transcript

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 2:
[01:20] You know, he says it's special every week, but this one really is special.

Speaker 1:
[01:22] This one really is, it's extra special. Justin Davis is here.

Speaker 3:
[01:26] Scoop.

Speaker 1:
[01:26] And very special guest, returning to Game Scoop after I think 12 years, is the one and only Greg Miller.

Speaker 3:
[01:33] Scoop!

Speaker 4:
[01:34] What's up, Daemon?

Speaker 1:
[01:35] Greg, how the hell are you?

Speaker 4:
[01:37] I am excellent, it's so nice to be back on Game Scoop with all y'all.

Speaker 1:
[01:41] Well, there's a very good reason for Greg to be.

Speaker 2:
[01:42] He did the math 12 years.

Speaker 1:
[01:43] Yeah, I think so.

Speaker 4:
[01:45] It would have been December 2015? No, 2014? Right, yeah, December 2014 would have been my final episode.

Speaker 1:
[01:51] Yeah. Okay. There's a very good reason for Greg to be here. We'll get to in just a moment. We've got a great show for you this week. Lots of new games to talk about. Pragmata, Replaced and Mouse PI for Hire. But first, ladies and gentlemen, Scoop Nation, today, April 17th is my 20th anniversary here at IGN.

Speaker 4:
[02:09] Wow. Congratulations, Daemon.

Speaker 2:
[02:12] Aren't the confetti's not working?

Speaker 1:
[02:16] Yeah, April 17th, 2006 was my first day here. And here I remain. Here I remain.

Speaker 2:
[02:23] Did you fly out for an interview?

Speaker 1:
[02:25] Well, that's funny that you asked, Sam. Because if you'll indulge me, I wanted to take a look back. I want to take a look back at my time here at IGN and how games have changed, the industry has changed and how IGN has changed. And I wanted to invite Greg on to do some reminiscing, a walk down memory lane, if you will. So if you'll come with me, cast your mind, cast your minds back to early 2006. I know some of our listeners are probably still very young. Early 2006, 28 year old Daemon Hatfield is living in Chicago. Actually, let's go back even farther. Let's go back farther to a young Daemon Hatfield. Capital G, Capital G gamer for all my life. First kid in my school to have an NES when it was widely released in 1986. And then my extracurricular activities were theater. I was in all the plays and musicals in high school and I was in a band called Cool Guy Club Number Nine. We were pretty good.

Speaker 2:
[03:21] Hold on, what was your high school musical? Or what were the two of them?

Speaker 1:
[03:24] Well, we did South Pacific. We did Guys and Dolls. And we would have done one more. I can't remember what it was. Yeah, I can't remember what it was.

Speaker 5:
[03:32] I thought you were gonna say the music man and I was gonna be excited.

Speaker 2:
[03:35] Was it Cabaret?

Speaker 1:
[03:36] I don't know. It wasn't Cabaret. Anyway.

Speaker 4:
[03:38] The way to just derail it. I want to know more about who are you in Guys and Dolls?

Speaker 1:
[03:43] I was an extra in Guys and Dolls.

Speaker 2:
[03:44] Were you a guy or a doll?

Speaker 4:
[03:45] See, I was Harry the Horse. Come on now, I got a speaking role.

Speaker 1:
[03:47] Yeah, I don't think I had a names role in Guys and Dolls. That was my first musical in high school. Anyway, after high school, my friends and I all went to the University of Kansas. Great school, Greg's favorite school. He wanted to go there, but couldn't get in. So he went to Mizzou instead.

Speaker 2:
[04:03] You know what's funny is that my dad teaches at Mizzou and my mom taught at KU until she retired in December.

Speaker 1:
[04:10] Wow. There you go.

Speaker 2:
[04:11] So rival schools. Rival.

Speaker 4:
[04:14] They buried the hatchet to have you. It's amazing.

Speaker 5:
[04:18] They made a video game about it.

Speaker 1:
[04:19] They did make a video game. My favorite fighting game.

Speaker 2:
[04:21] Arch Rivals.

Speaker 1:
[04:24] My favorite fighting game to this day. Anyway, I graduated with two degrees from the University of Kansas, music and theater, not musical theater, music and theater. All my friends and I move up to Chicago after college and we start a theater company. We start a sketch comedy group and I start a band. And that's one of the best times of my life. A top three time in my life. First time living away from home really, living on my own in Chicago. Greg, he can confirm.

Speaker 2:
[04:51] Yeah, Greg, you lived in Chicago for a long time.

Speaker 4:
[04:52] Yeah, I was born and raised in the burbs out there. So Chicago was always us looking in from the burbs as young kids trying to get on the train to get down there.

Speaker 1:
[05:01] Great city. I've got all these creative outlets and I'm just working an office job during the day, whatever. But after a few years, people start moving away and it starts to seem like our time in Chicago might be winding down. And I start to think about what might be next for young Daemon Hatfield. And one day I'm reading my favorite website, ign.com, and they posted an article that they were hiring a news editor, looking for a news writer at IGN. And I sat there and I kind of stared into space for a little bit, just thinking like, I think I can do that. Like, I think I can. I have the knowledge. I am a capital G gamer. I've always been a strong writer. My dad made sure of that. He was the editor of a newspaper in Missouri, and he would give me extra writing assignments on top of my homework when I was a kid. So I was like, I think I can do this. So I applied. And then a couple weeks later, I got an email from Tal Blevins, who was EIC at the time, Editor-in-Chief of IGN saying he wanted to do an interview. And my first interview was with David Adams, who was the sole news writer at the time.

Speaker 2:
[06:07] I don't think I ever worked with Dave.

Speaker 1:
[06:09] I think no, I think he would have left because he left within a year of me signing on. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[06:15] I was going to say, yeah, you figure I show up in March 2007, Dave was already gone. I was going to hug out the block, but he was already gone.

Speaker 2:
[06:21] All right.

Speaker 1:
[06:21] Yeah. So David Adams did my first interview and we were fast friends. We hit it off right away. We have very similar senses of humor. So that interview went really well. So they set up a second interview over the phone, not in person. And the second one was with Tal and David. That also went well. And Tal offered me the job right there. I don't know this for sure, but I've always kind of felt that what pushed me over the edge was the fact that I was a musician and Tal always wanted to have an IGN band. Yeah, I think so. I think that's what pushed me over the edge.

Speaker 2:
[06:51] And specifically a drummer, because I think IGN had had enough guitarists and bass players by that point. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[06:56] And I can bang out a beat on a drum kit.

Speaker 2:
[06:59] I pair played keyboards, remember?

Speaker 1:
[07:01] Pairs, a keyboardist, yeah. And then there was just a hundred guitar players at IGN. Tal would eventually get an IGN band. Oh, good, good.

Speaker 2:
[07:10] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:10] Okay. This is old stuff. That's the real deal.

Speaker 2:
[07:12] Wait, but that's even in our second office.

Speaker 1:
[07:13] This is our second office. Yeah, this isn't even all the way back. Yeah. Tal would eventually get an IGN band, although I would not be part of it. I think it would be one Colin Moriarty on drums in the eventual IGN band.

Speaker 2:
[07:25] That's right.

Speaker 4:
[07:27] Trogdor? Was that right? I think it was Trogdor.

Speaker 2:
[07:29] That was a very Tal name.

Speaker 1:
[07:31] It was something. Yeah, it was something like that. Anyway, so there it is. It's April 2006 and I'm hired at IGN and I start.

Speaker 2:
[07:40] Did they say you have to move out within blank period of time?

Speaker 1:
[07:43] They didn't give me a time period, but I was, I wanted to. I always wanted to live in San Francisco for two reasons. Metallica and Faith No More.

Speaker 5:
[07:53] I mean, oh yeah.

Speaker 1:
[07:55] Two Bay Area bands.

Speaker 2:
[07:57] Did you just find roommates or did you know somebody out here?

Speaker 1:
[08:00] I never had a roommate in California, which I always felt pretty good about, but it's because I lived in the Tenderloin at first. Anyway.

Speaker 2:
[08:06] Oh, nice. That's awesome.

Speaker 4:
[08:09] That's one way of putting it.

Speaker 2:
[08:12] Did you know what you were getting yourself into? You're like, this is the cheapest place I could find.

Speaker 1:
[08:16] I know. Hold on. We'll get there. We'll get there. It's April and I'm going to move out, but I'm working from home in Chicago first. I'm a news and features editor for IGN. I'm working directly with David Adams. And then they also hired a second person, Kathleen Sanders at the time. She came from 1UP and she was only there for about six months. She went to Xbox. I'm not sure if she's still at Xbox or not. So and being a news writer at that time mostly meant rewriting press releases. That's what mostly we were doing. We would get a press release like Half Life 2 has gone gold from Valve. And then we would rewrite it to give it some personality and context and that sort of thing. That's mostly what we were doing. And then we were on the hook to do a top 10 feature. I think every Tuesday, we did a top 10 Tuesday. But there wasn't a lot of oversight. It was basically whatever we wanted to do.

Speaker 2:
[09:01] Top 10, you know, while you were doing that job, I was doing, I was the freelancer that took the press releases. And this is while you were doing this, because I remember you being the person writing the news. I was taking the press releases and just putting them up that we didn't write. So we would just publish those press releases. And we'd have to format them and take all the caps out when they're like, oh my god, this is the best new video game controller ever. And then I would put that up as a published article.

Speaker 4:
[09:31] It was everything that was coming to like Wired or wiredign.com, right?

Speaker 2:
[09:34] That was our news wire. Exactly that. It was wiredign.com and I got paid $500 a week for that.

Speaker 4:
[09:40] Wow.

Speaker 2:
[09:40] Wow.

Speaker 1:
[09:41] Well, not bad.

Speaker 2:
[09:42] That was out of college freelance gig that could last.

Speaker 5:
[09:45] That's legit.

Speaker 1:
[09:47] So I was like, I was learning the ropes, learning about our CMS, which was Network in a Box back at the time. I remember Network in a Box. Nibs. Yeah. So I was surprised. We talked a lot about...

Speaker 2:
[09:56] Get to publish every page individually.

Speaker 1:
[09:58] Yeah. We talked a lot about getting it up and putting it in the back end. I was surprised. So then in May, I fly out to do E3, my first E3 with IGN. And it's not my first E3 ever. I had, you know, not snuck into E3, but since my dad was the head of a newspaper, I could just make myself my own press credentials to go to E3. So I'd been in like 90, it was either 97 and 98 or 98 and 99. But now, I find myself working E3 officially for IGN. And when I show up in LA, that was the first time that I met the wider group. So that was the first time I met Pear, Matt Capsamassina, Mark Boson, Craig Harris, Jeremy Dunham, Chris Roper, Hillary Goldstein, even like the video team like Ty Root, Craig Baradon, Eric Hart. Like I'd met everyone. And I wanna stress that from the very first moment that I met everyone, everyone was super nice and welcoming. There was no one ever gave me a hard time or there was no like hazing period or anything like that. Everyone was just super nice and welcoming. I never had imposter syndrome. I just felt like I found my people and I was where I was meant to be. It was great.

Speaker 5:
[11:04] Yeah. I had a very similar experience when I was new. I'm like, oh boy, all these guys are gonna be really mean and intimidating. And then everyone was very nice.

Speaker 2:
[11:12] I thought people were busy and intimidating and not mean, but I never I didn't feel like it was a warm welcome. Everybody felt really stressed out when I started. That included Greg and Damon. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[11:23] You know, by the time you got there, Sam, it was a real business. We were cranking away. Yeah, I had a very similar one, too.

Speaker 1:
[11:30] So it's E3 2006. The 360 is out, but the Wii and the PS3 were not out yet. But this is when this is the big PS3 press conference where there's six hundred dollars. Ridge Racers.

Speaker 5:
[11:43] Five hundred and ninety nine US dollars and the whole the air in the room just went, everyone collectively got punched in the gut. Yeah, I was I was in the room for that, as I think I've shared before, they had very, very good food trucks.

Speaker 1:
[11:56] Yeah, they joked about gamers getting a second job to buy a PS3. Yeah, but I was able to play like I played Twilight Princess and Mario Galaxy at that at that E3. So it was a very exciting time. We worked it and then we all went out on Saturday night afterwards and then Sunday morning, I flew home with a top two hangover, I believe.

Speaker 2:
[12:15] Oh, wow. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1:
[12:17] Nothing's worse than flying with a hangover.

Speaker 2:
[12:20] First of all, having a top two hangover when you're that young is crazy. Yeah. Because my hangovers just get worse by the weekend.

Speaker 1:
[12:29] Well, you know, you learn how your limits as you get older.

Speaker 2:
[12:34] Yeah, 100 percent.

Speaker 4:
[12:35] Especially when you're showing up to that group. That group at that time and the way we all drank back then when we were starting. Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[12:42] I remember a lot of cigars being involved in the end of the E3 experience too. And a cigar hangover on a plane is about as bad as it gets.

Speaker 1:
[12:52] Okay. So now it's time to move to San Francisco. I flew out one weekend and just looked at places. And yes, I ended up getting a place in the Tenderloin, which is not the nice area of the city. But my apartment was great. It was a studio apartment. Once you were inside the apartment, it was very nice.

