Giant Bombcast 938: Strong Brain | Giant Bombcast

Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, April 28th, 2026.

Welcome to the Giant Bombcast episode 938.

I am your host, Jan Ochoa.

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

We're going to be in Los Angeles for Summer Game Fest in like 35 days.

Don't say that.

You shut up.

What the hell?

I don't like it any more than you guys do.

He's coated in citric acid crystals because he's a little sour on the outside but he's full of sweet gummy goodness on the inside.

Dan Reichert.

If Donald Duck ate Jeff Grubb's shirt, he would go quackers and he would get really pissed off.

He could run through enemies and jump really far.

Mike, you haven't introduced yet.

We're talking about Donald Duck.

You can't join, Mike.

Don't you think Donald Duck, that's classic Donald, right, Jeff Grubb?

I do.

Yeah, I know everything about that guy.

He's a duck.

Jim, what are your thoughts on Donald Duck?

He's the most powerful wizard in the Final Fantasy universe.

I love that guy.

I like when he dives into the money.

What are his kids?

I can't remember his kids' names.

What were the... I think it's like... Stevie Weezy and... Houston Walker, Austin Walker.

Yeah.

Those are his nephews.

You ruined the joke.

Sorry.

This guy, he's all quackers.

We can't keep him on topic.

He's just thinking about his skull hat that's just made out of bones.

Jeff Bakalow.

I screw up the joke.

I'm sorry, folks.

It was time to pull the plug on it anyhow.

You know, sometimes I put things out of their misery.

So, look, happy to be here, Janny.

Thank you, Jeffy.

And we've got the bad boy of games media, Mike Minotti.

Dan was talking about Quackshot.

Donald Duck has three nephews.

We're done.

That was a while ago.

Let's move on.

Dewey's the blue one.

Louie's the green one.

And it's Uncle Scrooge that jumps into the money, not him.

Hey, you know, we're talking about dates.

I said the date of this podcast, but a very important date that's coming up, gang, is...

The anniversary of our independence.

May 10th, gang.

And to celebrate, we got a couple of thangs in the bank for you.

We're thangin' and bangin' and fangin'.

The fangin', you'll have to find out.

Wait, just wait.

Just wait.

Because we talked about this already, but gang, get excited.

Chuck informed us of this, but it's been 10 years or the 10th anniversary of the Endurance Run.

Is that correct?

What was the math?

Was it Shenmue?

Yeah, it must have been Shenmue.

But the Bully Endurance Run is coming to your internet screens soon.

But it's coming sooner if you are a premium member.

The week of May 11th, Monday through Friday, you get Independence Week.

You get the endurance run a week sooner.

But if you're a first episode, a first episode.

If you are just hanging out, you're supporting just by being here.

The endurance run comes out for everyone Monday through Friday on the week of May 18th.

That's not the only thing we have prepped for Independence Week.

You know, the bad boy of games media is going to be going bananas that week.

Mike Minotti, what do you got planned for the folks?

Yeah, I know we've teased this for a while.

People have kept asking me, when is it happening?

But that's right.

The Mike Minotti marathon run of Donkey Kong 64 will be the main event for Giant Bomb's Independence Week.

And how much am I playing?

That's going to be up to all of you.

The more you support us, the more I'll play.

And folks, I'm ready.

To go beyond 100%.

I will do that 101 just for fun, baby.

Well, not just for fun.

It's for money.

But I will do it.

Make money.

So, yes, the Donkey Kong 64 101% run marathon by me.

I'm ready to put in, like, 10-hour days, you know, whatever it takes, man, to get that thing going.

Done.

It's going to be a lot of this game that you all claim is so bad and so painful.

I don't have much DK64 experience.

We'll see.

I have been forged in the flames of Blade Club.

Surely some rare collect-a-thon can't hurt me.

I did think about calling this like a blight-a-thon, but I believe everyone pushed back and was like it's not a blight game.

And you're right.

I'm actually kind of a defender of DK64, but I do think DK64 is an okay ride if you're just going through doing what you need to do to get to the end and beat it.

The 101 I've never done, I think that is where the Blight adjacent stuff might creep in here.

And, like Mike said, he will go up to and including 101 every Golden Medan and stuff, depending on the support that comes in.

So it's not going to be one giant stream.

It is going to be tbd in terms of like long days it could be 10 hour days and then we might do, you know, shifts of people joining him and things like that.

But there will be a lot of donkey kong 64 going on.

I might be joining like the bomb cast in a window as i still have to play this game.

I don't know.

We're We're working on some of the logistics.

Yeah.

Move over, Dustin Hoffman.

We have our own marathon man over here.

But in the meantime, Jeff Grubb, how could folks also help support us before we get to Independence Day, Independence Week.

You can support us and support independent games media by going to, I almost said Patreon.

No, that's not where we're at.

We're at giantbomb.com slash join.

Become a premium member.

If you do that, you get ad-free versions of our shows.

You're going to get a bunch of the premium-only shows.

You're going to get stuff like, oh, early access to the endurance run.

It is worth it.

And it also gets you those good feelings of knowing that hey, we get to keep doing what we're doing.

You get to keep supporting it.

And we all get to keep this cool community going in a really strong and healthy way.

Thank you, everybody.

And gang, we also need your help in other fronts on the website.

Our own Chuck Towski.

Needs a little bit of your help.

If you've got an email from us to opt into your to keep your account, please do so.

We've sent a couple emails out.

More emails may be popping off as the days and weeks progress.

But if you've opted into keeping your account, you can request a password reset now.

Giantbomb.com slash login.

And we are also still looking for help on the wiki.

If you have PHP and media wiki knowers, head to bombcast.com slash wiki.

Help Chuck out.

Help the wiki out.

We talk about independent games media.

We're also talking about independent databases of fun things for people to latch on to.

There's also a bunch of fun stuff on, um, giant bomb.com.

Make yourself a tier list while you're there.

Uh, there are also video player apps available using our new video APIs.

You can find on iOS and Android apps built by con and Clint Eastman, uh head to giant bombcom, slash apps.

Um, Unfortunately, we can't give you a triple dipper, though.

Chuck hasn't figured out how to do that yet.

But who knows?

The technology may be there.

My friend showed me a video of him in China and then he had Boba delivered to him via drone and that was crazy.

What that's sick.

It's sick, right.

What the fuck?

What are we doing?

Uh, your patience is appreciated uh, but thank you for your continued support.

Boys, how's everything going?

What's what's happening?

I'm feeling okay.

I'm just a bit sicky-poo.

Yeah.

I'm like sicky-poo.

I'm starting to come down with something.

My understanding is others are feeling better.

Yeah.

I'm kind of going down.

Yeah.

You can't blame me for it.

No, no.

We've contained you successfully in Minnesota, so no, it's not your fault this time, Dan.

I hear it in your voice, Dan.

I still hear it.

I think I've got the post.

I wasn't even coughing a bunch.

It was a lot of congestion.

I had a fever for a few days. um i had kind of a saga okay before before you get to your saga which may be fun and silly can i share something kind of morbid yes okay all right all right okay i gotta i gotta kind of close the door for this one what's that i close the door pal oh you you you sit close to your door huh i very close room very tiny um okay so I think I've, I've mentioned online and to y'all, you know, my, my pops is in like a treatment facilities and like a transitional care facility as he's doing his rehab.

And I thought like Oh, it's a, it's a bunch of older folks, people post surgery, and I'm just sitting hanging out in the lobby uh, waiting for my mom to get down.

And then a gentleman in uh, an undertaker long leather coat walks in with like a gurney and i'm used to seeing people come in with gurneys, uh and everything uh, to transport patients to appointments and whatnot.

I'm thinking like oh, it's just another dude, but his gurney is not kitted out with all the cool hydraulics like everyone else's is, and he just uh, goes to the woman at the the front desk and is like hey uh, where do you keep your bodies?

I'm, uh, with the mortuary.

And I'm like, Oh, what?

Oh, there's, there's dead people here.

Oh no.

Um, and then she leads this.

I, I see her lead him to a different hallway.

And, um, I decide I can't really take that energy right now.

I don't really want to be.

I don't want to see them wheel out a dead person because that's someone's beloved unfortunately passing.

And I go outside and I'm assuming I'm going to see a hearse.

Right.

That's what that's what those those cars.

Yeah.

Or maybe an ambulance car or something like that.

Sure.

Ecto-1.

Ghostbusters.

Yeah.

No, I don't see one of those.

Instead, I see El Camino.

With the hazard lights flashing. with a certain mortuary's company logo on the side.

No!

I see a Honda Odyssey.

Okay, I thought you were going to say a Cybertruck and I just don't think we.

I didn't want the dead to be that desecrated.

Oh, shwoo.

So, gang out there, you know...

We may hope one day be transported to another rest.

Before we get to our resting place in a good old Honda Odyssey.

Hey, dead or alive, throw me in a Honda Odyssey.

I'll take it, man.

It's reliable.

Yeah. uh but yeah taking me to the place where they're gonna burn me so i could get into that desk quick powder form for you all it's like uh i don't want to think whatnot exactly right very very roomy very spacious who knows there may be more people in there uh any anyway You could probably stack three, like side by side.

You could probably fit three, and then you could probably start piling them in like a pyramid shape with all the seats down.

Lincoln log style.

Yeah.

You know, I don't know.

Is there like a default size for like a, Oh no.

I got a mortician friend.

I'm not joking.

Oh yeah you, of all people should yeah, you would.

Yeah, yeah you'd.

Yeah, you know uh, mine is more of the playful goth.

Uh, i don't really want to hang out in the mortuary um, but you want to talk to those who do?

Yeah, i want to get to know them and see what it's, what it's like doing all the stuff.

Uh, i i'll send a text and see, see if i have any information there for you guys.

Yeah, let's do a quick behind-the-scenes vlog or something.

There you go.

Yeah, all right.

Thank you, everyone, for letting me share that story.

I just needed to get it out of my system.

But Dan, you've been getting a lot of stuff out of your system.

Kind of still working on that.

So this is kind of a three-act saga here.

So I couldn't taste or smell for a good chunk of last week, and it's a bummer.

It wasn't COVID.

I ordered a new COVID test, took it.

It was negative for that and everything, but I couldn't taste or smell.

I had a fever, congestion, everything.

And it's just like.

Eating is just such a stupid thing when you're like that because, like I'm not going to derive any joy from this.

So like just give me just a protein brick or something with vitamins or something.

It's like I'm not going to enjoy it.

So I was just eating peanut butter sandwiches for every dinner or something.

And I think I saw a commercial or something for grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Or I just saw an image of it or thought of it.

And in my head, I was like, God, I haven't had that in so long.

And I'm craving that so much.

The second I can taste anything, I want to have grilled cheese and tomato soup.

So I'm like getting myself excited for it.

I'm just laying in bed all day.

And I'm like, you know what?

I've always struggled with this.

I've never really understood how to make it.

I'm going to learn how to make it.

I'm going to order the stuff.

So I ordered soup.

I ordered bread.

I already had cheese.

It was like all right, once I'm ready, I'm going to celebrate by feeling better, by making a grilled cheese and tomato soup.

And I'm like, oh, this is what everyone says YouTube's good for.

So I go to YouTube and I'm like I just wanted to find the most basic ass, like how to make a grilled cheese and tomato soup.

Actually, I just need the grilled cheese, tomato soup.

I think I could figure out.

I've done that.

20 years.

Instructions are right on the can.

Yeah right yeah, i haven't done in 20 years, but honestly i don't remember.

Last time i opened a can it was probably 20 years ago.

Dan, you're saying you bought a can of tomato soup.

Yes, Right.

So that's I'll get to that in a second.

I just bought like my mind is like Campbell's tomato soup.

It's just that's what tomato soup is.

So I bought a few of those on Amazon, had them delivered, got the bread and all that stuff.

And so finally, oh, well, I'm doing the research and everything. on the YouTube thing.

And I just type how to make grilled cheese.

Just the most basic fucking.

For those that think it's a bit and all this like, just know, I'm just sitting here, not on the air.

I'm just like, how the fuck do you make this happen?

I've been trying to figure this out forever.

Once that floodgates open and I know how to make grilled cheese happen for myself, it's going to be a problem.

Because yes, Mr Backlar.

Thank you.

First time, long time.

I could have sworn that you had done the grilled cheese thing.

He's made grilled cheese on content for this website, but we don't have.

That's neither here nor there.

I'll explain the two times.

One was years ago.

I did it.

I think it's probably like on YouTube or something still, but I had bonked just off camera.

That was like guiding every step of the way.

So I had the major safety net going on there.

So I don't even think that counts.

She kind of like made it easy for me.

Fair enough.

The second time was extra life here.

And I remember the deal was like, I'm just going to go up and try to figure it out.

And I remember watching the VOD later.

And Mike is about to have a heart attack in the basement.

Just like, oh, my God, it's going to burn.

He needs to take that off the thing.

He needs to turn that something.

So I knew there was something about my instincts led to almost a blaze in my house.

So it's like, OK, well, I can't follow my instincts.

I need to follow a tutorial and just follow it to the letter.

So I type in how to make a grilled cheese.

And it's the first thing that pops up.

It's just a bunch of shorts.

And I don't ever see shorts.

And so I'm like, all right, let's just.

This seems to be probably a good function for this, because I haven't blocked on desktop.

So I never see them.

But I was on my phone trying to figure this out.

And I was like, I have guests, whatever.

And I can't figure out – first of all, I can't figure out if you can rewind shorts.

I don't know if you can pause shorts.

So I'm just restarting it every time I need like a second.

So it's like – and it's this guy, and it's the most fucking – I don't know.

What's the young kid generation now?

Is it Gen Z, Gen Alpha?

Gen Z, yeah.

No, Alpha.

Sorry, Alpha.

Gen Alpha, right.

Yeah. fucking voice was like hey i'm chef tyler and i'm gonna teach you this is like the perfect girl it's in this is gonna get you the best cheese pull and it's like it's like it's like he's making this for instagram pictures and stuff i'm instantly annoyed by this guy's voice his whole cadence the way he's talking about the cheese bowl like i just want it to taste good i don't i'm not fucking posting stories about this grilled cheese so i'm already mad about this fucking it And I'm watching a YouTube short.

This whole situation is bad.

And so eventually, I'm tired of trying to figure out how to rewind and things like that.

So I'm just, fuck this.

I'll wait for Bond to be home.

So that's act one, is me attempting to learn and it failing.

Wait.

Yes.

Why not just Google it?

Um, everyone says YouTube's good for that.

And so I thought that would be like short, like you could have definitely scrolled down and found something that wasn't a short video.

And you hate it so much.

You're I don't know why you're putting yourself through this, right?

Like, Well, because I just wanted a normal tutorial.

I just wanted to watch a video on how to do this.

That was definitely in that search.

If you search on YouTube how to make a grilled cheese, that definitely would have shown up.

You probably just had to scroll down a little bit.

But hey, here we are.

I was very confused by the shorts in my face and i was just like i gotta get out of here um, okay.

So i said, fuck this, i'll just wait for bonk to be home.

By that time i can probably taste and everything, and i'm very excited.

And so she gets home and i'm like hey punk uh, I know, you know how to do this.

I've been craving tomato soup and grilled cheese, and I smelled peanut butter this morning, so I know I would be able to enjoy it.

