Giant Bombcast 933: 44｜Giant Bombcast

Everybody, it's Tuesday, March 24th.

Welcome to the Giant Bombcast, episode 933.

I'm your host, Jan Ochoa.

Joining me, co-captain of the ship.

That's right, he's got his eSports jersey on for the only sport that actually matters, pod racing.

Co-captain of the ship, Jeff Grubb.

I'm happy to be here, Jan.

Thank you for having me.

Fantastic.

We have the man out on the streets.

He's leading parades, stealing toilet seats, stealing all of our hearts.

Dan Reichert.

If I pass tragically and young, you got to give me a jazz funeral, okay?

I would give you all sorts of funerals, especially a jazz funeral.

Thank you.

I want that.

Go big.

Speaking about funerals, he is there to usher you across the river sticks and he doesn't have any oars.

He's just got hockey sticks.

Jeff Bacalar.

Oh, nothing like being introduced with the word funeral.

He called you a Karen.

Yeah.

I like it.

It's dark.

It's like silver lining there.

Can't find it.

Nevertheless, happy to be here.

Speaking about happy to be here.

He's not.

Because he's the bad boy of games.

Mike Minardi.

This is my angry guy, unhappy face.

I'm mad it's too crowded in Epcot today.

Does that bug you, even if you're not there?

I mean, I was projecting, you see.

It was method acting.

I was pretending.

He was putting himself in the shoes of himself when he said Epcot.

I got really lost in the scene.

Wow.

Oh, my God.

You check in when you're not there to see what the lines are like?

No, people sell things like that.

Actually, that will just like a clock you can put in your room, but instead of telling you the time, it just tells you the wait times for the theme park rides that you're not at.

And I'm not going to lie.

Dan looks like he's just heard a psychopath admit to being a serial killer, but I find it intriguing.

I was just going to say, you know, sorry I asked.

You know, sometimes you find out answers to questions you didn't know you had.

But, hey, I'm happy for everyone.

Boys, how's it going?

How are thangs? monitoring the situation.

You know, I'm just out here, kind of arms folded, just looking around seeing what's going around in the world.

Don't like it.

Not a fan.

Are you talking about the lines at Epcot or a different Disney?

Exactly.

Don't worry, they're going to send in ice to help with this.

Oh, flying this week, let's go.

I was, i was at the airport yesterday uh oh boy yep, there's some stuff going on there.

Especially, i guess, is what i'm hearing here.

New orleans was four hour lines uh, right before i went and i guess uh yeah, it got better.

They opened up pre-check again and all that it's uh.

So i i got pretty lucky there with with the people i went with, but it was real bad the day before.

Yeah, i was uh, i I can't say I disagree with you.

It appears to me that we are getting the bad ending.

Yeah.

We made some choices early on and someone remembered those choices and now we're paying the price.

Yeah.

Shit.

Well, you know, maybe it wasn't our choices directly, but it does seem like the world is receiving the bad ending.

Maybe we restart a different save and kind of load that shit up and see if we can get a better ending.

I mean, the bad ending is how we got a link to the past, though.

That's true.

Right?

We want the hero to die.

That's the Link storyline.

Have you guys not read your Hyrule Historia?

You guys are embarrassing yourselves on this podcast.

I own it.

I look at the pictures.

I own it.

I own all the Zelda books.

They're very nice illustrations.

Yeah.

The Zelda lore does not matter at all.

Well, I mean other than the state of the country and the overall world burning around us.

I'm happy to be here talking with you, gents.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I look forward to it.

I was on the plane Monday and I was like brimming with excitement of like oh, there's stuff to talk about games, to talk about stuff I want to talk about.

Gang.

I know that I personally may have somewhat of a Bay Area accent and I may bend the English language to my own uses.

For sure.

You do that.

Yo, I had to get involved with that.

I had to get involved with that.

Ryan Coogler has an interesting regional Bay Area accent that I'm not 100% where it comes from.

I know where he comes from.

Right.

But in my friends also from the same area in Oakland, I'm like, huh, interesting.

Jen, you guys are delivering some pretty cool people.

Ryan Coogler.

I've been telling you, I've been texting you.

I can't stop doing impressions of Ryan Coogler to myself, around my house.

That's my new focus.

Talking about croissants.

I want to get that croissant.

Yeah.

Got a sandwich.

I had to bring it to the theater.

And then Alyssa Liu at the same time is just the best person to ever live.

It's like you guys are delivering out there.

So thank you, Bay Area, for these people.

We appreciate it.

Exactly.

And I'm hoping to leech off of that energy because I'm on the other side of the bay of like.

Please give me that.

I need it.

But I bring all this up to say and that I don't think.

In my head the Southern California skater surfer drawl or accent.

I always thought it was dramatized and over-exaggerated in media.

No, I am dead wrong.

We were invited to Casso Fest, and that was held in Long Beach last weekend.

And for folks that don't know, Casso K-A-S-S-O it's made by the same company that originated Ninja Warrior.

So it's Ninja Warrior with skateboards.

That's cool.

It's really fucking sick.

They've been doing in Japan for a couple of years and this is like the first event they had in the States.

There was a game that they showed off, which is why we were there or I was there.

We'll talk about that video coming out this week.

It's really fucking sick.

I'm excited.

But they had announcers going off, because you know when you're watching Ninja Warrior or MXC Takeshi's Castle.

The commentators are a big part of it.

And I was surprised that they just had the commentators yelling the whole time and blasting it out to the whole festival, because it was two dudes, two skaters and

Man, I just loved how they spoke because it was like, yo, JB Big Boy Floyd is grinding the rail.

He's goofy with it.

I love it.

And then the number one thing they kept saying is like, yo, bro, I hope he sends it.

Send it, brother.

Send it.

Can you give me?

Can look, i'm old.

Can you help me really understand when i'm supposed to be saying send it like, is it when i want someone to do something cool?

Yeah yeah yeah, like when someone's going for it?

Yeah yeah, exactly when someone's going for it, i hope he sends it.

All right yeah, like i'm not gonna be able to pull this off.

No,

No, no, no, no.

I hope he sends it, that sentence.

That's right.

I think you'll know when the time is right to say it.

I think now that it's in your vernacular.

It'll come from the depths.

Like if Dan or Mike is playing a Souls game and they're in the zone, they're locked in and you think this is, or if y'all are running and this is the run, you would say yo send it.

Finish it off.

You got it.

When I'm booting up Crimson Desert, I'm about to send it.

Here we go.

Send it, baby.

Perhaps you're misunderstanding it, but you'll get there.

Yeah, you'll get there.

Okay, cool.

Speaking of this is the run, people should watch the most recent episode.

Yes.

Yeah, I think so.

Really, a lot of things coalesced at certain points.

God.

Heightened drama.

It was beautiful.

In different forms.

Yeah, I was very happy with it.

Good phone of friends.

Good.

Good is of many definitions, guys.

That was not sending it.

You're right.

No, he does not.

But yes, definitely.

Please check out.

This is the run.

Who wants to build a millionaire last Saturday?

But yeah, video coming out of my time at Caso.

Oh, man, it was just fucking love skating gang.

They gave me a skateboard, and I was like, can I get grip tape or trucks anywhere here?

And they were like, politely, no, we're only giving you the board.

You figure everything else out, idiot.

That's half the battle.

But now I just want to fucking shred.

But do you want to send it?

I'm going to send it.

I'm scared my ankles are going to turn into dust.

Jane, this sounds like a recipe for ending your running dreams.

Yeah, you're right.

You're right.

Yeah, it sounds like fucking up an ankle and not being able to run.

Yeah.

Are you a skater in another life?

Did you come up addicted to the streets?

Yeah, baby.

He's the most skater-coded among us.

I guess that's why you're curbs.

What's that?

I'm sorry.

I think between you and Jan, you guys are the most skater-coded among us.

Sure, sure.

I did that for a little bit, and then I did the inline with the plates on the inline.

That shit was fun.

That sounds fun.

And now it's just ice.

With the original Giant Bomb skate deck that we sold, I took the one that we had in the office and I thought oh, this would be fun to take a picture of as doing a kickflip.

So I stayed way too long at the CBS office uh, old cbs office uh, after hours trying to nail a kickflip uh, without trucks, so just a flat skate deck, no grip tape uh, and take a picture of it and i nailed it.

I still had it then.

I don't think i have it anymore uh okay yeah, your boy's tricky with it.

I, i sent it as the skaters say, uh-huh.

Sorry to interject.

One more skate thing.

Nick Henry from CNET Producer fame.

Tremendous skateboarder.

Do you remember him?

He was in Long Hair Dude.

Looks like Popcorn Adjacent.

Uh, no, sure.

It looks like the guy from days and confused the dude who gets paddled.

I never was like, yeah, totally.

I know that guy.

Yeah, of course.

I watch that movie all the time.

Yeah, of course.

It's great film.

Uh, yeah.

Anyway, Nick, tremendous skateboarder, uh, would really, and was very shy about it.

And then, all of a sudden, he would just like Like hey, watch this, and just like, tear it up, you know.

Like Tim Robinson, who's just, like, shadily a great skateboarder.

Oh, yeah, he's like a real skateboarder, yeah.

He's nasty.

Dan, you will understand this because when you and I— Is it about the popcorn guy?

No, not the popcorn guy.

Okay.

When you and I were at— I don't understand popcorn.

When we were at WrestleMania, was it two years ago now?

Yeah, 42.

I just remember the different wrestle media, people just being a culture shock because of, like I'm just used to games media and seeing the familiar faces.

Well, it's because they're very serious journalists.

Right.

It's a dichotomy.

Unlike us wackos in video games.

Us jerk-offs versus those, like, guys that come from Columbia.

Frank the Clown and Noel Foley.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally not objectifying any female wrestlers there.

They wouldn't even know how.

Not the press.

No.

Not the press.

No. interesting group of dudes there right uh lady yeah yeah uh uh but but skater media people are fucking punks parentheses positive because everyone is kind of like shoving everyone else to get out of the way so they can get their shot and everyone's like man lenses anxiety our deck that was a mosh pit it's like supreme stickers it's great Yeah, Jan, but is it like a mosh pit unwritten code where it's like if one of them got knocked down or dropped their camera, it'd be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we got to pick this up.

We got to make sure.

Totally, yeah, yeah.

But I will move you out of the way or get in the way of your shot to get mine.

Very sick.

Also, skaters, it's just so funny to talk to them.

Everyone's just so oddly friendly.

As soon as I told some dudes I was next to, it's like, oh, you're from the Bay?

You ever bomb a hill, brother?

No.

No, I don't bomb hills because that's too scary.

That's terrifying.

Oh, shit.

Do you know Steven?

No last name.

No illusion that Steven is a pro skater.

I have to explain.

The Bay Area is kind of big, dude.

It's like, oh, shit.

I mean, he bombs hills all the fucking time.

Have you ever met him?

No, I haven't.

Oh, fuck.

Sick.

Anyway, anyone else have a... You ever see that movie Airborne?

Yes.

Yeah.

Of course.

It is all that dude.

Devil's Backbone.

Oh, I've seen that one!

Oh, it's the Devil's Backbone one yeah, with what's his name?

Seth seth green.

Yeah right yeah, black is in it.

Yeah, i think we had a little hill in our neighborhood that we also called.

That was back, but i rode our bikes out and pretended we were in.

That it was cool, it is.

It is seemingly like inaccessible, like i think i have like a 480p copy of it.

Oh buddy, i got it on my my plex server.

I'll hook you up, don't worry.

Yeah, i need that.

Yeah, i need that, okay.

Yeah, i gotta get my hands on that video that was definitely like a hollywood video movie for me or something and just rented that all the time.

It must have played on hbo.

Yeah 100, i watched it all the time on tv.

Yeah yeah, and there's a big hockey part of it too that i always found ridiculous.

Uh-huh uh, tremendous movie um, uh.

Also, there was a mosh pit, of course, because it was kind of a music, mini music festival uh, and there were children in the mosh pit too and uh, all the adults were respectful of the children, but the kids were not, because i didn't get this on camera, but a kid just was, saw everyone moshing and thrashing and thought oh, i can actually hit, hit people.

And and then, mike monati, have you ever been in a mosh pit?

No, I see them and I'm like hmm,

Where do you see them, bud?

Concerts is where I see them.

What concerts have you seen in Mosh Pit?

Iron Maiden, there was one, the one time.

It was not the strongest one.

You're the youngest guy there.

You could kick some ass.

What do you mean?

Yeah, right?

You would think.

Mike, I can relate.

I go to some concerts occasionally with like, you know, Bonk goes to a lot of metal shows and stuff.

And I found myself in the crowd at a Knocked Loose concert.

I don't know if you're familiar with them.

And the guy was very clearly, he was big at like saying like, I want a mosh pit starting.

I want a circle pit starting right here.

And this guy was very aggressive and very angry.

And I definitely am of the age where it's like, well, I'll just show myself.

Perfect time to go to the bathroom.

They do that wall of death thing, right?

Don't they do that thing where they split the whole crowd in half?

They did a lot of things.

I got the fuck out of there.

I went back and I was talking to a security guard in a Metal Gear shirt about Metal Gear for that old year.

That sounds so much better.

Did this kid die?

No, this kid did a full-on haymaker to a dude's nuts and then he died.

The parent looked mortified and then like lifted his child out.

Meanwhile the guy's keeled over, but he's still trying to.

He's like still like no, it's cool man, it's cool, it happens.

Yeah, sometimes you see like other humans do things and it's like man, it's wild.

We're like the same thing laughing.

I think that every day.

Totally.

Uh, boys, uh, everyone else doing well.

I guess it was someone's birthday over the weekend.

Yeah.

It's someone's birthday right now.

Yeah, I talked about the weekend, and then we're getting to today, Grubb.

Come on.

I spent my birthday, so I spent all Saturday painting the bedroom, and then we woke up on Sunday and I'm using the word we loosely

Didn't like the color of the bedroom, so then I spent all my birthday changing it to a different color.

You could do that now.

Yeah, it turns out like because there's primer built in, it was fine.

It was like actually a really, because we were going to do a second layer anyhow and that just turned out to be the second.

But you know, the second layer.

But did you go from dark to light or light to dark?

It was, it was kind of a tannish brown and we kind of went to an equivalent dark green and it worked fine, like it's.

You can't tell.

Yeah, we should have pushed harder for gray.

Yes listen, I made my voice and my opinion clear.

I was not.

No one was happy to hear about that.

I am the kind of person who has to be deeply unsatisfied with the current state of the room to be like time to paint it.

I just am almost never going to want to care that much.

I don't know.

Meanwhile, if you quizzed me on like 10 rooms in my house and what color the walls are, I would fail that quiz.

That actually i don't know what color they're like here green, i'm looking at it but you ask me right now what color the bedroom wall is.

You know it's uh.

Steph's love language is acts of service.

I'll just say that i considered this an act of service.

I was that's really nice girl.

I was doing my part to contribute to making the house feel more home home, homey for her part.

And then i was happy with the color.

I think it looks great.

So yeah, it was.

I felt pretty satisfied when we were done.

We still got to put all the furniture back and peel down some uh tape and stuff like that, but yeah Yeah, that was.

