828: Like A Roll of Toilet Paper

Tuesday, February twentieth, twenty twenty four. This is the Giant BombCast,
Episode eight to eight. That's right, palindromes bitches. My name is Jeff
Backlar. Thank you for joining the Giant BombCast. I'm joined by three wonderful
people and I will introduce them now to you, mister Dan Reichert. How
are you, sir? I have never been better. Wonderful news. Good
to hear. Jeff Grubb February. I really milk that r Yeah, you
got in there. That's the SoundBite that's gonna get in that car as ass
to bite me in the butt hole. Turbo Sean, how are you,
Bud? I'm I'm good. I'm thinking about the beverage that Dan got from
the fridge. Now. No, I have not seen what it is.
I did not see the logo. I'm just wondering, Dan, is that
a major melon zero sugar? What is that mountain? You didn't see it?
I did not know who knows his mond cans? What's up? I
saw it from the back. I saw I saw the back, I saw
the respect with the Sean. I'm turned on right now. That's very impressive.
That's what I do. This is what I'm here for the people.
I'll go thelast zero sugar too. That's some stories. Now, I got
a bunch of that. Yeah, Dan, when before you were in here,
I need to put up a like still image because I was getting camera
ready and you still image so grub could frame things up. I just put
up a picture of a Baja blast. I was like, that's close enough
to me, like good stuff. Let's get all those other delicious sound flavors
and zero sugar mote so I can fucking try live wire and whatever purple or
whatever, Like lime wire is not great. It's live wire. It's orange.
Like we got plenty of orange. So they got purple ones, I
got blue ones. They got all these ones. I want to try,
but I'm not gonna have like eight hundred grams of sugar, like I really,
I can't believe they've only done a couple of zero sugar barrians. It's
insane. It's absolutely insane. Like I got I got some of the I
got some of the regular high octane baja because like I want that. I
want the you know, the experience from when I was a kid and every
think what I used to go a taco bell all the time in high school
and stuff I was drinking. I was like, Yeah, this is the
flavor, but I'm gonna feel like shit after this, and that you better
believe I did. I don't think even as a kid, I drink diet
sodas. I think it's like if I drank a full sugar soda, I
probably would be like, what the fuck is this? This is not the
soda that I know. We're not even three minutes into this freaking podcast and
we're already my my eyes have already glazed over, and I've fallen into a
stupor because we're talking about mother fucking Mountain Dew Dodtor Pepper guy, we get
it. I mean you'd all over it. You well, he that's probably
true. B You know, I only drink Doctor Brown's black cherry soda and
I had it twice a year, and that is it, and I can
only have it at a deli with ice cubes. Yeah, you're like a
monk. I've been. I've been described as monkish before. Sure, how's
everyone doing? Uh, this is me pivoting away from Mountain Dew and talking
about everyone's personal lives. How's everyone doing? I've got plenty of stories to
tell, but I'll you went to a cold hockey game. Let's just talk
about it. Listen, Jeff Grubb, All hockey games are cold. Mine
just happened to be actually outside. Fifty degrees is fine. That's like shorts
weather for me. I'm talking about you were outside, Listen. I went
to the MetLife Stadium Stadium Series outdoor Devil's Hockey game where they obliterated the pathetic
showing by the Philadelphia Liars for a score of six to three. It was
magnificent in every sense of the word. It was like, all kidding aside.
It was one of the coolest sporting events I've ever been to in my
entire life. I so for people that don't know, the stadium series is
you take a hockey rink, you put it in the middle of a different
sports stadium. Yeah. Yeah, something exciting happened that MetLife Stadium. A
lot of the US it's a baseball stadium, like you can have like seventy
thousand people, And there were like seventy thousand people at this at this thing.
But since it's a stadium like, it looks like you're very far away.
Was that a problem? So I was lucky. I was treated to
a really bougie experience altogether because I have a friend, I have a couple
of friends of Devil's season tickets, and they were afforded the opportunity to like
pick the really advantageous viewing angles seating ahead of time. So I we had
like second level up on a corner looking down at the ice, and we
saw everything. It was per you could see everything. The weird thing about
seeing a hockey game in a football stadium is that it's obviously it's just so
far away. It's so far away, and you're sort of like, this
is weird. This is this is like they're sort of in isolation. What
they do is which is crazy. I couldn't believe it. They mike up
the boards, they mike up the ice whoa, and then project that sound
out to the stadium. That's cool. Yeah, so like you could hear
the players, referees, uh, just the the carving of the ice and
the slapping of the boards like I'm seeing some sort of hockey nursery rhyme.
But and it was really cool, Like it was. It was a really
interesting presentation. I was at Yankee Stadium when they did it, like ten
years ago. Or so, and that was shitty because it was a baseball
stadium shoehorned with a hockey rink in it. And that's at least football is
like naturally the same size as a high the same shape as a hockey ring.
So that one really well. The Jonas brothers opened up the whole the
game. They couldn't get Billy Joel. No, no, Billy. Joe's
probably too cold for Billy, you know, too cold for Billy. He's
getting up there now, he's like in his mid seventies, probably to him
exactly. What was really cool is so the Devils have a goal song.
It's the chorus of a song called Howl by the Gaslight Anthem, which is
a Jersey band if you if you're in the now, And they were there
and every time the Devils scored, they played the song that justly witched right
to them. And it was TV and I was like, that's pretty wild.
It was so cool. Apparently two other teams played the next day,
but combined, I think they had something like one hundred and sixty thousand people
see two hockey games back to back. Uh. It was it was awesome.
It was like the and it was funny because we were. You know,
you talk to the people who are working at the stadium and they're like,
wow, hockey fans are different. They're they're like, oh, we've
never seen so many people so excited before. It's like, that's it's a
fucking entertaining sport. My friend turns out and treated nice too. Yeah,
you get the whole thing there. You score nine times, that's what happens,
you know. I did. I did lose three dollars because I because
I have to have money left over my account from the Super Bowl, and
I put it on the flyers on the puck line a plus two point five,
and of course they lost by three goals. So that empty ne kills
you at the end there, and it's like, of course, I'm like
waiting for that to happen. That was That was pretty rough. But thanks
for betting against the Devil's you piece of shit. Yeah, no problem.
Anytime the Red Wings are playing in the Shoe, which is the Columbus Ohio
State Stadium that I've been to for Michigan Ohio state games, so a couple
times before that's next year though, and they keep advertising I'm playing to that
the Columbus Blue Jackets. Dude, that's gonna be bonkers. Was that one
hundred thousand people? That's one hundred thousand people? Yeah, holy shit,
Yeah, it's gonna be a good time. I think they did. They
did do one in the Big House before, which is the biggest stadium in
the country. That's Michigan's football stadium. That's one hundred and twelve hundred and
fifteen thousand people. Oh, there's a smash tournament called the Big House that
takes place in Michigan. I always wonder why I was called that there.
It is now so much shot. This is a great for you bringing it
back to video games here on the BombCast there? Why why I talk about
those? But it was, it was. It was awesome, Like I
in like, especially in this area. You know, I live right here
where like I'm like twenty minutes from the stadium. It is. It was
just amazing to see so many people show up for an eighteen degree game right
like, and there were people, let me tell you, there are plenty
of people very underprepared and very underdressed for the moment. You cannot stand outside
for three hours in eighteen degree weather with like a hoodie and a hat okay,
you need to go like you're going skiing. I had layers on layers.
I wore my giant bomb joggers and under that two layers of thermals.
Then I had my like ski jacket, I had my gator, I had
everything and it was awesome. I was cooking. I had handwarmers, toll
warmers, and then you know, seven eighteen beers. You're good to go.
Yeah, beers is what really does it? Though? For sure it's
a good time. It seemed great. It was really sick. I had
a blast. Yeah, what did you guys do? Like that? Kids
made a mess and I just kind of cleaned it up all weekend. That's
pretty much what I did. They got, Yeah, they got kinetic sand
for their birthdays, and that was not my choice. I want to make
it clear. Uh, And yet I ended up like usually I'm gonna be
like, all right, I guess I'll sweep the stuff up. Sand.
Is that like the edible sand that Mike had that one time? No,
explain it to Dan. Explain to Dan what kinetic sand is. No,
I've seen it. I've tried to buy it, but they were like no,
SYRP cheap shitty versions on Amazon. I want like the real deal Stuff've
seen it, like science museums and stuff. It's cool, it's cool as
hell. Yeah. But whenever you like it's funny, whenever you give that
to like a kid, you're just you're just fucking their parents, you know,
you're just like here, that's a funny. Okay, this is fun.
I have a bunch of friends with like toddlers and young kids. Now,
what would be the most pain in the ass gifts I can give them?
Because that sounds like a fun way to anything that makes Yeah, anything
that makes a horrific like a bunch of gang like any kindler type thing.
Do they still make creepy crawlers? Get them like noise makers, you know,
like noise makers are good everyone. Drums? Get them drums? Okay,
all right, all right, guy, will kids be the most and
I need to time this for hands. God uh and you're all like all
of them pretty much two to six. The thing is like it doesn't like
the level of annoying doesn't change. It's just the way that they manifests.
So like that, like, yeah, the kids like, oh, I'm
actually practicing drums. It's like, actually that still sucks, Like, yeah,
you're not just hitting it randomly, sure, but this is still just
annoying you're playing it? Are they making noise to the beat? Is basically
that changes. Okay, So if Hanson's good, isn't quite one drum set,
I'd say two? Okay, next here, all right. The coolest
thing about that is, like Grub, You're so right, because a kid,
when when they are a certain age, they just like they know they're
annoying, but there's a chemical in their brain that just says like you don't
care as well. We were like we were building something yesterday which I'll actually
talk about in what You've been playing here a little bit, and I had
to do most of the work. And Emmy's just in this move where she's
like, if I'm not making noise, I might as well be dead.
So I'm just gonna constantly be making noise. And I'm like, Homie,
I'm trying to read this screen, I'm trying to concentrate. I have ADHD.
You know you do too. Can we just fucking fi you just let
me figure this out? Like nope, she could not stop. It was
it was mostly funny. But then I'm like, okay, now for at
second, I need you just take a deep breath. And I'm like,
okay, I'll get some work done while she's doing that. Uh, you
want a toy that would mess things up? Is this water pellet gun that
we actually got for the kids that I want that? I want one for
me? What is that? Awesome? Dude? No, it's cool.
We played airsoft gun basically. Did they shoot these gel packets then that like
explode and then and then they're like gone, They're just gone. Yeah,
Wait, they's not like crash everywhere. Nope, No, he's just shot
his face. Did you just shoot him in your own shut the ceiling?
Okay? Cool, Yeah, I'm not gonna actually kind of hurt. What
do I look for on Amazon right now? It was like a water pellet
gun? I think, Yeah, they're they're like our gel blasters. What
this was called? This would have been fucking perfect for when my dad was
in town because he was trying to quit smoking for like two weeks and he
said, hey, while I'm in town, you can be as annoying as
you went if I smoke, like annoy me to slap a cigarette out of
my mouth. Whatever. So I bought a squirre gun and I named it
mister quack Quack because it was in the shape of a duck. So anytime
he went out to smoke, I'd run out and spray with mister quack quack.
And it pissed him off so much and he ran out and he was
stepped on dog poop and stuff. But this would have been even better.
Oh, by the way, he's smoking again, of course. But okay,
the original gel blaster surge, they they do leave behind like little shells
and stuff, but like the gel and stick, it evaporates very quickly.
So I do recall there is some controversy over these. I think they like
choked the kids somewhere she was. I realized what it was because I hadn't
really I'm like, looking at this, I'm like, is that a water
gun, because I think that's what we were getting both the kids, and
like this was for one of the kids, and I'm like putting this together,
I'm like, no, I don't think so. And then I like,
it's just an automatic gun. I pulled the trigger and yeah, it's
like an airsoft gum. Yeah, just the pellots explode and really it's shooting
out like five per second there. It's oh wow, very very cool.
But also maybe you wear like protective goggles when you play with Yeah, become
careful with your TV because I broke my childhood TV with a square gun,
so just be careful with that with a work gun. Damn super He was
a super soaker, just like I was in the back. Remember the old
event and just remember the old no, remember the old who's lines it anyway
before? I carry the one from England and they were still trying styles and
stuff. But there was like I, as a little kid, as like
a six year old or whatever, I hated the fat guy on there,
and whenever he was doing his bit, I would take my super soaker and
spray the screen and I like you, and I broke my TV. All
right, Well lesson learned. Yeah probably not so sound. Be careful with
that, all right, old probably six or seven, I would say,
that's fine. Yeah, that's probably the right age where that's okay. I
think that's when I put like a magnet on the TV and ruined our TV.
So yeah, yeah, totally that's the age for that. Yeah still
though, so don't do that now if you're mad at the video game or
something. I'll try to restrain myself. Dan I'll see what I can do.
Well, you're next on Blake Clubs, so be careful. Oh that
remains to be seen. But who's to say, Yeah, no one can
know. Yeah, I know we have to talk about games. But there
is one other thing I wanted to bring up. I think I might have
visited my childhood home for the last time yesterday. Oh because because oh okay,
all right. I thought you were like, well, I'll die before
I see that thing again. Oh no, Jesus that because you could like
drive down the street you're but you're talking about like going in there. Yeah,
they and they live like an hour away, and you know they're they're
selling the house and all this stuff and going through some junk and like,
you know, it's it's it's kind of fucked like I had. I wasn't
like it wasn't like an emotional moment. It was just something else that I
can't describe. Maybe you guys can help me talk through it, but like
probably emotions. Yeah, maybe I guess we can talk. It may not
be familiar, but yeah, I know this is what this feels like.
It was a salty discharge. I can't shot. No, So just like
going through like for whatever reason. My mom kept like there was this cabinet
in my room that I used as like almost like a night like not a
nightstand, but like the bedboard, like the headboard for a bed. But
it was also empty and you could store stuff inside of it. And they
and no one realized that there was stuff in there until yesterday and we opened
it up and it was like this fucking time capsule from nineteen eighty nine.
