Giant Bombcast 798: Z-Targetting My Wife

Hey everybody, and welcome to the Giant Bomb Cast Episode seven hundred and ninety
eight. Holy smokes too, way from from eight hundred Uh shweet? Oh
man, we gotta do we should do something special. I don't know.
A pizza. Yeah, let's get a pizza. Let's have a pizza party.
Party. The Giant Bomb Cast arguably the best, the brightest, and
now maybe the earliest podcast on your Tuesday mornings. Giant BombCast. Oh no,
no, it's there. What happened? Powered by n z x T.
All right, I'm your host, jan La joining me as always co
captain of the ship, Jeff grub Out to everybody. I am very happy
to be here. I this is a thought I have my head. I'm
just gonna say it out loud. We don't have to go on it.
I don't like what things are called different things in different countries. Clue,
cludo, pick a name we should we should we call the Giant Bomb Cast
something else in other countries, Yes, the Mega the Mega Podcast or something
like that, like the Mega Drive. Okay, all right, we're specifically
going to have a different name in Argentina. Speaking about Argentina, Dan Reichert
is here. Hello, it's me. I'm in Argentina. Yes, yes,
on a worldwide quest. He could be the giant Bombaya cast because the
bombay is the thing you used to drink the So yeah, there you go.
Pronunciation. Just look at that. I'm Danny, look at that.
God shut up our our own mister worldwide Jeff Backlar, how's it going?
How are you? Jan? That's when you were supposed to say, Dale.
Come on, is that like a pit bull thing? Yes? You
know it's a pit bull thing? Can yeah? Uh, all right,
We're gonna go around the room before we introduce our special mystery guests. Can
you do the like, oh like his his thing, his howl thing?
Dan, you familiar with Jan? Jan, you do the best one because
you know what the most of you do it, and then I'll try to
match you. Okay, sorry, Scout, I think I did hate your
how ow wait rolling your tongue like yeah yeah yeah, yeah, sorry Scout.
Okay, no more pit bull? All right, no more pit bull?
Yeah, alright, you go. I'm sorry, Baclar. You need
to do it now. We can't continue this. Oh that's pretty good.
That's pretty good. And that is the only way to welcome our special guest,
our dear friend, Nikky Grayson. Look at that. Thanks for having
me, thanks for being I'm happy I don't have to do the banker voice
from Dealer No Deal anymore. I miss it. It was good, Okay,
it's back. I was just closing my eyes and it was transported somewhere,
very very pleasant. Just a lot of briefcases. How we Howe Mandel
was there? How was pleasant thing I can imagine? Do you think those
were like shoot briefcases in Dealer No Deal? What do you mean they were
physical objects? Yeah? Well well yeah, but like where did they buy
them from a store or were they made for the worst for the show.
Yeah, it's like a warehouse. You got a deal on it when you
buy twenty five yeah, or props person. Sure, yeah, they probably
just gotta like the like ordered a whole bunch, or they had a briefcase
guy. They like the briefcase guy. I don't think. I think how
we already had the guy. I think the idea came after he came into
the possession of many briefcases. What am I going to do with all these?
It's like, how, we we need a show, idea, we
want you to host? What do you got a lot of uh, Nikki,
all these suitcases and these pretty ladies. What do we do? Welcome
to the Giant Bomb Cast. Thank you you. We have you here because
we we You are now helping us out in a very major significant way.
Nikki is going to be helping us with our social media jazz because they are
an expert in social media as well as helping fill the Manati slot. God,
I hate that. I just said that slot that folks, folks at
home, look at look at me. I can promise you I will never
kill the Manati slot. Well, the Manati slot is Mike Manatti's new political
talk show he's gonna do every morning. Yeah, and he's fine looking at
his phone when he gets uncomfortable for the question. I don't like any of
this. Uh yeah, but Nicky, you're you're an expert in all things
social media, and we thought, hey, we are terrible at that.
Uh and thanks major major shout out. We're all learning. It's all SAPs.
We had a meeting yesterday with Nikki, and then Nikki like uh,
took took lead and was asking us all these like very well prepared questions.
And I was sitting there thinking to myself. Oh shit, what what have
we been doing? Thank God, Thank god for Terbo Sean from being able
to edit shit for us, because otherwise we wouldn't have squat. We're all
old. I'm not Dan. Take me out of that, Jan, Jan,
you're less old. Okay, take that. I'll I'm approaching old.
I'm approaching thirty, and at which play I like, I'm just gonna have
to say I'm old. Is that the line now thirty? Is the line
thirty under thirty after thirty? So yeah, basically Forbes doesn't want me.
Who will you know exactly? Forty under forty and forty under forty. I
have a year to get something together. They don't do that, Dan,
they don't. Damn. We can make probe, we can make our own
forty giant bombs. Forty under forty and the number one, well, one
hundred forty and it's just me, it's unranked. But you are like the
first one. Yeah, okay, I'd like the kid. I want to
beat some people. Okay, okay, we'll just say uh in no particular
order except wherever Dan is. The people before Dan are not as good as
Dan. I'll be on the cover of the Forbes things that I'm the forty
under forty Okay, yes, okay, yes, yes, uh, Nikki
is now my new goal to get you on the thirty under thirty thirty for
thirty. I don't even remember the there we go, both both both yeahs
documentary about Nicky Grayson. Let's go. Yeah, let me get deep into
Ultimate Freezbee and then they'll have to make me a documentary that sounds dramatic.
Let's go. I think like, out of all of the like alternative sports,
I think we could probably win an ultimate Frisbee game. Yeah, I
feel pretty comfortable about our chances in an ultimate Frisbee game. Yes, are
there positions bowling? Can we be bowling? That's like less running, No,
dan bowling, that's that's a lot of stress on your wrists. But
then we could have bowling shirts, giant bond bowling shirts right into that right.
I'm also yes, I'm also I don't talk about this, but I'm
I'm an excellent bowler. See oh, if you're not grub your back lark.
I took bowling in college. I played on a league I did.
It was the only class I went to in college bowling, and I was
in a league I will whoop your acid bowling any day we can stream it.
I would love to do that next time we're in the same geographical area.
I've not bowled the three hundred. Everyone assume I have not. I've
done like two, two twenty or Something's my highest. The beauty of bowling
is is that it is inherently an old person's sport because you you get better
at it the older you are. Yeah, what are the creaks? The
creeks are your bones and joints actually help with the bowling. The motions you
have to smoke like half a pack of cigarettes and and also do some nose
stuff like the who do you think you are? I am guy? He
was like, yeah, definitely, all absolutely so, and we all we
all have time to get great at bowling. I feel like you, I
don't know why you are so confident with bowling. I feel like I will
fuck your entire world up in bowling. When was the last week? It's
been a long time since I played. When's the last time you played?
Like three months ago? Oh, I've played in eight to ten years,
So I like, I will embarrass you. I don't I would like,
I don't think you play bowling you go bowling. You going bowling is not
Look, I'm excellent bowling. Bowling is a game, not a sport.
You do the gimmick where you're ball and you do the crazy spin. I
have a little bit of hook on my ball, but it's mostly do you
okay accurate three three in the hole right? Or you just do like the
two Come on, chan, three in the hole? Baby, let's go.
Wait. Do people do two in the hole? Yeah? Like my
buddies. They will do like the middle of the ring, in the middle.
Yeah. Yeah. Who will fucking spin it like that? Yeah?
Yeah? Some people cradle it like a little bit. Yeah. One of
my best friends I think tores Achilles bowling because he like has too much twists.
Oh shit, whoa uts. For a long time when I was a
kid, I have this very distinct memory of doing of going to a bar
mitzvah for my friend Josh and the strike bowling shout out to Josh Rosenberg Lucky
strike bowling in Hot Hollywood and Highland for his bar mitzvah. And I was
like, I've invented a brand new way to bowl. And I put my
fingers in and but then I went this way, Oh, no, which,
yeah, the bat can kind of like down the and that's was that's
really bad for the human form. Yes, we call that the cup check
you like checking the s's gonna cup on? Yeah, okay, all right,
so we have to do like a we have to do a triathlon.
So it's gonna be bowling. And then what's what's the second and third?
Ye? Forty oh it's an exercise of the mind as well. Yes,
yes, between Hugh, Dan and back. What's the zelda thing that the
try force like wisdom, our and parts courage. Okay, then we got
a base there. We'll call it to try for to try force athlon.
How about ping pod Okay, okay, we don't want to We don't want
to get on the table tennis excuse me, backlark, it's table tennis.
Table tennis. I was on a team when I was ten because my parents
thought I was too chubby, and they were right, uh, and they
were like, you don't want to play any organized sports, let's just enroll
you in table tennis. And then everything clicked, see dude, table tennis
rules. I feel like, Dan, you're probably too much of a I
don't know, spass for that. What do you think, can you my
goodness, okay, what about what about a neutral ground and we go pickle
ball? My mom passively, okay, she did know. It's just her
and her husband get drunk and play pick a ball. I don't know what
it entails. I like racketball. I used to play racketball in college.
That was great. It's like that, but outside does have the big all
you can bounce off, because that's the fun things. You can just hit
the ship out of a racquetball and it's not going anywhere. It's just gonna
bounce around all cool. I just want to do that. I feel like
you and running around you're just not gonna I need to get back into I'm
aiming to get back into moving around. You've been looking for the years.
I've been moving for four months. I need to move around like Grandpa Joe
and Willy Wonka. You haven't stood in fucking twenty years. Similar to what
is it badminton? Which what's the one that's the birdie the little thing?
Thank you? Is it like that? It's a racquetball ball and I think
it's played on the inside rectangle or a court the size of the inside rectangle
of a tennis court. Yeah, I know that there's a lot of like
there's a kid suburban strife about like repainting tennis courts to be picked a ball
courts, and all the tennis players are like, not on my turf,
and I'm involved. Here in j Hnson County, Kansas, there are a
million places that have turned into pickleball courts lately. There's a big thing around
here, very suburban small tennis. Big table tennis is what it is.
I'm down for that. So it's like ground tennis then grounds. I mean,
maybe maybe rock Star will release rock Star Pickleball before six comes out and
then to prepare the world for the impending pickleball takeover. Only if they get
a pickleball court like at the rock Star offices and like the Housers get really
into it and then they're, yeah, we're coming back just for pickle ball.
All right, we can do it. Yes, yes, we We've
put it out into the universe, so which is now going to happen.
I feel like unintentionally we put out a lot of good in the world and
bad, but you know, it's it's good times. It's good times.
Nikki. I realized I introduced you and there may be folks out there that
are not familiar with you. I mean want I want to. I want
to give us like the quick elevator pitch. You are all you hung out
with us during Summer game Fest on the couch, Ley and Barley. She's
here, she's in my lap. She'd be mad, but I'll show y'all
her later. That's a tease, you see. So like now, if
you're here now, you're incentivized to stay. I'm Nikki, Hello, I
go my pronouns? Are they them just for folks in the chat? I'll
fight you, I won't, but that's what they are. Uh. And
yeah, I used to be at fanbite dot com as the brand editor there.
I'm working part time also for Mark's Big Green chat app. But I'm
very excited to be here at a place I care about, doing stuff I
care about when people I care about. And yeah, I've got a background
in social and I play a bunch of games and I'm on Twitter and all
that stuff. So if you're trying to get a grip asp on Hoopstein,
I am you can do that. I'll fight you about the NBA or uh
what else will I fight you over? Over? Like? What the best
show on the Food Network is we can we can do that? But yeah,
any any of that stuff. Eager and excited to be here. Jan's
camera passed away. Oh yeah, why does it you spend X amount of
money on a nice camera. I didn't get the dummy. I didn't get
the dummy. It's my bad. Get that dummy battery you got one of
you got one of them? Oh, you didn't get the dummy. The
thing about the Sony cameras is that they will they have this setting inside of
the camera that's like do you want it to turn off when it gets hot
or do you not want it to turn off when hot? And it's like,
well, why wouldn't you just leave it on the not hot? I
think turn off setting? Any way. I think there's something I don't know.
I think there's like something going on where like you people are like,
well I could damage it if it stays on for two but like, I've
never heard of that happen. No one's ever, no one's ever broken a
camera before. Come on, in the history, it came no, no,
no, no, I don't I never turned this Sony camera off and
Rios and that's probably bad. Yeah, really, do you have like a
mirror list. Which one do you have? I got this a six thousand,
like the first. That's what I have. And I freak out every
time if I leave it on after a stream and I wake up the morning,
I'm like, oh my god, it's still on. I bet I
ruined it. But you leave it on all the time. I mean I
tried it to run it off, but I don't remember, and so yes,
most of the time I'm leaving it on. It come back, I'm
like, oh shit, I left it on again and it was zero issues.
Okay, okay, it's probably fine. I mean those are that's a
tiny one too. It's like kind of not. Yeah, that one isn't
built like a little tank, like you could leave that on and it'll survive.
Here people give me shit about leaving my computer on all the time.
That's a different story. Turn your computer off is is actually weird. Don't
take a computer. So I put it to sleep, Yeah, yeah,
sleep. So I'm okay with sleep. I don't if it goes to sleep
by itself whatever, But I leave it on, especially like I was trapped.
We went to LA and I left it on, and it's like you,
like, I listen I left Dolphin open, so everyone on Discord was
like, hey, you've been playing Dolphin for seven days straight, and like,
okay, listen, I'm traveling but whatever, I get it. But
if I'm gone out of the house, I need the computer to be on
in case I need to remote in and get something or make something happen.
So it's like, yeah, it's a normal thing. I think, leave
your computer on. It's not gonna hurt it. Is there a way?
Well, I mean I understand if you're trying not to like, you know,
waste electricity and spend more money. Yeah, yeah, yeah and all
that jazz. But I think, isn't it I I remember I used to
have a way of waking up my computer remotely. Yeah, like sending those
wake up packets. Yeah yeah, there was something I was set a wake
up packet. Yeah, a little wake up packet. Really nice hotels they'll
say, yeah, yeah. I think it was like, you know,
it was some sort of like power setting where it's like wake up on like
you know, data activities. Yeah, wake on land is what Crooked Views
just said. Right, Okay, I thought you just played that one system
of the down song within like the vicinity of your computer. Yep, just
chop suey and your computer turns on. It's like, what was that?
Oh Hi, what would you like to know? It was Surge? It
was Surge singing at me. All right, should we talk about video games?
I guess we should. My internal clock is all out of whack because
we're starting earlier and I'm looking at the clock of like, oh, we
could keep vamping. We can keep going like for another two and a half
hours. We don't got to get to the email segment until this time.
Video games? Who's been playing them? I don't have the music ready.
It's it's not ready yet. Uh you know what, grub you and Mike
Manati played a game and did a quick look of it, and there were
bigger heads in it than I expected. You guys played Double Dragon Guy Den,
Rise of the Dragons. Yeah, beat them ups, They're back.
I'm big on beat him ups these days. There was a definitely a time
where I, as a kid, I played a lot of Streets of Rage
two, really enjoyed it, and then everything after that it was like,
none of this is as good as Streets of Rage two. This kind of
sucks. I might be done with a genre and I think everyone was like,
yeah, me too, and including the people that made those games.
And then the last five years, maybe longer, I don't know the timeline,
but we've gotten a series of really good beat him ups to the point
where it's like this Double Dragon game got announced, I'm like, well,
that could be good. Why would Why wouldn't that be good? And I
played it and it they figured it out. It is still Double Dragon.