That was good.

And then I had a chicky biscuit.

She made me chicken biscuit, which is like one of my favorite homemade meals.

And then, and then, you know, I got a, she got me a metal detector for when we go to the beach.

She knows who she met.

Wow.

Do you bring your metal detector to Boston?

I can bring it to the, I can try to bring it to Boston.

That'll be fun.

We can go to the, let's find some tea.

I'm going to carry it through and just see what Ice thinks.

Let's just do that.

Yeah, that's going to be great.

I mean, what kind of beach are you metal detecting?

And Boston, Mikey, what do you mean?

We could find your key back, Alar.

We're going to shove it up your ass.

Hold on!

Grab something tight, Baccalaureate.

We'll find that key yet.

We're going in!

We'll give you that bow to clamp on like they did when they had to amputate people in the Civil War.

Alright.

Nice visual.

Thank you.

Anyway, I'm 43.

It was nice.

Happy birthday.

Happy birthday to other Jeff as well.

You didn't have to say other Jeff.

Oh, sick.

I haven't had one of those in a minute.

Wow.

Yeah, getting old sucks, man.

I don't know what else there is to say.

You do get a metal detector, though, so that's okay.

Kind of makes up for it a little bit.

Yeah.

I'm very difficult to buy stuff for.

I realize that.

Yeah, same.

I just got some new hockey equipment for myself, and I called it a birthday.

There you go.

There we go.

Good moves.

We'll get lobster rolls.

What's up?

We'll get lobster rolls this weekend.

Do you want me to buy this Kingdom wait time?

Sign for 100 so you can get a real-time look at the wait times in the park.

Keep in mind, you also need a $5 a month subscription to keep that going.

That's insane that you need a subscription for the wait time.

I just want to die.

Doesn't the Disney app just tell you?

Yeah, but that's not fun.

Okay.

But the app follows you around, though, versus a stationary clock.

Yeah, this, I guess, just cycles.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah, buy that.

This morning.

You know I get texts from the people who normally text me and now people are just like writing the number.

They're not even saying happy birthday.

They're just like 44.

That's so ominous and i just like hearted it.

You know yeah, what do you do?

And they're like have, and i just thumbs down.

You know, are they doing like a, like any punctuation with it, like 44 or like an emoji, like plain text, not even like a gif of a 44 doing some sort of anime.

It's sick.

I have the coolest, Most interesting friends, imagine.

You know what?

Everyone listening and watching live, throw some 44s in whatever chat you're in right now.

Yeah, throw up those 44s, baby.

Oh, look at those big 44s.

Wow.

Yeah, more companies automatically wish me a happy birthday now than actual humans, which is the best.

It's fine though, because that's actually a clear indication of who I should unsubscribe from right.

Yeah, it's a helpful reminder.

It's like, oh cool uh, this eye center that i went to 11 years ago goodbye thanks, i don't need your emails.

Yeah man, speaking of eye centers, like i was going to go to the dentist this week and they're like oh hey, do you have a nutrients card?

I'm like yeah, it's.

It's this like oh, we don't take them.

Oh, i'm like, so i get goodbye forever.

I guess I just need a new dentist.

You know how many years I've cultivated that one dentist relationship?

He listens to my Disney podcast.

You groomed him.

Oh, wow.

And I was just like on my own again.

You know what you got to do?

You can't just like out of network.

Like there's like in network and out of network.

Like you can't do that.

Dentistry gets weird.

Yeah.

What do you think?

What is it, Mikey?

Those words scare me.

All right, well, you could barely make a sentence out there.

Listen, I think... It's like VSV, Delta.

Like, what do you have?

I have... Should I say what my insurance is?

Is that okay?

Who cares?

I don't feel like that's doxing, but if you're hesitant, I'm not going to make you do it.

I think you should call your dentist friend and you should collude.

You should figure out a thing.

That's how it works.

That's the American way is crime.

So I endorse your colluding with your dentist and be like, come on, Doc, let's work something out.

Come on, I'm good for it.

Do that.

I may have already gone off on the wrong foot on that call.

Because I was calling, because I missed my appointment, because I thought it was today.

And then we were doing our meeting yesterday and then I got a thing like oh, you missed your appointment.

Like, that appointment's tomorrow.

Then I'm like, oh, no, it's not.

Remember last week?

I was like, oh, guys, I might miss the bomb cast.

Well, I didn't.

You're here.

Here I am.

So I think part of them was like, good, leave.

We don't want you anymore.

Yeah, you might have used up all those favors there, Mike.

They know about my, like, they know about, like, he put this crown here recently.

He knows about it.

He knows about my teeth situation.

I got to explain this all to a new guy.

You got to.

Talk to him.

They do new x-ray.

I'm in between Dennis right now, too.

You just got to get that new comprehensive x-ray thing.

You got to put your head in the thing and bite the little guy and then you got to do the bite wings and all that.

You get the blanket.

You get the weighted vest.

The weighted vest.

There you go.

I just... I had a good... I mean, I already lost one dentist because...

He like accidentally broke his no compete and wasn't allowed to practice for a few years.

So I had to like go somewhere else.

Yeah.

He like broke off from like a dentist syndicate and his new office was nine miles away instead of 10.

The dentist cartels are very violent.

You got to watch out for that.

Right, right.

All right.

Yeah, okay.

I'm sorry.

Didn't mean to get all up about Mike Dennis stuff.

No, no, it's okay.

This is the band section.

This is where we not necessarily air greases, but talk about miscellaneous.

There's something I know Larry David did this bit and I do find myself aligning with him 99 of the time.

What?

No.

I know.

Weird.

But the birthday call...

Like, I'm sure that is a thing most people agree with.

I'm sorry.

I just don't want to talk to anybody today.

I'll answer a call.

I agree.

I disagree that most people agree with that.

I think that we might be on a little bit of an island.

We have plenty of people that agree with us.

I think a lot of people are like, I want to get mine on my birthday.

Yes.

I would rather text for sure.

Give me a text.

Text is great.

Because the text is the thought right, and that's all that matters.

It's just the thought.

You call me up.

We're both wasting 17 minutes.

People post on your facebook happy birthday.

I didn't even.

That's fine, right?

I mean that's yeah, but you know what it's?

It's just such a it's.

So it reminds you, it says yeah, it tells you to do it yeah, right.

When i had facebook, that felt like such a shallow gesture.

Yeah, i used to do a fun facebook gimmick where i would just change every day.

I would change my birthday to the current day and see how many days in a row the same people would earnestly wish me happy birthday before they figured it out, and most people just wouldn't figure it out.

I think that same person, like 20 times in a row, would be happy birthday, dude.

You've done this every day of the week.

Yeah, guess who does like getting birthday calls here?

Yeah,

You, Mike.

Believe it or not, it's just me.

Well, today's my day, motherfucker.

Yeah.

I mean, there's some people too who frankly, like you know they moved out of town and I'm probably not going to get a call from them on any day, but my birthday anymore, so I'll take it.

Okay.

All right.

You know.

I will call my sisters and my parents on their birthdays.

Sure.

Is that...

Not enough?

I think that's good.

No, that sounds right.

That's good?

Okay.

Yeah.

Okay, that's good.

It was your friend and mine, Mary Kish's birthday.

Oh, yeah.

That's right.

Happy birthday to the goat, Mary Kish.

Yeah, celebrating with her and a bunch of old GameSpot friends in New Orleans.

And it was great.

Had a good time there.

Yeah, nothing too crazy.

I mean, just kind of bumming around New Orleans for a weekend.

Hitting a bunch of spots.

It's interesting because I kind of took the lead because it was my sixth time there.

So I kind of like put together the whole plan.

And like I like to like mix it up where it's like okay, we'll do some fancy dinners and some kind of like dive places and stuff.

And it was another great reminder that like fancy doesn't always equal better.

You know the first night we went to this place Brennan's in the French quarter that, like you know very it's been around forever.

They like invented the bananas foster, and they'll tell you the whole story while they're making it and all this stuff.

And it was fantastic.

Very expensive.

And it was objectively good food, for sure.

But we went to a few nice places and it seemed like the universal favorite was this place I always go to called Coop's on Decatur.

And it is just a divy place.

It doesn't take reservations.

Our waiter felt like Dave Attell.

He talked like it.

He yelled at us.

If any of us brought our phones out, he berated us and things like that.

And it was just gumbo and jambalaya, and it was like... fifth of the price of the fancier places.

And it seemed to be the like runaway favorite from everyone.

So it's like yeah it's yeah, it's going to try a variety of things, but sometimes uh, you know, just go with like, the little dive place and it'll be the best one.

Yeah.

Ooh uh.

Special shouts out to uh uh, GB uh member El Palo Loco for uh long list of Long Beach recommendations.

Long Beach is cute, y'all.

It's a nice little beach town.

But he recommended this very grungy dive bar that sold very fantastic pizza.

And then I didn't because my brain is poisoned by San Francisco prices.

I thought $20.

Oh, that's going to be a small pizza for one person.

No, it was.

It was like a medium-sized pizza that i felt judged for eating by myself.

Hell yeah, all right.

Uh, you know, uh beaches have sand and you know what else has sand?

Uh deserts, and a game that has uh occupied a lot of time on the internet oh wrong, one crimson desert, Everyone's favorite game.

We're all clamoring to talk about it today, guys.

I'm so excited to hear what everyone thinks.

What's up to all my CDs out there?

First, I just want to make clear that if you like this game and we don't are not liking it is, as you suspected, a personal attack on you.

I want you to feel bad.

That is what I'm going for.

Especially if you have an anime avatar photo.

Of course.

It's bullying 100%.

What's everyone's investment profile at the banks in Crimson Desert?

I don't know.

That's a real thing.

Yes, it is.

That's the kind of thing that would get me excited, but it just doesn't function the way I want it to.

That's the story of this game.

Boy, yeah.

I played three hours of this game Friday evening, which pretty short as far as launch-o-thingies go.

Launch-a-thon, also a bad name.

But anyway, go ahead.

We'll try something else next time.

We'll just keep cycling.

Well it's.

You know, there are certainly things that i could get over or could be generous about.

Like, the heavy movement that you guys have talked about before is absolutely there yeah, and it's even heavier than the games.

I equate that to like some like like assassin's creed 3 or red dead redemption 2, and i can kind of get over that stuff.

I play games like They're also updating and changing this stuff constantly, so it feels a little bit different than it did, even when you played.

Okay, yeah, so that part's wild.

The game does, in fact, look really pretty sometimes.

I actually thought the combat felt pretty good and visceral when I was doing that.

It was kind of just quest design was a big thing.

That was really throwing me off.

I even, like in an MMO right, which is a very kind of like, the quests are kind of just hey, go talk to this person, I'll go kill this rat.

Go talk to this person.

Usually, like a person would tell me to do that.

It was really weird in this game, especially this one of these games, to just kind of be in a town and just have the ui say go over there, someone's in trouble.

I'm like how do i know that?

Okay, go there.

Like go talk to this kid now over there.

Why am I doing that?

What game told me to what game, right?

Then all this happened.

Suddenly I'm in this, you know so it's doing all this and it kind of feels like a Skyrim or Witcher.

Suddenly I'm in the sky and these floating islands and they give me the God hand ability from tears of the kingdom and have me jump off.

And then for just like 15 minutes, it's kind of like tears of the kingdom.

Except now I'm back on the ground.

I don't know how to go up again.

I could turn into a crow for three seconds.

I have the God Hand.

It doesn't interact with anything.

So, you know, I'm going through the main quest and I'm like yeah, this is obviously not doing a ton for me.

The story is nothing.

I don't even really know what's happening.

I'm like a mercenary.

I'm in a group.

Most of my group's dead.

And then...

A wizard summoned me to his library to be like, oh, there's many worlds.

I'm like, oh, no, multiverse.

And he's like, yep, and your world's in trouble.

Anyways, bye for now.

A bird turned into a hot lady, of course.

And she said basically the same thing, or I don't know.

She was real cryptic and weird.

Go ahead, Jan.

Mike, it sounds like you're describing a different type of ad for a game that I come across on mobile, like a fake game of like hey, here's this bird lady.

You could do this thing that rips off this many things.

It doesn't sound like a real game.

Well, then, How did you do with the chimney sweeping combo?

Did you nail it?

Yeah, I mean, that's the other thing, too.

Like, the controls are ridiculous, right?

The UI, the controls are bizarre.

And again, like, I can kind of, I can brute force that stuff.

I can sweep the chimney, what have you.

Even when I was like chopping down trees because I got an axe for me, it's like okay, this is maybe kind of neat.

But then I was like, okay, I'm going to try to not do the main quest for a bit.

I'm going to see if I can Skyrim this, just go off in direction.

I saw a point of interest.

I saw like this watchtower.

So I go over to this watchtower.

I climb up there and there's all these people kind of like standing around and looking at it.

You try to talk to them and they just give you generic NPC dialogue.

So I don't know what they're doing there.

Yeah.

And not just that.

It's like you do generic NPCs and then it'll pop up things like oh plus five trust gained with this guy.

What does that do?

Right.

And then there's literally a pillar on this tower with yellow paint on it.

I'm like, well, what am I supposed to do with this?

I try pushing it, I try attacking it, I try using my god hand or whatever on it and nothing happens.

So I'm like, okay, I guess I'm just not supposed to be here.

And then it's not like someone tells you like, Oh, man, it looks like you don't have the thing.

And the game's UI that tells you where to go all the time doesn't pop up being like you know you don't have the thing to do this.

It's just dead.

It's unreactive in a way that is bizarre for a game like this.

Right.

And it is weird.

Like when you go to the tutorial section of the thing where it's like, it's literally like implied that there's a thousand pages of tutorials.

I don't think it's implied.

I think it looked it really I think it really is around a thousand pages.

Yeah.

It'll be like section 300 is about life.

Section 200 is about control.

Section 400.

And like there is page 212, 213, 214 within that, you know?

Yeah.

At this point I'm like OK, maybe it's you know, because there's all these question marks in the map.

There's these side missions.

So I'm like, OK, maybe it's a Witcher 3.

Like the side missions are really detailed and good.

So I get this wanted poster and I'm getting kind of excited.

It's like, oh, there's this lady who hangs around the church.

She pretends to be in trouble and then she murders you.

I'm like, okay, I'm going to go investigate the church, look for some clues.

Maybe when she sees me, she's going to pretend she's hurt and lure me in.

So I'm wandering around the church looking for her.

Then I just go into the basement.

And I go to the basement, and there's a lady there.

And she just immediately starts running.

I'm like, I guess that's her.

So I just run after her and eventually like, I context sensitive, like grapple her to the ground.

And then now my, and she's just like, ah, I'm innocent.

And now my only interactions are let her go or beat her.

And I'm like, I don't want to let her go.

She's probably guilty, at least in this game's logic, right?

It doesn't seem like there's an Ace Attorney-style kind of investigation mechanic here.

So I guess I'm just going to start punching her in the face until she lets me carry her to jail.

Aside from the ick factor of that, I'm like.

What did this have to do with?

Why did he give me this information about her?