And I'm my parents kept every birthday card I got from eighty five. I
mean I was born. They had Happy Birthday, Happy third Birthday, Jeffrey
in there, and I'm showing dib and he's like, I could not care
less. And my grandfather, my mom's dad, used to like custom make
all of these cards for me. He would cut up newspaper comics and then
like replace the bubbles with like customized stuff in it. He was also an
artist, and he did all this cool stuff. And for my ninth birthday,
I brought all that stuff because I want to frame it and like display
it. But for my ninth birthday, he did a huge Mario Brother's Ninja
Turtle collab. His grandfather right in what was that nineteen eighty nine, Like
dust. Unbelievable. Right, it's like so sick. I'm like looking at
this thing. He spends so much time crafting this thing, and there I
am like nine year old Jeff just being like okay, cool, where's the
money or whatever? You know, Like, I'm so glad we held onto
that. But it was a very time capsule the stuff. I took hard
drives out of old Packard Bell computers yesterday, which yo, I cannot believe
how inaccessible computers used to be. They were like you had the jaws of
fucking life to get inside those things. Man, huh. I absolutely like
I've I've been working out on computer since I was a kid because that's the
kind of tinkering that really appeals to me. And I absolutely like tore my
arm the fuck up trying stuff out of old not really your computer, yeah
right, stuff was not like repair friendly back in the day. Yep.
It was like a lot of a lot of time back then that stuff would
be like soldered into the board and things like that. It's it was wild.
Yeah. I also bring that up from one another detail. So I
told you my parents are My parents are here in their house and where they
go, well, that's where it gets complicated. It's just like a Jerry
Seinfeld George Stanza parents thing, all trying to get the ray romano. Maybe
that's what I didn't want to say it. Hey, Bud, what's a
confident? So uh look again, the keyword is temporary. Let's just it
always is, it always is. Just let's just scull it temporary. It
seems like there is going to be some overlap where they are going to have
to stay with us. Oh fine, yeah, yeah, that's yeah what
I'm exciting because I get see my dad out to be with you during that
time. It wouldn't make it worse it We definitely just cancel each other out.
Oh yeah, what a cool idea, What a cool, awesome idea.
Right, just give a friend man. Hopefully. I don't know how
much the pimball machines can keep them occupied, but uh yeah, it sounds
like it's probably gonna happen for a little bit until they can find uh,
the the next spot. So you knew a podcast with them? You know,
it's funny. Uh. My dad like when he realized that like podcasting
was was sort of like radio adjacent, he got he got real excited and
was like, oh, I'm just gonna be on all the time. Right.
This is back in like four or four days, and I was like,
ah, probably not like you could maybe leave a voicemail every now and
then do that kind of thing. But no, Danny, I don't think
he's gonna be on any bomb. Can we do one upf where we play
Hell Divers with their parents? Yeah, specifically you overestimate just like bow fluent
my dad is, and you did your parents on a Hell Divers tam.
Yeah, your choice, Mario party at least makes sense because it's like very
accessible and it's just like all right, yeah, we got a we got
a couple of maybe eleven or twelve ups ahead of us. One of my
parents would get the whole democracy like uh a satire in uh Hell Divers,
or they'd be like this is nice. I find a game it's all about
democracy. Thankfully, I'll worry about that like freedom to its super Earth.
That sounds like something Obama could never do. Yeah, at least my parents
are normal in that capacity. So yeah, I got that going for me.
Happy for you anyway more to come on that. Let's pivot out of
that impossible conversation and talk about video games Yeah, I haven't really slepped a
lot lately. You know, the game you've been playing is not No,
I have been playing Pilatro out of my mind. Everyone grown for good Groans,
good growns. Everyone knows I'm obsessed with this game. I've put in
about I think, what is it seven and a half hours? Have you?
Have you looked at the score on Open Critic, which is like the
Metacritic equivalent. It's on Metacritic? Way, is this is this a fantasy
thing? Yeah? Yeah, you don't have to look it up? Like,
do you want to guess real quick? Cause, oh, I'll guess
I haven't seen it. No, Yeah, what do you think it is?
Hmmm? I would say it's like seventy seven and you have a guess,
or did you see I'm guessing it's like low nineties. It is a
ninety four, which makes it one of the best review games on it that
Grubs scored twenty eight points. Yeah, fucked up? Listen for all for
a dollar for a dollar? Dollar? You bought that for a dollar,
man, I did buy that for a dollar. Yeah, listen, that's
a good that's a good play. Like it's uh, it's kind of not
fair, right, It's like it's like the hockey. It's like the NHL
are going to play in a beer league. You knew what you're doing.
You're like, oh, I know how to do fantasy critics stuff. I'm
just gonna come in slicing and dice in now. Sean's Sean made a good
point when I put this out on Twitter. By the end of the year,
I'll make some bonehead moves because I'll do this same thing with games that
aren't bollatro. He's not gonna win. I'm win, but it's gonna be
very proud of this. Yeah, exactly, I'll say this. When I
said seventy seven, I was like low balling it obviously. I mean,
I love this game. I think it's fantastic. I'm blown away as to
like why I like it so much, because because it's a good video game.
No, but I think, like, I don't know, I think
I was. I thought early on I was going to like get tired of
the of the loop a little bit, but no, I assume too.
I assumed it'd be a bit too shallow to really fit with people, but
apparently not. I need it several times now when I keep going back,
I was playing it this morning. Yeah, there's something about it. I
think it'll and Jen can definitely speak to this. Oh chance, not here,
by the way, but when we when we if you couldn't tell no,
there's something about like the pack opening that like really has me going uh
as well, also because it's like just it's free and it feels good to
open up packs and they're like they're holographic. Oh shimmer the stuff on it,
and that's really scratching my like freakingeeky trading card itch that I have,
so like the spectral packs, the spectral packs where it's like, oh,
make them all the same rank, and also you have like eight aces and
it's like, oh my god, that's insane. I'll say this. I
think there is a part of Blockcha that I still think I'm like not playing
as optimally as I could be. And it's not so much I feel like
I should be selling more jokers than I am. So basically it's like,
uh, it's it's a run game, right where you're trying to get a
certain trying to like eliminate bosses, and they they categorize these bosses by rounds
of poker essentially where you have to hit a certain amount of score and then
you move on. I think there's there's a lot of elements that that change
at every round. You have a marketplace opportunity to upgrade. There's three different
like buffs, right, what are they? There's the planet cards, there's
uh, there's yeah, the planets. The tarots and the well spectrals are
the rare ones you can get, right. It's amazing, And I love
how I love how sort of like sloppy you can get with that deck,
you know, you like sometimes they'll play games where I've added like ten more
cards into the decks I'm working with, like a sixty two card deck,
or you can eliminate cards. Cards, you can you can like give special
abilities to certain cards and have them show up randomly while you play, like
just real smart. It's like I'm got a flush deck here where I'm deleting
every like diamond and heart, and then I have a joker that makes clubs
and spades the same suit, and so it's just non stop flushes and they're
getting like fucked up, like five of a kind flushes and full flushes,
full house flushes, and shit, I got one hand yesterday that was six
hundred and forty five thousand boys, jeez, yeah, yeah, I notice
I had all my hands and discards there, so yeah, And like every
single time, even if I didn't mean to, I was getting like three
four or five six hundred thousand on my first hand. Every time, it
feels like you can break the game in a way that's super duper satisfying,
very satisfying, and it's like you do realize it's like, oh, this
is a rogue light with all that entail, so that means you can.
It's okay with you being able to break it every once in a while because
it's only going to be for one run. The next run is going to
be completely different, very likely, and that encourages you to make your build
very specific to that run so that you do stuff like what you're saying,
like I am going to delete a bunch of cards that I don't want.
I'm gonna mind max this deck, and I'm going to every time I get
a chance to upgrade one of the possible hands so you can level up like
flushes, you could level up straights. I'm like, every time I get
a chance, I'll level up Flush, level up Flush, level up Flush,
so it can start it with even a higher multiplier, and it's like
every single sort of piece of how the scoring works can be gamed to get
you an even bigger score, and you get yourself in a runt where you're
like, man, every time, I'm getting pretty much what I need.
On the first hand, this is it. Now. I had to put
this down because I'm trying to beat like a Dragon. But when I was
playing it, I would pick it up and I would not stop for like
hours at a time. I still have not beaten it, but I'm gonna
try to make some time for that tonight. But yeah, it's very very
good. I think the biggest achievement with Bulatro is how smart the execution of
like complexifying cards, right, Like I think the fact that like it is
just a poker game. It's a poker it's a video poker game, but
it has been thought through in such a way that it just completely reinvents the
possibilities of like what the regular roster of cards and hands you have, And
that's why it's it's just so smart. I feel the probability of certain things
like you can fuck with that to whatever end you want to, you know,
and like how like playing cards have been around for like four hundred years,
I feel like, whatever it is, and you're just like, man
good, like on what an unbelievable thing to just sort of take that idea
and blow it out right in such a smart and impressive way. I think
that's what's really got me with this game. And let me say it's an
incredible on the switch because first of all, the tech screen controls are really
great, very video poker like, especially if you want like drag cards around,
move thing and stuff like that. Also, I've got I'm playing this
so much now that I'm getting on the treadmill and I'm breaking off the joy
cons and so I've got like one in each hand, so I don't like
walk normally like on a treadmill, but also just play blatro, which makes
the time super ply by this would be an incredible playing game. And so
yeah, I started on the same deck. Obviously it's great on the same
deck too, but like as far as like just a lighter option, because
I knew I was gonna be playing it all the time, right, switch
version is perfect. Toucheings are just the best way of play card games.
Like whenever I'm playing any card game, I prefer a play on my phone.
There is so much more intuitive than ar method well, and that speaks
to exactly exactly what it's going to bring up, where I'm like, I'm
half a little surprised that this wasn't just like, hey, we should just
make this a phone game. We should just make this a smartphone game.
But it's not something that they were trying to monetize and have a free to
play version where you have to buy packs. So it's like it's like that
only kind of still makes sense on consoles, and I'm sort of relieved that
we're in a place where a game like this can come out, be twenty
dollars, come out on Switch, come on PC, and find an audience,
succeed and like take off. It's like, Oh, I'm so glad
these games can still work. And it's not like, oh, well,
I'll just get that a game just like that for free on my phone,
which probably will happen. It will get a bunch of clones or whatever,
but those games probably will be monetized the hell, and I'm just like,
oh, this game could just exist as it is as a product and be
sort of this perfect little encapsulation that I can have on my switch in my
Steam deck forever, and in ten years from now, I can pick it
up and still that game. It's nice that these things can still happen and
take over the whole industry. So in a Vampire Survivors sort of way,
I think I'd be okay with like if they did that. Also, Like
I think it's like I'm happy with the console version obviously, but like if
you also want to like get that bag and go to the mobile source,
Yes, this feels like something that will go mobile. Aff like people know
it and the name round. Like with Vampire Survivors, it did go to
mobile eventually, and like they figured out exactly game. Yeah. Once people
know though, mess just like oh hey, this would be cool on mobile.
It's like eventually, yeah, they get a five dollar version or whatever
layer down the road, right. But it's like if you came out as
a mobile version first, it's very easy to get buried. I think ignored,
and I think this is just a smart play and I'm just glad it
can still work. That's what I was getting at it. Yeah, it's
such a relief that we can get games like this still and they can work
and make a lot of money and be great. So yeah, Free Demo
was a good choice too, because that's one of those like within it,
as soon as you get how the runs work and the loop, it's like
you're in so like, great, great demo game. Yeah, And I
do think I don't know, right, I don't know this to be true.
There is something about this presentation in art that like is also doing a
thing that video poker looked good. Yeah, like video poker looks generally,
but they are like bare bones and they're like they're running on really cheap machinery.
So the actual graphic styling of a video poker machine is still looks very
dated if you or someone who's coming from video games, and this is like,
yeah, what if a poker video poker machine was like as powerful as
a game Boy Advance or something like that and ran on a nice CRT and
all that stuff, and all that stuff really just feeds into one of them
really well, and it just looks so good. I really enjoy the visual
style, and that means like the joker designs are really really they're kind of
cute almost a lot of times. Yeah, yeah, and whether it's like
an image of a joker's face or it's like Oh, this is the Joseph
J. Joker's business card, and I'm like, oh, that's that's cool.
I just like all of them that really, do you ever get the
Hiker one early where every time you play a card it adds forward to its
value. So if you get the Hiker early in a run by the end,
like a three is worth like forty four base every time. No,
I'm not. That's one of my favoritegards. So the only thing that I
will say about this that I that I wish maybe it had I think I
need I maybe need a gut check on this when they're counting the scores at
the end of a hand. Don't you wish maybe that was you were able
to like fast forward that you can't. I changed and it's just like there's
a game speed Yeah, I didn't realize that. Okay, wonderful they thought
of everything. Great. Yes, I think there's a two X and a
four X and the four X flies by. Yeah. Yeah, you're gonna
just go to four X right away, but you're gonna end up there eventually
as well. That's how everyone should listen to podcasts and play bilotro. We
should have put actual machines of this in Vegas so we can all get gambling
problems. Yeah, that's what I'm pretty good at it. I could probably
win a lot of running. Already lost three dollars on New Jersey, so
why don't gambling on blot would be Uh? I did? I did?
I think Jans had the same thing happened with him and his partner. But
I was playing it and the kid like took a switches checking out and stuffs,
like are you playing poker online against people? I'm like, no,
no, explain, It's just it's a little game's a puzzle game. It's
all good. It looks like poker if you're just looking at a screen a
bit and don't know the context. Absolutely yes, But yeah, I'm just
really I'm I'm in love with it, and I'm glad that, like the
game came out and everyone in the world's like, yeah, that rules.
It's just so well. It's like, oh, this isn't just a dalliance
or like, oh we were all talking about poker last week and here's a
poker game, so we're all just falling for It's like, no, it
legit is just that good. Yes, it's I almost think it's like I
think it's like the perfect balance. It is half poker half video game,
right like, and that's it. Just it's such a great blend. Absolutely
love it. It's a reminds me kind of a really bad Chess, where
it's like, take this ancient game and just miss around the rules a little
bit and go in there each day and play it. Like really bad chess
is like a daily game, but this this is not. But it's like
really bad chest just to hey, here are the rules of chess. Now,
what if we just mess them up a little bit and you have new
ways to think about this rule set. This is kind of doing the same
thing with poker, and I'm like, man, that's just a really good
idea a lot of the time to take these ancient games and put a little
spin on their little remix. Generation remix has come for poker, I wanted
to come for everything else as well. What's next? Hopscotch Yeah yeah,
hopscotches ball in a cup. Let's get I mean, I get those peanut
butter puffins Cereal if you ever get those, they're really good. And on
the back of the box, it's got like a checkerboard and you can put
the puffin they're big chunky cereal pieces and you can put them on there and
you can play checkers with peanut butter puffins. I miss, I miss stuff
on the back of the box. You're a kid. Yeah, half that
stuff people don't do. Like you're not actually gonna like cut out the back
of your box and do anything like that. But it's like, here's a
cross around the back of the box. You know what, I'll do your
cross. Here's a halloween mask. You know, cut this out. You
have a halloween there, like little like little games and stuff. I've probably
read the back of more cereal boxes than I have books. So achievement,
that's that's what I was going for. I was so bummed out. I'm
reading Val Kilmer's autobiography right now, and Okay, I got it as a
gift. I heard it was good. It is good, so I forgot.
