transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:10] Hello, everybody, and welcome back to another Nextlander Podcast, where the main course is the discourse.
Speaker 2:
[00:19] You can't say things like that, because then people will think we're actually going to discourse, and they will turn this off immediately.
Speaker 1:
[00:25] Wait, what is Brad Shoemaker? What does the discourse mean to you?
Speaker 3:
[00:30] What doesn't it mean to me?
Speaker 1:
[00:32] Oh, man. OK. It means everything to you. I know this is why the main course is the discourse. It means everything to you. And nothing. Alex Navarro, what does the discourse mean to you?
Speaker 2:
[00:45] Not a whole lot.
Speaker 1:
[00:46] OK, great.
Speaker 2:
[00:46] Generally speaking.
Speaker 1:
[00:47] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[00:48] I can't do it. I don't want to do it.
Speaker 1:
[00:50] There's so much of it.
Speaker 2:
[00:51] There's just...
Speaker 3:
[00:52] Every day a new discourse.
Speaker 1:
[00:54] Every day. It's everything. It truly is impossible to really keep up with everything.
Speaker 2:
[01:04] Well, you should stop then. And instead, you should stay discourse and get us back on track to the podcast we are recording today.
Speaker 1:
[01:12] Wow. OK, how about this? Sorry. Welcome to The Nextlander Podcast, where the main course is this course. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[01:23] I'm the appetizer main and dessert all wrapped into one, baby.
Speaker 3:
[01:27] Oh, man. What about the soup?
Speaker 2:
[01:29] That's true.
Speaker 1:
[01:29] You can have a soup.
Speaker 2:
[01:30] You can be the soup.
Speaker 3:
[01:31] Does the soup count? As do you choose soup as an appetizer?
Speaker 1:
[01:34] Is that one could?
Speaker 2:
[01:36] Is the soup salad course considered its own thing?
Speaker 3:
[01:39] Yeah. Do you get soup or salad?
Speaker 2:
[01:40] I guess it depends if it's a three course or a five course meal, right?
Speaker 1:
[01:44] I think it depends where you're going, right? If you're going to a fancy meal, then I think the soup is probably, like you said, Alex, along with the meal, along with the ride, right?
Speaker 2:
[01:54] Right.
Speaker 1:
[01:54] It's not like a mozzarella stick or something like that. That's going to come as an appetizer.
Speaker 2:
[01:58] But unless you're going to Olive Garden, in which case the soup salad breadstick can be the main if you want it to be.
Speaker 1:
[02:04] Have done it before.
Speaker 2:
[02:05] Brought to you by Olive Garden. When you're at The Nextlander Podcast, you're family.
Speaker 1:
[02:11] Uh, is Olive Garden good?
Speaker 3:
[02:14] I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[02:15] It's fine.
Speaker 3:
[02:15] But him saying that just now weirdly kind of made me want Olive Garden for the first time in 20 years.
Speaker 1:
[02:21] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[02:21] You know what it is? Completely acceptable suburban Italian food.
Speaker 1:
[02:26] Sure.
Speaker 2:
[02:26] Like you can, if it's what you can get, it'll do the job.
Speaker 1:
[02:30] My problem with an Olive Garden is kind of my problem with the Domino's, and I ain't too good for either of them, is that where we live in New York, New Jersey area, you cannot throw a stick, you can't throw a breadstick without hitting good Italian food.
Speaker 2:
[02:48] Or a good Italian.
Speaker 1:
[02:49] Or a great Italian. So if somebody is like, I'm getting Domino's because I like pizza, it's like you're not getting Domino's because you like pizza. You're getting Domino's because you like Domino's.
Speaker 2:
[02:59] Right.
Speaker 1:
[03:00] And then you or you can order pizza. These are two different things.
Speaker 2:
[03:03] No, I subscribe to your theory that what Domino's makes is not traditionally speaking pizza. It is a pizza like substance, but it is not exactly pizza. But it's fine because it's still edible. It is still enjoyment to be derived from it.
Speaker 3:
[03:15] Okay. Here's my question about the Olive Garden.
Speaker 1:
[03:17] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[03:18] I recognize these things exist on separate hierarchies, but they are parallel to each other. Where does Olive Garden sit compared to, say, a Chili's? It's better. The better the Chili's?
Speaker 1:
[03:30] The Chili's is better?
Speaker 3:
[03:31] How about Applebee's?
Speaker 2:
[03:33] So I put Olive Garden personally about a tier above that whole swath of family chain restaurant.
Speaker 1:
[03:41] What else is in that tier? I need to know what else sits in it.
Speaker 3:
[03:44] Like a TGI Fridays, I guess, is in there.
Speaker 2:
[03:46] Applebee's, I might put a Chevy's or a Chili's in there.
Speaker 1:
[03:51] Yeah, but what's in the Olive Garden tier?
Speaker 3:
[03:55] Well, I don't know. There's not a ton of fast food Italian. Like Sbarro is probably below Olive Garden. Actually, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[04:02] It's probably below Chili's, too, to be honest with you.
Speaker 3:
[04:04] Anything in the mall food court is like 80% of, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[04:09] You know what? Realistically speaking, it is in that same tier, but I'm putting it a half tier above because I do think the general quality of food there is just a hair better than a lot of that other stuff, which tends to be a little on the greasier side.
Speaker 1:
[04:22] Maybe like a Bennigan's is up there.
Speaker 2:
[04:25] Do they still have those?
Speaker 1:
[04:26] I don't know. Do they?
Speaker 2:
[04:28] Is there a Bennigan's? Have you seen a Bennigan's lately? Right into The Nextlander Podcast. Let us know.
Speaker 1:
[04:34] Here's what joins the Olive Garden. I would say an Outback Steakhouse is probably in the Olive Garden tier. Oh my God.
Speaker 2:
[04:42] Yeah, you're probably right.
Speaker 3:
[04:43] I'm looking up Bennigan's.
Speaker 1:
[04:45] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[04:45] I don't think I've ever been to a Bennigan's.
Speaker 1:
[04:49] Okay. What are your thoughts? I've been to a Bennigan's?
Speaker 2:
[04:52] Now I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 3:
[04:53] I'm looking at their entire franchise list. They apparently did not exist anywhere near where I grew up, which would explain why I'm not from. Is it really like an Italian? I mean, sorry, an Irish. I don't know what this category is. I used to call it fast casual, but apparently that's wrong.
Speaker 1:
[05:07] Oh.
Speaker 3:
[05:08] But whatever it is.
Speaker 2:
[05:09] Fast casual is more like the Chipotle's.
Speaker 3:
[05:11] Yeah, yes. Yes. But so is this really kind of like an like an Irish equivalent to like an Olive Garden?
Speaker 2:
[05:16] It's like a family restaurant.
Speaker 3:
[05:17] Is that what it is?
Speaker 2:
[05:19] In that range.
Speaker 3:
[05:19] Man, I've never knew such a thing.
Speaker 2:
[05:21] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[05:22] I'm sad we didn't have one of these.
Speaker 1:
[05:24] What is their regional steak? Is it like the Northeast?
Speaker 3:
[05:27] Let's see here. Illinois, North Dakota, Texas, Iowa. I'm just kind of scrolling.
Speaker 1:
[05:34] Wait a minute.
Speaker 2:
[05:35] Oh, all the big meal states.
Speaker 3:
[05:36] That's all of them.
Speaker 1:
[05:38] Oh, well, maybe they've receded.
Speaker 3:
[05:41] Under domestic locations, there are six.
Speaker 1:
[05:44] Wow.
Speaker 3:
[05:44] Six locations.
Speaker 1:
[05:45] Look, I am pretty sure I have been to a Benegans and I don't know if it was in Texas.
Speaker 3:
[05:50] Now, there are what looks to be two to three dozen Benegans on the fly locations.
Speaker 2:
[05:57] Well, are they airport locations?
Speaker 3:
[05:58] Possibly.
Speaker 1:
[05:59] Oh, yeah. On the fly.
Speaker 2:
[06:01] Maybe that would make some sense. That Benegans, what I remember of it, it always felt coded like an airport restaurant, even when it wasn't in an airport. But again, I think I've maybe been to one Benegans ever, and I'm not sure where it was or when it was in my life.
Speaker 3:
[06:16] I scrolled all the way to the bottom of this, which includes international locations. And then at the bottom, there is a single steak and ale.
Speaker 1:
[06:23] Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:
[06:25] There is one steak and ale location in Burnsville, Minnesota at the bottom of this Benegans page.
Speaker 1:
[06:30] What does that mean for a steak and ale?
Speaker 3:
[06:32] I don't know. Did they get absorbed?
Speaker 2:
[06:33] Is it like a sub-brand?
Speaker 3:
[06:35] Oh, wait. So we did have those. I wonder. I only saw commercials for steak and ale in the 80s or 90s.
Speaker 2:
[06:41] Did they buy that at some point or is it an offshoot?
Speaker 3:
[06:44] Who? What international conglomerate owns? Are we going to find out that Colgate owns all these restaurants or something?
Speaker 2:
[06:52] Where did Shoney's end up?
Speaker 3:
[06:53] I don't know. We definitely had Shoney's.
Speaker 1:
[06:56] Or A&W? Do you guys have A&W's by you?
Speaker 2:
[06:59] The A&W in my hometown just closed last year. It had been there my entire life. It released as long as I had lived in that town and had known people that lived in that town.
Speaker 1:
[07:11] A Sizzler? A Ponderosa?
Speaker 2:
[07:13] We had a Sizzler. That was long gone. But I used to enjoy the Sizzler because I got way into salad bars for some reason as a kid. I thought they were. It was great.
Speaker 1:
[07:21] Yeah. Brad, where does a Cracker Barrel fit on the tier list? Is that up with the Olive Garden?
Speaker 3:
[07:28] I mean, growing up, that was like fancy Sunday dinner.
Speaker 1:
[07:32] OK.
Speaker 3:
[07:32] Maybe not so much in retrospect.
Speaker 2:
[07:36] I always thought the food there was bad.
Speaker 1:
[07:38] I don't know.
Speaker 3:
[07:39] It was fine.
Speaker 2:
[07:40] And that is not in defense of any of the other restaurants we were talking about necessarily. I ate a lot of chilies and it was also bad.
Speaker 3:
[07:47] Fancy is pushing it a little bit, but it was just like, oh, we're going there on a Sunday kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
[07:52] The chains, the chains, you know, the chains that bind us to corporate eating.
Speaker 3:
[07:58] I mean, that's what passes for culture.
Speaker 2:
[07:59] To the Cisco food distribution world.
Speaker 1:
[08:02] That's right.
Speaker 3:
[08:03] That's what passed for culture in the Reagan years.
Speaker 1:
[08:06] That's right. What brand are you eating? A Red Robin? Well, now I'm hungry.
Speaker 2:
[08:14] Good.
Speaker 1:
[08:15] So, mission accomplished. I do not think I will be ordering Domino's nor Olive Garden. I bet, is there an Olive Garden to go?
Speaker 2:
[08:23] I mean, probably a takeout.
Speaker 1:
[08:24] I'll tell you what. This is the thing about Olive Garden for me.
Speaker 2:
[08:27] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[08:29] I'm usually more excited to go to an Olive Garden than I am when I leave an Olive Garden. You know what I mean? Well, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[08:37] That's true of all the restaurants we're talking about here, to be fair.
Speaker 1:
[08:41] We should go to an Olive Garden, and then I leave the Olive Garden, and I'm like, I don't know. Maybe it'll be a bit before I go back.
Speaker 2:
[08:48] I think that's especially true if you eat anything that is not their soup, salad, breadsticks combo, because that's a pretty reliable meal, so you can kind of stop that whenever you want. I think that when you start getting into their deeper pasta dishes, that's when trouble begins.
Speaker 1:
[09:01] And I'm trouble, folks. All right. We've got some video games to talk about. Some of them are holdovers from the previous week.
Speaker 3:
[09:11] How dare we talk about the same game two weeks in a row?
Speaker 1:
[09:14] There are a lot of new releases coming out this week, but they're kind of backloaded.
Speaker 2:
[09:18] A bunch of them are hitting today.
Speaker 1:
[09:19] Yeah. A lot of them are backloaded in the week. So we'll probably get to those later.
Speaker 2:
[09:24] We have a grab bag this week coming up, and some of them will probably appear there.
Speaker 1:
[09:28] This is true. This is true. The game that we probably spent the most time in, or at least I know that I have, is Pragmata. Capcom, video game, video game, as it has been described, where you're on the moon and you're hacking robots by doing your little D-pad combination, or your face button combination there. I think I'm very close to finishing this game. It feels very close to finishing this game.
Speaker 3:
[09:55] Is the map filled out?
Speaker 1:
[09:56] The map feels filled out.
Speaker 3:
[09:58] Is there anywhere else on that? And like the map kind of goes from orange to blue as it fills in new areas, so if there's no more orange left on the map. I'm talking about the fast travel map.
Speaker 1:
[10:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just say, look, this is not a spoiler. I'm going to try and keep this spoiler free. If I feel like there are spoilers, I'll mark it in the notes. But I have hit the... I'm done with the outer ring of the map as we predicted. Okay. Yeah. I am pretty deep into the middle of the map now. And it feels like they keep talking like, are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? And I'm like, yeah, man, I'm ready. But then it's like, are you ready to unlock five more locks on this door? And I'm like, okay, wait, okay, I see. Well, I'm going to go hunt around for the locks for this door.
Speaker 2:
[10:45] I like that game a lot.
Speaker 1:
[10:46] I think the mechanic holds up.
Speaker 3:
[10:48] They add so much.
Speaker 1:
[10:50] I have about, I think it's like 15, 16, maybe 17 hours in. It tells you on your save and I can't remember what it is.
Speaker 3:
[10:56] 10 hours or something?
Speaker 1:
[10:57] I've been trying to keep up with the challenges. And then at some point, I stopped the cabin challenges.
Speaker 3:
[11:03] Yeah, like it's real easy to get distracted in that game. Like part of the reason I'm not further in the story is I keep going back to because they make it so obvious what you've missed. And then you get that.
Speaker 1:
[11:14] Sometimes.
Speaker 3:
[11:15] Well, well, I mean, on the fast travel, like they don't show the upgrade nodes, which is a weird choice. Like the kind of orange cube ones, the ones that you pour into like your weapons and her hacking ability. Really? Are you sure? I thought they showed up on there.
Speaker 1:
[11:29] They show that, well, they show up in the scan, but they don't show up as like tally when you're about to fast.
Speaker 3:
[11:34] Oh, weird. I thought that everything showed up.
Speaker 1:
[11:36] Weird. They show the crates. They show.
Speaker 3:
[11:39] Yeah, yes.
Speaker 1:
[11:40] A lot of upgrades.
Speaker 3:
[11:41] Right. A lot of those are in crates, which, yes, which do show up on that list. But a lot of them are just free floating.
Speaker 1:
[11:47] A lot of them are just free floating. Sometimes the double double shows up in the in the crate. But yeah, that's a weird one. I I did get a trophy that said, which was weird. I feel like, Alex, you brought this up just the other day with a game that was like, I did a thing that was like, you've now printed out all the weapons mods and whatever in the game. And I was like.
Speaker 2:
[12:08] It was something during Resident Evil where Abby hit a thing where she had hit the last of a certain enemy type.
Speaker 1:
[12:15] Oh, the flowers, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[12:16] The flowers. And then she got the achievement. It was like, cool, that just sucked all the remaining tension out of this scene. Awesome.
Speaker 1:
[12:21] Yeah, so I got a trophy that's like, I got a thing that's like, you just got the last one you're gonna get. And the main story was like, wait, really? Because there's like a couple of more slots? Okay, if you say so. I mean, it's a Capcom game, so I would not be surprised again. I'm not finished yet. But like, hey, you beat the game, now you get a Mega Buster.
Speaker 3:
[12:38] Yeah, I mean, it's interesting the way they dole things out, because I feel like a lot of games like this, all the weapon types would be in the main path. But some of the weapon types, some of the drones, I don't know if you've gotten the drones that circle around you and shoot things.
Speaker 1:
[12:50] Was it from the stamp card?
Speaker 3:
[12:51] Yeah, those are on the bingo stamp cards.
Speaker 1:
[12:54] I got some good stuff from the bingo stamp card.
Speaker 3:
[12:56] They lock some pretty good core ability stuff up in weird side bonus areas.
Speaker 1:
[13:01] Which I don't mind too much here. It's not bad.
Speaker 3:
[13:04] In fact, that's why I keep going back to the earlier parts of levels to get, because it's like, oh, there's low-hanging fruit. I see there's two extra cabin coins I could get over here probably pretty quickly, and that'll get me to this next ability I want.