You're playing as as Jimmy and Billy Lee, but there's a whole a whole
bunch of other characters. They all kind of play a little bit different from
one another, but really it comes down to it's a beat him up,
So what do you want? You want the action. You want the punching
to feel crunchy, and that's what we settled on during the quick look.
It feels crunchy. It feels real good to just throw these attacks into enemies,
and the game does a good job of emphasizing those attacks with small little
effects and combining these things together. It's really smooth. Like you go from
your punch and you want to do like a jump attack on the other side,
you every characterize a double jump and there double jump attack is is really
cool. Looking. You could also it's a tag team system, so you
pick two characters, you could swap them in it, and at anytime by
just hitting a button, you swap them in. They do a little bit
of burst that like like it gives you an area of effect of like clearing
people out, like a little crowd control stuff, and then you have a
second to get orientated and then you go get right back into the action.
I really have been enjoying it. It's it's just going for like the sprites.
That's good. It's you know, they put look but it's not exactly
like Arcade or any s Double Dragon. It is upgraded a little bit,
like maybe a Super Nintendo level, and like you said, pretty big heads,
but those heads are pretty detailed, and I think the characters look pretty
good while also still feeling very Double Dragon. This isn't trying to be like
the detailed sprites of a teenage mutant Ninja Turtles or anything like that. It
is still kind of let's scale it back and these these characteristics are going to
be pretty simple looking, but they're a little bit more detailed than original Double
Dragon, and I think overall it just really nails it. I think maybe
the other thing I really like about it The levels are pretty short and see
you get through stuff, yes, and it makes it feel like you're making
progress pretty swiftly. And I also think there's some run based elements I've I've
still like on my first time playing through it, and as you are going
through it, like every time you beat a level, one of these short
levels, you get another upgrade for your character, or maybe another pair of
upgrades, and it feels like you're building out your characters in a specific direction,
and it feels like, Oh, that's really ideal for something like this,
where you know streets or Age four. I've I've played a whole bunch
of times over and over and over again. These games are made to be
played over and over and over again, and so kind of building it from
the start with that in mind and have these short levels and make it feel
like, oh, yeah, we can play Double Dragon, we can beat
that in a little bit, or at least we can get through a handful
of levels and feel like we've done something. It really fits with this genre.
So I've been pretty impressed with it. That that is from the first
ninety minutes, because I think we're still in the preview embargo, but that's
honestly all I played. So uh yeah, so you get a special attack
that drains your own health. Yes, the special attack is a risk reward,
just like that where you know it's it's draining something. I'm trying to
think, is it health or is it like some other meter that might lend
and lead into health. It does kind of have that that element though of
you know, a classic beat him up of like you do this, you
go out there, you're gonna lose some health, and I think if you
attack you get some of that health back, which is how a lot of
other beatum ups work. I think the key thing I'm liking about like newer
beat m ups, like streets Rade four aheaded that New Turtles game had,
it sounds like this has it where it's like any kind of upgrade system that
just keeps it from being like you know, you go back and you play
like Simpsons Arcade or X Men, all these like great ones from growing up,
and it's like they were great because you can never beat them in the
arcade, and once you they came like Xbox Live Arcade and you had an
insert coin button, you realize how repetitive it is. So you gotta have
some sort of like upgrade system to keep you coming back. And I feel
like this wave of like retro inspired being which River City Ransom to that forever
ago. I'm surprised that it didn't become more of a thing, but like
it seems to be now, which I appreciate. And it's, you know,
obviously this isn't that the kun Yo Koon universe ish with with the River
City Ransom and all that. Uh, but but yeah, you're you're right,
it's they have figured out a new way of doing these beat them ups
that is removed from the arcade and you're you're absolutely I got the Simpson's Arcade
one Up Machine and I play that, but it's like, you know,
it is repetitive and you are supposed to get hit because they want you to
take damage, so you have to put it in another quarter, right,
and it's like, okay, that's that doesn't feel great. Where then you
go play something like the New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles a Shredded Revenge and you
have the dodge system and you get like all these combos, and it's it's
actually pretty easy if you get in the flow of the combat to avoid taking
damage and to do a ton of damage yourself. And that feels great.
But but it really I think the game that has nailed at the most in
this modern era is that Streets of Rage four run based rogue latee mode that
they added way after the game came out. That is something every every time
my sister in law comes over, me and my wife and her we play
through that and we have a great time. It's a really good way to
play that game. So this game seems like it's going for that idea from
the start, and I think that's a really good place for these beat them
ups to be grub. I think you play, you and Manati probably talk
about beat'em ups, and Jason A Striker talked about beat'em ups the
most is what is a holy pantheon for you? Yeah, it's I mean
Streets Rage two is clearly there. I think if we're talking about pantheon,
we're talking about that original era. I mean you can also include like more
modern entries like you know, well, I'd probably go with like like if
we're doing like the Mount Rushmore, I think I'd go with like Streets of
Rage two. Uh, Simpson's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles the Arcade one or whatever,
they're like the best one, and then uh, and then it would
be weird have two Streets two Streets rage games than they would be uh Streets
Range Force really really really stopping about X Men Turtles in Time. The X
Men's right there. Yes, great now that I play that a lot on
my cabin at home. I think Turtles in Time is better than the first
one. I need to. I have more nostalgia for the original one,
but Turtles in Time I think it's objectively better. I think also the way
the foot Soldiers explode in the second one, though, was actually a little
fucked up, like they can't grow over. That's when I think cap Scratchers
one that I might put on there as well. Yeah, they blow up
like their souls almost like leaves through their bodies, out their chest and they
just it's very upsetting. That's game. The Capcom Punisher game is great.
Ninja Baseball Batman, have you ever played that? No, Ninja Baseball Batman
is incredible. Is this still part of the tri Force Athlon. I think
it's part of didn't come out on something I can't remember, came out on
something that the States Ninja baseball Batman's incredible Wild West Cowboys of Moo Mesa is
a solid one. Knife Man would beat an inja baseball man. What's the
what's the cadillac? Oh? Oh? Dinosaurs? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,
this is all old people stuff, Like I'm sorry, yeah, I
have no idea what the fuck that any of these lads are talking about beat
him Up Bundle? Because the Beat Him Up Bundle had like a bunch of
great capcom beat him ups, but they didn't have any of the licensed ones,
which Catalac's a license, so it's like, man, I was like,
I did see that at that arcade in Chicago though, and played a
little bit of it. It was it was pretty cool. I am was
at an arcade bar over the weekend and I saw I didn't I had seen
like the six player X Men machine before, but I didn't like ever like
look at it like for real, and I realized that it was like an
ultra wide CRT in there. Yeah, And I was like, what the
fuck two CRT oh is it a mirror? Yeah? Amronm On sent me
an art diagram like yeah, it's like it's two CRTs with a moment with
a mirror between and it sounds right. It like basically tricks your eye into
blending the two screens at the gap because I looked at it for so long
that like, I'm pretty sure people were looking at me, look at this
machine in the round because this person ever seen a video game before, Like
what's the deal? But I was literally just trying to figure out how this
how the screen worked. I think one time I saw one that had the
mirror was must have been misaligned, and so I could tell that it was
ARTS, but I didn't. I didn't realize it was actually a mirror in
there. I did was like two CRTs and did they like swish them together?
That seems weird, but I guess they figured it out. What was
What was the cab that was doing that? The X Men six player?
Yeah, yeah, I can't. We didn't say final fight that's up there.
Yeah it's pretty Yeah. Also, what about what about Captain America and
the Avengers? As a CAP fan, I'm okay, I like that game
on any scause. It's like better than it has a right to be.
But it's like a data East game and it feels cheap. Wow, oh
wow, you really feel I like that? I said, I like it.
For me, do we do? We have a definitive beat him arcade,
beat him up thing. This is a selfish endeavor because I just want
to like make a playlist on my cab. Here seriously played Ninja Baseball Batman.
I think, yeah, it's really really weird Ninja baseball Batman. I
feel like you're accepting memories. Yeah, it'll become real. Can you say
it a couple more times, back to back for me, Ninja Baseball Batman,
Ninja Baseball Batman. Look it up, look at its fans looking at
it. Yeah, it's rerazy. It's crazy, yea insane. It's great.
You're like playing a baseball bats fighting airplanes and stuff. It's great.
I have so many remember this. Oh it's bad man, not Batman.
Okay, yes, not not got it? Got it. These guys look
cool. Yeah, there's a lot of cool dudes in that game. There
are they fighting? Like? Okay, that one enemy I'm looking at looks
like one of the planes from planes. Yeah, it has like a face
and eyes and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah, I'm often thinking about
planes all the time. Everybody's always taking about planes. What the are you
talking about? Man? Planes? Planes? Yeah, planes. You know,
cars back a lot. Yeah, go on, okay, now imagine
if they were planes, why are we doing this? Though? No money,
We didn't do this. They did this. Yeah, Disney did this?
Is it? Yeah? Right? Wait is this a real thing?
There's a planes movie? There's a plane yes in the universe. Yo,
y second one? Planes five are and rescue was in theaters though yeah yeah
yes voices. Okay, all right, you want to know who the like
the top build cast is here? Quick? I guess it's a no,
he know that's cars. He's a cars. Oh he's a car. Okay,
we're saying David Arktt grub yeah, David Arkutt. Yes. Right.
So when you look up planes twenty thirteen, you know how Google will automatically
surface the top cast. We got nothing but heavy hitters here. Okay,
I'll start from the bottom the top listed. We got Brad Garrett. Oh
from a ray Romano show thing. Yes, yes, everybody loves Raymond Raymond
that guy. Yeah. Oh god, that was good. That's really good.
It was like he was here. You do have Brad Garrett energy.
He's the Brad Garrett of Giant. Wow. Wow. I've always I've always
thought that I've always thought, yeah, wait a minute, I'm sleepy,
tall, goofy energy man. Right yeah, just if like like like Dan
says something, You're like, no, that's not gonna work. But I
think he's more No, no, he's more the Putty of Giant Bomb.
I think I'll take that. I'll take Putty. I'll take Putty. Yeah,
because Putty also loves the Devil, Peter and the Devil. Yeah yeah.
Next we have John Ratzenberger, Okay, and of course he's in all
of them. He's the he's a Cliff from Cheers, right, yeah,
sure, yeah, he's in like toy story, right, he's in all
of them. He was Ham no, yes, it's Ham. Yeah.
The dog Jim Burney. Jim Burney was the dog, yes, until he
was Ernest Ernest yeah yeah, and then when he has the dog yeah yeah,
alrightp right, alright yp. Next we have Cedric the Entertainer hell yeah,
okay, all right, Gabriel Igliss, yes, okay, Fluffy Man
himself, who I think when I went to Hawaii when I was twelve,
he was my tour guide. Holy shit, I swear to God because he
was no because he was doing his bit before like he blew up because I
like, you know, my memory is hazy, but he was like talking
about his whole fluffy stick in Hawaii, and then I was like, why,
this guy's really funny. This has to be a dream. I'll go
text my grandma. She probably won't remember. She might, she might,
she might worry about cruise control again or whatever it was, or auto driving
cars. Excuse me, speedy and our top two build here. Val Kilmer
m hm and uh. Hero protagonist of the Planes franchise, Dane Cook.
Oh, all the stars are here. It's so nuts gin because it buried
the Google dot com is burying so many other heavy Yes. Yes, Julia
Louis Dreyfus is in this motion. John Cleese is in this motion. Wow,
sitting bad is in this motion? Really? Yes? Yes, Sanka
Chopra is in this is in this motion picture. It's just like they spent
a lot of money for a direct DVD like sequel situation year What year was
this? Maybe it wasn't planned as direct to DVD what it was. It's
not a Pixar joint. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Was that that
was Disney Animation? Right? Yeah? This is a Disney Tune Studios makers
of hit motion pictures including Aladdin, to Mulan, to a Little Mermaid.
To get a half Pixar, we give Dan Cook money. I think Pixar
has too much pride to do that. I also want to take this opportunity
where we're talking abou Planes to talk about the sequel that also has a heavy
hitter cast because they add ed Harris to the Oh God doesn't play Brigadier General
Francis sex Hummel as a plasically, you know, you're yeah, yeah,
pretty much. It's kind of like a one bit character there. But sure,
Wait, we just made They made two hundred and forty million dollars on
that first one on a budget of fifty mill plank god for the first planes,
Yeah, but then they saturated the market and then Planes two only made
one hundred and forty seven million dollars. It's just not so it wasn't at
the box office, right, So this is just DVD sales. So no,
so the second one went to the theaters, and the first one also
went to theaters. Apparently. I also thought it was straight DVD, but
no, it went to theaters. It wasn't theaters. Jesus okay Man forty
million dollars from someone that made a Laddin two. That's nice. Didn't they
Snellda to do the genie? They replaced Robin Williams with Homer, didn't they?
You know they didn't. They did replace him eventually, because and then
I think for Aladdin three, I think for three they brought Robin Williams back.
But I think it's Dan cast Elenetta for the second one. Yeah,
I mean he had like a falling out, yes with Disney about that stuff.
That's all I remember. I don't remember any of the details beyond that,
Dan, you are correct, that is he was also earthworm Gym in
the cartoon. Remember Dan castnelldos getting a lot of work in the nine.
He's getting a lot of work in the nineties. I forget. Is Return
of Jaffar? Is that Aladdin two? Or is it okay? All right?
Prince of Thieves? Is that the third one? Yes? That sounds
Robin hood thing, isn't it? Yes? Aladdin and the oh King of
Thieves excuse me, yes, yes, the sand is getting weirs are getting
like But I really I really like King of Thieves. King of Thieves is
I've got some bangers, It's got some bangers. That's this is like some
fucking zoomer shit. You're like, excuse me, I'm not that young,
I know, but like it does feel when you do get into the weeds
of like third and fourth Disney spinoffs that no one's ever heard of. What
listen Backlar, you just once you watch Lion King one and a half,
your minds kind of be yeah, unlocks. Yeah, it's got a it's
got a great mine cart. Uh, DVD video game are in like a
mine cart. You gotta stop saying that kind of stuff. Because people want
us to play for Blake Club DVD menu games. We should do that.
That sounds great. Oh no, what's the worst that it happened? You
have punished enough? Yeah, come up with a list of them. The
Google Chrome Dinosaur game with the page won't load. That's way better than a
DVD, man, you get that's true. I don't know. I don't
know how we could make this happen, but I need some giant bomb thing
to go straight to DVD, Like we just don't promote it. Well.
I was thinking that we could do like a Christmas album or something like that.
Maybe we could do like a Christmas video or something. It would be
fun. It would be fun, and we'd have to we'd spend a lot
on manufacturing it, but it would be fun. It had to be like
a limited limited run, right and then yeah, we'd make like two hundred
of them or whatever, and then everyone would be like cool, now what
like what? Like I found a DVD the other day and I was like,
I don't know this, Brad Garrett energy on this guy. If it's
a Christmas thing, Baclar, you have to host it. You're on the
cover. Yeah, it's not it's not our problem once they buy it,
right right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, but
we'd just sell them sixty bucks of how much is a DVD two dollars?
What could a DVDB fifteen dollars? They're like fifteen cents to make, right,
you get it? Four k's for like wait heat four k was like
four dollars the other like yeah, yeah, DVDs. That movie's depreciated in
values going to be okay, all right, I'm putting this, I'm putting
the sound into the world. Dan found out what Scrooge McDuck was based on.
