could reappear here any minute.

Now seems like they want to do the same thing perhaps Yes, in a couple of days, perhaps.

So do you think they, one, have the capacity to do all this?

And what would that even look like for Mega Man?

That's the question.

Because they've been making Mega Man products.

There's been compilations.

There's still a Star Force compilation. coming out next year.

You know, remaking Mega Man is weird because it's not, like you know, even a Resident Evil game, where you're taking a 3D game, remaking a 3D game.

Wow.

If it was a 3D game, they could remake.

That's right.

Well, they're not going to remake Legends.

I hope they do a compilation.

I mean, maybe they will.

There's never even a chance, really.

That's kind of the problem there.

Mikey, if Mega Man in your fantasy booking mind, if they could redo Mega Man outside of that side-scrolling sort of presentation.

Yeah.

What would you love to see Mega Man explored as?

It should be, you should look at Ratchet and Clank.

I think Ratchet and Clank is the kind of format you look there.

I think that's the franchise, that is the best 3D platformer that has shooting mechanics and that's kind of always been 3D platformer.

Yeah, that's always been Mega Man's thing, is it's the 2D game where you jump and shoot.

Ratchet and Clank is the 3D game where you jump and shoot.

I think you look at that, and you finally go and make a really fun, exciting...

3D Mega Man platform.

That would be my dream.

That's a great idea.

And then you arrive in those battle areas with the bosses.

That would be really fun.

And you drive through the desert on a motorcycle.

It would be awesome.

I bet we're going to get another...

It's okay.

Right.

Dog with wheels.

Yes.

I bet we get another 2D game.

I bet they're going to make like, it may be something Mega Man 12 this time.

Maybe we finally do another X game as a bit of a throwback.

But I bet that happens at least first.

Yo.

I know that you're very high on Proto Man, but where are you?

I love Proto Man. with Zero.

Zero's cool.

Zero's a cool guy.

Why did you say that with a growl like you were Clint Eastwood?

Mega Man is the first character as a human I ever thought was cool.

I was like three and I was like whoa, Mega Man has a brother and he's kind of like mysterious and that's cool.

He doesn't smile.

He means business.

I like how you were an edgelord when you were like three.

It's like being in Ohio, someone who didn't smile, that's an alien.

That's from another planet.

That's allowed.

Yeah.

Yeah guys what I said as a human I mean mean as a human being not proto man.

He's a robot, right?

Coming online as a human like you, like this.

One of your early thoughts Thoughts that I can remember is thinking proto man was cool.

Oh I think there's a couple different ways that they could approach this, too.

Mega Man.

They could do what Sega is doing bringing back some of their properties, like giving Shinobi to a team that would do a really good job with it, for example.

I could see them doing that with Mega Man if they wanted to.

Ace Attorney, they could just put more of a marketing push behind it.

Yeah. you know, games like Persona.

Is that all it takes to make a core IP, like to get it up to that level?

Well, that's what I'm thinking is like because, let's be real, those franchises in particular are never going to get up to the heights of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter.

You know over a hundred million.

Like they've always struggled a little bit because they are a little more niche.

And I think just you know, recognizing how much money they're going to put into it relative to how many people are going to buy it, finding that balance, like maybe having an indie studio license the IP and that sells like two million copies or so And maybe that's what they mean as combined with the re-releases that they mentioned, or anything like that.

That's what core IP is for Mega Man.

Whereas DMC they can double down on.

Yeah, let's keep making these big cinematic action games with huge set pieces and production value.

And that's what that can be.

Like, I think they can find a balance for all these, especially Ace Attorney.

Ace Attorney needs to be given our chance to shine in a post.

Persona popping off and Danganronpa being huge with a lot of fans and stuff.

I think they could elevate these things in different ways.

Ace Attorney was growing.

Those collections were doing surprisingly well.

I'm a little surprised it's taking this long to get the next one.

I bet we hear about that pretty soon.

It definitely helps that the collections are out there and now there are just fans of the series.

They're on sale all the time.

And they are coming back.

Sort of the end of the collection.

They did come to the end of a phrase attorney, right?

Everything is now.

Yeah.

So it's pretty close.

I got a question here, though.

Did beautiful Joe say something wrong?

Did he get canceled?

Yeah.

This is disrespectful.

How dare you?

Betrayal.

No, it's good.

It's good.

Okay.

No, it's good.

I don't know if I played two, but one is like just a perfect game.

Yeah.

Two's very similar.

Two's better than one.

I should play two.

The Thor.

Maybe my hot rumble was the problem.

They had some side steps.

Yeah, and double trouble on the DS.

Like, yeah, those were not as good.

I mean, again, it's anecdotal, right?

Because it's only in our little orbit.

But I've never seen so many people in our little orbit who want this, right?

And like, if you extrapolate that, I'm sure there is a palpable appreciation slash, demand for this character and this franchise.

Give it time, maybe that'll calm me team, once they're done with that in like eight years, then they're uh, they'll go to beautiful joes plus proto man.