He's an interesting dude. Yeah, and yeah, I think he was
a well I guess it's not a Disney adult if he went to Disney is
he basically talks about like basically living at Disneyland as a kid, growing up
like near La and like you know, going there all the time. But
they stopped going because death was Yeah. Yeah, they stopped going because his
dad was claustrophobic the monorail. So as soon as they introduced the monorail,
the Kilmer stopped going. I wonder what's gonna what's gonna end it? For
Manati? Yeah, I said, Manatia, I took a picture of that.
It was God. Mike gets over all of his issues because to go
to Disney, like he used to be like a more afraid of like traveling
on planes and stuff, and he's like, well, fuck that, I
need to go to Disney. So he used to carry his dad's seapat machine
around when they went to Disney like that. Man'll do anything to go to
that point. Exactly. Apples, probably is it? If like every meal
had apples in it, then he would probably. He's already. No,
he's fighting with dol Whip even though because it's Disney fruit. Yeah, Jesus,
he's broken my brain so much that every ancient Disney thing I found in
my parents house yesterday, I was like texting him like, hey, it
was a figment thing I saw that. Yeah, all right, is that
it for Bilatro. We're gonna move on. It's never right now, probably
talk about more absolutely who's playing Mario versus Doggy Koon. I played a little
bit of it, and I was watching Dan play on UPF and I will
probably enjoy this more than Dan is, and I think that's true, but
it is. It's something about it does feel more sluggish than the Game Boy
game, And I think that comes down to, like there's more animation happening,
and so it makes it feel it's almost screen size, because like a
smaller game screen, like you know, just make it wind screen and suddenly,
yeah, like Mario takes a little bit to get from point A to
point B and so and that. Yeah, it's all those like visual things
adding up to the point where it's like this just feels not great to play
sometime. And yet I think everything else, like the puzzles are pretty good,
and I think the visuals, while I think the Pepsi challenge of it
is like, uh, but once I'm like spending ten minutes in there,
I'm like, actually, I think I kind of like how this looks a
little bit fucked up. So I'm into it enough, I don't It's like
one that I would have a hard time recommending if I'm like talking to a
person like, well, I haven't even played Donkey Kong ninety four. Oh
track that down instead, Go find a way to play that instead, and
then if like you absolutely need more, this is here waiting for you.
That's kind of I can't believe there's a video game called Mario Versus Donkey Kong
and I'm ambivalent towards it, like that should be I should love that,
not so much that. Yeah, I was watching I was watching play on
UPF and Dan when you were like this, this is not Mario. This
is not how Mario feels like, you know. Not not not to call
you out too much here, but I was thinking of, like, that's
such a like old school game magazine way of thinking of like when when like
when people shit on like Mega Man Legends because they were like, well,
this isn't Mega Man. Mega Man is side scrolling, dude. The thing
is Mega Man Legends was trying something completely different and new, like this is
like in the same perspective, this is a Mario side scrolling platformer, and
there are there are expectations for that, for how Mario should control a game.
It is a different thing, like like with Mega Man and Mega Man
Legends. You know, you are still jumping and shooting, but it's an
RPG. It's a whole different that's a whole different approach to it. D
like it's a big adventure. It's totally different than like Mega Man proper,
Like, it just feels bad to me. I just don't like it.
I enjoying the original. I remember enjoying that a little bit like Advance Advanced
one. Yeah, the reality is just like this is still a decent puzzle
platformer, I think, and then probably gets better as you go along.
You just got to get over that those initial reactions of like, okay,
this is it's not playing like you expect or it is. It does feel
slow, especially with this one, And if you get over that stuff,
I think there's probably that all joys. I haven't played this remake yet,
but I'm a big fan the original, and even thing you were saying grub
about, like you know, go play ninety four instead, Like, yeah,
absolutely, I'll agree with that too. But I think like this is
the sequel to Donkey Kong ninety four that people ask for and then like,
sure, it's not as good, but it's like it's in the same vein.
It's you know, a puzzle game first and foremost it's just a different
kind of thing. I think I would like it more if it was pitched
back in the day as like a mainline Donkey Kong game. They called it
Donkey Kong Versus Mario, and I went in with the expectations of like,
oh, this is a follow up kind of right, that's the truth.
Yeah, movement a Donkey Kong arcade game. I think when you lead with
Mario in the title, I'm expecting a Mario video game. If you called
a Donkey Kong Versus Mario, I'd be like, oh, there's a new
Donkey Kong game out. Then I'd be like, yes, this plays more
like a Donkey Kong. I think he has a point. Yes, all
I need is the Donkey Kong Mario movement, like footsteps. Yeah. If
they did that, I think I be Okay, I get what they're doing
here. Now I understand. Yeah, give me some girders and then I
know what I'm looking. I mean, Donkey Kong ninety four does all that
you're asking for. It. It's like patures itself as a Donkey Kong game.
And if so, it feels like a Donkey Kong game, and you're
not surprised by that. Here, You're right. It like I for a
long time didn't even know that this was a sequel to Donkey Donkey Kong ninety
four, a game I love because I just like saw the limming stuff and
thought assumed it was something different. And even when I told you that,
you like kind of didn't believe It's right, Yeah, this is just a
sequel night for us. A Shawan's just making up video games again. I
got to build this guy. Yeah, it turns out that's what it was,
speaking of games that are brand new and are just coming out. Who
put this here? Okay, So my kids found the Labo boxes and I
only ever made the piano, and I was like, you know, I'll
save these when the kids are older. And then they found out and I'm
like, okay, they're seven and five. They're probably still not going to
be able to do most of this, so I'm gonna do it. But
whatever, we'll go build the house. And we did. Actually, I
have it right, go grabbing them as well. So I got I got
a couple in the in the storage. You know I haven't put together.
Yeah, I should do. I got the br headset. I think,
oh yeah, I only put together. What did they make? What?
What were the different lavos? I made one? There was like yeah,
so uh, there's I have both boxes, both packs and this is still
from the first one. The house, and it's like kind of I don't
know, still a little bit disappointing, like what you can do. It
was disappointing when it came out, and I, you know, I think
the activity of like making the cardboard house, it's like, Okay, it's
neat to see how well this works and how you know, sturdy the cardboard
snaps together and all that stuff. And the kids had fun watching that and
they're like, oh, a house. We're gonna put our toys in and
stuff, and like like just wait and see that it like does stuff with
the switch and they just they could not grasp that. And then what it
ends up doing is there's like kind of a little uh Tomadacci Is that what
it is? Is that what I'm thinking of like a little character in there
that you kind of take care of. You can feed them, but it's
not like in depth, like the character's not gonna doesn't really need sleep.
But you can make these buttons and you pop it and turns off the light.
And it kind of does go to sleep if you want it to,
but there's just not much to it. And it's like, if that was
a real game at the end of this, I think this thing would actually
be significantly better. It's like they have all the bones there. They do
have like a little Tomadotci guy. Yeah, I'm saying it's not Tomagama got
Tomagotchi. That's what it is, is a Nintendo thing. I thought,
right, that's what I was conflating with Tomadocci life. Yes, and so
there's a little Tomagotchi guy in there, and it's like, but there's just
not much to do with him. And so it like you press the button
a couple of times, you get the there's a crank thing which bis has
this great like clicking sound. It's kind of an amazing little engineering feed and
you crank it and all it really does, as far as I could tell,
is open up an oven and then you can close the oven and and
oh that's that's it. Maybe there's more. Even if there's more, there's
not that much more. So it's like, man, the kids are like,
hey, okay, what else can we do with this? This is
really cool and I'm like about I'm trying not to break their heart, but
like, I think you have discovered everything you can do by turning off the
lights, filling this thing up with water, shaking it back and forth and
seeing how the water goes back and forth, and then opening up that stupid
oven. And then there's like a little there's a mine cart sequence where you
can collect the food for the guy and then you come back, you touch
the food, and you feed him. Labbo was always a weird thing.
They're not doing it anymore, and for a reason it was. They got
a little sidetracked with it. I think it's like one of their teams is
like the experimental team. They'll try stuff like this. I think they did
go on to make reading fit adventure. I think that's that team. How
did they they did it? Didn't They do a dedicated direct for Labo,
and I remember, like before in the language was weird. They were like,
we're gonna like, how did they put it well? I think they
were like trying to make it clear it's like we are doing something that's not
for you. And they were closed assholes that freak out about directs. Yeah,
because this is literally baby stuff like that's what it was. It was
for actual babies, and I don't think it's toys for small children. Yes,
and it was a very popular trend in toys at the time that they
made this like cardboard things that you put together and like mess around and stuff.
It was like super hot. I had like no idea until like I
talked to you know, people older, I mean like family members who have
kids, and they're like, oh, yeah, my kids love these stupid
little papercraft cardboard things, like they're blowing up. I remember even when it
was coming out, they they invited people to like come see it, and
I remember going in New York and I remember being like, you should have
just had babies here, Like why, Like you know what I'm saying,
Like you are you were inviting like grown ass adults to play this thing and
they're not gonna They're not gonna be you have to show us a toddler playing
with Yeah. Yeah, you had to send it to like influencers who are
known to be parents or something like that, and like, hey, that's
I think they did eventually, But yeah, I think so here's how I
remember, And I'm bad at remembering things, so this is probably wrong that
direct that they pitched as something different, and we were all like, oh,
well, hey, our normal PR contact, can we get review units
of this? And they're like, well, we'll see, we'll see.
And at that time we were finding out that people that were in the toy
space were already getting it. Yeah, And then with the second batch,
that's when they're like, hey, whoever wants it can have it. Labo's
still a thing. It's like, oh, okay, I see what's happened
here. Mostly it was just like, oh, yeah, hey, this
thing existed, I've had it sitting in my house. Let's check in on
it. Do I feel any different about it than at that time? Not
really. I do like Nintendo being weird, even if it does mean they're
selling us cardboard for eighty dollars, Like okay, yeah, I'm the kind
of sucker that's like, ooh, how is Nintendo going to try to sell
me cardboard for eighty dollars. I'm more curious than that about that, when
I probably should just be mad about it because it's cardboard for eighty dollars.
But I'm also glad that Labo is not like the thing that they're still doing
and that team that does creative stuff is going to try something different next time.
I'm more excited about that than more of this. Yeah, I remember
the joke being like, at least it's recyclable, you know that. Yes,
right, the piano was very cool. I mean that's the first thing
I made in that. It's like when you guys a piano was like,
oh, it uses the IR camera and low reflective right, it's clever.
And that's when, of course, all these things end up doing that.
Like they're the buttons that you make, Like there's like four little pieces of
cardboard that full down, full back in and then you slot them into the
side of this other piece of cardboard, uh that you make that that is
the button, and then you can push the button in and that those four
pieces of cardboard actually have a spring to them because you kind of bend them
together, but they're still stiff enough they have the spring thing. And then
you put the reflective tape on the bottom and it gets shrouded by that other
piece of cardboard. So when you hit the button, the reflective tape pops
out, and then the IR sensor, the IR camera on the bottom of
the right joycon can see that registered to the button. Press and then that's
how it knows the lights turning off and on and all that stuff, and
that stuff is really neat. It's more interesting as like a feat of simplified
engineering than it is as anything else. And that wears off very fast,
Like, oh, I know how that works. Now what can I do
with it? Well? Not not that much, frankly, And it's like,
okay, fair enough. You know, you just reminded me of talking
about like the simplified engineering and Nintendo Game Maker tool kid that wine. Did
anyone do anything with that? I did too, makerge Yeah did? Did?
Uh did? But did any like influencer or anything like go hard on
it and like make a bunch of crazy stuff, Like I feel like I
I messed around with it for a couple of hours. I didn't love it,
Like I know, I know MVG did some stuff with you did some
stuff. But it's like the kind of thing where if you're gonna if you're
an influencer, is gonna do something like that, you would just use like
GB Studio and make a game Boy game because that's something you can actually put
out on Steam. And the similar side of things just making roadblocks because that's
where people are going to be already and I thing right exactly, and the
in game Maker Garage has no exporting functionality, no agreement the same right,
and of course it doesn't so, but I mean in terms of it being
like a tool to learn how to make some stuff and and like you know,
use the lang which of most game engines of having nodes and connecting those
nodes from with the if then statements. It's pretty decent. It's just you
can also learn that through a million YouTube tatorials that are free and out there
and ready to go. Also game and Garage. I think it's also the
same team as this. Oh okay, I always like those ideas, Like
I wanted to like a little big planet more than I did. I wanted
to like game Maker Garage more. Uh, it is tough to like.
I think Mario Maker is that type of game that has simplified it the best.
But I wonder a part of that is because, like the language was
already known, like well, this is how a turtle shell reacts, Here's
how these blocks wank, like you know, instead started for Super Mario Maker.
We you Online is going to go off pretty soon, right is it?
Later this year? We want more actually I think it's like next month
or something. Do you want to play my WIU levels? Yeah, that's
what I'm saying. Oh my god, doing that to yourself right there,
and to beat my WI levels and you can just make one more quick one
and there's no quick ones. But the way I making extremely was a developer.
I forgot to bring up in the meeting this morning. That reminds me
of Grubb and Dan about Mario and like rom packs and stuff. I'll talk
later. Okay, very good. I love to hear it. Uh,
somebody tell me about our z yea our z is. I played this on
up f uh and I really ended up enjoying it way more than I thought
I would. This is that Zelda cd I like game that came out just
just last week, and they do a very good job of capturing it.
