Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, May 26th, 2026.
Welcome to the Giant Bombcast episode 942.
I'm your host, Jan Ochoa.
Joining me as always, co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.
I'm here.
Thank you, Jan.
He is our own Dan DeLorean.
He's carrying his little Grogu all through his noggin, because that's where all the mucus and all the liquids are spilling about.
Dan Reichert.
Grogu is Baby Yoda.
That's the Christian name for Baby Yoda.
Yes, that is correct.
Thank you.
Yes, and with your Grogu, Dan.
I'm Grogu?
You're Catholic Grogu, yeah.
Catholic Grogu.
Our expert on all things Catholicism.
Jeff Beckler.
It's funny because last week I'm like, there's no way to know who you're introducing.
It's very obvious.
That's right.
I'm your Catholic leader and savior.
You're the Pope?
I am the Pope.
I'm the Pope's boss.
All right, all right.
I'm going to redo your intro right now.
Is that how that works?
We have the Pope's boss, the internet Pope, higher Pope, Jeff Bacalar.
I'm the Pope new game plus.
It's awesome.
Listen.
So I guess the Pope is literally the voice of God?
He's God's representative on Earth.
He's like a herald, right?
He's a silver surfer.
He's like the telegram guy for God.
I don't know if they're saying that like God is speaking through his mouth, but like he does speak for him.
Is that a distinction that matters?
Probably not.
So, so the Pope is like a ventriloquist dummy for God.
I don't think it's like an independence day.
Remember Data?
It's not like that.
Just a perfect metaphor, Dan.
This is why you're a good podcaster, bud.
This is it.
It'd be cooler if it was that way.
It'd be much cooler.
Speaking about good podcasters and cooler.
That way we're always the coolest when he's around because he's the bird boy of games media marathon man himself, Mike Minotti.
Hey everyone, how's it going?
You're wearing a polo today.
You look very spiffy.
It's my WED Enterprises polo.
Are you here to fix my cable?
What's going on?
No, no, these are the people who make the rise at Disney.
I was going to say you look like you're going to stop me at a Costco and tell me about how good ATT is.
You look like a level one engineer.
You look like things get escalated up to you to fix someone's cable.
No, I make a space mountain.
You have one of those clipboards?
Like Mama used to in the old country?
I make a space mountain.
Every Sunday.
I just make them.
I don't ride them.
Mike, you also look like one of those people with the Clibberds that have like the pocket inside that you fold open and you store more papers in.
Sure, I'm so relieved you said Clibberd, because the first thing he said clipboard.
Yeah, you noticed that too.
I was very upset, I was very angry.
I realized I didn't was here, I didn't have to code switch.
I can talk how I actually talk.
You could be your honest self here.
Yes, yes.
How's everybody doing?
I saw that some of you watched the Grogu baby yogurt movie.
I watched the Grogu movie, yeah.
I watched the Grogu movie.
I heard there's beef here.
I heard there's beef.
Mike likes it a lot.
There were some concerning things that were relayed to me about what my friend Mike Minotti is out there saying for sure.
Someone narked on Mike?
I wouldn't say that.
My concerned mutual friend is how I would put it.
My question for both of you, because I feel like, from what I've seen on the Internet, you may be on the opposite sides of feeling about this movie.
How do we all feel about the Babu Fricks?
Babu Frick was just, he's my dude.
The little Muppet from Rise of Skywalker.
The only good part of that movie.
Oh, that dude.
That dude's cool.
Is he in this?
Yes.
He said, there's a bunch of them in here.
And yeah, it's good.
And they don't like it when you call them all Babu Fricks, but it doesn't matter.
They're little.
You can kick them.
Oh, I like these guys.
Yeah, these are good.
God, they should put us in a Star Wars movie just as Babu Fricks.
Oh, my God.
We'd be such good Babu Fricks.
This Babu Paroi Trolls thing?
Yes.
Five Babu Fricks hosting a Star Wars podcast.
Oh, God.
If I practice, I could do that voice.
I mean, they're just sounding like that one mouse from Cinderella.
I can do that.
Well, just wing it right now.
Let's do a first draft.
Okay.
Hey, everybody.
It's Tuesday.
Welcome to the podcast.
You both sound more Mexican than he does.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
We can kind of do that.
How do you toot Mexican?
Oh, boy.
What are these guys?
They're my friends.
Oh, wait.
Is Amy Sedaris in the movie?
She's not in the movie.
She's in several of the episodes.
Was she in the movie?
Maybe she's in the movie.
I don't know.
I stopped paying attention.
They're like the mechanics that work for Amy Sedaris, right?
This is why we don't take Mike's opinion seriously.
Don't worry about it.
We've decided that, right?
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, okay.
Got it.
Got it.
Got it.
Is she famous?
She's great.
Yeah, she's got a bunch of TV shows.
Strangers with Candy is a good show.
You've seen her before.
Do you know David Sedaris?
David Sedaris is very funny.
That's a real shit.
Read a book, Mike.
Oh, my God.
You have to take the blinders off, Mikey, at some point.
Strangers of Candy?
Strangers with Candy.
Steve Colbert was on it.
Late 90s.
Comedy Central.
Steve Colbert was on.
Okay.
Stop repeating everything everyone's saying.
That makes you sound so crazy.
Stephen Colbert.
Strangers of Candy is a good podcast.
It's possibly the best show of all time.
All right.
I don't know about that.
I've never even heard of this.
All right.
Yay, nay on the movie.
If there's a bunch of explosions, nothing happens.
Nothing happens in the movie.
It sounds like the most low stakes thing imaginable.
Who cares?
It is a very unimportant movie.
But it's not just that.
People are like, oh, it doesn't move the lore forward.
No, nothing happens to these characters either.
The characters don't change.
They don't grow.
Nothing happens in the movie.
There's not much, yeah, there's not really character arcs per se.
I mean, it's very kind of Western, again, like that, right?
It is sort of, yeah, a guy doing things, coming into town.
But it's like one of those... He doesn't really come into town that much.
It's one of those with a bunch of Star Wars stuff.
So I was like, oh, okay.
That's fine.
I did not like it.
I didn't like it.
But the stuff that was in there to like was pretty well done.
I can't believe how much I like Radha the Hutt.
That's what I was going to say.
Radha's great.
Radha's great.
Radha's great.
Scene stealer.
Yes, he's great, actually.
He's a good character.
I was like, oh.
This guy like yeah, I had a very different opinion of him than I thought I would going into that movie.
Yeah, I mean, they didn't even give him an arc, like it would have been just do something, guys.
But yeah, if they would have just given like one character an arc, I think I would have liked the movie a lot more.
Sure sure, I get this.
There's no yeah, there's no like hero's journey or like there's just not nothing to care about and that's like so core to Star Wars and all that stuff blah blah blah, whatever.
Yeah, but it's just like you said, the Star Wars, the people who are saying that this feels like four episodes of the show.
Absolutely yes, it is definitely that.
I think they're good episodes.
And also TV also now feels more like movies too.
So, you know, maybe we're always going to get here.
Wow.
What other insightful commentary are you providing the group?
I'm sorry, do you not like my criticisms?
Do you not like my technique?
You're just like, it's almost like TV is like a movie now.
Yeah, so that's true.
Am I wrong?
You're wrong, Mike.
It's getting more cinematic, yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Are you all familiar with how a Dragon Ball will have a movie and it won't factor greatly into the canon.
Non-canon, yeah.
Exactly.
It's kind of just like a side venture or whatever.
That's what this feels like.
I'm sure whatever happens will ultimately factor in if the show comes back.
It's like a very good point.
It's like a Dragon Ball Z movie.
That's a good.
You know what I liked those Dragon Ball Z sure yeah, some of those are if you want to just spend more time with these characters, and it's like I did find myself being like oh yeah, I do like Baby Yoda.
This little Muppet is... He does very Muppety things, and they're not afraid of that.
And then he hangs out with four or five other Muppets who are all Babu Fricks.
And so I was having a good time during that.
I think this was the most likable cast of like main characters in a Star Wars movie since the original trilogy.
Like I was like, I like all of these people.
Yeah.
I mean, again, I would like, there's no characters, so it doesn't matter.
Like, but like, there's no character growth.
There's character.
Is it shoot Muppets?
There's a lot.
Okay.
So there is physical, like practical effects. yes for like a lot of the characters you're going to care about and then they are endlessly fighting CGI monsters that's all they're doing the whole time oh yeah and like it's like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like CGI movie a lot as well so like let's yeah DBZ movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles like CGI movie put those two things together and you kind of have what's going on here okay I don't want to get the impression that I want to stand up for this movie as it's some kind of masterpiece or something.
I just had a much better time than I was expecting.
I know people roll their eyes down when people are like, oh, that movie was fun.
It's like, oh, you're saying that because you don't have anything more interesting to say.
I'm like ah, maybe i don't know, but i had fun and that's what i was looking to do.
Yeah, it's very similar to the super mario galaxy movie.
I felt very similar.
Yes i yeah, i mean, i know what you mean i think this feels more like i.
I sense more passion behind this than that.
Somehow, or more, i don't know.
This feels less like a series of lights and events, even though it is.
And look, even I was rolling my eyes when they did the fifth.
The Mando walks into a room and takes every person out in one long camera shot.
Scene again.
I get that.
But I don't know.
I wasn't rolling my eyes as much.
Why won't you say the thing, Mike?
Just say the thing.
What's the thing?
What's the thing you told me?
Just say the thing.
Your real opinion about this movie.
No, because everything doesn't have to be reductive.
It doesn't have to be this pitted against that.
Look, I don't like episode eight as much of you.
It's fine.
Or other people.
I'm not... I also... That movie is so toxic and weird.
There's a whole other side who hates it.
Like...
Yeah, we hit that movie too because of the woman.
And I'm like, no, that's not my problem.
What?
This is a house scape.
I hate movies.
What's your thing that Jeff wants you to say?
I said that I liked it more than episode eight. that's fine oh man i love it okay wow yeah i mean like yeah for me it's like yeah that's a lot of people would say that but it's like yeah my opinion of episode eight is so fixed it's like okay like mike just likes different things than i do that's all i can think there so yeah um this is the rocketeer of star wars movies no it's not there's something else you did over the weekend that i'm much more interested in hearing a review of Oh, I took some video footage, so I might make a little video at some point.
But yeah, I went to that brewery near me that had the Pokemon pinball machine.
Me and my brother went there, checked it out.
So you scooped me.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
I'm the pinball guy at Giant Bomb now.
I'm the Star Wars guy now because Jeff doesn't like Star Wars anymore.
I'm the pinball guy now.
I got a bunch of buzz balls in my fridge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he loves Goldeneye.
Yeah, i take a golden eye from dan.
What do you think?
Buzz balls okay, yeah.
Self-destruction yeah yeah yeah, exactly.
Couldn't have one thing for yourself how to take everyone else's shtick too.
Look, i have nothing that i enjoy personally, so i had to steal from my friend.
You know guys, i want to go to disneyland and not ride anything, i just want to bask in the brilliance.
You want to do that with me?
No, I don't.
I'll point out the windows to you and the other minute details and Easter eggs.
So how was the pinball machine, Mike?
It was fun.
It was a good pinball machine.
At first, I thought it was like, is this simple?
Am I missing something?
Then I understand, like, oh, if I do this, then a Pokemon appears.
And if I go on this ramp, I'll capture the Pokemon.
That's a very good multi-ball mechanic with the Team Rocket Meowth Balloon.
Where first you got to like go in like a hole near it.
Then it lowers down.
You can bump into it a bit.
And then again, like it raises up again.
And then there's a little like slot to go in to start the multi ball.
It was definitely more anime than the game, right?
It's definitely following the anime stuff there.
And that's fine.
That's good.
I enjoy that.
But yeah, good game of pinball.
Wow.
Something I did over the weekend that I think everyone should do.
And I didn't know that this was a thing.
You should check out your local city's Pioneer League baseball team.
Not Minor League, Pioneer League, which from my understanding might be a tier below Minor League.
I think.
Yeah.
Oh, for sure.
Minor League is.
Yes.
There's like several tranches of Minor League and then Pioneer League.
Yes.
Because Pioneer League.
Anything goes here.
Shouts out.
I bought a hat because it was just so charming.
The Oakland Ballers.
That's good.
That's good.
It's also like they had no real idea.
I mean, you get to have fun when you're that much of a minor league team.
Is this close to Banana Ball?
No, no, not at all.
It feels like people with actual prospects to make it into minor, make it into the major leagues.
I think it is mostly hilarious because Oakland lost their baseball team, the Oakland Athletics.
So they were the Oakland A's.
So now Oakland has the Oakland B's.
That's really funny.
That's funny.
It was great because their mascot was a possum.
And whenever someone was celebrating a birthday, the possum in the mascot costume just gave them a pile of trash for their birthday.
And then after the seventh inning stretch, they were like guys, it's the hot dog home, run derby right now.
And then the mascot in a different portion of the field and I wish I was sitting there just starts going ape shit.
And then a dude in overalls starts going insane and yelling hot dogs.
And they start...
They drive onto the field in a golf cart and start T-shirt cannon style throwing, launching hot dogs into the stands.
This sounds like an episode of the Bombcast.
It was great.
We should have a hot dog cannon.
We should have a hot dog cannon.
And you know I'm sure we've all heard interesting chirping or negging of baseball players um, while they're at the stand and everything.
Uh, the type of chatter coming out of the pioneer league is insane, because they will randomly pick a player and if that player strikes out um, the opposing team's player, beer for 10 minutes will be five dollars.
Oh, that's a good idea.
Yeah, like that.
There was people where people like ready at the stairs saying, be a man of the people, Jeff.
Come on, just strike out.
I swear I heard someone say like, I can't afford child payments, child support this month.
So just I just need this.
I need this.
Salt of the year.
Hell yeah.
He struck out.
He forgot about baseball.
And then like a good chunk of people left the stands, stopped watching the game to get $5 beers.
It was incredible.
I mean, that's why you're there.
I mean, that's why you're at a minor league baseball game is to drink.
So wait, this league, I think this league is only on the West Coast.
Oh, OK.
You know, it's like, you know, East Coast Hockey League and stuff like that.
Yeah.
And also you know like when you watch a normal baseball game the score is generally, unless something insane happens, stay fairly low.
Right.
Right.
Unless there's a major error.
Right.
And there's almost like they're so perfect.
There's not a lot of opportunity for interesting, weird stuff to happen.
I mean, that's not true.
Something new happens at every baseball game.
But it's more likely at a game like this, I think.
The final score wound up being 11-5 to the Oakland Ballers.
That's not that crazy.
Yeah.
It just feels like baseball game.
Eleven's a lot of points.
It's a lot.
It can happen.
It can happen.
Yeah.
I got athletic this weekend.
Oh, yes.
MVP.
I made good on a North Carolina airport bar promise, and I went foaling.
Right, okay.
Is it spelled like bowling, but with an F?
It's bowling with an F. It's football bowling.
Kayla's in town.
She's here.
She's here for another few hours.
We went foaling the second night.
She was here and brought a group of friends and it was a lot more fun than i expected.
I can't remember if i said on here but like yeah, a guy at the, just a random guy at the north carolina airport bar was like yeah, where are you flying to?
And i was like oh, minneapolis.
He's like oh, you should go foaling.
I'm like what's that?
And like, the guy didn't even live there.
He's from Detroit.
And he just showed me this.
He's like, I invested in this thing that's in Minneapolis.
It's a Foley warehouse.
What did you invest in, sir?
Yeah, it's just, yeah, like, I don't know his name or anything.
And he's like, yeah, just make sure you say that the guy who invested in it told you to come.
And I told the bartenders, I was like, yeah, there's a guy that invested in it.
I don't know.
He was like, yay, hi.
And like, no one knew who he was, so whatever.
But yeah, it's just this big ass warehouse.
And I think it just opened up and it's like imagine beer pong meets cornhole, where it's like two like cornhole platforms, very far apart from each other, with a 10 pin setup of actual bowling pins.
And then you can do one-on-one, two-on-two or three-on-three.
And we did three-on-three best of seven.
And it's like you just go and you trade.
So it's like if it's three of us, it's person A, person B, person C goes, you throw the ball once.
You're trying to knock down all the pins on the other side, just like beer pong trying to get the 10 out or whatever.
You go back and forth until someone knocks them all down.
And uh yeah, we went to uh, we did a best.
Of seven series went down to sudden death, which you just put one pin anywhere you want to.
And the other does that.
And I knocked it out.
I won the, I won for my team and overtime full.
That didn't happen, but it was nice.
Do you throw the ball like a spiral or are you lobbing it in there?
Are you saying me personally or just ideally?
What are people doing?
You're throwing like a football.
They say you can do anything.
You can grainy shot if you want to.
Shoot it?
Yeah, with a gun?
No, I don't think you can bring a gun.