Speaker 1:
[13:16] I think the challenge is, I've mostly done the three and maybe one or two four stars. Their ratings are absurd. Sometimes a one-star challenge rating, I'm like, dude, this is taking me like 20 minutes, and then sometimes a three-star challenge rating, I'm like, this was way too easy. Some of them are fun, some of them are frustrating. I don't mind a combat arena because it actually has taught me to how to prioritize enemies and really do weak spots and be like, especially the ones where it's like, you have to beat these guys in 60 seconds. I'm just like, okay, clearly, I am not engaging with the game in a way that it thinks I should engage with it. Let me shuffle it around, and that's cool. The ones where it's like, there's one where you use the charge beam. I just did this one, so I just want to remember. You're on a moving f-ing platform, you're moving back and forth, and there are lines of those floating targeting robots, you know, the ones that get a beat on you and then a target, and you have the charge gun, and you need to just basically line them up and shoot the charge beam to try and get through as many as possible as the platform is moving back and forth. I mean, you can, you have some time to...
Speaker 3:
[14:25] If you want the highest rating, probably.
Speaker 1:
[14:26] Or if you want to try and do it as quickly as possible, which I was like, this is a silly one, but it took me a little bit. Anyway, the challenges then, as they started getting onto the four and five star ones, I was like, ah, I'm gonna do these later, because they bust you down to whatever the prerequisites for the challenge are. You don't bring in any of your upgrades, so it's not like you're like, I'm gonna overpower for this challenge. No, you're gonna do it like every other person.
Speaker 3:
[14:53] Going back to the combat challenges, when you're used to having four dashes and you only have one on that challenge, the muscle memory is just hard to deal with, because you're just like, why am I not still dashing? What's going on? Oh, shit, I'm dead.
Speaker 1:
[15:04] Yeah, or I don't have any of these abilities, or they limit your loadout, which again, they're fun and interesting and challenging. I do believe, it seems like I have finished the last of the red rooms in the locked gates, which also for me feels like it was a big one, and it felt like a big, big cool thing to finish. But then, this is what I like about this game and video games in general, when you're like, I hope I beat what they consider to be harder than the normal path, this optional thing, right? Because I want whatever comes next to be like, man, I beat your red room, what are you going to throw at me? I'm the champ, I'm the red room champ, you're going to throw some, you're going to throw a boss at me? I'm the red room champ, I have everything, look how many bingo coins I have. I don't know if that will be the case. I have had weird ups and downs with the challenge in this game. Sometimes things feel very easy and I'm like, yeah, I'm getting it, I'm getting it. And then sometimes I'm like 10 minutes on one enemy in the room and I'm like, what am I doing wrong with this guy? I'm just like not getting it. Brad, I am curious, you were probably far enough along to start to, because I think you got there at the, just at the end of where I had left off and where you left off in the stream we did, to start thinking about actual builds for your character and kind of like, hey, what, I have enough mods now and I forget what they call them, when you get to actually change gears to be like, what is your secondary hack screen gonna look like? Is it going to be damage?
Speaker 3:
[16:41] The modes.
Speaker 1:
[16:41] Yeah, modes, overheat.
Speaker 3:
[16:44] Yeah, so I just unlocked all the like, you get that first alternate mode and then now I've got like three more that I piled on top of that that are like two of them are heat related, I think.
Speaker 1:
[16:54] I like the heat stuff.
Speaker 3:
[16:55] In a way that I couldn't quite tell what the difference was. I haven't used them yet. That's just from the text description, but it's like-
Speaker 1:
[17:00] Was there a mode and a mod or a mode and a mod?
Speaker 3:
[17:02] No, they're both modes. They're both like supplemental hacking modes.
Speaker 1:
[17:05] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[17:06] That both, like maybe one of them, maybe it's the one of them makes weapons generate heat faster, and the other one just adds heat automatically when you do the hack. I'm not sure, but anyway, the heat seems like a big deal, obviously.
Speaker 1:
[17:19] I like it. I've gone back and forth between just like damage or status effects, and I think the heat stuff works for me.
Speaker 3:
[17:28] I've kind of been, I don't know if you ever get more than four mod slots, but I've kind of just been on a lot of health assists the whole time in a way that I can't let go of. It's like I've just had the 10 percent extra health, and there's one that makes you take, it's either under half health, you take 20 percent less damage or under 20 percent health, you take 50 percent less damage. I forget which it is, but there's one that reduces your damage.
Speaker 1:
[17:52] I don't think it's 50 percent less, though I could be wrong.
Speaker 3:
[17:56] Anyway, that one helps you stay a lot.
Speaker 1:
[17:59] So like survivability stuff?
Speaker 3:
[18:00] I might have one. No, I've got the range and the extra, God, what is the Luna filament?
Speaker 1:
[18:08] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[18:08] Those are the ones. I thought it was basically just been loaded out the entire game.
Speaker 1:
[18:11] Oh, the extra 20 percent or something.
Speaker 3:
[18:12] The game's not easy. I respect the challenge here. They kind of ask a lot of you. I have limped my way to the checkpoints a couple of times where it's just like, because you go back to the last fast travel point if you die and I'm like, man, I don't want to do all that again. Please, God, make me let me get to the next one. I think I had 40 health one time.
Speaker 1:
[18:34] Yeah, same here. I just wanted to get a trophy for that.
Speaker 3:
[18:37] With no heals left and I was like, oh my God, what a nail-biter those last two enemies were. I basically have to fast travel just about every time I get a new fast travel point just to get the heals back.
Speaker 1:
[18:46] It's another thing with the bingo card, which is they have heal canisters on that bingo card as well. I think I probably have six or seven of the heal canisters now.
Speaker 3:
[18:56] I just got the, I don't know what the name is for the little yellow tiles, the hack tiles that you can equip.
Speaker 1:
[19:03] Yeah, they're not mods, they're like nodes or something.
Speaker 3:
[19:06] I just got the one that gives you some health back when you use it when you hack somebody. That one is very welcome and that came off the bingo card.
Speaker 1:
[19:13] An interesting thing with this game in the setup is when you go leave your base, your shelter, you get to equip a bunch of expendable weapons and expendable nodes. I think I'll just call them that, the things that come up in the hacking. I feel like it's almost like an initial loadout for the first encounter. I find myself now more often than not, because I can put a lot of nodes into a hack, like three or four. I find myself avoiding them, be like, I'm not going to waste this on a walker. I have to walk around the nodes to be like, enough, that's the one I get health back. I'm at full health, or this is the one. I'm not stasis-ing this person. They're dropping stuff, and I should probably burn through them. But the reason I brought them with me is because I like those ones. Those are the ones I want to use. It is a weird thing that you get this loadout, and you get two or three uses of it, and then you're gone. The weapons last a little bit longer, generally can last a little bit longer, but that shotgun still only has like four or five shots in it.
Speaker 3:
[20:20] I just find myself almost a little overwhelmed by the choices at some point. There are combat encounters where I'm just so mentally harried by all the things I'm trying to dodge and stay out of the way of at all times, and just do a hack at all, but I straight up don't have the mental capacity to think, I should switch to that side arm and do this type of hack and set this combo up. So I'm too busy just trying to not get murdered and even complete a puzzle at all to think through all the options I've got at the same time.
Speaker 2:
[20:50] There's definitely an element of frantic puzzle brain that I do not have that has somewhat limited my enjoyment of all of this. That said, as I've been playing along, I've been liking the combat more. I think, so I played through the whole New York section, I got a little bit past that, and I think the problem I'm having with this game, which is not really the game's fault, because I do kind of admire what it's going for, I just don't find the dynamic between Hugh and Diana as interesting or engaging as maybe some other people seem to. I think I might just not have that gene, the one where it's like, I am endeared toward this strange child because she is discovering the world, and you can describe it as parental or just familial. It just, something about it just isn't hitting for me that way. I don't think it's badly done. I don't think it's like poorly portrayed or anything like that. It's that it just isn't hitting for me the way I think the game makers want it to.
Speaker 1:
[21:50] Yeah, I think I've probably fallen between the two of you. I think that dynamic they have, I mean, she is a robot kid, so it is unnatural, but I also find Hugh to just be he.
Speaker 2:
[22:05] He's such a dope. He's such a, he always wants to, Not a mean-spirited or asshole or anything like that, he's just a little bit of a dope.
Speaker 1:
[22:11] Well, the way he explains stuff is always just like the most like relaxed, dude, like chill the fuck out and be like.
Speaker 2:
[22:19] Have you met a child before?
Speaker 1:
[22:21] Or just like anybody, do people like you, Hugh? Or is this like, this coffee is the best coffee. It opens my soul, Diana. Coffee is not a morning drink. Coffee is a morning ritual.
Speaker 2:
[22:34] Oh, but when Dale Cooper does it, you're fine with it. But when Hugh tries it, it just somehow the poetry is lost.
Speaker 1:
[22:39] It's just like, she could she ask questions that are just like, you know, it is an example early on, right? We saw this when we did the stream. It's like, he's like, I loved family meals. It's nourishment, nourish. And she's like, nourishment. You can get nourishment from conversation. He's like, no nourishment for the soul. It's different. And it's just like, dude, relax. Like, take it down like five notches here. That's my ju-thing.
Speaker 2:
[23:07] He's trying his best. I do respect that.
Speaker 1:
[23:10] He's, one of you mentioned something about less paternal and more like an uncle, like a cool uncle.
Speaker 3:
[23:16] It was Patrick. I've read this somewhere. Apparently Patrick Rimape described it as more of like an uncle-niece dynamic rather than like a father-daughter.
Speaker 2:
[23:24] And that feels correct.
Speaker 3:
[23:25] Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:
[23:26] And that's the kind of thing. And it's like, if Diana were like a real kid, the parents would get Diana, pick up Diana from Uncle Hughes and be like, the fuck was he telling you? It's like, no duh.
Speaker 2:
[23:38] You'd be getting a weird phone call later. What did you tell her?
Speaker 3:
[23:41] I don't know if he lays it on quite that thick, but I know, but I, but it's definitely, he's definitely like teeing up a lot of goofy shit for her.
Speaker 1:
[23:47] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[23:47] With that stuff.
Speaker 1:
[23:48] And like the game, the game has the pedal down a lot on some of that stuff. Now look, I find Diana to be very cute. She's a cute kid, right? I find her little goblin energy sometimes to be fun.
Speaker 3:
[24:01] The thing like I had said last week, she has the affect of a child, but it's not like just a standard paternalism that I think that I, that is making me find her charming. It is how literally she takes everything. It is so far beyond even a young child starting to learn about the world, because at least a child still has the base experience of being human. She doesn't even have that. It's like, again, you can get nutrients from talking. She just doesn't understand anything about the physical reality of being a human being. It leads to a lot of just really bizarre ways of looking at things that I find hilarious. Also, a lot of those animations, like again, the-
Speaker 1:
[24:39] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[24:40] The animation is fantastic.
Speaker 3:
[24:41] The repeated, the juice box visual metaphor of her consuming data cartridges. There's an animation when she's playing with the globe or she starts spinning it too fast and it almost flies off its axis.
Speaker 1:
[24:53] They're fun.
Speaker 3:
[24:56] It is like a child discovering the world, but to the nth degree, you know?
Speaker 2:
[25:01] Yeah. I didn't feel this way at the beginning playing because I was a little dicey on these future aesthetic stuff they were doing at the outset. But once I got to the New York level and I saw their fucking, their AI generated version of New York and some of the leader, as they start developing more enemy types and things, and the animation is top-notch pretty much through the whole thing. It's honestly the visual flair in this game that's carrying me through more than anything else.
Speaker 3:
[25:26] It's rad. I think I said that. They almost mislead you because, yeah, that prologue or that tutorial level is just sort of gleaming generic, like Apple future sci-fi.
Speaker 2:
[25:36] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[25:37] Like you've seen that in 100 games. But then we talked about the weird New York last week. But every new area of this game looks totally different. It's so, well, I mean, Vinny.
Speaker 2:
[25:46] Of a piece, but yes, they were going for slightly different things.
Speaker 1:
[25:49] I mean, they're like biomes, right? They're different.
Speaker 3:
[25:51] That's what it is. I mean, very light spoilers here. But like the one after the New York one is a totally outdoor wilderness, biological, like forested.
Speaker 1:
[26:00] I mean, you got it. It was like welcome to the Terra Dome, right?
Speaker 3:
[26:02] Yeah, it's literally the Terra Dome. It's full of fake trees that they're trying to grow and real trees. Like I didn't mind it so much. I'm not loving the one after that, which is the Lunar Mines, which is, yeah, again, mild environmental spoiler. I mean, it's on the surface of the moon. You just go outside. Also, I have to salute this game for putting a low-grav mode in as an old Unreal Tournament fan. Like, here's the level where gravity is tuned down to 1 sixth was fun. But like every, the point is every, the whole game could have looked like that first area, is what I'm saying. And instead, every area, because they just gave themselves that easy out of like, oh, this whole base is 3D printed and now the 3D printer has lost its mind. Like now they can just, every level can look like whatever they want now. And in fact, somebody on my feed went and pulled up the kind of CV of the director of this game. And he was basically an art director or concept designer on Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, wonderful 101, Nier Automata.
Speaker 2:
[27:04] Weapons designer for, I think.
Speaker 3:
[27:06] Yeah. Like this is like, this guy has definitely got, you can see where this game came from, from like that kind of deep platinum base and some of those games. There's definitely some like visual creativity, conceptual creativity in this game.
Speaker 1:
[27:21] I think, I think the art is very, motivating is not the right word, but like you said, Alex, it is a great motivator to keep going.
Speaker 3:
[27:30] Like I'm excited to see what the next area is going to look like after this.
Speaker 1:
[27:33] I think that I, and it's odd for me because usually I'm, I'm story first, mechanic second, but I think it's mechanics first for me. I think the story in this game and the setup is kind of middling. They were like, you know, like great, super predictable. Like it's, it's like, it's like not that interesting. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[27:50] The setups are, the setups are teed up with the person literally holding a ball for you to be like, I mean, the setups are there to, to give a context for all the time you spend with these two characters. That's really all it is. Like it might be angling at some bigger things, but it's not doing it in a way that I feel like is particularly novel. It's just there to give reason for these characters to be mashed together and for them to get into these misadventures.
Speaker 3:
[28:20] Yeah, I kind of think like in every category, this game is just punching a little above the weight of what the concept looks like on paper. Like it's just a third person shooter with a novel mechanic. Like it's just a protector and vulnerable child type framework. Like it's just a science fiction, you know, it's just a gleaming future robot set. You know what I mean? Like on every level, you've seen all of that before in video games ten times over, but it's just like, it's just slightly better in every one of those ways than I kind of expected it to be.
Speaker 1:
[28:51] I think in terms of the characters, I find Hugh to be fairly one dimensional, though I think Diana actually gets a slightly better treatment in terms of some depth with her character later on. Like I think she actually has some interesting qualities later on that you're like, okay, that's more interesting. Hugh is just like, he was like kind of a hippie. Like he's a little bit like a, I've been everywhere man, like the earth is great and like can't wait to get back to the earth and it's beautiful and look at all the people.
Speaker 2:
[29:28] It's not quite hippie. It's okay. There's a specific jock archetype that he is, which is to say he is the golden retriever jock. He is the friendly, kind of likable jock, the surfer jock type dude.
Speaker 1:
[29:41] No offense to him, but like the Sean Coons ish just walked out of the ocean.
Speaker 2:
[29:45] Like he might not say the most brilliant things you've ever heard, but he's so likable and very like kind that it's, you kind of just don't care.
Speaker 1:
[29:55] Yeah. Again, very, very like if I'm picking up the kid, like what did uncle Hugh tell you today? He told us we're all beautiful, you know, whatever. And like, we don't need to pay taxes. Wait, what?
Speaker 2:
[30:08] Okay, yes. There is also the possibility to go in a libertarian direction. When you are that personality type, it does happen from time to time. But I'm just saying right now, it doesn't seem like Hugh is, I don't think Hugh has had his YouTube awakening yet.
Speaker 1:
[30:21] But really though, the, it does get overwhelming and they do give you a lot. And I haven't felt like I've cracked my build yet, let's say, or that I have to maybe steal a parlance from the kids. My build is not cracked, let's say. I haven't broken the game wide open with like, man, you just stack all this stuff. Put these five mods on, use these nodes, use this thing. But I do feel like I have a play style I like. I do feel like I, hey, upgrade your dash because you're going to be dashing a lot. I'm sequencing a bunch of stuff, which I'll leave people to discover in terms of things you can get into later on that feel like they stack well. And when you start synergizing certain things, you're like, oh yeah, oh yeah, that's fun. But the game play fundamentally hasn't changed since the beginning of the game.
Speaker 3:
[31:14] It is just keep adding stuff.
Speaker 1:
[31:15] Yeah, they keep adding stuff. The grid gets bigger for the hacking, which is it can be a little nightmarish sometimes when you're like, oh, this is a long one.
Speaker 3:
[31:24] But, you know, I mean, to that point, they give you, then they give you a weapon that reduces the size of the grid in real time if you're using it and you get the auto hack. If you want to start burning meter on that, like they give you options for everything. Like when I was complaining about being overwhelmed, I probably should just be using the decoy more. I should be using the Stasis Nets, the stuns. Like they give you tools for dealing with all this stuff. I just need to kind of broaden my palette.