Kind of looks like beautiful good point interesting.

The problem is always capitalizing on the hype, because with even a smaller one of these it still takes like three years to turn around roughly.

And like, Hey, maybe there's a lot of nostalgia for mega man or a beautiful Joe or something.

Cause like people make a bunch of tech talks and YouTube shorts and stuff.

But then by the time the game is out, maybe the hype has died down.

I think that's a trap.

Capcom has fallen into a couple of times here.

So that's probably why they're they've been a little anxious to have really doubled down these series that don't sell as well.

But uh, I think we're in a different spot in general, especially with Steam becoming so much bigger and smaller releases being more viable.

I think that they could bring some of these back.

Follow-up question for y'all.

Do you think we would sooner get a new or re-release of a Beautiful Joe game or Billy Hatcher?

Beautiful Joe.

You never say that fucking Eggman again.

Yeah, especially with his association with that criminal.

Yep, that's the problem.

Yeah, those were really damning photographs.

He was on the list.

They didn't mention Dino Crisis.

I don't even know if people keep screaming for that one.

Yeah, I mean, they were doing something a few years ago and then they decided against it.

I think they probably discovered some reason why they're like, it's not worth it.

So it's not in the front of their minds in this moment.

At least that would be my guess.

Devil May Cry, you just make a new Devil May Cry.

Yeah, make Devil May Cry 6.

Or you remake one or something and whatever.

Sure.

Oh, yeah.

They'll probably start doing some compilations of Devil May Cry here soon and begin the process with that and then kind of remake everything.

Yeah, re-releases have already been out there.

The HD versions are already out there.

A remake of one, I think, would go a long way in modernizing.

They could remake two.

Kayla's favorite.

Oh, Christ.

Really?

Yes.

She's insane.

Does she like three?

No, that's the one she quit on.

It's the best one in the whole genre.

What?

Yeah, it's definitely the best one.

God, the nunchucks were so sick in that game.

She liked Devil May Cry 2.

Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced has been listed on Peggy's website.

A listing for the long-rumored Assassin's Creed Black Flag remake, titled Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced, has appeared on the Peggy website with an 18 rating for violence, bad language and in-game purchases.

And for piracy.

This gets announced in two days, right?

At the Game Awards.

Uh-huh.

Yeah.

I think so.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

And I could be in the mood for that game.

It's a game I enjoyed quite a bit.

I never checked this one out.

I think I was already tired of the franchise.

Me too.

Oh, yeah.

That's why I'm going to maybe just tap out entirely.

The pirate stuff, very cool in this.

There's a part of me that even thinks about like, even though this game's intro was shorter than some of the other ones, there's a part of me that's like eh, do I want to do all that stuff again?

I just kind of want to be a pirate.

That was just the pirate stuff.

Yeah, it could never work.

You know, I would like to fight against other pirates online.

Oh, the possibilities.

That sounds like we're adding an extra A to the AAA formula here.

Start a letter writing campaign, everybody, and let Yves know what you want.

All right.

I feel like you and I.

I think our brains have the exact opposite reactions when we hear that sea shanties are involved.

His eyes got as big as silver dollars.

I do like the sea shanty.

The second people on a boat start singing, I'm like, I'm good.

I think I saw Minotti slowly start floating like a cartoon character smelling pie.

Twinkle toes, like Fred Flintstone.

Yeah, that's good stuff.

Love you, sea shanty.

I also like sea shanties.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 restored content DLC for Nintendo Switch was shut down by Disney's illegal team.

The restored content DLC for Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2 on Switch was announced but later quietly canceled, sparking fan frustration and a false advertising lawsuit.

In June 2023, Aspired co-CEO Ted Salak confirmed the cancellation, citing a third-party objection.

Now, new details reported by Steven Totillo at GameFile, based on internal communications between Aspire, Disney and the original PC mod team, outlined the reasons.

Disney had previously blocked restored content for the 2020 mobile release.

When the topic resurfaced for the Switch version in March 2022, Disney initially had no objection to Aspire working with modders provided Aspire secured all necessary rights, including for supplemental content.

What happened was they took that back to Disney and there was people's names in the credits for these mods that they were going to put into the game to fully complete.

Knights of the Old Republic 2.

They're going to use this like publicly available stuff.

But some of the names were pseudonyms and things like that.

And Disney was like, whoa, we need to properly credit these people.

And we might need to rerecord some of these voice lines that are done by non-union actors and stuff like that.

And as soon as all these things started to pile up, Aspire's like oh so basically, what you're saying is we can't use any of this because we're not going to be able to unravel many of these problems.

And that became an impasse.

And so Disney effectively got in the way and shut it down.

This is not going to necessarily be like, all right, now the lawsuit is going to get thrown out.

It might be like, oh, no, this is a successful lawsuit.

Disney at one point said, OK, Aspired went through on that understanding.

And so this lawsuit, which is for false advertising, might actually result in something at this point.

But I think it also makes it sound like oh, we'll just never get that stuff now in an official release.