No, no.
You have to throw it with your arms.
But yeah, you just throw it like a normal football.
It's got fun rules where it's like... It was pretty empty.
We went in the afternoon or whatever.
Bounces and goes into another person's thing and like, knocks out other players and other teams pins, that counts, right?
That's gonna be my question.
It's like the ball is probably annoying because it's like you like.
Yeah, it's not content.
How contained is it?
Like, because like, are your lanes?
It's open.
There's no like bumpers whatsoever.
The thing is, it bounces.
And that's where it's like you can have a bounce directly in front of the pin you're trying to hit.
And then it goes the other direction.
It's a football.
But then yeah, I can go into other like it's kind of like beer pong rules, where it's like once it bounces, you can kind of do defense and like grab it.
Sure.
But you can't do it until it bounces.
So, oh, I like the defense aspect.
It sounds very much like a basketball thing.
We're like, sure.
Great.
Yeah, sure.
Although the rules are not very clear as to how the game also works.
They're clear enough for getting drunk and playing baseball.
Sure, sure, sure, sure.
This is the part that fucked me up.
So before our friends all got there, it was like me, Bonk and Kayla and we just got a big-ass pretzel and some cocktails and we're sitting there.
And I look at Bonk, you know, her name is Bianca, but everyone calls her Bonk.
And I look up and there is a giant flashing like game show-esque with like lights around it thing that says Bonk Honk, like this huge sign on the wall above box head.
And I look, I was like, you've got to be fucking kidding me.
I just tell her to turn around.
She's like, Oh my God.
And it's tied to a giant handle that you pull and And it sounds there are three giant ship horns up there, like that you put on a fucking ship.
And so it's normally like to get a bonk in the game is the center pin is a red pin.
And if on your first throw you just knock out the red pin and don't hit any other ones, that's a bonk and you instantly win the game and you get to go sound the bonk honk.
But I talked to the people working there.
I was like, listen, that's bonk.
She asked you.
She asked you.
And they let her sound the bonk honk.
And yeah, you just pull it.
It's just the loudest thing possible.
It was fantastic.
Blessings on blessings.
How beautiful.
All right.
Bonkies.
Yeah, this is an interesting thing here.
I don't know.
I'm still on the fence about this.
I enjoyed it.
I feel like you're skeptical too, Grub.
I mean, I will do any stupid game like this.
Do I think this is going to be the next big thing?
Probably not, but it sounds like a good time.
It's like Mandalorian and Grogu, right?
That's exactly, yes.
It also like wasn't even remotely busy.
And I think like there was no one there.
We had this entire cage.
So like, I don't know, business wise, how good of an investment it was.
Right.
Well, I mean, all the advertising they're doing is just sending that guy to airport lounges.
Well, I told everyone that if this place goes out of business in six months, I am scrounging through the trash and I'm stealing the Bonk Honk sign.
And the red pins say Bonk in big letters on it.
And so I tried to purchase Bonk pins from them.
They would not allow me to purchase the Bonk pins.
So if they go out of business, I'm grabbing everything.
Are they real bowling pins?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
I did a good amount of bowling this weekend, too.
One without strings and one with.
And I just got to say, string bowling is destroying the sport, folks.
Extreme bowling?
No, string.
String.
Oh, the duck pin?
It's not duck pin.
It's the stuff we did in Ohio, right?
Yeah, it's a version of it, yeah.
It's normal bowling, but it's just an updated version.
It's cheaper.
And it's more acoustically friendly, I think, too.
Interesting.
So it means it sucks.
Yeah, I don't want that.
I want the sounds.
Yeah, you want the sounds, right?
So the strings, Marino's got it right.
Strings reset the pins instead of a pin setter.
But just looking at it from down the lane, you'd be like, oh, this is normal bowling.
But when you bowl the pins just sort of get sucked up.
The problem with this is that the strings knock over the pins.
I was doing... It's not real.
I finished like a very.
It wasn't a 7-10 split, but I hit an incredible split because of the string.
And you're just like, what the fuck is happening right now?
Now...
It's not a hill I want to die on.
I don't care that much.
But it's just not good.
It's not good.
You're saying that it's bowling with strings attached.
Well that's, i don't get it.
That's literally what it is.
And look, i understand it's a cost cutting thing.
Right, the machines that set the pins with the free fall pin, like that is.
They're incredibly expensive and they break down and they break down all the time.
And each machine has like 11 000 parts that can break if they're all from the 1940s or whatever.
This shit sucks.
It's terrible.
I feel like I got so many extra spares just because I can throw a ball fast and the chaos knocks the strings around.
They haven't figured it out.
It's crazy.
I don't think I'd like that.
Even the acoustic part of it.
That is a big part of bowling for me.
I mean, it is like by all measures lesser than real bowling.
Yes.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't know.
It's very strange.
Yeah.
Bowling got worse.
Bowling got worse.
Bowling got worse.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They kind of had it figured out.
Well, again, like, so here's the thing.
Like we can all understand why you want to move away from those pin setters, but like there's got to be a middle ground.
Something in between.
Yes.
Right?
Can't we just make better pin setters?
Yeah.
I mean, Brunswick's not...
No, Brunswick's just like, they don't care.
They're just like, this is our new... Here's some string.
Yeah.
That's it.
And that shit breaks all the time, too.
They suck up the pins, and if the strings are tangled...
It's great.
The machine's response is just like, let them all go.
And then they all fall to the ground.
And then they have to suck up and untangle.
It's fucking weird.
I don't know.
I hate every waking moment of it.
In string bowling?
Did they still have the silly graphics that pop up when you hit a strike or something?
Yeah, I mean you can, you know?
The gimmick is like oh, there's like 48.
You know built-in games, right?
You don't have to do like traditional bowling.
You can do like some, you know, version of it and whatever.
I mean, the graphic stuff, that actually is not as big of a thing anymore.
I feel like that's more from the 90s.
But I don't know, guys.
We're losing our culture.
It's over.
It's over.
Lebowski, people are going to look at Lebowski and be like, what was that ancient shit?
Yeah, what is this?
Look at that.
That's a bummer.
My house is being overtaken by birds.
I've got like a hundred birds living on or near my house.
There is bird shit every six inches in my driveway. are they in the house yet or in the walls they're not in the walls i don't think that's much of a threat i mean they might like start like making nests and vents that would be bad uh that i guess i should start looking at that but um mostly i want them to stop shitting everywhere and i'm like what are what are my options uh i don't like i haven't really like started doing the research because we're dealing with other other stuff outside but like at some point i'm gonna have to get these out of here because have you tried negotiating have you tried negotiating i don't yeah i don't listen i'm i'm not i don't speak english well enough uh to really speak with these birds they're very prim and proper so yeah all right i would i would take the shit over what i'm dealing with right now oh no okay we should they are going into the ridge of my front roof And they're like ripping out the insulation under the ridge.
Oh, that sucks.
Dumbasses.
They're just like, they're like, yeah, we live here now.
Uh, I don't know.
I'm going to kill them all.
I think, I think I might have a solution that I don't think backlar will like.
But I realized earlier this spring the woodpeckers were coming back and I was like Oh, here we fucking go.
And then at a certain point, I kind of stopped noticing them.
And I was like, what changed?
We didn't do anything.
And then I realized they mainly are up outside of our bedroom window is usually where they do all the knocking.
And I've noticed that if I even walk up to the window while one's knocking, they freak out and leave.
So around this spring or so, we got one of those suction cup little shelves, like a little hammock thing for boss to just, we just thought it'd be nice.
Like, Oh, boss can look out the window.
This can be his little spot.
If the dogs are being rascals, he can get up away from them and he can just look out the window.
Look at birds, look at whatever.
And I think it's since then.
I think he sits up there quite a bit.
And I think enough birds have like gone down to do their shit.
And they're like, here's a fucking cat staring daggers at you.
And they're like, whoa, whoa, that's not a safe place to be.
So I think boss is like scaring them off.
There we go.
My dad used to have a fake owl that he would put out.
Yeah, we've got one of those.
That doesn't work.
Yeah, they're keen on that.
But yeah, that's probably what's going on.
Uh, because they're so dumb, they're like it's behind glass.
Who can you know?
I have a drone.
Should i send my drone out there, just put like a bird, put a cat head on?
I mean well, the flying cats who?
That is scary.
The drone's kind of impressed.
I mean i understand the spirit, the spirit behind that right yeah, but like that's a lot of work because okay, so I mean just throw firecrackers in my yard and hope the sound scares them.
I got the perfect idea for you.
Okay.
What you do is... Calling it.
He's calling it.
Too much bird talk.
What you do is...
You go pull out your Omega watch after you selected which strap you want, and then you just get some random chemicals and you just shoot the birds with chemicals.
Darts out of your phone.
Darts out of your phone.
Darts out of your phone.
Missiles out of a pin.
You know the drone that you're using, Grubb?
Just hack it with your watch.
I didn't think about that.
If you pointed at a printer, it just makes like papers fly out all crazy.
It's awesome.
Copy machines going crazy.
Folks, we're talking about 007 First Light.
I believe majority of us have played through it.
I played a good chunk of it during a little preview event.
I've since circled back.
Guys, I'm going to make a definitive statement here.
Are we okay with this?
Yeah.
Let's try.
I think this might be one of the best tutorials ever.
Oh, sure.
I think it's number one.
I think it's number one.
It is so awesome.
That was the first moment in this where I was like, oh my God, they are like... They're cooking.
That movie presentation they nailed so hard, which is interesting because like, hitman had a story and everything.
I don't think anyone thought it was the strongest element of that series.
Yeah, but it certainly wasn't like cinematically presented or anything like no, especially well.
It was once when it was uh, the cut the cgi cut scenes, and then they were trying to save money so they shifted into presenting it with like um, motion graphics yeah, motion graphics, And then by the third one, which you know, by then I was a little bit into the story, but they were just kind of like usually doing that through dialogue.
You're right to point out.
It's like there is a huge leap here where they are not doing CGI like presentation for most, for the most part maybe here or there.
But mostly it's done in game graphics and they just figured out every single trick they could to make that feel cinematic. and it really works.
Including this tutorial we're talking about because it's a fucking rocky montage.
Yes.
It is not walk over here to the shooting.
You know, every other action game is like walk over here.
Here's the shooting gallery.
Try the pistol.
Try the grenade.
Try this.
Now go over here.
Here's how you clamber over a thing.
And now finally, here's the course at the end where you got to put it all together.
This one is like There's driving, too.
So there's shooting.
There's parkour.
There's driving.
There's fucking push-up WarioWare minigames.
It is fucking going from one to the other.
And it's like, it's day.
It's night.
You're in the car.
Now you've got to jump and shoot and stuff.
And it is presented like a fucking Rocky montage.
And it is a good tutorial, too.
And also, they're managing to interweave the story throughout all the characters in a great way.
That's the most impressive.
The relationship between you and Monroe and Cressia and everything.
It's like, you know how I am with game stories and stuff.
I'm like instantly in on this story and it doesn't let up.
Like the story, it goes, it goes.
Yeah.
And it's not just the, your two training partners.
It's also, you get introduced into, to money penny really quick.
Greenway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's just oh, it's so good.
I think that's the most impressive part.
That was the moment where i i really like woke up and i was like oh oh, you're just seamlessly loading these non-stop, like you do not the there's a moment where you're playing this, where you hit a thing that you're like never seen that before, never did that before, where things are loading, where you, like you said, you jump from a driving tutorial to a shooting tutorial, to a fighting tutorial and and it's just, and it flows in such a narrative like a very capable sort of way, where you're like minimal jank right, there's like it all feels slick.
Yes,
Yeah.
It's like this was just a Bond movie.
This would be one of my favorite Bond movies.
Like the story is extremely well told.
And I'm kind of over the like how many times you said here's the Batman Begins version of this character, or whatever.
And we got to go through all these beats again.
This super works like going through training, as like a young cocky Bond who everyone's still kind of like oh, this guy's kind of arrogant.
Don't know if I like this guy or whatever.
And then like proving yourself as Bond as it goes is incredible.
But, like I think, when this got announced, you know, when it said like IOI is making the new Bond game, everyone I think unanimously was like oh, that's a match made in heaven.
That's perfect.
They still somehow over-delivered.
Yeah.
They overshot the expectation of Hitman with a little bit of action in between.
It's like no no, they took all the pieces of Hitman and they condensed it down into the parts that are most needed to make James Bond stuff feel cool, look cool, make you feel cool while you're doing it.
And so that that means, like you know, these big open hitman levels, they're here, but they are much more condensed, much more.
Yeah, many more guardrails, because it's very important that james bond actually never looked like a true dipshit.
He can make mistakes, but you can't be just a complete clown the whole time, the and so they cut they kind of they figure that out, and then they just make everything so dense, even in those open world levels, and then the action sequences are like oh, I was not familiar with your game, IOI.
I didn't know you could make action this good.
This is great shooting, great driving, and excellent combat.
So the comparison has been made.
I made this during that preview video that Backlore and I put out.
But of course, the comparison is also.
This is like hitman sprinkled with uncharted, but i think the other game that this really reminds me of is matt rory's alpha protocol.
But like, reminds me of a lot of games.
Yeah, nailing the execution of like.
Oh, i feel like a spy, I feel suave.
I feel debonair.
The mechanic of being able to bluff or charm your way out of a situation is just so fun because maybe you're tired of dealing with the stealth.
Maybe you're tired of the gunplay.
And we'll probably talk about the gunplay and the action.
But being able to walk up to a group of dudes and like...
Hey, no, it's chill.
I got to go check out that door.
See y'all.
And then we're like, yeah, there's a security concern here.
I'm just, hey, have you seen this guy?
I got to go find him over here.
And that's like that's also.
It's a mechanic like you're earning your opportunities to bluff and stuff like that through instinct and stuff.
And so, yeah, you're kind of spending that earning it back.
So that also is still part of the game.
It's not just like a get out of jail free card.
But even the distraction stuff.
Like you know, Hitman has always had this stuff where it's like I'm going to turn this radio on or this vacuum cleaner and the guard is going to come over, or whatever.
I mean, you kind of had to physically go over there as 47 and like do this and run back and hide somewhere like you've got your cue.
Like the cue stuff is perfect for this because, first of all, they do it the way they do in the movies, where it's like you go into this crazy lab and there's a bunch of scientists there.
It's like fire shooting everywhere and everything's blowing up.
It's like, oh, this is awesome.
And like you're doing that and that's how they're presenting you with your new stuff for your loadout.
But then, yeah, you've got your Q watch thing or whatever.
And yeah, you look at a vacuum cleaner, you look at a computer, you look at something and you're from afar like beep.
And then it's like the laptop's freaking out and you can hide like you don't have to get up in there like 47 does.
So it expands those capabilities.
And when things go to shit.
My bigger concern and it does go to shit is Hitman was so great at the sneaking around and just the sandbox elements and all the different possibilities you can use to kill people.
But if you're like me and you're getting caught all the time, Hand-to-hand, not the best.
Gunplay, pretty stilted.
This one, they have upgraded the gunplay and the hand-to-hand stuff so fucking much here.
Especially the hand-to-hand stuff, yes.
The hand-to-hand stuff is crazy because what it made me think of is the more modern Mission Impossibles.
Like, do you remember the one with, what's Henry?
Cavill.
The guy in the bathroom.
The reloading, yeah.
Yeah, where they're just fucking throwing each other through, like, toilets and stuff and walls.
Yeah, you have that fight, yes.
Yeah, you do.
So you can, like, you do have that fight.
I fucked that guy up.
Me too.
And his girlfriend came in.
Yeah, it was great.
But you can, with RT, you can, like, grab them by the collar, basically.
And then, like, at left stick, you can throw them wherever.
And it is so good if, like, you're by a window or a railing, that motherfucker's going over it.
I mean, the context sensitivity is off the charts.
Yes.
Yeah, lots of slamming dudes into walls, you know, slamming their head into like a wine cabinet and stuff, and it just feels so fucking cool.
Oh, it's a Fable 3-like...
And it's not the hitman thing where it's like once things go to shit, they're permanently going to shit.
I've had a lot of levels where it's like, oh, yes, opulent locale.
Very contained.
It's like I super get caught in this room and like these four dudes are like OK, we're coming to fight you.
And you have the coolest fucking hand to hand fight bodies thrown everywhere at the end.
And then it's like situation contained.
Yes.
Right.
Every time.
I'm good.
And yeah.
OK.
And I think one of my favorite parts of the combat is, like you mentioned Dan, the gunplay is so much improved versus the Hitman games.
But also, if you run out of ammo, you can just throw that gun at any moment.
Or you shoot them in the gun and their gun goes flying up in the air and you just grab it out of midair and then shoot them with it.
Do that the entire game.
That's great.
Such a cool dude.
I'm excited.
I have not touched a second of this.