It made it seem like I was going to have to figure out who this lady was, when it just immediately was walking to her vicinity, and then chase her down and punch her in the face and take her to jail.

So yeah, I don't know.

Just three hours in...

My impression was not good.

It was not good.

I'm a bit baffled.

I'm a bit baffled, fellas.

Yeah.

I saw someone in the chat say that they are 55 hours in and still getting tutorials.

Great.

Yeah, of course.

With this much stuff in here, yes.

Do you know what, Jen?

You were going to say something.

I'm going to go off on a bit.

Well, I was going to ask Dan Grubb.

I want to know how much playtime y'all have.

I have about the same as Mikey and it just definitely is not for me because of how heavy and clunky it is.

It feels like what...

And to be clear, the update does address some of that.

I don't think it changes enough to change your opinion on that.

I think it's going to change some people's opinion.

I think the way you're talking about it is how I feel.

I don't think the update would affect you.

Sure.

Okay.

To me it's a lot of like everything I complained about with Red Dead 2 is here, times 10 in this game.

But even at my most oh, I hate Red Dead 2, I did acknowledge there were really great things about it.

It's crafted.

And things like that.

It's crafted.

It just was not for me at the time.

And I did kind of come around on some of that.

And I definitely don't hate that game now.

But this is like all the worst parts, or the parts that I hated the most initially about Red Dead 2, without any of the redeeming qualities of it.

Um...

Yeah.

To me.

It's like you know you'll occasionally see those clips of like some really shitty looking thing.

That's not even really a game where it's like, Hey, I made this entire game.

Oh man.

Yeah.

And it's just like, and it's like some GTA looking thing that doesn't even look like a playable game or anything, but it's all graphically.

Wow.

Look at this.

It felt like it was made by AI.

Like every element of it just seemed like a bunch of sanded off corners, a bunch of ideas that were just kind of thrown in and no quality.

I mean, it's not like it's poor.

It works.

The game works.

It's not like it's a big janky glitchy mess or anything like that.

It's just, it's sloppy quantity over quality for sure.

Yeah, I think you guys have touched on like a lot of the things that have like, as I've played 12 to 15 ish hours now.

I'm trying to like I'm like in I think I'm at the beginning of chapter four.

It's starting to open up more.

I think the big thing for me is every single thing I've done up to this point has felt so thoroughly thoughtless from the developer side.

So never considering what it's like to actually be the person playing this, because they just want to add that thing from the game they just played.

They just played Zelda.

They're going to add that thing.

They just played Red Dead.

They're going to add that thing.

They just played Assassin's Creed.

They're going to add that thing.

It's that over and over.

And so, even once I do start getting off the beaten path, that main quest is garbage trash.

It's really very, very bad like it.

It hasn't gotten better at one point, like like uh, you get to a boss fight.

Eventually the bosses are frustrating because they'll attack you and you'll try to dodge roll, like in any game.

And uh, you have to like, preload the the, the roll, because if you don't preload before he attacks, you're not going to be able to roll out of the way in time because the game just is bad to play.

And then the thing you learn from that boss fight is one of the most insulting upgrades I got in a game where it's like hey, if you get hit, now you can do a roll away after taking damage.

It's like, that was the big thing here that I want you to know game that feels terrible.

To be like, hey, take some damage and then roll away.

Make it easier for me to avoid damage, video game.

That's what feels good.

And it's just that I'm like, okay, I'm at this boss fight now.

I'm still feeling this way.

I need to probably get off this beaten path.

Let me go try some other stuff.

And then I'm like, okay, let me go cause some mayhem in this world.

And then oh, this crime and punishment system is also just, It's broken in terms of being an enjoyable thing to interact with, where

The way it works is you could do crimes.

You could bump into guards, get in scrapes with them, just pick up someone else's belongings or whatever.

Actually, I've only been able to do that recently, because you can't steal in this game unless you're wearing a specific item of clothing a bandana.

That's also strange, whatever.

But...

So you cause mayhem and the game's just like, OK, well, we're going to you did something illegal.

We're just going to charge you a fine.

And that means the money is going to get deducted from your in-game account over here.

And it's going to go into the negative.

So, if you want to buy something, or purchase something which eventually I really needed to, because I need to get to this place that had

So if you go inside you're going to get attacked, unless you go buy a 10 silver piece of clothing or buy a 10 silver like sort of note from the governor saying you're allowed to be here.

And I'm like, okay, well, I have four, right?

Let me go and do that.

And I'm like, wait, what is that negative sign?

And it's just like the game thinks, here's a good idea.

No matter what you're doing across the entire world, once you go to a vendor to sell something they're going to know you owe money to the government for breaking a rule somewhere else four hours ago.

What that creates such a punitive cycle of.

Why would i try to do anything fun in this game?

Because it might punish me and i.

All it does is sort of curb my desire to try different things.

There is no like upside of like okay, i got punished, let me see if i can maybe get arrested and then infiltrate the jail, get my stuff back.

The game doesn't have any of that.

It is so thoroughly thoughtless that when i do get to the point now where i'm at, where i'm like i need to go explore this world and see what's around the corner, my faith that what's going to be around the corner is like that is going to, that it's going to be worth.

It is so low that it's sort of it's broken.

The magic of the game that might have might exist for other people.

Have there been any interesting like plot points or quest lines Grub, that have like pulled you through at all?

I mean, the plot might be the worst thing.

I mean, the main character, Cliff?

Cliff.

Is that his name?

Yeah, he's just, he's nothing.

No, Clive's, that's from, obviously, although, pardon me.

Totally different.

These guys saw Clive, and they thought that was something.

They did.

Yeah boy, and I mean you know a lot of people say oh, stick with it, it gets.

You know, you'll like it more.

And

I'm sure the game maybe gets more interesting after a while.

Every time people do that line oh, the game really picks up after so-and-so hour, especially when it's 10 or something.

I have personally never played a game that I didn't like at all.

And then after playing for a while, I was like, oh, now I see it.

I played games that I've liked a bit and then have gotten better for sure.

Like Final Fantasy XIII gets thrown around a lot.

Like that game doesn't really start until 20 hours in.

Yeah, i mean, a lot of that game is still there in the beginning and you get it.

So i bet the people who there's a lot of people in chat even like oh, stick with it.

It gets so much better.

I bet you liked the game at hour three to some degree as well, more than i did.

Yes right yeah, in a different way than i did um, but you know, even just aside from the kind of absurdity of being like 15 hours in, it gets good.

I just don't think i am at a level where it could get much better.

I don't know, there's just a.

It's difficult because when you find a game as somewhat repulsive as this and I don't write like oh, I just don't get this at all.

It is sometimes hard to almost come to grasp.

It's like, man, why are people really kind of... What can we do about that?

What is the grace?

This game has gotten some grace.

And there's a part of me that's like, boy, I live in an era where I'm defending Mario 64.

It feels like sometimes...

This game has just given this a lot of grace for just I don't know, a mountain of flaws that, to me, are difficult to see past.

Yeah, and I'm going into this conversation recognizing that people are pretty sensitive around this game, for whatever reason, and people are allowed to be.

I have definitely been sensitive around games that I've really enjoyed, that I feel people didn't get.

So I understand that.

At the same time, this is a podcast where we come in and talk about video games, and it's not just us clowning around being Chucklefox being like.

Let's entertain you with the game I'm playing.

Sometimes we're going to be critics and say, this game is bad.

I think this is a poorly made video game.

I think it's a bad video game.

I you know again 12, 15 hours and somewhere in there my, my timer on steam is kind of all over the place.

Cause I left it on one night, but 12 to 15 hours in and it's, yeah, I might like a two out of five right now.

I I, I strongly dislike what I've played and it like I've seen some stuff and I've done a few things like um, You ride on horseback and then if you jump off the horse off a cliff and then jump while the horse is in the air, you get a huge amount of height.

And it looks cool.

It still doesn't feel good.

I've seen people do the tree flinging thing where you get the grappling hook hand thing that Mike was talking about.

You go to the top of certain trees and you can sort of wind this thing up, pull back and it flings you in the air.

I've not done that yet, but I had the same sensation of looking.

I'd be like it looks cool, but it looks like it feels kind of like the way the floating feels in the rest of the game, which is sort of stunted and not as fun as you would expect it to feel.

It's just kind of across the board.

I think this game doesn't quite understand why it's doing the things it's doing.

And that has led to a soup, a sloppy mess that is, I would call just straight up bad.

And so I'm sorry to cut you off, Mikey.

I I um, So I've not played this game.

I've seen a lot of it and I've really just been watching from the outside, looking in.

What I've seen fidelity-wise, production value-wise, I'm like, oh wow, this game looks kind of tremendous.

But I do feel like my gut tells me it sits in this weird sort of space of having such strong optics and fidelity on one side and then all the other elements that you look for in a competent game are just not there.

How do you think this happened?

Because people are desperate for this kind of game, right?

The tools are there now.

This thing is all the sliders maxed out, even the visuals.

Yes, technologically it's impressive.

I think from a visual sort of aesthetic point of view, it is also really difficult to look at the lamp.

If you ever have the lamp turn on your, on your hip, and you're running, the shadows from that are flicking around in a way that I'm like is this not causing problems for people?

Like this is make, I'm having a hard time looking at the screen without my eyes hurting.

There's a 10,000 leaves blowing across the screen as particle effects.

It's like you, I get it, but the effect is sort of beating me over the head to the point where it's maybe not having the intended effect if there was an intended effect that you come across fields of bushes sort of whipping in the wind.

And if I look at them for a second too long, I can see that they're all synced up and animating the exact same way.

That gives it the super artificial feel.

It is...

What's going on?

I just think it's like because they could.

I don't ever think they consider whether or not they should on any choice in this game at any point.

And to the point of the graphics, I feel like if there was an award we gave out for most graphics.

Most graphics.

Yes.

Without a doubt.

Yeah.

It's interesting to see because I feel like a game that came from a similar region, like Stellar Blade or Lies of P, is like aping off of a specific type of game, but it's doing it very well.

Like stellar blade had a very deep combat system the further you went in and you know scantily clad ladies for sure.

Uh, lies of p fantastic souls game.

I put it up there with uh, the other ones.

This feels like one of those um mark gimmick bloody marys that you order at a restaurant that are like stacked high yeah, like a burger chicken attached to it.

Yeah, those milkshakes with 14 gram crackers and a thing of skittles in it yeah, like this totally appeals to someone, but sometimes i just want the milkshake or i just want the bloody mary.

One last point for me in this side.

This is my positive moment.

I did have a cool like open world weird moment where um, i am traveling by horseback over kind of the top of the hill and my little mini map pops up with like 15 red dots, being like there's enemies all over the place.

I'm like, no, I don't see anything.

That's weird.

And I'm going to just keep going.

I'm like, I want to, is this a bug?

Let me turn around, turn around, like look and just see if I could see anything.

And I'm kind of waiting there for a second.

And then I start to notice my weight.

Are those like five bushes crawling at me?

And it was the bushes came to life and started attacking me.

And it's like OK, they were kind of moving like the guys in Princess Mononoke that have the kind of the bushes on top of them when they're going to kill the pig, god or whatever.

It's like that was a cool effect.

That was actually pretty neat.

I just stumbled across that.

I don't know what those guys were, if there's a quest ever involving them.

It's like that was a neat thing to just sort of see in the open world as happenstance.

And I can see if people are finding more of those than I am.

Like, if they're rolling the dice by playing this game and their dice are coming up better of like finding the kind of good stuff that might be hidden in there, they're probably going to end up having a better time than I did.

But for me, that was like one moment out of 25 that I thought were really bad.

Well, going from a game that has perhaps too much to another game that has an obscene amount of things going on in it.

Pocopia.

This is still the game I'm playing a bunch.

I'm going back to now that I'm kind of putting Crimson Desert down.

Yeah.

I don't know if anyone has any more expanded thoughts.

I just continue to have a pleasant time with this.

We'll get to some Pokemon news later that has kind of like made me sad about Pokemon again.

But this, for the meantime, at least is preserving those positive Pokemon vibes.

Yeah for this one.

It's like the exact opposite of my experience with that other game, where it's like oh, you could just tell that they thought about every decision and how the player can get the most enjoyment out of it.

And what about when a person was in the middle of something?

Then they had to put the game down and they took longer to come back than you thought they were going to and they forgot what they were doing.

What can we do to make sure that they remember?

Well, let's just have all those cute Pokemon that they're looking forward to seeing again.

Come up and remind them right away and point things out in a way that's like cute and not quite annoying.

But it's also like a kind of an urgent reminder.

It's like, oh, yeah, great.

You're keeping me on top of these tasks that I definitely still cared about.

Thank you so much, game.

That's very thoughtful.

That's how I feel about everything in that game.

It's like that was very thoughtful.

I rolled credits on this one, actually.

How long is it?

The fourth biome you were done, or five?

Four or five biomes.

Yeah, no, that's a spoiler.

Four.

Four is the last one.

It took me, I think, 25 hours to go through the campaign like that.

And it felt breezy as hell for that kind of a thing, man.

Like the setup of it.

Again each of these biomes kind of having like the base stuff of, like you know, get the habitat level up, build that Pokemon center.

But then each one also kind of revolves around a new gameplay thing.

Like you're going to learn how to cook and throw a party.

Or, you know, you're going to have to learn about electricity and lighten up the town.

And that all felt really good.

And, you know, I love that.

You know, I could see myself maybe something really getting into, like I'm going to really build up these towns and really get into the nitty gritty here.

But just sort of completing these objectives, building up the towns, enough somewhat sloppily, just to kind of meet the objectives.

Yeah.

Building bridges kind of haphazardly where I need to go.

That was still good enough.

And that got me through the game into a sort of satisfying conclusion and kind of just yeah, again put me on that really good loop.

Or, like you know, i i do all this stuff and then, like right before i turn off i set up some of my bigger uh construction projects.

Then when i go back the next day those are done and waiting for me.

So gosh yeah, just uh.

It was really good for that campaign experience And in some ways that campaign it almost is like this giant tutorial for setting me loose if I wanted to go back to these zones or go to that big open area and just really build things up from scratch.

Like, I really think I understand basically everything I really need to about this game now.

I wish I was wired to build an island or design an island elaborately and nicely, because I'll see friends across games media making really cute islands.

And then I am literally in a den of iniquity, where there's mud on the floor that I've yet to clean up, even though I know how to.

And I just keep jumping over it and holes in the ground because I wanted to get an item that I'd never patched up.

We're going to do HGTV where the G's giant bomb for a stream when we come back from PAX at some point.

We'll do a multiplayer stream where we maybe have each of us with a mesh cast and each sitting like us working on our own houses.

And then we'll have chat vote for who has the best house at the end.

That's a stream we're going to do.

Yeah.

I've just learned about the mouse mode recently, Dan.

It's pretty sharp for certain circumstances.

When you're in a certain mode with that game, it's like, all right, this is mouse time.

Yeah.

Seeing the mouse stuff work well here has just got me hankering, gang, for like...

That'd be great.

Someday, someday, someday, someday.

You're all in fucking trouble.

Yeah.

I'm not going to be my old ones.

Yeah.

Just go get good.

Do it to Patrick again.

Leave us out of it.