Speaker 1:
[31:47] Here's one thing that I actually, me, Vinny, and I don't know if there's a visual problem, but did you get the missile launcher, the homing missiles? Yeah. Do you understand how that works?
Speaker 3:
[31:58] No, I find that thing. Well, I mean, yes.
Speaker 1:
[32:00] I mean, I understand how it works in concept.
Speaker 3:
[32:03] It's just, it doesn't seem very well.
Speaker 1:
[32:04] Are you painting targets?
Speaker 3:
[32:06] I haven't used it that much on large crowds of enemies. I don't think you have to paint them looking at the animation, like the little tutorial video. I don't, I think as long as they're basically in your field of view, their subject being locked on.
Speaker 1:
[32:17] I think there's little red numbers that I don't always catch for how many missiles are going to that target.
Speaker 3:
[32:21] Yeah, that thing is a little bit confusing. Some of the feedback on that is kind of weird.
Speaker 1:
[32:26] Yeah, there was a challenge with it that I had to really learn how to use it and I don't think I did. Anyway I find the mechanics in that game to be really fun. I think it does the Capcom thing also of, or at least recent Capcom in my mind of, hey, we are going to tell you how many collectibles are here and we're going to reward you with meaningful upgrades for getting some. I hope when I finish the game there is a great, we don't take ourselves that seriously, here's something that busts the game.
Speaker 3:
[32:58] I have seen, I have no idea what the nature of it is, but I have seen there are even post-game new mechanics of some kind, which is cool. Yeah, I'm actually a little annoyed that this and Seros are so close. I haven't started Seros yet so I can't say if it's good, but I certainly liked Returnal and have high expectations. But two seemingly pretty solid third-person shooters two weeks apart is like, man, we don't get that many of these. Now I feel like the point I'm making is I probably would 100 percent this game. Maybe I still will, I don't know, but there's a good possibility I'll finish this and be like, I should really start Seros for the podcast. But they both are kind of of a piece, it feels like, and it would be nice for a little more spread out.
Speaker 1:
[33:42] If there's anything like Returnal, those Seros will have a steeper cliff.
Speaker 2:
[33:48] Probably.
Speaker 1:
[33:49] This one, while I find some things to be challenging for sure, it's not impossible.
Speaker 3:
[33:56] No, I'm talking about just bringing everything there is out of it. I probably would have been going back more. I might have been 100 percenting the past levels before I really move on and doing more of the challenges and stuff, and I'm skipping some of that side stuff to keep pushing the story forward.
Speaker 1:
[34:11] Well, I will say this, and again, this is not necessarily a spoiler, but it maybe will save some people some frustration. If you are looking to go back in 100 percent those levels for collectibles, you do need one other thing that's a little later game to do. I don't know if you've run into the thing I'm talking about.
Speaker 3:
[34:27] Yeah, there are definitely other obstacles that I can't clear.
Speaker 1:
[34:31] Yeah. That just put me right off of going to hunt down a bunch of filament or whatever. I'm banking some stuff now. I've spent as much as I can. It seems like in the upgrade tab for the weapons, the mods and all that, if it says max, you still will open up more. But if it says complete, you're done.
Speaker 3:
[34:56] Oh, for good?
Speaker 1:
[34:57] That's what I think.
Speaker 3:
[34:58] Oh, interesting.
Speaker 1:
[34:59] That's what seems to be the case now as I've upgraded up to, I think I'm up to level four in the license, whatever they call that thing, three or four. That seems to be it.
Speaker 3:
[35:10] Oh, interesting. Okay, I'm three, so maybe you're just one area ahead of me then?
Speaker 1:
[35:14] Yeah. I don't know how many they go up to. It could be that maybe there's a new game plus thing where it gets you up above and above and beyond.
Speaker 3:
[35:22] Even three felt like it did not add quite as much stuff as two did, so it definitely feels like it's slowing down. Maybe the game is not quite as long as I thought.
Speaker 1:
[35:30] It does add a couple of notches to the core mechanic thing. I dumped all my points into hacking. I was like, I'm hacking all the time. I'm never not hacking.
Speaker 3:
[35:40] Interesting. I've mostly been increasing the default weapon.
Speaker 1:
[35:44] So the default weapon, I'm like, I'm using other weapons until I can't, and then I use my main weapon, but I'm always hacking. I'm always, there's never an enemy that I'm going up to and I'm not hacking, but there are some enemies that I don't use my default weapon on. So I was like, let me try and have that screen open all the time. Will this make a difference if it does slightly more damage in the hack? Now there are times I wish I had more ammo in my weapon.
Speaker 3:
[36:08] That's why I've been putting it, it's with the pistol, it is a thousand percent capacity.
Speaker 1:
[36:13] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[36:14] With the pulse rifle, it is more stability because I think that thing muzzle climbs all over the place when you first get it.
Speaker 1:
[36:22] Let me say this too, boy, I know this game is about hitting a weak spot, but this game is about hitting that weak spot. The damage difference, even without mods that amplify it or anything else, is tremendous if you... There's one enemy I remember, it's a really super annoying enemy. It's the one that goes invisible. I was like, man, this guy sucks. But if you just get around back to the weak points, it's like two shotgun shells versus like plinking away at it for 10 minutes. That's just stuff I learned from those challenges was just like, man, I just need to kill this enemy faster, you know? And the range on that shotgun is pretty up close. They like fall off in range. It's a fun game. It's a... It's... I can... Mechanically, I'm really enjoying it. Narratively, it gets me through, but like, you know, what are you gonna do? What are you gonna do? You're gonna... You're gonna run around, you're gonna hack. It's novel enough that that mechanic is still novel and it's doing fun things that keep me excited to see if they add anything else even post-completion. We'll see. Hopefully, I'll finish it up maybe for next week. All right, should we take a break? Sure, let's take a break. All right, take a quick break. We'll be right back. All right, we are back. And there are some other games out there. Alex Navarro, a game we have not talked about yet for its official release, which was the 21st. Vampire Crawlers, the Turbo wild card from Vampire Survivors, a game you had played the demo of.
Speaker 2:
[38:05] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[38:05] Brad also played on stream the demo of.
Speaker 2:
[38:08] And let me briefly shout out Ponkel and all other developers who do this, who took your progress from that demo and put it into the final game.
Speaker 3:
[38:16] Oh, no shit. Man, now I almost fired that game up this morning and then played more Pragmata instead. But if I had known my demo save would come over, although I might have deleted the demo at this point, so well.
Speaker 2:
[38:27] I mean, the data should still be there from when you were playing it. So probably that save file is still somewhere in the cloud. But that's always a great thing when people can do that.
Speaker 3:
[38:36] Hang on. I'm watching. Continue. I'm watching it as we speak. I'll let you know.
Speaker 1:
[38:39] Alex, since you mentioned Ponkel.
Speaker 2:
[38:43] Ponkel.
Speaker 1:
[38:43] Ponkel. Did you see that story that was floating around? I don't have it in front of me.
Speaker 2:
[38:48] OK, they clarified this thing because I think the original wording made it sound like they were making 15 video games right now.
Speaker 1:
[38:55] Yes, this is the story.
Speaker 2:
[38:56] They clarified they have 15 projects in the work. OK, some of those may be video games, but some of those are also DLCs, future updates for existing games like, you know, side media ventures around the edges of this stuff. So it's not all video games.
Speaker 1:
[39:12] OK, OK, but this is a video game. Vampire Crawlers.
Speaker 2:
[39:16] It sure is. And this is their attempt to take the vampire survivors aesthetic, which is to say, Timu Castlevania and turn that into a both a deck builder and a sort of like one of those dungeon crawler type games.
Speaker 3:
[39:35] I've got an update for you.
Speaker 1:
[39:36] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[39:37] It did, in fact, pull in my save data, which is rad. I can't figure out how to quit this game and it's so loud, I can barely hear you.
Speaker 1:
[39:43] OK.
Speaker 2:
[39:44] Once the achievements stop popping, you should be able to quit.
Speaker 3:
[39:48] Yes, it did give me nine achievements from playing the demo, which is pretty rad, but hitting escape is just bouncing into...
Speaker 2:
[39:53] There is a menu option to quit somewhere in there.
Speaker 3:
[39:56] Continue as you were.
Speaker 2:
[39:57] All right. But so, yes, the demo has been out, it came out around one of the last recent NexFests. I did enjoy it for what it was. I was curious kind of what the progression of this thing is going to be. So, it's environments from Vampire Survivors, but sort of done in a different way. The method is basically you pick one of the characters from that game, and we are talking original Vampire Survivors, not the 742 DLC characters that they have eventually put out for that game. These are the OG ones.
Speaker 1:
[40:29] Plenty of time to get them back in.
Speaker 2:
[40:31] Totally. And so, as a result, you get default attacks based on the same weapons that those characters used in Vampire Survivors. But you're building a deck as you go along through your run. More attacks, more bonus items. You can slot gems that are basically like the passive bonuses from Vampire Survivors into certain attacks. So, like, you get armor when you use this knife attack, or you do double damage when you do this other thing. And basically, you're just walking through these dungeon crawler environments, fighting scads of the Vampire Survivors enemy pool, while also opening chests and kind of going through. And then runs do end. It is not an endless, you just keep going through the stage forever until you eventually die. You will hit seemingly some kind of limit on the amount of places, the amount of depths you can plunder there and give and run. And then the death guy just shows up and it's like stage over. Good job.
Speaker 1:
[41:29] So even if you had more time or, you know, there is an end, it seems like.
Speaker 2:
[41:34] Seems like at least for some of them, there's another like the one. I haven't beaten anything in yet is the tiny bridge one, which seems like more of a wave attack mode than anything else. Like it just feels like you are getting endless scads of enemies coming straight at you. I haven't beaten that one yet, so I don't know if that has like a slightly different, you know, pace to it. But the big thing is like you're unlocking things as you go. You know, there's a whole town you go back to between runs where you can, you know, unlock more characters. It's the same sort of like bonus upgrade strategy of Vampire Survivors where you're buying permanent power ups for your your runs as you go along. Uses a lot of the same iconography. I think this game is just sticky enough to where I could probably certainly recommend to anyone who likes Vampire Survivors. But if you're like a hardcore dungeon crawler person, I feel like this might be a little too loosey goosey for maybe what you're looking for. It is not a serious game in the way that Vampire Survivors is not a serious game. It's goofy, but I think the mechanics are like good enough, and like the deck building element feels like it works well enough.
Speaker 3:
[42:42] I haven't played since the demo, but it feels a little bit less deranged than Vampire Survivors.
Speaker 2:
[42:47] By like 20 percent, yes.
Speaker 3:
[42:49] Because like you said, you can kind of just finish runs, like levels end, you beat some big final challenge, and then you just go back to the hub. You know what the end of a Vampire Survivors run is like? It's complete fucking bedlam. Maybe this game gets there at some point, but it's not the default.
Speaker 2:
[43:04] But it also doesn't really work that way. When you're attacking, yes, you will see a thousand daggers come flying from either side of the screen when you use the dagger attack, but it isn't this explosion of effects. You see the gems, it has that slot machine feel to it, the way that Vampire Survivors does. A lot of the same audio effects and all the constant gems just sort of like going up into your meter. There is definitely a little bit of lizard brain, like this isn't gambling, but boy, it sure feels like gambling at times. But the actual mechanics are pretty just turn-based combat. It isn't anything where it's just like there isn't really an opportunity for there to be a gajillion bullets on screen because it just attacks come in turn-based waves.
Speaker 1:
[43:48] So I did see, and we don't need to go into the nitty gritty of the mechanics, but when Brad was playing, it did seem to be the beginnings of, oh, you're doing combos or stacking things to get some of that amplified effect.
Speaker 2:
[44:05] Yes, you're building up as you go through your run.
Speaker 1:
[44:08] Yeah, yeah. Or like there's a mechanic in there where it's something about like playing the back half of your deck or playing certain cards first, add different effects. So do you feel like Alex, with your time, that like a vampire survivors arc, you start off a little slower, but then by the end of it, you are just comboing for thousands of points?
Speaker 2:
[44:29] Let me put it this way. I've only really died on that tiny bridge level. Like every other level I've basically gone through, I've had a very pretty easy time just chewing through the general combat waves that they throw at me. Now, I'm sure that will change depending on how things go along. But it seems like in the early goings, when you were first unlocking stuff, the game is not throwing a ton of difficulty at you.
Speaker 1:
[44:54] Okay. This is 10 bucks. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[44:58] And again, for 10 bucks, absolutely you should try this if you like Vampire Survivors. Again, if you're looking for a really serious dungeon crawler or really hardcore deck builder, this doesn't really quite feel like that, but it feels like it is more serious than maybe Vampire Survivors was taking itself.
Speaker 1:
[45:17] And it seems like it's out on pretty much everything. Do you think they're putting a pause or maybe they've said on their Vampire Survivors DLCs?
Speaker 2:
[45:26] I don't think they said they're done, but they have definitely, as this has been announced and been in the run up to release, they have not put out much for actual Vampire Survivors in that time, like some patches, but I think that's kind of it.
Speaker 1:
[45:39] Okay. All right. That is Vampire Crawlers. Crawlers.
Speaker 2:
[45:45] It's all right. Yeah, that seems all right so far.
Speaker 1:
[45:48] I might go check that out. Brad, you and I played a game that needs a little set up here. We played Last Flag, but really aside from it being a team-based Capture the Flag game, there was an Imagine Dragons connection which was the lead singer, I believe, and his brother started a studio. This is their first game. It is a team-based Capture the Flag game with heroes.
Speaker 3:
[46:20] Setting the Rockstar connection aside, even being a Capture the Flag game in 2026 feels notable.
Speaker 1:
[46:27] It's got some new mechanics.
Speaker 3:
[46:29] That's definitely a throwback game type.
Speaker 1:
[46:32] For sure.
Speaker 3:
[46:32] Of course, I remember when Capture the Flag was modded into Quake in the first place. Capture the Flag will always be the holy shit, what is this addition to the formative death match game, not the like whatever, I'm old.
Speaker 1:
[46:48] So this game, it's hero-based. So you get to pick from, I don't know, what is it like eight heroes?
Speaker 3:
[46:52] It's nine, I think. Nine heroes, something like that.
Speaker 1:
[46:55] And then it's actually Capture the Flag mixed with a little bit of King of the Hill and points control.
Speaker 3:
[47:02] Yeah, like that is the thing that actually, Capture the Flag is always, there's two bases, the flag is at each base and you go steal it from the base, take it to your base to score, that's it. Or they do the same thing to you. This game, you hide your flag at the beginning of a match. Like that's the thing I feel like that sets this apart. Maybe some of their games done this and I have not seen it, but like-
Speaker 1:
[47:23] Within a certain zone, right?
Speaker 3:
[47:25] Yeah, the maps are bisected and you can only hide it on your side of the map, but you can hide it anywhere. And like, there are definitely like underground tunnels and nooks and crannies. You can- And the flag is not like glowing and obvious. Like it's tough to find. And that's the whole push-pull of the match at the beginning is there's three towers in the middle of the map that are like radar towers. And the map is like a battleship. It's like playing Battleship. It's literally a grid. It's like, oh, they're flags at A4.
Speaker 1:
[47:53] Right.
Speaker 3:
[47:54] And the more of the radar towers you hold and the longer you hold them, the more tiles on their side of the map it fills in as, hey, the flag is not on this tile.
Speaker 1:
[48:02] Not here, right.
Speaker 3:
[48:03] So like the early game is just this territory control over this three towers, because the more you have the towers, the faster you can pinpoint where their flag is. And even when you know which tile the flag is in, it can still be, it can still take a little work to find it.
Speaker 1:
[48:17] A little bit, but the team can focus there. Right, right.
Speaker 3:
[48:20] It doesn't take forever, but it's still not super obvious. But like it's just the match is broken up in interesting phases where you're you're fighting over those towers to try to figure out where their flag is. And then once you figure that out, you've like it becomes kind of a different thing.
Speaker 1:
[48:33] Feels novel. It feels like a good twist on it.
Speaker 3:
[48:36] Yes, I was I was surprised. They kind of came up with something interesting around capture the flag that I haven't seen before. Like, am I going to go back and play more of it after this? Probably not. But I didn't I didn't not enjoy the two hours we spent with it for 15 bucks. Seems like it's decent.
Speaker 1:
[48:51] I think the mechanic they have, the base mechanic is solid. I think some of the character traits or archetypes they have could probably use a little refinement. And, you know, the gameplay on the shooting feels fine. Some characters are are melee based. Some are range. Some have or feel like they're infiltrators. Some feel like they're more defensive. It's yeah, I would say exactly what you echo what you said, Brad, which is I enjoyed my time with it. I don't know if I will go back and invest more time in it. There's also a smaller like upgrade loop in it where you can farm some currency in the game to upgrade your three powers. You have a kind of a main two mains or two actives and then one ultimate power you can upgrade. But it gets a little harrowing towards the end when you're like defending your flag or trying to run one back. You have to hold on to it for what like 30 seconds or so?