Speaker 2:
[13:08] Way above the street.

Speaker 5:
[13:09] Once you were inside the apartment.

Speaker 1:
[13:11] Yeah, no, outside the apartment.

Speaker 5:
[13:13] You go out the door and you take your life into your hands.

Speaker 1:
[13:17] It's yeah, it's not the nice area.

Speaker 2:
[13:18] It was also famous then for really good and really reasonable food, even though the streets were grimy. There was a lot of Vietnamese sandwiches and stuff there.

Speaker 1:
[13:30] Yeah, yeah, they have that. But I would mostly go and hang out in the Mission. That's where David Adams lives and we'd hang out there. But the Tenderloin is centrally located and it's easy to hop on the BART or Muni and get to other places. So I didn't mind. I was happy. I was working my dream job, living in my dream city, every morning getting on the BART to Balboa Park Station to get on the shuttle to go down to the IGN office, which was in Brisbane.

Speaker 2:
[13:52] That fucking shuttle, man. Every person on it was a journalist.

Speaker 1:
[13:56] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[13:57] And miserable. So mad to be on the shuttle that would break down and be late and everything would go wrong.

Speaker 2:
[14:02] Yeah, I remember one week looking around, everybody was playing Pagle on a DS and I was like, what is happening here?

Speaker 1:
[14:09] Yeah, everyone worked at IGN or they worked at, like, Future was there too, right?

Speaker 4:
[14:13] Yeah, GamesRadar was right next door, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[14:15] And Future was Nintendo Power at the time.

Speaker 1:
[14:18] Was it?

Speaker 2:
[14:20] Yeah, or at least Nintendo Power, whoever was publishing Nintendo Power was on that bus because they published so many magazines, it was crazy.

Speaker 1:
[14:26] Yeah, they had official Xbox magazine and a number of others. So I'm like, I'm like in it, I'm working in the office with the group and it's just like, back then it was so great, Greg, you can all attest to this, we're all in the office together, everyone's playing games with their desks, you can see what everyone's playing. I've got great memories of Greg playing Lair on PS3, Oh my God, I remember that.

Speaker 2:
[14:52] I have a piece of Lair swag from the office, it was a Zippo lighter with a Lair.

Speaker 4:
[14:57] Oh wow, very nice.

Speaker 1:
[14:58] It's a good one.

Speaker 2:
[14:59] It sucked.

Speaker 4:
[15:02] Thank you, Sam. Thanks for backing me up on that one.

Speaker 1:
[15:04] I want to say Greg gave it a six. I don't know. I have a list of Greg's reviews.

Speaker 4:
[15:08] I gave it 4.9.

Speaker 1:
[15:09] Oh my God.

Speaker 4:
[15:11] They were called Factor 5, so immediately the Photoshop went out of Factor 4.9.

Speaker 2:
[15:15] Yeah, and that was the end of Factor 5.

Speaker 4:
[15:18] That was, and they were very mad at me.

Speaker 2:
[15:20] Well, they should be mad at themselves.

Speaker 1:
[15:23] Yeah, they made the game. Anyway, my role-

Speaker 2:
[15:25] But it had a lot of tilty controls in this game.

Speaker 4:
[15:29] Oh, it was only six axis. That was our whole thing. It was the only way to find the dragon at launch, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[15:32] This looks pretty good now.

Speaker 1:
[15:34] I mean, it looks very Lord of the Rings-ish, right? Like, at a glance, I think this is the Lord of the Rings game.

Speaker 2:
[15:40] Yeah, that's funny. I don't remember that.

Speaker 1:
[15:42] Anyway, my role is still news and features editor, but there's opportunities to do other things, because back then, IGN reviewed every game. So Jeremy Dunham would be like, does anyone want to review the new Bubble Bobble on PSP? And I'd be like, yes, I do. I will review Bubble Bobble on PSP.

Speaker 2:
[15:58] This is before iPhone, so there wasn't that type of shovelware. There was only Game Boy Advance shovelware.

Speaker 1:
[16:04] Yes, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[16:05] PSP shovelware.

Speaker 1:
[16:06] Yeah, handheld video game shovelware for sure. And then I start going to events, because back then, before the Nintendo Directs and PlayStation States of Play, every publisher would have an event once or twice a year. They'd be at the Mezzanine, right? They'd be at the Mezzanine in San Francisco, Ubisoft would be there, and all of media would show up, and there'd be games to play, and you'd write previews. So a bunch of us would show up, and we'd be assigned games. We'd go play them. Usually, there'd be an embargo, so we didn't have to rush home to write it up right then. Play the games, and then we'd write up a preview to be published later on. But I'm also like, I start going to TGS every year for Tokyo Game Show, and there's other events. There's events in Palm Springs, in Vancouver, in Las Vegas. So I'm like, it's just crazy.

Speaker 2:
[16:48] It used to be destination preview events.

Speaker 4:
[16:51] Just tremendous waste of money.

Speaker 1:
[16:52] Yes. Yeah, that's true.

Speaker 2:
[16:54] And to extensively try to butter people up. Was the mezzanine the place that was kind of under the 101 entrance by the Salesforce building?

Speaker 1:
[17:02] Well, it's in, I don't know. No, it's not quite there. It's in SOMA. It's a dance club that's in SOMA. Everyone would have events there.

Speaker 4:
[17:11] I know you're talking about it. It's what became Ruby Sky, and now it's something different altogether.

Speaker 1:
[17:15] Oh, wow.

Speaker 2:
[17:16] Yeah, definitely deep SOMA.

Speaker 1:
[17:17] Yeah. But then, yeah, in, I guess it was, I was gonna say early 2007, but I guess it was March, a young, fresh young fellow named Greg Miller joined the team. I'm sorry. I still remember like, before you were there, Greg, there was a flyer hanging up with your face on it saying that you were looking for a roommate.

Speaker 2:
[17:34] What?

Speaker 4:
[17:35] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I could not find a place to live. And so in the last desperate attempt, I sent a flyer to Dunham to hang around the office. That was a photo of me screaming at the camera and it just said, I need shelter.

Speaker 2:
[17:49] Did you end up moving in with somebody from IGN?

Speaker 4:
[17:51] I did, yes. Luckily, you know, also tragically and luckily, Micah Seff, who is also working there on the news team with Daemon, his roommate had a mental breakdown and dragged all of his pornography into the street and set it on fire and his parents had to come pick him up. And that's the room I got for nine months when I first got there.

Speaker 1:
[18:12] Yeah, I remember, so after...

Speaker 2:
[18:14] No further questions. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:17] After David left, it was me and Micah working news, but he wasn't there super long either. In the summer of 2007, and I think it was actually the Monday after E3, we made two significant hires. It was two Ryans, Ryan Geddes and Ryan Clements. But I think for whatever reason, their first day was scheduled to be the Monday after E3, when no one was at the office. So they show up.

Speaker 4:
[18:39] And it's even crazier than that, cause Colin was there too. That was all of their first official full-time days. And Clements showed up in a full suit. And the people that were there were like, what are you doing?

Speaker 2:
[18:50] Dress for the job you want.

Speaker 4:
[18:51] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[18:52] Yeah. Yeah. They showed up and there was no one there to orient them or whatever. That was funny. But then it was Ryan Geddes and I on the news team. For a while until, you know, I remember back then we had channel teams and Greg was on the PlayStation team. We had an Xbox team, Nintendo team. But then they decided the teams would write their own news. So they put Ryan Geddes on the Xbox team and they just put me on the Nintendo team. So I was working with Casamacena and Boson and Craig Harris, which was fine, except at that time, I was just sick to death of the Wii's waggle controls and its ugly SD graphics, whatever. I was still into the Nintendo DS a lot. So I did that for a little bit, but then I moved into one of the roles that's still, to this day, one of the most gratifying roles that I've had here at IGN. That's when I was the downloadable games editor, because this is at a time when Xbox Live Arcade was blowing up, PlayStation Network, and even WiiWare.

Speaker 2:
[19:43] Summer of Arcade.

Speaker 1:
[19:44] WiiWare. So yeah, they wanted someone to have their beat be all these games that are coming to these downloadable services. And that was a really exciting time. All of a sudden, there was this whole new library of games from indie developers, who, you know, indie developers just hadn't been on consoles before that. And then also big publishers were able to take risks with, you know, smaller, just weird, different types of games. It's like, that was cool, but I also like...

Speaker 2:
[20:08] Like Peggle.

Speaker 1:
[20:09] Well, yeah, sure, like Peggle. You know, Braid, Bionic Commando, Rearmed. That's Capcom putting out...

Speaker 2:
[20:16] Both those were Summer of Arcade summer games.

Speaker 5:
[20:18] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[20:19] What was the Metroidvania from Epic?

Speaker 5:
[20:22] Shadow Complex.

Speaker 1:
[20:23] Shadow Complex, yeah. That sort of stuff.

Speaker 2:
[20:25] Well, there was a free Metroidvania that was an underwater game that you could play on the Xbox. Xbox made it free for some reason.

Speaker 1:
[20:32] Weird.

Speaker 2:
[20:33] And it was like the only free game. It was like a full-fledged underwater exploration.

Speaker 1:
[20:36] Cool. Metroidvania. Like, I made lots of good contacts with Indie Dose because I was like the point of contact at IGN to cover all these games. Remember Horde, Greg?

Speaker 2:
[20:47] Yes.

Speaker 1:
[20:47] That was a PlayStation never came.

Speaker 4:
[20:48] Of course, I'm a dragon. I gotta get all my gold. We loved Horde.

Speaker 1:
[20:50] It's so great. Anyway, that was a good time. We could do that for a few years and then it became... Well, as video became more and more important for IGN, they needed more people to be on camera and that just made sense for me to do. Considering my... I was already on camera a lot for IGN, very comfortable being on camera with my background in theater and all that. So that made sense for me to just become a host.

Speaker 2:
[21:12] And there wasn't a lot of video on camera, stuff being produced. There's a lot of gameplay being produced at the time, but IGN wasn't known for having a bunch of stick mics and sets and stuff like that for people to work in.

Speaker 1:
[21:23] Yeah, I mean, they started up the Daily Fix. When we moved, we moved offices from Brisbane into the city proper, into San Francisco, into Soma, which, by the way, we initially shared an office with MySpace, if everyone remembers, because Fox Interactive Media.

Speaker 2:
[21:40] We were owned by it.

Speaker 1:
[21:42] We were owned by Fox.

Speaker 2:
[21:43] By Fox.

Speaker 4:
[21:44] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[21:45] They bought IGN and MySpace at the same time. And so we ended up sharing an office with MySpace until, you know, MySpace became no longer relevant and moved out.

Speaker 4:
[21:53] When we first moved in and they had to send out an email of going, don't hoard the free snacks at your desk. They're free, just get them. And then they, that lasted another week and they're like, all right, fine, we're putting them in a machine. Thanks for nothing.

Speaker 2:
[22:04] Yeah. Yeah. When we first moved in there, the MySpace, like the downfall was weird too, because MySpace had refashioned itself as a streaming service, very briefly. So upstairs for many years until we moved fully in up there, there was like band posters everywhere.

Speaker 3:
[22:19] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[22:19] There was music.

Speaker 2:
[22:20] Really focused on that.

Speaker 5:
[22:21] Music focused, right? That's what you would find old ghosts. You'd be in some supply closet and find some weird pile of like, you know, MySpace mousepads and stuff like that every once in a while.

Speaker 1:
[22:31] I remember in the Brisbane office, there were some executives from Fox came down to just do like a talk or like a Q&A or something, and someone, I want to say it was actually Eric Hart, asked about Facebook, which was gaining popularity at that time, and then, you know, asking if they were like worried about, you know, Facebook, and they were very, the Fox execs were very dismissive of Facebook. They were just for college kids, whatever. Anyway, it's just funny because obviously MySpace is not relevant today.

Speaker 2:
[23:00] This is a great video we're looking at here for people listening. You should tune in to see some of these old videos, but this one has a bunch of people goofing around the office, and I just want to note that it's dark outside. It's just a weird vibe.

Speaker 4:
[23:12] Y'all, we lived in these offices. We were all living, I mean, this is, you know, again, the downtown SF office, so this is even later in Timeline, but like, I mean, you couldn't pry us out of the office, especially Brisbane, where it was, we had that awesome demo room in the Guitar Hero and rock band parties that would go on and on all night long and sing.

Speaker 1:
[23:32] If it's dark outside here, this could be like the Child's Play marathon. Are we here all night? We did that once.

Speaker 2:
[23:37] I know, it was just that in San Francisco, the sun goes down at like 445 once you get into December, because it's so far north. So I would walk home in dark darkness until the time changed. I just remember that being a thing.

Speaker 1:
[23:49] Yeah. So I've been in a host position for a long time now. They started the Daily Fix, which was created as a vehicle for Jessica Chobot. But when they started, we were shooting it in SF and she lived in LA and it took a while for her to move up to SF. So I hosted like the first hundred episodes of the Daily Fix and somehow I'm still hosting it today, which is crazy. But I remember Sam joining in the Brisbane office. Was that 2008, Sam? Do you think?