She's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I can make it for you.

I said, here, I got the stuff.

She's like, oh, you got condensed soup.

I don't know if that's good or bad or anything, but just to illustrate how little I know about this, I'm just like

Like, I don't know what condensed means.

I don't know what different form factors.

It just means it's condensed.

You just add water to make it less condensed.

So to that point.

So she's like, yeah, this will work.

And then she she dumps it in the pot.

I'm looking at the can because I'm kind of wanting to like observe and see how this happens so I can make it happen for myself in the future.

And it said, like, oh, for creamier milk, for creamier soup, you can add milk instead of water.

Ooh, ooh, bonk.

I like creamy tomato soup.

Can we do milk instead of water?

And she's like, oh, you don't want that.

We only have vanilla almond milk.

And I said, that's fine.

In my mind, all milk tastes exactly the same.

I've said that before.

Skin milk, whole milk, every half and half.

It's all the exact same thing.

So in my mind, that's fine.

She's like, really?

You want vanilla tomato soup?

And I was like, yeah, it's milk.

It's the same thing, whatever.

And then I was like, I should have pushed back harder.

And she's like, okay.

And then I was like oh, can you put some?

She's like is there anything else you want on the soup or anything?

I said, can you just put some salt and pepper on the tomato soup when it's done?

And she's like, oh, it's going to have tons of salt in the soup already.

And that broke my fucking brain too, because I never considered that any food, packaged or in a restaurant, had salt in it, inherently in it.

I always assume because... I'm sorry.

I knew that was going to hurt Mike.

Me first, Mike.

But listen to the logic.

Hang on.

Let me explain the logic.

Because they put salt at the table.

So I always assume that's almost like something so necessary for food that you also are going to want at the table.

No, I just thought it meant that salt is something that is applied at the moment of consumption.

Like that's where you administer salt is at the table.

I did not realize that it is that you buy.

A grocery store could already have salt like baked into it.

Well, they passed all those culinary laws in the 1910s and, you know.

Someone send a Honda Odyssey for me, please.

So anyway, like eight things broke my brain here where it's like, oh, okay.

Like I didn't know you could do that.

Okay, you can do this.

All right, condense.

I don't know what that means.

It's like there's already salt in the soup.

Like why did they did it?

They pre-salted the soup.

Like that's crazy.

I know.

Yeah.

Anyway, I learned that and everything.

And then, so, act three, I ate it, and it was bad because it was vanilla tomato soup.

And then I threw it away.

Why did you... You really weren't concerned about putting vanilla in your soup?

No, because, Mike, that's...

I know I talk about it.

It's not a bit when I say like all milk tastes the same.

In my brain, every milk just tastes like milk.

Even flavor?

I know when you say that about 2%.

We only have vanilla almond milk all the time.

That's what I put in my cereal.

That's what I put in fucking everything. like a coffee or whatever.

So in my mind, it's just milk.

And so it's like it's.

You can put it in anything that needs milk, but it actually made the tomato soup taste like vanilla.

And that was gross.

Yeah.

I think we all understand how you arrived at this uh, silly situation yeah, and you know, i think people would probably say hey we've, we've warned you about such things.

I, you know, i'll say that you, like you do that to yourself right, because your brain tells you that, and then, when we put the coke and the diet coke and the diet pepsi and everything in front of you, you could tell a pretty good difference.

Like you were pretty accurate.

I think that's how strong my brain is.

Though though, is that I'm working myself to actually think I believe that stuff.

But then when I'm confronted with it, I'm like, that's insane.

That's not the case at all.

Well, I think you just sort of choose what you want to remember.

And I think that's the part that choice continues to kind of get you.

Kind of sneaks up back there.

Don't do vanilla and tomato soup.

I'll try not to.

Bob immediately told me I shouldn't do that.

I thought you'd believe her.

Oh, I 100% believe her.

But in my mind, maybe it's just like, I'm not going to notice it's milk.

And then I noticed.

Yeah, you would notice.

The grilled cheese was delicious.

Was that it?

Oh, the grilled cheese was okay.

Do you use mayo on the grilled cheese?

No, that was another thing about this Chef Tyler motherfucker.

He's putting mayonnaise on it.

Get the fuck out of here.

No, you'd love it.

No, it's good.

It's just a butter substitute.

It's just butter.

I'll just do butter.

But that's the fucking thing about grilled cheese.

Everyone always gives me shit and be like, it's the easiest thing in the world to make.

It is.

But fucking no one has the same way.

Some people do mayonnaise.

Some people put the.

Some people just do the butter on the bread and then throw it in the pan.

Some people are like melt half a tablespoon of butter in the pan and then you put the bread in there and then they all work.

That's why you don't flip it and you sit for four minutes and No one knows how to make grilled cheese.

But Dan, you're just making it more complicated.

You put fat on one side of the bread.

That could be a butter or mayonnaise.

It doesn't matter.

That's the point.

You get that brown.

You put the cheese in the middle.

You put the other side.

You just flip it over.

Yeah.

Some people put the butter in the pan first.

Yes, because you can do that.

You can also put the milk in before the cereal.

I did what was comfortable to me and Mike was having a fucking seizure down here because he thought my kitchen was going to catch on.

And yet it still worked out.

I want to get this passed because you projected this onto me.

I never thought you were going to bring your kitchen down.

I thought you were making a shitty grilled cheese sandwich because you emptied half a can of Pam into your fucking pan before you cooked the thing.

No, there's a part where you're like, oh, please take it off.

It's going to start smoking.

Please take it off.

I thought you're going to burn the sandwich.

I didn't think your house was going to burn down.

Oh, well, when I hear it's going to start smoking, I think my house is going to burn down.

No, just you're just going to ruin a 50 cent sandwich.

It'll be OK.

Speaking about starting to smoke, I think I've got to go again.

I think I'm starting again after this.

No no, I get it.

Uh dan, you're gonna have to pay us back for all the subs we just lost.

I feel like you're gonna have to like dance.

We're winning the who's weirder poll.

Uh, the other options were the only one that's willing to tell the truth about how nobody knows.

Yeah, you're a hero.

So i take this that we really should go to benihana and take the hibachi chef class.

I'll do that.

I want to make the volcano onion tower.

I want to do the egg roll joke.

We all have to have one specialty in the Benihana chef trick line.

Place your bets now.

I want to do the zucchini train.

Oh, that's fun.

Too bad Zucchini sucks, but yeah.

They need new tricks, I'm just going to say.

No.

I mean, people kind of want to play the hits, I think, back.

They've been touring off this album for 30 years.

It's like the Globetrotters, right?

They're just going to keep doing the same thing.

Would it surprise any of you to know that my friends and I had a griddle and were practicing how to juggle and flip around like the tongs and tools they had?

Of course you did.

That's awesome.

Yeah, i want to be.

I think the uh devil sticks version of being a food vendor is uh, those turkish ice cream guys that like trying to give you the ice cream and then i keep taking it away.

That's the one i want to learn.

They're goobers.

If you eat that ice cream you would kill as a hibachi chef, the more i think about it.

Oh, i would love to be a chef.

That's just little devil sticks.

Yeah exactly, and i, you know juggling, i like all that stuff yeah, but it's not as uh, you know, not as uh benign when you drop one of those.

Okay oh, you gotta well.

Yeah well, the grub is just not gonna drop the devil sticks.

That's fine.

Yeah well, then we're, then we're in the clear okay uh, if you couldn't tell, this is actually a video game podcast.

Oh Oh, thank God.

I've never been so happy to hear that.

I've been looking for an eject button for 10 minutes.

Wayne was like, boy, please make sure you don't let me forget to tell this story before we started.

That was so important.

It's the most exciting part of my last week.

But, you know, in order to play video games, most of the time you need a controller.

And yesterday we dropped our review video and an unboxing for the Steam Controller, which you can use to play video games.

It's really good.

Grubb, you've been spending a lot of time with it?

Yeah, I love it.

It's good.

It's $100.

That's the thing that makes everyone kind of go, oh, man.

I don't get the outrage, though.

Because people have grown up in a world when they think about when they have bought controllers, they are still thinking of getting them for 50 or 60, maybe 70.

Yeah.

All that RAM.

Yeah, the RAM.

I mean, God, the RAM in this thing's crazy.

The DualSense is $75.

So, okay, that's kind of a tough comparison.

I see that.

But the more recently released controllers the Joy-Con 2 and the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller are 190 respectively.

So this is where controllers are headed.

I still think that $100 for controller is insane.

But if they came and took this away from me, I would go out and buy one.

I would spend the money on it because it really is that good.

The D-pad is fantastic.

The analog controls are very good as well.

And it's all very comfortable to use.

Like, none of it is like, oh, I got to bend my thumb or anything like that.

It just fits into my hand in the exact way I want.

And then it has all the feature parity.

The Steam Deck.

So when you're using Steam Input and Steam OS and Steam just on your PC, you get all the extra features that were already in the Steam Deck and all these millions of community profiles and developer profiles made for the Steam Deck.

They'll just work on this thing.

So it's like, oh, they have thought of it all.

And then the puck is great.

Just everything about it, Dan, is really working for me.

Yeah.

Speaking of the profiles and stuff Grubb, I don't know if you've noticed this or if I saw this right, but like I've been playing Slay the Spire 2 and when I play on the Steam Deck I like to use the trackpads because, like there's stuff, like if you hover over any of the like relics or anything, you see the descriptions and it's better to use a mouse for that, to hover over stuff, because the controller can't get to everything.

So on the Steam Deck I made a profile to like OK, I'm going to make the trackpads act as mouse and to press it in is click for each.

And I swear when I played it on PC recently, I think it just translated to my controller.

Like have you noticed that?

Like making a profile on the Steam Deck, and then it just works for this, like one to one.

Yeah, yes, right.

It just kind of carried over for me.

That happened at least once.

Yeah, it just kind of worked.

And then like use cases for me, they're ones that like I didn't even see coming that I love.

Like, for instance, I have a laptop, a gaming laptop hooked up to my TV.

So when I play PC games on the TV, it's usually going through that.

But I also use the laptop a lot for like look, I'm loading up like an aw pay-per-view whatever and i'm doing like a vpn thing and i bought the thing through vpn.

Like basically, i'm saying i gotta like click around a browser a lot on my tv and that usually means i've got a bluetooth keyboard and mouse flopping around on the couch and stuff and it's awkward, like trying to move a mouse on the couch or my knee or something like that, but like being able to use this with the trackpad and everything Surprisingly good.

It removed the mouse situation.

So it's good for just browsing the computer.

You know I dock my Steam deck a lot and I just like.

There are certain games that I like to walk, like Slay the Spire Mugenics, a lot of, like you know, turn based stuff, Vampire Crawlers it's great for on the treadmill or whatever.

So this has been fantastic.

You know, just dock the steam deck.

It's got all my profiles and stuff on there.

Play with that.

Um, anything that uses a mouse, like if you.

If you play steam deck, you know how good those track pads are.

And it's just fantastic having that like in controller form.

Um, It just feels great.

I compared it to a Dreamcast controller in a couple of videos we've made.

But I do think, just because of how kind of tall it is, like just the way my hands rest on it reminds me of the Dreamcast controller, without the weird cord coming out the back.

Right, right.

I just think the form factor is fantastic.

The back buttons here, like kind of the back pads, Uh, they're just these little circles here.

They're not like.

I always hated the elite controller, like the way that the big metal ones that would kind of flop around and get in the way.

I preferred the dual sense edge ones, the little nubs, uh, over the elite controller.

But like, this is my favorite, like back pad situation, uh, in a controller.

And it's like you were talking about the ergonomics of it.

So just like holding it with your hand to like hit the D-pad or the stick, it all just kind of fits in these nice long paddles.

Make it super easy to like do either one.

And that's very natural.

But then when it is time to go down and use the track pads, you do have to like bring your thumb way down here.

But the way that the handles are set up is I just kind of like why did my grip then?

My fingers naturally fall on the back buttons, and this is a very comfortable way to hold it as well and now it's like, oh yeah, i could set these back buttons to be the inputs, along with the, the trackpad, so when i am doing inputs for the pc or something, I don't have to then reach back up and hit the face buttons and everything remains super comfortable.

They thought about every way that people are going to be using this and they didn't just take a Steam Deck apart, slap it back together and call it a controller.

They really adapted it to be the best controller it can be, and then that D-pad is phenomenal.

It is so good.

And speaking about thinking of all the different ways people could use it, I'm very interested to see how like the community once it's out for people and like the different profiles that people will make for like very specific games like uh.

I don't know if, like the gyro aiming would be uh available for every single game, but i know that there are splits once you have steam open, i think so yeah okay, i know that there are splatoon sickos out there that insist on the gyro aiming versus um, you know the, the analog sticks, so I'm curious to see if that'll be prevalent.

Dan, I remember when we checked it out at Valve, the thing that wowed me the most was the pointer feature.

Yes.

In it, which is so used to like, you know, like pointer stuff has been around forever.

But like you think about like a lot of it, like the Wii remote, you know, there's that lag to it.

It kind of just feels like.

It's just kind of like trailing behind, where your hand is ever so slightly.

This is the most just like.

Oh man, it is just exactly the way like have you ever played like the ocarina time remake on 3ds and you could do like the shooting gallery games?

And it was like that was one of the first times gyro aiming.

I was like oh, this is just perfectly.

This makes it like much better than traditional controls, like you kind of have that with everything with the steam controller here.

I haven't done a lot of fps stuff with the gyro aiming grab.

Have you messed around with the like fps too much of this?

A little bit, but I was also trying out the trackpad.

We did that interview with some people from Steam and they were saying that they Lawrence Yang yeah.

Lawrence Yang, and they were saying like oh yeah, I like to like play first-person shooters and then like, use the trackpad to get even more accurate.

I'm like, really?

And I tried that.

I'm like, oh, that worked, too.

But I tried Gyro at that time.

And yeah, as long as you have Steam open, you have the full feature set of the controller, because you're going to need steam input to fully take advantage of everything um, so that that does like raise some questions like what is that going to look like when people try to use all the features on like retroarch and stuff?

But thankfully the big part of that is the community's already solved a lot of those things because of um, the steam deck and And then once this thing gets out in the wild, I do think it's going to become, if not the default PC controller, the other default PC controller next to the Xbox input.

So yeah, I think we're going to expect full community support to come out of the woodwork for this thing, and every possible use case will be accounted for.

I am so cool to like the puck thing that like instead of like.

I've used a dongle on that laptop before.

And you know when something is shoved up there next to all the other things emitting Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and all that electrical input lag.

You know all sorts of things right to reconnect and everything.

This this puck kind of getting it away from the PC.

And then just the way when you're done with it, the magnet just goes right on there.

It's it's.

Really, really handy.

I'm loving it.

I think I talked about it and mentioned it during the review video, but I am genuinely curious about trying this for editing.

Right.

Because some of some of the editing for our the archives of our streams, is very light touch, just like a little bit of adjustments here and there.

But with, like the addition of the trackpad there, it could kind of like fine tune stuff, maybe like a DaVinci resolve, futz around with like scopes and whatnot.

Um yeah, I'm very excited about this and I normally don't get excited about a controller, but also uh, You should use if you're serious.

I've heard a lot of people like those tour box things.

Yeah, but this reminds me of one of those tour boxes.