So just go play it on the PC instead.

Yeah, I bet that KOTOR 1 remake is another thing we might see in a couple of days here.

It's feeling like it.

Yep.

And then, if they do that, we could see that stuff in a remake of two, if that first one does really well.

Well, yeah.

That's what the story is saying.

Yeah, the story says that the remake of two is already happening, which is a little interesting that you would just jump on that before the first one's even done.

Presumably it's a different team.

They're so closely related.

It is a direct sequel.

And so that's why I think they're saying it's like if we're doing this, that's what the story is saying.

It's like, let's do it all in one go.

I think it's still going to rely on the first one doing well enough to sort of justify that going forward.

But we'll see.

Surprise, Skyrim Anniversary Edition lands on Switch 2 today.

Boy, they did it again.

I think it's a free update if you have the game on Switch.

So there you go.

Yeah, once again.

All right, that does it for the news.

Handing the show back over to Jan.

Folks, we're going to take a quick bricky break and we will be back with emails, super chats and whatever else we feel is necessary right after this break.

These are the emails for the show emails bombcastgiantbombcom is the email address to send all of your lovely emails to folks.

We've been getting a poop ton of emails and i appreciate it so much so that we can't fit all of them on the show, so please don't be offended.

Uh, speaking about emails, We will not be doing a live Bombcast next week, but we will be recording one to air next week, so we'll all be in person.

And I'm going to say, send your emails in, gang.

Send them in.

Bombcastatgiantbomb.com.

If you want to send in a quiz, you want to avoid awkward social interaction, you want to pick apart something we said, you want to compliment one of us?

I welcome them all.

Maybe a little bomb cast mail bag specular, special or spectacular.

I was trying to make a fun word.

Special.

That's a new fun word.

I didn't have fun.

Happy birthday, Mikey.

Thank you.

Do you have fun then?

Yeah, I like that.

All right.

First email comes from.

Also, if you have sent an email in the past that has not gotten read out loud on the show and you desperately want it slash, need it to send it again.

Maybe I'll get on to next week's episode.

First email comes from Mike from Loveland.

Hello, oracles of the giant temple.

Bomb fee.

Bomb fight.

We've had years where every game had grappling hooks, or years where every first-person shooter had a bow and arrow.

What will 2026 be the year of?

What would you like it to be?

I'd like it to be the year of the chunky pistol.

Love the show.

Love you all.

Mike from Loveland.

Wasn't there a recent summer game, especially for TGAs, where every trailer for like a 2026 game was like a weird mech suit, like exo suit type thing?

Right, yeah.

Because we got Pragmata, and there'll probably be more Mega Man games announced.

Mecha Break.

Gosh, I didn't even make that joke earlier.

Yeah, I think mech suits is a good game.

They're going to bring back Anthem.

I mean, they put a mech suit in Hades, so maybe we're just starting.

Yeah.

I like this idea.

I think wall running is going to come back again.

I like that.

Yeah.

That's what they should have done.

They should have added wall running.

I think they tried to make Titanfall 2.

I think they tried to make spells happen.

What was that very visually busy game?

Immortals of Avium?

Yes, that one.

Force Spoken?

Good job.

Did you guys see that?

I think some Square Enix investor put together some report on what the company's doing wrong?

I think Force Spoken costs significantly more to make than Final Fantasy XVI.

Oh, really?

Jesus.

Oh, boy.

Very, very good handling resources there.

Scout, please.

What's going on?

Scout, please.

Also Smart Pistols.

Basically anything that was in Titanfall 2.

Make it the year of Titanfall.

Yeah, there we go.

Remember when we played that?

Was it a year ago or something?

And it was still great.

It was excitingly good.

We should just make that a holiday tradition.

Yeah.

Sure.

Yeah.

All right.

Josh in Minnesota writes in and Sean, it's apt that you were here.

Oh, hey, Bombers.

I'm looking at getting my nephews five and seven their first Pokemon game.

You only have a switch one.

So what do you think is the best title of that generation for their first time, for first time, Pokemon players?

P.S.

Happy belated birthday, Dan.

Best Josh in Minnesota.

Thank you, Josh.

Yeah, that's gotta be Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee, right, Sean?

Yeah, like, it always depends on the platform.

Whenever people ask, like, hey, my first Pokemon game in 25 years, what should I play?

I'm like, dog, you gotta specify.

There's so many platforms you may or may not have and everything like this.

So if you're gonna ask the question, this is great.

Yeah, if you're looking for the best one on the Switch 1...

Let's go Pikachu and Eevee.

Yeah, Mike is right.

That's probably the best one overall for anyone to get into, especially because there's co-op.

If you're getting your nephews this game to play together, yeah, they can both play together.

If they throw a Pokeball together, it actually combines into the higher tier Pokeball and has a better chance of catching.

And it's also just a great Gen 1 remake.

It's just like you know, a good old school RPG, just with some niceties that really bring you into the modern era.

It's a great place to start, but also Legends ZA.

Is it runs well enough on the Switch one for what it's trying to do?