He's He's Scrooge Baccalar is some type of person finding Christmas something something.
Someone put this in chat jangle all the way. I don't know where that
fits in. It's all there. And then we're going We're all going to
Grubs House for the holidays. Sounds right, all right, fantastic stockings and
stuff. We could probably get stockings. I think I did I throw away
the old stockings. I don't think I threw away the old stockings, Dan.
I think I might have your old macho man Christmas sweater somewhere. Maybe
have a question please. We touched on Dane Cook for a second, and
I feel like, I know Dan Cook is sort of like, you know,
the punchline to every kind of well, I mean the hot meme let
him cook, that comes from Dane Cook. That. Yeah, he was
the first person I ever do it. I has anyone done like the definitive,
like what happened? Sort of like doc on on Dane Cook. No
one like because it's like it's a pretty sure video, right, She's like
he's not that funny, like yeah, kind of how it goes right.
It was just really wrong for a while. Yeah, we just had bad
taste for a hot minute. Yeah, I don't know. I bet I
hate I tell you what I've been on YouTube. They got documentaries for everything.
I bet that documentary exists and I bet it's like four hours long.
Super ipatch Wolf, get on it. Please. Yeah, honestly I would
love for John to tackle that. That would be oh brilliant. All right,
video games? That that was us talking about double tracks. I tried
the new Mario Kart eight tracks with my dad and while we're playing it,
he goes, hey's the wist so popular? And I was like, well,
it was popular, but they like haven't made one in like over ten
years. He's like, well, sure they have, and they go no,
it was it was like two constantly, the Wi you after that,
and then the switch and you know it's they haven't made them since twenty twenty
thirteen. He goes, Dan, yes they do. I was like,
Dad, they don't. They don't make it anymore, goes Dad. You
live in your own little world. Not everyone's like you. Not everyone wants
to spend five lls. Do you get the fancy pants and new switchy which
some normal people just want to like spend a little less and still play some
video games. And they're definitely still making wheeze. And I was like,
okay, like, I just don't where do I go with this? I
don't know what to do here? Do you feel that feeling? You feel
that feeling? Then you feel what you're feeling right now? Yeah, okay,
I just remember that feeling. Well, why do you say that?
I just keep that feeling. Put in the bottle, hold on to that,
put it in your pocket, never let it fly. Okay, it's
frustrating that. Oh it's frustrating. Isn't a Gin eight or a Gin nine
console? You can help out the FTC and we don't have enough time to
go over thoughts. Oh boy? Well the confidence though, the confidence in
which he was like Dan, they definitely very frustrating, very frustrating confidence a
lot almost like it just doesn't know what he's talking about. You know how
Paul collects a bunch of old stuff that he doesn't need. Yeah, okay,
wait wait a minute, No, I do it from passion. I'm
not trying to make a buck on eBay. Oh we weren't talking about you,
no, no, no, no, no, no no no no.
But anyway, Dan, how are the new tracks? Uh? They're
fun. You can fly over toilet and stuff. Here I was gonna say,
can say the bathtub level is really good. That's great. You fly
over a big toilet, you go under what you go on a drain?
Is that the only course in Mario Kart where it's like it does the tiny
character, big world thing. There's no toy one. Yeah, did they
explain that? Is there ever any lower reason that they're tiny or that this
world is huge? What the fuck are you talking about? Because I love
that genre, the tiny can toy command or cheepy robo, the tiny character
bick world type situate. It's a fun, whimsical time. I just need
Mario Kart to have lore. I just need to have some context as you
want to be honey, I shrunk the kids, don't you. I want
a honey I blew up the kid and play the hard rock guitar from the
from the hotel. That would be ever when the kid did that, and
all over the place, all over the place. I think you have a
lot of them out to do this morning. I think it would be fucking
sick if every Mario Kart track had like thirty seconds in floor. Yes,
just there's a little thing that plays at the beginning, just a little intro
video. You can skip it if you've seen it before. Yeah, yeah,
no, Unpa. Here's the deal with Rainbow Road. Here's the deal
with ghost Sally got hunted, like we got we got explanations as to like
how uh the guy from tech In ended up in Smash right, I think
he showed up and then it's time, but we don't get those exploit why
link there? Yeah? Oh? Or in Mario Kart, yeah, Mario
Kart, like why link there? Yeah? I mean just a portal showed
up. I don't know, mid Night Warm, give me something something.
I mean if if he's anything like my link, he's putting off finishing the
game, and he's doing anything else possible to avoid actually going to those credits.
I am one hundred and fifteen hours into that game. I've done like
one hundred and fourteen shrines. I've done all four of the dungeons I've done,
like I could walk up through like Cannon right now, and I'm still
just like wandering High Rule, just waiting for a beep on my shrine censor
thing. I don't want it to end, so I keep every single quest.
I have something that's going to make y'all take the take it back,
take the job, offer back. Oh like I played fifteen hours of that
game and put it down. It's fine, happens, Okay, it's because
it's because I had literally four days prior, had just put in, like
finished putting in seventy hours into Breath of the Wild, and I think I
earned myself out. Yeah. I just had to ask if that's what you
did. Honestly, I was like, if I had to guess, I
was gonna say you probably just had just played Breath of the Wild, because
that's I think people have mentioned they've done that and they went right into Tears
of the Kingdom, and in that context it is far too similar, like
for me like having you know, the seven year gap and going back and
be like, oh my god, I remember all this stuff. This is
amazing. I look how it's changed. That's cool because it's like I do
want to go back and play that game. This is a cool way to
do that. That was not on me, but back to I could never
do it back to back. That's way too much. So I don't blame
you at all. I was pically why I that's why I didn't play through
Breath of the Wild again at any point, because it's like, I know
Tears the Kingdom and it's STI gonna be a couple years away, but I
want that to be as much of a gap in between, Like I totally
get that. Then I think Brad Brad was like playing Breath of the Wild.
He's like, I want to beat that first, and like everyone else
is like playing Tears of the Kingdom and he's like still playing blast breath and
I can't wait. I know. I'm like, I can't wait to hear
Brad like his thoughts when he goes to this very much. I'm like,
well, what the exactly is that? Brad Garrett? Is that who was
playing Breath of the It was like Brad Garrett, you know, he was
talking about Brad Shoemaker back you claim was Zelda? Al Right? Raymond Raymond?
Is that sow good? Should I watch that? Is that? Yo?
Time'n't get it? When it was on the air. My grandpa asked
me once. He was like, Damny, do you watch the Raymond Show?
And I said no, I've never seen it, and he looked really
disappointed. He goes something wrong with your brain. That's a great review,
super funny in that show. That's like truly, Uh, you watched Malcolm
in the middle. Gen. I think that's because I don't like Frankie Munez.
Munez, Okay, listen, I don't blame you. He's a car
driver, Frankie Munez. He drives cars because he was in that one movie
with Lizzie McGuire or Hillary Duff. And then I was like, I want
to be a secret agent with Hillary Duff. Why can't that? See me?
Jealousie basse thing yeahs, and then realize that that was not a possibility,
and then just hard have Harvard. He races, He races cars.
Now he like a child, it probably still looks like a kid, right,
Yeah, yeah, he's got that area. There's no way he looks
like an adult ever. Right, he could be sixty and that looks like
that. That's like most like child actors that like, like male child actors
in Hollywood, they always like try to get them like with baby faces so
they can like look younger and yet actually still listen to direction from like a
director or whatever, and so they always end up like looking like little kids
for their entire lives. But yeah, Frankie Munez has got a child face.
I thought he's kind of out there, huh, Right, frank communist.
That's that's my understanding these days. You know what else is out there
that y'all played on Friday? To bring it back to video games, Exo
Primal. Yeah, now we're talking about real video game. I had so
much fomo seeing you guys deal with a cube. I didn't realize it was
like a p v p V e ye. But grub damn. How Nikki,
you've played an Exo Primal. I played quite a bit of excellent Prime.
Now, Nikki, is that what you want from like Mario Kart,
where it's like you're getting a little bit of lower before these multiplayer man?
I'm like, yes, your how's your analysis map or whatever? Going?
Looking great? So far? I've learned a lot I left. Exo Primal
is great. The game the loop is really good. I kind of just
wish they would feed me the lore in that analysis map as I'm playing the
game, so I don't have to go back into it because a thing that
happens I won't like do it. The story, folks, The story of
the video game Extra Primal is not like it's not world meeting, Like you're
not eat there the rich lore. It's very silly though, but sometimes things
will happen to characters in the main story, like cut scene, and then
you'll go back and you'll watch some of the stuff in the analysis map,
and then the thing that occurred to them has not actually occurred yet, and
I'm like when am I like, what's the what's the reasoning here? Like?
How is this? How is this happening? It'll just bring characters back,
which is really funny that game is. That game is really silly.
It's just gambit Nikki. Have you played enough to like I've been seeing some
people tweet that like as you go on and get more stuff unlocked, it
starts doing some wild stuff with like introducing like entirely new modes and maps and
like it like changes the core game in ways that maybe we wouldn't expect.
So there's I'm not like super far, I've played maybe twenty five matches or
so, but there are like I was playing a match and uh, the
game was like I was like all ready to go, except that then it
played a cut scene and then they were like, hey, we found this
really big hammer. You're gonna need to use the big hammer to drive a
cube into the ground three times? What? Yeah? And then and then
you it's like the Leviathans all like stime for a dinosaur call mission, and
then you're like, great, that's so sick, except you run really slow
when you have the big hammer, except the big Hammer squishes a lot of
dinosaurs. And then at the end of every round you have to race the
op the enemy team to like drive the cube into the ground and then when
it transports you to a different dimension. There are there are so many other
like because the default one right is like you run around, you do the
dinosaur call missions, you you kill x number of dinosaurs x number of times,
and then they're like, here's the cube. But then there are some
of them where it's like, oh, it's not a cube. Actually you
have to go around and do even more missions. Except also the enemy team
is doing the same missions that you're doing at the same time, and it's
interactable, so they have their own number goals and you have your own number
goals, and you're all fighting the same set of dinosaurs, and you can
do PvP against the against the enemy team. The PvP turns on, it's
like not necessarily on throughout the match unless you get like special dinosaurs. But
at that point it can turn on and now you're actually fighting one another's It
does a lot of really cool stuff. It is really interesting to me that
it took. I don't know how long this game has been in development for,
but I played a little bit of Overwatch like a couple of weeks ago
because it had been a really long time, and that game feels the exact
same as it did when it came out, Like no new ideas have kind
of come one of the player characters six six big changes, huge changes.
But this game does so much with the class based five v five like ability,
third person like shooter situation that I'm like, it's staggering to me that
a game like Overwatch has stagnated as much as it has because, like,
I don't know, just put a bunch of guys on the screen, making
me, make me fight them and then sometimes the other team. Like it's
like, it's not that complex of an idea, but Exoprimal does it so
well, and I don't know, it's just so silly. It's so PlayStation
two. To me, I love that. Okay, put put that on
the box because then I'll buy three copies selling point. Yeah. I saw
chat saying that there are these like raid boss fights where then suddenly you're friends
with the other team and you're all fighting this boss together. Like, oh
man, I didn't know it was there was that much more to it.
I thought we had seen everything. This sounds. I had a lot of
fun with it, and it really came down to the action was good.
Uh. The the amount of communication required by the team is it's it's not
super high, but there's enough there to like keep it engaging, and so
you just like to say, hey, we're going here, and I was
like, okay, cool, I understand. We totally we immediately get it
and that's nice. So it's like it feels like a good casual multiplayer game,
which makes it really good fit for game Pass, which I can be
a pejorative. I don't mean it doesn't pejorative here here. I mean it's
just like, oh, it'll be easy to get a bunch of friends to
come play with me, and the game is a good fit for those kinds
of people who might not have been looking for an Exo Prime well to be
allig oh, I'll give this a try, and they can have fun too,
and yeah, so I've been brillianto it. I'm really glad we spent
some time with it on on Friday. Really good, Jan your mind is
so fucking huge. You've got You've got the biggest production brain on the internet.
K. Yeah, it's it's really good that the skins I think are
really funny. I cannot wait for the Street Fighter collaboration when I saw it.
When they announced it, I was like, oh, whatever, because
I kind of like didn't really grasp the entirety of what the game was.
But now that I've played the game, I'm like, a fuck, yeah,
put Rhyo in this thing, like yeah, like I wait, how
do you get some dinosaurs? Like I am camped for this? Well,
then everything around they say summoning raptors like forty times yeah, common raptors,
and then brother raptors get shipped out of the portal in the sky. It
was a good video game, and I was just like, they don't get
shit. They like spill out and such way that they continue to tumble a
couple of times before they stand up and looks so cool. Yeah, wherever
they're coming from, they're not ready. There's a mission early in the game
where you you do it. It plays his standard. I also think one
of the things that is so good about the like the mechanic reveals, is
that sometimes it doesn't You don't know that a weird thing is going to happen
until it is actively happening. So you play around that is entirely standard.
And you get to this big bridge and you get to this like you get
to this strip like out of Marina, and then there's a river and then
there's a huge bridge in the distance and then the camera locks on you and
it's like, hey, look at this bridge, and then the Leviathan's like,
ah, fuck, y'all are really fucking this up, folks, watch
this And then a huge portal it's that scene in the trailer where it looks
like water but it's dinosaurs. And then this huge like fountain of raptors pours
out and then the number comes up on the screen. It's like, kill
a thousand of these idiots, numbers like fifty and seventy five and a hundred,
and then it's like, is you're out of a thousand? Go yeah,
oh yeah, it's really amazing. It's like who they're doing street Fighter?
They put MegaMan in there for sure. Chris Redfield, Chrisfield and a
beautiful show show Dino Crisis Lady P five Lady, Yeah, there we go,
Yeah, of course. Uh. It is like the PvP stuff is
actually pretty cool the way that they do, like they like sprinkle it in
throughout the PV matches and they'll like, Okay, here's a dominant and that's
like you being able to get a dinosaur power up that you can activate and
it's like one of you. It's like your ultimate button. You use that
instead, and then you turn. You can turn into like a trust or
Tristeratops or a t Rex. And the one time I turned into a t
Rex, it's like, okay, we're gonna just you. We're gonna drop
you into the map. We're gonna immediately teleport you over to their instance,
the other team's instance, so you can mess them up. And as to
Trystteratops, I had some success and one time they just completely destroyed me immediately.
That's the t Rex. It was. I just killed them over and
over and it was so much fun. It's just ruled and it's like and
I'm like, I know, like, okay, I've left the this is
like when we were trying to move the cube, I've left it. I'm
like so there's one less person on there, but I am destroying the other
teams so much. It's like this is a good balance of it's okay to
leave the objective because I'm going and messing up. They're objective, and I
don't know, I really like that stuff. It works really well for me.
There's a dinosaur in the game called Sniper Neosaur. Oh my god,
I'm sure it's that Ninja baseball Man Baseball Batman, Baseball Batman. Yeah,
like like for the lamp shading of like, oh, yes, they're just
regular dinosaurs. Don't even worry about it. Like the weird thing in this
game is that like you're a robot, Like that's the that's the weird thing.