Speaker 3:
[49:50] Yeah, yeah. Like we finally won a match toward the end. Like those last couple matches we played felt like we were actually coordinating and doing something like kind of teamwork was making a big difference there in a way that was fun. And it's also, it's not free to play. It's just 12 bucks right now or 15 full price. Like it's kind of nice to see one of these types of multiplayer games that's just like, here it is, 15 bucks. There's a $5 like add on pack with kind of extra cosmetics and stuff if you want that. But other than that, it's like we're not selling anything in here. It's just here it is.
Speaker 1:
[50:21] Yeah, yes. You got some, I think you can get some progress and some unlocks later for different emotes. But I did not see a battle pass or paid battle pass in there. So yeah, Last Flag. I thought it was solid, solid video game. Let's see, what else? That's Last Flag, that we played some Mouse PI. For Hire. That is the first person shooter. It's hard not to call back to something like a Cuphead, but it is a period cartoon aesthetic. It is probably a 30s, right?
Speaker 3:
[50:59] Yeah, it's 100%. What if Cuphead was a first person shooter in concept, I mean?
Speaker 2:
[51:07] Yeah, specifically the kind of first person shooter that evokes, let's just say, the old doom and quake style of very flat, plain pixel characters.
Speaker 3:
[51:15] For the most part, but I mean, there's some like downtime in between the run and gun. Yeah, like there's some just walking around, talk to characters, find keys, like very light adventure gamey kind of interstitials that I'm only trying to think, what does that evoke? Like no one lives forever came up in the stream. I'm like, there's no stealth in this that I saw, but like that's the best comparison I can think of, of shooters from that era that kind of have you doing things besides shooting in between.
Speaker 1:
[51:44] Now we played some of this on stream. I have not played more than that initial impression of it, but the mechanics of it seem fine. The shooting seems fine. I don't know if it drew me all the way in like, oh man, I need to go back into this. But yeah, the style was the thing I came to see. I wanted to check out how they're doing this new war mouse tale in their 30s animation style. And they seem to be hitting it, or seem to for me.
Speaker 2:
[52:12] The tone of the hard boiled detective story with the sort of just like, all right, just go shoot some waves of guys thing is like a little, I don't know, I don't know if it's 100% baked, but like they nail the animation. Like the art style does look very good. The characters look cool. It evokes that style very well. You know, is this the game I would have made with that art style? I don't know, but it seems all right.
Speaker 1:
[52:37] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[52:38] I played a little of it. I didn't say that I, I can't say that it like left a very distinct impression on me as far as like the shooting went.
Speaker 1:
[52:46] I didn't play long enough to get into any of the, I don't even think we got a second gun, right?
Speaker 2:
[52:52] Not in that stream, no.
Speaker 1:
[52:53] Yeah, not in the stream. So I don't know what winds up being later on as well. But that is Mouse PI. For Hire. That's $30 out there. And then I've also just been continuing here and there to play some more Slay the Spire. I think maybe the last time I talked about that game, Slay the Spire 1, I was struggling a little bit to take on the end boss. I had mentioned that sometimes you get that second phase and you're like, are you kidding me? There's another phase. I did beat that, but I have not beaten it with all the characters. Will I beat it with all the characters? I don't know. It's hard to do. There's a lot of games coming out. That's a hard thing to do. I'll play the board game with the kids. I think that's it for our video games. Well, yes.
Speaker 2:
[53:42] There's one thing. It's not me, but my partner has been playing the new Tomodachi Life.
Speaker 1:
[53:46] Oh, heck yeah. Check in with the new Tomodachi Life.
Speaker 2:
[53:51] I got it for her because she was like, I need something to play right now. And I was like, this might do it for you. It is basically doing it for her. She has made her own little island with us and her cats on it and also some other random people. And here is her prevailing criticism of it. OK, this is not a $60 game, is what she says. Now, what she said after that was this is a $30 game. And what I helpfully tried to explain to her was that a $30 game in her mind is probably what a $40 game would be now. And a $60 game technically is what a $50 game used to be.
Speaker 3:
[54:26] Also a $60, $60 is a Nintendo $30.
Speaker 2:
[54:30] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[54:30] Oh, boy. This is like this is like some free to play currency math.
Speaker 3:
[54:35] I mean, they were they were the first company to hit $80.
Speaker 2:
[54:39] So I feel like that's true, which she had forgotten about. And I were helpfully reminded they are they were selling that Mario Kart at $80. She's I think her general attitude toward is this is fine. It's there isn't a lot to it, but she is enjoying the thing you're supposed to enjoy, which is making all the me's and then, you know, having them do stuff in your town or island. But the actual depth of it is not that high.
Speaker 1:
[55:05] OK, I mean, did she play the first one a little bit?
Speaker 2:
[55:11] OK, is less her jam than, like, say, Animal Crossing would normally be. But she thought it was, like, novel at the time. It is very fun. Every once in a while, just we're sitting there on the couch and then I just hear that voice come out of the Switch. They, oh, how is it going? How are you doing? Right. You know, the the Texas Beach stuff. Yeah, which is better than the other Tomodachi lives. Like it is much cleaner audio in this than you would get from those games. That said, it still sounds like the robot that you expected to.
Speaker 3:
[55:40] Does this does this pull on your system level me or do you just make a character in the game?
Speaker 2:
[55:44] I think you can use your system level me's in there if you want, but you can also make new ones in there.
Speaker 1:
[55:51] Tomodachi Life, Living the Dream.
Speaker 2:
[55:54] No, I know she did because she updated my me because she was like, this is no longer accurate. You have hair in this me. I have to fix this.
Speaker 3:
[56:02] That is a that's a harsh reality.
Speaker 2:
[56:06] It's okay. I encouraged it.
Speaker 3:
[56:07] In our modern era of like digital cartoonish representations of yourself, when you realize those are no longer reflective of reality, and you have to make tweaks to them.
Speaker 1:
[56:16] Never was reality.
Speaker 2:
[56:17] Every once in a while, I go back to my Xbox 360 avatar with his plaid games journalist shirt and Mexican wrestling mask and think we have drifted so far from the light. We could go back.
Speaker 3:
[56:29] Like the true kind of, I don't know, how can I put it? The humbling moment when your significant other sees you logging into your PS5 and is like, you don't look like that anymore.
Speaker 1:
[56:38] Oh.
Speaker 3:
[56:40] They're like, yeah, okay, sure. That cartoon version of me from 15 years ago probably needs to be changed. Oh, well.
Speaker 1:
[56:46] I still look like that cat I picked for my avatar on the first day of my PlayStation account. Some things just never change. Well, we will see if, speaking of avatars and me's, if Xbox has seen the lights in a second when we come back with the news and you'll just have to stick around, you know what we're talking about. You'll have to stick around to hear us talk about it, at least after this break. We'll be right back. All right, we are back and it's time for the news now on our weekly cadence here of news, news, news, news, news. Some news gets rumored and then some news gets verified. Apparently, days, minutes, weeks, in about a week span, roughly about a week span. The news I'm talking about here. Last week, we talked about the rumor that, well, it was an internal memorandum or memo that had leaked, an internal communication that leaked, they were talking about inside Microsoft or inside Xbox in particular, Game Pass, too expensive? Yes. Then Jez Corden from Windows Central saying, you know, what might be funny? I'm paraphrasing. They might just pull Call of Duty out of that and make it cheaper. There was more to it. Call of Duty had been reported as being a thing inside of Xbox. That's like, we can't do this and offer Game Pass. You're going to steal from physical sales and we got to raise Game Pass. And so Call of Duty seemed to have been a hotly debated thing, including it in Game Pass and the price of Game Pass. Well, all that is moot because Game Pass has now come down in price to $23 and no Call of Duty for Ultimate, for Ultimate, for Ultimate 30 to 23 for Ultimate.
Speaker 2:
[58:42] Yes, which is still higher than it was when they did the price hike or I think that's right.
Speaker 1:
[58:49] Yes, I think it was like 15 bucks when I thought it was a straight doubling.
Speaker 2:
[58:54] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[58:54] So I guess the other two, the two smaller tiers don't change in price. Then it's just, it's just Ultimate. There's no mention of the game pass core. Right. I forget what the other one is.
Speaker 1:
[59:06] Game Pass, PC Game Pass will drop from $16 to $16.49 to $13.99. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[59:12] So PC Game Pass goes down and Ultimate goes down. But I guess I guess base like core or wait, the core is not a thing anymore. It's now it's premium.
Speaker 1:
[59:22] That's right. I'm like holding biting my tongue.
Speaker 2:
[59:24] You see where maybe they lost the thread on this thing a little bit.
Speaker 3:
[59:27] Yes. Like the constant rebrands, the constant tinkering with prices, essential.
Speaker 1:
[59:32] Game Pass, Ultimate, Game Pass, Premium, Game Pass, Essential.
Speaker 3:
[59:34] Yeah, Premium and Essential are now the... And I don't think those other two change here.
Speaker 1:
[59:39] But I'm not sure what you ever got with those because I forget what the offerings are. You know, some were just a few games, you know, like you get like a curated set of games and I'd have to go look at The Matrix. The point here is that Game Pass, really the bigger story here, Game Pass is under a microscope. Game Pass, they're trying to figure out what to do with Game Pass. Jez Corden, who we talked about last time we talked in the news, had that rumor that, from Windows Central, had that rumor that came to fruition about Call of Duty coming out. Jez Corden also has another possible take here that they might offer a more a la carte offering for their Game Pass. This is because some code names have leaked. Duet and Triton via the backend API have come out. Jez Corden thinks that maybe you'll be able to put together your own Game Pass. What do you want in it? Do you want streaming? Do you want this?
Speaker 2:
[60:46] Oh, like some kind of bundling.
Speaker 1:
[60:48] Some bundling to arrive at a price that is right for you.
Speaker 3:
[60:51] Yeah, that's probably a smarter way of doing it than the thing I suggested last week of like, maybe you can only get X number of free games a month or something, but this probably makes more sense or this would allow them to draw clear contractual lines about the different things they're offering. But his example, I think this is all theoretical. I don't think he has any specific insider information about these being pillars you could fiddle with, but like, don't want Xbox Cloud gaming? Remove it and lower the price. No need for Fortnite crew. Ditch it and add Xbox or day one Xbox games.
Speaker 1:
[61:24] Right.
Speaker 3:
[61:25] You know, it's like you could, I guess there's, this is news to me as well, but there's rumors about Netflix potentially being bundled into Game Pass at some point, he says. But like, that's an interesting idea to be able to mix and match. And like, I don't know if that's a literal list of like check boxes or what.
Speaker 1:
[61:42] Or how far they would be willing to go, right?
Speaker 3:
[61:44] How do they expose this? But it's certainly an interesting idea of mix and match the stuff you want.
Speaker 1:
[61:50] Have it your way.
Speaker 3:
[61:51] For a personalized price, maybe? I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[61:54] Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[61:55] I don't know how this, again, this is still rumor. But given what happened last week, you know, maybe a little more credence to this rumor. And we know that they're tinkering currently and that this is not, this is probably not the end, right?
Speaker 2:
[62:08] I mean, this is more than just tinkering.
Speaker 1:
[62:09] Yeah, restructuring.
Speaker 3:
[62:12] Apparently, Microsoft considered Call of Duty to be almost a fourth, almost a quarter of the cost of Game Pass Ultimate. I mean, that's arbitrary, you know, that's just that this is what they decided to lower the price by. And this is the one change they made. I mean, there's no absolute A to B there on. That's what it costs them to put that in there or whatever.
Speaker 2:
[62:34] One year window is what they're saying for Call of Duties, right? Like basically for one year, they won't be on Game Pass. But then after that year is up, they will go there.
Speaker 3:
[62:42] Yeah, I wonder what the value of that is, though, for I mean, I assume like the diehard call. Well, I actually have no idea what is what are the habits of the average, like diehard Call of Duty player? Do they day one? Do they always jump to the new game every year? I mean, barring barring the off years where everybody just seems to agree, like, oh, this year's game is shit.
Speaker 2:
[63:00] Like, that's what I mean, though, is I think what it is, is that basically, yes, they all jump to the new game, but the question is more whether do they stay there or not? Or do they go back to the last one they thought was good?
Speaker 3:
[63:10] Like, I assume this is just kind of cutting that hardcore Call of Duty player out of the Game Pass loop and just saying, hey, they can just go buy it because they're going to buy it anyway and then kind of make it a value add for people who are less committed to that franchise.
Speaker 1:
[63:23] And I'm so out of the Call of Duty loop at this point. I don't even know where they stand on their multiplayer offerings in terms of things that you can get with the purchasing Call of Duty, or can you still get into any of the more Battle Royale stuff or the... I know DMZ is gone, right? That's like...
Speaker 3:
[63:42] Is it? Have they completely retired?
Speaker 1:
[63:43] I haven't checked in with that in a while.
Speaker 2:
[63:44] It's been some time.
Speaker 3:
[63:45] I just don't keep up anymore.
Speaker 1:
[63:47] So platform-wise, I'm not sure what you can play and what you can't anymore at this point on Call of Duty, but the story here about possibly doing a more mix and match approach, I think will appeal to some people because there's stuff in Game Pass that I didn't even know. I don't touch a lot. Some of the stuff you mentioned, Brad, some of the EA stuff in there, some of the Ubisoft stuff that's in there.
Speaker 3:
[64:09] They've really stuffed it full of third-party publisher stuff.
Speaker 1:
[64:12] Yeah. And if I were to be able to choose, me personally, I might say, look, I'm looking for smaller indie games. I like when I, because those are the ones I want to try. I want to try without buying them necessarily and then pick them up if I really like them. But there's a lot of games that come out that are not getting promoted. But I think do well on Game Pass. Or possibly well. Who knows the analytics and the financials of it? And then the first party stuff. You know, a new Halo comes out. I want to be there. I'm going to keep talking until my voice completely... I refuse to clear my throat.
Speaker 2:
[64:48] It's disintegrating with each successive word. It's really impressive, actually.
Speaker 1:
[64:52] Folks, we got a real call of duty problem here. Look, we just worked through it, now it's gone. So yeah, we'll see what happens. Maybe next week we'll be confirming this. Who knows?
Speaker 3:
[65:04] Who knows?
Speaker 1:
[65:04] Who knows? They are clearly trying to... Okay. That's that story.
Speaker 2:
[65:11] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[65:11] Opinion time here.
Speaker 2:
[65:13] Okay.
Speaker 1:
[65:14] How do you think this looked? Okay. It's pure speculation. We don't have any news or sources coming in saying this stuff. What do you think happened there with Phil at the end? They're obviously touching this.
Speaker 2:
[65:29] Oh, you want to touch that rail. Okay. You want to get in there on that.
Speaker 1:
[65:33] All right. I mean, they're clearly coming in and they're like, we got to do some stuff.
Speaker 2:
[65:38] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[65:39] Do you think these are things that Phil was like, do you not touch this? Or you think these are things that he was fighting other battles and he gave this one away and was like, okay, fine. Well, he was so close to the acquisition of Activision that maybe this was a battle that he was never going to win of like, no, Call of Duty is going in and if Call of Duty doesn't go, like we just bought them, of course it's going in, but then Game Pass has to go up and this isn't even a thing we can talk about. Like, it just, these kind of radical is the wrong word. These aren't that radical. But these bigger business changes. Yeah, these abrupt, that's a better word for it, changes just make me wonder what might have been happening towards the end there.
Speaker 2:
[66:19] I mean, we're going to be wondering forever because outside of Phil writing a book about what happened there, I don't think we're going to get like a clear picture because that never happens.
Speaker 3:
[66:30] But we got to get Dean Takahashi on the case. Like he can write his, what is it? Is that the third book about Xbox?
Speaker 2:
[66:38] Oh, I don't remember. I mean, I knew he's written at least one.
Speaker 3:
[66:41] I think he's done two.
Speaker 2:
[66:43] But like the only thing that I have heard repeatedly around this stuff is that Phil was at some point going to retire anyway. Like this was not a, the knowledge and idea of him retiring was not itself an inherently abrupt thing. Maybe the the expediency with which it took place was, but at some point he was going to get out of there anyway. And I think my instinct tells me it's because he was being forced into battles he did not want to fight anymore. Like the acquisition was a whole thing. Obviously, the first Call of Duty game out of the gate, not being a huge success, probably put greater pressure on him. There were a lot of things happening that just weren't going right at Microsoft, some of which are very much owed to what leadership was doing at Xbox, and some that are basically downstream of bigger problems at Microsoft.
Speaker 3:
[67:30] Yeah. I mean, some of that stuff is just very top down with the company's pivot to pursuing AI very hard and stuff like that. I mean, Call of Duty on Game Pass is just a no-brainer after the amount of money and a hassle that went into acquiring that company. You have to do it and you have to try it.
Speaker 1:
[67:47] Initially, right? That's the thing.