I think I'm going to launch look this baby when it actually comes out tomorrow.
I knew this was coming.
I didn't realize it crept up that much.
I'm like, wait, reviews are out.
Why are we able to talk about this?
I'm like, oh my gosh, look at this piece.
There was a short runway on, like yeah, so it's like i'd love to have a review, but it's of course.
I played a bunch over the weekend.
Still that was very tight runway for this.
It's pretty long.
I want to say i'm like 10 hours in.
I feel like the story is getting to some like parts where it's kind of wrapping up, where it's like okay, i know what's really going on here and now i just need to you know, kill this dude.
Did you get to meet lenny?
Oh,
Oh, yeah!
Mr. Krabs?
My best friend.
Mr. Krabs?
Okay, so, Mr. Krabs, yeah.
Okay, so a couple things before I get to that.
Dan, you mentioned walking around the Q Lab and stuff like that.
That is the thing that this game does do a little bit different than the movies.
It presents like the movies most of the time, and then you get to live as James Bond in these spaceships a little bit more than you ever get to see in the movies, and they do make that stuff feel like oh yeah, I just kind of feel like I'm embodying this character a little bit more and that's really well done.
But they've learned a lot.
I was going to say RGG.
They've learned a lot from studios like RGG, where it's like they are taking their stuff and reworking it like hey, they've done a ton of these missions in Hitman where famous people show up.
They've worked with famous people.
Get them scanned into their game.
Figure out how to get their voices in there.
They've done that a bunch of times.
Well, now they're just using those skills to really good effect here For the most part.
And there's a lot of famous people in here that show up.
Sometimes it's just cameos.
Jack Septic Eye was in there for like 10 seconds in one of the stages.
He's at the coat check in the bar.
But then you get Lenny Kravitz.
And it's like, oh, well, there's Lenny Kravitz trying to act.
And his penis breaks out of his pants.
His penis just burst out, which is a good distraction.
Mike doesn't know about that.
Very poor acting.
He crouched down while he was doing a cool guitar solo and his penis just broke straight through his pants at one point.
It's very funny.
It was a great actor.
Straight out the middle.
But it's well, like all this stuff is like so like you could just tell that they are in their element of we know how to do this.
We are going to like do it very efficiently.
Yeah.
And like reusing the stuff from Hitman here so well just shows like, oh yeah, they probably went in here with a really good plan, had some speed bumps, but this probably was not that much of a nightmare as compared to like what it could have been if they were doing this all from scratch.
That's how you get to like such a well received game, when really another game like this would be like.
You know there's been recent examples of like these games hitting like Indiana Jones or whatever.
But this one feels like it's even above some of those where I just kind of across the board.
I'm like, I think I figured it out.
And the other celebrities.
Sorry, Dan, that they also have like Lenny James, Gemma Chan.
I think they're like nailing it out of the park with their specific characters.
Dan, you're about to say.
I do want to say like, set expectations, because I think a lot of people are having the question of like oh, is this just Hitman with the James Bond skin?
And it's not.
It's like when I think of Hitman, it's like, you know, the freedom is the whole deal with Hitman.
Yeah.
Here's a bunch of giant locations that are very intricate and you can kill everyone on the level if you want to.
You can kill everyone in every way.
You can do an exploding golf ball or drown a guy or whatever.
There's a million different things.
It's not that.
They've taken a lot of that.
You will see the DNA of Hitman all over here in these huge, intricate locations, all very detailed.
That's very Hitman.
Kind of like overhearing conversations that give you hints on how you can approach a certain situation.
It is not as open as Hitman.
A lot of Hitman, when I was planning the Hitsmith stuff and everything...
That was like, okay, I'm going to set off a proximity mine in the middle of the dance floor.
And then you got to kill this guy and you got to kill 10 of these.
You can't do all that here.
You're Bond.
And so like when it turns into action, it's very, very clear.
There will be an action sequence and it literally says license to kill.
And that's when it's like, all right, I'm going to kill these PMC guys.
When you're going through these big locations and things like that, like this big chess meet at a hotel in the mountains or whatever.
It looks like Hitman at a glance, but it is a little more directed.
It's a little like... It guardrails.
It's definitely like we want to make sure that you are doing cool stuff and that you're not going to get too lost in the sauce here.
Yes.
We do...
That's the thing coming into this game I had the biggest concern about, the pacing.
A James Bond film goes.
You're watching an action sequence in one part of the world and they discover one thing and that leads them to the other side of the world.
And then
Five minutes later, everything is different.
It's a completely different set piece.
It's like they're not going to be able to do that.
Well, they do in a video gamey way, but they keep things moving.
But the pacing comes in from.
We are going to do these hitman style levels, but we're going to make sure that you're going to get through it and be able to figure it out.
We're going to give you, you know, the DNA that you were talking about.
Dan pops up as these threads that you can follow to discover like sort of solutions to your problem, just like you would if, like you, get the little light bulb icon in Hitman.
It's very similar here.
There's fewer and those threads are shorter because again, they're trying to keep the pacing up and it works.
And even inside of that chess mission you're talking about, Dan, the stakes change several times.
The thing that you're trying to accomplish very specifically shifts every time you learn something new.
You'll get into a couple of fight sequences that break things up.
So they are figuring out every trick to kind of keep you engaged and keeping everything feeling fresh.
Yeah, they do some interesting things too.
Where it's like in Hitman, the objective is pretty much always kill one or more of these people on this level.
There are large areas here where, Rob, I can't remember if you said you've been here yet or not.
Actually, if you've met Lenny, you have.
I have, yeah.
There is an area that is a very open marketplace area, with a bunch of different stalls and different things going on.
There's a fight pit.
There's all this stuff.
And the objective is not, hey, kill this guy or anything.
The objective is you need access into a place and you need to have a certain amount of money to get into this place.
So it's just like, okay, here's this huge open area with all these different things going on.
And there's probably, I don't know how many different ways.
There's more than I did for sure.
Yeah.
But yeah, you talk to other people who play this game.
It's like, oh, how did you earn the money?
It's like, oh, I did this and this.
It's like, why never?
Yes.
It's like, oh, I did this thing.
I competed in this thing or trick this person or sold this art or whatever.
There's all these different ways and threads you can follow.
And then once you make enough money, you can move on and go to the next thing.
But I think this is not going to be as inherently replayable as Hitman, because Hitman is just like plop.
Here you are on the level.
Do it however you want to do these challenges.
This is so much more cinematic that like I can't see myself going back a lot.
But if I were to go back to this marketplace area, I would definitely be like oh, I haven't done several of these different approaches to this.
So there is some replayability there, but it's not the like pick a level, go to town.
Yeah, it is.
I wonder if IOI has any plans at all for DLC that kind of is just one-off, more Hitman-oriented missions.
So they have the TAC-SIM stuff.
Have you guys done any of that?
I haven't done that yet.
I'm waiting until I'm done with the game.
No, no, no.
Right.
So so these are almost like mercenary style missions, like Resident Evil style like, and they are, they're presented.
The structure is the escalation missions from Hitman, where it's like hey, you're going to do one thing and then the next.
It's going to be very similar, but it's going to do more and engage in more parts of the system.
I think that that is sort of like you know as, instead of having a multiplayer mode or whatever, a game like this would have had 20 years ago.
This is the kind of thing they're putting in there to add replay.
And I think the action is good enough to support something like that.
It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea.
You really are coming to this to play through the story mode.
I think that the...
You know, that is near like what is happening with Resident Evil, like in terms of those recent Reddit.
It's not as good as Requiem, but it's like in the conversation.
And that's a game I played over and over again.
So I could see myself maybe doing that here.
But the length is maybe the one thing that would stop me because yeah, this is a little bit longer than some of those games.
I mean, if Game of the Year was today, I would honestly be between this and Requiem.
Oh, wow, okay.
It's right there for me, and I'm a little bit behind where you're at.
I don't think I knew fully.
I didn't watch any of the trailers.
I hadn't seen any footage of this game in action before it came out, and so I didn't know if this was just going to be that Hitman style.
But it was at the end of the chess meet area where it's like I was having so much fun doing the sneaking around hit man stuff there.
And then that just kind of dovetails into a couple other sequences that are more story focused.
And by the end of that I was like Oh, this is operating on a different level than hit man ever did.
Like I love it.
I'm not saying better or worse or anything.
It's just, this is very much its own thing.
This is as far as making a bond game.
Yeah.
Boy, I don't know how you do it much better than this.
I think about Bond as an IP is custom made for games.
You've got the driving.
The gadgets are such a fucking thing that you can put into a video game.
And I think now there are three times they've really nailed it.
They've made a ton of Bond games.
The first one, Goldeneye.
I might talk about that a little later.
Second one, I loved everything or nothing.
I thought that was a great one.
And that was the time they were like, okay, we're going to make our own story here with this.
And we're going to make up from the ground up bond game.
I thought.
And then this it's like boy, as far as a modern version of making a bond game.
I don't know how you do it much better than this.
Yep, just shocked at how well they nailed it right out of the gate.
Just incredibly impressive stuff.
Yeah, the execution, i think, is the most impressive part, is like there's so much going on, especially front loaded in all the setup, like it's just done and executed so well, like that's the thing that's really blowing my mind.
It's just like wow, this game just feels confident and knows what it wants and knows how to present it to you and knows how to feel good.
Yeah.
The only thing I, there's one thing I'm not super in love with.
There's a grain effect in the game that like, I've just, I don't know.
It just kind of, have you noticed that Jan?
There's like a film grain thing going on that I'm just not a gigantic fan of.
No, I don't think you can.
You can't.
I mean, I instantly go into every game, I turn off film grain and I turn off motion blur.
Okay, I take it back then.
Because I've been spending a decent time poring over some of the settings and I did not see that.
Um, but uh yeah, i mean it.
Uh, it feels great though uh, everything about it is just uh, it's really surprising.
I got it.
That's the most thing is like i'm constantly surprised with it, especially having a certain expectation.
Uh, going into it, especially playing hitman games.
Uh, it's just not, it's just not that.
So yeah, I kind of laugh at those parties at the very, very beginning.
This isn't like a big spoiler or anything, but like it kind of does that Tomb Raider reboot thing.
I remember when she like killed her first guy.
She's like, oh God.
And then she killed a million dudes and doesn't think about it.
Yeah.
There's one point where he like shoots a guy and there's like a brief moment of bond looking at him like, oh wow, I killed a man.
And then like 90 seconds later, he's just blowing up an entire base of dudes.
Yeah yeah yeah, uh.
I'm excited for this game to get into more people's hands and for it to get into, like the hitman sickos out there, because one of my favorite things is watching, like hitman, highlights of people playing the game in ways that i didn't know were possible.
So, leo vader, the king of that, if you want to look something up.
So, seeing the expanded gunplay and the hand-to-hand combat, I'm excited to see what more people will do.
Let's keep things on the topic of James Bond, because Mike Minotti...
I don't think I'm ready for this talk.
I don't think I'm ready for this portion of the podcast.
He's a real boy now.
You have been playing a James Bond game as well, but not 007 First Light.
You have been playing GoldenEye.
I have such a toxic positivity with retro games where, even when it is one of the few ones that I am like ah, that one wasn't mine, my jam actually.
I didn't like that one, right?
Then, like, somebody will be like, yeah, that game's bad.
Like, Sean, like, it was good.
And I'm like, yeah, I just don't get good.
And I'm like, that's because it's bad.
And I'm immediately like, oh, let's hold on a second here.
Right?
So I'm like, you know what?
All right.
I'm going to go and play through GoldenEye.
Most of my experiences as a kid were like multiplayer.
I did some of the campaign, but never got that far in it.
I'm like, I'm going to play through the campaign of GoldenEye on my...
Actual N64.
It's all ready to go because of the Donkey Kong bullshit.
So here we go.
And it's surprising in some ways because a lot of things I thought would be a hang up.
Like, the controller, the controls, I'm like, ah, this is making sense.
And there's a generous auto-aim, so that's fine.
After a while, like, that actually felt pretty good to me.
The James Bond-ness of it is fantastic.
The soundtrack is incredible.
It's an all-time... soundtrack, right?
Sorry to interrupt you, Mike, but the Bond song for First Light, banger as well.
Oh, yeah, right?
Lana Del Rey.
Go ahead, Mike.
Sorry.
I was like, I was kind of coming around pretty hard for a while.
Yeah, maybe.
And that's it for this conversation.
Stop the count!
There's just It's level design, mission design and just some of the N64-ness that do get to me.
There's a lot of times in this game where I don't know what the game wants me to do, and then I die, or I just leave a level apparently, which is something you can do without completing the missions and it's like you lost idiot.
I'm going to tell him to turn around then go back through the door.
I didn't know that was the exit.
And then I'm like, what was I supposed to do in my chat?
Cause I'm like, she was like, Oh, did you do what they did in the movie?
You remember what they did in the movie?
I'm like, no, I saw it 20 years ago.
You don't need to know what happens in the movie.
Mike, I'm going to say this, and you know I frequently give you your flowers for being the best gamer at Giant Bomb.
I'm always impressed by how well you work in the flight club and some of the worst games ever.
I mean this, Mike.
I've been watching almost all your streams of this.
I think you might be exceptionally bad at GoldenEye.
I don't get how I could be better.
Mike, I have a question.
I don't understand what I should be doing differently.
It tells you the objectives.
You got a quest log.
You ever play an RPG, brother?
The quests are big.
It says destroy the ammo cache.
What's an ammo cache?
It's a bunch of boxes that carry ammo.
There's boxes all over the place.
And that's the look.
Look, it's not just that, all right?
You go to this jungle level.
The N64 fog has been turned up to 11.
There's green fog everywhere.
You're in a jungle anyways.
They dress the enemies in green, which I...
Makes sense, but also it's a video game.
I can't fucking see them.
You say, take out the turrets.
You can't see the turrets till they're shooting at you.
There's a boss fight in the jungle with a lady who has a grenade launcher.
By the way, if any explosion happens in this game, the frame rate goes from like 10 to 2.
So have fun with that.
Look, that's like like saying like oh, an atari game is bad because it doesn't look realistic, like it's a product of its time.
You got to put yourself in there.
I think it could have worked within the limitations of the n64, perhaps a little bit better than that.
What about when you throw a knife at someone's hat and the hat pops off?
Yeah, that's great.
Or you shoot them in the head and the hat pops off, like mike?
I guess yes guess, jeff beckler, the way you feel right now is the way i feel 24 7 about.
About?
What about what?
Yes, about everything yeah everything oh, everything all the time.
I am team mike right now.
I could not agree more.
That game is just not that great.
I've spent a lot of time thinking about this this weekend and I came to the conclusion that I do wholeheartedly earnestly, believe this.
It is the best FPS of all time.
I don't know if it's in the top 50, Dan.
It is the number 10 game of all time.
The next best FPS is Call of Duty 4 at number 40.
Right after every game.
Honestly like look, I know a lot of people don't take you seriously Dan, but like I don't know about that.
Listen, here's the thing.
I have very fond multiplayer memories of Goldeneye.
Of course I do because I went to college when that shit was popping off, And it was even after it was popping off and people were still playing that in Mario Kart 64.
So I get it.
And I'm, I'm here for the multiplayer, but Mike is correct.
The campaign is incredible. the campaign is what makes it so special.
Having those objectives and an FPS in 1997, like having, that was what made it set it apart.
It was having objectives and not just go through and doom yourself through the thing and just shoot everything.
Yeah.
Doom predates Goldeneye and it's way better.
That's what I'm saying.
Goldeneye was an evolution of the genre with all of the objectives and the level design.
Is what kind of elevated that?
And the replayability, the way they tie all the different unlocks and things to the different difficulty levels.
It was the most replayable campaign I've ever played at that time.
But most of the objectives boil down to a game of hide and seek, basically.
It's just like, wander around and find this thing.
Then wander around and find... Hey, look, I agree.
Sometimes that is actually fun, and I don't mind the wandering.
Setting plastic explosives on the silo.
Well, you're playing on baby mode, so I don't know.
No, I'm not.
Yeah, I'm playing on Secret Agent, the second of three difficulties.
Excuse me, I picked the middle one. which apparently might be a hard mode in and of itself.
It's just not the hardest mode.
Yeah, that's right.
It's pretty hard.
Most people play it pretty hard.
Yeah.
I was like, chat, what's normal mode?
They're like, this one.
Okay, whatever.
But, like, this other...
Like, why are enemies respawning constantly, man?
It's mostly finite unless there's, like, an alarm going off in the bunker or something like that.
Bunker 2 was hell.
That's the one that's supposed to be more of a stealth mission.
And that one was driving me.
I was turning into a grumpy Mikey on that one.
I'm not going to lie.
Because if a camera sees you before you can take it out and good luck sometimes pushing R and going to the reticule and kind of tilting your stick, just right.
We didn't have dual stick yet.
