Hey everybody, it's Tuesday, January 20th, 2026.
Welcome to the Giant Bombcast, episode 924.
I am your host, Jan Ochoa.
This is the Jesse, the body Ventura of video game podcasts.
You can extrapolate at home what that means.
Joining me, co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.
I'm a turkey and I want to drink like the body.
Gobble, gobble, gobble.
He's got two kegs under his arm just for funsies.
Dan Reichert.
Nah, man, I'm on that Starburst juice now.
Just move on.
Just move on.
The human epitome of Starburst and all fruity, joyous flavors.
Jeff Backlar.
You could have done better than that.
I don't know.
He threw me for a loop.
That's me.
Starburst melted down into a drinkable thing.
It's Starburst juice.
It's healthy that way.
That's a new sentence.
It's basically just water.
Yeah, but like Starburst.
Speaking about new sentences.
He's constantly spouting them because he's so problematic, because he's the boy of games media.
Mike Minotti.
The hateful thoughts in my brain come out as mean sentences.
Look out, everybody, especially people different from me.
Bad boy.
We've interacted with Mike for like 12 minutes this morning already and I feel like it's a weird Mike day.
Yeah, you didn't occasionally get those.
He finished his burrito early.
I mean, i got some lip smacking, but not enough, and so i'm not getting enough of what i need on my tuesday.
Mikey, what happened?
You wake up at 10 am.
What's going on?
Here's the thing.
I feel like mikey is in an interesting zone when he has not enough sleep and perhaps too much sleep.
Yeah yeah, it's.
My sleep schedule has been pretty rough lately, even worse than usual.
It has not recovered from holidays.
Oh, no, absolutely not.
What is that?
Why?
Are you embarrassed by it?
Oh, yeah.
You're not his dad.
I mean, yeah, I was up till 4 a.m. like every day this weekend.
That's that's fine.
Yeah, I mean, I always am that for sure.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, exactly.
So I got to dial that in at some point here, for sure, but I feel so cozy in bed just playing games on my Switch and watching stupid YouTube videos and whatnot.
It's kind of just where I want to be.
It's like if I go to sleep, I feel like I'm not optimizing my bedtime, which is a very stupid thing to think.
What are the fun YouTube videos keeping you up, Mikey?
What's on the Mikey Algo lately?
I've been watching a lot of Dark Souls Challenge Run videos, specifically by JK Leeds.
He's always like now I'm going to play Dark Souls 1 using only my fists, or I'm going to beat the game only using throwing knives.
That kind of thing.
When you said only using fists, I was honestly picturing somebody moving the sticks with their fists.
Donkey Konga, yeah.
There are people who do that, but no, that's not what he's talking about.
No, it's more realistic than that.
Is there someone that beat Elden Ring with a banana?
They turned a banana into a controller or something like that?
That's gross.
Uh, no, these are, I don't know.
I don't want to like, I guess it'd be kind of neat.
Somebody beats ordering with their feet, but no, it's like I beat it using only this spell that everybody says is bad, but you know that kind of thing.
Okay.
Okay.
Uh, folks at home, you can.
Uh, you know Jeff, can you tell the folks at home how they can support us over here at giant bombcom?
First, they need to know why they need to support us.
Because we're independent games media out here on our own.
But you go to giantbomb.com slash join, become a premium member.
That enables us to continue doing what we do over here.
It ensures the safety and security in the future of independent games media and also makes you part of something cool.
Like we have a cool thing going on over here.
You can be a part of it.
You also get a bunch of goodies.
I'll be putting out a new Grub Snacks premium today.
There's been one episode so far and will be another one this week and all the weeks going forward.
So tune in for something like that and add free shows, all those good things.
Join us or else.
That's right.
Mike, Mike will threaten you if you don't join us.
Yeah, I think we said we need a tagline.
Join us or else.
How about that?
Ooh, I like that.
I like that.
Okay.
Yeah.
And then like the logo, it's like a line drawn Mike Minotti shaking his fists at you.
I should be smiling.
It should be a juxtaposition.
Right.
That's right.
It should be like a truly warm smile.
The duality of man also shouts out to our friends at maingear maingearcom slash giant bomb.
Uh, go buy yourself a pc, go get a face plate.
Uh, buy mikey's face plate.
I'm gonna stop uh, telling you to not, or else i'll get you all right.
Uh, how's everyone else doing?
Guys okay great, all right.
Yeah, who's that man?
Uh, my kids have had a second winter break, So they missed school on Thursday because of the snow day.
And then they had a long weekend because of Martin Luther King Jr.
Day.
And then today there was an extreme cold weather day.
It's like negative 10 out.
It's freezing here.
It's rough.
Yeah, I'm not leaving this house.
It was last night.
We slept in the door like wide open.
It was awesome.
That's great.
Six days off in a row.
So they have off because of the temperature?
Yes.
Yeah.
Wow.
It was dangerously cold.
Have you been in negative double-digit weather before?
Of course.
Okay.
It's bad.
It's not good.
But have you been doing that in full-on ski gear, masks, and stuff like that?
Yeah, I do in ski gear.
Yeah.
Okay.
It's hard when you just want to go out to the mailbox or do a run.
Or go to school or something.
Or ride the bus.
I understand. yeah i just i'm surprised i'm still surprised i guess what what what temperatures are we dealing with here grove so it's that it's negative like five and that's regular without the windshield and then with the windshield it's like it's like quite a bit more it's like my lord yeah it's not that bad here it's only it's about 18 degrees here today and they uh expected to get colder pretty wild you know that's when the bus was coming and stuff like that right now I think it's a little bit warmer how do y'all live like this oh it's awesome this is atypical this for Dan where Dan lives it's normal but I think yeah you know yeah it's it's rough I mean I can't leave California ever I can't guys no I know it's only Tuesday, but they're predicting an ungodly amount of snow this weekend for my area and a lot of the middle of the country.
You're getting the storm that we had, yeah.
It keeps kind of swirling back and forth and stuff, yeah.
Yeah, we had some good stuff happening here.
It's very, it's 47 degrees here and i thought and my hands got cold that's, that's cold for you.
Yeah, tropical.
Wow, that is shorts weather brother, that's shorts, shorts.
Yes, i'm wearing shorts right now and i did go outside for like 10 seconds.
I died, but yeah, i got it.
I know i say this a lot, but the people going outside in zero degree weather with shorts and a hoodie, like i just don't know who you are well, the My name's, Jeff.
Nice to meet you.
We don't think it's optimal, Backler.
It's like, here's the thing.
99% of the day, you're inside.
So you dress for comfort inside, and sometimes that's shorts.
And then you need to just go outside for something quick to get the mail or go to the bus or something you know.
I'm not talking about quick little things.
I've gone to the gas station in the shorts and the hoodie recently while it was very cold.
That's the furthest I would go.
I'm just going to get gas for the week, pick up a few things inside the store, and coming back.
Even that, I think, is fine.
I'm talking about people who are just like this is my full-day outfit.
My line, my line is like around here, because people are so obsessed with running and biking and stuff yeah like, even like it was like negative 20.
The other day i saw guys out running in the park and like, wow and biking yeah, but we'll bike with the big ass fat tire bikes and stuff.
It's insane.
I get it, but when you start to sweat, it's like i can do that.
Right, like you, you can do that, you can make that work.
Uh, you can.
You can live, you can.
You know that's what you're supposed to do, but It's crazy.
Yeah, I just it's all year round.
I just can't, you know, hoodies, hoodies in the summer, shorts in the winter.
We're an ass backwards culture, are we not?
Cats and dogs in the streets living together.
My problem is just that my car heater is not very good right now.
And like twice I try to get it fixed and it's rough.
And I'm like trying to get through this winter before I just probably have to just buy a new car.
It's just that time.
But, like, it's rough.
I want to buy a car now, but the prices are really high because it's the winter and all the reasons where, I don't know, maybe cars are just always going to be insanely expensive and bad again.
So, I don't know.
How many cars do you have on that Jeep?
Not to be a bummer.
No, it's not that many, honestly.
It's like 60,000.
How many?
60,000?
60, 60.
Oh, 60 or 70.
Oh, no, no.
I would not accept that.
What's happening?
It's a Jeep.
That's the thing.
Mike, I'm begging you.
Next car has to be a Toyota.
It's a 2014.
It is older.
I've worked from home since forever ago.
Right.
Sure.
60,000 miles is rough, man.
The problem is back when I lived in my apartment, it was parked outside all the time.
I think animals would get to it.
But also, it's a Jeep.
And Jeeps are just falling apart.
They're just pieces of shit.
Say it.
They're pieces of shit.
Mikey, what are you going to do when people stop leaving rubber duckies outside of your car?
It is a bit of like a club that I don't want to leave is actually the problem.
Yeah.
There's another name for a club you don't want to leave.
Just searching for it.
Can't quite come to my mind.
But I like the ducks.
I like the waving and everything.
You know my dad joined the Jeep cult a few months ago but he absolutely hates the idea of the duck thing.
So when I was home for the holidays I brought hundreds of little ducks and I put it inside his fuel cap thing.
I put it underneath his mirrors.
So I pulled him down.
A bunch of ducks fall down.
Good glove compartment.
He loves that stuff.
You're doing the Lord's work there, Danny.
Happy for him.
That was good.
Mike, I'm not happy with this.
You got to do something.
A 60,000 mile car should not...
It's too late.
He's right.
He's got to move on from this car.
Do better next time.
I dumped thousands of dollars into it this past year to be like oh, this is going to be the tune-up.
It's going to make it last another five years.
And here I am already.
This thing is just not doing it.
Your car is pissing me off.
I can't put any more money into it.
Well, look, if it's only got 60,000 miles, it probably has some value.
You just got to get it running enough for someone to like sell it to.
Yes, exactly.
So you're good.
What's the buy my car?
What color Jeep is it?
What color Jeep is it?
It's called Anvil Steel.
It's like a nice little kind of grayish blue.
Oh, my God.
God, he still loves it.
When you twinkle your fingers like that, it really just adds more value.
It's got a little sticker on the back of it of a monorail, and it says, my other car is a monorail.
Well, that just devalued it.
I was going to say, that just devalued it.
I'll get rid of that.
Uh yeah, will you just like autograph it though, mikey?
Like just a gigantic autograph?
Yeah, like it only has tokodo.
So what are you gonna get instead?
I have a lot of.
I have a lot of friends who bought kias lately and they're very happy.
Okay, did they fix the thing?
Did they fix the you can steal it easily thing?
The Kia Boys thing?
The Kia Boys thing, yeah.
I think that was three years ago.
Okay, but that's all fixed now, right?
Yeah, the Kia Telluride is like a very popular, very good vehicle.
I like that one.
If you just want something that's going to work forever, Subaru, yes.
Toyota, yes.
Honda, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Get yourself a Honda Pilot, bud.
Steph's Prius that we got in 2012 has had zero issues, continues to run 180000 miles or something like that.
It just goes and goes and goes and goes.
Or what if Mikey becomes a Harley guy?
No.
No.
My dad was a Harley guy in his 40s, and I did not like it.
Well, Mikey, your birthday just passed December 8th.
Maybe after another year this birthday, maybe you'd want to get a Harley.
Why?
Because I'm turning 40?
Is that what you're saying?
Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying.
Midlife crisis that my dad had?
No, I already have my midlife crisis.
It was buying all these GameCube games.
GameCube games, yes.
That's much safer, too.
$500.
That was my crisis.
What car did you guys have the highest miles on?
Because I had a Hyundai Sonata that had.
When I sold it right before I got this minivan had 260000 miles on it.
My current car.
Stacey had a Civic.
What was it?
A 90 or 91 Stacey Civic?
Something like that.
93.
She's here behind me.
It was like 220, I think it had.
220,000 miles.
I can't imagine I put more than 30,000 miles on a car.
Have you seen everything?
No, and I haven't owned a lot of cars.
I just don't drive much.
Oh, right.
Okay.
But like 30,000 is really low.
The one we just sold, the one we just sold, we had for six years and it was like just at 30.
Okay.
Wow.
And that was driving it from across Connecticut.
That's 5,000 miles a year on average.
Also during a pandemic for a lot of that.
Right, exactly.
And both working from home.
I work from home and yeah, but I'm like still because I dropped the kids off.
So I'm getting to like 6,000, 7,000 a year miles.
So yeah.
Man, 30,000.
That's nothing either.
I don't drive much.
No, it's nothing.
Yeah.
These days.
Yeah.
Average is like 12, right?
The average is like, like the low end of the average is 10,000 miles a year.
Yeah.
God, I just, I just want I.
I know I live in San Francisco and if I moved to Los Angeles it's the dumbest idea to get like a small pickup truck.
I just want like a two seater, you know, not like a big truck truck.
For like hauling purposes or what?
Just for looking sick and cool.
Like for the same reason that he's drinking buzz balls and smoking cigarettes, Dan.
He's just in that.
You know it, Jan.
You know it.
I heard Jan's on that foam roller lifestyle now.
I am.
I am.
Foam rollers, they get in there, don't they?
What?
Yes, because I had an existential crisis like I normally do.
And then I thought, what if I go and run this marathon with Dan in October?
So I put the stoges away because it's killing my lungs.
Turns out, I don't know.
They do do that.
Just casually running 5Ks in my backyard.
I don't have a backyard.
But yeah, foam rollers, y'all.
Fuck Mikey's car.
You're stretching out your foam roller.
You're rolling the back, right?
Is that what we're talking about?
Thighs are the big one for me.
Thighs and IT bands on the side.
Those are big time for me.
Calves, too, if you cross one leg over.
It gets in there so fucking deep.
I love it.
These things.
Jan, I saw a K truck somewhere the other day, and I instantly thought of you.
I couldn't believe...
I'd never seen one in person.
They are so much smaller than I thought.
They're very tiny.
Yeah, but the truck bed size is still... It's like a Cybertruck, yeah.
I was like, wow, I could just pick this thing up.
It rolls.
It's so incredibly small.
Think about all the junk I could put in there.
You don't need a truck.
How many scouts?
You could fit three scouts in there.
She's getting pretty long.
Foam rollers.
Wow.
Who knew taking care of your body could feel so good?
Yeah, you just find that one spot and you just lay on it for like 30 seconds and it's like You feel it kind of just release.
That's awesome.
Is that going to help the gamer hump at all?
It actually might.
Probably a little bit, yeah.
It's not great for spine stuff.
I've talked to physical therapists about it.
I'm like, you're not really supposed to do it.
You can do some very specific back things, but it's more for big muscles like in the legs and stuff like that.
Actually, Mikey, look into doing scat push-ups.
Not scat, scat.
Scat, scat, scat.
I am Hercules Mulligan.
All right.
All right.
What the fuck was that?
Oh, man.
What the fuck was that?