Speaker 3:
[67:48] Why did you even jump through those hoops if you weren't going to give that a shot? But I mean, it seems like they have decided pretty firmly that that was not working. The price increase though, I don't know. Who knows where Spencer landed on what became a very unpopular, pretty exorbitant price increase? Who knows if that was his call or if that was a fight that he lost with upper management or who knows? I don't know.
Speaker 1:
[68:13] Yeah. It's an interesting to use the word, it's carrying a lot of water there, time inside of Xbox, I think under this new management and new regime there.
Speaker 2:
[68:26] Yeah. I say regime a lot. I don't mean that in the totalitarian sense.
Speaker 1:
[68:32] That word really is loaded at this point.
Speaker 2:
[68:34] But like it is, whatever. Again, I don't know what to think of Asha Sharma yet at this point. She hasn't been there long enough to really give me a deep impression of what her long-term goals are there. But the moves they're making here, whether they end up being beneficial or not, we're not going to know for a while, but they're trying. She's trying some shit. I can't tell you if they are the smart choices to be making yet, but something had to give because the current trajectory was slowly strangling that brand in a pretty significant way.
Speaker 3:
[69:11] Yeah. It's at least encouraging that they seem to be very willing to try stuff.
Speaker 2:
[69:16] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[69:17] They're willing to just rip the band-aid off and be like, hey, we need to lower the price on this thing. Do the majority of the people that we think would sign up for Game Pass actually want Call of Duty on there? Maybe not. Let's just pull it out. Let's just do it.
Speaker 2:
[69:28] My instinct still says that they are trying to bucket water off a rapidly sinking ship as far as the Xbox brand as a console maker and platform holder and all the things that it has been since the Xbox.
Speaker 1:
[69:42] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[69:42] I do think they might be too late. But I think what at least what they're trying now is going to get us to the point of realization as to whether it is too late or not sooner than later.
Speaker 3:
[69:54] It's too late for this generation. Like that fight is over, but who knows with the... The next one is kind of do or die. If the next Xbox doesn't hit, that's probably it for Xbox. We say this every generation and then next generation people will smugly be like, well, you said they were going away and now look at the... You know what I mean? It feels like every generation is easy to prognosticate about, boy, the next consoles are the last consoles. Unless this and this. But in this case, it feels pretty obvious like Xbox is in such a distant last place. But the nature of that next box is so weird and different from what they've done before that like who knows where they're at in five or seven years. But yes, it is too late to do anything but maintenance for this generation, but to try to maintain what they've got and maybe grow it a little bit.
Speaker 1:
[70:41] I think what the run up to the next launch was might not be what the launch is. I mean, the seeding of the obviously everything is an Xbox is done, but putting your games on PlayStation seem to be in line with that messaging, right? That we are expanding out beyond hardware here. And I wonder if that is still a big, to steal a word from corporate speak, North Star for them, right? To say like, hey, will next generation's games also come out day in day out on PlayStation?
Speaker 3:
[71:16] I think it really just depends on adoption of the next console, because you always make yourself exclusive if you're the leader in install base. If you've got a bajillion people that own your box, now I need to clear my throat. You have no reason to sell on other people's platform when the competitive advantage of making people buy your platform to play your games is much greater.
Speaker 1:
[71:33] Of course.
Speaker 3:
[71:34] But obviously in this case, I mean, I don't have the numbers in front of me, but Starfield was like top of the charts this past month or close. On PlayStation? Not just, I think generally, because they also rolled out a big update that added a bunch of stuff to the game. I kind of still want to check out that PS5 Pro version of that game, although apparently, it's had some bad crash issues that I don't know if they've addressed anyway. I digress, but Starfield is almost three years old now, right? And let's say it was not received universally positively, and yet here we are, a PS5 re-release and some new features, and it's selling very well this month. There's definitely still value in them selling on PlayStation?
Speaker 1:
[72:16] Yeah, for sure. Well, I think like you said, just to kind of tie a bow on this, when you're not the industry leader, right? You're trying to get out there. So we'll see what happens here as they move around and shuffle the deck and really try to figure out their place leading up to the next two years here, when we'll probably get some more information on whatever is next for their PC, console, hybrid. Does that thing have a code name? It did, didn't it?
Speaker 3:
[72:41] Helix.
Speaker 1:
[72:42] Helix.
Speaker 3:
[72:42] Project Helix.
Speaker 1:
[72:43] Helix.
Speaker 3:
[72:45] There was some bullshit on Twitter this week where some leaker came out saying, like, oh, the Helix chip is going to be in handhelds and like anybody's going to be able to license it. Like you're going to be able to buy an ASUS branded box with a Helix chip in it. The idea that like, oh, you can get the ASUS branded Xbox or the whoever. And Jason Ronald, who has been at Xbox forever and is like probably their most prominent platform hardware guy at this point, came out and said pretty definitively in corporate speak, like the box will be our box. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah. In so many words was like, no, that's not happening.
Speaker 1:
[73:20] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[73:21] The next Xbox is the next Xbox. You're not going to be getting clones of it.
Speaker 1:
[73:24] You're not getting the ROG Xbox.
Speaker 3:
[73:26] You're not getting clones of it from other companies. That's not a thing.
Speaker 1:
[73:30] All right, let's pivot over to a Nintendo. Alex, you're a Splatoon fan. You've probably played the most Splatoon out of the three of us.
Speaker 2:
[73:39] I'll own that.
Speaker 1:
[73:40] Yeah, yeah, I look at Splatoon. A game which I am glad exists, though I never got very, very deep into it. If only there were a way for me to just enjoy the charming music and atmosphere of Splatoon without having to go get painted over online.
Speaker 2:
[73:58] Vinny, do I have the summer product for you?
Speaker 1:
[74:00] Oh, fantastic.
Speaker 2:
[74:01] Splatoon Raiders is coming to Nintendo Switch this summer. They hit it down to this last year, I believe.
Speaker 3:
[74:08] Yeah, I completely forgot. When I first saw this headline, I was like, oh, did they just randomly announce a new Splatoon game? And it was like, oh wait, no, this has been known for a while.
Speaker 2:
[74:17] So it's not strictly single player in the sense that it is a co-op experience. Like you can, up to four people can play this campaign, but it is a campaign. It is not a multiplayer focused, like, you know, death match or, you know, paint match experience that the first three Splatoon games were mostly built around. And I will just say for my part, as the one weirdo who got way more into Splatoon 1 than any of the sequels, this is not necessarily what I'm looking for from Splatoon, but I do agree that they probably needed to do something a little different and not just a fourth one of the ones they did before. So I imagine this will be received well as long as it is good, and so far I've never played a bad Splatoon game, so I have no reason to believe it will be bad.
Speaker 3:
[75:06] I think there's some potential there. Like the Splatoon mechanics, they could come up and watch in this trailer they put out. I guess July 23rd is the date. I guess that's the actual news here is that it got a date. Also, I feel like we're still in a phase where just any first party Switch 2 release is news, like knowing when it's coming out because there's still such a narrative that there are not enough first party games out for the Switch 2.
Speaker 2:
[75:27] And there aren't.
Speaker 3:
[75:28] But looking at the trailer, some of the ink-spreading stuff lends itself to some interesting single-player third-person shooting stuff, mechanics and so forth.
Speaker 2:
[75:39] They had those single-player elements to them. The challenge levels and things.
Speaker 3:
[75:43] Yeah, but devoting a whole game to that feels like there could be some more potential there.
Speaker 1:
[75:47] Sure. Correct me if I'm wrong. What was the thing? Was it Tuna Run or something?
Speaker 2:
[75:51] Oh, Salmon Run.
Speaker 1:
[75:53] Salmon Run. That was a PvE thing, right?
Speaker 2:
[75:57] Yes, exactly. There's a wave-based horde mode kind of thing.
Speaker 1:
[76:01] Yeah, so maybe this has some of those elements or more of those elements. Again, I did those challenges in Splatoon and then would always play a match or two and then be like, I want to use the paint roller, but I'm not good at it. It's my fault.
Speaker 3:
[76:16] Those games are cool. Usually we stream, was it 3 that we streamed with Abby, right?
Speaker 2:
[76:20] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[76:21] I got pretty into that. That got pretty competitive in a fun way.
Speaker 2:
[76:24] 3 was the best. If I had to actually rank them, 3 is the best 1, it's just that 1 was the one that caught me so off guard and just took over my life for a year that I can't help but linger. That was my game of the year that year. It was 2014, 15, whatever. If it wasn't my game of the year, it was number 2.
Speaker 3:
[76:44] Splatoon really popped off as a franchise. That first game could have just come and gone and everybody could have been like, yeah, that was all right, and then just forgotten about it. Instead, here we are with three games and now a spinoff, and I assume there will be more.
Speaker 2:
[76:58] It's probably the best example in recent years of the Nintendo Magic happening, which is to say they just found a mechanic, a thing that is just very fun to fuck around with, and then somehow built this very sticky and kind of fun, colorful world around it that stuck with people, that people like still like, I still see occasionally people posting their fucking squid kid characters, like they care.
Speaker 3:
[77:24] Like the fashion and the kind of attitude of it definitely contributed as well.
Speaker 2:
[77:27] Absolutely.
Speaker 1:
[77:28] A little bit of their like, I always enjoy hearing some of the weirder world stuff bubble up. Like what is this?
Speaker 2:
[77:35] It's got a weird dark world history going on there. I mean, it's like thousands of years past humanity, earth type shit.
Speaker 1:
[77:41] Something like, yes.
Speaker 2:
[77:43] But they also talk about it the way a 12 year old would, which I think is great.
Speaker 1:
[77:48] Or okay, pardon my ignorance, I would never, never want to offend a squid kid. But are all three of the games different? Or was it a move from like, hey, we're going to move this onto the Switch from a different console? Or was it a Mario Kart situation where it's like, hey, we're just moving Mario Kart up?
Speaker 2:
[78:09] I want to say that one...
Speaker 3:
[78:13] Wait, you mean like, does each game have different content?
Speaker 1:
[78:16] Yeah, yeah, was one like an upgraded version of the other one? Or were they all three separate?
Speaker 2:
[78:21] No, they're all three separate sequels.
Speaker 3:
[78:23] They're all distinctive games.
Speaker 1:
[78:24] Okay, so none of them was like one plus or two plus?
Speaker 3:
[78:27] No, no.
Speaker 1:
[78:28] Okay, okay. I'm not saying all of them looked exactly the same to me, I'm just saying...
Speaker 2:
[78:33] Wasn't Splatoon 1 one of the last Wii U games?
Speaker 3:
[78:35] Yeah, that was a Wii U game. 2015, so it was about two years before the Switch came out.
Speaker 1:
[78:42] Okay, that's not that close to the bubble. All right, so the big news there again is that Splatoon Raiders is coming out this summer.
Speaker 2:
[78:52] Shout out to the Squid Kids, good luck.
Speaker 3:
[78:55] What else we got on the Switch 2 coming up?
Speaker 2:
[78:58] There's that Yoshi game?
Speaker 3:
[79:00] Yes, that's the next month, I think.
Speaker 2:
[79:03] There is the Zelda movie?
Speaker 1:
[79:06] Yeah, that's on the Switch 2.
Speaker 3:
[79:08] Sure.
Speaker 2:
[79:09] The 4K Blu-ray release of the Super Mario Galaxy movie? I'm just thinking of things that will make Nintendo money right now. I don't... They just put out that Mario Tennis game, right? Not that long ago? Like a month or two ago?
Speaker 3:
[79:23] That was February. The most recent thing was that Super Mario Bros. Wonder kind of Switch 2 upgrade that came out. New levels and stuff.
Speaker 2:
[79:30] Tomodachi Life was the most recent thing.
Speaker 3:
[79:32] Tomodachi Life just came out. Man, Nintendo, what are you doing? They've got a...
Speaker 2:
[79:37] Oh, Metroid. December came out, so I guess that was a big one.
Speaker 1:
[79:40] I mean, Pocopia.
Speaker 2:
[79:42] Yes, and Pocopia is doing very well, from what I understand.
Speaker 3:
[79:45] They've got a release calendar, but it's not amazing.
Speaker 1:
[79:48] Does Dusk Bloods count as a thing?
Speaker 2:
[79:51] That's a game.
Speaker 3:
[79:52] I think they've still said that's this year, right? Didn't they reiterate recently that it's still this year?
Speaker 2:
[79:56] I believe they did.
Speaker 3:
[79:58] Yes, two months ago, there was a quote from somewhere reiterating it's still coming out this year.
Speaker 1:
[80:04] And is that... What was the one we talked about in the Planarama? That Pokemon Championship game? Was it just Pokemon Champions?
Speaker 3:
[80:14] Oh, Pokemon Champions, yeah. That did just come out as well.
Speaker 1:
[80:17] So, yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:
[80:19] They have stuff. I just feel like...
Speaker 1:
[80:20] It might not be the stuff that I am drooling over.
Speaker 2:
[80:25] I think people are just waiting for a new Mario, and I get it. But like, there's other stuff that's like... That Star Fox game is coming. Like, there's stuff happening.
Speaker 3:
[80:32] I mean, there have been some rumors about a three-game Mario.
Speaker 2:
[80:37] I think they said next year, maybe.
Speaker 3:
[80:39] But also, that was the same team that did Donkey Kong was the understanding. So I don't know what's up with that.
Speaker 1:
[80:46] Do you think, again, this is kind of almost, again, taking a little bit of a turn, slowing the car down, going to get out and stretch our legs. Miyamoto is going to retire. The man should retire. The man, if he wants to, if he wants to retire, he should retire.
Speaker 3:
[81:02] I don't think he ever actually will.
Speaker 1:
[81:04] Do you think he will?
Speaker 3:
[81:06] He's too busy making cinema.
Speaker 2:
[81:08] I think he is as retired as he's going to get. He is always going to be the man they call to come in and do a little, you know, Miyamoto dance whenever they need a little magic on something.
Speaker 3:
[81:18] It feels like he's going to be like the designer emeritus of Nintendo for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2:
[81:23] Say to me, a John Wick situation, he'll be tending his garden and then suddenly, you know, they'll come calling. He'll be like, we need the Miyamoto magic. We need you back. One last job.
Speaker 1:
[81:34] I just killed this little dinosaur. I don't get what to make. You killed Miyamoto's dinosaur? Oh, you son of a bitch. You're fucking dead. Don't even talk to me. Do you think, yes, I agree his name will be on every Mario Pikmin release till the end of time in some form or another. But do you think he's working on or overseeing one? You think in his heart, he feels like this might be the Mario game that is my last in the office directing people Mario game?
Speaker 2:
[82:08] I think that's already happened. I don't think he's in there doing full time direction or anything really. He's mostly just a figurehead, but I think that again, they bring him out when they need a little attention juice more than anything else.
Speaker 3:
[82:25] Well, not figurehead selling, sure, because he definitely still is weighing in on everything. But he's in, my understanding is he's in kind of an advisory role on basically everything they do. Like he hasn't directed a Zelda game since Ocarina of Time for example, but he still oversees and gives feedback on. Where did I see a bunch of retro people were talking recently about his role on the Metroid Prime games and talking like very glowingly about, but also in like kind of a, like they were slightly afraid of him. Like basically like when he would come in to review their builds and give feedback, he was like absolutely uncompromising in telling them what was and was not working. So it was like a little bit, they were like a little bit of afraid of when he would come in because he is a thing.
Speaker 2:
[83:12] Right. Like it's like he's the master. You don't want to piss off the master.
Speaker 3:
[83:15] Like, like they're very reverent about it. I think this was on some YouTube channel had interviewed some of the older retro employees or something like they're very reverent about it. You know, where it was like, oh, like every single thing he said made the game better. Like he was always right. But he also was pretty unafraid to kind of tell you the thing you had been working on was not good.
Speaker 1:
[83:33] I mean, the man has earned the legion of respect, right?
Speaker 2:
[83:38] And again, as long as he doesn't tell you it's an insult to life itself, you're probably OK.
Speaker 1:
[83:43] Yeah. I guess what I'm getting at is, just to be clear, is if he were to step down or change roles or be like, I'm moving on to the next phase of my life with Nintendo.
Speaker 2:
[83:56] Right.
Speaker 1:
[83:56] Is there a release that he would want to be more hands on with and be like, this is the one that came out while I was here. And that's probably the window we're in.
Speaker 3:
[84:06] That's what Pikmin was. That was kind of the, I don't know how vocal Nintendo was about that, but the impression I always had about Pikmin was like, oh, it's the first new Miyamoto game in a while. He hasn't created an IP from the ground up in a while, but then there were all the stories about, kind of he conceived of it while he was gardening and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:
[84:27] Somehow, okay, I don't know why I'm imagining this. I'm just going to throw it out into the world. Somehow the last thing he's going to put his stamp on is the reboot of Hogan's Alley. It's finally going to happen.
Speaker 1:
[84:40] This is his favorite franchise.
Speaker 2:
[84:41] It took me 40 years, but I found a way to bring it back. Miyamoto, I'm out.