I think this one could easily be turned into one of those.

Yeah, you think?

Yes, because with all of the abilities to build hot menus and stuff like that.

Yeah, you know, the the left, the left trackpad already in windows without like, I think, even steam open, but especially with steam open, just automatically becomes a scroll wheel.

So you just kind of go in a circle and it goes up and down in the menu and you could just already see like Oh yeah, that could be Sort of one of those wheels you would have for a Premiere Pro project.

But then you can make the other trackpad.

Like if I press this button, give me a menu and then I can navigate it with this thing.

And then when I let go of that button, it goes back to being a mouse and a clicker.

Yeah, I could see it being like people building profiles in the Steam input for all kinds of productivity tools.

Yeah.

And I don't know if we mentioned it here, but that puck supports four different controllers as well.

Right,

Yes, yes.

Four controllers without introducing any latency, they said.

I think it might be able to support even more than that, but up to four like promised, and it's all going to function as well as it possibly can.

And then, you know...

That $100 price tag, they try to justify it in some ways.

I do think that the puck is pretty smart.

Now, most of these controllers come with a dongle, so making it like a charging thing as well, it's like okay, this feels a little bit more premium.

I would say that the build quality feels solid, but it doesn't feel like one of the 200 controllers, but it certainly feels.

It feels durable.

I'm always hesitant to use that word, because we just won't know, until people actually get these things in their hands for a long period of time if they actually will hold up to a lot of use.

But, you know, on that end, it's repairable.

Like you could the screws or you could see them right in the back.

They're hex screws, but they're very easily accessible.

Um, and they were, they're working with.

I fix it to make sure that that is all uh like.

All the parts will be there and easily uh attained.

So yeah, it just, they've, done a lot of work.

And then they've like for the analog sticks they're not using.

This is not one of those things where like Hey, we're going to sell you a controller.

And then in the year later, you're gonna need to buy another one because of drift.

They're, they're not even using the hall effect sensors.

They're using TMR sensors.

I believe, is what they are, which is even a step up from hall effect to, because it has a really good dead zone in terms of being really tiny, no false inputs, and then also will not introduce drift over time.

You know, as far as you know, in most circumstances way, way better than the traditional sticks.

So they're putting the right technology in here to sort of say hey, It's an investment.

You're going to get this thing.

You're going to be able to repair it.

The battery is not going to overcharge.

You're going to be able to easily replace that battery, though, when you want to.

So, yeah, you're going to spend a little money up front and hopefully have it forever.

And I hope I do because I really, again, like it a ton.

I'm curious like yeah, once they get things working better with like RetroArch and everything like that must be really nice for you know all the different things you can do in RetroArch, like how to utilize those trackpads and everything in the gyro.

It's going to be really cool.

I think this will be great whenever we have to go to like a PAX and like if we're playing a game or whatever.

We just bring a Steam Deck and then all of us will probably have one.

You want a Steam controller to bring, sync it up with a puck, good to go.

Yep.

Exactly.

It would be handy for any situation, because I could just navigate my menus in Steam Deck like I had the Steam Deck in my hands.

Yeah, that'd be really nice.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A game that I would like to use the Steam controller with, but unfortunately I cannot because it is only on the PS5, is

Sorrows!

Jeff Grubb, you did a review in progress for this Jimmy Jam that came out over the weekend.

Any expanded thoughts?

Yeah, I think I'm at the final boss, and he's hard.

He's difficult.

I one-shotted the third boss, so I felt pretty proud of that one.

Yes, and then I'm a little bit disappointed because I'm like man, I kind of like fighting against these bosses for a long time.

Thankfully, this last boss has been pretty challenging, although I think I've got him understood now.

I should meet him here pretty soon.

It continues to be good.

It continues to be a very good game.

I think a lot of my criticisms from Returnal still apply here, where I think these runs are still very samey.

Thankfully, they do have more going on in terms of the depth of what you can do.

Um so the absorbing the enemy shots um, I think that just adds enough of a layer of complexity to the moment to moment gameplay that it has kept me pretty thoroughly engaged.

And then um, The progression and the meta progression is also pretty like oh, I want to be figuring this stuff out because there's this huge skill tree.

And every time I invest in that skill tree, the game does become a little bit more manageable.

And yeah, so far it's been like, okay, I'm getting near the end.

I'm liking it more and more.

I think it's plateaued, but I still think this is a good game.

Now Grubb, I'm curious because I'm about to beat the second boss in the second biome and something I've noticed and I'm curious if it goes the whole game is that it almost feels tuned perfectly with the skill tree to be like okay once you have gotten like, because there are like blocks on the skill tree where it's like you can move up to this next part of the skill tree once you beat this boss.

But you need to be the boss first.

And, but you don't have to get every spindle of the tree to get up there.

So you can get to the first boss and only have half of the skill tree up at that point.

And I always feel like it's overpowered at that point.

And by the time I have everything, all the pips up to the blocker.

I feel like that's when I can like.

Okay, this is going to be the run where I finally take down the boss.

It seems tuned very intentionally that way.

Is that how you feel?

Yeah, they definitely have built in a difficulty curve into this thing.

That is a self-propelling loop of.

I was really close that time.

Oh, God.

I got a bunch of Lucinite, which is the currency.

If I just upgrade a few more things, I just needed to survive 10 more seconds.

I could put a couple more points in resilience, which is going to make me more survivable, give me higher HP and put a little bit more into command.

There's a pip right there.

I'll just go buy that one.

Command is how much damage you do.

But okay yeah, that should buy me 10 seconds and you go back in there and really, of course, with these games, what's always happening is you're really learning the game, you're getting better, but it kind of gives you this idea of like oh, the game's also going to be easier and that's the real reason you're getting better and so well.

It's a combination of the two and they feed back into one another in a really strong way.

So if people had um, The thing with Returnal, where it was difficult to the point of putting them off or they kind of really didn't like the feeling of the progression,

I think all of that has been answered here.

They have almost over-tuned it to the point where it's like Oh, I'm kind of just, I should like be focusing these early runs on just getting the resources so I can upgrade faster, because then I'll be able to beat the boss in the way that the game really expects me to beat it, with the amount of power I should have.

And so it almost to me feels like I'm on this, this path, the set path, instead of sort of figuring out my own way.

That's it's hardly a criticism because I think it's going to open up the game to a ton more people.

It's definitely more accessible.

I would hazard people to not make the mistake I made.

So like Returnal, the alt fire of each weapon is if you hold the trigger down halfway.

If you hold LT down halfway and then you shoot, that activates the alt fire.

And I messaged Grubb at one point.

I was like, are you fucking up the alt fire a lot too?

Cause there are a lot of times it like wouldn't work.

And it's like, if you hold it down all the way, that's your power weapon, which you don't always have.

And so like, it felt like I was going too far and I couldn't use my alt fire.

Cause it thought I was using my power weapon.

That makes sense.

And grubs like, no, not really having a problem.

Just hold it like halfway or whatever.

And it's like, what the, what am I doing wrong here?

And then I watched the video grub where you were like talking about all the haptics and like when you absorb the orbs and stuff.

And we're thinking like, what the fuck?

I'm not noticing a lot of haptics or anything here.

And then I realized I've got the dual sense edge.

And it's got like a separate sub menu where you alter like the trigger stuff and the haptics and everything.

And I had overwritten my Astro Bot speed run profile, the one that I turned on everything just to focus on the speed run.

And so I had to go into like a different sub menu and turn it like I've been playing seven or eight hours at this point.

And then I flip that stuff on and it's like a new game now, because you remember how good those like the trigger intensity things are and everything.

Definitely turn all that stuff up all the way for this game.

Yes, it benefits it.

It makes the game better and makes it more playable.

Yeah, I don't know if there's.

I haven't looked into seeing if there was a way to remap that secondary fire.

I would say just get used to it.

It works.

And I like it quite a bit.

It does have a lot of accessibility options.

Like you can change because there is so much like color coded stuff like oh, the blue ones are the ones you absorb and these are the corrupted ones.

Like you can change the color of the orbs and HUD stuff and everything like very, very good at that.

Yeah, I think this is a game that I'm glad people are liking so much.

It's like I think I said this during that video we made, where it's just not the roguelite that I'm in the mood for in the moment.

I was much more into something like Sectory, but that's like it fed my sickness in a very specific way.

For what they're going for here.

I think this is kind of like an ideal version of this game that they're going to try to charge as a full price premium game.

You know, housemark was um, a super stardust hd.

These reso gun.

They are making arcade style games like playstations, equivalent to xbox live arcade, and they were nailing that stuff.

That's what they were going for for years and years and years.

So then to have like slowly morph into being another one of those PlayStation studios that can do the big, serious story game, it always felt like weird to me.

But they are making it work here.

And I think they're making all the right choices in terms of building a game that still feels like an arcade-y, run-and-gun bullet-hell experience, while also

Being able to be this thing, that people will be like, oh that, that was worth seventy dollars on that.

On that note though, I'm still not into the story.

I'm not either.

And I never like people say that.

I think the direction.

I felt the same way with Returnal, like the direction and everything is very good.

But the actual story story itself, i'm not really getting super invested.

How is?

It's very familiar stuff?

How is it doled out?

Um, when it's like you know this style of uh, little hades like um where, where you um get done with a run and oh my god, i'm dead bang, you're hitting the face with a big white light and And some cool visual aesthetic, neat clips of like the king in yellow showing up for a second, and some bed sheets ruffling and some like fire exploding in a dead tree, and all that stuff does a good job of building up the world and making it feel cool.

And then you get back to the home base and there's a handful of NPCs that you talk to.

And again, it's one of those stories, one of those weird fiction stories where hey, everybody's on this planet and they're going insane because they're looking at the planet too much.

But you're not because you're the hero and you just want to complete the mission.

And the mission is to save the people from the previous ship, people that you've never met as the player and don't care about.

And then eventually, there's one specific person you're trying to save and you're like okay, I've seen this story a million times and this is not doing anything new to reinvigorate my spirits toward it.

Yeah, it's very.

Yeah Carcosa, King and Yellow, like the True Detective season one stuff is very heavy on that imagery.

And it does a good job playing in that space, visually and in terms of tone, just the specifics of the plot and the characterization of Rahul Kohli's character.

I think he does a great job.

He is like leading man material.

It's awesome to look at.

He's a cool looking dude doing cool looking dude stuff.

And then, you know, he's got to talk and the stuff, the material they give him is very just like...

I just need to complete the mission.

I need to get better.

Bullet hell.

Listen, I know Returnal like went through some sort of went through like updates, like pretty meaningful stuff, right.

The co-op stuff and, like, the tower.

I mean, even, like, how, like, people, because people couldn't see. save the run halfway through.

There's like a saving thing, right?

Right.

That was not about launch.

Yeah.

Do you think there's runway for for some of uh, some of the not course correction stuff?

But but like meaningful updates with this game sort of a lifeline.

I think, I think this time around that they would take that energy and just continue to make the game bigger, because I think they've nailed what they're going for here.

And all of the you know the thing with Returnal and not being able to save.

It's like are people going to be cool with this?

This is the game we're trying to make here.

These are runs and things are supposed to feel ephemeral and like you can lose them.

And everyone's like, ah, we'll meet you halfway.

Can you give us some way to like walk away and go take care of our kids during dinner or something like that?

This time around, they've like, They know all those pitfalls, and you can tell that they have built a game that structurally can just hold itself up in all these different instances for all these different kinds of players.

So...

I think instead this time around that they would anything they might do would be like oh, I guess they could improve the story with a story drop DLC.

I could instantly see or easily imagine that happening.

But I don't know, because it's a game that's already full priced and people are showing up for it.

I think they probably put everything they can into it.

We'll see what they have in terms of updates, though.

Lovely.

Fantastic.

Speaking about games that a lot of people definitely like, but I'm curious to see how this person feels about it.

Mike Minotti, you've been playing through Resident Evil 3 Nemesis.

That's right, this would be the OG Resident Evil 3, specifically the GameCube port.

Well, technically he's holding up the GameCube version, so that's not really the original.

It's a port of the original game.

Well, it did not the original that came out.

The original as opposed to the remake.

Well, go make a grilled cheese.

I wish I could, Mike.

Yeah, we all wish that.

Yeah, you know, I've been kind of catching up with the Resident Evils I haven't played yet.

I played the original Resident Evil 2 last weekend.

This time made sense to do Nemesis, and I just so happen to own this GameCube version.

And I was curious just like how the GameCube versions of these games feel compared to the PlayStation 1.

They actually do have a more noticeable... like visual upgrade than I was expecting.

Like the resolution is a bit nicer.

Obviously, the character models are a little smoother, maybe even better models, because i think there was, you know, a pc or dreamcast port as well where they originally first kind of spruced up the model.

So this game yeah mike, i was surprised i tuned in a little bit when you were playing.

I was like okay, surely this is like.

Oh, maybe he's playing the gamecube one oh, maybe this is going through dolphin or something like that.

And you were like no, this is going through a retro tank, this is on a gamecube like it looked a lot better than i expected.

Yeah, because at the time I remember GameCube got Resident Evil 1 Remake as an exclusive and then Resident Evil 4 and Zero were initially exclusives as well.

But then they just ported 2, 3, and Code Veronica.

I remember at the time... those were looked at kind of like derisively, like, Oh, these are cheaper.

I can't remember if they were charging full price for them, but people weren't impressed then.

And now I'm like, that's super neat that they did that.

Actually.

I think that's I wish we had more just kind of slightly upgraded ports of PS1 games on the GameCube.

And so few people bought those back then that they're very expensive and hard to get now.

Like, just recently, the prices went up quite a bit.

I was lucky I got this one long enough ago that it wasn't too, too bad.

It was a little weird with the GameCube controller, just because tank controls with an analog stick takes some getting used to and the D-pad sucks on the GameCube controller, so you don't want to use that.

But I eventually got used to all of that.

The game was controlling just fine.

It was looking really nice.

And I was having a good time.

I definitely did not like it anywhere near as much as I liked OG games too.

Um, you don't have.

You don't have like that strong central location, except you know, i guess they're trying to make the streets of raccoon city that and that works okay, but it means it's a lot of like roads and they're sort of narrow and there's too many enemies and it's kind of sometimes difficult to dodge them or shoot them.

Uh they're, you know.

You go into the rpd for a moment.

There's other sequences, like the clock tower.

It's like okay, these are like little mini areas and that's feeling uh, pretty good.

The boss fights are driving me insane.

This game is giving you boss fights that should not be in a game with tank controls.

And I defend tank controls, but they want you to fight Nemesis.

He's running around like Sonic the Hedgehog, and he has a ranged attack.

He don't have tank controls.

He don't have tank controls and, like it's in most of the times the fights turn out, they have a gimmick and it's like all right, so what?

What is the gimmick here this time?

I have to avoid this worm for two minutes until the earthquake happens, and then these electrical poles get loosened and then I can shoot them into this lake and lure the worm over there.

Of course, the first time, you're just shooting the fucking worm.

Then you realize, oh, well, that's not right.

I gotta die and restart because I just wasted all That ammo.

Like every once in a while it's like no, it turns out you are just in a fight.

So bring three healing items and, you know, 50 shotgun shells and and kind of good luck.