It is published by Limited Run, and part of that means that they,
you know, they have a lot of partnerships in the development scene, and
they do have guys like m VG doing the voices for characters and that stuff
that that stuffs really good. But it's aired with that CDI style of animation
that was completely unhinged at the time and now looks like it's from another fucking
galaxy. And they go so hard with that stuff that every time you meet
a new character, it's hilarious. And I was just having a great time
doing the small, little simple platforming and the simple little puzzles in the fetch
quest just so I can get to the next character so we can meet them
and see what they were gonna be like. And they all had like a
ton of personality. And then again that animation was so good at being so
bad that it was really all worth it. I'm surprised how good ourzette actually
is. Yeah, this game is wild, and it's like definitely people who
get it and like, uh, you know, they're in on the joke
of the Zelda CDI games all coming. I go out and made this.
I found out more about or the weekend, as as listening to podcasts and
stuff apparently, so I believe the way this works is it was like initially
one person who then sort of contracted stuff out, you know, sort of
like a chain de Echos situation where it's mainly the rangild to one person who
then like brings into other people work on. But it was the person who
remade grub out en if you remember this remade the Zelda CDII games like reverse
engineered and like did one of those decount projects. Apparently they were the one
who was at the heart of this project, and then they brought in all
these other people and like Limited Run so I had and like picked it up,
and so that's how you get people like people we like, like John
Linneman did some design work on this. Yeh Audi surly from a formerly Digital
foundry and now works at Limited Run. By the way, low Key Audi
is like the most interesting person in the games. Yeah, he has a
story. He I believe Shirtless wrestled Nobuo Uimatsu at a bar one time,
Like what is this man's life? He just low key dropped that on MVG
stream one night. I was like, what are you talking about? Incredible?
Yeah, but like does all these people who are in on the joke
just like coming together making this homage slash parody of the Zelda CDI games and
Arthur that I haven't had a chance to play it yet. I got code
for it, so I'm gonna check it out. I'm done with our stuff.
But watching you play it on the UPF was like I've been looking forward
to those games as say, now stand, I'm like, yeah, this
is one of those very interesting releases from them, just like a plumbers don't
wear tie definitive addition that I got on my switch outs and over there,
like one of these weird releases that comes out and either preserves an old style
or like an old lost game like this lost media and they're like, Okay,
this this stuff was bad back in the day, but let's talk about
it and then recontextualize it. And I like that Limited Run is doing more
stuff like that. I guess very right. It makes sense back the game.
It's I'm trying to describe this like you know games that it's just such
a very specific vertical slice of like the history of video games. Right.
It's like, yeah, because because you probably didn't even like I never really
played the original CDI games, even when I've had opportunities now to like emulate
it, I'm like, I'll check it out for a little bit and I'm
like, eh, I'll do that on stream or something. But like at
the time, like no one was even considering getting the CDI. We all
know what that thing was. We all like, I it was way too
expensive. Those games look like fucking shit. Oh my god, that's where
the joke Zelda games are like handling Nintendo lets like Phillips even do that,
Like that's where all that stuff existed. So at the time, we're all
like playing on our all these other devices and occasionally looking over there and snickering,
but mostly being like, that's weird. I'm going to go back to
my other games. And so now that like all these years later, have
this weird nostalgia for it, even though I never played those games, it's
like, oh, so am I going to care about this game? And
it's like, yeah, I am still gonna care about it because the things
I do remember is the stuff I would see in magazines, like the really
weird uh FMV sequences, so the animated FMV sequences and be like, oh,
yeah, well I remember that looking weird and seeing the occasional video of
how the animation was just not like the cell style of animation, just all
this freehand stuff like Doctor Katz and being like, oh, that stuff is
lodged in my brain. So having this game that plays around in that space
yet again, it's like, oh, this actually is hitting my nostalgia in
a really surprising way. And even like younger people who grew up on like
YouTube poop and all those sort of like weird meme videos, Like they know
the shitty animation from the CDI games, and they look at this and they're
like, oh, hey, it's like that one meme that I know.
So I think it's even from those people as well. They look the game
looks like they look like stuff that's packed into like off brand all in one
arcade packs. Yeah, do you know what I mean? Like Nati has
this in his shot, that II arcade thing that that was around like just
years ago. Brand we were just like, you're like someone made this at
some point in like nineteen ninety three, and if someone put RoboCop into Super
Mariot Brothers too. No, it's like it's like Fancy World, you know
that game, Fancy World. I just think of stuff like that weird stuff.
Yeah. It's because like especially like compared to Nintendo today, which would
never let a company like Phillips even lick their shoe. It's like, I
mean, they'll let them occasionally make a dis drive for their system if they
were ever to use a distrive thing again, but they haven't done that in
a while. So it's like, Okay, do you have any LCD screens
we can use? No, then get the fuck out of our office.
So like to think back to a time when it was like, oh,
yeah, we're gonna partner with Phillips instead of Sony. Yeah, and part
of that is going to be like they're gonna provide the distrives for our Super
Nintendo CD and then we're gonna let them use Zelda. Yeah, what are
you talking about? Man, That's the kind of stuff that burned them on
partnerships for a long time. That, like the Mario Movie being all kinds
of troubled back in the day and stuff is why we didn't get partnerships out
of Nintendo like this up until you know, more recently with the Mario Movie
and Super Nintendo World and stuff like that. It took like twenty odd years
to do that. Yep. Yeah. And then at the same time,
there's like still like a lot to like about these weird bad games because it's
like they're bad in such interesting ways exactly, And that's that's what that is,
Like, Yeah, we are gonna revel in that shit. So I
I played through probably about a fourth of ours that I might just like finish
that up on stream at some point on this website. We kind of did
like a surprise a flipnick string last week. I might just pop that up
on the site at some point this week. We'll see, we'll see what
happens. All right, very good, let'st but not least haun off the
presses n Philip Blitz. Yeah that's right, baby. So last weekend was
the super Bowl and as everyone knows, the good guys won. And so
every year the swifties grub every year, me and my buddies we get we
hop on Parsec and we do the super Bowl match but in NFL Blitz,
and so yeah, you know, this year we did forty nine ers in
Chiefs and score was like pretty close because what super Bowl score? Something weird,
wasn't It was like it was like twenty four that. Yeah, it
was an unusual score like that. But yeah, and our ours was close
and actually like played out pretty closely to like Chiefs won by like three points
or something like that in the twenties. But man, NFL blitz just fucking
rules. And it's always when you go back and play, is it just
the initial like do you do an arcade version or the sixty four. We
do two thousand on the drink. Yes, that's a good ye yeah,
yeah, yeah, because that's just the most accessible version that has Like I
got that on my part, just saying it's always a fun time some websites.
Yeah, I just love playing these you know, Arcade sports games,
the Midway games of that era, NBA Jam and stuff and everything. It's
one of the reasons I go by Turbo Sean is just because, like you
know, Turbo meter and I played those sports games so fucking much as a
kid. Button just turbo on it. I think more games should do that.
Yeah, controllers that yeahle Square and turbo on the controller and the modern
sports games like Hide that Ship like NHL is like we got we got it,
like a hustle button can call it turbo yeah, you fucking cowards.
Yeah, put the players on fire, like reward me my do cool stuff
like uh like when you knock a guy down and afterwards you can like leap
on top of them tech in style and be like yeah that body bag Like
it's fun. It's just dumb fun. I love those games. What was
that I was thinking? Okay, Konami had that other brand because Nintenda would
only let you put so many on any s. But that was Ultra,
not Turbo. I'm like, did they have a was that like Blades of
Steel and double Dribble and yeah, like a lot of stuff would just go
over Ultra in life. This is a we can put more games out where
there's a whole other publisher called Ultra And like what I think Turtles was originally
under Ultra and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, totally. That's a
good good name for a weird publisher if you had to like just pick one
out of the thin air, if you're Konami, that's a good name.
Ultra very cool. I was always a fan of Blitz. I think it's
great. I think it makes football interesting opposed to like, you know,
vanilla football, which is well, we know, you know what it is.
All right, this is great. We covered all the games, old
and new and in between, and we are going to be back with the
news right after this. Welcome back to the Giant BombCast, Take two.
How are you? It's my first podcast? Come on, hey, everyone
has a first. It feels like news, it sounds like news. Let's
get into the news, ladies and gentlemen, with our very own Jeff Grotor,
I put together some news for you folks. It's been a lot happening
over the last week. I talk about every day, so sometimes I'm like,
Okay, well that stuff's not news anymore, am I. Then I
get to the BombCast, I'm like, oh, that happen less than a
week ago. So we have a ton to talk about. Let's start with
what could potentially be a really big story in the fact that nothing might happen
this year in twenty twenty four. The Nintendo Switch to is now rumored to
be launching in early twenty twenty five. At the Early List What the Fuck
suggest that Tendo's next console, initially targeted for a late twenty twenty four release,
may be delayed until early twenty twenty five. Sources indicated that game developers
are now working on titles slated for a Q one twenty twenty five launch alongside
the console. Nintendo didn't comment, of course. Basically, the word going
around is that Nintendo wanted more time to work on their first party launch games,
and they want to have a really good release schedule on ready to go
when that thing comes out, and so they're going to wait for the games
to be ready. That means probably March of next year, although hey,
there's still a chance they could finagle things. This thing could still come out
this year. We haven't had it confirmed one way or the other. But
I'm just this is like not very surprising. I bet they are waiting on
that big three D Mario game or whatever the equivalent is, and that's the
kind of game where they're going to delay it and take their time on it.
And if that's going to be your launch game, well then why not
push the whole system, Because it's not like Nintendo's in some rush to move
on from the Switch. They are. We just find in terms of their
financials that last report confirm that for the most part, it's not like everything's
falling off a cliff. They're still selling a lot of games. They sold
something like two hundred million pieces of software for the Nintendo Switch across all publishing,
publishers and developers putting out games over the last year or so, the
last year and a half. That's a ton of software. They're making a
lot of money. So this is a bummer. But you got surprised that
is this Like, oh man, I really wanted a new switch right away.
I mean I was excited for one, that's that's always a very exciting
time a new Nintendo console. But ultimately it's isn't that like a Meamoto quote
about like a bad game is a bad game forever and like whatever, like
a delayed game is whatever. I'm sure that's it. That's Abatim yep.
Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. And you know when you get
older, time goes fast, and so you know fall of this year and
early twenty twenty five will be a blink. Well, I mean it's like
my dad always said that life is like a roll of toilet paper, Like
as you get closer to the end, it just goes faster and faster and
faster. And I find that to be true. So it's like, wait,
it'll get here, Let it be in the oven as long as it
needs to be, and then then I'll play my Mario. Yeah that's true.
I mean it's physically true for toilet paper because like the why never mind,
right, let's travel, Yeah, let's travel. That's also it's also
true for people because as you get taller, your head moves further away from
the ground, so as you spin a theory relative but you don't worry about
it. Yeah exactly. Uh so yeah, switch to early next year.
That does kind of beg the question, hey, what the hell has happened
with the switch this year then? Because they have uh, the Princess But
you're in Prime four, baby, what are you talking about this year for
the original Nintendo Switch? Why would it be exclusive to the switch too?
Only an idiot would say sounding stupid like that, You said it, not
me, but I echo everything you just say. Listen, I really think
that trade Prime four should still come out this year. There is reason to
believe that Nintendo has several games that are just straight up done waiting to come
out, because we've talked about that a bunch before. One of those is
like that fire Emblem game. Uh, but they probably have a handful of
others. H Zippo that kind of like Iffy Leaker that sometimes gets thinks sometimes
doesn't. From Nintendo says, there's like a dozen finish games. I don't
know if it's a dozen, but even yeah, but even if it's like
four or five. You add that up with the Princess Peach game, which
is coming out next month. We just got Mario Versus Donkey Kong. Uh,
there is the Super Power, the Paper, Mario the thousand year Door
remake, and then what else? Is there one other thing that was announced?
I think that's everything. I think that. I think that's yeah,
yeah, Luigi's Mansion two, that's all right, Yeah, the thing ik
you for geting about because I'm like, why, okay, sure whatever.
Yeah. I think what we were talking before the show about like how they're
just sort of pulling old random stuff nowadays, and it's like, huh,
that's weird, but this makes sense. The direct news here and if they're
like shoring up their first party titles for the Law. It was honestly weirder
to me that they could have been launching the Switch in Fall or like even
later, you know, November or something like that, like the holiday time
frame, because the Switch did so well launching in March, and it just
makes sense because you have put out early in the year, you get all
your production issues out of the way early, so I wait when you roll
into Christmas time, switches are just everywhere. They're ready to go, people
can buy them, and you make gang busters money. Like, I think
this makes all sense in the world. So I was kind of maybe expecting
that for like March of twenty twenty four, but if it's March ish of
twenty twenty five, that would make sense too. Yes, I think,
like when I was thinking back to what I was, when I was like
thinking out a couple of years ago, when we were like, Okay,
what's the end of the switch going to look like? I'm going, you
know, things are going so well for them they could easily go to twenty
twenty five, And then the closer we got to that, I'm like,
man, that feels pretty far away right now. Eight year generation that's a
long one, right, but it's like it's not out of the question,
and now here it is clearly not out of the question. For Nintendo,
they're happy to go that long. This switch is just so big, it's
like, and it's vitable. Why mess with that success? Exactly? Like
for you to say, Sean, you're young and time alass for you.
Yeah, I hear it goes fast when you're old. That's true. Yeah,
it slips away, is how I would describe it. Yeah. So
I think the thing for Nintendo is they are happy to stick with the switch
in part because they are rightly worried, and investors are more worried. But
Nintendo has seen this happen a bunch of times where the follow up to a
very successful Nintendo device doesn't do as well. And I think a big part
of that is people spend a lot of years being like, does it have
enough games for me to get it? All? Right, I'm gonna get
a switch, and that person that's on the fence, it is very hard
for them to be like, well, I just bought the switch, I'm
not going to get another one. And launches are also kind of rocky a
lot of time, Like software wise, they usually have like that one banger
game that they try to stle a console on. Then there's usually sort of
a gap for like a month or two, and then you get another one
and then a couple more months and then like launch year is always very good,
but like the initial period is oftentimes a little light. You're right,
I mean it's it's Ninten playing four D chess, big brand, right.