And then they're like, no, this one explodes like a creeper when
you kill it. Is that cool? Are you excited about that? On
this one? It's called the sniper knee. That's yeah. I really need
dinosaurs to just invade all video games because I thought Jurassic World would bring dinosaurs
back in vogue. It did not. Video games should have like a Shark
week in Dinosaur Week where just suddenly gets infected by dinosaurs for a week and
Mario, oh, yeah. Yeah, Like I saw making the Rounds an
indie game. It was supposed to be a survival horror game, but instead
of you know, it being a ghost or a demon, it was just
a giant t Rex. And I need more of that. I need more
of that. You know what else I need? Had some of the best
video game dinosaurs, what Joan? Oh sure, sure, sure, sure,
big ass sprites, big dinos, big sprites. Yep. You guys
can't see it, but I'm politely nodding my head, and it's like,
yeah, I remember that. Joe and Mac also known as Caveman Ninja and
Caveman Ninja Colin, Joe and Matt He's a nineteen ninety one platform game release
for Arcades by Data East. It was later adapted for the Super Nintendo,
the Mega Drive, Slash Genesis, Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy, Aniga.
Zebo No, of course, of course, yeah zebo. Yeah,
we all love the Zebo. Yeah, we're all pro Zebo here. Yeah
Zeba sounds like a pleasure of robot my zebo. I've never heard of his.
Well, Nikki, thank you for the deep dive into whatever Dan was
talking about. Joe and Mac. The kids love Joe and Mac speak about
diving. Just let me read them a first line of the Wikipedia for zeebo,
it is a three G enabled entertainment and education system. It's got three
G baby, what does that mean? I don't know. It's not even
the It's like a plastic bag the console. I looked like a plastic bag.
Fu. It was in Brazil and Mexico, so that might be why
we guys, someone send me a zebo, send me your Zebo. Don't
actually said don't. Don't send Grub your zbo. Wow. The the the
disambiguation sentence at the top of this page is incredible to you because it's it's
for the te kill a mocking bird character, a mocking bird character for the
I Carle character see I Carly Season one. Wait, who's zibo on I
Carly zebo? I Carley? Oh Zebo is that dinosaur guy that the Barney
the Barney clone? Oh right, everyone's favorite, uh one one off character
from Ike Carle. Yeah right, Oh god, I'd love to dive back
into I Carle, just like I've been diving into Day of the Diver.
The segue worked better earlier, but then Grub just had to go off about
a Zebo had to go about my zbo you know me, He'll do that
up on a Zebo. Shit, Greb. You you briefly talked about and
described Dave the Diver last week, and I just wanted to chime in that
I think this is my game of the year. Oh incredible. I know
a lot of people really like Dave the Diver, and like you mentioned it
the other day in a meeting and I'm like, oh, but are you
into it? You're like, I love it so much? Am I?
Okay? So wait, did I accurately like describe the loop or is there
a lot more to it? Like what is hooking? You got it?
Got them grab goodpoking fishing, so you it is kind of it is run
based, and it is kind of two three, four five ish games in
one where each day you have two diving opportunities to dive in and then generally
you're just trying to look for fish. You will get different objectives to look
for mats and everything, to upgrade stuff or to unlock stuff, and then
after you complete those diving runs, you run a sushi restaurant at the end,
and it's great, it's just diner dash And then like I because like
Dave, Dave is a big boy. Dave, Dave's a big guy,
and he has a dash when he's walking and serving at the restaurant, and
it isn't really that much of a dash. It's just like a little bit
of a hustle and Dave is getting a little winded. But it is one
of the most fantastic loops in a game that I've come across, and I
think it is because of that loop that I am. I am hooked on
the game because I enjoy the fishing aspect or the exploration aspect, because you
know, you you are limited to an oxygen tank, but you can come
across more oxygen tanks and then you'll quickly start seeing like, oh, crap,
I can't pick up the sea urchin, or uh I can't interact with
this Uh moray eel? Is that the right animal? Sounds right? But
then you'll come across like, oh, I got this toy hammer. I
wonder what this will do. Man, It's just absolutely fantastic because the fish
that you catch in the different miscellaneous ingredients will feed into your actual sushi restaurant
later and then you've got your poor and green tea. You're serving sushi.
It's a fantastic time. The art style is absolutely fantastic because it's so pretty.
It is so pretty. Because it's so pretty, it's almost like a
different take on the two and a half D that, like Octopath has has
had a strangle hold on. Yeah, the HD two D and the I
forgot who chat mentioned it. But the cut scenes, yes, Octo.
The cut scenes are absolutely fantastic because of how it really meshes like the two
and a half D really well, because all of the characters just still kind
of stay in a two D plane while everything else is kind of three D.
The writing is great. I love all the characters. If you name
any character Cobra, it's it's probably going to be in contention for like top
five of the year. Yeah. Yeah, I think it is only available
on Steam, but it is fantastic on a Steam deck. I I meant
to sleep early last night because I was like, oh, we're gonna start
the BombCast earlier. I should get some z's but again z's I caught way
too many fish fish. And then there's there's also like in that restaurant.
In the restaurant part, there's like the like the management aspect of it is
way deeper than I kind of expected it. Yeah, Like you can hire
folks and they've got their own stats, and they've got their own specialties,
and like some people are just are better at like helping behind the counter,
and some people are like in the kitchen, I mean, and then some
people are are better at like waiting on folks. Like there's so many there's
so many things happening in this game, and it just sounds like if someone
described it to me like three years ago, I'd be like, there's no
way all of these systems like mesh well, but it like feeding, feeding
a restaurant with stuff that you get out of the ocean is like such a
simple loop that makes complete sense, and it's like it really works. It's
here for fishing loops between you got Dredge, you got Dave of the Divers
or anything I'm not thinking of. There was another fishing game from last year
that was a little emotional take a bass fishing. Yeah yeah, yeah,
I'm constantly it's like a bass fishing. The music in that the controller,
the Dreamcast fishing controller, I've got hell yeah, oh hold on, I
gotta change. I gotta skip an ad on the placeholder me. There we
go over my face at the worst. But I it's so cute. It's
it's there's such a heart to the game, and I just love Dave.
Also, just more big boys in games, you know. Yeah, that
was the best part for me, is that I'm like, I just like
this big boy, like this husky man. We need we need a little
a little bit more tummies in games, you know what they I didn't like.
I was kind of maybe hoping the game would just played it as like,
yeah, he's husky, so what. But there are people that are
like, you're fat in the game. I'm like, okay, okay,
I'm sorry to deal with this. Dave brushes it off. He's like,
he's got to do my job. And I am really good at diving yea,
and everyone has taken shots at me. He has so many skills.
He can kill a man. He hurder people underwater, which is sick.
See, that's the thing. I would trust a husky man that has a
special interest in diving, because you probably excel at twelve other things. Yeah,
you have to work harder to get to this point than anyone else.
Absolutely exactly. He is. He is husky by design. You know by
necessity, right, by by God's choice. Yes, yes, yes,
God's plan. Before we get to what I believe is the game of the
week, someone put down Mario Movie vinyl. Yeah. I got the vinyl
for the Mario movie. I figured I just pulled out here real quick,
just because I think grubs pulling it out. I'm pulling it out. Everybody
like pulling it out, and the hole, oh boy, yeah, there
we go. I think the other one is red actually in there, so
it's uh okay, it's it's pretty cool. I just got a record player
recently and then one up I am. I don't think this is the one
they sent me. I think this is one I bought. But then I
think they're also sending me like their special issue one that's like a different color.
But I think, you know, it turns out vinyl artwork very very
good, and I'm very into it. It's like a real estate, yeah,
a lot of real estate, and it's like half the reason to own
it. And it's a really good package. It's really nice looking. But
I just figure i'd show it off real quick to everybody. All the kids
lining up to pick up Mario Original Soundtrack on vinyl. Yes, but do
you you know, Baclora, how the Peaches song has a stranglehold on the
children. It does. I don't know if they're playing it on vinyl,
but yes, I'm with you, they will be when they reach their vinyl
phase. In twenty eighty three, I think the Jack Black at the LA
What the fuck is the Amphitheater Awood Bowl? Yes, yes, well that's
that starts making the rounds. This week I saw where he dressed up like
Bowser and did his live rendition of Peaches. It's it's very good. It's
pretty good. It's pretty good, big fan. Uh god, No,
I don't need to get into vinyl. That's the last thing I need to
know real quick before we get to the game of the week. I you
know, fell into another YouTube hole of someone d jang cassette tapes and it
just seemed like the oddest thing to do. How so, you know,
similar to like a DJ deck, right with the two turn tables on the
sides the plates, he just had two little uh uh tape decks that were
exposed and then on top of like the little tape decks slots or whatever,
he would try and scratch it still and then I was getting no, no,
no with his hands, and then I was getting really really tense because
I'm like, these tapes are gonna snap, these tapes are gonna snap.
That's like, a that's an original DJ screw tape. What the fuck are
you doing? You can't do that, like everyone knows you both don't.
But like cassette tape, incredibly flimsy. Excuse me, I had. I
had the Power Rangers on a cassette tape. How that worked, I don't
know. I had. I had Radio Disney Jams Volumes one through three on
cassette. That's how I learned about weird Al Yankovic. So I love I
Love Me at cassette tape. Okay, Nikki, because we are are close
in age, I need you to to go into this thought experiment with me
about how problematic it was that radio did the first time I heard Sean Kingston
uh and his song beautiful Girls where the hook just is him yelling suicidal,
was on Radio Disney. Yeah, but but they've they changed it to in
denial. Oh okay, all right, all right, well that's that's probably
better. But I swear I heard suicidal and Radio Disney, yeah, they
they there was they might have done it for a little bit before someone was
like, hey, we can't do that, but the the clean version of
that song, he said in denial. Okay, alright, alright, which
changes the meaning of the song. Yeah. Also, I'll say it Shaun
Kingston's song with Justin Bieber. It's a bob. I'm trying to be everyone's
any meany miny mo lover. Oh my god, that song came back.
That song's back because I because I I've heard it a lot this year my
kids. It's like it must be your kids are Shaun Kingston head No,
uh, just In Blocks or something or no. I don't know. I
just think it's like making the rounds with like younger like kids. I don't
know, like under thirteen or something. I have no idea, but I
heard it a bunch. I don't know why I've heard it so many times,
but I know that song and I can't believe, like that's what Justin
Bieber was doing. What song is this? It's called any meany or teeny
mean something like that? What is it? Uh? Just google Sean Kingston
Justin Bieber will be the top result. You'll find it. Just just search
TikTok for any meaney and yeah, there it is. There's a whole bunch
there. Yep, there it is. There, there it is, And
here we are at the two scared to hit this FX button. I think
it's going to break my go xlock. Game of the Week Viewfinder Viewfinders great,
Yeah, you've been playing a jan Yeah, I'm probably at the same
part of where the Steam Next Fest demo ended. But grub you and Dan
did a quick look of it. Now I'm on the site. I was
not expecting there to be that much talking. Yeah, yeah, that's my
main Yeah. Yeah, it's like I was saying in the quick look that
I think that like in that John, that first person kind of puzzle genre,
I feel like Portal kind of made a lot of those type of games
feel like they had to have this like personality or humor and things like that
instead of just doing the puzzles. And Portal did it extremely well. Viewfinder
does not. There is a lot of talking, you know, phones ringing
and narrator voice talking, and like, I don't have a problem with that
on the surface, it's just that like a combination of the writing and the
bo in this it's not adding anything to the game. At all, like
the puzzles themselves and the gimmick and everything. It works very very well.
I really really enjoyed that part of the game, but it does kind of
take you out of it. You're like, all right, stop talking so
I can just kind of like take a look at this room and figure out
what I have to do. Uh. It's that part ain't great, But
the rest of the game I'm liking quite a lot. Yeah, it's it
definitely feels like it is trying to do exactly what The Witness did, where
it puts you in this world and the world is telling that doing a lot
of the storytelling, and then you're going to get these audio logs that and
other things. Maybe sometimes videos. We haven't got any videos and Viewfinder,
but that's what you got in the Witness, and that stuff filled in a
lot of the lore, I guess, or just like the emotions of the
storytelling were filled in by those elements in The Witness, and here it's it's
you're right, it's not additive. It is. I think it's detrimental to
the vibes of the game because there are a lot of cool things that you
can look at that's set up like what is going on in this place,
and you get it through the environment pretty quickly, and the characters that they
are are portraying just don't add much more to that for me. So I'll
say, you know, it's not I don't think it's hurting it that much,
but it is definitely not great. But there's not a ton of it
either. There's some of it, there's not a ton of it. When
you are solving the puzzles, they're mostly quiet. If you if you don't
want to activate the record player that's going to do play the audio log,
you don't have to play it. You could just walk right past it.
And that's an option throughout most of these things. And then you get into
the puzzles themselves though, and they are as good as what we did in
the Steam Next Fest demo, and then they change things up. There was
the one like the first set of levels we did that weren't in the Steam
Next Fest demo. Are these perspective ones like there is you know, some
some slats on a wall that you know that we have some gaps in them,
and some of those slats will have part of a picture painted on it,
but not the complete picture. And you'll have to look look around the
rest of the world, and it's like, okay, I'll go around this
corner. Oh, here's another set of slats with with more of the picture,
and if I look at it right, we can line it up.
And then as soon as you line it up, boom, it like it
locks in the place. And now that that part of the picture is actively
in the world, you can walk into it. And that stuff doesn't really
get old for me, at least so far in the game. Mostly I
think because they know to move on pretty quickly and not to do too much
with any one of these ideas. They definitely like, we're gonna play around
with this idea, uh, you know, kind of amp it up pretty
quickly, and then you're gonna move on to the next set of levels.
And that's another thing that surprised me is the structure is very like hub and
spoke. You're gonna we're gonna go out to these various hubs and then these
these these hubs are gonna have a bunch of spokes off two different sets of
puzzles you're going to go out too, and then once you beat that set
of levels, you'll teleport back to the hub and you'll find the next set
of levels by going to the next teleporter, and I'm fine with that as
well, and actually makes it pretty easy to get around and to not feel
like, oh I saw something back there, I want to go back there.
Eventually, it's like, oh, I know that, like the transport
to the next set of levels is right there as soon as I get back
to the hub, So it makes it feel manageable. I am kind of
flying through it, and I you know, I've only played basically where people
will see in the quick look, and it feels like we're getting pretty close
to being halfway done. There's a progress slider on the on the like save
game thing, and it's like, yeah, I played like an hour and
I feel like I was like a third of the way through the game.
So I think it's gonna be pretty short. But like, I do prefer
that rather than like, you know, wearing a gimmick. Then you know,
it's it keeps it fresh and it moves on before it gets too old.
Yeah yeah, but overall it's it continues to be pretty. I mean,
the gimmick itself, it really was made for that, like that TikTok
that Sean made for us. Of Hey, we're showing off the game.
Isn't this amazing? And yes, you got to. You could show Viewfinder
just about just about anybody and they're going to be impressed by the central core
gimmick. And that gimmick continues to work. And you know, I got
the camera in like the third world or third set of stages or whatever,
and it's it works a little bit different than it does in the demo.
It has like a counter so you can only take so many pictures, but
that just makes you think more creatively about how to solve these puzzles, and
it works. It continues to be very, very cool. So yeah,
it's it's definitely something I'm into. Still, I'll beat the drum again that
we need a better name for this genre. I know we say puzzle games,
but puzzle games can be Tetris and puzzle fighter and gary different blocks dropping
from this guy someone, I'm talking portal Tallos, principal quantum conundrum, the
witness one is this? What is one? Someone did it during our stream
and we're all just too fuzz someone did it. I see people saying first
person puzzler. That's too wordy. We need like a catchy just you know
a word or two mysteries. But but Missed is all capitalizing a bit.