We didn't have dual stick yet.
That's fine, for the time it came out, it's fine.
But uh, you know what?
I did have mouse and keyboard and that felt real good.
You can aim and shoot and move all at the same time.
Back then, and i'm trying, i'm trying not to compare this thing to like quake 2 or half-life again, Like I get.
I kind of get it.
And there was a bit there, Dan, I want you to know, it was like, this game, you know what?
Maybe it's not my favorite.
Maybe this is like a four out of five.
I do get it.
And then, I don't know, some of these later levels have just been, they've been obnoxious, man.
It's been a lot.
Four out of five.
Now, this is a break the Meltzer scale Tokyo Dome six out of five.
What are you talking about?
So I have a few more levels to do.
We'll see how I feel about it all.
I'm glad I'm doing it.
I'm glad I'm finally playing through this game.
That's for sure.
Mike, educate me.
Your experience and fondness for the N64, where is it at?
It's on maybe the lower end.
I like Mario 64 a ton.
The biggest hit, Star Fox 64, things like that.
But I was privileged.
I had access to a PlayStation and a PC around the same time and I was spending much more time with my PlayStation and PC.
But you did fill out that form and you found out that you do prefer the 64 over the Super Nintendo.
And that's science.
Yeah, that was science.
Did you see he made a new form for N64 versus PC?
23 to 2 in 64.
Yeah, mine was heavily for PC.
I think that was filled with a lot of games you've never played before would be my guess, Dan.
Oh, like all of them.
I didn't have a PC that could run games until I was like 30.
What are you talking about?
And that was yesterday.
Maybe I should try Perfect Dark.
Second best.
Perfect Dork.
Actually, maybe second best.
Call of Duty 4 or Perfect Dark is the second best FPS.
Where does Portal rank for top FPSs?
It seems to me it's a puzzle game.
That's a puzzle game.
Yeah, I know what you mean.
If someone wants to call it an FPS, I'll allow it, but it's not what I mean when I'm talking about it.
Sure, sure, sure.
You would say Half-Life 2, Titanfall 2.
Those are up there.
All-time greats.
Half-Life was good for its time.
Well, let's move on to a game that maybe... Oh my God, I'm going to start shaking.
I can't even say anything.
As someone who loves to defend the N64, I can't have this guy standing next to me anymore.
He's poisoning the well.
Totally.
Let's go to Super Nintendo.
Okay.
Okay, let's move on to a game that both of you like.
Better controller?
No, it's not.
I can't.
It's one of the best controllers of all time.
My hand sometimes gets a little crampy-cramp in that thing.
It's a top three controller of all time.
You know that controller as an adult, assuming you have normal-sized hands, you are constantly holding it kind of shifty, like I am, in order to fit top three controller.
All right, mina the hollower, please talk about.
Talk about something else please.
Dan mike, you both like it right?
Yes, it's a harder one to talk about.
It is hard to talk about.
For one thing, it's a preview embargo right now.
It's not the actual review embargo yet.
It's very generous, though.
We just can't say specific boss fights or names or areas and stuff like that.
But we can talk about what the game is and everything.
Mike, you beat it, and I'm like a dozen hours in, probably.
Are you like me, Mike?
We haven't really talked about it much.
Are you oscillating constantly?
Or I guess you're done with it now.
But I find myself oscillating between...
I love this.
This is nailing it.
This is, you know, I really love the discovery elements of this game.
And then me just wandering around in circles for like two hours.
Being like this is too.
This is everything's too obfuscated here.
You know, like I have no idea what I'm checking the newspaper.
I know I'm supposed to go to this area next or something like that.
But there's just a lot of like.
There's not a real map the way you think of like, like a Zelda game or something.
Right.
Yeah.
There's a general world map, but it doesn't really show your location, at least where I'm at.
I'm just getting lost a lot.
And this is in my wheelhouse this type of game, and I'm finding it very difficult to figure out what to do next most of the time.
Yeah, and I was getting frustrated with that stuff a lot early on.
Like, the very beginning, I was like, where do I go?
And then I found a path and I was going for a while until I found some enemy that seemed so far beyond me.
I'm like, this is the game telling me not to come this way anymore for now.
And I kind of wandered around for a while and read that newspaper and I'm like No, I'm supposed to go that way.
Okay, maybe I'm.
I think later in the game I get less loss, but I still I have frustration points.
So yeah, I'm kind of going from between this level of oh, this platforming challenge here is really fun, and this level design is cool and the game looks cool too.
Sometimes these frustrations, it it's interesting, this blend of dark souls and zelda, and sometimes it takes great elements of those and it makes something cool.
And sometimes i'm like i don't think this is the best zelda clone it can be or the best souls like it could be, with these two sort of ideas clashing with each other at all times And kind of here's like a more specific thing of the frustrations where it's like, let's say like this is a thing that happened to me.
I found a character like there was like a group of characters that were like well look, we're looking for our friend.
He's somewhere around here.
And at one point I found the character and it was like oh OK, I got to lead this guy back to his friends.
And at some point I died and I got sent back to kind of like basically my bonfire, which is like a little underground, like a home area.
And I had to stop playing or whatever for the night and I saved and quit.
And he booted up the next time.
And you remember like, oh, right.
I was trying to help that guy get back to his friends, but it's like, okay, where was that guy?
And like there is a huge lack of any kind of signposting or like.
Again, I don't need a big glowing red arrow telling me where this guy is, but at least in like you know, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom and stuff like that you can like.
I love that stamp system of like.
Okay, if I can't deal with this right now or if I want to remember this for later, I am choosing to put a little marker here.
There's nothing like that here again, unless something opens up later.
Um, and so it's just like well shit, I'm just going to walk around this area over and, over and over again.
I cannot remember where this guy was.
And it's like, that's just not a fun type of like discovery.
It's like, I've already discovered where he is.
I just need to do the thing.
I don't want to walk around in circles for an hour and a half.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Do you think this is a weird game to do the Castlevania-style sub-items in?
So instead of the Zelda, like, oh, you just get an item here...
Or even Shovel Knight, the previous game.
They kind of had those sub items, but it wasn't the Castlevania style.
Oh, you can only have one of them.
Then they swap.
You just sort of had an inventory of them.
In this game, you only have one of those.
You kind of swap them, right?
You get more, right?
Well, you get access to more, but you only ever hold one at a time.
It's not true.
I have something that I can swap between them.
Oh, okay then.
Wow, you beat the game without that?
That's very helpful.
Jesus Christ.
Wait, that does speak to something.
You can miss that?
Yeah, it's a thing that is.
It's a huge help to have like one.
That's like because some of these sub items and stuff are like mobility based will make you move faster, make you jump further.
And then the other is like really good for combat.
So I usually have one on me that's like a mobility one and one on me that's a offense one.
Yeah, exactly.
Well, the mobility one is kind of boring, because again, it's a bit of a soul.
It's like you have these difficult bosses but you don't have the dodge roll with invisibility frames.
You can kind of burrow to avoid things.
With the bro, you have to jump.
And the jump misses some attacks.
Sometimes it doesn't.
So it wasn't just, like, reacting to enemies.
It was, like, anticipating enemies sometimes to get out of way.
And like it's like I was just struggling with that, sometimes to the point where the build i came up with that was most effective for me, because you have like trinkets and things you can equip, i kind of a lot of stuff where i just sort of was able to stand there and take it and just kind of hit back constantly and basically just melt the boss before they came out me, which was effective.
I'm not sure how fun that was necessarily like yeah, the aesthetics of the game, like you know i i think they're great with, like i love the way shovel knight loads and like a lot of the enemy designs and boss designs in this are really cool.
Um, but yeah, the actual like moment to moment, like combat and things like that it's.
I mean, i guess you compare it to like a link to the past links, awakening era zelda, for sure, you know yeah Yeah, but they're not.
Yeah, you're right Mike, in that like a Dark Souls thing, like such a huge part of that is your abilities during combat and just the nuance to all these boss encounters and they're pretty basic in this.
Mm-hmm.
Right, it's like obviously it's not the Zelda style where like well, there's like a gimmick to the boss, you kind of have to figure out the item.
It's not necessarily doing that either.
So yeah, like this is maybe kind of sounding more down on it than I am, but i don't i kind of been struggling to think of where i am with this game, because i'm thinking about like, reviewing stuff this is kind of becoming to terms with it in real time, um and a lot of these, just different aspects of it.
I i also was grinding quite a bit in this game to kind of yeah yeah, I was doing it accidentally because I was just so many times just walking around the same area a million times trying to find the exit or something.
And I just happened to level up a ton doing that.
It has the Zelda 2 level up system, which like, you know, that's neat enough.
But like, I found a spot where there's a respawn point by a bunch of enemies.
So I know I can just kind of go fight them, burrow and reset them.
I was like i'm i'm gonna live here for maybe an hour and just juice up these numbers, like i kind of felt like i needed it.
Honestly, was yours in a garden where you burrow between, like the garden, there's like four.
I did that so much Yes.
I literally took a screenshot of like, I got to show people this grind spot.
Yeah, there's like four enemies that are fairly easy to beat and you get a bunch of XP for it.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I think we both got the same grind garden.
Exactly.
Ooh, grind garden.
Let's go there, boys.
Grind garden.
I do wonder if we're sounding too negative on it.
Cause like when I, when you do have those aha moments, it is really satisfying.
And like I've had I think it's telling that I've had like three times now that I've been like don't know if I'm enjoying this.
I think I might be done with this.
I put it down.
And I'll just kind of be sitting there.
I'll have some time and I'll look at my steam deck and pick it up again.
And then I will just have like, you know, I slept on it and now I got past this area or whatever.
And I'm like, oh, right.
This game is really good.
So it's a tricky one to kind of like I haven't beaten it yet.
Mike, I'm curious to see kind of your your final thoughts on it.
But it's not like a super obvious slam dunk like like a shovel night.
Yeah, I think that's exactly where I am.
I love Shovel Knight.
That is like an all-timer for me.
One of the all-time, maybe the great modern retro game, really.
I'm not feeling that strongly about this.
Yeah, I bounced off of it a little early on.
Not because I wasn't enjoying my time playing it.
It just felt like a game where like...
Oh, I'm going to wait for smarter people to pick this game apart, and then I'll circle back and maybe follow a guide or a map that someone makes after the fact, when this comes out.
And maybe folks at home will have a more enjoyable experience with that.
The no map thing is so weird.
I assume it comes from a place of really liking Dark Souls 1, for instance, and like oh, you should wander around.
But again, like, there's a lot of Zelda here.
It's like, you know, Zelda has a map, but what does that hurt, right?
Like, some of these decisions maybe just feel like a little too far.
I don't know.
I like this comment in chat saying this is a game that seems like it was made for Dan and Mike, and it doesn't seem like it's doing it.
Yeah, like, I mean, everything about it on paper seems like, oh, we should be all about this.
And we're both kind of, eh.
Yeah, I'm going to be curious here.
Because I think generally I heard a lot of really positive previews.
So I'm like, do I have maybe a little bit of a... Not a stick, but maybe just a little twig.
But I don't know.
It's definitely a good game.
I think I might be more frustrated with it than I am having fun.
Right.
Yeah, that's the way of putting it.
I'm surprised how frustrated I get.
Again, I like difficult games.
I played through Sekiro recently, and that was kind of an all-time.
We're not GoldenEye.
It's bullshit.
This game needed more N64 fog.
That would help.
There is some good level design here for sure.
And the burrowing mechanic, which is core of it, is good.
That is very good.
I think whenever they're being smart or clever with the burrowing mechanic is often when the game is at its best.
Moving on to a game that, Dan, you, I'm going to assume you may have enjoyed, was LEGO Batman.
Yeah, I'll just mention briefly yeah, Kalos in Town, and so we did a stream, on Friday night, I think, where we played several hours of it.
It's good.
It's definitely a good one.
It's the first Lego game I've played in a while.
And once you get to the open world especially, it's just kind of a fun kind of toy box to run around.
But yeah, I think Backlore might have said something similar when we talked about it.
It's like it's a really weird choice to start this fun open world game with this lengthy uh, 90 minute tutorial.
It's long, very long, and it's like this isn't a game that requires a lot of serious tutorial.
It's pretty straightforward what you're doing in this game and like that is like a long linear thing with these side characters.
Yeah yeah, i mean it's Especially with like how much and again, I really enjoy this game but especially with how much they sort of fast tracked a lot of the other things that you sort of go through as a Batman becoming Batman, kind of thing.
It's surprising how long that took.
I just think you know, and I saw it firsthand watching Dib go through and he's just like when am I Batman?
And I'm like, I get it, man.
90 minutes is a goddamn eternity for you.
Right.
It's like when do you get to the open world, right?
Yeah, that's what I was waiting for.
Yeah, it's surprising how much, how front loaded all that stuff is.
But once you get to Gotham, you're cooking.
Yeah, like the driving is really fun and everything like.
Yeah, once it's open, it's unequivocally a great time.
But yeah, weird, weird choice for the beginning.
Yeah, yeah.
And then, like I like those surprises and stuff where it's like oh, suddenly you're doing like a DDR minigame and stuff like that.
Like it's it throws surprises at you.
How is the co-op?
I constantly forget that it's like a co-op game as well.
Yeah, we were just playing split screen and like they do a decent job of, like you know, Kayla was Batman and I was Gordon and like Gordon gets this weird like goo gun thing.
So like it's not, like you're just like a basic, you know, just only punches and kicks guy or whatever.
Does it have online co-op?
I thought I heard it doesn't have online co-op.
I don't know.
That'd be strange, right?
I don't know.
It'd be very weird.
Alright, good to hear.
Lego Batman, very fun game.
But move over every other game.
007 First Light, get the hell out of here.
We got a real game of the week.
We got a real game of the week.
The real game that people have been clamoring for our leading expert.
The only game that will ever be associated with him for the rest of his life.
Because it's his thing.
Stop this.
You know, they think about Jeff Bacalar, hockey guy.
They think about Dan wrestling Taco Bell, right?
They think about Mike.
They think about, unfortunately, associate him with apples.
They think about me and all of my self-destructive qualities.
And Jeff Grubb, the Bubsy guy.
Grubbsy, they call him.
Grubbsy.
That game's pretty alright.
Bubsy 4D is pretty alright.
It's a lot of fun to play.
Mostly because the controls, the movement system is intricate and Very easy to chain one move into another.
I was able to talk about it on the Bombcast last week, but I did beat it last week.
I've gone back to it a couple times here or there to get some of the extra collectibles.
I'm surprised that is a little bit more substantial than what I thought it was going to be, because I did beat, beat the game.
I saw credits in like two and a half hours and then the percentage completed thing was at 70 at that time I'm like okay, I'm like basically already 100 of this game after two and a half hours.
There's not going to be much to it, but actually finding those things and going through the obstacle course like stages um has been a lot of fun.
And I did kind of get a little bit into the leaderboards, not a ton.
Basically the leaderboards are just how fast can you get to the?
What is the equivalent of a Mario star at the end of this level from like galaxy or whatever.
It's, you know, it has its issues.
Like it's, it is pretty insubstantial.
And then the levels are not like dense with a lot of visual interesting objects and things like that.
They, they, you know, it feels pretty bare bones.
It's not an ugly game, but it definitely is not like going to pop off the screen in a lot of ways.
I think Bubsy looks pretty okay.
Some of the other characters look ugly, but that's because they are just ugly characters from there, from that one cartoon pilot.
And I just don't like looking at them.
But yeah, I think that you know for one of these of like hey, let's take this sort of meme game and bring it back in a real way.
They did a pretty good job and I'm glad they didn't try to overdo it.
I'm glad they didn't try to make it a $60 game.
That would be insane.
So it's a $20 game.
It's small.
It's light.
And it kind of really works in this game's favor because it gets out of its own way.
You just have some fun with it and move on.
But yeah, I mean, man, this is Atari and working with Fabrez.
This is Atari's business model right now, like re-releasing old games, porting old games, updating old games and then making sequels to games like this.
I'm like, oh man, I'm all for it.
So yeah, pretty happy with what happened with Bubsy 4D.
Fantastic.
Folks, that about does it for the first segment of this podcast.
We'll be right back with some news and more after this break.
We'll see you on the other side.
All right, y'all.
It is time to turn up the fun, because Jeff Grubb Plants vs Zombies is celebrating 17 years of lawn-defending zombie-zapping action.
We're teaming up with Plants vs Zombies Replanted to dish out codes across every platform PC PlayStation, Xbox and Switch.
No matter how you play, you're in.
I'm ready to kick some grass, Grub.
Stay tuned at home to win.
This is the news with Jeff Grubb.
We all associate with the game franchise, Bubsy.
Jesus.
All right, let's get into the news and wash our hands of Bubsy.
All right, and instead talk about Bungie.
Bungie is ending Destiny 2 live service updates.