Speaker 1:
[84:48] I'm done.
Speaker 3:
[84:49] They're going to make a new Rob.
Speaker 2:
[84:51] There you go.
Speaker 3:
[84:52] He's going to work on the new Rob.
Speaker 1:
[84:54] It's the thing that will sink Nintendo. How old is he? He's what, in the 70s?
Speaker 3:
[84:58] 73.
Speaker 1:
[84:59] 73.
Speaker 2:
[85:00] Very healthy by all accounts, but you know, I've been doing this a long time.
Speaker 3:
[85:05] I think this is a random comparison that I just happened to look up the other day, which is why I know it off the top of my head, but Ridley Scott is 88.
Speaker 1:
[85:12] Oh wow.
Speaker 3:
[85:13] And is still making movies.
Speaker 1:
[85:14] Oh wow.
Speaker 3:
[85:15] So some people just go and go.
Speaker 2:
[85:17] Some people never fully stop.
Speaker 1:
[85:19] Well, speaking of things that sometimes stop, but then come back, Brad Shoemaker, the Neo Geo.
Speaker 3:
[85:29] Yeah, this is a weird one.
Speaker 1:
[85:30] The acclaimed arcade and then very expensive for the rich kids home version product.
Speaker 2:
[85:41] Nothing has changed in that regard.
Speaker 3:
[85:43] Everybody wanted one.
Speaker 1:
[85:45] Nobody could get one.
Speaker 3:
[85:46] There are so many weird angles to this story, but I guess the easiest way to say it is they're just putting the Neo Geo out again.
Speaker 2:
[85:52] Yes, a new Neo Geo hardware product.
Speaker 3:
[85:56] Yes, the Neo Geo AES Plus, Advanced Entertainment System Plus, because the AES was the console version back in the day, and the MPS was the arcade cabinet one. God, there's discourse around this even.
Speaker 2:
[86:09] I think this one's a little bit understandable to me, given where SNK is at.
Speaker 3:
[86:13] Oh, I'm not even talking about the MPS. Yeah, that is legitimate and should be addressed. I need to spend less time on social media is really is really there was there were some people going like, oh, who even thought the NeoGeo was a home console? Like I only ever saw the arcade cabinet. Like you must must be some rich kid. If you I've never seen a NeoGeo console in person, like I've never seen an AES.
Speaker 1:
[86:38] You have not?
Speaker 3:
[86:39] No, I have not.
Speaker 1:
[86:40] Oh, I have to this day. Didn't Jeff have one that he brought in or so?
Speaker 3:
[86:42] Well, no. Oh, maybe, maybe that's well, he had like a wooden one, didn't he? He had like some weird wooden.
Speaker 1:
[86:47] Sorry, I don't know if Steve, Steve brought one in or something.
Speaker 3:
[86:50] Yeah, they're definitely around, like collectors have them all over the place. There may be one that, you're right, there probably is one that showed up in the office or something. But the point is, like.
Speaker 1:
[86:58] Like in the wild at the time.
Speaker 3:
[86:59] The discourse was like, who even thought this was a console? Like who had a $700 console in the 90s or whatever?
Speaker 2:
[87:05] I mean, Japan did.
Speaker 3:
[87:06] Well, the thing for me is like, yes, the MVS is the only Neo Geo I ever touched for the first 20 years of the Neo Geo's existence or saw. But the magazines talked about this fucking thing constantly.
Speaker 1:
[87:19] You have an arcade in your home.
Speaker 3:
[87:20] Yes, like you have to understand the mythical quality of the $700 console with the $250 cartridges.
Speaker 1:
[87:27] You just played the arcade game.
Speaker 3:
[87:28] Was and it was the arcade games to the point that you could get a memory card, take them to the arcade and put it in the cabinet and bring it home and play the same data.
Speaker 1:
[87:35] It was the dream.
Speaker 3:
[87:36] Your save games were portable between home and. And.
Speaker 2:
[87:39] The really expensive dream.
Speaker 3:
[87:41] This is really getting into some magazine shit. I don't know who that fucking company was who put those sweepstake ads at the end of the EGM every month. But do you remember, do you remember the ad that would show up in the very back with like the mail order ads where you would call to order shit from different companies?
Speaker 2:
[87:58] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[87:58] There was one that was just like every month. It was like, like when the ultimate video game entertainment center or something like that. And it was like a giant screen TV, which at the time was like a projection TV because that's all I made.
Speaker 2:
[88:10] You've just unlocked such a specific memory for me.
Speaker 3:
[88:13] I mean, I've seen photos of people in the ultimate entertainment center.
Speaker 2:
[88:16] It's suddenly a phrase in my mind.
Speaker 3:
[88:18] It was the biggest projection TV you could get in the early 90s and every single video game product ever made clustered around it, stacked around it. And I don't even know if that thing was a scam or what I have never read about. In fact, a great thing for some enterprising reporter or the Video Game History Foundation or somebody to work on that has more time than me, is track down a winner of that thing if they exist.
Speaker 2:
[88:41] Right.
Speaker 3:
[88:41] Because again, I don't even know what company it was that did these things. But it was everything from a SNES and Genesis, like the full Genesis stack, TurboGrafx on up to like a NeoGeo and a 3DO and a CD-I. It was everything. But the NeoGeo was always at the top of that pyramid, that hierarchy in those ads of the win the ultimate $10,000 video game set up or whatever. The NeoGeo as a console was very visible if you were reading magazines back then, even if you never had access to one in person. I played the shit out of every MVS I had access to, which was like a surprise. There were probably four or five of them in different places that I could play. But the myth of the NeoGeo console of the AES was still pretty pervasive.
Speaker 1:
[89:30] It didn't go away to me probably until emulation got pretty out there and robust. Then of course, with FPGAs and stuff, like, oh, okay, do you even need to track down an actual NeoGeo?01?
Speaker 3:
[89:49] There are umpteen different ways to play NeoGeo these days. In fact, the NeoGeo core on the Mr. I believe is one of very few cores that is cycle accurate, meaning it is like a thousand percent accurate to the original hardware.
Speaker 1:
[90:01] Well, what is happening here, Brad?
Speaker 3:
[90:03] Anyway, sorry, that was a long-winded way of saying yes, there is a new version of the NeoGeo coming out and like it's pretty interesting from the like kind of retro games collector kind of standpoint. Because most of these things are low, okay. There's like the mini NES, the mini PlayStation, like those little things. Those are all just like software emulation. People have dug into those and been like, hey, they're using this commercial or not commercial, they're using this like off the shelf, like open source emulator in here. Or I can see these errors in this game that are consistent with the errors this emulator makes, you know, or like, oh, I found the ROM files. I found a.info file for ROM when I unpacked what's in this thing. And then there's like the FPGA based stuff, like the, like the, I think it's the Ultimate Commodore 64 or C64 Ultimate that just came out. For example, is FPGA based.
Speaker 1:
[90:55] What a single system.
Speaker 3:
[90:56] It's, yeah, I mean, it looks like a C64, but inside it's an FPGA, so it's recreating the hardware that way. This thing is like actual hardware.
Speaker 2:
[91:03] Right.
Speaker 3:
[91:03] Like that's what is interesting about this to me is, I mean, it's not the literal integrated circuits of a 90s Neo Geo, but it is modern equivalents that perform the same functions, but in hardware. So like, they're doing a different thing here than most of the reproduction, kind of, hey, play your old favorites kind of things. And this thing is compatible with original cartridges. So like, it feels like they're really targeting the collector market with this thing.
Speaker 1:
[91:28] For sure.
Speaker 3:
[91:29] In a bunch of different ways.
Speaker 1:
[91:31] Because they are, they're not, or at least from my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, this is not talking about putting out new games for the Neo Geo.
Speaker 2:
[91:38] Well, there are some, I thought there were like, there's new cartridges.
Speaker 3:
[91:42] Well, yeah, they're making new carts of old games, is what they're doing. Like, if this really took off, which I doubt, like, I don't think that anybody's actually gonna sink resources into making new Neo Geo games, but I have definitely seen people who are big in the retro game space calling for that now, which, more power to you, I don't think it's gonna happen. But yes, they are.
Speaker 1:
[92:02] Somebody will do something.
Speaker 3:
[92:03] They're releasing five games, or sorry, 10 games at the top in cartridge form, which are, I believe, $90 a piece. Is it 80 or 90?
Speaker 1:
[92:13] We'll need triple checks. Because it was like 70 pounds, I believe, right? I had it in front of me, 80 euros, 70 pounds.
Speaker 3:
[92:21] I closed the tab. Let me guess. I'll take your word for it. The system is 250 and the games are, I mean, again, back in the day, it was 700 and like 250 a cart. So it's not that expensive, but it's still way, way more expensive than those games need to be.
Speaker 1:
[92:37] And it was like, I think $1,000 for the ultimate bundle.
Speaker 3:
[92:42] Because they're reproducing the stick, the game pad, like everything. Or at least I think the game pad is a reproduction. I don't think that's new, but the stick is definitely just a reproduction of the original stick.
Speaker 1:
[92:53] The arcade stick. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[92:55] And I don't keep up with this stuff, but apparently NeoGeo collecting is just insanely expensive. I mean, it always has been.
Speaker 2:
[93:00] Yeah, that has not ever changed.
Speaker 3:
[93:02] But it's worse now, apparently. I saw a screenshot of, I don't know if it's like some eBay Japan listing or something of a Mark of the Wolves for like $3,500. It's just completely insanity.
Speaker 2:
[93:11] It used to be the Holy Grail cartridge, but the Holy Grail cartridge, I think at most, went for like $1,000.
Speaker 3:
[93:16] Yeah, it was like $1,000 20 years ago or something, which is still insane, but it's just even more so. Anyway, a lot of the collector type people in this space, I see sort of regarding this as official in a way that a lot of these other re-releases and emulation projects and stuff are not.
Speaker 1:
[93:31] So you think it undercuts that market or bolsters?
Speaker 3:
[93:34] Well, I mean, that's who knows. Maybe, maybe not. Some people think, oh, this will cut the rug out from under the collector market and things will get more affordable. And then other people are like, no, come on.
Speaker 2:
[93:43] This is real here.
Speaker 3:
[93:44] I'm not plugged enough into that scene to know. But like it's still it's just interesting to see a company. And it's not SNK putting this out. It is PlayOn Replay, which is a brand I was not familiar with. But PlayOn is what Coke Media used to be.
Speaker 2:
[93:57] Yeah, right.
Speaker 3:
[93:57] Like they became PlayOn after that giant. They got embraced and then Embracer did that giant reorg. And they are now PlayOn and then Replay, I guess, is a label they have that is specializing in this kind of like retro product.
Speaker 2:
[94:10] That said, they are licensing directly from SNK. And that is the current version of SNK.
Speaker 3:
[94:14] There is the absolutely should be noted that SNK is involved in this and SNK is 100 percent owned by. Whatever that it's not the it's not the public investment fund, but it's a different arm of the Saudi government. In fact, it's under the MBS like kind of umbrella. In particular, so yes, like money is going directly to them through SNK for this, which is certainly worth noting.
Speaker 2:
[94:37] Yeah. I mean, in much the same way that, you know, I imagine anyone who is still adhering to the BDS boycott with Microsoft, like if you have any misgivings about giving money to current SNK, this probably is not a device you should be looking to invest in.
Speaker 3:
[94:52] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[94:53] I mean, if you find another way to play your Mark of the Wolves.
Speaker 2:
[94:55] And you know, it turns out there's a lot of ways you can play Neo Geo games these days.
Speaker 3:
[95:00] Yes. Yes. I mean, like I said, the it's one of the most accurate Mr. Cores that exists, for example. There are certainly other ways to play Neo Geo games. I mostly think it's interesting to highlight here because of their different approach to the hardware and the difference in perception that seems to be creating among the people who are way into owning stuff like this, like like at least some segment of that crowd seems to be looking at this as an official release.
Speaker 1:
[95:25] I think if this look, I don't have I have the same as you, Brad. I think Neo Geo will always hold this mythical place in my hearts, in my brain. I looked at the games that are coming out for this and I was like, yeah, Metal Slug, yeah, King of the Fighters, Yeah, Mark of the Wolves. I did not play Big Big Tournament Golf or Shock Troopers. Yes, Samurai Showdown. I Pull Star, Twinkle Star Sprites, Magician Lord over the top, like, oh, sorry, over top, like a quarter to maybe a third of those games. I'm like, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[95:58] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[95:59] And then but then I'm like, no, no, I don't know for 250 bucks. And I looked at the $1,000 one. And for all the reasons we just talked about was like. If I ever did go on this in on this, it would be probably to sit in a box to collect, not to play, not to touch, because I would play these games a different way.
Speaker 2:
[96:19] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[96:19] And this would be like a thing that's like, hey, I now own I satisfied that weird need I had to own a Neo Geo.
Speaker 3:
[96:27] Very much targeted at both collectors and kind of real hardware.
Speaker 1:
[96:30] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[96:31] Aficionados, I started to say perverts. But I mean, look, what you're into, what you're into.
Speaker 2:
[96:36] Like I have tomato.
Speaker 3:
[96:39] I respect people that want to use original hardware.
Speaker 1:
[96:41] I mean, I think it's cool if they did this for a Super Nintendo, right?
Speaker 3:
[96:44] Like that said, though, I don't I don't consider I don't know that I would consider this original hardware in the way some people seem to be taking it, though.
Speaker 2:
[96:50] I mean, it's closer to like, but it is different.
Speaker 3:
[96:53] Like the only it's the same. I should say it's the same form factor on the system. Like the styling is all the same. It's not some reduced size or it's like it looks like a Neo Geo. The controllers, like I said, are the same. It's just got HDMI out and some other modern niceties. But basically, it's it is the original hardware.
Speaker 1:
[97:10] I bet this would be funny, too, because it is, like you said, the size, like the one to one replica on even the controller, the big controller, the kind of one that sits on your lap. Not the game pad. And I do bet if you open that thing up, it is a tiny little PCB.
Speaker 3:
[97:26] Yeah, they say it's on modern ASICs, which I think it's basically some modern re-implementation of the original hardware, which is probably much smaller.
Speaker 1:
[97:35] And I bet the same thing inside the console.
Speaker 3:
[97:37] The innards of the cards have to be absolutely miniscule. I don't know what that is even.
Speaker 1:
[97:41] So I think you mentioned the price of the system. You mentioned the price of the games. The all-in, $1,000-ish.
Speaker 3:
[97:48] It's expensive. I was gonna say, I was a little surprised not to see Ninja Combat on the list of games here. Like Magician Lord you have to have because that was the pack-in. But those were the two games I saw in the arcade first. Those were the, and Ninja Combat was the one that was in all the magazines. I was like, look at this shit. Like, look at, like your home console can't do this. But then I got, I started looking around a little bit and apparently Ninja Combat is like very not well thought of these days. Which, I'm not saying it was an amazing game. It was just the one that got shoved out there at, like when it first started getting big, I was like, this is crazy looking. Look at this.
Speaker 1:
[98:23] The thing that I would want for me is like, if I'm going to pay that money, I want, if I'm going to pay $1,000 and get like an Ultimate Edition, I want it to basically just have the Metal Slug games and the Samurai Showdown games, right? Like, and just give me those.
Speaker 3:
[98:39] Oh, that was another, speaking of Metal Slug, apparently there are options to like overclock this thing, which would presumably help with like slowdown in some of the sprite, more sprite heavy games like Metal Slug. I guess this thing is going to give you access to like arcade dip switches and stuff as well.
Speaker 1:
[98:54] Yeah, I guess the other thing worth noting is it's 1080 out. It's not 4K. It's not doing upscaling to get up to 4K on any of this stuff. So yeah, I don't know. This is an interesting one. I do think, Brad, you mentioned kind of the philosophical debate about whether this is a brother or a cousin to a Neo Geo, right? But I do think if Nintendo put out a Nintendo, an NES, a Nintendo Entertainment System, and said, this, we bless this as a Nintendo Entertainment System in 2026, I would feel like that's an official Nintendo, it plays original carts.
Speaker 3:
[99:35] Yeah, that's actually kind of the main reason I want to talk so much about this is like, I'm kind of curious what this pretends for other companies doing similar stuff potentially in the future. Because like I said, this is the complete opposite end of the spectrum from stuff like the mini NES, which is like cute, but not like the real thing in any sense.
Speaker 2:
[99:53] Not intended to be the 100% accurate experience.
Speaker 3:
[99:57] Right. Yeah, which is what this is purporting to be to the extent that it, like I said, plays original carts and stuff. I guess you could probably plug original controllers into it. It's got the same ports.
Speaker 1:
[100:07] I mean, I think it also doesn't also have like an S-video on the back or a...
Speaker 3:
[100:11] The new one? I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:
[100:13] It's got an HDMI for sure, but I thought I saw, I'd have to go back to their site again. I thought I saw a picture with its video outputs and it was, unless that's a power plug, like a DIN socket for power.