Speaker 2:
[24:20] Yeah, it was 2008 and you and Greg had done some episodes of Game Scoop by then and definitely had it. Because I was aware of the podcast by the time. I had listened to every episode, I think. I remember there's a bunch of in jokes, Thryne Geddes and stuff at that time. It was very news focused and inside joke focused.

Speaker 1:
[24:37] Yeah, he's made of lava. No, I can say, I can...

Speaker 2:
[24:41] And there was something called the Jeff Bell, was that from that podcast?

Speaker 1:
[24:44] That's from Xbox.

Speaker 4:
[24:45] Jeff Bell was Xbox, yeah, it was TRL.

Speaker 2:
[24:47] That was TRL.

Speaker 3:
[24:48] That's what I was calling the answer. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[24:52] Yeah, Game Scoop was, we started Game Scoop in June. So it's not quite Game Scoop's 20th anniversary yet. We can do that at IGN Live because that same first weekend in June, we can...

Speaker 2:
[25:01] That's fun.

Speaker 1:
[25:02] Yeah, we'll do, we'll celebrate Game Scoop's 20th anniversary at IGN Live.

Speaker 2:
[25:05] One thing that sucked about the Brisbane office is that it was around a central kitchen kind of corridor thing. And then it was cubicles and a big kind of square around that. So where you and Greg were was actually really far from where like Mark Ryan and Colin and Stephen Ng and I were. It was just like, it didn't feel like the same office in some respects. It was like the game help area was just really far away. Yeah. It felt strange. It's very different in the SOMA office where it's like you just peek up, you could see literally everybody you work with.

Speaker 4:
[25:32] Well, I mean, you're looking at the Brisbane offices here with how high these walls used to be. You didn't know what the hell was happening on either side. Because that's the thing is on the other side of that wall, where if you're watching right now is guides, that was originally Jason Allen. And then it was Nate Ahern and Mark Ryan was one over. And then obviously, but it was like, might as well been the moon for as high as these walls were.

Speaker 2:
[25:52] But since we had expanded, I remember they put in Brian Altano and Scott Bromley right next to us when they came in. So I was definitely sitting next to them.

Speaker 4:
[26:00] Yeah. Cause yeah, that was when you were down over there.

Speaker 1:
[26:02] But they weren't at IGN. They initially weren't with IGN. They were with Game Spy?

Speaker 4:
[26:07] Team Xbox? Oh, Game Spy, you're right. You're right. It was Game Spy.

Speaker 2:
[26:10] That was the Brian's, but Scott was with IGN.

Speaker 4:
[26:13] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[26:13] Okay. All right. And Greg, we're freezing here. Why? Because Ghostbusters game came out or something and you're-

Speaker 4:
[26:19] The Ghostbusters, yeah, the Ghostbusters, the video game had come out. And the bit was that, and I'd waited, you know, whatever it was, 18 years for a good Ghostbusters game. And I didn't know what another one would come. So you guys would freeze me for another one. And Daemon, I want you to know, I want you to know, we were this close to having an ad deal with one of the Ghostbusters VR games. And I pitched them unfreezing me. Yeah, we'll do that. And it just really gets put together.

Speaker 5:
[26:44] I wanted it to happen so bad.

Speaker 2:
[26:46] Brisbane recycled them.

Speaker 5:
[26:48] You have to go find that office.

Speaker 4:
[26:50] Dude, I've thought about it. I'd love to go through there. Even the old Soma office, when I go by and I see the Fur Elise sign, I'm like, what if I just faked it? I just want to walk through there again. What if I was like, we're looking for an office?

Speaker 2:
[27:00] Daemon, I don't know if you've seen this recently, that part of Brisbane is like a downtown city now. There's like, I don't know, what would you say, Greg? 25 new giant office buildings.

Speaker 4:
[27:09] There are so many office buildings over there, it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2:
[27:11] They're all like biotech. It was like three before, it was like Walmart, us, and Hitachi. And now it's like every biotech firm has a 20 story office building.

Speaker 4:
[27:19] I remember when they built the first one over there, you're like, that's a weird location in everything. Oh, okay, cool, you're ahead of the game.

Speaker 1:
[27:25] This is like a Game Scoop news break, the video that we're looking at here. We just do them whenever we felt like it. No one ever told me to do this. And Ty Root would shoot them and we would just have an idea. We'd say, hey, let's just shoot this video today. And we would just do it. Nobody told me to do it. Nobody told me not to do it. We were just doing what we wanted.

Speaker 4:
[27:45] I think that's the biggest thing to interrupt you on your trip down memory lane, Daemon, is that you're just not giving yourself enough credit for embracing the opportunities we were given.

Speaker 2:
[27:54] We're self-activating.

Speaker 4:
[27:56] Me and IGN, how did you break out? How did you become a personality of the site? And I was like, you don't understand. It was me and Daemon and we just wanted to do it. I remember when we got there and there's another video from I would say my first three months in the office that was Dave Clayman playing Pac-Man Championship Edition, me talking about reviewing one of the fantastic four video games, and Ty had shot it. And at the very end, Ty turns the camera and walks down the aisle and Pear walks at him and goes, oh, shooting the, putting the editors on camera, you know, novel idea, cause he had said that. And that was the thing where Daemon and I were tip of the sword where legitimately we were like, we want to be on camera and do stuff. And they were like, we don't really do that, but okay. And then it would be when we started finding success, I remember distinctly them saying, Craig Harris, can you come be on this? And he goes, no, I got hired to write. I don't want to be on camera. It was the old guard was so like, we write, we don't want to do this. Me and Daemon were like, we will do everything, anything. And that was where, you know, you self-starting and making Game Scoop what it was and inviting me into that and having that fan base that we would then go. I remember starting and there was a PAX where Andre Segers went and he came back and he was like, dude, they hate us there. They hate IGN. I had turned my badge around and I was like, oh, that's so weird. And I remember the first panel we went and did there, just standing room only audience. People were so excited. It was like, Daemon and I were like, whoa, like we have something here, but that's only because Daemon and since he was first doing it, and then me fought to be on camera and not even fought as much as just said, hey, can we do this? And nobody would stop you.

Speaker 2:
[29:34] They just go, yeah, sure, whatever.

Speaker 4:
[29:35] We don't see why that would work, but go for it.

Speaker 2:
[29:37] I replaced Andre Segers. That was the person who I backfilled.

Speaker 1:
[29:41] Which he went, did he do GameXplain?

Speaker 2:
[29:43] Yes, he went and founded GameXplain, which is still around.

Speaker 1:
[29:46] These videos that we're making, we're doing skits. We're doing little bits, which is totally my background. Everything worked out. I grew up doing theater and music, and I thought, well, I'd like to be an actor, or maybe I'll write music for games. But whatever. I just went on a different path, and I'm here. I perform every day. I get to be on camera and perform and just create things. It just worked out perfectly for me.

Speaker 4:
[30:11] Yeah. You weren't even at the right place, right time. You weren't even at the right trend of the industry. And I think a little bit ahead of it, right? Because it was us doing this in 1UP at the time, doing the 1UP show, where it was like, here's video content featuring personalities talking about video games.

Speaker 2:
[30:25] Is that the parking garage? Where is that?

Speaker 4:
[30:27] Yeah, that's the parking garage. I was threatened to throw myself off.

Speaker 2:
[30:29] Remember, there's all those stray cats living in there. You know, that Ghostbusters game was pretty good.

Speaker 4:
[30:36] It was. It was. 8.0 ign.com.

Speaker 5:
[30:38] Yeah. Good game. I liked it a lot.

Speaker 1:
[30:41] Sam, you mentioned all the inside jokes in Game Scoop. That was by design from the beginning. My inspiration and hosting style is lifted directly from the Colbert rapport. Like, it's recurring segments and inside jokes that makes the audience feel like they're like, you know, the part of something. They're in on some kind of secret. That's all by design. And Justin, I remember when you arrived at IGN, you replaced Levi Buchanan.

Speaker 2:
[31:08] I did.

Speaker 1:
[31:09] Levi never worked in our office. He always lived in Portland, but Levi came from Nintendo Power. So how cool is that? At one time or another, he was a retro games editor, and then he was also a mobile gaming editor.

Speaker 2:
[31:23] Yeah, I didn't remember the mobile part of that. I only remembered the retro game.

Speaker 1:
[31:26] That's what Justin was brought in to do to replace him. So he must have been mobile editor when he left.

Speaker 5:
[31:32] The retro was gone by the time he left. He was only doing the mobile game stuff. And then I was the mobile games editor. So I reviewed Angry Birds Space, and Infinity Blade 2 and 3. And that was the era, like a really good era for the App Store, actually. Where's my water? Cut the rope. Who can forget?

Speaker 2:
[31:50] Infinity Blade 1 was the one that we gave a 10 to?

Speaker 5:
[31:54] Yeah. No, I gave a 10 to Infinity Blade 2 and 3, I think.

Speaker 2:
[31:58] I think Hillary gave a 10.

Speaker 1:
[31:59] I think Hillary gave the first one a 10.

Speaker 5:
[32:02] Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, kind of boxed in on score there a little bit. And then I did many hundreds of episodes of Tech Fetish with Scott Lowe and then subsequent tech editors. Mark Ryan was on that podcast night. I don't know. I mean, he loved the story and knows. I don't know what my first appearance on Game Scoop was, but it was somewhere in the 100s. And the thing that's crazy, like, well, I mean, it might have been 200. But like, you know, we have photos like I have a firm memory of celebrating 250. I had already been on the show quite a bit by then. So like, that's probably how the math works out. And like, I remember, you know, what are we at now? Did 800 and something?

Speaker 1:
[32:38] Yeah, I think this is 853.

Speaker 5:
[32:40] 853. And like, I remember when I joined, I'm like, Games Group has been going on forever. It has so many episodes. It was like you guys were at like 140 by the time I started. Yeah, but that was that was how it felt. Yeah. And I feel that way. Like, I met in a couple months, I'm at 15 years at IGN. And like, so that's half of IGN, because IGN is celebrating 30 this year. But it felt like, you know, such a big established story brand already by the time I came in. Yeah. And I was never in I was never in that resume office. I was always on Second Street. And it was it was well, by the time I started, One Up was already in the building. But I know that it was like, you know, there was a row of like One Up, GameSpot, IGN, like all like a couple of blocks apart.

Speaker 4:
[33:24] And then Second was like that for a long time.

Speaker 5:
[33:26] Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[33:27] You see, you mentioned. Oh, go ahead, Justin.

Speaker 5:
[33:30] Oh, just after Mobile Games, I ran Features for a long time. It was like the main gig.

Speaker 2:
[33:35] And then what was the Xbox channel we had called?

Speaker 5:
[33:38] There was Team Xbox.

Speaker 2:
[33:39] Team Xbox.

Speaker 1:
[33:40] Team Xbox, yeah. Yeah. You mentioned 15 years for you, Justin. 18 years for Sam. Like I've been here 20 years. It's very unusual for anyone to stay at a job that long, but like there's something special about IGN, like, you know, pair our co-founders.

Speaker 2:
[33:53] I was freelance before that, but even with that, it felt like you and Greg had been in the industry forever. Exactly. Yeah, sorry.

Speaker 5:
[34:02] That's the feeling.

Speaker 2:
[34:04] I also heard by then, what, you know, at least 52 episodes of Game Scoop, which is like you start getting, you know, parasocial relationship developing, like you think you know these people are, right? And then it's like, that was like a very strange, like, I, again, I think it was not unfriendly, but just intimidating and overwhelming to start at IGN. By that point, it was just like, there's a lot, you guys had already started a lot. And it was like, I had a really like heads down job, you know, it just felt really different.

Speaker 5:
[34:32] Yeah. I found the environment very welcoming and very friendly. And everyone, you know, like I'd never, I had never done a podcast. I had never done anything on camera. And it was Scott Lowe. He's like, Hey, what are you doing right now? And I'm like, Oh, I don't know, nothing. And he's like, come podcast with me. And I'm like, I don't know if I could do that. He's like, just come do it. It'll be fine. And like, that was how like that was it. And like that was the that was the vibe was just, you know, just do things which I actually still, you know, I mentor and coach a large staff now as do you, Sam. And like I coach a lot of people on like, you know, the culture at this company is like, open the door and walk through it yourself. Don't wait for someone to open it for you. Those are the types of people that seem to succeed and thrive best. Self-activating, as we said earlier.

Speaker 2:
[35:21] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[35:23] Yeah. I mean, here we are.

Speaker 2:
[35:25] I still think of myself as an NBC cast member.

Speaker 1:
[35:27] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[35:27] This is just a guest gig. That was the first. Craig had me on NBC all the time, and then I hosted it for a long time. So, you know, this was just the side gig.

Speaker 1:
[35:38] Greg, to this day, there is still more Podcast Beyond episodes because back in the day, you and Colin were just religious about never skipping an episode ever.