We're having such a good time.
Mike, I give this to you.
Who called it early that said we're getting weird, Mikey?
Was that you, Dan?
Yeah, I called it.
I know it when I said you called it.
You guys nailed it.
I know it when I said shit.
I knew right away.
Pretty typical, Mikey.
People still say I'm weirder, which is insane.
But yeah that's, you guys can both be equally weird.
I don't think someone has to win that.
I also think mike sometimes, you know, big boys, big girls we, we just keep shit in our head right, we just don't let it out.
Though you laugh, that means it's good.
Yeah yeah, all right.
Um, i this says this on the doc, but i don't believe you, jeff grubb, i'm just gonna be honest.
You wrote that, I wrote that.
Yes.
On our document of the run of show, it says last sector update.
I promise.
I promise.
I don't believe you.
I mean look, i got i beat uh jacob geller, so i like that's what i've been going for and i've done that now.
Now the problem here's.
The problem is he had 12 million.
I have 12 million.
I have a larger 12 million than he does.
Uh, in this uh, geometry wars, a clone, that people are lost for some reason.
They haven't heard us talk about this for the last month.
Um, I was on a really good run and I could see myself doing better.
And it's like I thought I'd beat the score and I'd be like, oh God, thank God I could put it down.
I beat the score, and now it's still all I kind of want to play, which is, I was not expecting that.
When did you beat Geller's score?
Last night.
Oh, you should.
I was playing this morning and it did look different than I saw.
Oh, you motherfucker.
I don't know if you want to take a look at it.
I was worried about that.
I might have got 14 million this morning.
Of course you did.
Hey, Jen, you're right.
We're back in it.
We're going back okay.
What like?
What was your run?
Like dan, it was nuts.
I just decided i was like i got time for like one run and i i just got in there and i had some coffee it was just the right level of like caffeinated and just locked in and it went great.
I i beat the one crazy boss that morphs in a way i've only seen once before and i got past that.
I loaded everything up all the way.
I didn't focus on blaster uh, and i was just going nuts with the strikes.
I was just beaten every boss without dying at all.
I just did everything right, basically.
And, like, that's the run you hope for.
Yep.
And I was having that, and I had the last boss of Section 4, I think I was at.
Oh, maybe it was Section 5.
And I had him down to one hit, and I died on the hit.
Had I beaten him, I would have been...
Yes, 14, 15.
I was like, I have a friend on my leaderboard who's 18 million.
He's in the top 10.
And I'm like, I think I'm kind of on that pace right now.
I'm 29.
I'm 29 in the world now.
That's the other thing.
It's like I had a couple of runs that I was telling you where I had 10 million in like 20 minutes.
Yeah.
And it's like this run I had here, 12 million in 32-ish minutes.
And it's like, oh, so this wasn't even my best pace.
Now, obviously, there's some like risk reward of that.
Like I was focusing so much on keeping my strike combos going that I was losing some ability to get like a more powerful ship early on.
And that made me more vulnerable later.
But it's like OK, there's a balance there where I can kind of get in between and maybe get one of these higher scores.
So, all right.
What the hell?
We'll be talking about sector for the rest of our lives.
I'm currently in the lead of all of you i mean you and geller.
So yes yep, got us both beat.
Yep, all right everyone, i'll get back into it.
One yes i, i'm like i'm so close to keeping that going, that one last hit and i died.
Oh, that's frustrating.
I had one of those.
Yeah, i'm technically like 139 million uh, and i was like just about to be that last section of the whole challenging run and right.
So yeah, all right cool great, wonderful thanks, dan.
Yeah, no problem, You could just admit he's the better man, Jeff.
That's okay.
You know what got me in there to do this run is.
I knew you mentioned that you guys were talking about it on your podcast the fire escape with Mary.
And you guys were saying that some hateful things.
Just because I threatened Mary was saying she'll never get 10 million.
And she's like, that filled me with hate.
And then you guys went off for a little bit.
Like, I'll go show them right now.
So this is a terrible feeling.
We're both absolutely destroying Mary.
So, you know, that does it.
Thank you, Dan.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Mikey, Baklar, any interest in diving back into Sektori?
I mean, I enjoyed it.
I don't want to become like them, I guess.
Like insufferable, right?
I play it still a good amount.
I just don't let it consume me.
You're not serious about it.
I am not serious about it.
I enjoy it.
It's fun when I'm a little stoned.
Not serious people.
Yeah, we're not serious people.
I agree.
Dylan thinks it's fun to watch.
He won't play it.
He's scared of it.
He's like, this is too much.
I'm going to watch you play, Dad.
And I get it.
You know?
It's a game that is too much for the Gen Z mind.
Absolutely.
Cannot comprehend.
Wouldn't it be like custom Like, isn't the whole thing with the Gen Z mind?
Like, just no attention span and just Or wait.
I guess you need the attention span for Sector right.
Or is it the opposite of why, since it's such constant stimuli, like...
I just want to choose to believe that we're better at them than something still.
That won't last very long.
If they did focus their attention on this, we'd be screwed.
The millennial mind has witnessed enough atrocities and horrors that it can consume and take in all that information.
Right, can handle all of them at the same time.
Yeah.
9-11 leads to being good at Sektori.
Yep.
They're making a coin that says that.
We could have just left it at that, Mike.
You could put that on the store page if you want.
All right, well, I've been playing Vital Shell.
Vital Shell, it's another vampire survivors-like.
Oh, great.
This one, the graphics look straight up out of PS1.
Instead of just being an endless gauntlet, like Vampire Survivors is.
You are progressing through waves, but you're leveling up in a similar structure.
As you eliminate more enemies, you are getting more enemies.
Little XP orbs.
But the difference here is that there's a lot of health being dropped.
And also, you have a cool boost feature, at least with the base mech that you have.
And as you use your boost, it's on a small cooldown timer.
You uh, blast out like a little aoe attack that pushes enemies away from you.
You're also earning like a special attack and similar to vampire survivors as you are upgrading.
You are upgrading different things like your rate of fire, your health regen, critical strikes.
You're also getting cool, sick weapons to throw on your little mech.
And this game quickly got overwhelming.
But because of the horrors that my millennial mind has witnessed over the years mike, don't mention a horror, please.
Um, I'm like by the end of the run I did this morning, I was like I had an energy sword, I was shooting a chain gun and then rockets were just raining from the sky.
And there's something about this specific mech PS1 aesthetic that really clicks and jives with me versus other like polygonal human trying to replicate, like resident evil, one um PS one style that I I dig more in vital shell.
Yeah, I was going to say, looking at this knight guy from the key art, he looks like a character in a bad PS1 fighting game, like a Criticom or Rise of the Lost.
Yeah.
The menus are straight out of a shitty PS1 game, parentheses positive.
When you access your save data, it's just a PS1 memory card on the menu.
Oh, yeah.
So more things like this, gang.
Even the timer has the font of like Soul Blade or Soul Edge, I should say.
Yeah, it looks like those games a lot.
Yeah gosh, i suck because like, as soon as you're like oh, another vampire survivors, i kind of internally roll my eyes and i'm like oh, but it looks like a ps1 game.
And now i'm like looking yeah, i want to.
I just bought it.
So yeah, this one um has been constantly in uh, our mentions constantly been emailed because folks think that uh, this would be the new obsession for dan and grub.
Maybe it's a cry for help because they're concerned about sectory.
We're still too deep.
I think it might just be getting deeper.
Like, seriously, I have too much knowledge.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm like itching to go back.
Oh, no.
Oh, yeah, it does look 100% like Armored Core 1, which just tickles me.
I am interested to see how zany it gets the further in and the more characters you unlock.
I still only have the base mech suit or whatever.
But this got me thinking about mechs.
It got me thinking about Austin Walker and just like giant robot suits.
Was Zone of the Enders good?
Or is it just like my childhood brain?
No, it's good.
It's good.
Yeah?
Yeah.
It looked incredible.
It ran great.
And just moving around felt like I had no fucking time for mech games most of my life.
That one I found time for.
And I was like, okay, it's just too much fun to play.
Hell yeah.
Okay.
Jehudi was what the mech suit was called, right?
Or was that?
Yeah.
And you were like God or Jesus or something.
I don't know.
Oh, Jehudi.
Probably, yeah.
Or your mom.
Yeah.
God, Jesus.
The Catholic agenda continues.
You check out the Jehudi on that one?
It does sound like booty, Mike.
This is a good joke.
Oh, God.
Speaking about booty, there's a certain song that involves going from the top and making it drop, but I'm not playing.
God Mikey has just fried my brain today.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
No, no, no, it's okay.
Never apologize for being you, Mikey.
Never.
Only sometimes, though.
Well...
Another game that I've been playing that looks weird and perhaps is going for a PS1 aesthetic is From the Top.
Gang, this feels targeted.
During the mic checks, Mike said something targeted towards me, but this, I think, is for sure targeted, because this is a roguelite, a card-based roguelite that involves Beyblades.
Oh, right.
This is the one I've been meaning to play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I thought it was a wrestling thing from the title, but it's not wrestling.
Why would you think that?
No, no, no.
Because, you know, you launch a Beyblade from the top of the arena.
I don't think I've ever seen a Beyblade in my life.
We're going to fix that.
I've heard that phrase.
I've heard the word.
Next time we're in person, I want us all to have a Beyblade tournament.
I want to know how to do that.
I'm probably going to see Dan the soonest if we're looking at the calendar.
Yeah.
Wherever we go, we're going to have a Beyblade tournament.
If we have a little meetup, bring your Beyblades, folks.
Amen. but we got to use the the arena with the teeth on the side i don't know what those are called yes the teeth arena yeah wait i thought this was a generational thing i thought i was just too old but then bacalar knows it well how do you know children oh so it's with modern children it's a thing it's like coming back hard oh okay yeah okay i see yeah dan uh will soon be a bay warrior but um sure The from the top, it's an interesting mechanic because instead of choosing like a specific class, you're kind of juggling different tops or like different.
It's not a Beyblade game, but it might as well be a Beyblade game.
So I'm just going to call the different units that you're controlling Beyblades.
So your different encounters.
You have a stamina system and your stamina is linked to health pips not health points, but health pips.
So if you have three hearts, you'll lose a heart once you run out of stamina and your stamina is affected by getting hit, avoiding hits or get straight up getting knocked out.
So your heart pips are kind of just lives and.
And so far, there are several different oddball Beyblade types.
One of them is just like a tank where, as soon as you activate the ability, you are.
Holy shit, Dan.
That map that you just sent me looks horrifying.
Your tank Beyblade just activates a shield, and that bad boy is heavy.
So he can't get knocked out.
Another top that they have in the game has like a very fast dash and the shape of the top is good at scooping your enemy Beyblades and knocking them out of the arena.
I kind of don't like the visual filter that they have on it.
It kind of looks like a comic book where it's a bunch of little circles like a mosaic, almost making the look.
I had to turn it off because it was making my head hurt.
It's a very interesting game.
The progression is similar to Slay the Spire, where you are going down a map where there are forking paths.
You'll have mini bosses, you'll have shops.
At the shops.
You can buy a new Beyblade, you can upgrade your different abilities or you can repair your Beyblade.
They're kind of going for a story in here as well, kind of like inscription.
I'm not necessarily jiving too much with the story, and I just want to let it rip.
But it's fun for what it is.
There's some light controlling when you are in the Beyblade battles themselves, where you're kind of pointing your mouse to a specific location in the little Beyblade arena and affecting the movement of your Beyblade.
I kind of don't like some of the battle encounters.
When you get to like a mini boss or an enemy encounter where they're using the more defensive style Beyblades that just sit there, because then it's just no fun.
I want the wild wacky spinning around, dashing at each other, encouraging knockouts.
But I do want to do a quick look from the top just to show it off in motion.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Can I ask?
So I'm looking at the video and I'm wondering like, how digital versus analog is it like is?
Does it feel like it's doing math in the background?
That's just like this thing does this.
And therefore, when it interacts, that's going to take down a certain number.
Or is it more like physics based or is it somewhere in between on the spectrum?
It's somewhere in between where it doesn't feel like you were seeing too many dice rolls.
And a lot of the different Beyblades that you're using or tops that you're using have various different stats.
But it doesn't feel like there's dice rolls happening in the background.
It does feel like there is a good balance of physical analog action happening in between the tops that you were affecting and that the enemy is affecting.
Yeah, I think that's what I would want from this.
So, yeah.
Yeah.
You're balancing.
You do have to worry about, like the weight of a top or how light one is, because then that can get you knocked out very quickly.
The different abilities that quickly pop off in the different tops you can get are bonkers.
Because you'll start with a base one that has like, oh, this is a cool dash.
This one is like a tank.
But then you'll have a Beyblade that just shoots other Beyblades out.
Or then another one that will shoot like glaciers up from the bottom to upend your enemy.
It's very interesting.
I don't know if I necessarily like the visual presentation of it, but I am having fun and it's very weird that game developers are now just making Beyblade games, and I encourage it.
100 speaking about?
No no, Mikey's just thrown me for a loop today.
I don't know how much longer you're going to keep blaming me.
No, I'm going to keep blaming you, Mikey.
Jeff Grubb, you have been playing Super Ten Pin.
Yeah, we've got a little bit of a theme going.
You were talking about an old game, new, and has old stylings.
This is that for an N64 bowling game.
Dan just lit up.
I see.
But it's on Steam right now.
Hit it rules.
It's so good, so imagine all the stylings of San Francisco Rush, but as a bowling game.
So the menus are all basically just lifted from that game and then you go in there and you're doing bowling, and then it's a little bit like Kirby's dream course which is, I think, why I'm enjoying it so much where the, the bowling ball, has a bunch of things you can do to it.
So yeah, you're setting up the shot, you're selecting your power level and you're shooting out there, but there might be like a gap in the bowling lane.
And then there's a ramp going back and forth.
And if you hit the ramp at the right time, you might be able to go into a power up that adds a bunch of extra speed to your shot, which makes it
So if you hit that front pin, you're almost guaranteed to get a strike.
And the best part is you got aftertouch, so you're able to control it on the lane.
And there's risk-reward, so you get that extra speed.
You're going to maybe just kind of loop it in there so it hits that front pin just right.
Well, if you do it too much or not enough, there are still the gutters on the side.
And so it's just like trying to like hang on by your fingernails as this thing flies down the lane and also making sure you hit all the possible upgrades on your path down so you can get the best chance for a strike.
It just it feels great.
It looks great.
Sounds great.
I'm surprised that I did not hear about it until.
I think someone mentioned it in chat last week or something like that.
I'm like, I'll check this out.
And I've been playing a little bit of it since then in between rounds of sectory.
But this is the other game I most want to be playing right now.
I mean, Grubb, I'm looking at this and it's doing a lot of things I like.