But like Resident Evil 2 and Resident Evil 1 maybe you could say, the boss fights aren't that interesting, because it is mostly just hey, bring your magnum ammo or your grenade launcher and kind of stand your ground, maybe run around a little bit.

But they work for that kind of game.

This is trying to be more ambitious.

And I think internally they justified it because they added a dodge button in this one.

But the dodge works by pushing the same buttons that you push shoot.

Oh so like, am i remembering right that?

Like i feel like with the nemesis stuff, i remember renting it back in the day and like i thought he would like break through a wall and then, like it would like fade to kind of like white and it'd be like what do you want to do a or b?

Doesn't it do something like that?

Yeah, so there's like that's like one of the other things i'm really proud of is a new feature.

It's like there's these moments where it's like are you gonna do this, are you gonna do that?

And like I think most of the time it kind of just puts you on one different path or the other.

There was one time I was in a restaurant like Nemesis showed up like are you going to go in the basement or are you going to stay in your ground fight?

I was like, I guess I'll go in the basement.

Then I went down there and there's nothing down there.

And it's like, oh, that was just wrong.

So then I go back up and he immediately kills me.

I'm like, all right, I guess I got the wrong flip of the...

Point there on that one, right?

Oh, wow.

And then, like you know, he's at you, you're shooting him and you're trying to shoot him, but then you accidentally dodge because he happens to attack you.

And whenever you want to dodge, that's not going to happen.

Then the dodge will never work, and you'll just stand there and kind of take it.

So...

And in general, just a much harder game than 2 was.

And some of it is like it's meant to be harder.

Maybe a lot of people think 2 is too easy.

So I can see maybe they're course correcting there.

But also just sort of frustrating.

But still, it's classic Resident Evil.

Jill Valentine is cool.

I still love, gosh, the pre-rendered The Nemesis stuff is cool.

This is the first time we had the stalker enemy.

And those moments where you are just running away from him and he might show up.

There's still tension there.

And that feels nice.

So yeah.

I had a good time with it.

I think it's definitely the weakest of the PS1 trilogy, for sure, though.

So would you say that any of the remakes are worse, any of the remakes are better at this point?

Because now you've played all the ones that have originals and remakes, right?

Can you break that down for me, how you feel about it now?

It is funny, because I think on every case...

I still like the remake more, even though OG2 and 2 Remake, they both have their strengths.

2 Remake is still so good to play.

3 is weird because the remake is.

I've heard people complain like oh, they cut this, they cut that.

And I played it and I'm like yeah, it is weird how much that they cut and I don't know why they did it.

And yet, also, this game, which is... too short.

I do understand it's really fun.

It's kind of just a good little romp and it has great boss fights and it just feels better to play.

So, again, it's like, I get why people would prefer the original there, so it's close.

And then, like, Resident Evil 1, that's a classic.

Resident Evil 1 remakes one of the best of all time.

Resident Evil 4, same thing.

I think it's a case where all the originals are good to very good, to classics, and then remakes are, just all you know, really good, and sometimes in very similar ways, sometimes in different ways, but it just feels plus up to me.

I don't know if anybody does remakes better than resident evil, oh yeah, no way, i don't think so.

Yeah, i think i'm with you.

I think i'm with you there uh, a game that i have checked out very briefly, but it has set parts of the internet on fire is titanium court, And this is not uh, the simple game that I thought it was.

I thought this was just like, it's easy to explain though.

Right.

That's what I hear.

Very easy to like, yeah.

One line, maybe, ah, several lines.

Uh, On its surface, it is a match three game.

But after that it is so much more.

It turns out because it is kind of a roguelite, where if you fail matching three you start at the very beginning.

But on top of matching three depending on the tiles that you match You're also gathering resources.

So we're gathering food, water, rocks.

I forget what they're actually called in the game.

And then from there you also have to contend with these enemy castles that are also spawning on the map.

But you can match them away as well.

But after...

A low tide has happened because you only have a specific number of turns to match three gather resources.

You then enter a recruiting phase where it kind of becomes a little bit of a tower defense, a very light touch, RTS.

I guess not an RTS then, but where you build units and then from there your units are either gathering more supplies or defending your base or attacking the enemy castles.

And that's as far as I am now.

But on top of that they are doling out a new different mechanic and a new different thing, every level or every little step of progression.

Also, there's a story that is, it seems, very integral to the understanding everything that's going on.

I think I found a Shakespeare, guys.

I think it's a Shakespeare game because oh uh, midsummer night's dream, specifically because what cools these mortals be?

Wow, it's just like what what?

Okay, good for you uh, And it's neat.

I like it.

It is, you know, it's very difficult to be funny in a video game.

A lot of games do not nail it or the tone just doesn't mesh with everyone.

But I've been enjoying it so far.

I can easily see myself losing a lot of time to this game.

An interesting thing though, that this game does with the match three mechanic is you have your titanium court, which is your base.

And normally with a match three game, right?

If you slide a tile over and it doesn't complete the three or match into a sequence with the other tiles, it slides back into place.

But with your titanium court you can use that to swap places with anything, and then it maintains that position.

So if you're kind of like one tile away from getting like a really good match of like, I'd hit like five tiles here if I just could nudge this other mountain tile two more spaces over.

Does anyone hear that?

Yeah.

Are they tearing up the ground again at the daycare?

No, that's not me, I think.

Tearing up your ground.

Oh, it's not you?

No.

It's not me.

Oh, weird.

All right.

Someone was sliding into the internet pipes.

Anyway.

I think it was coming from Bacalar.

I'm just going to say it.

I think there was a buzzing something Bacalar.

Is there road work outside?

Not currently.

Okay.

Are you Morse coding someone right now?

Perhaps.

None of your business.

This titanium court game, I thought was like taking over the internet, and it only has 264 or 260 reviews on steam right now.

So it's still like a little bit of a sleeper right now.

Um, I feel like people are going to keep talking about it.

But like, what I understand Janice is is, While people like present it or like it does, like hey, it's a roguelite.

Once you start playing it it really is kind of about seeing what the game can do and what like.

But tearing out, tearing away, like the seams of the game, right.

That's what one review I read said, where it's like Hey, you just want to go in there and like kind of treat it almost like a sandbox and come up with an idea and see Hey, will this work?

Do you have any examples of like what that would be like?

Or is that something you're not at yet?

I don't think I'm, I'm quite at that point yet.

Um, It like it feels like you are also like building up relationships or getting to know the people actually in your court.

And then from there, you're you're getting to expand the different buildings within your own castle.

Like I just went to my office for the first time and like it showed me like a different tower I could be in.

I think Chuck had... Yeah, Chuck had discorded me.

Titanium Court is the whimsical 2026 version of Blueprints done as a match three.

That is a quote from Chuck himself.

That's high praise.

I think there's a lot more underneath the surface.

I'm definitely going to try and spend more time with it, but this is...

One of those games, gang.

I just wish it was out on the Switch.

I realize I can put it on my Steam Deck 100%, but then I'm already on the Switch too because, boy.

Your boy can't stop playing Pokemon.

Oh, the Pokemans.

Pokejams.

I won't bore y'all with more of that, but gang, the meta's fucked right now.

Oh, no.

Scarf Garchomp is tearing up the ladder.

I can't get out of Ultra Ball.

I feel like a loser.

Anyway uh, speaking about cards, and are you going to scarf guard jump?

I'm trying to make scarbo fair work, work there, but it's not.

I'm trying to make it like scars guard joke, but yeah sure okay yeah uh, speaking about losing an obscene amount of time to a video game, which i've been doing with pokemon champions.

Mike minotti, you spent a good chunk of time with Vampire Crawlers.

I beat it.

I got credits.

Oh, you beat it.

Yeah, I finished the game.

Right, because we did kind of a little live quick look, just GB play thing yesterday.

I did that with Chuck.

And kind of did a late game run and then just played a couple more runs after that.

I'm like, okay, we're done.

I did definitely get to a point where I bought enough upgrades and I could do things and figure it out.

I sort of solved the game.

Right.

Like three levels.

Before the end I kind of come up with The combo of crawlers that I was bringing in.

There's a point where you can bring more than one crawler and each crawler kind of has different passive abilities.

And I basically had three of them where each time I played a purple card, which is a card that gives you mana, which you need mana to play cards.

But, like I'm playing those cards, which gives me mana, but also these other crawlers and their passive effects are making like also, you're gonna draw a card and you're gonna increase the number amount of cards you draw each turn and you're also gonna increase how many projectiles you use when you deal damage, and So because, like I was drawing cards, I was almost going infinite practically, as like drawing every card in my deck and then redrawing those cards.

And the game does have a mechanic built into it where, if you draw the same card too many times in one turn, it starts to crack.

And I was like, what's this happened during the stream?

I'm like, what's this, Chuck?

He's like, oh, yeah, play it.

Then I play it again and it summons the Grim Reaper, right?

So that's bad.

Then I played another one.

It's some of the second Grim Reaper.

And I had three Grim Reapers.

Are they helping you?

No, they wanted to kill me.

They knew I broke the game, but they wanted me dead.

So there's like even still like you could before you get to that point.

You could just go crazy in a single round and I was able to buy other permanent upgrades by that point, like rerolls when I give a choice of cards.

The point where it's like, I know what cards I want.

I know how to build this deck in a way that I'm probably going to be indestructible, and i, you know, i did get to that point, kind of the last third of the game, where i was like, all right, i'm starting to steamroll, which itself was a satisfying feeling.

I know there's a lot of people now who think that roguelikes have gotten too roguelike and that it often feels like you're mostly just rewarded for sticking with it and eventually you kind of will become powerful enough.

There's definitely a bit of that here, but it's really satisfying.

Just the game itself with the cards feels so good.

And also figuring out that combo system where it's like okay, so play zero mana card to a one mana card to a two mana card.

At first it is kind of that simple.

But then you get things like wild cards which can reset the combo.

So you can go zero one two, wild card, zero one, two.

Or you can kind of uh, augment cards that have lower mana costs all the way down to like a negative one.

Now you can start your combo at negative one or you can raise the mana cost to be like okay well, now that's going to help me do the one two three, four.

You know right.

So it's like At first it's like okay, like a times three is pretty good for a combo.

To the end, where I'm having turns where I'm playing like 20 cards and not dropping the combo.

And it feels amazing.

Dan, I know you're a little skeptical on this one at first.

It seems like you've come around a bit.

At first, but like that's what I was gonna say is like maybe your first couple runs with this, or it's like okay, I think I see what's going on here.

Okay, we're kind of mapping the vampire survivor's aesthetic onto this kind of basic card game.

Card builder, deck builder.

After like one or two runs you start seeing how quickly that stream of unlocks happens, where it's just like Back of the village.

It feels like every time you beat a run for the first handful, it's like, now you have this thing.

Now you got the blacksmith where you can do the gyms.

Now you got this upgrade place.

Now you got the bar where you can get different crawlers and stuff like you just constantly like at each run.

It's like, here's 10 different things, new cards, new features and everything.

And you're unlocking stuff.

It's got that same giant unlock list that like vampire survivors had.

So it very quickly ramps up.

And like, I do like that.

Like, as I'm playing a lot of slay the spire too right now, too it.

It doesn't feel like I'm playing two similar games concurrently.

It's they're both deck builders and card games, but like, Slay the Spire 2 is one where I'm kind of pouring over every effect and buff and debuff, and I'm really kind of thinking out every turn.

Vampire Crawlers is not on autopilot, but it's like cruise control.

You got to keep your hands on the wheel, but it's like it's a smoother kind of easier deck builder experience.

And just like moving around the actual levels themselves is fun.

Just kind of like, you know, breaking all the torches and stuff.

Yeah, the bonuses sure yeah, evolving weapons like you wouldn't vampire survivors and getting more powerful.

Yeah, the upgrades you find just as you're playing through too, and like there is that element of like oh, what am i going to get, even though again, i definitely got to a point where i can sort of force myself to get the things that i needed to get.

I normally don't like this style of like dungeon crawler games per se, like Etrian Odyssey, I think, is one.

There's like a persona dungeon crawler.

Yeah.

The dungeon crawler aspect here is pretty secondary.

It's almost more of an aesthetic aspect. than the gameplay.

The gameplay is definitely hard.

It's a deck builder.

That's the real game.

But this moves at such a rapid clip that I feel like it takes away my misgivings about that style of RPG dungeon crawler.

And also folks should definitely check out the Quick Look Live that Mikey and Chuck did yesterday, because

If you miss the particle effects and the visual dopamine of Star Survivors, I feel like it's times two here.

It's like I was back in Vegas, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

I've said before, I always liked Vampire Survivors, just not as much as Dan or Jeff did.

This was just a bit more my speed, and this was the one where I mean how long has the game been out?

It feels like not just a week or two.

And I just blazed through that 26 hours, according to Steam, to get to those credits.

God, I'm looking at it right now.

My brother Chris is playing.

Chris, aren't you at work?

My goodness.

Playing video games at work.

Can you imagine?

Yeah.

An arcade.

It's very, it's, Really good.

I'm all for them just kind of continuing to use these sort of characters and sprites and abilities.

Like, let's see the match three vampire game now, right?

That would hit really hard.

Oh, give me the cart.

Give me the cart racer.

Let's go.

Let's do it all.

Vampire cart.

Vampire drifters.

This wouldn't work.

This couldn't work.

But what if they did a Metroidvania with these characters?

You're silly.

You're so silly.

I'm sorry, guys.

Vampire searchers.

They should do a Mistlike.

Vampire, it's just pictures.

It's just JPEGs.

You solve a puzzle, garlic explodes and everything.

Great, great, great.

Gang, what a week for video games.

A bunch of stuff is coming out.

Uh, but we're going to go take a quick bricky break and we will be back with the news right after this.

This is Jeff Grubb with the news.

Jeff Grubb.

Yeah, I have news.

Let's do it.

Let's start here with a weird one.

PlayStation Digital DRM scare happened over the weekend and now it seems like it's continuing to happen.

Yeah.

Players and preservation focused accounts reported that newly purchased digital PS4 slash PS5 games may now require a 30 day online license check.

Sony has not publicly clarified whether this is an intentional DRM, a bug or a rollout mistake.

Um VGC says that spawn wave, a YouTuber, tested multiple games as part of the broader verification wave, while push square says evidence is mounting but urges cautious and urges caution, excuse me, until Sony comments.

But Kotaki did kind of continue to follow up on it and said that they talked to people who talked to support and got different answers.

One said that there is a 30-day timer.

And then there was concerns that that support account was just an AI-generated response.

So who knows if that's telling the truth.

Fun.

Cool thing to have happen.

And then...

Another person for the support team said there is no 30 day check.

So the point is, no one still seems to know what's going on here.

Now this 30 day check, as a reminder, is this thing where you buy a digital game you, when you buy it it's, it's all good, it's on your system and then, if you don't like, connect to the internet again well, that's fine.

As long as this is your home playstation 5 or home playstation 4 and you want to play that game and you're logged into your account, shouldn't be a problem, Unless now this is true, in which case if you take it offline and don't check in within 30 days, you're going to lose access to that game.

This is a little bit counter to the way that PlayStation positioned PS4 way back in the day versus the Xbox Series X or the Xbox One X, excuse me and the Xbox One at the time.

Where it's like, hey, we are going to have all these online check features and all this DRM.