Speaker 4:
[35:48] Yeah, that was Dunham beat that into me on Gen 1 of Podcast Beyond. And so then when we added in Clements and we added in Colin and it kept going, I guess Clements was a founder. We added in Colin, we added in everybody else. I kept that mantra running. Yeah, it was very much. And I think that's the other thing about it. You know what I mean? I'm just here to put over, Daemon, of what in, I don't know the modern IGN how it is, but at least back then, what an unforgiving role it was and what an unsung hero you were, Daemon, because I remember you and me once, not getting into a fight, but having loud words in a conference from once, where it was that you were just like, we were going back and forth and I flaked on a Game Scoop as I did and so many of the other editors did, or did, I should say, because it wasn't our job role, so a review would come along or something else or news or whatever, pull you away from going to do with this podcast that also at the time, management didn't really stress as, this is important, we should be doing this. There was a lot of man-hours conversations about podcasts. I remember you pulling me aside.

Speaker 2:
[36:52] What was the VP? It was like views per hour.

Speaker 4:
[36:56] But this is even before then when it literally was just, there's no views, this is a podcast, nobody's tracking them, we're not putting ads in them, we don't know what's happening. But we had a conversation in heated terms at one point where I flaked and you were mad at me because I'd let you down understandably. And you just said, I just feel like, you know, if you had to choose between Beyond and Game Scoop, you'd choose Beyond. And I was like, well, yeah, I would, because I'm the only person here with PlayStation in their title. I'm now the only PlayStation editor. And you were like, oh, and it sunk in for you what that meant, but it also sunk in to me what it meant for you to run Scoop and how hard it was to herd chickens and cats that had a million other things going on. And when we weren't told to take it seriously, nobody else took it seriously. It was a fun lark. I remember you and me walking out of conference rooms after podcasting with Solius, the AC unit for an hour, and look at each other and go, that was great. Can you imagine if this is all we had to do? What if this was the job?

Speaker 2:
[37:47] I remember that being a dream.

Speaker 1:
[37:49] Yeah, I still daydream about that. Just 24-hour games.

Speaker 4:
[37:53] You kept the torch lit and kept it moving, and the fact that you're this far along and have this many episodes is incredible. And yeah, it was just the opposite, I think, of that conversation galvanized what I already believed from Dunham stressing to me that there needed to be Beyond every week so that when I was running it, I made sure it happened. But again, at that point, I probably had a PlayStation team or voices underneath it, if that made sense.

Speaker 2:
[38:15] Beyond was a, not Beyond, but PlayStation coverage in general was in a really tough spot right then because there was so, like the PS3 was kind of, you know. Great. Yeah. It was like Nintendo. It had just slow trickle of games. The 360 was just ascendant. It was just this weird time and it was like, it got to the point where the 360 team became this kind of, granted everything's going to go easy for them team. Then you had to make a personality behind PlayStation and it being the underdog, which then came into Game Scoop. I remember that being this great way of developing fan space and camaraderie in connection with the audience. The only thing to cover was a weird downloadable game about hurting people as a superhero that week.

Speaker 5:
[39:09] I mean, it had to be that personality forward, right? There was no other choice.

Speaker 4:
[39:14] Yeah, it was commiserating, I think, right? Again, it was that you had this audience that had bought this very expensive thing and now they're looking for the silver lining on it, which again, I think is what then made it hard for Daemon to keep Game Scoop going at a normal clip when it's just him. And it is that I'm pulled in, you know, what Tal or, you know, whoever my bosses done him at the time, Hillary at the time, Casey at the time, what they wanted for it versus-

Speaker 2:
[39:38] Well, and there wasn't, I should have contextualized this. There was an attempt at the time to make sure there was a PlayStation and Xbox and Nintendo Voice on this show. That was like a theme at the time. And it's never really, it's not been that in a really long time.

Speaker 4:
[39:52] I mean, I remember distinctly when we were in the meeting and they were like, all right, cool, we're gonna do channel podcasts. Game Scoop's been doing so well and IGN AFK is still happening. So we're gonna do channel podcasts now. And I remember, I think I was one of them where I was like, why, no, why are we doing that? We have Game Scoop. And they're like, no, no, it'll make sense. And then it was up and down throughout the years of maybe we should cancel all these except Game Scoop. We don't know how we're making money off of this.

Speaker 1:
[40:17] That conversation is cyclical. It comes around every so often. It's still to this day is no one's job description to podcast at IGN, but we do it. We're very passionate about it.

Speaker 4:
[40:28] Can I ask you a question, Daemon?

Speaker 1:
[40:29] Yep, yep, yep.

Speaker 4:
[40:31] Talk to me about when you were like, you know what? I'm gonna be here for 20 years. Cause there's a distinct moment, I think, for me personally, that I remember. The first time Levi Buchanan ever came to visit when I worked there, he took you, me and get us out to eat. And we were at the table and Levi, of course, always cool, was just like, so gentlemen, I know IGN isn't the end of the line for all of you, what's next? I remember there was a beat of silence and you looked at me and said, well, it's the end of it for one of us. I was so vocal that I was never gonna leave IGN, I got my dream job, I die here.

Speaker 2:
[41:05] That's great.

Speaker 1:
[41:06] Yeah. No, I don't, there wasn't ever a moment. I just, you know, like I was just talking about this, it's just been such a perfect fit for me. It's like, I don't know, in order for me to like, go on to something else, like lightning would have to strike twice and I have to find something else that's just absolutely perfect for me. So I don't know. I always tell people, it's been 20 years. I've never dreaded a Monday morning. You know, like I don't, I never, I never get the Sunday scaries and like, oh, I got work tomorrow. I was like, no, I'm going to talk about video games on camera tomorrow. It's gonna be pretty cool. Pretty cool.

Speaker 5:
[41:40] I would agree with that. I mean, I don't think it's a decision to like stay 15 years, at least in my case, but it's just a series, it's always a decision of like, you know, the work is still interesting. I'm never bored, you know, I'm fulfilled, I'm, you know, I'm challenged and, you know, we have a good culture of sort of allowing people to sort of stretch into new stuff and try new stuff. And it's like, you know, that's important to me in my work. And I'm like, okay, like as long as that stays the vibe, I'm happy to stay another 15 years.

Speaker 1:
[42:07] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:08] I'll just add that like, it's nice to be at a place where, I think that we're always in a position where we're kind of at the top of things. And like, it's like kind of great to just be at a place where like, you know, we have the biggest, best thing and where am I going to go?

Speaker 1:
[42:24] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[42:27] It makes sense to start your own business like Greg did, but I'm not going to ascend to a smaller site. It doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 1:
[42:35] Yeah. It's interesting that IGN is still here. You know, we used to, like back in the day, I'll be honest with everyone, we used to talk about GameSpot a lot back in the day.

Speaker 2:
[42:43] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[42:44] We don't talk about, it's what is his name from Mad Men? I don't think about you ever.

Speaker 2:
[42:48] Sorry.

Speaker 4:
[42:49] We don't talk about GameSpot anymore.

Speaker 2:
[42:51] But I do know people like Levi who wanted to make movies. That's just a completely different route, right? It's like, what I want to do is this, and where am I going to find the best reach and the most stability, right?

Speaker 5:
[43:04] I do feel like my wife is a school teacher, and like, it's like, hey, you're not allowed to be a school teacher. You have to do something else. What do you do without missing a beat? She's like, architect, that's what I would do. Like, that's what I like. Whereas like, I don't have, if you ask me that question, I'm like, this is it. I have no, I feel, I feel tailor built for doing the exact thing that I'm doing. And I have no plan B and no fallback of just like, you know, writing about video games and making this content is all I've ever done since I was a teenager. And there is, there is nothing else.

Speaker 2:
[43:33] I guess development is another place that a lot of people we know end up going into because they just like, they're so interested in the craft that they want to go do it.

Speaker 5:
[43:40] Oh yeah, for sure, if they have that artistic design background or that programming background, more power to them. But like, that's not, you know, it's not everybody, right?

Speaker 1:
[43:46] Yeah, for sure. I do wonder sometimes like, how long, how long can I keep doing this? My job is to be on camera, talk about video games. And two things always come back to me. Like, there's no, no one did this before us. There's no, no one came before us. If the job is to talk about video games on camera, we're the first to do it. So there's no precedent for like, you do it till this age and then you transition into this other thing. So, who knows, who knows how long. But I do think a good analog would be like sports commentators. And I always see dudes that are old as heck talking about football and basketball on TV. So, I don't know, maybe I can be old as heck talking about video games.

Speaker 2:
[44:20] It just matters if everybody's gonna be living in like a matrix that provides sexual pleasure and they don't use video games anymore because they don't live in meat space. Then we'd be out of a job.

Speaker 1:
[44:30] But then we just gotta bring back Knockin Boots.

Speaker 4:
[44:33] Ah, Knockin Boots.

Speaker 2:
[44:36] Do those episodes like live in an archive on IGN?

Speaker 1:
[44:39] Not well, I guess some might.

Speaker 4:
[44:40] They live in the dark web, Sam. They're on the dark web.

Speaker 1:
[44:43] Still crude. I mean, the ones that we did on IGN are probably archived somehow, but you know, it moved on, it had a life of its own outside of IGN too. And those are archived as well. Anyway, guys, that's enough about me. Come on, that's enough about me.

Speaker 4:
[44:58] It should be the whole show. You got 20 years, Daemon, that's crazy. What was your favorite Game Scoop TV? What was your favorite goofy bit we did or whatever? The show too, obviously.

Speaker 1:
[45:07] We did one in Park City because we were there for like a Sean White snowboarding event.

Speaker 4:
[45:12] What?

Speaker 1:
[45:13] We were there with Nate Ahern and we were making fun of the Money Hats. I don't know, where did the Money Hat even come from? People accusing us of having Money Hats, taking bribes for giving...

Speaker 4:
[45:23] I said Money Hat around here the other day and nobody knew what I meant. I was like, God, you're all young.

Speaker 2:
[45:27] Yeah, it really has gone out of the parlance.

Speaker 5:
[45:30] Yeah. Well, and it's also like the Park City thing. It's impossible to understate. I caught the tail into this. It was already winding down, but just how insane the video game industry was for a while of like, you'd fly to Moscow and go to some rave in a nuclear bomb shelter because the game had one level that was set in Moscow or something. It was all like, because the PR people also, it's like they're like, they just also wanted to go party in Moscow. It's like, let's just spend the company's money while we still can.

Speaker 1:
[45:58] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[45:59] And it was under, like you said, they're just trying to buy people off or they think that it'll influence the scores. But the truth is that, come to Hawaii and play the game, and then we're going to go out on jet skis and say, can I just play the game?

Speaker 1:
[46:11] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[46:11] I'm tired. Do I have to go to Hawaii? Please just let me play the game in my office. I don't need to go do this for a week. I have so many other things I need to get done. Yeah. It was a very wild time. I always, the one that I remember the most was the Sony E3 party for God of War 2, I think was coming out. It was in Dodger Stadium and Incubus played and they were roasting. They were roasting whole goats on the spit, and they had men and women dancing in cages. I'm just like, this is insane.

Speaker 4:
[46:41] What are we doing?

Speaker 5:
[46:42] That might have been 2006. I can't remember now, maybe 2005. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[46:47] What about the Park City one stood out, though, for you, Daemon?

Speaker 1:
[46:51] Nate and I were making fun of the fact, these accusations that IGN has paid for reviews, and we were showing us like we were getting wine and dine and pampered by Ubisoft, and then our review score kept going up for Sean White snowboarding. Listen, I've been here for a long time, 20 years now. I can tell you, it's literally never happened. IGN has literally never been paid for review. It's just literally never happened.

Speaker 2:
[47:15] It's never even been a question. It's never even been somewhat suspicious or compromised in any way.

Speaker 5:
[47:22] Yeah, there was one time ever that there is a video game journalism review controversy, and then it was a massive controversy and someone lost his job and it made the news. And it was all over, you know, that was like Jeff Grisman, right?

Speaker 2:
[47:36] We still get Jeff Grisman and IGN. It's like, no, that was not IGN.

Speaker 4:
[47:40] Not even us.

Speaker 1:
[47:42] But Greg, my absolute favorite one is the Rock Band PSP one or Vita. It was the Vita one.

Speaker 4:
[47:47] No, it was PSP.

Speaker 1:
[47:48] It was PSP.

Speaker 4:
[47:49] It was PSP. That's how old we are.

Speaker 1:
[47:51] We did a commercial for Rock Band on PSP. It's great.

Speaker 2:
[47:54] OK, but then they made the DS one.

Speaker 4:
[47:56] No, this is for the game that they this was them doing Rock Band unplugged on the PSP. We were making fun of it. What about multiplayer? There's no multiplayer of any kind. That's kind of dumb.

Speaker 1:
[48:07] Oh, it's so good. It's like, are you sick of trying to carry your Rock Band instruments everywhere?

Speaker 4:
[48:14] Wow.

Speaker 1:
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Speaker 4:
[50:43] This is crazy. These glasses, God. Get big glasses, Greg. What are you doing?

Speaker 5:
[50:48] It was the style at the time.

Speaker 4:
[50:49] It was the style at the time.

Speaker 1:
[50:50] Which was the style at the time.

Speaker 5:
[50:52] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[50:53] Okay. Okay, let's talk about some of these games. What is out? What's out? Pragmata. Greg, one of the things we are recurring topic on Game Scoop recently is that Capcom seems to be the only AAA developer that still knows how to make games.

Speaker 4:
[51:26] Sure, yeah, they're having quite a run, aren't they?