How do you avoid a second console let down after a successful one? Just
release one's tapping the temples, baby, they got it all figured out over
there. Four more years of Switch, let's fucking go. Uh well,
hey, if we're gonna have four more years of switch, it's got to
kick off with a direct, which they have confirmed with a partner direct for
this week. Nintendo announced a partner Showcase Nintendo Direct scheduled for Wednesday, February
twenty first, that is tomorrow, focusing on third party titles releasing in the
first half of twenty twenty four. This alignance, of course, with them
always doing one in February for the last several years. Here we are again.
Uh, partner showcase does mean probably not anything really first party. Although
Piro, who's someone that does a lot of leaking and Nintendo stuff, who's
very reliable, as mentioned something along lines stuff, Hey, who could be
a partner? Could it be the Pokemon company? People are speculating that's probably
pocket card junkie. Oh my god, I always say junkie pocket card shockey.
I mean, what's the difference, Yeah, I know for real?
And then he also he can Nintendo be able to be clear? That would
be game Freak, not the Pokemon Company. That's right, thank you,
the game Freak. And he did say game Freak, right, not not
the Pokemon Company. I saw that rumor in passing. I don't know if
that's what that person was saying, but I heard something saying non Pokemon game
freak game, right, that's what it was, thank you, And then
the other one was say, can nintend to be a partner? Well,
it is when they love dolphins, And I think a lot of people assume
that meant a GameCube game because the GameCube is code named the Dolphin. Obviously
that emulator is still called the Dolphin. Uh. But more looking into it,
people are thinking that this is a reference to the we game Endless Ocean
that's not as exciting weird polls. This Ocean is a good game, but
Dan, you're right, one of the least exciting video games ever made.
It's like, like that is a shoe in for the game you most want
to get high to of twenty twenty four for Echo the Dolphin. Yeah,
it's like it's like there's no time limit. You just go and explore the
ocean. That's all there is to it. And it does a good job
of that. Actually, but it's not some thrilling experience. But that game
is made by arica I Wouich by how you have pronounced that, but which
has done Tetris ninety nine, Super Mario thirty five. They've worked through the
Nintendo a lot recently. They also did street Fighter ex which apparently they don't
make anymore, but they might they make Fighting Ex Layer. Ye, completely
distinct game, but they're they're a very close partner with the Nintendo now,
which suggests that this seems very reasonable that they be Hey, what do you
want to work on next? Can we pitch something to you? What if
we brought back our Endless Ocean game? Well, here you go, that
might be in this partner direct. Beyond that, we were thinking that this
is the place where we're gonna start seeing some of those Microsoft games. We'll
talk about that a little bit more in the news. Something like a Pentiment
seems like a shoe in for this direct, and if not not only that
could be High Fi Rush as well. Maybe even see a Thieves and if
they got away to make that run on the Switch, which I would be
surprised by. But it's not again, not the realm of possibility, anything
else that you guys want to see When you start thinking of third party partner
games for the Switch, I kind of struggle. I run out of gas
with that pretty quickly. I don't know why my capcom brain is immediately going
to ace attorney like it's time. It's been so long since the last one
that I would love to see that here. I don't know if it is
time, but we know that an Ace Attorney game was like in production from
those leagues from way long ago, and we know that they're sort of caught
up in production over there at Capcom, so maybe we could see that here.
Who knows. That makes me think that that Professor Layton game that we
saw some direct last year here as well. That's right, the first game
there or something. People are saying Soaksong and Chat that seems likely Spoon Heaven,
Yes, Spoon Heaven probably not going to show up here. And then
beyond that, Square Games Squid Divisions is like a bunch of Square Games.
They could have that rumored remake of Final Fantasy Tactics here that can happen.
Oh interesting. I would like another remaker of Advance like they did the War
of the Lions PSP. I think I think a remake of War of the
Lions is what I would say is what There's still be a rumor that they're
remaking. Finally, I thought that was an video leaking. Yeah, Jensen's
prophecy as some people call it. I thought I just said Tactics remake was
where we got that on Huh yep, which and a lot of those have
happened. I think we've gotten confirmation that that is something that is still happening
in the last year or so. Uh So, yeah, maybe it shows
up here, maybe it doesn't. That brings me okay, So whatever this
direct is, this partner showcase, Uh, Nintendo will have almost a full
calendar year, actually probably more than a full calendar year between this direct and
when they launch a switch to Uh what do we think they're going to fill
in that gap with? I mean we taught we mentioned Metroid Prime four.
Do you think they're gonna have anything else? Guys, well, you mentioned
Metroid Prime for I feel well, I think I was just I want to
be that maybe something that gets announced next week in a in a different showcase
might be something that they have for later in the year. So yeah,
Pokemon Director is coming at the end of the month. The Pokemon Company has
announced and announced the digital event Pokemon Presents, scheduled for February twenty seventh,
promising exciting news and celebration of Pokemon Day twenty twenty four. This comes amid
anticipation of game freaks next major Pokemon project, following the release of Pokemon Scarlet
and Violet and its DLC expansions, which it has finished putting out. Additionally,
Pokemon has been in the news due to the success of the game Power
World, which has spark discussion about potential plagiarism blah blah blah. I expect
this to be a full on execution of the Power World team. They'll just
bring them all out, give me Sucreasus, They'll they'll announce their litigation at
the sad litigation that's going to be bringing Mortar. Just go down the line,
you know, like, sho, well, what do you want to
see, Sean? What like? What are you excited? What do I
want to see? Ye? Yeah? Why well? Why well? What
I think we'll see and why I want to see? It might be two
variations of same thing. I think we're gonna see something Black and White related,
because it's that would be the next remake project that would come up because
they did Diamond Pearl. If we're going down generations, black and White would
be next problem. Nicky says, those games look bad. Yeah, Nikki's
that's the worst take they've ever had. I've never heard such an insane take
in my life. That's the one thing we all agree on is black and
white look good. But anyways, h I'm scared that if that is what
we get, or whatever black and white thing we get won't look great,
especially if it's like outsource or something like that. But what I would like
to see just HD two D black and white, like don't don't, don't
fuck with perfection, Like those games are so good, they just they look
amazing on IDs. Just upscale that basically, and it would be good.
But this is a Pokemon company. We're not gonna get what we want,
So who the hell knows what's happening next week. Those recent remakes have been
real rough in terms of the way they look, and there's rumblings that the
Pokemon Company apparently wasn't happy with the way those turned out and like the reception,
even if they sold well, they were like not happy with like the
way because they are sort of like a Disney type of thing where they everything
needs to be just so, like even if they like they can fuck it
up because they're the you know, Pokemon Company and game free, but someone
else messes up, then they're like mm no, no, no, no,
we ain't happy that you like you screwed up rip. So maybe maybe
they take it internal. Maybe there's rumblings that could be not a remake,
maybe it's a sequel or something like that. I don't know. I'm excited.
We'll see. If Jan was here, I'm sure he'd say he's excited
too. Yeah. I think, well, well, you know, obviously
we'll find out next week if it is a decent black and white remake or
if they go like a Legends or even a Let's Go. I think I'm
gonna be pretty excited no matter what, because I'm kind of like ready to
check back in on a Pokemon all right up next to Sony's value reportedly dropped
by ten billion dollars falling disappointing PlayStation financials. Sony's value dropped by approximately ten
billion following a revised PS five sales forecast, where it is expected to miss
its initial target by four million units. They were trying to sell twenty five
million PS fives by the end of this fiscal year, which will end next
month. They're going to get to around twenty one million, or at least
that's their current target. We'll see if they're able to make that. The
decline in share price was attributed to both the revised forecast and a decrease in
operating margin within Sony's gaming division. So Sony made more money from games than
they've ever made before in terms of revenue, their profits were down twenty five
percent. Now, a big reason for that is they had a lot of
discounts on the PS five, so they put a lot of PS fives out
in the world, but that stuff was not made up on the other end
from necessarily selling a ton more software. So now they're like looking at it
and they're telling investors next year is going to be about recouping those costs and
making money by balancing things out, which means they're not going to have as
many deals on the PS five starting next the fiscal year, at least that's
what they're saying, and so because of that, they expect to sell fewer
PlayStation fives, but they expect to make more profit by making more money from
that audience and then also by getting aggressive by putting games out of more quickly
on PC is what it sounds like. But the way investors are hearing this
right now is profits are bad and they're not necessarily going to get better,
because if you're going to sell fewer PS fives, that means we might be
at the peak right now, and so a lot of investors are spooked when
it comes to PlayStation's future. And this is kind of where PlayStation has been
for the last minute or so of their existence, where it's like, hey,
we are selling a ton of PS fives, but our costs are out
of control with these very very expensive games to produce, and we saw from
the Insomniac leak spider Man one to two was like a one hundred and fifty
million dollar game to like a two hundred and fifty million dollar game, and
they're already forecasting that Spider Man three is going to be three hundred and fifty
million dollars to make, so they are not necessarily finding easy ways to cut
those costs. In fact, they're going up very fast still still, so
PlayStation kind of like reeling as well. We've had a lot of news from
Microsoft last week about them, really and we'll talk about some of that as
well, but PlayStation not necessarily figuring things out either. The good news for
them, Hell Divers two seems to be the kind of a solution around where
like that game is published by them and it has absolutely taken over the world,
right crazy. I have not yet played this game yet, and I
feel like I'm in a situation now where I missed the big pop at the
start, and is that? Is that what's gonna happen to me? Like?
Can can you find you? Can? You can just play it at
any time. You can fix it server issues, but you can play it
if you want to play it, okay, and you're not missing it.
It's I do love democracy. I mean, I mean, have you guys
seen like it's it's done the elden Ring thing. It is the meme game
on TikTok and YouTube socials and stuff. What does that mean? It means
I mean, no, fair question, No. I just love how presented
that. It's like, what does that mean? What a meme is?
I played two. I clicked over to a live video on TikTok, and
what you can do is when you're on a live video on TikTok, you
can like swipe and it'll take you to another live video and another live video.
And I got to a point where ten in a row where people live
streaming hell divers and then I would go back to like the creative videos,
and a lot of them were like trends in jokes about hell Divers. There's
even like the wives and girlfriends of Hell Divers Soldiers is becoming a popular trend
on these social media platforms very well. It has completely taken over. So
they have the potential to put out games like this. I just wonder if
they're going to like learn any particular lesson from hell Divers too that's going to
be useful to them, because it also feels a little bit like lightning in
a bottle and it's not like, well, we're going to go make more
of those. I don't know how you decide to do that. Yeah,
exactly. I think the lesson to learn here is at least for live service
games day and date on PC. Don't put that out way after the fact,
after the conversation has died down, like get everyone in there together and
get them playing day one and hey, once you know, it blows up
as everyone can play together with crossplay. Yeahah, yeah exactly. And so
that's one of the things that PlayStation does seem to be hinting at that they
are when they say they're going to get more aggressive about finding ways to make
more money from these games that they're already putting out by putting them out on
other platforms. Well, they're already putting it on PC. So getting more
aggressive can kind of only mean coming to PC either quicker or day and date.
Now you guys think like the next Scot of War comes out, is
that day and date on PC? Because I think they'll probably try a new
IP first, Like the new Bluepoint game is new IP. I bet that
goes on PC. That more interesting. I think even shortening that period up
because now it's pretty consistently you know, like yeah, so if it's like
a year shoring down six months, anything that will have been six months may
shorten that up even like still have that period of exclusivity. So it's like,
hey, if you got a PlayStation, you still have that reason to
own a PlayStation, which I know some people are still super big on.
So it's doing it for those people. The PC players don't feel they're getting
completely left on the cold because it's still semi relevant when it comes out.
Like to shortening that period up I think is gonna be good without completely getting
rid of, you know, the console exclusivity. If that's what it takes
to sort of we know off this type of mentality, which I guess also
Song we're going to talk about a little bit here at the end, getting
more into Hell Divers too real quick. They're having a lot of server issues,
is Dan alluded to. That is still happening, and it's all because
the game is just more popular than they ever could have predicted. They hit
about four hundred and fifty thousand, They had over four hundred thousand concurrence on
Steam alone, and they had their server capacity. They kept increasing it.
It's now up to be able to support five hundred thousand people simultaneously. They
cap that at four fifty so that's not like crashing constantly. So they have
this buffer zone so they're be able to sport about four and fifty thousand players
at any one time, and they have almost that alone on Steam, and
that's people logged into the game, not necessarily logged into a server. So
that's a lot of people trying to get into a server. It's probably a
good amount on PlayStation five as well. What's that Beckeler? Does anyone like
picture like some sweating person out of like a nuclear reactor watching the counter go
up being like, what's approaching four fifty you want? And like there's a
bunch of stem being released for them, like a red light just trying to
figure out what I want to depress. I just want that to be real.
I want that to be real. I want there to be someone sweating
about it. They kind of did that scene in the BlackBerry movie and I
and I hope that's a real thing. I hope that's real. I hope
someone's really shitting themselves over that fun. Yeah, yeah, exactly. This
that they said, hey, it's not as easy as just buying new servers,
something we've heard a million times throughout our lives. These kinds of games
have seems like they've been able to support these launches a little bit more smoothly,
like Diablo four had a pretty smooth launch compared to Diablo three. But
this is still something that is not necessarily super easy to solve, especially if
you're a game that is probably like welcoming in ten twenty thirty times the players
you were ever expecting at your like the highest peak. So they're they're going
to try to solve this, but it's probably gonna take them some time before
they're fully through these growing pains. Meanwhile, PlayStation Portal is been hacked to
run PSP games offline. A group of Google engineers has hacked the Sony PlayStation
Portal, a streaming only device designed for remote play from PS five consoles,
to run games locally. This was achieved by installing the PPSSPP emulator for pp
PSP. What are you naming it that? What is happening? You got
to these guys have senses of humor backolar, it's all about allow me to
chuckle four years later? I mean, what is that? Yeah? So
basically this is like them just kind of seeing if they can make it happen.