And isn't that great?

And PlayStation's like, well, we're not because we're for the gamers.

A little bit of a backstep here, potentially.

Although again, we just don't know if this is some bug or not, but it is.

Again, people say evidence, if it was right, like they could say something, and they've not said anything yet, from for the gamers to fuck the gamers apparently, or players, whatever the hell they want to call them yeah yeah uh, it's just bizarre because again, if this is just some error, you know, fix it or tell us it's an error.

Uh, the fact that they're not is concerning and Like why do this?

How does this move the needle that much for them?

It just is annoying.

It's just a bad look.

It's really obnoxious and stupid.

Yeah, you know, I could see one way it could be a bug if it's the same check that happens on PlayStation Plus instant library games.

You have to have a PlayStation Plus account to keep those things active, to have them actually be in your library and functioning.

So they have that tech there already.

Maybe that got universally applied.

Why that would be the case, who knows?

But yeah, I could see that happening.

Again, they have not said one word one way or the other.

So everyone's sort of just like waiting in limbo to find out how PlayStation is going to address this and whether they're going to fix it.

I could also see not that I'm inventing excuses for them, but I could definitely see them being so fragmented that they

Are like not in sync on what this is as a corporation.

Right.

They might be having like a bunch of Zoom meetings right now trying to figuring, try to figure out what this is and what's happening, and if it meant to happen or not.

Exactly.

Grub theoretically based off of.

If this is true, if I were to like I don't know, cash in a game code and I redeem it, but I don't actually like turn on my PS5 to claim it and download it, I would lose access to that game.

I mean, once you log back in online and reconnect, you would get another another 30 days uh, of of unfettered access.

Um that, that's the point.

Those you'd have to check in.

So if you're in some situation where you can't do that for more than 30 days, you're going to lose your games for that time.

Or if the servers ever go down, anything that is that is functioning this way would stop working.

These are edge case scenarios, but these are the exact things people have been worried about this whole time.

And there was that moment in time where Sony's like no, we hear you and we're not going to do stuff like this.

And now it feels like, oh... do they not care about that anymore because they've won the battle?

They've won the battle versus Xbox.

They've won the battle in digital versus physical.

You know the next plate, the PlayStation six.

Who knows if that thing launches with a disc drive uh, So do they care to continue keeping up the appearances on that stuff anymore?

And it seems like there's a possibility that the answer to that question is no.

At the very least, this seems less important to them because they don't have a like the face of the company rushing out there to make a video like um uh, like adam boys did with shuhei yoshida whoever was in that video where it's like hey look, you could just borrow games.

There was a team, like a response team, ready to go to hit home that they understood the concerns of gamers.

That's not happening in this moment.

So that's, that's the weirdness here.

Uh, like the, Do you think that they could bring this stuff back and people would kind of throw a stink, but they could still get away with it this time?

Or is this a third rail issue like it was during the Xbox One launch?

I unfortunately think they can get away with it this time.

I hate to say it, but...

I think they can, and I think they probably will.

Yeah Grub, when we were talking about this yesterday during Gamus Mornings, I did see someone say well, this is what happens when one company technically wins the race.

Yeah.

Where you're in.

PlayStation and Nintendo is just so far removed in their own lane that Xbox just is not a competitor anymore.

Kind of at this point for them.

Yep exactly.

All right, that Steam controller did launch.

It's $100.

We talked about it, but it's going to go up for ordering for pre-order.

Really, you could just buy it that day.

It'll ship right away.

May 4th is when that begins.

You can add it to your cart now, but you won't be able to check out with it until May 4th is my understanding.

At least I think that's the way it is in most of the world.

It's more expensive in other parts, like it's $150 to Canadian dollars.

It is a lot of money, but I think the early word now is this controller is going to sell very well and people are excited about it.

So if you want to get one, I would probably show up and try to secure one first thing, because it could easily sell out.

We'll have to wait and see.

Mother's Day is later that week, so get your mom a Steam controller.

But they're all crazy.

That's what you should ask her for.

Yeah, absolutely.

What a weird gift.

Oh, Mom, you don't want it?

I guess I'll take it.

Sorry.

I'll take it back.

No worries.

Oh, it's a Homer bowling ball.

I get it.

Yes.

They did a lot of interviews as part of launching the Steam Controller and they talked a little bit about the Steam Deck 2 and the other Steam hardware.

The Steam Deck 2 continues to be in development and they keep saying the thing where they're like hey, we're going to wait until we have a meaningful upgrade over the Steam Deck 2, so there's no new timeline there.

And then the supply for the current Steam Deck...

They're like hey yeah, we're still working to fix that, because it's been in low supply, especially in the United States, where

RAM shortages, memory storage shortages, and then tariffs on top of that have made it kind of a tough business to be in in the moment.

But they said that they're working to address that.

And then, of course, there is the other Steam hardware the Steam machine and the Steam frame.

That is also continuing to be up in the air, although they said there's movement happening on that side of things.

So while they're launching the Steam Controller now, it's probably not like months and months before we hear about the steam machine and steam frame, but it's also probably not going to happen in the next week or so.

So I don't know where.

Where are your guys's temperatures with uh?

In regards to the steam machine and the steam frame,

I know we were all pretty excited early on for the most part.

Has that cooled off as reality is set in on what these things are going to cost?

Oh, for sure.

Yeah.

I definitely need to see more about that.

Want to see what the cost is.

What?

I mean, you know, I'm in a world where I have a very good gaming PC right now anyway.

So like, it's probably like, wow, new, new hardware from valve.

That's exciting.

And then I think to myself, how would i actually justify why i would need this thing?

And i struggle to really think of these personally.

I also think priorities have kind of shifted since like that point in time and and where i am in the universe, since when, like dan and i checked it out, originally because, you know, super hot coming out of it, but then life continues to happen.

I'm still super out on the steam machine just because it's like I love playing PC games on my TV.

Like I was saying earlier, but like just it works when you hook up a laptop to it.

But there's just dumb bullshit where it's like Oh, now there's a windows update.

And now if I shut the laptop lid, I just can't see anything on the TV.

And like There's just a bunch of horse shit, that if it was just a steam OS and it was just playing my steam games and that's what that box under my TV does.

And I use the steam controller.

I think it would just be a much more streamlined operation.

So I'm still very, very excited for the steam machine, but.

I understand.

Well, that's the that's the target audience.

Right.

So people who are just like have no appetite for tinkering.

Right.

And just want to work to work.

I get it.

That's why Apple's a company.

Right.

I get it.

So, yeah, I think that makes sense.

I do think.

It is going to be a very difficult threading of the needle where you're like oh, this thing offered at a premium.

I just think it's going to really have to be a tough sort of overlap.

Who's in the market for something like this?

The cost that it is inevitably going to be and just how sort of sticker shocky that might be.

I don't know.

I'm using my Steam controller to navigate the news right now, guys.

Hell yeah.

Oh, wow.

Wolverine news is still promised for spring.

You might remember that there was questions last year about hey, when are you guys going to talk about it?

And they said spring.

And then there was a PlayStation State of Play not too long ago and there was rumors it could be in there.

And they're like, no, we're going to talk about it in spring, but not here.

And it's like, okay, so like April-ish, maybe May.

And it's like, yeah, that still seems to be the case.

Probably sometime in May, because April's basically already over.

They...

Yeah, they're going to have to start talking about this thing, but they don't have to come out with even a release date yet.

They can maybe give a release month if they wanted to.

If they just came back out with a gameplay trailer for this thing and reminded everybody yeah, this is the big game this year.

I think that would go a long way.

What do you guys think?

For sure.

I mean you're right, they don't have to.

But I mean we're getting to that point where we're almost through half of the year here.

Yeah, true.

If you're showing your games and it's coming out this year and not giving me a release date, I'm going to start getting a little worried about its this year potential.

How much do you think the actual Marvel movies play into trying to nail down a release date for this Wolverine game?

I mean, can't be much.

Yeah.

Let me, yeah, exactly.

Timing things.

And what, I mean, the only Marvel movie this year is going to be the Spider-Man thing, right?

Or something else that I'm forgetting about is doomsday this year.

Yeah.

Oh, geez.

Okay, so there's that, I suppose.

Wolverine is or isn't showing up in that one?

I don't know.

Who knows?

I mean, the rest of the X-Men are supposed to be in there, like from the Fox Cinematic Universe.

Yeah, we gotta get the pop.

Yeah, I mean, if that comes out this year, this game would come out around that time anyway, so that's fine.

All right, let's keep going here.

Illumination's next movie from Nintendo is coming in 2028.

I read this on Gizmodo Universal.

Spain's upcoming slate lists an untitled Illumination slash Nintendo event film for April 12th 2028.

The article argues that this is probably not the next mainline Mario game.

No, I didn't mean to say that.

The main Mario sequel, because the turnaround would be very fast after the Super Mario Galaxy movie.

And because Nintendo slash illumination may be expanded beyond the mushroom kingdom.

So then the question is, what would it be?

It's probably that donkey Kong movie that was always rumored.

We still have not had confirmed, but it could be star Fox could be any number of things.

It's probably donkey Kong though.

I think yeah, go ahead.

Luigi's mansion maybe i think you know that's possible as well.

I think that uh, a hard rated r.

Luigi's mansion, yeah.

Hereditary yeah exactly, yes.

Topless ghosts yeah yeah, yeah.

Um okay mikey, The Poltergust 3000 is really going to suck in this one guys.

I think that we are probably in store for a lot of stuff that's going to stay pretty close to that.

Mario core.

I think, opportunity costs, because if they were going to spend all this time and money to make one of these things, they're probably going to want something that's going to have the shine of the mario movies.

That's the safest thing.

But then we get the reports that, uh Hey Universal, which owns Illumination right, and Sony are fighting over the rights for Metroid.

Nintendo's shopping those around and those two companies, Universal and Sony, are both trying to make Metroid happen in their camps.

So there is appetite to get far afield from Mario.

I just think early on we're probably sticking pretty close.

I think it's probably that Donkey Kong movie.

I don't know.

And both for Universal and Sony.

When it comes to the Metroid movie, they both say that they're interested in doing live action for that.

Oh, both.

Both places.

Yes.

OK.

Yes.

What do you guys make of that?

I mean, part of me wishes we could see what Sony does with the Zelda movie first.

Right.

Agreed.

I'm feeling pretty good about right now for some reason.

The vibes are surprisingly nice on that Zelda movie right now.

What are you basing this on?

Just, I don't know, just the set photos.

Honestly, that art on the clapper that we saw was pretty good.

Art on the clapper?

Yeah, there was some art on the clapper.

It looked like Twilight Princess Link.

And I don't know, I thought maybe I makes it.

But I heard, like you know, they wrapped filming and they're like the work coming out from that is like they were feeling pretty good.

Art on the clapper?

There's one that says umami on it.

Yeah.

That's the code name for the movie.

But I could tell it's Zelda blue harvest.

Yeah.

Yes.

They can't fool you, Dan.

Man, it's got a triforce and link on it.

Yeah.

Um, See, I'd like to see it.

I don't know.

I'd be happy to see a Metroid.

That's kind of in the realm of Bioshock and Metal Gear movies, where we've been hearing about Metroid movies forever.

Yes, Metroid absolutely is.

But because of all the Nintendo stuff happening where somebody said we're making one now, I would take them seriously.

I think I would prefer for it to not go to Sony.

And I know Sony has made a bunch of good bunches maybe too much a couple of good films, but they're also responsible for Craven and Morbius and Right.

Would Arya Rod and Avia Rod be involved in this?

Yeah, maybe.

Are they involved in Zelda?

I think they are, yeah.

Yeah, right.

Yucky.

I mean, it's always a dice roll with these things, honestly.

Yeah.

Honestly, I don't know if it really matters if it goes to Sony or Universal.

Give Metroid to Bowie's kid, the one that made Moon.

Yeah.

In World of Warcraft?

Yeah, he made World of Warcraft.

Was that movie okay?

That movie's okay.

I got to go to the premiere of it at the Chinese theater.

Source Code, one of his other movies, is one of my favorites.

I love Source Code.

Oh my god, I remember that.

No, I'm thinking of Time Code.

That was all at the same time.

What's Source Code?

Source code's the one with Jake Gyllenhaal on the train and he's like a soldier.

That's been like.

They're using his brain to like.

Explore these simulated realities.

Or are they?

Yeah.

We should be invited to more films.

Yes.

It's true.

I don't think DK's got the juice to carry a feature.

I'll say it.

Wait till you see Mike's stream.

That's not what I'm talking about.

Don't forget, we're getting Seth Rogen DK, right?

Yeah.

I think that they already decided.

My position stands.

I think, I just think like, yeah, I don't know.

Certainly they can't expect whatever offshoot to match the success of the main thing.

You've never seen the Crystal Coconut.

That's your problem.

Your tone would be different if you saw The Search for the Crystal Coconut.

At 4 a.m. at Dan's house.

Three times in a row.

Oh, God.

You didn't see the part where they have a flashback to something that hadn't happened yet in the movie.

My brain broke when that happened.

I was so mad.

It was so bad, Dan.

How dare they?

I mean, it's one thing if it hasn't happened.

It's like, okay, that's a flash.

But then when it does happen.

Yeah, it happens later in that movie.

Yeah.

Happens later.

That's real bad.

It's like sepia tone the first time.

It's like, remember when this happened?

No, that's 20 minutes from now.

All right.

We'll stick with Nintendo.

You know, that Star Fox game that keeps getting rumored.

One of the people responsible for the rumors, Nate the hate, says that it is supposed to come out in June.

And if it doesn't get announced in April, then there is some change to the marketing plan at least.

Well, it's April 28th.

So the clock is ticking, but April's not over yet.

I'm so stupid.

I feel like it's been like two or three Star Fox games now where I've played it, and then I've been like what are you nodding at, Bacalar?

What are you looking at?

Are you looking at a fun blue sky poster you're agreeing with?

I mean, look, this is a reactionary podcast here.

I saw Jan.

I took Jan's lead.

Jan started smiling.

No, because I looked at you first.

All right, you two can't keep blaming each other.

Uh, what a day.

Virginia jeffy, the last couple starbucks games i beat it and then i'm like well, i'm done getting excited about this fucking series that only has two.

Good, now mike's going.

Look at him, he's just laughing.

We can't stop Mike, we know this.

Uh-oh, Mike's... His shoulders are shaking like heartily.

Oh, he's got the giggles.

He's rubbing his eyes like a cartoon character.

So you play them and then you think they're not that good, but you get excited for the next one.

You're getting excited about fucking starfox.

And now i see this.

I'm like fuck yeah, starfox in a couple months.

Yeah, come on, it'll be good.

This time He's fucking Star Fox.

He's fucking Star Fox.

He already beat it.

I'm so excited that he beat it fucking Star Fox.

Wow.

Holy moly.

He's shoving up your ass.

Mike.

All right, we'll keep going here.

Resident Evil Requiem minigame DLC may be imminent.

Basically, people think Mercenaries is coming, and the producer...

Asado Kumazawa basically said hey, you should finish the game so you can be ready for some stuff that's happening here pretty soon.

I think they also confirmed that there will be story DLC separate from an imminent Mercenaries update.

You know, after seeing you guys on the D-Lite Club play that Swamp um robot arm dlc for yeah yeah seven i, i didn't know that existed.