It's got the thing where it's like, oh, what if there was like 300 pins in this one?
It's got things where you're getting upgrades like exploding ball and gravity ball and stuff like that.
I need to play this ASAP.
It's just well thought out in every way, where it's like oh, everything that they could think of that would be fun.
They threw it in there.
It's just fun at every turn.
I have downloaded all 200 megabytes of it.
How's the pin action?
We got good pin action?
We have good pin action.
I would say the action is maybe more focused on the ball action versus the pin action, but when you do hit the pins it's satisfying.
Famous last words.
They bounce around.
I know.
Listen, I know how you need your pin action.
This game's going to deliver it for you, but yeah, the focus is on the ball.
Speaking about fun around every corner.
I have been enjoying watching your streams of this game, Dan.
You have been playing Sekiro.
Yeah, I feel like I've had enough people in recent months talk about it and tell me I should try it.
Kayla was telling me I should play through it.
I was playing Punch-Out a week or two ago and I was realizing wait a minute.
I'm really good at reacting quickly to things and recognizing attacks and stuff.
Maybe now is the time to try this.
Yeah.
Yeah, I'm like four hours into it, really enjoying it.
But like I did two, two hour sessions of it.
And both of them went the same way.
Where it's like I start out, get to a new area having a lot of fun, hit a roadblock.
Like, you know, in the first stream, it was the ogre.
And then the next one, it was the the big drunk guy with the sword.
And both times I die like 10 times.
I'm like, fuck this.
I'm doing everything right.
I'm blaming the game.
It's like, oh, this is the game's fault.
Surely it's not my fault.
And then it's just like you get out of that mindset and it's like no no, this is an incredible game.
I'm fucking up.
I need to be more patient.
I need to learn different ways to go after these guys.
And I've been doing like that moment when everything clicks together.
Like when I fought the big drunk guy with a sword.
It's like I had a run where it's like, all right, I snuck around.
I took out all the ads around them.
I saved the NPC to help me until they were all gone.
I went in, I had all my, you know, flash or whatever.
And then you just are patient and you recognize the attacks.
You know when to move, when to Perry, when to like it's God damn it.
It is a really, really good game.
I still don't believe that I will beat it.
I honestly think I will get to a point where... That's why you fail.
Well, that's the thing.
It's like all these gaming challenges and stuff.
If I stick with it, I get really fucking good at it.
Exactly, yeah.
Look at Sekiro.
Look at Punch-Out.
Look at all this stuff.
It's just... It is incredibly frustrating when it's frustrating.
And, unlike Elden Ring or Bloodborne, the other two Souls-likes I've beaten, or i guess the only two souls likes i've beaten you can choose it, you can over level, you can grind, and this is the one where you can't.
And that is so fucking intimidating to me.
And seeing kayla, you know struggle, you know, for months with that last boss granted, she was going through like 18 different forms of input lag without realizing it, but it still seemed really fucking hard.
So i, i don't know, i don't, i don't expect to beat it, but i'm definitely going to try to keep moving forward.
It you're still not at a point where like, it can maybe all super quick with you, but you all, you know, you also kind of have to enjoy the idea of a boss might take you 40 tries.
And like, that's a process and it's a learning thing, right?
Like you're kind of close to Madam Butterfly in the one path.
And that was the boss.
I think I died to the most.
And it was something like, 45 times, but I enjoy that, all right?
I enjoy, like, okay, I'm getting a little bit better.
I'm winning this.
Should I do this differently?
Should I try this item here?
Things like that.
I will say I it may be something for you, because you're kind of at a part where there's two paths right now.
You're sort of in that weird flashback thing.
Yeah.
But you could keep going down the main path for a while and you get some upgrades from that that maybe will help out on that path, because Bottom Butterfly is hard.
I think most people consider her the... first really big roadblock, right?
Yeah, she can be a tough one.
I am having an easier time this time than when I played it originally, because I refused to parry the first time.
I played this game, when it first came out.
And it turns out that it's like playing Mario without jumping.
Yeah, it really is.
Even once you learn how the health bar works.
Yes, you take down their health by hitting them with the sword, but it's really about filling up that other meter, and that's how you just take off a whole bar of their health, right?
And learning things like what is the deal, where it's like, the lower their health is, the more stagger damage they take, or something like that.
Yeah, so you do need to get some hits on them.
Not so much to lower their health to kill them, but the lower their health is, the slower the stagger deteriorates is kind of the way that it works.
I see.
Okay.
Yeah, yeah.
So, you know, you want to get those hits in when you can.
So you kind of have to be doing both.
You got to get the parries in.
You have to kind of get your hits in.
So that's why a lot of fights, it's kind of like parry, parry, swing, right?
Get a hit in.
That kind of thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
There's still like some things, Dan for like I don't know if cheesing's the word, but like you have those tools now and there are just some bosses who are weak to specific tools and things like that.
But yeah, it's definitely not like you know Dark Souls, where you can't just go over a level or you can, like get this person to come and help you with the fight and you can only throw fire pots at them, stuff like that.
And yeah, not just over leveling.
Like I, again, Bloodborne and Elden Ring are the two souls likes I've beaten.
And not only over leveling.
I was summoning the max amount of other players I could in every boss fight and hiding in a corner.
So it's like, I've never really taken the time.
I've never done a good job in a from boss fight, you know?
I guess Armored Core, but like you know, I don't know if that's considered.
Yeah, it's a bit of a different flavor though.
Yeah.
I think out of all the Soulsborne games, Sekiro's still my favorite.
Like I finished Elden Ring but like I don't think I enjoyed my whole time through it.
But Sekiro, just like something so satisfying and maybe just being like a ninja samurai guy yeah, it was cool.
Yeah, I don't know, I just I.
Yeah, I absolutely love that challenger rising to it.
It's I think it's easily my favorite of the from the games, even more so than the elder ring.
I still constantly thinking about it, was watching Dan play it and I was just like I should go play Sekiro again.
I miss it.
It's just so freaking satisfying.
And like you know that drunk guy, I struggled on him just as much as you did.
I think that first time.
And part of me is like, man, I need to go back now because I bet I would just... annihilate him i also never realized there was that guy there you can help you dance like you're that's crazy a little bit better help for distracting yeah isn't that the coolest feeling though like something that like used to absolutely annihilate like i think about this all the time with mike tyson you know mike tyson 30 years in that game of just annihilating me and me never getting close and now it's like i can do it 10 times in a row right now no problem You really do get the groove, especially because there's that system where there's that red flashing symbol.
And in most games, that would just mean the press this button symbol.
In this game, it means one of few things is going to happen.
Maybe it's the thrust that you can do the Makiri counter.
Maybe it's a sweep and you need to jump.
Or maybe it's a grab and you just need to dodge.
So it's like...
And I kind of like that.
It's not just like the Batman.
It's not just this, then that.
It's pay attention.
Something important is going to happen.
Can you read it?
So you kind of like you get into this mindset like okay, if they sort of lunge their arms backwards, it's going to be some kind of a thrust.
They're sort of like arching.
It's going to be a sweep.
They're kind of opening up their arms.
It's going to be a grab.
You just kind of internalize all this.
You get really good at seeing the signals.
He's in like coach mode right now.
I think you should have like a whistle around your neck and a sweatsuit.
I love it so much.
It's just like one of my favorite games now.
It's so freaking good.
Even if I can't beat it, even if I fall off or whatever, next time I play it it's like it is undeniably an incredible game.
It would just be me and my own frustration stopping me.
Not to glaze y'all real quick, but I think I've become a better gamer because of y'all.
Wow.
Yeah.
We lift up our friends here.
That's what we do.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Not just with puzzles, but just like playing games in general.
And I feel like there is a discernible shift in terms of like, oh, I am good at this now.
Holy smokes.
It's because of the chuckle heads around me, isn't it?
That's all that missed time.
Next up is a marathon, Jan.
You know what?
It could be.
It could be.
Mikey, you have been playing a Souls-like of sorts.
Nine Souls.
Yeah.
Actually, in this game, it even basically advertised itself as much.
It's 2D Sekiro.
That's a lot of what's going on here.
Now, aesthetically, you are like a cat of a race of cat-esque people.
Yeah.
And it's kind of sci-fi-y mixed in with all that sort of, you know, ancient Japanese culture stuff.
But yeah, it's a Metroidvania, so you have some of the movement stuff, but a lot of it is focused on this very parry-focused combat.
Yeah uh, and i was craving, or is it purry?
Oh, that's just, i gotta remember that for my next stream title.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, um.
But yeah i, you know like, thinking about sekiro and also sort of missing silk song a bit, i've had an itch for another one of these difficult metroidvanias.
This one is always kind of brought up in that hollow knight vein in terms of You know like oh, what's the hardest Metroidvania ever?
Blah, blah, blah.
So I was looking forward to this and it has been delivering, especially on the boss fight front, where you just have these bosses that are absolute dances.
It was great.
It's like.
You know, it's a bit different than a Sekiro where it's just like oh parry, their health goes down.
When you parry, you can very you kind of immediately do this dash move.
That then leaves a sort of print on them.
And then you activate that and it's a bomb.
So you kind of do these parry strings and then counter with that.
And that's kind of the dance involved in this game.
And it feels very good when you get that off.
It's it's yeah, it's been a big game.
It's a bit talky for a Metroid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Turn me off of it because I tried it and I was playing.
I was having an OK time.
I just couldn't get past the early parts because it's like I was just bored, I think.
Yeah, and it's well done, and I am interested in all these characters now, right?
There's a bit of like okay, I'm going back to my home base to get this upgrade and also three people probably want to talk to me, and after a while it's a little bit of a drain and something you're not necessarily looking forward to.
Uh, so you kind of turn the corner again where i'm.
So i am so attached to these characters now that i do like it, but i definitely prefer more of the hollow knight uh system of you know.
There's characters talking sometimes, but a lot of the lore and the story is very understated.
This game is really pushing all of that to the forefront, But again, it's not a detriment to it.
It does present some pacing issues, especially early on, Jeff.
Yeah, because you do have to kind of do this whole intro thing before things really get going.
I don't know what about the game.
I immediately bounced off after it started opening up after the kind of opening sequence of you being transported away.
Just something about the combat I just didn't quite click with.
I don't know if it's because it was like a 2D thing or there was just something off about it for me personally.
But I did find it to be very, very talky.
Maybe it's the whole cat thing for me.
Maybe if someone says it's their foxes and that's blowing my mind.
Are they fox?
I think they're cats.
No, that's way better.
It's called Nine Lives.
Yeah, they're cats.
They're cats.
They're cats.
I thought it was a cat.
No, the combat's been feeling really good to me, and the parry window feels just about right.
What's neat too is if you just kind of get the parry, you'll take damage, but it's a damage that will regen to the point where you lost it right.
And then when you get the perfect parry, that's when it's like the full-on.
Okay, now you can counterattack thing.
So kind of like in Sekiro, right where there's a parry window and you can get like a kind of a thing, or you can get like the big thing.
And that feels really good.
Again, like I'm pretty deep into the game.
I'm probably going to beat it soon.
Some of these late game bosses have just felt super satisfying, where you know I'm fighting a guy and there's like knives going everywhere.
So it's like swing swing, turn to my left block block, and then someone's a clone and you can only counter this one by jumping and doing an air dodge and jump off him and then I dash through this person, do my special attack.
Again, it's that dance, and when it's clicking, it feels super satisfying.
Yeah, I've been enjoying it a lot.
Quick pulse check here.
Mount Rushmore of parrying.
Sekiro.
I mean, Sekiro's, yeah, George Washington at this point.
33's gotta be up there, right?
Oh, sure.
Yeah, sure.
Expedition.
I will throw in knife parrying from Resident Evil 4.
That's just cool to say also.
You can knife parry, a chainsaw yeah yeah, same same.
Yeah uh, hatchet parry instead of knife parry uh for sure, gosh.
Now i'm trying to think like what's the fourth?
You know what actually feels really good?
No one ever talks about the soul caliber parry.
If you do that, if you tap a and forward, and yeah yeah, it could be like street fighter 3 even.
Yeah yeah, Yeah.
If I think about fighting game parries yeah, I am going to actually think Third Strike and I think I might actually go there because you have that famous moment, right.
Yeah, Moment 37, yeah.
Yeah, I think I'll do that.
If people don't know, just Google Moment 37, and you've seen it before.
Speaking about getting better at games, because of just osmosis through y'all and pairing.
I am curious about trying a fighting game out.
I want to explore, but I don't know.
Should I go in full hog and get a fight stick, or should I just get a pad?
I think fight sticks are overrated.
Controllers are very good at this stuff now.
Get a good Genesis fight stick and play Balls 3D.
There you go.
There it is.
All right.
Thank you, Sensei.
Let's play Street Fighter VI.
Yeah, Street Fighter VI is still kind of the one, I think.
It's so good.
Okay, okay.
I've always been curious about a hitbox as well.
Maybe I'll pick up one of those.
Maybe.
I mean, if you want to try something like that, or you're talking about the leverless controllers.
Is that what you mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because I don't like a joystick or whatever.
Play on a keyboard.
That's where it came from.
So it's like, it's like try it on a keyboard first and see if you like it.
That's the ones with just buttons, right?
Yeah.
I have seen images of those and I've never once understood.
How do you move?
Like, what is the, like the button, the button?
It's like a D-pad.
Yeah.
So there's like four D-pad.
But they're shaped in a weird way.
It's not like a D-pad.
So your fingers are resting on all of them at all times.
Right.
So you can easily do Hadouken movements and other things.
Yeah.
They're shaped different because it's a fighting game and Up doesn't move them up.
It jumps.
So it's like... Unless you're playing a 3D game and it's like that's a little bit different.
But it's... Yeah.
It's set up with that in mind.
Yeah.
It's hardcore.
It's hardcore.
I wouldn't...
I think getting a leverless before you decide if you really like fighting games is kind of like when you go and buy the really expensive driver before you've hit the holes.
Exactly.
Buy the equipment when you need it, not beforehand.
Mike's right.
Fantastic.
I thought we were just talking about driving a car through a fake hole in the wall that we just paint.
God, I want to do that to someone someday.
Speaking of fighting games, Dan Riker, you're going to be embarking on a fighting game later today.
Yeah.
In Rivals of Aether 2.
I never stop talking about Rivals of Aether 2.
I know.
You're such an Aether head.
I know.
It's like Grub with Sektori.
It's me with Rivals of Aether 2.
No, I will occasionally get tapped by Twitch Rivals to compete on their stream.
And that causes me to play games I normally wouldn't, like Minecraft Squid Games.
And so now it's Rivals of Aether 2.
And it's like, I'm on a team of three guys.
And I think they specifically wanted, like someone who's never played it like me have some like middle tier guys and then like professional global, you know, competitive dudes or whatever.