And that's a really, really fun game.

So maybe as like their second Pokemon game, that could be a good one.

You know, like Scarlet and Violet are good on the Switch 2, not on the Switch 1.

Same with Arceus.

Arceus is rough around the edges on Switch 1.

So yeah, I think definitely stick with the Let's Go games.

And if they get really into Pokemon as a franchise, maybe explore some of the spinoffs.

You know, like I think Pokemon Snap is evergreen and new Pokemon Snap.

You just pick up that on the Switch as well.

Yeah, 100% agreed on Let's Go Pikachu or Eevee.

Next email comes from Travis in Fargo.

Travis sends in five questions.

I only read one of them.

Travis writes.

I talk to my kids seemingly on a weekly basis about the mental and emotional benefits of experiencing boredom.

Sometimes

What's a boring or tedious task you don't mind or even enjoy?

I think that's part of the reason I don't really listen to podcasts and stuff is because I think a lot of people will listen to it while they're doing other things.

And I don't like to distract myself in that way.

There's a saying you hear a lot in meditation books and stuff, where it's wash the dishes, to wash the dishes.

It's a boring, it's a tedious thing.

But like it's good for you to occasionally, just like you know you don't always have to have stimuli and things just going in your brain all the time.

So like that's why I'm you know we joke about the like movie thing with the phones and stuff like that.

But there's a reason that's important to me.

You know, I go on walks and sometimes I'll listen to Deadlock.

And a lot of times it's like no, I'm just going to walk and I'm just going to focus on the walk and not be distracted with things.

So, yeah, no, I totally track with that.

Yeah.

Uh, Oh God.

What's that?

All right.

Fine.

I won't talk camera.

Yeah.

I, I, uh, I enjoy, uh, like occasionally just throw myself into the task.

Uh, although at like some things, it's like Oh, cleaning the house is so tedious to me and not tedious.

It's, it's just like, I have dopamine issues.

I have ADHD.

So it's like doing it is like a whole thing.

And if I can get dopamine from like a podcast instead, I can sort of fake my way into enjoying it.

But there's so many other things that I was like, oh, no, it's good to just be bored sometimes.

And I do tell my kids that.

So, you know what?

You guys need to just get away from everything else.

Just go be bored for a little bit.

That's something that you are almost never experiencing.

And it's probably not good for you.

I like being present with Scout when I go take her out for a walk.

Not saying that it's tedious.

She needs the exercise, needs to go use potty.

But I don't know.

I like basking in the neighborhood with her and talking to her, even if she may not understand or she's ignoring me like a little jerk she can be.

All right.

I want to sneak in one that, Jan, you'll understand where I'm coming from with this.

A bit of a different direction.

Editing is tedious.

Yes.

But it's...

It's fun when you are able to incorporate your creative ideas into an otherwise tedious task.

And when you have that finished product of, oh yeah, I pulled that one off.

That feels good.

Like it's a really satisfying moment.

And you get that all the way down to you know, like washing the dishes and like feeling that satisfaction of well the dishes are done.

Or like go on a walk and like, ah, I feel reinvigorated.

It's nice to be able to find that in your work when you can as well to like make the day go by.

Yeah.

That's why I chose this career path is because sometimes the tedious things can end up in a very satisfying place.

Yeah, I like having that hyped moment after completing a task of like, yes, I fucking did it.

Aaron from Warren, Pennsylvania.

Is that where PA is?

Yes.

Okay.

What else would it be?

Are there any other Saints that even start with P?

Good evening, Bombinos.

Out of the Fab Five.

Virginia.

Dan, Jeff, Mike.

Who is the best gamer?

Also best at games.

Aaron from Warren, Pennsylvania.

I think Mike is the best at games in that you put a game in front of him, he's going to figure it out before anyone else.

Sean's up there, too.

In terms of best gamer.

I think there's so many different things where one of us is going to be out in front of the other.

We could put a leaderboard in any game and I really don't know who would come out on top.

It would just be like who can dedicate the most amount of time to it.

I think to put into terms that some people will understand, I think Mike's kind of like the Justin Wong of the group, where it's just like he's played so many games and a variety of them.

There's a little bit of natural skill with being good reactions and magic good processing i think he just processes information exactly where it's like he's just good at variety of games for me it's more specialized of like yeah you know i'll speed run a game that i really love or i'll play a lot of runs of something i love that's how i get into like higher level super mario 64 crazy taxi stuff like that but i think mike is definitely more like the swiss army knife of he's good at a bunch of things he's really liking this he's nodding a lot as we're uh talking about everything he wants to hear i think mike is the best gamer and also the most gamer Yes.

He's definitely the only one that could do a game.

I don't disagree.

I know what you mean, Danny.

It's not negative.

It's not positive either.

All right, gang.

Moving on.

We have two very lengthy emails about recommendations.

One is in regards to Ska.

Mace from Tacoma, Washington writes in, Hey, gang.

I enjoyed the Ska discussion from the dump truck this week.