I need more zany dlc.

Yeah, we're gonna be outside the strange way.

I think that one was actually canon, but like make stuff that's not canon and just make it weird as hell with these, like good engines, you know yeah yeah, I think I saw that Capcom raised their financial forecast because Requiem has been selling so well.

And now Pragmata.

Back games and now Pragmata.

Is Pragmata selling well?

Yeah, it did a million in two days.

Hell yeah.

Nice send it.

So they are doing well.

Yeah.

They always do DLC for, like, the new games specifically.

So 7, 8 had DLC.

So yeah, something's going to happen with 9.

And I'm curious if it's going to be an excuse for them to bring back a character.

And then, yeah, some kind of Mercenaries mode.

That'll be fun, especially with 9, because the combat...

Did feel so good having an excuse to run around again.

I kind of hope you have mercenary modes, focus on the kind of Leon stuff, and then the DLC kind of feels more like the Grace stuff again actually.

That'd be pretty good.

All right.

Last handful of stories here.

The last of us online director says he will never let one of his projects disappear again.

If you're wondering how developers feel when they spend years of their lives working on something, only for it to get scrapped and put away and never to see the light of day.

Vinit Agarwal basically makes it sound like a nightmare, and he vows to never let that happen again.

I gotta imagine, it's a little traumatizing, right?

Years of your life down the drain, effectively.

Yeah, I mean, any traumatic experience, right?

Like, it's just gonna stick with you, but also this word. five years of your life is gone.

And, like, how do you put that on a resume, right?

And you have to think you're working on such a sure thing like oh yeah, the multiplayer for Last of Us, this giant thing and Sony's pivoting to live service games.

Like, how could this be more of a slam dunk?

I'm still a little shocked that they were just straight up like, just cancel it, right?

Like, how?

How do you go from this is the idea to funding it for multiple years to be like, let's just not.

This industry is wild, man.

Because, also The Last of Us despite us feeling some fatigue with the series, I feel like it still hits with the general gaming audience.

I mean, if they just made it a mode in that game with some DLC cosmetics or something, it would have been fine.

People would have been very excited about it.

They'd still be playing it today.

But because it couldn't exist as some massive standalone games as a service, without a ton of support from the studio.

They're like, this just won't make any sense.

And it's like, oh, well, just don't make games that way.

There are other ways to do it.

We've seen it ourselves in the past. bomb go off at your house?

Why was it so bright there for a second?

I don't know.

My camera got a little excited.

Sorry.

Backlar looked into a mirror and then flash banged himself.

Wow.

You can't say that.

I'm sorry, guys.

I'll go to your white friends.

There's finally someone says it.

Thank you, Mike.

I mean, please, Mike.

The proper word is clear.

Translucent co-owners.

It's an open challenge to every camera manufacturer.

Find the technology to keep up with my paleness because you can't.

No one's been able to do it.

We're getting the emote of Ben Star from the Game Awards.

Yeah, that's what it looked like.

That looks like me tan, okay?

See you out there a weekend at the beach.

Exactly.

Sega released a teaser for Alien Isolation 2.

Not like a ton in there.

There was just like some references to the first game and like how you saved in there.

But yeah, that thing's still happening.

People are pretty excited about it.

We probably see this game in some real way before the end of this year, maybe even at Summer Game Fest, right?

Summer Game Fest is where I would guess.

I would summer game guess, oh shit, uh.

And then fair games struggles, to quote, find the fun.

In latest pre-op play tests i know dan are the number one torch carrier for fair games.

They lost the fun when they got rid of that dollar sign in the ass.

I was gonna say maybe they just need to add this dollar sign back and it'll be fun.

Every letter Yes.

This is a recent play.

Oh, no.

The eye looks like an L now.

Yeah hey, Fair Games just had a recent test, so they're still making this and trying to find the fun.

Do you guys think this game ever comes out?

I mean, the fact that they actually did a test is surprising, right?

So at this point, maybe they're going to just, like, fuck around, see what happens.

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean, it seems that way.

This is Haven Studios.

It was founded by Jade Raymond.

She's left.

The studio seems to have gone through a lot, except for a game cancellation, because they're keeping this one around.

So while other stuff has been getting canceled, this one's surviving.

I...

I don't get it, because... Whoa, Mike.

It just looks like scribbles, mostly, when I put the dollar sign on every letter.

That's pretty cool.

You look like you're a Wiccan, or really into pagan stuff, the way you wrote it like that.

No one mourns the Wiccan!

His brain is just firing today.

We can't do anything about it.

I was going to say the fair games trailer.

Cause I booted it up after we talked about it.

Grub.

Um, yeah, they're just doing the finals and the finals is fun.

So I don't know what their problem is.

Right.

More AI this time.

Not enough AI.

That's the problem.

That's why it's not fun.

Yeah.

I mean, and they're trying to make like a payday.

Like I think the concerning thing there is like even the payday people couldn't figure out what made payday fun, because they put out payday three and no one wanted that.

Like, we're all going back to payday.

Right.

It's no Crime Boss Rock A City, though.

I think that's right.

Exactly.

Where's Michael Madsen?

This is one of the games you say the name of it, and I think it's funny.

Yes, it's absurd.

Isn't Kim Basinger in that game?

Right, that's what i remember.

I remember kim basinger like, for some reason, like having rendered, like a fully rendered chest, and so when they bugged out you could see her entire breath.

It's like why is that?

Even in the game like, why did you do that?

Who made her breast?

Weird game.

I could never get it to happen.

I am so sorry.

I got a clip for you if you need it, bud.

That does it for the news.

I'm ending this.

I'm starting to feel way more sick.

That was news?

That whole thing was news just now?

Okay.

That was just news.

Jeff, come on.

Rebound, buddy.

You got to play Minds Eye later.

You're going to forget how to make grilled cheese if you get sicker.

Be careful.

Alright folks, we're going to take a quick break.

We'll see if Grubb has to ski-daddle after this and we'll get to emails, we'll get to Super Chats.

I don't think we're going to guess anything, because Grubb might just go away in the Honda Odyssey of our lives.

We'll see you.

Oh yeah, Grubb guessed her.

I shouldn't do that.

These are the emails for the show emails.

Bombcastgiantbombcom is the email address to send your emails to.

You can write in about any and everything.

You got fun quizzes, you got questions, you need recommendations, you have nice things to say, or just I don't know.

You're trying to avoid an awkward social interaction and want to pretend to type a texty text or an email to someone.

Send it to us.

Bombcast at giantbombcom.

First email comes from Tyler from Australia.

Hey bombers, over the last few weeks i've been having this reoccurring video game dream and i wanted to get your opinion, both as experts in video games and pointing out odd quirks and people.

So please help me out.

Starts out as a typical high school dream slash nightmare, where i'm sitting in class when the teacher tells me we are going to have a surprise exam.

Naturally i start to panic.

However, instead of giving me exam papers, they instead hand me a Wii U game pad running Ninja Gaiden for the original Xbox.

It gives me two hours to beat the game.

I've never really played Ninja Gaiden before, so naturally I fumble and make a little progress.

However, right before the exam runs out of time is when I normally wake up.

I've had a variation of this dream at least three times in the last month.

So what's going on?

Is there any deeper meaning to what is happening?

Or is my subconscious just telling me to get good?

Thanks, Tyler from Australia.

Why does everyone have that dream?

That is such a weirdly specific one.

What, the playing a video game under the clock?

Specifically, like, being back in school, and then being like, you didn't graduate.

Turns out, high school must have been really stressful for us in ways that I think we've like actually blocked out.

So our brain just keeps bringing it back.

Yeah because, like it's yes to this, i'm like i'm gonna be 40 soon and a third of my dreams are still taking place in high school.

Like, gosh brain, get over it.

Yeah, it's like a school or school related, and it's It's some variation of oh, it's the last day of school and it turns out I forgot about a class and never went to it, and what's going to happen to me?

It's constantly stuff like that.

Or I'm naked, or my teeth are falling out.

All these generic ones that we all share.

Why do we all have our teeth falling out?

Weirdly, I don't have the tooth one.

I heard in reading about dreams and stuff like that, I heard the tooth thing is a vanity thing.

Or it's a fear of losing looks and vanity and stuff like that.

Oh, I've never had... I'm not vain.

I've never had the tooth one either.

I've definitely had the school one like crazy.

And the naked one.

Yeah.

I mean, you know, I don't know.

I think a lot of dream analysis is a bit of snake oil, mysticism kind of crap.

I think...

I just think it's like – but you know, I think on paper the high school thing makes sense.

Certainly a traumatic part in adolescence.

And you know for my money the time in your life where you're exposed to like the most horrific, terrible people and the worst versions of people.

So I think I get it.

What I'm not getting, emailer, is the whole, like – finish this video game or you'll fail the class.

Like I want your problems.

I want, I want to have that kind of stuff going on where like, I just feel like the stakes are just so low.

I mean... But you're not beating Ninja Gaiden in two hours.

Of course not.

I just think it's like a wild.

I don't know, maybe it's some sort of other reinterpretation of an issue you're having.

But that's, yeah, the high school thing I hear all the time.

I don't think I've ever had that.

You know what I get a lot?

I don't have the high school one either.

Let's just turn this around on me.

I get a situation where I'm like, It's kind of cool.

And it's not a nightmare.

It's just like a weird thing that I dream a lot.

And Stacey just had this dream last night also.

I dream that I'm discovering like a totally unknown part of my basement.

Oh, that's fine.

Back rooms adjacent style?

Back rooms.

It's total back rooms type of shit.

And it's awesome.

And there's no serial killer in there or anything?

Well, look, we know about the murder room in my basement that we don't really talk about.

That's not the new room.

Okay, I got it.

That's documented.

It's part of the floor plan.

Uh i it's like you discover a door and it's like there's a whole other fucking wing here and you're like what?

How do we not know about this?

It's awesome.

I love that, is it?

It's some back rooms bullshit, i don't know.

Is it generally furnished jeff, or is it just like empty Furnished and uninhabited for a long period of time?

So is it dusty?

Cobwebby, yeah.

It's basically like a Resident Evil castle is just sort of like in my basement somehow.

Oh, you're a spooky boy.

Yeah, it's like adjacent to an impossible room kind of thing.

Yeah, love it.

Have those dreams instead.

My weird recurring one, the theme is always I have either won or found a ton of money.

Like I've just like suddenly here's a shit ton of money, but I know I'm dreaming.

And so I have enough logic in my dream where I'm lucid.

I'm like, look, I know I'm dreaming.

I know this isn't real right now, but I need to figure out how to wire this to the real world.

And so I would be on an app on my phone and be like, I need to go to my bank app.

And if I just wire it, it's confirmed.

It's good.

It's real.

And then I wake up and I'm like that's not happening, how it works.

I've had many dreams like that, where i know i'm dreaming and i'm like, but it's okay, i'll figure this out, i know how to do this.

I got the confirmation on the app right here, like Right right, right.

That's very good.

I have a lot of I'm driving really poorly dreams.

A lot of times it's like, oh, no, I'm driving from the back row.

This is how it's supposed to be.

I'm driving in the back seat.

I'm like the whole time.

I'm like, this is really dangerous.

Yeah.

I'm feeling like this is not safe at all.

Like swerving.

And I'm like, yes, I can't slow down.

It's going, it's going so fast.

There's a hill coming up.

I'm going to go off the edge and I can't, I can't stop it.

That one I attribute to like, humans shouldn't be driving it's stress but also like our brains actually don't know how to comprehend this weird social construct we've created of driving cars and now at night it's like what was that about that was scary why'd you do that that's cool well not cool but interesting i don't have i don't have the naked dream out of the school i don't i don't think i've ever had an exam that took place in high school because it's just like you're just somewhere and you're like why don't i have pants on like i know i'm not wearing shoes i'm not having this is like can i borrow a towel like why didn't i plan for this this shouldn't be right it's like it's not even so much like it's a little bit like i'm embarrassed i'm naked it's mostly i'm gonna be in trouble i can't just yeah it's like deviant behavior i can't just be okay yeah yeah like uh got good for me all right well tyler is still what your dream means who knows bud um we just talked about our own let's go play ninja gaiden and you'll be fine yeah yeah go practice in real life and then that'll equate uh in in your dream life ryan writes in hi everyone ryan from pleasanton here i'm curious to know your preferences regarding resident evil campaigns you prefer campaigns with dual protagonists such as re1 and 3 or do you prefer campaigns with a single protagonist like 4 7 and 8 while having multiple protagonists can add more story in case in some cases it can also be a hassle to play a campaign multiple times just to complete everything i'd love to hear your thoughts on this thanks ryan I mean, they can make it work anyway.

There's been good ones with two.

There's been good ones with one.

I do think OG, Resident Evil 2 and the remake to a lesser extent, where you pick between one or two characters and then when you beat the one campaign you do the second campaign.

It's a little bit different.

So you have that A, B route, depending on which character.

You could just play the game with the A route and say you beat it, but then you play the game with the B route and it really feels like you finished that thing.

But then, if you wanted a little even more, you could start the A brat with the other character this time, then do the B brat with the other character.

So I think that's the best they've done it.

I think I like that even more than Requiem, where there's two characters.

You just kind of switch between them when the story tells you to.

Although that was fine.

I'm glad that they did that.

But I would like it best if we went back to pick Claire or Leon kind of thing from the beginning and then play through the other characters, see their perspective.

Sure yeah, i don't remember what i played.

Two, i only played through two remake once and i've never done the, the ab thing.

I think it's a cool idea.

I'd like to go back and do that um, but i think i lean towards like single, like four seven, eight.

I think i prefer those two especially because, like in resident evil one, it doesn't really matter like the campaign doesn't change if you played with the other one.

But two is the one where you should play through with both of them to kind of really see everything.

Like Requiem is so good with two, but like I did keep thinking that like man I would love just the whole grace game like this, you know.

Yeah.

Nothing but grace.

And then just like the horizontal skyscraper.

Yeah, man, that is the best Leon part.

I just shoot the glass.

Yes, that should.

That's let that be the DLC minigame stuff.

Yeah.

For that, you know.

All right.

Moving on along.

Devin writes in.

Hey there.

First time.

Long time.

I started listening to you guys back in 2020, and don't ask me who the members were at that time.

I was at my coffee roasting job in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Oh, hey, send some beans.

When I came across this delightful pod while sipping on some Ethiopia Gucci.

Oh, shit.

Fast forward to Minati's first appearance.

I could not stand the guy.

Yeah uh, you speak for us all, don't worry uh, fast forward to today.

He might be my favorite person on the podcast.

Yeah, same parentheses sorry, dan.

Mike's arc will forever be my favorite plot line in media.

I just thought I would let you guys know.

A bit extreme.

Not like Darth Vader.

No, it's like some mythical beast. right he's yeah he's magic and he could do anything i came in this first time i was really obnoxious with my uh wallet condoms and everything it was a bad first look i get it uh that wasn't the first look mikey um my original reason for emailing you was to recommend an album that came out a month ago cave story a lyrical walkthrough on youtube i'm not sure you guys have seen it but it's fantastic Keep doing God's work, whoever that may be.

Devin.

Shouts out to you.

Thanks.

Game story, a lyrical walkthrough.

Cave story.

Oh, like that game.

The game.