Layoffs are reportedly coming.
Bungie announced that Destiny 2 will stop receiving any new updates after June 9th.
The studio is shifting toward... incubating its next game.
It also said that it's shifting to the new era of Bungie, essentially.
Kind of wondering what they mean by that.
The final update is meant to make the game more welcoming for returning players.
Do not take that to mean that they will...
Unvault all the stuff that they put in the vault, because a lot of that stuff has not been updated to the newest version of Destiny 2.
So it's not compatible anymore.
At least that's what people who play a lot of Destiny 2 have told me.
They are not working on their next game necessarily right away.
They are going to be like a lot of people are supporting Marathon.
But they did say, yeah, we're incubating the next thing.
It's not Destiny 3.
Destiny 3 has not been given the green light.
They're not working on that.
That's just if they're going to work on something else, it will probably be something else.
There's been, you know, follow up, follow up reporting.
You can imagine why Sony might not be so keen on a Destiny 3 at this point.
It'd be really expensive to make and does not seem like a guarantee.
Oh, we'll make our money back from that thing, like it once would have.
Although, probably.
I don't know.
I think people would be really excited about a Destiny 3.
Bungie's in a weird place, guys.
What do you make of all this?
I, yeah.
Groans, groans, groans, groans.
I mean, it's this weird thing where it seems like the only thing they could do to turn things around is make Destiny 3.
And it also feels like it's just not going to happen for a myriad of reasons.
It was so expensive to make a game like Destiny over a decade ago, right?
Plus, these days, that's rough.
Good luck with that, especially if you kind of don't have the confidence of the parent company anymore to invest that sort of money in it.
How does that happen?
It probably doesn't.
It was such an uphill battle with marathon even that, even with something familiar like a new destiny, I feel like would also have a similar uphill battle for Bungie.
Either way,
I think that for people looking at this being like, well, isn't Marathon much smaller than Destiny?
Why are they shifting from one to the other?
It's like, yeah, they are.
I think the writing on the wall would be like they just legitimately plan to really pare down Bungie and shift where it's going in the future.
And that's how I read the we're preparing for the new era of Bungie.
Like to me, that says that they are doing something different going forward, something lesser.
Is there any hope that they can just kind of make a game like Halo, a game with a cool campaign?
And then you know matchmaking, multiplayer stuff.
I mean, yeah, but like...
I mean so a couple years ago, like the way that that would have made sense for a lot of studios was okay, we could do that.
But it takes a lot of money and time to like get people to care about a new IP.
So we got to work in an existing IP.
And so, well, you can't do that with Destiny, right?
Because you need to like have everything that Destiny is.
And they've already done Marathon as a different kind of game.
So it's like, do they have to go out and get a licensed IP or something like that?
And does that sound right for Bungie?
Because it doesn't sound right to me.
No, I mean, there's a time where it could have just been, hey, I mean, it's from Bungie.
That's the IP.
Maybe there's a little bit of that still.
I would just like this is the game that's like Halo from the people who made Halo.
Like maybe people would still be excited.
I don't know.
But was that my past?
It didn't feel like the Bungie name was enough to propel Marathon for at least to an audience that Sony or PlayStation wanted.
And that game is still, like, I would describe it as niche for Bungie.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We'll see.
Those layoffs have not happened yet, if they are happening.
I've heard that they probably are, and that it's going to be devastating for that studio.
That's how it would relate to me.
Yeah, I don't know.
It feels like the beginning of the end there, man, and I hope not, because it's just...
I think about core design a lot people who made Tomb Raider because they made Tomb Raider and it was a mega hit and made people a lot of money and the reward for that was to be forced to make Tomb Raider games until eventually they stumbled and made a bad one and then the team exploded right like that's.
That's video games baby, where even a bungee, which was once king of the world through a series of events, could be at death's door like this.
That's crazy.
Yeah yep, it is.
Um yeah, It can happen to them, and this is the kind of thing that has definitely scared a lot of other studios off of live service at this point.
Because even Bungie can't really make it work forever and that was the expectation is that a studio like that could make it work forever.
They are the experts.
Nintendo reportedly wants 20 million Switch 2 units produced by March 2027.
This is worth just pointing out, because Nintendo just told investors earlier in May that it only plans to sell around 16 million Switch 2s.
So there's a little bit of a gap there.
There's probably two things happening.
One.
They love to be conservative with those estimates so that they can sell more than they said they were going to sell.
That's a huge thing that a lot of these companies like to do, Nintendo especially.
Four million though, or four-ish million, maybe three and a half million, still pretty, pretty big.
I think the expectation is they're going to have some big games that are going to sell a lot of switch twos this holiday, even despite the price increase.
So hey, that direct should be happening sometime in june.
Uh, they probably are going to sell this on the back of ocarina of time this holiday.
Is that what you guys are thinking, or is there even more uh in store for that system?
I think Zelda is
As far as a retro remake situation, that's about as big of a name you could do, right?
I think it's the best reviewed game of all time, yeah.
There's so much motion with that and redoing that.
I think it's getting you like 70% of the way.
And it reportedly has a huge budget or something like this.
Like it's supposed to be pretty substantial.
The questions are like, what kind of remake are we talking about?
What exactly is it going to look like?
So, you know, hopefully we see it soon.
I'm expecting a huge remake because they've done the remaster thing before and it was great.
The bigger question I have is obviously, guys like us in our 30s and 40s.
This speaks to us, but let's say Dibb.
Would this... Because Dib has played and loved Breath of the Wild and Tears, right?
Yeah.
Would this... It's not linear, but it's not Breath of the Wild.
Do you think this would appeal to Dib?
Um, i think it will, because he's really cool.
Yeah uh, i mean, i think that's the whole point of doing this right.
It's like yeah, we sold x many uh, ocarina of times up to this point, and that is, that number is less than the number that we sold of breath of the wild.
So there's all these new zelda fans.
We need to appeal to them, and so i would imagine this game is going to try to do its best to position zelda for those people.
I think you throw that needle a lot like i.
I think there's a way to kind of with a little smoke and mirrors, just like this is a brand new zelda game for you.
Sure on you under 25 weirdo, like sure it's.
Hyrule Field could be expanded upon significantly and Hyrule Field could have a bunch of things that it didn't initially have.
Here's my question that will give me a lot of answers I have about this remake.
Will it or will it not have a jump button?
Yeah.
Do I press the X button on the switch, which is in that north position?
Y'all couldn't jump back then?
No.
Well, you could.
You're right off the edge.
There's so many other things.
That's the difference between Breath of the Wild and these.
There's a jump button.
It says a lot about a game, yeah.
My gut says yes, they will do that.
My gut says yes.
Just because, again, if you're trying to connect this bridge, why have that be a legacy weird thing?
Right?
Yep.
Am I crazy?
No.
I don't think so.
Because they got me...
I don't think they're going to suddenly turn this game into a Breath of the Wild-like, but there's going to be some changes.
I don't want to say smoothing of edges, but they're going to smooth some edges.
Can I climb the edge of the Deku Tree's face?
Right.
Can you defile the DQ tree?
I'm not expecting that level.
I don't think you're going to have, like, the climbing meter.
I don't think you're going to have the chemistry system.
But, like, yeah, I think you're going to have a jump button.
I think you're going to have, like, better quest tracking, things like that.
You'll have a climbing meter, but it won't be one that you can upgrade, right?
It'll be, like, a small little, because you could climb it.
Yeah.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, the more I think about it and sit with it.
Here you're trying to appeal to all these people who have tore through Breath of the Wild tears, and then you're just going to leave this legacy thing of design from all those decades ago and just be like yeah.
No, I think they're going to rework it.
I think so.
I think it's going to be closer to Resident Evil 2 remake than not.
Will this game have a pura?
They'll come up with an equivalent.
Impa was pretty powerful in that game.
They're going to make Impa hot again.
Hotter.
Hotter.
Sorry, sorry.
Thank you.
The Twinrova, that's going to be wild.
As...
Go back to your original question there.
I don't think it's just going to be awkward time.
I think there's something else this holiday as well.
I don't know what that is.
I don't know if it's Smash Brothers or Luigi's Mansion or something more surprising.
Both of those seem very possible to me.
Right.
It's not the 3D Mario yet.
I don't think it's that.
But something else hefty.
I mean, Pokemon is coming next year, right?
That's next year.
Yes, next year.
So, you know, people will sell some Switches based off of that.
My question for y'all, going back to the Ocarina of Time remake or whatever it's going to be, do we think it's going to look like Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom?
I could see it.
I think it's going to, but I don't.
Yeah, I think it's going to.
Might be weird sounding but almost look more like Twilight Princess, but nicer, because Twilight Princess is still kind of their North Star for how they think Zelda looks like a lot of time.
Like if they're going to put a picture of Link on some merchandise or something, 90 of the time it's still using that key art from Twilight Princess.
I think it'll be the most cinematic looking one, because this will be the game that they will have nearish when the movie comes out.
Right.
Got it.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
Sony announced a June 2nd state of play talking about announcing games for the rest of this year.
Wolverine is leading the show, as in it's going to open the show that is 60 plus minutes long.
Uh, they are promising that they were.
They're going to talk about a lot of stuff for later this year.
Uh, they are also partnering with alamo draft house to to air uh, the show there so people can go to the movie theater and watch this.
So that's kind of like, at the very least, that's them saying that this is worthy of going to the movie theater for, which is not something that is going to be there.
Nicole Kidman yes,
That's where she goes.
Rhea Menounos is going to be there with the newbies.
She would never be allowed in Alamo Draft House.
I'm sorry.
Someone's got to edit together that Nicole Kidman AMC thing but instead of like Creed and stuff, it's like Knack.
Yeah.
It's Knack.
Or it should be screaming about doggy style.
Yeah, that's the biggest state of play announcement.
Is you screaming doggy style?
Picture her looking with stars in her eyes.
Even hardwood feels good in a place like this.
Where are the condoms on it?
So they're opening with wolverine.
What are they closing with guys?
Uh venom, they're literally.
They could.
They've done that before.
Okay, they can't keep depending on insomniac like this.
There's gotta be some other games for people like what's what's what's, what could be teed up here?
Sucker punch just did their thing.
That fey game oh yeah yeah yeah it's, it's probably that right, it's probably that.
Yeah, i don't know, is it?
I want to get excited for that game, but like, just telling me, like a game based on fey uh, i'm like okay, what does that mean?
I guess i don't know.
It's weird.
I like those god of war games and yet i'm also a bit over them.
I don't think we need another one of those right now.
Yeah, so I want to see how this looks different.
This one's supposed to be very different.
This is supposed to be very different.
I don't know what that means.
Yes, exactly.
It's going to be like Celeste.
Okay, I'll play that.
That sounds awesome.
Look, bring back something.
I know we're not going to see a million revivals.
Bring back one of the classic franchises in some way.
All right, you pick it.
Here we go.
What is it?
Say Sly.
Please say Sly.
Say Sly.
I love Sly Cooper.
Do it for me, Mike.
You didn't answer fast enough.
Okay, damn it.
That's going over to me.
I don't think it's going to be Sly.
Um, no, I would, I would expect the most flash.
I was gonna say jumping flash.
I bet it would be something more places.
You shouldn't want jumping flashes.
You may be able to escape.
I don't know, but it's something I just wonder if it's like, is it too early?
Cause like, I think they are shifting to that line of thinking because everyone in the industry is.
And by that line of thinking I mean reusing old properties that you have and like, just like, dive into that stuff, doing what Capcom's done.
And Sony has enough IP to make that work.
But it's like they were just doing the live service thing very hard.
That was like the big initiative.
They clearly are backing off of that because everyone else is, again.
But they closed Bluepoint.
I just don't, like, why close Bluepoint in this moment when you kind of need them the most?
Right right, right.
It's hard to think that there's probably going to be any type of remake or remaster going back to the well when?
Who would they get to do it?
Yeah.
Yeah.
It doesn't.
And not just blue point but, like you know, the the other studios out there, like iron galaxy, has been contracted out to help them out with a bunch of this stuff before.
Right.
Uh, Place for Bob's working for Xbox right now, so it's not them.
Is it too early to announce what Asobi is working on?
Maybe not, but you would think it's just going to be Astro Bot 2 and that maybe that's one more year from being announced.
Or maybe they're making a platformer based off one of the old franchises.
I'm trying to think what.
They're going to make a Jak and Daxter?
I think that'd be awesome.
I don't know if that's going to happen.
I don't know if Naughty Dog would even allow it.
We were half joking like the chat, half joking about jumping flash earlier.
Can you imagine how much more excited we would have been about the psvr 2 if the launch game was just one.
That would actually be good for vr.
Yeah, you guys.
Jumping flash 2 rules guys, chat.
Maybe you don't know, you weren't there.
So good, better first person shooter than goldeneye.
That's a stupid thing to say, mike.
One other question I've been asking people about this state of play.
Does Halo Combat or Campaign Evolved, the game that is coming to PlayStation 5 later this year, show up in this state of play? uh should or if it's coming this year right well it's it's just it's just so weird because yeah but there's this weird flip-flop where for most of our lives the answer was absolutely what are you talking about that would never even happen to well it's coming and of course it's going to be at the state of play to now where the direction of the new leadership at xbox is clearly we want to make this feel like a special platform again they can't not make the game for playstation anymore they already said that's happening i think they already took pre-orders but i wonder how much they really want to advertise that fact maybe that deal was already in place and they have to so it could show up here but also it could not i don't think they want to emphasize the playstation 5 version of this game anymore Yeah, I yeah, I feel like it's going to be in there just because like you said, like maybe that deal is already done.
That's my sense.
Like, yeah, this is probably already inked in, you know, in stone or whatever.
That's not how ink in stone works.
But yeah, I will see.
We're going to see here in a couple of days next week ish.
Yeah, we'll find out soon.
Hey, it's Grand Theft Auto 6 release day, everybody.
It's here.
It came out May 26, 2026, just like they always said.
Oh, shit.
Never mind.
It just got delayed.
So really bringing it up as a reminder of the Strauss Zelnick was talking about this game again like he's paid to do.
And he reiterated.
In the most recent financial report, talking to investors, this game is coming November 19th.
Really seems like that's happening this time.
They also started talking a little bit about when marketing is going to start.
And he said over the summer.
People are like, ask, hey, does that mean Summer Game Fest?
I've heard July, so I would expect no.
So we'll probably see a new trailer in July.
And then it's kind of off to the races.
This game really does feel like it's here.
What do you say this is almost definitely going to be the biggest game launch of all time?
I mean it's going to be I think it's going to be, if not the biggest entertainment launch, like the second biggest entertainment launch.
What is number one right now?
Do you want to guess?
I think some of you might know.
Like this is across all entertainment, Dan, across all entertainment.
Didn't this get usurped recently?
I remember it's a weird one, right?
Is it a game?
Spider-Man 2.
It's a tabletop game.
Oh.
Final Fantasy 7 Magic the Gathering.
Final Fantasy VII Magic the Gathering made something like 2 billion in like an hour or some shit like that.
Yeah, it was.
So I think it'll be bigger than that.
Huh?
Yeah.
I see your mouth on the floor.
There's no golden eye magic the Gathering.
Don't give a shit.
He's right.
He's right yeah, but grub.
What about real games?
What's the biggest one?
It's gonna be Grand Theft Auto 6 here pretty soon.
What is the existing one?
What is the biggest one right now For video games?
It probably is like Red Dead Redemption 2 or something like that, if we're going to be in GTA.
One of the Call of Duties, I don't know.
Oh, sure.
Yeah.
Modern Warfare 2 would be my guess as far as the biggest COD, you know?
Yeah.
But yeah, I mean, yeah, it's going to be GTA six.
That game is like they're expecting to sell basically like 20 to 25 million copies.
Analysts are expecting them to do that in a day like one day, which is, like you know, tears of the kingdom basically race to 20 million in a week, or something like that.
This will be much bigger than that.
Ubisoft says new Assassin's Creed, Far Cry, Ghost Recon and a playable generative AI experience are in development.
Ubisoft has done a bunch of boneheaded things recently.
They are going to be going for like hey, we're doing the same thing over again and then we're going to have a gen AI game.
Um, Fuck off.
What do they even mean by that?
What does that mean?
I mean, these are the people that did stick with their NFT game far longer than everyone else.
What about courts?
What about courts is what the kids are saying.
Hey, show me your courts.
And I say, get out of my home.
It would just be so appropriate if a Den AI game is the thing that finally takes down Ubisoft.
You know, what's going to happen is finally we can finish Beyond Good and Evil 2, because Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he couldn't generate enough assets.
So now they're just going to get AI to generate the game. game.
Makes sense.
It's insane that I still think this Gen AI game's gonna come out before Beyond Good and Evil 2.
Oh, I think it will, yes.
Right?
Yeah.
How's that gonna cancel?
Jesus.