Speaker 1:
[51:28] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[51:28] Quantity and quality.

Speaker 1:
[51:30] Quantity and quality. They're the only ones that can do it. Like Ubisoft doesn't know how to make games anymore. Did you play Resident Evil Requiem, by the way, Greg?

Speaker 4:
[51:38] I sure did, what a game, god damn.

Speaker 1:
[51:40] Yeah, I played through it twice. The game, so nice, I played it twice. Anyway, Pragmata got an eight out of 10 from IGN. I barely started it last night just to get a taste of it, but apparently this turned out well. After spending many years in development hell, I think this was revealed in like 2020, and then put on hold indefinitely, and then re-announced, and somehow they landed it, and it turned out okay. Sam, you've been playing a lot of this?

Speaker 2:
[52:03] I love it, yes. It's like when Dino Crisis came out alongside Resident Evil. It's the RE Engine. It has a lot of similarities. It's got this chill vibe music in a safe room. You go out, you do a bunch of recon, and then come back and level up. It's really, really... It has a little bit of... It has enough Resident Evil Capcom DNA, but then it has this just fantastic little gimmick here where you just have to stop and basically cast a hacking spell by entering a little button code maze, and it warms you up to it really slowly, but then you're like, I want to do more of this by adding a bunch... And then all of a sudden you're able to add all these little nodes in to make it more complex, but you're already... You're all over it by that point, and you just feel powerful and great, and it's got this layer of... It's set on the moon in this crazy landscape, and the enemies look nuts, and this little girl is on your back just shouting kudos the whole time. I just love it. It's just... It feels like the feeling of playing a 360 game in 2008, where you're like, wow, I just had so much fun for 12 hours. I recommend this game. Everybody should play this. And then there's... The year has 40 more of those. We just don't have so many more.

Speaker 5:
[53:21] That's how everyone describes this game in the best possible way. Like they say, with love, it's like that 360 era of like, it's just very video game-y.

Speaker 1:
[53:30] Yeah. In one year, you'd get like, you know, the darkness and enslaved and overlord. Just like...

Speaker 2:
[53:36] Dead space.

Speaker 4:
[53:37] Yeah.

Speaker 1:
[53:37] All these great games all coming out at once.

Speaker 4:
[53:39] People taking chances, right? It's what we keep saying. Everything's got to be a sequel or some other IP. The fact that they're like, here's this weird thing. You want to try it? OK.

Speaker 1:
[53:46] Yeah. Are you playing this, Greg?

Speaker 4:
[53:49] No. So this week, I was on Mouse and Tomodachi. So I have not, I've done the demos for Pragmata. And I'm very excited to play it because I definitely looked at it. I'm like, oh, this doesn't look like a great game. And then when I did that first demo and did that first hack, I was like, oh no, I'm going to be into this.

Speaker 2:
[54:05] Yeah. It's got great exploration, great revisiting and like the environment's cool. So I, nothing that was shown about this game even caught my eye. I was like, I don't care about this. I don't know what it is. It's hard for them to get it across. And then I just sat down with it. And it's just a totally great adventure action game that feels like Capcom made it after making Res Evil. Like it couldn't be better to follow Requiem with this game. It just has so much in the DNA.

Speaker 1:
[54:30] Yeah.

Speaker 5:
[54:31] That's great.

Speaker 1:
[54:32] Well, tell us about Mouse then, Greg. So I think that one got a six from IGN.

Speaker 5:
[54:38] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[54:39] We're on the low end of that.

Speaker 1:
[54:40] We're on the low end. Okay.

Speaker 4:
[54:41] Yeah. But it's, you're right in the wheelhouse. I mean, I gave it a seven on the kind of funny scale, which is completely different than the IGN scale and not at all. Can't translate whatsoever. I call it good. Yeah. Mouse PI for Hire is a black and white rubber hose animation, 1930s, detective noir film starring Troy Baker as a mouse talking to other mouses. So it's got this steamboat Mickey shoved together with this PI drama, shoved together with a lot of cheese puns and wrapped into the genre of a boomer shooter. It is doom. It is quake. It is you running through just putting endless bullets into endless enemies. I think it's good. I enjoyed it. What I said on the show over at Kind of Funny was, if you look at any of the trailers or even hear the description and go, oh man, that sounds interesting, go play it, try it out. Because it is a game that I think for me, even as a fan overstays its welcome, but it gets better the more you play it, if that makes sense, where it's like, I think you started off like, oh, it's going to be very basic. It's going to be this and it stays in that maybe an hour or two too long before it starts opening up with new abilities and new weapons and little twists and turns that make you go, okay, this is a lot of fun. So I enjoyed it. It's a fun one. Again, you're looking at like 13 hours. So we're talking about something you can get in and actually enjoy, not feel a giant commitment to, but guns feel good. It's funny. It's cool. It's a really good visual style.

Speaker 1:
[56:02] But that's not what a private investigator does, right?

Speaker 5:
[56:09] That was the IGN reviewer's issue. It's like, you know, like it's sort of story heavy and noir-ish, but then you're just murdering just everyone in the level. Like it's a shooter at heart.

Speaker 1:
[56:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[56:19] Yeah, 100 percent. It's a shooter at heart. And I think, you know, one of the big failings of it is like they just try to do too much in the story without ever making you care about the stakes. So like this, the, you know, the dissonance here of being a detective but not doing a lot of detecting really didn't matter to me because it is shooting and Troy will make a funny joke about killing all the people he was supposed to be investigating. The reporter gets all mad at him and stuff. That wasn't one of my issues with it but I totally get it.

Speaker 2:
[56:44] He has a crazy accent in it too. He's doing like a funny gumshoe.

Speaker 4:
[56:47] Yeah, he's doing it. James Cagney, he's doing that. Yeah, what are you doing about this? Hey, I'm Jack.

Speaker 2:
[56:53] And it's constant because it's narrated.

Speaker 1:
[56:55] Yeah, exactly, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[56:56] What looks, I've read a bunch of this.

Speaker 1:
[56:58] Yeah, well the reason why I think I might check it out. I think like all the guns seem like clever and fun. Like there's a bunch of like unique weapons, right?

Speaker 2:
[57:05] This hacking is great.

Speaker 4:
[57:07] Yeah, the hacking is really fun with your tail here.

Speaker 2:
[57:08] Oh, cool. For me, the only, so I really like, so just like with Cuphead, I like seeing how they do the animations for a typewriter or a bottle or a can or anything that's stuck. That's my favorite part about this stuff and the style. And I think they actually successfully worked that into a shooter, which is like, it seems weird. Are they making it into the environments? Yeah, it seems hard to do. But then like the death sequences, like you just saw the skeletons, the decapitations, everything, they're great. It all looks really cool. I hate saying this about a game because this is so rare for me, but this one is visually trying and exhausting for me. And I get fatigue from the black and white, from the frame rate, which is good, good frame rate, and from the kind of the contrast between the animations. I don't know, man.

Speaker 4:
[58:01] You're not wrong. I love the style of it, and I think it's beautiful, especially on a giant TV. But there's a lot, I feel like, because of them limiting themselves to black and white, again, these characters you're meeting, these NPCs kind of run together. That was tough for me. I feel like it's really hard for me in the game playing it. I was like, where am I getting damaged from? Who is shooting me, or what did I step in, or what's going on? It becomes, I think, a gorgeous art style, but the longer you're in it, the harder it kind of becomes to differentiate certain things inside of it.

Speaker 2:
[58:32] Yeah, and that said, though, I want to show everybody I know this game. I'd be like, dude, look how crazy this is when you're playing this game. It is kind of a masterpiece of vision. It kind of hurts my vision.

Speaker 4:
[58:45] It's the usual, I mean, not even the usual. I mean, I guess the good thing when we're blessed with something new, right? Of looking at it and going, man, I really want to see what they do with a sequel. I hope they get to try it again, because I think if you tightened it up and did a few more things, you could have a really special game.

Speaker 1:
[58:58] And then there's Replaced, which, Greg, I think this was revealed at E3 2021, which was the final E3 and wasn't even a real E3 that you and I hosted. It was just a digital online event. I think Replaced was unveiled then. Of course, the developers in the Ukraine, and there's a very good reason why it's taken so long. But I think it's turned out pretty well. I've been playing it. I think maybe it's not Inside. We should specify that right up front. It's not Inside.

Speaker 2:
[59:23] We go backwards sometimes.

Speaker 1:
[59:24] It's not as, well, I'm just gonna say Inside is much more of a puzzle game. This seems to be, they've spent so much time working on the presentation, which is amazing. Visually, it's really, really stunning and breathtaking. And there's not as much to the gameplay, I don't think. Sam, is that what you found? You're deeper into it than I am.

Speaker 2:
[59:42] Yeah, you get to places where you backtrack and have little side quests and do that. So that does change, but not in any extreme way. And then, you know, a lot of the combat is almost, it feels like almost like Batman Arkham, because you're constantly like, luckily, it fills in a lot of the between animations to get between enemies. You're just kind of like punching backwards and forwards and backwards and forwards. And that's kind of cool. But yeah, the game is just style. It's like mouse has style plus gameplay that you're familiar with. This is kind of style plus not really gameplay for a lot of it. A lot of it's just kind of holding right and jumping. That does change. I'm not saying it stays that way. But since it has such a long intro and then the next part you get to is not just running right, it's slowly exploring the city. And then the next part you get to is really combat focused. It's hard for me to recommend it outside of people that I know like Game Scoop for the retro stuff. It has a really cool cyberpunk retro look.

Speaker 5:
[60:47] That's it.

Speaker 1:
[60:48] Yeah, I'm happy to just sort of like hang out and live in the world of the game and take in the visuals just because that's enough for me. But I totally get, I think some people are a little bit bummed with how light on gameplay it is. I don't know, Justin, have you tried that?

Speaker 5:
[61:02] Glad to hear you say that though. Cause that's exactly my feeling as well. Like it's a valid complaint if you're reviewing the game. You obviously have to talk about the gameplay and the combat system and how, you know, maybe it's a little more shallow than you wanted it to be. But on an individual level, on a personal level, like, you know, style points does matter, right? And like just being able to just let this wash over you. And like, it does matter that this is maybe one of the most beautiful video games ever made, right? And just, you know, you're rewarded. You get through one vignette and one scene and you're rewarded with another thing that's just, you know, so gorgeous to look at.

Speaker 2:
[61:40] Nothing's repeated. I mean, the enemies are repeated, but the backgrounds aren't and you just keep going and you're like, how did they do all of this in this style? It's so amazing.

Speaker 5:
[61:49] Like that feeling of like, I would have every single one of these, any one of these on my wall as like a piece of art.

Speaker 4:
[61:54] Every frame in art.

Speaker 5:
[61:55] It makes it hard to kind of evaluate and put like a score to, because it's like, okay, like once you're sort of, once you're in review mode, then you have to say, here's what it does good. Here's what it doesn't do good. It's like, it reduces sort of just the artistic merits of just these scenes and backgrounds that they created. It's beautiful, but the people that had a little bit more mixed sort of review perspective is like, that's also a very kind of valid overall opinion, I think.

Speaker 2:
[62:27] The insane thing is that I played all three of these games a bunch this week that we've talked about so far, and I don't know what I'm going to keep playing, but except for I know I'm going to beat Pragmata, like for sure. But out of these other ones, like I'm going to try. I'm going to try to do as much as I can, because I want to see more.

Speaker 4:
[62:43] Yeah, I've done a bit of a place through the previews and the demos, and coming off reviews, it sounds to me like exactly what I want. So it's like I'm still on Saurus right now, and a redacted review. And so it's like, I'm so excited to get through those, not that they're good or bad, to get to this, because just a, you know, it's, from what it sounds like, it's a narrative platformer dripping with story and intrigue for what happened and why you're the AI in this. And I'm on such a sci-fi kick right now, I can't wait.

Speaker 1:
[63:10] Yeah, yeah, I'm enjoying it. I'm gonna stick with it.

Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
[64:42] Thanks, yours too.

Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
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Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
[64:53] What about remarkably adaptable vehicle because of its versatile cargo space?

Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
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Speaker 6:
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Speaker 1:
[65:11] Oh, my God. OK, I want to do a quick extracurricular activities. I know Justin has a hard out. We may have to dismiss him for 20 questions. We'll see. But I was in Tokyo last week. Sam, thank you for hosting. It seemed like everything went well.

Speaker 2:
[65:24] Yeah, my pleasure.

Speaker 1:
[65:25] I have two stories I want to share from Tokyo. First of all, in Asakusa, there's Sensoji Temple, which is one of the major temples. If you're looking at temples in Tokyo, you'll probably go to Sensoji in Asakusa. But it's super crowded, lots of gaijin there, and there's this great big lantern, and then the temple is in the back, and in between are just these rows and rows of stalls selling junk. So what people don't know, usually, is that behind the temple is an amusement park that's been open since 1853. Okay. Yeah, so very, very old amusement park in Tokyo. The rides there that are operating today, obviously, they're not from 1853, but they're all old, but it's great for kids, because everything's kind of old-timey and kid-friendly, so it's perfect. But I went on one of the craziest rides I've ever been on there. So we were trying to get on this ride that's like a caterpillar that goes in a circle kind of fast. That was the line that we thought we were in, the ride we thought we were in line for. After waiting for a little bit, the line goes into a small house, and then before we can realize what's happening, we're sat in this like a wagon bed, where you sit facing each other, and then the door closes behind us. So we're in this small room, and it doesn't happen very often where you're on a ride that's about to start, and you have literally no idea what's going to happen. We look around the walls, and it's Dumbo-themed. There's pictures from Dumbo, not from the Disney cartoon, it's off-brand Dumbo. Wow.