Yeah.

By the way, like this is a game that, like you know, I did not have any expectations for the story and I'm not going to be like wow, like this is some really deep, super duper stuff.

But, It did.

For what this is, they made a lot out of it.

They got a lot of value out of storytelling in this Pokemon Minecraft-like.

Just the kind of decisions that they made with what is going on in this world and why things are the way they are.

Even some of the like you know oh, you found a note, you're learning things.

It has some of the best note storytelling since resident evil.

It's also a great entry point to someone who doesn't really know a lot about pokemon.

Sure me where it's like i don't really know.

I've seen a slow poke.

I could point him out in a police lineup, but like i don't really know his gimmick or anything yeah, and now it's like his personality i know.

Now it's like okay he's oh, he's very tired all the time and for some reason, if he yawns big, it rains, and so now i gotta figure out how to make this guy get a hundred point yawn and it's like all right, this is all very charming to me.

Yeah, i'm now just walking around to friends in real life, just staring them dead in the eyes like yawn for me.

Yeah, that was a, that was a 13, damn uh.

Well mike, speaking about resident evil, you've been playing resident evil zero.

Yeah, I'm still in that Resident Evil mood and I bet you there's a handful of them I haven't played yet and I would really like to play all of them.

So I was just like, which one do I want to play?

I'm always curious about Zero, because whenever people talk about that game, I feel like all I ever hear is well, the inventory management is tough.

Cause you know you don't have the item boxes and you just drop the items and you have the two people.

So it's like, okay, I get that.

What else about the game?

There's a whole game here.

What else is going on?

You know, the game has always looked like it's a sister game to the resident one remake and i like that game a ton, so just something in that style i thought would be would be fun.

So yeah, i've uh, i'm like seven hours into this now, so pretty deep.

And uh, it starts on the train and like the whole the train section is pretty cool because i first feel like a train.

How's that work for resident evil?

Somehow they managed to make it not super backtrack, even though you are going kind of back and forth this train, but there's like an upper level and they do some fun stuff with like Oh, this character is trapped in this room but he's going to use, like the surface elevator to send the key down to the other character.

Um um, but so you know, that's like just a couple hours, and then i was in this training facility that basically looks a lot like the spencer mansion, so then suddenly very similar.

But you know, the big gimmick of this one is that you do have the two characters at all times.

You can make them follow each other or you can keep one in one place.

Uh, sometimes you kind of have to have them separate places for puzzles, right.

So it's it's both interesting because like, the other one can't help you shoot enemies, and that can help.

But it also really does make it more difficult because you are managing the inventory, the health, uh right, and all this other stuff for this other character, and sometimes it's kind of dangerous to just have them follow you to a dangerous place.

So you go through this dangerous section trying not to shoot everything because you're gonna waste our ammo, and you switch to that other character.

You kind of have to kind of get them into that same location as well.

On top of that, this game has some of the some has some of the harder enemies i see in resident.

Well, there's this leech zombie specifically, that is just this bullet sponge.

Like the best way to kill him is throwing these molotov cocktails, which are not easy to come by.

You gotta like throw three of those things at him and they don't even necessarily damage uh, stun him So he can get back at you.

So kind of like lining up with what I heard about the game where like oh, it's kind of it's a bit more abrasive.

It's kind of difficult.

And it's probably might be the hardest Resident Evil I played.

But like, it's still so freaking gorgeous because it has that amazing pre-rendered background.

Pre-rendered artist at that time was we're working on those games.

Yeah.

I started the RE1 remake on Steam Deck, and it's still like, how the fuck was this?

I know it's the remaster of the remake, but it's still like that was one of those games that you would see screenshots of a candle in EGM and be like how the fuck are they making it look like that?

Yeah.

It looks so freaking good. you know it still plays like that game as well so it's still a ton of fun kind of crawling through you know scratching and clawing your way through this mansion like oh i can go into this room and oh there's like a tough zombie there but also the item i need so you know just that basic resident evil loop is still really good and sometimes the two character stuff uh it is neat like you know again with that kind of dumb waiter moment stuff like that rebecca chambers is cool bat is it chris and rebecca chambers it's a deal no it's billy billy who the fuck is billy he's a new he's an original character in this one he's got a tribal tattoo and he's um he maybe he's killed 23 people they're very specific about the number there was a funny moment where like this number every time it's not just he's killed people he's killed 23 people And at one point, like after a sober moment, Rebecca's like, Billy, I have to ask you something.

I promise I won't judge you.

Is it true that you killed 23 people?

Mike, I feel like you and I have talked about this where you know, we've played Resident Evil.

We've been a fan for a long time, but it's like.

Rebecca Chambers specifically, is a character that I've heard about since the first fucking game.

I don't think I've ever seen her in the game.

We never played as Chris, right?

Yeah yeah yeah, because she's.

She's the Barry of the Chris campaign.

Resident Evil 1 I've seen Barry 800 times.

I've never seen Rebecca.

There's that in like the weird picture of her playing basketball you find in the in the two games and in nine.

Yeah, I've seen the live action, her putting on a headband and smiling from the intros a bunch of times.

The other funny thing is like the villain in this game, It feels like they plucked him from another game.

He looks like a villain from one of those PS2 Castlevania games.

Oh, amazing.

He looks like a fucking Alucard or something.

He's the bad guy.

It's so weird.

It's like the cut scenes.

You know, Rebecca, this Billy guy doing Resident Evil stuff.

Then there's this vampire-looking dude standing on a cliff with lightning behind him.

Is it the guy in the white robes that also kind of has a tribal, like a cyan tribal tattoo on the arms?

Or is that someone else?

Does he look like Alucard?

Yeah.

Yeah, it might be him.

I don't remember his tattoo situation.

I think he's wearing a lab coat, though.

Sure.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, so I'm still actually having a really good time with it.

Definitely been some difficulty spikes, tough enemies.

Now there's baboons who have zombie viruses around and you've got to shuck them in the face a few times to take care of that.

I know I'm close to the end because I'm going into an underground facility of some kind, right?

I'm going to a lab.

So now we're almost at the end.

Folks, we're going to take a quick break.

We still got more games to talk about, and we got the news on the other side of this.

We'll see you right after a quick break.

I'm sending it to break.

And we still have plenty of games to talk about, going from Resident Evil 0, which isn't actually a co-op game, to a game that surprisingly does Slay the Spire 2.

Grub, Chuck, Mikey, and our dear friend Bailey checked this out last Friday on UPF.

What did you guys think?

I'm curious what Jeff thinks because Jeff, you've not really spent much time with single player Slay the Spire right.

No.

Yeah, I kind of wish someone would have told me about this game.

Here's the thing.

It's like Something about when I was like, hey, should I just learn on the multiplayer stream?

And I'm glad I didn't because it was so fast-paced.

I'm glad I had the foundation.

But the game is so easy to learn.

It's so playable.

It's so like, oh, I get this.

If you've played any sort of card game, any sort of roguelite, you're going to get it very fast.

And then it's just very satisfying to do the, like, can I optimize this turn?

Which is one of the key elements of a very good... turn-based roguelite.

So I do think of Into the Breach, very different fundamental genre.

But the idea is, you have a certain amount of energy, a certain amount of things you could do on this turn.

Can you manipulate things in such a way so that you are taking zero damage and doing maximum damage?

And that's what slave aspire is, i guess, at its core as well, at least as far as i've played it so far, and i thought it was really satisfying.

And it's like you.

You know that there's a game optimized, a way of playing these cards in front of you and when you feel like i think i might have got at that turn, i feel like i did the best i possibly could have done.

That's a super satisfying thing and it's so rapid pace that you're going to get to that moment pretty frequently.

And then when you make mistakes, it's it's great because you're going to learn from them.

You're like, oh, I should have done it that way.

And then you just add that to your base of knowledge and go on.

It's like you could just see why this game is so revered because it's so refined in the things it does well.

And those things are very just make for a very good video game.

Yeah, and that was my first time doing the co-op, which is new and Slade-inspired too, and that was fun.

And I like that they're both with some synergies we could do, but largely we were kind of able to just sort of do our thing and not have to like stop, consider what the other person was doing at all times.

I did like the tank thing.

The tank thing was like it was one of those ones where it's like that was a brief moment where it's like i could consider, uh like, what you guys were dealing with and what i was dealing with.

And it's like i tried it at first and it kind of like wrecked me because it was doubling the damage i was taking and having the damage you all were taking and say okay, that's pretty good math right, because it's half damage for three people, double damage for one person.

That's usually going to be a play the game.

I don't want to be dead.

So then i got one.

That's like it uh doubled my the defensive stuff that i was doing.

So everything i was laying down that's defensive was being doubled.

So like, all right, in this moment, now it's the time to tank, and it's like okay, all these things i'm synergizing with myself and then giving you guys a slight buff and that that felt pretty good without me having to be like you guys think i should do this.

It's like no i, i know this is the right move and i could just do it and give you guys a boost there.

Yeah and um, you know, i I like the different characters and they all kind of feel different.

It was fun that we were each one of them.

And I'm the guy who kind of is a pet and you can sort of play cards to buff that pet.

And I kind of got into this build that I really like, where I also can get these soul cards in my deck.

And the soul cards are just like oh, you draw this card, we'll now play that and draw two more cards.

And I kind of got into this rhythm of I'm making a lot of these soul cards and I have a card that each time I use a soul card my pet gets more health.

And then I have another card that turns that health into damage.

So I had this really good build with a lot of synergies going and it just felt good playing that, seeing what you all were up to, occasionally picking your characters and it, You know, even when we kind of did the stuff in between fights.

Like, okay, there's four relics.

Everybody pick a relic.

And if two people want the same relic, they're going to literally paper scissors rock for it.

Good stuff.

It's well considered.

Slay the Spire, for as much as I enjoy the game, I do think parts of it are kind of ugly.

And looking at this next game we're about to talk about, this game is very ugly.

Mr. Grubb, tell me about Mr. Sleepy Man.

Okay, 100% Dan and Mike should go play Mr. Sleepy Man right away.

Mr. Sleepy Man.

I think all you guys will probably enjoy it.

This is a 3D platformer where you play as a little sleepy guy who is asleep the entire time.

You're playing, but he runs around.

He can talk to characters.

They talk to him.

He just makes snoring noises.

That's what the talking button does.

That's fun.

You get like a pillow and stuff, and that's your attack.

It's a very dreamlike quality game.

There's Toofy.

Toofy is a character who is just a big head with big teeth and he hangs over you while Mr Sleeping Man is sleeping.

And Toofy just talks.

He just won't stop.

He won't shut up.

And you kind of like, all right, you'll deal with that.

And then you run away from him because you don't want to have him talk anymore.

But he's still talking back in that room you left him in.

It has that dreamlike quality of weird stuff is happening.

Yeah, what?

Yeah, I was going to say this is like Rugrats.

The character design looks like Guitaroo Man.

I'm looking at the image.

So it definitely is like this feels like a weird PlayStation 1 game.

And I kind of can't give a higher compliment in this moment in my life where I am like so desperately missing those games and we are in a worse place as a society because we don't get those games anymore.

This is like, oh, it delivers.

One of the first things I did was lay down a banana peel and trip someone.

Cool.

You can do that in a lot of games.

Glad that's here.

But then it's like, you could pick up anything.

Well, can I pick up this cash register?

Oh, I committed a felony.

I should start running.

The game's like, okay, yeah, get out of here.

You did a felony.

Checkmark.

You're going to get that.

Cool.

It's cool.

There's a VHS filter that kind of applies and even like even more dreamlike quality to the visuals.

That I thought was really well done.

Yeah, I I'm just I'm really into what this is doing.

You get the pillowcase and that works as like a little hover thing like Zelda and stuff.

It feels good to play.

It's got like a good movement set.

And then it has ideas.

It's not just a 3D collector like collect-a-thon platformer.

It is that.

But then it's like you know go mess around in the world and accomplish some objectives on this list as well.

So I think it's going to have kind of a little bit of something for everybody.

I like this.

I'm playing it on Steam Deck.

I think you guys would all really enjoy it.

I want that too, because I feel like a couple of times in recent months I've thought that like there is a new kind of indie.

Three like Big Hops, Demon Tides were ones that like I was like oh, this seems up my alley, but just things were kind of off on them that made me not love them.

Sure.

So I'm in the mood for this.

I'm looking for this.

And like, I like everything I'm seeing and hearing about this.

I think that, yes.

Like, you start the game by... You gotta go get the controller.

You have to pick up the cartridge, put it in the N64-like thing, hit the button, turn on the TV and that's fun.

And then the game really starts.

They know what they're making.

I think dan, the thing i'm always worried about with those games yeah, is it's trying to be that, is it getting just close enough and then coming up short so that i can't help but making the comparison.

And that's not what, not really what this one's doing.

It is like suggesting all those things and then kind of being its own game in a lot of different ways that are key to making it feel like this is just going to stand on its own and be its own thing.

So i think it delivers.

Hey, did we say pillow?

Weird in the Midwest, apparently.

Yeah, we do.

Wait, wait, wait.

Everyone just reset and say the word.

Here we go.

I'm going to say pillow.

Pillow.

What?

Pillow?

Wait, again?

Wait, this is an Ohio thing then.

This was Michigan for me.

Pillow.

Okay.

I still understand what you mean.

Pillow.

Chuck, did you have other people say pillow in Michigan when you were there?

Am I doing that too?

Pillow?

Yeah.

I mean, do it again, Mike.

I think you're doing a slightly lighter version.

You're splitting the difference.

Let me read.

Pillow.

I feel like now you're, you're on top of it is why i'd say i'm like no, you can't do chimney, he's not gonna be able to do milk milk, i say milk.

Okay, you're doing this weird stuff where you're putting ease where there should be eyes.

Yeah yeah, ease for eyes.

Okay okay yeah, i like it, i like you.

Will you say michigan, come on, let's be serious here.

Yeah, come on.

Uh, this game has a bingo.

Papadopoulos looking dude in it.

Yeah, you leave him out of this.

No, this is good, this is good.

He's like floating in the sky.

He's got a top hat.

It's a good.

Look, it's a good.

There is a nickelodeon element to this, too that i'm very much into.

Yeah, it's legitimately funny.

It's uh yeah Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff in this.

So people should go check out this pillow game.

Fantastic.

Last game we have here on the docket is another visually distinct game.

And I've been seeing this tear up the streets and the Internet streets.

Screamer.

Yeah.

So this is an anime arcade style racing game.

And I've like started to realize that after we were talking about Captain Tsubasa a little bit ago a little bit ago Jan, like we could be in a world where we get that, you know, the predator handshake of anime and arcade games, sort of like hey, we can bring these things back in a way.

Yeah. so the controls are the real star here, the way that you can actually control the game.

Had you got any of you guys played it other than me?

I'm interested though.

No.

Yeah.

I mean the actual release date is, uh, still a couple of days away.

There's an advanced version that I, that I got on steam.

Um, So it's a dual stick racer.

So you basically steer the front part of the car with the left stick and you can drift the back part of the car with the right stick.

So you kind of like It, kind of like careens ever so lightly to the left when you use the left part of the stick.

But if you kind of...