I love it. That's great, thank you. Okay, I'm looking on
the chat first person puzzle game Misfits. No Witness likes No Lucy James Dad's
favorite series Missed. Miss Really Yeah, I gotta I gotta talk to Lucy's
out about miss that game rules. I don't think I've ever seen Missed in
action. I've never seen it, I've never touched it. I don't know
what the hell it is. I don't think there is there is. There
is literally not a game on this planet that you would hate most. I
like puzzles. I like using my noggin, like I like, I like
logic puzzles and stuff like. That is it? But but I've heard it's
more a mix this bullshit Captain logic over here. I'm a logical man.
That was my favorite ship in school. It's logic puzzles. I love that
in school. Wonder right, Like you might like Riven more than you would
like Missed Ribbon, the sequel to Yeah, I think you might like Riven
more, but they both have just like an unbelievable amount of like Pixel Hunting
Horse shit in them. Okay, well that's why I missed is so sort
of like hated at times, right, Yeah, yeah, I love those
games, though, I'd be curious to try it sometimes. Yeah, I
think we see it was like puzzle like puzzle walker or something said that earlier.
What the hell you did? Okay? Cool? It was a walker
lost and puzzle walker. Yeah, but puss walk sounds like a Texas Ranger,
like the enemy or whatever, like Walker Texas Ranger. Oh, I
gotta fight off my cousin puzzle Walker. That's okay. I like that story.
I have to reassemble my revolver before I can shoot puzzle escapes. That's
not bad. Puzzles not bad. What about I don't think we need the
word puzzle because that's the part of a confusion, because we already have a
puzzle genre forever. What about what about it's an interactivity? Okay, let's
look around. What about a walk around and find out? Oh what about
puzz puzz walk walk? That's that's better, louzz walk. I think the
puzz walk works. Oh yeah, you know, there's sea walking. Now
there's puzz walking. Think them, think them, think a walkie, think
them. I like, what yeah, you know, I because like when
I think of when I think of Gears of War, that's like a walkie
talkie game. This, uh Viewfinder could be a walkie think them solve them
up, solve them up. That's like a mystery. That's like a that's
like a phoenix, right that is Yeah, that has a word. It's
called mystery. Yeah, we already got one of those. Yeah, okay,
folks. Uh that's it for the first segment. Uh, my timing
is all out of whack. I didn't This podcast is already too long.
Uh, folks, any any other loose games before we take a break and
eventually talk about the news. I'm just still playing the ro O g Ally
a lot, and it's good when you're playing games. Everything else about it
is a real headache using it at because it's it really is just a laptop
where what you remove the keyboard of it's so it's like frustrating to use.
And every time you like wake it from sleep and you see that god damn
Windows eleven like sleep screen, right, all right, signed back in and
you don't have to sign it in, you just swipe it up. It's
like, oh yeah, that's right. Windows eleven this is so annoying to
use on this thing. Anyone who wants to tinker with a device. Steam
Deck is still way better for that it's made to tinker, even though it's
also much more consolized in terms of its presentation. But if you if there
are games specifically you want to play that don't work on the Steam Deck,
like Destiny, then the rog allies key if it's really good for that.
Thank you for being an ally grub of course, yes, I'm here for
you all right. Before we go to break, I think there are two
fantastic suggestions here. Sign Guy Bubbsy suggests pog puzzle ass walking games. Yeah,
and then Cosbot First Person Solver FPS. That's that's confusing, it's the
same we already have that, okay, Well, I mean we also have
various pugs. Only if you're a Manati. Only if you're a Manati.
Uh well, speaking about Manati, I gotta go check on the Manati slot
and then we'll take a quick break and we'll be back with the news.
Nikki, I have a question for you now that we're back with a Giant
bomb Cast Episode seven, seven hundred ninety eight. Uh, those machines in
bars sometimes you have them at your house like Jeffrey Grubb does, where you
are shooting baskets into a basket. Sometimes it's the basket moves around. If
you're at a David Busters, perhaps, what do you call that as a
papa shot? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, he's right.
They're right, they're right. Yes, that is it. Absolutely.
I said that recently and people thought I was nuts. Wait, what are
what else are they called? Well, I don't think I've never heard it
called papa shot, Dan, But I'm not like against calling it papa shot.
It's just when it was not like, oh, everyone knows that's called
papa shot, and that's what Dan was trying to make it sound like,
oh, it's what they're called. It's what it's what they're called. I
can't what do you what would you call it? I call it the basketball
game at David Busters. Actually, yeah, we'll take that too, right,
yeah, yeah, listen, Trebek's not giving you that one's not close
enough. Yeah, that's fair, that's fair. Okay, this is what
I got doesn't have any branding on it, so doesn't say papa shot anywhere.
That must be trademarked. I don't know, Well, Dan, we'll
just start calling you Papa shotah take. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like
you got to wear like an old Cabby hat and have like not a hat.
Guy, I got a big fat head yeah you know, got big
hat. No, no hats fit me? Are you sure? It's not
a good situation. It's got to be like a big fat head hat.
There's no way that's true. You don't have a big look. I have
an embarrassingly oh man, it's at like it's mine's bigger than here is.
It's why is it still competition? It something? Where have you been?
You have to win this? Uh? I just dropped the link in the
in the chat for a hat that would I think fit Dan from from a
company that I won't name on the podcast, but I think this fact,
this hat would fit Dan. Why the mascot i'd wear that They do this
in like hockey. They were doing this in hockey. They were like making
these very large But for folks like watching live and clicked on on the link
that Nikki dropped, I need you to look at this logo of this company
that we're not going to mention, and that's why are we trying to get
a sponsorship. Well, yeah, exactly. You know, no free promo
here. You know you're saying the logo is me. Yeah, it just
looks like you. It's like that's a little jib, that's a little that's
a large hat. This person is the face though you're a hat guy.
You got a normal size head. It's because like you know this, he
has like a little smirk Backlar always has like a little smirk. This is
the same shape. I'll take it. I'm I'm the hat person on that.
That's you. I need to see Dan wearing a hat. I just
want to like it. I would like to be able to wear hats.
Hat seem fun. It seems like there's a lot of variety you can do.
I can't picture you. So you put the snap back on the last
setting of the snap back like mechanism, so that makes it like wide.
But then it's like it's not tall enough, you know around there. It's
not like I can't get it on there. You do just like do have
the egg shaped head where it? Yeah? Right, you take the whole
slider up. The whole thing is it's not a head head? Heided,
Yeah, okay, I'll get that makes more sense. I've seen your head,
Dan, it's not that big. You're just get a tape measure next
time. What do you measure? Do you know your head? Your hat
measurement? Just do some Just do a little bit of phrenology. What's what's
her? Cale's got a hat? He look good with an arm's reach.
Love it if it's a hat. If it doesn't go because that's the Halloween
kind, you're not wearing a fucking real hurt good though. Yeah, it
does look good. I because I now need to get Dan like a baseball
cap. So during the stream or something, when it's like Dan goes into
business mode, he like flips it around and it's like, oh, it's
serious. Now it's over the top. It's over the top of I would
love to be able to do that. I don't think a hat fits your
personality, like I just think that's what it is. What about the size
of your hat? A top hat for Dan? A top hat? Chat
says I should wear cowboy hats? Can I start doing that? Really?
Play dans and stuff? Yeah? Or like what if we got you into
beauties? Yeah? Beanies? Is that a propeller? Does every beanie have
a propeller? No? No, Beanies are the things that I always wear.
Yeah, tho, stocking caps. Stocking gaps. Sure, No,
that's that's that's it's a Jane Worre stocking gaps. Okay, stocking cap.
Look, that's what they're called. They're called stocking caps. Well, this
is news to me, just like Jeff Grubb is gonna deliver the news.
Hello, hey, wow, you got it. This is the news save
us. Xbox Live Gold is transforming into Xbox Game Pass Corps. That's just
a bunch of words they smushed together. Xbox Game or Xbox Live Goal will
be discontinue on September fourteenth after nearly two decades. It will be replaced by
Xbox Game Pass Corps, which is pretty much the same exact thing. It's
a cheaper version of Game Pass that includes online multiplayer and a curated selection of
games from game Pass. They promised to have twenty five games when it launches.
Games with Gold how is going to be going away while? But players
will still have access to anything that they've online. Let me tell you,
yeah, right, who's who's We're doing any games with Gold? For for
years now, it's just kind of been an embarrassment that for a while now,
every time it'll come up and you're like, oh, wow, that's
what you're putting out. Xbox three sixty games that you've gotten through games with
Gold, you will apparently have access to those no matter what, even if
you end your subscription. So it's a nice little thing I guess they're doing.
That's generous. It's very generous of them. Thank you. Than Wow,
that's the first time anyone said, Elo Milo in twelve years. I
love that game. That's a good game. You just activated a mature maturity
and candidate by saying that it's gonna cost ten dollars per month this game Pass
Core or sixty dollars per year. You have both options again, same as
Xbox Live Gold was. But the weird thing is this does put it into
a slot below Xbox Game Pass Console, which is eleven dollars per month,
and with that you don't get on I'm multiplayer. But if you go down
one dollar to the ten dollar option, you do get online multiplayer. Microsoft
is in a weird spot with some of these things. Call that what was
the plan called? Uh Xbox game Pass console? I never heard of that.
Okay, that's what they're getting dangerously close to PlayStation here, because before
it was a little more play a little bit worse than PlayStation because like it's
not like everything isn't just a step up. There's like step down and the
step up, and it's like it's it's more confusing. It should just be
three. I'm gonna fit Phil, I'm gonna fix this for you right now.
Yeah, let's fix this for you right now. Okay, you call
one of them Xbox Live Gold, Yeah, right, strange, and that
one gives you multiplayer, and then you have game Pass Console and then you
have Game Pass Ultimate. That's we went with. Yeah, I can't even
imagine a world where that's possible. Let's just do that. Some of the
games that are you know, and that's honestly, like they clearly want to
get people like into the game Pass, like moving up the tears right,
It's like, well, I'm in game Pass now, I get some of
these games. But if I just pay a little bit more per month,
I get new games that are coming out, like Starfield it's gonna it's gonna
be out here pretty soon. And it's like it feels like all this stuff
is lining up with that and the active we should deal closing, uh and
so, but at the same time, it's like if those people are have
been on gold this entire time and not in game Pass, these are people
who don't want to be in game Pass and they aren't going to be moved
by any of these things. So I quite get it. I as a
person who when growing up did not have very much money, so like when
trying to figure out, like do like doing the math on like can we
do gold this month? Like can we have gold this month? Or is
it's going to be a gold free month? Because I was like paying months
a month. I don't understand who is splitting the airs on like three dollars
basically to like to get full game Pass and then to not have full game
Pass. Like if you're paying month to month, I don't understand who's doing
that Calculus because you just get so much more if you're just gonna go ahead
and get regular ass game pass that I don't know who's like, like why
are you paying just I don't know. I mean, it's quite part of
their thinking though, Nikki's that they like they're like, Okay, we know
that this looks weird, and a lot of people are just gonna say fuck
it, I'll just get ultimate, so I don't have to think about it
that way. I just get everything and they it's, you know, the
medium popcorn thing we always bring up. It's like, oh, you get
a large popcorn for just twenty five cents more. You don't look at the
fact that it's the seventeen fucking dollars. He's really yeah, just twenty five
cents more, that's all you're thinking about. So that's that's probably what they're
going for here. I don't know necessarily that they've engineered these tears to facilitate
that sort of thinking, because I personally getting hung up on like, wait,
console doesn't have game but my multiplayer, but the one a dollar cheaper
does. That's pretty stupid. They need to just fix that, and they
need to just put all my multiplayer and all these Alternatively, of course they
could just make a free yest. Yeah, they I mean they made the
online multiplayer free for free to play games a couple of years ago. I
don't know if they're going to ever make all on my multiplayer free because they
make a lot of money from from selling that. Both these companies do,
both Microsoft and Sony. Some of the games that are going to be in
this core offering include, among us, the senders dishonored to do maternal some
more. Yes, just one dollar more. It gets you the full game
pass library if you want it. This is something they pull the trigger on
over the weekend, seemingly to line up with the news around Microsoft winning the
FTC case, and it seemed like everything's going to go through with the Activision
deals. So Microsoft won the FTC case. California Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley has
allowed Microsoft to proceed with its acquisition of Activision Blizzard after denying the FTC's request
for a preliminary injunction. A lot has happened with this case since then.
For example, the FTC appealed the decision and the Ninth Circuit denied that motion.
The FTC's attempt to block Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard before the July eighteenth
deadline has failed. You guys might not notice this, but today is July
eighteenth. Today is the day this deal needs to close or else Microsoft owns
ows Activision three billion dollars. We'll talk about what here in a second.
Yes, they might still they could announce late tonight that the deal closes,
or they might announce late tonight that they've extended it again. We'll talk about
that in a second. But the FTC people thought that the FTC might not
try to appeal it. Clearly though thinks, hey, we're going to try
every single thing available to us to stop any deal that we think that we
want to stop. They didn't stand much of a chance kind of no matter
what, even if it did go through, if they think they had a
chance for this appeal, but they were denied even then the opportunity to stop,
like to get this preliminary injunction, the temporary restraining order extended. The
judges like, no, we're not even going to deal with that, or
the judges excuse me, that would be on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The other part of this, Microsoft and CMA are going to go back
and forth a little bit here that's the regulator in the UK, and they
are saying, hey, we will talk to Microsoft now, and both sides
are feeling pretty confident about getting a deal made. Microsoft of course one that
really know with the FTC, and that led to the CMA saying, okay,
you know what, let's all just pause any appeal that we're doing in
the UK and take a chance to sit down and see if we can agree
one on one on a new deal that would answer our concerns. And if
people remember, the CMA's concerns had nothing to do with Call of Duty,
they dropped all of those complaints during the process and instead focused on cloud gaming,
where they said Activision and all these other games are going to give Microsoft
an advantage in the growing cloud gaming space. The Microsoft they are talking,
they met before a judge earlier this week yesterday, and they had a kind
of going back at forth, and it seemed like the judge was saying,
hey, CMA, you should just figure this out right now, and the
CMA kept saying, basically, we are going to stick by our original thing
until we get a new sort of deal from Microsoft, and then maybe we'll
look at it again. So that's where things are a little bit troublesome for
Microsoft with closing the deal today on July eighteenth, because the CMA is still
standing in the way and doesn't seem like it's going to give Microsoft an easy
bypass of that. And it seems like also Microsoft doesn't want to cut out
the UK if it doesn't have to. They want to keep things amicable overall,
So yes, please, who who do you think has the more lucid
argument against the acquisition, the CMA or the FTC. Yeah, I mean
the CMAS was the one that at least was a coagent in terms of saying,
we don't know what's going to happen with cloud gaming. So's so we're
not sure and it's like that more just like call of Duty. Yes,
the FTC was like, oh, this is going to hurt competition because of
any number of things that clearly we're not going to happen. Uh. And
the focus on call of duty was was strange to begin with. Oh,
yes, surprising a little bit. And then they mean, you know,
Lena Khan run the FTC. She's younger than me. That's that's what I
mean. And I think she mostly gets it. I think she's got a
pretty cynical feeling about a lot of these things. And she's like, no,
I fully, I know our arguments are good, that's not the point.