So that's the plan.
Yeah, I'm doing that after the bomb cast today.
I just hope to not embarrass my team.
I do want to make them mad.
Who's my main?
Uh, it's like a bug man that can make a big pillar of rocks and he can make rocks and throw them.
I did some training last night with someone on my team.
He was very nice.
Uh, but even then it's like I don't know anything about smash brothers competitive, because you know I've only played all items, all bullshit.
No one knows what they're doing.
Um and so like, even like the terms he was using when we were training.
He was like okay well, you're F, you know, you're F, dash strong attack.
Is this like?
I think that's probably means f is forward.
Um yeah yeah, you're fair, that's your, that's your forward air.
You're uh yeah, you're near your neutral air.
Yeah, that's the thing was fucking insane when uh, extra life, when you guys were over here and was it mitch, you and kayla?
Yeah, we played some ultimate.
Yeah, i don't think i've ever seen a no item smash brothers fight until then and like i don't think i've ever seen anyone block in smash brothers And you guys were blocking and like doing fighting games and dodging and things.
Yeah.
I've played hundreds, if not thousands of hours of Smash Brothers.
I played a 30 hour straight once.
It's been the game where Nintendo characters throw Pokeballs at each other my entire life.
So it was wild to see this whole other side of it.
But that's all I'll say.
I will do absolutely terribly this afternoon.
Somehow I've never played Rivals of Aether 2.
I played a bit of the first one and enjoy okay.
I always have the same problem with all these Smash Brothers inspired games that I'm just ultimately like.
I think I'd rather play Smash Brothers actually still, but I've heard some good things about this one for sure.
Yeah, I remember back in the SF studio any time in between streams recordings, podcasts nine times out of ten I would find Ben Pack playing the original Rivals of Aether by himself in a dark room in the studio.
It seems really deep.
There are a lot of mechanics to it.
I mean, I can see if you're into that.
It seems like a very good one of those.
Is Rivals of Aether the one that had a WWE crossover thing?
No.
Brawl Stars or whatever.
Is Brawl Stars the one that had all the indie game characters in it?
It did, but Rivals of Aether 1 had like...
Ori was in it, right?
I don't think Ori's in the second one.
So there's Brawlhalla.
Brawlhalla.
Thank you, Chad.
Yeah, I think Shovel Knight was in Brawlhalla or something.
Not this one.
I don't know if Aether's 2 has any crossover.
They've all been the same thing in my head for years.
So that's where I'm at.
All right, moving on.
Last game that we have here on the docket.
Jeff Grubb, you talked about this, I think, during the mic check, but Rhythm Doctor.
Yeah, this is a rhythm game, very similar kind of in terms in terms of style or like energy, to rhythm heaven.
But you play as a doctor who treats his patients through rhythm games.
And it like introduces all these cool mix ups to how it'll work, where it's like sometimes the EKG machine you're using to monitor their heart, like you're trying to match up their heart rhythm and go on the seventh beat, or something like that.
It'll mess up or get interference because of whatever disease they have.
And so it's like it'll begin throwing a static at you or a remix of the heartbeat.
But you still need to be going on the normal beat.
So all this crazy music will be happening over here.
And you still got to keep the one, two, three, four, five, six, seven in your head.
And it just like creates this really cool thing where it's like I'm playing the game in my head over here.
All this insane shit's happening on the screen, and it's really well done.
And then of course they, they mix it up.
There's it's like rhythm heaven.
There'll be like one where it's like, oh yeah, that's about hitting on the seventh beat.
This one's about keeping the clap.
So it's happened.
One clap here.
You do the second clap.
Boop, boop.
Are you fixing the clap as well?
I've treated the clap.
Yes, I healed the clap through claps.
It's really good.
Really well done.
I'm playing on the computer with the space bar as my only input.
It is making me miss Rhythm Heaven.
I think I still prefer Rhythm Heaven's structure of here's a weird bespoke, insane minigame situation where it's you know, four boys in a choir or you're building a robot in a factory.
I still love all that stuff.
But this hospital setting with the sort of scaled back 8-bit aesthetic is working for me as well.
I'm certainly enjoying it.
There is two other things.
I did get some stuff in my PO box.
One of those things was this Atari Jaguar controller that has a USB dongle.
Oh, my God.
So if you guys want to make me play a game on the computer with an Atari Jaguar controller Jaguar, excuse me, we should make that happen.
For audio listeners.
Greg, can you describe what this controller looks like?
Honestly, i don't.
If you asked me before i had this thing, if i could name it from, i would be like i think it's got a bunch of like phone buttons on it and yeah, it does so.
Uh, it's got three face buttons uh a, b and c option and pause and a d-pad and then below that is the one through nine number pad on the controller itself.
This thing is nuts.
I never understood what those buttons were.
I think like some people would like kind of like old games, like I think ColecoVision stuff would do this.
You could put an overlay on top of it.
So suddenly it'd be like, oh, you're playing like a ship game.
This one's fire torpedo.
No, I had a ColecoVision.
That's what we had.
We had the adapter for it to play Atari games.
And that had a dial controller and a number pad controller.
And I had the number pad controller.
I think I maybe used it once.
Maybe it was in television.
Yeah.
That could be in television.
Yes.
Yes.
That's what it was.
I think Jaguar did that.
I don't know.
Because otherwise, what would Bubsy possibly need?
Right.
Aliens versus Predator, I don't think was using one through nine.
Would those be used for like passwords or codes for like levels or whatever?
I'm sure some stuff did that, yeah.
But it's like, does that need to be built into the goddamn controller?
That's crazy.
That's really insane.
The other thing is I bought this kind of sight unseen the second it went on sale without thinking about it.
And only recently I learned they only made 1,985 of them.
It's the 40th anniversary edition of the 8-bit Dough Ultimate 2 controller and it's the 40th anniversary edition of the NES release in the United States.
Oh, that's cool.
It's got these dates down here and stuff like that that represent other console launches in Nintendo history.
That aesthetic's a little bit...
Everything else about it's really nice.
I like the colors.
It lights up red in the wells and stuff like that.
It looks real nice.
And then it's got a great NES pattern on the dock that it comes with.
It also comes with a dongle that you can plug into the NES and just use this controller on the original NES hardware if you want, which I thought was really cool.
Interesting.
Interesting.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, yeah, pretty cool.
I think we'll maybe make a social post about this controller.
Yeah, well, I bought Overblood.
I own this now, too.
I'm glad you did.
Very nice.
It's worth having.
Good work.
Yeah, preserving history there.
Good job, Mikey.
Ooh, got the disc, the manual, and everything.
Yeah yeah, there you go.
You know um, i can't.
We're overblood brothers is what it's called.
I i can't follow y'all down that path of of collecting.
You're gonna play overblood too yeah yeah okay uh, folks at home any, or folks here, any other things you want to talk about before we take a bricky break any other games or whatever?
No, someone told me to try out this, a merchant's promise, which is just like you play as a merchant who has to like physically move all your goods from one city to the other in a cart, and like you could take one path and it's like that's the shorter path, but there's no real road there and you have to go over hills and stuff like that.
And there's another path, but you have to pay a fee to use this nice road.
You have to pay the king or whatever.
And I started it up and it seems really intimidating because it's got a lot of confusing elements to it.
But I'm going to play a bunch of that and I'll come back next week and talk about it then.
So whoever was telling me to check that out, I'll report back soon.
I checked out some of the South Park in Fortnite.
How was it?
Oh, yeah, we played Fortnite last week on UPF.
Still fun.
Yeah yeah i, i think just like coming off the, the incredible integration of simpsons.
This is less than yes yeah, much less than so, you know, there's fun, like yeah again, it's more.
It's honestly just more of like seeing people who have no exposure to south park, understanding drips and drabs, and like selected, you know, ephemera from the.
So it's a towel that gets high.
Uh yeah okay, you know.
And then, like we were where i forget where we were and someone had like a mr hanky like figurine at a restaurant and i'm just like, and like i'm just, it's just so weird to like extract like 11 of south park and that's all you know of this entire thing.
It's wild, i don't know um.
One thing I did want to bring up real quick about Fortnite apparently there is a Ferris Bueller Ferrari Easter egg in Fortnite at some point.
Of course there is.
We showed Dylan Ferris Bueller's day off yesterday for the first time.
Oh, cool.
He loved it.
He loved it.
That last scene with the Ferrari going through the glass...
He was triggered.
He's like, I know this.
I know what this is.
And we're like, what?
What's happening?
How is this how absorbing culture works now?
He's like, no, I know that this car goes through a glass house and it's in Fortnite.
And I'm just like, what do you mean?
This is so familiar.
This sounds like me watching a lot of adult movies and realizing that I knew the references from Simpsons.
Yeah, which, you know what?
Simpsons is our Fortnite, if we're being completely honest.
That is what it is.
That's how we absorb movies from the 30s and 40s because they were played on in this series.
And what is really the difference when you get right down to it?
But the fact that...
He was watching this entire movie and he's loving it.
And then the second that Ferrari goes through the glass window, he's like I know exactly what this is.
Meanwhile, we like only found one video on YouTube that had maybe 400 views.
That was documenting this Easter egg about.
There is.
Does anybody know more about this?
Did it have to do with that season where they were doing all these movie tie-ins like the Tarantino stuff, the Back to the Future stuff?
So I said to him, I'm like, buddy, you got to understand where we're coming from here, okay?
You're saying you know this.
And he definitely knew it because he's like yeah, that goes to the garage like i know what's gonna happen.
So he definitely saw it.
We saw a very.
We saw okay, danny and chess as well.
This happened six years ago in game, how i said dude, like what, what are you?
He's like maybe i saw like a of youtube highlight reel.
Yeah, or someone was like or something going through all the easter eggs and this showed up in it.
And because his brain is just complete sponge mode, he just sort of what else is he filling in there besides MM's and popcorn?
I guess he just remembered it.
I couldn't believe it.
Unbelievable.
Turns out Ferris Bueller is a pretty good movie for a kid.
I didn't think about it, but it's like, oh yeah, when my kids get a little bit older, that'll be a perfect movie.
One of their first live action movies that they actually cared about was The Mask.
So that's where we're at.
They liked it quite a bit.
Backlar, how ready are you that there is a possibility in the world that the first time Dib may consume Jaws could be through Fortnite?
You could fix that.
That makes sense.
Has it?
I feel like there's been references to Jaws in Fortnite.
I feel like there has to be, right?
I feel like most things have gotten found their way in there by now.
I don't know.
He already played the Jaws pinball machine, so he kind of knows like it's out there.
But there's a shark.
The problems.
Yeah.
Yeah.
If I said oh, we're going to need a bigger boat, would he understand where that came from, or maybe not?
Probably not.
If we started doing the show and just had like vertigo zooms, would you get that reference?
I love those.
Those are great.
Vertigo zooms?
Is that like a close-up of the ring?
When you move the camera in while zooming out, so it creates those parallax and then it's like when you see a shark in real life.
Yeah, Brody's on the beach and he does the zoom.
Yes.
I called those something else.
I'm not sure.
They're dollar zooms.
Yeah.
Yeah, um huh.
Yeah, i don't the bigger boat thing, he wouldn't know, but he just knows that, like uh, massachusetts and cape cod and sharks yeah, i was like don't don't, everyone knows.
Oh yeah, the motif uh folks, that looks like that about does it for games.
But there is a quick look out on the website now.
Memory mio, memories in orbit.
I did start that.
Uh yeah I, this is the Metroidvania.
I did.
I was quick look with the, with Chuck, uh, Chuck piloted.
It's a good quick look.
Uh, it's a, it's a Metroidvania in the, uh, very much in the hollow night style.
They're trying to be hollow night and I'm still early.
It's not.
It's not grabbing me super well, but uh, I think I need to just stick with it a little bit further.
Cause the stuff that Chuck was showing me.
It's like okay, I clearly there's a ton more here and I bet I get an upgrade or two more and I'll be right there with it.
You could say he's wrong.
He's not around this week.
You could say he's just wrong.
He fled the country.
Yeah, he fled because he was so wrong.
Stick to what you know.
Stick to what you know.
Get back in the website minds.
Yeah, yeah.
He was upsetting Spaghetti because of the thing that you and I are recording with him, Grub.
He was just so upset about that and then messing up the first quick look.
Yeah, I did this quick look with him first.
There was an audio problem and I got kicked to the side.
He brought Grub in.
That's okay, though, because I forgot his last name when it came up in the beginning.
All right folks, we're going to go take a quick break and we will be back with the news right after the Zimmerfeld.
Is that what you said?
Yeah.
Quick, again, another quick pulse check.
How many Wiimotes do you all think you have in your house right now?
Seven.
Let me see.
Seven.
Grub just got up and left.
I definitely have two somewhere.
I just don't know where they are.
That's a pink one.
I have a pink one.
Yes.
All right.
Looks like a sex toy.
It does.
Grub, you said the magic word, a pink one.
So now we can do the news.
Oh, shit.
Mikey, CES is over, right?
There were no products targeting that because no one's found it yet.
At least no one that was going to CES.
All right, I have some news here.
Let's start off with this one.
High Guard didn't pay for that final spot at the Game Awards.
You might have heard that if you listened to the show like a month ago where we said that.
I was like, yeah, you remember that?
When I saw this circulating around, I'm like, didn't we know that already?
Yeah, we did.
But but it's confirmed again and again.
Imran said it like a couple of weeks ago.
Paul Tassi is reporting it.
And that's what really popped it off.
Yeah, they it was selected by Keeley for that last spot.
And everyone's going like, that's impossible.
He should know better.
Well, I want to posit this.
I don't want anyone to freak out or anything here.
But perhaps Jeff Keeley is out of touch.
I think that's a likely scenario, Mike.
And also it's like I think he probably played the game, thought it was pretty good and thought from the makers of Titanfall 2 would go a long way, not realizing where it goes.
Like, that's great.
We want Titanfall 3, not whatever this live service stuff is, because it's another live service game.
It has still been radio silent since this happened.
I mean, it's supposed to launch Monday, right?
I think we get a full squad together and we do a launch day stream of Highgarden.
If it launches, Dan, I think that's where we're at.
Like right now it doesn't.
They haven't said a single thing about it.
I think there's a chance.
It'd be weird if they didn't at this point because it's getting so close.
But they haven't said a single thing about it.
Now, it's free to play, right?
So it's not like this weird thing where you're going to have to get people ready to spend some money.
And Apex Legends definitely had a, here it is, out of nowhere.
It just launched, and it did really well for that game.
So maybe they're hoping to sort of replicate that a little bit after whatever happened at the game or what's happened to this game.
But...
We should try this game out if it does launch on Monday and see for ourselves.
I bet there are people are priming themselves up for a redemption story here.
Like, oh, I actually do like this game.