And then Assassin's Creed Far Cry Ghost Recon, it is going back, playing the hits again.
You start off not really changing things up too much, so...
I mean, look, if you make good versions of those games, I expect them to do pretty well.
Those have all been pretty mainstream hits, especially Assassin's Creed and Far Cry.
But I get the sense that when those ones are pretty good not just mediocre but pretty good it is easy for a lot of people to tune those out.
So I just don't know how these are going to change Ubisoft's fate.
Okay, this next one got me pretty excited.
New ratings out of Korea, which is South Korea's, had their ratings board leak a lot of games recently.
And when they do, usually they're coming pretty soon.
Persona 4 Revival did get rated.
So that's a pretty good sign that that's going to be happening soon.
No, I counterpicked that in Fantasy Critic.
It's not coming out this year.
I was literally going to say, and I think we all pretty much expected that to be the case, except for Mike.
And then Lego Skylines.
Do you guys have an idea what that might be?
Is this like a city?
Yeah, city builder.
It's City Skylines.
It's from Paradox.
Lego Skylines?
Yeah, that's... such a good idea.
I mean, to me, it's like, that's way more appealing.
I, something about like, Oh, a piece in Legos together for a city.
It just makes sense.
Um, Okay, I want to play that real bad.
So I get the sense for both of these.
We'll be getting on the other side of Summer Game Fest with dates, and I bet both of them are not that far off.
Maybe this holiday.
Fantasy Critic aside, I liked Persona 4 Golden a ton.
It was one of my favorite RPGs, so I'm very excited to see what the remake looks like.
Yeah, I bought a Vita several years too late just so I could play Persona 4 Golden handheld.
Oh, God.
It's a great, great, great game.
Yeah.
Also, like summer, just working my way through that game on my Vita.
Good times.
Vita, man, that shit slapped.
I love my Vita, man.
No.
But Dan, all the visual novels you could have played.
All the visual novels and RPGs were on there, Dan.
PSP and Vita were both bad.
They were both bad.
Twisted Metal Head-On was pretty good.
Luminous.
Dungeons and Dragons game from Star Wars Jedi director has been canceled by Hasbro.
I'm mostly including this because Stig Asmussen made one of the best games of all time.
A couple of the best games of all time.
Titanfall 2 definitely is.
Oh, I'm sorry.
He was I'm sorry.
He was the Star Wars Jedi director guy.
Those are pretty good games.
God of War three, which is I really do love God of War.
It was just a fun, fun game.
This one is maybe more interesting because we just got done talking for like a half an hour about how good James Bond is.
And I think that game is in the pantheon with like Star Wars Jedi Survivor and Jedi Fallen Order.
Indiana Jones and a bunch of games like that like oh, these licensed games from established studios doing their thing, and maybe like putting a little extra oomph because they got an IP to go along with.
It just makes a lot of sense.
And Dungeons and Dragons and Hasbro just couldn't make that make sense here, which seems like I don't know, dropping the ball.
It's just weird how they had this mega hit with Baldur's Gate 3, and somehow they managed to turn that into negative momentum for Dungeons & Dragons games.
Yeah, and when you...
Look at, sorry, Greg, but like how much D&D has taken over the YouTube space.
There's like gigantic companies now built on the back of just D&D campaigns.
That movie wasn't half bad either.
Oh, that movie's fun.
I like it a lot.
Oh, it's fun.
Was there a character growth?
There probably was actually a lot of character growth.
There was a ton.
Absolutely.
The whole point.
All sorts of it.
It's surprising that I just couldn't make it work for a game.
Yep.
It's a, and it's like, to me, this just makes a ton of sense.
You can see how this game would work and it could fill in, like the constellation of different kinds of dungeons and dragons, games separate from Baldur's Gate three.
But all right, they're not going to make it.
Uh, Couple more stories here.
Crazy Taxi is back.
They're teasing Crazy Taxi at the very least.
Them being Sega.
Basically, it was a social media post with the taxi sign turning on.
They have previously said they're going back to Crazy Taxi, but then you know, recently they were talking about oh, we're canceling our Super Game and everyone thought wasn't that Crazy Taxi?
No, that's something separate.
In fact, they're teasing it.
Feels like they're setting something up for Summer Game Fest.
Man, I...
Wonder what this game is going to be like.
I kind of want something that's like hey, what if Crazy Taxi took over the world of like Forza Horizon?
There's got to be some kind of open world element to it, for sure.
And I think that's a great idea.
Where you definitely like can start the kind of timer and you get into these sessions of playing Crazy Taxi.
But
There's other things to do aside from that.
I think it's going to be pretty clear how you can expand this game, and I hope they figure that out.
It's exciting.
I want Crazy Taxi to be back.
It's incredible that it is going to be back at all.
I'm so excited.
Guys, I actually have news on what the Super Game was that Sega was planning.
It was Vectorman 3.
The Super Game.
They've been working on it.
They never canceled it for the PS2.
They've been working on it this entire time.
100%.
Yep.
I'm opening up Kelshi and I'm going to bet that when Crazy Taxi gets announced, it is announced with an Offspring song.
You have to, right?
Do they just like, is it black and you just hear, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then immediately, yeah, that'd be great.
You'd lead with it, for sure.
Just do that.
Yes, that would be good stuff.
It's so freaking good.
What's Baki?
Is that an anime?
Okay, thank God.
I don't know either.
You're all making me feel so much better, because I was watching um combo breaker and it was uh, i was actually watching maximilian dudes, a very popular fighting game uh, like streamer content creator and he was reacting to the tekken reveal for their last character And it was like who could it be?
Is it going to be a guest character?
And it was this character from something called Baki.
Yujiro Hanma.
Yeah.
And he was like, this is huge.
And the chat was like, this is incredible.
And I think at one point he was like it's not quite like getting a Jojo but boy, it's almost there.
And I'm like I feel like a crazy person.
I've never heard of this character.
I've never heard of this anime flash manga um, uh.
So yeah, like he does look like a tekken character, though he already looks like one.
Yeah um yeah, i feel like i, you know, i'm not the most i'm not an anime expert, but i kind of know the greatest hits around and stuff.
Yeah, never heard of baki.
Like Jojo has just come up to me in casual conversation despite the fact I've never seen it about 10000 times right, so like these things could break containment in a way that Baki is just not broken containment, which I bet it's very good.
It's not a thing about quality, but I was just like, is this as mainstream as the anime fans think it is?
I guess it's just my question.
This guy's face is gnarly.
If only we had an anime podcast that Jeff Bacalar was on, that he could lead, and then we could call this subseason Bacalar.
I know.
It's my first thought too, Jen.
Yeah.
One day.
We'll see if that's possible.
Who knows?
I don't think so.
Scientists are still unsure.
Okay.
Well, that's a guest character in Tekken.
That's why we brought it up.
Cool.
There's a bunch of guest characters coming, I think, but that's the one people seem to be the most excited about.
OK, that does it for the news.
I'm handing the show back over to you, Jan.
Thank you so much.
Thank you, Jeff Grubb.
And folks, we're going to take another quick bricky break and we will be back with the emails.
Another installment of Grubb Guesser and YouTube Super Chats.
If we have any, we'll see you right after this.
We want to talk to you about Beta Hat for a second.
They're a market research firm and friends of ours, whose job it is to make sure that, when the biggest studios and publishers in the industry are making big decisions about a game, a feature, a direction, those decisions are informed by what real players actually think.
Not assumptions, not gut instinct, real feedback from real people.
The Beta Hat Research Community is how you become one of those people.
You join, you get invited to surveys, focus groups, playtests.
By participating in these tests, not only do you get paid for your time, but your voice shapes the future of games.
If you've ever wanted your voice to actually matter in this industry, this is how.
Head to BetaHatRC.com, and when you sign up, tell them Giant Bomb sent you.
No, seriously, tell them.
When you sign up, make sure you select Giant Bomb when asked, how did you hear about Beta Hat?
Thanks, Beta Hat.
But before we get to emails, if you're listening to the podcast on perhaps, an app you are not a premium member or a YouTube member you may notice a the weird influx of ads that we do not support, and I just want to give the floor to Jeff Bacalar.
Whoa, you're making it sound like I'm the one putting in the nefarious ads, Jim.
We're doing it.
No, no, you said to toss to you, so I'm tossing to you.
Oh, my God.
How do I follow that up?
Captain Ads, Jeff Bacalar.
So yeah, I just think it's helpful to peek behind the curtain every now and then to sort of explain what our podcast advertisement situation is.
The vast majority of our ads are automatically programmed into our shows.
We don't get to see them or approve of them beforehand.
Obviously, the ones that we're speaking in, we have approval over.
But I think this is just helpful to peek behind the curtain and for people to realize we are not saying yes to these types of nefarious categories.
We opt out right and we the the, our partner that publishes our podcast and hosts our podcast we work with them to to say hey, we don't want xyz categories being advertised on our shows, and that's the sentiment for a lot of podcasts in and around our orbit.
So it's not on different platforms too.
I've seen it everywhere.
Unfortunately, it is this sort of whack-a-mole situation.
Now i will say this our podcast partner does a pretty good job at responding to to this kind of criticism and these comments and they are relatively good at stamping them out.
Don't forget, when you get an ad right like, there's so many other things that go into uh uh, the calculation of like, how you receive that ad, it depends on like, where you are in the world, where you are in the country, even sometimes some like personal demographics yeah, Yeah.
Like the platform, like there's just a lot that goes into mine.
I speak Spanish.
I get so many Spanish speaking ads.
My homie, I don't know what you're saying.
Yeah, that's that's yeah.
So obviously it's a very imperfect system, but it is the system.
And they're really.
You know, podcast ads have changed a tremendous amount in the last decade, as I'm sure you're all aware of.
So yeah, I think it's just helpful to hear that.
I think, you know, if you are getting an ad during one of our shows, let us know.
And the best thing you can do is tell us which show, where you are in the world.
I don't need your address, just maybe like your general locale and what date and what show, and we can send that feedback along to our publisher and we can sort of track it down.
Again, more inside baseball.
But the way these people get their ads through the censors is they mislabel their ad.
So you know the the the, the heroin uh company that's advertising that they're marking their advert.
They're marking their advertisement is like a health food drink or whatever it is.
Just get these poppy seeds.
We'll do some extra things to them.
But So we'll have the filters saying like we don't want heroin ads, but it's like it doesn't see it as a heroin ad.
You hear the heroin ad.
Exactly.
I just got a DM from Chuck who says you can send this to support at giant bomb.com.
That'll also help expedite it.
So yeah, that's all it is.
I just want to be able to explain to people like how this works.
It is helpful to get that feedback, but no, chat, there really isn't a heroin company out there.
That was just a silly example.
It's usually political stuff that tags itself as not political or pro-life stuff, or just don't tag it as such.
There's nothing any one platform can necessarily do about it from what we've seen.
It's going to be whack-a-mole.
Yep.
Just tell us.
Support at DriveBob.com.
Yep.
Yep.
Yep.
Thank you.
There you go.
Mr. Backlar for explaining to the folks at home.
Bombcastgiantbomb.com is another email address.
You can send emails to write in about any and everything.
I say this every single week for the last couple months, but thank you so much for everyone for writing emails in.
We get a ton of them.
And apologies if your email does not make it onto the show.
First email comes from Andrew from the Compendium of Arts.
Hello, Emmy having email checker Jan hand-waving emoji.
Mike Minotti is still using a very old Ikea desk.
He even bought a new desk to replace the old one.
Yet Mike has not assembled a new desk.
Is it laziness?
Is it an emotional attachment to the old way of life?
Whatever the reason, can we get a video of Mike assembling the new desk and potentially Grub destroying the old desk with a wood chipper?
Much love, Andrew from The Competitor.
He loves this desk.
Yeah.
Well, so bad news.
I finally gave up the new desk to my brother.
Yeah well, I gave it to my brother, put it together for one of his kids because she was getting a computer.
When did he buy it?
A few years ago, I think I had that desk.
So several years it sat at your house in a box?
It sat in this room in a box, yeah.
I was kind of pressured into buying that desk.
I like this desk.
I'm comfortable on this desk and my brother's like.
That desk is so old, you need a better desk.
You don't even have enough room to move your mouse and i'm like it feels good to me.
But whatever, there's like a desk, it was cheap.
I bought it.
It got here and i was like here's, here's my issue.
It's not how are you bullied, can you unpack that?
Okay, bullies made a strong word.
I was pressured.
I was pressured.
Yeah, how were you pressured?
Let's use that word.
Because they kept mocking my desk.
They kept saying I should do it.
I should get a new desk, so I did it.
Then I just never really wanted to put together because I'm fine.
That's the issue.
It's not emotional attachment.
If the thing is working for me and I am currently happy, it's kind of hard for me to be like I should spend time and effort changing this situation.
But you spent the money.
Yeah, I spent the money and then it got here.
It wasn't much.
It was a pretty cheap desk and I was like, I don't really want this desk.
I don't know.
It's just not happening.
I'm not putting it together.
I want to see pictures of your current desk.
It's a mess right now.
It is.
It's an old IKEA desk that I got before I went to college.
Oh, my God.
That's a buy it for life, I think.
It used to have a whole top section too, with stuff there that I removed so that display monitors can fit on it.
Now, right.
Sure.
Is it like a heavy boy?
Um, like he's not like insanely heavy, but it's, it's sturdy for sure.
It's got.
It's got the rollout keyboard thing which I think most desks don't really bother with anymore.
And I like my rollout keyboard.
Wow.
That is just, uh, you're more, I can't hear that storage for all of his favorite cassette tapes.
It does have a drawer here.
I don't even know what's in this drawer anymore.
A keyboard tray?
There's probably shit so old.
I think a keyboard tray is hot, Mike.
I like the keyboard tray.
I feel like a keyboard tray would probably be more ergonomic.
But now the useful stuff that I have in this thing, like this old iPhone.
What the hell is it doing in this?
Sure, that's interesting.
He's just an innocent man, guys.
Come on.
This is very Paul Reichard here.
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
You got some CD-ROMs in there?
Yeah, we got some free hours.
Who among us cannot just pull out Mass Effect addressed to Dean Takahashi at VentureBeat for an Xbox One dev kit.
Who among us, right?
Let's play this game.
Most random thing with an arm's reach on your desk, on or around your desk.
I got 12 months of Xbox Game Pass here.
There's my Gruber.
Oh, I mean, my go-to is always my Raptor Claw bottle opener.
Okay, Jeff Backler has a bottle of isopropyl alcohol.
Here's my replica of the door knocker from the Muppets Christmas Carol.
That's good.
That's not surprising at all.
It does look like truck nuts.
Got that.
I got all sorts of goodies around here.
Let's see.
Here's my memorabilia of the largest entertainment launch in media history.
The Final Fantasy Magic the Gathering cards.
I just have shroom chocolates.
That's the craziest thing, I guess.
Shroom chocolates?
Really?
Yeah.
I found my fidget spinner.
Thank God.
I need to fidget.
Yeah, thank God.
All right.
Well, moving along.
Eric from Massachusetts writes in Gang what is the longest game set in your gaming queue that you ended up loving?
Not necessarily an old game that you decided to play.
I have a tendency to not play games because I'm afraid I won't finish it.
I bought Tales of Iron just after it came out in 2021.
I kept saying I'll play it that next, but Game Pass and Zeitgeist, I just kept picking something else.
I played it recently, and I ended up loving it.
Wonderful little 2D action game.
Eric from Massachusetts.
May I do another playthrough of Ys VIII, Lacrimosa of Dana?
Sure.
It's time.
Another one.
It's already been four or so, right?
I know, I know, but once again, I'm going to do it again.
Yeah, it's a lot like there's so many games that i got a code for forever ago or bought on like a steam sale way back when and then finally it's like you know, finally gonna play the outer wilds because of a punishment or something, and then you know, finally played, it's awesome.
So i'm doing this sort of thing quite a lot.
I'll even uh Gosh recently.
When I brought the N64 out not too long ago, I found my copy of Mission Makers back in the day and I had a save file on the second-to-last boss.
And I just picked it up, and it was so weird, because I couldn't beat this boss back then.
And I picked it up, and I immediately just beat that boss.
Like, this isn't that hard.
It's weird being a kid and being dumb, I guess.
I mean it was weird.
Like I finished that save file and like that game, like has you write down your age on the save file too?
So it was this really weird thing.
I was like, Mike, age 10, beat the game.
I was like, man...
It was like a weird baton pass across, like, generations of myself.
Right.
Your body is completely regenerated several times.
All your cells, like, you're not that same person anymore.
That's weird.
Um, yeah.
Uh, Rygar for the NES last summer.
Yeah.
I was like, uh, I always loved the idea of Rygar.
And then the Rygar game came out and got really good reviews for, was it PlayStation two?
Yeah.
And I'm like, it's time.