I don't necessarily think that this is this group is even like trying to
put this out for other people. Also, the PlayStation Portal doesn't have like
a ton of story for you to mess around with. You'd probably be able
to get a handful of PSP games on there before you got that thing over
burdened pretty quickly. And so it's playing it offline like on unit. Yeah,
because the thing is basically an android tablet, right, Okay, I
don't think I realized like how much was in there. Okay, yeah,
I mean that's why the thing to be quite frank, isn't that great because
it's just running the Android version of PlayStation remote Play, not cold featured at
all. But like the thing it does. I have actually started using it
if I'm in the same room as the PlayStation and like last night, I
had raw on the screen that was playing the portal and can you give me
a favorite dink? Since you have both, can you go back and forth
between that and the well you don't have to install if you don't want,
but Chiackey four Deck because that supports hd R on the Steam Deck. Oh
lad, And it looks really good And I'm like, I think I think
this is probably a better experience than the PlayStation portal, honestly, but is
that an easy thing to do? I mean you just installed four Deck from
the desktop version that deck you just asked. The only reason I have emulators
working on my Steam deck is I watched the video you made video. I
was talking to Dan about getting Prince of Persia on the Steam Deck because you
know it's you like Ubisoft connects on PC and okay, switch your dost time
always like I'm out now you're like your PlayStation like a secret I d and
there's a website to do that. It's a little annoying, but but once
it's running, yeah, don't it's worth it because boy, the games look
really good on that Steam deck. O lead running from a PlayStation. Five
play Xbox games on that too, chiacky not chiackey, No, they just
PlayStation. Yes, there, there's like a remote. Even easier if you're
doing some like game pass because you can just do that through like Chrome on
the Steam Deck. Yeah, you can put Chrome on a steam deck.
Chrome on the steam Deck. Crazy Linux thing. No, but it's running
on Linux. Yeah, it's Chrome running on Linux. Is the Steam deck?
Yeh? Go to the button right there in your Steam Deck in game
mode. You just press that and it will probably install it still, but
it's right there unless you do just missed the notification, Like Valve is just
like, hey, would you like a short cut for a chrome We think
that might be convenient for you. Wait, Dan, you there's like you
know when you exit out to like the O s right, I try to
avoid to ox like the game the game mode has a Chrome button right there,
Like, what are you talking about? What do you need to say
yes to the pop up in order it to be there. I don't know
it. Probably you probably didn't, probably scared trying to Google, trying to
hack me switch. No, I'm not my dad? Is it not my
credit card? Now? I don't think it has Chrome on mind. I
think I got one of the non chrome ones. Sure, got one of
the bump ones. Sure, Firebox, I got a Firebox. Maybe it's
Firefox the yeah, see, I mean it has Firefox Supreme installed, but
also prompts you about Chrome like the you know the actually you can get all
these things from the discovery story. Oh, you know what, I'm actually
thinking about it because of when Dan got his, he actually may not have
had that pre installed. Yeah, ten seconds to put it on. So
well player, Wait, it does not mode if you go to the discoverers
all applications, Discover search and all applications. That's what it means. By
discussing Dolphin file Manager, Xbox confirms it's bringing four games to rival platforms.
Microsoft has announced that four unnamed Xbox exclusives, including and this is from reporting,
but this is almost certainly the case Pentiment, High five, Rush,
See If Thieves, and Grounded, will be released on rival platforms such as
PlayStation five or Nintendo switch as part of its strategy to ensure the long term
health of Xbox, and that's according to Phil Spencer. While the move marks
a departure from its traditional exclusivity strategy, they say it doesn't well whatever.
Xbox emphasises that it remained committed to providing flagship experiences on its console and game
Pass, with plans for innovative hardware releases in the future. They mentioned star
Starfield and Indiana Jones as two games that weren't going to be coming to other
platforms, and then later in interviews, Phil Spencer said nothing is off the
table, so those that could change. In the podcast, they say Starfield
and India Joe's are not one of the four games they use. That is
right. That's how they have they tend to do. They are very smart
with their language and these things very good point. This was the podcast that
was in response to all that hubbabaloo about hey, some of these some of
these games are going to go other platforms. They came out said yep,
that's right for these games coming to other platforms, and then they tried to
quell concerns about the future of Xbox by saying this isn't going to be every
game, although every game could be under consideration. And then they also Sarah
Bahn said, Hey, we have next gen Xbox is going to come and
it's going to be the biggest technical generational leap you've ever seen. And then
they said we'll have announcements for hardware later this year around holiday time, and
they didn't specify what that would be, whether it was an updated Xbox Series
X, which seems possible now, not like more powerful, but there could
be like a smaller chip in there, and it could be more efficient and
could be better in other ways. Maybe it could have a chip on there
that actually does upscaling or something like that. There's a bunch of things they
could do. Or it could be even like the beginnings of a handheld,
something that they keep alluding to and keep saying that they're thinking about, especially
when Phil Spencer was asked, hey, how hey, windows on these handhelds
kind of sucks, doesn't it, And Phil Spencer's like, yes, it
sucks. I hate it myself if we make windows. And so they're like,
we are going to address that, which to me says they are going
to go very hard on whether they're making a handheld themselves. Are working with
partners and just saying have the Xbox os installed, the Xbox OS version of
Windows ready to go. The biggest technological leap is an allusion to, hey,
we are going to have an ext generation of devices, and we are
looking to do something super like, much more powerful. I was talking to
Mike Manati about this, and he's like, maybe they go something that's significantly
more expensive so they can have the box that is just unquestionably more powerful.
And I like that idea because I think them going head and heead with PlayStation
and just I mean, uh, what is basically a PlayStation but it says
Xbox on it, and it does have all the PlayStation games, just continues
to make them look bad. I think that's a good way to stand out.
What do you guys think? I just I don't know. If you
were telling me that you were selling a fifteen hundred dollars Xbox, well probably
not that expensive, like a thousand, yeah maybe at the high then I've
bought the PC already, Like you have a thousand dollars Xbox right down there.
But okah, but that's that's the point though, Like you already have
done this. Why would you get a five hundred dollars exactly exactly, and
and again we get just like a broken record with this whole Windows is the
game operating system, right, Like I don't know, it's the same company,
it's the same company. There needs most popular on the playing Xbox games
are just direct x versions of games. Like so basically like if you make
a direct ex version of a PC game, you're already like on your paths
and making an Xbox version of the game. They need to just figure something
out. Well, we did that one BCR where we talked about our predictions
for the year, and I think Nicky was the one who brought it up.
But like, just make the Steam Deck for Xbox. But it's not
an Xbox console shrunk down, No, it is a Windows handheld that then
scales up. And I think they need to be doing more of that and
just like bring everything together. I'm thinking about like there, uh, you
said the largest technical leap thing. I wonder if maybe this is more clever
wording because I don't want to say exact quote, but I believe what Phil
said was we want to focus on bringing you the biggest technical leap you've ever
seen. It's like, well, I mean if they put outside this a
lot more powerful, but it's not like, you know, mind blowing things.
I'll say, Oh, we tried to bring you the like the biggest
leep you've ever seen. I think I think a lot of this is like
clever ways of getting right. Say that they're gonna walk it back per se,
but that way they say like, hey, you know, we warned
you, like we're gonna try to give you something significantly more powerful. And
if it doesn't blow you a well, it's still like, look at the
numbers, is significantly more powerful? Wow? Right. I hope that's net
where it lands, because if it's just like the numbers say so so you
got to believe it, it's like that's a story that doesn't really work anymore.
But I think that doesn't mean you're wrong. I think that they could
also just this could mean that they are going to try something that is very
technologically advanced in that it is not going down the same route of X eighty
six, and they will try doing something with like risk five or something like
that and go really out there. And because of that, it's like we
have a ton of technology in here that we wouldn't have had before, and
that could be interesting, but we'll see. At the very least, they
are promising a big game, and that means that they're gonna be in the
hardware game for a while, and we'll see what that looks like when they
finally get to it. All right, embrace serious canceled twenty nine games this
year. That is if you work backwards from that as like, Okay,
that's a shame, but are they did those people get moved to other jobs.
No, They've laid off about fourteen hundred people. So this is indicative
of what's happening across the industry in general in that if you hear me typing
sorry about that, I'm just putting in the headlines for the show. This
is just where the industry is at right now. Very few games are getting
green light green lighted, I think that's how you're supposed to say it.
And at the same time, games that were previously under development are getting scaled
back or getting completely canceled. And this is leaving a lot of people looking
around being like, oh my god, all the jobs that were available and
you could just go anywhere, I'll have all evaporated kind of overnight. It
feels like this is something we hear not just from Embracer, across the industry,
investment into new games has fallen off a cliff, and this is something
like for me, I remember like I would go to these I mentioned like
traveling to Singapore. What I was doing out there is going to these game
developer game publisher conferences and sitting in panels and listening to the people that were
investing in games. And back then and this is like seven eight years ago,
the word was, hey, this is a hit driven business and that
is a scary thing of her investor investors, So investors are like, like
to invest in platforms and technology and not into individual games. And then at
some point between then and now, it shifted back to point like, oh
no, a lot of money is going to developers to make games. And
it started to feel like that was like the anomal anomaly where it's like,
oh, we were in a high tide there and so like people had more
money than they knew what to do with, so they were taking those risks.
And now that things have started to fall back down to earth, everyone's
like, oh, yeah, there was a reason why we were scared of
investing in games, and we've gone back to that sort of natural reality,
and now it's once again really tough to get your game, get money for
your game, to the point where even that studio from Leslie Binziy's who was
at rock Star Build a Rocket Boy, they haven't put out a game yet,
but they had they probably have like two hundred two hundred fifty people employed
there. Apparently they've they've had layoffs as well for their Everywhere game and they
haven't even put that out yet. So there was a time where like you
could be a Leslie and start up a studio with two hundred and fifty people
and work on a game and take years of developing it. And it seems
like that era has already come to an end before people like that have even
put out their game. So it's rough out there. The band News going
back to like one of the first stories here is a lot of studios were
like, let's just make it to the switch to and put out a switch
to game, And now Nintendo's talking about putting on the switch to in twenty
twenty five. So now people are talking, hey, just try to get
through twenty twenty four, and if you could survive twenty twenty four, maybe
things will be better in twenty twenty five. That's where the industry is at
right now. Well that's bleak. Yes, it's rough out there, It
is very bleak. From Software has acquired the elder Ring trademark from Bandy Namco.
From Software has acquired full rights to the elder Ring trademark from Bandy Namco,
as revealed by a US Patent and Trademark Office Assignment document. Basically,
this just gives them the naming rights to the trademark. They don't have the
copyright to the video game called elden Ring, so like they're not gonna be
able to go publish this themselves. But if they wanted to, say,
work with George R. R. Martin and a co author on a book
based on the world, now you would just go fully through From Software and
Bandy Namco wouldn't be involved in that, and they'll be able to They'll have
like probably the rights to the to to make a sequel. But I would
imagine Bandy NAPO has like write a first refusal and stuff like that. So
this isn't like, oh, suddenly they just have the full rights to this,
but they do have more control over the future of the franchise now because
of this, huh. I was yeah, I was going to ask about
like how how that would affect a sequel or something, because they they also
own I forget which way it is they own Securo. Is that how it
is? I think that's the one, right, So Activision published that.
Yeah, everyone that because Activision is the publisher that they own it. But
I believe that's the one where they actually own the IP everything up and down
the stack there. Yes, I wonder if that's like what they're Activision probably
still has the right of first refuse for a sequel there as well, right,
but that's all they have. Yeah, So run this back for me
a second. Do you acquire the name of the game the trademark? You
trademark the name of the game? Yeah, and like a trademark, but
keep in mind, is the thing that can last forever? Yeah, it
is. It is meant to protect consumers. Where like copyright is meant to
protect the authors and the creators, trademarks are to protect the consumers from things
that can confuse them in the marketplace. Now, the creators can use that
and leverage that to keep copyright copy cats out of the market in certain ways.
If you just call yourself Elder Ring. The trademark is very powerful to
stop that, but it also means that they would be able to apply that
trademark on future games Elder Ring two and stuff like that, and they would
have the right to do that. Now the cop there could be aspects of
the copyright of the story in the lore that is still under band Dynamco.
That will probably mean that Bandy Namco is going to be involved in these games
going forward. I would assume that based on just this right now, the
trademark is only so powerful when it comes to that. That's interesting, Okay.
The upcoming Crazy Taxi reboot is a Triple A game, according to Sega
Sega's I know I would aquadate Crazy Taxi. Yeah, I was waiting for
it. Segaephoro Studio, established in December twenty twenty one, is collaborating on
various Sega games, including the upcoming reboot of Crazy Taxi, described as a
Triple A title by studio president Takeya Segewa. This announcement comes alongside Sega's plans
to develop new entries in several classic series, including jetst Radio and Streets of
Rage, which it announced that the game Awards in December they are described as
a Triple A studio or Triple A game. Excuse me. Meanwhile, there's
a report out that Crazy Taxi is going to be a live service model inspired
by Fortnite and gt Online, with plans to remake the original game and subsequent
reboot featuring a one hundred players survival mode. Okay, that is so hard
for one hundred taxis on an island. Triple A story l Crazy Taxi.
Yeah all right, yeah, yeah, I love Crazy Taxi. It's it's
it's one of my favorite games. It's probably top ten. I absolutely adore
it. So like I was scared about everything. I was here and there,
and they're like survival mode, okay, okay, this could be interesting.
Yeah, And like christ is like what we don't like Fortnite? No,
Fortnite is Fortnite. Other games should not be trying to be Fortnite.
Now. When they say that here, the implication is that they want to
be able to have events and be a living game where the maps change and
suddenly like oh, Sega has that jet Set Radio game coming out, Well,
now jet Set Radio ship is popping off inside that live service Crazy Taxi
game. Yeah, I see the appeal to that the appeal of that maybe
that could stuff could work it. Honestly, Crazy Taxi just coming out and
being a new Crazy Taxi game, No, you have to do something more
there. I don't know if this is necessarily answer, but I like the
idea of like a Crazy Taxi game where it's like, yeah, well battle
Ray I was sure, why not? Yeah? And I want I want
to see Crazy Taxi fully sell out, Like Crazy Taxi has always been about
these like advertisements and partnerships. Yeah, you need the offspring in there,
you need your KFC and your Pizza Huts yep, and just put frickin' Peter
Griffin in a hot Wheels car. Just completely sell out. That's what Sean
gets it. I loved it when it came to XBLA back in the day.
It's like, oh, I can have Crazy Taxi in my three sixty
having the KFC and the Pizza Hut just be like a weird red roofed building.