Speaker 5:
[66:53] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[66:54] And...

Speaker 5:
[66:55] A different big elephant with big ears.

Speaker 1:
[66:56] Yeah, so the ride starts, a lock disengages, and the wagon starts swinging. It's free now to swing. And then what happens next is the entire room starts spinning around you, like an old-timey movie trick to make it look like Fred Astaire is dancing on the ceiling. The room is spinning while we're swinging, and it feels so crazy. Tingo's eyes were wide. His tongue started coming out of his mouth. I thought he was gonna throw up. It's crazy. But that's it. That's the ride. It just gives you the sensation that the room is spinning. And the ride itself is from like 1960. It's called like the Strange Room or the Weird Rooms. That's, this is the ride. It's crazy.

Speaker 2:
[67:35] So the room spins. It spins vertically. I was picturing horizontal.

Speaker 1:
[67:40] Oh no, no, no, no. Yeah, it's spinning around you.

Speaker 2:
[67:41] So you're not moving too much because you're just rocking. Since it's going around, it's just totally insane.

Speaker 1:
[67:46] It gives you a crazy dizzy feeling.

Speaker 2:
[67:48] I couldn't do it.

Speaker 1:
[67:48] Yeah, it was. So that's good. I recommend that. And then the other one is-

Speaker 2:
[67:52] Did you have that panic moment? You're like, is this going to be like dropping me from like a 200 feet tower or something?

Speaker 5:
[67:57] Am I going to drop at the end of this?

Speaker 1:
[67:59] I wouldn't mind that, but Kinga would probably pass out.

Speaker 2:
[68:02] Yeah, I mean, if you're kidding next year, it's stressful.

Speaker 1:
[68:04] That little, you have to pedal to push that little helicopter ride. It's really very fun.

Speaker 2:
[68:08] Oh wow, really? It's self-propelled?

Speaker 1:
[68:09] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[68:10] Saving so much money.

Speaker 1:
[68:11] I recommend the amusement park. It's like 10 bucks for a whole day pass. It's great.

Speaker 2:
[68:16] Do you know what the park is called?

Speaker 1:
[68:17] It's like Hanashiyama, something like that. If you just look up Asakusa amusement park, you'll find it very easily. It's good. I love that it's so old and kitschy. The other thing is that there's this hot new pizza pasta place in Tokyo. You have to wait like 90 minutes to get in. It's called Flower and Water, and I know the three of you will appreciate this, because there is a very well-known San Francisco restaurant called Flower and Water. This one in Tokyo has the same logo as Flower and Water in SF. So we were there with our friend who lives in Japan and he was fluent. We had them ask, is it related to the one in San Francisco? They said, no, but we get that all the time.

Speaker 4:
[68:57] They're like, no, please don't tell them.

Speaker 5:
[69:00] Daemon, you're blowing them up here on this show.

Speaker 1:
[69:04] You're doing the same thing as this restaurant in SF. You have the same logo, but you're not affiliated. Okay, okay, all right.

Speaker 5:
[69:11] You can't just do that.

Speaker 2:
[69:12] That's great.

Speaker 5:
[69:13] It's like, I'm gonna start, I'm in Japan, I'm gonna start this website called IGN.

Speaker 1:
[69:18] Yeah. I mean, it's cause they've got Blue Bottle, which is an SF coffee shop in Tokyo, they've got that, but.

Speaker 2:
[69:23] That's great.

Speaker 1:
[69:24] They just made their own flower and water. Okay, I saw the Super Mario Galaxy movie. I know we talked about that when Sam had seen it. Greg, what'd you think of the Super Mario Galaxy movie?

Speaker 2:
[69:34] I saw it with Greg, by the way.

Speaker 1:
[69:36] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[69:37] We held hands. It was fine. I mean, it's very colorful. It's a lot of cool vignettes put together. It's what everybody said about it. When I left the theater and was talking to Ryan McCaffrey about it, he was like, man, I don't know. And I was like, listen, Blessing and Tim, who are the biggest Mario fans I know, loved it. And I know my son's gonna love it. So Nintendo hit the target on who they were going for. And sure enough, I took Ben to see it and he had a ball. So it was enjoyable. It was inoffensive. I haven't thought about it since I saw it either time.

Speaker 1:
[70:07] Yeah, Kingo loved it. I think Bowser Jr. is his favorite like Nintendo character right now. So he just, he talks about-

Speaker 2:
[70:12] He got really lucky cause there's so much Bowser Jr. in this.

Speaker 1:
[70:15] He talks about Bowser Jr. all the time. He plays like he's Bowser Jr. Before I saw it, Sam, you were saying it's just kind of like, it's a beautiful movie where just things just seem to happen and there's not much of a story and you're exactly right. That's what it is. It's just random stuff happening. Like the first movie I really like, I'm not gonna try to say that the story is some kind of masterpiece, but it is a story and Mario and Luigi have an arc and they're different at the end of the movie than they were in the beginning. Who has an arc in the Mario Galaxy movie? Like nothing changes or they almost change Bowser in an interesting way, but then they immediately walk back.

Speaker 2:
[70:50] Mario lightly has a crush on Peach for the whole movie?

Speaker 1:
[70:53] Yeah, but nothing happens with that.

Speaker 4:
[70:55] Don't pay off to that.

Speaker 2:
[70:57] Rosalina is more important than you think or something.

Speaker 1:
[71:01] I mean, I'm fine with Peach and her being sisters, that's fine, whatever, but it doesn't really change anything. Justin, did you see it?

Speaker 5:
[71:09] We took the family to see Project Hail Mary instead.

Speaker 2:
[71:12] Great movie.

Speaker 1:
[71:12] That is a great movie.

Speaker 5:
[71:14] Incredible movie. So no, I will happily watch this when it comes home.

Speaker 1:
[71:18] Yeah, it's, I mean, whatever, I had fun watching it. King has been asking to see it again. I'll probably take him to see it again this weekend. But there is one major problem with the movie. Do you know what this is? So it's got all these characters from Super Mario Bros. 2, right? As we're seeing right here. Super Mario Bros. 2 was Mario's dream. Those characters don't exist.

Speaker 5:
[71:36] They're not real.

Speaker 1:
[71:36] Yeah, they're not real.

Speaker 5:
[71:37] Although the Mario lore, it's like Shy Guys have worked their way into other Mario games and stuff like that, so I don't know.

Speaker 2:
[71:44] Maybe Mario is dreaming of something he experienced.

Speaker 1:
[71:47] Okay, maybe.

Speaker 5:
[71:48] We also, I'll tell you the one that my daughters, my daughters are both gonna lose their mind for the Zelda movie. They're not, I mean, look, they like Mario, we play Mario Party, we play Mario Kart, but like, you know, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom are the most played games by far.

Speaker 2:
[72:01] I'm so worried about that.

Speaker 5:
[72:02] My daughter, I said, do you think Link and Zelda are like a couple? And she's like, what? No, he's just like, he's just like her protector. Like, why would you even think that? I'm like, well, you know, she lived in that house together and there's only one bed in that house. She's like, oh, dad. So anyway, she's got it figured out apparently.

Speaker 1:
[72:22] Justin, do you mind if we spoil the final post-credit scene?

Speaker 5:
[72:26] No, no.

Speaker 1:
[72:29] So they introduce, so it's Daisy. Daisy just shows up. So Daisy will be in like the next movie or whatever. But isn't her introduction a little odd? Like they could have done anything to introduce Daisy.

Speaker 2:
[72:39] OK.

Speaker 1:
[72:40] But Justin, what they have her do is punch a monkey. That's how they introduce her.

Speaker 5:
[72:45] That doesn't like like. And she also is not. And again, I really, really like Nintendo and Nintendo games, but Daisy is not a character. It's not like a post-credit sting of like, like she only exists to like flesh out the roster in Mario Tennis so that girls have another girl that they can play as. Like that's it. Like she doesn't have a personality. Yeah. Tell me one defining characteristic about Daisy.

Speaker 1:
[73:07] She punches monkeys apparently.

Speaker 2:
[73:09] Now that we're talking about the spoiler, I have a funny anecdote about the agenda. So we had somebody see this really early and they came back saying, you know, we're like, what are the post credit scenes? And, you know, it was like, I don't want to spoil it. But the last one has a lot of implications for the Mario year. And I was like, wow. And I was just, I was thinking about this the night before. You know, I was like, what is this going to be? And so I see it and I'm like, can't be fucking talking about Daisy. There's no fucking way. I bet we're all seeing different Smash Brothers characters. And that there's like, yeah, that there's like a different ending to each person's viewing. And then it comes together. No, turns out I had a really good idea, but they did not. And it was all Daisy. And I still don't know what unnamed person was talking about.

Speaker 4:
[73:58] Well, I mean, you know, in the movie, of course, Luigi's like ask if she has a friend for me. So this is what, that's the implication.

Speaker 2:
[74:05] Gross. I did, I think- Such a gross question and a gross answer. So, but there are other Smash Brothers characters, like Littered, right? Like they do- Of course. They play to Smash Brothers in it, from Star Fox onward. And if we're just spoiling it, and they have Game & Watch. And it's like, you know, that's all funny. And like people were shouting right behind you, Greg, in the theater when the Game & Watch thing was revealed. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[74:30] That was a cool thing.

Speaker 2:
[74:31] But not during Daisy.

Speaker 4:
[74:33] I should have kept in for the end.

Speaker 2:
[74:35] Yeah. Yeah, exactly. That would have had implications for the wider universe.

Speaker 1:
[74:41] I like that they did the bridge fight with Bowser from Super Mario Bros. 1. Like that was cool. Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[74:48] Yeah, I mean, there's again, there's a lot of cool stuff in the film, right? Like I loved the overworld when they were going to have the Hammer Brothers.

Speaker 1:
[74:55] There's a whole like Super Mario World montage in there. And it's like, well, I kind of think you should have done that before you did Galaxy.

Speaker 4:
[75:00] Could have been the movie. Could have just done that.

Speaker 2:
[75:02] Bowser becoming a pile of bones and then that not getting reversed, it was insane.

Speaker 1:
[75:08] Yeah, no, never reversed.

Speaker 2:
[75:09] That was like a very crazy thing that happens in that movie.

Speaker 1:
[75:14] The puppet show is very cute. I like that moment.

Speaker 2:
[75:16] That's really good. The end is amazing.

Speaker 1:
[75:18] That's good. And then when they introduce Yoshi and Yoshi explains how he got there, that was the biggest laugh out loud moment for me. I thought that was pretty funny. Anyway, we have to say goodbye to Justin, I believe.

Speaker 5:
[75:30] Yes, I got to go. Good luck on 20 Questions.

Speaker 1:
[75:35] Give us a good screen saver shot for yourself.

Speaker 5:
[75:38] I'll do my best. We're on such a 20 Questions losing streak that we need Greg's help to kind of break us out of the rut. Greg, great to see you. See you guys later.

Speaker 2:
[75:46] Do you know anything about 20 Questions last week, Daemon?

Speaker 1:
[75:49] No, I didn't. I don't.

Speaker 2:
[75:51] Okay, so it was really fun because we had... It's always this face. We had the meta a little bit, so I reached out to people and had them submit stuff, but we actually got a submission by one of our stats keepers, Greg, and he said, Justin's always talking about Black. Let's finally have... You never had it before, the PlayStation 2 shooter game.

Speaker 1:
[76:12] Oh, the Criterion game, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[76:13] And then we'll put one over on Justin here, and they didn't get it.

Speaker 1:
[76:17] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[76:21] Wolverine.

Speaker 3:
[76:22] No one goes to Hank's for his spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet. So Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks Copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs to help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hank says, I'll line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn more at m365copilot.com/work.

Speaker 1:
[77:05] Well, we'll see, our suggestion this week comes from Nick from Newcastle, Australia, who says, Every week I eagerly hope someone recommends this game for 20 questions, but as far as I know, it's never come up. Considering how important this game is to me, it holds a special place in my heart, and I figured why not ask myself and be part of Game Scoop history. So with that, let the questioning begin.

Speaker 2:
[77:25] Game Scoop history.

Speaker 1:
[77:27] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[77:28] Okay. All right, is this from before the year 2000?

Speaker 1:
[77:34] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[77:36] Whoa.

Speaker 5:
[77:37] All right.

Speaker 2:
[77:38] Going old timey.

Speaker 4:
[77:44] Is it on a Nintendo console?

Speaker 1:
[77:45] No.

Speaker 2:
[77:47] Wow, never.

Speaker 5:
[77:48] Okay.

Speaker 2:
[77:48] Did this originally appear as an arcade game?

Speaker 1:
[77:50] No.

Speaker 4:
[77:57] Ooh, I don't like this, I don't want to burn questions.