I got to play that now.
But first I want to go back and play the original Rygar.
Never did that until last summer vacation.
I took some time off around July 4th and was kind of on the beach, mostly hanging out.
And then when we had a couple minutes here or there, I just played on NSO.
And that game really lived up to expectations.
It's really quite a good NES game.
Look, I should do Rondo of Blood at some point.
Oh, God.
Rondo Blood's amazing.
I think that'd be great.
Yeah.
That's fine.
Okie dokie.
Next email comes from Tom from London and this we were talking about Destiny earlier.
Hi Bomb Crew.
Sad times with the end of live service updates for Destiny 2.
Some of my greatest gaming memories spawned from that game, including raids dungeons, surprise exotic missions, puzzles and amazing lore and characters.
Hopefully Sony and Bungie can figure out a way to develop Destiny 3 one day.
The market conditions are tough, but a Destiny 3 could be huge.
Marathon is awesome.
It's not the scale and scope of Destiny 2.
Maybe it will become huge in time.
It certainly has the sci-fi lore and gameplay potential.
We'll see what Season 2 brings.
Just wanted to share for all the Guardians out there going through it right now.
It's a rough one because there's nothing out, just like Destiny 2 with its combination of PvE and PvP.
Make sure to turn up for the going away party in the tower, with the final update release on the 9th of June.
Spread the good word.
Eyes up, Guardians.
Tom from London, UK.
Yeah, it's sad because it makes me wonder in general, what's like the state of these kind of MMO style games where you are making these massive worlds with all this content and all this variety of content.
And it's still a gamble.
Or you could gamble by making a live service game that generally has a smaller scope and is maybe focusing on one game mode and just is generally fewer assets right.
It's kind of the same pool of the lever on the slot machine.
Just the one is going to be probably easier to make.
All right.
Moving on along a couple, two quick emails here.
Hey, Malo is almost done.
Or I mean, you know, celebrating the month of May.
We're always going to be celebrating Malo.
I'm going to get to change my Malo soon.
See what the new picture is.
I'm excited for it.
Oh, I'm so excited.
We'll be able to see the next week. there is, in fact, an actor named Malo.
Malo McCaslin is an inactive actress who was once married to Willie Ames of Charles in Charge and Bibleman fame.
Malo starred with Willie in Bibleman.
All right, cool.
Good for them.
More you know.
We were talking about dogs French kissing last week on some show.
I don't remember which.
That's right.
That's where the doggy style thing came from.
Oh, okay.
Hey, Bombers.
On the subject of dogs, French kissing there's a city in Aranhat, Inner Mongolia China, where there are two giant dinosaur statues crossing the highway and tonguing each other.
Google Aranhat dinosaurs.
All right.
Okay.
This email, everyone buckle up, all right?
Everyone buckle up for this one.
I didn't write the emailer's name.
I'll get that after this, after the discussion.
These dinosaurs are straight up kissing.
Yeah, this is dope.
Yeah.
This email comes in.
I would like to present to Dan the following hypothesis.
The Game Boy is a better and more important platform than the N64.
Yes, the N64 may have Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Goldeneye, but outside of a tiny handful of other games, the library basically ends there.
However, Tetris was a cultural moment all by itself, even outside of traditional gamers.
Pokemon continues to print infinite money to this day.
It had mainline Zelda and Metroid games.
Kirby is still big with the kids.
Heck, the Game Boy gave us both Picross and Wario.
I won't even get into unit sales for consoles or top-selling games, as the answer is already obvious.
Not only that as the first truly successful handheld console, the Game Boy eventually birthed the Nintendo DS and now the Switch.
There's no need to worry if the N64 compares to the PC if it isn't even clearing the Game Boy.
Much love to everyone on the show.
You are all my game boys.
Appreciate how emailer also described it as the more important platform, which is the truth, without a doubt.
It's more successful.
It is more important to the way people played games at that time.
When I think about importance a little bit though, I'm thinking like what effect did it have on games after that?
And it's like a lot of the best Game Boy games were great because they were like portable versions of things that existed and they did a really good job of that.
And like, you know, even Pokemon.
It's like, yeah, there's still a lot of stuff that goes long past beyond Game Boy.
N64 was... solving 3D games in a way that is still applicable today.
I was just saying the other day how Forza Horizon 6 was reminding me so much of Wave Race.
And that's not just something I'm saying.
It's like, I see that in the DNA.
And a lot of that stuff was like solved in those first couple of years on the N64.
And in a lot of ways, more so than it was even happening on PlayStation, where PlayStation was like definitely had way more games.
Some of those early 3D camera problems were being solved on N64 first.
And I don't know, to me, the legacy there is worth remembering.
And at the same time, I would still say Game Boy is more important.
I am, if nothing else, a reasonable man.
I think it is.
Game Boy doesn't get the credit for Tetris.
Okay.
It was maybe the most iconic.
It was maybe the most iconic version of Tetris, but we can't just be like Oh, Tetris equals game boy.
The success of Tetris is thrown onto the game boy.
Like it's no.
Tetris is going to be a phenomenon, no matter what.
Yeah yeah, pokemon doesn't matter um, so i think the importance here is the handheld gaming thing.
I think handheld gaming did exist technically before, like i mean, they were like the little, like titan not, they wasn't tiger, but you know the little football things from the 70s and all that stuff.
Uh, they sucked though before the game boys.
So I will say, in terms of overall importance to the industry, I can see the argument for the Game Boy winning in terms of just being like the first big handheld platform with a full gaming library of its own.
But grub what he said about like figuring out 3d gaming in a way, that's still a super matter, Z targeting stuff like that.
You know, Mario 64 Ocarina, you can't discount that.
You can't discount, you know, the, I was going to say the four player local thing.
It's like, well, that's actually not really that big at the time.
It was important in that moment.
It's why the N64 is so important to me for sure.
Yeah.
But it's not, not a legacy.
Also, I hate so much more than anything.
The GoldenEye discourse over the last week or so, I saw someone talk about how great the couch co-op in GoldenEye was.
There's no couch co-op!
Co-op means cooperative.
Jesus.
God, I hate that.
Maybe you're sitting on one couch and you're holding one controller.
No, you're not.
It had local multiplayer.
That was not couch co-op.
Dan, to me, that's cinema, bud.
Yeah.
No, I get the argument for the Game Boy being more important overall.
You know what?
They're both important.
That's fine.
You know what I'm mad about now?
Goldeneye is better than anything on the Game Boy.
Okay, so this is related to what I'm mad about, because I just saw somebody do a list of the best rated James Bond video games.
And Jeff, you were just talking about Ocarina of Time being the highest rated game ever.
You know what GoldenEye's average Metacritic score?
This is older times.
It was based off of 21 people.
You know what its average score is?
No idea, actually.
A 96.
Hmm.
Interesting.
I mean, you've got to like like people weren't doing, like first person, like couch co-op, multiplayer gaming back then.
And that was a revelation.
And to people in gaming working on gaming magazines that were doing those reviews, spending all night for a month doing that over and over.
Like that was life changing.
I can't ban.
If you don't appreciate Goldeneye, might I recommend being 13 in 1997?
I'm going to try it.
You should try that before you speak about it.
You should try being 10 and having your 13-year-old brother and his friends make you play it with them, while they bully you during it the entire time.
Your perception of GoldenEye might also change.
No, you have younger sisters and you beat them at it.
Maybe i would have had more fun that yeah yeah, all right, a couple quickie emails uh, before we move on to the podcast.
Within the podcast uh, this comes from tim, from ballwin.
What is mo?
Missouri missouri okay, it's bad Oh, okay.
I'll take your word for it.
Trust me, trust me.
Hello, I just got a pool table and I like it a lot.
Y'all fuck with pool?
Thanks.
I've never been good at it.
I like it a lot.
I'm kind of there too.
I'm not good at it, but every time I'm playing it, I'm like, I enjoy what I'm doing right now.
Especially in some dive bar or something with some friends and some beers.
That's just a good time.
It's a sexy game.
My grandpa had a pool table, like a nice one.
And we used to play down there as kids.
And then when he passed, my dad had it.
So it was in my house for a bit.
So I was decent at pool at one point.
I think it's in pieces right now.
My dad hasn't put back together since he moved.
They're tough to get rid of.
Yeah, they're big.
This is an old, nice, hefty pool table.
It's cool as hell.
I love it.
Even still, going to a bar playing pool is a good time.
I wish I was good at it again because I do enjoy pool.
All right.
Last email of the show comes from Michael M. in Seattle.
Hey, dudes.
I just saw a guy doing LED nunchucks in the park at night by himself.
Oh, yeah.
What is the coolest LED thing you could wield in a park at night?
Michael M in Seattle.
Nunchucks yeah, i can't.
Yeah, you saw it.
Yeah dildo, the finger gloves thing, that'd be cool too.
I like nipple tassels yeah yeah oh oh, are there led um?
What are your sticks called devil sticks?
Oh, i will.
If there are, there must be.
Yeah, they're really just everywhere in everything.
I mean every new car looks like a gaming pc now Yeah,
And it was within our lifetimes where it's like we're never going to be able to figure out blue LEDs.
Like that was a huge deal.
It was a huge scientific breakthrough when the guy actually figured that out.
Yeah.
I read that story recently, the guy in Japan, but now it's everywhere.
And they cost like half a penny to make one.
Yeah.
And to power them, it's pretty low cost.
Yeah.
There's so much 90s nostalgia stuff over a long period of time now and we never brought back the lights in the shoes.
Like, every time you step... No, no, no.
My kids definitely have a pair of those.
You just have never met anyone under... Yeah, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
100%.
You mean...
If you mean we haven't made those for adults and we're slipping there.
I agree.
I have not seen shoes with lights in them since like 1992.
I saw one two weeks ago.
Really?
They're everywhere.
They should make those for adults, though.
I like that.
Put on my comfy slip-ons, right?
Like my beige slip-ons.
Just put some lights on them.
Ooh, give me some LED Uggs.
That hit.
What about the Pops?
The Pops back?
I don't know.
They're around.
I think there's a hockey skate with the Reebok pump in it, too.
Oh, my God.
That's cool.
All right.
Yeah.
The Uggs are tremendously popular with kids.
And just, like, even, like, Dibs got a pair.
Like, the slippers.
Yep.
The slippers, all the all.
You see like 15 kids come into a locker, a hockey room, i'm sorry, a hockey locker room, and they all just pop off their hugs.
I'm like, what is?
What is this?
What am I looking at here?
I don't know.
That's like the shoe that used to be like the generic white girl shoe.
That's for kids like those now.
Those are like the boots.
These are the there's a bunch of the slippers.
Yeah.
Little booties.
Yeah.
All right, folks, that about does it for emails.
Bombcastagiantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to.
Thank you, everyone, for writing in.
And apologies if your email does not make it into the show.
Keep writing in, gang.
Jeff Grubb.
What time is it?
It's time for the podcast within a podcast.
Everybody, welcome to the latest episode of grub guesser.
Uh, hide the children.
This one's gonna get a little spicy.
Close the chat.
Close the chat.
Sega Saturn.
It's for Sega Saturn.
Oh, if it's that one, brother.
I know exactly what you're talking about.
This first one, again, this one is a little bit infamous.
You guys might get it right away.
It is from an issue of Playboy magazine.
What?
And for audio listeners, there is a man without any clothes on.
I can't even see this.
I know it's hard to see.
I apologize, but that's the ad.
There is a reason that I am censoring his crotch area.
Now, typically, I censor things that might give it away.
This time I'm censoring it because look, it's not a penis, but it's a thumb made to look like a penis.
A thumb.
Oh, i cannot see what this is.
Is this like uh, is this for a peripheral?
Is it the one-handed rpg controller for ps1?
This is not for a peripheral.
This is not for the one-handed jrpg controller for ps1.
This is my favorite like like, i believe you, but i'm so curious, like how could this be easy to?
This was infamous.
That's why.
People talked about it at the time.
I did not remember it.
I'm glad you guys didn't remember it.
What does it say in the top right?
Playboy what?
I think it says Playboy Forever, I think.
Okay, if he was in Playboy.
Again, for audio listeners it is like he is just a very muscly nude man and that's kind of all.
They have to go on.
Just his abs.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, he's not wearing pants either.
Oh, okay, cool.
I mean, his stuff's out.
His stuff's out in the ad.
Does he have balls?
You don't see the balls because the balls are hanging between the legs, but you do see the thumb.
Again, it's a thumb instead of a penis.
But he's like tucking the balls between the thighs?
They're like hanging below.
Are the balls visible?
He's not like holding them up.
I think we're guessing the wrong things here.
Is this an ad for a video game?
I mean, not really.
No, I mean, yes, for video game related stuff.
Is it for a specific console?
Yeah.
Is this for a Game Boy?
This is not for Game Boy, although there were some spicy Game Boy, but this is a little bit too spicy for Nintendo.
Is this a PlayStation ad?
This is a PlayStation ad.
Oh.
I'm going to send you guys the uncensored one.
Oh dear yeah, oh dear is right it.
I, i swear it's a thumb, i'm not sending inappropriate.
Well, i mean it's inappropriate, it absolutely is.
Oh my god, that's more graphic than i expected exactly.
Ps3, that's just a dick.
Oh, wait a minute.
They made his dick a thumb because it's like you're playing video games.
Right, because you're playing video games.
Right.
He's erect for games, but he's going to use that to play.
This is one of the strangest sides of everything.
This is really weird.
Insane, dude.
Also, this is in Playboy?
Like, Playboy didn't have dicks?
This isn't a dick.
That's not a dick.
It's a thumb.
It's a thumb.
It's not a dick, yeah.
Round two of Grub Guesser.
Are there dicks?
You have a theme with this this week.
This is Rayman.
This is Rayman.
Rayman's pissing.
This is Rayman.
This is Rayman three.
The hoodlums is the hoodlums.
Hoodlum Havoc?
Exactly!
It's the Hoodlum Havoc!
What's the deal with Rayman's dick?
Like, is it separated from the body?
Yeah, it floats out in front of him.
He makes sex very difficult.
That is Rayman 3.
Yes, well done, guys.
Wait a second.
I don't want to think about Rayman's absent dick, invisible dick.
At least it's not a thumb.
This tagline is so good.
No arms, no legs, huge features.
It's just like, oh yeah, Rayman's got a big dick.
Crash Bandicoot fucks a lot.
That's weird.
What magazine was this in?
Any of them?
This was in a bunch of magazines.
This is an E for everyone game.
The rating's there, but he's got his detached hog out for you, because it's rayman 3.
Everybody, what do you think is the max distance he has to be away from his genitals?
Listen, not only that, Listen to me.
Dude.
Definitively.
If we're just looking at the... Like, he's pissing right on the wall.
He's, like, pissing below the urinal.
No, he can just hold it up and just aim it down.
He can just point it down like he's pouring out a bottle of water.
Yeah, he's going to lift it up.
That's nipple height now.
Yeah, that's why I asked about the max distance because yeah yeah, damn god right, could it be in another room?
You give it to one of us and be like hey, go piss for me.
Yeah oh, you're going.
Hey yeah, if you're going in there sir, i'm in the middle of conversation take my dick, like when you grab that hot dog at paxton.
Yeah, that's rayman's dick, that's what i was picturing.
Yeah, he helicopters it over to you to toss it to you on the way in.
Jeff, were you surprised how quickly we got this one?
I was a little surprised.
Not too surprised you guys got that one, but immediately you both started yelling Rayman.
You kind of wouldn't shut up for like 10 seconds there.
I even knew the subtitle.
All right.
That is, I guess, did we ever describe it for audio listeners?
We'll cut this and we do the thing later.
It's a bunch of men standing at a urinal and I had the censor bar over a shorter character standing in front of a different urinal and all the other guys are looking at him like what is this guy doing?
They're looking at him like horror.
In like horror.
They're like, oh my God, he detached his dick.
Yeah.
Yes.
Anyway, that was Rayman 3.
I hate these urinals with no dividers like this.
Yeah.
It's giving me anxiety.
This is my culture.
This is just what it's like to go pee here.
Mike, I missed in the Max Bar keg this weekend.
I can do it.
Yeah, not the best.
You think rayman?
Oh good idea, i'm sorry.
You think rayman keeps like go number two and one, but in like two different places at the same time.
I don't think um, i mean, no wait elaborate, what do you mean?
In two different places?
He can go poop in like one stall and then it's like so he's sitting down.
Oh yeah, toss the dick over the hang the dick over the top of the roof.
Yeah hey, check this out like a grenade, all right yeah, that's a different kind of magnetized to it.
Again, i don't know if the dick could stay over there long enough to to pee.
The whole time we said, like we're talking about all this as if knack doesn't have the same ability.
Knack could break up the little pieces and just throw his dick wherever he wants.
I also want to put it out there like oh, everyone's like oh, what do you?
What do you mean?