That is not what we're trying to do here. We are trying to
be annoying, we are trying to be in the sustaining the way. And
so I keep saying overall that the FTC, and these regulators mostly succeeded because
if their goal is to ensure that the public has a good insight and how
these companies are operating, the decisions that they're making, and and you force
these companies to present, like to put their best foot forward so they look
good before regulators. Microsoft definitely did that throughout this entire process. And so
and here we are, and they've got promises with Nintendo that they're going to
put all the all the Activision Blizzard games that they've previously put out on Nintendo
consoles. They're going to keep putting those out in the future on Nintendo consoles
also this week over the weekend and line up with all this other stuff.
Sony signed the deal finally, with Microsoft saying Call of Duty were made on
PlayStation consoles going forward for ten years. Interestingly, that deal only includes Call
of Duty and doesn't include all the other games like the Nintendo deal does.
And that seemed to be the kind of thing where, hey, soon,
if you had signed earlier, you might have got everything. But because you
waited until you clearly we're gonna lose, We're just gonna give you Call of
Duty. So I don't believe that. I don't believe that. I feel
like from the get go that deal was just for call of duty. Yeah,
you know, the way that that deal seemed to be to happen was
it was going to be a shorter amount of time but for more games,
is what they I think both Microsoft that Sony told the Verge that and say,
okay, so I could see why Sony was like weighing it out,
and if they had to pick one call of duty for a longer amount of
time, it is probably what they would have picked anyhow. But yeah,
and in the meantime, it's like, it's gonna be funny to see if
we get like exclusives that really are on Switch or Switch to and Xbox and
not coming to PlayStation because of this agreement. Who knows. But really all
this comes down to this deal was supposed to close today, and that was
always the date from when they first set up the deal way back in January
of twenty twenty two. We're gonna have a close by July eighteenth, twenty
twenty three, And if it doesn't get closed by then, Microsoft owes a
like a breakage fee basically of three billion dollars. That is, yes,
chump change. That is something Microsoft clearly doesn't want to do that because that
would also mean the deal. They're just not going to go through with the
deal. Because the alternative here is, let's renegotiate that. Let's see if
we can push the date a little bit further, maybe bump up the money
that will pay you if it does break, because we don't think it's going
to We're pretty confidence going to go through. So if it does go if
it doesn't go through, we'll give you a little bit extra money. But
let's push that date, you know, in past August, past the FTC
thing or something like that. But I still think, you know, who
knows, they've been working non stop all weekend. You could tell by the
way that they lined up all of this news about Xbox Live and all these
other things and these deals they've signed. They're working on this right now and
before midnight tonight, who knows, they might not announce No, this is
closed. And we now live in a world where Microsoft owns Activision fully except
for in the UK, where you know it's it's things are still being figured
out. God exactly, I'm gonna I'm gonna need Phil Spencer to like where
uh like some skate brand shirt to the next good gaming event and then it's
like, wait, is that are you bring Tony back back of ruined Glyffberg
shirts doing a Christ there? Oh? Hell yeah, it's just the photoshop
of Matt Booty doing like a Christ there on his shirt. Hey, let's
go. I would love that. I don't know why that maybe left so
hard. It's good. That's a good, good image. A little bit
more Xbox News. Major Nelson is leaving Xbox after twenty two years. He
wrote on Twitter, after twenty incredible years. That's actually been there twenty two
years. I've decided to take a step back and work on the next chapter
of my career. As I take a moment and think about all we have
done together, I want to take the millions of gamers around the world who
have included me as part of their lives. I never fully understood what Larry
herb, but Major Neilson was what medication kind of face of like he was
the guy who would He's the face that would be communicating the news to you.
Sometimes you would show up on the dashboard and everything like hey, check
out this new thing or dash and stuff like that. He was their in
house influencer. Yeah, but what's they called like an evangels that Mendez.
Yeah, yeah, you know he was kind of like before, I don't
know, before I remember seeing a lot of like gaming news and stuff on
social media, like traditional social media, like he was around. You'd see
him like posting on the blog, post and everything and and all the official
Xbox channels, like he's been around forever. Like that's a public facing right,
like because it's like, yeah, not not pr like relations with press
facing because I never really interacted with him. No, we weren't emailing him
for codes or anything. He was just like getting the message out to Xbox
gamers. Yeah, and it was I think I remember like a couple of
years ago, like he's been there forever. I guess maybe he's gonna be
there forever. But it does seem like he's got something new in the works
and he's going to go there. And uh, you know, Phil Spencer
wished him luck publicly on Twitter. So it's like it seems like this is
all on the up and up and there's nothing weird. It's just hey,
twenty two years is a long time to work someplace, and he's moving on
so and he's going to he's going to the Zebo. He's going to Zebo,
right, yeah, he's bringing it back. He's gonna bring back that
Zebo. Tenants Zebo. So that's a hell of a name right there.
All right there, yeah, there you go, a tenant Zebou. The
other stories here, uh. Youb Bestoft is prepping a beta for Assassin's Creed
Jade on smartphones. You Bestoft announced they closed beta for Assassin's Creed Jade.
A mobile entrying the franchise is starting around August third. The beta will be
available on Android and iOS, and registration is open through the game's official website.
I'm curious about it because Dan, I know you don't like Assassin's Creed
overall. So the idea of playing a mobile version of Assassin's Creed that look,
yeah, it's gonna make you pinch your nose that, but it apparently
looks like it's gonna play just like an Assassin's Creed game. Does that strike
anyone's fancy? Here? Is this like something like you might hand off the
dib yankee can't? Yeah? Yeah, well, I mean I don't know,
like like you do, they maybe like age it down maybe a little
bit, make sure it's a little bit less violent or something. I don't
know, Like it's I really don't know. Who's gonna make Assassin's Creed less
violent? Yeah, they'll put in it. It's not that violent. Yeah,
that's what I'm thinking, like that, like those games, like,
yeah, it is about like it's like in the name, it is about
murdering people. So like, I think that's a fair point. And yet
for some reason I never associate Assassin's Creed with but it's not like super violent
murder. Yeah, it's just murders, like yeah, yeah, I don't
know, hidden hidden hand knife like prison shank, it's nothing. It's not
in your neck like I don't know. I let him play uncharted before a
saissence. I'm kidding, kidding, it's uh, yeah, I don't know.
But this is something I've been kind of curious about, although I think
it's probably gonna be those kinds of things where I, like, I try
for five minutes, like, oh, I I hate the seeing my phone
battery drain like visibly before me when I play games. So I'm not even
gonna do this anymore. They'll make it and sell millions, that's yeah,
Yeah, wouldn't be surprised, wouldn't be. We gotta they got to figure
out how to can you charge using while you use the fuck? What's that
thing called backshon? Yeah? Can you charge while you use it? I
don't know. You can't you? I think because there's like a daisy chain
where there's like another port. What I just want? I just don't like
play game on my phone side yeah? Same, sure, sure, yeah,
that's mostly it. They're not made to be like I remember, I
would always use my I'll hope you out here in a secon kid, I'll
get you. I know you won't pay Mario card uhomember. Like when I
first got my phone, like screens need to be a landscape. That's how
screens are, and like I'll get my phone, I'll use it that way.
And I was like I got a T Mobile side kick, so I'm
like that's how I use that phone, and I'm a gonna use this phone.
And it's like very quickly, I'm like, oh, they are not
meant to be used this way. No, it's like I would. I
would. I think Backbone should make one for the iPad mini. I would
be much more like interested in, hey were you shaking the controllers. It's
it's really watch it just turned on the switch. What he's doing some slide
of hand shit. He wants to trick us. He's not established it.
He's trying to make us look like it's good to work with adults instead of
just damn, thank you all so much. He's so bad. You're so
bad, Paul, you can shake all. I'm not from you, Paul,
well for you were supposed to the TikTok where we discovered this. Uh
that's incredible, but yeah, I I just I for the iPad mini.
I think is a better size for something like this, or like I'm not
trying to play if it's like if the mechanics are like regular Assassin's Creed,
You're not You're you're gonna catch me dead first, Like I'm not playing a
whole ass Assassin's Creed game on my phone personally, Like that's just like a
me thing. I'll play Point B though, you know, hell yeah,
but I'm not trying. I'm not trying to play anything bigger than Point B
set Creeds like you got enough. I don't know. It's just an open
world expiration guy. I thought I say that in like Minecraft is huge on
phones, So they're gonna be kids who do who definitely play something. I
don't know anything, though, You're goddamn right. They don't know a goddamn
they're so fucking stupid. Oh my god, they just don't know anything.
She is Mario Kart. She's doing great. You're in the butter zone right
now, you're in the Goldenlocks zone. Okay, wait a couple more years,
all right. Any Emmy was like big into video games, and now
she says I don't like video games and then spends like an hour and a
half on her tablet playing every video game on there. I'm like, aren't
those video games? She's like, no, these are like princess games exactly.
Old games are real. Your kid's right, that's right. Held it.
Uh. Here's here's the sentence. Balder's Gate three has seventeen thousand endings.
Good, that's too many. It's too many. How I don't so
let's I'll try to read the details here, but frankly, I don't really
understand it. Balder's Gate three is expected to be a huge game, with
extensive game play hours and numerous interact interactable characters. According to Fextra Life,
the game could have around seventeen thousand possible endings. The vast number of endings
suggest a high level of branching and player choices that could lead to various story
conclusions. So I think by seventeen thousand, Indians, they mean throughout the
game, you did something, you lost the character, or you killed an
MPC, and then you go to the last scene and one person is going
to be here, be you're ending it's gonna be. It's gonna be.
It's very bespoke based on those choices, but it is going to be,
like, you know, just different different slots pulled for what it looks like,
but mostly it's overall's the same thing. Basic. It feels look like
a mass effect three thing where it's like, Okay, these people could be
standing there and this color could be happening in the background whatever. But like
I'm it's not sixteen thousand the episode of Things or how the Whopper has half
a million combinations. It's like it's exactly like that. Yes, goodness,
I'm almost ever had a whopper. Well, I'm not listening anything but a
move on on. I've had one Big Mac, I've had one Big mag
zero whoppers. What's big mag scrape. You can't just say secret sauce and
expect us all to trust you. Well, I don't know what he did.
What's in there? What do you think secret sauces? Something crazy?
If they said it was barbecue sauce or ranch or even mayo, which I
don't like, I'd be way more prone to give it a shot. But
you can't just be like it's got some mystery shit in it. I don't
know. I'm not gonna try it is. We do know what it do?
You know what it is? We know, we all, we all
know what it is. Is it better? Is it better than a plain
quarter pound of a cheese? Which is the best? A quarter point of
cheese is too salty? Yes, never salty enough. It's a weird plain
idiot. You know what? You know? Now, I'm here in Kansas
with my dad, and you know, when we go to McDonald's, he
will he refuses to go through the drive through because he knows he goes,
I'm not going to go through the drive through. I wouldn't feel like a
man if I had to order a point cheesebok. So he parks and makes
me go into order because he wouldn't feel like a man. If he said
plain cheeseburger all you're when you tell these stories about your dad, you just
further drive the Rycher legacy into the depths. It's just like, I'm not
secure about my plain cheeseburgers. It's just all you're doing. That's the problem.
He be a little more secure about your playing cheeseburgers, Dan, Dan,
if you're trying it, if you're trying to go crazy, the next
thing you gotta do. Listen, you gotta you gotta go get your court
here with cheese, and you gotta get them to put the Max sauce on
that bad boy. Yeah no, oh, that sounds delicious. Actually,
you can get a cup of the Max sauce if you wanted. I'm not
a maniac. I'm not gonna know. I'm trying to avoid that stuff.
Wh Okay, I don't do I don't do Horsey sauce. I don't do
any crazy sauce that is like specific to one place. You need to tell
me exactly. Barbecue sauce. That's the only thing I'm putting on a burder.
What do you think? What's a barbecue sauce? It's like, uh
barbecue e uh, it's like just fun Kansas City flavored. Uh, essence
what you described sauce, my sake, saucy barbecue barbecues, and it brought
it to life and it turned it into a sauce. That's I don't know
where, but I don't know where barbecue comes from. I just know it's
very Yeah, I know it's it's great here taste of Your answer was the
question, I don't understand you. It's not how you win. I was.
I was afraid to try barbecue until I was in like almost done with
college, so I bet there. I was brave. Yeah, it's it's
barbecue. Sauce is one of the accept it's one of the no, it's
I don't like catchup. I don't like so ketchup is never on a burger
that you have. I've never once had ketchup on a burger. I've thought
dogs. I have had ketchup maybe five times in my life, and it's
only been on French fries, and I've been wary of every one of them.
It's like ninety percent sugar. I don't understand you. It's like crazy,
it's it's just there's too much going on there and you realize you realize
the main ingredient in barbecue sauce is like almost always catchup. No, I
also, and I don't like tomatoes, so look, I just don't tell
me he stands something like tomatoes even though it's mad. It's all over the
bottle. It's all over the bottle. Yeah, it's too much sugar.
Yeah, it's just sugar and water and salt. But barbecue sauce SketchUp and
a bunch of spices. Yeah, I like the spice. It's just it's
a spicy sauce. It's a spicy, hot, nicky sauce. Isn't ketchup.
You're gonna we can do that. You'll you'll learn, You'll be like
he'll be like, oh, I hate Mayo or whatever. And then he
finds out what like thousand Island dressing is and he's like, never, I
don't trust a thousand I addressing I had. I got the animal fries at
in and out once and it was the craziest shit I've ever put in my
mouth. It's just like, all right, I'm moving, He's gonna age
you. Please just go keep going. Keep sex cells. Bear scene from
the Larry and panel from Hell Showcase was received with high praise for its romantic,
imaginative, and funny content. After the showcase, Walter's Gate three has
climbed up the Steam sales chart, surpassing popular games like Call of Duty,
Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven, and Grant Theft out of five. The scene features
Asterian, a high elf rogue with a vampiric past, becoming intimately acquainted with
Helson, a druid. That druid then turns into a bear before they do
the deed. The well written and passionate love scene turns a humorous of course
when that happens. Uh. This definitely was when this game popped off.
Of course, it was timed with stuff like Dan like you went out there,
you did a preview for it, and those previews were getting a lot
of it. But I think the bear sex helped. Yeah, yeah,
made the Internet talk about it quite a bit. Yes, absolutely. I
was like, Wow, yeah, all right, if a game's gonna go
for it like that, I'm definitely gonna pay attention. So now I'm ready
for this game, and I'm ready for fucking a bear. Let's go.