I'm a lifelong fan of the genre and as I was listening, I remembered an email from some time ago where a listener recommended some metal albums for the crew, based on their personalities.

As a lifelong fan of both Skanken and Giant Bomb, I figured I could do the same for music's most unfairly maligned punk subgenre Baccalar.

You know your stuff about Third Wave and early 2000s, so I'm going to make a recommendation from the modern scene.

Kill Lincoln and their 2020 album Can't Complain.

It's got a bit more of a punk edge that I think will appeal to your Alkaline Trio sensibilities and it'll give you the bragging rights of being able to name drop another cool band most people haven't heard of.

Jan.

As a pop punker at heart, I gotta go with Jeff Rosenstock's 2021 Ska Dream, a Ska reimagining of his excellent 2020 pop punk record No Dream.

You want Millennial Sad Boy?

No one does it better than Jeff Rosenstock.

He takes the unfortunate economic realities and mental health struggles of our lives in this increasingly fascist society and turns it into bangers.

Oh, that's the guy a little too real for me.

Mace grub.

You mentioned only being tangentially aware of streetlight manifesto.

So for you, I recommend their 2003 album.

Everything goes numb.

One of my favorite albums of all time of any genre.

Its frantic sounds and striking lyrics will probably hit you in the right spots for your ADHD brain to keep it engaged, just as it does with mine.

What was the name of the album again?

Everything Goes Numb.

Thank you.

By Streetlight Manifesto.

And if the themes of Baby Steps really resonated with you, songs like A Better Place, A Better Time and Point slash Counterpoint will likely do the same.

Menotti.

I feel your ska awareness is mostly tied to Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

So I'll recommend a recent album with a sound that captures those vibes.

Jer's 2003 album, Bothered Slash Unbothered.

That's Jer, J-E-R.

It's Jer without the F.

Yes, which is a very high energy and very socially conscious, so you don't have to worry about getting canceled again.

You can't be canceled again.

You get strikes on those.

I'm at two.

And if the album doesn't totally work for you, I at least recommend Jer's YouTube channel, Ska2 Network, where they make ska covers, video game music, cartoon theme songs and more.

Very good.

Finally Dan, I gotta say I was surprised Dan to learn is a fan of Ska in any capacity, as it strikes me as the kind of thing he'd roll his eyes against at for not being cool guy stuff.

I know Dan has expressed fondness for heavier bands like Queens of the Stone Age and Macedon, so I'll recommend the 1996 landmark debut record of the Suicide Machines.

Destruction by Definition.

What an album.

The song New Girl from the original Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.

It's also got jams as Hey Van's song S.O.S.

Break the Glass.

A high energy good time from front to back.

Keep up the good work and never stop skanking.

Mace from Tacoma, Washington.

Wow.

What a tremendous, tremendous email.

Just validating Ska fans worldwide.

The SkaToon Network cover, the Inspector Gadget theme song is very good.

Yes.

SkaToon Network is great.

I do love him.

Dan, there's got to be something Ska adjacent you've enjoyed, like the band Chicago or something.

I don't know.

The thing is, when Ska was big, I was at peak Paul Reichard only, like Skinner, and the Stones are good.

And so when I saw kids in my junior high wearing like Blink-182 shirts or the skanking, there was like a skanking bunny.

I remember thinking like this seems like it's some stuff that people that smoke weed would like scary.

You called the cops on him.

I thought about it.

But yeah, i did give the side eye to sky, but it was scott, but i also did that with any john anything post 78.

So yeah now yeah, i'm more open-minded now.

I bet i remember seeing some like snls where, like the mighty, mighty boss, stones would be on.

I bet that's catchy, you know.

So yeah, i think the potential is there for me to like it.

I just yeah trombones, fantastic.

I like horns, me too.

Uh, horn section always makes me happy.

Yeah like, i love james brown and there's a lot of horns going.

Oh yeah yeah hey uh, friend of the show, go listen to peter septic's uh new album.

Uh, very sad boy bangers and there's some horns in that.

He's crushing it.

Yeah uh, really doing awesome.

What a cool guy.

Yeah, i think he's a very cool dude.

All right, two more emails here.

Uh, this comes from john.

This question is really just for mike sorry, everyone.

Yay, I'm staying at Animal Kingdom Resort next year for my first ever on- Your mic got weird.

His mouth didn't move either, so that's especially weird.

I'm staying at the Animal Kingdom Resort next year for my first ever on-property Disney vacation.

Do you have any good tips, tricks or recs for the Animal Kingdom launch and how to best use my time there?

Any experiences we have to do?

My daughter will be four when we travel.

Thanks, John.

Oh, okay.

Your daughter's going to be four.

There's great restaurants at the Animal Kingdom Lodge.

If your daughter's four, the buffet, Boma, might be your best bet.

I had breakfast at Boma.

It was very nice.

If you're looking for more of a date night thing, Jiku, the eating place is good.

Sanaa, which is over a little bit other part of the hotel, that's at the Kidani Village.