Why you got to think about the way Rain Man pisses?
Because this ad's forcing us to.
You don't want to know.
You don't want to know what Chameleon Twist can do with his dick.
I mean, I have a hunch, I have a guess.
Yeah, that's a.
We're watching Grub Gasser, everybody.
We'll be back with another episode next week.
It's fucking true.
It's a different kind of flashbang he's throwing there, huh?
Mike Minotti, hit me with some YouTube Super Chats if we have any.
Sure, we got quite a few here.
Martin Hall says, my parents are arguing about Star Wars again.
Jeff, I think it's completely fine that you have a different opinion about this movie than me.
Yeah, I'm actually pretty similar to how you feel about it.
I just don't respect your opinion on anything else.
Okay, let's say this.
I think we can both agree it's a better movie than Solo.
Yes yeah right, it is because Solo's problems are fundamental.
Like it didn't do a good job at what it set out to do, this did exactly what it was going for.
I may never see this in my entire life.
I will not be watching it again.
Yeah okay, I might see it again.
This might be the first Star Wars movie I've seen twice in theaters since episode seven.
Oh.
Theaters.
Okay.
Theaters.
Miggsy says, is there hope for a Manhunt endurance run, probably with Jeff Backel or Chuck?
Perhaps as a premium video feature.
Only if you play the Wii version.
Yeah, I don't know if we do Endurance Run as only premium right now.
It's like a week early for premium.
How long is that game?
I found that 20-hour-ish mark for Bully was pretty good for us with the way we have to do these things, where it's like a sleepover to kind of get it accomplished, you know.
Sure.
I played this and finished it.
I don't remember anything else.
I never loved Manon.
Nope, me neither.
Yeah.
I was like, not a good chance of that.
No state of emergency, obviously.
Oh, you killed everybody.
Uh, Mixie says, Mike Minotti, who would you name your firstborn after from the GB crew?
Jeff G or B, Dan, Jan, Chuck, Sean, perhaps Will, Mike Jr.
Not an option.
It'd be funny.
You could also go Jerome.
Yeah, we could.
It'd be funny.
My middle name is Michael.
That's true.
Dude image.
It'd be funny to do jeff and then like not tell you who he's named after, right?
Yeah, that would tear us apart yeah right yeah anyway, after keely.
Uh, tacoma streetcar disaster says work truck broke down, so i'm watching live cheers.
Oh hey buddy, be safe.
Yeah, Is it weird that I find that cozy in some weird way?
Yeah, I know what you mean.
Stuck in the broken truck watching some YouTube or whatever.
Yeah, life's not so bad, right?
Yeah.
Can't work.
Mixie says, Jeff Backler, which is more profitable?
Super chats or GB monthly?
I assume by monthly you mean premium.
It's premium.
Depends on how much you shoot the super chat in there, friend.
You are discussing an invariable there.
Subscribe.
That's the best.
You get stuff when you subscribe, too.
Yep.
Giantbomb.com slash join.
It's a morale.
It says, yo, that AEW pay-per-view ruled hard.
Yeah, I've been hearing good things.
Did you watch it, Dan?
I haven't yet.
I saw it.
Taylor's not in town.
She's not into wrestling.
So, yeah, she's heading out today.
I'm going to watch it tonight or tomorrow, I think.
Guys, I know that folks out there get upsetty spaghetti when we talk about WWE.
And if you're looking and if you are also feeling similar to us and how WWE has kind of become a shell of itself.
Terrible, right?
Yes.
Where you have your biggest wrestling event of the year and maybe have an hour's worth of wrestling over the course of two days.
Double or nothing over the weekend, back front to back some of the best wrestling i've seen in quite a while.
Uh, banger after banger after banger, and they've got different types of wrestling for everyone.
So if you like uh high-flying stuff, you get that.
If you like the hardcore type of stuff, you got that.
If you want just a uh car crash of a match, also have that stadium stampede.
It's good.
I am so excited.
This is so my element that we're going to go to All In at Wembley, and I love explaining and showing wrestling to curious people that have never seen it before.
Will Crosby, his first wrestling show being All In at Wembley Stadium.
Yeah, that's kind of amazing.
Possibly, depending on our travel schedule, possibly mystery wrestling with Evil Uno the night before.
That will be the most incredible first experience of wrestling anyone's ever gotten, I think.
I can't wait.
And then he continues to be one of my favorite wrestlers now.
Swerve, fucking strict.
Swerve's awesome.
I love Swerve.
He's the coolest dude.
Also, I was not super high on Darby Allin.
But his championship run this past month, insane.
All-timer run with the belt.
Fantastic.
Guy's nuts.
Guy's completely nuts.
Yeah.
Yeah, AEW's awesome.
WWE's fucking terrible right now.
Watch AEW.
It's great.
Yeah.
There you go.
Kentucky says 007 best playable montage since Sly Cooper 4.
Boy, I never hear people talk about Sly Cooper 4 as much.
I didn't even know it had a playable montage.
Yeah, that's right.
Most of them make...
They make those beans that make Goku strong, I think.
Maybe someday I'll check that out.
Zacy says 007 exit flu.
That's cute.
That's fun.
Oh, nice.
We all wear tuxedos on Thursday and run with that team.
Get some gin martinis.
Uh, zombie porn says can mike minotti remake the bit mob?
And mike minotti by mike minotti song.
But now it's giant bomb.
And mike minotti by mike minotti, instead minotti.
Um, what's that?
Watch that.
Yeah yeah, it was big rhythm.
Hey, check on that ancient iphone you have in front of you for some reason, that's right.
It might still, You're right, it might have bit rhythm on it.
I gotta find a lightning adapter and charge it up.
You might be onto something there, Dan.
God, god, bit rhythm.
That was like an early bit off assignment.
Yeah, it was fun.
It was weird because it was a parade of harmonics trying to get something else to hit, like Rock Band did, and kind of nothing was sticking.
Including that weird Fantasia Kinect game that I liked, but I don't think anyone else cared that much.
I don't remember it.
Drake flew to Minneapolis to bring VidRhythm to the Game Informer office.
That was my first experience with that.
Let's see here now.
ZombiePorn says, SnowBikeMike did agree with Dan on GoldenEye.
I love Mike.
Mike's great.
For sure.
But like, Yeah, like clearly also very much a console guy in the 90s.
He also followed it up by saying that Half-Life 1 is better than Half-Life 2.
And I just know I'm not agreeing with that either.
I'm sorry.
I stand by this.
If three ever gets announced, I will play through two for the first time on this website.
You should break.
That's one of my all time favorites.
Same.
Same.
By the way, I don't know if you guys have heard, but the kind of funny folks.
They're trying to challenge us to some Forza Horizon competitions of some kind.
Okay.
We have to put them in their place again.
Yeah.
I just realized 5080.
Will that run Half-Life 2?
I don't know we got it's rough, it's got a lot of gravity stuff.
Let's talk to mangers.
Man, you're in the chat.
If you, there might be like an overclocking solution.
Okay yeah, we'll work on it, we'll figure it out, lol.
No Yeah, you can't see it because they blocked you.
Okay.
Yeah.
That's a shame.
I would have played it otherwise.
They also say dance weirder.
I don't know.
Missed opportunity.
Grubbs Legion of Hand Hill says, has Bacalar heard about the Lego pinball machine?
Yeah, I have heard about this thing.
I am cautiously optimistic and also a little unsold.
I...
I think it's great.
I just want to build it because I think it sounds like fun.
The details are pretty scarce at the moment.
Apparently it is going to be a desktop playable thing And I don't know.
I've yet to like ever build a Lego thing and be like I'm going to play.
I don't know.
It's usually just for show.
And that's going to be good enough, right?
Like that should be good enough.
I just don't know what.
Look, yes, I want it.
I want it.
Yes, I want it.
I want to have it.
I want to build it for sure.
Give me that.
Give me that right now.
Give it. uh but i don't i don't know i don't yeah like and also it's only two two hundred dollars for like what seems like a pretty complicated thing that's also playable seems kind of cheap right like am i crazy as far as legos go like yeah legos are often much more expensive than that right and the the number of pieces has me a little concerned too like how big is this thing yeah either way i've definitely heard of it uh i'm excited about it uh if you think i sound a little apprehensive you should see what the pinball community thinks about of this thing oh wow Yeah, that's a real, real solid community to never be a part of.
Just so you know.
Never, never, never.
Little Scrad says, love you guys so much.
Premium day one here.
Was just wondering if any of you all plan on attending summer games done quick this year.
P.S.
Fuck ice, heart, P.P.'
's, penis.
Um...
Boy, I would like to, especially now that Awesome Games Not Quick isn't going to be in Pittsburgh anymore, so I can't just go to it easily.
Summer is always hard because we have so much work travel that happens already doing an extra trip here.
This is in your neck of the woods, though, Dan.
You haven't been yet, right?
I've never really watch games on quick but like i've gone a couple years to just kind of say hi to people and everything like the vibe there is always good.
You know yeah yeah, i love, i love games on quick.
So i would like to go down and not this year, maybe some future year.
Um, and also games on quick is gonna be in atlanta now.
Uh, and again, it's like ben, i like games on quick.
Am i traveling to atlanta just to go to games on quick?
You're not allowed that good, oh uh.
Christian says one of baki's power up was fucking a power up most people who, like baki, will never get.
I thought he was going to roast us for not liking the anime and he seems to be on our side of making fun of the Baki people.
Very funny.
I like that a lot.
Sure.
Great.
Thank you, Christian.
Thank you, Christian.
Thank you for being on our side.
Big Z says, Jeff Grubb, would Persona 1, 2, and 2.5 ever get remastered?
Yeah, yes.
They're definitely going to do that at some point, yes.
Are they going to cut Hitler out of the game?
You beat me to it, yeah.
No, more Hitler.
There'll be even more Hitler in Persona 2.
You can't just say that in an isolated audio track.
No, no.
I think at some point I wonder what they're going to do, because those games are pretty different from the persona three format.
That is what we have now.
I wonder, and they remastered them kind of before there's that PSP version.
It wasn't a ton done there.
Um, there's a lot of stuff there that is maybe not going to jive super well with modern persona fans to the point where.
Do you just remake these games and have them be more like modern persona?
Or is that too tall in order?
Is it easier just to kind of lightly remaster them again and do what you can lightly remaster, maybe maybe really upgrade the visuals in some ways?
But yeah, why is hitler in it?
Who knows, I don't know why.
He's in it.
He's in it.
I forget why.
Like a party member?
I don't know.
He's not portrayed in a good light or anything.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They have negative views of Hitler.
The game's anti-Hitler, but he's there.
He's like a villain.
Yeah.
He's like an enemy.
Like, yeah.
Yeah.
I see.
Okay.
Ryo Raku says, I had a question, but I forget it.
Here's $2 anyways.
Thank you so much.
Thanks.
Thanks.
Blade Runner says, I love the Ferrari loose thoughts.
Sorry, joined late.
Oh, that's their EV.
I like it too.
It's ugly, but I like it.
It looks like a PS5.
My grandma Minotti would say that that's a no good.
You didn't see it, Mike?
You did or you did not see it, Mike?
I've not seen the Ferrari loose, no.
And Grubb, what about it?
I can't believe...
Like it's a very, it's obviously a very sort of complicated thing, right?
I mean, people are not happy about this car.
Yeah, Ferrari people do not like it, but most Ferrari people can't afford Ferraris.
So what the fuck does it matter?
Ferrari has to make real cars at some point, right?
I guess not.
I think it looks cool until you finance Ferraris.
Yeah uh-huh, that's 100 what it is.
Yeah I, I like that.
It's so weird and sort of like clashes in the face of what Ferrari's supposed to be.
But uh yeah it's, it's an odd duck, looks neat to me, I don't know.
I mean yeah, okay for sure uh, Never mind, I remember.
Dan, did you ever finish My Hero Academia?
That's what MHA stands for.
I think we did like five seasons.
Yeah, we stopped doing the podcast.
Yeah, no, I have not finished it.
It's done now, right?
It's done now, yeah. yeah i remember enjoying it yeah by anime standards yeah man i thought i think all might is so cool and i'm sorry no i'm with you but i i just can't with his like normal depowered form it is the ugliest fucking character design i get it so like that's the joke but i just i can't i don't like looking at it i don't look looking at depowered all might and i don't respect him Yeah, that's right.
Mike doesn't respect people that age.
It's not aging.
Specifically women, though.
He had a bad fight with All for One or One for All.
I don't know.
He calls their 30th birthday their expiration date.
I did not say that.
He's got kind of a DiCaprio thing going on.
I was gonna say.
Damn, me and him, we got a lot in common.
ZombiePorn says, Grub isn't wearing pants in solidarity with Bubsy.
Grub, not again.
Well, it's every day.
It's every day.
And that's all the Super Chats.
Thank you so much, everybody.
Thank you so much, everyone at home.
Folks, we're near the end of the show.
We didn't have a meeting yet this week to determine what's popping off, but I think it's safe to say we will have a voicemail dump truck.
We will have unprofessional Fridays.
Dan, I'm so sorry, but the blightening continues.
I mean, ideally, I can't believe I'm saying ideally before these words.
I can play more of it, Space Ace, because we're trying to beat it now.
And if we can start working it in and some gaps in the schedule, we would like to.
Can I ask a question to the panel?
Please.
I set up a CRT streaming situation for Kayla, which she just beat Tyson for the first time the other night, which is fantastic.
But I also had her try Space Ace on the CRT.
And I gotta say, it does look Good.
And I can play it with the SNES controller on the CRT.
I can stream from there.
I'm fine if we keep it the way it's been.
If that, for some reason, invalidates anything or whatever, it looks good on there.
What's the issue?
I don't know.
I would be going through a Mr, whatever it would be, it would be a mister, yeah.
So i just i'm fine with doing it here the way it's been up to you guys.
Whatever you want to do, that's fine yeah, that's fine yeah okay okay uh yeah, that's fine.
And uh, probably gonna yeah, probably gonna do a launch.
Look tomorrow, for james bond comes out tomorrow, so i'll probably do a launch.
Look yeah, what is sean saying?
All caps, do not stream the crt.
What your mic, my mic, picks up the wine.
Okay, that's fair, that's fair, that's fair.
Okay, i'll just oh yeah okay yeah, that's fine, i'm not up to something.
Trust me, if i was up to something, i would have fucking beaten it by now.
Jesus christ, Did you see last week?
Was that like a man who was up to something to you?
No, I just have to beat this game legit.
Game this morning is popping off Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
Right, Grub?
Yep, it'll be going tomorrow.
And folks, I don't know if y'all know this summer game fest is next week.
Shut the hell up.
So wait right, we have the weekend off and then we have to do the bomb cast, we do the, we do uh sony's uh state of play, yeah.
And then the next day i think a lot of us are god yep, that's right yep hey, that's fun.
Hey look, tell you what I'm looking forward to it.
I'm getting excited.
We're putting together a great couch.
I think we're going to see a lot of cool games.
We've done a lot of good work.
Think about what it was like last year, guys.
I think I'm in a good mood.
Let's go fucking kill summer.
Dan, watch out.
Dan, watch out.
I'm going to be in a different room.
I'm going to be in a glass box on the set the whole time.
How are we going to kill him this year?
I can't wait to find out.
In a bubble.
You'll just be bubble boys.
You were talking about the hot dog cannon thing earlier.
I literally was thinking, like, Grubb's not fucking touching that.
That's fair.
I get it.
I think we can announce how many nights we're doing GB at Night.
Right, Grubb?
Yeah, yeah.
Friday and Saturday, June 5th, June 6th.
We'll be starting at 6 p.m. local time.
That'll be 9 p.m.
Eastern.
We'll be going until midnight.
It's gonna be you know how it goes.
Everybody will be plenty of panels, a lot of cool people, some fun stuff planned.
Um, tune in.
It's gonna be good vibes.
It's gonna be good vibes.
The whole gang is coming out, so chuck, sean and will will also be there.
We'll do talkovers as they pop up on the schedule.
Marino has put up a lovely schedule of not E3 summer shenanigans.
Shouts out to Marino.
Yeah, and we'll film miscellaneous stuff there.
I don't think there's a grill where we're staying, so no worries about it.
There won't be burger crimes.
I'm very sorry to George.
I hope your tummy's okay.
Oh, and we might watch that Dragon Quest thing tomorrow morning.
We might react to that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
We are.
Me and Mike are going to be there for sure.
All right, baby.
We've locked down the schedule.
Folks, that about does it for the show.
We'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant Bombcast.
Until then, he's been Jeff.
He's been Jeff.
He's been Mike.
He's been Dan.
Shouts out to Chuck.
Shouts out to Sean.
Shouts out to Will.
Shouts out to you at home.
I've been Jan.
This has been the Giant Palmcast.
We'll see you on the other side.
Goodbye.
Goodbye.