I don't care what the haters say.
I'm ready to do that.
I want to like it.
I don't know.
I've gone back into Marvel Rivals.
I could maybe go for another character shooter.
Do you think Keeley did the mental calculus about what that last spot at the Game Awards can do to a game?
Yeah, I wonder if it occurred to him that he could hurt a game more than help it.
I don't think that occurred to him, no.
Yeah, no, I mean, really, like when you're setting up your show, you're excited.
You're like, hey, this is I'm in L.A.
I'm Jeff Keighley.
You're a bunch of developers from the Los Angeles area.
We're friends like we probably see each other and we're in the same circles all the time.
I'm going to do you guys a solid.
I like your game.
People are going to love it.
No one's thinking.
And like, and then people are going to freak out because it wasn't, it was the one last thing and it wasn't exactly what they wanted.
Obviously, it's like you flip it around, make that the second to last thing.
You make Fates of the Old Republic the last thing.
And I think that solves most of the problems right there.
Yeah, I think that solves pretty much all of them.
Except maybe we're not even talking about this game at all.
Honestly, at that point, I maybe would not remember what High Guard even is.
Now, maybe that's better than it kind of being a punchline, which is sort of the case right now.
And it's one where, hey, maybe the joke's on all of us.
Maybe the game's going to come out.
Sure.
It's hard because the game can't just come out and actually be good.
It has to come out, be good, and find an audience.
It's two things.
Those can both be difficult.
Yep.
With Concord, right, because, you know, that's what we're all thinking of.
I think the whole industry is still staggered from Concord.
It's just absolutely... abysmal performance.
That game, it was not that bad to actually play, right?
Whether you think it was good or great, the quality to player base ratio was heavily out of balance.
So how good does Highborne have to be to kind of have its... High guard.
Oh god, Highborne.
How good does it have to be to really latch onto an audience here with its you know middling presentation, right?
Like that's the big reason why it showed poorly is that the presentation of it is not inspiring.
And I'm hearing on the streets that Overwatch 2 is picking up a little bit more traction.
It is.
But I feel part of that is because people are at least familiar, at this point, with a lot of those Overwatch characters, maybe curious about the newer ones.
And Marvel Rivals just has the name recognition of Marvel.
It does feel like an uphill battle for any of these character shooters to now get you into the world and get you invested.
Yes.
My question, did that deadlock, did that ever come out?
I think it's still technically an early access.
Yeah.
But people are spending a lot of money on it and it has a lot of players.
Yeah.
And that's almost more in the MOBA space than character shooter.
It's obviously a combination of the two for sure.
Yeah.
So that's a, it's an interesting case and it's valve, which, you know, isn't always a guarantee.
Remember artifact, but yeah, it's valve.
No, there's no monetization in Deadlock.
That's crazy.
What a weird thing.
Is it free to play?
It's in closed beta.
You can only play if you get invited, right?
Yeah.
It has so many players.
Oh, man.
That's a weird, weird, weird thing.
Oh, okay.
We should do a double feature.
We should do a high guard and then Deadlock.
All right.
And by Deadlock, we just watch the Deadlock voice.
Sure.
Sounds great.
I didn't realize until right now someone mentions that High Guard is just a synonym for Overwatch.
Yes, that's crazy.
Oh, that's stupid.
That's stupid.
That can't be on purpose.
Probably not.
Even if it's subconscious, it's not great.
Yeah, and that's the thing.
People don't want another Overwatch.
If they want Overwatch, they'll go to Overwatch 2, which is better than it has been.
And I know that we share our fair share of bad puns and stuff, but come on, guys.
We'll see.
Yeah, I think you nailed it, Jan.
This thing has an uphill battle.
It's got, like, every win.
It has to take every win.
It can't have any Ls, and it just already out of the gate had one of the biggest Ls we've seen.
You know, not... on the level of a Concord, but like since Concord in a lot of ways.
And I mean, like you know, uh like barring the uh dumb ass that was uh, that absolutely.
Uh kneecapped his game um split gate two, which then became split gate.
What arena?
Yeah.
Not a rail thing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just make it first person shooters.
Great again, Jay.
I don't know what your problem is with that.
What a fucking dumb ass.
It just seems so cool.
He's a loser.
Anyway.
Is the Riot one still big?
They made one.
Oh, Valorant?
Valorant.
Yeah, yeah.
And that one, that's like its own orbit.
Oh, yeah.
On its own.
Yeah, well, it's like its own launcher.
It found a niche by being like the Counter-Strike meets Hero Shooter thing.
And it's a good combo.
And it gets to live in.
You know their whole orbit with all the stuff they have for esports and everything.
It helps.
Yeah, but with Splitgate, I mean, I know the original one had a gigantic audience.
Maybe that was because of the pandemic.
Yeah, for a brief time, yeah.
It tapered off very quickly, and they couldn't ever capitalize.
And sure, again, the game's rep was hurt by the CEO.
But I don't know.
Even that game that had some familiarity couldn't catch on.
Yeah, there's just not a lot of... a blue ocean in this space.
It's all just the deadly shark infested waters.
And no matter where you go, you kind of can't get away from that, that, uh, that reality.
Um Speaking of Marathon's release date may have been accidentally shared early on the Xbox Store update.
It was confirmed for March 5th, 2026.
The game is $40.
It's coming to PS5, Xbox, PC.
Yeah, I don't know.
Last couple of updates on the playtest, people seemed a lot more positive about it.
I don't know if it's positive enough.
But I don't know.
It's Bungie.
It always feels like it has a puncher's chance of being like oh, that's the best-feeling shooter of the year.
I don't know.
$40.
Well, for a while, I was like, oh, Ark Raiders is going to eat this thing's lunch.
But maybe Ark Raiders has done some good groundwork here because Ark Raiders is $40.
So now people are kind of used to the idea that you pay for one of these.
It's not just inherently $40.
Free to play.
It's gotten a lot of people used to the entire genre of extraction shooting.
And it's also been out long enough that people might be looking for a different flavor of it.
Maybe.
I still think there's a bit of an uphill climb here.
But again, it's Bungie.
If it plays well, if they fix things from that first disastrous alpha, they might still have a decent shot here of having something.
It's the number one selling game on Steam right now.
What?
I mean, Marathon is.
Before it comes out, pre-orders, number one selling game on Steam.
And they do that by dollars, so it's $40.
The other things on here are like Quarantine Zone, the last check for $16, a new zombie game.
Magic the Gathering Arena is making a ton of money.
The Steam Deck is actually the number one thing, though.
Marathon's right behind that.
I'm a little bit worried.
I know that there was some AI art caught in, I guess, early iterations of the game or whatever.
I'm curious to see.
Stolen art, right?
Stolen art, right.
Yeah, there was another artist's stuff without their permission and that caused a big problem for them.
I'm curious if they've been able to untangle all of that, because that would be another thing to hurt the game if it has a successful launch and everything, which I hope it does, only for it to then be like hampered by oh no, my art was stolen or maybe there was like ai usage in in other parts of the game.
Maybe i think there was there's big enough backlash there that it sounded like they knew they had to do right by that artist and i think that all that stuff was settled and they, that they, you know they touched the stove and the stove was really hot.
You hope they don't they learn that they don't touch the stove again.
So hopefully all that stuff is is untangled And cynically I mean ARCA kind of proudly has the AI voices right.
Even though they made a zillion dollars, they still aren't replacing those with real people or anything.
So people will stomach a certain degree of that slop, it seems like, at least in this genre.
Yucky.
The Division 3 boss, Julian Garrity, was talking.
I think I might have talked about it on last week's episode.
He's like, oh, yeah, it's going to be a really, really big game.
And then he left a week later.
He's going to EA.
He is now in charge of Battlefield.
He's going to be helping out with Battlefield 6 and stuff like that.
All right yeah, i mean, people move around.
If i was at ubisoft, i would also want to go to a different corporation.
It sucks that.
It's like oh, do i work for the one that's kind of falling apart slowly and is being propped up over there by tencent?
Or do i go?
This one that's being propped up by saudi arabia?
Uh, kind of a mess in corporate games.
Uh, production these days.
Uh, but battlefield, the very least, it's like one there.
It's like well, ea's not giving up on that anytime soon, and ubisoft, who knows, it's so fickle over there.
Who knows what they do in the future?
Um Yeah, do I think?
Like battlefield 6 just came out?
It seemed like i had a really hot start.
It did have a really hot start.
It did very well.
Now the the word around that game is cooled off significantly.
I don't know if people have been listening to this show, especially the new segment, for long enough.
They've heard this ups and downs with big games like this for years and years and it's like i don't know for a six month period.
It's the worst thing that's ever happened in the next six month period.
It's back just like we're talking about, with overwatch 2 being back right.
That was in the dumpster after it came out.
Battlefield does feel like it's in a down period, but it's perennial.
These kinds of games.
They'll find a way to bring it back and keep people interested, right?
Right.
And I mean, is he filling in like, you know, the spot that was left open by Zimpala's past thing?
Is that what's happening here?
None of that was brought up.
I don't know.
It seems like that's possible, but it feels like that happened pretty quickly if that was the case.
So no indication that that's exactly what happened.
Hmm uh, digital eclipses.
Disney afternoon collection retro compilation has finally been rated for the switch and switch to mikey, you get it.
Let's go.
Rescue rangers right there.
Duck tails yep, let's see here the the duck tails rescue rangers uh, one and two.
Uh, tail spin darkwing duck uh it's, it's duck tails, one and two as well.
I didn't say number two there.
There is some speculation that Digital Eclipse has done stuff like this before and they've added additional content when they did that.
Maybe they could add the Genesis version of Tailspin is what people are thinking.
Do you think there's any chance of that?
That game's bad and also is made by Sega.
If they're going to do 16-bit.
There's a Goof Troop game For the Super Nintendo that was made by Capcom and it's very good.
It's basically like a co-op Zelda kind of thing, very puzzle-focused.
So that would be amazing to have on there.
You could also just throw in the.
There's a little Mermaid Capcom game for NES that you could throw in as well.
But even if it is just the games in the original, that was a really good collection.
Some of those games, especially DuckTales, are just... all timers.
This thing came out back in 2017, and it bummed me out then that there wasn't a Switch version.
So if this is finally happening, I'd be so happy just being able to play through DuckTales over and, over and over again.
It'll get really good.
Maybe even speedrun DuckTales.
I think that would be a ton of fun.
Yeah, I would love to see that.
Forza Horizon 6's release date may have been revealed early by an in-game ad.
An alleged in-game ad basically said the game's going to get early access starting May 15th.
It'll launch in earnest on May 19th.
Yeah, that's right.
That's true.
That's when that game's coming out.
I think Fable will then come out in late summer august september, i can't remember exactly.
I just have late summer in my head uh, but we'll be finding out probably a lot more about these.
Specifically uh, it's this week right, they're doing the xbox developer direct where they're talking about this game.
They are talking about fable, they're talking about uh, that game freak, maybe soulsborne game that i can't remember the name of right now and then.
And then there is the secret fourth game.
Uh, that is probably that double fine game kill him.
Yeah, January 22nd, 1 pm.
Eastern is when this direct is happening.
Well, there you go.
So we'll get all those details probably then.
Hey, that's sooner than I was expecting for Forza Horizon 6, which I'm definitely in the mood for.
So going to Japan, I want to see it.
Yeah, absolutely.
Again, I'm curious, like, the vibe, just how festival-y it is.
You know, we always laugh, like, it's on social media.
People are always like I hope that is, you know, not toned down, just changed or kind of paralleled a bit in this direction or that direction.
Just shift it.
Right.
My fear is that it's going to be like we used AI to make it look like you're riding against a dragon.
That's the vibe of those games for sure.
Whatever voice that was.
But, you know, if this game is good, it could be really good.
That's for sure.
Monster Hunter Wilds reportedly runs much better on PC when all the DLC is installed.
Some Reddit users were noticing hey, I'm going to install or I'm going to log in on my account on your PC so I could do some stuff in Monster Hunter Wilds.
And they were doing the same stuff.
And when the first guy was playing, he was getting like 30 frames per second or less.
And then when the second guy was playing on the same PC on his account, that happened to have all the DLC.
He was getting like 80 frames per second.
They both were like, wait, that's not a tiny difference.
That's two or three percent we're talking about here.
Yeah.
And so these guys are like, wait a second, let's check.
And they allegedly built a tool to stop the game from for checking if you own the DLC. so when they did this the guy the original guy who's getting 20 30 frames per second started getting like 80 frames per second so now we're early on i think digital foundry i don't know if this they've done the video yet uh it's like they're like out there like hey we're gonna check it to see if this is real zacy says that digital foundry went into details and apparently this only affects towns maybe okay okay so there's some parts of the game where this is a problem okay but it's still a big problem that you're in towns in that game like yeah so is it is it a bug where it's constantly checking for the dlc because presumably you do that it's it checks in once it calls home once and that's it right is it a bug like or is it like just an inefficient way of the of them doing things i mean at the very least it's causing problems and needs to be fixed so yeah i i think so um yeah though really it's checking yeah like there is a check in every frame that would be very bizarre um digital foundry says it seemed like a bug so i hopefully capcom just sees this and fixes this they are claiming like they're not gonna have similar issues when resident evil requiem uh launches because it's using the same engine it'll have dlc all their games have so hopefully that's that's not a problem I mean, this game's been out for like almost a year now, right?
And that is... I don't know.
So if you have the guitar, it's better?
If you have... Yes.
Apparently every piece of DLC you own makes it check less.
Pay me, bitch!
Uh-huh.
There you go.
Get the guitar to make your game run better.
Uh...
Sega announced its Sonic 35th anniversary plans to celebrate Sonic's legacy.
Sega has announced the plan for a high-energy slate of anniversary programs.
It's going to have a bunch of stuff.
We'll see exactly what it looks like, but they're promising to do a lot with the franchise.
They're also doing the same thing for Puyo Puyo, though.
It's Puyo Puyo's 35th anniversary.
Congrats.
Sega will have a lot to say.
Yeah, exactly.
Well done, Puyo Puyo.
I guess you're still here, Sonic.
We should just kill two birds with one stone and release Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine 2 then.
Please.
Absolutely.
God, what a good game.
Give me the beans.
Seriously, though, it is about time for that sequel to Sonic Frontiers, right?
I want to be shocked if we see that at some point this year.
It was released four years ago.
So, yeah.
I think so.
I'm surprised he's only 35.
I'm not going to lie.
I could have sworn he's older.
I went to his birthday party at E3.
I remember that.
Yeah, I was there too.
You were there?
91.
91 was the first Sonic.
Yeah, because the same year Super Nintendo came out.
So I was there.
I was real into that.
Sonic's turning 35 this year?
Yeah.
Yep.
Am I the same age as Sonic?