The Jumbo House is the main section.

Kidani Village, you might have to get on a little shuttle, but that's where Sanaa is.

That's a great restaurant that has very good bread service.

We get a bunch of different naan breads and different dips there for them.

Um, if you, you know, if you don't have the view into the savannah where the animals are roaming around, just make sure you go to some places around hotel where you can look around at that.

Keep in mind that um, if you're going to theme parks from that hotel, travel time can be a little bit long because you've got to use buses.

There's no monorail or any other fun transportation, it's just buses.

But don't be intimidated, the buses are very, very convenient.

That's what we had to do and it was very convenient.

And if, for some reason, you're like oh, but we gotta really make sure we get to this theme park in the next 10 minutes, then get a Lyft, get an Uber.

Pay, like you know, 15 bucks for that if you're in a big hurry.

It's a little bit tough with a 4 year old, especially if it's a small kid, because the car seats.

But you can also in that area there are gonna be Ubers that will have car seats.

You can request that in the app.

Yeah, they have their own things in the lift.

The lift app specifically has something called minivans that you can order that are made for those things.

But yeah, just in general, when you're staying at a resort, make sure you give yourself some time to hang out at the resort.

Get zebra domes.

You can find them at some of the quick service things there called Mara, even maybe the gift shop.

They're a specialty dessert item.

They look like little zebra shaped, kind of not shaped, but patterned desserts.

They kind of taste a little tiramisu-y.

They're very good.

Just like real zebras.

Just like what real zebras taste like.

Also, try to do the Tusker House character dinner.

That was a real awesome thing.

That's at the theme park.

Yeah, that's great.

That's at the theme park.

Yes, that's at Animal Kingdom theme park.

But yes, so when you're there, try to make that happen.

Yeah, good stuff, uh.

Speaking about animals, i watched zootopia 2 over the weekend.

Oh, i haven't seen.

How's that?

The movie's too horny.

The movie's really actually like for shooting.

No such thing, man.

No such thing really.

Okay, sounds like quitter talk.

I gotta see it.

I did see wicked for good finally, but i haven't seen zootopia 2.

What'd you think i?

I thought it was okay.

Well, there we go.

Sorry, all right.

Final email of the show comes from b hi jan, as a fellow, at least for the last two decades, bay area yada um, who has been a bookseller for years, thank you for talking shit about 48 laws book at the top of episode 919.

That's some fascist shit.

For cheesy shouts out to kick to sneak.

Oh you, for real.

For real then, If it's a podcast email, long time first time.

As an independent bookseller, a big part of my job is recommending books to people I've just met.

Having listened to some of y'all for over a decade now, I figured I could pair you each with a book you definitely won't read but would really enjoy if you did.

Baccalar, We Do Not Part by Han Kang.

The snowiest, most depressing novel I've read in years.

Is it snowiest?

Snowiest.

Okay.

I don't know what that means.

It's metal as fuck and beautifully written.

It also cares about people who hate fascists.

Menotti, Small Fires by Rebecca Mae Johnson.

This book is about how cooking straight from the recipe is good, actually.

As someone who tends to agree with you when you talk about food YouTube, I think you might find this surprisingly compelling, as I did.

Grub palo alto by malcolm harris.

It's the history of silicon valley, but also capitalism over the last century tech history that's not afraid of talking about everything from leland stanford's horses to anti-ibm bombings.

I uh, i own this on audible already.

I haven't listened to it yet.

I'll put it to the top of the queue.

Reichert dyke parentheses geology by sabrina imbler a chap book about volcanoes and geology and being gay.

I think you'd find it interesting and funny Ochoa.

These are all secretly also Jan recommendations, but for a bespoke rec.

Mahjong by Nicole Wong is a pretty breezy read about the game.

That's also quietly about Asian diaspora's relationship to games.

I have read this already.

Thank you, B. Bonus recs!

Grayson after accountability by Pinko Collective.

Gay anti-authoritarian communists talking to people about how to understand movements building right now.

It's in the community the way I feel like Nikki is.

McDowell, Turbo Sean strikes me as someone who appreciates technique, tightly displayed.

Claire Keegan's Small Things Like This is a beautiful novella that's absolutely impeccable at the craft level.

Zimmerheld.

All I really know about Chuck Towski is that he's thrown himself into the impossible task of making GiantBombcom work.

So I'm going to say Tom's Crossing by Mark Z Danielewski, a 1200-page Western about riding two horses set for slaughter over a mountain.

People can barely climb with pitons in order to set them free.

It's also my favorite book of the year.

Hashtag I fuck with Chuck.

Parentheses, YouTube grub.

Best B, And that does it for emails.

Bombcastjohnbombcom is the email address to send your emails to.

Thank you for all the recommendations.

I love those.

They're all great.

I love finding new music, being recommended books.

I don't know.

Recommend.

Recommend some music to me, Dan.

I got the URL here. tinyurl.com slash gbmusic25.

I finally got that right.

There we go.

Submit your music for your discussions.

That's right, folks.