Pair that up with a little bit of braking, a little bit of letting off the gas, and then the right stick, you can really slide into.

These turns to the point where it's like oh, I am always actively engaged and thinking about the best way to control this car around corners.

Then there's a boost system where you're shifting gears upward.

You're not really shifting gears for the car, but you're building up this boost meter by shifting higher, and that's like hitting L1.

And you can do that at certain times when you reach certain speeds, until you get to the highest gear.

You spend a certain amount of time in that highest gear and now you have a boost.

And then that boost sets off a QTE where if you can, this triangle shrinks.

And if you get it in the green before the yellow part, you get a boost that lasts twice as long.

So there's all these elements working in conjunction with one another.

And it creates this like oh, I am on the edge of my seat just trying to handle this car because there's so much going on.

And I really like that element.

I'm not loving the anime style of this one.

I think, as someone who finds this particular kind of anime to be a little bit generic, not super generic it has some characters that stand out, for sure.

But it's like I would like, you know, 70s or 80s style or something.

This just looks like any other video game to me in a lot of ways.

I'm skipping a lot of the story because it's kind of getting in the way of what I'm enjoying from this game.

But I think the presentation is good enough, especially for anyone who might be into these characters or this storyline that they do have going on.

Yeah, that's kind of my concern.

Yeah, I love arcade racers, and I'm desperate to see a big one pop off again.

The anime aesthetic I think is fine, but I don't know how much storyline cutscenes I need in my racing game.

A little bit of it is fine.

Like I like a Ridge Racer type four where you have like the weird talking head guy giving you like a pep talk or like being pessimistic about your chances before and after every race.

I don't know if I need like...

To feel like I'm watching a TV show before and after every race.

And it is.

I do think that that's kind of the side of the line it falls on where the presentation is a little bit overbearing.

It's a little bit too much.

You skip a cutscene, and then there's another cutscene you need to skip right after that.

It's one of those.

But I'm not holding that against it all that much.

I'm into what's happening here.

It definitely feels like...

They had an idea like it doesn't feel like they had the biggest budget in the world, but they made the most with the budget that they do have.

And you can kind of see through that a little bit.

You could see the seams here and there, but again, not to the point where I thought it was detrimental to my experience.

I'm.

You know I'm not going to say I'm over the moon about the skin, the way some people are, but it definitely has.

It's worth trying, except for maybe that that price.

I think I think it's like it might be $60.

Nice.

I just checked.

Was this advanced access thing was like $70?

Yeah.

I think it was $70 for this advanced access one.

Yeah.

So I think that price is a bit much.

And that's where I think the presentation sort of like tries to justify that to people like you're getting this big, cool story.

And some people I think will be won over by that.

But if it does get in the way for you, like it did for me, I do wonder if that price maybe should come down before you check it out.

Listen, I see a corgi in some of these screenshots.

I'm game.

Corgi's cute.

Also, we need more action, arcade-y sports games across the land.

Yes, yes.

Yes.

And if they're anime, so be it.

At this point, it's kind of how I feel.

If that's the deal with the devil that we have to make, so be it.

You know, I know it's always hard to do re-releases of NBA Jam and Blitz and all that stuff because of all the Players Association stuff and everything.

But could you do it with, let's say, it's not current NBA stars, but could you just get Muggsy Bogues and Spud Webb and fucking John Stockton and everything and just put them in?

You could get their likeness and stuff, yeah.

You just couldn't get the team.

It's like when they got Lawrence Taylor for Blitz League, right?

You just couldn't get the teams and stuff because, yeah, okay.

The teams are important.

Even not as a sports guy, I do kind of like it helps to have the actual teams.

It feels real, you know?

Yeah, sure.

And then they go up against my Yeti and the Beastie Boys, you know?

Oh, of course.

Yeah.

Folks, that does it for Video Game Talk.

We're going to go straight into the news.

This is Jeff Rupp with the news.

Mike, you sound like you were going to jump in there.

Yeah, I was.

I saw myself.

I was like, I was going to be a loud asshole.

I'm like, eh, you know what it was?

There it is.

I felt that coming.

Oh, good, you saved it.

Oh, good.

I want Mikey to say what he said during the break.

Yeah, come on.

I'm fucking pissed off about my diet, green tea, changing his name to Zero Sugar Green Tea.

You know that I like the zero sugar stuff.

It's just a branding change.

It's meaningless.

Like, what?

Like, come on.

Whose job had to be justified by being like, we're changing the name of the diet green tea Lipton.

I bet those actually do sell better right now.

You know what?

Let's take that again.

Good idea.

This is Jeff Grubb with the news.

Jeff Grubb.

Yeah, I have some news here.

Let's get into it.

Nintendo is reportedly cutting Switch 2 production this quarter as U.S. demand dips.

This is reporting from Bloomberg, Mochizuki over there, who often has stories like this.

Nintendo is reportedly cutting its planned Switch 2 production for the current quarter from 6 million to 4 million consoles due to lower than expected demand in the US, a trend expected to continue into April.

While the console is still extremely popular in Japan, US sales have slowed significantly down, about 35 compared to the original Switch's first Christmas.

Now real quick.

It is worth pointing out that That number doesn't really line up to all that well with the data that we do have from Sercana.

Matt Piscitella came out and he laid out like when you line up the launches for the first nine months, the Switch 2 has sold faster than everything, except for the Game Boy Advance.

It's 29% faster than the PS5.

It is 45% faster than the Switch.

It is, let's see here, 30% faster than the PS4, 34% faster than the Wii.

It has sold extremely well.

So one of the problems seems to be a lot of the people who wanted to buy this thing have already purchased it.

And now maybe they are struggling to get to that next group of people.

And then that is also reflected in the Circana report, where in January and February the Switch 2 sold less, both in terms of dollars and units, than the PS5.

But that was before Picopia.

So Picopia could sort of be like oh, now we are seeing that Switches are selling out at stores, Switch 2s that is.

So things could change.

At the same time, I bet they have a lot of Switch 2s in the supply chain.

And cutting this is probably smart for them because, you know, let it sell first.

Yeah, the timing is a little bit weird because I almost expected the leaner times to be in December, when your only really big games Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon ZA were also Switch 1 games.

Yeah, January, February, not much was happening.

That's when a lot of the grumbling was going on, like, oh, Switch 2, really slow.

But, you know, now Picopia has happened.

It's a Switch 2 exclusive, and it seems really popular, and it's got all this buzz.

You think that would help?

There's other circumstances in the U.S. right now, right?

You know, luxury products are maybe not a priority for people you know software-wise, beyond Picopia.

It's going to be probably a little slow again.

I bet that they're not expecting huge U.S. sales for Tomodachi life.

That Yoshi and the Mysterious Book Game is not going to be something that's going to do gangbusters.

We don't know when Fire Emblem is.

We don't have the big Mario game or a big Zelda game or Smash Bros or anything like that announced or on the horizon.

Even the mainline Pokemon is not this year announced.

So, you know, maybe they're kind of looking ahead and they're looking at their software lineup.

And I don't know.

Do you think this is an indication Jeff, that that big Mario game everybody's hoping is coming this year?

Still isn't?

Maybe that's reading too much into it.

You're right.

It's probably that would probably be us reading too much into it.

But you got like you're right.

Laying out the timeline.

I bet this decision was made before all the copia data came in.

And I bet they had their expectations for copia.

And that's what factored into this decision.

And that probably is way less.

Excuse me.

In fact we know that's way less than what the game actually did, because the game sold out physically.

They didn't print enough copies of that, so they weren't expecting it to do as well as it did.

But then you would say okay, if they have something coming up after the Mario movie to sort of answer hey, what can Mario fans get after that Mario movie when they're really excited?

To me.

This says they're going to say hey, go get Super Mario Brothers Wonder, you know, switch to edition and all this other stuff that we're kind of updating for you instead.

Right.

Get the galaxy one and two button.

Like you know, I went to best buy and like that's the thing, like outside, like a sign for his galaxy.

One plus two bundle.

Like in their mind, they have released the movie tie in game already.

It was that thing.

Yep.

Um, I think uh know this is the kind of thing where you pull back by two million from six million to four million and you could ramp things back up eventually if you need to.

But they are, their trend is so far ahead already that it's like if they kind of just ride and sell the same amount that they have been, they're gonna, they're gonna be mostly fine uh, and they have not pulled the zelda and the mario levers yet.

They'll get to their super smash brothers lever, they'll get to all those eventually and that sort of you know uh makes we'll have them reassess everything.

But um, in the meantime that this is saying that they are probably the games that they've announced are probably the ones they're going to have for the next little bit next quarter.

At least it says mario tennis Fever's fault.

Is that the name of that game?

Mario Tennis Fever is definitely, I think, indicative of kind of like a mistake.

Like I think that shows that Nintendo kind of didn't really get like the best way to reach out to the audience and put out something exciting.

That game was one of the worst selling Mario Tennis games in Japan ever, I think, if not the worst.

Did Metroid Prime 4 help?

No, it doesn't seem like that really made a difference.

Again to give it some slack.

It was also a Switch 1 game, so people who really wanted to play that game didn't need to upgrade.

So everyone loved it, it just didn't need the Switch 2 for it.

That's exactly what happened.

That's what I heard Mike say verbatim.

We'll see.

I think the Epicopia Circona report will probably tell a different story and then maybe things move from there.

All right.

Epic Games is laying off over 1,000 employees due to, quote, Fortnite downturn.

Epic Games is laying off over 1000 employees about 23 of its workforce due to a downturn in Fortnite engagement, according to CEO Tim Sweeney.

The company is shutting down Fortnite's rocket racing, ballistic, and festival battle stage modes.

Sweeney stated that, despite Fortnite still being successful, inconsistent engagement and the cost of being quote, the industry's vanguard which?

What do you guys think that means?

Yeah, do they get billed by the industry for their van carpets?

What does that mean?

That's implying that there's some sort of tax.

It makes it very specific here.

I'll tell you guys.

Oh, sure.

It means...

It means that they were suing people on behalf of everyone in the industry.

Oh, for their hero work is what they think it is.

They were heroes.

So all the work that they did to sue Google and Apple cost them a ton of money.

And they did that for everyone.

They say they're the good guys.

Well, of course they're the good guys.

It's Tim Sweeney.

He's up in that tree.

I see.

Yeah.

They bought a mall.

Yeah.

Did Tim Sweeney take a pay cut?

Tim Sweeney's worth $9.3 billion.

No.

This is also a company that spent tons of money trying to make the Epic Game Store compete with Steam, and that meant spending a bunch of money not just on giving away free games, which has seemed to work somewhat, but publishing a bunch of stuff exclusively to the Epic Game Store.

That actually didn't move the needle at all.

You know what?

I would describe what has happened over there as poor management, making a lot of big bets, spreading out that money away from Fortnite the Fortnite money kind of away from Fortnite, and that money not getting any return on investment.

And now the people who make the game are paying the price.

Now that's weird for this industry.

But Grubb, they increased the price of V-Bucks so we could all help keep the lights on.

Help pay the bills.

Yeah, I thought we were helping pay their bills.

I mean there's got to be some sort of money in the bank when it comes to epic games and the billions and billions and billions that they made.

Um, the racing thing you said they closed, is that the, the stuff that the rocket league people made?

That's been in there?

That was my question.

And the festival stuff is that the, the harmonic stuff like?

Is that like all they made a big thing alongside the lego stuff, like lego, the racing and the music stuff?

So is it like they're keeping the lego and getting rid of the other stuff?

That's what it sounds like, but I don't remember.

The whole platform has been so weird there.

Yeah, it seems like none of that really took off.

I don't know how many people are playing that Lego thing in there either.

The Disney billion dollar investment thing is still coming.

They're weird in Fortnite Metaverse.

I bet that's going to do fantastic.

I bet everyone's going to be really happy with the performance of that thing.

I bet when they leverage that deal to put stuff like The Simpsons back in Fortnite, it will make a lot of money.

Whatever they're supposed to be making as the bespoke deliverable for this massive investment.

Yeah, what does that look like?

Does anyone care?

And I think...

At a certain point, games weren't meant to last forever like this.

Right.

What are we building towards?

Do we think we're still going to be playing Fortnite in 20 years?

What are we doing exactly?

Well, the leak did say that Stone Cold Steve Austin was about to be in there.

So that could turn it around.

Finally, they're going to reset Millennial Group.

Yeah.

They did this March 16th.

They did.

Yeah.

So apparently the the rock band thing in there like that's only one part of it other rock band-esque things are still there.

It's all confusing what's going on in there still.

Uh, people still play.

Wow yeah, i guess, i mean people still play roblox right, roblox is from 2006.

That's a 20 year old game, literally.

Yeah yeah, i don't think it's out of the question to assume that it could be around.

It could be.

I don't think it's good.

I don't think it's a good thing, necessarily.

Okay i'm, I guess what I want to say is that this comes at a cost of, like the industry pointing its finger at this company saying, like they, this is the monolithic sort of success story that you want to emulate.

And now because of, uh, I think you nailed it, grub mismanagement.

I don't think they get that anymore.

Right.

I think right now.

Wow, part of a club that you don't want to be a member of yeah, and you know a lot of those big bets that they're making.

The mismanagement comes from looking at the chart two years ago, seeing line go up and be like well, the line keeps going up right, and so we're going to be at this data point right up there up into the right here in a couple of years.

And then engagement has dropped off.

Of course, of course it is has.

It's an older game and the things that they they put in there to get people excited to actually spend money on the game is targeted at a very specific millennial audience most of the time not always, but most of the time because those are the people that spend money.

And so it's like kind of like the young audience is moving on to other other things, different things.

Also, video games is so much about novelty.

Of course they're moving on to other things, so engagement has dropped.

So now they're like looking at a different trajectory and they're like oh, the data point is now saying we're going to kind of be making the same amount of money next year and the same amount of money might as well be fucking death because we have to grow.

So that's um.

It's a scary proposition when you start talking about the billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars that this game is making um, and that not being enough.

But well, Of course it would be if they were trying to do it in a sustainable way.

But that is not the business model.

And that's never been Tim Sweeney's MO, it seems like.

They also have Unreal Engine, by the way.

Every fucking game in the world being made on Unreal Engine.

Don't forget about that little morsel.

Like every time a game sneezes, they get $1,000.

Yeah.

So just a weird thing.

A thousand people.

That's a quarter of the company.

It's unfathomable.

They're getting a pretty decent severance, relatively speaking, like even people in the United States where there are not those labor laws like four months worth of severance.

But I was thinking this and I saw Schreier saying this on Blue Sky as well.

It's like, man, that would have been a lot a couple of years ago.

But this year, where now there's a thousand people who are experts, or many of whom are going to be experts, in Unreal Engine, all looking for the same jobs at these companies that aren't really hiring.

And that's on top of all the other people in this industry that have already been looking for a job for a while.

The expectation is on average.

It's going to take a person that just got laid off from Epic about one calendar year, 12 entire months, to find a new job.

No, because it's not like anyone that's gotten laid off from any of the other companies has been able to find a job or a steady, reliable anything.

Like that talent pool is so crowded at this point.

Yeah, it's so flipped on its head from a couple.