Apparently.
Are you Sonic?
I'm not ready for that revelation.
You seem younger than Sonic.
Oh, thank God.
Thank God.
I had to hold on to my teeth.
How do you feel about chili dogs, Jan?
I love chili dogs, actually.
Evidence is stacking up.
Are you allowed to do a 35th anniversary if you've only been relevant for like 11 of those years?
Now, wait a second.
Now, if you said good, maybe relevant.
Come on.
But he's only been good for 11.
You're right.
There you go.
Even that seems like a lot.
However you want to position it is fine.
The truth came out, though.
You know now that I'm thinking about it, I do tap my foot and look at you guys when I'm waiting for y'all.
That's true.
So Jay and I are Sonic.
We are going to have to figure out who the rest of us are.
Well, Mike's obviously Tails.
Well, not from the Sonic franchise.
It's if we're just like the video game character of Giant Bomb, you know, and Sonic.
Well, I still want to be Big the Cat, so.
No, you have your Grubcles.
Come on.
I'm Bayonetta.
Jen, you're cooler than Sonic, too.
All due respect to Sonic.
Growing up, I thought Sonic was pretty cool.
He's the coolest.
If we're doing the Sonic thing, am I Robotnik?
Yeah.
You wish.
Wow.
Oh, you offended Dan.
Mikey is spicy today.
Something to aspire to, baby.
Jeez.
Okay.
I got to get into robotics.
I aspire to be robotic.
I'll tell you what.
You get one of those woodpeckers.
You put them into a robot and have that run.
Then maybe we'll see.
Oh.
I think you're more of a Silver the Hedgehog guy, Dan.
Dan, I wouldn't say that.
I don't know what that means.
It's really bad.
What was Silver repeating in that one boss fight?
Oh, God.
It's no use.
It's no use.
It's no use.
It's no use.
I like Sonic.
I hope they do some fun things.
They might be.
They've been remaking games too.
Uh, you know, we had generations before that.
We had colors.
Maybe they'll do unleashed.
People seem to think that one's good.
Now apparently, what could they do?
What could they do?
That would be awesome, i don't know.
People just accept unleashed.
Now, the movies are good and that's about it right now.
Sonic 3 is good.
Yeah, that's the best knuckles.
I kind of like frontiers.
It basically means the movie, Sonic 3, the movie.
Yeah, there's a couple good Sonic games.
Sonic 3D Blast is good.
Actually, you all be nice, alright.
I'm just saying we've never played a Mario game on Blake Club, that's all alright.
Mario is missing.
It can be arranged.
That's not bad, it's just boring.
Yeah, it's just weird.
God, I don't think I ever understood it when I was playing.
Just imagine.
What am I supposed to be doing?
Being a kid whose whole personality was loving Mario games.
And all of a sudden, oh, there's a new one for Super Nintendo called Mario is Missing?
Oh, great.
And you rent it.
And it's like, why is it asking me these questions?
Why is it trying to teach me things?
Nintendo's Japan dominance continues as Switch 2 fuels 40% market growth in Japan.
It sold nearly 4 million units.
The Switch 2 did, becoming Japan's fastest selling console and accounting for over half of all home consoles sold that year.
It also was like, they have the top 20 here collected by using various available data.
The top 10 is like directly from the source that tracks this.
It's physical only, but it's a good glimpse.
And Nintendo is let's see, are these games?
Oh yeah, all but one of them are Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 games.
And Monster Hunter Wilds is number four on the PS5.
And then if you go to the whole top 20, it's all but two of them.
So yeah, Ghost of Yotei was like number 15 here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's it's just a Nintendo dominates in Japan.
And it's like not just like, oh, that's some extra pennies.
It's a significant market for them in a way.
It's like, OK, why isn't Sony focused on?
It's like I think even if Sony did focus on Japan, they wouldn't get these kinds of results.
It's crazy.
Yeah, that's just where that market is.
It's just Nintendo obsessed.
It's working out for them very well.
Sorry Greb, but after seeing Squid Game's Minecraft and the Latin American audience because of Dan and his best friend Shibidoki, I'm curious to see what the Minecraft scene is like in Japan, because it's wild that Minecraft on Switch has such a strong presence on this chart.
It's big everywhere, but yeah, it's especially big in Japan.
Absolutely.
It's 350,000 units sold on the Switch alone last year.
It's pretty good.
Ubisoft is updating three classic Far Cry games to finally run at 60 frames per second on modern platforms.
It'll be Far Cry 3, Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon, and Far Cry Primal.
They are all set to receive updates.
You know, Ubisoft, I guess.
Now, wait a second.
Blood Dragon rules.
Blood Dragon's not right.
It's got Michael Biehn in it.
Far Cry 3 is good.
In the same sentence, Primal, like, yeah, those games are, yeah.
Yeah, I guess the Primal thing is what threw me off.
Primal's when I fell off.
The last one I played was Primal, and I was like, I think I'm done with this franchise.
Which map was Primal reusing?
Was that Far Cry 4?
It was 4, yeah.
That's what those games are.
Yes, it was actually.
So geographically, yes.
Obviously, it's all caveman-y, but it was like layout-wise.
Yeah, they re-stinned it, but the geography was exactly the same.
Okay.
That's what they were doing.
It was like, let's make a second game using all this stuff again.
Oh, Tears of the Kingdom.
Yeah.
Tears of the Kingdom, exactly.
That sounded like Far Cry Primal.
Far Cry Primal is just Tears of the Kingdom.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just weird playing Primal and thinking like this is going to really shake things up.
And somehow being like a caveman didn't shake up the Far Cry formula at all.
It was so similar, yeah.
It's like this is the same thing somehow still.
You know, I talked about it last week.
Maybe there's a reason we don't have that many caveman games.
I mean, there is literally a game called caveman games.
I like it.
Don't make me bring up the Flintstones.
I'll do it.
They already did this for Far Cry 4 last year, last April, and they got an update.
So now they're just kind of doing it to the rest.
They're probably getting ready to well, they are getting ready to reinvigorate this series because remember, Rob Mac excuse me, Rob Mac is making that show with Noah Hawley on FX the Far Cry show.
And Rob Mac is going to be the star of it. it's yeah it feels like it's a villain or the protagonist good question which would which would be better he's probably a villain far cry is way more about the villains right yeah right but it's like i want someone who's like has a huge presence you want like a gary bucey gary bucey oh my god have you seen gary bucey lately you don't want to yeah Far Cry 6 and Far Cry.
Yeah.
Far Cry 6 is 2021, so it's got to be time for Far Cry 7 to at least be announced this year, you'd think.
That feels like they're kind of working in that direction.
And again we always say Far Cry is part of that trio of Far Cry, Assassin's Creed and Ghost Recon that went with Tencent to the new Ubisoft that they actually care about.
So, yeah, they're definitely doing more Far Cry.
And we didn't even get, like, the expand alone for Far Cry 6 like all the other ones got, right?
So, yeah, there hasn't been anything Far Cry, really, for a hot moment there.
I'm sitting here thinking of actors I'd want to see as a villain and you know there's ones like you know Willem Dafoe and stuff but one that just popped in my mind obviously can't happen, but imagine how much fun Bill Paxton would have had as a Far Cry villain.
Oh, he would have been perfect.
Just wild-eyed Bill Paxton, yeah.
He played gaming's greatest villain when he played Jack Thompson in the GTA DC Maker TV movie.
All right.
IO celebrates Hitman 3's fifth anniversary by announcing cross-progression finally for World of Assassination.
I have a decent progression in like four different platforms for that game.
Like PC, Xbox, PlayStation, and Switch.
And I'm like okay, when I go to like, bring one of them forward, i think it's going to be the pc version i have the most progression in.
Uh, but yeah, this is pretty cool.
I, i like this game a bunch and it will be nice to have all of my unlocks available on all the platforms.
Yeah, did they ever fix that switch to version?
Because like yeah, i like the idea of being able to play that version with all my pc unlocks, but That thing was kind of rough at launch.
Yes, it was weirdly rough compared to a lot of other stuff that was surprisingly good.
They made some updates to it, and I think they made some improvements.
Whether or not they got it to where it should be, I have not checked recently.
I should.
And then finally, Valve has significantly rewritten Steam's rules for how developers must disclose AI use.
Basically, it's like this.
I was building that game release tool for us, and I was using Visual Studio to do it.
And I noticed you kind of can't not use AI when you're using Visual Studio these days.
It's like, oh, we know what line of code you're trying to write.
Just hit the button, and we're going to finish it for you.
It's like, well, okay, I'm going to do that.
I'm going to write this anyhow.
I'll just hit the tab, and it's going to finish it for me.
That stuff's built right in.
Valve's like, anything that's about saving you time or efficiency, we don't really care about that.
It's generative AI creating art assets from whole cloth that we want you to disclose.
So that's really what they're trying to get at here.
Although some people are like, no, we still want to know any sort of AI usage at all.
And I think Valve's like, what? not, it's not what we're going for.
It kind of defeats the purpose.
Cause it's going to be like unreal.
It's just going to have the stuff built in.
Right.
It's just going to be there.
And so if you make an unreal game, we're going to have them all disclosed because there's the tools are there and it's unreal game.
It's I think I want to know, you know, I guess I wouldn't hurt to just have them be able to say exactly and explicitly what's in there.
What's what's being used.
But yeah, they're trying to get at a very specific thing here.
And that is, Hey, are you creating art from whole cloth for your game?
And that's what people care about.
I think so.
I think for the most part.
Yeah, some people are going to want to know about any of it.
But yeah, some of that auto-programming stuff, right?
I mean, there's been variations of that for a bit, you know.
At least for me it's definitely.
Is this generative stuff right?
Even in, not even necessarily being in the game.
If you're like, using it as the baseline of your concept, arts or dialogue assets.
I want to know about that too.
Cause I think that stuff still impacts the final result.
Um Yeah, you know it's a tricky thing for them to have to define this properly, especially when some, you know there are a lot of people who are like oh, they shouldn't do this at all.
The Tim Sweeney's of the world raising a fuss, right?
So it's.
It's a weird, it's strange that it's so treacherous for them, but this seems like a good i don't say compromise, but this seems like the right way to do it.
It probably just is like oh, this is one refinement in in figuring this stuff out, and there's probably several more steps of them actually like dialing in what they need to do here to get the proper uh, you know, sort of disclosures.
And yeah, we're just in the middle of that process because things are changing so fast.
All right,
That does it for the headlines I have here in front of me.
Janet, show it back over to you.
Thank you, Jeff Grubb.
Folks, we're going to take another quick break and we'll be back with emails.
Super chats right after this.
These are the emails.
Emails.
Bombcast at giantbomb.com is email address.
Send your emails too.
You can write in about any and everything.
You want to avoid a social interaction and pretend like you're texting someone.
Email us.
You got a fun quiz?
Email us.
You've got five questions that you ask every single week and I only read one of them?
Email us.
And gang, y'all have been emailing us.
So thank you for emailing.
Anytime I get an email to the Bombcast address that is directed towards someone, I will try my best to forward it to them.
Whether it's about odd Facebook marketplace postings that you think they'd be interested in, or other miscellaneous thangs, send them our way.
So thank you.
First email of the show comes from Greg from Bama, GB Crew.
On last week's show, there was a discussion about belts and suspenders.
I grew up with a family of farmers, so I have to ask how does the crew feel about overalls?
Tangentially, while thinking about overalls, i went to see if there were any comfy versions and i found swoveralls pants plus overalls.
Jan, is this a bad idea or a great idea?
I'm thinking about getting some, but these are a hundo, a pop hundo.
Yeah, i think jason, when he can uh, pull off overalls here right, We wore them for the dump truck at PAX once.
Yeah, and I felt like I was working it.
Yeah.
I've done some Waluigi outfits before, and the overalls were kind of comfy.
Yeah.
I like overalls.
I like them better on other people more than me.
I think they're cute.
I think overalls are cute, and I approve of them.
Listen, I know that this is a safe space where I will not be king shamed.
We know, Jan.
But listen, y'all, I just got to type, all right?
See someone in overalls, I'm like, respectfully, God damn.
Like Mario?
Oh, really?
Yes, yes.
Everyone has seen the Disney Dreamlight quick look at this point.
All right.
I don't know what that is.
I got to go look.
Okay.
Is it like a horny?
It's like a horny.
Yes, an incredibly horny thing.
Well, I think you could do sexy overalls, like side boob and stuff like that.
No, that's desecrating the beauty of overalls. i think overalls just sound very inconvenient for like having to use the restroom and whatnot well i mean they most of the ones for dudes have a fly so you know just do they okay that's not the butt flap though right no but no but no butt flap they remind me go completely basically overall lists to go poop yes Like, you know, every now and then, like, I'll have a female friend who's like, I'm rocking a romper or jumper sort of thing.
And my first thing is like, how are you pissing in that?
Yes, they're getting buck ass naked to go to the bathroom.
And they're like, it's terrible.
And I'm like, cool.
Fashion's cool.
And, you know, I think this is like a similar sort of predicament, which, look, I get it.
I think, you know, fashion, current fashion is not my favorite at the moment.
It comes and goes.
It's cyclical.
So, yeah.
We should sell romp hymns in the Giant Bomb store.
Romp hymns.
I would gladly rock a romp hymn.
Mike, can we make our own ripoff version of Swoverolls?
Because I've seen Swoverolls for years, but I am not about to pay $100 plus for that.
This sounds awesome, but I'm not paying that much.
I'm looking at them.
Yeah.
No, I bet we can't.
Ah, nuts.
All right.
Okay.
Thank you, Greg from Bama.
Next email comes from Nico from Finland.
Dear Bombers, first of all I would like to thank Mike for mentioning Looney Tunes Duck Amok for the Nintendo DS a couple weeks ago.
I think it was Voicemail Dump Truck.
I listen to all your shows, so I'm not entirely sure which one it was.
I had no idea that this game existed, so of course I had to go to YouTube to investigate.
Man.
Based on these videos, they just don't make games like this anymore.
I just had to go to huto.net Finnish auction site to see if there was a copy available.
Turns out there was.
It only cost 10 euros and it was located at my good friend's neighborhood.
Even better, my friend bought it for me.
So now I have an obscure DS game on the way that is based on the 1950s Daffy Duck cartoon.
All thanks to Mike.
Yay.
Good job, Mike.
Anyway, all the best to the team.
I've been listening to you guys for a few years now, so I'm happy that you all went independent and get to do exactly what you want with Giant Bomb.
Keep up the great work.
Best regards, Nico from Finland.
P.S.
Can I get an update on Mike's yodeling skills?
Oh, okay.
Okay, sure.
God, it's coming in cold.
Okay.
You sound like a terrorist.
You said that last time.
I did.
It hasn't changed.
Niko, the answer is terribly.