Speaker 2:
[78:00] No, you can burn questions.

Speaker 4:
[78:02] I know, I know.

Speaker 2:
[78:04] Was this a... Well, so it's just not Nintendo. I guess it could be Sega or PlayStation.

Speaker 4:
[78:11] Yeah, I should have done a better question.

Speaker 2:
[78:13] No, no, no, that's a great question to do. It's usually... Well, how about this? Was this a console exclusive when it launched? Yes.

Speaker 4:
[78:21] Okay? Okay. Are we... Do we ask about... This isn't for you, Daemon, this is for Sam. Sam, do we ask about Sega or do we just play for...

Speaker 2:
[78:34] I suspect it's going to be a Sega or PlayStation exclusive, so let's just eliminate one or the other.

Speaker 4:
[78:40] Okay, okay. Daemon, we'd like to know, is it on a Sega console?

Speaker 1:
[78:44] No, that's Vive.

Speaker 2:
[78:46] Is it on a PlayStation console?

Speaker 1:
[78:47] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[78:48] Oh, so if it's before 2000, it has to be PlayStation 1. Correct. Okay. Does this have a score of eight or above on IGN?

Speaker 1:
[79:09] I think so. I could double check, but I would guess so.

Speaker 2:
[79:14] There's no way to know.

Speaker 1:
[79:15] Yeah, there's no way to know.

Speaker 4:
[79:21] Is the developer Japanese?

Speaker 1:
[79:24] No.

Speaker 2:
[79:26] Interesting. Does this have sequels that are running to this day?

Speaker 1:
[79:34] Uh, no.

Speaker 2:
[79:42] I'm thinking maybe sports or racing or something like that, like a really western...

Speaker 4:
[79:52] Hold on. Daemon, don't listen to this for Sam. Is it worth drilling into, does it have sequels, period?

Speaker 2:
[79:58] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[79:59] Daemon, we'd like to know if it has sequels, period?

Speaker 1:
[80:01] It does. That's 10. And I'm sorry, this game did not score an 8 or above. I was very, very wrong about that.

Speaker 2:
[80:10] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[80:11] So, it's on the bubble, Sam. It's a game Daemon would have liked.

Speaker 2:
[80:14] Yeah, it sounds like it.

Speaker 4:
[80:15] It's a PlayStation game Daemon would like from a Western developer.

Speaker 2:
[80:17] Yeah, that's a good clue. It's a good clue. How about a 3D graphics question, would that make sense? Were there enough PlayStation games that had 2D graphics? Or is it pretty 3D heavy?

Speaker 4:
[80:34] Yeah, I think it's worth it. Yeah, it's worth it.

Speaker 2:
[80:37] I'm trying to think of one that isn't Symphony of the Night. It's not coming easy, so maybe we shouldn't ask that. What about talking a lot or the characters you play as or things like that?

Speaker 4:
[80:49] Yeah, at what point do you start worrying about genres usually?

Speaker 2:
[80:52] Yeah, this is the time. I would say like, do you pilot a vehicle or... We can also do a thing where we do, is this a sports puzzle or racing game? And then if the answer is yes, you go from there, if it's not...

Speaker 4:
[81:07] Oh, that's good, that's good, that's good. For some reason, I'm feeling fighting. Do you feel fighting?

Speaker 2:
[81:10] Fighting, that's pretty good. And there's a bunch of like crappy Western fighters, which are like the... Well, that came to other systems, I think, but there's like the Street Fighter, the movie, The Fighting Game. Sure. Which should be relevant because of the Street Fighter trailer.

Speaker 4:
[81:25] Of course, never forget Cody Rhodes.

Speaker 2:
[81:27] Speaking of a movie that's just about scenes and doesn't have a through plot line, we could be getting another one of those with that movie. Okay, so how about this? Is this a...

Speaker 4:
[81:35] Do the genre thing.

Speaker 2:
[81:36] Yeah, is this a fighting, racing or sports game?

Speaker 1:
[81:39] No.

Speaker 2:
[81:45] And shooters weren't really a thing at this point, right? So we could do shooter, platform or puzzle?

Speaker 4:
[81:52] Sure.

Speaker 2:
[81:53] Is this a shooter, platform or puzzle game?

Speaker 1:
[81:56] No.

Speaker 2:
[81:57] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[82:00] Some kind of...

Speaker 2:
[82:02] Listen, we had RPG Maker on this and it was impossible, so...

Speaker 1:
[82:06] It was very big.

Speaker 4:
[82:08] Some kind of simulation, something like a SimCity, something more...

Speaker 2:
[82:12] Oh yeah, or strategy.

Speaker 4:
[82:13] Strategy, yeah, tactical.

Speaker 1:
[82:19] So...

Speaker 2:
[82:22] Man, yeah, this is a little bit... Oh, well, maybe it's a licensed game, like a movie or Marvel game or something like that, like Marvel Ultimate Alliance type stuff.

Speaker 4:
[82:33] Hack and slash.

Speaker 2:
[82:34] I mean, I don't think that came out for PlayStation 1.

Speaker 4:
[82:36] No, I didn't, but I understand. You said like, I'm with you, I'm with you.

Speaker 2:
[82:38] Yeah, well, how about just the licensed question alone?

Speaker 4:
[82:41] Okay, shoot for it.

Speaker 2:
[82:42] Is this based on a license? No.

Speaker 4:
[82:44] Oh!

Speaker 2:
[82:47] That always helps so much once we get to movies, TVs and comics. There's a lot of that on PlayStation also.

Speaker 4:
[82:55] How many questions in are we?

Speaker 2:
[82:56] This is a fun game.

Speaker 1:
[82:56] 13 questions in.

Speaker 4:
[82:59] Seven left.

Speaker 2:
[83:00] So genre is getting really tough here, but you brought up once a strategy, Simulation, Sim, Sim, and music. Were there music games?

Speaker 4:
[83:14] Did you do sports? Did you say sports?

Speaker 2:
[83:15] Yeah. Yeah, we limited sports, which is crazy. Because I was hoping it would be like an extreme sports game.

Speaker 4:
[83:21] Yeah, of course.

Speaker 2:
[83:29] Are we missing any bigger genre than strategy and sim?

Speaker 4:
[83:33] Did we do RPG?

Speaker 2:
[83:34] RPG, there you go. Well, okay, that's probably worth asking. Is this a strategy sim or RPG? No.

Speaker 4:
[83:41] Jesus Christ.

Speaker 2:
[83:50] I mean, I guess there's just action and adventure games, right? What's like Legacy of Cain? What would you call it?

Speaker 4:
[83:57] Action and adventure, huh?

Speaker 2:
[83:59] Could this be that? Who made that game?

Speaker 4:
[84:02] Who made that game?

Speaker 2:
[84:03] It's like pre-Uncharted, right?

Speaker 4:
[84:06] Oh, yeah. I mean, I think it meant the company.

Speaker 2:
[84:11] Is it Naughty Dog?

Speaker 4:
[84:12] No, no, no. I mean, Amy Hedig worked on one of them, if not all of them.

Speaker 2:
[84:15] Okay, but it's not, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[84:16] It wasn't Naughty Dog, no. I want to say, was it a... No, it wasn't Ubisoft. It just republished them.

Speaker 2:
[84:22] Do you play as a human in this game?

Speaker 1:
[84:24] No, that's 15.

Speaker 2:
[84:26] It could be a vampire. Animal, vampire or robot is our question now. Ooh. Do you look like a human, are you a humanoid type character?

Speaker 1:
[84:43] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[84:47] I think it might be Legacy of Cain.

Speaker 4:
[84:51] Are you sure for it?

Speaker 2:
[84:53] Well, I mean, we don't need to guess now. We just need to keep narrowing. But I don't know a lot of...

Speaker 4:
[84:58] The question is, is it Legacy of Cain?

Speaker 2:
[85:00] I don't know a lot of PlayStation 1 games. That's just like, that's one that I know. So.

Speaker 4:
[85:05] Yeah.

Speaker 2:
[85:05] I mean, does this game deal with the realm of the undead and vampires? Well. The undead?

Speaker 1:
[85:13] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[85:14] Okay.

Speaker 1:
[85:15] Yes. Does this deal with the realm of the undead? Yes.

Speaker 2:
[85:19] Okay. So maybe it's not. What's a zombie game?

Speaker 4:
[85:24] From PS1?

Speaker 2:
[85:26] Wasn't there one where you like play as a not Stubbs the Zombie, but one where you like. It's in the collection. It's in the PlayStation 50 collection. Not medieval. Maybe medieval.

Speaker 4:
[85:40] I'm thinking medieval.

Speaker 2:
[85:41] Yeah.

Speaker 4:
[85:41] When you say like that.

Speaker 2:
[85:43] Is this in the PlayStation 50 collection or whatever that's called the limited mini PlayStation?

Speaker 1:
[85:47] I don't know. That one doesn't count.

Speaker 4:
[85:50] All right.

Speaker 2:
[85:50] Oh, thank you. Is that what that game is, though, Greg? Do you just play? I don't know that.

Speaker 4:
[85:56] You're a skeleton. You're Sir Daniel Fortescue.

Speaker 2:
[85:59] OK. And that's like an action.

Speaker 4:
[86:03] On a DNA level, that's a human. So that would be a miss from Daemon. He would have let us astray on that one, if that's the case.

Speaker 2:
[86:09] Maybe it's an undead doesn't count as human, though. OK. All right. Do you play as an undead skeleton creature?

Speaker 4:
[86:19] Yes.

Speaker 2:
[86:20] OK.

Speaker 4:
[86:20] Is it medieval?

Speaker 2:
[86:22] It is. Who made that?

Speaker 4:
[86:29] Incognito? I don't know. Don't burn a question on that part.

Speaker 2:
[86:31] Well, if we don't know enough about it, is there any other thing that's just in that game that you would think of? Because it probably is that. But we have questions to burn.

Speaker 1:
[86:39] Well, you have one question to burn.

Speaker 2:
[86:41] Well, we don't have questions to burn.

Speaker 4:
[86:43] Do you want to go for it? Was it? I'm pretty sure. Yeah, Sir Daniel Fortescue was in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, so we could ask, is the main character in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale?

Speaker 2:
[86:56] Daemon's too lazy to look it up, if it is.

Speaker 4:
[86:58] Daemon knows that game like the back of his hand.

Speaker 2:
[87:02] Was this character in PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale?

Speaker 1:
[87:05] Yes.

Speaker 4:
[87:06] Oh, fuck yeah, we nailed it then.

Speaker 2:
[87:07] All right, go for it, Greg.

Speaker 4:
[87:09] We believe it's medieval.

Speaker 1:
[87:10] It is medieval, yes.

Speaker 2:
[87:11] Yay!

Speaker 1:
[87:12] Which I wouldn't say you're playing as a human, you're a skeleton, but.

Speaker 4:
[87:15] He was a human.

Speaker 1:
[87:16] On a DNA level.

Speaker 2:
[87:19] Wow, this game looks jankier every time I see it, but it also looks fun.

Speaker 4:
[87:22] Good job, Sam.

Speaker 2:
[87:23] Is it a, well, yeah, good job, Greg. Is this a Zelda-like kind of?

Speaker 1:
[87:27] It's more, the pitch was Ghosts and Goblins with Nightmare Before Christmas art.

Speaker 2:
[87:32] Oh, okay, okay.

Speaker 1:
[87:33] So it's like a hack and slash game.

Speaker 2:
[87:34] Yeah, hack and slash.

Speaker 1:
[87:36] Developed at Sony Computer Entertainment Europe. Ah.

Speaker 2:
[87:40] I wonder if they still exist.

Speaker 1:
[87:41] I don't think so.

Speaker 4:
[87:42] Absolutely not.

Speaker 2:
[87:43] No?

Speaker 1:
[87:46] Yep.

Speaker 2:
[87:46] I mean, does Sony Computer Entertainment Japan still exist?

Speaker 4:
[87:51] They have an office. I don't think so.

Speaker 5:
[87:54] There's an office there.

Speaker 1:
[87:56] This is out in 1998. It got a sequel and it got two remakes, one on the PSP and one on PS4.

Speaker 2:
[88:02] Okay. And then what did IGN give it?

Speaker 1:
[88:03] Oh, yeah. Chris Roper gave it a 5.6.

Speaker 4:
[88:07] No way!

Speaker 1:
[88:08] 5.9. I thought people liked this game.

Speaker 2:
[88:11] But Chris would have been reviewing this way later, right?

Speaker 1:
[88:15] Well, yeah, you're right, because he wouldn't have been here in 98.

Speaker 4:
[88:17] Probably the PSP version.

Speaker 1:
[88:18] Maybe it was the PSP version, except it's just on the object page for the PS1 version. So, I don't know. Confusing.

Speaker 4:
[88:24] Oh, it's a crazy IGN, you know?

Speaker 2:
[88:26] Typical. When was the last time you heard object page, Greg?

Speaker 4:
[88:29] It was in a while.

Speaker 1:
[88:33] Well, nicely job. You guys made it there.

Speaker 2:
[88:35] Yeah, I'm glad we got it.