Speaker 3:
[100:24] Yeah, like that really would be an interesting idea though of like an Inteno or a Sega making a SNES or a Genesis in this mold.
Speaker 1:
[100:32] I think that would be super cool because the...
Speaker 2:
[100:34] Don't say that though. Because then they're going to sell you $90 fucking cartridges, okay?
Speaker 3:
[100:39] I'm not going to buy any of this stuff. I am absolutely not the target audience for this. I just like seeing the more cool old stuff happening with old games and old hardware, the better. I mean, again, the involvement of the Saudis aside on this.
Speaker 1:
[100:52] I do think that if Nintendo or even like a Genesis or anybody wanted to bring back, like if, Alex, this is probably more your speed here, because I know you like an N64, if they did it like, hey, we're making hardware accurate N64 that plays the games.
Speaker 3:
[101:05] Yeah, of course. I mean, in that case, Analog kind of went and did that, although...
Speaker 1:
[101:08] Yeah. I mean, it's still not the... Maybe they're not charging...
Speaker 2:
[101:12] It's not the 100% experience, but it's as close as anyone has gotten up to this point. And honestly, I don't know if I would need something more perfect than what I currently have.
Speaker 3:
[101:20] Yeah, I mean, like Analog's reproductions of hardware are like very highly respected. Like their guy that does those things is kind of like a legend. So I think you can probably say that the Analog 3D is about as close to an N64 as you could get. Short of Nintendo saying, hey, we're making a new N64. Like we own the designs of these chips and we have just re-implemented them. And this is an actual N64. And we say this is like, it's basically them going like, hey, this is a Nintendo 64 because we say it is. And that seems to really matter to some people.
Speaker 1:
[101:56] I mean, I guess the other thing there would be going back. The problem or the unique position, again, aside from all of the other ownership stuff of SNK is the unique position is their catalog probably doesn't have to go out and re-license a bunch of stuff, right? They have, they can put out your favorite SNK games on this console, whereas Nintendo, your favorite games probably some are made by Nintendo, but they're not going to go out and license those wrestling games from N64 and put those back out.
Speaker 3:
[102:25] But if you have old cards of them.
Speaker 2:
[102:27] Dude, what a world.
Speaker 1:
[102:29] Imagine if the surviving publishers or whoever, whatever conglomerate owns the old publishers and they're back cataloged and they're like, we're back. We could just start releasing old game tapes, Nintendo tapes again. You see this? Jerry, they're selling for like $100. We boot them up.
Speaker 2:
[102:48] What do we own?
Speaker 1:
[102:48] What do we get in the catalog?
Speaker 2:
[102:49] What do we own from THQ? I told you Space Station Silicon Valley was ahead of its time. Now is the time more than ever.
Speaker 1:
[102:55] People digging through. I think we own some of this stuff. What do we have? Who owns this one? Who owns Festa's Quest? Who's got it? They want it. The kids want it.
Speaker 2:
[103:05] I feel like the answer to actually a lot of those questions is Microsoft. Who owns a lot of that shit? Because there's all the rare stuff. There's probably some other things that have been rooped in through Activision and whatnot. So probably a lot.
Speaker 1:
[103:17] Look, I bet Microsoft would love to. I mean, the manufacturing would be interesting. You still need to spin up a factory to then mold and slap together these things.
Speaker 3:
[103:28] Yeah, there's one other aspect to this that is another reason. I think it's worth highlighting, which again, just to reiterate again, like the provenance of this, it's got some pretty, I don't know how to put it, like the strings attached to this are such that you should think very hard before you give money to this particular thing. But, and this doesn't apply to this thing because it is like overpriced by design or almost as a marketing technique. Like, it is almost a feature of their marketing to make these games insanely expensive because that's what the NeoGeo was. But there also is you definitely seeing a lot more people saying like, or you're seeing a lot of people put a much bigger focus on retro games in the midst of this insane affordability crisis, which is even worse in tech than it is everywhere else. I mean, it's kind of pervasive society wide, but you know, you know what's happening with memory and storage and stuff like that. Like console prices going up by the month and everything. Like you're seeing a lot of people going like, I'm going to pull my Vita out of the closet and mod that and play that instead of buying a PS5 Pro or you know what I mean? Or I'm going to get a free McBoot for my PS2. Like there's so many weird little things out there you can use to resuscitate your old hardware. Or in this case, there are new projects coming out that do that. And again, this is a bad example because it's expensive. But like, I really wonder if there's going to be a much more of a pronounced pivot back to the games of the last 30 years, if the longer this shit goes on, and the more out of reach new hardware is for more people.
Speaker 1:
[105:04] Yeah. Well, that's, I think you collide that with some of the weirder, not weirder, but the currents of nostalgia that want physical devices and physical games instead of...
Speaker 3:
[105:16] I mean, some of this goes to where my social media algorithm is at, but I see arguments regularly between people. I saw a long thread of people recently arguing about whether it's ethical to pull the optical drives out of old consoles of the PlayStation 1 to GameCube era and put ODE's in optical drive emulators.
Speaker 1:
[105:37] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[105:37] Whether it's like because those consoles obviously are not being made anymore and it's hard to repair those, it's getting harder and harder to repair or replace those optical drives in those consoles. And there's a growing number of people who are like, this fucking sucks for you to gut a working optical drive out of that PlayStation to put an SD card adapter in there because once these are gone, they're gone. Once we can't repair these anymore, that's it. But I guess newer ODE's can be installed without compromising, without having to pull out the drive apparatus, for example. There's always going to be improvements there. But it's getting into weird little niches of niches at that point where people are developing very passionate beliefs around things that involve scarcity and preservation and nostalgia and stuff like that. It's probably a good sign for the medium, I guess, that people care this much.
Speaker 1:
[106:33] I'm still in the market. I gotta go see. I haven't done it in a while because I ran into some other things, but my original Xbox with the drive that died, what is it, I think it's like 8 gigs or something, is that drive?
Speaker 3:
[106:43] Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:
[106:44] Like that old drive in there, which you just cannot find in 8 gigs.
Speaker 3:
[106:48] You gotta put an SSD in that thing, man.
Speaker 1:
[106:50] Well, this is what I'm saying. My personal feeling, the reason I haven't modded it or done anything is because I do, I personally do have just the thing of like, I like the original hardware for this, this is what I have, but what are you gonna do at that point?
Speaker 3:
[107:04] Yeah, I mean, I guess I can respect that, like if you really want to deal with like era accurate seek times on the storage, go with God.
Speaker 1:
[107:15] The bigger thing was trying to, I think it's, what is it? It's coded to the, is it the CPU? You need like a, there's an ID that marries the hardware drive.
Speaker 3:
[107:24] Yeah, there's stuff you have to do. There's definitely stuff you have to do to put a new drive in there.
Speaker 1:
[107:28] Yeah, it's not just like replace and, or you could just put a mod chip in there and go off and be with God.
Speaker 3:
[107:34] I mean, there's people that put faster CPUs and more RAM in their original Xboxes these days. Like people are nuts.
Speaker 1:
[107:40] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[107:41] And I'm the complete opposite of the spectrum, where the more games I can play in the smaller, in the, the most games I can play in the least devices with the smallest footprint is where I want to be.
Speaker 1:
[107:51] Sure.
Speaker 3:
[107:51] Which I have, there's like all I've got a mister that is the size of like three decks of cards stacked together and plays a lot, everything up through about 1996.
Speaker 1:
[108:04] So you are the opposite of an arcade cabinet.
Speaker 3:
[108:05] Yes. Like the more, the more games I can get out of the smallest thing, as long as they're accurate, that's all I care about.
Speaker 1:
[108:11] Yeah. Well, uh, industry, news, industry, news, industry, news, segue. Iron Galaxy is, uh, is, um, saying they are going to downsize. Now they had, uh, layoffs. Was it last year?
Speaker 3:
[108:28] I think it was last year sometime.
Speaker 1:
[108:30] Um, and they have put up a post, uh, on LinkedIn. Brad, you linked this from LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:
[108:36] Yeah. I think there's some notable language in here that's worth taking a quick look at here. Uh, this is their second round of layoffs. So I think that, you know, I mean, okay. We know Dave Lang. We know the founder of the company. We're like friendly with people who own it and, and or have worked there in the past. So I guess grain of salt, but I feel like they've been pretty good about the way they publicly message their two rounds of layoffs here. In terms of, you know, showing some empathy for the people losing their jobs, but also being pretty forthright about the business realities of why it's happening. But here's the language that really jumped out at me. Ever since 2020, when everything about making video games started to change, people have been waiting for business to get back to normal. These are the conversations we've had with colleagues and partners on our travels to the places where game creators gather. This year, we're adopting a new posture to accept these current market conditions as permanent. That's the big one there. Players consume games in new ways. Publishers have different criteria for investing in the development of games. This new normal has impacted all our partners. It's impossible for us to sustain the team size that we've carried this past year even after our downsizing from last year. But it's the new normal. We are now positioning ourselves to assume that this is not going to change anytime soon. I mean, permanent is only permanent until it's not. But at least in this context, you can take permanent as semi-permanent.
Speaker 2:
[110:08] There is not an expectation of change on the horizon.
Speaker 3:
[110:11] Right. Which is not a rosy prognosis necessarily.
Speaker 2:
[110:17] No, but I do feel like this is the thing a lot of companies have been afraid to verbalize. Up to this point, and I'm not saying that like Iron Galaxy is like uniquely brave here for putting it into words like this, but I do think this has been the tone you've heard a lot, especially from analysts and executives. They don't say this usually in their layoff notices, but I feel like the general vibe has been. There is no anticipation of things changing. If there was at all, like maybe some of these layoffs wouldn't be happening because there is hope there was some light at the end of the tunnel people were expecting to hit. But there hasn't been any of that, and it feels like if anything, this has just been a long stretch of quiet acceptance that the old way was going to be too expensive going forward.
Speaker 3:
[110:58] Yeah, and I feel like in particular, that's been the terrifying implication of all the talk around the five games sucking up all of the money now. Is the whole like, oh, kids are growing up with Roblox and Minecraft and two other games and that's all they ever want to play. Like the implication there is that they're probably not gonna age out of that. There's no reason to think they're going to suddenly turn 18 and be like, now I need a PlayStation. You know, like there's no, there's no reasonable expectation that the way things were will come back. Like it's potentially a generational change.
Speaker 1:
[111:35] And you know, I think we focus a lot here because you know, we talk a lot of top level with developers and publishers and when there are fewer games of that caliber of AAA games being made, I feel like it probably has a knock on effect we don't talk about with support studios, porting studios that are not there.
Speaker 2:
[111:55] There's a lot of hidden work in game development. I feel like when we are talking about these numbers, we are often talking about those people who do not have, you know, the marquee lead art, lead writer, lead producer titles, like and also sometimes not even full time work at the main studio working on these things.
Speaker 3:
[112:12] Like that was that was one of the key takeaways from the Bloomberg report on Blue Point getting shut down by Sony was that, you know, they were largely like a support and then like porting kind of studio. And then suddenly they were tasked with doing things that they didn't have like a design staff to support because that had not been the thing they had focused on.
Speaker 1:
[112:29] Yeah. So like, you know, we have longer consoles or it feels like, I know I'm probably wrong. And some will be like, actually, but the console cycles seem fairly long with a lot of PC stuff, bridging a gap. And I think some of these houses, and I'm not speaking entirely for Iron Galaxy here, but when a new console comes out, you want to try and bring games over to it, right? You got people, developers trying to bring games over, or you have your lead game on the new generation and you might hire a support studio to help bring it to an older generation, right? And all of that work probably goes away. Again, it's just, I feel like Iron Galaxy is a studio that has tried to get out there and make it publish its own stuff and also really been in the background helping a lot of other studios bring their games to market. So it's an interesting bellwether for what that middle market might look like. And if you have any openings at your company, you can go check their LinkedIn posts. It looks like people are posting underneath it to kind of make them aware of employees that employees that have been affected by this, that there might be openings at a studio if you have any kind of development work that you need talented people for. I have personally heard good things about the people at Iron Galaxy. I can't vouch for them in any real context, just anecdotal. All right, that is the news. I'm sure we'll have more industry news as the year chugs along here. We are getting close. Somebody asked me, basically, said the word Summer Game Fest, and I was like, okay, are we there already? What is going on? And really though, we're in the middle of April. We're nearing the end of April. It's going to be Summer Game Fest soon enough. Okay. Before we get to the emails, I probably have asked this once a month, if not more frequently. Alex Navarro, do we get any console hardware announcements at Summer Game Fest?
Speaker 2:
[114:31] This year? No.
Speaker 1:
[114:32] This year.
Speaker 3:
[114:33] What do you mean by announcement?
Speaker 1:
[114:34] Announcement, unofficial from a console maker and not SNK, gets up there and says either a picture, a date, gameplay.
Speaker 2:
[114:45] No.
Speaker 3:
[114:46] Or like a final name?
Speaker 2:
[114:48] No. Yeah. Box design, any of that.
Speaker 3:
[114:51] None of that. I don't think Summer Game Fest, I'm trying to think how to put this.
Speaker 1:
[114:57] Okay. Sorry. I shouldn't say Summer Game Fest. The Summer of Games.
Speaker 3:
[115:01] I'm trying to think how to put this diplomatically. Don't. I don't know if Summer of Games Fest rises to that level in the way that E3 was a valid venue to announce. But even then, I'm trying to think how many consoles fully got announced at E3 versus their own events.
Speaker 2:
[115:20] That became more of a thing, I feel like, from the PS3 on. The PS4 had its own event, the Switch had its own event.
Speaker 3:
[115:28] The Switch was announced on its own. Even in the heyday of E3, it was more like you knew about the console going in, and then they would take the wraps off some more details, or they'd show what it looked like. But that's nothing. I think even the Summer Game Fest people would agree that it's a little more low-key than, certainly, Playdays, the in-person event, is way more low-key than E3 ever was. So I think that's not even throwing shade at Summer Game Fest or anything. But it's just like...
Speaker 1:
[115:56] No, no, no. And I'll broaden it out. What I really mean is, when I say Summer Game Fest, I mean the summer announcements.
Speaker 3:
[116:03] Like in that window?
Speaker 1:
[116:04] Yeah, like Microsoft will probably have something, Sony will have something.
Speaker 3:
[116:08] So next year, maybe. But this year, absolutely not, just because none of those things are shipping this year. So A, they would even be close to ready, but B, it just doesn't fit into the marketing plan to go out this early with that stuff.
Speaker 1:
[116:18] Not a point. So the only thing that... The reason I kind of asked this question, because the wild card I want to bring up is, I do feel like Microsoft might want to shake the pot a little bit.
Speaker 3:
[116:29] Yeah, that is actually possible. There is a little bit of a 360 element, again, of they are way behind.
Speaker 1:
[116:37] Just to drum up a little buzz, some excitement, before GTA swallows up the rest of the year?
Speaker 3:
[116:42] They'll definitely say something about Project Helix. Will there be any substance to it at all? Who can say? But it's possible. Maybe they do just, in the same way that they've come in and cut the Game Pass price in the first month of new leadership, maybe they're just like, fuck it, we're just going to go hard. We're going to show more than maybe the conservative conventionalism says we should. I don't know, who knows?
Speaker 2:
[117:04] Yeah, it, let's be legends that can either bring your company to the heights of success or it's the fire festival. One of the two, we'll find out.
Speaker 3:
[117:12] Right. Maybe they just got to take a big swing and it's just like, hey, maybe we have more to gain than to lose here by coming out with something big.
Speaker 1:
[117:20] Because you wouldn't do it because you're like, I'm not going to cannibalize, I'm not going to take the wind out of the current generation for the next year and a half while this is in development.
Speaker 2:
[117:28] What wind?
Speaker 3:
[117:28] Well, that's the thing. How much tail wind do they have, I guess?
Speaker 1:
[117:32] Right. Maybe you just start generating buzz and maybe it's more of a feature list of like, hey, we're currently, like you said, Brad, maybe they're like, Project Helix is currently in the works and these are some of the technologies that we're looking to implement or something. Yeah. I don't know. Interesting as we get closer.
Speaker 3:
[117:49] Something from Microsoft, maybe like Sony, definitely not.
Speaker 1:
[117:53] Yeah. I have no idea what Sony or Nintendo show up with this summer. All right. We have an email address. It is a podcast at nextlander.com, podcast at nextlander.com, podcast at nextlander.com. Brad Shoemaker. A couple of emails in the bag for us.
Speaker 3:
[118:14] Yes. Read a couple of emails about consumption habits.
Speaker 1:
[118:17] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[118:18] Chris from Chicago.
Speaker 1:
[118:20] I love to consume.