You remember during the pandemic, it was.

And anyone can go anywhere and demand any amount of money.

Start up a million new studios, get funding right away.

Yeah.

Yep.

It's such a yo-yo.

And, you know, of course, the macroeconomic situation is not helping.

And that's only looking gloomier by the day.

So, yeah, things are going to be rough.

I hope a lot of these people are able to make their own studios and put out some cool friend-slop stuff and have huge success stories.

That would be the best-case scenario.

But the worst part of that though Grubb, is that then Fortnite will sell a skin of that friend-slop game that is more than the actual game.

They'll steal the ideas, right, and just put it into Fortnite.

That's what they've always done.

Lord Developers, you have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever right now.

Put us in it.

Yeah.

Welcome to Lord Knight.

All right.

Pokemon Champions gets confirmed release date and Switch 2 launch update.

There's a lot going on with this one.

I will need help, Jan.

But Pokemon Champions, a competitive battling game for Nintendo Switch and mobile, is coming April 8th.

It features the familiar Pokemon battle mechanics, online ranked casual and private battles and in-game competitions.

It's going to become the new not de facto, but the standard for the platform for the competitive scene, adopted by the Pokemon company itself and will be used at the championships this year.

It shouldn't matter too much to most people, but there's again, a lot going on with this.

Players, can you get like 30 free Pokemon or 30 free Pokemon slots, unless you subscribe to something?

And then you've got to, then you can bring in your own Pokemon from all this other stuff.

Jan, I kind of lost the thread pretty quickly on this.

I think I'm getting the sense though, that people are like oh, this isn't exactly what I thought it was going to be, down to the way the battles work, where they're getting rid of IVs and individual values and everything's going to be sort of flattened and be kind of similar.

So

I don't know.

What do you think when you hear this stuff?

So the losing of the IVs part, I don't necessarily mind too much.

And for the folks out there, IVs have always been this kind of hidden stat with all of your Pokemon.

So people that go crazy for breeding Pokemon or shiny hunting, they would specifically seek individual values or stats that a Pokemon has.

That you kind of got to do some backdoor math.

Now, they've totally made it a little bit easier to track that with the most recent games.

But the parts that are kind of bugging me a lot is the...

You are able to transfer Pokemon from Pokemon Home into the game.

So you could transfer theoretically Pokemon from Scarlet and Violet, Sword and Shield Legends, Arceus into Pokemon Home and then bring them into Pokemon Champions.

But if you don't have the means to do that, you can go.

I forget what it's called scavenge for Pokemon or something.

Something like that, yeah.

This is where it starts to get scummy in terms of microtransactions because...

You'll get one free Pokemon that you can scavenge for and look for, but it's under a very limited time that you can actually use them.

So say you really want a Scyther.

You can pick to get that Scyther, but there isn't defined language as to how long you will have that Scyther.

So it could just be a week, could just be a season, or maybe a couple days even.

But if you have victory points, you can keep that Scyther on your roster in your Pokemon storage box in Pokemon Champions for forever.

But victory points are associated.

You win those from winning Pokemon matches, but it also seems like you also get those from spending money.

Yes, and so what you're getting at here is pay to win.

Yes.

Or at the very least, pay to win faster than a free-to-play player.

And the question is, how much faster?

It could be significant.

It could be significant because victory points look like they're going to be used not only to acquire Pokemon, but also to specifically train them in a specific way.

Like you want your uh dragonite they show this in the the trailer here uh to have higher special attack values or attack values.

You can train them a certain way, but that takes victory points to do.

The most messed up part of it though, is to switch up their moves, which is a very integral part of battling, because sometimes you'll have specific Pokemon, have a more defensive move set or a move set that really complements other Pokemon on your party, or you're stalling a different team, and sometimes you got to switch up the moves on the fly.

To switch up moves, they also take victory points and, from the way from the subreddits that I peruse, it looks like you're going to get 200 victory points if you win a match and, but it also may cost upwards to 100 plus to 200 to change a move.

So if you just need to do like a small little adjustment to your team or your party, it's going to quickly add up.

Yes.

And this like thing of you know getting different items, the different ways you recruit Pokemon.

They all take and use victory points.

So Greb, it is going to be that thing where you, if you were not using this premium battle pass or this premium membership they're talking about, you were going to have a little bit slower of a time to pick it up.

Sean has said in the chat they stated explicitly you can't buy VP, only earn it.

But there are other microtransactions that they haven't detailed.

Okay.

Yes.

There was a list of concerns I saw people have about pay to win.

I think it's fair to point out...

You know you do need to purchase the video games that people were talking about to like go get those Pokemon and then DLC.

So there's a cost associated with just playing those games to get those Pokemon.

But you do get a video game when you do that.

It's not just sort of access to these limited battles.

I don't know.

It's hard for me to get my mind around that.

Yeah, this is all weird to me.

I don't know, did y'all ever y'all have seen the fourth matrix movie?

Yeah yeah, i remember a little about it.

I didn't see it.

You know when, like neo is like in the coffee shop and he's kind of like clicking back into the matrix though of like, oh wait no, i kind of see the code.

Oh, i remember everything.

Yeah, is that you right now?

Yes, that's me right now, because i also don't remember that scene, Because I, even though there are these things that I don't like, there are plenty of things I started to see.

I'm like, oh, oh, wait.

Well, let me ask you, Jan.

How do you think this thing is going to do?

I think it's going to do OK.

Competitive Pokemon.

The VGC is a very niche scene as is.

This, though, could open it up more.

It's going to be on the switch one switch to it's eventually going to be mobile.

So I think it could do gangbusters. it has the potential to do gangbusters uh i do need to mention though mikey i know you don't like mega evolutions okay i know you don't uh as to why i kind of forget but they're adding new abilities for mega for alligator and mega meganium that are gonna go crazy town bananas Because, yo, Mega Meganium gets Mega Soul, which means it can fire off Solar Beam in one turn.

You don't got to charge a turn.

Yo, Weatherball is going to go crazy.

I forget why you don't like Mega Evolutions.

I think it's self-evident.

Yeah, just keep talking.

You'll get it eventually.

But yo, Mega Feraligatr is going to get Dragon Eyes.

Y'all did and you sound.

You sound like one of those.

Uh, like you said, clavicular or whatever.

When he talks about bone smashing, how dare you compare me to him?

Uh, all right yeah yeah, go ahead.

All that being said, i mean it was a bombathon incentive to bring back pokemon day night combat.

Sure uh, This is what Sean and I were waiting for, because this is going to be the means that the Pokemon company is going to be April 8th.

That's a couple of weeks.

So we'll take a look.

So, yeah, Sean and I got to bring the the dust pans out the brooms.

We're going to sweep up the gym, get it all nice and tidy, paint several shades of different paint across the walls, and we'll be ready to fight y'all at home.

All right, let's keep going here.

Sega's Stranger Than Heaven will headline an Xbox partner event this week.

I feel like they just did one, right?

And now they're doing another one.

Last one was pretty good and they're promising some cool stuff for this one.

That's happening on Thursday at 10 am.

Pacific, 1 p.m.

Eastern.

It will have Stranger Than Heaven from Ryo Gotoku.

Okay.

Of course, I stumble on it.

RGG Studio, their next game, which was previously known as Project Sentry, if you remember that.

There will be an update for Stalker 2 Heart of Chernobyl, probably DLC, if they're bringing it to this thing.

And a new look at The Expanse, Osiris Reborn, which is from Owlcat, which is a...

Like, is OutKat the ones that did the Baldur's Gate enhanced editions?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's them, OutKat.

Okay.

Well, they're doing this and people are starting to get pretty hyped up for this Expanse game because it looks Mass Effect-y to a certain degree and uh yeah, i'm gonna be able to prove.

I said that was such conviction and now actually i'm not sure.

Okay, never mind, i don't know why.

Okay, you know, it's just because he said i'm like that sounds right.

They did a trader, which people liked, and apparently the uh, the pathfinder games as well.

So Okay well, there seems like they're kind of upping their production value for this and they'll be able to kind of maybe prove it a little bit at this.

Developer director, whatever they're calling it.

Xbox partner event.

Yeah, there might be some surprises, but those are the three big things that will be there.

They've done a good job with these.

Beamdog did the... Beamdog.

That's it.

That's what it was.

I was like, yeah, there's an animal name in that keyboard.

I think exact same thing.

I'm going to take my RPG card away now.

Great.

Square Enix has partnered with Google to put an AI chatbot in Dragon Quest X. Let's go, everybody.

Why?

For what's unhappy, they never localized Dragon Quest X, I guess.

Chatty Slimey as the AI companion.

Jesus fucking Christ.

It is a slimy that will pop up and talk to you as you do things and maybe give you suggestions about what you should be doing, and you can ask it questions.

Try to get it to say a slur.

Everyone loves that.

That'd be great.

It's always a good time.

Yeah, they're partnering with Google on this.

It's going to be in there.

And you all talk shit about the talking flower.

He is pure.

Yeah, give me the talking flower over this.

I see he's ducked his responsibilities today.

He's not even on the show.

What is he doing?

Yeah, he didn't even put him on.

He didn't put it on the calendar.

What the fuck?

He's up in the kitchen and shit.

Boy, I hope this isn't coming for Final Fantasy XIV.

Gosh, I just... I didn't think about that.

Yeah.

They've had similar stuff in other games.

Most famously, I think, that Darth Vader AI chatbot in Fortnite that they did have to turn off because it was saying slurs.

And we all see how great Fortnite's doing.

Yeah.

Honestly, this one to me feels like Square Enix.

People went to GDC.

Google was there and they made this deal a couple of weeks ago and now it's happening.

I don't know.

I forget if we brought it up Grubb, but there was so much fucking AI stuff and i definitely mentioned that that google ai, like make a game with ai thing was jam-packed.

It was filled to the brim with developers there.

So yay, this is a it's, it's uh, it's dumb.

I hope that like that, like i hope that they just make a better game instead of just saying hey, talk to a chap out when you want to learn how to play our game.

That's a dumb idea, i think.

What do you need to like parse out in a Dragon Quest game?

So, Dragon Quest 7 is the MMO.

That's the MMO one.

Oh, that's the MMO.

Mm-hmm.

So like yeah, like there's usually a lot of things in these games but I don't Like you kind of.

You can explain how that works inside of your game?

You can have tool tips.

You can have a good UI.

This game's old.

They have all that.

Yeah.

Yeah, and this game's old.

Exactly.

I think it's getting its last major update soon.

Oh, really?

Like, the last significant one.

I think I saw that was announced maybe, or you know, what we used to do back in the day is we would ask the other people we were playing the game with, because it's an MMO.

I would be like hey friend, how do I turn off this thing?

And then they would tell me, and then I would do it.

I don't want to ask a fucking slimy or whatever his name is and probably have him tell me the wrong thing anyways.

Well, maybe you can get Chatty Slimy to help you make some placeholder art for Crimson Desert, like those developers did.

They apologized for, quote, accidental inclusion of AI art, and they promised a comprehensive audit.

Basically, Pearl Abyss left in some AI artwork that was very obvious.

It looked like old AI artwork because there was a horse with too many legs, stuff that just doesn't happen in this stuff anymore.

Yeah.

Um, but then they came out and were like, Oh snap.

Yeah.

We didn't mean to do that.

It was just placeholder, which no one really believes.

Um, we all, we all know.

I mean, it was easy.

Yeah.

I mean I'm willing to like, I'm willing to give them a little bit of some good faith and be like okay, you forgot to take it out.

But this is why your temp art should just be a fuchsia and lime green checker box, so that it's obvious.

It's the temporary thing.

That's why I don't believe him, because it's like if you intend to take something out, you've got to make it obvious, because hundreds of people work on a game, right?

You've got to make it obvious to anyone who picks it up in a second that hey, this needs to be filled in eventually.

So we don't forget.

It seems like bad practice.

Sandfall had this same pitfall, and it's, again, Expedition 33 did the exact same thing.

Larian was very excited about this possibility of doing this until everyone's like, don't.

We don't want this.

I don't understand this obsession that somehow this is a big time saver or is going to make the pre-production of a game easier putting in the AI slop.

Because yeah, like you said Jeff, it was weird how early AI slop it was um, but if it's better, that's bad, because then it's really going to just stay in there.

It's going to be in there right, and then, you know, it puts me in the position again with this game.

We're not like everything.

I'm not like even the music right, which like maybe sounds good, but then i'm like sounds kind of generic.

Is the music in this game ai?

What is ai?

Is that ai?

Is this ai?

It's a hell.

Yes, it sucks.

Everything is a question mark now and it's uh, it's no way to live And I can't have Mikey experiencing that.

I don't want to.

I don't want Mike to live like that.

Minecraft Dungeons is getting a sequel this year, and it's coming to PS5 and Switch 2.

Mojang and Microsoft have announced Minecraft Dungeons 2, a full sequel to the game.

They could do new settings and stuff like that, but it's mostly going to play like the first one, which was, as a reminder, a Diablo-like.

It was an adventure RPG or action RPG.

Did that do well?

Apparently it did.

Of the spinoffs.

Apparently this is the one that did.

I don't know if it's extraordinarily well, but it did well.

And then its fan base seemed to really, really like it.

So I think they're kind of trying to play to them again.

And it's like, oh, I'm excited about this.

I know I forgot to play this with my kids now that they're into Minecraft.

So go play that first one and see if they're into it.

Maybe get this one as well.

And I bet it wasn't a huge investment to have to make it and making a sequel presumably be even easier now.

So yeah, go ahead.

Make a second one.

Yep.

And then Witcher 4 and new IP at CD Projekt get fresh updates.

Basically, they're just kind of saying they're a publicly traded company in Poland.

They have to give updates to their investors about what's going on, how many employees they have, who's working on what.

It's pretty transparent.

Cyberpunk 2 has 149 people working on it, but there's almost, I think, 400 or 450, maybe almost 500 people working on Witcher 4.

Yeah, it's almost 500 people working on Witcher 4, which is their next big game.

That's half of Epic Games' layoff.

Yeah, right.

Jesus.

So Witcher 4 coming along pretty fast.

They are super invested and they've hired up recently where I think they've added like 50 people or something like that.

And then they have a new IP codenamed Hadar, which has 26 people sort of kind of chipping away at that.

Well so uh yeah, things happening over at cd project red, they definitely kind of pulled out of the nosedive that was the launch of cyberpunk, completely turned things around.

Now they seem to be set up for the future.

You know, once they shed stuff like that um, we're going to do a multiplayer cyberpunk game or whatever, and they're not doing any of that stuff anymore.

Instead it's let's focus on witcher, let's get into what cyberpunk set up, and then we'll try one other new thing.

That's kind of where they're at.

Yeah, i'm curious to see what the new thing is.

You know, because they have fantasy, they have sci-fi.

So, you know, i hope we see something like a bit more interesting or offbeat.

You know uh, we've done the two video game genres now, although you could do more sci-fi than just the cyberpunk thing.

So i hope it's not just, you know, like when night dog, like here's our big new ip sci-fi.

All right great, fantastic.

Well, we're doing a brand new IP Spaceship Sci-Fi.

I swear to God, this is just Spaceship Sci-Fi is their new IP.