All lowercase.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Definitely, folks, help Sean.

If you got any bangers from this year, whether it's the score or songs from games from 2025, please send them Sean's way if you want them represented as we go.

Listen to them.

That will be part of the Game of the Year podcast.

One more time, tinyurl.com slash gbmusic25. gbmusic25.

There you go.

Mr. Minotti, you got any super chats?

We do, from Andres.

R, 305 Miami, does Mike get coal for being the bad boy of gaming?

Oh, I get coal.

Charcoal.

And I put it in my grill and I make some tasty fat brisket.

So that's, yeah, I'm a good boy.

What's that voice?

Bitch.

Eleanor Joaquin says, did Jeff fight his baby steps in Skate or Die?

And I still, I think by Skate or Die, they mean Skate Story.

Skate or Die is a much older game.

And I still want to know what Mike's favorite melon would be if he had to choose one.

Melons are all pretty bad.

They have a lot of water content.

I really dislike that.

Watermelon has the most for sure, but it's the best.

I think I actually would still do watermelon.

I find cantaloupe deeply upsetting.

Have you had it?

I almost thought that that sentence was ridiculous.

Deeply upsetting?

That one smells.

I really dislike the smell of cantaloupe.

Have you tasted it?

No, I just smelled it and I'm unimpressed.

I mean look, I have no problem with what you don't like, but when you judge without trying is what bothers me?

You and my son.

Marino's saying salt up the cantaloupe.

That sounds good.

Salt your fruit, gang.

Salt and sweet.

Salt your fruit like an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

You're always anti-salt, Bacalar.

You're always anti-salt.

I mean, put some tagine on fruit and that's amazing.

Yes.

I just, I never thought I would salt a fruit.

Okay.

No, do it on a pineapple.

It's good.

Yeah.

I mean, salt is awesome.

You wouldn't sprinkle sprinkle.

Yeah.

C Brahma says this is my favorite Nintendo adult podcast, but grubs.

Right going back to Betray Prime 4, Antonio Morales says I went to a bad high school.

I think I had 50 something absences just from cutting class.

I used to cut class just cause I had to take a dump penis.

See, I feel like if I had cut class like twice, I almost certainly would have just like.

They would have just called my parents and I'd be in a ton of trouble and that would be it, like I don't think there was any getting away with it.

Mike, same in high school for me.

No, the trick is you get into the gifted program where you can do independent study.

You take four of your seven hours a day as independent study, where you're supposed to be editing videos, but then get kicked out of the video production lab because you watch too many Tarantino movies and your short films are too violent.

And then you got four hours a day where no one knows where the fuck you are.

So you're at Funkoland, all right.

Well that's, that sounds a little bit different.

Yeah okay, but i also did just try to walk out of, like math class and stuff too.

So yeah, definitely like stuck out a window a couple times to go get donuts for the class and everyone was very excited, like that's it.

Yeah, i also didn't.

I also wasn't driving back then.

Anyways, i don't know where i'd go.

Uh, eggy says happy birthday, mike.

I ran over an apple with my car and thought of you.

Thank you so much.

That's so nice of you.

Appreciate that.

Zombie porn says, I need to hand it to Sean when he talks about games.

Really informative.

You can tell he knows his shit.

Also, is Jan okay?

Should I Venmo him $5?

No, don't.

Stop.

Stop Venmoing me money.

I appreciate the sentiment.

When we were talking about this episode, Sean should just be on here to talk about Metroid.

It was a no-brainer.

Appreciate it.

JDKip says, Mike... I don't always say it like that.

Mike...

Look at me.

Get yourself a dangus library card.

I think I had a library card.

I haven't been to the library in a moment.

I should go.

I got my first library card since the 90s the other day because my county was doing special edition Prince ones, because Prince is from Ooh cool.

Yeah, so I got a Prince library card.

Cool.

Yo, what...

You all have heard me talk about libraries before.

They're sick as shit.

Go get books, get comic books, manga, movies, TV shows.

You can stream a bunch of stuff if you have a library card.

50 DVDs at a time.

I don't have a printer anymore because I'm 30, so I go to the library instead.

It's great.

If you have a Kindle, you do the Libby app and you can just download books for free.

It's awesome.

Audiobooks, all kinds of stuff.

Some libraries will also rent you out power tools.

Really?

Yeah.

I bet mine doesn't.

Pretty printers?

Yeah.

Interesting.

That's it for the Super Chat.

Thank you, everybody.

Thank you, everyone, for listening to the show.

Once again, Sean, hit them with a tiny URL to submit musical selections.

Yeah, make it really tiny this time.

Tinyurlcom slash gb music 25 as the number two and the number five.

Thank you, when are we putting that episode out?

We're doing that after uh, we haven't decided when we'll put it out because it requires a lot of editing.

I really, i really want to make it special this year.

I want to be the episode i've always wanted to be, without the pressure of to stream it or anything like that.

Yeah, so it will be a pre-recorded episode that i'm going to um, I'm going to do some fun stuff with people.