You can play as a cheese wheel. There was like one carnival game where
you just randomly get warped to it's like Dinosaur Planet. Like that game is
definitely going for it. I was really imprassed by what I saw, knowing
nothing about the franchise beforehand. All Right, the EU rules may require replaceable
battery in the next switch and other handholds. The European Union, Yes,
has introduced new excuse me has to introduce new regulations requiring future consumer tech products,
including gaming handhouts like the Nintendo Switch successors and Steam Deck, to have
user replaceable batteries by twenty twenty seven. The mandate aims to reduce environmental and
societal impacts caused by discarded batteries and promote a circular economy by encouraging recycling and
reusing old batteries. Sure, the regulation cover reportable batteries for appliances, light
transport, vehicles and other devices. Gaming handhelds are specifically included in these new
regulations. According to an EU representative, this is good. I think they
should definitely expand it to include controllers, because controllers to have replaceable batteries if
they were chargeable replaceable batteries. Please, when they say user replaceable, is
Nintendo gonna be able to be like, yeah, user can replace it,
you go buy the screwdriver. Yes, So that's a very good question,
and they specifically address that it has to be readily commercially available tools to open
it, so it can't be a specialized tool. So they'll probably just change
the screws then, right, it just won't be a well situation. They
can't just do that because in most of these devices, and I think this
includes the switch, the batteries glued in, so they have to change their
manufacturing process so that it doesn't require you to pry it out and feel like
you're breaking the shift. We need to be like fens were five years ago,
where everything had a replaceable battery. Yeah, well, who are we
kidding? If it's Nintendo, you'll need like an oyster shucking knife to that
bad boy opening. Yeah, but those are great. You're always good to
have one in your wallet. Absolutely. You never know when an oyster might
fall into your lap, right, I don't know mother shuckers. All right,
let's see service for old games keep getting fixed this week, it's weird.
Microsoft has fixed the matchmaking service for Shadow run, the Xbox three sixty
multiplayer first first shooter Shadow Run, was originally a tabletop RPG, was adapted
into a multiplayer only first person shooter in two thousand and seven, featuring cross
platform play between Xbox Live and PC. You remember that games for Windows Live
Everybody, the game's dedicated service, were shut down a year after release,
leading to slow peer to peer match making. Recent updates to Call Duty games
on Xbox Live seemed to worsen the match making for Shadow Run. After fans
reach out to Microsoft, the publisher quickly restored service for Shadow Run on Xbox
MPC, and it improved match making so much that players say it's better than
it's literally ever been. Even when they had like the good match making in
the early days, it would take like thirty seconds to find a match.
Now it's happening instantaneously. This is one of those games. It's backward compatible,
and so people are checking it out. I'm like, oh, I'm
not gonna go play fucking Shadow Run. For Xbox three sixty I might be
called Duty also had a bunch of its servers fixed and turned back on for
a bunch of classic games, and a ton of people have been playing them,
especially Black Ops one and Modern War for three had huge numbers and the
tens of thousands and over one hundred thousand in some cases over the weekend,
at least according to their in game reporting tools, which could be bugged.
But either way, a lot of people were definitely playing them one way or
the other. This is a cool trend, and I think this is also
stuff that's like lined up with Hey, the deal is about to go through
and we're about to add these games to game Pass, so let's make sure
that everything's working so we could do that quickly and that it's not going to
be bad. I like going back those old Call of Duty games. It
got pretty miserable there in the last couple of years, where everything was happened
and it was terrible. Yeah, those were fun, though. Sometimes you
would boot up a modern warfare t server and everyone you'd be you would just
start running a million miles an hour. You'd like you would hit a wall
and the game would break because you went fast. But that wasn't Yeah,
yeah, but it wasn't. It was not the video game. It was
something completely different. It was fun if you knew what you were going into.
Yes, yeah, yeah, I can't imagine being like, all n't
time to play some third person team tactical on rust and then loading in and
then falling through the floor, or just like getting shot through every wall,
every every bullet is an explosive RP. Yes, exactly, Yeah, that
would not be a pleasant experience. No alm right, last story here,
a UK rate retailer doesn't want to carry physical games anymore. Tesco, the
UK supermarket chain with over twenty eight hundred stores, is gonna stop selling box
games once its current stock is sold. The decision is dripped and by the
shift and customer preferences toward digital entertainment. The move follows significant discounts on video
game products and Tesco stores this year. This is definitely something we've seen have
the UK seems especially susceptible to this. A lot of people are going digital
in the UK. It seems like the Xbox series S is selling way better
than the X and digital sales on Xbox seem to be much higher than physical
sales. And this is another step in the push to an all digital future.
Or do you think this is going to be like I like game Spot
is like also pulling out like places like Ireland and stuff like that. Yeah,
we yes, do we feel like this is the end for physical games
like like manifesting before us or is it like well, especially especialty retailers and
like Walmart will still have it, but some of the like a grocery store
in the UK, of course they're going to stop selling it. You didn't
know why were they in that business. It's to begin with. I'm looking
at their website and they just have pictures of chicken and stuff. Yeah,
Tesco is like a real real grocery, a grocery store, Like I didn't
know they even had video games. Like, good for them for getting out
of a business they shouldn't have been in. I's kind of think where it
draws people in. It's one because like the margins on scient physical games are
very very very low. So I think the idea was, this is the
thing that gets people into our stores and then we could sell them roasted chickens.
But yeah, it makes sense. I'm just guessing here, but it
makes sense, especially like I would venture to guess that digital games by comparison
probably sell better in countries like that than they do here because I guess they
probably have better internet infrastructure. Yeah, and I think because they're so small
geographically speaking, right, I think also the history of the UK's video gaming
scene is much more PC based and the idea, like, I think they
probably just adopted that sort of mentality faster because it's like they don't have quite
as much love for like cartridges and stuff like that, Like they didn't necessarily
have that as much as as other countries. So I could see them being
like, yeah, digital games whatever, I'll have an affinity for this.
Maybe I'm wrong, that could be wrong, but that's but by comparison,
like there's still a sizeable, you know, chunk of the population in the
US that probably does not have the influence that you might to download a sixty
eight gigabyte game, where I imagine everyone in England is like viber baby,
you know. Uh. And but I guess that this is InTru Tesco like
specifically said it's because consumers are going with more digital so uh, and that's
gonna be a trend that is not going to slow down so people. Uh.
I do wonder where this settles. We see limited run games putting out
a ton of like physical editions of these smaller games, and it's like I
hope that continues. You know, we just talked about the Mario Vinyl and
really Vinyls found a spot, it's probably going to settle into a similar place
like in the wa run. It's weird, I don't know that. Yeah
that like physical games may soon be like a niche collectors thing only for weirdos
rather than folks that just can't download stuff. Yeah, that's you know,
for the dans of the world. Sure he now even like current stuff,
Like you know, my sister here, she buys physical all the time just
because it's like it's easier to sell when you're done with the game and put
that towards it. Like yeah, no, I mean the shift I was
doing on like Sega and Super and stuff like that. You know, like
that's there's there's a legit reason there even if you can down like she's got
fiber here, but she still prefers to buy physicals. I mean there is
an audience, yeah, I mean for that audience, and it's like that
is just being physically responsible, right, because digital you can't bargain hunt,
you can't go out there and look for the best deal, you can't do
comparison shopping. That all happens on the physical retail side, and that's what
drives companies like you be Soft to drop the price of their games super fast
after it's like, well, you know, these stores have a bunch of
Mario plus rabb It's you know, the two, and they can't sell it.
So they're selling it for forty dollars right now, and it's still sixty
dollars on the E shop. So I'm just gonna go get the physical version.
And that's just people being smart with their money, sure, And that's
also like a hassle for these companies where they're like, well, we don't
control that stuff. We can't control those pricings, that pricing always, and
we don't get the full dollar value of selling it over there. So like
and manufacturing things has a cost associated with them. So it's all these headaches
that these companies hate. So you can get why they're pushing everybody towards this
digital future. But there's going to be a pretty strong stand from people who
are like, oh no, I like saving money, and this is how
I do it. I like saving money as well, But I'm looking around
me and the only thing that can take physical media for games is my switch.
Like I can't throw a disc in this computer. I can't throw a
disc in this PS five you got you got a digital PS five two.
I didn't know. Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, see, I don't
know. I when I was buying them. I also there are the new
consoles. At the time, I was like, you never know, you
never know. I did the same, Yeah, and I never I'll use
the series X as like my four K Blu ray Player. But I've also
bought the PS five disc version and I don't know if I've ever used that.
Yeah, there's I also like, remember when Death Stranding came out,
Sony sent us We asked Sony for code and they were like no, and
we were like, oh, okay, cool. And then on the day
of the day before release, we got an email that was like, hey,
we're gonna tomorrow You're gonna receive six copies of the game in the mail.
Yeah, yep. And then they sent us physical copies of Death Stranding
via FedEx overnight. So I was like, you never some I might get
randomly get a game physically for some reason. So yeah, yeah, that
that That was the three DS. Nintendo scent mostly codes throughout the entire life,
and at the very end and they're like and here's Warrior Wear Gold physically,
I'm like what the yeah, why yeah, yeah, yeah, you
guys are being so you're so goddamn weird. Whatever, I'll take it,
but whatever. Uh so, yeah, that's like that. You never know,
that's I definitely said that to myself, and I'm like this time,
like, you know what, fuck it, I'll just say no, I
can't play it. Fantasid me a disco. Well, all right, you
know what that does it for the news that I have written down here,
I'm handing this show back over to my buddy Jan. That's me, your
buddy Jan, and I'm gonna I'm gonna pour up another cup of coffee because
my time internal clock is all out of whack and we're gonna take a quick
break and be back with Yeah this whose idea wasn't to move this up?
These these these these chuckle heads, these chuckle yeah, you know what,
I'm like, move to a better time zone, you know, yeah,
I know, I'm waiting to Central. Let's all go Mountain time zone.
You know, I was so juiced when like we were only on two time
zones. I'm like, oh cool, I don't got to think too much.
Now we're back to three. You know what, Let's let's get someone
in Hawaii. Let's do that. Let's let's mess it up even more.
Uh, while I think about has been central the whole time, I just
oh yeah, all right, Well we're running out of time. I'm going
to fade the black and we're back with a Giant Bomb cast episode seven hundred
and ninety eight. God, eight hundred is a scary big number. Oh
my god, it's the biggest number there is. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
uh, Bobcats. Giant Bomb dot Com is email address to send your
emails too. There's the music. Look at that. Listen to emails.
You can send your emails about virtually any and everything. Maybe fun observations,
Your favorite stand up? How the movie Planes affected you? Your favorite favorite
stand up is Adam Driver in a net the funniest, the funniest thing I've
ever seen. Did do you see that? He thanked Chris Rock? And
who else was it? Bill Burr? Bill Burr were inspiring Henry McHenry The
Ape of God of God. Yes, that's right, what a movie.
He's Adam Driver the what I don't want to say worst actor because he's good.
I like him good, but like the best worst actor because of all
of his projects, because because I think I think of him as Kylo Ren
at first, and I was like, Okay, cool, he's gonna he
was in Girls. Yeah, Nyland smartin Scorse says he's silence right, he
was in that movie with Scar Joe, The Dynasty. But then exactly,
and then he's in movies like sixty five and the net Yeah. I mean,
look, you could kind of say the same thing about Nick Cage,
right, like, oh, where generation's Nick Cage? But seriously, of
respect, I kind of respect it, you know, yeah, like it
like it nets out on the positive side for the nets out, Yes,
definitely does it is. I like that he goes for it. He's just
he's always trying his hardest in every movie, and I enjoy him. Logan
Lucky is one of my favorite movies and he yeah, Logan Lucky is awesome.
Yes, uh miss type type of the BombCast email address. It is
not bombscat, non bombscat and Michaelheim is right. Adam Driver is his baby
girl? Yeah, his baby girl. Yeah, definitely. First email comes
to the site from Ben from the UK. Your bomb Cast crew, thanks
for making such a funny, informative and lengthy podcast. As someone who listens
to podcast while they work. I really appreciate people like you produce big chunks
of content without whom I risk running out before Friday. In light of the
recent study by the Video Game History Foundation about x percent of games being critically
endangered, how best do you think games should be preserved? The following points
came to mind. Footage is great and circumvents the problem with distribution that have
caught libraries out in the hast but video doesn't capture how a game feels to
player, example, responsiveness, controls, haptic feedback, etc. Even if
you do select footage, how much of a game do you try to capture
presumability? Researchers and enthusiasts would both like the entire game to be captured.
For a game like Skyrim, does this mean capturing every line of dialogue,
visiting every place, using every weapon? Fully capturing what a game is was
goes well beyond even one hundred percent in the game. How best should one
preserve online games? For example, games like Fortnite and Call of Duty change
all the time, so with an official video game archive, attempt to record
each iteration and version of the game as it evolved. And with these games,
even preservation is in a playable form would be imperfect, as one day
there'd be nobody else to play the games with. Like forwardy hearing your thoughts
on these ideas. Kind regards Ben from the UK, We want to say
it was something like Fortnite. I feel like, as it is an ever
evolving map, I feel like I heard it in correctly. If I'm wrong
that they used to ban people using the endgame creation tools to recreate older maps
and stuff like that, but they they did eventually kind of go back on
that, and I think that's a nice small step to be like, hey,
let people just kind of capture the way it used to be. You
don't need to like, it's not gonna like you know, yeah, yeah,
yeah, go ahead, Nikki. Oh no, I was gonna say
yeah to that to that point with Fortnite, like the even when they release
u EFN, the unreally engine for Fortnite, you can only do chapter one
season one though, they won't let you do any of them. Oh,
you can't go past that, they which is so bizarre because you and like,
I'm not gonna like a huge set of the user base is not going
to be like I'm I love chapter two seasons three. Yeah, and that's
all I'm gonna play now, Like nobody's gonna do that. It's mostly like
a to sample and see where the game came from. So yeah, I
don't know. I feel like some of these teams. I think it's impossible
for some teams to be expected or like for some devs to be expected to
like maintain these things. But like for a place as big as Epic,
like they can maintain Yeah, well I mean Dead Dead Cells, uh mix
every single update of its game available as like the you know, we do
the beta branch whom we're playing the game on Steam. You can go in
that drop down menu and they have all the previous version of Dead Cells and
that's incredible. It's like when you go to get like a Dolphin, It's
just like you can go back and be like, here's every version of Dolphin
if you want. Yeah, I think that that is not always viable.
Obviously, these big online games they have the servers and stuff, are not
going to be like preservable in that way. But I think it is.
It's a combination of factors. The best way to do it is is to
recognize a holistic experience and to preserve as much as that as possible, and
that could include a video, but I think it can also include like saying,
Okay, this is what the game looked like on video at the time,
and here's what people on the forum we're saying about the game at the
time, and here's what people were saying on social media, and here's the
news coverage, and here is a story that can represent that that that arc
and so people can understand it. That's like an educational way of doing it.
For most games, though, it is like, if it's possible to
give to enable people to just play it to experience, that should be the
work that libraries are actually going and making happen, so they can provide a
way for people to actually get the real education, which is experiencing the games.
Yeah, libraries, Go visit a library. Be friends of librarian.
Yeah, it's the coolest resource we have, honestly, the library. It's
so sick. You own those books? Those are your books? Are your
books? Yeah? Publicly owned? You own them? Go read them?
Yea, some could draw on them right, all over them. Okay,
hide your treasures from your dead wife and them right. You definitely putt like
random money in there and close it. And return it. So many people
don't know that you can just get books for a kindle or whatever from the
library. What is it? Libyan overdrive, overdrive, movies, hoop La.
You can get a lot of comic books, yes, yeah, Invincibles
on Hoopla. Yes, you might. You might depending on where you live.
You might even have access to like three D printers, yes, or
like like heavy machinery. The LA Public Library will rent you tools and stuff.
Yes. I think there was a word for like the community owning something
and providing it to everybody. I just it'll never work. Well, let's
go read an email about mullets. Uh. Paul from Minneapolis writes, what
are y'all's opinions on mullets, especially the fashionable mullet of twenty twenty three?
Maybe this has been a thing for longer. I don't know. I'm thinking
of changing up my hairstyle, and your opinions will have absolutely no bearing on
my decisions. Paul from Minneapolist, does Dominic Mysterio have a fashionable mullet?