I'm going to lose my mind a bit.

I agree.

It's coming.

There was one other thing.

Yeah, Red Storm, Ubisoft Studio.

I think there was rumors they were closing down.

Yeah, they have officially like I don't know if it's official, but more reporting that they are not working on anything.

They were helping out on a bunch of stuff, including Siege and Brawlhalla and Beyond Good and Evil 2.

They have shut down almost entirely, and...

Sounds like more than 100 jobs will be lost.

So cool things still happening over at Ubisoft.

Someone in chat is saying PlayStation is shutting down Dark Outlaw Games, the Jason Blundell studio.

I'm not familiar.

I guess I remember Jason Blundell starting up something.

I don't remember what it was going to do, though.

Interesting.

Okay.

Dark Outlaw games is a new first party PlayStation.

Did they ever publish anything even?

I don't think, yeah, it was announced in March of last year.

Um, and it was, you know, Jason Blendel was the call of duty zombies guy.

So um, that's weird weird weird weird weird, weird.

I man, how is fair games still not like?

I mean fair being put out of its misery?

Fair games and beyond, good and evil tomb right yeah, zombie games that, just you know, stumble through the night.

It's weird.

Uh jan, that does it for the news.

I'm handing this show back over to you.

Thank you, folks.

Uh, we're gonna go take a quick bricky break and be back with emails and youtube super chats right after this.

These are the emails for the show emails shine bomb or uh send.

Send emails to us at bombcast, shine bombcom.

Uh, send it.

Or you can write in about any and everything.

We appreciate it.

And, as i've been saying for the last what, you know, what a couple months been getting a lot of emails in the inbox that we can't nearly read everything.

So I appreciate all of them.

If someone says a very nice thing, I try and pass that along to the crew.

We have so many emails that we don't get to all of them, even the ones that I've highlighted here in this doc.

Once again, bombcastjohnbomb.com.

If you need a recommendation about anything, you want to ask us about anything, send an email in.

All right.

First email comes from Matt from Essex, Connecticut.

What's up, dudes?

Recently, Grub has made several references to Dusty Baker creating the high five.

Well, this is generally believed to be true.

The history of the high five is actually more nuanced than that.

I'd like to shed some light on it.

All right.

Not quite a correction, but let's learn.

There are reports that the high five was a popular greeting amongst American GIs in post-World War II Japan.

Although it should be noted here that there are only anecdotal reports of this, it's hard to substantiate.

The high five gesture can be seen in Jean-Luc Godard's movie Breathless, where two characters high five each other in one screen.

The low five, or give me some skin, was a popular greeting amongst African-Americans, dating back to the 1920s.

Given Burks' involvement in sports, it's hard to imagine he was not aware of that gesture.

Or Dusty Baker, I think they meant to say.

I also want to call out the man Baker gave his high fives to, Glenn Burke.

Burke was a gay man playing baseball in the 1970s.

He wasn't out, but he didn't hide it.

The hate he received from this led to his early retirement from baseball in 1980.

He suffered from health problems and eventually died from complications from AIDS in 1995.

Just want to shed some light on the cool history of the high five and the often overlooked Glenn Burke Matt from Essex, Connecticut.

I appreciate that.

I mean, sounds like a bunch of cool people doing cool stuff.

That's what I like.

That's a good high five.

I'm going to high five you this weekend.

I can't wait.

It's coming.

I can't wait.

Last time we did it, we caused an explosion.

That is true.

And then we died, I think.

Yeah, we're not actually here.

We're dead.

Yeah.

Damn.

Ghosts are real.

Ah, ghosts!

Another Matt writes in.

Hey, gang.

I've been fortunate enough in my life to live in two of the best areas in the country for consuming hot dogs.

That would be New Jersey and Chicago.

Growing up in New Jersey, we had good old Nathan's.

I would get them spicy brown mustard and sauerkraut.

And for everyone in Jersey who really knows, there's Rutt's Hut in Clifton, home of the Ripper.

It's a deep fried hot dog that bursts open when cooked.

Thus, its signature name, the Ripper.

Yeah, I've been there to you from your family 30 years before you're supposed to die.

I have been there and it was awesome.

I remember that, yeah.

Hell yeah.

And they have their own homemade signature relish, which is unlike anything you've ever had.

Then living in Chicago, we have the world famous Chicago dog.

Yes, all those toppings are necessary and the relish must be neon green.

While I could never pick a favorite, I would pose this question to you.

What's your favorite style of hot dog?

And if you had to pick a side to go with a dog, what you picking and why is it a knish?

Fuck ice, Matt.

Costco style, nothing on it.

I'm the same.

Nothing.

Dang.

Not a damn thing.

I just like a baseball park hot dog, steamed ones, really soft, soft bun.

And I just get the Cleveland has a kind of spicy brown mustard that we use here.

That's all I want on it.

It's just that spicy brown mustard.

That's it.

That's perfection to me.

At a ballpark.

You buy the extra cheese that comes with the nachos, the extra little pouch, and then you dip the hot dog just full.

It really fits in there.

It's good.

Give me a Coney Island hot dog when I'm in Michigan, which kind of looks like a standard hot dog.

It has some chili on there, some onions.

Skyline chili dog is also very good.

Chicago dogs are good.

A foot-long chili dog from Sonic is really good.

There's a lot of good hot dogs.

I don't know what I get for a side.

I think the side I would want for my hot dog is another hot dog, honestly.

Is that a side or a clone?

Give me the sauerkraut on it and on the side.

Sauerkraut's great with a hot dog.

I would never get plain Lay's chips, but that's what I would want, I think, is with my hot dog.

Just plain Lay's.

You guys are about to see each other in Boston and I think you all, in the various times you've known me, have seen me grow a lot in terms of food items and things like that.

If any of you confront me with sauerkraut in Boston, I will try it.

Okay.

And that's one of us, right?

That's not like anyone watching a panel.

Some rando can't show up on a show floor with a handful of sauerkraut.

No, it's got to be vetted sauerkraut, of course.

You fellas.

I have sauerkraut trauma.

Dan, you had sauerkraut in Germany with us.

I did?

Yes.

Oh, that's right.

Yeah.

At the restaurant with the pork knuckle.

Did I like it?

Oh, the one with the weird waiter?

Oh, yeah.

That weird was really weird.

Wait, did I like it?

Yes.

I think you liked it.

Yeah.

Oh.

Well, then, yeah, confront me with it still.

You had mustard too, remember, big dog?

No, no, no, no.

And I am pro mustard.

I had mustard in New Orleans on a fried bologna sandwich.

Oh, hell yeah.

And it was good.

Cool.

I'm fine with mustard.

I still just like, like when I get a quarter pounder.

When I got Shake Shack at the airport yesterday, I just get it plain.

I just, I really do like meat and cheese.

There's a simplicity to it.

If it has ketchup mustard on it, sure, I'm not going to balk at it, but I do like it plain.

I wouldn't want you balking.

I mean, I won't throw it away like I would at any point in the first 41 years of my life.

I got a question.

Are we counting sausages as hot dogs?

Yeah.

It's got to be in a bun.

Oh.

Yeah.

I had a chicken sausage the other day.

If it was a knife and fork situation, it doesn't count. well, nevermind.

I mean.

So I think what we're saying is should account for our hot dog count in our discord.

Is what you're asking.

I think, for everything should it okay should it count in life and should it count all right i'm gonna i'm gonna make a poll so we'll just get chat i don't think i appreciate it and don't you know i know it's my birthday you don't have to fucking pander just just be honest good attempt at that poll there yeah yeah it should should have worked i did everything right i don't know i did everything right i did everything right yeah All right, gang.

James writes in asking about something that I feel like we could all attest to.

What up, Bombers?

How do y'all deal with burnout playing games?

I've been playing games for 30 years since I was like four.

More and more these days.

I sit and can't find anything I feel like playing these days.

What does the team here do to get over these days?

Love y'all.

Kisses on the cheek.

James.

On the rare occurrence that there's not new stuff out that I'm actively playing.

I think that's a great time to just be like.

You know what.

I'm going to start going through that Castlevania Dominus collection or I'm going to go back to an old favorite.

Shit, I haven't played Ocarina in a while.

I love retro games and they are perfect for when you don't have a new thing you're actively working on.

I think this is, I can sympathize, I can relate, James.

I also am going through it a little bit with Dib, where he's where, like this kid plays so much Minecraft and Fortnite.

And I'm like, you gotta do, you gotta play something else every now and then.

Right.

And he was sick over the weekend.

And, um, I, uh, I was like, oh dude, you never played Ratchet and Clank, uh, Rift Apart.

This kid fucking tore through it in two days.

It's an awesome game.

It is underrated.

That's just another Ratchet and Clank.

It's a four star.

I think it's four and a half.

You can't just throw out five stars no no, what are we?

We're not animals.

I think, like um, you know he walked.

It came out in 2021, which i thought, which i was just sort of like oh, is this possible?

Yeah, oh god, that's uh.

And he just like it, like broke his brain.

He was just like, how is this so good?

How is this so good?

Everything I'm looking at is amazing.

You know, it's like, because you're looking at Minecraft all day, butthead.

Like, what do you think?

Right?

It is like, I mean, I get it.

I get why they stick with these forever games, but God, I wish I could shake them loose a little bit.

I mean, he played through Odyssey.

He's like he's he's up for it.

I think he just needs to be like distracted enough, you know, and then it got me think.

I'm sorry, Jane.

Go for it.

Well, I'm curious because I'm always curious with younger gamers and gimmicks and everything.

Yeah.

How they feel about like 2D games or does that like rank lower for them for some reason?

I think it's hit or miss.

He loves Geometry Dash, which is one of the most popular mobile games around.

And quite honestly, there's a community that makes custom levels for that game.

And there's this one level called Abduction.

And it is wildly impressive.

I want to play that on the site.

We should do a stream where we play some of these mobile games.

I mean, and he's filthy.

He plays stuff that I'm just like, oh, how are you not flopping around on the floor?

There's one, it's called Abduction.

It was made by some creator.

It's striking and unbelievable to the point where it's like, how did one person do this?

It's amazing.

Um, I don't know, you know, he also came across anime titties in one of them.

So like, Oh, you know, this is how it starts.

I told you guys that story, right?

Yeah.

So, you know, that was a interesting weekend, but, um, yeah.

Uh I, but I think it's like uh, distracting him from so Oh so, to answer your question, so geometry dash is definitely a 2d thing.

Um, he liked wonder, uh, um yeah he's not against it he's not above it i i don't think he's look anyone under 20 i don't think puts stuff into genres and is like well i only play this i i think they're just like is that you know what i mean i don't think there's that kind of like uh compartmentalization that maybe we do as we are so kind of yeah and everything i just don't think they're like oh a bit not for me you know like mm-hmm yeah i think i was surprised my kids have mostly been like no no that's just another video game uh then you know that they're not like blown away by super mario brothers 3 the way i still am of course but um they play plenty of 2d games you know addy's one of addy's favorite games is that piku niku game which is the 2d exploration game stuff like that yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna give him uh this sleepy person game i think that's got uh interest uh maybe peak frame a little bit there um But yeah, I don't know.

You know, I do struggle with it.

I do.

So I'm always trying to find like the like Astro Bot is like the peak, right?

Sure.

Yeah.

He still plays that every now and then, where he's just like man.

This is so Ratchet and Clank did it for him, for sure.

He just blew through it in two days.

I wonder what he would think if I played it too.

I wonder what he would think of Demon Tides, that new indie 3D platformer.

It's really good.

It's good.

I know you don't like probably the art style and the characters in that one, Dan, right?

But it plays so good.

He's probably two years away from me letting him just blow through all the Uncharted.

Sure.

That's going to be fun.

You better have your ludonarrative dissonance conversation ready to go.

I know it looks like he's killing a lot of people on screen, but... It's just paintball, right?

It's just a paintball game.

Lovely murder, just like, you know, the fun murder.

Simply lovely.

Has Dib checked out Psychonauts at all?

Oh, Psychonauts 2.

He did.

He watched me play... 2's great, yeah.

He watched me play most of that game, but I don't know...

You know yeah, that would be an interesting like I would really have to force him to stick with it for a little bit, you know.

Right, right.

More narrative happening there.

Yeah, there's a lot more going on.

I think that, you know, I think maybe a couple more years.

Yeah.

Well.

Yeah, but we'll see.

Anyway, to answer, let's see, whose email is this?

James.

Go check out a game that you used to really like or, I don't know, the back catalog of stuff is insane, right?

Yeah.

Take the time back and be like, okay, I'm not into games right in this moment.

Now I'll go read a book.

I've been putting this book off for forever.

Go do that.

And then, once you get halfway through the book and realize you hate reading, you'll be like oh, it's time to go back to video games.

Maybe you'll remember you don't know how to read.

And then like, oh, games.

I can press a button.

All right.

Kyle from Scotland writes in.

Hey, guys.

I've never played a Castlevania or Metroid game before.

As leading world experts.

Where would you all start with both series?

Thanks, Kyle from Scotland.

Symphony of the Night and Metroid Prime 1.

Oh.

Yeah.

Or Super Metroid.

I mean, Zero Mission?

One remastered is pretty good.

Maybe Zero Mission?

Zero Mission's great.

Zero Mission is good and it's like it's a bit more.

It guides the player a bit more, so it's good starting there.

It's on NSO.

The thing with Symphony of the Night is that it's not easy to play that everywhere right now.

Unless you want to get into, you know, other things.

Like, there's that, they made that one collection for PlayStation.

Right, with Rondo.

Yeah.

Yeah, it still baffles me you can't play Symphony of the Night on Steam or Switch right now.

But if not that one, you could get that advanced collection and play Arya of Sorrow first, and that'll still do you really well.

Yeah, a lot of the advanced ones are up there.

Symphony is my favorite, but that Dominus Collection and the Advanced Collection, all six of those.

I played through those recently and it's like these are right up there.

They're all good.

They're all good, for sure.

Yeah, I think Symphony would be the one there.

If not, that may be Aria.

Metroid, you have some options.

If you want to do 2D...

Yeah, I think Zero Mission is a good place to start, or Super Metroid.

If you want to do the newest one, you could do Dread, and that works.

You could just do Dread.

Yeah, just get Dread.

Go for that.

It's very slick.

Fantastic.

All right, last email here.

We got a little quiz.

This is specifically a quiz for Dan.

I guess you guys can chime in.

Hey, I put together a little name quiz for Dan.

You know, a man who clearly has this whole last name thing figured out now.

Smiley face emoji.

Rules are simple.

Guess the country from the last name.

Oh, God.

Okay.

All right.

We'll just rapid fire through these, Dan.

There's 10 of these.

Okay.

O'Connor.

Ireland.

Yes.

Kim.

Korea.

Yes.

Which one?

East.

You know, I think this is a better answer.

Mueller.

Like Robert Mueller?

And with an umlaut, the two dots above the U. Oh, Germany.

That's cheating.

I mean, okay.

Three for three so far, Dan.

Kowalski, or the phonetics here, Kowalski.

Poland?

Yes!

Honestly, Dan, we are peeking behind the curtain, okay?