It's like, no, no, no, no, I need Pizza
Hut. There, I need k Sean, you get it, Yes,
sell the fuck out. Absolutely. They had like an offspring concert event inside
of the game, like it has that that would be a czy. They're
just like playing in the park downtown or something like that. Yeah, fucking
he do it. There was that mobile Crazy he taxed at a whole coge
in it, and we don't need him. But other than that, let's
just get fully Fortnite this thing out. I forget there was a Crazy Taxi
three on Xbox. I don't think I ever played that. Yeah, yeah,
I don't touch that game. Yeah, because it's basically like a compilation
all the Crazy Taxi games kind of are that, like two includes one plus
new stuff, and then high Roller is like revised one and two plus the
Vegas track. I should play three. I'm honestly excited about this. This
sounds fun same. I think it could be interesting at the very least,
And I'm still very hopeful that, like the Shunoby game is probably not going
to be a live service game, So I like, if one of them
is, that's fine, as long as there isn't some mandate that all of
these games can only get made if they have live service elements. I think
it would make sense, like we know what they are, Like pretty Shnobe
is the Lizard Cube, Like that's you know the way I didn't I didn't
know that developed by lizard Cube. Yeah, the the Wonder Boy or whoever.
Yeah, I mean all you have to do is look at it.
But yeah, I believe it was confirmed later on by one accounts. It
was just like it was like a couple of seconds of game played, right,
So I think I was just looking at like, I'll wait until there's
more of it. I didn't know you could look at it and see,
we know what all these games are, no be from lizard Cube. The
Streets of Rage is going to be maybe it's more of like a indie ish
thing, but it's gonna be like a beat them up, like, yeah,
we know what most of these are. Crazy Taxi was maybe like the
question mark and if this is the direction they're going, I think this is
the one where it makes sense. Sure that Streets of Rage four is fantastic.
Yeah yeahs as they continue some of the stuff that was in there,
that'd be great. Am I just the only one confused about like the Offspring
being the only band that like people talk about when they talk about Crazy Taxi
religion. Yeah, okay, okay, let's like but everyone knows all I
want you started off crazy text? You want to hear yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it. I
get bought bad religion albums because of crazy tax I didn't buy offering albums.
I feel that was thet albums. I was back what you were talking about,
like going through the Nostalcha box in your house, and I meant to
ask at the time, but like, I am finding myself listening more and
more to the music of my youth, and in this last week it was
and I never thought I'd be back here. It was the Offspring, I
mean Philip Offspring, and I was like listening to like the kids aren't all
right before my roller hockey games to get pumped up, and now I'm like,
let's go. I'm gonna go fucking hit somebody, Let's go. It
makes me want to watch a raven match. It's the butt rock pop pok.
Yeah. Yeah, it just gets out and even call it, I
mean it's not I mean you're talking about. I think the album Smash is
like really good. It's really really an endearing way to be clear, Yeah,
I don't think I don't know where I'm coming from. Yeah, Well,
when I hear butt rock, I hear I hear, I hear that
as like a people. Yeah, people used as a disparaging term. No,
no, no, we embrace the butt rock like, yeah, it's
just fun. Like I was talking about it, I felt, let's o
the topvishow. I just love dumb fun and that. It's like where the
Offspring sets. That's where crazy Taxi sits. You know what, I'm Giant
Bomb sets, that's right in the butt in the yeah, two inches up
the bit. So who knows how we go up there? Okay, all
right, let's go ahead and move on from the NEWSS. That means the
show goes back over to you backlar it does, and uh, if you're
keeping score at home. In April, the album Smash will be thirty years
old. Oh fuck that actually, what the fuck? Everything about that?
Right? I mean that's older than me that Yeah. I think Dukie also
turns due. I think Dookie's going to be thirty this year too, which
is yeah, nineteen ninety four, right, Yeah, the most nineteen ninety
four ass album. That also came when I was playing Offspring on YouTube music,
It's like, oh, then you probably want to listen to the Green
Day. I'm like, yeah, you're right, man. Bret Hart and
Lex luger Win of the Rumble at the same time those thirty years ago.
Damn and what else happened in nineteenety four? The movie Hackers is going to
be thirty How fucked up is that? That's that's really messed up? Actually,
like what I think of, Like, okay, what's a movie like
that from thirty years ago? It's like Sneakers, but that movie's probably like
forty years old. Then I'm sorry, it'll be twenty nine. It turns
thirty next but still christ Man, the Matrix will be twenty five. Just
breathe. Okay, wait, okay, So when you were born, what
was a movie that was twenty five years old? Oh god, oh,
don't play that right, don't play that. That's different, okay, fifty
eight for me? So fifteen, I mean you're talking about like like some
like It Hot or something. Lees from nineteen fifty eight, fifty nine,
Yeah, Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, Jesus Face of a Few,
the Seventh, the Seventh, Voyage of Sin Dad, Here we Go,
Here we Go, mash the movie. Yeah, okay, yeah, what's
missus doubt fire Robin Williams, you can't play this game because like someone who
was born now, isn't aware of twenty five years ago. So let's not
play that game. It's not it's a misdirection of oldness. Periscope is that
like a prequel to down Periscope. It's gotta be. In my opinion,
that's the only thing it could possibly be. It has to be. Oh
my god, I have to take control of the podcast away from everyone else.
We are going to put the podcast in break mode while we all have
our naps and take our medicine, and we will be back with emails right
after this. Welcome back to the Giant BombCast. Ladies and gentlemen. It
is time once again for emails. Mail emails the way you correspond with the
show. As you send an email to BombCast at giant bomb dot com.
Let's get to a few of these. Jan usually reads them himself. We
don't go around the room, right, We do it ourself. That's how
we do it. Yes, okay, cool, I have to read now,
no problem. Mike from Texas, Hey, I've been playing Brotato does
see metro Rotato is a game. It's the fammire survivors. Here are Potato.
He's got guns? Oh got it? And the music is so good.
Game is great too. Greb has mentioned that he likes this kind of
music for his workouts. Give it a try or not. I'm not your
dad. It's on Spotify. Thanks for everything you do. What have you
tried to work out to this? I have not. I I'll give it
a shot. I'm like I go. I'm like in between a bunch of
different stuff. While I'm working out right now, I will either watch Sports
Center. I will maybe watch a show, though I haven't done that recently,
and when I do get back to doing that, it will be season
three of twenty four. Then I've been listening to some music and stuff like
that. But these days, honestly, I've been like, do my walks
and then I'll just do some quick weights at home. So I haven't had
much time to watch a show or listen to music. But actually music for
my walks will be great. I'm gonna put in Protato music and see how
it is. I've heard good things about this game, people like Brotato.
I've never touched it. I started it on a plane. I've played like
thirty minutes of it. It's definitely vampires Drivers like, it's got some different
tweaks. On. It didn't super grab me, but it doesn't seem bad
by any means. Oh, okay, this type of music, it's like
techno like kind of like the OC remixes out on that playlist. I gave
you grub. Oh that's what I do. I do like that music so
great, perfect, It is cool. It's like a what do they call
that? It's like the eighties synth rightnn wave? Yeah, it's cool,
brotato. I like it. I just watched the thing too. Yeah,
didn't grab you, Dan, I mean, I don't think I played enough
to say whether or not. I just yeah, a little bit on a
plane. Uh didn't keep going though, all right, thank you Mike.
Next we have Neil from Philly. Hi, guys. I was thinking about
the conversation Jan and Jeff was having on the Friday episode of Gay Mess about
more franchises Sony could license to make games like Spider Man and the Answer is
shown a jump, Like Marvel, it is plenty of series to pull from
that have large audiences already that are wishing for some quality games. Sony could
try to tap into that audience. Imagine if they made an anime Smash Brothers
or a Chainsaw Man game in the style of the recent God of War games.
But if they made an arena fighter based on how about how well they
made like twenty of those? Yeah, I know, And it pisses people
like me and tam Off constantly that it's like, here's your incredible anime property.
What game is banday napcal gonna make? Oh an arena fighter? Cool?
Dude. I think you also have to like think long and hard about
what kind of the license is going to permeate through a mainstream audience. Like,
yes, there are always diamonds in the rough, but even for everything
that gets licensed, the consideration has to be will this appeal to the most
people possible? And I'm not saying no one watches anime. I'm an anime
expert. I know true, I know people watch anime. You're absolutely right,
Yeah, but I also don't think we're gonna see a JoJo's pinball machine
anytime soon either. That would be sick though, that would be sick.
Oh many a really good fight couple really good fighting games, the old one
by Capcom, the Neuer one as well, Like you just gotta pick the
ones. I think certain ones just don't really do it. This is why
you see them pick like you know, My Hero Academia and One punch Man
and stuff like that that really break out into the mainstream, because that's where
you're gonna get the most amount of kids or early teenagers picking it up,
you know, at Target or whatever. They're like, yay, it's that
thing. I recognize. It is the same reason, you know, we
joke about like the goofy graphic t's that are just like a picture of Mario
or sometimes it's a five thousand dollars Pokemon sweatshirt with a picture of Pikachu on
it, which that's a whole thing right now, But like these things happen
for a reason. People do buy them, even as weirds it may seem
to us. People do just go into Walmart and they're like, oh,
I recognize that thing. I'll just pick it up because it's the thing that
I like. Yeah, if you're anime these days, right though, you
uh, just try to get your ass into Fortnite, right Like that's like
if you or something like that and you're like, ah, make it our
whole game. That's that's a problem that seems difficult. Let's just go be
a skin in Fortnite and that's gonna help us more than anything else. Sospir
speed up, which we do a breaking news sorry. In October. On
October fifteenth, twenty nineteen, Lady Gagat tweeted, what's fortnite spelled night?
That's sick? Two hours and nine minutes ago, Lady Gaga quoted that tweet
and put asterisk fortnite and she spelled it correctly, and that's all she said.
That's it. She's so cool because she's got to be in a Fortnite
festival. She's coming to Fortnite now, she does what it is? What
started that? Right? My favorite thing about that tweet is that Ninja reply
to her is like, hey, if you want to do a collapse sometimes
I teach out play. She's just like, who are you? That was
great? I'm sorry, who are you? Mister? I shouldn't apologize.
No, of course. Someone also just told me there is a JoJo's pinball,
but I think it's like one of those FX things, and we all
know that doesn't count, all right. Moving along, uh Rich from Seattle,
Hello, I find myself agreeing with Jeff. You know, look,
there's there are two Jeffs on this set. I just feel like you usually
you have children. I have a child, Like, what are we doing?
We can't. It's just about kids. It's about kids. I definitely
said my kids cost me brain damn, which this is me Okay, you
know, like it's fine, it's fine. Uh. I find myself agreeing
with Chef that dealing with kids constantly will cause brain damage. It's a little
harsh, I feel like, but that's fine. My wife and I lack
of sleep. Yeah, a sleep deprivation, right, Like, what's the
difference? Uh? And I had our first child as they were entering a
medical school. Damn. We're a mixed family, so I also have a
step son and a step daughter. During the three or four years of school,
I did every single thing for the kids. I think I'm only now
recovering and my oldest daughter is almost seventeen. Then I had a teacher how
to drive, and now it's back to the same good luck. Recovery is
possible, but short lived. For prospective parents out there, do not let
them outnumber you already ahead, any buddy, yep. I uh, I'm
stopping it too, because, like I said, if I had three,
I would die. I forget to feed myself some days. Yeah, it's
like you're allowed to do that. You are legally not allowed to forget the
eat children you go to prison for that, you would you wouldn't forget after
they started speaking Oh sure I'm hungry. Sure, ye. Well look sometimes
my kids will get like so into what they're doing that they sometimes would be
like skipped in er and then they'll be in bed and be like, oh
I'm hungry. I'm like, I put dinner on the table. What the
fuck you're talking about? And oh I never went to go eat that,
Like what are you talking about? Well, how did that happen? Uh?
Now that doesn't happen anymore because I just sit them there. That's definitely
the kind of kids that they are, So you do have to stay on
top of it no matter what, because they'll they'll try to find ways to
get you put in prison. That's their main objective. Some days, I'll
get to like three pm to be why am I so hungry? I'm like,
oh, I didn't need today. I mean imagine being responsible. Yeah,
when you say that, like, I don't think I've definitely first skipped
lunch by accident before, but I have never had the experience of like overwhelming
hunger and just been like, wonder what that could be about? Yeah,
or you get prized bicycle. Shit. I just realized I'm hungry. Yeah.
Yeah, Wait a minute, I didn't sleep last week. Yeah,
all right, good luck with that driving. I can't even imagine what it's
like to teach, although I did make a weird deal with div the other
day and I think I'm gonna go through with it. He's like, uh,
He's like, yeah, driving seems easy. I want to do it.
And I was like it's not and he's like, no, I can
do it. Uh, It's it's easy. Let's let's go. So I
am gonna like go to a very empty parking lot, sure, and have
him sit on my lap and like let him drive for a second. He's
played a lot of Rocket League, right, so you better be careful.
Yeah. And also like the the EV will like not move if you let
go of the gas, like it'll just stop by itself. And I wouldn't
do it with a gas car because the car is just gonna keep going.
And you know where this at least is gonna I will find. We'll find
the most empty ass parking lot where like I have like a quarter mile radius
to like play around in, you know, and I'm gonna let him do
it. I'm gonna I learned how to drive. That's how I'm going to
go to jail. You know. I definitely did that. And then I
remember my parents took a trip once and they wanted to use my car because
one of their cars was in the shop and their other car was a Toyota
pickup truck that was stick shift. My dad just shows up, He's like,
I need to teach you how to drive the stick shift. I'm like
why because I'm taking your car, Like, oh okay, And like later
that afternoon, I'm at a red light and a stick shift truck that I
barely knew how to drive, like having it like stall on me five times
before I got through the lights. So that's all though, Man, now
you know how to drive a stick Yeah. Absolutely, I can get in
there and do it now ably. Second, my my grandma took me to
a big parking lot in a park when I was probably like twelve or thirteen
to do the same thing, and I definitely just had one foot on the
gas and the other foot on the break. And that's how I thought you
drive. Yep, I think that's a logical conclusion. A lot of kids
think that that. Yeah, do you think anyone does that? For like,
like, do you think anyone that's like thirty five does that driving the
highway? Yeah? I think four kids are doing it. They really should
be. They should be calling you out on that anytime you do any contest.