It's going terribly.
Mike, you sound insane.
I'm not sure a toddler could do much worse than what you just did.
Back to the drawing board.
There was a lot of tongue involved there.
Yeah, like what the... Well, they do a lot.
I think they tongue a lot because there's a lot of stops and starts to their sounds.
I think ethnically, you got to stay in your lane.
It's rough.
For the Nordic people?
This is not Nordic.
That's more German?
Switzerland?
Is it Dutch?
I thought it was like... Yeah, it's like a Dutch thing.
Is Nordic the three countries that kind of dangle down?
Yeah, you're Norway, Finland, and Denmark.
I don't know if they dangle down.
They dangle up, right?
I think they look like they're dangling down.
They kind of dangle down.
It's a glass half empty thing, I think.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
Okay.
Good job, Mike.
I can't wait to check in again on the yodeling in a couple months.
To be clear, bad job, Mike.
To be very clear, very bad job.
Well, I appreciate the courage in yodeling.
What about that?
I was asked.
Okay.
All right.
Next one comes from Matt from Essex, Connecticut.
Hey, Bombers.
For the past six months or so, I've been helping my 10-year-old son stepson, with a YouTube channel where he posts videos of himself playing the VR game Gorilla Tag.
Setting up SteamVR, teaching him video editing basics and messing around with mods has been a great bonding experience for the whole family.
Recently we've done his first few livestreams, which is mostly him and some friends messing around shouting, but he's encountered his first troll.
A guy accused him of using illegal mods because his arms look too long.
His arms are long because I set it up and my arms are considerably longer than the average 10 year old.
This dude even went so far as to make a YouTube video about it, calling my stepson a toxic creator.
For context, my stepson is 10 and his channel has 40 subscribers.
As noted YouTubers, do any of you have advice on how to best deal with trolls?
I'm telling him to let it go and ignore the troll, but that's not the easiest thing for a 10-year-old.
Thanks for all the great stuff over the years.
Matt from Essex, Connecticut.
I mean respectfully, Matt.
I feel like this is the reason why there is an age limit on YouTube channel creation right.
Like I don't want to wag the finger here, but you know it might surprise you to know that Dib has asked me to make a YouTube channel for him about 43000 times and I've said no.
Not yet.
You're not there yet.
Again, that's not what this is about.
But at the same time, no YouTube channel, no trolls.
So I don't I don't know.
I don't know.
I don't know.
Very young.
Yeah.
The only choice is to ignore it.
So it's like, yeah, that's it sucks that it's hard to do.
But lesson learned early, I guess.
Yeah, I don't have much advice to offer because, even as an adult, the occasional negative comment or whatever will still, like I don't know, sit in my head for much longer than it needs to, despite knowing to just get over it.
So I can't imagine a 10 year old, right?
I have always liked the phrase like don't take any criticism from people that you wouldn't take advice from.
And so it's like some Yahoo making, like anti, you know, kid you like who's this joker, you know who gives a shit, you know.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And that goes without saying.
To be clear like, that definitely goes without saying.
But I, you know, I think like uh, there's got to be some interference that puts a boundary, you know, between very young kids and the unbridled nature of the internet.
Yeah, the internet's not going to change.
So yeah yeah, i don't know, maybe just remind your stepson uh matt, that you're doing this for fun, so just to engage with like, the fun aspects of it, of like you know, or just turn off comments right, or just yeah yeah, you could do that uh, but also it's not for everyone, like the idea of like being online and putting stuff out there, because it's like i've seen so many people over the years in like games, media that just like every comment, you know, they tears them up and everything's like look, if you can't take bad comments, don't fucking put stuff out on the internet.
I mean, that's just, it's gonna happen, you know, or don't read comments, perhaps.
Yeah yeah yeah, that's completely fair.
Yep, All right, moving on to the next email.
But before we move on, who the fuck is trolling a 10-year-old?
Get a fucking wife, you loser.
It's got to be another kid, right?
It doesn't have to be.
It's Mike.
Yeah, it's me.
I think I'm getting a call from the Detroit Red Wings.
Can I answer this real quick?
I don't know what's going on.
Oh, they're trying to sell you tickets.
He won something for sure.
It's Dylan Larkin.
Is this Jeff Grubb?
We could use a backup goalie tonight.
Are you free?
I should make a YouTube channel where I shit on kid YouTube creators.
That would go over really well.
What's that?
I'm going to do a YouTube channel where I just shit on children trying to be YouTube creators.
They were trying to sell me tickets.
I told you.
There is like funny stuff there where, like people will completely anonymously like critique kindergarten drawings and be scathing.
And that's funny.
And that's funny, you know, but you're not like doing it to this kid's face and the kid doesn't know about it.
So I endorse this channel, Dan, and I fully support it.
Would you like an investor?
Yes, please.
Yes.
Okay.
Let's talk after the show here.
Excellent.
All right.
Moving on to the next email.
This one comes from Travis in Fargo.
Travis writes in five questions.
I just choose one.
Travis writes in, what's something you like to hear other people rant about?
For me, it's got to be about Lord of the Rings lore.
I personally can't get enough of that.
Hmm, i do, i do like like uh, like extended conversations about things that don't matter uh, because it's it's just a fun careers out of that.
It turns out exactly a fun exercise in debate.
Um, you know, i just i i enjoy that low stakes.
I think low stakes is really where people can shine in their improv talents and kind of have fun with it.
So I will listen to anyone rant about something completely pointless and meaningless.
I think it's it's everyone could use that kind of exercise in their life.
I mean, it's it's definitely like episodes of Nitro and Raw from like 1998, 1999.
It's like there's just so much dumb, weird horse shit and also the occasional really good thing.
And it's like it's just very fun to hear people talk about and joke about.
I like when Backlar gets upset about something and rants on it.
Yeah, that's good.
That's good.
I like specifically people complain about bad Star Wars movies.
I don't know why.
It's sick, but I always like hearing those rants.
They're always entertaining to me.
Yeah, bad movies in general.
Yeah.
Like...
There's that one about the little kid who came up with an assassination plot to kill his neighbor.
I can't remember, like the Book of Bill or something like that.
Yeah, I never watched the movie, never would.
But listening to people rant about how bad it is on the Internet, I'll watch that every time.
I guess alternatively, I like when people talk about a movie they really, really like.
Sure.
Sure.
Sorry, this just reminded me.
Speaking of which, just to go back a little bit to Ferris Bueller, settle a meaningless rant for me.
Trey?
We watch this movie.
You know the scene where the principal receives the flowers and he uses the flowers to take out the dog.
The dog that is from behind the fence.
I've never seen Ferris Bueller.
What?
Mikey, you can see yourself out of this conversation.
Yeah, yeah.
All right, so fine, chat remembers.
You guys don't remember what I'm talking about?
Say it again.
There's like a Rottweiler or a Pitbull, and it's giving Rooney, the principal, right?
They have a mini feud, and they're sort of like Roadrunner, Wile E. Coyote-ing it.
I guess that's kind of what Ferris Bueller is.
It is a Wile E. Coyote and Roadrunner movie.
Yeah, definitely, too.
Um, uh, and he takes the flower pot and he walks towards the backyard and you don't know anything.
The next scene, there's a shattered flower pot and the dog is like passed out.
Oh, he hit it on the head, hit the dog on the head.
I always assumed that he fed the flowers to the dog and it got the dog sick and the dog just passed out from being sick.
Now, yes.
Had they shown like the remains, like he was, his head would be passed out in the flower pot.
If that's the joke they were going for. exactly i had this wrong for like 35 years and i felt like such a fucking asshole because i'm just like but then i'm like wait a minute that's just your good goodness like you could never assume someone would hurt a dog like where i was like i couldn't well i just food right exactly i couldn't cats i couldn't get on board with like them being like oh no we're implying that this man threw a flower pot at a dog's head rendering it unconscious anyway i could go we could talk about that for 45 minutes that's a good thing to hear people rant about thank you for the question uh i don't think mike you would like ferris bueller as the person I think that's why I never watch it.
He kind of seems irritating.
There's not a single apple in it.
You would have a lot of criticisms of Ferris.
I'm not going to school today.
Oh my god.
Yeah.
Let's go have fun instead of learn.
That's great.
I think he would be team Cameron for sure.
Yeah, because Cameron's in bed at the start of the freaking movie.
I'm not getting out for anyone.
Not even my best friend.
While you were talking about the movie, I was like, am I going to take a nap today?
That's what I was thinking about.
I'm like, I shouldn't.
I shouldn't.
Uh, all right.
Next email comes from jorgen, jan.
I challenge you to learn how to swim, love jorgen.
Fine, all right, i'll do it.
Yeah uh, next email comes from v or?
Oh, i don't know if i want to read this.
Fe is what they.
They wrote it as, but i'm remembering the email i don't.
Ah, screw it, okay.
Uh, happy new year's bombers, Should I not?
No, just go for it.
First time, long time.
Just caught up on Giant Bombcast episode 922 and I thought I'd contribute to the dildo sheath conversation.
As a prior law enforcement officer who completed many search warrants.
Yes, most people have their dildos and other sex toys just floating around in their dressers or besides their table drawers.
Larger quantities are often found in a chest, in the bedroom, or a box slash duffel bag in a closet.
Very few, if any, are sheathed.
Glove up.
FE for Michigan.
Okay, this was a perfectly reasonable email.
Okay, it's just just facts and factoids.
Yeah, that's right.
I mean it talks about a, a cache of dildos at, which i think is interesting, but sure you know i believe anything here.
Uh, all right, and final email of the show comes from chris.
From what state is sa?
That's Sacramento.
From some other state?
Maybe it's San Antonio?
South Australia?
Oh, yeah, South Australia.
South Australia.
That's on me, gang.
Chris writes.
In driving through the South Australian countryside with my family this week, I thought this would make a great game for Dan and Bacalar, and possibly Grubb, to compete in.
Okay.
20 names of towns or Pokemon.
Highest score wins.
And these are South Australian towns.
Mike, you know too much.
So I'm sorry that you're not.
I only know the first gen town.
That's fine.
I'll sit out.
You know what?
I don't think it's the town.
It's the Pokemon.
Pokemon versus South Australian towns.
Oh, I get it.
I get it.
Yeah.
I guess I might know some Pokemon.
I could sit out.
Mike, what about you answer last?
Okay.
I want you to be included.
All right.
First one here.
Now, one of these is a Pokemon.
One of these is a South Australian town.
Okay.
Okay.
Amora or Baraba.
Jesus.
Jesus wait, wait.
What one is a?
Okay, one's a pokemon.
One's a town barabas the pokemon.
I'm going with dan.
I have no idea.
Uh, you said what was the first one?
Amora.
That's amora.
Uh i'm, i'm gonna go with that being the pokemon.
Jeez, i have no idea, i don't know, i don't see.
That's the thing.
It's like the last four or five gens of pokemon.
I maybe remember three from each of them anymore.
Uh Yeah, I think Amora's the Pokemon.
Grubb and Mike, you two are correct.
Amora is the Pokemon.
Probably looks like a heart or something.
I don't know.
Sure, yeah.
Next one.
Beltana or Baltoy?
Beltana, Baltoy.
Baltoy is the Pokemon.
I agree, i agree, sure you're correct.
Hey uh, all right, they.
They listed 20.
Uh let's let's uh, speed through these arrow.
Cuda or buckle boo?
Oh shit, buckle boo is definitely australian town.
It's a water type pokemon, probably.
Yeah, if i'm wrong here, game over.
Okay, Buckleboo is the town.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
That makes the most Australian sense.
Cherum or Freegon.
Cherum or Freegon.
Freegon sounds like a Pokemon.
I think that's right.
Yeah.
I think there's a Freegon.
I'm going to go with the other one.
Cherum.
Cherum is the Pokemon.
Shit.
Test winning.
Test winning.
Would it help if I said both of these in an Australian accent?
No.
Maybe one of them.
Hawker or nimble.
I can't do it.
Hawker or nimble.
Say the first one again pokemon.
The second you say these words, they immediately leave my brain like they have no effect on me.
It's not super effective.
The second one is the.
Is the pokey person?
Nimble's a pokemon.
Yeah, i'll tell you what.
I'm just gonna lump myself in with them because i've got nothing.
Yeah, i'm going, i'll go with that one too.
Yeah, Nimble.
Nimble is the Pokemon.
I don't know Nimble, actually.
I'm just going to skip ahead to a couple of the ones I think are funny.
Mundura or Marini.
Mundura or Marini.
Marini sounds so much like a Pokemon versus Mundura, which sounds like a town.
Yeah.
Marini is the Pokemon, I guess.
I'm going to say Marini.
Water type.
Although it could just be a coastal town of us.
Yeah.
I mean, God.
What?
No?
Yeah.
I'll go with the boys, yeah.
All right.
Marini is the Pokemon.
Okay.
Okay.
Rourou or Oricorio?
Rourou or Oricorio?
Is that Rourou's Zelda character?
Yeah.
Rourou.
Uh-huh.
Oricorio or a choreo.
Oh, i had some logic to answering this and i lost it all.
Um yeah, that's about the like yeah, does australia suck?
Is that what i'm saying?
Like, uh is the pokemon?
And our corey?
Who is the australian?
Let's all just go with grub.
Yeah sure, i agree with grub incorrect.
Or a choreo is the pokemon?
Shit, we've all.
We all just fell off the cliff, Damn it.
All right.
Thank you, Chris, from South Australia.
One more from Chris.
Crocolore or Crocoduck?
Fuck you.
Crocolore is the Pokemon.
This is the one that's like ground type and water type.
Crocolore or Crocoduck?
I'm going to say Crocoduck croco yeah, croco.
I agree with jerf.
I'll go the other way.
Croco doc is the pokemon.
Damn, you've been awfully quiet over there.
I don't know.
Crocolore is the Pokemon.
Yeah.
Folks, stay tuned.
We're going to have a live podcast from Buckleboo, Australia within the year.
That was the only reasonable one in the entire quiz.
Jesus Christ.
Folks, thanks for sending your emails in.
Bombcastgiantbomb.com is the email address to send your emails to.
Mike Minotti, hit me with any YouTube super chats.
Andrew Panton says you discover a gaming time machine that can fix an old, bad game or guarantee a future release is great.
Which direction would you go?
And what is the game?
I want a dumb future where a crime boss.
Rock a city to is somehow a game of the year.
Yeah.
Oh, that's really funny, actually.
It would be great if Link's Awakening was good.
Oh, shut the hell up.
All right, fine.
I'm going to just do it then.
I wish that Metroid Prime 4 was good.
There.
Wow.
Mike, that was our game of the year.
Too soon.
Spoilers, dude.
Come on.
I think I wanted Brutal Legend to be good or better.
It was such a good idea.