Yeah, someone did a wrap.

They wrapped the entire walkthrough.

It's incredible.

What the heck?

Okay, neat.

But yo, Devin, send some beans over, dog, or give me some Rex.

I would love to get some coffee beans.

Am I an acquired taste?

Polly in middle Georgia writes in.

Hey, gang, I recently finished your scam line stream and had a couple of questions.

Jan said Grub has weaponized his ADHD.

Can you teach me these secrets?

As a fellow enjoyer.

All I've ever gotten out of mine is disappointment and mystery bruises, although I'm trying to figure out how to unlock the ADHD superpowers we're supposed to have.

Any advice?

And one thing I did notice is how uncomfortable everyone was getting to have to deceive your friends.

Having grown up with a manipulative parent, I avoid these types of games because I dislike the kind of behavior it brings out in me.

Do any of y'all have cool reasons why you avoid entire games?

Thanks.

I love you.

Polly in Middle Georgia.

I mean, I used to be afraid.

I used to be a coward the adhd thing real quick.

Uh no, i have no way.

Like you just have to like uh, ride the red line.

You have to just go and go and go, and then occasionally some good things will happen.

And then you look behind you and there's a wake of destruction and that's bad.

So no, no advice i.

I think of uh this is parentheses positive grub, don't worry.

I think of grub as like uh um, a 18 wheeler heading downhill, but not in a destructive manner, but like i'm gonna fucking make it to this destination.

Yes, that momentum is real, it's like yes, and if it stops, it takes a lot to get me going again.

Yes, exactly because Once Grubbs started going in scam lines, he was one of the scarier people to deal with.

And that's why Will had to take him down all on his own accord.

Uh-huh.

That's why Will had to come up with the idea on his own.

Uh-huh.

Sure.

That mustache contains multitudes.

I just can't believe my friends lied to me.

Also, all these people, all these strangers online say I'm an acquired taste.

Look, I think there's some truth to that.

I mean...

When I met you.

You know I usually take a lot of pride in sizing up someone the first time I meet them.

I think first impressions and to some degree like a second impression, really kind of tell the whole story for me.

I kind of don't need to see anything else after that um, and i think i think you're, you're an acquired taste, but it's like almost it's very close to instantaneous.

Yeah right like, because i think, if you, because i had watched you for a while and i'm like who's this fucking guy?

Right, and then When I got to meet you it was very, very quick.

So it's like one of those really exotic foods that you're meaning to try for so long.

Everyone loves it.

And you're just like, I just got to try it once and I know I'll like it.

And that's what happened.

It's much better than the alternative, where it's like the more you learn or the more you get to know someone, the more you don't like them.

Where it's like, Mike, I have the same thing.

When I first heard of you, I think a lot of times it...

People lead with the like, he's like a big Disney adult thing.

And so my first impression of you was like, oh, this guy's no good.

That's a bad apple.

Yeah.

And then I got to know him very quickly.

I was like, OK, I love this guy.

I don't think I knew the Disney thing before.

Which is fine.

So three seconds later?

My calendar right now is just my annual pass order calendar for Disney World.

It has been this Minnie Mouse one.

Even I almost feel a little ridiculous with this Minnie Mouse picture constantly hovering above me at everything I do this month.

I don't even notice it anymore.

It just blurs in.

Now that you pointed it out.

Well, it's going to go away soon because of May.

It's gotta be May.

This guy's no good.

Boomerang came back around finally.

You were ahead of the game there, dude.

The boomerang went and bopped me in the back of the head just then.

Where's my wallet?

Where are the condoms?

You have to start over.

Wear the condoms.

Yeah, you people love this.

Right, the condoms.

Like uh, was last week's podcast bad that we we used their token because i think we need it now.

I think we used it.

Yeah oh shoot, do we?

Do you like offer a stamp card or something?

Yeah, we'll get a rain check, All right.

Travis in Fargo writes in with five questions every week.

I choose one of them.

This week, Travis asks, how are your New Year's resolutions going?

I hope well.

What the fuck is that?

Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo.

Get the fuck out of here.

Folks at home, here it is.

Here's the Janet Cho inspiration that y'all have been asking for.

Here's the J-O-I.

Did you make a resolution to smoke more what?

No, no, no, no, no.

Here's the J-O-I, all right?

It's only April.

There's 12 months of the year.

There's plenty of leeway, baby.

Get back on the horse.

Anyway.

What?

That's your inspiration?

Because don't get discouraged.

Don't get discouraged that you may have dropped the ball.

It's only April, y'all.

Like Mikey said, it's going to be May.

It's going to be May.

The inspiration is that you don't need the changing of a year to do something meaningful, right?

It's very true, but it can be like a nice incentive.

I get it.

Mine was like, okay, I'm going to get back in running shape and do the marathon and stuff.

I'm down 22 pounds.

The other one is to be on a game show this year.

We got plenty of time this year.

So, yeah, I like it.

And hey.

Who the fuck is making the calendar?

If we're going off of Chinese New Year, the year just started.

Exactly.

Good point.

There we go.

All right.

I don't have this user's name written down, but they email every other day.

They treat us as their Twitter or their ex, and they wrote in an actual question this time.

Hi, I want to hear about the Jan Dan shoe rotation.

What do you guys go with for your easy runs?

Anything in particular for tempo?

What's for the race day?

I'm a big Hoka guy because I got.

Big fat feet and I've had a lot of trouble with with feet and plantar fasciitis and stuff like that.

And I found hokas to be a shout out Alex Boniello who turned me on to these, but I just have a rotation of hokas.

I've got the gaviotas for long runs.

I just got the mock was a mock five or whatever.

They're on now or whatever, for like my short lighter runs.

And then the uh, the bonding nines I've got as just kind of a everyday.

You know uh any purpose run.

So I'm a, I'm a, I'm a big hoe as well.

Um, big, big on that brand.

Uh, But the only thing is that some of the other brands, Dan, they just look so cool and like gaudy.

But my feet are also too wide.

They just don't fit.

It's a fun part about like running stuff though, because like running shorts, running shoes, everything is just like neon crazy.

Just get weird with it.

Like I like that because it's like well, you're just wearing this when you're running around outside.

Helps to be very visible and everything.

So, yeah, just get wacky with it.

Yeah.

Also, damn running tights.

Wow.

Great.

I love keeping everything in place.

Hold it all.

Hold it all down.

Staple it down.

Absolutely.

Exactly.

Just tuck it in.

Um, all right uh, let's see.

Uh, one more email and then we'll get to super chats or or grub guesser grub, if you have an ad prepared.

I got it all right fine great uh, chris writes in hey duders, How fucking sick would it be if Housemarque made an Edge of Tomorrow game with short little Tom Cruise running around killing all the sick freaks in that movie?

You mean live-die-repeat?

No, you play as Emily Blunt in that.

That'd be great.

And what would be your other not super obvious game studio movie pairings?

I just want Emily Blunt's character in that game.

We don't need Tom Cruise.

Just Emily Blunt.

All-timer character.

Respectfully.

Yes.

That push-up thing.

Oh, yeah.

That's amazing.

Cinema.

Yep.

Anyway, any other pairings y'all can think of.

I mean, i don't know, maybe it is obvious, but like i think i think naughty dog should forget about all these like sad spacer apocalypse people and just make a national treasure movie.

That i could.

I could find out what's on page 47.

I'm a game.

They can make a movie too.

Yes, but like, i mean literally, i don't mean like, like similar.

I want them to get nick cage And I want there to be a lot of weird American history involved.

I want him to steal the degrees of independence.

Then he kidnapped the president.

What's the escalation going to be?

Is he going to bomb the Lincoln Memorial or something like that?

Yeah, he's going to have sex with the Lincoln Memorial.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And he's not going to kill anyone, really. right but he'll punch him though a lot they'll punch him and knock them out yeah yeah it's gonna be yeah it won't be as shooty a game for sure which you know it could be a little bit light it won't have the ludonarrative dissonance that a charted has because he's like a plucky kind of like narrative dissonance exactly finally right out of everyone in the world yeah yeah yeah maybe somehow less racist than those games too even right even though it's all about american history get the sifu team to make a raid game oh yeah yeah that'd be good yeah that'd be oh fantastic yeah i want the i want the tomodachi life team to retell the story of the godfather trilogy punch out creed sure oh sure sure sure yeah man seeing the clips what people are doing is so fucking funny It rules.

It's such a funny game.

Yes.

Grub, you need to send me that doc so I can just constantly capture, because I learned the hard way that the Switch 2 has a 30 second capture limit and that's stupid.

All right.

That does it for emails.

Bombcastgiantbomb.com is the email address.

Send your emails, too.

Thank you, everyone, for writing in.

I say this every week, but for the past couple months, we've been getting flooded with emails.

And if your email doesn't make it onto the show, apologies.

But please continue to write in.

Jeff Grubb, guess what?

What?

It's time to guess an ad.

It's GrubGuessr time.

Close the chats.

It's time for GrubGuessr.

Jan, I've put a couple of these images into And they're safe for you to look at, but they're in the stream elements if you want to show them to everybody at home.

Let's start... I think they're both going to be relatively easy.

Let's start with the one I think might be yes, i think this one.

I think you guys will recognize this one for the most part.

Uh, we'll see if you remember what it's advertising.

So i'm putting it in our chat here right now, real quick for audio listeners.

Let's go ahead and break it down.

It is a stylized drawing illustration of a child's face and he's got big grinning teeth and he's looking at the camera and he's got a shitty grin and he's looking right at it.

That is all I'm showing them here, but what is this an advertisement for?

Matt, you have to know, is this a hardware ad?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I would say it's a hardware ad.

Is this the Wyrmlight?

It is not the Wyrmlight.

It's Game Boy adjacent though, right?

It is not Game Boy.

Is it the Game Gear TV tuner?

Sega Game Gear or something.

This is a little bit weirder.

It's for a peripheral.

Is it a first party peripheral?

I don't think so, no.

Is it the Game Boy magnifier screen?

It is not the Game Boy magnifier.

Is it made by Mad Catz?

No, I can't tell you who it's made by because it really narrows it down.

Is it the Game Gear TV tuner?

It is not the Game Boy TV tuner.

I'm sorry, which one did you say?

Game Gear TV tuner.

It is not the Game Gear TV tuner.

It's not.

Was this the X-Play?

Or X-Band?

It is not X-Band.

Although, like...

You guys are like in a territory with peripheral.

It's a little bit like... Sega Nomad.

You're a little bit off.

It is not the Sega Nomad, but you're kind of getting back.

You're getting a little bit closer again.

It's not.

It predates a Game Shark.

Oh, Game Genie?

Yes.

It is not the Game Genie.

Is it the 32X?

I was going to...

It is not the 32X.

Is it portable?

No.

Okay.

I'll give you guys a clue.

So you see the image that I've shared with you guys.

Yeah.

You'll notice that there's like an angle across the side of his face where I had to kind of like chop it off so you couldn't see the thing that he's holding.

Yeah.

Is it a controller?

It is a type of controller.

Okay.

It's too early for the air conditioner controllers.

Tell me about the controller.

That is what we're trying to do.

Is it a six button?

I'm sorry, Dan, what was your guess?

Is it the six button Sega controller?

It is not the six button Sega controller.

It's not just the power glove, is it?

It is not the power glove.

That's a great guess, Mike.

I think we're getting closer.

Yeah.

What is this fucker holding?

Yeah, because like... Guys, let's try and like... Let's take our time.

Wait, is it one of the guns?

It is not one of the guns.

Is it the Nintendo ASC2 controller?

It is not that thing, no.

Look how he cropped it.

It's this diagonal line.

So he's holding it like this, right?

Like against him.

Yeah, diagonal was the way you held things cool back then.

Yeah.

Um...

It's like a wand.

It works on both the Super Genesis and Super Nintendo.

Super Genesis, hell yeah.

Super Genesis?

I'm sick, I'm falling apart over here.

It's not a different version?

It's like you could buy and you can use it on either?

No, there is one for each, you're right.

Okay, okay.

Different plug, yeah.

It just has such strong Wyrmlight vibes, I can't shake it.

It does.

It's not wireless, right?

It was wired?

It is not wired.

I think I can see a wire.

It's dumb that it's wired.

Yeah, it'd be really annoying.

It's not the activator.

It's a peripheral, right?

It's a peripheral.

It's some kind of like.

It's not that the Olympics pad thing?

The power pad that's in the US.

It is not the Olympics power pad.

He is holding something in his hands, and that is the thing you guys got to tell me.

What is he holding?

What did they?

There's no guitar controllers at this point.

It's not music related.

It's not a guitar, and it's not music related.

I'm trying to think of what games.

It's not gun, man.

The fact that it's not a gun.

Wasn't there a cage stick?

It wasn't like a turbo controller.

It's something wacky.

It's something really weird in 90s.

Like very specialized.

Is it like one of those trackball ones?

It is not one of the trackball ones.

It is a little bit more active than that.

It's not that interactive.

It's not the octagon you stand in and can punch.

The U-Force or whatever.

Oh, that thing.

No, the Enforce.

There was the Activator and then there was the Ebert one.

Yes, right.

It is not that.

But you know it's a motion controller motion, not a gun motion motion bat.

It is a baseball bat.

It's the baseball bat, of course.

Of course.

It's the baseball bat, what that is.

There's no batter up.

It's a hit from sports sciences.

So look at this fucking asshole kid.

Look at this asshole holding that baseball bat.

Perfect, i have zero recollection of this.

I remember this thing.

I think i, i swear to god, i used one of these at some point or another, like a friend's house or something.

This looks like.

Well, this looks like it's a device that children should not use.

With batter up your biceps, control the bat?

No, they don't.

All right.

What's weird about this is, like, the kid's face was so familiar to me.

Yeah, same.

But the bat is not.

They used this fish eye lens, kid's face, and a million of these ads.

Yeah, this illustrated kid's face up close, fish eye lens.

You're right.

That's what it is.

They stylized, like, the enamel in his teeth in a weird way.

Yeah, for sure.

It looks weird as hell.

All right.

I have one more for you.

It's in there now.

For audio listeners, this is another grub guesser.

It's time to hit the road again and again and again and again.

And there's tire tread in the background.

What game is it?

This strikes me as PS1 car game.

I'm going to go Destruction Derby, a Twisted Metal, a Carmageddon.

I'm thinking this is like 97, 98.

Am I in the right ballpark?

It is not Twisted Metal, Carmageddon, or whatever else you said.

Interstate.

Jeff.

Felony 1179.

It is not Interstate, whatever.

Is this a road rash game, Jeff?

It is a Road Rash game.

Is it Road Rash 3?

It is Road Rash 3 for the Sega Genesis.

Good job, Mikey.

Excellent job, sir.

He's going so fast.

I think I have the full one here.

Hang on, let me share it with you guys.

How did you get that?

I just, honestly, if I see video game magazine, I see a tire, I'm thinking Road Rash first.

The nastiest no-holds-barred motorcycle combat game returns to Genesis.

You nasty.

I've been thinking about Road Rash.

When I had the 3DO emulator going for Virtuoso, I tried Road Rash on that system and that's still a good game actually.

Road Rash is great.

Well, thanks for playing GrubGuessr, guys.

Good job.

I'm very proud of you boys.

Fantastic.

Good job, team.