But that's bad yep. Chat's like that's how if one drivers, Yes,
okay, that's how f one drivers not so schmuck in a minivan on
the turnpike. Don't have one drivers have like clutches. I would assume that
those are stick shifts, like, but I know they're paddle shifts, but
I would assume they have to use the clutch. Yeah, I mean presumably
if they're shifting right, I listen. I don't know. I've never I
never watched drive shiftings on the steering wheels, right, isn't that what?
Yeah, it's a paddle shift. You still have to go to clutch to
shift right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, I don't know, Dan,
can you drive stick now? I can barely drive anything. Yeah,
yeah, I was actually gonna say it. It's just not a relevant skill
anymore. No, No cars are manual, No, even in our lifetime,
it has not been. Yeah true, Like the only the only uh
manual transmission I've ever been even near was my friend who I carr from like
nineteen ninety and you know, learning how to drive that in like twelve or
whatever, like it was an ancient thing for us to have to figure out.
You just you just don't need anymore. F one apparently has clutches on
the steering wheel. Okay, wow, that's interesting. Yeah, that is
I could probably drive F one. I would like to do it. I
would like to go on. Driving race cars is fun. Well, my
in high school, that was a project that we had for my tech ed
like track of classes where like if you did all four years, the final
class was just a year long building a race car from the ground up and
then taking it out to a track at the end of the year. And
it was some of the most five ever had neat racing around this car that
I helped build. It was so cool. That is sick. If anyone
out there knows like an F one guy that would let me, I'll fly
out to where your track is and I'll I'll race the F one car.
You're going, well, no, there's this is a different series where it
just fall races and I do jobs. I'm Dan Turismo. Fuck me?
All right, Well there we go. Okay, next up John from Maryland.
I just left two voicemails thanks to my toddler. Don't let your toddler
dial flu what's happening about this topic? But thought it was a little long
for the dump, so I thought I put it in an email instead.
A new barcade recently opened near me, and they have a lot of awesome
pinball machines. Here we go, but when I play them, I feel
like I have no idea what's going on. I'm a newbie, so I
mainly focus on hitting the balls and not letting them drop. But I feel
like I'm not actually making progress, and I have no idea what's going on.
So I was wondering if Beckler had some tips for getting started, or
where to even begin if I wanted to shoot for higher scores, having never
really given it a college try. Also, one of the machines I was
playing is Toy Store four Themes. That's a that's a great game. Uh,
And I was wondering what Mike thinks of that movie. I personally really
enjoy it and it's my second favorite of the franchise behind two. But I
know it's not popular among many Disney fans, so any thoughts on that are
also appreciated. Because he's on the cheek right back at you. What do
we know what? Mike thinks? Yah? Yeah, yeah, because I
say Toy Story four is a great movie because it is, and he goes,
great, great, what do you mean great? And he gets mad
at me, So I don't. I don't think he thinks. He might
not think it's bad, but he's one of those people like it should have.
It was a perfect ending with Toy Story three man, Yes, yes,
okay, that's the one I haven't seen. I've seen three seen.
He does not like Toy Story four. He says four is a great movie.
He Tony Hill, Did those like spork like mini shorts too? That
are really fun Yes? Those are really funny? Yes? Great? Yeah,
so like, great character, you're telling me that movie's bad. I
don't know. I'm never gonna see it, but whatever. So how do
you play pinball? Is basically the question. I mean, like, look,
I understand where you're coming from. I've definitely answered this question numerous times
before. You just have to like give yourself time to learn the game's rules.
And now that every game has a TV screen in it, you need
to look at the screen and you need to not just like start playing,
because the screen is going to tell you your options for what you can do.
It's a lot. I'm not trying to say that, like you just
need to read better. Like it's a lot. I'm well aware it's a
fucking circus. Uh. But you know, every you're basically always trying to
get into a mode where you are starting an objective and the objective is going
to award you points and based on how efficiently you complete that objective, that's
where your multipliers and everything. Billatro is a poker pinball game basically because it's
multipliers and it's increasing your base score. And that's the same philosophy that governs
pinball. So yeah, I like that. I like how I said that.
So I think that's what you have to do pinball invented multiplication is exactly
facts. Yeah, that's really what it is. Like you you want to
be efficient and you want to do that. Obviously, keeping the balls from
going down the drain is part of that, but it seems like it would
help. Yeah, you know that's that is a big part of that.
But ultimately that is what you're going for. And I think games like the
Jersey Jack, games like Toy Story four, they do a really good job
of explaining what to do. It gets complicated when these modes stack on top
of each other, so you can in those games have three objectives going on
at once and they're all stacking. So the game is keeping track of three
objectives, all the multiplayers associated with each of those objectives. It's a lot,
I get it, but that is kind of the way to do it.
Playing with quarters is not the way. You have to go to one
of those barcades where it's like open free play and spend a half hour with
a game, and that's how you learn how to play it. Quarters or
not the way. Unfortunately, you guys agree, right, Yes, well
it's good. It's good to know that I've been playing pinball correctly because I'm
a big fan of h like pinball video games. You know, your Pokemon
pinballs, your Metroy Prime pinballs, all that stuff. That's always how I
approach it, is like, Okay, I want to do the thing over
here, like the little spinny thing that has a character. Yeah, I
want to go into the the bumpers where those hour where it goes like ding
ding ding ding ding, and then like you, it goes into a slot
and it's like, okay, you need to fill up all the slots and
then you get a thing so like sort of segmenting the board. It's good,
no, that I've been doing it the correct way all these years.
Absolutely, and and I'm not joking. I've I'm overdue for this. I've
obviously been very busy lately, but I have Venom that I have to stream
before it goes back, and I've not learned that game as well as I've
learned like Foo Fighters. So I will learn that game with with you the
audience in real time when we stream this sometime this month or early next and
we'll be on that journey together. And Dan, if you want to come
out here and play with me, you should learn how to play Bimble.
Now to play Bimble, I play. He's like, I'm good, I'm
fine, I'm fine, all of something. Flying out to the driver race
car, I'm I don't give it. Uh okay, thank you, John.
Up Next is Jerry, Hello, Bomba Dukes. I wanted to follow
up on the group's experience with Wingspan and board games in general. There's been
a follow up game called worm Span, which is about dragons that seems to
be doing reasonably well. In addition, have you guys ever considered playing some
board games from this from the site? Tabletop Simulator has a good amount of
official mods released to promote board games launching on Kickstarter, and sites like board
Game Arena exist that provide official, fully scripted web implementations of old and new
games. If that doesn't work out for y'all, may I recommend some games
for jan to jump down the rabbit hole with. Okay, here's a list
boop, which is kittens and cats pushing each other around a bed can't stop,
which is raw. Push your Luck? What is that? Push your
luck? Wait? Push your luck? Isn't that? That? Is that
the show your lucky? You think? Yeah? I don't think that's dice
forge, Uh customize and roll your dice engine. You're not speaking my language.
I don't know what the fuck that is. King of Tokyo aggressive Yachtzi.
Aggressive Yazi sounds awesome. Violent Yati is what I need? Photo est
of Yazzi, Yeah, photosynthesis, hatred and trees. This just sounds like
Fear Factory albums. I feel words are just being spoken to me. I'm
having a stroker something to have. What's happen? Tell me more about photosynthesis
because that's yeah, that's like a lot. I can get on board with
sea salt and paper. That's gorgeous. Origami art splendor one of their favorites.
Spots dogs uh and that's it, and a ps fuck ticket to ride
it is in bed. I just dislike trains. What do you mean dislike
trains? Trains are Trains are like the best way to get around. It's
what makes our country inferior trans How do you guys feel about buses? I've
done the Greyhound a handful of times. Not necessary experience, but it's a
cheap way to get home if you need to now, because I asked because
my wife, thank you. She was traveling to Germany for work, and
she was traveling with a lot of her American co workers who were going to
Europe for the first time. Stuff spent a lot of time in Europe before,
and so Stuff was like, well, we got to get from this
one airport to the city in Germany that is kind of out there, and
there's a train strike. So she's like, I'm just gonna take the bus
because that's a great way to travel in Europe. And all the Americans were
like, I would rather fucking die and get on a bus. And I
was like, okay, they're thinking about greyhounds, because buses in Europe are
like super comfy and they're super lux. It's way way better than what we
have here, I believe most basically, like being on a plane, what
it was like. I believe that because it might have been like megabus and
like one from one city to the other. I've done that from here to
Chicago, and it's an experience. But like I could totally see like a
nice bus being But when you're like broke as hell, you know, like
in college or something, and you need to like go see someone, fine
and that yes, when you were comparing it to your other options, it's
completely fine. I've had fine experiences with Graham for the most part, but
they really are kind of trash compared to what they have in Europe. So
it was like, yeah, you gotta just explain it to them, And
she couldn't really get that point across until they were there, and then by
the time they were there, the train strike was over, so they just
took the train. It all sounds like it's an infrastructure problem, like the
US is just the US is very big, right, So like that I
think is the only excuse there. Doesn't help you. But like the the
Japanese travel channel I watch on YouTube, it's like a mixture of like buses
and trains. I mean they appear to ride mostly like luxury style stuff,
but like it's just so much above and beyond. I mean I one time
took all my all, my fucking christ I took I took a Greyhound from
oh No. I took NJ Transit from Atlantic City to Manhattan, and it
was like I was riding in the back of snow piercer. It was like
we we all just didn't know if we were gonna make it. We were
sandwich you. We all banded into like different tribes, and we like there
were power struggles, right, territorial grabs, like it was out of control.
Never again will I do that. Uh yeah, It's it's not great.
It's not great. And I'm just so envious of travel in other countries
being actually like accessible to the average person, you know, like the train
systems and everything, because as someone who doesn't drive normally, it it you
know, I do a lot of walking. I take the public transit.
But like seein thinking about even like you know, Chicago, New York,
that kind of thing, and like you know, they ride the subway or
whatever. But like especially you look over at Japan in their train system and
it's like, you know, you just scan your pass, yeah, on
board, and it's like you get from pointing at point b as like a
smooth ride and everything like that. You just don't really think about it.
I'm like, man, we really fucked up. Like building this gigantic country
was so much like empty space in between areas and everything that now everything's just
built for cars, and it's like, well, you know, not everyone
drives cars, and we're just kind of and we kind of just like give
up, like well it's just too big. Nothing you could do. But
like I mean, even all of Europe's not as big as the United States,
but those buses are like international Eurozone buses and entire like the entire continent
and stuff like that. So it's like they got countries to cooperate on that
ship. We can't even go from state to state so and not to mention
how much older all that shit is over there too, and we're a relatively
young country obviously, and it's it's final days. But like out of doubt,
you know, uh, city planning was just not on the radar,
I think, and with no excuse anyway. That's very depressing. What's not
depressing is getting your email read on the Giant BombCast. All you got to
do is send an email to a bomb cast at GiantBomb dot com. What
do we got cooking on this website for the rest of this short week,
my friends? Yeah, tomorrow morning, as long as I wake up,
we will talk over a Nintendo Direct Please wake up the time when you started
at Giant Bomb, got it for Nintendo Direct and then don't do that?
And right, okay, I forgot to do that. Complete See I'm I'm
planning to be here for this one, so I will actually sick, and
so I'm the one who's got to stream it. So yeah, oh my
god, I really forgot about all of that. That's a lot shot.
He forgot. Man, Man, I don't get performance reviews, you dude.
This is your problem. I don't feel do you do you remember that
Dan? I'm sleeping That sound yeah, I do remember sending it like doing
the like later discore. Damn. I'm I'm gonna yeah, ship, I'll
just sit out of this one. God damn it. I gotta take my
kids to school every day now, so I'll definitely be there for this one.
I did one of those like so that's how it works. Yeah,
you give me like just because I was like, you know what what it
was is. It was early on and I was like, oh my go
for Nintendo Direct and I just couldn't sleep and then I couldn't wake up body.
And You're like, I explained that to you. You're like, dude,
it's you were like, ah, buddy, dude, it's cool.
Just let us know if you can't sleep so we know something like this might
happen. I'm like, yeah, that's what said you. Yeah, cool,
it's going to Direct tomorrow when we'll talk over that game, Yester mornings.
Will we happen a little bit after that, and then we have Blake
Club, it's back, Mortal Kombat sub Zero. It might be the Algies,
it could be the end. It's going crazy. He's got two levels
left or only one left? Think just the two and I think one of
them is pretty short. I think he might he might be it this week,
which, by the way, my buddy Tim sent me a clip of
blooper reel stuff. I don't know where it's from, but it's from the
like fm B filming of the game. So I started watching. I got
like fifteen seconds and it's only a couple of minutes long, and I said,
wait, I need to watch this. We save him for the end.
After he beats it, we'll watch the blooper reel in front of a
green screen. Fantastic, We'll watch that. We will also watch the the
t A S the TAZ speed run. Oh yeah, yeah, that's your
reward. But yeah, it's real. That means we've got to mail something
to grub. Oh shit, I'll shut the funk up. You're such a
bad actor, man, uber Dan sixty four. It is just a powerful
thing in my brain. That's gonna be happening when it's sure you can do
that, And then on Thursday we will be doing a BombCast revengeans on Thursday.
Who could say why, I certainly cannot. Who can say it's a
weird because okay, weird time of the week to do that. That'll be
happening this after that afternoon excuse me on Thursday at at one pm Eastern ten
am Pacific, and then dump Truck will have a upf on Friday. We'll
probably held average to unless something else pops. Do you want to try to
do the Wu Murraymaker levels? That would be great? Yeah, I can
give you I will legit love that. Yes, I would like to watch
you, like, because I don't remember. I think I made like six
or seven levels that are nightmares. I would love to just watch you try
to beat one of them. Could you like while we're playing? Do you
think you're gonna like recall it? Probably? But like that's the thing is,
like I don't remember what I did with any of them, so like
I will be like helping. I'll go in with the idea of wanting to
see you win, and I would tell you what I did if I remember
it, so I'll help you. It'll be a cop thing. Okay,
let's maybe we'll do that instead. That sounds like a lot of fun.
It does sound like if I want to play some time with that game before
it's gone. All right, So yeah, that does for this week though,
Well, if we have anything else pop off, we'll let you guys
know, yes we will. Thank you everyone for tuning in to the Giant
BombCast. We'll be back with a brand new episode next week. Feel better,
Jan, We'll see you next time. The punt was set