I'm like, he does know these things.

He just won't activate his brain when it happens?

No, no, no.

When it's a game show.

He just wrote this to Italians.

I told you my goal this year is to get on a game show.

I need to stay sharp with this stuff.

There we go.

Once it's a game show, all right.

Yes.

Ivanova.

Spell it.

I-V-A?

Use it in a sentence.

N-O-V-A.

Iva Nova.

The vowel thing.

I'm going to go with Italy.

Russia.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's wrong all the time.

To be clear, not even close to sounding like an Italian surname.

It's got a vowel.

The last letter's a vowel.

It's got to be Italian.

It's not an absolute rule, but the Russian names sound Russian and that was obviously a Russian name.

I don't know what Russian last names are.

Yeah, but, like, for me, a Russian last name always has the off in it.

Back when it happened, the vowels, it's a good chance to tell.

You're like, all the time?

And we said, no.

It was just bad advice.

You steered me wrong.

That's why I had a perfect record going here.

First name Vladimir.

What could it be?

There was only a last name here.

I know.

Okay.

Continuing on.

Nakajima.

Japanese.

Yes.

Papadopoulos.

Oh, wait, wait.

That was a vowel.

Italian.

You're the one who took that rule and ran to the moon with it.

Jesus Christ.

I trust my friends.

Papadopoulos.

Greek.

Yes.

Wow.

Virtanen.

Oh, oh, oh.

These last three I wouldn't be able to do.

That sounds like Nordic.

Denmark.

Finland.

Ah, close.

Okay.

I'll give him points.

That's better than I thought he'd do.

Popescu.

I wouldn't know this, Dan.

Well, that's the vowels.

It's got to be Italian.

Popescu.

Austria.

Romania.

Okay.

Last one here.

Jan's daughter.

Nordic is Finland.

Iceland.

Okay.

I've been to Iceland.

Okay.

There we go.

All right.

Very good Dan, very good or close, except for that italy.

One man.

You just, you just heard i think he just he took it in a way that was like italian blind.

Yeah, i think he just doesn't see sauce.

Where's my wife?

I'm married into an extremely italian.

They're so italian, worked closely with viddy caravella for so long.

Nor the italian family.

I go over there frequently.

Yeah that's, that's the most you know.

We're here glazing you like oh, you're not, as you know, brain dead, as we thought, and then you just walk it back.

I have a quick game show as well, real quick.

You guys can work together on this.

I posted an image into all the stars are here in our Discord.

I'm going to describe it for the audio listeners while you guys look at it.

There is a lady with cut off sleeves.

This is an ad from a magazine, and I want you guys to tell me what the ad is for.

Oh, you posted about this.

Yes, it's a lady.

This is a slightly different one.

It's a lady in a magazine.

She's got a cut off sort of leather thing.

She looks like, you know, maybe Mad Max.

Her hair is all like blowing back and she's looking down on the ground at something.

And the background is kind of a yellowish, deserty, cloudy background.

I feel like I've seen a million times.

Yeah.

Okay.

Mike, you're asking, is it a video game?

Yeah.

Okay.

It's for hardware.

Okay.

What?

I think this is a late Game Gear ad.

Okay.

Any other guesses?

All right.

Any other guesses from Jerf or Jan?

I was going to say Balls Grana.

Wait, it's for hardware?

Yeah, for a piece of hardware.

Yes, hardware is probably the best way to put it.

It is now up on the screen for people watching the pod.

It says a wasteland when suddenly my... This is like that Yoshi's Island fake ad.

Are you fucking stupid?

Is it like a... What was that handheld game?

Game.com?

The N-Gage?

N-Gage?

Is it the N-Gage?

You guys are all on a pretty... It's the Atari Lynx.

No, it's Virtual Boy.

It's Virtual Boy.

What?

Hell yeah.

Nice.

Oh, my God.

What the hell?

Can you guys see it all right?

Can you see it all right?

The glare is hitting it a little.

I'll take a picture of it and I'll post it.

I do think my favorite just aesthetic tone everything is like mid to late 90s EGM ads.

Every time I work with an artist, and they're like, what are you going for?

I just am like, I send them an issue of game players in EGM, like, make it look like this.

Yeah.

I just want everything to still be like that.

I was gonna say this is like a, a turtle beach sound card yeah, yeah.

Or or one of those like magnifying lenses over a game boy, the game boy, the big ass.

Yeah, i can't believe it was a virtual boy.

That makes no sense.

Oh, it didn't make sense man, y'all remember what were they called?

Like earthworm lights, like the little squiggly ones got a couple of them.

Yeah oh, those are so cool.

Uh anyways, happening.

That does it for emails bombcastgiantbombcom.

Thank you to everyone for sending your emails in.

Apologies if we don't get to them.

There is no favoritism happening.

I promise you.

Imagine living in a wasteland and you come across a virtual boy like, so what?

I haven't had water in two months.

It's not going to work.

I tell you what, I would still be pretty excited.

A virtual boy here of all places.

Cool.

I could just plug it in.

You could use it as like a cool, like visor.

And maybe that's your new wasteland names.

Like, Oh, that's all the batteries that are left on earth.

Yeah.

It also looks like virtual boy now.

It looks like this person was wearing sort of like a Mortal Kombat outfit.

Yeah, he's got that.

That was my sub-zero thing.

Yeah, I see what you mean.

He's like sub-zero mixed with the kid from Mad Max 2.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

You know what?

Good thing magazines are dead, right?

No, I'm kidding.

I'm kidding.

Folks at home.

The show's not done yet because Mr Minotti hit me with some YouTube super chats, if we have any.

We do have some from Randomly Rossi.

Mikey is the only one doing launch looks anyways.

Why does anyone else even get a say?

Look, these aren't my words.

I agree.

Vested interest.

I think we're a team, but we should come to decisions together is what I think.

Yes.

My big worry now is that Dan's going to think less.

Dan's going to think that I'm, like, unleashing my army to get my way with launch looks now.

No, no, no.

People demand it.

It's a group thing.

I support you, Mike.

Look, launch-a-thon didn't take.

That's all I know.

I don't love launch-a-thon either.

Between the two, I don't know.

They're both pretty rough.

I don't think we need the word launch.

I think we move away from launch.

Whoa.

Release.

There's new.

There's other words we can play with.

Oh, okay.

Let's see what else we can cook with the next time.

Release.

What's like the next game that this might happen for?

Pragmata?

I mean, I can't.

Pragmata, maybe.

Pragmata soon, yeah.

Yeah, we'll see.

Slane McAustin says, only 259 days until Mike Minotti's birthday.

Happy early birthday, buddy.

Thank you, Slane.

I thought it was weird.

Nobody said it yet.

Son of a bitch.

Tickwid said, actual happy birthday, jerf, also 44.

Oh, nice.

Is that this person's birthday as well?

Cool.

Let's see some 44s in chat again, everybody.

Pub 44.

Antonio Morales says, when Gunpla stream, I'll send some if I have to.

This is like the Gundams model kits, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

What were we doing recently?

Oh, the keyboard stream.

And then people thought, oh, I would also watch a Gunpla building stream.

Oh, okay.

Why not both?

Yeah, just rec says.

I can't believe people are shocked.

This game is average at best.

We're talking about crimson desert.

You can see from trailers it had no solar sauce.

Looks like it was made in a lab.

Uh Yeah, I mean.

Again, I want to give some benefit of the doubt.

I'm sure people were passionate and were trying to do good work.

And look, some people like it, right?

Sure.

And hey, it has sold well.

I'll give it that somehow.

The marketing team, whatever they did, that was an excellent job.

Everybody knew about this game.

You know what?

For the marketing side.

I like that they're also rolling with all the 7 out of 10s on their ad campaigns.

On top of the 9 and the 8s.

Miggsy says, is Jeff Bacalar the gloomy boy of games media?

Would you like that?

He's kind of into it.

He's like...

Okay.

I mean, it's fair.

It's fair.

Let's practice.

Okay.

As always, Jeff Grab, Dan Reichert, and the gloomy boy.

Oh, it's a cloudy day for the skipper.

It just feels normal.

Is that normal?

Feels right, like putting on a pair of jeans that have been broken in real life.

Okay, okay.

Chief Eeyore Officer.

Chief Eeyore Officer, that's pretty good.

Let's not press our luck here.

I like it.

Migsysback says, Jeff Grubb, will Commander Keen ever make a return?

They announced that they canceled that mobile Commander Keen game and that's the last we've heard of that.

Yeah, there was some mobile ports of Commander Keen games.

I remember checking those out after reading the Doom book, right?

Masters of Doom.

Right.

Yeah.

Commander Keen game.

But yeah, I don't know.

I don't think it'll ever come back.

Commander Keen game, see how that feels.

Commander Keen exists because yeah, the id people figure out how to do side scrolling on computer games and originally wanted to just make a Mario 3 port, but Nintendo said no, so then they made Commander Keen instead.

It's awesome.

And then Mixie says, was Mike looks not considered.

Look, I mean, there might not always be.

No, it's got to be a Pokemon game.

I'm looking for words that rhyme with released now and seeing what we can work with.

Released.

And my original point has always been, it doesn't need a name.

I've staked that out.

Brandon brother yeah brandon, on the site.

All you want guys, have fun, knock yourselves out.

I like brandon, you know me, i do like.

I do like.

Uh, chuck's wife's idea a new game.

Who dis?

Yeah, new game who?

This is fun.

That's better than any of the launch stuff.

Not bad, that's not.

Try that one.

Maybe we'll try that.

Would that be ngwd see?

No, i also want the acronym rhymes, but it rhymes.

Oh yeah, I don't mind that one bit.

We just call it Who Dis for short or something, yeah.

All right.

Any more super chats, Mr. Menotti?

That appears to be it.

Thank you so much, everybody.

Appreciate it.

Fantastic boys.

We got an interesting week ahead of us, but it is still packed with things.

Uh, nine lives of Mr. Mustafa fleas.

The newest episode releases after the podcast today, episode four grub.

Surely you remember what's happening now.

All right.

Uh, JMS morning's popping off Wednesday and Thursday, not Friday.

Wednesday and Thursday.

Uh, We're going to send our boy to space or he's going to still be there in space.

The space ace himself, Dan Rikers, Blightning Round game.

Right.

I was having a real nice weekend.

Glad you're back home, bud.

That was such a genuine cuss.

Yeah.

It's like stubbing your toe, Matt.

It's fucked up because it is somehow both Blight Club and this is the run.

Yep.

You know, it's like the moment of truth.

We get to see like, what do you remember?

Like how much can you stitch together week to week?

That's going to be a big point.

I think the platforming stuff I will get pretty quickly again.

Once I go back to those levels, I think I'll remember certain things from the space maze.

They're like all lefts, all rights.

But like I have, I did draw out a thing.

It took a while of going through the archive of our stream and drawing out where I've been so far.

So I've got some of that, but.

Hoo boy, that shit sucks.

Yeah, it doesn't look nice either.

Voicemail Dump Truck is moved to Wednesday this week folks, because some of us will be in transit on Thursday.

Voicemail Dump Truck on Wednesday, so get your calls in Thursday for our premium peeps out there.

We are releasing the test blight where Mr Minotti tested Space Ace in, I believe, another game correct.

The original game that we sent him a costume for and everything.

We were ready to go with it.

We pivoted.

We realized we could probably do better, so that's what we did.

And we will do better.

We promise you folks at home.

Folks, if you haven't checked out the last Titter released last Saturday, go check that out.

All time moments.

I got to say, I think this format of Titter being a game show, I really, really like.

It's fun.

I love it.

And there's other ones we can do with that, too.

I think we should try and get all five of us to do a family feud run.

I agree.

And then we should switch off doing the fast money round at the very end.

Hey, we already do some millionaire packs.

Yes, yes.

Speaking of PAX, folks, we are at PAX East this weekend.

Dan, Mike, and Grubb are going to be playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire with you, folks, at PAX.

We're going to be on the creator stage Friday, 3.45 p.m.

Eastern and Saturday, 11.30 a.m.

Eastern.

We got stuff to give away.

That's right.

If you are Irish and you have an Irish passport...

We will play the Irish edition of Who Wants to Be a Billionaire.

Only that, though.

Grub's checking, yeah.

I am.

I'm taking this very seriously.

We're going to have a great time.

But you know who potentially might not have a good time?

Our dear friend, the good boy of games media, vinnie caravela, because we are going to blight vinnie caravela saturday, albatross theater, 4 pm eastern.

You won't want to miss it, gang.

We were throwing some games around and then i just saw a couple screens of the ones we landed on.

I'm like I am okay going in blind on this, because this seems like some Vinny-ass horseshit.

It's good stuff.

Shouts out to Will for helping us uncover this one.

If it wasn't too late to change the name of the panel, I would have suggested The Blighting of Vinny Caravella.

Yeah, pretty good.

We make a poster.

Anyway, we'll be at PAX East.

Backlarge, does that code still work if folks are interested in going, or is that expired?

Oh, good question.

The code will still work, yes.

Okay.

So if you're a premium member and you're interested and still hemming and hawing over whether to go to PAX East, hop into the Behind the Scenes channel on the Giant Bomb Discord.

If you're a premium member and there should be something a little post up there to get you 15 off a PAX East ticket,

Borj, did I forget anything?

We got anything else popping off?

Seems right.

That's a lot.

Mm-hmm. all right all right uh who knows we'll get we might get a quick look in the can uh other recordings may drop uh the casso video will most definitely be up uh before pax east uh and i'm just gonna full-on send it bro and i'm gonna send it to the end of the show oh bro I'm just going to start talking like this and just have it like a little bit of a drawl.

And it sounds like I've chugged like three liquid deaths and the carbonation is killing my throat.

Folks, that does it for the end of the show.

We're going to send it.

Happy birthday to Jeff Bacalar, Jeff Grubb, our dear friend, Barry Kitsch.

Folks, we'll see you next week for another episode of the Giant Bobcast.

He's the Jeff.

And Jeff the Gloomy Boy.

And Mike Minotti.

Dan Reichert.

Dan Choa.

Thanks to Will.

Thanks to Sean.

Thanks to Chuck.

We'll see you on the other side.

We love you.

Goodbye.

[Giant Bombcast 933화: ‘Crimson Desert’의 실망스러운 첫인상과 게임업계의 어두운 단면]-[Giant Bombcast 933: 44]

📋 Summary

팟캐스트 요약: Giant Bombcast 933화

'Crimson Desert'에 대한 냉혹한 평가

게임업계의 고용 위기와 구조 조정

긍정적인 경험: 'Pocopia'와 'Mr. Sleepy Man'

맺음말

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

📖 Transcript

[Giant Bombcast 933화: ‘Crimson Desert’의 실망스러운 첫인상과 게임업계의 어두운 단면]-[Giant Bombcast 933: 44]

📋 Summary

팟캐스트 요약: Giant Bombcast 933화

'Crimson Desert'에 대한 냉혹한 평가

게임업계의 고용 위기와 구조 조정

긍정적인 경험: 'Pocopia'와 'Mr. Sleepy Man'

맺음말

ListenLeap으로 딥러닝 학습

🎯Key Sentences

📝Key Phrases

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