See, but I would imagine it'll be the last week of December somewhere in there.

Okay.

Just because I'm saying, don't, uh, give me money.

That doesn't mean that I'm giving money away.

Dan record.

Yeah.

Look, just do what you said.

You're right, you're right.

Folks, what we got going on the rest of this week?

Gamest Morning's popping off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Right, Grub?

That's right.

We'll be back all week.

Blight Club returns this week.

Mikey is hitting the back lot again.

Oh, man.

Now we all feel the same.

I'm loving it.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I mean, all normal humans feel the same.

Oh, God.

Bacalar, why are you?

You look like you got ben starred for a moment.

Um oh really yeah, your exposure, just a flash of light.

Yeah, it's so strange that downstairs, where would the way you would find you in his basement.

I know, it's true, we'll try to get some basement light.

Try to get some runs in.

This is the run.

Yes, i was watching yesterday's run.

I think you both should try getting hit less.

Yeah, I definitely had a bad moment there where, like oh, there's sometimes in a game where I'll get on a wavelength of like I'm in my own rhythm and then the enemy will get into that rut and I'll be like, oh no, they're just going to hit me every time and I have to like, figure things out.

Yeah,

We also got voicemail dump truck on Thursday.

UPF.

This week we were doing ultimate sheep raccoon raccoon, sheep.

What is ultimate sheep raccoon, the sequel to ultimate chicken horse?

Uh, that's out now.

It's on game pass uh, but i'm gonna get us the rest of the team coats and all that, uh.

But yeah, we'll be playing that on upf on friday.

Did we mention the tgas?

I'm about to do that now.

This thursday, we will be talking over these lovely gentlemen will be talking over the game awards, including the pre-show.

Yes, including the pre-show.

I'm chilling a bottle of champagne right now.

I'm going to crack open for that.

Last year, you guys were in the pre-show and I just kind of stood around and watched.

Good times.

It's crazy.

Shit, we did do that last year.

I was giving out sandwiches, yeah.

Oh my gosh.

How was that a year ago?

Holy crap.

I know.

I just loved yelling across the room to Alana Pierce sandwich award-winning video game artist, because she was one of our winners there.

That was a good time.

She didn't bring him to the theater.

She should have to return.

Nope.

Dan, I forget his Dave Oshry.

You just handed him a gigantic sandwich.

As you got off the elevator like that's the one that people the lobby sub yeah, he like shook a fist at you and yelled goddamn giant bomb, that's the one that wound up in.

Was it cd project red's hotel room?

Yeah, it went to everywhere.

I think andy robinson got food poisoning off of that or something.

It was great.

Oh yeah, we you know.

And hey, put a camera in that thing.

I will be there at the Game Awards.

So if, you know, for mutuals, if you're a friend of the site or whatever, please say hi.

Don't be a stranger.

And maybe you'll get a buzz ball thrown your way.

Who knows?

Whoa.

Wow.

Not sponsored.

They should be at this point.

What the fuck?

Buzz balls.

You see that Sheetz has like some like holiday buzz ball or something like that.

I've been tagged in so many of those.

The elf ones, right?

Yeah.

No, no.

They got a separate one too now.

All right.

Folks, I think that about does it.

Once again, we're going to be recording Game of the Year podcasts next week.

So next week is going to be a little bit funky as we sort out our plans for the rest of the holidays.

But gang, anything else we got to talk about before we gas break deal?

Hang on.

They're called Balls on the Walls.

These holiday balls on a shelf?

Yeah, that's awesome.

The window yeah, okay.

Okay, you've heard of elf on the shelf.

Well, how about balls on the walls?

I saw a perm on a sperm recently.

Okay, all right.

Uh, that about does it for the show.

Uh, we'll be back in some form next week.

Stout, please.

Uh, he's been sean.

He's been jeff.

He's been mike.

He's been dan.

I've been jan.

Uh, shout out to chuck.

Check out the new website.

Patience, All sorts and all out.

We love you.

We'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant Podcast.

Goodbye.

[Giant Bombcast 920: Long Johns, Bluey's Embargoes, and Metroid Prime 4 Debates]-[920: Chumbawumba Lifestyle]

📋 Summary

Giant Bombcast 920: A Deep Dive into Metroid Prime 4 and Beyond

The "Butt Flap" and Life Updates

Breaking Embargoes: Bluey’s Quest for the Golden Pen

The Metroid Prime 4 Verdict: A Divided House

Skate Story and Indie Gems

Industry News and Future Outlook

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Giant Bombcast 920: Long Johns, Bluey's Embargoes, and Metroid Prime 4 Debates]-[920: Chumbawumba Lifestyle]

📋 Summary

Giant Bombcast 920: A Deep Dive into Metroid Prime 4 and Beyond

The "Butt Flap" and Life Updates

Breaking Embargoes: Bluey’s Quest for the Golden Pen

The Metroid Prime 4 Verdict: A Divided House

Skate Story and Indie Gems

Industry News and Future Outlook

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

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