Speaker 3:
[118:22] Vinny is a guy that loves getting a platinum. After hearing him talk about giant games like Horizon or Death Stranding, it's been fun to hear him talk about multiple playthroughs of Silent Hill F and Resident Evil Requiem. Question is, what do you guys prefer? One giant game that lasts 40 hours or a 10-hour game that you can master and beat four times? I never saw shorter games as worse, especially if they're designed with reasons to replay them. But after Skyrim, it felt like AAA became more about the power counts and filling one play-through with a ton of content to justify the price tag. I'm a dude that grew up playing shorter games over and over. There were incentives too, such as unlocking cloaking in Metal Gear Solid or building up your upgrades and skills in Devil May Cry. Or maybe the game was just fun enough to support replays, so I still like having a tight game that I'll play more than once in my life.
Speaker 1:
[119:09] Raise my hand. Mm-hmm, please.
Speaker 3:
[119:10] Sure.
Speaker 1:
[119:11] From the back here. I do have to, I have to say, the Sony First Party Trophy is a very particular, Platinum is a very particular thing. Usually it is fairly attainable.
Speaker 3:
[119:26] They're pretty good about finishing you out of the game with like, a stone's throw, always like, I could, you know, another five hours and I could be done with this.
Speaker 1:
[119:35] Yeah. And that's, that's cause those, some of those games are big, but you come out of it, like you just said, fairly close to getting it. And so that might, that might skew the math a little bit. Like would I do another 80 hours in a game or something like that? The hell no.
Speaker 3:
[119:51] Right.
Speaker 1:
[119:51] Like, like I did not, I don't think I Platinum Final Fantasy. I'm pretty sure I gave up on some of those other challenges. Which one?
Speaker 2:
[120:00] The remakes.
Speaker 1:
[120:00] Rebirth?
Speaker 2:
[120:01] Yeah. Any of them. I think I just didn't want to do the challenges anymore. I think, I'm not sure. I can double check.
Speaker 1:
[120:08] Not to strike fear in anyone's heart, but I'm. I'm thinking about going back to Rebirth recently.
Speaker 2:
[120:12] Yeah, gotta finish, gotta get ready.
Speaker 1:
[120:15] I do not want a repeat of the last time, where I am frantically playing dozens of hours of remake as fast as I can, which was turned into a real slog to get done with that in time for Rebirth.
Speaker 2:
[120:28] I know, you said.
Speaker 3:
[120:30] You still have a little time, right?
Speaker 1:
[120:31] Yeah, well, so I mean, maybe to the point, I don't have a universal answer to this. Like it really is just case by case.
Speaker 2:
[120:38] Yeah, like if it's a good game, it's fun to play.
Speaker 1:
[120:40] The one thing I don't really care for is a short game that does not provide. I mean, it's fine to play at once, but I'm not going to replay a short game that kind of offers nothing new the second time.
Speaker 2:
[120:50] Oh, right.
Speaker 3:
[120:51] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[120:51] Like that's as much as I might have enjoyed it. Like there's just too many other games to play to just play a game again, just to play it again. But like Silent Hill F is a great example of there are huge reasons to play that game multiple times. Or like a Dead Rising, you know, like games that build it in to the way they're structured, that it's worth playing multiple times. Like yeah, absolutely. That's cool.
Speaker 2:
[121:13] And it doesn't need to be story, right? Like I like a good power. I like an overpowered or like game breaking thing after you beat, like some cookie for beating the game. Be like, now you go back in and like you don't have to worry about this mechanic anymore.
Speaker 1:
[121:27] Right, right. But also, I mean, I'll absolutely play an 80, 100 hour game if I like it enough. Like I'm trying to think Death Stranding 2, Red Dead Redemption 2, Breath of the Wild. Like there's, you know, there are games, there are like map games occasionally that I'll play for 100 hours just fine. If they don't lose my interest.
Speaker 2:
[121:47] Map games.
Speaker 1:
[121:50] Alex, any thoughts?
Speaker 3:
[121:52] Yeah, I mean, I feel basically the same way you guys do. Like I do love a big, dumb open world game, but also the bloat of those things has started to really wear on me to the point where I'm being much more choosy about where I throw my time in those.
Speaker 1:
[122:03] Really feels like AC Shadows was like maybe a bit of a turning point for some people.
Speaker 3:
[122:07] That one broke me in a way I wasn't expecting. Not that I wasn't already getting a little fed up with the 80 hours of the same bandit camp shit that that series has been doing for a while, but like, that and Ghost of Yote being in the same general like airspace really just broke something for me and I just I can't do that the same way I used to.
Speaker 1:
[122:29] Yeah, Yote is one I would really like to go back if I ever get time.
Speaker 2:
[122:34] I am trying to see if I can find if I did the Platinum on Final Fantasy. Is there like an easy way to do that on the PlayStation? I feel like trophies has always been such a weird thing. Yeah, it's always like three menus too deep everywhere.
Speaker 1:
[122:54] Yeah, if you have the app set up, that's probably the fastest way off console to get it.
Speaker 2:
[122:59] Yeah, it's just showing me the latest game I did.
Speaker 1:
[123:04] Or online. Online, I think you'd have to use a third party site. I haven't looked in ages. I don't think they expose that stuff super well.
Speaker 2:
[123:13] Because I was just curious in my own, for my own edification, and that's a great point, right? Did I even finish up these things? I don't even remember. Because I remember being so done with that game.
Speaker 3:
[123:29] It's almost like we're trying to satisfy this immediate, intense lizard brain instinct in the moment and not actually thinking about, am I going to care about this when I'm done?
Speaker 1:
[123:40] My memory is that you barely finished that game at all, let alone wanting to play it that much more, but who knows?
Speaker 2:
[123:47] Yeah, man, I'll have to go look it up later. There's a vague memory of me trying to do some later challenges that I was really struggling against. I don't know if I ever did or not. Anyway, the best way into my heart is to replay the game, but you are so overpowered that you are just cruising through something. I think Capcom has been doing that. I think Silent Hill also does not get in its own way about letting you see that content by being like, hey, we'll let you know when there's repeated stuff here in the cutscenes, we'll let you know when there's new stuff. We'll let you know if you want to go on this, get this extra weapon or do this other stuff. That's fun to me. In a game like Horizon or God of War, usually it's optional challenges. Like we said, when it comes to the Sony Platinum, usually you're 90% of the way there. That's a very like, yeah, I'll go the, yeah, why not? Let's do this extra thing. Anyway, long answer to an interesting question.
Speaker 1:
[124:55] Manny in Upstate New York?
Speaker 2:
[124:57] Yes.
Speaker 1:
[124:57] On a recent Ramblecast, Brad brought up that he waited until The Pit Season 2 was over before starting to watch it. I used to do that for almost every show I was interested in. And while I love binging TV shows, I have begun watching more things week to week over the past few years. I've noticed that I'm able to remember the things I watch week to week far more than the shows I binge. In fact, most shows I binge, I probably couldn't give you many details even a few weeks after. Is this true for you all as well?
Speaker 2:
[125:25] It's almost like we were just talking about with the trophy stuff. You spend 90 hours in a clip, you don't remember anything.
Speaker 3:
[125:32] I mean, it really just boils down to how memorable the thing is though, right? Like I think there is merit to the idea that a weekly schedule is potentially more beneficial to a show like The Pit than just like consuming it all at once. But, you know, there are some shows where it's just like, it's so memorable, it doesn't matter how you consume it. There are others where it's like, you can consume it either way. You're not going to remember that mush no matter what you do. So I don't think it really has much to do with how you consume it. Though, again, I think a show like The Pit benefits because it keeps people talking about it for the entire week before the next one comes.
Speaker 1:
[126:06] Yeah, I think there's something to be said ruminating a little bit on what you've just seen before you plow right into it. But like we don't we don't binge in the way that's typically understood, though. I don't think this counts as binging like like something like The Pit. We typically limit ourselves to one a day.
Speaker 3:
[126:24] Right.
Speaker 1:
[126:24] Like like we don't we don't sit down and watch five episodes on a Saturday afternoon end to end like we like been. Yeah, like typically at most we're watching one episode a night a night until we're done with it. And so I feel like that's a good way to not just burn through something in one day and still get some some, you know, stretch it out a little bit.
Speaker 3:
[126:44] Like the only things I can watch multiple of and like one sitting are like Beavis and Hothead cartoons because they're like one they're like 11 minutes long and to like they're just, you know, it's just a short deliver joke delivery method. I can't watch a dramatic series like multiple episodes of it in one stretch because I feel like it just burned out on it really fast that way.
Speaker 2:
[127:04] Especially the hour long ones. Yeah, the I can do like an half hour episode or two. I think I think there is a it's almost like a for me writing down mechanically on a piece of paper versus hearing something. I remember it more if it does end that I'm anticipating the next episode.
Speaker 3:
[127:25] Right.
Speaker 2:
[127:26] And I do have to wait. I'm thinking, like you said, ruminate on it a little bit more. And then the next episode comes out versus I feel like when I do a traditional binge of watch three or four things in a shot, I only remember the highlights. I don't remember any of the in between stuff. It all mushes together in one episode and it's like, yeah, oh my gosh, that person died. But what about all this other stuff? And that was background flavor for the person dying. When it's an episode a week, it's like, what did that mean? Are they going to explore this other angle of this person? You don't realize when you're waiting a week that that side story they brought up is going to go nowhere. The next episode, but you might think about it.
Speaker 1:
[128:06] Yeah, like honestly, the main reason that we banked the whole season at this point is just the way that modern streaming shows are made to emphasize cliffhangers so much.
Speaker 2:
[128:14] I know, like the serial.
Speaker 1:
[128:16] Sometimes it feels way more pointed than it did 20 years ago. I don't know.
Speaker 3:
[128:22] No, you're dead right.
Speaker 1:
[128:23] Yeah, like it just, it feels like they are like, and especially when you read about Netflix executives mandating the way shows are made to either maximize engagement or to make them less engaging. So people can be on their phones and still absorb them. You know what I mean? The degree to which the management of the streaming services seem to be getting their fingers into the way, scientifically the way shows are constructed. I don't feel like I'm just hatching some conspiracy theory here or something, but they feel so much more formulated to leave you hanging these days that I would rather just wait a day to see the next episode than, waiting a week back in the 90s on network TV was not that big a deal.
Speaker 2:
[129:03] No, there was nothing you could do about it.
Speaker 1:
[129:04] Well, there's also that, but it just never felt quite as like, what is the phrase you always use about fast food, like the Blizzpoint or whatever?
Speaker 2:
[129:13] Sure.
Speaker 1:
[129:13] Like how like the lab derived fast food or like junk food flavors, Doritos flavors are like stimulating neurochemical release in a pretty insidious way.
Speaker 2:
[129:25] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[129:25] It kind of feels like that's happening to TV production in a way that like, I don't know.
Speaker 2:
[129:31] Yeah, right. Up to the point where you're never sick, right? You hit your Blizzpoint and you just want more and more and more. Yes.
Speaker 1:
[129:36] Like you just desperately want to see the next thing as soon as it's over.
Speaker 2:
[129:41] All right. Any more emails?
Speaker 1:
[129:44] Why don't we call it there for this week?
Speaker 2:
[129:45] All right. We've got a show here that is going to do it for this week. You can send those emails into podcast at nextlander.com. Your Blizzpoint here on the Internet. We have a bunch of stuff going on. It's not quite Summer Game Fest yet or the Summer of Game Love, as I guess I'm just now going to call it. We have the Watchcast back up and running with the Coen Brothers. We have done Old Brother, Where Art Thou? We have recorded and posted now Hudsucker. Alex, what's up next?
Speaker 3:
[130:21] Up next is Raising Arizona, a banger if I do say so myself.
Speaker 2:
[130:25] Now, you have been out there saying that now this might not only be one of your favorite Coen Brothers comedies, but maybe one of your favorite films.
Speaker 3:
[130:34] It is in the pantheon of comedies I can watch just about any time they're on.
Speaker 2:
[130:41] Okay, great. That is up next on the Watchcast, which will be up on the Patreon next Monday. We're going to record that tomorrow. Then we also have Abby continuing her playthrough with Resident Evil. Maybe not too much longer there. She might be nearing wrapping things up. She is in the lab, folks. She has entered the lab. We played Last Flag, like we mentioned earlier, on Monday with Will Smith. This Friday, we're going to do another Grab Bag because, boy howdy, the games this week, like we mentioned, at the top of the show, kind of back-loaded at the end there. But I am curious to see, and you should come join me if you're listening to this, a little game called Ultimate Drummer. Alex, when we talked about this on the Planorama, I just saw the name Ultimate Drummer, but you related it or tied it back into its origins there, which is?
Speaker 3:
[131:41] Cool 3D world.
Speaker 2:
[131:43] Which probably rings some bells for some people, but is it just absurd 3D YouTube shorts?
Speaker 3:
[131:50] I would describe it as what happens, in terms of what you are watching, it's what happens when you take too much Tylenol. Like it is feverish, it is painful, it is upsetting at times, but there's also an artistry to it.
Speaker 1:
[132:07] How long have they been around?
Speaker 3:
[132:09] A long time, and I feel like the last time I saw like a new cool 3D world thing was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:
[132:15] You can go to like cool3dworld.com is their site, and I think they've got most, or maybe all of their short films up there. And even seeing the thumbnails, I'm like, oh, okay, yes, I've seen some of their stuff before.
Speaker 2:
[132:28] Well, be very curious to see what that is.
Speaker 3:
[132:31] I'm intentionally not touching that until we get to Friday, and then I will boot that up and we will find out together.
Speaker 2:
[132:39] Plenty of other games coming out this week as well, including today at the time of this recording. I'm going to click through and see if this actually happened. Did Masters of Albion go? Oh, it's out. It went live. Okay.
Speaker 1:
[132:55] It's in my Steam library as we speak.
Speaker 3:
[132:56] It's real.
Speaker 2:
[132:58] All right. That's now a real game as well. Plenty of stuff coming out there. Also, Snap and Grab, which is a game I'm curious to check out. That's a New Goblins game. Maybe we'll check that out on Friday.
Speaker 1:
[133:09] I played some of that at Summer Game Fest last year. It seems very interesting.
Speaker 2:
[133:13] So yeah, we'll have a Grab Bag on Friday. Like we said, we've got the watch cast going up on the Patreon. We'll have Never Been a Better podcast going up next week on the Patreon. We've got a Ramble cast that's on the Patreon. We got a Patreon Q&A this week, which will be on the Patreon. If you want to get some questions in, you might still have some time, if you're listening to this, before we answer those cues on Thursday. I mentioned all this stuff on the Patreon, because the Patreon is the best place where you can go to support us, to keep us going, to your dollars go, let's call it mostly directly to us. There is a cut there, but it is the best way to keep us going, to keep us as ad free and direct in your ears as we can be. We've talked a lot internally about how we want to continue to run this business, and the way we want to continue to run this business. It should try and be supported by you and try to not take as much money from game publishers or deals or anything like that as we can to move forward. So the only way to do that is through support from you. And to do that, we are offering, I was gonna say for a limited time, but it's been the whole time, different tiers on Patreon that you can find. Tiers from $5 all the way up to our Mysterious Benefactors tier. You can find a tier that is right for you. What's that? The Mysterious Benefactors tier? Oh, well, that's the tier that gets their name read on this here show. Alex Navarro, would you read our Mysterious Benefactors for this week, please?
Speaker 3:
[134:57] Okay, our Mysterious Benefactors for this week are... The Good Vibes will continue until morale improves. Alpha Rhythm, OpenAI Delenda Est, David L, Kelly F, Brian Lucier, Skywarp, Jason Grimm, John Hubbard, Thor Dream C5 C6 crew jealous of Brad's much cooler neck brace, Evan Cook, Jerry Lee, Deirdre, you know, for kids, Pugtato, Hashtag Bunny for work, Jadrida, Statix, maybe today's the day it happens, Brian Murphy, Randy Duax, Randy Alderson, Andrew Teepkin, Alex Wu, ItMeJP, Edward Chick, Andrew Slosky, Steve Vlin, Matthew Herrig, David Campos and Tyler Treece.
Speaker 2:
[135:44] Thanks to all our mysterious benefactors, keeping it up, a lot of names there, been on that list for a long time, long time supporters, they know how this works. patreon.com/nextlander. If you're listening to this and you've thought about it, boy, I don't think there's ever been a better time because all the stuff we've done before, it's still up there. And it's true, this is honest to goodness, it's still there. I don't think they pulled anything down yet. I can't say what will happen tomorrow. There's a time of this recording is still there. And we're gonna have a Patrons Choice coming up soon. So if you wanna get in there and get in one of the voting tiers, you can have a hand in what we wind up playing. Not this Friday, but the next Friday. So, patreon.com/nextlander. That's gonna do it for this week. Thanks everybody for joining us. Thanks everybody for emailing in. Thank you, Alex Navarro.
Speaker 3:
[136:36] Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[136:36] Thank you, Brad Shoemaker.
Speaker 3:
[136:38] Thank you.
Speaker 2:
[136:39] We'll be back with more of The Nextlander Podcast. It's, I was thinking about this today. We have talked a lot on Microphones.
Speaker 3:
[136:51] More than most.
Speaker 2:
[136:53] We, and even still, we'll have more of The Nextlander Podcast next week. See ya.