Speaker 1:
[88:36] That's great. You made it there. Thank you for the suggestion. Who was this from? Nick from Newcastle, Australia. Viewers and listeners, if you have your own suggestions for Video Game 20 Questions, email them to me at the email address, gamescoop.ign.com. Greg, I've got your reviews page up here. First of all, you were born to eat chicken wings and play video games. I think this is every game you've reviewed. It's a very, very long list.

Speaker 4:
[88:57] Appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 1:
[88:58] One of the very last games you reviewed was NCAA Football 14.

Speaker 4:
[89:03] Yeah, whenever I click back through my profile in IGN for something that pops up, like, God, what a way to go out. What a one before they were like, you know what, you just do Up at Noon Now and Beyond. Don't review it.

Speaker 1:
[89:15] You did Dead Island Riptide. Was that a standalone game or is that like an extension?

Speaker 4:
[89:20] Yeah, it was like a modified expansion or whatever.

Speaker 1:
[89:23] You did Persona 4 Golden? You did Zombie U? Why were you reviewing Zombie U?

Speaker 4:
[89:28] Oh, I love zombies. You know how it was? You're like, here's a Wii U game, launch game, we got too many of them. I think I also had to update my Batman review because they did Batman on Wii U.

Speaker 2:
[89:38] Walking Dead was like the biggest thing in the world at the time, right?

Speaker 4:
[89:40] It was.

Speaker 2:
[89:41] Zombie U was kind of... Man, I watched it.

Speaker 4:
[89:43] A bona fide hit, there was no way it would miss.

Speaker 2:
[89:45] The, what's it called, the 28 years later, second one, the Bone Temple, whatever. I watched that last night. It is so brutally disgusting.

Speaker 1:
[89:53] Oh, really?

Speaker 4:
[89:53] Well, mm.

Speaker 2:
[89:54] It's just kind of hard to watch, like it's not fun. And I like the first one of the 28 years. Like I thought that was pretty cool, but it's just pretty awful.

Speaker 1:
[90:04] You reviewed Rock Band Blitz. Which one is that one?

Speaker 2:
[90:06] Yep.

Speaker 1:
[90:07] Which one is that?

Speaker 4:
[90:07] That was the one that came to consoles and was basically, you know, a lesser amplitude that you were going through and playing. Or Rock Band Unplugged is what I would have called it on. It would have been the version of that. They tried to do DLC for it as well, the same way they were doing Rock Band. It wasn't supported.

Speaker 2:
[90:22] This is after Rock Band 4?

Speaker 4:
[90:24] This is, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was.

Speaker 2:
[90:28] And Rock Band 4 had the piano.

Speaker 4:
[90:30] Yeah, the keytar. Yeah, never forget. Never forget.

Speaker 2:
[90:32] It had a keytar. I don't even remember that.

Speaker 1:
[90:34] You reviewed Gravity Rush.

Speaker 4:
[90:36] I did.

Speaker 1:
[90:37] I loved Gravity Rush 2.

Speaker 2:
[90:38] Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 1:
[90:40] You did the Vita version of Plants Vs. Zombies.

Speaker 4:
[90:43] Yeah, you were a Plants Vs. Zombie nut, I remember.

Speaker 2:
[90:46] Yeah, Daemon went hard. That was your mobile, or your downloadable editor.

Speaker 4:
[90:50] Yep, exactly. These cute little games that you could download. Remember when we walked around and were like, man, this is so great for a downloadable game.

Speaker 1:
[90:59] You did Dead Island, remember Dead Island? Remember how big a deal that first trailer was?

Speaker 4:
[91:03] That trailer had everyone by the throat.

Speaker 2:
[91:07] I think we all watched that in a room at E3, like on one of the conferences on a screen. I think that's how we all saw that the first time.

Speaker 1:
[91:14] Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
[91:14] I may be misremembering.

Speaker 1:
[91:15] You did Fruit Ninja Connect, and then you reviewed Bastion, Greg.

Speaker 4:
[91:20] I did review Bastion, isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1:
[91:22] Yeah, all of the Back to the Future episodes from Telltale.

Speaker 2:
[91:27] Oh yeah, that was before Telltale delivered big on Walking Dead, and everything came up Telltale.

Speaker 4:
[91:34] Yeah, that was always the big surprise. I remember that was where being the Telltale guy posts Strong Bad because I remember going to Telltale booth at San Diego Comic Con. It was literally a card table, and I had to do a Strong Bad, and I was like, I don't know this source material, nor do I think I like this. Then yeah, they picked up Jurassic Park, Back to the Future. I played both of those, these are so disappointing. Then they're like, hey, we got Walking Dead. I was like, do not hurt Walking Dead. I love that comic book. All it was was a comic book. Then they nailed it.

Speaker 2:
[92:02] Did you play Dispatch?

Speaker 4:
[92:03] Oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
[92:04] Oh that game.

Speaker 1:
[92:05] So good. Greg, you did Dead Space 2.

Speaker 4:
[92:08] Yeah, that was when I discovered what Reddit was. Do you remember that? No. I reviewed Dead Space 2, and it went up. I was happy with it. About two days later, Bromley leaned over the wall, and he goes, do you know that you're still on the front page of Reddit? Well, I was like, oh, what's Reddit? And he sent me the link, and it was, does anybody else think IGN's review of Dead Space 2 was written by a middle schooler? And it was just tearing me apart for the way I wrote it, what it was. And the funniest thing about it was, literally, I had sent my draft to Hillary Friday evening before I went live, and he wrote back and was like, dude, this is exactly the kind of review I want us doing. This is exactly what Paris is talking about, putting our personality into it, doing this thing. And the audience just ate me alive for it, just destroyed me. He's changing verb tenses, three paragraphs in, what is he doing?

Speaker 2:
[93:03] Yeah, there was a cloud hanging over EA at the time. They had been voted the worst company in the world. And then Mass Effect 3 came out.

Speaker 1:
[93:16] You did Dead Rising 2, Greg. You did all the zombie games back then.

Speaker 4:
[93:20] You know I love zombies, man. I'm all about it still.

Speaker 1:
[93:22] You did Naughty Bear. Remember Naughty Bear?

Speaker 4:
[93:24] I do remember Naughty Bear. Naughty Bear!

Speaker 1:
[93:28] You were a stuffed teddy bear, but you were Naughty. It's like Ted?

Speaker 4:
[93:34] Yeah, it was like basically imagine like that gum drop teddy bear island thing, except you were the teddy bear has been pushed too far. So you had a machete and you're on air and killing all those.

Speaker 2:
[93:42] A little bit Conker's bad for a day type thing.

Speaker 4:
[93:44] Yeah, but it was like you're clipping through the floor and all this stuff and it didn't run well and yada yada yada. And it was one of the, at least at the time, the hot button, like, do you have to beat a game to review it? Because my intro was like, I've only played four hours of this game and I don't need to waste any more time.

Speaker 2:
[93:59] Oh wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was always a debate.

Speaker 1:
[94:01] Yeah. Now we're in, we're in the days when all these reviews don't even have thumbnails. But you did Band Hero. Yeah. You did Lips.

Speaker 4:
[94:10] Band Hero, I think, Band Hero, I think is, yeah, Lips, the single. Band Hero will always stand out to me for one reason, where there had been that, you know, that rock band, or a guitar hero, guitar hero 2, rock band, this thing where at the office none of us could get enough of it. We loved it so much. And you smash cut to Band Hero, where no one cared anymore. I was reviewing it, and I'll never forget it. I was at my desk, middle of the day, my shoes were off, they were up, my sock feet were on my desk. I was laying back in the chair playing with the Kleenex boxes, a pillow, and Daemon walked by and burst out laughter, came back and took a photo of me. He's like, this is rock bottom. Like, this is rock bottom for these games.

Speaker 2:
[94:50] Yeah, yep.

Speaker 1:
[94:51] You did Africa?

Speaker 2:
[94:52] Right in the middle of rock bottom.

Speaker 4:
[94:55] Nobody but me, because I brought that up recently. We were talking about a preview for some game coming up, and they were describing it. I'm like, oh, it's like Africa. And Blessing looked at me and he's like, I have no idea what the fuck you're talking about.

Speaker 2:
[95:04] That was like a visual experience, super.

Speaker 4:
[95:06] It was a photography scene. You were in Africa and you had the camera, but it was one of those classic vaporwares where when they announced that PlayStation console, they showed it, and then five years later, we were all like, where's Africa?

Speaker 2:
[95:18] Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:
[95:19] Greg, what review of yours featured the strapline, Behold the Greatest Comic Book Game of All Time?

Speaker 4:
[95:25] That is Batman Arkham Asylum.

Speaker 1:
[95:27] That's correct.

Speaker 4:
[95:28] I was mocked endlessly by Klayman and Brunvig for it. Why?

Speaker 2:
[95:34] Because they didn't agree with it?

Speaker 4:
[95:36] No, no, they just thought it was a stupid strapline. They agreed it was a great game. They were like, what a weird strapline.

Speaker 2:
[95:42] I thought it was all downhill from that game. I thought that was the best one.

Speaker 1:
[95:44] Yeah, I agree that was the best one. Greg, what review featured the strapline, More Cushion for the Pushin?

Speaker 4:
[95:52] Fat Princess.

Speaker 6:
[95:54] Fat Princess.

Speaker 2:
[95:56] Fat Princess was really fun. I remember there was a really good one. Like a preview of that.

Speaker 4:
[95:59] That Ganking All Princess.

Speaker 1:
[96:02] Damnation? Abomination would have been a more descriptive title.

Speaker 4:
[96:06] Yeah, I was going to say, I can't even tell you what Damnation was. I don't remember that one.

Speaker 1:
[96:10] Oh, man.

Speaker 4:
[96:11] It was more funny. I reviewed Blood Drive, which is a game none of you should remember. Just some stupid running people over with a car, zombie, whatever.

Speaker 1:
[96:20] The name don't lie.

Speaker 4:
[96:21] Exactly. And I gave it some terrible score. And years later, I was out drinking with Lucy O'Brien from IGN. And she's like, yeah, you know, I actually wrote for a game once. And I was, oh, yeah, what was it? She goes, Blood Drive. I was like, oh, no, I hated that game.

Speaker 1:
[96:35] Oh, man, we're in the early days. It's Jeopardy. It's TNA Impact. It's Buzzmaster Quiz.

Speaker 2:
[96:40] Oh, yeah, you were a wrestling guy for a while.

Speaker 4:
[96:42] I was. Yeah, it was one of the things that cut my teeth out. But remember, Buzz was awesome because when they were trying to make Buzz a thing, they would throw, they would send over pizzas and we would just go into the demo room and play Buzz all day long.

Speaker 1:
[96:54] Hannah Montana Spotlight World Tour. Okay, that's enough.

Speaker 4:
[96:57] Back to, back to, Dunham, we're reviewing everything. Why? Well, there's only so many games that come out and I pay all of you to be here full time, so you're reviewing something today. Okay.

Speaker 1:
[97:09] Yeah, we took the weekly trip down to GameStop, buy new games to review. Sam, when was the last time?

Speaker 4:
[97:16] Yeah, you had a VJ's brew house and you'd be there three and a half hours. Different, different workday.

Speaker 1:
[97:22] Okay. Well, good times, good times. Greg, thank you so much for joining us. How about we have you back for my 40th anniversary?

Speaker 4:
[97:28] That sounds awesome. I'd love that, Daemon.

Speaker 1:
[97:30] Let's do it, let's do it. That is all the scoops that we have for you this week. Thank you for hanging out with me all these years. Let's keep it going. That was a blast. Thank you, Greg. Thank you, Sam. Thank you to the ghost of Justin. Thank you to Jobert, working behind the scenes to make this episode possible. My name is Daemon, this is IGN Game Scoop, and we're out.

Speaker 4:
[99:28] Oh my god.

Speaker 1:
[99:29] Daemon Hatfield is a cat.

Speaker 4:
[99:30] Daemon Hatfield is a cat. Nothing special, just a fact. Making biscuits all night long.

Speaker 2:
[99:36] When you did this, where did you record the music?

Speaker 1:
[99:39] At home.

Speaker 4:
[99:40] At the podcast room, oh yeah.

Speaker 2:
[99:42] Oh, just at home?

Speaker 1:
[99:42] I just recorded it at home. Oh, but I would have-

Speaker 2:
[99:44] You just use like-

Speaker 1:
[99:45] Oh, but I'd have Greg and Craig record the vocals in the podcast room, yeah.

Speaker 4:
[99:49] Oh, okay, okay, okay.

Speaker 2:
[99:51] So you recorded some like, Raj Band tracks. I think Raj Band was around then, right?

Speaker 1:
[99:54] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I use Reason, but yeah.

Speaker 2:
[99:57] Okay.

Speaker 4:
[99:59] I love- Thank you. Recently, not recently, but I don't know, last year or two, remember? I don't know if you noticed, when Infogrames came back, they're like, we're back or whatever. And I busted out the Infogrames song and made everybody here watch it. It's just so classic, you and me, we're like, you're so musically there and I just don't have a beat. And I start early and you go like, ah, can you go like, ah, and I'm like, oh.

Speaker 1:
[100:21] But then Javi even animated that part and it's so good.

Speaker 4:
[100:23] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:
[100:24] Do not use this in the post show. But do you remember when...