Mike Minotti, please hit me with some YouTube Super Chats if we have any.

We do, we do.

We got one here from BigFresh37.

It says, did any of you manage to sneak in and buy the boredom before Steam pulled it?

To buy boredom.

Is this a game?

Don't worry about it.

The reviews on there are very good, though.

What was this?

I'll tell you later.

The guy that new Roto run through Washington, D.C. this past weekend.

Yeah, that's his game.

Yeah.

Oh, OK.

Oh, big frustration.

Also, I'd buy the steam controller if the sticks were offset.

I can't play weirdo style.

Why doesn't a company like Steam sell to models?

Don't worry about that.

So, yeah.

I know what you mean, but if you're thinking it's going to feel like a DualShock controller, it doesn't, because the sticks are just way up higher on the face.

It feels like they're in the right position.

So, if you need them offset so that your thumb's in a different position, okay, yeah.

But if you just need it to be sort of in that area where your thumb naturally falls to me, this is exactly where I want them, and I'm someone who prefers offset sticks for Xbox compared to PlayStation.

There you go.

Then MigZ says, pour one out for spiders.

Sad face emoji.

What happened to spiders?

What did we miss?

Spiders just capitalize.

Is there a proper spiders?

What happened to the spiders?

I don't know.

Oh, the company?

Oh, the company.

What?

There's a company called... Oh, the publisher of Greedfall.

The development studio for Greedfall.

Oh, right.

Got it.

We thought you meant the bug.

I know they're not bugs.

Mixie says, when my Xbox One controller dies, we'll get the Steam controller.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll.

If you get a Steam controller, that'll be an investment that'll mostly pay off.

He says, Jeff Backlar is the expert.

Should we watch Boiler Room?

Oh, okay, because I was on that Nexlander Boiler Room podcast, maybe?

Seems to me like you're the expert, Jeff.

Boiler Room is a great film.

Hold up.

I think it kind of does.

I think it's very much a time capsule of early, early 2000s.

I think it's a fairly decent, not New York City movie but surrounding general suburban borough area movie.

I, yeah, I think it's well done.

It's got a killer soundtrack for the time.

And I think as far as, like you know, a lot of those actors and actresses kind of coming up it's, It's a decent watch.

I enjoyed the most recent watch I did of it.

There's a couple things that are sort of over the top, but I think it works for the most part.

I won't watch it unless it stars a Scientologist.

Does it star a Scientologist?

It does.

Giovanni Ribisi.

All right, I'm in.

It's just, you know, Giovanni Ribisi and his very classic sad bastard face that he cannot remove or erase from his body.

I think it's watchable.

Yeah, I would check that out.

I think it's a good watch.

It's quick, too.

Zacy, Zacy, Zacy says, so glad the Steam controller is magneto-resistant.

Have you seen that guy?

They scary.

Scary.

But, you know, he's also right.

Yeah.

He tore out Wolverine's bones once and traumatized me.

I don't like that guy.

No, I'm all about Magneto.

Oh, that's okay, though.

He's Ian McKellen.

He's doing the work that fucking bitch-ass Charles Xavier doesn't want to do.

That's true.

Whoa.

Jayman says, how much do I have to give you all to stream that new Mind's Eye campaign?

This is the one where he supposedly names the saboteurs.

We're all gonna feel like fools for doubting them.

Yeah, we'll try to figure it out.

Jeff, who's the most?

Uh, you would do, you know, you would think would play this sick right now.

So we're not gonna force him to.

I think dan's afraid of stealth and i don't have the game, or i don't know if anyone else does.

So we gotta.

We'll try to figure something out here.

You know, Ilanino says, hoping you can help boost signal for an issue the new Xbox Series X owners are having.

Can't play 360 games.

Profile won't download.

Use Reddit thread link.

Incoming.

Jeff, maybe something you can look into?

Yeah, I've heard this going around like the backward compatibility broke and I thought they were looking into it.

Did they not say publicly if they were looking into it or not?

They got to fix that.

That's like one of the features you get an Xbox for.

Mixie says, Jeff Grubb, does Valve sell replacement thumbsticks?

Uh, I don't, I, I, I don't know.

I would imagine that they, cause they said they work with, I fix it on repairing stuff.

So I'm sure those parts are out there and you could buy them one way or the other.

Zombie porn says who has the best hat collection at giant bomb.

Well, it's definitely not me.

It's gotta be back.

It's back.

I mean, give this guy's money back.

No sorry, those two dollars are staying with me.

Uh bigsies, back says steam controller plus star wars combo for may fork.

You guys believe that's monday is may may the 4th?

Uh Yeah, I was going to stream.

We're kind of a busy Monday, but I was going to find some time.

I'm going to stream some Rogue.

What's the Rebel Alliance or the?

What's the one for PC?

The old one.

Oh, the one with the FMVs?

Rebel Assault.

Yes, Rebel Assault on iTunes.

Oh...

On my personal stream, we were just talking like, is there any blight-worthy Star Wars games?

And I was like, I don't really think so.

There's like some mediocre ones.

Some hard ones.

Someone tried to say Rebel Salt and I yelled at them.

Yes, Rebel Salt rules.

I was like, how dare you?

I'd love to watch you play some Rebel.

Assault.

Then we could put Rebel Assault 2 in and watch the Mystery Science Theater 3000 mode.

Which is incredible.

God.

Exactly.

I think, personally, I might finally start playing KOTOR 2.

Kind of around May 4th.

That'd be great.

Should we just pull the trigger and just jump?

KOTOR.

Yeah.

Do I need to play...

Do we need to play one first, or can I just go to that?

Oh, you would absolutely play one first.

I mean, I know a lot of people have two ones.

I think if you did a poll across the world, one would win.

Hey, if anyone donates a bunch of money, we'll do a script reading of Revenge of the Sith.

Yeah, okay, hell yeah, I love it.

Sure!

A table read.

Okay, who can I be?

Do you want to be Anakin?

I'll be Anakin.

I'll be the quarter taste, but I'll do it.

Antonio Barras is getting a PC.

I'm stupid.

MTO or AMD?

Explain like I'm five.

Thanks.

AMD CPU is still right now just because they're the safer bet.

Intel had had some issues with a couple of generations ago, but even without those problems, AMD has just been really really good in terms of power performance and yeah, and efficiency.

So yeah, I would go with the AMD right now feel like there I don't know what Intel kind of has to do to earn a little bit of that trust back.

Right.

I mean, I think it's been a while, but it's amazing performance upgrades.

Like you, got to have a couple of generations where it's like They are eating the cost to give us 30 improvement.

Yeah.

Uh and Antonio, while we have you and you're asking questions about buying a PC, I mean, why don't you hit up our friends at main gear and support the site by using giant bomb?

When you check out or just go to main gearcom, slash giant bomb.

Did you guys know they updated the cases we have?

I didn't know that.

Yeah, they did.

They, they have a new version of the case that we have.

It's got all the fancy bells and whistles.

I'm actually going to go there and see it soon.

So keep an eye out for that.

But yeah, that, that helps us, that helps support us.

So I would agree with grub AMD for now for sure.

Uh, and tomoross is asking how much for the table reading, also for jotor.

Uh that's uh, that's a fun goof.

Well, a table read would be funny to do.

Do with this crew.

We should do a table.

We should do a table reading of a script sometime.

That would be.

Yeah, that'd be good.

All right, funny thing we'll.

We'll enlist some of our friends as well.

Yes,

I'll be Count Dooku.

Perfect.

I don't know why I think that's right.

Bacalar, you have to be Yoda.

Oh, yeah.

Is General Grievous in it?

I want to be that coffin robot.

We're going to have to split up some roles here.

A lot of minor characters.

I want to be Amidala.

Well, Will already asked if he could be Padme.

You can be Kira Knightley.

Yeah, I'll be Kira Knightley, the fake Amidala.

Do we do this over the video in real time?

That may be hard to do.

It's too hard, right?

I want to read stage directions.

Right, we've got to have a stage manager.

That'd be Bailey or something.

Should Mikey also be Jar Jar?

Yes.

Is he even in three?

He is in three.

We're going to write a new dialogue.

We're going to insert Jar Jar into three.

He says, like, excuse me in the background in three, from what I remember, or something.

Jar Jar and Master Shake will just have to fight.

Yeah.

We'll get Greg Moore to come in and be Watto, even though he's not in that movie.

The least offensive Watto impression.

Let's go.

We'll also be doing live Foley as well.

Hell yeah.

Oh, just like the monster soundstage at Disney.

Clap the meat, baby.

Yeah, that's right.

Our celery budget through the roof.

That's MacGruber.

Yeah, get dibbed to be all the noises of the volcanoes in Mustafar.

Nintenderek says, there's a Star Wars Sims 4 expansion that all the Sims players hate.

You should play that.

Well, they did do that, didn't they?

What the hell is that about?

That's incredible.

There was a Power Wash Simulator 2 Star Wars DLC.

That's weird.

What?

Yeah.

You're cleaning, like, X-Wings and stuff.

Oh, I want a clean job of the hut.

I know.

I want to hose down Chewie.

Oh, that filthy bitch.

Yeah.

You're going to clean that weird little guy off of him.

Salacious crumb.

How do I know his name?

Why do I know that?

Because he's the best glub shido.

Yeah.

Jesus.

That's it for Super Chats.

Thank you, everybody.

What's his face?

Sam Jackson's character.

Mace Windu.

Mace Windu, yeah.

Can I be Mace Windu, please?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sure.

Oh, thank God.

All right.

Real quick, Mike, what is Salacious Crumb's middle initial?

It's got a middle name.

B. I want to say it's a B. It is B. Salacious B. Crumb.

Completely vibes B. Wow.

Road rash.

Salacious B. Crumb.

I don't know what the B stands for.

Bernadette, this guy.

Look wait, is this guy a muppet?

Or yeah yeah, he's both.

Yeah, i mean, jim henson made a lot of the creatures for star wars.

Yeah, this guy does look like he belongs kind of in one of those.

None of them, i think.

I think uh well, the creature shop was involved, like Well, because Frank Oz is involved.

That's what I mean.

I guess, right?

There's a crossover there.

It's a Jason title.

Frank.

They brought in Frank Oz because he knew how to do those things, because he had worked on Muppets.

Oh, he's a Kowakian monkey lizard with a shrew crackle.

Oh, of course.

A Kowakian monkey.

Yeah.

That was too good.

That was too good, Mike.

That's Muppet bullshit.

Yeah.

Hmm.

This idea sounds stupid and fun.

Maybe we should actually do this.

Maybe we should do it.

We'll figure it out.

Let's figure out which Star Wars.

All right, folks.

Mikey, is that it for Super Chats?

That's it.

Thank you, everybody.

Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.

Thank you, everyone, for sending those in.

What do we got going on the rest of this week?

After this, episode three of Portal Pals is dropping through the holes.

This may be the least problematic episode I've had to edit.

Uh, episode one and episode two, just all new sentences are being said left and right.

Um, he's a chat for the portal pals, that's right.

Let me see your pps everybody Acquire a taste for the peepees.

Man, my future political career is going to just be dead on arrival.

YouTube chat, you're slacking.

I'm seeing all these peepees on Twitch.

Not a single peepee on YouTube.

Whip them out, YouTube.

All right.

Portal Palace Episode 3 dropping shortly after the podcast wraps.

Just got to get that uploaded and posted.

I'm sorry.

YouTube chat is so credible.

I thought I screamed that.

There was one person that said, not gonna.

I got one solitary pee-pee.

Then someone else said, no.

It's a very different vibe on the YouTube chat.

I respect it.

There we go.

I'm getting a few more.

Thank you, YouTube chat.

That's right.

Give Mikey all the pee-pee he desires.

No.

Game Best Mornings popping off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.

Right, Grub?

I'll do my best.

Pokemon Monday Night Combat has moved to Friday for this week, but you know what is right in place for Wednesday.

Space Ace.

Flight Club.

Right.

I don't even know.

I'm wondering when I can say maybe it's the last one, but I don't think it's realistic yet.

I don't think we're there yet.

We have a fun new layer.

We're getting places.

I think maybe two more, Dan, is my guess.

Just to give you some hope.

I'm trying to remember where we even left off last time.

Did I get to a new area?

Yeah, you saw something new, definitely.

I don't know why that maze, the maze got more complicated.

The maze is fairly straightforward so far.

So yeah.

I'm super impressed every week, Dan.

Thank you.

I'm like, wow, this is human endurance at its finest right here.

It's a lot.

Voicemail dump truck surprise special guest confirmed as of yesterday afternoon.

Nikki Grayson is joining us on the dump truck. as well as on UPF.

I believe Nikki's going to try and join us for UPF.

So Nikki stacked back half of the week.

Gang, anything I missed out on?

Nah.

Sick.

Mark your calendars for Independence Week.

A lot of Donkey Kong going on.

Take a week off work to watch Mike play Donkey Kong 64.

That's what I'm saying.

Skip paying rent that month.

They'll understand.

Just talk to your landlord.

It's fine.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, we're in Mamdanistan now, so rent control is a thing, right?

I believe.

We're back.

We're good.

Maybe I should write... There's five of us.

Maybe I should write a DK rap about us.

Oh, I want to be the one you make fun of, please.

You want to be the.

I mean, I'm going to probably make fun of all of you, except for Sweet Jan, of course, but the rest of you are going to make fun of.

I just want to be the one with the funny face, all right?

You're lying to me.

That's right.

And if you missed it, it's at the top of the show.

Premium members, you get the endurance run a week early during Independence Week.

And then endurance run, the bully endurance run that Grubb and Minotti already recorded.

The following week for everybody else, Monday through Friday.

Boys, we got a Steam controller review up on the website.

Probably, most likely, other quick looks or other videos dropping throughout the week.

Why don't you try liking and subscribing to this podcast?

I don't know.

Every other podcast says it.

I want to say it.

And I'm going to say goodbye to you because that does it for...

He's a giant bomb cast.

He's been Jeff.

He's been Mike.

He's been Dan.

I've been Dan.

Shouts out to Will.

Shouts out to Chuck.

Shouts out to Sean for cutting the whole dang thing together.

We'll see you next week for another episode.

He's the hero of the bunch.

You call him Mitch.

How you gonna do that?

Half a coconut, bitch.

It's a good start.

We'll see you next week for another episode of Giant Bobcast.

Giant Bobcast.

[Giant Bombcast 938: Donkey Kong 64 Marathons, Grilled Cheese Disasters, and Steam Controller Impressions]-[Giant Bombcast 938: Strong Brain]

📋 Summary

Giant Bombcast 938: Independence Week, Culinary Chaos, and Hardware Reviews

Giant Bomb's Independence Week

Dan Reichert’s Culinary Saga

Steam Controller Impressions

Gaming News and Reviews

Community Interaction

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Giant Bombcast 938: Donkey Kong 64 Marathons, Grilled Cheese Disasters, and Steam Controller Impressions]-[Giant Bombcast 938: Strong Brain]

📋 Summary

Giant Bombcast 938: Independence Week, Culinary Chaos, and Hardware Reviews

Giant Bomb's Independence Week

Dan Reichert’s Culinary Saga

Steam Controller Impressions

Gaming News and Reviews

Community Interaction

Deep Learning with ListenLeap

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

ListenLeap Brings You Into Real Context Learning