And a good first hour where I'm like, oh, yes.
And then the rest of the game just sort of happened.
But I'd like to do that.
Please.
Thank you.
I was so excited for Final Fantasy 16.
I know it's not a bad game, but I certainly wish it was more interesting than it was and I wish it was some big hit and I don't know.
I want to live in a world where Chaos Legion became the runaway success for Capcom, because I fucking love that game even to this day.
I have not heard someone bring that up in a long time.
Jesus.
Or God Hand is like a major idea.
Oh, God Hand, sure, yeah.
Mikey, any more Super Chats?
Oh, crap, did you answer?
What are you saying?
I went Metroid Prime 4.
That is a good answer.
Shumber Bro says just curious, how often are you approached by Wait a second actually, I remembered.
Dan, I have a question for you.
It's not about its quality, but you kept talking about a robot who sounds like... Final Fantasy 4?
No, no, no.
Metroid Prime 4.
Oh, sure, sure, sure.
He said there's a robot that sounds like John F. Kennedy.
Oh, not John F. Kennedy.
No, Robert.
I did not pick up on that.
Did that robot sound that much like RFK?
I brought it up to several people and they were like, holy shit, he does.
Does he?
I see it.
It would not have occurred to me had Dan not said it first.
But he's got like a croaky voice for sure.
I think I thought you meant JFK.
So I was expecting some robot.
No, definitely did not sound like JFK.
Ah, Samus, we've got to open this door.
Not at all.
That would be great.
I was looking forward to that.
Okay, RFK.
I get it now.
Okay.
Shummer Bro says just curious, how often are you approached by someone who wishes they could do what you guys do?
How do you react?
Oh, yeah.
You know.
I'm like, what am I going to?
It is a little awkward.
I don't know.
I just like I just say, yeah, I enjoy it a lot.
That's what I say every time.
Yeah.
I like very aware of how lucky we are.
Yeah.
I take it for granted.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What it's like the nieces is specifically something to be a bit like you know.
It's like I don't want to tell him, like it's not going to happen for you.
But I want to be like, yeah, it's hard.
It took a lot of luck.
And I don't even know if this kind of job is going to exist still by the time you're an adult.
But, you know.
Do you guys ever encounter anyone, though that is kind of like super aggro about it saying like oh, I could do this better than you bro?
I've definitely, not in person, but those types are out there on the internet for sure.
On the internet.
I've never met one in person.
Just very salty that it didn't work out for them, and so you take it out on everyone who did.
Yeah.
I've met a couple in person that have said like, oh, I could do that, bro.
I'm like, well, shut the fuck up, dog.
Then go do it, bitch.
Bitch?
Cyber from Saskatchewan says, Idea, Bible club slash Bible school, three bad Bible games.
Are Mike, Jan, and Dan worried about excommunication?
I haven't done bad education games yet.
I mean, I'm not too worried about that.
If they sent over some Bible game right now and told me to dress up, I mean, I wouldn't want to dress up as Jesus.
I'll dress up as Moses, though.
Did I ever tell y'all priest would be funnier?
I'll do Jesus.
Do you guys do a priest?
Sure.
Why not?
Yeah, I have.
So in middle school I've told y'all I was like in drama club in high school.
But in middle school, since I went to a private school, we had several Jesus plays and I played Jesus.
Oh, you did yeah, that's awesome, uh.
But look, it was the worst costume because it was just like a terry cloth robe that they're sticking on a kind of uh, chunky sixth grader that is like growing into his body with the worst wig, worst wig and worst beard in the world.
May here in the chat said Janzus.
That's like Righteous Gemstone.
I still think it's so funny that Fugitive Hunter War on Terror is right there for a potential Bly Club and the most obvious possible costume that we'll never, ever do.
It's not going to happen.
I like making you sweat every once in a while that we're about to make you dress up like Osama Bin Laden.
Next one here is from Snorlax.
Oh, no, no.
From Migzy first here.
It says, Jeff Backward, did you find the basement keys yet?
Oh, come on, man.
Have you checked the butt?
Listen.
I'm an adult.
And at some point, you just got to say to yourself, look, these fucking things are gone.
If they show up one day, like a lot of things do, I'll be happy about it.
But I can't live my life prisoner to the idea that i've lost my keys.
They're gone, they're not coming back.
If they do great, if they don't, that's it, so be it.
There are other ways to open doors and locks in this world.
People are very concerned about this key that you misplaced because when i ran into a friend of the site, lisa wallen, during game awards, the first thing she asked me was did jeff ever find his keys?
No shit yeah this, I'm sorry.
You don't remember?
Was this on the Bombcast?
Dump truck.
It was like a whole week.
I might not have been on that one.
It's been on a bunch of stuff.
It's what you've gathered.
He lost his keys to the basement.
I lost the key for no good reason.
It was sitting on my desk.
It was right there, and then you looked away, and then it wasn't there.
Live on the air?
Right.
Oh, that's crazy.
Pretty much on the air.
I think it was as we're getting started.
In an inexplicable way.
Don't force me to relive it, it's just so.
It's been hard for you.
I get it yeah, and i just got over it.
Uh, we're picking.
I bet there is a place that hasn't been suggested to you, and i fact everyone should just go message him right now and tell him places that he probably hasn't looked, that he should look.
And has anyone suggested under his hat?
I don't think so.
No okay, because that would be a physical impossibility.
It has a better chance of being up my asshole.
Never ever never, ever.
Um, i have taken my head off since i lost the key.
It was not there.
It just sucks.
But look, you know you haven't pooped since.
Then is the thing which is true, potentially the reason for my backup and blockage.
But we'll, we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
Folks, you need something to unlock that blockage.
Okay, go on the key up your butt.
Oh, the key, yeah.
What a paradox.
Snorlaxing says it's still January.
Where's the Jan stream for our boy Jan?
Every stream is a Jan stream.
A lot of them are Jan streams.
You have to play Final Fantasy XIV at some point.
Final Janesty.
There's 10 days.
I don't know if we're starting that this month.
That one's probably going to be sooner rather than later.
That's a sooner rather than later Jimmy Jam.
I'll be there and I'll follow you around.
It'll be a good time.
You guys ever notice that Mike used to give a shit for the Liquid Death stuff and now he's drinking more Liquid Death than anyone else?
I admitted it as soon as I preemptively got ahead of it and said look, I had the Rooper one at dance and it's really good.
And now I order these on Amazon.
I want a book that's the toils of Mike Minotti.
The things he needs to get out ahead of in life are insane.
I want your problems.
I want your problems.
This is a controversy you have to deal with.
Okay, look.
I like it.
It tastes like root beer.
It's good.
It's got 10 calories, not much.
There's a smidge of an aftertaste.
It's fine, and it is too expensive.
I still stand by that.
Everyone's like, it's more expensive.
It clearly costs more than like a LaCroix.
You're paying for branding a beer.
But LaCroix is just like recycled toilet water.
Now listen.
I was off the LaCroix and my girlfriend get me back on it because she gets that limoncello LaCroix and now I've developed a taste for it.
That one, no offense to you and yours, but that is a rancid flavor.
She has, she has like a ranking system for all of you.
So just be careful.
You're going to, as long as I'm above one of you.
All right.
That also does not matter, but I feel like system for us.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
I don't understand.
Every time you guys see each other, she's like, Dan moved up a spot.
I want an update.
I want an update soon.
Yeah, I'll have to ask her pretty soon.
It depends on how mean you are to me.
Dan usually does pretty poorly.
I'm sure you always follow up my shit with like, But I know how much he really loves me.
Oh, yeah.
No, you usually do pretty well, I think, Bacalar, actually.
That tracks.
That tracks.
Yeah, I think Dan's usually doing pretty high up there.
Does Bacalar's mic voice hurt or help him?
Oh, I bet it hurts.
I bet it hurts.
I bet it hurts a little.
I could live with that.
It's worth it.
Yeah.
Yeah, I could live with that.
Make sure because like, suddenly watching live i don't know she's been texting right now live.
No no, she knows, i'm wearing the rescue ranger shirt she got me.
Thank baby, thank you.
Uh, has anyone ever tried uh, that poppy soda pop?
Yeah, i thought about it.
That is very expensive.
Yeah oh, that's a health.
They tried to say it was a health drink at first because it has prebiotics, and then they're like well, that doesn't really do anything, but we're still gonna keep it in there.
Yeah, i have prebiotic.
I have some of Ben Stiller's weird healthy soda.
It's not very good.
His root beer tastes bad.
Is it sparkling or still?
Starburst juice is really good, but it's pretty expensive.
I drink water, is it?
Water is also very good.
Is the starburst juice like mint?
Is it marketed as like a healthy thing, like how much sugar?
It's marketed as uh colors and flavors from natural sources.
Starbursts happen in nature.
Uh, zero sugar.
Starburst tree there's, but there's like Fake sugar, right.
Zero sugar, zero carbs, a good source of vitamins.
It's probably agave.
All these things are using agave as sweetener now, right?
I'm so exhausted by agave.
It's probably agave.
That fucking plant.
It's carbonated water, and then 2 or less of apple juice concentrate, fruit and vegetable juice, natural flavors, green tea extract, D-alpha-tociferol acetate, that's vitamin E, vitamin B3, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, biotin.
Yeah, I don't see no aspartame or anything.
Which of those is giving you cancer?
The fruit.
Yeah, the apple juice concentrate.
I think I'm still a spindrift 100%.
You're solid.
Sure.
I can't get enough of it.
See, I never liked it.
It tasted too much like the actual fruit they would put in it.
Too much.
So since I've been on this like health kick, right, I'm like looking at tracking macros.
I learned what a fucking macro was.
Proteins all that Jimmy, Jimmy jams uh, do y'all think they're?
And protein, i feel like, has become a gigantic buzzword right before that.
It's been around forever yeah, but like we have our protein pop tarts, like now, chipotle's latest marketing scheme is come get a big cup of chicken, you fuckers, you need your protein.
Eat a fucking cup of our chicken.
I'm not kidding.
Literally yesterday, Grubb, I went through the Chipotle lane, which is where you drive through.
The fast food lane for Chipotle.
The Chipotle lane.
Of course, we all know the Chipotle lane.
I didn't know they had that.
They have the new high-protein bowls.
I got one of those, and then I went to Starbucks, and they had protein matcha lattes.
And I got one of those.
So that was my dinner last night.
I was going to ask, are there protein sodas?
I have not seen that yet.
There's got to be something.
I mean, there has to be.
You can carbonate like a milkshake or like a protein shake.
You can do that.
There's a lot of stuff.
I put two scoops into my oats in the morning.
So that's like 50 grams of protein on top of the 20 that's already in the oats.
So start the day with a bunch of it.
There you go.
Proteined up.
All right.
Next up is Migs.
He just says blog it.
And then no no, we don't, that's from Leisure Suit Larry, we'll catch you up on the voicemail dump truck.
That game has ruined Patrick Warburton for me, a guy I hear pretty frequently in kids movies, and it's just like oh no, I'm getting flashbacks to Leisure Suit Larry.
All the jokes about him revolve around sex of animals.
So when he's in Zootopia 2, you can imagine my problem.
He's a horse.
He's a horse.
They should have done some vetting on that.
Yeah.
They should have stopped him.
And then Pilotoid says, you all say the B word too much for five straight dudes.
Now listen in everyone's defense.
That is 99 me, like i get it, but like we've never used.
We've never used it on anyone that is a woman.
We wouldn't like that.
I use it for them.
No one does that anymore.
But we hear you.
Yeah sure, but also mikey says it in a funny way and that's not pretty funny.
But yeah, he says it in a funny way, pretty funny when he does it.
No, we only use it when someone's being a bitch.
So return pillow toilet they're 2.
Are you new here?
Thank you, pillow toilet.
Thank you, pillow toilet.
I appreciate the feedback.
Goddamn.
Understood.
All right.
That's it.
Thank you so much, everybody.
I appreciate it.
All right.
In fact, the only B word I have for all of you is bud.
You're my bud.
Thank you.
Thanks, Mike.
Cool.
Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, bud.
You know what?
You're my bud.
You're my bud, pal.
All right.
Buds, what do we got going on the rest of this week?
We don't know.
We still have to figure it out.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I still want to play Myst this week.
Yes.
We'll Myst.
We took Monday off yesterday so we have yet to plan the rest of the week.
But safe to say, Game Miss Morning's popping off Wednesday Thursday, Friday.
Right, Grubb?
That's right.
Yep, we'll be back with that show for the rest of the week.
We will have a voicemail dump truck episode on Thursday, probably on professional Fridays of some sorts.
Yeah, we should be fantasy critiquing on Friday.
Yeah, we'll see if we're ready to go do that because stuff be popping off and stuff is coming out.
But tomorrow, gang, grub, you finally get your turn in the Blightning Round.
Oh, no.
I thought I saw you play that a while ago.
Yeah, it's shocking I'm not finished with it yet.
I'm just a bad gamer.
What can I say?
It's supposed to be a lightning round.
Blink and you'll miss it.
Send me my stuff for the lightning round.
Do that right away, Dan.
God, you're going to look so cool, Mike.
I don't want to think about it.
I still can't accept that I don't have to worry about Leisure Suit Larry anymore.
It was a lot.
It's a beautiful thing that you're free of.
I'm so happy about it as well because that game's audio is the worst mixed thing in the world.
Anything else popping off or things we want to talk about?
There is that Mio quick look that Chuck Towski piloted.
So if you're a Metroidvania fiend like a lot of us are, check that one out, please.
Yes, yes.
More quick looks probably planned throughout the week.
I want to do one for the Beyblade from the top game as well, as maybe we'll check out or we'll do a quick look of Vital Souls, Vital Shell.
What was it called?
Vital Shell.
Vital Shell, yeah.
That looks neat.
I want to play that.
We should probably do a quick look of Sectory eventually, Dan.
Yeah, I tried streaming a little bit of it.
It is like a bitrate murderer.
It is insane.
I had it working pretty good eventually, but it's like you have to really dial it in.
Yeah, I mean it's kind of shocking how few videos there are, because in trying to find new strategies and stuff, I'll search for it and it's like man, no one's fucking putting this out there and it's like the best one of these ever.
So yeah, I'd be up for that.
Gang, and we're also going to try and get some Myst happening, because I need it or else I'm going to get stupid.
Right.
Myst keeps me smart.
You don't need my brain games.
It's my brain age.
Yes.
All right.
I think that about does it for this week's episode of the Giant Bombcast.
He's been Jeff.
He's been Jeff.
He's been Mike.
He's been Dan.
I've been Dan.
You at home doing great.
Wow.
Look at this man.
He's double fisted.
Look what that.
Nothing's going to stop him.
He's invincible.
Just like you at home.
Folks, we'll catch you next week for another episode of the Giant Bombcast.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