Because I think that's great? Yeah, yeah, okay, my I really
got on board. When cal questis from the video game Star Wars, Jedi
survivor had an unlockable, fashionable mullet and the handlebar mustache, and I was
like, this is such a fucking look, especially in the context of Star
Wars. I really considered, like, man, I could cut my hair
into a mullet. My wife would kill me, But I think, yeah,
you're right, grub Like I think would yours curl in the back though,
because yeah, I would definitely be the Canadian waterfall. Yeah, yeah,
I love that. That's the thing. Now, they're all like a
lot of these mullets are I'm seeing them sort of like straightens back. Yeah,
and it's like not even that hard to get some curlers in folks.
Yeah. I just think what's fashionable now is the straight. So I see
it a lot in like the young hockey guy, you know, because you
get that flow out of the helmet sort of thing. I don't think that's
the fibe. I think they got to get a curling iron or some curlers
and go to sleep with them and curl that curl that fucker. I agree.
I think the curl the back looks better than the straight. I think
Dominic Masterio's is pretty good. I don't like that it's straight in the back.
I'm not like upset about it, but I think it would look better
if it was curly in the back. He's going for that any guerrero and
that's work. Yeah, yes, I feel unfortunately I could do the back
part, but I would just have to do the fucking hulk Hogan thing where
it's nothing you could pull off a huge can we can we just do a
thing right now? Like, what's it gonna take Dan for me to grow
out whole Hogan hair a rat tail just like that. I want your beard.
I want your the back of your head to match you beard. You
want like a wallet chain situation from the front of Dan's face to the back.
Dude, it's like it's like he's globe. I'm putting money on its
of hair, just all the way around. He's got a price. That's
the one thing about Dan. He's got a price for sure. The other
night at the bar, Kayla put a rubber band around this and it was
not a good situation at all around the beer just like pinched thing there.
It fit in at a Kansas bar, but it's not a good look.
Yeah right, So back to us paying you to grow a mullet. I
want to put Bianca through that. I have to look at that every day.
Just look at the back of your head every day. Yeah, I
walk around the house and face different directions frequently about bunk. You're not,
well, just just lock onto bunk so you know your view will always be
I just ze target my wife the whole day. Yes, amen, brother,
are you getting my wife? I'm just not convinced that's your excuse?
Like I will just ask her if it's okay. She would be like that.
I don't want that. That would suck back, like one of those
romance novels you'll find on Amazon that are like digital only. I My Wife
a love story to be able to? Did you be able to move through
spaces like the grocery store so fast? If you just backflipped? Yeah,
you wonder if I timed it right, I could do a flurry rush nice,
were so okay? In the event that she's okay with this, what's
your what is your price? If she if she signs up, it's like,
yes, this seems like a good idea. How long does it have
to get Uh? Does the back how the hair have to go past shoulders?
Shoulders to touch my shoulders? Okay, you will look so sick.
How long do I have to keep it? Yeah? A month? See.
But the challenging part about this, right, is not actually the maintenance
of it, it's the in between part while it's growing to the Yes,
it's gonna be disgusting. And how much is it gonna Costankay ten grands?
Ten thousands? Economy? You're mania? Okay, tenka? That is that
you hire too low? Is it crazy because it's tired out? Why can't
you be aware of what an amount of money you can do it at us?
I can? I can do some deck repairs for that significant? Do
you no shit? It's significant because it's also psychotic that we would pay you
that to grow your hair, but I don't want to do it, so
that's why you have to pay me. Man, you really know how to
make this fun. You asked for a number. That's my number number and
grand right the kickstarter. We'll just get the kickstarter going right. One.
I used to have a rat tail, and when I used to have like
a Folla hawk, and my rat tail went as far as the middle of
my back. Just for powerful, do you have pictures of this? I
only have the blurriout photos possible we're folks pulling at it. I feel like
I would be tempted to like do a quick one time in Disneyland. Uh.
Some some ladies behind me. Uh we're scared of Splash Mountain. I
don't blame them. Splash Mountain is terrifying. Uh, not the actual splash
part, but the animatronics part. Yep. And then like as and one
of them for some reason thought, hey, this man's hair should be a
handle and yank the back of my head. Nice, And that's when I
reevaluated my life. Yep. I'll go back to this grab. Do you
want to describe this? Wow? Yeah? Yeah, this is Dan with
with long shoulder length hair. He is cheesy on Happy New Year's and it
just looks like a real treasure of a person. Your hair is so wavy.
Yah? Yeah when was that two thousand and six? Is your hair
still that texture? Do you think would if you grew it out? Would
it still be like that? The back? I don't know how white hair
works. Yeah yeah, because here's the thing. I literally never did anything
with a back then. I didn't know anything about I just bought you shampoo
it us us yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I
think my hair texture is different now than it was even like pretty pandemic like
twenty nineteen, because I kind of mostly all off in or in the middle
or like this time last year, and it has grown in a completely different
texture, just like entirely different. So it was curious, weird to know
if what this situation would be similar, I think be wavy. Yeah,
oh yeah, I grab you're in a situation yep, yeah, I cut
it off, and it does seem to be grown in a little bit different
than how I remembered it at this point previously, which was what twenty fourteen,
Like, what do you no longer than that? Geez? Yeah,
yeah it was. It's like when Vince Rickmann had his head shaved and it
was never quite the same when he's yeah, okay, okay. Last email
of the show comes from Alex in Bendigo, Australia. If the war Hog
isn't street legal, then sweet Tooths goddamn weaponized post apocalyptic Creamrie Van definitely isn't.
There's no license plate. You can't make that. You can't take that
to church. Love the show. Alex in Bendigo, Australia. It has
turned signals and you can put a license plate on it. Sweet Tooth is
fully street legal. Here's here's what I want to pose it to the crew
here, okay, all right, Darth Vader one of the most iconic villains
in all of cinema, right say, and that that is that is two
actors, that's someone physically embodying the role. And then James Earl Jones uh
dubbing over him. Yep is is Sweet Tooth or whatever his name is.
Is he going to be the Darth Vader of a new generation? No?
No, absolutely already is. Yeah, No, No, Jen, Samoa
Joe, Will Arnett is going there collectively going to be the next Will Arnett,
the James Earl Jones of our time, Samoa Joe or David Prowse Ye,
yes, exactly. Yes, We're always saying this was also a wrestler
though, I think so that that is a good fit in a clockwork orange
too. Oh really fantastic. That's the end of the emails. The ward
Hog is street legal. Signals does have working turn signals. That's important.
You can't add those on. Those could be additions as from the factory.
It's not free legal. You do see these like freaks driving down the main
street in cars that do not look like they are street legal. Anything on
the should use your hand. Yeah, yeah, you can get anything on
the road? Is yesterday? Oh go ahead? No no, no,
no, please please please yesterday? I was. I dropped some film off
at the photo lab, and I was as I was driving back, in
the corner of my eyes saw this bright blue, tight car and I pulled
over and started like taking pictures of it. And it was a Fiat one
twenty six, which is a four seater, two cylinder Fiat from the mid
sixties. And it the guy who owned it, whose name is Claudio,
said that it was the only one that was legally registered in the United States
because no DMV would let him register it here because they kept saying that it
was not like legal to drive here, even though it had all of the
things required like turn signals in the seat. What kind of car? Is
this a Fiat one twenty six? Was it? The steering rail on the
other side. Can you be street legal with that? Yeah? You can
be, okay, yeah, I mean like male like mail trucks, mail
trucks. Yeah. And in the US, any car can be imported as
long as it's over twenty five years old. Oh, Oh, is that
why I'm suddenly seeing a lot of old Honda small mini pickup trucks. Yes,
because because of the time gap, it's like an import rule. The
time gap on those has has expired. So now you can bring those,
bring those over like they're called like K trucks. You can bring those over
from Japan or other or other regions. You can bring those in now.
Not that anything is street legal if you believe it's basically the if you if
I bought like a Model T, would that be street legal as long as
the turn signals worked. You don't know. The turn signals don't even have
to work. You could do hand signal. You can do hand It doesn't
need turn signals. Oh that's the only thing I know that you need for
That's the only thing I know. Yeah, and that was wrong. It
doesn't. It doesn't need turn signals. It's just like the Model T wouldn't
even be important because they made it. Wait, if you're driving, I
get that you can signal for left, But how you're not gonna reach all
the way out the right? You know this is right? I can't believe
they license to you. Oh you cook you up? Okay, I see,
Yeah, and then stop. If your brain lights are broken, you
do you do this? Oh okay, that makes a lot, as if
that was the move, as if the move was reaching across the fucking car.
I was gonna be a really skinny car, or you would need giant
arms or both. Even when you're on bicycle, it's the same hands.
That's the thing. I can do it. I have a bike and I
know how that works. But I was like, how am I going the
same thing? Yeah, I've been doing it wrong forever. Okay, yeah,
like you're like so many accidents. Point like I'm going that way,
Like you are not doing hand signals? There cars behind me and a bike
I do. I've done hand signals. I've done hand signals on them.
Do not believe you where I'm going? Point where I'm going there. I
think they just read your like body bike language. And we're like, this
guy is a wild card. He may go there, he might go there.
I've never gotten hit by a car, so I'm doing something right.
I'm glad, or the cars are doing something wrong. I don't know.
Yeah, seriously, all right, Well, unfortunately we have gone to the
part of the show that is a quickly exploded out of Control. I don't
know why I do this to myself, but we're doing it anyway. We've
gotten to the shout outs, so may we start, So we may start
High Time to Star Control v Minati Slot Jan for all the hard work Jan
does waking up early, no clips tapes. Our condolences for Danny when he
discovers that snuff is real. Happy anniversary, Rebecca and David having your idea
read out on the podcast and no one liking it. The Giant Mustache Cast,
Alex Navarra's Tiny Soul Patch Cast, Keep your thirty under thirty. I'm
staying eighty for Brady, Barley and Barley and Barley Always be Clothing for always
being clothed, Barley all day, every day. Nicky Grayson, Congrats Duter,
my conductor friend. The production values at the Hyper Bowl halftime show.
Comic Con Video game attendees. The Ape of Grub Toast. I don't think
they loved each other that much. Seeing about being drowned to death, Will
being drown to death, Mary and Nett Dog Emoji doc The Original Social Media
Network. Michael McDonald Ron and McDonald donald mcsutherland Old McDonald's Farmer Law. They
hope that it goes the way it's supposed to go. There's fear in them
all, but they can't let it show. Dane Cook, I kept my
Manatty wholes stuffed. I'd buy that for a dollar, big money, big
prizes. I love it. Ball Bomb, Scat, sag Aftra and Wga
fighting the good fight. Yes, indeed, Cludo, you know the muffin
Man was the murderer. Jimmy and Bimmy Lee, Tiny Dan, Big World,
Zebo's wobble, but they won't fall down. Do you smell what the
Dane is cooking? Saucy barbecue essence bomb casting in the amcrunt Trap brought to
you by Taco Bell Dialon, Dialon, Dialon, Hey knows fuck you?
Hello rat, Yahaha, you found me. Don't don't play like I do.
No clips archive work, Everybody's want to switch as a video game.
Dirty Dom the next NXT North American Champion. The judge from Monday's UK Microsoft
CMA hearing Thousand Island Dressing is the Devil's come you. We almost got through
a whole podcast without talking about cos BBQ sauce is just ketchup. What's arby
sauce? Then fry sauce is just Mayo ketchup with spices, and I'll fight
anyone that says it's not the best. How Ultimate slam bowling where you use
frisbee and trampolines. The p S three boomerang controller, the jog Con controllers
for Ridge Racer Type four on the PS one, the REDS dance vibrator.
Dan for not understanding how thermoss work. Teach Dan what insulation means. Please
Alien versus predator for beat'em ups, you heathens. The Sunset writers count
as a beat'em up. That's my favorite. The punisher beat him up
needs to come back. Pacific Standard time the only valid time zone. Hollie,
Happy Birthday, Alex Serve five thousand, Happy birthday, Birthday, shout
out at, shout out Edging is awesome. Arizona Times actually the only real
time zone. Arizona can't even agree on a time zone. Angry Emoji face,
Danny's Dracula puppet, Dracula's Christmas decorations, Danie o'dee's puppeting skills. We've
fashioned a world, a world built just for you. Another water break,
A tale of songs with furry with no taboo. Jan for reading these longes
shout outs the girl reading this Big Max Sauce is a thousand island and dressing
Dan it's so good Grub twenty four check, Yeah, it's it's wild.
He's he's whispering murder things in the people's ears, and they won't let us
hear it, so it must be really fucked up. Weird how Minnati's not
here and we didn't hear about come at all? Back, Grub the hero
we need and deserve. Ze targeting my wife, mutual passionate Zee targeting between
lovers. What if Dan was one of us, just a slav like,
just a stranger on a bus trying to make his way home, every girl
would be crazy. A sharp dressed Dan is such a thing we were to
ever exist. Grub doing ring fit while recording Dan with long, gross hair
and glasses looks like the nostalgia critic Mitch for doing splash Mound once Bat Grubs
fears Rubbo Mitch the enemy Ai in Batten Mah for all those in meetings,
anyone remember Crystal May's soft pants? Remember when Samo Joe was kidnapped by ninjas?
They should have done that again to explain him leaving to film Twisted Metal
and that folks is a shout out a special special special shout out once again
too Nikki Grayson for joining us. Special shout out as well. Shouts out
to Dan, Shouts out to Jeff Baklar, Shouts out to Jeff Grubb,
Shouts out to Barley, Shouts out to you went home because whatever you're doing
with your hair today, guys, right right, look at it look looking
fine. Wow. Wow to Jam Oh oh no, no, I don't
need a shot Jam fifty podcast points across the board. This show is now
ending around the time the first segment would be ending, So my brain is
messed. Feels good, feels good. Yeah, I'm glad for you.
I'm glad for you. Yeah. Folks at home. Wow, that asked.
Just won't quit. And we'll be back with another episode of the Giant
Bomb Cast at nine am, which is eleven am Central Time, and then
twelve pm Eastern time. What do we got for the rest of this week,
gentlemen, grub We got Gamess Mornings for the rest of the West Mornings,
yea, we have. We'll host of friends on the show. It'll
be a good time. And then we are gonna We're gonna do a four
sort of a fiesta. We're gonna get the Connectivity compadres back together. We're
gonna make that happen, and then Blake Club will be happening upf We have
some ideas that it's gonna be a good week. Do you find hers up?
Now? Find hers up now? Quick? Look the quick look that
went up? Yes, the Filming forties we should have two Filming forties audio.
If you did not watch live last night, should we split that up
or should we just have to feature. I know it's traditional to do RoboCop
and a net back to back, but let's split it up in case people
want to do it. However they do it so uh yeah, yeah,
all right, okay, cool, Yes, great, fantastic across the board.
Yes, the cum padres can come back together. I saw Mike and
the chat, so that means the cum gates are wide open. Then slot
is gaping. Please end it taking it too far. We'll see you next
week for another installment of the Giant Bomb Cast. You're all beautiful, Drink
some water, take a nap, go look up how gravy's made perhaps,
and we'll see you another episode of the Bobcast and among other things, see
Yup, Ill Love You? Why help Me go buy a K truck?
We should have a DLC shirt for the Street Fighter show that came out.
That's just an idea. That's good. Fade and Boy